TIM FLANNERY, CHIEF CLIMATE COMMISSIONER 7-30 Report ABC: “…everything we’re seeing is consistent with what the climate scientists have been telling us now for decades…”
Leigh Sales, ABC PRESENTER : “… … …(no comment)…”
Steve Hunter Cartoonist:
…
Thanks to Steve Hunter (political cartoons). See also Andys rant. đ
What are the odds?
Tim Flannery makes out that they have used maths to arrive at their conclusion. Let’s be clear, if you have a 499 in 500 chance of winning at poker, that’s not the same as the odds of us being able to predict a normal climate, and be able to spot an “artificial” one. Yet Tim would like you to think that’s the same bet.
7:30 Report excerpts
LEIGH SALES: How do you know that the new climatic conditions are responsible for the extreme whether events? How do you know that it’s just not some combination of meteorological circumstances?
TIM FLANNERY: Sure. Look, the studies suggest it’s a 1/500 chance that this sorta stuff is just normal. This is way outside the range of anything we’ve experienced before. It is really an extraordinary summer….
What studies Tim? Name them.
(What would Dorothy Mackellar have said?)
Extraordinary? In what sense of the word?
The three main Archaean cratons of Australia formed the greater Australian land mass around 2 billion B.C. We started recording the temperature about 1,999,999,850 years later (give or take a few hundred million years). At best, we have 150 years of temperature records. Most of our thermometers have only been recording for 50 years (many for less). The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) dominates our climate and one cycle of the PDO is about 60 years long. What part of that suggests we have the data to pronounce that events are extraordinary and outside of “normal”? Which part suggests we can calculate the odds to 2 decimal places? Who is kidding who here?
What’s the standard error on our flood record?
 A new trend? Yes in failed predictions. There are more of them than ever …
TIM FLANNERY: ” …Â we’re not talking about one event here, we’re talking about an emerging trend. And we can see that that trend is entirely consistent with what the climate scientists have been saying for years. It’s taking us into new climatic territory here in Australia as we break more records. Blizzards: look, we don’t know. Is that due to cold conditions or not? Sometimes when you’ve got very warm oceans, you get a lot of evaporation and you get more snowfall. So I think just to jump to the conclusion that you’re seeing a blizzard somewhere, it’s not telling you anything, that single event, about the climatic trend.”
This is not a trend in climate warming, not a trend in storms, but a trend in disparate events. How do we do the regression stats on that? What? — Add three floods to one-a-half cyclones, a late monsoon, a drought that isn’t, and the eye of a newt, and voila! Plot the linear trend, and call yourself a witchdoctor.
How many cat-3 cyclones equals a 150 year record temperature which lasted for a half hour in Sydney?
The IPCC got all the trends-that-matter wrong
The trends that count are the decadal warming trend for the globe, and right now it is so close to zero, even IPCC chief Pachauri admits there has been no significant warming for 17 years. Those climate scientists didn’t predict a global pause, they told us there would be 0.2C degrees of warming each decade at a minimum for the next few decades. They predicted a tropospheric hot spot and there wasn’t, and still isn’t, and they can’t explain it. The models didn’t predict the climate on a local, regional, or continental scale either. This focus on wild weekend weather is exactly what they told us was “unscientific” not so long ago, but now, it’s all they have.
Look who’s denying the data now?
Leigh Sales is very specific here. She wants a statement about the last “15 years”. She also wonders how today’s extreme events are due to a global temperature that is the same as 15 years ago. Good question.
Sales: We know that, say, if you look back over the past 50 years there’s clear evidence of global warming. You know, the figures go like that. But there were figured released I think late last year that showed that there’d been a plateau for about the past 15 or so years, you know, so it was flatter. So if there’s been a plateau in recent years, how come this summer’s extreme weather events are due to climate change? Wouldn’t you have been seeing those same sorts of events all the way back those 15 years?
Flannery misleadingly denies what the data shows [my thoughts interjected in italics]:
TIM FLANNERY: Look, in a sense what you’re saying is correct, Leigh, but there has been no plateau. [Jo wonders how a graph with a flat trend is not a plateau, and how Australians are being reliably informed with this statement that implies there is no flattening in the last 15 years.] If you look at the temperature of the Earth, we have to measure the oceans, the air and the land. And there, we see a continually strong rise in temperature. 90 per cent of the heat that is trapped by the greenhouse gases goes into the ocean, and you look at the whole of the Earth, we’re seeing a very strong warming trend. [Tim must be obliquely referring to the deep oceans here. Why doesn’t he just say, the greenhouse gases up at the height that planes fly are heating the water a kilometer under the surface? I can’t think… – Jo] The atmosphere, you know, it’s a very volatile organ of the planet. Sometimes we get cooler average temperatures, sometimes warmer, it bounces around a little bit on the graph. And you can pick any period in that to show anything you want. But if you look at the whole Earth system, you can see that strong warming trend. And indeed, if you look at the atmospheric record for a long enough period, you see exactly the same trend.
Flannery didn’t mention that even if some heat (and it’s not enough) is hidden in the deep abyss, it is tricky to explain how it affects storms on the surface. Storms like Sandy which travelled on a water surface that isn’t any different to past normal storms?
What are Australian’s paying Flannery for?
 “The Climate Commission was established to provide all Australians with an independent and reliable source of information about the science of climate change, the international action being taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and the economics of a carbon price.”
It’s not Independent. It’s not reliable. It’s not science.
What are Australian’s paying Flannery for?
Bolt has a copy of Flannery’s Dam Predictions
Has he sold his waterfront property yet?
363
hes suffering from Flanopause!!!
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No, he purchased the property adjoining and now owns two.
51
This would be the property that isn’t listed as vulnerable to sea level rise on his local council sea level maps, right?
Why on earth are people still doing this, “we know where you live” shtick?
It’s sad, and silly.
26
http://www.skepticalscience.com/extreme-weather-global-warming-intermediate.htm You will see on this link that there is nothing crazy about saying that current records being broken (and the large number of outstanding weather patterns) are so out of what was normal several decades back that if it is not climate change then we were extremely unlucky (eg, 1/500 chance or thereabout). There is a long list of statistic reports on that page that show current extreme weather repetitions we are seeing used to be even 3 sigma conditions 50 years ago.
16
Rest easy. There was no “normal” a few decades back. There never was a more “stable” era. Climate is nothing but change, nothing but oscillation between extremes. By exploiting the emotion and freshness of recent events, and the increased reportage and measuring, alarmists can construct what they want out of present conditions. They can make the past an innocuous affair, a sepia photograph. Scientism (an anti-scientific cult) and Publish-or-Perish (a barbarity) are the vehicles of what is far more a species of conformity than a deliberate conspiracy.
I know from experience that if I were begin again to list the great climatic events and extremes of the past it would be called “cherry picking”, a favourite word of those who seek to abolish history. Just an example of one such “cherry pick”. I was recently lectured on the extremity of Australian flooding in the past couple of years. Here is what I said:
“Itâs hard to tell Australians about climate change. We already have this idea of what it actually is, so itâs very hard for our Green Betters to ‘educate’ and ’empower’ us on the subject. Just for example, the whole of eastern Oz got drenched in the 1890s (when it wasnât getting singed). Then, after the Federation Drought, which even Kidman couldnât handle, we were thirsty for five decades â barring the odd catastrophic flood, just âcause itâs Oz. Thatâs a five, okay? Fifty plus years.
Then, in 1950, down came the rain, in startling excess, and kept coming. Then, in this previously thirsty land, we had what was called the Maitland Flood â though poor old Maitland was not to blame. This was in 1955. Now, picture England and Wales. Now picture some country to the west of Sydney. Got it in your minds? An inland sea formed west of Sydney which was the size of England and Wales. Shall I repeat? England and Wales. The size of. Howâs that for a cherry-pick? Pretty cherry picky, eh?”
I’m now posting with my surname (since there appears to be another Robert here). I won’t get involved in another long discussion with people I may already have encountered under different names. I’ll just say this (and save myself the fatigues of repeating hundreds of events from history for the benefit of those who only look for history in order to bury it):
The climate is indeed worse than we thought. It always has been. That why there have always been political manipulators and learned types seeking power and temple offerings in exchange for taking some of the uncertainty out of climate. Except for a brief period called the Enlightenment, there has always been a climate priesthood. Yes, there is valuable science in amongst the mockery dubbed “Climate Science”, just as chemistry co-existed with alchemy. But there is a great intellectual error which infests mock science as opposed to real science: Junk Scholarship always operates under the assumption that available knowledge is adequate knowledge.
I won’t say any more on this thread because I suspect there may be some thread-bombing going on here. It’s just a familiar scent I’m picking up.
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It is totally untrue that we have not experienced any of the things that we experienced over summer.
The several days of high temperatures were also experienced in 1939, 1959 and 1983 ( I have memories relating to 1959 and 1983) When people look at those records they are usually looking at them from the POV of the date i.e. for the month of January or February or even December. What they do not see is that the record was in the previous month or the following month.
The floods are nothing new as well. This year I was reminded very much of the weather conditions in 1978 when the Warragamba burst and the Richmond-Windsor district was flooded. There was a lot of rain that year and the rain was non-stop for roughly a week prior to the flooding… so it was nothing new. Other people have memories of these events in Maitland as well as other areas.
Likewise, in Parramatta there is one building close to the railway line that has a plaque that indicates the line for a 100 year flood. It was not reached this year, so that is a good reason to think that what we saw this year is not only nothing new but it has not reached the worst of what has been past experience.
All of the stuff about unprecedented is nothing but bulltish.
20
The only volatile organ around here is the one outgassing all of Timmah’s predictions. Some damn costly emissions right there. Someone should put a tax on that!
Timmah gets frighteningly close to an own-goal here:
How long, Timmah? How far back exactly Timmah?
Don’t look too far back, you don’t want to see the same trend [NOAA] in pre-industrial times [CET]. Oh no! Avert your eyes!
How many more fatal torpedo hits can the IPCC Titanic take before it sinks?
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
(tip’o’t’hat to NikFromNYC for the charts, and ClimateDVD for screenshots of Bob Carter’s slides.)
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lolol at organ comparison!!!
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That organ between his ears would fetch a good price for transplant purposes … it’s never been used !
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Good points. His references to the “organs” of the planet clearly reveals his “gaia” tendencies. Whatever he believed as an idealistic uni student with green stars in his eyes, he clearly has not lost or tempered it in any way.
I think believers are the new deniers if you listen to him. I mean the head of the IPCC has come out and stated clearly there has been a 17 year pause in statistically significant warming. The interviewer tries like 3 times to ask Tim about that now non disputed FACT and he just says, its not true⌠so whos in denial now ?
âLast week Pachauri (head of the IPCC UN Panel)told The Australian newspaper that indeed global temperatures have been flat for 17 years now,â
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/02/green-weenie-of-the-week-rajendra-pachauri.php
The only reason Tim has come out now is that his job is under threat with Labour talking about abolishing the department of mass delusion and his answer to pending unemployment⌠more lies
162
Andrew, you would probably like this article from the Quadrant Doomed Planet blog about “Flim Flannery” and his inability to understand anything remotely related to real science …
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Great! An article by the guy who predicted last year would be “the coldest year since 1956”.
I can see why you would rely on him for criticism of Flannery’s predictions…
15
Andrew, I enjoy your reasoning, but the analogy
could use some work. The Titanic, whilst it was steaming full steam ahead, merely, albeit stupidly, struck an iceberg, which anyone with knowledge of the conditions at the time could have reasonably expected to be there. So far, the analogy holds, as that pretty much describes how our Government has behaved . It’s when you introduce the torpedoes that it fails. Far better, I think, to compare the IPCC to the Tirpitz, always threatening but never actually delivering; or, better still, the Graf Spee, responsible for many ‘victories’ over undermanned and underdefended ( I think I made that up ) individuals, but, when faced with a dauntless and well organised opponent, turned tail and ultimately died at her own hand. Her masters continued for a time, but failed in the end to achieve the world domination they craved. I hope for a similar fate for the IPCC and those that support it. A life in exile in Montevideo seems an appropriate penalty. Hang on. Montevideo? MalĂŠ, perhaps, would be better. Gore and Flannery would be right at home, seeing they BOTH chose to buy waterfront properties. Perhaps they could give us their Canute impressions. The locals would love it.
10
Actually the torpedo analogy is not my reasoning, it was Bob Carter’s analogy if you had actually seen the video I linked. But I’ll admit to a mistake here. I called their ship the Titanic, but I don’t think Bob Carter ever called it that in his presentation. Sorry for mixing metaphors.
In Bob Carter’s defense though… đ …
To the extent that their main strategy is keeping reality out of the debate by rigging peer review (eg Spencer & Brasswell) and rigging funding decisions (eg Roger Pielke Snr’s experiences), any intrusion of inconvenient truths into the public debate must surely seem like a torpedo hit on IPCC credibility. The 400 year lag found in the ice cores didn’t stop them, so perhaps sinking this ship will take something with more punch than a lump of ice?
Nice history lesson about the Graf Spee, by the way. If history repeats itself, does this mean Pachauri will shoot himself in his hotel room? Or is it his successor that will scuttle the good ship IPCC??
00
The Bismarch would be a better analogy because it took a lot of torpedo hits đ
Battleship anyone?
00
Guys like Tim, make me long for the Climate Inquisition.
[SNIP. too much detail]
Is he lying with intent or believing his own BS?
Course when the likes of Flannery are promoted and rewarded, civilization does not have a lot of time left.
This cycle of human nature seems to be at peak idiocy so social collapse, savagery and restart are coming up.
When this is the government expert, what faith can any citizen have in that government?
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Sorry I’m bad.
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No, you’re good.
The clear outline of where we are needs to be driven home to the public.
In the absence of any punitive action against politicians who loot the Treasury for their own ends,
the only solution, when enough people have seen their life’s work crushed, is “Savagery”.
KK đ
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No, John, Tim isn’t lying, and he believes that Gaia will develop a brain and a nervous system before the century is out.
Now, no one can call that a religious belief. It’s SCIENCE. Tim has lots of friends that believe this too (well one or two anyhow) so that makes it true. And they are all specialists in understanding Gaia, so that makes it even more true, because all these nasty skeptics, you know, don’t understand Gaia liked Tim. When Tim was hard at work studying the fornication of tree kangaroos in PNG, this total understanding of Life, the Universe, and Everything came to him in a flash. So there. He must be right. He says so. (And makes around 700 grand a year just to prove it).
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I hear you Rod, but don’t you wish Tim would develop a functional brain?
One weighted with ethics and honesty?
Thats why I got snipped, I got carried away with the method required to extract honesty from such a man.
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It is kind of interesting, where you can show that for the last xx years, the 2-sigma range of annual temperature increase does include zero, so we can’t be sure that what we have seen in the past xx years is actual warming, or just noise.
Its also interesting that the 2-sigma range does include the current long term trend. So we can’t be sure that the trend is any different from what it was before xx years ago. But “skeptics” tend not to mention this bit.
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Nobody knows. John, you worked it out! It’s the bloody climate, not a Meccano set. Nobody knows, for the obvious reason that the complexity is somewhat stupendous.
See what happens? You’ve been lying around with us dogs…and now you’ve got fleas!
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And as someone who conducts incident investigations in high risk workplaces, I can say with some certainty that the argument of “we cant do nothing” is not a strong one. In incident investigations if you cannot accurately identify the root cause and causal factors, then design, implement and monitor effective counter measures, then doing nothing is almost always better. Spending time, effort and money on correcting the wrong issue can create more problems than it solves (sound familiar ?) and serve to provide no assurance that the original event wont happen again. So unless we can accurately identify the causes and adress them effectively, doing nothing is actually a better option as it conserves reseources to be deployed against the actual causes, once they are known.
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Safety Guy
You make a good point here. It is quite wrong to implement a “solution” without
1. Having a reasonably clear idea of the extent of the problem.
2. Having a reasonably clear expectation that the proposed solution will improve the situation.
Another analogy is with medicine. Some treatments are painful and carry risks. The medical professionals will try to gain as accurate a diagnosis as possible both of what the issue is and the severity. They will adjust the treatment according to the patients response. The moral perspective is a duty of towards the patient. Climatologists do not have a body of knowledge to draw upon, exaggerate the severity of the diagnosis and totally ignore the effectiveness or harmful side effects of their treatment programs.
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John,
are you trying to say that the Earth has warmed up (with occasional cycles) since the Little Ice Age? Of course it has, and most probably at an average of 0.6 â per century. Prof. Akasofu said so years ago, and got abused for it.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/20/dr-syun-akasofu-on-ipccs-forecast-accuracy/ gives the gist, and link to paper.
The graph should be of most interest to you.
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So what you are saying is that statistically a flat or cooling climate is consistent with the scientifically established bounds for global warming – IE to be clear, you are asserting that global cooling is consistent with global warming
Let me refer you to a quote from the good book, the Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy
The argument goes something like this: `I refuse to prove that I exist,’ says God, `for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.’
`But,’ says Man, `The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.’
`Oh dear,’ says God, `I hadn’t thought of that,’ and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.
`Oh, that was easy,’ says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets
himself killed on the next zebra crossing.â
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Hmm, John are you saying the chance the warming predictions are totally right and we are on long term trend is approximately the same as the chance that they are totally wrong and the trend has changed? Following from that, are you pointing out that the likelihood is that they are at least a fairly wrong? That doesn’t sound all that certain to me. Is the science still settled?
30
Stick to your day job John; the lack of a trend is significant at the 95% level; do you want to compare that with the significance level of AGW ‘proofs’. Read the IAC report before you get back.
What does that even mean?
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Cohers, it meant what it said.
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OK, so the trend before the flat period kicked in was also flat too; is that what you’re saying?
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He doesn’t know, Coh’ … he’s just parroting what he heard a Phd candidate ruminating at the lunch table.
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Sorry would have been more clear to say:
Hmm, John are you saying the chance the warming predictions are totally right and we are on long term trend is approximately the same as the chance that they are totally wrong because the trend has changed to zero? Following from that, are you pointing out that the likelihood is that they are fairly wrong because the likelihood is that the trend has changed at least quite a bit? That doesnât sound all that certain to me. Is the science still settled?
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That settled science would be the same kind arrived at by operation of scientific method and the clash of ideas, I take it ? It’s an Appeal to Authority. ok Bafflegab sounds about right. I always loved the idea that unprovable predictions were consistent with science. Not.
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A skeptic allows that it is possible that CAGW will proceed as predicted and adjusts their view in accordance with the best evidence available. Presently I am adjusting my view in the it is looking less and less likely direction. It is only believers who are sure of anything. It is ok to doubt and question the skeptic case and point out uncertainty regarding current trend lines. What is “kind of interesting” is the historical total absence of uncertainty expressed from the proponents of CAGW viewpoint. How can that be science?
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Wow thats such a perfect summation of how I have felt about it all along. I have read and watched everything I can possibly understand and some stuff that I dont. I have yet to see any single piece or group of evidence that convinces me AGW is a fact and not a concept. Indeed the most compelling evidence, the best observational evidence, the best historical and geological evidence has always come from the other side of the argument and often presented in contexts outside of the debate. For example the camel discovered in the artic the other day. Perfect example of a non climate story that has massive ramifications for this debate and in of itself more or less completely debunks AGW and certainly debunks the catastrophic scare mongering arguments that 1-2c warming will be the end of us.
20
Hi John, may I rephrase my question in hope of an answer? Does it look to you, in light of recent data over xx years wih wide confidence intervals that overlap both zero trend and predicted climbing long term trend, that the question of whether the models were right or wrong is now down to a coin toss? Ps. The adjustment of one’s thinking after assessment and processing of new information is called learning. It is hard to get through life without that happening at some stage.
30
A coin toss was actually a generous offer. As I tried to point out in my 1st but wordy post (a case of 1st post fluster) in the real world scenario you have outlined there is a much greater chance the predictions will turn to be wrong either totally or by varying degrees than there is of them proving correct.
30
John – you are confused. There is no sigma (population standard deviation) as we are dealing with a sample. The sample is the subset of all possible temperature measurements we could have made (population is stupendously large). Therefore no sigma but “s” for the sample standard deviation.
Now when dealing with a slope if we are testing the confidence limits of the slope we use the standard error (SE) not the standard deviation. The confidence limits of the slope are t * SE where t is the inverse t statistic for n-1 DF ( will be ~2 when n is large). In Excel for 95% confidence =tinv(0.05, DF) etc to get this number.
Now for more mundane things. The temperature has been an an upward trend since ca. 1690 the end of the Maunder Minimum. It warms then flattens or cools slightly but the trend is unequivocally UPWARD. We are on a flat bit while the CO2 is increasing. The argument is no correlation therefore no causation, however you raise an important point. The IPCC says that mankind could have no discernible influence on the temperature before ca. 1990. There is no evidence that the previous warming trend (on/off) was anthropogenic and we have a continuation of this trend (at no increase in rate °C/year) which will probably re assert itself. This is the easy bit. Your task is to prove that CO2 caused it or any part of it. Good luck. You gonna need it.
31
CERN scientists require a minimum 5-sigma significance before publication. Anything less is considered noise.
10
The Australian Climate Commission is an NGO.
This means it is ‘independent’ and its primary concerns are those of self-preservation, large salaries/pensions and growth in personnel.
Can you honestly imagine anyone from this commission saying anything other than: “Thermageddon is imminent”, and “We are doing very important work and need to be rewarded more for our efforts” and “Our research is complex and going to take a very long time to complete.”
NGOs are a law unto themselves and usually an abuse of the public funding, which ensures their existence/expansion.
This should cheer everyone up – from the commission’s website – first article on Tim Flannery. Looks like important work!?!
Author archive for Tim Flannery
Sustainable Living Festival
Date posted: 11 February 2013
Over the last two years, the Climate Commission has travelled across Australia, from Alice Springs to Hobart, in rural areas and in major cities, and met thousands of people along the way.
Author: Tim Flannery
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Peter, an excellent point.
When is an NGO a non-government organisation when it is paid for by the government?
It’s a GONGO – a government organised non-government organisation.
It’s a joke.
340
Jo one of the best points both you and others have made in this debate is to question and refute the notion that government funds are somehow “clean”, that they come with no strings. Jennifer Marohasy was attacked in a disgraceful way on ABC radio for making this suggestion, but to deny it is deny reality. A simple test, how long would a study be funded if it did not produce the results the government wanted ? I think that answers the question.
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Jo,
a QANGO
is a Quasi Autonomous Non Government Organisation.
– only appears to be autonomous.
KK
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Jo/KK
Purely in the interest of nit picking, the term is QUANGO – I should have said QUANGO, not NGO.
Basically, like the Australian Climate Commission, QUANGOs are ‘Jobs for the boys’ institutions set up to award government (particularly socialist) cronies without them ever having the obvious irritation of having to follow government policies on ethics, as a result of their supposed independence.
In the UK, QUANGOs have spun totally out of control: “The Cabinet Office 2009 report on non-departmental public bodies (official term for quango) found that there are 766 NDPBs sponsored by the UK Government. The number has been falling: there were 790 in 2008 and 827 in 2007. The number of NDPBs has fallen by over 10% since 1997.Staffing and expenditure of NDPBs have increased. They employed 111,000 people in 2009 and spent ÂŁ46.5 billion, of which ÂŁ38.4 billion was directly funded by the Government.” Source Wikipedia.
I tried, without success, to find out the budget of the Australian Climate Commission and its top salaries, but for some reason the general public is not deemed to be responsible enough to have access to its annual report. However, what I did find on its very alarmist website – there is absolutely no balance here, just blatant CAGW propaganda – which helps demonstrate this organisation’s professionalism:
http://climatecommission.gov.au/basics/celebrating-climate-science-hug-climate-scientist-day/
Yes indeed, it’s “Hug a climate scientist day.”
22
Give me a hug.
Hug hug hug….
Get away from me!
đ
30
Are any specific parts of the body excluded from this hugging process? In particular I am thinking about the neck …
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Peter, QANGOs are business entities, with their own incomes. The Climate Commisison is not. It’s just a spender.
10
Peter
I am being picky but it is QANGO
you are making the same mistake that many make by putting in the U.
The word itself is an acronym.
00
http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/key-issues-for-the-new-parliament/decentralisation-of-power/quangos/
Even the British government calls them Quango. Don’t confuse an acronym with initials. Correctly QANTAS should be QNTAS as the A stands for the insignificant word “and”- its like putting a T for “the”. Basically QUANGO is a term so the initials are irrelevant.
More on faults of QUANGOs
http://www.danlewis.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/essentialguidetobritishquangos2005.pdf
It should be be called a IGO- illegal Government Organisation- Government can’t make a Non-government organisation and put it outside the constitution.
00
Or perhaps a Despicably Ridiculous Ornithocerebral Non-Government Organisation
a DRONGO
50
And those directly responsible for such NGO’s are DRONGO’s đ
Back on-topic, when they have finished predicting anything and everything (so that they can have all 52 Aces up their sleeves and never be wrong), does that mean that the rest of us are reduced to having nothing left to deny?
Or does it mean that we deny everything?
20
When you are up against a rigged game of ‘Heads I Win, Tails You Lose’ the proper response is to overturn the gameboard. Certainly meekly accepting the premise that ‘the science is proven’ because a political organ bleats that is ‘science’ and not Appeal to Authority should reek as badly as in the days of Galileo : the state declares the facts acceptable to the tribe.
00
You are wrong about Galileo. He was not in trouble about his science. He was in trouble over matters pertaining to the Church and the Bible. His science was sound and accepted. The other matter was not sound.
00
QANGO DRONGO etc – its all an utter waste of money and has been a government trick played out for at least 30 years or more. Funnel the money to all your mates and have them support you to then help them get more money etc etc… The best word for it is evil.
I was at a business forum meeting this morning – got talking with one chap over the waste and incompetence, got nods all around. I get the sense this election is going to be a massive water mark in Australian politics. Very few are happy with what is happening. A lot are uttering mad.
30
Jo, not only is it a joke: it’s a lie. Governments don’t ‘fund’ anything. Taxpayers do. I know you know that. Don’t slip; don’t let your guard down, not for a second.
20
Exactly. No matter what anyone says to the contrary, it is not an NGO. It’s just a GO.
10
Peter,
That is interesting. In New Zealand, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment means just that â the Commissioner is an Officer of Parliament, and is directly responsible to Parliament as a whole (in reality, through the Speaker of the House).
This is the same arrangement as that of the Auditor-General and the Ombudsmen in New Zealand.
As such, all three are Non-Government Organisations in that they do not report to a Government Minister, but they each have a budget (allocated by Parliamentary vote each year), that they must operate within.
Is the Australian system different?
30
The kind of guy who can jet his carcass across the globe to attend a dinnerâŚthen question the food miles of his avocado entree.
480
GOLD!
10
Seconded!!!
10
The answer to Tim Flannery was given by Sir Karl Popper in 1963 when discussing the theories of Freud and Adler in “Conjectures and Refutations”
Source – Wikiquote
241
I have a lot of time for Tim Flannery.
Some long time ago I watched a video of him saying quite candidly that things were so complex that the electorate were incapable of making valid judgements and were therefore incompetent. This, it seemed, required an appointed governing class who could act for them.
Here in the UK I take heart from Australian politicians, When I look at the fools who rule us, and then look at the fools who rule Australia, ours do not seem so bad.
I am sure that Tim doesnt know about the 17 year pause in warming (or doesnt want to). From that video it was clear that he considered Australians dumb, or stupid, or both.
Question is, are the Australian government more stupid than the UK government. Here, to please our European masters, we are closing coal power stations. These contribute about 20 – 25 GW of the 40 – 60 GW load.
Wind will, of course, replace coal with cheap green energy. The theoretical capacity of wind is about 15 GW. Problem is actual generation rarely get above 3GW and has, for several weeks been at less than 1GW. In fact about 0.1GW has been recorded.
Britain faces a massive power crisis, soon. Tim should prevent coal exports to China, then they can have blackouts too.
402
Maybe, but we will have a new government by September that frightens the Grauniad
80
I think that article in the Guardian is either the worst article I have ever seen, or a total send-up. It is a list of almost every environmental hot button in America, but framed in terms of the Australian elections (they are disconnected, right?). And all this from a UK broadsheet – credibility only stretches so far. It is a send-up.
130
Agree, Rereke. I hadn’t realised that the Guardian had renounced any claim to be an objective source of news. Like Fairfax in Australia, it is now little more than a gazette for extremist activists. Like Fairfax, it is also haemorrhaging cash and is not long for this world.
160
Clean Up Australia Day is 14 September, if not earlier as the government’s panic sets in
40
I’d like to add a little re. the UK’s wind turbine story: The Department of Energy and Climate Change publishes its Digest of United Kingdom Energy Statistics (DUKES), which shows clearly that the percentage of electricity generated by these machines relative to the UKâs demands is negligible.
Figures produced by DUKES last July show that the total energy produced in the UK for 2011 was 364,897 Giga-watt hours (GWh).
Of this, a mere 15,750 GWh (about 4%) were generated by wind power. Currently (at the start of 2013) there are 4,158 operational wind turbines in the United Kingdom.
200
I have run into anti wind power sites which cite problems like subsonic vibration disrupting sleep, killing of birds and bats and much more including insurance carriers walking away from involvement with landowners with such on their property. Easiest problem to identify is that of achieving proper amortization on investment in unreliable tech that is difficult to service and prone to burning up without accessible fire suppression.
http://reliabilityweb.com/index.php/articles/vibration_analysis_of_wind_turbines/
10
“stupid than the UK government. Here, to please our European masters”
I often wonder why the Poms fought so hard in WWi and WWII, just to let this happen. đ
331
William you say, “Britain faces a massive power crisis, soon. Tim should prevent coal exports to China, then they can have blackouts too.”
Don’t expect China to go short of coal if Australia stops exporting. China has 13% of all coal reserves on earth, Wiki. It is also the second largest exporter of Coal, Link here. http://www.jpma.org.pk/full_article_text.php?article_id=1811
80
Indonesia also has very large coal reserves.
Harder to get at, and infrastructure is a problem, but they have HEAPS !!
The ONLY people to suffer if Australia were to stop exporting coal, would be Australians.
90
China needs our coal because it’s coking coal. The can’t make the steel they sell to us without it. Oh, and they make the steel from our ore.
40
Check the data from my link below – China imports mainly thermal coal 146 Mtpa – coking 38 Mtpa (2011)
20
Oops, I stand corrected – thanks Alan.
Quick retake – China needs our coking coal (as well as our thermal coal).
20
Sorry China is not a significant exporter of coal, not since about 2005, in which time they have roughly doubled their own production. Suggest if you want coal stats go to the World Coal Association website, bit more reliable than the Jl of Pakistan Medical Assoc. The Wiki table is presented as net imports. Not really a great importer either, relative to production only about 6%.
50
William needs help and you have done a great job Joe in exposing the crap. The game must be about to end well done Joanne—Peter
21
Worry not William, England’s arch enemy across the channel have oodles and oodles of luverly nuclear power waiting for Cameron’s call.
When, winter before this one, your wind turbines froze in came garlic flavoured electricity adding positively to La Belle France’s balance of payments. Britain’s financial situation is so dire what the hell do a few more millions matter?
France’s latest nuclear power plants are actually using up old nuclear waste and despite misinformation they have not exported any “waste” to Russia since ~ 2005 (don’t hold me to the date).
So even if your mate Putin switches off the gas your friends in Paris have welcoming arms provided you have thrown enough money. The Duke of Wellington must be spinning at supersonic speed in his grave.
20
Jo, that pdf I sent you with those historic maps of Australian rainfall shows that we usually have 2-3 years of above average rainfall after the PDO switch. (Wish I knew where I originally got it from)
This year has been wet on the coast of Qld and NSW, but this is NOTHING UNUSUAL !
And if the look at the geography, the flood plains and natural drainage systems show that over the long term, it is probably quite normal.
80
ps. someone posted some rainfall records for the coast in a recent thread.
This year has actually not been all that wet. or that hot.
100
Some parts of the North Coast in NSW had their coldest, or equal coldest, temps on record for February. And, as you say, there have been many summers that have been far wetter.
This may be ‘cherry picking’ but the Australia mean temp average anomaly for the past five years (0.26C) was lower than the five year period from 1988-1992 (0.33C) and 1998-2002 (0.28C) with 1993 – 1997 being 0.24C. The only standout was 2003-2007 (0.61C).
So since the warming began in the late 1970’s, we have averaged 0.28C/per annum over the past 35 years. Hardly the cause for all this ‘extreme weather’ they have been going on about.
70
“So since the warming began in the late 1970â˛s, we have averaged 0.28C/per annum over the past 35 years”
I think that’s probably badly worded.
You probably meant that “the average yearly anomaly over the past 35 years was 0.28C” or something similar.
A warmist idiot could read what you have written as .28c per year and then multiply it by 35. Sort of thing they would do. đ
50
Yep. Should read – Over the past 35 years, the average mean per year has been 22.09C, an average yearly anomaly of 0.28C above the standard 1961-1990 reference. Thanks.
30
One thing he got right “you can pick areas on the graph to make any point you want”. But my favourite would be “if we continue to add greenhouse gasses to the system you will exacerbate the change, we need to remove emissions from the system”. Is this the same guy that said if we stop all emissions tomorrow it would take 1000 years to have an effect ? I think his surname should be Floundery, not Flannery, because he is clearly Floundering badly and t suggest we are all too stupid to understand, is just left elitism at its very best.
142
I suggest another name, although I am not the originator. How does Professor Tom Foolery sound?
70
Are you it wasn’t his nose and not his nits he was picking.It sure as hell wasn’t his Banjo.
11
The “Flanneries” of our political landscape can flourish for one reason, and while this may seem self evident, it has never been tackled properly.
The reason is that a resounding and final NO to the “science” of CAGW has never been placed before the public.
In reading the Nurse – Lawson lecture and letter, something struck me, and it was that Lord Lawson did not clearly state that there was No Scientific basis to support the concocted idea that man made CO2 or even total CO2 could cause “Global Warming”.
Having just come from a talk by Lord Monckton I was heartened by the appreciation he had for the fact that the Global Warming theme was wrong and that Money and Political Power were the driving forces behind the scam; but he did not clearly state why CO2 cannot cause Global Warming.
Both Lords, Monckton and Lawson, fail to nail down the coffin and go off on a tangent to say that adaptation is what is needed, not prevention. This leaves a niggling doubt that CO2 may aftyer all be an active gas.
What is needed is a very strong final attack on the science of CO2 in the CAGW meme.
It is a relatively easy scientific task to show that CO2 cannot drive CAGW when all of the heat transfer mechanisms in the atmosphere are quantified.
It is a scientific impossibility for CO2 to create or support Global Warming.
The facts and reasons must be given; it can be done and it needs to be done.
At the moment, the public is still told in the media on a regular basis by people like Flannagan that CO2 is dangerous to our future.
He will only be stopped if we, the opposition to this lunacy have a clear and definite plan to expose the false science in the scam.
KK đ
311
The problem with your solution is you would need a media that didn’t have an agenda which matches the marxists…..
100
Which we, for the most part, lack in the States…..
40
Keith, this can’t and wont work. Svante Arrhenius has shown that CO2 IS and active modifier of radiative transfers, and that if there is a difference in the wavelength of incoming and outgoing radiation CO2 can act as a moderator of gain/loss. Monckton accepts that fact.
The error the warmists make is that they presume it MATTERS – Svante Arrhenius measured this in a non-chaotic closed system (A test tube if you like) but the atmosphere is a chaotic – open system, so any investigations that Arrhenius made are not valid for the system we are considering. There are many reasons that affect this balance, for example the losses, the “Feedbacks”, also non-linearities in the chaotic atmosphere can all limit temperature rise. For example equatorial temperatures over the ocean can’t get much above 30 deg C without causing a thunderstorm, cloud, and therefore solar reflection – a non-linear response. Apply that to the globe and you can see that the earth cant warm much over 30 degC without becoming cloud bound (and therefore cold)
I think this is the correct approach – trying to challenge Arrhenius directly is not going to be a winning tactic, proving Arhenius irrelevant is the correct way to go on the science
Remember too, this is not a scientific debate any more it is a political one, the debate about the science exists only because politicians want to defend their redistributions of wealth dressed up as carbon taxes and ETSen, there are plenty of willing scientist who want to help them do it …. for a price. We are focussed on the science because we see it justifies our defiance of those taxes, we see this is where the governments are wrong, the real science legitimises us.
However politically this doesn’t matter, it’s the wrong strategy, what we need to prove is that carbon taxes are morally and ethically wrong, in the political arena you should instead make much of burning food, for fuel, spending billions trying to cool the planet by 0.0002 degrees over 100 years, instead of curing cancer. For the greenies, should we spend 11 Bn a year on the climate or instead save the whales, or reforest the amazon? It’s the moral corruptness of the tax grab and the waste that will leave us the high ground – we must take it.
52
bobl
You have got it there when you say that; ” The error the warmists make is that they presume it MATTERS”
Exactly;
as I have stated many times, there IS a CO2 uptake mechanism but quantitatively it is a non issue and when coupled with the facts that 95% plus of CO2 is of natural origin and water vapour hogs the absorption spectra.
The problem is stated very well on the WUWT link : http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/05/categorical-thinking-and-the-climate-debate/
The concept is categorical thinking where because CO2 has an energy uptake mechanism it is associated with heating the atmosphere.
That is all people remember; that CO2 heats the atmosphere.
The fact that you can’t measure the EXTRA heat is irrelevant to almost everyone and the Category of “Problem Gas” sticks fast.
Perhaps an analogy may be useful.
CO2 has about as much chance of causing CAGW as a Vaccination has of initiating the disease it is being used to prevent.
maybe that’s not a good analogy but the point is it MUST be clearly and definitely stated that CO2 additions cannot induce Global Warming.
The mathematics and Engineering of the problem have been “simplified” or falsified to hide that issue.
IF that issue of IR absorption was really a concern, the problem we should be confronting is WATER in the atmosphere.
That’s how stupid the whole thing has become.
KK đ
50
One of my favorite responses from a physicist to a climate change advocate (and apologize for not knowing his name) was:
Just because we can measure it does not mean we can control it.
I would add that it also does not mean it matters.
80
Sheri, part of my scepticism is caused by our inability to measure any Anthropogenic warming.
Our measurements amount to noise.
Climatology is obsessing over the significant this random noise.
The rest of my distrust is pure contrariness, nobody decides my religion for me.
The certainty of the Carbon Cult is certifiable.
60
Hi bobl;
I have lost track of how often I have stated this. CO2 is a green house gas, it does retain some heat and thereby cause the world to warm. The clearest absolutely unequivocal proof is the long wave emissions from earth as seen from space by the Nimbus satellite. The emission notch due to the presence of CO2 is utterly beyond dispute. It is also easy to calculate from this how large the impact of doubling CO2 levels is and its about 0.8C. The argument, controversy, dispute (pick your word) between warmists and skeptics comes down to feedbacks. Warmists claim massive positive feedback (hence 0.8C becomes 3+C), skeptics say feedback is almost certainly negative (hence 0.8C becomes about 0.3C).
It needs to be stressed that essentially all stable systems (and our climate is stable enough so that life continued on earth while the solar output changed 30% over the billions of years since life started) exhibit negative feedback. A claim not only of positive feedback but of positive feedback large enough to increase a very small direct effect by a factor of 4 is essentially not credible. Such a claim needs to be backed up by exceptionally transparent and unassailable proof to be taken seriously yet warmists ask that it be taken essentially on trust. Why? because they don’t have any such proof not even the wishy washy unconvincing sort.
It also needs to be pointed out that increasing CO2 has huge beneficial effects. Since all life is carbon based, increasing the available carbon allows for more life on earth – higher crop yields, a greater population of animal life (not just humans) more trees and bushes etc. Lets remember all the carbon we are talking about was once part of the biosphere. Through an accident of nature it got sequestered and removed from the biosphere. All we are doing now is returning it to the biosphere where it belongs.
80
Hi Michael
Very readable comment.
The Earths atmosphere is essentially a self limiting system controlled by water, as Andy keeps saying:
there are latent heat requirements that must be met when getting water off the Earth’s surface or ocean
surface and up into the atmosphere.
It is interesting that all of the IR has been “absorbed” by atmospheric CO2 in the first 30 metres of the atmosphere, above ground, and so adding more CO2 will do essentially nothing.
The only thing that can increase the CO2 effect is to add more of the essential ingredient:
SUNLIGHT.
KK đ
31
Hi KinkyKeith;
Re your comment “It is interesting that all of the IR has been âabsorbedâ by atmospheric CO2 in the first 30 meters of the atmosphere, above ground, and so adding more CO2 will do essentially nothing.”
I am sorry but your comment is not quite correct. Absorption lines at low concentration are extremely narrow (the absorption is limited to a very narrow range of wavelengths) – so narrow in fact that they have negligible impact on energy retained. As the concentration rises the absorption at the line center rises until essentially all the available energy at that wavelength is being absorbed – in short the line center saturates. Further increases in concentration obviously cannot increase absorption at that wavelength since saturation has been reached but what does happen is that the line broadens. It starts to absorb over a greater range of wavelengths. It is this broadening that gives rise to the logarithmic relationship between concentration and energy absorbed.
All significant green house gases are in the condition where the line center is saturated and the response is thus logarithmic (the energy absorbed would not be significant were this not the case). To put it in perspective, at 280 ppm the absorbance of the CO2 column at line center is 1000 times the saturation point. That is why the absorption band of CO2 is as broad as it is and if we further increase the concentration it gets yet broader and thus absorbs some energy at the line edge that previously it would not have absorbed.
If we massively further increase the concentration eg going to Venus where the concentration is about 1,000,000+ time higher (1000 atm pressure and almost all of it is CO2) the absorption band can get so broad it absorbs at almost all wavelengths – I stress not something that is of even the remotest risk on Earth.
Interestingly this effect is used in the new high pressure lamps (the type used in digital projectors and now some car headlamps). The pressure inside the lamp is made so high that the line broadens to encompass the entire visible spectrum and the lamp emits essentially white light. The pressure is around 1000 psi which is why potential rupture of the envelope is so potentially dangerous.
You point out the atmosphere is a self limiting system controlled by water. I am not sure about exactly what you mean by self limiting but I believe something very similar if not identical. Increasing water vapour increases warming in a logarithmic fashion as discussed above but increasing water vapour means more water is evaporating and this has to be balanved by more rainfall. Since rainfall comes from low clouds it also implies increasing low cloud mass (not less low cloud mass as claimed by warmists). Low cloud is well known (and accepted by all) to be cooling and this cooling, I claim, is close to linear with cloud mass. The combination of logarithmic warming plus linear cooling creates strong negative feedback maintaining a setpoint for earth’s temperature (although it does not impose a rigid upper limit merely strong stabilising feedback) which is why I claim negative feedback in our climate system which reduces the impact of doubling CO2 from o.8C to something considerably less – maybe 0.3 – 0.4C.
10
Michael Hammer,
Interesting theory about Venus. It is a pity that your theory does not correspond to actual observations âŚ
Also the self-limiting thing about water vapour is that as the concentration (humidity) goes up, water vapour starts to condense into water droplets, taking heat out of the atmosphere and forming clouds and rain. This is shown in the tropics where the humid day leads to an afternoon storm which cools everything down. It is those pesky observations again …
10
Hi Micheal
I noticed that you have some considerable expertise in Spectroscopy and your comment above certainly reflects that. Thanks.
The explanation of band broadening was useful and I think we share the simple idea that if more water is evaporated into the atmosphere at some point it is going to precipitate as rain requiring more LHv that then cools the Earth. You can’t go past 100% RH.
I suppose that is what I meant by a self limiting system.
Any concept of CO2 warming leading to extra water vapour and then leading to more warming ” because water is a greenhouse gas” is simply fantasy world stuff.
When you say: “Increasing water vapour increases warming in a logarithmic fashion” I am not sure what you mean there because it appears to imply runaway warming?
I would have been more comfortable with : ” From a certain humidity level onwards, warming can only be increased by logarithmically large increases in water vapour.”
The CO2 logarithmic effect refers to the concept that to get any increase in warming from where we are at present , then it is necessary to add extremely large amounts of CO2 and even then the temperature increase would be minimal.
The lamp effect was fascinating.
KK đ
10
>> Any concept of CO2 warming leading to extra water vapour and then leading to more warming â because water is a greenhouse gasâ is simply fantasy world stuff.
We double CO2 and would get 1 C rise assuming the extra water vapor is held back. When the water is allowed to increase to a natural level at the higher temp (sample table showing that more H2O enters the air as temp rises http://www.tis-gdv.de/tis_e/misc/klima.htm ), enough water vapor comes out of liquid solution to allow 2/3 C more of ghg warming. This will be our hypothesis.
Basically, we’ll say (as a realistic hypothesis) that for every degree rise, enough water vapor comes out of the oceans to allow another 2/3 C in ghg warming.
So, we get an infinite geometric series whose end result, after that 1 C from 2x CO2 is a full additional 2 C contributed from the feedback effect of H2O. This means the total rise would be 3 C.
Some math:
1 [CO2] + (2/3) [H20] + (2/3*(2/3)) [H2O] + (2/3*(2/3*2/3)) [H2O] + (2/3*(2/3*2/3*2/3)) [H2O] + …. =
1 +
2/3 + (2/3)^2 + (2/3)^3 + (2/3)^4 + (2/3)^5 + (2/3)^6 + (2/3)^7 + (2/3)^8 + (2/3)^9 + (2/3)^10 + … =
1 +
.667 + .444 + .296 + .198 + .132 + .088 + .059 +.039 + .026 + .017 … =
1 +
(2/3)/(1-2/3) =
1 +
2 =
3C
The sum of a geometric series (with factor r being -1 and first term a_1) is (a_1)/(1-r). You can even see a simple derivation for r=2/3 here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_series#Example
So if for every 1 C rise in temp, enough water vapor rises to add another 2/3 C, then we get an infinite cycle where each time 2/3rds of the last incremental rise in temp becomes possible at the next “iteration”.
Water vapor thus adds another 2 C for the 1 C rise from 2x CO2. That is our hypothesis. It’s a very realistic hypothesis. As the math shows, there is nothing fantastic about it.
03
>> The sum of a geometric series (with factor r being -1 and first term a_1) is (a_1)/(1-r).
The web posting messed that up.
Here is what I wrote:
The sum of a geometric series (with factor r being less than 1 and greater than -1 and first term a_1) is (a_1)/(1-r).
00
Now, let’s say we undo the 2x CO2 by sequestering half of this 2x so it goes back down to 1x.
As that drops, say after .1 C drop, there will be a further drop because with .1 C less, there will be 2/3 of .1 initial further drop from H2O vapor going back into liquid. But that 2/3 of .1 will cause 2/3 of (2/3 of .1) further drop as even more H2O vapor becomes liquid. But that added drop will cause a further 2/3 of that (2/3 of 2/3 of .1). ETC. In total, from that .1 C drop from sequestering some CO2 will come another .2 C drop as H2O feedback cycles into liquid. Then with each further .1 C drop from CO2 sequestration, we get another .2 C. When we reach 1x CO2, we have lost 1 C and another 2 C, so we are back to where we started.
02
There is something that you have missed here Jose.
CO2 can only absorb a narrow band of infra-red radiation (around 8% of the total). There is only so much of this radiation around. Any Co2 is already saturated (if other gases and water vapour have not already absorbed these bands, which is actually what happens), so adding more CO2 to the atmosphere does nothing.
Its certainly not a case of add more and more CO2 to the atmosphere and something will continue to happen.
00
Backslider, if you had only one molecule of CO2 in the atmosphere and it captured and gave the photon energy to other gases and if none of the gases released the energy (not even to the planet through convection), then the air would get hotter without limit.
Now, let’s say that their is release, but let’s say that capture is frequent but a release takes years, then we have basically the same situation. What if a release is daily, then we are still getting very very hot but not as hot. [In real life, releases take a fraction of a second, I believe.]
So the fraction of the radiation you capture is one variable. Another variable is how long does that energy stay in the atmosphere.
Do you agree?
OK, now let’s consider again where there is only one CO2. When it releases, it may go into space or back at planet. But what happens if there are a zillion CO2 molecules such that when one releases a photon, another captures it (for a little while, remember the time lag issue mentioned at the top is also a factor) after the photon has traveled only 1 micrometer? Do you see how in this way it would take a very long time for a photon leaving the earth (in the CO2 band zone) to make it into space? And during this long time, the sun keeps shining so the atmosphere keeps getting more and more energy.
So do you see again how saturation did not play a role? Yet another variable is how many times the photon ping pongs in the atmosphere before finally being released into space.
So do you agree that with no change in saturation (which is around 20% max I believe and not 8%), if there are a lot more molecules and/or it takes longer before release, then the atmosphere will heat more?
Well, 2x CO2 does not make the release take longer, but it does make for a longer ping pong path in the atmosphere before escape.. implying a higher temp.
00
No such animal. Your science is fantastic! (as in fantasy).
00
Jose
Get a life man
You say that the atmosphere will get hotter.
Unfortunately for that theory there are two important set points that control MUCH of what goes on plus some other real gas physics.
1. Because the Freezing point of water and the Boiling point of water involve such large amounts of energy , they act as limiting boundaries for much of what goes on in the atmosphere.
Now I do admit that if the Boiling point was relevant we might be in trouble but it isn’t, that’s why science invented the Vaporization point of water which also involves large amounts of heat/energy and which spreads over a range of temperatures from 0 to 100 Deg C.
2. If there is a temporary oversupply of energy in the system what happens is that the atmosphere just expands to accommodate the change and for the most part, holds temperature fairly steady:
UNTIL THE SUN GOES DOWN.
Now at this point it might seem that I want to talk about the Sun and the Diurnal Bulge but you would be wrong.
I am going to have some breakfast.
Don’t worry, It’s all a scam.
We are safe, but please keep you hand over your wallet if you ever visit New York and happen to walk past the UN.
KK đ
01
Backslider, a band zone is not an animal.
But if it were, it would truly be fantastic! (as in amazing).
KinkyKeith, I’ve got a “life”, but what’s a “man” got to do with me?
[You can probably appreciate how hot part of the 90s were!]
00
Is that the best you can do? How about some science in support of it? I suppose also that you believe in the mythical “hot spot” and are right up with the new CO2 “scattering” craze?
11
OK.
Here we go again into the twilight zone of Klimate Science.
Am I to take your comment to mean that the X stands for status, Man woman/being indeterminate?
Jose ; you have filled up an enormous space on the earlier thread; Slaying the Sky Dragon and now you are bringing it over here.
Theoretical speculation about which way a photon will twist when it approaches a molecule of Argon is not going to get us anywhere.
What we need are macroscopic measurements of the input and output data to the problem and then we will see what’s what.
Why do we have NO reliable temperature measurement for the Earths atmosphere?
Why do we have no accurate reconciliation of Solar Energy Input and Outgoing radiation losses?
Answer: because we are not in a laboratory setup and there are too many unquantified factors.
Basic analysis shows conclusively that the “CO2 did it” argument is fraudulent and simply uses the complexity as a cover for that fraud.
An illustration of this point is the constant circular debate about an irrelevance: how much anomaly will you get for a doubling of CO2.
The actual answer is – not much – but the bigger issue with that debate is that the talk is about CO2 or ALL CO2 when the issue is Man Made CO2 which is 3 or 4% of ALL CO2.
The whole debate is unfortunately at that level; debating an irrelevance to the point of exhaustion while hiding the real facts.
KK đ
10
Sorry, Backslider, I didn’t realize you were being serious.
By “band zone” I was referring to the spectra of CO2. If you doubt that exists, you have a problem with much more than just climate science.
OK, if you don’t understand yet, let me know, and I’ll try to word it better or provide a link you can read. Otherwise, you can now address my earlier comment a little better.
02
>> Am I to take your comment to mean that the X stands for status, Man woman/being indeterminate?
You missed the cultural reference to this 90s bit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvYIpa1Ulvw (it starts around 25 seconds in).
>> Why do we have NO reliable temperature measurement for the Earths atmosphere?
Do a significant number of scientists share that opinion with you?
Do you have measurements you want to submit to the public? Or are you just complaining?
>> Answer: because we are not in a laboratory setup and there are too many unquantified factors.
You have done the statistical analysis or the physical analysis to demonstrate that the error bars used in climate science should be larger or are you just complaining?
>> Basic analysis shows conclusively that the “CO2 did it” argument is fraudulent and simply uses the complexity as a cover for that fraud.
You should enlighten us with your basic analysis.
>> when the issue is Man Made CO2 which is 3 or 4% of ALL CO2.
Oh, KK, now I understand why you don’t believe the scientists. You don’t have the facts straight.
“Man Made CO2” is not 3 or 4% of all CO2. You are probably referring to the yearly output and missed that this is not the same as the accumulated CO2.
Start with a large pool of water that has some sugar inside. Add a few grains of table sugar daily and eventually the sugar content in the pool will double or more, even if it takes you many years.
02
So here we go, once again into the twilight zone with Jose at No 14.
Adding sugar to a cup of tea may make it sweeter but has no relevance to the discussion.
First I must admit to reading only the first few lines of your posts because hey are all the same.
Second you cloud this issue with a lot of pseudo science but it always leads me back to the chorus over and over again: http://www.bernardcarney.com/chorus.htm
The Chorus: CO2 will wipe us out!
Basically I’m saying that you aren’t talking science; just making things up that have no basis in any measured science.
Your illusions are only figments of computer simulations with a seasoning of scientific trivia..
KK đ
11
Kinky
Poor Jose Xavier Xylophone seems to have an issue with the very obvious idea that it is that big white ball in the sky that pulls the strings on temperature.
He keeps going back to pure baloney that is found on John Cook’s propaganda site and it just doesn’t make sense to poor old Jose.
Get a grip Jose. Sit back and smell the roses. It’s a wonderful world, and the climate is on autopilot.
Even if it were to change significantly there is stuff all you can do about it but adapt.
Now stop feeling guilty and sorry for yourself and enjoy life before it passes you by.
11
Hi Rod Rod,
Good one, but if J X becomes J XX what am I going to be?
Liked the autopilot bit too.
KK đ
00
JoseX at 14
Jose
All CO2 is part of the cycle and is subject to sequestration by nature.
IF the Human population STOPPED producing CO2; it would take about three years to sequester the
accumulated human CO2 which remains in the atmosphere. That’s peer reviewed stuff, man.
I had many arguments, for sadly that’s what they were, with Ferdinand Englebeen about this.
He Believed quite strongly that Natural origin CO2 was completely and immediately sequestered while
the new improved human origin CO2 was not and that it remained in the atmosphere for ever.
Presumably the human isotope of carbon involved, ChO2, was UN-seqesterable by order of the UNIPCCC?
KK đ
00
KK, leisurely adding sugar grains into bitter coffee will eventually make the coffee sweet. Man might currently be adding 3% of yearly CO2 to nature, but since 1750, this excess/”unchecked” CO2 has led to CO2 growth by around 40%. It was below 300ppm and is now about 400ppm. Evidence suggests this high level hasn’t been “seen” in millions of years.
RS, thanks for the advice to smell the roses. I try to, but it’s still true that life without challenges is boring. I want great grand kids to have a fighting chance, whatever the challenge. And if you want to live a long fulfilling life, moderation (some discipline) and challenging yourself are important. It keeps your senses alive and body/mind healthy ..so that the next rose I take time to smell will be just as sweet smelling as KK’s coffee tastes.
KK >> IF the Human population STOPPED producing CO2; it would take about three years to sequester the accumulated human CO2 which remains in the atmosphere. Thatâs peer reviewed stuff, man.
Can you cite a study?
Supposedly and assuming we stop totally within a few decades, it will take several generations to reduce the total we have added (from 1800s level) by about a third and take hundreds of years to leave about a quarter leftover. Archer 2009 http://forecast.uchicago.edu/Projects/archer.2009.ann_rev_tail.pdf gives similar numbers (but I think assuming we stop today.. which we obviously won’t).
Why would we create messes without making sure we have the costs to clean up the mess for future generations? Why do you want them to pick up our costs? Sure, nature covers itself to some degree, for free, but at least we should invest in trying to find solutions to the more serious problems and trying to pay for some of this ourselves (especially those consuming the most) instead of letting our great grand kids cover it all (who have consumed none of it). Does that sound so unreasonable?
00
What are you talking about? CO2 is good for the planet. There is nothing to clean up.
00
Does anybody really deny this?
The simple reality is that CO2 only absorbs a very narrow band of infra-red radiation, around 8% of the total infra-red radiated from the earth’s surface. Orbiting satellite spectrograph measurements show that all of these bandwidths are almost 100% absorbed. Thus, adding more CO2 to the atmosphere does nothing, because there is nothing more for it to absorb.
33
For you to ask this shows the level of âscienceâ you are at.
Despite the vast amount of science showing CO2 has a warming effect on the planet itâs surprising the number of newbs willing to suggest itâs wrong without having first read the science on the topic.
Go read history first.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm#S1
Once youâve done that, then come back and tell us how clouds will keep the planet cool because climate sensitivity might be low.
But don’t post ridiculous notions – it only serves to show us the lengths to which you’ll support stupid concepts so long as it supports your biased opinion.
17
You provide a link to an article of 100+year old speculation by scientists. Oh goody. Please provide a link to the experimental science which shows whatever it is you are trying to say (which is what?).
31
Point 1: Backslider accepts the findings of the research of Arrhenius.
Point 2: Backslider then quotes acknowledged physics in terms of the CO2 infrared absorption frequency band.
Point 3: Backslider then points out that there is data from spectrograph measurements that shows 100% absorption of energy in that resonant frequency band.
Point 4: Backslider then makes the obvious observation that it is not possible to increase the absorption of energy in any frequency band past 100%
Leading to the obvious conclusion that adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will have little or no effect â a hypothesis supported by current observations.
So this does indeed show “the level of science that Backslider is at”, and from your comments it is apparently considerably higher than yours.
At least his position is based on Logic and Physics, and not on Propaganda and Political Science.
43
The latest tale I am seeing a lot of out of Wonderland it that CO2 “scatters” infra-red radiation. This is clearly designed to give everybody the impression that CO2 does something to ALL of the infra-red radiating from the earth’s surface….
Does anybody have a link to something supposedly explaining this fanciful hypothesis?
22
I came up with a kindergarten lesson this morning:
We have 1 litre of water which represents all of the infra-red bands that are radiating from the earth’s surface that CO2 is able to absorb. We then have twenty 200ML glasses representing CO2.
How many of those glasses can we fill?
22
Interesting I read that same history of the GHG effect several years ago but notice it is now dated February 2013.
Any how old Arrhenius was miles out in his temperature change predictions for a doubling of CO2 and any fraction of that as history has borne out. The reason for his inaccurate predictions doesn’t have much to do with the infrared radiative properties of CO2 but rather the chaotic and little known nature of the many other variables and how they interact in the Earth’s climate system. As you can see NO you are still at the kindergarten level in your understanding of our climate. (Feedbacks might be but one game changer for you to reconsider).
“Based on his calculations, in 1896, Arrhenius predicted that doubling the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would raise Earth’s average temperature by about 5°C (Arrhenius 1896). ”
âObserved CO2 and Temperatureâ
âAlthough his calculations were surprisingly accurate, Arrhenius greatly underestimated the rate at which humans would produce carbon dioxide. Over the last 100 years, carbon dioxide levels have already risen by 23 percent. Yet, scientists haven’t seen a corresponding rise in temperature (average global temperatures have risen only about 0.5°C, smaller than Arrheniusâ expectation by a factor of 2 or 3). Why is this? Because there are many more variables that influence climate than Arrhenius’ model took into consideration. (Many of these other variables are illustrated and explained throughout the Earth Observatory.)â
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ModelingIntro/
11
Not at all, unless you are able to show that CO2 in some other way can influence IR. Please note my comment above re. “scattering”. Do you actually believe this and if so, where is the science?
12
Rereke Whakaaro and others:
“Saturation” is already accounted for in the fact we are looking at a logarithmic relationship rather than a linear one. We do need more CO2, but we do get increased warming.
To use an analogy with a sweater (insulation) blocking convection currents and making conduction less effective:
Saturation, assuming it were true (it isn’t because at higher temperatures the extra energy in the molecules makes it possible to acquire a little extra frequency range), is akin to putting on the same sweater as before rather than a stronger one — true — but you would be putting on 2 such sweaters rather than one.
As we add more CO2, the same energy as before is absorbed lower to the ground, this leads to a longer path for that energy ultimately to escape into space. That delay and subsequent higher concentration of energy in our atmosphere becomes a hither temp because the sun does not slow down its own rate of radiating on the planet.
So, not having any greenhouse gases leads to efficient release of the sun’s energy into space. Cold. Having some greenhouse gas, slows the rate of heat escape into space, leading to higher average temperature. Adding even more greenhouse gas keeps making the escape into space less and less efficient. This has nothing to do with saturation. As long as the CO2 can keep absorbing and we add more of it, it makes the release into space less efficient, leading to higher average temperatures.
This is obvious to people who have studied the problem well. It isn’t obvious if you haven’t studied the problem that much.
00
Jose_X. I knew that you belived in a CO2 “blanket”, despite your denial of this.
Something that you have missed entirely is the fact that CO2 will absorb infra-red on the way in and thus shuffle it beck into space.
We have this nonsense:
You forget that there are a gazillion other molecules that are far more likely to come into the process and shuffle the heat on up into space.
Your CO2 “blanket” does not exist, there is simply far too little CO2 in the atmosphere for such a thing.
00
Jose at 10.3.1.7
What IS obvious to any one with half an eye and an anus is that over the last quarter century CO2 concentration HAS increased, with no effect on temperature whatsoever.
Mother Nature is telling you that despite all of your attempts to blame a perfectly innocent trace gas for a sinister crime is baloney. Your sweater analogy is nonsense, relative to the mystical workings of the REAL greenhouse gas H2O and its unusual heat of vapourisation. Listen to the evidence and realise that all of your theorising is for nought.
This is Gaia’s subtle way of telling you that you don’t know tish from shinoa.
01
Backslider, what denial are you talking about? And are you aware of how little infrared there is on the way down from the sun? Most of it is created on the planet’s surface. And generally, CO2 can absorb infrared that comes from above and from below and from every other side. Most of the time that energy moves to other non-ghg molecules via contact. The rest of the time, it gets radiated in a random direction. Of all of the radiation emissions, some fraction hit the earth, others hit other molecules, helping to keep those parts of the atmosphere at an elevated temperature.
>> You forget that there are a gazillion other molecules that are far more likely to come into the process and shuffle the heat on up into space.
Everyone shuffles, true, but there is radiation as well. That’s OK, the sun only provides 240 W/m^2, and do you know how many molecules are on the surface of a square meter? While there is shuffling, the radiation that does radiate from warm CO2 is enough to add to the radiation coming down from the sun. That is what instruments measuring back radiation from the ground indicate. It’s what the physical formulas derive, that there is heating and increased radiation. Again, in many ways 240 W/m^2 is tiny. The sun’s surface has (and laser and other technology can create) much much higher concentrations of energy. So if once in a while a CO2 emits, that is rather sufficient, observations and theories say.
Also, convection takes a long time to move heat up. Radiation, after an emission, goes at the speed of light. An energized molecule that made it (or got energy passed on to it from a long chain of contact reactions) from the ground into a high altitude just might then radiate and have that photon almost instantly hit the earth, just as it seemed it was going off to visit and provide heat for aliens crashing on the backside of an asteroid somewhere.
Think about it, do you not think that adding ground infrared-capturing particles to the atmosphere by the hundreds or billions of tons isn’t going to slow heat loss into space?
>> Your CO2 âblanketâ does not exist, there is simply far too little CO2 in the atmosphere for such a thing.
Lab measurements and satellites suggest clearly that the amount of CO2 in the direct line of path from the ground into the upper atmosphere is more than enough to absorb about 20% of energy released at current temperatures of the earth, multiple times.
How many molecules of CO2 do you think there are in the atmosphere, or even above your head on up towards a satellite? Have you computed this number?
Most earth atmosphere molecules don’t interact with infrared photons, but photons in the absorption range of CO2 can certainly get absorbed when they come near CO2.
BTW, what are you calling “too little”? Have you calculated the number of CO2 molecules above your head? Try doing that.
Rod Stuart,
Look it up. We just had the warmest year on record by far in the US 48 (even though it was a La Nina cooling year, where the cold deep ocean waters were cycling to the top). The warmest year globally was 2010. Oceans continue to warm up in the deep layers and absorb over 90% of the added heat. So what are you talking about? Look up the data. Don’t invent the data.
Anyway, I suggest you pick up a few books or courses at an accredited school and take some physics labs. Then maybe you will be able to understand the research the scientists are doing and will be able to read it for yourself. Yes, it is getting hotter, even in La Nina years.
00
Around 49% is infrared radiation. Is that “little”? Perhaps you meant the narrow band that CO2 is able to absorb?
What nonsense! 20% of the energy is not in wavelengths that CO2 is able to absorb. ALL of the IR that CO2 is able to absorb is absorbed within the first 200 meters. From there it is quickly transferred to non-radiating molecules and continues on its way UP. The amount that could possibly make its way back to the surface is miniscule. Carbon dioxide is only about 0.04% of the molecules in the air, limiting the amount of heat transfer at particular wavelengths by so few molecules. They are far more likely to collide with non-radiatimg molecules.
Tell me something, have you looked at the absorption of the earth’s surface for the wavelengths emitted by CO2? You might be surprised.
If anything, CO2 has a slight cooling effect, not warming.
00
>> Around 49% is infrared radiation. Is that âlittleâ? Perhaps you meant the narrow band that CO2 is able to absorb?
I meant or should have meant ghg absorbable infrared. You are correct. http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/images/RadiationSpectrumEmittedFromSun.html
>> 20% of the energy is not in wavelengths that CO2 is able to absorb.
At 300K, the emissivity of CO2 is around .2 at 150 cm * atm. See for example the table on pg 29 of https://www.google.com/url?q=http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/42950/02748698.pdf%3Fsequence%3D1&sa=U&ei=ciVBUaiTMKnk2wX25YDwBw&ved=0CBsQFjAI&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNFZMa7IvCav-QBoFFPVQvob3J145Q by Hottel. Beer-Lambert law applies. The data is a little dated but is not that far off and is still referenced in relevant engineering books along with formulas that do a good job matching the data. You may see references to Hottel charts and maybe mentions of Leckner.
That number means (I believe) that if we have a volume of CO2 gas of 1.5 meters in length at 1 atm at 300K, the gas will absorb about 20% of radiation at that (blackbody) temperature profile passing through it.
The partial pressure of CO2 at ground level would be about .0004 atm. That means 2.5 km (assuming 1 atm) of atmosphere (at 1 atm and 300K) in any direction would absorb about 20% of the ambient radiation.
Of course, less than that length would absorb less than but still close to 20%. And for photons firing “sideways”, it’s easy to stay near 1 atm and go 2.5 km. Across the entire atmosphere in all directions, this likely means a photon is expected to be absorbed at least several times by CO2 (assuming dry weather, otherwise water would do the job as well).
And the table of value suggests that at 287K and all temperatures near 300K, roughly the same emissivity values would apply.
That is my argument for 20%. What is your argument that the 20% figure is “nonsense”?
>> ALL of the IR that CO2 is able to absorb is absorbed within the first 200 meters.
Unless you are agreeing with me that about 20% can be absorbed in at most a few km, please cite a reference.
>> From there it is quickly transferred to non-radiating molecules and continues on its way UP.
Ah, so now you don’t think CO2 mixes well in the atmosphere!
If CO2 can absorb, it can radiate with the same ease (quantum electrodynamics basic principle). The CO2 up and down the atmosphere has a certain temp and radiates as just described above in the absorption case: for sufficient path length times pressure, at 300K, about 20% of the blackbody energy is emitted.
So CO2 emits up and down the atmosphere.
Don’t tell me you think emissions know which way is “up” and only go that way!!
>> Carbon dioxide is only about 0.04% of the molecules in the air, limiting the amount of heat transfer at particular wavelengths by so few molecules.
So few molecules?
PV=nRT. Let’s see how many molecules of CO2 are above your head one km upwards in a cross-section of 1 square meter.
Assume P=1 atm
V=1000 m^3 = 10^6 L
n=?
R=0.08206 L*atm¡/(mol*K)
T=288K
n=10^6/288 mol = 3470 moles
Multiplying the number of moles by Avogrado constant (6.022*10^23) gives 2.09*10^27. That is how many molecules there are.
Now, you did say that there are so few CO2 molecules, so let’s take .04% of that number. We get 8.36*10^23 or only
836,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules of CO2 or about 836 sextillion molecules.
That’s it, slider. Very little if you ask me.
Very little!!!
>> They are far more likely to collide with non-radiatimg molecules.
You should read what I write.
CO2 absorbs and passes on the extra energy most of the time. Yes. Nevertheless, it still radiates like a limited blackbody (20% emissivity for a sufficiently large path length times pressure).
Unless photons know which way is “up” and insist on taking that path!!! this means we get back radiation… like all of that back radiation that has been measured by instruments on the ground all over the world.
>> If anything, CO2 has a slight cooling effect, not warming.
The most efficient cooling is direct to space. CO2 and ghg slow that process, allowing energy to aggregate in the atmosphere, and the planet earth to remain hospitable for humans during the night.
What? You don’t think radiation can go back towards the ground and add that energy to the earth beyond what the sun is sending down!!!??
Magic photons and fairies won’t save you from extreme weather events and flooding.
01
Sure, CO2 can radiate (in any direction), however the most likely thing to happen that a CO2 molecule with collide with a non-radiating molecule. Where will the energy go the? Yes, it will go UP, just as I said. You talk as though anything that CO2 absorbs is radiated. In fact very little is radiated. You also forget that any IR is more likely to be absorbed by other GHG’s – this is why adding more CO2 to the atmosphere does nothing – very little energy has ever escaped directly into space.
How about we look at whatever else is above my head, including other GHG’s, huh? You will find that the proportion of CO2 is miniscule in comparison.
Ahh yes, don’t forget the extreme weather event alarmism. These events are natural and have been happening since the year dot. You cannot show ANY increase in extreme weather events whatsoever. I suppose that you also believe in Tim Flannery’s “Angry Summer” and “Super Storm” Sandy (what alarmists call a Hurricane that just didn’t make the grade)? Yes, this is all that you alarmists are left with. You do not have the science, so you must rely on alarmist propaganda fashioned around normal weather events or pseudo science as you elaborate above.
00
The time to emission is about 100 times slower than the time to collide with other molecules. I agree emissions are a small fraction of the total activity, but the people who have done the math and measurements are more convincing than those who have not. I calculated the number of molecules to let you know that even if something doesn’t happen that frequently, there are so many molecules that a very large number of molecules are releasing energy. Remember, as molecules and energy move up, they don’t run away from CO2. CO2 is right alongside this “UP” air mass movement, and they radiate all along the “UP” movement. And when they radiate, there is as good of a chance that the radiation will be downward (or to any side) as upward. And the radiation can travel many meters before being absorbed again. Math and observations appear to say that ghgs (CO2) have a warming effect.
>> How about we look at whatever else is above my head, including other GHG’s, huh? You will find that the proportion of CO2 is miniscule in comparison.
Look at the graphic and table here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth . CO2 is number 4 and those above it are not ghg. [Water is left out but that only exists in the lower atmosphere.]
>> You cannot show ANY increase in extreme weather events whatsoever.
This guy studies weather for a living and knows the statistics going back many decades: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/30/a-republican-meteorologist-tries-to-remove-liberal-label-from-climate-concern/ “Acknowledging Climate Change Doesnât Make You A Liberal”
> These are the Dog Days of March [USA, 2012]. Ham Weather reports 6,895 records in the last week – some towns 30 to 45 degrees warmer than average; off-the-scale, freakishly warm. 13,393 daily records for heat since March 1 – 16 times more warm records than cold records. The scope, intensity and duration of this early heat wave are historic and unprecedented.
00
There are around 100 times more H2O molecules. That’s pretty stiff competition. You assume that all of the CO2 molecules absorb and release energy, as though the energy available to absorb is limitless. It’s not. We have already reached saturation point, so adding more CO2 to the equation does nothing.
The point is that the energy is absorbed by non-radiating molecules. Thus being right alongside does nothing. This is the core of what really happens – molecules that are able to radiate are far more likely to collide, thus there is an attrition of available infra-red. This does not come into your thoughts, however it is is why we have saturation and why adding CO2 to the atmosphere does nothing.
How convenient for you that water is not in that graph. Oh! CO2 is NUMBER FOUR and those above it are not GHG’s!!!! Man…. CO2 sits there at 0.035%. How small is that in comparison to water vapor?
I am not even going to bother looking at the rants of somebody who runs Smart Energy. Have it not occurred to you that, just like Al Gore, this guy has a vested interest in alarmism?
00
“Saturate” which is not true but is a sort of an approximation, means that the CO2 molecules closer to the ground are more likely to get the radiation directly from the earth, right? But you think that the other CO2 are just wasting time and don’t contribute anything while convection carries the energy upward? Not so. Every bit of air mass that is moving upward is loaded with CO2. As that rises, the CO2 there, which probably didn’t capture some of the earlier photons from the ground will radiate based on the temperature. Some N2 molecules will collide with cold CO2 and heat them up. When you have sextillions of molecules, you have an unheard of number of cases where that happens as well, where cold CO2 are “heated” up after a bounce with an N2 that was particular “hot”. Have you ever played billiard and hit a ball dead on and saw it go off fast while the white ball you had hit stays put where the other ball was? That is one example of a type of elastic collision that happens among the many that happen in the air. Remember, 836,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 CO2 molecules 1 km above your head means an awful lot of strange things happen in collisions even if the probability was 0.00000000000001%. The CO2 doesn’t hold its breath until it is really high and then aim upward and radiate. It radiates in all directions as the air mass rises. Of course, you have other nearby and far air masses that also radiate and some of that replentishes what the original air mass loses. The point is that there is constant radiation up and down the atmosphere. Energy that otherwise would have gone right into space if there were no ghg instead radiates all over the atmosphere. This is what drives average temperatures up some amount beyond where there was less CO2. More CO2 means the “odd” cases of radiation by an upward (or downward) moving air masses happens more often. In terms of exactly how much is the rise in temperature, that is where you have to go heavy on the math calculations. If we ignore clouds, water, (feedbacks), etc, then it is believed the ground temp would rise about 1.1 C due to a doubling of CO2 from 1750 levels. That is what the math reveals to the physics of radiation. It ignores the feedback effect of more water vapor, etc.
The atmosphere above 10 km or there around is extremely dry (without water). So Water and CO2 help each other increase the GE near the ground (but with water dominating tremendously because it is in much higher concentrations near the ground and it is a stronger ghg). But the rest of the atmosphere many more km higher is dominated by CO2 and that also radiates. By itself, the CO2 leads to a little more H20, which raises temps more, and that leads to more H20, etc, in an “infinite” loop that converges to about 2 extra C beyond the 1 C by CO2 itself. That is what the scientists doing science believe even if we ordinary folks not doing climate science can’t even understand what they are doing. [BTW, some of those contributing to this type of research are specialized climate scientists, many with strong math background, especially those dealing with the computer software.]
00
Jose in 10.3.2.1.10
Are you one of them thar you-alls that thinks the universe revolves around thet thar US of A place?
Your contention that Ohio was hotter than Iowa or some darned thing is built upon erroneous information.
However, You look it up. Record cold in the entire Northern Hemisphere. A foot of snow in the south of England! Washington buried in snow in SPRING. Record lows in Alaska. Minus 78 in Siberia.
GLOBAL means more than your precious lower 48.
As for your suggestion that I should “take a few courses at accredited schools” I AM a bloody scientist, which is why I am aware that the null hypothesis, namely that the temperatures you are measuring is fraught with inaccuracies, and that anything that has happened or is happening is born of natural causes. The sea level is NOT rising, and we have the tide marks on the Isle of the Dead here in Tasmania to prove it. Cyclones, hurricanes, and storms have absolutely nothing to do with “Global Warming” because there is no unusual “Global Warming”. I suggest you keep your eye peeled for the lies and deceit that comes out of the climate gate emails and stop this nonsense you are preaching.
10
Rod Stuart,
In terms of taking courses, it’s hard to judge research accurately in any science outside your specialty not having studied the particulars.
I mentioned US48 in 2012 because it is a sizable piece of land I am familiar with and which, on a cooling La Nina year that was still ranked top 10 hottest world-wide of at least the last 100 years, the US48 high temp record was crushed. As I quoted a meteorologist a moment ago (talking last year): “Ham Weather reports 6,895 records in the last week – some towns 30 to 45 degrees warmer than average; off-the-scale, freakishly warm. 13,393 daily records for heat since March 1 – 16 times more warm records than cold records. The scope, intensity and duration of this early heat wave are historic and unprecedented.”
On sea level rise, I think this page makes a better case for a rise than you do for a lack of rise globally, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise
00
Jose, How do you intend to learn ANYTHING if you keep looking at nonsense.
When we speak about GLOBAL MEAN TEMPERATURES we aren’t talking about the temperature one day in downtown Utah. It GLOBAL, and it’s MEAN and it take into account cold weather in Siberia, Alaska, Canada and even cold weather in Australia in the SH winter. The data, direct from the measuring instruments, indicates that there has been NO that is ZIP ZERO NADA warming for at least 17 years and in the case of the more accurate RSS dataset 23 years. In fact there is a tendency for it to be cooler since 2005. We really don’t give a damn about your precious lower 48. More than likely any warming there is due to the massive piles of BS. As for sea level, I go by the level of the sea. It’s been the same here since 1810. In my bathtub, if the water goes up at one end it goes up at the other, and it is the same with the sea. That’s why they call it sea level. Now if you don’t care to look at the data, and prefer instead to go running off to Wikipedia, then feel free to wallow in your ignorance, and just leave us alone.
00
The 00s were warmer than the 90s, which were warmer than the 80s, which were warmer than the 70s. You likely are taking a stray point that was created by an unusually warm el nino year and starting the trend at that point in time. That’s called cherry-picking. Let me ask this, can you produce data that shows the air has not warmed since 1999? Find me a decade warmer than the 00s. Further you are ignoring heat moving down into the deep oceans and cool water circulating to the top. And what data do you have that water levels have not been going up because there is a lot of data showing it has gone up, as that Wikipedia page summarized.
01
How many times do I need to tell you?
If you want to know the truth, go to the data, not some hockey stick or wiki.
I told you UAH, Hadcrut3, Hadcrut 4 and RSS.
RSS delivers no statistically significant warming in 23 years.
You can even find that on this blog if you look.
As for end points, let’s try this:
Since the end of the Little Ice Age, the global mean temperature has increased 8/10 of one degree.
We usually speak of temperatures in whole numbers, so rounded that is no warming at all in 150 years. If the room you are in went up 8/10 of a degree do you think you would notice?
Fill up your bathtub with cold water and breathe on it until it is 37 degrees Celsius. Call us when
You can see that here if you want.
If you want to come down here I can show you the tide marks the convicts cut in stone in 1810. They are still valid. Nothing like cast in stone data to convince a greenie like you.
Fill up your bath with cold water and breathe on it. When the water reaches 37 degrees C call us.
Don’t call before We’ll call you.
10
Let me ask you something Jose. Do you know what Wikipedia is? DO you realise that anybody can write whatever crap they like in there and post up whatever graph graph they like? I can take any page you care to give me and change it to say whatever I want it to.
DO you REALLY think that climate alarmists are not running amok on it?
It is not the source of God’s truth……….
10
I don’t know, but I expect that satellite data, complex data sets of activity happening all throughout the atmosphere, is not as precise as a thermometer on the ground. Satellites also have to be calibrated. Anyway, I see no reason to prefer satellite data over more comprehensive datasets (and, yes, urban heat effect is taken into account).
As for rounding down and saying that .99 (or any other number greater than .5) of a degree is the same as 0, that is like saying that if I give you 99% of a cake, I have virtually given you no cake rather than a full cake. If you ran 99% of a marathon or completed 99% of any task, would you think you basically did nothing? You get credit for 0 miles because you only did 26.1 and not 26.2!
The CO2 in the air and expected to be released into the forseeable future in an average case scenario, could certainly represent 2 to 3 degrees warming. It’s true that consequences may be not that significant when nature actually speaks fully, I don’t know, but do keep in mind how you might react if your body temperature, rather than 98.6 F, remained at 101 F for a prolonged period of time.
Even if overall little happened of real consequences or happened gradually, we would lose a lot of history and infrastructure from rises of several meters and the flooding of many coastal cities.
And some things certainly could be worse than what climate scientist think today.
As for the markings you mention, people are measuring rises throughout the world. Can you say with confidence that you know at what time those markings were created and what part of the tide they represented then vs today? In an extreme case, maybe they were low tide markings then and now are high tide markings. Maybe they represented a safe height but today are exactly at the sea level or just under it. And sometimes land does rise or fall a bit over so many decades (even happens to large buildings that don’t take this into account and to whole cities.. see article about Shanghai). Stories of convicts etching rocks is not science. Why would you want to trust that more than what careful measurements made by many over many years is indicating?
As for temperature plateaus, consider a make believe equation of temperature, “y = sin(x) + .4 * x”. You can see the graph here http://www.meta-calculator.com/online/ by entering “y = sin(x) + .4 * x” (without the quotation marks) into the first formula entry (next to “1.”) and then hitting “graph”. I made up the equation, but it shows how a pullback is normal even amid a rising bias. The sin(x) can be the natural variability like oceans cycling cold water upwards and warm water downwards, while the .4x can represent a constantly rising bias due to CO2 and an enhanced greenhouse effect.
Also, I think there have been a greater amount of cooling aerosols released into the air (eg, by China) than expected. These effects tend to be shorter lived than CO2 concentrations, so eventually we would see the CO2 warming that had been hidden. And keeping the air cloudy is not a reasonable countermeasure to CO2 because of health and other safety concerns. Similarly, we can’t create enough contrails and keep them in place long enough and cheaply enough.
A lot is unknown about the future, but I prefer to play the odds with the scientists and all they have shown so far. Investments in renewable technology is a good thing from the perspective of future generations, even without the global warming threat.
Keeping a lie on Wikipedia is a lot harder to do than keeping something that has support. Fact is that vast majority of scientific groups and universities support the scientific process and accept the findings of climate scientists. That fact, like it or not, has staying power in Wikipedia and most anywhere else. If you want to believe it is a huge conspiracy among millions of scientists, that’s your choice, but you can’t blame Wikipedia for following its own rules. I mentioned the article to draw out numbers in a convenient location. Wikipedia footnotes references that can be followed.
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Jose_X
Thank you for describing to me how positive feedback works although actually I have to tell you I do understand this. The problem is not that positive feedback as a concept is real (I never doubted that) but rather that it promotes over reaction and instability. Natural systems are subject to a good degree of variation in input and normally require negative or stabilising feedback to limit the output variation if they are to remain stable.
In the case of climate lets do a very simple analysis. During the Jurassic all the carbon currently tied up in coal was in the biosphere. Not just the bit we are emitting dya to day but all of it (at current estimates of present consumption several hundreds of years worth). How come the climate remained within the range where plants and animals could survive? Then again, the sun’s output has apparently changed about 30% since the time when life evolved. You claim an extra 2.7 watts/sqM will give us 3C change in temperature. 30% of 340 watts/sqM is around 100 watts/sqM. Using your model that would imply around 110C change in temp, yet life continued unabated. Curious is it not? That’s what I mean by positive feedback promoting instability.
I do not deny that as the world warms (IF we assume constant relative humidity) absolute humidity rises and water vapour is lighter than air so surface convection wont fall, it would probably rise. But if air with a greater water vapour content is rising faster than I am sure you will agree evaporation is increasing very rapidly. Now warmists claim that this stronger convection leads to the water being carried to higher altitudes hence more high cloud (which is claimed to be warming) and less low cloud. Unfortunately therein lies a paradox. More evaporation must mean more precipitation else the oceans will end up in the sky but precipitation only comes from low dense clouds not from high wispy clouds (they are claimed to be warming precisely because they are high and wispy). A paradox indeed.
The answer however is reassuringly simple. As the air rises it cools and since the relative humidity started off the same it takes exactly the same drop in temperature for the air to reach 100% humidity and that means it reaches 100% humidity at exactly the same altitude as before. Now the water vapour starts condensing out but whereas water vapour in the air made it less dense, liquid water in the air makes it more dense so the air goes from being more buoyant to being less buoyant than before and convection slows down more rapidly than before. Net impact, the water is deposited at the same altitude as before but there is more of it. ie: more LOW cloud not more HIGH cloud and as we know low cloud is cooling. Now the warming impact of water vapour is about the same as the cooling impact of clouds (both around 80-90 watts/sqM) but water vapour warming increases only logarithmically ie:- the sensitivity decreases as absolute levels rise whereas cloud cooling is close to linear hence the incremental cooling impact of more clouds is greater than the incremental warming impact of more water vapour and the net impact is thus cooling which reduces the impact of the CO2 perturbation ie: negative feedback.
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michael hammer, I will probably look later on at your discussion on clouds since I have not looked at that much at all and couldn’t quickly see what you meant and what might be a response.
As concerns positive and negative feedback. Those terms as used by climate science are not as used by controls theory.
For starters, what are we supposed to be tracking when we talk about water and CO2? In controls, you use negative feedback to try to keep the output of the plant tracking something. If you can define the “plant” and the value to be tracked, then maybe we can talk the business of negative or positive feedback as goes that study. For climate science, they refer to “feedbacks” as a noun and not as a verb.
In the example I gave, having a 2/3 ratio means a stable point is reached. Only greater than or equal to 1 would lead to divergence. So stability is included (first reality check: passed).
>> You claim an extra 2.7 watts/sqM will give us 3C change in temperature. 30% of 340 watts/sqM is around 100 watts/sqM. Using your model that would imply around 110C change in temp
First and foremost, the model of 3.7 giving 3C is a linear model of what is a nonlinear system, so it has limited applicability built into the assumptions already. It’s useful to us when dealing with a few degrees in changes and as a simplified adjunct to the more sophisticated computer models. See this recent comment: http://joannenova.com.au/2011/05/why-greenhouse-gas-warming-doesnt-break-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics/#comment-1249266 . Your calculation above is undefined for being out of range of the model. This is like trying to use Newtonian velocity vector addition with speeds nearing speed of light.. it won’t work and is known to be outside the range of the model.
Second, if we go back to when the sun was 30% weaker, there was no life as we know it. There likely wasn’t even much oxygen and then no ozone so a lot more radiation reached the ground. It’s also believed there was a lot more ghg in the air. These factors clearly put liquid water in the running. But again, this is irrelevant to the 3.7 modern climate simplification.
00
Jose_x;
Sorry I cant reply to your email in place the system only seems to allow reply’s for a maximum 5 digit identifier, however to your points.
You say I interpret the term feedback in a different way to climate modellers. Not at all, I am using it in exactly the same way to mean exactly the same thing. Yes of course if the feedback becomes greater than 1 the system goes into monotonic runaway and of course that has not been claimed. If it were it would be disproven utterly and categorically in very short order. However, positive feedback of less than 1 is still destabilising because it amplifies the effect of perturbations.
Warmists seem to interpret every effect within the climate system as positive feedback. I have yet to see a warmist acknowledge any negative feedback term in the climate system yet positive feedback is far less common than negative feedback. The world is full of negative feedback terms while positive feedback is very rare. Just as a trivial example, say food for a population of animals declines for a reason – reaction; the animals eat less, are therefore in poorer condition have fewer offspring some die so the population reduces – that’s negative feedback reduced food results in a smaller population and stability is restored. What would positive feedback be? It would be that given less food the animals population would increase putting even more strain of the food supply, causing it to decline further until the animal population crashed and became extinct. An absurd hypothesis? Of course because the world simply does not work that way.
You make the case that I am extrapolating from a small change to a big change (wrt to the 30% change in solar output) and in that you are quite right. Yes such extrapolations are risky especially with highly non linear systems. However behind your comment is the supposition that a 2.7 watt/sqM could give a 3C rise but the much larger 100 watt/sqM would give a smaller change than linear extrapolation would predict. That implies a non linear system where the sensitivity decreases as the change gets larger. A decreasing sensitivity as the size of the input change increases implies negative feedback. A system which exhibits strong positive feedback for small changes but decreasing positive feedback and maybe even eventually negative feedback for large changes is even more bizarre.
Bottom line, the scenario being painted is extremely unlikely and would require strong proof to be accepted. The only proof is that the models say so but the predictions the models come up with are not borne out in practice so the models are unproven and one could well argue disproven. It is not acceptable in my view to argue – “you cant categorically prove me wrong therefore one has to assume I am right”. You cant categorically prove the sun will come up tomorrow but I doubt you would believe me if I predicted it wouldn’t. Where there are definite rationales for positive feedback given there seem to be obvious holes in them – eg: the models predict a hot spot in the upper tropical troposphere yet thousands of balloon flights and satellite data can’t find any evidence of a hot spot. A model which makes a prediction which is falsified experimentally is itself falsified.
I could go on but this is getting too long.
cheers
Mike Hammer
10
>> However, positive feedback of less than 1 is still destabilising because it amplifies the effect of perturbations.
Can you reference who makes the claim that a positive feedback less than one is destabilizing? I am not sure I know the context of those words. Also, if an effect were destabilizing, it would likely not be something to ignore. To assume something can’t be destabilizing is an assumption and not necessary a smart one to make (depends on context). Are x-rays harmful to health? For a long time there was no consensus on that, but those who assumed it might be were generally safer. We have but one Earth, and the evidence seems to point towards complications for future generations because of our actions.
In control theory, an amplifying effect, a greater than unity path “gain”, is engineered into place all the time in order to be able to accomplish goals. [Of course, we aren’t engineering the planet, and, if we wanted to, we would first have to be honest about how it behaves.] That is what we have here. The notion of (control) feedback doesn’t come into play any more than an amplifier reacts to the input to amplify the effect. Feedback is about keeping an output value close to some reference point by feeding back the difference in signals to help re-adjust the total input in the opposite direction whenever the output deviates from the reference signal. So to talk about control theory feedback, you should clarify what is the block diagram (what is (are) the input(s)? what is the plant? what is the reference value? what defines the feedback path? etc.)
Now, I understand we can model water as reacting to temperature created by CO2, but there is no obvious need for controlled tracking behavior beyond what simple amplification does. I’m not saying we can’t construct a system model for this that uses feedback, but it seems much more straightforward to simply call the water effect a simple amplifier. Of course, if this amplifying effect is related to temperature and to other variables in a complex way, perhaps we do want to create a more interesting topology. In the simple model most people talk about (and outside of a computer model), we seem to simply say that these climate “feedbacks” are amplifiers of some value, positive or negative, and that is it.
Why do I mention control theory? Because you made claims about stability and also positive and negative feedback without explaining how precisely. If you reference a source, you may very well be talking about control theory. And without specifying the model, we can’t really call something positive or negative feedback. If instead you were referring to climate science, then I would expect you to reference a paper on why what all climate scientists do is actually wrong or unstable or whatever. Obviously, I don’t expect you to have success with the latter without appealing to a different field and group of experts (which is why I mentioned control theory in the first place).
>> Warmists seem to interpret every effect within the climate system as positive feedback.
Non-warmists don’t seem to be making a lot of headway against that by showing the science that confirms their own views, unless you consider aerosols and the various other “negative feedbacks” as “success stories” for the non-warmists.
Do you have any ideas or evidence to present? [Well, beyond the cloud info you provided that I still have to look at.]
>> I have yet to see a warmist acknowledge any negative feedback term in the climate system
You aren’t serious are you?
Of course, scientists don’t pick how nature behaves. If you disagree with their interpretations, then you should present your case hopefully at least as carefully as they present theirs (link to references, etc).
>> The world is full of negative feedback terms while positive feedback is very rare. Just as a trivial example, say food for a population of animals declines for a reason – reaction; the animals eat less, are therefore in poorer condition have fewer offspring some die so the population reduces – that’s negative feedback reduced food results in a smaller population and stability is restored.
How are you defining “negative” and “positive”? [See the food example at end.]
In control theory, it’s clear that opposing the sense (arithmetic sign) of a certain difference in signals can be called negative and could be called positive otherwise.
All climate situations dealing with CO2 and temperature show ultimate negative feedback. As temperature rises in reaction to a stimulus, equilibrium is approached because more radiation goes into space. Stefan Boltzmann counters every rise in temperature and every drop so as to track the radiation levels coming into the planet. In other words, by having the temperature rise, and with it the irradiance of the planet, any change in the balance at TOA is countered in the opposite direction. If this isn’t negative feedback, I’m not sure I know what is.
This dominant negative feedback forms the core of all climate science.
Water vapor falling out of solution from the air can be seen as a negative feedback reaction.
Oceans and other processes absorbing CO2 added to the air also can be seen as showing negative feedback.
Pressure increases and temp increases tend to have this effect as well and are incorporated automatically into heat/fluid/ and similar equations.
>> What would positive feedback be?
You said that less food is a negative feedback, but I can see a positive feedback effect resulting from that. If you eliminate phytoplankton (that is the initial stimulus), are you done with the elimination of food sources? Of course not, many who depend on them will die. Many who depend on this now increased number of eliminated organisms die as well. This continues until a balance is reached, but the fact is that killing x led to an avalanche of more things dying. We didn’t just stop at x. We can call that positive feedback (depending on precise context not stated), and it has many similarities with the CO2 water multiplier effect. Yet among this positive (sub) feedback effect, we can have negative feedback effects that ultimately dominate.
I can call negative feedback the actions taken by other species to broaden the range of what they call food and to live thinner off less with less reproduction in order to counter the effect of losing a food source. Ultimately, their own death leads to a lowered demand for food and makes equilibrium possible.
Positive and negative feedback are intertwined. And the claim that climate science has little to no negative feedback is undone by the fact all of physics is based on Newton’s equal reaction law and those effects clearly play a role in climate science, including with the Stefan Boltzmann effect in many ways being a negative feedback effect and the dominant one of effects.
[BTW, when I said in an earlier comment that feedback is a verb in control theory, it’s mostly an adjective, and it can also be a noun.]
>> However behind your comment is the supposition that a 2.7 watt/sqM could give a 3C rise but the much larger 100 watt/sqM would give a smaller change than linear extrapolation would predict. That implies a non linear system where the sensitivity decreases as the change gets larger.
I did say that the planet was different at different times. The climate sensitivity of a different atmosphere is naturally different.
>> A system which exhibits strong positive feedback for small changes but decreasing positive feedback and maybe even eventually negative feedback for large changes is even more bizarre.
What happens when you put an egg on top of a pyramid? That’s right, it falls to some side and accelerates. But eventually, after going far enough, it breaks or at least comes to a stop. Air resistance and friction oppose its every motion and eventually dominate when gravity can no longer have an effect.
So what is so bizarre about friction and resistance ultimately leading to all objects on earth (without an “infinite” power source) stopping, even after they accelerate from some unstable position? There is nothing bizarre in the evolution of unstable states into stable states.
>> Bottom line, the scenario being painted is extremely unlikely and would require strong proof to be accepted
I’m not sure you understand climate science that well, and making statements that go against the views of the majority of experts (and without being precise at all) is not a winning game plan for most people.
01
” the evidence seems to point towards complications for future generations because of our actions.”
What evidence? Where is this evidence? We would like to know. Watch David’s Youtube.
Jose you don’t understand some basic principles. If your hypothesis is that anthropogenic CO2 causes warming, given that it is only 3 or 4 per cent of atmospheric CO2, then the null hypothesis is that what happens to the climate (which by the way is very little) is due to natural causes.
It is up to YOU to demonstrate that the null hypothesis is invalid.
After many billion dollars, nobody has been able to demonstrate that. Can you?
You are just going around like a dog chasing its tail. For a minute contemplate that not a great deal has changed regarding the climate in several hundred years. It is still dry where it was dry, cold where it is cold, hot where it is not, and once in a while there is a flood or a cyclone. What is this change you are worried about? Go chase some tail of your own and be happy.
21
Jose_x, you seem to see feedback as defined in control theory as something different from what is meant in climate science. I cannot agree with that, the meaning is exactly the same.
Maybe I should give my definitions so you know where I stand. An open loop system is one with an input, an output and some relationship which links the two. Your example of a object which is heated and thereby increases its temperature is a good example of that. No feedback, just a simple relationship between input and output – this case a highly non linear one (4th power of temp) but still a defined relationship.
Feedback is when a change in the system output (typically due to a change in the input) results in a further change to the input ie: the output change is fed back to the input. If the change is such as to increase the original input perturbation then the feedback is positive – it adds to the input change. If the change is such as to decrease the original input perturbation it is negative feedback – it subtracts from the input change.
Thus increasing CO2 increases retained energy and thus represents a change in forcing. If that were all, the change in output would be simply the change in forcing times the sensitivity and both sides agree that amounts to somewhere between 0.8 and 1.2C per doubling.
However, an increase in temperature means more water evaporates and since water is a green house gas an increase further increases the retained energy therefore it adds to the original forcing ie: positive feedback. One can also use the expression dependent and independent variables. The CO2 is an independent variable (actually maybe not if an increase in temperature means more out gassing from the oceans and thus adding to the original increase) while the water vapour is a dependent variable – it depends on the system output ie: the temperature. So this aspect is positive feedback however there is a second effect from increasing evaporation and that is more clouds. More cloud means more incoming solar energy reflected back out to space and thus a reduction in the original forcing hence negative feedback.
As soon as positive feedback exceeds 1 the system runs away even with no triggering change in input forcing. Simple noise on the input is enough to ensure that. In a non linear system the feedback varies with the size of the input perturbation due to the non linearity. When climate scientists talk about tipping points what they are in effect saying is, for small perturbations the positive feedback is less than 1 but as the size of the perturbation rises the non linearity causes the positive feedback becomes greater than 1 and the system runs away – until stopped by some other feedback mechanism at a new operating point. The point is that the system no longer behaves progressively,the feedback takes over and even with no further change in forcing input the output continues to move away from the original setpoint. A “claimed” example of that is methane clathrates. The claim is some rise in temperature causes them to melt releasing the methane which represents massive positive feedback (since methane is a green house gas). That takes the positive gain above 1 causing the system to run away even without further increase in CO2.
with respect to my comments about positive feedback being destabilising: Lets take an example, assume grass grows and is simultaneously eaten by animals. If the rate of growth is exactly balanced by rate of eating everything is stable. But imagine a few more animals are born and the rate of eating increases slightly. In the open loop system the amount of grass would steadily diminish until it disappeared and the simple ecological system I describe would collapse. However that’s not what happens, instead other consequent changes occur (some animals starve, the greater cropping leads to more growth the greater population leads to more predators etc) which tends to restore the original equilibrium. That’s negative feedback promoting stability. If the system had instead had positive feedback the imbalance would grow not shrink until the system collapsed and we would not see such a system because it would have collapsed and ceased to exist. Thus the stable systems we see around us are dominated by negative feedback.
In the case of climate consider when the earth was formed. All the CO2 locked up not only in coal and oil but in carbonate rocks (which only form from water) was all in the atmosphere. OK you argue the sun was weaker and the forcing from the extra CO2 balanced the cooler sun so we had a temperature conducive to the formation of life. But once life formed very rapidly CO2 was converted to oxygen (20% of the atmosphere is oxygen and originally all that was CO2 – compare that with the current 0.04% of CO2 in todays atmosphere it’s a change of 500X or about 9 doublings) The change was far faster than the change in solar output. Why didn’t the change in climate kill off the fledgling life. It should have turned earth into a solid snowball but it didn’t. The only answer is that something stabilised the climate – ie: negative feedback. Even if you don’t like this explanation, what are the chances that the change in CO2 from 20+% to 0.028% exactly balanced the change in solar output so the climate remained stable? Does it mean if there was slightly more or less CO2 on earth, life would not have continued? It implies a system where everything had to be exactly right, there was no tolerance for any imbalance. Its extremely unlikely, far more likely that there is a stabilising mechanism which allows considerable latitude over which an equatable temperature is maintained. From my analyses I see strong evidence that the combined actions of water vapour and clouds (logarithmic warming coupled with linear cooling) create a system where a stable operating point for earth’s climate is created and maintained by strong negative feedback. In a cold earth there are few clouds little cloud cooling and the warming effect of water vapour dominates over cloud cooling hence the planet warms. At some point the two balance and further rise in temperature increases cloud cooling much more rapidly than water vapour warming and the planet would cool again.This is a classical way of establishing and maintaining an operating setpoint.
with regard to citing references, yes doing so would make the case more strongly but I am writing a blog not preparing a published paper and while I have read such material digging up the exact reference to that I can quote it takes more time than I have to devote to this reply.
10
michael hammer
>> If the system had instead had positive feedback the imbalance would grow not shrink until the system collapsed
>> Thus the stable systems we see around us are dominated by negative feedback.
An example of a “collapsed” system is bacteria taking hold inside an organism so that a tipping point is reached so that the rate of bacteria destruction (by whatever means) is less than the growth. Eventually, after some near-exponential speedup, this system collapses, possibly with the host dying (though not necessarily since the food source within the host might collapse without killing the host or the bacteria might be poisoned by its own secretions that don’t kill the host or a more powerful negative feedback might come into play such as medicine being taken or the immune system learning and kicking it up a notch).
We know that many such hosts exist (the animal had siblings) and many such bacteria exist, and this cycle can be repeated over and over. An analogy might be with us effectively destroying lots of fertile swaths of land, yet, as our numbers shrink and generations flow, we might be able to return to repeat the process on land that was destroyed in the past (or we might find ways to rejuvenate land). [Aggressive negative feedback on human population is one thing I would like to spare future generations if possible.]
In the case of the host not dying, we might find that “the positive feedback becomes greater than 1 and the system runs away â until stopped by some other feedback mechanism at a new operating point.” By analogy, we might have periods of life flourishing on the planet intermixed with periods of death/dormancy/population culling. [Aggressive negative feedback on human population is one thing I would like to spare future generations if possible.]
Maybe “humans” are unstable and will die off leaving future intelligent species to surmise about how positive feedback killed us off or else we would still be around.
It’s naive to think we can’t create problems that hurt humans since in the big picture humans can die and the planet can continue supporting other forms of life across eons as it has for so long.
Your general argument says nothing about whether there are common natural processes that might wipe out many of us OR whether we might be a new significant stress that the Earth did not have to deal with before, and we might now allow a particular tipping point to be reached, leaving future intelligent life to wonder about the prior collapse of human species and what that was like.
>> It should have turned earth into a solid snowball but it didnât. The only answer is that something stabilised the climate â ie: negative feedback. Even if you donât like this explanation, what are the chances that the change in CO2 from 20+% to 0.028% exactly balanced the change in solar output so the climate remained stable? Does it mean if there was slightly more or less CO2 on earth, life would not have continued?
I understand what you are saying, AND I agree that life can continue. The question is will human societies suffer and can we be smart about it?
If Adam and Eve (or 10,000 such pairs) survive, that might be enough for humans to continue, but is that what you want for your descendants 10 generations out (let’s assume) if we could avoid that by being a little more considerate today? [Global warming is certainly not the only issue before us, of course.]
And who says that humans will be around for the planet to keep supporting life? Maybe other species, of the many we have, will thrive while we don’t.
Your general argument doesn’t address this.
Fact is we are changing the planet (in many ways) very fast.
On the positive note.. actually, on the negative feedback note, I just “confirmed” that the IPCC and climate scientists are plenty aware that if we stop emitting CO2 in the next X years about a third of all we have released that will be absorbed by the oceans within a couple of generations and almost 3/4 might be after several hundred years. So we would get back to our path of CO2 levels dropping. [But, depending on how far we go, we can end up from a few to perhaps over 10 C hotter in the meantime.]
>> From my analyses I see strong evidence that the combined actions of water vapour and clouds (logarithmic warming coupled with linear cooling) create a system where a stable operating point for earthâs climate is created and maintained by strong negative feedback.
Great, I hope you publish these findings and that the stable point is tolerable for our societies. Lots of people with optimism but little evidence and theory think everything will be fine one way or another. Unless you want future generations to take the risks for our inability to find the sought after evidence and solid theories, you should turn your research into solid evidence and theories and make sure you publish (anywhere) and can withstand peer scrutiny. If you can’t, I vote we take some responsibility for our unsustainable gobbling so that future generations have a fighting chance.
I don’t care that amoebas and roaches can survive us.
Aggressive negative feedback on human population is one thing I would like to spare future generations if possible.
00
>> Jose_x, you seem to see feedback as defined in control theory as something different from what is meant in climate science. I cannot agree with that, the meaning is exactly the same.
I read again the beginning of a paper by Roe I had come across before, and I agree with you that they use the same concept of what is called feedback. I was misjudging this somewhat before. BUT
Different is that while most feedback engineering is concerned with tracking and controlling, we aren’t engineering the parts of the earth we don’t like but are mostly observing it in action to learn about its abilities and limitations. We are also using a very simple and limited feedback model on paper that appears not to consider intricate interactions among the components (see “My point is that”). At least that is what was presented by Roe as an example, and does not represent the complex interactions I expect are incorporated into GCMs.
>> More cloud means more incoming solar energy reflected back out to space and thus a reduction in the original forcing hence negative feedback.
Let me ask you this. What feedback parameter would you set if we wanted to model a case where the earth will totally reverse the effects of the CO2 forcing so as to stabilize the temperature at our current level?
In the model I saw, that is not possible short of forcing the climate sensitivity value to 0 (which obviously then would not represent the earth).
A new block diagram model will have to be created to cover a case where you can truly neuter the CO2 forcing.
More specifically:
-They establish a reference temperature (eg, 255K or the surface temp at 1x CO2 or whatever).
-They pass the CO2 forcing through from the input to the output while adding to this CO2 forcing each of the feedback path forcings.
-How do they calculate any feedback path forcing? ..by multiplying the output forcing value by constants.
-The only way to undo the CO2 forcing “error” would be to have the sum of the feedbacks add up to the negative of the CO2 forcing value. This can only happen for a given cycle through the block diagram if the feedback paths (which mathematically can be represented as a single path) collectively add up to -1*CO2 forcing. This would cancel the CO2 forcing on the next cycle but that would then necessarily lead to 0 being added to the CO2 forcing for the cycle after that (since 0 times constants are 0), leading to the output being the full CO2 forcing again (not 0 as was the case the prior cycle). So we get unstable oscillation (divergence). And this is the closest we can get to getting a 0! From the math of the block diagram they use, you can either (a) diverge from a feedback greater than or equal to 1 or less than or equal to -1, (b) converge to some arbitrarily large net forcing (and implied delta T) if the feedback is close enough to 1, or (c) converge arbitrarily close to .5*CO2 forcing if the feedback is close enough to -1. There is no case to stably cancel the CO2 effect. In other words, your magic clouds cannot be modeled in the simple analytical model currently in use. This inability to approach 0 is rather far from what engineering systems achieve and can model.
So when you and many others say that negative feedback leads to stability, you are wrong, at least not more so than does positive feedback according to the simple feedback model that I think is implicitly used when people talk about positive and negative feedbacks. The difference is that negative feedback leads to a reduced effect on delta T from what CO2 forcing alone would give (with a minimum value of .5*CO2 forcing effect), while positive feedback would lead to a larger delta T. Both positive and negative feedbacks outside of the unit radius of convergence would lead to instability, and both would lead to stability if within the unit of convergence.
If we want to account for the no change in delta T case, we would need to perhaps add something beyond a proportional (P) linear constant feedback path to the model (maybe model differentiation or integration in some way) or else change the topology in some other way.
My point isn’t that the climate scientists have the deck stacked against negative feedback possibilities (against neutralizing CO2 totally). They do, but they are just modeling what they have discovered in nature and think is happening in the relevant time spans and at current levels of CO2 emissions. Further, the more complex computer models aren’t limited in any way by these simple feedback analytical models (so the weakness is not that relevant, especially since it can be changed if magic clouds come over the horizon tomorrow).
My point is that when people talk about negative feedbacks leading to stability or positive feedback leading to instability, they are not describing the feedback models used by climate scientists (at least as I saw described by Gerard Roe in “Feedbacks, Timescales, and Seeing Red”, mostly pages 4 and 5). They are describing some lessons they remember from control system engineering or something along those lines that they read somewhere.
Anyway, thanks for pushing me on this feedback thing. I reread and I now have a better idea of these simple models that supposedly researchers tend to use periodically. A net negative feedback (within the -1 bound) in these models would lead up to a 50% reduction in temperature growth, while a positive feedback (within the 1 bound) would lead to some greater than 1 gain.
And yes, the feedback model, as simple as it is and within its range of function, is effective for modeling the cumulative effects of different “feedbacks” much better perhaps than would be the case by using open loop gains only as I figured could be done if we only had to deal with a single feedback effect.
I wrote a scratch perl program you can modify and play with. It runs through 1000 iterations on an initial forcing value of 1 ($d) and total feedback of -0.5 ($a).
perl -e ‘$a=-.5; $c=1; $d=1; for ($b=1; $b<1000; $b++) {print ("c=",$c,"\n"); $c*=$a; $c+=$d; }'
00
Rubbish
Your claim that they are “modeling” what they see in nature is not true.
They don’t have a clue what nature is doing.
They are modeling “what they believe or want nature to do”.
Until they work out WHAT is happening all of your computer waffle is without a home to go to.
KK
00
You don’t know what is happening, do you? You don’t know what the scientists know, do you?
00
The Stefan Boltzmann effect can readily be modeled as a negative feedback, but it isn’t in the Roe model. The simple model assumes we are in a linear region of SB. It means we aren’t planning on moving too far from the initial temperature point. [I still have a few questions about that model that I’ll ignore for now.] So if we ended up with or if we wanted to consider a large positive feedback that would cause delta T to be very large, then the model would be strained beyond where it is valid (as a linear approximation), and we would need to scrap it and perhaps model the SB as a limiting feedback with its nonlinear formula. Note that SB is used to calculate the climate sensitivity parameter for this linear feedback model. Under the limited range linear region, it would be constant and indirectly reduces every feedback path.
In short, if the sum of the feedbacks would appear to be too positive and potentially lead to divergence, then that would be a signal that the linear model is not valid and should be scrapped/reworked; it is impossible to accurately represent a diverging positive feedback with this model, as the results would be false and invalid and a new model would be needed instead.
>> perl -e …
That scratch perl program tries to mimic the iterative nature of the block diagram described by Roe, but it does so with a few differences.
A more accurate variation of the program follows, and it allows you to get the same results as the first version when you set old_$a and old_$d as you would have set $a and $d. The actual $a and $d of version 2 now more closely match the model in Roe. $a now has a radius of convergence of 1/.31.
perl -e ‘$old_a=-.5; $old_d=1; $a=$old_a/.31; $d=$old_d/.31; $c=0; for ($b=0; $b<=1000; $b++) {$c+=$d; $c*=.31; print ("c=",$c,"\n"); $c*=$a; }'
00
This is also speculation on a non event; in Australia it is known as Rubbish.
KK
00
If only you could show us you know what I was talking about.
00
It’s a silly program, but I realized many people may not know what “perl” is. Try the following. Open a new browser window or tab. Copy and paste the line below into the location bar (paste it where the “http://….” goes) and hit enter:
javascript:old_a=-.5; old_d=1; a=old_a/.31; d=old_d/.31; c=0; str=””; for (b=0; b<=1000; b++) {c+=d; c*=.31; if (b<100) {str+="c="+c+" ";} else if(b<995) {str+=" ."} else {str+=" c="+c;} c*=a;} alert(str);
I changed the program slightly to turn it into javascript from perl (in this case I just needed to remove the $) and then modified it some more so it would fit in an alert pop-up.
A pop-up alert window will appear showing the result of the first 100 cycles and then the last 5 out of a total 1000 cycles. The number of cycles should be large enough to show convergence to a single value or a pattern of some sort which may suggest convergence to some value or suggest a divergence or infinite oscillation (sometimes only a few cycles are needed and sometimes maybe more than 1000). This final stable value (if any exists) would be the result of the feedback effects in the steady state.
00
More rubbish Jose.
00
Still unconvincing KK
00
I seem to recall the Yanks had decided in 1951 or so that the wavelengths needed for co2 driven warming would have been absorbed by water before it ever reached the co2. But asking to disprove AGW is impossible for the same reason that it is impossible to prove : the future hasn’t happened yet. Sounds like a classic definition of science fiction to me.
43
Good points.
The warmers fail the first basic test of being a scientist.
They do not put up a testable hypothesis.
The corollary of this, is that if it is impossible to test and examine their theory, then they have not proven it.
By contrast there is excellent work on the orbital mechanics of the solar system which makes it possible to advance a very strong hypothesis that orbital cycles control the movement into and out of glacial cycles.
There is testable data from the fields of astronomy, geology and biology that would be difficult to fault.
Contrasting with this is the baseless stupidity of advancing a poorly assessed mechanism involving CO2 as the culprit for climate change.
The thermodynamics of the proposed mechanism has been ignored deliberately because the part played by Man Made CO2 in this proposal is dwarfed by that of the natural CO2 which itself is dwarfed by the other Greenhouse component of the atmosphere, WATER.
To add insult to injury, the proponents of CAGW have avoided the implications of orbital mechanics by pretending not to have noticed them; yes, that large grey thing sitting on a stool in the corner, looking remarkably like an Elephant.
So.
The IPCCC has not put forward a testable Hypothesis regarding CO2 but has chosen to point to very tiny truths and then associate them with climate activity.
Science by association does not work and I find it remarkable that the mainstream scientific community has let this obvious farce continue for so long.
There is NO testable hypothesis.
By the rules of science there is no legitimate way that it can be claimed that Man Made CO2 can cause Global Warming.
I suspect that the old adage about “rocking the boat” applies here.
Mainstream scientists know full well the enormous political and financial weight behind the CAGW Meme and wisely say NOTHING.
KK đ
23
But in Political Science, we have the Precautionary Principle, which states that if it can be conceived, and explained in lay terms, and has a negative outcome, then those in power are morally bound to do something (anything) to ensure that whatever it is, does not eventuate.
The Precautionary Principle was Ed Millibrand’s rationale for introducing climate legislation in the UK.
The sad thing is that most of the populace think that the Precautionary Principle is a good idea.
31
The other sad thing is that, whatever happens, the Precautionary Principle will have been shown to be effective.
31
Michael Chriton’s “green dragns and whiffle dust” argument. Scare the populace with tales of green dragons about to attack, assure the populace that if you turn your economy to the prouction of whiffle dust, it will stop the green dragons. The economy is turned toward whiffle dust production, the green dragons dont appear, the government declares victory…. yay
30
To quote cohenite:
Exactly.
11
Hi Rereke,
Over the last few weeks which included talking to LM for half an hour before his local presentation,
I have become aware of the absolute intractable nature of the CAGW monster.
Nothing seems capable of dislodging it from its’ strangle hold on our treasury.
It would seem that only an all-out assault on warmers though the courts, as proposed by LM, will have any
lasting effect and the truth of this has been borne out by the number of trolls who gathered here to
agree with us on our opposition to CAGW BUT at the same time were adamant that LM must stop his attacks
on others who push the CAGW line.
It seems they fear real confrontation in court because the real truth will come out there.
I think there is another possibility but it would need much coordination of effort and Media air time.
CO2 is the defacto bad boy of gases in the public mind.
This is so for no other reason than that the CAGW meme is constantly pushed by our Government media and other journalists who find easy pickings by joining the crowd.
What is needed is a proof, plain and simple that something else causes Global Warming.
The Milankovic cycles are that cause and if we could come out and say: There is the proof that Orbital Mechanics controls Global Warming and cooling; now, then let the IPCCC try and prove it is not so!
They will be unable to refute the Hypothesis.
There has been so much work done on the cause of glaciation and interglacials that it would be almost untouchable as a final, once and for all cause of Global Warming; and of course Global Cooling 123,000 years later.
KK đ
30
Hi KK,
I plan to meet with Monckton next month, when he is on my side of the ditch.
I personally do not think that taking the question of climate change through the courts will be effective. It will come down to their “expert witnesses”, and how many they can field; versus our “expert witnesses”, however learned and erudite they might be.
And, yes, We can shoot them down on the Physics, and the lack of scientific rigour, and even on the outright criminal fraud in some cases. But when you consider the history of the “inquiries” into ClimateGate, and the level of fraudulent activity that was exposed in the emails, the legal consequences came to naught. The establishment simply closed ranks and ignored the reality of the science.
That would happen again, irrespective of whether or not Monckton carried his day in court.
This is, and alway has been, a political issue.
Hansen gets called “the father” of Global Warming, and there is much made of his fiddling with the air conditioning, prior to the Senate Appropriations Hearing. But he was just after the money (as is always the case in modern-day science).
The real political push came from Margaret Thatcher, who used the concept of Global Warming (as promoted by Hansen) to attack the Mining Unions in Britain, and to force through legislation that drastically reduced Union power. In Britain, the Union movement has never really recovered from that battle.
It is now rather ironic that it is the parties of the Left in Australia who are so keen to push the matter. Perhaps it is a sense of retribution for what happened in Britain.
But the take-away for me, is that the Government of the day will always do what it wants to do, irrespective of the science. Climate Change, and the revenue streams now associated with it, is now just another piece that can be maneuvered on the geopolitical game board.
There is no climate tipping point, and we are all going to die eventually, but the Climate Change piece has proven to be so useful to the politicians that they don’t want to lose it just yet.
20
“The real political push came from Margaret Thatcher, who used the concept of Global Warming (as promoted by Hansen) to attack the Mining Unions”
You are cutting close to the bone of support for the thesis there, I suspect.
http://www.wikishire.co.uk/wiki/Newcastle_upon_Tyne
What isn’t obvious from most articles is how the British crown profited from controlling coal and therefore European energy supply.
http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2009/05/18/461514.html
I first stumbled upon this topic while surfing energy wars propaganda and was mocked for noting a particular article because of where it had been cached. Interestingly, it has never ceased providing reasonable conjecture about the politics behind AGW.
http://my.opera.com/oldephartte/blog/1-dec-following-the-trail-organized-destruction
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2007/sci_techs/3423init_warming_hoax.html
10
Yes, all that is true; but at times I like to speculate that there is still hope.
KK
10
ALIENISTA: recommended reading for environmental alarmists
Speculative thought, not shored up by experimental evidence, is not science. Policy should never be based on it.
The history of the 20th century shows the mischief that comes from public policy based on pseudo-science. Examples are: the geopolitics that explained a German March to the East as a natural Darwinian process; the eugenics of Nazis; the Marxist planned economy that misruled Russia for seven decades. Brazilians have a saying that intellectuals would have exterminated mankind, were it not for a ballast of common sense possessed by ordinary folk.
This feeling is illustrated in a parody, Alienista, written long ago by Machado de Assis, the greatest of Brazilian writers. Mistaken policy takes course in Itaguai, an obscure community, 75 km west of Rio de Janeiro, where a renowned medical doctor has a practice. Devoted to medical research, he becomes interested in psychology, a popular topic at a time (1880s) when German researchers (Wundt et al) claimed to have based it on empirical evidence, as an exact science. The doctor persuades city hall to support an asylum for the insane. It would lock up dangerous people and would treat mental disorders of others; the doctor would gain guinea pigs for his experiments in the worthy cause of the advancement of science. Over time, a great number of citizens get interned on doctor´s orders, but the authorities do nothing. Scientific judgment should not be questioned by laymen. A rebellion led by a barber is crushed. The doctor changes his mind and discharges all patients. His new doctrine holds that most people have some degree of insanity, a condition that should be rated as normal; the perfectly sane are the abnormal ones who should be interned. Again, the authorities do nothing; politics should not trump science. In the end, the doctor frees all patients, declares himself the only sane man in town, and becomes the sole dweller of the asylum. The vicar was right; he had always noted that the doctor was the only madman in the parish.
142
How much of this from Flannery and recently Steffens doing the PR push on the report is this to do with the possible closing of the Department for Climate Change
(or whatever it is called in Canberra)?
Yes I realise if something happens it will be “folded’ into another Department but these guys will recognise it for what it is hiding it from public view, reducing its importance and that it will inevitably be the start of actually closing it down.
112
100% spot on. You dont hear a peep from Timmah over the past few months as he sits back and enjoys his waterfront property (which he knows is under no threat) at tax payers expense. Yet as soon as there is a hint his job may be in jeopardy, hes out running the same tired, over simplified lines and talking nice and slowly so us stupid people can hopefully understand he is the messiah and that we are lost without him. Scientific explanations are not required in acheiving this of course, just spout some words like “studies show” and “when you examine the data” then add whatever you like to finish the sentence. Its extremely annoying to listen to.
101
A new dam on the river below flanners place would prove to him the oceans are rising.
11
If that big new spillway on Warragamba ever kicks in, Flam man may also find himself rather damp !! Wouldn’t that be delicious to watch đ
11
“Look, in a sense what you’re saying is correct, Leigh, but there has been no plateau.” Huh?
“Well, look, we published this report because the Australian public are quite frankly confused with what’s happened over this summer.” How could that be with the crystal clear explanations given previously in this interview?
Oh, and that plateau that doesn’t exist has two explanations from Flannery, heat in the oceans and La Nina events. I suppose if it actually existed it might have four or five explanations.
What I want to know is how greenhouse gas heat got from the atmosphere into the oceans, got past the Argo buoys and sank over 700M deep. And really, I’d just be happy with a physical mechanism for the atmosphere-ocean boundary heat exchange.
222
Flannery waxes eloquently, stating his single minded adherence to the meme. No deviation. He is well compensated as the court jester.
152
Each morning climate skeptics should get down on the knees and thank the government for giving us Mr Flannery.
Who else could discredit CAGW more effectively? Who else could so consistently make a fool of himself in public?
This buffoon is worth every penny of the money he receives.
To paraphrase Jack Valenti’s view of Lyndon Johnson:
“I sleep each night a little better, a little more confidently, because Tim Flannery is my climate commissioner. For I know he lives and thinks and works to make sure that for all Australia and indeed, the growing body of the world, the morning shall always come.”
130
Sorry Bruce, but I can’t agree.
There are too many people who do not read this blog, or any other scientific blog, and who only receive the IPCC/Flannery/CO2=bad line and hear nothing to the contrary. Just this morning the Albury ABC radio station’s local news reported that a particular frog reintroduced into the Victorian alps is again suffering loses (I think of about 70% since reintroduction, IIRC) “due to climate change” (and some other organism, which I can’t remember). It is the continual bombardment with everything being due to climate change that the general population hear. What percentage of those who hear Flannery actually think, join the dots, and conclude that he is talking nonsense? I suspect a lot!
50
Correction – “I suspect NOT a lot”
40
However, despite the mindless repetition of the mantra, us general public types are simply not accepting this, we are seeing through the repetition, it is like a background noise. Surveys indicate a downward trend in accepting this rubbish.
51
Zanetti‘s take on Timmy is hilarious, reminds me of Monty Python “he’s not the Messiah, he’s just a naughty boy! “
00
This can no longer be considered misguided or mistaken. This is not even flawed science, anymore. These CAGW activists are so deep into obvious lying now, I don’t see how they will get out again unscathed. Flannery has no shame. If the rest of the world wasn’t in a similar mess, Australia would be a laughing stock.
Well, if they’re sticking to the lies to save face, they are stupid as well as dishonest – they’ve already lost face. May they lose all else. I have no sympathy now – they went too far a long time ago, enough is enough – let them go down with the ship. No. Let them go down? Eff it, I want them sunk with the ship. I’ve had it.
262
Yep, they’re all lying. It’s a giant scam.
CO2 increasing in the atmosphere? CHeck.
Planet heating up? Check.
Your answer: Shoot the messenger and bury your head in the sand. What a genius.
02
Simon,
You really are a dyed-in-the-wool believer aren’t you?
At least have the courtesy to make some decent argument for your position before saying,
or we’ll get the idea that you’re just another parrot squawking whatever you’ve heard someone say, never questioning, just repeating, repeating, … …repeating… …ad nauseam and ad infinitum.
Seriously, I can tell you why I believe as I do in a paragraph or two. Can you do the same?
You seem to be good at using the BOM as justification for what the BOM says (what logical fallacy is that, Simon?) and you can point to entirely unsupportable sources. But what you can’t do is counter the arguments against you with real data.
10
Not a believer, Roy, just somebody with a healthy dose of scepticism, a decent capability at assessing the relative worth of sources and the ability to spot bullshit.
I see no conceivable reason why any of the following is believable,
– The BoM is incompetent, and a few amateurs can do better
– The BoM deliberately concocts data
– The BoM needs to deliberately concoct data in order to create funding for itself.
It’s ridiculous, especially when those believing the above fall all over themselves to believe long-ago debunked nonsense about “the Hockey Stick”, “Climategate”, not to mention Pielke’s weird paranoias.
00
Kind of amusing when the rednecks/serial dunces want to shoot the messenger they always seem to trot out and get all misty eyed over Dorothy McKellar! Move on guys, it’s the 21st century and the 50’s aint coming back.
As a generation X’er, it’s high time you old fogeys got out of the way and let those who will have to deal with your mess to get on with it.
250
JFC,
It’s hard to see how you’re going to keep all the wheels turning once we old fogey types are gone. But by then I really won’t give a rat’s behind what happens to you and your friends.
In the meantime, rest assured that I regard you with the same contempt you heap on me.
Enjoy playing with yourself and have a nice day while you can.
262
Another example of ignorance at its apogee. Ignorance built on ignoring the facts. You can reduce the exposure of your ignorance by spelling the name of the poet correctly. She knew more about our climate than many of the dunces floating around today.
151
As a Gen X’r myself, as soon as I grew out of my “I can build a better world” teenager mindset, I quickly came to value the extraordinary civilisation I inherited from the prior generation. If anything I am worried about what *our* legacy will be my fellow Gen X’r. Moon walkers, the transistor, the Internet, the green revolution, multiple medical advances, the affluence to have the time and money to focus on and address environmental concerns: this is our inheritance. So.. what do you think we will be passing onto our kids hey?
But keep blaming your parents for your short fallings if you must.
351
Well, the weather of the 50s is back. Is that a good start? Everly Bros next? Even better.
Surely one of the dreariest spectacles of the whole CAGW scam is these uncomfortably aging hipsters, disconnected from the riches of the past, stinking out the present and soothsaying a future that will never arrive.
Such sorry conformists of “cool” have never been young, but don’t want to be mature. They claim to speak truth to power, but they are the dismal power. They need to get out of the way, these lumps of leaden conformity – or grow up.
130
gen X.. Ahh… that explains your TOTAL IGNORANCE of anything to do with real science. !!
71
I’m a Gen X.
50
Whoops.. sorry ! đ
KFC is almost certainly from the “Science in Space/Maths in Space” brigade, at high school. But may have done ok at the waffle of the social studies, english type stuff. (he can write a sentence)
The beginning of the dumbing down of standards and expectations for scientific learning.
They did still allow bright people (like yourself, obviously) to do higher levels in these subjects.
I believe they still allow a very small number to excel in maths and science, even now !
51
(Thanks for the compliment)
Actually Andy, I was a terrible student with a terrible attitude problem.
I eventually completed university level subjects in maths, formal logic, philosophy (esp History & Philosophy of Science) and computer science, with the last subject being the foundation of my current professional career.(I’ve got a couple of those pieces of paper that they hand out at University – still in the tube – I’ve never been bothered to stick them up on the wall.)
My overall academic record would surprise many, with lots of stops, starts, lengthy gaps, failures and missteps along the way – however persistence is also present and a capacity to instruct myself.
My experience of the Australian education sector (as a student) through the 80s (High School) and 90s (University) is something like – having my teeth pulled out.
I think that I still have an “attitude problem”, especially with Authority and the “Received Wisdom”.
Cheers ExWarmist
90
Ex Warmist
You are not alone.
I had the dubious distinction of having a deferred exam for every semester of my first degree plus a number of outright fails.
My enthusiasm for learning, however, was not reduced by this terrible period in my life.
Being aware is important.
KK đ
60
Only had one fail at Uni, evva ! In computer studies in 1975, with those darn batch processed Fortran cards and one text book between 100 odd students. And I’m still not sure what language the lecturer was speaking in.. Polish, I think. !!
Of all things, I now work mainly in Fortran when doing the programming stuff I need to use. (hey, don’t blame me.. its an Engineering thing).
Just realised that we are discussing among guys with at least one Uni degree each.
Mine are BSc(Maths), BEng(Civil), MEng(Civil) and one pending, I hope. (If can get my fingers working and finish the darn thing)
No wonder some of these warmist trolls have no idea what we are talking about most of the time. đ
61
ps.. lots of HD’s through those two grad degrees đ
32
@ ExWarmer
“I was a terrible student with a terrible attitude problem”
I knew students like you when I was a high school teacher.
Much potential, but often, unfortunately, not utilised until a bit of maturity developed.
Seems you were one of the GenX that managed to break out of the GenX mould and “get sensible”. (yes I know it should be mold)
Many, like KFC, JB, etc were left behind, in their arrogance and ignorance.
31
Hi Andy
I didn’t let that be my last shot:
Ten years ago I finished my second BSc with a couple of HDs in first year a couple of Ds in 2nd and passes there after. Neuroscience and Psychobiolgy majors with a core of psychology and stats.
That degree helped me see just how flakey the hold we have on reality is and it explains much about how people can be drawn into the comfort of believing in the same things as the group.
Sounds like you don’t sleep much?
KK đ
10
Yep, the words impled you had more than one Uni degree…
Yours seem to be on thought and thinking.. my early uni stuff (1978 finish) was mostly theory, but the later stuff is mostly on practical application.
Believe it on not.. on “modelling and simulations” .. that why I KNOW how little climate models mean (lol) đ
I KNOW how little we really know about things !!!!
21
My first degree long long ago in the distant past —-
Was a BSc(Met); That’s Metallurgy with lots of thermo and modeling OF THE REAL KIND.
Climate Change simulations are NOT models.
Just thinking about it makes me tired.
KK đ
30
“Just thinking about it makes me tired.’
And I’ve emptied that bottle of red,, darn it !!
enough chat for today, I reckon !!
20
Well, JFC certainly got people wound up with that comment. You jus’ gotta give the little moron cred’ where it is due.
10
I guess the best way to put its that there are some GenXers that reached maturity,
but many (eg KFC) that never will.
50
Well, to misquote Forest Gump:
GenXers are like a box of chocolates – you never know what you are going to get.
10
You X & Ys think it is unprecedented. It’s retro weather, just like fashion it comes in cycles.
50
With “eX” defined as a HAS BEEN.God help you if your the future mate,wear your woolen undies you Drongo.
20
Observational evidence rarely loses its value over time.
70
Safety Guy, That’s the understatement of the century. If this was a contest you’d surely get the blue ribbon. đ
00
JFC,
1950’s? You must be proud of such ignorance.
Dorothea Mackellar published the poem “Core of My Heart” in 1908.
Those who do not value what was done before; are worthless.
150
Hmmm …
Generalising about generations – as accurate & precise as your grip on facts.
BTW: I’m gen X too.
See, it does take all kinds.
50
Yes, bad to generalise.
Trouble is that us “old fogies” will have to stick around, otherwise not much of any use will get done.
61
Yup, I am sticking around – trouble is, I can’t quite remember why. Now, I might remember if I could just find my glasses … what were we talking about?
00
I see that JFC babbled something about something that had nothing to do with Tim Flannery’s chronic prediction failures.
Carry on little guy……….
40
Hey JFC go blow yourself with the ageation (after the famous “ideation” of Lew fame)
Your average shi* head gen-x-er couldn’t hold a job unless some of that older generation spoon feeds and nurses them. Too bad for you when your idiotic ideations fall apart and it’s too late for a 50’s person to care enough to help you try and fix it.
63
And I thought I was hard on him. Way to go! đ
00
It would probably be to everybody’s benefit if you could refrain from smoking your medication until after you have commented on this blog.
It might (only might, please note) result in you being a little more lucid.
20
I guess your a bit lucky these old fogeys didnt leave you children the mess of WW2 to clean up huh ?
But I think it would be lost on you to point out that the only reason you have the luxury of a peaceful society in which to spout uninformed, conformist nonsense and scare yourself to death over nothing is that they did the hard work for you.
The lack of a genuine threat to society in the past 50 years has led to a distinct lack of appreciation of what a genuine threat looks like. I can pretty much assure you that if you propose to people in Syria right now that the biggest thing they have to worrry about it a 1-2c warming of the planet, they might disagree, if they can find a space between the gunfire to point out that you wouldnt know danger if it ran you over.
20
Climate Change facts
Google will give background on my work
I sat on UNCTAD UNFCCC UNCCD assemblies 96-02 planning on lowering CO2e without serious impact to business and nations accounts.
2005 PRC government engaged me as foreign expert to lower CO2e and grow food fodder soil, soil-carbon in deserts. I advise CBEX (stock Exchange) NDRC (public Works) SME etc. Best is working with Farmers in deserts reversal lowering CO2e.
The reason I write as one much involved at the Coal Face is to give you leads on best understanding on Climate Change based on science and so not to frighten the public.
These sudden expanding climate events is anthropogenic but manageable
300 years (from start of industrial revolution) mass stripping of nations (continents) back to deserts emits CO2 and CH4. Very specific aerosol dusts and
The heat reflected to the upper atmosphere increases Suns heat coming in. Such land clearing adds to environ climate Change.
⢠USA a good case and point the mass natural plains were cleared and with no heat absorbing vegetation wind over now deserts they with rising heat turned to tornadoes.
⢠Mass clearing of Chile by Europeans created deserts so when La Nina (the Christ Child) Christmas flowed the heat region accelerated the flow.
⢠This jointing El Nino winds down from Russia cold air down across the met La Nina! The wind and current meet expand across the greater Pacific.
⢠So even here in Australia mass land clearing of vegetation adds to heat reflection and allows water to rapid flow whereas previously the vegetation slowed even allowed sequestration into soil/aquifers.
⢠So rising HEAT from now DESERTS creating WINDS that sees EVAPORATION building CLOUDS the winds now move in a different DIRECTION hence WEATHER PATTERNS are increasing and yes thatâs CLIMATE CHANGE
⢠IT is anthropogenic and with it impacting at a rate not recorded previously we need to address such.
⢠Without the historical loss of volume of CO2e vegetation to sequester CO2e the Carbon Cycle has stalled. CO2e remains aloft
⢠Coal fired power Stations are but defacto volcanoes the emission Nox Sox hit by the SUNS radiation become essential nitrates sulfates for all living matter to breathe or sequester.
⢠The only assets of all living matter Soil Water Vegetation Atmosphere all else but commodities
⢠Trees rice cotton most grains vegetables and grasses take biomass carbon from the soil not the atmosphere.
Hope it helps
040
Hi Robert.
Read you comment:
“These sudden expanding climate events is anthropogenic but manageable”
Sorry.
No they isn’t.
Then your next quote
” Hope it helps”
Well no it doesn’t.
You have painted a graphic picture there; and like most paintings, it is anthropogenic in origin,
and so a slight distortion of reality.
Does that help?
KK đ
161
hey KinkyKeith, give it up, that’s a spambot youre replying to!
60
Bot generated or Bot targeted?
Got any details?
30
Bur But but … he told me he worked for the United Nations!
Are you telling me he Lied?
If it’s the same guy he has done what he says even if his “Science” is a little Bankerish.
His other credentials:
“Previously, Robert was an advisor to KPMG and Deutsche Bank, he was also the Chairman of the Yass River Valley Green Australia Committee Program funded by Major Australian Industry”.
Deutsche Bank.
KK đ
100
If he really worked at the United Nations – he almost certainly lied. ( Hope that helps ) In a more serious analysis you should note that the IPCC is a UN bureaucracy formed with the specific job of selling AGW. It in turn supports a revenue scheme to generate an international tax on the use of fire.
So…it’s politics : as usual a mass of schemes, scams, lies, obfuscations and posings by all kinds of ‘respectable’ persons.
I was running a Search when I first landed on the controversy while analyzing geopolitics and lies of the energy wars. A WTF moment followed when I realized fortune telling had replaced the crystal ball with a more culturally appropriate symbol : computer modeling.
But the Denier meme stuck out like a sore thumb from its use in psyops on portraying nations opposed to nuclear arms as ‘the real danger’. Search for The NPT TRAP.
That in turn seemed an offshoot of successful suppression of the history of Europe in and around WW II by the vehicle of Holocaust Denial. As is usual, that shows as much about the guilt of the proponents as anything else. For perspective you would have to know what really happened to Germans postwar and to Palestinians post invasion ; or even of the horrors visited upon North Korea by the authors of both the partition of Korea but also the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ( like the partition of Vietnam some time later ). The fate of India in the late 1940’s provides historical context.
But back to the article that started politics as the real context of propositions.
http://my.opera.com/oldephartte/blog/1-dec-following-the-trail-organized-destruction
40
I would consider “dissecting” Robert Vincin’s comment.
But – Quack may well be right, especially since the URL in the post does not resolve, and the general, scrambled, nonsense of the content – it doesn’t have a “human voice” to it.
After all I don’t want to spend my time being one of these guys – Tongue Orchid Victim.
31
That does seem to describe some of our persistent visitors.
A hot-to-trot wasp… …I would never have guessed. But there it is… đ
00
this is one of the weirdest posts ever. I am assuming that the people who gave it a thumbs down did so not because they understood it or actually found a point to it, but did so in dismay for having wasted their time reading it.
201
But It almost rings true, just the kind of gibberish that a real ex-UN fringe dweller would be likely to write.
00
Look matey if we had a clue what you are driving at we may be able to get something from that disjointed ramble.
Perhaps RC if you could translate it into coherent English we would realise that you were thoroughly pissed when you jotted down that stuff and could forgive you. Otherwise it looks like straight into the garbage bin for any of your future ventures into scientifically informed blogs like this one.
50
“Trees rice cotton most grains vegetables and grasses take biomass carbon from the soil not the atmosphere.”
Name your source.
70
I havnt researched it, but recently wondered which biomass would have been greater, modern domesticated herds, or the pre-history herds of buffalo, wildebeast etc. Not sure if the data exists, but its just the kind of thing that never seems to be accounted for in these so called calculations. Also I recently came across this
http://vnatsci.ltu.edu/s_schneider/astro/seasons.shtml
Another potentially major factor in a seemingly shifting climate that I have never heard discussed at all.
Seems to me belivers give themselves an enormous amount of credit for understanding a non linear, hyper complex system to the point they feel they can make predictions about its behaviour. Personally I liked Michael Chriton’s take on modeling. “If we cant create a model that acurately predicts the stock market, what makes us think we can accurately model a far more complex system in the climate”. Im yet to hear an answer to that one that doesnt involve accusing me of hating dolphins.
50
I assume the UN letters stand for United Nations? There’s your prob right there, Robert Vincin. While the world is quite a naughty place, you can’t make it better by hanging out with trough-swilling tossers.
111
Unintelligible Nonsense
41
Why do you waste so much space writing gibberish, Robert?
If you’ve ever had a science education, you are clearly avoiding making good use of it. You certainly abuse the jargon; perhaps successfully to convince a few.
I’ve “fixed” the link to your own profile page. That profile points to
emissiontraders.com.au – a domain registered by you for a corporation (EMISSION TRADERS INTERNATIONAL PTY. LIMITED ACN 090 566 028) of which you are a director … resident in China.
Your linkedin profile confirms that you are very heavily into emissions trading.
So your motivation for writing gibberish which you clearly do not understand is entirely transparent.
You are a rent-seeker. An expert apparatchik. One who’s travelled most of the man-made deserts of the world. (Your own words.)
It’s clear that you usually write gibberish, even in submissions to government(s) (e.g.). That may impress a lot of gullible people who think that you must be more clever than they are because they don’t understand what you’re writing/saying.
But it doesn’t cut the mustard amongst those with an inkling or a healthy BS detector.
240
Clever Sleuthing again…
Impressive.
Cheers ExWarmist
70
That is a disturbingly comprehensive unmasking.
It prompts the question, when is “doxing” okay?
It would seem it’s okay when the adversary begins their argument with a claim to authority and vast relevant experience, and proceeds to add only nonsense and red herrings on top of it.
If this chinese Robert character had offered any coherent reasons or evidence whatsoever that extracting carbon taxes from industry would benefit anybody other than his bankster chums at any time in the future, then there would have been no argumentative benefit to doxing him.
10
The initial question in the back of my head was; “does he always write so incomprehensibly?” Everything else was incidental but painted an all too familiar picture of a huge number of “expert consultants” making huge bucks at the expense of everbody else; inevitably leaving a trail of damage.
The very worst amongst those “experts” are those who do not see the damage that the wreak; remaining steadfastly convinced of their own expertise. Any problems associated with their “advice” will have been somebody else’s fault.
It’s not peculiar to the climate industry. Any industry with a “mystical” component for the average punter is vulnerable.
Look for a trail of chaos and destruction behind the “expert”.
50
Well Im pretty new to Jo’s page, but not to her work. So Im choosing my words carefully as I respect the more “senior” posters who have been reading and writing here for some time.
But I do have to say…..
I dislike it a lot when warmists attack sceptics on a personal level. I take great pride in the fact that people like Monkton, Christy, and the late Michael Chriton go out of their way to state facts, figures and evidence in refuting assertions and making points. I myself fall for it sometimes in calling people like Tim Flannery names (but hes so easy to pick on) I think we reduce ourselves when we do it. I apologise unreservedly for the times I have done it and I am resolved to controlling it going forward.
When we dispute assertions and make points, lets use formulea, graphs, links and references, not insults and jibes.
Thanks for the great reading in this thread, its a pleasure to be around like minded folk for a few short minutes each day.
160
no probs man. stay around for as long as you can remain awake!!! :))
20
Darn, I’m used to trying to decipher student papers…
but I’m getting NOWHERE with that particular posting !!!
60
I skimmed through his article and had an idea that he believes carbon capture in the soil was the way to reduce CO2, then he contradicted himself by saying growing stuff takes carbon out of the soil. The man is an idiot.
50
Yep.
That’s why God gave plants leaves and humans noses; to breathe in the CO2.
KK đ
30
There are people out there who are as big a loon as Flannery and that’s the utter gibberish they believe.
110
Robert works in China.
The writing looks like a Google translation of an original from say Chinese into Oz.
Perhaps posted by someone in China who knows RV and wants to “assist” him in some way.
KK ?
30
Seriously KK, I don’ think even Google does a translation job that badly. !!
30
Rereke Whakaaro:
that’s because it is old.
10
Actually, it just might. I copied the original block of text into google translate and translated to Chinese (traditional)and then back to English just for the hell of it and got this
So from now desert wind, see evaporation building cloud wind moving in a different direction, so the rise in the hot weather patterns increasing, to address climate change
Chinese whispers anyone?
10
If you type the poetic phrase, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” into the Russian translator I use (not Google), and then back again, you get “The Vodka is available but the meat is bad.”
They don’t do allegory.
I just thought I would share that …
50
“Without the historical loss of volume of CO2e vegetation ”
I think you must mean way back when all the vegetation got buried.
Well, its now turned into coal, and we are doing exactly what we should be doing, and that is releasing this lost carbon back into the biosphere WHERE IT BELONGS !
Even China and India are now doing their fair share. Well done guys ! đ
91
I’ve read that Canada is making good progress cleaning up that massive oil spill in Alberta. đ
100
Hey, I wonder if Robert Vincin is something to do with Al Gore’s new “Reality Schlop”… a virtual reality denier?
30
I did a Google search on Robert Vincin. You get about 28,500 hits. But interestingly the highest priority hits (according to Google) show someone who is â at least billed as â the environmental expert he claims he is.
There are too many hits to list but here’s one interesting one.
00
Hey everyone, he’s right. The trend is nonsense and that is exactly what the climate scientists have been saying for years. Isn’t it? đ
Seriousness aside, here ;-): he even says it with a straight face. How versatile! I wouldn’t be surprised to find that he can juggle half a dozen climate scientists in the air at once while giving an interview and never even blink.
And the White Queen told Alice, “Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Are Flannery and Her Whiteness related by any chance?
111
PS:
How can anyone believe this house of cards? Ignorance must truly be bliss! Or is it stupidity?
100
Hi Roy,
Somebody at No 16 is sending us a message; to the “old fogeys”.
Obviously all generation X’ers have been aware for some time that anyone as old as you or I or Flannery are too old to “Understand” “the science”.
Funny, I think there’s a contradiction there.
Isn’t Flannery a little too old to unnerstan anyfink as complex as climate science?
KK đ
80
Well, KK, Flannery seems to be doing OK so far. I mean, hes getting a good understanding of nonsense. đ
40
Well Flannery is not stup[id.
He has earned more in the last three years from this scam than I earned in the last ten working years in FT employment.
To rub salt into the wound he only worked half a week for it.
KK
80
That does tend to raise ones blood pressure.
60
AND it’ll come back and bite him on the bum.
10
Ooops! I was referring to Flannery and his earnings, not to KK and his. Thought I’d clarify that. đ
30
Robert Vincin:
Looks to me like decisions on science are still being made by local party bosses, whose understanding is, um, somewhat inaccurate.
100
Maybe it’s someone using RVs name.
The grammar looks like a google translation of something other than English.
50
Stay away from No 16 folks.
There is an awful stench coming from the open sewer there, and it smells a lot like methane which is OK but it is probably laced with that dangerous CO2 stuff.
Another case of “Flannulence”.
KK đ
92
KK, the best thing for that particular Gen X”er standing next to an open sewer is to make sure they have a rope tied to them, so in case they fall in you can tell them apart from the other turd’s.
61
You had me for a moment there.
The rope, why the rope.
60
I’ve had enough of this , it’s time for a petition to demand the resignation of Prof Tim Flannery and his team at The Climate Commission PLUS the resignation of David Jones of the Bureau of Meteorology who has spread the lies and untruths that the Commission has passed on to the citizens who pay their salaries as Public Servants.
203
That’s what is needed.
The number of spammers here who very cunningly sided with the science while undermining Chris Monckton was evidence that they fear real action.
LM says that only real action to cut off their funds will hurt them and stop this rort of public moneys.
Time for accountability in Government.
KK
52
I think that’s what the big petition on 14 September (or hopefully sooner) will achieve.
10
smile:
5 March: UK Daily Mail: Nick McDermott, Science Reporter: Camels used to live in the Arctic, reveal scientists (although it was 3½million years ago when it was at least 14C warmer)
Although the region where the fragments were found would have been between 14C to 22C warmer than today, the land would have still been covered with snow for up to nine months of the year…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2288501/Giant-camel-Remains-discovered-high-arctic.html
30
If the CO2 was high I bet that they had a record number of humps.
30
That would have been caused by all those pre-historic cars and factories I guess.
30
The New York Times quoted Australian alarmists, ”A blistering four-month heat wave during the Australian summer culminated in January in bush fires that tore through the eastern and southeastern coasts of the country, where most Australians live.”
”A blistering four-month heat wave?” I must have slept through it. We had 2 hot days and overcast skies with rain and flooding in many areas.
The fires this year were caused by lightning strike, arsonists and fires lit by campers in forests.
The Black Saturday fire was started (allegedly) by poorly maintained electrical wires that caused the poles to break. There is currently a Class Action case against the electrical company. Many arsonists also contributed, some were caught, most escaped. Our forests also had highly dangerous amounts of fuel that should have been burned during the winter. This was confirmed by an Australian bushfire expert and an American fire expert who said it was the worst he’d seen.
It was like an aircraft accident with many factors leading to the disaster. It wasn’t CC it was a hot summer.
Australia’s early settlers experienced far worse fires with less loss of life because they cleared fire breaks around their settlements. ”Green” policy was a contributor to the Black Saturday fatalities.
Let’s look at the facts, it’s been reported the Labor government is considering closing down the Climate Change department so it seems the latest alarmism is all about their survival.
I’m old enough to be able to say I see nothing new with the climate, I’ve seen it all before.
In reading some of the alarmist propaganda, they should really use the word ”weather”, because they confuse climate with weather.
The recent big wet in the UK could be as bad as the experience of 1703.
When the alarmists speak of hundreds on new record (spot) temperatures, unless the Global average shifts I take no notice, spot temperatures are irrelevant.
The Global average has risen .75c in a century so it’s fairly constant.
90
The stories seldom surface, but there are tales of harsh fines being levied against those clearing firebreaks in both Australia and the US. This has led to record losses of cottages and homes which is then blamed on drought and ‘climate change.’ The rules on carbon sequestration which have led to the Carbon Farmers of Australia are tied into agreements fueling this madness.
00
ITS GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH THE WEATHER.
ITS ALL ABOUT SUPREME POWER WIELDED BY THE HEAVY HITTERS FROM THE U.N. AND THE CLUB OF ROME!! ITS AGENDA 21 -SUSTAINABLE GROWTH !!
THE ENVIRONMENT INDUSTRY HAS BEEN HIJACKED BY LEFT WING FASCISTS LOONIES.
81
Are you sure about that?
You seem a bit doubtful…
Just kidding – but there is at least one layer of control beyond the visible apparatus of the UN, Club of Rome, et al. Might I say “follow the money” – or should that be “follow the currency…”
80
So the question is – who has the power to debauch currencies? They are the ones with more power than the visible institutions like the UN who are but pawns in a multipolar, multidimensional chess game.
40
“There is no pause in global warming.” But there’s all this stuff called temperature data. And they accuse us of being in denial …
Pointman
131
Seems like all the way along it’s been damn the data, full speed ahead. Why would they stop now?
BB
70
Yep. I don’t think they’d know a brake lever if they fell over one. Nor do they know how to jump off the speeding train. It’s all too late anyway as the whole shebang has gone over a cliff. It was a long way up. That means it’s a long way down. It ought to be one heck of a ride, yet they don’t even realize they are falling.
Popcorn, anyone?
30
I think you blokes have dismissed Robert Vincin unfairly. Im an Agricultural Scientist and rabid skeptic but he has a very good point. Soil organic matter is a huge resivoir of carbonaceous material and clearing and farming reduces this to a fraction of its origional level. And yes this is anthropogenic! but not fossil fuel.
32
Hi Micheal
The whole point of any antagonism to Robert’s comment is that CO2 does not have any potential to induce or support Man Made Global Warming.
This makes any stupidity about sequestration of CO2 just a piece of mindless drivel that needs to be confronted.
No agricultural expert should tarnish his reputation by becoming involved in lunacy like carbon sequestration which is a dead end in every way.
Stick to growing crops and getting good yields and the world will take care of itself wrt CO2.
KK đ
161
Mind you, KK.. Putting organic matter back into the soil is very good.
This is not sequestration though, because it will decay and provide nutients, to compliment the extra CO2 in the atmosphere.
80
True Andy
maybe I should read that original again.
KK
20
But still Robert Vincin is by his own admission an Emission Trader!
A manipulator of a concept – and then selling it – and laughing all the way to the bank.
KK
30
Bio char in the soil with the right critters makes soil productive forever, it does not go away it acts as a catalyst, that helps plants extract the trace elements and just about every thing else they need to be healthy.
60
Sounds a bit like yoghurt for soil.
KK
10
KK
Thanks for your very rude response to my post. Perhaps I expressed myself badly so Ill have another go.
What I meant is that during the latter part of the 19th century and the first third of the 20th there was massive land clearing for agriculture all over the world with massive release of Carbon dioxide. Magnitude wise this would have been comparable to more recent fossil fuel emissions, yet this is rarely mentioned by the warmists.
More recently modern farming practices in many parts of the world have have slowed or reversed this release by using fossil fuel derived fertilizers and weedicides!I realise that RV’s post was a bit querky but definitely not like you indicated
03
Hi Michael
Your second post made more sense except for the apology for RVs submission above.
It is full of every warmer artifice known to man and doesn’t deserve anything but rudeness.
I doubt that it was written by RV as the writing indicates it was either a translation by machine from Chinese or written by someone with a Spanish language background, possibly South America.
Riccardo?
With RV’s background and if he is a native English speaker I would bet he is not the author of the above comment under his name.
Is that rude?
KK đ
41
Yes, clearing land and other human activities release CO2. Again, the question here is how much effect that has on global climate. The underlying assumption of CAGW is that earth is really, really fragile and humans are more powerful than any other creature or natural phenomena and can totally destroy that balance. Many things in nature also change the environment–volcanos destroy trees and seal off soil, fires destroy the forest, floods wash away top soil, Yet there is a belief that humans are the only ones hurting the planet.
The constant repeating of “it’s occurring faster than ever before” seems to be due to the choice of a time period used in the statistics. The period gets shorter and shorter, so it does look like a looming disaster. I guess that’s the point of the interval used.
40
But you are a slayer, which means that you are wrong.
18
John – your recent standard of debate has been rather poor; a rather half hearted effort at best. You seem to be reduced to throwing random sarcasm bombs and then running away. You are not going to persuade anyone in that fashion. I wonder – are you having doubts?
60
I wouldn’t write them off, jb. There’s a lot of history to GHE that is not complimentary to your viewpoint. The science is never settled and their theories are significantly more believable than those of the CAGW team.
How CIA evidence exposes the greatest climate change error
10
You mean like the peats in Scotland that are being destroyed by all the wind farms they are plonking all over the place? Lots of carbon there……
60
Same happening in Wales courtesy of the (Marxist) Welsh Assembly – more flooding too as the uplands are drained to provide stable concrete platforms for the turbines.
40
So Vincin says some plants get their carbon from the soil, not the atmosphere. Would anyone care to explain the mechanism? It sounds like Flannery/UN science to me.
Until I hear otherwise I will stick to believing in photosynthesis.
30
Gnome what I think is meant is that during the microbial activity that breaks down organic matter releasing N P K S etc for plant nutrients vast quantities of carbon dioxide are also released into the soil and atmiosphere. we tend to think of just respiration releasing CO2 but in reality the breakdown of organic matter releases far more.
10
I don’t think anyone would dsagree with that, as far as it went.
It would seem to follow on from where you left off that the CO2 produced in the soil would then move to the atmosphere and be part of Nature’s CO2 turnover.
This process of natural origin CO2 activity is 95 % plus of all CO2 with Man Made CO2 accounting for less that 5%.
This poses a problem for the IPCCC because if they really want to stop Global Warming then they need to stop NATURE not man, from the emitting this dangerous gas.
It’s a joke at every level.
KK đ
30
That’s not how I read it:
“Trees rice cotton most grains vegetables and grasses take biomass carbon from the soil not the atmosphere.”
I was taught that CO2 can only be taken in through the stomates and lenticels, O2 only through the roots. Probably an oversimplification, on reflection, but a good enough approximation for the plants quoted.
The picture I have from the quote above is of plants with voracious roots twining around “biomass” carbon cramming it into their little alimentary canals to be converted to new plant material.
I agree though, that whoever it is who made that comment probably isn’t who he pretends to be. Vincin may well be innocent.
30
Come on guys. The excitement over peat bogs and tundra is about another alleged – and stronger – GHG : methane. Given that gross methane release is associated with mass extinction events in the past it is a much more believable scare than one based on rising levels of a gas which is tied to global cooling and ice ages.
00
“And you can pick any period in that to show anything you want” does not apply to Mr. Flannery’s utterings? What does he do for a living again?
40
Pachauri and Flannery are the two flagship emblems of the wonders of climate science.
Both are magnificent troll/bot detectors. Trolls/bots wear brooches with pictures of these two.
What I find most interesting is the heresy that is emanating from Leigh Sales. Sales has been a cheerleader for any and every leftist cause.
91
Curious indeed.
51
On this issue, Leigh Sales shines a light on reason. In spite of the leftie pressure-politics she is surrounded by, she remains her own person and follows logic and intelligence. This girl has the kind of integrity we can only hope for in our politicians.
20
Jo, a bit nitpicky to be sure, but perhaps you meant to write Dorothea Mackellar, not Dorothy.
30
TIM FLANNERY:
Indeed, the emerging trend of flimflam to lie and obfuscate in support of his political ruling class … and for his financial gain. He clearly displays the all of the traits of a poor liar in that he can’t remeber what he has lied about in the past.
61
Even good liars end up not remembering what they lied about in the past.
Maybe the problem is that not enough honest people remember what the liars lied about in the past.
61
It’s a key problem.
10
Here’s another emerging trend: Earth will be swallowed by the sun as it expands into a red giant billions of years from now.
10
I’ll sell all my possessions immediately and give the money to the poor. I hope that will be enough to save me because it’s about all I can do about it. đ
Come to think of it, that’s all I can do about climate change too.
00
Flannery’s trying to fool us.
There’s no way that back radiation from carbon dioxide, which is supposedly the cause of the global warming (that isn’t) can penetrate more than a micron or two into the ocean. At the wavelengths of CO2 radiation, all of that energy is spent at the ocean surface and disappears as evaporation.
Before we get some hysteric saying that the warm surface water will prevent the ocean losing heat, let me say that when you apply some numbers you find that the energy from any arriving radiation is absolutely trivial compared to the total heat that the ocean loses via evaporation.
101
“Flanneryâs trying to fool us”
Flannery IS a fool.
41
No, any of the so-called back radiation will be absorbed by water vapour long before it reaches the surface of the ocean.
90
Then transfered to the other 90+% of the atmosphere and convected upward. COOLING !!!
30
We need to keep reinforcing that concept.
Any energy that is absorbed by CO2 that make a molecule more energetic than its neighbor ,
is going to transfer some energy to its neighbor until equilibrium is reached; in a fraction of a second.
It can’t reach the ground.
KK
50
Trouble is that “fossil” guys and computer “attribution” and “psychology” really have ZERO idea of the concept.
They have never had basic grounding in kinetic gas theory, basic gas laws, thermodynamics etc etc.
You CANNOT even start to explain these principles to them because they lack the basic knowledge foundation to understand.
20
Lets be fair to Prof. Flannery. He is well qualified in the soft sciences of botany and zoology and he seems like a decent chap. He even passes the “would I let him collect my daughter from school” test but how did he end up on a climate commission? On this topic he is just Mr Flannery to me.
40
The whole premise that the IR energy absorbed by CO2 will be back radiated in any significant degree from a trace gas is a joke. CO2 will shed most of this energy via convection with its neighbouring atmospheric components in its endeavour to attain thermal equilibrium within its environment. Thermodynamics 101.
80
Of course its independent- independent of reality. The government relies on it to give a Climatist diatribe so its reliable.
20
I don’t live in Australia so all I can say is to follow Lord Moncton’s advice. Call him out in a professional manner. Challenge him through the courts.
21
First time I’ve heard the ABC mention the 15 year plateau.
Is that ranting I can hear behind their science unit bunker door?
41
[…] Nova’s site, Tim Flannery is deservedly pilloried, even the media can see through him now. Tim Flannery: We predicted everything. There is no âpause in global warming. TIM FLANNERY, CHIEF CLIMATE COMMISSIONER 7-30 Report ABC: ââŚeverything weâre seeing is […]
00
Will the Climate Commission survive the next election?
Tim may be a “dead man” talking.
30
Our climate today in Australia is milder than the climate after 993 AD.
This is NOAA’s reconstruction of the PDO for the last 1000 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PDO1000yr.svg
First there was 300 years of cool phase PDO and later 100 years of warm phase.
The OZ east coast would have drowned in super cyclones for centuries and then a change to mega droughts.
Other USA research backs this up.Just think of the extremes in climate and temp during this earlier period.
20
Thanks Jo – I think you’ve just identified about $180,000 per year savings for the next federal budget. (Attn. W. Swan).
Cheers,
Speedy.
)
(The learned Professor)
[Scene: A riverside mansion on the banks of the Hawkesbury River, which is running at full FLOOD. BRYAN walks up to JOHN, who is constructing a sandbag LEVEE at a PRODIGIOUS rate of KNOTS.]
Bryan: Professor Tim Flannery?
John: Yep.
Bryan: The Australian Climate Commissioner?
John: Thatâs me.
Bryan: I was wondering if youâd like to provide us with some of your unique insights into the Australian climate?
John: Kinda busy. [Heaves a sandbag onto the levee.]
Bryan: Whether, for instance, you would consider that the south-eastern area of Australia is no longer in a state of semi-permanent drought?
John: Donât happen to sell flood insurance, do you?
Bryan: No, why?
John: Just developed a sudden interest.
Bryan: You donât have flood insurance already?
John: No point, really. No rain, no floods.
Bryan: In spite of the aqua pura running past your letterbox?
John: That â thatâs just an isolated, localised event.
Bryan: Like Wagga Wagga?
John: Thatâs localised as well.
Bryan: Like the better part of the south-eastern Australia?
John: Yep â itâs just an isolated, localised event over a bloody big area.
Bryan: But would you agree that whatever rainfall weâve had has make its way into the dams and river systems? As opposed to being absorbed by a hot, dry earth resulting from global warming?
John: Irrelevant. Iâll bet that this rainfall isnât even official.
Bryan: Official?
John: Has it been peer reviewed ? Has it been approved by a consensus of climate scientists? Has it been computer modeled? Iâll tell you â no!
Bryan: !!!
John: And even if it were computer modeled, the models would clearly demonstrate that these flood waters [indicates river] are incontrovertible evidence of global warming and mankindâs adverse influence on the climate.
Bryan: Are you sure?
John: Bryan. When shit happens, itâs global warming. Always.
Bryan: And when does global warming cause both drought AND flood?
John: Whenever I say so, Bryan.
221
Said Hanrahan
Patrick Joseph Hartigan
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan in accents most forlorn,
Outside the church, ere Mass began one frosty Sunday morn.
The congregation stood about coat-collars to the ears,
And talked of stock, and crops, and drought as it had done for years.
“It’s looking crook,” said Daniel Croke; “Bedad, it’s cruke, me lad,
For never since the banks went broke has seasons been so bad.”
“It’s dry, all right,” said young O’Neil, with which astute remark
He squatted down upon his heel and chewed a piece of bark.
And so around the chorus ran, “It’s keepin’ dry, no doubt.”
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan, “Before the year is out.”
“The crops are done; ye’ll have your work to save one bag of grain;
From here way out to Back-o’-Bourke they’re singin’ out for rain.
“They’re singin’ out for rain,” he said, “And all the tanks are dry.”
The congregation scratched its head, and gazed around the sky.
“There won’t be grass, in any case, enough to feed an ass;
There’s not a blade on Casey’s place as I came down to Mass.”
“If rain don’t come this month,” said Dan, and cleared his throat to speak –
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan, “If rain don’t come this week.”
A heavy silence seemed to steal on all at this remark;
And each man squatted on his heel, and chewed a piece of bark.
“We want an inch of rain, we do, “O’Neil observed at last;
But Croke “maintained” we wanted two, to put the danger past.
“If we don’t get three inches, man, or four to break this drought,
We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan, “Before the year is out.”
In God’s good time down came the rain; and all the afternoon
On iron roof and window-pane it drummed a homely tune.
And through the night it pattered still, and lightsome, gladsome elves
On dripping spout and window-sill kept talking to themselves.
It pelted, pelted all day long, a-singing at its work,
Till every heart took up the song way out to Back-o’-Bourke.
And every creek a banker ran, and dams filled overtop;
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan, “If this rain doesn’t stop.”
And stop it did, in God’s good time; and spring came in to fold
A mantle o’er the hills sublime of green and pink and gold.
And days went by on dancing feet, with harvest-hopes immense,
And laughing eyes beheld the wheat nid-nodding o’er the fence.
And, oh, the smiles on every face, as happy lad and lass
Through grass knee-deep on Casey’s place went riding down to Mass.
While round the church in clothes genteel discoursed the men of mark,
And each man squatted on his heel, and chewed his piece of bark.
“There’ll be bush-fires for sure, me man, there will, without a doubt;
We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan, “Before the year is out.”
Published about 1921
142
The only difference being that Hanrahan didn’t receive a $180k (part time) salary package. Otherwise, they’re the same old miserable coots.
70
Speedy
I did not know Hanrahan had a marketing deal with Panasonic or shares in a government funded black hole in outback SA?
50
Good point Crakar. Funny enough, we Sceptics don’t seem to get the payola that Flanigan et al do. Heard anything from Big Oil lately? Me either.
Cheers,
Speedy
40
No, I too keep checking my mail box expecting that my windfall from Caltex or Shell is going to show up any day now, but sadly… nothing so far.
00
one of my favourite AU poems.
Flannery & the ABC – The Hanrahan channel
How could anyone give this a thumbs down?
41
What a wonderful poem. I remember as a child in the 1950s when my Father used to do contract rural work around Central Queensland. We actually lived in a tent for a few years as Dad traveled around for work. When ever he would meet up with other men they would all get their makings out, squat down on their heels, roll a smoke, and have a yarn. I clearly remember later in school when we did Australian poetry feeling a deep connection to our life on the road. Reading it again now brings back such memories. It pains me to think how much has been forgotten. As I have read somewhere, “You can not defend that which has been forgotten”. I guess this is part of the socialists plan.
70
Thanks, imkay. I was taught this in 3rd class at school, and have been meaning to look it up and learn it again. Will copy and do so. It’s a good one.
00
Tim’s either a credulous fool or a charlatan. Take your pick
81
Slightly OT but is everyone following the latest from Gore and Skeptical Science ??
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/05/lucia-drops-some-reality-on-the-gorebots/
Gore has rereleased his Reality Drop astroturf toy. Looks like the SkS kids have been giving him some software support. The trolls will have to do even less thinking now.
I can see the cartoonists ( not J. Cook)sharpening their pencils already.
11
Some of Tim âmost scientists agreeâ Flanneryâs famous predictions:
2004 âI think there is a fair chance Perth will be the 21st centuryâs first ghost metropolisâ.
2005 âdroughts could leave Sydneyâs Dams dry in just two years.â
2007 âSydney and Brisbane, water supplies are so low they need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 monthsâ and â I think itâs too late for debate nowâ, and âCarbon tax is the way forwardâ
2008 âThe water problem is so severe for Adelaide that it may run out of water by early 2009â and
âin five years thereâll be no Arctic ice capâ.
AND NOW HE’S HAVING A DOLLAR EACH WAY BET:
2012 âclimate change cannot be ruled outâ (as a factor in recent flooding rains.)
90
Tim
He doesn’t know, does he? He’s just plain clueless and is afraid we’ll find out – but the secret’s out, I’m afraid.
What are the chances he’s talking out of his fundamental? About five hundred to one should be around the ball park.
Cheers,
Speedy
40
500 to 1, on, that is…
30
This Flannery quote from above:
â Blizzards: look, we donât know.
Is that due to cold conditions or not?
Sometimes when youâve got very warm oceans, you get a lot of evaporation and you get more snowfall.
So I think just to jump to the conclusion that youâre seeing a blizzard somewhere,
itâs not telling you anything, that single event, about the climatic trend. â
âź
Yet, it was only a few weeks ago a single event, a blizzard, was proof a climatic global warming trend!
Yes, this is proof of global warming, which is cold, is proof of cAGW but it’s not when we talk of heatwaves!
Upcoming studies are expected to explain this!
How many ““single event” blizzards” (over weeks) constitute an extreme event, now that weather is now climate?
âź
GreenLaboUr & Liberal/Nationals create taxes, policy & laws on this fraudulent crap?
âź
Why do we have no choice in our vote for 2013?
10
CO2 Australia buys state-owned offset developer
BEIJING, March 5 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Sydney-listed carbon forestry company CO2 Australia has acquired Ecofund, a voluntary carbon market firm owned by the Queensland state government, it announced Monday…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2207367?&ref=searchlist
how long before EU carbon allowances reach zero?
EU carbon slips 6.5 pct on bumper supply, weak gas
LONDON, March 5 (Reuters Point Carbon) â EU carbon allowances fell 6.5 percent to a three-day low on Tuesday as government auctions of almost 5.5 million permits swelled supply and lower gas prices weighed on sentiment, traders said…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2207921?&ref=searchlist
where are the pollies to point out the following and say we will build new coal-fired power stations if we win the electon in september?
TABLE: Energy data paints dirtier picture of Europe
LONDON, March 5 (Reuters Point Carbon) â Data from 18 European nations suggests electricity demand and carbon dioxide emissions across Europe rose last year, albeit marginally, as cheap coal and carbon prices meant many big nations turned to coal to power their economies…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2207761?&ref=searchlist
10
Watchdog asks for U.N. scrutiny of CDM projects after Honduras inquiry
SAO PAULO, March 5 (Reuters Point Carbon) â A watchdog of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) called on the United Nations to investigate possible human rights abuses involving carbon offsetting projects after the World Bank launched an investigation into a palm oil project in Honduras…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2208137?&ref=searchlist
funny how the MSM never reports the following:
18 Feb: PublicServiceEurope: Daniel Mason: EU urged to scrap carbon trading scheme
The European Union’s flagship carbon reduction policy has come under fire from campaigners who claim it actually increases emissions and forces ordinary people to bear the costs while polluters make large profits.
***In a joint declaration, more than 90 non-governmental organisations including Friends of the Earth said scrapping the seven-year-old Emissions Trading Scheme would “open space for truly effective climate policies”…
***Carbon markets are also “particular susceptible” to fraud, the NGOs said.
“At a time when EU citizens are shouldering the cost of the economic crisis, they are also being forced to bear the cost of the legislation, regulation and much of the quantification of emissions that carbon markets require, as well as the costs of measures again fraud, corruption, and tax evasion,” said Belen BalanyĂĄ, from the campaign group Corporate Europe Observatory.” She added that big polluters had made millions in windfall profits by selling their over-allocation of permits and passing the costs of compliance with the ETS onto consumers…
http://www.publicserviceeurope.com/article/3109/eu-urged-to-scrap-carbon-trading-scheme
10
I want to take you back exactly 6 years to 7Feb2007, and an interview with Professor Flannery on Tony Jones Lateline.
Malcolm Turnbull has just been named Minister for the Environment in the Howard Government, and in Question time, he mentioned China’s rapid escalation in construction of coal fired power plants.
Here’s the link to the transcript
While you can scroll through at your leisure, the part I want to draw your attention to is right at the start just after Tony introduces the Professor, and the bolding is mine.
Now scroll forward to this week.
Professor Flannery has told us the revolutionary (his words) news that China’s coal consumption will be topping out at 4 Billion tons a year, which is 11.44 Billion tons of CO2 emitted, and that’s just China. He says this is great news.
Surely then, that being the case, then the battle is quite obviously lost.
With such a dire catastrophe in front of us at the time, surely in those intervening years something would have been done to forestall what he perceived as a lost battle, something it now must be.
Is he, or his puppet masters doing anything at all to stop it.
Oh what little power he has, that he can do absolutely nothing to stop China doing what it has done.
Still and all, surely he has done something. Surely he’s got coverage all over China spreading his doom and gloom, and convinced them of the dire threat. Surely he’s got his Government employers to cease sale of coal to China. Surely he’s done the same in India.
Nup.
Nothing.
Flannery gives the impression of a Chicken Little looking forward to becoming a chicken burger.
Tony.
121
Nice post Tony
I think Tim is quite satisfied with driving Australia’s economy into the dirt. Provided the “povertisation” (I made a word lol) of the rest of us lifts him a little higher up the greased pole, Im sure he wil be satisfied with his work.
The notion that the same government who presses its jack boot so firmly on the throat of Australian industry can at the very same time allow us to be the fuel supplier for the largest and dirtiest collection of power plants in history would have to be an irony of cosmic proportions. However not only is that irony completely lost on Dr Flannery, its probably his crowning acheivement of the nonsense that has been his career.
If anyone on the warmist side genuinely beleived their BS, we would have stopped exporting coal long before we fiddled at the margins with a revenue raising exercise. It has always been the actions (or inactions) of government and the top of the warmist tree that has served to cement my views that its a pile of codswallop.
51
Safetyguy66, where you say here:
There is a real irony in this.
As I’ve been saying all along, China is constructing and bringing on line new coal fired power plants at the rate of one every 7 days or so.
The point here is that these new coal fired power plants are in fact new technology coal fired plants, USC (UltraSuperCritical) plants, with not only better and cleaner burning furnaces where the powdered coal is burned, but better everything from the first step of the plant all the way through the whole process, loader, pulveriser, feeder, air injection, furnace, boiler, pressuriser, turbine, generator, the whole thing. The upshot is that a typical new large scale 2000MW+ plant burns considerably less coal and does that more cleanly, than the older style plants. Because of that, China is actually able now to close down those older (and older technology) plants. While the new plants are 2000MW+, the ones closing down are the smaller plants, in the main less than 100MW, mostly around 10MW, and the only reason they are in fact closing is that they are all old, in the main 40+ years.
So while China opens up new plants, back here in Australia we have the older style plants, and for a comparison, an older technology plant here in Australia of the same large scale, 2000MW+, then that Australian plant burns around 6 to 6.5 Million tons of coal a year, while the newer technology plants in China of 2000MW+ burn around 5 Million tons a year, a lowering of emissions of CO2 by around 4 million tons a year, from just the one large scale plant.
So, in fact, if you want to look at it that way, Australia has the ‘dirty’ plants and China has the ‘cleaner’ plants, that’s if you even think that the emissions of CO2 is a dirty thing at all that causes any problem at all.
Tony.
60
Yup your right again. We truly have painted ourselves into a very stupid corner.
20
I’ve made this point before. I have no idea why people cannot understand it:
Aus exports very little thermal coal to China. By very little, I mean almost NIL. We do export high tonnages of coking coal to China
We also export good (very high) tonnages of thermal coal (power station fuel) to mainly south-east Asia – Japan, Taiwan, South Korea. These countries do NOT have “dirty inefficient power stations”. As TonyOz says for Chinese power stations, state-of-the-art efficiencies apply to these countries. For example, Japan’s aerosol particulate emission levels are in fact more stringent than ours
This point is made over and over, and still does not seem to penetrate. It’s easy to see why I despair so
40
A little off-topic question ( sort of),
When Flannery is forced to confess the lies he has spewed forth as a Public Servant, will someone be able to force him to re-pay all the public money has fraudulaently taken from us…will the principal of “proceeds from crime” apply?
122
BoM Youtube:
The climate of Australia 2012: a year of contrasts (2.20mins)
No mention, Official: Australia drought free 2012.
Such an important event in the climate of Australia in 2012 after 10 years of drought, and it is ignored. Deleted. Erased.
Can’t let that truth out when your pushing a man made global warming agenda.
60
came across this article regarding lack of warming for the last 17 years.
http://antinuclear.net/2013/03/04/the-australians-graham-lloyd-misled-readers-on-the-truth-about-global-warming/
11
.
Robert Vincin is the Strangest chap to find out about.
Robert Vincin all about here
The Missing Sink a publication by Robert Vincin
Other publications here. Just mainly comments on websites?
This submission to COAG Inquiry on Bushfire Mitigation and Management.
I
thinkknow I wasted about 1/2 hour chasing up this garbage.Weird that he hasn’t come back to any the comments above.
50
Dave
I would be very surprised if it was him.
The English expression was tragic.
KK đ
30
.
I think someone else from a foreign country is using his name – there’s only about two photos of him on the net. Maybe he’s passed along and the name is coming in handy – could be Nigeria Lotto Company.
All the comments on each website is nearly identical to the above. It’s just an idiot somewhere in the world posting once to see if they can get some business. There has never been a response by him anywhere. Could well be a bot. I have my doubts that he actually exists today.
As I wish of Tim Flannery also.
40
An interview/press release/public report that contains the phrase “consistent with” (or “entirely consistent with”) is the clue that it’s all spin not science. As a scientist myself, I can guarantee that many of us like using “consistent with” because it has a double meaning. Meaning A = “does not violate a certain theory”; meaning B = “supports a certain theory”. Dodgy scientists use “consistent with” in press releases because they know the public and the media will always understand it as meaning B, while the scientists themselves can pretend they were using it in meaning A, not their fault if the public misinterpreted it… Dishonest AND hypocrite.
For example, I could have issued a press release today saying that Nani’s red card at Old Trafford last night is entirely consistent with the predictions of General Relativity in Einstein’s 1916 paper. True: it did not violate general relativity! But I know that the media and the public would print and understand the press release as “Einstein predicted Man United’s defeat in 1916”. Same with AGW, when Flim-Flam says that a hot summer “is consistent with” AGW models. Possibly true but deliberately misleading.
50
Let the ABS 2005 Yearbook remind us all about our pitifully short modern thermometer record-
“The Stevenson screen was first introduced to Australia in the 1880s and was installed everywhere, with a few exceptions, by 1910. Prior to this date, thermometers were located in various types of shelter, as well as under verandas and even in unheated rooms indoors. Because of this lack of standardisation, many pre-1910 temperatures in Australia are not strictly comparable with those measured after that date, and therefore must be used with care in analyses of climate change within Australia.”
What I want to know from Flannery, et al, is why when we’re scolded and badgered so often to fully and completely comprehend the original inhabitants’ ties to this continent over tens of thousands of years, are we to suddenly have total amnesia when it comes to the paucity of reliable thermometer records? Answer me that Mr Paleontologist man of science?
50
Going along with that line of thought you might well wonder what sort of historical record for planetary readings is possible on a world mostly covered with water ? Not to mention the abysmally short timeline. I just got a note from a science writer who covers things from a less hobbled view that the warmists. http://my.opera.com/nepmak2000/blog/2013/03/04/geo-engineering-do-we-see-weather-warfare-or-dont-we
10
Hansen predicted years ago that there would be increased flooding as well as increased drought.
Did you think the two were mutually exclusive?
016
.
The above post is now considered a continual Tom Foolery circular link – often used by trolls to earn money from other trolls that give him a thumbs up. He’s just done about ten so far – and they keep on going, the others trolls will follow soon.
Nice One is now a desperate fool that cannot
massdebate anymore. His time has gone – he is a GREENIE little one that has been told to increase his status on these websites. Even Tristan got flogged for the worst joke of the year on SkS – so they’re a joke evenCatmongst they own parasites.40
That’s all very interesting, but the question was, “Did you think increased flooding and increased drought were mutually exclusive”?
01
SV,
I think it depends on the context where this statement is used, for example when someone says “drought is the new norm” and then says “Floods have been predicted all along” then the answer would have to be no.
If one was to say for example Africa will get more floods and say Sth America will get more droughts then possibly so, however the premise of the argument is flawed. For AGW to work as advertised then the planet as a whole MUST get less rain to achieve the higher WV levels in the ATM.
Granted weather patterns could shift to create drought where drought or less rain fall and more rain where low rainfall is the norm but this shift in weather patterns could be caused by a number of things.
Just because Hansen claimed more floods and more droughts does not mean he was right or in fact if he was right for the right reasons.
10
OK, so maybe the best place to get this information would be the BoM where this stuff is all laid out, rather than from blogs or newspaper articles, where the quality of the information tends to be quite variable?
Did you know that BoM predicts both more floods *and* more droughts?
01
Well, I think I get it. After the 1890s, when it both flooded and warmed (1895-6!) disastrously, we settled down to overall drought in Eastern Oz, though not without the odd massive flood, for five decades.
In 1950 we got drenched, in what may be the wettest year for most (mine was 1963). In 1955 an inland sea formed to the west of Sydney during the Maitland Flood. It was the size of ENGLAND AND WALES. Sorry about the caps, but some of our New Men tend to avert their eyes from the past. They really don’t like it, hence the caps.
During the storming seventies, people came to forget about drought, and Eastern Australia (not the West) was then, and is still, a wetter place than in the first half of the 20th century.
The 1982-3 El Nino brought the curtain down on the seventies with a drought as bad, in most parts, as that of 1902…
Sorry, I’m rambling. Are these the increases in flooding and drought that you and Hansen were talking about?
40
A recent study of the Good Friday Caves at Womma SA revealed from looking at the rings in stalactites and stalagmites (sorry couldnt find a link) that droughts of up to 1000 years in duration have been a fairly regular occurence in that region. On average the reduced rainfall lasted between 10 and 300 years in cycles, but 1000 years was not uncommon. So lookng at a drought of 10 years and pointing to a supposed conclusion of causality, is probably best described as fanciful guess work and is at worst, just uneducated stupidity.
50
But there hasn’t been.
There is NOTHING unusual about the current climate conditions.
DO
YOU
UNDERSTAND !!!!?????????????????
Stupid NONCE.
(ps.. look up the English slang meaning for that, some time.) !!
31
You mean apart from all those records being broken. Yeah I agree. Nothing to see here… move along. Stick your head in the ground.
115
.
Still haven’t answered the question yet Nice One?
Walgett. This proves you, BOM, The Climate Commission and Tim Flannery lied.
90
Or, as I have answered it, you stuffed up – again.
This proves you jump to conclusions even though you accept you have just “LAYMAN’s knowledge” (your words).
112
Records? Oh, you mean that rubbish about hottest, coldest, wettest, driest “on record”? You actually mean “since 1800”. There are only 300 years of temp records. How about you go back a bit further and look at the paintings from fairs and markets held on frozen rivers of the Little Ice Age, not to mention the death toll from famine and disease that ravaged Europe back then.
What CO2-belching industry caused that smartie? What SUV-driving culture caused this current interglacial starting some 10kya after the Younger Dryas? Can you even explain EVIDENTIALLY why CO2 was higher in the past DURING glacial events? I doubt it.
Keep your head in the sand – if you and your fellow catastrophists believe that Antarctica will soon be the only place habitable, we’ll ensure you get a 1st class seat on the next boat.
81
CO2 was higher in the past DURING glacial events? I can Search that, of course, but wondered which sources you were using. The usual practice of spin is to postulate the opposite of reality. In such case a global tax on energy coinciding with increased need would be a trick of market manipulation of supreme skill.
10
.
Nice One,
I am putting your answer here so everyone can see your thermomix special answers:
Dave
March 6, 2013 at 7:07 pm
My Reply
Nice One Your reply
Here you go again – lying through your teeth that the data needs to be homogenised? What, so all BOM sites that are now not recording temperature data aren’t counted unless homogenised.
JC – why are you continually making the same excuses (lies) as Tim Flannery.
WALGETT was hotter in January 3rd 1903 than in January 13th 2013 – WTF do you need to do to homogenise a reading that is obviously higher than the ANGRY SUMMER RECORD of the Globe?
Don’t you understand that this sort of discussion is read by many people that are only LAYMEN – the just want facts – give them to me – how do you thermomix a maximum reading from 1903?
81
Hi Dave… where is this post from? It mentions me so I probably should know but I don’t!
04
I’m late to this party, and generally tired of surface temperatures as a measure for anything except the current local temperature. A clarification is needed: climate analysts such as BOM can’t compare (or create trends from) records from sites that have moved or aren’t continuous. Therefore they compare overlapping data for at least 2 years and adjust the older record up or down by the avaerage difference during the overlap. That’s the only defensible way to do it, they use other methods as well, and that’s how we get homogenised records like HQ and ACORN. At least that’s the theory, and that’s another story. However, and please correct me if I am wrong, I understood that BOM uses RAW data in the AWAP network for comparing temperatures from the past with the present- AWAP data is unadjusted. Therefore it would seem quite reasonable to compare Walgett’s old maxima with today.
Ken
31
And the most forgotten of all records, that you would think would be the only one worth looking at when warmists tell us over and over that its about long term averages not isolaed events.
The record for the world’s longest heat wave goes to Marble Bar in Western Australia. From October 31, 1923 to April 07, 1924 the temperature broke the 100 °F mark setting the heat wave record at a scorching 160 days.
THAT is the record you would expect would be the smoking gun, the holy grail of warmist church dogma. Yet it stands, proud and true to this day.
Please explain how thats possible ?? With almost 100 years more human CO2 in the atmosphere and we havnt come close to beating that record. Not even close.
40
Dave found it myself. My question was simply where is the evidence of fiddling the data. To me this means changing the raw data. A commissioned poster with some ambiguous presentations is evidence of bad poster design.
23
You tottally rock Dave!!! The only thing better than a LayMan is a LayWoman. LOl all that talk about temperature homos is creepy!!! sux to be a nice one. again you fail!!!
21
Walgett Airport AWS
Annual mean maximum temperature for 1994 = 27.2°C (the first completed year)
Annual mean maximum temperature for 2011 = 27.4°C (the last completed year)
17 years of NO warming at Walgett.
40
All this alledged warming, and we are at essentially the same temp as when those previous records were set, 70, 100 years ago.
Anuone with functional brain would actually trealise that the temperatures have gone down and then come back up. A NATURAL OCCURENCE !!!!
And there is NOTHING UNUSUAL about the rainfall, or droughts, even in the VERY SHORT records that we have available.
But, you being a Nonce of very little intelligence, would not be expect to do anything but panic when Flim-Flam tells you to.
40
@Nice One
Apparently Flannery did.
________________________________________
50
The climate will have changed when Australia DOESN’T have droughts and floods.
That is what would be unusual !!
30
“Leigh Sales is very specific here. She wants a statement about the last â15 yearsâ. She also wonders how todayâs extreme events are due to a global temperature that is the same as 15 years ago. Good question.”
So why the change of heart Leigh? Asking proper questions. Could it be that you know when that nasty misogynist Abbott gets elected your job is cactus? Yep. Thought so.
60
Leigh is easily confused. Especially by hard words like “cetacean” (MP4 video).
Not her best work.
60
.
He spent his childhood in the prosperous, bay-side Melbourne suburb of Sandringham. His parents â an accountant and a housewife â named their first child after St Timothy, a Christian martyr stoned to death for opposing pagan ceremonies.
Who the heck are they talking about. How’s this for an error in judgement?
40
19th-century weatherman’s trove of records found
30
Good god. Someone should gag Peter Reith. What an awful analysis by someone who should be an insider. Luckily federally, Victoria wont be crucial.
04
A little OT, but watch this interview of Julia Gillard on SBS and enjoy âŚ
Proof positive that the concept of “hypocrisy” and “truth” are completely foreign to this woman.
50
If you continually modify an hypothesis to the point where it becomes unfalsifiable, because every time something that would falsify the hypothesis comes along you simply add it into the hypothesis and CLAIM that it further supports the hypothesis, you have long ago left the path of actual science and launched full-on into mysticism and the occult.
80
Yeah. Lets just stick to global temperatures going up.
311
JB – I think you’re running out of ammo on this site. Why not just call it a day and quit while you’re behind.
100
True enough, thats so weak Im not sure why anyone would bother. Must be a slow day in the Dept. of climate change.
50
John,
You can attempt to stick to that all you want, but since it hasn’t happened in the last 17 years, and even Rajendra Pauchari admits it hasn’t happened in the last 17 years, it is a fairly hard proposition to stick to.
121
The global temperature has gone up over the last 17 years. Just look at the trend – it continues to warm. But if you look at the range of possible trends, that includes some that aren’t going up.
So the summary of the last 17 years is that there is over 90% chance that its warming, and a less than 10% chance that its flat or cooling. Of course if you go back further, the warming becomes much much more likely.
I don’t think you guys really believe it will cool or stay flat for the next decade.
16
John, I’m sane. I haven’t a clue what climate will be like in the next decade. As for trends, if they continued, we’d all be wearing bell-bottoms the size of cow paddocks. So I don’t know. Do you know?
30
John,
Due to solar factors, as well as oceanic factors, I believe that we will stay “on plateau” for a few more years, and then we will have about 30 years of cooling.
Meet me back here in 30 years and we can compare predictions. Certainly you aren’t foolish enough to believe that the atmosphere of the earth is simply going to continue to warm until we fry. Nature abhors positive feedback loops. Systems with positive feedback loops tend to self-destruct. Therefore, you either believe that:
A: Man is changing natural conditions enough to cause a positive feedback loop in the climate system of the earth, which will lead to the ultimate destruction of the system
or
B: In spite of no evidence in the past of continually rising temperatures, man has altered the climate system sufficiently by adding a truly miniscule amount of a trace gas to the system that a natural and fully predictable cooling cycle which should start in a few years just ain’t gonna happen.
Of course, it is also possible that you simultaneously believe A and B….
20
John,
As a way of exposing the fallacy in your argument, I could mention that I have been alive for some time now, and in all that time I have not died. Therefore according to your logic, the chances of my dying in the future will continue to diminish, the older I get.
40
So I take it you disagree with and dispute IPCC Pachauri’s statements recently that temperature has flattend for 17 years ? The question is not what did the temperature do for X years prior or what might it do for N years subsequent. They are called “straw man” arguments and are familiar to warmists because they have been tossing them at us skeptics for 10+ years. The question is and was, about 17 years from 1997.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/22/ipcc-railroad-engineer-pachauri-acknowledges-no-warming-for-17-years/
Im not a scientist, I freely admit. I am just a layperson with an OCD for the truth. I will adjust my position to align with the best evidence and arguments as soon as I can comprehend them. Right now I find so much more compelling evidence and arguments on the skeptic side that I cant even understand how anyone could subscribe to AGW, its is one of the weakest hypothesis of the modern age and Im staggered by the level of support it gets.
But on a much simpler note. How is 1997 0.5c – 2012 0.5c part of an upward trend ? I must have missed that part of high school math that taught the law of 2 precisely equal numbers being different and showing a trend. I am eager to be educated.
10
Well said
KK
00
Snow on March 6th in Indianapolis, about 4 inches (10 cm) last night. Of course, the nutters will have you believe that this is somehow related to global warming.
The REALISTS will have you believe that it was due to the temperature being well below average to begin with, and then a powerful moisture-laden COLD FRONT came through.
METEOROLOGICAL FACT:
Severe weather RARELY happens when a warm front passes through. You might get a lot of rain (or even snow if it is cold enough), but you won’t generally get severe weather.
Severe weather happens when a STRONG cold front comes through. The greater the temperature differential from “in front of the front” to “behind the front”, the higher the winds, and the greater the potential for truly nasty weather.
When do you get powerful cold fronts? Generally in a COOLING world! If the globe was warming, the temperature differential from one side of a cold front to the other would be SMALLER, and the frequency of cold fronts would likely decrease.
However, the makers of the all-powerful CAGW hypothesis CLAIM otherwise. Their claim defies simple logic, but that hasn’t stopped them from adding every possible scenario into their so-called hypothesis anyway.
81
I find it incredibly silly how some commenters above are still rambling on about how hot it was in January in parts of Australia.
Come on now, a few weeks of localized weather is certainly not climate, especially when it was high Summer there and it isn’t particularly unusual to have localized heat waves in Summer. I say localized because Australia represents around 2% of the globe, so it certainly wasn’t a global phenomenon.
90
I hear ya.
It’s part of the climate catastropharian ball-and-cups game. There’s always somewhere in the world that is having a hot summer, so they move the focus to whatever isn’t cooling.
As for the “weather isn’t climate” principle, I have gotten so tired of repeating it that I have given up.
Thirty years, no less.
It is tempting to abandon the 30 years rule when there are 17 years of “no warming” one can crow about, but I say HOLD. HOLLLLD. HOOLLLLLLLLD!
There ought to be a set of principles that all participants in the Global Warming Debate must endorse.
Rule number 1 should be: Thou shall not calculate a climate measurement over less than 30 years!
Rule number 2 should be: Thou shall not calculate a climate trend over less than 30 years!
Rule 3: Do NOT erase your original measurements just to reuse some backup tape.
Rule 4: You cannot establish your own innocence by proving the guilt of others.
Rule 4.1: You cannot use a process of elimination to support a favoured hypothesis in a continuous-valued domain that is sparsely measured and still contains unquantified confounding factors. The failure to explain is not an explanation.
Rule 5: Focus on the core chain of the CAGW argument and do not be distracted.
Rule 5.1: Do not talk about Funding Club.
Rule 6: Evidence trumps theory any day of the week. Models are just hypotheses.
Rule 7: Understand all proposed theories before arguing about them!
Rule 8: A scientist shall not infringe The Scientific Method or through inaction allow the Scientific Method to be infringed.
Rule 9: Thou shall not smooth time series data prior to analysis, nor engage in data mining for hockey sticks, nor commit other fundamental sins of statistics, because Steve McIntyre will find it.
… more rules..??
90
One small quibble – a model is not an hypothesis. A model is a conceptual representation of an object or system. The success of a model depends on the understanding of the system being modeled, and how the variables are accounted for.
When it comes to climate models, most of the variables involved are not at all well understood, and many are not even accounted for in the models, so climate models tend to model climate rather poorly.
Most people don’t fundamentally understand what a scientific model actually is, which leads to confusion. Most people seem to think that scientific models are automatically perfectly-crafted prediction machines designed by people with a complete and thorough understanding of the system being modeled.
In the case of climate, our understanding of the complexity of the system and the sheer number of variables involved, and how they interact is literally still in its infancy, so all of the current models are quite crude and inexact compared to the actual system being modeled.
Most people also confuse MODEL OUTPUT with DATA. Data can only be gathered by ACTUAL OBSERVATION. Model output can be generated by… well… anything. It is a critical error to confuse model output with real, observational data, as the two are not even related. One HOPES that real, observational data is at the very least used as model INPUT, in the hopes that the model output will at least vaguely resemble what happens in reality, but in many cases, this doesn’t even happen.
In the case of the current climate models, you can input real observational data from the past (say 1940 for example), and get output from the model for the next 10 years (1941-1950) that doesn’t even vaguely resemble what REALLY HAPPENED during the period of 1941 – 1950, so that should tell you something about just how good current climate models actually are.
But, back to my main point, a model is never an hypothesis, it is merely a conceptual representation of an object or system, and models are often used as a way to attempt to validate or invalidate hypotheses.
I guess that was a long rant for what I claimed was a “quibble”, but I am an environmental chemist, so it pains me when I see that probably 98% of the general population doesn’t really even know what a model is, and that same 98% don’t even know what the scientific method is either….
83
Peter,
From what I can see there are a whole lot of hard science students and graduates who don’t understand the scientific method either. The general public I can at least understand. But what’s with our schools and universities?
50
Roy,
I was lucky. I went to one of the most Liberal of Liberal Arts Colleges in the US, but the Professors there thought that it was their DUTY to teach logic, the scientific method, and critical thinking to all of the students there, and the Professors invited and welcomed viewpoints which contradicted their own, as long as you could cogently support your viewpoint.
As a result, even though I was exposed to all kinds of “leftist ideology” while I was there, I emerged able to think for myself, and I have a pretty good understanding of logic, critical thinking, and the scientific method.
Modern “schools” are more like indoctrination centers. They want to teach “students” WHAT TO THINK, and in order for the students to not question what they are taught to think, modern schools must NOT teach their “students” HOW TO THINK, because this would endanger the whole point of these indoctrination centers.
30
And they don’t care that they don’t
I realised this well over 20 years ago, which is why I gave up trying to show them. EMO (emotional reactions) rules, OK ?
40
As a chemist I resent the combination of the words “environmental” and “chemist”.
50
Ehhh… but why?
The “environment” is merely a large reaction vessel where chemistry happens all of the time! It is fascinating!
30
With respect to climate/weather models.
On the ABC Queensland News last night, Jenny Woodward gave her (usual) comprehensive weather report. As part of that she mentioned the possible formation of TC Sandra. At the moment it’s still only a Low Pressure system and is 800KM out to sea, and slowly moving away from the coastline.
Then came the punchline. She actually said that some models had it maybe forming on late Thursday, some maybe on Friday. Some models had it, upon formation moving steadily away from the Coast and causing no problems, while some models had it moving in the opposite direction and making landfall in Queensland between Bowen or even South of Rockhampton.
It seems to me that they can pick and choose whatever model they want to in an effort to affirm whatever actually happens.
I didn’t mention this last night because, after all, something like this is only anecdotal, you know, Tony just says this, but hey, he just made it up to make a point, so I didn’t mention it at all.
Then lo and behold, there’s an article in the local Rockhampton news media about just the same thing.
The models can’t predict the Cyclone’s path.
And I mean one going out to sea, and another impacting the Coastline. That’s 180 degrees opposite.
Gentlemen,
start your enginespick your models.It seems you can make a model do whatever you want it to, and then, when ‘whatever’ happens, you can always say that the model was right.
But hey, we all knew that, didn’t we?
Cyclone Sandra has experts baffled as to where it may land
Tony.
40
“seems you can make a model do whatever you want it to”
A quote attributed to John von Neumann, mathematician and pioneer computer scientist: With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.
30
If you have enough different models with enough different parameters, you could generate 1000’s of possibilities.
The AGW blethereen then say that if one model accidentally gets something right, then all the models are right.
Its a crrraaazy business !!!
11
That’s a great piece Peter.
A Climate “Simulation” is not a “Model” for the reasons you state.
A working model must reproduce, or model, some aspect of a system under examination and generally there will be at least one measured variable input value and one measured output value that reflects changes in the input.
The ONLY working model I have ever seen of the atmospheric temperature variations plotted against CO2 levels is shown in graphs of ice core estimates of CO2 vs Temp during the past few ice ages going back over 400,000 years.
These are real and meaningful as a prediction of what orbital mechanics may do to the Earth over the next few thousand years.
It’s going to get real cold very quickly once it starts.
KK đ
10
Catastropharian – A Rastafarian on a bad trip???
30
Rule 10 – Thou shalt provide all data, methods and tools to the pblic for any papers related to Climate science as a part of publishing ones findings.
Rule 11 – Peer review is not a measure of quality or reliability of a papers findings. ANy climate related papers (or any scientific papers with the potential to drastically affect the people must undergo a comprehensive and completely independant Validation and Verification process across all areas used by the paper
Rule 12 – Funders of Scientific research must be published as well as the membership or associations any authors of said papers have of NGOs and other organisations or charities which may have an interest in the bias of the research
Rule 13 – Correllation does not equate to causation.
Rule 14 – any exagerated claims based on any scientists findings must be challenged publicly by the uthors of the papers in question or it can be assumed they have lost their sense of scepticism and/or objectivity
Rule 15 – Sceptics should be lauded rather than pilloried – many sceptics continue to provide a good degree of verificiation and testing of research free of charge – often this quality gate has been completely lacking. Sceptics should be thanked and encouraged for doing this free of charge!
70
Rule #0
Any and all “adjustments” or “homogenization” of the heretofore unadulterated raw observational data must be described in excruciating detail, and justified to the point where the adjustments and homogenization actually make sense to anyone and everyone, and said adjustments and homogenization must be demonstrated to REMOVE BIAS FROM THE DATA SET RATHER THAN ADDING BIAS TO THE DATA SET, AMEN.
70
Rule #-1
Quit lying to those who pay your salary!
40
I like your set of principals. Is it okay to post them on my blog? I keep trying to get people to understand why climate science is not science and your principals would be very helpful to include.
60
Well Peter B seems to dispute whether “models” are “hypotheses”, so you might want to make up your own mind about that part first. (Personally I think he’s talking cobblers, but it is hardly important when the purpose of the statement was to point out that simulation results can’t override real measurements. I guess if that’s what I meant that’s what I should have said.)
It’s okay to copy it to your blog. You don’t even need to attribute it to me if you don’t want to. I think the ideas are pretty obvious and those ideas belong to everyone.
10
It may seem that I am niggling, but:
hypothesis – A supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.
model – an abstract,simplified representation of a system that makes its central features explicit andvisible and that can be used to generate explanations and predictions.
Indeed, not the same thing đ
40
Peter, the wording of those definitions, copied from the Oxford dictionary and from Harrison & Treagust 2000 respectively, are both fine but you have failed your English comprehension test.
An “abstract,simplified representation of a system that makes its central features explicit andvisible and that can be used to generate explanations and predictions” is also a “supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.”
You’ve not grasped the whole meaning of the words you are typing. You’ve found the two terms described with different words and sentences, yes, but they have compatible meanings.
Any representation of reality is by definition an abstraction and is also by necessity a simplification. Similarly, any proposed explanation made on the basis of “limited evidence” would be an astoundingly lucky stab in the dark if it turned out to be more than just a simplification.
More importantly, a hypothesis also “can be used to generate explanations and predictions”, and must be used as such since that is the point of hypothesising in the scientific method. The definition of “model” you quoted was about scientific models, not models in non-scientific or quasi-scientific fields. Hypotheses are created with the intention of testing them. Models are hypotheses codified such that specific outputs can be tested. The “further investigation” in the 1st definition is the testing of the “explanations and predictions” in the 2nd definition. The model and hypothesis are both based on limited evidence because to measure and observe everything would require more energy than is available to us (and probably more funding than is forthcoming).
The two definitions are two views of the same thing.
You are in effect trying to claim an imagined plan stops being a plan when it has been written in precise terms. Again, a load of cobblers.
Indeed, by stating that “models are often used as a way to attempt to validate or invalidate hypotheses” you have recognised that by defining models and hypotheses as such different kinds of things you may then believe one could validate the other. But that is to commit the anti-science sin of believing that model output is an adequate substitute for real data when testing a hypothesis. You know something cannot validate itself, it must be tested against an external factor. That’s the reason models cannot validate scientific hypotheses – because “model” and “hypothesis” are two words for the same thing.
Now it occurs to me that (if I am not simply being incorrigible) the belief that models (all of them) are hypotheses should have gained widespread acceptance. Far be it for me to make an argument from consensus, as I’m sure my logical exposition of the 1:1 correspondence between your quoted definitions of “model” and “hypothesis” should have been sufficient. So the following quotations are simply for the amusement factor.
Previously you also stated “a model is never an hypothesis”, whereas the exact opposite is true.
Every scientific model is a hypothesis because it hypothesises that the real world behaves in accordance with the model output. That’s unless ANY scientific models are created with the intention of being completely fanciful and to generate entirely useless results. I would believe that in the case of the IPCC but not anywhere else. đ
00
A model still is NOT is not is not an hypothesis.
At BEST it is a tool you can use to TEST an hypothesis, provided that the model is properly designed.
Sorry, but we are just going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
Scientists do not bother to construct models unless they have a hypothesis about a particular system which they want to test, and then they attempt to build a model of that particular system so that they can attempt to test their hypothesis.
You seem to have science backwards… Scientists don’t randomly build models and then say, “Hey, this aspect is interesting, lets test it to see if X happens when we do Y.
Quite the contrary – A scientist will observe a REAL system, such as climate, hypothesize that X should probably happen when we do Y to the system, and then the scientist will attempt to model the system as best as possible in order to test the hypothesis.
Models are not brought into being in and of themselves, they have a reason to be brought into being, which is to test hypotheses on systems which are too complex to directly perform experiments on.
For example, we cannot “dump an extra 400 PPM of CO2 into the actual atmosphere instantaneously, wait 10 years, and then instantaneously remove the extra 400 PPM of CO2, wait another 10 years, and gather 20 years of temperature data”. Such an experiment just isn’t feasible. So, since we hypothesize that doubling CO2 will raise temperature by X amount, we THEN build a climate model so that we can perform just such experiments computationally using the model. However, in my opinion, none of the models properly account for all of the myriad variables in the system, so they don’t “mimic reality” well.
10
Hi Andrew,
That was a great outline.
I noticed you responded to PeterB and there is some justifiable acknowledgement over muddying of the waters relating to the definition of a model.
The IPCCC and appendages has put forward what I see as Climate Simulations which are theoretical constructs based on NO input or output measurements.
A model, by contrast, requires measurement of linked input and output data and must have immediate predictive capacity otherwise it does not serve to “model” the system under investigation.
Because the Climate Simulations carried out by “Climate Scientists” cannot be assessed in real time by measurement, they are by definition , not models.
As I learned in my second degree a Hypothesis must be capable of being falsified, and unfortunately for the IPCCC , that means that what you are saying must be so clear and identifiable that anybody can repeat the experiment to confirm the hypothesis.
The Warmers are cunning and have given us an extremely vague target to shoot at; as we all know, that ain’t Science.
Cheers.
KK đ
22
Record hot summers and record cold winters make little difference to the global average, if any.
51
Not many people build greenhouses to keep things hotter in summer and colder in winter. I pity Flannery’s tomatoes.
30
First visit here, so first and foremost congratulations for such a site. We skeptics know where the truth lies !
I won’t add anything to what has been said before, but I would only have one question – after all, a fool stays as such only if he doesn’t ask questions :] I am not well versed in real climate science, and I do hope to gain better knowledge with you !
You mention a PDO of 60 years. Could you please point me a reference that I can use in future fights over the climate battlefield ?
Many thanks in advance !
30
Pacific Decadal Oscillation(PDO):
This will give you an overview of the PDO. Wikipedia isn’t considered a very good source for anything definitive about details because you can’t always be sure the information is free of bias. But then you can do a Google Search, which unfortunately will give you nearly 300,000 hits.
In general there isn’t going to be just one good reference for the climate battlefield. But this blog, Watts Up With That and others in Jo’s list of references will be good reading. There are also a large number of books. Some of which are listed on this site.
31
Watts Up With That has a new article: “NASA satellite data shows a decline in water vapor”:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/06/nasa-satellite-data-shows-a-decline-in-water-vapor/
I thought the climate models all assumed that CO2 directly induced warming gets amplified by an increase in atmospheric water vapour. Now the data shows there’s a decrease. Can this mean the models are all wrong?
111
If this latest NASA data on water vapour is correct the positive feedbacks from an increase in co2 in the atmosphere has been proven wrong.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/06/nasa-satellite-data-shows-a-decline-in-water-vapor/#more-81521
If true all OECD countries have wasted at least a trillion dollars on this blithering nonsense and OZ should dump the idiot co2 tax at once.
Good stuff David, you beat me to it. I just hope Jo can have a closer look at it. Shows the fabled HOT SPOT is still missing as well.
How about it Jo?
101
Yep. Climate models are wrong and the human “modellers” are Earth climate illiterates.
Got a harder question?
30
6 March: Washington Times: Stephen Dinan: Hill hearing on global warming cancelled by D.C. snowstorm
An unusually chilly March day and the snowstorm it spawned have shut down much of official Washington on Wednesday â including a hearing House Republicans had called to examine global warming.
âPostponed due to weather,â read the notice from the House Science, Space and Technology Committee sent in the morning.
The hearing was scheduled to give House lawmakers a comprehensive briefing on how well scientists understand the climate and humansâ effects on it as a means âto inform decision-making on potential mitigation options.â…
http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2013/mar/6/hill-hearing-global-warming-cancelled-dc-snowstorm/
21
At least now the committee majority and the chair will be Republicans so there’s a chance of a better reception for the skeptical cause.
20
given there’s no abatement with a low price on carbon dioxide, these claims are rubbish and the real aim is to creat a CO2 financial bubble. does greg hunt talk down an ETS? no.
7 March: Australian: AAP: End carbon tax, move to ETS: Ai Group
Australian Industry (Ai) Group chief executive Innes Willox says the fixed carbon tax should be scrapped, with the policy changed to an internationally linked ETS where markets determine the carbon price.
Mr Willox said carbon costs on business would fall by 75 per cent, while electricity prices would drop by an average 10 per cent for business and households.
“Australia’s emissions targets would still be met, with abatement happening wherever it is cheapest, including overseas,” he said in a statement on Thursday…
Australia’s price on carbon emissions is $23 a tonne, and is set to rise to $25.40 by 2015 when it transfers to a market scheme on July 1, 2015.
This compares with $6 a tonne in Europe.
“Australian businesses could be taking advantage of these low international prices through emissions trading,” Mr Willox said.
Mr Willox said the same environmental benefit could be achieved with the emissions trading scheme beginning two years early on July 1…
Both Labor and the coalition are committed to cutting Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by five per cent below 2000 levels.
Opposition climate action spokesman Greg Hunt said the Ai Group wanted the carbon tax scrapped because of its impact on jobs and the competitiveness of Australian manufacturers.
“Things are so bad, they want immediate action,” he told Sky News.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/end-carbon-tax-move-to-ets-ai-group/story-fn3dxiwe-1226592066654
willcox has form!
Macquarie Uni: Innes Willox
Chief Executive Designate, Australian Industry Group (AIG).
Innes has been the Director of International and Government Relations for the Australian Industry Group since 2008. He currently has responsibility for policy development and advocacy across the federal and state government systems in the areas of:
trade
defence
climate change
industrial relations and communications
and technology issues.
He was Chief of Staff to the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, from 2004 to 2006…
Innes began his working career as a journalist. His positions included Chief of Staff at The Age newspaper in Melbourne and Chief Political Correspondent for The Age in the Canberra Parliamentary Press Gallery.
http://www.mm.mq.edu.au/women_management_work_conference/speakers/speaker_profiles/innes_willox
10
LOL.
EU should give all ETS cash to industry: Dutch official
AMSTERDAM, March 6 (Reuters Point Carbon) â EU governments should divert all revenues raised from selling carbon permits to heavy industry to help invest in low carbon technologies, a Dutch official said Wednesday, adding that such a move would ease company lobbying against tougher emission reduction targets in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2209004
Poland’s carbon challenge reaches leading EU court
BRUSSELS, March 6 (Reuters: Barbara Lewis: Europe’s second highest court will rule on Thursday on a closely watched case that pits coal-reliant Poland against the European Commission over the allocation of free carbon permits.
The case centres around the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), a market launched in 2005 to make big emitters of greenhouse gases pay for their carbon through tradeable permits, but now badly weakened by a huge surplus of allowances.
Court documents show Poland has argued that the rules for free allocation to energy-intensive industry do not take into account its particular situation and heavy reliance on coal…
A verdict in Poland’s favour could mean the Commission has to review the rules for all member states, throwing into question the underpinnings of the ETS system…
No matter what the verdict on Thursday, it can be appealed to the higher chamber.
Analysts and campaigners say it is unlikely Poland will win as the law guiding the Commission’s action was agreed by member states. The Commission would not comment before the verdict.
“Boosting green investments at home would profit Poland much more than digging in its heels and reinforcing its image as Europe’s climate blocker,” said Julia Michalak of Climate Action Network Europe, a(sic) environmental lobbying group…
Energy intensive industry says it could be driven out of Europe by the extra costs resulting from the ETS and Poland says a stronger carbon market would inflict economic pain.
Green campaigners dispute those arguments. The far bigger worry, they say, is that the ETS is too feeble to engineer a transition to low carbon energy.
In January, ETS allowances plumbed a record low of less than three euros a tonne and are still below five euros.
The market is expected to remain weak for the rest of the decade, in part because Commission proposals to remove temporarily some of the surplus allowances generated by recession have stalled…
In separate cases, the general court had also been expected to rule on the Commission’s authority to set a national pollution limit for the Czech Republic and Hungary. Those cases were dropped, the court said. No reason was given.
Poland had a related case, which it won. But it was a Pyrrhic victory as the national limit on how many emissions are allowed had been agreed before economic slowdown.
Recalculation after the ruling had to be based on revised economic data, meaning Poland could not raise the overall cap.
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.2209755?&ref=searchlist
00
julia from CAN Europe in reuters piece above. LOL:
Julia Michalak: Uni of Washington, Dept of Urban Design & Planning: Community Environment & Planning
Julia Michalak is a Ph D candidate in the Interdisciplinary Urban Planning and Design Program. Julia teaches CEP 302, Environmental Response, which focuses on how society understands, interprets and responds to environmental issues…
She holds a B.A. in Biology from Carleton College and received her M.S. in Sustainable Development and Conservation Biology from the University of Maryland…
http://cep.be.washington.edu/julia-michalak/
Wikipedia: Climate Action Network
It is most active at meetings of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), where it publishes a daily newsletter “ECO”, presenting the views of the green NGO community.
The Climate Action Network-International (CAN-I) is a worldwide network of over 700 Non- Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in 95 countries working to promote government and individual action to limit human-induced climate change to ecologically sustainable levels…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_Action_Network
00
Bookmark this telling BOM 100yr record(and like the Stevenson Screen rollout that’s about all the reliable data we whitefellas have except for aboriginal oral tradition)for the cyclone capital of Oz.
Notice from that graph how Flannery and Co’s ‘Angry Gaia’ has apparently gone to sleep after Trixie, which produced the highest recorded wind speed in Aust just after Tracy blew Darwin away.
Still trying to clear away all that water that would never run off the dry soil in order to find the drought underneath are you Tim?
20
And if you haven’t got any worthwhile modern climate data and you’re no good at Paleontology digging around for past climate Tim, try getting up to pace with some medium term bread and butter science.
Another one to bookmark to throw at these climate schoolgirls with the vapours.(with due apologies to schoolgirls of course)
21
Tick to Leigh Sales for actually asking some of the right questions of Tim Flannery. That is a step forward for the ABC. At least the interested listener could discern that there could be a problem with the Climate Commission alarm over the “Angry Summer”. Not impressed with the answers.
51
Indeed, as I said before this is the first time I am aware of the ABC mentioning the 15 year plateau, pause or whatever you want to call it.
Leigh’s interview must have caused some angst in some quarters of the organisation.
30
More bad news for our Paleontologist Climate Commissioner.
Those Goddam sneaky underhanded skeptics and deniers just keep on digging up the dirt on you eh Tim?
30
Well, Tim, if you are a “science-respecting” person, then please provide empirical evidence along with sound scientific reasoning as to why you believe there is any proof that human produced CO2 played any part in the brief cyclic warming in the last quarter of last century. Please note that Kinetic Theory (as used by Einstein) can be utilised to explain the current surface temperatures without any need for additional warming by any back radiation, so your argument should take that into account.
00
This should be a front page “Second Coming” news story.
Two huge climate change papers have been produced that should have made all the science writers sit up and take notice. So where is Flannery? Where is the climate commission? Where are they all?
First:
No Hot SPOT
This is from NASA (part of the AGW team) announcing that there is a lack of water vapour in the upper atmosphere which means there is tropospheric cooling – There is no HOT SPOT! – Given the importance of HO2 as a greenhouse gas this spells the end for the global warming “science”
second:
Global warming theory falsified
Greenhouse gasses are supposed to trap outgoing radiation – Now NOAA (one of the AGW team) admits outgoing radiation is rising
“Global warming theory proposes that CO2 traps longwave (infrared) radiation in the troposphere to reduce outgoing longwave radiation [OLR] to space. However, satellite measurements since 1975 indicate that global OLR has instead increased by about 1.3 Wm-2. This is in direct contradiction to global warming theory that “trapping” of radiation by CO2 should have instead reduced* OLR by .93 Wm-2 since 1975.”
I might add this contribution on the role of water vapour and CO2 as well:
CO2 vs Water vapour
All these links should take you to Hockey Schtick
41
Shame on the IPCC! Looks like they got just about everything wrong. But the mainstream media continues to spew nonsense like CO2 being the main greenhouse gas and extreme weather events. Thank goodness for websites like this.
20
Hey, off topic, but I’m sure you’ll all forgive me when you read this.
That renowned bastion of even handedness, The Daily Kos has, umm, spat the dummy.
The Kossacks are lamenting the fact that in the Best Science and Technology category for the upcoming Web Blog Awards. the list is dominated by what they call (their words) DeltaEchoNovemberIndiaEchoRomeo blogs, that these blogs then exhort their readers to vote for them, (grossly unfair being the implication/inference) and then stack the judging panel so that only those sites get into the top 5 and then win from there.
There are 17 nominations and the Kossacks lament that 13 of them are the aforementioned (insert stocking thread count word here) sites, this JoNova site one of them.
However, here’s one of the crunch lines.
Skeptical Science is also nominated, but as the Kos says:
Hmm! How embarrassing it must be to be nominated in with 13 sites it detests, and then, umm, how embarrassing to actually be beaten by one of them, eh!
Link to article
Read and get the idea how even handed they really are.
Tony.
73
From reading SkepticalScience you’d never suspect they’d run out of the vineyard yelling, “The grapes are sour! The grapes are sour!” Kinda condemns them right out of their own mouth. đ
51
Tony
As you are wont to say:
Cheers,
Speedy
20
Speedy,
Three Nyuk’s are sufficient, let’s not get carried away …
20
Rereke,
oh, I don’t know,
Sometimes, even Curly did throw in that extra nyuk.
Curly’s extra Nyuk
Tony.
20
But aren’t Nyuks addictive? I mean, you can’t stop at one, can you.
20
Thanks for that link Tony. I really needed a good laugh (my 87yo mother passed away suddenly on Tues… đ ).
The comments are hilarious.
I have tears in my eyes…….from laughter.
40
…and here I was thinking that WE are the conspiracy theorists.
40
We are BETTER conspiracy theorists and that’s what really upsets them! đ
(/sarc)
30
Snafu
Condolences on your Mum – I hope she lived a good life. As do you.
And I agree with you about the utterings of our warmist friends – it is very hard to write anything more ridiculous than their own utterances.
Best Wishes,
Speedy.
50
Of course they do. Blogs are not peer-reviewed journals.
20
LOL I signed up for posting privileges years ago – and didn’t use them after realizing Markos was living down to billing of being a bit of a jerk. Disloyalty was POSTED as punishable by banning….and the meme of ‘denierism’ was invoked not on the politics of the Holocaust meme, but on those irreverent souls who would not bow and scrape to the established lords of science and of the mission to ‘save the planet’ from broiling.
20
Shows snapshots, talks about trends.
(link only relevant to meme fans)
00
Hard Evidence of CO2 Warming Inflated by a Factor of 20
60
Well the data is in and the results have been published…………..
November was the 5th snowiest on record for the NH
December was the snowiest on record for the NH
January the 6th snowiest on record and
February was the 16th.
This puts 12/13 4th on the all time record list behind 77/78, 2009/10, 2010/11 and ahead of 2007/08, 2003/04, so 5 out of the top 6 winters are in the last decade (Dr Viner calling Dr Viner) but seriously can we claim this is all part of the climate extremes our leaders have been preaching about?
Oh hang on just reading some crap from NASA about a quiet sun……..less UV rays = less Ozone causing less warming of the upper atm, blah blah blah………….-PDO -NOA and -AO etc etc…………..changing weather patterns yadda yadda yadda……….sun now similar to Dalton and possibly Maunder minimums…WTF!!!!!
The sun!!!!! come on what idiot could possibly link climate changes on Earth to the sun??????
81
Gees they are dumb.. The IPICC said that the sun didn’t cause any warming when it was quite active during the latter part of last century..
What the heck makes NASA think that the sun going to sleep for a while will cause cooling… totally ridiculous, I say.. totally ridiculous. !! đ
30
Crak’ … you left off the /sarc. Next they’ll be claiming that the ‘cooler’ sun is masking the effects of CO2 … all consistent with the models and IPCC policy … not.
20
Well, the sun is no more than a sustained nuclear fusion reaction.
As it cools, it will compress, and fall back into itself. Then, boom … supernova.
This carbon pollution is powerful strong stuff.
Perhaps somebody aught to phone Tim, to ask him what the Gov’mint is doing about it? I would phone myself, but it is an international call from here.
20
Sorry Cred i did forget the sarc.
Hey RW i bet you are all “up and about” after day 1, 0 for 131 was it?
10
3 for 263 now with a 100 run lead you guys need to be swabbed LOL
00
Without being too indelicate, Tim pulled the “1-in-500” assertion out of his ass.
42
Tim pulls quite a bit of his thinking from there. I’m being kind, warm and fuzzy for Timmy đ
51
It’s just meaningless.
Unlikely doesn’t mean exceptional. With lots of possible outcomes, as weather outcomes are, comes low outcome probability. Even the mean outcome is unlikely.
Every outcome has an occurrence probability. With that in mind it is the rate of occurrence over time that is indicative of change.
Flannery has a fit because after waiting long enough his lucky numbers scored him a division 4.
00
Excerpts from Tim’s book “The Angry Summer” are being sent to WA Govt schools under the umbrella of Sustainability as a suggested resource to use. Nothing from a differing point of view. No balance. A worry.
60
Disgusting propaganda! Where is the right of reply?
40
Right of reply and disabling operation of scientific method are the reason for ‘framing’ discussion with fictitious parameters. Generally speaking, pundits ignore ideas like Moving the Overton Window, which is a concept involving manipulation of what seems reasonable…a debater’s trick and psychological ploy. Hegelian Dialectic and Bayesian Belief Systems are further excursions into the realm of mindwashing and of controlled discussion kept within prechosen bounds of irrelevance.
40
I see you’ve got your quota of Texas Sharpshooters in Aussie land.
10
OT note – Bjorn Lomborg just published interesting stuff on his FB page –
http://lomborg.com/sites/default/files/Congress%20testimony%20March%202013.pdf
00
The very last paragraph of Lomborg’s document:
20
He’s been saying that since since at least 2001, and its still true/right even though almost no one is listening. But governments can’t tax cheap green energy, so the big lie is heard more often and more loudly.
30
Wouldn’t green energy need to be actually useful and not cover the planet in solar panels and turbines before people switch? The reason we use fossil fuels is THEY WORK.
41
To you and me the word useful has a meaning. But I doubt that the green energy pushers grasp the situation. To them it’s only necessary to imagine the way they want things to be and, voila, it happens.
Reality never interferes with the left side of human affairs. đ
10
This is a misnomer. What is touted as “green” energy is far from green and probably far worse than coal.
10
Lucky for us, wind power is now far cheaper than coal:
http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Renewable-Energy-is-already-Cheaper-than-Coal-and-Gas-in-Australia.html
16
ok then, lets remove all the ridiculous feed in tariffs.
Those producing energy from wind get paid the standard wholesale price and MUST sign a contract committing to continuity of supply.
You are a brainwashed IDIOT Slimon !!
30
And please do not forget the environmental damage these things do – just look at the mess in the UK.
10
I support user pays and I believe that although a sensible and responsible government should spend a decent amount of money on R&D, there is certainly no excuse for continued subsidies to industries that are mature.
So that’s coal suddenly become even more expensive, and nuclear out of the picture entirely.
Thank you.
“IDIOT Slimon”! Ha ha <– I see what you did there, very clever.
02
and Backslider, when you talk about “mess”, can I assume you are not talking about the 100-billion pound clean-up cost dumped on the taxpayer as a legacy of that country’s nuclear energy programme?
01
Oh SimonV, you’re a lying b*****d, and also one who just hasn’t learned to read yet, and I know that’s ad hom, but people like you who, without a clue, mindlessly lie because you can’t understand what is said, make me so exasperated.
Here is the website for the AEMO
Top right corner are the current prices for electricity. Note for NSW and Qld, with the highest percentage of coal fired power, the costs are currently $57 and $58 per MWH
Now, as to where you can’t read, you fool, note in your own link it says ….. NEW BUILD ….. and even that’s an outright lie.
The person who wrote this spurious article is quoting worst case scenario, and how do they do this.
They quote a highest cost case for USC coal fired power, and the cheapest low bid price for Wind, with no subsidies added, both at construction and then for on sale of the electricity generated.
They then add on the highest cost CO2 Tax component.
They then add on the utterly impossible to attain CCS technology, which will NEVER (is that strong enough for you) be attained on the scale required.
Then as a comparison to put it on an equal footing with Wind Power, they give this new coal fired plant the same life span as a Wind Plant, 25 years, and even that’s hopeful for Wind, as now they are saying that Wind can only manage 15 years, so they’re overstating it for Wind, and understating it for new build Coal fired plants, which have a life span of 50 years.
Simon, you are a gullible fool at best.
Tony.
71
What good is an ad hom if you can’t back it up, eh! So, I”ll show you how they skew the figures here, and while it’s off topic, this Thread has run its course, and there’s a new one up, so not many will be coming back here to read this.
SimonV, poor fool that he is, is just a tool in the hands of people who manipulate them to get their false message out there, so let’s see how they do it, shall we.
They think that their ace in the hole is CCS, Carbon Capture and Sequestration, or clean coal as it’s called because the fools don’t understand big words.
CCS, the process of capturing the CO2 and burying it in the ground, and hey how easy was that to explain, and I did it just like the believer fools who see it like that.
A new USC plant of 2000MW Capacity will burn 5 million tons of coal each year, emitting 14 million tons of CO2. CCS calls for that to be buried in geostable rock formations, buried forever, never to seep back to the surface, and with a life span of 50 years, that comes in at 700 Million tons of CO2 in that hole in the ground. That will NEVER happen on that scale, for one plant, let alone a fleet of them.
So let’s look at how they come by their costings for that high price quoted by SimonV.
CCS consumes 40% of the power generated by the plant itself, and that’s just the starter, because they then need to construct the pipeline to the hole in the ground, the cooling, the pumping, etc, etc.
So, here they assume the CF of the worst case scenarion coal fired plant, around 60%, but what they neglect to tell you here is that CF is for a spinning reserve older plant close to it’s life span duration, and only used to top up power as required.
So here we have a 2000MW plant running at 60%CF, losing 40% of its power due to CCS, and having a life span of only 25 years, and here I’m not even adding on the CO2 tax, usually quoted at the highest guess they can make, but this is without the CO2 Tax.
So, we have over the life of (their CCS) plant, a total power delivered to the grid of 158TWH.
A real UCS coal fired plant is currently running at between 87.5% and can be up to 92.5%, but here I’ll just use the low figure.
Now, without CCS, and having a typical life span of the usual 50 years, the power delivered to the grid comes in at 770TWH.
This is 4.88 times as much power.
Now, for their CCS Plant, the original huge cost is recovered from the price for electricity for the 158TW. There are so many added extras that the cost will be large, in fact huge, and falsely inflated.
However, spread the cheaper coat for the non CCS Plant over the longer life and the near 5 times the power, and you can see the unit cost for electricity will be considerably cheaper.
So, they use the totally unattainable CCS as their trick to drive up the cost.
Regulators say that any new plant can’t go ahead without CCS.
As CCS will never be attained, you can see the code for the statement.
Effectively, you can never construct your new technology coal fired power plant.
Then they add on the CO2 tax on top of that.
It’s an absolute crock.
And mindless fools fall for it every time.
Tony.
81
So now we’ve seen how they inflate the coal fired power cost, let’s then see how they deflate the Wind power cost.
Take a large scale Wind Plant, 150 towers and around 500MW Capacity.
That will cost around $1.3 Billion, and the price is only going up.
As much as half that comes in Government grants, not a loan but an outright grant, so now they only have to recover half the cost over the life of the plant.
Also, as part of the contract, the government agrees to subsidise the actual power being generated, and that is usually half the price per unit of electricity, so now the proposers only need recover half the unit cost for its power.
They will always quote the best case theoretical CF, and that’s 38%. They can usually average a best case 30%, and the current World average CF for all wind is running at 17%.
They quote a best case life span of 25 years, and now, that’s even problematic as it’s been shown that perhaps 15 years is the best case life span, and what is also becoming obvious is that generators are losing considerable efficiency after 7 to 10 years, so CF is actually shrinking.
So, as you can see here, with best case scenarios for every aspect, the cost will look cheaper.
The actuality is in fact the opposite.
Add back in that initial grant, add on the total unsubsidised cost per unit, take the average CF, and go with the lower life span, and the real cost for Wind power per unit is not only marginally increased, but humungously increased.
So here we find these people artfully making coal fired power look artificially expensive by taking every worst case scenario, and then making Wind power look artificially cheap by taking every best case scenario.
Given a level playing field, there is actually no contest.
The only reason proposers are constructing these wind plants is to gain access to free government money, and then to boost their proposal, they use bogus data to say they are cheaper than coal fired power.
It’s a crock of bovine waste, and sucks in the uninformed useful idiots, as shown above by SimonV, poor deluded fool that he is.
I can see his response now … Hey, look over there.
Tony.
81
Oh dear!
Here’s the AEMO page for electricity costs
Of note here is for yesterday 6th March, and go to South Australia and look at the Peak RRP, the cost for electricity per unit during the Peak Power period. Note it is at $158.71 per MWH.
So, what’s different about S.A.?
It has the highest availability of Wind Power for any State in Australia.
Note that price in S.A. is anything up to three times as costly as for the cheapest State where coal fired power provides the bulk of power.
So, wind power cheaper than coal fired power.
Some of you may point to days when it is cheap, but note those days, Saturday and Sunday, weekends when power from the two largest sectors, Commerce and Industry are at their lowest, because not as many people are at work than during week days. commerce
All you renewable power urgers take a good look.
You can inflate coal fired power all you like, but real data will shoot you down every time.
Tony.
61
And just why was Peak power so expensive on the 6th March, the day I mentioned above.
Well look here at Wind Farm Performance for that day at the following link, and you need to look at the second graph down.
Wind Farm Performance South Australia Wednesday 6th March 2013
Now untick all the boxes down the left, so you are only left with the power generated from the S.A wind Plants, and then untick the ‘All’ box, so just the selected Wind Plants are showing, that ticked box above ‘All’.
That darkish line on that second graph, shows the total power from all those SA wind plants, and that’s 1223MW in (possible) total, or around 700 individual towers.
Note that during the Peak Power period from 10AM through to 10PM, it stumbled along the bottom, averaging barely 120MW, 10% of Capacity, and as low as under 100MW. When you compare that with the total demand for SA, during that same 12 hour period, Wind was supplying barely 4% to 5% of the State’s Power. So of those (around) 700 wind towers, barely 55 of them had the blades actually turning at any one time.
So now, instead of having all that wonderful wind power available, SA. has to buy power from other sources, at a premium rate, proving that no matter how many wind towers you have you WILL always need traditional CO2 emitting backup for when the Wind doesn’t blow.
So, not only is Wind Power more expensive, it also hides the true cost of an even greater cost when it is NOT producing power.
Tony.
51
I can read just fine, thanks Tony, and what I am reading is telling me that no new coal-fired plants will be built, ever, because it is now far cheaper to build wind farms.
Your objections based on intermittence are obviously only valid so long as wind generation is excessively localised – once wind turbines are sufficiently distributed, intermittence is mitigated by the distributed nature of the generating grid, along with the addition to the grid of a mix of generating technologies.
A recent patent granted in the US shows promise: at a fraction of the price of solar, you can actually use solar energy to generate artificial wind vortices to drive a horizontal air turbine generator.
I think it’s great that so many people are developing so many new technologies to try to keep our electricity bills down.
I am not in the slightest bit surprised that the people who make money burning coal will emit copious propaganda trying to vilify their competitors.
I guess the trick is being able to spot PR and show sufficient scepticism towards the arguments of vested interests.
05
Hey everybody, don’t worry.
SimonV is just pulling our legs with his tongue planted firmly in his cheek, having his own private little joke where he says here:
This is such exciting news.
Use solar power to drive a big fan to blow wind across the blades of the wind turbine that drives the generator on top of the huge tower. He also forgot to mention that this wonderful exciting new development also comes with it’s own geosynchronous satellite, mounted with gossamer mirrors that ensure that the Sun’s rays shine on the solar wind vortex generator during the night, so you can get all round wind blowing across the blades.
SimonV, man, we just love guys like you who come here to give us a chuckle.
And without even blinking, you still stand by the meme that wind power is cheap.
Distributed nature of wind power alleviates intermittence. You fool, you’ve got no idea have you.
The U.S. currently has humungous wind power, in fact more than Australia’s total power Capacity from every source, that’s every power generator in the whole of Australia. All that wind power is distributed across Continental U.S. which is roughly the same land mass area as for Australia. It isn’t even supplying 30% of what Australia actually consumes, and that’s more than 60,000 individual towers, currently around 30 times the total Wind power Capacity here in Australia. Even in the U.S. all that Wind Power barely covers 2.5% of total power demand.
You can have them all across the Country SimonV, tens of thousands of them in fact, and I know money is no object when it comes to Wind, but you fool, it will not even come close to meeting our demand.
As to no new coal fired plants EVER, then SimonV, I was right first time. You really can’t read.
Look at the map at this link. That’s at least a thousand new coal fired power plants (minimum) in planning and construction. Even the UN is constructing them.
Cheaper to build Wind Plants. You must be joking. That just won’t happen.
And SimonV, I have no reason to vilify you at all. That guy looking back at you from the mirror in your bathroom does that for me.
You read only what affirms your religious belief. Real facts, even when shown to you mean absolutely nothing.
I can’t believe that you’re being serious here. This has to be a leg pull.
Tony.
40
Simple Simon says…
Bwahahaha teeheehee guffow guffow.
It’s amazing, these tree hugging, sandal wearing, latte sipping, gaia saving pinko leftoids wrote the bible on HYPOCRISY.
30
Simon V makes the same mistake my brother always did–believing a patent is for a WORKING device. That is not the case. Many patented items are never functional. Look up flying saucers. It’s a fun romp through ideas that never really made it in the world.
Due to the wonders of modern internet and email, I can gather offers for over a dozen devices that will give me free energy (one says “IT’S FROM GOD”! Must be good) if I order before the government shuts them down. I used to think people were foolish for falling for this, but then the government started paying billions for wind and solar and I realized the problem was far bigger and more ingrained than anyone had imagined.
All of this foolishness could work out. I suppose at some point people will become uneducated and sheepish enough the government can convince them the lights are on when they aren’t. Looks like that may actually be a practical solution. Cheap, too.
30
Sheri,
Thanks! I was beginning to wonder if I was the only one to notice the phenomenon.
I’ve my own collection of magic silver bullets that do everything from cure cancer to grow hair on a billiard ball. I keep asking myself, if these things are so great, why are they being hawked from dark corners of the internet and my spam folder? If there was anything to it my doctor would tell me about it or it would be sold in major department stores. You get the picture I’m sure.
Barnum didn’t say it but it’s nevertheless true, there is a sucker born every minute â maybe by now it’s every second or every millisecond. The world is irreversibly crazy. đ
10
Simon,
Need I add that green energy is in that same category?
10
Roy, Green energy is a fact of life. It’s here now. Far from going away, it will continue to get cheaper and to grow as a proportion of our energy.
I don’t see what’s to be alarmed of – as fossil fuels continue to get more expensive, driving our power bills up by 20% per annum over the last 4 years, green energy is getting cheaper, and is now far cheaper to establish than coal power.
As for the vortex wind power system that Tony and Sheri appear to want to pooh-pooh out of hand, maybe you should look again and do a better analysis:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21729075.400-reap-the-whirlwind-for-cheap-renewable-power.html
00
.
Simon
Here is a diagram of your AVE system.
According to the companyâs figures, a functional AVE power station with a 100-meter (328-foot) diameter is capable of generating up to 200 megawatts of electrical power.
Hey SV – when the wind doesn’t blow & the sun don’t shine – you’re in a deep 100 meter diameter heap of nothing. You have got no understanding of intermittence problems of supply. You are on the same GAIA drug that Flannery takes.
10
…and yet, weirdly, investors in wind farms all over the world are generating power, selling power, and making money.
Maybe it is *you* that doesn’t really understand intermittence?
00
Perhaps it is you, SimonV, who does not understand government subsidies, tax breaks and mandated purchase of specific types of power. If the government mandated we use people on bicycles to generate energy for a third of the electricity used, gave huge grants and tax breaks to companies who made this kind of energy, then companies would be putting up “bike energy” businesses everywhere. Even better, if this energy is too expensive, like compared to say, hydro, the government can declare the competition is “unfair” and pay the “bike energy” people for electricity they could have generated if a cheaper source were not available. Happens all the time with wind energy–the producers, and I use that term loosely, are paid for energy they don’t generate because there’s too much wind at the moment or wind is more expensive and the power company goes with the lower price. I’m sure that “lower price” thing will fade and power companies will be forced to buy the wind power. You can bet the hydro power people will NOT get paid for energy they aren’t selling. With government intervention, you can sell anything at a profit.
00
Sheri, you can sell at a profit when you ignore externalities and get access to land and resources cheaply (ripping off current and future generations by taking nonrenewable resources at way below the value to current and future generations). Future generations have to pay the price that we are having subsidized today.
Our market systems favor those already wealthy (above everyone else) because the government gives them tremendous private sector leverage against the rest of us at very little cost to them (wealth fee). I don’t have a math formula for this, but it’s not hard to believe that wealth begets wealth, that it’s much easier to make money if you already have money and associated leverage from government help. Anyway, many who own lots of resources never were competing in a fair market place of ideas and opportunity for those resources. This creates yet another way wealth begets wealth. You are greatly favored in this type of game of acquisition of subsidized national resources..helping to sustain the cycle of wealth creating wealth.
02
I agree Jose – X,
Life is so unfair “Our market systems favor those already wealthy”.
Our market systems also do not favour those who spend all their time blogging and avoiding work.
KK đ
00
Jose: You have surely not heard of Facebook’s creator, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Charlie Ergen (Dish TV), Rush Limbaugh, Al Franken, Brad Pitt, and many, many others who actually became billionaires via work (I do count acting and Hollywood as work đ ). Mother Nature Network says 86% of millionaires did not consider themselves wealthy growing up. The majority of millionaires did not inherit or marry the wealth. If you throw in US politicians, then the inherited or married money might go up quite a bit. But that’s small subset of millionaires.
I don’t consider maybe 25% as “many who own a lot of resources”–actually most people earned their wealth.
Test of world view: If I tell you I own a 140 acre ranch, am I wealthy? Yes or no?
If I vacation in Cabo every year, am I wealthy?
If I can pay all my bills on time and don’t use credit, am I wealthy?
10
Asking people who have lots of money their own opinion about their upbringing privileges, many of whom have never lived in the economic lower half of neighborhoods in the country and have few friends who live there, is not going to result in unbiased opinions. What do professional researchers say?
Let’s put aside the fact that most people, unlike Bill Gates, did not have a mother with close contacts of higher ups at IBM (allowing Gates to place himself between those who wrote DOS and IBM) or parents to provide certain insight and advice.. plus a greater than average lifestyle and access. [Remember as well that IBM was in anti-trust hot water and was pressured to outsource a job that they easily could have done better.. UNIX was far superior to DOS.]
Consider the game of Monopoly. When it starts, it’s a contest. Yes or no? With a little luck, a good strategy can push you a bit ahead of the competition. But what happens after the game has been going on for an hour or two? Someone would have gotten into the lead, perhaps the second best player, perhaps the slightly best player, but the result is a lead that becomes harder and harder to reverse until it’s an unstoppable force where the player can start to play pretty badly (or go on autopilot) and still easily win.
Now imagine if the next time you play Monopoly (say a new tax year), you have to start in the same position as the last game was ended? Would you play? Would you have much of a chance to win that second game? No, you would demand a reset button of some sort so that fair competition can again result. This is true of most games and contests. We have reset buttons to allow another clean fair fight. We don’t do this in life, though we could or at least change the rules to make contests more fair and less lopsided against the winners of yesterday.
As concerns natural resources like coal and oil, the future generations are not directly represented at the table, neither as voters nor as consumers nor as potential producers. At least those dealing in renewable energy (even if with government prodding or help) are putting the effort to consider the needs of future generations and create something that will be long-lasting and provide for future generations rather than hogging up privileged access to an easy potent energy source they acquired and have protected by Uncle Sam on the cheap.
00
Jose–In spite of people’s insane beliefs, things don’t all have to be done by professional researchers to be accurate. Believe it or not, some things in life can actually be decided and known with the intervention of an overpaid, statistics-wielding professional. If a person is rich at a very young age, odds are they inherited it (except Mark Zuckerberg). It takes time to get rich. Or winning a lottery, which so totally undeserved and unfair that money should be taxed away at 95%. Winning money is sooooo wrong.
There is NOTHING in life that says you cannot rise above your current position except maybe living in a political dictatorship. There are some cases where physical limitations apply. However, the single-most reason people do not become rich is IT A LOT OF WORK. Yes, luck plays a part, but in most cases, work. Not-rich people don’t like work–they like taxing other people’s money and giving to themselves while complaining about unfair life is. “See, I lived a poor neighborhood and nobody helped me and it’s not my fault and…..” Excuses are probably the number one people never excel at life and never get rich.
Jose, you live in a fairytale. Renewable energy companies most certainly do “hog up the money and resources”. Also, at least Duke Energy and NextEra Energy have NEGATIVE rates. NextEra built a natural gas plant on the edge of the Everglades (sensitive area) with the money they saved not paying taxes on wind energy. How’s that for helping??? Duke Energy received $111,000,000 in a 1603 grant from the government for a wind plant near where I live. These are the same people that “loaned” Obama/Dems $10 million for the Democratic convention in Denver because Democrats “don’t take corporate donations”. They promptly decided NOT to have the loan repaid after the election and wrote it off, sticking the stockholders with $6 million in loses. Add a few more million for inkind contributions from Duke. THESE are your heroes? There is not a renewable energy company out there that is not in it for MONEY. Renewable has been called the new gold rush for a reason. The “world’s largest wind plant” is being put in by a BILLIONAIRE from Colorado, who make money from oil first.
Where I live a local oil contractor mortgaged his house and everything he owned to drill a field no one believed would produce. It did. Now he’s a millionaire. He took RISK, huge risk and turned out to be right. So does that make him and evil person who benefitted from the government or someone who was wiling to lose everything for what he believed? Your black and white world of good and evil is just a fairytale–and an excuse to never succeed.
10
Sheri (and I apologize ahead of time for the harsh tone):
So I point out that a neutral third party with knowledge of economics and the state of financial being of individuals would likely give a more objective opinion, and you disagree?
I gave a Monopoly analogy to illustrate a problem that does exist, and you possibly suggest that it is fine because at least some are going to succeed if they work really hard? I suppose we could add more headwind and still find numerous rags-to-riches success stories from over-achievers (out of hundreds of millions of people), but is that what you consider to be fair rules of play? Is that fair for a great many hard workers not up to par to meet and beat the sizable headwind and tilt against them?
So you really think there is little difference in upbringing, or do you condone those significant differences? It doesn’t matter to you for the many who work from a much more difficult position? You are against working for a fair playing field so that hard work with fair odds is rewarded for anyone who is willing to put the work? Most who succeed have significant advantages, many in ways they may not want to admit or completely take for granted. Heck, women and minorities — birth luck — are at a clear disadvantage when the top paying jobs tend to be business related and greatly depend on being given a chance by those in power or otherwise having them mentor you and share trade secrets and key wisdom.
Fairytale? The US gave to many companies, and many have been succeeding with what is an important goal to achieve, research and commercialization in the field of renewable energy as the least we can do for future generations. Venture capitalists have just as bad or worse odds in the private sector. There were Republicans and major Republican contributors in high or the highest positions in likely every single one of the companies that failed. No favoritism or wrongdoing has been found by independent government investigations of the White House. One of the failures most tauted by those ignoring the national strategic value in the advancement of renewable industries and wanting to point to politics is a firm which had the support of the Bush administration (iirc). Yes, it’s good that oilmen are moving to renewable instead of staying in oil. If a firm in renewables industry does something questionable but legal (the Everglades example), how is that a negative against federal support for the industry, and are you prepared to apply that standard to fossil fuel energy companies as well? It’s smart to support an industry that faces headwind if for strategic reasons. The renewables industry is not squandering resources as a whole when the success record is decent compared to private ventures and when future generations are significantly gaining from the research and improved commercialization. They are relying on sun and wind energy that is effectively unlimited instead of using up a very scarce resource that is not even going to be around in any significant quantities several centuries from now (barring something unforeseen). Imagine us (in the US) having to live with all sorts of limits and lack of opportunities because the Founding Fathers had set into motion events that would have left us today with loads of nuclear toxic waste, limited farmable land, no cheap clean fresh water, toxics and hormones in all foods, and a fraction of the coal and oil we have? What would prices and opportunity and standard of living be like? Why would you not care about doing that to your great grand kids’ great grand kids?
An oil contractor took a big bet and won. The guy likely had information and risk management that we do not although likely he would not share that and it really wasn’t that risky for someone in his position, OR, if the guy really was taking a huge risk, he was gambling so why are you looking up to that and why would he be anything less than a lucky fool?
You are for taxing at 95% all lottery winnings. Does this mean you are in favor as well of taxing at 95% inheritances and gifts? I’m curious.
I don’t want to pretend there are easy answers to many difficult questions, but not recognizing the advantages of wealth in our society is not going to bring partial solutions any closer. And being ungrateful for all the natural riches we inherited and are depleting for future generations is not something I think most people can tell their great grand kids honestly in the face even though we can today make some limited efforts to try and have their situation not be as bad. I am surprised a person who believes in opportunity, fairness, and accountability would not support having those who consume and deplete scarce resources and poison land and water not pay for the consumption and the cleanup but instead pass it on to their kids’ kids.
I don’t think most people would consciously hurt their descendants, but are they taking the time to think about these issues or are they looking the other way and not caring about the low odds being passed along to them?
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Jose, my class envying fantasy dweller:
A. NO researcher is a neutral third party. Someone pays them and generally has an idea of the results expected. This isn’t Kansas anymore.
I never said life was fair. That’s your fairy tale again.
Yes, I AM ABSOLUTELY AGAINST PLAYING IN A FAIR FIELD. Human beings stagnate in those fairy tale utopias people imagine (actually, it never really works out like like the brochure–poverty is equalized, the ruling class is rich). Humans require struggle and competition to excel. Or they end up like Greece and Spain, with riots and no money. Not very fairly-tale like.
Renewables are the MOST damaging environmentally of all energy. They are 95% except from most laws protecting the environment. They kill millions of bats and raptors, which oil companies are fined for. It’s okay to cut forests for wind turbines, but not for houses, etc. They run rampant–for what??? A TINY fraction of energy? Terrifying.
Typical liberal troll–“you don’t car about your kids”. I won’t even answer than one. You are truly a piece of work. So stupid you believe people can’t live without a Nanny government to save them from the rich people who worked for a living and you failed. My greatest fear for “my kids and grandkids” are that people such as yourself will actually take over and rob them of their chances in life. Big Nanny government has already saddled them with a society based on fear, class envy and trillions in debt.
I suspect the founding fathers would have just lynched liberals, but that’s not allowed anymore. Probably best not to quote them.
Actually, I am not in favor of taxing lotteries–but if we are going to tax to punish people or make life fairer, they should be at 95%. As for inheritances and gifts, they were already taxed once as earnings —now we should DOUBLE TAX? If you goal is to completely remove all capital from society, it would work. (I also don’t personally believe in giving money to one’s children. It takes away their drive. However, if people want to do so, the government should see it as a windfall. It’s called death tax for a reason–getting rich off people dying. Yes, inheritances are the same thing–getting rich off dead parents.)
Again, Sir Troll, you believe that capitalism=environmental damage. Really? Those turbines irradiated a whole valley in China from rare earth magnet manufacture. I suppose the Chinese kids are expendable, huh? Seems turbines may indeed be just as damaging in the long run–maybe more so. Oil isn’t usually radioactiveâŚ..
You supposition of “most people” is typical of those who think for everyone and think everyone agrees with the choice. I think everyone would not mind going back to the ideals that started America and all acting like responsible adults, not children in need of a nanny. America didn’t start with a nanny–you do know that, right?
Enough on politics.
Forgive the tone–sometimes there is no nice, sweet response to things. I’m sure you understand.
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Sheri, thanks for trying anyway, Jose has worn me down with his stupid. I didn’t have the stamina to even try anymore.
One thing I’ve known for a long time: you can’t fix stupid.
He’s a lost cause, we can only hope for more sense on the other side of the balance. Otherwise we’re in deep trouble and so are our grand children. (that’s irony)
Funny too, he keeps bringing up the precautionary principle couched in “grandchildren”. The only way one can be certain of the outcome for grand offspring is by not having children. That or maybe cheap abundant energy………
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Mark, are you sure J_X isn’t a troll, paid to waste your/our/JoNova’s time?
How much of the ink/time used in responses to this blog has been generated by J_X?
Methinks Joanne should check this over.
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I think we have a variety of trolls.
Brookes is one type. Adolescent in his thinking, Brookes is accustomed to monitoring rather than partaking in conversations, because he doesn’t possess the cognitive reasoning to make a rational argument of his own. He has learned to get along in an academic fairy land where he projects the pretense that he has a superior understanding of the subject, and interjects occasionally only in order to enforce this pretense. Brookes thinks he SHOULD be of the Left, since all of his colleagues are. However, he monitors this blog because he has doubts about his colleagues, but insufficient brain power to make up his mind. He gets his dopamine from imagining how upsetting he can be to other folks, and this dopamine reinforces his own perception that he is the sharpest tool in the shed.
SimonV and Nice One represent another culture. Their thinking can be summed up as “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”. Steeped in the brain-washing techniques of the propaganda we call education, they are convinced that those who do not walk the party line are somehow impaired, and will use any propaganda available to them to disrupt our train of thought. They are trolling simply to be a thorn in everybody’s side. Their juvenile mindset, embossed with baloney in much the same way that German soldiers were created eighty years ago, encourages them to heckle because it somehow endorses the dichotomy of their opinions relative to what they realise deep down to be true.
Jose is a different kettle of fish. Jose has become convinced that he is somehow prevented from becoming anything he would like to be not because of his own shortcomings, but because of some other factor. He has picked up the jargon, and the groupthink, of Latin culture in the US which sees itself as oppressed, and is trying to identify the oppressor. I don’t believe that Jose is trolling in order to be disruptive, or to boost his own ego. He is merely convinced that his own failings must be the fault of someone else, and has somehow become convinced, as millions have before him, that somehow socialism is a political ideology when in fact it is merely a trap to enslave the masses.
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>> Enough on politics.
I get sick as well, so I will shoot for “brief” on the required defense.
First, a reality check: we live in a decent society when you consider some of the ills of the past.
If gov gives the wealthy extra power (again, it’s not hard to play Monopoly when you already own a fair share of colored properties with hotels on them.. and get special reduced rate capital gains income taxes and other perks), those are scoopings of “lard” that dampen their requirement to “struggle and competition to excel”. It takes away from others who do show “struggle and competition to excel”. That’s what I mean by fairness, generally (we’d disagree over details, sure). And what would my more privileged brothers and sisters do “without a Nanny government to save them from the” masses and my other brothers and sisters with different views on equity and rights?
An imperfect, unfair world is reality, but that fact would not have convinced most women to have given up working for kids rights, worker rights, and women’s suffrage. [The Founding F did, eg, leave some toxic sludge behind that fortunately we have cleaned up with some Amendments.]
A near fair playing field is what “most” spectators prefer to see in sport and what “most” participants demand. We vote to have referees. And I am taking liberties by using the word “most” (and some others), absolutely. Call it a loose observation on society. I was not paid to give that opinion, and I doubt it’s very authoritative — just the way you like it!!!
No, I did not realize asking for a fairer playing field was being anti-capitalist or envious. If you considered most people to be a part of your extended family (or a version of yourself, regardless of the sex, ethnicity, etc of the person), then you might be a little upset at the status quo of tilted playing fields. Why? Family don’t relish winning in tilted playing fields against each other repeatedly. Not “most” families (Don’t worry, I was not paid for that research, either).
Double taxation? ..like when I pay sales tax? Don’t you know many transactions are frequently taxed? If we weren’t paying for a “democratic” government, we’d be paying for a private army and to combat physically and repeatedly the many ideas different people have of justice, rights, equity, greed, blood sport, and what not. As for corporate “double” tax (for anyone who sees it that way), one shouldn’t create that “person” with all of those benefits if one doesn’t want to pay for the privilege the government gives on that.
As for “capitalism=environmental damage”, I would agree that laissez-faire is more likely to lead to environmental damage, yes. No advanced society practices laissez-faire, however.
To finish: I agree there are many flaws to letting any group have significant power over many people, but the private sector (backed by government force or, in some mystical fantastic libertarian land, backed by private armies) has not solved that problem and makes it worse in some ways (though it depends on the rules of the particular “game”). I am for strengthening democracy and representation (eg, making it easier to shift your voting power away from your elected rep onto a different rep if you don’t agree with your rep — effectively firing them). “Every man for himself” is not something I support if we can continue to find a saner middle ground. Unfortunately, we are all going to dislike many things government does. That’s the cost of a democracy and broader representation.
OK, now I can join you with confidence in a chorus of two, “Enough on politics!” The oceans are not getting colder with all of this hot air.
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I am against government handouts of any kind–tax breaks, welfare, money for grants, etc. The federal government need only coin money, maintain an army and regulate interstate commerce. State governments can cover laws concerning crimes (homicide, assault, etc), maintain roads, maybe schools (though I am really not sure on that one), and so forth. No tax breaks on the state level either and no welfare.
I can’t see us needing a private army if we limit government “fairness” policies. However, I am the first to admit that while I would like a libertarian society, I sincerely doubt humans have reached the evolutionary maturity necessary for that. Some rules will be necessary for now.
Beyond that, I think we pretty much understand and even agree on some points (I will give you the “double-taxation”–I did realize there was a contradiction. đ )
00
Shari,
I prefer the private sector solve problems, for example, I think a major key to more of my “relatives” (rather than fewer of them) being able to have leverage is widespread access to knowledge and trade secrets. I support open business, open source software, open content, etc, all things that take leverage away from the sizable leverage wielded today by deal-makers and proprietors and into the hands of those who manage and execute, the actual human beings creating content, and generally everyone doing most of the work.
However, we’ll very likely agree to disagree on the role of federal government.
We do currently live in a world fairly distant from finding success in a libertarian utopia, and without access to a bit of a “nanny”, something virtually everyone with “wealth” has in ample amounts (“nanny” is in quotes and represents a safety net and helping hand), the playing field is broken for many.
We can remove the “nanny”, but it doesn’t make sense for a government of the people to do this and leave behind rules that favor concentrated wealth begetting wealth. Significant wealth today is principally made and also distributed to key hires thanks to strategic use of contracts and asset leverage, whose power and efficiency exists thanks in a significant degree to Uncle Sam’s services (courts, infrastructure, currency, etc) and guns. Now, if a fair fee for these services were charged on behalf of the general population represented, what would Uncle Sam do with all the money left over? It could certainly evenly redistribute it to these, the citizen-shareholders. Then ends nanny state.
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Jose in 82.1.2.3.8
It would appear that you have given up on astrophysics to embark on some political science.
Jose, lad, you are no better at that than you are at real science.
Let me suggest some reading for you.
You could start with Burris, Alan…..A Liberty Primer
Then you could tackle Rand, Ayn….The Fountainhead
Then you could move on to Rand, Ayn…..Atlas Shrugged
Next on your list is Rothbard, Murray…..For a new Liberty….The Libertarian Manifesto
Then you might be ready for Murray, Charles…..What it means to be a Libertarian
Then after these classics you could move on to something new, perhaps
Brennan, Jason…Libertarianism…What everyone needs to know.
Let us know when you’ve finished, Jose, and we’ll give you your next assignment.
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Rod Stuart,
good list of books there. I’ll wager that Jose won’t bother reading them (or if he did, not comprehend them).
Collapses of previous civilizations were always brought about because of a too large percentage of inattentive, fat, lazy thinkers like Jose believing that they knew human nature.
This too shall pass………
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Jo, I suggest you should create a new set of Annual Awards for Services to Mis-information about Weather and Climate, with a range of Categories I’m sure readers can help with. Dud predictions, contradictory statements, and condescension spring to mind.
My suggestion is that these Annual Awards should become known as the “Flanneries”, after their inaugural winner.
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Hummmmmm…..just a Canucklehead’s opinion,but shouldn’t his name be Tim BARMY?
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No. He’s a respected scientist who has produced lots of good work.
The people heaping abuse on him are neither.
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EU CO2 prices to hit 2-3 euros without support: analyst
AMSTERDAM, March 7 (Reuters Point Carbon) â EU carbon prices will almost halve from current levels if lawmakers reject a plan to withhold supply this year, but such a move would not kill off the blocâs cap-and-trade scheme outright, analysts and traders said Thursday…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2211004?&ref=searchlist
Land ownership disputes hamper Latin American carbon projects
SAO PAULO, March 7 (Reuters Point Carbon) â A spate of recent land ownership disputes is posing threats to several carbon emission-reduction projects under development in Latin America, putting at risk private investment and United Nations funding in those projects…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2211478?&ref=searchlist
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From the Australian newspaper;
”TASMANIA’S Labor-Greens government has admitted ignoring initial advice that it spend an extra $25 million on fuel reduction burns in the lead-up to this year’s disastrous bushfires.” – I was shocked to read this today, they blamed CC and not poor management.
Fires were not a result of imagined CC, it was a hot summer, we’ve had them before.
I accept CC but when I see climate that I’ve seen before, I recognise it as normal climate variation.
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The new battle cry is catching on, the nightly news here in Adelaide had a story with the headline “Adelaides angry summer” coz we are soooooooooo special here in Adelaide we need our very own angryness.
Friday funny………..How many South Australians does it take to change a light bulb?..None as Sth Australians dont like change.
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The BBCs predictions for the future of the British climate
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/climateexperiment/whattheymean/theuk.shtml
“In the BBC One programme âClimate Change – Britain under Threatâ, Sir David Attenborough, Matt Allwright and Kate Humble explore the impacts of climate change on the UK.
Experts consider the changes that the UK can expect given the most likely results from our experiment.
Jay Wynne from the BBC Weather Centre presents reports for typical days in 2020, 2050 and 2080 as predicted by our experiment.”
From the BBC programme seen in Jan 2007
01
Flannery is an ‘expert’ in fossils and mammals. How come he can call himself an expert on ‘climate science’ ? He owns waterfront property on the Hawkesbury river outside Sydney and in recent years purchased his neighbour’s property which was also close to the high water level. He has continued to alarm us about high water level’s rising. Presumably he did the same with his neighbours before they agreed to sell to him. I understand more than 80 BILLION dollars has been paid to ‘climate scientists’ and their entourages the world over. What has happened to this money and what have we, as advanced nations, got to show for it ? Why do we need 1000 public servants in the Australian Climate Commission ? What on earth (pardon the pun) do they do all day ? A few years ago, the ‘scientists’ agreed global warming had nothing to do with weather. Then Bob Brown, a noted Tasmanian media manipulating non-scientist, claimed wild weather in Queensland was because of global warming, and off they all started. How do we know measuring of temperatures was accurate 100 years ago and how many measuring stations have been moved since then ? I understand many were moved from high mountainous locations to lower places for ease of access. Its not up to me to justify my concerns, it’s up to Flannery to justify his salary and perks through this current government. The last place anyone should look for accuracy with any branch of science is the mainstream media including the government owned media because all you get is media written summaries which are agenda driven and clearly therefore open to bias.
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>> What part of that suggests we have the data to pronounce that events are extraordinary and outside of ânormalâ?
I haven’t read the studies, but it’s not just a matter of one weather event per year for 150 years. There are weather events daily and at every point on the map. If we are talking about city temp daily averages, how many cities are there and how many days in one year?
There is a very large selection of sample points. If we fill a normal curve with those points from 50 years back, a large fraction of current events would be landing several standard deviations from that center. It would be very unlikely that randomly that many events would land that far from center.
I have not looked at the studies and am not a statistician, but I suspect this is the sort of reason why others with more experience than me might have been able to properly come to those conclusions.
01
As you were everybody because they have a PLAN to address the problem.
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Can anyone explain to me what a ’60 year Pacific Decadonal Oscillation’ is, and how it is arrived at?
The forty year fantasy of ENSO is just as corrupt as the ‘hockey stick.’
This was shown to be the case in Alex S. Gaddes work ‘Tomorrow’s Weather’ (1990, where he exactly predicted the onset and duration of future ‘Dry Cycles’ and explained the links to Sunspot Cycles,(among other Astronomical factors,) as well as the Orbital and Rotational movement of these Cycles. (30 degrees of longitude/month with the westward migration of the Earth’s Magnetic Field.)
Australia has just gone through a One Solar/Earth Year ‘Dry’ Cycle.(January 2012 -January 2013, for the East Coast) and will now experience a Two Solar/Earth Year ‘Wet’/Normal Period, followed by a severe Five Year Dry Period starting Jan 2015. This Dry Period will inaugurate around 110 degrees longitude East of Prime (circa Beijing,) in early March 2014.
An updated version of this work (including ‘Dry’ Cycle forecasts to 2055) is available as a free pdf from [email protected]
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Atmospheric and surface temperature fluctuations are thus dependent on the passage and duration of these ‘Dry’ Cycles, and the ‘Wet’/Normal Periods between them, affecting the planet longitudinally (from pole to pole.)
Temperature and CO2 diatribes are ‘fabrications’ to support the corrupt and unsustainable,ENSO and ‘hockey stick’ hypotheses.
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