Kill the IPCC says Judith Curry. After decades and billions there is nothing to show for it.

And the public conversation finally starts to move on to discussing not whether the IPCC is wrong, but why it was wrong, and what we need to do about it. Credit to Judith Curry and the Financial Post. I’ve posted a few paragraphs here. The whole story is in the link at the top. – Jo

Judith A. Curry, Special to Financial Post

Kill the IPCC: After decades and billions spent, the climate body still fails to prove humans behind warming

 The IPCC is in a state of permanent paradigm paralysis. It is the problem, not the solution

The IPCC has given us a diagnosis of a planetary fever and a prescription for planet Earth. In this article, I provide a diagnosis and prescription for the IPCC: paradigm paralysis, caused by motivated reasoning, oversimplification, and consensus seeking; worsened and made permanent by a vicious positive feedback effect at the climate science-policy interface.

In its latest report released Friday, after several decades and expenditures in the bazillions, the IPCC still has not provided a convincing argument for how much warming in the 20th century has been caused by humans.

We tried a simple solution for a wicked problem:

We have wrongly defined the problem of climate change, relying on strategies that worked previously with ozone, sulphur emissions and nuclear bombs. While these issues may share some superficial similarities with the climate change problems, they are “tame” problems (complicated, but with defined and achievable end-states), whereas climate change is “wicked” (comprising open, complex and imperfectly understood systems). For wicked problems, effective policy requires profound integration of technical knowledge with understanding of social and natural systems. In a wicked problem, there is no end to causal chains in interacting open systems, and every wicked problem can be considered as a symptom of another problem; if we attempt to simplify the problem, we risk becoming prisoners of our own assumptions.

As I’ve been saying, monopolistic funding doesn’t work in science any more than it works in business:

The large investment in climate modeling, both in the U.S. and internationally, has been made with the expectation that climate models will support decision making on both mitigation and adaptation responses to climate change. So, are these complex global climate models especially useful for decision makers? The hope, and the potential, of climate models for providing credible regional climate change scenarios have not been realized.

With the failure of climate models to simulate the pause and regional climate variability, we have arguably reached the point of diminishing returns from this particular path of climate modeling – not just for decision support but also for scientific understanding of the climate system. In pursuit of this climate modeling path, the climate modeling community — and the funding agencies and the policy makers — have locked themselves into a single climate modeling framework with a focus on production runs for the IPCC, which has been very expensive in terms of funding and personnel. An unintended consequence of this strategy is that there has been very little left over for true climate modeling innovations and fundamental research into climate dynamics and theory — such research would not only support amelioration of deficiencies and failures in the current climate modeling systems, but would also lay the foundations for disruptive advances in our understanding of the climate system and our ability to predict emergent phenomena such as abrupt climate change.

As a result, we’ve lost a generation of climate dynamicists. We have been focused on climate models rather than on climate dynamics and theory that is needed to understand the effects of the sun on climate, the network of natural internal variability on multiple time scales, the mathematics of extreme events, and the predictability of a complex system characterized by spatio-temporal chaos.

Judith A. Curry is Chair and Professor, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology.

h.t to Mike

8.7 out of 10 based on 129 ratings

278 comments to Kill the IPCC says Judith Curry. After decades and billions there is nothing to show for it.

  • #
    AndyG55

    Don’t know about “kill”……..

    disband, de-fund, dissolve, disassemble, dismantle, [snip…it’s metaphoric, and we don’t really need to go further – Jo]

    whoops, I’m getting back to where I said I wasn’t sure of…..

    oh well 🙂

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    • #
      AndyG55

      Defenestrate ?

      Come on guys, help me out on this !!!

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      • #
        ExWarmist

        Defenestrate is not feasible.

        There isn’t a window big enough to throw the UN IPCC through.

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        • #
          AndyG55

          Half a dozen at a time.

          I could be done.. really ! 🙂

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          Greebo

          There isn’t a window big enough

          Nor high enough.

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          • #
            John Knowles

            Hate to deflate your bubbles but I mention a crook named Mann, ocean cycles and Bond events to many a “Joe Average” and their eyes have already glazed over with dis-interest.

            No-one cares ! ‘cept maybe for a few nice old git on blogs who have somehow retained the ability to think for themselves.

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      • #
        Rod Stuart

        squash

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      • #
        jorgekafkazar

        Two men (so far) have been killed by mysterious falls in a staircase in the UN Building in Vienna.

        One was Timothy Hampton, a nuclear monitoring expert. I haven’t got the other name, yet.

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    • #
      Reinder van Til

      Send the IPCC on that mission to Mars project where people are trying to form the first colony. They hate a nice green world thanks to CO2 and they hate nice warm weather apparently! Then they have what they want, a very cool world. 😀

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    • #
      Lars P.

      Terminate?

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  • #

    How long now have they just been putting out reports.

    Talk talk talk.

    Have they actually gone out and done something about it?

    Look back to the ‘hole in the Ozone layer’ problem, and how that was a drastic situation.

    Something was actually done there. They actually got rid of Chlorofluorocarbons.

    Here, all they have done is talk about it and release more reports.

    THAT should be the big indicator here.

    Tony.

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    • #
      Gee Aye

      You need to define your “theys” here Tony. Who did something about the ozone layer – the report writers? The montreal protocol was a response to reports to various bodies that advised on the scientific evidence and a case for action.

      The report writers and scientists didn’t get the job done in a direct way as you suggest; they did a lot of promoting what they believed to be true just as the current crop of “climate” scientists and various hangers on do now.

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      • #

        Yeah, you’re right.

        What would I know?

        Just forget I even said it.

        Tony.

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        • #
          Gee Aye

          Tony, something got done, people and organisations mobilised but your post says, “THEY have just been putting out reports”, and “THEY got rid of CFCs”. There are multiple “theys” for each of the two theys that I capitalised. Some of the theys did as you suggest and some didn’t.

          I’m sure you know heaps but that was a vague comment from someone who is normally quite precise.

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          • #

            I, (that is me, Tony) think that they, (that is the readers here at this site) got the general idea.

            Tony. (that’s me tango, oscar, november, yankee)

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            • #
              gee Aye

              tony,

              “general” and “idea” are still undefined. It is all about me so please help me out.

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            • #
              Greebo

              I, (that is me, Tony) think that they, (that is the readers here at this site) got the general idea.

              Romeo Oscar Golf Echo Romeo Tango Hotel Alpha Tango, Tony.

              10

            • #
              Bulldust

              Tony, you remind me of the quote oft attributed to Twain:

              Everybody talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it…

              Suits the IPCC perfectly.

              10

          • #
            AndyG55

            I knew exactly who he was talking about. !

            40

        • #
          Kevin Lohse

          Which is the more irritating, Gee Aye the ecoloon or Gee Aye the chop-logic-ing pedant?

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          • #
            gee Aye

            lovely… what is an eco loon?

            Tony… if you are still reading… how about a tango in november?

            08

          • #
            KinkyKeith

            Hi Kevin

            Gee is not your usual eco attack dog from SkSc.

            He is the thinking man’s enviro-matador.

            One day he’s going to realise he has been mortally Gored

            KK

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            • #
              gee Aye

              not by Al I hope!

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              • #
                KinkyKeith

                You got it; but it wasn’t very subtle considering the context.

                Something harder next time.

                KK

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              • #
                gee Aye

                by the way that is AL not A.I. I have no opinion on whether the former vice president or the bodies that enclose an artificial intelligence would be prefereable when it comes to exposure to a goring.

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              • #
                gee Aye

                harder… hee hee titter

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              • #
                KinkyKeith

                As I approach this blog on the basis that sex is irrelevant or in some cases indeterminate,

                this: “harder… hee hee titter” is a response to something not intended.

                Perhaps I should have said: “more difficult” in the original comment.

                KK

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              • #
                Gee Aye

                are you sure it was unintended?

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              • #
                Greebo

                by the way that is AL not A.I

                Where Gore is concerned, I get the artificial part; unsure about the intelligence.

                10

      • #
        MemoryVault

        .
        Actually, Edgar Bronfman Senior, major shareholder in DuPont Chemicals at the time, paid for scientists to come up with papers supporting the “ozone hole depletion” myth, all of which have now been thoroughly debunked.

        It was Bronfman Senior who financed greenie groups to get all upset about “holes in the ozone layer”, thereby ensuring the issue continued to feature prominently in the MSM. It was Bronfman who footed the bill for hundreds of delegates to attend the meeting in Montreal (his home town), that led to the signing of the “Montreal Protocol”, banning CFC’s.

        All up, the exercise cost Bronfman an estimated US $250 million.

        In return Bronfman, through his ownership of DuPont Chemicals, secured, for quite a while, a monopoly on the US $16 BILLION a year refrigerant business.

        .
        Better than owning a bank, actually.

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        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          And apparently the whole hole is still there … waiting for the opportunity for a rerun, once this carbon thingie has petered out.

          These scams cycle at a periodicity that is longer than societal memory (measured in generations), and since real history is no longer taught at school (being replaced with social studies), humanity is doomed to repeat them, over and over.

          That is the bad news. The good news is that very few people who come here will still be around to witness it.

          That reminds me, we are almost past due for another major war …

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          • #
            Manfred

            RW, would you consider the possibility exists we are engaged in a major war presently, albeit one of an idealogical variety? Aside from the ‘climate’ axis, there is also the small matter of the US administration being closed for business presently – similar MO.

            The ‘West’ including the Middle East appear to me to be well-engaged in a process of autodigestion. The East on the other hand, well let’s say, remain poised. Meanwhile, the Russkies are giving Green Peace a run for their money, with GP hollering they are being treated ‘disproportionately’ – very potkellianblack – but reassuring to see that there is a karmic balance of sorts.

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            • #
              Rereke Whakaaro

              We are certainly engaged in several ideological conflicts. I would not call them war, however, for fear of running out of words to imply that there is another level that we can move to.

              The west is moribund, having sunk into the mire of trying to be all things to all people, and therefore standing for nothing.

              The Middle East has regressed into what they have always done, fight along tribal lines, and over religious differences, and sometimes both.

              The Chinese are back to attacking Japan as part of the pre-match entertainment, prior to sweeping northwards and westwards, in their hordes, spreading their own brand of philosophy and business practice.

              South America is taking siesta, and fighting drug wars.

              And the environmental NGO’s are losing the plot, because they can’t keep up with the latest scare of their own making.

              In the meantime, the New Environmental Religious Order (NERO) fiddles, while the nothing burns.

              And here I am, sitting at the bottom of the Pacific, trying to keep a low profile. Normal sort of day, really.

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          • #
            Ted O'Brien

            I have heard it said that societal memory does not extend beyond last Tuesday.

            Personal observation often gives that assertion a mark of at least 5 out of 10.

            00

    • #
      Brian G Valentine

      Guess what – that “ozone hole/cfc” idea was another product of bozo ill thought out “science.”

      The end result was nothing more than wasted energy: Most CFC replacements such as HCFC used as refrigerants have a lower boiling point than the CFC they replace, requiring higher compression thus more energy used.

      The “ozone hole caused by people” concept was just DEAD WRONG

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      • #
        Ted O'Brien

        The biggest lurk in business comes in three grades:

        1. Persuade a government to mandate the use of your product,
        2. Persuade a government to prohibit the use of your competitor’s product, and
        3. Persuade a government to prohibit the use of your less profitable product, thereby mandating the use of your more profitable product.

        The “Hole in the Ozone Layer” story never made sense to me, because it was announced as a new discovery within a handful of years of the installation of the satellite which “discovered” it.

        Prior to that time there would have been very little data on the subject, because there were very few facilities for gathering data.

        All of a sudden there is a mountain of new data from the satellite. Data which tells nothing of what was there prior to the installation of the satellite.

        I am not a scientist. It is enlightening for me, therefore, to read that this “hole” had already been discovered and considered 25 years previously. I was unaware that assertions made here were extant, but, given that my suspicions lay there I am not surprised to see them.

        There is a great similarity between this story and the AGW story.

        As a farmer though I have seen other examples which affect us. 2,4,5-T was one, where a long established inexpensive herbicide was banned without any empirical evidence whatsoever that it was harmful to anybody.

        That compelled us to use modern, patented chemicals, which were no safer and vastly more expensive. And, surely, much more profitable for the manufacturers.

        On the side, 2,4,5-T was widely used to kill woody shrubs and trees. That led the Green lobby to maintain a campaign of lies against it.

        The chlorinated hydrocarbons were another case, the DDT family. They should not have been prohibited, just modified in their usage.

        If Dow have indeed pulled a monstrous scam with the hole in the ozone layer, they should be called to account.

        00

    • #
      Pam hilliar

      Tony-love your work, but the “Ozone Hole’ as caused by CFCS was just another scam ,like the Global warming scam. Google “Forty Years Research on Atmospheric Ozone At Oxford; A History” It is in Applied optics, march 1968, Vol 7, No3, and the relevant page is 403, and those imediately preceeding for context. Dobson , Who predicted and proved the existence of the ozone layer in the first place, discovered the ‘peculiar annual variation of Ozone” in Antarctica in 1956 /1957. Ah, mankind was not using a lot of CFCs back then, so poor deluded Gordon Charles Dobson -did I mention we measure ozone in dobson units- put its yearly appearance down to 3 factors; 1/ not a lot of ozone gets produced in antarctic winter as no sun. 2/ circumpolar vortex stops infilling, and 3/ colder the stratosphere the bigger the drop in ozone values. If you ask the CSIRO about this ,as i have done, they will tell you1/ the study doesnt exist. 2/ the study was wrong 3/ the numbers were wrong. and finally 4/ refer you to the British antarctic Survey team who will supply you with the “official data”. Except, of course, they did not exist in 1957, so where did their data come from if not from Dobson? Memory Vault was quite correct- Du Pont made a killing as they had developed 2nd and 3rd generation refrigerants, for which they held the patents.

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      • #
        Ian hilliar

        whoops ,sorry I posted under my wifes name, but having a science degree she too knows the global warming scare is crap- By the way, who the hell is this idiot who blogs under the pseudonym “Gee Aye”?

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        • #
          Gee Aye

          someone else with a science degree and is excellent at debating.

          No, you are an idiot with sugar on top!

          08

          • #
            Ian hilliar

            Ah, of course, it is G.I Green! Please see Jo’s previous post re the dumbing down of education, which actually does include both history and science. I would wager that one Gee Aye the masked minnow is of a younger and less well educated variety of science graduate. I would like to say it is not your fault, and that a poor education was all you were offered, but it is your fault. One of the first things you are taught is the scientific method, and after that to think for yourself. Later, at university, it used to be emphasised that you should question everything, and everyone, especially authority. Judith Curry and Jo Nova have both stood up for science, and for honesty in science. Only to cop a hiding in the media from people who see themselves as having some sort of superior grasp of reality, and see themselves as “excellent at debating”. Whatever or whoever you may be, you are a lousy debater. At least get the facts first-have you paused long eneough to actually read just that one page of G C Dobson’s review article?

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            • #
              Gee Aye

              you’d be wrong. I’ve nailed my degrees to the mast here before. I do love a string of suppositions not even trying to masquerade as fact. You never know where it will go, like a good spy novel.

              Am not a lousy debater you are. Are too.

              By the way, “younger” can refer to an 80 year old. Are too.

              Oh and another thing. I’d like to know which University science course in the last 50 years, “first taught the scientific method” etc as you described? All the courses I’ve encountered in three countries (not the US) infused it through the teaching of the scientific material over the the full 3-4 years of study. It was made explicit in HPS(traditionally a subject split between Science and Arts Faculties which has only appeared in recent times as an early year elective. Those poor younger science students being taught the Hillier way.

              05

              • #
                Ian hilliar

                GA–Judith Curry used to be regarded as the “High priestess of global warming” in the USA, and Jo Nova was once a member of the greens, so there is still hope for you…. I note you have not replied to my challenge to read page 403 of the above referenced review article. When, and only when, you have done so, feel free to continue posting. Oh, and the scientific method was taught at high school, back in my day-definitely remember an HSC exam question on the scientific method back in 1972.

                10

              • #
                gee Aye

                thanks. Are you asking to be accused of being a provocative troll?

                “I note you have not replied to my challenge to read page 403″.

                Wrong. I read it. So?

                ” When, and only when, you have done so, feel free to continue posting. ”

                You and what authority proclaims this?

                “Jo Nova was once a member of the greens”.

                So? I knew a Jo Codling back in the day. Is this important information?

                “Oh, and the scientific method was taught at high school, back in my day-definitely remember an HSC exam question on the scientific method back in 1972.”

                prove it.

                thanks.

                01

              • #
                gee Aye

                oh I’ve just missed an obvious troll trap.

                “we were taught scientific method first”

                I was generous and thought this was referring to a thorough study of how science is approached by humans as one would expect in a Science course at tertiary level. High school curricula have always had this as a component and in most places introduce it in year 8/9. I would not rate it as life changing or, feel free to correct me, as significant as a formative process for students. So, what is your evidence that your HSC level introduction was significantly better than what os taught now?

                01

        • #
          John Knowles

          who the hell is this idiot

          Hey, stop kicking the furniture. It belongs here !

          00

  • #
    Graeme No.3

    The australian and UK weather forecasts are both based on those same climate forecast models. They don’t work over 7 days (being generous) but are supposed to be accurate over 70 years.

    But the IPCC won’t be disbanded just yet. Too many scientists, activists and public servants on the gravy train. Only when the public becomes antagonistic will the politicians act.

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    • #
      Mattb

      “The australian and UK weather forecasts are both based on those same climate forecast models.”

      Really?

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    • #
      Anthony30

      The models used to forecast the weather vary depending on which models are performing the best at the time. US, Australian, European and UK models are used the most. How do I know this? Because I’m a forecaster for a prominent forecasting organisation in Australia. The modelling done for long-term climate forecasting is very different from short-term forecasting, so to compare the two is plain wrong. The former is extremely inaccurate (as the 15-year hiatus in global warming proves), whereas the latter is quite accurate most of the time.

      On that note, your statement that short-term forecasting out to 7 days is unreliable, is demonstrably wrong. Sure, the 7th day forecasts are nowhere near as good as the 2- or 3-day forecasts, but I have seen repeatedly models come startlingly close to what transpires many days out, at least in terms of the positioning of highs, lows, ridges and troughs. Your little pin-point of a location may not fare so accurately however due to subtle variations in weather as dictated by local effects, amongst other things.

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      • #

        Guessing that tomorrow’s weather will be the same as today’s weather is often remarkably accurate too. Extending that out to seven days will sometimes be accurate too. So what?

        If enough people guess often enough about enough things, someone will be right sometime. Then to be a perfect prophet, all you need to do is forget about the times you were wrong. Or, as the weather people do, have an explanation of why their forecast was wrong. The explanation doesn’t have to be right, it only has to sound weatherly.

        Mark me down as unimpressed. When you can be 80% plus correct three months out, THEN I will be impressed. Until then, I can do almost as good as the current weather casts two to three days out by looking at the clouds and comparing that with how much my joints ache.

        I don’t need a multi-billion dollar weather casting system to know if the sun is shining or if it’s raining. I simply look out the window. Duh….

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        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          If enough people guess often enough about enough things, someone will be right sometime.

          I met an American weatherman at a party in the California, and remarked that I was impressed with the way they could state a probability of whether it would rain or not, at least to the nearest ten percent.

          The weatherman looked sheepish, and said, “Well we have ten guys in the office, and the boss comes out and asks, ‘How many of you think it is going to rain tomorrow?’, and we hold up our hands …”.

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        • #
          Anthony30

          star comment

          Oh Lionell, how I’d love to take you into the world of weather forecasting, so you could see for yourself just how it’s really done — how hard and challenging it is, but also how serious we all take it. You’d learn that despite such difficulties, our forecasts are actually very good for most people, and are getting better and better every year. I’d teach you about persistence forecasting — that is, sometimes you can use the previous day’s weather to forecast the next, but that such forecasting is not possible when you have an airmass change. The timing of troughs and fronts is crucial in such a situation (which models now handle very well), as is an assessment of upper air stability, because merely relying upon surface humidity (something your joints might respond to) is woefully inadequate for forecasting weather, because you might have very dry air aloft which will not trigger thunderstorms, and is something that bamboozles many less-informed people (and joints) who can’t understand why today was so humid but we didn’t get a storm!

          I’d enlighten you to the fact that meteorologists forecast weather accurately enough most of the time that governments the world over, from both far left and far right political persuasions (even those who question man-made global warming), continue to fund national weather services because they all have the intelligence to realise just how crucial they are to a modern, civilised society that values its economy and its citizens. They’ve done the maths and see an enormous cost-benefit ratio to the provision of weather forecasts, even if you (and your joints) don’t.

          You could have the opportunity to also do the long 12-hour night shifts I do, and then get abused by people such as yourself because you forecasted “possible thunderstorms” but no thunderstorm hit your little house. But to make up for this, I could then get you to meet the pilots, both private and commercial that I talk to every day, the commercial airlines, the fire authorities, and other emergency staff, who will praise you and tell you how glad they are to have forecasters who make their jobs so much easier (yes, I have had such praise). Oh, and how about I get you to come with me down to Canberra to the National Operations Centre where the safe flights you take so for granted are largely the result of accurate weather forecasts we provide which are then passed on to the various airlines who plan your flights to avoid such things as clear-air turbulence, wind shear, mountain waves, volcanic ash, and turbulence due to thunderstorms, amongst other things.

          But why would you need all of this? Surely your joints can do all of this for a minuscule fraction of the cost, and I’m sure you’ve already calculated the cost-benefit ratio!

          50

          • #

            Oh oh, I have offended someone who is feeding at the public tax funded trough. It is not how hard you work nor how long you work nor how difficult the work is, it is how accurate and precise you are in your forecasts. It is the results that count.

            All I get from the weather is maybe or maybe not. Like I said, I can do almost that well looking at the clouds and comparing that to how much my joints ache. I really would like something demonstrably better than a horoscope style weather report.

            Yoda says: “Do or do not… there is no try.”

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          • #
            Retired now

            I have to say when I came to Western Australia I was incredibly impressed with the accuracy of the forecasting here. When they say there is a front coming across late afternoon, say 4pm it really pays to get the washing in by mid afternoon. This was a huge contrast to New Zealand forecasting – which I take as indicating the difficulty of forecasting where there is a varied geography compared to the huge land mass we have here, not a slight on their abilities.

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            • #
              Greebo

              Rn, I guess you never followed the Kiwis Test Cricket team. If you had, you would have learnt that even the ABC cricket commentators could predict the 4PM front in Perth 40 years ago.

              00

              • #
                Alan

                Don’t get to many fronts in Perth in summer, mainly troughs down the coast and their associated weather.
                But then I’ve only been here 25 years, must have changed in that time s/

                00

              • #
                Mattb

                that’s the sea breeze, not a front.

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              • #
                Backslider

                that’s the sea breeze, not a front.

                Better learn what causes that breeze there Matty.

                00

              • #
                MemoryVault

                ABC cricket commentators could predict the 4PM front in Perth 40 years ago.

                AKA The Fremantle Doctor.

                Known in Kalgoorlie as The Esperance Doctor, which usually arrives there between 11.00pm and midnight.

                Sometimes.

                00

          • #
            KinkyKeith

            Hi Anthony

            Obviously your group produces useful and essential predictions of weather.

            I think if you are picking up any bad vibes it may be because “weather” is frequently linked in a negative way to Climate Change and it doesn’t help.

            The people causing damage to the image of forecasters are the Climate Change guru’s who see each and every change in the weather as evidence of man’s guilt and of impending doom from excess CO2.

            All the best

            KK

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            GrahamP

            I am surprised this post got a star. Anthony is clearly trying to defend his profession, which of course is his right.

            However the BoM (for whom he may or not work) has tarnished its reputation with blatant climate alarmism

            I recall a spokesman from BoM saying during the severe drought in the 90’s something like “due to climate change the weather patterns bringing cold changes and rain to the south have moved further south and will not return”. I hope this individual is now hanging his head in shame.

            Another criticism I have, as a recreational sailor of many years, the BoM’s propensity to predict the worst severe weather only to cancel the warnings later. This trend became apparent after the Sydney – Hobart disaster and has been noticed and commented on (including a chap who trained aircraft traffic controllers) by others. In the BoM’s defence I realise the timing of cold fronts is uncertain along the south coast, but a prediction of the worst only to retract it is only making me more cynical.

            Prior to a Marlay Point a yacht race a few years ago, after a very hot day a southerly buster swept across Lake Wellington causing a bit of chaos. Having experienced a similar event a few years earlier I recognised it for what it was. During the pre-race briefing a “wet behind the years” BoM weather forecaster said “we don’t know where that came from”. I just shook my head in disbelief.

            So while I appreciate the work of forecasters who now have the benefits of satellite imaging PLEASE stop the blatant alarmism.

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          • #
            Carbon500

            Anthony 30:
            Since the whole CO2 saga began, I’ve found the most interesting and informative material to come from books written by meteorologists – for example, Robin Stirling’s ‘The Weather of Britain’ and William Burroughs’ ‘Climate Change -a Multidisciplinary Approach’. They’ve given me a taste of how complex the world of weather is.
            I found your post informative and helpful, and it’s nice to see a comment from a professional meteorologist in the midst of the tumult on this site!
            I was doing some reading the other day, and discovered how important the Icelandic Meteorology service is to shipping – I didn’t realise that fishing and other vessels could become trapped in ice so quickly (post number 27 has my comments on this).
            The impression given by the media is that in winter ice expands, in summer it thaws – all due to CO2 of course, and that’s it.
            Yet the article I read conveyed a potentially vicious and dangerous daily changing scenario requiring constant monitoring for the safety of those at sea.
            Thank you for a ‘reality check’!

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        • #

          Climate forecasting is done by running the weather models for decades ahead and then averaging those results for decades on the future over some years at least to predict the climate at thate time. This is claimed to be accurate because they aren’t claiming to tell the day to day weather in the first week of March 2052 at some particular place. Sooo……..in that case we should be able to predict the average weather over the week of Christmas – New year 2013 right now in say Toowoomba. Any takers?

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        • #
          Jazza

          Yep
          Look at the sky and feel the joints.But aren’t we off topic as the alarmist mantra always deflects by telling us “weather” is “not climate”????
          Wouldn’t be surprised if these 4000 guys in white coats running around looking busy(sorry KRudd!) took a peep out the window and panadol osteo for their knees also before pronouncing the climate “changes” That’d actually get their averages up.

          00

      • #
        Graeme No.3

        Sorry if I got that wrong. I was relying on statements from the BOM and in particular the UK Met Office that the same models were used for both. Perhaps a bit of misunderstanding on the part of their respective (if not respected) Public Relations Dept.

        And yes, my little pin-point of a location has not fared so accurately however due to subtle variations in weather, except it hasn’t been that subtle. Strong winds and rain aren’t unusual here, but when you are trying to schedule tradesmen for the coming week it helps if they arrive on the day predicted. For longer term “subtle variations” see http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/ current comment on 3 month maps.

        Still, as Mark Twain observed “everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it”.

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    • #
      Eddie Sharpe

      But the IPCC won’t be disbanded just yet. Too many scientists, activists and public servants on the gravy train. Only when the public becomes antagonistic will the politicians act.

      What’s needed is rather a gravy boat. A very leaky one.

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  • #
    KinkyKeith

    I’m just sitting here trying to think of something to say and nothing comes to mind.

    It has been such an incredible ride for those pushing CAGW via man-made CO2 but like all good things, the end is nigh.

    Any engineer intent on producing a “model” starts with a large sheet of blank paper and sketches up all of the interacting factors for the situation.

    In this case we have so many factors such as orbital mechanics (long and short term items), chemistry of the whole biosphere, relative sinks

    and sources for CO2 and other similar gases (H2O) and it would take a team of ten scientists a decade to just rough out those to start with

    before even switching a computer on.

    And then we have the IPCCC.

    They start with two factors and the worlds largest computers – for what?:

    1. World Temperature (whatever that is)

    and

    2. Atmospheric CO2 levels.

    It was NEVER going to work and the answers and results were Predetermined in a think tank.

    KK

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    • #
      Gee Aye

      struggling with your thoughts, you could back to you comment about the goodness of CO2 in the bloodstream as I’ve thrown you a comment.

      420

      • #
        Gee Aye

        someone must have plenty of spare green thumbs

        218

      • #
        KinkyKeith

        Not so much “goodness” as “essentiality”.

        KK 🙂

        ps. Maybe that should have been “essentialness”.

        CO2 is essential for ongoing respiration.

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      • #
        KinkyKeith

        Gee

        “This seems mischievous as you seem to be implying that atmospheric CO2 levels are vital for breathing response in human”.

        This mechanism has little to do with atmospheric CO2 levels as All of the activity is within the lungs, brain and bloodstream.

        Intake levels of CO2 are about 390 ppm although they are rising so fast that could be 395 now.

        Expiration levels, from memory, are about 40,000 ppm.

        If you re-read what I wrote I did not say what levels of CO2 were required, all I was saying was that if CO2 levels in the bloodstream get too low, the next breath, and that is always the important one, will not be triggered.

        It is intuitively obvious that CO2 levels in the body should not get too high because it means that O2 is too low and without O2 we do not function.

        gee you have been busy: ” You also didn’t mention that the CO2 gets into the blood as result of respiration”.

        If inspiration is about 400 ppm and expiration is about 40,000 ppm it means that the flow of CO2 at the blood/lung interface is pretty much all one one way.

        Not much is going to go against a blood concentration that produces 40,000 ppm just prior to expiration.

        KK

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        • #
          gee Aye

          thanks. I tried to keep it on topic by moving it to the other thread. The point is that the atmosphere has nothing to do with it. The near death person has a low rate of respiration so has little CO2. Higher levels of CO2 in their lungs wont help those final moments.

          btw… I’ve had more such moments than I care for and unfortunately none by old people

          25

          • #
            KinkyKeith

            Gee.

            what little I understand of this complex system I have simplified above and assume that Cheyne-Stokes long slow inspiration keeps adding new supplies of O2 to the lung then to the blood.

            This super oxygenation should reduce blood stream CO2 levels and as you say this is aided by the persons inactivity.

            I think that using pure oxygen in scuba tanks and aircraft breathing systems would be very dangerous because of the potential to leach out more CO2 than normal when the tank air has zero ppm CO2. The gradient is changed and excess outflow of CO2 could lead to total switch off.

            KK

            20

            • #
              gee Aye

              indeed and nitrogen levels become important but i’m happy that this is the edge of my knowledge because it give me an excuse to go back over stuff I once knew and find out new stuff.

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              • #
                KinkyKeith

                Another past experience from the other thread.

                I saw a couple of young fellows at a nearby table blowing on the table surface and thought that kinda weird.

                After a few moments one of them collapsed and hit his head on the floor as hes went down.

                Seems they were doing it to get a cheap high!

                It cost him a snapped front tooth.

                Obviously he had over-oxygenated his blood and lost consciousness; maybe there is a parallel with the “anxious” glider pilots.

                His breathing pattern was sharp intake and rapid forced expiration which seems to be neither Singing nor Cheyne-Stokes.

                What’s happening there?

                The end result seems to have been reduced bloodstream CO2 leading to loss of consciousness followed by immediate build up of CO2 to trigger the next breath??

                And of course a vist to the dentist.

                KK

                20

            • #
              Dave

              KK Agree,

              Our body has a programming error, it uses the level of carbon dioxide (not oxygen) in the bloodstream to determine how much oxygen our body needs. Everyday, this works OK – as the carbon dioxide level increases, so does breathing rate, carbon dioxide elimination, and oxygen absorption. So far so good.

              But with diving, it’s the regulator that is often the problem, which you have to select for the correct depth. Similarly with your situation Gee Aye, when someone who is ill tends to get the regulation wrong, as CO2 builds, they tend to take many shorter less frequent breaths, (Shallow) and take back in the higher CO2 concentrated air they just exhaled. And on it goes. Short sharp breathing is nearly identical to hyperventilation, where you fail to fill your lungs, and also fail to exhale properly. I’ve been a swimmer, water polo player and diver throughout my life, and KK is correct, if you can master your breathing, things become easier. Even in swimming, the young ones take multiply short breaths (shallow), thinking they are getting more oxygen, the reverse is happening (quite often resulting in unconsciousness). Medical practitioners are now using full breathing exhalation following by full inhalation with oxygenated air (regulated timing) for all bed ridden patients suffering from multiple diseases regardless of age.

              Hypoventilation also increases the carbon dioxide level which involves exhaling fully and then holding your breath “out”, keeping your lungs empty for a period of time before breathing in. Bad result. Result is high CO2, and often resulting in unconsciousness also. You then said “Higher levels of CO2 in their lungs won’t help those final moments”, KK never mentioned this at all in relation to youth during an illness. In fact he was indicating that it may be a result of increased CO2 without the correct breathing monitors in place.

              Gee Aye you say:

              The near death person has a low rate of respiration so has little CO2.

              This may be true, but it all depends on how they are breathing, it can end up with elevated CO2 in the lungs and the body, triggering extra breathing (but too shallow and dangerous) that will end up a problem.

              Higher CO2 atmospheric levels will aid in extra performance through better breathing practices that most swimmers and drivers already know about. Don’t train at altitude, train in elevated CO2 environment. Athletes are different to patients of course, so the reverse is utilised in hospitals where regulators are used to suit the condition of patients by increasing CO2 exhalation and increasing O2 inhalation (dependent on metabolism rate of course).

              Try breathing with full regular exhalation expelling as much as you can quickly and then taking long full inhalation, your ability to walk, run or swim will increase greatly. I’m nearly 60, and still playing water polo without a problem, all through correct breathing.

              Elevated CO2 is the new way of fitness training (mainly aqua sports), but also used by some musical band members for enjoyment with shocking results.

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              • #
                KinkyKeith

                Wow Dave, that seems to fill in all the gaps and more .

                Very interesting from the practical side of things.

                It’s a very complex system with so many variables; residence time in lungs, relative rates of inhalation and expiration , active or inactive etc.

                This type of analysis was never done for the CAGW scam.

                KK 🙂

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              • #
                KinkyKeith

                So Dave you have re-defined respiration as not so much getting oxygen IN but getting CO2 OUT,

                while leaving enough CO2 to keep neural activity OK, which shouldn’t be hard in an athlete or physically active person.

                KK

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “Elevated CO2 is the new way of fitness training ”

                So we are headed for a fitter world population as CO2 levels rise. 🙂

                Another benefit !

                50

              • #
                KinkyKeith

                Hi Andy

                The benefit of people like Gee Aye is that they sometimes deliberately prompt extra study of a topic.

                He/She caused the discussion on the relevance of atmospheric CO2 levels on neurological activity for a number of situations.

                If CO2 increases worldwide there is no specific need to adapt biochemically to that when as Dave suggests we can simply be forced to breathe differently to achieve the same ends.

                Another reason not to be worried about rising CO2 levels.

                KK 🙂

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              • #
                AndyG55

                KK.. The other point is that even if atmospheric CO2 reaches , say 700-800ppm, it will make zero difference to any human function.

                I bet that all of us inside in front of a computer are already experiencing at least as high as that.

                (Although it does seem to some negative effect on the mental ability of ‘believers’ ! 🙂 )

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              • #
                KinkyKeith

                Andy

                “it will make zero difference to any human function”

                Perzackly!!

                KK

                10

              • #
                AndyG55

                Response to self…

                “Although it does seem to some negative effect on the mental ability of ‘believers’ ”

                doh ! Hyperventilation !! Of course !

                20

        • #
          Reinder van Til

          Athletes go into the mountains to expose their blood to lower O2 levels. When they come down their amount of red bloodcells have risen so they achieve better in their sports. I can imagine the human race slowly adapting to more CO2 levels in the atmosphere as well.

          30

          • #
            KinkyKeith

            Good comment Reinder. We are the ultimate adaptors.

            KK

            10

          • #
            Safetyguy66

            Interesting point.

            Im a big UFC fan and elevation training is a massive part of many fighters preparation routines, never consider the long term effects. Maybe someone should do a study of the relevant factors in people from like Nepal or something.

            10

            • #
              Truthseeker

              We know from the Ghurkhas that if you give people from Nepal large knives they become very fierce warriors. Maybe the altitude is also a factor …

              20

          • #
            Greebo

            Natives of the South American mountain regions chew a kind of gum made from the coca leaves (?) for the same reason. We adapt.

            20

            • #
              KinkyKeith

              Simple pain killer?

              KK

              10

              • #
                Backslider

                No, its not a pain killer. Chewing coca keeps them working all day in very harsh conditions and no, they are not stoned all day.

                I have myself imbibed mate de coca while up in the Andes, which is tea made from coca leaves. It helps with altitude sickness.

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              • #
                KinkyKeith

                I wonder what the functional aspect of this is?

                KK

                10

              • #
                Dave

                KK,

                Great article on this at the “Use of Coca“,

                1. Coca is a stimulant which revitalizes refreshes the mind and body and energizes, increasing physical stamina, endurance, and reduces the need for sleep.

                2. Coca is a short lived antidepressant in that it elevates and brightens mood, gives one more motivation to do something, without stronger stimulant’s euphoria and possible depressive side effects nor addictive potential..

                3. Coca is a nutritional asset, source of vitamins and minerals, and has an action on the metabolism’s regulation of carbohydrates.

                4. Coca stimulates the digestive processes, and reduces gastrointestinal pain.

                5. Coca acts against fatigue and altitude, and motion sickness, and, to some extent, relieves physical pain.

                6. Some suggested but lesser understood or studied effects of coca point out a reduction and/or limitation of oxygen consumption and caloric expenditure, which would further explain the benefice effects of coca on altitude sickness.

                Amazing stuff.

                10

              • #
                KinkyKeith

                Interesting Dave,

                Following the link:

                Seems that the main mechanism at work is that Coca liberates glucose for use in daily life.

                Must provide energy to “get through the day” as the adds say.

                No apparent effect on other neurotransmitters (serotonin, dopamine etc) although one study mentioned dates back to 1965.

                KK

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      • #
        KinkyKeith

        Well that comment provided an opportunity to explore the topic in more detail so I had to give the original a green thumb.

        KK

        10

    • #
      Winston

      Predetermined in a think tank

      I think their thinking definitely tanked.

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    • #
      Jazza

      Great clear post KK! THanks

      00

  • #
    Kevin Lohse

    Prof. Curry has walked a long and difficult Damascene road. When she first started to question consensus, “science”, she was disgracefully attacked by the Hockey Team enforcers – thugs to a man – which attacks have forced many other scientists to desist from enquiring after the truth of the matter. Prof Curry may well be still convinced of the pre-eminence of CO2 forcing, but clearly recognises that other factors are involved which need thorough investigation. Prof. Curry’s willingness to put her head above the parapet in the cause of traditional scientific enquiry makes her one of my heroes of the quest for scientific accuracy in the field of Climate Change.

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    • #

      Kevin, As advised by some persons Prof. Curry may have talked to the Chemical Engineers at GIT and this could have put in her mind that the AGW theory had big flaws particularly in comparison to actual measurement and design practice with heat transfer. Prof. Lindzen is at MIT which was a leader in research into heat transfer by Chemical Engineers under Prof Hoyt Hottel (http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1998/hottel-0926.html). In some back and forth correspondence I once asked if he had met Prof Beer http://mitei.mit.edu/research/energy-faculty/janos-m-beer whom I had met at IFRF Ijmuiden Holland some years before. Unfortunately, he did not reply to that but then he might think for political reasons it is better to acknowledge something (even if it is wrong) and point out that sensitivity is small rather that deny it altogether.
      Maybe, Prof. Curry has a similar agenda but in my mind it drags out the standing of the AGW alarmists (including the IPCC). There is no (Engineering) science behind the AGW claims.

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    • #
      MemoryVault

      Prof. Curry’s willingness to put her head above the parapet in the cause of traditional scientific enquiry makes her one of my heroes of the quest for scientific accuracy in the field of Climate Change.

      Sorry Kevin, but if that is your opinion then you haven’t been following the Curry saga from the beginning. Curry realised the wheels had fallen off the IPCC bandwagon the week after the release of the Climategate 1 emails. She immediately tried to reposition herself as the new “middle ground”, by reaching out to us “deniers” (her term, not mine), initially through WUWT. Nonetheless she has maintained a foot firmly in the IPCC camp for four years, right up to now, when she has finally severed herself from what is obviously now a dead, rotting corpse.

      Even so, she maintains a professed acceptance of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. Whether this actually reflects her honest, professional view as a scientist, or has more to do with the lucrative private business she runs with her husband, advising large companies on “global warming mitigation strategies”, I’ll leave up to you to decide.

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    • #
      Ian

      Good that the conversation has reverted to the topic. It seems that American universities are more enlightened than they are in Australia as here, speaking out against the consensus can get you dismissed.

      10

  • #
    Bruce

    The IPCC will remain for as long as governments find it useful.

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    • #
      Reinder van Til

      A pseudo scietific base for agenda 21 and other lunactic marxist ideas. That is what the IPCC is good for.

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  • #
    Bryn

    Am I the only reader who did not initially understand why it is a “wicked” problem?

    For the benefit of others who may not like to ask, Wikipedia defines a wicked problem thus:

    “Wicked problem” is a phrase originally used in social planning to describe a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. The term ‘wicked’ is used, not in the sense of evil but rather its resistance to resolution.[1] Moreover, because of complex interdependencies, the effort to solve one aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or create other problems.

    Very apt.

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      The term was originally coined by two University of California, Berkley, researchers: Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber in a paper, “Dilemmas in General Theory of Planning” [Policy Sciences 4 (1973), 155-169].

      In very simplistic terms, a Problem is solved by a Solution, which then itself restates or redefines the Problem, requiring another Solution, and so ad infinitum.

      It particularly applies to social and political situations where, as soon as “proof” of something is produced, the recipient immediately says, “Of course. I knew that. The real problem is …”.

      I get to hear that a lot … 🙂

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  • #
    scaper...

    I prefer to call it derapscallionisation.

    Yeah, I know there is no such descriptor but then again…when it comes to the new age phenomena of scientific paganism, it is apt!

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    Manfred

    The true take-home message of the latest IPCC report is crystal clear: climate change is real and caused by humans, and it continues unabated.

    The new IPCC climate change report makes deniers overheat

    Michael Mann at theguardian.com, Saturday 28 September 2013

    Mann in full blown katabatic splendour and irretrievably fixated on the veracity of his Hockey Schtick, now so thoroughly debunked, serves only to highlight the image of someone with no where to go. His Guardian rant is just that – a noisy polemic – possibly designed as a rallying call to the faithful, but falling short. It’s too long, verbose and unfocused.

    The metaphorical ‘killing’ of the political bureaucracy that is the UN IPCC is precisely what is needed. Whether the plethora of tangential bureaucratic edifices from the UN to the World Bank, to national and local Green infested precautionary, progressive administrations will permit it, well I’m not so sure.

    What I am sure of is that the visible and growing unease of those that bear the growing impoverishment and erosion of their standard of living. This is becoming much harder to deflect with the platitudinous political bat. For this reason, the days of ideologically driven climate insanity must be numbered.

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    Ross

    This IPCC report will lead to politicians seriously questioning the IPCC.
    With work like Jo’s piece the other day and now with Steve “terrier” McIntyre getting stuck into the fact that they have changed a significant graph incorrectly and without reference to any peer reviewed papers (you know that gold standard they keep trotting out) then we are heading for another hockey stick demolition job from SM.
    These issues , and I’m sure there will be more are very significant faults in the report so I believe the politicians will start to wake up, especially when they realise a growing number of voters are not being sucked in any more.
    Some in the MSM are already realising it and are slowly repositioning themselves.

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    • #
      MemoryVault

      .
      You obviously missed Greg Hunt’s press release, “welcoming” the IPCC’s AR5 Summary Assessment for Policymakers.

      30

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        Perhaps he is short on paper, with which to light his barbeque?

        20

      • #
        Ross

        MV
        I did see reference to Hunt’s PR release. It was very similar to the PR c..p we got from our Govt. in NZ.
        But we have to give these guys time to catch up. I wouldn’t expect anything , political , to happen overnight but it will happen.

        10

      • #
        Ross

        MV

        Don’t miss the post by CC Squid
        # 40.

        00

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      If this coming winter is as cold in Europe as predicted [see http://notrickszone.com/2013/10/02/winter-forecast-models-continue-showing-killer-harsh-winter-in-store-for-eastern-and-central-europe/ ] then the public reaction will leave politicians urgently seeking places on the last lifeboat leaving.

      90

      • #
        AndyG55

        If this is the case, countries that have shut down their reliable supplies of electricity in preference to wind and solar could be in for one heck of a tough time.

        You can cope with cold if you have adequate cheap reliable electricity for heating, otherwise you have to have something to burn, like floorboards, furniture etc. !

        50

        • #
          Graeme No.3

          AndyG55

          600,000 germans have had their electricity cut off because they couldn’t pay their bills. (German electricity costs as much as does SA power). There has been a boom is sales of solid fuel stoves there, and a big increase in wood removal from forests. Indeed the foresters have been advised not to leave felled trees or cut up wood piles in the forests over winter but to bring them into secure shelters.

          The UK is a different case, and I expect that either this coming winter or the next that they will have blackouts. You can’t run on 5% reserve in wild weather. It does seem that the threat has at last penetrated some government skulls and panic is starting to set in. Hence the huge subsidies for installation of diesel power now on offer. Will Abbott be able, or willing, to turn back boatloads of Brits fleeing the icy land?

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          • #
            AndyG55

            Yep, warehouses emptied by once viable industries, filled with diesel generators.

            Highly efficient, non-polluting outcome, with a huge reduction in CO2 emissions !! 🙂

            That all worked rather well, didn’t it !……. NOT

            10

  • #
    Ron Cook

    Unfortunately the IPCC is a law-unto-its-self. It is highly political and dictatorial. It will only disappear if division appears among it’s members. It needs to be divided against it’s self then self destruction my well take place.

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    • #
      Speedy

      Ron

      It all makes sense once you realise that the basis for the IPCC is not scientific, but political.

      Cheers,

      Speedy

      80

  • #
    Ron Cook

    If Prof. Curry still believes that CO2 is the main forcing agent then I have a problem with that. It can be clearly demonstrated that poor ol’ carbon dioxide is not guilty (just look at the many posts on Jo’s site and the Lavoisier group). I’m an Industrial Chemist, have read both sides of the argument and can’t see how any one who does the same can possibly believe that CO2 has any significant influence on the climate at all.

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    • #
      Agnostic

      @Ron Cook,

      I am a regular denizen of Dr Curry’s blog, and her’s has been for a long time the most dispassionate in the debate often attracting comments from other publishing climate scientists. It really has been only recently that she has become so openly skeptical – for a long time she simply wanted to encourage engagement with skeptics who she felt had good points to make and challenged the science to be better. She resisted making judgement or subjective value calls on issues from both sides of the debate that she blogged for discussion, but now she has pretty much thrown down the gauntlet to the orthodoxy, and picked up what you might call the ‘mainstream’ skeptic case, to a large extent characterised by her recent articles.

      WRT her views on CO2, she hosted some discussion with the Sky Dragon mob on her site for a long while, and pretty much put that to bed (to her satisfaction anyway). So her views would align pretty much with most of those who are familiar with the technicalities of the debate, including Jo’s; that radiative forcing is real but in and of itself not a major factor in climate change, and that climate sensitivity to increases has been over estimated. She goes further though, because she laments the distraction this particular metric and the AGW obsession has caused normal scientific progress in her field.

      The reality is, most climate scientists views regarding a great deal of the science is not all that far apart. But those small differences make…well…all the difference. On the one hand, you need to hold onto a belief that your understanding of nature is correct despite evidence that might appear contradictory, and a belief that you don’t know enough to be certain and by retaining an open mind you might discover something new and important.

      All Dr Curry would tell you if you asked her specifically for her views on climate sensitivity is that she thinks the IPCC and the warmist orthodoxy is over-confident, that it is highly uncertain, but likely to be lower than generally accepted in light of observations, and that natural variability has been under-estimated. In any other field, these views would be pretty humdrum and unexciting, all part of the normal cut and thrust of science, but in the context of creating a consensus that the world has to take drastic action to mitigate emissions caused by economic activity, it’s tantamount to heresy. A completely ridiculous situation in my view.

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    • #
      OzWizard

      Prof Murry Salby also does a good defense of CO2, here.

      30

  • #

    The climate is a wicked, self modifying, none deterministic system that defies any attempt to ‘box’ it. Any model will diverge from reality sooner rather than later in the face of such an illogical badly behaved monster.

    This is much more about a select few trying to present themselves as the ‘experts’ over this system, and collect the benefits from that position; while behind the curtain they are busy stuffing an inexhaustible supply of elephants under the carpet and the floor is just about to give way..

    The end to this is going to messy, a lot of people have ‘believed’ in this and invested themselves in it – when they find out nothing unusual has been happening all along and they have been treated as idiots…

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    • #
      Reinder van Til

      Champagne! 😀

      10

    • #
      Manfred

      I really don’t like this ancient word ‘wicked’ with a new meaning. It carries far too much baggage, implication and history. Used as an expletive or adjective analagous to ‘wow’ by the young, and possibly one of only two adjectives in current use, the other being ‘awesome’, its pre-eminent meaning remains ‘evil’ and its application to ‘climate’ in the context of multiple, uncounted, conflicting, unpredictable variables is incongrous.

      20

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        The original spelling comes from “wikke”, being Middle English for trickery (and also leading to “wicca”, meaning a wizard or witch, known for their conjuring tricks).

        It was only originally thought evil, in relation to the Devil being devious, and thus playing tricks on people to gain their souls.

        Wicked problems are also known as “Devils problems”, so in Edwardian English, gentlemen were heard to say that some problems were, “devilishly hard”.

        The use of ‘wicked’ in relation to problems, is actually going back to its roots. The young, use it to mean surprising, or clever, which also relates to “tricks”.

        I love the English language because, not only is it wickedly complex, it is also wicked to learn.

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  • #
    Dave

    .

    The IPCC henceforth referred to as (they),

    They have not taken into account solar activity in future models at all.

    The unusually low number of sunspots in recent years “is not an indication that we are going into a Maunder Minimum” according to Giuliana DeToma, a solar scientist at the High Altitude Observatory in Colorado.
    But DeToma admitted “we will do not know how or why the Maunder Minimum started, so we cannot predict the next one.”

    They do not agree with the Gleissberg cycle, which predicts a period of weaker solar activity every century or so, which could mean a very cold next 15 years or so.

    Again they ignore previous history:

    More profoundly, in the 1890s, Walter Maunder of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, identified a “prolonged sunspot minimum” between 1645 and 1715 in which hardly any sunspots were observed by contemporaries.

    At times, whole years passed without any sunspots being recorded. Sunspots became so rare that in 1684 Britain’s Astronomer Royal John Flamsteed was moved to write: “these appearances, however frequent in the days of … Galileo have been so rare of late that this is the only one I have seen … since December 1676”.

    And here: New Scientist magazine blasted those who predicted a mini ice age, opening a recent article on the surprising lack of sunspots this year with the bold declaration: “Those hoping that the sun could save us from climate change look set for disappointment”.

    They all live in hope the globe will boil.

    Get rid of they all. (They – replace with Them)

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    • #
      wayne, s. Job

      try looking up Habillo.I. Abdussamatov of the Russian segment of the I.S.S { international space station} and their studies of the sun. They predicted the pause and the forth coming coldening.

      00

  • #
    Richard

    I think one of the central problems with the IPCC is its mandate. The IPCC’s mandate tasks them with “understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation”. The mandate starts with the preconceived conclusion that human-induced climate change is real, sort of like the preconceived conclusion that aliens exist. If the IPCC were to say that AGW was inconsequential, even undetectable, the scientists in lab-coat camouflage can wave goodbye to their pay-checks and funding, and the IPCC, in all probability, would be disbanded. It’s self-preservation in action.

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      Speedy

      Richard

      Everyone believes that their pay cheque should arrive on time next week!

      It highlights the courage of those who have stood up to the mob for so long – and, despite claims to the contrary, with no aid from “big oil”!

      Cheers,

      Speedy

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Richard, the IPCC mandate is a beautifully written piece of prose.

      It tasks them with understanding. At what point can they say that they understand? For they will never know what else they need to learn, in order to fully understand whatever it is, that the are tasked with understanding.

      From its very conception, from its founding document, it was a gravy train, and that is why it is under the control of a Railway Engineer.

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    ROM

    Lost a nearly completed post a few hours ago so to overcome my frustration some quotes from Brainy Quote with a couple rehashed to fit the IPCC. circumstances
    [ Apologies to some of the authors! ]

    The IPCC is at that awkward stage; it’s too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards.

    Claire Wolfe

    Is the IPCC like late Rome, infatuated with past glories, ruled by a complacent, greedy elite, and hopelessly powerless to respond to changing conditions?

    Camille Paglia

    Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of the IPCC; but I repeat myself.

    Mark Twain

    IPCC’s classic response to questions;

    There ain’t no answer. There ain’t gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That’s the answer.

    Gertrude Stein

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    handjive

    Well, I’m sitting here watching ABC 7.30 report & the govt. LNP Enviro Minister Greg Hunt, saying that UN-IPCC science is right and they intend to act.

    This person is an doomsday idiot ready to waste more tax payer money.

    270

    • #
      Speedy

      handjive

      Time for a change in cabinet. I nominate Dr. Dennis Jensen for Environment Minister. Time to treat Environment to a bit of science, eh?

      Seconded by ?

      Cheers,

      Speedy

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      Jules loves CO2

      I don’t do ABC anything, so thanks for the update handjive. While I voted for the Coalition, I suspected this would happen. The time for scrapping all this waste is now. Surely the Coalition got the message? I agree with Speedy, Greg Hunt should cross the floor and join Labor.

      40

    • #
      Angry

      This dangerous imbecile Greg Hunt should join the communist greens.
      He needs to be dealt with asap !

      31

  • #
    PeterS

    Would not be surprised that the money wasted on all this AGW crap could have been better used, say to find a cure for cancer. Of course that’s another story. The medical and pharmaceutical companies would hate to see that happen. The scientific world is so corrupted it’s not funny anymore.

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    • #
      MemoryVault

      .
      Cancer is probably the most “cured” condition in human medical history. I’ve had cancer, my wife Thumper has had cancer, some of my relatives and friends have had cancer. Thumper and I have belonged to cancer support groups. Out of a total of maybe twenty people, all assured we were terminal if not treated immediately, only two subsequently died.

      They were the two who took the mainstream approach. They never died of cancer. The chemo destroyed their immune systems and things like pneumonia finished them off long before the cancer ever could.

      The rest of us did a little bit of research and cured ourselves with known, tried and established treatments.

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        Nathan

        Thanks for posting that MV. My son’s school friend just lost his dad, another older friend lost his battle both going thru the ‘consensus’ approach. My MIL has just had a breast removed and I have been sending my FIL lots of data on alt. treatments, particular of one substance held in great disrepute that seems very effective even according to official research including a patent by the US govt. Another young friend (nurse) has just spilt chemicals on herself as she treats her cancer at home. My own dad died 20yrs ago from a tumour. So much for the consensus! I post articles and vid’s on my FB page but I think most just ignore it and will trust the official method but not having ever to test my own belief’s I can’t really say whether I am correct or just getting scammed.

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    Sunray

    I am sure I could grow to like Judith Curry.

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    • #
      KinkyKeith

      I really like mince beef on lettuce.

      KK

      50

    • #
      ROM

      Judith has some pretty heavy hitters on her blog plus a few warmist trolls which I think she keeps for amusement but also to create debate.
      It’s a fairly closed blog with it’s own denizens and very hard to break into let alone debate with on an equal footing as it often gets fairly technical in the debate with some very highly qualified researchers from a highly diverse range of science disciplines and technically orientated professions commenting there.

      But Judith lets it roll and I think she gets a big divergence of technically backed up views which have made a marked contribution to her shifting from a somewhat luke warm position when i first started following her blog when she set it up to a marked skeptic position now. Something she might deny but she has shifted and changed her spots markedly over the last couple of years, particularly over the last few months where she has become almost a hard line skeptic as far as the IPCC and the warmist cabal of advocate scientists are concerned.
      She just doesn’t suffer self promoting fools gladly, particularly from the science disciplines with climate science the most prominent contributor of archetypal fools to the scientific fools gallery at present.
      And she lets the world know it in no uncertain terms as we are seeing.

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    mick

    The whole thesis of what the IPCC and the professional liars pushing within it is based on the fantasy of Krypton. With a few changes from Kriptonite to C02, global warming etc it makes a great alarmist story to rip the democracies apart taking their wealth for a world order and other political objectives.
    Hollywood did better with the Superman movies which were entertaining and realised as fantasy as were the comics. The whole of the IPCC and their alarmist claims are dangerous and wicked so it is time to get rid of the IPCC and their wicked lies and fear mongering and leave the fantasy to Hollywood.

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  • #
    PhilJourdan

    The UN (and by extension governments) are paying good money to have their ignorance affirmed. That is why the IPCC will not go away. That it is useless is a given, but one only has to look at the effectiveness of its parent to see that failure is rewarded, not penalized.

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    • #
      Speedy

      You got a point, Phil. Get rid of the UN – it doesn’t do much useful anyway! Sure know how to blow money though.

      Cheers,

      Speedy

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      • #
        PhilJourdan

        I did not advocate getting rid of the UN. At least it acts as a diversion for all the tin plated megalomaniacs jockeying to be next supreme leader of the world. And yes, they do know how to blow money.

        And also reward and propagate failure.

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      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        The UN was established, primarily to act as a political forum to prevent another global war, and secondarily to provide relief and mitigation of natural disasters.

        That was its mandate. And it has been moderately successful, based on the observations I am still here to type this, and you are still wherever you are, to read it.

        But, it has also gotten drunk on its own power, and we are now into our third or fourth generation of career bureaucrats, for whom the outside world has little relevance nor interest, except as places to visit and go party in.

        The bureaucrats will be mightily surprised, when civilisation collapses, and they are sitting on pots of money, with nothing to spend it on. It happened to the Persians, It happened to the Greeks, it happened to the Romans. History is like that.

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    Peter Hume

    What the whole global warming episode has shown is not just that the IPCC should be abolished, and not just that state funding of climate science should be abolished, but that state funding of all and any science should be abolished.

    The reason is because, underlying all government funding of science, is a completely unscientific belief, namely that society gets net benefits out of the process of state funding of science. It’s unscientific because it always only ever looks at the benefits that are seen, and concludes therefrom that it’s a net benefit. It never takes account of the benefits that society was forced to sacrifice when the government took the funds from wherever they were withdrawn in the first place. But obviously if we don’t count the costs, anything will seem beneficial! It’s a fundamentally illogical belief system albeit, ironically, one most propagated by physical scientists, who just happen to get their funding that way, surprise surprise.

    On the face of it, you’d think funding scientific inquiry into climate would be about as innocuous and harmless as it could get. After all, it’s only the study of temperature and temperature variations. But look at what happened! Could it have grown into a bigger and worse behemoth of every kind of grand and petty corruption; positively anti-social and menacing in where it was going? And of course it’s not over yet.

    Ludwig von MIses showed why this happened in his 1920 essay that exploded the intellectual foundations of socialism: “Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth”: http://mises.org/pdf/econcalc.pdf. In this short essay, Mises showed why socialism not only doesn’t work in practice, it can’t even work *in theory*.

    The reason is because socialising [translation: government taking over] the means of production severs the connection between the wants that society considers most urgent and important to satisfy, and what the means of production are being used to produce. Under private ownership, the value that the consumers place on the final product is transmitted through the price mechanism to all the production goods further and further up the line of production: the value you place on a bun goes to impute market value to bakers’ ovens etc. This process serves to co-ordinate the means of production, even very remote from the final product. It services to prioritise the production of the things that satisfy people’s – i.e. society’s – wants in terms of which wants they consider most urgent and important to satisfy.

    Under socialism – government control of the means of production – those in control of the means of production (e.g. climate scientists controlling the production of climate science) have no guidance coming from the people, in their capacity as the consumers of the service, as to what the producers should be producing. The connection between what the producers are producing, and what the consumers want them to produce, is cut off at the root.

    The producers can only hitch their wagon to whatever political star seems most likely to be forthcoming of funds. But there is simply no mechanism in government funding of science to suppose that government knows or can know whether the result would be a net benefit for society as a whole, or would satisfy the most urgently felt wants of the consumers, compared to all alternative possible uses of the funds, in the way that there is with market mechanisms.

    The lesson from this dreadful episode is that what has happened is not peculiar to climate science. It’s peculiar to socialism. It’s why socialism killed over 100 million people last century, mostly of people being starved to death by their own governments. And how many of the poorest people of the world would have been better off if the $79 billion wasted on climate science had not been withdrawn from productive employments in the first place!

    This whole phenomenon has come about because of government funding of science. It cannot be made good by re-arranging the government funding.

    The moral of the story is, all government funding of science should be abolished.

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      Safetyguy66

      You make a very convincing argument because it seems to have been relatively conclusively proven that science funding in the modern age always comes with political strings. Its extremely sad because the arguments for a solid level of public funding in research fields are also compelling.

      I guess the ideal would be finding a way to ensure the funding while guaranteeing the results will reflect the findings and not the desires of the funding body.

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      • #
        Peter Hume

        I guess the ideal would be finding a way to ensure the funding while guaranteeing the results will reflect the findings and not the desires of the funding body.

        Science does not supply value judgments, whereas the decision whether or not to fund it always requires value judgments.There is simply no way that the decision to fund will not reflect the value judgments of the decision-maker, and if the decision-maker is political, the value judgments will be political, which is the corrupt situation we’ve got now.

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    janama

    One of the reasons the IPCC won’t go away is because the Universities need it. Whilst it exists climate science is a sought after study path for young enthusiastic students who want to save the world.

    Conversation at youth party “so what are you studying at uni?” – “Climate science” – “wow! that must be amazing” – “absolutely”

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    pat

    look at the opening para***! ABC simply ignores that there’s been a change of govt:

    1 Oct: ABC FactCheck: What Greg Hunt didn’t say about the carbon price and emissions
    ***There’s been a lot of hot air blowing around on Labor’s carbon policy, including that its pricing scheme has not managed to stem emissions in the 15 months it’s been operating…
    New federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt says that under the carbon price emissions have actually increased…
    New federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt says that under the carbon price emissions have actually increased…
    “The strange thing about the carbon tax was that emissions went up, not down, from 560 to 637 million tonnes,” Mr Hunt said…
    But Mr Hunt’s claim is not so cut and dried…
    A spokesman for the minister said the numbers came from a 2012 report by the Climate Change Department. That report does contain the 637 million tonnes figure, but not in the context Mr Hunt used in the Lateline interview. The report says that under Labor’s carbon pricing scheme emissions are likely to be 637 million tonnes in 2020.
    The figures are projections, not fact, and cannot be used to make a point about emissions rising over the 15 months the carbon price has been on the books…
    In the first six months of the carbon price, emissions from the sectors covered by the carbon price were 1 per cent lower than the same period the year before.
    The Climate Change Department report says the fall was largely due to a decline in emissions from electricity. This sector is particularly significant as it accounted for 35 per cent of Australia’s carbon emissions in 2012. Between December 2011 and December 2012, electricity emissions dropped around 10 million tonnes. This was a fall of 7 per cent…
    Still, a report by the Climate Institute, a climate change research body, says the carbon price is contributing to the drop in electricity emissions. It is making renewable energy – like solar and wind power – more competitive with fossil-fuel generation…
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-01/greg-hunt-carbon-emissions-misleading/4989750

    ABC Fact Check’s climate advisory panel
    Three climate experts have agreed to advise ABC Fact Check.
    Their opinions and analysis are sought prior to publication.
    Verdicts are solely determined by ABC Fact Check and do not necessarily reflect the views of the panel.
    Tony Wood is director of the Grattan Institute’s Energy Program. He was an adviser to the first Garnaut climate change review. He is also program director of Clean Energy Projects at the Clinton Foundation.
    Malte Meinshausen is an honorary senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne’s School of Earth Sciences. He has been a contributing author to various chapters in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
    Frank Jotzo is deputy director of Australian National University’s Climate Change Institute. He is a lead author of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and has been an advisor to Australia’s Garnaut Climate Change Review.
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-30/abc-fact-check-climate-panel/4922228

    where was ABC nit-picking govt scrutiny over the past 5 years?

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    • #
      Speedy

      You pose a rhetorical question here, Pat. The choices: Shell out a billion or so each year to pay for an ego trip for these onanistic turkeys – or give them an “assignment” in the real world, e.g. working ? Can I suggest the latter?

      Cheers,

      Speedy

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  • #
    Eddie Sharpe

    Well they’re never going to vote to disband themselves, are they ?

    (Aren’t the old ones still the best ones eh ? From Jo’s timeless truths:
    The Real Consensus )

    Put them out of their misery, it can only get worse.

    40

  • #
    pat

    2 Oct: ABC 7.30 Report: Environment minister claims carbon tax failed and outlines ‘different approach’
    Greg Hunt, the IPCC report paints a picture of rising sea levels, bushfires, higher temperatures. How urgent is it that Australia act on this?
    GREG HUNT, ENVIRONMENT MINISTER: Well I do think it is important that we act, and one of the great tragedies of the previous government’s system is that in fact our emissions between 2010 and 2020 go up during the period of the carbon tax from 560 to 637 million tonnes. That’s why I’m determined that we take real action to actually reduce emissions. So, do we accept the science? Yes. Do we accept the targets? Yes. Do we think that there is a far better way of both taking pressure off households and reducing emissions? Absolutely.
    TRACY BOWDEN: Let me just pick you up on the comment you just made about the reports showing that emissions would go up in the next seven years under the carbon tax.
    GREG HUNT: Correct.
    TRACY BOWDEN: What you failed to mention is that under the very same modelling, emissions would go up even further without a carbon tax. You just failed to mention that.
    GREG HUNT: Look, this is the report Australia’s emissions for 2012, which was not just released last year, but it was provided in form to the United Nations only days before the election. And the critical point here, which you would never hear from the ALP in government, is that under the carbon tax between 2010 and 2020 Australia’s emissions go up, not down. They go from 560 to 637 million tonnes.
    TRACY BOWDEN: But I don’t want to harp – I don’t want to spend all our time on this, Minister, but the fact is that the report shows that they would go up even further without a carbon price. Do you disagree?.
    GREG HUNT: The real point here is that we end up having to buy 100 million tonnes of emissions reduction from offshore, whether it’s from Europe or from Kazakhstan or elsewhere, at an average price, according to the Government during the election campaign of $38, as they then were, or $3.8 billion a year. So, what does this mean for Australians? If you care about climate change, you’d look at the carbon tax and you’d say, “It didn’t even do its job.” The whole reason for having this was to reduce emissions. In the end, it didn’t do its job, it doesn’t do its job, the ALP said they’d terminate it, we’re still living with it and it’s not going to achieve the outcome of reaching our targets without having to go offshore to buy $3.8 billion a year by 2020 of emissions reduction.
    TRACY BOWDEN: Let’s not talk about the past, let’s talk about what you’re going to do…
    TRACY BOWDEN: Now let’s talk about this, this undertaking you made when in opposition that you’d honour a Labor government commitment to increase the emissions reduction target if necessary. Do you stand by that? Will you increase that target if necessary?…
    TRACY BOWDEN: Under the Cancun Agreement Australia said that it could potentially go as high as a 25 per cent reduction. So there is room to move there, isn’t there? Is that the case? You could go as high as 25?…
    http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3861055.htm

    how arrogant are these taxpayer-funded ABC people? what did we learn from this interview?
    as for the new govt & their “CC” spokesman, the less said the better.

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    • #
      The Black Adder

      Oh Dear!!

      Greg Hunt said it again!

      We believe in the Science!

      Shit, we need more Liberal Democrats around!

      110

      • #
        The Black Adder

        Further to that Pat!

        Disgraceful global warming alarmism by the ABC!

        They have no F$&kn Idea!

        120

        • #
          Speedy

          Unfortunately, BA, sometimes I wonder if the abc know Exactly what they are doing…

          Since they seem to represent only the Green voters, I suggest a 91.5% decrease in their funding. All in favour, please say aye.

          Cheers,

          Speedy

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  • #
    Carbon500

    This is off-topic, but interesting!
    A reader’s letter to The Daily Telegraph (p23 Tuesday October 1st 2013) says:
    Sir – I was a meteorologist during the Seventies when glaciers in Europe and other continents had been growing for the previous ten years, and pack ice had been increasing during winters to cover almost all of the Denmark Strait between Iceland and Greenland. Scientists were then warning that the Earth could be entering another ice age.
    The current deliberations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have conveniently overlooked this. Before insisting that humans have been the main cause of global warming an explanation of this apparent anomaly should be promulgated.
    From: Captain Derek Blacker RN (retd), Director of Naval Oceanography and Meteorology 1982-84
    In connection with this letter, I had a look for more information.
    During the first two decades of the twentieth century, ‘heavy sea ice was quite common along the coasts of Iceland, but in the 1920s a drastic change occurred. Sea ice along the coasts of Iceland became an uncommon characteristic and almost a forgotten phenomenon around the middle of the century. An abrupt change occurred in the mid-1960s. Heavy sea ice distribution occurred almost each year following, but since 1980 widespread and long-lasting sea ice off Iceland took place (sic) at rather irregular intervals’.
    See website.lineone.net/~polar.publishing/seaiceincidents.htm for more details.
    Some of the important fishing areas around Iceland are located on the shallow banks off the coast of Greenland at about 63ºN. These banks can be ice-covered during most of the year, causing difficulties for fishing vessels. Ice edges form ‘tongues’ which extend like giant hooks when viewed from a satellite, extending for many kilometres ( for example over 100km) and curving back towards the main ice sheet. These ice tongues, which can change rapidly from one day to another, are particularly important for fishing vessels operating near the ice edge. In some cases the ice tongues can turn back towards the main ice pack and vessels near the ice edge can be trapped. Consequently trawlers need accurate ice edge maps updated every day.
    See earth.esa.int/…/data_util/…/Ice…/fishing_on_ice_covered_denmark.html‎ for more details and images.

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    Roger McEvilly

    ” after several decades and expenditures in the bazillions, the IPCC still has not provided a convincing argument for how much warming in the 20th century has been caused by humans”.

    I’m convinced they are not looking in the right places.

    Until we give nature an experimental run through, (which is the basis of all science-empirical, observable data, rather than abstract models which cant be verified) so we can observe for e.g.
    – just how long the time lags are from decadal increases in solar effects on oceans, and
    – actually observe, rather than guess, how long it takes for the ocean-atmosphere to equilibrate after decades of higher than average solar activity, such as occurred during the 20th century,

    then we cant know what sort of time lag exists for e.g. heat uptake and distribution from higher than average solar activity over the 20th century, with associated possible changes in cloud cover, on the whole ocean-land atmosphere system.

    In other words, we need a few more decades, and less politics, to empirically observe when the oceans finally equilibrate from the high solar activity which occurred during the 20th century, to be able to separate out the natural warming from the sun, as compared to the human caused warming from greenhouse gases.

    Currently the pause in surface warming, as well as e.g. the lack of a troposphere hotspot, suggests the human caused warming during the 20th century has been vastly overstated. But because the IPCC isn’t looking for it, it wont probably ever find it, until someone puts it in front of its face (e.g if the earth actually cools for an extended period, meaning they would be forced to look where they are supposed to), or the IPCC is actually comprised of balanced impartial scientists rather than activists and career opportunists (rather unlikely).

    It might also help if they study the empirical data associated with heating/cooling time lags on the earth system, as so far they aren’t very good at understanding them and integrating them into modelling. Here are a few to start, easily observable:

    -diurnal, around 2-3 hours after noon max temperature is reached
    -seasonal land temperatures -in both hemispheres around ~6 weeks after the summer solstice, max temperature is reached
    -seasonal ocean temperatures- in both hemispheres after the summer solstice
    -seasonal max and lowest ice extent after each winter and summer solstice (several weeks to months)
    -seasonal snow cover in both hemispheres
    etc

    I’m sure there are many others. It might go some way to understanding an area of climate change in which little has been understood or recognised.

    20

    • #
      Manfred

      Yes but…..
      as you know, they say that by the time we have conducted this experiment, it will be too late to do anything about modifying the outcome once we’re able to unequivocally demonstrate where’re in runaway CAGW or the THC is about to shut down (which might take about 1000 yrs and assumes a 400% increase in CO2.

      No, they’re got every base covered when it comes to the Gravy Train, which can only continue on the precautionary principle track indefinitely, unless it is derailed by the growing list of inconvenient empirical obs.

      30

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    Tim

    The IPCC’s credibility is rapidly collapsing under the weight of a fast-growing public awakening and an increasingly threatening scientific opposition.

    I offer a solution. The world can save time and money by legally handing the CO2 investigation over to the WWF. This would cut out the IPCC middle-man and give the world the pure and unadulterated PR message it deserves.

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  • #
    Bite Back

    Kill the IPCC says Judith Curry. After decades and billions there is nothing to show for it.

    This headline alone demands a comment. There is plenty to show for the work of the IPCC and we should never forget it. The legacy of the IPCC is incredible trouble around the globe and billions of dollars wasted in the process. And it is getting worse at an ever accelerating pace.

    This is what we have gained from the IPCC. They owe the whole world a long term in a good prison.

    BB

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    • #

      Rather than a really good one with superior living conditions, how about a really bad one with very poor living conditions. Especially one in which they have to pay for rent, board, and medical care. If they can’t pay, that is just too bad for them. They will have to do without.

      If you think that is too harsh, consider that is the life style they had planned for the rest of us. It is nothing but simple justice.

      90

    • #
      Angry

      They should all be in a gulag in Siberia for the rest of their lives….

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      • #
        Gee Aye

        I didn’t think that you would be one to re-institute a communist agency. Also a very expensive option as they would need to be rebuilt and staffed.

        01

        • #
          KinkyKeith

          They just moved them to Vietnam between 1975 and 1990.

          Russian almost became the official language of that country after 1975 when they started looking for payment for all the munitions sent by rail through China to help their allies.

          10

          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            The woman who translates Russian documents for us, at the translation service we use, is Vietnamese. She also speaks Lao, and Thai, as well as French and English (obviously).

            20

            • #
              KinkyKeith

              My wife’s nephew was first educated in Vietnamese but for a long period was required to use Russian.

              Of course when Russia disintegrated that all changed.

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    • #
      Gee Aye

      but seriously, if you guys want to paint yourselves as a bunch of red necks that is fine but why give ammunition to anyone who wants to paint every sceptic as disturbed power seeking totalitarians?

      02

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        … why give ammunition to anyone who wants to paint every sceptic as disturbed power seeking totalitarians?

        Because:

        a) We wouldn’t give them real ammunition; and

        b) It is a very efficient way of flushing the wharmist blighters out, don’t-ya-know.

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      • #
        Safetyguy66

        Totalitarianism is rarely the goal or environment of the skeptic. It just doesn’t tally with the notion that most things are up for debate to marry that with enforcing those same views on others.

        I think your barking up the wrong political tree there somewhat.

        Read some Hayek.

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        GA, you really do miss the point. What the IPCC has done would amount to criminal neglect of a fiduciary duty, willful waste of government funds, lying to Congress under oath… Do I need to go on.

        Since the IPCC is UN body it gets a pass on all this. However, not from me and apparently not from several others either. If you don’t want your name added to that list, fine. But at least don’t make a fool of yourself.

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        • #
          gee Aye

          Why do you defend these sorts of comments? Roy, do you really think that Angry is articulating a point? You can apply your own view upon a statement made by someone else but it doesn’t mean that the person whose optinion you are piggy-backing had the insight you had. Sometimes it is best not to defend everyone on ones own side.

          01

          • #
            Roy Hogue

            GA,

            I replied to this comment of yours.

            but seriously, if you guys want to paint yourselves as a bunch of red necks that is fine but why give ammunition to anyone who wants to paint every sceptic as disturbed power seeking totalitarians?

            Like I said, you really do miss the point and should not make a fool of yourself. I generally respect your comments but there’s a limit.

            10

            • #
              PhilJourdan

              What I find amusing is that the old term for “ugly American” was “Damn Yankee”. Now it is “Redneck”. I doubt he even knows what it means, but has seen it enough in American papers to think it is an insult.

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  • #

    Off-topic: (via CFACT) US Government shutdown has resulted in the EPA telling 93.4% of the 16,205 staff to go home because they’re non-essential. THat leaves fewer than 1100 essential staff to run the agency that runs the government.

    NASA is left with fewer than 3% of its staff holding the fort.

    Lots of US government agency web sites, including NASA’s have gone down; as if web servers required full-time staff to keep them running.

    Shutting down the government-run lolly shops like national parks and monuments is a cynical, political move.

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    • #
      Roy Hogue

      This shutdown is the showdown that should have happened in 2010. If the Republicans had not blinked then the pain might well be over. If they don’t blink now it will become increasingly hard for the average ignoramus on the street to remain ignorant of what Obama is all about. Obama is taking a really bad gamble that ignorant equates to stupid. It doesn’t.

      Couple the public pressure with the dissent already brewing within his party and he could easily lose the support he needs to keep living high and acting like a dictator.

      I wish him all the trouble he deserves. No, more than he deserves. Now is the time to play it for all it’s worth.

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      • #

        I truly am surprised that the Republicans have not caved. Since I have been watching Republicans do their thing the past 50+ years, they mostly seem to have wanted the Democrats to love them and to stop saying bad things about them. In order to make that happen, they have been better Democrats than the Democrats by making Government ever more large, intrusive, despotic. When ANY politician says bipartisan they simply mean they are going to do more of the same.

        We can hope the Tea Party and the messages from We the People have stiffened the over cooked linguine they have had for a spine. If they hold the line on this one and deepen the bite over the debt limit, I may consider voting Republican for a positive reason rather than simply choosing the lessor of two evils.

        The government IS the problem with our schools, our medical system, our economy, and practically every other sector of our lives. It violates individual rights far more pervasively than common criminals could ever hope to do. We need to shut it down and keep it shut down until we discover what minutely small fraction we are willing to tolerate putting back into action. Then we must keep it on a very short leash with the spikes on the collar pointing inward.

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          Truthseeker

          with the spikes on the collar pointing inward

          Now you are just getting me excited …

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          Roy Hogue

          There is another meaning of “bipartisan”. It’s frequently heard from the loser of an election and means you still need to do things our way.

          You are absolutely right — the longer the Republicans will hold out the better (will rather than can since they have the ability and the real question is their willpower). There is now some hope. However, don’t hold your breath because some House Republicans are beginning to make noise about relenting. It looks like reelection counts more than getting the government back on track. I hope the Speaker can hold them together.

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      I wonder if anybody, outside of the Federal Government, will notice?

      I assume that State Administered services are still operating?

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Rereke,

        Some are feeling it. Obama vindictively closes down those things that will be most noticed by the public, like national parks, the Veteran’s Administration, etc. A lot of federal employees are furloughed and they certainly feel it. But I suspect they’ll get full back pay when things start up again, unlike the rest of us if we were laid off. 🙁

        However, it’s the dawn of day 3 in California and lo, the world is still turning. Most of life will go on as usual.

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    Roger McEvilly
    October 3, 2013 at 12:13 am · Reply

    ”” after several decades and expenditures in the bazillions, the IPCC still has not provided a convincing argument for how much warming in the 20th century has been caused by humans”.

    I’m convinced they are not looking in the right places……….””

    This is quote contains the explanation: Five macroclimate drivers do NOT figure in their model inputs, please see: http://www.knowledgeminer.eu/eoo_paper.html

    Cheers JS

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    Skeptic4557

    http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/new-ipcc-report-on-climate-change/
    The son of an ex business partner has sent me this link knowing my position as a skeptic regarding AGW and no doubt to show me how wrong I am. I certainly don’t have the scientific training to assess and critique the article but would be glad of the educated opinion of others.

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    • #
      Brian G Valentine

      Start by asking yourself, what is correctly stated in the article

      (I assume your question is genuine, and you are not being a facetious “skeptic”

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      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        Just to add to that excellent advice:

        When you point out the correct bit(s), say, “I agree with … in terms of … but fail to see why … is relevant”.

        All “official” lies are based on a grain of truth, so the trick is to find that grain and emphasise it. The untruth will then fall away by itself.

        Also, the article is only an opinion piece, so you naturally cannot possibly comment on the motivations, or interpretation of the material and opinions, either for or against, of the author, or authors of the said opinion piece, nor indeed their intended audience or audiences, within the context and circumstances in which they are expected to be read.

        You can learn a lot from Sir Humphrey.

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      Manfred

      In essence, they’re simply regurgitating a review of a review, in this case ‘The IPCC Review, which by definition must be biased toward the political mission statement for which ther are funded. This is not ‘science’. Citing ‘reviews’ as ‘evidence’ in science is not the ‘best’ place to start, not even a ‘good’ to place. Reviews, systematic or otherwise possess inherent confirmation bias. Reviews of politicised reviews … well you make your own judgement.

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      ROM

      Skeptic4557
      October 3, 2013 at 3:50 am

      Skeptic 4557, i haven’t time at the moment to go into your questions as taken from that neurologicablog but an excellent source in layman’s language which will give the lie to most and give the current state of play to those claims in that neurologicablog site can be found at Danish / Norwegian [ ? ] Proff. Ole Humlum’s very comprehensive and informative site Climate4you which uses the data from all the recognised scientific sources and official data bases and not just some quite biased opinion based piece as is obvious in that neurologicablog piece.

      Sea level rise by the way is running at about 1.7mms / year not the 3.4mms / year increase / year as previously claimed.
      For clarity I referenced this WUWT post although I have the papers for this kicking around somewhere in my system;

      New study using GRACE data shows global sea levels rising less than 7 inches per century

      Finds sea levels have risen over the past 9 years [2002-2011] at a rate of only 1.7 mm/yr, equivalent to 6.7 inches per century, matching tide gauge data rates.

      The 3.4 mms/ year increase has been found to be incorrect due to both satellite radar altimetry discrepancies which are in the process of being corrected and the quite serious data problems from the gravity experiment satellites the GRACE experiment.
      1.7 mms/ year rise in sea levels [ with an unexplained temporary fall of up to 5 mms overall within the last couple of years ] also ties in quite closely with the world wide tide gauge data found at the dedicated PMSL site
      Just click on the ID number for the individual site you wish to see the tide gauge data for and it will bring up the graphs and other information.

      More later I hope.

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        AndyG55

        And there is no reason at all to assume that the SL rise will continue.
        I saw some really old data from China (iirc) that showed an oscillation in sea levels.

        And iirc, the next peak is due about mid century, iff that oscillation continues as was.

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      • #
        Ian hilliar

        7 inches per century is the same rate of sea level rise we have had on planet earth for the last 5 thousand years. prior to that , we had a rise of 125 meters over approx 15,000 years following the last glaciation

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    cwon14

    It’s somewhat and not unexpectedly gratuitous of Dr. Curry to say “nothing to show for it”. Trillions in malinvestment, institutionalizing educational systems into “post-normal” indoctrination centers and often dominating energy policy along rationing lines on a global basis is no small consequence. Dr. Curry’s life would certainly been completely different with out the hype and bluster of AGW. If it had been treated rationally you wouldn’t have even known their names.

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    Skeptic4557

    I am currently travelling overseas and when I find time and Internet access I will look harder at the article and endeavour to analyse the elements in it. Maybe I can get you gents to critique my assessment. After 18 months on and off chemo my brain is not too sharp and I don’t have the scientific training to get into that type of detail. My scepticism ( yes BGV it’s legit) comes via a business life mainly in sales and assessment. AGW always had a Chicken Little element to me and just plain did not add up.

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    • #
      Brian G Valentine

      My best wishes to you, Sir, for your recovery.

      To me, the article you reference is a childish “rebuttal” to “skeptics” of the IPCC report.

      The author plainly knows nothing, except that he doesn’t like Richard Lindzen.

      On the other hand, I have witnessed the same tone in defence of the IPCC since the year 1990 and I suppose I am jaded by it, whereas your son may not be.

      You, on the other hand, ought to be old enough to distinguish “activism” from “science” at a glance, and I do not intend to be “condescending”

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    warren raymond

    Oh noes! Not only the Polybears gonna go, but now its also the cuddly Koala bears. And its a double whammy, its because we’re stealing their trees, and that causes warming, so yes: globull worming is real! Believe it, people, save the Koala bears! We need social justice for bears, climate justice, people!

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    • #
      Safetyguy66

      We need to strip mine this rock and build the mothership. Ultimately the only thing we can save is their DNA in our on board data banks. The sooner we get on with it the better, too much sentimentality over a friggin planet, there are lots of them out there.

      http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6158855.stm

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      • #
        ROM

        I like your sentiments Safetyguy66;
        We do get too damn sentimental about a small lump of rock, the third rock from a very minor star the locals call the Sun located a third of the way out from the nucleus in a large 13.2 billion year old galaxy the locals call the Milky Way.

        And all located in a local group of some 54 galaxies which in turn is just a small part of the local Virgo supercluster of galaxies, just one such supercluster out of some millions of similar known superclusters.
        The local super clustergroup which the third rock from the Sun’s solar system can be found if you have a couple of billion years to spot it, comprises some 100 or more clusters and groups of galaxies and all within a diameter of some 110 million light years .

        Damn sentimentality!

        Lots and lots of exotic planets and rocks out there to play with after we finish strip mining this one.

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        • #
          Safetyguy66

          “to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations. To boldly go where no man has gone before!”

          *cue the music*

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      Backslider

      Yeh… they reckon those poor little buggers cannot handle the heat….. BULLSHIT. I lived for years in Lightning Ridge, with koalas and lots of other critters, where temperatures push over 50C most summers for a week or two…. those little buggers are TOUGH!!!! We don’t have any of those lush fat trees they crap on about out there……

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    Another Ian

    Jo,

    O/T but not that far by comments above

    From comments at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/02/ipcc-climate-a-product-of-lies-damn-lies-and-statistics-built-on-inadequate-data/

    “Tom G(ologist) says:
    October 2, 2013 at 12:40 pm

    I have been in the water resources business for 30 years, much of which has dealt with groundwater. That segment of the industry has been hijacked by groundwater modelers in much the same way. Groundwater models are no more in touch with reality than climate models but they are the cornerstone of decisions for groundwater remediations. In the absence of an IPCC, EPA is the mover and shaker of the model-driven basis of groundwater reality in the U.S., and if you think they are draconian with climate policy, you should spend some time working on a CERCLA (Superfund) Site and dealing with that branch of the agency. If a model says something is a certain way, then that’s it – no arguments. The premier journal of groundwater science “Ground Water” has become a paper forum for modelers to throw computer codes around and there are virtually no actual studies of groundwater in the real world.

    I have represented companies and groups of companies which are paying tens of millions of dollars attempting to remediate groundwater which has no potential of impacting a single receptor and which, through natural processes, remediates itself before any receptor could be exposed to any contamination. I have produced hard time series and spatial distribution data to show that there is no need for the expenditure. But the agency runs a model which says that under a narrow range of specific pre-determined conditions, starting from an impossible initial condition, there is a chance that someone might be exposed. What’s more, they use the highest concentration ever measured at the source of a release (where no-one actually uses the groundwater) as the exposure concentration regardless how far away that exposure point is from the source and ignoring how much measured attenuation of concentration has occurred in the intervening distance/time, and assume that if a million people drink two litres of that most-contaminated water every day for 70 full years (no vacations or moving to a new house is allowed) then there is a chance that one of those people will develop a cancer – and they purport to know this despite the fact that of those million persons, 250,000 will actually develop cancers from other reasons. In other words, if ANYONE happens to spill a few gallons of gasoline onto the ground and it is measureable in groundwater, EPA takes the highest concentration detected, extrapolates THAT concentrations to remote locations and concludes that instead of 250,000 cancers per million people, there MIGHT be 250,001 cancers. Believe me, the transport assumptions are IMPOSSIBLE.

    The agency then calculates a number which should be the remediation goal and forces the company to attempt to meet that goal by expensive actions which invariable fail (that is correct – they do not work). EPA KNOWS that NONE of its enforced groundwater remediations have ever succeeded in achieving its impossible goals in the absence of the wonderful ability of nature to take care of itself and do most of the actual work of contaminant elimination. Yet the agency continues to required multiple tens of millions of dollars per year in useless remediations because a model says it will be possible.

    Now here’s a familiar scenario for you. Who actually runs the models? It is the contractors who will then be awarded the remedial design contract and construction oversight and operations and maintenance work. In every case in which I have been confronted with a computer model (and that’s about 100 to 125 out of the many many hundreds of cases on which I have worked), I have been able to refute the conclusions of the models by applying a very simple trick. Force everyone to look at the actual field data.

    In groundwater modeling, there is a simple precept which everyone except the modelers and EPA accept: in order for a model to be remotely accurate, you need to generate enough data to eliminate assumptions for the input parameters. But by the time you have that much data, you no longer need a model because you HAVE a data-supported answer.

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      ianl8888

      Some few years ago, I managed to measure the SWL (Standing Water Level) within the strata just before and then periodically after a longwall operation had extracted successive, contiguous blocks of coal in a quite wet stratigraphic environment

      The essence of these empirical data was that immediately following extraction, SWL dropped about 15%, but within 3 months it was back to about 97% of the initial level, and stable

      The Water Resources Commission, after rigorously examining my data and cross-questioning me, accepted this finding

      Three months to recover … really scary, eh ?

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    J Martin

    Judith Curry does subtlety as well.

    JC conclusion: “What a relief that the IPCC consensus has decreed with high confidence that solar variations won’t influence the 21st century climate. For a minute there, after reading the NRC Report, Svensmark and Vahrenholt, I thought us scientists might have more work to do to figure out how the Earth’s climate system works.”

    Subtle as a brick. Nice

    From;
    http://judithcurry.com/2013/10/01/ipcc-solar-variations-dont-matter/

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    Safetyguy66

    It gets better and better.

    Australia is completely over this flirt with extreme conservatism masquerading as environmental awareness.

    http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/newshome/19215538/greens-lose-out-to-pup-in-wa-senate-race/

    And it would seem the world is getting over it too.

    http://www.smh.com.au/environment/greenpeace-activists-face-jail-20131002-2usuc.html

    Claiming to care so much about jellyfish and cockroaches that you are prepared to break the law and endanger yourself and others has moved from a “cool facebook anomaly” to finally being regarded for what it is, vandalism and social disruption at the expense of taxpayers.

    The gravy on the icing on the cherry on the frosting on the choc chips is going to be seeing Granny Milne and Adam Bent sitting in the Senate listening to adults debate topics that matter to Australians and not being able to do a DAMN THING about it!

    Im in a GREAT mood this morning 😀

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    • #
      Truthseeker

      SG66 – Surprise, surprise the WA Green Senator does not want to accept the result and is asking for a recount …

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      • #
        Safetyguy66

        He knows better of course, they all do.

        http://www.examiner.com.au/story/1811496/bandt-denies-seeking-top-job/

        If you think they are annoyingly smug, know-it-alls to the rest of us, just imagine what it must be like within the group. Youd have Milne telling Hanson Young how to pick her nose while Adam Bent tells the pair of them how to dress, they know everything about everything and everyone.

        They should be called the Omnipotent Omniscient Party of Genius World Leaders and Epic Thinkers.

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        PhilJourdan

        Unprecedented? Y’all down there never have recounts?

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    • #
      Angry

      Not to mention the absolute rubbish that they sprout about the flying cane toads of the air (flying foxes).
      The drivel that is written by ecoloons about them supposedly being endangered, vital for forests etc.
      It’s all CRAP!
      Stand outside on any night and observe the sky. It’s full of the vermin.
      They should be shot out.
      They carry dangerous virus which are fatal to animals and humans and decimate fruit orchards both commercial and backyard.

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        Brian G Valentine

        So I suppose you’re “angry” for being considered retarded by the press.

        Whyever then do you look at it

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        Gee Aye

        do you have any idea of what you are talking about. At least ecoloons (Gavia loonicus) have some awareness that there are more than one species of macrobats in Australia. They probably also understand population dynamics. Do you want a lecture on effective population size, population structure and fecundity?

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    CC Squid

    I would like to draw your attention to the following article:
    http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/10/2/a-report-from-the-royal.html
    I have extracted the summary of the table displayed in this article and have bolded the surprising news from AR5.

    “What? Yes that’s right. The real story may not be in the IPCC rowback on temperature ranges, or its cack-handed “explanations” for the stalling temperatures. It may in fact all be in this table. Be sure to look for yourself. Every single catastrophic scenario bar one has a rating of “Very unlikely” or “Exceptionally unlikely” and/or has “low confidence”. The only disaster scenario that the IPCC consider at all likely in the possible lifetimes of many of us alive now is “Disappearance of Arctic summer sea ice”, which itself has a ‘likely’ rating and liable to occur by mid century with medium confidence. As the litany of climate disasters go, that’s it.”

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    • #
      Safetyguy66

      Nice link. I missed the “being terrified” epidemic of the last few years, so maybe I can join the “being mildly concerned but not scared enough that a few glasses of red wont fix it” movement of today.

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      Ross

      CC Squid

      That is the best point yet, to come from the IPCC report.
      It should be sent to Greg Hunt
      saying you are glad that in his acceptance of the IPCC Report he is accepting there is not need to worry !!.

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    Bebben

    Friends,

    I just found and read this excellent essay by Tony Gilland, published in Spiked in 2007 just after the release of AR4,

    http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/3540#.Ukx3B-Y4XmQ

    where he explores the roots of the IPCC and how this particular blend of politics and climate science has come about. Six years later, I can find nothing that has made his views less relevant.

    Teasers:

    “Once the IPCC has spoken it clearly expects there to be little scope for further debate. That such a constraining and technical ‘line-by-line’ process is accepted by so many as a useful or necessary approach speaks volumes about how neutered politics has become – apparently everyone must sign up to an agreed version of the latest ‘science’ before any debate or discussion can begin.”

    “What should have been an issue to be debated and discussed politically, informed but not dictated by the best available science, has become framed as primarily a scientific issue about learning to appreciate the limits that nature has set for human activity. As events have unfolded since the formation of the IPCC, the issue of climate change has been transformed into a moral crisis for society and turned into an illiberal campaign that constantly berates individuals about the need to modify their behaviour and reduce their ‘carbon footprint’”

    Recommended!

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      Safetyguy66

      Very true words.

      “Once the IPCC has spoken it clearly expects there to be little scope for further debate. That such a constraining and technical ‘line-by-line’ process is accepted by so many as a useful or necessary approach speaks volumes about how neutered politics has become”

      But its blueprint Socialist thinking. That movement toward total control of thought and action that begins with a seemingly small and well intentioned step and finishes with babies being bar coded at birth. Labour in Australia is utterly captivated by the notion that a handful of average performing university graduates from history and politics know whats best, in excruciating detail, for everyone in the country. They pontificate on specifically chosen topics that give naive people with politically immature views, the perception of moral high ground, eg. climate, feminism, environment, smoking and of course same sex marriage, sincerely expecting that no one “in their right mind” would not see it their way.

      Example:

      http://www.starobserver.com.au/opinion/exclusive-paul-howes-calls-for-full-labor-gay-marriage-support/110376

      Paul Howes is the kind of foolish, but mostly well intentioned little cherub who sincerely believes his views are the ultimate expression of intelligence and moral correctness. He couldn’t care less about old fashioned notions of individuals being entitled to their opinion. Just as Julia revealed her identical position on climate with this….

      http://www.news.com.au/national-news/labor-still-running-at-record-low/story-e6frfkvr-1226083148770

      Even as the headline is Labour’s vote is tanking, Julia didn’t make an error (listen to her out there re-writing history even now), she just came to us at a time when Australians were too stupid to appreciate her genius. She sincerely believes, as all socialists do, that her magnificence and leadership are essential to our survival, we are just too pitiably dumb to realise it.

      The IPCC is the ultimate expression of the notion that a few white lies are fine provided your intent for the end result is “good”. They are happy to commit scientific fraud because as a group they are convinced they are saving the planet and if it means having to BS us poor dumb peasants, well thats ok because we need leading, we would be lost without them.

      Ill leave the last word on socialist intellectualism and imposing your will by force, to Hayek.

      “It is one of the saddest spectacles of our time to see a great democratic movement support a policy which must lead to the destruction of democracy and which meanwhile can benefit only a minority of the masses who support it. Yet it is this support from the Left of the tendencies toward monopoly which make them so irresistible and the prospects of the future so dark.”
      ― Friedrich A. von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom 1943

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        Backslider

        and of course same sex marriage

        Is Bob Brown married yet???

        Just think for a moment about what these people do with each other…. oh yes, its perfectly natural.

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        • #
          Andrew McRae

          I do hope you aren’t asserting that homosexuality isn’t natural.
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals

          You can judge it however you like, but you can’t say it’s not natural.

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            AndyG55

            In nature they do it, sure, but I don’t think its ever a committed relationship.

            ie they don’t pair up for life or anything!

            That would be counter-productive to the species. !!

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            AndyG55

            should have read the linked page first.. maybe some animals do get gender-confused.

            still . the last sentence still holds true.

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            PhilJourdan

            If a hermaphrodite marries, is it a same sex marriage?

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          AndyG55

          I’ve notice something about same gender partners.

          Females in a same gender relationship, usually dress and act like men,

          and males in a same gender relationship usually dress and act like girls.

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            Safetyguy66

            I have been saying for some time now that men’s reaction (in the main) to the empowerment of women, has been to become women. “Metro sexuality” is just the fashion equivalent of the last few involuntary body twitches of a kangaroo you ran over. No one who is involved in it knows how they got that way or where they are going with it, its just that they have lost the ability to be male.

            And on a related note…. Juliar up on stage among the teary faithful in Melbourne, whining about glass ceilings…. I mean for real?? You were the Prime Minister, which glass ceiling did you get stuck under the one that was keeping you from being empress of the known universe ?

            Delusion….

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    pat

    1 Oct: Reuters: Barbara Lewis: Poland pits itself against EU climate promises
    European ministers are sharply divided over proposed promises on carbon cuts as part of U.N. negotiations, a draft document shows, with Poland at the forefront of opposition.
    A meeting of environment ministers in Luxembourg on October 14 is meant to agree a joint EU stance ahead of U.N. climate talks in Warsaw in November and December.
    ***The EU and U.N. meetings will be litmus tests of whether the latest U.N. report on climate change is spurring or slowing the appetite for international action…
    Heavily dependent on carbon-intensive coal, Poland has repeatedly blocked EU efforts to deepen carbon cuts…
    Poland’s stance matters particularly because it is hosting the interim U.N. climate talks next month and in December…
    The divisions at member-state level are echoed in the European Commission, the EU executive.
    For instance, Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard, a Dane, argues environmental action is the way to generate innovation, jobs and recovery. Industry Commissioner Antonio Tajani, who is Italian, has flagged concerns about energy costs and competitiveness…
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/01/us-eu-climate-idUSBRE9900UU20131001

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    pat

    1 Oct: RenewEconomy: Sophie Vorrath: Graph of the Day: World’s diminishing carbon budget
    So, when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its latest report, describing global warming as “unequivocal” – and the human influence on this warming as “clear” – it also set a new, much slimmer, one trillion tonne (1,000GtC) budget for the amount of carbon that the global economy can emit to the end of the 21st century without breaching the 2°C target.
    As we wrote last week, the IPCC’s 5th assessment report – its first since 2007 – says that the world has likely already consumed more than half its carbon budget, and has possibly used up to two thirds. Business as usual is expected to exhaust the budget within 30 years. And, as you can see in the chart below, it may also mean that for the world to have the best chance to avoid the devastating impacts of runaway climate change, only 10 per cent-odd of the world’s known fossil fuel reserves can be exploited…
    Says HSBC: “With carbon emissions running at about 10Gt per annum, at current rates the budget for the rest of the century could be depleted before 2030, confirming our previous estimate (see Peak Planet, 25 March 2013). We believe this carbon budget will provide the core framing for government negotiations for a new international climate agreement, and we expect considerable disputes over the level and geographical distribution of the budget. We also expect it to reinforce national measures to cap emissions from coal, most notably in China and the USA.”
    No special mention of Australia, but as we have noted previously, this is undoubtedly an inconvenient truth for the new Abbott government, as it busily distinguishes itself as the exception to what has been described as “a new phase in global climate action.”
    http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/graph-of-the-day-worlds-diminishing-carbon-budget-86753

    1 Oct: Reuters: Barbara Lewis: Poland pits itself against EU climate promises
    European ministers are sharply divided over proposed promises on carbon cuts as part of U.N. negotiations, a draft document shows, with Poland at the forefront of opposition.
    A meeting of environment ministers in Luxembourg on October 14 is meant to agree a joint EU stance ahead of U.N. climate talks in Warsaw in November and December.
    The EU and U.N. meetings will be litmus tests of whether the latest U.N. report on climate change is spurring or slowing the appetite for international action…
    Heavily dependent on carbon-intensive coal, Poland has repeatedly blocked EU efforts to deepen carbon cuts…
    Poland’s stance matters particularly because it is hosting the interim U.N. climate talks next month and in December…
    The divisions at member-state level are echoed in the European Commission, the EU executive.
    For instance, Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard, a Dane, argues environmental action is the way to generate innovation, jobs and recovery. Industry Commissioner Antonio Tajani, who is Italian, has flagged concerns about energy costs and competitiveness…
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/01/us-eu-climate-idUSBRE9900UU20131001

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    Peter Crawford

    There is no end to this charade. They have the money and the power. Sorry to be an Eeyore but that’s the way it is.

    On the other hand there is a lighter side to having your face stamped on forever. I can’t think what it might be but given a few more brandies I might be able to conjure something.

    It is sad and people (Like Joanne) try so hard.

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    pat

    2 Oct: Nofrakkingconsensus: 10 Pages of IPCC Science Mistakes?
    Political manipulation of a scientific document – or pages upon pages of newly-discovered scientific errors? You decide.
    http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2013/10/02/10-pages-of-ipcc-science-mistakes/

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    ROM

    With that slightly tongue in cheek and renown for it’s lively and understated british commentary, from the online UK odd ball but reliable news source, The Register comes this climate news on the role of the Sun in the ever ongoing changes in the global climate.

    Scientists to IPCC: YES, solar quiet spells like the one now looming CAN mean ICE AGES
    Pesky boffins just refuse to toe the consensus line

    What is becoming most marked is the rapidly increasing commentary from a wide and diverse number of both media and science based sources that are both pointing to the Sun and accepting that the changes in Solar emmissions across the whole Solar spectrum band are the most likely triggers for a very high proportion of the ongoing changes in the global climate.

    This trend of promoting and accepting that changes in solar emmissions are the key triggers in changes in the global climate system of course leaves the IPCC so far out on the limb of it’s own making that it will and is rapidly becoming irrelevant to the whole global climate science debate.

    The IPCC is finis,
    Finished by the very science it refused to consider and dismissed so flagrantly and openly for so long.

    All that remains is to drive a stake through it’s political heart to ensure it never rises again and bury it with as little pomp as possible, all of which will take some time and a lot of forbearance in putting up with the malodorous political and science odors that will accompany it’s demise.

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    Peter Crawford

    Safety – this is true. There is that delicious pause. But there won’t be this time. Nihilism will win because the nihilists and anti-humans now hold the purse-strings. Nihilism, under various guises, has been ruling the roost for a long time now.

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    pat

    2 Oct: TimesFreePress: Impact from federal government shutdown ripples through Chattanooga region
    ‘Staying the course’
    The Society of Environmental Journalists’ 23rd annual convention, which starts today in Chattanooga, may be affected. But coordinators are “staying the course,” according to Jay Letto, the conference director…
    The event has been in the works for more than a year and the schedule includes … at least one speaker from President Barack Obama’s cabinet.
    “Basically all federal people are currently not coming, but all of them are on standby. The secretary of the interior is sending a video in the event she can’t come,” Letto said
    http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/oct/02/the-fallout-beginsimpact-from-federal-shutdown/

    2 Oct: Daily Caller: Liberal media huddles to re-hype global warming
    The panel will include: Daniel Grossman, contributing editor, National Geographic News Watch; Katherine Bagley with InsideClimate News; Peter Dykstra with Environmental Health News and The Daily Climate; Joseph Romm with ClimateProgress.org and the chief science editor of the Showtime TV series, “Years of Living Dangerously.”
    The description of the panel on global warming and the media reads: “Have We Blown it? The impacts of global warming have been a concern since about 1988. How well has the media done in reporting on this issue? How can it do a better job in the future?”
    “Many critics have accused mainstream media of confusing the public by reporting this topic as if the small (and often industry-funded) ‘skeptics’ were as credible as researchers representing the scientific consensus. This phony balance between real scientists and skeptics appears less common now,” the event’s pamphlet reads. “But many people say that journalism is still doing society a disservice, by under-reporting and downplaying the seriousness of the threats of global warming. We’ll look for lessons and advice from people who follow this issue closely.”…
    http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/02/liberal-media-huddles-to-re-hype-global-warming/

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    Oh dear!

    Sometimes you just have to wonder.

    As the reporter reads from his script to get it down pat for when he goes ‘on air’ with his report, surely something must trigger off alarm bells.

    But no, as you soon will see.

    This is from the CBS News the night the IPCC Report was released.

    It’s you typical ‘puff piece’ with the edge linking to the end result of this IPCC Report.

    Note starting at the 44 second mark it shows those filthy disgusting despicable power plant stacks releasing their foul black CO2 into the Atmosphere. As you listen further the reporter states that Carbon emissions (missing a vital word in there I think) trap heat and that 90% of that heat is umm, absorbed (?????) by the oceans, raising the ocean temperature by half of one degree ….. but had all that heat gone into the Atmosphere, it would have raised the temperature by, er, ….. 212 degrees. (WTF)

    Oh dear, thank heavens we have reporters to give us the straight facts.

    Or should I say thank heavens for the oceans.

    Or should I just say that this is so much bulls..t!

    CBS News Article It’ll take a short time to load.

    Tony.

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    handjive

    This article about the UN-IPCC AR5 asks a most important question that should be asked again & again of the supporters of this anti-scientific document:

    Quote: ❝ But the IPCC bureaucrats simply announced that warming has been deferred: the heat must be temporarily hiding in the deep oceans.
    And they are now twice as certain that warming (which should be occurring but hasn’t materialised) is caused by mankind’s wicked use of fossil fuels as they were when temperatures were actually rising.

    They do not feel it necessary to tell us why heat has suddenly hidden in the deeps, nor whether previous warming might have been partly due to heat rising from the depths.

    Bingo! Hoisted by their own petard.
    What evidence do the UN-IPCC have that the current warming* is the result of cO2 @400ppm and NOT the result of previous atmospheric heat hiding deep in the ocean?
    (* read: warming halt)
    ·
    That is the $64 Trillion dollar renewable question now they claim the heat is “suddenly” hiding in the oceans, bursting forth in a future that is now.

    Global warming alarmism is no longer scientifically or politically sustainable

    The scientific method requires this data or it is fraudulent junk science.

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      AndyG55

      The 1998 El Nino was most definitely a release of energy from the oceans into the atmosphere.

      ie.. it COOLED the oceans.

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      Safetyguy66

      On the bright side, we might be able to get fish fingers straight from the ocean in future.

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    Kent F

    Loved the sting in the last line of Curry’s article… calling up the Precautionary Principle against the IPCC. For over 20 years the PP has been used mercilessly by green zealots and regulatory bureaucrats to impede the passage of just about every progressive step forward in technology that one can imagine. Mining, new chemicals, fracking, coal, GM food – you name it, out comes the PP. Oh the irony!

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      Safetyguy66

      Yeah “just in case” is such a compelling scientific argument isnt it?

      I wonder if I can get a raise at work by arguing PP that I might experience poverty…Guess not…. my work actually care how they spend their money..

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    Reinder van Til

    I have read that September 2013 was the warmest on record in New Zealand. Any thoughts about UHIE. Where can I find pictures of weather stations there?

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    jon

    Where is the Scientific beef for the IPCC 95% statement?

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    Billy.

    I’m told that 200 Volcanos are erupting every day and that just ONE of these is enough to negate any preventative measures we’ve taken to date.Is this true?Can anyone confirm it for me?I’m just an ordinary guy,bewildered by the ‘scientific’ stuff that I read.HELP!!!

    [Not true Billy, but we’ll see if someone can get you a good reference – Mod]

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      Jaymez

      Billy, just thinking further about your question and my response (see @ #55 below). It has got me curious because I don’t recall ever having seen anywhere, even from the most whacko of sources, that “there are 200 volcanoes erupting every day and just one of these is enough to negate ‘preventative’ measures we’ve taken to date.”

      When I gave you my first response I really didn’t address how outrageous this claim is. In fact there are only about 10 volcanoes ‘erupting’ on an average day around the world and about 50 – 60 individual volcanoes in an average year. But I stress this is referring to sub-aerial volcanoes, not sub marine volcanoes.

      The other point that most people discuss about volcanoes is not with regards to the greenhouse gas emissions, but with regards to the cooling effects which can be readily monitored because the impact is almost immediate. The most significant eruption in modern day records was that of Mt Tambora in 1815 which is said to have reduced global temperatures by up to 1C for almost 2 years. : http://www.wunderground.com/climate/volcanoes.asp?MR=1

      But I expect that since you are referring to negating ‘preventative measures’ I am assuming you are more interested in the amount of greenhouse gases erupting volcanoes emit into the atmosphere.

      As I have already written, scientists really don’t know how much it is, but the estimates used by the US Geological Survey, which are taken up by the UN IPCC and the phalanx of climate modellers significantly underestimate the number of sea mounts (underwater volcanoes), and therefore the emissions from them, see Hillier and Watts (2007).

      From that more recent detailed survey we now know there to be at least 3 million sea mounts above 100m and if 4% are active (peer reviewed est), that would give us 120,000 sea mounts emitting gases as against the previous estimate of 2,300. That is 117,700 more, or 5,217% of the figure the USGS and therefore the UN IPCC currently use. Which makes their current estimate of volcanic degassing (in a range from 0.13 gigaton to 0.44 gigaton per year) ridiculously low. The real number could easily be 50 times more than their current estimates.

      Referring back to the current figures used by the US Geological Survey and supported by the UN IPCC, they estimate the global CO2 emission rate for all degassing subaerial (on land) and submarine volcanoes lie in a range from 0.13 gigaton to 0.44 gigaton per year with the highest preferred global volcanic CO2 estimate of 0.26 gigaton per year.

      If we convert those estimates by the updated knowledge of how many likely active sea mounts there are, and therefore how much more volcanic degassing is going on compared to current estimates, then the range (times 50) becomes 6.5 gigaton to 22.0 gigaton with a preferred highest estimate of 13.0 gigaton.

      If anthropogenic (human) CO2 emissions are calculated at 35.0 gigaton as indicated above, then by the UN IPCC’s climate scientist’s own estimates, volcanic CO2 emissions could equate to between 17%, and as much as 63% of total anthropogenic emissions, with a ‘preferred’ highest estimate of 37%.

      Note: Global anthropogenic emissions are actually continuing to increase with no signs of slowing as developing countries such as China, India, and Brazil expand their economies. While they talk of reducing their ‘carbon intensities’, their overall CO2 emissions will still go up by a greater amount than the developed world is able to reduce emissions even if they were prepared to sacrifice their economies. So talk about whether some or all volcanic eruptions are sufficient to wipe out all CO2 emission reduction efforts is moot, because human CO2 emissions are NOT reducing. Actual global anthropogenic CO2 emissions are only estimates anyway. The 35.0 gigaton used here was a projection of 2010 levels which is used often by the UN IPCC and USGS, however in May 2012 it was estimated by the International Energy Agency that global emissions had hit a “record high of 31.6 gigaton CO2 in 2011”. See http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/news/2012/may/name,27216,en.html

      Australia’s current carbon tax of $25 per ton is applied to less than 200 discrete companies representing about 50% of our total emissions, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_pricing_in_Australia) and is costing the economy about $6.9bn per year. After accounting for the Industry assistance package and deducting for bureaucratic inefficiencies the likely net cost to the economy is probably closer to $5bn.

      In addition, the Government is also spending about a further $3bn per year on various schemes designed to reduce emissions including subsidising solar panels and funding renewable energy projects and other CO2 reduction strategies. So Australia is currently spending about $8bn pa for the uncertain objective of reducing CO2 emissions by just 5%, with a questionable impact on the climate.

      Therefore it is easy to imagine that a single large volcanic eruption such as what happened recently in Iceland, would wipe out any of Australia’s our efforts to reduce CO2 emissions in that year and quite possibly any efforts in the entire world given that the world is still increasing CO2 emissions.

      In fact the only significant countries to effectively reduce CO2 emissions are in Europe, Scandinavia, US, Japan, and Canada and much of the reduction can be shown to be the result of economic downturn and a switch from coal to cheaper and now more available gas for power generation, rather than carbon taxes, and renewable energy.

      In 2010 it was estimated that Iceland’s Eyjafjoell volcano was emitting between 150,000 and 300,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) per day, a figure placing it in the same emissions league as a small-to-medium European economy. Assuming the composition of gas to be the same as in an earlier eruption on an adjacent volcano, “the CO2 flux of Eyjafjoell would be 150,000 tonnes per day,” Colin Macpherson, an Earth scientist at Britain’s University of Durham, said in an email. Patrick Allard of the Paris Institute for Global Physics (IPGP) gave what he described as a “top-range” estimate of 300,000 tonnes per day. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iFlK7AFMG1W1EKOCEcsMnheg0oow

      Applying the above figures, the estimated annual CO2 emissions from the Eyjafjoell volcano would be about 109.8 million tonnes or 1.1 gigatons of CO2 representing about 0.31% of global anthropogenic CO2 emissions estimated at 35gt.

      If Australia achieved the objective of reducing emissions by 5% (of 1.34% of global emissions see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions), that would represent 0.023% of global anthropogenic emissions. So that one volcano would wipe out 13 times Australia’s annual CO2 reduction efforts.

      I hope this answers your question more thoroughly.

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    Jaymez

    Billy there are two or more issues you may be conflating here. When terrestrial volcanoes erupt they spew a lot of stuff into the atmosphere. Particulate matter can have an instant cooling effect by blocking the sun. Aerosols can have a cooling effect while CO2 will add to the greenhouse warming. In addition, particulate matter can add to coal soot and other particulate pollution and land on snow and ice in Arctic areas and stop the reflection of solar energy and increase its absorption and help melt the snow and ice. So there are multiple implications from active terrestrial volcanoes.

    The typical IPCC response about volcanoes is along the following lines”
    “The published estimates of the global CO2 emission rate for all degassing subaerial (on land) and submarine volcanoes lie in a range from 0.13 gigaton to 0.44 gigaton per year (Gerlach, 1991; Varekamp et al., 1992; Allard, 1992; Sano and Williams, 1996; Marty and Tolstikhin, 1998). The preferred global estimates of the authors of these studies range from about 0.15 to 0.26 gigaton per year. The 35-gigaton projected anthropogenic CO2emission for 2010 is about 80 to 270 times larger than the respective maximum and minimum annual global volcanic CO2 emission estimates. It is 135 times larger than the highest preferred global volcanic CO2 estimate of 0.26 gigaton per year (Marty and Tolstikhin, 1998).

    In recent times, about 70 volcanoes are normally active each year on the Earth’s subaerial terrain. One of these is Kīlauea volcano in Hawaii, which has an annual baseline CO2 output of about 0.0031 gigatons per year [Gerlach et al., 2002]. It would take a huge addition of volcanoes to the subaerial landscape—the equivalent of an extra 11,200 Kīlauea volcanoes—to scale up the global volcanic CO2 emission rate to the anthropogenic CO2 emission rate. Similarly, scaling up the volcanic rate to the current anthropogenic rate by adding more submarine volcanoes would require an addition of about 360 more mid-ocean ridge systems to the sea floor, based on mid-ocean ridge CO2 estimates of Marty and Tolstikhin (1998).” http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/climate.php

    And if we continue to just look at the volcanoes which humans are able to monitor, a more balanced approach to whether or not they have any impact on global temperatures or atmospheric CO2 levels is discussed here, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/22/the-eruption-over-the-ipcc-ar5/

    Willis Eschenbach provides some details on terrestrial volcanoes and the impact on climate and then forms these conclusions:

    1) The effect of volcanic eruptions is far smaller than generally assumed. Even the largest volcanoes make only a small difference in the temperature. This agrees with my eight previous analyses (see list in the Notes). For those who have questions about this current analysis, let me suggest that you read through all of my previous analyses, as this is far from my only evidence that volcanoes have very little effect on temperature.

    2) As Figure 5 shows, the delay in the effects of the temperature is on the order of seven or eight months from the eruption. This is verified by a complete lagged analysis (see the Notes below). That analysis also gives the same value for the climate sensitivity, about two tenths of a degree per doubling.

    3) However, this is not the whole story. The reason that the temperature change after an eruption is so small is that the effect is quickly neutralized by the homeostatic nature of the climate.

    But under sea volcanoes (seamounts), fissures, tubes and other under sea volcanic features are known to dwarf the greenhouse gas emissions of terrestrial volcanoes. But the fact is we don’t have any way of measuring just how much CO2 is released from subsea volcanic features and how much of that is absorbed by the oceans or plant bio-mass in the oceans, and how much of it makes its way into the atmosphere. The IPCC don’t have a clue.

    So considering only terrestrial volvanoes is only addressing a tiny fraction of the story when you consider every volcanic feature in the world from geysers to undersea volcanic features. The Volcanoes the US Geological Survey monitor, and the IPCC refer to is a pretty insignificant.

    Way back when scientists were estimating that there were between 15,000 – 100,000 seamounts in total on our globe oceanographers Hillier and Watts (2007) surveyed an area and came up with 201,055 submarine volcanoes.

    Hillier and Watts (2007) examined the global track-line database and found over 200,000 seamounts exceeding 100 m in height in the world ocean between 60°S and 60°N latitude. Given the lack of complete global track-line coverage, this estimate is likely on the low side.

    From this they concluded that an astounding total of more than 3 million sub submarine volcanoes must reasonably exist worldwide (over 100m in height). They based this finding on the earlier and well-respected observations of Earth and Planetary Sciences specialist, Batiza (1982) who found that at least 4 per cent of seamounts are active volcanoes. Which would mean 120,000 active sub sea volcanic seamounts!

    See http://topex.ucsd.edu/sandwell/publications/127.pdf and
    http://www.earth.ox.ac.uk/~tony/watts/downloads/HillierWatts2007GL029874.pdf

    The UN IPCC have absolutely no idea what the methane, sulphur, CO2 and other emissions are from all of the global volcanic features in the world, they can’t measure it and they certainly don’t model it.

    In reality, they only guess that the increase in global atmospheric CO2 is all related to Human emissions, they assume natures CO2 emissions and sinks are in balance. But they really have no way of knowing.

    Here are some other references which may be of interest: http://news.discovery.com/earth/videos/earth-undersea-eruption-now-in-stereo.htm and http://news.discovery.com/earth/deep-sea-lava-climate.htm

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