When skeptics debunk a graph we show the graph we debunk. Not so the carbon-is-a-crisis crowd. The latest trend in graphology-PR is to debunk sceptics graphs by ignoring the graph itself and putting up an entirely different graph.

Here’s a classic from Deltoid who is trying to debunk Senator Fielding. Fielding mentions that temperatures haven’t gone up in the last 15 years, and Lambert tries to mock him: “Clearly there was never any chance of convincing someone who can look at a graph like this one and not see any increase in temperature since the mid 90s”.

Lambert appears to be having trouble reading the scales (time for bifocals Tim?) and the graph he shows starts 110 years before the era he is referring too. What kind of debunking is this? Look out Fielding, if you were as blind as me, you’d see how wrong you are? Devastating.

If you cram enough irrelevant years into [...]

The big scary number of the week is 15 × 1022 (or 150 million quadrillion). It’s the number of Joules the ocean has apparently heated by since 1961. But convert it to degrees per year and suddenly the big scary 15 × 1022 becomes three thousands of one degree per year. Unmeasurably small. So realists everywhere, lets check the math, and get ready to spread the word. Everywhere you see the ocean heat capacity argument or graph, let people know the numbers just don’t add up.

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED SEE HERE FOR THE LATEST FIGURES.

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15 × 1022 Joules since 1961 = 3 thousandths of a degree warmer per year. Who cares?

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Below Michael Hammer goes through the calculations he started on the comments thread for “Ocean temperatures: The new bluff in alarmism.” Essentially he confirms Kininmonths numbers and calculates:

Professor Matthew England’s research teams have received nearly $2.5 million in funding from the Australian government, much of it for studying oceans and climate change. So when we need good answers on the topic, he would be the man. If a school student asked for help, we might expect only a two line reply passing on a link. But when the question comes from one of the most informed climate scientists in the country, with 12 years as head of Australia’s National Climate Centre, and it’s about a graph at the centre of legislative negotiations, it’s inexcusable that the reply was vague, poorly reasoned and didn’t answer the question. All this, in a conversation that England himself started.

If indeed “a Nobel Prize is there for many of the ideas the skeptics champion if only they were true” as England claims, then opportunity is knocking, and England is [...]

Senator Fielding holds a crucial vote on the proposed Emissions Trading Legislation. Fielding and four independent scientists faced the Minister for the Climate Change and Water, Penny Wong, The Chief Scientist, Penny Sackett, and Professor Will Steffen, director of the Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University. Read what happened from someone who was there. Joanne Nova

Guest Post by Dr David Evans 17 June 2009

Australia’s Parliament House

Australian Senator Steve Fielding met with the Australian Minister of Climate Change, Senator Penny Wong, on 15 June 2009. Senator Fielding was seeking evidence that human emissions of carbon dioxide were the main cause of global warming; Senator Wong presumably wanted Senator Fielding’s vote for the upcoming Emission Trading Scheme legislation.

I was at that meeting, one of four independent scientists invited by Senator Fielding. Many people have asked me what happened, so I am replying to everyone at once like this. These are my impressions of the meeting, with special attention to the way the meeting was conducted and to the [...]

A simple statement like this should not be remarkable—but it’s so rare. Steve Fielding assumed the mainstream thinking was right, but is now doing what anyone who hasn’t looked at the debate in detail ought to be doing. Some research. It’s a rare occasion when you can see the good side of democracy and free speech in action. He paid for himself to fly to the far side of the world to attend Heartland’s 3rd conference on Climate Change to hear from scientists who are not convinced carbon has a large role to play in our climate.

The Australian newspaper covered it. And Steve expanded today in the Australian on why he went to Washington.

His visit to the Heartland conference has given the Australian ABC enough reason to bother sending a journalist to it (unlike the two previous conferences). See their short coverage from Washington. (Look out for the glimpse of The [...]