Bernie Lewin and the GWPF have launched an excellent historical paper” “Hubert Lamb And The Transformation Of Climate Science. For those who don’t know Hubert Lamb was the founding Director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (the infamous CRU of ClimateGate). He was also a skeptic.When he died the then director called him “the greatest climatologist of his time”.
He spent most of his career convincing the world that Earths climate was constantly changing. The irony then, was that the UN then redefined “climate change” to mean man-made climate change, and honored him with a building stocked with researchers who spent a lot of the time playing down all that natural variation. He earned the good will and reputation, and the UN spent it.
Lewin captures the repeating patterns of history. For decades Lamb fought the dogma that claimed the Earths climate was unchanging. He succeeded and was rewarded, but then the dogma was reborn in another guise:
.,.
“..Right through to the end of the 20th century the claim was that both models and data were showing the enhanced greenhouse effect emerging out of the background ‘noise’ of natural variations. Thus the popular idea that global warming is now emerging from a background of climate stability cannot be blamed on simplifications introduced (mischievously or otherwise) by translation into a popular account. Rather, this idea is in perfect fidelity with the new science, where the old meteorologist’s dogma of natural climate stability has been reintroduced as the baseline assumption, despite all the new evidence to the contrary. In this way, the new orthodoxy of anthropogenic climate change is only the undefeated old orthodoxy re-appearing, but cloaked anew.
Another way to view this is that, indeed, Lamb did help establish the idea of a changing climate. But this quickly became the ground upon which the anthropogenic scare was built. Once built, the foundations were artfully concealed by the new definition of ‘climate change’ as all man made. Lamb’s fame was then appropriated to support this new view. This enhanced his reputation, while at the same time traducing it.
In 2006 Lamb appeared in a listing of the ‘top 100 world-changing discoveries, innovations and research projects to come out of the UK universities’ for the innovation of establishing ‘climate change as a serious research subject’. 129,130
Thus, and in the same year that the CRU building was renamed in his honour, Lamb came to be honoured for an innovation that he had aspersed from the beginning right until the end of his life.
He worried about the distortions in science, and talked, not just of power plays and money, but fashions in thinking that came and went. In the 1930s the idea that the solar cycle affected the climate became so unpopular he said that to speak of the possibility, was “to brand oneself as a crank”. The theory of CO2 driven warming was also popular mid-century (when it was warm) but waned in the 1960s as things cooled… p31
9 Witness to a science transforming
After six years as director of CRU, Lamb’s idyll of ‘calm academic research’ had finally slipped away. In retirement he began to wonder aloud about what had caused the science to go astray. One factor was the distorting influence of public controversy:
“Money to fund research may be more or less readily forthcoming according to what the results appear (or are expected) to indicate. This irrelevant influence – to which all countries seem liable in only varying degrees –may be backed by powerful interests and threatens to cloud the possibilities of scientific understanding.121
Then there was the problem of powerful individuals ‘creating barriers to scientific advance’ in order to protect their own interests. But Lamb considered that ‘neither political ulterior motives nor the abuse of power by individuals is the whole story’.
“There are also fashions in scientific work, whereby some theory catches on and gains a wide following, and while that situation reigns, mostworkers aim their efforts to following the logic of the theory and its applications, and tend to be oblivious to things that do not quite fit.
“The swings of fashion among meteorological and climatic research leaders over the carbon dioxide effect provide an extreme example.122
In his reflections elsewhere on scientific fashion, Lamb also recalls how solar forcing suddenly went out of fashion in the 1930s after bold forecasts based on the sunspot cycle by senior British meteorologists turned out to be wildly wrong.‡‡ Years later, and despite new evidence, for a young scientist ‘to entertain any statement of sun–weather relationships,’ recalls Lamb, ‘was to brand oneself as a crank’.124
But in his ‘extreme example’ of fashion swings, Lamb observes how the fashion for the carbon dioxide effect waxed and waned as the
climate in mid-northern latitudes warmed and cooled – yet with some years’ lag. It waxed mid-century, following early 20th century warming, only to wane in the 1960s…
“…when it was obvious that the climate in the Northern Hemisphere was
getting colder (despite greater output of synthetic carbon dioxide than
ever before) from the late 1950s till about 1974.
Then the theory ‘rose to renewed dominance around 1980’:
“It only revived after a run of up to 8 mildwinters in a row affected much of Europe and parts of North America in the 1970s and 1980s. There then came a tremendous preponderance of publications on global warming, dominating the research literature, although over-all temperature averages in some regions, particularly in the Arctic, were still moving downward. 125
The full paper (pdf) is well worth reading for those who are interested in history (and who isn’t?)
Hi Jo; So very true. Just to add to the “fashionista” nonsense, NASA has resurected that dumb idea of using sulphur in the upper atmosphere to cool the earth. They want to address a mythical problem by creating a real one (acid rain).
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Sorry, mistyped, it’s the US National Academy of Sciences, not NASA.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/u-s-report-to-study-climate-engineering-1.2229251#commentsForm-607993
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Sorry, link works fine for me but here’s the text of the article.
U.S. report to study climate engineering
Seth Borenstein, The Associated Press
Published Tuesday, February 10, 2015 11:18AM EST
Last Updated Tuesday, February 10, 2015 1:54PM EST
WASHINGTON — It’s time to study and maybe even test the idea of cooling the Earth by injecting sulfur pollution high in the air to reflect the sun’s heat, a first-of-its-kind U.S. science report said Tuesday.
The idea was once considered fringe — to purposely re-engineer the planet’s climate as a last ditch effort to battle global warming with an artificial cloud. No longer.
In a nuanced, two-volume report, the National Academy of Sciences said that the concept should not be acted upon immediately because it is too risky, but it should be studied and perhaps tested outdoors in small projects. It could be a relatively cheap, effective and quick way to cool the planet by mimicking the natural effects on climate of large volcanic eruptions, but scientists concede there could be dramatic and dangerous side effects that they don’t know about.
Because warming has worsened and some countries might act unilaterally, scientists said research is needed to calculate the consequences.
Panel chairwoman Marcia McNutt, editor of the journal Science and former director of the U.S. Geological Survey, said in an interview that the public should read this report “and say, ‘This is downright scary.’ And they should say, ‘If this is our Hail Mary, what a scary, scary place we are in.”‘
This is the first time a government-associated science panel talked about the controlled small scale outdoor tests of the artificial cloud concept, called solar radiation management or SRM. But even then panelists downplayed the idea and said it would require some kind of government or other oversight before it is done.
“Yes, small scale outdoor tests might be allowed, but it wouldn’t just be in the hands of scientists to decide what’s allowable and what’s not allowable,” McNutt said. “Civil society needs to engage in these discussions where the line is to be drawn.”
Some scientists worry that research itself it will make this type of planet hacking more likely to occur.
“This creates a bit of what we call a moral hazard,” said Waleed Abdalati, a University of Colorado ice scientist and former NASA chief scientist who co-authored the report. “There will likely come a time we’re going to want to know the ramifications of that kind of action. … You’re talking about potentially changing weather and climate. You don’t want to do that without as good an understanding as you can possibly have.”
And the committee scientists said once you start this type of tinkering, it would be difficult to stop because warming would come back with such a force. So a decision to spray particles into the air would have to continue for more than 1,000 years.
The report was requested by U.S. intelligence agencies, academy president Ralph J. Ciccerone said. Because the world is not reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases that cause global warming, scientists have been forced “to at least consider what is known as geoengineering,” he said.
The panel did favour technology to suck carbon dioxide from the air and bury it underground. But unlike the artificial cloud concept, it would be costly and take decades to cool the planet. The panel wrote a separate volume on this method with the idea of distancing the concept from the idea of the artificial cloud, which McNutt described as a political hot potato.
Carbon dioxide is a byproduct of the burning of coal, oil and gas. Removing it from the air treats the cause of man-made global warming, while deflecting the sun with an artificial cloud only treats the symptoms and does nothing about ocean acidification, the report said.
A leading climate engineering scientist, David Keith of Harvard, hailed the report, but said it could have gone further. With backing from billionaire Bill Gates, Keith has proposed an experiment involving putting about two pounds (1 kilogram) of a sulfur solution in the air to see what happens.
Rutgers University scientist Alan Robock said it would be interesting to spray a small sulfur dioxide into a cloud, and use a blimp or drone to measure what happens. But that should only be done with proper oversight, he said.
Other climate scientists are adamantly against injecting sulphates into the air, even as a last ditch effort.
Such an idea “could do far more harm than good” and scientists should treat the Earth like doctors do their patients, abiding by the rule “first, do no harm,” said Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann. But he favours increased study of the issue “if only for one purpose: to expose just how dangerous many of these schemes might be.”
While the artificial cloud idea is a much worse option that carbon dioxide removal, it is more attractive to some people because “we could probably do it right now,” said Texas A&M University atmospheric sciences professor Andrew Dessler. “There’s really very little that’s technologically standing in our way.”
Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/u-s-report-to-study-climate-engineering-1.2229251#ixzz3RNAdMe7U
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We go in and out of ice ages, some people need to study history. Future generations will die from the cold with their frozen wind mills and only those who use nuclear power will survive
151
One wonders in years to come whether the CAGW nonsense will be viewed in the same vein as planking and ice bucketing….
70
That is no doubt the wish of many of the warmists, but they won’t be laughing this one off. The global warming hoax will be viewed as it should, as deadly Lysenkoism on a global scale.
It can also be viewed as a global IQ test with results permanently recorded on the Internet.
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The warmists are like moths attracted to a bright light, they just fly into the light without thinking it may kill them
130
Not only that, they fly around it in circles, apparently thinking that they are flying in a straight line towards the object of their desire.
00
I was pleased to see the new GWPF Paper re Lamb and Climate Forecasting methods.
It has been clear almost ab initio that the IPCC – GCM type models are useless for climate forecasting – see Section 1 at the following link.
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html
It is also clear , as Lamb understood ,that it is not possible to make intelligent climate forecasts without consideration of where we are with regard to the natural millennial ( 960 – 1020) solar activity cycle seen in the temperature and other data -see Figs 5-9 in Section 2 .
The earth is just approaching, just at or just past this millennial peak. (Fig 9) The periodicity curve is not sinusoidal- there is about 650 years of general cooling and a period of relatively rapid warming of about 350 years. If we look at the neutron count record – Fig 14 which, together with the 10Be data ,is the best proxy for solar activity it is obvious that solar activity peaked in about 1991. There is a 12 year delay between the driver peak and the global RSS temperature peak which probably occurred in mid 2003 since when the earth has been in a cooling trend .
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/rss/from:1980.1/plot/rss/from:1980.1/to:2003.6/trend/plot/rss/from:2003.6/trend
The sharp drop in solar activity seen at 2005-6 in Fig 13 should result in a noticeable cooling and a steepening of the cooling trend in 2017 -2018.. Check Section 3 for forecasts of the timing and amplitude of the coming cooling which should bring us to the depths of another LIA at about 2650.
The scientific quality of the IPCC modelling is appalling. Apart from the fact that such complex models are inherently incomputable, the modelers essentially operate analogously to taking the temperature trend from say Jan- June and then projecting it forwards linearly for 10 years or so. It is well past time that the GWPF publicized the fact that the IPCC model outcomes do not provide a basis for any meaningful discussion of future climates and that the historical Lamb type approach such as used on my blog is the only useful way ahead,
Using this approach ,it turns out that forecasting future climate change is reasonably simple ,transparent and so straight forward that even the politicians, the MSM (especially the BBC ,the Guardian,NYT and WaPo) might be able understand it.
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From today’s Australian
Climate authorities have been challenged over decisions to revise and homogenise data, often by reducing historic temperatures, making temperature rises since 1950 appear more dramatic. Questions have been raised about temperature data sets in North America, the North Pole, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand, with some claiming
At long last they are being asked to explain themselves.
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Sorry, I can’t get the link to work.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/arctic-monkeys-climate-agencies-revise-weather-records/story-e6frg6xf-1227215290929
30
It’s behind a paywall.
Have a read at the link in #5#
It covers the Australians report a little more comprehensively.
40
They really do think we’re all mugs when they pushed out their peer-reviewed, homogenized Climate Change smoothie for the public.
…And its a happy coincidence their “adjustments” make the past colder and the present hotter.
(Completely aligning with the “Global Cooling” rhetoric of the 1960s/1970s and today’s “Global Warming” nonsense.)
Side note:
“homogenized” => We tinkered with the numbers.
“peer-reviewed” => No one else but our fellow
same-thinking activist with scientific credentialsscientist have gone through it.Their methods and archiving of raw data opened to public? Nope.
Their methods validated through alternate testing and validation open to public? Nope.
Their numbers be replicated by getting the raw data and applying their methods? Nope…Because they don’t tell you their methods in terms of specifics! (Its general and often vague).
Climate science is now akin to a dodgy account who cooks the books in order to portray a business is doing well to its shareholders.
Regardless, one should always be suspicious of folks who flatly refuse to be transparent. Especially when it involves our (taxpayer) money.
These folks wouldn’t pass high school science lab work…Do they still teach science in schools these days?
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The article is very clear and raises a core question about homogenization. Assuming homogenization is a process of correction and they list the common reasons, how do you know what is right without making assumptions?
If for example the switch over from thermometers to thyristors in the 1980s produced a systematic increase in temperature of 0.9F/0.4C, was that a result of the switch or was that Global Warming? Universally homogenization seems to have built in the conclusion that some expected and even wanted to see, enhanced CO2 hothouse driven man made Global Warming. Adjusting the live data allowed the result to be built in, which is why it is wrong. It also justified lots of funding for Lamb’s University of East Anglia climate unit and other novel Climate Change departments , so a congruence of interest and opportunity. Climate Change overnight became Man Made Climate Change. I was also fascinated to read above that ‘man made’ CO2 from burning dead plants is ‘synthetic’ CO2. That is a first. Probably carcinogenic too.
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It was also fascinating to read that people remember the social devastation wrought by cooling in the 1960s and 1970, but that it has been expunged from the temperature record. This wholesale adjustment of data in retrospect is not science.
If two figures disagree, you do not change either of them. You present and explain or increase error bars, not adjust. Semiconductor measurements would produce a problem to match the linearity and results of the previous thermometers over a range from maximum to minimum. The temptation is to adjust the thermometer results, which could be simply confusing dramatically higher incremental resolution with higher absolute accuracy and assumed better linearity. All fixed by the miracle of homogenization. As a result you could expect to see a change in temperature data over the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s with the switchover, one way or the other and of the order of 0.5C because that was the result of improved resolution. Of course temperatures officially went up. This could be simple bias confirmation, seeing what you expect to see. The plateau before and after confirms the instrument effect. There may have been no global warming at all.
200
The global average temperature for the last century may have been fairly constant with hardly any deviation at all
120
@TdeF
February 11, 2015 at 7:27 am
.
“thermometers to thyristors in the 1980s …”
surely should be —
¯ thermometers to thermistors in the 1980s … ¯
¯
As thyristors are electronic switching devices usually used to control main line power.
70
Thanks, slip of the brain.
50
“slip of the brain.”
Now that is usually my problem.
🙂
20
“Synthetic” is the word used to avoid sexist “man”.
Thus, the pyramids are synthetic, not man made.
10
Just burn more sulphur rich coal and be done with it.
120
Sure but the recoverable gypsum (in the flue gas ) is a very useful fertiliser. Sulphur is very mobile in the soil. Grassland farmers traditionally applied superphosphate every year in the autumn to get a flush of growth before winter. The flush came from the gypsum content, so they did it every year thinking that they needed more phosphorus.
90
Which makes me wonder why not recycle old internal walls in houses to recover the gypsum then?
30
Gypsum has an interesting effect on certain soils. The principal macro-nutrients in plants are, of course, K, N and P. Gypsum is simply CaSO4.2H2O which is of limited solubility. When applied to soils rock in sodium rich smectites (clays that make the soil unworkable and don’t drain), there is an ion exchange between the Na in the smectites and the Ca in the gysum leaving a Ca rich smectite which is workable and drain more easily. The Na2SO4 product is soluble and is eventually lost to the groundwater.
60
Oh my god some “real science” – I haven’t seen much of that from the “CAGW Scientists” of late – they are into “CO2 Alarmism”, despite it being a scientifically ridiculous concept, but needless to say they keep releasing papers about this “scientific nonsense”. Clearly later this decade they will have lost any remnants of their scientific credibility when it becomes very apparent that CO2 plays no part in GW or GC for that matter. Thanks to the Sun, the impending GM/LIA will highlight the fact that the tens of thousands of “CO2/CAGW Alarmism” papers published in Scientific Journals during the past few decades were complete and utter rubbish and will at best be described as “junk or voodoo” science.
50
That sounds like the calcium is the main benefit then. Sulfur is good as a fungicide, and is used to knock down powdery mildew and the like on susceptible plants. Calcium enables a plant to better extract nutrients from the soil.
00
Yes …
The irony here is that for over 40 years now the power utilities (and steel makers), backed by punitive legislation, have been urging geologists to scour the earth for low-sulphur seams
Well, we did – at some very considerable cost (“Pick up thy mine and walk”). Now this re-appears as: WRONG ! 🙂
60
After the obligatory adjustments and homogenisation, guess what?
The Arctic is suddenly warmer!
Still they continue to alter the planets temperature to fit their global warming mantra.
How do we stop them?
No historical temperature record is safe from them.
None!
We have a word for what they are doing.
The BOM refer to it as “fudging”.
I think they misspelt it.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/02/04/temperature-adjustments-transform-arctic-climate-history/
121
Hopefully the audit will hilite the fudging but it needs a world wide audit.
http://perhapsallnatural.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/are-we-victims-of-virtual-vacuousness.html
90
Lamb was outstanding, of heroic proportions. Hopefully in the fullness of time the CRU crowd will again talk about the possibility of global cooling.
130
😉
00
Mention should be made of William Connolley’s Stalinist-style efforts to ‘disappear’ Lamb from climate science history.
330
Man the wiki entry for Lamb makes him sound like an ardent warmist.
50
still making big claims! looking forward to commentary from those who understand the “sensitivity” issue:
9 Feb: WaPo: Puneet Kollipara: Why climate scientists are right about how hot the planet is going to get
One key concept that climate scientists and policymakers use to forecast future global warming — and estimate how much we should reduce greenhouse-gas emissions — is known as “climate sensitivity.” …
But given how complex the climate system is, how do we know that the IPCC’s sensitivity estimate holds true? There’s a lot at stake — if the scientists are overestimating the climate sensitivity then global warming might be less worrying. No wonder that climate “skeptics” have often cast doubt on the matter.
To study climate sensitivity, researchers rely on basic physics and chemistry. But they also look at past climates to see how they responded when carbon dioxide levels changed…
It’s in this context that a new piece of evidence — just published in the journal Nature — backs up the IPCC. And it comes, of all places, from a set of tiny microorganisms, preserved in ocean sediments, whose shells hold chemical fingerprints of past carbon dioxide concentrations going back millions of years. An analysis of these carbon dioxide fingerprints, in conjunction with other climate records stretching back millions of years, shows that Earth’s sensitivity to carbon dioxide has long fallen in that familiar 1.5 to 4.5 degree range…
In other words, the Earth’s climate is as responsive to rising carbon dioxide concentrations as we’ve long suspected. Whether that would still hold true if we triple or even quadruple carbon dioxide concentrations is another matter.
But for now, it all amounts to another reason to trust climate scientists.”This suggests that the research community has a sound understanding of what the climate will be like as we move toward a Pliocene-like warmer future caused by human greenhouse gas emissions,” said study co-author Gavin Foster of the University of Southampton
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/02/09/why-climate-scientists-are-right-about-how-hot-the-planet-is-going-to-get/
412
Pat,
Which came first, the warmth or the CO2?
150
I plump for the warmth. A container of CO2 at atmospheric pressure, is at the same temperature as its surroundings.
130
The rooster.
30
Ah yes, the Pliocene, I remember it well … all that lush vegetation, and bountiful food.
Imagine what would happen to civilisation, if we could just spend a couple of hours a day, gathering all the food we needed from bushes in the local forest.
We certainly don’t want a climate like that, when we can spend eight or more hours a day, working in an office or factory to achieve the same effect.
110
Rereke,
“Imagine what would happen to civilisation, if we could just spend a couple of hours a day, gathering all the food we needed from bushes in the local forest”
Well, I suspect very briefly in the beginning, after the initial shock of waking in a dystopia, those who support the lefty Labor/Green agenda would immediately attempt to regulate hunting and gathering and proscribe very severe punishments for any infractions.
Unfortunatley, because of the nature of the lefty Labor/Green culture, the belief that walking up to a group of citizens newly formed into a neo-family clan and showing a shiny bronze badge and a bit of paper as authoriy to demand they stop what they are doing and hand over the product of their efforts, is at first met – not with blind compliance and obedience as taught in lefty Labor/Green propaganda lectures – but, instead with an unexpected resistance.
To counter resisitence to proscribed philosophy, enraged, shouty, stampy demands escalate into the typicval frothing incoherence of righteous indignation of being ignored that only those of the lefty Labor/Green faction clan can seem to muster.
The neo-family clan quickly deal with this minor inconvenience and collect their staples as they move off into the jungle and leave the lefty Labor/Green parasites to their fate as night closes.
Just another couple of dead monkeys really.
90
🙂
20
No pat, the sensitivity game is a dead end for warmists. It’s not how much warming from CO2, it’s how much cooling. So playing the CS game won’t get you and yours the face saving “warming but less than we thought” soft landing so many warmists now desperately crave.
The net effect of our radiatively cooled atmosphere is not surface warming, it’s surface cooling. Our radiatively cooled atmosphere is cooling our solar heated oceans.
Climastrologists went and treated the oceans as a near blackbody with emissivity and absorptivity at unity. But our oceans are an extreme SW selective surface. Climastrologists claimed surface at 255K being warmed 33K by our radiative atmosphere. But the reality is surface being cooled from 312K to 288K by our radiatively cooled atmosphere.
The joy for sceptics is that the “near blackbody”claim is locked in. It is the very foundation of the hoax and the simplest of empirical experiments –
http://oi61.tinypic.com/or5rv9.jpg
http://oi62.tinypic.com/zn7a4y.jpg
http://i42.tinypic.com/315nbdl.jpg
– proves it utterly wrong. This hideous error can never be erased. It is in too many papers, too many textbooks, too many websites. The sensitivity game won’t save those who claimed CO2 caused warming. There can be no “soft landing” for the hoax or any of its fellow travellers.
180
Pat,
Thanks for continuing to let us know what the opposition are up to.
130
Hockey stick ran this interesting article about Lamb back in 2010
It show a wonderful example of how a twenty year decline in temps observed by Lamb became a rise in the recent data.
Deja Vu ’72?
80
My early climate education was very much influenced by Lamb’s work.
120
Me too, he wrote in such a way that a layman with an interest in weather and climate could understand.
90
In 1676 Isaac Newton wrote in a letter:
IMO in climate science HH Lamb was a true scientific giant of his subject.
His understanding was that climate effects tend to affect areas differently, locally, acting at the behest of influences that are not only global but also of our solar system.
This view that climate events often occur due to variations of many confounding parameters, and that to looking for patterns and cycle in these events both holistically and historically was the way foreward. IMO this was very reasonable method. From the regional and specific throughout history to a generalized understanding of how this fits with the whole planet and its climate now.
How different the prevailing ethos is now where a rare atmospheric gas is deemed the cause of all catastrophic climate events, and computerized virtual global climate models are held up as the pinnacle of the art. Where the regional, or local changes are averaged and homogenized out of existence.
He’s still in print
90
I find it is strange, and sad, that the work of this giant of the art and science of climatography should have his work just boxed up and held at the in UEA Library Archives.
No display, easy public access to view?
H.H. LAMB ARCHIVE (held in UEA Library Archives) listing available at –
https://portal.uea.ac.uk/documents/6207125/6460911/HH%252BLamb%252BArchive%252Blisting.pdf/353927b9-86eb-4110-a916-5c19a55b6381
10
Check out Wikipedia History of climate change science.
Hubert Lamb is not mentioned in the body of the article and gets one footnote out of 56 (William Connolley, software engineer, writer, and blogger on climatology, gets three footnotes and a reference in the external links).
160
It is the title that is wrong.
It should read, “History of climate science changes”.
150
No problem, manalive. Will Connolley, the Winston Smith of wikipedia, the Wiki Weasel, will get what he deserves. A lifetime of burning shame.
No matter how hard he tried to erase the truth and denigrate the truthful, he failed. Worse, he left a permanent record of his squealing leftardulence. Over 5000 edits in support of the GoreBull Warbling hoax? Oh, the shame!
He single handedly destroyed the current and future funding base of Wikipedia. Way to go warmist weasel!
90
The only data which are probably free from alteration are that coming from balloons and satellites and that doesn’t show much change over the past 18 years. An inconvenient truth.
120
I know Lamb’s son, Norman, who is my MP. We have discussed what his father might think about climate science today: suffice it to say that I’m sure Norman would agree with this analysis.
100
I’m too uninterested now to dig it out, but somewhere in the Climategate emails is a sequence between Jones and another CRU academic discussing how to “bury” Lamb’s work without causing disrespect to his reputation (upon which CRU is founded, of course)
130
Ian,
your memory is correct. A quick search of the emails does reveal that the “team” felt lamb’s work was not at all helpful to the “cause”. Tom Wigley goes so far as to call it “garbage”. The team truly acted like scum.
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?search=lamb
190
CRU metamorphosis.(
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=Gary+Larson+wolf+in+sheep%27s+clothing+image&biw=1152&bih=711&tbm=isch&imgil=nbo4z
00
Its quite sad – great men of vision and integrity are broght undone by mealy-mouthed agressive political milksops.
Mind you, its also a damning indictment on society in general if it should listen to those who tear down but have nothing of substance to replace it with excpet Stalinist thoughts.
Collaborators of all CAGW persuasions will be outed eventually.
100
A parallel tale could be told about the “science” of sociology. Georg Simmel (link) was one of the pioneers writing about relationships between groups, and between individuals and groups. Sociology has nosedived like climate studies, to tyrannical ideas about how individuals and groups should behave, which entails accusations of who are the naughty people mucking everything up.
60
I once met a Social Scientist at a convention. As we got into conversation, I realised that she was not only bereft of any social skills, she was also not a scientist. I did, however, learn a great deal about people I didn’t know, and would probably never meet.
110
A Social Scientist that wasn’t social or a scientist, a real life walking, talking, oxymoron then.
I had to read that twice Rereke. 🙂
80
Thinking carbon dioxide ‘s to blame,
As driving the climate ‘s inane.
We need more like Lamb,
Keeping clear cool and calm,
For rational science to reign.
120
Reading the doc about Lamb from GWPF, and just had an idea based on one of his quoted statements. The ideas about there being terrors of human driven climate change is that there is a known stable climate that’s being wrecked. Instead of addressing “climate change” in comments and articles, which is an idea (meme?) that’s been hammered into public consciousness & confusion, addressing the idea of nonexistent climate stability might give a fresh foundation to cause people to rethink – if climate has never really been stable, etc ……
80
That is a good point, Gary.
How is the International Standard Climate defined? What is the relevant ISO number? How much variation is permissible under the standard? What are the procedures for measurement and calibration, against standard?
I could go on, but you get the drift. We could have fun with this.
130
It is defined by the marks on a thick platinum bar stored in Al Gore’s bank vault.
50
Well Big Al calls it platinum, everyone else calls it sshhh….it!
30
Köppen’s Standard Climate Zone Classification, for Australia and for the World.
Have any of them changed yet?
A single temperature anomaly is a meaningless number as a descriptor for a climate. Temperature differentials across a particular geographic terrain might give a little better clue, but still not nearly enough to describe or define a climate.
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Gary in Erko:
I wonder how many politicians have any idea as to what Köppen’s classification is? Or the computer-toting ‘climate scientists’?
Very few indeed I imagine.
Trivial temperature changes don’t, as you point out, define climate, but try telling them that!
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A standard is a Canon of basic principles regarding the establishment of benchmarks, the idea of being able to accurately produce a standard of global climate stability is absurd considering the variable fluid nature of earths systems, I’d go as far to compare this concept to chaos theory.
In comparison the Rockwell scale is a very accurate measurement of hardness of materials, it’s successful because every test step is actually measurable to give an accurate value, climate stability is like rolling dice on weather, it’s the unknown quantity that separates it from a true standard.
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So if there is not a benchmark standard climate, all discussions about climatic warming, or cooling, are simply relevant to an arbitrary fluid point, that is not reproducible, and possibly not knowable.
That sounds sensible – not.
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“relevant” should have been “relative”
(I have always had trouble with “relatives”).
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So is my summation of climate standards not sensible or the idea of attempting to establish one not?
I’ll say that with satellite technology and digital readings the amount of climate data is far more accessible and frequent than 30 years ago, however you still have to contend with seemingly random events within the system that can throw out any predictions completely, I believe that from this CAGW saga a better understanding of earths systems will emerge, just have to filter out the CAGW noise.
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Rereke Whakaaro
But suely in the new world order science, we don’t want absolute or relative values.
What we need is something like an absolute scale of irrelevant relativities linked to CO2 and temperature anomalies.
¯
Oops, sorry that’s what we got now.
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Thanks for this. I learned my climatology from Hubert Lamb, not in person, but from his writings.
I still think Lamb had a better grasp of the Earth’s climate than his successors at CRU and believe that his skepticism with one day be shown to be borne out by his findings being confirmed.
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no-one will ever forget this:
March 2000: Independent: Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past
According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic
research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years
winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”.
“Children just aren’t going to know what snow is” –
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html#
i know i was reminded it of when reading this…couldn’t stop laughing. thou shalt not know snow!
8 Feb: Daily Mail: Andrew Levy: The school where snow is BANNED: Primary
banned pupils from going outside and closed blinds so they couldn’t watch it
fall
Teachers ordered eight and nine-year-olds inside when it began snowing
Message on school website said staff took decision for ‘safety’ reasons
Angry parents said children were barred from even touching snow
And a teacher even closed the blinds to stop a class of eight and
nine-year-olds from being ‘distracted’ by watching it through the window…
(parent): ‘They could have turned the snow into a science lesson instead of
banning them from seeing it.
‘By the time they came out of school it was all gone. I don’t want it to end
up with my children only knowing about snow from Christmas cards.’…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2943854/That-s-snow-fun-Killjoy-teachers-ordered-children-playground-moment-white-stuff-started-falling-unsafe-pulled-blinds-couldn-t-it.html
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Poor ole Hubert would be rolling in the grave, scratching at the lid …
Anyone who has signed up for the Skeptical Science blog’s MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) – Making Sense of Climate Denial, will be interested:
“The interview was one of a couple dozen we did at the American Geophysical Union Fall meeting in December, which make up the foundation of Skeptical Science blog’s MOOC.
The newest installment features Glaciologist Eric Rignot, who is succinct, passionate, and on point.”
~ ~ ~
> If you aren’t suitably terrified, you’re “in denial”, you won’t pass, so get ready:
“One other previous excerpt from our interview with Rignot, which a lot of folks have found as quietly terrifying as I did, has also been widely shared.”
Glaciologist Eric Rignot (0.00 secs): “i’m not sure what a tipping point is … probably very difficult to put your finger on it.”
. . .
> I think I can help the good professor, though, it won’t get me any points in the course … (maybe a green thumb @jonova : )
> Jay Zwally, the ice satellite project scientist at NASA Goddard, explains ‘tipping points’ in this 2008 video (0.35 secs):
NASA: Arctic Ocean Could be Mostly Ice Free in 2013
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Handjive: I think that the course ‘Making Sense of Climate Denial’ says it all. Reality is kicking the alarmist doors hard, and the best that ‘Skeptical Science’ can do is offer a bit of pseudo-psychology!
No startling incisive relevant research to offer new insights as to how the climate is regulated, just drivel such as John Cook’s book with the ostrich on the cover. Lest any alarmist wonders, yes, I bought a copy of the book – so I know.
The book went in the recycling bin.
Still, you have to admire their tenacity if nothing else – I suppose……
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O/T but I thought I should copy here as evidence. I wrote on the following thread about ABC bias – remarkably the initial poost got through:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-10/maccallum-call-this-professional-politics-then-give-me-amateurs/6081868
I mentioned the ABC voting intention poll that was done in 2013, and the leanings towards Green/Labor of ABC journos. Someone questioned the statement. The first two times I tried to post how to Google the link I was “moderated.” As usual I have followed up with my threat to copy elsewhere:
So the ABC likes to let you make strong statements, but as soon as you have the facts to back yourself up they don’t want to know… In case people aren’t familiar with the link in question, here it is:
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/anything_but_conservative_survey_confirms_all_you_suspected_about_the_abc/
which leads you to the Conversation as the source:
http://theconversation.com/whose-views-skew-the-news-media-chiefs-ready-to-vote-out-labor-while-reporters-lean-left-13995
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You are rousing rebels again …
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“Strangely” this post got through – the ABC mods play a game to make me look paranoid I guess. The will “mod” out posts that don’t carry the “copied elsewhere” threat, and then allow the ones with the threat.
That’s the kind of BS our tax dollars are paying for…
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by any means necessary???
9 Feb: Reuters: Barbara Lewis: EU to exert ‘maximum pressure’ in seeking emissions cuts
The European Union will exert “maximum pressure” to extract by June at the latest pledges from major economies to cut greenhouse-gas emissions, a document seen by Reuters says…
***European foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini has been pressing for increased climate diplomacy, employing the EU’s army of diplomats and putting climate change on the agenda of all major ministerial meetings, not just those of energy and environment ministers.
“For the first half of the year, priority should be given to exerting maximum pressure on the major economies for them to be ready with their intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) by the first quarter of 2015 – or by June at the latest,” a draft climate diplomacy plan, seen by Reuters, says…
U.N. leaders say deadlines are crucial. If promises on emissions are made early, it gives time to try to shame the nations that have offered no action into promising to reduce their greenhouse gases.
So far, U.N. negotiations have settled on a deadline of the first quarter for the emissions cuts known as INDCs “for those parties ready to do so”. They have not mentioned the “June at the latest” target and many governments have been vague.
The climate diplomacy plan was endorsed last month at a meeting of EU foreign ministers, but not published…
***And it suggests seeking celebrity climate ambassadors in Europe, following the U.S. examples of Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/09/us-eu-climatechange-idUSKBN0LD0UW20150209
***more CAGW meetings, more celebrities? these people are so deluded.
btw when i looked today, Christopher Booker’s “The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever” had 23,665 comments.
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This seems to be a fundamental approach by the unscrupulous. They award themselves and others lofty titles and awards. Thus legitimising themselves and their unscrupulous ways. It looks good and true to the unwary because they are the “experts” (a self awarded title). Like adding the word science to a field of study, “political science”.
I think this sort thing could be used as a first pass indicator that it’s suspicious.
20
not even bothering with the url for this piece:
5 Feb: Scientific American: Winter Loses Its Cool in U.S.
Research Report by Climate Central
In fact, more than 80 percent of the cities we analyzed—593 of the 697—could see at least a 50 percent reduction in number of nights below freezing, and more than 20 percent—145 of the 697—could see at least a 75 percent reduction. There are even 28 cities, mostly those that currently experience between 10 and 20 nights below freezing, that may see at least a 90 percent reduction. For these cities, freezing nights will become a rare event that occurs about once a year, comparable to the current conditions in Brownsville at the southern tip of Texas…
the pics below show a lot more snow that the 1cm at the UK school in Norfolk the teacher didn’t want the children to see.
eat your heart out, David Viner:
10 Feb: Fox: PHOTOS: Epic snow pics from Boston
“I can’t believe this is my neighborhood. It’s wild,” Amy McHugh of Weymouth, Massachusetts, told CNN affiliate WCVB-TV. “I keep telling the kids, ‘You’re going to be telling your kids about this.’ It’s unimaginable.”
Not only unimaginable, but record-setting.
“It’s only been 14 days, and we’ve gotten 70 to 80 inches of snow around the commonwealth,” Gov. Charlie Baker said. “This is pretty much unprecedented…
Eastern Massachusetts is running out of places to put all the white stuff.
There’s so much snow that cities have been given permission to dump it in Boston Harbor, which is usually a no-no…
Schools in parts of the Northeast, including Boston, will be closed again Tuesday.
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said students haven’t had a full week of classes in three weeks…
Travel is a mess
Boston remains under a snow emergency and parking ban. Cars left on city streets were being ticketed and towed to make room for snowplows.
The string of storms is taking a toll on city coffers. “We’ve gone through our $18 million budget for snow removal,” Walsh said…
http://myfox8.com/2015/02/10/photos-epic-snow-pics-from-boston/
first pic under the video in the ABC piece is incredible:
10 Feb: ABC America: Boston on Track for Record-Breaking Snowfall This Winter
So far over 77 inches of snow has fallen for the season in Boston — that’s nearly 3 feet above normal, with the average being 43.8 inches. That makes it the snowiest season to this date in recorded history, and already the ninth snowiest season overall…
As seen in the chart above, it’s the snowiest 14-day, 20-day and 30-day periods on record. Boston got 6 feet of snow in 30 days — that’s a first…
Boston has had two top 10 snowstorms in just two weeks…
http://abcnews.go.com/US/boston-track-record-breaking-snowfall-winter/story?id=28870203
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Let’s hope that the current winter in Boston sets a few politicians and warmists thinking.
Not much hope of that, I suppose.
But I daresay we’ll be seeing rubbish like ‘Oh yes, it’s an extreme weather event, it’s as we expected, and it’s all due to climate change’ being spouted very soon.
If we haven’t already…..
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Bill –
***the sulphur story is all over the MSM, but the purpose seems to be to scare people so much that they insist on reducing CO2 emissions:
10 Feb: National Geographic: Craig Welch: There’s a Good and a Bad Way to ‘Geoengineer’ the Planet
Fighting climate change by pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere makes sense, an expert committee says. Blocking the sun, not so much.
Developing the technology to suck planet-warming carbon dioxide back out of the atmosphere is an expensive but promising approach that may be necessary to help prevent the worst effects of climate change, according to the first of two reports released this morning by the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences…
The ideas range from anodyne (planting trees to capture CO2) to potentially alarming (injecting sulfate particles or other aerosols into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight and cool the planet).
***Committee members were blunt in their first recommendation: The world should focus first and foremost on curbing fossil fuel emissions rather than on any kind of geoengineering.
“I think it’s going to be easier and cheaper to avoid making a mess than it will be to make a mess and then try to clean it up later,” said committee member Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at Stanford University’s Carnegie Institution for Science. “If we end up having to build a fix that’s on the scale of our energy system, why not just retool our energy system?”…
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/02/150210-national-academy-geoengineering-report-climate-change-environment/
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to think i once voted for the Greens!!!
11 Feb: Buzzfeed: Mark Di Stefano: Student Behind Frances Abbott Scholarship Scandal Moves Into Politics
Exclusive: Freya Newman’s next move is into politics.
The woman who faced jail for revealing the granting of a lucrative scholarship to Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s daughter Francis has been recruited by the Federal Greens party.
Senator Lee Rihannon’s office has confirmed to BuzzFeed News that Ms Newman applied to become an intern when a job was listed in November last year – the same month her case was dismissed by a Sydney court.
“Following an extensive application process involving over 160 applicants and two rounds of interviews we offered the position to Freya,” said Senator Lee Rihannon…
Ms Newman told BuzzFeed News she was excited to continue her role in shaping the debate about higher education in Australia.
“I’m really excited to be working with Senator Rhiannon and the rest of her staff this year on issues like higher education, aid and animal welfare,” she said.
In a statement, Senator Rihannon insisted that Ms Newman was awarded the internship on merit and that it had nothing to do with her role leaking the embarrassing student records to online news site, New Matilda.
“Freya was an outstanding applicant and we are very much looking forward to having her on board.”…
http://www.buzzfeed.com/markdistefano/freya-joins-greens#.yaBWa29D8
11 Feb: SMH: Freya Newman wins job with the Greens
The former fashion school student who leaked details of a scholarship awarded to one of Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s daughters is now working as a paid intern for the Greens…
Ms Newman applied for a paid internship with Greens higher education spokeswoman Lee Rhiannon last November…
“Following an extensive application process involving over 160 applicants and two rounds of interviews we offered the position to Freya,” Senator Rhiannon said in a statement.
“Freya was an outstanding applicant and we are very much looking forward to having her on board.”…
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/freya-newman-wins-job-with-the-greens-20150211-13bzs9.html
the above headlines includes “moves into” and “wins”, but UK Daily Mail’s headline correctly states:
“Woman who hacked records of Tony Abbott’s daughter to expose controversial scholarship is recruited by the GREENS”
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Yeah! That figures.
Eminently (over) qualified.
Tony.
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“Outstanding applicant”
Is that code for no scruples, dumb as a plank, scientifically illiterate and no respect for the law of the land or the privacy of others?
Yep outstanding.
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I hope Ms Newman displays the same sense of respect, loyalty and integrity to Ms Rhiannon as she did in her previous role. Perhaps a wily journo should stay in touch to seek juicy tit-bits from inside the watermelon…?
20
should have said Daily Mail headline is “more likely” the truth. LOL.
20
National Geographic:
“Global warming caused by human activities that emit heat-trapping carbon dioxide has raised the average global temperature by about 1°F (0.6°C)
over the past century.
As climate change has warmed the Earth, oceans have responded more slowly than land environments.
Many weather experts say we are already seeing the effects of higher ocean temperatures in the form of stronger and more frequent
tropical storms and hurricanes/cyclones.“
~ ~ ~
ABC, 3 hours ago, 11 Feb, 2015:
Australia records its third quietest start to the cyclone season in 50 years
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i’m shocked!
11 Feb: Daily Mail: Ben Spencer: The £400million feed-in frenzy: Green energy firms accused of making wind turbines LESS efficient so they appear weak enough to win small business fund
Report identified gaping loophole used by ‘more than 100’ wind turbines
Small turbines earn ‘feed-in tariffs’ to subsidise cost of green power
But large firms are downgrading turbines to earn same fund, it is claimed
Practice could cost the country £400million over the next 20 years
Government launched investigation but claims numbers are ‘incorrect’
Green energy companies are scooping up millions of pounds in subsidies by artificially capping the power their wind turbines produce, according to a damning report.
A gaping loophole in the Government’s renewable energy ‘feed-in’ system means firms can get more money for producing less power…
Feed-in tariffs, the guaranteed price paid for green energy, were originally designed to boost small-scale community wind farms, with smaller turbines receiving a higher payment per unit of energy.
But an investigation by the IPPR thinktank has revealed that big companies are taking advantage of that system by intentionally limiting the power they produce to qualify for the higher rate…READ ON
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2948209/The-400million-feed-frenzy-Green-energy-firms-accused-making-wind-turbines-efficient-appear-weak-win-small-business-fund.html
30
inevitable…the MSM never disappoints:
10 Feb: USA Today: Doyle Rice: Buried in Boston? Blame it on climate change — maybe
Contributing: The Associated Press
What’s going on? Although no individual storm can be directly linked to climate change, Boston’s snowy winter could point to weather patterns affected by global warming.
“The environment in which all storms form is now different than it was just 30 or 40 years ago because of global warming,” said Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
Higher temperatures warm the oceans and allow the atmosphere to hold a greater amount of water vapor, said Brad Johnson, a meteorologist with the University of Georgia. “Both of these factors, among others, contribute to stronger storms in general,” he said.
Johnson also said scientists are not able to attribute just a single storm or series of storms directly to climate change…
In the future, due to climate change, snowfalls will increase because the atmosphere can hold 4% more moisture for every 1-degree increase in temperature, Trenberth said. As long as temperatures stay just below freezing, the result is more snow — rather than rain, he said…
But Roger Pielke, a professor at the University of Colorado, isn’t sure that climate change can be blamed for all the snow. “Those who argue a simple relationship between increasing water content of the atmosphere and storm strength, data do not support such a claim,” he said, referring to the lack of peer-reviewed studies about the claim.
Pielke said the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has not attributed any winter storm trends to human influences causing global warming.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2015/02/09/northeast-snowstorms-climate-change-global-warming/23133913/
00
“In the future, due to climate change…”
I’ve been hearing this for 30 years. Still waiting for that future to arrive.
40
‘Third quietest start to the cyclone season in 50 years….’
No cyclones from the East this season? According to ‘Tomorrow’s Weather’ (Alex S. Gaddes 1990)there is an eighteen year repeat sequence for the current Meridional Solar Induced ‘Dry’ Cycle hierarchy.(Started circa 110 degrees longitude in mid February 2014.) 3 x 18 = 54 Could it be that this orbital Solar Induced ‘Dry’ Cycle hierarchy has now arrived in Australia? (Note; the Solar Induced ‘Dry’ Cycles move from East to West with the Solar orbit of the Earth’s Magnetic Field. Prevailing weather moves from West to East with the Earth’s axial spin.)
1974 was about the time ENSO was ‘exported’ from the University of East Anglia. What was Lamb’s role in this scientific aberration, or was he ‘moved sideways’ by then?
An updated version of ‘Tomorrow’s Weather’ (Alex S. Gaddes 1990) including ‘Dry’ Cycle forecasts to 2055, is available as a free pdf from [email protected]
00
Thanks to Don and Handjive #27. I’ve done a post on the dreadful lack of cyclones.
10
Richard Lindzen says in the introduction.
Last weekend I looked at the Paraguayan temperature data that Paul Homewood had highlighted last month. This clearly showed a significant drop in temperatures in the late 1960s, offset by a clear 1C adjustment. I suggested that the cause of the adjustments was due to recent climatologists viewing it as an anomaly. As GHGs are “known” to be the cause of warming, any such fall in temperatures much be due to a station relocation, or a failure in instruments.
A graph that shows the average anomalies for raw and adjusted adjusted data for 8 weather stations in Paraguay is here. My full explanation is here.
10
The time has come for the IPCC’s “Kardashian science” to be dumped.
It is also time for the corrupted instrument surface temperature data to be abandoned, with regard to climate change, and replaced with the accurate and reliable satellite temperature data.
00