Global Warming « JoNova

Why scientists get it wrong

David Archibalds new book

by David Archibald

David will be speaking with the Anthony Watts Tour in Australia. I’ll be buying a copy of his book.

June 1, 2010

This is a shorter version of the Quadrant Online extract.

Edited extract: “Why did so many scientists get it wrong?” from David Archibald’s book – The Past and Future of Climate:

If the data and forecasts in this book are correct, then the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the National Academy of Sciences in the United States, the Royal Society in the United Kingdom, the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO in Australia are all wrong. How can this be? Firstly, there aren’t that many scientists involved in the IPCC deliberations. The inner core is possibly twenty souls. Secondly, they were untroubled by the necessity to concoct fraudulent data to get their desired results. The only unknown question regarding the IPCC scientists is “Did they actually believe in the global warming that they were promoting?”

It turns out that they did, and possibly still do. That is shown by the Climategate emails released on 20th November, 2009. The Climategate emails are a selection of emails amongst members of […]

Round Five: Ignore the main point, repeat the irrelevant

The debate with Paleoclimatologist Dr Andrew Glikson about the evidence for Climate change has reached a telling point. There is a gaping hole.

Through four rounds of to and fro, I’ve been asking for evidence that the predicted (critical) “hot spot” was there above the equator, and we were drilling down to this point. It’s the weak link in the chain of evidence, and if the climate models are wrong on this element, you can kiss goodbye to the catastrophe. Everything else might be right, but there’s no major warming if there’s no strong amplifying (positive) feedback, and and there is no amplifying feedback from water vapor if there is no hot spot. Indeed, I quoted evidence from three peer reviewed studies that show that we’re headed for a half a measly degree of warming rather than a baking 3 – 6 degrees.

In Round 2 Glikson didn’t mention Lindzen, Spencer or Douglass (the three independent papers which suggest that predicted feedbacks are missing or negative). Instead he suggested “Sherwood 2008” found the hot-spot. I pointed out that Sherwood used wind-gauges instead of thermometers. To believe he is right we need to throw out thousands of thermometer readings and […]

Lao Translation

I wish I could add an insightful quip here. But alas, it’s yet another book I’ve written that I can’t read. 😉

The first Skeptics Handbook is now available in 14 languages and the second handbook in 3. Thanks to volunteer efforts there soon won’t be a corner of the world which doesn’t know just how misleading the UN and western media can be.

Thanks to Maniphone Xayavong and some of her colleagues for the pro bono dedication in translating the Lao version.

Click on the image to download the 1.9Mb PDF.

Steve Hyland helped to connect all the right people and suggests these sites in Laos are useful for people who want to know more.

http://www.kplnet.net/ http://www.vientianetimes.com/Headlines.html http://www.laostudies.org/ http://www.jhai.org/about.htm http://www.laoplanet.net/ http://laoconnection.com/ http://www.etllao.com/service/internet.html

Volunteers have translated the first Skeptics Handbook into German, French, Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish, Turkish, Portuguese, Danish, Japanese, Balkan, Spanish, Thai, Czech and Lao. The second Skeptics Handbook is available in French and Turkish. See all posts tagged Translations.

9.7 out of 10 based on 3 ratings […]

Throwing the Hate Crime Grenade

Hate Crime legislation is the last resort of those with no real case. It’s the last resort in the “shut-up” campaign that Team-Carbonari have been running against the free world for two decades. The unverifiable, unknowable crime of intent. (Anyone have one of those Handy-Hate-Meters that reliably measures the dreaded Evil-Score to two decimal places? No? It’s a matter of time…)

A couple of months ago, I wrote a post called Evidence What Evidence? where I dismantled the words of a famous Australian science journalist for parroting bureaucrats and not investigating the evidence. What I wrote is not a recipe for building a better bomb with your Mazda, but Ben E took issue with my pointed discussion in the comments:

“Sad, but scarcely surprising. Sites like this one will eventually be shut down in future updates to hate crime legislation, as they are well on the way to inciting violence and hatred towards scientists and science communicators.”

Willis Eschenbach popped in with a devastating reply that deserved to be repeated.

“Well, let’s review the bidding regarding “violence and hatred” …

10 out of 10 based on 14 ratings […]

New Scientist: The Age of Name-Calling

New Scientist plumbs new lows. The magazine has become its own self-parody. Do they see the irony of inviting a PR expert to accuse groups of committing the crime of, wait for it, … using a PR expert?

…he’s the advertiser being offered free editorial space within the one-sided propaganda that masquerades as journalism

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hold any elitist ideas that only people with science degrees can write for New Scientist (the magazine and its staff have pretty much proven how useless a science degree can be). My issue with them is that Richard Littlemore (a PR expert) has essentially written a smear-by-association piece, which should have no place in a real scientific magazine. It’s not like Littlemore is just an unhealthy part of a big healthy debate — instead he’s the advertiser being offered free editorial space within the one-sided propaganda that masquerades as journalism.

New Scientist may think climate science is a moral imperative, but they don’t have room for the climate scientists who have published peer reviewed criticisms of their favorite theory. Nor do they have space to tell the extraordinary story of the grassroots independent retiree scientists who’ve busted […]

Debate part 5: The planetary atmosphere and climate change

Round 5 of my debate with Andrew Glikson Dr Andrew Glikson and I have been debating the evidence first through Quadrant, and then here. Kudos to him for following this up in a polite, diligent manner. This kind of open debate is extremely rare, and I am happy to encourage it. I will post a reply in a few days. For the moment I think the many able commenters here can discuss its merits. The only thing I’ll say now is that in each of my four previous replies I ask for evidence that the models are right on the magnitude of the feedbacks. Is it half a degree or 3.5oC? Part I: AG / JN; Part II: AG / JN; Part III: AG / Part III & IV: JN (& AG). (Part IV took place in the comments below Part III). Yes, this is the first time I’ve had a guest post from a scientist who disagrees… My reply is here. — Jo

Guest Post by Andrew Glikson

Earth and Paleoclimate scientist Australian National University, 18 May, 2010

Dr Andrew Glikson ANU

Unique among the terrestrial planets, occupying an intermediate position between Venus, with […]

This is SO not over

The Australian Department of Climate Change

People have asked me if the Rudd Government’s postponement of the ETS means we’ve won, as in game over, time for that beach holiday in Broome? But the end of the game is nowhere in sight while our government still has a Department of Climate Change stacked with high paid executives that soak up $90 million a year. The gullible guys who leapt in with both feet are still top-dogs. The end is not even close while two of our largest daily papers don’t realize they are the real Deniers they disparage, or when the second in charge of our opposition still thinks we need to trade carbon. Joe Hockey (our shadow treasurer) said this week that “a carbon price is inevitable”. He used the same old line: “scientists say blah”, as if a consensus of “scientists” is either (a) faultless and incorruptible, or (b) in control of the weather.

Carbon trading, “inevitable“? How about “inane”? Even better: perilous, fraud-prone, and serpentine. It boils down to forced markets trading fake goods that nobody would willingly buy. It’s not a “carbon” market, it’s a Permit Market. And a permit (especially to something unmeasurable) is […]

The Great Dying of Thermometers

It’s like watching the lights go out over the West. Sinan Unur has mapped the surface stations into a beautiful animation. His is 4 minutes long and spans from 1701-2010. I’ve taken some of his snapshots and strung them into a 10 second animation.

You can see as development spreads across the world that more and more places are reporting temperatures. It’s obvious how well documented temperatures were (once) in the US. The decay of the system in the last 20 years is stark.

For details on just how sinister the vanishing of data records is, see my previous post on Anthony Watts and Joe D’Aleo’s extraordinary summary of Policy Driven Deception.

The Great Dying of Thermometers

LATE POST NOTE

Sinan points out that people might not realize that many thermometers haven’t actually disappeared — they are often still collecting data — it’s just that their records are not being included in the “global” compilations. Though, as Watts and D’Aleo point out, sometimes these forgotten thermometers are still used to calculate the baseline averages.

…

I’m sure one day the chronological spread (and decay) of thermometers will be a useful marker for some socio/economic/historic marker (though it’s […]

Anthony Watts Tour of Australia

“Watts up with the climate”

Click to download the latest details June 13th – July 1st, 2010

…

In years to come history books will be written about the grassroots scientists with next to no resources except their wits, who blew the whistle on the biggest scientific scandal of the century and changed the course of billions of dollars, and thousands of careers. Anthony Watts is one of those key men. We’ve hit the jackpot here in Australia: we’ve got a chance to hear him speak. His site Watts Up With That gets a whopping 3 million hits a month.

Anthony Watts is a TV weatherman and meteorologist. He started a volunteer movement with over 650 people who’ve inspected and reported on over 1000 of the surface stations in the US Historical climate network (USHCN). This is a network managed by NOAA with a four billion dollar annual budget. The volunteers achieved what big bureaucracy couldn’t or wouldn’t do.

The grave state of the USHCN was exposed with photograph after photograph. The network has impeccable standards on paper, but only manages to meet them 11% of the time.

9.5 out of 10 based on 35 ratings […]

Roman Warming (was it global?)

Gullible Rudd steps right in it

Rudd let slip a line in his frustration this week that reveals how little he knows about the topic he holds so dear. He has so completely swallowed the PR on climate science, that when poked, he reflexively fires back exaggerated scientific claims that would make even the IPCC blush. In 2007 the IPCC and Gore et al offered Rudd the perfect Election-Wedge-on-a-Platter. They’d primed the audience with propaganda; trained the crowd to recite: Carbon is pollution. It looked like a no-brainer. Yet having based his leadership and campaign on it, it’s obvious he had not done even the most basic of checks (and still apparently hasn’t).

It’s an abject lesson in the importance of doing some homework before rewriting a nation’s economy.

Toga's don't keep you warm

Last week Tony Abbott (the Australian opposition leader) told school children that it was warmer ”at the time of Julius Caesar and Jesus of Nazareth”. This banal line set off a flurry of denial and bluster.

Rudd was incredulous in the Parliamentary Hansard record to the opposition members last week:

…how is it that, in the 21st century, you could support this Leader of the […]

Czech — The land of skeptics has its own translation of the Handbook

Czech Cover: Click to download the PDF (680K)

The grassroots organized effort of people motivated to volunteer to work against the big-money interests, the disinformation, and the fog of half-truths continues to grow.

Thanks to Mirek Pavlicek for his dedication and skill in translating the first Skeptics Handbook into Czech. According to the great Lubos Motl, he’s done an excellent job (which is an achievement given the irreverent colloquial nature of the booklet). Thanks again to Ralph at Kane TV for his masterful efficient turnaround of the images.

I was honored that Lubos offered to read over the translation to check it. If I’m hunting for a fast condensation of something at the leading (most confusing) edge of the science, his site has at times been the place with the insight–the savvy summary. He is one of a kind. The Reference Frame.

Mir writes that “skepticism is growing to be very cool in the Czech Republic now in spite of the fact that most people cannot cope with long and profound English texts and the Czech literature on the topic is very limited. Your publication addresses a certain gap”.

He added that the Australian debate (Glikson verses yours truly) […]

The hypocrisy of the annointed

This is too rich. Baa Humbug has found scientific peer reviewed research that skeptics are more attuned to reality and better able to discount misinformation (!) but, oh the irony, which researcher makes this claim? The man with the fairy dust logic, Stephan Lewandowsky. It’s just a shame he wouldn’t know a skeptic if one sat on him.

He presented his research conclusions in Nov 2007 in Online Opinion and The Canberra Times as A Sceptics Guide to Politics. One week later with a completely straight face, he implored everyone to act to save the climate, because it was obvious. Of course.

In his world, if you question officialdom and you’re “right”, you’re a skeptic, but if you question officials and you’re “wrong”, then you’re a denier. Got it? It all makes sense, but only if Lewandowsky is God. Somehow He knows when to trust the news-media and politicians: John Howard and George Bush couldn’t be trusted over Iraq, but obviously Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong are entirely correct on Climate Change. (After all, most of the world’s bankers agree with them.)

I recently conducted research with colleagues abroad in which we investigated how people processed information about Iraq. We […]

Great Debate Part III & IV – Glikson accidentally vindicates the skeptics!

UPDATED Part IV: Andrew Glikson replies below.

I am impressed that Glikson replied politely, rose above any ad hominem or authority based arguments, and focused on the science and the evidence. This kind of exchange is exceedingly rare, and it made it well worth continuing. Links to Part I and II are at the end. Round 4 was copied from comments up to the post.

Depending on flawed models

by Joanne Nova

May 11, 2010

For a sentence, I almost think Dr Glikson gets it. Yes, it’s a quantitative question: Will we warm by half a measly degree or 3.5 degrees? It’s not about the direct CO2 effect (all of one paltry degree by itself), it’s the feedbacks—the humidity, clouds, lapse rates and other factors that amplify (or not) the initial minor effect of carbon.

Decades ago, the catastrophe-crowd made guesses about the feedbacks—but they were wrong. Instead of amplifying carbon’s effect two-fold (or more!) the feedbacks dampen it.

Dr Glikson has no reply. He makes no comment at all about Lindzen [1], Spencer[2] or Douglass[3] and their three peer reviewed, independent, empirical papers showing that the climate models are exaggerating the warming by […]

The urbanising effect even in wildest Africa

Image thanks to Navy’s Solant Amity I Cruise 1960

All that wilderness, and where did they put the temperature sensors? Near a concrete slab. These guys aren’t even trying to be serious.

Talk about a gorgeous view. This jaw-dropping wilderness is also the site of one of the 20 GAWS (Global Atmosphere Watch Station, for the WMO) which tracks stuff like CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. There’s a temperature station there too, and Tim Wood helpfully sent me up-to-date pictures.

You might wonder, at such an important site and among the wilderness, how could anyone find a place to put a temperature sensor that wasn’t a Class I, top notch siting? It was all too easy. By the looks of this photo (below), it might just qualify as a Class 4, since there a large brick or concrete and metal structure… less than 10 meters away. (For info on classifications: Surface Stations Project*, NOAA Site information here.)

Tim W writes:

“As you can see from the pictures, if this is what passes for a world class station then….

Note the gazillion undeveloped hectares in the background that would be more suitable. But that […]

Shattered Warmers Become Global Mourners

It’s unsubtle, twice as long as it needs to be, it’s unashamedly smug, and worth watching.

Be patient with the start. (Click on the pic to go to PJTV)

Betrayed By Climategate, …

PJ TV

“It was supposed to be hot dammit!”

“I just had faith that everything wouldn’t work out…”

“This is how I knew was better than other people”

This is gratuitous “rubbing-it-in”.

10 out of 10 based on 2 ratings

Name-calling fairy dust: “Conspiracy Theorist”

Ad hominem Unleashed on the ABC

On our ABC there’s lots of talk “about evidence” but next to nothing of actual evidence. (The empty homage to “evidence” is handy though, it keeps the pretense alive that it’s a scientific conversation). Stephan Lewandowsky is still doing his Picasso-brain-best to search in all the wrong places for enlightenment.

Is the planet warming from man-made CO2? Lewandowsky “knows” it is. Why? Because the 9/11 truthers are conspiracy theorists (and conspiracies are always wrong). O’ look, a few people ask odd questions about an accident in a building years ago, and sometimes those people are also the species Homo Sapiens Climata Scepticus (!). So it follows (if you are insane) that because some people still doubt the official story of an unrelated past event, man-made global warming will contribute 3.7W/m2 in the year 2079, and we’ll all become souffles in the global Sahara.

I’m not making this stuff up. I’ve tallied up the obvious errors from both articles. His power to confuse himself with red herrings is … “impressive”.

Lewandowsky scorecard for logic and reason

Argument from authority 4

[…]

Not a post

No news here tonight (I’m working on bigger documents behind the scenes). But I can’t resist some immodest self promotion (just in case you missed it on Watts Up). Number nine climate blog. Fourth in skeptic-climate-blogs world wide. (Yes, I know, it changes week by week, and numbers are not as important as who is reading.)

The graph is done by Willis Eschenbach.

Anthony mentioned a poll that Jeff at the Air Vent is doing. It’s an interesting poll about manners and honest blogging, a subject close to my heart.

BTW: These links will take you to My favourite posts, my INDEX and my ARCHIVES.

7 out of 10 based on 3 ratings

The climate bully crashes

Australian polls have plummeted, and the credibility gap I mentioned earlier has already translated into votes. Whether people agree or disagree with the Emissions Trading Scheme, no one is impressed when a leader hypes something in the most hyperbolic and inflammatory terms, then bails suddenly, as if it was not a big deal.

The front page of The Australian today:

KEVIN Rudd’s personal standing has taken a hammering after his decision to dump his climate change policy last week, and for the first time since 2006 the Coalition has an election-winning lead.

Curiously, while the Labor Party dropped 8%, the Greens primary vote (10%) didn’t pick up a single point. The Coalition (the main opposition) gained just 3% (to 43%), so most of the rest of the disillusioned voters went to “others and independents”. All the commentators are writing it up to the “Climate” issue.

It may have taken a long time to come, but eventually things based on bullying and bluster crash to Earth. Both sides of politics could have stood taller in this if they had bothered to get a forum of advocates and skeptics together in the same room (perhaps a Royal Commissioner’s room) to politely […]

The smell of money

Thanks to Glenn Beck, we get bit more insight into the tangled web that The House of Global Warming was built on.

Who would have thought? Goldman Sachs has been working hard to save the environment for years.

Generation Investment Management (GIM) was founded by Al Gore, and a few friends, which included David Blood (former Goldman executive), Mark Ferguson (Goldman) and Peter Harris (Goldman). They are the fifth largest shareholder in the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). Then in 2006, when the CCX needed some extra funding, who should step up to buy 10% of the company – Goldman Sachs.

CCX is an exchange that won’t be doing a heck of a lot if carbon trading doesn’t become mandatory. All of these players have a vested interest in Cap N Trade legislation.

10 out of 10 based on 2 ratings […]

The La Nina shark rises to bite

UPDATED (below)

Does this herald the end of this years warm spell?

Frank Lansner has been watching the Southern Oscillation Index and noticed it’s rapid climb out of El Nino territory. He’s found graphs showing how the warm water is displaced from below and I’ve pasted them into a brutally rough animation.

See Franks full post

I wouldn’t use a single season to debunk AGW (and nor does Frank) but we all know that the crowds are swayed by weather, and Frank’s point is that the weather is possibly not going to help The Big Scare Campaign.

10 out of 10 based on 2 ratings […]

JoNova

Recent Posts

Why scientists get it wrong

Round Five: Ignore the main point, repeat the irrelevant

Lao Translation

Throwing the Hate Crime Grenade

New Scientist: The Age of Name-Calling

Debate part 5: The planetary atmosphere and climate change

This is SO not over

The Great Dying of Thermometers

Anthony Watts Tour of Australia

Roman Warming (was it global?)

Czech — The land of skeptics has its own translation of the Handbook

The hypocrisy of the annointed

Great Debate Part III & IV – Glikson accidentally vindicates the skeptics!

The urbanising effect even in wildest Africa

Shattered Warmers Become Global Mourners

Name-calling fairy dust: “Conspiracy Theorist”

Not a post

The climate bully crashes

The smell of money

The La Nina shark rises to bite

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