Doctoring climate change

The court decision has been welcomed by the expected opponents, such as Renwick (who manages to fabricate our statements even when we write them down and file them with the High Court), NIWA (whose publicity, er, I mean legal team made mincemeat out of logic and science) and Hot Topic (but then Renowden wouldn’t know a climate scientist from an astrophysicist).

Now they’re joined by doctors eager to fight climate change, in Doctors Welcome Decision On Treacherous Temperature Case.

Hear the twisted science and scurrilous lies

The reference to “treacherous” has a nasty effect, doesn’t it? And it means there must be some treachery, right? Well, actually, wrong. Despicably, they don’t justify it.

The “press release” simply repeats twisted science and scurrilous lies we’ve heard a thousand times before. Laking says:

Health risks of climate change start with injury from heatwaves and storms, more tropical illnesses, and ultimately threaten collapse of food supplies and political insecurity from crop failure, coastal inundation and ocean acidification.

Can’t he see that he’s claiming all those calamities will be produced by “Health risks of climate change”? He can’t be serious. But to drive home his point about disaster he adds:

Global food prices are already rising with the extreme drought affecting half of the United States.

Don’t be fooled by this: climate change didn’t produce the drought, and food (or corn) prices were already rising because the Greens have forced so much of it to be turned into ethanol for cars.

So much for stupid science. He moves on to

the NZ Climate Science Coalition and their wealthy backers, apologists for the tobacco industry and the fossil fuel and mining industry.

We are not wealthy, members are all unpaid volunteers, and we have no links with the tobacco industry. Look at the “proof” listed beneath the press release. Like saying we’re “linked” to the bus company because we rode on one.

“Still peddling lies that kill, they are delaying action essential to protect human health”, says Dr Laking.

These are plain lies, Dr Laking. You would do more of value with your time by providing proof of the global warming scare. Which would be a world first, because nobody else does.

But this is from the medical association or something, isn’t it?

No, this is the never-heard-before “New Zealand Climate and Health Council”, represented by this George Laking, an oncologist. The “council” goes by the Maori title “OraTaiao” which seems to have something to do with the health of the Earth.

Looking around their heroically sparse web site, we find their mission is about saving us from climate change, which is a “real and urgent threat to the health and wellbeing of New Zealanders.” The web site promises to “honour Maori aspirations” (whatever they are, but apparently nobody else’s) and to “uphold the principles” of the Treaty and it expresses “unity” and “caring” with Maori words to demonstrate their sincerity.

This is not the Medical Association with its 5000 members – it’s a tin-pot affair that only started, according to its web site, less than three years ago. This muck-raking attempt to deprecate the Coalition won’t impress anyone beyond their half-dozen members.

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275 Thoughts on “Doctoring climate change

  1. Mike Jowsey on 09/09/2012 at 2:26 pm said:

    Ahem. Might it be better to have a conversation about the climate?

  2. Andy on 09/09/2012 at 2:33 pm said:

    I’m reminded of the infamous Paul Nurse / James Delingpole interview

    if I think I have cancer, I see a cancer specialist..
    If I am concerned about climate change, I see……a cancer specialist.

  3. Richard C (NZ) on 09/09/2012 at 3:19 pm said:

    “Global food prices are already rising with the extreme drought affecting half of the United States”

    Wow “extreme”. How is Laking going to characterize a multi year 1930s style dust bowl drought if it occurs?

    And how will he anthropogenically differentiate the attribution and health risks of a severe 2012 era drought from the severe 1930s drought?

    I didn’t realize Doctors considered NZCSET v NIWA to be a “Treacherous Temperature Case”, News to me – and news to the vast majority of Doctors I suspect (those that were even aware of the case that is).

  4. val majkus on 09/09/2012 at 3:23 pm said:

    ‘Still peddling lies that kill, they are delaying action essential to protect human health”, says Dr Laking.’
    sounds defamatory

    • It is defamatory, it feels like poison and yet I don’t care for myself that he said it, all I want to do is advise others that he did.

    • Andy on 14/09/2012 at 8:52 am said:

      Getting the topic back onto health and climate, I can recommend Roger Pielke Jr’s book “The Climate Fix” which has a lot to say about some of the WHO reports and their rather dubious attribution of anthropogenic climate change to health issues

      For example, they claim that diarrhea has increased by a certain percentage (can’t remember the exact figure) because of “climate change”

      There are also well-documented cases where incidence of Malaria is ascribed to AGW.

  5. Andy on 09/09/2012 at 3:26 pm said:

    Speaking of Dellers and health issues, the man has an article in the Mail about the effects of wind turbines on health

    My view is that climate change policies (like Wind Energy) are having a bigger effect on health than any supposed threat from “climate change”

  6. Alexander K on 09/09/2012 at 4:22 pm said:

    Another ‘scientist’ who wouldn’t have a clue about stuff outside his own speciality. There must be an alarmist manual in circulation in his waiting room – even the IPCC is more cautious about doomsaying than this lot of cretinous nonsense.

    • Yes, that’s true.

    • Andy on 09/09/2012 at 8:27 pm said:

      The last time I went to the docs for a health checkup I had to endure several climate alarmist articles in the magazines in the waiting room.

      Then I got told my blood pressure was abnormally high, but that it might be a side-effect of being in the doctors

      Yes, “climate change” makes you sick. I have first hand experience.

  7. Billy on 09/09/2012 at 8:50 pm said:

    Hi Andy,I know the feeling.Feed us propaganda mags when we feel ill.I watch the fish in the tanks that have not a care in the world.Thanks for your great workRichard T.There are more skeptics out there than you realize.The warmists are getting desperate thanks to you guys.Keep up the good work.

  8. Dan Pangburn on 10/09/2012 at 3:51 am said:

    Paraphrasing Richard Feynman: Regardless of how many experts believe it or how many organizations concur, if it doesn’t agree with observation, it’s wrong.

    The IPCC and many others perceive that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide was the primary cause of global warming. Measurements demonstrate that they are wrong.

    The average global temperature trend has been flat since 2001. No amount of spin can rationalize that the temperature increase to 2001 was caused by CO2 increase but that 25.2% additional CO2 increase had no effect on the average global temperature trend after 2001.

    Without human caused global warming there can be no human caused climate change.

    Average GLOBAL temperature anomalies are reported on the web by NOAA, GISS, Hadley, RSS and UAH. The first three all draw from the same data base of surface measurement data. The last two draw from the data base of satellite measurements. Each agency processes the data slightly differently from the others. Each believes that their way is most accurate. To avoid bias, I average all five. The averages are listed here.

    2001 0.3473
    2002 0.4278
    2003 0.4245
    2004 0.3641
    2005 0.4663
    2006 0.3930
    2007 0.4030
    2008 0.2598
    2009 0.4022
    2010 0.5298
    2011 0.3316

    A straight line (trend line) fit to this data has no slope. That means that, for over a decade, average global temperature has not changed. If the average thru July in 2012 (0.3431) is included, the slope is down.

    See what really caused the warm up during the 20th century in my stuff made public at the Climate Realists web site.

    • Simon on 10/09/2012 at 7:07 am said:

      The anomalies are all positive, i.e. warmer than the average.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 10/09/2012 at 7:43 am said:

      So what? There’s no rise correlating to CO2.

      Both NZCSET 7SS and NIWA 7SS are now consistent with the global series now that the early adjustments are irrelevant

      http://i54.tinypic.com/27xjm0k.png

      And the trajectory is negative

    • Andy on 10/09/2012 at 8:35 am said:

      Dan was referring to trend, not the absolute value of the anomaly.

    • Mike Jowsey on 10/09/2012 at 8:38 am said:

      Dan, thanks for getting the conversation back to climate. Richard C – that is a good graph mate. The blue (R&S) trend line looks perfectly natural. What’s to worry about?

    • Richard C (NZ) on 10/09/2012 at 8:47 am said:

      Bob D’s handiwork Mike. Credit where credit is due – even if the judge doesn’t think so.

  9. Rob Taylor on 10/09/2012 at 9:15 am said:

    I am amused, but not surprised, to see that this [blog] contains comments calling for Judge Venning’s dismissal for bias and corruption. Venning apparently has shares in some forestry project somewhere, thus, has a vested interest in defending “warmism”!

    The thought that you [ad hom removed] might just be wrong [Kindly show how we’re wrong, Rob, don’t simply insult us. Thanks. – RT]

    • Richard C (NZ) on 10/09/2012 at 10:03 am said:

      “….science and law seems too threatening for your sensitive egos”

      Both science and law have yet to run full course. The science and statistics of the NZCSET 7SS still stand irrespective of the court decision. The scientific basis of the NZCSET 7SS is more rigorous than the NIWA 7SS and therefore more valid – that hasn’t changed.

      Law provides the avenue of appeal. We don’t know yet whether NZCSET will appeal or, if they do, what their grounds are. There’s potentially a list of grounds for appeal and vacation as long as my arm but whether NZCSET sees it that way too remains to be seen.

      In any event, the NZ public now has choice of 2 series, both valid in terms of methodological interpretation whether rigorous or loose, one more rigorous than the other. Take your pick:-

      http://i54.tinypic.com/27xjm0k.png

      Nothing threatening about the law or the science for us then is there Rob?

      [Ad hom removed]

    • Magoo on 10/09/2012 at 2:40 pm said:

      I wonder if you’d have the same view if the finding was against NIWA and the judge had shares in the oil or coal industries.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 10/09/2012 at 3:06 pm said:

      That’s a fictitious scenario Magoo that’s more a case of justice being served on NIWA’s part and it would be to their disadvantage. The factual situation is that Judge Venning has left himself open to question (re carbon credit investment) whether there’s a rock solid basis for that or a tenuous one. The mere innuendo as a result of his past dealings are enough to taint his impartiality. If it turns out that he does still in fact hold forestry carbon credit investments it would be even moreso

      Given that he has already belatedly stepped aside in similar circumstances, don’t you think it was poor judgment on his part not to step aside from a case with obvious climate/carbon contention?

      Put another way, if he had have stepped aside, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

    • Magoo on 10/09/2012 at 3:45 pm said:

      Sorry Richard I wasn’t replying to you but to Rob Taylor. I agree with you entirely.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 10/09/2012 at 3:52 pm said:

      I should add that even if J Venning has completely sold out of forestry he would have formed contacts, friendships and possibly allegiances that would continue after a sell down.

      My understanding is that – as the following Stuff article linked reports – J Venning’s investment was with Tahakopa Forest Trust in 2004 but that his involvement was “limited”. I don’t know what he has done regarding that investment since then.

      http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/4807136/Impugned-judge-steps-aside-from-Trinity-case

      However, I refer you to this document re Trinity:-

      RESTATEMENT OF COMPLAINTS TO JUDUCIAL CONDUCT
      COMMISSIONER INCORPORATING MATERIAL PROVIDED BY
      VENNING J. AND HIS SOLICITOR1

      http://www.kiwisfirst.co.nz/files/Restatement_of_Complaints_140211%5B1%5D.pdf

      49 (c) Venning J excluded evidence of the value of carbon credits from the Trinity land
      as irrelevant to whether there would be a profit from the forest, but his own forest
      company, Tahakopa, has registered under the Emission Trading Scheme for the
      purpose of selling carbon credits for profit from its forests;

      The thing is, if Tahakopa was managed as a carbon credit forest and not for marketable milled timber, the pruning regime for a commercial forest would not be in place so the value of the wood would be substantially less and the Trust vulnerable to any deterioration in carbon credit prices because if the ETS fell apart it would not be left holding commercial timber. An adverse ruling to a temperature case would not help that situation

      The question is unanswered so far to my knowledge: is J Venning still a Tahakopa Forest Trust investor/partner/unit holder etc?

      Anyone know?

    • Richard C (NZ) on 10/09/2012 at 4:00 pm said:

      Oops sorry Magoo, I didn’t notice you’d replied to Rob Taylor just as I did.

      Oh well, If I’m going to dig a hole it may as well be a big one.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 10/09/2012 at 4:20 pm said:

      I think this is the original Trinity complaint:-

      COMPLAINT TO THE JUDICIAL CONDUCT COMMISSIONER CONCERNING VENNING J

      http://trinityscheme.com/wp-content/uploads/2010-05-31-complaint-to-judicial-conduct-commissioner.pdf

      Got to go to work all night now so can’t check it till tomorrow.

    • Simon on 11/09/2012 at 8:20 am said:

      Given that Justice Venning’s prior interest in Tahakopa was on the public record, the NZCSET could have objected to his appointment if they thought it was relevant.

    • Bob D on 11/09/2012 at 9:22 am said:

      Given that Justice Venning’s prior interest in Tahakopa was on the public record, the NZCSET could have objected to his appointment if they thought it was relevant.

      For what it’s worth, I agree with Simon. I for one have no problem with Justice Venning’s appointment, and if I had I should have spoken out before the judgement, not after.

      In my opinion he’s taken the easy way out in his judgement, but I prefer to deal with what he’s written, not by attacking him or his motives.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 11/09/2012 at 10:52 am said:

      “Given that Justice Venning’s prior interest in Tahakopa was on the public record”

      The past interest was but what is the present interest? What is his (or his family’s) current interest (holding)? We don’t even know exactly what the past interest was (or at least I don’t).

      “….the NZCSET could have objected to his appointment”

      They still can via a complaint to the Judicial Conduct Commissioner. It’s in retrospect now but why not take a leaf out of Bradbury, Peebles and Muir’s book? They were successful in their pursuit of Justice (wrt J Venning recusing himself) and they seem to be light years ahead of the NZCSET in this respect.

      Should be a priority of investigation IMO.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 11/09/2012 at 10:59 am said:

      “I prefer to deal with what he’s written”

      Yes, there’s ample opportunity there but why not pursue every recourse that has a chance of overturning the decision?

      That is the aim of an appeal is it not? A complaint (if there’s sufficient justification) to the Judicial Conduct Commissioner has exactly the same aim as an appeal.

      Why limit your options?

    • Andy on 11/09/2012 at 11:00 am said:

      I agree with Bob that pursuing the judge’s personal financial interests is not going to get us anywhere. It is already getting commented on elsewhere in the blogosphere and it takes the focus away from the scientific arguments.

      There may well be issues but I think they are best discussed in a less public forum.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 11/09/2012 at 12:04 pm said:

      As it turns out, Geoffrey Venning or family has no current shares in Tahakopa Forest Trust Limited

      http://www.business.govt.nz/companies/app/ui/pages/companies/552192/16216215/entityFilingRequirement

  10. Rob Taylor on 10/09/2012 at 10:22 am said:

    Richard, the court found that NZCSET lacked scientific and statistical credibility, so I doubt that any NZer [ad hom removed] will be taking any notice of their erroneous “rigourous” (sic) figures.

    I do hope that NZSCET attempts to appeal the decision, as it will both magnify their “own goal” and the amount of costs awarded against them.

    [Ad hom removed. Rob, you know our practice here, so be courteous or be banned. – RT]

    • Andy on 10/09/2012 at 10:53 am said:

      Indeed Rob, I expect the public will be cheering that it is another victory for faceless, unaccountable government.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 10/09/2012 at 12:21 pm said:

      Rob, the court DIDN’T find that the Statistical Audit (and therefore the NZCSET 7SS) “lacked scientific and statistical credibility” on a reasonable basis. All J Venning did was ignore the 3 professional statistical reviewers of it preferring (favouring) Dr Mullen (a climate scientist not a statistician) and NIWA contrary to his Judicial Oath for a statistical opinion in [144]:-

      [144] In response to the critique Dr Mullan recalculated most of the sites changed temperature adjustments applying the RS93 methodology. He concluded that the Coalition had incorrectly calculated the adjustments and if the RS93 methodology was applied correctly it resulted in adjustments close to those calculated in the review using the alternative method that NIWA had employed..

      Since when was Dr Mullen a statistician? And why did J Venning favour a non-statistician (Dr Mullen) over the 3 professional statisticians that he ignored completely?

      There’s at least 3 grounds for appeal in that alone.

      Neither was the NZCSET compilation found to be “erroneous”. On the contrary, NIWA’s complaint was that it was “too rigorous”. This is an implicit admission by NIWA that the NZCSET series is more rigorous than theirs. This is both a legal and a scientific outcome and a millstone that will hang around NIWA’s neck.

      [ad hom removed] the fact remains, the NZ public has a choice – rigorous, or less rigorous. Until NIWA can cite their methodology their series has little validity scientifically even if the judge finds it did legally.

  11. Rob Taylor on 10/09/2012 at 12:10 pm said:

    Get off it, Andy, NIWA fronted up and Dave Wratt has a face, unlike whoever / whatever is funding the NZSCET charade…

    • Andy on 10/09/2012 at 12:20 pm said:

      Rob, what is the peer-review process that NIWA used?
      Where did they allow the public to see its methodology?
      What is the “international accepted” practice that they used?
      What is deemed a “statistical expert”?

  12. Rob Taylor on 10/09/2012 at 12:31 pm said:

    Andy, have you not read the judgement against NZSCET?

    Which part of “prolix” do you not understand?

  13. John Sparks on 10/09/2012 at 2:26 pm said:

    I have followed this case with interest, however there are a couple of key examples which have enlightened me on the NZSCET Modus Operandi.

    For example, NZSCET blatantly misquote the ‘bullet proof’ quote of Dr Wratt. NZSCET somehow expect the court (and/or the general public?) to interpret this:

    John, please provide a reference for this “blatant misquote”. I haven’t heard of this. It certainly played no part in the court case, despite what you say. Also remember that warming or its absence did not have to be demonstrated in court. – RT

    “To be absolutely bullet proof on this one, would it be a good idea if someone at Greta Point took exactly the same stations as Jim and checked that they got exactly the same result? I’m not doubting your calculations Jim, but I think we should subject any numbers we put out to very careful quality control).”

    to mean that NIWA falsified their data to deceive NZSCET, the public and the court.

    The NZSCET also shows some classic examples of ‘cherry-picking’ data to prove that global climate isn’t changing. The website is full of them.

    The global climate has always changed, and always will. But it is blatantly obvious now that there are currently major changes happening due to humans.

    Increasing heat in the deep (down to 2000m) ocean which is well above the noise level of the instruments give one clue. An ice minimum we haven’t seen for millions of years gives another (yes winds and other local conditions play a role, but so does the fact that the entire globe is warmer).

    I would encourage anyone to read Venning’s verdict. You don’t have to be a lawyer, or a climate change scientist to learn about the integrity of NIWA, and the lack of integrity of NZSCET.

    I would love to see the trust stick around to either appeal, or pay damages. But I have a feeling that their backers will slink quietly back into the corner they came from.

    I hope the leaders of NZSCET are being paid well to sell their souls and our future.

    [I keep telling you – nobody pays us. – RT]

    • Andy on 10/09/2012 at 3:26 pm said:

      This kind of sanctimonious moralising really gets on my nerves.

      I read the climategate emails. Did I get the impression of a bunch of people who had the moral high ground?

      Try to guess

    • Simon on 10/09/2012 at 4:36 pm said:

      Every single one of the many years of emails that was stolen off the East Anglia server? Where did you get them from? Or do you mean that you read the cherry-picked emails that supposedly demostrated that scientists were up to something dastardly?
      I read a subset of those emails too, but all it showed were scientists tired and upset with gamesmanship and spurious time-consuming data requests.

    • Bob D on 10/09/2012 at 4:44 pm said:

      Simon:
      That’s because you didn’t understand what you were reading. To those of us who had been following the debate over the preceding months and years, it was very interesting indeed. It fully confirmed what we had been seeing only from the outside, and gave fascinating insights into the private doubts and background machinations behind these people. I hesitate to call them scientists.

    • Andy on 10/09/2012 at 11:25 pm said:

      Tell you what Simon, I’ll give you access to my last five years of emails and you can cherry pick them to find evidence of me blocking FOIA requests, instructing my colleagues to delete emails and get people sacked who disagree with my point of view

      On the other hand, you might find nothing.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 10/09/2012 at 3:26 pm said:

      “Increasing heat in the deep (down to 2000m)”

      John, please explain the physical mechanism for this that attributes an anthropogenic cause. With citation of reputable literature.

    • Bob D on 10/09/2012 at 3:45 pm said:

      An ice minimum we haven’t seen for millions of years gives another

      I almost lost my coffee all over the monitor on that one. So explain, please, how the melting ice is uncovering habitats in Greenland, and uncovering bronze age bodies at the top of the Alps?

      Also, since we know that the Minoan, Roman and Medieval Warm Periods were at least as warm as now, and for longer, please explain why the ice minima during those periods would not have been lower.

      Please provide scientific references for your claim that the current ice minimum is unprecedented in millions of years.

    • Rob Taylor on 11/09/2012 at 9:11 pm said:

      Bob D., what credible reference do you have for claiming

      since we know that the Minoan, Roman and Medieval Warm Periods were at least as warm as now, and for longer

    • Bob D on 11/09/2012 at 9:31 pm said:

      The weight of archeological, historical and scientific evidence gathered over thousands of years. What do you have?

    • Bob D on 10/09/2012 at 3:52 pm said:

      John Sparks:

      Increasing heat in the deep (down to 2000m) ocean which is well above the noise level of the instruments give one clue.

      And yet the 0-700m heat hasn’t increased at all. So please explain how the heat got down to 2000m while by-passing the top 700m. And why would this happen, when all CO2-driven warming theory expects the top layers of the ocean to experience the greatest warming, and the warming to be a top-down process?

    • John,

      Sorry, I’m late to this, but permit me some questions too:

      An ice minimum we haven’t seen for millions of years gives another (yes winds and other local conditions play a role, but so does the fact that the entire globe is warmer).

      What are the relative contributions of “winds and other local conditions” and “global” warming? The globe is warmer than when? What human causation is there for these? References please.

  14. Bob D on 10/09/2012 at 3:49 pm said:

    John Sparks:

    But it is blatantly obvious now that there are currently major changes happening due to humans.

    The current variations are well within natural bounds. Your assertion that any current ‘major’ changes (what are they?) are due to humans is without any proof whatsoever, and remain in the ‘highly speculative’ category.
    I would also remind you that there has been no change at all in global temperatures in the last 15 years.

    • Rob Taylor on 11/09/2012 at 9:16 pm said:

      I would also remind you that there has been no change at all in global temperatures in the last 15 years.

      Typical cherry-picked [ad hom gone] fantasy, Bob.

      Do you get paid for this [sleazy ad hom removed. You know how to hurl unhumorous insults, Rob, but not how to win an argument. – RT] activity, or do you just not know how to extract a trend from noisy data?

    • Bob D on 11/09/2012 at 9:39 pm said:

      Hmm, just thought I’d mention that the global average temperature trend over the last 15 years using HadCRUT3 is zero. I feel it’s worth mentioning, considering that the model mean using the SRES balanced scenario expected a 0.2°C/decade rise in temperatures due to the ever-increasing CO2 in the atmosphere, which means we should have had a 0.3°C rise by now.

      That’s all.

      Oh, did I mention it’s zero? 15 long years of no warming, during which time Mann wrote his infamous paper, we saw two of the four IPCC Assessment Reports published, Al Gore wrote his extremely funny An Inconvenient Truth, and Copenhagen failed with a spectacular Splat.

    • Rob Taylor on 12/09/2012 at 2:15 am said:

      So we now see Bob D. drop any pretence of (pseudo) scientific enquiry and merely parrot simple-minded propaganda, like any other industry shill.

      You have become so boring and predictable, Bob [insult gone. a ban is looming unless you learn what the argument is and contribute to it. – RT]

      http://www.skepticalscience.com/Vivid-demonstration-knee-jerk-science-rejection.html

    • Richard C (NZ) on 12/09/2012 at 10:12 am said:

      Gosh, according to Rob Taylor the planet’s normal climate is LIA conditions.

      Who would have thought that without the insight his expert input?

      /Sarc

    • Simon on 12/09/2012 at 10:48 am said:

      Here’s a nice little chart that (I think) uses HADCRUT3 data and relates it with ENSO and volcanic activity.
      http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/T_moreFigs/LOTI+LandSea+Nino.gif
      There’s a pretty obvious long-term trend there. The 15 year trend could change very suddenly if 2012 turn out to be an extremely warm year.

    • Bob D on 12/09/2012 at 12:13 pm said:

      Simon:
      Note though that a volcano, should one occur, can only reduce temperatures. We haven’t seen a “decent” eruption since Pinatubo back in the early 1990s, and based on currernt performance 2012 is unlikely to be a very warm year.

  15. bill on 10/09/2012 at 9:46 pm said:

    Hear the twisted science and scurrilous lies

    Dear me, Dick T, and only the other day you were trying to tell me that you just didn’t say things like this! Even when you did…

    It’s all not going very well is it?

  16. Gary Kerkin on 11/09/2012 at 10:35 pm said:

    I have been some what preoccupied with other matters and haven’t commented here for some time and probably I wouldn’t in this instance but in all the statements being bandied around about geological events and sources off evidence and lack thereof, a recent event seems to have escaped scrutiny. I mean “recent” in the context of geological time. There has been comment, in response to criticism of the stance of the CSET, that we do not deny climate change, let alone warming.

    Let us not forget that the most recent event in a geological time scale was the Little Ice Age. Putting that in the perspective of the last, say, 2,000 years, we are still emerging from the LIA. So, of course we would expect to see some warming and, curiously, the extent does not seem to be greater than the published literature on the the other events Bob D referred to would suggest. That is to say, we do not seem to be seeing more than the published variations determined for the Holocene epoch.

    • Rob Taylor on 12/09/2012 at 2:29 am said:

      we are still emerging from the LIA. So, of course we would expect to see some warming

      So, Gary, what physical net forcing is causing this? Or do you believe that the climate “of course” has some magical elastic property to it?

      Absent any credible explanation, you have nothing but a vague, hand-waving opinion that, along with $3.50, will buy you a cappuchino…

  17. Dan Pangburn on 12/09/2012 at 12:53 am said:

    Ice can melt because the surrounding water is warmer than it was when the water froze. The planet has warmed a lot since the last glaciation and has been warming more or less regularly since the depths of the LIA until about 2001. The assertion that it is warmer at the end of a warming period is not very profound. The observation that arctic ice is melting is evidence that warmer water got to the arctic ocean but does not mean that the planet is still warming.

    That the US, which occupies less than 2% of the planet surface, experienced a heat wave, does not mean that the planet is still warming.

    I developed an equation using the first law of thermodynamics (as a Mechanical Engineer I know how to do that) that calculates average global temperatures, for all of the years since accurate measurements world wide have been made (about 1895), with an accuracy of 88%. This includes and thus corroborates the flat trend since 2001. The equation does this using only one independent variable. That variable is the readily available, naturally occurring set of measurements, the sunspot numbers. The time integral of sunspot numbers, appropriately reduced by radiation from the planet, act as a proxy, through there influence on average cloud altitude/temperature, for energy retained by the planet. Including the influence of CO2 increased the accuracy by only 0.5%. The equation along with some of the rest of my stuff is made public at the Climate Realists website.

    • Rob Taylor on 12/09/2012 at 2:37 am said:

      Pseudoscientific nonsense, Dan, as the sun is showing a cooling trend. Have you never looked at the empirical data?

      Has the sun magically lost its ability to warm the Earth? – RT

      Here’s a primer that may help you understand reality better:

      http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming-intermediate.htm

    • Bob D on 12/09/2012 at 9:18 am said:

      I love the way Rob Taylor accuses other people of pseudo-science, then provides links to John Cook’s Skeptical Science. Too good.

    • Rob, I perused John Cook’s article, which attempts to refute the claim that the sun is responsible for global warming. I followed his link to Foster & Rahmsdorf (2011), which he relies on, but I stopped any serious study of it when I read Cook’s idiotic statement (speaking of that paper):

      They found that from 1979 to 2010, solar activity had a very slight cooling effect of between -0.014 and -0.023°C per decade, depending on the data set (Table 1, Figure 2).

      The sun is the hottest object for miles around. Anyone who claims it has a cooling effect is a few tiles short of a roof and I’m not wasting my time with them. By the way, no such statement appears in the paper.

      There’s a piece of deception in Cook’s “explanation”. He starts by posing the problem: “Over the past few hundred years, there has been a steady increase in the numbers of sunspots, at the time when the Earth has been getting warmer. The data suggests solar activity is influencing the global climate causing the world to get warmer.” But he never returns to sunspots and doesn’t acknowledge the proven role they have in the formation of clouds. Clouds are the greatest moderator of insolation, and no matter the level of the sun’s energy output, it remains capable of heating the Earth, so clouds are always important.

    • Rob Taylor on 12/09/2012 at 9:45 pm said:

      [expletives don’t improve your persuasiveness. – RT] RT and Dan, you are merely demonstrating an ignorance of the concept of climate forcing.

      Perhaps this will help:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_forcing

    • Rob,

      from 1979 to 2010, solar activity had a very slight cooling effect

      How would you explain that from John Cook?

      Kindly explain how I demonstrate “an ignorance of the concept of climate forcing” and correct me. The shallow Wikipedia article added nothing to my knowledge.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 12/09/2012 at 10:08 am said:

      Not for no reason did William Herschel in 1801 notice the close correlation between sunspot numbers and grain prices. Advance notice gives a grain trader an enormous advantage.

  18. Bob D on 12/09/2012 at 10:29 am said:

    It seems that Rob Taylor regards my pointing out that the trend over the past 15 years is zero is somehow pseudo-science, and cherry-picking.

    In fact, the 15 year test is sanctioned by none other than NOAA. In their report (Peterson et al. 2009) they try to explain the lack of recent warming, and make the following statement:

    Near-zero and even negative trends are common for intervals of a decade or less in the simulations, due to the model’s internal climate variability. The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.

    In other words, Rob, the zero trend over the last 15 years is highly significant, since (by NOAA’s own admission) it negates the models.

    Reference:
    Peterson, T. C., and M. O. Baringer, Eds., 2009: State of the Climate in 2008. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 90, S1–S196.

    http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/climate-assessment-2008-lo-rez.pdf

    • Rob Taylor on 12/09/2012 at 9:29 pm said:

      Bob, the standard climatological period is 30 years [pointless insult deleted. Rob, Bob knows that. Direct your energy more usefully at the paper Bob cited for you rather than maligning the messenger. – RT]:

      http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=47

    • Andy on 12/09/2012 at 9:36 pm said:

      Ok, we’ll check back in 15 years then.
      Keep your fingers on the buzzers

    • Rob Taylor on 13/09/2012 at 8:19 am said:

      Bob, you present a cherry-picked technical clause taken out of context from a 2008 paper as evidence of what, exactly?

      I suggest that you educate yourself by actually reading the review paper, which reveals the following:

      One of the most dramatic signals of the general warming trend was the continued significant reduction in the extent of the summer sea-ice cover and, importantly, the decrease in the amount of relatively older, thicker ice. (p. S12)

      Top-of-atmosphere radiation data imply that 2008 saw a net receipt of radiation into the climate system… (p.S17)

      Limited preliminary data imply that in 2008 glaciers continued to lose mass, and full data for 2007 show it was the 17th consecutive year of loss. (same page)

      Notably, the 20 warmest years have all occurred since 1981, and the 10 warmest have all occurred in the past 12 years. (S18)

      …recent observational trends are not sufficient to discount predictions of substantial climate change and its significant and widespread impacts. Given the likelihood that internal variability contributed to the slowing of global temperature rise in the last decade, we expect that warming will resume in the next few years, consistent with predictions from near-term climate forecasts. (S23)

      These latest results show conclusively that anthropogenic CO2 is continuing to accumulate in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans… (S68)

      CapIche?

      .

    • Richard C (NZ) on 13/09/2012 at 8:56 am said:

      “anthropogenic CO2 is continuing to accumulate in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans”

      But what effect does it have in the atmosphere Rob? Above about 200 ppm CO2 has exhausted any forcing ability. See this series:-

      An Unsettling Look at the Settled Science of Global Warming
      Part 1: Scientific Discussion

      http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/agw-an-alternate-look-part-1-details-c.pdf

      And here,

      An Unsettling Look at the Settled Science of Global Warming
      Part 2: Layman’s Discussion

      http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/agw-an-alternate-look-part-2-for-laymen.pdf

      And here,

      An Unsettling Look at the Settled Science of Global Warming
      Part 3: Policy Maker’s Summary

      http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/agw-an-alternate-look-part-3-summary.pdf

      The key point being the bogus “oversimplification” by the IPCC. Quoting Part 2:-

      “The short summary of what it means is: CO2 increases will not increase the greenhouse effect. Full stop. That is it. CO2 is not a pollutant, it will not change the weather or climate. There is no basis whatsoever for trying to control the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

      The IPCC equation assumes a “logarithmic” or log relation between forcing and CO2. The path length curve more closely resembles a „log log‟ relation between forcing and CO2. That is the IPCC model is an oversimplification that results in overestimating the impact of CO2 at higher concentrations”

      Game, set, and match.

    • Bob D on 13/09/2012 at 10:28 am said:

      Wow. Rob, once again you completely miss the point. I tire of getting into discussions with you, since you always only see what you want to see.
      >Bob, you present a cherry-picked technical clause taken out of context from a 2008 paper as evidence of what, exactly?
      You then proceed to cherry-pick technical clauses yourself, as evidence of what, exactly? None of your points refute the simple point I made that the current 15 years of temperature stasis discount the model predctions, as NOAA themselves said.

      But because I’m a sucker, let me address these spurious cherry-picked sentences:

      One of the most dramatic signals of the general warming trend was the continued significant reduction in the extent of the summer sea-ice cover…

      Once again, nobody is disputing that there has been warming since the LIA. Pointing at Arctic sea ice is possibly one of the stupidest arguments for AGW. We have an enormous amount of history that shows that the Arctic sea ice varies greatly and cyclically, and is subject to many other influences other than air temperature, such as winds, storms, etc., and that there have been plenty of previous episodes where people predicted it would be ice-free over the past hundred or so years. Therefore it’s well within natural variation bounds. We only have official satellite records from 1979, a known ice high point. However, we know from scientific records that the Arctic region experienced warmer periods during the Minoan, Roman and Medieval Warm Periods. And why do you ignore the Antarctic sea ice? It’s growing.

      Top-of-atmosphere radiation data imply that 2008 saw a net receipt of radiation into the climate system…

      They “imply”, do they? Actually no, they don’t. The CERES TOA measurements records an imbalance of 6.4W/m2. This is clearly so out of whack that nobody believes it. The only source of a radiative imbalance comes from James Hansen’s models! He claims a 0.85W/m2 imbalance in Hansen (2005), based entirely on his models, which exclude all ENSO effects, and do not in any way predict the temperature stasis we are experiencing right now. He has since revised this imbalance significantly downwards.

      Limited preliminary data imply that in 2008 glaciers continued to lose mass, and full data for 2007 show it was the 17th consecutive year of loss.

      See Arctic ice extent discussion above. Glaciers have been retreating for 10,000 years, so what’s new? Do you really expect them all to suddenly start growing?

      Notably, the 20 warmest years have all occurred since 1981, and the 10 warmest have all occurred in the past 12 years.

      Once again, why is this alarming? We have been warming since the LIA, at a very gentle rate. Why should it stop now? Still no proof of human influence.

      …recent observational trends are not sufficient to discount predictions of substantial climate change and its significant and widespread impacts. Given the likelihood that internal variability contributed to the slowing of global temperature rise in the last decade, we expect that warming will resume in the next few years, consistent with predictions from near-term climate forecasts.

      What they are saying is that back in 2008 the recent observational trends hadn’t yet showed a stasis for 15 years, therefore they weren’t yet sufficient to discount the model predictions. However, we have now reached the point where recent observational trends are sufficient to discount the model predictions. Also, they expected the warming to resume. It hasn’t.

      These latest results show conclusively that anthropogenic CO2 is continuing to accumulate in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans…

      This is a discussion around CO2 uptake, which is not what we’re discussing here at all, and is followed by the line you didn’t quote:

      However, a single transect through an ocean basin is not sufficient for characterizing the full patterns of anthropogenic CO2 storage.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 13/09/2012 at 10:44 am said:

      “The only source of a radiative imbalance comes from James Hansen’s models! He claims a 0.85W/m2 imbalance in Hansen (2005), based entirely on his models, which exclude all ENSO effects”

      Now we have a study showing that the AR5 models exhibit negligible ENSO response to CO2 contrary to Trenberth’s claims:-
      ****************************************************
      New paper shows no ‘average’ change in El Ninos due to CO2

      A paper published today in Geophysical Research Letters reports “the overall response to CO2 increases is determined using 27 [climate] models, and the ENSO [the El Nino Southern Oscillation] amplitude change based on the multi-model mean is indistinguishable from zero.”

      Alarmists, such as Kevin Trenberth, claim that increased CO2 causes an increase in the frequency and intensity of El Ninos, but this paper finds that the mean response from climate models does not support such claims.

      GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, doi:10.1029/2012GL052759

      Significant Changes to ENSO Strength and Impacts in the Twenty-First Century: Results from CMIP5

      Key Points

      * ENSO amplitude is insignificant in the majority of IPCC-class models.
      * ENSO amplitude change is not due to mean state or seasonal cycle changes.
      * The teleconnection response is sensitive to the ENSO amplitude change.

      Author:
      Samantha Stevenson

      >>>>>>>>

      http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.nz/2012/09/new-paper-shows-no-average-change-in-el.html

    • Rob Taylor on 13/09/2012 at 11:52 am said:

      So, Bob, you admit:

      Once again, nobody is disputing that there has been warming since the LIA

      In that case, pray tell, what is the nett climate forcing that has caused this warming? Or does the climate somehow magically “rebound” from the LIA of its own accord??

    • Richard C (NZ) on 13/09/2012 at 12:02 pm said:

      “….what is the nett climate forcing that has caused this warming?”

      Celestial cycles Rob, right on track too (as opposed to the CO2 forced IPCC models that are off on a tangent):-

      http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/figure.png

    • Bob D on 13/09/2012 at 12:30 pm said:

      Rob Taylor:

      So, Bob, you admit:
      Once again, nobody is disputing that there has been warming since the LIA

      I admit?! Good grief Rob, have you really being paying that little attention? Nobody here has, to my knowledge, ever questioned the warming since the Little Ice Age – it’s your own side that denies the LIA ever happened, since they can’t account for it using their models! Remember, the low point of the LIA was in the 1600s, so the warming since then cannot possibly have been caused by humans.

      In that case, pray tell, what is the nett climate forcing that has caused this warming? Or does the climate somehow magically “rebound” from the LIA of its own accord??

      What a strange statement. The climate, Rob, goes through cycles, warm and cold. We don’t really know what causes them (we think we understand the long cycles, but even then there’s doubt). By ‘we’ I mean humanity, not me personally. Some people have hypothesised (is that a word?) that CO2 causes warming and cooling, but that’s obviously not true, since the LIA, MWP, RWP and MWP all had lowish CO2.

      Ignorance is acceptable, Rob. Science progresses steadily, but not all things are known. I haven’t yet seen a proof of what causes these cycles, if you have please let us know. Even your mate Tamino (Grant Foster) admitted that if the MWP existed (it did, of course) then it has grave consequences for current CO2 theory, since they are completely unable to account for how it happened.

      A superb response, Bob. Hypothesise is a perfectly fine word which describes admirable scientific thoughtfulness.

    • Simon on 13/09/2012 at 3:01 pm said:

      The Medieval Warm Period wasn’t global and was limited to Northern Europe only.
      Mann et al. (2009). “Global Signatures and Dynamical Origins of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly”. Science 326 (5957): 1256–60.

    • Bob D on 13/09/2012 at 3:26 pm said:

      Simon:
      You’re going to have to come up with someone other than Mann, to be taken seriously.

      In the meantime, have a look at these:
      Wilson, A.T., Hendy, C.H. and Reynolds, C.P. 1979. Short-term climate change and New Zealand temperatures during the last millennium. Nature 279: 315-317
      Summary: Temperatures 0.75°C higher in the MWP

      Williams, P.W., King, D.N.T., Zhao, J.-X. and Collerson, K.D. 2004. Speleothem master chronologies: combined Holocene 18O and 13C records from the North Island of New Zealand and their palaeoenvironmental interpretation. The Holocene 14: 194-208.
      Summary: MWP warmer than today

      Eden, D.N and Page, M.J. 1998. Palaeoclimatic implications of a storm erosion record from late Holocene lake sediments, North Island, New Zealand. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 139: 37-58.
      Summary: RWP warmer than MWP warmer than today.

    • Bob D on 13/09/2012 at 3:33 pm said:

      Simon, Southern Africa also showed a MWP:
      Holmgren, K., Tyson, P.D., Moberg, A. and Svanered, O. 2001. A preliminary 3000-year regional temperature reconstruction for South Africa. South African Journal of Science 97: 49-51
      Summary: Up to 2.5°C warmer

      Tyson, P.D., Karlen, W., Holmgren, K. and Heiss, G.A. 2000. The Little Ice Age and medieval warming in South Africa. South African Journal of Science 96: 121-126
      Summary: 3-4°C warmer

      Kuhnert, H. and Mulitza, S. 2011. Multidecadal variability and late medieval cooling of near-coastal sea surface temperatures in the eastern tropical North Atlantic. Paleoceanography 26: 10.1029/2011PA002130
      Summary: 1.1°C warmer

    • Bob D on 13/09/2012 at 3:39 pm said:

      Simon, Antarctica. Can’t get much further south than that:
      Hemer, M.A. and Harris, P.T. 2003. Sediment core from beneath the Amery Ice Shelf, East Antarctica, suggests mid-Holocene ice-shelf retreat. Geology 31: 127-130
      Summary: MWP warmer than today.

      Hall, B.L., Koffman, T. and Denton, G.H. 2010. Reduced ice extent on the western Antarctic Peninsula at 700-907 cal. yr B.P. Geology 38: 635-638
      Summary: MWP warmer than today.

      Hall, B.L. 2007. Late-Holocene advance of the Collins Ice Cap, King George Island, South Shetland Islands. The Holocene 17: 1253-1258
      Summary: Pre-1300 warmer than today.

      Khim, B.-K., Yoon, H.I., Kang, C.Y. and Bahk, J.J. 2002. Unstable climate oscillations during the Late Holocene in the Eastern Bransfield Basin, Antarctic Peninsula. Quaternary Research 58: 234-245
      Summary: MWP warmer than today.

      Bertler, N.A.N., Mayewski, P.A. and Carter, L. 2011. Cold conditions in Antarctica during the Little Ice Age — Implications for abrupt climate change mechanisms. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 308: 41-51
      Summary: MWP up to 0.35°C warmer than today.

    • Bob D on 13/09/2012 at 3:44 pm said:

      Simon, a quick one from South America. I have more, if you like.
      Solari, M.A., Herve, F., Le Roux, J.P., Airo, A. and Sial, A.N. 2010. Paleoclimatic significance of lacustrine microbialites: A stable isotope case study of two lakes at Torres del Paine, southern Chile. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 297: 70-82
      Summary: MWP warmer than today

  19. Gary Kerkin on 12/09/2012 at 1:55 pm said:

    I see the ad hominem attacks still abound. Rob, I did not comment about theories or “net forcings” (what ever that might happen to mean). I merely pointed out that published analyses of information regarding climate over the last couple of millenia indicate periods of warming and cooling which take some hundreds of years.

    Of course, if you are not prepared to accept those records then there will be little that I, or anyone else for that matter, can say that would convince you otherwise.

    If you do accept them then you must also consider that natural processes have played the only important roles in those cycles.

  20. Rob Taylor on 13/09/2012 at 2:12 pm said:

    Ignorance is acceptable, Rob. Science progresses steadily, but not all things are known. I haven’t yet seen a proof of what causes these cycles, if you have please let us know.

    And so we have it, at last. Bob is ignorant (more likely, willfully blind) to the knowledge gained from 150 years of climate research.

    Fourier, Arrhenius, Calender, Keeling, Hansen may as well not exist for him. In fact, what was the point of the Enlightenment?

    Better, perhaps, that we still worshipped the thunder gods and eat our food raw?

    • Bob D on 13/09/2012 at 2:31 pm said:

      This is why it’s pointless to attempt a conversation with Rob Taylor.

    • Andy on 13/09/2012 at 3:46 pm said:

      I think I gave up with Rob about here

    • Bob D on 13/09/2012 at 3:53 pm said:

      Andy, when you read those statements, I’m sorry to say that you have to wonder about his mental stability.

      “Hitler’s dreams of a Thousand Year Reich, only worse!” Wow.

      “You and your fellow intellectual prostitutes, however, are helping drive all humanity into a world of suffering, war and want.”

      Entertaining, but also a little sad.

    • Rob, it will be deliberately contemptuous remarks like this which get you banned.

      If you disagree that “not all things are known” please give your reasons. If you have evidence of what causes these cycles, please present it. When you say Bob is ignorant of everything what stands out is your own ignorance and disregard of others – perhaps even a hatred of those you disagree with. It’s a shame, because I was just daring to think that perhaps you were engaging in a serious conversation.

      I can only suppose that you imagine the vulgar, graceless judgement you’ve just presented might be admired outside a schoolyard but you couldn’t be more wrong. There’s no possibility of it changing our minds. Clean your act up or get lost.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 13/09/2012 at 3:33 pm said:

      Can’t help but notice Rob, that you’ve studiously avoided addressing the ‘An Unsettling Look at the Settled Science of Global Warming’ series up-thread that highlights the IPCC’s oversimplification and subsequent wrongful CO2 forcing assumptions.

      I’m starting a list of those challenged that fail to address the issue with any rebuttal of substance:-

      Martin Lack
      Simon
      Rob Taylor

      I suppose, seeing I can’t offer anything rebuttal-wise either, that I should add my name to the list. But I’m the one doing the challenging and I suspect there’s others who subscribe to my position so there’s another list……..

  21. David on 13/09/2012 at 3:54 pm said:

    “The so-called psychological studies, I find interesting and encouraging for a number of reasons. Politically, it’s the usual stereotyping of the opposition, a way of dehumanising, and therefore writing off their influence as insignificant. There’s nothing new about the particular stereotypes they’re trying to shoehorn us into, just that they’re trying to come up with some pseudo-psychological justification for it.

    There is a real perception issue here, on both sides of the fence, which has to be recognised. The climate realists think that such stereotypes are just deliberate propaganda ad hominems, meant to marginalise us and nothing more. However, the alarmists have spent so many years pushing them, that they’ve long ago come to think of them as the reality. It’s how they actually think we are. It’s another one of their unfounded beliefs, and it’s been our asset for some time”

    Sensible comment from Pointman. People like Lack,Taylor, Bill, Perrott, Fenwick, Renownden etc are actually assets to us. The more they use words like “Climate Change Deniers” in articles the more the public takes them less seriously.
    Let them spew their abuse via the media. As Napolean said “never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake”.
    These guys have lost the war already. They just dont know it.

  22. Rob Taylor on 13/09/2012 at 6:06 pm said:

    That’s right, old chaps, do not adjust your minds, there must be a problem with reality…

    As the ice melts, the seas rise, the deserts grow and the winds blow, fear not; the invincible shield of shared ignorance will keep you and yours safe from harm – until it doesn’t.

    In the meantime, keep obsessing over cherry-picked, out-of-context quotes from papers that, were you only able to understand them, actually give the lie to your beliefs.

    Oh, and good luck with that NZCSET appeal; I’m sure the Flat Earth Society is counting on you to do your best to overturn all those centuries of scientific oppression since the Medieval Warm Period!

    • Um, I’m gobsmacked. You’ve not presented any evidence we haven’t refuted, yet you refuse to respond to the evidence we present to you. So in what way do you display a readiness to change your mind, when you don’t display a readiness even to engage in honest discussion? You’re a fraud. Are you specifically inviting a ban with these inflammatory remarks?

      Again, I’m forced to conclude you actually hate those who disagree with you. Why else have you ignored the challenge I gave you just three hours ago:

      If you disagree that “not all things are known” please give your reasons. If you have evidence of what causes these cycles, please present it.

      You give no evidence, or even a decent train of reason, so how could we possibly “adjust our minds”? You consider abusive banter an argument. You invite ridicule.

  23. I find this sort if thing incredible – it seems to suggest an inability to comprehend language around here.

    After someone pointed out that the evidence shows that a so-called medieval warming period did not have higher temperatures than the present on a hemispheric or global basis we get this silly reaction from Bob I think:

    “You’re going to have to come up with someone other than Mann, to be taken seriously”

    In one foul swoop Bob puts his blinkers on. Because in fact Mann’s work has proven very reliable , repeated by others and confirmed by th US Academy of Sciences review. Sure, certain politicians have carried out a disgstung campaign against Mann – – but that avoids the well supported science.

    And then Bob goes on to list all sorts of references to “prove” Mann wrong. Ignoring completely the fact these referee to regional instances where the temperature was higher in this times, not to te overall hemispheric or global estimates.

    The purposeful confusion of regional data with the well established and replicated overall global and hemispheric data is a common denial mantra and it’s dishonest.

    It’s a sign of desperation.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 13/09/2012 at 7:16 pm said:

      “…repeated by others” – Ha! Yep, in fact you can do it yourself at home:-

      Fables of the Reconstruction
      (Or, How to Make Your Own Hockey Stick)

      http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2009/12/fables-of-the-reconstruction.html

      And,

      Make your own Michael Mann hockey stick at home

      http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/23/make-your-own-mannian-hockey-stick-at-home/

      You never fail to raise laugh Ken, it’s healthy. Thanks for your quip it’ll keep me in chuckles for days. Call again soon.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 13/09/2012 at 7:36 pm said:

      In case you sincerely believe that these are legit reconstructions Ken (and I suspect you do), may I point out the specific issue with the help of Rand Simberg’s explanation:-

      The Death of the Hockey Stick?

      “The real damage came when a retired Canadian mining engineer, Steve McIntyre, and a professor at the University of Guelph, Ross McKitrick, started digging into Mann’s methodology, and found flaws in both his statistical analysis and data interpretation, and published a paper describing them in Geophysical Research Letters in 2005. They showed that Mann’s methodology would generate a hockey stick almost independently of the data input, by feeding it spectral noise”

      http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-death-of-the-hockey-stick/?singlepage=true

      Do you see the funny part Ken? “Mann’s methodology would generate a hockey stick almost independently of the data input, by feeding it spectral noise”.

      Makes your day don’t it?

    • Ken, you say:

      After someone pointed out that the evidence shows that a so-called medieval warming period did not have higher temperatures than the present on a hemispheric or global basis

      But the IPCC itself used to believe that. It said so in the AR2. Many strands of evidence still show warmer temperatures then than now, as for example at the CO2 Science MWP Project.

      Mann has been so often deprecated he is without authority. Follow the link I cite and marvel at the sheer weight of evidence.

    • Andy on 13/09/2012 at 7:57 pm said:

      In one foul swoop Bob puts his blinkers on

      One foul swoop brings back anxious memories of my bike ride last Saturday where I was being strafed by Magpies.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 13/09/2012 at 8:22 pm said:

      Is it Mangled Phrase Week and we didn’t know?

      One foul swoop, seal level rise, and inactivists – conjures up some weird images e.g. groups of people too sedentary to be bothered to erect seal proof fences along coastlines. And they’re not moved by that evil renegade bird either (I assume he meant fowl, ha!) .

    • Bob D on 13/09/2012 at 9:07 pm said:

      Ken:

      And then Bob goes on to list all sorts of references to “prove” Mann wrong. Ignoring completely the fact these referee to regional instances where the temperature was higher in this times, not to te overall hemispheric or global estimates.

      You know, my old grandmother used to say: “There’s none so think as them as wants to be.”
      Ken is a perfect example, in every way.

      First of all, I don’t need to prove Mann wrong, plenty of far better people have already done that. I was countering Simon’s bizarre statement that the MWP was just a NH phenomenon. By the way, you have read the Hockey Stick Illusion, by Andrew Montford, haven’t you, Ken. If not, you honestly have nothing to say about it, because you don’t even understand the issues, going by past experience.

      Second, Ken, showing paper after paper that all find MWPs in every region of the globe at the same time kinda proves that the MWP occurred, and wasn’t limited to the NH, no?

      Thanks for playing, you know the way out by now.

  24. Richard and Richard, I actually don’t expect any better from you. Sorry!

    But the fact remains that despite the extreme and cowardly attacks on Mann and his work it has been replicated and vindicated. McKintrick’s analysis proved wrong. The politically manipulated Wegmann report discredited, as was a lot of his evidence at the House hearings. And the US National Research Council’s report does vindicate Mann’s work (that’s why you guys never mention it, isn’t it?. You prefer to go with Wegmann despite the evidence discrediting him for that report and his subsequent papers. His proven plagerising and distortion of conclusions).

    You guys have to continue your persecution of Mann because of the icon status of his findings. Findings that are accepted by the science community and his work continues to be published despite the McCarthy like persecution.

    And just have a look at the titles of the papers that Bob quotes – you can see they all refer to regional measurements. It’s not honest to pull those out as evidence against Mann.

    Treadgold. Heard of Galileo? He shook things up when he produced telescopic evidence for a heliocentric solar system. Previously a geocentric system was accepted. That’s the thing about scientific knowledge, it is provisional and improves with time as we get more evidence. That is what happened over the medieval temperature estimates. They have improved with time. We now have a better picture than we had in the 80s and 90s. That’s why AR4 is much more authoritative than AR2.

    It is dishonest to demand that we go back to the past picture based on little evidence just because it fits with your ideology.

    • That’s the thing about scientific knowledge, it is provisional and improves with time as we get more evidence. That is what happened over the medieval temperature estimates. They have improved with time. We now have a better picture than we had in the 80s and 90s. That’s why AR4 is much more authoritative than AR2.

      Fair point, that’s just how science works. I agree with you. But what exactly was the new evidence, Ken? Was it that single tree way in the north of Siberia? Was it the most influential tree in the world, that lonely old twisted tree on the Yamal Peninsula? Was it another bristlecone pine, which should not be used for temperature studies? Or was it credible evidence? Let me know.

    • Richard, you sound just like those critics of Galileo who didn’t want to give up the geocentricity they had invested so much time in. Pretending the empirical evidence was very weak so they could ignore it. All you can do is fall back on typical denier mantra – a single tree in Siberia, etc. how childish.

      Why do you think the IPCC updated their conclusions? It was because of the overwhelming ballance of evidence – they had the job of looking at all the publications and coming to a consensus on them. Whereas you guys just hunt around for anything which counters that – happily(?) ingoring the irrelevance of theindividual regional studies you quote so greedily to the overall global and hemispheric estimates.

    • Ken,
      Ok, so I was twisting your tail. Now, leaving the ribbing behind, what new evidence did the IPCC find that removed the MWP?

    • Richard, so do you often do this? Present rubbish as if it were an argument?

      Of course you do – you are after all blaming me for the mess you and Dedekind made of your first “paper”? Where you couldn’t see the site effects staring you in the face despite your mate being a statistics “expert.”

      Here’s a suggestion (rather obvious but I realize you have trouble in the s Irene area). What about reading the AR4 document, identifying the research considered since the AR2 and having. Look at some if the papers – Mann’s amongst them.

      See you tomorrow!

    • Richard C (NZ) on 13/09/2012 at 9:32 pm said:

      “McKintrick’s analysis proved wrong” Huh? News to me (I assume you mean McIntyre and McKitrick).

      Care to cite the “proof” Ken? Or is this your standard Marcel Marceau rebuttal?

  25. Bob D on 13/09/2012 at 9:18 pm said:

    But the fact remains that despite the extreme and cowardly attacks on Mann and his work it has been replicated and vindicated. McKintrick’s analysis proved wrong. The politically manipulated Wegmann report discredited, as was a lot of his evidence at the House hearings. And the US National Research Council’s report does vindicate Mann’s work (that’s why you guys never mention it, isn’t it?.

    Interesting assertion, but once again it exists alone in its fact-free vacuum.

    Q&A with NAS panel officials:

    CHAIRMAN BARTON. I understand that. It looks like my time is expired, so I want to ask one more question. Dr. North, do you dispute the conclusions or the methodology of Dr. Wegman’s report?
    DR. NORTH. No, we don’t. We don’t disagree with their criticism. In fact, pretty much the same thing is said in our report. But again, just because the claims are made, doesn’t mean they are false.
    CHAIRMAN BARTON. I understand that you can have the right conclusion and that it not be–
    DR. NORTH. It happens all the time in science.
    CHAIRMAN BARTON. Yes, and not be substantiated by what you purport to be the facts but have we established–we know that Dr. Wegman has said that Dr. Mann’s methodology is incorrect. Do you agree with that? I mean, it doesn’t mean Dr. Mann’s conclusions are wrong, but we can stipulate now that we have–and if you want to ask your statistician expert from North Carolina that Dr. Mann’s methodology cannot be documented and cannot be verified by independent review.
    DR. NORTH. Do you mind if he speaks?
    CHAIRMAN BARTON. Yes, if he would like to come to the microphone.
    MR. BLOOMFIELD. Thank you. Yes, Peter Bloomfield. Our committee reviewed the methodology used by Dr. Mann and his coworkers and we felt that some of the choices they made were inappropriate. We had much the same misgivings about his work that was documented at much greater length by Dr. Wegman.

    NAS panel:

    Reconstructions that have poor validation statistics (i.e., low CE) will have correspondingly wide uncertainty bounds, and so can be seen to be unreliable in an objective way. Moreover, a CE statistic close to zero or negative suggests that the reconstruction is no better than the mean, and so its skill for time averages shorter than the validation period will be low. Some recent results reported in Table 1S of Wahl and Ammann (in press) indicate that their reconstruction, which uses the same procedure and full set of proxies used by Mann et al. (1999), gives CE values ranging from 0.103 to -0.215, depending on how far back in time the reconstruction is carried. STR Preprint, 91

    Large-scale surface temperature reconstructions demonstrate very limited statistical skill (e.g., using the CE statistic) for proxy sets before the 19th century (Rutherford et al. 2005, Wahl and Ammann in press). STR 111

  26. Bob, notice you avoid your little misrepresentation of regional temperature profiles as hemispheric or global ones. I guess it’s so obvious you want to bury that for another time. It’s dishonest to keep bringing up that denial mantra – its just so obviously a distortion.

    Now what about you quoting from the summary of the NAS report on Mann’s work instead of cherry picking things out of context. Whatever comments you can cherry pick from the House Committee proceedings you are left with a very credible report, produced by top scientists (not selected by Barton and his political mates as Weggman was), a report which does make a few criticisms of detail (what you expect from an objective, honest consideration) but actually finds the main conclusions correct. By the way, subsequent work by Mann, corrected some of his earlier weaknesses and confirmed the main findings. As has independent work by other groups.

    The discrediting of Weggman actually came later when the plagerism of him and his students were exposed. It meant that a least one of their papers was withdrawn. But his original report was always suspect because of his collaboration with McKintrick which he found necessary to duplicate his mistake.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 13/09/2012 at 10:12 pm said:

      “It’s dishonest to keep bringing up that denial mantra”

      Ken, I’ve started a list of those who being challenged on the butchering (or should I say doctoring in this thread) of science by the IPCC, can’t offer a rebuttal of substance. Do I add your name to it or will you be THE ONE to successfully refute the case?

      I’m referring to this series linked up-thread:-

      An Unsettling Look at the Settled Science of Global Warming
      Part 1: Scientific Discussion

      http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/agw-an-alternate-look-part-1-details-c.pdf

      And here,

      An Unsettling Look at the Settled Science of Global Warming
      Part 2: Layman’s Discussion

      http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/agw-an-alternate-look-part-2-for-laymen.pdf

      And here,

      An Unsettling Look at the Settled Science of Global Warming
      Part 3: Policy Maker’s Summary

      http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/agw-an-alternate-look-part-3-summary.pdf

      The key point being the bogus “oversimplification” by the IPCC. Quoting Part 2:-

      “The IPCC equation assumes a “logarithmic” or log relation between forcing and CO2. The path length curve more closely resembles a „log log‟ relation between forcing and CO2. That is the IPCC model is an oversimplification that results in overestimating the impact of CO2 at higher concentrations”

      The list so far is:-

      Martin Lack
      Simon
      Rob Taylor

      Are you next on the list Ken with your own “denial mantra” or can you meet the challenge?

    • Richard – this is just bafflegab. I can’t make any sense of what you write.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 14/09/2012 at 8:40 am said:

      “..this is just bafflegab. I can’t make any sense of what you write.”

      What? You’ve played your “denier mantra” card Ken. You can’t (or don’t want to) understand English? Can’t (or don’t want to) understand the science of global warming? Can’t (or don’t want to) click on 3 links? Can’t (or don’t want to) offer a critique of substance that rebuts?

      You’ve got nothing Ken.

      The ‘Defaulter List’ update therefore is:-

      Martin Lack
      Simon
      Rob Taylor
      Ken Perrott

      But at least you TRIED Ken (even if you couldn’t understand the challenge) – I’ll give you that.

    • Simon on 14/09/2012 at 8:44 am said:

      A good model fits the data. If there really was a asymptotic level above 200 ppm where CO2 forcing no longer occurs it would be pretty apparent. I guess CO2 can’t be likened to a felt tip pen on a window pane after all.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 14/09/2012 at 9:21 am said:

      “If there really was a asymptotic level above 200 ppm where CO2 forcing no longer occurs it would be pretty apparent”

      It IS pretty apparent Simon, that’s EXACTLY the issue.

      If you look at Figure 2 ‘Emissivity at 0°C, After Leckner’ on page 6 pdf of Part 1, it is readily apparent that CO2 forcing no longer occurs on the Leckner CURVE ΔF =q-q0where q0 =q(278) {path length curve}

      But it does (erroneously) occur on the IPCC oversimplification LINE ΔF = αln(C/Co) {IPCC Curve}

      Hence the (IPCC) root of major international economic upheaval (including the NZ electricity generation sector) is bogus and the manufactured “moral crisis” is non-existent.

    • Simon on 14/09/2012 at 10:09 am said:

      Yes, but the CO2 in the atmosphere is constantly in flux.
      There are hundreds of papers using ice core samples, tree rings, and geological data that show CO2 and temperature moving in tandem. As an example, here is a nice study which can determine when glaciers retreated from the Pukaki basin and it correlates well with CO2 increases.

    • Simon on 14/09/2012 at 11:25 am said:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48ikKLGUhNs
      Analysis of Earth’s geologic record can reveal how the climate has changed over time. Scientists in New Zealand are examining samples from the rocky landscape once dominated by glaciers. They are employing a new technique called surface exposure dating, which uses chemical analysis to determine how long minerals within rocks have been exposed to the air since the glaciers around them melted. Comparisons of this data with other climate records have revealed a link between glacial retreat and rising levels of carbon dioxide in the air, findings that are informing scientists’ understanding of global climate change today.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 14/09/2012 at 11:28 am said:

      “….but the CO2 in the atmosphere is constantly in flux.”

      So what? It’s the FORCING POWER of the CO2 that is actually in and being added to the atmosphere that is at issue. The IPCC oversimplification assumes (as do the models using the IPCC RF methodology) that there is forcing power above 200 ppm but clearly that’s not the case.

      EVERY other CAGW/CC issue is subordinate to this single solitary point-of-difference, nothing else matters until this issue is resolved. At this juncture the IPCC case doesn’t have leg to stand on.

      “There are hundreds of papers using ice core samples, tree rings, and geological data that show CO2 and temperature moving in tandem.”

      Yes, and temperature LEADS CO2 but again, this issue is subordinate to the Leckner vs IPCC forcing issue.

      “As an example, here is a nice study….”

      I don’t see your link. Meantime here’s a nice study showing “some rather surprising relationships between solar radiation and daytime high temperatures, taken directly from Berkeley’s BEST project”:-

      http://climatechangedispatch.com/home/10457-tattoo-this-its-the-sun-stupid

      The clincher is these plots:-

      http://i.imgur.com/tW99Y.jpg

      This correlation is far and away better than any tenuous CO2 correlation ever will be.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 14/09/2012 at 11:35 am said:

      OK, I see your link in the following comment, The commentary says this:-

      “…a link between glacial retreat and rising levels of carbon dioxide in the air”

      What EXACTLY is the “link”?

      Again, this is subordinate to the issue of actual CO2 forcing at levels above 200 ppm and there are numerous issues such as this but the core issue cannot be escaped Simon – what is the actual forcing power of CO2 above 200ppm?

      Ans – negligible.

    • Andy on 14/09/2012 at 11:47 am said:

      Simon – I haven’t read the study. The Tasman Glacier is retreating, there is no doubt about that.
      However, there are glaciers in NZ that are in advance.

      The Franz Josef was advancing until 2008, but since then has been retreating, and as the article linked suggests, this has been attributed to global warming.

      So when glaciers advance, it is a natural cycle. When they retreat, it is global warming.

    • Bob D on 13/09/2012 at 10:20 pm said:

      but actually finds the main conclusions correct.

      Umm, no, it doesn’t.

      NAS report again:

      Even less confidence can be placed in the original conclusions by Mann et al. (1999) that “the 1990s are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, in at least a millennium”

      You say:

      By the way, subsequent work by Mann, corrected some of his earlier weaknesses and confirmed the main findings.

      It is in fact this subsequent work (Mann (1999)) that is being referred to here.

    • Bob D on 13/09/2012 at 10:25 pm said:

      But his original report was always suspect because of his collaboration with McKintrick which he found necessary to duplicate his mistake.

      I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about here.

  27. Bob D on 13/09/2012 at 10:11 pm said:

    Now what about you quoting from the summary of the NAS report on Mann’s work instead of cherry picking things out of context.

    Uhh, just where do you think the quote above was from? The one beginning “NAS panel”? Do you always just shoot from the hip without thinking?

    Here’s another from the NAS report, to show that your statement “As has independent work by other groups” is incorrect:

    Temperature reconstructions for periods before about A.D. 1600 are based on proxies from a limited number of geographic regions, and some reconstructions are not robust with respect to the removal of proxy records from individual regions (see, e.g., Wahl and Ammann in press). Because the data are so limited, different large-scale reconstructions are sometimes based on the same datasets, and thus cannot be considered as completely independent. … STR 111

    • Bob, I’ll look at my copy of the NAS report tomorrow, check your cherry picking, and quote from the summary (since you refuse to).

      Where did I think the quote was from? The proceedings of the House Committee – it has that format.

      But I’ll check and get back to you tomorrow..

      Perhaps you could in the meantime apologist for quoting regional studies on medieval temperatures as if they were global/hemispheric. You have gone really quiet on that one.

      Catch you tomorrow.

    • Bob D on 13/09/2012 at 10:47 pm said:

      Perhaps you could in the meantime apologist for quoting regional studies on medieval temperatures as if they were global/hemispheric. You have gone really quiet on that one.

      I have gone quiet, you’re right. I’m breathless at the sheer stupidity of your comment.

      OK, I’ll make a deal with you. In the thread “The Unstoppable MWP” there is a link to a site, that contains papers from “1094 individual scientists from 627 research institutions in 46 different countries”, all showing a MWP from places all over the globe. Global, get it? There are other sites, but that’ll do as a start.

      So what I would like you to do is refute every one of those papers, because that’s the only way you’ll be able to convince anyone that the MWP wasn’t global in extent.

      Even you must understand that if all regions on Earth show a warm period around the same time, it is acceptable to consider the warm period “global”.

      Or maybe not, with you I’m never sure.

    • Not going to apologise then? Why am I not surprised. You will just try to bluff it out by selecting only those regional studies that suit your ideological preference and argue that they are therefore global/hemispheric.

      One has only to look at the scatter in the global/hemispheric reconstructions to see how easy it is to cherry pick like that.

      But it’s not honest, is it?

    • Bob D on 13/09/2012 at 11:01 pm said:

      Not going to apologise then?

      Have you dealt with the papers from the 1094 scientists yet?

      Better get moving, I suspect it’s a lot of work.

    • Sorry Bob – we have crossed wires and I didn’t see your comment quoting from the report – only the earlier one from the proceedings of the Committee.

      I am familiar with that quote you used – climate change deniers routinely use it in their attempts to discredit Mann but always ignore the main conclusions/summary. I will produce those for you tomorrow but meanwhile you could read my post “Climate change deniers’ tawdry manipulation of “hockey sticks”
      (http://openparachute.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/climate-change-deniers-tawdry-manipulation-of-hockey-sticks/) where I have previously discussed this sort if distortion.

      The subsequent work of Mann’s I referred to was published (I think) in 2008, 2009). The work you refer to was what the report covered. It couldn’t possibly cover papers published later.

  28. Bob D on 13/09/2012 at 10:36 pm said:

    Bob, I’ll look at my copy of the NAS report tomorrow, check your cherry picking, and quote from the summary (since you refuse to).

    Unbelievable. Do you ever open your mouth without putting your foot in it, Ken?

    Where do you think this quote “Even less confidence can be placed in the original conclusions by Mann et al. (1999) that “the 1990s are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, in at least a millennium”” came from? Wait for it…

    Page 4 of the Summary.

    Sleep well.

    • Bob, just to wet your apatite (I am just quoting from my old post) this s what the NRC said in summary:

      “The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on ice caps and the retreat of glaciers around the world, which in many cases appear to be unprecedented during at least the last 2,000 years.”

      Now I must catch some sleep.

    • Bob D on 13/09/2012 at 10:58 pm said:

      You misunderstand the passage. It starts out by defining the basic conclusion, and makes some passing comments on whether or not it is plausible, supported by other evidence, etc. Then it goes into a scientific breakdown of the certainties, concluding with the statement I quoted.

      You have quoted the definition, not the conclusion. The conclusion begins “Based on the analyses presented in the original papers by Mann et al. and this newer supporting evidence, the committee finds it plausible that…”

      Don’t forget that the NAS committee was just as political as the House committee. They were appointed by opposite camps, yet they agreed on their findings, as I showed above.

      The Mann saga is over, even the IPCC has dropped Mann’s hockey stick graph.

    • Bob – have a look at this figure

      It’s Figure 6.10, page 467, Chapter 6: Palaeoclimate,The Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), WG I The Physical Science Basis.

      So much for your claim ” The Mann saga is over, even the IPCC has dropped Mann’s hockey stick graph.”

      It’s just another denier/contrarian/crack mantra, repeated again and again in the echo chamber that is the denier ghetto.

    • Bob D on 14/09/2012 at 11:23 am said:

      Ken, they’ve dropped it from the prominent position it used to hold. It’s now stuck in the middle of the technical section.

    • So Bobb, “The Mann saga is over, even the IPCC has dropped Mann’s hockey stick graph.” becomes ” It’s now stuck in the middle of the technical section.”

      How can you sleep straight at night. Mann’s work has been kept and added to by other supporting work and you somehow want to suggest this as proof that he has been discredited.

      You guys are not used to facts are you?

    • Richard C (NZ) on 14/09/2012 at 11:46 am said:

      “You guys are not used to facts are you?”

      Huh? Isn’t “facts” what ‘The unstoppable MWP’ post is ALL about?

      “…1094 individual scientists from 627 research institutions in 46 different countries…”

      Seems to be some agreement too.

    • Andy on 14/09/2012 at 1:02 pm said:

      Bob, just to wet your apatite

      Whet your appetite.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 14/09/2012 at 1:17 pm said:

      Definitely Mangled Phrase Week. Although in Ken’s case, Mangled Phrase Lifetime.

  29. Bob, go and read that old post of mine. I basically wrote it to counter that old lie that the IPCC “has dropped Mann’s hockey stick graph” They actually just incorporated his data into a graph showing subsequent data producing the same story. (I guess you will clutch at the straw that the iconic figure was in the AR3 summary but not the AR4 summary. Perfectly natural to highlight different things in summaries at different times. The facts are that it was in the body of the AR4 report.

    You guys will grab at anything like a drowning man.

    Have a look at this “Hockey stick”

    http://openparachute.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/nrc-hs.jpg

    It was produced by the authors of the NRC report. Basically confirms Mann doesn’t it?

    • Bob D on 14/09/2012 at 8:31 am said:

      Ken,
      Read Steve MyIntyre’s blog to understand the many flaws with Mann’s methods, and you’ll begin to realise why all those hockey sticks are incorrect. Or you could read the summary in Andrew Montford’s “The Hockey Stick Illusion”.

      If, after that, you can come and argue the technical reasons why you still follow Mann, then well and good. But if all you’re looking for is summaries by cherry-picked groups that make you feel better about the whole sorry saga, then you’re on your own.

      Start with the centering problem, and work on from there. It’s actually not that difficult to understand. Then move to the R-squared issue. Again, not rocket science.

    • Andy on 14/09/2012 at 8:35 am said:

      and the Bristlecone Pine

    • Bob D on 14/09/2012 at 9:08 am said:

      And the Bristlecones, yes. 🙂

      Come on Ken, show us that you are actually prepared to do some homework for once.

      Explain to us what the centering problem is. You don’t have to agree that it’s a problem, just explain it to us, so we know that you understand the issues, even a little.

    • Andy on 14/09/2012 at 9:15 am said:

      There are those in the climate establishment who criticise Mann too (Richard Muller springs to mind)

      I think it is worth saying that the existence of the MWP and the issues around the Hockey Stick don’t actually invalidate the AGW hypothesis, although they might reduce its impact.

      Andrew Montford made this point in the Hockey Stick Illusion.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 14/09/2012 at 1:33 pm said:

      “…the existence of the MWP and the issues around the Hockey Stick don’t actually invalidate the AGW hypothesis”

      Exactly Andy, without the AGW hypothesis those issues have very little significance except scientific ethics and technique. But in the context of the hypothesis they loom large.

      However large though, they are still subordinate to the Leckner vs IPCC CO2 forcing issue which is the nub of AGW.

    • Again, this centering problem arises from mistakes made by McIntyre and McKitrick. Those mistakes have been pointed out by Mann and his co-workers, and by others (eg. Von Storch and Zorita (2005), Huybers (2005) and others. Wegmann was unable to reproduce M&M’s results until he conferred with them and then adopted their mistaken approach. (Wegmann did not confer with Mann so couldn’t get the correction)

      Meanwhile, as Mann points out “All of these confirmations of our findings took years to work their way through the system of scientific publication. In the meantime, the McIntyre and McKitrick claims became a staple of denialists and contrarians.”.

      Again, something repeated ad nauseum in the echo chamber of the denier ghetto.

    • Bob D on 14/09/2012 at 11:22 am said:

      So Ken, what IS the centering problem?

    • But there is an interesting psychological issue here – to do with the group thinking here and the lengths you guys go to to immunise yourselves against the scientific realities out there. You are like cowboys who have circled there wagons to protect yourself from the truth.

      Michael Mann has not been discredited. He has been attacked politically and has survived all such attacks intact. In fact he has come back fighting, realising how similar these attacks are to the McCarthy hysteria.

      Sure you can find the normal critiques which are common among honest scientists (Mann’s over confidence that the temperatures of the 90s were greater than anything seen in the last millennium (true now but not completely true in the 90s) or his desire to push back his assessment beyond 1000 years (he now has more data to overcome that objection). While those critiques give dishonest people some cherry picked ammunition it doesn’t change the overall assessment of his work, or the value of paleoclimate studies. Mann has very high standing in the scientific community.

      Similarly you guys work had to discredit the IPCC (playing the man and not the ball again). This enables you to ignore the best source of information available and supplant it with continual enthusiastic links to denier blogs and cherry picked individual studies. Sure the IPCC reviews are inevitably dated and conservative. But they are authoritative and that’s why the IPCC was set up – to give governments access to reviews and summaries of the entire scientific literature. That’s why we consult the IPCC reviews to get an overall picture of whether the medieval period had higher temperatures on a global or hemispheric scale. Not relying on cherry picked individual and regional studies.

      This silly group-think and self isolation in a denialist ghetto explains why you end up making mistakes like the recent court action. For people like Dedekind to suggest that their opinion was sufficient to dictate what was “official scientific methodology” was just stupid and no wonder was laughed out of court. This from a guy who could not see the need for adjustments when weather station sites changed! A guy who even Treadgold was so embarrassed about he had to keep him “anonymous” until the court case!

    • Andy on 14/09/2012 at 11:32 am said:

      But there is an interesting psychological issue here – to do with the group thinking here and the lengths you guys go to to immunise yourselves against the scientific realities out there. You are like cowboys who have circled there wagons to protect yourself from the truth.

      I believe similar sentiments have been expressed at The Team.
      The term “circling the wagons” certainly has been used frequently to describe the behaviour of the UEA scientists

    • Andy, group think and circling the wagons are general human problems. We all have that tendency and ideology enhances it. It’s part of human nature.

      One thing I enjoy about honest science is that it is done in good faith. We critique each other’s work but we play the ball, not the man. That helps us overcome some limitations.

      That doesn’t happen here, does it.

    • Andy on 14/09/2012 at 11:49 am said:

      That doesn’t happen here, does it.

      Well I disagree of course. We may have a “position” but at least we try to come up with references and arguments to support it.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 14/09/2012 at 11:58 am said:

      “Sure the IPCC reviews are inevitably dated and conservative. But they are authoritative”

      “authoritative”? By what authority Ken?

      The IPCC reports are not peer-reviewed (even though 3 Judges thought they were in the US EPA decision) and I refer you back to the Leckner vs IPCC CO2 forcing issue and challenge (that you were unable to even understand), The IPCC has butchered (doctored) the science and they’ve been found out by crowd-source peer-review by specialist experts from outside climate science (climate scientists being generalists).

      Therefore it’s only a subjective authority Ken. Objectivity, scientific integrity and empiricism (i.e. scepticism) takes no account of subjective authority.

    • David on 14/09/2012 at 12:27 pm said:

      See?
      “denier ghetto”, that’s a good one.

    • Bob D on 14/09/2012 at 1:26 pm said:

      So Ken, what IS the centering problem? We still would like you to show us you understand something.

  30. David on 14/09/2012 at 12:40 pm said:

    Oh gosh it gets better. “Michael Mann has not been discredited ”
    ROTFL
    Ken, you are very special . Done any surveys for Lewandowsky lately?

  31. Andy on 14/09/2012 at 12:42 pm said:

    This denier ghetto is a noisy rabble.

    152 comments and counting.

    Maybe someone should pay Ken’s place a visit. He might be getting lonely.

  32. Bob – I take it that your attempt to divert the discussion shows you cannot refute my points about Mann and the current scientific understanding of the global/hemispheric temperatures at medieval times. You have given up?

    Andy, yes the local denier ghetto is a noisy rabble – perhaps a psychological over-reaction to the recent legal loss and the upcoming financial problems. Embarrassment perhaps?

    Mind you – I love to give a little stir from time to time – not that it seems to teach you guys anything.

    Richard and David – you are displaying the psychological problems I referred to – specifically playing the man rather than the ball to immunise yourself against the science.

    Richard and Andy – my mangled phrases also seem to provide you with a bit of childish fun. I admit the Freudian slip with apatite (a research topic of mine) but you missed my own pointed joke with foul. (1:1?) Otherwise I blame the frustrating Apple spell check on my iPad and the failure of the editing function on this blog. (To be absolutely honest my age may also have something to do with it.)

    Never mind – I am sure your problems with understanding are not due to my crappy spelling.

    Well, I think that settles every outstanding issue.

    Have a good weekend.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 14/09/2012 at 2:32 pm said:

      “…immunise yourself against the science”

      You are the one doing that Ken. What is your critique of Leckner vs IPCC CO2 forcing science (the most important AGW issue of all)?

      Or do you prefer to “immunise yourself against the science”?

      And retain your place on the Defaulters List?

    • Bob D on 14/09/2012 at 3:51 pm said:

      Ken:

      You have given up?

      Not yet. I believe in you, Ken. I believe that with a little hard work you can begin to understand what we’re talking about.

  33. David on 14/09/2012 at 2:52 pm said:

    And runs away avoiding Bob D’s questions.
    Thats Ken for you .

    • Richard C (NZ) on 14/09/2012 at 6:13 pm said:

      “And runs away avoiding Bob D’s questions.” – and mine David.

      Have you noticed that Ken will ONLY debate on issues that have no direct connection with the science of AGW whatsoever, despite his song-and-dance?

      And then he has the audacity to accuse us of “immunis[ing ourselves] against the science”. Ken’s playing field has a definite tilt in the direction of superficiality, subordinateness and inconsequence; a field in which he waffles verbosely, proving nothing that upholds AGW.

  34. Richard – you are really childish, aren’t you? What a pathetic comment.

    I entered the discussion to make two points. That Bob’s treatment of the mediaval period was dishonest because he used individual regional studies. Quoting Hendy and Wilson for example was quite inappropriate as their investigation was of caves in New Zealand. Yet Bob was pontificating on hemispheric/global temperatures.

    The second point was the cowardly and desperate ad nominen attacks on Michael Mann. McCarthyist attacks.

    On both issues I think Bob ended up retreating as I countered all his arguments. He went as far as attempting to divert the discussion on to statistical techniques – a clear case of avoidance.

    I don’t know why you got involved and must admit to not following your comments as I find such interventions inappropriate and in your case completely silly.

    Your silly ad nominee attacks on well regarded scientists like Mann and on the IPCC are clear example of “immunization.” Why would any open minded person dscredit such credible and authoritative sources and then resort to quoting denier blogs as evidence? Only to avoid the real science.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 14/09/2012 at 7:17 pm said:

      “Only to avoid the real science” – and still you do Ken. Completely immunized aren’t you.

      As I said, your playing field has a definite tilt in the direction of superficiality, subordinateness and inconsequence; a field in which you waffle verbosely, proving nothing that upholds AGW.

      BTW, do you understand “the challenge” yet Ken (“real science wrt to AGW)?

      Or is it still to be avoided at all costs as part of your immunization strategy (i.e. run like h***)?

    • Richard C (NZ) on 14/09/2012 at 7:33 pm said:

      Avoiding the challenge is a “clear case of avoidance” isn’t it Ken (to use your surprisingly but happily non-mangled phrase).

    • Richard C (NZ) on 14/09/2012 at 9:28 pm said:

      Here’s the Leckner vs IPCC graph that you’re studiously avoiding Ken (Caution:check your immunization levels before clicking):-

      http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/eggert-co2.png

      Note that even prominent sceptic David Archibald mistakenly presents Willis Eshenbach’s graph of the “logarithmic” effect of CO2 (the IPCC version) as the definitive CO2 forcing curve at WUWT here:-

      http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/08/the-logarithmic-effect-of-carbon-dioxide/

      Problem being, it’s not a logarithmic effect at all as John Eggert explains in Part 2 of ‘An Unsettling Look at the Settled Science of Global Warming’:-

      The IPCC equation assumes a “logarithmic” or log relation between forcing and CO2. The path length curve more closely resembles a „log log‟ relation between forcing and CO2. That is the IPCC model is an oversimplification that results in overestimating the impact of CO2 at higher concentrations. The IPCC reports discuss the impact on forcing of doubling CO2. This is because they believe the relation is logarithmic.

      So you see Ken, the IPCC have fooled a lot of people including luke-warmers (e.g. Eschenbach) and sceptics (e.g. Archibald). And it seems Anthony Watts has been taken for a ride too. So if you finally do realize you’ve been duped, don’t feel too bad – you’re in good company.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 14/09/2012 at 7:23 pm said:

      “ad nominee attacks”?

      You don’t have to rush before Mangled Phrase Week ends Ken, you’ve got a lifetime of it left.

    • Andy on 14/09/2012 at 8:08 pm said:

      Quoting Hendy and Wilson for example was quite inappropriate as their investigation was of caves in New Zealand

      So regional studies have no value?

      Global studies( of whatever stripe) are the aggregation of regional and local studies.

      If regional studies show a phenomenon such as the MWP across many regions simultaneously, or separated by time, then either way it has scientific value.

    • Bob D on 15/09/2012 at 11:00 am said:

      Ken:

      On both issues I think Bob ended up retreating as I countered all his arguments. He went as far as attempting to divert the discussion on to statistical techniques – a clear case of avoidance.

      Wow. Just Wow. As both Andy and I have pointed out to you, Simon raised the tired old argument that the MWP was only a NH phenomenon, and I quoted several (but by no means all) papers to show him that the MWP has been noted in studies in New Zealand, South Africa, South America, and Antarctica. Therefore it CANNOT be said that it was a purely NH feature.

      Get it? If you want more studies, there are hundreds. Follow the links we all pointed you to. If you can refute all those studies, well and good, and we can continue this conversation. Until that time, please don’t make a fool of yourself by claiming that everyone is retreating before your mighty intellect.

    • Rob Taylor on 15/09/2012 at 11:04 am said:

      I admire your persistence, Ken, but fear you are wasting your time here.

      When faced with such schoolboy howlers as “the sun is the hottest thing for miles” (R. Treadgold) and “Ignorance is acceptable” (Bob D.), it is obvious that this site is not intended for rational discussion by those for whom physical events must have physical causes.

      It is, instead, a support group for those for whom the global environmental crisis is not a human-caused problem with human-created solutions, but is, instead, a vast conspiracy and / or a doom laid upon the world by immutable “natural cycles”.

      Ignorant, fearful and angry, they turn to each other for solace in a world they are unable to comprehend through science.

      Meanwhile, reality awaits:

      http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/sep/14/arctic-sea-ice-smallest-extent

    • Richard C (NZ) on 15/09/2012 at 11:21 am said:

      “Meanwhile, reality awaits:” – it sure does Rob, here it is:-

      http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/eggert-co2.png

      The bogosity of the IPCC CO2 forcing curve just waiting to get headlines in the climate change debate. You can avoid that reality now Rob (it’s not a headline grabber in an alarming sort of way) but it will gain traction eventually – then you’ll have no choice but to address the issue.

      All other issues in the climate change arena are subordinate to this.

      Note too, that John Eggert presents a hypothesis. This – in view of the conspicuous absence of an AGW hypothesis – now becomes the default AGW hypothesis that will have to be null for AGW to survive.

      Good luck with that null Rob – you’re going to need it.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 15/09/2012 at 11:42 am said:

      This contest (in terms of scientific validity) is this (from J Eggert’s references):-

      Eggert/Leckner

      i Schumann, Reinhardt, Metallurgical Engineering, Volume 1, Addison-Wesley, 1952 (Hottel’s curves –>> note the year.)

      ii Bejan, Adrian; Kraus, Allan D. Heat Transfer Handbook. John Wiley & Sons., 2003 Page 618 (Leckner’s curves, available in electronic form from http://www.knovel.com)

      Versus IPCC

      v http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/ IPCC equation for “forcing”. This equation is also quoted in the fourth assessment report along with two other curves of similar shape and magnitude.

      Note the word “simplified” in NOAA/IPCC Table 1 ‘Expressions for Calculating Radiative Forcing’.

      Note also the lack of recourse to any heat transfer texts or papers in the NOAA references.

    • No, I won’t bother further, Rob. I think I have made my points about the duplicity of using regional paleoclimate studies to “disprove” conclusions from hemispheric/global ones. And about the hysterical ad hominen attacks on Michael Mann as a way of avoiding his well accepted science.

      I made a similar point to yours in Internet silos become ideological ghettos

      You know what they say about wrestling with pigs – they enjoy it and you just end up getting dirty.

      As you say reality awaits.

    • Rob Taylor on 15/09/2012 at 11:40 am said:

      I love the cartoon, Ken, and your quote ably sums it up:

      “If I believe the Earth is flat, (the Internet) puts me in touch with legions of fellow flat-Earthers and reams of pseudo-science to support that belief. As importantly, I never have to be exposed to any contrary views and can find total refuge in my community of flat-Earthers.

      “The Internet, therefore, offers me the opportunity to have a completely closed mind and, at one and the same time, fill it full of nonsense disguised as fact.

      In a brand new way, therefore, the Internet democratizes not just individual opinion, but legitimizes collective ignorance and spreads a bizarro world of alternative reason.

      When this occurs, prejudice and bias is reinforced and the authority of real science and evidence is undermined, or even more likely, never presented”.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 15/09/2012 at 11:44 am said:

      Team hug?

    • Richard C (NZ) on 15/09/2012 at 11:55 am said:

      “I won’t bother further” – Come on Ken, you haven’t stepped up to the “real science” plate yet (CO2 forcing).

      Too hard? Or just your “immunization” strategy kicking in?

      Same goes for you Rob.

  35. Simon on 14/09/2012 at 8:22 pm said:

    NASA animation of temperature data from 1880-2011
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtY8DpA_XNE&feature=youtu.be

    • Andy on 14/09/2012 at 8:27 pm said:

      and your point is?

    • Simon on 14/09/2012 at 8:44 pm said:

      that it’s getting warmer Andy and it’s probably not worth going to court to argue otherwise.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 14/09/2012 at 9:39 pm said:

      “it’s getting warmer” – No, it got warmer (past tense). Now there’s stasis (present tense)

      “it’s probably not worth going to court to argue otherwise” – Nobody did. NZCSET 7SS trend +0.34 C/century 1909 – 2010.

      Now, about that Leckner vs IPCC CO2 forcing challenge……

    • Andy on 14/09/2012 at 9:44 pm said:

      It’s getting warmer.

      Holy cow is that really the beat you can do Simon?

      Science by PowerPoint.

  36. Bob D on 15/09/2012 at 3:23 pm said:

    hysterical ad hominen attacks on Michael Mann

    I had to laugh at this one. Do you understand what an ad hominem attack is? It’s where you attack the person not what he says, or his science in this case.

    The “attacks” on Mann have always been about his science. I have seen very few sceptics try to dismiss him based on his funding, or check his links with “Big Oil” or try to write him off because of his politics, affiliations or any other such nonsense.

    It’s all about his error-riddled science. Exactly the opposite of an ad hominem attack. But no doubt you’ll argue even this point, and exit stage left, claiming the victory. 🙂

  37. This is probably superfluous now that Bob seems to have backed away from hs claims that Mann’s work has been discredited and the IPCC has dropped his “hockey stick” figure. But just to reinforce the information I provided here is something from Mann himself in a letter to the Bismark Tribune (http://bismarcktribune.com/news/opinion/mailbag/letter-wrong-about-scientists/article_7f2c58ea-fed9-11e1-a86b-0019bb2963f4.html):

    “An individual named Charlie Bullinger did a grave disservice to your readers by engaging in defamatory personal attacks and making false statements about me and other climate scientists in a recent letter published in your paper.

    Bullinger falsely claims that the “Hockey Stick”— work of my own published more than a decade ago showing that recent warming is unusual over at least the past 1,000 years — was “removed from the latest IPCC reports to Congress because it was disproved by professors who teach statistics.”

    Every part of that statement is wrong: (a) The IPCC, first of all, is an international commission — it doesn’t report to “Congress”; (b) The Hockey Stick “did” appear in the most recent IPCC report (see Figure 6.10 of the report, the “Hockey Stick” is http://bit.ly/zKaJss, and (c) The “Hockey Stick” most certainly has NOT been “disproved.”

    The highest scientific body in the nation, the National Academy of Sciences, affirmed my research findings in an exhaustive independent review published in June 2006 (see e.g. “Science Panel Backs Study on Warming Climate”, New York Times, June 22, 2006, among many others). Dozens of independent groups of scientists have independently reproduced and confirmed our findings, and more recent work by other groups summarized in the most recent IPCC report shows that recent warmth is unusual over an even longer timeframe.

    It is precisely these sorts of attacks, manufactured by fossil fuel industry-funded climate change-deniers and spread by those such as Bullinger who credulously regurgitate their dishonest talking points, that led me to write my recent book, “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars,” about my experiences at the center of this ongoing smear campaign.

    Readers interested in the truth behind the science, rather than the falsehoods and smears perpetuated by individuals like Bullinger, should consult scientist-run websites like http://www.realclimate.org and http://www.skepticalscience.com, and scientifically-based books on the topic like my “Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming.”

    (Michael E. Mann is a professor in the Department of Meteorology at Penn State University, and director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center.)”

    • Andy on 16/09/2012 at 9:40 am said:

      Michael Mann spends so much time writing letters to newspapers and lawyers you wonder how he manages to get any work done

  38. David on 16/09/2012 at 9:58 am said:

    John Cook is a scientist?
    [David, this is poisonous stuff. Leave the people alone and stick to the topic. You accuse others of the smearing you yourself are practising against them. – RT]

  39. Dan Pangburn on 16/09/2012 at 10:46 am said:

    As determined by the annual average of the five reporting agencies, average global temperatures have been flat for over a decade. GISS anomalies, as they report here, are fairly close to the average:

    http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt.

    How much more time will it take for some Warmers to realize that they must have made an egregious mistake?

  40. Dan, you should really look at the data you quoted above. Look at its variability.

    At the 95% confidence level this data indicates a warming/cooling trend in the range from -1.6 to +1.6 degrees per century.

    In other words the natural variability is so great that it is impossible to measure the sort of trends usually found when only 10 years data is used.

    THIS IS WELL UNDERSTOOD BY CLIMATE SCIENTISTS.

    Hence the fallacious [abusive term removed] argument that warming has stopped. The data doesn’t show that because any trend is hidden in the natural variability in such a small time range.

    Usually no significant trend can be picked up with data from less than 17 or 20 years. That’s why climate scientists use time scales of 30 or more years when talking about trends.

    Your argument might appear convincing to someone who does not understand statistics and the effect of variability. But scientifically it is naive and just wrong.

    [abuse removed]

    • Richard C (NZ) on 16/09/2012 at 12:18 pm said:

      Wonderful Ken, so it’s still warming according to you. BUT WHAT’S THE CAUSE?

      Take up the challenge Ken (you know what I mean) and you discover that it’s not CO2.

    • Rob Taylor on 16/09/2012 at 12:29 pm said:

      That’s right, Richard. [ad homs deleted. Rob, your comments are a waste of time – whatever you’re aiming to achieve, it might be more useful to refute his arguments. – RT]

    • Andy on 16/09/2012 at 12:28 pm said:

      So anyone who uses data that spans a period of less than 17 years to make an inference is dishonest and politically motivated?

      Fine, let’s start making a list shall we?

    • Rob Taylor on 16/09/2012 at 12:38 pm said:

      Hi Andy,

      As you are probably the only denizen of this site who knows what a climate forcing is, perhaps you could explain it, in simple terms, for the climatologically challenged?

    • Richard C (NZ) on 16/09/2012 at 2:40 pm said:

      “…..perhaps you could explain it, in simple terms, for the climatologically challenged?” – Not just Andy doing the explaining and not just the climatologically challenged trying to decipher the IPCC version.

      It’s a moving target as John Eggert explains:-

      Forcing seems to be the difference obtained by subtracting Heat Absorption at 278°C from Heat Absorption at any particular temperature. The IPCC AR4 shows 3 different estimations of forcing. The IPCC report asserts that the equation ΔF = αln(C/Co) is most accurate, where ΔF is forcing, α is a constant, value 5.35, C is the concentration of CO2 and Co is some arbitrary initial value, in the case of climate models, 278 ppm. This definition may not be accurate. The reader is encouraged to consult the IPCC summary reports to try to decipher the meaning of forcing.

      The IPCC asserts that the equation ΔF = αln(C/Co) is “most accurate” – yeah right. And this simplification of a simplification is what all international punitive carbon tax structures are based on. What a con job.

    • Bob D on 16/09/2012 at 2:51 pm said:

      Isn’t it bizarre that Ken still doesn’t understand what he’s seeing. While lecturing others he fails to see the simple error in his analysis.

      Let me explain (to everyone else – it’s pointless talking to Ken, as we know).

      The world is supposed to be warming at 0.2°C per decade. This result comes from James Hansen himself, and is unstoppable, because of the “warming in the pipeline”. Even if we reduce our emissions to zero, this transient warming would still occur.

      All well and good. Now Ken has just told us that the zero trend we see currently has 95% confidence intervals of 0.16°C per decade. So we write it as 0.0±0.16°C/decade.

      What Ken completely fails to understand is that this tells us that the prediction is invalidated. Immediately, and flat-out. For if we had been warming at the predicted rate, we should have seen 0.2±0.16°C/decade. Even 0.05±0.16°C/decade would have been sufficient, as 0.2°C/decade still falls within that interval, but right now the prediction has been excluded at the 95% confidence level.

      Sorry Ken, them’s the rules.

      Now of course, Ken has completely mangled his numbers, as usual. Let’s go look at the IPCC gold standard of temperature measurement: HadCRUT3.

      The current 15-year trend is 0.007±0.03°C/decade, or 0.07±0.3°C/century, if you will. Note that it clearly excludes 0.2°C/decade.

      The 10-year trend is -0.09±0.05°C/decade, or -0.9±0.5°C/century. Note that not only does it exclude the possibility of 0.2°C/decade warming, it excludes all warming completely.

      So we can say with 95% confidence that the world has cooled in the past decade.

      Both of these results are conclusive: the 0.2°C/decade warming hypothesis has been excluded. This proves at the very least that there is no “warming in the pipeline”.

    • Simon on 16/09/2012 at 3:45 pm said:

      Every single one of those years were warmer than the 1950-1980 mean. The climate is a non-linear system which is affected by other inputs (sun, ENSO, Lorenz butterflies, etc). No-one ever said that the warming would occur at a linear rate.
      Everyone here seems to conveniently ignore the Arctic sea ice coverage which is now 6 standard deviations away from the mean. Something has seriously changed. Watch this extra play merry hell with the jet stream and Northern weather over the next year.
      If 2012 turns out to be a record hot year, you will have to restart your counter, then there will have been no warming for the last 0.15 years.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 16/09/2012 at 3:55 pm said:

      “If 2012 turns out to be a record hot year” – unrealistically speculative at this juncture or as Steve Goddard puts it “2012 is shaping up to be one of the coolest years of the last fifteen”:-

      http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/smithsonian-goes-full-stupid-on-global-warming/

    • Bob D on 16/09/2012 at 4:54 pm said:

      If 2012 turns out to be a record hot year, you will have to restart your counter, then there will have been no warming for the last 0.15 years.

      As Richard C has pointed out, this is extremely unlikely.

      In order for us to accept the hypothesis that there has been a zero trend over the past decade we will have to average an anomaly of 0.58°C over the rest of 2012. This is of course possible, but bear in mind that the average anomaly for the year to date has been only 0.4°C.

      Of course, if this unlikely possibility did happen, all we would concede is that it is statistically possible that we had a flat trend over the past decade, forget warming.

    • Bob, I am more than willing to discuss these details with you – they are straightforward enough.

      [If you want to discuss grievances, email me privately (you’ve got my address). You’ve stated your position here already, so there’s no need to hijack these threads to repeat it. If you are really as willing as you say you are, please keep to the topic. – RT]

      Perhaps at Open Parachute or Open Parachute @SciBlogs. I will ensure you aren’t censored there. [Bob wasn’t censored here. – RT]

  41. Andy and Richard. This is a discussion between me and Dan. I have corrected his mistaken conclusion. Let him get back to me with his side of the story. He originally raised hi argument on Open Parachute but ran away when. Responded there.

    Oh, by the way Andy. Thanks for quoting my comment on dishonesty and political motivation regarding this denier mantra. Treadgold appears to have deleted it. He seems a bit riled up and sensitive these days. [In the context your comments were abusive – you presumed to know people’s motives and accused them generally of dishonesty. Kindly answer Andy’s question about it. – RT] Actually you all do.

    Wonder why?

  42. Treadold – if you want to enter a discussion – please do so. [Thanks for the invitation. Accusation of dishonesty removed. Perrott, I don’t know what you’re talking about, be specific. And spell my name correctly. – RT]

    This is a matter of integrity.

  43. That’s it Treadgold. You have obviously lost your rag with the recent defeat.

    I cannot participate in a discussion where a hostile person continually censors and alters my comments. It violates my integrity and shows complete lack of any respect on your part.

    Dan, if you wish to question my response to your comment please do so at Open Parachute – perhaps where you made the original comment.

    Rather endorses my comments about ideological ghettos doesn’t it?

    • Ken,
      You want respect? Give it.
      Again, be specific about your allegations towards me.

    • Rob Taylor on 16/09/2012 at 5:54 pm said:

      Richard, you want respect? [I have more self-respect than to want the respect of arrogant blowhards like you. – RT]

      Then try reading a basic text on climate before bloviating on the subject to the dim, dyspeptic and deluded coterie of fools who apparently have little better to do [Perfectly disgusting, Mr Taylor.]

      I think that about covers it…

      TTFN

  44. David on 17/09/2012 at 12:17 pm said:

    See Richard?
    I reckon you are too soft with these guys. Its your blog but frankly their pomposity deserves pricking big time. And laughing at them is the best way to do it.
    Lets face it, they are pretty funny the way they behave.
    regards
    David

    • Yes, I know, David. I can see how you interpret my response as soft. But I want to leave the door open, allow others, or even the present antagonist, to return and walk through it again. Just recently Ken Perrott visited again after a long absence. He knew I wouldn’t harbour a grudge against him personally.

      In the long-term view – decades, or longer – if our campaign is to succeed, if those wavering are to believe what we say, or even if those against us are to change their minds and join us, someone, somewhere, must keep a door open for them. If we display unceasing scorn, disrespect, mockery, repugnance, even hatred (as many of the alarmists do towards us), they couldn’t come near us. So our efforts must be doomed. I will not strive with no hope of reward; even a remote chance is better than none.

      I wish all those who comment here could understand this and remove the remaining traces of frustration from their voices. But I won’t complain, because they are in fact so very remarkable in their restraint. I get frustrated, too, and lash out; it’s only human. But the plan is always to keep the door open.

      Even our children misbehave – but we don’t stop loving ’em.

  45. Andrew W on 17/09/2012 at 1:39 pm said:

    And there was me not long ago thinking that at least in NZ the climate debate can actually be debated between those on both sides, on blogs representing both sides.

    I think it’s a pity you’ve abandoned the principle of free speech Richard. In my experience banning and editing comments usually reflects poorly on those doing the editing, if comments are genuinely abusive I’d argue to leave them up, if it is genuine abuse, that just reflects on the commenter.

    • Andy on 17/09/2012 at 3:07 pm said:

      “abandons free speech”

      Brilliant, it doesn’t get any better then this.
      “Children should be seen and not heard” was the old saying.

      The children have been naughty, they need some “time out”

    • You show no understanding of what’s occurred, Andrew. I haven’t abandoned any principles – in fact I’ve upheld them. I haven’t deleted any contribution to the climate debate, I have removed abusive and (believe it or not) sexually explicit remarks. Yes, such comments reflect badly on the speaker, but they lower the tone, debase our standards and encourage further comments of a like nature. I will always delete them. In that way, I contribute mightily to keeping the climate debate here in New Zealand free and open.

      I do hope you notice when sites such as Hot Topic, Skeptical Science and Real Climate ban honest commenters only because they question the topic. You should go there, too, and express your objections.

    • Andy on 17/09/2012 at 3:17 pm said:

      RT – you might want to see this comment which will no doubt get snipped, but it gives you an idea of where things are at
      (offensive language warning)

    • Yeah, I see what you mean. Thanks for the plug, but that’s a disgusting response you received. I’ll go read the editorial now. Sounds like I might have to feature it.

    • Andrew W on 17/09/2012 at 6:59 pm said:

      Sadly many blogs are never going to change policy in that regard, you’ve made it clear this one included, I can list several on the “sceptic” side that can be included in your list, so it’s pot meet kettle.

      Still, I’ll stick with my view that showing the comments, visible but maybe with strike out is the better policy. In a way I think the deleting of comments is more insulting to other readers as than the abusive comments themselves, it sends the message that you believe you’re better able to decide on the comments value than they are.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 17/09/2012 at 7:11 pm said:

      “I think the deleting of comments is more insulting to other readers as than the abusive comments themselves, it sends the message that you believe you’re better able to decide on the comments value than they are”.

      Andrew W. Go to the Lewandowsky post and this piece of reporting in particular:-

      Lewandowsky’s Cleansing Program

      https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2012/09/personal-message-to-stephan-lewandowsky/#comment-117477

      “Today, Lewandowsky (who is being assisted by an SkS squadron) liquidated every single comment by Fuller on the entire blog, leaving rebuttals to Fuller in place without the protagonist. This is different from not approving the blog comments: it’s an after-the-fact cleansing of Fuller from the blog”

    • Andrew W,

      You seem strangely obtuse about this. You don’t acknowledge my point about having standards, nor do you respond to the matter of the other blogs that ban people for disagreeing.

      I don’t like your assertion that I delete comments on the science. That’s never happened. As to better judging their “value” – what value lies in personal insults and abuse, pray tell? You deliberately misread my point.

      For clarity, are you saying that comments that lower the tone, debase our standards and encourage further comments of a like nature, or are even sexually explicit, should be allowed to stand?

    • Andy on 17/09/2012 at 8:05 pm said:

      The comments I’ve seen deleted here are what I would describe as either offensive or designed to start a flame war, and I admit I tend to rise to the bait too soon so these kind of comments are generally unhelpful.

      I haven’t seen any comments deleted because they don’t fit with any world view. Correct me if I am wrong.
      This is more than we can say for RC, SkS and various other “consensus” blogs

    • Andrew W on 17/09/2012 at 9:15 pm said:

      “You seem strangely obtuse about this.”

      I think I’ve made my points clearly, the more gross a comment the more contemptible the commenter appears, and I doubt the people reading your blog are as sensitive as you imagine.

      “You don’t acknowledge my point about having standards”

      Unfortunately I’ve yet to come across a blog covering a controversial subject that enforced “standards” evenhandedly, unless those standards were precisely laid out in the comments policy. Without that comments policy “standards” quickly become “double standards”.

      “nor do you respond to the matter of the other blogs that ban people for disagreeing.”

      I said: “Sadly many blogs are never going to change policy in that regard, you’ve made it clear this one included, . . . so it’s pot meet kettle.”
      What further response do you seek? “I think they’re such naughty bloggers”? Well OK, if that makes you happy:
      I think they’re such naughty bloggers.

      “I don’t like your assertion that I delete comments on the science.”

      Good for you, I wouldn’t like me for making such an assertion – and I didn’t make any such assertion. Interestingly that’s one of the criticisms of you that Ken made: that you claim people said things they did not.
      Censoring comments evolves in to something that’s a lot like cherry-picking data, you’ve decided to only let through the bits that suit your agenda.

      “As to better judging their “value” – what value lies in personal insults and abuse, pray tell? You deliberately misread my point.”

      They have a great deal of value in that they enabling people to assess the value and worth of the commenter.

      “For clarity, are you saying that comments that lower the tone, debase our standards and encourage further comments of a like nature, or are even sexually explicit, should be allowed to stand?”

      If someone I didn’t agree with was doing such a thing, I certainly would, what you describe is the comment of an arsehole, and everyone reading the blog would know they’re an arsehole. Inevitably the people doing the censoring use that power for their own purposes, a Labour politician using the tactic you describe against the PM would be a gift for National, it’s the Labour politician whose comments hit the policy target who is the one National would want to be kept out of the spotlight.

    • Andy on 17/09/2012 at 9:17 pm said:

      Andrew, do you think this comment is helpful?

      Note that the moderator has now starred out the expletive. I guess the message remains the same.

      I find it surprising that you wonder why you are losing the PR war.

    • Andrew W on 17/09/2012 at 9:31 pm said:

      Andy, It makes my point, Cyclone sounds like an a***hole.

    • Andrew W,

      Hmm.

      “Sadly many blogs are never going to change policy in that regard, you’ve made it clear this one included, . . . so it’s pot meet kettle.” …

      Good for you, I wouldn’t like me for making such an assertion – and I didn’t make any such assertion.

      Your comment “so it’s pot meet kettle” means exactly that. But you are mistaken. I have not banned anyone because they question the topic. Those other sites did.

      I can see where you’re coming from in wanting to leave comments as they are sent. But I disagree. You can do it on your blog, I won’t complain.

      But I won’t leave rotten food lying around the front yard. It repels everyone but scavengers.

      I must mention this: “They have a great deal of value in that they enabling people to assess the value and worth of the commenter.”

      Why would you want to do that? It’s like admiring the ovens for the insight they give into Hitler’s wickedness. Or perhaps, more accurately, admiring the Nazi’s anti-Jewish propaganda for the same reason. But the concept is monstrous – filth is filth, it has no value. And in the climate debate, the worth of the commenter doesn’t matter, we want to know what they contribute to the debate.

  46. Richard – I think Andrew understands very well and his comments were right to the point.

    I stopped coming here some time ago after you deleted one of my comments.

    No, it was when you found a mistake in NIWA’s data and blamed it on the CCG. But you were unintentionally blaming your heroes at NIWA, and Jim Salinger. – RT

    Similarly I won’t come again because you are doctoring, censoring, amending my comments. This makes any discussion of the science impossible.

    Patent nonsense – I only remove abuse, and you’ve offered more than most. I won’t leave rubbish lying around because it’s a bad influence. If you don’t like it, don’t leave it. I’ve never changed anyone’s argument on the science, and you cannot produce evidence that I have. But do try.

    I don’t mind the childish abuse I get from your colleagues (and you) – they tend to provide support for points I make. And a bit if such banter is to be expected.

    You have the nerve to complain of childish abuse after saying “This makes any discussion of the science impossible”? You hypocrite. Look around the blog, you twit.

    A cowardly and dishonest aspect of your censoring is that you then will sometimes misrepresent what you deleted.

    Prove it.

    It goes with the territory I guess.

    Not at the CCG.

    I believe this last time I have been able to contribute usefully on issues like the cowardly attacks on climate scientists like Michael Mann, the status of his iconic research in the IPPC reports and the naive ignorance of statistics behind the temperature has not increased in the last 10 years denier mantra.

    Yes, you did. Most people disagreed with you, but you made some points.

    I realise that is why you have vented your anger by manipulating comments but the points were made nevertheless.

    So if I remove the lie that I have “manipulated” comments, I will have “manipulated” your comment. If I don’t remove it, you will have got away with “manipulating” the truth (by telling a lie). Oh, the dilemma!

    Informative discussion is no longer possible. Mind you it sometimes felt like casting pearl before swine as the few partisipants in these debates here are well immunized against the scientific facts.

    Informative discussion is possible only when it’s informed, Ken. Though that’s always possible, when it’s not informed, it will be refuted.

    One advantage of dealing with these issues on my own blog is that I can guarantee no censoring or malicious amendment. The audience is generally more open minded and free ranging discussion is encouraged.

    Not in my experience, but you’re always welcome here. Didn’t we welcome you back?

    Richard I think you don’t understand the role of blogs and Internet discussion. Your loss not mine as it only calcifies your blog into another denier ghetto.

    Thanks for your advice. You just can’t resist those insults – but never mind, when you want to discuss climate science, you know where we are.

    • Andy on 17/09/2012 at 4:20 pm said:

      One advantage of dealing with these issues on my own blog is that I can guarantee no censoring or malicious amendment. The audience is generally more open minded and free ranging discussion is encouraged.

      The laughs are coming from all directions today.

    • Anthropogenic Global Cooling on 17/09/2012 at 10:12 pm said:

      ‘free ranging discussion is encouraged.’

      I don’t think so.

  47. Bob D on 17/09/2012 at 5:55 pm said:

    The audience is generally more open minded

    Uhh, no.

  48. David on 18/09/2012 at 2:10 pm said:

    Andrew W
    “Unfortunately I’ve yet to come across a blog covering a controversial subject that enforced “standards” evenhandedly, unless those standards were precisely laid out in the comments policy’

    Not true.I remember you posting on Ponekes blog where no comments were deleted and everyone was treated fairly. You still got dealt to though.
    Kiwiblog seldom deletes but issues demerits. Many others are the same.
    I think Richard T is VERY tolerant and that is certainly in contrast to other blogs. Especially the ones of the “left”. Have you seen the sewer that is “The Standard”?
    Hot topic is just a nest of rudeness and nastiness. Those guys are just crazy zealots.
    So no Andrew W, you are wrong. Again.

    • Andrew W on 18/09/2012 at 6:00 pm said:

      “Not true.I remember you posting on Ponekes blog where no comments were deleted and everyone was treated fairly.”

      So what you’re saying is that Poneke didn’t need to use editing and deleting comments to enforce standards.

      “Kiwiblog seldom deletes but issues demerits. Many others are the same.”

      David, you quote me, but it seems you fail to understand what I said. Kiwiblog does have a comments policy, and David admits his rulings on comments are subjective, now, in my opinion there are double standards at Kiwiblog and also at The Standard, right of center commenters get away with comments at Kiwiblog that would not be tolerated at The Standard, and left wing commenters get away with comments at The Standard that would earn demerits at Kiwiblog.

  49. Dan Pangburn on 19/09/2012 at 12:16 am said:

    Ken,
    Your myopic use of statistics has misled you.

    Back away from the recent data and look at the big picture. Temperature has been accurately measured world wide since about 1895. Graphs of average global temperature are extant. Look at any of them closely and you will see rapid (year to year and even month to month) random fluctuation with s.d. of about +/-0.1C about the trends. Thermodynamics/heat transfer with knowledge of the huge effective thermal capacitance of the oceans (about 30 times everything else) absolutely prohibits such rapid fluctuation in average global temperature. Thus the random fluctuation must be an artifact of the measuring process and the trends are the meaningful metric.

    Apparently you didn’t find my stuff at Climate Realists. I can’t give the link directly because it trips the spam trap but you can find my equation, which calculates temperatures since 1895 with 88% accuracy using only one independent variable (as I described above in my Sept 12 post), at http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/dan-pangburn/ . If you can work past Greenfyre’s sarcasm to my response you will find the link to all of my stuff that has been made public over the years at Climate Realists.

    The determination that it has stopped warming is primarily because the flat temperature trend for more than a decade is consistent with that determined by the equation which has demonstrated to be 88% accurate for 116 years…and counting.

    Here’s the Climate Realists’ link. – RT

    • Andrew W on 19/09/2012 at 4:40 am said:

      “Thermodynamics/heat transfer with knowledge of the huge effective thermal capacitance of the oceans (about 30 times everything else) absolutely prohibits such rapid fluctuation in average global temperature.”

      Good grief, are you unaware of the effects of El Nino on surface temperatures?

      “The determination that it has stopped warming is primarily because the flat temperature trend for more than a decade is consistent with that determined by the equation which has demonstrated to be 88% accurate for 116 years…and counting.”

      http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=47

    • Dan Pangburn on 19/09/2012 at 8:17 pm said:

      Andrew,

      You have been fooled.

      Look a little closer at that graph. Notice that it is for LAND temperature. Land covers only 29% of the planet and land temperature responds much more rapidly to changes in the rate at which energy is stored by the planet. Notice also that the graph ends in about 2010. The last downtrend on that graph starts in about 2001 and ends in 2010. That last downtrend has continued. The longest temperature anomaly downtrend line prior to 2001 is for a CO2 increase of 13% of the 1800 to 2001 CO2 increase. Since 2001 the CO2 has increased more than 25% of the 1800 to 2001 increase.

      Also, the graph begins in 1973. Thus it does not show the temperature DOWNTREND from about 1941 to 1973. Or, for that matter, the UPTREND from 1909 to 1941.

      If you could bring yourself to look at my stuff you might not be so easily fooled. Is there something about my equation calculating the temperatures since 1895 with an accuracy of 88% that you do not grasp? Or that the equation ‘predicted’ (the quotes are because the actual sunspot numbers were used) the temperatures since 1990? (Although not made public yet, when calibrated to conditions prior to 1965 the equation ‘predicted’ the 2005 trend-temperature within 0.06C)

      The physics is real and the math does not lie.

    • Andrew W on 19/09/2012 at 8:41 pm said:

      Look a little closer at that graph. Notice that it is for LAND temperature. Land covers only 29% of the planet and land temperature responds much more rapidly to changes in the rate at which energy is stored by the planet.

      So what you’re saying is that this “escalator” doesn’t work on the global surface temperature record?

      http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/NCDC_Escalator.gif

      Dan, I’m simply not interested in your unpublished theories on climate change, and I’m well aware of the shape of global surface temperature graphs since around 1900, and the explanations for the changes in the trend. (principally global dimming mid century due to unfiltered emissions from coal burning in Europe and N America, something likely now occurring again as a result of China and other growing Asian economies repeating that practice).

    • Richard C (NZ) on 19/09/2012 at 9:03 pm said:

      “I’m well aware of the shape of global surface temperature graphs since around 1900”

      Including this profile?

      http://climate4you.com/images/MSU%20RSS%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1979%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif

      Are you attributing the change of trend at 2003 to “unfiltered emissions from coal burning…….occurring again as a result of China and other growing Asian economies repeating that practice”?

    • Andrew W on 19/09/2012 at 9:22 pm said:

      “Including this profile?”

      Yeah, though I keep a closer eye on this one:
      http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/

      This page mentions signs of dimming over China, too soon to quantify the degree to which this might be affecting global temperatures. I should have said “possibly” rather than”likely”.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming#Recent_reversal_of_the_trend

    • Richard C (NZ) on 20/09/2012 at 8:44 am said:

      Since AR4 Ramanathan and Carmichael 2008 found that soot (BC) has a greater effect than had been thought:-

      “The BC forcing of 0.9 W m–2 (with a range of 0.4 to 1.2 W m–2) … is as much as 55% of the CO2 forcing and is larger than the forcing due to the other GHGs such as CH4, CFCs, N2O or tropospheric ozone.”

      Thing is, if the IPCC botched CO2 forcing they’ve probably botched soot forcing the same way.

      More here:-

      https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/open-threads/un/ipcc-science/#comment-117654

      Also, CO2 and soot in combustion chambers

      RADIATION HEAT TRANSFER IN COMBUSTION SYSTEMS
      R. VISKANTA and M. P. MENGO, 1987

      https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/open-threads/un/ipcc-science/#comment-117639

    • Dan, as already mentioned it is impossible to discuss your claims here because Treadgold s amending and altering my comments. I am happy to discuss them at Open Parachute – so what about making your comment there – perhaps where you made your original claim at http://openparachute.wordpress.com/2012/09/07/new-zealand-climate-change-denial-defeated/#comment-29697

      It’s pointless attempting it hare

    • Ken,

      it is impossible to discuss your claims here because Treadgold’s amending and altering my comments

      You’d try the patience of a saint, you peculiar, arrogant, vexing little heckler. As you know, I don’t snip comments which are on the topic. Nor have I altered any pertinent comments from you or anyone else. But I have snipped your personal abuse, and I’ll do it again, if I must.

      This is the second or third time you’ve made this false allegation about my altering comments. Do it again and I’ll snip it. As I’m confident you are fully aware, Mr Perrott, you can talk here all day about climate science — just don’t abuse anyone!

    • Dan Pangburn on 19/09/2012 at 10:01 pm said:

      Ken,
      My response above to Andrew also applies to you.

      The link to Climate Realists that RT added to my post gets you part way there. Scroll down until on the left side you see “Articles by Climate Realists and Topics” and then move the slider at that location to find Dan Pangburn. Click on my name to see briefs of my articles. Click on the pdf link(s) to see the full article(s).

      These articles reveal the story of what I had discovered through November of 2011. Work since then has corroborated the findings.

      Historically reported temperatures consistently exhibit an s.d. of about +/-0.1C about the mean trend. One of the three main drivers of average global temperatures is the time-integral of sunspot numbers. Sunspot number prediction until 2020 is pretty good so temperatures from now to 2020 will have a decline trend of about -0.065C/decade with an s.d. of about +/-0.1C. After then depends on what the sun does. If the sun goes quiet, the decline will steepen to about -0.11C/decade with an s.d. of still about +/-0.1C.

    • Dan, could you send that comment to me at Open Parachute (see above) and I will consider it there. [Falsehoods removed, heckler. – RT]

      You are quite wrong with your rejection of the stats and I am happy to discuss that with you – but not here.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 20/09/2012 at 10:10 am said:

      Dan re “Sunspot number prediction until 2020 is pretty good so temperatures from now to 2020 will have a decline trend of about -0.065C/decade with an s.d. of about +/-0.1C”

      Found your articles: http://climaterealists.com/index.php?tid=145&linkbox=true

      Sunspot article: http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=5513

      Conclusions of the Natural Climate Change Verification

      PDF file ‘Corroboration of Natural Climate Change’ (another “keeper”)

      http://climaterealists.com/attachments/database/2010/corroborationofnaturalclimatechange.pdf

      ‘Verification of Natural Climate Change’

      What you’ve developed is an empirical model along the lines of Scafetta’s but in that case Nicola has assumed a continuing rise in the underlying quadratic trend of HadCRUT3. I’ve done EMD analyses of HadSST2 which a while ago did show a rise in the residual similar to the quadratic. However, with the most recent SST data a negative inflexion in SST is revealed that because EMD is very sensitive to additional data in the signal extraction process, the EMD analysis extracts what a quadratic curve fit does not.

      Therefore I think Scafetta’s forecast is erroneous and the SST inflexion imparts more credence to your ‘MEASURED AND PREDICTED TEMPERATURE ANOMALIES’ on page 12.

      But Dan, you didn’t tell us that ‘Corroboration of Natural Climate Change’ wasn’t just about sunspot influence! What caught my eye was this:-

      Dan Pangburn, P. E. (Licensed Mechanical Engineer), Life Member of ASME.

      Education:
      MS in Mechanical Engineering, Heat Power option which included 13 semester units in heat transfer, 9 at graduate level including a 3-unit course in radiation heat transfer.
      Experienced in computer modeling including:

      1. The sole writer of a General Purpose Heat Transfer program which sets up and solves steady-state and transient problems of heat transfer by conduction, convection and radiation in three dimensional structures. This code runs on a personal computer.

      2. The sole writer of an internal ballistics program to calculate all variables including pressure, projectile acceleration, velocity, etc. during gun firing. This code also runs on a personal computer

      In view of that, could you please comment on the following series and hypothesis by Professor John Eggert:-
      ************************************************************************************************************
      The Eggert hypothesis:-

      Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2) levels are at a point where increasing them further will have no impact on climate. CO2 contributes to the greenhouse effect. This contribution reaches a maximum at a specific level of CO2 at which point there is no further impact. In simplistic terms, you cannot get blacker than black. Controlling CO2 emissions will have no impact on climate

      The basis for it:-

      An Unsettling Look at the Settled Science of Global Warming
      Part 1: Scientific Discussion

      http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/agw-an-alternate-look-part-1-details-c.pdf

      And here,

      An Unsettling Look at the Settled Science of Global Warming
      Part 2: Layman’s Discussion

      http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/agw-an-alternate-look-part-2-for-laymen.pdf

      And here,

      An Unsettling Look at the Settled Science of Global Warming
      Part 3: Policy Maker’s Summary

      http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/agw-an-alternate-look-part-3-summary.pdf
      ************************************************************************************************************
      The key point being the “oversimplification” by the IPCC. Quoting Part 2:-

      “The IPCC equation assumes a “logarithmic” or log relation between forcing and CO2. The path length curve more closely resembles a „log log‟ relation between forcing and CO2. That is the IPCC model is an oversimplification that results in overestimating the impact of CO2 at higher concentrations”

      I think John Eggert and Nasif Nahle reached an impasse over this issue at Tallblokes that I don’t know was ever resolved so I would value your input Dan.

      Also you might be interested in what I found by following John’s references and posted in ‘IPCC Science’ here:-

      https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/open-threads/un/ipcc-science/#comment-117639

      I refer mainly to the references listed from the following paper that the IPCC doesn’t defer to:-

      RADIATION HEAT TRANSFER IN COMBUSTION SYSTEMS
      R. VISKANTA and M. P. MENGO, 1987

    • Dan Pangburn on 20/09/2012 at 7:55 pm said:

      Richard C (NZ),

      Thanks for the comments and listing the links to my stuff.

      I am not at all knowledgeable about Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) but it appears to be a somewhat elaborate curve fitting technique with some similarity to Fourier Analysis. The predicting ability of any curve fit depends on the assumption that the process will continue to act like it has been acting.

      My equation is NOT a mathematical curve fit. It is based on the physical phenomena. It assumes that average global temperature depends on three things: Ocean oscillation, the time-integral of sunspot numbers and the PPMV of atmospheric CO2. The coefficients determine the relative contribution of each of these and are varied to obtain the maximum R2. The pdf made public 11/24/11 does a fair job of describing how it was developed.

      I included in the equation the log decline of the influence of added increments of CO2. Recent results show that the influence of CO2 has been very nearly constant since about 1995 which corroborates Eggert. However I think he may be overstating to say CO2 influence has stopped. I would say that it is declining to an insignificant level.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 21/09/2012 at 7:02 am said:

      Hello Dan, thanks for your response.

      Re EMD, it is an inherent signal extraction method more similar to PCA except that it identifies intermediate mode frequencies (IMFs) the first few being noise and then for temperature or SST say, it’s possible to identify multidecadal and decadal oscillations. The residual is the overall signal and very sensitive but no predictive value whatsoever unlike curve fits under the assumption you state.

      Scafettta’s model is not a mathematical curve fit either, it’s based on historical celestial cycles overlaid on the underlying trend of HadCRUT3 (which I’m sure has changed radically without his knowledge). It’s the natural cycles in models such as yours and Scafetta’s that are missing from GCM configurations and also what make them closer to the observed metrics then the GCMs (a no brainer), so all credit to you Dan. The competition is heading off the IPCC simulations.

      Eggert’s saying increasing CO2 levels have no more climate influence after about 200 ppm because the forcing is imperceptibly minor and negligible (but not those words exactly) as per the “path length” curve (from Leckner/Hottel) in the following graph:-

      http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/eggert-co2.png

  50. Rob Taylor on 19/09/2012 at 10:56 pm said:

    Dan, if you really think you have something, then submit it for peer-review at a reputable professional journal.

    Otherwise, nothing personal, but you’re just another crank on the internet.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 20/09/2012 at 8:27 am said:

      “nothing personal, but you’re just another crank on the internet”

      contradiction in terms – (logic) a statement that is necessarily false; “the statement `he is brave and he is not brave’ is a contradiction”

      oxymoron – a rhetorical device or figure of speech in which contradictory or opposite words or concepts are combined for effect.

    • Dan Pangburn on 23/09/2012 at 9:08 am said:

      Rob,
      The usual journals, Nature, etc. are hopelessly biased on articles regarding climate. They would need to admit that they have been wrong about AGW for many years. They won’t even publish articles by a renowned Climate Scientist like Dr. Roy Spenser so what chance does a lowly engineer have?

      My equation has been validated by accurately ‘predicting’ global average temperature trends for several decades. The concept was first developed in the pdf made public 6/1/09. Subsequent refinements led to the version/equation made public 3/10/11 (see above link that was so kindly made available by Richard C). The equation will continue to be validated by correctly predicting the flat to declining average global temperature trend for at least two more decades.

    • Rob Taylor on 23/09/2012 at 3:06 pm said:

      Yeah, right…. are you not aware that the oceans exchange heat with the atmosphere? If not, the next El Nino will be a real education for you!

    • Richard C (NZ) on 23/09/2012 at 3:24 pm said:

      “are you not aware that the oceans exchange heat with the atmosphere?”

      Yes but on overall global average, an ocean about 3 C warmer than the atmosphere results in a predominately ocean => atmosphere (and space) energy flow.

    • Dan Pangburn on 24/09/2012 at 6:35 am said:

      Rob,
      Since my equation accounts for all of the el Niños and la Niñas for longer than a century I don’t expect very much new from the next. With a little more knowledge of thermodynamics/heat transfer you might be able to understand why el Niños and la Niñas pretty much cancel each other out in a temperature trend.

  51. Rob Taylor on 24/09/2012 at 7:01 am said:

    Dan / Richard, with a little more knowledge of complex systems, you would understand that you have grossly over-simplified your analysis.

    However, I’ll play along – in your view, why is Arctic sea ice mass vanishing, and both Greenland and Antartica losing land ice?

    Not too mention pretty much everywhere else…

    • Richard C (NZ) on 24/09/2012 at 8:13 am said:

      You’re all bluff and vacuity aren’t you Rob? When confronted with substance your response is just empty argument from authority.

      And then you change the subject (isn’t this the “Gish Gallop” you warmists prattle on abouit?).

      BTW:-

      GRACE satellite data shows Antarctica is gaining ice mass

      Antarctica is home to 90% of the world’s ice mass. Although Antarctic sea ice is currently at a record high and recent research predicts Antarctic land ice will continue to grow during this century, some warmists continue to believe that Antarctica is melting down. Additional evidence shows that the “most vulnerable” portion of Antarctica, the Antarctic Peninsula, has gained up to 45 meters of ice over the past 155 years. Gravitational data from the GRACE satellites also show that the vast majority of Antarctica is gaining, not losing, mass. Trend plots from the GRACE data browser, using all available online data, show that Antarctica has continued to gain mass since the beginning of the mission in 2001:

      >>>>>>>>>

      http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.nz/2012/09/grace-satellite-data-shows-antarctica.html

    • Rob Taylor on 24/09/2012 at 8:43 am said:

      Gravitational data from the GRACE satellites also show that the vast majority of Antarctica is gaining, not losing, mass. Trend plots from the GRACE data browser, using all available online data, show that Antarctica has continued to gain mass since the beginning of the mission in 2001.

      Really, Richard? How gullible you are!

      If you bothered to check with real scientists doing actual research on the GRACE data, you will find a different story from your cloud-cuckoo-land fantasy denial websites:

      Here we use an extended record of GRACE data spanning the period April 2002 to January 2009 to quantify the rates of Antarctic ice loss. In agreement with an independent earlier assessment4, we estimate a total loss of 190±77 Gt yr−1, with 132±26 Gt yr−1 coming from West Antarctica. However, in contrast with previous GRACE estimates, our data suggest that East Antarctica is losing mass, mostly in coastal regions, at a rate of −57±52 Gt yr−1, apparently caused by increased ice loss since the year 2006.

      http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v2/n12/full/ngeo694.html

      Thus, the denial site you quote is engaged in what scientists call a “barefaced lie”…

    • Your comments are vicious, Rob Taylor, you could at least try to sound a little objective. The web site RC links to (The Hockey Schtick) simply links to a calculator type of program hosted by the University of Colorado. Please explain why you say of the university web site “the denial site you quote is engaged in what scientists call a “barefaced lie””.

    • Rob Taylor on 24/09/2012 at 9:43 am said:

      Nonsense, RT, the lie re Antartic ice is front-and-centre on the denial site; nothing to do with the link to UC, which is, presumably, just there to give it a spurious validity.

      This disinformation is similar in concept to the previously-exposed Jo Nova / CO2science “spin” on genuine science, albeit more blatant.

      Both, however, are relying on the ignorance and gullibility of their target audience…

    • Richard C (NZ) on 24/09/2012 at 9:57 am said:

      This is the GRACE browser that the “denial website” used to extract the plots:-

      http://geoid.colorado.edu/grace/grace.php

      “This work is supported by the NASA ‘Making Earth Science Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) Program'”

    • Richard C (NZ) on 24/09/2012 at 10:04 am said:

      Here’s some of the IPCC’s “CO2science “spin” on genuine science” Rob:-

      http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/eggert-co2.png

      The IPCC of course “relying on the ignorance and gullibility of their target audience…”

      That’s you Rob.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 24/09/2012 at 10:34 am said:

      More IPCC “CO2science “spin” on genuine science”

      “Formal attribution studies now suggest that it is likely that anthropogenic forcing has contributed to the observed warming of the upper several hundred metres of the global ocean during the latter half of the 20th century {5.2, 9.5}”

      http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/tssts-4-1.html

      Only a suggestion and only likely. No mechanism is found at 5.2 and 9.5.

      Plays perfectly on “the ignorance and gullibility of their target audience…”

  52. Rob Taylor on 24/09/2012 at 10:39 am said:

    So, RC2, do you now deny that you posted this?

    Trend plots from the GRACE data browser, using all available online data, show that Antarctica has continued to gain mass since the beginning of the mission in 2001:

    >>>>>>>>>

    http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.nz/2012/09/grace-satellite-data-shows-antarctica.html

    Click on the link and you will see the full quote. The fact that the lying denier who owns the site also provides a link to the GRACE data won’t get you out of this hole, chum.

    This is on a par with your manufactured “Obama quote” earlier; and you wonder why you have no credibility left??

    • Andy on 24/09/2012 at 10:45 am said:

      Can you point us to the bit that you consider a “lie”?

    • Rob Taylor on 24/09/2012 at 11:15 am said:

      * Sigh *, here it is, for the 3rd time:

      Gravitational data from the GRACE satellites also show that the vast majority of Antarctica is gaining, not losing, mass. Trend plots from the GRACE data browser, using all available online data, show that Antarctica has continued to gain mass since the beginning of the mission in 2001.

      the reality is, as highlighted above:

      we estimate a total loss of 190±77 Gt yr−1, with 132±26 Gt yr−1 coming from West Antarctica. However, in contrast with previous GRACE estimates, our data suggest that East Antarctica is losing mass, mostly in coastal regions, at a rate of −57±52 Gt yr−1, apparently caused by increased ice loss since the year 2006.

      http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v2/n12/full/ngeo694.html

    • Bob D on 24/09/2012 at 11:23 am said:

      The discrepancy is easy enough to explain. The paper Rob is waving about is looking at 2002-2009. The NASA is for the full period of GRACE, 2001 to 2012. If you look at the NASA data, you can see that in all areas except a very small region in West Antarctica, there has been a huge gain in ice since 2009, which was a temporary low point.

      Note that Rob’s paper says “in contrast with previous GRACE estimates, our data suggest that East Antarctica is losing mass”. In other words, they are the only ones to have found this, but only because they based it on a short term trend which has now disappeared.

      Also, the geoid problem with GRACE means that all values are probably over-stated by a factor of at least 2.

    • Andy on 24/09/2012 at 11:24 am said:

      So person (a) says that “the vast majority” of Antarctica is gaining mass. Person (b) says that East Antarctica is losing mass, mostly in coastal regions

      Therefore person (a) is a liar

      Did I parse that correctly?

    • Bob D on 24/09/2012 at 12:07 pm said:

      Pretty much. You really should stop all that lying, Andy. 🙂

  53. Dan Pangburn on 24/09/2012 at 8:43 pm said:

    Rob,
    I explained the arctic ice melting issue back on my Sept 12 post.

    Your comment referring to “complex systems” is revealing. Weather is primarily the study of energy moving about the planet and is indeed complex. Climate Scientists have huge codes called GCMs and AOGCMs running on powerful computers that address these complex weather problems. These codes are all similar and give good results initially. But their accuracy fades to computational noise within a few days. It is woefully naïve to believe that a weather program can become a climate program if you run it longer. Deficiencies in the Global Climate Models have been demonstrated in their total failure to predict the flat average global temperature trend since about 2001.

    Weather is complex but average global temperature is a problem in thermodynamics and radiation heat transfer and a simple one for an engineer like me. That I got it right is demonstrated by accurate calculation and prediction including the flat temperature trend since 2001.

    • Simon on 25/09/2012 at 8:46 am said:

      So on one hand we have sceptics like Tom Harris, the Executive Director of the International Climate Science Coalition, who says that climate temperature is incredibly complex and we will never be able to estimate it, and on the other hand we have Dan, who claims that it’s a simple thermodynamic problem which any engineer can solve. Which is it?

    • Richard C (NZ) on 25/09/2012 at 9:01 am said:

      Which is it?

      The answer to that will be resolved over time by monitoring the performance of models (e.g. IPCC CMIP5, Scafetta, Pangburn) against observations.

      If one of the above (it will ONLY be one because they’re predicting different outcomes) is successful then Tom Harris will be wrong.

      At present, only Scafetta is in-the-money with Pangburn close and the IPCC out of the race (on another course entirely) but time will tell.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 25/09/2012 at 9:46 am said:

      Same for El Nino. The following link shows all the Dynamical and Statistical Model El Nino forecasts:-

      http://iri.columbia.edu/climate/ENSO/currentinfo/SST_table.html

      Given ENSO3.4 has just dipped back below the 0,5 El Nino threshold, about half the models are out-of-the-money and Tisdale asks:-

      Hey, Where’d The El Niño Go?

      http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/24/tisdale-asks-hey-whered-the-el-nino-go/

      Hansen and local pundit Gareth Renowden were predicting (hoping for) a strong El Nino to get warming back on track (and validate the IPCC models) so this development must be disconcerting for them.

      As it is, a weak El Nino looks good for Scafetta and if conditions revert back to La Nina by the end of the year then Dan Pangburn might be worth a bet.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 25/09/2012 at 10:37 am said:

      NINO3.4, not ENSO3.4.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 25/09/2012 at 10:22 am said:

      In the short term, even a simple polynomial projection of HadSST2 using a PC and Excel is performing better than the supercomputed GCM simulations.

      So we can add the Monkey Mean to the list of in-the-money predictions.

  54. Rob Taylor on 25/09/2012 at 8:14 am said:

    Dan, you have confused weather with climate, an elementary mistake that shows you are a rank beginner – try reading a basic climate science text, rather than the rubbish put up by failed meteorologists (Watts) and brain-damaged motorcyclists (Tallbloke) abd their ilk.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 25/09/2012 at 8:54 am said:

      Climate is an aggregation of weather is it not?

    • Andy on 25/09/2012 at 8:56 am said:

      No that is “old school” thinking Richard

      “Weather” is what we see out of the window and feel in our faces.
      “Climate” is how we feel about the world and our role in it

    • Dan Pangburn on 30/09/2012 at 5:18 am said:

      Rob,

      Since 2001 the atmospheric carbon dioxide level has now increased by 25.6% of the increase from 1800 to 2001 while the average global temperature trend is flat thru 2011 (slightly down if you include the part of 2012 that has been reported so far). How much wider will this separation between the rising carbon dioxide level and not rising temperature trend need to get for you and the rest of the ‘consensus’ to realize that you are egregiously wrong and have misled the rest of the world?

      Humanity has wasted over 100 billion (with a B) dollars in failed attempts using super computers to demonstrate that added atmospheric CO2 is a primary cause of global warming and in misguided activities to try to do something about it.

      You are apparently unable to fathom that an engineer, using a desk top computer, some science and a little engineering, could figure out what the ‘consensus’ has failed to do. My equation calculates average global temperatures since they have been accurately measured world wide with an accuracy of over 88%. When calibrated to measurements thru 1965 and using actual sunspot numbers, it predicted the average global temperature trend value in 2005 within 0.054°C. When calibrated thru 1995 and using actual sunspot numbers, it predicted the average global temperature trend value in 2011 within 0.002°C. The ‘consensus’ would be ecstatic to do anywhere near this well.

      A graph of. the average global temperature prediction through 2037 is shown in the pdf made public 11/24/11. The land temperature will cool about twice as fast.

    • Rob Taylor on 30/09/2012 at 4:13 pm said:

      Dan, I look forward to publication of your theory in a peer-reviewed climate journal; until then, you are just another lost sock in the great laundromat of denial.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 30/09/2012 at 4:19 pm said:

      “…just another lost sock in the great laundromat of denial”

      Whose model beats the socks (and pants) off the IPCC GCMs.

      So does Scafetta’s (“in a peer-reviewed climate journal” no less).

      So does a ‘Monkey Mean’ polynomial projection.

    • Rob Taylor on 30/09/2012 at 5:36 pm said:

      Great, let Dan publish and become renowned as the man who overturned 150 years of work in his spare time – Nobel prize and all that.

      Sure, Einstein pulled it off, but I rather suspect Einstein would not have wasted his time on this site…

      BTW, Dick, the IPCC does not have any GCMs, as the IPCC does no research or modelling; it simply reports on the work of others.

    • Richard C (NZ) on 30/09/2012 at 6:12 pm said:

      Nicola Scafetta HAS published Rob. His model is out performing the IPCC stable:-

      http://www.oarval.org/Scafetta_thumb.png

      And all Dan has to do is point to the success of his model over time (something the IPCC cannot come close to at present):-

      http://climaterealists.com/attachments/ftp/Verification%20Dan%20P.pdf

      That should be a doddle for Dan given the HadCRUT3/PDO+AMO+Sunspot Integral correlation is 0.96.

      The IPCC has a stable of models (an “ensemble”). All using the same IPCC RF methodology and forcing expressions. All using the same RCP scenarios. And ALL (except one in an update of 38) are on the wrong trajectory:-

      http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/christy-fig.jpg?w=808&h=622

    • Richard C (NZ) on 30/09/2012 at 6:23 pm said:

      “All using the same RCP scenarios” – as specified by the IPCC.

      That is, the modellers in the IPCC stable do NOT have the latitude to mimic climate on their own terms – hence their lack of success.

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