Climate of conversation

In a nutshell

Free speech is under fire around the world and nowhere does it face greater threat than in the bitter dispute over man-made global warming.

The GWPF carries a thoughtful piece on free speech by Adam Perkins, who explains why it’s vitally important to our practise of science:

… debate at King’s College London, where I have worked since 2007, is becoming restricted. A debate held this month at King’s between Yaron Brook and Carl Benjamin was stopped by masked thugs bursting into the lecture theatre.

Perkins opens his discussion of free speech with pertinent comments by notable figures:

A quick Google search suggests that free speech is a regarded as an important virtue for a functional, enlightened society. For example, according to George Orwell: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” Likewise, Ayaan Hirsi Ali remarked: “Free speech is the bedrock of liberty and a free society, and yes, it includes the right to blaspheme and offend.” In a similar vein, Bill Hicks declared: “Freedom of speech means you support the right of people to say exactly those ideas which you do not agree with”.

Which remind me of Churchill’s remark in Parliament:

Everyone is in favour of free speech … but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.

Perkins asks why do we specifically need free speech in science? Surely it’s enough to talk about our data and our instruments? But, he says:

These are merely tools that help us to accomplish a far greater mission, which is to choose between rival narratives, in the vicious, no-holds-barred battle of ideas that we call “science”.

Other snippets:

  • There is no authority who decides what is a good idea. – Richard Feynman
  • Science is not about finding the truth at all, but about finding better ways of being wrong. – Tom Schofield
  • … the tendency to silence scientists with inconvenient opinions has been labelled Lysenkoism since it provides the most famous example of the harm that can be done when competing scientific opinions cannot be expressed equally freely.

Physicist Richard Feynman was a member of the NASA committee investigating the 1986 Challenger disaster and refused to be silenced. He demonstrated that the O-rings became stiff when cold and caused the explosion. In the report on the disaster he said:

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled. [emphasis added]

Perkins implores us

stand up for the principle that no one has the right to police our opinions.

There’s more, so do tuck in.

Challenge the warmsters

You may form the opinion, as I have, that climate science is not amenable to refutation by a single experiment, observation, paper, or even a debate, no matter how free. However, it will always be crucially important to take every opportunity to challenge errors in the assertions of warmsters, whether of data or reasoning, not because the assertion might help to prove or disprove the overall thesis, but simply because it’s incorrect.

But what makes this climate hydra such a slippery eel is, as many of you have said, that there is no properly formed hypothesis behind the warmsters’ case, which means it is perfectly unfalsifiable. But there is a proper answer to their case, and that is to discover and to enunciate the questions they fail to answer. As I see it, that will demonstrate the paucity of their evidence and the falsity of their hypothesis.

For example, what good reason supports their choice of human emissions to explain the apparent shortfall in forcings while trying to account for the global increase in surface temperature from 1951 to 2010? As IPCC say:

In conclusion, although some inconsistencies in the forced responses of individual models and observations have been identified, the detection of the global temperature response to GHG increases using average responses from multiple models is robust to observational uncertainty and methodological choices. It is supported by basic physical arguments. We conclude, consistent with Hegerl et al. (2007b), that more than half of the observed increase in GMST from 1951 to 2010 is very likely due to the observed anthropogenic increase in GHG concentrations. – WGI AR5 (2013), p. 884

So, regardless of repeated references to inconsistencies between models, discrepancies between models and observations, “underestimated uncertainties”, “higher transient response” of some CMIP5 models to GHGs than in the real world and the fact that “some CMIP5 models have a higher transient response to GHGs and a larger response to other anthropogenic forcings than the real world,” IPCC decides our emissions had a big hand in half the warming.

Significant gaps in our knowledge of climate are generally acknowledged to include the sign and magnitude of cloud feedback, good coverage of whole-ocean temperatures and heat content, the magnitudes of many known but poorly-understood climate phenomena such as galactic cosmic ray (GCR) formation of clouds and aerosols, and many more, so there’s plenty to work on.

Ask until the cows come home

Knutson et al. (2013) demonstrate that observed trends in GMST are inconsistent with the simulated response to natural forcings alone, but consistent with the simulated response to natural and anthropogenic forcings for all periods beginning between 1880 and 1990 and ending in 2010, which they interpret as evidence that warming is in part attributable to anthropogenic influence over these periods. – WGI AR5 (2013), p. 883

Yes, but that’s not the only possible interpretation, is it? They choose that one because it’s part of their founding document — they are required to find human causation for climate change.

So, we should present these and other unanswered questions and straight-out deceptions until the cows come home, remembering that our audience is not the warmsters—we should address the voters who can kick out the gullible, negligent politicians. Why are they negligent? Because they took insufficient care to seek counsel from both sides of a demonstrably strong and continuing controversy.

All the while we should be endlessly, it goes without saying, creative, courteous and light-hearted.

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123 Thoughts on “Climate of conversation

  1. Simon on 30/04/2018 at 10:30 am said:

    What’s a warmster? Does it include all of these scientific organisation?
    A good theory fits the facts. You have to either prove that the facts are wrong or propose an alternative theory that is scientifically valid. Good luck with that.

  2. Richard Treadgold on 30/04/2018 at 11:33 am said:

    Simon,

    You are highly practised at missing the point here. The warmsters don’t have a theory. If they do, you will kindly mention the paper that describes it. Perhaps you can also mention papers that validate it, but I doubt it. Even if you had “a good theory that fits the facts”, the scientific method calls on you to justify it, not on others to refute it. But that’s what I meant in saying “there is no properly formed hypothesis behind the warmsters’ case, which means it is perfectly unfalsifiable.”

    Now, seriously, I’d like you to refute that statement by producing a published hypothesis. I’d love to have a theory to dissect and it’s a shame that you cannot produce one. I wonder why it doesn’t exist? Can you explain that?

    PS: I use the term ‘warmster’ because it sounds more amiable than ‘alarmist’. I don’t hate the opponents.

  3. Stephanie Hawking on 30/04/2018 at 11:36 am said:

    The oil companies have accepted the science. More greenhouse gas more greenhouse effect more warming. There is no scientific debate.

    The question is, when there is an existential threat to human civilisation, should those who want to keep burning fossil fuels be permitted to tell lies?

    And does it matter?

    With more frequent severe weather events occurring more people are demanding action.

    Even so, it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

  4. Richard Treadgold on 30/04/2018 at 1:49 pm said:

    Ah yes, Arrhenius, 120 years ago. If you answer the two questions I just posed on the previous thread, I’ll read this again and catch up with its latest refutations.

  5. Andy on 30/04/2018 at 2:52 pm said:

    Fun fact. Arrhenius was a board member for the Swedish Institute for Racial Hygene in Stockholm

    There was no scientific debate on the science of eugenics at that time

    For some reason we don’t hear much about it now,

  6. Mack on 30/04/2018 at 3:04 pm said:

    “The oil companies have accepted the science”.
    Of course they have, Stephanie,….they revel in “the science”. Exxon provides sponsorship and teeshirts to the gullible loons who turn up for their regular blabfests. They like this million dollar racket….anything to keep the price of petrol and oil up for the sucker consumer…let all the looney believing govts. put more tax on petrol in any form of ETS or anything…it provides a permanent “tax take” giving the companies improved revenue streaming.
    But they are oil AND GAS companies, Stephanie. GAS… the stuff they want you to burn for ELECTRICITY.
    Oh….Electricity, the way of the future for cars….low “emissions”…yeees…let’s worship the “greenhouse” religion. …because that evil high “emission” coal is so abundant and cheap….and so damn compeditive.
    The oil and gas companies think you looney believers are a joke. I know a friend who’s talked to a few of their top executives from Chevron
    It’s liquid fuel industry verses the solid fuel industry, Stephanie…nothing to do with “the science”.

  7. Simon on 30/04/2018 at 4:42 pm said:

    You have bought this “fun” fact up many times Andy. It has nothing to do with the scientific validity of Arrhenius’s climate work.

    Mack’s global conspiracy is getting bigger and bigger all of the time…

  8. Mack on 30/04/2018 at 7:10 pm said:

    “Mack’s global conspiracy is getting bigger and bigger all of the time….
    Nah, Simon, you’ve obviously been born yesterday….and haven’t a clue of how easily mass indoctrination of a populace by a govt. can take place…especially with a fear factor.
    For well over 40 yrs we’ve been fed this “climate change” crap, and every fearmongering kook prediction has failed to eventuate. So no conspiracy, Simon…..just being old enough to be able to see the whole AGW scam in its entireity
    You’re obviously thicker than Paul Watson, here…
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=silfiTY32xo

  9. Mack on 30/04/2018 at 8:03 pm said:

    Here’s your mass indoctrination by the govt. at work in NZ, Simon…
    So is this video real, Simon? …or just some fake conspiratorial video?..
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/climate-change/news/video.cfm?c_id=26&gal_objectid=11634737&gallery_id=160389

  10. Simon on 30/04/2018 at 9:09 pm said:

    So… Did John Key’s National Government start this mass indoctrination programme? And it has been continued by the incoming government? How does that work? Is there a secret agreement between all of the parties in the House? To what end? Is it all about growing vegetables and walking to school or is it much deeper than that?

  11. Mack on 30/04/2018 at 10:59 pm said:

    “Did John Key’s National Government start this mass indoctrination programme?”
    No ,Simon, the “greenhouse” hypothesis would have gradually been phased into the syllabus’s of all the Western schools around about the early ’80s , I would think. …could have been the late ’70s, ..somewhere there.
    It really is a bi-partisan, introduction into the schools, because both left and right support this piece of crap science….it’s EVERY politician’s dream….tax the air, at the same time being caring and responsible for saving the planet. We never heard of it, when I was at school.
    “And it has been continued by the incoming government?”
    Actually, to be honest, I really don’t know. I ‘ve got 2 primary school grandchildren at the moment, and their father tells me we haven’t noticed them receiving any of this AGW nonsense….yet. I have hope that it may have even been taken out of the curriculum….fingers crossed. It could have been fazed out a bit by the Bill English government?
    But then we’ve got this dopey woman, (with a rampant Greens), running the country, who considers it to be her “nuclear free moment”….so anything’s possible.
    Growing vegetables and walking to school is very good stuff, Simon. I walked and bused to school. My father grew vegetables and provided a lot of food for the family, as did a many other fathers in the ’50s.
    Nothing to do with saving the planet, though, Simon. Greens were something we ate,… not loons with placards, marching in the streets.

  12. Ian Cooper on 01/05/2018 at 2:44 pm said:

    My brothers kids were at primary school about 10 years ago when one of them asked me about ‘global warming.’ They were obviously being taught about it at school but wanted my opinion on the subject. They have slept well on that score, only worrying about the real problems of the world that they can solve since. In effect I confirmed their beliefs that their teachers didn’t know it all, especially if uncle disagreed!

  13. Ian Cooper on 01/05/2018 at 2:58 pm said:

    I just watched your video link Mack. Had to laugh at some of the solutions those poor deluded kids were offering to overcome those nasty gases causing the world to overheat! Growing vegetables at home. Something a lot of people did when I grew up out of necessity, and many still do in our low wage economy. Walking everywhere. It wasn’t a matter of choice back then, unless you had a bike to get around on. Funnily enough when were old enough and earning money, we bought motorbikes & cars, not because we were lazy but because we wished to explore the wide wide world outside of our village/town/city.

    We walked & rode to school on bikes in our thousands everyday. Compare that today where I see big strapping high school lads being dropped off at the gate by their mothers, usually in a SUV! Ohh the ignominy of it all. We did all of those things back in the 60’s & 70’s but the temperature kept rising! This is the rot that young minds are being fed by over-zealous teachers. I felt that the kids weren’t truly inspired though, thankfully, so there may be hope for science yet. Scepticism may still be alive and well in this new generation. We shall have to wait and see.

  14. Andy on 01/05/2018 at 7:28 pm said:

    You have bought this “fun” fact up many times Andy. It has nothing to do with the scientific validity of Arrhenius’s climate work.

    Of course the greenhouse effect and climate sensitivity is settled science

    97 scientists agree

    What is ECS again? Something between 1 degree C and 4. deg C? Same as it was 30 odd years ago?

    i.e the same value that was determined by a committee back then

    #settledscience

  15. Ian Cooper on 02/05/2018 at 11:30 am said:

    I’m sure that I have read somewhere that Arrhenius produced another climate paper near the end of his life that refutes the basis of his earlier work in this field, but it has only been published in German and isn’t well known. I will have to do some digging to see if my memory is still what it used to be.

  16. Mack on 02/05/2018 at 12:17 pm said:

    Apologies for a couple of bad spelling mistakes in my comments.
    compeditive…..competitive
    fazed……phased.
    My old steam-driven computer hasn’t got a spell check.
    I’ve mentioned this lousy spelling to Louis Hissink , here…
    https://jennifermarohasy.com/2011/03/total-emissivity-of-the-earth-and-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide/#comment-478001
    Simon and Stephanie…you should read the rest of that entire thread, too….for, as some people say… “You might learn something”.

  17. Kleinefeldmaus on 02/05/2018 at 3:47 pm said:

    @Simon
    on April 30, 2018 at 12:34 pm re Arrhanius and further to Ian Cooper
    on May 2, 2018 at 11:30 am this might be of interest:-

    The Shattered Greenhouse: How Simple Physics Demolishes the “Greenhouse Effect”.

    Timothy Casey B.Sc. (Hons.)
    Consulting Geologist

    Some former elements of this article such as the laser experiment, radiation budget commentary, and the UHI implications are to be later reproduced in an additional article concerning the mid-20th century revival of the “Greenhouse Effect”. This notice will be removed when the new article is uploaded.

    Abstract

    This article explores the “Greenhouse Effect” in contemporary literature and in the frame of physics, finding a conspicuous lack of clear thermodynamic definition. The “Greenhouse Effect” is defined by Arrhenius’ (1896) modification of Pouillet’s backradiation idea so that instead of being an explanation of how a thermal gradient is maintained at thermal equilibrium, Arrhenius’ incarnation of the backradiation hypothesis offered an extra source of power in addition to the thermally conducted heat which produces the thermal gradient in the material. The general idea as expressed in contemporary literature, though seemingly chaotic in its diversity of emphasis, shows little change since its revision by Svante Arrhenius in 1896, and subsequent refutation by Robert Wood in 1909. The “Greenhouse Effect” is presented as a radiation trap whereby changes in atmospheric composition resulting in increased absorption lead to increased surface temperatures. However, since the composition of a body, isolated from thermal contact by a vacuum, cannot affect mean body temperature, the “Greenhouse Effect” has, in fact, no material foundation. Compositional variation can change the distribution of heat within a body in accordance with Fourier’s Law, but it cannot change the overall temperature of the body. Arrhenius’ Backradiation mechanism did, in fact, duplicate the radiative heat transfer component by adding this component to the conductive heat flow between the earth’s surface and the atmosphere, when thermal conduction includes both contact and radiative modes of heat transfer between bodies in thermal contact. Moreover, the temperature of the earth’s surface and the temperature in a greenhouse are adequately explained by elementary physics. Consequently, the dubious explanation presented by the “Greenhouse Effect” hypothesis is an unnecessary complication. Furthermore, this hypothesis has neither direct experimental confirmation nor direct empirical evidence of a material nature. Thus the notion of “Anthropogenic Global Warming”, which rests on the “Greenhouse Effect”, also has no real foundation.

  18. Mack on 02/05/2018 at 5:59 pm said:

    Yes, hopefully there’s a realisation, that trying to prevent flatulance in the poor cows of NZ, in order to control this planet’s temperature,.. much like divining the weather examining chicken entrails….we’ve finally reached peak stupid.

  19. Maggy Wassilieff on 03/05/2018 at 9:13 am said:

    @Ian Cooper

    Yes Arrhenius did publish another paper pulling back from his earlier view on Global Warming.
    (I think Angstrom had pointed out some errors in his thinking).

    Here’s a translation and a commentary of his 1906 amended view.

    https://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/Arrhenius%201906,%20final.pdf

  20. Ian Cooper on 03/05/2018 at 1:22 pm said:

    Excellent stuff Maggy and Kleinefeldmaus. Interesting to see how the ‘problem’ was treated a hundred years ago compared to situation now. Free of the hyperbole those people just got on with the science to get to the answer and were ready concede earlier errors to advance the science.

    Good to see my memory is not playing tricks on me.

  21. Stephanie Hawking on 04/05/2018 at 8:57 am said:

    Maggy Wassilieff. If you looked at normal science sites instead of your favourite crank sites you would know that Angstrom was wrong – the more CO2 the greater the greenhouse effect, and Arrhenius’s calculation was pretty much within the present range of climate sensitivity. Of course Arrhenius in 1896 had no idea we would burn the amount of fossil fuel we have.

    We have about 20 years to reduce net emissions to zero. Staying within 2C is a faint hope.

    New Zealand is up to its ears in “waffle”, largely because farming accounts for nearly half the GHG emissions. And emissions have been increasing, instead of decreasing as required morally, and ethically under the Paris agreement.

    Electricity is already nearly all renewable so not much room to more there, but worth decarbonising completely. Not that difficult. Wind turbines are around 12MW now. We could do it.

    Transport is the only other sector where the technology is available now to reduce emissions. What does National want to do? Find more carbon to burn. C + O2 = end of civilisation.

    John Key typified National’s attitude to the clear warnings from the science: buy a gas-gobbling car to show off in.

    Science is not about wishful thinking and cult belief, it’s about evidence and expert judgement. Looking back the last person on this site to qualify was Professor James Renwick.

  22. Simon on 04/05/2018 at 9:13 am said:

    Did you actually read the 1906 Arrhenius paper? It’s an attempt to quantify the greenhouse effect of water vapour. In no way it is a retraction.

  23. Andy on 04/05/2018 at 9:20 am said:

    I’m looking out the window at snow down to lake level and people still expect me to believe that we only have 20 years to solve “global warming”

  24. Maggy Wassilieff on 04/05/2018 at 9:59 am said:

    @Simon/Dennis Horne

    Yes of course I read the Arrhenius paper.. and had done so yonks ago also.

    Remember Arrhenius had a theory about what caused the Ice Ages… and set about with his “chemical CO2 theory”.
    Such an influential man… that poor old Milankovitch was given the bum’s rush for quite a few years after he expounded his theory about change’s in Earth’s orbit.

    Well, facts will out… and Poor old Arrhenius was dead wrong about the cause of Ice ages.

    Hey, look at this new paper showing what happens to Global Temperatures when you don’t use dodgy data…
    Temperature trends with reduced impact of ocean air temperature
    http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0958305X18756670

  25. The Terrible Trolls, they’re everywhere. Other than some kind of inducement, their obsessive compulsive impelling expellations are a mystery to me.

  26. Simon on 04/05/2018 at 2:30 pm said:

    They were both right, Milankovitch cycles were the forcing and the water vapour effect and ocean storage of CO2 is the feedback.

    “Coastal stations and hill stations facing ocean winds are normally more warm-trended than the valley stations that are sheltered from dominant oceans winds.” I would have thought that was rather obvious, unless you believe that oceans are not warming.

  27. Mack on 04/05/2018 at 4:34 pm said:

    “…….required morally, and ethically under the Paris agreement.” says Stephanie.
    Aaahahahahahaha….you talk about morals and ethics ? Stephanie.
    Yeah, it’s moral and ethical to take children who still believe in Santa Claus…and then fill their heads with alarming, “planet in crisis”, pollution, “greenhouse gas”, ozone hole, weather armageddon, polar bear, ice melting, bullshit. You wonder why our teenage suicide rate is so high in this country, Stephanie?
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/climate-change/news/video.cfm?c_id=26&gal_objectid=11634737&gallery_id=160389
    Yeah, and it’s really moral and ethical for these Koolaid saturated wankers, to jet half way round the world for COP 22, at a $1000/ night resort in Marrakesh….when there are children in the world starving.

  28. KillerBean on 05/05/2018 at 3:05 am said:

    Stephanie:
    “We have about 20 years to reduce net emissions to zero.”
    You have hit the nail squarely on the head with that one, that is the reason I am skeptical about climate change.
    I am in my mid 50’s, when I was in junior school I was told that the world would run out of food within 20 years and we would all starve, it didn’t.
    When I was in high school i was told oil would run out within 20 years, it didn’t. Then I was told there would be no ice caps by the turn of the century, the ice caps are doing just fine.
    If the global warming theory was true the scientists would not have to fiddle the data to make it fit, its a complete load of tosh.

    The UK is the only country in the world that is looking forward to global warming, so they changed the name to climate change to try and fool us.

    Wind turbines? Are you serious?

  29. If the warmistas really believed in global warming they would not be jetting around the world living it up at other people’s expense. It’s a racket!

  30. Stephanie Hawking on 06/05/2018 at 5:54 pm said:

    Maggy Wassilieff: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0958305X18756670

    The implication from this is therefore that new and fast-changing heat balances over the Earth are better captured in temperature data when no large volume of water as larger lakes or oceans can act as a heat buffer absorbing and delaying faster changes in the heat balance over the surface.

    Even surrounded by water, as NZ is, that “can act as a buffer absorbing and delaying faster changes in the heat balance over the surface”, the NIWA 11-station series raw data shows a temperature increase of nearly 1C over 77 years.

  31. Richard Treadgold on 07/05/2018 at 11:09 am said:

    Stephanie,

    Merely to assert a temperature increase says nothing about its cause. It’s impossible that human activity was responsible for that warming over those 77 years. There’s no evidence for it.

  32. Simon on 07/05/2018 at 2:41 pm said:

    IPCC AR5 Summary for Policymakers (which you have quoted many times): “It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in GHG concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together. “

  33. Mack on 07/05/2018 at 4:12 pm said:

    “It is EXTREMELY LIKELY that…..”
    Simon bashes the ol’ IPCC bible again.
    It’s the same old speculative crap, year after year, we get from you AGW brainwashed “intellectuals”.
    All your “scientific” papers are liberally sprinkled with it….”is likely to..”… ” is expected to…”…”could”….”should”…..”would”….”may”….”will possibly”…..
    Yeah, it’s extremely likely that pigs will grow wings and fly, too.

  34. Simon on 07/05/2018 at 4:25 pm said:

    These words have precise and specific meanings related to the probability of an event occurring. I find it quite verbose reading as well; blame the delegations that argue over the precise wording of individual paragraphs. Richard likes to quote the IPCC policy documents so it is fair enough to quote them back to him.

  35. Alexander K on 07/05/2018 at 5:21 pm said:

    I am well into my eighth decade, so have seen many changes in fashionable nonsense promulgated by supposedly well-educated men and women such as Paul Erlich, whose Malthusian prognostications were pushed at an entire generation of students in the the latter half of the twentieth century and have since been proven to be not just mistaken but utterly wrong as the years have passed. About the only new tactic employed by the doomsayers is that they have extended the time span of their predictions to ensure that they will be dead and gone long before the time when their predictions are due to be fulfilled and thus put themselves beyond any possibility of ridicule.

  36. Stephanie Hawking on 07/05/2018 at 5:50 pm said:

    More than 30,000 scientists publishing in the field of climate science, experts in the field, have judged that the evidence is unambiguous: human activity is causing global warming and climate change. The IPCC has done review of the literature. To maintain the climate within changes we can adapt to, we must reduce our GHG emissions now.

    If you don’t believe that then you have a problem understanding science and how it works.

    https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26122017/climate-change-science-2017-year-review-evidence-impact-faster-more-extreme
    Climate Change Is Happening Faster Than Expected, and It’s More Extreme. New research suggests human-caused emissions will lead to bigger impacts on heat and extreme weather, and sooner than the IPCC warned just three years ago. DEC 2017

    If this link to NATURE does not work I’ll give you a code:
    https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04931-6?
    Can the world kick its fossil-fuel addiction fast enough? APRIL 2018
    Clean energy is growing quickly. But time is running out to rein in carbon emissions.

  37. Mack on 07/05/2018 at 5:51 pm said:

    Yeah, that’s right, Simon….you’ve even got the English language mathematically explained out by calculation ….
    “Extremely likely”….something like 93% isn’t it, Simon?
    “Very likely”….some other number….”Likely”….another number…..wow, that’s so scientific.
    Bloody marvellous, that all the scientists on this planet have sorted these numbers out. An amazing feat of,collection, interpreting and organising this mathematical “fact”.
    You need to graph it out, Simon, … use TRUTH on the y axis, and LIE on the x axis.

  38. Mack on 07/05/2018 at 6:23 pm said:

    TRUTH could be on the x axis, and LIE on the y axis, Simon.
    You work it out….you’re much more intelligent than me.

  39. Maggy Wassilieff on 07/05/2018 at 8:56 pm said:

    @ The entity calling himself Stephanie Hawking
    re your May 6 posting to me.

    Yes, I have always been puzzled as to why NZ’s Av. annual temperature trend was so much greater than that of the World’s global temperature trend.

    7SS (version1) had NZ at 0.97 +/- 0.26 C/century
    7SS (version 2) was 0.91C/century
    11SS is 1.0C for period 1931-2008 = 1.3C/century

    These temps are running at 50-100% more the the Global (land & Ocean) surface T of 0.64C/century
    (IPCC 2013: 0.85C in period 1880-2012).

    Now, we know that about 0.7C of NZ’s warming trend occurred between 1945 and 1956, and there was very little change in mean T (0.06C/decade) between 1970 and the 2010s.

    (McGlone, M.; Walker, S. 2011: Potential effects of climate change on New Zealand’s terrestrial biodiversity and policy recommendations for mitigation, adaptation and research. Science for Conservation 312. Department of Conservation, Wellington. 77 p) – p.8.

    So how to explain NZ’s rather peculiar warming trends. It doesn’t seem that our seas/oceans are having a large moderating/buffering effect….. could they be responsible for the warming?

    Some years back we only heard about ENSO effects on our climate; but now some folks are investigating the effects the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillations; The Souther Annular Mode; The Indian Ocean Dipole and the South Pacific Subtropical Dipole (IPO; SAM; IOD; SPSD) are having on our weather and their contributions/interactions to our climate.

    I’m not satisfied that the science is settled in favour of CO2 as the control of our present and past climates. We’ve barely opened the chapter book on the effect of ocean oscillations on climate variability.

    NZ climate hasn’t been stable over the last few thousand years. We’ve had warm, wet periods (times of massive erosion in NI axial ranges) and cool dry periods (times of soil deposition).
    We’ve had glacial advances and retreats during the last few thousand years.
    It seems folks have forgotten just how variable our climate has been.

  40. Stephanie Hawking on 08/05/2018 at 2:54 pm said:

    I’m not satisfied that the science is settled in favour of CO2 as the control of our present and past climates.

    Climate concerns the statistics of weather. Natural variability makes if difficult to extract the signal of more energy in the climate system. Global mean surface temperature is a construct, like “average woman”.

    The GHGs are transparent to incoming shortwave radiation (sunlight) and opaque to outgoing longwave radiation (infrared). Basic undisputed physics that explains all the warming.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujkcTZZlikg
    Richard Alley – 4.6 Billion Years of Earth’s Climate History: The Role of CO2
    National Academy of Sciences. June 2015

  41. Mike Jowsey on 08/05/2018 at 6:12 pm said:

    Alexander K – Not quite as long in the tooth as you, sir, I agree. The Malthusians have extended the timeframe. So when they are dead, they care not as much. As for the living, ask any climate guru “what climate is perfect for the earth and are we there yet?”

  42. Mack on 08/05/2018 at 11:08 pm said:

    “…..transparent to incoming shortwave……opaque to outgoing longwave…..” parrots Stephanie.
    I just love hearing those words…..”transparent” and “opaque”. They sound so sciencey, yet “BASIC”.
    Atmospheric quantum thermodynamics for dummies……or parrots.
    “transparent in….opaque out”
    “transparent in….opaque out”
    “transparent in…..opaque out” (squawk)
    Polly want a cracker.
    “minus 18C ….plus 15C”
    “minus 18C…..plus 15C”
    “minus 18C…..plus 15C” (squawk) (squawk)
    “the Greenhouse”
    “Greenhouse”
    “Greenhouse” (squawk) (squawk)
    “greenhouse”.
    “transparent in….opaque out”
    “transparent in…..opaque out” (squawk)
    “blanket”
    “blanket’
    “blanket” (squawk) (squawk)
    You’re a well trained parrot from the NZ “education” system, Stephanie.

  43. Andy on 11/05/2018 at 8:28 am said:

    The IPCC only attribute “most” of the warming since 1950 to anthropogenic GHG emissions as far as I know, which doesn’t account for the pre 1950s warming

  44. Andy on 11/05/2018 at 4:50 pm said:

    Climate scientists are now postulating that another species existed before humans so as to explain the PETM

    These people are barking mad

  45. Andy on 12/05/2018 at 11:24 am said:

    Dennis Horne at Hot Topic

    You cannot reason with people who categorically refuse to understand the greenhouse effect any more than you can reason with paedophiles. If you want society to be safe you lock them away.

    Charming

  46. Richard Treadgold on 12/05/2018 at 12:57 pm said:

    Yes, and in the same vein: “You cannot reason with people who categorically refuse to answer your questions, any more than you can reason with morons. “

  47. Mike Jowsey on 12/05/2018 at 8:10 pm said:

    Yes Andy, Dennis the Menace was never charming. He’s just a twat. Often such twats make allegations which are projections. Just as the Democrats made allegations of Russian collision against the Trump campaign yet are now caught in a collusion mire themselves and Trump is free of any evidence against him after 2 years intense scrutiny. So maybe Dennis is the paedophile throwing stones in the glasshouse.

  48. Maggy Wassilieff on 13/05/2018 at 8:17 am said:

    @Mike Jowsey,

    I’m sure Dennis isn’t a paedophile; he’s just a recycler of climate alarmist abuse.
    http://joannenova.com.au/2012/11/breaking-skeptics-are-like-paedophiles-drug-robyn-williams-abc-time-to-protest/

  49. Andy on 13/05/2018 at 11:25 am said:

    If not understanding a scientific theory is reason for imprisionment then the Gulags would soon be pretty full

  50. Stephanie Hawking on 13/05/2018 at 11:31 am said:

    Richard Treadgold
    Oxford professor Myles Allen presents as good an explanation of global warming as you will find anywhere:
    http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/04/the-alsup-aftermath/
    You can ask questions.

  51. Mack on 13/05/2018 at 5:44 pm said:

    It’s amazing just how perverse you are, Stephanie.
    You may be addressing Richard, but unfortunately for you, Richard allows a certain degree of freedom of speech, and you’ve got to contend with me, also.
    I’ve already explained everything to you, about the good professor Myles Allen of Oxford…about his huge “removal” of the upper atmosphere in his “explanation” of the “basic science” of the wacko “greenhouse effect”….but of course, nothing I’ve said would have remotely registered in your head, because it “went in?” one opaque ear and out the other transparent ear. It’s another strange phenomenon of the little “greenhouse” affliction, both you and Simon suffer from… also, it seems, Myles Allen, and all the rest of the AGW brainwashed academics at Oxford University…and any other University you may care to think of, Stephanie.
    See, here’s my comment again, Stephanie,….
    http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/04/the-alsup-aftermath/#comment-702822
    And you can see that Myles Allen even comments directly above mine…he’s read what I’ve said about him…so why doesn’t he call me out?…..why does he just prefer to talk to a rabbit?

  52. Stephanie Hawking on 14/05/2018 at 11:24 am said:

    The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science…
    https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/AAAS%20Statement%20on%20Release%20of%20National%20Climate%20Assessment%20Report.pdf
    AAAS Statement on Release of National Climate Assessment Report, November 2017

    “The overwhelming scientific evidence of our changing climate cannot be ignored. Scientists at federal agencies, national labs and academic institutions worked to summarize what we know about climate change in the United States and around the world. The Climate Science Special Report lays out the most recent scientific evidence of climate change, once again confirming that climate change is real, it’s happening now, and human activity is the primary cause. [continues]

  53. Stephanie Hawking on 14/05/2018 at 11:28 am said:

    Simple explanation here:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc0QiP4D5IA
    The Story of Climate Change (April 2017). Climate State. April 2017
    Bill McKibben from http://350.org ,Jim Hansen, Katharine Hayhoe and others give us an update on the science and solutions to climate change.

  54. Mack on 14/05/2018 at 1:21 pm said:

    Bill McKibben….fully blown nutter…..Richard has an item about him, right here at CCG , Stephanie…
    https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2013/06/wild-bill-mckibben-outlaws-of-physics/
    I particularly like Richard saying “…..but his wild eyes cannot help but flash his burning lunacy”.
    A bit of good reading for you there, too, Stephanie.

  55. Mack on 14/05/2018 at 2:03 pm said:

    Jim Hansen……aaahahahhaha….well, Jim Hansen….this Jim Hansen giving his testimony to Congress in 1988, Stephanie?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hansen#/media/File:James_Hansen.jpg
    Here’s what I’ve said about Jim Hansen….
    https://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2018/01/climate-change-just-got-personal.html?showComment=1516344914022#c2227445517051063591
    But……just pretend I don’t exist and keep posting, Stephanie.

  56. Simon on 14/05/2018 at 2:32 pm said:

    Mack,
    Your opinions do not have a great deal of weight on the internet because (let’s be honest here) you are not an expert. Maybe you can accuse Bill McKibben of being a lobbyist but you can not say that about James Hansen. He is a foremost authority on the climate and is still publishing papers. I really hope that he is wrong and that 2°C global warming is not dangerous, because that is where we are heading.

  57. Stephanie Hawking on 14/05/2018 at 3:23 pm said:

    American Physical Society, statement on Climate Change, November 2015
    https://www.aps.org/policy/statements/15_3.cfm

    Earth’s changing climate is a critical issue and poses the risk of significant environmental, social and economic disruptions around the globe. While natural sources of climate variability are significant, multiple lines of evidence indicate that human influences have had an increasingly dominant effect on global climate warming observed since the mid-twentieth century. Although the magnitudes of future effects are uncertain, human influences on the climate are growing. The potential consequences of climate change are great and the actions taken over the next few decades will determine human influences on the climate for centuries.

  58. Mack on 14/05/2018 at 7:46 pm said:

    I didn’t accuse Bill McKibben of being a lobbyist, Simon…I accused him of being a fully blown nutter.
    (Referring to James Hansen)…..”I really hope that he is wrong and that 2deg C global warming is not dangerous….” says Simon, with alarmist crap from Hansen rattling around in his subconscience.
    About as dangerous as fast, low flying pigs, Simon.
    Here’s a comment which will give you an overview, and insight wrt Hansen, Simon…..I mention him once..
    http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/05/time-for-the-slayers-to-put-up-or-shut-up/#comment-78670
    btw, Simon, if you think that science presented on the internet does not carry “a great deal of weight”, you will be sadly disappointed.

  59. Stephanie Hawking on 14/05/2018 at 9:24 pm said:

    National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
    http://nas-sites.org/americasclimatechoices/
    Climate Change: Evidence and Causes

    There are well-understood physical mechanisms by which changes in the amounts of greenhouse gases cause climate changes. [continues]

    Further climate change is inevitable; if emissions of greenhouse gases continue unabated, future changes will substantially exceed those that have occurred so far. There remains a range of estimates of the magnitude and regional expression of future change, but increases in the extremes of climate that can adversely affect natural ecosystems and human activities and infrastructure are expected.

  60. Ian Cooper on 15/05/2018 at 9:07 am said:

    Steph, your comment above, “but increases in the extremes of climate that can adversely affect natural ecosystems and human activities and infrastructure are expected.” flies in the face of where the IPCC see trends in extreme weather. The IPCC rightly follow the lead of the scientists in those fields, e.g. those who study cyclones/hurricanes etc, who say that there is no trend either way regarding extreme weather events. Given the obvious increase in CO2 up until now, how can you make your claim that we are ‘expecting an increase in extreme weather events,’ and when is this likely to happen? Since the increase in CO2 hasn’t brought about an increase so far, how is this supposed to happen?

  61. Stephanie Hawking on 15/05/2018 at 10:08 am said:

    Coo, not my claim: National Academy of Sciences. Absence of (statistically valid) evidence is not proof of absence. Climate science advances every month.

    For example, new evidence:
    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0140-y

    IPCC will update this year. In the meantime here is a bit about the latest US Government report:
    https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/11/us-government-climate-report-climate-change-is-real-and-our-fault/

    Here is the report:
    https://science2017.globalchange.gov/

    Here is the update from the Royal Society:
    https://royalsociety.org/~/media/policy/Publications/2017/27-11-2017-Climate-change-updates-report.pdf

    Californians understand the science:
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/may/14/california-battered-by-global-warmings-weather-whiplash-is-fighting-to-stop-it

    When the IPCC releases its new report, you will accept it, “rightly follow[ing] the lead of the scientists in those fields…

  62. Andy on 15/05/2018 at 2:38 pm said:

    From the Ars Technica article linked above

    Many lines of evidence demonstrate that it is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. Over the last century, there are no convincing alternative explanations supported by the extent of the observational evidence

    This is just parroting the IPCC line, which fails to give any explanation for the pre-1950s warming which was of similar magnitude to post-1950s warming

  63. Ian Cooper on 15/05/2018 at 3:07 pm said:

    Steph, I’m not sure how the IPCC are going to come up with the conclusions that you are suggesting when the latest on tropical cyclones & hurricanes looks like the graphs to be found at the following sites?

    http://policlimate.com/tropical/frequency_12months.png

    http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/images/tc-graph-1969-2012.png

    Is the IPCC going to revert to corrupting the science of those working in the field to maintain your delusion of extreme weather coming in an unknown future period?

    Don’t hold your breath on this one Steph. Blue is not a good look!

  64. Stephanie Hawking on 15/05/2018 at 7:42 pm said:

    @Coo. Neither of your graphs negate the expert statements I linked too; one is “alt-science” from the Cato Institute and the other is unlabelled. (Australia?) The evidence has been evaluated by experts and is as James Hansen predicted around 1988: severe weather events are now worse.

    (3:07) Is the IPCC going to revert to corrupting the science …
    (9:07) The IPCC rightly follow the lead of the scientists in those fields …

    You seem confused. Let me help you. The IPCC reports synthesise the science at the time of writing and represent a consensus position. Like textbooks they cannot include the latest work in the field.

    That’s why I pointed you at updated reports from scientific societies.

  65. KillerBean on 15/05/2018 at 8:25 pm said:

    Steph, James Hansen predicted way back in 2008 that there would be no ice caps in 10 years (2018). Are the ice caps still there?

  66. Stephanie Hawking on 16/05/2018 at 12:06 am said:

    James Hansen predicted way back in 2008 that there would be no ice caps in 10 years (2018). Are the ice caps still there?

    Hansen was not talking about Antarctica.

    Arctic sea ice is being lost:
    http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
    http://fox2now.com/2018/02/26/nasa-releases-time-lapse-of-the-disappearing-arctic-polar-ice-cap/

    Doing science is not like picking winning Lotto numbers, you don’t have to be perfect to be useful.

  67. Mack on 16/05/2018 at 10:12 am said:

    Ice capS….plural, there’s 2 of them, Stephanie. not that it makes any difference to the lying trougher, nutty fraudster, Hansen on his $180,000 salary.
    “…..you don’t have to be perfect to be useful”. So you’re going to get yourself !/2 pregnant then, Stephanie?

  68. Simon on 16/05/2018 at 12:58 pm said:

    James Hansen predicted way back in 2008 that there would be no ice caps in 10 years (2018)…
    I’m calling BS on this one, reference please.

  69. Mack on 16/05/2018 at 8:20 pm said:

    Yes, I think you’re right, Simon,… looks as if KillerBean got a little bit too loose with his tongue when saying iceCAPS….apologies, a bit to Stephanie as well.
    The nearest thing I can come up with reference to what Killerbean said, is the 2nd sentence here…
    https://principia-scientific.org/nasas-top-climate-scientist-discredited-in-failed-arctic-melt-prediction/
    This does not preclude the fact that Hansen is chief bedwetter. He will have gone through quite a few mattresses in his lifetime… some say the whole syndrome could be the result of him snorting a lot of coal dust during the 1950’s.

  70. KillerBean on 17/05/2018 at 1:13 am said:

    Simon I’ll hold my hand up and say I wasn’t quite right, he was referring to just the arctic.

    https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1988&dat=20080624&id=7mgiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7qkFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5563,4123490&safe=strict&hl=en

  71. Ian Cooper on 17/05/2018 at 12:00 pm said:

    Steph. The first graph is by Dr Ryan Maue (clearly shown at the top of the graph). Dr Maue is one of the leaders in his field, hurricanes, cyclones etc. The data posted isn’t going to change in the time frame that you are talking about so if the IPCC comes to the false conclusion that things are getting more extreme it will be because they are ignoring the historical data steering them in the face.

    You can plainly see who produced the second graph when you read the url, bom.gov.au! I’m sure you must have heard of the BOM?

  72. BobD on 18/05/2018 at 10:08 am said:

    “Current datasets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century … No robust trends in annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts have been identified over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin”
    “In summary, there continues to be a lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale”
    “In summary, there is low confidence in observed trends in small-scale severe weather phenomena such as hail and thunderstorms because of historical data inhomogeneities and inadequacies in monitoring systems”
    “In summary, the current assessment concludes that there is not enough evidence at present to suggest more than low confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought or dryness (lack of rainfall) since the middle of the 20th century due to lack of direct observations, geographical inconsistencies in the trends, and dependencies of inferred trends on the index choice. Based on updated studies, AR4 conclusions regarding global increasing trends in drought since the 1970s were probably overstated. However, it is likely that the frequency and intensity of drought has increased in the Mediterranean and West Africa and decreased in central North America and north-west Australia since 1950”
    “In summary, confidence in large scale changes in the intensity of extreme extratropical cyclones since 1900 is low”
    -IPCC AR5 WGI Chapter 2
    http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/

  73. Richard Treadgold on 18/05/2018 at 10:18 am said:

    Well, that’s a useful effort, Bob, thanks, but you always quote factual material, when we find our biases more than adequate.

  74. BobD on 18/05/2018 at 10:35 am said:

    🙂

  75. Stephanie Hawking on 20/05/2018 at 9:38 am said:

    Cooper: “You can plainly see who produced the second graph when you read the url, bom.gov.au! I’m sure you must have heard of the BOM?”

    The graph is Number V Season. Where? I suggested Australia but it was a guess. You of course don’t care as long as it chimes with your preconceived notions.

  76. Stephanie Hawking on 20/05/2018 at 9:58 am said:

    BobD. You refer to IPCC reports. The IPCC concludes global warming will cause disruptive climate change and we need to reduce emissions. But you don’t accept that.

    https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/
    Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory

    1. Summary Statement April 25 2018
    Two frequently asked questions on global warming and hurricanes are the following:

    Have humans already caused a detectable increase in Atlantic hurricane activity or global tropical cyclone activity?

    What changes in hurricane activity are expected for the late 21st century, given the pronounced global warming scenarios from IPCC models?

    In this review, we address these questions in the context of published research findings. We will first present our main conclusions and then follow with some background discussion of the research that leads to these conclusions. “Detectable” change here will refer to a change that is large enough to be clearly distinguishable from the variability due to natural causes. Our main conclusions are:

    It is premature to conclude that human activities–and particularly greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming–have already had a detectable impact on Atlantic hurricane or global tropical cyclone activity. That said, human activities may have already caused changes that are not yet detectable due to the small magnitude of the changes or observational limitations, or are not yet confidently modeled (e.g., aerosol effects on regional climate).

    Anthropogenic warming by the end of the 21st century will likely cause tropical cyclones globally to be more intense on average (by 2 to 11% according to model projections for an IPCC mid-range scenario). This change would imply an even larger percentage increase in the destructive potential per storm, assuming no reduction in storm size.

    There are better than even odds that anthropogenic warming over the next century will lead to an increase in the occurrence of very intense tropical cyclones globally–an increase that would be substantially larger in percentage terms than the 2-11% increase in the average storm intensity. This increase in intense storm occurrence is projected despite a likely decrease (or little change) in the global numbers of all tropical cyclones. However, there is at present only low confidence that such an increase in very intense storms will occur in the Atlantic basin.

    Tropical cyclone rainfall rates will likely increase in the future due to anthropogenic warming and accompanying increase in atmospheric moisture content. Models project an increase on the order of 10-15% for rainfall rates averaged within about 100 km of the storm center by the end of the 21st century. There is already medium confidence for a detectable human contribution to past observed increases in heavy precipitation in general over global land regions and the United States, although this increase has not been formally detected for hurricane precipitation alone.

    Sea level rise–which very likely has a substantial human contribution to the global mean observed rise according to IPCC AR5–should be causing higher storm surge levels for tropical cyclones that do occur, all else assumed equal.

    More GHG means more energy in the climate system. The next IPCC report will likely find the evidence more compelling. In the meantime I don’t see anything reassuring.

    Nor does the Union of Concerned Scientists:
    https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and-impacts/impacts/hurricanes-and-climate-change.html#.WwCYTqSFPtQ

    More science here:
    https://www.skepticalscience.com/hurricanes-global-warming.htm

    Perhaps I’m looking in the wrong places. I should be looking at wattsup and notricks … like you do.

  77. Andy on 20/05/2018 at 10:47 am said:

    Perhaps I’m looking in the wrong places. I should be looking at wattsup and notricks … like you do

    Bob quoted the IPCC.

  78. Richard Treadgold on 20/05/2018 at 12:35 pm said:

    Stephanie,

    Hansen was not talking about Antarctica. Arctic sea ice is being lost

    True. Though Hansen also says in the 2008 article cited by KillerBean “the Earth’s atmosphere can only stay this loaded with man-made carbon dioxide for a couple more decades without changes such as mass extinction, ecosystem collapse and dramatic sea level rises … We see a tipping point occurring right before our eyes. The Arctic is the first tipping point and it’s occurring exactly the way we said it would. … in five to ten years, the Arctic will be free of sea ice in the summer.”

    But ten years later, there are no mass extinctions, no ecosystem collapse (whatever that means), and no dramatic sea level rises. No tipping points, and there’s plenty of sea ice. The lowest point was in 2012, but since then every year has had considerably more ice. The second lowest year was 2016, when the ice coverage was about 750,000 km 2 more than 2012. Since the variance between summer lows in the whole satellite record spans about 4 million square kilometres, that’s a substantial bounce-back.

    The differences between the winter highs amounts to about 2 million square kilometres; they’re pretty variable but not really decreasing. The winter high in the lowest summer year of 2012 was substantially above the 2016 high and close to the 1981-2010 average. Comparing the hemispheres, Antarctic sea ice has been raggedly increasing since 1979 (the satellite era), while Arctic sea ice has been declining at a similar rate.

    It’s fair to ask those who would alarm us (and even blame us) with the decline of Arctic sea ice for an explanation of the increase in Antarctic sea ice.

  79. Richard Treadgold on 20/05/2018 at 12:50 pm said:

    Stephanie,

    The IPCC concludes global warming will cause disruptive climate change and we need to reduce emissions. But you don’t accept that.

    Neither do I, nor many of us here. Why not, I hear you ask. The answer is remarkably straightforward.

    Firstly, because there are large holes in what the IPCC pretends is the evidence. Note that even the Royal Society in both NZ and the UK present no evidence for dangerous man-made global warming. You can cite as many activist-overrun scientific organisations as you can find, but they present no evidence either (they just cite the IPCC), nor have their membership been polled and many have resigned in protest and disgust.

    Secondly, because the founding document of the IPCC strongly forbids policy recommendations. Since they constantly recommend policy, why should we trust them? They too have shown themselves to be activists, not scientists. Remember, it’s called the INTERGOVERNMENTAL Panel on Climate Change — political from its birth.

    They and their ‘evidence’ are not so far persuasive. You want to persuade us? Then stop insulting us and give us evidence. We love it.

  80. Mack on 20/05/2018 at 3:15 pm said:

    “….present no evidence for dangerous man-made global warming.”
    “….present no evidence for any man-made global warming.” Richard.

  81. Richard Treadgold on 20/05/2018 at 3:41 pm said:

    Mack,

    You seem to be pulling me up for using the word “dangerous”, implying the RS did indeed provide evidence of man-made warming. If you are, my thinking is this: a case can be made for some atmospheric warming from CO2, thus it’s reasonable to expect there will be some little extra warming from our emissions, even though it has not yet been clearly detected and thus the RS probably referred to that at some point. I’m prepared to concede that. But one should use the word “dangerous” when looking for evidence because it is otherwise unnecessary to do anything about the man-made warming. Of course, the fact that future warming is widely considered dangerous is obvious, and I suggest it’s the only bit we really disagree with.

  82. Mack on 20/05/2018 at 8:08 pm said:

    Yes, Richard,
    I think that’s about the only thing we disagree on….as you can see from all my comments, I’m a total “denier”….prefer “denialist”, it’s more professional…,not believing there’s any such thing as a “greenhouse gas” ,…..one of the Sky Dragon Slayers. This puts me at odds with Anthony Watts, Roy Spencer, Jo Nova and her husband, Judith Curry, Lord Monckton, you , Barry Brill etc etc….. in fact, probably all the contributors of that book, Climate Change The Facts 2017,…maybe even Jennifer Marohasy.
    That’s just the people “on my side of the fence”, Richard….I’m up against newspapers, books, radio, TV news, TV documentaries, magazines, scientific journals,… every single facet of the msm…..all the schools, colleges and universities,,…all the politicians…..the RS, every scientific and meteorological institute, the defence forces, financial institutions, medical institutions, beauracrats….even all the churches, the Pope, …everybody.
    It gives new meaning to being, “anti-establishment”.
    It’s a dangerous and lonely place, but I cannot just undo what I’ve learned from the Mexican biologist, Nasif Nahle, back in 2011. I cannot just become a “lukewarmer”, like yourself and the others on our side of the fence.
    That said, I wouldn’t like to see any of our sceptic blogs closing down, or being booted off a sceptic blog….so I’ll not challenge your stance in future, Richard, ….apologies.

  83. Richard Treadgold on 20/05/2018 at 8:35 pm said:

    Mack,

    so I’ll not challenge your stance in future, Richard, ….apologies.

    No need, Mack. Not what I meant at all, just looking to be precise, but I see now where you’re coming from, so thanks.

  84. Mack on 21/05/2018 at 12:01 am said:

    Richard,
    Just as a matter of interest, to see how deeply the establishment has been incalcated with “climate change”…..just look at the definition of “denier” in the OXFORD DICTIONARY!
    https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/denier
    “…a prominent denier of global warming”
    “…a climate change denier”.
    That’s what you’re up against, a whole university full of AGW indoctrinated, ivory towered cloistered, highly intelligent, groupthink wackos, ……including Myles Allen, whose brain can’t think any further than the troposphere.
    Young people actually aspire to go to Oxford to study this “climate change” crap.

  85. Andy on 21/05/2018 at 11:53 am said:

    We shouldn’t get too hung up on whether we disagree with greenhouse theory or not. The key issue is around whether climate change is an immediate and existential threat

    Christchurch City Council seem to think so. They have re-ignited the coastal hazards issue by declining building consents on some coastal properties because of putative sea level rise projections. There are some heart-wrenching stories of people losing $200k investments in land because it no has no building allowed on it

  86. Mack on 21/05/2018 at 2:14 pm said:

    Here’s peak stupid……
    https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/insight/audio/2018645479/insight-farming-and-the-fight-against-climate-change
    The 3rd picture will go down in history as a good laugh, by people in the future….amongst all the other hilarious memorabilia associated with the AGW delusion in NZ .
    A caption could be the sheep thinking…”Shouldn’t you sheep be in here with us, fighting climate change ?”

  87. Man of Thessaly on 21/05/2018 at 8:14 pm said:

    Richard Treadgold on May 20, 2018 at 12:50 pm said:

    “… the founding document of the IPCC strongly forbids policy recommendations. Since they constantly recommend policy, why should we trust them?”

    Interesting claim, Richard. Are you referring to the paragraph 2 of “Principles Governing IPCC Work” (http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ipcc-principles/ipcc-principles.pdf)? It says:
    “IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy, although they may need to deal objectively with scientific, technical and socio-economic factors relevant to the application of particular policies.”

    Can you please provide some examples of the IPCC reports recommending policy, or not being “neutral with respect to policy”?

  88. Richard Treadgold on 21/05/2018 at 11:43 pm said:

    Man of Thessaly (and for God’s sake get yourself a proper name),

    It’s not just an interesting claim, it happens to be true. No, I’m not referring to the document you cite, I’m referring to the founding document. It’s 11:40 pm or I might dig it out for you, but it’s easy to find if you care.

    Here’s a sample of how lead authors are talking in New Zealand. This goes on around the world, paying lip service to what Lee, the IPCC chairman, parrots below (“we don’t make recommendations”), but they are empty words. These statements are soaked in policy recommendations and lack of neutrality. The IPCC are pushers of policy. The “work” they talk about communities becoming involved with is not objective science; they have scientists doing that for them. They’re pushing policy. Change your lives, find freedom, save the world. Just do as we tell you.

    Renwick (Lead Author) (https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11962099):
    I do not think New Zealand is being bold enough.
    There are well-known steps that could be taken to reduce our emissions by around 40 per cent compared to 1990 within the next 15 years.
    I’ll feel some confidence when I see them walking the walk, making actual policy changes and legislative incentives to move our economy and society in the right direction.
    Those untapped oil reserves would only appear to “benefit our country” because we don’t factor in the cost of the change in climate from burning those reserves.

    Hoesung Lee (IPCC chairman) (https://theconversation.com/ipcc-chair-hoesung-lee-we-can-meet-2-c-global-warming-target-if-we-act-fast-65418):
    Yes, 2°C is still attainable, if the world acts fast. The IPCC’s last comprehensive assessment established a carbon budget for 2ºC and higher ranges. It also found that to have a two in three chance of holding warming to 2ºC, it would be necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40-70% by 2050 compared to 2010, and to net zero by the end of the century. The longer this is delayed, the harder and costlier it will be to achieve.
    But I should make it clear that the IPCC doesn’t make recommendations.
    Business will be far from usual in a world of four, five or six degrees of warming. It is hard to envisage such a world, and the related costs. But a decarbonised economy will provide new jobs and opportunities as green technology develops.

    QUESTION: How can a global organisation such as the IPCC address locally relevant climate change science and action?

    Hoesung Lee: You’ve raised an issue we are well aware of at the IPCC. Governments want the panel to pay special attention to regional questions in our next assessment. After all, local impacts are most relevant to policy makers. We will do so, but exactly how will be determined when the panel scopes the outlines and structure of the report early next year.

    Dave Frame (Lead Author) (https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11556027):
    If we can create policies that contribute usefully to international efforts, work for us, and are attractive for others to adopt, we can help shape the way climate policy develops.

  89. BobD on 22/05/2018 at 9:27 am said:

    Mack,

    And let’s not forget the amount of methane in the atmosphere: it makes up a whopping 0.00017% !

  90. Simon on 22/05/2018 at 10:32 am said:

    Methane is 25 times more efficient as a greenhouse gas than CO2. It contributes about 10% of the total greenhouse effect at current concentrations.
    Future climate effects are dependent upon Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP). It’s impossible to separate policy from RCPs. For example, Andy complains that the Christchurch Council is assuming RCP8.5. RCP8.5 may be unlikely, but that is because the world is doing something about climate change. There are only two options; mitigation or adaption. Denial is never an option.

  91. BobD on 22/05/2018 at 11:23 am said:

    Simon,
    >There are only two options; mitigation or adaption.

    I vote for adaptation. When and if the remarkably sluggish sea level rate rises from its current particularly unalarming 1.7mm/year, we all shift inland a few more millimetres. Once a year, of course.

  92. Mack on 22/05/2018 at 2:34 pm said:

    Simon,
    “There are only two options; mitigation or adaption”.
    mitigation …….seeing as our only contribution to climate change is a fart in a hurricane’s worth, Simon, I suggest you stop farting.
    adaption……You are remarkably adapted already, Simon, ….eyes that can constantly withstand being buried in the sand.

  93. Richard Treadgold on 22/05/2018 at 2:38 pm said:

    You’re both making a fair point, but, to digress for a moment, I must dare to offer a correction on word use. As Bob has it, the word is adaptation, certainly not adaption. Cheers.

  94. Andy on 22/05/2018 at 2:38 pm said:

    On the subject of sea levels, TV1 News are running a piece tonight on the ChCh council’s response, so I’m told

  95. BobD on 22/05/2018 at 2:52 pm said:

    >As Bob has it, the word is adaptation, certainly not adaption.

    Why thank you, Richard. Your erudition is exemplary.

  96. Richard Treadgold on 22/05/2018 at 2:57 pm said:

    Why thank you, Richard. Your erudition is exemplary.

    Oh, Bob — and your graciousness is sublime.

  97. Mack on 22/05/2018 at 3:08 pm said:

    We’re playing Simon seez….so if Simon seez… “adaption”…..then adaption it is.

  98. Richard Treadgold on 22/05/2018 at 3:12 pm said:

    Nevah!!!!!! Grammar rules!

  99. Simon on 22/05/2018 at 4:08 pm said:

    Adaption and adaptation are both valid and have the same meaning. Adaptation is more common. No need to throw in an extra syllable if you don’t need it.

  100. Richard Treadgold on 22/05/2018 at 4:27 pm said:

    Simon,

    You spoilsport. Oxford is my standard. They don’t recognise adaption, and why should they? It breaks the rules. If an extra syllable bothers you, you may well prefer “there’s no reasons for that” over “there are no reasons for that”, I guess? But precision matters to me, because when I’m talking to you, I’m talking to myself, and I care what I hear. Cheers.

  101. Richard Treadgold on 22/05/2018 at 4:30 pm said:

    Andy, thanks for the heads-up on Chch. I’ll try to see that.

  102. Andy on 22/05/2018 at 4:38 pm said:

    If we can adapt to “Stand by me” at a Royal Wedding then either adaption or adaptation is OK with me

  103. Richard Treadgold on 22/05/2018 at 4:39 pm said:

    True! Hilarious! Imagine — pop songs in the palace chapel! I couldn’t believe my ears.

  104. Mack on 22/05/2018 at 4:50 pm said:

    There is a bit of a sort of phenomenon whereby a person can make a mistake in spelling or grammar and because the following commenters refer back to the previous comment….the mistake is perpetuated.
    This really came home to me when I misspelled a bloke’s name as Pekka Pirala…instead of Pekka Pirilla. ..all the following comments did likewise..
    https://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/08/sack-australias-biggest-laughing-stock.html?showComment=1408182051991#c8686407071562919858
    Good reading for you there, Simon, on this cold, wet, evening.

  105. Mack on 22/05/2018 at 4:50 pm said:

    There is a bit of a sort of phenomenon whereby a person can make a mistake in spelling or grammar and because the following commenters refer back to the previous comment….the mistake is perpetuated.
    This really came home to me when I misspelled a bloke’s name as Pekka Pirala…instead of Pekka Pirilla. ..all the following comments did likewise..
    https://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/08/sack-australias-biggest-laughing-stock.html?showComment=1408182051991#c8686407071562919858
    Good reading for you there, Simon, on this cold, wet, evening.

  106. Mack on 22/05/2018 at 5:16 pm said:

    Hell, I’ve even done it again ! That’s Pekka Pirila…
    https://scienceofdoom.com/2014/08/07/a-challenge-for-bryan/#comment-70086

  107. Man of Thessaly on 22/05/2018 at 8:39 pm said:

    Richard,

    I’d be grateful if you can provide a link to the IPCC “founding document” you mention. The forbiddance you refer to above doesn’t seem to be in the founding decisions from UNEP (http://www.ipcc.ch/docs/UNEP_GC-14_decision_IPCC_1987.pdf), WMO (http://www.ipcc.ch/docs/WMO_resolution4_on_IPCC_1988.pdf) or UN General Assembly (http://www.ipcc.ch/docs/UNGA43-53.pdf). The IPCC itself doesn’t mention a “founding document” on its website.

    That aside, you didn’t provide any examples of the IPCC recommending policy. Professors Renwick and Frame may well have contributed to IPCC reports, but they are not the IPCC. They’re employed at VUW, and are entitled to recommend policy if they want. Hoesung Lee didn’t make any policy recommendations in the excerpt you quoted. He, as IPCC Chair, could speak on behalf of the panel, but when you say “the IPCC recommends policy”, I’m expecting an example from official communication like a report or media release.

    So, if you don’t mind, please provide some examples of the IPCC reports recommending policy, or not being “neutral with respect to policy”.

  108. Simon on 24/05/2018 at 8:03 am said:

    A paper just published in Nature shows that mitigation is cheaper than adaptation:
    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0071-9

  109. BobD on 24/05/2018 at 9:28 am said:

    Simon,

    Based on current trends (SLR, warming rate, extreme events) there is no doubt that the IPCC projections are too extreme, a fact acknowledged by them in various ways at various times.

    Therefore any predictions of damage from climate change are equally too extreme.

    Therefore any assessment of mitigation versus adaptation will be incorrect, if it is based on IPCC projections.

    In the light of uncertainties, since we have little confidence in the threat itself, and the risk level of the unknown threat, adaptation is the ONLY option.

    This is obvious to all rational thinkers.

    Only those with vested (financial) interests in proposed mitigation “solutions” (wind-farms, solar systems, government subsidies, research grants, etc.) will be pushing for mitigation where it makes no sense.

  110. Andy on 24/05/2018 at 11:13 am said:

    I read two items in yesterday’s NZ news: petrol could reach $3 a litre, and people are going cold because they can’t afford to heat their homes

    Isn’t this what “climate change mitigation” looks like?

  111. BobD on 24/05/2018 at 3:07 pm said:

    Andy,

    It would probably have more effect if the whole of NZ produced more than a mere 0.12% of the world’s man-made CO2.

  112. Simon on 24/05/2018 at 4:50 pm said:

    BobD,
    IPCC reports are merely summaries of the research available at the time.
    Sea level rise has shown some recent evidence of acceleration, so if anything AR4 & AR5 estimates are too conservative.
    Temperatures are right in the middle of the CMIP5 ensemble envelope, no over-estimate there.
    Rainfall intensity has increased. Number of events has not but there is evidence that cyclones/hurricanes are on average bigger and slower moving.
    A quick scan on Google Scholar showed zero papers showing evidence of bias in AR5 estimates.
    Your claim that IPCC projections are ‘too extreme’ is incorrect. I have no idea where you get your information from.

  113. Bob on 24/05/2018 at 6:24 pm said:

    Simon, see above.
    https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2018/04/climate-of-conversation/comment-page-1/#comment-1550960
    “Current datasets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century … No robust trends in annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts have been identified over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin”
    “In summary, there continues to be a lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale”
    “In summary, there is low confidence in observed trends in small-scale severe weather phenomena such as hail and thunderstorms because of historical data inhomogeneities and inadequacies in monitoring systems”
    “In summary, the current assessment concludes that there is not enough evidence at present to suggest more than low confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought or dryness (lack of rainfall) since the middle of the 20th century due to lack of direct observations, geographical inconsistencies in the trends, and dependencies of inferred trends on the index choice. Based on updated studies, AR4 conclusions regarding global increasing trends in drought since the 1970s were probably overstated. However, it is likely that the frequency and intensity of drought has increased in the Mediterranean and West Africa and decreased in central North America and north-west Australia since 1950”
    “In summary, confidence in large scale changes in the intensity of extreme extratropical cyclones since 1900 is low”
    -IPCC AR5 WGI Chapter 2
    http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/

  114. Simon on 24/05/2018 at 7:47 pm said:

    Why are you quoting from AR5 if the IPCC projections are ‘too extreme’? My comments on rainfall intensity and hurricane size are from recent papers that post-date AR5.

  115. Maggy Wassilieff on 24/05/2018 at 8:06 pm said:

    @Simon
    My comments on rainfall intensity and hurricane size are from recent papers that post-date AR5.
    References please.
    Will be interesting to see how the rainfall intensities compare with these historical records
    http://www.bom.gov.au/water/designRainfalls/rainfallEvents/worldRecRainfall.shtml

    Will also be interesting to see how rainfall datasets are treated in your papers.
    There are massive problems with how rainfall is measured at a regional scale (and who monitors rainfall in our oceans)

  116. Simon on 25/05/2018 at 11:39 am said:

    US precipitation changes: https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-heavy-precipitation I’m sure I also saw a global analysisbut can’t find it.
    Hurricane changes: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180521131532.htm
    Also attribution of Hurricane Harvey: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180510133045.htm

  117. BobD on 25/05/2018 at 2:07 pm said:

    Simon,

    You’re a hoot. I present data from AR5 that shows the IPCC itself can’t discern any trend at all in most extreme weather indicators, then you laugh that off since you have “recent papers that post-date AR5”.
    AR5 came out in 2014.

    The rainfall data you are presenting ends in 2015! A whole year!
    But it doesn’t show what you think it shows. Click over to the global chart and notice what the annual anomaly for the last year (2015) looks like.
    https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/styles/large/public/2016-07/precipitation-download2-2016.png
    If that’s the big change since 2014, colour me unimpressed.

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