The activists are hotting up

Here’s a piece, including graph, regarding Jim Salinger’s opinions on global warming that I thought the NZ Herald might like for an op-ed three weeks ago. They didn’t. It’s now slightly improved and I’ve added the earliest NZ temperature records. I like the fact that the error margins swallow these Lilliputian record margins. — Richard Treadgold

A week ago, Dr Jim Salinger, jumping the gun a little, predicted 2018 would prove to be NZ’s hottest year. The Herald indulged his forecast (inadvertently awarding him the title professor) with the heading 2018 NZ’s hottest year on record. Unfortunately, when they published NIWA’s official data a few days later, Jim’s claim turned out to be wrong, with 2018 declared the second-hottest year, following 2016.

Jim was magnanimous in defeat, saying he was happy with Niwa’s conclusion: “We used slightly different calculations, but we are all consistent in that we are in the hottest period on record.” NIWA calculated 2018’s average at 13.41 °C (9 hundredths cooler than Jim’s).

But these ‘hot’ years are so close they’re indistinguishable. One or another scrapes to a victory by 0.01 °C, impossible to feel and invisible in the margin of error. Scientists say the margin of error for temperature readings is often a whole Celsius degree or two.

Because they’re too close to pick, we just don’t know our hottest year. I went through NIWA’s temperature data from 1909 and found a dozen years that are too close to separate.

Some scientists want us to think that a difference of a hundredth of a degree is significant, but it isn’t. Jim wants to persuade us that human emissions cause dangerously high temperatures, but gives no evidence for that. Whether temperatures are high or low, what causes them?

I’ve been asking for evidence of dangerous human warming for fourteen years or more and I’ve often been told it’s “overwhelming” but nobody has evidence and nobody can describe it. The Royal Society of NZ have no evidence, yet every year their scientists tour the country exhorting us to reduce our use of hydrocarbons. Without evidence, nobody knows why, yet nobody asks.

The Royal Society of London have no evidence and the IPCC itself produce reports hundreds of pages long that contain no evidence. You will discover this if you read them.

This is stupid

Saying, year after year, that man-made warming is “mankind’s greatest challenge” while being unable to justify it is simply stupid. It’s also fraudulent. It’s time the charade stopped. If you know what the evidence is, let me know—for Pete’s sake, let us all know.

Jim says South Island glacial ice mass declined by nine per cent in 2018 and apparently “we’ve never had anything like that in the glacier record.” But that’s readily explained. Various glaciers are thousands to millions of years old and we’ve only studied them properly for about 40 years. We don’t know what’s unprecedented because we don’t know what’s happened.

Then, with six of our warmest years occurring in the last two decades, he claims pompously that “the hand of climate change was unequivocal” but presents no evidence of man-made warming. Dr Salinger should remember that 99% or more of climate change is completely natural.

The question is, what caused last year’s high sea surface temperatures? The ocean is warmed by the sun, so it must have received more sunshine, but how? Perhaps there were fewer clouds. What were the year’s rainfall patterns and magnitudes, as more rain can cool, less rain can warm? What about the wind? Our temperatures are highly dependent on their direction: southerlies are cold, northerlies are warm.

Chris Brandolino mentions natural warming by elevated ocean temperatures and subtropical airflow, then the “increase in greenhouse gases, surpassing 400 parts per million” as a third factor, providing, he says, a “long-term tailwind to temperatures.”

However, there’s no evidence that greenhouse gases add significantly to warming, and the 2018 increase in carbon dioxide was about 3 parts per million—a puny tailwind. But the warming from 400 ppm, the total natural and anthropogenic carbon dioxide, is irrelevant because 94% of it is natural.

No reason to think it was our doing

The Herald article on 8 January reveals NIWA’s official temperature data for 2018, including statements by Salinger and Brandolino referring to warming and the consequences of warming. It gives us no reason to think that human emissions were involved.

NZ Government weather records in 1868 show the average temperature over more than 10 years at six representative weather stations was 13.1 °C. The NZ average temperature in 2018 was 13.4 °C. So over the last 150 years, New Zealand has warmed by barely 0.3 °C. NIWA have not released the error margins for the 2018 average, but it has to be in the range of one or two degrees Celsius, so we might easily be cooler than 1868. Even with the help of all those hydrocarbons.

Earlier, Jim said something interesting that I think was a slip-up, but still true: “Even as 2018 began,” he said, “it was in the grip of a marine heatwave caused by a freak combination of factors and which turned the Tasman Sea into a warm bath, fired the record summer, and lured swarms of jellyfish to our shores” (emphasis added). I must say it’s carefully written to ramp up further warming anxiety.

We’ve seen jellyfish many times, they’re not new. But the freak combinations are totally natural and nothing to do with man-made emissions. So glad that’s cleared up. Should save some money.

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21 Thoughts on “The activists are hotting up

  1. Brett Keane on 03/02/2019 at 10:56 pm said:

    Yep, a recurring lunar tidal setup at 18.6yrs IIRC. Anyway, back in summer 1999-2000 the sea was like a warm bath and I spent February at Bream Tail sleeping on the rock platform all month. I was recuperating from flu damage heart failure and could not then or now tolerate much night air below 18C. Not a problem that summer, but about the last time I could say that. Colleagues from Britain told me about that lunar cycle, when it was in full flight, just last year. Turned miserable before normal autumn though, in sync with the cooling trend now. Yes, they lie by omitting error bars and that is just one of their furphies. Such a pity they do not comprehend the harm they will cause……

  2. Simon on 04/02/2019 at 11:05 am said:

    10 of your 12 hottest years have occurred since 1989. There’s some evidence right there.

  3. Richard Treadgold on 04/02/2019 at 11:12 am said:

    Simon,

    There’s some evidence right there.

    Evidence of what?

  4. Brett Keane on 05/02/2019 at 6:51 pm said:

    Simon, unstated but vital error margins of various types mean that every claim of yours is mendacious, because you know it. NZ is NOT actually warming at all. As we have known for years, using the proper data. Cyclic cooling has returned however and likely will remain for some 20-30 yrs, the full cycle being measured at c.63yrs. The reasons for that were finally established after warmist malfeasance was beaten, in Copernicus Press. Solar System Dynamics, basically planetary massage of the solar plasma by gravity. Because Sol is not solid nor is it physically fixed in place. Newton’s Laws do much of the rest…… Brett

    • Richard Treadgold on 07/02/2019 at 12:37 pm said:

      Brett,

      You say:

      Solar System Dynamics, basically planetary massage of the solar plasma by gravity.

      I’ve not heard of this before, and I’d like to know more about it. Simon puts it crudely, as he often does, but it does sound unlikely that planetary masses much influence Old Sol. Though I recall that our li’l ol’ moon exerts a powerful force upon our waters, and plasma, for all its mass, is but an extraordinary gas. (Mmm. the easy scansion!) Comments?

  5. Barry Brill on 05/02/2019 at 7:25 pm said:

    “what caused last year’s high sea surface temperatures?”

    As RT points out, it will almost certainly prove to be the wind direction over both Australia and the Tasman Sea – coupled with the mild La Nina during November-January. Salinger told Radio NZ at the time that it was caused by an unusual combination of La Nina and the Southern Annular Mode” – no mention of global warming.

    The media’s references to “climate change” in relation to short-term weather conditions in a specific location is asinine.

    The theory holds that anthropogenic emissions cause the notional AVERAGE of the entire planetary surface (including all the oceans) to become a fraction of 1°C warmer over a period of 30 years! If there is record cold in Minnesota and record heat in Darwin on any one day, the AVERAGE is unchanged, so the AGW theory cannot be engaged.

  6. Simon on 06/02/2019 at 9:55 pm said:

    planetary massage of the solar plasma by gravity.
    That is one that I have never heard before. Planetary mass is infinitesimal compared to the solar mass and it’s much further away. The ‘explanations’ for the observed warming just get crazier and crazier. Keep them coming.

  7. jerry krause on 07/02/2019 at 11:39 am said:

    Hi Brett and his friends,

    I came here to make contact with Brett about having a private email conversation and find him stating: “Yep, a recurring lunar tidal setup at 18.6yrs IIRC.”

    First business first, If you want to learn why I ask for a private email conversation, you must email me.

    I am quite familiar with a 18.6 year lunar eclipse cycle which I had reasoned might be observed in the tidal records (measurements, data). In the astronomy textbooks, which I use as references, this observed and easily explained phenomenon is described in a paragraph or two, if noted at all.

    I learned about it a decade or so ago when I questioned what astronomical observations had been made when Aristotle reasoned that the earth stood still. And when I Googled ‘ancient astronomy’ I was directed to Stonehenge. There I learned that the rising or setting moon moves across the respective horizon each phase cycle as the sun does each year. But because the plane in which the moon orbits the earth is inclined about 5 degrees to the plane in which the earth-moon system orbits the sun. Hence the range of the moon’s rising and setting positions oscillates with a period of 18.6 years. However, the lunar eclipses do not occur on the same day of year, hence the eclipses and tides do not occur on the same day of the year or season. But, after 56 years (about 3 X 18.6) the eclipses do occur about the same day of the years. A little like a year is not exactly 365 days.

    And I can easily imagine that tides, as a mechanism, stir the atmosphere and the ‘seas’.

    We have trouble understanding how meteorologists and climatologist cannot see what we see and you, not me, seem to consider their misunderstanding is purposeful. If you read what the archeologists conclude about Stonehenge and about what they do not conclude, you will see that some authorities can be absolutely clueless. Which you maybe know but cannot believe.

    I have not idea what you may know about Stonehenge but if you are interested in the possibility that you do not know everything about it and its ‘environment’ and what to possibly learn more, email me so we can get some other private business settled. Then I would welcome the opportunity to chat with you on this website.

    Have a good day, Jerry

  8. Brett Keane on 07/02/2019 at 2:35 pm said:

    As I said, It was aired in Copenicus Press To malfeasance by the Simons of this world, but now stands unrefuted. Simon if you will, remember that ‘every action has a reaction’, yes I did mention Newton and my reasoning pathway took similar routes to RT’s….. There is enough combined force in certain conjunctions to move Sol out of its circumference span, that, system Barycentre’. The moon moves us about 8000mi IIRC, each month. That force can also twist plasma magnetics etc., RT is getting there.
    Enquire from Tallbloke Blog, Roger Tattersall, where N+Z post like many able scientists ansd engineers, for in depth discussion.
    Myself I see the possibilities but as usual there will be more ground to cover yet. Brett

  9. Maggy Wassilieff on 08/02/2019 at 1:43 pm said:

    It may be useful to direct Simon and others to the authors/papers that are relevant here.
    I assume Brett is referring to Nikolov and Zeller’s work:

    https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/New-Insights-on-the-Physical-Nature-of-the-Atmospheric-Greenhouse-Effect-Deduced-from-an-Empirical-Planetary-Temperature-Model.pdf

  10. Simon on 08/02/2019 at 4:15 pm said:

    ‘Environment Pollution and Climate Change’ is a notorious online journal with a non-existent editorial policy. Gullibility seems to go hand-in-hand with climate ‘scepticism’.
    A far more credible journal is Nature, where some NZ scientists got their research published recently.
    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-0889-9

  11. Brett Keane on 09/02/2019 at 9:35 am said:

    Thanks Maggy. That work being just the latest of many on and justifying the Atmospheric Thermal Effect discussed eg with Tallbloke over the last ten or so years. Lyin’ Simon could learn a bit, but not likely is it?
    The Copernicus papers however , also archived with Tallbloke, refer to solar system orbital mechanics that do occur because Newton’s Laws insist they must. Neither bodies in space nor plasmas being affixed solidly anywhere but floating in the gravity field and also magnetic fields with plasma. The only real question is how much and that is what the Copernicus Papers discuss.
    Various T cycles are ignored by IPCC and Simon except to use to fantasize freezing and boiling at various parts of them. Tough ain’t it for them that they are trapped at past a turndown point . Simons of the world can only get shriller like expiring rats in a barrel…….

  12. Simon on 10/02/2019 at 4:31 pm said:

    Let us know if anything ever gets published in a genuine peer-reviewed journal.

  13. Andy on 10/02/2019 at 8:48 pm said:

    I saw a paper called “The conceptual penis as a social construct “ published in a peer reviewed journal

    Seems legit

  14. Brett Keane on 11/02/2019 at 6:09 am said:

    They were Simon. As usual, criminals calling themselves scientists, your colleagues, tried to destroy the journals when they could not refute the Papers. Like you, they failed.
    Where have we seen this before? It really does get boring. Real Science is not however, and Nasa is now developing a real heliophysics/climate connection/space weather dept partly because of effects on spacecraft

  15. Brett Keane on 11/02/2019 at 6:29 am said:

    Blast it, reply trouble….. “The solar cycle turned sideways” Paper from Nasa Space Weather Service seems a good starter. They play catchup on us but hopefully the Trumpian cleanout (Augean Stables, anyone?) might keep them clean.

  16. Maggy Wassilieff on 16/02/2019 at 9:32 pm said:

    Salinger is senior author on a recent paper entitled “The unprecedented coupled ocean-atmosphere summer heatwave in the New Zealand region 2017/18: drivers, mechanisms and impacts”
    https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab012a

    But reading through the paper, I discover this sentence: The only other time a New Zealand coupled ocean-atmosphere heatwave of similar magnitude occurred was in 1934/35

    So I’m left confused as to whether the 2017/18 heat wave was unprecedented… or just an example of an occasional extreme event.

  17. Ian Cooper on 18/02/2019 at 9:14 am said:

    The Turitea Met Site near Massey University (P.N.) has records going back to June 1928. If we divide the year into just two seasons (the hot one being Nov-Apr) and the cold one being May-Oct then the previous record holding ‘hot season’ was 1934-35 at 22.40C. 2017-18 was 22.55C, a 0.15C difference.

    Note that it has taken 83 years for the early record to be beaten, but it was nearly beaten just a few years later during the ‘hot season’ of 1937-38 which had a mean T-Max of 22.35C. What all of these hot seasons had in common was that they occurred during a La Nina event. NZ has historically had hotter summers during some, but not all, La Nina events compared to El Nino events.

    Other examples are 1969-70 with 21.90C, 1974-75 at 22.32 and 1998-99 with 22.13. There are a couple of hot ‘El Nino neutral’ summers that also come close to these levels. Palmerston North is not New Zealand but it is probably a better proxy than some as it doesn’t suffer from too many extremes. In these instances, what goes for Palmy also works for N.Z.

    On that basis there was nothing ‘unprecedented’ about the hot season of 2017-18. Marks out of 10 for Jim Salinger = 3. Hyperbole will not win the argument. Must try harder!

  18. Tim on 18/02/2019 at 10:20 pm said:

    Hello all

    I am looking for an old televised climate change debate, but I cannot find it. I thought it was about 10 years old and that John Campbell was the moderator…….but nothing is popping up in Google so I must have this wrong.

    From memory it was a debate between two experts/scientists. An early exchanges was an expert showed a graph of rising temperatures. The opposing expert then explained that recent data was purposely excluded because it did not follow the trend.

    Is there any chance someone knows the debate I’m thinking of, or who was in it?

  19. Brett Keane on 19/02/2019 at 3:59 am said:

    Tim, cannot remember just now, but if Doug Edmeades, a fellow Soil Scientist, gets asked on Media, he always excoriates pushers of falsehoods such as hippy science. Whether it be miracle organic fertilisers or magic gases…. His science is rock-solid too! Brett.
    PS- I sent a trial FOI request to NRC re seawwater rise sciencelast week. No reply yet……

  20. Tim on 25/02/2019 at 7:32 pm said:

    Thank you for that Brett.
    I have been advised that the climate change debate I’m looking for happened more like 20 years ago, and was between David Wratt and Chris de Freitas on TV1. If someone knows what show that was on, or has a copy of the debate, that would be great. Cheers.

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