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Comments 98201 to 98250:

  1. A Quick and Dirty Analysis of GHCN Surface Temperature Data
    Great work and I guess the article is here mainly as an example but do you mind a quick and dirty criticism? It's about the text describing Fig 3, I think I won't describe it quite the way you do. I agree with you on the period 1910-1940 but I think the post 1970 description is lacking some detail which would have an impact on your interpretation of the data. You say "post-1970 results show monthly-minimum temperatures rising faster than monthly maximum temperatures". The way I see it that's not quite right. Upto about 2000 the max and min are rising at an equal rate, just like 1910-1940. You can most clearly see that if you look at the 1980 and 2000 years, the grey graph lines help with the eyeballing. In those two years the difference is about 0.2oC. It's only after 2000 that the two lines begin to diverge dramatically. Your conclusion was "These results are entirely consistent with greater CO2 forcing later in the century than earlier." Well the CO2 increase has been a steadily increasing phenomenon while your data (based on my interpretation of the data) shows at best a step change after 2000 (let's say post the 1998-2001 El Nino/La Nina). This seems less consistent with a steadily increasing forcing from CO2. I'm not really interested in who's interpretation is correct, this is a 'quick and dirty analysis' after all. My point would be that large parts of climate science are interpretative. And in some instances interpretations are passed off as fact.
    Moderator Response: [muoncounter] Reversal of seasonal warming patterns as a sign of CO2-driven warming was discussed in detail on the Human fingerprint in the seasons thread.
  2. OK global warming, this time it's personal!
    For context, the global precipitation trend since 1900 is pretty clear. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/global-prcp-anom/201001-201012.gif
  3. OK global warming, this time it's personal!
    I was wondering about precipitation data for Queensland. The BOM provide a handy reference. Queensland recorded it's highest ever December rainfall anomaly last month. The positive trend since 1900 is small, and probably statistically insignificant (data is easily accessed from the links above and below). The trend is higher for January. Data for the current month is, of course, not yet available. Annual rainfall for Queensland has a stronger positive trend of 6cm over the century. The year of greatest rainfall was 2010, beating out 1950 by 7mm. I heard a Sydney shock jock excoriating Bob Brown (Greens party leader) today for linking the floods in Queensland with climate change. The data the announcer referred to was for Brisbane only, and he mentioned several more extreme precipitation events going back over a century. I am leery of connecting specific weather events to climate change. I am (pleasantly) surprised at how little the flooding in Queensland has been connected with global climate change in the mainstream media - the cause, I suspect, is not caution, but rather that there are more marketable grabs (human interest, damage and costs, civil scams and flood related policies). I do not know exactly what Brown said, but he would have had to have been quite discursive to have avoided propagandizing. The connection to climate change can only be gleaned from long-term data and analysis. The pages above are a good resource for anyone interested, capable and willing to do so.
  4. Monckton Myth #1: Cooling oceans
    Monckton's resemblence to the late Argetinian president Nestor Kirchner is stunning. (sorry, I know it's totally irrelevant. Just could not resist.)
  5. Monckton Myth #1: Cooling oceans
    The International journal of Geosciences definitely looks very suspect. Three of the papers in the current issue appear to be climate change sceptical whilst the others area curious mix of obscure topics. To set up a new journal with such broad coverage is bizarre and the editorial board whilst impressively long does not include any names I recognise. There is one paper from my field, micropalaeontology, published in the journal, Jayaraju et al. (2010, issue 1/2). There is nothing disastrously wrong with this paper but it is based on analysis of only four samples which for the type of study reported would be regarded as too small a sample set for publication in a regular peer-reviewed journal. As with the Knox & Douglass paper this paper was published in a very short timescale "Received May 14, 2010; revised June 13, 2010; accepted July 11, 2010". It appears that this is essentially grey literature. My guess is that climate change sceptics are exploiting pre-existing dubious outlets rather than actually setting them up.
  6. A Quick and Dirty Analysis of GHCN Surface Temperature Data
    Tamino had a good string of blog posts about a slightly more sophisticated version of this game, using area weighting. I think he also did some sort of baseline adjustment but I'm not sure. Regrettably, these seem to be from just before the Great Blackout but not to have made it to the wayback machine. In case they're useful to anybody here are a few 404ing links from my feed reader: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/prime-meridian/ http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/02/15/dropouts/ http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/ghcn-preliminary-results/ http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/show-and-tell/ http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/thanks/ http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/02/28/update/ and two tail-enders which are still there: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/replication-not-repetition/ http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/global-update/
  7. OK global warming, this time it's personal!
    Well done John, excellent piece. Hopefully it will generate some good discussion on the ABC website. Seven years of drought, now record floods, it really looks like Climate change is beginning to bite. Unfortunately the first hit and the hardest hit will be the people who live in the "marginal" lands of outback Queensland. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a growing stream of people "evacuating" these areas in the next decade.
  8. Monckton Myth #1: Cooling oceans
    Hi Guys, all good stuff, but might be worth mentioning that the ocean is partly absorbing heat through the water heated at the equator, ie through the gulf stream and other Hadley like convections, that gets to the poles and through having become more salty due to evaporation sinks, still warmer, down to the bottom of the ocean and enters one of the deep ocean currents, that may take decades or more to well up again, and only then will we find the ocean in part has become fundamentally warmer. The ocean is huge, but to find more heat down the bottom could be major as significant currents well up at the Antarctic and for those cold currents to be warmer could have huge effect on the Antarctic ice shield, particularly the West, (WAIS).- and would continue, - horrific in the long-termness of that extra heat. Keep up the good work, Geoff Thomas.
  9. A Quick and Dirty Analysis of GHCN Surface Temperature Data
    What's the best source for documentation of the baseline method as you have implemented it? I'd like to try it for myself with a view to setting it as a python programming project for my students. (I could try it from just your description, but I imagine there are gotchas. The one I see immediately is how to deal with stations where the baseline period is incomplete.)
  10. OK global warming, this time it's personal!
    Brazil and Sri Lanka are currently getting walloped. The news over the past years has felt a little like I anticipated it would be in 2050 back when I found out about AGW in the late 80s. It seems to be happening much quicker than I used to think it would.
  11. OK global warming, this time it's personal!
    Bern; that's what SkepticalScience is for. Most of the 'scientific' criticisms that are levelled at global warming are clearly covered by SkS by now. Or at least, an analogue is...
  12. OK global warming, this time it's personal!
    Good stuff John , well done - "don't get even, get mad" is always my motto. I don't understand how (as in the comment on your post) people can fail to understand that while yes indeed we have had a procession of La Ninas in the past (who knew?!) with attendant flooding, and a procession El Ninos, with attendant droughts, the problem is when you start getting RECORD La NInas and El Ninos. The reason they are breaking records (as in the nonsense concept of a "200 year flood" in Horsham) is that the effects are being boosted by warmer oceans and warmer air. Not that difficult a concept, surely.
  13. A Quick and Dirty Analysis of GHCN Surface Temperature Data
    Daniel, just to be pedantic, sophistry's doesn't have an apostrophe! I doubt that "pedantic sophistries" does either!
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] Thanks for the heads-up! Shows you my irritation at the continual stream of zombie arguments from the usual "skeptics"...
  14. OK global warming, this time it's personal!
    An interesting read, John, fairly well written. Disappointing that the first comment allowed by the moderators was a denier throwing out the "it's natural" and "man has no influence" skeptic arguments. It'll be hard to counter the expected deluge of skeptic arguments without providing a bit more of the science, and in my experience, most 'lay people' just aren't interested in learning even the basics of the science behind global warming.
  15. Not a cite for Soare eyes
    dhogaza, please see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3017277/ I don't think SCIRP is Chinese government-backed. In fact, I think the Chinese involved in SCIRP would prefer to leave the Chinese government out...
  16. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    Spaerica - "Because after extensive study they've found that while daily temperatures vary widely between locations, mean anomalies do not." This comes up a lot - I know its covered in Hansen 1988, but I think it would be good if someone did a Skepsci article on this, referencing the data, graphics from studies that actually established this. If you have a reference to a good review paper on the spatial stability of temperature anomalies, I would appreciate the reference.
  17. gallopingcamel at 17:07 PM on 17 January 2011
    Global Warming and Cold Winters
    This thread wants to reconcile the recent "cold" winters with "Global Warming". This is quite unnecessary as these winters are well within the range of random variability. During my lifetime there has been nothing to match (at least in south Wales) the winter of 1947 which dumped six feet of snow on a Welsh county known for its palm trees (thanks to the "Gulf Stream"). The snow persisted for six weeks starting in mid February. Few of the palm trees survived. Just to provide some contrast, the record cold winter of 1947 in south Wales was followed by a record hot summer. As I have pointed out more than once, what we perceive as "cold" winters are positively balmy compared to cold winters during the "Little Ice Age". During the LIA, there were 24 years when the Thames froze over. Enjoy the current warming. Long may it last!
  18. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    Eric, PS: If you want to discuss this further, we can take it to a relevant thread.
  19. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    Eric @69, My post @67 was directed at William's comment about La Nina. Now I'm not sure how you managed to miss my point. There are several other examples of single year La Nina events several decades ago (e.g., 54/55, 64/65, 70/71) which were associated with cooler global SATs than observed following recent La Ninas (e.g., 2000, 2008)-- you very likely know that or should. La Nina's still act to cool the global SAT (and troposphere) temperatures of course, but those anomalies are now superimposed on an underlying, long-term warming trend, so instead of getting a global SAT of around -0.1 C, one nowadays gets a global SAT anomaly of near +0.4 C (we'll see what 2011 brings) following a La Nina (and barring a major equatorial volcano blowing its top). This is what one gets (i.e., Tamino) when you remove the signal of ENSO and volcanoes from the SAT record from 1975. My point was, and is, that the strategy of the "skeptics" is to at all times focus on anything that permits them to refer to "cool" or "cold", or a "record cooling La Nina". And with internal climate modes, regional variability and weather, they are always able to repeatedly draw their targets' attention away from the inconvenient and important big picture of long-term warming. It is totally transparent and disingenuous, but sadly very effective. So no need to wait 2.5 years for multi-year La Nina. We can meet back here in early 2012. In fact, that is not even necessary, just look at Tamino's graphic...
  20. A Quick and Dirty Analysis of GHCN Surface Temperature Data
    @ Albatross (11) Agreed. Took the link out of the last sentence. Pushed the envelope a bit there. Apropos that a whole comment dealing with untruths can yet be completely true. :) The Yooper
  21. A Quick and Dirty Analysis of GHCN Surface Temperature Data
    Dan @10, I agree completely with what you say-- but your last sentence might have been a little over the top ;)
  22. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    Gary Thompson and GC-could you please move the discussion about the SAT record to the appropriate thread/s. I know that those global SAT fields are inconvenient to you "skeptics", but raising red herrings (e.g., the alleged station dropout issue has been dealt with at length) are trying to call the validity of the SAT records is not going to help your case. And neither is pushing your Arctic window obsession, BP. Is it not more interesting to try and understand more about how the loss of Arctic ice is potentially affecting regional climate?
    Moderator Response: Yes, please *everybody* discuss on appropriate threads.
  23. A Quick and Dirty Analysis of GHCN Surface Temperature Data
    @ Albatross (9) Facts are so inconvenient to contrarians...they can never get enough of them to line up with the curves they've already plotted. Much easier to be economical with the truth, peddle pedantic sophistry's or to simply make things up... The Yooper
  24. A Quick and Dirty Analysis of GHCN Surface Temperature Data
    Ed @4, "Or maybe some have done the work but don't like the results so are keeping quiet." Probably. Also, note the absence of contrarians/"skeptics" on this thread.
  25. Not a cite for Soare eyes
    MattJ: "all I needed was to witness the pathetic abuse of the English language in the first sentence quoted: "The absence of immediate relation between CO2 and temperature is evidence that rising its mix ratio in the atmosphere will not imply more absorption and time residence of energy over the Earth surface." The abuse here betrays the author as uneducated and incompetent. "rising its mix ratio"?? Try "raising its mix ratio"." I'm sure you'd look even more uneducated and incompetent if you were to try to write a technical article in Mandarin. I think the whole suite of journals is some sort of Chinese (government backed) effort to quickly establish a wider China-based academic press. Could be wrong, but the language faux-pas is consistent.
  26. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    53, garythompson,
    ...so why does GISS assume that thousands of square km can be represented by 3 weather stations when it is obvious that there is great variability in weather stations within a radius of 150 km?
    Because after extensive study they've found that while daily temperatures vary widely between locations, mean anomalies do not. That is, while it may be 3˚C warmer at a spot just a 150 km away from another (maybe at a different altitude, or more affected by a nearby large body of water, for instance), the difference in average temperature (i.e. temperature anomaly) between that spot and the first averaged for all of the days in any given month is not going to be noticeably different. To put it another way, the temperature anomaly (the difference between what the thermometer says today, and what it normally says on this particular day of the month in any given year), when averaged over thirty days, is pretty darn consistent whether you go 100, 200, 500 or even 1000 km away. Anomalies (difference from the multi-year average for a particular day), not absolute temperatures. Averages for a reasonably large string of days, not readings for a single, particular day. And they didn't just assume this. They learned this over time by looking at loads of data, analyzing it, and realizing that much of it was redundant and superfluous to the problem at hand. Why do you assume that your common sense approach, and level of education and intelligence, is superior to that of people who have dedicated their lives to studying this, and do it as a full time job, all year long, for years and years and years? I'm not asking you to just accept what they say because they are authorities, but your bristling assumption that you know better than they do is rather (annoyingly) astounding. The hubris of some people amazes me.
  27. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    68, gallopingcamel,
    "How do you explain that empires rise during climate optima (warm periods) and fall during cold periods?"
    Let me help you to answer your own question by filling in the important missing details:
    "How do you explain that pre-industrial empires restricted to areas encompassing a fraction of the earth's land surface rise during climate optima (warm periods) and fall during cold periods?"
  28. Northern hemisphere warming rates: More than you may have heard
    #49: "Assuming these temperature anomalies as stock prices" I think that's not a particularly valid assumption. Technical market analysis relies on the fact that people are looking for patterns in stock charts; once they see those patterns, they react by buying or selling, which in turn drives the price. That mechanism simply doesn't exist in nature, which is driven by fundamental physics. So while such analysis may provide a descriptive tool for the shape of curves, its not physics. Two points as far as Mauna Loa's CO2 record is concerned: 1. the rate of change in CO2 correlates well with temperature anomalies; see this discussion. 2. there is a significant time lag before the full warming effect of new CO2 is felt, so it is not valid to look at last year's delta CO2 and expect this years delta temperature to match; see this prior thread.
  29. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    Just a (almost certainly wrong) thought. There was a volcanic eruption last year that put a lot of dust into the atmosphere in the northern hemisphere. Could that have had any effect?
  30. Monckton Myth #1: Cooling oceans
    I have a comment on this IPCC issue. You cant put the planet in a lab to get esentially 100% certianty on agw. The problem is you need a body to weigh the evidence around the issue, like the IPCC. Such a body will always be criticised, so dissolving and replacing the IPCC may not achieve anything. Sooner or latter you have to make a decision on the weight of evidence. The other problem is the public want 100% certainty which is undeliverable. I also have a comment regarding the general unusual heat of this debate and missinformation from the likes of Moncton. It just amazes me how Congress would listen to a journalist like this. Lindzen I can understand, not Moncton. Vested oil interests are blamed but maybe it goes beyond that. Perhaps we are literally addicted to oil, or perhaps have evolved over thousands of years to become genetically adapted to a high energy use society. Many are therefore fundamentally and subconsciously resisting rational evidence and the need for change. Or are simply understandably fearfull of it.
  31. Northern hemisphere warming rates: More than you may have heard
    I have a question, (well actual several but let's start with this one) but please let me explain first: looking at the first graph with the temperature change per latitude band, I notice that clearly (for the NH) temperatures dropped between 1900-1910/1920 then increased until ~1940, decreased until ~1970 and have since then increased with a possible leveling off since 2000. Having a financial and trader background and a very successful long track record, I am more than tuned to recognizing patterns to predict what stock prices will do. Assuming these temperature anomalies as stock prices the general (linear) trend from 1900 to 2010 is obviously increasing. However, as I mentioned; there are clear trend-breaking moments which mean that there is no linear increase from 1900 to 2010, and any linear trend line through this data set is an error. In fact, not until ~1970 has the increase been consistent (regardless of what reason). That said, prior to ~1970 NH temperature anomalies varied between -0.6 and +0.4 (extremes), with the red line (SMA ?) between -0.35 and +0.2. Either way, from a stock-background perspective it means that there is a support at the -0.6 level and resistance at the +0.4 level, meaning that if temperatures were to drop then not until they drop below +0.4 a new negative (cooling) trend has been established, which would really set new records if it also dropped below -0.6. The same goes for when temperatures broke through the +0.4 level, which was not until the late 80ies, establishing a clear significant upward trend and clearly establishing new highs. Hence, seeing it from that perspective, I must say that temperature anomalies have only started to increased above their "long-term range" since the late 1980s and not the 1970s. If this were stock prices, I wouldn't buy the stock until it broke through that resistance level (say somewhere between +0.2 and +0.4), since it otherwise would mean it traded in between it's normal band with no real gain to make. Clearly of course this is not the case anymore. I know this is not a stock, but it provides a different way at looking at patterns. So my question is; has this been done before? Have scientists looked at this using stock/trading indicators to predict what global surface temperatures will do in the future? I'd suggest calculating EMAs, Momentum, MACDs etc and interpret this accordingly. Finally, looking at the last ten years, the temperature anomaly has fluctuated between ~0.7 and ~1.0, which is called a band, and to me it means that only when the temperature breaks through the 1.0 the warming continuing. Your thoughts? Also, how does this relate to the monoloa CO2 data set, which shows a clear steady increase in CO2 levels since 1958 but I don't see that pattern in the temperature anomalies, which didn't actually increase above their prior band until the 1908s. I'd appreciate any feed back
  32. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    Aren't we only talking about 1 million sq km's less of ice, which is only 600 miles by 600 miles square? That amount of ice free ocean is controlling the worlds climate??
  33. Not a cite for Soare eyes
    I have done a few literature review recently. I am amaze how awfully written paper can manage to get published. My general impression is that too many referee dont even care to read the paper.
  34. A Quick and Dirty Analysis of GHCN Surface Temperature Data
    Robert- So what IS the implication of the different choice of methods, anomaly versus reference station?
  35. Not a cite for Soare eyes
    #16: "I think you will find ..." Its not clear where that comment is headed, but nonspecific accusations of bribery are usually not a good sign. That sort of thing usually gets deleted pretty quickly. As far as good and bad use of statistics is concerned, see On Statistical Significance.
  36. Monckton Myth #1: Cooling oceans
    My apologies if I am misreading you, but that was addressed by IPCC Working Group II. The IPCC is also a Nobel Prize winner; 2007 Peace Prize. A discussion on how to address the general public is not fostered by continually repeating a contrarian talking point about how the general public is losing belief in science. Demagogy is not the way to counter demagogy when discussing a topic of science.
  37. Not a cite for Soare eyes
    MarkR Given the haystack is huge there's a good chance you won't find the needle using the magnet as well. The Soares work does seem poor and you'd have to start to wonder about the scrips.org journals but then every piece of science needs to be assessed on it's merit. You seem to have done a good job of that. In relation to you're question in #1. I'd say more generally there is a tendancy for some conclusions in climate science to go beyond the scope of the analysis. I think that it's due to the interpretative nature of the science, often based on imperfect data sets and uncontrolled experiments. It's a bugbear of mine, some authors are worse than others , of course many manage to say within acceptable boundaries. I'm happy to give my least favorite example of this if it isn't going off topic.
  38. Not a cite for Soare eyes
    Answering Riccardo #2: your comment about statistics reminds me of two things: Disraeli's famous quip about "Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics" and that marvelous book I hope all contributors to Skeptical Science have at least skimmed, "How to Lie with Statistics". But going beyond and updating Huff and Disraeli's conclusions, there was an excellent article in The Atlantic not so long about about the abuse of statistics that has become the norm in the medical sciences, as exposed by John Ioannidis. Google "john ioannidis atlantic lies statistics" to find it. I think you will find the same thing has been going on in climate science too, especially in "scientific work" sponsored/supported/bribed by the usual suspects.
  39. Not a cite for Soare eyes
    That jounal definitely deserves to reamin obscure. But since there is so much money riding on the issue, I am sure the oil companies will find it in their hearts to generously donate wads of cash to build up there reputation -- even though they deserve to be shut down instead. But personally, I did not need all the excellent detailed analysis of this Skeptical Science article to figure out how unreliable they are: all I needed was to witness the pathetic abuse of the English language in the first sentence quoted: "The absence of immediate relation between CO2 and temperature is evidence that rising its mix ratio in the atmosphere will not imply more absorption and time residence of energy over the Earth surface." The abuse here betrays the author as uneducated and incompetent. "rising its mix ratio"?? Try "raising its mix ratio". For that matter, there is the incompetent omission of the indefinite article even before that to tip us off. Yet somehow I did not notice it on first reading; but that could be since seconds before I was reading in a language with neither definite nor indefinite articles;) If neither the author nor the editors can take the time and effort to fix such errors before publication, then they are flakes.
  40. funglestrumpet at 11:46 AM on 17 January 2011
    Monckton Myth #1: Cooling oceans
    44 David Horten 45 Bibliovermis. I am well aware of why the IPCC was created. One can hardly say it has been a roaring success when the likes of Lord Monckton can be invited to appear before a Congress committee on Climate Change. I don’t think we can carry on with business as usual for another 22 years. I can’t remember the exact figures, but the opinion polls showed a considerable drop in public support when ‘Climategate’ first surfaced in the media and they have not recovered. All I am trying to do is to initiate a debate on the way forward. If we accept that we can’t carry on as we are for another 22 years, then something has to change, and the sooner we decide on what that change is, the sooner we can implement it. It is all very well having the IPCC produce its findings, but they are all to do with climate science. In my original post I said that we need to quantify the effects of different courses of action (or inaction, if you prefer) in combating it. Climate Change is not happening independent of other events, almost certainly the most significant being population growth, which is going to hit the fan in a pretty big way without any help from a world of rising seas, temperatures and tempers. I cannot think of a more illustrious body of people to investigate the effects of Climate Change on food production, economic growth, housing needs (including location), possible mass migrations etc. etc., not to mention verifying once and for all the work of the IPCC, than one composed of Nobel Prize winners. If others can, then put them forward, but please bear in mind that the Nobel Prize winners have already been selected, so no possibility of any delaying tactics by the deniers regarding selection. The general public, if pointed to this site, will, in the main, take one look, shake their heads, and go back to watching the telly, yet it is the general public that have to be convinced of the need for action. I have put my views forward and I hope, via all these posts, instigated a debate on how best to achieve that goal. If we can show that the lovely child/grandchild, currently the apple of the family’s eye, so to speak, is likely to face all kinds of privations before they reach the biblical 3 score and ten, then I believe we can get public support for action. The deniers would then be seen as the enemy, not the good guys trying to save our current way of life.
  41. Berényi Péter at 11:34 AM on 17 January 2011
    Global Warming and Cold Winters
    #63 Riccardo at 01:06 AM on 17 January, 2011 the arctic window opens up during winter due to the very low temperatures and dry air. Warming will partially close it, the standard water vapour positive feedback It was still damn cold in most of the Arctic except in western Greenland, North-Eastern Canada & the Eastern tip of Siberia with plenty of opportunity to dry-freeze huge air masses. As winds are blowing around all the time, dry air gets mixed with humid one in a fractal-like manner by turbulent flows. Fractal dimension of humid patches is below one in Arctic winter, so there are plenty of see-through holes in the distribution. I keep telling you average humidity tells nothing about optical depth of the atmosphere at specific H2O absorption lines, as transparency is a heavily non-linear function of water vapor mixing ratio, but unfortunately you still don't get the message. Also, with increasing temperatures there, thermal IR radiation flux goes up steeply. Black body radiation flux is 62% higher at -10°C than at -40°C and emissivity of a snow covered surface (or airborne ice needles) is pretty close to a black body in thermal IR.
  42. Monckton Myth #1: Cooling oceans
    What you are asking for is what the IPCC was created for 22 years ago. I personally know several scientifically-illiterate, but otherwise intelligent, people. Unfortunately, no body of eminence will sway their opinions. The benefit of attributing anything that contradicts that opinion to vast conspiracy is that it is an ever-widening spiral. Your proposal would quickly be shot down as "irrationally alarmist, and all too often depressingly intolerant."
  43. Monckton Myth #1: Cooling oceans
    Phil of course there is something wrong with "being a right-wing free marketer per-se" it is a discredited and damaging ideology. And it isn't just Lawson, most of the deniers seem to be imbued with this kind of libertarian, mustn't interfere with the market, mustn't regulate anything for any reason philosophy. And guys, I think you have been a bit unfair to fungelstrumpet (and what kind of a strumpet is? ... oh, never mind). The attacks on the IPCC may not have been related to the appalling stolen email beat up, but as part of the general campaign in the lead up to Copenhagen, the IPCC was simultaneously being hit with the "riddled with errors" nonsense about melting Himalayan glaciers, flooding Holland and drying Amazon. I can understand Ms Strumpet's desire to set up, as it were, a new "cleanskin" body, but that is what the IPCC was and is. Whatever body was established to bring sanity and urgency to the need to deal with rising GHG would be subject to precisely the kind of misinformation and dirty tricks campaign that we see against any organisation or individual who dares to try to warn the world of coming peril. There is far too much at stake financially, and philosophically, for the deniers to ever give in, no matter how much climatic trauma develops over the coming century.
  44. Could global warming be caused by natural cycles?
    Marvin Gardens, there was a lot more than one link there. Did you miss the list of scientific organisations ? The 1,372 climate researchers in the Andereg paper ? The Oreskes study ? Can you see a pattern there ?
  45. Not a cite for Soare eyes
    The web page of the International Journal of Geosciences is http://www.scirp.org/journal/ijg/ . A page linked from "Editorial Board" shows that its "Editor in Chief" is "Prof. Shuanggen Jin, University of Texas, USA", but I did not find his name at the web site of Univ. of Texas. His name in the "Editorial Board" page links to his "Biography" page, which has a list of his professional publications. It seems that he is an expert of geodesy, in particular application of GPS. SCIRP has another journal "Positioning" (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ijg/ ), and its "Editorial Board" lists Jin as a mamber (not the chief), and his affiliation is shown there as "Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, CAS, China". (CAS stands for Chinese Academy of Sciences.) The web site of the Observatory (http://english.shao.cas.cn/ ) list Jin as one of the scientists (http://english.shao.cas.cn/scientists/ge/ ), and http://www.shao.ac.cn/geodesy directs to a page of his laboratory. So Jin is a real scientist and that his current affiliation is Shanhai Astronomical Observatory. Apparently SCIRP fails to update information of his move, and it seems a significant fault in this particular case where credibility of SCIRP's journals crucially depends on their editors. The rest of my comment is just my guess and does not have enough evidence. It does not seem to me that SCIRP is an organization which has such an agenda as denial of anthropogenic climate change, but just an organization established to hastened to ensure quality. It does not seem to me that Jin has such an agenda either. I guess that the situation is very similar to what occurred in "Climate Research" in 2003, that the decision to appove climate-related papers is delegated to a member of the Editorial Board who may have a political agenda.
  46. Eric (skeptic) at 10:14 AM on 17 January 2011
    Global Warming and Cold Winters
    Albatross (#67), the 1976 SAT of -0.16 came after three years of continuous La Nina, see http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml If that happens again, we'll talk in 2.5 years and I will readily admit that whatever warming is shown between 1976 and mid 2013 is due to AGW.
  47. funglestrumpet at 09:48 AM on 17 January 2011
    Monckton Myth #1: Cooling oceans
    38 & 39. Bibliovermis. I am retired and no longer move in scientific circles. The people I tend to meet are members of the general public. The sort of people who only have a tenuous grasp of scientific matters, yet have a vote and thus an influence on the way politicians act. In general they know about the emails. They know that they have been claimed to show that the scientists 'fiddled' the evidence. Perhaps I should not have singled out the IPCC and simply put "all scientists." The news that they investigations into the matter completely exonerated the scientists involved seems to have passed the average member of the general public by. The result is that many now believe people such as Melanie Phillips (a U.K. columnist on a daily paper) who claims that it is all "a scam." These are the people we have to win over if we are to force the politicians to act. One person that I discussed Climate Change with wrapped up his case by saying: "Scientists don't know what they are talking about. How come they didn't warn us about that earthquake, then?" The term ‘scientifically illiterate’ hardly suffices, does it? We face an uphill struggle if we carry on believing that sites like this one, excellent as it is, is going to win over the general public. The aforementioned individual is not by any means alone in his lack of scientific understanding. I suppose what I am looking for is a body that can arbitrate. Given an arbitration decision we can move on. It would not silence the deniers completely, but it would make it far more difficult for them to put their views across. Furthermore newspaper proprietors and editors world be exposed as biased if they contradicted the conclusions of that body, providing it was illustrious enough. If a significant majority of people believe in the extent of the problem the politicians will come running for the sake of the votes and the media people will come running for the sake of sales. I am scared for my children and my future grandchildren because I can see what is happening. I think the general public would be too if they could only be made to face the facts. Showing that a person’s grandchildren are likely to be living in a world that can at best only feed a third of its population should do the trick. But that case has to be made properly re #23 above.
  48. Monckton Myth #1: Cooling oceans
    Sorry, but I should just add that I didn't mean to imply @41 there was anything wrong with being a right-wing free marketer per-se, only that he appears to have reached the conclusion that tackling Global Warming requires state intervention, and has therefore been "extremely motivated" to find flaws in the science.
  49. Monckton Myth #1: Cooling oceans
    Nigel Lawson is a right-wing free marketer; a common perception is that his scientific beliefs are driven by his ideology rather than evidence. GWPF backed this travesty by putting up some of the finance. They are a contrarian/denier organisation.
  50. Monckton Myth #1: Cooling oceans
    Philip Stot is a professor emeritus of biogeography at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. His published opinion is that global warming is a Barthesian myth, i.e. cultural groupthink.

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