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Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 20:46 PM on 19 July 2010Part Three: Response to Goddard
@Jeff T As for: “... the earth's rotation rate ...” - The impact of this phenomenon (established by Stone - 1978) for the oceanic transport of energy, is the subject of great and “heated” debate. @Robert Way “... therefore significant ice losses on the Continent cannot occur.” - the same argument is still the scientists use and the Arctic - on Greenland. A huge number of scientific works created in recent years on what is happening and what will happen to the Arctic and Antarctic ice. Among the many, I chose two "cherry" - against the thesis that the melting of glaciers can quickly (by the end of XXI century) to be a problem, only two "cherry", but a very “sweet” and “handsome”. Wingham ... also, however, writes that (et al. - 2006 - quotes by “CO2 science”): "... analyzed 1.2 x 108 European remote sensing satellite altimeter echoes to determine the changes in volume of the Antarctic ice sheet from 1992 to 2003," which survey, in their words, "covers 85% of the East Antarctic ice sheet and 51% of the West Antarctic ice sheet," which together comprise "72% of the grounded ice sheet." In doing so, they found that "overall, the data, corrected for ISOSTATIC REBOUND, show the ice sheet growing at 5 ± 1 mm per year." To calculate the ice sheet's change in mass, however, "requires knowledge of the density at which the volume changes have occurred," and when the researchers' best estimates of regional differences in this parameter were used, they found that "72% of the Antarctic ice sheet is gaining 27 ± 29 Gt per year, a sink of ocean mass sufficient to lower global sea levels by 0.08 mm per year. [...]" " This net extraction of water from the global ocean, according to Wingham et al., occurs because "mass gains from accumulating snow, particularly on the Antarctic Peninsula and within East Antarctica, exceed the ice dynamic mass loss from West Antarctica. [...]" ... and here I would gladly went to prove that the vast majority of the 6 m more in the Eemian- Sangamon sea level is: „ISOSTATIC REBOUND”, but I am afraid, that J. C. again ... Greenland: The Cryosphere Estimation of the Greenland ice sheet surface mass balance for the 20th and 21st centuries., Fettweis et al., 2008: “Results from a regional climate simulation (1970–2006) over the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) reveals that more than 97% of the interannual variability of the modelled Surface Mass Balance (SMB) can be explained by the GrIS summer temperature anomaly and the GrIS annual precipitation anomaly. This multiple regression is then used to empirically estimate the GrIS SMB since 1900 from climatological time series. The projected SMB changes in the 21st century are investigated with the set of simulations performed with atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR4). These estimates show that the high surface mass loss rates of recent years are not unprecedented in the GrIS history of the last hundred years. The minimum SMB rate seems to have occurred earlier in the 1930s and corresponds to a zero SMB rate. The AOGCMs project that the SMB rate of the 1930s would be common at the end of 2100 [!!!]. The temperature would be higher than in the 1930s but the increase of accumulation in the 21st century would partly offset the acceleration of surface melt due to the temperature increase. [...]” Yes, yes, I do not forget that: “However, these assumptions are based on an empirical multiple regression only validated for recent/current climatic conditions, and the accuracy and time homogeneity of the data sets and AOGCM results used in these estimations constitute a large uncertainty.”, ... but ... -
scaddenp at 20:37 PM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
"The world of science is no different from the outside world - a mixture of hard working honest individuals, mediocrities, scoundrels, and all shades in between." True to a degree, but I'd say more regard for truth than average because learning a science discipline requires learning how not to fool yourself. As to your "system", I've heard of those ploys in the US academic system where apparently there are administrators who blindly look at citation indices but I wonder if it still works. However, I cannot see how you make your name in science without truly publishing something that is cited in honesty by those who you have never met. A me-too paper will never do this. -
chris1204 at 18:46 PM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
scaddenp @ 80: If you want to make your mark, you have to get something published that will be cited. Lots of papers that no-one cites, gets you nowhere. Easy - you cite your own papers and get others in your lab to cite them in turn. Alternatively, you submit the same research project with minor variations on the theme to multiple journals (you're not supposed to do this but I've seen it happen with my own eyes). The world of science is no different from the outside world - a mixture of hard working honest individuals, mediocrities, scoundrels, and all shades in between. -
James Wight at 18:43 PM on 19 July 2010It cooled mid-century
John, recently on Irregular Climate you mentioned that in the mid-20th century, although the daily maximum temperature decreased, the daily minimum temperature increased. Can you add links to that evidence here? Thank you.Response: Always making work for me, aren't you James? Here's the original blog post about daily minimum temperatures increasing during mid-century cooling. I've integrated the blog post into the above info. Thanks for the suggestion (your ideas while making work for me are always good ideas). -
kdkd at 18:28 PM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
BP #90 I suggest that you steer away from social commentary, and stick to the technical sounding stuff which is less easy to see through. "As for the other problems [e.g. acid rain, and ozone depletion] mentioned, they were solved by eliminating the Soviet Empire (including the GDR) with its unregulated industrial emissions. That is, at that time, it was enough to plung half of the world into economic and social chaos." This is astoundingly incorrect and refuted from things I remember from School level geography lessons in the 1980s. I fail to see how the collapse of the USSR could have solved the North American acid rain problem, or the Scandinavian problem for that matter (prevailing winds over Europe are Westerly, it was largely Western European emissions causing the problems in Scandinavia. I suppose that Soviet acid rain would end up in the boreal forests of Siberia, not a place I learned much about in school. As for the ozone hole, this required large scale international regulation, just like solving the CO2 problem requires. Any reduction in production of CFCs in the USSR due to economic collapse would have only had a small impact relative to American, Western European and Asian production. Thanks for the giggles though ;) -
quokka at 18:15 PM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
#66 Marcus. Questions about wind power are not confined to NIMBYism. The big issue with wind turbines is extreme variability of output which is not necessarily spacialy smoothed - ie if the wind is not blowing here, it may not be blowing there either. They need to be backed by something else. Hydro is good if available. Otherwise the main option currently is open cycle gas turbines which are less efficient than CCGT. The saving of CO2 emissions may be less in reality than might be thought because of the higher inefficiency in ramping up and down the fossil fuel burners that back them. There are some good charts of Australian wind farm output here: OZ-ENERGY-ANALYSIS.ORG The project is developing models of the Australian electricity grid to determine the feasibility/limits of wind power. It should be worth following developments. -
James Wight at 18:08 PM on 19 July 2010Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy
Here’s a link to the final and most comprehensive inquiry: the Muir Russell report. -
Anne-Marie Blackburn at 18:04 PM on 19 July 2010Skeptical Science now an Android app
To use the QR code, install the Barcode Scanner app (free app in the Shopping category). Then go to the AppBrain Skeptical Science page and click on (QR, more) (next to Facebook, Twitter, etc.). A square with the matrix code will then be visible. Use Barcode Scanner to scan it, which will take you straight to the app. Install it, et voila! -
Berényi Péter at 18:02 PM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
#81 adelady at 11:24 AM on 19 July, 2010 In 1975 what were the atmospheric problems that we knew about? Acid rain, particulates, the effect of CFCs on the ozone layer spring to my mind. Yes. Don't forget the the cooling world, about to cause epic crop failures in the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in ten years with soaring food prices and world wide famine. That problem was solved indeed, at least for the time being, even if it is not known how. And whaddya know? We've dealt with those without plunging the world into economic and social chaos. As for the other problems you have mentioned, they were solved by eliminating the Soviet Empire (including the GDR) with its unregulated industrial emissions. That is, at that time, it was enough to plung half of the world into economic and social chaos. But all is not lost. In the meantime communist China with even nastier emissions was built up as the monster of the day by exporting our jobs to state sponsored slave labor and our pollutions to communist burocratic regulators there. -
Bern at 17:23 PM on 19 July 2010Skeptical Science now an Android app
Downloaded & installed (via AppBrain, using their QR code read with Barcode Scanner - don't you love modern technology?) Will definitely come in handy!Response: Using the QR whoosy with the Barcode whatsits? For the sake of an Android newbie, don't suppose you could explain in a bit more detail this process? Is it a matter of following the AppBrain link while browsing on the Android phone? -
tobyjoyce at 17:17 PM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
Berényi Péter: "In fact ACC and urgent need for political action was the starting point and scientists were recrutited to serve this end. You should respect history." In "Science as a Contact Sport", Stephen Schneider gives an account of his recruitment by Margaret Mead into the sinister conspiracy to use global warming to undermine the American Way of Life.... ... except it was much more innocuous. In 1975, Mead was President of the AAAS, interested in a broad range of issues. One of the things she did was hold a conference called "The Atmosphere: Endangered and Endangering". The star of the show was James Lovelock and his newly-published Gaia hypothesis. Lovelock argued for the resilience of life, Schneider and James Holdren were the "Young Turks" pointing out that even a large proportion of the human race could suffer from climate catasprophes. Schneider quotes some helpful advice Mead gives him in the book. He tells the story of the scientific detour into "global cooling". A very great amount of what we now call "climate science" was already being donein 1975(data gathering, modeling), and Mead had only a transient (but important) influence. BP will have to do better than a couple of speeches to prove that particular conspiracy theory. The problem with conspiracy theorists is the less evidence they find, the more convinced they are about the cunning malevolence of their adversaries. -
gpwayne at 16:53 PM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
Berényi Péter:In fact ACC and urgent need for political action was the starting point and scientists were recrutited to serve this end. You should respect history.
Your argument mirrors those who claim Gore started it all to line his pockets, or Thatcher kicked it off at the UN as part of her strategy to strangle the mining unions. And as Muoncounter points out, the investigations at that time - which encompassed particulates and other forms of pollution - were as interested in the potential cooling effects as heating. And why do you ignore the actual history of climate change science - some significant dates I listed in comment #2? Before patronising me, perhaps some research might be in order: Spencer Weart's history of climate change science -
kdkd at 16:40 PM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
Just to add my 2c to BP's rather strange comment about the alleged Margaret Mead conspiracy (appart from the offensive insinuation that social scientists have nothing of value to contribute to society - many objects and institutions you use on a daily basis demonstrate that this is not the case) This just confirms my preconception that if you press a climate sceptic on their ideas, no matter how superficially plausible they seem, keep at it long enough, and the ideas will degenerate into a frustrated mass of crackpot conspiracy theory in the end. -
villabolo at 16:09 PM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
RSVP at 05:22 AM on 19 July, 2010 "Taking a red hot iron plug inside an "ideal" insulator such as a glass thermos with reflective surfaces. Does it radiate? Or put the same plug into an iron box at the same temperature. Does it radiate in there?" "The answer of course is no. . . ." * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * If this has been posted before or if it's obvious I'm a non-professional, my sincere apologies. I'll give my answer in Plainspeak. Concerning the thermos, with a reflective glass surface, I can think of two reasons why it should radiate. 1) The glass has to be connected to the rest of the thermos. Therefore, conduction. 2) The glass is not a perfect reflective device, I doubt anything would be. Therefore, it will radiate. Me thinks the answer is yes. -
muoncounter at 13:40 PM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
#77: "What we need from scientists are estimates, presented with sufficient conservatism and plausibility but at the same time as free as possible from internal disagreements that can be exploited by political interests," How amazingly prescient was Ms. Meade! She foresaw the difficulties in which we now find ourselves. Nothing in the quote you present supports your point. Meade calls for scientific advice prior to making policy: "before there is a corresponding attempt to develop a “law of the air,” the scientific community advise the United Nations" And the article title is "The Cooling World." Mid 70s; remember all that concern about falling temperatures? -
Phila at 13:35 PM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
#77 Berenyi Peter There were the conclusions stated by a cultural anthropologist and climate science was asked to support them. That's what happened. I hardly know what to say, except that this is a particularly sad example of what the overriding need to deny or downplay AGW can do to the the critical faculties of otherwise intelligent people. I suppose Margaret Mead was behind this, too? -
Phila at 13:28 PM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
#71 CBW Human society has confronted numerous environmental challenges throughout its history, and this is just one more. Yes. And it's always struck me that "skeptics" love to talk about humanity's adaptability...until it comes to climate mitigation efforts, at which point there's virtually no question of adaptation; basically, society will collapse, and we'll return to the Stone Age and be forced to eat bracken and fronds. It's funny how often people offer this grim rhetoric as a cheery response to "doomsayers." As for the claim that climatology is somehow "different" from other sciences because it's "politicized," I'm sure the lung cancer researchers whose careful work was attacked for decades by industry shills would have a different view. So would a lot of virologists and evolutionary biologists, I suspect. -
Marcus at 11:34 AM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
Beranyi, that is just a complete load of absolute codswallop & proves that you're now just scraping the bottom of the barrel to try & undermine the science of climate change. To suggest an anthropologist pushed the entire scientific community into supporting her views is a load of total bunkum. In fact, much of the evidence for the role of Greenhouse gases in controlling the climate were developed long before this conference that you refer to. Indeed, how can you even be sure that she is talking about AGW? Given the threats our atmosphere was being exposed to at the time, she was most likely referring to things like Acid Rain, particulate pollution & Ozone depletion. -
adelady at 11:24 AM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
BP "In fact ACC and urgent need for political action was the starting point and scientists were recrutited to serve this end. You should respect history." And so should you. Atmospheric scientists already existed in 1975. As of now the scientific origins of the theory are coming up for a 200 birthday party. In 1975 what were the atmospheric problems that we knew about? Acid rain, particulates, the effect of CFCs on the ozone layer spring to my mind. And whaddya know? We've dealt with those without plunging the world into economic and social chaos. -
scaddenp at 11:09 AM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
"It's only those with a long CV, a good track record and plenty on grounding that can afford the pleasures of testing orthodoxy. All the rest are grinding out the results that are easily publishable." This bears no resemblance to the science world I know. If you want to make your mark, you have to get something published that will be cited. Lots of papers that noone cites, gets you nowhere. You dont actually sit down and say, "I am going to bring down AGW". You do experiments/observations of real world and compare them to theories - especially your own versus orthodoxy. The advice I give the young is go into new, preferably well funded fields for PhD, and particularly into those where there is new instrument/analysis emerging for examining reality. Its the easiest way to make your mark. -
chris1204 at 10:48 AM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
PS CBW @ 71 'That's because you haven't defined an outcome in specific enough terms to predict anything.' I don't think even the IPCC would aspire to such precision. Moreover, even if you did make a prediction on the lines of, 'x% of the Greenland icecap will melt by the year y,' the good citizens of Greenland might think that's fine and dandy while the burghers of New Orleans might be struggling to hold back the rising tide. It depends on your point of view. -
chris1204 at 10:39 AM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
CBW @ 75 "Taking a red hot iron plug inside an "ideal" insulator such as a glass thermos with reflective surfaces. Does it radiate?" It can only radiate as far as the internal boundaries of the thermos whose reflective surfaces would prevent further outward radiation. "Or put the same plug into an iron box at the same temperature. Does it radiate in there?" Yes it does radiate but any radiation outward is counterbalanced by radiation inward resulting in a zero energy transfer between the plug and iron bar. This would apply particularly if you placed the iron box inside a perfect insulator. However, if the iron bar were placed in a vacuum, the added heat from the inserted plug cause more net heat to radiate into the vacuum. I think RSVP may be concerned with energy gradients. -
Berényi Péter at 10:34 AM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
Anthropogenic climate change is not where science starts, thinking to fit the theory to as many phenomena as it can. ACC is where you end up following any single line of enquiry. This is not the case. In fact ACC and urgent need for political action was the starting point and scientists were recrutited to serve this end. You should respect history. Excerpts from Margaret Mead’s keynote to the conference Atmosphere: Endangered and Endangering, North Carolina, Oct. 26-29, 1975 "At this conference we are proposing that, before there is a corresponding attempt to develop a “law of the air,” the scientific community advise the United Nations (and individual, powerful nation states or aggregations of weaker states) and attempt to arrive at some overview of what is presently known about hazards to the atmosphere from manmade interventions" "I have asked a group of atmospheric specialists to meet here to consider how the very real threats to humankind and life on this planet can be stated with crediblity and persuasiveness before the present society of nations begins to enact laws of the air, or plan for “international environmental impact statements.”" "What we need from scientists are estimates, presented with sufficient conservatism and plausibility but at the same time as free as possible from internal disagreements that can be exploited by political interests, that will allow us to start building a system of artificial but effective warnings, warnings which will parallel the instincts of animals" It was in 1975, when Newsweek published this article. That is, at a time when according to a US National Academy of Sciences report "Not only are the basic scientific questions [about climate] largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions". Therefore it is not true that science came first and led to inevitable conclusions, just the opposite. There were the conclusions stated by a cultural anthropologist and climate science was asked to support them. That's what happened. -
KR at 10:32 AM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
RSVP - Your red hot plug will radiate at the same rate (based upon temperature) in either location. The only difference in the two scenarios you pose is whether an equal amount of radiation comes back. Sorry to be pushing this, but this particular argument is closely related to the horrible G&T paper attempting to disprove the greenhouse gas relationship by denying major parts of radiative theory. I know I'm a bit touchy about this particular error - I suspect I'm not the only one. I would strongly recommend this link on thermal radiation, as well as this link on radiative equilibrium. Objects radiate in proportion to their temperature, in fact related to temperature by the 4th power, over their emissivity spectra. Heat and changes thereof are due to the net energy flow via radiation, conduction, convection, etc.; radiation is part of that net flow. Please don't confuse the various components for the sum. -
CBW at 09:40 AM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
RSVP: "Taking a red hot iron plug inside an "ideal" insulator such as a glass thermos with reflective surfaces. Does it radiate?" Yes. "Or put the same plug into an iron box at the same temperature. Does it radiate in there?" Yes. "So heat does not transfer unless it has a cooler place to go..." Again, you are conflating heat flow and radiation. -
Marcus at 09:27 AM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
John D, as someone who actually WORKS in the field of Agricultural Science, I consider myself very well placed to see the potential for science to improve agricultural yields into the future-so please DON'T INSULT MY INTELLIGENCE! I'm also in a good vantage point to see how climate change has already partly undone the good works of the last 40 years, & how it has the potential to retard future progress. What I certainly DON'T SEE is this ludicrous UTOPIAN VISION of an enhanced CO2 world which you keep trying to paint. A vision based solely on ONE highly EQUIVOCAL trial in Horsham-a trial which even the investigators are reluctant to put a positive spin on. Every other researcher in this field, worth the name, has predicted significant declines in yield as a result of climate change & long-term decline in the *QUALITY* of agricultural produce as the result of increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Yes, these problems can be partly mitigated via a series of fixes, but these fixes will come at A HIGH COST-for farmers & consumers alike. Yet it sounds like you'd rather that cost be paid by us rather than suggest that the Fossil Fuel industry lose even a dollar as a result of cutting our production of CO2 emissions. The point that I've been trying to make, but which you've consistently failed to grasp, is that greater yield increases can be achieved-in the ABSENCE of an enhanced CO2 environment-by improved crop practices than can be achieved by increasing CO2 alone-& without the cost of reduced nutritional value. If anything, in spite of your ongoing attempts to paint a blindly optimistic picture of the future, an enhanced CO2 world will be more of a hindrance to the long-term viability of agriculture than a help. This isn't my own personal pessimism I'm expressing, I'm mostly expressing the pessimism of people who actually WORK ON THE LAND-people who're even more concerned about climate change than I am. Perhaps you ought to spend time talking to them instead of thinking you automatically know everything? -
JMurphy at 08:31 AM on 19 July 2010Does partial scientific knowledge mean we shouldn't act?
Well, johnd, the difference again is that you do not provide accessible links and wish to believe something different than what has actually occurred. I will therefore just provide more evidence that 2009 was in fact 'worst' as most people would recognise it : In February 2009 the whole of south‐east Australia was experiencing a severe and protracted drought — a drought without precedent. During January 2009 many locations in Victoria experienced no rain at all. Most other locations were at near record lows. The drought continues. In late January 2009 exceptional heatwave conditions developed across Victoria, the most severe and prolonged in the history of south‐east Australia. On 7 February many all-time temperature records were set. In Melbourne the temperature reached 46.4°C. The previous record was 45.6°C, set on Black Friday, 13 January 1939. The duration of the heatwave was exceptional, with Melbourne setting a record for the most consecutive days above 43°C (three days). The countryside was parched. The heat and drought desiccated the vegetation of the forest floor. The fuel loads were extremely high. Those responsible for managing and fighting fires in Victoria compared the conditions with 1939 — prior to 7 February 2009 the most catastrophic bushfire season in Victorian history. They held a foreboding. There was an understanding that the landscape of Victoria was predisposed to ‘a catastrophic event’. (MY EMPHASIS) Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission Interim Report I think I'll stick with the evidence, the facts and the experts. You stick with your opinion, if you prefer. -
johnd at 07:04 AM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
Marcus at 19:52 PM, your rather pessimistic outlook underestimates what gains have been made to date addressing some of your concerns, and the ability of the scientists and other experts working on improving plant genetics and other techniques that increase productivity, not only in cropping but in all areas of agricultural food production. Already improved farming practices are allowing those implementing the latest techniques to dramatically reduce their usage of nitrogen fertilisers by adding legumes into their cropping cycle. Not only does the legumes fix nitrogen into the soil for the crops to follow, but the legumes provide an income as well. The use of GPS guidance has not only reduced soil compaction, but the accurate placement of both seed and fertiliser has reduced usage of fertiliser by ensuring the correct amount is being placed where it will be readily and fully available to the plant with minimum losses. These challenges ahead are not providing a brick wall for agricultural related scientists to bang their heads on, but rather an opportunity with a wall full of doors to be opened as they continue to unlock plant genetics, as process barely started, rather than one that has been exhausted as many seem to think given all the barriers they see as apparently permanent limitations. -
johnd at 06:29 AM on 19 July 2010Does partial scientific knowledge mean we shouldn't act?
JMurphy at 22:44 PM, information about the fires of 1851 are available from newspaper and government archives where it is all well documented. There are many ways to quantify the severity of a fire, however area burnt is the most appropriate when comparing fires, especially between times of low population distribution and density, and times of higher distribution and density. This is especially so if trying to correlate climate and fires. Perhaps you could compare the area burnt in the Feb 2009 fires and the Feb 1851 fires and comment. "The largest Australian bushfire in European-recorded history that burnt an area of approximately 5 million ha. which covered a quarter of Victoria." Source: 1301.0 - Year Book Australia, 2004. .......... "Damage incurred during the four days of the Black Thursday bushfire. Fires covered a quarter of what is now Victoria. This spans approximately 5 million hectares.The areas affected include Portland, Plenty Ranges, Westernport, the Wimmera and Dandenong districts. Approximately 12 lives, one million sheep and thousands of cattle were lost. After five weeks of hot northerly winds, on the 6th of February,1851 known as Black Thursday, probably Victoria's most extensive bushfires, apparently started in the Plenty Ranges when two bullock drivers left some logs burning which set fire to long, drought-parched grass. From an early hour in the morning a hot wind blew from the NNW, accompanied by 47C temperatures in Melbourne. There was extensive damage in Victoria's Port Phillip district. Huge areas of southern and NE Vic were burnt out. Fires burnt from Mt Gambier in South Australia to Portland in Victoria as well as the Wimmera in the north and central and southern areas including Semour, the Plenty Ranges and much of Gippsland , Westernport, Geelong, Heidelberg and east to Diamond Creek and Dandenong where a number of settlements were destroyed. There were 1.5m ha of forest burnt out plus vast areas of scrub and grasslands (total land burnt - approx 5m ha [DNRE,Vic]). Farmers at Barrabool Hills were burnt out or ruined; three men perished at Mt Macedon and wholesale destruction of the Dandenong districts was accompanied by similar widespread razings from Gippsland to the Murray (River). Other scorched areas included Omeo, Mansfield, Dromana, Yarra Glen, Warburton and Erica." Source: EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AUSTRALIA. -
michael sweet at 06:02 AM on 19 July 2010Irregular Climate podcast 8: Journalismgate, prawngate and rock n roll
John, Doesn't this months data show that the hottest 12 month period is July 2009 through June 2010? I imagine you wrote that last month. Four months in a row as the record hottest. But didn't it stop warming in 1998?Response: I hadn't got around to downloading the last month's data so yes, it probably is already out of data. I'll make sure I grab the latest data before I finish the 1998 post. -
RSVP at 05:22 AM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
CBW "Radiation is a phenomenon by which any object at > 0 degrees K will give up its energy." I appreciate your getting back to this question given the multiple threads going on here... Taking a red hot iron plug inside an "ideal" insulator such as a glass thermos with reflective surfaces. Does it radiate? Or put the same plug into an iron box at the same temperature. Does it radiate in there? The answer of course is no. This is similar to standing waves if it isnt in any event the same thing. So heat does not transfer unless it has a cooler place to go, whether by radiation, conduction or convection, all this pointing to the initial statement that the "greenhouse" effect is a self limiting process. -
Peter Hogarth at 05:12 AM on 19 July 2010Watts Up With That concludes Greenland is not melting without looking at any actual ice mass data
michael sweet at 08:06 AM on 17 July, 2010 The upper 200m or so are strongly affected by seasonal changes, (the upper 100m particularly so), and remember this is a study based on repeat hydrographic sections rather than continuous monitoring that would allow averaging over annual periods. As we go deeper the Ocean effectively does this averaging for us. -
jenikhollan at 03:47 AM on 19 July 2010Part Three: Response to Goddard
Robert, thanks for the great trilogy. I have one suggestion for the final part: what about writing ‘Gt per year’ instead of ‘Gt year’? Seems that an exponent -1 over year had been lost... Gt a-1 or Gt/a would be both valid. (I can imagine Gt.a as a unit of a forcing for an isostatic rebound, but scarcely for anything else.) -
CBW at 02:57 AM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
chriscanris @ 55: "I thought I had given a reasonable definition of catastrophe: that increasing atmospheric CO2 levels would set in train a concatenation of positive feedbacks with far reaching adverse consequences. Perhaps I should have said something on the lines of 'ever increasing adverse consequences beyond our capacity to control or mitigate.'" No, that's not a definition because it is entirely vague. "As matters currently stand, I just don't know whether the evidence exists to predict such an outcome confidently." That's because you haven't defined an outcome in specific enough terms to predict anything. "X% of the Greenland ice sheet melts by the year Y," is specific. "Global agricultural output falls by Z% by the year W," is another. "Really really terrible things happen," is not. You could at least try to calculate a probability for the two former scenarios. The latter is just a straw man conjured up by the deniers. RSVP: Heat flow is a process by which thermal energy is transferred from one object to another because of a difference in temperature. Radiation is a phenomenon by which any object at > 0 degrees K will give up its energy. Heat flow requires a delta-T, radiation only requires a T > 0. HumanityRules writes: "Reducing human society (and human beings) to simple carbon emitters is part of the problem of the approach of climate science and environmentalism in general. You reduce humanity to the role of polluter." Nobody is doing that reduction except within the minds of the deniers. Human progress isn't going to end because we control the amount of carbon we dump into the atmosphere. Human society has confronted numerous environmental challenges throughout its history, and this is just one more. When lead emitted by car exhaust was coating the planet in a toxic metal, human society was not reduced to "lead emitters." And we changed what we were doing in a way that made the world cleaner without bringing an end to all transportation. When industry was dumping tons of toxic chemicals into rivers, lakes, and the oceans, or burying it in ways that would leak into groundwater, human activity was not reduced to "toxic chemical emitter." And we changed what we were doing in a way that made the world cleaner without bringing an end to all industry. There are numerous other examples of similar societal self-regulation that have made the world cleaner and more healthy for everyone, and yet we still enjoy our fabulous standard of living. But people opposed every single step of that history with the claim that it would raise prices and destroy competitiveness and none of it was really necessary because there was no danger anyway. The AGW situation is no different. You can either include the true costs of an activity in its price, or you can hide the costs and pay in another way. -
chris at 01:48 AM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
HumanityRules at 13:40 PM on 18 July, 2010 “I try objectively to think about my field of science and how ideas compete, ego's clash and petty personnal rivalries work through. And then I look at climate science and see what's going on there and honestly try to ask myself whether this is just the same thing only exposed to full public scutiny. Honestly I see no connection between the two things it's bizarre to try to fit the tactics of both sides into your own field of science, try it. I'd go back to my original comment there is a dynamic going on here that does not exist in other fields of science.” (i) I can look at my own scientific field (broadly medically-related biophysics) and see on a lesser scale some of the efforts to misrepresent the science that are so astonishingly and brazenly apparent in relation to climate science. It’s obvious that every science subject whose findings clash with powerful interests will gather a “deadweight” of misrepresentation. In my field this might be efforts by the pharmaceutical industry to hide data showing adverse side effects (e.g. GSK on the side effects of paroxetine in children; earlier efforts by the industry to misrepresent evidence for increased risk of Reyes syndrome in kids taking aspirin; sadly lots of examples), and to induce efforts at selective publishing of data to support preferred outcomes (e.g. drug efficacies) etc. (ii) This is fairly widespread isn’t it? The attempts to misrepresent evolutionary and geological science by fundamentalist pseudoreligious groups are obvious (not to mention their less well know attempts to misrepresent the science on homosexuality). The efforts to take collective action to reduce CFC emissions was strongly opposed by relevant chemical industries and some of the individuals that attempted to misrepresent that science and its implications are doing the same with climate science. It would be naïve not to recognise that these nefarious things go on….science is a rather dangerous enterprise since it uncovers truths whose implications may threaten vested interests. (iii) How do we deal with this? In my field the relevant quality journals now make efforts to identify potential conflicts of interests and these have to be stated upfront by scientists submitting papers. In the US all drug trials involving the National Institutes of Health (NIH) must be publically deposited, and publically funded research (NIH, and NASA, NOAA etc in climate science) must be published as open access. Likewise with research funded by the Wellcome Trust and other research charities in the UK. Otherwise we focus on the science and make every effort to highlight the misrepresentations (as on this excellent web site). (iv) Where I think that your presentation is fundamentally false is in the implication that all of the political nonsense and blogospheric misrepresentation is part of the science. It isn’t. Scientists are getting on with their research and finding stuff out. Your picture of an arena where ”rival ideas compete, ego's clash and petty personnal rivalries work through” is a fair one. On top of that there are some astonishing things going on…but it’s not the climate scientists that are pursuing fanatical attacks on the integrity of scientists, or setting up crude political inquisitions in an attempt to sully scientists whose work they don’t happen to like, or organise conferences to pursue a pretence that there is an “alternative” approach to the science (creationists do this too), or set up websites to attempt to spread scientific “ideas” that border on the moronic, or who organise groups of thugs to harass scientists and their institutions. You may find it convenient to consider that this rubbish is a representation of climate science. But take way all the nonsense (it will happen one day just as the misrepresenters of the science on cigarette smoking or CFC’s drifted away once it was either convenient to do so or impossible to pursue the deceits) and climate science will be bubbling away just as it is now – including a fundamental source of crucial knowledge on the response of the natural world to massively enhanced greenhouse gas concentrations. -
muoncounter at 01:34 AM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
#51: "those who are already spending millions on denialist PR – like Koch, Exxon etc. Ask yourself this: why are so many vested interests spending so much on spin, when they own research facilities and employ many scientists. Where is the fossil fuel funded scientific investigation of these ‘other contenders’? Rhetorical questions, of course. There is no ‘opposing’ science, because science isn’t adversarial. It is competitive, but not between arbitrary paradigms like political opposites." Oil company interests (and I used to be one) were indeed in the business of opposing science - at the most insidious of levels - science education. In short, oil companies funding the National Science Teachers Association were expecting behind-the-scenes influence on educational policy decisions. Reaction to this tidbit becoming public in the UK was heated, but did not get all that much publicity beyond the blogosphere in the US. I was an NSTA member at the time; there was a petition circulating amongst member teachers urging against NSTA to stop accepting such funds with strings attached. Exxon's policy changed (at least publicly) in 2007. -
Daniel2729 at 00:51 AM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
HR, regarding Oxfam: "It seems their intention now is to drag us all down the worst possible conditions rather than dream for a better life for all." It seems you're misunderstanding them. You can visit their site (http://www.oxfam.org) for more accurate information. -
adelady at 00:49 AM on 19 July 2010Does partial scientific knowledge mean we shouldn't act?
JohnD Being from Adelaide I'm not familiar with this concept you mention of "prolific growth". Any growth in this area is hard won. Parts of the Adelaide Hills are a good growing environment,but we don't have anything like the forests of the east coast. What we do have, like all wooded areas Australia wide, is a total absence of the small native critters that used to manage the undergrowth for us. Our imported foxes, rabbits, cats and dogs have destroyed the natural ecological mechanisms that previously limited the severity and impact of fire. -
jyyh at 00:28 AM on 19 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
As most sciences are gathering information and explaining phenomena on earth it is not surprising Global Climate Change appears on many lines of inquiry. Humanities, on the other hand, have trouble with the concept as there is but a very few examples of climate changes during the existence of civilization. Another group who may have trouble with the concept is the engineering sciences, as they are so obsessed with precision, and ACC is not very precise, f.e. because of possible mitigation and adaptation measures done by us. (classification - general science, easy blue) -
JMurphy at 22:51 PM on 18 July 2010Does partial scientific knowledge mean we shouldn't act?
Futurepol, you seem to have been ignored so far. Perhaps that is to do with your obsession with Al Gore, and the way you fling around accusations of 'fraud' and 'scam' so easily (and so baselessly). Just a thought... -
Daved Green at 22:46 PM on 18 July 2010Irregular Climate podcast 8: Journalismgate, prawngate and rock n roll
love these podcasts thanks for the links :-) -
JMurphy at 22:44 PM on 18 July 2010Does partial scientific knowledge mean we shouldn't act?
johnd wrote : The worst fires in Victoria's settled history occurred in 1851. So, why does the State Library of Victoria state : "On 7 February 2009, Victoria was devastated by the worst bushfires in Australia’s history when 173 people lost their lives." Perhaps you'd better reveal your own source ? Perhaps your definition of 'worst' is different from theirs ? -
Marcus at 22:33 PM on 18 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
Chris Canaris (#62). I think that the anti-wind-farms thing is a bit of a NIMBY thing-though its amazing how many farmers & small towns are quite happy with their wind-farms *after* they're built (they're good additional income for farmers & they're often tourist draw-cards too). There has been a low-level anti-wind farm campaign by elements of the FF lobby-largely based on memes regarding habitat destruction & bird deaths. As to hydro-power, I wasn't referring to large-scale dam construction like that which dominates the landscape of Tasmania. I was using the broad term Hydro to refer to various forms of tidal energy, Osmotic Potential Energy & so-called Micro-Hydro/Run-of-the-River schemes. Outside of that, algal biomass, waste bio-gas, solar, co-generation & geothermal remain as viable alternatives, alongside demand management. I personally think that the solutions are less difficult than we sometimes imagine-but I'm glad we agree in regards to energy efficiency! -
RSVP at 22:24 PM on 18 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
Chris "But surely that's what we should be continually opposing...which is why this website is rather good wouldn't you say?" I agree, and barring fanatics, one way to "win" an argument is convincing people that what they were telling you is what you've been telling them all along. -
mspelto at 22:13 PM on 18 July 2010Part Three: Response to Goddard
One other key point. In completing a mass balance assessment of Jakobshavn Pelto (1990) we did count the melt ponds from 1950's, 1960's and 1980's aerial photography and found no trend. Counting the same area in 2007 I noticed no trend. However, do not confuse the enhanced melting at the surface with the acceleration of the outlet glaciers. This is not what, I repeat not what, is causing their acceleration. As noted two years ago in a realclimate post the Outlet glaciers already have plenty of basal water pressure. In fact the summer drainage events have been found to reduce velocity on the outlet glaciers somewhat. -
ProfMandia at 22:07 PM on 18 July 2010Irregular Climate podcast 8: Journalismgate, prawngate and rock n roll
Christopher Monckton and other deniers get far more press coverage than they deserve. Journalistic false balance has caused the public to be confused on climate change – the greatest threat to humanity this century. Worse, these deniers have used mainstream media to attack climate science and the scientists who pursue the truth. Let us now turn the tables. Monckton has been exposed by Dr. John Abraham and instead of hiding his tail and whimpering away, Monckton has gone on the offensive by attacking Dr. Abraham and asking his followers to essentially “email bomb” Dr. Abraham’s university president. We need to alert the media to this story. I have assembled a list of 57 media contacts in the hopes that my readers will follow my lead and send letters asking for an investigation of Monckton and his attack on Abraham. I have placed mailto links that will make it easy to send letters to several contacts at once with a single click. In the thread comments, please suggest other contacts in the US and from abroad. This blog thread can then be used in the future to alert the media to denialist activity. http://profmandia.wordpress.com/2010/07/18/turn-the-tables-on-monckton/ -
chris1204 at 21:48 PM on 18 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
chris @ 61 Alas, I could tell you many a story about corruption and nepotism in academia but that would merely reinforce your perception of me as a grumpy old man. I realised long ago that I was temperamentally unsuited to a career in research. I bear no grudges about my limitations. I much prefer working with patients - each person comprises a unique 'clinical trial' with an 'n' of 1. And better than any clinical trial - the unique privilege of attempting to make someone's life more bearable. And yes, you have to work every bit as hard often struggling with people's intractable difficulties and the uncertainties these pose. To each his own. -
mspelto at 21:48 PM on 18 July 2010Part Three: Response to Goddard
HR: The coastal thinning appears to be largely related to melting at the bottom of the ice shelves due to warmer ocean waters, note Holland et al., (2008) and Rignot et al., (2004). This leads to greater acceleration as ice thins and buttressing is reduced, and in the case of some of the thinner ice shelves enhanced rifting and ice area losses.
Such as is the case with the Fleming Glacier below.
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chris at 21:36 PM on 18 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
RSVP at 20:48 PM on 18 July, 2010 "Most respectable religions admit that you cannot prove the existence of God, and in fact one's belief is a matter of faith. And even in the case of science as applied, for instance, to aerospace (i.e., Space Shuttles and commercial aircraft) your flight survival is ultimately a matter of personal faith and chance. The inability to recognize this distinction signals fanaticism and at best ignorance." eh? Did you really mean to say your second sentence RSVP? Your first and last sentences are interesting. As you say a fundamental element of "respectable religions" is that these are faith-based. Of course that doesn't mean that the heirarchies of these religions don't recognise real world realities (most "respectable religions" recognise and have commented on, the dangers inherent in unconstrained burning of fossil fuels), even if some of these may subsume scientific evidence in favour of ideologies (e.g. the deplorable views on condom use in relation to AIDS prevention by some elements of the Catholic Church). But the most outspoken antiscience "religious" groups are the fundamentalist "Christian" (one might prefer "pseudochristian"!) groups in the US (and also quite highly represented in Australia oddly). These are generally antiscience when it comes to global warming. What's interesting about these groups in relation to your comment, is that these have such a timid grasp on their views that they attempt to eliminate the concept of "faith" (in the religious sense) for a pseudoscientific "reality". Thus the dismal fallacies of creation "science" in which dull pretences that geological and biological structures can be understood in relation to a 6000 year old Earth. The timid proponents and their followers have to be fed an infant storybook version of science in order to satisfy their essential absence of faith.... I guess that's what you may mean by "fanatacism and at best ignorance". But surely that's what we should be continually opposing...which is why this website is rather good wouldn't you say? -
chris1204 at 21:09 PM on 18 July 2010The Missing Link, Creationism and Climate Change
Marcus @ 57: I think for once we are in complete agreement :-). I must say that very little gets wasted in Accra or Saigon. No one can afford it. Individual family incomes often depend on recycling what the rich throw away. We could certainly do with far less wastage in Sydney. Our annual New Year pyrotechnics are very pretty but extraordinarily wasteful and irritate me no end. Not only do they generate lots of smoke and CO2 but also huge quantities of CO2 from traffic jams which tie up the whole City and harbour-side. Yes, I know I sound like Scrooge or a Pacific Islander Methodist minister but they happen to be one of my pet peeves. However, a switchover to a non fossil fuel energy economy presents its own challenges. Nuclear is a dirty word in many quarters and I notice you avoid mentioning it (I don't necessarily advocate it). Bio-fuels are also problematic (I note they also don't feature on your list). Wind Farms have generated a large groundswell of opposition which I don't think is orchestrated by the FF industry as best as I can tell. As for hydroelectric, try building a new dam anywhere in Australia with a Green Party which rose to prominence through its opposition to the damming of the Franklin River (now a world heritage site and deservedly so). That leaves landfill, geothermal, photovoltaic, and solar thermal at least in Australia. Australia, however, has a huge economic investment in the sale of fossil fuel to China on which much of its prosperity in the near future depends. The cheapness of our fossil fuels are a strong disincentive to weaning ourselves off our dependence particularly on coal. A bit of a cleft stick or perhaps a challenge for us all. I think it's time I tackled Blueprint Germany (courtesy of Dr Volker Oschman and John Cook on 28/06/10). My sojourn in Vietnam has distracted me from following up some of my reading. On another topic, I'm happy to see HR posting away - I think our fears that this site would become boring and anti-intellectual have proved unfounded.
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