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Lindsay W at 00:16 AM on 14 June 2013A short history of carbon emissions and sinks
If you consider land use and biomass emissions together they dominated fossil fuels until as late as the first world war. But by 2010 fossil fuel emissions were about 8 times greater
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BC at 23:52 PM on 13 June 2013A short history of carbon emissions and sinks
Thanks for the article. I appreciate the overview you get with a 'short history ' style. I hadn't realised that land use was so large a component of the emissions.
Regarding the 2,000 gigatonnes already emitted, Bill McKibben states that we need to limit emissions from now on to 565 Gt to keep below 2 Deg C. At current emission growth rates it will take 14 years to reach this figure and it's just one fifth of the reserves on the books of the fossil fuel companies. It's a fairly simple and stark equation.
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Leto at 23:09 PM on 13 June 2013The anthropogenic global warming rate: Is it steady for the last 100 years? Part 2.
Dikran, there seems to be an editing mishap in your post @160:
"the average slope of the red line is clearly greater than that of the red, and this is reflected in the confidence interval not containing the true value."
The average slope of the red line is greater than that of the blue.
Moderator Response:[DikranMarsupial] Many thanks, I shall correct the error.
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MA Rodger at 20:41 PM on 13 June 2013The anthropogenic global warming rate: Is it steady for the last 100 years?
So Where is Amo?
The NOAA NCDC temperature data is broken into Land and Ocean as well as for different latitude zones (the zones differing from the GISS zones) so that might show us where he is.
The graph below shows the NCDC Global data in red (already shown in a post above but here more heavily smoothed to assist the presentation). So is the NCDC Global temperature wobble a signal from the AMO (shown in black)?
Looking at the Land and Ocean data which is also plotted, the answer is 'No, not unless Amo has a limp'. It would require explanation as to why the dip in AMO in 1910 made such a small impact on Land and big impact on Ocean SST and then in 1970 the dip made a big impact on Land and small impact on Ocean SST.The best we can hope is that the red wobble is some big kid with a limp and Amo is hidden behind him. Look! Do I see there the bobble on the top of Amo's hat? Find out in the next thrilling installment of "Where's Amo?"
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Dikran Marsupial at 19:38 PM on 13 June 2013New study by Skeptical Science author finds 100% of atmospheric CO2 rise is man-made
@civil engineer Calling arguments that have appeared in journal papers written by top carbon cycle experts, as well as the IPCC report "ridiculous" suggests hubris, which is not a good thing in science.
The mass balance argument, at least stated in its usual form, is not a calculus problem, as the quantites involved represent the actual amounts of carbon that have been moved between reservoirs within a particular timeframe - a year is a common choice. No calculus is involved.
Answer me this:
If during a particular year, net natural emissions are say 2 units and anthropogenic emissions are 2 units and the rise in atmospheric carbon is only 1 unit, where did the missing three units of carbon go?
Edit: By the way, your initial error is to double count natural fluxes,
dC/dt= -a*C + N + A
The net natural response of the carbon cycle is (to a first approximation) proportional to atmospheric CO2 levels, so the natural response is being represented by both -a*C and by N. If you want differential equation based models, you can find the in my journal paper, and give a reasonable reproduction of a variety of known observations, for instance a constant airborne fraction, and they do they also show that the natural environment is a net carbon sink.
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Ari Jokimäki at 19:24 PM on 13 June 2013An estimate of the consensus project paper search coverage
I took a peek to that poptech list once, but I very quickly saw (as would anyone who has gotten familiar with the body of scientific literature on the subject) that it wasn't very good effort. It seems to me that just about any paper could be included to that list when looked at some specific angle. If he would have taken real effort to do it, the list might have been useful at least in some sense. Well, I guess it's also useful now, but only in propaganda sense.
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shoyemore at 18:03 PM on 13 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
Tom Curtis,
Too hand-wavey for me, Tom. The King's Mirror quotation you give I interpret as supporting my earlier point - beyond small scale attempts, there was no significant grain-growing in Norse Greenland. We should not be surprised to find the discarded remnants of these (ultimately) failed attempts.
The Norse had vegetable gardens, and may well have tried to grow grain in those gardens, but no should be fooled into thinking there were wide fields of corn or barley, or that bread was a staple food, as Patterson's remarks would be interpreted by a listerner unfamiliar with the evidence.
The difference between us is not about the Norse growing grain but how extensive that was, and how important it was to the community. If the Norse did grow small patches of grain, it was hardly any more significant that provided a small supply of a chieftain's beer or barley bread. For vast majority of the community, hay was the important crop, an absolute necessity to get their domestic animals through the winter.
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Dikran Marsupial at 17:57 PM on 13 June 2013The anthropogenic global warming rate: Is it steady for the last 100 years? Part 2.
KK Tung The blue line is the linear trend for the "deduced anthropogenic signal" calculated from your MLR procedure, the green signal is this deduced anthropogenic signal with the residuals of the model added to it.
If you do not understand what the blue line is, perhaps you need to try to understand the thought experiment first before criticising as your criticisms have consistently demonstrated that you do not understand the point that has been made. Communicating that point has been made much more difficult by your constistant refusal to give a direct answer to the questions I have posed. If you give direct answers to these questions it makes it much easier to understand your position, so it is to your advantage to answer them.
The confidence interval 0.00204 +/- 0.00039 is the interval for the trend of the deduced A plus residual signal. Does this interval contain the true value 0.00304 representing the trend of the actual A signal? Yes or No?
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EliRabett at 14:45 PM on 13 June 2013A Miss by Myles: Why Professor Allen is wrong to think carbon capture and storage will solve the climate crisis
Eli would refer Yocta to Rabett Run's take on this that Allen is deeply pessimistic, but too optimistic on the costs of CCS
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EliRabett at 14:43 PM on 13 June 2013A Miss by Myles: Why Professor Allen is wrong to think carbon capture and storage will solve the climate crisis
It is misleading to assume that capture at the generating plant will be simpler and cheaper than air capture because the emissions are not pure CO2. Both will be expensive in dollars and energy
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Tom Curtis at 11:39 AM on 13 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
shoyemore @15, 1250, the date of the King's Mirror, comes in the tail of the MWP when tempeatures had fallen substantially from the 900-1000 peak. Nevertheless, even in 1250 the King's Mirror says:
"As to whether any sort of grain can grow there, my belief is that the
country draws but little profit from that source. And yet there are men
among those who are counted the wealthiest and most prominent who have
tried to sow grain as an experiment; but the great majority in that country
do not know what bread is, having never seen it."In that respect, the cultivation of barley in Greenland would have been similar in extent to its current cultivation. Given, however, that Greenland would have been warmer in the preceding centuries, it is plausible that it was cultivated more extensively during the early period of norse settlement. Even so,
"Researchers believe the Vikings probably grew barley in small quantities, compared with the large, billowing cornfields we have today, and sowed barley in small enclosures that were no bigger than their ability to irrigate the corn and keep hungry animals out."
Further, Greenland was never self sufficient in grain.
Given the comment in the King's Mirror, and the finding, not only of barley grains, but of the "... rachis fragments, the part of the plant that holds the kernel to the spike or ear", which:
Trigg et al (preceding link) say:
"While the presence of rachis fragments may merely be a normal component of poorly leaned grain stores, they may also signal that barley was grown nearby . Moreover, the presence of these plant parts among pieces of charred and uncharred dung indicate that the barley may have been eaten by the livestock, which perhaps were allowed to graze on harvested fields or were fed grains and harvesting waste."
Feeding livestock an imported grain seems unlikely to me.
In any event, while evidence of cultivation of grains norse settlers may be ambiguous, it favours their having done so on a small scale. Conseqently, we should not claim the contrary. I certainly agree, however, that the cultivation was on a small scale indicating that even at its warmest in the MWP, cultivation of grains on the southern tip of Greenland was marginal at best.
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Otter at 11:23 AM on 13 June 2013A Miss by Myles: Why Professor Allen is wrong to think carbon capture and storage will solve the climate crisis
Unfortunately, William, biosequestration will not be sufficient to draw down enough carbon dioxide. A *lot* of the soil carbon rhetoric border on faith and exaggerates the potential to restore carbon in the landscape, for biophysical as well economic reasons, and reforestation carries its own set of risks—the main one being the risk of reversal, particularly in an increasingly hostile climate.
I say all of this as an advocate for landscape restoration. I believe it has a role, but we will absolutely need industrial-scale CCS.
That said, the article is spot on: Myles Allen is way out of his depth here.
A plea/cry of pain to the editors of Skeptical Science: a hyphen is not a dash! The little bitty hyphens drive me nuts—use dashes!
Moderator Response:[AS] Thanks! I agree about the hyphens/em-dashes. I'll change them. It was a revelation to me when I discovered that in MS Word you can enter an em-dash with ctrl-alt-minus sign (on the number pad). But in our comment and blog editor windows you have to enter them as special characters—and that's a pain, so we forget some. I hope our critics forgive me for not marking these changes as strike-throughs. ;^)
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Ger at 09:53 AM on 13 June 2013A Miss by Myles: Why Professor Allen is wrong to think carbon capture and storage will solve the climate crisis
Lacking option of using biomass residues as source of fuel, combined with carbon capture to provide CO2 for enhanced growth for algea and food products. Also rest-carbon could be stored in soil for 40-100 years (as soil ammendment).
Instead of burning residues, letting it rot away, one saves on both sides: no rotting material providing xx tons of CO2 and direct reuse of the CO2. If I am not mistaken currently CO2 for industrial use in made from fossil. Any syngas producing power station can provide industrial process enough concenrated CO2 to make enough pure CO2 for industrial use.
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KK Tung at 09:46 AM on 13 June 2013The anthropogenic global warming rate: Is it steady for the last 100 years? Part 2.
Dikran: I am not even sure what your blue line is. How can I then "come to the conclusion that it is the underestimate of the signal in red"? I thought we are supposed to be comparing the adjusted data (green curve), which is the regressed signal with the residual added back following our procedure in our paper (I assume you were following our procedure), against the true signal which is the red line.
The offset is relevant because once you corrected an inconsistent offset of the green vs the red, the two are much closer in your new figure compared to your old.
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Ken in Oz at 08:58 AM on 13 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
Correction to previous post - " I keep urging our Australian conservatives, who continue giving climate science denial and obstructionism their imprimatur of respectability and legitimacy whilst simultaneously declaring their confidence in mainstream climate science to ditch that position; is this a taste of what we will get when we do get a conservative government; public declarations of commitment to international agreements that gloss over a complete lack of understanding of it's seriousness?"
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Ken in Oz at 08:43 AM on 13 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
So the Paterson has got denier talking points so thoroughly internalised he can bring them out fluently and effortlessly whilst actual mainstream climate science looks to be something he chooses not to be well acquainted with.
From an Environment Secretary of State who is part of a globally influential government that supposedly accepts the validity of climate science it is deeply dismaying.
I keep urging our Australian conservatives, who continue giving climate science denial and obstructionism their imprimatur of respectability and legitimacy whilst simultaneously declaring their confidence in mainstream climate science; is this a taste of what we will get when we do get a conservative government; public declarations of commitment to international agreements that gloss over a complete lack of understanding of it's seriousness?
Given how much easier compromising a policy to the point of pointlessness is compared to developing serious policy and pushing it through with determination, this UK example doesn't bode well for Australia's part in future efforts to avoid catastrophic climate change.
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civil egineer at 07:30 AM on 13 June 2013New study by Skeptical Science author finds 100% of atmospheric CO2 rise is man-made
Aren't you applying algebra to a calculus problem?
Suppose atmospheric CO2 labelled “C” progresses according to the differential equation
dC/dt= -a*C + N + A
where ‘A’ is an inverse time constant. The first term is the action of “natural” sinks, which respond to the total level of C in the atmosphere. The second term is natural forcing. The third term is anthropogenic forcing.
The rate of change of C is less than A. Thus,
-a*C+ N .LT. zero
The ridiculous pseudo-mass balance argument then says, voila! Nature is a net sink.
But, the solution of the above equation is the convolution integral of N + A with the exponential term exp(-a*t). InLaplaceoperator form
C(s) = (1/(s+a)) * (N(s) + A(s))
The left side of the above inequality then becomes
-a*C+ N = (s*N(s) – a*A(s)) / (s + a)
Thus,
[dN/dt - a*A] .LT. zero
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Dikran Marsupial at 06:44 AM on 13 June 2013The anthropogenic global warming rate: Is it steady for the last 100 years? Part 2.
Prof Tung. I said quite explicitly that there was no error. The attribution of Y to A depends on the identification of the correct value for the regression coefficients, which gives the GRADIENT of the signals, and the offset is irrelevant.
The confidence interval defined by your MLR procedure does not contain the true value, and therefore the MLR procedure is demonstrably unreliable.
I don't understand how anyone could look at the plot shown in my post #158 and come to the conclusion that the blue line is not an under-estimate of the signal shown in red, the average slope of the red line is clearly greater than that of the blue, and this is reflected in the confidence interval not containing the true value.
Moderator Response:[Dirkan Marsupial] Error spotted by Leto corrected.
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Paul D at 06:42 AM on 13 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
Just found this Huffington article from last year:
He seems to say quite similar things in that interview, except he adds 'There are all sorts of other things that affect climate change, like the sun.'
For the record, I don't think straight trees is a good sign as to whether there is enough wind for a wind farm! (as Paterson seems to suggest it is).
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KK Tung at 06:32 AM on 13 June 2013The anthropogenic global warming rate: Is it steady for the last 100 years? Part 2.
In reply to Dikran Marsupial in post 158: Although you did not admit it explicitly here, you seem to agree that there was an error, at least an inconsistency, in how you offset the red curve and the blue and green curves. In your post 123, you used your last figure, with an inconsistent offset, to show that the true A is above the blue and the green, leading to your conclusion:
"The deduced anthropogenic trend is less than the true value, and the true value does not lie within the confidence interval."
You may have other evidence that you did not show for this conclusion (and I don't quite understand your definition of the CI as from the gradient of the blue line), but your post 123 used only an erroneous figure to draw this visual conclusion. The corrected figure in your post 158 now shows that it is no longer visually obvious. In fact the true A (the redl ine) lies within the deduced adjusted data (green curve), which you labelled as deduced trend plus residual. I don't know what your blue curve is. It was not what we used. It appears to be a 150 year trend. If that is what it is, then it seems to be doing fine compared to the 150 year linear trend of true A. Please let me know if my understand is correct. I want to know what I am arguing against.
I will try later to address the issue why a deterministic example is trivial and why it is irrelevant as an example to argue your point. I just don't want to argue against an example with minor errors that you could correct easily.
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Paul D at 06:11 AM on 13 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
I'm surprised Paterson didn't mention Romans growing grapes and producing wine in Britain. That would have made a perfect score.
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DSL at 05:37 AM on 13 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
HJones, I think misunderstand me. I'm saying that his claim that his claim is not exaggerated. It is quite relevant. However, he left it at that. He put a simple piece of evidence out there without providing any context for understanding, other than the general bent of his other comments. You erased his claim as exaggerated. Why? You provided no reasons for doing so, probably because you were thinking of his statements in terms of their rhetorical value. When read in the scientific context, Funder et al. 2013 is quite important, because it gives us further secondary evidence that we're warming the climate system with extreme rapidity. What Marcott et al. 2013 found makes sense alongside Funder et al., and the news ain't pretty.
Others have commented on your clinging to "individually correct" statements. As the main post points out, there are several of Patterson's claims that are so bizarre I have to question the man's training: "the climate has not changed - the temperature has not changed in the last seventeen years."
Eh? The climate has changed quite significantly. A poleward shift of the Hadley circulation by 5 degrees in two decades is not climate change? An 80% reduction in Arctic sea ice volume at summer minimum (-33% at winter max) in just 35 years is not climate change?
And if there's anything that gets my goat more than representing the system with the surface/lower troposphere, I don't know what it is. Phil Jones was careless with this point, and he hasn't heard the end of it. Now you're giving Patterson a free pass on it. No. Patterson deserves to be ripped for that claim. The system is warming as expected. The surface/lower troposphere (all of how much of the thermal capacity of the system?) has gone through a longish positive excursion (97-07 roughly) followed by a multi-year negative excursion. Would you say that .172C per decade over 40 years is significant? That's the trend up to present, including this alleged "hiatus."
NODC OHC during the alleged "hiatus". Positive trend? Yah. Significant? Yah. Last value? Ouch. It's all good. It'll drop down to 0 next year. Snort. -
william5331 at 05:34 AM on 13 June 2013A Miss by Myles: Why Professor Allen is wrong to think carbon capture and storage will solve the climate crisis
Carbon capture is our only chance to reverse climate change but not by some ridiculous technological fix that will ruin our economy and necessetate the burning of more fossil fuel which should be saved for industrial feed stock. Carbon capture will work by restoring and protecting natural carbon sinks. These include the coral reefs which could grow upwards as the sea rises. Unfortunately we are warming the water and acidifying it while at the same time we over fish this fragile environment. Coral skeletons are 60.5% carbon dioxide. We could restore the grasslands a la Alan Savory on TED talks. They store masses of carbon. We could restore our forests, log them selectively and cleverly and turn the wood into long sequestered well built houses and fine furniture. The waste wood should be used to produce urea for our fields, charcoal to increase the fertility of tropical soils, liquid fuel to replace the use of mineral oil and so forth. And we could restore the beaver to all it's native habitats both in North America and Eurasia. Beaver dams not only repair the ecology of an area, clear and even out water flow, increase the amount of water available for power generation and irrigation but they also sequester masses of carbon. Sequestration of carbon is our only chance. Of course it is ridiculous to keep pumping out masses of Carbon into the atmosphere.
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bjchip at 05:15 AM on 13 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
If Delingpole were fined a wooden nickle for every misleading statement he utters, there would not be a tree standing in England. That he has a tool like Paterson to play with is a shame but what they are both afraid of is that the order will not be "All Engines Back Full" but "Left Full Rudder, Port Engine Back 2/3, Starboard Engine Ahead 2/3" and hearing the helmsman respond "Aye Aye Sir"
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John Mason at 04:56 AM on 13 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
HJones - Paterson was either being deliberately wrong or he was terminally confused. One of the two. Do either positions give him any credibility with his current brief? You tell me!
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MA Rodger at 03:20 AM on 13 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
HJones @20.
I think you are rapidly slipping into denial. The quote from Paterson was "James is actually correct - the climate has not changed - the temperature has not changed in the last seventeen years and what I think we've got to be careful of is..."
Your assertion @8 was (as I correctly pointed out previously) "the climate has not changed, the temp has not changed in the last seventeen years. This is also true. There hasn't been any significant warming for quite some time." The first two clauses of this extract can be seen to be the Paterson quote even though they were not marked as such by you, but the third clause that I have enboldened is all you.
Also you are wrong @20 concerning your words @8 where you do not actually mention "17 years." Perhaps your words "quite some time" may be your way of saying the same thing. As you now present the actual time period, I would point out that you are wrong in this as well. A 0.224ºC rise globally in 17 years is actually very significant rise.
I would be churlish not to suggest that your floundering here may be because of a missing word from your statement, but if you did insert the adjective "statistically" into your statement (and please do take on board that words are there for a reason), you would still be wrong.
Your comment presented @20 apparently at me seems to be excusing Paterson by suggesting that only scientists are qualified to talk in depth on the subject of climate change. I would disagree. It is a matter of knowing what you're talking about, not whether you are a scientist or a politician or whatever.
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Lanfear at 03:10 AM on 13 June 2013An estimate of the consensus project paper search coverage
"that last comment was made tongue at least halfway in the cheek."
Yes, and from a strictly scientific perspective we could do the actual study also.
However I do have a strong sense that this study would only confirm what the current science says, ie. that the AGW is real, so what it would cause among the pseudoskeptics is another wave of Lewandowsky-grade complains and conspiracy-theories.
That's why I would like to see that someone from the pseudoskeptic side would pick this up, since, as I noted, there are a couple of shortcuts that will help you narrow down the search. Not to mention that there is (or at least they like to claim so) a lot of 'skeptics' who can help sifting through the papers.
Funny thing that you came up with a number close to 900, wasn't this the number of 'peer reviewed' papers that poptech listed :)
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David Kirtley at 02:50 AM on 13 June 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #23
Thanks for noticing my essay! I couldn't have done it without SkS!
Moderator Response:[JH] On behalf of the entire SkS team, "You're welcome."
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Dikran Marsupial at 02:43 AM on 13 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
HJones wrote "I was merely commenting on the fact that "a set of individually correct statements" could generate the villification that the early comments showed."
In that case you did not understand the reason for the "villification" (which is hyperbole on your part), which is that the secretary of state was using a "set of individually correct statements" to draw a conclusion that wasn't justifiable by that "set of individually correct statements". The secretary of state for the environment ought to be able either to give a sound justification for his position, or to recognise that the "set of individually correct statements" did not support his position. Even if he is not a scientist himself, he ought to have a basic understanding of the mainstream scientific position, perhaps by reading the IPCC's "summary for policy makers", which is designed for that very purpose.
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HJones at 02:34 AM on 13 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
Dikran Marsupial @17,
I was merely commenting on the fact that "a set of individually correct statements" could generate the villification that the early comments showed.
I do not know the SoS, not being from the UK, and it well may be that he is the idiot that everyone is making him out to be. I just didn't think that his quoted statements warranted that.
MA Rodger @16
It wasn't my comment at 14, it was at 8, and it was a quote. My statement was that there wasn't any significant warming in 17 years.
While the speaker is SoS in charge of the environment and should know the implications of the correct phrasing and terminology, he is a politician and not a scientist.
OPatrick,
I have no desire to dominate this or any thread. I only offered a comment, and responded to questions and comments.
Moderator Response:[JH] The introduction to the SkS Comments Policy reads:
The purpose of the discussion threads is to allow notification and correction of errors in the article, and to permit clarification of related points. Though we believe the only genuine debate on the science of global warming is that which occurs in the scientific literature, we welcome genuine discussion as both an aid to understanding and a means of correcting our inadvertent errors. To facilitate genuine discussion, we have a zero tolerance approach to trolling and sloganeering. (My bold)
Please read the entire policy and adhere to it. Thank you.
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Dikran Marsupial at 02:24 AM on 13 June 2013The anthropogenic global warming rate: Is it steady for the last 100 years? Part 2.
KKTung@157 No, the confidence interval is for the gradient of the blue line, so the offset has no bearing on this whatsoever. I could add an offset to make the plots look more similar, but that would not change the conclusion that the MLR method significantly underestimates the effect of signal A on signal Y.
UPDATE: If the mean is not subtracted from Y, you get this
which still shows (even more clearly) that the deduced effect of A on Y (in blue) underestimates the actual effect of A on Y (red). There is a small difference in the confidence interval due to a different sample of noise, but it still doesn't contain the correct value (0.00304).
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KK Tung at 02:16 AM on 13 June 2013The anthropogenic global warming rate: Is it steady for the last 100 years? Part 2.
In reply to Dikran Marsupial's post 156: Before I do, do you agree with me that there was an error in your last figure showing that your deduced trend is outside the confidence level of the true value? I think it was a plotting problem, specifically a problem of offset, as I tried to point out to you. I wasn't sure of course because I didn't have the details.
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OPatrick at 01:58 AM on 13 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
HJones, whilst I'm reluctant to extend your domination of this thread I do have to wonder if you think that a series of, at a stretch, defensible statements is an acceptable way to communicate on a subject? The impression that Owen Paterson gave was misleading - clearly so for anyone familiar with the subject - and the statements he didn't make are essential for anyone to understand the state of scientific understanding. The best you can say about his words is that they were highly selective and designed to support a predetermined position, though whether it was his own selection or his advisors' is not clear. He is either incompetent or deceptive. I'm not sure which is worse.
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Martin Lack at 01:52 AM on 13 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
Truly scary, I agree. Michael Fallon (Energy Minister) is also an misinformed puppet of the fossil fuel industry (as his attempts to discredit Tim Yeo in the recent parliamentary debate on the Energy Bill demonstrated). It is very clear, therefore, that Ed Davey (Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change) had both these men in mind when he spoke about the folly of people who deny the reality of anthropogenic climate disruption: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/06/04/2097641/uk-climate-minister-slams-media-and-blinkered-deniers-its-the-science-stupid/
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Dikran Marsupial at 01:45 AM on 13 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
HJones, stringing together a set of individually correct statements doesn't mean they necessarily support a conclusion, for example:
"in proxy data CO2 is correllated with, but lags temperatures; the solubility of CO2 decreases with increasing temperatures; the oceans have warmed, thus it is natural to expect that CO2 has risen as a result."
this combines three individually correct statments that come together to imply a conclusion that is false.
The problem with Paterson's statment is that it reveals that he has a very weak grasp of the fundamental issues surrounding climate change, as he raises several issues that provide at best questionable support, even where technically correct, for his downplaying of the anthropogenic element of climate change. This is a very worrying thing to see in a secretary of state for the environment.
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MA Rodger at 01:19 AM on 13 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
HJones.
You say @14 that you do not distort the language or ignore inconvenient facts. Are you then confining yourself to distorting numerical equivilances?
I ask this as you assert @8 that "the temp has not changed in the last seventeen years" is a statement of truth. So you appear to be telling us here that 0.469ºC = 0.245ºC, these being respectively the present HadCRUT4 rolling annual temperature and that same measure from 17 years ago.
Your assertion is truly a distortion.
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shoyemore at 01:08 AM on 13 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
Tom Curtis & HJones,
A few barley seeds found in a midden does not demonstate the Vikings ever grew food crops on large scale. This recent, very small find only shows how sparse the evidence is.
In the medieval chronicle, the King's Mirror, a son asks his father about Greenland.
Son. You stated earlier in your talk that no grain grows in that country; therefore I now want to ask you what the people who inhabit the land live on, how large the population is, what sort of food they have, and whether they have accepted Christianity.
Father. The people in that country are few, for only a small part is sufficiently free from ice to be habitable; but the people are all Christians and have churches and priests. If the land lay near to some other country it might be reckoned a third of a bishopric; but the Greenlanders now have their own bishop, as no other arrangement is possible on account of the great distance from other people. You ask what the inhabitants live on in that country since they sow no grain; but men can live on other food than bread. It is reported that the pasturage is good and that there are large and fine farms in Greenland. The farmers raise cattle and sheep in large numbers and make butter and cheese in great quantities. The people subsist chiefly on these foods and on beef; but they also eat the flesh of various kinds of game, such as reindeer, whales, seals, and bears. That is what men live on in that country.
As I said above, the only crop was hay. No doubt attempts were made to grow grain crops, but no evidence has ever ben found that these were sucessful.
PS I misremembered "men who did not know bread" as "men who did not know beer" above in #2.
www.northvegr.org/misc%20primary%20sources/misc%20lore%20translations/004.html
It is almost not relevant to Paterson's point, and possible shows he owes his climate "science" more to Christopher Monckton and Lord Lawson that to his advisers.
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HJones at 00:04 AM on 13 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
HJones just ignores it.
I didn't ignore it. I didn't even comment on it, I only commented on Patterson's statement! You seem to validate his claim here
Yes, Funder finds that during the Holocene climatic optimum, Arctic sea ice effectively disappeared at summer minima.
whereas I left it as saying his comment was exaggerated.
Tom Curtis,
You are comparing apples and oranges here too. I am not distorting the language.
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Robert Murphy at 00:04 AM on 13 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
"the climate has not changed, the temp has not changed in the last seventeen years."
Even looking at the very small component of the climate that is the lower troposphere, this is untrue. Over the last 17 years (this meme keeps mutating into longer periods, BTW), UAH shows over .16*C of warming; HADCRUT4 shows about .12*C of warming. GISS shows about .2*C of warming over the last 17 years. Only RSS shows minimal warming, about .01*C. I bet you think that one must be the correct one.Of course, as has been pointed out numerous times here, most of the accumulated energy from the enhanced greenhouse effect is going into the oceans, which has continued to warm unabated.
"To refute this last statement by talking about ocean heat content is comparing apples and oranges."No, it's looking at the whole picture not just the small part of the climate system that is the lower tropsophere.
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DSL at 23:32 PM on 12 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
HJones, are you actually going to stick around and defend/discuss your claims? I look forward to you doing so.
As for Patterson (and your defense, HJones), there's no critical contextualization being done. For example:
Patterson: "the Arctic melted completely and you can see there were beaches there."
This is probably a reference to Funder et al. (2011), titled "A 10,000-Year Record of Arctic Ocean Sea-Ice Variability—View from the Beach." Yes, Funder finds that during the Holocene climatic optimum, Arctic sea ice effectively disappeared at summer minima. That has been used to make MWP-like claims about sea ice: "sea ice has been lower in the past; therefore there is nothing remarkable about current sea ice loss." What Peterson, HJones, and sites like HockeySchtick fail to mention is that Funder et al. also found a hockey stick during the late 20th century. Arctic sea ice extent slowly grows from the HCO until it reaches around 1970, when it sharply goes into decline. Hockey Schtick went so far as to chop off that end of the graph. HJones just ignores it. Patterson has probably never read Funder; someone told him it would be a good thing to mention. They also fail to mention that despite the long-term decline in solar forcing -- and the short-term decline of the last 50 years -- Arctic sea ice extent is plummeting and will reach conditions similar to HCO summer minima within decades (again, without help from the sun; indeed, with the sun trying to cool). -
Tom Curtis at 23:27 PM on 12 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
HJones @8:
Owen Patison indicated that the Arctic Ice was completely melted "when Greenland was occupied, you know, people growing crops", ie the MWP. That is false. He indicated that the LIA followed immediately the period when the Arctic Ice was completely melted, ie, the Holocene Climactic Optimum; and then proceeds to indicate that the MWP followed the LIA. Both false. Trying to find one or two words you can construe as true among that mishmash of confused falsehood shows only your desperation to defend the indefensible. Patison would have been better simply saying that he knows nothing of the issue, even though it is within his portfolio. That, at least, would be honest.
It is true that the Vikings grew crops in Greenland, but it is also true that they grow crops in Greenland today.
Finaly, over the last seventeen years, the Earth has warmed faster than it did, on average, since 1900. You may wish to distort the language so much as to say faster than centenial average warming is no warming - but that only tells us something about you.
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Lionel A at 23:11 PM on 12 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
This does not surprise me at all. After all this is the government which is pushing for fracking as hard as it is trying to block green energy sources especially wind turbines.
As for US training, picking up on tamikenn57 at #6, sure there has been input from the direction in the shape of Richard Lindzen for one but I suspect the steady drip from other sources such as the 'squeezer of watermelons' aka 'Interpreter of interpretations' has been at work too.
Question Time has a record of allowing ignorant or ideological blinkered denialists on a panel where climate change is brought up as seen some while back where Melanie Phillips gives forth.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention John.
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Dikran Marsupial at 23:07 PM on 12 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
HJones wrote "the climate has not changed, the temp has not changed in the last seventeen years. This is also true. There hasn't been any significant warming for quite some time."
This is incorrect, "no significant warming" does not mean "no warming", it just means there hasn't been enough warming to rule out the possibility that there has been no warming, and the shorter the period you choose, the greater the warming has to be in order to reject the possibility that there has been no warming. This is why climatologists tend to use a period of about 30 years for assessing trends. This canard has been addressed repeatedly on SkS, if you want to discuss it, then please at least read the appropriate article first.
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HJones at 22:53 PM on 12 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
Let's look at what the SoS actually said:
the climate's always been changing - er - Peter mentioned the Arctic and I think in the Holocene the Arctic melted completely and you can see there were beaches there - when Greenland was occupied, you know, people growing crops
The climate has always been changing. Nothing wrong there.
The Artic melted completely - as the post points out - this one is objectionable - exaggerated - what ever.
beaches in Greenland - again, as the post points out, this is correct.
When Greenland was occupied - people were growing crops - The Vikings were there for a couple of hundred years - it is inconceivable that they did not grow crops during this time frame - so again, this statement is true.
we then had a little ice age, we had a middle age warming - the climate's been going up and down - but the real question which I think everyone's trying to address is - is this influenced by manmade activity in recent years and James is actually correct - the climate has not changed - the temperature has not changed in the last seventeen years
we then had a little ice age - we did. This is also true.
we then had a middle age warming - we did have a medeaval warm period. This is also true.
The climates been going up and down - again obviously true.
the climate has not changed, the temp has not changed in the last seventeen years. This is also true. There hasn't been any significant warming for quite some time.
To refute this last statement by talking about ocean heat content is comparing apples and oranges. I am not saying the man is competent. I am not saying that the man has a grasp of science. But to make claims that he does not have a grasp of science or is incompetent based on the above statements is just wrong.
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Mikemcc at 21:52 PM on 12 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
I would suggest polite e-mails to his boss at No 10 to point out that such a view point demonstates incompetance to hold the office that he does. I sent one that said:
It has been brought to my attention that the Rt Hon Owen Patterson, SoS for the Environment, has demonstrated an amazing lack of understanding of the climate (http://www.skepticalscience.com/paterson-on-climate.html). That the SoS of the Environment is so blinded to the scientific position concerning a crucial part of his remit is remarkable and demonstrates a level of incompetence that makes his position untenable.
Regards
Mikemcc
the contact website is: https://email.number10.gov.uk
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tamikenn57 at 21:50 PM on 12 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
That isn't good news putting somebody in this position using the denial talking points so fluently. Maybe there was some US training involved. My guess the denier pundits in US government will turn around and accept these public statements as another argument to refute science.
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Cornelius Breadbasket at 21:26 PM on 12 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
Thank you - THANK YOU - so much for this measured response. I was left speechless when I first heard Mr Paterson speak on this subject. I have written to both the PM and to Mr Paterson already and covered much of what you have said in your article in my own correspondence. Skeptical Science is a fabulous resourse.
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jsam at 21:15 PM on 12 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
The good news, for the BBC, is that they have clearly bent over backwards to accomodate the false skeptics. So they've dodged the Delingpole-Bishops Hill snarly swarm. The Conservatives will breath a sigh of relief too. They've been accused of being all warm and cuddly, eg allowing gay marriage - and allowing UKip to challenge them. Instead they've used the national media to reinforce that they won't be out-conservatived by anyone. They can be as anti-science as anyone, http://skeptical-voter.org/wiki/index.php?title=Owen_Paterson. Owen has a long, loud and proud unscientific bent. His statements weren't really a surprise.
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Jonas at 19:35 PM on 12 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
Here in Germany, we also have deniers in the conservative and liberal spectrum, but also elsewhere. Fortunately, Merkel is not a denier, but she is a far cry from being the "climate chancelor" she once communicated to be, because she fears requesting more climate action might make her loose the elections.
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Dennis Meadows recommended the book "Deceit and self deception - Fooling yourself to better fool the others" by Robert Trivers in a talk at the Smothsonian Institute. The book title fits particularly well for politicians ...
Review of Trivers book: " ... His overarching premise is that if we can only see our own point of view, we can authentically argue our case because our deceits blind us to the truth. Ignorance can be bliss, until you are outwitted by a perspective you don't share. ...":
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/oct/07/deceit-self-deception-robert-triversTrivers book and the SkS debunking handbook incited me to review my strategy: I now start with the science model (where does energy go, what forcings exist, ...) and try not make anyone look bad/stupid ("I also was confused by ..., but then I read": nobody likes to be stupid ...): it's kind of "agree and then embed into the full reality context". That works also for cherry picking ("Yes, I also read that May was statistically cold, but then I read that what we experience here is only a local phenomenon and that there were almost 30C in Helsinki and May was very warm in Pakistan with up to 51C ...) and downplaying ("Yes climate has always changed, but that does not help us, since the civilization we live in has developed in a relatively stable climate and why would we want to destroy this ourselves?").
I wonder if this works for politicians too, especially on stage, but it might be worth a try.
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shoyemore at 18:12 PM on 12 June 2013UK Secretary of State for the Environment reveals his depth of knowledge of climate change (not!)
"People growing crops in Greenland" ... the main Viking crop was hay for their domestic animals. One a few burnt barley seeds have been found in an old midden .. soemone may have tried growing it to make beer - the Greenland Norse are desribed in one annals as "not knowing beer". Vegetables were probably grown in small gardens.
Amazing how the (totally irrelevant) image of Vikings frolicking in balmy Greenland has seized the imaginations of politicians like Paterson, who seems to be have been atrociously briefed or just unable to grasp the salient facts.
If it is any comfort, Hain and Wood seems to have come out ahead of Delingpole and Paterson, who probably ending up pleasing no one. Thank God the Conservatives did not get an absolute majority to form a government on their own. The Liberals at least are a brake on their wilder fantasies.
Elsewhere, politically at least, there will soon be a Tony Abbott government in Australia (it seems), which will be "interesting". There is some comfort in Canada where the Harper crowd are mired in scandal and the more environmentally friendly Liberals have a new and popular leader. Harper may still cling on for a year or so, though.
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