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Comments 48301 to 48350:

  1. Philippe Chantreau at 14:50 PM on 1 March 2013
    2013 SkS Weekly Digest #8

    I am sorry to hear that Tom. I'll echo others to thank you for most valuable contribution to the site, you will be missed.

  2. 2013 SkS Weekly Digest #8

    Well that sucks, Tom.  I hope it won't mean an end to your surgical debunkings.  Your critical thinking skill is inspiring and, I think . . . I hope, contagious.

  3. It's the sun

    I think it is inappropiate to name this forum topic as 'It's the Sun'.  This forum shows confusion amoung a lot of smart people.  For people who have no scientific background it is hard to establish what this phrase means.  If anything it would confuse an average person.  Planet Earth's life has a timer as the sun progresses to become a red giant(the luminousity becomes greater with time).  This does not mean that we should not take into consideration that the unregulated pumping of greenhouse gases can destroy the current equilbrium we have.  Essentially scienitists are worried about the equilbrium (positive and negative feedbacks) of our system.  Our fossil fuel emissions lead to an imbalance of this equilbrium.  This imbalance can potentially lead to a positive feedback that quickly changes the state of the system.  This is where the danger is.  Climate change is a confusing topic for most and the anger towards 'deniers' is unwarrented.  The solution to climate change is easy in my eyes.  Transfer all that energy that you put into proving climate change into creating a new energy source that is more efficient than fossil fuels.  Peak oil tells us that fossil fuels are finite.  Energy gradients are not (solar, wind and many others yet to be discovered).  Stop using fear mongering on both sides, it is unnessary.  A fearful public is a public more likely to make bad decisions.  There is nothing to worry about.  Technology and science will solve this little problem called climate change.  That is my life's pursuit as a scientist.   

    Moderator Response: [DB] Note: Your comment more properly belongs on the "It's not bad" thread.
  4. Living in Denial in Norway

    Aren't there quite a lot of sceptic scientists at the University of Oslo?

  5. 2013 SkS Weekly Digest #8

    I would like to echo John Hartz' comment @3 and thank you, Tom Curtis, for your efforts here at Skeptical Science. Anytime I see a long comment by you in a post, I know I can look forward to a clear, incisive argument that either carefully builds up the case for the science or demolishes some (set of) pseudoskeptic claim(s).

  6. Living in Denial in Norway

    numerobis@14

    Norgaard's study was done just in one small town. It was not a representative sample of the whole country but a focussed look at the attitudes and culture of one community, at one time. I am not aware of any kind of Norwegian equivalent of the Six Americas study but I am sure that somebody has done something like that. Norgaard used a magnifying glass, rather than a telescope.

    There will, of course, be huge variations in attitudes within any society, in time, in place and between different social sub-groups. Nevertheless, there will also be common human reactions and social responses to similar challenges in different societies. The value that I drew from Norgaard's work was not how different the people she studied were from people I meet, but rather how similar they are.

  7. 2013 SkS Weekly Digest #8

    @Tom Curtis #2:

    Thank you all of the time and effort that you have donated to Skeptical Science over the years.

  8. 2013 SkS Weekly Digest #8

    This is to note that I have resigned from formal involvement in SkS over differences regarding strategy.

  9. Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?

    Actually, I did read Hansen's paper and commented on it elsewhere, some time ago

    (-snip-)

    Moderator Response: [DB] Off topic and abusive usage of html snipped.
  10. John Russell at 09:51 AM on 1 March 2013
    Living in Denial in Norway

    Chris G #6

    Do I detect some self-justification? 

    The point is that it's only by air that a couple can fly 5,000 miles to New York for the weekend "to do a bit of shopping and to take in a show". It's the ease of the 'concentrated' burning of fossil fuels, at minimal financial cost, that makes flying so environmentally damaging. If aviation fuels were taxed to reflect the emissions produced, flying would perhaps not be such an easy target for environmentalists. 

     

  11. Living in Denial in Norway

    In Canada, as I'm sure you'll mention, attitudes differ depending on the location.  How much variance is there in Norway?

  12. Doug Hutcheson at 09:25 AM on 1 March 2013
    No alternative to atmospheric CO2 draw-down

    I was interested to encounter this article on diatoms, which says in part

    "Because of their abundance in marine plankton, especially in nutrient-rich areas of the world's oceans, diatoms probably account for as much as 20% of global photosynthetic fixation of carbon (~ 20 Pg carbon fixed per year: Mann 1999), which is more than all the world's tropical rainforests."

    Warming and acidifying oceans are probably not going to help these little critters, making the atmospheric CO2 drawdown equation even more difficult to resolve.

  13. Living in Denial in Norway

    AndyS@10

    If we consider Norway as a rich country as measured by GDP per capita, as is referenced in my first link, then I don't see why it is misleading to quote the barrels of oil per capita as a metric, particularly when oil and gas makes up 21% of the GDP and 50% of the country's exports. In any case, Norway is, in absolute terms, a major producer of oil and gas, regardless of its population.

    To be clear, the purpose of Norgaard's book (and my article) is not to single out Norway as a particular villain because of its contribution to climate change. Rather, it is to examine the way in which ordinary people in that country reconcile their great wealth—a large part of which comes from producing climate-changing fossil fuels—with their identity as globally responsible and nature-loving people. My next article will be on similar attitudes in my own country, Canada

    Norwegians are also relatively immune from the misinformation coming from people like the Kochs, Anthony Watts or Christopher Monckton and this helps isolate their form of denial from the literal climate denial that we spend most of our time at Skeptical Science trying to rebut.

  14. George Will - Still Recycling Classic Climate Change Myths for The Washington Post

    It's worth pointing ut that Will was corrected on misuse of the same Science article (Dec 10, 1976)  seven years ago:

    http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2006/04/03/4570/willful-deception/

    It's one thing to make a mistake with science.  It's bad when you don't acknowledge your error.  But it's just plain dishonest when you do it again after being publicly corrected.  Will's professionalism is competely gone.

     

  15. Rob Honeycutt at 08:23 AM on 1 March 2013
    Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?

    AndyS @73...  You're right, CS is at least one of the most important conversations.  But you'd have to move that conversation to a thread where that is being discussed.

    And don't worry, the conversation won't get lost since most of us follow all the threads through the "comments" link in the menu bar.

  16. Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?

    AndyS - Given your statement that: 'I have no idea what Hansen "believes". I read his paper and he specifically uses the phrase "global warming standstill"', it is clear that you have not in fact read his paper. See above. 

    To clarify (and perhaps summarize) the discussion before you attempt change the topic:

    • Pachauri did not state that global warming has stopped, and in fact believes it is continuing.
    • Pachauri was misinterpreted in The Australian according to his and to IPCC statements.
    • Hansen did not state that global warming has stopped, and in fact believes it is continuing.
    • Your statements indicating that either of these scientists said something incorrect, as opposed to having been badly misinterpreted, are in error. 

    Any questions?

  17. Living in Denial in Norway

    Chris G - while travelling in a full plane isnt particularly inefficient (J/km per person) compared to car, the issue with air travel is the potential for moving a vast no. of kms. So living NZ, and excluding embodied energy, an average person might use 68 kWh/d/p.

    A single flight to the other side of the world adds 57 kwh/d/p to that usage.

  18. Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?

    DSL I like the idea that there is some kind of ethics committee awaiting my announcements and will make me personally responsible for the $45 trillion required for climate change mitigation.

    I have heard some pretty nutty stuff in my time...

  19. How big is the “carbon fertilization effect”?

    gws,

    Nice and comprehensive response, especially useful link to the global carbon project paper, thank you very much. Indeed I cannot wait for the analysis of the new Le Quéré paper...

  20. Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?

    I do get a bit tired of this endless dissection of what people said or what people believe.

    The fact is, global surface temps have increased around 0.8 degrees since pre-industrial times. Most of that warming occurred in two distinct periods in the 20th C. Surface temps haven't moved much this century, which doesn't mean they won't move again.

    The only discussion  worth having, in my view, is what is the climate system's sensitivity to CO2

    Moderator Response: [DB] Climate sensitivity is off-topic on this thread.
  21. Nigel Harris at 07:54 AM on 1 March 2013
    Living in Denial in Norway

    Andy S @10:

    Norway produces nearly twice as much oil and well over twice as much gas as the UK.  The Norwegians benefit from a huge maritime territory with a hydrocarbons-rich continental shelf that stretches all the way into the Barentz sea.

    But I agree the basic point that per capita national CO2 emissions is a poor yardstick to measure Norwegians' behaviour by.  Norway burns very little of the oil and gas that it produces.  If you cut out the offshore oil and gas industry, Norway would look like a shining example of how to run a wealthy low-carbon economy.  

    It is hard for Norway to provide fossil fuels for the rest of Europe without pushing up their CO2 emissions.  But even in the offshore sector, Norway is exemplary in its energy efficiency and environmental standards.  They have one of the world's largest CO2 capture and sequestration projects at the Sleipner gas field complex, for goodness sake. 

  22. Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?

    Addendum: unless, of course, you can provide reasoning/evidence for not taking climate science seriously.  I think we all eagerly await that discussion, unless you're holding back on us (which would render you unethical and make you responsible for every dollar spent on mitigation/adaptation).

  23. Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?

    AndyS: "I have no idea what Hansen "believes". I read his paper and he specifically uses the phrase "global warming standstill"."

    You're not serious.  Hansen tells you what he believes in that paper.  Did you ignore everything before and after the phrase "global warming standstill"?  That would be an incredibly uncritical thing to do.  I imagine that if the general public read the paper, as unlikely as that might be, many within that group would actually understand what Hansen believes when he says "standstill."

    It is your problem.  If the public is misinformed, you, via the democratic mechanism, suffer from the resulting inefficiencies in responding to reality.  You played your cards when you made a distinction between your problems and the problems of climate science.  That means you don't take climate science seriously, and that supports my claim that you're an uncritical troll and a cause of the problem the general public has with misinformation.  

  24. Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?

    AndyS: If others misuse Hansen's statements, that is their fault, not Hansen's.

    Please allocate responsibility where it properly belongs.

    (And of course, please see KR's post which quotes Hansen showing that, despite use of the term 'standstill' he indicates surface temps are still rising.)

  25. Living in Denial in Norway

    North Sea oil and gas is approx 50/50 split across UK and Norway, (I am guessing, but it is probably close).

    Noway has 4 million or so people, the UK has 65, so the "per capita" is a somewhat misleading statistic based on Norway's low population and large oil fields

    If Scotland bacame independent from the UK, a similar situation might arise there, although they won't have any wealth

  26. Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?

    @DSL, I have no idea what Hansen "believes". I read his paper and he specifically uses the phrase "global warming standstill"

    So, for the the general public in general, they might interpret this as "global warming has stoped".

    It is not my problem, it is a problem for the PR side of climate science. If the godfather of global waming, James Hansen, uses a fairly unqualified statement like this, then it is obviously going to be picked up and used as ammunition.

     

  27. Living in Denial in Norway

    Hyperactive Hydrologist @3

    You are right that oil and gas production and industry account for large chunks of Norway's emissions, but I don't think it is misleading to include them in the total of the country's per capita emissions, any more than it would be misleading, say, to include Canada's emissions associated with the oil sands or China's emissions that arise from manufacturing.

    Thanks for that link.

  28. Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?

    AndyS - Reading Hansen in context (which I would strongly recommend), he states:

    ...the standstill has led to a widespread assertion that  "global warming has stopped"

    [...] 

    Indeed, the current stand-still of the 5-year running mean global temperature may be largely a consequence of the fact that the first half of the past 10 years had predominately El Nino conditions, while the second half had predominately La Nina conditions (...).  Comparing the global temperature at the time of the most recent three La Ninas (1999-2000, 2008, and 2011-2012), it is apparent that global temperature has continued to rise between recent years of comparable tropical temperature, indeed, at a rate of warming similar to that of the previous three decades.

    (Emphasis added)

    In other words, Hansen is well aware of the erroneous conclusions 'skeptics' have drawn from recent temperatures, and is correcting them. Again, as with Pachauri, the problem lies in 'skeptical' errors of interpretation and (as seen in the opening post) the misrepresentation of scientists views in certain media outlets. 

  29. Living in Denial in Norway

    Cornelius @ #2:

    Perhaps I should have reworded my comment. I was referring to Norway's manufacturing sustainable energy products like solar panels and wind turbines for export to other nations. It would be an investment in the future for their nation.

  30. Living in Denial in Norway

    I think the book was written when Norway - and Europe in general - had some poor ski seasons. This one and the last few years have been pretty good snow years

    The central pyrenees as several ski areas closed at the moment becuase they are buried under snow

    Obviously, if global warming causes less snow then the ski industry will suffer. Conversely, if global warming causes more snow, they will prosper. SInce I have been told that the latter is true, it is good news for me, as a skier.

  31. Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?

    AndyS, based on the Hansen paper under discussion, do you believe that Hansen believes that "global warming has stopped"?  Do you believe that he finds the "standstill" in global surface temp in any way meaningful where the theory of anthropogenic global warming is concerned?

    To me, trolls speak a language that is full of unjustified doubt--a language that is meant to provoke a response rather than advance undestanding.  From your posts, I read that you want to establish that scientists have used the terms "standstill" or "hiatus" or "pause" with regards to the surface temp trend.  You want to establish this not for the sake of discussing what it means for climate science (because you quite clearly said that you didn't want to discuss the details), but for some other reason.  What that reason might be must necessarily come from a limited range of possibilities, and one of those possibilities is that you're trolling for bits of text to use as rhetorical weapons designed to confuse the general public.  If you weren't a troll, you'd be focused on the science and whether or not the apparent "standstill" is actually meaningful.  

  32. Living in Denial in Norway

    Re: "like giving up non-essential air travel"

    I think air travel is unfairly singled out.  If I remember the math right, a modern jumbo jet uses about as much fuel per person*mile as an average car loaded with 4 people.  So, while non-essential travel may be a talking point, I don't see that non-essential air travel is particularly different from non-essential travel by car.

  33. Living in Denial in Norway

    HH @4

    It is certainly a bit of a conundrum, but if you want to known more, check out the The supply chain of CO2 emissions

  34. Living in Denial in Norway

    Norway's electricity is almost entirely hydro

    From Wiki

    Of the total production in 2007 of 137 TWh, 135 TWh was from hydroelectric plants, 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Norway

     Oslo has an extensive public transport network. The Trikken, or "Trikk" as it is known ic tram system, with 6 lines and 99 stops

    The main oil company is Statoil, which has a majority state ownership.

  35. Hyperactive Hydrologist at 06:02 AM on 1 March 2013
    Living in Denial in Norway

    Just want to point out that Norway produces pretty much 100% of their electricity from renewable sources namely Hydro. Most of their emmisions come from industry, oil and gas production and transport Link.  I think this article is a little misleading in that respect. 

  36. Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?

    MA Rodger - thanks for the link. You are correct, there is no use of the word pause or hiatus

     

    The exact phrase was

    "

    Global Warming Standstill.
     
    The 5 year running mean of global temperature has been flat forthe past decade (on Page 5 under the figure). 
     
    My accent isn't troll, although I have lived in Norway for a short time.
     
  37. Cornelius Breadbasket at 05:41 AM on 1 March 2013
    Living in Denial in Norway

    villabolo @ 1.

     

    They'd be better off going for wind power in the North Sea as Scotland are.  The sun is under the horizon for a big chunk of the year in Norway.

  38. Living in Denial in Norway

    Norwegians have one of the highest per capita incomes and best education in the world. They could do plenty if they invested a good portion of it in the manufacturing of solar power.

  39. George Will - Still Recycling Classic Climate Change Myths for The Washington Post

    Even if, for the sake of argument, one were to concede that rapid global cooling was a mainstream view among climatologists and related scientists in the 1970s, as far as I can see it does nothing to undermine the present conclusions regarding the behaviour of the Earth climate, as these conclusions are built on a large, continually-expanding body of independent, convergent lines of evidence - more and better evidence than there was in the 1970s supporting any conclusion of global cooling.

  40. George Will - Still Recycling Classic Climate Change Myths for The Washington Post

    Dana @6, in the 1970's George Kukla and a few other climate scientists actually did believe that an ice age was pending on time scales relevant to humans.  That concern was expressed in his letter to President Nixon in 1972.  However, Kukla's was not the mainstream view of climate scientists in the 70's, which is better represented by Wally Broecker's paper:

    Broecker, W.S., 1975. Climatic Change - Are We on Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming. Science, 189(4201): 460-463.

    Broecker and Kukla are very close personal friends, but on more than one occasion I have seen Broecker show a slide of Kukla's letter to Nixon to tease him for being out of touch with the mainstream view in the 70's.  As noted by Dana and by many other comments here, it is incorrect to present a real but minority view from the 1970's as the consensus belief at the time among climate scientists.  

  41. Bob Lacatena at 00:29 AM on 1 March 2013
    The Y-Axis of Evil

    Philip,

    I'm afraid that at this point in time, with all that has transpired and everything the man has said and done, no one owes any sort of apology to Monckton.

  42. The Y-Axis of Evil

    Regarding my comment number 49. I must correct and apologise to Lord Monckton for attributing to him a comment he did not make. This was due to a failure of another comnentator tot indicate correct punctuation with regard to his comment which I took to be Monckton's:

    “Today’s high CO2 levels – the 97% natural and the 3% human-released”

  43. Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?

    AndyS
    I think if you look you will find this is the Hansen report you were a little hazy on. Mind, thereis no actual use of the word "pause" or the word "hiatus."
    But I forget that you are "not getting involved in a discussion of whether there is actually a pause or not."  Ah ha. Now there is a phrase that has much more resonance when spoken with a heavy Troll accent.

  44. How big is the “carbon fertilization effect”?

    chriskoz, some more explanation:

    • the actual average increase was 57%, given in the post; that is much less than your "eyeball" estimate, but also varying a lot between biomes. "Eyeball" estimates are often wrong when the underlying data is not normally distributed. I thus dislike, and did not include in the post, that the authors gave an average 0.293 kg m-2 y-1 (range 0-2.12 kg m-2 y-1!) in the paper. That average may be realized in one biome, and is not representative in an ecological sense. In any case, it is applicable mathematically to an area of 123 M km2 (not all land area is vegetated). High increases occurred in the model where NPP was high in the first place, particularly the tropics.
    • I guess one could define a "NPP sensitivity" similarly to climate sensitivity in order to have a common reference point (such as for comparing model outputs). But, similar to climate sensitivity, it remains a function of actual [CO2] level, i.e. incremental warming changes for each subsequent doubling and incremental NPP increase change with each doubling. If you follow the link in the post, you will find that between 280 and 560 ppm, the slope of the curve is still relatively large, but for any additional increases it will drop rapidly, more rapidly than the parallel warming effect. Meaning, even in the hypothetical case of a biosphere reacting solely to [CO2] and uptake of most of anthropogenic CO2, this counter-effect to warming could not be maintained as [CO2] increases.
    • the current estimate for the land sink, 2.6±0.8 Pg C y-1, is calculated as the residual from better known fluxes, i.e. anthropogenic emissions, fraction remaining in the atmosphere, uptake by the ocean, and net land use change fluxes. The latter is positive, meaning gross land uptake is actually larger than 2.6 Pg (follow the Global Carbon Project link). The new paper (still in review in Earth Syst. Sci. Data) by Le Quéré et al. that is linked from the presentation shows that a current set of Dynamic Global Vegetation models (DGVMs) does a decent job in calculating magnitude and interannual variability of the land carbon sink. The models include the fertilization effect as well as deforestation, afforestation, regrowth, and climate variability. Some include nitrogen dynamics. In general, these models are more sophisticated than the one discussed in the post (which focussed on varying climate model parameters into one biosphere model), but they were all run with the same climatic inputs. You would have to turn off all other relevant effects for increasing NPP (regrowth, afforestation, nitrogen fertilization) in order to tease out the CO2 fertilization effect itself. Not yet done. Hence my announcement in the post ... wait for it to come soon.
  45. Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?

    "that the observations do not effectively rule out the possibility that there has been no warming."

    To emphasise the myopia in the sentiment we so often see:

    "that those observations -when considered outside of the context of all the other observations and physical knowledge we have- do not effectively rule out the possibility that there has been no warming."

    Even trying to deduce whether the world is warming solely from the SAT record is wrong. Not that it seems to stop people.

  46. Dikran Marsupial at 19:16 PM on 28 February 2013
    Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?

    andyS wrote 'i.e there is a difference between the statement "global warming has stopped" and "there has been no significant change in surface temperature anomaly".'


    Yes, there is a difference, which is that "skeptics" are misusing the concept of statistical significance.  The lack of a statistically significant warming trend does not mean that there has been no warming, just that the observations do not effectively rule out the possibility that there has been no warming. 

    Alternatively, we could ask "has there been a statistically significant change in the rate of warming?", and the answer there would be "no".  However the skeptics never seem to want to discuss that point for some reason.

    The funny thing is that the way that hypothesis testing should be used is to assume the null hypothesis (the thing you do not want to be true) holds and only proceed with your alternative hypothesis if you are able to show that the observations are inconsistent with the null hypothesis.  If you are a "skeptic" and arguing that there has been a plateau, then your null hypothesis should be that there has been no change in the underlying rate of warming.  If you are a "warmist" and aguing that there has been warming (purely on the basis of these observations) then your null hypothesis is that the rate of warming is zero and the onus is on you to reject the null hypothesis.

    The basic idea is one of self-skepticism, you only proceed with your hypothesis if you can show that the opposite of what you are arguing for is inconsistent with the observations.

    The "skeptics" in this case are ironically being utterly unskeptical, by effectively using a null hypothesis which is that their argument is correct, which totally goes against the whole idea of statistical hypothesis testing (unless you also perform a power analysis, which they never do).

    The "warmists" on the other hand, are not basing their argument solely on land temperature observations (mega cherry pick on your part there! ;o); they also have physics, sea surface temperature and ocean heat content as well.

    But if you are just looking at land surface temperatures, then over a period as short as 15 years, the observations don't rule out the existence of a plateau, nor do they rule out warming having continued at the same rate since 1970 or so.

    Hope this helps.

  47. Conspiracy Theorists Respond to Evidence They're Conspiracy Theorists With More Conspiracy Theories

    It is interesting that "climate skeptics" are so angry at Lewandowsky for pointing out the obvious.  They are going to be apoplectic now that their anger at how they were originally portrayed is being studied as well.  

  48. Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?

    AndyS @51 - Unfortunately The Australian still hasn't made the transcript or recording available, so your question is impossible to answer.  However, the most likely answer is #1 (that The Australian misrepresented what Pachauri said), given what the IPCC communications office told me.  That being said, it's possible that he mis-spoke, and hence he isn't making any accusations regarding misrepresentations.  #1 is most likely, but we can't be sure (frankly due to Lloyd's shoddy journalism).

  49. Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?

    AndyS

    1. Was Pachauri misrepresented by The Australian? - Apparently so. He certainly doesn't agree with their presentation, and the Australian lacks direct quoting in the critical sections. Shame on The Australian.
    2. Was he badly briefed? - Don't know, don't care. Misrepresenting an interview is the fault of the journalist. 
    3. Does he actually hold the views as presented, and if so why? - Did you not read the opening post, where it states: "it (the reported interview) does not accurately represent Pachauri's thoughts on the subject"?
    4. Is he playing a political game to make the sceptic arguments sound irrelevant? - No, and that would be silly. The only "gaming" I see (IMO) is folks who are misinterpreting the story. 

    You seem determined to state that Pachauri said something silly, or deceptive, and to claim that warming has halted. I don't believe any of that is justified by the facts...

  50. Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?

    AndyS, you asked, "Leaving aside the ocean warming issue, does SkS accept that there has been no warming of land temps for the last 15 years or so?"

    Why ask it if you don't want the details or don't want to get "involved in a discussion"?  That discussion is essential to understanding why Pauchari would not have made the claim that the claimers claimed he claimed. 

    Pauchari, simply by having read AR4 and having the critical thinking capacity necessary to put 2 and 2 together, knows that 1) surface temp is not very representative of the overall system energy accumulation (TOA imbalance), 2) less-than-climate-scale trend periods are interesting but not very meaningful with regards to the basic theory of AGW, and 3) the period in question is especially susceptible to misinterpretation.  That's all no-brainer stuff.  For Pauchari to have simply ignored all that and told the notorious Australian that global warming had paused stretches the bounds of believability.  It's possible he was jet lagged, sick, and on meds, and the claim actually did come out of his mouth, but I kind of doubt it.  If he did say it in full control of his mental faculty, he's a blithering idiot.  It wouldn't be the first time that a scientist opened her/his mouth and said something stupid.  That's why getting one's opinions on science from mainstream media is a Bad Idea (and I recognize that it's the only option most people have, or believe they have).  The science renders The Australian's claim and anything Pauchari might have said meaningless apart from the playing of rhetorical games with the general public.

    What's funny about all of this is that the alleged "hiatus" says exactly the opposite of what "skeptics" think it says.  What it actually says is that in 1997/8 global temp spiked to its highest value in probably several thousand years (the change from 1996 to the 1997/8 peak is about .25C in Had4), and then over the next decade or so it didn't just stay there but rose slightly (also encompassing a value that surpassed 1997/8).  It's like a baseball player hitting, in consecutive years, 32, 33, 37, 35, 40, 45, 39, 42, 47, and 48 home runs, and then the next ten years hitting 70, 73, 45, 60, 65, 62, 60, 75, 62, and 63.  Yah, sure, the trend over those ten years appears to be falling or flat.  Has the player somehow lost his game (or steroids dealer)?  In the middle of the hiatus is the period from 1999 to 2007, which gives a trend of .146C per decade.  The 2000s were the hottest decade in the instrumental period, despite being La Nina-ish and despite the instrumental record low for TSI in the 11-year cycle.  Note that global ice mass loss accelerated during the surface temp "hiatus" period, a fact that Pauchari would be very much aware of.

    And, yes, at your request I'm ignoring the 80,000 ton gorilla in the room (OHC).

    One final thought on significance.  The Rose trend is roughly .038C per decade.  It is, by the common definition of statistical significance, insignificant.  It's also about 9x the rate of PETM event warming.  That's significant.

     

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