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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Is the climate consensus 97%, 99.9%, or is plate tectonics a hoax?

scaddenp at 12:48 PM on 5 May, 2017

And in answer to question, at first look James Maxlow still seems to carry the baton of alternative theory from carrey et al. Last publication I can see in 2001 though did a book in 2005.

Oh, yes Jan Koziar, a pole maybe. Published this in 2016.

Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study

Jim Eager at 01:49 AM on 14 July, 2015

Up thread ryland identified himself as "a scientist with a PhD from the University of Western Australia who rose to become a Professor at Curtin University in Perth" whose "own field of interest, [is] the study of prostate cancer using molecular biological techniques"

Which means ryland's views and pronouncements on climate science are no more valid than any other layman's. He is not even part of the 3%, full stop.

Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study

ryland at 04:44 AM on 10 July, 2015

Phillippe Chantreau. My ramblings as you so scathingly call them arose because I was attacked from all sides regarding my initial post. In this post I asked if the paper Recurrent Fury was in fact a new paper as the headline stated or a revamped version of one retracted in 2013 by the Frontiers Journal. Foolishly I also said the Journal had retracted it for ethical reasons. This unleashed a torrent of comment pointing out how this was not true. Perhaps even more foolishly I responded to these comments in a vain attempt to show that in the final analysis the Journal did cite privacy of respondents as a reason for retracting the paper. As jeopardising privacy is a significant ethical concern in research publications of this nature this provided the Journal a very good reason/excuse for retraction.
I may ramble but at least the ramblings are from a scientist with a PhD from the University of Western Australia who rose to become a Professor at Curtin University in Perth. I don't believe in conspiracy theories but neither am I entirely convinced that only by reducing CO2 levels will climate change be averted. There may be a 97% consensus of climate scientists that humans are responsible for climate change and certainly I consider that humans have contributed and do contribute to climate change but there are a lot of other scientists who are less convinced. I'm less convinced because the empirical evidence doesn't always entirely support all the contentions of the climate scientists. But Phillippe Chantreau I am certainly not a subscriber to conspiracy theories.

Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study

ryland at 00:30 AM on 10 July, 2015

Tom Curtis The blog post is that of the Journal itself and you do not acknowledge the second part of the statement which states "rights and privacy" . In a later post I give references from both the American here and British Associations of Psychology here to the ethical considerations researchers should consider . Both Associations stress the need for ethical consideration of privacy. I also give a reference to a blog post which is firmly against the action of the Journal but clearly states the retraction was made on ethical grounds see here.

My apologies I've just checked back to find those links in my post at 17 are kaput. Apologies

KR are you saying the journal ddn't change its mind and retract on grounds of rights and privacy, breaches of which are unethcal? Did you read the section on Inernet Mediated Research from the British Association of Psychologists which states inter alia

"Serious consideration should be given to whether publishing such traceable quotes requires specific valid consent from the individual, and it should be avoided in any cases where possible consequential risk and harm to participants is non-trivial"

And I do have a very good working knowledge of Ethics requirements as I was an academic member of the Ethics Committe for the Division of Heslth Sciences at Curtin University Perth for10 yesars

So what did-in the dinosaurs? A murder mystery…

Andy Skuce at 06:16 AM on 21 March, 2015

I urge everyone here not to take the "Gravity Theory of Mass Extinctions" or GTME seriously at all. It is physically impossible and is completely unsupported by any peer-reviewed research.

If you are curious to know more read this, but please bear in mind that it is bunk.

There are indeed small gravity variations on the present Earth, due principally to the planet's rotation and changes in altitude of the surface. This means that the lowest gravity on Earth is to be found at the summit of Huarascan in Peru and the lowest near the North Pole. These differences are approximately 0.7%.

In other words, an average man weighing 80 kg, standing at the North Pole, would be about 600 grams heavier than the same guy perched on top of a peak in the Andes. If the chap at the pole emptied his bladder, they would then be about the same weight.

Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'

scaddenp at 07:48 AM on 12 April, 2013

Hmm, I wonder if Tamino simply confused you with Tim Curtin (definitely persona not grata there)?

Climate science peer review is pal review

DSL at 04:32 AM on 8 February, 2013

Martin, in an ideal world where everyone is trying to advance the science, I agree with Jennings on his first and last statements. This is not an ideal world. There are people trying to get published simply so the publications can be used as an opinion-shaping tool. Jennings probably doesn't have a lot of experience with the Tim Curtins of the world. Publications of misleading and badly done studies can have serious consequences, because there is no accountability where the media is concerned. None. The scientific community ignored the allegations of climategate, and rightly so. Those allegations were, however, extraordinarily damaging to the credibility of climate science as far as a significant portion of the public was/is concerned.

2012 Shatters the US Temperature Record. Fox, Watts, and Spencer Respond by Denying Reality

Tom Curtis at 12:38 PM on 19 January, 2013

Backslider @31, so your explanation of the new maximum temperature record at Dunedoo is the failure of sea breezes, and the temperature increase from the wind blowing across all those roads its 836 inhabitants have built?

Presumably that is also the explanation for the new maximum temperature at Curtin Springs.

And so on for all of the more than 34 new maximum temperature records set in Australian since January 1st. (More than 34 because M Hrerrera has not caught up with the new record at Observatory Hill on Friday).

Perhaps you might want to consider that local geography cannot explain a national heat wave. Or that previous records set at Observatory Hill were also set when hot westerlies prevented the onset of sea breezes.

Perhaps you might even want to consider that your desperaton to throw out the data shows clearly that the data refutes your (--snip--) views.

Matt Ridley - Wired for Lukewarm Catastrophe

Bernard J. at 16:30 PM on 31 August, 2012

Bernard J. @46. I'm sorry, but without the supporting data all you have done is draw a pretty picture that you are asking us to take on faith. I have a math degree, so I don't think I will swoon if post [sic] the supporting data.

A degree in mathematics?! As others have noted, your naïve treatment of the CO₂ data is very much at odds with that claim.

However, if it is true, you shouldn't need to see my supporting data. You should be able to see that I performed an analysis that fits the entire Mauna Loa record, and with a bit of application of that claimed degree in mathematics, very soon have a close replication of the graph. I'm extremely curious to see if you are able to replicate the graph, because Tim Curtin with his self-styled skill in statistics never managed what is in the end really a simple procedure.

If this turns out to be beyond the skills of someone with a mathematical degree, I might provide a step-by-step description of the process in a few more days, but I really would like to see that you've attempted to arrive at a fit rather more sophisticated than a linear or an exponential fit - for goodness' sake, your own graph and Tamino's explanation should tell you that an exponential fit is rather off base, even with a regression coefficient of 0.98.

Matt Ridley - Wired for Lukewarm Catastrophe

Bernard J. at 23:49 PM on 30 August, 2012

Joel Upchurch at #28, 10:59 AM on 30 August, 2012:

dana @24 I am afraid the chart you are using is misleading. I downloaded the CO2 data for the same interval as my temperature chart and plotted a linear trendline and the fit is actually pretty good. There is nothing in the actual C02 data that supports an increase to 792PPM of CO2 by 2000 [sic], that would be necessary for a 3 degree increase by your own data.

The actual CO2 data, seems quite consistent with 1-2 degrees of warming by 2100 for 3 degrees per doubling

I presume that Joel Upchurch means "...an increase to 792PPM of CO2 by 2100...", but that aside, I do think that his "math[ematics are] wrong".

A few years ago I had an enchange over at Deltoid (with Tim Curtin, if I recall correctly) about the trajectory of CO2 through to the end of the 21st century. I won't go just now into the nuts and bolts of how I constructed the curve I posted back then:

because I am curious to see if Joel Upchurch believes that this is a reasonable projection. And if not, why not?

To give a few clues, I used the entire Mauna Loa dataset available at the time, and I used the data itself to determine the best projection, rather than directly assuming a linear, exponential, or other fit. I did this by using a process similar to that illustrated by Dana on this very thread, and by using the most parsimonious approach in that analysis to subsequently arrive at the 21st century extrapolation.

The result: assuming future human emissions of CO2 at the same rate of emission to date, there would be a hair over 800 ppm CO2 by 2100. And this with an R2 coefficient greater than derived from either a linear or an exponential fit...

This completely contradicts Joel Upshore's claim that "[t]here is nothing in the actual C02 data that supports an increase to 792PPM of CO2 by 2000 [sic]...". Indeed, the "actual data" suggest almost exactly this amount of increase, and with the accompanying temperature increase of 4.5 C above pre-Industrial Revolution baseline if I calculate it correctly for a 3 C sensitivity.

If Joel Upchurch has any quibble with my graph, and simply cannot replicate something similar himself, I will describe the several steps I used to obtain it, but first I want to see just how he uses "math" to conduct his own explorations of the data.

IPCC is alarmist

DSL at 13:01 PM on 7 August, 2012

This has to be the most pointless discussion I've encountered in several years, and that includes the engagement with Tim Curtin at OM, the SLoT thread, and everything Dan H has started at RC.

What will be the ultimate bottom line if krisbaum is correct in feeling misled by Pachauri? Would it mean anything where WG1, WG2, or WG3 are concerned? And although it's probably against comment policy, I'll wager krisbaum has no problem with (-Snip-), and those are much more damaging than anything Pachauri has to say about bloody grey literature (as one can see from the variety of mainstream media outlets that are seemingly plugged directly into WUWT).

2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

Bernard J. at 11:51 AM on 27 July, 2012

A note to the unwary.

'Silas' is Girma Orssengo, who has in the past displayed an astonishingly blinkered misunderstanding of science. Arguing with this ardent Ayn Rand acolyte will get one nowhere, very fast.

On the matter of the claim that 'cool' cannot radiate to 'warm', I'd invite Silas/Orssengo to visit

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/05/17/tim-curtins-incompetence-with/

where such nonsense might be kicked around the park, as was done with Tim Curtin, and thus save clogging the thread here. And as Orssengo is apparently a functioning engineer, I would invite him to explain somewhere in his discourse how energy moves through the lumen* of a Dyson sphere.

[*Yes, it was deliberate...]

Roy's Risky Regression

bill at 19:57 PM on 7 July, 2012

Alexandre @ 2.

Further to Dana's reply, the connoisseur of 'how far will they' go may also enjoy Tim Curtin's '[CO2 and H2O] do not [trap heat] because they cannot, given the 2nd Law. Remember that photons are largely a fiction as they have no mass.'

Well, that would also explain how they've escaped the Higgs Boson!

Here, (comments page 6), June 23, 12.42pm (post NG's takeover ScienceBlogs no longer features permalinks, sadly.)

2012 SkS Weekly Digest #21

Bernard J. at 02:52 AM on 29 May, 2012

I'm loathe to draw attention to this on the more focussed threads, but I thought that there might be a few folk here with a perverse fascination for how Tim Curtin is currently butchering over at Deltoid the fundamental physics of Tyndall and Arrhenius.

It truly has to be seen to be believed, and even then it's difficult. I keep trying to put fingers to keyboard to address the pseudoscience, but it's as futile an exercise as is harvesting a vineyard one grape at a time.

Strong, strong, strong keyboard/beverage warning - you'll discover that greenhouse gases aren't, and that nitrogen and oxygen are.

New research from last week 11/2012

Bernard J. at 16:28 PM on 20 March, 2012

Let's pause and think on that classic reference for a moment:

As compared with the data for the earth’s surface near Stockholm, published by Palmqvist, and those for Wexholni, published by Selanders, the Andrée results, as shown in a table arranged according to the altitudes of the respective layers of air do not prove any diminution of carbonic acid gas with altitude up to the highest point, 4,300 meters, attained in these balloon ascensions. On the other hand the percentages of carbonic acid gas by volume throughout the different strata of air are very much the same as those observed at the surface of the earth. On the average we find in 10,000 volumes at the earth’s surface from 3.03 to 3.20 volumes of carbonic acid gas; at altitiides of 1,000 to 3,000 meters, 3.23 volumes; at altitudes of 3,000 to 4,000 meters, 3.24 volumes.

So, more than a hundred years ago it was demonstrated in the scientific literature that CO₂ is effectively homogeneously mixed in the atmosphere - certainly where the bulk of mass occurs.

And yet we still have denialists who insist that it forms a layer at the surface because it is "heavier than air". Tim Curtin is one who comes to mind - back on a classic Deltoid thread he really didn't want to let go of his attachment to this false idea.

Some folk are more than a little behind the times...

The Critical Decade - Part 3: Implications for Emissions Reductions

Tim Curtin at 15:44 PM on 14 June, 2011

Evidently my last has been "moderated". Here is the actual letter I have sent to Prof. Steffen:
Dear Professor Steffen
There is a basic fallacy throughout the discussion in Chapter Three of The Critical Decade of the so-called carbon budget, and that is the

(-imputation of fraud and scientific misconduct snipped-)

confusion there between gross emissions of CO2 and net additions to the atmospheric concentration of CO2. This procedure enabled your report to claim that “In the first nine years of the period (2000 through 2008), humanity emitted 305 Gt of CO2, over 30% of the total budget in less than 20% of the time period.” Your budget to 2050 of one trillion tonnes of CO2 apparently assumes that as has since 1958 been the case, on average only 45% or so of gross emissions remain aloft (Knorr, GRL, 2009). Thus in truth less than 15% of your “budget” had been used up by 2008, which is less than the 20% of the time period.
I hope you and the Climate Commission will correct this gross error with as much publicity as in its original release of The Critical Decade.
By the way, I note your report cites Meinshausen et al 2009 as the source for this very misleading budget approach. My attached published Note showed how they

(-imputation of fraud and scientific misconduct snipped-)

assumed 100% retention of emissions in the atmosphere.

[Tim Curtin]
www.timcurtin.com

Of Averages and Anomalies - Part 1B. How the Surface Temperature records are built

Tim Curtin at 00:03 AM on 1 June, 2011

In reply to skywatcher at 15:53 PM on 31 May, 2011 who said:
"That's a large accusation to make without evidence there Tim Curtin, and yes you are cherry-picking, be it individual stations or individual records. The glaciers are 'cooked' as well, explains why nearly all of them are retreating".

I do NOT cherry pick, Hansen and BoM do, that is why they prefer to use Wagga rather than Canberra, and Heathrow rather than Oxford.

As for the glaciers, they have been receding since the end of the Little Ice Age, and thank goodness for that. A retreating glacier does NOT imply reduced rainfall, especially as ( -Snip- ).

Of Averages and Anomalies - Part 1B. How the Surface Temperature records are built

Tom Curtis at 14:36 PM on 31 May, 2011

Tim Curtin @23, the highest High Quality network station to Canberra is Wagga Wagga. If GISS just used the nearest station, that is the temperature record they would use. As it happens, GISS shows a 1910 to 2010 trend of between 0.2 and 0.5 degrees C per century in South Eastern NSW (including Wagga and Canberra). In contrast, BOM shows a 0.9 degree warming trend over the same period at Wagga Wagga. I checked the Canberra location only because you brought it into discussion. Clearly your concerns about GISS artificially inflating its temperature trends are unwarranted, a fact we already knew from the similarity between GISS trends and other major surface temperature indices.

Of Averages and Anomalies - Part 1B. How the Surface Temperature records are built

Alexandre at 20:46 PM on 30 May, 2011

Tim Curtin #7

If it's so easy to get whatever desired outcome, how come no research institute, or even blogger, managed to produce a time series with the "real" decline in temperature you imply to be the case?

How much evidence one can deny before admitting to himself he's in denial?

Of Averages and Anomalies - Part 1B. How the Surface Temperature records are built

skywatcher at 19:45 PM on 30 May, 2011

#7 Tim Curtin. I'll see your cherries (Eskdalemuir and Oxford) and raise them with the UK's April temperature according to CET. That graph looks almost like a hockey stick, with 2007 beating the previous record by 0.6C, and 2011 beating 2007 by 0.6C.
In Scotland, where I live, global warming is manifesting itself in weird winter weather (either no snow or deluges of it), and by smashed temperature records any time the wind is persistently in the south, which has been relatively rare due to weird weather patterns. Flooding is also not uncommon. Extremes haven't been reached in the UK like Russia or Pakistan (though Cumbria and Gloucester might argue differently), but arguing on the basis of a few cherries that global temperature isn't rising is a lame duck argument.

Why do satellites show the same warming, why are the seasons changing, and why are the glaciers retreating at a rate of knots? Did you go round and tell the glaciers that GISTEMP has been fudged and they should retreat so as to keep in with the conspiracy?

Explaining Arctic sea ice loss

Roger A. Wehage at 23:03 PM on 13 October, 2010

Historical records of world temperatures from ice core samples over the past 410K years show rapid declines following peaks at 130K, 230K, 330K, and 410K years ago. However, in the last 15K years (not counting the industrial years), following the last dramatic temperature rise, global temperatures have remained relatively flat, with fluctuations varying by ±1.5°C or so. If history had anything to say about world temperatures, I would have expected a sharp downward trend, heading toward the next ice age.

We see similar historical peaks in CO2. But about 15K years ago there was a small drop in CO2, only to shoot up again about 10K years ago, which might explain the stabilizing of temperatures. Are we overlooking a smaller human footprint on CO2 and global temperatures that may have extended back 10K years or so ago? When did man discover that systematic burning could be used to manage forests, and was that systematic burning more than what nature would have done alone? Put another way, has man been reducing forest stands for 10K years or more, which might be responsible for adding some CO2 to the atmosphere and stabilizing global temperatures?

Man has also been burning coal and limited amounts of fossil fuels for thousands of years too. This would also have contributed to CO2, but maybe to a lesser extent than forest reductions.

So, rather than nature returning Earth to the next ice age, man is turning it into a sauna. Is it a wonder that we are now seeing shrinking glaciers and ice caps when they should be growing?

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