back to article Would putting all the climate scientists in a room solve global warming...

Entourages are not something that delegates bring to a conference. Especially if the delegate is a humble public sector scientist. But the private invitation-only event I attended at Downing College Cambridge this week was no ordinary conference. It was an attempt to bring together leading climate scientists and IPCC figures …

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  1. jake Silver badge

    A question, and a dig ...

    Q: Where was Al Gore & his Jumbo Jet in all this?

    The dig: I have had access to boats in the water at Santa Cruz, Pillar Point, San Francisco, Redwood City, Sausalito, Petaluma, Napa, Bodega Bay, Albion, Fort Bragg and Eureka for over fourty years. The level of the ocean along the central/northern California coast hasn't changed in all that time. At all. And you global warming enthusiasts were saying ... what, exactly?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The level of the water hasn't changed?

      The level of the water hasn't changed where your boats were moored?

      Not once? by the sea?

      Round by where I live it's contantly changing...

      Actually this is a serious point, tidal digs aside, the level of the water is far less likely to change (on average) where you moor a boat, what with harbours/marinas. It is also much harder to see a small rise in the sea when you're only visiting for short times, due to the tidal affect. Or do you have specialist measuring equipment and historical records?

      Anecdotes aren't evidence.

      1. jake Silver badge

        @AC 13:49

        Tides & various tsunamis aside, no. Mean lower low water and mean lower high water are EXACTLY the same as they were over 125 years ago at Noyo Harbor (Fort Bragg), Bodega Bay, Marina Green (San Francisco), Redwood Creek (Redwood City), Pillar Point and Santa Cruz. Yes, these are official, historical data.

        What, no comment on Al Gore's private Jumbo Jet?

    2. smacky
      FAIL

      Fort Bragg

      Isn't even near the ocean, and it's on the Atlantic side.

      1. jake Silver badge

        @smacky

        Fort Bragg, in Mendocino County, California, named after the same General Bragg as the East Coast version, is most definitely on the Pacific Coast.

        1. jake Silver badge

          Make that "mean higher high water".

          Brain fart. I'm only human. Apologies.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      It would have been more honest...

      ... to just type 'I'VE GOT A LOT OF BOATS!!!!!!!!!'

      1. jake Silver badge

        But AC13:56 ... I don't have a lot of boats[1].

        Please note where I said I had "access" to the records of the various harbors over the last 4 decades or so. Or even the last century and a quarter. So do you. So do the global warming alarmists.

        The difference between me & the global warming alarmists is that I review reality before commenting. The global warming alarmists refuse to review reality.

        [1] OK, I'll admit to having more boats than most folks, who have zero boats ;-)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @Jake

          Any chance you can post a link to this data?

          1. David Pollard
            Stop

            @ Jake - acutal sea level data

            If data from the U.S. Geological Survey is credible, then sea levels in the San Francisco region have risen significantly in recent decades.

            http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1999/fs175-99/

            1. jake Silver badge

              @ David Pollard

              If you look at the data & squint, ignoring the red line[1], with the exception of El Nino years (which are normal, and were well documented by the Incas and Mayas before you Europeans[2] got here), after the mid-1940s and thru' the 1970s, the measured level is pretty much flat. Prior to the 1950s, the data is well within experimental error, given the measuring tools available.

              I first noticed this when interning as a key-punch operator at the USGS in Menlo Park in the late 1970s & early '80s when I was at Berkeley & Stanford. When I brought it up to an analyst, he pointed out "wait until we get more off-shore measuring points, and see what the real temperature & sea level of the Pacific is outside the Humboldt Current ... people are going to freak out!"

              And here we are today :-)

              @AC 08:59: See David Pollard's link for the address of the USGS in Menlo Park, CA. They are more than happy to provide raw data. Have fun!

              [1] Lies, damn lies, statistics & all that.

              [2] I'm 100% Suomalainen, don't call me European, white boy ;-)

              1. Doctor Tarr
                Joke

                Title must contain blah.................

                You're called Jake and you access to loads of boats. Must be a pirate then!

                1. jake Silver badge

                  @Doctar Tarr

                  No, I'm called "jake". And if you had bothered reading for comprehension, you would have noticed that I have access to the water, not necessarily "loads of boats".

                  Poirat, tho' ... Aye, lad. Oi've rescued rottin' boats in Bodega Bay; caught sturgeon & stripped 'em for their roe and then released 'em South of the Dumbartin Bridge; taken chainsaws to useless hulks to make use of decent parts in Docktown, Redwood City; caught th' drippins of the leaky pipes from Moffett Field to the aging fuel pier for my own use; made midnight runs to the guest docks around the bay to unload my privy without sharing it with the rest of the water lovers in the area, and otherwise boated with a minimum of impact on either my wallet or the environment. I've also hauled idiots out of the break at Mavericks with a Jetski ... Us modern-day pirates have a completely different agenda from those of old :-)

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            @@Jake

            Someone has downvoted a genuine request for data to back up a claim about sea-levels on a discussion about climate change?

            WTF?

            I don't know where to find the data, Jake obviously does because he says he's seen it, I'd like to see the data as well, so I asked for a link.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    an entourage ...

    or a collection of colleagues, postdocs and graduate students?

    1. Jolyon

      Entourage

      Or just evening up the numbers if it ended up 50-50 skeptics and, what do we call them on here, Warm-Mongers? Morons? Scum? I forget what the current derogatory term is.

      1. breakfast Silver badge
        Grenade

        Terminology

        I believe the correct term is "scientists."

      2. fishman

        Alarmists

        Term I've heard is Alarmists for those who support "climate change".

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Terminator

        It is 'warmists'

        Other terms are alarmists, CAGW-believers, bed-wetters, religious types etc.

        Since the dawn of mankind there have been those keen to use fear to predict the end of the world, unless one does what they say, notably religious organisations. Global Cooling / Global Warming / Climate Change / Climate Disruption are the new tools of fear and control by these modern day charlatans.

        The Sun / Cosmic Ray theory will almost certainly prove to be the main climate driver, and not CO2. When you study correlation graphs comparing Temperature/CO2 & Temperature/Cosmic rays, the Cosmic Ray theory fits far better than CO2. It's startling.

  3. Battsman

    Not Andrew's Most Editorialized Article

    I was pleasantly surprised to see that Andrew actually tried to report the facts somewhat evenly without extensive editorial - typically his climate oriented articles are heavily tinged. I was also pleasantly surprised to see someone trying to foster intelligent discussion across the aisles regarding climate change and its potential causes.

    I am by no means convinced of human-centered climate change - i'm much more inline with the idea that the large glowing fusion furnace located near by and streaming energy and highly energetic particles at us contributes the most to our daily experience on the planet Earth. Similarly, I have to assume that volcanos/geological events have an extraordinary impact on our climate due to the scale of energy/material involved.

    The above being said, I think we'd be ostriches not to seriously consider the idea that humans have a significant impact on their environment - we literally have changed the face of our planet via deforestation, paving, farming, etc. What worries me is the idea of equialibria and tipping points - 3% man-made CO2 vs. 97% may not seem like much but that kind of delta can be the push to shift equalibria and we have to be aware of that possibility. It is quite possible that 3% isn't insignificant.

    What I worry about most is that the historical arguments for/against continued analysis of climate change seem to be extraordinarily idealogical with little concern about the net outcomes. On the human-centric side you have the expectation that we are going to completely change our society to deal with problems that may or may not be real and on the other side you have people that would argue that we should be ostriches because it might be expensive to solve a preventable problem.

    Who wants to put money for/against the idea that reality probably lies between the two idealogical arguments? I for one would put my money on humans are impacting environment (but probably not to the amount the alarmists predict to get a reaction) and if we were smarter about energy use and energy production, we could mitigate the majority of the risk with a reasonable amount of investment. More meetings like the meeting described by this article please.

    1. Schultz
      Stop

      Concerning volcanos/geological events

      Volcanos and geological events can be quite neglected. All geological energy comes from radioactive decay and tidal forces (don't forget, we always gotta conserve energy). Science gives some numbers: Sun irradiation of the earth surface: 174 000 TW; Geothermal energy 45 TW (K.H. Nealson, R. Rye (2004) Evolution of Metabolism, pp.41 ff . In Biochemistry (ed. W.H. Schlesinger), Vol. 8 Treatise on Geochemistry, Elsevier-Pergamon, Oxford.)

      If you talk about the greenhouse effect or atmospheric light scattering after volcanic eruptions, we're back to the sun irradiation issue and you might have more of a case.

    2. C 2
      Boffin

      Human 'contribution'

      FWIW the human race contributes about 134 *times* (not 134%, but 13400%) the CO2 that volcanoes do annually, as of the USGS study in 2007. This number varies slightly as volcanic emissions are somewhat erratic, and human emissions are on the rise. This is with data on modern volcanic emissions.

      http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/2007/07_02_15.html

      In summary that's volcanoes 200 Million tonnes/year vs. humans 28.6 Billion tonnes/year.

      Volcanoes are credited with bringing the earth out of the 'snowball earth' phase of its history via co2 emissions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_Earth#Evidence

      http://www.geosc.psu.edu/courses/Geosc320/Joe_and_Mark%27s_Snowball_Earth.pdf

      I'm not getting into other factors such as albedo (roads, deforestation and buildings) and particulates or aerosols (skin flakes, diesel exhaust, dust, sulfur dioxide etc); however this suggests that 6billion humans can *easily* have quite the effect on our climate.

    3. Mike007

      human impact

      I have to agree that we are changing the planet a lot, and I very much doubt that CO2 is a major factor, the turning of forests in to concrete cities is having a far bigger effect than anything else we're doing.

      We have literally wiped out hundreds of species of animals thousands of species of plants and totally screwed with the weather with our huge city expansions, but everyone is sitting in the corner talking about something which if it even has an impact that impact is so small we can't detect it...

  4. Valerion

    Good step

    A small step, but a good one. At least everyone was in the same room and having (by the sounds of it) sensible, level-headed scientific discussion rather than scaremongering from one side (which I guess is why Al Gore wasn't there) and shouted denials from the other.

    At least it has proven that the debate is not over...

  5. Melvin Meatballs

    Simpleminded me

    I take from this that the human race knows the thick end of bugger all about how our planet's climate works.

    1. copsewood
      Go

      Plenty of knowledge, but incomplete

      "I take from this that the human race knows the thick end of bugger all about how our planet's climate works."

      No, because reasonably good estimates based upon the model we have (weather forecasting) can be made over the next 5 days or so. But climate is a very complex mechanism, and not all parts of it are understood yet and not all of the interactions are known. And we're probably a very long way from complete understanding. The knowledge we do have suggests strongly that we need to act in a way that reduces our risk of wrecking our own climate which requires development of climate friendly energy sources and use. Leaving or keeping 2/3rds of the world population in poverty isn't an option here either, because people in bad enough poverty will burn anything to keep warm or destroy any nearby forest in order to feed themselves, while people who are better off tend to have the means and motivation to care about their nearby environment. It's the same kind of issue which led in many places to localised pollution becoming sufficiently disliked that activists eventually got this cleaned up, e.g. you can now find fresh fish in the Thames not present 100 years ago, and you can also breathe air in London without many people getting ill.

      In the past the rich have been able to externalise environmental misbehaviour, by siting toxic waste dumps where poor people live while keeping the areas where rich people live green. But global climate is the part of the environment in which we can't avoid all sharing our pollution. Localised solutions don't work here so this needs a global response.

    2. C 2
      Pint

      Which hasn't stopped us from meddling

      .. nor has it stopped some from proposing 'geo-engineering' to fix it.

      Although many say isn't broken, despite the world being in a global food crises, due to what else but climate driven crop failures for the last few years:

      http://lmgtfy.com/?q=climate+change+food-shortage

      Lets have a pint while we still can.

  6. TeeCee Gold badge

    Re: Good step

    Actually it would appear that the debate is just starting. It's the mud-slinging, finger-pointing, propaganda and hysteria from both sides of the debate that may or may not be over......

  7. Dr. Ellen
    Stop

    Money

    I definitely believe in climate change. Over the past century or two the planet has been getting warmer -- as well it might, climbing out of the Little Ice Age. Of late, at least in the part of the world I deal with, it's been getting colder. This is all moderately undeniable.

    What I would like to know, however, is where all these people get the precise data to assess blame upon me; to tell me what I must and must not do; to tell me my taxes and expenses must increase mightily that they may save me.

    Until they get better data and models, this is all an attempt to gain control over me and my money -- and you and your money as well.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      RE: Money

      As I'm sure you're aware, we're still *technically* in an ice age - a big one rather than the 'Little Ice Age - and will be until the poles are completely ice-free.

      I'm interested that even the cited data that's being used are subject to arguments, such as the use of sea temperature against air temperature. It makes it sound like even basic data collection isn't beyond doubt. And scientists are supposed to be familiar with the idea of tough scrutiny and the burden of proof.

      I don't advocate reckless abuse of our planet's resources but healthy scepticism, especially when scientists' funding is dependent on there being a problem, seems a logical position.

      But I wholeheartedly agree that allowing the competing views to properly debate seems like a good and promising step forward. I commend the organisers.

  8. Anteaus

    Good article..

    ..and highlights the lack of reliable, dependable science behind all of these climate-change issues.

    I think one of the key issues is that the proponents of global warming are trying to draw conclusions from statistically-insufficient data sets. Because of random 'noise' on short-term measurements, climate trends can only be properly assessed over data spanning periods of hundreds of years. Attempting to make predictions of trends for the next century based of 30 years of data (since global warming allegedly took-off) leaves a gigantic margin for error.

    The fact of the matter is that if we want proof (or refutation) of global warming, we need to wait for more data, to see if the trend continues or not. Meanwhile the politicians are already in panic-mode, and don't want to wait. Result: unwise decisions, knee-jerk reactions, wasted capital and resources, unwise energy policies, scaremongering and hysteria, racketeering, environmental damage.

    Climate change or no, we need a replacement for fossil fuels, and will need that whatever happens, sometime within the next hundred years. Therefore we should be concentrating on that area of science. Once we have a safe energy source that doesn't liberate carbon dioxide, the global warming debate will become irrelevant.

    1. Mike VandeVelde
      Alert

      wasted capital and resources

      You can find *much* bigger piles of wasted capital and resources in many other areas besides our half hearted attempts at climate change mitigation. I wish the one-world-order-tyrants-are-taking-milk-straight-from-my-babies-mouth types would get a little perspective.

    2. C 2
      Boffin

      Some actual information might have helped

      ...you to come up with a more realistic comment. Allow me to fill in some gaps.

      "I think one of the key issues is that the proponents of global warming are trying to draw conclusions from statistically-insufficient data sets. Because of random 'noise' on short-term measurements, climate trends can only be properly assessed over data spanning periods of hundreds of years. Attempting to make predictions of trends for the next century based of 30 years of data (since global warming allegedly took-off) leaves a gigantic margin for error."

      This is typical of the propaganda from political factions (IMO) that want everyone to keep using fossil fuels until there is no more to sell. As for the history of climate data it goes back somewhat farther than you suggest. Global warming was suspected and tentatively proven in the 1930's to 1950's using data as far back as the mid 1800s.

      http://www.aip.org/history/climate/20ctrend.htm#S1

      "Climate change or no, we need a replacement for fossil fuels, and will need that whatever happens, sometime within the next hundred years. Therefore we should be concentrating on that area of science. Once we have a safe energy source that doesn't liberate carbon dioxide, the global warming debate will become irrelevant."

      Great idea, but we need something a LOT sooner than 100 years, unless you think farmers can somehow revert to 19th century practices by not using 10 calories of fossil fuels for every 1 of food they produce. "Peak oil" which for some reason is widely ridiculed happened in 2006 or 2007 at best estimates. Since the rate at which we use it continues to increase it won't last 30 years, much less 100.

      This article sums everything up pretty well..

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil

      Peak oil will also likely cause 'boom bust' cycles in the world economies, until we find another solution or go back to 19th century technology.

      http://www.planbeconomics.com/2011/01/31/peak-oil-and-the-new-boom-bust-cycle/

      Cheers

  9. Frumious Bandersnatch
    Thumb Up

    two questions on abbreviations

    #1 Which "Met" are you talking about as having attended? I know that in the UK, the Met is usually the Metropolitan Police, but here in Ireland, the Met is the Meteorological Office. I would have assumed you meant the latter except for the comment wondering why they attended.

    #2 CBR on page 3... is this supposed to be Cosmic Background Radiation? If so, I think this is the wrong phrase since CBR refers to the ambient radiation left over from the Big Bang. Isn't it?

    Overall, nice article. Not nearly (as pointed out) as editorialising as your other articles. Which is nice because we get a chance to comment. That seems to have been a good call as (so far) the comments haven't descended into religious flaming. Thumbs up.

  10. sisk
    Joke

    The real cause of global warming...

    is obviously politicians, lawyers, and other hot air filled persons relieving some internal pressure.

  11. BlackMage
    Flame

    Models and truth

    Oh dear:

    "People underestimate the power of models. Observational evidence is not very useful"

    WRONG! The originator of this quote is not a scientist whatever they claim or their job title is. This directly violates Karl Popper's expression of scientific philosophy that, to be considered scientific, any hypothesis (of which a model is one form) must be falsifiable by observations. Observational evidence or measurements is the closest we can get to ground truth. If models don't agree with observations we have a term for them (watch out for technical jargon here): "wrong".

    Models are worthless unless they correctly predict observations.

  12. LightWave

    arguments for and against

    So I found this page whilst trying to understand what the heck is going on.

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

    The science is pretty hard for my brain to understand at this moment. The author and some commentators sound like they might be scientists or have enough scientific schooling to help me out :

    I would like to know if the science is based on reality or just scare-mongering.

    1. Swarthy

      Re: LightWave

      As would we all.

  13. nederlander
    Pint

    what do you expect from a bunch of hairdressers?

    I think its all rather irrelevant as people by enlarge will never accept voluntary restrictions on their consumption to solve something like this. Each person measures the importance of themselves having a hot bath or a holiday in Thailand verses the tiny (even it it were certain) impact that said action will have on climate, and concludes that their own comfort is far more important. Its the kind of 'one more wont hurt you' attitude that an alcoholic has to whisky. There's no point getting angry about it, its human nature, one might as well get annoyed with gravity.

    Damn gravity!

    Mines the organic hemp woven cardigan.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Heart

    this about sums up my feelings on the subject

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiYZxOlCN10

    1. C 2
      Pint

      Perfect.

      You sir, are awesome. Have a pint on me.

      ... and for those who run screaming like little school girls from a few expletives they can watch the kids version here:

      http://youtu.be/H7wdKg8rYL0

  15. Zippy the Pinhead
    Joke

    Does it really matter

    The Vogons are on the way anyhow!

    Now where's my towel... I'll get the door on the way out.

  16. Alex 72
    Thumb Down

    Straw Man!

    Straw Man! that is all

  17. nederlander
    WTF?

    say wha?!

    Hold on.. what money has been squandered on climate change?

    Some money has been spent on developing homegrown industries, including (mostly) nuclear (and to a much tinier extent), solar, wind and ocean, but all this pales into utter insignificance when measured against the bill for bailing out the financial system, that spent on weapons of mass destruction etc.

    Squandered on climate change indeed. I ask you.

  18. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Flame

    In *real* science

    Observations meet theory.

    Observations *win*.

    Influence of sunspot and UV levels underestimated x6 and that is *not* important.

    I'd suggest that is at *least* worthy of investigation.

    And despite *repeated* observations that "We don't really understand the role of clouds" WTF don't you start *trying* to find out.

    The fact that CFC production brought about changes in polar Ozone levels on *human* timescales proves that humans can change climate.

    However I find the fact that the temperature pattern between ground level, troposphere and stratosphere matches the skeptics, rather than the advocates *astonishing*.

    This is an empirical *fact*.

    Yet I have not seen advocates *explain* it.

    If that pattern does *not* drop out of their GCM runs by *default* that would suggest *all* GCM's are FUBAR anyway.

    I believe that something is happening. Everything is *not* rosy in the garden.

    However *real* science explains *all* the observations *and* predicts what will happen next.

    And the skeptics look like they have demonstrated *superior* science and more honesty.

  19. Jim Carter

    Look

    Bugger the climate change, we don't know enough to figure out what is going on there yet. Further research is needed.

    However, what strikes me is, it makes sense to making our society more resource efficient, as we only have so much land, energy and resources to go around.

    As with other things, we're living beyond our means, financially (so we're told) and ecologically as well, if you look at the damage over-fishing does to the sea, deforestation to the land, and the over-use of well, everything.

    Anthropogenic climate change or not, things cannot continue as they are.

    1. J 3
      Joke

      Your lack of faith...

      Ah, but you forget the highly esteemed opinion of that expert in American Congress:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5yNZ1U37sE

      That settles it, doesn't it?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Pint

      Sure they can

      I am all for, better use of resources, less deforestation (reforestation) and a million other concrete things we can do to improve the general state of play. Very few people disagree with your (or my) postion on this.

      However, this has fuck all to do with AGW via CO2, and you (and a zillion others) who are incapable of distinguishing these two things, and thus incapable of recognising the politics of it all, offer nothing but static to the debate.

      "Things" can continue for quite some time, most likely centuries just as they are - at least in terms of energy availability. We are not running out of fossil fuels any time soon, though their extraction costs might rise a bit. Peak-.oil is just scaremongering and makes so many invalid assumptions it is worthless as a measure of available resources for power generation. Even without indulging in nuclear power expansion, we have plenty of things to burn. We are not going to fry.

      Dramatic societal destruction will more likely be caused by a meltdown of our economic system long before an extra degree of temperature has any effect whatsoever.

      Dweeb

  20. Graham Wilson
    Grenade

    Fine! But I've read the leaked emails too.

    I'm not a climate change skeptic but I actually took the trouble to download the leaked East Anglia emails--all 64,936,854 bytes zipped, 164,687,567 unpacked bytes of file FOI2009.zip and waded through much of it.

    Anyone who reads my El Reg post would know I'm pretty outspoken. That said, I wouldn't commit many of the comments therein to paper let alone send them over the Net.

    What I gained for the emails was that there was an alacrity and sloppiness that'd you'd be unlikely to see in the more traditional sciences, physics, chemistry etc., thus I've still little confidence in anything they say, especially anything with definite figures attached.

    Seems to me it's time to get the scientists out and put the engineers in. At least they'll put a measure to Climate change that we can threat as realistic.

    Tragedy really, that I've even to contemplate such things.

  21. nyelvmark
    FAIL

    Can someone make me a T-shirt with this, please?

    "People underestimate the power of models. Observational evidence is not very useful"

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