back to article Massive global cooling process discovered as Paris climate deal looms

As world leaders get ready to head to Paris for the latest pact on cutting CO2 emissions, it has emerged that there isn't as much urgency about the matter as had been thought. A team of top-level atmospheric chemistry boffins from France and Germany say they have identified a new process by which vast amounts of volatile …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    VOCs

    Does that mean I can buy some decent paint again?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: VOCs

      +1

      White Gloss that doesn't turn yellow after a week.

      1. Richard Wharram

        Re: VOCs

        All gloss does that doesn't it? If not, where do I buy such wonder-gloss?

        1. jeffdyer

          Re: VOCs

          All new gloss does yes, gloss bought 20 years ago didn't.

        2. Vendicar Decarian1

          Re: VOCs

          No, not all gloss paints yellow. Yellowing in gloss paints is often due to the oxidation of oils that carry the resins that give the high sheen.

          "Higher quality" paints won't yellow.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: VOCs

        White Gloss that doesn't turn yellow after a week.

        IME it's the high VOC stuff that turns yellow, the water based low VOC stuff is much whiter and stays that way. Against which the low VOC paint is only more marginally glossy than a "silk", and apparently for the best finish you need a good alkyd primer, even over old oil based gloss.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: VOCs

          apparently for the best finish you need a good alkyd primer, even over old oil based gloss.

          Nowhere near as good a finish as pre 2007 gloss and nowhere near as durable. Yes all oil based gloss does yellow eventually but pre 2007 stayed white for years as long at it wasn't in the dark, UV stops the yellowing process.

          Welcome to the bib and braces forum.

          1. Vendicar Decarian1

            Re: VOCs

            "Nowhere near as good a finish as pre 2007 gloss"

            Well, if you are buying your paint from Walmart, you should know that you are purchasing low quality paint.

            Capitalism has after all produced a race to the bottom in terms of product quality.

        2. Chemist

          Re: VOCs

          "it's the high VOC stuff that turns yellow, the water based low VOC stuff is much whiter and stays that way. "

          In my experience it's the low VOC but non-water based gloss that gives a good finish but yellows rapidly. I'd guess that to make it easy to apply the amount of VOC removed has been replaced with even more of the (necessary) binder which is what yellows.

          UV probably works by getting the TiO2 pigment to oxidize the yellowing binder. Water-based, having no need for a large amount of binder stay whiter longer at the expense of poor finish

          1. Andrew Newstead

            Re: VOCs - white paint yellowing

            Just a thought folks. I'm a model maker and one of the tricks we use to stop white paint (gloss or matt) yellowing over time is to add a drop of a royal blue paint to the white paint. Don't know the science but it does work quite well for both enamels and acrylics.

            1. Youngone Silver badge

              Re: VOCs - white paint yellowing

              @ Andrew Newstead:

              See, that's why I come here. A useless (to me) piece of really interesting information that seems totally counter-intuitive but obviously works.

              Made my day.

              1. x 7

                Re: VOCs - white paint yellowing

                for heavens sake all of you........if you want white gloss that stays white you need a paint that uses white lead as a pigment. Modern titanium oxide paint doesn't cut it

                1. Baskitcaise
                  Pint

                  Re: VOCs - white paint yellowing

                  Oh! yes to this :-)

                  Well it made me smile before 09:00 on a Friday.

                  Here have a beer on me.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: VOCs

            Water based is incredibly stable with no yellowing. I use it exclusively for this reason regardless of the low VOCs. The satin/silk finish can rival any oil based finish and while the gloss can't match the finish of the oil based stuff it has the massive benefit of being much easier to repair / touch up so over time it can be kept looking good through small repairs without having to cover large areas with slow drying paint. I regularly refurbish water based gloss and satins in a couple of hours (including drying time) where it would be an 'occupants in a hotel' two day job using traditional oil paints.

      3. Vendicar Decarian1

        Re: VOCs

        Typically yellowing is a result of the oxidization of Organic Compounds (VOC), and a low content of Titanium Dioxide - which is what makes the paint white.

        If you don't want yellowing, avoid paints with low Titanium dioxide levels, and vegetable oils.

    2. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

      @ Keef : VOCs

      No, but you can buy a nice 1 litre tin of plankton. It comes in one colour only though, but does glow faintly in the dark.

    3. Zog_but_not_the_first
      Thumb Up

      Re: VOCs

      Count me in as a founding member of the Campaign for Real Paint

    4. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Joke

      "Does that mean I can buy some decent paint again?"

      No, obviously.

      Those are the bad VOC's, not the good VOC's

    5. Vendicar Decarian1

      Re: VOCs

      Some of the best paints are classified as zero VOC.

      What are you jabbering about?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A very complex system after all.

    Good to see all but the most faithful and profit driven have accepted the idea that climate is a complex system we do not know well enough to forecast. Maybe now we can start to look at air pollution and require all trading countries to meet the same standards? Guess not, more carbon taxes it is then.

    1. GrumpyOldBloke

      Re: A very complex system after all.

      We missed a once in a lifetime opportunity to tackle air pollution because the *elites* wanted an Enron designed CO2 based eugenics/poll tax. 100's of $B's wasted harassing polar bears, modelling the harassment of polar bears and pretending that diesel is a clean fuel. Yet there are still people out there campaigning for their own doom, demanding a market based solution to a problem they can't even observe. First they came for the power stations and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a power station, then they came for the cars and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a car, then they came in the dark for me and I couldn't get away.

  3. dogged
    Mushroom

    Incoming Hippy Bombardment in 5.. 4... 3...

    *takes cover*

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'd agree that the current climatic model are far too simplistic, do not account for every single possible variable and are on the over pessimistic side.

    Go Lewis.

    1. TheOtherHobbes

      The current climate models certainly are wrong - they've been significantly underestimating warming and the effects of warming.

      At this point the only the delusional, ignorant, and the bought-and-paid-for are still deniers.

      Just because there are fools who keep repeating that scientists have invented the whole thing for the money - because the carbon industry would never lie to you, or pay people to lie to you, dear me no - doesn't mean their opinion is as scientifically valid as that of someone who's been studying climate change professionally for their entire working life.

      Who are you going to believe when you see steam coming out of you car - someone who says your car isn't really overheating at all because overheating cars are a conspiracy invented by the amalgamated motor trades and besides, the roof isn't on fire yet, or an experienced mechanic who's actually fixed things for you in the past?

      1. dogged

        > deniers

        sorry, but use of that term gets you instantly dismissed as a religious lunatic.

        1. Vendicar Decarian1

          "religious lunatic"

          Awwwwwww... Do the denialists get upset when they are called deniers?

          Poor babies.

          1. enoughAlready911

            Who is upset? We just think you are an idiot.

          2. dogged

            > Awwwwwww... Do the denialists get upset when they are called deniers?

            For the record, anyone using the term "warmist" is similarly dismissed as a religious lunatic.

            Why? Because they have become about sides, about conflict, about some imaginary great battle between Good and Evil (regardless of which side they think is which) instead of the pursuit of knowledge.

            I tried to post this yesterday but I think I've been relegated to the Moderation Sin Bin again and I have absolutely no idea why, which is worrying.

        2. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        You might try reading this series.

        Finally someone with a brain and the education has dismantled and demolished the climate models as bogus and provably wrong by design.

        http://joannenova.com.au/2015/09/new-science-1-pushing-the-edge-of-climate-research-back-to-the-new-old-way-of-doing-science/ There are 9 articles so far I think.

      3. StudeJeff

        Actually scientists came up with the theory, it's the big government types that are pushing it and paying scientists to come up with more "evidence" to support global warming which has, for all practical purposes, become the official religion of the United States government. The UK and EU don't seem to be any better off.

        You'd think we would have learned something from Galileo's experience with "settled science", but alas that does not seem to be, especially with so much money and power at stake.

    2. Vendicar Decarian1

      "I'd agree that the current climatic model are far too simplistic"

      But since your knowledge of climate models is zero, your opinion has zero worth, doesn't it?

  5. hplasm
    Boffin

    So-

    A model is just a model. It's not actually the real thing, in a little box (other containers are available), and if you look closely, you can see the differences.

    Well blow me down...

    Will anyone listen to this, or is the carreering gravy train too loud?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So-

      I find this quasi-religious attitude that "something is complicated so there is no need for us to do science about it" really weird.

      Surely things which are complicated are the things where we have the greatest need for scientific understanding?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: So-

        Um...I think they were, in fact, 'doing science.'

        Just because their results mean that, probably, the IPCC will have to, again, massage their data, doesn't mean this team wasn't performing science. Are they correct? That's up to other scientists to determine.

        1. Vendicar Decarian1

          Re: So-

          "IPCC will have to, again, massage their data"

          My goodness. Such ignorance on display.

          The IPCC doesn't produce "data", and doesen't even do data analysis.

          The IPCC produces a meta analysis of climate research, as well as reports that are dumbed down so that non-scientists can read them.

          I always find it laughable that the people who whine about the IPCC never actually know what the body does.

          Kinda like Sarah Palen begging to be the head of the U.S. department of energy so that she can change environmental regulations when in fact the energy department doesn't do that king of thing.

          Dumber than dumb.

          RepubliDumb.

      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: So-

        The process science is intended to follow is to form a hypothesis, test its predictions against reality and, if it fails to match up, recognise that and then either discard it for a new one or modify it.

        A model is a complex hypothesis, nothing more, nothing less.

        With "climatic" models we have three problems. One is that the timescales that get discussed are really too short to be called climate but we don't have anything in our vocabulary to deal with the gap between weather and climate. The second is that over those short timescales meaningful measurement is difficult at best and arguably impossible. The third is that both sides are so dug into there positions that they would be reluctant to recognise any detectable* failure of prediction.

        *Personally I'm not convinced we're seeing anything but noise.

        1. Vendicar Decarian1

          Re: So-

          "Personally I'm not convinced we're seeing anything but noise."

          Fortunately scientists know better than nobodies.

      3. Naughtyhorse

        Re: So-

        depends, when the system is fundamentally chaotic, in it's actual sense, then there is little or no point in trying to model it.

        that said all deniers are morons. or have an agenda

        1. nijam Silver badge

          Re: So-

          > that said all deniers are morons. or have an agenda

          They have that in common with proponents, at least.

        2. Grikath

          Re: So- @ Naughtyhorse

          "depends, when the system is fundamentally chaotic, in it's actual sense, then there is little or no point in trying to model it."

          Amazingly , Life, the Universe, and well... Everything.. is fundamentally chaotic.. Has never stopped science from accurately modelling it. It's simply a matter of knowing all the relevant variables.

          Which our current climate models lack, as the article shows (again), and as such cannot be used to predict anything to a satisfactory degree, especially when you're staking whole economies on the results.

          Seriously... If someone at my old alma mater dared to make definitive statements on such a dataset, (s)he would have been ridiculed for the cardinal Sin of "Speculation", and rightly so. Politicians and Hippies™ get to do that stuff, scientists don't.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: So- @ Naughtyhorse

            No, things that are predictable are not chaotic, almost by definition. And if they are chaotic then knowing more initial data helps only a tiny smount. Weather, for instance, is chaotic, and is therefore essentially unpredictable beyond a fairly short time, no matter how much computational rssource you have. Climate is not chaotic, although I am not sure if it is known why,

            1. Grikath

              Re: So- @tfb

              Climate is very much based on chaos, I'm afraid. It merely seems ordered in the timescales it's defined as.

              "Climate", you see, isn't a "thing". It's merely a long-term average (method of calculation depending on how you want to rig the numbers) of local-ish weather. Weather itself, as you noted, is a bit more ...variable..., although the variations are limited by the physical constraints of the local environment ( ocean currents, jetstreams, mountain ranges, etc.) which have a period of change far larger than the average of "climate" , and as such limit the possible outcomes. This has the effect of making weather, and as a result : "climate" , more or less "predictable".

              It does help that weather as a random phenomenon is an emergent system ( sir PTerry's Science of Discworld has a thing or two to say about the concept. (Warning: Thought; It May Require Some. Whether or not you ask your parents to engage in it is up to you.)). As such, when a "choice" is made, it cannot be unmade, which means that all the variables in weather are constantly rubbing up against each other, getting in each others' way, without a way to dodge or reset.

              The effect is that in the short term ( days) you can reasonably predict "weather" locally, but you're going to be hard-put to be accurate 5 days ahead. Because mr. Soak may be out on his rounds, but he's still in the band.

              In the same vein, "climate" tends to be rather constant, if you realise it's measured as "the average of the weather in roughly a human generation". If you look at it over a century, you may notice a couple of wiggles, wobbles over centuries most likely, over a millennium certainly, and a couple of millennia, definitely. And then we're still staying within the range of "Human Civilisation" from the Gizeh pyramids onwards.. So there's not only plenty of archeological evidence, but also quite a number of written sources. Funny how we failed to Perish during all that unsettling Climate Change, and all it entailed, Innit?

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: So- @tfb

                I understand what climate is. The point is that the various means over weather &c which are climate do not seem to exhibit chaotic behaviour. They do exhibit various instabilities (ice ages) but I don't think there is evidence of chaos. In particular there is no sensitive dependence on initial conditions as far as I know (and indeed you can check this in models by running ensembles, and people do this).

                (And note: by 'chaos' I mean 'deterministic chaos' in the formal sense, not just 'variability'.)

              2. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: So- @tfb

                Survivor bias!

                It may well be that our descendants will look down from their nuclear fusion based flying cities and say, 'wasn't climate change good to us, because if we hadn't had it we wouldn't have all this cool stuff' - but that doesn't mean that the process of getting there won't be painful and worth avoiding.

                Your grandparent^20 survived long enough to birth your grandparent^19, but lots didn't make it through the drought/flood/famine. If you live in California a drought is at the moment inconvenient, if you live in Chad it can be, and often is, fatal.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Boffin

          Re: So-

          The interesting thing is that climate isn't chaotic. Weather, of course, is, but climate isn't. It's clear that it's not chaotic mostly because we're here to measure it: if it was chaotic then it would lash around all the time because of SDIC, and it's pretty unlikely that a planet with a climate like that would support the evolution of intelligent life. Life, I think, could arise, but a planet with a chaotic climate isn't going to support farming, for example.

          That tells us that it's not chaotic (as, of course do climate records of various kinds ans the great success of models at predicting climate, buffoons like Lewis Page notwithstanding), but not why: it's a complicated nonlinear system so there almost certainly will be chaotic regions in the phase space, but we're not in one. Something people worry about is that we could be pushing things into one but this seems unduly alarmist to me.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: So-

            "The interesting thing is that climate isn't chaotic. Weather, of course, is, but climate isn't."

            Hmmm. On the right scale weather isn't chaotic in that a weather system will follow a predicted track, more or less, at a predicted speed, more or less but such predictions fail if you try to extend them out more than a few days on the one hand and you can't tell who will get hit by a shower at one time on the other.

            When we look at palaeoclimates we have very few variables we can measure and measurements tend to represent quite long periods of time so the long term changes look fairly steady yet do bounce around quite a bit on time scales of millennia. Do we really have sufficient data to say that they aren't to some extent chaotic apart from some forcing due to orbital factors?

            The thing about paleoclimatology is that because the measurements cover extended periods of time they smooth out variations on the scale that warmists/non-warmists are arguing about. Even taking the longest data sets directly observed measurements only cover a tiny fraction of the current interglacial.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: So-

              Just to be clear that I was talking about deterministic chaos, as you are I think.

              And I will revise what I said slightly: climate may indeed be chaotic, but there are bounds to the behaviour (you get ice ages, but you don't get Venus), and the chaos, if it is there, is there only on very long timescales. So my point is that it turns out that climate is indeed usefully predictable over timescales wecare about.

          2. jimbo60

            Re: So-

            Chaotic doesn't mean unbounded. Chaotic system can operate within a bounded range, it's just very difficult to predict where it will be within that range at any given point in time.

            1. Chemist

              Re: So-

              "Chaotic system can operate within a bounded range"

              Indeed a dripping tap is chaotic

              http://www.nature.com/news/2000/001222/full/news001228-2.html

              We should really use the phrase 'deterministic chaos' in these cases where, usually, the equations describing the phenomenon can be written but where the extreme sensitivity to initial conditions means that predictions are difficult/impossible.

              Best not to use chaos when random is meant.

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: So-

                Yes, and to be clear this is the sense I meant by 'chaos': deterministic but displaying SDIC. And the interesting thing is that climate does not display SDIC: you can throw any old thing (within reason) into the initial conditions and it all converges, and people test this (for models, not for worlds).

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: So-

              That's right, of course. And if you can take a suitable average over that variation, and that average does not itself thrash about, then the average is not chaotic. And that average is what climate is.

              The specific thing you care about is that whatever averages you define as 'climate' do not display sensitive dependence on initial conditions, and it appears that indeed they do not.

            3. Vendicar Decarian1

              Re: So-

              "Chaotic system can operate within a bounded range, it's just very difficult to predict where it will be within that range at any given point in time."

              And that implies that there is an "average" position within that region that is well defined.

              Hence a bounded chaotic system is on average predictable, even though it's exact state is not.

        4. realtking9
          FAIL

          Re: So-

          world leaders get ready to head to Paris for the latest pact on cutting CO2 emissions are morons. or have an agenda

          1. rdhood

            Re: So-

            "world leaders get ready to head to Paris for the latest pact on cutting CO2 emissions are morons. or have an agenda"

            BINGO. When politicians get together to change the lives of 7 billion people based on unsettled science (and if we don't have all the inputs, as this article demonstrates, then the science is by definiton "unsettled"), then check your pocketbook and your liberty, because they are after both.

            The proponents of global warming may or may not be right... the science is unsettled... but they are led by power hungry politicians who desire to enslave you in a lifestyle ... that they don't personally live.. of their choosing. Example: Al Gore. He will keep houses, jets, swimming pools while telling us to live in 200sq ft, shower once a week, and take the bus.

        5. Vendicar Decarian1

          Re: So-

          "depends, when the system is fundamentally chaotic, in it's actual sense, then there is little or no point in trying to model it."

          Entirely false.

          If a system is chaotic then over the long term it's precise state can not be determined. But the precise state of climate is weather, and no climatologist is trying to predict the weather.

          Climate models predict climate. And that is why they do not predict high frequency transients like the lower rate of warming seen over the last 2 decades. Those transients are averaged away by the models.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @AC

        No one is saying there's "no need to do science about it" merely that it is a bad idea to run your models and assume what they say is "settled science" when it is clear to anyone with half a brain that the models are painfully simplistic compared to our actual climate. And that's ignoring how the input is being rigged by the "adjustments" to temperature data that always make the past cooler and the present warmer than what the raw temperature readings suggest.

        Silly me, I'd have though we'd need to do the adjustments the other way, to account for measuring stations that used to be out in the country being surrounded by lots of heat absorbing concrete that makes the temperature appear warmer than it should. Can anyone explain why recent records are adjusted up, rather than down? I'm sure it is more complex than just the location of the measurement station, but that would seem to be a pretty large effect (urban heat island) so it would take some even larger effects to justify the upward adjustments they are making. I'm sure they have some reason why they're doing this, other than "because it helps show global warming", right?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: @AC

          Except that a) the adjustments aren't always 'up' - there's loads of tools that show just how little difference urban heat effects make (like calculating the trend with all urban and without) b) if you are interested in a slope it makes no difference which sense you make the correction.

          1. Vendicar Decarian1

            Re: @AC

            "Except that a) the adjustments aren't always 'up""

            The last set of adjustments made by the NOAA and NASA lowered current temperature estimates, and lowered temperature estimates from the 70's through 90's even more.

            Are you jabbering your own nonsense, or are you jabbering the nonsense fed to you by someone else?

          2. enoughAlready911

            Re: @AC

            ....lets come to grips with this...they basically skipped over a MAJOR factor generated by 3/4 of the surface of the earth. The miniscule adjustments urban or not are like adding a cup of water to an ocean compared to the impact in the report. No real science is advanced unless another scientist challenges previously "settled science".

            And you generally can tell when science is "bad" science when those with a grand theory want to close the door on further debate(its why they call you a denier)... solid science doesn't NEED cheerleaders because it delivers a self evident proof. Gravity isn't disputed often because its proven daily...however somewhere someone is challenging it with an antigravity device/theory...while you may think it a fools errand today(and could be our lifetime) THAT is how the earth turned from flat to round.

      5. rdhood

        Re: So-

        "I find this quasi-religious attitude that "something is complicated so there is no need for us to do science about it" really weird."

        Except that NO ONE IS SAYING THAT. What people are saying is that you don't reconstruct the economy and way of life for 7 billion people based on models that have not been properly hashed out. And when we keep finding new inputs to the climate model, it has NOT been properly hashed out.

    2. John 104

      Re: So-

      The brakes on the gravy train are broken. There's no stopping it now, no matter what facts you bring to the table.

  6. Martin-R

    The link provided wants $35 for 48 hours access - not very open :-(

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Sorry mate, that's down to the $35 climate change carbon tax.

    2. Rob D.
      Joke

      Not enough?

      But the abstract is there and generally that's been good enough for guiding national/international policy-makers so far. Why would you need to read more?

  7. Dan Paul

    Let me be the first to say..

    That the "open access" is only to the abstract, not the entire article on Environmental Science & Technology. Still very interesting as it proves there are still far more variables yet to be found in the "warming" equation than the climate religionists would have you believe.

    This is NOT "settled science" and yet the CAGW proponents present it as such. Some might call that simply disingenuous or others might call it an outright lie.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Let me be the first to say..

      I have noticed that the Beeb etc are very quick to publish articles which appear to confirm global warming, but not so quick (if at all) to publish anything that contradicts it.

      1. Naselus

        Re: Let me be the first to say..

        "I have noticed that the Beeb etc are very quick to publish articles which appear to confirm global warming, but not so quick (if at all) to publish anything that contradicts it."

        And I join you in noting that the Beeb are very quick to publish articles which refute the existence of unicorns, yet rarely seem to go ahead with anything that confirms their existence.

        I'd also note that Lewis PAge has nothing but contempt for models unless they confirm his a priori opinions...

      2. Naughtyhorse

        Re: Let me be the first to say..

        so in reporting a scientific story the beeb is following 97% of scientists and ignoring the fanatical gibbering of a vanishingly small minority of half-wits easily hoodwinked by a small group of multi-billionaires who got to be multi-billionaires by flogging carbon to us all.

        strange that.

        1. nijam Silver badge

          Re: Let me be the first to say..

          ... fanatical gibbering of a vanishingly small minority of half-wits easily hoodwinked by a small group of multi-billionaires known as governments ...

          FTFY

        2. Charles Manning

          The Beeb

          If the Beeb were constraining themselves to informingthat would be Ok.

          But they're not. They're also showing over dramatised stuff like that cartoon of a few years back showing tidal waves through London etc. Hardly informative. Certainly designed to misinform.

    2. James Micallef Silver badge

      Re: Let me be the first to say..

      Re: "settled science"

      I think that (a) CO2 is a greenhouse gas, therefore has warming influence; and (b) rise in levels of atmospheric CO2 are consistent with increased use of carbon fuels by humanity; are both pretty settled and well-understood.

      What is far from being well-understood is the consequence of this factor on global climate, and how other factors also affect global climate. It used to be (almost) all about CO2 with fairly simple models showing unprecedented and runaway warming with (almost) uniquely positive feedback. Since then, (this article being a good case in point) climate scientists are discovering that the climate is much more complex than previously thought, and there are actually a lot of negative feedback loops damping the process. It will be interesting to see what forecasts come out of climate models once adjusted to account for this new factor.

      I'd say that's a big thumbs up for climate scientists, the majority of whom are honestly trying to figure out how things work with a minimum of fuss, while a minority of them combined with UN IPCC rant on about catastrophic change.

      Having said all that, there are many other reasons to stop using carbon-based fuels - particulate pollution, non-renewability, increasing cost of extraction (both money-wise and energy-wise), and being economically and politically beholden to some very dodgy characters on the international scene who supply the stuff.

      1. Martin Gregorie

        Re: Let me be the first to say..

        The one-eyed concentration on global warming by commentards, deniers and Lewis Page is starting to piss me off. There are other good reasons for doing something about increasing CO2 levels that are being ignored.

        1) CO2 emissions are increasing the acidity of the oceans, which is definitely harmful to creatures with carbonate skeletons. This is known to be harmful to reefs and plankton, so will have an impact on food supplies, DMS emissions and (possibly) oxygen levels. Plankton make DMS and photosynthesize oxygen. DMS has a role in controlling cloud cover. As we're hell bent on deforestation (trees are good oxygen sources) we may need all the photosynthetic plankton we can get.

        2) The Northern hemisphere jet stream is being disrupted by something: this seems to have a lot to do with the recent weather changes, droughts, etc. that afflict the northern hemisphere. What's causing this? For all I know it could be connected with oceanic heat content changes.

        I'd like to see more attention paid to these two effects and how they are linked to fossil fuel use and a little less to the rate of change of global temperature.

        1. 9Rune5

          Re: Let me be the first to say..

          "CO2 emissions are increasing the acidity of the oceans,"

          When you wrote that, what kind of pH values did you envision? A drop from 7 to 5 perhas? The real numbers are seven point something small which decreases to seven point something tiny bit smaller.

          If you would care to look at that particular hypothesis and the quality of the experiments that attempts to validate those claims, you'll find there is much real data missing. "Guesswork" is the kindest way of describing it.

          Either way, you are apporaching this discussion using religious methodology rather than applying the scientific method. When somebody demonstrates that one of the hippies' wild claims are bonkers, you jump to the next one. Heck, the hippies' religion even comes complete with its very own doomsday prophecy.

          Lewis is quite right in pointing out the result of the last two decades' worth of environmental policies. We became so scared of CO2 (which can't hurt us) that our bold leaders favored diesel over petrol engines, causing a noticable increase in NOx emissions (which pose a real problem to our health).

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Let me be the first to say..

            . . ."CO2 (which can't hurt us)" . . . Yes, well, I guess all those poor souls tragically trapped in confined spaces, such as miners and submariners, did not really die then, did they?

            Oh, of course not. It was the blah, or the blah2, or the blah3, not the CO2 . . . I mean, there is precious little scientific data to support the CO2 asphyxiation "canard", now is there?

        2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Let me be the first to say..

          "The Northern hemisphere jet stream is being disrupted by something"

          Disrupted from what? How long has the existence of the jet stream been known? What records exist to show what its "normal" pattern might be?

          Most of the things which we can measure now are so recently discovered that our total knowledge of them in relation to the length of the current interglacial amounts to buggerall and yet people keep making this sort of statement.

      2. GW7
        Boffin

        Re: Let me be the first to say..

        Interesting to consider negative feedback. CO2 increases the heat gain of planet Earth for a given thermal input from the sun. Let's call this heat gain the "open loop gain" (often dentoted A in control system theory). But clouds and other stuff provide negative feedback (often dentoted by Beta or B) reducing not only the overall gain of the whole system (dentoed G) compared to the open loop gain, but also reducing the effect of *changes* in the open loop gain (e.g. increasing CO2). When AB is large compared to 1, the system gain is pretty much 1/B, i.e unaffected by changes in A. The question is (if you are still with this), for planet Earth is AB>>1? If it is, then CO2 emissions are not such a big deal. If it is not, we'd better start reducing emissions right now.

        In fewer words: G = A/(1+AB). I'd really love to know the values of A and B for the Earth, plus confidence limits, before this fence becomes too uncomfortable to sit on. I think Lewis Page is saying B is larger than previously thought, but does that really make any difference if AB>>1 or AB<<1? (I know not which).

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Let me be the first to say..

      Well as I have access to the paper, the gap between what it says and what LP has reported is, as normal, wider than a very wide thing that's ate too many pies. The paper basically resolves a discrepancy in the source of observed VOCs that was previously hard to explain with biological models of VOC production. It says nothing whatsoever about how GCMs have accounted for these VOCs - my bet would be they scaled them to fit the observations, but the paper doesn't say because it's about sea surface chemistry (in a lab, not at sea!), not climate, and doesn't make the leap of faith re implications for modelling climate that LP does.

      Someone who actually cared about these things might have actually bothered to check how significant oceanic VOC is in a global context, and how the inorganic VOC production changes vs the more established organic VOC production mechanisms

      And please no scientist claims that it is settled science - they investigate, they test, they research. But 'it's difficult' doesn't equal 'so we won't bother'

      But I would say that wouldn't I......

      1. John 104

        Re: Let me be the first to say..

        @AC

        And please no scientist claims that it is settled science - they investigate, they test, they research. But 'it's difficult' doesn't equal 'so we won't bother'

        Problem is, true scientists aren't the ones saying it is settled science. It's the ones bought and paid by governments and large corporations who are saying this. Oh, and politicians.

        As stated here many times, use the scientific method. It's pretty irrefutable. However, that isn't what is going on.

  8. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    Interesting

    Interesting. If we remove the Lewis angle.

    Come on Lewis, give it up, your argument is actually weakened by you not being able to resist the occasional rabid rant.

    While at it, VOCs are an interesting issue in itself, because humans have been regulating VOCs in a considerably more aggressive manner than any car or industrial combustion related pollution. VOC emissions from paint, plastic production, fire retardants, etc in Eu and USA have dropped 40+ times in the last 10 years.

    The reduction of VOC emission from paint in the Eu alone is in the megaton range compared to 20 years ago. There are like 2-3 paints with VOC solvents left in the shop now compared with 50% 15 years ago and 95% 50 years ago. - everything is emulsions. The same is in the industry - even car bodyshops are switching to low VOC processes.

    If VOC was that important we would have been freezing our asses 10-15 years ago instead of boiling in the heatwaves of 2001-2003 because we were emitting them in quantities on an order of magnitude more than the ones quoted in the paper. So while interesting in itself, this does not quite compute. I would say: "More data required" - especially versus the anthropocentric VOC.

    1. Naughtyhorse

      Re: Interesting

      13 dv's for that?

      He doubted the word of god!

      burrrrrn him

      keeeeeeel him

      burn him with fyre

      then keeeeel him again

      <shakes head, walks away>

    2. NotBob

      Re: Interesting

      Not sure about over there, but we spray lots of paints and such with plenty of VOCs.

      Then again, we have to suck all the vapor through a system that burns the VOCs before anything gets out into the atmosphere.

  9. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    As usual, nobody's going to change their minds after reading this

    Thank goodness scientists are still at it. If we waited on the pro/denier factions to sort themselves out, the heat death of the Universe would happen first.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: As usual, nobody's going to change their minds after reading this

      The good news is that the science will carry on, and the scientists will be happy to have the new information.

      Of course, there's no information in this article about the original modeled impact of this cooling factor, so it doesn't actually tell us much.

      1. stungebag

        Re: As usual, nobody's going to change their minds after reading this

        Actually, if the science in the paper is good enough then scientists will change their minds; at least about the source and volume of these chemicals in the atmosphere. That's how science works. One more paper on top of the thousands already out there is unlikely to make anyone change their opinion as to whether anthopogenic climate increase is occuring, but it's an extra input into models and into the conversation and it will lead to further studies, each of which will go even further towards creating understanding.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: As usual, nobody's going to change their minds after reading this

      Good scientists accept arguments that conradict their postulation, investigate and modify their models accordingly or perform a critique of the argument indicating where and why it is wrong.

      What they don't do is cry HERETIC!!!!! as loud as they possibly can...

  10. chris 17 Silver badge

    at sodding last, i hope more evidence emerges to the fact that not everything is known about the causes and effects of climate change and common knowledge changes to reflect the fact that its more complex than adding C02 to the atmosphere is causing change. Our planet changed in the past which allowed life, and will keep changing in the future.

    1. Daggerchild Silver badge

      (T2-new)-(T1-new)=SameDifference

      It looks like they're pleased to improve the models showing why the Antarctic is melting. Which the models already said. And which is happening.

      I have no idea what this has got to do with stopping us dumping CO2 into the air. I thought that was settled as the intelligent thing to do.

      The article is holding up a missing piece, but has *no* idea which side of the puzzle it actually fits on. It makes it plain which side it *wants* it to fit on, but if this is a cooling factor, and it's always been in play, doesn't that mean the warming factor must be even *larger* than we thought?

  11. Tom 7

    New? Even defra knew about this in 2007

    defra ffs.

  12. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    What's the source of these isoprenes? Are we seeing degradation of all the plastic waste we've been putting into the oceans over the last half century or so?

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. Alistair

        @Symon

        The variance in the figures of output may be down to this issue:

        http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/02/great_news_tree_huggers_your_woody_harem_is_much_bigger_than_thought/

        Multiplying the underlying "how many trees are there" factor *just* might nudge your figures around

      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        @Symon

        I know they're emitted by trees and shrubs in nature; I'm a botanist by training. The point of this paper is that they've discovered abiotic isoprenes being generated at the ocean surface. Short of an hitherto unknown abiotic photosynthetic process they must be derived from some organic material. What might that be?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I thought isoprenes were something they added to my shampoo to give me that golden glow.

  13. codejunky Silver badge

    Hmm

    Excellent news for scientists if this holds up. It cant be a bad thing to have more understanding of why the models dont match reality. Score one to science

  14. cortland

    However...

    We should still stop throwing garbage -- solid, liquid or gas -- onto the ground and into the air and water.

  15. Infernoz Bronze badge
    FAIL

    Nature is complicated

    Models can't model everything, despite all the Big Data hubris, especially if we don't know all the variables, don't know them well enough, don't know how they interact, or can't even model them all because it's too complex!

    Add any Quantum effects in which cause macro effects and fun!

    1. James Micallef Silver badge
      WTF?

      Re: Nature is complicated

      "Add any Quantum effects in which cause macro effects and fun!"

      A bit off topic I know, but...I'm not at all sure that's how quantum effects work. Very far from my area of expertise, but isn't it the case that quantum effects work on some sort of statistical probability which all cancel each other at macro level? hence why everything 'macro' can be modelled using Newtonian / Einsteinian physics only, ignoring quantum effects

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "The effect of VOCs in the air is to cool the climate down...."

    I think it's important to draw a distinction between different types of VOC. After all, CFCs are a class of VOC and they have precisely the opposite effect.

  17. Palpy

    Typical Lewis clickbait.

    The man's an absolute machine for cranking up the Reg's read-and-comment count. Kudos to him! Much like Volkswagen's propaganda staff, he must be working overtime. The paper is NOT available for free access, but the abstract says nothing -- zero, zip, nada -- about cooling.

    "Due to its high reactivity toward tropospheric oxidants, isoprene is an important volatile organic compounds emitted by biogenic sources and oceans. In the marine environment, isoprene is produced in water via various biological processes. Here we show that when H-abstraction reactions are occurring in an organic monolayer at the air/water interface, as the ubiquitous sea-surface microlayer (SML), unsaturated gaseous compounds, such as isoprene, can be emitted. The H-abstraction process is initiated by photochemically excited dissolved organic matter (DOM). This interfacial photosensitized chemistry involves only fatty acids as surfactants and dissolved organic matter as photosentitizer, both being ubiquitous in the marine environment, and may represent a significant source (up to 100 %) of isoprene in the absence of any biological sources in the marine boundary layer but in presence of a fully organic covered ocean."

    1. Alistair

      Re: Typical Lewis clickbait.

      I'll give you the fact that Lewis gets folks jumping on the topic.

      Is that necessarily a BAD thing? We are talking about climate change here.

      Either AGW is a fact, exists and we (the A in that handy acronym) need to do things to change or there is CC and we're (adding to it/not adding to it) or perhaps we're just seeing weather.

      No matter *which* of the above is correct, globally we are going to end up spending substantial portions of our GDPs on the issue, either to correct the warming, to try and correct the warming or to deal with the fallout of the warming. It might just help if more of us were aware of the issue(s) and the complexity so that we can deal with the whitewashing that financially driven interests will MOST DEFINITELY be engaging in - this is not going to be hundreds of thousands of (dollars/pounds/francs/euros/roubles/yen/etc). This will be trillions ..... lets make some wise decisions based on well critiqued scientific data please.

      In this case even the trolls could be doing the overall subject lots of good, simply by getting people fired up enough to go out and find the data that disproves the trolls. Possibly, the trolls get folks to dig into this, get new minds to look at the science and contribute to improving the models and data. Who knows, but I for one enjoy seeing both sides of the debate, since more knowledge is more power to make wise decisions.

  18. nijam Silver badge

    > meaning that existing climate models do not take account of it

    This kind of thing has happened several times over the last few years :

    a. significant new process comes to light, throwing all predictions from all models into doubt;

    b. models are revised to take the process into account;

    c. none of the predictions from any of the models change, AGW hysteria continues unabated.

    OTOH we all understand that - in cases like this wehere there are so many unknowns - the models tell us more about what the model designer thinks than about what is being modelled.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Corrected for you

      This kind of thing has happened several times over the last few years :

      a. a minor new process comes to light, that doesn't throw all predictions from all models into doubt;

      b. models are revised to take the process into account;

      c. as the effect was minor few of the predictions from any of the models change, AGW continues unabated.

  19. scatter

    Classy move Lewis

    Classy move Lewis

    Not disingenuous at all this article, oh no. Let's take some excerpts:

    "MASSIVE GLOBAL COOLING process discovered as Paris climate deal looms; 'Could explain recent disagreements'"

    "... global temperatures have actually been stable for more than fifteen years, a circumstance which was not predicted by climate models and which climate science is still struggling to assmilate"

    "...Global models at the moment assume total emissions of isoprene from all sources - trees, plants, plankton, the lot - of around 1.9 megatons per year. But, according to the new research, the newly discovered "abiotic" process releases as much as 3.5 megatons on its own - which "could explain the recent disagreements" between models and reality."

    But let's look at the press release that he lifted this quote from:

    "Isoprene is a gas that is formed by both the vegetation and the oceans. It is very important for the climate because this gas can form particles that can become clouds and then later affect temperature and precipitation. Previously it was assumed that isoprene is primarily caused by biological processes from plankton in the sea water. The atmospheric chemists from France and Germany, however, could now show that isoprene could also be formed without biological sources in surface film of the oceans by sunlight and so explain the large discrepancy between field measurements and models. The new identified photochemical reaction is therefore important to improve the climate models."

    "Thus, it is now possible to estimate more closely the total amounts of isoprene, which are emitted. So far, however, local measurements indicated levels of about 0.3 megatonnes per year, global simulations of around 1.9 megatons per year. But the team of Lyon and Leipzig estimates that the newly discovered photochemical pathway alone contribute 0.2 to 3.5 megatons per year additionally and could explain the recent disagreements."

    https://www.tropos.de/en/current-issues/press-releases/details/surface-of-the-oceans-affects-climate-more-than-thought/

    So this reference to a discrepancy between observations and models appears to be to concern a discrepancy between isoprene models and measurements, not climate models and temperature observations. I'd go so far as to wager he hasn't even bothered to read the paper. Lame but typical. The work sounds useful though and no doubt will go into the pot and help refine GCMs, just not in the way that Lewis so desperately wants.

    As an aside, it is really quite adorable how Lewis is using the Register as a platform to run his own pre-COP21 disinformation campaign. And single handedly as well because all of the Register's proper science journalists have reputations to uphold so wouldn't stoop this low.

  20. John Savard

    Wrong Spin

    You've clearly put the wrong spin on this article.

    Now that a scientific cause for the apparent failure of global warming models to account for the alleged conspicuous lack of warming for the last few years has been found, we now see that our climate models were right all along except for this one minor adjustment - and so the "climate skeptic" arguments that the whole thing is a lot of rubbish to be thrown out no longer hold any water.

    If the adjusted models show we needn't worry about reducing fossil fuel use, that would be nice, but I wouldn't want to bet the survival of Western Civilization on us being that lucky. Maybe it will at least give us time to remember that we have nuclear power available, and don't have to go back to the horse-and-buggy age, if not the Stone Age, to survive.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "climate science is still struggling to assmilate"

    Even the typos are biased?

    :-))

    1. Reliance

      Re: "climate science is still struggling to assmilate"

      "Even the typos are biased"

      That's just basic psychology, my friend.

  22. kyza

    Obviously once this new data has been fed into the current modelling systems and they still come out saying 'Nothing's really changed, we're still cooking the planet, just maybe a few decades more slowly' LP will be back out decrying VOCs as being another questionable data point and looking for the next thing that suits his confirmation bias.

    1. Pompous Git Silver badge

      "Cooking the planet"

      Oddly enough the planet has "cooked" itself a number of times in the past. In the Holocene alone there's the Holocene Optimum, the Minoan, Roman and Medieval Warm Periods. All saw major advances in civilisation and increased abundance of life. You would appear to be decrying both.

  23. Pompous Git Silver badge

    @ Martin Gregorie

    "CO2 emissions are increasing the acidity of the oceans, which is definitely harmful to creatures with carbonate skeletons. This is known to be harmful to reefs and plankton..."

    If you want to make a scientific argument it would help to understand the language of the relevant science. A pH of 8 is NOT acidic; it's basic (alkaline). There are two ways to study the effect of additional CO2 on sea life: sit at a desk and play on a computer, or don some SCUBA gear and go have a look. There are several places where CO2 seeps from the ocean floor thus raising the CO2 content of a region of ocean. They are surrounded by abundant life, shelly fauna even.

    http://ocean.si.edu/sites/default/files/styles/colorbox_full/public/photos/Laetitia-Pic-4small.jpg?itok=chZWW-Je

    1. Pompous Git Silver badge

      Re: @ Martin Gregorie

      Actually there's a third way I forgot to mention. What a silly Git! Researchers have lowered the pH of seawater and studied the effect on various shelly organisms, such as coccoliths and concluded that elevated CO2 thins their shells. Unfortunately, CO2 doesn't seem to work, so they lower the pH with hydrochloric acid (HCl) and pretend the effect is the same as higher CO2.

      During the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, some ~60 million years ago, both CO2 levels and temperatures were much higher than today so you might expect to find evidence that the distribution of coccoliths were affected. No such effect is evident though there was an increase in calcified algae. So it goes...

      Of course the estimated 8 C higher than present temperatures were way beyond the 2-3 C needed to reach the tipping point so loudly proclaimed by the likes of Jim Hansen. The only possible explanation for this is that since the Earth had effectively destroyed itself in Thermageddon, God had to recreate the whole lot at a lower temperature and await mankind to start Thermageddon all over again in the 20thC!

      And the coccoliths near those seafloor CO2 vents? Well, they have thicker shells than in nearby, higher pH waters.

  24. Pompous Git Silver badge

    Ominously vibrating topiary

    "As we're hell bent on deforestation (trees are good oxygen sources)..."

    I read that the Drax coal-fired power station in England's green unpleasant land is being converted to burn firewood harvested in the USA and thus Save the Planet. I also read that this will consume 14 acres of trees per week and require the burning of ever so much diesel fuel to carry the trees to Drax. Sounds like deforestation to me.

    I read that some of the last remaining forest in Denmark was cut down in order to make room for windmills. Sounds like deforestation to me.

    I read that the Asian Brown cloud is largely caused by the cutting down of jungle in Indonesia, much to the detriment of the local Orangutans. Said jungle trees and peat soils are set fire to to make room to grow palm oil to use as biodiesel in Europe. According to a German researcher this generates 16 to 30 times more CO2 than is saved as well as annoying people as far away as Singapore who would prefer clean air to breathe.

    Lord save us from The Green Blob!

  25. Pompous Git Silver badge

    Guess my specific gravity

    The Köppen climate classification is the most widely used climate classification system. For example, Tasmania where the Git resides is maritime temperate as is England where the Git was first inflicted on an unsuspecting planet. Despite a century of "unprecedented climate change" both places appear to still be maritime temperate.

    Six thousand years ago, the Sahara desert of today was inhabited by humans harvesting cereals and herding cattle. Rivers and lakes supported hippoposthumuses, rhinocerarses, jeeryaffes and many other animals reliant on abundant vegetation for their survival.

    Believing the latter describes climate change while maritime temperate 100 years ago is the same as maritime temperate today makes me a "climate denier". It's a strange religion...

  26. Araxian

    neither a believer or denier make

    Simply put, at this point there is not enough data to say one way or another. too many variables.

    The one things we do know is the climates models have never been right they have always been wrong.

    There hasn't been even once other than very generalist terms that they have published results that held up.

    Any group that wants to call what it does science must follow the scientific method, the problem is agw etc do not. They have proven that they don't by refusing to accept data from anyone but themselves, except when forced to or to save face.

    If they were really doing science they would have fully published all their data including the raw set, and their full conclusions and model data. then allowed peer review. so far they haven't.They would also accept input from other groups, that have data that is relevant to their goal, they have refused this from multiple sources.

    So until we can get a group to exam the data without bias, and preconceived ideas about what they want to find, we will never know.

    I am neither a believer or denier.

    There is no proof anything agw etc has ever published is accurate, because they want it that way, there isn't any other explanation for their behavior.

    If real peer reviewed climate science and its processes go from hypothesis to theory, which it hasn't then we will have a good idea.

    Science is never "settled", it is always is open for debate and new data.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: neither a believer or denier make

      Why pretend? You can't go to the march, shout out the slogans, wear the -t-shirt, put money in the tin and then say that you don't know one way or the other.

      In rough order:

      1. Climate models make verifiable predictions and aren't 'always' wrong

      2.Climate scientists will accept data from anyone who produces good data. As people who produce good climate data are by definition climate scientists....(Random personal observations such as 'it was warmer when I was a lad' aren't actually data!).

      3 Raw climate data are published and easily available.

      4. You may call for 'unbiased' review - who does this unbiased review? Maybe it should be poets, or plumbers, or philosophers? Presumably once they get the expertise to comment, you will dismiss their comment because they know what they are talking about. When people build bridges they get their calculations tested by engineers, not by publicans.

      5. Maybe you should actually read some peer reviewed climate science?

      6. Who told you science was ever settled? Debating and collecting new data is what scientists do, often 6 days a week and 12 hours a day. But your last word was data - and remember data is measuring stuff, carefully so it can be repeated. Unless your study is 'frequency of cute cat internet memes' you rarely find 'data' in a blog. You have to go into a lab or out on a ship and look. I see climate scientists doing that, I don't see deniers doing it, and those who wear an 'agw sceptic' badge with pride don't seem that keen to move from the snug bar of the Dog and Duck.

      1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

        Re: neither a believer or denier make

        "6. Who told you science was ever settled?"

        Just for fun, I googled exactly that phrase. It would appear that quite a number of politicians and similar advocates have used either that exact phrase or something that any native speaker of English would take to mean the same thing. 'Tis true that there aren't too many (if any) scientists willing to put their names to such a daft suggestion, but 'tis also true that it is the politicians and activists that make the most noise.

      2. Araxian

        Re: neither a believer or denier make

        just for fun:

        Source: Sovereignty International 1997, (appears they are no longer active since 2013)

        Robert Watson was asked in a press briefing in 1997 about the growing number of climate scientists who challenge the conclusions of the UN that man-induced global warming is real and promises cataclysmic consequences. Watson responded by denigrating all dissenting scientists as pawns of the fossil fuel industry. "The science is settled" he said, and "we're not going to reopen it here."

        Funny part was at the time his research and later the East Anglina CRU which he joined in 2011, data storehouse, was funded by a grant from Shell Oil. Though the Shell grant for East Anglina CRU was well before he started there( if I remember right Shell distanced itself from East Anglina CRU after the ClimateGate scandal, where they were caught manipulating temperature data in the raw data set, Watson was brought in to clean things up), he changed his tune a couple years later and and recently as been advising the IPCC to start taking dissenting views and data seriously.

      3. SleepyJohn

        Re: neither a believer or denier make - Science is never right

        Maybe these AGW sceptics are simply aware that science, for all its undeniable achievements, is never, and has never been 'right'. The best it achieves is to be slightly less wrong than it was before, and this seems a good example of that.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    For the REALLY long view

    The interglacial warming period we are living in is the longest in the last umpteen million years; we need all that CO2 to fend off the imminent ICE AGE.

    (NOT a joke - seriously).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: For the REALLY long view

      Hmm, I'm not sure that's true. In the last 1 million years, which I appreciate is a bit less than umpteen, the mean (of 9) interglacial period was 18.9 MY long, at 11.5 MY and still getting hotter, we have a few years before we have to get the woolly jumpers out the cupboard.

      Where you are right is that in the absence of elevated CO2 this might have been expected to be a short interglacial (based on orbital precession ), so actually that gives us a nice scientific test. If CO2 doesn't effect climate, then there ought to be mammoths outside your office window. If there aren't any mammoths then CO2 must do what we think it does!

    2. Vendicar Decarian1

      Re: For the REALLY long view

      "we need all that CO2 to fend off the imminent ICE AGE."

      Yes, it will be needed in 3 to 4 thousand years.

      So it is even more unreasonable to be dumping it into the atmosphere today.

  28. Mark Pawelek

    Strange definition of "open access"

    "Because of the great importance this paper will be open access" except "your current credentials do not allow retrieval"

  29. Dracaerys

    Cue Liberal tears in 3...2...1...

    Mankind cannot alter or change the planetary climate in any meaningful way. We can clean up our own messes, but we cannot change the planet's climate.

    Ask yourself this, how can CO2, a gas that cannot change states, and can only hold a fraction of a degree of heat, lift 300 million cubic MILES of water? Answer: It can't. Water can absorb literally hundreds of degrees of heat, and naturally release it. CO2 is irrelevant compared to this.

    American Democrats are lying, globally these "warmers" are STEALING BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to redistribute as THEY SEE FIT. Its a scam from start to finish. Stop supporting anyone or anything that caves into this crime or participates in it. It is the only way to deal with criminals at this level.

    1. Vendicar Decarian1

      Re: Cue Liberal tears in 3...2...1...

      "Mankind cannot alter or change the planetary climate in any meaningful way. "

      The Drudge Report Stupids are here.

  30. caseybmyers

    This won't make the Global Warming Hoaxers very happy. Of course they're too busy altering world temps to even notice this study.

  31. spicas

    Oh no, you mean the science is not settled?

  32. Dan_in_Illinois

    How can this be?

    How can this be? We were told years ago that the science was settled by Al Gore among many others. Yet now we are being told that a new environmental process has just been discovered that dramatically changes the results of all those fancy computer models that kept giving the wrong answers. How confusing!

  33. Asok Asus

    CLEARLY these heretics, uh, I mean dissenting "scientists", uh I mean flat earthers, uh I mean denialists, are tools of the oil industry or something. The THEORY of global warming has been PROVEN beyond any possibility of being wrong, so anyone who THINKS they've found contradicting data are either totally insane or simply criminals owned by the oil-industry who should be put in prison for the rest of their lives.

  34. Howard Hanek
    Pint

    Emotionally Overcome

    ....and here I was all set to name my first born child "Climate Change" so he or she would have a head start in the world. Thanks boffins for keeping me from making a terrible mistake.

  35. nunyadambizness

    Wait, wait! It's not the sun and the decrease in the sun's output that has been documented over the past 15 years (or so), it's VOC's? OK. Got it. You need another billion for research, right?

  36. Mark S 1
    Facepalm

    More straw-clutching spin from climate truther Lewis Page.

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hurrah, Hurrah, we can burn rape and pillage as much as we want and the rich will get richer!

    The planet is now saved - yeah right. I just wonder who funded these studies? After the way Greece was screwed and now the VW hick-up I'm not sure I trust the Germans anyway.

  38. expose the corrupt

    GLOBAL COOLING

    When is the World going to start prosecuting all these scam artists on the Global Warming/ Global Cooling/ Climate Change/ ponzie scheme? First arrest Gore for his role in the whole scheme to get rich off the idiotic public! He is a corrupt politician with connections to the Government to make Billions of dollars off the taxpayer. He is no scientist! Just a imbecile that blows hot air! Then go after these scientists that just say something is happening to get funding from the taxpayer. Until the World can figure out how to control the Sun, which controls our climate on Earth, there is no such thing as man made Global warming/cooling! 1 volcano erupting puts more pollutants into the atmosphere than all the man made pollutants in the history of the world. And we can't even stop a volcano from erupting! Can you see the Ponzie scheme here yet?

  39. gaiatechnician

    So it is all cool with ocean acidification, then?

    Ocean acidification is still happening. And the extra CO2 in the air is affecting every plant and animal that lives in water on land too. BUT, I am glad they found the extra isoprenes. There is a whole bunch that atmospheric scientists do not know or care to know about how cloud formation works. They are too in awe of their models to care if the models work or not! The biotic pump theory of 2006 predicted efficient condensation nuclei formation over rainforests. They were found 6 years later. They also predicted and demonstrated a mechanism that rainforests "use" to suck in air from over the oceans. Dramatic fight over that one! My donut airship analogy for clouds also demonstrates (with simple Newtonian physics) that convection clouds almost certainly do "suck" in moisture laden air from over the oceans. For reasons unknown the meteorologists go crazy denying that this happens. (That naughty amazon river sends twice as much water to the sea as they predict! So I guess reality is wrong!

    1. Pompous Git Silver badge

      Re: So it is all cool with ocean acidification, then?

      Sure is. The ocean is everywhere basic (pH 8). Acidic is pH less than 7. I agree that the additional CO2 is affecting plants and animals. The estimated increase in vegetation is 15% meaning animals get more food to eat. Win-win :-)

      1. gaiatechnician

        Re: So it is all cool with ocean acidification, then?

        An increase in acidity is a decrease in ph. So you can start at ph 14 or 8 or 6. Long as you count backwards it is increasing acidity. There comes a point where photosynthetic bacteria start out-compete algae

  40. Hardrada

    This isn't surprising given that NASA's own figures show a global power surplus of only a fifth of a percent of atmospheric back-radiation (0.6 W/m^2 vs. 340.3 W/m^2). When the heat-retention that's allegedly pushing us out of equilibrium is two orders of magnitude smaller than the amount that's needed to keep the earth at pre-industrial temperatures, you need accurate data on every effect that might come close to that level,

  41. oneeye

    Uh,oh! Those researchers are in for it now! They have mortally wounded the god of the

    " Church of Climatology " Thank God their research has been published just in time to

    Crush Al Gore's non existent gonads! Aaaaahahahaha! LOL Now, I can't wait for the colld snap to arrive just in time for the stupid conference.

  42. ConradCA

    Here is proof that GW is settled science!

    The advocates of GW need to prove their theory by having their models predict the climate for a 1000 years in the future. Then match each other and the climate for 1000 years. Until they can do that there is no point in destroying our economy to stop GW.

  43. ConradCA

    ALMOST ALL US TEMPERATURE DATA USED IN GLOBAL WARMING MODELS IS ESTIMATED OR ALTERED

    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/09/almost-all-us-temperature-data-used-in-global-warming-models-is-estimated-or-altered.php

    Real Data:

    http://i0.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2015/09/uscrn-trend-plot-from-ncdc-data.png

    Fraudulent Data

    http://i2.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2015/09/chart61.png?resize=580%2C209

  44. ConradCA

    ALMOST ALL US TEMPERATURE DATA USED IN GLOBAL WARMING MODELS IS ESTIMATED OR ALTERED

    The raw data show that the US is cooling over the last 18 years. After that data is "fixed" is shows that the US is warming. This shows that the advocates of GW are skewing the data to produce results that support their theory.

  45. dmjensen1

    A MASSIVELY Cool Stretch

    I can't wait for the liberal media to point out that the study referenced in this article does not reach a global cooling conclusion at all and that the word "cool" isn't mentioned a single time in the paper. They'll probably just conclude that this article seems to be misleading propaganda of dubious origin. Here's the paper's abstract:

    "Isoprene is an important reactive gas that is produced mainly in terrestrial ecosystems but is also produced in marine ecosystems. In the marine environment, isoprene is produced in the seawater by various biological processes. Here, we show that photosensitized reactions involving the sea-surface microlayer lead to the production of significant amounts of isoprene. It is suggested that H-abstraction processes are initiated by photochemically excited dissolved organic matter which will the degrade fatty acids acting as surfactants. This chemical interfacial processing may represent a significant abiotic source of isoprene in the marine boundary layer."

    Entire paper: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.est.5b02388

  46. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dr. Christian George, one of the authors of the cited research, said the following: "Our study is a new brick that should help understanding our complex world, by providing new knowledge on air-sea exchanges, but it definitively does not question climate change, it just helps us understand its impact." and "There is no question that the global climate will become warmer. The question is just how much, how fast and how the effects will change our lives." The notion that the research supports greater global cooling is just wishful thinking on the part of a few deniers and is not supported by any science.

    1. scatter

      I'll look forward to Lewis correcting his article then....

      Any time now....

      He'll definitely do it this time...

      It is the science section of the Register after all and when someone believes in the scientific process they correct their mistakes don't they....?

  47. Maty

    Eco-geddon v. paint

    This is why I love Reg commantards. We have an announcement about a climate-change variable of considerable significance, and this results in an animated discussion about paint.

    Reminds me of Ridcully trying to keep a discussion by wizards on track.

  48. iwontell

    Just read this article here about VW and their problems:

    "The basic problem is that air itself is a mixture of around 78 per cent nitrogen (N2) and oxygen (O2). When you burn hydrocarbon fuel, as the human race has done to obtain most of its energy for the last million years"

    *************

    AND MY RESPONSE:

    HUH?

    I'll agree with this just as soon as they find remains of the HUMANS a MILLION YEARS OLD.

    Wonder if they included the Volcanoes, Forest Fires and Whale Oil in the study - oh and did they consider the Cavemen with their fires?

    I presume this all occurred AFTER the Dino's croaked....unless that's what did them in too.

    But more, I'd like to know what ASYLUM this Study was conducted at - and will they ever be released?

    TO THAT I ADD: Guess someone else is working on Global Warming issues too - I recommend they be admitted to the same ASYLUM above - wherever that is.

  49. Someone_Somewhere

    The Register... neocon propagandist mouthpiece of flat earth refugees

    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/oct/15/propaganda-trumps-journalism-in-conservative-media-climate-reporting

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