What utter rubbish. We are still on target for at least 2 Degrees Centigrade global warming of average surface temperatures by 2100. There is very little doubt statistically or scientifically that we will hit that at a minimum. Maybe a lot worse.
Global Warming is real, argues sceptic mathematician - it just isn't Thermageddon
The "certainty" that underpins European and UK climate policy may be wildly misplaced, as the models that the climate science establishment presents to politicians as evidence run far too hot. That's according to a report released yesterday by UK think-tank the Global Warming Policy Foundation. And this is very good news, …
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Friday 7th March 2014 11:06 GMT I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects
Facts
"stop preaching and start taking in facts"
Facts you want and facts you shall have:
1.CO2 absorbs more heat than any other gas therefore ALL the global warming is down to CO2.
2. If we stop breathing right now we will stop producing CO2 when we have rotted away. Let us get it all over with immediately and we could save the word in 10 or 20 years not counting skeletons.
3. 2% of unknown parts of the atmosphere at any unparticulate time may be comprised of water. Climatologists can safely ignore this as it hasn't presented much of a problem in Blighty this winter. Unless you count some places. But they often produce lots and lots of CO2 too. (Or did.)
How's that for a start?
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Friday 7th March 2014 13:28 GMT Fading
Re: Facts
1 - CO2 does not "absorb more heat" - CO2 absorbs a thin band of electro magnetic radiation in the IR frequency range by dipole moment changes. These IR photons do not have the momentum to increase the translational kinetic energy of the CO2 molecule (temperature) instead the dipole moment changes are transmitted via collisions (with non-IR absorbing O2 or N3) before the photon is re-emitted (or at least that's what the GHG theory postulates).
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Friday 7th March 2014 17:40 GMT Tex Arcana
Re: Facts
<quote>Facts
"stop preaching and start taking in facts"
Facts you want and facts you shall have:
1.CO2 absorbs more heat than any other gas therefore ALL the global warming is down to CO2.
2. If we stop breathing right now we will stop producing CO2 when we have rotted away. Let us get it all over with immediately and we could save the word in 10 or 20 years not counting skeletons.
3. 2% of unknown parts of the atmosphere at any unparticulate time may be comprised of water. Climatologists can safely ignore this as it hasn't presented much of a problem in Blighty this winter. Unless you count some places. But they often produce lots and lots of CO2 too. (Or did.)
How's that for a start?</quote>
How about a few facts for you?
* if we humans die, somethings take our places, and end up producing the same amount of CO2 we humans exhale on a daily basis.
* however, the amount of CO2 from our energy usage will drop, at least until some sort of natural catastrophe (forest fire, coal mine fire, grass fire, volcanic eruption, crude oil fire, natural gas fire--yes, it's possible for these things to happen in the absence of human control) dumps tons of CO2 into the atmosphere; and that could easily equal our CO2 outputs.
So, nature can be as bad as "polluter" as we are. Go figure.
Now, some questions:
* What, on this planet, uses CO2 to create oxygen and sugar?? (hint: they're green, they grow, we eat some of them, we make stuff from them, we even burn them for heat)
* Given the answer to the previous question, doesn't it stand to reason that increased CO2 production provides more fertilizer for said green things?
So why are we trying to kill plants by stopping all CO2 production? This planet has been around for a LONG time, there are periods where it produced more CO2 than we ever will (see: prehistoric sources of coal in the ground for that period), I don't think CO2 is nearly the culprit the environazis want it to be. Maybe the aerosols aren't helping, some of the unburnt hydrocarbons are doing their own damage, but all the CO2 we dump has been around since the very beginning, and is as much a part of the planet as any other element. Plus, when you take into account the fact that plants USE CO2 to make oxygen, it becomes a moot point (unless you're hell-bent on total planetary deforestation... oh, snap).
To top it off, I have YET to see a proper thermodynamic analysis of the planet's atmospheric composition, especially including CO2.
Besides (tip of the hat to Michael Crichton), most of the "environmental scientists" screaming the loudest are the ones looking for more paychecks...
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Thursday 6th March 2014 22:07 GMT John Smith 19
Do not feed.
I'd suggest.
But if you must...
Well isn't the point of the article that ""still on target for at least 2 Degrees Centigrade " depends on a) The seed values on the Bayesian analysis and b)fudge factors for poorly understood aerosol and cloud physics and chemistry.
IOW in your model, with your seed values and your parameter settings that may be true.
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Friday 7th March 2014 01:23 GMT Tyrion
2100
>What utter rubbish. We are still on target for at least 2 Degrees Centigrade global warming of average surface temperatures by 2100.
Do you ever listen to yourself really? No one can predict what it's going to be like in five years, let alone 76. As stated in the article, all the models assume a linear growth pattern. It never pans out, and every model that's overlapped with the present has been completely wrong.
IPCC reports are poorly written works of fiction.
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Saturday 8th March 2014 01:31 GMT Steerpike13
Re: 2100
I don't know where you get the idea that all models show a linear pattern of growth. They actually show abrupt changes not a gentle linear increases. I work with more than 140 climate scientists and none of them have found a gentle linear motion.
And, as you can see here, climate sensitivity is actually more than we expected not less. http://www.climatescience.org.au/content/680-solution-cloud-riddle-reveals-hotter-future
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Thursday 6th March 2014 16:38 GMT Paul Kinsler
Presumably this is the peer-reviewed version?
An Objective Bayesian Improved Approach for Applying Optimal Fingerprint Techniques to Estimate Climate Sensitivity
Nicholas Lewis
JOURNAL OF CLIMATE 26, n19, 7414-7429 (2013)
DOI: 10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00473.1
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00473.1
A detailed reanalysis is presented of a Bayesian climate parameter study (as exemplified by Forest et al.) that estimates climate sensitivity (ECS) jointly with effective ocean diffusivity and aerosol forcing, using optimal fingerprints to compare multidecadal observations with simulations by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2D climate model at varying settings of the three climate parameters. Use of improved methodology primarily accounts for the 90% confidence bounds for ECS reducing from 2.1-8.9 K to 2.0-3.6 K. The revised methodology uses Bayes's theorem to derive a probability density function (PDF) for the whitened (made independent using an optimal fingerprint transformation) observations, for which a uniform prior is known to be noninformative. A dimensionally reducing change of variables onto the parameter surface is then made, deriving an objective joint PDF for the climate parameters. The PDF conversion factor from the whitened variables space to the parameter surface represents a noninformative joint parameter prior, which is far from uniform. The noninformative prior prevents more probability than data uncertainty distributions warrant being assigned to regions where data respond little to parameter changes, producing better-constrained PDFs. Incorporating 6 years of unused model simulation data and revising the experimental design to improve diagnostic power reduces the best-fit climate sensitivity. Employing the improved methodology, preferred 90% bounds of 1.2-2.2 K for ECS are then derived (mode and median 1.6 K). The mode is identical to those from Aldrin et al. and [using the same Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Research Unit temperature, version 4 (HadCRUT4), observational dataset] from Ring et al. Incorporating nonaerosol forcing and observational surface temperature uncertainties, unlike in the original study, widens the 90% range to 1.0-3.0 K.
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Friday 7th March 2014 16:30 GMT Enric Martinez
Re: Presumably this is the peer-reviewed version?
+3 UP,
Knowing the readers of El Reg I assumethat they haven't understood shit and focused on the few times the word "reduce" appear.
Well, the whole paper talks about an improved analysis method to reduce THE UNCERTAINTY of some variables... what this means in terms of warming, etc is impossible to get from only this statement. But well, it allows a good inference of how the anti-climate guys work ;)
dont' take me wrong: I hate climate, I certainly do and all the Climate Scientist should be hanged and shot (at the same time) but I am still waiting for this year's Little Ice Age :_(
But well, 17 years of missing Elfstedentocht will not make me loose my faith in Global Cooling!!!
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Thursday 6th March 2014 16:38 GMT Dr Stephen Jones
To the first AC:
I'll believe you when you can show me your workings. To save you the headache, the 2C is over pre-industrial levels. Lewis is with the IPCC bounds, but at the lower end of the 5-95 probability range. And the IPCC has lowered, not raised its estimates.
You do not seem to have read or understood the literature - and I smell panic.
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Thursday 6th March 2014 17:15 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: To the first AC:
Averaged over all land and ocean surfaces, temperatures warmed roughly 0.85ºC from 1880 to 2012. Following that rate alone will take us to ~ 1.5 degrees of warming by 2100.
However, we know that warming is almost certain to accelerate - so 2.0+ degrees of warming is highly likely.
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Friday 7th March 2014 11:42 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: To the first AC:
"Erm no we don't "
Yes we do - there are various known feedback systems that will effect this - and it already is accelerating: http://www.skepticalscience.com/new-research-confirms-global-warming-has-accelerated.html
"if the last 17 and a half years of no global warming (RSS)"
Not true, and well debunked rubbish - only works for a very specific date range, and if you ignore the Arctic and the oceans. If you take a scientific view, the world is clearly still warming.
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Friday 7th March 2014 16:30 GMT Enric Martinez
Re: To the first AC:
I would change the "we" for "I"
Because what you (and many others) are doing is saying that other peopler aren't right but YOU are.
Why aren't you then in charge of the Golbal Climate Science conspiracy thingy?
Or... you could as well sing your emails with a signature such as "Climate Scientist(TM)" and influence the politicians... they as all so stupid as to let themselves be talked nto stuff by a bunch of idiotic nerds such as the climate scientists... thousands of stupid nerds that barely understand their own job yet somehow manage to create a Global Conspiracy and influence politicians and whole governments to do what they want instead of following the obvious trail of money left by the oil lobbies... and all that just to justify their salary!!!
Mate I think I want to get myself a lobotomy and become Climate Scientist!!
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Thursday 6th March 2014 21:57 GMT MondoMan
Re: To the first AC:
"Averaged over all land and ocean surfaces, temperatures warmed roughly 0.85ºC from 1880 to 2012."
You've got the wrong units. According to data such as NOAA's (http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/images/indicator_downloads/sea-surface-temp-download1-2013.png), it's roughly 0.85 degrees F, not C. Your naive linear extrapolation to 1.5 degrees F of increase by 2100 is about 0.85 degrees C (strangely enough), which seems to fit well with Lewis' work reported in this story, and to be much lower than the 2+ degrees C warming you warned of without any calculations.
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Friday 7th March 2014 08:58 GMT tom dial
Re: To the first AC:
I. e., "the future will be like the past". That's one model, a really simple one, and maybe not the worst. The real questions are (a) has this occurred because we are burning the carbon based combustibles many orders of magnitude faster than the sun is remaking them; (b) if that is so, is there anything even remotely possible, politically, that would change it favorably; or (c) would it be better to try to anticipate and mitigate the effects?
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Friday 7th March 2014 17:46 GMT Tex Arcana
Re: To the first AC:
<quote>Re: To the first AC:
Averaged over all land and ocean surfaces, temperatures warmed roughly 0.85ºC from 1880 to 2012. Following that rate alone will take us to ~ 1.5 degrees of warming by 2100.
However, we know that warming is almost certain to accelerate - so 2.0+ degrees of warming is highly likely.</quote>
So where were these temperature measurements taken?? Airports? Major cities? Places with large concentrations of people, buildings, energy usage (waste heat), and a fuckton of concrete, which absorbs and holds even more heat. That alone can explain those temperature rises.
About 15 years ago or so, Scientific American published an article in which an environmental scientist performed numerous temperature measurements, all well outside of the cities and airports, including mid- to high-altitude measurements, and found that average temperatures were actually DROPPING. I forget who he was, or the date; but what stood out to me was the fact he got away from the "heat islands" of the cities and airports, and any other heat-generating locations (power plants, manufacturing, mining, etc), to get the actual temperatures.
But because his work went against the environazis desires (OMFG SCARE EVERYBODY GIVE US MONEY SO WE CAN SCARE YOU MORE WITH IMMINENT ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER!!!), I think he didn't get much credit. But that's politics for you.
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Thursday 6th March 2014 16:38 GMT Professor Clifton Shallot
Doesn't the GWPF take
An a priori view that there is an overreaction to human driven climate change?
And if so how surprised should we be that they publish some science that appears to demonstrate precisely that? And how much credence should we give it?
It's so tiresome not knowing what motives if any prompt a given bit of research and analysis.
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Thursday 6th March 2014 17:15 GMT Dr Stephen Jones
Re: Doesn't the GWPF take
"An a priori view that there is an overreaction to human driven climate change"
Reading comprehension #fail.
Which part of "the IPCC has lowered its estimates" don't you understand? The IPCC took into account a range of literature and observational data, including Lewis' own 2012 paper. The GWPF does not run the the IPCC. Lewis 2012 was peer-reviewed and published in the American Metereological Association's Journal of Climate - the abstract is posted in an earlier comment
"what motives"
The reason you are madly scrambling around for motives is because you do not want to look at the science.
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Wednesday 12th March 2014 11:07 GMT Professor Clifton Shallot
Re: Doesn't the GWPF take
"The reason you are madly scrambling around for motives is because you do not want to look at the science."
It is you making the assumptions, I am afraid. Specifically you are making the assumption that just because I did not post something 100% supporting and welcoming these findings I am therefore dismissing them due to having a position on the whole global warming issue.
I would love to look at and fully understand the science but that is not possible in all cases as any of the science that is of any real use is of necessity beyond my meagre intellect given the time I do not have available to devote to it.
So like the majority of people, even the commentards of the Register, I am to a large extent reliant on the presentation of the science and part of the presentation as far as I am concerned includes the source.
When a political body starts out with a stated aim and then funds or publishes science that supports or can be plausibly presented as supporting that aim then I find myself unable to avoid questioning if the science does in fact support that aim quite so strongly and fully as it appears.
This, as has been pointed out above, applies to both sides of this tediously polarised "debate".
Each side presents their own science as exhaustive and definitive, each rubbishes the science of the other as insufficient or flawed.
Normally one might rely on the scientific consensus but for this topic "consensus" appears to be a dirty word, hotly debated in itself.
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Thursday 6th March 2014 17:15 GMT Chris Miller
Re: Doesn't the GWPF take
Since you're not a real professor*, you can be forgiven for not understanding how science works. In so far as climate science is a real science (capable of falsification, etc) its findings are unrelated to the personal views of the investigators. Just because you may disagree with Heisenberg's politics doesn't make the uncertainty principle wrong.
In any case, the GWPF have not published the scientific research, they've asked its author to comment and have published his thoughts in order to draw attention to it, as it has unaccountably been overlooked in most MSM.
* +1 for the Marvel Comics reference, though.
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Thursday 6th March 2014 16:47 GMT Chris Miller
Sadly, this discussion is long past the point where rational debate can have much effect. True believers in the thermapocalypse aren't going to pay any attention to a paper, no matter how scientifically sound and well argued, issued by the GWPF who are ALL IN THE PAY OF BIG OIL. They tend to foam at the mouth and fall over when anything associated with Lord Lawson comes into view.
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Friday 7th March 2014 08:59 GMT veti
Re: If this was Wikipedia, that reply would look like this
If you are going to put [citation needed] tags in there, there are at least four unsubstantiated assertions in the post you're responding to:
"Sadly, this discussion is long past the point where rational debate can have much effect [citation needed]. True believers in the thermapocalypse aren't going to pay any attention to a paper, no matter how scientifically sound and well argued [citation needed], issued by the GWPF who are ALL IN THE PAY OF BIG OIL [citation needed]. They tend to foam at the mouth and fall over when anything associated with Lord Lawson comes into view [citation needed]."
Putting in just one of these makes you look like Just Another Partisan.
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Thursday 6th March 2014 17:15 GMT Jim Hague
As opposed to true unbelievers in the thermapocalypse who don't pay any attention to a paper, no matter how scientifically sound and well argued, because it is written by scientists receiving GUBMINT GRANTS - which it appears are of such lavish magnificence that they dwarf anything a mere oil multinational could stump up.
Few of us are competent to judge the details of the science. I'm certainly not. All I can say is a quick shuftee at the GWPF website leaves me with the feeling that their stance of being 'open-minded on the contested science of global warming' comes from the same stable as Fox News' 'fair and balanced'.
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Friday 7th March 2014 21:56 GMT Anonymous Coward
"open-minded ... comes from the same stable as Fox News' 'fair and balanced'."
Just like Fairfax press. They won't publish anything that disproves the "consensus science".
Notice their motto "independent always". Straight out of Orwell. Translate it out of it's newspeak and you see what they really think: "out of control forever".
And let's not get started on thoughtcrimes.
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Thursday 6th March 2014 17:15 GMT Mark Jan
The Bollocks that is "Global Warming" is Slowly Beginning to Unravel
Climate change (aka global warming until observations made a nonsense of the models), saturated animal fats causing heart disease (they don't), grains being good for you (they're not) etc etc etc - the truth eventually pops its head out from amongst the throngs of vested interests keeping the myths going.
This generation of scientists and spineless politicians will eventually go and the truth will slowly come out. In the meantime, we'll have paid billions in "green" taxes at the climate change altar.
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Saturday 8th March 2014 01:31 GMT Fluffy Bunny
Re: The Bollocks that is "Global Warming" is Slowly Beginning to Unravel
The trouble with these wrong theories is that they can last for hundreds of years. The Earth-centred universe is a good example. Another is blood-letting as a general cure-all. An American president died from blood-letting.
So it's easy to laugh at the naivety of these people, but they do cause immense damage before they disappear. If you think it's bad how much you're being taxed to appease the god of CAGW, try reading "Fallen Angels" to see how much worse it can get.
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Thursday 6th March 2014 17:15 GMT Dr Stephen Jones
How times change
2006:
Peer reviewed science publishes catastrophic climate predictions.
Activists response: "We come armed only with Peer reviewed science. We must do what the science says."
2014:
Peer reviewed science publishes climate predictions much less catastrophic than before.
Activists response: stick fingers in ears, shout: "Tra-la-la - I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"
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Thursday 6th March 2014 22:03 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: How times change
This topic is often discussed in an academic context but my interest is very real and its this. I live in a flood prone area, and so I can empathise with those that live at opposite end of the spectrum with brutal heat-waves and drought.
For my own part, I'm at a total loss what to do. Selling up isn't the answer as property is still depressed, and if you have a local business moving isn't the answer either. Occasionally local government hands out flood relief funds derived from the EU, but they are difficult to get, unless you are politically connected.
This issue is not being explained or properly addressed by anybody.... Even the BBC reported that little quality research is being done in this area... For instance, we don't even local models to predict where problems might hit home next, so we can't plan.
Meanwhile the academic debate rolls on indefinitely, with few answers for those living at the front lines.... Frankly, I don't care whether the cause is manmade or cyclical, or whether we've hit the peak or doomsday scenarios are coming. I need reliable information now... I don't have the luxury of waiting until the academic dust settles..
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This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
