"Unusually cold winters may make you think scientists have got it all wrong. But the data reveal a chilling truth."
When everything is evidence of the thing you want to believe, it might be time to stop pretending you're all about science.
December 21, 2010
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1 – 200 of 242 Newer› Newest»Weather is proof of global warming.
Some just can't admit they're wrong. Some are predicting a mini-Ice Age.
The simplest review of geological data show that climate change has always been a fact of life for the Earth. People or no people.
It's not science. It's religion.
A theory that claims to prove everything proves nothing.
It would be science if there were science in back of it, but it's all bad statistics ("trend") and equations pulled from their asses.
It's the pulling from asses that makes them confident.
You can do predictions that you can't verify, but every step in the process has to be verifiable.
They skipped that part.
The statement itself is plonking, the point being the air of authority.
I think the global warming folks should take the same advice I would give to Michael Vick when he talks about wanting a dog:
Just STFU. No seriously, just stfu already.
So why wasn't this predicted by climate scientists? Actually it was, and we missed it. Obsessed by possible changes to ocean circulation (the Gulf Stream grinding to a halt), we overlooked the effects on atmospheric circulation. A link between summer sea ice in the Arctic and winter temperatures in the northern hemisphere was first proposed in 1914. Close mapping of the relationship dates back to 1990, and has been strengthened by detailed modelling since 2006.
And if they missed that...? As ark says above, a theory that ends up proving everything proves nothing.
And if you believe that, please try Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Co. Vegetable Compound, medicine for headaches, stomach illness, insomnia, depression, cancer, tumors, women's diseases, flatulence, menstruation, fertility, etc.
It's a cure!
How many angry weather angels can dance on the head of a pin? These apologists for their CO2 Hoax Theology are so boring. The more the CO2, the more the coldest possible Globe is really there...what to do next? Why just make all the temperatures up with no thermometers allowed, like a good Walt Disney tale. Why, without the internet this would work...so who is steamrolling the censorship tools over the internet? These same international Government tools are.
Likewise, I suppose, warming in any particular place can be evidence of cooling elsewhere.
Arguments you can't follow are not automatically wrong. Refute the argument, or find someone who can.
That person must not have gotten the memo. The term "global warming" is so yesterday. The preferred term now is "climate change." You see, if it doesn't get warmer then "global warming" could be considered falsified. That will not do. With "climate change," you're covered regardless of whether it gets warmer or colder. The fact that the climate has been changing on its own throughout geologic time is irrelevant. "Climate change" can not be falsified.
Now, purists will point out that all real scientific theories must be falsifiable but they're just old fuddy-duddies (no: DENIERS!!) who can be ignored, ridiculed, or destroyed. What matters is establishing massive global bureaucracies lavishly funded by taxes on energy consumption so we can continue to hold global conferences like the one in Cancun earlier this month. The fact that the conference had the carbon footprint of a small country and accomplished nothing is irrelevant. We must continue to denounce carbon consumption of others so we can make money selling indulgences in the form of carbon credits. These carbon credits help us get rich while letting Lear Jet liberals feel good about themselves. The game must go on. [/sarc]
AGW long ago crossed from scientific theory to religion. Anyone with a programming background who read the infamous "Harry Readme" file knows the calculations used are as shoddy as the code. That file is far more damning than the Climategate emails.
And if they missed that...?
Well its because it was originally hidden behind the other crap that was flung on the wall and they only noticed it when the old crap slid down.
Shhhh! The science is settled! ಠ_ಠ
I don't doubt that climate changes. I believe the evidence that there have been ice ages and warmer periods. I do doubt that humans have as much influence over climate as the AGW people say.
Does the idea that they can influence climate make them feel more powerful? Or is it the idea that they can scam people into buying carbon credits?
The other day, my local tree-hugging talk radio host proclaimed that the unusually cold weather that we've been getting proves it, but also, reminded us that we had several 100 degree + days over the summer, which was also evidence of it.
We live in Tennessee. Hot summers are to be expected. As are unpredictable winters. Show me snow in July, or 100 degree days in December, and maybe I'll start getting concerned.
Global Warming is for faggots.
It is pretty easy to justify observations after-the-fact by fitting it all into a theoretical framework having a million factors.
But science is able to predict things in advance. All of this post hoc BS is not helping burnish the warmist's reputations.
I believe in human created CO2 levels affecting the weather.
But I think, like the late Michael Crichton, that the human impact on climate change models is far less than is being touted. And even if CO2 levels are some critical danger (which I believe they are not) the only practical solution is shifting our engery needs, over time, to less carbon based sources. And many scientists already know that. But the true believers of science can be just as harsh (in their own way) as the Roman Catholic Church was to Galileo. And it will take about twenty more years or so of the weather doing what the weather does until the conventional wisdom of scientists shfits to accept that.
The near extinct polar bears are not shivering in terror of warmth this winter, but they are terrified of a coming common sense, pro-energy President named Palin...and she shoots polar bears that get in the way.
"If it's snowing in Britain, a thousand websites and quite a few newspapers tell us, the planet can't be warming."
How odd that an article claiming a particular weather pattern is evidence for a mass change theory he expresses ridicule that any particular weather event is evidence for a mass change theory.
Cognitive dissonance.
The time has passed when one could plausibly claim to "believe in" AGW as advertised by Gore, Obama, the MSM, etc.
Anyone still peddling the "An Inconvenient Truth" story line, whether they be in our schools, our media or our Government, is a liar. Every single one.
Global warming made the unicorns disappear.
The science is settled.
I'll bet Copernicus heard that a lot.
I was reading a novel recently in which a character states, "When a scientist says 'the science is settled' he is no longer a scientist. He is an evangelist.
Maybe I'm bucking a trend, but I wish people didn't get so dogmatic on this issue. I don't find all the fools who talk about the "global warming hoax" any more palatable than the fools who say that "the science is settled". In the end, a large majority of climate scientists accept (most or all of) the AGW hypothesis.
http://coast.gkss.de/staff/storch/pdf/CliSci2008.pdf
That includes Bjorn Lomborg, Steve McIntyre, and Judith Curry. That doesn't mean they're right, and it doesn't mean that they don't have a whole lot to learn, and it doesn't mean that we have to turn the whole world economy upside-down on their say-so. It does mean that you shouldn't respond to problems in the field by saying that it's one big joke.
The problem with calling it a hoax is that it isn't. There are a lot of serious scientists trying to work out hard problems - and a lot of political operatives trying to convert the scientists' work into political gains. To make it more confusing, some of them are doing both things at the same time.
Fred4 pres...If you accept the CO2 is a pollutant argument, then you are defenseless to resist them. Other than a hunch, what evidence anywhere shows that any CO2 in the air has any effect to trap heat from radiating back into outer space? None is the answer.The only warmth driver in existence is cloud cover or lack thereof.
Arguments you can't follow are not automatically wrong. Refute the argument, or find someone who can.
I'm fairly certain I can follow most of the argument, FLS. But, I'll bite. Here's a real (oooooaaaaah) climatologist's take on the whole thing...
"The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't... Our observing system is inadequate"
Snark aside, the burden of proof is, thankfully, shifting away from the critics and correctly toward those who would cripple entire economies and directly impact both my childrens' quality of life and outlook for their own opportunities later in life.
It's not been a good couple of years to be an AGW proponent, wouldn't you agree?
"It does mean that you shouldn't respond to problems in the field by saying that it's one big joke."
No, it's not a joke.
it was a giant scam, a power grab of massive proportions, meant to enslave and impoverish all of us.
So exactly why should I trust you on this?
MikeR...Science is only science when it says "I don't know". But fence sitting is not a luxury we have when facing a massive attack upon human existence based upon known false propaganda...which we can confidently call a Hoax.
The problem with calling it a hoax is that it isn't.
And the problem with calling it a "crisis" or even "global" is that it isn't.
Temperature changes aren't a hoax, nobody claims they are. Co2 is not a hoax, no one claims it is.
The hoax comes when one is deliberately conflated with the other, while mitigating information (the deliberate omission of water vapor from every model the media touts is a crime against our collective intelligence) is magically "disappeared" from the record.
It's gotten to the point where even Al Gore and the IPCC are letting slip the true nature of the AGW hoax.
Does the idea that they can influence climate make them feel more powerful? Or is it the idea that they can scam people into buying carbon credits?
Is there a C) for ALL of the Above?
@FLS, the Anthropogenic Global Warming theory made predictions that have not come to pass. The problem is not that theory has not been refuted; the problem is that mathematical illiterates such as yourself refuse to accept that it has been disproven.
Like a poster said on another blog...
If... only there were some natural mechanism for explaining the warming and cooling of the earth.
It would have to be unreasonably large, however -- on the scale of our own sun.
I shaved my balls last night and it is amazing how much colder they are when outside as opposed to balls with hair on them.
Shaving your balls does have a downside.
The problem with calling it a hoax is that it isn't.
Except that it is. Here's a link to the Harry Readme file that was part of the ClimateGate leaks.
As a professional programmer for 20 years, this file was by far the most damning thing to come out of the leaked files. It shows that the computer code used to transform their original data is unmaintainable junk. It shows that the results are irreproducible - meaning they must be thrown out and reaccomplished. However, since they threw out the original data, everything is now suspect.
This is supposed to be science, folks. Can the political crap for a moment and go look at the Harry_Read_Me file. Garbage in, garbage out. If you don't understand it, go find a programmer you trust to explain it to you.
The "Journal of Irreproducible Results" was a scientific humor magazine. Obtaining "irreproducible results" appears to be standard operating principle with the AGW folks. Whatever it is, it ain't science.
The problem with calling it a hoax is that it isn't. There are a lot of serious scientists trying to work out hard problems - and a lot of political operatives trying to convert the scientists' work into political gains.
The problem is when the loudest proponents of AGW tend to have the biggest carbon footprint and make no pretense of making a mountain of money off those of us who will end up paying the increased costs of carbon credits/trading then I cheerfully reserve the right to call it a hoax.
This has been a long-running joke for me.
If it's hot outside, it's the result of global warming. (Obviously.)
If it's cold outside, it's the result of global warming.
If there are more hurricanes this year than last year, it's the result of global warming.
If there are fewer hurricanes, it's global warming.
Higher than average rainfall? Global warming.
A much drier year than usual? Global warming.
An earthquake or tsunami? Global warming!
You get the idea.
When you pull something out of your ass, you better come up with an explanation.
The problem is not that theory has not been refuted; the problem is that mathematical illiterates such as yourself refuse to accept that it has been disproven.
THERE IS NO AMERICAN TANKS IN BAGDHAD!
I am into Transcendental Meditation now that David Lynch and Clint Eastwood told me it is good for me.
I am going to get my secret mantra today.
Wish me luck!
Also, when many of the proponents of AGW insist that Western (read: USA) economies must drastically reduce consumption and emissions while Third World economies can construct carbon spewing factories to thier heart's content I reserve the right to throw out my BS flag.
Show me snow in July
Well, lyssa, it's early summer in Australia, and they've got snow in Victoria and New South Wales. It's not unheard-of, but neither is it consistent with AGW.
Arguments you can't follow are not automatically wrong. Refute the argument, or find someone who can.
You can't prove a negative.
Law advocates and refutes. Science doesn't work that way.
Not to worry, Big Sis has just formed a Climate Change and Adaptation Task Force to combat the insidious effects of global warming-induced blizzards.
We're in the best of hands.
Why didn't science predict this?
Um, it did. Didn't any of you see The Day After Tomorrow? Best damn documentary ever. That there is science.
Arguments you can't follow are not automatically wrong. Refute the argument, or find someone who can.
No, why don't you.? My theory is that the intestinal gas from the gigantic turtles the universe is resting on is causing the warming AND the cooling. Go refute that.
Shaving your balls does have a downside.
The hell you say.
Remember a few years ago the british global warming acolytes were suggesting that the brits may soon forget what snow looks like? How's that working out for them?
Rember all the talk about how ice caps are melting? It woudl be kind of hard considering how cold it's going to be this winter.
What it all boils down to is that the climate changers are really discussing the variablity of weather. The weather changes. it gets really cold and then it gets really hot. And ice melts if you put it on a counter. And when it melts it turns into a puddle of water. And if you boil that water it creates steam. Hello captains obvious. Thanks for pointing out the fact that weather is not constant.
Your predictive abilities however, are pretty non predictive. We're now back to the hypothesis that we're about to enter a new ice age. But what about the 20 feet of water thats going to flood all the major cities. And what about the hockey stick?
Since we are about to head into winter, I'll just say, we could use some global warming here. Because it's already fricking cold.
TM is very India Centric as well so it is a good match for my Indian UK husband and I.
His father, who is retired, conducts meditation classes and yoga daily. Is that totally stereotypical or what?
They are veges too.
So exotic.
This year is so Eat, Pray, Love for me.
"The simplest review of geological data show that climate change has always been a fact of life for the Earth. People or no people."
What a revelation!
Of course, no one has ever said otherwise. What is suggested by those who posit a climate change emergency is not that climate change is unprecedented in global history but that our activities are accelerating a natural process, bringing it about sooner than would otherwise be the case.
Given the catastrophic effects to humankind (among other life on this planet) if rapid climate change is occurring, it behooves us to look at the issue seriously and not deal with it as just another partisan political issues. (And this issue has been politicized by those entities who do not want to deal with the implications to their activities if we take seriously the possibility climate change is occurring and we are contributing to its rapid rate of change: namely, the corporate entities who do not wish to spend money to change or cease their activities that are considered as contributory to the warming trends. In short, for their short term profits, they are willing to imperil human society.)
Wait, hasn't Al Gore now admitted he says things PURELY FOR THE POWER?
HuffPo: Gore Lied
Assume there is global warming. What then? Has anyone suggested doing something that won't wreck the economy while producing more than 0.001% of an improvement? And what about China and India? If they aren't on board, isn't it all a waste of time?
And why are the people pushing this almost exclusively busybodies who want an excuse to tell everyone else what to do?
From The Independent a decade ago:
Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past
"David Parker, at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Berkshire, says ultimately, British children could have only virtual experience of snow. Via the internet, they might wonder at polar scenes - or eventually 'feel' virtual cold."
No matter how you stack the bullshit Robert it still smells the same.
(And this issue has been politicized by those entities who do not want to deal with the implications to their activities if we take seriously the possibility climate change is occurring and we are contributing to its rapid rate of change: namely, the corporate entities who do not wish to spend money to change or cease their activities that are considered as contributory to the warming trends. In short, for their short term profits, they are willing to imperil human society.)
And yet, RC, the two biggest polluters behind us are allowed a pass simply because they're developing?
Smacks of the smelliest sort of bullshit. As others have said, if those shouting the loudest on this "crisis" would they themselves live like it's a crisis, I'll pay more attention.
Show me snow in July
Big Mike said: Well, lyssa, it's early summer in Australia, and they've got snow in Victoria and New South Wales.
Well, glory be, I'm converted! Kill yourselves now, global warming deniers! I'm off to buy some carbon credits and destroy my car!
It's not unheard-of, but neither is it consistent with AGW.
Oh, never mind then. :)
WV: knonaraf- I don't know what it means, but it was hell to type. What happened to the 4-5 letter WV's?
If AGW is real and a serious threat, then we just better get over it, because we sure as hell won't do anything about it, no matter what we believe or want. We may succeed in doing great harm trying, but we will not succeed.
I suggest accepting it as fate, making some money off it or just not believing. But, worrying about it or advocating to stop it without making any money of that advocating, is just stupid tilting at windmills.
I refuse to worry. I refuse to take advantage of people through fear and lying. I insist on accepting what the planet (including it's intelligent biomass) throws at me. It's done worse in the past, and my technologically inferior ancestors dealt just fine.
One time I shaved my balls and I was at a Sales Conference for my company in Mexico.
I was wearing white pants and my sac started to bleed and blood showed on the outside of my clothes by my package.
Try explaining to a bunch of testosterone biotech sales reps that it was just your balls bleeding because you shaved them.
Humiliating, I tell ya!
"Remember a few years ago the british global warming acolytes were suggesting that the brits may soon forget what snow looks like?"
Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and the excitement of waking to find that the stuff has settled outside are all a rapidly diminishing part of Britain's culture, as warmer winters - which scientists are attributing to global climate change - produce not only fewer white Christmases, but fewer white Januaries and Februaries.
The first two months of 2000 were virtually free of significant snowfall in much of lowland Britain, and December brought only moderate snowfall in the South-east. It is the continuation of a trend that has been increasingly visible in the past 15 years: in the south of England, for instance, from 1970 to 1995 snow and sleet fell for an average of 3.7 days, while from 1988 to 1995 the average was 0.7 days. London's last substantial snowfall was in February 1991.
**
However, the warming is so far manifesting itself more in winters which are less cold than in much hotter summers. According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become "a very rare and exciting event".
"Children just aren't going to know what snow is," he said.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html
Bobby: If rapid climate change is occurring, it behooves us to look at the issue seriously and not deal with it as just another partisan political issues.
Oh, well if you say so. I guess the same could be said of the war against Islamic extremism. But, you don't believe in that. So, keep your calls for "bi-partisanship" to yourself. We all know it's a blatant attempt to gather power.
Anyone who suggests that we should end bi-partisanship and just meet in the middle typically defines the "middle" as their own position no matter where it lies on the spectrum.
The very interesting thing about climate is sometimes you push one way and the result is not what you expect. Feedbacks are fascinating things.
"it was a giant scam, a power grab of massive proportions, meant to enslave and impoverish all of us."
Who is grabbing what power, and what enslavement and impoverishment is intended?
Titus menstruates. Don't expect me to be shocked.
@Robert Cook, Cap & Trade was designed to make fat cats at the Chicago Board of Trade vastly richer, at the expense of already improverished Appalachia.
I've worked in Appalachia, I've seen those people. I wish there really was a Hell, and that you were burning in its deepest pit.
Roberto: Who is grabbing what power, and what enslavement and impoverishment is intended?
a) Who: The International Socialist Left
b) What enslavement: All power over all people will rest with the enlightened. I believe we used to call them "Philosopher Kings".
c) What impoverishment: All of the evil rich will be brought to heel by our wise, benevolent masters.
By the way -- here is a great map that shows anomalies for the first week of December. I like how the snow band in the midwest shows up so nicely.
Warm temperatures over Greenland is particularly troublesome for Europe -- possibly -- because meltwater over the North Atlantic will stop the production of Deep Water and the Gulf Stream location will then probably shift.
The war on the USA is co-ordinated out of the White House. Why else would Obama have his regulatory agencies follow a hoax science to destroy our economy? When Germany and Japan went to war with us in 1942, the USA knew what to do. Use submarines to stop oil to Japan. Build a pipeline so US oil flowed out of German U-Boat hunting grounds. Then bomb Ploesti, whatever the horrible cost, and thus stop German oil. The Hoax from the White House is a scheme to stop the USA's oil. Remember the oil Obama says we cannot drill for for 5 years...for NO reason at all.
Iceland used to be green and Greenland used to be icy. Who's to say which one is the proper state for either country. Hypothetically up through the year 2000 the temperature was the hottest on record. So what? Who's to say that the hottest temperature on record is a bad thing? Or that the following decade wouldn't be the coldest on record? or the new hottest on record?
People have to get it through their heads that the world and in particular, the weather runs through it's own cycles as does the sun. And we can't control it. Even if all drove SUV's our contribution towards green house gases would still be nil compared to the oceans or a volcano. And can you control volcanoes or the oceans? No? So shut up!
Further, despite all the lecturing about climate it's always the climate deniers who are the worst abusers of the climate in the name of climate protection. All the celebrities living in their mansions and flying private jets lecture the rest of us about how we need to conserve.
When John Travolta moves into a two bedroom apartment and gives up his private jets, or when Al Gore moves into his bachelor pad studio apartment THEN they can lecture us about carbon footprints.
And when the UN figures out they can actually conduct business through video conferencing and it doesn't require junkets around the world, then they can lecture the rest of us about carbon footprints.
"...when many of the proponents of AGW insist that Western (read: USA) economies must drastically reduce consumption and emissions while Third World economies can construct carbon spewing factories to thier (sic) heart's content...."
Who has said this?
If climate change is occurring presently and if humankind is contributing to its rate of change, then we are all subject to the ramifications of that.
No, lyssa, you were supposed to have your mechanic detune your car so it pumps out even more CO2.
Do I have to explain everything?
"And yet, RC, the two biggest polluters behind us are allowed a pass simply because they're developing?"
Who says any polluters are "allowed a pass"?
Whoops, that should have said:
Further, despite all the lecturing about climate it's always the climate change acolytes who are the worst abusers of the climate in the name of climate protection.
"Oh, well if you say so. I guess the same could be said of the war against Islamic extremism. But, you don't believe in that."
Incoherent non-sequitur.
"The International Socialist Left"
Who are they?
"Hypothetically up through the year 2000 the temperature was the hottest on record."
That record is very short and entirely contained between ice ages and must ignore the medieval warming to be considered a warm period at all. It's kind of like using temperatures in Madison from March through July, ignoring the previous summer and extrapolating that Wisconsin is warming rapidly and catastrophically. Just like Madison, the world has been warmer before.
""The International Socialist Left"
Who are they?"
I don't know anything about no Mafia.
Robert Cook said...
"The International Socialist Left"
Who are they?"
All the people you send Festivus cards to this year.
Oh and Obama.
"The war on the USA is co-ordinated out of the White House. Why else would Obama have his regulatory agencies follow a hoax science to destroy our economy?"
Insane ignorance or ignorant insanity.
Our economy has been destroyed by the corporations who see our economy as merely a money tap to drain dry and all citizens as marks to be separated from our money.
Obama is merely the latest White House minion to serve the corporate leeches of our wealth.
To the comments on my comment: Sigh. Presumably none of you are scientists? I am, kind of, but not in that field. So my opinions have no relevance. Nor do yours. Let the scientists sort it out. I am, again, tired of non-scientists intruding into scientific issues.
Also again: That doesn't mean that we have to listen to the scientists, certainly not to remake our whole economy. And it would be nice if some of them were more humble. Even though a considerable majority of those in the field believe in AGW, as I mentioned, there is a considerable minority that doesn't, and that's important.
But all that said, WHY do you have to keep saying dumb stuff about subjects on which you know little? Quoting this blog or that one, on studies you didn't read and can't read? Leave it to the scientists.
"Accelerating climate change" is the new "causing global warming", eh?
And yet it all still rests on the same fraudulent data, faked studies and dishonest ideologues posing as scientists, right?
And, lo and behold, the remedy to the impending "accelerating climate change" crisis matches up 100% with the same anti-capitalist, universal government policies that the Left has been pushing for generations.
How fucking stupid do these people think we are?
Who says any polluters are "allowed a pass"?
I'll amend my comment from "polluter" to "carbon emitter", in the context of the discussion if for no other reason, and let you figure out who was exempt.
The global temperature maps published by Nasa present a striking picture. Last month's shows a deep blue splodge over Iceland, Spitsbergen, Scandanavia and the UK, and another over the western US and eastern Pacific.
A splodge? I blame that damn Julian Assange.
Pogo, your gal Lydia is a piker! Think Lousiana's very own native son Dudley J. LeBlanc and his all-purpose nostrum HADACOL. Hit Wiki and WEEP as you stand in awe of a promotional GOD!
Hoosier:
I am an Iggles fan but I agree with you 100%. Vick and the global warming kooks should STFU.
You are a simple, earthy creature, governed by your senses. What you see and taste and feel overrides analysis. The cold has reason in a deathly grip.
You can't prove a negative.
But you can verify facts and critique the analysis:
Thesis Statement:
There is now strong evidence to suggest that the unusually cold winters of the last two years in the UK are the result of heating elsewhere.
[Regional temperature differences in upper Northern Hemisphere were wider last month. Cold spots were colder, warm spots were warmer.]
1. The weather we get in UK winters, for example, is strongly linked to the contrasting pressure between the Icelandic low and the Azores high.
True or false?
2. When there's a big pressure difference the winds come in from the south-west, bringing mild damp weather from the Atlantic.
True or false?
3. When there's a smaller gradient, air is often able to flow down from the Arctic.
True or false?
4. High pressure in the icy north last winter, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, blocked the usual pattern and "allowed cold air from the Arctic to penetrate all the way into Europe, eastern China, and Washington DC".
True or false?
5. Nasa reports that the same thing is happening this winter.
True or false?
6. Sea ice in the Arctic bounces back heat from the sun, because it's white, thus preventing iheat from entering the sea.
True or false?
7. Sea ice also creates a barrier between the water and the atmosphere, reducing the amount of heat that escapes from the sea into the air.
True or false?
8. In the autumns of 2009 and 2010 the coverage of Arctic sea ice was much lower than the long-term average: the second smallest, last month, of any recorded November.
True or false?
9. The open sea, being darker, absorbed more heat from the sun in the warmer, light months.
True or false?
10. As it remained clear for longer than usual it also bled more heat into the Arctic atmosphere.
True or false?
11. This caused higher air pressures, reducing the gradient between the Iceland low and the Azores high.
True or false?
Conclusion: Reduced gradient between Iceland low and Azores high, created by global warming, caused Arctic air to flow over Britain. QED.
MikeR, the solution to the debacle of AGW is NOT going to be found by scientists, because the problem is not scientific. It's ideological.
OMG, I was menstruating.
Now it makes perfect sense.
Hilarious.
Conclusion: Reduced gradient between Iceland low and Azores high, created by global warming, caused Arctic air to flow over Britain. QED.
The difficulty, of course, is finding the cause of the warming, and determining whether it is a long-term or short-term change.
...the corporate entities who do not wish to spend money to change or cease their activities that are considered as contributory to the warming trends.
What Robert Cook ignores is that only certain corporations should be restricted (or if he had his way, dismantled) whereas those corporations in developing nations are free to emit carbon to thier heart's content.
Its no coincidence that the whole AGW movement sprang up shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. The very fact that the AGW proponents solution to combat AGW is to redistribute the wealth from 'rich' countries to the 'poor' pretty much proves that the AGW movement is nothing more than communism in a "save the polar bear' hide.
"But all that said, WHY do you have to keep saying dumb stuff about subjects on which you know little? Quoting this author or that one, on books you didn't read and can't read? Leave it to the king and your betters."
Sit down and be quiet. Don't speak truth to power. Accept what they tell you because scientists know best. When they said it was global cooling and a dawning ice age forty years ago they were right and when they say it is global warming today they are right too. How dare you be skeptical. Accept the hogwash the Democratic Party is selling and pay your carbon tax.
It is so difficult when people aspire to rise above their station in life.
Trooper,
I got the same vibe, too.
Shut up and know your role, little people!
"And yet, RC, the two biggest polluters behind us are allowed a pass simply because they're developing?"
Who says any polluters re "allowed a pass"?
Perhaps you should read the Kyoto treaty and the proposed Cap and Trade legislation. In other words, be informed.
Robert, the very fact that Cap & Trade was going to make a whole lot of invesment bankers and hedge fund people so disgustingly rich it even offended a capitalist pig like me, I would have thought you'd have been screaming in outrage over it.
Those Wall Street fat cats were salivating over Cap and Trade and really would like us rubes to believe in AGW. Pretty ironic no?
"Leave it to the scientists." Ha ha ha ha haaa!
This is just like ObamaKKKare. Trying to enslave and impoverish us all. Damn you Democrats!
Garage,
That's highly cynical of you. Even if it's intent was to enslave and impoverish us, I would not be worried one bit about it. It's not doing anything it's designed to do or fulfill any promise made.
Snark aside, it's probably not going to see much in the way of daylight in the end.
AGW is the new railroad with it's own robber barons - progress and all. This crap has been repeating since 800 AD. Always a new scam to take money from the movers with a new version of the toll collectors who get rich providing nothing.
Cook, the fact that you have fallen for the newest version of this, while scapegoating "corporations" should embarrass you.
Global warming is just a Democratic party scam. Gore, Pelosi, Obama and that nutty broad from Hollywood with private jet are using it to both enrich themselves and stick it to the "rich."
How do they spin -15 Fahrenheit in Great Britain, not the Hebrides, the "home counties?"
FLS, I'm not arguing about whether or not climate changes. We have had ice ages and warmer periods so it can be assumed we will continue to do so. The question is, how much influence does mankind have on this?
FLS steals the work of George Monbiot and doesn't credit him.
Just look the good socialists both he and Monbiot are!
Oh, and Monbiot must know everything about climate change. He does have a degree in zoology.
Garage Mahal wrote:
This is just like ObamaKKKare. Trying to enslave and impoverish us all. Damn you Democrats!
You should acknowledge that in fact many of the proponents of global warming are proposing pretty readical things. Even if we agree that the science is rignt, it doesn't mean that we'd agree with the proposals to deal with the problem. Nor that we would agree with the theorizing about the outcomes predicted. Do you really buy the hockey stick, or the idea that the oceans are going to rise 20 feet? Even if you say that the climate is going to get warmer, doesn't mean that your doomsday scenario is remotely realistic. And even if you think it is, it doesn't mean that all economies have to impose a draconian tax that will cripple their economies, when a country could simply build a levee high enough to stop that water from entering the city, if that were a true scenario (which it's not).
And at any rate, the biggst proponentst of the doomsday scenarios comport their lives as if there is no issue. If having a large carbon footprint were such an issue, and if the situation were so dire, you'd expect the Al Gore's of the world to not have large carbon footprints. Yet they do. Perhaps they don't believe what they're preaching?
Remember that most environmentallists are in fact watermelons. Green on the outside and red on the inside. Scratch the surface and you'll get an awful lot of socialism that springs up. Which is probalby why so many libs are also environmentalists. Birds of a feather, as they say.
So, with that in mind the idea that the left is trying to impoverish us (meaning the US) and enslave us all may not be that far fetched. Certinaly not as far fetched as the idea that the oceans are going to rise 20 feet and drown major cities.
Personally I can do without so many polar bears.
And brown bears.
And even Mike Ditka. He gets on my nerves.
MadisonMan,
What do you think of the horizontal line in the middle of Greenland? Artifact? Or just a line of cold anomaly right next to a line of warm anomaly?
"Leave it to the king and your betters." What should I do? I am a global warming skeptic, but I have to deal with the truth. They are my betters, at least on this issue. I can't read the scientific work involved. Or at least I am not willing to put in weeks of work going through the math and all. And no one who didn't do that has any real role to play in the discussion IMHO.
That goes for global warming believers as well. The vast majority of comments by believers are stupid and ignorant, and I for one would appreciate some of the believer scientists saying so.
Sorry, but I won't back down. I'm a conservative and a global warming skeptic, but you guys are just wrong. If you (we) don't understand the science, _in depth_, you shouldn't be talking about it as if you do.
And again, that's not the same thing as believing whatever scientists say, or saying that scientists can tell us how to decide major economic questions. As with any expert witnesses, the jury gets to decide if it is convinced. They haven't done a good job of convincing me yet.
FLS steals the work of George Monbiot
Guilty of clicking on the professor's link. Crazy to discuss the linked articles, I know -- it really cramps one's style around here. I figured italicizing Monbiot's argument would make it clear it wasn't mine, but oh well.
Did you spot a flaw in Monbiot's reasoning?
"Did you spot a flaw in Monbiot's reasoning?"
Yes. He only can come up with a reason England is cold now that it already has been observed to be cold If he had predicted it, you know, ahead of time, then he would have some credibility.
I'm certain that if England was unusually warm this Winter, Monbiot would come up with a perfectly reasonable explanation for that too.
"Did you spot a flaw in Monbiot's reasoning?"
It's quite revealing that FLS did not. Retrofitted data, unproven hypotheses, and refusal to evaluate non-confirming data occur to me without much thought. But to FLS anything published by a political opportunist supporting his position must be accepted lest one be "anti-science".
Garage,
That's highly cynical of you.
C'mon Scott, this is garage you're talking to. Cynical and snark? That's like saying the sun is hot.
In other news, Generallisimo Francisco Franco is still dead.
What do you think of the horizontal line in the middle of Greenland? Artifact? Or just a line of cold anomaly right next to a line of warm anomaly?
Ooh, I hadn't seen that. very interesting.
Artifact -- unlikely. The data are all from the same satellite, a polar orbiter (Aqua) that gives great coverage over Greenland. I wonder if there's an east-west ridge there that could act to dam cold air up against, or prevent warm air from advancing.
So the short answer is I don't know. :)
Global warming made the unicorns disappear.
Good. It's well known that unicorns caused weather shortages.
"Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As cold is warm
Just call me Monbiot
'Cause I'm in need of some restraint"
Sorry, but I won't back down. I'm a conservative and a global warming skeptic, but you guys are just wrong. If you (we) don't understand the science, _in depth_, you shouldn't be talking about it as if you do.
I understand the science just fine. The eath is warming and sometimes its cooling. What I don't buy into is a cockamanie cap and trade scheme which sole purpose is to cripple western economies, enrich a bunch of Wall Street hedge funds and fearmongers like Algore who stupidty on the subject knows no boundries.
Considering that Scandinavia was at one time uninhabitable and a there was a glacier covering my beloved state, it stands to reason that the earth was a helluva lot warmer at a time when coal fired plants and SUVs didn't exist. Therefore maybe this time its different and maybe its not and based upon our infintestimal existence on Planet Earth, I'll remain skeptical. Especially when guys like Algore have a whole lot to gain.
Then again maybe the reason for global warming is because, according to Al Gore the Earth's core is millions of degrees.
Arguments you can't follow are not automatically wrong. Refute the argument, or find someone who can.
You can't tell a cycle from a trend with data that's short compared to the cycle. Mathematics. So much for evidence.
You can't solve the Navier Stokes equations; you can only solve equations pulled from your ass and idly claim they're the same. So much for the models.
"If you (we) don't understand the science, _in depth_, you shouldn't be talking about it as if you do."
Who's doing that here, though?
I mean, I read this comment thread from the beginning, and then I just skimmed it again, and I'm not seeing it.
I'm seeing a lot of snarky comments from people (including myself), but nobody playing amateur climatologist and pretending that they have credentials in something that they don't. (Except Monbiot in the linked article and FLS in this thread.)
I see a bunch of other people on the jury, just like you, expressing that they're unconvinced, just like you.
That's why people are rolling their eyes at your comments.
The one thing that you have to keep in mind when you think about the claims for CO2 cause AGW is the question of why CO2 was picked as the primary culprit. And the answer is clearly to curtail the use of fossil fuels.
Likely most everyone here knows by now that CO2 is not all that efficient of a "greenhouse" gas, esp. as compared to water vapor. But if the temporary warming of the 1990s had been attributed to water vapor, instead of CO2, then we wouldn't have the EPA trying to limit our use of fossil fuels.
You know that most of the AGW alarmists aren't all that honest, because while giving it lip service, they will invariably come down against nuclear power too. Ask yourself why the same President whose EPA has declared CO2 a pollutant (knowingly based on the much discredited IPCC report, instead of the required independent research) also shut down Yucca Mountain?
But also, part of it is to make the AlGores of the world rich as they push us back into the 17th Century. Remember, this is the Administration dedicated to crony capitalism, and that means making their allies in industry (such as, GE) rich.
FLS in this thread.
The article was selected by our gracious hostess because she thought it worthy of our attention. What I'm mostly seeing are generic comments that do not address the issues raised by the article. For instance, Monbiot only briefly alludes to the cause of global warming, in one exasperated sentence: The denial of man-made climate change mutated first into a denial of science in general and then into a denial of basic arithmetic. Yet most of the comments veer off on tangents lie "AGW is a religion," instead of grappling with the argument.
I do appreciate the ones who think it's suspicious that Monbiot found an explanation that connects cold and snow to global warming. And even Hardin's "Whoo, way more complicated than that."
FLS, I'm not arguing about whether or not climate changes. We have had ice ages and warmer periods so it can be assumed we will continue to do so. The question is, how much influence does mankind have on this?
And, also ask that question, whether it matters?
They can't take it can they. Soon cold will be warmth and vice versa. Next up, blue becomes red, white becomes black, dogs and cats sleeping together.
"The denial of man-made climate change mutated first into a denial of science in general and then into a denial of basic arithmetic."
Actually this shows Monbiot more a polemicist than scientist, as if anyone knowledgeable would have any doubt. The idea that his targets have to refute such nonsense is asinine.
If the data showed what the alarmists claim it does they wouldn't have to make it up.
MikeR follows a pretty good post with a pretty bad post:
#1 MikeR said...
Maybe I'm bucking a trend, but I wish people didn't get so dogmatic on this issue. I don't find all the fools who talk about the "global warming hoax" any more palatable than the fools who say that "the science is settled". In the end, a large majority of climate scientists accept (most or all of) the AGW hypothesis.
#2 - Presumably none of you are scientists? I am, kind of, but not in that field. So my opinions have no relevance. Nor do yours. Let the scientists sort it out. I am, again, tired of non-scientists intruding into scientific issues.
The 1st justly calls out the evolution skeptics, tellers of the "facts of my Tennessee thermometer", and Palinistas screaming "hoax".
The 2nd unfortunately accords scientists dependent on political grants from governments and university and 'within the field" politics the status of inerrant tellers of the truth.
1. All too many "hoax criers" come across as people resentful of the notion scientists with their pointy heads and elite educations "Was out telling us the Earth is older than 5,000 years and man was descended from monkeys of all things long before they started in with this global warming crap" when "I had more snow in the the Holler next to near burying my trailer park."
2. Like many Green nazis, the anti-warming people take on a religious, belief system. What ever happened to skepticism? Like if the Earth is warming slightly because no one swallows a constant weather Earth...why the leap to claim either NOTHING is happening - or the opposing religious belief system that 100% of any change is manmade and all the fault of white people in the West and NOTHING to do with other climate factors or 3rd Worlders on their way to breeding us up to 12 billion people.
3. Unfortunately, "the dispassionate scientists only interested in the truth" - have proven anything but that. They have taken data - then said "how can this be politically used to advance our power, funding, career development??" by using the data politically.
It's not just on climate change where they have been sniffed out in data manipulation scandal. You have Leftist scientists eager to put all the blame for war, weapons, drought, and crop modifications on the Evil West. You have scientists on every Green Nazi panel that argues for the destruction of the American nuclear, oil, coal, and natural gas industries. And as credentialled spokespeople for the relentless promotion of inadequate, unreliable and expensive Blessed Solar and Wondrous Wind. As established scientists fielded as charlatans for pushing Miracle Ethanol and stating the oil spill in the Gulf and Corexit The Dispersant of Doom was going to create a dead sea for a thousand years.
Another dozen donuts, Cedarford. Well-baked, my friend.
"If you (we) don't understand the science, _in depth_, you shouldn't be talking about it as if you do."
The interesting thing here is that even the "scientists" don't understand it all that well, because they invariably specialize, and then end up opining outside their area of specialty.
I think that some indicia of this came out with the ClimateGate emails and documents. The two things that the leading scientists in this area apparently were not, were decent statisticians and even marginally competent programmers.
Compounding this, it turns out that after the CRU climatic data set had been at least somewhat discredited, since they were unable to explain where they got the data they used, and more importantly, how and why they had manipulated it to compensate for coverage problems with their input data, we then find out that at least three of the other four primary data sets were calibrated utilizing the CRU data. And, then the same scientists involved there were instrumental in the IPCC report, which, coincidentally utilized their (now discredited) data, when it wasn't using anecdotal information from advocacy groups.
The problem there seems to be that the climate scientists at the core of the AGW scare turned out to have been working outside their area of expertise. And, of course, had numerous incentives to slant their findings in the direction that would get the best funding and fame.
This was, btw, part of why certain areas of science were far less willing to jump on board. For example, a lot of physicists, etc., knew that the primary cause of global warming, cooling, etc. has always been solar radiation levels, which coincidentally track the temperature far better than do CO2 levels (and, maybe surprisingly to AGW alarmists, is reproduced on other planets in this solar system). Similarly, scientists studying the climate through fossils and the like knew that the temperature on this planet had been higher and had been lower in the past, and that this had happened numerous times throughout the planet's history.
think about the claims for CO2 cause AGW is the question of why CO2 was picked as the primary culprit. And the answer is clearly to curtail the use of fossil fuels.
That's a little too conspiracy-theory-ish I think. There's the well-known steady increase in CO2. The well-known influence on CO2 in absorbing outgoing radiation. Not so influential, as you say, as water vapor, but still, it's there.
There may be policy "experts" who latched on to that finding as a way to leverage us away from carbon-based fuels. But the scientists aren't the ones doing that.
Maybe I've slightly misinterpreted your comment, however.
If science is supposed to be based on checking a testable hypothesis against reality, then AGW is clearly not science. Their alarmist predictions that snow would be a thing of the past (check here, here and here) have proven completely wrong, yet they continue to rationalize the failure of their computer models by ever more convoluted explanations. Reminiscent of medieval astronomers and their dazzlingly complex system of epicycles that enabled the Ptolemaic Earth-centered solar system to remain the "scientific consensus" for centuries after people first started noticing the theory's inherent contradictions.
The Navier Stokes differential equations desribe fluid flow with density changes from temperature changes. It is non-linear, meaning that there is sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Errors in measurements double rapidly, so long term predictions based on measurements of finite precision are not possible. This has been known since Edward Lorenz published on the subject in 1963.
The father of all moonbats is a denier of medieval warming period which would destroy hockey stick. Cows live in Greenland then when it was much warmer. CO2 is plant food. As Ike said "Beware the global warming alarmist-industrial complex"
At MIT I had a professor who said "give me 4 variables and I can draw the backside of an elephant - give me 5 and I can make it's tail wag." The point being that given enough independent variables you can fit data to whatever you what to "explain." Have you found a theory in your data? No. Everything leads to global warming - facepalm.
Errors in measurements double rapidly, so long term predictions based on measurements of finite precision are not possible. This has been known since Edward Lorenz published on the subject in 1963.
It's entirely unclear to me what that (true) statement has to do with climate modeling.
Carbon Dioxide levels are not showing steady increase, at least not on a geological time scale. How did all that coal and oil get into the earth? High levels of CO2 were metabolized by plants, and buried, trapping the carbon. They released oxygen while alive.
The most important "greenhouse gas" in the atmosphere is water vapor. Concern over C02 is misplaced and irrelevant.
It's entirely unclear to me what that (true) statement has to do with climate modeling.
GIGO?
If science is supposed to be based on checking a testable hypothesis against reality, then AGW is clearly not science. Their alarmist predictions that snow would be a thing of the past (check here, here and here) have proven completely wrong
Have they now?
First prediction ("here") is not enough snow by 2080 to sustain a ski industry in Scotland. *Checks calendar* Nope, calendar says it's only 2010. First prediction not proven completely wrong.
Second prediction ("here") says not enough snow by 2020 to sustain a snow cap on Mt. Snowdon. *Checks calendar again* Nope, still only 2010. Second prediction not proven completely wrong.
Well, could it be third time lucky for Maguro?
Third prediction ("here") not a prediction so much as an observation that snow in London was a thing of the past (Nine years without significant snowfall). And what did the scientists say, back in 2000?
Heavy snow will return occasionally, says Dr Viner, but when it does we will be unprepared. "We're really going to get caught out. Snow will probably cause chaos in 20 years time," he said.
Well, the good Dr. Viner was premature by ten years. And maguro just went down for the third time.
Climate predictions use models based on measured temperatures. The measured temperature has some error, perhaps a 10th of a degree, and that is complicated by the sparseness of the data collected (one temperature station every 100 miles? one temperature measurement every 3 hours?) The error in predicted temperature goes from 1/10th of a degree at start to 1 degree in 2 days, to 10 degrees in 4 days....And now you want to use these models to predict temperature a year in advance?
Pull the other one. It has bells on it.
"And if you believe that, please try Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Co. Vegetable Compound, medicine for headaches, stomach illness, insomnia, depression, cancer, tumors, women's diseases, flatulence, menstruation, fertility, etc.
It's a cure!"
Did you know that Lydia Pinkham's Compound led to the birth control pill ? The story is in my book and you'll have to read it there but it led to a company called Syntex.
The result was a cure but we haven't settled on just what the disease was. Maybe humanity.
Average temperatures are artifacts of the method used to collect the data and calculate the average. Average temperatures have no ability to support long term prediction of future temperatures
Sure, make your predictions far enough into the future and hedge your bets enough and you can never be 100% proven wrong. Real impressive.
But AGW is a theory, and typically it's on the originator of a theory to prove it right. And that hasn't happened...quite the opposite.
"The 2nd unfortunately accords scientists dependent on political grants from governments and university and 'within the field" politics the status of inerrant tellers of the truth." I certainly said no such thing, nor implied it. Just because I have no business making authoritative statements doesn't mean that someone in the business is automatically right. I am only counseling humility for those of us who don't have a clue. (It wouldn't be a bad thing for the experts, either.)
From Youngblood:
"I'm seeing a lot of snarky comments from people (including myself), but nobody playing amateur climatologist and pretending that they have credentials in something that they don't."
Here's a comment right before yours:
"You can't solve the Navier Stokes equations; you can only solve equations pulled from your ass and idly claim they're the same. So much for the models."
Here's a comment right after yours:
"the question of why CO2 was picked as the primary culprit. And the answer is clearly to curtail the use of fossil fuels."
"Heavy snow will return occasionally, says Dr Viner, but when it does we will be unprepared. "We're really going to get caught out. Snow will probably cause chaos in 20 years time," he said.
Well, the good Dr. Viner was premature by ten years. And maguro just went down for the third time."
But London WAS prepared. Read what Boris Johnson has to say. He found a fellow who could predict the weather.
Climate change fear is at most an argument for massive global nuclear development, but it's never used that way.
So it just becomes an interesting theory about the future. It won't make the slightest difference in long term policy because 7 billion people want food, shelter and wealth and they want it right now. Not even Al Gore will compromise on that.
Cap and trade schemes will be thrown out the minute they cause any discomfort which will be right away.
In actual science the test of a hypothesis (much less a theory) is whether the hypothesis allows for reliable predictions.
The "Climate Change" (once "Global Warming") hypothesis has made hundreds of predictions. They range from the prediction that we would have more and larger hurricanes to the prediction that England would no longer see snow in the winter.
With some minor exceptions, virtually EVERY PUBLIC PREDICTION of the Climate Change "scientists" has been proven not just "wrong" but usually "dead wrong." England has seen record breaking winters three years in a row. Hurricanes have become rarities. Antarctic sea ice has expanded, Arctic sea ice has remained constant... blah blah blah..
Any reputable "science" would long ago have admitted that its inability to provide valid predictions had invalidated the hypothesis.
Thus, "Climate Change" is not science.
And just to be snarky, any climatologist will tell you that "Climate Change" is redundant anyway.
Madison Man - "There may be policy "experts" who latched on to that finding as a way to leverage us away from carbon-based fuels. But the scientists aren't the ones doing that."
Au contraire, Madison Man! The green "community" had scientists pile onboard as enablers and "enforcers of the Truth against the Deniers of AGW" who wished to resist the Wisdom of Algore and all those with Higher Consciences.
Rewards were a plenty for scientists that found advancement at PC universities as Green Prophets, on Boards of hedge fund outfits and corporations that were positioning for Carbon trading or well-paid sinecures on Boards of NGOs.
Those looking at the whole Anti-Carbon use in the West movement who properly asked "Quo boni"? - were not disappointed as they scanned investments and supplemental sources of income every Green from Noble Algore to the East Anglia folks to the excretable James Hansen who rose politically to Obama's science advisor.
traditionalguy said...
The near extinct polar bears are not shivering in terror of warmth this winter, but they are terrified of a coming common sense, pro-energy President named Palin...and she shoots polar bears that get in the way.
You are badly/poorly informed. Polar Bears are no where near extinction and in fact are thriving.
If you have REPUTABLE citation show us; PETA/WWF et.al. are not reputable on this topic.
Actually counts of Polar Bears are and they show the population increasing.
What is suggested by those who posit a climate change emergency is not that climate change is unprecedented in global history but that our activities are accelerating a natural process, bringing it about sooner than would otherwise be the case.
And you, nor anyone reading, can provide any data or evidence for this assertion.
None.
Climate predictions use models based on measured temperatures. The measured temperature has some error, perhaps a 10th of a degree, and that is complicated by the sparseness of the data collected (one temperature station every 100 miles? one temperature measurement every 3 hours?) The error in predicted temperature goes from 1/10th of a degree at start to 1 degree in 2 days, to 10 degrees in 4 days....And now you want to use these models to predict temperature a year in advance?
I think that it is far worse than that, because the past record is so spotty. And, it was trying to compensate for that spotty record that got the CRU folks in trouble. They had to make adjustments, because thermometers were inaccurate, monitoring sites came up, and went down, some were in cities, which grew, causing additional warming, etc. It looks, in retrospect, that they were flying by the seats of their pants when doing those adjustments, esp. as they cannot in many cases document why they did what.
Climate models are not making a particular forecast for a date. That is, they don't say that a storm will happen on February 11th, 2155.
The statistics of the predicted climate can be compared to what you have now. So maybe 12 storms with snow occur over Chicago in that year, vs the climatological normal of 7 (? -- I've no idea what normal snow storm totals are for Chicago) now.
But chaos theory only means that you can't make an accurate prediction for a particular day. It says nothing about the inherent climate of the model you are using.
My objection was to someone making a statement that perhaps they thought was profound. While true, it means absolutely nothing as far as climate debate goes.
the excretable James Hansen who rose politically to Obama's science advisor.
Except he didn't.
Can we have a modicum of fact checking before posting?
Maguro said, "Reminiscent of medieval astronomers and their dazzlingly complex system of epicycles that enabled the Ptolemaic Earth-centered solar system to remain the "scientific consensus" for centuries after people first started noticing the theory's inherent contradictions."
Don't diss the Ptolemaic system; it worked well (and still does: space flight trajectory calculation occasionally benefits from earth-based frame of reference equations). It was eminently capable of prediction; it was replaced because the Copernican system explained more things with fewer required assumptions.
So the climate scientists can't predict the weather 6 weeks in advance, but we're supposed to reorganize our economy and reduce our standard of living because of what they've got predicted for 2080?
Is that it?
When I'm looking for climate science information, I go to British tabloids.
Lets for the sake of argument stipulate AGW is real. Man is causing it solely by the burning of fossil fuels.
Fine. Now let us solve the problem in a realistic manner that doesn't set back modern development to late 19th century standards. We all enjoy and heavily rely on our refridgerators, microwaves, and the other plethora of electronic gadgets which require electricity to function. When AGW folks bandy about wind and solar power is when I stop taking them seriously. Save for fossil fuels only nuclear power has the ability to provide a nation of 309 million people with energy needed to maintain the standard of living we have been accustomed to.
Until the AGW folks are willing to concede adopting that clean form of energy production then they're just shouting into the wind and aren't worth listening to.
I have an old college friend who is now a professor at a major University who is a strong advocate of AGW. His field is actually closely related to climatology (more as a client of climatology than as a provider, if you will).
Anyway, when talking directly about his field, he is very reasonable and willing to entertain hypotheses that are odds with those he believes are true; in other words, he's an honest scientist.
When it comes to potential problem areas in the conventional AGW theories though he's downright dogmatic, even when it's other scientists making the case against.
My point? Some smart atheists have become so vested in belief in Anthropogenic Global Warming that it really has taken the place in their brains that religion used to take. Kind of disturbing.
I'm open to the notion that climate change, even anthropogenic climate change, is happening, but gits like Monbiot should shut the fuck up. Hell, 90% of climate change activists should just shut up. This could be a real problem, but in a few years no one will believe them. Why?
Hot summer day: "OMG! GLOBAL WARMING WE'RE GONNA DIE!!1111one1!"
Cold winter day: "Omg you're so dumb! Weather /= climate! Stupid deniers."
Hot summer day: "Holy shit, told you so! GLOBAL WARMING SI HERE! WE'RE GONNA DIE!!1111one1!"
Cold winter day: "Ur so dumb! We said "climate change," not "global warming." And we predicted it would get colder! (and warmer, and drier, and wetter, and more snowfall, and less snowfall, and more hurricanes, and less hurricanes!)"
Save for fossil fuels only nuclear power has the ability to provide a nation of 309 million people with energy needed to maintain the standard of living we have been accustomed to.
If the AGW proponents aren't for living at a standard of living we've become accustomed to, shouldn't they also be actively campaigning against alimony?
but gits like Monbiot should shut the fuck up.
People are asking him to explain why it's so effing cold if he's so goddam smart. He's replying in the Guardian online.
Monbiot: "High pressure in the icy north last winter, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, blocked the usual pattern and "allowed cold air from the Arctic to penetrate all the way into Europe, eastern China, and Washington DC". NASA reports that the same thing is happening this winter."
Heck, it's extending all the way to down here on Grand Cayman, which has been unusually cool.
If the AGW proponents aren't for living at a standard of living we've become accustomed to, shouldn't they also be actively campaigning against alimony?
I think that you know that they aren't serious about CO2 caused AGW, when they fly by private jet, ride in fleets of SUVs, etc. Remember Hopenhagen? After that farce, you have to figure that they are in it for the personal power and money.
Hot summer day: "OMG! GLOBAL WARMING WE'RE GONNA DIE!!1111one1!"
Or "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE...... FROM INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST LEFT CAP AND SLAVE AGW HOAX ALARMIST SCAM ALGORE RELIGION GAIA !!!!ONE11111"
fls - Has cold weather always been caused by excess heat or this a new development?
but gits like Monbiot should shut the fuck up.
People are asking him to explain why it's so effing cold if he's so goddam smart. He's replying in the Guardian online.
Climate change theories are not very well fleshed out, not very rigorously anyway. Monbiot should be honest and just say "We don't know. There's a lot we don't know right now." Watching climate change is something that happens on a scale of decades, if not longer.
Trying to pinpoint or explain why one winter is so cold isn't illuminating to the public. It makes Monbiot like a dumbass trying to find any answer that works. Like I said, support for this theory drops like a rock when guys like Monbiot try to claim that it accounts for everything, cold, hot, dry, wet, stormy, calm.
You know what sounds like a conspiracy? A tiny group of scientists colluding with one another to manipulate data, squelch the scientific method and defraud nations of billions of dollars in order to achieve political goals.
We all know that didn't happen, right? To say it did happen would mean we don't believe in Math.
Since lying is a small re-definition of the truth, science must be alert to actual measurements of the reality surrounding us. That is why AGW is now, and always has been, a grand hoax. The were no measurements taken worth making a theory from, and if any already existed they were hiding them. It is 100% faked. We are being rounded up and put up against a firing squad wall by CO2 Storm Troopers, and all we ask is if they are sure we must die to save the Globe from warm weather. Are we Aztec captives who seek out the honor of being human sacrifices to the Gaia goddess, even if the ones dying our our families?The only proper response is instantly to go to total war in hopes of saving our very lives from these insane murderers that make mere Communist murderers look tame.
When I'm looking for climate science information, I look out my window.
MikeR said...
"The 2nd unfortunately accords scientists dependent on political grants from governments and university and 'within the field" politics the status of inerrant tellers of the truth." I certainly said no such thing, nor implied it. Just because I have no business making authoritative statements doesn't mean that someone in the business is automatically right. I am only counseling humility for those of us who don't have a clue.
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I believe that there are people that have every right to weigh into scientific and legal arguments that affect all of us and the healthy attitude is not DEFERENCE to the "experts" in white lab coats or the lawyers dressed in robes or lounging in prestigious law school faculty lunchrooms.
It depends on what people can bring to the table. Hopefully something better than "Goddess Palin said a zinger on Facebook agin' it, so I'm agin' it!" Or, "All you are is someone buying and trading liguid and gaseous energy fuels so who are you to say it is a giant scam and the PhD scientists arguing that Miracle Ethanol will help Noble Algore save the Earth are Wrong???"
"Leave it to the experts" only works if just about everyone has trust in their integrity and believes that an absence of other agendas influencing their opinions exists.
I'd trust a mayor saying that fixing 3 roads will cost 11,800 dollars based on 3 estimates given. I wouldn't trust a mayor saying that it was essential for the good of everyone in the community that a new 4.5 million dollar seniors center be built if the same "expert" mayor was running for reelection and promising the moon to the senior's block vote.
I'd trust an AF General telling me that it will take 17.4 C-17 planeloads to get the goods from point A to point B. Not so much if he salutes smartly to his superiors and is trotted out to tell the public that the F-22 is the premiere counterterrorism platform of the 21st Century.
"... 8. In the autumns of 2009 and 2010 the coverage of Arctic sea ice was much lower than the long-term average: the second smallest, last month, of any recorded November.
... Conclusion: Reduced gradient between Iceland low and Azores high, created by global warming, caused Arctic air to flow over Britain. QED."
The claim that #8 is created by global warming (rather than an outlier event within the range of normal weather variability) is just one example of the unsubstantiated inferences common to this debate.
There is no global warming. It's really just Cheney hiding out in his secret underground lair manipulating the world's climate with the Haliburton 9000. That gizmo is his personal weather control machine in which he is causing all these disasters.
That's why Al Gore said the Earth's core is millions of degrees. Its being superheated by Cheney's evil heart.
former law student said...
the excretable James Hansen who rose politically to Obama's science advisor.
Except he didn't.
Can we have a modicum of fact checking before posting?
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Except he was.
He was brought into the Obama campaign by Holdren and Axlerod as someone advising the campaign as a "leading climate expert".
Unfortunately for Hansen, he was "delisted" as an advisor during the campaign as some embarassing past statements uncovered and were thought to not help the campaign amidst the economic meltdown...and for his criticism of "cap and trade" as not going far at all in "addressing the crisis upon us".
Shuttled off to the sidelines by the then cunning and astute Axelrod...along with the "Inconvenient" Noble Algore.
Skeptical of what Ann?
I'm pretty convinced that if you don't get it it is because you have spent too much time studying stupid-science 101.
""Leave it to the experts" only works if just about everyone has trust in their integrity and believes that an absence of other agendas influencing their opinions exists."
Cedarford, I've said this same thing at the end of every post. I've said it four times, which is how many times I've posted. So I'm bewildered that it is getting ignored repeatedly; somehow, no one else can see when I qualify my words. I agree with you 100%. Nothing I said in any way implies that we have to trust in the experts, or do what they say. It does imply that we should know the difference between experts and us, and not talk like we're experts when we're not. "Leave it to the scientists" means that I acknowledge that ultimately this question is going to be settled by scientists and no one else. Doesn't mean it's been settled yet, or that I have to listen to some scientist telling me it has been.
There is no "anthropogenic global warming", or even "anthropogenic climate change". The climate is ALWAYS changing. Greenland is called "Green-land" because when Eric the Red discovered the place 1100 years ago, it was green. The Vikings had dairy farms there, until everything got colder in the 1300s and the ice came back. In fact, those Norse farmsteads are becoming visible again, under the ice. It was warmer then than it is now.
Of course, General Washington's troops dragged cannon across the frozen Hudson River, too, and the Hudson hasn't frozen that solidly in 150 years. It was colder then than it is now.
It will be warmer, and colder, in the future. The "climate models" are flawed; feed in all the weather data from Year 1 to 1980, and they DO NOT predict the current conditions now. If the model can't be used to make accurate predictions, then the model is at least flawed, and probably useless.
It's a sad and painful thing when a beautiful scientific theory is slain by an ugly fact, but that's how this stuff works.
"People are asking him to explain why it's so effing cold if he's so goddam smart. He's replying in the Guardian online."
Oh, you make his anti-capitalist activism sound so warm and fuzzy. Do it again!
See, folks were just askin' em what he thought. So he pulled a chair up the cracker barrel and gave em a good talkin to about his thoughts on that there warming thing.
I've found that the best instrument for monitoring climate science information is a rock. If the rock is wet, it's raining. If the rock has the sun reflecting off of it, the sky is clear...
WV: sking
If the rock has snow on it, you can go sking. Does the WV know stuff, or what?
The one thing I love about all of these wise men is that they contribute all of their income from warning about "climate change" to the causes that the so thoroughly support.
Like Al Gore.
I did a scientific inspection of the comments here. I've found 10 to be uniformed generally, 21 to be without any core understanding of the issue, 33 to be absolutely bewildered by anything at all, and 15 wearing tin foil hats.
I've found 10 to be uniformed generally...
What rank? Brigadier? Major?
Mr. House,
Please rate my last comment.
Craig said..."Don't diss the Ptolemaic system; .... It was eminently capable of prediction; it was replaced because the Copernican system explained more things with fewer required assumptions."
Geocentric models of stars are STILL used in celestial navigation, because as long as you are navigating along the surface of the Earth, the math for an Earth-centered system is easy to do. Every theory has its realm of usefulness; it's only when you try to push the model outside its valid range (as in AGW) that the flaws start to smack you in the face.
HDHouse - counting comments
Thank you, HD for gracing us with your Solomonesque brilliance. Will you rule us like a wise Philosopher King?
What rank? Brigadier? Major?
I'd say hdhouse's was brevet. Just because I'm feeling generous.
I mean it is the, if you'll forgive the expression, Christmas season.
If the rock has snow on it, you can go skiing. Does the WV know stuff, or what?
Except that if you try to go skiing when there isn't enough snow on the rock, then you are liable to damage your edges. So, wait until there is plenty of snow to cover the rock first.
House, enough of this comment rating bullshit - tell us about all your patents and commie science medals again.
Thanks, Bruce. You know, I learn something here every day.
I mean it is the, if you'll forgive the expression, Christmas season
Yes...I thought he was being respectful of ten comments and declaring them worthy of general-level rank.
HD - also, tell us again how a climate change acolyte squares his upper-crust lifestyle with the impending doom that is going to befall us all?
Or, indeed, excuses India and China seeing as how they exist on the same planet that's supposedly warming.
For FLS - Monbiot's "splodge" of high temps in Greenland look a bit different if one uses the GISS analysis with 250 km smoothing rather than 1200 km smoothing as he does - disingenuously. (The link he provided allows for modification.) The only temp station in Greenland that shows, not temps but temp anomalies, is at Nuuk and the GHCN weather station is at the end of the airport apron where it gets regular blasts of turbine exhaust. See http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/panaramio_nuuk_3893162.jpg?w=640&h=428&h=428
You know what sounds like a conspiracy? A tiny group of scientists colluding with one another to manipulate data, squelch the scientific method and defraud nations of billions of dollars in order to achieve political goals.
We all know that didn't happen, right? To say it did happen would mean we don't believe in Math.
If it didn't happen, then Mann et all worked pretty hard to make it look like it was happening. By refusing to release code, methodology and data sets; by performing suspicious cherry picking of data sets ( like the Yamal tree ring data ), vilification of critics with labels equivalent to Holocaust denial and by conspiring to keep skeptical papers from having access to journals.
Can George Monbiot change his name to Moonbat and be done with it?
"HDHouse said...
I did a scientific inspection of the comments here."
At least this explains HD's understanding of science.
MikeR - "Leave it to the scientists" means that I acknowledge that ultimately this question is going to be settled by scientists and no one else. Doesn't mean it's been settled yet, or that I have to listen to some scientist telling me it has been."
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No, you introduce a false parameter to this because you still have a universalist issue which supposedly affects everyone and proceed on the assumption that "only the scientists will decide".
Like many other macro issues, "the scientists!" are only part of the discovery, debate, and decision matrix. The scientists have weighed in on many issues in the past, and stated cause and effect and solutions only to be made irrelevant. By engineers, politicians acting on the wishes of people or the Elites they served, by scientists in other fields altering things enough to make one group of doomsayer scientists wrong because all parameters changed.
Examples:
1. "Global warming will doom many people and threaten polar bears so to maintain Vanttu and a stable polar bear population - humanity must do X,Y,Z."
Politicians in the US, China, India say - our people accept some sea level rise and less polar bears as better than having to do X,Y,Z....
2. "The world's population will soon reach 12.8 billion people from only 1.2 billion in 1900. Therefore, no coal use or incandescent bulbs can be tolerated, Standards of living must drop so we can have a planet that can support 12.8 or 22 billion people".
The world;s leading nations, after collapse of hairshirt Green hysterics mandated futures for humanity put out at Kyoto, Copenhagen, and Cancun declared each nation would have to adapt a 2 child policy, with 41 overpopulated lands dependent on high hydrocarbon food and other goods donated by others restricted to a 1-child policy. By 2040, after which violators would get no aid.
3. "Scientists say Solar and Wondrous Wind and Green Jobs are the future!"
Economists and engineers dismiss the scientists views as outside engineering and economic realities. They offer a future of breeder reactors, engineered carbon capture projects, and greatly reduced human populations permitted.
A group of economists even boldly stated that 40,000 polar bears in 2100 vs. 60,000 "really isn't that big of a dead, in a large picture sense."
MIKER says "I've said it four times, which is how many times I've posted. So I'm bewildered that it is getting ignored repeatedly;"
Psst. Try not calling everyone fools in your first post next time.
Please don't insult good religious thinking by comparing it to the kind of cult science we are seeing today.
craig and gary -- Many, many thanks for addressing Monbiot's analysis.
cede -- can you provide a cite? Hard to believe that "clean coal" Obama ever had Hansen for an advisor, and all traces of this were shoved down the memory hole.
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