Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Climate Change Forum Antarctica shows no signs of warming up

factsvsfiction asks:
"Where is the data on an increase in temp?"

Where have you looked? Please list the names of the website and books you have used in your research.

Jonathan Lowe is a professional gambler with a degree, unverifiable, in statistics ... not climatology ... not meteorology. Do you get your medical advice from Paris Hilton or a physician?

If you had spent even 5 minutes looking for data on increases in temperature you'd have to be blind not to have found it. But given that you may have a braille keyboard ... run your fingers over this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6370905.stm
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/edu/gwdebate/
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/GlobalWarming/
http://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/temperature/
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/~tk/glob_warm_hurr.html
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html
http://www.uic.com.au/nip24.htm

Need some more links ... try google.

there is currently a mania on "Climate Change ". your attempts at character assisaniation above indicate to the mania. when there is level headed debate on the subject of "Climate change" then we might make progress and get to the facts. i have seen a many reports as linked above and have yet to see constructive critism. what we have so far is popular consensus. anyone with an alternative view is attacked and villified. well some history for you all link from

http://www.elliottwave.com:80/ezine/preview_email.aspx?id=318

Some ideas accepted by popular consensus that are now rejected:

The flat earth
Geocentrism
The harmlessness of tobacco
The link between electromagnetic fields and cancer
The benefits and harmlessness of leaded gasoline additives, followed closely by
The benefits and harmlessness of MTBE gasoline additives
Nuclear Winter
Y2K
Ideas once rejected by popular consensus that are now accepted:

Germ theory
Continental drift
Overuse of antibiotics
The theory of symbiogenesis, the merging of two organisms to form a new one
The theory of punctuated equilibrium
The theory of prions, which cause "mad cow disease"
The theory of a bacterial cause for stomach ulcers

So, which consensus today appears to be the most powerful, entrenched, reasonable, rational and stable? Global Warming? The War on Terror? Peak Oil?


so far i have only seen modelling with so many variables that the output from the inputs is dubious.

All i can say is keep your mind open to new data and ideas. the day we lower ourselves to bad mouthing the messenger is when we are in real trouble.

Morgan thanks for the links and i have read them and they are of interest. The problem i have is so many of them have caveats in them such as "According to the range of possible forcing scenarios, and taking into account uncertainty in climate model performance, the IPCC projects "

Mr Lowe comes along and says, lets have a look at the temp data from a new point of view and see what happens. he has done that and then is ridiculed for having an alternative view. that is not science. that is a bigoted closed mind that is intolerant.

Attack the data not the man.

I posted links to some of the most reputable sources on the planet. You posted hyperbole. You ask that I attack the data ... but you provide none.

Science is not finding a list of theories that have been shown to be wrong and then crossing your fingers and hoping that this one will be too.

According to your version of science don't take penicillin ... after all it may be shown someday to not work and cell phones may be shown to cause quantum teleportation of acne.

Here's the indisputable data.

1. Levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are increasing.
2. These gases absorb infrared light.
3. When they do they trap thermal energy.
4. Trapped thermal energy must go somewhere.

You can not repeal the laws of physics and chemistry because they don't please you.

G'day,

This is not an invitation to launch another attack Mr Morgan. Rather I couldn't get to you, Jonathan by email and I'd like your help with some statistics I have. I finally managed to obtain most of the world's raw SAT daily minimuns and maximum data and a preliminary analysis suggests there is actually no real increase in world average temperature over the past 30 years or 120 years or any other period you'd like to use after 1880 except nightime temperatures. This is not apparent at all in any of the databases because the raw daily temperatures are not available.

Obviously, if the maximum temperatures do nothing more than trend up and down with no overall change but the minimums go markedly up even accounting for the trends, the average will likewise show an increase. Wow! Not even rocket science. And it isn't something that no one else has detected.

I'm also trying to do some calculations with respect to the "standard" database that NASA uses and the fact that a significant majority of the 7,000 sites show a cooling not a warming trend. My skill is not in statistics so I really would appreciate the help. One thing I'm having problems with is that I can look at a graph of a location and easily categorise it as a warming, cooling, no trend or whatever but would really like a good way to consistently do this using some algorithm or formula, etc. Obviously to a statistician this should be child's play but to my poor over pressurised brain ... well, I just can't seem to work something out that takes into account the fact that some of the data goes from 1880 to 1920, others from 1940 to 1960 then from 1968 to 2001 and others that have competing data for some periods. Oh, and the comment about the pressurised brain isn't a comment about overwork or thinking too much. It seems that I have a condition where the fluid around your brain decides to squash your brain so parts of it stops working. Not to worry. Six operations is all that is needed to fix the scaring, the leak, reposition a catheter into my spine and then a simple shunt from my head into my chest and ... no worries ... my brain should work again. Actually Mr Morgan, since it causes halucinations, loss of memory, inability to think logically, and dementia, you can easily right off anything I wrote in the past as the product of diseased brain. It wasn't but it might make you feel better to think so.

If anyone else has details of research into the agricultural or urban effect on night time temperatures, especially obscure research, I'd really appreciate an email. I have found a fair bit but all of it thus far relates to studies of fairly small areas and I'm hoping there is some more general work.

By the by, Jonathan, why are you still bothering? The insults don't seem to have moderated at all, nor have any of the arguments seemed to have improved. But then I haven't bothered to read much.


Regards


Richard
richard@tpahg.com

G'day Dan,

Can't resist while I was visiting. To your very logical last post, what about clouds? What about reflection, refraction etc? What about the simple truth to greenhouses. Any "greenhouse" effect relating to retaining radiation is grossly more than cancelled out by the fact that less radiation gets in in the first place.

But really, what about clouds? One could argue about CO2 only having an effect in specific wave lengths or that in the past there has been much higher concentrations of CO2 and at the same time a major cooling even has occurred but its clouds I'd like to see you address.

You're right, you can't repeal the laws of physics but just which law says that CO2 actually warms the planet? So what that it MIGHT trap thermal energy, so does water vapour, about 35 times the moderating thermal effect of CO2, yet water vapour also REDUCES the world's temperature by reflecting solar radiation straight back out into space over various latitudes of the earth, prevents the tropics from overheating, increases the temperature of the upper latitudes because of refraction etc etc.

So just where are the calculations that include clouds?

I don't expect a sensible answer but for those that actually like to think about the science that interests them, this question does deserve decent consideration.


Regards


Richard

Post deleted by Amaranth Rose II

G'day Factsvfiction,

Can I add some more please?

Consensus Science now very much rejected:

Global cooling (1970s to about 1981).
Flip between glaciations and interglacial period takes thousands of years (Still mainstream until about five years ago).
US blacks are inferior human beings. (1920s to 1940s as a "science")
Eugenics (1910 to 1945).
The sun revolves around the earth (Middle ages).
Any theory of science that the Catholic Church disagreed with (and often actually punished such blasphemous thinking by death sentences or very long prison sentences) (Middle ages).
Cats caused the Black Death (around 1350).

And according to surveys, the majority of US citizens have the following consensus views:

Angels exist.
Evolution is either suspect or false.

And a little further down the ladder, but still enjoying a major following:

The Bible is literally true.
Being gay is a disease.
AIDs is God's punishment for being gay.

OK, some of these are before the "enlightenment of man" but the first two are not very long ago at all and the third was accepted by most nations and was responsible for the sterilisation of tens of thousands in the US alone, not to mention being the basis for the Holocaust. And many of these on the list are certainly not supported by scientists but they do enjoy a popular consensus and it seems that for the purposes of the argument about global warming, having a consensus is "proof" of the theory.

And Dan, by what warped logic do you turn what was written on its head so that it somehow suggests not to take penicillin? Nothing written said any such thing.

You are right. There is no logic at all to declaring global warming to be invalid on the basis of previous consensus failings. But the argument is valid in pointing out that simply achieving a consensus of opinion in relation to some theory does not in itself make it right. Pity hard science doesn't tend to support the theory either. That is research that can be independantly verified and be repeatable and of course does not start with unfounded assumptions or adopt scientific methodology that fail even the basics.


Richard

RicS wrote:
"I finally managed to obtain most of the world's raw SAT daily minimuns and maximum data and a preliminary analysis suggests there is actually no real increase in world average temperature over the past 30 years or 120 years...."

Just two questions:
1. What does the data you got have to do with the problem? I see, at most, trivial relevance.

2. Assuming this data were relevant ... explain the polar and glacial ice melts, the movement of species from traditionally warmer to traditionally cooler climates, the change in the growing season of plants, and how increased amounts of greenhouse gases can violate the laws of physics and not warm the planet.

I'm not launching another attack. I'm just noting that in the huge volume you posted there is not a single link to a reputable, heck not even a disreputable, reference that supports you.

Give me one good reason why any sentient entity should believe what you post when two minutes with google will deliver them this:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/obsdata/globaltemperature.html

To paraphrase Neils Bohr: "You aren't even wrong."

Hi, RicS. Just a couple of queries:

As a non-scientist I don't understand this:

"Any "greenhouse" effect relating to retaining radiation is grossly more than cancelled out by the fact that less radiation gets in the first place."

As I understand it, incoming infrared is not the issue with GW; rather it the fact that much of the incoming radiation at visible wavelengths is reflected from Earth's surface as infrared. Some of it is then trapped in the lower atmosphere by greenhouse gases such as water vapour, nitrous oxide, CO2 and methane. Hence, increased heat trapping = increased temperatures. Is that a fact, or have I been misled by umpteen climatologists?

I query this too:

"One could argue...that in the past there has been much higher concentrations of CO2 and at the same time a major cooling even has occurred"

In the past 800,000 years, according to ice core samples, atmospheric CO2 had never exceeded 300ppm until the industrial age. It then rose, and continued to rise, to it present level of about 380ppm. I don't have the sources to hand, but if you're seriously discussing this, I guess you already knew that. Of course, I could have all of this wrong, in which case you're welcome to put it straight.

redewenur asks:
"have I been misled by umpteen climatologists?"

Of course not.

Were it true that less radiation gets in then, by definition, things would cool off. Glaciers would not melt. Polar icefields would not get smaller, plant growing seasons would not enlarge, plants, animals, etc. would not be moving to locations higher and higher up hills, etc.

Politics never trumps reality.

Just as the odds of getting a full-house never trumps the fact that what you have in your hand is a pair of deuces.

G'day redewenur,

I'm sorry, I'm not going to be here very long at all. I became completely fed up with this site because rather than a discussion about any of the topics, all that happened was insults, put downs and links to news articles in response to any suggestions of science.

A bit of background. I studied Climatology in the 70s and have a simple degree in it. I have been accepted for a research PhD based on research I've mostly completed by my medical condition prevents me from taking up the offer. This was not at some second rate university but at one of the most prestigious in my country. But I could be lying here. There is no way to check much of what anyone says about their background unless it is very specific. For more than a year I carried out research at the request of a major US institute into the scientific methodologies of research into global warming and found some criminal frauds, some scientific deliberate frauds and some appalling fundamental problems with all but two papers I was asked to review. I did not select the research, so if there was a bias in this respect, it was the Institutes. Next time you read about a major announcement concerning Global Warming see if you can get hold of the actual research paper and look at the assumptions that were used as well as the methodologies adopted. Unless I was really really unlucky you are not likely to find a paper without very serious flaws, ones that in any other field would either get it condemned by the majority in the field or would just not pass the screening process for publication.

For the reasons above I ended up being extremely sceptical about the arguments relating to Global Warming.

OK, to your questions.

1. "Greenhouse Effect". This is a myth. The effect of a greenhouse is that it protects against wind. It is that simple. Yes, glass in greenhouses may actually trap some of the radiation that is within the greenhouse but the net effect is very much negative because of the fact that the glass (or whatever other materal used) prevents far more energy getting in in the first place than it manages to trap rather than it be re-radiated. The earth is much more complicated than a greenhouse but water vapour, by far the most important greenhouse gas, also has effects that have nothing to do with preventing the re-radiation of heat back into space. The net effect of water vapour is that it prevents more energy getting into the planet in the first place because of the reflectivity of the molecules, and particularly "shiny" clouds. Water vapour makes the planet habitable by also refracting radiation and by many other mechanisms transferring energy from the equator to the poles.

The whole process is extremely complex and has never been successfully modelled. All current climate change computer models do not allow for clouds because the mechanisms relating to clouds are not understood well enough to model them and the real world is so complex in this respect that a model has not been made that can even vaguely approximate it.

Most Climatologists will readily admit to the lack of knowledge or ability to model clouds, so there are not misleading you or anyone else. Those that argue for Global Warming being man made and a disaster, however, are generally not Climatologists. Dr Hansen, the very vocal proponent of the "Global Warming is the greatest threat to the planet every experienced" has qualifications in physics and considerable expertise in the study of Venus. That's not to say that as head of the Goddard Institute (a part of NASA) and an administrative position rather than a research one that he has not become an expert by experience but Dr Hansen really is typical of pretty much all that currently are proponents of global warming. They don't have qualifications in Climatology. But then we get into the consensus argument and I personally think this is a terrible way to argue science. You argue the science, not how many people agree with you. If science worked by consensus the Angels would be scientifically accepted "fact".

2. Concentrations of CO2 historically.

Firstly, the last 800,000 year records are determined by ice cores and the physics of whether this actually represents atmospheric CO2 levels historically is no where near as certain as all the pretty graphs lead people to believe. But ocean sediments and various other indicators of what was in the atmosphere in the past does suggest that CO2 levels in the last 600,000 years have been much lower than now. I changed the numbers because the 200,000 years tacked on is more difficult to establish than the 600,000 years. But I'll be happy to agree that in this Ice Age, about 3 million years by the definition I prefer (this Ice Age can be defined many different ways making it between 1.3 million and several million years in duration), that CO2 levels today are the highest of the period. But this ice age is just one of several the world has experienced. The world's "norm", for want of a better term is to be much colder in the Northern Hemisphere than it is now. Several times the CO2 levels have been many many times higher than today and at least one of those times this did not stop the world going into a major glaciation. Indeed, it would seem that CO2 levels from a paleo-climate perspective and warm and cold periods are not even remotely related.

If we go back to the 600,000 records of CO2 and look at the correlation between temperature and CO2, assuming in at least broad brush levels the figures bandied about are at least sort of related to the actual historic temperatures, the two are linked. When CO2 levels rise the temperature is higher. But the nexus is not that CO2 causes the temperature to rise, rather it is the other way around. The rise in CO2 lags behind the rise in temperature, often by more than a century. In other words the temperature CAUSES the CO2 to rise and fall. Don't take my word for it. Go to the NASA climate site and look at the graphs or the data. Look at the ice core analysis for the Antartic done by the Russians, the US, etc, etc, and you will find the same thing.

And you are quite right about CO2 levels being around 300 and something ppm currently. Even a few hundred years ago it was less than half this. It's the ppm bit that I often find is missing from any sane discussion. If anyone actually starts a discussion about climate with me, the first question I tend to ask is what percentage of the atmosphere is CO2. I give a few options and in all these discussions never get parts per million. The most common answer is 2% to 5%. To me that suggests that the whole process has not been very well presented to the educated public that has no special knowledge of climate but means nothing in relation to any scientific argument.

3. Surface Air Temperatures (SAT)

Dan Morgan has actually been polite in his response for which I thank him. He questioned the relevance of the data I have been collecting. "What has the data got to do with the problem" was the question. Hmmm. Let's see. Without those nice little graphs that show the world has warmed by 0.6 or 0.8 degrees over the last 127 years (the graphs tend to start at 1880), there would be no suspicion of global warming. It is the SAT that is fundamental to the argument that there is any global warming at all. So the data on temperatures recorded daily around the world is staggeringly important to any argument relating to global warming. I prefer satellite data but it only starts in 1979. It does not show a warming trend so there are all sorts of convuluted arguments about whether it really is accurate to many hundreds of a degree. The trouble with all these arguments that even if they were true and the data corrected for such things as satellite drift, the data still does not show a warming trend but by throwing up arguments that suggest that the data is somehow suspect that simple fact gets lost amongst the noise. Next level of accuracy for temperature data is still not SAT, but balloon data. This data goes back to the late 50s but to get a world average you can't use it until the mid 70s on and now it is being phased out because of the incredible accuracy of the satellite data, with its 17,000 times a day measurement of temperatures around the earth (twice actually) at various altitudes. The balloon data also does not show a warming trend and while it does not match the satellite data in absolute numbers it does match the pattern almost identically.

Currently Surface Air Temperature is recorded at over 7,000 weather stations around the world. This figure obviously varies over the period from 1880, with only 3% of these stations keeping records for the majority of the period. Why is the collection of raw data relevent, at least to me? Because all the data that is relied upon by NASA and everyone else that makes those pretty graphs that show a warming trend are monthly averages from weather stations. How do those monthly averages get calculated? Don't know. Can't tell you. Cannot tell you how often the method of calculating the averages changed for a particular collecting authority. Cannot tell you if they were even collecting the data from the same physical location. And how you calculated the average daily temperature can change the average by as much as 3 degrees celcius. The only data that is likely to be consistent over any considerable period is the recording of maximums and minimum daily temperatures. Still can't tell you whether the recording box was moved, what instruments were changed, what time of the day they took the records, whether they were recording the minimum for the day they indicated or for the previous day (this differs throughout the world) or even if the maximum really was the hotest temperature for the day or just the temperature recorded at some arbitrary time in the day that normally is around when the temperature is hottest. In some cases the data may even be fictional. The recorder couldn't be bothered going and reading it and so wrote down something that seemed about right. There are weather stations where records were kept often for considerable periods despite the equipment being broken or having never been installed.

If you were interested in data collection in general and the relevent accuracies of various things humans have recorded and kept records of, the temperature data for the last 120 years would probably be ranked as the worst in reliability out of pretty much anything that has been recorded, at least in respect to comparability between one period and the next. No one ever thought to calibrate temperature gauges against the previous one when they were replaced for instance. Weather stations rarely stay in the same physical location over an extended period. There always seems to be some reason why the recording station needs to be moved, sometime in the weather station's history.

I really biggie is that the British, and their empire stetched around very big chunks of the world during the periods that are relevant to this discussion, had a really bad habit of forgetting which side of the equator they were on where they positioned weather stations relevant to north or south of the building. Later the error was corrected by moving the weather station to the opposite side of the building.

I've seen photos of temperature stations near air conditioning outlets. I know of one station used in a study that was moved 100 metres uphill in the late 80s because it was too cold at the lower level for the staff and the uphill area was better protected from the bitter local winds.

You'd think that all these types of errors would cancel out because there are thousands of weather stations. The trouble is that there might be thousands of weather stations but the concentration, especially going back more than 40 years, clustered the more reliable stations in small areas of the globe and vast areas need to rely on data from a very few stations.

The other problem is that the errors tend to not be random but have caused higher recorded temperatures with time.

On top of all this, you also have the problem that weather stations are pretty much always where humans are. There are some weather stations in very remote locations but they are very very rare. Historically, weather stations are most reliable in large population areas and it is in these areas that the weather station is subject to all sorts of changes that would effect the relative temperature being recorded. In agriculural areas, it can be as simple as sealing a road near the weather station. Night time temperatures will be recorded as higher when you do this. The building next to the weather station might have changed from a little timber shack to a multi story concrete or brick structure. And this type of thing isn't an isolated event. Weather stations are typically either at airports (at least from about the 1920s) or next to a government structure such as a post office. How many post offices in your area can you think of that have not changed in structure in 120 years?

And if you've bothered to read this far, I'll address Mr Morgan's last query. Polar melts. Antarctica. Western Antarctic climate has warmed and the sea ice has melted. Eastern Antarctic climate has cooled and the land ice has accumulated. Overall there is now more locked ice in the Antarctic than at any time in the last 50 years. Changes in local weather patterns over time are the norm not the exception. Arctic ice. Sea ice has diminished but not by as much as the newspaper articles proclaim but land ice has increased. This is a much more difficult question because surveys done in the 50s of ice volumes were very inaccurate so its hard to compare. But since satellites the total loss of locked water in the Arctic has been ... well nothing. Greenland. Based on the only survey we have of how much ice there was on Greenland before satellites, there has been a significant loss of ice. Based on correcting the known errors in the survey that attempted to quantify the amount of ice there was on Greenland before satellites there may be no loss at all.

Glaciers. Yep retreating. But so what. We are in an interglacial period. They have been pretty much retreating for 11,000 years and the ones that are most often quoted, the equatorial glaciers have actually slowed in their retreat with much of the retreat starting 150 years ago, before CO2 levels rose. Oh, and don't take it as gospel that all glaciers are retreating. About 60% aren't.

What else did Mr Morgan mention? Flora and fauna distributions. Those that study these things indicate that human activity has caused the change in distribution, not climate. Same with diseases. The spread of diseases such as malaria actually does not correrelate very well with perceived increases in the world's temperature but rather the alteration of the environment and the encroachment of humans into areas that were previously left alone because they were disease ridden.

Growing seasons. Easy. More CO2, more growth with plants. This is a good thing. It has meant more productive agriculture. Same precipitation. Same temperature. More CO2 and the growing season and the growth rates of plants increase. Obviously if the temperatures increase also then to a point so will the production. But for many plants they are heat sensitive and increasing the temperature will not overall increase growth. But more CO2 will do it for pretty much all flora.

Was there anything else? Energy equation of earth. Greenhouse gases trapping more heat. Simple physics says Mr Morgan that the world has to get warmer. Except for the pesky problem that it has not been established that the net solar radiation reaching the earth's surface has actually increased at all. More greenhouse gases can actually mean more clouds and more radiation bouncing straight off into space. So the simple physics and the "law" that Mr Morgan often quotes is not so simple at all.

Oh and Mr Morgan also neglects to mention that there are now several studies that link changes in temperature over the last 100 odd years and even the last 1,000 years directly to sunspot activity. These studies suggest that this is the single factor that seems to change temperatures above all else. Doesn't matter that the CO2 level is. More sunspots and it gets warmer. Less sunspots and it gets cooler. And sunspot activity has been going gangbusters for those years that keep on being quoted as the hottest on record but all that changed in October 2006 when sunspot activity diminished and the sun is said to have entered perhaps its lowest sunspot period for thousands of years for the next fifty or so years. Funnily enough, the satellite data shows that the world really did starting getting cooler from October on. I would have thought there'd be a lag but apparently the effect is immediate. And the reason for sunspot activity and the earth's temperature has even been explained. It would seem that sunspot activity correlates with the strength of the magnetic field of the sun. Lot's of sunspot activity and the field sits way out in the asteriod belt about 15 billion kilometres. Almost no sunspot activity and the magnetic field collapses to about 12 billion kilometres. While the difference in solar radiation reaching the earth due to sunspot activity is really really tiny, the effect of the different magnetic field strengths on the earth apparently is anything but tiny.

Every major prediction of climate change because of Global Warming has had to be scaled back. The models keep on getting fiddled with because the earth hasn't got as warm as the predictions, the sea level hasn't risen, the water temperatures have not increased the way they should have according to the models. In all the clutter of reports bombarding the average citizen about how much worse Global Warming is going to make the planet, this type of information is lost.

Actually sea levels are a terrific example of just how wrong the predictions can be. There is no indication at all that sea levels have risen since 1980. If the world had warmed at the rate the SAT indicated this should not be so. The most reliable data of sea levels is actually Australia, facing three major oceans as it does, politically stable, having stable public servants, no wars (well except Darwin and a couple of spots in WA for a bit of WWII). Australia has 23 sea level stations that have been in operation for prolonged periods, most more than 80 years. Even ignoring land subsidence because of human's use of subsurface water, the average of the stations show a 3mm rise in 80 years. Taking into account the land movement, the average suggests a slight fall in sea levels. Despite all this, in 2005 the CSIRO announced to the world that the world's sea levels were rising. This was based on just two of the stations. Sydney and Fremantle (near Perth). Trouble is that Fremantle has significant land movement that can accurately be established and the stations to the north and the south of it do not correlate with a sea level rise at all. The sea level did rise at the Sydney station. But taking two stations out of the 23 because they showed rises is appallingly bad science to be charitable.

Pretty much any indication of "Global Warming" can also be challenged by looking at the real science. Hurricanes. Katrina was due to Global Warming. Now that was just garbage. Hurricanes in the Atlantic are cyclical and there was a lull that went away. Record number of Hurricanes. How about Hurricanes are now spotted and named because of satellites even when they are not very large and never make landfall anywhere. There is historic evidence that there has been greater numbers of hurricans and more severe ones in a single season in the past altough the evidence is anecdotal.

Tornados. Global warming is said to have increased these but what has happened boils down to doppler radar and nothing more. All those little Cat 1 tornados that would never be reported in the past are now being recorded. Taking Cat 3 or better tornados as a benchmark there has actually been a decrease in tornados since the 1950s. If La Nina kicks in big time that will change but that will not be because of any shift in world temperatures.

Sea temperatures. Using the most consistent data, the UK admiralty records, there has been no overall increase in 200 years.

Since I've only returned to this forum for a very short time to see if I could contact someone, I've made this post LONG. I could fill it full of references to studies but in the past when I've done this, it all gets rubbished anyway so I'm not going to bother.

I think that there is significance in the raw data and the revelation that SAT changes, even with all the inaccuracies, seem to be due to changes at night (and even then far less than is normally reported) and would really like to see a database of SAT that removes all of the inconsistencies that can be removed so there is a data set that is useful to those that need it for research but certainly can't do it myself. The data is available and can be obtained with considerable effort so hopefully someone else will undertake the process and one day we will have a data set that helps with Climate research. Whether there is a global warming problem or not, Climate research is still extremely important. Regional changes are the norm not the exception and those changes need to be known to prevent famines, to better utilise land etc. The risk of a return to a glaciation is quite real since we are so overdue for one and human technology has not yet advanced enough to prevent most of the world's population from perishing if this happened anytime in the near future. It could still be thousands of years away or global warming might be all true and may have already stopped it from happening at least for a few more generations. But the risk is such that having some warning system in place would be a good thing.


Richard

So, you are saying that you have found no reliable evidence of global warming, and that researchers who claim to have done so are most likely mistaken due to flawed data collection and/or analysis. On the other hand you think that, despite what you see as a lack of supporting evidence, global warming might still be happening.

Thanks for a comprehensive post. I was aware of a few of your basic points, such as the "greenhouse" misnomer and the albedo factor, but much of it was news to me.

I used to live in Australia. Ric sounds exactly what we would've called a "Pommey Baw-stid", a "Ten Pound Aussie", back then.

G'day Wolfman,

Your post was a personal insult. Don't like my opinions, then say so, hopefully in a constructive way, contradicting my arguments etc. I was born in Australia. I actually have aboriginal blood. My mother was English. What in the bloody hell does that have to do with anything?

Australians spell "B a s t a r d" just like that and "Pommy" without an "e". A Ten Pound Aussie generally was southern European, from Italy, Greece and the term was used for "foreigners", ie. those that were not English, not for British that migrated. Since the term belongs to the 50s, you must have lived in Australia a very long time ago.

This is the very reason why I didn't both with this site anymore. Quite aside from Mr Morgan not being able to stick to science or refrain from put downs, or comments relating to one's credentials (and he's still doing that I see in relation to Mr Lowe's qualifications, which actually can easily be confirmed) this site is also populated by people that can't discuss the issues at hand, like you have just done, but rather insult those that contribute. Just what do you think you added to the discussion at all by your post? While extremely long, my post directly related to posts by redewenur and Mr Morgan, and insulted neither. I was very happy to see that Mr Morgan's post was polite and have always been happy to engage him in a discussion when this happened.

Who wants to be on a site where insults are the common response to those you don't agree with. Thanks for confirming that this site has not improved at all. And that is a terrible shame.


Regards


Richard

G'day reewenur,

Close to my philosophy but not quite right. There is evidence that suggests that the planet has warmed, specifically since 1980 but also the earth has obviously warmed from 1880 or thereabouts simply because the earth had to thaw somewhat from the end of the third portion of the Little Ice Age. Perhaps if the data could be properly adjusted we may even be able to determine whether this is a longer term trend or just a fluctuation as has happened several times in the 20th century. The satellite data does not suggest any real increase, so at least for the period 1979 on, it does not seem to be a long term trend. Before we spent billions and did something really stupid like released chlorides into the atmosphere in an attempt to cool the planet down, it might be nice to actually determine whether there is a need to worry about warming or it is mostly just hot air.

There certainly has been regional climate changes due to man made activity and humans have managed to stuff up a great deal of the planet. The overfishing is now starting to have a real effect, the loss of rainforest and the species that go with it is appalling. So I'm not an ultra right winger who believes that free enterprise is best for the world. And prior to starting the research I did, I had no problem with the concept that the world was warming. I just had a real problem with the science relating to CO2 because paleo-climate knowledge that I had just didn't seem to gel with the concept. I was also well aware of just how tenuous the analysis of ice cores in relation to historic atmospheric conditions was. I was actually shocked at how seriously flawed major research was in relation to assumptions used or the methodologies used.

I'll give you an example. A research paper was published out of the Hadley Institute, a very prestigous British Institute, that concluded that urban effect was negligible. This has since been used as the basis of other research as is often quoted as "disproof" to urban effect being significant. The trouble is the research simply assumed that regional weather patterns translated to local specific wind conditions over various cities. It assumed that windy days negated urban effect. Where the research actually found data that contradicted the conclusions they were simply discarded. Now windy days may have an effect on urban effect but you can't just assume that is so, because you think it is. Some sort of research is needed to establish if wind plays a part. I personally suspect that windy days would not have a great effect but would not base any research on that assumption. Worse, was the assumption relating to large scale weather patterns being indicative of wind speed in a particular city for a significant enough period to make any difference even if wind did make a difference.

One last thought to leave you with. A panel of "experts" has just met and has stated that we can limit the world to "only" a 2 degree increase (which I would suggest would melt the poles completely and do a great deal more damage than they stated). Going from about 13 odd degrees on average to 15 is a rather big deal. They say that if we act now and reduce carbon output immediately by some percentage I can't right now recall and manage to reduce carbon output by 2/3 by 2100 then the damage will be limited to only 2 degrees. But it is necessary for Governments to act now. The trouble is the carbon output will increase by a massive amount in the next few years simply because the standard of living in China, India and other parts of the worlds is playing catch up with the West. I really like these types of ideas because the people that suggest them are utter hypocrites. I guess they have large houses, heating, cooling, and probably SUVs. They fly to various conferences such as the one they held to announce to the world what it should be doing. The hypocracy was at its height at the "Green" Oscars. So they used hybrid cars. The energy equations for these cars is actually pretty terrible because of the energy needed to make the batteries that only last two years or so etc but it makes people feel good. They said they used recycled paper but never mentioned that it takes six times the energy to reuse recycled paper than it does to cut down plantation timber, use it once and bury it. That really does trap carbon. Recycling just uses large amounts of energy that increases carbon. And what did the "Green" Oscars do for the people at the end of the functions. They had a bunch of extremely inefficient private jets waiting to ferry people all over the country. Energy efficiency would have been improved several thousand fold by simply having them fly in large commercial jets. Al Gore is a wonder with this, often using private jets. He has a house that uses 20 times the energy that an average US house uses and that is just one of the three houses he has running. And he has the hide to stand up there and to say to everyone that being carbon neutral is easy because he has bought for his family credits that cancel out the house usage. Yeah, it is easy, if you are that rich but credits do not really reduce carbon, only shift the usage around.

To actually achieve the proposed reductions would mean that those especially in China and India will actually have to reduce their standard of living from that it is now. If you are very rich it won't affect you but for the other 5.9 billion of us, the results will be about the same as the 1930s depression.

How likely is any government being able to implement any protocal that had this sort of impact. Does even the Chinese government have that much control over its people that it could tell them to go back to 15 to a room, no medical care, no electricity for much of the day, no pumped water, and they would now do so without rioting that would make Tianamen Square look like a picnic?

Carbon reductions such as suggested by this panel are fairy tale stuff. And anything less is just window dressing. It won't do anything. Cars run on oil and its going to take probably 20 years to come up with a practical alternative for even a proportion of the fleet. Of course, taxing fuel much higher than the US currently does, even to the extent of Europe would probably have a very big effect because it would stop the shift to monster SUVs, which now make up something like 30% of new car sales, which is insane. Registration based on actual road wear, etc, where small efficient vehicles have little tax and Hummers pay thousands would also help but what Senator would retain his seat if he voted for such a Tax? Actually, taxing road users for the real cost of using roads, including the cost of road building and maintenance would shift a great deal of transport back to rail but the US rail system is now operating with not a lot of slack and this would require billions that would have to come from the Government to duplicate tracks all over the place. I guess you could tax cheap imports from China to make them unattractive but then they would simply be made in Mexico because of the Free Trade Agreement. They'd be more expensive but still mostly affordable. And of course the world economy is likely to collapse if the US tried a stunt like this, being in debt to everyone in the world including huge amounts to the Chinese.

So just what can be practically done? Certainly not any credit system. It just makes a bunch of middlemen rich and allows the same carbon output with the illusion that planting trees, etc will somehow reduce carbon in the atmosphere. Yeah. Right. That is a bigger fairy tale than suggesting that the world could actually reduce carbon emmisions by 2/3's. Trees burn in fires. That releases all the carbon they have taken in. They die and decay and are attacked by bacteria etc again releasing carbon. Some carbon can be locked in by managing to bury the remains of the tree but this is actually a very tiny amount.

Short of returning to appalling living standards for most of the world's population, there is no solution to carbon output. The Roman's knew that they were wiping out entire species of animals that were important to fuel their games. It wasn't even an essential part of their existence, just entertainment. So did the emperor's cut back on the use of animals to protect what remained. Nup. They simply searched farther afield and touted the rarity of the animals! The reason they did this. Because the games had become an entrenched symbol of the might of the emperor and of the Roman empire and they simply were not willing to give it up. No government on this earth is going to give up carbon emmissions other than with stupid, probably very expensive gestures.

So even assuming that Global Warming is a threat that will cause real problems in 20 or 50 years, and carbon emmissions are to blame, what practical solution exists? Simple. Let the global warming do the damage and the usage will automatically drop.

This bit seems never to be mentioned. No one ever says, Global Warming is a real threat but it is now way too late to do anything about it. We can't seed clouds with chorides or other grandious schemes unless you want to risk a glaciation and kill 98% of the world's population. We really cannot play god with the world's climate in an attempt to cool the planet without the consequences being worst than what than the problem. You can't create a looming disaster myth without having a solution. When Global Cooling was the big thing in the 70s there were always solutions mentioned. Preach that an asteriod is going to destroy mankind and generally very quickly, with enough money for vigilence and for research and there are solutions. So it is with Global Warming.


Richard

Truly amazing RicS ...

all that hard work ...
all those words ...
not a single reference link ...

Let me show you how to say something more substantive, more informative, and more authoritative, in fewer words:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/obsdata/globaltemperature.html

Richard.
Thanks again for your views. As a layman, I general feel compelled to accept mainstream scientific opinion as having the higher probability of being based on the correct theories. Whilst, as a rule of thumb, that turns out to serve me well, history tells us that science has often advanced in dramatic leaps as a result of unconventional, not to say outlandish, approaches to problems. Richard Feynman was among those who have advocated eccentricity in thinking.

RicS wrote:

"So even assuming that Global Warming is a threat that will cause real problems in 20 or 50 years, and carbon emmissions are to blame, what practical solution exists? Simple. Let the global warming do the damage and the usage will automatically drop.
This bit seems never to be mentioned."

I tend to agree. That's why I rarely post comments on this thread. I always read other's comments though.

redewenur you would be well served, especially in this case, to pay attention to the view accepted by mainstream science.

Eccentricity has value. Unconventional thinking has value. That does not mean that any and anyone who claims the earth is flat is worth being listened too. Especially when what they propose contradicts known facts.

It would be eccentric, or worse, to blame global warming on the invisible purple rhinoceros ... and just as meaningful.

I'm always ready to listen, DA; it's my way of trying to avoid bigotry. You may have seen elsewhere, though, that I view GW as real. That dedate should now be over.

As for practical solutions:

(RicS)"So even assuming that Global Warming is a threat that will cause real problems in 20 or 50 years, and carbon emmissions are to blame, what practical solution exists? Simple. Let the global warming do the damage and the usage will automatically drop."

That is abhorrent. It would be abhorrent even if I did not have kids.