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

A new British research team has concluded concluded that

Mass gains from accumulating snow, particularly on the Antarctic Peninsula and within East Antarctica, exceed the ice dynamic mass loss from West Antarctica. The result exacerbates the difficulty of explaining twentieth century sea-level rise.

This of course is very interesting to me, and we do have some data from some Australian stations out on the cold continent. So lets see analyse the data from there. Mawson Mawson is a place named after Australian explorer Sir Douglas Mawson. Unfortunately they only have max and min data down there, and whilst I hate analysing data where the time isn?t kept constant, we shall give it a go anyway.



The graph above shows deviations from the average minimum temperature at Mawson from 1954. Tests prove no significant increase or decrease (F = 2.22, p = 0.14). And the graph below shows deviations from the average monthly maximum temperature, of which tests again show no significant increase or decrease (F = 0.07, p = 0.79).



Macquarie Island is an island half way between Australia and the Antarctic. It is officially according to the ABM part of the great ice continent. So why not do some analysis on that. We have luckily this time, temperature data at certain times of the day, and instead of littering a post with 10 graphs I shall merely put links there for them.

And here they are. Temperature deviations from the average for the times of midnight , 3am , 6am , 9am , noon , 3pm , 6pm and 9pm .

Whist the data only goes from the 1960?s, we do see a pattern amongst the data. It seems that in the years 1963 to 1973 we had a less than average mean monthly temperature. From the years 1977 to 1989 the temperature was on average 0.3 degrees greater than average. And since then it has been up and down.

What is more interesting is the extreme similarity amongst the graphs. I had to even check twice to make sure that the data was correct and that they were actually not graphing the same information. They weren?t, and what this means is that the temperature deviations year to year at different times at Macquarie Island stay relatively constant. In that, in a certain year if we were to experience an increase in 0.5 degrees at 3pm, then there is a reasonable chance that we would experience a similar increase at 3am and 9pm and noon etc.

All test on the data proved that there was no significant increase or decrease in temperature (midnight F = 0.87, p = 0.355; 3am F = 0.63, p = 0.43; 6am F= 0.47, p = 0.5; 9am F = 1.46, p = 0.23; noon F = 1.72, p = 0.09; 3pm F = 3.32, p = 0.75; 6pm F = 2.44, p = 0.13; 9pm F = 0.97, p = 0.33)

This is meaningless. What is the 95% confidence interval for the trend? It seems to me that the observed global warming trend of 0.6 ?C per century would fall well within your 95% confidence interval.

P values that are not very low are meaningless; they don't prove anything. The fact that you failed to obtain a p value that would strongly suggest that temperatures are increasing is not strong evidence to the contrary. For that you need to calculate the p-value for no significant deviation relative to the average global warming trend of 0.6 ?C per century. If that p value is very low then you have a significant result that points to Antarctica not warming as fast as the rest of the world.

Totally meaningless. This is absolutely hilarious.

If he has a degree in statistics I expect they'll be sending out a recall notice any day now.

you well and truly know Morgan that I have more than a degree in statistics. Can you please stop lying, it really doesn?t add to your credentials ? that is if you have any. Still awaiting an apology from you.

And Count, for Mawson minimum: decrease in temperature at the rate of 0.011 +/- .015 per year.
Maximum temps: 0.0016 +/- 0.0125

and also in case you hadn't realised, confidence intervals and the p value are very much related.

but if you want to test the theory of difference in temperatures to a 0.6 degree increase per century in temperature then I can oblige.

There is no evidence to suggest significant lower maximum temperatures than a 0.6 degree increase at Mawson (F = 0.72, p= 0.4; -0.006 +/- 0.013 per year ? note that even though the difference is not significant, the trend is still amazingly at a negative 0.6 degree less trend per year).

However, there is evidence to suggest a significant lower minimum temperature trend than a 0.6 degree in crease at Mawson (F=5.26, p = 0.026, -0.017 +/- 0.015 per year).

But of course that "evidence" is a secret that you are totally incapable of providing a link to.

Did the CIA send you the "evidence" in a locked case via a black helicopter?

Do you see a problem here JLowe? On one hand you claim to have a graduate degree and on the other you don't provide citations to support your arguments. So far the only evidence of your degrees is in your blog.

I haven't provided citations, because it is my own analysis.

"On one hand you claim to have a graduate degree"

please stop with the bs Morgan, you know the truth.

Jonathan, that's much better. If you do find a significant departure from the average global trend (perhaps by pooling together data from different places), then that is a result that will interest climate scientists.

cheers count. Please see my post in the other thread, which is a reply in more detail.

JLowe wrote:
"I haven't provided citations, because it is my own analysis."

An analysis that disagrees with that of CSIRO, NOAA, NASA, and essentially every reputable reference I can find.

And apparently that you can find too because were it otherwise you wouldn't be posting links to tour guides.

But lets return to the subject of this thread. You wrote:
"Antarctica shows no signs of warming up"

So, I presume, it is your claim that more ice is melting without any input of heat. Can you explain this without violating the laws of thermodynamics?

Actually no. CSIRO, NOAA, NASA and essentially every reputable reference I can find, have not done the in depth analysis of australia's temperature like I have, so they do not disagree with them.



Well, according to the British Antarctic Survey

- Antarctica seems to be both warming around the edges and cooling at the center at the same time. Thus it is not possible to say whether it is warming or cooling overall.
- There is no evidence for a decline in overall Antarctic sea ice extent.

Also
Comiso (2000) assembled and analysed Antarctic temperature data obtained from 21 surface stations and from infrared satellites operating since 1979. They found that for all of Antarctica, temperatures had declined by 0.08?C and 0.42?C per decade respectively, when assessed via these two data sets.

and...
Doran et al. (2002) examined temperature trends in this area of Antarctica over the period 1986 to 2000, reporting a phenomenal cooling rate of approximately 0.7?C per decade.
This dramatic rate of cooling, they state, "reflects longer term continental Antarctic cooling between 1966 and 2000," with the largest cooling centered around the South Pole and Dome C.

also...
Thompson and Solomon (2002) also report a cooling trend for the interior of Antarctica, while sea-ice concentration has increased and the length of the sea-ice season has increased over much of
eastern Antarctica and the Ross Sea."

and this too:
Watkins and Simmonds (2000) reporting on trends in a number of Southern Ocean sea ice parameters over the period 1987 to 1996, they found statistically significant increases in sea ice area
and total sea ice extent, as well as an increase in sea ice season length since the 1990s.

Hmm, so what was that question again?

JLowe wrote:
"Actually no. CSIRO, NOAA, NASA and essentially every reputable reference I can find, have not done the in depth analysis of australia's temperature like I have, so they do not disagree with them."

You, an individual with no claim to expertise in climatology are going to stand up and claim that you, and you alone, are the decider (I love that Bushism) as to what is and is not "in depth analysis." I love it.

JLowe wrote:
"Well, according to the British Antarctic Survey"
and
"Comiso (2000) assembled and analysed"
and
"Doran et al. (2002) examined"
and
"Thompson and Solomon (2002) also report"

and provides no link.

Still ... the ice continues to melt at an accelerating rate. I asked you to explain this without violating the laws of thermodynamics. Do you see an explanation? I don't.

actually, "CSIRO, NOAA, NASA and essentially every reputable reference" have only done analysis on maximum and minimum temperatures in australia. Not else. My case is proven and defended.

Cosimo (2000) - http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0442(2000)013%3C1674:VATIAS%3E2.0.CO%3B2

Doran et al. (2002) - http://www.uic.edu/classes/geol/eaes102/Doran.pdf

Thompson and Solomon (2002) - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query...p;dopt=Abstract

Watkins and Simmonds (2000) - http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2000JCli...13.4441W

First reference:
"Manuscript received June 9, 1998, in final form August 31, 1999"

Second reference:
Decent. I'll follow up on it.

Third reference:
I'm not sure how to interpret climatology published by a medical publisher other than to assume that if they had something of value in climatology they'd have been able to publish it in a journal on climatology. No data and no link to any actual work.

Fourth reference:
Six years old referring to events 10+ years ago. So what?

Now you try these one:
http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2006/melting.shtml (2006)
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=106798&org=NSF (2006)
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/MediaAlerts/2006/200603.html (2006)
http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/publications/shelf_melting.cfm (2003)

You see the problem here JLowe is that science is not static. You can't just throw up work that has been supplanted and say ... see here's was the state of the art a decade ago.

If you want to take the minority view, and you are, then it is up to you to refute the work done in 2003-2006. The satellite pictures are not subject to spin control. You can't point to a decrease in sea-ice and claim it is something else.

"You see the problem here JLowe is that science is not static"

Ohh I agree. That's my point. There are cases for and against. At the moment, we are not really sure if antartica is warming up or not because of CO2 levels, or if Antartica's ice is dissapearing or increasing because of man made CO2 levels.

YOu are right, the evidence is for and against. Both sides equally as strong in debate. So why then are we spending billions of dollars on this, apparently already decided conclusion, when there are a billion of other issues more important in the world, like for example, the starving and poor on Bangladesh, Africa, and elsewise?

JLowe wrote:
"Ohh I agree. That's my point. There are cases for and against."

For and against what? Ambiguous statements?

JLowe wrote:
"At the moment, we are not really sure if antartica is warming up or not because of CO2 levels"

We know it is melting: And rapidly! Want to sit around debating it while the major cities in your country submerge?

Here is what we know for sure ...
1. we are increasing the CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
2. increasing CO2 means increasing heat absorbed.
3. increasing heat being absorbed means an increase in temperature.
Or are you now going to dispute matters of high-schools physics?

JLowe wrote:
"YOu are right, the evidence is for and against."

I never said that. There is no evidence against. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Nyet! Stop spinning!

JLowe wrote:
"So why then are we spending billions of dollars on this"

We? We? You haven't spent a penny.

All of a sudden you are the great humanitarian arguing that it is impossible to feed the people of Bangladesh and Africa (how much of your personal money have you contributed to the cause in the last decade?) and also deal with decreasing our contamination of our environment. Since when does doing one preclude doing the other?

I found this site whilst surfing the net. I am very interested in the current debate on climate change. But please DA Morgan can you keep the jibs and cheap shots for a less proffesional forum. I am keen to hear both sides of the debate. I find your approach very low to the ground DA Morgan. I am concerned that you have moderator below your name. Can you start being a moderator and not a comedian. This is the first site i have found that has someone being a contraion. It is refreshing to see but the level of debate from you DA Morgan is of grave concern.

Welcome , Fact, this IS a good Forum, but we have a lot of "testosterone" flying around here at times. The Nay-sayers are a very vocal minority here when it comes to GW. In their world. everything's Jake, we have no worries. I guess the loss of the Larsen Ice Shelf a few years back was just Mother Nature cleaning house. Whattaya reckon?

fvf wrote:
"But please DA Morgan can you keep the jibs and cheap shots for a less proffesional forum"

There are less professional forums? ;-)

There are two sides to this debate the way there are two sides to the debate about whether smoking causes cancer ... the way there are two sides to the debate about whether there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

There is no debate. There is only footdragging by the slow and the greedy.

quote from DA Morgan, "There is no debate. There is only footdragging by the slow and the greedy"

Thanks for furthering the debate on "Climate Change"

Now we are told a hundred times a day that there is Global Warming. Where is the data on an increase in temp ?
I have seen JonathanLowe data. I am yet to see comparable graphs and explanation of methodology from the other side .
Can someone help with that data. i would like to preview it.
Does anyone have links ??

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.

G'day redewenur,

You're right it is abhorent. It is amazing the amount of people that say the debate should be over yet there are a number of greatly respected scientists such as Dr Singer, that do not agree with pretty much all of the mainstream views relating to global warming. They might be a minority but they aren't idiots or even zealots. As far as I can tell with the senior climatalogists that do not agree the debate should be over, they base their arguments on sound science and the belief that science should be forwarded by sound research.

I have children too, by the way. Five plus three. I would rather their world was better than mine and that includes environmental issues. But there are some things that despite sounding callous or as you said abhorent, there just isn't alternatives, and I'm one of those that ascribe to the theory that it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. I just haven't seen anything in the way of a achievable solution, even if I agreed that carbon was such a big bogeyman and I really don't. But having more efficient cars, much cleaner coal power stations etc can only be a very good thing. I'm all for it for sensible reasons.

So if you think my comment is abhorent how about suggesting something, anything, that could practically and politically be achievable. By the by, such steps as turning air conditioning off, using energy efficient lighting, and even suddenly swapping to cars that are say three times as efficient would have almost no effect on the increase on carbon emissions now or ever. Our government has decided that all incadescent lights should be banned from 2009. Bugger the fact that there are serious environmental concerns for the fluorescent ones and they simply are not pratical in some locations. If every light was changed what would be the effect. The calculation was that it would be .0014% of Australia's carbon output. Now that is just ridiculous and this is from someone that actually has replaced all but two or three lights throughout the house with energy efficient ones.

So tell me redewener, what do you suggest? Oh and by the way, Global Warming or even a return to a glaciation should not effect your children providing your country does not get invaded because it is safe from the effects. The tropics do not warm up even in the past periods where the poles completely melted. And my children should be OK as well because the effect on the Southern Hemisphere would be perfectly manageble, unless you have an ocean front house and we certainly do not have that.

From paleo-climate evidence, even if the poles melted, the world would still be habitable. C02 has been many many times what it is currently or what it will be in 2100 with the earth closer to the sun and still not all that much happened. It was not a time of a major extinction event and a major glaciation occurred despite the fact that the earth had managed to get much hotter than all but the most absurd predictions. The dislocations would be huge. Vast tracts of the planet would go underwater such as Bangladesh, Netherlands and this would cause huge problems. But agriculture would be available over more areas than now and growth would be astonishing compared to today.

I'd prefer it didn't happen and suggest that it won't. My worry remains that some idiot or government such as Gore deciding to run, getting into power and funding the massive seeding of chorides or some other cooling chemical into the air, causing massive environmental problems and sending us into a glaciation. Now that is likely to kill your children. Actually not likely, almost certainly. Not because they will be cold but because the food supply would be sufficient for about 1% of the planet and it would take three to five years to get it back to a a level that would support large populations, assuming the industry remained in place to allow for the relocation of most of the earth's agriculture. For instance Australia's dry wheat belt would get way too much rain at the wrong times and other crops such as rice would have to be grown instead. That takes time.

It is the "big gesture" solution that terrifies me, not the carbon credits, the plans to replace coal with wind etc. Wind power can replace about 5% of coal stations based on current technology with problems that rarely get mentioned. No power is free. Solar power requires rare earth minerals and there just isn't enough to use this to replace all that much. Mirrors in Central Australia or desert parts of the world could supply energy but again way too little to do all that much.

One of our MPs wants to replace all coal power stations with thermal power from a massive hot water aquifer. The equations suggest it could replace a couple of percent but the risk is high that the energy transfer could trigger earthquakes etc.

I actually saw a "serious" proposal to use methane instead of petroluem to power cars. Oh what a terrific idea. Methane is a greenhouse gas about 40 times the effect of Carbon and there isn't a method invented that could burn methane cleanly. So it seems that the bogeyman has been selected as carbon to the point where, if you accept the damage greenhouses gases do, a more dangerouse greenhouse gas is offered up to reduce carbon.

To me, all the ideas so far, far from lighting a candle in the dark, are akin to lighting a candle in a hurricane. Doing nothing is the hardest thing man can ever do. Our brains are not wired for this but I would really like if scientists that came up with ideas that could effect large regions or the planet or even the economy should have to take an oath starting with the same beginning as the hypocratic oath, "First do no harm".


Regards


Richard

G'day Mr Morgan,

Thanks for the link but I already have. So what does it prove. The majority of the information is based on one of the three major world SAT datasets that contains only monthly averages. It does not include any satellite data.

I just wrote a critique of a Hadley Centre research paper and you actually present a page that refers to research relating to it. How about addressing those issues?

Oh, and I really liked the following:

"Global analyses of SST, sea ice and night marine air temperature since the late nineteenth century". Reference at bottom of page. Now what was I saying about NIGHT temperatures. Of course I could also argue that the dataset used for ocean temperatures has amazingly bad data. I still prefer to use just the Admiralty UK data because it is consistent. Trouble is that data does not show an air or surface water temperature increase and where would the fun be in that. So how about you suggest why the Admiratly data is so different from the rest of the data.

And you are willing to continue this discussion I'll happily do so at least for a little while providing you do not reference news articles, opinion pieces or anything written by Dr Hansen. Preferably, you could actually answer the questions relating to assumptions, methodologies, datasets or even one of them.


Regards


Richard

RicS

"By the by, such steps as turning air conditioning off, using energy efficient lighting, and even suddenly swapping to cars that are say three times as efficient would have almost no effect on the increase on carbon emissions now or ever."

Interesting. Can you present figures to support that?

"I'm one of those that ascribe to the theory that it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness".

- What is the nature of your candle? I see those who make an effort - any effort, no matter how small - to combat energy consumption and pollution, to be the ones lighting candles. Whether or not they are successful is not the point; they try, that's the point. The fact that I may have no answers that satisfy your own particular criteria for being "worthwhile" is no grounds for giving-up-the-ghost. The fact that a particular energy saving policy reduces power consumption by a mere x% does not mean that the policy should be abandoned. Neither would I ridicule the use of "cars that are say three times as efficient", as you appear to be doing.

"Oh and by the way, Global Warming or even a return to a glaciation should not effect your children providing your country does not get invaded because it is safe from the effects. The tropics do not warm up even in the past periods where the poles completely melted. And my children should be OK as well because the effect on the Southern Hemisphere would be perfectly manageble, unless you have an ocean front house and we certainly do not have that."

- please, read what I said: "even if I didn't have kids". Do you really suppose that I'm callous enough to ignore the rest of humanity - shame on you, sir! - and do you imagine that any country will be immune from the effects? It's a small world, you know, full of interdependence. (Incidentally, I'm from England, and just happen to be living here right now)


"You're right it is abhorent"

"...you think my comment is abhorent"

-absolutely

"but I would really like if scientists that came up with ideas that could effect large regions or the planet"

- but you don't believe they should try, because you deny that there's evidence that calls for it.

Do you have any thoughts on Siberian tundra methane gas?

RicS asks:
"So what does it prove."

It proves that you are incorrect.
It proves that what you are doing is invalid.
It proves that the laws of physics have not been violated.

RicS wrote:
"I just wrote a critique of a Hadley Centre research paper"

I just drank a latte' from Starbucks.

No references. No content. No substance. Don't you ever think that if the development of antibiotics had been left to the people who confuse science with unconventional opinion that we'd still be living in caves?

So far you've not presented a single verifiable fact.
So far you've not presented a single reason why NASA is wrong.
So far you've not presented a single reason why NOAA is wrong.
So far you've not presented a single reason why CSIRO is wrong.

What you've presented is verbosity.

MOrgan morgan morgan . RicS wrote
"The majority of the information is based on one of the three major world SAT datasets that contains only monthly averages. It does not include any satellite data."

Address that in a proffesional manner and then others might give you the credibility you seek.

I think RicS is asserting that the data where the GW assumptions come from might have some serious limitations. RicS has valid points on past data collection and its limitations.
Jonathon Lowe does the same in raising the issue that the data used so far could be inadequate. Mr Lowe then goes on to give an alternative view. You reply to those with derision.

factsvsfiction wrote:
"The majority of the information is based on one of the three major world SAT datasets that contains only monthly averages. It does not include any satellite data."

I can read.

Precisely what did he post that leads you to believe that this is true? Precisely did he post that leads you to believe that climatologists worldwide are using inadequate datasets to make the case about global warming?

G'day Dan,

I'm leaving again. This is just a waste of time as a site to discuss anything. All that happens is rather than discuss the particular points, you level sometimes quite mean attacks at individuals.

As to you redewenur, I actually did provide one figure. Here's another. If Australia stopped everything the difference to the world's output of carbon would be 1.8%. Trouble is Australia cannot stop bushfires even if you killed every single human being. As to who is safe and who isn't, the things humanity now does manages to let millions and millions die each year and no one seems to complain. Global warming may effect lives or it might actually make lives better in third world countries. I find it fascinating that people are quite willing to damage and kill third world people in attempts to reduce carbon output yet are not at all willing to do really basic things to stop tens of millions of lives lost through such things as clean water, cheap medications and the re-introduction of DDT.

If carbon is the big culprit of global warming then anything you do, no matter how large, will have no effect. So saving energy etc is not going to help in any way at all. Every little bit helps is a saying that does not always hold true. If Kyoto was signed by every country in the world and adhered to the difference in CO2 increase would be so minute as to be not measureable. For instance your former home has signed it but does not adhere to it at all.

Anything that does other damage but makes you feel good, especially things that make individuals feel good but have no real use, are not at least doing something, they are causing harm.

As to figures, you can find them anywhere. Domestic energy use in developed countries accounts for a very small proportion of CO2 output. It is industry that uses most of it, industry that creates jobs and makes energy efficient cars or the batteries to power hybrid cars or whatever. I think I mentioned the brilliant idea of the Australian government of simply banning incandescent lights. Quite apart from the insanity of banning something without compensation to those that bought it legally and the legitimate uses that only incadescent lights fulfill, if every person complied the difference in energy efficiency would be .0014% for Australia.

In this particular argument CO2 rates in the atmosphere are going to GO UP for a very long time yet to come, no matter what we do. Everything that has been suggested is fairy tale stuff. It is not going to stop going up because it makes you feel good to turn off your air-conditioning or even if everyone did it.

And all of this without any hard science linking CO2 to global warming in the first place.

And Dan, so what that you drink at Starbucks, the subject is global warming. I actually said what I found wrong with the study. If you don't agree with me, tell me why scientifically I was wrong. Suggest why the assumptions used had validity. Your comments are just a personal attack with nothing to back it up.

As to proofs, what proves that I'm incorrect, or invalid or any of the other comments you made? You saying so? Huh. The data sucks big time. There is a great deal of documented critiscms of the data from very respected sources. They are easy to find. The guardians of the datasets themselves often indicate the inadequecies. Of course, then you get NASA whitewashing the whole thing by saying that the problems are minor, without ever actually showing why the problems are actually minor.

The simplest test of all is that the data from weather stations does not even remotely match the satellite data. How about addressing that. If the satellite data shows no trend overall since 1979, don't you think that suggests something is wrong? And if you don't then say why you don't, not why I'm wrong or an idiot. That just gets boring real fast.


Richard

Dan,

One last word. If I was running this site, I'd have banned you long ago. Freedom of speech is fine but doing nothing but personally attacking others and refusing to actually discuss the topics to the point where no one is willing to stay on the site to offer a counter opinion is so damaging as to be worthy of restricting your rights.

You used to take part in discussions and offer counter views or reasons why you did not agree with someone. Now your personal attacks seem to be the only way you can argue in the Climate Change forum and you do it so frequently and so repetitiously that there is no one here that is willing to actually argue the science of why the whole global warming "fact" may not be as solid as most make it out to be.

To dismiss science because it doesn't agree with your world view or denegrate individuals because they don't take a popular view is not all that much different to the Catholics of the middle ages that managed to ensure their doctrine was the only one heard because they threatened imprisonment or excommunication to all those that offered a counter view. The current hysteria surrounding global warming doesn't go to the extreme of locking someone up but it certain can destroy careers, get people fired.

So this forum is supposed to discuss global warming. If everyone agrees with your point of view then what is the point of the forum? It's all been decided, according to you, so close the forum down. There is nothing left to discuss.

Stifling debate on any scientific matter is censorship. Your actions are of the worst kind because you not only have nothing substantive to offer in counter to any view that does not agree with you but your attacks questioning people's academic qualifications or straight personal attacks, quite aside from sometimes being defamatory, just result in driving away those that really could contribute to a debate here. For that you should be very ashamed.


Richard

I would say that's reasonable, since Australia's population is < 0.5% of the world's total. My point about your claims is not that they are necessarily all incorrect, nor that you don't give any figures; it's that you don't provide references/links to research that can substantiate them. This, quite naturally, leads one to believe that perhaps what you say cannot, in fact, be substantiated, and is simply your personal 'intuitive' conclusion. There's no further need here for emotionally charged confrontation. If the sources of your facts, as you see them, are available to all, then it would be most helpful if you could give references.

RicS wrote:
"This is just a waste of time as a site to discuss anything."

Everything I want to say in response has already been said by redewenur: above.

"it's that you don't provide references/links to research that can substantiate them. This, quite naturally, leads one to believe that perhaps what you say cannot"

This is what I've been saying to you from day 1.

G'day Redewenur,

What you are asking requires effort, something since, Mr Morgan will not accept any research that disagrees with global warming or questions scientific methodologies of studies that relating to global warming over and over and over again, is as best as I can see a big waste of time.

If you really were open minded, you should be willing to poke around a little yourself. I wouldn't suggest you look at future predictions based on computer models because to date none has proved even remotely accurate. However, there is a great deal of information available even on the net from respected scientists about the continued rise of CO2 in the atmosphere and reasonable projections based on solid data. I personally tend to agree that there will be a 60% increase in CO2 atmospheric output before there is any prospect of a levelling off simply because of the needs of developing nations mainly China and India. They are not going to simply stop modernisation because ANYONE suggests they should bear the brunt of a CO2 reduction.

The point you seem to be missing is that CO2 will continue to increase because of what we have done in the past with estimates ranging up to around 600ppm and that is without the sensible addition of the world's increasing ouput of carbon as the population peaks at 9 billion or a bit more and modernisation occurs. These sorts of figures can be found all over the place. Some of the predictions are really far fetched but you can find many where the arguments are reasoned and the science sound. I'm just not going to do the searching for you because I don't need to justify the comment at all. It was provided as "food for thought" rather than a post where I wanted to refer to very specific research.

Actually, the question of increased CO2 regardless of what is now to be done, is on so many pro-global warming sites, you would be hard put not to find such a reference.

My point was that if an increase to 330ppm is so disastrous then surely 400ppm or 500ppm or even 600ppm is even more so. And once the results are catastrophic the actualy degree of damage may not be that important. If, as is now being suggested, the "tipping point" has already been breached, then it doesn't matter what anyone does, the world is doomed.

If you turn off your airconditioning and so does everyone else, industry reduces CO2 by 60% in say 5 years but 330ppm is disastrous anyway, if everything you do means that the CO2 levels reach say 525ppm rather than 540ppm, do you really think that is going to really do anything to save the planet?

I don't know how far these threads are achived but, contradicting Mr Morgan completely, myself an two or three others, actually went to a great deal of trouble to answer specific points, including references to research. I even spent several hours once listing a reasonable list of research papers addressing points that Mr Morgan raised. The response? Mr Morgan said that basically were rubbish. And he said this after two days when, unfortunately, pretty much all research that I quoted is not available on the net unless you have a paid prescription to various sources.

However Mr Morgan has never, not once, actually discussed any issues raised as to serious flaws with various research. He refers to newspaper or news articles pretty much exclusively and almost all of those say "if this continues ...", "the scientists say this may ...", in other words guesswork about the future without anything solid to really back it up.

The Antartic is a prime example. Myself and another member quoted various studies that showed the actually locked ice had increased in 50 years. Mr Morgan ignores this type of comment, especially when it is backed by hard solid research. Yet he still happily posts threads that predict or point to the loss of ice from the Antartic. A much simpler example is that, unlike Mr Morgan, I have a decent background in palea-climatology and have been studying climate at a fairly detailed level for more than 30 years so when someone posts a comment about climate that is just plain wrong such is Mr Morgan did with respect to the supposed 2007 going to be a record hot year and I replied to that post detailing the events of the last few months relating to the switch from an El Nino event to a developing La Nina, you get ... deafening silence. You should have no trouble looking this up. It is a few threads down from this.

I've posted threads or posts on this site that have gone to considerable trouble to point out inaccuracies in global warming hysteria, including some major points relating to Mr Gore's book and film. None of these were the subject of counter discussion because that would then involve real science and that is not allowed on this thread.

Mr Thompson's study that Mr Gore uses extensively seems to be deeply flawed in its methodology. He drills six ice cores. He gets six different results. Two of them agree with his world view. Four do not. The two that do agree are statistically more extreme than the other four so Mr Thompson averages the results and announces to the world his findings "proving" his theory. I don't think any reasonable scientist would suggest that averaging results in this situation was appropriate or that the end results proved anything. Yet, Mr Thompson is a darling of the global warming brigade, despite a number of scientists, even those that think his conclusions are probably valid, have a great deal of difficulty with the science.

The hockey stick curve is another example of really flawed science. This one even very very pro global warming advocates attacked on the basis of the science. Mr Gore still uses it, as does a number of other prestigious institutes. And if you drill down to the actual science involved, it revolves around the use of tree rings to determine historic climate. Those that specialise in this field and solid scientifically valid methodology trials and tests show that tree rings are a terrible indicator of historic climate unless you know the precise precipitation rates where the tree was and what stresses the tree underwent. I don't need to refer to any of these studies to appeal to anyone with an understanding of basical agricultural knowledge to show why this is so. A thicker tree ring means the tree grew more that particular year. Why? Cut down a plantation pine ten years old where all weather data is known and the answer is: precipitation levels. More rain (up to the point of flooding) more growth. Next comes CO2 uptake. That is also just straight logic but again studies on trees such as plantation trees bear this out. If a tree takes up less CO2 because of disease, overcrowding, another tree falling into its canopy etc, then the tree ring will be thinner, regardless of precipitation or temperature. Finally, we reach the effect that is the one that everyone uses to "prove" historic temperatures, the change in the tree ring size because of temperatures. A mild winter and a warm summer and everything else being equal, the tree ring will be wider. But a really hot summer and low precipitation and the CO2 uptake goes down and the tree ring gets narrower.

So saying that a wider tree ring indicates a higher temperature is obviously not even close to the truth. Yet that is exactly what pretty much all global warming studies that want to argue about the relative temperatures during the Little Ice Age, the Medieval Warm Period, the Romam Warm Period, the Bronze Warm Period, etc do.

And in the most general terms the studies do tend to suggest a trend in temperatures historically. There might be droughts periodically and too heavy rain at times and stresses over the life of the tree but pretty much any tree ring of the period will show a narrowing during the three Little Ice Age cold periods and a widening in the Medieval Warm Period. But other than the broadest terms, without actual rainfall records for the particular tree, relative temperatures simply cannot be determined. You can't say, for instance, that the Mediaval Warm period really wasn't that warm. From tree ring analysis all you can say was that it was warmer than the surrounding periods. It could have been record hot temperatures or only fractionally warmer with better average rainfall but the tree rings simply won't tell you this.

I have challanged Mr Morgan many times to discussions on any aspect of climate change, including backing everything up with actual peer reviewed research studies to back up the various views and Mr Morgan has never once even attempted to do this.

I asked him to simply go to the NASA site and look at their dataset to see for himself that the majority of world sites do not show a warming trend (not a particularly difficult task becgause of how the site is set up and takes only a few minutes to perhaps an hour depending on the sample you decide to use). I even did a random sampling, listed all the sample locations and what they showed, and invited discussion. The result? More garbage about Mr Morgan only believing something if it is in a peer reviewed paper. All that shows is Mr Morgan does not wish to actually think for himself. He's happy to insult people merciliously, attack their credentials (which is just straight defamatory and actionable but that hasn't stopped him even when warned) but not to actually do anything to really support his views.

Instead of taking what I said as an insult to humanity and to yourself because I suggested your family at least should be safe, perhaps you should actually think about the science involved in climate change, if it really is that important to you and actually go to the trouble of not simply accepting what is published as gospel but passing a critical eye over a few things.

My view wasn't actually a lack of humanity, by the way, but rather a failure to see how the current attempts will have any effect at all even where they have the potential to do substantial harm and to cause greater suffering and deaths in the third world. It really irks me that the US government now allocates $3 billion of its $9 billion pure research budget to global warming. It certainly needs studying but the studies should be subject to the same need to impose adequate scientific processes on the studies as for just about any other field. A fraction of that money could actually save millions of lives yearly if applied to really practical research, so even creating global warming as the preiminent threat the world and something that can obviously be solved if you throw enough money at it, donate as much as possible to Greenpeace, etc, has managed to cause immense harm for no discernable benefit.

Oh and as food for thought, perhaps you might like to watch a UK production of a show that aired in early March relating to "the great CO2 swindle". I haven't seen it and it might not even be backed by good science but I have been told that the science is actually backed by scientists that really should know their field and hard laboratory research. You might not agree with it at all but it has to be of benefit.

I read Mr Gore's book and watched the movie. I was amazed at how tenous his arguments often where and how sometimes the information was actually outright false but it still was enlightening. The presentation was exellent and Mr Gore relates to his audience very well indeed. I could easily see him as a US President if he campaigned a similar way to the way he does his presentations. Some of his facts were accurate and I did learn from it. Perhaps, if you wish to do other than insult someone for being a bit flippant, without really knowing how they actually felt about humanity at large, you might wish to look at just a fraction of what I have suggested here. Since I doubt I'll be back again, if you want further topics to look at such as sea temperatures, sea level changes, locked ice changes, glacier retreats, the science of ice core analysis to name but a small selection just go back a few months a read some of the posts. You might find the post on just how big a difference different averaging techniques for weather stations make to the statistics. I covered that one in considerable detail.


Regards


Richard

Nuclear energy is a realistic alternative. We could reduce carbon emissions to almost zero within a decade by being more efficient with energy use, by using renewable energy and using nuclear energy. Using fast breeder reactors we can breed enough fissile fuel from the known uranium and thorium reserves for the next 30,000 years.

Yet again RicS you mistake size with quality.

2,181 words and not a single link to a single study that supports anything you've written.

Why someone might ask?

Perhaps because he can't find any.

He writes:
"Mr Morgan will not accept any research that disagrees with global warming or questions scientific methodologies"

But he is wrong. I will accept research. Long winded statements lacking in facts and peer review are not research.

He writes:
"I wouldn't suggest you look at future predictions based on computer models because to date none has proved even remotely accurate."

Which is pure nonsense (though I'd prefer a stronger word so please use your own substitution). Where's the evidence that the models are wrong Ric? Do you think us so lacking in IQ points that we will just accept your statement because you wrote it?

Tell us Ric why we should believe you and not the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
http://web.mit.edu/globalchange/www/MIT_R.Prinn.CT07.pdf

Tell us your qualifications
Post your Curriculum Vitae
Send us a list of your papers (journal, title, and co-authors)

ROFL!

RicS, see above.

One would actually expect that the climate change signal is absent in the data of all the sites individually. You have to average over the data of hundreds of sites to average out the fluctuations and be able to see the climate change trend of 0.6 ?C per century.

If you only look at trends in the data of individual sites, you can only see a trend if there is a large change in local climate which must necessarily be much larger than the climate change signal.

G'day Count,

[Just for Mr Morgan, to save him the hassle of pasting this into Word and doing a Word count, the total words are 2,731 not including this comment and there is not one reference. There is however a challenge for you and everyone that thinks they just know that global warming is a fact that does involve research. It should be very simple. So in a way there is a reference to research, just not to any specific research. I?m sure, since you just know I?m so wrong you and several others will have no difficulty in posting a single line post with an appropriate reference to valid research which should justify all these words if for no other reason than you will have the satisfaction of proving me wrong. I look forward to it.]

To Count, I'm sorry; I have no idea what you are talking about. A graph of an individual site over 120 years generally shows quite clear trends. It might show meandering around a mean, it might show a warming trend overall, a cooling trend or smaller trends, but it certainly normally shows some sort of trend. To put the statement you made, I can only wonder whether you have actually looked at many individual sites from the NASA dataset they present online in such a convenient form. Perhaps you have and your interpretation differs from mine. After all, it was for the purpose of working out a consistent method of analysis of the trends that I came back on the site, seeking contact with Mr Lowe. Unfortunately, it seems he has also become sick of the personal attacks and has permanently left so I guess my return will not last much longer before I have to assume this has happened.

The NASA data has been analysed by others (none that I personally consider all that well ? in respect to the question of validity and validation of the data only ? there has been other very good research done on the dataset). By my reckoning, and you are welcome to check by looking at the graphs of a large enough sampling to believe you have not just fluked a particular result, there is around 70% of world sites that show a cooling trend or no trend. There are around 25% of sites that show a warming trend but these sites tend to rise quite sharply from 1980 on. The median trend is a cooling one. The average is a warming one, so the overall trend of 0.6 degrees depends on what math you used and also what database. Out of the three main global temperature datasets, the trend is either 0.5 degrees, 0.6 degrees or 0.9 degrees.

But even if there is no problem with the database, as Dr Singer has noted in several interviews etc, as have a great many others, including a number of lead authors of the IPCC report on global warming, about 80% of the total warming of your 0.6 degrees occurred from 1880 to 1940. Then for four decades, despite man made carbon dioxide output into the atmosphere increasing exponentially, the world cooled. Then, depending on the dataset, around 1975 to 1979 it started warming again.

If CO2 is the reason for global warming, how come 80% of it occurred when man made CO2 output was relatively low, there was a four decade cooling trend when the CO2 output exploded, and then another warming trend starting when the world hit the oil shortages etc and the outputs actually dropped a little bit?

As to Nuclear Power stations, they cost around three times the amount to produce a Kw of power than a black coal power station and have a great many problems in themselves. Assuming the environmentalists would allow a great many power stations, the best that the world could do would be to replace around 25% of oil or coal power stations in the next 50 years. Since CO2 man made output is going to keep going up for at least 25 years whilst China, India and Africa plays catch up, even that huge effort, with the problems of actually supplying that much uranium safely, would not significantly reduce CO2.

Since Dan likes to challenge people to what their credentials are and accuse people of not having appropriate credentials perhaps he could say just what experience, expertise, published works or research he has done in climate science. This is not a challenge to Mr Morgan's credentials or knowledge of climate science, only a facetious challenge at him to show how meaningless such comments are on a public forum where non scientists have the same rights to their opinions as do those that have established backgrounds in the area discussed. And here is a challenge for anyone that firmly believes that global warming is a world threat AND is man made, find one single piece of hard science research that establishes any link between CO2 in the atmosphere and the climate warming.

I can quote more than 1,000 research papers that basically show no link at all; or much more correctly from the Vostok and all other ice core samples showing that CO2 increases FOLLOWS warming by between 80 and 800 years. I've actually gone to the trouble of providing citations in the past and Mr Morgan decided to ignore them, so I'll reverse the argument and challenge anyone to show research that establishes a link.

And how about a bit of social history. For around five years, there was a rather large environmental movement warning of a coming ice age. But then it warmed up a little bit. So how did global warming as a piece of climate theory come about? This is something that the co-founder of Greenpeace calls the biggest swindle foisted on the world to hijack legitimate environmental movements and allow anti-industry, anti-US, anti-globalisation forces to put on a friendly public face. I would suggest that the co-founder of Greenpeace might actually know something about the workings of the environmental movement and he doesn't believe there is any link between CO2 and global warming (nor does a great many climate scientists that were lead authors on the IPCC report that found their conclusions including the very important conclusion that there was no good evidence linking CO2 to climate change were altered by UN politicos - that little episode that includes the continuously quoted "consensus" when a significant number of the lead authors - scientists that actually knew what they were talking about - did not support any conclusion that said the link between human activity and global climate change had been established, many resigned in disgust, many asked to have their names removed, only to be told that they "contributed", even if they disagreed so their names stayed. Even the 2,500 scientists that were supposed to agree is actually a figure made up by a majority of non scientists i.e. political employees - oh and if you think I'm making any of this up, do a search in the New York Times archives, it was front page news about just how distorted the IPCC report was compared to what the lead authors originally wrote).

So how did it come about that global warming became a cause celebrity? The coal mining unions went on strike in Britain again during Maggie Thatcher's rule. The unions had already brought down one government and Thatcher was not going to have it happen to her so she took on the unions. It's a bit hard to remember all this but this was set against a background of OPEC cutting off oil supplies, hijackings of planes and the very real risk that oil supplies could become very uncertain. So Thatcher wanted to promote some form of power generation that did not involve unions or oil. Her solution? Nuclear. But the trouble was that most environmental groups opposed nuclear power with a vengeance so what did Mrs Thatcher do, she offered payment to climate scientists that published research that suggested that the warming that was then only a few years old was due to burning of fossil fuels. For the very first time, climate science actually had a ready availability of grant money as long as they went along with the very political pitch that CO2 was somehow causing warming.

The trouble is from a political point of view, this was like letting a genie out of the bottle. The radical environmental movements latched on to the idea with a vengeance because it was anti-industry and somehow living in mud huts without electricity is "natural" and "desirable" (well, as long as it is not the environmentalist who obviously needs to jet around the world, stay in air-conditioned hotels so they can get their important message across but rather some starving African or Asian who will likely die because burning timber or animal dung in a hut is an appalling way to live); it was anti-US because they are the biggest producer of CO2 of nations (actually the whole world's man made CO2 production is 100th of the CO2 released from animals, and about 1,000th of that released by oceans, as well as being less each year than the normal output by volcanic activity) and certainly anti-globalisation. It was heaven sent for environmental groups that were actually started to get on the nose of the normal first world country citizen.

None of this means that the theory might not be true, only that this little bit of social history has been very conveniently forgotten. The trouble is there just isn't any science to back the whole assertion up that CO2 causes global warming. There wasn't in 1985. Indeed, when the BBC ran a series on the earth's climate and predicted doom and gloom from cooling, one scientist suggested that CO2 output by man might actually reduce the amount of cooling. This was then a supposition, without any real science to back it up but there had just been shown that temperature and increases in CO2 are linked in paleo-climate, so the suggestion was made. It was roundly condemned at the time by many scientists that now wholeheartedly support the same theory but this was the first known public pronouncement concerning CO2 and climate.

Now, I've never been comfortable with the theory that CO2 or methane causes global warming. It never has in the whole of the past earth's climate so why would it now? That one never made sense to me. It didn't make sense when I was a Climate Science student in the mid 1970s and it still doesn't. On top of that, I believe there is good evidence that suggests that the world just hasn't warmed very much since 1880 and especially since 1980 and that the Holocene Maximum, the Bronze Warm Period and the Medieval Warm periods were all warmer than it is today although the evidence is mostly anecdotal and spotty at best. The balloon and satellite data put it at line ball for the period from 1980 and my research into surface air temperature data shows some very bad problems with the data, especially relating to how it is collected and averaged, with the averaging problem likely to have significantly over represented the average temperatures, strangely enough from around 1980. So my concern is that not only is there no proof in respect to CO2 but there doesn't even appear to be any significant warming.

Mr Morgan is obviously going to say that there is a great many words without any links but this one is for all those that are absolutely certain I'm wrong, in the pay of Exxon, or just a crackpot. In order to feel comfortable with your position you should be able to easily establish that there is a link between CO2 and warming and that the evidence is convincing and clear.

Shouldn't be too difficult. But you can't use Mr Al Gore's Vostok ice core correlations because what Mr Gore never mentioned (or more correctly made the rather strange statement that the evidence was very ?complex?, without explaining just what the complexities might be) is that while there is a very close correlation, the CO2 FOLLOWS the warming or cooling, not the other way around. Its just simple logic that a CO2 rise after the warming cannot possibly be responsible for the warming that happened before the rise. There is actually a pretty simple explanation, and it actually also relates to why carbon credits are such a huge waste of money and planting trees does not reduce carbon one iota from the atmosphere unless you get the tree at peak growth and bury it deep enough for the ground cover to be completely anaerobic. Most CO2 released or absorbed is done by the oceans. Next is the release by plants, bacteria etc. The oceans are so large and so deep that it can take centuries for the oceans to change in relation to the climate above them. The lag is known as a climate memory. When it warms, the oceans start to release carbon but this takes several decades and up to 800 years to actually get into full swing. Of course if in the meantime, a cooling occurs then the oceans start absorbing the CO2, but once again with a very long lag. Since the Pacific Ocean has a current that turns over vertically over a cycle of 10,000 years, a sudden change in a part of the ocean can actually reflect something that happened up to 10,000 years ago. And this is why predicting an El Nino or a La Nina until it actually starts to happen is so totally useless.

So all you have to do is find research that shows that climate has been changed by CO2 in the atmosphere rather than the other way around. If the global warming debate is over, then this should be a no brainer. All that is needed is a nice clear record of some past climate that shows an increase in CO2 that then resulted in an increase in temperature or even a nice controlled physics experiment that suggests that atmospheric CO2. Of course, the cosmic ray strength can't precede the warming because that would be a nice independent reason for warming since going back as much as 600 million years cosmic ray strength correlates inversely pretty much exactly with the worlds temperature.

But there still should be abundant evidence around since this is the core of the global warming theory and without it, the current warming is natural and therefore we shouldn't be doing anything about CO2 output (since CO2 is not a pollutant but actually a pretty good gas to produce a bit more of normally).

And if Dan Morgan would like to show a computer model of the world's climate that has had the predictions ring true without correction progressively for say 5 years, then he is welcome to sustain the comment that included the desire to swear that at least one model has proved to be accurate, despite not being able to model clouds and the fact that they are based on CO2 levels without any science to justify the nexus.

And speaking of computer climate models, there is actually starting to be a quite decent backlash at the lack of science holding up the global warming "fact", with an extremely important point being accepted as a major problem with any model that relates climate change to CO2 increase. In order for the theory to have any validity the models hold that the greatest warming would be in the troposphere, around 10km up. And that the earth's surface would lag behind for a while. Yet, the evidence is the exact opposite. The troposphere change in temperatures is much less than the earth surface. Now that one is a very big deal and I'd like Mr Morgan to point out one single model relating to climate change and CO2 increase that predicted that the warming would be greatest at the surface, not in the troposphere and indeed, the average of the troposphere shows no warming at all overall from 1980 (and if 1940 to 1980 was included it would show a pretty big overall cooling trend but since weather balloons were not used extensively enough to go back that far, there is a danger that extrapolating from the surface temperatures may give a false result).

And Mr Morgan, you have been warned before, that directly challenging credentials in a forum such as this breaches US defamation laws. Your belittling my credentials in your last post, when I have posted a number of times specific details of background and qualifications, is outright defamation, a deliberate slur or denigration of a person's reputation. You did this to Mr Lowe too not very long ago. Do you really want the owners of this site to lose their houses and have this site shut down for good? I do know that these discussions are being monitored by a rather right wing organisation that has an axe to grind with your type of personal attack so you are risking more than just me asking the moderator to remove the comment. I'd be well within my rights to demand that you be banned from commenting further in respect to anything I posted, with Kate risking a great deal if she did not comply. So DO NOT question anyone's academic qualifications or suggest that previously posted information may not be accurate again. I really don't think you realise what sort of risk you are taking, either that or you just don?t care about all those you put at risk and I can?t think you would be that uncaring. Given the time of the posting (and there would be no problem in tracking it back to the sending computer) if you posted the comment from a University computer, you have breached the University guidelines and could be disciplined and dismissed if the University decided the comments were defamatory. You are perfectly safe from me because there is no way I would put someone's employment at risk by lodging a complaint relating to a site such as this nor would I sue for the current types of comments you make, but you cannot just assume that no one else will ever take any action.

So, Mr Morgan, just do not attack anyone on this site personally or imply their credentials are lacking etc. It isn't all that hard. By all means insult people directly for their views, imply that they are crackpots or in the employ of the Republican Party or Exxon, count words and complain that no references were made, belittle any references that are made, whatever you want. But it should not be beyond the bounds of reason to limit the attacks to these things rather than step over the line to actionable matters. Better yet, how?s about just once actually discussing the topic of global warming by addressing the issues raised.

I?ll return at least once to see the flood of posts proving the CO2 ? warming link and naturally I will then admit my error. Being wrong is not a bad thing in science and it must be at least, oh a day or so, since I?ve been wrong in relation to climate change. I?m about due for another correction of my mistaken beliefs.



Regards


Richard

RicS. You wrote you were seeking contact with Mr Lowe.
It's usually easy enough. Click on the name and some method of private contact pops up.

You mention the Holocene Maximum. It's my understanding that about 10,000 years ago the climate was much warmer than at present. It then cooled again and gave rise to what used to be called the Younger Dryas vegetation. Forest returned to europe as the climate warmed again after this. I'm sure it would be easy to find links.

RicS wrote:
"Just for Mr Morgan, to save him the hassle of pasting this into Word and doing a Word count, the total words are 2,731 not including this comment and there is not one reference."

Thanks. You saved me the time I might have wasted reading your unsupported and unsupportable personal opinions hoping to glean one link to anything, however trivial, that might have supported your statements.

I read nothing beyond what I copied. "not one reference." A leopard doesn't change its spots.

RicS, just as a matter of interest - if nobody here is listening to you, why do you waste your time on the tomes? Surely there must be someone, somewhere on the net, who will accept what you say in good faith. I find it hard to believe that your regular returns to this forum, having promised that each time would be your last, are merely out of love for banging your head against a wall, or venting your frustration by putting the boot in. This will be my last post in this topic - I promise.

One explanation: Some people are incapable of validating their pet theories against reality and altering their belief system.

Look at my President for example. He was expecting the Iraqis to welcome US armed forces and throw flowers at them. He was expecting to find WMDs.

He still is.

G'day redewenur,

I have returned once and hung around hoping to make a contact as the email detail I have does not work. But I'm finished with the site at this point.

As to no one listening to me, when I posted regularly, I believe a number of people read the posts on this forum, including mine and they did have an impact. If anyone that holds a different view or wishes to challenge the "science" of global warming comes onto this site currently, they are subject to personal insults, belittling and very quickly leave.

I could ask you why you bother to come to this site if the only people that post are those that you agree with wholeheartedly. Surely, you can get all the propoganda relating to global warming by simply picking up a newspaper daily.

But I do note that neither yourself nor Mr Morgan is willing to take up the challenge of providing one single link to research that links CO2 increase in the atmosphere with warming. Mr Morgan did what he normally does with this type of query, he ignored it, and then added yet another insult. Telling people their belief system or "pet theories" are against reality, without any evidence to suggest they actually are, is nothing more than an insult, and the moderator for this site should have stepped in a very long time ago and removed such posts.

I do actually have people that listen to me. My research into temperature datasets has found a publisher and I've been asked and have given lectures on the subject, so I guess, not everyone is like you and simple doesn't listen to a contrary point of view.

Regardless of the views put on this site, when I posted regularly, I read them and considered them. If you want to participate in the site like this, that is the least you can do.

I'm actually not particularly frustrated by the way. Carbon credits waste billions but they don't do much damage in the scheme of things. It will only be if someone comes up with a way of attempting to lower the average world temperature that I will become greatly concerned. But since the solar cycle has entered a very quiet period, the temperatures have already moderated, my guess is in four or five years, those that rabidly followed global warming will start to look just a little foolish. Just as those that predicted large changes in ocean levels have been proved wrong with every prediction made. Eventually, extreme views not supported by basic science just start to look silly. I even saw a major article recently where Mr Gore was roundly criticised (and so he should be considering he uses research that has been condemned by a great many climatologists and has been shown to have been carried out in such a way as to ensure the desired result).

But it would have been nice for someone to have tried to line CO2 to warming just for their own benefit. It's pretty hard to support a theory so dogedly if the central tenant of the theory has no legs. But that is my opinion. I wanted to see if in attempting to discredit that opinion, others may just have learnt something.


Regards


Richard

G'day redewenur,

I have returned once and hung around hoping to make a contact as the email detail I have does not work. But I'm finished with the site at this point.

As to no one listening to me, when I posted regularly, I believe a number of people read the posts on this forum, including mine and they did have an impact. If anyone that holds a different view or wishes to challenge the "science" of global warming comes onto this site currently, they are subject to personal insults, belittling and very quickly leave.

I could ask you why you bother to come to this site if the only people that post are those that you agree with wholeheartedly. Surely, you can get all the propoganda relating to global warming by simply picking up a newspaper daily.

But I do note that neither yourself nor Mr Morgan is willing to take up the challenge of providing one single link to research that links CO2 increase in the atmosphere with warming. Mr Morgan did what he normally does with this type of query, he ignored it, and then added yet another insult. Telling people their belief system or "pet theories" are against reality, without any evidence to suggest they actually are, is nothing more than an insult, and the moderator for this site should have stepped in a very long time ago and removed such posts.

I do actually have people that listen to me. My research into temperature datasets has found a publisher and I've been asked and have given lectures on the subject, so I guess, not everyone is like you and simple doesn't listen to a contrary point of view.

Regardless of the views put on this site, when I posted regularly, I read them and considered them. If you want to participate in the site like this, that is the least you can do.

I'm actually not particularly frustrated by the way. Carbon credits waste billions but they don't do much damage in the scheme of things. It will only be if someone comes up with a way of attempting to lower the average world temperature that I will become greatly concerned. But since the solar cycle has entered a very quiet period, the temperatures have already moderated, my guess is in four or five years, those that rabidly followed global warming will start to look just a little foolish. Just as those that predicted large changes in ocean levels have been proved wrong with every prediction made. Eventually, extreme views not supported by basic science just start to look silly. I even saw a major article recently where Mr Gore was roundly criticised (and so he should be considering he uses research that has been condemned by a great many climatologists and has been shown to have been carried out in such a way as to ensure the desired result).

But it would have been nice for someone to have tried to line CO2 to warming just for their own benefit. It's pretty hard to support a theory so dogedly if the central tenant of the theory has no legs. But that is my opinion. I wanted to see if in attempting to discredit that opinion, others may just have learnt something.


Regards


Richard

Hi there - just stumbled upon this website looking for some answers to questions that I have. And I have to say, I'm absolutely shocked that a so called moderator would act in this fashion.

DA Morgan - RicS raises some good questions, which you summarily dismiss because he didn't cite sources, in his extraordinary post. This isn't a Masters thesis, and you could google any the questions that he raises, and you'd find a multitude of sources.

But just to make it a little easier for you. Here's two sources on how the Vostok ice cores shows conclusively that CO2 increases lagged temperature increases by 600-800 years for each of the past 3 deglaciations. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/283/5408/1712
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/299/5613/1728

This was determined from the exact same information that current climate change theory is based from. Temperature and CO2 concentrations did show an excellent correlation. Times with higher temperatures had higher CO2 concentrations. Too bad people didn?t look into which variable rose first

Because like any good scientific mind knows, correlation does not necessarily equal cause and effect. And when the rise in variable A lags the rise in variable B, it's pretty obvious that variable A did NOT cause the rise in variable B. I bet I could find a pretty strong correlation between the occurrence of wet sidewalks and days with rainfall ? perhaps wet sidewalks cause it to rain???? Perhaps in the world of global warming ?science?.

I would just like to know how global warming supporters can defend against this seemingly fatal flaw in global warming science.

Welcome.

Canuck wrote:
"Here's two sources on how the Vostok ice cores shows conclusively that CO2 increases lagged temperature increases by 600-800 years for each of the past 3 deglaciations."

Two thoughts. The first is that you should go to the original work:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/vostok.htm
which I did and read it. Note the statement:
", the CO2 increase either was in phase or lagged by less than ~1000 years with respect to the Antarctic temperature...."

In phase does not equate with "lagged by 600-800 years.

The second thought is that its relevance, either way, is unproven. One would need to know all of the conditions that cause the change from plate tectonics to solar radiation to cloud cover to forest fires, etc. to make any decision. Heck it might even have had nothing to do with CO2 and been related to methane. We just don't know.

PS: Thanks for posting real links. They are appreciated.

Thanks for the welcome, and thank you for responding the way you did (rather than the way you responded to RicS, perhaps there is a history there that I'm not aware of).

As far as the link that you provided, I'm not sure it actually investigated whether there was a time lag between CO2 and temperature. If you would have quoted the entire sentence, people could see that the authors were quoting previous work, not the work associated with the paper itself.

"According to Barnola et al. (1991) and Petit et al. (1999) these measurements indicate that, at the beginning of the deglaciations, the CO2 increase either was in phase or lagged by less than ~1000 years with respect to the Antarctic temperature, whereas it clearly lagged behind the temperature at the onset of the glaciations. "

The papers I linked investigated timing using the actual Vostok data and found a time lag as documented by the following.
"High-resolution records from Antarctic ice cores show that carbon dioxide concentrations increased by 80 to 100 parts per million by volume 600 ? 400 years after the warming of the last three deglaciations."

and

"The sequence of events during Termination III suggests that the CO2 increase lagged Antarctic deglacial warming by 800 ? 200 years and preceded the Northern Hemisphere deglaciation."

Regardless, we have 3 studies, 2 of the studies specifically looked for time lags, and found them. Both in the 600-800 year range. The study that was only concerned with extracting the time series of both variables said that the relationship was either in phase, or lagged by less than 1000 years. Based on the outcomes of these 3 studies, I'd be inclined to say there's a definite lag.



But I have to take issue with your statement that "its relevance, either way, is unproven" Huh? Am I missing something? Evidence has been found that historic temperature increases lead historic CO2 increases, and you're not sure if it's relevant?

The entirety of global warming science is based on the key assumption that increased CO2 causes temperature to increase (which was validated by looking at the correlation of CO2 and temp within these very same ice cores). All of the GCMs use this basic assumption.

If CO2 lags temperature, this assumption falls apart. The cause and affect relationship that everybody has bet on, would be wrong. It would be reversed! Temperature would be the causation factor for increases to CO2(historically).

I would say that is very relevant.

Canuck wrote:
"But I have to take issue with your statement that "its relevance, either way, is unproven" Huh? Am I missing something? Evidence has been found that historic temperature increases lead historic CO2 increases, and you're not sure if it's relevant?"

I was less than clear. My point was that one needs the entire chain of evidence to know what caused what. Here's an example.

We believe Europe is in for a long cold winter if the Atlantic conveyor ever stops. And we believe that increasing fresh water melt from Greenland capable of doing it.

We also know that other things such as decreasing greenhouse gasses, plant die offs, plate tectonics, could also be part of the chain of events.

Just looking at one part of that chain, CO2 levels, doesn't tell us whether it was the cause or the effect. The reason for the lag might be that it too was an effect.

How would we tell if the Atlantic Conveyor stopped 100,000 years ago? I haven't a clue.

And no doubt it isn't the only such system in existence.

So let me get this straight - you're saying that since we don't understand all historical climatological processes, we can't say whether CO2 was the cause of temperatures, or if temperatures caused CO2 to increase.

But isn't this exactly what the IPCC, Al Gore, and the rest of the global warming community is doing? Stating that when CO2 levels are high, so are temperatures, therefore CO2 is the causation factor for temperature(while ignoring the temporal aspect of the relationship)?

About the CO_2, we already know from physics that it is a strong Greenhouse gas. If you pumo large amounts of CO_2 in the atmosphere, then that will trap more heat in the atmosphere.

The time lag is entirely natural. Because CO_2 emissions were not the cause of the integrlacial periods. I mean it wasn't like the Neanderthals building too many powerstations that caused global warming then, or was it?

The climate changes because of changes in te Eart's orbit. This causes a small amout of warming, which inturn causes CO_2 levels to rise which then amplifies the initial warming by a large amount. It has been shown, b.t.w., that changes in the Earth's orbit alone cannot account for the temperature increases.


So, it is basically a matter of basic physics that CO_2 is a greenhouse gas.

Richard,

But surely if you average over the data from different stations you get a more accurate picture? I mean 0.6 ?C is very small compared to normal temperature fluctuations...

The question isn't whether CO2 is a GHG - as you say, we know it is.

The question is, "Do increases in CO2 have the ability be the primary driver in altering global average temperature". In other words how effective is CO2 as a GHG.

The answer to this was provided by doing a simple correlation between temperature and CO2 on ice core samples. With higher amounts of CO2, temperature increased. The only problem is, once people started to look at the timing, it was found (as you point out) that increased CO2 was not the cause of the interglacial periods.

So we can agree that CO2 was not the cause of historic warming. Then why does the IPCC and the climate change messiah, Al Gore, continue to trot out graphs of CO2 and temperature over the past 600,000 years and point out that high CO2 level coincide with the warm periods (interglacials)? Could it have anything to do with the fact that, without that graph, it might be tougher to sell dvd's, or continue to get government funding?

CO2 was believed to be a very effective GHG based on correlations in historical evidence (for which CO2 has now been shown to be the effect, not the cause). If you want to change gears to saying CO2 is a very effective GHG based solely on physics/chemistry, that's fine, but just be up front that this statement is based on theoretical climate science, of a system we do not even come close to fully understanding.

Canuck wrote:
"But isn't this exactly what the IPCC, Al Gore, and the rest of the global warming community is doing? Stating that when CO2 levels are high, so are temperatures, therefore CO2 is the causation factor for temperature(while ignoring the temporal aspect of the relationship)?"

You are misunderstanding what you are hearing. CO2 levels are very high now and they correlate closely with the increase in temperature. Gore is saying it, professors at every university I know are saying it too. But that doesn't mean it is the only reason temperatures can climb. If the temperature climbs for some other reason then CO2 levels likely will increase but the effect will be delayed.

We are seeing that right now where with increases in ocean acidification the natural process that sequesters CO2 in the form of carbonates is slowing. We also seeing it in the increase in release of CO2 from peat bogs and arctic tundra. If the oceans get warmer we might well see a release of methane further complicating the issue. And while methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas ... it will lag temperature because it had previously been sequestered in the form of methane ice.

So the fact that CO2 levels may have lagged temperature changes in the past is indicative of nothing in and of itself. Nor does the fact that it lagged in the past say anything with respect it the current situation.

The causes of warming and CO2 changes 100,000 years ago are not what is driving the warming engine today.

It all comes down, very simply, to the laws of chemistry and physics that can not be violated. If CO2 levels go up the temperature must too unless counteracted by some other matter of chemistry or physics of which none is known to exist as a factor.

G'day Count Iblis II,

While the debate remains sensible, I'll respond. When it deteriorates again, bye.

My point was prove that CO2 IS a real greenhouse gas! How do we know? as you put it. Show a physics experiment that goes somewhat to replicating atmospheric conditions and that CO2 somehow traps heat. This is my point entirely.

As far as I can determine there is NO evidence that CO2 causes any warming on the earth at all. Now that is a big statement. But your amplification comment, while sounding reasonable, is not supported by the facts. A simple look at the Vostok records will show you that despite often very large increases in the CO2 levels following warming, a cooling is just as likely to occur as were the period between warming is too short for the CO2 to build up. So that does not support amplification at all, nor does any of the other paleo-climate evidence where CO2 or tempereture is known. Now there has been some terrific research relating to sunspot activity, solar magnetic fields, cosmic ray strength and temperature and they show pretty much exact matches to the rise and fall of the temperature regardless of whether the CO2 level is as it is now, very much lower or even ten times higher than it was now.

So your argument seems to be, that CO2 does cause warming, even though there is a lag, though you don't explain just how CO2 could cause warming if it is low when the warming begins and only increases after the warming. Then you say that CO2 does not cause interglacial periods. Actually it might. I'd hate to really try to argue this. My primary interest is the reason for the flips between glacial and interglacial periods. I've been studying this point for well over 30 years and I have no idea why the flips occur. As far as I've been able to research, no one else does either.

It is not necessarily solar activity. It is not necessarily a whole bunch of things. The records do not show that CO2 has anything to do with the flips as it can be going up or down when flips either way occurs, can be high or low, so I probably could say with some confidence that it does not appear that CO2 has anything much to do with it. But in combination with water vapour and a great deal of other things, it actually might have some effect on the flips (and we are talking about the dramatic change from warm to cold or cold to warm here, not movements within a glaciation or interglacial period which is what is relevant to any discussion on global warming).

To quote you:

"The climate changes because of changes in te Eart's orbit. This causes a small amout of warming, which inturn causes CO_2 levels to rise which then amplifies the initial warming by a large amount. It has been shown, b.t.w., that changes in the Earth's orbit alone cannot account for the temperature increases."

Sometimes the climate changes because of the orbit. Sometimes it doesn't. It is a factor but in determining even such things as the beginning or end of an ice age, it is just one factor. The movement of tectonic plates is far more important when you are talking about grand sweep climate changes such as ice ages such as we are in now. The last big ice age very clearly aligns with the changing positions of continents.

But the fact we are in an ice age now or not, is totally irrelevant to any discussion on global warming. Your comment says that the orbit changes, the CO2 goes up and this CAUSES warming. Yet, there is no evidence to support that statement at all, at least none that I know of. If you know of any, then take my challenge to show a link between CO2 increase and warming and provide the evidence. It does not even have to be research, just data that shows that CO2 increases matched warming on the earth and that the CO2 increase was BEFORE the warming or even that the warming seemed to accelerate because CO2 increased.

The discussion was about CO2, which is the big baddie "pollutant" and according to the UK government needs to be cut by 60% by 2050 (and then the Green group came out and said actually the cut needs to be 90%). Quite aside from what that means to anyone in Britain to get to 60%, this entire legislation is being based on the argument that there is global warming, that it is a danger to civilisation and to the viability to all life on the planet, or at least a significant proportion of it (the same Green spokesman indicated that without an 90% reduction then the Amazon rainforest will surely disappear entirely). Since the tropics stay the same or close to it in the deepest glaciation or in the warmest interglacial period, I'd like to see how that statement could be backed up at all but back to the point that the entire argument about global warming is now completely cored to the "fact" that man-made CO2 increases have caused any warming that is currently occuring on this earth and WILL cause much more extreme warming.

I simply said, "Prove it". So stating that "we already know" that CO2 is a greenhouse gas (and by implication in relation to the current usage of the term greenhouse gas, causes warming) all you have done is restated what is being assumed by pretty much everyone except scientists who actually study such things.

In theory CO2 is able to let through most of the energy spectrum and is able to reflect a small fraction of the energy spectrum across specific wave lengths. This has been used to "Prove" that CO2 is obviously a greenhouse gas.

The trouble is that this is a theory and there is no evidence to support that it actually does this in the real world. There is no evidence that CO2 has caused warming EVER in the past history of the earth or that it has amplified warming that is already occuring. Asking me to show research to this is asking to prove a negative. I could refer to research such as Canuck has done but it would seem that in response to this, all that happens is a restatement that we all know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and because it is such simple physics, there really is no argument.

Since this is climate and that is incredibly complicated, that simplification is just too much of a simplification. But I'll accept the basic premise if you are able to show any science that actually demonstrates that CO2 should re-reflect more energy back to the earth than it would prevent from entering the earth in the first place that at least in theory CO2 is able to cause warming. But that still doesn't prove that CO2 is able to change climate. To do that you need to show some link between CO2 and warming. And that is what my challenge was. Show some link between the two. Since "we all know" that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and the entire debate about global warming is centred on the theory that man is the culprit and CO2 is the agent, my challenge should really be a snap.

I'll even help you. Look at a graph of temperature changes, and for the purpose of this exercise, I'll accept that the datasets are completely accurate regardless of the fact that they are very far from being reliable data at all and that unreliability ironically has been made worse by the advances of technology and automated recording. You can easily find a graph of CO2 rises for the same 120 odd year period.

In the most general terms the temperature has risen, 80% before 1940 but overall it has risen. CO2 has similarly risen. But they do not well correlate at all. Surely, your amplification theory should be noticeable in such records. As the CO2 has risen shouldn't that have increased the temperature at an accelerated rate? The trouble is the CO2 rise is pretty much a nice close to straight line trending up, yet the temperature graph has a quite steep rise until 1940, a drop for the next 40 years and then another rise. If CO2 amplification occurred, why the drop? Why did the majority of the rise occur when the CO2 was low?

If you really are serious about global warming, then such questions should cause you to think.

My point has always been that climate is about the most complicated system that man has to deal with. Unlike the origins of the universe and whether there was a big bang, or whether the universe has dark matter, etc, etc, this one actually is really very important to humans on a daily basis. Until the late 80s it got almost no funding because of the simple "fact" that "Everyone talks about the weather but no one can do anything about it". Weather was funded. Dopler radar and storm chases got at least some funding because tracking tornados saves lives. Better understandings of hurricanes also saves lives (at least it would if someone actually acted on the research and decided that levees built in an area that has to be hit by a major storm surge every few decades, should actually be made to withstand such a storm surge), so the Air Force has a wing that flys into tropical storms and met bureaus get money. They got a lot more money when their ability to predict weather actually started to be better than Uncle John's bunion.

But climate was a very underfunded area of science. Since it is so important, that really was a strange situation, especially since billions can be spent on one telescope such as the Hubble, with no pay off for humans perhaps for centuries to come. And I'm not saying here that pure research should not be funded, only that areas of science that actually affect us should get some form of priority. So who can blame the university funding admin staff, the heads of departments etc, for joining in the "global warming" bandwagon if it means that research that has long been neglected is now getting done. Of course, when it reached $3 billion out of the $9 billion the US government now funds pure research with, and the large proportion of that was into areas that have been researched already several times, or in computer modelling or super computers for computer modelling, then perhaps it isn't going to the right area at all, but that is just the social effect of an any political movement supposedly based on science.

Now I've gone off the track. Too much medication I guess. Sigh.

I'm actually not asking very much at all. Since you Count, have restated the case for CO2 being a greenhouse gas and simple physicas can't be wrong, how about any evidence at all to back this very obvious statement up. I'm not being sarcastic here. While I think you will be shocked to find just how hard it is going to be to find anything that even vaguelly approaches good science, I'd be genuinly interested in any evidence or research that supports this proposition.

And if you think I'm a voice in the dark, that Mr Morgan suggested I was, you might want to look at not only how many but who is also, often quietly, but still raising, the exact same question. Those that are also asking this question range from the co-founder of Greenpeace (whose name escapes me) to a great many scientists that actually were part of the IPCC working groups that produced the papers for the UN that state so baldly that CO2 is such a menance.

If you want to read much more interesting comments than I'm able to make, look up Dr Frederick Singer, an esteemed elder climate scientist. If you want younger, I'll be happy to provide a few names.

It is precisely because of the complexity of the climate that one cannot just plot CO_2 concentraions against temperature. One has to make detailed models and validate those. Now, I've read that climate models do an excellent job in describing past climate. Of course, one can object that one can always adjust parameters in such models to fit observations. But these models are based on physics and are thus well motivated.

If you leave out the physics and just look at correlations you can't conclude anything...

Two thoughts -
1st - a few posts ago you stated that we did not know what caused interglacial periods, and used that as justification to declare CO2 lagging temperature "irrelevant". Now you state that the causes of past warming and today's warming are totally different (which obviously infers that we understand the causes of both current and historical). Which is it?

2nd ? I'll buy the argument that past CO2 lags aren't relevant to understanding the current warming (although they very well may be if the warming is natural), if you agree that the past CO2/temperature correlation aren't relevant either. After all, the sword cuts both ways.




Except you forgot the all important quantification (which is sort of critical here). As I said before, the critical question isn't whether CO2 is a GHG (we know it is). The critical question is how effective CO2 is (at the concentrations we see, or are reasonably expected) at raising temperature. We simply don?t know the answer to that ? if you are aware of some study on this, please pass it along.

Hi Richard,

Some quick question (not much time today)

Isn't there a link between warming and higher CO_2 concentrations?

In the interglacials the CO_2 concentration is quite a bit larger than during the ice ages, yes? Surely that elevated concentration makes a significant contribution to the temperature?

As I wrote to a reply to another poster above, if you only look at correlations, it is very hard to conclude anything...

"The critical question is how effective CO2 is (at the concentrations we see, or are reasonably expected) at raising temperature. We simply don?t know the answer to that"

Assuming that we indeed don't know, then there is a reasonable possibility that the climate is sensitive to CO_2 to the extent that action to curb CO_2 emissions is warranted. That's pretty much what climate scientists are saying. This is a decision that has to be taken by politicians.

Now, how can it be that the same politician who defend spending 100s of billions to fight insurgents in Iraq (because they may cause problems in the US, although that's highly unlikely) at the same time say that because we don't know for sure how dangerous climate change is, we shouldn't do anything about that?

I'm glad to hear you say you just can't look at CO2/temp correlations. But this is exactly what is held up to the public as confirmation of GW.

But onto models. Models are only as good as the basic understanding of the system they are replicating, and the response functions that the modeller inputs into the model. If we don't have the complete picture, or have the wrong response functions, well the model output will be wrong.

GCMs are not physically based models. For a physically based model, the modeller must understand all components of the system. I hope everybody here realizes that is not the case whatsoever. GCMs are simplifications, extreme simplifications, of our climate. Heck 9 forcing components are used within GCMs. Do we really think our climate is determined by the interplay of only 9 components?

You will need a lot more than a model, whose algorithms specify that increased CO2 causes temperature increases (wonder why they predict increased temperature??), to convince me that CO2 is the primary driver for the current warming.

To sum up, models tell us that CO2 is causing the temperature increase, because we told the model that in the first place!!!!

Ok, so this is where the science ends and the politics starts. Bush and his adventure in Iraq has absolutely nothing to do with GW, so lets try to keep on track, shall we?

Why is it, when legitimate questions are raised about the science of GW, does the precautionary principle get trotted out?
As I said to DA Morgan in a PM - there's a 100% chance of the earth getting slammed by an asteroid or comet sometime in the future. Evoking the precautionary principle, perhaps we should spend a 25% of the global GDP on a planetary defense shield. After all, it could happen next year.......and yes, while it would be expensive, it would be much cheaper than if an asteroid did hit earth, which may wipe out..........100% of the global GDP.

The precautionary principle completely ignores risk analysis and management, which is critical to focus resources on the most significant issues, rather than throwing money at the latest flavour of the day.

My other beef with the precautionary principle, is it never looks at the costs, or rather, the opportunities that are lost because of the misplaced resources. 3-5 million people die from contaminated water supplies or improper sanitation every year. Another 2-3 million from malaria every year.

Here's a wild thought, let's do something about issues that are killing 5-8 million people this year, and every year into perpetuity, rather than worry about something that may, or may not happen 50 years down the road(and whose possible effects are really nothing more than conjecture at this point in time).

G'day Count,

This is really refreshing. A rational, pleasant debate. Thank you. I don't mind you disagreeing with me. Actually, I'd prefer it otherwise it would be a boring thread.

In paleo-climate records, CO2 levels have been all over the place during both ice ages, glaciations and interglacial periods. There was a very cold period when CO2 levels were more than ten times today's levels and rising for a time during that period.

CO2 levels really must rise on a planet with plant life and volcanos when the temperatures rise. Higher temperatures caused by solar magnetic increases means more volcanic activity. Higher temperatures means that CO2 is released from the oceans and plant life decays faster, bacteria breed quicker, etc, etc. You'd think the lag would be only a few years rather than the up to 800 but actually increasing all the plant activity by say 25% doesn't increase atmospheric CO2 all that much. The really really biggie is the oceans and since they take centuries to warm up or cool down they never reflect the current climate but rather 500 to 800 years ago. Actually, oceans also reflect climate up to 10,000 years ago and it is thought that El Ninos are caused by changes that have occurred thousands of years ago and the "movement" of the very large cool spot in the Pacific from near Chile to the west is nothing more than the Ocean slowly turning over in a bunch of very complicated vertical currents that then turn to horizontal currents or even spirals at various depths. Now that can be really confusing.

So, I can't agree that CO2, historically needs to be higher or is mostly higher during a warmer period, only that CO2 levels go up relative to the previous level after a warm period has been around for a little while.

The difference is in magnitude. The "lag" increase for want of a better term is a few percent. More later.


Regards


Richard

DA Morgan - I'm wondering if you have a reference to how effective CO2 is at raising global temperature (that doesn't rely on historical conditions)?
I'm not trying to be a pain in the butt, I'm just really wondering if such work has been done.

Thanks

Well it is known that CO2 has a reletively high rediative forcing index.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Radiative-forcings.svg

Canuck has finally hit this one on the head - "Can such work be done?" The answer is NO. We don't know enough, there are far too many variables, to think that we can "Predict" whether or not GW is happening. The only thing that is known is that things are changing raoidly and we are nitpicking over who's right and who doesn't know do-do. If we were smart, we would err on the side of Caution. If we were smart.