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The Forum > Article Comments > Climate change crystal ball clouds over > Comments

Climate change crystal ball clouds over : Comments

By Mark S. Lawson, published 24/7/2007

IPCC forecasting: waving a bunch of computers at a set of bad assumptions will not turn them into good forecasts.

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Yet again on climate change from this sleazy, know-nothing moron. What on Earth are the OO editors thinking?
Posted by bushbasher, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 9:20:45 AM
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o dear bushy! What is your problem?
.

If this winter is anything to go by, we are in for an ice age real soon. We’ve had record minimum temperatures in many places in Queensland. We saw the coldest day and the coldest and wettest June on record in Townsville, and an entirely different sort of winter compared to the last 24 winters that I have experienced in north Queensland.

What does this mean for climate forecasts that by all indications mean we should be seeing the weather change in the opposite manner? Probably not much at all. We’ll have to wait for the next few winters before we can tell.

But it does drive home the highly uncertain nature of the purportedly definite global warming phenomenon.

I have no doubt that anthropogenic climate change is real. But beyond that I battle to have any idea as to what significance it may have.

So should we continue to try to tackle the climate change issue? Or should we just let it go and address more important things?

We should basically refocus our energies on peak oil and sustainability issues and give climate change the big flick.

Why?

Because it is too big to handle! It is beyond us, especially with China’s rate of expansion, which just overwhelms everything else. And because even with our best efforts, all we could hope to do is reduce the rate of CO2 output a bit (or more likely reduce the rate of increase), which would lengthen the period of high emissions quite possibly resulting in a worse effect on our climate overall.

And because the potential for disruption to our society and most societies around the world wrought by rising fuel prices and shortages of supply is a much more urgent matter.

And because sustainability has surely got to be the underlying goal for all societies. It is an issue which we are currently nowhere near addressing in a meaningful manner.
Posted by Ludwig, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 10:06:53 AM
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The claim is that climate scientists impose a kind of groupthink in their ranks that punishes disagreement. Conversely there will be accolades if a genuine flaw can be found in the current theory; that flaw has to stand up to rigorous peer review by actual scientists. So far the disagreements are over technicalities not major conclusions, the hockey stick graph being an example.

However I'm not sure that climate issues are a sideshow to more important matters. If much of Australia's foodbowl can no longer reliably provide that is a serious issue. The precautionary principle may also have links to sustainability. For example world coal production is increasing at 4% a year despite all the CO2 brouhaha. What if economically recoverable coal runs out earlier than we expect? Every scenario must be considered.
Posted by Taswegian, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 10:52:54 AM
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"sleazy, know-nothing moron"....spoken like a true warmer bushbasher...the debate is over! the debate is over!

Anybody who actually looks at the radiative forcings table from the IPCC report will be astounded by the very large error bars. Their predictions, oops they don't make predictions do they, their "storylines" and "scenarios" could be out by a lot.

And then as Ludwig says there is the Chinese. A problem too vast to be overcome. We could all go back to living like 14th century peasants and it won't make a scrap of difference to global CO2 levels.

"So far the disagreements are over technicalities not major conclusions, the hockey stick graph being an example."
Actually that was a major disagreement over a major conclusion ie. that it is warmer now than it has been in the last 1600 years.

"much of Australia's foodbowl can no longer reliably provide"
Errr its called a drought. They've happened before and they've been bigger and badder.
Posted by alzo, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 11:00:47 AM
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Another denialist article.... I tried to read it, but I'm sorry I just couldn't be bothered finishing it. They all start looking alike after a while.

Anyway, here is what I think. I think we have to treat Global Warming as an issue of risk management. If there is a significant risk of cataclysmic climate change then we should take appropriate action to prevent it. Of course that begs the question of what is 'significant' and what is 'cataclysmic' and what sort of 'action' is 'appropriate'?

I don't know the answers. But from what I've seen (including the data omitted by Durkin) I think the case for doing something is stronger than the case for doing nothing. Wishing the problem away doesn't seem very sensible to me
Posted by PAB, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 11:33:49 AM
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Whenever I see examples of this endless going-nowhere debate I tend to recall all the medical experts over the years, who insisted that smoking was not a health problem.

Despite all the evidence presented, there was always an expert prepared to publicly dispute the current findings.

Even a couple of years ago, the idea that passive smoking was harmless was still in vogue and there were zealots on both sides.

Eventually some degree of common sense prevailed and there would not be many scientists left willing to go public against the current mood but it seems some have found a new frontier.

Likewise, the WW2 Holocaust deniers have had their moment in the sun, but are still there lurking in the background.

It's also like the ongoing mobile phone/cancer debate.
Despite constant ongoing research, there is no definite proven link between RF radiation from mobile phones and cancer but there IS a proven link between RF radiation and genetic damage. The link between genetic damage and cancer is "outside the parameters af the current research" and neatly sidestepped. The path may go from "A to B and then to C" but since there is no direct link between "A and C", the findings cannot be proven. Simple.

This is how the issues get clouded and the original point is lost.

A lot of the findings rolled out by both sides can be interpreted this way.

However, common sense alone should suggest that dumping ever-increasing amounts of anything into the air would eventually have a consequence, especially in a closed system - and that's good enough for me to be concerned.
Posted by wobbles, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 11:57:19 AM
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"For we are not dealing with testable scientific propositions: we are dealing with a bunch of forecasts..."

Every day, in every Australian state, the Bureau of Meteorology produces a set of testable scientific propositions that is broadcast on the nightly TV news broadcasts - it's called the weather forecast. The test is simple - does the weather that actually happens the next day match the forecast.

The IPCC forecasts are subject to a similar test - hang around for 100 years (if you can) and see what the climate is like. If that's a bit too strenuous for you, then the next best thing is to look to the shorter term predictions and see how they turn out.

Either way, Lawson's assertion that the IPCC forecasts are not testable scientific propositions is wrong.
Posted by Paul Bamford, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 12:05:39 PM
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"There is no doubt that temperatures have increased by about a degree or so since 1860"

I used to agree with this assertion. I mean how hard can it be to reliably collect temperatures over the years, via a simple, consistent scientific system of data collection?

It seems it is harder than I thought....
http://www.surfacestations.org/

So the temperature data has a lot of corruption in it...add that to the large error bars in most of the variables and really, the climate change alarmists are really just blowing hot air....
Posted by Grey, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 1:32:27 PM
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"Waving a bunch of computers at a set of bad assumptions will not turn them into good forecasts, but the result can be bad policy."

That sums up the climate debate and the real dangers of developing a carbon trading regime based on forecasts of it.

"Tweaking" or "massaging values" might not matter when the implications are limited or local but it makes a whole lot of difference when they are applied globally.

Case in point, an Australian economic model, might have several thousand independent variables within it, that might work roughly to suit predictions of tax collections etc (although the actuals v budget in the past 7 years since GST was introduced would suggest some more "Tweaking" is required).

So several thousand variables being used to "model" a society of 20 + million real "independent" variables and the ATO still get it wrong.

Now extrapolate (another device frought with error) that to a world population of 6 1/2 billions + and I figure you need an enormous model with millions of independent variables.

The scientific gallahs are talking about the impact of an increase of 1 degree in water temperature as having catastrophic effects.

A 1 degree change might represent a 3% average increase from the starting point, that is probably 1/10th the error factor inherent in their model.

When the measured impact of a forecast outcome is less than the error factor, developing policy based on that outcome is more than likely to bring about more erratic and unexpected results (and usually more detrimental ones), compared to doing nothing.

I am with the skeptics on climate change modelling (and rapidly moving toward the cynics), not because I think that modelling is wrong (I have done heaps of economic modelling over the past 30 years) but because basing social/economic policy on unprovable assumptions is wrong, stupid and downright dangerous.
Posted by Col Rouge, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 2:13:02 PM
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Mark Lawson....you are an ignorant man or one who is captured by the industries who refuse to mitigate their pollutant emissions or their bank balances.

Why don't you lobby to change the IPCC title to the IPAP? That stands for the International Panel for Anthropogenic Pollution. Would you continue to raise your illogical arguments over the science of man-made pollution? Will you respond to that question? No I didn't think you would.

Climate change and pollution have a common cause and a common resolution. Cease polluting!

153 nations at the Rio Summit in 1992, signed treaties to reduce GW, save endangered species and foster sustainable development. It hasn't happened - thanks to the likes of you and your cronies.

We've continued to despoil the earth by increasing pesticides, hazardous waste, more chemicals contaminating the entire food chain and significantly affecting health and the economy but increasing profits for a few at the big end of town.

Add the toxicity of military and industrial air pollution and agricultural chemicals to soil erosion, floods, fires, population explosions and social unrest and you have the formula for an unstable ecosystem that will become even more uninhabitable.

Millions of people around the globe die from air pollution and you continue to bang your gums about the lack of consensus on climate change.

The "Polluter Pays" principle or the "Precautionary Principle" won't happen in this neck of the woods so you may continue to inhale your toxins, Mr Lawson.

Many of us are well aware that politicians are short-termed administrators - inexperienced, poorly informed and ignorant.

I suggest you and other sceptics access any basic manual on environmental toxicology, in an endeavour to restore any credibility you may have had prior to your senseless bleatings on OLO.
Posted by dickie, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 4:24:12 PM
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Dickie, You seem to be going seriously off topic. The assertion is that carbon dioxide is causing global warming. CO2 isn't killing anyone or causing disease, your thinking of other chemicals which are pumped into the atmosphere. Breathing CO2 isn't harmful in itself. CO2 is a vital part of our ecosystem, plants use it to breathe. So just slow down a bit. The only way CO2 is harmful is IF it causes global warming and IF that global warming results in serious harm to our ecosystem.
Posted by Paul.L, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 6:17:44 PM
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What "proof" (or degree of certainty) of AGW and its impacts would people like before they would be willing to act in a more environmentally sustainable way? Seriously.

Anyone?
Posted by davsab, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 6:41:58 PM
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There are a couple of basic flaws in this arguement,
(1)The IPCC report was watered down to appease GW sceptics mostly Americans and thereby achieve concensus, a fact the author failed to mention.
(2)A lot of these scientist are previous GW sceptics who after reveiwing available data have changed their minds,he is right about scientist's changing their minds, they have already done that.

The IPCC predictions could be very conservative as scientists are by nature a conservative bunch and indeed many on the panel think that the timing and effects of GW are under estimated.

In view of peak oil and peak coal and the inherent dangers of nuclear, what is the problem with renewable energy, it is capable of doing the job in spite of what the naysayers spout, (Las Vegas is run entirely on renewable energy as is 18% of Califoria and Germany with a crap climate has the highest proportion of solar energy in the world, and I would venture to say that Las Vegas probably uses or wastes more energy than any city the same size in the world), all it needs is the will to do it and money, somebody will still make money from it, it might not be the same mob as now, because they have their heads in the sand, if they wake up in time they could cash in, but somebody will make money from renewable energy of that there is no doubt.
The present energy regime is incredibly wastefull, as a visiting scientist said recently "what is smart about waste"
Posted by alanpoi, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 7:21:34 PM
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Paul.L

Thank you for your advice that I am "seriously off topic." I advise that I "seriously" disagree with you.

All carbon based chemicals burn to CO2 and water with sufficient oxygen, or to CO without it.

Atmospheric CO elevates concentrations of methane and ozone prior to oxidising to CO2.

Aliphatic or aromatic hydrocarbons include ethylene, methane, acetylene, benzene (a category 1 carcinogen), toluene, naphthalene, hexane etc - all burn to CO2.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are known carcinogens, mutagens and teratogens which after their destructive forces against humans and all other life forms including the ecosystems, convert to CO2 when burnt.

Industrial toxic by-products can include mercury and arsenic. Depending on which pollutant industry and how efficient their combustion is, emissions of dioxins and furans, PCB's, chromium, lead, nickel, NOx, SO2, aluminium and so on all contribute to the out-of-control brew humans are now forced to survive in.

This is a result of governments' failure to enforce pollution prevention control on hazardous industries. This technology is already available and only the responsible companies install it. The rest are self-regulated environmental vandals bent on maximum profits.

Therefore, I am not off-topic. Man-made levels of CO2 must be reduced for the sake of human health and the eco-systems. You are incorrect Paul.L when you say CO2 is not killing people or causing disease. To continue playing tit for tat with Mother Nature's own emissions is naive and foolhardy.

To avoid incorporating the issue of pollution into GW or Climate Change threads is deception at its best when the sceptics are duping readers to believe that A/CO2 is harmless to the environment and the planet's essential requirement for environmental equilibrium is a myth!
Posted by dickie, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 7:50:23 PM
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PAB, I tried to read your post, but I'm sorry I just couldn't be bothered finishing it.
Posted by Admiral von Schneider, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 8:44:15 PM
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Not to worry Admiral von Schneider, i'm sure Dickie is aware that AGW deniers never read to the end.

I enjoy Mr Lawsons ill-informed and mendacious opinion pieces, they explain nicely why the Australian Financial Review continues to bleed readers. Being the in-house paper for fossil fools might please advertisers but it wastes the time of every adult reader.
Posted by Liam, Wednesday, 25 July 2007 8:08:53 AM
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Don’t get dickie started on anthropogenic CO2. He seems to view it differently to “natural” CO2, something perverse that shouldn’t be breathed. I’m not sure how he differentiates between natural an A/CO2 given that the A/CO2 comes from natural sources. Unless he views fossil fuels as something unnatural and dare I say unholy, as the environment is akin to a religion for dickie and his ilk. Like other worshippers dickie probably contributes his fair (or greater) share of CO2 to the atmosphere but turns a blind eye to his own (foul) emissions.

“All carbon based chemicals burn to CO2 and water with sufficient oxygen, or to CO without it.”
So do all carbon based life-forms, including “natural” plants (or animals). Please don’t get cremated dickie.

Let us repeat dickie, CO2 is non-toxic to humans below 5000ppm. Your own fetid exhalations contain 45000ppm of CO2. Should we regulate against you dickie (thou unnatural beast)?

“You are incorrect Paul.L when you say CO2 is not killing people or causing disease.”
Don’t let any examples get in the way of this whopper.

“the planet's essential requirement for environmental equilibrium”
The planet does not require nor does it "seek" equilibrium, it is not alive. The biota living on its crusty surface do so while conditions suit. When they change the planet does not care. It is rock.
Posted by alzo, Wednesday, 25 July 2007 11:08:54 AM
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Climate change contributes to poverty-related deaths, simply by contributing to poverty. So yes, CO2 is a killer, without being a poison.

Just how long are we going to keep our collective foot on the climate-change accelerator in the name of freedom? Anyone like myself who has actually studied the subject and become alarmed is called all sorts of names, starting with "alarmist" and carrying on through "greenie", "socialist" and "feral".

I don't mind the name-calling, but I want action. It *has* to come from government, because the economic activities driving greenhouse (and other) pollution occur under the constraints of markets which are regulated by governments and skewed in many other ways by government requirements, government planning, investment, pork-barreling and promises. Many costs of economic activity are easily externalised and it is the responsibility of regulators to ensure that prices reflect real costs.
Posted by xoddam, Wednesday, 25 July 2007 2:40:08 PM
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Xoddam said “Climate change contributes to poverty-related deaths, simply by contributing to poverty. So yes, CO2 is a killer, without being a poison.”. You should have given an example if you had one. There is no real evidence to suggest climate change has caused poverty. Overreacting to climate change, on the other hand, could definitely prolong poverty in the third world. “Pollution from .. household fires causes 4 million deaths a year from lung infections. The lack of electricity also means minimal medical facilities, manufacturing, and commerce--and impoverished countries forever dependent on foreign aid.” http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=20069. Overreacting has a significant price attached.

“Anyone like myself who has actually studied the subject and become alarmed is called all sorts of names, starting with "alarmist" and carrying on through "greenie", "socialist" and "feral"".
Are the GW supporters the only people who are studying the problem? Distinguished scientists, some at my University, are skeptics in some form or another. These are learned people, without an axe to grind, yet they are placed in the same basket as holocaust deniers. Pretending that climate change skeptics are ill informed is pompous and patently untrue.

Dickie, Your attempt to link pollution with CO2 is obfuscation at it’s best. Clean air is an easy sell to most people. Linking CO2 to particulate and chemical pollution is basically a bait and switch operation to get more customers buying your product. The issues of clean air and CO2 emissions should be dealt with separately when we are talking about climate change. As Alzo said above all organic materials burnt in enough oxygen will produce CO2. You just decided to say it 13 different ways.
Posted by Paul.L, Wednesday, 25 July 2007 4:15:56 PM
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“Are the GW supporters the only people who are studying the problem?” This is such a contemptuous question.

Of course there are, and those that know anything about climate science publish papers on their hypotheses, for all other experts to critique. Not here on OLO.

So some “distinguished scientists” at Paul’s University “are sceptics in some form or another … and they are learned people, without an axe to grind yet they are placed in the same basket as holocaust deniers.”

Are they? These are YOUR words Paul.

Paul, these learned and distinguished scientists you refer to, what science are their fields of expertise? I ask because, unless they have specific expertise in a climate related science, then their thoughts, musings or sayings are just opinions – like yours, like mine.

Just because I have post grad degrees in both science (chemistry) and engineering (chemical) does not make me expert in climate science. However, if I did opine that I knew most of the climate scientists are wrong, then I would indeed be ill informed and clearly pompous.

If people want to debate the science, why don’t they go to the primary sources?

Some would say all this *s..t* fight is not about the science, but rather east/west, us/them, have/have not, capitalism/communism, good/bad, right/wrong, etc. Yep, I couldn't agree more.

“Overreacting to climate change, on the other hand, could definitely prolong poverty in the third world.”

Put another way, “Under-reaction, could definitely prolong poverty in the third world.”

This is very dependent on the reaction … and thus left up to policy makers – WHERE WE CAN HAVE A MEANINGFUL DEBATE.
Posted by davsab, Wednesday, 25 July 2007 5:04:23 PM
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Inclement weather kills. Poor rainfall impoverishes people who rely on subistence agriculture for their livelihood. Unpredictable weather leads to mass migration of vulnerable people and to conflict. The Sahel is being rapidly depopulated (viz. the Darfur conflict and others on the edge of this vast and unreliably productive region).

Because "climate" is a statistical haze and the weather has always been fickle, it is not entirely accurate to blame climate change for any one event. Yet increasing uncertainty of rainfall events and a general decline in net rainfall is our experience in the recent decades of warming and (according to the statistician Armstrong who says all forecasts should extrapolate trends and ignoring chaotic feedbacks) we should expect more of whatever has already been happening.

On purely statistical grounds, CO2 is a killer!

Paul's point about electrification solving the problems of poverty is well-taken, but the implication that greenhouse emission reductions compromise the electrification project is utterly false. In fact investments made by Europeans to reduce their own carbon emissions directly improve the prospects of African electrification.

Electricity doesn't have to be associated with high CO2 emissions. The cheapest technologies for delivering electric power have been, since the early 1990s, small low- or zero-carbon generators, not the 1960s-era behemoths used in Australia:

http://www.smallisprofitable.org/
http://www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?storyCode=2033302

The potential for electricity from ambient energy is far, far greater than many commentators and planners are prepared to admit, living as they do in the 1970s. Both distributed and centralised ambient-energy generators have made leaps and bounds in recent years. "Old-fashioned" concentrating solar thermal generation (using hot pumped oil) is now cost-competitive with coal in the sunnier US states:

http://www.us.schott.com/solarthermal/english/download/schott_white_paper.pdf

And within a few years this grand project could bear results:

http://www.trecers.net/

... which would of course have enormous implications for all Africa, not just the North, though the project focuses on power for European requirements.

With high-voltage DC transmission, power generation no longer has to be especially close to the point of use: trans-continental electric grids are becoming a reality.

Hey what happened to the word limit?
Posted by xoddam, Wednesday, 25 July 2007 5:40:28 PM
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Great stuff xoddam, on the trans-Med. solar thermal network/ TREC didja see this snippet:

"Arab countries urge solar future
Vanya Walker-Leigh, Times of Malta
Palmyra, Syria -- Arab energy ministers and some EU politicians attending a high-level conference in this desert oasis town flanked by the ruins of a vast Roman city, announced support for a revolutionary renewable energy electricity supply system proposed by Germany to link both areas.

The Damascus Declaration adopted here on June 24 by them as well as the several hundred participants (scientists, industrialists, civil servants) at the Fourth Middle East and North Africa Renewable Energy Conference (MENAREC4) advocated "large-scale renewable energy systems" which would permit solar electricity to the EU. All nations were invited to set national renewable energy targets, and donors were asked to massively increase related assistance.

..."A German Aerospace Centre study has shown that solar thermal power plants located in the Arab countries could make a significant contribution to future EU energy supplies. Single plants are already under construction in Morocco, Algeria and Egypt and planned for Libya and Jordan. .."
http://www.timesofmalta.com/core/article.php?id=267515
via http://energybulletin.net/31861.html
(8 July 2007)
Posted by Liam, Wednesday, 25 July 2007 6:03:41 PM
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"I don't mind the name-calling, but I want action."
Thankfully we live in a democracy and you're not a dictator.

"if I did opine that I knew most of the climate scientists are wrong, then I would indeed be ill informed and clearly pompous."
Yet you manage to sound that way regardless.

"Yet increasing uncertainty of rainfall events and a general decline in net rainfall is our experience in the recent decades of warming"
Are you talking here in Australia or globally? Globally there has been no detectable change. Australia has had less net rainfall in the past.

"On purely statistical grounds, CO2 is a killer!"
From what you've said above it sounds like it is H20 that is the killer (too much or not enough).

"Inclement weather kills"
Yes this winter has almost finished me.

"it is not entirely accurate to blame climate change for any one event."
Please pass this on to Al Gore.
Posted by alzo, Wednesday, 25 July 2007 6:39:17 PM
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Alzo's posts yet again demonstrate his ineptitude to confront real issues and exemplify his blasé attitude to what real leaders and visionaries see as basic problems.

Alzo yet again has NOT contributed constructively to any meaningful discussion.
Posted by davsab, Wednesday, 25 July 2007 6:57:14 PM
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Mark, Mark, Mark ... "There is no doubt that temperatures have increased by about a degree or so since 1860..." What ?

Here's just some of the uncertainties about global average temperature
- poor global coverage prior to 1965
- "mean temperature" calculated as average of max and min rather than true average across the 24 hours (and even then the minimum is for the 24 hours to 9:00am and the maximum is from 9:00am)
- temperatures at sea were taken once per day and from up to 5 metres below the surface
- the urban heat island effect is a genuine problem because it distorts the measurements (Forget Parker's paper that attempted to prove otherwise because he didn't know when winds stopped or whether they were wam or cool winds)
- temperatures at some locations are estimated from measurements at others and we ave no idea if they are correct
- global averages are determined by mathematical methods and the 3 agencies come up with different figures, none of which have been validated
- Temperatures read by satellite provide better global coverage, the calibration is a simpler procedure and they don't show the persistent general increases present in temperatures derived from near-surface measurements.

Now don't you think we should be very suspicious about any near-surface temperatures and about claims like "temperatures have increased by about a degree or so since 1860" ?
Posted by Snowman, Wednesday, 25 July 2007 7:14:40 PM
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I thank Mark for a clear analysis of allegations about global warming, and a clarification of how the alarmists operate, particularly the IPCC.

There is global warming, but it is negligible in magnitude, and none has taken place since 1998. There have been 9 years without any global warming.

The promotion of the myth by the IPCC is reprehensible, and in his article Mark makes it clear how they have achieved a widespread baseless belief that there is a problem.

As Mark says, the IPCC forecasts are invalid. It is quite clear that they have no basis for making the forecasts, since the climate system of the planet is far too complex to have all of its aspects taken into account, even if they were all known, so modelling is worthless.

We know that the temperature fluctuates, and we know that warming is not caused by CO2, but rather, the increase in CO2 is caused by warming. We know that human activity contributes an extremely small proportion of the CO2 in the atmosphere.

And yet many of us are hoodwinked by the IPCC into believing that lowering of human carbon emissions can have an effect on the temperature of the globe, and if it did have that effect, that it would somehow be beneficial. Both assertions seem highly unlikely, on any rational consideration, and it is clear that there is no scientific research which supports such belief.

Congratulations Mark, on pinpointing the false basis on which IPCC promotes its fanciful myth.

It is a shame that Mark’s detractors do not take the trouble to read his article before giving their flawed criticisms, in fact, I noticed at least one admit to not having read it before mounting his criticism.

No doubt they are following the IPCC method, which is to dream up a purported Summary of the science, the content of which is based on political requirements. The scientists do not write the Summary, nor do they have any say in its content.
Posted by Nick Lanelaw, Wednesday, 25 July 2007 7:23:10 PM
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As a keen Punter I am very sceptical of anybody telling me they have a sure-fired method for predicting the future (whether tomorrow's races OR next century's weather). However, I always keep an open mind and assess their claims as follows....

First; I ask for their selections/predictions and watch them for a while. They don't have to be 100% accurate, but they do have to return a profit (be cost-effective). If it's a freebie, between mates, I might accept a little jiggling of the parameters, if the "model" fails to deliver first go; but not if they want me to shell out cash.

If the "prediction model" appears to "deliver" in some sort of consistent fashion I move to step 2. As you'll immediately suspect, we wouldn't be going to Step 2 with any AGW or ACC spruiker; they don't predict accurately and they want money as well! Anyway; Step 2 can only occur if the "system" inventor shows us exactly how the system (the "simulation model") works, which AGW/ACC scientists do.

Step 2. Now I back-test the "system". I apply it to an extensive sample of race data from the past. This means that the race (or weather) data from 1957 SHOULD predict near future results as well as (or nearly as well as) 1977 does; as well as 2007 will. Of course, bearing in mind that plenty of spivs spent time creating systems/models by backfitting results onto the data, we choose data we believe they haven't used. If the model passes this test, well.... Bob's your uncle; here's the $300 you requested; the gloomy future looks a lot brighter.

Funnily enough, seeing as the AGW/ACC alarmists are mostly "genuine" in their hysteria (ie it's self-deception more than "straight" deception; racing spivs work in reverse) most have not done a lot of backfitting. Being unprepared for this, the models which failed Step 1 also fail Step 2. So,all in all; no money from this punter. Cheers.
Posted by punter57, Thursday, 26 July 2007 1:18:19 PM
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Punter57, great piece of writing, thoroughly agree. you could do it for a living.
Posted by Paul.L, Thursday, 26 July 2007 3:29:53 PM
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