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The Forum > Article Comments > The heroes and villains in the Great Climate Debate > Comments

The heroes and villains in the Great Climate Debate : Comments

By Monika Sarder, published 26/10/2006

'An Inconvenient Truth' is that the climate change debate still needs scientists and engineers.

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BrainDrain

I suggest you read my earlier message more carefully.

The reason that I directed you to the GISS site was precisely so that you could see that the result there for 2005 is out of line with the other graphs for average global temperature. The comments that you make about the amount of discrepancy on that graph are therefore right.

But I specifically cautioned you that that was the one record that does not seem reliable, because it conflicts with all the others. You can access these directly from their home base, or from one or the other of the three following links:

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/data/temperatures/temps.jsp
http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/pressreleases/pressrelease2may2006.htm
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/

By all means pay attention to the detail of these records, and compare them to my comments. But I suspect we are just at cross purposes, and that you may be looking at an annually averaged plot where I am looking at a monthly one. Re-examing the CRU monthly-plotted graph, I see that the difference between the high of 1998 and lows of 2000 or 2001 is probably closer to 0.5 deg than to 0.4. But this may be a misleading way to treat the data, and if your prefer instead to use a 2-yr moving average of the data, then the difference reduces to about 0.2 deg.

Either way, don't lose sight of the main point, which is that four out of the five accepted databases recording average global temperature show no increase since 1998.

Regarding CO2/T timing relationships. The caption you refer to is wrong, or at least sloppy. There is no dispute amongst geologists or climatologists that T change precedes CO2 change at both the climatic cycle and annual scales. The two key papers are:

Mudelsee, M. 2001 The phase relations among atmospheric CO2
content, temperature & global ice volume over the past 420
ka. Quaternary Science Reviews 20, 583-589.

Kuo, C., Lindberg, C.& Thomson, D.J. 1990 Coherence established
between atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperature.
Nature 343, 709-713.

And a p.s. for AlanHopkins. Alan, try reading some of the earlier posts. Your indignation is misplaced: what global warming?

Cathy
Posted by Cathy, Tuesday, 31 October 2006 8:26:41 AM
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Cathy,

Congratulations - your deception almost sucked me in. (because you’ve convinced yourself of the superiority of your own intelligence perhaps?)
I had been challenging your argument that the world has not been warming since 1998 - when it is in fact, even using your own logic, a ludicrous one.

What you and I both agree on is that 1998 is just ONE year of data (out of more than 130 of recorded temperatures and up to 400,000 years of ice records) and is a significantly different higher anomaly to any year in the last 2 decades and is therefore statistically 'unreliable' and not able to be used by any intelligent person as the sole basis for an argument of global average YEARLY (why monthly - subject to seasonal variance??) temperature trends.

I have no problem reading the (extreme) minority view you propound. You clearly state (for no justifiable reason in my opinion - unless you consider that he challenges the Bush administration's self-interest in this vital matter, which you seem more aligned with) that Jim Henson's Goddard Institute data has little credibility in your previous post and then in a subsequent one you state:

'Therefore, the magnitudes of the relative peaks that I cite are correct. See, for example:

<http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/> '

You provide as an example (of your argument) only the data you earlier chose to deride. Rather than me reading you more carefully i suggest it is you who needs to write to us more carefully. In your initial posts you quoted YEARly data. At no point in them did you refer to monthly (or 3 monthly) average anomalies.

I reiterate - ALL available datasets (of annual anomalies) confirm that your earlier statement is wrong. (and i have not referred to GISS data as you assume - you introduced that item - I referred to non-Goddard data and media reports that stated 2005 was the hottest year on record - for both Australia and elsewhere on the globe)
http://www.physorg.com/preview9137.html.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200512/s1532198.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_temperature_record

Cont.
Posted by BrainDrain, Tuesday, 31 October 2006 3:01:23 PM
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(cont.)

There is NOT a 0.4 degree difference between 1998 and the years 2001-03 Let me state specifically: The anomaly in 1998 was 0.56 of a deg(annual). The anomaly's for years 2001-03 are in the region of 0.45 deg. This is a difference of approximately 0.1 not 0.4! ie. in this instance you were clearly W R O N G ! - live with it. Five year moving averages (a much more reliable way of determining global temperature trends) show that the Earth is currently still warming and has not stopped since 1998. You are misrepresenting the true state of the planet by reiterating your unprovable 'main point' claim that four out of five databases show 'no' increase since 1998. They all show a continuing increasing temperature trend. 1998 is clearly an anomaly of anomalies. It is entirely illogical to use it as a basis for argument. You should know better,if you want people to believe anything you say.

Another area in which you are absolutely wrong is in making future assumptions on the basis of data prior to the last 200 years of human interference in the global temperature and atmospheric composition data. Up until the early 1800's atmospheric composition and temperature were only affected significantly by 'natural' factors: sunlight, plant and plankton growth, volcanoes, lightening strikes and bushfires, reflective ice layers, etc. Since the industrial revolution and massive population expansion of the 1900's, human activity has had an unprecedented effect on our climate, in competition for the very first time, with natural climate change. This is irrefutable and is acknowledged by the vast majority of climate scientists. It also shows no sign of decreasing, only increasing, as underdeveloped countries comprisiing more than half of the world's total population try to catch up to the pollution making ability of the West.

To assume that because things varied in the past that we should do nothing to prevent our current negative interference with the global climate is unbelievably short-sighted and pure folly. We need to appreciate and better understand the problem facing us and begin to develop countermeasures immediately.
Posted by BrainDrain, Tuesday, 31 October 2006 3:13:10 PM
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THE RESPONSIBLE SOLUTION FOR AUSTRALIA IS SIMPLE.
Ratify Kyoto. Then auction emission permits – for CO2 in the first instance, probably ‘back out’ the emissions of the other 5 GHGs from the 1990 base data and also only allow a much smaller sink for land use change (ie, land clearing) for 2008 – 2012 than in 1990.

And allow Australia’s emission permits to be tradeable (fungible) with those in ETS (European Trading Scheme). Then we’ll see a responsible response from all to the world carbon price.

Oh, and the high carbon industries? Well, I for one don’t want my taxes subsidising Australian aluminium smelters running on coal based electricity. Aluminium is economically made with low carbon electricity; eg, in countries with nuclear or hydro power. But not mainland Australia – until we get nuclear power.

Sure, there is an issue for high carbon industries selling against low carbon competitors, which could make them uncompetitive. Like the Button car plan, government can plan the phase down period, where the situation is dire. Ie, it might offer temporary subsidy/protection but with an agreed wind down period over years til there is no subsidy. Industry, like all of us, can then plan for the future with the carbon prices on the board. This is the economically responsible way to get least cost solutions and manage the change.

Oh yes, problems from competing imports from Annex A countries, which currently don’t have carbon restraint? Well, maybe we impose an imputed carbon tax where the embedded carbon is significant, eg, cement, aluminium and some other metals. This would be for a limited period – and again, would be planned to wind down over time. No permanent subsidies – just a safety net to allow industries time to wind down or adapt. Yes, this is efficient and responsible
Posted by Gaia, Wednesday, 1 November 2006 6:28:47 AM
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FROM DUE PROCESS TO PM’S FIAT
Unfortunately, we don’t have any leaders to manage the issue responsibly. In 1999 the Government published four excellent booklets on emissions trading. At that stage, it was following due process. It was working through the problem in a credible way. However due process was abandoned in following years to be substituted with Prime Ministerial fiat. Statements like “we won’t ratify Kyoto because it will hurt some sectors of the economy”. Hello? What sort of trite and fatuous statement is that? All the modelling studies show that it will hurt some sectors of the economy – as noted above. So why avoid the truth?
But real leaders wouldn’t shy from the obvious. They would explain that as an unfortunate, yet unavoidable effect of the changes necessary for us to live within the limits of the planet’s ecosystems. They would note there will be many winners too.

Our frugal forebears impressed on us the need to live within our means. Similarly with the planet’s ecosystem already suffering from human induced warming we must responsibly address this complex issue honestly, responsibly and resolutely.

Wake up Australia! The clever country? Well certainly not a clever or responsible Commonwealth Government.
Posted by Gaia, Wednesday, 1 November 2006 6:32:37 AM
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Monika, the Great and the Good and their hypothesis of a stable and benign pre-industrial climate, disturbed only now by people burning fossil fuels, will be put to the test. The Mainstream project just more and more warming - NO cold periods - unless CO2 emissions are urgently and drastically curtailed. But we may not need to go nuclear as early as Al Gore implies (but doesn't say). The dominant paradigm of a people-driven climate MUST mean continued warming, because 99% of growth in consumption of carbon-rich coal over 1990-2005 was in China/India - and their use will keep on growing. Sceptics like me say ours is not an autonomous Earth, with a self-contained climate. Climate is externally driven - and onset of the next Little Ice Age cold period will be obvious well before 2020; and it will be fully developed by 2030. Please don't outlaw coal until this real-life test is decided - one way or the other.
Posted by fosbob, Wednesday, 1 November 2006 8:48:12 AM
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