There’s no longer any serious debate among climate scientists about either the reality of global warming or about the fact that its substantially caused by human activity, but, as 500+ comments on my previous post on this topic show, neither the judgement of the overwhelming majority of climate scientists, nor the evidence that led them to that judgement, has had much effect on the denialists[1].
And the Australian media are doing a terrible job in covering the issue. I’ve seen at least half a dozen pieces this year claiming that the whole issue is a fraud cooked up by left-wing greenies, and January isn’t over yet.
The latest is from Peter Walsh in the Oz. Walsh is still banging on about the satellite data, and the Medieval Warm Period, suggesting that his reading, if any, in the last few years has been confined to publications emanating from the right-wing parallel universe. But that hasn’t stopped the Australian from running him, and a string of others.
If an issue like genetically modified food, or the dangers of mobile phones was treated in this way, with alarmist cranks being given hectares of column space, most of those who sympathise with Walsh would be outraged and rightly so.
Walsh does make one valid point however, saying. “If your case is immaculate, why feed lies into it?” To which, I can only respond, “If the cap fits …”
fn1. At this point, the term “sceptic” is no longer remotely applicable. Only dogmatic commitment to a long-held position (or an ideological or financial motive for distorting the evidence) can explain continued rejection of the evidence.
John Quiggin 
JS: reread my comment. I never said Europe’s cold snap was evidence against global warming. I just ridiculed the f*cktards at greenpeace for claiming the converse.
EG: “are you saying you disagree with all or some of the quantifications methods available at present?”. Some, yes.
James,
Have you seen this?
.
As you may have noticed, I am coming round to the AGW hypothesis and consider it now good enough to be a working theory. It is, however, people that take it to extremes that do much to discredit it. PrQ’s moderate approach has much to commend it, but attempts to run around screaming ‘the sky is falling, the sky is falling’ will only encourage the people who do not consider it a worthy theory to continue to bring up arguments that the sky is not falling and walk away.
Bollocks. Greenpeace claim their positions are scientifically well-grounded, and an awful lot of people believe them. There’s a “Greenpeace Science Laboratory” at Exeter University. And this from their home page: “We promote open, informed debate about society’s environmental choices.”
Sure, like the well-known independent researcher Peter Walsh that you ridiculed to kick off this thread.
Dogz,
One more question. Do those quatification methods, which you accept, result in the conclusion that aggregate external effects of human activities on climate change are negligible for the relevant time horizon as identified in my previous post?
EG: “Do those quatification methods, which you accept, result in the conclusion that aggregate external effects of human activities on climate change are negligible for the relevant time horizon as identified in my previous post?”
Depends what you mean by “negligible”. One man’s “negligible” is another man’s “significant”.
Dogz, if you agree with me that the “sceptics” are ideological/paid advocates and not independent researchers with some sort of credibility, what have we been arguing about for the last 100 comments?
As regards Greenpeace, next time you see Greenpeace scientific research results quoted as fact in a newspaper or other mass media, alert me, and I’ll do the necessary debunking.
JQ, Some sceptics are ideological/paid advocates, some are independent researchers, some are social commentators, some are scientists from other fields, and some are complete raving lunatics. An eclectic a mix as the pro-AGW camp.
Your implication that the credible members of the pro-AGW camp only criticise the utterances of the (supposedly) credible members of the sceptic camp is not backed up by the evidence. They criticise almost everything out of the sceptic camp, from credible to monster-raving-looney, with maybe a murmur of protest reserved only for the most extreme nutters on their own side.
Andrew Reynolds,
You will need to re-enter the link. What you have posted was :
… instead of something like :
(And, you were correct, by the way. Omitting the double quotes from the ‘href=’ attribute, prior to clicking the “Submit Comment” button, gets around WordPress’s apparent bug, allowing the properly formed link, including double quotes in the link to be posted. In other words, to get the above I have found that I have needed to type :
)
Anyhow, I think it is good that you are beginning to accept that we have a good deal to worry about, in regards to global warming. The question remains what is the extent of the looming theat, and what needs to be done.
I think, if all factors are considered, even if we discount James Lovelock’s prediction, that humanity must, as soon as possible, come to regard this threat as one which is far greater than that posed by Hitler and the Japanese militarists during the Second World War, and act accordingly.
“Your implication that the credible members of the pro-AGW camp only criticise the utterances of the (supposedly) credible members of the sceptic camp is not backed up by the evidence. They criticise almost everything out of the sceptic camp, from credible to monster-raving-looney, with maybe a murmur of protest reserved only for the most extreme nutters on their own side.”
Apropos Dogz. Avaroo tries to imply that a cold snap in Europe somehow bears on the global warming debate, and you smear Greenpeace. Speaking of, the quote you picked up on there- about how AGW will lead to severe changes in established weather patterns- doesn’t seem so silly to me. Do you assert it less likely to snow in Cairo in a world where the effect of global warming is trivial than in one where it is acute?
“Apropos Dogz. Avaroo tries to imply that a cold snap in Europe somehow bears on the global warming debate, and you smear Greenpeace.”
A fair point, although in my defence (and in keeping with my point), had I not diverted Avaroo’s remarks into a lampooning of greenpeace there are plenty of pro-AGW commenters here who would have happily beaten him up – no need for me to do so.
“Do you assert it less likely to snow in Cairo in a world where the effect of global warming is trivial than in one where it is acute?”
I don’t know. I have seen it asserted before that an increase in mean temperature also implies an increase in the temperature variance, which would imply an increase in the probability of things like snow in Cairo provided the balance between mean and variance was reasonable. But I have seen no scientific justification for that assertion.
Dogz,
All of the camp of global warming deniers, whether they are nutters or paid mouthpieces of vested interest have caused grave harm for the long term prospects of our species by having made acceptable, in the minds of much of the public, the inexcusable delays, on the part of our political leaders, in taking the necessary and urgent action to halt global warming.
By comparison, any harm, caused by the relatively small number of nutters in the opposed camp, is insignificant.
So Professor Quiggin is entirely justified in focussing most of his energies against the former rather than latter.
By the way, I suspect most people’s definition of ‘nutter’ would easily encompass anyone who seriously advocates Australia’s population should be increased to levels above “a couple of hundred million”.
I remain uncertain as to whether you were entirely serious when you wrote that.
Dogz says: “We hear an overwhelming chorus of protest from the pro-AGW scientific community whenever a sceptic gets something wrong, but deafening silence whenever greenpeace speaks, no matter how stupid or irresponsible their statements.”
So what? It isn’t the job of climate scientists to provide a running commentary on everything Greenpeace says. I think they have enough on their plate already. Surely it is sufficient that websites like RealClimate exist.
Also, how many credible sceptics are there? The only one I can think of is Richard Lindzen. Most of the others are septugenarians, octogenarians or industry hacks.
I actually agree with you on Minke whales. They appear to be common enough for sustainable harvesting to resume. If it is unreasonable for Jews to stop me eating pork and Hindus to stop me eating cattle, then it is equally unreasonable for Western environmentalists to stop the Japanese from eating whales.
JS: The sceptics get most of their traction from the likes of greenpeace and Lovelock. They discredit their side of the debate far more than the sceptics do.
Of course I was serious about population increase. Australia is big and has large natural wealth. If India and China can acommodate 2-3 billion surely it is not out of the question that Australia could accomodate a couple of hundred million.
JS: The sceptics get most of their traction from the likes of greenpeace and Lovelock. They discredit their side of the debate far more than the sceptics do
Of course I was serious about population increase. Australia is big and has large natural wealth. If India and China can acommodate 2-3 billion surely it is not out of the question that Australia could accomodate a couple of hundred million.
Dogz,
Re: ‘Negligible’.
In a particular context, your statement “One man’s ‘negligible’ amount is another man’s ‘significant’ “ translates into ‘risk preferences’ are individualistic. But this is not what we are talking about here because this interpretation belongs to Economics rather than climate science, which you have been talking about.
So I am interested in your definition of ‘negligible’ and your answer. Incidentally, the term ‘negligible’ is used all over the place in environmental regulations.
“Science and consensus are mutually exclusive positions.
There is no consensus that that the sun shines, for example. It just does. The blindingly obvious is not in need of a consensus. Only doubt has a need for consensus.”
Yes this is how scientists determined that the sun revolves around the Earth inside the blue dome of the sky in which the stars are fixed.
Dogz: I was disappointed when the harpoon missed that idiot from greenpeace.
Yeah, the only good ideological extemist is a dead ideological extremist.
The question is not so much, ‘did human economic activity contribute significantly to global warming’ but ‘is there any practical programme of human activity that can stave off climate threats to humanity?’
Even if all agree, say, that the Gulf Stream will be significantly diminished in the near future, what could be done about it? It seems pretty obvious that no coherent political action will or could be taken short of the irreversible onset of a major climate catastrophe that cannot be ignored.
If Northern Europe experiences an ice age in the next 20 years or so, the need for carbon based fuels will be increased in the short term, but may eventually be diminished due to massive reductions in the population. Imponderables of this kind render accurate prediction and planning impossible.
>JS: reread my comment. I never said Europe’s cold snap was evidence against global warming. I just ridiculed the f*cktards at greenpeace for claiming the converse.
Dogz, mainstream climate scinetists have predicted for a decade or more that global warming will shut down the gulf stream causing extreme localised cooling in Europe.
A couple of months ago there was a paper on data showing that exactly this was happening.
The extreme cold in Europe is amongst the best evidence to date that global warming is in fact happening and represents an important validation of the models which predicted this.
I’d watch who i’m calling a “f*cktard”.
Ian, I can find recent studies in which climate models predict, as a result of AGW:
A) Europe will get much hotter
B) Europe will get much colder
C) Europe will stay much the same
The LIA and MWP also show that, in the absence of AGW,
A) Europe can get much hotter
B) Europe can get much colder
C) Europe can stay much the same
So any “evidence” for AGW based on short-term climate change in Europe is also evidence for no AGW.
>I can find recent studies in which climate models predict,
Please do so – I look forward to the links.
Meanwhile here’s what the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University have to say:
One outcome of global warming could be a dramatic cooling of Britain and northern Europe.
Scientists now have evidence that changes are occurring in the Gulf Stream, the warm and powerful ocean current that tempers the western European climate.
Without the influence of the Gulf Stream and its two northern branches, the North Atlantic Drift and the Canary Current, the weather in Britain could be more like that of Siberia, which shares the same latitude.
Cambridge University ocean physics professor Peter Wadhams points to changes in the waters of the Greenland Sea. Historically, large columns of very cold, dense water in the Greenland Sea, known as “chimneys,” sink from the surface of the ocean to about 9,000 feet below to the seabed. As that water sinks, it interacts with the warm Gulf Stream current flowing from the south.
But Wadhams says the number of these “chimneys” has dropped from about a dozen to just two. That is causing a weakening of the Gulf Stream, which could mean less heat reaching northern Europe. The activity in the Greenland Sea is part of a global pattern of ocean movement, known as thermohaline circulation, or more commonly the “global conveyor belt.
End quote
Woods hole has been sayign the same thing consistently for abotu a decade.
I will be extremely interested in any examples you can provide of climatologists predicting warmer winter temperatures fro Europe as a result of AGW.
Click to access GRL05.pdf
From the conclusion:
“The concerns raised by the impacts of severe summer heat waves, such as the event that affected much of Europe in 2003, should not overshadow the very real impacts of winter warm spells that have occurred in the past and will increasingly be seen in the future if climate warms to the extent projected by recent climate model simulations.”
Fair enough.
Now here is a graph showing annual avergare temperasture for a set of carefully selected stations. What is obvious is that since 1940 the severe winters got milder.
Now if winters are getting more severe that would imply mean a trend reversal and a return of the climate yoyo of the 19th century.
oops too fast
Now here is a graph showing annual average temperature for a set of carefully selected stations. What is obvious that since 1940 the severe winters got milder.
Now if winters are getting more severe that would imply a trend reversal and a return of the climate yoyo of the 19th century.
James,
I would, as is par for the course, disagree. I would doubt that we are talking many millions of deaths resulting from AGW – if that is what you meant. I presume you did not mean a system of concentration camps would be set up by climate change.
I would tend to think that some prudent steps may be appropriate, but putting the country on to a war footing would be about as appropriate as trying to empty our cities in response to a 2 to 3 degree change, if that is the forecast. I would suggest that you have a good read of PrQ’s suggested response and indicate why you feel a much more radical one is needed.
Ian Gould says: “The extreme cold in Europe is amongst the best evidence to date that global warming is in fact happening and represents an important validation of the models which predicted this.”
Ian, sweeping statements like this play into the hands of the cynics. As the folks at RealClimate say, you simply can not pin any one weather event, like a cold snap in Europe, on climate change/ global warming.
I think it is far more wise to say that the cold snap in Europe is not inconsistent with some theories of what may happen as a result of AGW.
Hans, you are likewise jumping to a conclusion based on one weather event.
As Willis would say- bad researcher, no cookie for you. 🙂
Sorry steve,
If the current winter is colder than 1940 this will be a falsification of global warming in europe. I’ll tell you next december when the annual average for 2006 is out.
The most obvious sign of global warming is mildening winters.
But then again “global warming” was already hedged to “climate change” a few years ago wasn’t it?
Hans Erren Says
Predictions can change when new evidence and/or theories arise. Some people regard this as normal scientific practice.
>But then again “global warming� was already hedged to “climate change� a few years ago wasn’t it?
Yes but the Bush White house because they thought “climate change” sounded less threatening.
The memo to that effect from a senior White house offiical has been circulating on the interent for quite some time.
This is the edited highlights of Nature 439, 256-260 (19 January 2006) | :10.1038/439256a
Climate change: A sea change
1.Comparing their 2004 measurements with data from 1957, 1981, 1992 and 1998, Bryden and colleagues found that some of the warm surface water that used to flow northwards now seemed to remain trapped in the subtropical Atlantic, looping east and then returning south rather than heading north. Altogether, the ‘overturning’ circulation at 25° N — the latitude where Ellis had first probed the ocean 250 years before — seemed to have decreased by about 30%.
2. Few scientists had thought that such dramatic slowing of the thermohaline circulation could happen so soon. Models suggest6 that the increase in fresh water needed for a conveyor shutdown would not be expected without a global warming of 4–5°C; warming in the twentieth century is currently put at 0.6°C . The most complex computer models of the climate and oceans, the sort used to make climate predictions for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), suggest that the flow might be expected to slow by an average of 25% by the end of the twenty-first century, but not to shut down completely3.
3.Peter Wadhams, an oceanographer at the University of Cambridge, UK, last year reported a substantial weakening of convection ‘chimneys’ down which surface water flows in the Greenland sea, but it is unknown how much of the observed effect is due to natural variability.
4. Evidence for the huge effects of past thermohaline shutdowns is near indisputable. The best case is that of a 1,300-year cold period that occurred around 12,000 years ago, known as the Younger Dryas. The carbon isotope ratios in fossilized plankton from the period suggest that the thermohaline circulation was much slower than it is today (slow circulation allows light carbon isotopes to build up near the ocean’s surface).
5. Most model studies, such as those used by the IPCC, look at how a freshwater-induced shutdown of the thermohaline circulation might change temperatures if everything else remained the same. A harder question is what a shutdown might mean in a world that is, on average, getting warmer. Bryden’s findings have caused a stir throughout the climate research community; lead authors of the chapters on ocean physics and circulation in the IPCC’s fourth assessment, due in 2007, are reworking their submissions.
6.One aspect of the problem is that the thermohaline circulation is not just a climatic affair. Its effect on ocean circulations means it influences the rates at which nutrient-rich bottom water rises to the surface all around the world. A recent simulation suggests a shutdown might lead North Atlantic plankton stocks to collapse to less than half their current biomass. Globally, a decline of more than 20% might be expected thanks to reduced upwelling of nutrient-rich deep water and gradual depletion of upper-ocean nutrient concentrations.
7.Other possible effects of a shutdown predicted by models include warming in the tropics, or, rather surprisingly, over Alaska and Antarctica. Rainfall patterns might change, too. A southern shift of the thermal equator — which has accompanied thermohaline circulation shutdowns during ice ages — could lead to monsoon failures, and droughts in Asia and the Sahel region, says Severinghaus, and these effects seem to be independent of sea ice. Such shifts could have severe consequences for poor farmers in many parts of the world, consequences that may be considerably more disruptive than colder winters in affluent northern Europe, says Severinghaus. And, as Schlesinger points out, a weakening or stopping of the thermohaline circulation would reduce the carbon dioxide uptake of the ocean, which would mean a positive feedback on global warming. The oceans currently absorb about a third of the carbon dioxide released from fossil fuels, although the proportion is set to decrease as emissions climb.
Political bias affects brain activity, study find
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11009379/
“The result is that partisan beliefs are calcified, and the person can learn very little from new data,” Westen said.
JQ like the creationists we have a prime example here, so how about no more red rags to these bulls. It’s a real pitty as it seems we cannot get past 1st base to start having a look at all our options.
The easiest being the win/win ”
Energy’s ‘low hanging fruit’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4633160.stm
“Without being too flippant, it’s a no-brainer, but one, I doubt, that we will adopt. ”
Given the first half of my post that isn’t a surprise.
Dogz wrote:
“I have seen it asserted before that an increase in mean temperature also implies an increase in the temperature variance, which would imply an increase in the probability of things like snow in Cairo provided the balance between mean and variance was reasonable. But I have seen no scientific justification for that assertion.”
It’s not clear to me that profound changes in observed weather patterns need be an effect of increased variance in the climate, or more importantly, that predictions of such changes rest on this claim. What is more clear is that weather patterns are a reflection of both historically static (or very nearly so) and time varying parameters with the former including all those influences that facilitate our experience of climate predictability. Examples of these parameters are the coincidence of geographical features, orientation with the sun, and, of course, the thermodynamic properties of our atmosphere. It follows then that radical changes to erstwhile stable parameters will make heretofore highly unlikely weather- such as snowfall in Cairo- much less so, even if the effect of such changes on the cross sectional variance in climate is not known.
This is not a trivial distinction. Whether or not you like warm weather, cavalier statements don’t change the dire implications of dramatically different weather patterns. Entire ecosystems and industries- to say nothing of the vulnerability of certain populations- very much depend on history repeating itself, and our society very much depends on the health of each. And given all that, one has to wonder why we seem intent to play chicken with nature’s random number generator in the interest of saving a few cents per kilowatt hour. Does that strike you as justified?
I’m not sure the term “denier” is an appropriate label for people simply based on the fact that they think AGW is not a closed subject. But it may feel good politically to people who DO think it’s a closed subject.
In any case, I look forward to Al Gore’s forthcoming book, again on the subject. That would be the Al Gore who hasn’t had a science class since prep school.
There is a 300-year warming trend since the latter of the two deep cold periods of the Little Ice Age, the Maunder Minimum ‘quiet Sun’ of 1645-1715. The Sun has been back on the job since then. In fact, it appears to have been more active in the latter 2/3 of the 20th century than for 6,000 years.
In the 20th century, the most prominent climatic even was the great Pacific Climate Shift of 1976/7 (despite its name, having a pronounced global effect). This abrupt shift to a warm regime, and the shift to a cool regime in the mid 1940’s are overprinted on the long-term (300yr) warming trend. These two shifts were inertial events, representing an exchange of angular momentum between stony Earth and mobile overcoat of ocean and atmosphere. In the 1940s there was an abrupt increase in the upwelling of cold water in the equatorial eastern Pacific, and this was reversed in 1976/7.
On Earth, inflection points in the trend of length-of-day change are a good proxy for major momentum-related influences. Crucially, these reversals match the timing of zero phases in the rotary force applied by the Jovian planets to the Sun. It is these giants that drive the Sun’s irregular orbit around the centre-of-mass of the solar-system. The planets drive the Sun, and the Sun passes on these influences to us electromagnetically and inertially.
Ours is not a self-contained climate. The timing and extent of planetary influences on the Sun can be calculated. If the Sun keeps playing by the rules, a cooling trend on Earth will be detectable by about the end of the decade, and the Landscheidt Minimum will be fully developed by 2030. People starved in the Maunder Minimum. There will be a lot more people needing food and warmth next time round.
IPCC and its consensus of 2,500 of the world.s top climate scientists would have us believe that humanity can regain the benign stability of pre-industrial Arcadia, by ‘doing the right thing’ about carbon-based fuels. We will have to control the Sun first.
Bob Foster,
Any references (ie links) to information about:-
a) the Landscheidt Minimum
b) the Maunder Minimum
I did find some references here:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation
Regards,
Terje.
Bob Foster, is that the astrologer Theodor Landscheidt you’re citing?
Majorajam: the weather patterns can change dramatically in the absence of any (known) change in the (known) parameters controlling the weather. Hence, if you’re going to claim that AGW leads to increased likelihood of snow in Cairo, you need to substantiate that claim with something more than “the parameters have changed”.
SimonJM: “Political bias reduces brain activity”
Hear hear. Although for most of the lefties around here the causality appears to be in the opposite direction.
Dogz 🙂 I’d think that tends to happen from the extremes of both sides.
On the environment one should let the science do the talking -not groups like Greenpeace- and it is up to the anti-environmentalist right to have a good look at itself as its the one that dismisses the mainstream science and the worlds leading scientific institutions and therefore more likely to be under extreme confirmation bias.
BTW I think on many subjects from ethics to politics people don’t think but rationalize and that we are are non-rational in many of our decisions and mistake them as rational.
The scientific method can help in the sciences but we have less to reply on in the the social arena.
Han,
Frank Luntz likes the term climate change over GW too.
HTH,
D
Ours is not a self-contained climate. The timing and extent of planetary influences on the Sun can be calculated. If the Sun keeps playing by the rules, a cooling trend on Earth will be detectable by about the end of the decade, and the Landscheidt Minimum will be fully developed by 2030.
Ooooh…Landscheidt.
Bob, have you placed any bets on whether your statement will be true? There are a number of fora for you to do this.
Pony up, as us Yanks say.
Best,
D
The Governor-General, Michael Jeffery, agrees with us.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/our-golden-soil-is-in-danger-jeffery/2006/01/26/1138066921549.html
BTW, my name’s Paul, not Peter.
Majorajam: the weather patterns can change dramatically in the absence of any (known) change in the (known) parameters controlling the weather. Hence, if you’re going to claim that AGW leads to increased likelihood of snow in Cairo, you need to substantiate that claim with something more than “the parameters have changed�.
Hardly. The point is, take a highly improbable outcome as given by an examination of a long time series of outcomes of a process governed by a configuration of red buttons on a black box. Now move a red button. What is the effect to be? In the case of our heretofore extremely unlikely event, the probability is very likely to be higher, if only because it has no where else to go.
The question I put to you again is, why jump on a roulette wheel, (as this is the best case analysis of what denialists are arguing for), in the interest of saving a few cents per kilowatt hour?
I’m a republican – I don’t take Michael Jeffery as an authority on anything.
SJM: “On the environment one should let the science do the talking”
Indeed. The problem is the science is saying conflicting things.
I’m a republican — I don’t take Michael Jeffery as an authority on anything.
SJM: “On the environment one should let the science do the talking”
Indeed. The problem is the science is saying conflicting things.
Dogz , it depends what you mean by conflicting things. If you mean that global warming is denied by the majority of climate scientists then your statement is false. If you mean that climate science is not in agreement about how the increased energy in the climate system from global warming will be distributed then your statement is true.
Apparently the BBC thinks the US “withdrew” from Kyoto. Someone should tell the BBC that the US never ratified it to begin with, making withdrawal, uh, not possible.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4650878.stm
Tne discussion is getting away from the criticial point made by Majorajam, that is that we have been “play(ing) chicken with nature’s random number generator” by having, in less than two centuries, put back into the atmosphere almost almost half of the carbon sequestered into the ground over tens of millions of years.
Given that the the five hottest years in the last 115 years have occurred in the last decade, and given all the melting glaciers, melting polar ice caps, bleached coral, etc, etc, it still seems to me that temperatures are steadily rising on average as the climate scientists have warned.
However, if, instead of rising average temperatures, we end up ‘only’ with our weather wildly fluctuating between greater extremes of cold and hot, not to mention floods, droughts, Hurricane Katrina etc, then we should count ourselves extremely lucky.
To procede to burn the remaining carbon under the ground at a faster rate than we already have, as the global warming deniers would have us do, is practically inviting the certainty of calamity.
Did you actually read that NASA link? Try looking at the last paragraph.
Hurrican Katrina, bad as it was was far from the deadliest US hurricane. Look at 1776, with way fewer people in the US, we had a deadlier one.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001443.html