Climate Change - the big debate

[10 Pence Short]

blindswelledrat said:

10 Pence Short said:

Ths point is not in that one issue; it is in itself further evidence that the IPCC and supporting organisations are not interested in whether they are really correct- the end is justifying the means.

I disagree with this entirely. That is my whole point. THis, to me, is evidence of nothing. Or at least nothing other than one idiot scientist making a mistake.

It wasn't one little scientist making a mistake, though.

It was one little scientist saying, when interviewed some years ago with no real agenda, that glaciers in one small region of the Himalayas could be gone by 2035. When question more recently he said it was just a supposition and not based upon any factual evidence, either.

Then one biased organisation, some years later, picked up on that claim and reported it as fact. Then, the IPCC pick up that report and suddenly it's changed from the original quote into "Himalayan Glaciers will be gone by 2035", which isn't what the original scientist said, let alone meant.

[don4l]

blindswelledrat said:

TO reiterate my point- to me,one irrelevant mistake in thousands of similar examples is proof of nothing at all other than the fact that someone made a mistake.

The problem is that it wasn't an "irrelevant mistake". It is said that the Himalayan Glaciers provide drinking water and irrigation for a sixth of the world's population. If these glaciers dissappeared, the consequences would be emormous. Think about famine, wars and economic collapse. There is also a huge volume of water trapped in these glaciers, and sea levels would rise significantly if they melted. Politcians around the world were heavily influenced by the claim.

The other important point about this story is that the IPCC said that all its conclusions had been peer reviewed. If one of its most important claims has not been peer reviewed, what conclusions should we draw about the rest of the report. As we have seen over the past few days, the Amazon Forest scare in the report that was not peer reviewed, and is pure junk.

All of this would be unimportant if the politicians were not going fix these non-existant problems by taxing us into poverty.

Don
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[Einion Yrth]

10 Pence Short said:

It was one little scientist saying, when interviewed some years ago with no real agenda, that glaciers in one small region of the Himalayas could be gone by 2035. When question more recently he said it was just a supposition and not based upon any factual evidence, either.

Furthermore it was apparently 2350, not 2035.

10 Pence Short said:

Then one biased organisation, some years later, picked up on that claim and reported it as fact. Then, the IPCC pick up that report and suddenly it's changed from the original quote into "Himalayan Glaciers will be gone by 2035", which isn't what the original scientist said, let alone meant.

Mistake? Maybe.

[don4l]

Radio 4 was in overdrive this morning.

Using Mike Hulme to argue the sceptic's corner was pure genius. I suppose that in the next political debate that they will invite Alastair Campbell to defend Conservative policies.

Did anyone notice that Prof. Hulme referred to the "leaked" e-mails? Are they now admitting that they weren't hacked?

Don
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[BJWoods]

don4l said:

Radio 4 was in overdrive this morning.

Using Mike Hulme to argue the sceptic's corner was pure genius. I suppose that in the next political debate that they will invite Alastair Campbell to defend Conservative policies.

Did anyone notice that Prof. Hulme referred to the "leaked" e-mails? Are they now admitting that they weren't hacked?

Don
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I would if I were you complain about it to the BBC trust...
[e-mail] - ref climate change bias

He is IN the leaked emails, he is part of it...
For the BBC to present the sceptics view like this is APPALLING.

Telegraph 25th jan (look at comments)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/clima...

[kerplunk]

Einion Yrth said:

Eric Mc said:

From what I can see, for the rest of human existence we will be bombarded with propaganda about one made threat after the other. As each one becomes discredited, a new one rises to take its place - a kind of Environmentalist Lobby Hydra.

Always bears repeating...

H.L. Mencken said:

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

all of them except those environmentalist baby-eating lobby hydras presumably

[kerplunk]

blindswelledrat said:

No nelly, it doesn't Im afraid.

I know that the IPCC greatly exaggerate thier claims and act like they have proved something that is unprovable.
Just as I know that one tiny little claim about one glacier made by one scientist doesn't unravel everything they say.

It just strikes me as slightly hysterical jumping on this tiny insignificant piece of the puzzle and claiming it is somehow proof that everything the IPCC says in nonsense.

yeh this one goes up to eleven see:

[BJWoods]

it's just that all those tiny ones just keep adding up...

Africa - outed
amazon - outed
sea level outed
glacier - outed

[blindswelledrat]

don4l said:

Fair point

ANy idea how much of the 3000 page report was dedicated to this mistake, and what else was in it i.e. it is clearly massively alarmist- but did it constitute any significance to the rest of it- or was it an isolated mistake?


Additionally-does the fact that they have said it is melting quicker than it actually is actually undermine thier argument in any way?
Credibility perhaps (but they never had a great deal with me anyway), but arguyment perhaps not. It seems the glaciers is still melting, just slower.

Edited by blindswelledrat on Tuesday 26th January 11:55

[Einion Yrth]

blindswelledrat said:

It seems the glaciers is still melting, just slower.

If the glaciers weren't melting we'd be in deep sh*t. Also if the oringinal 2350 (n.b. not 2035) date was an 'educated guess' rather than pure speculation then we are talking one hell of a lot slower.

[Spiritual_Beggar]

blindswelledrat said:

No nelly, it doesn't Im afraid.

I know that the IPCC greatly exaggerate thier claims and act like they have proved something that is unprovable.
Just as I know that one tiny little claim about one glacier made by one scientist doesn't unravel everything they say.

It just strikes me as slightly hysterical jumping on this tiny insignificant piece of the puzzle and claiming it is somehow proof that everything the IPCC says in nonsense.

Well, everything they do say is nonsense...that's what all these threads are about. AGW is nonsense.

It just nice to finally see a bit of evidence that proves how inept....no that's the wrong word....devious, corrupt, alarmist...any of those will do......this bunch are.


It's like when we saw the 'Green roots' of recovery in the economy We all jumped on it because we could finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.


(The Green Shoots analogy is probably not the best one to use here....as we all know how wrong they were on that )

[blindswelledrat]

Spiritual_Beggar said:

It just nice to finally see a bit of evidence that proves how inept....no that's the wrong word....devious, corrupt, alarmist...any of those will do......this bunch are.

Fair enough. I feel the same way. It just seems to be blown out of all proportion on here a little!
Maybe unsuprisingly

[Spiritual_Beggar]

blindswelledrat said:

Fair enough. I feel the same way. It just seems to be blown out of all proportion on here a little!
Maybe unsuprisingly

True. I wouldn't disagree with you. But surely we're allowed to exagerate a little bit.

After all the 'crap' they've exagerated and forced upon us, and those ridiculous, child scaring adverts.....this is pretty mild by comparison.

[herewego]

blindswelledrat said:

don4l said:

Fair point

ANy idea how much of the 3000 page report was dedicated to this mistake, and what else was in it i.e. it is clearly massively alarmist- but did it constitute any significance to the rest of it- or was it an isolated mistake?


Additionally-does the fact that they have said it is melting quicker than it actually is actually undermine thier argument in any way?
Credibility perhaps (but they never had a great deal with me anyway), but arguyment perhaps not. It seems the glaciers is still melting, just slower.

Edited by blindswelledrat on Tuesday 26th January 11:55

You have to be careful about the use of the word melting. We know what you mean but it's better to refer to reducing glacier size or glacial retreat because melt water provides drinking water to quite a few people below the mountains and they like it that way. How those people will be affected by smaller glaciers I don't know, presumably less meltwater for irrigation etc.

[Dr Jekyll]

blindswelledrat said:

don4l said:

Fair point

ANy idea how much of the 3000 page report was dedicated to this mistake, and what else was in it i.e. it is clearly massively alarmist- but did it constitute any significance to the rest of it- or was it an isolated mistake?


Additionally-does the fact that they have said it is melting quicker than it actually is actually undermine thier argument in any way?
Credibility perhaps (but they never had a great deal with me anyway), but arguyment perhaps not. It seems the glaciers is still melting, just slower.

This issue was never whether glaciers were melting, everyone accepted they were. The issue was whether they were melting faster than before, thereby implying something unprecedented was happening to the climate.

More to the point, the process that was used to compile the whole report is what is in question, not a few lumps of ice in India.

[BJWoods]

the media may be cracking - a bit

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/dailypolitics/andrewnei...

Shame, about the few email - slight of hand bit - Wonder IF he has actually looked at them AT ALL.
Or the code, or the data handling...

"The bloggers are all over the UN IPCC 2007 report, the bible of global warming, which predicted all manner of dire outcomes for our planet unless we got a grip on rising temperatures -- and it seems to be crumbling in some pretty significant areas.

The dam began to crack towards the end of last year when leaked e-mails from one of the temples of global warming, the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, suggested that a few sleights of hand were being deployed to hide facts inconvenient to the global warming case. An official investigation into these e-mails is on-going.

But the flood gates really opened after the IPCC had to withdraw its claim that the Himalayan glaciers would likely all have melted by 2035, maybe even sooner. "

there is more see the link

[BJWoods]

Missed this earliar one
Andrew Neil giving the Met offcie cheif a hard time and explaining why.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/dailypolitics/andrewnei...

"....Some of you thought I gave the Met head too hard a time. But I was not interviewing just the country's top weather man and complaining that he'd got a few forecasters wrong.

The British Met has been in the forefront of the global warming movement. It was instrumental in setting up the whole IPCC process to investigate global warming, its luminaries have led the process, its forecasts are an integral part of IPCC policy and it is blood brothers with the CRU at East Anglia University (of the infamous e-mail scandal).

It predicted a BBQ summer for 2009 and a mild winter for 2009/10. There is a suspicion in some quarters that its commitment to global warming influences its seasonal forecasts (obviously not its day to day forecasts which are as good as anybody's).

Some say that is why it keeps getting them wrong. We depend on the Met for its forecasts, which should be as accurate as they can be and untainted by ideology.

That is why I was robust with the head of the Met and I think we need some reassurances from him. Hence my list of questions, which we'll now submit."

Once the climategate story gets unleashed....
It will be FUN ( to see all the backtracking, - very much doubt any apologies)


It

[VPower]

blindswelledrat said:

I dont contribute much to this thread because I am as sceptical of the sceptics as I am of the alarmists.
However I feel compelled to ask this question.
There seems to be a lot of excitement lately about this glaciers that the IPCC said was melting quicker than it is.
Really-what is the big deal about it?
Its one mistake out of hundreds (thousands?) of similar claims. It hardly proves anything other than one of many thousands of IPCC scientists has fked up and acted unproffessionally.
Maybe I am missing something that makes the above sentence incorrect.

Unfortunately without TB here to maintain the Scientific Balance, a lot of the answers to you original comments have drifted away from the Science and into Medai hype.

So come on chaps keep it Balanced, no need to wander into self righteousness of "We told you so"!!
ETA - As much as I would like too!!

We need to keep this debate where it should have been all along, supported by peer reviewed Scientific agreement.
Because it just could be that all TB's stuff about Global Cooling might be the next Political bandwagon!

So blindswelledrat you need to go an read this as there ARE NOT THOUSANDS OF SCIENTISTS WHO SUPPORT THE IPCC REPORT!
http://mclean.ch/climate/docs/IPCC_numbers.pdf

Edited by VPower on Tuesday 26th January 15:34

[Spiritual_Beggar]

VPower said:

We need to keep this debate where it should have been all along, supported by peer reviewed Scientific agreement.
Because it just could be that all TB's stuff about Global Cooling might be the next Political bandwagon!

So blindswelledrat you need to go an read this as there ARE NOT THOUSANDS OF SCIENTISTS WHO SUPPORT THE IPCC REPORT!
http://mclean.ch/climate/docs/IPCC_numbers.pdf

Exactly.

I do get worried when then fanatical types start going off on one.

I've said before....we need to keep our arguements based on the facts & science, and leave the slander and derogatory comments to the 'Alarmists' (since they do such a good job of it ).



And talking about thousands of Scientists;

What about the 30,000+ 'SCIENTISTS' who disagree with the AGW 'Hypothesis' (and thats all it is....no empirical evidence)

http://www.petitionproject.org/



So much for a 'Consensus' & 'The science is settled'

[don4l]

blindswelledrat said:

don4l said:

Fair point

ANy idea how much of the 3000 page report was dedicated to this mistake, and what else was in it i.e. it is clearly massively alarmist- but did it constitute any significance to the rest of it- or was it an isolated mistake?


Additionally-does the fact that they have said it is melting quicker than it actually is actually undermine thier argument in any way?
Credibility perhaps (but they never had a great deal with me anyway), but arguyment perhaps not. It seems the glaciers is still melting, just slower.

Edited by blindswelledrat on Tuesday 26th January 11:55

Here is the "Himalayan Glacier Scare" bit:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/e...

As you correctly point out, it isn't a major part of the report. It is worrying on a couple of levels, though. For years we have been assured that ALL the contents of the report had been peer reviewed. This is patently not true.

If you read the AE4 Technical Summary, the word "Glacier" appears a total of 62 times. The Summary is 74 pages in total, and "Glacier" is mentioned on 24 of those pages. So I *guess* that Glaciers are relevant in about 30% of the report's contents.

The alarmist nature of the report is summed up neatly in the following quotation from the Technical Summary.
"
{4.1}
The cryosphere stores about 75% of the world’s
freshwater. At a regional scale, variations in mountain
snowpack, glaciers and small ice caps play a crucial role in
freshwater availability."

That 75% figure is utterly meaningless. At least 90% of that "Freshwater" is, more or less, permanently locked up in the ice. The percentage that is relevant to mankind is probably less than a tenth of that figure.



As to your question about the rate of melting - yes, it is extremely relevant. The glaciers have been receeding for a long time, probably 10,000 or more years. If the rate has suddenly increased, then this *could* support the idea that human industrial activity is the cause. The real reason that this little episode is so damaging is that it exposes the fact that the peer review process was broken. This means that AR4 may contain a lot more "voodoo" science. In the last week a couple more instances of false claims have been outed. The Amazon "Savannah" and the cost of Hurricanes spring to mind.


Don
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