Climate change - the POLITICAL debate. Vol 3

[turbobloke]

el stovey said:

So do you think there's global warming, it's just not influenced by people? Or that there isn't actually warming going on?

Globally there's natural climate change, which has been happening for billions of years and will doubtless continue.

As there's no visible causal human signal in any global climate data, how can anyone say manmade global warming is happening? It's pure belief in something invisible, rarther like religious faith, and that's hardly worth staking the massive cost of the green blob.

el stovey said:

We constantly see people coming on here and announcing some record snow or cold period in one country shows warming isn't happening. Nobody really comments about it but I thought record weather of most kinds is linked to overall warming?

There were computer climate model forecasts that manmade global warming would be accompanied by more extreme weather, but manmade global warming isn't happening so it's hardly surprising to find that there's no increase in weather extrema. See recent studies such as "The Global Warming-Extreme Weather Link: A Review Of The State Of Science" by Dr Madhav Khandekar and similar by Goklany.

The warming-extrema link is junkscience in any case.

Those who haven't forgotten the sound science of this topic will recall that extreme weather is driven by greater polar-equatorial temperature differentials, which increase during periods of climate cooling. See 'Little Ice Age' (1645-1715) and - for example - the Great Storm of 1703. Nothing since has come close, regardless of so-called manmade warming and extreme weather hype.

Clearly the mendacity of those with faith who want to preach about this for reasons of alarmist propaganda won't go away no matter what the data and sound science says. Given that most politicians have bought the myth for appearance sake, hold tight please ding ding.

[plunker]

turbobloke said:

plunker said:

DibblyDobbler said:

'Ask anyone who follows the issue and they'll tell you that this year is already well on the way towards becoming the hottest ever. The previous record was last year; before that it was 2014. In fact, the 11 warmest years have occurred since 1998.'

I hear these kind of statements a lot - what's the skeptic view? Not true, not relevant?

See turbobloke - "we know it's not happening"

When you know, you know.

What isn't happening?

Manmade global warming isn't happening.

Anything else you want sorting, just ask.

Very authorative TB, but you know - nulius in verba and all that.

[Northbloke]

A bit on Records here:

http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/record.htm

"The first is the Olympics method, which is based on improving the accuracy of recording so that smaller and smaller increments of record are established, in his case by improving the optics on his telescope. The second is the Climatologist's method, which involves extending the range of techniques of measurement, so that he can cherry pick the ones that best suit his purpose. He therefore expands to radio, infra-red, x-ray and ultra-violet telescopes, including satellite mounted versions. As a result he continues to hit the headlines and corner a substantial share of the limited funds available for scientific research."

With the passage of time you will always get new records ( watch out for the blink of an eye "since records began" too). All irrelevant anyway of course. The scientific method involves proposing a theoretical mechanism, predicting what will happen if that theory is true and checking future observations against those predictions. Simple yet powerful stuff. Why so many so called scientists just ignore this is just baffling to this layman.

Oft shown but little heeded:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL6-x0modwY

I seem to remember Al Gore having to climb a step ladder to show future predicted temperatures going through the ceiling. It was all to do with the unprecedented "rate of change" of the temperature (now conveniently forgotten). I don't recall him crawling along the floor to show little ant sized blips that could be heralded as new "records".

(That's before we get into the spurious precision, undocumented data adjustments, meaning of Global temperature anyway and a myriad other objections to this busted flush)

[turbobloke]

plunker said:

turbobloke said:

plunker said:

DibblyDobbler said:

'Ask anyone who follows the issue and they'll tell you that this year is already well on the way towards becoming the hottest ever. The previous record was last year; before that it was 2014. In fact, the 11 warmest years have occurred since 1998.'

I hear these kind of statements a lot - what's the skeptic view? Not true, not relevant?

See turbobloke - "we know it's not happening"

When you know, you know.

What isn't happening?

Manmade global warming isn't happening.

Anything else you want sorting, just ask.

Very authorative TB, but you know - nulius in verba and all that.

Totally agree about nullius in verba (go and remind the RS) which is why I mentioned the data and the lack of a visible causal human signal; that's the basis, not what I say about it.

[plunker]

turbobloke said:

plunker said:

turbobloke said:

plunker said:

DibblyDobbler said:

'Ask anyone who follows the issue and they'll tell you that this year is already well on the way towards becoming the hottest ever. The previous record was last year; before that it was 2014. In fact, the 11 warmest years have occurred since 1998.'

I hear these kind of statements a lot - what's the skeptic view? Not true, not relevant?

See turbobloke - "we know it's not happening"

When you know, you know.

What isn't happening?

Manmade global warming isn't happening.

Anything else you want sorting, just ask.

Very authorative TB, but you know - nulius in verba and all that.

Totally agree about nullius in verba (go and remind the RS) which is why I mentioned the data and the lack of a visible causal human signal; that's the basis, not what I say about it.

People who 'know' don't need evidence - lack of an unambiguous causal human signal in the data doesn't mean there is no human causality, therefore your claim to know it's not happening is not evidence-based.

[Le TVR]

plunker said:

lack of an unambiguous causal human signal in the data doesn't mean there is no human causality,

Agreed, just that it is not significant enough to be visible above the noise. Let's give it another decade or two?

[Mr GrimNasty]

We are told polar amplification (faster warming than the rest of the planet) is expected with global warming (they like to start c.1979 - nothing to do with the record Arctic cold that year I'm sure!!!!!), which was amended to Arctic amplification, because Antarctica didn't get the memo.

HADCRUT4 shows the Arctic region is not significantly warmer that c.1940s.



Antarctic data starts 1957 but again there is no significant warming.



Put that in context of where we are, Vostok ice core temperature reconstruction - dashed line is modern temperature.



All that is visible in the long and the short term is a perfectly natural looking cycling, within 'normal' ranges.

If man-made CO2 has any affect, it is too small to matter.

Non-existent relationship between recent CO2 increase and temps. i.e. very poor correlation: http://notrickszone.com/2016/08/04/non-existent-re...

CO2 climate sensitivity overstated: http://notrickszone.com/2016/06/05/japanese-scient...

"It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment[real data], it's wrong." - Richard P. Feynman

[LongQ]

DibblyDobbler said:

'Ask anyone who follows the issue and they'll tell you that this year is already well on the way towards becoming the hottest ever. The previous record was last year; before that it was 2014. In fact, the 11 warmest years have occurred since 1998.'

I hear these kind of statements a lot - what's the skeptic view? Not true, not relevant?

Both.

Absent any consistency of measurement and considering the persistent "improvement" in the data "quality" that makes the claim possible the odd tenth of a degree here and there that makes the concept of "global" temperature records possible .... there must and should be some doubt about the "facts" anyway.

As for relevancy - ultimately there is no cause provided that connects to humanity and no evidence that humanity would have a clue about how to change things with predictable results even if there was. So yes, irrelevant. However we humans don't like to think we are irrelevant and generally feel more comfortable hearing messages about being "in control" of stuff even when it is obvious that we are not and cannot be "in control".

But in the end neither understanding matters. Humans like "belief" systems and ultimately that makes everything irrelevant.

[DibblyDobbler]

LongQ said:

Both.

Absent any consistency of measurement and considering the persistent "improvement" in the data "quality" that makes the claim possible the odd tenth of a degree here and there that makes the concept of "global" temperature records possible .... there must and should be some doubt about the "facts" anyway.

As for relevancy - ultimately there is no cause provided that connects to humanity and no evidence that humanity would have a clue about how to change things with predictable results even if there was. So yes, irrelevant. However we humans don't like to think we are irrelevant and generally feel more comfortable hearing messages about being "in control" of stuff even when it is obvious that we are not and cannot be "in control".

But in the end neither understanding matters. Humans like "belief" systems and ultimately that makes everything irrelevant.

Thanks LQ. It would be nice to think that over time the truth will emerge as the scope for further manipulation of the data will diminish and temperatures will normalise regardless of CO2 levels (which I presume will keep going up)... we shall see. Or maybe our children will see

[Jasandjules]

DibblyDobbler said:

Thanks LQ. It would be nice to think that over time the truth will emerge as the scope for further manipulation of the data will diminish and temperatures will normalise regardless of CO2 levels (which I presume will keep going up)... we shall see. Or maybe our children will see

Think of it in simple terms - we are being told this is the hottest year ever recorded. Yet plainly we've all experienced hotter years even recently. In fact, I have discussions with people about whether they are putting the heating on, in July and August!

[DibblyDobbler]

Jasandjules said:

Think of it in simple terms - we are being told this is the hottest year ever recorded. Yet plainly we've all experienced hotter years even recently. In fact, I have discussions with people about whether they are putting the heating on, in July and August!

Absolutely! I'm in Edinburgh and I can honestly say we've only had 2/3 properly warm days all year - this weeks weather is typical (see below). I know it's Scotland but this is not normal (I'd have expected low 20s).

[chris watton]

I am sure we've had about 5 stand out hot sunny days so far this year. The rest, as has been the case for the past few years, have been a complete washout. We too have thought about putting the heating on at certain points.

Today is very blustery with showers every now and again - this now seems to be the norm for our typical British Summers.

[LongQ]

The wonderful thing about the concept of global temperature is that no matter how average (or less than average) the temperature appears to be locally it can always be "hot" somewhere else.

And of course it doesn't need to be hotter anywhere by more than a tenth of a degree for people to claim outright records.

But when amassing the data the record average annual temperatures at any location can be achieved simply by the lowest temperatures measured being a little less low than they have been measured before.

So an isolated measurement station somewhere in the Arctic gets a new "thermometer" that takes readings constant readings rather than spot readings twice a day and suggests that instead of being -11 degrees it's -10.5.

This figure is then used to estimate the temperature for a large area around the measurement site. Maybe a square of several hundred kms. The entire area suddenly shows a .5 degree rise in temperature.

The surface area is gridded for calculation of the global temperature discrepancy. If I recall correctly some parts of the surface have higher levels of significance applied when estimating the global average difference - which is the measure typically used for graphs - the "Anomaly". An outright "average" temperature would, of course, be viewed with suspicion by many but an "anomaly" is easier to accept and suitably woolly as a concept.

Statistically, people argue, the numbers, even if some inputs are totally bogus, will still provide a suitably accurate result for anomaly guidance given enough a large enough sample to analyse.

That is much the same argument that political pollsters have used for a few decades. In recent times one might question the validity and veracity of the claim.

Irrespective of the results the ability of the "Science" to grab so much attention in the ranks of politicians seems to me to be much more likely the result of belief systems and political ambitions based on need to collect and re-distribute "wealth" via taxation (Power using resources that others produce) than it does because scientists are really good at marketing their research based claims.

[robinessex]

Front page of the Observer AKA the 'Sunday Guardian'

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/aug/06/gl...

Scientists warn world will miss key climate target

What a surprise! Their whole story is based on 'missing' COP21 target(s). Not that any sensible person believed that was anything other than a totally pointless CC party. Anyway, try to read the article to the end, it really is a prime example of complete bks I've ever come across. Not sure at what point 'stats' become outright lies though.

[turbobloke]

World will miss COP21 target.

World couldn't give a stuff.

For the rest of us, it's good news when missing a pointless target that will impoverish pensioners, non-AGW scientists, non-politicians, sustain unethical windfalls for windymill landowners and prevent inexpensive third world development.

[Northbloke]

Again it shows the nonsensical nature of focusing on the mythical computational value of Global Average Temperature and the minuscule changes in it. It could be freezing over great swathes of the populated world but if the sparse data across the whole of the Arctic are added (was it one reading for an area the size of the UK) then the mathematical nincompoops can engineer that the GAT has increased by 0.01 degrees. Who cares?

For this climate boondoogle to have any value its granularity would need to be orders of magnitude greater. We would need to be able to predict at least the effect on max and min, night and daytime temperatures by each small region to see if any of that is a problem (e.g. does the Arctic winter max temp going from -25 to -20 or the UK summer min nighttime temp going from 3 to 4 matter. Answer: almost certainly no.).

Same for precipitation, storms and all the other metrics. Yet the climate clowns can't even remotely predict just the headline number they themselves have chosen to obscure the futility of their endeavours. And all cooked up on the back of a 100 year old lab experiment that nobody disputes. The whole thing is a farce and a monumental waste of resources.

When it suits them the UK govt uses the excuse of the (non-increase!) in the Global temperature to explain UK floods as a distraction from the failure of policies closer to home. Also ignoring that we were told to plant cactuses in our gardens not long ago. I'm fine if our elected representatives focus on the proven future effects on the UK: = the square root of bugger all.

We can all then ignore this nonsense and focus on more pressing stuff.

[Mr GrimNasty]

UAH data pause/trend breakdown/analysis up to July 2016, the pause lives on all over the place, no alarming warming anywhere, also with a graphic showing higher UAH temps. have no clear correlation to higher CO2 levels.

https://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2016/08/07/the-p...


This next video is long but a must watch. Prof. Salby, recent Atmospheric Carbon Lecture. Climate science is "Pseudoscience comparable to the quackery of bloodletting." As of 2010 he thinks man is only responsible for <3% of CO2(increase?), causing <0.1K warming which is swallowed by the noise of natural variation, and always will be. He also says COP21 will cost every person on earth $20K, and impinge on the disadvantaged the most.

http://notrickszone.com/#sthash.9Og3NTtQ.8A3tAgo0....

[LongQ]

I think this paper fits nicely here as a discussion topic.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id...

" Abstract:
The United Nations is financed mostly by taxpayers from a few donor countries but the large and growing bureaucracy is too far removed from those taxpayers to be directly accountable to them. It is run by unelected, unaccountable, undisciplined, and incompetent bureaucrats. The organization’s size, budget, and scope are unconstrained. The budget funding process provides perverse incentives for these bureaucrats to increase the size and scope of their organization simply by creating multitudes of agencies and programs, and by inventing problems and environmental crises set on a global scale."

The Conclusion specifically mentions the Ozone depletion scare and the Global Warming worry and what they really mean to the UN. Interesting reading. I'll get to the full paper later today.

[turbobloke]

LongQ said:

I think this paper fits nicely here as a discussion topic.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id...

" Abstract:
The United Nations is financed mostly by taxpayers from a few donor countries but the large and growing bureaucracy is too far removed from those taxpayers to be directly accountable to them. It is run by unelected, unaccountable, undisciplined, and incompetent bureaucrats. The organization’s size, budget, and scope are unconstrained. The budget funding process provides perverse incentives for these bureaucrats to increase the size and scope of their organization simply by creating multitudes of agencies and programs, and by inventing problems and environmental crises set on a global scale."

The Conclusion specifically mentions the Ozone depletion scare and the Global Warming worry and what they really mean to the UN. Interesting reading. I'll get to the full paper later today.

Didn't somebody political say that the route to world government aka global communism would be via armageddonist scaremongering?

Whoever it was may have been right about the theory of the route, but the shift away from failed left-liberalism is putting the destination out of bounds.

[Oakey]

I think the weather forecasters are taking the piss at this point.

Local weather forecast on TV this morning

"A bright start to the day"

looks outside; hurricane winds, black clouds, torrential rain


I had to get up at 4am this morning and start dragging my kids garden toys and play house inside as they were blowing all over the place