Climategate independently proven to be a storm in a tea cup

[coanda]

Somewhatfoolish said:

coanda said:

Somewhatfoolish said:

coanda said:

cs02rm0 said:

That's pretty unpleasant.

Edited by cs02rm0 on Thursday 15th April 17:27

But not unexpected.

The 'deniers' will be made into the next set of extremists...it'll take time but its all set up for nastiness. Its a bit like the beginning of christianity. The 'unbelievers' will be made to suffer regardless of the fact that the way the climate issue has been looked at is despicable from a scientific standpoint.

It's really sad that you guys believe this kind of thing - certainly I know all I'm interested in is the truth.

Too many vested interests now....if anyone finds unequivocal proof one way or another, one side loses out big style. Nope, the truth no longer serves a purpose for the players. Because the players can't handle being wrong.

What makes me sad is that there is a 460 odd page thread that I suppose (as I haven't read it...) is based off the information all the players have been putting forward to further their aims. Is there any objective competent analysis of the raw data out there at all???

Not that everyone will agreed on

Ha!

I really think we might get somewhere if we could drop the issue for 50 years and closely monitor as many variables related to the issue of human interaction with the atmosphere as we can. Minute by minute readings at thousands of places all over the globe. Yes it is allot of data....but it is required.

Then, the generation of scientists at that time can look at that full dataset not the current hodge podge of 'adjusted' figures etc and start to look at drawing some conclusions about the effect we have on the climate. That is a rational thing to do. Oil supplies will last that long, civilisation will last that long and the environment will last that long. We missed the boat on collecting the data we need to work with properly so we should take efforts to do it right.

I suspect the carbon trading market wouldn't like that though.

[turbobloke]

It's been done for the last 30 years up which is significant in climate terms.

The satellite troposphere temperature record, alongside tax gas and other measures.

All you can see in the climate data is solar, ENSO and volcanism.

[Somewhatfoolish]

coanda said:

Somewhatfoolish said:

coanda said:

Somewhatfoolish said:

coanda said:

cs02rm0 said:

That's pretty unpleasant.

Edited by cs02rm0 on Thursday 15th April 17:27

But not unexpected.

The 'deniers' will be made into the next set of extremists...it'll take time but its all set up for nastiness. Its a bit like the beginning of christianity. The 'unbelievers' will be made to suffer regardless of the fact that the way the climate issue has been looked at is despicable from a scientific standpoint.

It's really sad that you guys believe this kind of thing - certainly I know all I'm interested in is the truth.

Too many vested interests now....if anyone finds unequivocal proof one way or another, one side loses out big style. Nope, the truth no longer serves a purpose for the players. Because the players can't handle being wrong.

What makes me sad is that there is a 460 odd page thread that I suppose (as I haven't read it...) is based off the information all the players have been putting forward to further their aims. Is there any objective competent analysis of the raw data out there at all???

Not that everyone will agreed on

Ha!

I really think we might get somewhere if we could drop the issue for 50 years and closely monitor as many variables related to the issue of human interaction with the atmosphere as we can. Minute by minute readings at thousands of places all over the globe. Yes it is allot of data....but it is required.

Then, the generation of scientists at that time can look at that full dataset not the current hodge podge of 'adjusted' figures etc and start to look at drawing some conclusions about the effect we have on the climate. That is a rational thing to do. Oil supplies will last that long, civilisation will last that long and the environment will last that long. We missed the boat on collecting the data we need to work with properly so we should take efforts to do it right.

I suspect the carbon trading market wouldn't like that though.

Even better, how about we just do nothing unless it's really obvious what to do? I have seen nothing in any of the science that suggests it's *that* important we do anything in advance... no one is suggesting the earth is going to become a fireball and we can always pump SO2 into the mesosphere anyway.

But that has to be a completely separate discussion from the science.

As for the carbon trading industry, you may be interested to know that a few hedge funds (and therefore the speculative end) took large short positions in carbon emission derivatives on anticipation that this report would turn something up. So not everyone's pleased with it

[The Excession]

ludo said:

RoySpencer said:

Now, you might be surprised to learn that the amount of warming directly caused by the extra CO2 is, by itself, relatively weak. It has been calculated theoretically that, if there are no other changes in the climate system, a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration would cause less than 1 deg C of surface warming (about 1 deg. F). This is NOT a controversial statement…it is well understood by climate scientists. (As of 2008, we were about 40% to 45% of the way toward a doubling of atmospheric CO2.)

Hmmm... :scratchin:

'theoretically' he says, that'll be not proven then, and not measured, at best a 'guess', at worst an 'opinion'.

Carrry on by all means, just fking stop taxing me on alleged 'scientific' opinion.

I'm kind of struggling to see why you made that quote Ludo, are you throwing out statments from a supposed denialist scientist's point of view to tryand catch me out?

1 degree F - so what? The climate has being shifting by amounts far bigger than that over the millenia without any help from man.

And as for CO2 green house effects, aren't we all of the opinon that eventually there will be a saturation level of CO2 in the atmosphere where by it won't have any further effect simply because it wall already be affecting all of the radiation available at that wavelength?

[coanda]

I have to drive home so I won't be back to this for a while....
in short.....

somewhat foolish...don't be sensational. Acquiring a proper set of dat is not 'doing nothing'.

Turbobloke.....we need lots more than that to pin down human interaction.

[Somewhatfoolish]

coanda said:

somewhat foolish...don't be sensational. Acquiring a proper set of dat is not 'doing nothing'.

I'm not being sensational. As a fairly extreme libertarian I don't believe that we ought to be doing anything whatsoever as a society about climate change.

The climate scientists, on the other hand, should have a free reign to be doing whatever they like

[ludo]

The Excession said:

ludo said:

RoySpencer said:

Now, you might be surprised to learn that the amount of warming directly caused by the extra CO2 is, by itself, relatively weak. It has been calculated theoretically that, if there are no other changes in the climate system, a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration would cause less than 1 deg C of surface warming (about 1 deg. F). This is NOT a controversial statement…it is well understood by climate scientists. (As of 2008, we were about 40% to 45% of the way toward a doubling of atmospheric CO2.)

Hmmm... :scratchin:

'theoretically' he says, that'll be not proven then, and not measured, at best a 'guess', at worst an 'opinion'

O.K., so you won't believe it even when it comes from a leading climate sceptic scientist. Can't you see that an inability to admit any part of the AGW argument, even when it comes from a sceptic, damages credibility?

The Excession said:

Carrry on by all means, just fking stop taxing me on alleged 'scientific' opinion.

Not accepting the scientific opinion doesn't make the problem go away. If the problem is an economic one, make economic arguments, not bad science arguments.

The Excession said:

I'm kind of struggling to see why you made that quote Ludo, are you throwing out statments from a supposed denialist scientist's point of view to tryand catch me out?

No, just demonstrating that the fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and causes warming is not doubted by genuine sceptic scientists.

ETA: I didn't call him a denialist, it is a rather offensive term.

The Excession said:

1 degree F - so what? The climate has being shifting by amounts far bigger than that over the millenia without any help from man.

There is the issue of climate sensitivity. The 1F is the amount just from the CO2 without e.g. water vapour feedback caused by the fact that warm air holds more moisture and water vapour is also a greenhouse gas.

The Excession said:

And as for CO2 green house effects, aren't we all of the opinon that eventually there will be a saturation level of CO2 in the atmosphere where by it won't have any further effect simply because it wall already be affecting all of the radiation available at that wavelength?

No, the saturating greenhouse gas argument (e.g. Hug) is another one of those bits of bogus science that has been well debunked. See Spencer Wearts book.

Edited by ludo on Thursday 15th April 19:12

[anonymous-user]

so to summarise the report; the East Anglia Poly scientists are innocent of fraud but statistically incompetent. who would have thought you'd need a few statistitians to do statistical cimate research, well i never. ffs give all the data to a decent uni and get it done properly

[Somewhatfoolish]

fbrs said:

so to summarise the report; the East Anglia Poly scientists are innocent of fraud but statistically incompetent. who would have thought you'd need a few statistitians to do statistical cimate research, well i never. ffs give all the data to a decent uni and get it done properly

Now this is a genuine point. Were I to see respectable statisticians come forward and proclaim the evidence bks I would side with them.

[grumbledoak]

fbrs said:

ffs give all the data to a decent uni and get it done properly

Judging by recent remarks from e.g. CERN I doubt the politicians will be keen to do anything of the sort!

[Ali G]

grumbledoak said:

fbrs said:

ffs give all the data to a decent uni and get it done properly

Judging by recent remarks from e.g. CERN I doubt the politicians will be keen to do anything of the sort!

Exactly!

[hidetheelephants]

What has CERN been saying?

[s2art]

ludo said:

s2art said:

ludo said:

s2art said:

ludo said:

Yes, uncritically accepting papers like Essenhigh (that should set s2art off) when they are easily demonstrated to be incorrect.

LOL! Then why havent you done so? Much easier to demonstrate the IPCC assumptions to be incorrect by just examining the atmospheric isotope profile.

s2art, the atmospheric isotope profile is in accordance with the IPCCs assumptions on residence time. The trouble is that the rise and fall of atmospheric concentrations is not determined by the residence time, but the adjustment time. They are not the same thing, but Essenhigh doesn't understand that and neither apparently do you.

Wrong, and Engelbeen thinks so too. Go and re-read the thread where it was discussed.

LOL, Englebeen has a webpage devoted to evidence demonstrating that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is anthropogenic

http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_meas...

Englebeen said:

To be sure about my skepticism: I like to see and examine the arguments of both sides of the fence, and I make up my own mind, based on these arguments. I am pretty sure that current climate models underestimate the role of the sun in climate variability and overestimate the role of greenhouse gases and aerosols. But I am as sure that the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere since the start of the industrial revolution is mainly from the use of fossil fuels.

There are several reasons why the hypothesis of large non-human CO2 variations in recent history is wrong and that most of the recent increase in CO2 in the atmosphere indeed is mainly man-made, but that need a step-by-step explanation. Follow the steps:

He even quotes the mass balance argument that you and turbs said was the "wrong paradigm".

Does this look familiar at all from the other thread?



It should do, it is Ferdinand's version of the plot I used to demonstrate that the growth in atmospheric concentrations is always less than anthropogenic emissions and so the environment must be a net sink, taking up the difference.

Edited by ludo on Thursday 15th April 18:20

Ho Hum. From a previous thread;

Not really, Englebeen was presented with an argument and accepted that there was a problem he couldnt easily refute. I posted it as an e-mail/blog posting exchange many pages back in this thread.
This is a reasonably good summation;


'Firstly you should know that the mean half-life of atmospheric CO2 was already well-established decades before the start of the debate about climate change. Until 2009, there were 36 studies of the half-life of atmospheric CO2 conducted between 1957 and 1992. Two more studies were completed and published this year. The range of half-life periods obtained from the 36 studies were between 2 and 25 years, with a mean of 7.5, a median of 7.6, and an upper range average of about 10. Of these 36 values, 33 are 10 years or less. The simple average for the 36 studies is 5.6 years. Not even one of these studies showed a half-life anywhere close to the "50-200 years" of Houghton, et al 1991, which is unabashedly attributed to computer modeling, and on which the IPCC continues to rely for their tabulations.


We have to admit that whatever we observe about CO2 concentration in our present atmosphere, and then whatever hypothesis we form concerning CO2 concentration, must be consistent with the considerable weight of the well-established body of knowledge contained in the 36 studies . No one anywhere has suggested that any of these studies is deeply flawed or that the conclusions about the CO2 residence time is in error. The methodology of the studies is not in question, either.



The amount of cumulative anthropogenic releases is fairly well tabulated, and reliably believed to be about 250 billion metric tons totally, and about 8 billion metric tons annually, at present. Using these two pieces of the puzzle (releases and residence time expressed as half-life), we can reconstruct the atmosphere as it exists today within a mere few ppm of actual measurements. But the key point is that in order to successfully reconstruct the atmospheric CO2 content from cumulative emissions, we must use the ~5.6 year half life.



But what happens when we reconstruct the present atmosphere using the AGW orthodoxy's numbers for residence time, namely a "50-200 years" half life? When the IPCC does so, they find that the atmosphere contains only half of the expected CO2! The half life figure the IPCC uses must be wrong; ALL previous studies based on actual measurements conducted over a ~60 year period by diverse teams in different countries all came to the conclusion: that CO2 has a short residence time.



As an additional proof, we can measure the fraction of fossil fuel sourced CO2 which is contained in the present atmosphere. This is possible because carbon from ancient sources has a significantly different isotopic 'signature' than carbon from recent sources. Specifically, the signature for recent 'naturally sourced' carbon is agreed to be ~ -7 pdb. The isotopic fingerprint of ancient fossil carbon is agreed to be ~ -26 pdb. All the isotopic mass-balance studies done so far show a figure of ~ -7.5 to -7.8 pdb, which is close to the signature of pre-industrial carbon, with some slight shift toward the fossil signature of -26 pdb. Using simple calculations, the present atmosphere contains about 4% 'fossil-sourced' carbon using the reliable and well-accepted methods of testing.



Now the IPCC and all the believers in the AGW orthodoxy assert that anthropogenic releases are the cause of the observed CO2 rise. Because of (among other things) the isotopic signature, we can test this hypothesis. The IPCC specifically claims that 21% of the CO2 in the current atmosphere is due to anthropogenic releases, but NO study is offered in support of this claim. 21% corresponds to about 75ppm, which when subtracted from 380ppm gives us 305ppm, very close to the "pre-industrial baseline" figure, thus the 21% attribution amount to an "all or nearly all" attribution.



If we accept that "all or nearly all" of the observed CO2 rise is due to anthropogenic releases, and that CO2 has a long residence time as claimed by the IPCC (Houghton, et al, 1991), then it's a simple matter to calculate the expected isotopic signature of the carbon in the present atmosphere; we have all information needed to make this calculation. The expected mass-balance figure is ~-11pdb for the 21% attribution. The problem is, no mass-balance study yet can confirm that the mass-balance signature of the CO2 in our recent atmosphere is ANYWHERE CLOSE to -11pdb, but rather in the -7.5 to -7.8pdb range, very close to the signature of recent CO2 of around -7pdb.'



Thus the isotopic mass-balance measurements CONSISTENTLY falsify the argument that "all or nearly all" of recent CO2 rise is due to anthropogenic releases. The idea that CO2 has a long residence time is only the result of computer modeling done in 1991, and contradicts ALL the measurement studies ever done. The implication of a ~5 year half life is that of the 750 billion metric tons total atmospheric CO2, between 135 and 150 billion metric tons of CO2 is 'fluxed' from the atmosphere annually, totally swamping out the puny 8 billion metric tons of annual human emissions.


The fact that the IPCC's 'expected' isotopic signature is missing from all measurements does not support the conclusion that CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere, or that anthropogenic emissions have significantly contributed to recent CO2 increases. The fact that the IPCC's tabulations have a 50% error of missing CO2 is further confirmation that this hypothesis is in error, and the explanation of the carbon cycle proffered as a corollary to the AGW hypothesis is also wrong.



And Englebeen;

Note that Englebeen does accept that the isotope ratios are 'wrong' for a anthopogenic source only;

'Ferdinand Engelbeen:
September 22nd, 2006 at 3:22 pm
Dear Richard,
Your figures seems to be right, there is more 13C left in the atmosphere than may be expected from the increase in 13C depleted burning of fossil fuels.

Edited by s2art on Friday 16th April 01:27

[kiteless]

hidetheelephants said:

What has CERN been saying?

Recently:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/175641-climategate...

[grumbledoak]

kiteless said:

Recently:

Thanks.

I'm not sure about "seekingalpha" as a source, I've never heard of it, but you should be able to find the same lecture on "cern.ch".

ETA- I'd guess at this one, http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1181073/?ln=fr

Edited by grumbledoak on Thursday 15th April 22:48

[kiteless]

grumbledoak said:

kiteless said:

Recently:

Thanks.

I'm not sure about "seekingalpha" as a source, I've never heard of it, but you should be able to find the same lecture on "cern.ch".

ETA- I'd guess at this one, http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1181073/?ln=fr

Edited by grumbledoak on Thursday 15th April 22:48

That's the one. Seems my old link has lost the associated clip.

[coanda]

Somewhatfoolish said:

coanda said:

somewhat foolish...don't be sensational. Acquiring a proper set of dat is not 'doing nothing'.

I'm not being sensational. As a fairly extreme libertarian I don't believe that we ought to be doing anything whatsoever as a society about climate change.

The climate scientists, on the other hand, should have a free reign to be doing whatever they like

Touche!

I don't read this things so I don't know where you sit on these things - in fact I've crossed my own line by posting soo much on the subject in this thread!.....time to bow out!

[Jinx]

Somewhatfoolish said:

The easiest thing to do is to make a testable prediction. The mainstream climate scientists have quite clearly made one in the IPCC report (amongst others) about where the climate is headed - we can see in 10 years time whether it has been effective by reasonably simple statistical tests.

There has already been one. The original hypothesis was that by the year 2000 CO2 forcing would be dominant to the point of making all other forcings irrelevent. This has been falsified.
QED

[DieselGriff]

Somewhatfoolish said:

fbrs said:

so to summarise the report; the East Anglia Poly scientists are innocent of fraud but statistically incompetent. who would have thought you'd need a few statistitians to do statistical cimate research, well i never. ffs give all the data to a decent uni and get it done properly

Now this is a genuine point. Were I to see respectable statisticians come forward and proclaim the evidence bks I would side with them.

Like Steve McIntyre you mean?

[andymadmak]

I haven't read through this thread in detail (sorry!) but a thought occurs to me:

If CO2 is directly responsible for global warming as the warmists believe, then surely the recent Icelandic volcanic eruption which has ( so I've been told) put more CO2 into the atmosphere in a few days than all the cars ever built, should quickly be reflected in a measurable and attributable rise in global temperatures?
In fact, can we also not look at the data from the Mount Sain Helens eruption and correlate that event with temperature profiles of the last 10 years?
Or am I being too simplistic?

Andy