Contradictory Chris

Chris Huhne is on the climate change warpath again. Here's the transcript from his latest speech. Much to take issue with, such as this apparent contradiction:

Severe droughts are now twice as common as they were in 1970. Research suggests human action doubled the risk of the 2003 European heatwave. And climate change made the autumn 2000 floods in the UK about twice as likely.

...

Climate change above 2 degrees is called catastrophic for a reason. Warmer air carries more water. Humidity means storms, hurricanes, flash floods.

Update on Jul 21, 2011 by Bishop Hill

Also this is hilarious:

This is our Munich moment. Every country must commit itself in full to meeting this common but differentiated challenge...

From today, for the first time, humankind will work together as one in defence of our most precious inheritance.

From today, we acknowledge that we are held to a higher responsibility.
One that transcends profit and loss, and peace and war, and trade and aid.

From today, we commit to work not to the prejudices of the past, but in service of a greater and more lasting good. The planet earth, and the life it sustains.

Comments

[confused]

ein reich ein volk ein gaia...............Wir Fahren Gegen Engelland !

[lapogus]

BBD @ Jul 21, 2011 at 9:36 PM

Early CET data prior to 1772 are not considered reliable. So the comparison cannot carry weight. There is also the issue of the CET representing surface T in central England as compared to global SST and global TLT.

I was not aware that the CET data are not considered reliable prior to 1772. That's a pity - and very convenient for the alarmists!

Of course I am fully aware that the CET is not a global measure, but considering the British Isles predominately maritime climate, the CET (and Armagh) datasets are actually very good proxies for the North Atlantic, a not inconsiderable volume of water, even in global terms.

And as I argued yesterday with Monty on http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/7/19/the-national-press-club-debate.html [page 2 Jul 21, 8:33 AM] I don't give much credence to the idea that the northern hemisphere can warm up by 2-3C and the southern remain in stasis. There's bound to be some lag given the fact that there is more water to heat up in the south, but heat transfer by ocean and atmospheric circulation will ensure that the average temperatures of the two hemispheres stay pretty much in step. Hence I am fairly comfortable with the CET being a good proxy for the northern hemisphere, and not a bad one for global temperatures.

Btw, you never came back to me with your thoughts on Tallbloke's hypothesis - http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/what-caused-global-warming-in-the-late-c20th/

Genuinely interested to hear your thoughts on this.

[Roy]

We obviously need to do something really dramatic to stop climate change. How about introducing human sacrifices at Stonehenge? If the victims/offerings to Gaia were climate change deniers that would kill two birds with one stone, (not that there is a shortage of stones at Stonehenge!

Admittedly the sacrifices might prove even less effective than wind turbines but whereas windmills damage the landscape and adversely affect the tourist industry human sacrifice at Stonehenge would attract ghouls from all over the world!

Roy

[kim]

Green in our time.
===========

[Alexander K]

Rick Bradford - please note, I did use the word'supposed' in the line you quoted.
But point taken. :-)

[DennisA]

"common but differentiated challenge..." This is straight from the UNFCCC bible and Huhne is part of the UN system, being a member of the UN High Level Climate Advisory Panel, looking to pull $100 billion dollars a year from industrialised nations, for "climate change mitigation" to be dispensed by the UN, (World Bank and Global Environment Fund). He sits on that panel with George Soros, Nick Stern, (Grantham Institute at LSE, IdeaCarbon, science advisory board at Potsdam), Ciao Koch-Weser of Deutsche Bank, Christine Lagarde, new IMF MD et al. Funny how this doesn't get reported.

[DennisA]

UN High Level Climate Advisory Panel, should be UN High Level Climate "Finance" Advisory Panel. You can read more about it here:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/high_level_climate_finance.html

[lapogus]

@ Roy - talk of sacrifice reminded me of a classic comment I read on here (forgotten who, sorry) a few months ago - can't find it with Google so I will paraphrase -

Primitive societies sacrificed humans in a vane attempt to influence the weather, in today's more scientifically advanced society we sacrifice humans in a vane attempt to influence the climate...

[David]

Ever-so-slightly off-topic - but the well-known bias of the BBC was firmly in evidence yesterday (21st July) morning on BBC Breakfast.
They had a piece about a new solar farm - which was stated to be able to power 'up to 1500 homes'. Cue reporter stranding in front of said array, with the sombre-looking developer - in the rain. Why, in the name of all that's holy, did the reporter not ask the developer: 'How much power is the farm producing at this moment..?' Easy enough to show the actual meter, if this installation is so bloomin' wonderful - but hardly enough to boil a kettle, is my guess. A classic missed opportunity for balanced reporting. But that's the BBC for you.
Oh - and he could also have asked the developer: 'How much power will it generate at 4.00 on a December afternoon - peak demand time..?'

[James P]

David - he could also have asked how much subsidy the developer was enjoying!

It's hard to know if it simple lack of enquiry, or editing of anything remotely embarrassing.

Slightly OT, but I heard a bit of Woman's Hour today, where two very aged campaigners for female contraception were interviewed (it may have been a recording, as they knew Marie Stopes). They had experienced overwhelming opposition at the time, especially from the Church, and to a degree that is hard to comprehend now, but when asked how they felt about their campaigning, they said that they had enjoyed it immensely, because they knew that they would be proven right in the end.

[James P]

"UN High Level Climate Advisory Panel"

Is there a UN Low Level Climate Advisory Panel, then? Or is that the IPCC..?

[BBD]

Lapogus July 22 7:44am:

Wrt the Tallbloke hypothesis.

To be honest, I was not convinced. First, the HadSST2SH graph Tallbloke leads with is yet another 10 year trend... Go back to 1996 and you get this. Go back to 1990 and you get this. You cannot infer anything much from a decade.

2) According to data gathered from weather satellites, and measurements of how much of the sunlight hitting Earth gets reflected onto the moon, cloud cover, particularly in the tropics, reduced from 1980 to 1998, and then started increasing again. This allowed more sunlight to get to the ocean (and land) surfaces. Unlike ‘back radiation’ from greenhouse gases, the radiative energies in sunshine penetrate deep into the ocean (up to 150m) and transfer their energy into the seawater

Although Tallbloke neglects to provide a reference for this assertion, it is based on Palle et al. (2004) and Palle et al. (2005).

Palle et al. (2004) has been criticised by Wielicki et al. (2005), Evan et al. (2007) and Loeb et al. (2007).

Palle et al. (2005) is critiqued in Bender (2006).

Tallbloke's hypothesis really rests on Palle's claim that:

[...] albedo decreased during 1985–2000 between 2–3 and 6–7 W/m 2, which is highly climatically significant.

But it very much looks as though Palle may be in error. Which is not good news for Tallbloke.

[Bruce]

Huhne: "Time to surrender ... greenPEACE IN OUR TIME."

No thanks.

[BBD]

Lapogus

Sorry, it's taken me a while to find the reference for 'CET data before 1772 are not considered reliable'. It is Parker et al. (1992) here. Please note: it's a 10.8Mb pdf of a scan of the original. You can't copy and paste from a scan, so in case you do not want to download so large a file, I've retyped this from the introduction:

Manley (1953) published a time series of monthly mean temperatures representative of central England for 1698-1952, followed (Manley 1974) by an extended and revised series for 1659-1973. Up to 1814 his data are based mainly on overlapping sequences of observations from a variety of carefully chosen and documented locations. Up to 1722, available instrumental records fail to overlap and Manley needs to use non-instrumental series for Utrecht compiled by Labrijn (1945), in order to mate the monthly central England temperature (CET) series complete. Between 1723 and the 1760s there are no gaps in the composite instrumental record, but the observations generally were taken in unheated rooms rather than with a truly outdoor exposure. Manley (1952) used a few outdoor temperatures, observations of snow or sleet, and likely temperatures given the wind direction, to establish relationships between the unheated room and outdoor temperatures: these relationships were used to adjust the monthly unheated room data. Daily temperatures in unheated rooms are, however, not not reliably convertible to daily outdoor values, because of the slow thermal response of the rooms. For this reason, no daily series truly representative of CET can begin before about 1770. In this paper we present a daily CET series from 1772 to the present.

The authors almost immediately goes on to confirm the value of the CET as a proxy for N Atlantic SSTs, as you correctly suggest. However, this does not get around the multitude of problems with the CET data prior to ca 1770.

[dougieh]

@ 'DennisA' Jul 22, 2011 at 10:58 AM

when he states -

'Only an overarching legal framework can ensure the compliance and certainty that will underpin the low-carbon transition. And the only way to build that framework is through the United Nations'

&

'This is going to require imagination and flexibility on all sides. The EU has said it will consider extending the Kyoto Protocol, and I stand by that. But we must find ways of bringing the rest of the world into a legal framework. And we need a route map to a single treaty solution in the future.

For although the scientific evidence continues to grow, climate change is getting less political attention now than it did two years ago.
There is a vacuum, and the forces of low ambition are looking to fill it. It is time to reaffirm our political commitment to a global solution.'

you can see Huhne is preparing the planet (life on) for the next step & he is booking his seat on that UN bandwagon.

[JPeden]

"From today, we commit to work not to the prejudices of the past, but in service of a greater and more lasting good. The planet earth, and the life it sustains."

What, Chris, still no volunteers? Who, indeed, would be so crass as to maintain their own freedom and liberty by denying such a noble calling? You?