Discussion > Are Geological Paleo-Climate Records Relevant to The Climate Debate?
The idea that the climate has long term stable equilibrium conditions, which have only recently been disturbed by anthropogenic factors, would not appear very likely from a paleoclimate perspective.Or one could perhaps say that the recent upward movement in temperature has been used/misused/abused to serve a socio-political agenda. As would the downward movement had it continued beyond the 1970s.
Mike Jackson
Mike,
Or one could perhaps say that the recent upward movement in temperature has been used/misused/abused to serve a socio-political agenda.
And you wonder why some people objected to the retraction of the Recursive Fury paper?
...and Then There's Physics
...yawn...
Martin A
Now that Entropic man has accepted that there could be internal variations within the climate systems, I am really, really interested to know what magnitude of variation he thinks could be considered, and over what time-scale.
Somehow, I suspect that MJ’s all-too-accurate observation will ensure that the only reply will be the chirp of crickets.
Radical Rodent
ATTP
One could also suggest that lack of critical thinking is endemic among those who call themselves scientists but refuse to acknowledge any deviation from their own religion.
Nothing in my comment says anything at all about global warming (or cooling) one way or the other but to suggest that the amount of scaremongering by the eco-activists and the known and frequently repeated aims and claims by the UNEP amongst others (see quotes by Edenhofer and Figueres, passim) is not an abuse of the data suggests that you are not living in the real world.
In the real world, scientists follow the data — all the data, whether they like it or not — wherever it leads. In climate science, activists, scientific or otherwise, rubbish anything that challenges their preconceptions and send out mouthpieces like Ward to lie, denigrate and generally make life as difficult as possible for those whose research points in directions they don't like.
And I haven't started on the charlatans like Lewandowsky and Cook with their fake surveys or Gleick who believes that subterfuge* is acceptable when dealing with organisations that take a different view from him.
I repeat, whatever the facts regarding the global temperature and the effects of changes in that temperature on the climate, any one who believes that there is not a parallel agenda using scaremongering to achieve ends which the majority of people do not approve of using a scientific basis that is still a matter of debate (much as you and many others would like to shut that debate down) really needs to get out more.
*I could have used stronger words but in deference to our host ...
Mike Jackson
Paleoclimate buff, mike Jackson
If you are looking for an equilibrium state, what about the Holocene Optimum. which stayed constant from 7500
Entropic man
Paleoclimate buff, mike Jackson
Damn.
If you are looking for an equilibrium state, what about the Holocene Optimum between 7500BC and 3000BC?
What of the glacial periods between interglacials?
subterfuge* is acceptable when dealing with organisations that take a different view "
Like the unidentified employee at the University of East Anglia who stole their e-mails? You comment is blatant hypocrisy, Mr Jackson.
Entropic man
Entropic Man. Have you contacted the Norfolk Police with your new information, or are you insinuating without proof that one of my former colleagues is a thief? Put up or shut up EM
Alan Kendall
Radical Rodent
Of course there is internal variation! Think of weather, ENSO, the Arctic Oscillation and many others.
The problem is with your attempts to suggest that they are sufficient to explain the long term warming observed since 1900.
All of the internal variations is small scale and most them are cycles(and therefore energy meutral). None of them involve enough energy to aaccount for energy accumulation exceeding 10^22Joules/year in the climate system.
I realise that you a scientific illiterate, madame, but even you should appreciate this.
Entropic man
Your point being, EM?
Are you saying that, in those graphs, you can see quarter-century periods where there was a slight change in temperatures, followed by a quarter-century where the temperatures changed all of 0.6°C, to be followed by another quarter-century when not much happened, at all? Remarkable!
As for whoever it was who released those e-mails, they have done us as much service as whoever has leaked the Panama e-mails; at least they have not entered by deceit, then planted lies and misinformation.
Now that you have acknowledged that there can be natural variations in the systems, it is interesting to note that you consider that they can only be cyclicle, and can only be short-term, and can only be “energy neutral”, all without offering one slightest bit of evidence to back yourself up – and then you have the audacity to call me scientifically illiterate! Your pompous arrogance knows no bounds, does it?
Radical Rodent
Alan Kendall
You worked there at the time. You will have more insight into what happened than I do.
I note that Paul Dennis was interviewed by Norfolk police at the time. Since you also have sceptic links, I would imagine that you were interviewed as well.
No further action has been taken by the police against either of you, so I presume you are innocent.
Entropic man
Radical Rodent
As one whose response to scientific debate is insult, it is ironic that you complain about me.
Entropic man
Entropic Man, is slur and innuendo all that you and all of climate science have left? Perhaps you would like to see anyone who has ever helped the Police with their Inquiries be treated as a suspect?
If your science is based on the same level of evidence, it is easier for everyone to understand where you are coming from, and where climate science is going.
golf charlie
EM - I think you may have missed Alan Kendall's point. You have asserted that one of his colleagues committed an act of theft (not necessarily him). He has always made a point of standing up for his colleagues irrespective of their views on climate change, so it is natural that he would take you up on your nasty allegation.
As he suggested, even at this late stage, if you have definite information that a crime was committed and that a UEA employee was the culprit, you have a specific duty to contact the police.
However, I imagine that you are up to your usual trick of imagining something and then presenting it as if it were reality. I assume you have not in fact contacted the police with your 'information', as you realise they will not be interested in your imaginings.
Presumably you know that, if information belonging to an organisation is released by an employee who has authorised access to the information, then no law is broken. It may be a disciplinary matter for the organisation but it is not a matter for which there can be a prosecution.
Anyone who has been allowed root access to a server containing released information in unencrypted form can be considered to have authorised access to it. So the mere fact that information has been released against the wishes of the organisation does not establish that any law has been broken.
As so often, you simply make things up and present them as fact. How can anybody take anything you say even a little bit seriously?
Martin A
EM. Good of you to PRESUME Paul and my innocence. I notice that you do not address my questions
1. Do you have any evidence and if so have you submitted it to the Norfolk Police?
2. In the absence of evidence implicating any of my former colleagues, is this just your unmitigated presumption (again)?
I repeat - put up or shut up: a retraction would be even better but, from your previous antics, I have no expectations of that ever happening.
What you wrote seems to be libellous and if UEA (on behalf of its employees) could be bothered it could sue. Your latest comment insinuating that I might have knowledge of the leak because I worked in UEA also comes perilously close. Tread carefully.
Alan Kendall
As one whose response to scientific debate is insult…Apart from my occasional noting of your irritating pomposity, could you give some examples, please.
Radical Rodent
EM
My comment related to Gleick about whom a considerable amount is known, including that he lied to the Heartland Institute office staff in order to obtain documents by pretending to be someone entitled to them and subsequently (may have) created a document purporting to be a Heartland Institute paper with the intention of showing the Heartland Institute in a bad light.
And all because the views and activities of that organisation differed from his own.
I know nothing about the means whereby the Climategate emails were obtained, whether by whistleblowing leak or outside hack. I am not aware that the emails themselves are anything other than accurate, nor am I aware that whoever obtained them deliberately impersonated some other person with a view to persuading a member of the UEA staff to divulge them.
The scenarios are hardly compatible, even in your alternative universe.
Mike Jackson
Mike Jackson, you must bear in mind that those 'in the know' about climate science have exonerated Gleick, and he has been restored to an honourable position.
His paper on Climate Science and the integrity of science, is a "must read", for those with a strong stomach studying climate science hypocrisy and double standards.
golf charlie
⚫ average or above-average intelligence
⚫ difficulties with high-level language skills such as verbal reasoning, problem solving, making inferences and predictions
⚫ difficulties in empathising with others
⚫ problems with understanding another person’s point of view
⚫ difficulties engaging in social routines such as conversations and ‘small talk’
⚫ problems with controlling feelings such as anger, depression and anxiety
⚫ a preference for routines and schedules which can result in stress or anxiety if a routine is disrupted
⚫ specialised fields of interest or hobbies.
Martin A
Alan Kendall, Martin A, golf charlie, mike jackson
This came out of Mike Jackson,'s comment
In climate science, activists, scientific or otherwise, rubbish anything that challenges their preconceptions and send out mouthpieces like Ward to lie, denigrate and generally make life as difficult as possible for those whose research points in directions they don't like.
And I haven't started on the charlatans like Lewandowsky and Cook with their fake surveys or Gleick who believes that subterfuge* is acceptable when dealing with organisations that take a different view from him.
Perhaps Ward, Lewandowsky, Cook and Gleike should sue mike Jackson?
subterfuge* is acceptable when dealing with organisations that take a different view
I trust that we all disagree with the principle that emails intended privately should be hacked and published.
This should apply whether they came from UAE or the Heartland Foundation. Any release should be after due process, as is happening with CEI and Exxon..
denigrate and generally make life as difficult as possible for those whose research points in directions they don't like.
I get a lot of that here, particularly from Radical Rodent and diogenes, who regard rudeness as a substitute for debate.
Martin A
How can anybody take anything you say even a little bit seriously?
If I were not taken seriously here, noone would be arguing with me, insulting me or threatening me.
Alan Kendall
omnia praesumuntur legitime facta donec probetur in contrarium
In other words "innocent until proven guilty"
Of course I presume that you are innocent, if for no other reason than that the law requires it. I have made no personal accusations. As Martin A pointed out, anyone who has been allowed root access to a server containing released information in unencrypted form can be considered to have authorised access to it.You jumped to conclusions, not I.
In fact the police agree that you are probably innocent.
“However, as a result of our enquiries, we can say that the data breach was the result of a sophisticated and carefully orchestrated attack on the CRU’s data files, carried out remotely via the internet. The offenders used methods common in unlawful internet activity to obstruct enquiries.There is no evidence to suggest that anyone working at or associated with the University of East Anglia was involved in the crime.”
If you genuinely thought I was accusing you personally, then of course I apologise.
Entropic man
Radical Rodent
For light reading on internal variability in the climate I refer you to the the IPCC. I suggest you read Chapter 2.7
Entropic man
I do wonder EM if you have a short term memory problem. At 1.30pm you deliberately accused an unknown UEA employee of theft. At 6.13pm you repeat a Norfolk Police conclusion that the hack was an outside job and that there is no evidence implicating any UEA employee. Yet you then compound your problem by using a latin quotation meaning "innocent until proven guilty". Were we supposed to be impressed by your erudition? Were you cognizant of this principle when you generically accused one of my former colleagues?
You do not need to apologize to me, but the very least you can do is retract your 1.30pm accusation.
I also note that my two questions remain unanswered. Take it as read that this communication is a third demand for those answers.
Be a man, bite the bullet, everyone here knows you're banged up to rights.
Alan Kendall
Alan Kendall
I strongly object to being threatened in this manner. Under duress I retract my 1.30pm comment
Note what the police said. "There is no evidence" They did not definately rule out an insider.
I live in Northern Ireland. There is "no evidence" for any number of terrorist murders. .If you ask MI5, they have good intelligence regarding the identity of the murderers. None of this is admissible in court.
In my opinion an inside job looks quite likely. An amateur hacker would be boasting about the hack and basking in the admiration of the sceptic community. If, as Martin A says, no crime was committed, the hacker had nothing to lose and a reputation to gain. An insider, on the other hand, had his job to lose and therefore an incentive to stay silent.
The alternative is that one of the fossil fuel companies or lobby groups that stood to gain from a failed Copenhagen conference paid a professional to do the hack and included a secrecy clause.
Entropic man
EM Thank you for your retraction.
I did not threaten you.
As for the rest, I really am beginning to wonder about your mental health. So many completely unwarrented speculations and quasi accusations.
Alan Kendall
EM
"Climate is a system best regarded as an equilibrium. If all the factors affecting it become constant the system moves towards, and then remains at equilibrium"
If that were the case we would expect to find periods in the paleoclimate record where an equilibrium has been maintained.
Other than aa good variety of temperature proxies, and atmospheric dust and loess accumulation, for which we have fairly long records, sea levels and other proxies indicative of changes in climatic conditions such as glacier advance and retreat, corrie floor elevations, snow and tree line migration, river discharge, bog development, lake levels and volumes, records only exist from relatively recent times ( no further back than the beginning of the Pleistioene in most cases). However all of these indicated that equilibrium is rarely attianed or maintained other than for very short periods of time, usually a few decades to perhaps a century or or so. In general climate seems to have oscillated around a rising or falling temperature trend.
The last periods which seem to have showed oscillation around a reasonably stable temperature seems to have been in the Oligocene from +/- 34 mya to 25 mya and in the early Miocene from 22mya to 17mya. Before and after those periods the temperature oscillation was superimposed on relatively steep temperature trends - and for most of the time since the Early Eocene climatic optimum the trend was of falling temperatures. Albeit there was a brief and very sharp rise at the end of the Oligocene 25mya which coincided with disappearance of the continental Antarctic ice cap established at +/- 34mya from that time until +/- 14mya when the ice cap reappeared and has remained in existence ever since then.
One can scour the paleoclimate record for many climate proxies going back over long periods of time without finding evidence of an equilibrium being established and maintained except on geologically very short timescales , indicating that very rarely have the very many factors effecting climate remained constant for other than short periods of time.
The idea that the climate has long term stable equilibrium conditions, which have only recently been disturbed by anthropogenic factors, would not appear very likely from a paleoclimate perspective.