Discussion > The end of the Great Delusion is at hand
This is it, Entropic man, the “forcings” that you cleave so adherently to do seem to be… well… what could best be described as variable. “CO2 is the driving force of climate change!” you trumpet, “… except when it isn’t…” seems to be the sneakingly whispered codicil. As I have pointed out, time and time and time again, while CO2 has risen steadily since… well… whenever, temperatures have NOT always risen with it. While human consumption of fossil fuels has risen exponentially, CO2 levels have risen more or less steadily. Quite why there should be some mysterious link between these points puzzles me; your only defence of them seems to be, “’Cos it is so!” Sorry, but I really do not think that is scientific – no matter how many “scientists” you can summon to make the same declaration. Sorry, but I do need evidence; you (the collective “you”, from Mr Mann, through Mr Trenberth to yourself) have yet to produce any evidence to truly support your claims.
You also mutter almost conspiratorially about “balance”; this is an idea I have yet to see defended, whenever I have offered the hypothesis that there are precious few times when there is “balance” – indeed, imbalance is the general condition in almost every natural condition, be it in a diurnal cycle, lunar cycle or solar cycle. Imbalance exists in almost every scene in nature, whether it is the paucity of locusts or their swarms, the spreading of the deserts to their blooming and the greening of the world. There are imbalances over longer terms that we can identify, if not fully explain, such as the shift from el Niño to la Niña. On that simple observation there are surely other, longer term imbalances are likely to exist, too, which is why, since the Holocene Optimum, there has been several cycles from warm periods to cold periods; that we are on one of those upswings is more plausible to me than all your arcane chanting over the rise of human CO2 will ever do – you have to produce stronger evidence than just. “It is so!” to convince me otherwise.
Radical Rodent
ACK
To get to the paper I linked, go to the abstract and click on "Continue reading full article."
Entropic man
EM (of me):
"You oversimplify. In the short term There are many factors affecting the rate of warming. Some have a warming effect, some have a cooling effect and they operate on different timescales."
And: "My explanation? Before the Industrial Revolution the long term trend over 5000 years was cooling, as the Milankovich cycles gradually pushed us towards the next glacial period. That is why the MWP cooled into the LIA, with a little help from vulcanism."
And: "The four main natural forcings are orbital changes, volcanos, the Sun and plate tectonics.
The four main human forcings are land use, aerosols, ozone and CO2.
All eight are measurable and their effect calculated. Seven of the eight are producing a neutral or cooling effect.
Only CO2 is driving warming"
Quite a lot to go at there. No real recognition of the fact that at a time when approximately 30% of all man-made CO2 emissions were emitted, the temperature did not warm. Apparently the other 7 (as RR says - how do you KNOW there are only 7 others -though I acknowledge your qualifying word "main"?) all operated together to nullify massive CO2 emissions,even though at other times in the 20th century the other 7 were collectively operating to warm the temperature. Short-term timescales, no?
And a full-out admission (well done for that; +1 in fact) that without alleged CO2-induced warming, we'd be heading back into the Little Ice Age. Which suggests to me that if man-made CO2 is staving off a return to the LIA, that's a very good thing indeed. What's all the fuss about? Oh yes, that's right - money.
Mark Hodgson
Golf Charlie
Which good bits and why?
Entropic man
EM, as Climate Science has never found any problem with its output, because it has all been peer reviewed by climate science experts, I was wondering if anyone claiming to be an expert could start by deciding which bits are worth saving, and which bits, like Mann's Hockey Stick and the 97% Consensus should be binned without further wasted resources.
If we assume Myron Ebell is looking at a massive bonfire, which bits do you think should be preserved? I don't claim to be a climate scientist, just a country bumpkin. I can't see how anybody tainted by the Hockey Team, Skeptical Science, Gergis etc, would be considered acceptable by Trump/Ebell. It is not going to be my decision, but I hope something useful and beneficial can be salvaged.
golf charlie
EM
Everybody knows the climate has got warm and cooled again, it has also cooled, and warmed again, well almost everybody, because Mann's loyal disciples have to believe in a flat shaft to the Hockey Stick.
I knew that at school, before I was a teenager, I knew it when I was a teenager at school, through University, and into my professional career. I was dumb enough to trust Mann and his phoney/fake/fraudulent/fabricated Hockey Stick, and the BBC and co who broadcast it. When did you decide that the Climate had never warmed or cooled before, contrary to what you must have learned at school, and probably taught at school?
Would you agree that any "science" that confirm/support/endorse Mann's abomination, is probably not worth saving? If the sole purpose of any scientific research is simply to confirm a previous bit of research, why was it commissioned and paid for?
Phil Clarke triumphantly announced that Gergis 2016 could be added to the list of papers that proved the Hockey Stick. What has Gergis actually proved about the Hockey Stick, and the motives behind all the previous papers and those scientists that supported them, peer approved them and eulogised them in print or in blogs? You may choose to disagree (not my problem) but it rather suggests a "science" desperately trying to cling on until another Democrat was safely installed in The White House.
I did not predict Brexit, or a Trump win. The theories of gravity and relativity have survived political swings. The theory behind manmade Global Warming, lacks a robust footing, and is going to get blown away. That is what happens in politics.
golf charlie
golf charlie, "getting blown away" is also what happens when a social mania finally runs its course.
hunter
golfCharlie. What you knew from your oh so limited and parochial experience was that your teeny tiny bit of the world got warmer and cooler. What, in your utter ignorance, you could not know (how could you? you were an ignorant parochial with only a teeny weeny bit of knowledge) was the wider world. It took the combined might of CRU megabrains and american lookalikes to reveal the true smoothness of the world wide climate. Your experience was shown to be a sham, a figment, not worth considering. History - bah humbug, not worth considering, written by losers with no deep climatological knowledge or insight. Believe the climate scientists, they have the truth, only they can massage the data to reveal the real truth - everything was "butiful" before, and in a decade we are going to fry, the oceans will turn to viniger. The only thing we should do is lock up the wicked deniers and overthrow the new Satan who sports a ginger cat hairdo.
ACK
ACK, bit of a bummer to know that everything wot I got tort at skool woz kerrap coz Mickey the Mann sed sew.
I know where I was in 2006 when I accidently let slip publicly that I was not convinced by climate science to an audience of 20(?) educated Brits. No one raised a concern.
I think the Flat (Temperature Line of) Earthers that inhabit climate science are the ones with the Creationist delusions about history, biology, evolution, geology, archaeology, etc. Makes me wonder how some of those subjects are taught in schools and university these days, if no one is allowed to mention the consequences of changing climate since the last ice age finished.
golf charlie
Radical rodent
I've been bouncing scientific evidence off your cognitive dissonance for years and you have ignored it.
Stop complaining that there is no evidence when the problem is with your otrichicity.
Entropic man
RR. EM so pleased with his new word that he forgot to spell it properlicheously.
ACK
You mean all those papers that you link to that all use the same faulty assumptions, suppositions, guesses and measurements massaged to such an extent that they could well be outright lies? That evidence? Hmmm… now… I wonder why I have difficulty accepting it…?
You give the impression that you believe that, before the Industrial Revolution, the climate was unchanging, and perfect, and the small rise we have had since then has only led to chaos and disaster, with cities soon to be submerged, floods washing away those higher, drought baking lands dry, and rampaging storms creating havoc all around the world. When it is pointed out that this hasn’t happened, and is not happening, you fall back onto: “Well, it is going to, soon, if we don’t stop using fossil fuels! We’re going to burn and drown!”
Sorry, Entropic man, but your arguments ring hollow; I know of no disadvantage to the warming we have had, so far, and can see no reason why any rise, slight as it may be, we might get in the future should lead to disaster. You claim that our use of fossil fuels is driving CO2 concentrations upwards – we have burned 30% of our total consumption this century, alone, which surely must mean that CO2 concentrations should be rising ever faster… only they are not; indeed, there are signs that they are faltering, with the rise lessening. You claim that CO2 is driving climate change, yet, despite the rise in CO2 over the past 150 years being pretty constant, the rise in temperatures has not – often enough being downward to such an extent as to trigger fears of a new ice age (a point now being air-brushed out of history). If any or all of those points are what you refer to as “evidence” then I do pity the children you have taught, as they may well be severely hindered by the philosophies inculcated into them by you.
What would you say, should the temperatures start to fall, again?
Oh, and by the way, as Minty has pointed out, you should really take your spell-checker to be recalibrated.
Radical Rodent
Radical rodent
While human consumption of fossil fuels has risen exponentially, CO2 levels have risen more or less steadily
That turns out not to be the case
The rate of CO2 accumulation is accelerating.
In 1965-1974 the rate of increase was 1.06ppm/year.
In 2005-2014 the rate of increase was 2.11ppm/year.
In October 2015-October 2016 the rate of increase was 3.08ppm/year.
November 28th 2016 was 3.75ppm higher than November 2015.
Please get your facts right. I lack the time and energy to correct every error you make and it decreases your credibility.
ACK
Between dyslexia and my spell checker I find accurate spelling difficult. Live with it or go bugger a camel, you obnoxious coprolite!
Entropic man
EM. Black dog perhaps? Take it easy friend.
ACK
ACK
It is a subject about which I am sensitive, though I only overreact like that on bad days. Sorry.
Entropic man
ACK & Radical Rodent,
I think EM is in Denial of all scientific evidence that does not fit his delusions. He must be a Creationist. Myron Ebell might just aswell scrap all climate science, which is a shame for those few who did produce honest work.
I had presumed 3% of Climate Science would be worth saving, and hoped it might be as high as 20%. What a waste.
We still don't know what caused and ended the MWP or LIA, so we don't even know if the Hiatus is about to evolve into a new ice age. If it does get cold, should Smart Meters be programmed to cut off devotees of Climate Science first? It seems only fair, given the death toll they have inflicted on others.
golf charlie
EM, was it CO2 that caused the ice age scare in the 1970s, that climate scientists pretend never happened? It is just that your linked page doesn't seem to indicate that.
We also have to assume that CO2 was removed from the atmosphere to trigger the LIA, and CO2 was released during the LIA to cause it to end. This then means that if industry caused the end of the LIA, the temperature should have continued to rise. But it didn't.
You just seem to accept CO2 is a temperature control knob, when it fits, and ignore it when it doesn't. Is this considered normal in climate science? It would explain why so much drivel gets approved by peer review, and probably proves Myron Ebell correct if he chucks out the lot.
golf charlie
golfCharlie. Go on prove it. Demonstrate, with legal rigour, that any individual climate scientist has been responsible for an individual death, let alone a "death toll". I know of one climate scientist who saved several people from drowning.
ACK
A good job I had no credibility to start with! And a good job I do not worry about my credibility with you, anyway, so that’s okay. Unlike you, I have no shame in being wrong; unlike you, change does not worry me (especially if it is change over which I can have absolutely no control, whatsoever); unlike you, I get highly suspicious of people who appear to be scamming me; unlike you, I do not pounce upon the only part of the atmosphere that we have convinced ourselves that we have any control over, and blame that as the only cause of observed changes; unlike you, I can cope with the possibility that there are so many unknowns and uncertainties involved that we may never unravel the mystery; unlike you, I look at the single site on Mauna Kea, and compare it with the OCO-2 satellite data, see that CO2 distribution through the atmosphere is NOT uniform, and does appear to be in direct contradiction of almost everything that we have been told about it – i.e. the highest concentration of CO2 was NOT over the industrial areas, but over the “green” rain forests and tropical oceans (and seemed to result in that satellite information being more closely-guarded). You see, unlike you, I can appreciate the observations from ONE site, but do not extrapolate that over the entire world (like, who has objected when anyone has tried that with the CET?); for that, I am afraid, it is necessary to have considerably more sites, or a more global measurement system – of which the only one I know of is the satellite system; somehow, though, these seem to be decried for various reasons; could it be that they show that there has been no significant warming for over 20 years?
Radical Rodent
I had presumed 3% of Climate Science would be worth saving, and hoped it might be as high as 20%. What a waste.
Nov 30, 2016 at 4:29 PM golf charlie
I think it's a subject that is going to remain remain fubar for ever. In principle, it could be done again from scratch, ring fenced from what has gone before. But that is hardly likely to come about.
There may be 3% - 20% "worth saving". But what that part is could only be determined by starting again. A bit like error-ridden software in a safety critical system.
Martin A
ACK, legal rigour is not required by climate scientists to support the blocking of money to developing countries for the construction of power stations. Power stations allow communities to develop, have drinkable water supplies, medical aid etc.
People who have the technology to turn on an electric light at night, have lower birth rates, and lower infant mortality.
With UK temperatures rather low, how many people are going to die before Christmas, because they cannot afford to heat their houses? We don't yet know whether our National Grid is capable of supplying enough power to prevent death rates increasing.
golf charlie
Case dismissed for lack of evidence.
Phil Clarke
Phil Clarke, so that is all of climate science wiped out then.
It will save Myron Ebell on skip hire.
golf charlie
Phil Clarke, unless you have evidence that climate science had an open debate, with supporting documentation, to conclude that manmade CO2 was what caused Global Warming?
golf charlie
EM. Think its time for you to read some Willis on the possible non effect of volcanoes.
Cannot get to the full paper so cannot see the statistical data used to make the assertion. I do know that colleagues tried to find correlations between volcanicity and climate and gave it up.