ClimateGate busts things wide open

[jackspratt]

Climategate 2: A consensus emerges

In legal disputes about complex matters, the parties can be obliged to prepare a Statement of Agreed Facts which acts to narrow the dispute down to its essential elements.

<snipped>

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3707172.html

Statements of Agreed Facts are prepared and agreed by both parties, not just, in this case, the secretary of The (Australian) Climate Sceptics (Party) - yes, a registered political party.

http://www.aec.gov.au/Parties_and_Repre ... s/3730.htm

[ronan01]

CLIMATEGATE 2 - THE SCIENCE IS SETTLED?

They lost all the original data - lost never to be retrieved.

Not very scientific considering an essential element of the scientific method is independent replication of an "experiment" using the same data and described method to produce the same result.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eToR5oOv ... r_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_LpmLqF ... r_embedded

[ronan01]

It seems we may not get the huge sea level rises promised by the IPCC!

Rising credulity
Nils-Axel Mörner3 December 2011

The truth about sea levels? They’re always fluctuating

But the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (2007) tells a different story about sea levels worldwide and is worth quoting in some detail: ‘Even under the most conservative scenario, sea level will be about 40cm higher than today by the end of 21st century and this is projected to increase the annual number of people flooded in coastal populations from 13 million to 94 million. Almost 60 per cent of this increase will occur in South Asia.’

This is nonsense. The world’s true experts on sea level are to be found at the INQUA (International Union for Quaternary Reseach) commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution (of which I am a former president), not at the IPCC. Our research is what the climate lobby might call an ‘inconvenient truth’: it shows that sea levels have been oscillating close to the present level for the last three centuries. This is not due to melting glaciers: sea levels are affected by a great many factors, such as the speed at which the earth rotates. They rose in the order of 10 to 11cm between 1850 and 1940, stopped rising or maybe even fell a little until 1970, and have remained roughly flat ever since.
So any of the trouble attributed to ‘rising sea levels’ must instead be the result of other, local factors and basic misinterpretation. In Bangladesh, for example, increased salinity in the rivers (which has affected drinking water) has in fact been caused by dams in the Ganges, which have decreased the outflow of fresh water.

Even more damaging has been the chopping down of mangrove trees to clear space for shrimp farms. In one area, 19 square miles of mangrove vegetation in 1988 had by 2005 decreased to barely half a square mile. Mangrove forests offer excellent protection against the damage of cyclones and storms, so inevitably their systematic destruction has drastically increased local vulnerability to these problems.

At Tuvalu in the Pacific, I found no evidence of flooding — despite claims in Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth that it was one of those ‘low-lying Pacific nations’ whose residents have had to ‘evacuate their homes because of rising seas’. In fact the tide gauge of the past 25 years clearly shows there has been no rise.

But the best-known ‘victim’ of rising sea levels is, without doubt, the Maldives. This myth has been boosted by the opportunism of Mohamed Nasheed, who stars in a new documentary called The Island President. The film’s tagline is ‘To save his country, he has to save our planet’. It is a depressing example of how Hollywood-style melodrama has corrupted climate science. Nasheed has been rehearsing his lines since being elected in 2009. ‘We are drowning, our nation will disappear, we have to relocate the people,’ he repeatedly claims.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/74386 ... lity.thtml

[ronan01]

Climategate (Part II) A sequel as ugly as the original.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/ ... ?nopager=1

For example, a 2003 email from Michael Mann of Penn State summarily dismisses one variation of the solar story: “I’m now more convinced than ever that there is not one single scientifically defensible element at all [in this]​—​the statistics, supposed climate reconstruction, and supposed ‘Cosmic Ray Flux’ estimates are all almost certainly w/out any legitimate underpinning.” And yet the basis for the idea he dismisses was largely vindicated a few months ago in a major study from CERN, the European lab that is behind the Large Hadron Collider, which found a significant role for cosmic ray flux in cloud formation. The imperatives of climate orthodoxy came immediately into view when Rolf-Dieter Heuer, the director of the CERN lab, told a German news-paper, “I have asked the colleagues to present the results clearly, but not to interpret them. That would go immediately into the highly political arena of the climate change debate. One has to make clear that cosmic radiation is only one of many parameters.”

[jackspratt]

Steven Hayward (PhD in American Studies), a deeply conservative member of the heavily Exxon funded, conservative American Enterprise Institute, writing a op piece for the neocon, Murdoch owned, The Weekly Standard.

Make what you wish of it.

Climategate II struggles on. =D>

[rick]

It seems we may not get the huge sea level rises promised by the IPCC!

Rising credulity
Nils-Axel Mörner3 December 2011

The truth about sea levels? They’re always fluctuating

But the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (2007) tells a different story about sea levels worldwide and is worth quoting in some detail: ‘Even under the most conservative scenario, sea level will be about 40cm higher than today by the end of 21st century and this is projected to increase the annual number of people flooded in coastal populations from 13 million to 94 million. Almost 60 per cent of this increase will occur in South Asia.’

This is nonsense. The world’s true experts on sea level are to be found at the INQUA (International Union for Quaternary Reseach) commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution (of which I am a former president), not at the IPCC. Our research is what the climate lobby might call an ‘inconvenient truth’: it shows that sea levels have been oscillating close to the present level for the last three centuries. This is not due to melting glaciers: sea levels are affected by a great many factors, such as the speed at which the earth rotates. They rose in the order of 10 to 11cm between 1850 and 1940, stopped rising or maybe even fell a little until 1970, and have remained roughly flat ever since.
So any of the trouble attributed to ‘rising sea levels’ must instead be the result of other, local factors and basic misinterpretation. In Bangladesh, for example, increased salinity in the rivers (which has affected drinking water) has in fact been caused by dams in the Ganges, which have decreased the outflow of fresh water.

Even more damaging has been the chopping down of mangrove trees to clear space for shrimp farms. In one area, 19 square miles of mangrove vegetation in 1988 had by 2005 decreased to barely half a square mile. Mangrove forests offer excellent protection against the damage of cyclones and storms, so inevitably their systematic destruction has drastically increased local vulnerability to these problems.

At Tuvalu in the Pacific, I found no evidence of flooding — despite claims in Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth that it was one of those ‘low-lying Pacific nations’ whose residents have had to ‘evacuate their homes because of rising seas’. In fact the tide gauge of the past 25 years clearly shows there has been no rise.

But the best-known ‘victim’ of rising sea levels is, without doubt, the Maldives. This myth has been boosted by the opportunism of Mohamed Nasheed, who stars in a new documentary called The Island President. The film’s tagline is ‘To save his country, he has to save our planet’. It is a depressing example of how Hollywood-style melodrama has corrupted climate science. Nasheed has been rehearsing his lines since being elected in 2009. ‘We are drowning, our nation will disappear, we have to relocate the people,’ he repeatedly claims.

Oh dear. Another sceptic being quoted. Well, even INQUA has publicly dissociated itself from these claims. he may be an expert on isostatic rise and fall, but that's about it. He also believes in dowsing

Here are some more modern studies.

Ablain et al. (2008) looked at trends in mean sea level (MSL).[93]:194–195 A global MSL curve was plotted using data for the 1993 to 2008 time period. Their estimates for mean rate of sea level rise over this time period was 3.11 mm per year. A correction was applied to this resulting in a higher estimate of 3.4 mm per year. Over the 2005 to 2008 time period, the MSL rate was estimated to be 1.09 mm per year. This is a reduction of 60% on the rate observed between 1993–2005.[93]:193
MSL was also plotted using data between the years 1994 and 2007.[93]:194–195 Their data for this time period show two peaks (maxima) in MSL rates for the years 1997 and 2002. These maxima very likely reflected the influence of the ENSO on MSL. Using the 1994–2007 MSL data, they estimated MSL rates using moving windows of 3 years and 5 years. Lower rates were observed during La Niña events in 1999 and 2007. They concluded that the recently observed reduction in the MSL rate was likely to be real, since it concided with an exceptionally strong La Niña event. Preliminary analyses suggested that an acceleration of the MSL trend would likely occur in relationship with the end of the 2007–2008 La Niña event.[93]:200[94]
White (2011) reported measurements of near-global sea level made using satellite altimeters.[29] Over the time period January 1993 to April 2011, these data show a steady increase in global mean sea level (GMSL) of around 3.2 mm per year, with a range of plus or minus 0.4 mm per year. This is 50% larger than the average rate observed over the 20th century. White (2011) was, however, unsure of whether or not this represented a long-term increase in the rate.
The Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales/Collecte Localisation Satellites (CNES/CLS, 2011) reported on the estimated increase in GMSL between 1993 and 2011.[28] Their estimate was an increase of 3.22 mm per year, with an error range in this trend (i.e., the slope over the 1993 to 2011 time period) of approximately 0.6 mm per year.
The CU Sea Level Research Group (CUSLRG, 2011) estimated the rate of GMSL between 1993 and 2011.[27] The rate was estimated at 3.2 mm per year, with a range of plus or minus 0.4 mm per year.
The Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry (LSA, 2011) estimated the trend in GMSL over the time period 1992 to 2011.[30] Their estimate was a trend of 2.9 mm per year, with a range of plus or minus 0.4 mm per year. According to the LSA (2011): "[the] estimates of sea level rise do not include glacial isostatic adjustment effects on the geoid, which are modeled to be +0.2 to +0.5 mm/year when globally averaged."

Of course, sea level rise is a very difficult to track due to all the variable factors. But tide gauges, satellite telemetry all suggest sea level is rising. Also, as ice melts and the ocean warms (causing thermal expansion) the extra volume has to go some where. but tidal gauges in geologically static areas over the last 130 years show a steady upward trend - of about 2 millimetres a year on average. Not a lot, but it is happening.

[ronan01]

Ancient trees tell different climate story

Liu Yu has studied untouched forests dating thousands of years along the remote Tibetan Plateau for clues to past and current weather

http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/me ... ina&s=news

What have tree rings told us about climate change over the last two millennia?

Popular belief is that industrialisation has led to the fastest rate of warming witnessed by humans; that we are at the warmest time of the modern era; and that we are causing global warming by emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. None of that fits the records in tree rings.

In northern China, the warmest period occurred from AD401-413, which had an annual mean temperature 0.16 degrees Celsius higher than today's. Other periods, including 604-609, 864-882 and 965-994 had temperatures higher than in recent decades. Our results are supported by historical documents from the period. Archaeological records in Loulan , Xinjiang , show that pomegranate, a fruit rich in vitamin C, was used as currency during the Eastern Jin dynasty (AD317-420). The fruit could not possibly have appeared in northern China without a climate much warmer than today's.

And we are not experiencing the most dramatic climate change in recent history, either. Over the past 2,485 years, the biggest climate change took place during the Eastern Jin dynasty. The period had two stages, with the temperature plummeting first and then soaring. In the warming period, the mean temperature [in the Tibetan Plateau region] increased suddenly from 1.66 degrees to 2.67 degrees in 30 years. In the cooling period, the mean temperature dropped to below that of the Little Ice Age [an abnormally cold period that lasted from about 1550 to 1850]. The coldest years, with a mean temperature of 1.38 degrees, occurred from 362-369, and the temperature was about 1.5 degrees lower than the mean temperature of the late 20th century.

So what causes climate change?

We believe that the sun and atmospheric circulations play a vital, if not decisive, role in this. The millennial cycle of solar activity determines the long-term trends of temperature variations. Almost all sunspot minimums [periods of sometimes several decades when sunspots become rare] correspond with low-temperature intervals. Meanwhile, atmospheric circulations affect temperature changes from decade to decade. To quote Professor Zhu Kezhen , the father of climate change studies in China: "The big changes in the earth's climate have been controlled by solar radiation, but the small changes by atmospheric circulation."

The science is not settled.

ps: expect a posting from Mr Pratt along the lines - "Professor Liu Yu well known right wing Exxon oil funded ..." Just as well we have all those nice honest WWF and Greenpeace folks telling us the truth all the time!!

[Laan Yaa Mo]

Tree rings...tree rings...come on now!!! Everyone knows that tree rings are part of the right-wing, oil and Rothchild's backed conspiracy to attack the legitimate findings of peace-loving academics and their supporters who smell global warming wherever it is found in the cosmos. 55555

[jackspratt]

ps: expect a posting from Mr Pratt along the lines - "Professor Liu Yu well known right wing Exxon oil funded ..." Just as well we have all those nice honest WWF and Greenpeace folks telling us the truth all the time!!

Congratulations Onan, on finally quoting someone who is at least qualified to comment on climate change. =D>

Of course, we await further information on the relevance of Prof Liu's comments.

[ronan01]

ps: expect a posting from Mr Pratt along the lines - "Professor Liu Yu well known right wing Exxon oil funded ..." Just as well we have all those nice honest WWF and Greenpeace folks telling us the truth all the time!!

Congratulations Onan, on finally quoting someone who is at least qualified to comment on climate change. =D>

Of course, we await further information on the relevance of Prof Liu's comments.

Oh I am so relieved that we have found somebody you think is qualified to comment on climate changes.

Precisely what criteria did you apply when assessing Prof Liu's qualifications?

[jackspratt]

Oh I am so relieved that we have found somebody you think is qualified to comment on climate changes.

Precisely what criteria did you apply when assessing Prof Liu's qualifications?

Onan casting himself into the role of pluralis maiestatis - how quaint.

No doubt you looked up Prof Liu's qualifications before you quoted him ...................... didn't you?

Or did you rely on the fact that because he appeared in an Andrew Bolt blog, he must be hunky dory?

[ronan01]

Climategate (Part II)
A sequel as ugly as the original.

In a 2008 email from Jagadish Shukla of George Mason University and the Institute of Global Environment and Society to a large circle of IPCC scientists, Shukla put his finger squarely on the problem: “I would like to submit that the current climate models have such large errors in simulating the statistics of regional [climate] that we are not ready to provide policymakers a robust scientific basis for ‘action’ at a regional scale. .  .  . It is inconceivable that policy-makers will be willing to make billion- and trillion-dollar decisions for adaptation to the projected regional climate change based on models that do not even describe and simulate the processes that are the building blocks of climate variability.” Despite this and other cautionary messages from scientists, Jones, DEFRA, and the IPCC charged ahead with the weather generator anyway.

Other problems with climate modeling are more -subtle and less easily discerned from the emails. In particular, there is much discussion about the political pressure to tune the climate models to isolate and emphasize the effect of carbon dioxide only, even though there are other important greenhouse gases and related factors highly relevant to a complete understanding of climate change. Carbon dioxide was emphasized because it is the variable that the policymakers made central to their monomaniacal mission to suppress fossil fuels to the exclusion of other policy strategies, such as “geoengineering,” that might be considered in the event of drastic climate change. Here and there Jones and his compatriots complain about this constraint, but go along with it anyway. But it’s another case of policy-driven science, and not science-driven policy, which we are constantly reassured is the mission of the IPCC.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/ ... ?nopager=1

[rick]

Well, some things will happen even if the temperatures were to stop rising, so some actions are needed. What, well the possibilities are many.

First, at the current rate of loss, the Alpine glaciers will be practically gone in 120 years, which will play havoc with water supplies in large parts of Europe.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16025568

Second, not necessarily to do with current global warming, but it seems the Dead sea naturally dries up in warmer interglacials - i.e. the middle east gets even drier than it is now. Roll on the water wars.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15938294

I wonder what other deserts will form in the warmer climate?

[ronan01]

Climate of corruption

by Tony Thomas

December 6, 2011

http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed ... corruption

McKitrick says the main IPCC weakness is that its Bureau (30 bureaucrats elected by the 195-nation Panel, and led by Rajendra Pachauri) plus the 10-member Secretariat, have arbitrary power over the content and conclusions of the IPCC’s Assessment Reports.

Specifically, the Bureau has a free hand in picking the top authors of the reports, mainly on political grounds (e.g. warmists and activists preferred). The Lead Authors in turn can pick their lesser co-authors to write the draft text. Since the review process is toothless, the Bureau can thus pre-determine the reports’ conclusions by its choice of authors.

McKitrick’s most damaging material concerns “intellectual conflicts of interest” within the IPCC.

Believe it or not:

- The IPCC’s Lead Authors frequently review their own work and that of their critics.

- Large numbers of Lead Authors, including those connected to half the chapters of the Working Group I report of 2007 and all the chapters of the Working Group II report, are employed by, or advisors to, environmental activist groups, such as Greenpeace. (These linkages are meticulously explored in LaFramboise’s book).

- Lead Authors have the final say over the published text, no matter how cogent a reviewer’s criticisms during the mid-way review process.

A weird aspect, again highlighted earlier by Laframboise, is that reviewers are simply handed the entire draft report of a working group (ie a third of the total draft IPCC report). The reviewer can then choose which bits to review and which to ignore. In this way a section of monumental importance may be glossed over during review.

McKitrick cites the now-notorious ‘smoking gun’ of a private email from IPCC author Phil Jones on what he would do about published work on the urban heat island effect on temperature records, work that was critical of Jones’ own data sets:

I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin (Trenberth – another IPCC author) and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!

McKitrick then goes to the final IPCC text, and finds the two contrarian papers described in ways involving falsehood and fabrication.

[ronan01]

An updated history of last chances to save the world

By Gavin Atkins Dec 10, 2011 9:29AM UTC

http://asiancorrespondent.com/71700/an- ... the-world/

Back in 1992, the Rio Earth Summit was promoted as the last chance to save the planet.
But then, so was Johannesburg in 2002.
But that was before the Bali climate conference became the last chance to save the world in 2007.
And let’s not forget Poznan in 2008 which was the last chance to save the world according to the World Wildlife Fund.
And who could forget the last chance to save the world at Copenhagen, as proposed to us by the UK’s leading expert on climate change, Sir Nicholas Stern.
But now it’s official. This year’s Durban Conference, the United Nation’s Convention on Climate Change, known as COP 17, is once again the last chance to save the world:
Churches claim Durban conference is mankind’s last chance

Rev. Dr. Olav Fyske Tveit, who leads the World Council of Churches, says the upcoming climate conference in South Africa is mankind’s ‘last opportunity’ to address climate change.

The strangest thing about all this is that despite believing that it is now too late, several of these people are at the conference, and their items for discussion are not what to do before the end of the world.
Surely Nicholas Stern would be at home drowning himself in alcohol, or at least, making passionate love to strangers in lifts?
In fact, Stern is not only at the Durban Conference, he holds a number of prominent positions at COP17 and is even offering people advice about cutting down the use of fossil fuels – none of which seem to involve avoiding these kinds of conferences.
Why cutting down fossil fuel usage is of any use while the end of the world is nigh must be anyone’s guess.
But if recent reports are to be believed, it seems unlikely that any binding agreement will be made at Durban to continue the Kyoto protocol, which can mean only one thing: more conferences, and more last chances to save the world.

Considering Durban was a complete and total failure it seems we have lost the last chance to save the world.... again .... oh dear, when will it all end?

[fatbob]

Geez where do you get your drugs from Ronan, I want some!

[rick]

Considering Durban was a complete and total failure it seems we have lost the last chance to save the world.... again .... oh dear, when will it all end?

The answer to that is easy, when the world ends...... or at least when most of humanity does. But a lot of other species will go first. Saving the world is relative, because it may go a bit at a time....

[ronan01]

Friday, December 16, 2011
MICHAEL BUERK ON THE CLIMATE SUMMIT
So why no debate on the assumptions behind the more apocalyptic forecasts?

Example: the UN forecast 50 million climate refugees by 2010 – where are they?

"You’re not necessarily a crank to point out that global temperatures change a great deal anyway. A thousand years ago we had a Mediterranean climate in this country; 200 years ago we were skating every winter on the Thames.

And actually there has been no significant rise in global temperatures for more than a decade now.

We hear a lot about how the Arctic is shrinking, but scarcely anything about how the Antarctic is spreading, and the South Pole is getting colder.

Droughts aren’t increasing. There are fewer of them, and less severe, than a hundred years ago. The number of hurricanes hasn’t changed, the number of cyclones and typhoons has actually fallen over the last 30 years.

And so on."

"As recently as 2005, for instance, the UN said there would be 50 million climate refugees by 2010.

That was last year.

OK – so where are they?"

http://www.thefifthcolumn.co.uk/the-agi ... transcript

[BobHelm]

Retired, BBC Newsreader.
No source information for any of his claims...
Compelling arguments yet again Ronan....

[rick]

"As recently as 2005, for instance, the UN said there would be 50 million climate refugees by 2010.

That was last year.

OK – so where are they?"

Easy. UK, Sweden, USA, Australia and just about every other developed country. And before you say they are economic migrants or fleeing conflicts, what is causing the conflicts and lack of economic progress? In most cases, lack of resources and environmental changes are the underlying causes. With the worlds now large population, environmental pressures mean even the smallest change of climate means someone (or some form of life) will be pushed out. - e.g. as lake Chad shrinks, fishermen no longer can fish.

Refugees do not leave en masse, but as a steady trickle.