Happenings In Global Warming Land
[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]
(Half man, half bear, half pig... all terror!)
For starters, Investor’s Business Daily has another example of devastating analysis of the unscientific nature of global warming climate change claims:
This is a big problem for those who see human-caused global warming as an irreversible result of the Industrial Revolution’s reliance on carbon-based fuels. Based on global warming theory — and according to official weather forecasts made earlier in the year — this winter should be warm and dry. It’s anything but. Ice and snow cover vast parts of both Europe and North America, in one of the coldest Decembers in history.
A cautionary tale? You bet. Prognosticators who wrote the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, global warming report in 2007 predicted an inevitable, century-long rise in global temperatures of two degrees or more. Only higher temperatures were foreseen. Moderate or even lower temperatures, as we’re experiencing now, weren’t even listed as a possibility.
Since at least 1998, however, no significant warming trend has been noticeable. Unfortunately, none of the 24 models used by the IPCC views that as possible. They are at odds with reality.
Karl Popper, the late, great philosopher of science, noted that for something to be called scientific, it must be, as he put it, “falsifiable.” That is, for something to be scientifically true, you must be able to test it to see if it’s false. That’s what scientific experimentation and observation do. That’s the essence of the scientific method.
Unfortunately, the prophets of climate doom violate this idea. No matter what happens, it always confirms their basic premise that the world is getting hotter. The weather turns cold and wet? It’s global warming, they say. Weather turns hot? Global warming. No change? Global warming. More hurricanes? Global warming. No hurricanes? You guessed it.
Indeed, in today’s Best of the Web, we learn about how Judah Cohen is declaring that the cold winter weather is because of global warming… I mean climate change… er, Manbearpig:
How can we reconcile this? The not-so-obvious short answer is that the overall warming of the atmosphere is actually creating cold-weather extremes.
Sure it is. Anyway, back to the Investor’s Business Daily article, they get at what is really driving this:
Why do we continue to listen to warmists when they’re so wrong? Maybe it’s because their real agenda has nothing to do with climate change at all. Earlier this month, attendees of a global warming summit in Cancun, Mexico, concluded, with virtually no economic or real scientific support, that by 2020 rich nations need to transfer $100 billion a year to poor nations to help them “mitigate” the adverse impacts of warming.
This is what global warming is really about — wealth redistribution by people whose beliefs are basically socialist. It has little or nothing to do with climate. If it did, we might pay more attention to Piers Corbyn, a little-known British meteorologist and astrophysicist who has a knack for correctly predicting weather changes. Indeed, as London’s Mayor Boris Johnson recently noted, “He seems to get it right about 85% of the time.”
How does he do it? Unlike the U.N. and government forecasters, Corbyn pays close attention to solar cycles that, as it turns out, correlate very closely to changes in climate. Not only are we not headed for global warming, Corbyn says, we may be entering a “mini ice age” similar to the one that took place from 1450 A.D. to 1850 A.D.
We don’t know if Corbyn’s right or not. But given his record, he deserves as much attention as the warm-mongers whose goal is not to arrive at the truth but to reorganize society in a radical way.
As they say read the whole thing. And speaking of Corbyn, here’s is footage from him on Fox News being every bit the abent-minded professor in a charming way:
I admit I laughed when he tried to hold up the piece of paper, as though the viewers could read any of it. But facts are facts. He predicted this, while other scientists did not.
Meanwhile, in this blog post over at the New York Times, they demonstrate the precision associated with this “science:”
In an article this week on the relentless rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, I outlined one of the canonical projections of climate science: if the amount of carbon dioxide doubles, the average surface temperature of the earth is likely to increase by 5 or 6 degrees Fahrenheit, a whopping change. I contrasted that with a prediction from skeptics of climate change who contend that the increase is likely to be less than 2 degrees.
Um, let me stop you there. I just showed you that another scientist, that he would call a skeptic, said there will be no warming. But way to show command of the subject! Still, they go on:
One major voice on climate science, Richard B. Alley of the Pennsylvania State University, told me he gets annoyed by the way this contrast is often presented in news accounts. The higher estimate is often put forward as a worst case, he pointed out, while the skeptic number is presented as the best case.
In fact, as Dr. Alley reminds anyone who will listen, and as he recently told a Congressional committee, the estimate of 5 or 6 degrees is actually mildly optimistic. Computer programs used to forecast future climate show it as the most likely outcome from a doubling of carbon dioxide, but those programs also show substantial probabilities that the warming will be much greater.
The true worst case from doubled carbon dioxide is closer to 16 degrees of warming, Dr. Alley said — an addition of heat so radical that it would render the planet unrecognizable to its present-day inhabitants.
Dr. Alley calls the usual news media presentation of the issue a form of “false balance.” In his view, mainstream climate science should be seen as coming down on the conservative side of a range of numbers that runs from 2 degrees to 16 degrees. And in setting public policy, he said, lawmakers need to entertain the possibility that any of these numbers is correct.
In climate science, the problem of how the earth will react to extra greenhouse gases is known as “climate sensitivity,” and it is classically formulated as the average temperature increase that can be expected to occur if carbon dioxide doubles from its preindustrial value of 280 parts per million. By itself, this is a hard problem, one that consumes the lives of thousands of scientists. But projecting the actual future temperature of the earth involves even greater complexities.
So basically he is seeking to have a margin of error from two to sixteen degrees, and we have to freak out like its going to be sixteen. The science is that inexact, even by their own silly insular claims.
So anyway, in light of all this genuine skepticism the Obama administration has show the proper level of caution… ah, who am I kidding? They just announced brand new regulations, also over the Christmas break:
Stymied in Congress, the Obama administration is moving unilaterally to clamp down on greenhouse emissions, announcing plans for new power plants and oil refinery emission standards over the next year.
In an announcement posted on the agency’s website late Thursday, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson said the aim was to better cope with pollution contributing to climate change.
So basically the rule with the Obama administration is that if they ask Congress for something and they can’t even get it through the Pelosi-Reid Congress, they do it anyway. Nice.
[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]
Don’t forget Mambearpig’s leg, ” TV’s Patrick Duffy”
narciso (6075d0) — 12/28/2010 @ 6:16 amReminds me of the “recovered memory” fiasco which destroyed lives and sent many probably-innocent victims to jail. One of the “expert” witnesses was asked if there was any scientific research to back up her claims.
great unknown (261470) — 12/28/2010 @ 6:21 amHer response: “If we waited for science to catch up, we would never get anywhere.”
The New Zealand weather service just admitted that the weather data it had been using to “prove” warming had been falsified [I think they used the expression “unfortunate accidental mistakes”], and has just re-issued undoctored data for the past century showing that there has been no warming whatsoever. Surprise!
A sixteen degree increase would be and end to the interglacial climate mode we’re in (people often forget we’re just between ice ages) and a return to the climate mode the Earth usually experiences. Plants would thrive. We’d need more nuclear power to support air conditioning, and Greenland would be ice-free.
Anyone want to give odds that we’ve got twenty-five more years of cooling trend? The Pacific and Arctic Decal Oscillations have all gone into cooling mode.
LarryD (f22286) — 12/28/2010 @ 6:52 amThat’s special Ron, but you don’t seem to actually understand any of the issues. You just fall back on “Because NASA said so”.
And we know that NASA’s work, especially Hansens’, is unreliable.
SPQR (26be8b) — 12/28/2010 @ 7:21 amwhoops. Delete these two please.
SPQR (26be8b) — 12/28/2010 @ 7:22 amNo, “ron”, we know you are krazy, and worship at the altar of the skin flute and AGW. Your belief is every bit as religious as those Christians you fear.
JD (306f5d) — 12/28/2010 @ 7:24 amI missed the Ron vomit. I’m sure it was amusing.
daleyrocks (bfdac7) — 12/28/2010 @ 7:28 amDon’t give him the pleasure of calling him by his new fake name. That is William Yelverton, skin flute player extraordinaire, and midget racist hilljack that is scared of brown people that can spell.
JD (b98cae) — 12/28/2010 @ 7:32 amI’m super cereal about this, guys!
Al Gore (8096f2) — 12/28/2010 @ 7:38 amThe William Yelverton who teaches at Middle Tennessee State and makes racist comments on political blogs, bringing discredit to his employer, who drives and SUV, a motor boat, burns wood in fireplaces and hypocritically rants about the evils of global warming? That William Yelverton?
daleyrocks (bfdac7) — 12/28/2010 @ 7:39 amDo you have a link to the IBD story?
Clavius (7075c5) — 12/28/2010 @ 7:54 amOT – Does anybody know how the Dixie Chicks are doing these days?
daleyrocks (bfdac7) — 12/28/2010 @ 7:54 amYup, the midget adult track star wannabe that cooks saffron rice and calls it paella.
JD (306f5d) — 12/28/2010 @ 7:56 amclavus
its provided when it says “read the whole thing.”
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 12/28/2010 @ 8:07 amThe alarmists are still using “peer review” to block opposing papers from being published. One more example of the dishonesty of the warmists. Steve McIntyre is the statistician who demolished Mann’s hockey stick.
Mike K (568408) — 12/28/2010 @ 8:07 amAll the IPCC predictions are based on Michael Mann’s climate change computer models.
The father of computer modeling was a Hungarian born American mathematician named John von Neumann. He worked on the Manhatten Project during the war and afterwards, he built the computer models suggesting that nuclear and thermonuclear warheads could be miniaturized. The quote below completely destroys the IPCC models
“The sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, they mainly make models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct which, with the addition of certain verbal interpretations describes observed phenomena. The justification of such a mathematical construct is solely and precisely that it is expected to work.”
If you take measured data CO2 levels from 1994 to 2010 and put them into Mann’s 1994 model, the predictions do not approximate the actual temperatures. His 1994 model is invalid – Mann’s model does not work.
Von Neumann also pointed out that the independent variable in any model control the output.
“With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.”
The IPCC is, of course, a political organization, not a scientific one. Their outcome they seek is to tax fossil fuels and control energy.
Arch (24f4f2) — 12/28/2010 @ 8:14 amAs Mike K. points out, the corruption of the scientific process by the AGW crowd shows the essentially lack of integrity and scientific method by the AGW proponents. Until this is addressed, we cannot trust the hypothesis, and we would be reckless to adopt policies that destroy our economy and increase poverty in the world, based upon their claims.
That’s the bottom line.
SPQR (26be8b) — 12/28/2010 @ 8:16 amArch, there is a difference between Mann et al’s reconstructions of historical climate and the various Global Climate Models (GCM’s). They are different efforts and have different problems.
SPQR (26be8b) — 12/28/2010 @ 8:17 amThe AGW crowd and it’s allies in the Obama administration always like to yammer on about “restoring science to its rightful place in public debate” or “de-politicizing science” or “following science” or any other construct where they get to claim that they are motivated purely by science. I propose that from here on in we append the adjective “junk” to it, so that we can say things like, “the Obama Administration is fully devoted to funding junk science in the next Federal budget,” or “Mann’s projections, relying entirely on junk science, show an inevitable warming of the planet over the next half century absent immediate attention.”
JVW (4463d3) — 12/28/2010 @ 8:28 amComment by great unknown
Got a ref. on the New Zealand? Thanks.
A huge part of this problem, I think, is that the lie galloped around the globe a few times before the truth got its shoes on, as is still trying to catch up. It is a dangerous thing when a gullible public can be convinced of a lie and discount the truth without really having a broadly accessible* opportunity to examine the topic. Many people who are otherwise in the habit of often thinking for themselves have been convinced that AGW skeptics are on the order of Holocaust Deniers and see no reason to look at anything new on the subject. For the general US public, “ClimateGate” is a non-entity, I think.
Though we can hope that articles like this in popular and influential (I assume) printed page will help break through the disinformation.
That Obama works to get his way through administrative fiat in the Executive branch should be expected by now. At some point such behavior might be seen as an illegitimate power-grab and impeachable (something about not defending the Constitution). Let’s hope there are enough Conservatives with a stomach to do Congressional hearings.
*(ie, you don’t have to search for it yourself on the web)
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 12/28/2010 @ 8:31 amSPQR:
Yes, you’re right. Mann airbrushed out the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm period mainly to stabilize the myth that 280 ppmv was a preindustrial state. He also cherry picked one data set for the 19th and 12 data sets for the 20th centuries out of 90,000. For recent data sets, he “adjusted” them to make them fit. Mann et al have the answer already: CO2 causes temperatures to rise. That’s not the point I was trying to make.
His models do not work. If you input real data, you get a hockey stick. If you put in random numbers, you get a hockey stick.
Arch (24f4f2) — 12/28/2010 @ 8:33 amMD in Philly – The Australians were fudging their data and there was a big brouhaha in their legislature about it. I don’t recall where I read about it this year. It involved smoothing data, implying data series were continuous when they were from different stations, extrapolation of data over large distances, basically all the tricks we’ve seen the warmists use elsewhere.
daleyrocks (bfdac7) — 12/28/2010 @ 8:40 amMD in Philly, you can find the NZ info here, and at the bottom of the article there are links to prior stories all leading up to this retraction and admission. Enjoy~!
TimesDisliker (4ae673) — 12/28/2010 @ 8:47 amIn 2007, Real Climate, the Bible of the AGW Web sites, went to great lengths to explain why warmer winters in the U.S. not only don’t contradict AGW, but that warmers winters in much of the U.S. were actually to be expected with climate change:
What we do know, however, is that both anthropogenic climate change and El Nino favor, in a statistical sense, warmer winters over large parts of the U.S.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (fb9e90) — 12/28/2010 @ 9:23 amThat piece is hilarious, Brother Bradley, in that in succeeding paragraphs, “anomalous” weather is both consistent with AGW and not consistent with it – being only El Nino effects.
SPQR (26be8b) — 12/28/2010 @ 9:36 amSPQR,
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (fb9e90) — 12/28/2010 @ 9:56 amI wonder how long it will take before even the media is embarrassed by saying the opposite of what they were saying just a few years ago. Not uber-propagandists like George Monbiot, I’m sure.
The original moonbat, isn’t ashamed of anything
narciso (6075d0) — 12/28/2010 @ 9:59 amron,
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (fb9e90) — 12/28/2010 @ 10:15 amWhat does it say about the critical thinking of AGW theorists who now predict we’ll have colder winters, after predicting we’ll have warmer winters? Does that contradiction trouble you in the least?
Some scientists say that if someone were to kick you in the balls, that you will have a bigger penis. Any takers on this one ?
Neo (03e5c2) — 12/28/2010 @ 10:21 amComment by JVW — 12/28/2010 @ 8:28 am
If we were to do that, how long would it be before Mann or Hansen would be screaming:
Don’t touch my junk!
AD-RtR/OS! (e0a090) — 12/28/2010 @ 10:39 amI’ve got 6 inches of “Global Warming” in my pants, I mean Driveway.
Umm OK, its more like 3 inches, but still, the first “White Christmas” in Atanta since the 80’s.
The 1880’s, probably caused by all the CO2 that Scoundrel Sherman polluted the air with when he burned Atlanta down…
And where’s AlGore when you really need him?
Frank “I got your Global Warming RIGHT HERE” Drackman
Frank Drackman (6d27fd) — 12/28/2010 @ 10:43 amWhere’s AlGore?
AD-RtR/OS! (e0a090) — 12/28/2010 @ 10:46 amProbably tring to keep his Montecito manse from sliding down the hill into his Pacific Ocean view from all the rain we’re having here in SoCal (another storm expected this eve).
Thanks, TimesDisliker
Bro. Bradley, I think the media will not acknowledge the myth until new owners or editorial boards are in place and can distance themselves from former claims. Perhaps all of the major media will play “musical chairs” and just switch positions, so everyone can distance themselves from former opinions without anyone taking responsibility or losing their jobs.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 12/28/2010 @ 11:39 amMD in Philly,
I think the true believers in the MSM will never renounce their views. They’ll continue to rant against the ignorant public that doesn’t accept the “scientific” consensus, a.k.a. left-wing fanaticism. Their whole ego and sense of self-worth is based on the conceit that they are the educated ones, and are immune to making such gross errors.
Here is a nice takedown of the errors in Judah Cohen’s climate piece by climate scientist Roger Pielke, Sr., who accepts AGW but disagrees with the fixation on CO2:
“Finally, he (Cohen) writes
“Most forecasts have failed to predict these colder winters, however, because the primary drivers in their models are the oceans, which have been warming even as winters have grown chillier. They have ignored the snow in Siberia. “
“However, the oceans have not been warming in recent years (e.g. see the 2010 paper by Know and Douglas ). However, I agree that “[m]ost forecasts have failed”. Indeed, I would go further to state that ALL seasonal and longer time scale model predictions have failed to skillfully predict these extreme cold events.”
“Until, and unless, the multi-decadal global models can show skill in predicting these atmospheric features AND their change in frequency and patterning in the coming decades, they are misleading policymakers and others on their skill. This op-ed, despite seeking to support the 2007 WG1 IPCC perspective, actually raises further substantive issues with the robustness and accuracy of that report.”
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (048a30) — 12/28/2010 @ 11:55 am(underlining in original)
Yelverton and its fellow moonbats hate hate hate science, and anyone that disagrees with their sec-progg religion.
JD (822109) — 12/28/2010 @ 12:03 pmBrother Bradley, the AGW proponents continually tell us that we simply must accept the opinions of those they deem experts, and ignore those they deem not expert – but at no time do any of the AGW media proponents and their shills actually demonstrate any understanding of the issues themselves.
So while claiming to attack the “ignorant”, they repeatedly show only their own ignorance.
SPQR (26be8b) — 12/28/2010 @ 12:08 pmWhen I went to college in Atlanta, it snowed a total of three times in four winters (once a year for the first three years, nothing at all my senior year). That was back in the late 70s.
This morning I scraped frost off the windows of my car before driving to work. To understand the full import of this, you need to know that if I walk five minutes south from my house, I reach the 26th parallel.
kishnevi (699c85) — 12/28/2010 @ 6:09 pmI guess we all need to drive down to FL to inject some CO2 into the area to get temps back up?
Keep FL green, bring money – and leave!
AD-RtR/OS! (e0a090) — 12/28/2010 @ 6:59 pmKeep FL green, spend money – and leave!
FIFY.
🙂
(One benefit of the cold weather–many of my customers the last two days have been tourists looking for indoor activities.)
kishnevi (d52176) — 12/28/2010 @ 8:48 pmMaybe kishnevi should contact the folks in Minnesocold about setting up a “Southerners 4 Global Warming” outfit. Maybe kishnevi could star in their videos….
“Southern man, better use your head,
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 12/28/2010 @ 9:00 pmget snow tires like the manual said,
southern snows gonna come at last
your temps are fallin’ mighty fast
Southern man”
(Apologies to Neil Young)
The best is that “no change” is evidence of climate change – because some change is normally expected.
Wesson (019671) — 12/28/2010 @ 11:12 pmFor keeping up to date on climate change, wattsupwiththat.com has great articles and is now one of the leading science blogs.
Jeff (0204be) — 12/29/2010 @ 12:31 pmJeff
100% agree. its a great site.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 12/29/2010 @ 12:48 pm