Australian Politics Forum - The Questions the Alarmists couldn't answer.

Grendel Gold Member Offline OzPolitic Posts: 28080 Gender:	Re: The Questions the Alarmists couldn't answer. Reply #15 - Jul 2^nd, 2009 at 11:46am ROTFLMAO
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Grendel

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Re: The Questions the Alarmists couldn't answer.
Reply #16 - Jul 2^nd, 2009 at 11:47am

QUESTION 2

Is it the case that the rate and magnitude of warming between 1979 and 1998 (the late 20th century phase of global warming) were not unusual as compared with warmings that have occurred earlier in the Earth's history (Fig. 2a, 2b)?

If the warming was not unusual, why is it perceived to have been caused by human CO2 emissions; and, in any event, why is warming a problem if the Earth has experienced similar warmings in the past?

The government responded, citing ice-core data, that today’s magnitude and rate of temperature change was unusual, that the last 2,000 years of climatic history is more relevant to humans than deep-time history, that strong evidence exists that post-1850 warming was caused primarily by human greenhouse emissions, and (after Garnaut) that the costs of adapting to climate change in Australia may be more expensive than attempting to abate it.

6. Rate and magnitude of change

6.1. Judgements about rate and magnitude of temperature change through deep time, i.e. prior to instrumental measurement, have to be made using proxy data (such as temperature-related oxygen isotope measurements) for particular sites or regions.

Global warming between the last glacial maximum and the Holocene varied according to region. Ice cores from Vostok, Antarctica suggest a temperature rise of about 12oC; from Greenland the ice cores suggest much greater warming still. In contrast, isotopic analysis of sea bed cores from the warmest oceans around Indonesia suggests a temperature rise of only 2-4oC in tropical regions (and note that a 1oC increase in tropical ocean temperatures is accompanied by a natural increase in of about 7% in global evaporation and precipitation).

6.2. Figs. 2a, b of Fielding (June 15th) reproduce data from two such proxy deep-time temperature records. As explained in their captions, these records show that the rates (1-20C/century) and magnitudes (about 0.80C warming since the last cold phase of the Little Ice Age) of historical climate change fall well within prior natural limits.

This is especially the case if the Dansgaard-Oeschger (D/O) events referred to by the government are taken into account, irrespective of the debate (which continues) as to the degree to which such climatic events are worldwide or restricted to particular regions.

6.3. D/O events are sudden, step increases in the northern Atlantic and Greenland region temperature of more than 10oC over decades, followed within centuries by rapid cooling again.

The Arctic is a region where more infrared radiation is emitted to space than is absorbed from incoming solar radiation. This local radiation imbalance is corrected by the transport of energy from the tropics to sustain local temperatures. Sudden increases in local temperatures arise from changes in this equator to pole energy exchange, which is modulated by a combination of changes in wind pattern, changes in ocean currents and changes in atmospheric circulation. Such changes in poleward energy transport are similar to an El Nino event, and are at least hemispheric in scope. Indeed, the typical Atlantic D/O climatic patterning is present in some Antarctic ice cores.

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Grendel

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Re: The Questions the Alarmists couldn't answer.
Reply #17 - Jul 2^nd, 2009 at 11:48am

7. Climate record of the last 2,000 years

7.1. The government writes that “in terms of timescales of importance for humans, the last 2,000 years are most relevant, because this is the period over which our civilisations have developed”.

This statement reflects simple anthropomorphic bias, for there is nothing “typical” or “special” about the climate of the last 2,000 years. Understanding climate change in context requires the study of climatic records that cover at least hundreds of thousands of years.

7.2. The government reproduces an IPCC figure of Northern Hemisphere air temperatures over the last 1800 years. This figure represents a variety of proxy (mostly tree ring) temperature histories that are joined together with the (UHI-influenced) 20th century temperature record and a speculative further “ ’committed’ additional temperature rise due to the thermal inertia of the ocean”.

7.3. One of the proxy temperature series plotted is the infamous “hockey stick” reconstruction of Mann et al. (1999). This reconstruction is discredited (e.g., McIntyre & McKitrick, 2003, 2005, 2009).

7.5. Disturbingly, the government continues to exhibit the “hockey stick” graph on its website.

7.6. In general, the proxy reconstruction of ancient temperatures only provides a smoothed representation of the temperature trends and that at a local or regional level. The interpretation of tree rings, etc cannot discriminate the same detail as direct observations of temperature.

Thus it is poor practice to append a global instrumental record to the young end of a series of proxy geological records. Such a construction amplifies recent temperature trends without scientific foundation.

7.7. Abundant historic and geological data shows that warming events associated with the Minoan, Greco-Roman and Medieval Warm Periods occur on a millennial, perhaps solar, climatic cycle (Bond et al., 2001; Singer & Avery, 2008), and were at least as warm as the late 20th century warming. These warmer periods were interrupted by the colder Dark Ages of the middle first millennium and the Little Ice Age of the second millennium, and such climatic rhythmicity must be controlled by major variations in equator to pole energy transport, i.e. is not primarily driven by carbon dioxide variations.

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Grendel

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Re: The Questions the Alarmists couldn't answer.
Reply #18 - Jul 2^nd, 2009 at 11:48am

8. The greenhouse effect

8.1. The government asserts that “The greenhouse effect is a well-understood physical phenomenon, like gravity”.

8.2. The greenhouse effect is indeed a real phenomenon that lends itself to measurement. The intrinsic nature of gravity, however, is not understood. In contrast, the intrinsic nature the greenhouse effect is well understood; but it is often misrepresented, as it is in the government’s summary statement.

8.3. A fuller explanation and discussion on the greenhouse effect is provided in our more detailed paper.

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Re: The Questions the Alarmists couldn't answer.
Reply #19 - Jul 2^nd, 2009 at 11:49am

9. Empirical relationship between change in radiative forcing and global air temperature

9.1. The government reports that a general relationship between radiative forcing and temperature rise can be derived by an “analysis of the climatic shift between the last ice age and the present warm period”, and that “this relationship includes all feedbacks within the climate system in an empirical way that is derived without using models”.

9.2. Analysis of the climate shift between the last ice age and the present warm period cannot give a quantitative relationship between the change in radiative forcing and the resulting change in global air temperature.

This is so because the influences of Earth’s orbital changes versus the feedback effect as Earth warmed, and the oceans expelled more carbon dioxide, are not known.

9.3. Furthermore, if carbon dioxide forcing is as powerful as is being suggested, then the question has to be asked: “Why did each of the interglacial warming events of the past ~500,000 years stabilise at about the same temperature?” For several recent interglacials were significantly warmer than the Holocene interglacial (e.g., Watanabe et al., 2003), which should require the Earth to have already have passed the so-called tipping point of irreversible warming on more than one occasion.

9.4. As we understand it, the paper that first formalised the concept of a “CO2 forcing parameter” in the fashion referred to by the government was that by Hansen et al. (1988).

Hansen et al.’s forcing parameter has no physical basis in measurement. Rather, the assumption was made that the ~100 ppm post-industrial increase in carbon dioxide was directly responsible for the increase in global temperature of 0.60C that has been measured over the past century.

9.5. Over the 20th century, both cooling and warming phases were concurrent with rising carbon dioxide levels, and the 1988 paper was published 13 years after a 33 year cooling trend that was paralleled by an increase in carbon dioxide concentration. Essentially, in the 46 year period from 1942 to 1988, when the paper was published, saw 33 years of cooling and only 13 years of warming concurrent with increases in carbon dioxide, yet the models used a forcing parameter that directly related only the warming to concentration increases.

Also, in calculating the carbon dioxide forcing parameter no allowance was made for the likely contribution that the urban heat island effect made to the (thermometer) measured warming.

9.6. Therefore, (i) there is no valid basis for the assumed carbon dioxide forcing parameter, (ii) the parameter has a built in warming overestimate, and (iii) climate CGMs that apply the parameter are inaccurate.

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Re: The Questions the Alarmists couldn't answer.
Reply #20 - Jul 2^nd, 2009 at 11:50am

10. Costs of adaptation could be high: but not as high as those of unnecessary precaution

10.1. The government asserts that “The Garnaut Review also found that the climate change impacts on infrastructure will have a significant effect on Australia’s output and consumption of goods and services, and that the costs of adaptation could be high”.

10.2. The Garnaut Report, like the heavily criticized Stern report that preceded it (Carter et al., 2006), contains no credible science assessment but simply uncritically accepts IPCC science advice as a given. For that reason alone, the economic analysis in the report is of little value.

First, the report presumes that late 20th century warming will continue unabated throughout the 2ist century, which is already known to be wrong.

Second, the report adopts a precautionary approach in a situation where the potential hazard – future warming or cooling - is quite unknown.

The pitfalls of adopting a precautionary approach to an assumed hazard, rather than a prudent approach to known hazards, are explained in our fuller paper.

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muso

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Re: The Questions the Alarmists couldn't answer.
Reply #21 - Jul 2^nd, 2009 at 11:51am

Quote:

The key questions are not whether the climate system has warmed during the 20th century, but rather (i) whether the warming terminated in 1998 (Question 1); (iii) whether the warming was unusual in rate and magnitude (Question 2); and (ii) the degree to which the warming might have been caused by human carbon dioxide emissions (Questions 2 and 3). These questions are those that were posed by Senator Fielding, and they remain unanswered by the government.

(i) No.
(iii) Of course it is.
(ii) Read my previous list of citations of peer reviewed papers. The vast bulk of the warming is due to human activities.

I can't speak for the government, but maybe they are trying to phrase it in an unambiguous way that can't be distorted.

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Grendel Gold Member Offline OzPolitic Posts: 28080 Gender:	Re: The Questions the Alarmists couldn't answer. Reply #22 - Jul 2^nd, 2009 at 11:53am ROTFLMAO
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Re: The Questions the Alarmists couldn't answer.
Reply #23 - Jul 2^nd, 2009 at 11:54am

QUESTION 3.

Is it the case that all GCM computer models projected a steady increase in temperature for the period 1990-2008, whereas in fact there were only 8 years of warming were followed by 10 years of stasis and cooling. (Fig. 3)?

If so, why is it assumed that long-term climate projections by the same models are suitable as a basis for public policy making?

The government pointed out that the model averages plotted in many IPCC diagrams result in a smoothing of the simulated natural variations that are present in individual GCM model runs. This has the effect of suppressing the episodic short periods of cooling that are simulated by most models.

11. Natural climate variations

11.1. It is indeed clearly the case that individual GCM model runs simulate natural variability in a way which includes the depiction of periods of several years to a decade or so of cooling within a temperature projection that nonetheless progressively rises.

But in concluding that “GCMs can and do simulate decade-long periods of warming or even slight cooling embedded in longer-term warming trends” the government is implying that the lack of warming since 1998 is caused by a natural cooling forcing of sufficient strength to temporarily overcome the assumed longer-term carbon dioxide-forced warming.

11.2. Hitherto, the IPCC (e.g. 3AR, 2001) has argued that the climate system possesses only limited internal variability, which is why carbon dioxide forcing came to assume especial significance in their eyes.

11.3. The climate system varies on a range of timescales from the interannual (El Nino-La Nina) through the decadal (e.g., Pacific Decadal Oscillation, North Atlantic Oscillation), the multi-centennial (eg, the Mediaeval Warm Period-Little Ice Age) to multi-millennial (glacial-interglacial). The shorter timescale oscillations are manifest as internal variability, and are not incorporated in the GCMs.

So even if the models do simulate some variability in global temperatures, they cannot be doing it for the correct reason, and any short-term variability that they happen to predict “right” must be either by chance or for the wrong reasons. And that individual GCMs may project periods of cooling as long as 10 years has no necessary bearing on the cause of the current cooling trend.

11.4. We conclude that there is no reason to call upon carbon dioxide forcing to explain the recent limited warming that occurred between 1979 and 1998, and that the computer-based projections that show progressive warming through the 21st century are highly misleading scenarios to provide to policymakers.

In essence, to now acknowledge that there is significant internal variability to the climate system is to destroy the plausibility of anthropogenic global warming alarmism.

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« Last Edit: Jul 2^nd, 2009 at 12:00pm by Grendel »

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muso Gold Member Offline Posts: 13151 Gladstone, Queensland Gender:	Re: The Questions the Alarmists couldn't answer. Reply #24 - Jul 2^nd, 2009 at 11:57am Grendel - why don't you provide a link to this garbage, complete with the figures cited?
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Grendel Gold Member Offline OzPolitic Posts: 28080 Gender:	Re: The Questions the Alarmists couldn't answer. Reply #25 - Jul 2^nd, 2009 at 11:59am Why don't you change the questions to something you'd be happier with?
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Grendel

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Re: The Questions the Alarmists couldn't answer.
Reply #26 - Jul 2^nd, 2009 at 12:01pm

Or you could do some further reading...

REFERENCES

Bond, G., Kromer, B., Beer, J., Muscheler, R., Evans, M.N., Showers, W., Hoffmann, S., Lotti-Bond, R., Hajdas, I. & Bonani, G. (2001) Persistent solar influence on North Atlantic climate during the Holocene. Science, 294, 2130-2136.

Carter, R.M., de Freitas, C.R., Goklany, I.M., Holland, D. & Lindzen, R. (2006) The Stern Review: A Dual Critique. Part I: The Science. World Economics, 7, 165-198.

Hansen et al. (1988) Global Climate Changes as Forecast by Goddard Institute for Space Studies Three-Dimensional Model. Journal of Geophysical Research, 93, 9341-9364.

Idso, C. & Singer, F.S. (2009) Climate Change Reconsidered. Repor-t of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC). Heartland Institute, 855 + 12 pp.

Mann ME, Bradley RS, Hughes MK (1999) Northern hemisphere temperatures during the past millennium: inferences, uncertainties, and limitations. Geophysical Research Letters 26:759–762

McIntyre, S. & McKitrick, R. 2003 Corrections to the Mann et al. (1998) proxy database and northern hemispheric average temperature series. Energy & Environment, 14, 751-771.

McIntyre, S. & McKitrick, R. (2005) Hockey sticks, principal components, and spurious significance. Geophysical Research Letters, 32, doi 10.1029/2004GL021750, 5 pp.

McIntyre, S. & McKitrick, R. (2009) The M&M Project: Replication Analysis of the Mann et al. Hockey Stick here and here.

Pielke Sr., R.A. (2007) A Litmus Test For Global Warming – A Much Overdue Requirement.

Singer, S.F. & Avery, D.T. (2008, 2nd ed.) Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years.

Watanabe, O., Jouzel, J., Johnsen, S., Parrenin, F., Shoji, H. & Yoshida, N. (2003) Homogeneous climate variability across East Antarctic over the past three glacial cycles. Nature, 422, 509-512.

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muso

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Re: The Questions the Alarmists couldn't answer.
Reply #27 - Jul 2^nd, 2009 at 12:44pm

I'm totally underwhelmed by that summary, Grendel.

In particular this question, which shows a total ignorance of the concept of 'Climate'

Quote:

Is it the case that all GCM computer models projected a steady increase in temperature for the period 1990-2008, whereas in fact there were only 8 years of warming were followed by 10 years of stasis and cooling. (Fig. 3)?

If so, why is it assumed that long-term climate projections by the same models are suitable as a basis for public policy making?

It's easy to see why they cling to the HADCRUT3 data set. It shows the least warming, because there is a great deal of missing data. You can see through that tactic right away.

Where on Earth did you dredge that up from? Let me guess, Bob Carter's Facebook page?

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Grendel Gold Member Offline OzPolitic Posts: 28080 Gender:	Re: The Questions the Alarmists couldn't answer. Reply #28 - Jul 2^nd, 2009 at 2:48pm They?????? Oh wait... wait ROTFLMAO... wait... wait my stomach hurts from so much laughter. YOU provided it buddy as proof yourself... then went all coy when it was pointed out to you you couldn't read a graph properly... now your denying it's accuracy. oh... wait... ROTFLMAO
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muso

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Re: The Questions the Alarmists couldn't answer.
Reply #29 - Jul 3^rd, 2009 at 8:55am

Grendel wrote on Jul 2^nd, 2009 at 2:48pm:

They??????
Oh wait... wait ROTFLMAO...

Grin

wait...

wait

my stomach hurts from so much laughter.

YOU provided it buddy as proof yourself... then went all coy when it was pointed out to you you couldn't read a graph properly... now your denying it's accuracy.

oh... wait... ROTFLMAO Grin

Grendel - that must be the first time I've been accused of being 'coy' in my life. Grin

At the time I quoted it, I also explained its limitations. I was not denying it's(sic) accuracy.

There is a difference between accurate and representative.

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