merry Xmas to all the alarmists living in denial...

Nature will decide Earth's fate ... climate change sceptics are wary. Source: The Daily Telegraph

AS the core samples from deep underground pass through the logging sensor before me, the rhythmic pattern of ancient climate change is clearly displayed. Friendly, brown sands for the warm interglacial periods and hostile, sterile grey clays for the cold glaciations. And for more than 90 per cent of recent geological time the Earth has been colder than today.

We modern humans are lucky to live towards the end of the most recent of the intermittent but welcome warm interludes. It is a 10,000 year-long period called the Holocene, during which our civilisations have evolved and flourished.

The cores tell the story that this period is only a short interlude during a long-term decline in global temperature - they also warn of the imminence of the next glacial episode in a series stretching back more than 2 million years.

Together with 50 other scientists and technicians, I am aboard the drilling ship Joides Resolution. JR, as it is affectionately known, is the workhorse of the Ocean Drilling Program, an international program that is to environmental science what NASA is to space science.

JR's drilling crew can retrieve cores up to 1km or more below the seabed and we are drilling today about 80km east of South Island in New Zealand. The ancient muds and sands that make up the sediment layers we pass through are the most important record of ancient climate that scientists possess. And they tell the tale that climate always changes.

Some core alterations are ruled by changes in the Earth's orbit at periods of 20,000, 40,000 and 100,000 years, others by fluctuations in solar output and others display oceanographic and climate shifts caused by . . . we know not what.

Climate, it seems, changes ceaselessly: sometimes cooling, sometimes warming, oft-times for reasons we do not fully understand.

Similar cores through polar ice reveal, contrary to received wisdom, that past temperature changes were followed - not preceded but followed - by changes in the atmospheric content of carbon dioxide.

Yet the public has been misinformed to believe that increasing human carbon dioxide emissions will cause runaway warming; it is surely a strange cause of climate change that postdates its supposed effect?

The now numerous special interest groups who continue to lobby for unnecessary and economically harmful carbon dioxide taxation need to appreciate that nature, not the world's governments, will determine future climate. Second, that there is no scientific evidence that warmings greater than the much-talked about 2C will cause environmental catastrophe; rather, this number is one plucked out of the air for reasons of political targetry and control. And, third, that to limit atmospheric carbon dioxide to 450ppm, also a widely touted figure, makes no sense, because past carbon dioxide levels attained more than 10 times this without known adverse environmental effects, while greening the planet.

Politically popular though it may be, the belief that atmospheric carbon dioxide is the primary driver of average planetary temperature is junk science. For instance, Earth experienced an ice age about 450 million years ago at a time when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are estimated to have been 15 times the pre-industrial level.

It is simply science fiction to believe that 450ppm of atmospheric carbon dioxide and 2C of warming are magic numbers that somehow mark a "tipping point"in Earth's climate system. Rather, they are politically contrived targets, erected for the purpose of stampeding scientifically innocent citizens into a gaping corral of carbon dioxide taxation.

The simplest explanation for the mild warming that occurred in the late 20th century is that it was part of Earth's ever-changing pattern of natural climate change and the job of scientists is to seek evidence to test that interpretation. They have and literally thousands of scientific papers to date have described climate evidence that is consistent with natural change.

Despite all the efforts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the expenditure of about $100 billion of research money since 1990, no scientific paper exists that demonstrates that the late 20th century warming, or the past 10 years of cooling for that matter, fall outside the rates and magnitudes of past (geological) climate change.

Melting glaciers (but, in some places, advancing), rising sea levels (but, in some places, falling), increasing numbers of storms (actually, currently at a 30-year low), increasing numbers of polar bears and changes in migratory patterns of birds may very well all have happened or be happening. But these facts say nothing about a human causality for such changes.

It is not for the independent climate scientists (the so-called "climate sceptics") to disprove that dangerous human-caused warming is happening. Rather, it is for the alarmist scientists of the IPCC and CSIRO to show that the simple idea of natural climate change can be invalidated. This they have failed to do.

What a crock....  

care to disagree with anything Bob has said?

oh and if you manage to stop all of man's CO2 emissions...  ahhhh...  what are you going to do about the other 97% "naturally" occuring?  hmmm?   

eh mr fatuous and flatulent...  give us a break from the incessant ad hom eh.

prove them wrong for a change.

that might be nice

what did Carter say for example that was wrong.

Oh right...  he disagrees with you and the rest of the Emperors New Clothes Brigade.

Sorry...  I keep forgetting.

Another witless response...

Care to address the article?  Refute any facts?

No?

How unusual.

that's ok Skippy... Bob actually knows what he's talking about.

Grendel wrote on Dec 9^th, 2009 at 11:42am:


OK, give me one point that Carter makes that you think is valid, and I'll explain to you why it isn't valid. Some of what he says is actually true but irrelevent - a bit like Plimer's dissertation on the energy generated by man being miniscule compared to Solar Energy. Big deal - but nobody is disputing that. It's irrelevent.

I don't particularly want to read through his usual nonsense.

Grendel wrote on Dec 9^th, 2009 at 3:39pm:

lmao, that is because you are too bloody minded, and pig headed to ever actually read any real science.

If it were up to denialists, doctors would get their degrees from Yahoo, or Google, because anonymous bloggers must certainly know more than the world's top scientists.
I mean, why do they waste their time going to harvard or yale, or oxford, when they can learn all they know from billybobsueboyjoe's good ol' boys blog.
You can also learn how jesus rode dinosaurs, and how he created heaven and earth in six days, because billybobsueboyjoe is full of useful facts that ordinary folk just never get to hear cos them fancy pants scienticians is all colludin' to keep yuz in the dark.

You seriously need to stop listening to denialist bloggers Mantra, they are deceitful, bald faced liars.

They lie that the earth is cooling, yet 11 of the last 14 years, were the hottest ever recorded, since instrumental temperature recording began, 150 years ago.\

Now because 1998 was the hottest year ever, that fact that each year since then has not increased in temperature, has these liars going around saying that the earth is cooling, and it just is not so.

These lying jerks love to spout off about natural variation, but when the scientists explain that the 1998 peak was due the the strong El Nino adding to that years warming, and subsequent years have not had as strong an El Nino so the record stands, but the background warm has not gone away, just the fluctuating variables have seen the failure to surpass 1998 temps.

Unfortunately, we should not need to wait long to beat the 1998 record, probably next year, or 2011, when the sun comes out of it's diminishing radiation cycle, and another El Nino event occurs, which are both likely within the next two years, then we will very likely see a new highest ever record year.
We may even get a run of two or three new record hottest years, but then the solar forcing and El Nino events should start to subside, and we will see a slight lowering from those new record highs once more, like we have seen since the record of '98.
No doubt denialist liars will again claim we are cooling, but the facts will be that the global warming trend will be continuing, but with usual seasonal variability seeing some lower temps until the next record highs hit a few years after that.

The time has come for people to stop allowing these lying tools of the heavy polluters to drive their deceitful campaign of misinformation, and for people to stop allowing themselves to be so easily conned by these carbon vandals, and begin to reject idiotic blogger denialists, and visit real science sites, providing real scientific analysis and opinion.

Once enough people actually make the effort to examine the denialists lies for themselves, then they will have nobody left that is ignorant of their methods of deceit.

mantra wrote on Dec 9^th, 2009 at 7:25pm:


Mantra,

I would be more concerned about somebody who did not publish corrections and amendments.  It's normal in any branch of science to acknowledge modifications and minor changes. The objective is to get the information as robust as possible.

Have you seen Ian Plimer publish a list of corrections to "Heaven and Earth"? Do you think he's likely to issue a reprint with all the corrections applied? Don't hold your breath. He's really not interested in the truth. He just wants to spread confusion.

mantra wrote on Dec 9^th, 2009 at 9:02pm:


Professor Latif, but if you read what he actually said, it was nothing what you wrote. He is by no means a climate denialist.

I like this You-Tube series, because Peter Sinclair aka greenman3610 is an extremely good communicator.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khikoh3sJg8&feature=sub

Please watch and be elucidated.


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There are always going to be 'holes' in any branch of knowledge, Mantra. There are still some things we don't understand about the effects of radiation on the human body, yet we can still use it to treat cancer. There are some things we know extremely well and there are some things where there is more uncertainty. At this stage, on the question of Global Warming, the certainty is over 99%. It's pretty well certain. Colonel Mustard has practically been caught in the conservatory with a knife in his hand, and blood on his hands, stabbing the victim in the chest"

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We're long past that stage. The Great Barrier Reef is a goner. They are talking about a +2 degree guard rail, based on risk assessment. If we can limit CO2 to under 500 ppm, let alone 450, it will be an amazing feat.

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While it's important, it's more important to reduce carbon emissions because if Ocean pH's continue to fall, the seas will be a stinking mass of uninhabitable marine desert.

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A lot of work continues to be done in that area. It's by no means perfect, but industries are a lot more accountable now than they ever were. Take it from me, I'm just preparing for a huge audit in 2010. All other industries are getting the same deal.

An animated journey through the Earth's climate History:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/sci_tech/2009/copenhagen/8386319.stm

Worth Watching.

Graph...

I love that second graph you supplied Tom, would you care to reveal it's source?
I would love to put it in with this years Christmas Crackers, they are the usual resting ground for stale jokes.

Tom wrote on Dec 10^th, 2009 at 11:32am:


Correct. This is pretty good evidence that the recent years have been consistently hotter than previous - We've been trying to tell you this - and your point?

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No it isn't  LOL    

We just don't have such a thing. Instrumental readings are fairly recent. (Listen mate - Is this a joke, or are you trying to be serious)

As for the more recent one, give me a break! What good are 13 month running averages. You need at least 15 year running averages for climate.  
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LOL - Are you the comic relief?

Are you kidding?

"Now because 1998 was the hottest year ever, that fact that each year since then has not increased in temperature, has these liars going around saying that the earth is cooling, and it just is not so./quote]"

Many news websites and and newsletters/papers are saying the same thing.  And that this decade is the hottest of all time.

The temperature has risen in recent years but there is 0, no way to and hasn't been proved to be in any way related to CO2 in the atmosphere.  Rises in temperature have been proven to rise before CO2 rises, obviously showing that the process is natural.

I don't know how many times I have to say it, I don't know how many times you're going to say it.  Conflicting arguments against the global warming religion have no standing.  The vast majority of legitimate scientists and climatologists are against it.

The 30 year graph shows plainly that the temperature has risen very little and that this should normally just be seen as a natural process.

As for the second graph:
There are dozens of very interesting ways to peer into the climatic past of a location, and Loehle included borehore temperature measurements, pollen remains, Mg/Ca ratios, oxygen isotope data from deep cores or from stalagmites, diatoms deposited on lake bottoms, reconstructed sea surface temperatures, and so on.

Are you going to deny the legitimacy of the graphs?

Tom wrote on Dec 10^th, 2009 at 2:33pm:


Who said that? - reference? It's incorrect.

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Read the other thread. There is a discussion of the atmospheric physics there. I can't be bothered to find it myself again.  Once again, it's extremely basic science, and the causative link has been rigorously shown to be valid from laboratory testing, satellite monitoring and there have been hundreds of peer reviewed papers that demonstrate the link. The effect can be and has been tested. It's an open and shut case. As I said before, you can get a University in degree in Climatology, but you can't get a university degree in pseudoscience, or the denial of climate science.



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Spoken like a true convert.


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The temperature rise over 30 years is very little - agreed. Nobody is disputing that.  Natural process? No. It can be confirmed that it is due to increasing CO2 levels. 


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Absolutely. It's totally fabricated.

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Which government would that be Tom? the G W Bush gov the Howard government or the new world order you speak of? please enlighten us we need a good laugh.

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skippy quoted what?

Tom wrote on Dec 10^th, 2009 at 3:10pm:

The first quote was mozz the second is mine, and if you followed current affairs you'd know that it was reported everywhere yesterday that the last ten years are the hottest on record and this year is the third hottest since records were kept.
Get with the program son, you seem stuck in the middle ages.
Care to name some real scientists who refute GW?  leave Plimer off your list, he's already made a fool of himself and dosn't need any more grief.

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I'd refute the 'hottest year ever' part anyway.  There were certainly hotter years in prehistory if you go far enough back. Maybe it should say 'since instrumental readings started' or something like that.

Oh I've heard of the 31000 confusionalists before, boofy is always quoting that number, I call them the 31000 faceless men, as non of them want their names mentioned, they just get confusionalist hacks like Piers Akerman to run their line.
What I'm most interested in is your line that only 2500 scientists believe in global warming, you know thats a lie ,dont you? why are you spreading that lie? deo you think if you say it enough people will believe it?
You seem familiar Tom, have we met? its not often a poster turns up out of the blue with such a strong confusionalist view.

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LIAR. The vast majority of scientists believe GW, just like most of the confusionalists you write of are not experts in climate change rather they are experts in confusion, but hey ,its worked on you old son.

These Denialists just make stuff up as they go along.
With absolutely no frame of reference thay claim that most scientists disgree with global warming, an utter, and ridiculously stupid lie.

The lie we expect, the stupidity we expect, it is Denialism, it is what they do, and who they are.

Unortunately people unfamiliar with their tactics may not realise that they are a joke, and nothing they say can be considered credible, and due to that fact they have an influence totally disproportionate to their numbers.

Sure they have the extreme right loons, and the extremist evangelical types who are still mad about darwin spoiling their creation story, who are keen to go along with denialist guff, but no normal people would believe it.

You're still not helping your cause one bit mozzoak.

Christopher Monckton isn't a scientist, but he has the information from real ones that do their research outside the UN.  He has caught out the UN making blatant lies and mistakes in their global warming claims before.

He's been caught making stuff up?  Such as?

mozzaok wrote on Dec 11^th, 2009 at 11:14am:


These Islamophobes just make stuff up as they go along.

With absolutely no frame of reference they claim that most Muslims disagree with violent jihad, an utter, and ridiculously stupid lie.

The lie we expect, the stupidity we expect, it is Islamophobia it is what they do, and who they are.

Unfortunately people unfamiliar with their tactics may not realise that they are a joke, and nothing they say can be considered credible, and due to that fact they have an influence totally disproportionate to their numbers.

Sure they have the extreme right loons, and the extremist evangelical types who are still mad about Mohammed spoiling their Messiah story, who are keen to go along with Islamophobic guff, but no normal people would believe it.





These Capitalists just make stuff up as they go along.

With absolutely no frame of reference they claim that most working families disagree with Rudd, an utter, and ridiculously stupid lie.

The lie we expect, the stupidity we expect, it is capitalism, it is what they do, and who they are.

Unfortunately people unfamiliar with their tactics may not realise that they are a joke, and nothing they say can be considered credible, and due to that fact they have an influence totally disproportionate to their numbers.

Sure they have the extreme right loons, and the extremist evangelical types who are still mad about Rudd spoiling their Howard the Messiah story, who are keen to go along with capitalist guff, but no normal working families would believe it.


These Holden owners  just make stuff up as they go along.

With absolutely no frame of reference they claim that most Lada owners disagree with speed limits, an utter, and ridiculously stupid lie.

The lie we expect, the stupidity we expect, it is Holdens they drive, it is what they do, and who they are.

Unfortunately people unfamiliar with their tactics may not realise that they are a joke, and nothing they say can be considered credible, and due to that fact they have an influence totally disproportionate to their numbers.

Sure they have the extreme right loons, and the extremist evangelical types who are still mad about the  spoiling of their infatuation with the Holden story, who are keen to go along with Lada is crap guff, but no normal people would believe it.

You're post in a nutshell skippy,

I know everything I'm right and everyone else is wrong.

You're response is often liar.  You obviously can't tell the difference between truth and lies when you just reject every conflicting argument.  

You know that we know that we're lying?  How old are you?

I'm bringing you facts, you don't believe world government when those attending Copenhagen are saying it themselves, when if you had read the treaty I linked clearly describes.

Ahahaha this is getting sad mozzoak,

Paid by the oil companies, deniers deniers deniers!  You're too funny.  You think posters on a forum that probably has less than 1000 people that even look at it are paid? 

Okaay, now thats a conspiracy theory.  Denialist usually refers to those who blatantly refuse facts and evidence slammed in their face.

Oh great, just like Grendel said, like beating your head into a wall.

'If you tell lies you are a liar.  Tom is a liar'

Ahahahaha, okay you really are under 10.  That's really great.

mozzaok wrote on Dec 11^th, 2009 at 4:27pm:


and good on you for being able to still have a giggle. Cheers.


Fellow bloodsucking denialists and assorted lackeys of big oil here - have a laff once in a while. It's a tiny internetz forum, ferchrissake.



Now deny away!!

If you want a giggle, there's always this:

http://hot-topic.co.nz/mycroft-monckton-makes-mischief/

We never said that loonies are not allowed to believe climate change.

We just said ONLY loonies don't.

mozzaok wrote on Dec 11^th, 2009 at 8:10pm:



Thank you, Sigmund.

If you think I approve of paying huge sums of money to China to reduce emissions, then think again.

Talk about hijacking a cause.  

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26475380-5003402,00.html

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Idiots!  

Heartless? Maybe. We need to be ruthless at least. Forget the developing countries and let China do the responsible thing themselves. Instead of paying them money, we should be selling them technology for new Solar power stations, which we should building here in Australia.
http://www.csiro.au/org/Solar-Research.html

I think we need to think with a cold mind on this subject. The objective is to minimise the carbon dioxide being introduced into the atmosphere. The only sure way to do that is to build renewable energy projects. Forget about massive tree planting schemes, because the way things are going at the moment those forests may well end up being a carbon source (as opposed to a carbons sink)  by 2050 anyway.

Do I trust the ALP? No!!!!?

Mantra,

If we need to do anything urgently, it is to keep the atmospheric CO2 concentration below about 450ppm by whatever means we can.

Forget about global warming. The CO2 is increasing by about 2ppm every year. It should come as no surprise where that's coming from. Simple maths can tell us that. Even simpler maths (450 - 387)/2 gives us the number of years, and shows us that at current levels of emission, we'll be at 450 ppm before 2050.

Laboratory tests using that kind of atmosphere equilibrated with sea water shows that corals can't grow fast enough to keep up with erosion when that happens. There are a whole lot of other effects that will cause major problems in the ocean. Unless we do something, the once blue ocean will be a heaving evil smelling mass that can support no complex life, possibly as soon as the end of this century.

As far as sea level change is concerned, I think you might just be able to out-walk it, even if you're wheelchair bound  

There are other major implications of course. If temperatures go much above the 2 degree guardrail, most of the foodcrops, particularly rice, will have a rapid and spectacularly diminishing yield.

Then there is the water situation. As glaciers continue to melt, there will be vast populations without access to water supplies. Already China is planning some huge dams to catch as much water as possible.  Other neighboring countries might object to them hogging the water - don't you think?

The 2 degree guardrail is based on risk minimisation. My personal opinion is that it's probably to late to achieve that, but we need to do everything possible.

Soren wrote on Dec 12^th, 2009 at 9:00am:


Soren, If we had a global nuclear war, that might actually have the effect of stopping global warming too. Whether more people might survive 1. a nuclear war or 2. our continued practice of burning fossil fuels remains to be seen.

Of course we might end up with both yet.  

At what stage in the world's deteriorating climatic condition will you actually admit that we are having an effect. Will the demise of the Great Barrier Reef be enough? You'll have to survive another 40 years at least to see that.

Soren wrote on Dec 12^th, 2009 at 9:17am:


In that context, I was talking about ocean acidification. In terms of actual climate, there are some worrying trends, but so far we haven't got to the stage where there is anything more than a subtle effect.  

I did not imply that we had reached the stage where there was a marked deterioration yet. I just mean to ask you at what stage in the (future) deteriorating climate would you be satisfied that it was a genuine effect?

Good. Now that the circus has gone, we might be able to get down to more serious discussions.

So I noticed that you remained silent on ocean acidification (or pH reduction). That's a pretty direct mechanism, and you'd have to be pretty ingrown not be acknowledge that as a problem.

Where do you stand on that? It is possibly the most serious problem as far as I'm concerned, and it's not related to the 'warming' effect of CO2 in any significant way.

I'm interested to see if you reject all science, or just science that happens to be politically inopportune.

I'll get back to Climate change in a moment.

Soren wrote on Dec 12^th, 2009 at 11:53am:


No - I'd rate it as obtuse. Possibly deliberately obtuse, but for the sake of trying to keep things civil, I'll bite my tounge and not say what immediately comes to mind(YFI), because you probably read it somewhere on the great blogosphere and have taken it for granted.

I sometimes wonder whether you are simply baiting. This is basic chemistry, Soren. You got that 20 times figure from somewhere - I'm not sure where, but it's actually more like 93% in the oceans expressed as carbon. (If you got it from Grendel, I hope you disinfected it first. I suspect I know where he gets his information)

There is an equibrium between CO2 in the oceans and in the atmosphere. If you increase the temperature or reduce the pressure, the CO2 will start to be desorbed from the ocean.

It's a bit like adding CO2 to water from a CO2 cylinder (you know the ones you use to make soda water that you drink with your single malt? When you release the pressure, the CO2 comes out of solution.

Well of course you find more CO2 (or carbonate/bicarbonates) in seawater than in the atmosphere.  It's a consequence of the fact that CO2 forms carbonates and bicarbonates when you dissolve it in water.

THere is a close relationship between ocean pH and atmospheric carbon dioxide. Is there any point in talking about the chemistry?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/10/ocean-acidification-epoca

That's correct, and some corals, and particularly, deep water corals are not affected, however a number of important species are affected, and they include phytoplankton and coccolithophores, which are important food chain organisms.

Although calcification rates increase for certain species, the mineralisation is more predominantly calcite rather than aragonite based. Aragonite is a much harder substance. The increasing CO2 will affect organisms that produce aragonite to a much greater extent, and some of those, including fish themseves, are important for commercial fisheries.

There is a secondary effect due to the decrease in coccolithophores, and that is a direct decrease in ocean albedo which will increase warming of surface waters.

pjb05 wrote on Dec 12^th, 2009 at 5:33pm:


Unlikely. It's a complex system. Fish are dependant on the healthy development of aragonitic otoliths for balance and orientation.  Whole ecosystems are shifting geographically with changes in ocean temperature. Unfortunately they don't all move at the same speed.

One of the few positive spins at the moment is that crustaceans are less affected than other species, so perhaps lobster will become a cheaper alternative.