ClimateGate busts things wide open

So, do the meterologists think global warming is declining?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8550090.stm

[background=]A review from the UK Met Office says it is becoming clearer that human activities are causing climate change.

It says the evidence is stronger now than when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change carried out its last assessment in 2007.

The analysis, published in the Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change Journal, has assessed 110 research papers on the subject.

It says the Earth is changing rapidly, probably because of greenhouse gases.

In 2007 the IPCC's report concluded that there was "unequivocal" evidence that the Earth was warming and it was likely that it was due to burning of fossil fuels.

Since then the evidence that human activities are responsible for a rise in temperatures has increased, according to this new assessment by Dr Peter Stott and colleagues at the UK Met Office.

The Met Office study comes at a time when some have questioned the entire basis of climate science following recent controversies over the handling of research findings by the IPCC and the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

Dr Stott denies that the study has been published as part of a fight back by the climate research community.

"We started writing this paper a year ago. I think it's important to communicate to people what the science is showing and that's why I'm talking about this paper."

'Consistent picture'

The study, which looks at research published since the IPCC's report, has found that changes in Arctic sea ice, atmospheric moisture, saltiness of parts of the Atlantic Ocean and temperature changes in the Antarctic are consistent with human influence on our climate.

"What this study shows is that the evidence has strengthened for human influence on climate and we know that because we've looked at evidence across the climate system and what this shows very clearly is a consistent picture of a warming world," said Dr Stott.

The study brings together other research from a range of disciplines.

It's important to communicate to people what the science is showing

Dr Peter Stott
"We hadn't [until now] looked in detail at how the climate system was changing," says Dr Stott.

"[Our paper looks at] not just the temperatures but also the reducing Arctic sea ice and it includes changing rainfall patterns and it includes the fact that the atmosphere is getting more humid.

"And all these different aspects of the climate system are adding up to a picture of the effects of a human influence on our climate."

The Met Office study said that it was harder to find a firm link between climate change and individual extreme weather conditions - even though models predicted that extreme events were more likely.

According to the report: "Extremes pose a particular challenge, since rare events are by definition, poorly sampled in the historical record and many challenges remain for robustly attributing regional changes in extreme events such as droughts, floods and hurricanes." [/background]

You make some very good points, Rick. There are very good points being made on both sides of this issue. For me, I feel that if they can't predict the weather next week, how can they predict with any certainty what's going to happen 50 years from now? What I can't fathom is, if these people really believe all the apocalyptic doom that we are facing as a result of global warming due to fossil fuels, (and they could be right), why aren't they shouting from the housetops to start building nuclear power plants? Nuclear plants have proved over the last 50 years or so to be a safe, clean source of energy without the carbon emission problems of fossil fuels. Yet, for the most part, the same people decrying man-caused global warming are the same people who have opposed the development of nuclear energy for the last few decades. Things seem to be changing, even Obama now clams to support the development of nuclear power plants, but it's a little late. Too late, in my opinion. it's a mystery to me.

jimboLV wrote:For me, I feel that if they can't predict the weather next week, how can they predict with any certainty what's going to happen 50 years from now? What I can't fathom is, if these people really believe all the apocalyptic doom that we are facing as a result of global warming due to fossil fuels, (and they could be right), why aren't they shouting from the housetops to start building nuclear power plants? Nuclear plants have proved over the last 50 years or so to be a safe, clean source of energy without the carbon emission problems of fossil fuels. Yet, for the most part, the same people decrying man-caused global warming are the same people who have opposed the development of nuclear energy for the last few decades. . . . . it's a mystery to me.

I wonder the same.

Apparently, it's all about attacking an economic system and not developing any efficient alternative energy. Solar and wind have proven so far to not be cost efficient or practical. It seems to be the wish of the Greenies to force everyone to return to riding bicycles, growing gardens and using candles.

Yes. being an old fart, I remember the watchwords of the sixties hippies, "we should all live in the forest and pick fruit off the trees." True, in fact you can still do that, to an extent, in Issan, as my relatives do. But not in Bangkok, New York, Los Angeles or Manchester or.... Solar and wind have their place. My home in Las Vegas was passive solar, my swimming pool was heated by solar panels on the roof and it saved me a lot of money, but it was awfully nice to turn on the gas fired heater on the rare times when was a cloudy day. I maintain that the majority of the "environmentalists" are either ill-informed or have an agenda for social change.

It's all about money. You know, the "squeeky wheel" thing.

Everyone gets their data from the same place and pick and choose what they need out of it to support their theories. The scary alarmist make the most noise. "The sky is falling, give us money and we'll figure out how to prop it up."

As mentioned in a previous post, "Is the planet getting warmer?" "Yes, at the rate of .12c per decade."
"Is the planet getting cooler?" "Yes, at the rate of .12c per decade." So, we break even.

The governments pick it up and run looking for ways to collect taxes in the name of "saving the planet."

Yeah, people create CO2, every time they exhale. There is more than twice as many people on the planet than there were 100 years ago. People have also deforested much of the planet. Trees being the atmostphere's filter. CO2 in, O2 out. But, don't plant more trees, tax the source of CO2.

Don't get me wrong. I do believe we need to clean up our act. Get away from fossil fuels, use renewable energy. etc etc etc.

This is just my humble opinion.

I am not a home spun woolen clothed hippy, I enjoy my luxuries. i have no objection to nuclear power, although it is not THE answer, it has problems too - repairs are difficult due to radiation, and the implications of a major accident are pretty horrific - 3 mile island, Chernobyl. Waste disposal from the industry is still a safety issue after 50 years of research. Finally, there is no enthusiasm for nuclear power from the private sector (certainly in UK) - decommisioning costs bankrupted the private sector who took over nuclear plants here when they realised they could not afford to do it - they just dumped it back with the government. They wanted the profits but not the responsibilities.

Anyway, although i do care about global warming, it is a symptom of a far wider issue. Over consumption, of everything.
50 years ago the only thing we were short of in the world was money. Now, there are 4 times as many people, and all wanting to live like North Americans . We need more land, more food, more fuel, more of all resources. Now, our demand outstrips the planets ability to provide. Global warming, deforestation, extinctions, pollution, rising prices for some items, and mass migration are symptoms of these problems; we get by through ruthlessly eliminating competitors (wildlife) and consuming resources faster than they can be produced. There is a limit to how many new, untapped resources we can find. We either use these resources more efficiently or end up fighting to the death to control what is left. Control this extravagant growth and use of resources, and we solve most of the problems.

Anyone for Soylent green?

Farang1 wrote:

"Yeah, people create CO2, every time they exhale. There is more than twice as many people on the planet than there were 100 years ago. People have also deforested much of the planet. Trees being the atmostphere's filter. CO2 in, O2 out. But, don't plant more trees, tax the source of CO2."

Very good point - if CO2 is the problem, why do we need complicated taxes, surely tree planting is the answer. Seems simple - maybe thats the problem - simple solutions make it difficult for scammers to suck money out of peoples pockets.

Refer to chart on Page 29 of report

http://joannenova.com.au/globalwarming/ ... n-wong.pdf

Gore still hot on his doomsday rhetoric

Boston Globe
March 3, 2010

By “global-warming pollution,’’ Gore means carbon dioxide (CO2), which is a “pollutant’’ in roughly the way oxygen and water are pollutants: Human existence would be impossible without them. CO2 is essential to photosynthesis, the process that sustains plant life and generates the oxygen that human beings and animals inhale. Far from polluting the world, carbon dioxide enriches it. Higher levels of CO2 are associated with larger crop yields, increased forest growth, and longer growing seasons - in short, with a greener planet.

Of course carbon dioxide also contributes to the greenhouse effect that keeps the earth warm. But the vast majority of atmospheric CO2 occurs naturally, and it is far from clear that the carbon dioxide contributed by human industry has a significant impact on the world’s climate.

As if that wasn't enough ...

To climate alarmists like Gore, everything proves their point. For years they argued that global warming would mean a decline in snow cover and shorter ski seasons. “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,’’ one climate scientist lamented to reporters in 2000. The IPCC itself was clear that climate change was resulting in more rain and less snow.

Undaunted, Gore now claims that the blizzards that have walloped the Northeast in recent weeks are also proof of global warming. “Climate change causes more frequent and severe snowstorms,’’ he posted on his blog last month.

Gore is a True Believer; his climate hyperbole is less a matter of science than of faith. In almost messianic terms, he urges Congress to sharply restrain Americans’ access to energy. “What is at stake,’’ he writes, “is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption.’’

But while Gore prays for redemption, the pews in the Church of Climate Catastrophe are gradually emptying. The public’s skeptical common sense, it turns out, is pretty robust. Just like those Himalayan glaciers.

I always have a problem with folks who claim "scare tactics" by the other side and then use scare tactics to make their case. Gore is a classic in that regard -- even before he became a climate expert.

All the arguments in the world, whether for or against “Man made climate change” is not going to make one bit of difference to the world’s climate.
China is presently the largest contributor of co2 and that’s only an estimate on known sources. With China’s renowned secrecy and its refusal to let other countries send observers to check the figures, who knows the truth? and that could be applied to many other countries also.
It is very possible that China has a much higher figure of co2 emissions.
To soften the figures most politicians use a per capita basis for co2 emission per head. This results in small populated countries like Australia have a huge per capita co2 percentage.
However, it seems the mathematics and common sense of all these figure get lost in the political football game of pointing fingers and dictating who should pay.
Therefore, people like the Chinese say, that along with the US and Europe, Australia should pay as much as can possibly be coaxed out of them because of Australia’s terrible “per capita” contribution to the co2 problem.
However the facts are.
China is producing 16,721 metric ton of co2 every day.
The US is producing 15,759 metric tons of co2 each day.
Australia is producing 1,019 metric tons of co2 every day.
However, China conveniently says that the industrialised and western world should pay for the clean-up. Meanwhile China contributes more co2 each day that all of the western nation’s initiatives put together to reduce co2 emission can possibly achieve.
They rake in the money and the rest of the world pays huge taxes to allow the Chinese to forever increase their co2 emissions. That really doesn’t make sense
I think that a very large proportion of the world’s population agrees that the climate is changing all over the world. However, I think a majority of the world’s population now agrees that the climate change they think they feel happening is not man made. It is just an evolution thing and naturally occurring event that no mere mortal like humans can hope to control.
The never-ending greed for money has hijacked many pro climate change and global warming believers and they are pursuing their self-convinced agenda because the financial cycle has them trapped.

I have taken an extract from a recent people’s convention in China where one of their typical leaders had this to say.
By China correspondent Stephen McDonell
A deputy director of China's most powerful economic ministry has come out swinging against climate change denial.
Senior Chinese government figures have described the view that climate change is not man-made as an "extreme" instance, which is out of step with mainstream thought.
The ABC asked the panel what they thought of the view that climate change had nothing to do with human activity and was in fact a natural phenomenon.
Xie Zhenhua, a deputy director at China's powerful economic ministry, the National Development and Reform Commission, answered that he believed that made-made climate change denial is, at best, a very marginal view.
"Climate change is a fact based on long-time observations by countries around the world," he said.
"There are two different views regarding the causes for global warming.
"The mainstream view is that climate change is caused by burning of fossil fuel in the course of industrialisation.
"There's a more extreme view which holds that human activity has only an imperceptible impact on the natural system."
He said the responsibility for this climate change rested squarely with the Western world, so the onus was on it to clean up the mess caused in the rush to industrialisation.
"The climate in China is warming. It's something every one of us can feel," he said.
"Climate change is having an impact on China in terms of the instability of agricultural output.
"So, if you look ahead to the long term, climate change may have a huge impact on China's food security and the life and property of our people."
It is very clear that the Chinese have no intention to reduce any pollution, be it co2 or any other type of pollution.
This is all about money. Nothing more and nothing less.
Did man make it and can man fix it? I don’t think so.

ABC chair criticises climate change coverage

Brendan Trembath, ABC March 10, 2010

ABC chairman Maurice Newman has attacked the media for being too willing to accept the conventional wisdom on climate change.

In a speech to senior ABC staff on Wednesday morning, Mr Newman said climate change was an example of "group think".

He says contrary views on climate change have not been tolerated and those who express them have been labelled and mocked.

"It's really been the question of what is wisdom and consensus rather than listening perhaps to other points of view that may be sceptical," he said.

But he believes the ABC has been more balanced than other media organisations when it comes to reporting on climate change.

"I think that we've listened to the words of sceptics as well as those who are scientists in the field," he said.

"Climate change is at the moment an emotional issue.

"But it really is the fundamental issue about the need to bring voices that have authority and are relevant to the particular issue to the attention of our audiences, so that they themselves can make decisions."

Mr Newman has doubts about climate change himself and says he is waiting for proof either way.

"My view on any of these topics is to keep an open mind, and I still have an open mind on climate change," he said.

"Many of the people who have a different point of view on the climate science are respectable and credentialed scientists themselves.

"So as I said, I'm not a scientist and I'm like anybody else in the public, I have to listen to all points of view and then make judgments when we're asked to vote on particular policies."

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/busine ... -coverage/

And a very balanced article from the objective people at Greenpeace ....... a bit sick really ...... wonder why they did not mention the submission from the Institute of Chemistry and Institute of Statisticians???????

"Can you see through glass houses?

A short while ago I wrote about the hysterical coverage of the 'Climategate' pseudo scandals.

Following the hacking of the Climate Research Unit emails at East Anglia University the UK government set up a committee to look into allegations of malpractice. They asked for submissions from the public and got a lot. Including one from the Institute of Physics (IOP).

The submission from the IOP reads like a hatchet job on the Climate Researchers at the university of East Anglia. They pointed to "prima facie evidence of determined and co-ordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law.". Just for good measure they went on to suggest these dark deeds were part of an altogether larger problem

"However, most of the e-mails were exchanged with researchers in a number of other leading institutions involved in the formulation of the IPCC's conclusions on climate change. In so far as those scientists were complicit in the alleged scientific malpractices, there is need for a wider inquiry into the integrity of the scientific process in this field."

Goodness. It seems like the IOP think there might be a conspiracy going on.

The Institute are holders of a Royal Charter. They sound like a serious, institutional voice of science. And indeed that is their reputation. You'd assume that when they make accusations like these it would be a matter for the top brass. Serious consideration would be given to the issue. After all, this is a submission by a national body to a parliamentary inquiry which contains allegations of huge import. Unfortunately, we have no idea whether serious consideration was given or not.

You see, despite a plea for transparency in science they don't seem too keen on any in politics. They won't say who wrote the submission. The Guardian has done some digging and discovered that the institute's Energy subcommittee wrote the memo, and then three of the institute's 14 board members signed off on it.

Who were these three people? Well so far we don't know and the Institute isn't saying.

Indeed the only person who can be identified as having anything to do with the memo is a member of the subcommittee, one Philip Gill, consultant to the oil and gas industry, and holder of an undergraduate degree in physics, gained in 1964. To say he's got form as a climate skeptic would be putting it mildly. Here he is ranting tediously and not very pleasantly away in the comments on the Times Higher Education website.

On 22 November he wrote of the CRU hack "The e-mails and other files are all over the Internet and include how to hide atmospheric cooling", which suggests that he'd either not read them, or not understood them. And yet, he and others are apparently the ones behind the Institute's submission.

http://weblog.greenpeace.org/climate/20 ... .html#more

In the interests of transparency and their own credibility the Institute of Physics now need to provide a full accounting of how that submission came to be made. Who were the authors, who approved it and does the institute stand behind it? They may also want to address for themselves the question of whether the submission breached any of the guidelines in their code of conduct.

This is the latest from the Australian Government's scientific research organisation.

CSIRO chief defends climate science

The head of Australia's peak science body has spoken out in defence of climate scientists, saying the link between human activity and climate change is beyond doubt.

The head of the CSIRO, Dr Megan Clark, says the evidence of global warming is unquestionable, and in Australia it is backed by years of robust research.

Dr Clark says climate records are being broken every decade and all parts of the nation are warming.

"We are seeing significant evidence of a changing climate," she said.

"If we just take our temperature, all of Australia has experienced warming over the last 50 years. We are warming in every part of the country during every season and as each decade goes by, the records are being broken.

"We are also seeing fewer cold days so we are seeing some very significant long-term trends in Australia's climate."....

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010 ... ion=justin

And another one.

It seems all those skeptical icebergs are rapidly melting in an ever warming sea of good science.

Weather bureau backs climate change verdict

The CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology say climate change is real and the link with human activity beyond doubt.

Two of the nation's top research bodies - the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO - have come out strongly in defence of the science behind global warming.

The leading research bodies say the evidence is irrefutable: climate change is real and the link with human activity is beyond doubt.

Universities have also joined the fray, saying it is time to stand up for Australian science and research.

"We've had some serious tabloid junking of ... science and research in our community," Professor Peter Coaldrake, the chairman of Universities Australia, said................

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010 ... ion=justin

There are as many people who have an opposing views as there are those that claim climate change is man-made.
It should be noted that the vast majority of the so called scientists all over the world, who support the man-made climate change view are funded by the state and therefore have a biased agenda to collect their salary and keep their research center open with funds supplied by the state and with the financial help of a few biased corporations who can see a big dividend. There are very few private, non-profit scientists blowing the made by man horn.
Australia has a miniscule contribution in terms of population and research. Both the departments mentioned by jack are funded by the public to any announcements made should be viewed as biased not globally significant.
However, what I find encouraging is that the majority of the general population of the world has moved to a view where they believe climate change is not man made and is a natural occurrence. They have realised that this climate change debate has moved from a personal threat to a financial threat. The general public pays and the rich get richer.
There are many other natural events that are impacting the planet that have a large influence on the climate and have nothing to do with c02.
For instance, the poles are rapidly moving. The magnetic north pole was moving towards Russia at about 15 kilometers a year around 1900. It is now moving at 64 kilometers per year and the magnetic north pole is no longer in Canada and is almost in Russia.
The processional movement of the earth has a profound effect on climate as the axis of the earth moves through a range of 23.5 degrees to 24.7 degrees over a 25800 years period. This aligns the sun’s rays more directly to different regions therefore creating more heat and more cold and changing the climate.
Just those two naturally occurring events will impact weather. Man’s contribution to climate is minuscule. However, the financial side of man-made climate change is massive. The pro man-made climate change movement have dug themselves into a hole and can't get out of it without losing money and being embarrassed to admit they were wrong