The Australian‘s War on Science XII

Posted by Tim Lambert on April 23, 2008
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Here we go again. Phil Chapman, in the Australian:

All four agencies that track Earth’s temperature (the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the Christy group at the University of Alabama, and Remote Sensing Systems Inc in California) report that it cooled by about 0.7C in 2007. This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record and it puts us back where we were in 1930. If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over.

and

it must be noted that the cooling in 2007 was even faster than in typical glacial transitions. If it continued for 20 years, the temperature would be 14C cooler in 2027.

By then, most of the advanced nations would have ceased to exist, vanishing under the ice, and the rest of the world would be faced with a catastrophe beyond imagining.

Well, that’s a worry. If only someone had thought to collect temperatures for 2008… Oh wait, they did:

i-edbe575ed01fa290247c5c01abf4932f-nasa-ice-age.png

(Graph copied from here.)

It must be noted that if the warming trend of 2008 continues for another 20 years, the oceans will boil.

Chapman continues:

That the rapid temperature decline in 2007 coincided with the failure of [solar] cycle No.24 to begin on schedule is not proof of a causal connection but it is cause for concern.

Look at the graph below: (from Ken Tapping)

i-3a017732d6af2e264beca76075d4f4dd-tapping-figure1.png

You can’t yet say that cycle 24 is late and while we are at a minimum, you can’t argue that minima produce cold weather, since the last minimum in 1997 wasn’t that cold.

We cannot really know, but my guess is that the odds are at least 50-50 that we will see significant cooling rather than warming in coming decades.

Hey, do you think he would be willing to bet on it?

Also getting stuck into Chapman’s stupid article are Nexus 6, Tim Hollo and Chris O’Neill. Oh yes, Chapman is a rocket scientist.

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Comments

  1. #1 mz
    April 23, 2008

    Seriously.

    How stupid can it get? And do they expect the readers to be as stupid?

    This is beyond even any parody.

    I don’t know if I would be insulted or laugh my ass off if a paper that I read let such things through.

  2. #2 bi -- Intl. J. Inact.
    April 23, 2008

    Heh, I was just listening to a recording of Milloy’s talk from the New York inactivist conference. He manages to claim with a straight face that

    You can look at the temperature graph of the 20th century, mapped against carbon dioxide emissions. Emissions pretty much go straight up, temperature varies all over the place. No relationship between the two.

    What’s more interesting, though — which I blogged about — is Milloy’s Grand Plan for stonewalling climate regulation.

  3. #3 S2
    April 23, 2008

    This guy makes David Archibald look good.

    My favourite bits:

    We also know that glaciation can occur quickly: the required decline in global temperature is about 12C and it can happen in 20 years.

    For the last 8 glaciations it’s been more like 70,000 years (search for Milankovitch).

    There is also plenty of anecdotal evidence that 2007 was exceptionally cold.

    In other words, NASA’s 0.7C drop between January 2007 & January 2008 is to be trusted, but we can ignore their claim that 2007 tied with 2008 as the 2nd hottest year since 1880 – after all we’ve got anecdotal evidence. It’s all we really need.

    “What’s the good of Mercator’s North Poles and Equators,
    Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?”
    So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply
    “They are merely conventional signs!”

    (from The Hunting of the Snark, by Lewis Carroll)

  4. #4 Demesure
    April 23, 2008

    What is stupid is to know a 0.7°C/year change has done no discernable harm to the planet, the gentle animals, the nices trees, the wicked Man… and to believe a 0.7°C/century change is worth the global warming grand narrative.
    It must be our post-modern age where rocket scientists pale in comparison to climate “experts” and businessman-filmmaker.

  5. #5 mz
    April 23, 2008

    Demesure, and imagine, 40 C temperature swings are experienced every year, hence even if earth warmed up 20 C more, it would be nothing!

  6. #6 Bob Calder
    April 23, 2008

    @ Demesure: Rocket scientists, or rather engineers are precisely the problem. Climatologists are ignored when a famous rocket jockey or Senator (Inhoffe) takes the stage.

    Ignore at your peril the fact that engineers are disproportionately represented among identified terrorists and proponents of Intelligent Design. “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.” Frigging Cromwell of all people, ROTFL

    If I have a choice between a climate scientist who does atmospheric modeling and a mechanical engineer, I will listen to the engineer only in his specialty area. I’m not saying they’re all nuts, but there is something there that needs investigation.

  7. #7 Bruce Sharp
    April 23, 2008

    The other day I reached into a 450 degree F oven to put in a pizza. Since I know it didn’t hurt me, I’d be stupid to believe that anything bad would happen if I left my arm in there for an hour.

  8. #8 frog
    April 23, 2008

    Bob,

    It’s narrow education. Their brand of crazy is due to a deep and narrow education which leads them to rigorously apply principles outside of their appropriate field.

    What is always missed by the crazies is that the real threat is climactic instability. Our current climate regime has been unusually stable for the last 10k (as compared to the preceding million, on a century by century basis). Why do they think that humans finally started building cities about 10kya, when we were already physically, mentally and technologically capable for the previous 100k?

    What I would expect under “global warming” or in other words climactic destabilization is exactly large up years and down years. Instead of steady state behavior with small fluctuations, you’ll get all kinds of crazy positive feedback loops that will be very difficult to predict, and impossible to constrain after the thermometer is busted.

  9. #9 Ken Miles
    April 23, 2008

    Chapman gets a well deserved serve from David Karoly and Graeme Pearman here.

  10. #10 Justin Wood
    April 23, 2008

    I must be missing something. Where on earth does Chapman even get this 0.7oC drop from in the first place? Quick look at Gistemp data shows the 2007 mean was 0.57, slightly higher than 2006 at 0.54. The 2007 summary even states that 2007 ‘tied for second warmest in the period of instrumental data, behind the record warmth of 2005′. I’m less familiar with HadCRU, but I can’t see anything there either that even remotely equates to a 0.7oC drop.
    Given the Aus article has no data at all, can anyone tell me what he’s on about? Perhaps something related to the second half 2007 La Niña cooling??

  11. #11 MarkG
    April 23, 2008

    There’s another aspect to this; of a tail wagging the dog variety. While on the one hand we have Chapman’s hilariously bad editorial there’s Mr Brendon O’Keefe reporting on these startling allegations on the same day
    Prepare for new Ice Age, says scientist.

    No doubt, in a few weeks we’ll get another editorial claiming that “some scientists reckon we’re heading for an ice age, some reckon global warming, why can’t you scientists even agree on the basics!?”

  12. #12 Bernard J.
    April 23, 2008

    What is stupid is to know a 0.7°C/year change has done no discernable harm to the planet, the gentle animals, the nices trees, the wicked Man…

    Demesure the Ecologist has just convinced me that I must leave this field of endeavour and get myself to some third class trade. I never realised that 0.7°C/year would have no effect upon the ecosystems I so faithlessly thought would buckle under a rate of change even less than this.

    and to believe a 0.7°C/century change is worth the global warming grand narrative.

    Again, there will be thousands of climate scientists, biologists, mathematicians, statisticians, and other professionals who will realise the errors of their ways and capitulate in response to Demesure’s demolition of our understanding.

    Or not.

    And Chapman should just be ashamed. Ashamed and embarrassed.

    I had thought that there was not bottom to stupid. Now I realise that there is no top to the z-axis either, and I have a growing suspicion that there may be no bounds to the x- or to the y-axes in any of their directions. This has profound implications for the universe – there may be not any place within it where one can avoid stupid…

    Our only hope is that the parameter ‘stupid’ might decrease with time, and thus be diluted within the universe.

  13. #13 z
    April 23, 2008

    “Where on earth does Chapman even get this 0.7oC drop from in the first place”

    Ah, that’s become canonical among the usual suspects by now. it’s the anomaly for jan 2008, minus the anomaly for jan 2007. which, since each is referenced to the jan baseline, means the jan 2008 average minus the jan 2007 average. because, as everyone knows, the proper timescale on which to average temp for climate is month by month, one year apart.

  14. #14 Justin Wood
    April 23, 2008

    > Ah, that’s become canonical among the usual suspects by now. it’s the anomaly for jan 2008, minus the anomaly for jan 2007.

    ! I almost said ‘surely it can’t just be the Jan anomaly?!’, but then I thought no, nobody could be quite that stupid…

  15. #15 Amaranthus
    April 23, 2008

    New opinion piece on global warming scepticism on ABC Online Opinion:

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/24/2226189.htm

  16. #16 Bernard J.
    April 23, 2008

    Off theme, the last two Oz threads were “The Australian’s War on Science XI” and “The Australian’s War on Science XII”, but their urls are “…the_australians_war_on_science_10″ and “…the_australians_war_on_science_11″ respectively.

    As I am temporarily on a dial-up connection and don’t have the half-hour I’d need to figure out why, could someone satiate my curiosity?!

  17. #17 Tim Lambert
    April 23, 2008

    The URLs are generated automatically from the first five words in the title. Which would mean that they would all be the same, so MT adds a numeric suffix. But it doesn’t do this to the first one, so effectively it starts counting at 0.

  18. #18 Betula
    April 23, 2008

    Bob said: “If I have a choice between a climate scientist who does atmospheric modeling and a mechanical engineer, I will listen to the engineer only in his specialty area. I’m not saying they’re all nuts, but there is something there that needs investigation”

    One thing we do know is that rocket scientists can create a precision guided rocket,whereas climatologists cannot create a precision guided climate…….or can they?

    And though I understand your point about people sticking to their specialty…let us not forget that the businessman-filmmaker Demesure is referring to is not a climatologist.

  19. #19 saurabh
    April 24, 2008

    Bernard J – I would guess scienceblogs names ‘em automatically. The first was “The Australian’s War on Science”; the subsequent ones went JUST over the limit for title truncation (so I, II, … XII gets chopped off), producing: the_australians_war_on_science_. Then numbers are added to disambiguate between identical titles.

  20. #20 bi -- Intl. J. Inact.
    April 24, 2008

    Betula, we also know precision-guided rockets aren’t communism, and no screaming teenager will question a rocket scientist on how to construct a rocket.

    And most importantly, rockets don’t exist in Nature in the first place. When something doesn’t already exist, it’s easier to fashion it the way you want it.

  21. #21 Demesure
    April 24, 2008

    And most importantly, rockets don’t exist in Nature in the first place. When something doesn’t already exist, it’s easier to fashion it the way you want it.

    Yes, just like with unvalidated models which are behind each and every AGW scare (show me a climate scare without model). Except that when a rocket is designed with junk science, it crashes whereas with climate models, all you have to do is to generate the shrillest results like THC shutdown, more intense hurricanes, mass extinction, tipping point in less than 10 years… and get published and mediatized.

  22. #22 Demesure
    April 24, 2008

    In other words, NASA’s 0.7C drop between January 2007 & January 2008 is to be trusted, but we can ignore their claim that 2007 tied with 2008 as the 2nd hottest year since 1880 – after all we’ve got anecdotal evidence. It’s all we really need.

    @3

    Should write “tied with 1998″, not “2008.

    And yes, it’s a shame to use such crappy data ;)

  23. #23 Bernard J.
    April 24, 2008

    Demesure.

    Please explain to all here why the living world is not an irrefutable integrator of all the parameters that combine to make climate, and the path of climate change through time.

    I keep asking this of the deniers, but the silence is profound.

    And be careful, because there might be one or two people here who have a bit more of a clue than you.

  24. #24 Bernard J.
    April 24, 2008

    Ironically, as I typed #22, there was a segment on the ABC news about the Tasman glacier’s melting in New Zealand. It’s retreating by 0.5km/yr; and as a consequence it has produced a lake that is currently 7km long and 250m deep, that didn’t exist several decades ago.

    The non-living world is busily integrating too.

    Or are phenomena such as these further examples of “unvalidated models”?

  25. #25 bi -- Intl. J. Inact.
    April 24, 2008

    Bernard J.:

    Isn’t it long obvious that inactivists have no clue? Demesure’s incapable of grasping the simple idea that this thing called “climate” exists in Nature. (That, or he’s deliberately failing to grasp it.)

    By the way, my pet dog just proved Chapman’s rocket science wrong. When’s NPR going to do a story?

  26. #26 Demesure
    April 24, 2008

    Please explain to all here why the living world is not an irrefutable integrator of all the parameters that combine to make climate, and the path of climate change through time.

    Bernard,

    The living world is even the integrator of trancendental energy, paranormal fluids and green prayers for cosmic harmony, so why not ? BTW, who said it’s not ?

  27. #27 Demesure
    April 24, 2008

    “By the way, my pet dog just proved Chapman’s rocket science wrong. When’s NPR going to do a story?”

    IJI,

    Next time, trust your own reasonning instead of that of your dog.

  28. #28 Bernard J.
    April 24, 2008

    Hang on…

    Demesure… Demisure – half-sure…

    Half a clue.

    Now it starts to make sense where the wrong-headed thinking comes from.

    Yes, yes, I know. Ad hominem is always an unattractive look, but some people just seem to want to earn such stripes.

    I’m still waiting for the wrong-headed label to be demonstrated to be otherwise.

  29. #29 Jeff Harvey
    April 24, 2008

    Demesure, I’ve asked before and I will ask again:

    What are your qualifications in science, and in what field? I really want to know. This far, most of arguments are pedantic in the extreme. Little substance. Check that. No substance. Given your hostility to conventional wisdom and the empirical evidence, you must know something that has escaped the vast majority of the scientific community, me included. Please tell.

    Demesure, in his usual witless style, writes, “What is stupid is to know a 0.7°C/year change has done no discernable harm to the planet, the gentle animals, the nices trees, the wicked Man… and to believe a 0.7°C/century change is worth the global warming grand narrative”.

    This is such utter gobbeldegook that its hard top know to begin demolishing it. Let’s start with the 0.7 C year change and its ramifications. The current change in climate is not uniform but varies across latitudinal and temporal gradients. Thus, lower latitudes in the tropics are experiencing much less of a climate shift (at least with regard to remperature) as more temperate latitudes (although precipitation regimes are changing there with some alacrity). Second, the change is not equally distributed seasonally or with diel cycles. In other words, night minimum temepratures are often increasing much faster than daytime maximums.

    Moreover, there are already significant effects being realized on plant and animal communities. We know that there have been significant phenological shifts in the life and breeding cycles of some passerines and their prey, for instance, and the consequence is the beginning of a regional demographic decline for some species such as pied flycatchers in many parts of their breeding range. Because many species that overwinter in the tropics begin their northerly migration at the same time every year, they are passing through temperature regimes (clines) that are shifting rapidly in their breeding grounds, leading to de-synchronization with the peak abundance of their main food supply (e.g. caterpillars) which are hatching and developing earlier. The consequence is a reduction in successful fledging of offspring and reduced fitness (vigor) of the survivors. Given the relatively few studies that are available (this includes work done by colleagues of mine here published in Nature and elsewhere), this is likely to account for major declines in many species of tropical migrants that has been observed over the past 30-40 years.

    A recent talk here also revealed de-synchronization between prime browsing vegetation and breeding in caribou in Greenland as a result of the recent warming episode. This means that plants used as food by the young calves is growing earlier and earlier, whereas the caribou reproduce at the same time, meaning that the calves are experiencing sub-optimal browsing vegetation. Again, this has been published. A major review in Nature (Walther et al., 2002) outlined the ecological responses to recent climate change. The authors stipulated that although we are only at an early stage in the projected trends of global warming, ecological responses were even then already visible. They stressed that the responses of both flora and fauna spanned an array of ecosystems and organizational hierachies within these systems down to local community effects, and even to the level of species and populations.

    Climate change is also leading to community simplification and/or re-organization. But the problems associated with the current warming are that (1) the current rate of warming is unprecedented in perhaps tens of thousands of years, and (2) it occurs at a time when much of the surface of the planet has been dramtically altered by humans. Species are finding all kinds of barriers in their way that hinder their ability to disperse, from huge agricultural expanses where forest corridors have been felled to urban landscapes. Furthermore, food webs are unraveling due to the fact that, as projected, many organisms are leaving co-evolved interactions behind when colonizing new areas. This may or may not give them a competitive edge in their new habitats, but in many instances it is also liekly to reduce the resilience of existing communities by simplifying them (McCann discusses this at length in his seminal 1998 Nature paper).

    Ultimately, the effects of reducing nature through climate change and other anthropogenic processes will rebound on us. But we know that they already are. Both direct and indirect ecological services are being impacted, and this will have huge economic repercussions. I am giving a lecture on this very subject tomorrow at a workshop in Wageningen. It is too bad, Demesure, you cannot attend. Given your statement above, it is clear that you have a lot to learn.

  30. #30 Demesure
    April 24, 2008

    I’m still waiting for the wrong-headed label to be demonstrated to be otherwise.

    It’s like the puritan witch hunter saying: “I’ll attach you to a rock and drown you deep in the river. Now, if you can escape, it’s that God has helped you and you have *demonstrated* to be otherwise.”

    It would be comic if it was that tragic.

  31. #31 Barton Paul Levenson
    April 24, 2008

    Demesure writes:

    Yes, just like with unvalidated models which are behind each and every AGW scare (show me a climate scare without model).

    The first prediction of global warming under carbon dioxide was made by Svante Arrhenius in 1896. He did not use a computer.

    And who says the models are “unvalidated?” You?

  32. #32 Freshly Squeezed Cynic
    April 24, 2008

    Help, help, he’s being repressed! Come and see the violence inherent in the scientific method!

  33. #33 Demesure
    April 24, 2008

    What are your qualifications in science, and in what field? I really want to know. This far, most of arguments are pedantic in the extreme. Little substance. Check that. No substance. Given your hostility to conventional wisdom and the empirical evidence, you must know something that has escaped the vast majority of the scientific community, me included. Please tell.

    @28,

    Why the hell are you guys going personal instead of dealing with my points ? If I say I’m a PhD with 3 years in academic research and 15 years in industry doing complex physics modelling, what would it change ? Then should I be heterosexual, monogamous, hysterical recycler with no more than one child and praying Gaia every night to be accredited by the Deltoid AGW crowd ? Come on!
    If you have proved anything with unspecific ad hominem and name calling on others, then it’s that your arguments are at best weak, at worse irrelevant.

    And no, I have no hostility towards empirical evidence. It’s precisely the lack of empirical evidence and of transparency in the AGW theory that I criticized. Lack of empirical evidence is what is found in your long “lecture” above, replete with “might or might not”, “likely”, “will”, “could”… You might call it science. Sorry but I call it speculations.

  34. #34 Demesure
    April 24, 2008

    The first prediction of global warming under carbon dioxide was made by Svante Arrhenius in 1896. He did not use a computer.

    And who says the models are “unvalidated?” You?

    Where is the validation? I see none.

    All such model said is a greenhouse gas makes the atmosphere warmer. What an unescapable truth! It’s like saying peeing into the lake makes it level rise.

  35. #35 luminous beauty
    April 24, 2008

    “Where is the validation? I see none.”

    It is hard to see with one’s eyes squeezed shut.

    Try googling “climate model validation”.

  36. #36 Demesure
    April 24, 2008

    @35,

    Try googling “climate model INvalidation”

  37. #37 luminous beauty
    April 24, 2008

    demisore,

    I did. I didn’t find anything but hand-waving, pulled from their asses, gibbering opinion by the usual gang of idiots that climate models have been invalidated. In a very small number of hits, at that.

  38. #38 Betula
    April 24, 2008

    “Please explain to all here why the living world is not an irrefutable integrator of all the parameters that combine to make climate, and the path of climate change through time.”

    Bernard, are you saying that if someone doesn’t follow worst case predictions in terms of AGW, it is therefore assumed they don’t believe the living and non-living world are integrators of climate change?

    At the risk of being labeled an integrate denier,or worse, an integrate inactivist….. what came first, the living world or the climate?

  39. #39 luminous beauty
    April 24, 2008

    “At the risk of being labeled an integrate denier,or worse, an integrate inactivist….. what came first, the living world or the climate?”

    The real risk you are running is being labeled an idiot. And not without due cause.

    My question to you is, were you born an idiot or did you have to take lessons?

  40. #40 guthrie
    April 24, 2008

    I googled “climate model validation”. Here are some of the links taht came up in the first page. Demesure, can you tell me if they answer your questions or not?

    http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/h.j.fowler/climate_model_validation.htm

    http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=893448

    http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2000JGR…10529647H

    http://www.ams.ucsc.edu/share/technical-reports/2005/ams2005-18.pdf

  41. #41 Bernard J.
    April 24, 2008

    And no, I have no hostility towards empirical evidence. It’s precisely the lack of empirical evidence and of transparency in the AGW theory that I criticized. Lack of empirical evidence is what is found in your long “lecture” above, replete with “might or might not”, “likely”, “will”, “could”… You might call it science. Sorry but I call it speculations.

    Um, “lack of empirical evidence”? “Long lecture”?

    You are surely joking now.

    Jeff only touched upon a huge body of documented biological/phenological alteration that is directly and empirically ascribable to climate change, and specifically to warming. There are certainly many more times the number of impacts occuring than are recorded by science, or indeed anecdotally by farmers, orchardists, gardeners, amature naturalists – et cetera. To someone who has half a clue about how an ecosystem functions is is patently apparent that profound shifts afoot, and for you to state that it is merely “speculation” shows either that you are:

    1) not sufficiently qualified or educated in, nor even understanding of, ecosystem processes to be able to comment on such – even at the most elementary level

    and/or

    2) wilfully ignorant in the face of solid evidence

    and/or

    3) trolling harder than a fisherman drifting through a school of tuna

    If, for whatever reason, you dismiss the profound changes that the biosphere is currently exhibiting, I suspect that there is no amount of evidence that you could accept – even if the seas were to boil dry you would not acknowledge it, Demesure.

    As I explain to other trolls here as they raise their heads above the bridge, I constantly search the literature and my own data in my PhD work and in my two ecology jobs, looking for evidence that contradicts the warming paradigm. There is much else that is wrong with ecosystems nationally and internationally that I would like to play a part in addressing, and I would dearly love to believe that climate change is not the rearing spectre that most considered scientists understand it to be. I apply scepticism at every point in my analyses and in my reading, and after slicing with Occam’s razor I have yet to see anything that would begin to contradict the robust mountain of evidence that there is change afoot.

    I welcome anyone’s contribution here or on any blog, or especially in peer-reviewed literature, that can defensibly demonstrate the weaknesses in the warming paradigm. Sadly Demesure, you have offered nothing to substantiate your denialist statements but the very dogmatic posturing that you so freely accuse others of.

    I will ask you again – why are living systems not reliable integrators/indicators of climate change? For the countless biological responses documented, what counters do you have that climate change is not an effector, if not the sole effector?

    “Sorry but I call it speculations” is not an answer. If that’s the level of your challenge, then quite frankly I am surprised that you haven’t had an order of magnitude more ad hominem rebuffing than the marginal amount that has currently been directed at you.

    And if you truly believe that you have the capacity to refute the large body of understanding that says biological systems are altering in response to changes in climate, you should publish in Conservation Biology, or even better, in Nature or in Science, because the world needs to know.

    Come on Demesure, properly explain why there is no biological consequence apparent in the biosphere that supports the AGW paradigm.

  42. #42 Bernard J.
    April 24, 2008

    Oh, and as to that jibe about Jeff Harvey’s “long lecture” at #33 – I find Jeff’s explanations on ecology and population biology extremely well-informed and highly readable. Anyone with a grain of common sense could do very much worse than to take his points and use them to expand upon their own knowledge.

    It is to my chagrin that Jeff lives in the country of my birth rather than in Australia, and that I am unable to benefit more directly from his impressive scientific understanding. I would dearly love to learn from someone of his calibre.

    Demesure, if you are claiming a PhD and the experience that you alluded to above, then your snipe was poorly thought-out indeed.

  43. #43 Betula
    April 24, 2008

    LB…..
    Just adding a little levity my friend….after all, our time is short.

  44. #44 Bernard J.
    April 24, 2008

    And then…

    Betula, busily stuffing straw into a pair of overalls, offered:

    “Bernard, are you saying that if someone doesn’t follow worst case predictions in terms of AGW, it is therefore assumed they don’t believe the living and non-living world are integrators of climate change?”

    Absolutely not in the slightest did I even imply this Betula, and if you have even the merest grain of decorum you would understand this and acknowledge it. To pinch a term used yesterday on Deltoid, following worst case (or otherwise) predictions in terms of AGW are orthogonal to believing that the living and non-living worlds are integrators of climate change.

    It matters not whether I (nor anyone else) believe in the ‘worst case predictions’, the median predictions, or even just in the best case scenarios – if climate change is occurring, and the biosphere reflects this, then we have an issue to address.

    It’s simple really, Betula – and Demesure, et al.

    Even under the ‘best case’ scenarios, the rate of temperature change such as we have recorded over the last century or so has serious ecological implications. Anyone who denies this simply shows that they do not understand why this is so.

    We emit CO2, and CO2 is a greenhouse gas. We therefore have at least some impact upon climate, unless you are one of those deniers who either claims that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas, or that somehow our emissions are not raising the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Or both – sadly, such folk exist.

    No-one has proposed a robust explanation for why the rate of change in temperature has been observed, that does not include AGW. Arguments that warming stopped in 1998, which hold less water than the colander I use to drain my pasta, are an attempt to distract from the fact that we have observed an extraordinary rate of temperature change over the 20th century, and that this change has had a biological effect.

    I wouldn’t care if our impact was a quarter of a degree per century. Over the atmospheric lifetime of the carbon that we could potentially emit into the atmosphere this would still bring about serious change to the ecosystems of the world, and unless the fabled Next Ice-age miraculously appears this change will bite us (or rather, our descendents) on the bum.

    And even if an ice-age were to trundle along, it is highly unlikely to nicely balance out AGW. Much more likely is that ecosystems already stressed by warming will buckle harder under future cooling than they otherwise would, and humanity’s condition then will be that much more parlous for it.

    No hyperbolic hysterics need be invoked in this Betula, contrary to what you like to promote. Perhaps I, and many others of the scientific community that you disparage, think in time-scales that are irrelevant to you, but they are certainly relevant to future generations, and it is to these generations and to their contemporary ecosystems that I hold myself responsible.

    And I rather suspect that the weight that they place upon the scenarios that we discuss today, and that they place upon the significance of the biological and geological changes that we observe today, will be very different from yours.

    Fortunately for you, you won’t be around to be held to account by those future generations.

  45. #45 mgr
    April 24, 2008

    Betula:

    Humor noted.

    Life predates climate. The shift to an oxidizing atmosphere from a reducing one was driven by photosynthesis.

    Mike

  46. #46 Barton Paul Levenson
    April 24, 2008

    Demesure says:

    It’s precisely the lack of empirical evidence and of transparency in the AGW theory that I criticized.

    What do you think there isn’t empirical evidence for? If

    1) carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and

    2) the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rising, and

    3) the new carbon dioxide is from technological sources

    then AGW is a virtual certainty. Which of the above do you dispute?

  47. #47 mgr
    April 24, 2008

    Demesure:

    “Where is the validation? I see none.

    All such model said is a greenhouse gas makes the atmosphere warmer. What an unescapable truth! It’s like saying peeing into the lake makes it level rise.”

    What is the difference between a model and hypothesis? How do you validate a hypothesis? Do you understand comparison between empirical data and the results predicted by an experiment is what validates a hypothesis?

    Mike

  48. #48 Chris O'Neill
    April 24, 2008

    demesure, demonstating a small part of his ignorance and lying at the same time, says:

    just like with unvalidated models which are behind each and every AGW scare (show me a climate scare without model)

    A list of papers describing empirical derivations of climate sensitivity is given here (along with a list of papers describing model-based derivations of climate sensitivity).

  49. #49 Barton Paul Levenson
    April 24, 2008

    Demesure writes:

    Where is the validation? I see none.

    All such model said is a greenhouse gas makes the atmosphere warmer. What an unescapable truth! It’s like saying peeing into the lake makes it level rise.

    Global climate models have predicted not only that the world would warm, but approximately how much (Hansen 1988 Scenario B), that it would warm more toward the poles than at the equator, that it would warm more at night than during the day, that the stratosphere would cool as the troposphere warmed, and that we would see more droughts in continental interiors and more violent weather along coastlines. They also predicted both the magnitude and the duration of the cooling that the eruption of Mount Pinatubo would cause. Yes, the models have been validated. That’s why scientists take them seriously.

  50. #50 Demesure
    April 24, 2008

    What do you think there isn’t empirical evidence for? If

    1) carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and

    2) the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rising, and

    3) the new carbon dioxide is from technological sources

    then AGW is a virtual certainty. Which of the above do you dispute?

    @46 Barton Paul,

    I dispute neither 1) nor 2). For 3), as long as you can’t find any credible paper attributing the whole 30% rise since 1750 to fossil emissions, your claim is just unsustanciated (very simple, show me the IPCC’s excerpt that would state all the CO2 increase is anthropogenic).

    And I won’t dispute AGW over some periods in some places like I won’t dispute peeing in the lake makes its level rise.

    Now do you admit such empirical evidence:

    1) The world has been warming as much as the past 3 decades from 1910 to 1940 while emissions were minuscules compared to now and the IPCC has no idea of it was AGW or natural GW

    2) The world has been cooling from 1945 to 1975 while emissions were booming due to post war industrialisation

    3) The world has been cooling over the past 6 years while human emissions have been accelerating more than ever and the “thousands climate scientists” don’t have any fucking slightest idea of why.

    If you do, then AGCooling is a certainty. Which of the above do you dispute ?

  51. #51 Demesure
    April 24, 2008

    A list of papers describing empirical derivations of climate sensitivity is given here (along with a list of papers describing model-based derivations of climate sensitivity).

    @48,

    So what, show me a paper which scares the shit out of AGWers which is based only on empirical evidence instead and not UNVALIDATED models and their usual crystal ball speculations based on “might”, “could”, “likely”… like this one.

  52. #52 Demesure
    April 24, 2008

    Do you understand comparison between empirical data and the results predicted by an experiment is what validates a hypothesis?

    Mike,

    Yes I do. I’ve some years of modelization where the mismatch between my models and reality is measured in millions $ costs to my employers, so I know what validation is.

    Now where is the validation for the hypothesis of all those things caused by GW :
    Acne, agricultural land increase, Afghan poppies destroyed, Africa devastated, African aid threatened, Africa in conflict, aggressive weeds, air pressure changes, Alaska reshaped, allergies increase, Alps melting, Amazon a desert, American dream end, amphibians breeding earlier (or not), anaphylactic reactions to bee stings, ancient forests dramatically changed…

  53. #53 guthrie
    April 24, 2008

    Demesure #50 is operating the turbo-goalpost 2000, which can be bought from various online suppliers.
    Demesure, first you refuse to even look at the list of articles and suchlike that people have brought up on the topic of model validation, (Here’s a hint for you- yes, it gets done) you then claim that you havn’t been shown a paper showing the entire 30% rise in CO2 is our fault!

    Its in the IPCC reports, Demesure- you’re continued lack of reading ability really tries our patience. We don’t have to provide you with absolutely everything- if you were capable of having an open enquiring mind, you would have read the reports already. But you havn’t.

  54. #54 jodyaberdein
    April 24, 2008

    re: #52

    Just wondering: would those be economic models then? What were they predicting?

  55. #55 mgr
    April 24, 2008

    Demesure:

    @50–you’re right that is a well validated study, particularly if you know something about tertiary climate history and ice core records. Scary too, if the climate sensitivity of the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary is that slight, compared to the estimates now given.

    @51–I’ve done modelization too, until the glue I was using on the plastic airplane was banned. As to that grocery list, try phenomena we have observed, and are known to be sensitive to changes in temperature or precipitation, are likely to occur with greater frequency, intensity as global warming continues.

    Now if you could just come down from the glue high, and make a coherent statement….

    Mike

  56. #56 Betula
    April 24, 2008

    Bernard….the straw I was stuffing in my overalls was to be saved for future experiments on converting cellulose to ethanol.
    Also…I will acknowledge you weren’t implying that “worse case scenario” skeptics don’t believe living things are integrators of climate change….perhaps I just read into it that way….sorry if you were offended.

    I for one, don’t deny the earth is warming and don’t deny we may play a role in that (to some degree)….my issue is with the alarmism, which I believe is way over the top.

    When my son comes home from school with a pamphlet that says he can help save Polar Bears by using both sides of a sheet of paper…..I feel we are failing our children.
    If they want to teach him to conserve, that’s one thing, but to use such tactics as Polar Bears dying is going to turn our kid’s brains into mush….and in that sense, I’m not onboard.

    How about teaching them that trees are a renewable resource? How about second growth forest harvesting? How about the 17,000 christmas tree farms in the United States alone that are supporting many fields while one field is cut? How about the concept that planting a tree really did nothing…since the tree was already on earth…and it is the growing of another tree to take it’s place that makes a difference? How about planting/growing grass? How about evergreens vs.deciduous trees in terms of yearly C02 intake? How about the understory? How about the different effects of planting trees in Northern Regions vs. Tropical regions?

    No….it’s easier to say we can help save Polar Bears by using less paper.

    As far as some of your other comments….it would take too long to address them all….I do tend to use hyperbole for effect, but I am hardly the one presenting this issue through hysterics….I merely repeat what is being stated by the media and those supposedly in the know.

  57. #57 Bernard J.
    April 25, 2008

    Betula at #56.

    Somewhat surprisedly I find myself tipping my hat to your concessions, and I also admit that I largely agree with the content of this particular post of yours.

    There are one or two issues upon which I could split hairs, but I will leave those alone in a spirit of civil discourse and hope that we might actually find further common ground down the track.

    Allow me to note though that knee-jerk hysterics from either side of the debate serve no-one any good, as much as they might capture the public imagination for either side of said debate. I hold that in common with you, but you have to understand that this does not preclude the possibility grim consequence arising from phenomena that we have not been familiar with in the past.

    A couple of rather spurious examples – imagine if someone had told mediaeval Europeans that they needed to do something about rats and fleas prior to the plagues, or had told the Irish in the years before the famines commenced that this ‘thing’ would blight their potato crops. Many would have listened and been horrified, and others would have denied any possibility until the evidence lay at their doors.

    I heard a radio interview about three years ago predicting the sub-prime meltdown, almost to the month, and in the same interview I heard other economists deride the prediction as scare-mongering.

    And at the time oil was hitting just over $60/barrel (late 2005 I think it was) I listened to a talkback program on the Australian ABC where the majority of callers supported the idea of Peak Oil, and yet several callers rang in to debunk the idea. One steadfastly insisted that oil was overpriced and that its real value was around $30/barrel, to which it would fall by the end of the year. He completely disparaged the possibility of oil reaching $100/barrel – I wish now that I had been able to place a bet with him…

    In fact the trend in oil prices reminds me of the trend in global temperature, and how there is a range of responses from people to both. Just like AGW, there were folk who denied Peak Oil, although their ranks are fast thinning as the reality of PO becomes unavoidable.

    One could draw attention to the ‘hysterics’ that accompanied PO predictions a decade ago, but I rather suspect that these days we’d see many of the more reasoned predictions to be of the ‘grim’, yet accurate, sort that I spoke of above, whether or not hysterics accompanied them.

    And no matter what hysterics or otherwise accompany the future unfolding of AGW, I reckon that history will record a similar progress in public opinion to that now observable in the Peak Oil issue.

    The problem is that AGW has the potential to be much more serious than Peak Oil, which itself will be serious enough.

  58. #58 Bernard J.
    April 25, 2008

    Thinking about the matter a little more, it seems to me that the AGW denialists have an ‘autocorrelation’ phenomenon ticking over in their psyches, where they perceive that tomorrow is going to be the same as today or yesterday, or almost so. To them it cannot be otherwise.

    The trouble is that such autocorrelation is not fractal.

  59. #59 Barton Paul Levenson
    April 25, 2008

    Demesure writes:

    I dispute neither 1) nor 2). For 3), as long as you can’t find any credible paper attributing the whole 30% rise since 1750 to fossil emissions, your claim is just unsustanciated (very simple, show me the IPCC’s excerpt that would state all the CO2 increase is anthropogenic).

    We know that from the radioisotope signature of the new CO2. Fossil fuel CO2 is depleted in carbon-14 because it’s very old, and all the 14C has decayed away to 14N. There are also clues from the ratio of 13C to 12C, which has to do with how plants perform photosynthesis and transpiration. The radioisotope signature of fossil fuel CO2 was first detected in ambient air by Hans Suess in 1955.

    1) The world has been warming as much as the past 3 decades from 1910 to 1940 while emissions were minuscules compared to now and the IPCC has no idea of it was AGW or natural GW

    2) The world has been cooling from 1945 to 1975 while emissions were booming due to post war industrialisation

    3) The world has been cooling over the past 6 years while human emissions have been accelerating more than ever and the “thousands climate scientists” don’t have any fucking slightest idea of why.

    If you do, then AGCooling is a certainty. Which of the above do you dispute ?

    All of them. On 1, your numbers are wrong and the amount of CO2 being produced was substantial compared to earlier periods. Increase in solar luminosity also played a role, which was acknowledged by the IPCC a long time ago. Have you actually read the IPCC reports? You seem to be unaware of a great number of things mentioned there.

    On 2, the cooling was from about 1940 to 1945 and temperature was flat until about 1970. The cooling was from industrial aerosols, since world industry ramped up very quickly in the early ’40s without much control of pollution (World War II and all that). The result, aside from cooling, was city-wide pollution emergencies like Donora PA in 1948 and London in 1952.

    On 3, six years is too short to conclude anything, and if you want an explanation for most of the cooling in that period, try the fact that 2007 was an La Nina year.

    So “AGCooling” doesn’t exist.

  60. #60 frog
    April 25, 2008

    Demeseure: “I’ve some years of modelization where the mismatch between my models and reality is measured in millions $ costs to my employers, so I know what validation is.”

    BernardJ: “Thinking about the matter a little more, it seems to me that the AGW denialists have an ‘autocorrelation’ phenomenon ticking over in their psyches, where they perceive that tomorrow is going to be the same as today or yesterday, or almost so. To them it cannot be otherwise.”

    BernardJ, you are only talking about folks with open minds, who are discussing in “good faith”. Demeseure’s comment caught my eye because he’s letting his ideology show. Underneath the rationalism is a commitment to a world view where “real world” (read private enterprise) is inherently superior to all this mushy BS academic hoo-hoo. In those cases, all of you are wasting your breath – it’ll just go on around in circles because rationalism is really just rationalization of a dogmatic political position.

    And before D complains about ad-hominem (as he has upthread), this argument is not about details of his statements (where it would be illegitimate). It’s about the structure of his argument, where it is perfectly legitimate to discuss agendas and motivations – it’s about whether the discussion is really productive at all. Practice away for your public battles (on both sides), but don’t pretend that a constructive debate is going on instead of just tactical battlefield practice.

  61. #61 Betula
    April 25, 2008

    Bernard said…..”but you have to understand that this does not preclude the possibility grim consequence arising from phenomena that we have not been familiar with in the past.”

    I absolutely understand and agree with that, however, what has happened is we only imagine the worst, without considering any positives….there is no balance on this topic. In addition, everything that happens can be easily explained by throwing a Global Warming label on it.

    For example, if the plague or the potato famine were to happen today….the cause would be Global Warming.

    Growing up on the shores of Long Island Sound in the Northeast, I remember catching Weak fish with my dad, then the weak fish disappeared for years…then they came back, then they disappeared again. Blue Crabs were plentiful and then dissapeared…. now they are back.Sometimes Bunker are plentiful,sometimes they are not.
    Gypsy Moth Caterpillars were a huge problem until a disease causing fungus brought them under control. We’ve had devastating Chestnut blight and Dutch Elm disease…we had Hemlock woolly adelgid blown in from Hurricane Gloria in 1985 that has destroyed countless Hemlocks.
    We now have a dangerously high Deer population and we have Wild Turkeys that weren’t here a few years back.Due to a lack of predators, the Turkey population has exploded and we are now starting to see a lot of Coyotes when before there were none.

    I could go on….one year Beech Bark Adelgid was a huge problem due to the right winter conditions, we have started seeing the Sirex woodwasp, Asian longhorn Beetle and invasive plants such as Mile-a-minute weed…..

    The point to all this is that in the past,these things happened for a variety of reasons, many of them natural, others due to perhaps a not so clean Long Island Sound, perhaps insects coming in on pallets or plant material…..a variety of reasons…but never with the AGW label.

    Now…..it’s all due to AGW and climate change….as though the climate has always been consistent and other factors don’t matter….it’s almost as if we look to AGW as the reason, so we find ways to make it fit.

    Don’t get me wrong.. I have personally seen what small changes in climate change can do to plants in terms of cultural problems (micro-climates along a house, one side being warmer or more exposed to wind) insect developement (based on Growth Degree days) and diseases (dependent on temperature and rainfall)

    This does not make me a denier….I am more of a Cautious Optimistic Semi-Skeptical Agreer.

  62. #62 Demesure
    April 25, 2008

    We know that from the radioisotope signature of the new CO2. Fossil fuel CO2 is depleted in carbon-14 because it’s very old, and all the 14C has decayed away to 14N. There are also clues from the ratio of 13C to 12C, which has to do with how plants perform photosynthesis and transpiration.

    @59

    NO we don’t. And certainly NOT with 14C, heavily contaminated by atmospheric nuclear tests in the 70s.

    Take the numbers in the IPCC’s 4AR-chapter 2 on isotope dosing and tell us if it has claimed 100% of the post-industrial CO2 increase is of fossil origin. It hasn’t. Isotope measurements, either by carbon, or by oxygen simply do NOT show what you claimed. Pesky numbers.

    Nice try Barton Paul but your pretense to know is unsustanciated.

  63. #63 Demesure
    April 25, 2008

    “you then claim that you havn’t been shown a paper showing the entire 30% rise in CO2 is our fault!

    Its in the IPCC reports, Demesure- you’re continued lack of reading ability really tries our patience”

    @53 guthrie,
    The IPCC’s 4AR chapter 2 on CO2 measurements is not that long. So if you claim the IPCC has stated all the recent CO2 rise is anthropogenic, show us where, at what page, which paragraph, which sentence or numbers. If you can, I’ll shut up and apologize for “trying your patience”.

    If you can not, then take pause, read the science and stop making unsupported nonsense.

    The deal is as simple as that.

  64. #64 Demesure
    April 25, 2008

    On 2, the cooling was from about 1940 to 1945 and temperature was flat until about 1970. The cooling was from industrial aerosols, since world industry ramped up very quickly in the early ’40s without much control of pollution (World War II and all that). The result, aside from cooling, was city-wide pollution emergencies like Donora PA in 1948 and London in 1952.

    Barton Paul,

    Here are historical emission data for W Europe and the USA.

    So why are you denying the FACT that CO2 emissions increased at accelerated pace from 1940 until the first oil shock (and not only in 1940-45) while the Earth was cooling ? Please, get your facts straight before spreading your speculations.

    Now suppose there was just cooling in 1940-45 because of aerosols as you claimed. The smaller quantities of aerosols of that period would suffice to cool the Earth and the greater quantities for 1945-75 (see the data links above) were just enough to maintain a stable temperature and no cooling ? Come on, it doesn’t hold water. Anyway, the pre-satellite era aerosols quantities were not measured but estimated and each model uses its own aerosol profile for parameterisation (you can’t decently estimate aerosols quantity because it depends on the fossil fuel’s nature and quality, the burning technology, precipitation, wind…) . So its has nothing to do with “empirical evidence” or falsifiable science. It’s just Playstation science.

  65. #65 Chris O'Neill
    April 25, 2008

    demesure:

    A list of papers describing empirical derivations of climate sensitivity is given here (along with a list of papers describing model-based derivations of climate sensitivity).

    So what, show me a paper which scares the shit out of AGWers which is based only on empirical evidence

    You don’t seem to realize that a climate sensitivity around 3 deg C/2xCO2, such as is empirically derived in most of those papers, is a serious issue.

    BTW, when will you find out what La Niña is?

  66. #66 Jim
    April 25, 2008

    Lol. I just found this funny site today. It cracks me up how hysterical gorebullsmarmers get so defensive when challenged with facts. Of course, I’m not surprised, since they’re the same ones who hate capitalism, and believe we should reduce our population to 500 mill or so. They simply hate people. Oh well… Have a nice one, and keep the jokes rolling!
    Jim

  67. #67 Demesure
    April 25, 2008

    You don’t seem to realize that a climate sensitivity around 3 deg C/2xCO2, such as is empirically derived in most of those papers, is a serious issue

    It’s about +3°C/2xCO2 +- 50% (admire the uncertainty interval of the “settled science”) for the IPCC based on “spaghetti” graphs of temperature “reconstructions”, +6°C/2xCO2-long equilibrium (whatever that means) for uberhysteric Hansen, less than 1.5°C/2xCO2 based on modern instrumental temperature…

    So call it “empirically derived” if you want, I call it BS derived.

  68. #68 Robin Levett
    April 26, 2008

    @Demesure:

    NO we don’t. And certainly NOT with 14C, heavily contaminated by atmospheric nuclear tests in the 70s.

    You do realise that the sign of this contamination is wrong for your purposes. Don’t you? Do you? I suppose you don’t.

    Let me explain then. Fossil-fuel generated CO2 is depleted in C14 by comparison with atmospheric CO2 because it’s been locked away by itself for its C14 to decay over the millions of years. So the more fossil-fuel generated CO2 in the atmosphere, the lower the percentage of C14 (as compared with other isotopes) in the atmosphere.

    Nuclear-testing increases the C14 content of the atmosphere – it’s all that pesky ionising radiation. So the effect of nuclear tests is to mask the presence of fossil-fuel generated CO2, not to mimic it.

    You are aware, aren’t you, that in any event we do have a reasonably accurate picture of the increase in C14 caused by nuclear testing, aren’t you? Oh well, never mind. Silly questions, I know.

  69. #69 Chris O'Neill
    April 26, 2008

    It’s about +3°C/2xCO2 +- 50%

    It’s +3°C/2xCO2 +50%-33% actually (95% confidence interval).

    (admire the uncertainty interval of the “settled science”)

    So you’re a high risk taker.

    for the IPCC based on “spaghetti” graphs of temperature “reconstructions”,

    The sensitivity derivations are not based on “spaghetti” graphs of temperature “reconstructions”. If you actually looked at the list I gave, you would have read about the observations that have been used. Instead you bullshit on.

    +6°C/2xCO2-long equilibrium (whatever that means)

    You obviously think ignorance is bliss.

    for uberhysteric Hansen, less than 1.5°C/2xCO2 based on modern instrumental temperature

    More denialist bullshit. Taking all factors into account gives sensitivity covering the usual range, e.g:

    Knutti, R., T. F. Stocker, F. Joos, and G.-K. Plattner (2002), Constraints on radiative forcing and future climate change from observations and climate model ensembles,
    Nature, 416, 719-723;

    Andronova, N. G., and M. E. Schlesinger (2001), Objective estimation of the probability density function for climate sensitivity, Journal of Geophysical Research, 108 (D8),
    22,605-22,611;

    Forest, C. E., P. H. Stone, A. P. Sokolov, M. R. Allen, and M. D. Webster (2002),Quantifying uncertainties in climate system properties with the use of recent climate observations, Science, 295 (5552), 113-117.

    Annan’s paper describes a fair number of papers that give sensitivity estimates based on a wide range of empirical observations.

  70. #70 Barton Paul Levenson
    April 26, 2008

    Demesure writes:

    NO we don’t. And certainly NOT with 14C, heavily contaminated by atmospheric nuclear tests in the 70s.

    Take the numbers in the IPCC’s 4AR-chapter 2 on isotope dosing and tell us if it has claimed 100% of the post-industrial CO2 increase is of fossil origin. It hasn’t. Isotope measurements, either by carbon, or by oxygen simply do NOT show what you claimed. Pesky numbers.

    Nice try Barton Paul but your pretense to know is unsustanciated.

    “Unsubstantiated.” D, your argument above is useless. 14C tests contaminated by atmospheric nuclear testing would show MORE 14C, not LESS. And how would oxygen enter into it at all?

  71. #71 Barton Paul Levenson
    April 26, 2008

    Demesure says:

    Here are historical emission data for W Europe and the USA.

    So why are you denying the FACT that CO2 emissions increased at accelerated pace from 1940 until the first oil shock (and not only in 1940-45) while the Earth was cooling ? Please, get your facts straight before spreading your speculations.

    I didn’t deny that at all. Try to respond to what I said, rather than to what you think I said.

  72. #72 ian aitken hilliar
    May 9, 2008

    the invective on this site is amazing,you guys are getting a bit aggro.Stop for a few seconds and have a cup of tea.then look at the vostock ice core.We have a 420,000year record of temperatures and co2 going back thru 4x 100,000yr ice ages interrupted by very short 20,000yr rapid warmings.LOOK at where we are now..forget about the computer models of projected future climate[which are just about as accurate as the animal entrails that climate prophets used in the past!].Its also interesting to speculate on what caused the previous,recurrant 20,000yr warming periods.Please note Al Gore used this graph to great effect in his movie but of course we all now know he got it backwards-co2 follows temp by approx 800years.Wonder why Al has never admitted he was wrong on that one point?..

  73. #73 Chris O'Neill
    May 9, 2008

    the invective on this site is amazing,you guys are getting a bit aggro.Stop for a few seconds and have a cup of tea.

    Ever checked the invective on climateaudit.org?