Plimer and Arctic warming

On page 287 of his error-filled book Ian Plimer claims:

The Arctic was warmer than now between 1920 and 1940. This is
reflected in the sea ice and the local climate.[1473]“

[1473] Benestad, R.E. (2002) I. Hanssen-Bauer, T.E. Skaugen and E.J. FÃ¸rland:
Associations between the sea-ice and the local climate on Svalbard,
met.no, Klima, 07/02.

I emailed R.E. Benestad to see if he felt that Plimer had accurately described his work. He replied:

The analysis we did was for the Svalbard islands, and for these, it is not true. Year 2006 was a record warm one by a significant margin. My report also did not address those issues.

And you can look at the graph of sea ice from the paper and judge for yourself whether it is correct to describe this as showing that the Arctic was warmer than now between 1920 and 1940.

Benestad sent me a more recent paper with a graph of temperatures at Svalbard. You can again judge for yourself the accuracy of Plimer’s claim about the Arctic being warmer from 1920 to 1940.

i-5084d1411590d681ddf0a5ad12bc0858-Isaksen_etal-GRL2007fig1b.png

And this is typical of Plimer — the papers he cites do not say what he says they do.

Update: Wikipedia has an up to date temperature graph for Svalbard.

Comments

#1 bi -- IJI
May 21, 2009

Well, you see, even if Plimer’s wrong, he’s still right, which means you’re engaging in an ad hominem attack against Plimer, and even if Plimer’s wrong and still wrong, it’s probably his editor’s fault, and he really intended to cite a different unnamed paper (probably written in Tibetan and published in an obscurely prestigious Basque journal) which will actually prove his point, and besides even if it’s not his editor’s fault, we know that Clinton DId It Too!, and even if that’s not true, we know that all data in support of the global warming ‘theory’ are obviously faked, fudged, manipulated, manufactured, by greedy scientists, and in any case we know that climate has always changed and climate change mitigation will cause a lot of money which can be more usefully employed into buying lots of DDT and nuclear power plants which can help bring the poor out of poverty, and besides I don’t really dispute global warming, I only dispute man-made global warming, and also the globe is cooling, and we’re not going to do anything about climate change anyway, so we should do nothing about climate change.
#2 Brian Schmidt
May 21, 2009

#1: ditto.

Also, if you carefully compare on the warmest year from 1920-1940 with only the coldest of the years after 2000, then the earlier year was warmer, and if you also assume this comparison for one small region then applies to the entire Arctic, then Plimer’s cite supports his claim.

In Plimer’s defense, the editors of the Washington Post consider this entirely defensible. It’s just a matter of interpretation.
#3 dibbly
May 21, 2009

The Svalbard islands is a pretty small proportion of the arctic. To extrapolate (as Pilmer does) is disingeneous, how many casual readers will have bother to check the reference or realise the context of the study.

So no, even if you cherry pick your data, Pilmer’s claim is not substantiated.
#4 Majorajam
May 21, 2009

Wow. Denialists, I have seen your petard, and its name is Pilmer.
#5 Gregg
May 21, 2009

Whatever quibbles youh ave over Plimers graph, his conclusion is still valid. It does demonstrate the variability of climate. Clearly the temps in the 20-40′s were slightly warmer.
#6 TrueSceptic
May 21, 2009

Is “Gregg” actually “Greig”?

I know there’s only a few words to go on but the MO is strikingly similar already.
#7 David Irving (no relation)
May 21, 2009

That sentence is pretty impressive, bi: just reading it made me feel quite breathless.
#8 Paul Norton
May 21, 2009

“and even if Plimer’s wrong and still wrong, it’s probably his editor’s fault”

Andrew Bolt (http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25444732-25717,00.html) might suggest that it’s the fault of reputable publishers such as Random House and Allen & Unwin which have been so thoroughly captured by TEH GREEN LEFT that they wouldn’t publish Plimer, forcing him to resort to Connor Court Comics to get published.

http://connorcourt.com/catalog1/
#9 Jimmy Nightingale
May 21, 2009

In fairness, the Connor Court site does say that it is a publisher “dedicated to culture, justice and religion”. Not science.
#10 Dr Harry Borhlsachs
May 21, 2009

Hey Gregg you sound like the Black Knight.
Gregg – “’tis but a scratch”
King Arthur – “but yr arms off!”
Gregg – “a mere flesh wound”
#11 davidp
May 21, 2009

Obviously the two latest data points (‘now’) are higher than any point in 1920-1940, so “warmer than now between 1920 and 1940″ is false.

I’m not as good at estimating long term averages from noisy graphs as Gregg and Tim. Tim, do you have access to the data to calculate some relevant long term averages ?
e.g. 1920-40, 1940-60, 1960-80, 1980-2000, 2000-present, and 1980-present for a nearly 30 year average
Alternatively some of the readers seem to be able to do this from graphs.
#12 Tim Lambert
May 21, 2009

I’m curious, Gregg. Did you look at the graph of sea ice from the paper Plimer cited? Do you think it shows that there was more sea ice 1920-1940?
#13 Greggg
May 21, 2009

All data points are equally valid, and all need to be ocnsidered to get a true picture of what is going on. The relevence of sea ice at the time is that it shows the natural variability and doesn’t make the mistake of just cherry picking certain low points.

You all need to ask yourselves this – why do you pick on Plimer’s minor mistakes of attribution, yet ignore the criminal fraud of Al Gore?
#14 Steve Chamberlain
May 21, 2009

TrueSceptic (#6):
“Is “Gregg” actually “Greig”?”

Well it’s hard to draw a reasonably robust conclusion on just that. However, an LSR line between that datapoint and Greggg @#13 defending Plimer seems to show a reasonably good fit
#15 janet Akerman
May 21, 2009

I’m leaning towards Steve’s analysis (#14), but have not yet discouted the possibility that Gregg may be trying to steal my Shtick.
#16 Greegg
May 21, 2009

All Shticks are equally valid. This is great natural variability in Shtick and so assuming that mine is an attmept to steal yours is just another example of the cherry picking of data that is going on in an attmept to attack and discredit, not just Plimer, but myself as well.
#17 naught101
May 21, 2009

Wow. Greig didn’t misspell his name in the other thread once. You all should be embarrassed for not recognising the parody immediately, let alone after the second, even more obvious poe.
#18 Michael
May 21, 2009

Well naughty, that’s the whole Poe thing – it should be obvious, but it isn’t.
#19 Janet Akerman
May 21, 2009

Nice Poe bro,

Is there another Divinci code hiden in the increasing length of Greegggs name?
#20 Jimmy Nightingale
May 21, 2009

I don’t know if anyone has mentioned this (and apologies if this has already been linked), but there is an excellent demolition of his book on the Australian Science Media site here:

http://www.aussmc.org/IanPlimerclimatebook.php
#21 Greeggg
May 21, 2009

Greiigs speeling ability is testmant to the robustnes of his arguments.
#22 Brian D
May 21, 2009

I propose that “Greeggg” actually has an infinite number of Gs, but is truncated due to the blog software.

Go ahead. Prove me wrong.
#23 Janet Akerman
May 22, 2009

Jimmy Nightingale, you may see this as “an excellent demolition”, with your bias. I see it as a stunning endorsement:

Professor Colin Woodroffe is a coastal geomorphologist at the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong, and a lead author on the IPCC AR4 chapter on coastal systems.

“This is an interesting book… a major undertaking putting together 500 pages of solid and articulate text”
Professor Plimer has distinguished himself … he takes the greatest pride with this latest volume. Plimer has set his sights on the practice of science…which he correctly regards as the indispensable methodology of scientific advancement … the debate has been hijacked by ‘unquestioning mantra’, ‘political dogma’, ‘religious zeal’ from extreme environmentalists and climate scientists, with the ‘demonising of dissent’.

This book is preceded by its reputation. It will be remembered… Plimer must have put an enormous amount of effort into writing it. It is an impressive treatise; it meets the first criterion of good scholarship in that it is based on a very broad and up-to-date range of scientific papers, referring to almost a couple of thousand references in the extensive footnotes. Whereas assertions in the text are supported by references…”

Plimer himself, … omniscient a polymath he is.
“…the warmest year over the past few decades was 1998…it has cooled since then. We are informed that having several decades of data is an insufficient base on which to build models”

“Scepticism and scientific debate are essential elements of science and the scientific process. In that context, I would regard it as completely appropriate if Plimer’s arguments sparked a major scientific reconsideration of one or more issues in climate science…”

Professor Matthew England is an ARC Federation Fellow, and Joint Director of the University of New South Wales Climate Change Research Centre.

“…Earth experienced much higher air temperatures and much higher CO2 than we have today. Yes, this did occur at various times, for example 40 million years ago during the Eocene…”

Ian Plimer’s affectionate recollections of past warm and fertile times …”

Dr Graeme Pearman is Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Monash University in Melbourne and Director of Graeme Pearman Consulting Pty Ltd.

“… Ian Plimer has presented a comprehensive coverage of his understanding of how the Earth’s climate has varied through time, geological and historical. … it may have contributed to the already existing literature on this field of study.

“… mainstream climate scientists are unaware of the fact that the Earth’s climate has always been changing and will continue to do so into the future…they are simply wrong.

“… Ian is the only scientist, or geology the only field of science that understands the scientific method, is rigorous in the use of observations, and the setting and testing of hypotheses. … the discipline of geology is the framework in which to analyse the climate-change issue,”

“This publication clearly represents an extraordinary personal effort on the part of Ian Plimer, and undoubtedly he has much to offer the climate-science community, as other geologists have done.

Professor Barry Brook holds the Foundation Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change and is Director of the Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability at the University of Adelaide.

“ He quotes a couple of thousand peer-reviewed scientific papers when mounting specific arguments… Some researchers have shown that the Earth has been hotter before, and that more CO2 has been present in the atmosphere in past ages. “
Ian Lowe is Emeritus professor of science, technology and society at Griffith University,Qld and President of the Australian Conservation Foundation.
“ His position is… of sound geological knowledge. “
“His book will be applauded”
#24 Janet Akerman
May 22, 2009

Jimmy Nightingale, you may see this as “an excellent demolition”, with your bias. I see it as a stunning endorsement:

Professor Colin Woodroffe is a coastal geomorphologist at the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong, and a lead author on the IPCC AR4 chapter on coastal systems.

“This is an interesting book… a major undertaking putting together 500 pages of solid and articulate text”

Professor Plimer has distinguished himself … he takes the greatest pride with this latest volume. Plimer has set his sights on the practice of science…which he correctly regards as the indispensable methodology of scientific advancement … the debate has been hijacked by ‘unquestioning mantra’, ‘political dogma’, ‘religious zeal’ from extreme environmentalists and climate scientists, with the ‘demonising of dissent’.

This book is preceded by its reputation. It will be remembered… Plimer must have put an enormous amount of effort into writing it. It is an impressive treatise; it meets the first criterion of good scholarship in that it is based on a very broad and up-to-date range of scientific papers, referring to almost a couple of thousand references in the extensive footnotes. Whereas assertions in the text are supported by references…”

Plimer himself, … omniscient a polymath he is.

“…the warmest year over the past few decades was 1998…it has cooled since then. We are informed that having several decades of data is an insufficient base on which to build models”

“Scepticism and scientific debate are essential elements of science and the scientific process. In that context, I would regard it as completely appropriate if Plimer’s arguments sparked a major scientific reconsideration of one or more issues in climate science…”

Professor Matthew England is an ARC Federation Fellow, and Joint Director of the University of New South Wales Climate Change Research Centre.

“…Earth experienced much higher air temperatures and much higher CO2 than we have today. Yes, this did occur at various times, for example 40 million years ago during the Eocene…”

Ian Plimer’s affectionate recollections of past warm and fertile times …”

Dr Graeme Pearman is Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Monash University in Melbourne and Director of Graeme Pearman Consulting Pty Ltd.

“… Ian Plimer has presented a comprehensive coverage of his understanding of how the Earth’s climate has varied through time, geological and historical. … it may have contributed to the already existing literature on this field of study.

“… mainstream climate scientists are unaware of the fact that the Earth’s climate has always been changing and will continue to do so into the future…they are simply wrong.

“… Ian is the only scientist, or geology the only field of science that understands the scientific method, is rigorous in the use of observations, and the setting and testing of hypotheses. … the discipline of geology is the framework in which to analyse the climate-change issue,”

“This publication clearly represents an extraordinary personal effort on the part of Ian Plimer, and undoubtedly he has much to offer the climate-science community, as other geologists have done.

Professor Barry Brook holds the Foundation Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change and is Director of the Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability at the University of Adelaide.

He quotes a couple of thousand peer-reviewed scientific papers when mounting specific arguments… Some researchers have shown that the Earth has been hotter before, and that more CO2 has been present in the atmosphere in past ages. “

Ian Lowe is Emeritus professor of science, technology and society at Griffith University,Qld and President of the Australian Conservation Foundation.

“ His position is… of sound geological knowledge. “

“His book will be applauded”
#25 Paul Norton
May 22, 2009

Where is the wisdom Ian Plimer has lost in the knowledge?
Where is the knowledge he has lost in the information?
#26 Steve Chamberlain
May 22, 2009

naught101 #17:
You all should be embarrassed for not recognising the parody immediately, let alone after the second, even more obvious poe

Dang it, hoist by me own petard

Note that based on available data, the International Poe Change Commission forecasts that Greeggg’s 97th post will consist entirely of his signature. Some, however, claim this is a result of “natural cycles” while yet others state there is no evidence of rising g-levels, citing previous events such as the Monckton Wibbly Phase where lots of people could have been called Ggggggregggggg…ggg
#27 dopey
May 22, 2009

I too think that Janet’s fair and balanced precis of the views of some of Plimer’s harshest scientist critics deserves to be posted and, naturally, read at least twice. If these are the opinions of the man’s harshest critics, yet clearly from Janet’s work they are extremely laudatory even fawning over the greatness of this work of science, then sez I the temerity of anonymous blogsters and blog critics in not genuflecting to this giant amongst men, this intellectual’s intellectual, Professor Viscount Sir Pip Pip Pliimerr is indubitably to be deplored in the most hapless way.
#28 Jimmy Nightingale
May 22, 2009

Re the double post in #23 and #24.

Well done Janet…lol. I’m sure that is the way that Plimer would read that as well, not to mention all the luminaries/loonies over on Mahorasy’s blog.

From now on, I’m going to denote such cherry picking as “doing a Plimer”.
#29 bluegrue
May 22, 2009

We need to be careful with the wikipedia plot. The description is pretty open about the plot including a station move by 50 km with no overlap in the records. The two series were pushed up and down.
> To produce an indicative combined anomaly plot, the difference is here crudely adjusted by moving Isfjord down by 1°C and Luft up by 2°C, so that the trend lines meet at the station change. The resulting zero crossing is near 1975, so the plotted anomalies relate approximately to the commonly adopted 1960-90 interval.

One needs to keep in mind that this procedure is rather crude, I can eyeball a 1-2°C upward jump in the record comparing the periods 1970 to 1977 and 1979 to 1983. Looking over the record, such a jump would not be unheard of but it still asks for a bit of caution. However I think, that even a further shift of that magnitude would leave todays temperatures higher than in any previous period of the record.
#30 Gavin's Pussycat
May 22, 2009

\#4 Marjoramja (or whatever your name was)

> and its name is Pilmer.

No, it’s Plimar. Repeat after me, Plimar. So there.
#31 Paul
May 22, 2009

>You all need to ask yourselves this – why do you pick on Plimer’s minor mistakes of attribution, yet ignore the criminal fraud of Al Gore?

Erm, because Plimer is a practicing scientist (i believe so, being British i can only assume that is true) and Gore is a campaigner.
#32 cohenite
May 22, 2009

Poor old Plimer; I guess he’ll have to find solace in his 30,000 book sales; and growing; and that’s before the international market kicks in; then there is the movie; and Gore is a “campaigner”; oh yeah, then he would be a General; spoils of war and all that. Is that the problem; he’s going to end up as rich as Gore?

Back on ‘topic’; the Arctic;

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2004/12/10/open-letter-to-senator-mccain/
#33 Chris O'Neill
May 22, 2009

Poor old Plimer; I guess he’ll have to find solace in his 30,000 book sales

It’s great that Plimer might makes lots of money from this. Money is the most important thing.
#34 bi -- IJI
May 22, 2009

Shorter cohenite:

Plimer’s book has errors? You’re just jealous that he’s going to be as rich as Gore! (After all, Clinton Did It Too, but don’t tell anyone that.) This is not an ad hominem attack.
#35 Bernard J.
May 22, 2009

So, cohenite, what is your assessment of the errors in Plimer’s book?

Close your eyes, imagine that Gore had written H&E, and that you had him in the dock defending your prosecution.

What exactly would you say?
#36 cohenite
May 22, 2009

“What exactly would you say?”

Well Mr Gore, did you prefer your depiction in the episode of The Simpsons or South Park?
#37 Markhc
May 22, 2009

Oh Bernard!

Don’t feed it. It thrives on it precious chances to smear and slime.
#38 Bernard J.
May 22, 2009

You’re absolutely correct Markhc – what was I thinking?!

It’s telling though that he didn’t address anything of substance. I doubt that I could have parodied his lack of reasoned response any better if I had tried myself.

I’d say it’s case dismissed.
#39 bi -- IJI
May 22, 2009

Shorter cohenite:

Al Gore is fat, so Plimer’s lies aren’t lies.
#40 Majorajam
May 22, 2009

30, Gavin’s Paperweight or whatever, thanks for catching the typo, or taking the opportunity to rejoin inside joke, or whatever that was. To the extent intelligible I’m sure it was very clever.
#41 cohenite
May 22, 2009

“It thrives on it precious chances to smear and slime”

People often project onto others their own characteristics; this psychological paradigm is a great boon to successful legal practice where defects in a witness’s evidence can be manifest by astute questioning about that witness’s views on someone else. All evidence has some probative value even the hearsay of our host about Dr Benestad’s views on Professor Plimer’s use of Dr Benestad’s paper. In that respect I have linked above to information about the Arctic in the 30′s. This 1930 compared to today issue was the main thrust of Tony Jones’ cross of Professor Plimer on Lateline. It’s an interesting question and Plimer didn’t handle it well. Plimer should have taken this approach;

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2711

And noted this;

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/02/a_tale_of_two_thermometers/
#42 cohenite
May 22, 2009

That 2nd link is here;

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/02/a_tale_of_two_thermometers/print.html
#43 Dan L.
May 22, 2009

> cohenite: Poor old Plimer; I guess he’ll have to find solace in his 30,000 book sales.

“Nobody ever went broke underestimating the [intelligence] of the [Australian] public.”
#44 Nathan
May 22, 2009

Cohenite thinks because he’s a lawyer everyone else is wrong… Coher’s you’re dumber than a box of hammers remember? You’re projecting that onto others. Don’t worry, we understand it’s hard for you to think things through and come to conclusions.

BTW why do you think a link to some online opinion website trumps a Journal? Stupid!

And this:
“Satellite temperature data (UAH and RSS) is more reliable because it covers the entire earth – with the exception of small regions near the north and south poles. They use the same methodology from year to year, and the two sources tend to agree fairly closely. The downside of satellite data is that it only goes back to 1978.”
HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAA
Awesomely stupid.
#45 Ken
May 22, 2009

Well done Janet, you have managed to find selective quotes that, in the absence of context, appear to be endorsements of Plimer from his critics. Is it lying when you quote something and leave out the “however” and “on the other hand” parts? Is this an example of “good scholarship”? On a par with Plimer’s certainly and that is not an endorsement!

I know that Barry Brooks emphatically does not endorse Plimer and there are people here who have read what he has to say about his book. Pearman doesn’t either. How many actually do?

I think this says a lot about how climate denialism works and given the misleading quote mining is so blatant I have to wonder if you aren’t engaged in satire.
#46 Tim Lambert
May 22, 2009

Ken, Janet is indeed a parody. And, remarkably, cohenite isn’t — he’s secretary of the Climate Sceptics Party or something.
#47 bluegrue
May 22, 2009

Ken,
“Janet” simply forgot to include the satire tags. [1](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/05/ian_plimer_lies_about_source_o.php#comment-1647170), [2](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/05/ian_plimer_lies_about_source_o.php#comment-1647366), [3](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/05/ian_plimer_lies_about_source_o.php#comment-1649997).
#48 Boris
May 22, 2009

You can’t parody the already absurd.
#49 bi -- IJI
May 22, 2009

Shorter cohenite:

Yeah, Plimer did indeed misrepresent Benestad et al.’s paper, but I’m a lawyer, so I’m going to throw out some additional garbage to obscure this point! Also, Clinton Did It Too.
#50 Steve Chamberlain
May 23, 2009

bluegrue #29:
We need to be careful with the wikipedia plot. The description is pretty open about the plot including a station move by 50 km with no overlap in the records. The two series were pushed up and down.

I’m a long way from being even distantly related to anyone connected to climate science, but I did look at the jump in the graph and think “Ooo, hmmm.” Rather than try to twiddle with the knobs and dials to make the gap between two ends (in 1976) sort of talk to each other, would it not be more bettererer to treat them as two separate series? Secondly, are there any stations at a similar latitude which have uninterrupted records throughout the Svalbard transition period that might be useful as a baseline for comparison?
#51 janama
May 23, 2009

oh bless you all – still arguing this stupid point.
fortunately people who lived in the 40s documented their experiences.

check Polar Temperatures here: http://www.climate4you.com/

Professor Ole Humlum’s work once again.
#52 Steve Chamberlain
May 23, 2009

Boris #48:
You can’t parody the already absurd.

No, but you can have a lot of fun trying, just ask “Janet”

cohenite #32:
Poor old Plimer; I guess he’ll have to find solace in his 30,000 book sales; and growing

30,000? Really? Gosh this thing gets printed fast, dunnit. Shame about 16,000 of the first 20,000 are collecting dust on warehouse shelves somewhere:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/05/sales_of_heaven_and_earth.php

Oh the waste.
#53 sod
May 23, 2009

check Polar Temperatures here: http://www.climate4you.com/

a, compared to 1998 to 2008.

will you denialists ever present some real data?
#54 bi -- IJI
May 23, 2009

Shorter janama:

When Plimer cited Benestad et al., he really meant to cite climate4you.com. Perfectly honest!
#55 janama
May 23, 2009

but!…. about as warm as….

http://users.tpg.com.au/johnsay1/Stuff/Arctic_1.jpg
#56 bi -- IJI
May 23, 2009

Shorter janama:

Plimer’s perfectly honest — look, here’s another random graph!
#57 sod
May 23, 2009

but!…. about as warm as…. http://users.tpg.com.au/johnsay1/Stuff/Arctic_1.jpg

that graph makes great use of the fact, that you can t really tell anything at that scale (“about as..”)

a closer look will immediately show the truth:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/time_series.html
#58 Nathan
May 23, 2009

Janama
You are a parody of blogging. We can quite safely ignore anything you say. It’s always irreleant garbage.
#59 Sam-Hec
May 23, 2009

There is a similar argument to Plimer’s at Wattsupwiththat:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/13/arctic-non-warming-since-1958/

Not sure jsut yet what’s going on with this argmument. Time for bekfast!
#60 Hank Roberts
May 23, 2009

Wow, did you check the publisher’s other authors? Hayek, Schlafly …. ?

Don’t miss their other physics book”The Weight of a Mass.”

And applause to Janet Akerman for the hilarious example of how to quote bits out of context to turn criticism into blurbs.
#61 Hank Roberts
May 23, 2009

And just to emphasize Jimmy’s pointer above to the source of the “blurb” excerpts:

http://www.aussmc.org/IanPlimerclimatebook.php

(Is there a word in publishing that describes taking a few words out of context to make a blurb? Something defined as blurb-by-egregious-excerpt” or similar? Seems there ought to be a word for it.)
#62 Marion Delgado
May 23, 2009

Randy Milholland – who does the Something Positive web comic – did a whole week of Poe comics (he was part of an E.A. Poe festival). I sent him a message telling him i couldn’t tell them from the web comics of genuine ranting fundamentalists. He had no idea what I was talking about, whereas the xkcd guy would have, immediately.

QED pace C.P. Snow the “two cultures” are still very much with us.
#63 Marion Delgado
May 23, 2009

BTW the eds at Euskal Klimazientzia emailed me in response to an inquiry that they learned from their researcher, Him. Goji, that climate skepticism is, in their words, right now less of a zienzia zehatzak and more of a zientzia ezkutuko – they mean almost the same thing but the subtle difference sometimes means the meaning of a graph or chart is lost in translation, or in some cases, lost to canine predation of assigned reports while in transit.
#64 Marion Delgado
May 24, 2009

Tim:

OT thanks for checking this.
#65 Hank Roberts
May 24, 2009

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL037525.shtml

“… Measurements in the Canada and Makarov Basins suggest that total FWC [fresh water content] there has increased by as much as 8,500 cubic kilometers in the area surveyed, effecting significant changes in the sea-surface dynamic topography, with an increase of about 75% in steric level difference from the Canada to Eurasian Basins, and a major shift in both surface geostrophic currents and freshwater transport in the Beaufort Gyre.
#66 janama
May 24, 2009

Nathan – you are the scum of this blog – the fractured little cheer leader that attacks anyone that might disagree with your supreme leader Tim.

I have absolutely no concern for your pathetic little outburst.

I post a complete page, documenting the history of Arctic temps from all the nationalities perspective and your reply is pathetic abuse.

Why don’t you grow up?
#67 bi -- IJI
May 24, 2009

Shorter janama:

I’m making a personal attack, which is OK because Clinton Did It Too, and besides I plonked lots of URLs and called that a ‘line of argument’. Therefore, Plimer was perfectly honest.
#68 bi -- IJI
May 24, 2009

Marion Delgado:

> climate skepticism is, in their words, right now less of a zienzia zehatzak and more of a zientzia ezkutuko – they mean almost the same thing

Um… OK. I don’t understand it, so I’m convinced that there’s a point there. Is there a way to explain the difference in terms of grand-sounding Latin phrases?
#69 Bernard J.
May 24, 2009

Janama.

Is it true that you are Ssecretary of the Climate Sceptics Party?
#70 Nathan
May 24, 2009

Janama,
If you didn’t care, why did you address me?
The problem is you never provide any substance for your arguments, and typically their is no need to refute them. You have shown no ability to learn. You’re a dumbass like Cohenite. If you actually spent a little time reading actual science rather than lurking around inaction blogs like Marohasey you might actually understand how poor you understanding is.

Did you even take your data and calculate if it shows the average temp between 1920 and 1940 is warmer than the last 20 years?? No…
And it’s always great to use CRUT data for the Arctic when they themselves exclude it from their global analysis. Why don’t you think?

I cannot understand how you can be defending Plimer when it’s pretty obvious his book is a load of garbage.
#71 cohenite
May 24, 2009

Nat, old buddy, would you insult me directly rather than vicariously through spurious insults directed at others. Now, on the topic of the Arctic; is it true you and BJ were on the Caitlan expedition?
#72 Bernard J.
May 24, 2009

Cohenite has just jogged me to realise that I directed my last question to the wrong obfuscator.

So, cohenite…

Is it true that you are Secretary of the Climate Sceptics Party?
#73 Marion Delgado
May 24, 2009

Frank-bi:

“less of an exact science at this point, and more [like] occultism”

I note with alarm that every reviewer on the page Tim Lambert cited mentioned the ill-sourced or no-sourced charts and graphs.
#74 Marion Delgado
May 24, 2009

Tim:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/science/earth/18juneau.html

Maybe that’s where Plimer gets his Arctic ideas? I used to live there, and work very near to the Mendenhall glacier.
#75 Nathan
May 24, 2009

Cohenite

I have been lovely and warm in Perth. Except the last four days, they’ve been cold.

I did insult you earlier in the blog, so you did get your wish.

How’s the Law firm going?
#76 Nexus 6
May 24, 2009

God’s on Plimer’s side. All ye evidence-based rationalists repent.

http://www.sydney.catholic.org.au/people/archbishop/stc/2009/2009524_1018.shtml
#77 anthony
May 25, 2009

Good grief, Nexus 6. How many errors can dance on the head of a pin?
#78 frankis
May 25, 2009

Plimer’s wrapped (rapt) up the Creationist vote then, he’ll be happy.
#79 Chris O'Neill
May 25, 2009

God’s on Plimer’s side. All ye evidence-based rationalists repent.

From Pell:

In Roman times and in the Medieval Warming (900 – 1300 A.D.) temperatures were higher than today by five and six degrees Celsius.

Looks like Pell is in the lie propagation business.
#80 cohenite
May 25, 2009

Do you want to join BJ? I can guarantee complete witness protection facilities for anyone from Deltoid who joins; I can appreciate what it is like to cross the mob.
#81 Jimmy Nightingale
May 25, 2009

Re #76.

As a Catholic, albeit not a very frequent Church attending one, I’m disgusted that Pell is that ignorant on such an important topic and one which has such profound consequences for humanity. I would also suggest that he wasn’t listening very closely to the Pope’s Easter message:

http://catholicclimatecovenant.org/catholic-teachings/vatican-messages/
#82 Gaz
May 25, 2009

Nexzus 6: “God’s on Plimer’s side.”

Actually, God seems to be hedging its bets:

http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/04/20/vatican-to-build-europes-largest-solar-power-plant/
#83 Barton Paul Levenson
May 25, 2009

I’m amazed that the Archbishop got so many facts wrong in such a short piece. We don’t know why ice ages come and go? That would be news to Milutin Milankovic, not to mention astronomers and climatologists the world around. The Medieval Warm Period was 5-6 K warmer than today? Funny the entire ecosystem didn’t collapse. Where do they get this garbage?
#84 bi -- IJI
May 25, 2009

Marion Delgado:

Oh dang. I thought the difference was something along the lines of scientia ignota versus scientia ignorantiæ, if you get my drift.
#85 bi -- IJI
May 31, 2009

Wait… have the inactivists used up all their excuses for defending Plimer’s bogus citation?
#86 Hugh
September 4, 2009

Hockey anyone?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8236797.stm