Deltoid

Here is an interesting article by Byran Appleyard describing how he once scoffed at AGW, but has been convinced.

Posted by: Dirk Hartog | December 16, 2009 6:11 PM

On Monday the Bright Green Blog at The Christian Science Monitor had a very clear description of what the Climategate "trick" tree ring issue is, and its significance: namely that the conclusion from it "is precisely the opposite of that reached by authors of many climate-skeptic opinion pieces and blogs..."

Posted by: MikeM | December 16, 2009 8:01 PM

I wonder if anybody has ever plotted the number of acres in England under grape cultivation against temperature to see if that acreage would be a good proxy for temperature?

Surely Plimer must have this information, as he makes claims that seem to assume he has this data?

Posted by: Vince Whirlwind | December 16, 2009 8:20 PM

Vince, that assumes he (or any of the think-tanks and echo chambers) are interested in doing real research. With all that money available from industry you'd think someone would have used, bought, and borrowed the raw temp data to reanalyze it to see if CRU, GISS and NOAA got it right. And then trumpeted the results all over the place if they came up with a radically different answer.

As we know, research isn't high on their list of priorities, and they'd prefer to just make things up (like underwater volcanoes that we can't see, measure or detect are responsible for putting into the air more fossil-fuel signature CO2 than humans). ;-)

Oh, another example...they'd prefer to start tv stations to broadcast lies and slander rather than do the hard work required to understand the science. I won't link to the tv station, but you can find info on the Desmogblog.

Posted by: Daniel J. Andrews | December 16, 2009 8:54 PM

Hi, I'm currently debating a denialist here:

http://gazetteonline.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/2009/12/16/al-gore-is-preaching-lies-with-climate-talks#comments

and he has referred to a Monckton paper here:

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/monckton/whatgreenhouse/moncktongreenhousewarming.pdf

where Monckton claims that the IR signature for enhanced greenhouse warming is missing. I recall reading a pretty thorough debunking of his Fraudulence's claims, on Deltoid I thought, but am unable to relocate it. Can anyone help me please? I'd rather not read Monckton, my mental health is suffering badly enough with this denialist I'm already debating. I'm starting to hope for the worst-case scenario to come true just so I can say, "I told you so."

Posted by: Proper Gander | December 16, 2009 9:22 PM

Proper #8:

You are likely to find all you need at John Cook's Skeptical Science website.

Posted by: Craig Allen | December 16, 2009 9:31 PM

BTW I could not recommend more highly the lectures of David Archer for people such as myself who are not climate scientists or indeed scientists at all.

He really has a gift for teaching the subject. I thought I knew a bit about AGW before I started - boy was I wrong. At least if you do watch the lectures you will get a far stronger understanding of the nuts and bolts behind AGW theory.

David posted these on Real Climate. http://geoflop.uchicago.edu/forecast/docs/lectures.html

Posted by: Stephen Gloor (Ender) | December 16, 2009 10:12 PM

Just popped in to see if there was any reaction to Randi's post at the JREF http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/805-agw-revisited.html regarding his position on AGW. The Skeptical (real ones, not deniers) blogs are going nuts.

Disappointing. I think James Randi is simply not familiar with the bulk of the data.

Posted by: Joseph | December 16, 2009 11:26 PM

I think Randi's posting a follow up later. Meanwhile it's generating lots of comment at Pharyngula and Bad Astronomy http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/12/sayitaintsorandi.php and http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/12/16/the-season-of-reason/

I'm not up with all the data either but it doesn't take much effort to find out the petition is a complete load.

Posted by: ESPness | December 16, 2009 11:37 PM

How is that Copenhagen thing going boys and girls? Not so well I hear.So bad infact that the green meanies are getting violent. Did they really think something was going to happen? If they don't get something, which I doubt,they will get even more unruly. Someone is going to get really hurt. With climate gate exploding all over the place,(remember you saying it was much to do about nothing) people are realizing that nothing CRU, NASA, IPCC, and others have said can be trusted. CRU is being investigated NASA is being sued, Pen state is being looked at and it's funding threatened, Australia data has been proven,"adjusted" the same with NZ and now Russia. No matter where you look the raw data is not the same as what the warmest's have been using. It is not looking good, jobs are on the line and billions of funding is going to be reviewed. The lawyers are chomping at the bit. They smell blood and money.

Posted by: Kent | December 17, 2009 1:01 AM

C says "denier idiocy" and then, as if by magic, along comes Kent.

Hey Kent, how come if climate change science is a hoax promoted by green lefties they're outside in the rain in Copenhagen getting pepper-sprayed and whacked with batons?

Oh, and Kent, given that NASA's raw data is all available, how about doing your own analysis and showing everyone what's really happening, or are you content to stay on the sidelines and talk crap?

Posted by: Gaz | December 17, 2009 1:42 AM

you really need to keep comment moderation on your blasphemy...

http://atheiskeptihumanist.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=90

GOATS ON FIRE!

Posted by: pzdumbo@gmail.com | December 17, 2009 2:28 AM

Looks like you've just been goated by Dennis Markuze. details: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/12/goatsonfire.php

Posted by: ESPness | December 17, 2009 3:10 AM

Proper Gander:

One (of many) thing wrong: http://rabett.blogspot.com/2006/12/shine-on-shine-on-moncktons-moon.html

Why defenses against that are wrong: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/cuckoo-science/

Some of the Monckton paper and publishing history: http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/08/moncktonandthe_aps.php

Posted by: Marion Delgado | December 17, 2009 3:35 AM

Hey ESPness, if you want to put a link in your post, put the word you want highlighted in square brackets, immediately followed in normal parentheses by the URL.

eg here is the Randi link.

Posted by: Gaz | December 17, 2009 4:47 AM

Vineyards are, in my opinion, a very questionable proxy for temperature. How many grapes get grown in the UK is a function of the state of the international wine market just as much as temperature. Sure, grapes may have been grown once upon a time but who's to say how good the wine was? More to the point, would it be viable in the modern marketplace? What could have been an acceptable crop once upon a time might not even be worth considering nowadays.

Posted by: JamesA | December 17, 2009 5:10 AM

This sounds very similar to the denialist guff on New Zealand temperatures and on the Darwin adjustments:

http://rt.com/Top_News/2009-12-17/data-cherry-picked-climatologists.html?fullstory

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100020126/climategate-goes-serial-now-the-russians-confirm-that-uk-climate-scientists-manipulated-data-to-exaggerate-global-warming/

Anyone familiar with this one?

Posted by: lord_sidcup | December 17, 2009 6:04 AM

I saw a British documentary some years ago that led me to conclude that the Romans had been growing coconuts in Londinium in sufficient quantity that when the Normans invaded they were more commonly available to the king's squires than equine. This information was certainly more convincing of there having been substantial warming in history, than some paltry statistical evidence of rising temperatures today. Warmer than any time in recorded history? Pshaw. Did it ever occur to you warmers that it was so warm that they didn't even think to record the temperatures, because they were too preoccupied with beach parties and perilous infestations of carnivorous lagomorphs?

It's time you watermelons start to appreciate the free market, and this should begin by an understanding that property rights are a monotonically decreasing function of the distance on a Riemannian circle. For those of you that don't recall your primary school geometry that means that if I build a machine that teleports things from Bangladesh, then it's capitalism, because they are too far away to exercise tyranny over me. You should read your Adam Smith sometime, warmers! Instead of supporting trial lawyers that vote for Hugo Chavez, why don't you try getting real jobs selling valuable things like weight loss pills?

Posted by: mb | December 17, 2009 6:29 AM

Denialist scientists all agree there's no such thing as consensus in science.

Posted by: Mark Francis | December 17, 2009 8:42 AM

By the way you know who, don't forget to complain about Tim Lambert going all sooky and putting you on moderation.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | December 17, 2009 9:20 AM

Betula:

Did you notice how not one alarmists on this site was phased by your comment?

I noticed your beat-up.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | December 17, 2009 11:45 AM

Betula @42- when the climate refugees show up, I'm sending them to your house with the expanded-range Anopheles mosquitoes.

And in that usage, it's fazed. This isn't Star Trek, no one's getting phasered here.

On the bright side, I had confirmation from the denialist I was debating of what I suspected all along- he thinks a good bout of climate change will be good for "evolution."

Posted by: Proper Gander | December 17, 2009 2:31 PM

mb: I can't tell if you're a skeptic or a denialist. What's your take on the "sparrow" theory of coconut proliferation? First of all, what is the range of a fully laden sparrow holding a coconut?

Posted by: Marion Delgado | December 17, 2009 5:11 PM

Solar Cycle 24 is starting to crank up now.

We had the largest solar flare of Cycle 24 so far on Wednesday (a C 5.3) and the solar flux of 87 today is the highest reading since January 2008.

http://www.solarcycle24.com/

Posted by: Jimmy Nightingale | December 17, 2009 5:41 PM

btw thanks for reminder Gaz

Posted by: Marion Delgado | December 17, 2009 8:24 PM

The forecast is for solar activity to remain 'very low to low'.

Posted by: el gordo | December 17, 2009 10:28 PM

Adam Smith is not the security blanket to the modern free market corporatist ideologues that they like to think he is.

neither is mb!

Posted by: jakerman | December 17, 2009 10:42 PM

If the sun doesn't pick up soon, according to those on the denialosphere, it will be curtains for the warmists.

Not that I necessarily support such an outlandish view, after my fruitful discussion with Akerman about volcanoes, but I am prepared to keep an open mind on the subject. Time is on our side.

Posted by: el gordo | December 17, 2009 11:26 PM

Re #53

Adam Smith is not the security blanket to the modern free market corporatist ideologues that they like to think he is.

Having read large slabs of the Wealth of Nations I heartily agree, WotWot.

Smith was certainly an exponent of the creative and productive potential of capitalism, but "libertarians" claiming Smith as one of their own are truly kidding themselves.

Posted by: Gaz | December 18, 2009 1:09 AM

The spoof-counter spoof climate war is underway. Are we prepared for another Drudge attack?

Humor like this will weaken our resolve, comrades.

Posted by: el gordo | December 18, 2009 2:23 AM

el gullibo:

If the sun doesn't pick up soon, according to those on the denialosphere, it will be curtains for the warmists.

They would say that, wouldn't they? In spite of the sun not having yet "picked up", the last 12 months were the same average temperature as 1998. And unless the system has suddenly gone back into a La Niño in December, 2009 will be warmer than 1998. Pretty amazing considering 1998 had a huge El Niño and 2009 started with a La Niña.

Not that I necessarily support such an outlandish view, after my fruitful discussion with Akerman about volcanoes, but I am prepared to keep an open mind on the subject.

So open that your brains fall out.

Time is on our side.

Yes, it's on the side of people who know that as time goes by, the long term warming trend will become larger sooner or later.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | December 18, 2009 10:26 AM

The fifty-year cooling trend will become obvious any day now.

Posted by: mb | December 18, 2009 6:11 PM

Can anyone tell me what statistical "tricks" to "hide" the incline were used by Screaming Viscount Monckton and his Raving Loony Monster Party in the graph?

http://i48.tinypic.com/2ex3kns.jpg

Posted by: Connor | December 18, 2009 8:35 PM

Marion.

Erm, that would be a swallow, not a sparrow.

Everyone knows that sparrows can't carry coconuts.

Posted by: Bernard J. | December 19, 2009 12:30 AM

Can anyone tell me what statistical "tricks" to "hide" the incline were used by Screaming Viscount Monckton and his Raving Loony Monster Party in the graph?

Having studied statistics at postgrad level I can tell you (and forgive the jargon, there's simply no other way to explain it) the technique or "trick" used by Monckton is called "tilting the graph".

Posted by: Gaz | December 19, 2009 2:27 AM

We all agree then, the world's average temperature has not changed this century.

Posted by: el gordo | December 19, 2009 11:13 PM

Gullible as they come:

We all agree then, the world's average temperature has not changed this century.

Bullshit.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | December 20, 2009 5:10 AM

Silkworm...

I thought you would enjoy this video of the Danish police beating the Copenhagen crowd...

And so on and so forth...

http://www.breitbart.tv/did-dutch-police-use-potent-greenhouse-gas-to-disperse-copenhagen-protesters/

Posted by: Betula | December 20, 2009 11:27 AM

From Deep Climate http://www.deepclimate.org

Contrarian scholarship: Revisiting the Wegman report Update, Dec. 19: This post has been substantially revised to remove speculation about Donald Rapp's possible role in the Wegman report. I apologize for any embarrassment caused to Donald Rapp or Edward Wegman by that speculation. The post has also been updated to reflect new information about the provenance of Wegman et al's section on tree ring proxies, as well as more background detail on some of the events leading up to the Wegman report. There are also more details about large swathes of unattributed material found in the Wegman report and in Donald Rapp's book Assessing Climate Change. It is clear that the circumstances and contents of both the Wegman report and Rapp's text book deserve closer scrutiny. Dec. 20: Comments are now open again.

Key paragraph:

Part of the answer lies in the close examination of the Wegman report. Surprsingly, extensive passages from Wegman et al on proxies have turned up in a skeptic text book by contrarian author Donald Rapp. And at least one of these common passages on tree ring proxies closely follows a classic text by noted paleoclimatologist Raymond Bradley, but with a key alteration not found in the original. Moreover, Wegman’s section on social networks appears to contain some unattributed material from Wikipedia and from a classic sociology text.

Posted by: Deep Climate | December 20, 2009 2:26 PM

Has Real Climate been hacked?

I see dhogaza beat me to this - when I try to go to individual threads, it returns a 'not found' error, too.

Posted by: Lee | December 20, 2009 4:21 PM

Thanks, Kristjan.

Posted by: Lee | December 20, 2009 5:09 PM

Fatso.

You think so? Ask Ove Hoegh-Guldberg why this is not actually the case.

Oh, and let us know what he says...

Posted by: Bernard J. | December 20, 2009 11:16 PM

El blimpo's fatuous statement about the health of the Great Barrier Reef was posted a day after I was perusing Ove Hoegh-Guldberg's blog. Although not directly related to the coral bleaching that occurs with raise ocean temperature, there is nevertheless an apposite thread about ocean acidification that was posted last week.

One of the starling things, even after all of the nonsense that I've seen the denialists engage in, is that there are actually folk who still do not accept and/or understand CO₂-induced acidification. I was reminded of a thread at Marohasy's cesspit that contained stunning examples of this, and to save the gentle readers here the necessity of having to shower after wading through the sullage there, I'll repost my responses below...

(Comment from: Bernard J. 30 October 2008 at 1:22 am)

It is apparent that many here have no operational understanding of what acids and bases are. For a start, there are at least four definitions of the term 'acid', and thus they may be categorised as Arrhenius acids, as Lowry-Brønsted acids, as solvent-system acids or as Lewis acids. The first two definitions are most pertinent to the issue of sea-water acidification, because they pertain to the increase in the hydrogen ions that cause ocean acidity.

An Arrhenius acid is a substance that increases the concentration of hydrogen ions (protons: H⁺) in a solution. In water these protons are present as hydronium ions (H₃O⁺). Bases are substances that increase the concentration of hydroxide ions (OH^-).

A Lowry-Brønsted acid is a proton (H⁺) donor and a Lowry-Brønsted base is a proton acceptor.

In these contexts any circumstance that increases the concentration in solution of the definitive cation is acidification. It is as simple as that. The classic "an acid is..." definition is largely an arbitrary one, with a pH chosen to be 'neutral' by reference to pure water, where the number of H⁺ [ions] equals the number of OH^- [ions]. This is merely a reference point, and it has no bearing on the fact that in going from pH 9 to pH 5 the concentration of H⁺ is increasing, and the concentration of OH^- is similarly decreasing. And vice versa for a pH change in the opposite direction. For many chemical and biochemical equilibria neutrality is an irrelevance in a continuum of hydrogen cation concentration.

In these two definitions, an 'acid' per se is a solution that has more hydrogen ions than hydroxl ions, but the term 'acidification' is always considered relative to a starting concentration of hydrogen ions, and not to the 'neutral' point. Using the (il)logic of some on this thread the process of going to pH 5 from pH 6 is 'acidification' but going from pH 9 from pH 8 is not, even though in both cases the concentration of hydrogen ions has increased by one order of magnitude [my latter emphasis].

This might be fodder for late night pub semantics, but it is not science, and the proponents of such a misconceived idea are obviously not acquainted with the definitions and the practise of chemistry.

Moreover, there seems to be a misconception that an increase in acidity (yes, it is an increase in acidity) from pH 8.1 to pH 8.0 requires large concentrations of carbonic acid (and by implication, carbon dioxide)...

For those who are unaware (and it seems to be a few here), the pH scale is the negative base 10 logarithm of the hydrogen ion concentration. At pH 8.1 the concentration of hydrogen cations is about 7.94×10^-9 mol/L: that is, 7.9 billionths of 1mol/L. A pH of 8.0 is 10^-8 mol/L hydrogen ions, or about 25% more than occurs at pH 8.1. This is a difference of 2 billionths of 1 mol/L.

This is not much, is it kiddies?

Except it is, if you are an organism living in an exquisitely pH-sensitive milieu, such as occurs in carbonate cycling or in acid osmosis. I rather suspect that some of the blusterers here have no idea of the biochemistry of energy production and transport through a cell, or they would be rather less cavalier about dismissing the significance of acidity (yes, even above pH 7.0) in biological systems.

But keep it up boys. You are simply documenting, for all the world to see for all time, your blindingly breath-taking ignorance of basic chemistry.

Oo, I just made a joke. It pales next to all the others here though...

There then followed some amusing play with numbers, that had no basis in reality, from Ian Mott and from Gordon Robertson. If one really must read what these gentlemen had to say, one can follow the links here, but for now I'll simply post my reply...

(Comment from: Bernard J. October 2008 at 5:24 pm)

(Keeping in mind that the mean pH of plasma is around 7.4...)

From Wikipedia, the electronic toilet wall:

"Acidosis

Acidosis is an increased acidity (i.e. an increased hydrogen ion concentration). If not further qualified, it refers to acidity of the blood plasma.

Acidosis is said to occur when arterial pH falls below 7.35, while its counterpart (alkalosis) occurs at a pH over 7.45."

The medical world will be stunned to discover that there is no such condition as acidosis, at least until the pH drops below 7.0.

To reiterate – Arrhenius (and Lowry-Brønsted) 'acidification' is the process of increasing the concentration hydrogen/hydronium ions in a solution. It has nothing to do with the arbitrary 'landmark' of pH 7.0.

For heaven's sake, pH 7 is not even a firm descriptor of what an acid is. Anyone who has done an introductory chemistry course at university will have learned this. Conveniently, Wickedpedia has something to say on this as well:

"Neutral pH at 25 °C is not exactly 7. pH is an experimental value, so it has an associated error. Since the dissociation constant of water is (1.011 ± 0.005) × 10⁻¹⁴, pH of water at 25 °C would be 6.998 ± 0.001. The value is consistent, however, with neutral pH being 7.00 to two significant figures, which is near enough for most people to assume that it is exactly 7. The pH of water gets smaller with higher temperatures. For example, at 50 °C, pH of water is 6.55 ± 0.01. This means that a diluted solution is neutral when its pH at 50 °C is around 6.55, and also that a pH of 7.00 is very slightly basic."

In the above example 'acidification' would not occur under Ian Mott's definition until pH dropped below 6.55. But more telling is the shift in the neutral point – it is not cast in stone, and it is fore this reason amongst many others that an increase in hydrogen/hydronium ion concentration is acidification, irrespective of the initial starting concentration.

Failure to understand this simply reflects a lack of acquaintance with fundamental acid-base chemistry, and the nomenclature that accompanies it.

Posted by: Bernard J. | December 21, 2009 2:10 AM

I am shocked. SHOCKED I tell you!

yawn

Posted by: Anónimo | December 21, 2009 10:10 AM

Shorter bi:

I'm jealous because I didn't get the award.

Posted by: Betula | December 21, 2009 12:46 PM

I refuse. Vomit is not good for the keyboard ...

Posted by: dhogaza | December 21, 2009 4:35 PM

Shorter bi: I'm jealous because I didn't get the award.

That should be:

Shorter Betula: I'm jealous because I didn't get the award.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | December 21, 2009 5:21 PM

Mann refused to show.

On a more serious note the bookmakers are offering 2/1 for a London white xmas. It hasn't been this close for 30 years.

Just more irrefutable proof that a cool PDO is back in action.

Posted by: el gordo | December 21, 2009 6:29 PM

el gordo, so Fox wasn't balanced?

Posted by: sim | December 21, 2009 10:32 PM

el gordo writes:

There is little between your global warming theory and my global cooling alarmism

Just the overwhelming weight of evidence, but that's the only difference.

Posted by: jakerman | December 21, 2009 11:29 PM

el gullibo:

I don't see how you can blame a trace gas.

You don't see the difference between weather and climate so it no surprise if you don't see anything else.

There is little between - just 4 degrees of separation between hell on earth and a mini ice age.

Standard denialist tactic: minimize signal or its importance. The difference between ice-ages and recently was 5-6°C and took more than 7,000 years to happen. There is no comparison with 4°C in 200 years.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | December 22, 2009 12:34 AM

Chris states:

"That should be: Shorter Betula: I'm jealous because I didn't get the award."

That's right Chris, I'm jealous because I didn't get the award that I made up.

Comedy Gold.

Perhaps it's time for a new award. I think I'll call it the "Chris O'Neill logic award"

The first recipient of this award goes to.....

Chris O'Neill!

Damn! Now I'm jealous because I didn't give it to myself.

I wish myself better luck next time.

Posted by: Betula | December 22, 2009 8:21 AM

Betula,

I'll bet you would be a serious candidate for a troll award. I for sure would place you high up the list. Your posts for sure are quite utterly vacuous, a sure indication that you possess the necessary attributes of a troll. Well done.

Posted by: Jeff Harvey | December 22, 2009 9:48 AM

Shorter Jeff Harvey @ 105:

I own a dog.

Posted by: Betula | December 22, 2009 10:40 AM

Dano,

You know, if you put your hands over your eyes.....no one can see you.

And how is it that your reading this?

Posted by: Betula | December 22, 2009 1:07 PM

'The CON Logic Award'. It has a nice ring to it, but I have this terrible feeling it might be oxymoronic.

Careful where you step Betula, CON and the host are joined at the hip.

Posted by: el gordo | December 22, 2009 3:49 PM

Sortition, that link to Hansen just illustrates why climate scientists should stick to climate science, thereby avoiding the Dunning Kruger syndrome.

The shallowness of Hansen's analysis is at the level typically seen on a denier blog.

Consider this:

Well, they were talking about having a cap-and-trade-with-offsets agreement, which is analogous to the Kyoto Protocol, which was disastrous. Before the Kyoto Protocol, global emissions of carbon dioxide were going up one-and-a-half percent per year. After the accord, they went up three percent per year. That approach simply won’t work.

Hansen is really claiming that if a carbon tax had been at the centre of the KP it would have been effective.

That's despite the inadequate targets and the effective non-inclusion of developing countries - eg China, the world's biggest emitter, and India - and non-ratification of the treaty by the US, the world's number two emitter, not to mention Australia until the Rudd government was elected relatively recently.

Here's another example:

Cap and trade, they attempt to put a cap on different sources of carbon dioxide emissions. They say there’s a limit on how much a given industry in a country can emit. But the problem is that the emissions just go someplace else. That’s what happened after Kyoto, and that’s what would happen again, if—as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, they will be burned someplace. You know, the Europeans thought they actually reduced their emissions after Kyoto, but what happened was the products that had been made in their countries began to be made in other countries, which were burning the cheapest form of fossil fuel, so the total emissions actually increased.

Aside from the "a given industry" bit being wrong, the argument rests on the fact that emissions were not limited, either by a tax or a cap, in countries to which production was shifted.

That would be a problem for any system - tax, cap or direct intervention - where coverage does not extend to all countries. And in the case of the Kyoto protocol, coverage was limited to countries responsible for less than half the world's industrial output and growing at a much, much slower rate than the rest.

Fossil fuels are only "the cheapest energy" because they are not limited, either by cap or a tax, in these other places.

Hansen's argument that cap and trade policies led to faster emissions growth is on a par with arguing that laws are useless in preventing polygamy, because anti-polygamy laws in the Australia haven't stopped the practice in some other place where it's still legal

There are plenty of potential problems with cap and trade, but blaming it for the failure of Kyoto to reduce emissions is stretching things way too far.

Posted by: Gaz | December 22, 2009 11:14 PM

I saw the James Cameron movie Avatar last night. Can I just say that it was the best thinh I've seen in a long time. If you are keen on the rights of indigenous peoples, biodiversity and the preservation of rainforests or sympathetic to Buddhism you'd be best advised to bring something to stifle the sniffles. I won't spoil it too much for others by saying too much about the movie itself but this is a classic feelgood movie.

The usages were familar. Dances with Wolves, Lord of the Rings, Braveheart, Star Wars and maybe Pocahontas all rolled into one with simply stunning cinematography. There can't be too many people who wouldn't find this movie very engaging.

That said, one of the most perverse reactions was from Andrew Blot who in his now familar rants claimed that it was green propaganda while asserting that it would finally mark the end of environmentalism.

MOST people will date the death of the great global warming scare not from the Copenhagen fiasco - boring! - but from Avatar. It won’t be the world’s most expensive warmist conference but the world’s most expensive movie that will stick in most memories as the precise point at which the green faith started to shrivel from sheer stupidity. Avatar, in fact, is the warmist dream filmed in 3D. Staring through your glasses at James Cameron’s spectacular $400 million creation, you can finally see where this global warming cult was going. And you can see, too, everything that will now slowly pull it back to earth. December 2009. Note it down. The beginning of the end, even as Avatar becomes possibly the biggest-grossing film in history.

For me, this convinces me that whatever Blot once was, he is now completely unhinged -- a psychopath. No properly socialised person who saw the film could use it as a springboard for embracing the filth merchant cause, and Blot is, after all, writing this because he fears just the opposite. His blog groupies weren't slow to express this tension. For Blot now though, it's like someone with reflexive OCD. When he sees red where others see green and he can't not vent about it. Those indigenes on Pandora were metaphorically sticking him and his groupies through the heart with every arrow and spear they drove into the invading terrestrial hordes. With this latest piece, Blot at least has dropped the fiction that opposition to mitigation is not part of a broader disgust for things environmental.

It did occur to me though that in theory at least, a true conservative might well object to Blot's piece along the following lines: What's more conservative than wanting to protect your land against alien invaders, who want to rob you and trash your traditional culture and murder you? Wouldn't any true conservative side with the little people who just want to be left alone against greedy robber barons? Isn't respect for the dead and for the wisdome of the ages to be preferred to the mad grasp for power and self-gratification? What did the original sin in the Garden of Eden entail?

Perhaps it's time for some of us to do a little concern trolling over in the Blotosphere. This he is going to find damn annoying.

Posted by: Fran Barlow | December 23, 2009 10:20 PM

Go back to the Ordovician-Silurian (450-420 million years ago) and the Jurassic-Cretaceous periods (151-132 million years ago), when CO2 levels were greater than 4000 and 2000 parts per million by volume, there was no runaway Greenhouse Effect, instead full glaciation was the norm.

Posted by: el gordo | December 24, 2009 12:28 AM

There are plenty of potential problems with el gordo. Probably the most obvious is that he's full of bullshit.

Posted by: Chris O'Neill | December 24, 2009 5:19 AM

Con

What evidence would it take to prove your beliefs wrong?

Posted by: el gordo | December 25, 2009 6:00 AM

Yet another interesting discovery about the CRU crack:

The code, data, and documents in the .zip file of the CRU material might have been ripped from e-mail attachments. Check out FOIA/documents/communicating_cc.pdf -- and note the file format.

Posted by: bi -- IJI | December 25, 2009 1:54 PM

Chris O'Neill:

Now, what does it take you to accept that CO2 causes climate forcing?

el gordo:

So I will accept AGW if [...]

Shorter el gordo:

I can't deny outright that CO₂ causes climate forcing, but I have to seem like I do deny it, so I'll dodge Chris's question and pretend that he asked a different question.

Posted by: bi -- IJI | December 26, 2009 1:48 AM

This is a comment on the post "Monckton has a gold Nobel prize pin" by Tim Lambert in this blog.

Quote from the post:

Oh, and did you know that the EU is a dictatorship? Monckton:

The world needs the United States to continue as the engine-house of prosperity, the wellspring of invention, the hope of freedom, the guarantor of peace. You must not transform your great nation into merely another stifling, inept, corrupt, bureaucratic-centralist dictatorship such as China, Russia, or the European Union.

End of quote.

Dear Tim,

How would you classify a political regime where:

1. the Parliament (elected body) can not propose laws (termed "regulations" or "directives" in the eurospeak, these may only be proposed by the Commission);
2. a law is considered approved if the Parliament produces no decision on it within a set time limit;
3. even if the Parliament votes against by an absolute majority (required to reject a law), the rejected law may still be enacted by the Commission.

Note that the European Commission is a body that is nominated and not elected.

All of this has been first included into the Maastricht treaty, and remained in every other European treaty signed after that.

Therefore, all the EU laws are indeed created by a group of unelected bureaucrats, as Lord Monckton had correctly stated. Do you seriously believe this is how a democracy works?

All these treaties are published on EU sites and may be downloaded.

Cheers, J.B.

Posted by: Josef Birmann | December 26, 2009 8:38 PM

Your a liar as well as a creep el gordo!

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/11/the_global_warming_threat_is_a.html

And your source also published Dr G.O., they have no effective fact checking (like you).

Posted by: jakerman | December 27, 2009 11:08 PM

Not even a retraction of your lie el gordo?

How Plimeresque of you to just bluster on and facts be damned. You were hoping to shove that one down the memory hole were you Winston Smith?

Posted by: jakerman | December 28, 2009 12:16 AM

Maybe el gordo's not a really liar jakerman. Perhaps he's such a complete dickhead he actually believes within himself that the article is referring to his personal hobby-horse, global cooling, rather than what it says on its face i.e. "tamp(ing) down rising temperatures by between 20 percent to 80 percent" ?

Nah, on second thoughts ... when are you going to admit your post @ 128 is bullshit gordo ?

As an aside, I have to say it is great to see inactivists like el gordo can still add 2 plus 2 and come up with 3 ... even such minute traces of consistency like that can help to show the general public what a pack of dribbling numbskulls denialists actually are !!

Posted by: Chris W | December 28, 2009 6:09 AM

El gordo, here's a sample retraction I knocked up and which you're welcome to use as a template ...

"The article in Amercian Thunker on which I based my post at 128 didn't actually say anything about global cooling. In fact it talked about a slower rate of warming in some localised areas but in my haste to confirm my own foolish biases, I stupidly misrepresented what the artcle said. I am truly sorry to have mislead the general public and wish to retract that erroneous post."

Of course if that's too wordy for you just use your own style. It can't be that hard to admit your willful ignorance can it ?

BTW: Do you have a link to this mysterious 'recent UN report' ? The blog post you linked to certainly doesn't.

Posted by: Chris W | December 28, 2009 6:32 PM

The NAO and AO have both gone negative, with blocking highs dominating we can expect cooler than average winters in the US and Europe for quite some time.

Posted by: el gordo | December 29, 2009 2:31 AM

On our first meeting GB suffered from an unfortunate misunderstanding, he thought I was one of you.

He claimed he was already banned from here, so his value judgement on my character might be a little dodgy. After the dust settled we safely avoided each other.

Posted by: el gordo | December 29, 2009 5:05 AM

Now, now, el gordo, given the denialo-crap you were spouting on that thread GB'd have to be an complete-and-utter-cranium-busting-nutbag to think you were anything other than a denialist. He couldn't be as oblivious as you describe ... surely ... ?

But please, one thing at a time, lets put Bird's alleged reasons for your character assessment aside and concentrate on your post @ 128 ?

I'm struggling to understand how anyone with an IQ above room temperature could so successfully bollix up the meaning of what americandribbler.com wrote and what you asserted it meant in your post. I mean they are freakin' diametrically opposite !!

Does your lack of comprehension bother you in the slightest ? Or have you just grown used to it being worn-out and blunted by years of AGW denial.

Posted by: Chris W | December 29, 2009 6:46 AM

It's ironic. The report says as a result of global temperature rises - linked with greenhouse gas emissions - may currently be between 20% and 80% less as a result of brown clouds around the world.

They go on to say that if this brown cloud was eliminated overnight, this could trigger a rapid global temperature rise of as much as 2 degrees C.

Add that to the 0.75 degrees C rise of the 20th Century, this could push global temperatures well above what is considered by some scientists to be a crucial and dangerous threshold.

Global dimming is not new, the Israelis were the first to detect it during one of their many wars, when commercial airlines were grounded. The Americans confirmed it after 9/11.

So when the world turns naturally cooler the brown cloud and jet trails will only make conditions worse. It's the elephant in the room.

Posted by: el gordo | December 30, 2009 3:27 AM

Gawd all bloody mighty !!

Weak as piss El Gordo. Weak. As. Piss.

El gordo @128: "... report suggests that 13 of the biggest cities in third world countries run the risk of producing global cooling".

El gordo @143: "... The (same) report says ... global temperature rises ... may currently be between 20% and 80% less".

Your post at 128 lies there oozing dishonesty yet you carry on like some gibbering simpleton and produce post 143 ... in direct contradiction to 128 but with no acknowledgement of your earlier willful distortion !!

Sorry to say it jakerman, but I think you erred in paraphrasing el gordo's claptrap as "[blah blah blah]" ... with that phrase you've attributed more sense and integrity to his blitherings than can be read into his actual posts.

Posted by: Chris W | December 30, 2009 6:04 AM

Is that you CON? Very amusing, but let's discuss climate.

The UK Met says 'the famously cold winter of 1962-63 is now expected to occur about once every 1000 years or more, compared with approximately every 100 to 200 years before 1850.'

This of course is utter madness because the River Dee at Aberdeen is already frozen, like in 1962-63.

Posted by: el gordo | December 30, 2009 6:47 AM

el gordo writtes:

Very amusing, but let's discuss climate. [blah blah blah].

You're not discussing climate you fraud, you're simply trying to launder your crap weather arguments here, knowing they have been responded to elsewhere.

Posted by: jakerman | December 30, 2009 3:56 PM

Thank you and good night.

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/NAO.jpg

Posted by: el gordo | December 31, 2009 4:53 AM

Chris W.

It's the decloaking of folk such as yourself that warms the cockles of my heart, and that provides the coninued impetus for those such as my own self, who are morbidly drawn to punch the tar babies of the Denialati, to persist when good sense says that it is a fruitless enterprise.

Thank you for closing the year for me with a positive moment. Deity(ies)-of-one's-choice know(s) that there is little enough to be positive about in the contemporary climatic data, and in humanity's response to the same, to be encouraged about...

Posted by: Bernard J. | January 1, 2010 7:57 AM

jakerman @ 152:

In one of the stolen e-mails (1188557698), Tom Wigley discusses that and says "Keenan has a valid point".

Posted by: PJ Renton | January 2, 2010 4:54 AM

PJ Renton: Wang was investigated by his university and cleared of all allegations of scientific fraud.

Posted by: dhogaza | January 2, 2010 1:10 PM

Martin,

I'm pretty sure SUNY's investigation was thorough enough to contact the Chinese Met Service, as Wang invited Keenan to do, and found that Keenan's allegations were entirely without merit. As Keenan would have known had he made the effort on his own or honored the confidentiality agreement with the university.

Posted by: luminous beauty | January 3, 2010 12:34 PM

LB, I haven't been following this issue in detail (something I seem to share with Tom Wigley) like you apparently have. I don't like lawyers and don't like impersonating one.

Posted by: Martin Vermeer | January 3, 2010 1:15 PM

Nice, innit? And your career as a scientist is over if found guilty.

Yes, indeed, that's what Keenan was trying to do, end Wang's career.

That's what they're trying to do to Jones and Mann, as well.

Oh, yeah, they're going after Gavin Schmidt, as well.

Nice world we live in, where scientists trying to do their job are subject to such attacks.

Posted by: dhogaza | January 3, 2010 1:45 PM

el gordo you creep, let's have a real name if you dare.

Posted by: Martin Vermeer | January 3, 2010 3:23 PM

"Gavin is a modeler, so he's fair game along with the others who put faith before observational reality."

That kind of ugliness and intellectual dishonesty speaks volumes, doesn't it. I do wonder what exactly a poster like this one is actually trying to achieve. Anyone with an open mind and half a brain behind it will find it very easy to see the paucity of contrarian argument when there are characters like this about.

Posted by: Johnmacmot | January 3, 2010 4:20 PM

167 John,

Muck-spreading is all that denidiots do. Notice that they seem strangely unaware that their muck is often completely incompatible with the muck spread by other denidiots.

Posted by: TrueSceptic | January 3, 2010 6:51 PM

Fatso.

I am curious.

You have had much to say about mainstream (= expert/professional) climatology that is negative. You apparently claim to have insight that is more accurate than that of mainstream climatologists. You seem to believe that you understand how mainstream climatology is in error, and that you are a holder of the 'real' truth...

Please, can you direct us to the post of yours on Deltoid, or on any other blog, that you believe most succinctly demonstrates the veracity of your 'case'. This might describe either the best piece of evidence-based argument that you accept, of the sort that I have repeatedly requested over the last several weeks, or it might simply be the best argument you have that you feel that climatology has not adressed.

I await a response with much anticipation. You have been free with much unsubstantiated blather to date: how about putting some hard evidence on the table?

Posted by: Bernard J. | January 3, 2010 10:07 PM

The next 20 years will be cooler than the last 30 years as a cool PDO and negative AO/NAO become dominant. Throw in a quiet sun for good measure and we have an opportunity to test AGW orthodoxy.

This will fall on deaf ears because those who accept AGW orthodoxy have already taken the green pill and are unconscious.

Posted by: el gordo | January 4, 2010 7:00 AM

janet,

this.

Posted by: Martin Vermeer | January 4, 2010 7:42 AM

132 el gordo,

Wanna bet? I have already put my money where my mouth is, in 2 bets with a certain GO. Will you?

I wonder, what were your predictions:- In the 80s, for the 90s; In the 90s, for the 00s? How did they turn out?

Posted by: TrueSceptic | January 4, 2010 9:26 AM

175 Martin,

And what has happened to the person who made that allegation? Has any action been taken?

Posted by: TrueSceptic | January 4, 2010 9:32 AM

MV @172...

Your link in reference to Wang states "A university investigation later cleared him of any wrongdoing"

Imagine that. A university investigation.

Could you imagine what would happen if the university came up with a different conclusion?

Gee, I wonder if the University tried to imagine what that scenario might do to their reputation and how it may affect some of their goals and assets? Let's see...

Regarding goals:

"In short, this is the University at Albany’s collective objective: in our size, impact, operation, and stature to become a Carnegie Research I institution as well as to qualify for election to the American Association of Universities"

"The level of funding allocated to the campus will determine not only whether but how quickly we can achieve the goal."

Regarding assets:

"These assets have been further enhanced by the Department of Environmental Conservation’s decision to move its state-of-the-art laboratories to the Rensselaer campus." "Scientists, faculty members and students associated with all of these programs study the basic environmental sciences"....... "including global climate change".

"Much of the work is externally supported by grants from major federal research agencies as well as private corporations and interest groups"

http://www.albany.edu/feature99/special/mission_review.html

By the way, has anyone seen a copy of this investigation?

Posted by: Betula | January 4, 2010 11:07 AM

"Betula, that much text? I must have hit a raw nerve... so now the university is in on the conspiracy... right!"

It's a pretty simple concept MV. So simple in fact, that even you see it, despite your pretending that you don't.

Understood.

On another note, did anyone see this very disappointing news?

Britain, America, Russia, Austria, Germany, India, China, Swiss Alps...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1240319/As-Britain-told-expect-snow-10-days-rest-world-coping-Arctic-weather.html

A travesty in the making.

Posted by: Betula | January 4, 2010 12:31 PM

this very disappointing news

Yep, used to happen every third year. Now it's every tenth, and we're out of practice. And yes, I understand you want to change the subject.

Posted by: Martin Vermeer | January 4, 2010 1:06 PM

183 betula,

The travesty being...what? That idiots will claim that GW is a hoax because it's cold in a few places in winter?

Posted by: TrueSceptic | January 4, 2010 1:36 PM

MV

You may be onto something...

Since the apocolypse from warming seems to have been put on hold, the warmist can now put their tin foil to better use by distributing it around the world and providing thermo insulation to all those suffering from the cold.

Better to help those currently suffering than those hypothetically speculated to suffer in the future I always say...

Regarding the university investigating whether or not it will subject itself to ruin with it's own verdict, the answer is......a shocking no.

Even a tin foil hat couldn't reflect that obvious outcome.

By the way, the subject of this post is "open thread", so don't change the subject.

Posted by: Betula | January 4, 2010 2:28 PM

On another note, did anyone see this very disappointing news? Britain, America, Russia, Austria, Germany, India, China, Swiss Alps...

Yes, an unusual quantity of cold, Arctic air has moved south again.

I wonder what that means for the Arctic itself? index/images/dailyimages/Nstddevtimeseries.pngOh look, setting a record minimum ice extent for early January.

Posted by: dhogaza | January 4, 2010 3:13 PM

TS, I don't think there is any alternative. The problem is resources. The scientists are busy enough with the science (and with answering FOI demands).

I've been thinking, if the group being targeted were Jews, or blacks, or gays, there would be resources, you bet. This is the same kind of hate crime.

Posted by: Martin Vermeer | January 4, 2010 4:45 PM

TS: It's not a few places, it's the whole northern hemisphere which is experiencing the cold snap.

During the LIA it was not uniformly cold, with many hot dry summers in Europe similar to what we would expect from AGW.

This may seem like a nasty case of cognitive dissonance, but I'm merely making the point that it will become increasingly difficult to find the signal amongst the noise.

Posted by: el gordo | January 4, 2010 7:47 PM

Betula, you make a good case to reduces perverse incentives in funding models. How would you propose that gets done?

Other than that you discredit yourself with your childish school boy empty talk. And continued weather cherry picking.

Grow up!

Posted by: jakerman | January 4, 2010 8:27 PM

"Betula, please give me a list of universities that were ruined, or even seriously damaged, by exposing fraudulent researchers in their employ"

MV, are you saying that research fraud can't or won't damage the reputation and funding of a University?

Some would disagree...

"The professors fundamentally abandoned honesty and sincerity … and caused the fall in the school's honor and the country's international confidence," the university said in a statement Monday.

http://www.nctimes.com/news/science/article_a463ab29-a7b3-5acf-964b-398dae7634ed.html

And this sounds familiar...

"Moreover, investigations cost time and money, and no institution wants to discover something that could cast a shadow on its reputation."

“There are conflicting influences on a university where they are the co-grantor and responsible to other investigators,” says Stephen Kelly, the Justice Department attorney who prosecuted Poehlman.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/magazine/22sciencefraud.html?ex=1319169600&en=e03f2ce7d86fd269&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Posted by: Betula | January 4, 2010 10:51 PM

I'd be interested (no, really!) in el gordo's response to the news that Australia has just had its hottest decade on record.

Posted by: zoot | January 5, 2010 3:58 AM

Wait a minute, 'hottest decade on record' is weather and not climate. That's some wild cherrypick by BOM and they did it without the help of Ian 'Harry' Harris.

Posted by: el gordo | January 5, 2010 5:18 AM

So it is the warmest deade on record.The continent is also getting wetter.Apart from the fires,which were caused by fuel build up,I dont see why it is such a big deal.

Posted by: frank | January 5, 2010 6:08 AM

....I am holding to my prediction that the next 20 years will be cooler than the past 30 years.

El gordo, I think you made a mistake. I hope you don't me me pointing it out. You wrote "prediction" when you obviously meant "wild guess".

Posted by: Gaz | January 5, 2010 6:10 AM

el gordo, you are correct in your assertion that the last decade is weather not climate. Had you bothered to look for the source document you would have found that:

On 8 December 2009, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) stated that 2009 is expected to be the globe’s 5th warmest year on record (about 0.44°C above the 1961-90 average). A cooler-than-average global mean temperature has not been recorded since 1985, with the last decade also being the globe’s warmest on record.

I'll put that in the simplest way I can: for nearly twenty five years the global mean temperature has been above the average. Are we getting closer to climate now?

Posted by: zoot | January 5, 2010 6:55 AM

Does anyone have a link to a peer=reviewed article that explains why?

Yes, here is one.

Posted by: Dave | January 5, 2010 8:19 AM

@210

Yes we are getting close to climate,and it seems like a nice balmy one.

Balmy as in balmy army? Or are you seriously calling 40+ degrees C "balmy"?

Posted by: zoot | January 5, 2010 10:18 AM

Here is a better example of how the air con works. Note the GW spike in 1880 is very similar to 1998.

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/compress:12/detrend:0.706/offset:0.52/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/detrend:0.706/offset:0.52/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/detrend:0.706/offset:0.97/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/detrend:0.706/offset:0.07

Trust me, I'm not in the pocket of big shale.

Posted by: el gordo | January 5, 2010 3:45 PM

Here is a better example of how the air con works. Note the GW spike in 1880 is very similar to 1998.

With the linear detrending, it looks like something similar that occurred in the past. Without the detrending, it looks like an extended upward trend that was interrupted briefly between 1950 and 1970.

The slope between 1915 and 1945 is actually pretty steep: 1.5C / century. The slope between 1978 and 2008 is slightly more steep: 1.6C / century.

CO2 was probably already forcing climate back in 1915. The data suggests temperature is sensitive to relatively small CO2 fluctuations. If we haven't seen more warming it's probably because climate is also very sensitive to aerosols, and maybe because of some warming in the pipeline.

Posted by: Joseph | January 5, 2010 5:07 PM

@215

Further to my other post, what's really funny is that you've just shown how craptacular this particular "analaysis" was when it was first waved around here.

What Girma tried to do was remove a supposedly constant linear trend, and claim that everything else was an oscillation.

If you look real close, you'll see that the link you posted shows a slight upward trend rather than the original flat line it had when it was originally posted here. This is because the extra few months of data since the original "de-trending" have altered the slope upwards (as they would have to, absent a massive drop in global temperature), thus highlighting once again how totally cretinous, shallow and brittle this supposed "analysis" is.

Posted by: Dave | January 5, 2010 5:37 PM

Hmmm...

Occasional upper case hystrionics, multiple exclamation marks, no spaces after punctuation marks... The style of wazzamad reminds me of a previous troll, although exactly which one it is escapes me fro the moment.

Is this yet another sockpuppeteer attempting to skirt a ban, or to simply make it appear that the Denialati are more numerous here than is actually the case?

Posted by: Bernard J. | January 5, 2010 7:57 PM

If you were wondering why El Nino is quickly breaking down, blame the Humboldt current sweeping up the west coast of South America.

http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif

Posted by: el gordo | January 5, 2010 10:27 PM

Joseph: So if temperature is senstive "relatively small co2 fluctuations",then why is it that temperatures have been flat for 8 years while co2 has risen 4%?

Posted by: wazzamad | January 7, 2010 4:43 AM

I noticed a reference to one Garth Paltridge in a discussion on Climate Change in the online version of the Belfast Telegraph - I wonder if another Emeritus is shoving himself more fully into the media limelight?

Funnily enough he's got a new book out, though thankfully not on Amazon yet.

Posted by: Eamon | January 7, 2010 8:15 PM

Via Joanne Nova (via the International Climate Science Coalition), I see that one Mohib Ebrahim has drawn up a totally hilarious "timeline" of "Climategate.

Posted by: bi -- IJI | January 8, 2010 4:56 PM

Bud: You probably already know that the Russian FSB has admitted the hack was carried out through the Siberian city of Tomsk, but it was only the link and they deny any involvement.

'The emails were uploaded to the Tomsk server but we are sure this was done outside Russia.'

Hmmm...

Posted by: el gordo | January 8, 2010 7:28 PM

What, the warmest decade on record isn't enough?

Posted by: zoot | January 8, 2010 8:48 PM

BOM is predicting that 2010 will be the hottest year on record. For obvious reasons I strongly disagree.

Posted by: el gordo | January 8, 2010 11:29 PM

@235:

For obvious reasons I strongly disagree.

Care to share them with us?

Posted by: zoot | January 9, 2010 12:32 AM

bi IJI: You mean 'freedom fighters' against the 'great delusion'.

zoot: It has nothing to do with the weather, grim as it looks for the UK Met, their failure to predict seasonal patterns will be their undoing and the BOM.

Posted by: el gordo | January 9, 2010 3:56 AM

It's not exactly from the horses mouth, but I believe everything the Liberal says.

http://www.dailyliberal.com.au/news/local/news/general/2010-predicted-to-be-hottest-year-yet/1702006.aspx

Posted by: el gordo | January 9, 2010 5:29 AM

el gordo: Freedom as in the freedom to steal e-mails to support some ideological cause? Sounds like extremism to me.

* * *

Shorter wazzamad: I don't know a lot of things, therefore I know that global warming is a scam.

Posted by: bi -- IJI | January 9, 2010 5:49 AM

bi-IJI You must be very clever,knowing that I apparently think that global warming is a scam.How about you stick to evidence based remarks.If you can answer Bernard's questions better than be my guest.

Posted by: wazzamad | January 9, 2010 7:17 AM

Shorter el gordo: Ideologues aren't extremists, and even if they are, they're whistleblowers.

* * *

Shorter wazzamad: I didn't say global warming is a scam, I only insinuated that global warming is a scam. But it's natural for me to ask if global warming is a scam, even though I'm not saying it is.

Posted by: bi -- IJI | January 9, 2010 12:01 PM

El Gordo's World Climate Report includes a graph from NCDC that includes a regression line that shows a clear century+ rising trend in temperature, then of course claims that temperature has returned to "normal".

Hilarious own goal by people who can't even read a regression line.

Posted by: dhogaza | January 9, 2010 1:43 PM

Dhogaza: "...includes a graph from NCDC..."

Wasn't that the band formed by the ex-members of N Sync and AC/DC?

Posted by: Bruce Sharp | January 9, 2010 3:08 PM

Bud: After forensic analysis they now know that the hacker is someone at East Anglia University with 'root' privileges to UEA's secure computer systems.

There are 33 Russian students studying at UEA and the FSB has used 'hacker patriots' in the past, especially from the Siberian city of Tomsk where the leaked emails were linked. The main users of that particular server are the students at Tomsk State University.

Russia is the third largest emitter of 'greenhouse gas' and were reluctant to get involved with the AGW theory, but they also recognized a useful scam at Kyoto. Since Copenhagen they are backing off.

The hacker left a note: "We feel that climate science is too important to be kept under wraps". MI5 must now be looking for a 'privileged' Russian student.

Posted by: el gordo | January 9, 2010 9:20 PM

Spoil sport.

Posted by: el gordo | January 14, 2010 6:55 AM

El Gordo, in the other thread you were saying someone was collecting data for an FOI and just plumb left it around where it was found by a "whistleblower". Now you're saying it was a Russian student.

Personally, I think it was the Bildeberg Group...

Posted by: John | January 14, 2010 8:21 AM

In a perverse moment I wandered over to the last page on Marohasy's eutrophying bog.

Besides the notable lack of direction and momentum from the bridge (last thread started 7 October 09, last update on 12 December 09 to say that Marohasy has retired from posting, and consequently 46 pages for the darned thread) I found this gem from our fantasmagorically scienced friend, first mate cohenite:

Comment from: cohenite January 15th, 2010 at 7:15 pm

Deforestation is a seperate issue to AGW but the attachment of deforestation to worsening AGW through release of CO2 from removing trees and the removal of the tree sink is just plain garbage; if indigenous forest is removed for the planting of crops those crops will remove more CO2 from the atmosphere than the original plants even taking into account the emission amounts from cropping.

[Emphasis mine]

Whoa boy! I understand that such a post will whip the blind of that kingdom into a frenzy of chainsaw-weilding, foaming fury, but after he has basked in the adulation of his awed subjects, perhaps the one-eyed monarch would care to come here and apply some science to his proclamation.

I note too that on the previous page this little exchange occurred:

Comment from: spangled drongo January 12th, 2010 at 10:02 am

Neville,
This cooling must be a blow to the projected "1/4 mile poleward" migration of all species to keep abreast of the warming.
I wonder who blows the whistle and tells us when to advance and when to retreat?

cohers,
I hope Bernard J. is paying strict attention.

http://www.skynews.com.au/eco/article.aspx?id=415747

Comment from: spangled drongo January 12th, 2010 at 10:05 am

that shoul [sic] be "1/4 mile ANNUAL poleward"

Comment from: cohenite January 12th, 2010 at 11:27 am

SD; an ice-berg could drop on BJ’s noggin and he still wouldn’t change his mind.

Thereafter (and I am sure that for many many pages prior) followed much pseudoscientific gobbledegook on a range of subjects about which the mewling gulls have no actual understanding. The level of discourse there is reaching new heights in demonstrating that there is no bottom to Stupid.

Although it's flattering to be perceived as a gadfly amongst their herd of stampeding "facts", I ceased and desisted from delving further back than this page.

I apologise in advance if my mere mentioning of incoherenite's further debasements of science invokes the the Ancient Mariner and his crew to sail over here in order to seek an outlet for their Denialist angsts, but I just had note how said sailor of the I-do-not Sea persists in putting arrows through every scientific principle that soars overhead.

It is concerning indeed that folk may be so clueless, and yet still pretend to be sufficiently informed that they might act as the secretary for a national political party...

Posted by: Bernard J. | January 15, 2010 10:07 AM

This is no time to consider geo-engineering, because the science is not settled.

Posted by: el gordo | January 18, 2010 6:21 PM

The science of geo-engineering is not settled. In the early 1970's the Soviet Union was thinking of building a land bridge along the Bering Strait to keep the ice out, but it all came to nought when global warming kicked in.

So it might be prudent to let nature take its course until we know what's going on.

Posted by: el gordo | January 18, 2010 9:39 PM

The Royal Society's Report put forward 12 methods, no doubt you would have seen it already.

The idea of shooting giant mirrors into orbit to reflect sunlight, isn't very bright. Nor the scattering of carbon absorbing rocks upon the landmass.

Scary stuff and also very expensive.

Posted by: el gordo | January 18, 2010 10:40 PM

They commence scattering the CO2 absorbing rocks and it works, then a 1000 years from now Milankovitch cycles come into play and we enter an ice age.

Who will take responsibility for picking up those rocks when CO2 follows temperatures down?

Posted by: el gordo | January 18, 2010 11:39 PM

El Gordo, Your prediction about a coming ice age is alarming! Might I ask what data and what modelling have you done to support your theory? Does your prediction meet with agreement among your fellow scientists, or is yours a minority opinion? You are a scientist, qualified to make this sort of prediction, right?

Posted by: Vince Whirlwind | January 19, 2010 1:34 AM

We know that interglacials last about 12,000 years, so we may have reached our used-by- date.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vostok-ice-core-petit.png

Note the CO2 lag of about 800 years.

It might be cheaper and safer to put 'little' mirrors in orbit, than throwing rocks about. If the climate gets cool they could adjust the mirrors and warm a cold spot

Posted by: el gordo | January 19, 2010 3:53 AM

Is it true Fatso's heart is set on making the final comment on a thread?

Sad but true.

Posted by: jakerman | January 19, 2010 5:14 AM

Then el gordo had sufficient lack of self-awarness to claim that, "Attention seeking behavior' is not [his] style."

Posted by: jakerman | January 19, 2010 5:22 AM

Oops... not sure how I managed to dredge up this thread! I was trying to post on Open Thread 51.

Posted by: Bernard J. | July 26, 2010 8:00 AM