Monckton uses a sock puppet

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The Climate Science Rapid Response Team received a verbose query from Abu Ali Al-Hussain who oddly enough, sounded exactly like Christopher Monckton.

I liked this bit from Monckton’s sock:

The IPCC has been making long-term predictions of future climate states on the basis of modeling: yet its 2001 Third Assessment Report says that the climate is a complex, non-linear, chaotic object, so that the prediction of future climate states is not possible.

The Third Assessment Report did not say that predication of climate was not possible, but rather:

A complex, non-linear system may display what is technically called chaotic behaviour. This means that the behaviour of the system is critically dependent on very small changes of the initial conditions. This does not imply, however, that the behaviour of non-linear chaotic systems is entirely unpredictable, contrary to what is meant by “chaotic” in colloquial language. It has, however, consequences for the nature of its variability and the predictability of its variations. The daily weather is a good example. The evolution of weather systems responsible for the daily weather is governed by such non-linear chaotic dynamics. This does not preclude successful weather prediction, but its predictability is limited to a period of at most two weeks. Similarly, although the climate system is highly non-linear, the quasi-linear response of many models to present and predicted levels of external radiative forcing suggests that the large-scale aspects of human-induced climate change may be predictable, although as discussed in Section 1.3.2 below, unpredictable behaviour of non-linear systems can never be ruled out. The predictability of the climate system is discussed in Chapter 7.

Comments

#1 Mike G
May 11, 2011

So Barry, you’ve apparently done the math and determined that adaptation is cheaper than prevention, so could you clarify some numbers for me?

The South Florida Metropolitan Area extends along roughly 100 miles of coast. Almost all 5.5 million people living in that area live within 2 meters of sea level and many parts, including Ft. Lauderdale and Miami Beach, already flood during extreme high tides. Adapting to sea level rise would require moving 5.5 million people and the associated infrastructure inland or building 100 miles of seawall, a series of floodgates at the entrances to the bays, ports, and numerous canals, and installing large pumping stations to remove the water that percolates upward through the sandy soil and limestone bedrock (Or perhaps you have a cheaper alternative?). Given that the coastline in the area is some of the most expensive property in the country and is nearly 100% developed with resorts, condominiums, and large private estates, how much would it cost to acquire the right-of-way and then build 100 miles of seawall and flood gates? It may help your figuring to keep in mind that Miami is currently spending $1 Billion (some estimates have put the final cost in excess of $3 Billion) to build a 3/4 of a mile tunnel on property it already had the right-of-way to. For ease of comparison with reports on the cost of prevention such as the Stern Report, it would be helpful if you could put your answer in terms of a percentage of US GDP.

Also, could you explain what would be entailed in adaptation to the decline in fish stocks due to ocean acidification, how you quantify the costs of a threat of such uncertain magnitude, and how those poor people of the world who are the most reliant on the sea for their source of protein would pay for that adaptation? No cheating by using foreign aid- aka wealth redistribution.
#2 Barry Woods
May 11, 2011

99#

According to many proponents of AGW.. what you describe is going to happen anyway, it is to late to change it.. thus adaptation is the only answer,

ie reducing co2 emission now will not stop this.

similary I have zero expectations that China will stop building coal fired powerstations to generate their ever growing demands for electricity, thus anything the USA/EU does to reduce emmissions. will be more than matched by an incresease in trhe devloping world, China, India, Africa, etc over the next few decades.

So what should be done about China??

Trade war, carbon sanctions, etc, etc?
#3 Barry Woods
May 11, 2011

My only point is China is going to do whatever the hell it wants.. Nothing anybody in the West will stop them.

So take a look at the comments above, who is in ‘denial’?
Coal is nasty stuff, I’m not a fan of it, it is just what is going to happen, like it or not. Take a look at George Monbiots latest thoughts prefering coal over nuclear (and that is old tech nuclear). Of course the ‘environmentalists’ are just derisding him as selling out to ‘big nuclear’ and thus diminishing their crdibility as rational people even more.

Opportunities for the west, revisist thorium derived nuclear power? and steal a march on China which is investing in this area.

Yet, shale gas may be so cheap in relation, tha nothing can stop it.
#4 Byron Smith
May 11, 2011

Axel is Monckton. “Hokum” is a giveaway.
#5 frank -- Decoding SwiftHack
May 11, 2011

Chris S.:

> All these words and Barry still hasn’t touched on Monkton’s use of a sock puppet that was supposedly advising the emirs and other high-powered people in the Gulf states. One wonders why Barry doesn’t comment on this – perhaps he’s hoping his attempt at thread derailing (the attempt to justify the quote in comparison to the IPCC failed miserably so he’s moved on to China) will make people forget old Abu Ali.

The more off-topic bluster Barry tries to bluster, the more he exposes himself as a dishonest liar defending another dishonest liar.

> I wonder if Abu Ali Al-Hussain would qualify as a non-anonymous commentator on certain blogs – those that decry the more obvious use of pseudonyms as somehow dishonest?

As we all know, Anthony Watts would say that pseudonyms are the spawn of Satan, while sock puppets are but the soldiers of Honesty and Truth.
#6 Vince whirlwind
May 11, 2011

@102, Byron: Nah, if that were Monckton, there is no way he could have limited himself to such a short post.
#7 Wow
May 12, 2011

> My only point is China is going to do whatever the hell it wants

Then why did you bring it up?

Ah, you wished to divert attention. The “Look! Flying Monkeys!” gambit. All you’ve done is show up your dishonesty.

> So take a look at the comments above, who is in ‘denial’?

You.

> Take a look at George Monbiots latest thoughts prefering coal over nuclear

And when going to the doctors, consider the difference between euthanasia and leechcraft. Nuclear is NOT an option to power our near future. Too expensive, too dangerous (mechanically and politically) and too long to start (unless you throw away all the safety designs making it far more dangerous).

You are the one in denial. You deny renewables, deny AGW and deny anything you don’t like the sound of because it’s “green” (where your bible has told you that the world is yours to do with as you wish, therefore breaking your beliefs of human supremacy from holy writ and dogmatic politics).

> Opportunities for the west, revisist thorium derived nuclear power?

Opportunities for the west: revisit solar, wind, wave, tidal, hydro and geothermal. Thorium reactors have not managed to be built on a commercial basis, new nuclear touted as the “next wave” are 50% over time and budget and still not complete.

Big business want Big Projects because a big project can only be handled by a big business and “conservatives” love the secrecy you can maintain about cost, safety and actions with nuclear that cannot be justified for renewables. They love small visible government, massive invisible government.
#8 Wow
May 12, 2011

> According to many proponents of AGW.

Name them, quote them, reference them.

> thus adaptation is the only answer

Nope. If no mitigation takes place, the adaption has to be more extreme.

However, this is a cost in the future, when you’re dead, as opposed to a change in your comfort zone now. Hence you fight against mitigation because it will be you bearing the cost, rather than government picking up the tab.

Rather communist in fact.

> So what should be done about China??

> Trade war, carbon sanctions, etc, etc?

And in the next post, from the same sock:

> Nothing anybody in the West will stop them.

Hmmm. Two faced, thy name is Barry Woods.

China are building more renewable resource exploitation devices and are selling them to the world. Yet you want to build nuclear power stations. Why? Why too do you continue to ignore China’s primacy and accelerating lead in renewable technologies to stagnate the west in old technologies with a limited lifespan?

Why do you torpedo the west? Are you a communist chink?
#9 Marion Delgado
May 15, 2011

I Wiki-ed pretty much the entire Plimer/Monbiot go-round, and read and reviewed that utter trash book Plimer wrote.

If he’s not crazy, why is his book crazy? There’s a great deal of 2+2=shoelace thinking in there.
#10 Alpha Tango
July 20, 2011

Sorry Tim, you are just wrong on this one.

The IPCC did in fact say, exactly as Monkton claims :

“In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. ”

http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/505.htm
#11 Vince whirlwind
July 20, 2011

…and two lines later, the bit you missed out:

“…Addressing adequately the statistical nature of climate is computationally intensive, but such statistical information is essential….”

…which is pretty much the opposite of Monckton’s point.
#12 James Singer
July 21, 2011

Vince – just because they also said other things, maybe even contradicting themselves within the same short document is not the point.

The point is that this blog claimed:

“The Third Assessment Report did not say that predication of climate was not possible”

Clearly they did – its there in black and white.

Get over it
#13 frank -- Decoding SwiftHack
July 21, 2011

Barry Woods, is that you?

> exactly as Monkton claims :

Again, if you want to be pedantic, this is what Monckton said:

“its 2001 Third Assessment Report says that the climate is a complex, non-linear, chaotic object, so that the prediction of future climate states is not possible.”

The actual quote says,

“In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”

If you want to be pedantic, then stop using the word “exactly” in an inexact manner.

– frank