Tim Blair, running the time-worn AGW denialist line "It's the sun" tells us
NASA discovers that the sun makes things warmer.
Blair's link goes to another denialist, Simon Scowl, who adds a dash of "Al Gore is fat" to the argument:
Wait. The Sun Can Make Thing... Warmer? I know, that doesn't sound right to me either. Whatchoo talkin' about, Science? ...
As Al Gore and other people who stand to make a lot of money from global warming scare tactics will tell you, "the science is settled." Unless you drive a hybrid, stumble around in the dark at night, and only eat things you find in your yard, you're killing the planet. So I don't see what a big fat ball of hot gas way up in the sky has to do with anything. But enough about Gore in his private jet.
His link goes to another denialist, Michael Andrews:
Some researchers believe that the solar cycle influences global climate changes. They attribute recent warming trends to cyclic variation. Skeptics, though, argue that there's little hard evidence of a solar hand in recent climate changes.
Now, a new research report from a surprising source may help to lay this skepticism to rest. A study from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland looking at climate data over the past century has concluded that solar variation has made a significant impact on the Earth's climate. The report concludes that evidence for climate changes based on solar radiation can be traced back as far as the Industrial Revolution.
If you follow Andrews' link, you finally get out of Denial Land and to a news story that quotes the NASA scientist so you can find out what they really discovered.
The sun has powered almost everything on Earth since life began, including its climate. The sun also delivers an annual and seasonal impact, changing the character of each hemisphere as Earth's orientation shifts through the year. Since the Industrial Revolution, however, new forces have begun to exert significant influence on Earth's climate.
"For the last 20 to 30 years, we believe greenhouse gases have been the dominant influence on recent climate change," said Robert Cahalan, climatologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Isn't that interesting? The scientist said "For the last 20 to 30 years, we believe greenhouse gases have been the dominant influence on recent climate change" and the denialists heard him saying that the sun was the cause of recent climate change.
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> 'Beware of first- hand ideas!' exclaimed one of the most advanced of them [lecturers]. 'First-hand ideas do not really exist. They are but the physical impressions produced by live and fear, and on this gross foundation who could erect a philosophy? Let your ideas be second-hand, and if possible tenth-hand, for then they will be far removed from that disturbing element - direct observation. Do not learn anything about this subject of mine - the French Revolution. Learn instead what I think that Enicharmon thought Urizen thought Gutch thought Ho-Yung thought Chi-Bo-Sing thought Lafcadio Hearn thought Carlyle thought Mirabeau said about the French Revolution.
> Through the medium of these ten great minds, the blood that was shed at Paris and the windows that were broken at Versailles will be clarified to an idea which you may employ most profitably in your daily lives. But be sure that the intermediates are many and varied, for in history one authority exists to counteract another. Urizen must counteract the scepticism of Ho-Yung and Enicharmon, I must myself counteract the impetuosity of Gutch. You who listen to me are in a better position to judge about the French Revolution than I am. Your descendants will be even in a better position than you, for they will learn what you think I think, and yet another intermediate will be added to the chain. And in time' - his voice rose - 'there will come a generation that had got beyond facts, beyond impressions, a generation absolutely colourless, a generation
> seraphically freefrom taint of personality,
> which will see the French Revolution not as it happened, nor as they would like it to have happened, but as it would have happened, had it taken place in the days of the Machine.'
-- E. M. Forster, The Machine Stops
Talking about the Sun. 'The Dakota Voice' is effectively a blog and the bloke that runs it is a bit of a control freak who believes the Sun is responsible:
http://tinyurl.com/o6sj2d
All comments are checked by the owner and he can't resist attaching his own reply to each comment.
He isn't a great fan of free speech (he didn't post my second comment).
enjoy!
I just submitted a comment in which I gave a couple of quotes from the original article, the second paragraph you quoted and
So Greenhouse Gases over the last 20 years account for the earth cooling over the last 10 years. You are all idiots!!!
David Bender is quite right: all of you people who think the earth has been cooling over the last 10 years are idiots.
Yes thank you David, its been quite a wet and cold day down here in Adelaide which proves the earth is cooling
Don't the David Bender's know that we live in a world of limited resources?
If they are going to use up all the stupid, they'll be none left for anyone else.
So Greenhouse Gases over the last 20 years account for the earth cooling over the last 10 years. You are all idiots!!!
i hope this was a joke. in case it wasn t, here a link:
temperature over the last 10 years is [up!](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1999/plot/wti/from:1999/trend)
You see, Neilious, climate is extremely complex. Since greenhouse gases aren't the One True Explanation of All Climate Change, it follows that (climate being extremely complex) there must be a different One True Explanation of All Climate Change -- the Sun!
Therefore, all climate models are wrong, because they take into account all sorts of factors, rather than trying to explain all climate change in terms of one single variable. Also, these climate models are funded by the UN, which is no doubt a front for the Marxist-Islamist New World Order.
Oh, and Al Gore is Fat.
Now I'm *all* confused.
A paper entitled "A study of the NOAA-15 AMSU-A brightness temperatures from 1998 through 2007" was just published in JGR (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008JD011267.shtml)
Here is a bit from the abstract that has me all in a tizzy (confusing part bolded):
Linear regressions of the extraannual variations at individual channels are performed, and the results demonstrate that the slopes for channels below the tropopause are positive whereas those above it are negative. This is strong evidence that the troposphere is warming and that the stratosphere is cooling.
Now, given that we all know that the Sun (and not man-made CO2) is responsible for global warming, what I want to know is, how can a hotter Sun cool the stratosphere? I am soooo confused!
;)
so true bi, and so called scientists thought the earth was round pffft!
On a more serious note, does anyone believe that denialist bloggers such as Bolt, Blair, et al. have the potential to sway many curious observers with their tirades? If so, how?
11 Neilious,
I think the fear is that enough people might be swayed by the propaganda to matter when it comes to the ballot box. It seems to strike a chord with right-wingers in particular, and especially those lacking critical thinking or any understanding of the philosophy of science. For those aware of peer review, the propagandists have the claim that "real" science doesn't need peer review and they cite Galileo and Einstein to "prove" their point. Peer review is just a conspiracy when it comes to climate science!
This is not a mistake on the part of Blair, "Simon Scowl," or Michael Andrews. This is simple lying. This is simple laziness, assuming the faithful won't even click their references - much as they never even read any of Ann Coulter's endnotes.
How entertaining, watching creationists, climate science denialists, "truthers", HIV denialists and the rest fighting over the last crumbs of stupid not yet consumed by their efforts.
What I particularly liked was the 'new research report' mentioned was at least twelve months old as it was reported in Science Daily in May 2008.
Slightly OT
[Christopher Booker is at it again](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5462580…):
1. _"global temperatures show that their trend has been downwards since 2002, declining at a rate that averages to about 0.25 degree per decade"_
2. _"the Arctic ice has failed to disappear"_
What I fail to find a source for:
>The Chinese and the Indians insist that, since all this global warming is the fault of the developed world, they will only sign the treaty if we agree to pay them $300 billion a year. The Africans and South Americans make similar demands.
Any ideas, what exactly he is talking about?
13 Marion,
We have those here too. Christopher Booker and Melanie Phillips write the most brazen lies about science in national UK papers. Their fans just lap it up.
Of course, it's *possible* that they are not lying. They could be highly delusional.
How about that. 2 posts independently mentioning Christopher Booker.
"the Arctic ice has failed to disappear"
this one is funny. it is always nice to see real papers show up with information that they obviously got from blogs. most often the information is completely outdated. (the same happens with all those guys who claim that temperature has been going down over the last 10 years. the information is just 1 year old and no longer true...)
but blogs like wattsup made a major publicity stunt, when ice area dipped into the two standard deviation range from the average, and declared that the ice is back to normal.
they don t post as much about the [current situation..](http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png)
#8, although that graph does show a slight increase in average temperature over the last 10 years, that 'trend line' looks pretty artificial. Its gradient is certainly incorrect, since it implies warming by a significant fraction of a degree in the last ten years. I'm pretty sure that it's not even responsible to put a trend line on a ten year data set in the first place, but if you did, a moving average covering a year either side on that data set certainly wouldn't be straight.
Reiterating: the warming trend is clear and irrefutable, but that line seems wrong.
I'm laughing although it's painful for me to laugh. The phrase "house of cards" comes to mind. "I know X is true, because my good buddy and fellow ranting idiot said so, and so said his buddy ..." I go particularly hysterical if they ever mention Monckton since Monckton demonstrably NEVER bothers to get documented facts - no, not even once - too much trouble you know.
@Michael #7: Your reasoning is faulty. According to Einstein's Theory of the Infinite:
"Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity. And I'm not really sure about the universe."
There's plenty of stupid to go around; in fact, history shows that stupid breeds stupid. Or was that "ignorance begets ignorance".
@Neilius #11: The answer to that is "absolutely". It's a simple matter of fear-peddling, an age old technique used to cow and herd the sheep. (OK, no more animal references.) YOUR electricity bill is going to skyrocket, and THEY haven't proven a thing. Then of course there's your gas bill, water bill, fuel bill ... for all the "battlers" out there who can barely put food on the table, tough luck, the world is better without you exhaling CO2 anyway ... and so on. Given the propensity of the average Joe towards critical thought, it would not be difficult to sway the masses.
We played that game as kids, but we called it Telephone.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/hadcrut3gl/from:2002/plot/wti/from:20…
try trend from 2002 onwards
Ian Holton,
Good cherry pick, excellent example!
However one skeptic is listening:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/08/2591807.htm
"Family First Senator Steve Fielding says increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere might not be causing global warming.
He has been at a climate change conference in the United States where he heard that solar flares could be linked to temperature change."
Will he accept what the 'government scientists' tell him?
Try oceans as well Mark in that time, they are also cooling from several studies. Where is the CO2 extra heat hiding? It must be somewhere, it is not in the ocean storehouse of heat!
Caerbannog at #10:
Very funny. Too bad the cadre of skeptics haven't caught on that stratospheric cooling is one of the best pieces of evidence for global warming. I'm sure they have trouble with the cognitive dissonance of "cooling" anywhere in a discussion of global warming.
Nothing funny about that, you just do not have an answer!
With, (1) solar-magnetic at & heading for a long slowdown causing cooling for the next 30 to 40 years,
(2) Ocean systems eg. PDO etc in cooler mode for next 30 years or so,
(3) Milankovich Cycles indicating cooling,
(4) We are overdue for the next ice age already,
(5) Lunar gravitaional cycles also indicating a cooling ahead.
(6) We have been cooling in atmosphere and oceans since 2002.......
I just wonder the wisdom of putting all our eggs in one CO2 warming planning basket, and not planning for alternative cooling strategies...
And all based on unproven Co2 positive feedbacks and computer models too!
It is a perilous journey we are heading for with such poor "CO2 is almost everything" planning strategy!
If cooling continues, as it appears to me and many others Australia and world-wide, we are in trouble.
May the good Lord help us!
Ian Holton @28
Were is your evidence? Trendline? Not even a cherry pick link (absent statistical significance)?
Ian can you back your claim, show us these "several studies" that show oceans are cooling (meaning more than statistical noise, I assume you also mean peer reviewed studies?).
Try this article for a good overview:
http://climatesci.org/2009/02/09/update-on-a-comparison-of-upper-ocean-…
"(3) Milankovich Cycles indicating cooling, (4) We are overdue for the next ice age already.."
You mean we would have been in about 30,000 years, had the anthropogenic build-up in atmospheric CO2 concentrations not cancelled all the ice ages for the next half a million years?
By the way, Mark Byrne, are you happy to see the first sunspot of the new cycle?
Ian Holton @30
Nice line Ian, Plimer uses a similar tactic to try an convince the public that Climate science is ignoring everything but CO2. But we know that in bunk don't we Ian. We know the IPCC have assessed the evidence for other causes of the recent warming and found that it is not explainable without CO2 as the strongest change to the balance. You've name Milankovich cycles a legitimate forcing factor that has been quantified and found to be currently a smaller effect than CO2, so here's a challenge. Show us the peer reviewed evidence that all the factors you named (speculative and quantified) are all forcing in the same direction (let alone will out weigh the CO2e forcing).
Sorry Ian,
Looked at your link, couldn't find any peer reviewed evidence that oceans are cooling. Could you specify what evidence you say backs your claim?
The most recent historical ocean heat content estimates w/corrections:
ftp://ftp.nodc.noaa.gov/pub/data.nodc/woa/PUBLICATIONS/grlheat08.pdf
Current observations are consistent with theory.
(3) Milankovich Cycles indicating cooling
Given the very low eccentricity of the Earth's current orbit, what mechanism is likely to cause significant cooling anytime within the next 30,000 years or so?
Your article shows a huge upturn in temp in 2002 approx which is far higher than any temp jumps in the trace. It is the changeover of Argo data and has been discussed on various web blogs, looks suspect and is suspect, why would it suddenly jump up like that!? There are several other studies out I posted already.
The same factors that are causing the present 8 year cooling solar-magnetic downturn a major one is occurring and ocean cycles to cooler phase as is occurring. The solar and ocean have caused the current cooling showing that CO2 is a minor player in the whole affair.
I posted the cooling ocean links twice, but a moderators sign keeps coming up so I can't get them to you, unless I give one more try in a while and see what happens?
Ian,
Try posting the links one per post. Moderation usually hold up when it reads multiple links.
Ian Holton @38
Gaz,
Thanks for the heads-up. I've mixed feelings about the sun firing up for it's next cycle of fractionally more heat. The downside being that the fractionally lower solar output will likely return to more average output.
Ian Holton is probably aware that the bottom of the solar cycle (together with La Nino surface cooling cycle) is in part responsible for the current slowing of the surface warming trend.
The big worry being that this combination (without AGW) should be producing lower than usual temperatres. Instead with AGW we've have near record high temperatures.
Tim,
Gavin Schmidt has given your blog a thumbs up in his latest Real Climate post:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/06/groundhog-day-2/
re #27 Senator Steve "Solar Flare" Fielding could have arranged any number of briefings through the Australian Academy of Science or the CSIRO,and quietly informed himself.
Instead,taking a holiday between the Budget Estimates hearings and the next sitting of the Senate on June 15th he publicly announces a visit Disneyland..sorry ,the Heartland Institute. What a tosser.
That'd be the day. So far we're putting virtually all our eggs in one CO2-won't-cause-harmful-warming basket.
All this "Al Gore is fat" stuff really confuses me. If they were at all interested in this one observation of real data about the real world, why do they ignore, distort all the other data?
Everyone already knows that CO2 is a minor player over 7.5 years (regardless of what the other players really are). On its own, it was only expected to produce a rise of 0.15 deg C/7.5 years. If you think a 0.15 deg C falling trend over 2002-2009.5 is something, try 1877.5 to 1885. That had a falling trend of 0.35 deg C over the same amount of time.
We already know nature can produce a falling trend of 0.35 deg C over 7.5 years. Of course, the natural processes of the last 7.5 years are not capable of keeping that trend up for 100 years unlike CO2 where an "insignificant" 0.15 deg C/7.5 years becomes 2 dec C/100 years.
Ian Holton writes:
Who says? You?
The PDO isn't a perfectly even 30-year cycle. The 30-year figure is an average. And the effect is not large enough to account for recent global warming.
The next stades that would normally result in an ice age are 20,000 and 50,000 years in the future, not "overdue." And due to the present AGW, the one 20,000 years from now will almost certainly not result in an ice age.
Huh? What? Come again?
The Moon has no measurable effect on the Earth's temperature.
Neither is correct. See here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/ocean-cooling-not/
AGW theory is not based on computer models. The paper originally proposing AGW theory was published in 1896. I don't think G.S. Callendar used computer models in 1938, either. It's based on radiation theory. And the positive feedbacks are far from "unproven." Google "Clausius-Clapeyron law" to learn about the main one, water vapor feedback.
We're in trouble if there's an alien invasion with superior technology, too, which is just about as likely.
"There's plenty of stupid to go around; in fact, history shows that stupid breeds stupid. Or was that "ignorance begets ignorance." - MadScientist
You mean there is a Perpetual Stupid Machine??
"You mean there is a Perpetual Stupid Machine??"
Why not? Stupidity appears to be compeletely frictionless.
20 Nils Ross,
I suggest that you email the site owner, Paul Clark, and ask to check his maths. Of course, you could always check his [data](http://www.woodfortrees.org/data/wti/from:1999/plot/wti/from:1999/trend) or download the original data from the originators and do your own trends. Linear trends are easy enough with any spreadsheet app.
You could also try altering the period of that graph at WFT and see what happens to the trend line. The reason that trends are used is precisely *because* it's hard to judge these things by eye. It "seems wrong" doesn't count for much, really. You could also read Paul Clark's own [warning](http://www.woodfortrees.org/notes#trends).
And lastly, *of course* trends on 10 years of climate data aren't "responsible", as you say. The point is that deniers cherry-pick short term data to misrepresent the situation and can't even get that right. Whether that's down to dishonesty or incompetence, I can't say.
Thanks Barton, thanks cce.
Deniers of many types try and use Stupidity like Luke Skywalker uses the Force.
RE# 50:
WA-HEY!! Could it be that the Perpetual Stupid Machine would produce green energy, with no pollution or expenses, providing electricity for all?
Teh world is SAVED! Praise teh Stupid!
No, unfortunately the more it perpetually propagates stupidy, the more energy fighting it must be expended, lest human progress be perpetually halted.
For anyone concerned about particular choices of periods and period lengths:
take a look at recent post at BraveNewClimate, and further explanation of the rationale. Specifically, human perceptual systems notice jaggies & local minima+maxima, and we are poor at doing linear regressions in our heads. We're also not very good at comparing slopes of noisy trends.
A newer addition is Fig. 4, which shows why 5, 10, or even 15-year periods are pretty noisy.
That chart shows:you can claim anything about temperature change rates if you cherry-pick 5,10,15-year ranges and the right ending year. The right-side stack shows the corresponding ranges.
Consider the question:
at the end of any year in the 20th century, if we do the linear regression from year-29 to year, what would we have thought was happening?
A: Through 1925, we'd have thought it was slightly cooling (green 30-year -.04 <= SLOPE <=0), and likewise from 1964 through 1973, (-.04<= SLOPE <= 0), and the rest of the time, SLOPE >0. I.e., once the period gets you beyond the noise of volcanoes, ENSOs, and sharp changes in SO2, you have to work pretty hard to find real cooling periods.
(I'm putting together a more coherent piece on this, with more experimentation, but some people find it useful, so here it is. I don't remember seeing anything quite like this for presenting temperature series, but maybe tamino or Grumbine or RC or someone else has, so if you've seen such, please point me there so I can compare notes. Obviously, it's nothing more than plotting a funny kind of first derivative. All of this ignores errorbars, significance tests, etc, in the effort to genrate minimalist Excel-able examples.)
John @56 I show a figure in the direction of what you seem to have in mind, in Results on deciding trends The third figure shows the trends if one uses the 7 years popular with denialists, and the 25 years that I conclude (for reasons discussed there and in the prior note) is a reasonable number for looking at climate trends.
As usual, my graphics leave much to be desired (months since 1880 is not the friendliest of time axes). But the gist is there.
re: #57 Robert
Thanks, I knew I must have seen something like this somewhere [that was in ski season... during which attention wanders], although my particular motivation was to show someone that the warming rate lately was higher than the pre-1940 rate.
Climate science denialism, or more generally agnotology, is about as elegant and sophisticated as ophthalmology with a pickaxe. Agnotology is the opposite of science. It's the construction of ignorance.
The climate agnotologists will keep banging away on the same drums. They've got nothing new to say. They're just maintaining the noise level now.
I'm somewhat peturbed by the realist world's concern over the likes of Tom Bliar. From what I have seen of Bliar's output, he is, in my opinion, a complete waste of carbon. He seems to me to be that type of arrogant, extreme Rightwing bigot, who has never questioned any received wisdom in his life, and has been promoted in life because he parrots what Murdoch/Moloch 'thinks'. The real genius of the anthropogenic climate change denial industry has, in my opinion, been to sell it as a Left vs Right crusade. In fact it is, but in a sane society, the populace would put averting an unprecedented apocalypse high up on the 'must do' list. Unfortunately, for the fanatic Rightwinger, whose preferences have been revealed in country after country, from Chile to the Philippines and Colombia, whenever circumstances allowed, victory in the ideological struggle is more important than human life itself. I see this as yet further confirming evidence that the Rightwing authoritarian personality is congruent with that of the psychopath. When you bear in mind that this type is the ruling class under market capitalism, and, therefore, funds for the denialist industry are essentially limitless, and media support assured, then struggling against the tsunami of lies and idiocy is truly Sisyphean. And I doubt Sisyphus was an happy chappy. I think the best we can hope for is that once the definitive catastrophes arrive, that somehow, by some miracle, we will still have time, and the technology will be ready, to avert the apocalypse. If not, humanity will simply have failed not just the test of morality, but the simple test of fitness to survive. The only compensation will be that the mentality of the likes of Bliar, Bolt, Devine et al, was in the end confined to this world alone, and succeeded in devastating only this planet, and seeing-off their own species. Such a victory in the 'culture wars' would be a triumph to startle even Pyrrhus.
Re #60, Mulga Mumblebrain,
Just a short note to let you know how much I appreciate your frequent, excellent, responses on The Australian letters blog on climate change. Keep up the good work!
Don't let Bliar, Bolt, Devine et al get to you.
Don't be afraid to start a new paragraph occasionally.
Keep it together.
Your sincerely, Dirk
Algore is using his private jet to cool the stratosphere. It's a daring and clever plot to take over the world, make people give up their guns, and clean up after their dogs.
60 Mulga,
Stop beating about the bush and say what you really mean. ;)
Seriously, though, I can agree with a lot of what you say. These creatures are truly despicable. They are actually proud of their staggering ignorance.
I'd love to see what response you would get from the collection of ignorati at the [Marohasy Bog](http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/06/in-defence-of-heaven-and-earth…)