May 2013 Open thread

Past time for more thread.

More like this

Past time for more thread.
Past time for more thread.
Past time for more thread.
The Antarctic Wilkins Ice Shelf hangs by a thread. Its thinnest point is now reported at 500 metres wide and it could go at any time according to David Vaughan, a glaciologist with the British Antarctic Survey. This will be the tenth shelf lost because of a warmer planet. Look folks, the 'debate…

About time!

Shall we kicmk off with this one? I might have got it from the last thread - not sure:

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/the-acid-ocean-…

The surface, or top 100 metres, of the ocean is now about 35 per cent more acidic than it was at the start of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century, with potentially huge implications for Arctic ecosystems.

The changing chemical make-up of the seawater threatens to wipe out large numbers of herring, cod and capelin – a small fish largely used as animal feed – as well as plankton and crabs.

This could affect the livelihoods of indigenous populations that rely on fishing and hunting, for example, the Canadian Inuit, as well as reducing food for birds and larger marine mammals such as walruses.

But let's not jump to any conclusions or do anything at all until we have comprehensively tested all the world's oceans to ensure we are 100% certain that every single cubic metre of sea is indeed acidifying, eh?

(Can't remember if that was Brad Keyes' bit of genius or some other idiot's).

By VinceWhirlwind (not verified) on 09 May 2013 #permalink

Vince...@ 1
Fantastic article. I particularly like the affect of the attention grabbing scary title, which states that "soaring CO2 leaves fish and hunters "gasping for life". It was heartbreaking for me to imagine all those gasping fish, let alone the gasping hunters that want to kill the gasping fish...

Of course, upon reading the article, I was a bit relieved to find words and phrases such as "a report suggests", "potentially", "This could affect", "is likely to affect" and "threatens to".....all which made me realize that the Inuit people and the fishes weren't actually gasping at this very moment as the title would lead one to believe.

I was really feeling better when I read "carbon absorption is “not all doom and gloom", though I have to admit, I was still a little concerned about the certainty of hunters and fish possibly gasping in the sometime future...

Finally, my title induced fear of gasping fish and hunters fully subsided when I read.... "but the magnitude and direction of change are uncertain".

Gasp!

An large asteroid hurtling towards earth is currently projected to hit pretty-well bang-on Betty's house. Of course, there are considerable uncertainties, so there clearly isn't a problem.

At all. Raypierre has the mentality captured perfectly over at Eli's -

Regarding the potential asteroid impact, I wish to point out that anybody proposing to prevent this impact shows the most astounding and unjustified hubris. What, after all, is the "right" amount of asteroid impacts? Do we know that? Would we have been pleased if the Dinosaurs had prevented the K-T Impact which helped make way for the rise of mammals? No! We don't know the "right" distribution of asteroid impacts any more than we know the "right" temperature the planet should have, so we should just let nature and economics take its sweet course, and not try to understand anything about consequences.

Thanks, Mikeh, the link in the article wasn't working for me.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 09 May 2013 #permalink

@Bill - that meteor site looks to be a real treasure as far as paleo work goes. I'm not surprised at their findings. Thing is, humans suffer too much from short-termism. This work might help people get some perspective.

Watts has exhibited a prime example of Dunning-Kruger in action. He's telling the scientists who did the work on Lake El’gygytgyn (how is that pronounced?) that they, Science editors and peer reviewers all 'forgot about' the Isthmus of Panama!

He writes: "I think the researcher simply skipped over this important detail is pushing the idea that CO2 was the only issue."

The 'researcher' who did the work? There are 16 authors of that single paper, and no doubt many others involved.

And adds: "I’m sure Steve McIntyre will be interested in getting a look at the sediments and the dating methods to see if there are errors there. Lately, it seems that paleo research has made some very broad assumptions, and almost always in the favor of the theory."

"almost always in the favor of the theory"! Nah, they should do what Anthony favours - discard physics, chemistry and biology and just make up stuff out of thin air.

What a nutter!

Hang on - isn't Williwatts' always in favour of the joke theory that AGW is not/cannot be a problem and the scientists are all in on a big scam of some sort or another?

Yeah, we should just adapt to ELE asteroid strikes!

Well the link from #1 does contain the kind of diplomatic stupidity that feeds #3 -
---
But carbon absorption is “not all doom and gloom”, it added.

The more carbon dioxide the sea absorbs, the less is left in the atmosphere, thereby reducing the impact of global warming.
---

The climate revisionist in #3 didn't pick up on that. Ignorance galore :D

So, what now? We can rest assured because the oceans are not dumping their entire CO2 content into the atmosphere? Well that's a *whew* if there ever was one :)

By cRR Kampen (not verified) on 10 May 2013 #permalink

#4, sure: extremes are getting hyper. Naturally you must totally forget about http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/year-of-the-twister/ .
Wanna trade? One in three years like that, the other two devoid of tornadoes entirely? Or do you see that a year like 2011 would need like a quarter century of absolute quite to be compensated?

By cRR Kampen (not verified) on 10 May 2013 #permalink

# 12 Sou

"El-gee-git-gin" with hard "g"s.

The warm Pliocene Arctic as evidenced by the El'gygytgyn cores is *very strong* evidence for an Earth System sensitivity greater than the ~3C fast-feedbacks sensitivity.

Less ice = higher S.

And to think, given enough time, all that was possible at 400ppmv CO2...

"... an Earth System sensitivity greater than the ~3C fast-feedbacks sensitivity"
Indeed.
And that definitely means a 'C' in front of 'AGW'. Ain't seen nothing yet.

By cRR Kampen (not verified) on 10 May 2013 #permalink

Brigham-Grette et al. is exactly the kind of paleoclimate study that model-obsessed deniers need to read and think about. Model-obsessed deniers insist that "the models are crap therefore AGW is crap", whereas the truth is that the models aren't by any means perfect but the main evidence for the efficacy of CO2 forcing (including its engagement of positive feedbacks from WV on down) is paleoclimate behaviour.

This cannot be repeated often enough, because the whole "models bad; AGW wrong" meme has been deliberately peddled by the organised denial movement for years.

Welcome to the Anthropocene.

In my experience Deniers are biological ignoramuses almost without exception. They seem to regard the world itself self as a mere cinematic backdrop to their Important Lives,and the Very Important Process of Making Money and Not Letting the Unworthy Get Their Hands on it.

This even seems to hold for the alleged bucolics.

Not only that, but they're arrogant - if not aggressive! - ignoramuses. They're contemptuous: 1, of the natural world; 2, of the study of the natural world; and 3, of anyone who thinks these are important.

Maladapted is the word we're looking for...

It's ironic that these synthetics regularly accuse others of being out-of-touch latte-sipping urbanites.

Bill @ 7....

"An large asteroid hurtling towards earth is currently projected to hit pretty-well bang-on Betty’s house. Of course, there are considerable uncertainties, so there clearly isn’t a problem."

Great analogy.
There is the potential worst case scenario that a man made asteroid is heading towards my house, so I should install some CFL bulbs to stop it....

Say something intelligent, Betula, or bugger off. Your trolling is tedious.

Oh dear, betty, who says that CFLs will stop asteroid strikes?

Lame squared.

Betula, from your CO2 generator link: "Plants must absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) in combination with water, soil nutrients and sunlight to produce the sugars vital for growth. " and "Just as you adjust the amount of water and fertilizer to meet the changing needs of your plants. you also set the Johnson Generator to produce the desired amount of CO2 for your greenhouse."
Do you understand why just increasing CO2 in the global atmosphere will not lead to a universal growth in plant productivity?

By Turboblocke (not verified) on 11 May 2013 #permalink

Anyone here have any idea why Tamino's site is all locked up?

Do you understand why just increasing CO2 in the global atmosphere will not lead to a universal growth in plant productivity?

The answer is no.

As Betty freely demonstrates time and time again, he's too stupid to understand the complexity of plant physiology despite multiple previous stabs at this tired old zombie meme.

Betual, our tree pruner, thinks that complex adaptive systems function like micro-ecological scale greenhouses.

We all know the guy has the scientific education of an amoeba, but how many times has this analogy been torn to shreds before~? I have done it at least 10 times on Deltoid, and it bounces off this guy's head like a rubber ball.

To be honest, the "C02 is plant food and therefore increased concentrations of this gas will increase primary productivity and thus benefit ecological communities, systems and biomes" argument is so utterly asinine that qualified scientists (that would be me and many thousands of others who work in related fields) don't take it seriously. The only reason I counter it is because buffoons like Betula and a few other deniers repeat it endlessly and their bombast might sway a few lay readers who stumble on it.

So here we go again: CO2 is NOT a limiting nutrient for plant growth.... nitrogen and especially phosphorus are. Moreover, some plants will respond positively to increased C02 in the atmosphere but many will not. This will lead to competitive asymmetries amongst different plant groups - mono and dicots and larger vegetation leading to decidedly non-linear dynamics. Moreover, primary productivity is regulated by both bottom-up (plant-mediated) and top-down (consumer-mediated) processes. In this context, we must take a multi-trophic eco-physiological approach to the question, which of course the kindergarten/Dunning-Kruger brigade who consistently dredge up the more C02 = more biomass argument never do because they are intellectually incapable of doing so. In other words, they DO NOT HAVE THE PROFESSIONAL EXPERTISE TO UNDERSTAND COMPLEX NON-LINEAR PROCESSES. This is capitalized because these idiots try and forever to boil down and simplify nature to the lowest common denominator. I never see them discuss changes in plant tolerance and allelochemistry in their arguments, again because they don't understand it. Nothing about changes in C or N based secondary metabolites, or of their consequences on consumer development, behavior and fitness, and how this will ripple its way through food webs and ecosystems. Nothing about how species-specific responses will lead to the competitive exclusion of the losers; nothing about rates of change, and how plants have evolved over very long time scales to relatively low ambient C02 concentrations, and that fact that the planet achieved the highest species (and genetic) richness in its history under these conditions. Sure, terrestrial plants (and by association, their consumers up the food chain) can adapt over evolutionary time to an increase in C02, but we are not talking about changes in concentrations that normally take tends if not hundreds of thousands of years, we are talking about a couple of centuries.

What was I saying earlier about the inability of deniers to understand the importance of scale? Karen, Betula, and other deniers are serial offenders. A few days ago Betula suggested that a low season (March-April) tornado tally in the US 'was a net benefit of global warming' - of course confusing weather (2 months) and climate (many years of data). The he pastes some crap about a company that produces a C02 machine that can be pumped into a greenhouse - where everything is controlled and the vast majority of biotic constraints are excluded - as a good proxy for the benefits of higher 02 concentrations on plant productivity.

Has this guy no shame? Clearly not. Give that most everyone here continually expose his nonsense for what it is, expect a bitter (but vacuous of course) from him in response to my post. He'll go back to a sort piece written by a colleague where I work about my observations of climate change on the borders of biomes on the basis of a winter trek I made across Algonquin Park 15 months ago. But don't expect him to try and debate me on the science I have discussed here. Its simply because he can't.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 11 May 2013 #permalink

Great analogy. There is the potential worst case scenario that a man made asteroid is heading towards my house, so I should install some CFL bulbs to stop it….

Pretty clear as clear can be illustration of how Betty-type morons can't comprehend the simplest of abstract thinking.

What do CO2 reducing CFC bulbs have to do with asteroid impacts?
Fucked if I know, or you, or Betty come to that.

Now if the deus ex machina had been say, extra-long asteroid-deflecting bamboo poles or an asteroid whacking super conker, that might have been relevant to the analogy.
However such rudimentary rigorous thinking, or more pertinently the lack thereof, is why Betty's the constant joke that doesn't realise that his ham-fisted, knuckle-headed promotion of his 'cause' has the opposite effect to that intended. Which is why 'news just in - deniers are stupid' is no news at all, and never will be.

Betty will be back in 6 months or so when he thinks we've all forgotten.

... or to put it more bluntly, as BBD said at number 29....

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 11 May 2013 #permalink

Yet again the birch has decided not to spare us. So we can't complain of being spoiled.

But he certainly doesn't hold the whip hand...

Leibig's Law, BTW.

All the CO2 in the world won't help if it's stopped raining. Or all the rain arrives in a flood.

But thanks for taking the time to reinforce my observation that Deniers are shallow, money-obsessed, biological ignoramuses. Who don't understand analogies.

No idea on Tamino's. Leave? A paper to finalise? Existential weariness from being stuck too long as a reluctant passenger on the ship of fools?

David Rose's misrepresentation of James Annan might have done some damage.

Annan, in comments:

However, I did recently hear something about someone senior and influential presenting it (the original misrepresentation) so as to show me in a negative light, apparently unaware of the circumstances. I haven't chased this up any further, but scientists rely heavily on their reputation and I don't get a lot of press coverage, so it's not entirely insignificant to me if these things happen.

This is what the "sceptics" do to integrity.

Bill 38
If I remember correctly, Tamino indicated he had a book to finish.

BBD at # 19:

And to think, given enough time, all that was possible at 400ppmv CO2…

This single sentence encapsulates two of the most fundamental points/questions of the debate - what is the best estimation of equilibrium climate sensitivity (denialist obfuscation notwithstanding) and what will be the realised integrated trajectory of human-emitted atmospheric carbon dioxide (again, denialist obfuscation notwithstanding)?

For the former, just about all the intelligent money is on an ECS of great than 3 degrees Celsius - my own best estimate a while back was around 3.4, I think. And given Lionel's flagging at #22 of the breaking of the 400 ppm mark at a time when emission rates are still accelerating and human action is still at best nominal*, the final trajectory of climate response will push many of the biosphere's species (including humans) into the ecophysiological badlands.

Ignorants such as Betula can't gather their thoughts** around the fact that this is a problem of a duration of centuries and millenia, and that the worst impacts will manifest after the free ride of cheap and easily accessed fossil energy has been exhausted (in both senses of the word), leaving our decendants with a severely compromised capacity to attempt to redress even a small part of the damage that Industrial Society has wrought.

A couple of years ago I remarked to someone that if we reach 400 ppm and humanity has not initiated a coherent and tangible global response to effect emissions reduction then we can effectively say goodbye to a soft landing for our grandchildren and their grandchildren. It turns out that not only has that eventuated, but that we're doing our level-best to accelerate in the opposite direction.

It's at times like this that I wish (and should perhaps pray) that there actually is a heaven and a hell, because that at least would offer some hope of the guilty receiving their just desserts.

[* In Australia such action, modest as it is, has been promised to be reversed by the opposition leader Tony Abbott when he wins the federal election in September. Vale any shred of Australian leadership.

** I use the term loosely...]

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 11 May 2013 #permalink

Thanks JohnL!

Batty - Potholer has set you a challenge.

You have to explain why the overwhelming paleo / non-model evidence for AGW is wrong, without resort to conspiracy theories, complaints about models, back-helicopter accounts of the UN and it's sub-agencies' activities, or pointing out that Al Gore is rich, or fat.

While I concede that your intellect may indeed be at least somewhat larger, you have no more chance of doing so than my cat does. Prove me wrong.

Bill at #38:

Existential weariness from being stuck too long as a reluctant passenger on the ship of fools?

One could not blame Tamino were that the case. I am sure now that humans will only learn this lesson the hard way.

I arrived at a point a few years ago where I decided to spend less time trying to make silk purses from sows' ears, and I now devote more energy now to making my local community resilient in a fashion similar to the Transition Town movement. At least in this enterprise I can see some fruits for my labours...

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 12 May 2013 #permalink

I was a bit concerned that Tamino had grown so weary of combating nonsense he had given up completely. I learn more from his output than from anywhere else, I'd hate to lose that.

It's bad enough Tim seems to have given up.

If we truly are heading for 1000ppm and a mere 400 ppm, as we have now, can produce a 14F increase in Arctic temps, our grandkids and their kids are screwed. The psychopaths we elect and those in control of corporations may not give a damn about our descendants, but the rest of us do, so we need to convince them that it's in their best interests to mitigate AGW.

The only way I see that happening is to convince others the threat is real and for them to hit the voting booths and to vote elsewhere with their money.

GaryB,

Nice posts - I mostly agree with you, although where short term profit is concerned there will be no 'convincing' of powerful vested interests. They have to be forced to comply to the long term interests of society, and this can only be done through government intervention in the economy. There's no other way: banks and corporations have to be regulated. Otherwise the capitalist obsession with unlimited economic growth and expansion will take our ecological life support systems to hell.

IMHO Derek Jensen lays out the nature of the human predicament pretty well in his books "Endgame - Volumes 1 and 2". Civilization as currently defined is unsustainable, and relies on violence and theft to perpetuate itself.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 12 May 2013 #permalink

They have to be forced to comply to the long term interests of society, and this can only be done through government intervention in the economy. There’s no other way: banks and corporations have to be regulated.

Surprisingly enough, that's much of the gist from the moderate Republican voices speaking in MikeH's link in #44

The problem of course, is the global hi-jacking of 'traditional' conservativism by a radical Norquistian agenda seeking to 'drown government in the bathtub' funded by Koch money and their Tea Party foot soldier stooges and their associated think tanks and foundations who are working for an eventual outcome leaving an unchallenged and unregulated corporate feudal oligarchy that spits in the face of such old-style conservative values as venomously as it does that of social democratic ones.

It can't be allowed to happen and won't happen, but it'll get messy before it gets better and mass 'conservative' voters realise they've actually been voting against the wider interests of their own families and communities.

Completely agree! At his time genuine - small 'c' - conservatives have much in common with social democrats - despite the constant claims of antithesis.

What they particularly share is their major enemy; the civilization wrecking cabal of radical reactionaries - the billionaire psychopaths and their Tea-Partyite, Dunning-Krugerite foot soldiers - as exemplified by the anti-AGW rabble. And the necessity of avoiding the dreadful outcome of this idiot militancy, which threatens to poison all our prosperities.

The GOP is choking on the Tea Party and only a few have recognized their dilemma - hope reelection comes with following the tea party hard-line and the radical religious or give up the Southern Strategy and embrace the changes most Americans want to see.

A win for common sense - the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre has been funded for a further 5 years.

Fortunately this decision was made before the Coalition gains government in September - it would quite likely have gone the other way had Tony Abbott had a say in the matter...

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 12 May 2013 #permalink

Peter Sinclair has a post on the tensions in the GOP over climate change, too.

It would be a bitter irony indeed if the Republicans were to abandon The Stupid just at the time Australia's amusingly named 'Liberal' Party embraced it as a core strategy.

Because we have such a long way to go even if the alleged conservatives finally do become real conservatives. It would be extremely fortunate indeed if the lowest-impact policies involving the least tinkering with the economic system actually worked; most likely they won't, and then the hard choices - and a dreadul likelihood of another cycle of denial and retrogression - begins. We should have started all this more than a decade ago when there was a real chance the easyish strategies would work.

(Thanks, Idiots!)

This debate has spectacularly rubbed-in the sad message that a substantial and noisy minority really are idiots who may live in the 21st Century, but their minds are lost in the 14th. They're always going to present a terrible revisionist temptation to idiot populism for a cynical or equally stupid political class...

MEMO to Tony Abbott: if you're serious about being Australia's next PM, take up smoking, sink more tinnies and check out a few lap-dancing clubs. In short, don't make David Cameron your role model, choose Nigel Farage.

In the recent British local elections, Farage's UK Independence Party came from nowhere to become Britain's third most popular party.

Er, right, so Tony Abbott should be aiming at coming 3rd in this year's election?

You *really* are a fucking idiot, aren't you, Delingpole?

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 13 May 2013 #permalink

Australia's already been there and done UKIP - it gave John Howard the opportunity to move to the far-Right on all the faux-populist issues he wanted to then died a death.

As usual, the idiots ended up crapped all over economically because they never learn that they're being used; anyone who's 'tough on the ragheads' is fine by them and, oh dear, WorkChoices - where did that come from?...

One Nation and Pauline Who?, incidentally.

(Can also be thought of as a sort of Antipodean Tea-Party that at least wasn't a bunch of sock-puppets for billionaires. But Good Riddance anyway, eh?)

Cast your mind back to the 1930s for what else can be done with this demographic...

Tony 'Opus Dei' Abbott getting advice to Ocker-up and go a lap-dancing from an oleaginous Pommy dweeb... says more, if more was needed to be said, about The Oz than anything else...

...came from nowhere to become Britain’s third most popular party.

Hum! How long for?

My guess this was just a protest vote but eventually the electorate could, but probably wont, wake up to the fact that this was just a protest vote for a party working mostly one issue - EU membership. Furthermore, for a party that does not have the interests of most of the electorate at heart being even more right wing than Cameron & Co. The Lib-Dems (s***, I remember when the Liberals and 'Social Democratic Party were fighting over the scraps) will no longer be trusted by a large section of their voters after siding with the Tories, but then the numbers at the last general election did not favour the alternative. History will show that they should have gone with Labour.

WRT UKIP I recall being approached by their local candidate before the last General Election giving him my opinion of their spokesperson on climate change, one Christopher Monckton who I described as a pompous prat. I think that message finally filtered through to the brain cell of UKIP.

Note this from Wiki' , my emphasis:

At the 2010 general election he was nominated as the UKIP candidate for the Scottish constituency of Perth and North Perthshire; although a hereditary peer, he was entitled to stand for election for the House of Commons as he is not a member of the House of Lords.

Thus, Monckton's status WRT The House of Lords could not be clearer and standing for election to the commons Monckton himself could not have been ignorant of that status.

WUWT-ers have just discovered a warmist cultists secret.

HadCRUT has been updated and was put UP in some parts, and by a whole 10,000 millionths of a degree.

Brad reckons they need to find a way to get the US govt, which as everyone knows, funds the UK Met Office and CRU, to wake up. But not to get the Republicans to do so because everyone will just think they are being anti-science again.

If you want a change from climate science, click the link:

http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2013/05/gotta-give-deniers-credit.html

PS - loved that Daily Mash piece, m'lord :)

You *really* are a fucking idiot, aren’t you, Delingpole?

Yes.

This has been another edition...oh, wait, that question was rhetorical. Very good. Carry on.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 13 May 2013 #permalink

Is it congenitally impossible for you to say anything when you post, Betty?

""…came from nowhere to become Britain’s third most popular party."

Hum! How long for?"

Almost no time whatsoever.

Since there's absolutely no difference between the main two parties in the UK, at least when they are in power (they talk different when in opposition), single-issue voting is the new thing. Greens gained more seats in council than UKIP, for example.

Before the current moment about UKIP losing elections passes, did anyone see a comedian (or may have been writer Charlie Brooker) riffing last week on some show or other on how the useless Lib-Dems couldn't manage to beat the BNP vote even after their (the BNP's) candidate (Lady Dorothy MacBeth Brookes - which does have a ring of the Sir Digby Chicken-Cesar about it to start with) had blacked up for the campaign?

If I could only remember what to look for, it's a Youtube classic! Somewhere...

Turdblocke @ 31 writes..

"Betula, from your CO2 generator link: “Plants must absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) in combination with water, soil nutrients and sunlight to produce the sugars vital for growth. ” and “Just as you adjust the amount of water and fertilizer to meet the changing needs of your plants. you also set the Johnson Generator to produce the desired amount of CO2 for your greenhouse.”

Why Turdo, why? Why would you intentionally leave out this...

"Plants must absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) in combination with water, soil nutrients and sunlight to produce the sugars vital for growth. A shortage of any of these requirements will retard the growing process. Normally there are approximately 300 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere; when this level is increased to over 1,000 ppm, results are higher production and better plant quality."

Oh what a tangled Turd we weave....

Why would you intentionally leave out this…

Because it doesn't gainsay what turbobloke was saying, betty.

You need to understand that a quotation will be a part of a greater whole. Quote mining isn't quoting. No matter how much it is your only avenue of attack.

"Normally there are approximately 300 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere; when this level is increased to over 1,000 ppm, results are higher production and better plant quality.”

A few crop plants in greenhouses, you dipstick. Not in the real world.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 13 May 2013 #permalink

And isn't Betty awfully slow.

How long did it take betty to read her OWN FUCKING LINK and find that "rebuttal"?

Betula: good to see that you read your link.
Do you get the point about "A shortage of any of these requirements will retard the growing process. It means that just increasing CO2 is not enough: you have to provide sufficient amounts of the other factors. Note that appropriate temperature is also a requirement.

You should also note that plants are not composed solely of sugars.

By Turboblocke (not verified) on 13 May 2013 #permalink

Betula & CO2 increase good for plants?

Argue with this, Weeds grow well in high CO2. Crops? .

More plant growth does not necessarily mean better food for cellulose and toxin levels can increase with increased intake of mass - maybe not so good for digestion or nutrition.

Betula, staring your own stupidity in the face. How does it feel?

Jeff Harvey @ 68, I just read a reference to that paper. You answered any question that I had.

I'd like to thank you for the many times you've posted on the ecological and environmental effects of climate change.
Your posts have greatly added to my knowledge of the subject.

Craig, I think even WUWT worked out that the paper was about the thermosphere.

IceAgeNow comes across as a parody website, although the chap who runs it probably think he is serious. How many times has he predicted "this year the ice age will start"? A limitless source of hope for science deniers.

...and for John McLean, PhD(Not), whose "coldest year since 1953" is 2 years overdue now.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 13 May 2013 #permalink

#74,that was the article that helped Karen recognise her stupidity. The realisation shut her up for all of a week...then the inner idiot triumphed and it was resumption of normal service. A bit like Betula, raising 'CO2 is plant food' for the umpteenth time as though for the first. Must be some kind of brain damage.

Rational Wki nails Robert W Felix.

Robert W. Felix is a crank extraordinaire promoting his own brand of Earth changes, which acts as a framework that he can shoehorn various other types of crankery into. All of his "theories" revolve around pole shifts and cosmic rays.

And yes we do appreciate that pole shifts have happened and will happen again and that GCRs are real enough. Those who commonly believe in the crankery of Felix also tend to believe in abiotic oil and other flavours of crank magnetism.

Anybody here who has read 'The Hunt for Zero Point' by Nick Cook would have come across more 'cold-fusion' type wizardry with The Hutchison Effect.

Those who live in London or thereabouts will be interested in
this:

Public Lecture by James Hansen - Itinerant Farming to White House Arrests: a scientist’s view of the climate crisis

http://www2.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/events/home.aspx

I understand it has been organised at short notice and so getting in might easier than you might usually expect.

By lord_sidcup (not verified) on 14 May 2013 #permalink

lord_sidcup

Oh! If only I were fit enough to travel.

There is a fascinating exchange going on underneath (if you like watching a sensible person such as SkS team member Rob Honeycutt batting up against a brick wall like CHIP [1]) Potholer's, The evidence for climate change WITHOUT computer models or the IPCC.

Have a barf bag handy.

And here is some discussion which includes isotopic ratios of CO2 .

[1] not cover for Cato's Knappenberger perchance? Whatever, a good double for our B Keyes it would seem.

# 83

That's not a fascinating discussion. That's CHIP either misunderstanding or pretending to misunderstand Rob H. Who is doing a commendable job of keeping his temper.

CHIP is a prat.

But that's all they've got, isn't it? Prattish behaviour in blog comments.

And when you step back, what an utterly ridiculous thing to dig in over. These muppets are actually trying to *deny* that the increase in CO2 ppmv since the industrial revolution is from burning fossil fuels.

How stupid. How pointless. How obviously dishonest and wrong.

As I said, they are prats.

BBD

When I used the term 'fascinating' I was considering the inanity of CHIP's chosen argument and how it meshes with our recent Keyes experience. Yes indeed they are prats for it is their future and that of their children and grandchildren at stake. They are prats even if taking fossil fuel lobby hand outs for doing their thing. But, they still need calling out unless they persuade others less clued up and Rob is doing a fine job.

Some interesting reading from LiveScience:

"The researchers suspect that the glacial melting in the Everest region is due to global warming, but they have not yet established a firm connection between the mountains' changes and climate change"

The very next sentence:

"While Everest isn't the only Himalayan region seeing the effects of climate change, not all of the region's glaciers are melting"

So there's no firm connection with climate change, yet Everest isn't the only region seeing the effects of climate change? How can it see the effects of something not confirmed?

Wait, I know the answer: Even though they can't confirm it, they know Everest is seeing the effects of climate change because "not all of the region's glaciers are melting", in fact, some "may even be growing". Obviously, you can't get more proof than that....

Hilarious!

http://news.yahoo.com/mount-everests-ice-melting-190137522.html

Still incapable of saying what you mean, Betty? That's because you, like everyone else, know that you can't actually make any accusation because it isn't supported, so you just insinuate.

As if that works...

#88,have you ever realised that journalists can be confused,confusing and often without a clue or a proof reader/ editor,Betty? You're 'critiquing' journalism,not glaciology.

More empty-headed gloating!

You ever written an article, Batty? I'm going to guess that the answer is no. If you write for a living - and, crucially, to deadlines - sometimes you simply don't express yourself as clearly as you might.

As Nick says, you're critiquing the journalism, not the science.

The Himalayas are seeing changes brought about by AGW, with overall glacial reduction and attendant dire consequences, but changes in snowfall patterns caused by extra moisture held in the warmer atmosphere, and changes in circulation patterns, complicate matters somewhat.

Not so much that we need to throw up our hands and proclaim loudly 'See?; nothing can be known!'; a standard Denier pre-Scientific tactic...

Bill, the Grauniad's article about Alaska, titled "America's first climate refugees", is well worth being sceptical about.

The people of Newtok live on a river bend and erosion is forcing them to look at moving.
The article states:

A study by the US Army Corps of Engineers on the effects of climate change on native Alaskan villages...

And yet, the referenced study doesn't appear to mention climate change at all. I haven't read it in full, but it contains the following:

In the past, communities
simply moved away from erosion sites as
necessary. As communities became tied to the
land through infrastructure development, it
became more difficult to move away from erosi
on sites,

There is no suggestion the current erosion being experienced is novel, and no indication its extent or severity have increased recently.

All in all, this article appears to be a classic case of journalistic invention and hyperbole.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 14 May 2013 #permalink

oops

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 14 May 2013 #permalink

Craig, the first piece says 'in a process moving at unusual speed because of climate change', which seems reasonable, and it's notable that this is one of 180 communities facing similar threats. That many Inuit have no idea how to site a village?

The erosion issue is taken up again in today's piece, which also yields this interesting quote:

"Climate change is not just an environmental issue. It is also a social, cultural, and economic issue important to all Alaskans... As a result of this warming, coastal erosion, thawing permafrost, retreating sea ice, record forest fires, and other changes are affecting, and will continue to affect, the lifestyles and livelihoods of Alaskans."

A fairly neat summary of the overall situation Alaska faces made by a Famous Alaskan Politician, from 2007.

OK, I'm sure the point about the permafrost is correct, however, the phrase you quote is not referenced to anybody and is therefore uncheckable.

Add to that the erroneous characterisation of the US Army Corps of Engineers' study and that studies' mention of the erosion/relocation process being a familiar event, and I think this is not an article that could be assigned a high level of reliability.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 14 May 2013 #permalink

As I quote before, from the Engineers' report,

In the past, communities
simply moved away from erosion sites as
necessary. As communities became tied to the
land through infrastructure development, it
became more difficult to move away from erosi
on sites,

The issue is infrastructure development, not climate change.

I was instantly sceptical when the journalist described the village's geographical situation - surrounded on three sides by a loop in the river. In an environment that experiences seasons, *especially* including spring thaws, river loops are virtually guaranteed to be highly mobile.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 14 May 2013 #permalink

That many Inuit have no idea how to site a village?

Heh.

How many Easter Islanders had a clue?

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 14 May 2013 #permalink

# 87 Lionel

Yes, of course.

# 88 Betula

Bill has it right at # 91. Glaciers are a proxy for precipitation above the snow-line as well as temperature at the snout. So you need to look at the general behaviour of glaciers in a region and globally, rather than focus on specific glaciers - which is why deniers tend to do the latter.

Here's the big picture - global spatio-temporal mass balance change 1946-2005 (source: World Glacier Monitoring Serivce report Global Glacier Changes 2009):

Fig. 5.8 a-f Spatio-temporal overview on glacier mass changes. Spatio-temporal overview on glacier mass changes. The average annual mass balance for nine sectors of the globe are shown for the decades (a) 1946–55, (b) 1956–65, (c) 1966–75, (d) 1976–85, (e) 1986–95, and (f) 1996–2005. Sectors with measurements are coloured according to the mean annual specific mass balance in metre w.e. with positive balances in blue, ice losses up to 0.25 m w.e. in orange and above that in red; sectors without data in grey. Average decadal mass balance values based on less than 100 observations (marked in italics) are less representative for the entire sector. For each decade, the global mean (gm) annual mass balance in m w.e. and the number of observations (no) are indicated. Source: Data from WGMS.

Here's global glacier length change 1845 - 2005. Red indicates recession; blue indicates advance.

The WGMS has since updated its mass balance survey to 2011:

Preliminary mass balance values for the observation period 2010/11 have been reported now from more than 100 glaciers worldwide. The mass balance statistics (Table 1) are calculated based on all reported values as well as on the data from the 37 reference glaciers in ten mountain ranges (Table 2) with continuous observation series back to 1980.

The average mass balance of the glaciers with available long-term observation series around the world continues to be negative, with tentative figures indicating a further thickness reduction of one metre water equivalent (m w.e.) during the hydrological year 2011. The new data continues the global trend in strong ice loss over the past few decades and brings the cumulative average thickness loss of the reference glaciers since 1980 at more than 15 m w.e. (see Figures 1 and 2).

Fig. 1 Mean annual mass balance of reference glaciers 1980 - 2011.

Fig. 2 Mean cumulative mass balance of ALL reported glaciers (blue dashed) vs reference glaciers (red) 1980 - 2011

Craig, the change is much faster now.

Ever dug into sand and ice? Which one's easier to move?

Wow, I don't see where the journalist has quantified any change in, for example, annual flow down the river that's eating away at the site of the village, Or maybe quantified the increase in days where thawed riverbank is exposed to moving water.

All I see is a story about "climate refugees" backed by a misleading reference to a US Army Corps of Engineers report that doesn't mention climate change but talks about erosion as a long-term issue for the area.

Not a very good article, in my opinion.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 15 May 2013 #permalink

The Cook paper is interesting, not so much for confirming what we already knew, but because they really were extraordinarily conservative in their assumptions, casting thousands of papers into the 'neutral' pile if they didn't specifically state 'oh, and AGW.'

This was an issue when doing Cook's related 'rate the precis' survey, where I kept finding myself thinking "well, it seems obvious the whole reason this study has been done at all is because the authors assume temps/SLs/CO2 levels etc. are going to rise and keep on rising, but it doesn't specifically cite AGW, so is this 'implicit' or 'neutral'?"

They rated it 'neutral'. I don't think anyone can complain about that.

(But they will, of course.)

As Cook says, AGW is the assumed background of the field; you no more have to restate it than a geology paper author would feel the need to state that 'and our findings support the tectonic plate theory'!

That's a consensus, people!

You mean Mark Hendricks, or whatever his name is? What a turkey.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 16 May 2013 #permalink

@ MikeH # 8

Thanks for the pointer.

"quantified any change in, for example, annual flow down the river that’s eating away at the site of the village"

That would be because it isn't the change in annual flow down the river that's causing the erosion, Craig. They (in this case quite reasonably) didn't put something down that wasn't in the paper they were reporting on.

I asked you the question "[have you] ever dug into sand and ice?" for a reason.

The reason why erosion is increased markedly is that the FROZEN SOIL is now thawing.

The loss of a protective ice shelf that used to stop the waves hitting the ground beyond is also a noted factor in the report and the paper.

@ Karen, Rednose and other Clowns.

Remember all those "arguments" about regional cold weather vs global average temperature?

Remember how we told you that you were confused and wrong?

See How cold has it really been in the norther hemisphere? (an excellent tip from MikeH)

TLDR? Here's the micro-synopsis for lazy clowns: "warm with pockets of cold":

The last time the northern hemisphere recorded a month — any month — that was cooler than the 1961-1990 long-term average was in February 1994. The last time a whole northern hemisphere winter was colder than average was 1984.

Here's the obligatory pretty picture for the text-averse.

BBD @ 12...

Great article BBD, here's my favorite part:

"Is there a link to climate change?"

"One way of assessing how unusual the atmospheric conditions were in March is to make use of an index of atmospheric circulation, known as the Arctic Oscillation (AO) index"

"In terms of climate change, there is no clear long-term trend in average values of the Arctic Oscillation index. However, a number of recent model-based studies have suggested a possible link between decreased Arctic Ocean sea-ice cover, driven by global warming, and extreme phases of the Arctic Oscillation".

"This is still a new and active area of research, and it is too early to draw firm conclusions. The possibility will need to be monitored closely over the coming years."

It would appear there is a "possible link" between "it is too early to draw firm conclusions" and "will need to be monitored closely".

Keep sending them BBD...

I always get a good laugh when I come here Betula :)

hehehe, look at #7 lololo, there is a flaccid old taxi driver desperately trying to hold the faith, lol

and BBd #12 offering up copies of GISS comic's

hehehehehehe

@Betty

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.

Charles Darwin

By lord_sidcup (not verified) on 16 May 2013 #permalink

I always get a good laugh when I come here

Indeed you do Karen, indeed you do. Just maybe not in the way that you mean.

It's really true. Naming does call.

# 13 Betula

Why do you say absolutely nothing about your moronic shite about glaciers, addressed in some detail on the previous page, here and here?

What is wrong with you?

Karen

Going to deny the validity of every single gridded global temperature data set one after the other?

Here's HadCRUT4 for you to deny next.

Go on, do it. Perhaps even you can tell how unhinged you look, frantically rejected everything like the frightened child you so clearly are.

So still incapable of saying anything, I see, Betty.

You like some words in the paper. But you can't say anything other than that, apparently. So, given we couldn't give two shits and a holler what you like what the fuck was the point?

BBD...@18.

Having no response to my dissection of your article at #12, you understandably respond by changing the subject to this...

"Why do you say absolutely nothing about your moronic shite about glaciers, addressed in some detail on the previous page, here and here?

Perhaps you should take it up with the author of the LiveScience article, but since we know you won't, let's go with the embarrassing you again method...

Here's, what you stated at # 99 of the previous page in response to what I sent at # 88...

You at # 99 - "So you need to look at the general behaviour of glaciers in a region and globally, rather than focus on specific glaciers"

Here's # 88 (from the article) -

"they have not yet established a firm connection between the mountains’ changes and climate change”

“While Everest isn’t the only Himalayan region seeing the effects of climate change, not all of the region’s glaciers are melting”.... in fact, some “may even be growing”.

Do you see the word "region" in there? Did you see the words "not yet established a firm connection"? Did you happen to notice the words "not all of the region’s glaciers are melting"? Did you spot the word "region" again?

Do you actually read your links or do you just not understand what you write? It would appear you miss the obvious words only to see the ones you want to see, even when the obvious ones are smacking you up top the head.

Betty, you have to SAY SOMETHING before it can be a "dissection".

All you did was make a couple of quotes, say nothing about them, taking some time over them, then leave with a question mark.

That isn't a dissection.

Hell, it's not even conversation.

#21 Betula

Instead of repeating the absurd denialist meme that there is any doubt whatsoever that *global* glacial recession provides corroborating evidence for *global* warming, you repeat your rubbish once again.

It is still rubbish. Look at the figures I linked for you. Global glacier recession in response to global warming mainly driven by CO2 emissions. Face the evidence instead of cringing away in terror. Face up to what is actually going on. Your moral cowardice is sickening to behold.

You have *never* embarrassed me, so the "again" is a self-serving delusion we can all safely ignore. You only embarrass yourself, over and over again.

Fucking hell I am sick of these miserable, lying, evasive, cowardly, delusional DENIERS.

GLOBAL spatio-temporal mass balance change 1946-2005

GLOBAL glacier length change 1845 - 2005. Red indicates recession; blue indicates advance.

Mean annual mass balance of reference glaciers 1980 - 2011.

Mean cumulative GLOBAL mass balance change (blue dashed) vs referenece glaciers (red) 1980 - 2011

Just look at the evidence you craven little shits.

BBD and others,

Ignore Betula's bilge. He's an expert in baiting and switching. A few days he ago he was ranting about the benefits of C02 on primary production; that argument, long discredited, was summarily dispensed, so then he moves onto something else. In this case, another area in which he knows absolutely nothing: glacial retreat and climate change. Heaven knows what he will switch to next. Karen is also a baiter and switcher. The denier ranks are full of these Dunning-Kruger intellectual wannabes.

He is a rank embarrassment and belongs with Karen and the other brainless deniers who seem to think they have something useful to say.

They don't. Never have, never will.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 16 May 2013 #permalink

What I simply cannot understand is the mindset. If I screw up and it is pointed out to me, while I might not revel in it, I accept the correction. It's how we learn. Nobody knows everything and nobody is right all the time, so we screw up and we *learn*.

But not the deniers. Oh no. Stop them dead with a solid rebuttal and they ignore it and come back with something totally different. Then a week later they are back with the rubbish you debunked the week before as if nothing had happened.

I find this kind of intellectual dishonesty incomprehensible. How can anyone actually function like this? I asked "Brad" how he could face himself knowing that his entire position rested on intellectually dishonest rhetoric and deliberate evasions. No response, of course, but the question was absolutely sincere.

How the fuck does anyone get through their life with a head full of lies and shite and contradictory nonsense? More than that, how do they cope with turning up in comments in places like this and getting annihilated, over and over and over and over again?

How?

What the fuck is wrong with them all?

How does anybody believe in God (whichever flavour), BBD?

It's the same inner mental process: blank out reality, focus on some irrationally-held belief.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 16 May 2013 #permalink

Craig @28

Is that why they're always talking about the 'church of climatology' ? 459,00 google hits - 'al gore church of climatology' gets 1,390,000.

Yep, it's all projection. Every bizarre, conspiratorial accusation is an insight into their own Medieval mind-set...

I suspect we're not going to realise the extent to which we thought the conditions particular to the Holocene were just 'how nature works', more or less eternally, until it's gone.

Which the natural system that was basically so reliable it was invisible to us is clearly in the process of doing, and irreversibly in human-scale terms.

The fact that this is being denied - if not outrightly cheered on - by a bunch of strident muppets who proclaim themselves 'conservatives' may yet turn out to be the blackest joke humanity's ever played on itself...

Jerry - precisely. I have always found the strongly religious flavour of much of the denialist ranting stood out as revealing a lot about their mindset.
"High priests of CAGW" - for example.
Not just utterly bizarre, but so consistent a theme that there is obviously a reason.

Hmm...could be a question for Lewandowsky?

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 17 May 2013 #permalink

er..."reason" was obviously not the correct word.

You know what I meant.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 17 May 2013 #permalink

Strange edition of the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 today. At 7.30 they ask a couple of scientists and a Chartered Accountant with a blog 'Has global warming plateaued?'. At 8.20 they have James Hansen. I missed the start of the Hansen interview unfortunately. They didn't seem to give him much time to make the main point he wanted to make about Canadian tar sands and tried to tie him down on some pointless stuff. Despite that he seemed to do pretty well. His lecture at the LSE last night was excellent.

By lord_sidcup (not verified) on 17 May 2013 #permalink

best to leave religion out of it (ie both sides)?

for example John Cook, Prof Lewandowsky's co-author (of peer reviewed papers) and of the Sceptics Handbook, is an evangelical Christian. (as is Sir John Houghton) both did physics I believe?

ie there are elements of both sides that have strong religious convictions (thus religion is a distraction) also the REV Wahl.

By Barry Woods (not verified) on 17 May 2013 #permalink

Barry, nobody has said anything other than why do some people believe in a religion.

When it comes to science, Cook and Lewandowski aren't believers in their religion, they believe in doing their job.

# 36 Barry Woods

See # 27.

You are a case in point. And a tiresome one.

#35

The Hansen interview is now available online, starts at 2:23:09:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01sdtxc

The ‘Has global warming plateaued?’ thing starts at 1:33:42.

Think Hansen does a great job at setting the interviewer straight. I note that she doesn't mention the 'revised down' Met. Office forecast was just a 5 year forecast:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2013/decadal-forecasts

All-in-all, another crap effort at doing climate science from the Today Programme. Full marks to Hansen.

By lord_sidcup (not verified) on 17 May 2013 #permalink

lord_sidcup #39

All I have found is this excerpt

Today 17/05/13: Has global warming stalled?

Where is the Hansen segment?

Whatever, in that excerpt I consider that Roger Harrabin allows Montford too much elbow room early on without a rapid injection of emphasis that warming has not slowed as he, Harrabin, repeatedly states throughout. Same old Harrabin - unbalanced reporting in the name of balance.

The view from nowhere, as per.

WTF is Montford doing on the radio anyway? The man has exactly *no* credentials to speak on this topic. He is a libertarian noise-maker, which, if anything, should permanently disqualify him from the interview go-to list, which should only contain credentialled experts.

You could have had a discussion about the flattening of surface warming trends with no need to invoke libertarian propagandists.

All you need is Hansen (emphasising role of aerosol negative forcing) and Trenberth (arguing the greater influence of ocean diffusion).

For good measure, they could have dug up a solar expert to describe the apparently minimal role of SC24.

As Lionel says, the usual crapola. And I'm paying for it.

"Today 17/05/13: Has global warming stalled?"

Posted on another blog:

“nearly flat trend” is missing error bars.

Indeed, the problem that all such idiots have with “the trend is flat” or “no statistically significant warming” is that neither disprove the IPCC or AGW, since the models assert that the trend should be around 1.7C per century, and that if they want to PROVE that wrong, they have to PROVE that the trend calculated PRECLUDES a trend of 1.7C per century.

Saying “nearly flat trend” doesn’t do that.

Both logic fail and statistics fail.

Lionel, if they give the science a hard time, they'll get told off by other scientists for partisanship.

If they give the deniers a hard time, they'll get death threats and complaints to the Prime Minister, raised at PMQ.

Guess which one they avoid.

I don't understand why Jim Hansen doesn't slap these know-nothing news poppets upside the head with something along the lines of: "Well, while you've been noticing and brainlessly repeating misleading denier memes about flat lined temperatures, actual climate scientists have instead been noticing accelerating record melting in the Arctic over the same period. What is this 'plateau' you're talking about"?

Because they aren't allowed to. They'd shitcan him quick. Of course, Screaming Mad Lord Monckfish would have his mate and mucker Lord Lawson complain to the IPCC and the prime minister himself if he were treated so shabbily as to be put in his place!

#40 Lionel

Hansen begins at 2:23:09.

By lord_sidcup (not verified) on 17 May 2013 #permalink

lord_sidcup

I know not what link I am missing there but all I keep finding myself at is this:

Has global warming stalled?

Which provides this misleading crap, my emphasis on the blatant lie:

On Thursday 9 May, a measurement of the daily average atmospheric carbon dioxide exceeded 400 parts per million.

Last time CO2 was this high was three to five million years ago, when it was so hot that crocodiles roamed the Arctic.

Scientists thought that this rise would have an impact on climate change and temperatures would be driven steadily upwards by rising CO2, but figures show that they been at a standstill since 1998.

The BBC's environment analyst Roger Harrabin hears from climate sceptics who are saying they were right to question the science behind global warming.

I think the BBC are being threatened by the powers that be and Harrabin & Co' should be made to watch this:

Lifting the Lid on the Politics of Climate Change .

This is arrant nonsense too:

Last time CO2 was this high was three to five million years ago, when it was so hot that crocodiles roamed the Arctic.

These lightweights don't know their Pliocene from their Eocene ;-)

#50

Ignore the last link

No problem in ignoring all three of them :-)

By Turboblocke (not verified) on 17 May 2013 #permalink

Oh, look, dai is back.

Still pegging zip on the old "comprehension" monitor. And, like cohort betty, unable to actually say anything.

Can someone explain where the 'dangerous bit! is mentioned in this 97% consensus in the Cook paper.

#53

Casting pearls before swine springs to mind.:-)

Sorry #52
I usually ignore bow wow

Do you have a point, Rednose? Didn't think so.

Nice work, Sou. The tweet from Obama - and associated publicity that craps on 'Climategate' - has Willard in a tizzie... diddums!

And, yep, he's lost the plot in the middle of the hissie fit.

I've seen lots of whining about the Cook paper, but no substantive criticism. As you say, anyone can get involved and do the assessments themselves. The jackasses are caught in a bind there - they'd love to jump in and wreck, wreck, wreck away, but if they try to twist the precis to pretend they say what they so desperately want them to it's going to be obvious - even to themselves - that that's what they're doing, not least because even if they can ignore their own dissonance as they're doing it, they'll regularly receive the numbers telling them just how far away from the norm - and from the authors - they really are.

That last is an absolute killer.

The numbers are rock-solid. Your 'science' is a tiny, withered rump that gets less relevant with each passing year. You cannot refute melting glaciers, sea-ice and extraordinary species migrations - that's not computer models.

You are, in a word, fucked.

I also think you're scared - if you live in Wattsworld you really have very, very little idea just what a staggering amount of research has and is being done - the whole debate is lost in SurfaceStations or similar well-beaten,. thoroughly -dead ruminant quadruped - and it must be genuinely staggering to realise just how mind-bogglingly irrelevant you are.

Right, Rednose? You really didn't have a clue about the great big world out there, did you? Scary, isn't it?

Just to rub it in, here's Graham Readfearn on his new blog at the Graun.

You see, boys and girls, there's only one group of muppets being led by the nose via their slavish, quasi-religious worship of a bunch of terminally greedy manipulative deadshits in this debate. Hint: that's Rednose, Karen, Batty, etc.

You see (and let's grind the egg right into every pore of your deer-in-headlights faces again) we have all the papers - thousands of them - you, on the other hand, have The Telegraph and Daily Mail.

Or, if you like, you are, in short, a bunch of Foxwits.

Nice rant Bill, feel better?

Ah, Rednose, another of the denier 'baiters and switchers'.

Every one of these clowns is the same. Doesn't understand basic science, has a pre-determined worldview based on their (also) limited political views, gets pretty well all of their 'information' from weblogs run by vehemently anti-science, anti-intellectuals on the far right, and then are sent like missionaries to dispense their ignorance far and wide.

Predictable.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 18 May 2013 #permalink

Mack is another one... just add his name to the list....

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 18 May 2013 #permalink

A little rant from you too Jeff baby. Our pretentious,Know all, fingers in the ears, Cannuck " scientist" . Still cycling are you Jeff baby? Still keeping yourself trim taut and terrific?

Karen has decided to put her trousers on, I see.

Still empty of any substance, though.

Mack (aka Sunspot) is back.

A complete w*****. And Dunning-Kruger alumnus.

Nice to know that he/it/whatever thinks I am a 'know it all' and 'pretentious'. Just because I tend to know more about environmental science than him/it/whatever.

I've explained many times that I am not a climate scientist and defer to their expertise on matters dealing with this science. On the other hand, know-nothings like Mack, Rednose, Betula, Karen and others, with no expertise whatsoever in any scientific field, continually try and give the impression that they do have the requisite knowledge and expertise. At the same time, they never hesitate to ridicule esteemed scientists like James Hansen, Kevin Trenberth, Ben Santer and Michael Mann.

So who are the 'know-alls'? The 'pretentious' ones?

Mack, like his acolytes, is a bloody hypocrite.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 18 May 2013 #permalink

Oh , We've all got to pay attention to you Jeff baby. After all , you're a scientist of " PEDIGREE"
Aaahahahahahahahahaha

Apropos of nothing other than it being interesting, how about the discovery of the oldest water on Earth - ~1.5 - 2.6 billion years old...

If correct. This is the Canada National Post, after all.

Either way, this is what open threads are for ;-)

#56 and #59

The Cook paper quotes the following in the abstract:

Among abstracts expresiing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming

This result seems to be based on 65 of
200 abstracts (5%) that considered

human activity is a dominant influence or has caused most of recent climate change (>50%).

So a survey of these 65 abstracts found 97% of them were in agreement with John Cook

So how did this become?

97% of scientists agree climate change is real, man made and dangerous

Well, Bill did ask

BBD @69:

I saw a less detailed story in a local paper about that. I was kind of surprised they weren't wearing some type of glove or protective covering in that last picture where they're taking samples.

Should be 65/12000 abstracts 0.5%

jerryg

Thanks for the link. And well, just wow.

As for contamination, the water hasn't apparently done anyone harm in the >100y history of the mine. Nor are researchers likely to make obvious mistakes when collecting *uncontaminated* samples ;-)

It's just pictures for the newspapers.

Well Mack, in terms of 'pedigree' I am certainly miles ahead of you or of any of the other idiot deniers who parade their ignorance here. Its also comforting to know that the only run-ins I have are with clowns like you - people who lack scientific qualifications in any way, shape, or form.

I am content with that. My qualifications speak for themselves. What are yours, perchance?

Let me guess. None.

I rest my case.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 18 May 2013 #permalink

One thing the deniers always try and do is to downplay the broad consensus amongst statured climate scientists that humans are forcing climate and that we ought to do something about it. Rednose, Karen, and other non-scientist deniers do this the time. The denier weblogs do it.

But the important point is that those doing it are NOT scientists and are on the outside. These people have never attended a scientific conference in their lives, they don't interact with scientists, and most don't have access to the Web of Science where it is easy to access the peer-reviewed literature.

By contrast, many of those arguing in favor of the consensus are scientists, do attend conferences and interact with colleagues at work and at meetings. I've met a lot of climate scientists in my career, have spoken on the effects of various anthropogenic stresses on the environment, and in my career spanning more than 20 years I have yet to meet a single climate scientist who downplays the human fingerprint on the current warming. At one workshop in Copenhagen, Denmark in which I presented the final lecture on the potential ecological effects of warming, I met a number of climate scientists and all agreed that the effects of human-mediated C02 was the main driver. I've attended many ecological conferences since then and when the topic of climate change on biodiversity comes up, its virtually taken as 'given' that the burning of fossil fuels is the major factor driving climate change.

Only on blogs where non-scientist deniers write as if they are experts who think they know more than those trained in the field is there any real controversy. Hence why the internet is the main venue for idiots to spread their gospel of doubt. In academic circles deniers are few and far between.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 18 May 2013 #permalink

Recently dead bodies are surprisingly noisy: many a fart and belch ( and the occasional moan) can be heard postmortem. Seems a reasonable analogy for the contributions of Spotty McKrap, Brownnose, Blastula, et al., especially when combined with the lingering smell of Scandinavian Troll Collective and decomposing bits of WTFUWT, The Daily Fail & The Torygraph. Gas-powered corpses all..

For God's sake, Brownnose, read the paper, not your regular blogs.

This result is rock solid. Even you can wander over to SkS and have a crack at the papers yourself - but you're too much of a coward to do that (and not very bright, to boot.)

Aren't you ashamed to be so paralysingly credulous? You're in to the bitter end, aren't you? When Watts starts asking the true-believers to form orderly lines in front of the Kool-Aid tubs, you'll be there...

Bill#78

I checked the original abstract.
There is no mention of and dangerous

So freakin' what?

Explain to me again, genius: what's the conservative position on conducting a radical experiment with the one atmosphere we possess?

What's that? You don't have an answer?

Why don't you do something really brave and toddle over the SkS and have a look at some of the papers? I'm sure none of you has the slightest conception of the sheer breadth and scale of what you are up against. Your constant projection means that you assume the capability of the human species is limited - and that's the right word - to items such as yourselves.

And so what, duffer?

Is the problem that you can't think and have to be told what something means?

Sounds right.

So freakin’ what?

Because it is incorrect.
But what the hell.
Lets sex it up a bit.
It might sound more convincing.

Is the problem that you can’t think and have to be told what something means?

I dont have to be told what to think by Cook or Dana Nuttyjelly who sound as convincing as Double Glazing Salesmen

So freakin’ what?

Because it is incorrect.

A plaster for your confusion and self inflicted injury is here - read it slowly .

Jesus, what a pointless and pathetic attempt at distraction. You really are a creature without shame, aren't you?

Go and look at all the papers, coward.

The reason you won't go off and look at the work of all the clever people you despise who studied hard and did their jobs with diligence is that you're afraid to confront just what an utterly empty cipher you are.

I mean, CO2 - the critical greenhouse gas no matter how much smoke the rabble blows - at levels the highest they've been in 3 million years, and climbing, climbing, climbing; how can that possibly go wrong?

The. Science. Is. NOT. On. Your. Side. You have no case. All you have is blinkered arrogance, a toxic ideology, and a volume level in inverse proportion to your capability.

Face it, you are just another crank cadre of an extremist sect, thrust into utterly undeserved prominence by a bunch of venal deadshits who just happen to be very rich crank extremists. That is the sum total of your achievement.

"There is no mention of 'and dangerous'"

Oh my word, what an imbecile. I don't know why we waste our breath on these kindergarten-level distractions from Redarse and his ilk.

There are hundreds of papers showing that humans are negatively affecting biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, for example, but the word "disaster" or a similar epithet is rarely mentioned. It is taken as a given that these effects can lead to potentially serious effects down the road.

Similarly, scientific studies are based primarily on determining the link between the human combustion of fossil fuels and regional and global climate patterns. The studies stop there, but the potential implications are clear or at least should be. Joint statements from every National Academy of Science form every nation on Earth clearly lay out the potentially serious implications of inaction on global warming. That should be the end of it. But for the Dunning-Kruger brigade any distraction or obfuscation will do. These nitwits do not have the foggiest idea how science works because pretty well the lot of them AREN'T SCIENTISTS. Redarse isn't, that is for sure.

The (ab)use of the words ' catastrophic' or 'disaster' are straight from the ranks of the denial and denial-for-hire industries. They are bastardizing the science in any way that they can to influence policy. Hence how they continually shift the goalposts. First they wanted evidence that most of the published empirical data supports the theory of AGW. It is provided. the they demand to know how many include the words 'disastrous' or 'catastrophic'. The same trick is being used to downplay the number of scientists who agree that humans are forcing climate. And so on it goes. On and on and on.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 19 May 2013 #permalink

"So freakin’ what?

Because it is incorrect."

What was incorrect, duffer? Everything you've said is incorrect, so you need to narrow it down a hell of a lot more.

"I dont have to be told what to think by Cook..."

Yeah, you need to get told what to think by Willard and Monckfish. They'll tell you who you can be told what to think by.

I checked the original abstract.
There is no mention of

and dangerous

So this extra "sexing up" in the endorcement by Obama, which SKS proudly exhibit, without correction, is not shown by this paper.
ie It is incorrect.

what’s the conservative position

I was under the impression this blog had intentions of being vaguely scientific rather than political.

My mistake.

Rednose makes an ideological statement about 'dangerous' and complains about others pointing to his contrived political stance as those others being 'political'.

It's always projection with those in denial.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 19 May 2013 #permalink

#87, that's why we need 4 Sandy's a year at 900 hPa each, but not on New York: they got the message. The mansions at sea in New Jersey do need to go.
We need the drought in the Midwest to become permanent.

Anything to save Bangladesh.

By cRR Kampen (not verified) on 19 May 2013 #permalink

I would challenge Rednose to specify under which scientific discipline/s the survey, the conclusions of which he seeks to obfuscate, falls; and why.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 19 May 2013 #permalink

Red noise from the Clown.

But then, pointless nit-picking is all that's left.

Rednoise, exactly how is altering the distribution and intensity of rainfall across the temperate mid-latitudes not dangerous? This being where most of the world's food is grown...

How is that safe or very low risk?

How is cranking up the GHG forcing at a rate literally unprecedented in Earth's history not dangerous? Without serious risk?

How can you be so stupid?

Here are the pretty pictures from Dai (2012).

Those of us not engaged in a hopeless argument with the laws of physics know that CO2 forcing is going to take us down roads that lead in this general direction.

This is dangerous.

#97 oh look at all the sunshine in the States, the corn loves it :)
Those pictures are pretty indeed. What's more, it has begun and looks right on track too.

By cRR Kampen (not verified) on 19 May 2013 #permalink

"There is no mention of

and dangerous

So this extra “sexing up”"

No, it's not.

I would challenge Rednose to specify under which scientific discipline/s the survey, the conclusions of which he seeks to obfuscate, falls; and why.

I would suggest it comes under the discipline of marketing. Is "marketing" a science? An interesting discussion.

Suggest all you like duffer, your opinion is pointless: it's not informed by any rationality.

#97

Those of us not engaged in a hopeless argument with the laws of physics know that CO2 forcing is going to take us down roads that lead in this general direction.
This is dangerous

Still waiting
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1995/plot/hadcrut3gl/f…

And latest estimates of climate sensitivity

Headline best estimates of 2.0°C for equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) and 1.3°C for the – arguably more policy-relevant – transient climate response (TCR)

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/5/19/new-energy-budget-deri…

Is “marketing” a science?

It's exactly what you collective numpties respond to. Ignore the science, follow the ideological/lifestyle marketing foisted on you by ex-TV weathermen and conspiracy novelists instead. As long as you ignore the science for whatever spurious reasons you receive, the marketers are very happy.

#3,Still waiting for Redface to stop cherry-picking numbers,and read caveats in papers. Actually reading whole papers would be good,too.

"Most likely ECS is 2C in 1.2-3.9C-5/95% confidence interval, based on energy budget of most recent decade...using a short period...for which details of forcing and energy storage inventories are still relatively unsettled; both could make significant changes to the energy budget."

Does that materially change where we end up under BAU, Redface?

# 3 Rednoise

Eh, you are still confusing atmospheric temperature with the climate system as a whole. We've been through this and the answer is still "OHC" and the reference is still Levitus et al. (2012).

We'd all love a low climate sensitivity, obviously, but... deriving a sensitivity estimate from the instrumental record is tricky. The forced response is only just beginning to emerge from the noise, the instrumental data are not definitive and sampling periods are short.

Paleoclimate behaviour captures the bigger picture where responses are played out in full. Paleoclimate behaviour is strong evidence that the minimum value for ECS/2xCO2 is ~2C. The least we might get away with.

Intercomparison of paleoclimate-derived estimates of climate sensitivity by Rohling et al. (2012) suggests a range of 2.2C - 4.8C for ECS/2xCO2. Hansen et al. (2013) in press develops the analysis of Cenozoic climate change further and finds an ECS of ~3C over the last 65Ma.

Hargreaves et al. (2012) derives an estimate of ~2.5C from the LGM/Holocene transition.

So let's say we have a range of ECS/2xCO2 from ~2C - ~3C. We're in the process of breezing past 400ppmv and plausible emissions projections take that to 800ppmv by the end of the century. Roughly where might that get us?

Assuming pre-industrial CO2ppmv = 280

If ECS/2xCO2 = 2C then for CO2ppmv = 800

dT = 2ln(800/280)/ln(2) = 3C

If ECS/2xCO2 = 2.5C then for CO2ppmv = 800

dT = 2.5ln(800/280)/ln(2) = 3.8C

If ECS/2xCO2 = 3.0C then for CO2ppmv = 800

dT = 3ln(800/280)/ln(2) = 4.5C

Bear in mind that these are global average temperatures. That Dai study you ignored provides insight into potential regional effects.

Of course there's no risk. None at all :-)

So, you're no even pretending not to be a humble regurgitator of squishy morsels from chum-central?

I'll say it again, coward, go over to SkS and run your own eye over, say, 100 papers, and then ask yourself why 'your'* entire case is 'based' on the same half-dozen multiply-debunked and/or outdated and/or highly-speculative - or just plain wrong - efforts.

You won't because you're genuinely afraid to.

*Not actually yours, of course, you're a spin bulimic - you merely binge and purge.

And / or willful misinterpretations of consensus papers, of course.

As BBD points out, you guys seem to be locked into this bizarre notion that by pushing ECS down you're somehow negotiating the limit of overall warming! As if you could negotiate the laws of physics, or set pi at 3.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Take in what BBD is saying. Given the political trajectory of The Stupid we're probably going to end up at 1000ppm.

What kind of blatant imbecile think the onus is on us to prove that this would be dangerous?

You guys are reckless zealots of the first water; the Leninists of the Free Market™ .

Andrew Bolt falls flat on his lying face. Again.

No bunch of journalist skews more violently left than the ABC:

Although he doesn't explain what "Left" means in this context, I assume he has some simplistic notion in mind whereby anybody who votes ALP is "Left", while those who vote for the Libs are "Right".
Yes, I know, you *would* have to be a retard to actually believe this.
Anyway, the survey Bolt uses to support his idiocy reveals the following:
ALP support among ALL journos:
43%
ALP support among ABC journos
34%
ALP support among News Limited journos:
47%

Ha ha ha - it's not an accident that "bolt" rhymes with "dolt".

Surely we could have a series of blog posts along the lines of The Australian's war on science, called, "Andrew Bolt proves he is a moron, #948"?

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 19 May 2013 #permalink

#10,Bolt proves he is a liar and a moron at most opportunities.

Andrew Bolt's War on Reason?

In Bolt World I suspect Malcolm Turnbull would be Left, bordering on Violent...

I'd be interested to see the stats for ALP support among all journos at The Oz, because I suspect Uncle Rupert would be appalled to think that NL stat might apply to the flagship.

I trust we all recall Abbotts recent little 'yes, yes I will' speech to the IPA? These guys want to do what they reckon Howard should have done - he's a bit of a George Bush Snr. figure in the party now - and gut the ABC, as well as the CSIRO, BoM etc.. Bolt is just paving the way.

Whatever you might think of Gillard and co., if the Mad Monk gets both houses the country might as well be run outright by Gina Rinehart... It's going to be horrible.

BBD#7

Other plausible emissions scenarios take CO2 concentrations to 600ppm by 2100.
USA emissions have already declined due in part to the transition from coal to gas. Europe and Asia could well follow this pattern.

Using the latest estimates of ECS of 2, and likely less than 2

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/5/20/ecs-with-otto.html

Using your method of calculation

An ECS of 2 at 600ppm would then give a delta T of 2.2 degrees C

An ECS of 1.2 at 600ppm would give a delta T of 1.3 degrees C

A cool head might be in order before shouting Panic Panic and wasting billions on useless wind turbines

Must be some new definition of 'plausible'. A lot like 'made up'.

And ah, that would be the 'useless wind turbines' that generate electricity then? 21% of the electricity production of my home state, for instance?(And set to expand!) The wind farms that are turning around the fortunes of rural communities?

Those windfarms?

Bwakk bwawwk bwawwk bwawwk bwawwk - that's a chicken noise - bouck bouck bouck; go on little troll; get outside your chumming comfort zone and go and read some papers! Some real science, not predigested pap hoiked into your ever-ready crop by the Google Galileos. You know you don't want to!

And why is that? Why are you too bloody scared to confront the reality of the situation? Don't just ignore me, pet, ask yourself why you really won't do it.

Nope, can't do that, either. Can you?

You won't, because you are not interested in facts, or research, or evidence, you just want to be spoon-fed reassuring pap that you can sick up and annoy all the nasty clever people that threaten you and your precious little rich-man's world...

Forelock tugger!

# 13

Other plausible emissions scenarios take CO2 concentrations to 600ppm by 2100.

I don't believe this - too low. References please. And not from liar blogs.

And the increase in CO2 just stops dead at 2100? As if by magic?

When we dispense with the lies, we are left with a bare minimum of ~3C and a high likelihood of much more.

This will be dangerous, so why are you trying to pretend otherwise with every fibre of your being?

What is wrong with you?

An ECS of 1.2 at 600ppm would give a delta T of 1.3 degrees C

An ECS of 1.2C would have us still locked in the depths of a glacial. Don't you understand, muppet? These ridiculously low estimates are *incompatible* with known climate behaviour.

It is how we know they are WRONG.

A cool head might be in order before shouting Panic Panic and wasting billions on useless wind turbines

Well it should be admitted that they would work more efficiently if attached to your backside.

Betty, why do you think everyone needs to know when you think about Jeff?

Betula, did you read that?

By cRR Kampen (not verified) on 20 May 2013 #permalink

cRR. Kampen.

No cRR, I didn't read it. It's about pizza recipes...isn't it? And like other pizza recipes, it's filled with words and phrases, like "uncertainty", "if current emission trends continue" and "assuming".
The disappointing news is, it would appear that we can assume with a lack of certainty, that if this most-likely predicted, somewhat probable, other than worst case scenario trend continues, then the "first hand" account of climate change witnessed by Jeff in Algonquin will at least have 20 percent more time to adapt to the sudden changes in Jeff's imagination. Just saying...

"Well, I hardly feel a post addressed to Jeff Hardley infers Jeff is everyone"

Yup, more shit made up by you on the spot, Betty. You're the only one who said that jeff is everyone.

I just said that I wonder why you feel that everyone needs to know that you're thinking about jeff.

However, your complete lack of understanding of even the simplest sentence structure is entirely believable from you, Betty.

And in Betty's second attempt, she thinks she's a wit, but is only half right.

...but is only half right.

Is half-wit then.

Betula strikes again with his half-witted attempts to extrapolate the effects of AGW on complex adaptive systems... and tis based on his understanding of ecology which would make even a kindergarten student blush with embarrassment for Betty...

So please inform us Mr. tree pruner, how do you add up 1 and 1 and get 7? Where in the article does it say a lower estimate of climate warming - which is still well within the estimates of the IPCC no less - will not harm biodiversity and negatively affect ecosystem functioning? The authors are at pains to say that the situation is still indeed serious and little succor for humanity.

Essentially, you have not got the vaguest clue of critical temperature thresholds for biodiversity at regional and global levels, you clearly respond with a blank stare to the concept of 'tipping points' and scratch your head at the mention of non-linear effects. Even at the lower threshold, this change far exceeds what many systems have experienced in millions of years in terms of scale. Now there's a pesky little word that your simple brain also doesn't seem to grasp, does it Betty?

Again, you can't debate yourself out of a soaking wet paper bag, as it was when you preposterously tried to argue that greenhouses with their artificially high C02 concentrations represented good proxies for open systems across the biosphere. You clearly are not able to factor in a suite of other anthropogenic changes across the biosphere which make it much more difficult for biodiversity to adaptively respond to climate change: humans have fragmented vast swathes of habitat across the planet, and against this tapestry we are forcing climate, and challenging already reduced genetic diversity to keep up.

You are a first rate clown, Betty. Keep it up, though. Its so easy to quash your infantile arguments and any laypeople reading the thread will instantly or instinctively know where the real expertise comes from.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 20 May 2013 #permalink

Wow,
"Yup, more shit made up by you on the spot, Betty. You’re the only one who said that jeff is everyone."
"I just said that I wonder why you feel that everyone needs to know that you’re thinking about jeff".

So I address something for Jeff and you assume it's meant for "everyone"....that's your problem, not mine. So as far as I'm concerned, there's only 1 person making up shit here and it's a hefty pile that "everyone" can smell.

Meanwhile, April 2013 was the 13th warmest globally, and this is the eighth warmest year on record to date. "No record cold regions over land or water were observed for the January–April period." Go figure!
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2013/04/

References please. And not from liar blogs

IPCC good enough?
http://www.ipcc-data.org/ddc_co2.html

The A1B, A17, B1 and B2 scenarios come out at about 600ppm

These ridiculously low estimates are *incompatible* with known climate behaviour.

It is how we know they are WRONG.

Its surprising all these famous scientists put their name to such a ridiculously low estimate

Alexander Otto, Friederike E. L. Otto, Olivier Boucher, John Church, Gabi Hegerl, Piers M. Forster, Nathan P. Gillett, Jonathan Gregory, Gregory C. Johnson, Reto Knutti, Nicholas Lewis, Ulrike Lohmann, Jochem Marotzke, Gunnar Myhre, Drew Shindell, Bjorn Stevens, and Myles R. Allen

Perhaps they know something you dont.

So Rudolf what is it that Otto et. al. 2013 are basing their judgment on and how is this not likely to provide a complete picture of what our understanding of ECS is based on?

Even in Fiona Harvey's very flawed Guardian piece, she writes this:

but the world is still likely to be in for a temperature rise of double that regarded as safe.

sadly she did lead into that with this nonsense:

Some of the most extreme predictions of global warming are unlikely to materialise, new scientific research has suggested...

The factor of time in the equations aside, i if YOU had a good understanding of ALL the issues that will result from the warming that is in the pipeline but yet to present itself because equilibrium climate has not arrived for CO2 levels achieved over the last few decades.

Upwards temperature change lags behind the positive forcing whereas negative forcings act more quickly.

But then when the increased ocean heat content, are you familiar with the concepts of heat capacity and latent heat, is taken into full account then we know we will be in trouble.

Did you miss my point about North Sea temperatures and the stressed ecological system playing out with plummeting number amongst sea bird colonies around our coasts? Check it out.

Bill#14
What quaint pictures. Reminds me of the Waltons

Meanwhile back in UK more are facing fuel poverty.

Families to pay £600 a year towards green energy by 2020, says think-tank study

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10062633/Families-to-pay-600-a…

While the locals are revolting.
http://www.epaw.org/multimedia.php?lang=en&article=demo4

Look carefully and you might see me in the background.

Meanwhile in Germany, you get headlines such as

German Green Energy Push Bites Hand That Feeds Economy

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-27/german-green-energy-push-bites…

Troll patrol borborigmi: loudest in our night (apart from the noxious native Spotty McKrap).

Gee, a report by a bunch of UKIP-style cranks, as reported by The Telegraph. You're a bigger sucker than I thought.

But, of course, in the absence of a scientific literature, you have to invent get your 'facts' where you can.

Been over to study any scientific papers yet? Relax, this is a rhetorical question, but I'd hate to miss the opportunity to point out that you are only prepared to gorge at the regular swill trough.

Rudolf is exactly the kind of boorish oaf that barges into a scientific debate but simply refuses to read the science...

Mr Abbott says, if elected, he would scrap the carbon tax yet retain all the tax cuts and compensation allowances linked to it. There is simply no logic in this, and none was offered.

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/editorial/abbott-focuses-on-profit-not…

Seriously - does anybody who is interested in competent management imagine that Abbott has any idea what he is doing? They guy is a deluded ego-driven maniac.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 20 May 2013 #permalink

Yep - much as I disliked Howard, I never thought he was an idiot.

Also, Batty.

Also, Craig, I suspect this kind of economic imbecility is ultimately motivated by wishing to drown the Gubmint in the bathtub. If it all goes pear-shaped - and it's hard to see how it won't - that'll provide a fine excuse to cut, cut, cut.

That's the silver lining: it *will* go pear-shaped, and it will do so with Murdoch's pet maniac at the helm.

Perhaps the next sensible government we get will therefore end up with both the mandate and the motivation to introduce some sort of press laws that limit the press' ability to emit lies and propaganda on behalf of a politico-corporate lobby.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 20 May 2013 #permalink

Unfortunately, Abbott is auditioning to be Australia's George W, and the LNP to be Australian's GOP.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 21 May 2013 #permalink

Olaus is a sad copycat. No sooner does our tree pruner come up with a monicker then Putrid copies it. Just like he slavishly copied everything from his hero, Jonas N.

Now he's pasted up some more garbage from one of the biggest anti-environmental/denier sires online, where he gets his major supply of disinformation. Seems like poor old Ollie, like Betty, doesn't ever read the primary literature. Nowhere in the sludge Olly pastes is there anything about ice thickness (highly relevant here, much more so than extent) or reference to last years precipitous drop in both extent and thickness of ice in the Arctic.

But then again, none of the deniers ever refers to the primary literature here, except for highly selective misquoting.

If the best the deniers can do intellectually is the dross that writes into Deltoid, no wonder the scientific community doesn't take them seriously.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 21 May 2013 #permalink

Just for Rednose: interviewed on BBC, here is his response to a question raised by the interviewer to one of the lead authors on the NG paper:

BBC: "Is there any succour in these findings for climate sceptics who say the slowdown over the past 14 years means the global warming is not real?"

Otto: "None. No comfort whatsoever."

Essentially, Rednose is doing exactly what the deniers do best: putting words into the mouths of the scientists who do the research and publish the results in the peer-reviewed literature. Otto is one of the scientists Rednose cites above in his attempt to use the Nature Geoscience study to downplay the consequences of AGW. What Otto, and likely his colleagues, are saying, is that AGW is real and a serious threat to nature and humanity. The deniers airbrush this out. And their attempt to put words into the scientists mouths is both dishonest and pathetic.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 21 May 2013 #permalink

...dishonest and pathetic...

You can say that again.

By Craig Thomas (not verified) on 21 May 2013 #permalink

Here's a bit of prebunking for a spattering of HI chum that's bound to be hoiked our way in the near future, courtesy of John Abraham.

Would a Denier even notice a book didn't have references or an index, do you suppose?

Bet it gets rave reviews from all Rudolph's favourite sites anyway! Because they're soooo skeptical...

# 30 Rednoise

And what emissions scenario most closely matches *actual* emissions? Answer this, please.

Re Otto; you have to drop the scepticoid blinkers and think for a change. Here's how:

TCR/ECS estimates derived from the instrumental record are *all* low compared to estimates derived from paleoclimate behaviour. There are good reasons for this:

- The data set are *short* and so sensitive to natural variability

- The increase in CO2 forcing is non-linear and only begins to increase significantly from the 1970s

- The data are not definitive, especially OHC

That's why nobody who understands this topic even moderately well believes that the estimates from the instrumental record are the last word and overturn paleoclimate-derived estimates.

Instead, the view is that the two groups of estimates provide complementary approaches to constraining S.

Using the full range of information available at present, the most likely value for ECS appears to be in the range ~2.5C - ~3C.

In other words, without aggressive emissions policy (what was that scenario most closely matching actual emissions?) we will probably get up into the 800ppmv range over the next hundred-odd years, with potentially disruptive effects on global agricultural production.

In summary - dangerous warming.

"So I address something for Jeff "

On a public blog, you ignorant and evasive cocksucker.

We can ALL read it.

Tim Lambert, ...if you are moderating here, why don't you get rid of this foulmouthed, abusive nutter WOW...or don't you just not care anymore.?

Rednoise...

Assuming pre-industrial CO2ppmv = 280

If ECS/2xCO2 = 2.5C then for CO2ppmv = 800

dT = 2.5ln(800/280)/ln(2) = 3.8C

If ECS/2xCO2 = 3.0C then for CO2ppmv = 800

dT = 3ln(800/280)/ln(2) = 4.5C

And these are global averages. Clowns probably don't think of this, but the NH mid-latitudes are going to warm *more* than the average value. And that's where most of the global food supply comes from.

Now, about that IPCC emissions scenario. Is it A2 or A1F1? Looks more like A1F1 now, doesn't it? So closer to 1000ppmv by 2100. You stupid, venal little man.

Oh stop whining with faux outrage "Mack". The real problem is lying trolls, meaning you lot.

Fact the facts for a change.

bill#35

The report from CIVITAS you refer to as from

a bunch of UKIP-style cranks,

was recently delivered to The All Party Parliamentary Group on Rebalancing the Economy at the House of Commons.
It was delivered by Dr Constable, Director of the Renewable Energy Foundation and Jeremy Nicholson, who is on Ofgem's Sustainable Development advisory group and Fellow of the Energy Institute.

It probably has a little more GRAVITAS than the newspaper report you referred to by Jim-Bob Walton from Koolyanobbing

An interesting point someone else has made and I'll re-cast it here.

For those claiming that we're going in to an ice age, they should be fighting like billy-o to keep fossil fuels in the ground until the ice age comes, when we'll NEED that heating in our homes.

Remember, if the warming trend has ended despite CO2 coming up, then CO2 can't be burnt now to stave off that ice age they insist is coming.

If they say we're warming because we're "coming out of an ice age", the conclusion is STILL that the fossil fuels should remain in the ground, since the climate can change and if the warming is due to that event not CO2, then when we eventually go into an ice age, we'll need that fuel again.

Of course, if the denier is deciding to ride the "We need to burn it to stave off the ice age" they're insisting that humans have CATASTROPHIC effects on the climate if they can change the world from one that is going to have a mile of ice over New York City to one where there isn't.

Rednoise

Which emissions scenario most closely matches *actual* emissions?

Answer please.

Yeah yeah, sure.

To quote from the Snowtown article - you know, that's where you don't just look at the pictures:

"We laugh at people who say they're ugly or make the chooks lay upside down - this has been great for us and great for the community," Peter says.

In fact, your uppity Pommy git routine is most impressive, and bound to go down a treat on a colonial blog: allow us to remind you of it when you next claim to be the soul of concern for the welfare of the little people.

There's an interesting tension with you lot where you claim you want to save the world's poor from the terrible burden of windfarms - that have a truly magical capacity to inflict harm - but don't want the self-same little bastards to get their thieving hands on your money via anything that smacks of redistribution!

Anyway, enough of the sideshow; ignored any good science papers lately? We're looking forward to your answers to BBD, of course, and I'm sure we're all agog wondering which of Montford's posts you're going to regurgitate for that one

You ridiculous-fellow-without-a-skerrick-of-credibility, you!...

Come on, Clown.

Which emissions scenario most closely matches *actual* emissions?

Let's have an answer out of you. Or is this going to be like every other occasion that I've caught you out in misrepresentations and lies?

Over to you.

bill,

And their attempt to put words into the scientists mouths is both dishonest and pathetic.

Yep. And sociopathic also.

Furthermore that, '...newspaper report you referred to by Jim-Bob Walton from Koolyanobbing..' was written by a credentialed climate scientist. Rudolf just cannot stand a light being played on the likes of Harrison Schmitt and Fred Singer who are both either lying or deluded, again - ol' Fred has a very long record. Lucky for him Fred, as is Harrison, is in his twilight years so won't be one of those heading for a guarded bunker, Blackwater style, when the dark brown smelly stuff hits the fan.

Rudolf appears intellectually and morally bankrupt. As for John Constable, perhaps he should return to painting landscapes whilst they are still worth capturing. Note how windmills often cropped up in these old masters and nobody complained about them being eyesores.

What is better a multitude of wind turbines or flooded agricultural land?

Has Rudolf no conception of how different our weather patterns now are with more frequent and more extreme events. I wonder if Rudolf has walked the South Coast Path (England) recently. As for looking across the Atlantic - well get your head around that Rudolf. And all this with the fairly modest increase in global average temperatures (and note that at higher latitudes the anomalies are in double figures - that's why the frigging ice has been melting you buffoon Rudolf) that have occurred as of now and with a further increase even if we stop pumping GHGs into the atmosphere and change other 'unfortunate' cultivation practices right now.

Truly the Rudolfs of the world are witless.

BBD#47

You persist in using ECR, when it requires 1000s of years to reach equilibrium, partly because of the inertia of the oceans. You could argue we are still feeling some of the payback from the last ice age because of ECR.

Over the 50–100 year timescale, the climate response to forcing is likely to follow the TCR

so TCR is arguably more policy-relevant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity

The most likely value for TCR from Otto et al is 1.3 degrees C

so even at 800ppm with a TCR of 1.3
the dt = 1.8 degrees C

Resorting to namecalling and abuse suggests you are loosing the argument

.... "uppity Pommey git".... That will go down a treat with old Lionel and Lord sidcup bill-boy. And lookee-here, WOW is behaving himself....for the moment....

.. your uppity Pommy git routine..

Nice one Bill.

By lord_sidcup (not verified) on 21 May 2013 #permalink

Note how windmills often cropped up in these old masters and nobody complained about them being eyesores.

They were a lot smaller and there were less of them besides being the best technology available at the time. Surprisingly this ancient technology was quickly forgotten about as soon as they had something a little better.
Even more surprisingly in the present day, eco loons believe by covering the country with them they will change the weather and produce enough electricity for a modern economy even for those odd days/weeks when high pressure blocking systems cover most of Northern Europe, and the wind does not blow.

Rudolf,

Meanwhile back in UK more are facing fuel poverty.

Families to pay £600 a year towards green energy by 2020, says think-tank study

Don't be absurd.

Here is an indications of some of the real villains, that's right villains: Energy firm cartels continue to 'rip off' consumers, take off your ideological blinkers Rudolf.

and bound to go down a treat on a colonial blog:

Always try and introduce a little sunshine.
Glad my efforts are appreciated :-)

Mack off target again,

“uppity Pommey git”…. That will go down a treat with old Lionel...

No worries for I am not an uppity git. But of course your language blindness fails you again. What a twerp you are.

but don’t want the self-same little bastards to get their thieving hands on your money via anything that smacks of redistribution!</blockquote

Rather a Malthusian outlook constantly arguing about sharing the one pie. Why not make more pies. I am speaking metaphorically, as pies are not considered to be part of a modern healthy diet.
Besides, how would they go on the barbie?

Oh FFS.

You persist in using ECR, when it requires 1000s of years to reach equilibrium

To reach it, yes. But the majority warming occurs much more rapidly. TCR is just the short-term TRANSIENT response - it never STOPS at 1.3C - that's just dT at the point of doubling. Your efforts to under-state the evolution of warming in response to forcing are becoming increasingly desperate.

I've already explained to you why the 1.3C TCR (to 560ppmv) estimate is almost certainly biased low right along with the 2C estimate for ECS. Get it through your head that Otto et al. is just another lowball instrumental estimate. It isn't the game-changer stupid fake sceptics imagine (because they don't understand the science).

Resorting to namecalling and abuse suggests you are loosing the argument

No, it is a response to your serial evasiveness and dishonesty. For example, when the fuck are you going to answer my question, you slipperly little shithead?

Which emissions scenario most closely matches observed emissions.

Rudolf in typical Toc H [1] fashion:

Always try and introduce a little sunshine.

How is that possible when your head is still up seventh rock from the sun?

Have you no shame considering this event:

Violent tornado devastates Moore, Oklahoma.

Yeah! We know about, '....Standard disclaimers apply, “No particular weather event …” etc', however

...The climate change effect is probably only a 5 to 10% effect in terms of the instability and subsequent rainfall, but it translates into up to a 32% effect in terms of damage...

see here: Tornado Drought Officially Over .

[1] from an old saying 'as dim as a Toc H lamp'.

"You persist in using ECR, when it requires 1000s of years to reach equilibrium"

You seem to think this is somehow devastating to the case for AGW's danger to our society.

Of course, I use "think" in the loosest possible sense.

But why do you think that?

If it takes "thousands of years" to reach equilibrium, then we've seen LESS THAN A TENTH of the warming in the pipeline so far, so you're claiming that this current world is on a course EVEN IF WE STOP NOW for a 10+C warming.

Last time the world was that warm, most of the USA was under water.

Given all the people living there who haven't a chance of evolving gills, how can you pretend that ISN'T a catastrophe?

"Violent tornado devastates Moore, Oklahoma."

Which the global model had predicted 21 hours ahead. In almost (to within the error of the global model grid size) the precise location, size and effect.

#22, yeah, 24 years instead of 20 years. Cum grano salis indeed.

By cRR Kampen (not verified) on 21 May 2013 #permalink

'Uppity Pommy git' is a phrase, Mack, rather like 'sexist Ocker boofhead'. I'm more than willing to acknowledge the existence of the latter - in fact, sadly, being a type modelled on a lamentable reality they're difficult to ignore. Is this a slight on all Aussies? No, it's an attack on sexist Ocker boofheads.

Condescendingly mocking the colonials - instantly dismissing John-Boy Walton from Koolyanobbing (get the really clever knob joke there? hurr hurr) - makes you the former.

Anyway, we've established the Snowtown farmers are unworthy scroungers rather than the valorous, struggling, salt-of-the-Earth types that claim that turbines make their stock spontaneously abort.

So let's move on. Answer BBD's question, Rudolf.

Sorry old lino, back to ranting to Rudolf ?, but he dosen't seem to answering you.

Moore...

The Law of Trenberth: "All weather events are affected by climate change because the environment in which they occur is warmer and moister than it used to be.”

Remembering the late winter in the north. Remembering the 14th of May, 41.1° C in Sioux City/Iowa, the absolute May record there and surpassed on only two June days as well.
Something had to dissipate. Easy.

By cRR Kampen (not verified) on 21 May 2013 #permalink

Yeah, we're back to that "ranting old rudolf".

It's good to notice that you're able to see that.

"Eight intrepid explorers become first people to DRIVE from Russia to Canada across the North Pole"

In LIGHT vehicles. Normally vehicles used weight what tanks do.

More spew from Karen. Still waiting for some primary literature.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 21 May 2013 #permalink

Wow..
"We can ALL read it."
You choose to read it you mindless dipshit.

Mack the hack,

Sorry old lino, back to ranting to Rudolf ?, but he dosen’t seem to answering you.

Probably because he has no valid pertinent answer. Like to this Watch 62 Years of Global Warming in 13 Seconds.

Does warming look stalled to you?

And another thing, is English your first language or your last? Just asking.

Karen

Why did they need vehicles that could float if the ice was so thick in winter?

Hardley @ 41...

"Just for Rednose: interviewed on BBC, here is his response to a question raised by the interviewer to one of the lead authors on the NG paper:"

How can something be "Just for Rednose" ... "On a public blog, you ignorant and evasive cocksucker"?

Sorry, I was temporarily channeling Wow @ 45.

"You choose to read it"

Yes, how DARE I choose to read a post to find out what it says!

You cockgobbling arseface, YOU PUT IT THERE.

When you take a shit in the street do you blame everyone else for looking at you???

"How can something be “Just for Rednose""

Because Rednose should look at it. It was advice. Betty, your arse and head are so interchanged that both are full of shit.

But has Harvey complained that anyone else read it?

NO.

Why?

Because unlike you he knows how blogs work, unlike you you foetid burbling smegeater.

Joni @ 79...

"Why did they need vehicles that could float if the ice was so thick in winter?"

There can only be 2 reasons Joni:
1. Because the ice is so thin due to Global Warming, they were expecting to fall through and travel the rest of the way by paddling or rowing.

2. Because "Winds and current move the thick ice causing huge ridges when blocks clash together and leaving wide stretches of open water when they move apart."

I choose #1.

#82, looks like an identity relation to me.

By cRR Kampen (not verified) on 21 May 2013 #permalink

“Why did they need vehicles that could float if the ice was so thick in winter?”

There can only be 2 reasons Joni:
1. Because the ice is so thin due to Global Warming

Correct.

Wow...

"But has Harvey complained that anyone else read it?"

I think you meant to ask.... has anyone complained that Harvey was thinking of Rednose when he posted it?

You know, someone like you @19...

"Betty, why do you think everyone needs to know when you think about Jeff?"

You really are looking like a Jackass.

What a silly girl betty is...

Wow...

"Because the ice is so thin due to Global Warming. Correct."

Yes, you will notice how many times in the article they mention how thin the ice is due to Global Warming...here are some of the quotes:

Wow…

“Because the ice is so thin due to Global Warming. Correct.”

Yes

Yes.

Rednoise README

In this article just up on the Met Office research news page, Alexander Otto, lead author of Otto et al. (2013) writes:

Our study implies a 5-95% confidence interval for the transient climate response of 0.9-2°C compared to the range of 1-2.5°C represented by the CMIP5 models. Acknowledging these uncertainties makes the differences look a bit less game-changing: results from the most recent decade appear to exclude the top 1/3rd of the CMIP5 range, but the TCR range estimated from the 1970-2009 period as a whole (0.7-2.5°C) does not, and we should always be careful not to over-interpret a single decade. The CMIP5 multi-model mean of 1.8°C is well within our confidence interval, and only models with very high TCR values look potentially inconsistent with the most recent data, a conclusion consistent with e.g. Stott et al. (2013).

What are the implications of a TCR of 1.3°C rather than 1.8°C? The most likely changes predicted by the IPCC's models between now and 2050 might take until 2065 instead (assuming future warming rates simply scale with TCR). To put this result in perspective, internal climate variability and uncertainties in future forcing could well have more impact on the global temperature trajectory on this timescale.

And:

This study highlights the importance of continued careful monitoring of the climate system, and also the dangers of over-interpreting any single decade's worth of data.

Doubtless such subtleties will sail over certain heads, but there it is, in black and white, for the record.Rednoise README

In this article just up on the Met Office research news page, Alexander Otto, lead author of Otto et al. (2013) writes:

Our study implies a 5-95% confidence interval for the transient climate response of 0.9-2°C compared to the range of 1-2.5°C represented by the CMIP5 models. Acknowledging these uncertainties makes the differences look a bit less game-changing: results from the most recent decade appear to exclude the top 1/3rd of the CMIP5 range, but the TCR range estimated from the 1970-2009 period as a whole (0.7-2.5°C) does not, and we should always be careful not to over-interpret a single decade. The CMIP5 multi-model mean of 1.8°C is well within our confidence interval, and only models with very high TCR values look potentially inconsistent with the most recent data, a conclusion consistent with e.g. Stott et al. (2013).

What are the implications of a TCR of 1.3°C rather than 1.8°C? The most likely changes predicted by the IPCC's models between now and 2050 might take until 2065 instead (assuming future warming rates simply scale with TCR). To put this result in perspective, internal climate variability and uncertainties in future forcing could well have more impact on the global temperature trajectory on this timescale.

And:

This study highlights the importance of continued careful monitoring of the climate system, and also the dangers of over-interpreting any single decade's worth of data.

Doubtless such subtleties will sail over certain heads, but there it is, in black and white, for the record.

Another bloody html sod-up.

Rednoise README

In this article just up on the Met Office research news page, Alexander Otto, lead author of Otto et al. (2013) writes:

Our study implies a 5-95% confidence interval for the transient climate response of 0.9-2°C compared to the range of 1-2.5°C represented by the CMIP5 models. Acknowledging these uncertainties makes the differences look a bit less game-changing: results from the most recent decade appear to exclude the top 1/3rd of the CMIP5 range, but the TCR range estimated from the 1970-2009 period as a whole (0.7-2.5°C) does not, and we should always be careful not to over-interpret a single decade. The CMIP5 multi-model mean of 1.8°C is well within our confidence interval, and only models with very high TCR values look potentially inconsistent with the most recent data, a conclusion consistent with e.g. Stott et al. (2013).

What are the implications of a TCR of 1.3°C rather than 1.8°C? The most likely changes predicted by the IPCC's models between now and 2050 might take until 2065 instead (assuming future warming rates simply scale with TCR). To put this result in perspective, internal climate variability and uncertainties in future forcing could well have more impact on the global temperature trajectory on this timescale.

And:

This study highlights the importance of continued careful monitoring of the climate system, and also the dangers of over-interpreting any single decade's worth of data.

Doubtless such subtleties will sail over certain heads, but there it is, in black and white, for the record.

@ 89....Wow now believes a fictitious quote by me is the correct answer to a question posed by Joni regarding an article that contains no such information....

Comedy gold.

# 92 say something interesting and substantial or sod off.

Wow now believes a fictitious quote by me

Really? And we should know this because ALL your quotes are made up?

So you're admitting you fabricate everything you say? Fair enough, betty.

What a silly little rabbit you are, dear.

"“On a public blog, you ignorant and evasive cocksucker”?

Pot. Kettle. Black.

FYI, tree-pruner, you don't even reach up to my shins in terms of your scientific 'expertise'. Otherwise you wouldn't be doing the job you are now.

Piss off.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 21 May 2013 #permalink

We seem to be reaching a consensus ;-)

97.1%. What a strange place this is. Here the ad hominems actually look like civil conversation :)

By cRR Kampen (not verified) on 21 May 2013 #permalink

BBD#91

Thanks for that link. Its nice to hear it directly from source.
Little to disagree with.
It seems to give us a few years breathing space to consider best options. Cool heads and wise investment.
So are we reaching a consensus? :-)

I have had some trouble posting comments with HTML yesterday and today.
It seems to lock up when you submit.

# 98

No. You are a liar, an ignoramus and a denier.

Rednose earlier mentioned the Renewable Energy Foundation. I think the foundation part of their name refers to their desire to see renewable energy projects buried in the foundations of construction projects, similar to the manner in which organised crime was supposed to disposseof murder victim's bodies. One look at their press releases is enough to show that they do not support renewable energy.

By Turboblocke (not verified) on 21 May 2013 #permalink

Complete anarchy , game over guys, bye.

You have problems, Duffer.

That's really the be-all and end-all of your existence.

You have problems.

A few points...

KarenMackSunspot has never, ever presented a single post that is based on science, scientific method, testable evidence, or rational and defensible thought. I once challenged him to point to his single best post on Deltoid, the 'killer' of which he is most proud, and he has never responded. The challenge remains open, but don't hold your breath folks - KarenMackSunspot is the epitome of shallow ignorance and ideological blinkeredness. With his most recent departure expect Karen or a new sock to materialise...

Bill at #32 p2 - it's one of evolution's exquisite ironies that Homo sapiens (sic) is not adapted to survive and thrive in the conditions of the Anthropocene. It's just going to take about another 50-100 years for that realisation to sink into the brains of the average Joe and Jane on the street.

href="http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2013/05/09/may-2013-open-thread/comment…Rednose:

It seems to give us a few years breathing space to consider best options.

No, we ran out of "breathing space to consider best options" a number of years ago. All we can do now is to try to minimise the damage to the biosphere and for future generations, and every day of further delay we're making a bigger hash of that too.

Your approach is no different to the parachutist who won't pull the rip-cord because the ground is still fifty metres away.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 21 May 2013 #permalink

Bernard: ( to stretch the analogy) ...and because Monckton and Watts have posted to definitively disprove the Newtonian physics.

"KarenMackSunspot has never, ever presented a single post that is based on science, scientific method, testable evidence, or rational and defensible thought"

You can Betula to the mix... and Olaus and PentaxZ and several other simpletons...

Baiters and switchers all. How many times have they made some simplistic comment, had it comprehensively demolished, then, totally ignoring that topic, moved onto something else? And debunking them is easy because its clear they don't understand basic principles such as the importance (and relevance) of spatial and temporal scales against which the current predicament must be gauged.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 22 May 2013 #permalink

hehehe, you are the ultimate nutter barnturd j :)

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dl7e4kDh0-w/UZunsMIDbgI/AAAAAAAAFLU/D0YGIx5N_…

It has been explained to you before, Mack is a man that resides in NZ, sunspot appears to be your worst nightmare (sometime I will read that thread to see why he upset you so),
and I am a sweet little girl :)

Spewandumbski should do some research on you honey, lolol

SpamKan, your self-image is as well grounded as everything else about you.

The thing is Karen, you have no idea what that means, and therefore how irrelevant it is.

Just like your fellow travellers you mindlessly regurgitate the same shit from the same sources with a resolution (dpi=dumbness per individual) so low that it may as well all come from the same fetid glob of stupid. Which indeed it does.

I sure hope you guys get a pay rise for having to prop up the climate change fable, it must be hard to sleep at night when you all are saying one thing and the climate is saying another, lol, at least maybe you should get a bonus for looking like retards sweltering in monkey suits :)

It looks as though the climate card house is on it's way down now, lol

I'm looking at rhwombat's picture

zooerastia ?

with a wombat I assume, YUKkkkkkkk

#11, looks like a lot of sweet water came off the continent lately :)

By cRR Kampen (not verified) on 22 May 2013 #permalink

World’s biggest ice sheets likely more stable than previously believed

"For decades, scientists have used ancient shorelines to predict the stability of today’s largest ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. Markings of a high shoreline from three million years ago, for example – when Earth was going through a warm period – were thought to be evidence of a high sea level due to ice sheet collapse at that time. This assumption has led many scientists to think that if the world’s largest ice sheets collapsed in the past, then they may do just the same in our modern, progressively warming world.

However, a new groundbreaking study now challenges this thinking. "

“Our study is telling scientists that they can no longer ignore the effect of Earth’s interior dynamics when predicting historic sea levels and ice volumes.”

http://www.cifar.ca/ancient-shorelines-ice-sheets-stability

Yes, 2007 had some exceptional weather which helped push Arctic sea ice are to a then all-time low.

Which was then beaten in 2011 without any exceptional weather.

Which was then thrashed in 2012.

Karen still thinks Arctic sea ice is her friend. What can I say but "LOL"? :-)

More comedy rants from Karen...

What a schmuck. As I said earlier, if the best the deniers can scrape up on Deltoid is represented by the likes of intellectual bottom-feeders like Karen, then no wonder that lot is in deep, deep trouble. That being said, in the 5-10 years that I have been writing/commenting in Deltoid, all of the deniers have been semi-literate dolts lacking a basic science education.

Yesterday Karen posted a Daily Fail article showing some Russians who drove a lightweight vehicle across the Arctic in winter and - if anyone can believe it - used this as 'evidence' that the Arctic ice was (1) as extensive as it was 30 years ago, and (2) very thick (the only thick thing is Karen's head and her/its/his lack of any credible common sense).

As an analogy Karen's article is akin to someone claiming tropical forests are fine because they hiked Brazilian rainforests across a linear transect from north to south. This tells us nothing about the vast area outside of the transect nor the kind of forests they traversed - primary or secondary growth.

Karen is thick alright - as thick as a large wooden plank.What is embarrassing is that he/it/he keeps writing in here in spit eof the constant humiliation she/he/it endures. Now that IS dense.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 22 May 2013 #permalink

"As an analogy Karen’s article is akin to someone claiming tropical forests are fine because they hiked Brazilian rainforests across a linear transect from north to south"

Not knowing how many trees there were there 10 years ago, making their assessment that "there's a forest there, therefore there's no deforestation" completely unevidenced.

"Karen’s article is akin to someone claiming tropical forests are fine because they hiked Brazilian rainforests across a linear transect from north to south"

Or...akin to Jeff Harvey and friend hiking across Algonquin Park and using a 4 week scale to claim he "experienced climate change at first hand"....while his friend received frostbite.

Classic.

Ah, another fiction from Betty.

Remember, Betty insists that their quotes are entirely fictitious.

Got any more top tips on the Tornado season, Batty?

"Ah, another fiction from Betty"

You are correct, Jeff was being fictitious when he claimed he experienced climate change first hand over a 4 week scale, he wanted to believe it so bad, that he wanted us to believe it as well. It's called exaggerating for the cause...

I'm glad we finally agree Wow, I knew you would come around someday.

http://www.nioo.knaw.nl/en/node/2137

Bill...
"Got any more top tips on the Tornado season, Batty?"

Here's one...
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/images/tornado/clim/totavg-ef3-e…

Here's another...
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=factbox-the-10-deadlie…

Oh. here's a really good one...

"The short takeaway is that tornadoes aren’t really getting more common or violent over time — but more and more people do seem to be living in tornado-prone areas"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/21/a-short-hist…

If you need any more help Bill, just let me know...

# 16 Karen

For once, something interesting. But this needs carefully placing into context - just as the authors of the study caution that their reference section of the Eastern US seaboard needs to be placed in the correct geological context.

First, there is a large amount of evidence from shore geology for an Eemian mean seal level highstand of >6m above the Holocene "only" ~125ka. The degree of tectonic uplift over this geologically brief timescale is insufficient to distort these estimates significantly. So where did the water come from?

The latest work on the Greenland Ice Sheet suggests that *less* GIS melt occurred during the Eemian than previously thought, and the contribution to global MSL was perhaps in the order of 1 - 2m (Dahl-Jensen et al. 2013). This leaves at least 4m and perhaps more to be accounted for. Substantial collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet would contribute about 4m to MSL, so the sea level budget for the Eemian *just about* closes if there was a major WAIS collapse. Some contribution may have been made by the East Antarctic ice sheet. Can't be ruled out.

Global average temperatures during the Eemian were about 1 - 2C above the Holocene average.

Second, looking much deeper into geological time, there is considerable evidence that sea level *did* fluctuate in line with changing global temperatures. And this evidence is synthesised from locations around the world, not a single, continuous section of the Eastern US seaboard.

See Foster & Rohling (2013) Relationship between sea level and climate forcing by CO2 on geological timescales.

The authors discuss the study here:

The researchers compiled more than two thousand pairs of CO2 and sea level data points, spanning critical periods within the last 40 million years. Some of these had climates warmer than present, some similar, and some colder. They also included periods during which global temperatures were increasing, as well as periods during which temperatures were decreasing.

“This way, we cover a wide variety of climate states, which puts us in the best position to detect systematic relationships and to have the potential for looking at future climate developments,” said co-author Professor Eelco Rohling, also from Ocean and Earth Science at the University of Southampton.

The researchers found that the natural relationship displays a strong rise in sea level for CO2 increase from 180 to 400 parts per million, peaking at CO2 levels close to present-day values, with sea level at 24 +7/-15 metres above the present, at 68 per cent confidence limits.

“This strong relationship reflects the climatic sensitivity of the great ice sheets of the ice ages,” said Dr Foster. “It continues above the present level because of the apparently similar sensitivity of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, plus possibly some coastal parts of East Antarctica.”

But do please keep producing actual references to actual science and keep making actual points. It will help you learn how little you know about the work that has actually been done.

Silence please. Tomorrow, the Netherlands are the whóóóle world. Date record for cold possible.
The +29.1° at Steinkjer, Norway, 64° NL last Saturday (new record for May) happened near Betelgeuse.

By cRR Kampen (not verified) on 22 May 2013 #permalink

"“Ah, another fiction from Betty”

You are correct"

Yes, and you were making shit up again, even YOU admit it, Betty.

"Or…akin to Jeff Harvey and friend hiking across Algonquin Park and using a 4 week scale to claim he “experienced climate change at first hand”….while his friend received frostbite"

I never claimed anything, you dimwit. As I told you, I did not write the piece. You seem sickly obsessed with it. Unable to debate me on anything remotely related to ecology or environmental science, this is your only recourse. Its sad and pathetic, really.

Of course the effects of long-term warming will be hard to determine on a 4 week trek through a provinical park. I certainly saw symptoms of it: collemboles active 4 weeks early, spiders and other insects in a landscape that should have been frozen solid. How these play out in the long term is the big question. Seasonal phenology is an important field in community ecology and there are plenty of data to show that changes in temperature over time are unraveling certain food webs. scale matters. Certainly, climate warming is a looming problem for natural systems. There is abundant empirical evidence for this, IF ONE BOTHERED TO READ UP ON THE PRIMARY LITERATURE. Its just too bad that you don't read the primary scientific literature,Betty. Your strategy, Betty, if one can call it that, is to stick your head into a great big pile of dung and to muffle from your stinky refuge that, because you've never read a published study showing warming to be negatively affecting species interactions, then there is no problem. I have seen anti-environmentalists use the same stupid method of downplaying a whole suite of environmental problems.

Utterly predictable. Jonas did it. Karen does it. Mack does it. You and other deniers do it. You have no clue about the field except to stick your fingers to the wind and say, "heck it seems OK to me"! You base your opinions on (1) your own inherent biases, (2) your own intellectual limitations, and (3) your own personal obervations. Thus, if you can't see something happening right in front of your face, then it isn't happening. Slow motion doesn't work with people like you. You expect an almost instantaneous manifestation of warming.

You should be surprised that any one with half an understanding of the importance of scale in system dynamics responds to your puerile histrionics. I correct what I said yesterday: your understanding of environmental science doesn't even reach up to my ankles. I said shins yesterday. I was clearly being profoundly overly optimisitic.

Essentially, you are left to your last little refuge: a short clipping from our web site in which it was written that I saw first hand the effects of warming. On individual organisms I most certainly did, which is remarkable given that this was just a very quick glimpse of a slowly unfolding story. If warming continues as it has since the 1980s in the medium term will there be consequences for natural sysrtems? Most definitely yes, and there already are. Look up the studies yourself, dumbo. If you are remotely capable of discussing their significance, I will be truly shocked.

I won't be holding my breath.

.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 22 May 2013 #permalink

I never claimed anything, you dimwit

Betty knows. Freely admits it was a completely fabricated quote.

Article..... "Jeff: “On our trip we experienced climate change at first hand. It was 12 degrees warmer than average, with around -2 oC during the day and -10 at night"

Jeff @ 30....."I never claimed anything, you dimwit"

Jeff @ .... "I certainly saw symptoms of it"

Jeff @ 30...."Of course the effects of long-term warming will be hard to determine on a 4 week trek through a provinical park.

Jeff again @ 30...."On individual organisms I most certainly did, which is remarkable given that this was just a very quick glimpse of a slowly unfolding story"

Wow # 31...."Betty knows"

Karen@19: So whats going to happen this year

You first, Karen - you nominate a metric (Volume/Area/Extent, DMI/NSIDC/CT/PIOMAS etc) and a number, and I'll do the same. End of the melt season, we can compare predictions.

Whoever gets closer gets bragging rights. Loser agrees to fuck off from Deltoid, permanently.

Got the stones to do more than run your mouth?

Hardley,

I happen to notice, that lately that you seem to be stuck in Kindergarten with Dunning-Kruger. For example:

@34 page 1...
"which of course the kindergarten/Dunning-Kruger brigade who consistently dredge up the more C02 = more biomass argument"

@26 page 2...
"The denier ranks are full of these Dunning-Kruger intellectual wannabes."

@66 page 2...
"A complete w*****. And Dunning-Kruger alumnus"

@87 page 2...
"on these kindergarten-level distractions"

@26 page 3...
"which would make even a kindergarten student blush with embarrassment"

I find it interesting that you would use Dunning-Kruger to support your superiority complex, if fact, it brings to light something I've suspected all along. You are unaware of your own incompetence, in fact you are delusional.
Let's take a look :
"Dunning and Kruger proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will:"

1."tend to overestimate their own level of skill":

# 95 page 3..."you don’t even reach up to my shins in terms of your scientific ‘expertise’ "

2."fail to recognize genuine skill in others"

#26 page 2..."you can’t debate yourself out of a soaking wet paper bag"

3."fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy"

#34 page 1...."where I work about my observations of climate change on the borders of biomes on the basis of a winter trek I made across Algonquin Park 15 months ago"

4. "suffer from illusory superiority"

@30 page 4...."your understanding of environmental science doesn’t even reach up to my ankles."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

You're an easy case Hardley, most likely educated beyond your intelligence. You live your life with a superiority complex and use what little knowledge you have in a repetitive way to boost your vision of yourself and make assumptions about pretty much everything...

Betula,

I stick by everything I said there. You write a load of old tosh. First you claimed that tornado severity is decreasing as a 'good result of climate change'.

Garbage. One cannot extrapolate one month's worth of tornado data on anything; we need long term trends. And an increase or a decrease in tornado activity does nothing to dispel the reality of AGW.

The you past up some commercial nonsense here in a feeble attempt to suggest that increasing atmospheric levels of C02 will enhance primary productivity in natural systems. This piffle is a standard refrain of the climate change deniers and in complex adaptive systems is absolutely meaningless.

Give how dumb you are, I am not sure whether both examples were put up as a serious attempt at some sort of debate or just to show everyone how witty you are.

You fail on both counts.

As far as superiority goes, listen pal: if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Imam quite happy to defer to a physician or to a medical expert who has studied some field for years over any opinions I have in that field. I also defer to the opinions of climate scientists who have spent many years honing their field of expertise. If anyone is an arrogant ass****, its people like you who, without any relevant qualifications, past comments up here where you try and give the impression that you know more about climate and environmental science than professionals in the field.

In terms of my field of research, am not afraid to say it: I know a lot, lot more than you do. SHOCK! HORROR! In reality, hardly surprising. I've published 128 papers in my career, and have bee cited almost 2984 times, which I guess is 128 publications and 2984 citations more than you, Betty. Put up or shut up. If you write nonsense in here in which you (for instance) try and extrapolate plant growth and fitness in a highly controlled closed monoculture and microcosm to very open natural system with high species richness even over small scales, I will tear it apart.

I know you don't like your limited intellectual abilities to be exposed for all and sundry, but there you go.

As for last winter in Algonquin Park, it was the warmest ever recorded. Moreover, there has been a statistically significant increase in winter temperatures there over the past 40 years. Stick that is your craw.

Again I reiterate: you can't debate science in any way, shape or form. Until you can, you are left with nothing more than your ever increasing frustration.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 22 May 2013 #permalink

To show you how totally stupid Betty is, he uses the D-K model asa proxy for me, a professional scientist, when the model was created in the first place for people just like him, who have no professional qualifications in fields in which they over estimate their abilities.

Comedy gold. Ya' gotta love this clown.

I m not afraid to say that in certain fields I am an expert based on 20 plus years of research, many publications, conference and university lectures etc. But in other fields of environmental science and ecology, I defer to the expertise of people in those fields. Most climate scientists agree that humans are forcing climate. End of story. I know exactly where my scientific qualifications are limited, because I have professional training in evolutionary and population ecology. Betty, on the other hand, as well as Karen, Mack, Sunspot, Jonas, PentaxZ, Rednose and others have NO relevant qualifications in ANY of these fields. Yet they consistently attack the science of climate change (and the scientists involved) as if they are bonafide experts. Why? Because, as predicted in the D-K model they lack formal expertise in this field and thus over-estimate their knowledge of it.

By defending the opinions of the vast majority of climate scientists, I am defending science. Betty and his ilk, on the other hand, are not. Moreover, Betty hasn't said in what fields of science I am over-estimating my worth. Can't be climate science, because as I said I support the work of most climate scientists. Can't be plant ecophysiology, because (1) its part of my professional work and (2) few statured scientists would argue that a greenhouse is a good proxy for natural systems. Where then?

In his imagination, that's where.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 22 May 2013 #permalink

Betty @ 25:“Ah, another fiction from Betty” - You are correct.

Betty knows she's lying like a kiddie with chocolate smeared round his face, but, and again like a kiddie with chocolate smeared round his face, doesn't care in the slightest.

Jeff, when I read Betula's # 34, I had to pinch myself.

Is this a Poe, I wondered? The awful truth is, I suspect not. It's almost funny. Almost.

I wonder if Betula takes this attitude with his accountant, his investment advisers (if any) and his solicitor? If not, why the inconsistency? Either you DK yourself into believing you know better than all the experts in all fields, or you don't. One cannot be selective about it.

BBD, yes, I wonder about Betty myself. For one thing he seems singularly obsessed with me and my posts, but then again Jonas was too.

Its quite funny how they react to me. I remember one of the deniers bitterly attacking me and demanding to know what made me so qualified to comment. When I told them who I was and what I do the immediate riposte was that I was arrogant and boasted about my CV.

This is the intellectual level of their debating skills. From 'who the hell are you' to 'you have a superiority complex'. Yet as I have said many times, I know exactly what my professional limitations are and when to defer. I wouldn't go head to head with someone who is qualified in a professional scientific field in which I have no formal training. In population and evolutionary ecology, as well as systems ecology, I am certainly not afraid to take on the likes of Karen or Betula because its my field (directly or indirectly) of professional expertise and because neither of them knows a darned thing about them. Betula's attempt to extrapolate artificial conditions in greenhouses to complex adaptive natural systems across the biosphere was comical, and I don't mind saying so. Monckton did it, and other deniers on Deltoid have done it as well, and I have no reticence in demolishing it because its utterly frivolous nonsense. This clearly irks Betula who then somehow thinks the Dunning-Kruger applies to me when it is staring him right in the face. He thinks he knows more about abiotic factors and their effects on primary production than I do, even though I work and publish studies on plant biology and ecology. As I pointed out, what about other abiotic and biotic factors? I went into detail, a post which was ignored before coming in with his equally silly post about glacial retreat.

Now I wil admit that I am not an expert on glaciers or climate, but I never ever said that I was. I do, however, defend the work and qualifications of the trained experts, most of whom believe that warming is reducing the extent of most glaciers around the world, or who argue that humans are the primary culprit behind the recent warming.

If lone checks up on the primary literature, lo and behold they will find that the overwhelming majority of published studies shown that 80% or more of the world's mountainous glaciers have retreated in the past century, and that there is strong evidence for a human fingerprint on the current warming.

Against these facts, we have the Betula's and Karen's suggesting that it's either all some sort of bug lie, or else that the scientific evidence is inconclusive - evidence they know little about because they lack the professional training and clearly have not read the huge volume of literature. I'd like Betula to provide an exhaustive list of the studies he has read supporting, for example, his C02-prmary production argument in communities and ecosystems (and not some crappy sales brochure about greenhouses). I'd like him to discuss how we can factor changes in plant-based N and P concentrations under increasing C, as well as rainfall, and then how he thinks changes in these limiting nutrients will affect plant fitness. I'd like him to speculate on the effects of increased concentrations of atmospheric C02 on plant-plant competition (for light, nutrients etc) and on interactions with consumers such as herbivores, pathogens and their antagonists, in terms of behavior and ecophysiology. How will plants use the extra foliar C? What about plant allelochemistry (secondary metabolites) and primary metabolites? C-based defenses? N-based defenses? Will these effects operate linearly or non-linearly and over what kinds of spatial and temporal scales? Will there be winners and losers? Will ecosystem resistance and resilience be affected positively or negatively? Why? Will diversity increase or decrease? Why?

These are just some of the questions raised by the global atmospheric experiment. Against this immense complexity we have the Monckton's and their acolytes simply calling C02 'plant food' without possessing even basic understanding of the many, many complexities involved. To them, nature is broken down to the simplest common denominator. Plants utilize carbon. Therefore, carbon is good. More carbon is better. And so on and so forth. I wade in, and I am attacked.

This is the way it goes.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 22 May 2013 #permalink

Wow@#37: That's not chocolate.

...& Karen@#14: actually, it's bouldering at 5000m in the Nepal Himalaya, but wherever your Tourette's tick takes you.

Jeff, when I read Betula’s # 34, I had to pinch myself. Is this a Poe, I wondered? The awful truth is, I suspect not. It’s almost funny. Almost.

But don't forget that DuKes like Betty are the very ones least aware of their own incompetence, incomprehension and miscomprehension. DuKes will always think such talk must be about someone else.

#17,Karen,fool. No. Paper is not explanatory of specific years ice minimum extent,or of sea ice trends,and is not intended to be. Paper discusses radiative trends under varying cloudiness. "...on average,Arctic Ocean clouds warm the surface.."
"During the early 21st century, summer TOA albedo decreases are consistent with sea ice loss, but are unrelated to summer cloud trends that are statistically insignificant."
2007 is only discussed in terms of the net shortwave radiative anomaly observed relative to other years,which resulted primarily from "..cloud reductions in early summer,and sea ice loss during late summer"

You miss,as usual.

#17. Karen,fool : More interesting---but only barely--than your persistent miscomprehension is who keeps misleading you. You bring the credulity and the vanity, who supplies the material?

Betula # 34

lolololololololol :)

Take that to your next psycho session Jeffery, (wiping tearssss) haha:)haha

Fwank # 33

"End of the melt season, we can compare predictions."

Oh..... Fwanker, I'm not into your esoteric mumbo jumbo dear, lol......pray tell Fwank, can you see a storm in your teacup ?

"Whoever gets closer gets bragging rights.

bragging rights ? Do you want try to compete with Jeffery ? I doubt anybody could ascend to those heights :)

"Loser agrees to fuck off from Deltoid, permanently."

hehe, well you are a sore loser Fwank, go on petal off you go.........

From ‘who the hell are you’ to ‘you have a superiority complex’.

It was more like from "who the hell are you" you "stop boasting about who you are". Occasionally it went from "who the hell are you" to "who cares who the hell you are".

# 47 Karen

If you were a little less... unaware of the basics, you would understand that the plethora of potential causes for the recent slowdown in surface temperature warming all demonstrate one thing:

The climate system is sensitive to radiative perturbation.

This is strongly suggestive that CO2 forcing (radiative perturbation) works as advertised (see OHC) and that low estimates for TCR/ECS are problematic.

Your problem, Karen, is that you don't understand any of this. In your own words:

Oh….. Fwanker, I’m not into your esoteric mumbo jumbo dear, lol

Moreover, you are a blustering coward. You just ran away from a simple challenge, revealing yourself to be nothing but shite on a stick.

It would be difficult to hold you in more contempt than I already do, but I am working on it.

Karen at #47 presents an intriguing example of Dunning-Krugerite projection.

The rest of us read the SkS post a couple of days ago when it came out. It clearly doesn't say what she imagines it says - but she's never read it, so she actually has no idea what it actually says anyway. She's just 'interpreted the interpretations' of Watts, or, more likely, gobbled some prolefeed slogan from the comments thread there and rushed over here to regurgitate it.

None of them would be likely to recognise good-faith efforts made by serious people to ensure that their published efforts match the evidence. The irony alarms at Watts' place would all have blown fuses, had not those particular items all burned-out back in 2006...

Is there anything more stupid than a fucking denier describing scientific argument as "dogma"?

Ah, while I was posting, we are delivered another classic example.

Karen has grabbed a link to a paper she's never read and couldn't comprehend if she had. She thinks it says something she likes, because the folks that ladle the chum into the holding tanks have told her it does, so she bolts is down then darts right over here - again, we were all aware of this one days ago - to hoik up what she imagines is a bombshell.

The interpreters of interpretations have been so active with this one the lead author has had to go out of his way to point out that it doesn't say what the likes of Karen have gone into febrile raptures imagining it does.

But, of course, like so many of her kind, we have to understand that Karen could not hope to understand what the paper says via direct experience of it; and, besides, all that thinking stuff is a bore when there's sicking-up and shouting to be done...

Karen laughs a lot,though. Surely that's of some value?

rhwambat#41

it’s bouldering at 5000m in the Nepal Himalaya

Yeah, yeah.
Looks like a bloody big jug to grap hold of while you pose.

Ooooh, Rudolph is snarky (and an expert on climbing, the go-to guy for the analysis on 64x64 pixel imagery, as well as a leading authority on climate.)

Perhaps you were hoping to run the SkS thing and the Otto paper on us as well?

# 57 Nick

LOL!

:-)

The lead author of the paper Karen doesn't understand (Otto)recently said in an interviewwit the BBC that climate change is a serious problem for humanity and that even an increase of temperatures at the lower end of the IPCC projecitons should not be construed as being minor.

But then again, deniers love to take articles by scientists and to distort their findings and significance in pursuit of political agendas. What's worse is when they misquote the scienitsts or derive conclusions that are at odds with what the scientistswho write the articles themselves believe.

In my earlier posts I argued that deniers like Karen (and Betula and Rednose) are way, way out of the their depth on the science, yet somehow they derive conclusions that conflict with the prevailing view amongst the experts.

This is a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. They are all casebook examples of it.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 23 May 2013 #permalink

In a rspponse to Betula's verbal diarrhea earlier:

“Dunning and Kruger proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will:”

1.”tend to overestimate their own level of skill”:

# 95 page 3…”you don’t even reach up to my shins in terms of your scientific ‘expertise’ ”

2.”fail to recognize genuine skill in others”

#26 page 2…”you can’t debate yourself out of a soaking wet paper bag”

3.”fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy”

#34 page 1….”where I work about my observations of climate change on the borders of biomes on the basis of a winter trek I made across Algonquin Park 15 months ago”

4. “suffer from illusory superiority”

@30 page 4….”your understanding of environmental science doesn’t even reach up to my ankles.”

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 23 May 2013 #permalink

In a rspponse to Betula's verbal diarrhea earlier:

“Dunning and Kruger proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will:”

1.”tend to overestimate their own level of skill”:

# 95 page 3…”you don’t even reach up to my shins in terms of your scientific ‘expertise’ ”

2.”fail to recognize genuine skill in others”

#26 page 2…”you can’t debate yourself out of a soaking wet paper bag”

3.”fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy”

#34 page 1….”where I work about my observations of climate change on the borders of biomes on the basis of a winter trek I made across Algonquin Park 15 months ago”

4. “suffer from illusory superiority”

@30 page 4….”your understanding of environmental science doesn’t even reach up to my ankles.”

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 23 May 2013 #permalink

In a rspponse to Betula's verbal diarrhea earlier:

“Dunning and Kruger proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will:”

1.”tend to overestimate their own level of skill”:

# 95 page 3…”you don’t even reach up to my shins in terms of your scientific ‘expertise’ ”

2.”fail to recognize genuine skill in others”

#26 page 2…”you can’t debate yourself out of a soaking wet paper bag”

3.”fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy”

#34 page 1….”where I work about my observations of climate change on the borders of biomes on the basis of a winter trek I made across Algonquin Park 15 months ago”

4. “suffer from illusory superiority”

@30 page 4….”your understanding of environmental science doesn’t even reach up to my ankles.”

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 23 May 2013 #permalink

you would understand that the plethora of potential causes for the recent slowdown in surface temperature warming

However, this is irrelevant.

"It's been flat" is NOT proof that the IPCC is incorrect in their conclusions, since this doesn't prove the IPCC projected warming is incorrect.

You have to prove that the projections are incorrect.

What's REALLY dumb about these denidiots whining is that whenever an extreme event in weather comes up, they screech "We've had that before!!!!!".

Yet we've had times before when the short term ~10-15 year trend has been zero or negative before, yet we've still gone up again overall after such events.

So why is it that THIS time, when it wasn't happening all the other times, that such an event is conclusive proof that AGW and the IPCC conclusions are wrong?

Karen laughs a lot,though.

A psychotic maniac laughs a lot too. This does not bode well, however.

#59

So little time. Can't do everything :-)

Jh #63,64,65

You seem to be suffering a bit. Jh. Alka seltzer works pretty good for me

So here is my response to Betula:

1. I don't overestimate my own skills. You do. You have not got any. What are your professional qualifications in ANY field of science? Degrees, publications, awards, lectureships, conferences attended etc? I wrote yesterday that my views are based on the vast majority of climate scientists who agree that humans are the primary culprit behind the recent warming. Betula disagees, on the basis on ZERO qualifications or empirical arguments.

2. Fail to recognize the genuine skills of others? So what skills do you possess, Betty? Or Karen? Neither of you has any requisite skills in science. Betty wrote some basal level piffle about C02 and primary productivity that I would fail a high school student for if they presented such material to me. I challenged you to defend the 'science' you presented and was met with a resounding blank. If you are going to say that I should appreciate your 'skills' in environmental science, let me see them. So far I haven't seen a shred of any evidence that you have any. But deniers are certainly quick to slag off those who do have qualifications. Not only me, but deniers routinely deride Mann, Hansen, Trenberth, Santer and many others.

3. Again, waht inadequacy, Betula? My CV and scientific record stands for itself. Where are your bonafides? I certainly recognize where my qualification begin and end. Your don't. Karen doesn't. For instance, Karen routinely writes in here with snippets from climate change denial web sites and writes as if she/he/it is an expert in the field of climate science. I never said that I was. I just tend to think that, if most real experts are saying one thing, then we ought to take that seriously. You and Karen must think that you know more than these experts, otherwise you wouldn't belittle them and act is if they have somehow missed something that you think you know.

4. My intellectual superiority in environmental science over you is not illusory. It is the truth. I could give lectures on plant ecophysiology or on population ecology that would be so far over your head that you'd either fall asleep or ask to leave. That's not hard because I have worked in the field for many years. On the other hand, I think that James Hansen knows a lot, lot more about climate science than I do. Yet people like Karen, Jonas and others appear to suggest that one doesn't need a professional education to be an expert in a complex field. Read a few blogs, climate change denial blogs and bingo!... one knows all they need to know. This is pure folly. Why else would people bother to go to university, earn a degree, then do a PhD unless they wanted to become experts in certain fields? Of course your understanding of environmental science is much less than mine. Why don't you just waltz into a university and apply for a lectureship in environmental science or ecology when a vacancy arises? They'd ask you first for your CV and professional background, including degrees, publications, research history etc. Clearly you would not be short-listed. Does that mean they are being unfair? Of course not. Qualifications matter.

Get real, Betty. If this is the best you can do, then its no small wonder that your posts are easy to quash. Again, the real Dunning-Krugerites are those whose own personal views of their knowledge far exceed their actual qualifications. Hint: that is more like you and Karen, neither of whom have the relevant pedigree. I certaionly know where mine begin and end.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 23 May 2013 #permalink

@Karen: "I’m not into your esoteric mumbo jumbo dear, lol"

All tip and no iceberg...

No tip, either.

At #4 above I said:

With [Mack's] most recent departure expect Karen or a new sock to materialise…

In spite of his most recent insistence that he's a girl and not Mack, the Karen sock is as predictably typical of the KarenMackSunspot complex (simplex?) as ever. To wit - all witlessness and no wit, inane laughter notwithstanding...

KMS, I reiterate my oft-repeated query - what is your proudest post on Deltoid? You may choose from any of the three conspicuous socks under which you post, or if you have a better one elsewhere, you may claim that instead. Any will do - I'm just curious to see what constitutes in your own mind (such as it is) your best scientific argument.

Go on - amaze us.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 23 May 2013 #permalink

And KarenMackSunspot.

Just for the record, you've been leaving more of your usual punctuation peculiarities around on this thread under both your "Karen" and your "Mack" socks. Add further to that your usage peculiarities and your own brand of sub-adult level grammar, and your protestations to be separate identities are in fact contradicted by your own signature semi-literacy.

Get a clue, dumb-arse.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 23 May 2013 #permalink

"Karen, I reiterate my oft-repeated query – what is your proudest post on Deltoid?"

Umm........I can't recall you ever asking me that barnturd j ?

I will tell what I did find very very amusing. The time I suckered you into telling me where the hovel is located that you reside, lol, well...that close it doesn't matter :)

You still have not responded to the study that I posted that proved that Tasmania has been somewhat consistently warmer than now ?

I get a good laugh every time you wave your punny little arms around screaming about AGW because you seen an apple tree bud early, lol

Spots, we KNOW you're a braindead little moron.

But saying "I don't remember that" doesn't answer the question even if you had perfect recall.

Thereby proving you're a braindead little moron.

Jeff...

It looks like you are becoming unraveled. Let me be straight with you, I believe you to be an arrogant, hypocrite and a phony. Phony, not in the sense of your education or knowledge, but how you use that knowledge to assume conclusions based on biased ideology.
You M.O is to repeat what you know and then attempt to make yourself feel superior by putting people down based on pure assumptions about what they don't know, while being hypocritical in the process.
What you know about the environment Jeff, doesn't make your conclusions about climate change a fact. When you see slight changes over a 4 week period in Algonquin and relate it to climate change...you are being hypocritical in regards to everything you say about scale and comparing weather to climate.
When you think you are putting someone down by calling them a "tree pruner", you are basing this on an assumption and at the same time attempting to insulting anyone who may be a tree pruner. I have pruned many trees in my day, though I am not a tree pruner. The difference between you and me is that I don't look down on them, in fact, It is hard to find someone with a good eye for pruning and knowledge of plant material to be able to prune correctly and at the proper time, let alone someone with climbing experience to prune large trees..
Here where I live, we have some of the wealthiest clients on earth and they hire world renown landscape architects who are very particular about the material that goes in and how it is maintained, which is where I fit in.
As a licensed Arborist in 2 states with a B.S. in Forestry and a former Marine Corps Engineer Officer, I have been in the field over 30 years.
I can honestly tell you, if you were doing the job I do you would flat out fail. Why? Because every time you had to solve a problem, your answer would be the same....more lace bugs this year? Climate change. Armillaria on my Cherry tree? Climate change. Huge amounts of Army worms in my lawn? Climate change. Snow mold? Climate Change. My Spruce tree is turning brown....climate change. Why didn't my Magnolia flower? Climate change. What is wrong with the Hemlocks? Climate change. And then to solve the problems, you would tell everyone it's their fault and they need to change their light bulbs. Plus, with your superiority complex, I don't think you would treat the crews well and they would turn on you. I don't picture you as a people person.
I've seen many cycles in my 30 years, many changes, many thing come and go...and not just with insects, diseases and plant material, but with wildlife as well...and it's not all bad.
When I was young we used to catch Weak fish in Long Island sound, then they disappeared for 10 years, then they came back....same with the Mackerel. We never had Wild Turkeys in the past, now we do, and as a result now we have Coyotes, which we never did before.....the Deer are so plentiful the NY Times referred to them as "rats with hoofs".
Yes, here we are on the border of 2 plant Zones, along the water is one Zone, 10 miles inland is another....knowing which plants can withstand salt, which plants can withstand the cold, which ones want wet feet, which ones like dry feet, which ones are shade tolerant, which plants are shallow rooted, which plants grow fast, which plants are disease resistant, which plants are susceptible to a variety of insects and diseases, and what are the life cycles of those insects and how do you treat those insects or diseases, and which chemicals affect Bees or fish, and which chemicals are phytotoxic to which plants, and at what temperature should you spray and what organic products are available, and at what time of year do they flower and which plants are considered invasive, and why didn't my Apple get any fruit this year, and I need to adjust the spray heads away from the Leucothoe to prevent shot hole fungus after I cut the girdling root on the Sugar Maple and can you please take down my 40" diameter White Oak that is leaning over the back of my house and the pool without any vehicle access....and then prune my ten thousand dollar cut leaf maple and my espaliered Pear tree.
This and much more with more than100 clients, many who are millionaires and billionaires with estates worth up to 80 million dollars, brings in a lot of money. Interestingly, the State I live in and the surrounding States are all Democratic Blue States, so most of these rich people are the kind you rail against...only they are Democrats...including David Blood of the well known Blood and Gore duo.
But back to you Jeff,
As complex as the environment is, you claim to know as fact, that worst case outcomes are going to derive from the possibility that CO2 will double, and if it does, what climate sensitivity might be, and if that climate sensitivity is what you think it is, what the scenarios will arise all over the world and all those scenarios can only be bad even though the climate has been changing since the beginning of time. Did you intentionally leave out the scenario that warming may stall for a decade or was that just an oversight? Tell me Jeff, do you use electricity? Gas? Do you eat food? Do you breath? Are you part of the problem? Of course you are...but this isn't what it's about is it Jeff. It's about the rich, it's about labeling people deniers even though you don't know what it is they are denying. Are they denying Global Warming? Are they denying climate change? Are they denying if or when C02 will double? Are they denying Climate Sensitivity? Are they denying worst case scenarios based on a doubling of speculations? Are they denying how a complex world is reacting now or how it will react in the future? Or are they denying you Jeff?
Hey Jeff, why not rail against the people in charge of the lights on Broadway, why not rail against the people who exempted China from the Kyoto Protocol? Why not rail against the shipping industry? commercial trucking? major league sports" Disney land and Disney World? Resorts? Hotels? Travel agencies? Hmm..
You're a Putz Jeff, an "intellectually superior" Putz who claims to witness climate change in Algonquin because you saw "spiders and other insects in a landscape that should have been frozen solid" even though temperatures by your own admission were "around -2 oC during the day and -10 at night" and your friend managed to get frostbite.

Did the spiders get frostbite too?

Coo, a lot of words, betty, but pointless.

Why bother reading what you say when you're blatant about how you make things up at will.

Betula

Why do you invest so much time rejecting climate science when you are not qualified to do so?

As a layman, your only logically consistent option is to accept the expert (scientific) consensus.

So why are you routinely to be found here in comments spouting denialist clap-trap?

Why?

Pissing people off.

Probably Spots et al too.

They're now wanting to get back at the people who've resisted their idiocies and shown them up to be the dumbest of the dumbest of the dumb.

It was a job.

NOW, it's personal.

"Let me be straight with you, I believe you to be an arrogant, hypocrite and a phony"

Thanks Betula. Coming from an ignoramus like you, that's a compliment. Thankfully my scientific peers think otherwise. And if I had to balance their views against yours, well, let's just say you come second.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 23 May 2013 #permalink

@Betula

"It looks like you are becoming unraveled. Let me be straight with you[jeff], I believe you to be an arrogant, hypocrite and a phony."

Yes he is, I seem to remember we started to make a list of failings some time ago, but ran out of space. A personality disorder probably best describes it, he oscillates between being a martyr and some sort of dreamy Napolean figure.

In either guise, a thoroughly repulsive individual. Keep up the good work Betula, KBO.

;)

"As a licensed Arborist in 2 states with a B.S. in Forestry and a former Marine Corps Engineer Officer, I have been in the field over 30 years"

..and you spout profoundly simplistic nonsense about the supposed benefits of increased C02 concentrations on ecological communities - on the basis of a brochure by a company, no less. If you want to be taken seriously by me and most others on Deltoid, then its time you acted like you know what you are talking about. Your C02 argument is something I often see from non-scientist AGW deniers, but you will find few scientists working in the field who would make such a flippant remark. On this basis alone, you are the Putz. I think most people on Deltoid would agree with that.

In this regard your 30 years of experience in your field mean diddly squat. I challenged you to discuss the more complex ecophysiological aspects of this at the level of species, populations, communities and ecosystems and you gave it a pass. That's hardly surprising, because all of your 30 years of experience in your field has not equipped you with the expertise to be able to understand a field I have worked in for the past 20.

I don't deny that the tree pruner quip was wrong, and I retract it. But one thing I don't retract is that you do not have the qualifications to be able to critically and effectively evaluate a myriad of anthropogenic stresses upon natural and managed ecosystems. You think that 30 years is a long time, whereas in nature its the blink of an evolutionary eye. I not only do a lot of field work, but I speak with a lot of colleagues who study plant-animal interactions and who have access to data sets that are longer - some spanning 100 years or more (still representing a very short time span) which describe the demographics of songbird populations in northern Europe. Trends for many species of passerines in both the Nearctic and Palearctic realms are indeed profoundly worrying - some species have seen their populations decline by 70% or more since the 1960s. Given the paucity of qualified researchers able to evaluate the reasons underlying these declines, we are left to a subset of systems in which data are available and in which research is ongoing. Some of these studies provide clear, unambiguous proof that climate warming is an important, if not the major, culprit. Its my guess that you've never read a single study in the field. Just because you haven't doesn't make it so. You think that working outdoors for 30 years in the field somehow equips you with the ability to detect trends. It does not, at least not unless you are actively collecting the data and assiduously analyzing it.

Essentially, what comes out of your posts is a far-right libertarian ideology that clearly affects your views on climate science and other fields. You are forced to dig out the old 'do you drive a car et al' chestnut, which might have come straight from a Tea Party shindig or from someone like Rush Limbaugh. Its the same claptrap that the far right has been putting out for years. I am sure that you loathe government, even though in your country government and corporations are two sides of the same coin, joined at the hip to the Pentagon. Your entire post was a rant in which you attempt to tell everyone that you are as qualified to comment on climate as the scientists doing the research because you've been working in the field for the past 3 decades.

As for your discussion of white-tailed deer, coyotes and wild turkeys, well where do I begin to demolish this? White-tailed deer thrive because their main predators, wolves and mountain lions, were extirpated from the eastern US. As a result, lyme disease thrives, even though the tick vectors prefer reptilian hosts (in the south lyme disease is rare). There are probably more deer now than ever because of the elimination of top-level predators via trophic cascades. Coyotes thrive in anthropogenic habitats because they are highly intelligent and expanded their range east over the past century. Wild turkeys are a success story, I will admit, having been hunted out of most of their original range by early in the 20th century. However, restocking programs have worked. But for every success their are many, many more worrying signs. Many perching birds are in population freefall across the eastern US. Rufous side towhees have declined by 90% since the 1970s; many parulid warblers are declining, even at the heart of their range. Bachman's, Grasshopper and Henslow's sparrows are in deep trouble. Loggerhead shrikes are almost extinct now north of the Ohio River. Bewicks wrens are extinct east of the Misssissippi. Red-Headed woodpeckers are rapidly declining in the north-east, and Red Cockaded woodpeckers continue to spiral towards extinction. The current status of American birds does not make happy reading. Nor does that for European birds, for that matter. In fact, over here the situation may be even more serious than it is on your side of theAtlantic. In a nutshell, things are going in the wrong direction.

Climate change most certainly is a factor, but as I have said many times it does not act alone. Humans dominate terrestrial landscapes and by fragmenting them we have created urban and agricultural barriers which make it harder for species to disperse polewards or to higher elevations. We have also either intentionally or inadvertently introduced many plants and animals to non-native ecosystems where a small percentage are wreaking havoc upon the native flora and fauna. In combination, the human assault across the biosphere is driving extinction rates 100 to 1000 times higher than natural 'background' rates, and certainly far faster than new species are evolving to replace them. Biodiversity represents the working parts of our global ecological life support systems, and in combination it drives critical processes - ecosystem services - that sustain humanity. There are few, if any technological substitutes for most of them.

Now if you want to discuss science, and not some cursory observations made in your work, go ahead. You repeatedly criticize me but I have yet to see you make any kind of meaningful scientific contribution to Deltoid. Instead, you wade in here often just to throw in your 5 cents worth about climate change being crap. Your comments on C02 and glacier retreat were hardly informed.

Essentially, I do have better things to do than to spar with you down in the intellectual benthos. All you have proven in your posts is that you are a classic example of the Dunning-Kruger study. Yet you are so blind in your belief that your career has given you some deep insight into ecology that you can't even see it.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 23 May 2013 #permalink

Now GSW is back with his bilge. These clowns all come out of the woodwork. GSW is another one of those who thinks he is some kind of expert on ecophysiology. Yet his posts also reek of simplicity. He is a big fan of Jonas N, which should say it all.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 23 May 2013 #permalink

"...even though the climate has been changing since the beginning of time. Did you intentionally leave out the scenario that warming may stall for a decade or was that just an oversight?

Yup, standard chummychunk denier claptrap in a crispy coat of intellectual envy with a sprinkling of Rethugnican rage. And of course, Griselda puts in an appearance for The Swede Collective pf Mediocrities and Nobodies to reinforce the point, as if that does Betty a favour.

Christ. Another buffoon.

A repeater buffoon at that.

So Griselda, you're swallowing the chum at Watts's then brainlessly shitting it out here and saying that the CO2 in the atmosphere somehow behaves differently because it's in your car or your house and doesn't absorb and re-radiate heat as fast as the sunlight can be converted?
I'd be fascinated to hear how that works.
How does it know, Oh wise one?

Betula, that's an unhinged and confused attack on Jeff.

'..more lace bugs this year? Climate change.' ..

"I don't think you would treat the crews well,and they would turn on you"

This is just ridiculous childish 'personal' stuff,and it goes on forever.
That gallop of disjointed 'questions' at the end there...get a grip,man.

Batty, if you were ever in contact with a plot, you've clearly lost it now. Have you no dignity, man?

Jeff,
Well put. I have neither your patience and lucidity, nor your depth of knowledge on the complexities and ramifications of climate change to scare the shit out of the denialati, as you do, but I do appreciate the time and passion that you (and Bernard, bill, chek, nick, wow, BBD et al.) put into this blog. The same suspects keep leaving flaming bags of denier shit on the doorstep, then wondering why they are derided as puerile punks. Denial is a pathology as well as a philosophy.

That's it; we have the full set of meatbag Denier spambots.

Let’s take a look :
“Dunning and Kruger proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will:”

1.”tend to overestimate their own level of skill”:

# 95 page 3…”you don’t even reach up to my shins in terms of your scientific ‘expertise’ ”

Logic fail.

A claim to greater relative expertise in a subject compared to another, a claim that is most evidently correct here, is not evidence of over-estimation of said expertise. Or to give a simple example, me saying that I'm driving faster than my mother is not the same as me saying that I am exceeding the speed limit. Ask your average primary school kid - they'll confirm it for you.

Ironically, your attempt to apply Dunning-Kruger here IS evidence of your own over-estimation of your own logical and debating abilities. Further evidence is provided by your attempted riposte #2 where you presume your own debate competence in order to argue that Jeff has failed to recognise yours, a presumption that is solidly challenged by the available evidence on Deltoid - and your #4 suffers from exactly the same problem.

Better put the shotgun down and go get some medical treatment for the holes in your feet. Unless, of course, you were ironically holding yourself up as an illustration of the Dunning-Kruger effect ;-) in which case, well played, sir!

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 24 May 2013 #permalink

KarenMackSunspot at #75.

You are an idiot.

Really. Truly.

It's about more than apple buds. At various times I've provided you with a plethora of empirical effects of warming, sufficient for one of average intelligence to further pursue study and determine that there is a significant change occurring in the local Tasmanian climate. Some of it is even easy for a dumb-arse - the marine effects of global warming are well-documented online.

But why bother with the actual, empirical sequelæ of planetary warming? You provided the data temperature yourself, although you seem to have missed it at the time. Remember when you claimed at #9 on page 8 of the April Open Thread:

1910 – 2012 trend in mean temperature for Tasmania = 0.05 deg C

1910 – 2012 trend in maximum temperature for Tasmania = 0.05 deg C

1910 – 2012 trend in minimum temperature for Tasmania = 0.05 deg C

THAT’S…………ZERO POINT ZERO FIVE of a trend from 1910

sssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeez

Really? You think that there's "0.05" [sic] of a trend from 1910? Look harder. Look better. Look much more closely...

The mean annual temperature trend shows in fact a 0.05-0.1°C increase per decade, which averages crudely as 0.75°C since 1910. Most of the state's maximum annual temperature trend shows a similar increase.

The minimum annual temperature trend in my area shows a 0.1-0.15°C increase per decade, which averages crudely (and likely conservatively) as 1.25°C since 1910. And note - this is simply the minimum increase realised. Many people are reporting that the nights are overall now even warmer than this, so an integrated nightly temperature analysis is likely to show an even higher trend. I've started collecting 1/2 hourly data myself to see if this is in fact the case.

The thing that astonishes me is that the sea surface temperature trend is 0.08-0.12°C increase per decade, which equates to 1.0°C since 1910. That's an enormous amount of heat - at least, it is for anyone who has the intelligence required to comprehend it. Dumb-arses such as you would have no hope of finding the cerebral capacity required to understand what's happening...

A few sundry observations...

You still have not responded to the study that I posted that proved that Tasmania has been somewhat consistently warmer than now ?

Wrong.

I did, here, pointing you to:

http://www.redmap.org.au/article/sea-temperatures-and-climate-change-in…

and

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022098111000803

And as I have detailed above, you yourself linked to the Bureau of Meteorology data that shows significant and very serious warming. Classic KarenMackSunspot own-goal.

Also, it's worthwhile noting how you used not one but two of the Sunspot space-before-punctuation-marks idiosyncrasies in your post at #75 above, as well as the excessively elongated Spotty ellipses. You did the space thing in your guise as Mack at #3 above and at #72 on the previous page.

Are there actual schools where people learn to be dumb-arses of the extreme calibre that you manifest? That can be the only explanation - besides the fact that you've suffered a severe head injury, and/or that you are in the bottom decile of the population's intelligence distribution.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 24 May 2013 #permalink

#77 "It’s about the rich, it’s about labeling people deniers even though you don’t know what it is they are denying."

So Al Gore ain't rich or is a denier.

It's about anthropogenic global warming mate. Not about your job or your paranoia for thinking people.

To state you've got so and so many years of experience in the outside is empty. Apparently you been around like a zombie.

By cRR Kampen (not verified) on 24 May 2013 #permalink

#77 “It’s about the rich, it’s about labeling people deniers even though you don’t know what it is they are denying.”

Hell, THEY don't know what they're denying. Projection again, idiot.

All you know and all you can agree on is that there should be nothing done about AGW. You'll deny anything and everything to that aim.

Doh.

For those wondering why I posted the hyperlinked "…sea surface temperature trend…" there is, sitting in the moderation queue, a preceding comment directed to KarenMackSunspot .

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 24 May 2013 #permalink

Will Karen even be able to find Tasmania on that map?

Mathturbation!

hehehe, Bill....you lisp when your playing with your flaccid old thang, lol

Assuming that's the last we're going to hear of that particular joke, I mentioned the other day that the ABC is well and truly in the sights of Tony Abbott and co. (i.e. Gina Rinehart, the IPA, etc..) - and, lo and behold, guess what Victoria's Libs are voting to do tomorrow?

GetUp! are looking for support to oppose this arrant ratbaggery.

It certainly smells like Karen...down to the Agenda 21 trope. How surprising.

We discussed this very subject while you were away stalking wombats rh

Bill did you stumble on that "get up" link while looking for........um, you know.......
what you said in post # 1

So, is it?

And, tell you what, why don't you also tell us in your own words what that page you dropped the link to is saying?

I'm predicting *crickets* on both counts.

First of all, I wish to thank rhwombat, Chek, Wow, Bill, Lionel, Lotharsson et al for the support. When one takes on the ignoranti, one can expect to be smeared and attacked. I am used to it since I co-reviewed Lomborg's error filled tome for Nature. The Betula's, Karen's and GSWs are a picnic by comparison with the orchestrated attacks I have faced in recent years.

One thing I wanted to discuss is something I considered after reading Betula's latest childish rant. That is the subject of what makes a person an expert in a field, when to defer to the expertise of others, and how this applies to fields like climate and environmental science.

Betula did shoot himself in the foot in more ways than one. Let me elaborate. He says that he has a BS degree in Forestry and more than 30 eyars of experience in forestry-related practices. Good for him. But therein lies the rub. What he is implying is that his career has equipped him with all of the necessary expertise to be considered an expert in environmental science. Or something similar. Along with that comes the unspoken assumption that scientists are a bunch of namby-pamby spoil sports who don't know what is really happening out there. He works in a professional field where he thinks he has accumulated as much or even more expertise and wisdom than trained environmental scientists who work in labs and teach at universities. This is what comes out of his long post.

So where does one being to respond to that? First, it is clear to me that many people without the requisite professional training consider them to be experts in fields like ecology, environmental science and climate science. Not only people like Betula with similar professional backgrounds as him, but also people like Jonas N who routinely derided scientists like James Hansen and Michael Mann but who - as was clear in his evasive responses when challenged - possesses no relevant scientific qualifications. If he did, we would know all about them.

The problem with the Jonas's and the Betula's is that they ARE classic examples of the Dunning-Kruger model. There are many other examples too, of people who work in professions where they think they know more than scientists and yet where the actual empirical evidence demolishes the belief. For example take fisheries. For years it was argued by marine scientists that humans were overexploiting marine fish stocks, and especially of species like cod, herring and sharks that occur towards the terminal end of the food chain. Based on the recommendations of scientists, it was argued that strict quotas needed to be implemented to limit the damaging effects that overfishing would have not only on commercially important species but on marine food webs and the health of marine ecological communities. Against this background, many fisherman bitterly argued that the scientists were full of hot air, that they were 'out of touch' with reality and that they themselves not only knew better how to manage fish stocks but that they also knew their current status better than the scientists who were monitoring them.

What happened eventually? Well, its common knowledge that fish stocks in many regions collapsed, driving amny fishing fleets to oblivion, and also greatly harming the structure and function of coastal marine ecosystems. Cod are gone from the Grand Banks and stocks in the North Sea are teetering on extinction. As numbers of these fish were being decimated, fleets began to catch smaller and smaller individuals, harming recruitment and further driving the stocks down. Alternatively, they switched to other species that were once considered less economically viable (the decimation of baleen whale populations is a case in point of the limnits of the 'switching' model). Scientists had warned of this eventuality for years, and for years it fell on silent ears. The fishermen claimed that they knew better than the namby-pamby scientists. In recent years an attempt has been made to rehabiliate the industries reputation by blaming crashes in fish populations on seals and other marine predators (this is especially prevalent in Canada). Of course this is utter nonsense, given that seal numbers are strongly bottom-up regulated, and that they play a small or non-existant role in driving trophic cascades. But anything that can be done to shift the blame has been done. Eleven of 15 of the world's major fisheries are being overharvested, and the result can be seen in places like the waters off of the Spanish coast where, thanks to the decimation of marine fish predators, jellyfish have ascended to the terminal end of the food chain. This would have been straight out of a science-fiction novel a century ago but is now reality.

A similar scenario is unfolding in much of western Europe as a result of the common agricultural policy and its attendant intensive agriculture. Its been known for some time that the heavy use of industrial fertilizers, pesticides, and the destruction of hedgerows and other marginal habitats would have negative effects on biodiversity. Certainly many ecologists warned of this, but they were often confronted by the farming lobby, which (as with the fishing industry) argued that they worked the land and had a finger on the pulse of landscapes in agro-ecosystems. We now now that intensive agriculture is a major culprit in the precipitous declines of many birds and insects such as butterflies and solitary bees. In the UK, skylark populations have deceased by about 90% since the 1970s, as have popualtions of tree sparrows, corn buntings and other birds that inhabit rural landscapes. Even once abundant species like blackbirds and song thrushes have become much less common in rural habitats, and only appear to be remaining stable in semi-urban gardens and parks. Still, for years the farming lobby has defended its practices whilst claiming that they know more than the scientists.

Betula falls perfectly into the two categories described above. His posts clearly reveal that his understanding of nature, of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, and of cause-and-effect relationships in the demographics of species and communities is poor. He thinks, however, that by being involved in a forestry-related field, that he knows more than ecologists and environmental scientists. But when he commented on the effects of C02 on natural and managed ecosystems, he revealed a very simplistic (and non-scientific) understanding of complexity. Then yesterday he cites some pretty weak examples suggesting that nature in the Anthropocene is doing fine: coyote range expansion, booming populations of white taiiled deer and wild turkey recovery. As I said yesterday, coyotes are highly intelligent habitat generalists; white tailed deer are also habitat generalists that have lost their two main predators; wild turkeys did not expand their depleted ramges naturally but were re-stocked under strict protection.

I gave a number of examples (and only of birds but I could cover many more phylogenetically unrelated taxa) where once-common species are in population freefall. In the Unitred States there are many passerines that are disappearing from traditional parts of their ranges. More worrying is the fact that some of the worst declines are occurring not at range edges but at the heart of the range where one would consider conditions to be optimal (e.g. Cerulean Warbler).

The only way that one can accuratley gauge the effects of climate change and other factors on individuals, populations and communities is through the assiduous gathering of data. We know that Loggerhead Shrikes are in trouble because we have gathered a lof of data on breeding success - natality - and on mortality over many years. Simply sticking one's finger to the wind and making cursory observations does not work. Only when data sets are collected and statistcially analyzed can we begin to see an emerging picture.

This is why I am wasting my breath on people like Betula, who appear to think that they are as qualified in environmental science as trained scientists. They are not qualified to comment in this field. Not at all. At least not enough to be taken seriously. I am not saying that his profesion is that important. I am saying that his comments on climate science and on the state of the environment are shallow. The same applies to GSW, Olaus, Rednose and Karen. GSW also once thought that he had something useful to say about the demographics of Polar Bears and of the current status of amphibians around the world. His comments were equally gumbified. However, when their poor understanding of science is pointed out to them, the Betula's and GSWs react accordingly. They go on the attack, notably not defending their 'science' but in attacking the messenger.

Its so, so predictable.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 24 May 2013 #permalink

So is it.. wot ?

You stoooopid old retired taxi driver,

Jeff this post of yours is a classic of concise description of complex trends in the ecological webs of which we are a part. Thank you for that eloquent response to inanity.

The likes of Betula, who clearly works for a privileged clientèle, should take notice before the stitching which supports their life styles unravels, as it surely will if those who support the propaganda campaign against taking action on climate change and other deleterious activities are not censured.

So you were a marine engineer officer Betula, I was once an aircraft engineer in the military (RN) but I continued to mature and broaden my education. Maybe you should bite the bullet and do likewise for you cognitive framework is limited and patchy and is seen to collapse like a pack of cards when you post here.

Karen @ #10

The same year that this happened Firefighters extinguish wildfires on Skye.

Much of the Western area of Scotland has been experiencing drought conditions which helped produce the above. Now, why did you not mention that too?

Answer - you are an ideological cripple.

"Members of the public should take care not to use camp fires, barbeques, (and not) carelessly discard cigarettes, glass bottles etc which can result in significant wildfires," he said."

"Answer – you are an ideological cripple."

Be fair: someone had to hammer that ideology through that thick skull in the first place. It would be churlish of us to demand that all that hard work of his programmer be removed so easily.

Yes Karen, the normal warnings to remind people of the dangers posed by the presence of lots of tinder dry fuel in an area not normally known for such.

Have you every trudged terrain like that, I have and my enduring memory is wet, wet, wet with plenty of that underfoot.

Your #14 marks yet another point on your ideological cripple score.

#10 Karen, still compiling that list?
"“The estimates suggest the mean UK temperature for spring will be around 6.1C, which would make it the sixth coldest spring in national records dating back to 1910 and the coldest since 1979."

No records, of course. You want records? You want extremes? Go a little east: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/global_monitoring/temperature/tn2… and stay there :)

By cRR Kampen (not verified) on 24 May 2013 #permalink

#13, she'll mention that when she's finished with her list. Except she won't ever, because every year doubles it.

By cRR Kampen (not verified) on 24 May 2013 #permalink

While you are at it Karen, if youj are so obsessed with weather, why not check out temperatures in the Yukon and NWT in Canada: some 5-10 C above normal. Dawson in the Yukon is expecting temperatures of up to 25 C - when it should be 15-17 C. And what abour central and northern Indi?. Its 47 C in New Delhi today. That is incredible. Repeat: 47 C - and humid.

Hell on Earth conditions.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 24 May 2013 #permalink

That is great news JeFfeRy, they all had such a ccccooold winter they deserve a warm spell :)

I noticed few cultists kissing your butt, you love it don't you, lol

You lose on both counts, SpamKan.

Recently you have had....

Nick the lick....

RMWombutt......

Licking Lionel.....

BumBuddyD........

oh............yuckie

Spots, the reason why you get your name mangled is because nobody here gives a shit for you and think you ridiculous.

You're doing the same because you're butthurt, but the problem is, we don't give a shit about your opinion, since it's evidently available to the highest bidder. So it really REALLY doesn't work when you try it.

Karen

Somehow you missed this when it came up a few days back, which is a shame. The article directly addresses your confusion over regional episodes of cold winter weather and global average temperature:

While some places were cold, the northern hemisphere was warmer than average in March, and indeed across the winter, consistent with long-term warming trends. The US National Climatic Data Centre (NCDC) has recently described such conditions as “pockets of cold in a warming world”.

The last time the northern hemisphere recorded a month — any month — that was cooler than the 1961-1990 long-term average was in February 1994. The last time a whole northern hemisphere winter was colder than average was 1984.

And that's it. End of discussion. I've explained all this to you several times now and enough is enough. Please find some other denialist meme to bore us all with.

* * *

Have you worked out why the Rowley et al. study you linked tells us nothing about the WAIS other than it must have collapsed during the Pliocene? Arguing about how much or how little the EAIS contributed to MSL highstands ~3Ma is interesting, but pretty much irrelevant to the sensitivity of the WAIS to fairly modest increases in GAT. As, for example, occurred during the Eemian - when MSL was at least 6M higher than the present.

You made no response at all to my fairly detailed comment on this. Why not? You threw Rowley et al. into the mix. Why the apparent lack of interest?

It's almost as though you don't give a fuck about the science at all.

And Karen, somewhat earlier you were on about Russians driving across Arctic ice, well it looks like they have fallen through.

If this topic were comic you would be a class act, sadly it is naught but rotten eggs, fruit and veg' for you. Off! Off! Off!

Oh my. Homophobic vitriol. Whatever next?

Judging by the intellectual content of Karen's posts (or lack thereof), he/she/it/whatever is really beginning to lose it.

What a sad, pathetic individual.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 24 May 2013 #permalink

"It’s almost as though you don’t give a fuck about the science at all."

BBD, you're relatively new in these parts, so you may not be as familiar with Karen's past form as some. "She" thinks:
Adding two negative numbers gives a positive number.
Less ice at Svalbard is the same as more ice at Svalbard.
Celsius and Fahrenheit are interchangable.

Give a fuck about the science? "She" wouldn't know science if it bit her on the arse. All pop and no fizz.

FrankD

Oh, I get the picture, have no fear. I was being sarcastic, and as so often, the result was ambiguous.

It's sad though. There are interesting discussions to be had - even about scientists over-egging their own puddings - but K is too lost in space to have them.

Bill @ 90...."Batty, if you were ever in contact with a plot, you’ve clearly lost it now"

Bill, did my post at #27 ever help you out? Just wondering why I never heard back from you.....not even so much as a "thank you".

True, Betty, you were never in contact with a plot, the plot was always lost with you.

# Betula

Speaking of non-responses, I am waiting for yours to this, from yesterday:

Why do you invest so much time rejecting climate science when you are not qualified to do so?

As a layman, your only logically consistent option is to accept the expert (scientific) consensus.

So why are you routinely to be found here in comments spouting denialist clap-trap?

Why?

@ 32...

In response to my question to Bill, Bill By Desire asks..."Why do you invest so much time rejecting climate science when you are not qualified to do so?"

Climate Science is a big field, please be more specific about which part I deny.

"As a layman, your only logically consistent option is to accept the expert (scientific) consensus."

What is the option for an expert scientist who doesn't accept the expert consensus?

"So why are you routinely to be found here in comments spouting denialist clap-trap?"

I'm getting the feeling you believe this site is available to only those who agree with your predicted worst case scenario outcomes based on the possible interactions of extremely complex systems that have been changing since the beginning of time.

FrankD #28 -
"Adding two negative numbers gives a positive number.
Less ice at Svalbard is the same as more ice at Svalbard."

Hesitated to ask, but this I got to see. Where did these happen, please?
I am hardened to an AiW-idea by one Dick Thoenes, who contends that from the fact that melting ice consumes heat while ice formation gives it off and the observed melting of sea- and land ice it follows climate is cooling. So I think I can take the worst.

By cRR Kampen (not verified) on 24 May 2013 #permalink

#33, you deny that CO2 is a GHG.

Also, you believe in magic.

By cRR Kampen (not verified) on 24 May 2013 #permalink

# 33

You appear to reject the scientific consensus that modern warming is principally caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions, that S_ff is in the range 2C - 3C and that because of this, without emissions limitation policy the effects of climate change will be increasingly severe and increasingly disruptive.

You are also fucking me around, dodging the questions and acting in bad faith. Already.

Why?

What is the option for an expert scientist who doesn’t accept the expert consensus?

Make a robust scientific case and stick it to their peers. Something that has never happened, hence the existence of a scientific consensus on AGW.

Now, without further dodging and other exhibitions of bad faith, please answer the question repeated here for the third time:

As a layman, your only logically consistent option is to accept the expert (scientific) consensus. Why then do you invest so much time rejecting climate science when you are not qualified to do so?

... extremely complex systems that have been changing since the beginning of time.

Right, so Betty's position is that his own incomprehension is shared by everyone else, and rather like the Attention Span of God, is and always will be ineffably Unknowable.

I guess that's the danger with getting your views from crank sites Betty. You get to know to two decimal places what percentage of tungsten is debasing the gold standard and how many meetings FEMA had with Algore and Hillary at the Georgia Guidestones. But nothing about the real world so you come to believe that clowns like Watts or Nova know as much as the world's climate scientists, combined.

From the bio you've provided, there's not an awful lot of time left for you to grow up Betty

#38...
"Why then do you invest so much time rejecting climate science when you are not qualified to do so?"

I reject that you presume to know for a fact, that the future can only contain bad, worst case scenarios, based on a myriad of complex envionmental interactions, uncertainties and unknowns.
Are you qualified to deny this?

@ #39...

"From the bio you’ve provided, there’s not an awful lot of time left for you to grow up Betty"

If by "there's not an awful lot of time left" you mean the same amount of time Al Gore has been stating "time is running out"....then I definitely have a lot of time left.

SKS's consensus project has the lukewarmers running about like headless chooks. You have one branch of the family whining "what consensus, conspiracy, conspiracy, (lucia, tol)" while another branch is going "pfft, consensus, everyone knows that, you are just offending important people by mentioning it (pielke jr)"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/political-science/2013/may/24/climate…

Pielke is right in one respect - the cranks like Watts are a sideshow - the real enemy to a effective climate policy are the lukewarmers. And the lukewarmers like Pielke know their enemy - the scientists like Hansen, the information resources like SKS and the activists like 350.org who all continue to point out that the lukewarmers are full of shit.

Note the subtle lie in Pielke's piece - "Conventional wisdom on climate policy has long been that energy prices need to be made more expensive." No Roger that is not true - the wisdom says that energy prices need to include the cost of the damage been done to the environment - according to Chris Hope - $80 per tonne of CO2 if Otto et al is taken as gospel.

cRR K - In April every year, around the annual maximum for Arctic sea ice cover, Kazza makes a seasonal reappearance here bringing us the bullshit du jour is about how great Arctic Sea Ice is looking. Her effort last year was hilariously weak, becoming true comedy when she panicked under Bernard's incisive logic: http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2012/03/31/april-2012-open-thread/comme…

In the course of that discussion about sea ice at Svalbard (which continues onto the following page), she claimed:
less = more, less+zero = more, less+less = more, and less x longer = more. To her, all numbers implicitly carry an ABS(n) function.

And as regular as the geese flying south for winter, she popped up on cue this year spouting the same old crap, but now enhanced by an inability to distinguish Celsius from Fahrenheit.

Betula writes, "extremely complex systems that have been changing since the beginning of time"

In this he is correct. What he doesn't get, because he lacks the relevant training is expertise, is the importance of scale in determining the rate of change. The again, why would he? He's never studied the field, and therefore bases his opinions on scarps on information he's picked up here and there in combination with his own views of the ways in which the world works. After categorically demolishing his most recent long rant, he has again moved on in the classic baiting and switching mode. And once again, he's never done more than scratched the thinnest of surfaces in his discussions of this 'complexity' on Deltoid. Again, it is because he does not understand it, does not attempt to read about it in the primary scientific literature, and so a cursory wave of the hand is all that he needs to dismiss it.

Yet he writes as if he somehow has as much knowledge of this environmental complexity as the scientists trained in the field. Hence why Betula deserves his Dunning-Kruger diploma with Honors.

And once again, the discussion is not about change being the norm in complex adaptive systems. Of course it is (even though there isn evidence that stability also drives adaptive radiation as evidenced in the riotous species and genetic diversity in tropical biomes`). What is of great concern is the rate at which humans are transforming the chemical composition of the atmosphere and both the structure and biogeochemistry of terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems. This rate far exceeds anything the biosphere has experienced in many millions of years, and against the background humans are reducing both species diversity and genetic diversity, the latter a vital pre-requisite that enables species to respond to the suite of stressors humans are inflicting. A 1998 paper by Hughes et al. in PNAS argued that, at that time, human activities were probably driving as many as 30,000 genetically distinct populations to extinction on a daily basis. Now, if this is indeed true it is profoundly worrying. Underlying this is the combined assault our species is inflicting on nature, with climate warming perhaps being the biggest factor of all.

So why do I bother to counter his wafer thin arguments? Like arguing that healthy white-tailed deer populations, coyote range expansion and wild turkey reintroductions are symptoms of a healthy environment? (Those comments indeed were straight out of the sandbox, although I am sure GSW loved them, given he plays in the same sandbox as Betula). Its because I hope to reach others here who think logically and with common sense, and don't let any idealogical blinkers cloud their judgment. To reiterate, Betula's understanding of complexity is poor. He won't like to hear it, and expect a lengthy response from him, egged on by equally simple supporters like GSW and Olaus about what an arrogant and repulsive putz I am, but its only because he doesn't like to be told that he lacks any knowledge of this complexity. Sure, nature is noise and ecologists like myself are working to tease apart the noise from the processes it masks, but there is abundant empirical evidence that humans activities, including climate change, are having seriously negative effects on nature across multiple scales. If he wants t discuss some of these studies, I am more than willing to enlighten him. But the fact remains that he doesn't want to learn. he thinks he knows all that there is to know, and this is also true for the few supporters he has here. None of them are particularly well-informed about the science underpinning global environmental change (and that is being kind).

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 25 May 2013 #permalink

What betty doesn't get with that statement is that it doesn't prove anything about AGW except that it's possible.

chek @39

"From the bio you’ve provided, there’s not an awful lot of time left for you to grow up Betty"

If by "not an awful lot of time" you mean the same amount of time that Al Gore has been stating "time is running out", then there's no doubt I have plenty of time...mate.

Here's a quiz question, sunshine.

Do you imagine that Gore is referring to time running out before some hypothetical 'end of the world' - or do you think he's referring to time running out to prevent dangerous warming by the end of the Century.

If you answer honestly you cannot possibly claim the former.

But if you're merely tossing around straw-men in numbers sufficient to build a sea wall or two we're going to need, and if you're fundamentally a propagandist hack - i.e. your attack on Gore is nothing more than projection (yet again!) - well, then; that'd be you, wouldn't it?

"then there’s no doubt I have plenty of time"

You may have of plenty of time but future generations don't. This will in fact be the first generation in the United States where the parents had it better than their kids will. Get used it it. Humans have overshot the carrying capacity of the biosphere and no amount of technology can counter the effects of nature biting back. There's ample evidence that we are undermining the health and vitality of our ecological,life support systems to such an extent that we are approaching (or have already passed) critical thresholds. Its just too bad that so many of us are so insulated in our urban environments and/or ensconced in the latest techno-gimmicks that we fail to see the predicament looming before us.

The biggest victims of our own stupid short-sighted over consumptive arrogance will be our own species. Now there is some irony.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 25 May 2013 #permalink

While you are all trying to keep Karen/Betula in the real world, I've kept on with WUWT. Willis has been writing a series of posts and galloping further towards dunning and kruger with every word he writes. His current fixation is volcanoes, which he uses to demonstrate how the laws of thermodynamics and all the climate scientists are wrong.

http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2013/05/wondering-willis-volcanoes-and-dunni…

“then there’s no doubt I have plenty of time”

You have eternity if you die from violence.

Does this mean that everything is fine?

NO.

Betula

I'm waiting for a response.

Without further dodging and other exhibitions of bad faith, please answer the question repeated here for the *fourth* time:

As a layman, your only logically consistent option is to accept the expert (scientific) consensus. Why then do you invest so much time rejecting climate science when you are not qualified to do so?

And from SkS we have the news that Matt Ridley is talking bollocks again>, put your coffee down before going on:

There is little doubt that the damage being done by climate-change policies currently exceeds the damage being done by climate change, and will for several decades yet. Hunger, rainforest destruction, excess cold-weather deaths and reduced economic growth are all exacerbated by the rush to biomass and wind.

Now he is bright enough to know different, so what does that make him?

A libertarian.

Heartland's James Taylor has distinguished himself with a brace of Forbes op-eds , one before and one after the megatornado that decimated Moore Oklahoma.

The first celebrated the absence of one category of tornado in a cherry piked interval.

The second, writtten one wek and thirty fatalities later, labastes Warmists for scaring people about tornadoes.

We already know reality is hard for you in the Jonarse libtard camp Olap.
Confirmation - Oh Jeezus Christ on a barnacle, by Josh 'cartoon' - isn't required.

#51. A not very bright hypocrite. Extraordinarily ambitious humbug from the Northern Rockhead.
#54, 'Savaged' by a sycophant. Can't be fun trapped at the emotional age of an eight-year old,OP. Even trolls deserve a better cartoonist.

Sou: Excellent demolition. The cumulative desperation of the denialati is both laughable and graphable , as Lewandowski and Cook et al. have demonstrated. In some respects, the benthic (lovely term, Jeff) brainfarts of the Wattslickers into the scientosphere resemble small eruptions (attempting an attenuation of albedo by aerosolised ad hom argument?) . Unfortunately that image perpetuates their delusions of being Toba events, when, if fact, they are more like the methane emissions of a vast hoard of wildebeest (Look out! He's got a gnu!).

Is there a worse caricaturist than Josh?

His work certainly fits with the third-rate aspect of the entire Denier enterprise.

After perusing Sou's pages I feel compelled to link to this classic flashback (2012) over at Willard W's. (Don't worry, it's a "nofollow")

A more blackly hilarious depiction of the general level of scientific knowledge, logic, and, well, 'skepticism' of that set could scarcely hope to be found.

A couple of well-known woodland creatures - i.e. the Stoat and the Rabett - take on the role of their arboreal cousins and try heroically to round up the nuts, but to no avail.

SpamKan and Oleaginous, of course, will be literally unable to see the joke.

#63,a bulging showbag from Watts' exhibit at the Internet Clown Convention. Absolutely chockers!

On another note, re my own #5, GetUp! informs us that 'the Victorian Liberal Party State Council decided to abandon its plans to vote on privatising the ABC and SBS.'

#63 - Bill, I'm reading some of the comments now. What an amazing collection of DuKEs:

David Evans: Radiation is a minor player in planetary energy loss too.

Then tries to recover: Sloppy phrasing on my part. :-( Surface radiation is a minor player in planetary energy loss too. would probably be more accurate and was what I actually meant.

Myrrh: The Greenhouse Effect is a fraud, deliberate sleight of hand by excluding the Water Cycle. Without water the Earth would be 67°C – the greenhouse gas water vapour cools the Earth by 52°C to get to the 15°C.

Theodore White: Applying the principles of my expertise of the science of astrometeorology, I have forecasted that the world is headed toward Global Cooling, officially beginning later in this decade. Storms will be bigger, more damaging and we will require not less – but MORE energy sources to survive. This cooling regime will begin about 2017-18, increase into the 2020s and will peak by the mid-2030s before global cooling eventually begins to wane in the mid-2040s. We will see increasingly more La Nina-grade storms and lesser El Nino-grade storms.

Robert Murphy to Theodore White: Theodore, do you have any copies of the reports you made in the 80′s? The only Theodore White I can find with Google with any connection with climate is an astrologer. I’m sure that is not you. This should be an easy thing for you to produce, Yes?

And yes, he admitted he is one and the same :)

Sorry - didn't add no follow to the astrology links.

BTW all links to denier sites like WUWT from blog.hotwhopper.com have 'no follow' attached.

Pre-National Geographic (id est, back in the good old days...) Deltoid was definitely a 'no follow' enterprise. I pine for those fjords...

Sou at #66, you've pinged two of the most stupid posters on that thread. Myrrh's a rock-solid numpty, but Theodore White is A-grade bat-shit crazy.

I gagged the first time he said:

Richard, the laws of thermodynamics make a global greenhouse an impossibility on Earth. That is all you need to know. Do you understand? The laws of physics which govern the Earth’s climate makes it mathematically impossible for the Earth to become a greenhouse – no matter how much any AGW goober wants those physical laws not to be true.

and I only wish that the thread was still open so that I could ask him why satellites that orbit the Earth are so much colder than Earth, and why (for several reasons) the moon is so much colder too. Amusingly, WTFUWT tried to address the latter with a hilarious mangling of radiative physics by Willis Effenbachtoschool, but the denialati in the comments section are proof positive that what the Flying Spaghetti Monster hasn't put there, intelligent humans cannot improve on.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 26 May 2013 #permalink

I loved Richard Simons' response to Evans' first statement about radiation being 'a minor player'.

Priceless! So is energy lost from Earth by convection or by conduction?

Great moments in stupidity

"Trenberth and his researchers have never been able to find the ‘missing heat’. He still insists it is at the bottom of the ocean. This is despite sea surface temperatures declining,"

Anthony Cox

By john byatt (not verified) on 26 May 2013 #permalink

So is energy lost from Earth by convection or by conduction?

I seem to recall we assayed this implication with the redoubtable Tim Curtin at one point as well. Maybe he got the idea from Evans or WUWT.

By Lotharsson (not verified) on 26 May 2013 #permalink

John Byatt #70 - yeah, that's another beauty!

T Curtin, T White and W Eschenbach; now, there's a trio! I'm reminded of Wilde's succinct review of a production of The Three Musketeers; 'Athos, Pathos and Bathos'.

Ooh! That moon post is fantastic.

It's before I started WUWT watching, but not that long ago. The more I read of Willis the more I think my "wondering Willis" fits him to a T. Pity he doesn't read up on anything before he shoots his mouth off. He's probably got a brain but just doesn't know how to use it.

Sou, I've always felt that WUWT should preface its blog title with 'Really Stupid People pretending/deluding themselves that they understand science better than do scientists...'

WUWT is symptomatic of an intellectual necrosis that in the decades to come will probably end up killing off a goodly chunk of USAdian society, if not the whole body of the country and perhaps of the rest of the planet. It's a shame that there is no effective cure for Stupidosis.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 26 May 2013 #permalink

# 69 bill

Priceless! So is energy lost from Earth by convection or by conduction?

Clearly by wishful thinking ;-)

Reminiscent of the confusion about how energy leaves the ocean. In some circles the fact that it must conduct though the surface skin layer is not widely accepted.

To be clear, I don't mean to imply that Richard Simons was confused. Far from it.

It's truly gobsmacking to watch people invent a reality based solely on rejecting inconvenient truths that violate ideological preference (Gore chose his title well; with such types 'my convenience' and 'my ideology' usually amount to the same thing) and the ridiculous notion that the (perhaps) couple of hours of 'it's only common-sense' rationalising that follows it is the equal of many years of hard-won expertise.

(Or you can skip right over the tiresome introspective bit and just regurgitate away without enduring the needless strain of digesting anything at all! See trolls above.)

Such irresponsibility can scarcely hope to go unpunished. If only the resulting harm could be inflicted only upon the idiots in question!

And for those of the gang of scientific illiterates that get their 'feed' from the pseudo-science blogs ( I have provided a list previously) here are some articles that explain why those blogs exist and an indication of who is propping them up.

The props,

Study Confirms Tea Party Was Created by Big Tobacco and Billionaires

FOIA Facts 4 - George Mason Takes The Money And Breaks The Rules, another from the tireless John Mashey.

One of the whys,

Exxon's Unfriendly Skies: Why Does Exxon Control the No-Fly Zone Over Arkansas Tar Sands Spill?.

What are Exxon trying to hide? It isn't as if they really care about their crimes against humanity and the world's ecosystems becoming widely known, is it Tillerson.

Time to build Tillerson a log cabin in the middle of that mess and see how he enjoys his vacation in Mordor, he can invite the Kochs along and Tim Phillips (an AFP 'oily rag') too. And no Tillerson, you are not allowed to take your own bottled water.

I see our resident loony loser (Jonas) still visits his own sad little thread to preach to his tiny (and shrinking) fan club. These days it consists only of GSW. Nobody else reads his bilge.

I am also still waiting for him to publish his Magnum Opus in which he enthralls the world with his self-taught expertise in climate science (given that he certainly didn't get it through the normal channel - a university education).

Goodbye Jonas.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 27 May 2013 #permalink

And of course the slap-heads in the US like nothing better than to shoot the messenger or in the case highlighted here prevent the messengers being produced and deployed in the first place Weather Satellite Outage Points to Larger Problems. The let's bury our heads in the sand again strategy.

I see little swaybacked Napoleon Harvey still tries to find some punters ready to by his crap. :-)

Can't be easy these days Jeffie?

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 27 May 2013 #permalink

God I wish I could knock 'em out like you, Olaus.

Our new Churchill.

Yep - it'd be a nicety indeed to judge who is the greater clown; Spam, or Oily.

BBD @ 54...

"Why then do you invest so much time rejecting climate science when you are not qualified to do so?"

You need to rephrase your question to be more accurate. It should read something more like....'why do you invest so much time pointing out that Climate Science refers to many fields and isn't an exact science when it comes to predicting future worst case only climate scenarios when I'm not qualified to predict future worst case only climate scenarios?"

I reject that you treat as fact, that the implications of climate change can only result in bad, worst case pinpointed hypothetical scenarios based on myriads of extremely complex environmental interactions filled with uncertainties and unknowns by speculating on average worldly temperatures caused by the potential doubling of an essential natural gas over a presumed amount of time, caused mostly by wealthy nations and disproportionately effecting poor nations over a minute time scale relative to the history of the earth, upon which the climate has been and always will be changing and can only be corrected by enforcing emissions regulations to a select group, while ignoring other groups, with the hopes of redistributing monies to the innocent poor nations, as encouraged by the United Nations who just happen to mention such nonsense in their Millennium Development Goals and who, coincidentally, started the organization (IPCC) that is filled with representatives from the aforementioned poor countries and used as the reference when it comes to speculating about hypothetical future scenarios that are treated as fact.

But thanks for asking.

That's one of the longest unstopped lickspittle brainfart I've ever seen. Exxon's cheque's in the mail.

Shorter Batty - Stupid smart people claim to know things; as if! It's all too much for me, so no-one else knows anything, either.

Total fail. You're every bit as pathetic a conspiracy theorist and ignoramus as your peers.

Next time you claim any phoney concern for the impact of AGW avoidance or mitigation strategies on the poor, rest assured I'll refer you back to this nasty, small-minded little missive.

Yep; your money's what counts, you first-class global citizen, you!

Rather than wasting further time on cloth-eared ninnies, The Australian's War on Science #477-and-counting can be found over at SkS - the ludicrous mis-reporting of the Karoly and Bodman study discussed in the post can be found in the discussion thread.

Ah, time for the popcorn!

Thanks BBD. Spanking enemies from afar is Jeffie's MO, and his efforts to compensate his shortcomings with more and more self idolatry, are beyond anything found in the litterature on denialism.

;-)

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 28 May 2013 #permalink

Litterature - that's you, Oily, that is.

John Mashey: Thanks for all your work. Have there been any consequences for Wegman &/or Said outside the swamp?

Thanks bill! ;-)

By Olaus Petri (not verified) on 28 May 2013 #permalink

"I see little swaybacked Napoleon Harvey still tries to find some punters ready to by his crap.Can’t be easy these days Jeffie?"

Well, Olaus you scientifically illiterate little insignificant twerp, given that we are talking about >95% of the scientific community, then I wouldn't only say that it is easy. I'd say its a cake-walk.

So if you mean by 'my crap' the vast majority of empirical evidence as well, then I don't feel particularly alone against the likes of dolts like you, Jonas, and a few others who have no scientific education at all.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 28 May 2013 #permalink

By the way, Jonas, Oily's hero, was one of those demanding to know what scientific qualifications I possessed when I initially challenged him. So when I relented and told him, I was suddenlyaccused of bragging about my CV, exhibiting 'self idolatry' etc. In other words, if one is humiliated by the bonafides, then the last resort is to accuse their opponents of being self-infatuated and arrogant. Utterly predictable the denier lot is.

If the shoe fits wear it, Oily (I like that Bill; its a perfect metaphor for Olaus!).

Oily here is as predictable as the rest of the denier loons.Thick as two old planks and never reads the primary literature.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 28 May 2013 #permalink

You need to rephrase your question to be more accurate

Ah, politico-speak.

Translated from weasel into human, this means "I can't answer that without showing myself up, so here's the question I can and will answer that has nothing to do with it, but I'll pretend it does and hope nobody notices".

Given Joan isn't giving Olap a lap to be a lapdog on, I guess that term is not longer applicable to his actions.

@Napoleon

Come of it Bonaparte, nobody is/was in the least bit interest in your "bonafides", if I remember correctly, they were your refuge as you were incapable of putting any kind of argument together based on evidence, just emotions, prejudices and your bizarre left wing politics.

"I [jeff] is a scientist, honest I is, just ask anyone, I go to conferences and everything"

The very embodiment of pseudoscience, don't worry about the facts, you just make stuff up and pass it off as being science because you go to conferences. Very funny, Ha!, Ha!, Ha!

All that CV waving was you Jeff, I know in your mind it was everybody else's fault, but it was still definitely all you.
;)

GooseSez"Wha'?" reckons he's ever posted anything resembling an argument, does he?

'Emotions', 'prejudices', 'bizarre politics', 'pseudoscience': tsk tsk tsk. Project, projection, projection.

As an intellectual you're on a par with Spam and Oily, LooseyGoosey. What a bunch of peers, in the 'I'll just put down some sawdust' sense...

Gormless Stupid W*****,

Piss off you twit. You belong in the intellectual garbage heap with the few like-minded idiots like Olaus, Jonas and Karen that hang out here. Your science is certainly is benthic, as illustrated by the few times you've dabbled into ecophysiology. That was an embarrassing for you, wasn't it?

You wouldn't know sound science if it hit you in the head. You can huff and puff all you like, but the last two posts I made in response to Betula's kiddie level stuff were clearly well over your head. As I said to Olly above, the vast majority of scientists agree over the issue of climate change and its causes. That leaves schmucks like you on the outside. Yet, no matter how many times this simple fact is repeated, you come back trying to give the impression that proper climate science is only done by a tiny minority of qualified scientists.

As for conferences, publications and scientific qualifications, you and your equally dim buddies don't reach up to my shoelaces, or those of the vast majority of my peers. Its you gormless, who is on the outside, not me.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 28 May 2013 #permalink