BPSDB
The view from
- the knowledgeable and informed
- the rational and sane
- the climate change Deniers
In keeping up with the theft and release of the emails from the Climate Research Unit I have collected a number of posts that did not fit into any of themes I have planned, but which are of interest regardless. It struck me that they do form a sort of survey of the story as it is seen from different perspectives, so I offer it as such.
the knowledgeable and informed
Probably the most important post in the last couple of days has been the official statements from the University of East Anglia and the Climate Research Unit.The part that interested me most was that dealing with Freedom of Information requests because, as far as I can gather from the whole business, it was the one area where the participants might have played a little fast and loose.
“In relation to the specific requests at issue here, we have handled and responded to each request in a consistent manner in compliance with the appropriate legislation. No record has been deleted, altered, or otherwise dealt with in any fashion with the intent of preventing the disclosure of all, or any part, of the requested information. Where information has not been disclosed, we have done so in accordance with the provisions of the relevant legislation and have so informed the requester.”
Of course official communiques are not always the most reliable source of information in the world, but I have the feeling that the Pro-Vice-Chancellor made it clear to one and all that he better have the truth before he put himself out there, or someone’s vitals were going to be slow roasted while they were still wearing them.
Newsweek interviewed James Hansen about the story, and surprise surprise, he reaches the same conclusion as every other thinking scientist: James Hansen: Climate Change Evidence ‘Overwhelming,’ Hacked E-mails ‘Indicate Poor Judgement’
Greenhoof does a nice summary (useful for sharing with the thinking public) in The SwiftHack Scandal: What You Need to Know:
For your convenience, the following 6 points each links to the corresponding section of this post:
The scientific consensus on climate change remains strong.
The impacts of catastrophic climate change continue to rear their ugly head.
Hacking into private computer files is illegal.
All of the emails were taken out of context.
The story is being pushed by far-right conspiracy theorists.
Scientists are human beings and they talk frankly amongst themselves.
Bart Verheggen reminds us that if the Deniers actually had any scientific case they would be talking about it instead. This whole charade is because they have nothing rational, so in desperation they try the irrational:
What do you do if you don’t agree with the science (or with the perceived political implications thereof), but don’t have any real evidence to back up your position?
You could try breaking in the computer system of a renowned institute, to then release the stolen emails and documents via internet.
Bart has also been doing a blgosphere survey ‘Climategate’ blogstorm with some interesting “finds” which I won’t repeat.
The Intersection takes a different tack to expose how scientificaly irrelevant the emails are in The “ClimateGate” Burden of Proof:
Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that all of the worst and most damning interpretations of these exposed emails are accurate. I don’t think this is remotely true, but let’s assume it.
Even if this is the case, it does not prove the following :
1) The scientists whose emails have been revealed are representative of or somehow a proxy for every other climate scientist on the planet.
2) The studies that have been called into questions based on the emails (e.g., that old chestnut the “hockey stick”) are somehow the foundations of our concern about global warming, and those concerns stand or fall based on those studies.
However, “Why the “Recent Lack of Warming” and the “Hockey Stick” Matter is a relevant post by the Texas State Climatologist discussing the importance of “the Hockey Stick” as an education tool. It clarified for me why this particular piece of evidence causes such rabid frothing among the spittle spewers.
Notwithstanding the scientific irrelevance of the hack, it is significant for two reasons. First there is the obvious political impact as some of the public are shaken by this. Then there is what Mark Lynas titled “Leaked emails mark dangerous shift in climate denial strategy. Instead of targeting high-profile science communicators like Al Gore, climate deniers are now encouraging mistrust of those who collect and interpret global warming data. (First published by the Guardian.)“
That can act as a segue to future posts, but it’s an excellent point worth marking now; the battle may be moving to a different field and we need to be prepared for it.
the rational and sane
As far as I can tell the broad masses are as indifferent to the Deniers are they are to the issue itself, which is a mixed blessing at best. It still begs the question as to what the “thinking public” are saying? Here’s a few finds.
Letter to a Global Warming Denier is an interesting read from someone who admits “I don’t understand the science of global warming and, chances are, neither do you.” and comes to the perfectly rational conclusion that “The potential of a Christopher Horner to make bogus claims on behalf of cynical interests seems to me greater than the potential that an I.P.C.C. might muster the support of thousands of cynical scientists from around the world in order to advance a vast left-wing conspiracy.” It’s a good example of how someone who does not understand any of the science can still make sense of the issue.
The title immediately attracted me to Peter Ryley’s Taking a leak and I was treated to a quick analysis of the Denier claims as typical conspiracy obsessive’s muddled thinking with which he has professional expertise. We need him deconstructing at a lot more of the Denier memes.
The influential BoingBoing has been covering it, and quoted Futurismic’s Tom Marcinko:
“The East Anglia Climate Research Unit’s scientists disagreed in some particulars, and used peer-review to resolve them (and continue to do so). No one is paying them to cover up evidence that climate change isn’t real or isn’t caused by humans — but they are conducting science the way that scientists do.”
and makes some good points in the follow up More Insight on Those Leaked Climate Change Emails:
1) Evidence of vast conspiracy is sorely lacking. Ditto evidence disproving the scientific consensus on climate change. This isn’t the “nail in the coffin” of anything. However, the emails do prompt some legit questions about transparency and how professional researchers respond to criticism in the age of the armchair scientist.
2) Theft is bad. But if you’re a researcher who can explain context to the general public, decrying theft shouldn’t be your primary objective right now.
3) [to Deniers] The Mainstream Media is covering this. They just might not be covering it the way you want, and that’s probably a good thing.
Thoughtful, rational, accurate. I just hope this is representative of a broad demographic.
the climate change Deniers
Other than having seizures of ecstasy under the misapprehension that the emails actually prove anything, and cross posting every rant that any of them spew, cf Lynas (new strategy) the Denialosphere is:
Not only are the Deniers trying to sell a dead parrot as a Thoroughbred racing horse, now they are trying to get it to breed. Wattsupmybutt reports that Uh, oh – raw data in New Zealand tells a different story than the “official” one, but Gareth Renowden does a lovely job of exposing the lie and the liars:
None of these cranks should be accorded any respect in future. By their words shall we know them, and their words show them to be ignorant, bullying fools. De Freitas should withdraw and apologise, or resign from his post at Auckland University, and if Treadgold, Dunleavy, McShane, Leyland,or any other member of the NZ CSC want to partake in public debate on the subject of climate science, they should expect derision to be heaped on them and their views.
NZ sceptics lie about temp records, try to smear top scientist
But of course that is not the only attempt to spread the imaginary plague. In “The real Hadley Centre might not be so innocent” Terry Hurlbut seeks to demonstrate that the Hadley Centre is also guilty of the same crimes as CRU (ie none, but in the Denier mind …). The line of alleged reasoning is as follows:
- First and foremost, the Met Office Hadley Centre (HC) has a reputation for climate alarmism
- Second, as GreenWiseBusiness has noted with approval, the HC frequently collaborates with an institution identified as “the University of East Anglia” but in all probability the CRU.
- Third, Peter Stott, one of the HC’s most prominent scientists, was addressed, copied, or otherwise mentioned no less than twenty-eight times in the e-mails contained in the CRU archive.
As a study of the irrational this is priceless, including the logical errors:
- Bulverism, he assumes as true what they actually most need to prove, ie that climate science is wrong and/or that the science was ever tampered with;
- Correlation equals causation ie assumes that if they are both “alarmist” then it is caused by fraud in both cases. While it is actually true that their stance is the same for the same reason, the reason is that they know the facts and are capable of rational thought; a foreign concept to Terry Hurlbut it seems.
- Guilt by association, ie that the two centres cooperated on climate research. There’s a shock, two research Institutes studying the same thing cooperate … clearly something nefarious there;
- and that Stott received some of the emails in question. There is so much illogic/distortion here it needs to be parsed further;
- Which emails?
- Most of the emails are totally innocent to even the most disturbed mind; were those the ones Stott got?
- Even the ones that the Deniers are having a hissy fit about don’t actually show anything of substance;
- We’re guilty because of emails we receive? who even reads all of the emails they are cc’ed?
- We’re guilty if we’re mentioned in an email? mentioned doing what? anything?
- Which emails?
and on it goes. It’s really quite an unbelievable example of hysteria fueled incoherence. I particularly love the “received emails”; has Hurlbut ever received a 419 scam email? AHA! guilty of fraud!
There’s the global warming skeptic bingo, the ID creationist bingo, etc; we really need to create the Muddled Thinking Bingo for Deniers using logical fallacies and then we can all play at once.
Equally irrational and blatantly politically motivated is the attempt to involve John Holdren because he sent Michael Mann one of the emails (which says absolutely nothing that isn’t totally innocent, of course). Let me guess, and a girl in Holdren’s grade four class went on to be an extra in a movie with … Kevin Bacon!
What? no mention of Paul Hudson who was also cc’ed copies of emails? Whoops, sorry. That would be logical and consistent behaviour … what was I thinking? The Wingnut desperation is too stupid for words.
Speaking of irrational, Taranto at the Wall Street Journal opens with “The massive University of East Anglia global-warmist archives …” so you can tell where that is going. He states “one of the most damning findings in the archives concerns the corruption of the peer-review process.” That would be the finding that there is no actual evidence for, and indeed may have been ethically correct behaviour.
From there he does a wish list of possible criminal charges (in your dreams doughboy), and ends with “This promises be a boon for comedians …” Like Taranto you mean? because real journalists recognized right away there was no substantive story here.
Since only a raving ideologue or the very simple minded could imagine the emails say anything about the actual science being corrupt, much less exposed as a hoax, it’s given that those who are simple minded raving ideologues are on the band wagon. Predictably the Senator from Hee Haw, Lord HaHa, and Dr Huh? are making statements that we can only hope are actionable with lawsuits, (here, here, and here).
On the bright side, the various Denier aggregators are no longer “All Climategate all of the time”, so maybe even they are getting bored with it.
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Comment Policy
Comments that are not relevant to the post that they appear under or the evolving discussion will simply be deleted, as will links to Denier spam known to be scientific gibberish
- The “Mostly” Open Thread” is for general climate discussion that is not relevant to a particular post. Spam and abuse rules still apply;
- The “Challenging the Core Science” Comment Thread is for comments that purport to challenge the core science of anthropogenic climate change.
Excellent post. So glad you found the John Nielsen-Gammon and Mark Lynas posts.
Excellent summary.
They have been unsuccessful refuting the science using science. They have been unsuccessful refuting the science using their personal political beliefs. They have been unsuccessful refuting the science by arguing they are victims (of anything) while ignoring the victims of climate change.
Now they have tried to refute the science by striking a plan to manufacture a situation that they hoped might discredit individuals and engage the media and possibly the legal system in ‘examining’ purported fraud.
It is too funny that this utterly transparent delaying tactic and attempt to engage the legal system to promote the denialosphere’s bogus interests was made possible via a break and enter.
I have the suspicion that “Climategate” is a last ditch effort by the sceptics in the USA to influence Copenhagen.
Although it’s not very scientific I put “Climategate” into Google insights.
If you can’t be bothered… large interest in the US… and that’s it.
If you go to a deeper level, it primarily seems to be California. WUWT?
http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=climategate
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Yesh. Hic. 😉
42800 hits for Climategate in France
41600 for Climategate in the UK
2,500,000 in the USA
10,100 in Australia
37400 in Canada
I only searched Climategate in Belgium: 603 (really!)
Netherlands:8 710
I limited it to Climategate as using climate and gate seperately gave lots of noise as English is used widely in those two countries.
However worldwide klimaatgate gave 38.
Germany gave 8670 for Klimagate or Climategate. Klimagate alone gave 3010 worldwide.
YMMV
A couple questions:
Do you think that we should have access to the data that the CRU scientists are using to drive their models?
Do you think it is appropriate to politically target an editor for publishing a peer reviewed scientific paper you dislike?
Do you think it is appropriate to blackball a journal if they publish something you dislike?
My position on the e-mails is this: Nothing in the e-mails indicates that they were engaged in bad science. (You’d have to go to the actual model code to find that kind of thing.) But they were engaged in bad faith.
They were trying to politically manipulate the peer review process so that the consensus they were striving for was a little more consensus-y. They planned political attacks on legitimate scientists, not because they were doing bad science, but because their science was in contradiction with the results the CRU guys were convinced was the truth. Instead of issuing a scientific rebuttal, they attacked the messenger.
But most important (to anyone who really hearts science) is the freedom of the data. One of the scientists didn’t want people to know that they had an obligation to release the data and, when people asked for it, he stated his intention of deleting it rather than handing it over. In a startling coincidence, he said later on that he had “accidentally deleted” the files. [1]
This tooth-and-nail fight against transparency is a travesty to true science. I am fully willing to believe that these renown scientists have done nothing but good science and that their biggest crime is the crime of being assholes. But I think it is important now more than ever to free the data and free the models. Put everything online and let other people check the work. That’s the best way to save the situation.
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As a scientist, I have ‘blackballed’ a journal for repeatedly failing to adhere to proper scientific standards with respect to handling papers from me and my colleagues (read: losing manuscripts and taking months to inform us, and accepting manuscripts but failing to publish it). I have also ‘blackballed’ several journals for publishing rubbish; I simply do not want to be associated with nonsense. Recently, I submitted a “Letter to the Editor” correcting a LONG list of highly flawed papers (even the textbooks repeatedly warn about some of the mistakes that were made) coming out of a certain region of the world; in my (confidential) comments to the Editor I have noted that the problem probably was caused by manuscripts from one region in the world ending up in the hands of an associate editor who mostly used reviewers from that same region.
Probably, all of this means I am an evil conspiring scientist, since I do not accept bad handling of my papers, because I do not want to be associated with bad science, and because I inform Editors that the peer-review process in their journal is broken. I should have published in journals which frequently lose my manuscripts, meaning others publish before me, hide my solid science amongst the cr@p, and should have allowed a journal perpetuating fundamentally flawed science. Right?
I assume it is Mr. Greenfyre who is responding with footnotes? I’m new to this, so I’m not entirely sure.
Clearly I have never worked “in science”. Because, you know, if I had I wouldn’t question these motives. As it turns out, I worked “in science” (which is kind of a ridiculous way of putting it, but let’s use your words for now) during my graduate program. There I saw some of this kind of political in-fighting, although not with the same vehemence we see displayed here.
As for turning over information related to my job, I turn over as much information as I have time to write about how I do my job on a professional blog. I don’t turn over my professional work itself because I’m almost always working for a private client who require non-disclosure agreements.
Furthermore, all my projects and the accompanying documents are saved as backups. That way, if a client need access to a project or file from 3 years ago, I can give it to them and not re-do the work. If you had ever worked in a professional capacity, you would know that this was true. (I’m sorry, forgive my snark. I don’t wish to replicate the mistakes you made in assumptions about my professional experience. I’m sure you’ve worked in a professional capacity…. although why you would then expect me NOT to maintain careful data integrity is something of a mystery to me.) [1]
Would you like to file a Freedom of Information request for my work? Here’s the web page: http://www.fcc.gov/foia/ Please feel free to do so. About 10 minutes of Googling will give you my name and the company I work for.
In the world of publicly funded science, the client IS the public in general. Furthermore, as the science is being used to justify the expenditure of public funds, it seems vital that transparency be as far and wide as possible.
I’m somewhat dismayed at your cavalier attitude toward the data in this case. If you have ever submitted a paper for peer review you know that there is rarely a request for full data and code and almost never a full “review” of these things. Such a process would take insane amounts of time.
As such, yes, freedom of information (especially in issues involving public funds) is exceptionally important. I’m surprised anyone would think otherwise.
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politicalmath, I am assuming that you are an American citizen. I find this statement interesting:
You do know the difference between the UK and the USA, eh? We did fight a war which ended about 226 years ago which blissfully ended the ties between our two nations. You do understand that we have had a Freedom of information act since the Johnson administration and the UK for only about a decade (as far as I can tell).
This is another interesting quote from you:
Can you think of a parallel to the situation CRU finds itself in? If not (accept for the moment that CRU is, as they state limited by IP agreements) why not?
It seems that the state of data sharing is not much better in other areas of science.
In fact, climate science is quite open with data and code.
Your point was?
Before, one could ridicule “climate skeptics” by comparing them to creationists.
Nowadays, one can instead ridicule creationists by comparing them to “climate skeptics”
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politicalmath said:
These comments just show that you know nothing about the underlying facts (of course, when did AGW deniers ever worry about facts?).
The papers were completely wrong and bordering on fraud. The authors of one of the papers were two of the co-authors on the fraudulent paper used in the OISM petition. Does that not look like a good reason why it should not have been published.
A number of the editors of the journal involved resigned over the scandal.
We’ve all seen that oft quoted e-mail where Jones refuses to give the data to Warwick Hughes because he might find something wrong with it…
So I went looking for some context. And discovered this written by Warwick Hughes.
“In 1991 the writer (WSH) reviewed the Jones et al temperature data for Australia along with a wider selection of Australian data while associated with the Tasman Institute in Melbourne. The Executive Summary of that unpublished report which was circulated to interested parties, has survived in digital form and is presented here for the first time.
[Note, the Tasman Institute was a free market think tank in Melbourne for about a decade, closing in the late 1990’s.]”
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=6#more-6
So WH attacked Jones paper, showed it around and didn’t give Jones the right of reply.
He also wrote this on his blog “Readers can judge for themselves the veracity of the Jones et al statement on p1216 of Jones et al 1986b, where they state that “… very few stations in our final data set come from large cities.” This glib and lulling statement is detached from the reality that 40% of their ~300 SH stations are cities with population over 50K.” >50K is a large city according to Hughes http://www.warwickhughes.com/cru86/
In fact I checked and only 30 of the cities have a population >= 500,000 (and I’m not even sure that that is a “large city” Auckland for example was 500,000)
He also wrote a paper on Jones 1994 here: http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri/hbsa96.pdf but IIUC he looked at diurnal temps while Jones looked at average temps.
This is just the stuff that WH has put on his website: surely there must be plenty of hidden incriminating stuff he doesn’t tell us about… (Oops sorry, I started to channel the dark side) 😉
All in all, I can understand why Jones wasn’t keen to give him the data in that oft quoted e-mail.
Following on from Turboblocke’s comment I was wondering about the international response to “Climategate” myself.
I think part of the answer is in the third syllable – although all the world heard about Watergate, it’s impact in the US was probably far more widespread than in other parts of the world, so it is not a given that everyone talking about the story is going to use “Climategate”. Searching for news items on “CRU” and “email” might give better results. I’m not going to try it myself, though, I really do not have the time to do a proper analysis.
Having said that, I do think that the mainstream media here in the UK have not been giving it a huge amount of attention (surprisingly, as it is a UK story).
The BBC website, for example, has just two news items on it – one when the story first broke, and one predicting that the results of an internal enquiry will be published next week.
The BBC also link to two of Roger Harrabin’s blog posts here and here. I like Harrabin (although I don’t always agree with him), both of his posts are worth reading.
In the second of his posts Roger concludes:
I’m inclined to agree with that – a formal enquiry external to the CRU would be a good thing, as long as the enquiry was impartial.
I’ve missed an opportunity here – if I fleshed this train of thought out a bit longer I could have a post rather than a comment – but I’m cold, tired and hungry – and I’m going to bed.
Lars,
Largely the same group, takes the same ability to totally ignore reality.
S2 I did try “CRU Hack”, which gave only 53,000 world wide, while “CRU email” was about 10 000.
Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals”–co-opted by the denialists? Two examples:
…Rule 4: Make opponents live up to their own book of rules. “You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”
suggesting turning the very foundation of peer reviewed science into a demand for more transparency.
…Rule 11: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. Don’t try to attack abstract corporations or bureaucracies. Identify a responsible individual. Ignore attempts to shift or spread the blame.
which is definitely in progress.
http://vcn.bc.ca/citizens-handbook/rules.html
Deniers have been unable to show that the scientists failed to follow rules i.e., the law or relevant policies (the goal of a denier co-opted rule 4); or that the scientists were not responsible i.e., acting ethically or accountably (the goal of a denier co-opted rule 11).
If they are co-opting these tactics that is pretty stupid since the result can only be to further expose deniers’ efforts to lie to the public.
Oh, right – we’re talking about deniers. 🙂
“Deniers have been unable to show that the scientists failed to follow rules ” except in the court of public opinion. It is a crime, and worse, but they have done it.
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Mike #22
I get your point. 😉
I would agree with this comparison between deniers and the Alinsky style of organizing: they both see people as essentially self-interested, and power as a zero-sum game (hence the need to isolate and grab power from someone who has or is perceived to already have it).
Both Alinsky-style community organizing to challenge power and denialosphere efforts to protect and maintain power rely on the potential to create friction between competing interests. The job of the leader is to build on and mobilize these tensions. It is fair to say the result is aggressive, confrontational and manipulative.
It is a male model that is effective in some conditions and not in others.
cheers
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Even queenie is up for global wrming. Bless her cotton socks.
warminghttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8382014.stm
Okay on capital weather gang, i did almost exactly what greenhoof did.
the first response was roughly
“you said you could answer most of the talking points, but all you did was say, this is the science here, this is the science here, this is the science here, and that’s that. You didn’t answer anything!”
At which point, what do you do?
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politicalmath,
Here is a link to one of the papers that the CRU scientists “disliked”: http://www.int-res.com/articles/cr2003/23/c023p089.pdf [1]
If you can’t identify at least one or two “showstopper” blunders in that paper, then you are in over your head here.
(Hint: The errors in the authors’ methodology would earn a freshman an F at any decent university)
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Just for the record, I should note that the call to free the data is not a “denier” call. It is a call for good science.
I think you’ll find it gains more traction as people feel the anti-transparency rhetoric rings hollow.
Here is the same opinion from people who can hardly be called “deniers”.
http://climateprogress.org/2009/11/27/%C2%AD-climategate-judith-curry-open-letter-to-graduate-students-young-scientists-climate-research-hacked-cru-emails/
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=7826#more-7826
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8aefbf52-d9e1-11de-b2d5-00144feabdc0.html
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Just for the record, I should note that the call to free the data is not a “denier” call. It is a call for good science.
A tremendous amount of data is already “free” and has been so for many years. So even if CRU didn’t make all their data available (won’t speculate as to the validity of their excuses for failing to do so), there were already plenty of raw temperature data from freely available sources for skeptics to run their own calculations to compare against the CRU estimates. That would have been a completely independent verification of the validity/invalidity of the CRU computations.
NASA/GISS has been extremely transparent in this regard — not only have they disclosed *all* of their raw data sources (sources available to all on the web), but they have thoroughly documented their methods and made all the associated source code public.
It is interesting to note that NASA’s temperature estimates have been coming in a bit higher than CRU’s. If and when the CRU folks release *all* of their data, we’ll be able to figure out the reason for this discrepancy.
“It is interesting to note that NASA’s temperature estimates have been coming in a bit higher than CRU’s. If and when the CRU folks release *all* of their data, we’ll be able to figure out the reason for this discrepancy.”
AFAIK there is remarkable agreement with the satellite and surface records:If you look at http://www.woodfortrees.org/notes they compare the 4 main indices after correcting for different baseline years.
As for HADCRUT vs GISTEMP, isn’t it simply that the former ignores the Arctic, whereas the latter estimates temperatures there based on the nearest surrounding stations?
Yes, that’s my understanding of it.
Hadley ignore any part of the globe where they don’t have data, whereas GISS interpolate.
Hadley show on their tables how much of the globe is covered (typically in the low 80’s as a percentage figure).
It doesn’t lead to huge differences – but it does explain why Hadley still have 1998 as the warmest year (and why as a result the denialists love it – for now …).
How about this at Climate Progress for timing?
FYI – A quite brilliant smackdown of Delingpole’s stupidity from both Hugo Rifkind and Will Heaven…ironically enough both these pieces appear on the UK Telegraph and Spectator.
Correct link for Will Heaven’s article.
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Melanie Phillips at The Daily Mail too. Strange that these are all right-wing rags…not.
Phillips was on BBC 1 Question Time last week. Enjoy Marcus Brigstocke’s remarkably calm put-down.
I think it must have been embarrassing for the person who wrote that email (don’t recall who it was) when the email was leaked. I think it might also be problematic, given the plaintiff-friendly UK libel laws. But if the editor was indeed an infiltrated denier with an agenda, who was even ignoring peer-reviewers, I don’t blame anyone for suggesting the guy should’ve been fired.
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Deleted.
Post cites, if you want to be considered as anything other than spam.
S2
Alarmist Sez: [1]
Humanitarian Complies:
Citation: Knorr, W. (2009), Is the airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions increasing?, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L21710, doi:10.1029/2009GL040613.
Takeaway:
Wolfgang Knorr of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol found that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades.
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Hey Hummy, I don’t think you read the paper, or if you did, you certainly didn’t understand it.
What Knorr is referring to is the ratio between the fraction of anthropogenic CO2 emitted which is adsorbed by sinks compared to the fraction which is left in the atmosphere. It does not refer to the “airborn fraction of carbon disoxde” which you are claiming.
CO2 concentration is rising, at an ever increasing rate.
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” Wolfie” begs to differ:
From Abstract of above cited paper:
”
Is the airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions increasing?
Wolfgang Knorr
Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
… This study re-examines the available atmospheric CO2 and emissions data including their uncertainties. It is shown that with those uncertainties, the trend in the airborne fraction since 1850 has been 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade, i.e. close to and not significantly different from zero.
… Despite the predictions of coupled climate-carbon cycle models, no trend in the airborne fraction can be found. “
Would you like to give us the figures Knorr uses?
full article with data available at:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL040613.shtml
H.N.Y.
According to Knorr’s cited paper, the unchanged airborne fraction which stays in the atmosphere is about 45 percent of emitted carbon dioxide .
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http://www.skepticalscience.com/Is-the-airborne-fraction-of-anthropogenic-CO2-emissions-increasing.html
Read it for clarification.
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Hummy (or should it be dummy) you are either being willfully deceitful or you do not understand what the paper is about.
Let me tell you once more, what Knorr is saying is that the airborne fraction of the emitted CO2 is not increasing. That is that the percentage of emitted CO2 (aprox 50%) is being diverted to sinks and 50% is left in the atmosphere. That percentage is relatively constant (but is expected to change dramatically as the sinks become more saturated) but the total amount of emitted CO2 has gone up drastically. For some reason you are spinning that to mean “airborne fraction of CO2”, i.e. the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, is not increasing which is obviously wrong since CO2 has increased from aprox 280 to 385ppm since the Industrial Revolution.
So which is it H(d)ummy, ignorance or willful deceit, it has to be one or the other?
Deleted for being nonsense.
S2
Why are you being so stupid? I think that you are being deceitful rather than stupid. If you actually read the paper as any knowledgeable person would you would see that he is referring to “fraction of emitted CO2” not “atmospheric fraction” as you keep on saying. Just because you read something on whatwrongwithwatt doesn’t mean it is right (or even close to being right).
You are obviously a denier troll since you keep on repeating nonsense even after you are shown to be wrong.
Deleted for repetition, and still being nonsense.
S2
Challenging the Core Science
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Deleted for being nonsense.
S2
Since you appear to believe you are challenging the core science, I responded to you on that thread.
Apparently you are not here to discuss that science.
Deleted for being nonsense.
S2
Hummy, the science is in and it is telling us that we have to drastically reduce CO2 emissions.
The problems with Copenhagen are all political and are supported by arrogant and selfish people like you who don’t care what happens to future generations as long as they can have everything which they want to grab right now.
People like you are pathetic.
Deleted. Language like this will not be tolerated.
S2
Hummy, you have really lowered your self and shown what a lowdown slime ball you are. No science, no sense and no concern for your fellow beings.
You had better be careful or even the deniers will disown you.
Deleted. Comments are welcome if they pertain to the original post – you’re just being obtuse.
S2.
Any informed humanist with a concern for the planet is aware that COP15 was an opportunity for the world’s people and governments to work together on an effective international plan. There are and will continue to be unilateral emissions reduction targets and mitigation strategies, community-based adaptations, new directions for business, ongoing development of international commitments to relief for climate victims, evolving goals for international efforts, etc.
If you want to understand more about the societal, agricultural, health, and generally political implications of climate change, there are related discussions on this site, on other threads.
On this thread, you have made completely bogus claims about the science and repetitive assertions about studies you clearly do not read and cannot understand.
You ignore all corrections and questions and re-surface two lines later with completely new b.s.
Clearly, whether paid or unpaid — and your chosen pen name aside — you are not remotely interested in either people or science.
Deleted as spam.
S2
Deleted as spam.
S2
Is that the first view this year of someone who doesn’t know the difference between weather and climate ?
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Deleted for being an idiot.
(see below)
S2
Hmm, methinks you need deleted for being an idiot.
That is a possibility, for many definitions of the word ‘planet’. On the other hand we might still be able to save some things.
I am struck by the way that every ecologist/ biologist type person who is actively researching that sort of area, that I have seen online, is in a stateof desperation over the global ecosystems and species. And I’ve never seen any such person quoted by a denialist source to say that everything hunky-dory.
CO2 lags the initial rise in temperature, but is an absolute requirement to explain the further increase.
(Greenfyre, S2, am I mistaken in my assumption that “YOU LIE” and Vostok Ice Core data come from the same IP number?)
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[…] in “Values, Statistics, and Authority”.) The post is also notable insofar as it received an inbound link, a first for the […]