AGW Denial, The Greatest Scam in History?

[Avro]

Is Monckton a Wanker? - and why It matters



With the recent biography of Bob Hawke and not long since the autobiography of Pauline Hanson the Australian public are asking that, if politicians must have sex, whether we need or want to know. So why is it important that FoGT has identified Viscount Monckton as a wanker (based on his use of crest with minimal differences from House of Lords where Monckton claims the non-existent status of non-sitting member).

Compared to public discussion of global warming and ocean acidification, the hallucinogenic properties of carbon dioxide have received little attention. This probably reflects cultural selection, with successful cultures using substances with a bigger gap between mind-altering levels and toxicity. Indeed relative roles of oxygen deprivation and CO2 enhancement in autoerotic asphyxia (hypoxyphilia) are poorly documented. A google search of "carbon dioxide' and "wank" mainly reveals measurements at a mountain in Bavaria.

All this raises question of whether motivation for Monckton's support for increased CO2 comes from seeking safer autoeroticism. Compared to the G and T (or the FOSSIL - Friends Of Several Sorts of Imbibed Liquor) approaches, for CO2, the gap between hallucinogenic doses (3 to 4%) and fatal concentrations (5 to 6%) is dangerously small. While concentrations from fossil fuel burning will not get us that high, going part of the way could mean less drastic action needed to raise blood CO2. With traditional values of British upper classes under threat, safety in their traditional autoerotic pursuits becomes urgent.

In related research in paleo-wasting at U. Narbethong is exploring whether hallucinogenic effects from a peak of CO255 million years ago were the reason that ancestors of the great apes (including us) thought it a good idea to part ways from other monkeys and leave the trees to go down onto the African plains with the lions and hyenas. Other research is exploring whether increased CO2 as the last ice age began to end is an alternative to other theories relating cultural evolution to substance abuse.

Prof Dr Moritz Lorenz Sarah Palin School of Geography, Economics and Quantum Computing
University of Narbethong
West Island Campus, NZ.

 

[Avro]

Fool me once....

 

[Tonington]

Shocking! Shocking I say! Monckton must retract his statements immediately.

This is who Republicans bring to a hearing on the science...sad and pathetic.

 

[Avro]

Shocking! Shocking I say! Monckton must retract his statements immediately.

This is who Republicans bring to a hearing on the science...sad and pathetic.

Will his emails be hacked or will he be charged with fraud?

 

[Tonington]

Congressional hearings I should think.

 

[darkbeaver]

Is there ANY Greenhouse effect at all?

The idea that CO2 has a "greenhouse" (temperature-raising) effect on the earth is increasingly being mocked as violating basic laws of physics. The latest mocker is Claes Johnson, a mathematics professor at the Kungliga Tekniska högskolan in Sweden. (Kungliga Tekniska högskolan translates as Royal Institute of Technology. KTH is one of Sweden's most distinguished universities). See below

AGW Myth of Back Radiation

AGW alarmism is based on an idea of "back radiation" or "re-radiation" from an atmosphere with greenhouse gases, but the physics of this phenomenon remains unclear.

To test if "back radiation" is a real phenomenon, we suggest the following experiment: On a night with moon-light so feeble that you can cannot read a newspaper, place yourself in front of a mirror letting the moonlight reflect from the newspaper to the mirror and back again, and check if you can now read. You will probably find that the paper is still unreadable, as if "back radiation" does not give more light.

To give this experiment theoretical support we consider the mathematics of wave propagation from a source at x=0 (Earth surface) to a receiver at x=1 (atmospheric layer) described by the wave equation (as a model of Maxwell's equations describing light as electromagnetic waves):

U_tt - U_xx = 0 for x in the interval (0,1)

with solution U(x,t) being a combination of waves traveling with velocity +1 and -1 along the x-axis, and with subindices indicating differentiation with respect to space x and time t. The boundary condition at the receiver may take the form

AU_t(1,t) + U_x(1,t) =0

with a positive coefficient A signifying:

* A = 0: soft reflection with U_x(1,t) = 0
* A large : hard reflection with U_t(1,t) = 0
* A = 1: no reflection: transparent absorption of all incoming waves at x = 1.

The basic energy balance is obtained by multiplying the wave equation by U_t and integrating
with respect to x to give:

E_t + AU_t(1,t)^2 = -U_x(0,t)U_t(0,t) = Input Energy.

where E(t) is the energy of the wave over the interval (0,1). Assuming that E(t) stays constant so that energy is no accumulating in the interval (0,1), we have that

Output Energy = A U_t(1,t)^2 = Input Energy.

In particular, with soft reflection with A = 0, the Input Energy is also zero. We learn that it is not possible to "pump the system" by reflection at x = 1: If you change from transparency with A = 1 to reflection with A = 0, the system reacts by refusing to accept Input Energy.

Ergo: Reflection/back radiation cannot increase the insolation to the Earth surface.

(Back radiation seeks support in a description of light as a stream of particles proposed by Newton, which was replaced by Maxwell's wave theory in the late 19th century).

SOURCE

Any extra heat is generated in the upper atmosphere by electric current.Of course the acolytes of Gore cannot have this empirical truth prevail simply because there is no way to set up a market for free/wild energy which will not and never has prostituted itself to the laws of supply and demand.

 

[Tonington]

The greenhouse effect is not unclear; it is a simple, demonstrable fact of nature.

If you wrap a blanket around yourself, it is not the blanket that warms you with it's own energy by convection. The blanket is preventing the emission of heat away from your body. That is a thermal imbalance. So your body warms until the energy is again in balance.

A greenhouse gas does the same thing, it prevents radiation from escaping to space.

You can see how various gases affect the transmission of radiation through our climate system:

If you want to test the theory more sensibly, one should expect cloudy nights to be warmer than clear nights. This has been tested, and indeed cloudy nights are warmer than clear nights.

 

[Tonington]

Fool me once....

Nice find Avro! In my bookmarks now.

 

[Tonington]

Judge derails Virginia AG's latest attack on climate science


Or, Judge says no to neo-McCarthyism.

 

[gopher]

Global warming denier defects:

Noted anti-global-warming scientist reverses course | The Upshot Yahoo! News - Yahoo! News

Noted anti-global-warming scientist reverses course

By Brett Michael Dykes

• Buzz up!

y Brett Michael Dykes brett Michael Dykes – Tue Aug 31, 2:17 pm ET

With scientific data piling up showing that the world has reached its hottest-ever point in recorded history, global-warming skeptics are facing a high-profile defection from their ranks. Bjorn Lomborg, author of the influential tract "The Skeptical Environmentalist," has reversed course on the urgency of global warming, and is now calling for action on "a challenge humanity must confront."
Lomborg, a Danish academic, had previously downplayed the risk of acute climate change. A former member of Greenpeace, he was a vocal critic of the Kyoto Protocol -- a global U.N. treaty to cut carbon emissions that the United States refused to ratify -- as well as numerous other environmental causes.
"The Skeptical Environmentalist," published in 2001, argued that many key preoccupations of the environmental movement, including pollution control and biodiversity, were either overblown as threats or amenable to relatively simple technological fixes. Lomborg argued that the governments spending billions to curb carbon emissions would be better off diverting those resources to initiatives such as AIDS research, anti-malaria programs and other kinds of humanitarian aid.
[Photos: The world's most polluted places]
Lomborg's essential argument was: Yes, global warming is real and human behavior is the main reason for it, but the world has far more important things to worry about.
Oh, how times have changed.
In a book to be published this year, Lomborg calls global warming "undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today" and calls for the world's governments to invest tens of billions of dollars annually to fight climate change.
Lomborg's former foes in the environmental movement are so far unimpressed by news of his conversion. Calling him a "shrewd self-promoter," Grist.org's Jonathan Hiskes marveled at Lomborg's ability to "play the media" in simply "adopting a position already held by millions of sensible people." And Friends of the Earth climate campaigner Mike Childs told the U.K. Guardian, "It appears that the self-styled skeptical environmentalist is beginning to become less skeptical as he enters middle age."




Couldn't deny the truth any longer.

 

[Bar Sinister]

Is there ANY Greenhouse effect at all?

The idea that CO2 has a "greenhouse" (temperature-raising) effect on the earth is increasingly being mocked as violating basic laws of physics. The latest mocker is Claes Johnson, a mathematics professor at the Kungliga Tekniska högskolan in Sweden. (Kungliga Tekniska högskolan translates as Royal Institute of Technology. KTH is one of Sweden's most distinguished universities). See below

AGW Myth of Back Radiation

AGW alarmism is based on an idea of "back radiation" or "re-radiation" from an atmosphere with greenhouse gases, but the physics of this phenomenon remains unclear.

To test if "back radiation" is a real phenomenon, we suggest the following experiment: On a night with moon-light so feeble that you can cannot read a newspaper, place yourself in front of a mirror letting the moonlight reflect from the newspaper to the mirror and back again, and check if you can now read. You will probably find that the paper is still unreadable, as if "back radiation" does not give more light.

To give this experiment theoretical support we consider the mathematics of wave propagation from a source at x=0 (Earth surface) to a receiver at x=1 (atmospheric layer) described by the wave equation (as a model of Maxwell's equations describing light as electromagnetic waves):

U_tt - U_xx = 0 for x in the interval (0,1)

with solution U(x,t) being a combination of waves traveling with velocity +1 and -1 along the x-axis, and with subindices indicating differentiation with respect to space x and time t. The boundary condition at the receiver may take the form

AU_t(1,t) + U_x(1,t) =0

with a positive coefficient A signifying:

* A = 0: soft reflection with U_x(1,t) = 0
* A large : hard reflection with U_t(1,t) = 0
* A = 1: no reflection: transparent absorption of all incoming waves at x = 1.

The basic energy balance is obtained by multiplying the wave equation by U_t and integrating
with respect to x to give:

E_t + AU_t(1,t)^2 = -U_x(0,t)U_t(0,t) = Input Energy.

where E(t) is the energy of the wave over the interval (0,1). Assuming that E(t) stays constant so that energy is no accumulating in the interval (0,1), we have that

Output Energy = A U_t(1,t)^2 = Input Energy.

In particular, with soft reflection with A = 0, the Input Energy is also zero. We learn that it is not possible to "pump the system" by reflection at x = 1: If you change from transparency with A = 1 to reflection with A = 0, the system reacts by refusing to accept Input Energy.

Ergo: Reflection/back radiation cannot increase the insolation to the Earth surface.

(Back radiation seeks support in a description of light as a stream of particles proposed by Newton, which was replaced by Maxwell's wave theory in the late 19th century).

SOURCE

Any extra heat is generated in the upper atmosphere by electric current.Of course the acolytes of Gore cannot have this empirical truth prevail simply because there is no way to set up a market for free/wild energy which will not and never has prostituted itself to the laws of supply and demand.

Just a question. Do any climatologists support his theory or is he speaking for himself only?

 

[Avro]

The Smearing of an Innocent man

 

[Avro]

Washington Post Editorial Slams Ken Cuccinelli "Embarrassing" Witch Hunt Against Climate Scientist

The Washington Post penned an excellent editorial yesterday deriding Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's political attack against climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann, a former UVA professor whom Cuccinelli has targeted in a witch hunt.

The Post editorial notes that "the overblown critique of climate science that emerged early this year continues to underwhelm," citing several examples of the recent rash of politically-motivated attacks on climate science, including the much-ado-about-nothing 'Climategate' episode last winter, the repeated attacks against the integrity of the U.N. IPCC, and of course Mr. Cuccinelli's witch hunt against UVA and Mike Mann.
This week's ruling by Circuit Court Judge Paul Peatross confirming that Cuccinelli lacked "an objective basis" for his witch hunt "put a damper on a pernicious fishing expedition," the Post says.
But that hasn't checked "Mr. Cuccinelli's zeal," since he immediately announced plans to re-rig his fishing pole and try again to smear Dr. Mann, "thereby extending his assault on academic freedom," says the Post.

The editorial closes with sharp criticism for Cuccinelli's attempt to "embarrass Virginia":

"We hope he rethinks his course. At this point all he can do is waste more taxpayer money, force the university to waste more of its money and embarrass Virginia in a way that can only harm its higher education system."

Check out the full editorial, "A judge puts a damper on Mr. Cuccinelli's U-Va. witch hunt."

 

[Avro]

Quantifying Denial

Anthopogenic Global Warming Denial (AGWD) is not dimensionless but is expressed in an SI unit. This newly introduced SI unit is [Kalman] or short [Ka], after the famous Calgary denier. 1 Ka is 1 misrepresentation or logical fallacy in a single paragraph. AGWD is usually plotted on a semi-logarithmic scale, just like earthquake intensity.

Because so many units for AGWD have been widely used, we give conversion factors:

1 [Ka] = 2 [CSPG] = 3 [APEGGA]

We also offer conversion to imperial units:

1 [Ka] = 1.1734 [Mo]; after Lord Monckton, the famous third viscount of Brenchley.

 

[Avro]

What do you get when you put a climate scientist and 52 skeptics in a room?

No, it's not a joke or an infographic. In late June, the SBS TV program Insight recorded a program with climate scientist Stephen Schneider. Sadly, Schneider passed away several weeks later. In the show, Schneider faced questions from a crowd of 52 climate skeptics. The result airs on SBS at 7.30pm tonight. Immediately after the show airs, Australian climate scientist David Karoly will be on the SBS website to answer live questions. Here's what David said in a recent email:

"When climate scientist Steve Schneider was in Australia in June, he recorded a TV program where he answered questions on climate change science from an audience of more than 50 people sceptical about climate change drawn from the general public. This hour-long program, for SBS Insight, will be shown in Australia at 7:30pm on Tuesday 7 Sept and will be available in full online at
http://news.sbs.com.au/insight/episode/index/id/302

I will be channelling Steve when I do the responses to questions in the Live Chat online, straight after the program is broadcast.

I know that for many people who knew Steve it will be painful to watch, as he died in July. But it is Steve at his best, carefully and thoughtfully answering questions from the public about climate change. It is a program that could be included in classes on climate change, as material on responding to common questions about climate change. It is another way that Steve continues to have a very positive influence."​

Should be fascinating television (albeit saddening). So if you're in Australia, be sure to tune in at 7.30 tonight. If you're outside of Australia, you can watch the show online (I'm not sure whether it will stream live or be available after the show airs). More info here...
UPDATE: I've updated the title of this blog post - for some reason, I had it in my head that it was Steve Schneider AND David Karoly in the show. It's only Steve Schneider with David Karoly on the SBS website for the hour after the show.

 

[Avro]

Steve Schneider-52 Skeptics-0

 

[Avro]

Nature Editorial Slams GOP For Anti-Science Tendencies

There is no getting around the fact that the U.S. Republican Party simply hates science. It didn’t used to be that way. But it is now, and the timing of a recent uptick in this phenomenon couldn't be worse.
“The anti-science strain pervading the right wing in the United States is the last thing the country needs in a time of economic challenge.”
That is the subtitle of an excellent editorial today in the journal Nature, “Science Scorned,” which discusses how dangerous this trend is, pointing out that:
“There is a growing anti-science streak on the American right that could have tangible societal and political impacts on many fronts — including regulation of environmental and other issues and stem-cell research.”
Nowhere is the right wing’s anti-science stance more starkly apparent than on the issue of climate change, as Nature notes:
“Denialism over global warming has become a scientific cause célèbre within the movement. [Rush] Limbaugh, for instance, who has told his listeners that “science has become a home for displaced socialists and communists”, has called climate-change science “the biggest scam in the history of the world”.
Nature is a highly respected journal, and it is encouraging to see the editors take a strong stand against the GOP’s betrayal of science and reason. Science should never be confused with politics, but the recent antics of the Republican Party leave no alternative but to acknowledge that the Right's attack on science must be addressed directly by the scientific community.
Author Chris Mooney dove into this topic in great depth in his New York Times bestselling book "The Republican War On Science," and other outlets have contributed more recent commentary on this scary trend as well.
RL Miller posted an excellent blog recently on Grist titled “Stupid goes viral: The Climate Zombies of the new GOP.” And Grist’s own David Roberts expanded on that piece to make abundantly clear the fact that the anti-science crusade launched by the GOP is not happening in isolation, but rather as part of a larger GOP effort to undermine public confidence in respected institutions, from academia to media, government to science.
But GetEnergySmartNow! notes that, at least for now, the general public still holds science and scientists in high regard, referring to a 2009 Pew Research poll.
That confidence must remain if the U.S. is ever going to address global warming in a meaningful way.
The Economist pointed out last week:
“It is troubling that the contemporary state of American political discourse obliges people who know better to stifle themselves on this issue [climate change]. So long as segments of the American political elite feed voters cynical lines on global warming, and large numbers of voters believe them, America will continue to get the political leadership it deserves, and face the serious consequences of inaction.”
Unfortunately, the biggest loser in the 2010 elections might not be the Democratic Party, but science itself.

 

[Tonington]

Monckton gets beat down again. He must be severely punch drunk by now.

Fool Me Once: "Temperatures are below projections"

 

[Tonington]

I expect McIntyre, Watts, et al. will be up in arms when they read this about their favourite database to use for global temperatures:

As a reminder, six months ago we changed to Version 5.3 of our dataset, which accounts for the mismatch between the average seasonal cycle produced by the older MSU and the newer AMSU instruments. This affects the value of the individual monthly departures, but does not affect the year to year variations, and thus the overall trend remains the same as in Version 5.2. ALSO…we have added the NOAA-18 AMSU to the data processing in v5.3, which provides data since June of 2005. The local observation time of NOAA-18 (now close to 2 p.m., ascending node) is similar to that of NASA’s Aqua satellite (about 1:30 p.m.). The temperature anomalies listed above have changed somewhat as a result of adding NOAA-18.

That's the UAH data product from the MSU satellites.

If NASA, or Hadley, or NOAA, or anyone else did this, they would flip their $hit! Tampering! Adjustments that favour warming! Fraud!

I expect to read such fulminations soon from the top tier denier websites. Walter should be along any moment to add his newsbot opinion.

I suspect Spencer soon be disowned by the deniers. He has lately taken to defending the science behind radiative transfer and greenhouse gases:
Help! Back Radiation has Invaded my Backyard! Roy Spencer, Ph. D.

 

[Avro]

Monckton gets beat down again. He must be severely punch drunk by now.

Fool Me Once: "Temperatures are below projections"

Just in case the youtube version is beneath the deniers....

How Monckton got his IPCC predictions wrong

NOTE: this was originally posted by Alden Griffith at Fool Me Once as a video presentation debunking Christopher Monckton's assertion that temperature trends are below the IPCC's predicted temperatures.

Monckton calculates his "predicted temperatures" using an equation found in the IPCC report (Working Group 3, Chapter 3) that is used to examine the long-term temperature response to carbon dioxide emissions: Teq = ECS × ln(CO2end / CO2start) / ln(2). This is essentially a ratio increase in CO2 multiplied by the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS), a value that represents how sensitive temperature is to changes in CO2. The IPCC gives the range for ECS of 2.0 to 4.5, with a "best estimate" of 3.0.
With this equation, Monckton uses the CO2 values from the IPCC’s A2 scenario: a CO2start value of 368 ppm in 2000 and a CO2end value of 836 ppm in 2100. He then examines the IPCC’s low- and high-end ECS values (2.0 and 4.5), but uses the "central estimate" of ECS = 3.25 instead of the IPCC’s "best estimate". Monckton has simplified the original equation by dividing ECS by ln(2) in order to provide a single multiplier. Here are the equations that produce the range of warming that Lord Monkton claims is predicted by the IPCC:

2.9 × ln(836/368) = 2.4 C
4.7 × ln(836/368) = 3.9 C
6.5 × ln(836/368) = 5.3 C
​

You can see that these values match up with the "IPCC predicts warming" values shown on Monckton’s figures.
There are four fundamental problems with using these values to "predict" temperatures and attributing them to the IPCC:
1. The IPCC does not "predict" anything on this matter – they make multiple projections assuming different future emissions scenarios. This may sound trivial, but it’s a very important distinction. Monckton narrows the analysis to a single scenario (A2) and labels it a prediction.
2. Temperature rise for the A2 scenario is very unlikely to be linear, and single values in °C / century are inappropriate when looking at temperatures for time periods of less than a century. This is particularly problematic when looking at very short time periods early in this century, which are likely to exhibit less warming than later in the century.
3. These equations predict the equilibrium temperature response, which is the final temperature change once the climate has fully adjusted to a change in CO2. It does not represent the temperature expected for the year that CO2 concentration reaches the value used in the equation (and will always be higher than this value). The IPCC is abundantly clear on this point.
4. The IPCC never uses or presents these values to project global temperatures in the first decade of the 21st century.
In his most recent figures from July 2010, Monckton has decided to address the fact that warming to equilibrium temperatures by 2100 is clearly wrong (fundamental problem #3). He does this by simply reducing equilibrium temperatures by one-fifth (or multiplying by 0.8) to convert to "transient warming", although it is unclear where he gets this conversion factor from. He has applied these changes to his "prediction zone" on the graph, but he has not changed the legend of the figure which still lists the incorrect equilibrium values after "IPCC predicts warming."
I was able to recreate Monckton’s July 2010 figure from scratch by plotting monthly temperatures as the average of the UAH and RSS satellite temperature values, and adjusting them like Monckton so that "the anomalies are zeroed to the least element in the dataset." I then plotted Monckton’s "transient" prediction zone using 3 lines with linear increases of 2.4 × 0.8 = 1.92 C/century, 3.9 × 0.8 = 3.12 C/century, and 5.3 × 0.8 = 4.24 C/century. I then zeroed the prediction zone "to the start-point of the least-squares linear-regression trend on the real-world data." Here is the result:

Figure 1: My reproduction and overlay of Monckton’s figure from his July 2010 SPPI report. (top) Monkton’s original figure; (middle) my reproduction; (bottom) overlay of the two. If anything, Monckton’s projection zones are slightly above the "transient" linear increases of 1.92 C/century, 3.12 C/century, and 4.24 C/century.
His prediction zones match up virtually perfectly to linear increases in temperature out to 2100 (highlighting fundamental problem #2). We can then extend these out to 2100 and examine whether Monckton’s warming rates in degrees per century match up with the actual IPCC projections:

Figure 2: Extensions of the "transient" linear warming paths from Figure 1, superimposed on the IPCC’s actual A2 temperature projection. Prediction zones were zeroed to the start of the Jan 2001 to July 2010 regression line of the UAH and RSS monthly average, using the base period of 1980-1999 to match the IPCC figure’s base period.
Monckton’s new transient warming zone aligns with the actual IPCC A2 projections quite well by 2100. However the problem with a linear temperature prediction is apparent (again, fundamental problem #2): Monckton’s transient warming path entirely excludes the bottom half of the IPCC projections until after 2030.
So as of his July 2010 report, Monckton’s prediction zones may have some relevance to temperatures at the end of the century (although they still suffer from fundamental problems #1 and #4 no matter what). However, they remain both inappropriate (fundamental problem #2) and deceptive (fundamental problems #1 and #4), when used for comparisons with recent observed temperatures. All of the prediction zones on his figures prior to July 2010 – including those shown in testimony to congress – suffer from all four fundamental problems. Just to highlight what a substantial issue fundamental problem #3 is, let’s examine the linear increase to 2100 based off of equilibrium warming:

Figure 3: The same as Figure 2, but using equilibrium linear warming paths.
Until Lord Monckton starts using the actual IPCC temperature projections and stops using climate sensitivity equations to "predict" temperatures from 2001 to 2010, his figures will be fundamentally flawed and unattributable to the IPCC.
- What about Monckton's CO2 predictions? -
Although, the primary topic here is Monckton’s "IPCC" temperature predictions, his "IPCC" CO2 predictions are also completely at odds with what is actually presented in the IPCC. Barry Bickmore from Brigham Young University has done an excellent bit of detective work to help elucidate the matter (see his RealClimate post here).
Dr. Bickmore compared Monckton’s "IPCC A2" CO2 values to the actual IPCC A2 CO2 values and found that, other than the start and end points, Monckton’s values are always higher. There is absolutely no justification for this. I’ve reproduced the same result by carefully scaling and overlaying Monckton’s graph onto the IPCC’s figure 10.20a (here’s an uncropped larger version):

Figure 4: Lord Monckton’s graph of the "IPCC’s predicted CO2" trend superimposed on the actual CO2 concentration trend from the IPCC’s figure 10.20a. Monckton’s "IPCC prediction" is clearly higher than the actual IPCC trend (which follows the observed values quite well).