In case the Eco-Flappers missed it.

[Sportsman]

Just for the sake of balance you understand

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8397265.stm

[Steve Walker]

Just for the sake of balance you understand

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8397265.stm

 

"BBC" and "balance" in the same sentence?

 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/20/wo...c_impartiality/

 

"The BBC has held a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts, and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus."

 

Generously, they will humour the other side, though...

 

"But these dissenters (or even sceptics) will still be heard, as they should, because it is not the BBC's role to close down this debate. They cannot be simply dismissed as "flat-earthers" or "deniers", who "should not be given a platform" by the BBC."

[Vagabond]

I'm in an internet cafe in Deniliquin NSW, just about to buy my NSW fishing licence when I finish this.

 

Two weeks ago we were in Brisbane, having flown there by big, big jetliner, since then we have hired a campervan, leaving a nice big carbon footprint. Tut-tut and again tut, says the eco-panic lobby.

 

We had dinner in a smart waterfront restaurant in Brisbane. They had a plaque high up on the wall, indicating the level reached by the floods of a few years ago.

 

Global warming ? Hmmmmm. On the plaque it said it was the second biggest flood SINCE 1824. (there may have been bigger ones previously but Brits didn't reach OZ until 1788 - so no records before that)

 

Now, as Chesters would no doubt ask, what caused the massive flood of 1824?

 

That was about 60-odd years before the invention of the motor car, and roughly 80 years before the first flight, and only a few years into the coal-burning era of the Industrial Revolution. Carbon emissions ? phoooey !

 

Climate change has been with us for thousands of million years - ask any geologist.

[Sportsman]

I'm in an internet cafe in Deniliquin NSW, just about to buy my NSW fishing licence when I finish this.

 

Two weeks ago we were in Brisbane, having flown there by big, big jetliner, since then we have hired a campervan, leaving a nice big carbon footprint. Tut-tut and again tut, says the eco-panic lobby.

 

We had dinner in a smart waterfront restaurant in Brisbane. They had a plaque high up on the wall, indicating the level reached by the floods of a few years ago.

 

Global warming ? Hmmmmm. On the plaque it said it was the second biggest flood SINCE 1824. (there may have been bigger ones previously but Brits didn't reach OZ until 1788 - so no records before that)

 

Now, as Chesters would no doubt ask, what caused the massive flood of 1824?

 

That was about 60-odd years before the invention of the motor car, and roughly 80 years before the first flight, and only a few years into the coal-burning era of the Industrial Revolution. Carbon emissions ? phoooey !

 

Climate change has been with us for thousands of million years - ask any geologist.

 

So there was a flood in 1824 and this proves that there is no such thing as climate change?

 

Hmmmm

 

You may have to run that one by me again, like how all floods are caused by carbon emissions

[Sportsman]

Like, I suspect, most on here I don't really understand much about climate change, having never studied it. I have my opinions about government propaganda but I can't discount the possibility of climate change based on just that.

Unlike some on here I am fairly sure that whether carbon emissions have made a difference or not, the answer does not lie in some simplistic and frankly stupid comment about isolated instances that may or may not have happened prior to carbon emissions becoming a problem.

This whole repetitive thing about "it all runs in cycles and is perfectly normal" doesn't impress much either. There are tens of thousands of highly educated people who have spent probably hundreds of thousands of man hours looking at this and I think one of them may have noticed don't you?

Maybe we should phone them up and tell them to read this thread. That would explain it all and it would save all that thinking.

It's funny how you can discount thousands of pieces of evidence from thousands of sources and then when one piece of controversy is raised "Oh well, that's it then, case proven. They made it all up for money"

It seems that we believe what we want to believe.

Edited December 7, 2009 by Sportsman

[barry luxton]

It seems that we believe what we want to believe.

 

I would like someone to tell us why we don't have what is called the london smog anymore. Not just london of course but millions apon millions of people using gas for lighting, both inside and outside the home, with millions of people buring carbon in their grates for cooking and heating. Was that classed as the clean era compared with what we do today.

Edited December 7, 2009 by barry luxton

[Sportsman]

I would like someone to tell us why we don't have what is called the london smog anymore. Not just london of course but millions apon millions of people using gas for lighting, both inside and outside the home, with millions of people buring carbon in their grates for cooking and heating. Was that classed as the clean era compared with what we do today.

 

Smokeless zones and smokeless fuel following the clean air act in 1956. The smog was caused by smoke from thousands of domestic coal fires.

Edited December 7, 2009 by Sportsman

[Steve Walker]

Like, I suspect, most on here I don't really understand much about climate change, having never studied it. I have my opinions about government propaganda but I can't discount the possibility of climate change based on just that.

 

Government propaganda I can take. What disturbs me about these revelations is that the people involved seem to have crossed the line between the impartial search for truth and the pursuit of evidence to support an agenda. Basically, you can be a scientist or you can be an activist. You can't be both without compromising your objectivity.

 

Some examples of the controversial emails are listed here:

 

http://ecotretas.blogspot.com/2009/11/rolo...e-verdades.html

 

with the whole collection searchable here:

 

http://www.eastangliaemails.com/index.php

 

I find this one particularly disturbing:

 

http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php...=1106322460.txt

[Sportsman]

Government propaganda I can take. What disturbs me about these revelations is that the people involved seem to have crossed the line between the impartial search for truth and the pursuit of evidence to support an agenda. Basically, you can be a scientist or you can be an activist. You can't be both without compromising your objectivity.

 

Some examples of the controversial emails are listed here:

 

http://ecotretas.blogspot.com/2009/11/rolo...e-verdades.html

 

with the whole collection searchable here:

 

http://www.eastangliaemails.com/index.php

 

I find this one particularly disturbing:

 

http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php...=1106322460.txt

 

Steve

Without knowing much (anything!) about the personalities involved or the subject matter I am afraid that the emails don't do much to help me come to an informed opinion.

Do I think that some of the personalities applied "spin" to make their opinions appear more accurate or acceptable? I would have to say almost certainly. It is human nature to want to appear right. I am fairly sure that their opponents do exactly the same.

Does this materially affect the argument for climate change? I doubt it

Edited December 7, 2009 by Sportsman

[Steve Walker]

Like I said, I don't know where this leaves the state of climate science. What I do see is that the people providing the IPCC with the information that "the science is settled" appear to be being deliberately dishonest in that communication. My academic background is research, and while the tone of the emails does not surprise me at all, and the existence of departmental and institutional politics is hardly news, if people I had worked with had been behaving as these people seem to have been, I would have blown the whistle - and the area I worked in was not about to be responsible for the biggest social and economic change ever attempted.

 

Compare this exchange with the official line on the historical data, and then tell me that you believe the IPCC when it says that the science is settled:

 

http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php...=1062592331.txt

 

"From: Edward Cook <drdendro@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

To: Keith Briffa <k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

Subject: An idea to pass by you

Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2003 08:32:11 -0400

 

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Hi Keith,

 

After the meeting in Norway, where I presented the Esper stuff as

described in the extended abstract I sent you, and hearing Bradley's

follow-up talk on how everybody but him has f***ed up in

reconstructing past NH temperatures over the past 1000 years (this is

a bit of an overstatement on my part I must admit, but his air of

papal infallibility is really quite nauseating at times), I have come

up with an idea that I want you to be involved in. Consider the

tentative title:

 

"Northern Hemisphere Temperatures Over The Past Millennium: Where Are

The Greatest Uncertainties?"

 

Authors: Cook, Briffa, Esper, Osborn, D'Arrigo, Bradley(?), Jones

(??), Mann (infinite?) - I am afraid the Mike and Phil are too

personally invested in things now (i.e. the 2003 GRL paper that is

probably the worst paper Phil has ever been involved in - Bradley

hates it as well), but I am willing to offer to include them if they

can contribute without just defending their past work - this is the

key to having anyone involved. Be honest. Lay it all out on the table

and don't start by assuming that ANY reconstruction is better than

any other.

 

Here are my ideas for the paper in a nutshell (please bear with me):

 

1) Describe the past work (Mann, Briffa, Jones, Crowley, Esper, yada,

yada, yada) and their data over-laps.

 

2) Use the Briffa&Osborn "Blowing Hot And Cold" annually-resolved

recons (plus Crowley?) (boreholes not included) for comparison

because they are all scaled identically to the same NH extra-tropics

temperatures and the Mann version only includes that part of the NH

(we could include Mann's full NH recon as well, but he would probably

go ballistic, and also the new Mann&Jones mess?)

 

3) Characterize the similarities between series using unrotated

(maybe rotated as well) EOF analysis (correlation for pure

similarity, covariance for differences in amplitude as well) and

filtering on the reconstructions - unfiltered, 20yr high-pass, 100-20

bandpass, 100 lowpass - to find out where the reconstructions are

most similar and different - use 1st-EOF loadings as a guide, the

comparisons of the power spectra could also be done I suppose

 

4) Do these EOF analyses on different time periods to see where they

differ most, e.g., running 100-year EOF windows on the unfiltered

data, running 300-year for 20-lp data (something like that anyway),

and plot the 1st-EOF loadings as a function of time

 

5) Discuss where the biggest differences lie between reconstructions

(this will almost certainly occur most in the 100 lowpass data),

taking into account data overlaps

 

6) Point out implications concerning the next IPCC assessment and EBM

forcing experiments that are basically designed to fit the lower

frequencies - if the greatest uncertainties are in the >100 year

band, then that is where the greatest uncertainties will be in the

forcing experiments

 

7) Publish, retire, and don't leave a forwarding address

 

Without trying to prejudice this work, but also because of what I

almost think I know to be the case, the results of this study will

show that we can probably say a fair bit about <100 year

extra-tropical NH temperature variability (at least as far as we

believe the proxy estimates), but honestly know f**k-all about what

the >100 year variability was like with any certainty (i.e. we know

with certainty that we know f**k-all).

 

Of course, none of what I have proposed has addressed the issue of

seasonality of response. So what I am suggesting is strictly an

empirical comparison of published 1000 year NH reconstructions

because many of the same tree-ring proxies get used in both seasonal

and annual recons anyway. So all I care about is how the recons

differ and where they differ most in frequency and time without any

direct consideration of their TRUE association with observed

temperatures.

 

I think this is exactly the kind of study that needs to be done

before the next IPCC assessment. But to give it credibility, it has

to have a reasonably broad spectrum of authors to avoid looking like

a biased attack paper, i.e. like Soon and Balliunas.

 

If you don't want to do it, just say so and I will drop the whole

idea like a hot potato. I honestly don't want to do it without your

participation. If you want to be the lead on it, I am fine with that

too.

 

Cheers,

 

Ed

--

============================

 

Dr. Edward R. Cook

Doherty Senior Scholar and

Director, Tree-Ring Laboratory

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

Palisades, New York 10964 USA

Email: drdendro@xxxxxxxxx.xxx

Phone: 845-365-8618

Fax: 845-365-8152

============================

 

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