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A day in the life of climate change:
- “Notwithstanding the dramatic increases in man-made CO2 emissions over the last decade, the world’s warming has stopped.”
- Opposition leader Tony Abbott, yesterday.
- “The year 2009 is likely to rank in the top 10 warmest on record since the beginning of instrumental climate records in 1850 … The decade of the 2000s (2000–09) was warmer than the decade spanning the 1990s (1990–99), which in turn was warmer than the 1980s (1980–89)”.
- World Meteorological Organisation, yesterday.
- “After a thorough examination of the scientific evidence and careful consideration of public comments, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today that greenhouse gases (GHGs) threaten the public health and welfare of the American people”.
- US Environmental Protection Agency, yesterday.
All that data, including Professor Abbott’s thesis, in just one day.
Which just reinforces the wisdom of non-scientist Rupert Murdoch’s words two years ago: “The planet deserves the benefit of the doubt.”
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18 Comments
Both Abbott and the WMO are spinning. Yes, the last decade was the warmest in our very limited measurement record but, as the East Bumcrack emails state, it’s a “travesty” that we can’t account for the stalling temps of the last decade. For Abbott to say “global warming has stopped” is wishful thinking. All we know is that no one knows. Some climate scientists are now factoring in a decade or two of global cooling, to protect the AGW hypothesis. They have no idea either. But such gymnastics are a sign of a paradigm in trouble.
Who are these scientists factoring in a decade of warming and how do you know about this?
It’s global cooling Evan, not warming. Must be Freudianly hard for you ever to say “cooling”.
“How do I know about this”? : I can read. Look it up yourself- here’s a tip: Sweden.
let me know how you get on.
Is that what you call ‘references’? Or is telling me to keep looking for information until I agree with you ‘peer review’? I still find it confusing.
no need to be so cynical Evan…it’s months since I dug up that item and I’m v. busy doing farm work right now. Flood damage. But if I have time I’ll dig it up.
I found a press release about how Sweden will adapt to climate change here:
http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/574/a/96002
Is that what you are talking about?
Try this Evan. Took me 2 mins googling. Not my orig ref but you can follow it up. I see Fred Pearce is involved…
Personally, I think these theories have no more substance than denial or belief….but they indicate that no one really has any idea…
“At the UN’s World Climate Change Conference in Geneva one of the worlds top climate change scientists, predicted that we are facing 10-20 years of global cooling. The Scientist, named Mojib Latif said the cooling would be the result of changes to ocean currents and temperatures in the North Atlantic, a feature known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). Latif also said that the NAO may be partly the cause of warming during the past 30 years.
Latif says that he is not a global warming skeptic, and says that after the cooling, the world will start warming again:
World’s climate could cool first, warm later
by Fred Pearce, Geneva “
Frank, you need to read more widely. From his interview with Guy Ruz:
RAZ: So based on your research, if I have this right, climate change, particularly a warming of the Earth’s climate, is still the trend. It’s just been slowed down for the last few years because of ocean currents, changes in ocean currents.
Dr. LATIF: Exactly. So - and this is the reason, because we have the short-term climate fluctuation, therefore, it doesn’t make sense to look at short periods to assess the human impact on climate. So you have to consider several decades. Only then you see basically the long-term warming trend, and therefore, we can’t really draw any inferences from this hold in the last 10 years or so, you know, with regard to global warming.
and…
RAZ: Now, your research, Dr. Latif, has been cited by climate change skeptics here in the U.S., by for example, George Will, a conservative columnist with the Washington Post, to show that the Earth actually goes through natural warming and cooling trends and that climate change is really being overhyped. Do you think your work is being misused?
Dr. LATIF: Yes. It is misused. I must say this, unfortunately, because these changes we are talking about, these short-term changes, you know, their amplitudes are much smaller than the long-term warming trends. So we are talking about a hold, okay, in the last 10 years. We are not talking about a net cooling to, say, (unintelligible) temperatures, (unintelligible), you know, which we observed 100 years ago or so. Okay, and also what we predicted for the future is basically that this hold may continue for another 10 years or so, okay, but we did not predict a cooling. We basically said that we would stay for some more years on this plateau.
George: that’s exactly what I thought these scientists said. Latif et al are not anti AGW. I’ve written elsewhere on Crikey today about this particular hedge/qualification to AGW theory.
All it shows is that no one really has a clue.
No Frank, what is shows is that research is all about continually questioning and prodding the parts of a theory that you understand the least, or that have the most problems. We are still finding out new and interesting things about how electricity and magnetism works (for example the recent discovery of ‘wireless power’ technology previously thought to be impossible). Does that mean that we really have no clue about electricity? No, it means we know a hell of a lot, but there is always more to find out.
The same can be said in climate science (or any other field). We know an awful lot about the climate system and can make good predictions based on the addition of given amounts of addition CO2, all else being equal. The fact there we still have more to learn about the climate system does mean that we currently know nothing, or that our current knowledge is insufficient to make any predictions about future conditions given future emmissions.
No Bog…we know a lot more about magnetism and electricity than climate. No comparison. Not yet anyway. Also, climate is a melange of numerous systems and forces- it’s the interaction which is poorly understood, and it’s the interaction which counts.
And we are not, regrettably, yet able to make “good predictions” about the addition of given amounts of atmospheric CO2. That’s why the East Bumcrack scientists are anguished about the current stalling of temps. The trouble is, all else is not equal. It’s never equal in a real system. Progress has been made, but still little is known about the oscillations for example, or the role of CO2 in oceans.
Climate science is still in nappies. Each nappy is a paradigm. Quite a few will be changed in coming decades. Right now, climate science has made itself a hostage to fortune. If AGW is debunked, there’ll be a spectacular loss of face. Among other effects.
I know not many people of any importance will read this. Just remember the Copenhagen conference is a UN sponsored event. As in let’s raise a tax for that, we could do with the money!
Frank
That you weren’t even able to grasp Bogdanovist’s very apt analogy makes me wonder if you’re really capable of understanding the depth of knowledge around the climate (never mind the science itself). Climate science is no more in “nappies” than any other field of science.
AGW is not going to be debunked. In order for that to happen all of physics for the last 120 years would have to be debunked and I don’t think that’s going to happen.
I’m sure you’ve been pulled up before on the your incorrect assertion that the CRU scientists (and you have been pulled up on your disrespectful reference to the CRU scientists too) are worried about the stalling of the temps, when, in fact, they are concerned that they can’t account for changes in the Earth’s energy balance on shorter time scales. That the Earth is accumulating energy because of the greenhouse effect has been settled effectively in the scientific literature. Get over it, ok. And anyway you’re wrong about the CRU scientists, it was Kevin Trenberth who works for the National Centre for Atmospheric Science.
I also find it amusing how you hedge your bets by saying “IF AGW is debunked”. Well, what will you be saying in 20 years time when it isn’t? Will you still be tilting at the wind mills then?
Greg: I’m always pleased when I get a condescending reply on this topic, as opposed to the “you’re a fuckin’ moron” type- which both Denier and AGW cultists indulge in.
Condescenders expose their arguments. Not a pretty sight at times, but the only way to, ummm, get at the root of the problem.
Firstly, I use “East Bumcrack scientists” generically- all those who contributed so generously to our understanding of how a crumbling scientific paradigm is defended in extremis. I actually know who wrote what. Shorthand Greg. (What I’d like from you is a detailed explanation of each of most outrageous emails)
Secondly : my “lack of respect” for the Bumcracks. I know academia from the inside. (I even taught engineers about GW and GC at one point.). All academics behave like the Bumcracks. Academia is the only smallish occupational group to have its own literary genre: the campus novel. Read some. Also, you don’t seem to be aware that Annabel Crabb coined the phrase- do you know what she meant? She was pissing on sceptic and denier scientists. Her point being that these arseholes are low-grade big-noters inhabiting provincial universities.
Crabb’s sociology was inadvertently correct. It’s climate science, the Cinderella of the sciences, which inhabits provincial universities. As do most sceptics. The desperation of climate scientists’ gamble on AGW is all too clear in the bumcrack emails.
Thirdly, condescenders usually inflate the age of climate science by reference to the maturity of the science surrounding it, as you do. There’s nothing wrong with the Physics and Chem. around climate science. Of course the biosphere exists because of the greenhouse effect. The problem is (i) that accurate (or at times any) measurement is recent. 10-150 years. Climate requires far more time than this. The gross measurements/indications available to paleo-climatologists are damning for the simplistic notion that CO2 is driving the current warming. (ii) climate is a natural system, very poorly understood. The basic science is fine, but just how do all the ingredients interact? This is the fatal flaw of climate science.
Fourthly, if in 20 years AGW is “proved” (difficult, in such a short time-span), I’ll be tilting at windmills just as hard, because wind energy is a mature technology which cannot provide baseload. but let’s assume that in 2030 intermittency is defeated by some efficient storage system: I’ll still be attacking wind turbines UNLESS they are sited far from humans. You can’t imagine the misery these things generate. The callous indifference expressed every day in these pages is sickening. It does your Cult great harm.
Can someone please explain why the debate over climnate change has turned into a conservative bashing excercise. Where were the howls of mock outrage when Tim Flannery said exactly the same things as Abbot last week? For those who may have forgotten, only this month Flannery said he was incapable of explaining why there hasn’t been warming for 25 years: “There hasn’t been a continuation of that warming trend … (climate scientists) work with models, computer modelling, when the computer modelling and the real world data disagrees you have a problem … We have to understand why the cooling is occurring, because the current modelling doesn’t reflect it.”
Why is Abbott torn to shred on these forums for echoing what one of Australia’s pre-eminent scientists has to say on this matter?
If Flannery said “25 years” he’s wrong. The current plateau is only 1999-2009.
And he’s not a “pre-eminent scientist”, these days he’s a propagandist.
The reliance on computer modelling is a function of how little is known about climate change.
Frank seems to have an obsession with bumcracks - not that that’s bad, I’m tolerant, just saying
David: no plumber is safe…