Posts Tagged ‘climate change’
February 1, 2012
Well now!!!
Perhaps this just panders to my opinions but I find this more convincing than the Hockey Stick.
Bicentennial Decrease of the Total Solar Irradiance Leads to Unbalanced Thermal Budget of the Earth and the Little Ice Age by Habibullo I. Abdussamatov, Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Science, St. Petersburg, 196140, Russia
Applied Physics Research ISSN 1916-9639 (Print) ISSN 1916-9647 (Online)
Abstract
Temporal changes in the power of the longwave radiation of the system Earth-atmosphere emitted to space always lag behind changes in the power of absorbed solar radiation due to slow change of its enthalpy. That is why the debit and credit parts of the average annual energy budget of the terrestrial globe with its air and water envelope are practically always in an unbalanced state. Average annual balance of the thermal budget of the system Earth-atmosphere during long time period will reliably determine the course and value of both an energy excess accumulated by the Earth or the energy deficit in the thermal budget which, with account for data of the TSI forecast, can define and predict well in advance the direction and amplitude of the forthcoming climate changes. From early 90s we observe bicentennial decrease in both the TSI and the portion of its energy absorbed by the Earth. The Earth as a planet will henceforward have negative balance in the energy budget which will result in the temperature drop in approximately 2014. Due to increase of albedo and decrease of the greenhouse gases atmospheric concentration the absorbed portion of solar energy and the influence of the greenhouse effect will additionally decline. The influence of the consecutive chain of feedback effects which can lead to additional drop of temperature will surpass the influence of the TSI decrease. The onset of the deep bicentennial minimum of TSI is expected in 2042±11, that of the 19th Little Ice Age in the past 7500 years – in 2055±11.
The full paper (pdf) is here: Abdussamatov App Physics Research
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Tags:Abdussamatov, climate change, global cooling, Little Ice Age, Pulkovo Observatory, Russian Academy of Science, solar effects on climate
Posted in Climate, Solar science | 1 Comment »
November 24, 2011
As if the lopsided reporting by Roger Harrabin and Richard Black was not bad enough, the email exchange between Phil Jones and Alex Kirby of the BBC puts the BBC’s “impartiality” about global warming firmly in the dock.
Incidentally Kirby’s publicity blurb has this to say about him:
Alex has no scientific education, and is convinced that the widespread distrust and misunderstanding of scientists in industrial societies is a threat to human development.
Alex Kirby
WUWT:
Climategate 2.0 email 4894.txt shows just what Alex Kirby of BBC thinks of climate skeptics as he conveys it to Dr. Phil Jones. Clearly, there an incestuous relationship between climate science and the BBC.
date: Wed Dec 8 08:25:30 2004
from: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.xx.xx>
subject: RE: something on new online.
to: “Alex Kirby” <alex.kirby@bbc.xxx.xx>
At 17:27 07/12/2004, you wrote:
Yes, glad you stopped this — I was sent it too, and decided to
spike it without more ado as pure stream-of-consciousness rubbish. I can
well understand your unhappiness at our running the other piece. But we
are constantly being savaged by the loonies for not giving them any
coverage at all, especially as you say with the COP in the offing, and
being the objective impartial (ho ho) BBC that we are, there is an
expectation in some quarters that we will every now and then let them
say something. I hope though that the weight of our coverage makes it
clear that we think they are talking through their hats.
—–Original Message—–
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit
Another gem in the comments by FrancisT reveals that the BBC was in bed with the global warming fanatics but note that Kirby was considered to be not too expensive(!!??)
2011 Email #2403 (1)
Regarding ECF and a media person. You could try Alex Kirby if Roger Harrabin is not free. Joe Smith will have other contacts. The other possibility is for a European link, possibly via a German magazine. Finally, if we try, we could penetrate The Economist as I have contacts there.
2011 Email #3935 (1)
1. Media involvement. I would suggest Roger Harrabin might be a better (alternate?) invitee to Alex Kirby. Simon Torok has recently had contact with him about media coverage of Jo’berg and he is also on the Advisory Board of Tyndall.
2011 Email #4028 (1)
>> > > phone
>> > > > chat with Alex Kirby, BBC, some time before the conference, where we
>> may
2011 Email #4655 (1)
For more mainstream people, I agree that Alex Kirby would make a good job
and is probably first choice. He would certainly come cheaper than Humphreys
Tags:Alex Kirby, BBC, biased BBC, climate change, Climatic Research Unit, global warming, Impartial (Ho Ho) BBC, Phil Jones, Roger Harrabin
Posted in Academic misconduct, Climate, Ethics, Media, scientific misconduct | Comments Off on “the objective impartial (ho ho) BBC that we are” – Alex Kirby BBC environmental correspondent
November 23, 2011
Image via Wikipedia
I had posted earlier about the revelations that the BBC’s Roger Harrabin (with the help of his pal Joe Smith) had been acting as a mole within the BBC to lobby on behalf of the global warming orthodoxy in which he had a vested interest.
Well, it would seem that he gave up being an objective journalist and became a lobbyist some time ago. He has been lobbying hard since at least 1997. The CIES web page from August 18th, 2000:
Media & Environment Programme
Developed by Dr Joe Smith and Roger Harrabin (BBC Today Programme), the programme consists of a series of indepth seminars designed to broaden and deepen media thinking about global environmental change and sustainable development issues and to improve the academic and policy communities’ understanding of the setting and constraints of media reporting.
Programme co-directors:
Dr Joe Smith
Mr Roger Harrabin
Programme contact details:
Email: jhs125@cam.ac.uk or tel: +44 (0)1223 740135
Details of previous seminars:
The Changing Environmental Agenda – BBC Editors (1997)
Climate Change Meeting – senior editors (1997)
Reporting Sustainable Development:
The Challenge to the Media – BBC Editors (1997)
The Kyoto Outcome: Implications for UK Business (1997)
Reporting Sustainable Development:
The Challenge to the Media – BBC Editor’s Seminar (1998)
Tags:Alarmism, BBC, BBC lobbyist, biased BBC, climate change, global warming, Joe Smith, Media - BBC Editor, Roger Harrabin
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Ethics, Media | 1 Comment »
November 22, 2011
Update 2100 CET: This has finally reached the Nature News Blog and the bits they quote are telling – especially in the light of the IPCC having to acknowledge that for the next few decades the global warming signal may be much smaller than the signals due to natural climate variation.
“I find myself in the strange position of being very skeptical of the quality of all present [climate] reconstructions,” one researcher is quoted as having allegedly remarked.
Another remark reads: “What if climate change appears to be just mainly a multidecadal natural fluctuation? They’ll kill us probably.”
Indeed!
===================================
The Global Warming Climate Change scam.
When it reads like a scam, talks like a scam and sings like a scam — it is most definitely a scam!
From the Air Vent:
It happened again.I woke up to find a link from FOIA.org on a thread. Thousands of emails unlocked with 220,000 more hidden behind a password. Despite the smaller size of the Air Vent due to my lack of time, there were twenty five downloads before I saw it once. As before, there are some very nice quotes and clarifications from the consensus. Below is a guest post in the form of a readme file from the FOIA.org group. – Jeff
/// FOIA 2011 — Background and Context ///
“Over 2.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day.”
“Every day nearly 16.000 children die from hunger and related causes.”
“One dollar can save a life” — the opposite must also be true.
“Poverty is a death sentence.”
“Nations must invest $37 trillion in energy technologies by 2030 to stabilize
greenhouse gas emissions at sustainable levels.”
Today’s decisions should be based on all the information we can get, not on
hiding the decline.
This archive contains some 5.000 emails picked from keyword searches. A few
remarks and redactions are marked with triple brackets.
The rest, some 220.000, are encrypted for various reasons. We are not planning
to publicly release the passphrase.
We could not read every one, but tried to cover the most relevant topics such
as…
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Tags:academic misconduct, climate change, Climategate 2.0, email-release, FOIA.org, global warming, IPCC, Scientific misconduct
Posted in Academic misconduct, Alarmism, Climate, scientific misconduct | 3 Comments »
November 20, 2011
The less than objective “reporting” on global warming from the BBC was always fairly obvious but the role of Roger Harrabin, one of its senior environmental correspondents in driving that policy is now becoming clear. Christopher Booker has a long article in The Telegraph:
The BBC’s hidden ‘warmist’ agenda is rapidly unravelling
Since 2006, the BBC has relentlessly promoted the global warming orthodoxy as a pressure group in its own right.
The story of the BBC’s bias on global warming gets ever murkier. Last week there was quite a stir over a new report for the BBC Trust which criticised several programmes for having been improperly funded or sponsored by outside bodies. One, for instance, lauded the work of Envirotrade, a Mauritius-based firm cashing in on the global warming scare by selling “carbon offsets”, which it turned out had given the BBC money to make the programme. ……
….
The irony is, however, that just as the BBC adopted its new hard line on climate change, in the real world the story was beginning to shift. Ever more searching questions have come to be asked about the supposed “consensus” on man-made warming, and the BBC’s coverage has come to look ever more one-sidedly absurd.
Last week, even Richard Black, another BBC proselytiser for man-made warming, was gloomily having to reveal the conclusion of a new IPCC report: that, over the next few decades, “climate change signals are expected to be relatively small compared to natural climate variabilty”. In plain English, that means the great scare story is over. What a shame. But at what a price. …
Meanwhile the Daily Mail carries the following headline:
(Update! The Daily Mail article has been removed but has been reported here).
(Update 2! The Daily Mail article has now been restored)
BBC’s Mr Climate Change accepted £15,000 in grants from university rocked by global warning scandal
Alarmism is lucrative.
Tags:Alarmism, BBC, Christopher Booker, climate change, Daily Mail, global warming, IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, lobby groups, Roger Harrabin
Posted in Alarmism, Media | 1 Comment »
October 17, 2011
It would seem obvious – but it has not been – and it is still heresy for the AGW orthodoxy to entertain the notion that carbon dioxide effects are insignificant in relation to solar effects on climate.
A new paper in Energy & Environment, Vol. 22, No. 6 (Sept. 2011)
Long-Term Instrumental and Reconstructed Temperature Records Contradict Anthropogenic Global Warming
by Horst-Joachim Lüdecke, EIKE, European Institute for Climate and Energy, PO.Box 11011, 07722 Jena, GERMANY
PDF
There is no evidence that the temperature changes of the second half of the 20th Century are in any way extraordinary. No impact of the rise in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere can be found in the data.
One more nail in the AGW coffin.
Abstract:Monthly instrumental temperature records from 5 stations in the northern hemisphere are analyzed, each of which is local and over 200 years in length, as well as two reconstructed long-range yearly records – from a stalagmite and from tree rings that are about 2000 years long. In the instrumental records, the steepest 100-year temperature fall happened in the 19th century and the steepest rise in the 20th century, both events being of about the same magnitude. Evaluation by the detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) yields Hurst exponents that are in good agreement with the literature. DFA, Monte Carlo simulations, and synthetic records reveal that both 100-year events were caused by external trends. In contrast to this, the reconstructed records show stronger 100-year rises and falls as quite common during the last 2000 years. These results contradict the hypothesis of an unusual (anthropogenic) global warming during the 20th century. As a hypothesis, the sun’s magnetic field, which is correlated with sunspot numbers, is put forward as an explanation. The long-term low-frequency fluctuations in sunspot numbers are not detectable by the DFA in the monthly instrumental records, resulting in the common low Hurst exponents. The same does not hold true for the 2000-year-long reconstructed records, which explains both their higher Hurst exponents and the higher probabilities of strong 100-year temperature fluctuations. A long-term synthetic record that embodies the reconstructed sunspot number fluctuations includes the different Hurst exponents of both the instrumental and the reconstructed records and, therefore, corroborates the conjecture.
This paper supports the results published by Prof. Sami Solanki back in 2004 and reported in Science Daily here:
Sami K. Solanki, Natalie A. Krivova Can solar variability explain solar warming since 1970? Journal of Geophysical Research,108, doi 10.1029/2002JA009753 (2003)
The authors concluded then that “based on a statistical study of earlier periods of increased solar activity, the researchers predict that the current level of high solar activity will probably continue only for a few more decades”.
Tags:climate change, Energy & Environment, global warming, Horst-Joachim Lüdecke, Sami Solanki, Solar variation
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Science, Solar science | Comments Off on The Sun – not man – heats the earth
October 12, 2011
It has always struck me as incredibly arrogant and amazingly stupid that the climate “scientists” have ignored the effects of the sun for 2 decades – presumably because:
- they did not understand the sun,
- doomsday scenarios were better for getting funding,
- they had such an overweening conviction about man made effects, and
- they actually believed their computer models were the greatest thing since sliced bread!
This is an exciting time for solar physics, and its role in climate. As one leading climate scientist told me last month, it’s a subject that is now no longer taboo. And about time, too.
Tags:BBC Weather, climate, climate change, global warming, Paul Hudson, solar effects on climate, Sun
Posted in Climate, Science, Solar science | 1 Comment »
September 26, 2011
I am travelling this week.
I had an interesting – if rather depressing – discussion with a fellow traveler (a patent lawyer) at the airport yesterday. The discussion turned to the manner in which science which happened to be “in fashion” became political movements and the manner in which science itself took on politically correct dimensions.
Sometimes – as with eugenics – the political movement came first and the science followed to fit the movement. In fact, his contention was that even where the science had come first, the development of a political movement would always lead to subsequent science being constrained to support the imperatives of the movement.
I brought up the caase of AGW and how an uncertain science – in my opinion – had been hijacked by a political movement such that one particular hypothesis – which has still to be proven – had become the only politically correct or allowable science. I suggested that real observations might change what was considered politically correct. Since global temperature – if such a thing can be defined – has been declining for the last decade even though carbon dioxide has been increasing, I expected that new science would have to take these real observations into account in their mathematical modelling and that the strength of the dogma would eventually decrease.
My companion however disagreed. He suggested that all political movements had to be fundamentally and economically viable to survive. If the movement was lucrative – as AGW had become – then there would be a vested interest in maintaining the science it was based on even if the facts said otherwise. This would be achieved, he argued, by the “Science” allowing or accounting for some deviations – as for example with explanations made up for why a decade or two of cooling could occur without disturbing the central thesis of the “Science”. He cited medical science and examples of purported treatments which were continued for long periods after they were discredited because of the revenues that they were generating. He suggested that the chemical industry was the prime driver for the banning of some refrigerants (based on now outdated ozone depletion science) just so that they could shift production to newer refrigerants having much higher margins. Similarly he felt that the environmental benefits of switching to low energy lamps was minuscule but the lighting industry much preferred the margins and revenues generated by these to those generated by incandescent light bulbs which were suffering from intense competition.
His conclusion was that since the AGW “industry” was generating large revenues whether through carbon trading schemes or by the extraction of subsidies from taxpayer money for so-called “green” energy or “green” fuels, then the vested interest in showing that any conflicting measurements were a temporary aberration would be very strong. Since the timescales of climate change were in the order of hundreds of years, he felt that a mere 20 or 30 years of inconvenient measurements would do little to dent the momentum of a successful revenue generating “science”!!!
He made some good points. I am afraid that even 3 decades of cooling or the start of a mini-ice age will probably not suffice to dampen the ardour of the global warming enthusiast as long as the revenues from growing bio-fuels or getting subsidies for “green” energy keep rolling in. The AGW religion and its corresponding “science” will stop only if the revenues stop.
Tags:AGW, climate, climate change, environment, global warming, Little Ice Age, politically correct science
Posted in Alarmism, Business, Climate, Politics, Science | 2 Comments »
September 23, 2011
Juliet Davenport, founder and CEO of something carrying the subjective and emotive name “Good” Energy writes in the New Scientist blog today bemoaning the fact that climate sceptics are winning the argument by the use of emotion rather than science!!
Scientists – she believes – are not doing enough to help her cause. But she might carry a little more credibility if she attempted to use science rather than dogma and consensus. And of course if she did not have a vested interest in extorting subsidies from taxpayers. Clearly Al Gore has failed her in being “charismatic and campaigning”- but then he is no scientist and perhaps he does not count.
A charismatic campaigning voice from the scientific community would make a huge difference in helping to combat the small but vocal minority of sceptics who tend to resort to emotion rather than science to make their arguments. ……..
…. I can’t help but think it would be better to see all government departments arguing more loudly about the long term benefits of tackling climate change and the transition to a low carbon economy. To do that convincingly, however, they need to have information at their fingertips. Scientists have a huge role to play here, debating and responding to claims made through the media and simplifying messages for the public. They need to make the case that a low-carbon economy is not only necessary for tackling climate change, but also that it is technologically possible.
If we are going to act in time on climate change, it is vital that we keep up the pressure on the government to form a policy framework that we can then deliver.
The coming gas glut and the availability of shale gas – now even in the UK – must be giving her nightmares. Without climate change alarmism and the demonisation of carbon dioxide, the cost of wind and solar power would make them non-starters.
But the tide is turning.
Tags:carbon dioxide, climate change, environment, global warming, Juliet Davenport, Low-carbon economy, New Scientist, wind power
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Energy, Renewable Energy | 1 Comment »
September 21, 2011
During daytime clouds shadow the earth from the sun’s radiation and have a cooling effect while at night they act as a blanket and decrease the radiation away from earth into space. For anybody who has desperately sought the shade on a warm day or has observed the absence of frost after a cloudy night, this might seem a pretty obvious and a rather trivial statement.
The alarmists’ view of global warming assumes that the net effect of clouds is to warm the earth’s climate and that it is one of the “positive feedbacks” for warming. But a new paper in September’s Meteorological Applications severely undermines these assumptions by showing that this feedback is strongly negative. To put the magnitude of this cooling effect into perspective, the net cooling effect of clouds is put at -21W/sq.m while the much-touted effect of a doubling of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is supposed to be only +1.2W/sq.m.
When this is coupled to the recent support for Svensmark’s hypothesis on solar effects for cloud formation from the CERN cloud experiment, and the lack of warming over the last decade while carbon dioxide has been increasing, it only emphasises that:
- the science of how climate varies is a long way from being settled, and
- the magnitude of carbon dioxide effects on climate are extremely small, and
- the effect of man-made emissions on the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide is miniscule
Whether directly by incoming radiation or indirectly by the formation of clouds or through the transport of heat by the oceans and the winds, it is the sun which is the predominant forcing. Climate models which ignore solar effects and do not have the sun at their centre are fatally flawed.
Allan, R. (2011) Combining satellite data and models to estimate cloud radiative effect at the surface and in the atmosphere, Meteorological Applications, 18 (3). pp. 324-333, ISSN 1469-8080, DOI: 10.1002/met.285
Abstract: Satellite measurements and numerical forecast model reanalysis data are used to compute an updated estimate of the cloud radiative effect on the global multi-annual mean radiative energy budget of the atmosphere and surface. The cloud radiative cooling effect through reflection of short wave radiation dominates over the long wave heating effect, resulting in a net cooling of the climate system of − 21 Wm−2. The short wave radiative effect of cloud is primarily manifest as a reduction in the solar radiation absorbed at the surface of − 53 Wm−2. Clouds impact long wave radiation by heating the moist tropical atmosphere (up to around 40 Wm−2 for global annual means) while enhancing the radiative cooling of the atmosphere over other regions, in particular higher latitudes and sub-tropical marine stratocumulus regimes. While clouds act to cool the climate system during the daytime, the cloud greenhouse effect heats the climate system at night. The influence of cloud radiative effect on determining cloud feedbacks and changes in the water cycle are discussed.
Tags:Allan, CERN, climate, climate change, clouds, cooling effect of clouds, global warming, Henrik Svensmark, solar effects on climate
Posted in Climate, Natural Phenomena, Science | Comments Off on Net effect of clouds on climate is strongly cooling and not of warming
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