@Tomas

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Mann has even admitted now anyways that it was wrong to use his hockey stick as "proof" of AGW.

Really? Any links to Mann's full speech or paper(s) reflecting this.

@BrianK

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BrianK wrote: @Tomas Quote: Mann has even admitted now anyways that it was wrong to use his hockey stick as "proof" of AGW. Really? Any links to Mann's full speech or paper(s) reflecting this.

I think this was the one: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7849441/Michael-Mann-says-hockey-stick-should-not-have-become-climate-change-icon.html
Dont have a link to the full speech though.
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However, speaking to the BBC recently, Prof Mann, a climatologist at Pennsylvania State University, said he had always made clear there were "uncertainties" in his work. "I always thought it was somewhat misplaced to make it a central icon of the climate change debate,"

He of course dosent admit that it was his fault even though he obviously had nothing against it being used back then.
The climategate emails makes it clear that he is ####ting about that part as well.

Hathaway has updated the solar cycle prediction graph again: http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/ssn_predict_l.gif
Again he has downgraded the prediction and it is now predicted to be below the dalton minimum cycles.

@Tomas

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I think this was the one: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7849441/Michael-Mann-says-hockey-stick-should-not-have-become-climate-change-icon.html Dont have a link to the full speech though

Thanks for the link. Reading that small snippet it's difficult to tell if the authors did, or did not, take a statement out of context. Assuming this is correct t seems Mann doesn't think the graph should have the focus/weighting that has been attributed to it.

I'd argue some of the weighing also comes from anti-climatologists. They seem to feel if this graph is disproved in any degree the legs are ripped out of Global Warming. That, of course, is not true. So yes under that scenario I agree the weighing of this work is far far more than reality.

Interview with Dr Hathaway:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128268488
I like this part: Quote:

FLATOW: When the sun is quiet like this, does it come back with a vengeance, or just normal? Dr. HATHAWAY: Well, it'll take another 50 years, apparently. But it may be longer. In fact, a number of my colleagues have suggested that perhaps, or certainly there's the possibility that we are heading into another one of these long, grand minima like the Maunder Minimum. You know, the Maunder Minimum from the year 1645 to 1715, and it was 70 years, virtually, without sunspots. There were a few that started taking up near the end. But, basically, as far as sun spots, the sun stopped doing it for 70 years.

Last edited by Tomas on 04-Jul-2010 at 09:01 PM.

Latest Joe ####i long term forecast: http://www.accuweather.com/video/110914873001/more-on-the-coming-cooling.asp?channel=vbbastaj

Something that the AGW believers should read: aliens-cause-global-warming-a-caltech-lecture-by-michael-crichton/

@Tomas

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Tomas wrote: Latest Joe ####i long term forecast: http://www.accuweather.com/video/110914873001/more-on-the-coming-cooling.asp?channel=vbbastaj

Similar to a forecast he made a few months ago. Here's a good write up on ####i's contradictions

@BrianK
And i disagree with most of what is said there. He for example never claimed that this winter would be similar to 70s or cold globally. What he did claim was that parts of northern hemisphere would have a cold winter not seen since 70s. He predicted local cold spell for large parts of USA and Europe and those predictions came true.
These people are just taking his forecasts out of proportion.
He also expected that this summer would be warm, but that el nino would collapse later this year leading to decline in temps globally.

It still has to be seen if he is right about global temps taking a dive from this fall and over the next decades.
Even though he thinks non satellite data is unrealiable they are still reliable enough when it comes to comparing current natural fluctuations with the ones in the past.

Will be interesting to see if he is right or wrong about the big drop in global temps.

Edit: I really wonder why they are even so upset about this, considering that he isnt even a climate scientist. He is bascially just stating his own opinion and beliefs based on what he has learnt about weather and natural cycles during his time as a weather forecaster. Personally i bet he is more spot on than these AGW scientists than only base their beliefs on models, assumptions or controlled lab experiments.

Last edited by Tomas on 10-Jul-2010 at 01:23 AM.

@Tomas

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I really wonder why they are even so upset about this, considering that he isnt even a climate scientist. He is bascially just stating his own opinion and beliefs based on what he has learnt about weather and natural cycles during his time as a weather forecaster.

And that's exactly the problem. To the average Joe layman they don't always understand that, most typically, weathermen training and research is different than climatological training and research. Though closely related fields they're not the same.


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Will be interesting to see if he is right or wrong about the big drop in global temps.

Right or wrong about the big drop is but one aspect of the question. The other aspect is why did that effect occur. If the ####i is right about lower temps one must then look to see if his assumptions were the cause OR if there was something else going on. Making a broad prediction of change is one thing. Correctly identifying WHY is where the rubber meets the road.

Last edited by BrianK on 10-Jul-2010 at 02:21 AM.

@BrianK
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And that's exactly the problem. To the average Joe layman they don't always understand that, most typically, weathermen training and research is different than climatological training and research. Though closely related fields they're not the same.

Funny how that is never a problem as long as it fits the AGW agenda.

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Right or wrong about the big drop is but one aspect of the question. The other aspect is why did that effect occur. If the ####i is right about lower temps one must then look to see if his assumptions were the cause OR if there was something else going on. Making a broad prediction of change is one thing. Correctly identifying WHY is where the rubber meets the road.

Maybe he realizes that we only have a few puzzle pieces of the big climate puzzle?
And natural cycles, sun activity and so on could very well explain both the current warm period and the cooling that might be coming even though we dont fully understand how these cycles work.
You only have to look at the past to see that natural fluctuations seem to be much stronger than what AGW scientist give them credit for.

@Tomas

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Maybe he realizes that we only have a few puzzle pieces of the big climate puzzle? And natural cycles, sun activity and so on could very well explain both the current warm period and the cooling that might be coming even though we dont fully understand how these cycles work. You only have to look at the past to see that natural fluctuations seem to be much stronger than what AGW scientist give them credit for.

Obviously ####i thinks we have enough puzzle pieces in place. He doesn't say 'we don't know'. Instead he says 'This is how it works and we'll have massive cooling next year.'

The sun activity isn't enough to fully explain the current period. That's why people are working to understand what other factors exist and to what scale are those factors in play.

@BrianK
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The sun activity isn't enough to fully explain the current period. That's why people are working to understand what other factors exist and to what scale are those factors in play.

You dont know that at all. We simply dont know much about how it affects the climate at all. No one said it was just the sun either, it is more likely the combination of other natural cycles and sun activity. One thing for sure, climate has responded alot more to solar activity in past compared to what you would expect from such small variations in TSI. The sun activity we have experienced in modern times is basically uncharted territory. If even small changes in long term activity affected temperatures in past, then why would not the highest activity in thousands of years affect it? AGW scientists are basically just assuming most of that warming is from CO2 when they have absolutely no evidence for that. This is why i say we should wait a few decades and see what happens when those cycles again switch.

@Tomas

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@BrianK Quote: The sun activity isn't enough to fully explain the current period. That's why people are working to understand what other factors exist and to what scale are those factors in play. You dont know that at all.

This is fairly easy to compute. We can measure the incoming energy from the sun. We can measure the impact on the planet. If the change in the planet's temps is greater than what can be driven from the sun's energy there's something else in play.

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We simply dont know much about how it affects the climate at all. No one said it was just the sun either, it is more likely the combination of other natural cycles and sun activity.

Welcome to the world of climatology. Where the primary driving factor is CO2. And the acknowlegement that other factors are also in play such as the sun.

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The sun activity we have experienced in modern times is basically uncharted territory. If even small changes in long term activity affected temperatures in past, then why would not the highest activity in thousands of years affect it?

The problem here is your understanding of climatology. Your statement reads as if climatologies neglect sun effects. That's not the case. It's that the sun isn't the largest of the present drivers in the system.

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AGW scientists are basically just assuming most of that warming is from CO2 when they have absolutely no evidence for that.

I recommend more reading for you.

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This is why i say we should wait a few decades and see what happens when those cycles again switch.

If, as you contend, we really don't know what CO2 is doing the safest activity is to minimize the release of CO2. If something may be 'bad' but we don't know for certain it's usually a bad idea to release lots of the possible bad substance. This puts one in the position of clean up, which is often a more expensive option than prevention in the first place.

Besides release of CO2 there are other reasons to drive to less CO2 polluting energy. Amongst these is the self sustainable economy. It's undeniable that oil production in the middle east has contributed to the USA, UK, and others commiting wars, encourging coups, and financially supporting terrorists against ourselves. A self sustainable economy removes the felt economic need to try to control other countries to ensure we get cheap energy. The problem is often worded that it's sad the US oil is under the middle-east.

The other thing is pollutions released in these industries. Coal is the highest committer of mercury release in the US. Lakes in my area all have fish eating restrictions due to heavy metal posioning. Even if we could remove coal it'll take decades to remove this pollution from our environment. And of course we can see the effects of oil in various spills in the world, not the least of these is the Gulf disaster.

@BrianK
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This is fairly easy to compute. We can measure the incoming energy from the sun. We can measure the impact on the planet. If the change in the planet's temps is greater than what can be driven from the sun's energy there's something else in play.

It is actually not that simple at all. What if it turns out that cosmic ray modulation does significantly affect cloud formation? What if there is some other unknown mechanism that leads to negative feedbacks that we currently dont know anything about?
My point is that there seem to be more to it than how much energy is recieved from sun. How it works or how much it affects climate is something that no one currently knows for sure.
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The problem here is your understanding of climatology. Your statement reads as if climatologies neglect sun effects. That's not the case. It's that the sun isn't the largest of the present drivers in the system.

You cant calculate the effects of sun link if there is some unknown sun effect that has nothing to do with TSI. There have already been some unexpected effects from this current minimum that no one expected. The upper atmosphere for example contracted a whole lot more than expected and this even came as a surprise to most scientists. Same thing can also be said about UV, it dropped far below what was expected even for such a deep minimum as we are experiencing. This i smost likely not linked to climate, but it shows that there are still alot of unknowns.
Luckily i think this minimum will teach us alot.
Just because something aint proven or known dosent mean it dosent exist.

I am btw also for cutting oil consumptions and moving on to alternative energy, but that is not because of CO2 or AGW. CO2 is simply not a pollutant in my opinon and we should instead focus on other environmental problems which we already have enough of.

@Tomas

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It is actually not that simple at all. What if it turns out that cosmic ray modulation does significantly affect cloud formation?

Your presentation sounds that we toss out all other science until we prove the postulate. That's not the case. The other science remains, as it's the presently best working models for the event. The next step in the guess that it might be cosmic rays is to build a testable postulate. Good science takes these ideas and sees if there is evidence that supports, or not, the idea. There are various cosmic ray work undergoing. Here is one such cosmic ray experiment

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What if there is some other unknown mechanism that leads to negative feedbacks that we currently dont know anything about?

This is exactly what science does. It tries to understand all mechanisms that lead to the event(s). And today climatologists continue to research various inputs into the system and determine their impacts. It's typically easier to find the larger events than the smaller events. This is why the sun and CO2 are indicated as larger factors. This doesn't disregard others factors. As climatology progresses it'll figure out the impact of the various smaller factors too.

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How it works or how much it affects climate is something that no one currently knows for sure.

You're saying climatologists aren't done. I agree. Thus, we should continue to fund research of our planet.

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You cant calculate the effects of sun link if there is some unknown sun effect that has nothing to do with TSI.

Sure you can. If one can calculate the effect within a set of consistent boundary science says we're likely on the correct path. We then continue to observe and identify more 'unknown's on the system to bring the error boundary to zero. The true answer here is to what degree does this unknown effect have to the system. If it's miniscule it's much less of a problem than a large effect.

Take another system of science. Gravity. First we detected the constant things fall to earth. Then we worked on a formula that worked, F=MA does very well. Then we noticed unknowns existed, using this equation Mercury should spiral into the sun and burn up. We build postulates to why this doesn't work and observe them. We found out it wasn't because the planet Vulcan helps keep it in orbit. We found out that Einstein's Theory of Gravity keeps it out of the sun. This reduced our error boundary. We continue to observe effects based on the newer, less error prone, forumla and we still see unknowns. Thusly, we continue our research into gravity at the quantum to weed out those errors. We call this.. Scientific progress... Something that's clearly undergoing today in climatology. We don't throw up our hands and say we know nothing of gravity so just ignore it. Yet denials tell us all the time that we don't know all exact factors in the climate so let's just throw up our hands and walk away. That's silly and a denial of the scientific process.

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CO2 is simply not a pollutant in my opinon and we should instead focus on other environmental problems which we already have enough of.

What is a pollutant? I commonly use the definition of - any item that's introduced into the environment that negatively impacts the usefulness of that environmental resource. If CO2 is going to warm the planet we will see swiftly changing environments which is going to produce a change in environmental resources. We've definitely seen that humans kill each other of over limited resources. Thusly, I'd expect CO2 to have a polluant effect as we create areas that are negatively impacted in it's usefulness. If we don't plan a smooth transition, likely a rough (read wars) transition will occur.

EDIT. Here's an example of how an increase of CO2 can effect life. LINK More acidic oceans lead to weakening of shellfish shells. This makes it easier for predators to eat them. Also, too acidic water negative the effects of Clownfish detecting predators. In fact it makes the predator scent more attractive. These are instances where the chemical change in water increase the probability of death. Definitely a negative impact.

Last edited by BrianK on 11-Jul-2010 at 08:14 PM.
Last edited by BrianK on 11-Jul-2010 at 08:13 PM.

@Tomas

First half of 2010 the hottest on NASA's record.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/19/breaking-phil-jones-got-to-endorse-papers-for-oxburgh-inquiry/

If one wants a good read to how the science of climatology has progressed on the issue of Global Warming Spencer Weart has a good book and webpage called The Discovery of Global Warming It has a good background, contains a nice timeline, and links to quite a bit of the science.


Interesting enough is there is a new emerging field of archeology Ice Patch Archeology Besides finding stuff in ice that is over 10K years old theyare compiling a database of finds from static ice fields.

Researching warming climates. Researching are sampling Greenland ice to determine what the climate was like 130K-150K years ago when it was 3-5C warmer than today. A look at the Eemian period

Last edited by BrianK on 31-Jul-2010 at 04:18 PM.