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Chris · On A Journey (500 Miles) Joined: 16 Jun 2007 Posts: 23

In addition to my post a minute ago, while the sun is the main force behind the Earth's climate, it is not the only factor regarding regional or global temperatures. These include Tectonic processes, mountains, continental spatiality, Milkanovitch cycles (obliquity, eccentricty, precession), volcanic activity, ocean circulation, atmospheric concentrations, and more.

The sun is responsible for almost all the energy received by Earth, but it cannot account for modern trends. The more important factor is the rise in greenhouse gases, primarily CO2, as a result of human activities, which is the most important variable now for CHANGE of temperature. The extra heat distributed by CO2 originally came from the sun, and is captured by the CO2 after being absorbed the Earth and radiated back outward toward space.

Assuming everything I just said was false, and we have a "what if" situation and "what if" the MWP was warmer globally. Well, so what? There clearly must have been a natural forcing. So now the onus is on you to show what today's natural forcing is.

Neil · Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 5:14 pm Post subject:

The graphs clearly show warming periods from 200-300AD & 800-1400AD in China as here. Though they do show us currently approaching the historical highpoints they certainly don't show the flatlining prior to the 20th C postdicted by the Hockey stick theory.

Holebender while I appreciate your robust disapproval of Screegor insisting that there was no MWP outside Europe & the north Atlantic I think you should moderate your language. It makes you look like an idiot.
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The aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken

Screegor · Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 5:55 pm Post subject:

Chris · On A Journey (500 Miles) Joined: 16 Jun 2007 Posts: 23

Screegor · Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 6:48 pm Post subject:

Chris in your paper, this statement is pretty worrying:-

"The recent, rapid, and accelerating retreat of glaciers on a
near-global scale suggests that the current increase in the
Earth’s globally averaged temperature (Fig. 6D; refs. 49 and
50) may now have prematurely interrupted the natural progression
of cooling in the late Holocene. These observations
suggest that within a century human activities may have
nudged global-scale climate conditions closer to those that
prevailed before 5,000 yr ago, during the early Holocene. If this
is the case, then Earth’s currently retreating glaciers may signal
that the climate system has exceeded a critical threshold and
that most low-latitude, high-altitude glaciers are likely to
disappear in the near future." Thompson et al. (2006)
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Holebender (2007):
"Now I remember why I undertook never to respond to Neil some time last year. He's a dick."

Chris · On A Journey (500 Miles) Joined: 16 Jun 2007 Posts: 23

Screegor · Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 8:23 pm Post subject:

Chris · On A Journey (500 Miles) Joined: 16 Jun 2007 Posts: 23

Screegor · Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 9:42 pm Post subject:

Holebender · Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 8:01 am Post subject:

The dick makes himself look like a dick when he deliberately misrepresents or misquotes other posters. What a dick!
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"My instinct is to agree with your opinion of his verse, but I've never so much as glanced at it." - agentmancuso

Neil · Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 10:31 am Post subject:

OK Screegor you asked for questions:

1) Do you accept that the Medieval warming & the Late Roman & others over many millenia have happened, that some at least of them have been considerably warmer than presently, that npne pf them have involved tipping points leading to extinctions duev to heat & indeed that, where we have records, they have actually been periods of relative prosperity?

2) That Mann's Hockey Stick graph, which denied the previous warmings has been found to be so mathematically flawed that almost any figures entered into it produce the same Hockey Stick prediction, that Mann has deliberately hidden the algorythms he used & that in adopting this theory so wholeheartedly without making routine checks into the maths the IPCC & peer reviewers have abjectly failed to achieve anything like scientific rigour?

3) That not only is the warming theory an unfalsifiable theory & hence unscientific but that there is no agreement even between supporters as to what it amounts to? For example government science advisor Sir David King has proclaimed that it will be so severe that by 2100 Antarctica will be the only inhabitable continent (a rise of at least 30 degrees) whereas subsequently, in what the BBC described as "his strongest warning yet", Sir David King, the government science advisor warned that it would be a 3 degree rise?

4) Do you agree that there have been very many warming predictions (such as of a 300 feet sea level rise, 100 foot sea level rise, 20 foot sea level rise, Sir David's earlier prediction, the Ice Age, that the increase measured up to 1998 would continue at that rate, the alleged dissappearance under the waves of the Netherlands by 2007 etc) which are no longer seriously put forward (I am including only serious predictions not the Day After Hollywood hockum) & that the current IPCC warning of a 15 inch sea level rise is less catastrophic?

5) Over the decades the "environmentalist" movement have come up with many hundreds of scare stories beyond the warming scares (peak oil in 1980, 1990, 2000 etc, pollution bringing life expectancy down to 40 by 2000, extinction of millions of species, extinction of most sea life forcing us to move away from coastal areas because of the smell of dead fish, the ozone hole to keep expanding for 50 years after the banning of CFCs etc etc).

Can you name a single "environmentalist" catastrophe story which, over time, has turned out to be fully true.? (You may wish to know that I have asked this question online several times including to a senior member of the Green party & received no positive answer).

PS The various alleged scientists above may wish to know that the well publicised claim of a 20% slowdown in the Gulf Stream has now, with much less publicity, been acknowledged by its authors to be wrong.

PPS Chris whatever you say, your graphs clearly DO show highpoints in China during the Roman & Medieval wearmings as anybody can see.

PPPS I was aware that Holebinder, in his eagerness to be rude to me, actually had not noticed that he was attacking me for what Screegor, not I, said. Rather than descend to his level I thought it more appropriate to use irony to point out his idiocy. Perhaps this was overly subtle.
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The aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken

SLG · Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 11:06 am Post subject:

I'll let Screegor and Chris deal with the points as they sees fit, but on the points that I had discussed earlier...

Screegor · Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 11:48 am Post subject:

I'll reply tonight, I have a day of solid meetings, conferences and field work today. Even if Chris replys I'll answer as some of our views may be different on some of these things.
_________________
Holebender (2007):
"Now I remember why I undertook never to respond to Neil some time last year. He's a dick."

Neil · Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 11:56 am Post subject:

Screegor · Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 12:00 pm Post subject:

Neil can you do me a favour though, can you link in where you have read these things. It is easier to get an idea on where you learnt that Mann's graphs were falsified, who made the 30 oC prediction originally, who predicted the rises in sea levels etc. It is easier to discuss when I can read both sides of the arguement from primary (or even secondary sources (then I may be able to find the primary source if it exists).

Either way I will reply tonight. I will report on the newest primary source evidence and peer reviewed publications. I will do it as fairly as I can.
_________________
Holebender (2007):
"Now I remember why I undertook never to respond to Neil some time last year. He's a dick."

SLG · Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 12:17 pm Post subject:

Neil · Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 12:57 pm Post subject:

Stephen McIntyre was unable to get his analysis of the Hockey Stick published in peer reviewed form by Nature, though they did publish many articles critical of him.

After much to & froing they said they wouldn't publish because he had already made it available on the net. This is not a criticism of his paper - the only real criticism of his paer would be that he got his maths wrong, which has not happened.

I think you greatly overestimate the sanctity provided by peer review in journals which have already publicly nailed their colours to a particular mast.

Galileo's peers (& self styled superiors) didn't appove his publication & indeed burned CGordiano to death for scepticism.
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The aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken

Screegor · Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 1:02 pm Post subject:

Just to point out CFCs are still a problem, the media attention was lost - but the effect is still dramatic. Look to the primary sources. Problems do not disappear purely as the media is lost.

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/ozone_record.html

" NASA and NOAA Announce Ozone Hole is a Double Record Breaker 10.19.06 "

"Since the adoption and strengthening of the Montreal Protocol has led to reductions in the emissions of CFCs, atmospheric concentrations of the most significant compounds have been declining. These substances are being gradually removed from the atmosphere. By 2015, the Antarctic ozone hole would have reduced by only 1 million km² out of 25 (Newman et al., 2004); complete recovery of the Antarctic ozone layer will not occur until the year 2050 or later. Work has suggested that a detectable (and statistically significant) recovery will not occur until around 2024, with ozone levels recovering to 1980 levels by around 2068.
Newman, P. A., Nash, E. R., Kawa, S. R., Montzka, S. A. and Schauffler, S. M (2006). "When will the Antarctic ozone hole recover?". Geophysical Research Letters 33: L12814"

_________________
Holebender (2007):
"Now I remember why I undertook never to respond to Neil some time last year. He's a dick."

SLG · Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 2:26 pm Post subject:

Neil · Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 4:12 pm Post subject:

You are in a circular argument SLG - his criticism of the Hockeystick wasn't peer reviewed because it wasn't good enough for publication because it wasn't peer reviewed & it wasn't peer reviewed because Nature refused to publish it.

The only real justification for publication is whether it was mathematically correct in saying that the Hockey Stick theory was mathematically, wrong producing the same results from almost any results. If it is right it is automatically not merely worth publishing but, since preparations against putative warming are costing so very many billions, of vital importance.

The corollary of that would be that Nature would therefore be grossly wrong & their peer review process deeply corrupt.

The point about the ozone hole is not that it is still there (it was almost certainly there long before human beings started measuring it) but that it has not kept growing & taken 50 years before contraction started as "environmentalists" insisted
_________________
The aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken