Roger Pielke Jr writes about scientists, and reporters, who attempt to link recently seen weather to evidence that man-made global warming is true: (h/t Tom Nelson)
Let’s see if I can make this simple.
What happens in the weather this week or next tells us absolutely nothing about the role of humans in influencing the climate system. It is unjustifiable to claim that a cold snap or heavy snow disproves or even casts doubts predictions of long-term climate change. It is equally unjustifiable to say that a cold snap or heavy snow in any way offers empirical support for predictions of long-term climate change. This goes for all weather events.
Further, it is professionally irresponsible for scientists to claim that some observed weather is “consistent with” long-term predictions of climate change. Any and all weather fits this criteria. Similarly, any and all weather is also “consistent with” failing predictions of long-term climate change. The “consistent with” canard is purposely misleading.
Knowledge of climate requires long-term records — on the time scale of a decade and longer. Don’t look to the weather to learn about climate, unless you have a long time to watch. Using the weather to score cheap political points in the climate debate appears to be a tactical area of agreement among those who otherwise disagree about climate change.
Examples of cheap political points in just the last few days:
“We’re setting climate records at a record-setting pace,” David Orr, a professor of environmental studies and politics at Oberlin College, told HuffPost. “More hottest hots, driest dries, wettest wets, windiest wind conditions. So it’s all part of a pattern. If you ask is this evidence of climate destabilization, the only scientific answer you can give is: It is consistent with what we can expect.” Orr is the author of “Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse” and five other books on politics and the environment.
When temperatures rise as a result of smokestack and tailpipe emissions, droughts, heat waves, and floods become more frequent and more intense. The temperatures create “more and more hot extremes and worse unprecedented extremes and that’s what we’re seeing,” said Neville Nicholls, a climate scientist at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
And the pièce de résistance:
“Climate change skepticism is a lie, and it disrupts the negotiations we’re conducting,” Rachmat Witoelar, the former environment minister and now the special envoy for climate change, said on Thursday.
“Climate change is real beyond a reasonable doubt, and the proof is empirical. Just look at the floods in Pakistan or the forest fires in Russia. Those weather extremes are the result of a changing climate.”
Of course the author in the above article attempts to portray those who are skeptics of MAN-MADE global warming as being skeptics of climate change as a whole which is completely asinine. The climate changes, we all know that. It’s what is causing the changes where we differ.
For those of us who write about climate, extreme weather events—not only heat waves, but also floods, droughts, hurricanes, wildfires and more—are a good excuse to remind readers that while no single extreme event can be cited as proof of climate change, the more you see, the more you have to believe something is going on. It’s kind of like throwing dice: if you get snake-eyes three times in a row, you might raise your eyebrows. If you get ten in a row, it’s pretty unlikely, but not impossible. If you get fifty, you’re playing with loaded dice.
Yup, something is going on…it’s called the climate changing, as it has done from the dawn of time.
Roger once again:
Were I a scientist talking to the media I would deemphasize the efforts to relate weather events to a specific causality. I would emphasize long term trends since the IPCC defines changes in climate to occur over 30 to 50 years. And I would point out that the IPCC predictions, such as they are, have always been for the longer-term future rather than the present.
I would also emphasize the rather important point that no practical action hinges on debates over causality of specific events — the case for aggressive mitigation does not rest on such claims (despite what some scientists claim in public) and the need for adaptation has already been well established. It is a practically meaningless debate.
I talked to a reporter yesterday and made this analogy:
Suppose that I predict that the price of copper will be $100,000 per tonne in 2050. Suppose further that I watch the daily spot market. Would it make sense to claim that every day (week etc.) of gains in price is “consistent with” and proves my prediction? Would it make sense to argue that every day of losses in price is “not inconsistent with” my prediction? Or would it make sense to say that such wiggle watching is not a productive use of my time if the goal is to invest productively? You know my preference;-)
The scientific community in my view loses credibility when it tells the public in the winter that “weather is not climate” but then in the summer forgets that admonition.
See author page
That last highlighted statement tells you all you need to know about the chicken littles. When daily evidence points towards your hypothesis, you claim it as “proof”, when it doesn’t, you claim the evidence as something other than “proof” for your opposition.
No matter what it is it’s always proof of Mann-made global warming. Someone once posted a conglomeration of all of the things that global warming supposedly causes and it ran to several pages.
MAYBE if the GOVERNMENT PRESIDENT CLOSE the BORDERS,
THERE will be less EMISSIONS of whatever and it will solve the problem by sending all thoses illegals to their respectives countrys. so they wont trash more
Does it really make sense to think that we can release 8.5 billion tons per year of previously trapped fossil carbon into a planet’s atmosphere decade after decade, while simultaneously removing much of that planet’s CO2 absorbing forests and grasslands, and not at some point have consequences?
Pffft.
That “consensus” they like to throw out, is based on less than 50 people.
Even the people who pushed and benefited are now backing away. And I when I say “people”, I mean one of the guys who as been right there in front of it all.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/06/13/the-ipcc-consensus-on-climate-change-was-phoney-says-ipcc-insider/
Mike Hume is at the forefront of pushing all things leftist, and AGW has been his piggy bank for a long time. He will ALWAYS be pushing for global governance, (run by leftists). What this tells me, is that the CO2 scare is finally over, other than the few weak-attempts that are bound to endure by the true-believers who now get loud…Guys like Mike are looking ahead.
The type of true-believers are the kind Curt has highlighted for us. You are witnessing the last gasps of the largest fraud ever.
Keep an eye on Hume. He’ll be on to the next “big thing” as soon as the coast is clear.
In the meantime, buy a new sweater and jacket for the upcoming winter, and quite possibly, the next 20, give or take.
No Greg. Our additional CO2 does NOTHING, but add plant food to the planet’s plant life, of which has increased 6% since 1960 because of it.
So we need to pump out more, so that we can feed the children.
Oh…and forests ain’t shit for “reducing” CO2, because the stoopid trees have this bad habit of DYING, which has the result of releasing all the CO2 it ever absorbed.
Tell me Greg…How much does the water in the atmosphere weigh?
@ Patvann, #6: “Oh…and forests ain’t shit for “reducing” CO2, because the stoopid trees have this bad habit of DYING, which has the result of releasing all the CO2 it ever absorbed.”
Yep, dead trees give up their carbon. The point is that living forests hold carbon, so the greater their total biomass, the less carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere. They also reduce atmospheric temperature by utilizing radiant energy to form complex organic molecules and by evaporation.
I’m curious about the 6% increase in global plant biomass since 1960. I’ve never seen that statistic.
Here’s how you get global warming.
http://www.climatechangefraud.com/climate-reports/7479-us-government-in-massive-new-global-warming-scandal-noaa-disgraced
Be sure to check out the chart
The surface of the water in Lake Michigan was 600 degrees F in Egg Harbor, MI and 300-500 degrees F elsewhere around the lake.
So, Roger Pielke Jr is either told to ignore Solar Activity or doesn’t even comprehend that the very thing we orbit will turn our dirtball of a homeworld into cindered, pummled dusty remains once it goes nova.. nor does he consider that it takes only 8 minutes for solar activity to travel our way, and a massive nasty wave that would kill us in a heart beat if we lost our Atmosphere…
Gotcha.
And I love how people still hammer onto Carbon Dioxide when they show so little geological knowledge. Soil core samples are disturbingly racked with sulfaric remains during some of the hottest time periods of Earth’s past. Carbon Dioxide samples have to be corrlated with ice core samples because it is something that doesn’t linger say a massive volanic super stucture ripping apart large swaths of land (Yellowstone as a great geological example). And higher concentrated Carbon Dioxide correlated with time periods that were cold, a little something that was manipulated and lied about in various “Experts” on global warming. The coldest moments in the pervious ice age had ice core samples racked with large deposits of CO2 in them with the segment of very murky and hard to see though. Warmest moments had fine pockets, if any, of nitrogen oxide due to the ice melting and remelting due to the heat which causes such ice to look crystal clear to indicate heating was applied to it to allow gases to escape.
And I do love how many people blindly and ignorantly ignore the effects the most recent Iceland Volcano has over European nations. The erruption may have ended, but the lingering materials and gases spewed by a natural effect is still in the atmosphere this moment effecting the weather of those nations who sit under the path of the plume.
@Greg
Here. Hang out for a while…
http://www.seafriends.org.nz/issues/global/climate5.htm
Curt,
Could you please give us a warning when linking to a story at the HuffPo?
Every time I view that website, and I never do it intentionally, my eyes start bleeding and my head starts spinning around like the Exorcist chick…
Thanks in advance for your consideration…
So, according to the Gorebull Warmmongers we can predict things accurately based on tree rings etc. . . but we still can not read a thermometer.
This is why it is always better for them to “loose” the original data.
http://www.ihatethemedia.com/wisconsin-city-600-degrees
When ever I get into an argument about AGW, I always ask “what is the normal temperature of the Earth?” When they can not answer, I then ask what % of the atmosphere is carbon dioxide? I get answers up to 20%! ( Most people are really ignorant when it comes to AGW. That is why Gore has been able to bamboozel so much of the population. Note that CO2 is .036%!!! With water vapor at 4%. Which gas do you think would have more impact on climate or weather H2O or CO2?
Gas Name Chemical Formula Percent Volume
Nitrogen N2 78.08%
Oxygen O2 20.95%
*Water H2O 0 to 4%
Argon Ar 0.93%
*Carbon Dioxide CO2 0.0360% (3.6 parts per million)
Neon Ne 0.0018%
Helium He 0.0005%
*Methane CH4 0.00017%
Hydrogen H2 0.00005%
*Nitrous Oxide N2O 0.00003%
*Ozone O3 0.000004%
When your learned friends who support AGW start spewing their lack of wisdom, just ask them what the % of CO2 is in the atmosphere. If they do not know, ask them to return when they know what they are talking about!
Dr. Roy W Spenser, a noted climatologist not a politician or grant grabber, has a book out (The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled The World’s Top Climate Scientists) that goes into great detail to explain normal weather pattern and their history. His website is also a good source of AGW info. http://www.drroyspencer.com/
Check out Dr Watts and his studies on the temperature gather stations and the lack of consistency. http://wattsupwiththat.com/
Dr Steve Malloy also lists the daily news articles concerning AGW and comments on them. Somethines, he just lets them fall under their own weight. http://www.junkscience.com/#GWS
You’re exactly right, Randy.
CO2 is a TRACE GAS, and there is 300% MORE argon in the air than CO2!!!
To really bring that into perspective, humans are responsible for 2% of the CO2/year of releases.
Yo, greggie!
1/3 of the Amazon that had been cut down, has since regrown. That is one HELL of a lot of carbon locked up. And it is still growing back.
@Randy, #13: “When your learned friends who support AGW start spewing their lack of wisdom, just ask them what the % of CO2 is in the atmosphere. If they do not know, ask them to return when they know what they are talking about!”
It usually seems counter-intuitive that slightly increasing the presence of a very small component might have a highly significant effect on a very large system. Nevertheless, it often does. Small things can play very big parts within complex systems.
Radiative forcing components in the atmosphere are a perfect example of that.
Nitrogen, oxygen, and argon don’t matter. They’re essentially transparent to solar radiation. Greenhouse gases like CO2 aren’t.
@Otter, #15: “1/3 of the Amazon that had been cut down, has since regrown. That is one HELL of a lot of carbon locked up. And it is still growing back.”
I’m curious about that statistic. I hadn’t previously heard that primordial Amazonian forest has been beating back the farmers and their fields. Nor have I noticed formerly region-wide North American forests relentlessly advancing on sprawling suburban subdivisions, agricultural fields, and strip-mall parking lots.
Nitrogen does matter on a atmospheric level, it is an inert gas for the sakes of our biology but it is used as both a fuel and an insultation gas for experiments in computer processor testing to see the damages of excessive heat and propper useage of various heat sinks. Don’t try to explain how it “doesn’t” insulate to a few engineers I have had the joy of being friends with.
Mistaken liquid nitrogen for the effects of gas nitrogen mixtures is very fool hardy.
@Greg
I suggest you read the following. It explains in great detail, using scientific and accepted theories to explain CO2’s relation to any warming effect the AGW crowd tries to imply.
http://venturaphotonics.com/GlobalWarming.html
The conclusion of the study:
@Greg
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5505093.ece
From the article:
The regrowth is taking place in areas abandoned by farmers and logging areas, and affects the ‘worst case scenarios’ presented by many environmentalists. The data presented does not claim that regrowth is positive when considering all tropical rainforest areas, but does show that it’s not a zero-sum game, like the more outspoken environmentalists want people to think.
In the US, regrowth is almost as prolific, with much of that attributed to changes in logging procedures such as replanting previously clear-cut areas. There is also much new growth in previously unforested areas.
That’s nice Greg. Now overlay the IR (in nm) absorption of CO2 with H2O. Then look up how much water is in the ATM vs CO2.
Then come back to us, and explain how in the past we’ve had over 2500 ppm during earth temps that are both hotter AND colder than present time.
Oh forget it. I could show you quotes by these same “scientists” where they know damn well it’s all bunk, and you wouldn’t believe it, so screw it.
@Patvann
It’s all about ‘faith’. People must have ‘faith’ in the religious idolatry of AGW. If you don’t, then you are considered a scientific pagan who doesn’t know any better. Their ‘consensus’ nonsense is a ruse to shame people into believing their mantras.
Fact: Trees only convert Co2 to Oxygen in the daytime through photosynthesis. At night they produce CO2. That is where the Smokey Mountains get their name, from the haze created by lingering CO2. It would seem to be an ideal place to test the CO2 theories, except they don’t hold up there either. None of this CO2 seems to be resulting in the temperature swings to that local environment, which the global warming fanatics predict must occur, and the weather’s not bad at all there.