Global Warming... a hoax?

[FORMER_FYRDMAN]

The IPCC has indeed sought clarity. Why not?

A few pages ago you told us there was nothing to investigate as the science was cast iron and settled.

Make your mind up Ashie

Did I say "cast Iron"? I think you are dissembling.

The science is settled (not a scientific term). The scientific evidence is overwhelming. The IPCC seeks clarity over the illegally hacked emails. Why should it not?

It is showing the same good faith shown by Prof Jones.

Ashie, even the BBC aren't backing that line :D :D :D :D :D :D

"Hello Berlin, this is Stalingrad, the Sixth Army on the Volga..........."

Whatever else, you're worth the price of admission!

[spunkymonkey]

I suppose the title of this thread is ironic then?

No, the title of this thread is a question - the answer to which is (probably) "No". But it doesn't need to be either a fact or a hoax. It can just as well be an honest mistake, or fact but nothing to do with man. It can even be fact, because of man, but far less important than some people think.

Only Bacofoil shareholders really believe it's an outright fraud or hoax, in exactly the same way that only Alcan fetishists would swallow the whole "Inconvenient truth / armageddon round the corner / repent or we'll all drown" hysteria that's peddled by the likes of Al Gore.

The trouble is, as long as those two factions keep shouting - entertaining though it may be - the chance of any real progress being made in knowledge is hampered by the noise.

[Schleswig-Holstein]

I'm pretty damned sure the data re-examining.
Ottar? Shape when wet? SH?

Sorry mate, was doing like all good men should be and drinking of a Friday night.

I don't have a problem with a check on the data.

that ok?

[jagman]

I'm pretty damned sure the data re-examining.
Ottar? Shape when wet? SH?

Sorry mate, was doing like all good men should be and drinking of a Friday night.

I don't have a problem with a check on the data.

that ok?

Yup :D That'll do me SH!
To be perfectly honest I think a genuine and realistic review of the data that the whole climate change theory is built upon is long overdue and the best possible outcome of the CRU email debacle.
With a little luck it will help dispense with the sensationalism and we can get a proper grip on the facts.

[Schleswig-Holstein]

This is long, but pretty well put together: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nnVQ2fROOg

It will don't do much to change some peoples opinions, but shows just how far the CRU hack has spread and how foamy mouthed the right have got in the US about it.

[spunkymonkey]

I'm pretty damned sure the data re-examining.
Ottar? Shape when wet? SH?

Sorry mate, was doing like all good men should be and drinking of a Friday night.

I don't have a problem with a check on the data.

that ok?

Unfortunately, SH, it appears the Government may not be as sensible as you:

The Government is attempting to stop the Met Office from carrying out the re-examination, arguing that it would be seized upon by climate change sceptics.

Then again, anyone who refers to half of his electorate (roughly the number that polls are suggesting are undecided on AGW) as "behind-the-times, anti-science, flat-earth climate sceptics" probably isn't worth paying much attention to.

I honestly didn't think anything could turn me against my innate socialist roots but being described as that seems to have done it.

Go Gordie!

[pandaplodder]

The Met Office plans to re-examine 160 years of temperature data after admitting that public confidence in the science on man-made global warming has been shattered by leaked e-mails.

The new analysis of the data will take three years, meaning that the Met Office will not be able to state with absolute confidence the extent of the warming trend until the end of 2012.

The Met Office database is one of three main sources of temperature data analysis on which the UN’s main climate change science body relies for its assessment that global warming is a serious danger to the world. This assessment is the basis for next week’s climate change talks in Copenhagen aimed at cutting CO2 emissions.

The Government is attempting to stop the Met Office from carrying out the re-examination, arguing that it would be seized upon by climate change sceptics.

The Met Office works closely with the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU), which is being investigated after e-mails written by its director, Phil Jones, appeared to show an attempt to manipulate temperature data and block alternative scientific views.

The Met Office’s published data showing a warming trend draws heavily on CRU analysis. CRU supplied all the land temperature data to the Met Office, which added this to its own analysis of sea temperature data.

Since the stolen e-mails were published, the chief executive of the Met Office has written to national meteorological offices in 188 countries asking their permission to release the raw data that they collected from their weather stations.

The Met Office is confident that its analysis will eventually be shown to be correct. However, it says it wants to create a new and fully open method of analysing temperature data.

The development will add to fears that influential sceptics in other countries, including the US and Australia, are using the controversy to put pressure on leaders to resist making ambitious deals for cutting CO2.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change admitted yesterday that it needed to consider the full implications of the e-mails and whether they cast doubt on any of the evidence for man-made global warming.

http://www.timesonli...icle6945445.ece

[corridor_of_Powers]

This is long, but pretty well put together: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nnVQ2fROOg

Watched it. Snappy piece.

SH what is the perceived problem with dendrochronological samples and data?

Does it not closely match other records? I.E. if you use dendrochronology data from the last century does it not mirror temperature/climate trends from the same period?

I found this interesting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4PeD...eature=related

Suggests that there is an upward trend in temperature but it is nothing new. Is dendrochronology not a reliable indicator?

coP

[lsquared]

'Global Warming ... a hoax?'

YES.

Next question please.

[chieftiff]

This is long, but pretty well put together: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nnVQ2fROOg

I have to disagree, it's not well put together at all, in fact it completely skirts the major issues and chooses to focus on the dross that the cranks have dragged up.

1. Jones has appeared to select the research which best matches his group's agenda, even inferring that certain research will be kept from the IPCC.
2. Jones and his cronies appear to have attempted to reshape the peer review process in their favour, why? Well the answer is actually in the e-mails too, they couldn't be bothered to spend time refuting science which they (as the self elected climate police) considered trivial.
3. The data is now being made available to everyone, as it always should have been, it was never the private data of a few climate scientists, in fact it all belonged to tax payers. Unfortunately the raw data has been destroyed in a small minded act of stupidity (I don't think it was actually done to frustrate anyone)

Stupid science isn't what I want to see, accurate and clever science which stands up to scrutiny, can be repeated and has been challenged and found to be correct, that's the sort of science people will listen to. The e-mail debacle is a good thing and I believe it will ultimately demonstrate just how robust most of the science is, in the meantime dismissing it as irrelevant is just putting your head in the sand.

[spunkymonkey]

Oh dear:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8387737.stm

IPCC getting caught out using non- peer review literature and possibly confusing 2035 with 2350 in the timeline for the scary Himalayan Glacier melt.

The UN panel on climate change warning that Himalayan glaciers could melt to a fifth of current levels by 2035 is wildly inaccurate, an academic says.

J Graham Cogley, a professor at Ontario Trent University, says he believes the UN authors got the date from an earlier report wrong by more than 300 years.

He is astonished they "misread 2350 as 2035". The authors deny the claims.

Leading glaciologists say the report has caused confusion and "a catalogue of errors in Himalayan glaciology". .....

.... Professor Cogley has found a 1996 document by a leading hydrologist, VM Kotlyakov, that mentions 2350 as the year by which there will be massive and precipitate melting of glaciers.

"The extrapolar glaciation of the Earth will be decaying at rapid, catastrophic rates - its total area will shrink from 500,000 to 100,000 square kilometres by the year 2350," Mr Kotlyakov's report said.

Mr Cogley says it is astonishing that none of the 10 authors of the 2007 IPCC report could spot the error and "misread 2350 as 2035".

"I do suggest that the glaciological community might consider advising the IPCC about ways to avoid such egregious errors as the 2035 versus 2350 confusion in the future," says Mr Cogley. ....

.... The IPCC relied on three documents to arrive at 2035 as the "outer year" for shrinkage of glaciers.

They are: a 2005 World Wide Fund for Nature report on glaciers; a 1996 Unesco document on hydrology; and a 1999 news report in New Scientist.

Incidentally, none of these documents have been reviewed by peer professionals, which is what the IPCC is mandated to be doing.

Murari Lal, a climate expert who was one of the leading authors of the 2007 IPCC report, denied it had its facts wrong about melting Himalayan glaciers.

But he admitted the report relied on non-peer reviewed - or 'unpublished' - documents when assessing the status of the glaciers.

Now, that may or may not affect the basic truth (whatever that is) but the world's "pre-eminent experts" really aren't coming across as quite as professionally scientific as they'd have us believe!

[chieftiff]

Oh dear:

I posted a link to an article about this very thing last week, I'm guessing people don't bother to follow links on here anymore, or perhaps the BBC did! Here is is in it's glory:

"Dr Madhav Khandekar is a former research scientist from Environment Canada and is an expert reviewer for the IPCC 2007 Climate Change Documents. Khandekar has been in the fields of weather & climate for over 52 years. He has agreed to write this very informative guest weblog.

Global warming and glacier melt-down debate: A tempest in a teapot?

Madhav L Khandekar

The debate over global warming & “rapid� melting of world-wide glaciers and in particular the Himalayan glaciers is once again heating up. There were a flurry of reports, a few weeks ago, in the media and in particular on the BBC (UK) world-wide news service about the Himalayan glaciers melting rapidly in the face of global warming. As this debate was raging, a comprehensive report by Dr V K Raina (Himalayan glaciers: A state-of-the art review of glacial studies, glacial retreat and climate change) was released by the Indian Minister of Environment & Forestry in New Delhi , India.

Vijay Kumar Raina, a senior glaciologist and an avid mountaineer himself, has carefully analyzed some 20 glaciers to document retreat as well as advance of some of the glaciers and has cautiously concluded that it is premature to make a statement that the Himalayan glaciers are retreating abnormally because of global warming. The Indian Minister of Environment Mr Jairam Ramesh hailed the report as an excellent latest study on glaciers and tacitly agreed with the conclusion.

Predictably, the IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri reacted angrily citing the IPCC 2007 climate change reports which asserted that the (Himalayan) glaciers are receding faster than in any other part of the world and if the present rate ( of melting) continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps even sooner is very high if the earth keeps warming at the current rate. Several other Indian scientists and glaciologists have got into the debate now with some of them criticizing the Indian Government with an ostrich-like attitude in the face of impending disaster.

What is the reality? Let us take a closer look:

First, where did this number 2035 (the year when glaciers could vanish) come from?

According to Prof Graham Cogley (Trent University, Ontario), a short article on the future of glaciers by a Russian scientist (Kotlyakov, V.M., 1996, The future of glaciers under the expected climate warming, 61-66, in Kotlyakov, V.M., ed., 1996, Variations of Snow and Ice in the Past and at Present on a Global and Regional Scale, Technical Documents in Hydrology, 1. UNESCO, Paris (IHP-IV Project H-4.1). 78p estimates 2350 as the year for disappearance of glaciers, but the IPCC authors misread 2350 as 2035 in the Official IPCC documents, WGII 2007 p. 493!

So we have a raging debate about impending glacier melt-down because of sloppiness of some IPCC authors! Further, according to Kotlyakov, the present glacier area of some 500,000 km2 could shrink to 100,000 km2 and this could happen NOT in 2035 but in 2350, if the current rate of warming continues. Also this estimated glacier area and its shrinkage does not include internal drainage basin of central Asia with an estimated area of some 40,000 km2 .

Let us now look at the statement that Himalayan glaciers are receding faster than in any other part of the world. How true is this statement?

Prof Graham Cogley (Trent University Peterborough Ontario Canada ) who has analyzed shrinkage rates of many glaciers also refutes the IPCC claim that Himalayan glaciers are shrinking faster than in any other part of the world. A recent news item from Science ( V 326 13 November 2009, p.924) cites Prof Jeffrey Kargel’s ( University of Arizona USA) study which suggests that many glaciers in the Karakoram Mountains ( straddling India and Pakistan) have stabilized or undergone an aggressive advance in recent years.

Among many important conclusions drawn by Raina in his comprehensive report, the following statement best describes the present state of the Himalayan glaciers: Glaciers in the Himalayas, over the past 100 years, behave in contrasting ways. Some glaciers (e.g. Sonapani) have retreated by as much as 500m in the last 100 years, while others ( e.g. Kangriz) have retreated just by an inch or so during the same period.

What is the cause for some glaciers to retreat while others to advance, sometimes in adjoining areas?

Not an easy question to answer. Many local and regional features like strong local winds causing erosion, small-scale temperature and precipitation differences and most certainly large-scale atmospheric circulation changes come into play in determining glacier retreat and advance. Most glaciologists now agree that it is the moisture depletion, not temperature increase that is the primary cause for glacier retreat. The depleting ice cap on Mt Kilimanajaro (in east Africa, near equator) is often cited as an “evidence� of global warming, however an excellent paper by Kaser et al ( 2004, Int’l J of Climatology) documents how the peculiar geography of the Mountain together with gradual decline of moisture at mid-tropospheric level since the late nineteenth century has resulted in depletion of its ice cap. These authors discount recent temperature increase as the cause of ice cap shrinking. In case of the Himalayan glaciers, precipitation patterns, especially snow precipitation and its intra-seasonal variations, seem to be an important parameter. Heavy late winter snow precipitation seems to improve the health of some glaciers in the Himalayas (Koul & Ganjoo Climatic Change 2009).

Finally two glaciers in the Himalayas deserve special attention: The Siachen glacier (second largest outside of Polar latitudes) is about 75 km long and advanced 700 m between 1862 and 1909, then retreated 400 m between 1929 and 1958. In the last 50 years, the Siachen has stayed about same. The Gangotri glacier, the source of water for the Holy River Ganga was retreating at 20 m per year up to 2000, but then slowed down. In the last two years, the glacier is at a standstill.

In summary, the glaciers in the Himalayas are retreating, but NOT any faster than other glaciers in the Arctic and elsewhere. The two large and most important glaciers of the Himalayas show very little retreat at this point in time. The primary reason for retreat of some of the other glaciers seems to be lack of adequate winter snow accumulation. This depletion of winter snow could be due many factors like inter-annual variability of winter precipitation or possible southward displacement of the sub-tropical jet stream which straddles the Himalayan Mountains over a long 1500 km path.

It is premature at this stage to link global warming to the deteriorating state of Himalayan glaciers at this time. The Indian Environment Minister MR Jairam Ramesh has correctly observed “let us not write an epitaph on Himalaya glaciers at this time�

Acknowledgements: I am grateful to Prof Roger Pielke sr for inviting me to write this commentary for his webblog and Prof Graham Cogley’s internet commentary was helpful in identifying the misread of the year 2350 to 2035 in the IPCC WGII 2007".

[spunkymonkey]

I had followed your link, Chief, but seeing as it got virtually ignored I figured the BBC repeating it might help people take notice. Especially given their admission of not using peer review for this (not even the questionable variety).

Isn't "It's true cos of peer review" the IPCC's emergency mantra?

[chieftiff]

I had followed your link, Chief, but seeing as it got virtually ignored I figured the BBC repeating it might help people take notice. Especially given their admission of not using peer review for this (not even the questionable variety).

Isn't "It's true cos of peer review" the IPCC's emergency mantra?

It's a sad day when people actually consider the BBC as fair and even minded in their reporting, they've been transmitting propoganda of one sort or another for their entire transmission history. It just happens to be following the "deniers are evil" mantra of of Monboit and his ilk so I suppose it's a breath of fresh air for them to report anything even remotely confrontational on the story of climate.

Watched Milliband on the politics show this morning, not only does he look and sound like a 12 year old but his arguments are about as robust, a good opportunity to refute Lawson's assertions on this mornings show lost to ignorance of the facts. Lawson came out on top sadly with Milliband stressing how important it was to ridicule the deniers by calling them flat earthers or such instead of engaging in accurate and scientififc debate. Apparent credibility (rather than real scientific credibility) is more important than fact.............. a strange world we live in where a former politician, economist and trash science writer can come out on top in a short debate on climate over the poorly informed Climate Change Minister who still insists that the climate is warming in the latter part of this decade when all the data indicates that actually.......... it's cooling and nobody understands why!

[ashie]

Climategate Looking More And More Like Watergate

As anti-science folks like Sarah Palin continue to make big noise over "Climategate," new evidence has emerged suggesting an organized effort to dig up dirt ahead of the upcoming climate summit in Copenhagen. From The Raw Story:

A series of repeated break-in and computer hacking attempts at a Canadian climate research institute are a sign of a "well-orchestrated campaign of harassment" against climate researchers ahead of the Copenhagen summit, several news sources report.

Employees at the University of Victoria, in British Columbia, have revealed that the school's Centre for Climate Modelling has experienced at least two break-ins in recent months, as well as several attempts at hacking into the center's computer network.

The news comes a week after revelations that computer hackers stole thousands of emails from a climate research center at the University of East Anglia in the UK, some of which purportedly show attempts to cover up data that does not fit with claims about global warming.

There is much left to learn about how the "Climategate" e-mails were obtained, but these revelations suggest something more nefarious could be afoot. With cap and trade legislation on the horizon and billions of dollars at stake, it is not unreasonable to suggest that a person, organization or corporation would go to such measures to protect their interests.

http://crooksandliars.com/logan-murp...e-and-more-wat