Fielding talks to Wong on climate change

Posted by Senator Steve Fielding on June 16 2009 | 163 Comments

Yesterday I met with the Climate Change Minister Penny Wong and the country’s chief scientist Professor Penny Sackket here in Canberra.

I went into the meeting with an open mind as I am not a sceptic with three key questions I wanted the government to answer following on from my recent self-funded trip to Washington.

I feel it’s important I get these answers from the Rudd Government directly because they are the ones who are driving the legislation which will be put before the Senate next week.

I asked the Minister and her team of experts to explain why global temperatures have remained steady over the last 10 years while carbon dioxide emissions have increased.

The Minister’s team of experts failed to answer the question directly in the meeting and instead insisted on changing the goal posts and rephrasing the question.

Until now the IPCC has only measured global warming according to air temperature, but yesterday, for the first time, the government introduced the notion of ocean temperatures.

This is something which hasn’t been bought up in any discussions I have had with the government until now. So I will look at the merits of measuring ocean temperatures and will go through any answers I get to my questions from Minister Wong.

However, as I am yet to receive them in writing, I can’t make a decision on whether I agree or disagree that man-made carbon dioxide emissions are the main driver of global warming.

I hope that at the end of this process the science can be cleared up as this is such an important decision for the Australian people. If an ETS was introduced it could ultimately cost thousands of jobs and drive the prices of groceries and electricity up.

I suspect that these questions are of interest to many of you given the number of phone calls, emails and comments on my website that I have been receiving on this issue. I appreciate your honest and forthright commentary, as always. Keep them coming until we get to the bottom of it.

Comments

1017 #89 Melting glacier in Iceland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoIC-4NUI9E

Iceland has a GDP of 7th in the world (Australia 13th).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
It has a Human Development Index rank of 1st in the world since 2005 (Australia 4th). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index

The newly elected prime minister of Iceland is Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir. She is the first openly gay chief officer of the executive branch of a government . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceland

Comment by dontbestupid on 30 August 2009 at 03:19:14 PM
Damien, or here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/10/rss-global-temperature-for-june-09-also-down/

Comment by treeman on 12 July 2009 at 08:40:45 PM
Damien, have a look here: http://www.climatesceptics.com.au/sceptic-scientists.html

Comment by treeman on 12 July 2009 at 08:37:13 PM
wow, should have checked my last post for spelling, I meant can someone compare this decade (not decase) with previous decades. Thanks again.

Comment by damien on 12 July 2009 at 02:00:04 AM
I believe your evidence that the temp has remained steady for 10 years. Can someone hear with more knowledge than me please put a graph showing last 50 or 100 years. 10 years is such a small time frame when it comes to climate change. And can someone please post which other 10 year periods have been as warm on ave. as this last 10.
Is this 10 years unusually warm or on average to other decased?

Thanks

Comment by damien on 12 July 2009 at 01:56:36 AM
Paul sassafras, let’s face it the veracity of data and information on global warming/climate change and the assumed correlation with increasing CO2 levels or otherwise can be challenged from whichever side of the fence one sits. I agree that one has to trust “with little else to go on” I just can’t bring myself to trust the heavily politicized IPCC, although they have recently admitted they could be wrong.
An example of garbage in is the surface temperature data collection. Stations have been moved, have had pavement laid beside, air conditioners installed near and so on, and yet the data has been accepted as valid and included in the modeling. http://climatesci.org/2009/05/04/is-the-us-surface-temperature-record-reliable-by-anthony-watts/
My beef is that CO2 has been “conveniently” labeled as the culprit for global warming/climate change even when it became evident that the planet was cooling. No-one can deny particulate pollution is man made or that environmental degradation needs to be managed, but to cherry pick CO2 as the culprit when it is the driver for plant growth and then to propose a cap and trade on it is not the way to go, especially with the anomalies and discrepancies in the so called “settled science”

Gaz you didn’t sound patronizing, you were patronizing not just of Steve but anyone questioning AGW hypothesis. Don’t worry, your position is not unusual either, and as time goes by your own “profound ignorance’ is showing so apology not required. The due diligence report below seems to have Wong out on a limb, yourself included.
http://joannenova.com.au/globalwarming/wong-fielding/7-carter-evans-franks-kininmonth-due-diligence-on-wong.pdf
Little wonder CO2 has disappeared from the AGW vocabulary lately with the pledge by G8 Leaders to limit temperature to 2 degrees above “pre-industrial” The 2 degree pledge at G8 will be easy to achieve with a cooling trend for the last ten years!
For me it’s no coincidence that Rudd appears increasingly “pessimistic” about Copenhagen as the crucible for a new Kyoto protocol. It’s obvious that there is no Magic Handle with which governments can control climate.

Steve, you did right to ask the questions. They are valid questions and the responses from the Minister have been found wanting. We live in times when questions are more important than ever. Blind adherence to dogma does no one any favors, especially when the dogma is heavily politicized.

Comment by treeman on 11 July 2009 at 11:33:03 PM
Hey treeman, sorry if I sounded patronising, but it’s difficult to sound otherwise when you’re pointing out that Fielding’s three questions reveal a profound ignorance about the most basic aspects of climate science.

As time goes on, and more and more information is presented to him, it is becoming increasingly obvious that his ignorance is wilful and well-entrenched.

As for you, your position is not unusual.

It could be summed up as “The scientists say there is a problem. Avoiding the problem will require government intervention. I don’t like government intervention. Therefore the scientists must be wrong.”

Classsic denial, the same as you hear from smokers: “The scientists say there is a problem. Avoiding the problem will require me to give up smoking. I don’t want to give up smoking. Therefore the scientists must be wrong.”

The problem in both cases is that the pretzel logic and data-torture you need to apply to justify your position just looks silly.

Comment by Gaz on 09 July 2009 at 01:26:19 PM
Treeman

Yes, and I can reminisce too, eerie, but with another 10 years.

Tortured data? Yes I have to say after reading what is on http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Curious.htm there is some very tortured data, to get some idea of how the data originally looked before it was put on the rack would be for each claim take a look at the response at http://www.ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths many if not all the arguments are covered by links on that page.

For some of the statements at the bottom of the Curious page, I would observe that some of the research reported on the ABC environment pages, from the CSIRO on Southern Ocean acidification, Antarctica gaining or loosing ice, Antarctic temperatures, sea level rise etc in the past 6 months or so are rather at odds with them.

I have visited Roy Spencers site before. My response, on a similar vein to tortured data, would be http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/how-to-cook-a-graph-in-three-easy-lessons.

You mention garbage in garbage out, could you please elaborate on what data you consider to be garbage.

Regarding your link to the article on heritage.org, I couldn’t easily verify the accuracy or assumptions used of the data presented and I hadn’t heard of the people responsible for it so I did a search on http://www.sourcewatch.org for some background information on the Heritage Foundation and on Chip Knappenberger. I found the information most enlightening. I guess it boils down to which organisations on balance you are more likely to trust if you have little else to go on.

I don’t dispute “Government regulation inevitably is a political animal; it’s never guided purely, or even largely, by disinterested science.” However I can’t say I’ve heard of positive environmental outcomes driven by the free market.

Comment by Paul Sassafras on 03 July 2009 at 10:49:33 AM
Gaz, thanks for trying to be polite but Steve and I are not the only ones dissatisfied with Wong’s answers and as for your assertion that the questions are flawed on the basis of beliefs…I guess that puts you up there with Paul Krugman and the slim majority who voted for the Waxman-Markey Bill in the US. Paul Krugman asserts that those who oppose government regulation to deal with climate change are committing “treason against the planet” “It’s more accurate to say that Mr. Krugman is committing treason against reasoned debate. One of the most compelling arguments against climate-change regulation is not that global warming isn’t occurring but, rather, that the dangers of further regulation far outweigh its likely benefits. Government regulation inevitably is a political animal; it’s never guided purely, or even largely, by disinterested science”
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/07/01/treason-against-the-planet-or-treason-against-the-economy/

Thanks Gaz but patronising “deniers” will get you nowhere.

Comment by treeman on 03 July 2009 at 06:58:36 AM
treeman, you’re right - “This blog is all about the three questions Steve asked and Penny didn’t or couldn’t answer satisfactorily” as you say.

But the problem is not with the answers but the questions.

“I asked the Minister and her team of experts to explain why global temperatures have remained steady over the last 10 years while carbon dioxide emissions have increased.” says Fielding.

This question is based on two beleifs.

The first belief is that global temperatures have levelled out in a way that is not consistent a rising trend. That’s what the cherry picking argument is about.

If you take one year here and another there, and draw a line between them, it sound plausbile that temperatures have stopped rising, but if you do proper trend analysis and take account of things which caused short term fluctuations, then the claims that temperatures have stopped rising can’t be supported.

The second belief underlying the question is that the accepted theory says CO2 and temerature should go up by the same proportion every year, otherwise climate science is wrong. And that’s incorrect - no-one ever said temperature would change smoothly from year to year in direct proportion to CO2.

So when Fielding asks his question and the answer comes back, in summary, that the temperature trend actually hasn’t flattened out, that there was no reason to expect CO2 and temperature to move exactly in parallel, and that divergence should be expected for all these reasons, it’s understandable that he doesn’t like the answer.

That doesn’t mean the answer is unsatisfactory, it just means it hasn’t satisfied him.

The second of Fielding’s questions rests on the assumption that if the climate changed in the past without human influence, then we can’t be causing it to change now, which is plainly illogical. (That’s leaving aside the question of whether the size and speed of temperature change is unusal on a global scale.)

The third is based on a misunderstanding (I’m trying to be polite here) of how projections are constructed and presented.

As I said, the problem is with the questions.

Comment by Gaz on 02 July 2009 at 02:38:22 PM
Gaz
This blog is all about the three questions Steve asked and Penny didn’t or couldn’t answer satisfactorily. The crux of the discussion is his questions, her answers and the so called settled science around global warming and a correlation with increasing atmospheric CO2.
Who cares whether these wild claims about cherry picking from Gaz and the like are actually a lot of baloney. It’s a dry old argument now with you and slogging it out on just the UAH data so I’m off to greener pastures. Well done Steve, you’ve brought debate to what had become for many a new religion.

Comment by treeman on 02 July 2009 at 01:44:44 PM
steve, it’s not cherry picking to use the whole data set to estimate the trend and to point out obvious reasons why the temperature has deviated from the trend from time to time.

It IS cherry picking to use only those few data points that fit your opinion and ignore the rest.

Plimer, throughout his book, repeatedly makes the claim that the world has cooled since 1998. This is cherry-picking at its finest - comparing 2008 with 1998 and ignoring all that’s gone before and between.

In fact Plimer does just that it in the very paragraph before the one you quote from, when he refers to computer models which “have not been able to accurately predict the cooling that has occurred since 1998”.

This is not just cherry-picking - comparing a La Nina year with and earlier El Nino year is just plain silly - but it also misrepresents what model projections do.

They explicitly don’t purport to predict when there will be short term deviations from the underlying trend. El Ninos and La Ninas are not forecastable beyond the coming year or so. Everyone knows that. The models were never intended to predict the El Nino in 1998 not the La Nina that brought surface temperatures down in 2008.

Any implication that the modeled projections ever tried to predict ups and downs around the trend is simply false.

But the idea that the scientists are all wrong and it’s a UN/IPCC/leftie/greenie plot is just sooo intoxicating, who cares whether these wild claims by Plimer and the like are actually a lot of baloney.

Comment by Gaz on 02 July 2009 at 11:01:55 AM
Steve.
This assessment of Penny Wong’s written reply to your questions is most interesting. Anyone interested in the swiftie that the Rudd Government is attempting pull with ETS legislation should read the Assessment of Minister Wong’s “Written Reply to Senator Fielding’s Three Questions on Climate Change” by Bob Carter, David Evans, Stewart Franks and William Kininmonth here: https://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2009/06/answers-on-climate-change

Comment by treeman on 02 July 2009 at 07:33:16 AM
Steve.
“The end is near for the warmists, I suspect. This month, Jasper Kirkby of CERN explained the Centre’s CLOUD experiment, which is moving forward:
The current understanding of climate change in the industrial age is that it is predominantly caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases, with relatively small natural contributions due to solar irradiance and volcanoes. However, palaeoclimatic reconstructions show that the climate has frequently varied on 100-year time scales during the Holocene (last 10 kyr) by amounts comparable to the present warming – and yet the mechanism or mechanisms are not understood. Some of these reconstructions show clear associations with solar variability, which is recorded in the light radio-isotope archives that measure past variations of cosmic ray intensity. However, despite the increasing evidence of its importance, solar-climate variability is likely to remain controversial until a physical mechanism is established.
“Estimated changes of solar irradiance on these time scales appear to be too small to account for the climate observations. This raises the question of whether cosmic rays may directly affect the climate, providing an effective indirect solar forcing mechanism. Indeed recent satellite observations – although disputed – suggest that cosmic rays may affect clouds. This talk presents an overview of the palaeoclimatic evidence for solar/cosmic ray forcing of the climate, and reviews the possible physical mechanisms. These will be investigated in the CLOUD experiment which begins to take data at the CERN PS later this year.”

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/01/message-in-the-cloud-for-warmists-the-end-is-near/

A reader of Jennifer Marohasy’s environment blog Michael Hammer, “recently studied the official data from the US official weather stations and in particular how it is adjusted after it has been collected. Mr Hammer concludes that the temperature rise profile claimed by the US government is largely if not entirely an artefact of the adjustments applied after the raw data is collected from the weather stations”

http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/06/how-the-us-temperature-record-is-adjusted/

This information echoes Ian Plimer’s claim that discrepancies in data collected from temperature stations in China accounted for all of the measured temperature rise in that country.

Comment by treeman on 02 July 2009 at 07:15:56 AM
Gaz
I looked here http://climate.uah.edu/dec2008.htm and they do note the 0.13 per decade trend. Thank you for pointing it out. The data here: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
mentions nothing about “per decade”
I’m also not sure why there has been no update since 2008, but suspect is has a lot to do with clouds. See herehttp://www.drroyspencer.com/
Roy mentions 30 anomalies here here as well.http://climate.uah.edu/dec2008.htm
As for “cherry picking” Gaz, to hang your hat on the 1998 El Nino when the 2003 European summer, volcano eruptions, the recent cloud data anomalies have as much if not more to say about the satellite data, puts you up there with the best.
Gaz, I take comfort that “some of the more astute politicians have realised that there has been no unprecedented global warming, that climates always change, that there are cyclical climate changes, that there is little relationship between CO2 and climate, that there is no consensus of scientists and that massive structural changes to the economy could be economic and electoral suicide” (Ian Plimer, Heaven+Earth P437)

Comment by treeman on 01 July 2009 at 08:42:41 PM
act now save the planet. acting does not help when its stupid, its just another con where do people think the pollution goes, it just goes to the third world and we pay for it, everythink people are told is a lie, corporate criminals rule. thank god there are a few honest men left in goverment. senator fielding should be congratulated for not buckling to the bullying and lies these greens and kevin rudd ,peter garett, penny wong , and the rest of the sellouts of australias sovereigty to the un. people should look up the un plans for the peoples of the world, you just might get scared, a lot of doctors and professors are like mengala and frankenstein now days,only interested in there own brilliance and standing,pushing there vaccines and drugs,useing the peer review system to stiffle any real intelligence keep believing the goverment loves you go back to sleep now

Comment by lau440 on 01 July 2009 at 03:26:41 PM
Treeman, “see the headers but there is nothing to link the 0.13 to a “per decade trend” “

Well, Treeman, maybe it’s just an amazing fluke that the value marked “trend” at the bottom of each column just happens to be the same as the result you get when you run a regression to work out the linear trend per decade.

Anyway, you can see here..

http://climate.uah.edu/dec2008.htm

..the UAH people referring to “Global trend since Nov. 16, 1978: +0.13 C per decade.”

I don’t know why they haven’t published an update since then. Maybe they got sick of people pointing out their own figures show a rising trend.

By the way, have you heard of the term “cherry picking”?

That’s what you’re doing when you have 30 years of data but choose to make claims about a trend based on the latest year and another year 10 years arlier, and ignore all the other years.

The fact is, 1998 was an El Nino year. That meant surface temperatures rose above the trend for a while. 2008 was a La Nina year, so temperatures dipped under the trend.

You and Senator Fielding can take comfort in that - until another El Nino rolls around.

Comment by Gaz on 30 June 2009 at 06:06:13 PM
Gaz
I see the headers but there is nothing to link the 0.13 to a “per decade trend” I suggest you look here:http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/02/a_tale_of_two_thermometers/print.html
“The other two widely used global temperature data sources are from earth-orbiting satellites UAH (http://climate.uah.edu/) (University of Alabama at Huntsville) and RSS (http://www.remss.com/data/msu/graphics/tlt/medium/global/ch_tlt_2008_03_anom_v03_1.png) (Remote Sensing Systems.) Both show decreasing temperatures over the last decade, with present temperatures barely above the 30 year average”

I rest my case.

Comment by treeman on 30 June 2009 at 05:02:17 PM
Treeman, the UAH data at this link:
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
has headers along both the top and the bottom.
The global sea and land average is the left most column, apart from the year and month values.

The value of 0.13 degrees is not worked out by averaging the whole data set, it is worked out using a standard ordinary least squares estimate of the time trend, and the result is expressed as the increase in degrees C per decade.

Yes, CO2 levels were different in the past, but so were a lot of other things. What’s important now is that the heat in the climate system is rising, as reflected in the surface temperature, it can be explained by human-caused CO2 build-up and can’t be explained by anything else.

The US congressional vote is interesting, but it doesn’t say anything about the science.

Comment by Gaz on 30 June 2009 at 02:13:56 PM
I’d like to say the Liberals will be taking it out of Steve’s hand now, since they have blocked the vote, they have done an about face turn and will vote in the ETS. What we need to see is, will the Labour party go towards the greens or towards the liberal party? So Steve has effectively removed himself from the debate when Penny had him at centre stage. We’ll see what is going to occur now!

Comment by Windguy on 30 June 2009 at 12:09:04 PM
Gaz
I stand corrected on the age of the UAH data. There is no header for the bottom line figures but 0.13 on the lower left seems to be an averaging of the whole data set rather than a calculation per decade. In any case the data set we are looking at is a tiny snapshot compared the proxy temperature/CO2 data which shows far greater CO2 concentrations in far cooler times without industrial emissions. As many others have noted, the science is far from settled despite the fervor of the AGW zealots. That so many Democrats crossed the floor to vote against the Waxman-Markey Bill and only a few Republicans crossed to vote for it is indicative of public opinion today on AGW. The fate of Waxman-Markey will be decided in the US Senate, where it will get far greater scrutiny. My applause goes to Ian Plimer and the growing numbers of scientists who are prepared to risk ad hominem attacks and vilification by speaking out against what has become accepted as “settled science” Steve Fielding should be applauded for taking his stand. It’s a great shame that more Australian politicians haven’t done the same.

Comment by treeman on 30 June 2009 at 05:43:53 AM
Steve,
Maintain the rage please. Whether its air temperatures or ‘moving the goal posts’ to sea temperatures, one thing is clear.
Earth has had its own agenda since it was born and this Y2K bug arguement has to run out of steam (no pun intended) sooner of later.
Minister WONG has in the past relied upon the crippling drought in the Murray / Darling River system as evidence of what, I am not sure.
She is a barrister. She ought to ask the local koori elders of the river’s behaviour over their living memories. She might find (if she’s prepared to investigate objectively) its drought is not so ‘abnormal’, and its degree in much the same catergory.
I challenge the ‘politically correct’ view yet I practice recycling, composting, water conservation, the use of green alternative power sources and alike - yet the left in love Labor press will label me a ‘red neck’.
In light of the average IQ level of electorate generally, I figure I’ve got about another one and a half Parliamentry terms left where I have to keep me views to myself.
All the best.

Comment by The silent majority on 29 June 2009 at 09:46:01 PM
Treeman says: “The UAH data that you linked us to is from 2005! It’s out of date by four years!”
Incorrect, Treeman, the UAH data I linked to extends to May 2009.
The link I gave is exactly the same as the “datasets” link you will find on Spencer’s web site, the one you link to.
At the foot of the table, under the column labelled “globe” you will find this: ” Trend 0.13”
That’s +0.13 degrees C per decade, linear trend.
The below-trend temperatures in the past year or so and the blip up in 1998, indicate nothing other than the temporary effects of El Nino and La Nina events.

Comment by Gaz on 29 June 2009 at 08:01:40 PM
Paul Sassafras
I’ve been on the side of the environment with 30 of my 40 years of adulthood spent growing plants. My early years were spent in punch card and paper tape computer systems when on line processing was just beginning so I’m grounded in data processing.
Skeptics have been taking aim climate change modeling for at least ten years. To quote Professor Ian Plimmer “Computers are used in science to analyse scientific data. Computer models are not data. If computer models torture the data enough, the data will confess to anything. Computer models do not require the rigours of observational science where data is invariably collected outdoors in horrendous weather conditions”.
The methodology for measuring global temperature is evolving faster than the temperature is rising! Roy Spencer sums this up pretty well here:http://www.drroyspencer.com/ Now for the IPCC. This body seems to gloss over anomalies in the information they publish. See: http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Curious.htm
Lastly, I did not say that the collation was flawed. What I said was that the data was flawed. Garbage in equals garbage out. Collate it how you will but garbage is garbage now matter how you chew it.

Comment by treeman on 29 June 2009 at 05:01:35 PM
Treeman

My quote,

“What sceptics are concerned about is that there appears to be a lack of evidence that increasing greenhouse gases concentrations are the main cause of the recent global warming.”

is from, Havequestions on 22 June 2009 at 10:44:20 PM, about my first post.

You are correct about my confusing you with him, I’m used to blogs with names at the top….

Could you please elaborate on, “The modeling used, much of the monitoring methodology, the IPCC itself all have flaws that are becoming more evident.”

“It is just not possible to project “Sea-level rise will not stop in 2100” based on collation of flawed data.”

How is the collation of data flawed?

Comment by Paul Sassafras on 29 June 2009 at 03:10:19 PM
Holgerhansen
Loc Hey is correct, space dust must be considered in the equation for starters. Solar energy is reflected, refracted or absorbed, depending on the angle of entry. Some of the absorbed solar energy goes to photosynthesis for starters. I’ve been growing and planting trees for forty years and it’s clear to me that without sunlight the whole process stops. Like I said, there is no impermeable membrane which seals off the planet. Similarly there is no magic key which turns on or off CO2. Cap and Trade, ETS, call it what you will is just a tax on energy use and will do nothing to curb rising CO2 levels which have historically been far higher than now without industrial emissions.

Comment by treeman on 29 June 2009 at 02:39:06 PM
Gaz
The UAH data that you linked us to is from 2005! It’s out of date by four years! I’m not about to spreadsheet that data when it’s so old. You should have a look at the latest information from Roy Spencer who helped produce the data set way back then. See http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/
Roy’s graph shows us clearly that global temperature since 1998 peak is on the way back down. Have a very close look at the latest information on Roy’s site and perhaps you will understand why Steve Fielding is correct to ask the question and why the Waxman-Markey bill was passed by only 219 to 212 votes in the US House of representatives. Almost 50% of elected US representatives are yet to be convinced and there is good reason for this.

Comment by treeman on 29 June 2009 at 02:23:24 PM
holgerhansen, as far as I know you are very wrong. According to Prof Ian Plimer in his book Heavan and Earththe missing science page 102 the earth takes on forty thousand tonnes of space dust every year.

Comment by Loc Hey on 29 June 2009 at 09:18:29 AM
Treeman, if you read what I said, not what you think I said, you will note that I said that the only thing that reaches our planet ( apart from the odd comet) is solar energy. Am I wrong, or are we in agreement on that?
What doesn’t change is the amount of physical matter. Incedentally, could you tell me where all this solar energy goes if it doesn’t get radiated back out because the increase in co2 levels is keeping it in?

Comment by holgerhansen on 28 June 2009 at 11:45:24 PM
Treeman, no you’re not a fool for asking, but it is in fact 0.13 degrees per decade, according to a standard linear trendline estimate. You can work it out yourself if you get the data and put it into a spreadsheet and use the trendline function. Fielding’s probblem is not that he didn’t ask questions, but that he won’t listen to the answers. The fact that he turned to the Heartland Institute rather than NASA, NOAA or any other reputable scientific body in the US just confirms this. So does his question “why global temperatures have remained steady over the last 10 years while carbon dioxide emissions have increased”. There is a wealth of infomation on the variablity of the climate over the short term and why this is consistrent with steadily rising CO2 which affects the climate over the long term. People have been willing to take him at his word when he says he is looking for answers, but it’s become pretty obvious that he won’t accept answers he doesn’t like.

Comment by Gaz on 28 June 2009 at 05:36:33 PM
Holgerhansen
The whole earth is not a closed system. Each day the sun adds energy which acts on air, land and water in a myriad of ways. There is not a magic seal at the edge of the atmosphere that keeps everything in. The world is a dynamic organism that is constantly changing. I suggest you have a look at http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Curious.htm
The folks here started off asking questions and have done a few about turns in their quest for a sustainable future.

Comment by treeman on 28 June 2009 at 08:17:17 AM
Gaz
Isn’t that 0.13 degrees for three decades? Am I a fool for asking the question? All that Steve Fielding has done is ask questions that the Climate Change Minister and her supporting scientists could not answer. This does not make him a fool. That he is unsure about the veracity of AGW proponents’ claims is why he asked the question and went to America in the first place. Kimbo’s comment sums it up. 17 June 2009 at 12:09:25 AM. Playing the man will get you nowhere fast.

Comment by treeman on 28 June 2009 at 08:10:31 AM
Treeman, I am talking about the whole globe being a closed system. Do you think that material in what ever form leaves our planet? The only things that leaves our planet are rockets from NASA, and the only things that arives on our planet is solar energy and the odd comet. Everything else simply changes from one form to another.
Any first year science student could tell you that what ever goes into a science experiment must come out even if in another form. The first law of physics states that matter can be neither created or destroyed, just changed. So you can quote all the studies, and naval gazing exercises that you like. I still go back to my origional statement that carbon is being changed from an inert state, (coal and oil) to a polutant. And for what? Largely economics. Yes I say polutant! Carbon of itself is not a pollutant. After all, every living thing, including us is made of the stuff. But in extremely high concentrations one would have to question the viabillity of animal life.
Now I’m not saying that this will happen tomorrow, or next month, or next year, or even in ten thousand years. But logic tells us that it will happen. After all, even ten thousand years is a blink of an eye compared to the time it took to develop the atmosphere in which we now live.
I say again I am not the font of all knowledge. I am simply putting forward my ideas. I may be wrong. I sincerely hope for all of us that I am. But what if I’m not?

Comment by holgerhansen on 28 June 2009 at 12:04:45 AM
Treeman, Fielding was not referring only to the government in his claim that sea surface temperatures were being introduced for the first time. He said “Until now the IPCC has only measured global warming according to air temperature,” a claim that is totally, monumentally, and demonstably false. Only someone who is grossly ignorant of the very basics of climate science could make such a ridiculous claim. It is breathtaking that someone who knows so little can decide he knows better than the scientific community and stand in the way of sensible measures to prevent environmental damage. And as for your claims about the divergences between the main satellite and surface instrumental records - they diverge because they measure different things but guess what? They all show a clear upward trend over recent decades in response to rising atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. Yes, even your wonderful UAH satellite data. Here it is.
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
See down at the bottom it says the trend is 0.13 degrees per decade?

Comment by Gaz on 27 June 2009 at 06:22:30 PM
Gaz
I think you’ll find that Fielding was referring to the Australian government when he mentioned “for the first time, the government introduced the notion of ocean temperatures.” It’s pretty clear that however one measures temperature (GISTEMP or UAH or otherwise) there is divergence of results from the measurements. See for more information: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/25/absence-makes-the-chart-fonder/ I don’t think Fielding has accused the great majority of scientists in the field of getting it wrong. More to the point there are many in the scientific community who are questioning blind acceptance of a flawed methodology. There is no doubt the IPCC rests its case on computer modeling of sometimes dubious data. The EPA even censors reports that go against the accepted view. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/25/online-global-warming-study-censored-by-epa/

Comment by treeman on 27 June 2009 at 05:36:18 PM
Treeman, you say “by your own admission IPCC is monitoring only the the sea-surface temperature over the oceans”. But no, I wasn’t admitting it, everyone knows it, it’s no secret. There’s nothing to “admit”. The surface temperature been conventionally measured this way for many decades. I was only pointing out that Steve Fielding didn’t know this basic fact that anyone with the slightest knowledge of climate science ought to know. That’s the same Steve Fielding who claims he understands enough about climate science to accuse the vast majority of scientists practising in the field of somehow getting terribly wrong. It’s like claiming to know a better way to tune a F1 racing car than the Ferrari pit crew, then asking what’s a spark plug.

Comment by Gaz on 27 June 2009 at 04:12:01 PM
Holgerhansen
AGW means Anthropogenic (man made) Global Warming. Your personal attack on Fielding betrayed your (lack of) understanding of the science and your last comment reinforces that. Australian and US governments rush to legislate an ETS here in australia and “cap and trade” via the Waxman-Markey bill in the US are opportunistic tax grabs which will do nothing to stop pollution which is an entirely separate issue to CO2 in the atmosphere. CO2 is not a pollutant. You are quite correct that the atmosphere has changed. The whole planet is dynamic and is constantly changing and hopefully always will. I believe you are however quite wrong about the concept of a closed system. The atmosphere changes as do the oceans in the balance of gasses dissolved. A closed system is not dynamic. The science that has been built up around global warming/climate change/clean energy bills etc is far from settled. The temperature measuring methodology is flawed as are the modeling programs which collate the data. The IPCC is not a peer reviewed scientific body, it’s the global equivalent of the EPA.
By the way, I’m not a denier, just a sceptic. The word denier only applies to those who can’t accept the truth. It’s become the trademark of the true believers of AGW who thing they can bludgeon anyone who questions them. Climate change and global warming have become the new religion. You and others who slam Fielding’s religion are only reacting badly to your own religion being challenged. Robbie is Skeptical on 16 June 2009 at 11:46:44 PM is right. Ad hominem attacks are the earmarks of the ignorant. And I’m not religious either!

Comment by treeman on 27 June 2009 at 03:53:55 PM
Thanks for the comment treeman???
How am I an opportunist? What have I to Gain? To me it is quite simple. The atmosphere has changed over billions of years, through natural action and reaction, to the point where we now have a planet which can sustain life. We live in a closed system and a substance, in this case carbon, which is taken from one scource (fossil fuel), and used for whatever, must appear somewhere in another form (carbon dioxide). It can’t just disappear into thin air , so to speak.
Ok, let’s assume that my logic and understanding of simple science is cockeyed, but we go with that and stop poluting the atmosphere which in itself can’t be a bad thing. What do we lose? Maybe a few points off our GNP. But what if you and all the other atmospheric change deniers are wrong, and we do nothing? What do do we risk losing? The planet.
By the way, I am not and never have been a member of AGW (whatever that might be) or any other organization. I am quite capable of independent thought. Your turn buster.

Comment by holgerhansen on 27 June 2009 at 11:14:25 AM
Holgerhansen
It is AGW apologists like you who are the dangerous opportunists. It’s interesting to watch alarmists resort to belittling the faith of others when their own faith is challenged. The reality is that we in the West have been led up the garden path by alarmist opportunists. The politics of the day is to inject huge amounts of money into stimulus packages; money which will be repaid by new taxes on emissions; because the existing taxes won’t even pay the interest bill. The problem for the alarmist/ideologist governments is that the science was never as they have so frequently stated “settled” May I suggest to you the science of climate is far from settled and appears to be settling on the other side of the fence! Only fools call others by that name. You leave yourself open to ridicule!
More to the point, only fools rush in and the article below shows this quite clearly.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/25/arctic-temperature-is-still-not-above-0°c-the-latest-date-in-fifty-years-of-record-keeping…”/

Comment by treeman on 26 June 2009 at 09:45:58 AM
Gaz

By your own admission IPCC is monitoring only the “the sea-surface temperature over the oceans” I suggest that Steve Fielding is better informed than you are. Measuring the"the sea-surface temperature over the oceans (i.e. the subsurface bulk temperature in the first few meters of the ocean), and (ii) the surface-air temperature over land at 1.5 m above the ground.” Is not that simple. I refer you to this article.http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/25/absence-makes-the-chart-fonder/
Your denigration of Steve Fielding typifies the alarmist response when confronted by the truth. No wonder you’re such easy pickings for WUWTers!

Comment by treeman on 26 June 2009 at 09:25:50 AM
Anyone wondering just how ill-informed Steve Fielding is should consider this comment from his blog entry above, about his meeting with Penny Wong.

“Until now the IPCC has only measured global warming according to air temperature, but yesterday, for the first time, the government introduced the notion of ocean temperatures.”

Now, look back to the IPCC report before last, back in 2001.

Here is the glossary entry:

“Global surface temperature:
The global surface temperature is the area-weighted global average of (i) the sea-surface temperature over the oceans (i.e. the subsurface bulk temperature in the first few meters of the ocean), and (ii) the surface-air temperature over land at 1.5 m above the ground.”

How simple is that? It’s the same definition they used in previous reports and it’s the same one they’re using now.

And now the Senator, based on such a miserably poor level of understanding, has decided to stand in the way of a rational response to climate change because he’s decided it’s all wrong.

No wonder he’s such easy pickings for the denial spivs.

Comment by Gaz on 25 June 2009 at 05:26:49 PM
I read with interest that you have decided that climate change is not an issue. If this is not what you truly beleive then you are an opportunist and a danger. If this is what you truly beleive then you are a fool. Consider this. It has taken billions of years of natural change and balance to remove co2 from the atmosphere, by locking it away in the form of what we now call fossil fuel, and give us an environment in which we can live. In the last several hundred years we have been putting all of that back into the atmospher at an ever increasing rate. How long will it be before we are back to the stage when there is so much co2 in the atmosphere that life can no longer be sustained. Sorry I forgot, you have an omnipotent God who is going to solve all these problems, haven’t you???

Comment by holgerhansen on 25 June 2009 at 02:52:28 PM
Will1. Your four new documents on the science are no more than bureaucratic pronouncements from bodies charged with perpetuating the AGW mythology.

Comment by treeman on 25 June 2009 at 06:59:29 AM
For a snapshot of the future for AGW alarmists see here:
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Cinema.htm
The great irony is that Greenworld Trust began as a vehicle to promote climate awareness an over time the group became more and more sceptical about the IPCC, the science, the modeling and more.

Comment by treeman on 25 June 2009 at 06:55:16 AM
The whole GW debate has amazed me on so many levels. It is staggering how so many people have been eager to embrace this tale of impending doom. Why do so many wish for this to be true? Well I have my theories but lets leave personalities and idealogy out of this for now.
Regardless of the alarmism mankind and the planet have survived various climate conditions previously. Our economies are what we need to be strong so we are well placed to adapt. The last thing we need is knee jerk reactions just for the sake of doing something.

Comment by Kimbo on 25 June 2009 at 02:23:22 AM
Please read these new documents on the science:
http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/Key-Scientific-Developments-Since-IPCC-4th-Assessment.pdf

http://downloads.globalchange.gov/usimpacts/pdfs/executive-summary.pdf

Also for a summary of Antarctic work:
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/press/journalists/resources/science/antarctica_and_climate_change_2008.pdf

More detail here:
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/bas_research/science/climate/index.php

Other areas related to climate change here:
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/bas_research/science_briefings.php

Comment by Will1 on 24 June 2009 at 10:47:59 PM
taffymorgan: Thank you senator - no pseudo-science from me. CLIMATE CHANGE by definition is a load of old codswallop! Canute could not turn back the tide - and the rest of us today cannot change the weather. If the whole idea wasn’t so sad it would be funny! Thank goodness someone has the guts to stand up and speak out against the fanatics who would lead us all up the garden path! It’s a pity there are not more like you.

Comment by taffymorgan on 24 June 2009 at 08:11:07 PM
Will1,

Have you read this

http://sciencespeak.com/NoEvidence.pdf

and does your research provide the evidence?

If you do have this evidence, can you provide a link to where it is written up. Neither Penny Wong nor the Chief Scientist could provide the evidence. And it is not written up in the IPCC reports.

Comment by Havequestions on 24 June 2009 at 08:08:46 PM
Steve,
First let me extend an invitation to you to come and visit me and my colleagues at my workplace of the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge to see first hand some of the real evidence around the issues of climate change.

I am very disappointed at your attitude to climate change as a Victorian and an engineer. To ignore the overwhelming body of evidence by scientists who have published in all the world’s major refereed scientific journals is like throwing in the bin the education in basic science you must have received.

You are being used as a pawn by climate change deniers to spread the manufactured “doubt” in the same way cigarette companies used the weapon of “doubt” to delay action on smoking in the face of overwhelming evidence and kill countless thousands of people and destroying families around the world.

Putting family first is about protecting the world for our children and grandchildren. Ignoring the CPRS and whether it is functional, please visit me or just pick up a copy of Science or Nature or any serious journal on climate change and reconsider your views on climate science.

Comment by Will1 on 24 June 2009 at 07:11:14 PM
This is pretty clear:

http://sciencespeak.com/NoEvidence.pdf

Comment by Havequestions on 24 June 2009 at 06:31:55 PM
Comment by Nickh on 24 June 2009 at 03:58:04 PM
Nickh. Your comment doesn’t merit a response.

Comment by treeman on 24 June 2009 at 04:49:52 PM
Steve. You are to be congratulated for your stance.
Paul Sassafras, thank you for answering the three questions that Penny Wong couldn’t answer. I’ll bet she wishes she had your clarity! However I’m unconvinced that any of your answers are valid. For starters who are you quoting when you say…...“What sceptics are concerned about is that there appears to be a lack of evidence that increasing greenhouse gases concentrations are the main cause of the recent global warming.“ .....? No matter…. I suggest sceptics are concerned with far more than the relationship between CO2 and warming. The modeling used, much of the monitoring methodology, the IPCC itself all have flaws that are becoming more evident. Secondly, methinks you have confused me with Havequestions. That doesn’t matter as Hq and I seem to be on the same wavelength. Much of the detail in what you wrote is based on modeling and one thing I do know from 40 years in computing is that the old adage of “garbage in equals garbage out” has as much if not more relevance today than when I first heard it in 1970. It is just not possible to project “Sea-level rise will not stop in 2100” based on collation of flawed data.

Comment by treeman on 24 June 2009 at 04:46:20 PM
What do you expect from a Christian brainwashed nut-job that believes that the world was created in 7 days by a cosmic force that lives in the clouds and hangs out with a bunch of children that have hawks wings and weird golden circles hovering above their heads.

Comment by Nickh on 24 June 2009 at 03:58:04 PM
Steve

Congratulations on arriving at a practical and sensible conclusion to the Climate Change / carbon emissions matter. I think it would be of great interest to the world at large to find out what is behind the powers who try to force-feed constituents an ‘ism that is based on so much unsubstantiated, unproven, and unprovable ‘fact.’

Looking recently at the history of the Australian Dried Fruit industry, and finding way back in 1934 (ish) there were approx 5 nights in a row where the temperature was over 105 degrees Fahrenheit in the grape fields in Victoria and many vineyards lost their entire crops. I doubt it has been as hot since

Comment by Smithy on 24 June 2009 at 03:42:24 PM
Steve,

Steve McIntyre at http://www.climateaudit.org has just put up a post referring to his submission to the US EPA in relation to the Endangerment Finding. HIs post can be found here: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6354#comments

His submission is here: http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/McIntyre_Submission_to_EPA.pdf

In his submission, Steve McIntyre makes a devastating critique of IPCC showing how it has used its supra-national status to avoid detailed scrutiny and due diligence on its pronouncements. In fact, Steve demonstrates that the IPCC documents are not in accordance with US requirements.

Well worth a look.

Comment by mondo on 24 June 2009 at 08:53:12 AM
And Question 3 is
Is it the case that all GCM computer models projected a steady increase in temperature for the period 1990-2008, whereas in fact there were only 8 years of warming were followed by 10 years of stasis and cooling. (Fig. 3)?

If so, why is it assumed that long-term climate projections by the same models are suitable as a basis for public policy making?

Response 3
I would ask, all GCM computer models from when? And are we talking air temperature? Are we talking old models? Given the time frame projections I can only guess yes. In the supporting data for Question 3 there also seems to be some reference to the European event that is called the Little Ice Age, it was not global,which is what the data set is supposed to be about.

Again, this difference in projected air temperature increase is covered in the Synthesis report on page 8.

“Since the last IPCC report, updated trends in surface ocean temperature and heat content have been published4,5. These revised estimates show (Figure 4) that the ocean has warmed significantly in recent years. Current estimates indicate that ocean warming is about 50% greater than had been previously reported by the IPCC2. The new estimates
help to better explain the trend in sea level that has been observed in recent decades as most of the sea-level rise observed until recently has been the result of the thermal expansion of seawater.

The rate of sea-level rise has increased in the period from 1993 to the present (Figure 1), largely due to the growing contribution of ice loss from Greenland (Box 1) and Antarctica. However, models of the behaviour of these polar ice sheets are still in their infancy, so projections of sea-level rise to 2100 based on such “process models” are highly uncertain. An alternative approach is to base projections on the observed relationship between global average temperature rise and sea-level rise over the
past 120 years, assuming that this observed relationship will continue into the future. New estimates based on this approach suggest a sealevel rise of around a metre or more by 210016 (Opening Session (S. Rahmstorf) and session 1).

Sea-level rise will not stop in 2100. Changes in ocean heat content will continue to affect sea-level rise for several centuries at least. Melting and dynamic ice loss in Antarctica and Greenland will also continue for centuries into the future.”

In other words more heat is going into the oceans than had been previously thought, explaining the thermal expansion of the oceans. Estimating how much heat is going into melting ice is not so well known but they are starting to get a handle on it. I could guess that will lead to revised sea level rise estimates, as most of the past estimates are based on thermal expansion with no allowance for melting ice from the major ice sheets.

Yes the science is rapidly evolving, and as it does it seems the apparent magnitude of the problem is not getting any smaller.

If I have missed some point or not been detailed enough please let me know.

Paul.

Comment by Paul Sassafras on 24 June 2009 at 12:44:10 AM
Treeman

“What sceptics are concerned about is that there appears to be a lack of evidence that increasing greenhouse gases concentrations are the main cause of the recent global warming.“

What are you saying? That sceptics are saying that other cyclical events are the cause this time around? Changes in the Earths orbit, more or fewer cosmic rays, more or less solar radiation? Or that there is another observed earth based environmental cause? Is there another gas other than the usual culprits, mainly Carbon dioxide and Methane. Which of these various possibilities has more proof of cause than what is being put forward? Please elaborate.

Now for the three questions as raised in the pdf you link to, Briefing Paper by Senator Steve Fielding.

Question 1
Is it the case that CO2 increased by 5% since 1998 whilst global temperature cooled over the same period (see Fig. 1)?

If so, why did the temperature not increase; and how can human emissions be to blame for dangerous levels of warming?

Response 1
No, that is not the case, global temperature did in fact rise if you take the globe as a whole, not just the atmosphere.

To quote from page 8 of the Climate Change Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions conference Synthesis Report that I linked to in my previous post.

“Only a very small amount of the heat is stored in the atmosphere (Figure 2); by far the largest amount of heat stored at the Earth’s surface is found in the ocean. The heat flux into the ocean proceeds more slowly than into the atmosphere. However, given that the ocean stores so much heat, a change in ocean temperature, which reflects a change in the amount of heat stored in the ocean, is a better indicator of change in the climate than changes in air temperature.”

It takes a lot more energy to raise a cubic metre of ocean at sea level through 1 degree than it does to raise a cubic metre of air at sea level by 1 degree. Ocean temperatures have been rising steadily, as shown in figure 4 of the Synthesis Report. The rise has been so marked even the plotted data makes it obvious with no trend line needed.

Again, to reinforce the point, figure 2, on page 8 in fact shows this is where most of energy the earth has been gaining has been going. You can also see in the same figure quite a bit has also been going into melting ice, as you might appreciate, melting ice is also a great way to keep cool.

And also for the final part of the question, “how can human emissions be to blame for dangerous levels of warming?” We have been busy releasing Carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that has been progressively locked up in fossil fuels over millions of years. The gas is not coming from anywhere else but our activities, it is widely acknowledged as a greenhouse gas, from the Comment by treeman on 23 June 2009 at 07:47:20 AM “That CO2 concentrations are increasing and that man’s activities are the main cause of this is not being disputed. That CO2 is a greenhouse gas is not being disputed.” . For further elaboration see my response to Question 2, re other possible causes for the “dangerous levels of warming”.

Question 2

Is it the case that the rate and magnitude of warming between 1979 and 1998 (the late 20th century phase of global warming) was not unusual in either rate or magnitude as compared with warmings that have occurred earlier in the Earth’s history (Fig. 2a, 2b)?

If the warming was not unusual, why is it perceived to have been caused by human CO2 emissions; and, in any event, why is warming a problem if the Earth has experienced similar warmings in the past?

Repsonse 2
Yes it may well be the case the rate or magnitude of warmings as noted are not unusual in Earths history. Why is it a problem? Major climate changes of the type we may be embarking on, as borne out by the rates of temperature increases already recorded are quite well linked to major extinction events during the Earths history.

Rapid or large temperature/climate changes are not at all uncommon during the Earths history, nor are major extinction events, the two tend to go hand in hand. Lesser changes, like the early Holocene, generally only require ecosystems to migrate, coral reefs, forests, grasslands, river systems flow more less. In our modified world lesser changes can make a lot of species become extinct because we have left so little room for the other inhabitants of our planet to move.

The current warming is perceived to have been caused by human CO2 emissions because none of the other historical regular triggers that started temperature increases or climate changes are currently in play, there is no other perceived cause. However, if you believe there are other triggers causing our current warming please say so and I will quote from or point to the appropriate corrective information or you could go to http://www.realclimate.org as a starting point and do some reading.

Response to Question 3 follows further up.

Comment by Paul Sassafras on 24 June 2009 at 12:42:34 AM
Steve,

Thank you for delaying the ETS legislation.

Thank you for questioning the ‘dangerous AGW hypothesis’.

Many believe that an Australian ETS, as distinct from a global agreement, will have no real benefit but will have a seriously detrimental effect on the economy, and therefore on all the good that a strong economy can do for everyone, especially the poorest and most disadvantaged.

Delaying allows more time for the Australian public to get to understand what an ETS would and would not do.

Comment by Havequestions on 23 June 2009 at 10:16:44 PM
People keep on questioning the climate models saying they are unvalidated! So you reckon we should just do nothing and let the next 100 years play out to ensure the climate models were correct??

Climate models are continuously tested against the last 100 years and have been very accurate. They have even predicted the current cooling for the last couple of years, and they are the models that predict a 3C increase on this planet by 2100. That being a 3 to 10C increase over all land surfaces on this planet. Climate models have not been able to follow the last 100 years without adding man made contributions, which means you either need a mysterious force no one knows about, or you need a more explainable reasoning in man made GHG’s.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/projections/air_time.html

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/projections/air_annual.html

Explaining climate models and their validation including Anthropogenic vs natural variability
http://cce.890m.com/climate-models/

Comment by Windguy on 23 June 2009 at 09:35:20 PM
Hey Loc Hey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Temp-sunspot-co2.svg

It is clearly not the sun.

Comment by Windguy on 23 June 2009 at 09:02:02 PM
Havequestions, you are doing what a lot of so-called sceptics do - you are demanding evidence without knowing what you’re asking for.

Hard evidence that humans have suddenly pushed CO2 levels higher won’t convince you, the laws of physics and experimental evidence that CO2 absorbs radiated heat won’t convince you, models incorporating observed atmopheric behaviour won’t, successful simulation of known past climatic events won’t, correct prediction of recent climate change won’t either. The fact is, nothing will.

What evidence would convince you? Describe it, please.

No doubt Senator Fielding’s new bosom buddies are whispering in his ear ’ “Where’s the evidence, where’s the evidence?”

They used to say that about smoking and cancer. Even when the evidence was abundant they still said it.

Hopefully Sentor Fielding will have the presence of mind to ask them “What evidence would suffice?”

Comment by Gaz on 23 June 2009 at 02:31:28 PM
Steve. I’ve been following your efforts with interest. One thing is clear to me and that is the science around climate change is settling on the other side of the fence as far as the AGW protagonists is concerned. As the settling of the science is taking place, the apologists for AGW become more and more aggressive and personal. Mass cognitive dissonance is now a benchmark of those who would establish emissions trading. I refer you to Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research where two models suggest only 28% and 7% probability that polar ice will melt beyond last year’s record. http://www.awi.de/en/news/press_releases/detail/item/new_record_arctic_sea_ice_cover_minimum_climate_researchers_from_bremerhaven_and_hamburg_present_ne/?tx_list_pi1[mode]=6&cHash=0a34358aed
I’d also like to refer all readers with an open mind to http://wattsupwiththat.com/
The Australian Labor government would impose on us an emissions trading scheme based on the flawed premise, that humans are causing climate change. The resistance is growing across the world to AGW and to carbon trading. It is by no means assured that the Copenhagen conference will agree emissions trading. It seems more likely that the Copenhagen conference will take far more notice of Vaclav Klaus than Kevin Rudd or Penny Wong as the world increasingly rejects AGW as no more than a load of hot air. I’ll close with a quote from Jack Eddy. Were God to give us, at last, the cable, or patch-cord that links the Sun to the Climate System it would have on the solar end a banana plug, and on the other, where it hooks into the Earth—in ways we don’t yet know—a Hydra-like tangle of multiple 24-pin parallel computer connectors. It is surely at this end of the problem where the greatest challenges lie.”

Comment by treeman on 23 June 2009 at 07:47:20 AM
Paul,

I think you are missing the key point. The report you refer to does not answer the key questions.

You referred to Figure 3. This figure shows the temperature measurements. The temperature measurements are not being disputed. That CO2 concentrations are increasing and that man’s activities are the main cause of this is not being disputed. That CO2 is a greenhouse gas is not being disputed.

What sceptics are concerned about is that there appears to be a lack of evidence that increasing greenhouse gases concentrations are the main cause of the recent global warming.

If you look carefully at the report you will see that it does not provide that evidence.

After 20 years and $50 billion spent by governments on research to prove that man’s activities will cause dangerous global warming, still this evidence has not been found. If it had been, surely IPCC would state the evidence up front in their reports. The argument would be over.

It appears that there is no such evidence. (un-validated computer models are not evidence).

The time period shown in Figure 3 is selective. Refer to the following link to see the longer term temperature record, as well as the three questions that need to be addressed:

http://sciencespeak.com/FieldingQuestions.pdf

Comment by Havequestions on 22 June 2009 at 10:44:20 PM
If there are doubts that the gasses we are releasing to atmosphere are contributing to climate change, temperature increase in particular, perhaps you could read the report from the Climate Change Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions conference that was held in Copenhagen in March this year. The information presented is intended as input for decision makers at the Copenhagen conference for politicians later this year.

There were 2500 participants from 80 countries, 1400 scientific presentations across a number of disciplines. The synthesis report is now available.

http://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/press-releases/files/synthesis-report-web.pdf/view

The reason for the gathering was that the IPCC reports are old, the information is out of date, they do not reflect current knowledge about what is happening in relation to the earths climate.

Look at figure 3 on page 9, there you will see how you could cherry pick a figure and say, oh, temperature has not increased much at all over the past 15 years. Just so long as you choose to ignore the rest of the data. There are also some charts showing various gas increases including CO2, at the same time as the temperature increases. No the air temperature response is not linear, a lot of the heat is going into warming oceans and also melting ice, that is plain to see from the other chart on page 9. Key Message 1, starting on page 9, is also worth reading.

Paul.

Comment by Paul Sassafras on 22 June 2009 at 08:38:41 PM
Try and keep up will you windguy, co2 is irelavent, the sun is the main driver of climate change.

Comment by Loc Hey on 22 June 2009 at 10:06:14 AM
The David Evans report on the Fielding/Wong meeting is excellent reading. (link originally posted by m weiskop)
Terrific read.

http://joannenova.com.au/2009/06/19/the-wong-fielding-meeting-on-global-warming/

Most interesting is the experts appearing with Steve were self funded. Much is made of Exxon, but the ones in someones pocket were being paid by taxpayers.

We have good Aussie scientists and a continent that has engendered a geological perspective unequalled. Our resources industry has spawned an understanding of geology that has worldwide respect manifested by investors money.

If sceptics are also being called denialists, we should be seeing more of the AGW advocates labelled alarmists, with a peer review process similar to that of Wall Street and the CDO’s risk rating. AAA

Look where that Manhattan based fiasco took the funds of so many taxpayers.

That may not be relevant, but I want to see the 4 Aussie scientists convinced otherwise before I am taking the IPCC viewpoint for granted.

Comment by Sydney Street on 22 June 2009 at 10:00:01 AM
Windguy - if you want to discuss the science start a thread in the forum. I’ll be happy to show the world how wrong you are.

Nobody is denying global warming - there has been warming since the end of the Little Ice Age over 150 years ago. However, there is no evidence that the increase of man made CO2 in the latter half of the C20 is the reason.

Comment by m weiskop on 22 June 2009 at 09:13:12 AM
“Penny bought 2 knives to a gunfight but still managed to shoot herself in the foot.”

Okaay - Well here is the psychological reasoning behind why it is very difficult to change a denialist.

“Just the way people are though isn’t it? I’ve read a few times that human thought is often of the ‘I know what I think (like a gut instinct) about something and then look for the rational that supports it’. Few of us start with a blank sheet on things. Like there was a study that looked at Republicans and Democrats in America and given statements by two candidates they both supported ‘there’ candidate more even when proven that they were both talking tosh. In that study something like 2% of people actually changed their mind.”

Exactly the same with climate for most folks I reckon. You have your point of view and then all evidence that supports that point of view is cast iron greatness whereas evidence that doesn’t is flaky and stuff.” From another forum.

So when Steve is fence sitting, is he really? I know of a great many others who state that exact same line only to continuously deny climate change even when hard evidence disproves their viewpoints.

Steve has spoken to Lindzen. We all know Lindzen. Well he actually accepts CO2 is a greenhouse affect, he also accepts it would cause global warming except for his complex reasoning for negative feedback utilising clouding and the Albedo effect. Even if his theory is true, he hasn’t quantified it, and all negative feedback doesn’t fully offset climate change if you need climate change to occur to create this negative feedback. Svensmark had a much better theory but after it has been quantified it had less than 5% of the overall effect on climate change.

Lindzen’s theory with this massive denialist movement and the resources of giants such as Exxon has not advanced his theory whatsoever.

So Steve, Lindzen believes in climate change! he just believes in his own unquantified theory to fully offset it.

Comment by Windguy on 22 June 2009 at 07:22:09 AM
I hate it when people claim it’ll cost us, when they state it without basis.

A nice quote from a blog, obviously about the American system, but it does concern all systems.

“Economic models that attempt to predict the future compliance costs of pollution reduction legislation generally overestimate the actual costs. That’s because they do not account for the vast potential for innovation and entrepreneurship once binding reductions and deadlines are set. This would put a price on greenhouse gas pollution for the first time, which creates economic incentives to spur engineers and managers to devise technologies and methods to meet the gas reduction requirements more cheaply than estimated in the CBO’s model.”

FYI
http://climateprogress.org/2009/06/21/cbo-stunner-waxman-markey-postage-stamp-a-day-low-income-families-efficiency-savings/

Comment by Windguy on 22 June 2009 at 07:02:57 AM
Penny bought 2 knives to a gunfight but still managed to shoot herself in the foot.

Comment by m weiskop on 21 June 2009 at 02:10:58 PM
Where is the governer general when you need him/her. Time to sack this comunist govt.This govt is trying on the biggest scam in history to try to strip you of your wealth in a blazen grab that defies even what the mafia would try. The really bad news is that the opposition supports the scam to. Australia is at a cliffedge and is about to step over the edge if they let them get away with the biggest wealth transfer from the people to the govt in the history of this country. If we let them get away with it then we only have ourselves to blame and should all hang our heads in shame. We will be handing over our childrens future and freedoms. Speak up now or its all over.

Comment by Loc Hey on 21 June 2009 at 01:04:45 PM
Re: Wong/Fielding meeting

Carter et. al. comments:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25656849-5013480,00.html

David Evans report:

http://joannenova.com.au/2009/06/19/the-wong-fielding-meeting-on-global-warming/

Extract: My overwhelming impressions were of authority and arrogance. I felt they tried to intimidate us into acquiescence—perhaps that is just standard politics and I am not accustomed to it. The arrogant attitude was very strong. Lots of spin, some brazen statements, talking down to us and lecturing, and authoritative statements that they knew it all. They ignored the contrary evidence we presented, and never acknowledged any point, no matter how small, unless we demanded it. Their chief tactic was to appear confident and knowledgeable (in some cases using jargon fairly meaninglessly), and to talk past us. They never answered our specific questions in the terms they were asked, as if denying that the questions were even worthy of discussion. The lords were lecturing us ignorant peasants. And all this from a science team that was describing, literally, a different planet!

Comment by m weiskop on 21 June 2009 at 11:05:25 AM
Senator Fielding,
You would have seen full page article on you in the AFR June 20-21 page 23 “The Miseducation of Steve Fielding” by Tom Dusevic. Here is a link but you need to subscribe to get past the first line -

http://www.afr.com/home/login.aspx?ATL://20090620000031265106&section=Perspective

This was way off the mark for me as a reader and I support your quest on this issue. From your website I was far more impressed with “The Australian” article about your visit to Penny Wong. The company of Aussie scientists with you was impressive and credible.

The AFR article cynically implied your efforts were aimed at attention seeking for re-election, wielding weight far beyond your electoral mandate.

Well my problem is being a New South Welshman, I cannot put you first on my senate vote when it comes around again.

I look forward to what you say in Parliament on this one, keep up the good work and good company.

Comment by Sydney Street on 21 June 2009 at 12:16:10 AM
Dear Senator Fielding,

I have heard about your courageous efforts to make a rational assessment of the climate change question.

I am an expatriate Australian. I have been living in New Zealand since 1975. If you have time, you may be interested in my story.

There was only one reason for moving to New Zealand. I had been convinced by the predictions of The Club of Rome, and the writings of Paul Ehrlich and others, that there was a planetary emergency on, as a result of over-population, coupled with the imminent exhaustion of fossil fuels. We “knew” that society’s reliance on technology would soon be no longer possible, whether we liked it or not. And we knew that it was imperative to very quickly work to develop alternative ways of survival. At the time, New Zealand offered greater opportunities to explore and develop these alternative lifestyles.

I am not an armchair commentator. My wife and I put action to our beliefs, left behind our families and friends and security, and embarked on a journey fueled by a passion to save the world.

Do you know what? It took me over 10 years to realise that the foundation behind our dream was false. Do I regret it? Absolutely not. It was an incredible journey. Our children were born without medical involvement, because we had to learn self-reliance. We developed high degrees of skill in animal husbandry, subsistence gardening, bee-keeping, homestead food processing, hand-crafts, bartering relationships, and many other things. We lived for a number of years with heating and cooking by wood, and almost reached the point of self-sufficiency in firewood. We worked hard at developing cooperative social networks.

On the other hand, we also learned how incredibly difficult it is to achieve what we aimed at, and overall we fell far short of our initial goals.

It now seems apparent to me that the current thrust to urgency to deal with a planetary emergency of global warming caused by man-made carbon dioxide, is rooted in the same baseline philosophy that was behind my migration to New Zealand. I now see that it was wrong then, and it is wrong now. Science was used to support the ideology, but the essence was ideological, and the science was faulty.

I confess that I am presently out of touch with Australian politics. But I have been moved by the story of your commitment to seek objective information and to avoid acting rashly based on ideology. I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude, and my very best wishes in your quest.

Comment by Steve Schapel on 20 June 2009 at 07:26:03 PM
When we start to consider facts from global warming by supposed CO2, we see in the research data nothing. Absolutely nothing! Other than what scientists and governments with the loudest voice want us to see.

Now we have the debate arising about rising PH levels due to our 27 billion tons of CO2 yearly is causing the sea to warm, for jet streams to change course and the poles to melt.

What is missing from these campaigns of research? What is missing are how many dead fish are chucked back into the ocean each and everyday from catches that don’t fit their allowance, whole acre upon acre of sea bed laid flat like the forests of our lands but in a far greater acreage totally destroying the sea bed of everything and turning it into a smouldering underwater stench. On Top of this we tip daily millions of tons of sewage world wide into this same pit of what once was a balanced ecology not to mention what agriculture is doing with its synthetic herbicides.

Oh! we complain about loss of land and forestry to modern development, but we control it, we are not controlling the life force of this earth which is held in our oceans, we are passing the buck to protect our lands and not addressing the real issues. Probably because that will be the next tax revenue raiser.

Yes CO2 levels are higher in the ocean now than has ever been which this report suggests http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2009/03/09/2509415.htm

But about the what ifs? If mankind had not destroyed the oceans with dredging, explosive testing, discharging toxins, killing of tons of fish daily only to be allowed to ferment and rot in our ocean beds and the oceans were allowed to live as it should would the CO2 be as high? Have we by our own out of sight out of mind attitude destroyed the one prime converter/balancer of CO2….our oceans?

There is more to this debate than the subject of CO2 by fossil burning. We can only with this gas put back into the atmosphere our lands and oceans what has always been there. We do not create CO2 it is already there and Mother Nature balances it accordingly if we do not destroy the balance material. CO2 is not causing the rise in PH of our oceans ....mankind is by using the oceans as an uncontrolled waste/cess pit and at the same time demolishing the ecology far beyond anything we have seen on our lands. Does CO2 raise the PH in your swimming pool? Think about it.

Whilst this next article is a joke in a sense I refer to what is written in the first box it does show in part the reality of what I am stressing. Steve I think and feel you are also thinking along these lines.

http://www.eco-pros.com/humanimpact.htm

Comment by PaulB on 20 June 2009 at 02:48:47 PM
“Havequestion”, if you are going to make references to “Chapter 6”, then you should be more specific. The IPCC has published numerous reports.

Presumably you were referring to chapter 6 of the physical science basis report, titled “Paleoclimate”.

You could summarise that chapter as saying that evidence of historical climate changes support the anthropogenic global warming theory, and that previous high-CO2 environments were very productive - for dinosaurs - but unlike anything humans have ever experienced, much less adapted to.

You have obviously made your mind up that major climate change can only be a good thing.

Consider how even small variations around the average can wreak destruction on our country - just look at the fires and floods and droughts of recent years.

Surely it can’t take much thought to understand that climate change severe enough to melt the polar ice caps and acidify the oceans is not exactly going to create some sort of utopia?

Comment by Gaz on 20 June 2009 at 10:29:16 AM
While I am completely in agreement with the concept of a changing climate, it has never been static, I am amazed that anyone in their right mind could possibly think that there is a single cause that can “fix” it.

What an arrogant position to take. This is faulty logic at it’s finest. Schools everywhere are to blame for “educating” people into thinking there is one right answer and, by default, all others are wrong.

Yes we should clean up our act and pollute much less, yes we need to find alternative sources of energy (we’re running out fast), yes we need to make better use of our fresh water.

An ETS is permission to pollute and is as foolish as the Emperors new clothes. Despite the publicly stated intention to use the tax for green purposes it will end up in general revenue just like every other tax has in the past.

Michael Crichton has said “Most people assume linearity in environmental processes, but the world is largely non-linear: it’s a complex system. An important feature of complex systems is that we don’t know how they work. We don’t understand them except in a general way; we simply interact with them. Whenever we think we understand them, we learn we don’t. Sometimes spectacularly.”

And he is totally correct. All maths students know that you can’t solve an equation with more than 3 variables unless you know all but one of the variables. The formula used to predict climate change has a long string of variables, none of which have a fixed value to the result is rubbish.

Modeling isn’t science, science is data and facts which can be replicated by any person with the correct training. There is no room in real science for consensus, consensus is for committees and governments.

Just a quick look at the track record of consensus science.

1795 Alexander Gordon determined that fever after child birth, which killed 1 in 6 women, was caused by infection and he could cure it. Consensus said no.

1843 Oliver Holmes determined that puerperal fever was contagious and presented proof. Consensus said no.

1849 Semmelweiss showed that puerperal fever was caused by unsanitary conditions in hospitals ans showed that it was almost totally eradicated in his hospitals. The consensus said no and dismissed him from his post.

In the early 20th century the consensus finally agreed and, after 150 years, cleaned up the hospitals.

This is not the only example, Jenner and smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory, pellagra and diet et al.

No, consensus is rarely right until the real evidence is overwhelming. In reality, consensus is only trotted out when the science is weak or non-existent. Does anyone claim that a consensus of scientists agree that E=MC^2? Or the Earth orbits the Sun? Of course not, these are in-refutable facts.

Do you think that the inability to predict the the weather more than 5 days in advance is more honest than the supposed ability to predict the weather 20 years down the track?

Incidentally, the man-made formula used for the famous “hockey stick’ graph predicting catastrophic temperature rises created by Michael Mann produces the same type of graph regardless of what data you feed it, even random computer generated data. G I G O. And our leaders have so swallowed the poison pill that they are prepared to trash our economy for a lie.

Stick it up ‘em Steve, they don’t like it up ‘em, they don’t - to misquote Lance-Corporal Jones in Dad’s Army.

Comment by OBK on 20 June 2009 at 02:05:01 AM
Perhaps we should form a committee to increase the oxygen in the atmosphere a couple of % - it would make breathing easier and engines more efficient.
or - if the effect on variations in the earth orbit are accepted - a committee to alter that as well ?

Who’s in ? or should we wait and see the effect of 5% change of 1% (thats 0.05%) of the human carbon emissions (that means excluding fatring donkeys in the himalayas volcanoes and the like)

Comment by kimbo02 on 20 June 2009 at 12:22:54 AM
Gaz,

Mistake in previous post. Corrected here.

I didn’t refer you to the IPCC summary. I referred you to Chapter 6. And you’ll need to read it, and other scientific research, with open mind. As has been explained many times on this blog site, many do not accept the IPCC’s summaries as unbiased.

If you are interested in exploring the other evidence, you need to look beyond the reports of the politicised and self serving IPCC.

You will find that life thrives when the planet is warmer, struggles when colder, eg:

1. More carbon tied up in biomass when warmer
2. The area of desert expands when colder, shrinks when warmer.
3. Less sand and less dust in the air, meaning less wind when warmer.
4. Area of coral reef expands when warmer.
5. New species are formed faster when warmer than when colder
6. Forests extend to the poles - ie more vegetation
7. more water vapour and more CO2 (fertiliser) in the atmosphere
8. more food growing land (eg Canada, northern Europe, northern Asia.

There is a lot more if you want to do the research. But you’d need to let go of your tightly held belief in ‘dangerous AGW’.

Oncv you have a handle on this, then you can start looking at the cost / benefit analysis of an economically irrational cutting of GHG emissions.

Oh, and by the way, you twisted what I said about the effect of reducing GHG emissions on the climate in 2100. Read my post again.

Good luck!

Comment by Havequestions on 19 June 2009 at 08:30:17 PM
Gaz,

I didn’t refer you to the IPCC summary. I referred you to Chapter 6. And you’ll need to read this and other scientific research with your eyes wide open. As has been explained many times on this blog site, many do not accept the IPCC’s summaries as unbiased.

If you are interested, in exploring the other evidence, you need to look beyond the reports of the politicised and self serving IPCC.

You will find that life thrives when the planet is warmer, struggles when colder, eg:

1. More carbon tied up in biomass when warmer
2. The area of desert expands when warmer, shrinks when colder.
3. More sand and more dust in the air, meaning less wind when warmer
4. Coral reefs expand when warmer
5. New species are formed when warmer than when colder
6. Forests extend to the poles - ie more vegetation
7. more water vapour and more CO2 (fertiliser) in the atmosphere

There is a lot more if you want to do the research. But you’d need to let go of your tightly held belief in ‘dangerous AGW’.

Oncve you have a handle on this, then you can start looking at the cost benefit analysis.

Oh, and by the way, you twisted what I said about the effect of reducing GHG emissions on the climate in 2100. Read my post again.

Good luck!

Comment by Havequestions on 19 June 2009 at 08:19:56 PM
The science is settled ! co2 from humans has nothing to do with any long term natural climate change. The sun is the main driver of climate change, is now , has been since the begining of time. The shamans from the UN, the IPCC and there spokes people ( Krudd and Wrong) are speechless. They are using bluff, bluster and lies but no real science and have now run out of ammo. Hence the silence. Now that they know they have lost the scientific argument, they will move on to the next stage of their plan. Its called “calling your bluff”. Krudd and Wrong who work for the UN, will simply ignore the truth and claim they were voted in on a mandate by the sheeple to fix climate change. Act 2 is about to start.

Comment by Loc Hey on 19 June 2009 at 05:59:05 PM
The truth is finally out, the IPCC and the UN lies are being exposed. Rudd and Wong have lost all credabilaty. This is more and more looking like a dogs breakfast everyday. You know when you hit the nail on the head and get close to the truth that the AGW alarmists get more desperate by the minute. Personal attacks on you and your faith. Stand your ground Steve, good man.

Comment by Loc Hey on 19 June 2009 at 04:51:50 PM
Havequestions, you claim the IPCC concludes cutting emissions won’t make any real difference.

Actually the IPCC projection for the A1B scenario at the end of this century is +2.8 degrees (compared with the 1980-1999 average) best estimate, compared with +0.6 if emissions are held to 2000 levels.

And if the world summarised in Figure 3.6 of the IPCC’s Synthesis Report at ..

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr.pdf

...can be waved away as “more productive” well I’d like some of those rose coloured glasses too, thanks.

Comment by Gaz on 19 June 2009 at 04:41:29 PM
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25656849-7583,00.html

I wonder why Penny Wong and the Chief Scientist have not answered Senator Fielding’s questions.

I would have thought they would have had the answers to these questions on the top of their heads - if they had the answers. They were advised of the questions before the meeting and still they have not been able to answer them.

Comment by Havequestions on 19 June 2009 at 02:29:32 PM
Gaz, There is so much emotive stuff in your last post, there is no point in trying to address all of it. Let me take just a few points:

1. The world is more productive when warmer (IPCC Chapter 6)

2. Cutting GHG emissions will make virtually no difference to the climate in 2100 (For the A1B scenario 0.1C change in temp if all the proposed policies to cut GHG emissions were implemented)

3. The cost to humanity of cutting GHG emissions, in an economically irrational way, is huge. According to IPCC it is about 5.5% of world GDP in 2050. The UN Human Development Program shows the effect of slowing GDP growth on: infant mortality, life expectancy, litteracy, education level achieved, fertility and population growth rate. Slowing GDP growth will result in millions more infant deaths, shorter lives, higher world population and all the environmental problems that brings. These are the real problems that slowing GDP growth will bring.

Against this is the fact that cutting GHG emissions will make virtually no difference to the climate (as you can see by reading the IPCC reports).

You talk about the land area that will be covered by a 400 mm rise in sea levels. But you do not talk about the offsetting increase in productive land. Why not?

Comment by Havequestions on 19 June 2009 at 02:03:50 PM
The “skeptics” such as I tend to advise that the science is flawed, and ask for a little more scientific rigour - yet the IPCC bandwagon and its passengers use emotion and cast skeptics as reckless and indifferent, and seem to believe whatever is on the next internet link they visit

Some key issues are:
1. the sun is the source of energy yet the Earths relationship to it (orbit and receipt of solar flare energy) is ignored. Why would the source of all energy in the solar system be ignored or downplayed - as Arj Barker commented if my toast is burnt I don’t blame the bread.
2. upon being challenged regarding how many hottest years on record wre in the last 10 years, the number suddenly reduced from 9 or so top 3-4. How many times have you heard on weather reports “hottest day in 70 years” - what do you think that means ? The 1930’s was on eof the hottest decades on record.
3. CO2 increase has been shown to follow, not lead temp increases. Both have varied substantially over thousands of years, prior to chinas coal mines, farting cows and automobiles.
4. Antartic is cooling. IPCC models conveniently ignore the polar temp see-saw behavior. Cutin uni has conducted scientific experiments to “listen” to ice cracking as a result of warming in the antartic and in 6 years has concluded there’s no major cracking and melting going on
5 effect of clouds and water vapour, undersea volcanoesand reabsortption of CO2 by the sea are all downplayed
6 the mideival warming period. Climate change woriiers may like to ponder on the fact that many times previously, including the roman times, the earth was warmer than now

For those that are really quite interested in the scientific facts, Ian Plimer’s book Heavan and Earth provides an interesting and referenced scientific commentary on the subject, and there is deafening silience from the climate change scientists on the points it raises - seems to be convenient to ignore it.

Comment by kimbo02 on 19 June 2009 at 02:02:08 PM
M Weiskop,

I misunderstood who you were responding to in your last post. Ignore that I addressed my reply to you.

Comment by Havequestions on 19 June 2009 at 01:46:40 PM
Tanguerra

Why do Alarmists keep talking about who is sponsoring whom? Are Alamrmists no aware that governments have spent some $50 billion on climate change research. The grants come with strings attached. The pressure is to find evidence to support the ‘dangerous AGW’ case.

The sceptics have not been funded. So the ‘dangerous AGW’ hypothesis has not been properly tested.

Comment by Havequestions on 19 June 2009 at 01:42:13 PM
M Weiskop,

I agree. But there are two questions. One is as you say. But the other is also important. It is “even if man’s activites are causing global warming to the extent forecast by the climate models, so what?”

This is an important question to ask. The answer is: global warming is not dangerous, it may be better.

So we should not embark on an ETS before there is an international agreement.

The reason is that:

a) cutting the worlds GHG emissions by the amounts proposed for the world by 2020 and 2050 will make almost no difference to the temperature in 2100. The models say the effect if all the actions were taken would be about 0.1 C. So there is no benefit?

b) It is far from clear that global warming is bad. There is much evidence that a warmer planet is better. Scare campaigns about sea level rising 4 mm per year are silly. The lost productive land due to a 400 mm rise in sea level over a period of 100 years would be offset many times over by the land area of the northern hemisphere that becomes more productive (and grows more forests).

c) the costs to humanity are huge from implementing the proposed policies to cut GHG emissions.

There are good reasons to move away from using fossil fules. ‘dangerous AGW’ is not one of them.

Comment by Havequestions on 19 June 2009 at 01:36:26 PM
Dear Senator,

Please consider more carefully what you are doing. You risk making yourself look very foolish. You have taken the word of an infamous industry lobbying group - The Heartland Institute - which is well known to be funded by Exxon Mobil, the tobacco inustry and the US hard right against the scientific findings of the IPCC a Nobel Prize winning, poltically independent scientific organisation estalished under the auspices of the UN. The Heartland Institute relies on unpublished and non-peer reviewed assertions and plain falsehoods and distortions of fact which might sound plausible, but do not stand up to scrutiny. The IPCC Reports are based on submissions from thousands of recognised experts and subjected to the most rigorous peer review process devised.

Then, if you are still not sure, use your own eyes. How many years has Australia been in drought? How many natural disasters have we experienced in recent years? How many heatwaves, fires and floods? Is this normal? Is something wrong with the weather? Think.

Even if there is only a 50/50 chance of the IPCC being correct about the science, shouldn’t we err on the side of caution? Would you get on a plane with a 50/50 chance of crashing? Would you let your children drive a car with a 50/50 chance of an accident? Will you let our country and our world be vulnerable to this sort of risk for the sake of a few jobs in the coal industry?

Please inform yourself properly on this issue. This issue is far too important to leave up to an industry lobby group. I insist that you have your staff conduct an independent audit inot the background of every scientist who has spoken to you on this topic and compare their credentials, their funding arrangements and their affiliations with organisations, think tanks and front groups.

Please. For the sake of all of our children think again about this important issue, before it’s too late.

Some references:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/8397
http://royalsociety.org/document.asp?tip=1&id=5851
http://www.csiro.au/science/Climate-Change.html
http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/category/fact_file/

Comment by Tanguerra on 19 June 2009 at 01:29:43 PM
Re Comment by Gaz on 19 June 2009 at 12:23:30 AM

“Havequestions, you can make wild accusations about the IPCC, NASA, the CSIRO, Garnaut, Stern, and all the peak scientific bodies of all the nations around the world who’ve acknowledged global warming is happening, that humans are the major current influence and that it poses grave dangers.”
The globe is warming - nobody denies it. The question is the role of “human influence”. All the peak scientific bodies have opinions but not one of them has offered any empirical evidence to back up their opinions - they are all toeing the politically acceptable line.

The IPCC talks in “levels of confidence” which is not scientifically tenable - “consensus science” is a term used to cover up the case when there is no science behind you.

Comment by m weiskop on 19 June 2009 at 10:55:06 AM
Havequestions, you can make wild accusations about the IPCC, NASA, the CSIRO, Garnaut, Stern, and all the peak scientific bodies of all the nations around the world who’ve acknowledged global warming is happening, that humans are the major current influence and that it poses grave dangers.

You can wave your hands and dismiss what they are saying till you’re blue in the face, but the laws of physics won’t change just because you won’t face facts.

You can say the IPCC forecasts, under one of its scenarios, a sea level rise of 400mm, but better-informed people will notice you’ve forgotten to mention that’s aside from any collapse in the Greenland or West Antractic Ice sheets, because the timing of those events is too hard to model with great confidence.

Of course major ice sheet collapse probably won’t happen in our lifetimes, and probably not even even in the lifetimes of our chidren. But the more we stick our heads in the sand now, the more likely those collapses become.

Many scientists already believe they are more likely than not.

This is what the synthesis report says: “The projections
do not include uncertainties in climate-carbon cycle feedbacks nor the full effects of changes in ice sheet flow, therefore the upper values of the ranges are not to be considered upper bounds for sea level rise.”

And they’ll know that the more CO2 we put into the atmosphere, the more likely those ice sheet collapses will become.

You can talk about rates of sea level rise of 400mm per century as being “only” twice as fast as the past 1000 years, but people will know that you really should have said the last 100 years. As the CSIRO’s sea level web site says, there was “little net change in sea level from 2000 years ago until the start of the 19th century”.

As someone once said, you can have your own opinions, but you can’t have your own facts.

You can turn a blind eye to the consequences of global warming because, to you, the flooding of vast areas of populated land - just one of many adverse effects - is nothing to worry about: “People move all the time, so it is not a great problem,” you say.

So finding somewhere for 10 to 15 million starving Bangladeshis to live is no big deal? A World Bank report a couple of years ago predicted even a 1 metre sea level rise would displace 56 million people. And if Greenland and West Antarctic go, it will be a lot more than 1 metre.

No big deal? Really?

And what about the 75-250 million people in Africa expected to be suffering from what’s quaintly called “water stress” by 2020? And the people in those countries where rain-fed agricutlure is projected to fall by up to 50%?

Will those suffering from the increase in malnutrition as a result of climate change be glad that our little increase in GDP growth means “people will be able to afford better homes in better places”, as you happily predict?

Will those people, most of them already very poor, be happy that developed nations have gained an extra tenth of a percentage point or so in annual GDP growth for a few decades, before the costs of environental damage tips the balance to the negative, even for us?

Comment by Gaz on 19 June 2009 at 12:23:30 AM
Dear Steve,
According to Sir Fred Hoyle the odds of life originating by chance is one in: 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
Please bring some fresh air to the new national science curriculum and ensure that intelligent design is taught.
Can you ask the questions which you do so well. “Will Intelligent design be included in the new National Curriculum? If not. Why not?

Comment by PG on 19 June 2009 at 12:14:42 AM
Gaz,

In your reply to my post you said “the cost of doing nothing will be great”

Many dispute this statement.

Sir Nicholas Stern, Ros Garnaut were polical appointments. They are not impartial.

The IPCC is not accepted by many as an authority. It is considered to be prejudiced. It is considered to be the proponent of the alarmists case.

Rising sea level is not dangerous. IPCC A1B scenario projects a rise of 400 mm in 100 years. Thats 4 mm per year which is 2 mm per year faster than it has been rising for the past 1000 years. People move all the time, so it is not a great problem. As long as we don’t cut GDP growth, people will be able to afford better homes in better places. There will be more food as the northern hemisphere warms.

Anyone who reads the IPCC reports (eg Chapter 6) with an open mind can see that it is clearly prejudice. It is arguing a case. It is not science, nor is it an unbiassed summary of the science. It selects the evidence that supports its case.

Global warming may be a net benefit.

However, the costs of the proposed actions to cut GHG emission will be great, as admitted by the IPCC. The costs to humanity will be great. There is no doubt about that.

But there is serious doubt that cutting GHG emissions will have any benefit whatso ever.

Would you care to argue this point?

Comment by Havequestions on 18 June 2009 at 07:27:38 PM
The IPCC is wrong - they say that if CO2 is responsible for 20% of the greenhouse effect , then if you double CO2 you double heat absorbance. This is rubbish - CO2 only is absorbed at 4.3 microns - (infrared b) - a wavelength that the sun only emits 1% of its energy at & is completely absorbed by a concentration of co2 of 0.005% or so in the first 10 metres of the atmosphere. A doubling of CO2 does nothing to the atmosphere - its already at maximal efficiency. This theory would be really easy to prove wrong (if it were)

Comment by Only greenies' CO2 is poison on 18 June 2009 at 06:58:45 PM
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090616_climatereport.html

As I said the NOAA should have the last say, since this report was released on the 16th of this month detailing the potential environmental trouble we will face with inaction.

Since Steve may be stalling, anyone who believes we should have action should email Greg Combet and Penny Wong to increase the emissions reductions levels to gain the 6 greens’ votes instead.

Comment by Windguy on 18 June 2009 at 06:57:01 PM
Correction - the reference to 1989 in my previous comment should have read 1999:

“..global surface temperature for 2009 so far by all major measures is currently higher than the average for all of 1999.”

Comment by Gaz on 18 June 2009 at 06:03:03 PM
Why have global temperatures cooled in recent years while CO2 increased? It’s not unusual over the last 40 years of global warming to see short periods of cooling. This is due to short term cycles like the 11 year solar cycle (we’re currently at solar minimum) and the El Nino Southern Oscillation (which from 2003 to 2009 has transitioned from warm El Nino conditions to cool La Nina conditions):
http://www.skepticalscience.com/The-correlation-between-CO2-and-temperature.html

Comment by John Cook on 18 June 2009 at 04:44:59 PM
Sydney Street:

Don’t let me have the last word, let’s leave it to the IPCC:

“Current spatial coverage, temporal resolution and age control of available Holocene proxy data limit the ability to determine if there were multi-decadal periods of global warmth comparable to the last half of 20th century.”

So it’s not certain whether the “Holocene optimum” ever happened on a synchronised world-wide basis.

If it did, it sure didn’t last, just like the mild warming in the medieval period, when temperatures were lower than the past decade average.

That’s unlike the warming we’re causing, because that atmospheric CO2 increase persist for hundreds of years.

As for the so-called cooling over the past 10 years, by now Senator Fielding should have figured out that the temperature varies around its trend due to events like volcanoes and the El Nino effect.

Picking a hot year and drawing a line to a cold year, doesn’t tell you anything about a trend, because those temporary ups and downs are just that - temporary.

Again, think about what happens when the next el Nino comes along. We are going to have a very hot year or two when that happens and anyone chanting the “global cooling” mantra is going to look rather foolish.

So, forget the IPCC, let’s let the Bureau of Meterology have the last word:

“The signs of a developing El Niño have strengthened during the past fortnight. The key indicators for this are a drop in the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) to around −10, further warming of the Pacific and a strong decrease in the strength of the Trade Winds.”
“In addition, many computer models, including the Bureau’s POAMA, remain firm in their predictions of an El Niño event in 2009. This puts the odds of an El Niño at above 50%, which is more than double the normal risk of an event. However, it’s still possible, though increasingly less likely, that the recent trends may stall without El Niño thresholds being reached.”
“El Niño events are usually (but not always) associated with below normal rainfall in the second half of the year across large parts of southern and inland eastern Australia.”
“Another adverse sign for southeastern Australian rainfall is the recent trend to positive values in the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), as measured by the Dipole Mode Index (DMI).”

That’s from http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/

It looks as though the people whispering into Senator Fielding’s ear are soon going to have to start talking about the last 11 years, not 10.

That’s because the average global surface temperature for 2009 so far by all major measures is currently higher than the average for all of 1989.

So to pretend there is a falling trend, you will have to go back 11 years to the unusually hot El Nino year of 1998.

Of course an El Nino event, whenever it happens next, won’t tell us anything much about what’s happening over the long term.

However it will be a reminder that cherry-picking a year here and a year there is very likely to be misleading, and that people who do that in debates about the scientific basis for public policy are very likely TRYING to be misleading.

Comment by Gaz on 18 June 2009 at 03:57:56 PM
Gaz,

Mostly we want to get this right, and the credibility of the green movement is at stake on this issue.

Back to Steve’s question to Senator Wong -

“I asked the Minister and her team of experts to explain why global temperatures have cooled over the last 10 years while carbon dioxide emissions have increased.”

History will indeed be a merciless judge on the frantic lobby calling for reducing CO2 emissions if the current cooling trend continues.

Where were the dinosaurs in the Mediaeval and Roman warming, or the Holocene optimum?

The science is still open on this, but you can have your last word again.

Go Steve!

Comment by Sydney Street on 18 June 2009 at 01:59:45 PM

Senator Steve Fielding - Leader of Family First