Lovelock says global warming slower than predicted
April 24th, 2012 at 3:00 pm by David FarrarJames Lovelock is a well known environmentalist, and has been a loud voice proclaiming that the impact of man made global warming would be massive. In 2006 he said:
billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable
He was referring to the year 2100 – just 88 years away. He said that 80% of the world’s population will have perished due to climate change, and by 2040 parts of the Sahara desert will have moved into middle Europe, and there will be almost no food grown in Europe.
In 2010 he said “Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.”
He is quoted on the Green Party website 24 times, including blog comments.
MSNBC reports:
James Lovelock, the maverick scientist who became a guru to the environmental movement with his “Gaia” theory of the Earth as a single organism, has admitted to being “alarmist” about climate change and says other environmental commentators, such as Al Gore, were too.
Lovelock, 92, is writing a new book in which he will say climate change is still happening, but not as quickly as he once feared. …
“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened,” Lovelock said.
“The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now,” he said.
“The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time… it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising — carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that,” he added.
He pointed to Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and Tim Flannery’s “The Weather Makers” as other examples of “alarmist” forecasts of the future.
I’ve often said that the “alarmists” are significantly responsible for the huge levels of disbelief in greenhouse gases causing global warming. There is little dispute that increased greenhouse gases has a direct impact on the average temperature, but what is unknown is how other factors either multiply this impact, or reduce it.
Related posts:
- Leyland on global warming
- Global Warming on hold until 2015 claim Germans
- The summer the tide went out on global warming
- Important Questions on Global Warming
April 24th, 2012 at 3:24 pm
Oh dear. A trillion dollar taxpayer-funded industry going down in flames. How sad.
Vote:April 24th, 2012 at 3:29 pm
At 92 this is probably something of a deathbed confession from Lovelock. He can see the writing on the wall, and none of it bears even a passing resemblance to the apocalyptic future he dreamed of.
You can read more about the Gaia enviro-religious cult here. Note the strong connection with UN’s Agenda 21 and Earth Summit events.
Vote:April 24th, 2012 at 3:29 pm
Oh shit!
Cue: The usual (alarmist) suspects in 3…., 2…., 1……
Vote:April 24th, 2012 at 3:31 pm
Thank god Key brought in the ETS.
Vote:April 24th, 2012 at 3:39 pm
Guys of that generation were born in an era when horses & carts were still economic transport, and they saw the advent of radio, TV, a world war, atomic bombs, the moon landings and the internet.
So I would have more time for the doomsday predictions of someone of that generation, than I would have for a lot of other people’s doomsday predictions.
But yeah, apparently apocalyptic global warmings in the mirror are not as close as they might have appeared…
Vote:April 24th, 2012 at 3:42 pm
Lovelock is a post-modern religious nutbar and an eco-fascist (It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while).
He and his followers have been wrong every time.
Wrong again and again and again and again…………
- There is no catastrophic global warming.
- There is no linear or accelerating rate of global warming compared with increasing levels of CO2.
- The Himalayan glaciers are not melting.
- It still snows in winter.
- The Arctic Ocean is not ice-free.
- There is no acceleration in sea level rise.
- There is little (if any) change in the Ocean temperatures.
But it will all happen very soon.
Vote:Why don’t you believe it?
Why don’t you want to hand your sovereignty to the UN and pay your extra taxes to be distributed to the global warming prophets and the deserving such as third world dictators and UN bureaucrats?
Deniers!
April 24th, 2012 at 3:43 pm
“There is little dispute that increased greenhouse gases has a direct impact on the average temperature”
There is alot of dispute over this. There is plenty of data that shows it is the other way around — CO2 increases follow temperature increases. But the alarmists coveniently foreget this.
[DPF: Sorry but no scientist really disputes the direct impact. It is very basic science. The disputes are over the indirect impacts]
Vote:April 24th, 2012 at 3:50 pm
The alarmist have told us ad nausium that increased Co2 will result in catastrophically increased temperatures, increased sea levels, climate refugees, natural disasters and eventual aniliation of the human race. And further that nothing remains unknown, the debate is over, the science is settled and anyone who questions this assertion or, worse, provides contrary evidence should be ostracized or prosecuted.
All this can apparently be averted by massive global taxation. Never mind the evidence that CAGW is a complete crock.
Lying, thieving megalomania on the part of a few, preying on the apathy and/or ignorance of the many.
Vote:April 24th, 2012 at 3:57 pm
DPF – you say……
“…There is little dispute that increased greenhouse gases has a direct impact on the average temperature, but what is unknown is how other factors either multiply this impact, or reduce it….”
The is a LOT of dispute that increased greenhouse gases have any impact on average temperature. The CO2 thing is still but a theory – there has been no experiment to show that the miniscule influence of CO2 is even measurable compared to the effect of water vapour.
There is another theory that even more than 100 years laters is still being worked thru. When the early astronomers and physicists worked out the formulae for gravity they thought “Great – now we can measure the mass of the universe. We KNOW that if we know the mass of one heavenly body and its orbit then we can work out the mass of the universe”
Trouble is it isnt working like that. They cant find enough mass – in the form of stars and planets – to fill the formula. So then they went onto ‘Dark Matter’. And sure there is some out there – but still not enough. Currently they are looking for ‘Dark Energy’ And Im sure they will find some – but there will still be a shortfall.
From the certain position they had over 100 years ago – its now apparent that the theory they had wasnt actually very good and its taken lots of research to fill the gaps – sorry – some of the gaps.
Climate will be the same.
I will send you separately a scan of the cover of Time magazine from April 8 1977 – its says “How to survive the coming ice age – 51 things you can do to make a difference”.
Of course climate changes all the time – only 40 years ago some of the same people who are now crying ‘Hot wolf’ were then crying ‘Cold wolf’. Dont get sucked in.
Vote:April 24th, 2012 at 4:24 pm
What a relief! There will be huge celebrations in the Green Party, and all the others who have been so dreadfully worried.
It’s well into wind-down time now. The Kyoto Protocol is history. If anything comes from the Durban Platform (very unlikely) it won’t be until 2020. Spain, Germany, etc are closing their renewable subsidy programmes. Solyndra and scores of other ‘clean tech’ start-ups have gone to the wall. The EU won’t be increasing its emission targets.
No country anywhere is still considering introducing an ETS. Australia’s carbon tax will be gone well before it is due to convert to an ETS. New Zealand, the last loneliest outpost of empire, is the only place on earth about to double its (unique) energy tax.
The sage James Lovelock has followed the maxim of Maynard Keynes: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?”
Vote:April 24th, 2012 at 4:33 pm
David
I’ve often said that the “alarmists” are significantly responsible for the huge levels of disbelief in greenhouse gases causing global warming.
I don’t think this is quite right. I think most people accept greenhouse gases are increasing and some mild warming has occurred as a result, and the science on the idea that at least some warming will occur as greenhouse gas concentrations increase is pretty uncontroversial.
What I think is widely disbelieved is the idea of catastrophic warming, which is a quite different theory that depends on heretofore unobserved strong positive climate feedbacks. There is to my knowledge no evidence in favour of such feedbacks.
And, by the way, notice the trick that Gore etc use. They take the noncontroversial argument above, that warming is caused by greenhouse gases, and pass that off for non-controversy on the completely different idea of catatrophe.
Vote:April 24th, 2012 at 4:37 pm
Update: I see David has addressed my point already in the comments. My mistake.
Vote:April 24th, 2012 at 4:38 pm
Correction, if you do a search on google for site:greens.org.nz lovelock, then you get FIFTY TWO results!! (as I doubt any of them are referring to the runner! Although I did a quick look through)
Vote:April 24th, 2012 at 4:45 pm
Ben: I think you are far closer to the mark than most comments here.
that depends on heretofore unobserved strong positive climate feedbacks. There is to my knowledge no evidence in favour of such feedbacks.
That could be a dilemma. Is there any way of knowing for sure unless it can actually be observed?
I presume it would be possible, if evidence exists, to show that gradual increases (or decreases) in temperature have suddenly changed to far more significant changes. But even then, with so many variables, it would be extremely difficult to know at what point in a particular set of circumstances the triggerring would take effect.
Vote:April 24th, 2012 at 4:50 pm
Also, I wonder if there’s an inclination for some scientists to think that “The Trigger Effect” will occur in their lifetime, just as some people think the Mayan Calendar will end this very year, and some have thought the second coming will happen in just about every year for the past two millenia.
Vote:April 24th, 2012 at 4:50 pm
ben…
“I think a small but vocal minority of people accept greenhouse gases are increasing and some mild warming has occurred as a result that may yet prove to be utterly unconnected, and the science on the idea that at least some warming will occur as greenhouse gas concentrations increase is pretty uncontroversial, if you ask that same, vocal minority.”
There, fixed that for ya
Vote:April 24th, 2012 at 5:16 pm
There’s a parallel here with peak oil. I imagined we’d be out on the Lyttelton Heads waiting for the oil tanker and people would be arming themselves against marauders. I did have doubts though as people seem to be able to scratch something together in a scarcity situation. Peak oil though seems to play out like a person with angina: he runs along gets a jab and slows to a walk; feels better gets going and wham-o!.
Vote:April 24th, 2012 at 5:21 pm
Toad?…..Luc…?
Where are you guys???
Vote:April 24th, 2012 at 5:22 pm
DPF –your reponse to my comment @ 3.43. It might be a matter of semantics but work done on the Vostok ice core data bought into question as what comes first –temp increases or CO2 increases.
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V6/N26/EDIT.php
So I repeat my comment that there are disputes about it. ( who is right might be another matter) Also by simple observation –we are told CO2 increases have continued over the past 10-15 years but there has not been corresponding temperature increases which the alarmist models predicted.
Vote:April 24th, 2012 at 5:28 pm
When i want information on global warming, I aways go to my local property developer. They’re the boys!!
Vote:http://books.google.co.nz/books/about/The_Greatest_Hoax.html?id=Ry7SygAACAAJ&redir_esc=y
April 24th, 2012 at 5:31 pm
The usual scenario here a statement by Lovelock is misinterpreted and the light-weights attack. The heavy artillery* will be along soon to drive them off.
* Gareth Renowden
Vote:April 24th, 2012 at 6:48 pm
Even Al Gore doesn’t believe all of the carbon hype now. In 2009 he admitted that CO2 does not cause all of the global warming.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/gore_clears_carbon_dioxide_of_most_blame/
On top of that, Gore’s Chicago Climate Exchange went under in 2010 –
http://www.nationalreview.com/planet-gore/252703/rip-al-gores-chicago-climate-exchange-has-died-greg-pollowitz
If even the Godfather of Climate Change does not believe carbon is totally the cause, why should we?
Vote:April 24th, 2012 at 7:42 pm
hj, you mean that renowned truffle grower and MA will teach us true science?
Vote:April 24th, 2012 at 8:38 pm
hello. I just laugh when I hear the self congratulary denialist support that you’re all giving each other.
The simple fact is that CO2 output is going up, see this to have it confirmed: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/2011-temperature-roundup, where you will find graphs that show when the current downward pressure from el Nino, aerosols, and solar variations are removed, it’s all going up.
Sure the last 15 years have plateaued but they also contain ten of the hottest years since records began. It’s very likely that the sun will come out of it’s 11 year ‘cooler’ period this year. We could be in for a rocky ride.
This is the graph of the adjusted data with the sun output, el nino and aerosols removed.
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/adjusted.jpg
I can’t paste images in here.
I hope that you find this of interest.
Vote:April 24th, 2012 at 9:00 pm
billr, is el Nino a forcing or not? If it is, then we don’t know how what drives it so Tamino’s analysis is just hind-casting without predictive value. If it isn’t, then it is invalid to use it as a temperature offset.
Likewise, chances are that the sun will not oblige you with activity for some time. I think it is the alarmists who are in for a rocky ride. And so long as we keep burning lots of coal the aerosols will keep cooling us. So tamino’s theoretical warming may remain his impious hope while the happy old world keeps turning at much the same temperature as it has been for decades.
And by the time there is any real warming we will know a lot more about how it works and how we can manage it.
Vote:April 24th, 2012 at 9:23 pm
I might consider the alarmists positions if the redistribution of wealth was off the table.
As long as it is there, Global warming is not a science but political control via alarmed science daat that is being shaped by people and organisations for their purposes.
I note that some alarmists are now calling for sanctions and penalties against deniers when GW is proven!
Vote:I think that is a great idea and look forward to the reverse happening to them.
April 24th, 2012 at 10:29 pm
@billr
Another ‘green’ activist?
Calling people who don’t ‘tow the line’ deniers?
Why deniers bill?
Like holocaust deniers, extreme right wingers?
Sounds a bit desperate and over the top.
By the way, you sound a bit like one of those ‘deniers’.
Remember the IPCC mantra?
“Global warming is the unusually rapid increase in Earth’s average surface temperature over the past century primarily due to the greenhouse gases released by people burning fossil fuels.”
So anthropogenic CO2 is the main cause of global warming.
The problem is of course that according to the computer models the global temperature should have been rising more than twice what it actually has.
The sceptics agree that global warming is real but anthropogenic CO2 has little to do with it.
The data shows there is no accelerating rate of global warming, not even a linear rate when compared with rising CO2 levels.
You now concede that natural climate cycles (El Nino) and the Sun affects the climate?
You sound like a heretic.
This is what causes climate change….
11 year and 206 year cycles: Cycles of solar variability ( sunspot activity )
21,000 year cycle: Earth’s combined tilt and elliptical orbit around the Sun ( precession of the equinoxes )
41,000 year cycle: Cycle of the +/- 1.5° wobble in Earth’s orbit ( tilt )
100,000 year cycle: Variations in the shape of Earth’s elliptical orbit ( cycle of eccentricity )
This in turn effects:
Heat retention and Solar reflectivity. Resulting in the seasons, changing ocean currents, quasiperiodic climate patterns, cloud formation, the disappearance and formation of glaciers and ice formation.
And you call us deniers?
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 9:02 am
Environmentalism, like socialism, is just another branch of pessimism.
The politics of pessimism has been very costly, but at least one 92 year old serial exaggerator has the courage to admit he got it wrong.
The ghost of Thomas Malthus might care to do the same.
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 9:10 am
Morning Mr Ansell.
Well done on Close up last night, it is about time somebody stood up to the politically correct brown racists.
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 9:31 am
In fact, when have the pessimists ever been right?
Even against the handbrake of pessimist politics, the optimist problem-solving geniuses at the other end of the human spectrum ensure that our species continues to accelerate.
When we encounter a problem, we fix it.
Hundreds of years ago, the Dutch had a little water problem. They fixed it with dykes.
By 2100, Bangladeshis will be as rich as today’s Dutch.
If the warm-mongers’ predictions of massively rising tides should buck the trend and actually be correct, then the Bangladeshis of 2100 will find a way to fix the problem.
We should not be wasting precious money trying to fix a non-problem now.
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 9:52 am
hello y’all
that got you all frothing at the mouth didn’t it.
Tamino, for those who don’t know, is a statistician. The page that he wrote is based on a paper written by Foster and Rahmsdorf, you can find it here, http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022/pdf/1748-9326_6_4_044022.pdf, he extended it to cover 2011.
heres the summary.
We analyze five prominent time series of global temperature (over land and ocean) for their common time interval since 1979: three surface temperature records (from NASA/GISS, NOAA/NCDC and HadCRU) and two lower-troposphere (LT) temperature records based on satellite microwave sensors (from RSS and UAH). All five series show consistent global warming trends ranging from 0.014 to 0.018 K yr−1. When the data are adjusted to remove the estimated impact of known factors on short-term temperature variations (El Niño/southern oscillation, volcanic aerosols and solar variability), the global warming signal becomes even more evident as noise is reduced. Lower-troposphere temperature responds more strongly to El Niño/southern oscillation and to volcanic forcing than surface temperature data. The adjusted data show warming at very similar rates to the unadjusted data, with smaller probable errors, and the warming rate is steady over the whole time interval. In all adjusted series, the two hottest years are 2009 and 2010.
to answer a point made by Alan Wilkinison, el nino, is weather. see above.
as for the other andy who writes thus
11 year and 206 year cycles: Cycles of solar variability ( sunspot activity )
21,000 year cycle: Earth’s combined tilt and elliptical orbit around the Sun ( precession of the equinoxes )
41,000 year cycle: Cycle of the +/- 1.5° wobble in Earth’s orbit ( tilt )
100,000 year cycle: Variations in the shape of Earth’s elliptical orbit ( cycle of eccentricity )
the above is all true, but is a mere piss in the ocean compared to the heating caused by the excess CO2 that humans are pumping out.
he also makes comments about computer models not matching reality, this is patently wrong, have a look at this one site for example: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Hansen-1988-prediction.htm, there are more if you would only care to look.
anyway, you are all arguing as if this was a political debate: it’s not.
here’s some more things to consider, http://www.skepticalscience.com/levitus-2012-global-warming-heating-oceans.html
also that, http://hot-topic.co.nz/down-by-the-seaside/, This year’s NZ Climate Change Centre conference, to be held at Te Papa in Wellington next month, focusses on sea level rise, and how communities can adapt to the inevitable encroachment of the ocean. The organisers have laid on some excellent speakers, include Aussie oceanographer and sea level expert John Church, as well as many directly involved with the issues raised by sea level rise in New Zealand.
why don’t some of you go to that and try your luck there!
as for the other andy, is accusing someone of being green meant to be an insult? why do you assume such a thing? does one have to be green to have a care and concern for such matters? I don’t think so.
I don’t expect any of you to read any of the links i’ve posted as you are so all utterly convinced you are right, and like those of faith, unnerring in their devotion to the unbeliveable.
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 9:53 am
harawira pretty much ‘had’ you..eh ansell..?
..time and time again..
watch it and cringe..
http://tvnz.co.nz/close-up/race-debate-ansell-harawira-godfrey-video-4849501
are you sure you aren’t redbaiter..?..you sure do talk like him..
phillip ure@whoar.co.nz
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 10:29 am
Billr…
And he’s not a physicist either! I can probably coach Tamino on the shortfall/weaknesses of statistical algorithms because the guy simply uses numerical software tools. Yep, tools that have been developed for users like him by those who understand numerical algorithms.
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 10:44 am
billr – thanks for that, some interesting stuff on what is very much a work in progress.
There’s a devout bunch of religio-politicos here who are very vocal, and proclaim every anomaly posted on any blog proves their own absolute position. But there are many more that read and stay mostly quiet. It’s easier to do that and avoid yet another round of name calling and futile slanging.
Extensive science will continue to try and determine how much humans have an significant effect on the planet’s environment. Degree, timeframe and reversibility are the only real arguments. Except that we can’t do much to reverse released emissions back to stored hydrocarbons.
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 11:09 am
Billr, did you read the paper of Grant Foster and Stefan Rahmstorf which you enthusiastically cited above? If you have, did you pay close attention to the statistical algorithm/method that they used?
They used ARMA. They treated the noise as an AR(1), ie, auto-regression of order 1 and also they treated the underlying process that has driven the global temperature oscillation/fluctuation, as an ARMA(1,1), ie, auto-regression of order 1 and moving average of order 1. They didn’t explain why they chose those parameters, which to any one who knows time-series & signal processing analysis, Grant Foster and Stefan Rahmstorf’s chosen parameters looked simply like a guesswork. This means that the mechanisms that driven the process could have been an ARMA(1,2), ARMA(1,3), ARMA(2,1), ARMA(2,2) process and so forth. They simply picked ARMA(1,1) out of many parameter-spaces and assumed that the underlying physical process/es that has driven the the global temperature fluctuations.
Besides, the signal/statistical argument I have stated above. ARMA is a linear process. Climate system is a non-linear process, so one cannot apply a linear method to a non-linear system. ARMA is known for its inaccuracy when applied to complex system as climate. Just ask any economists/financial-analysts if she/he had made money on the stock market by using ARMA to forecast and do trend-analysis. Here’s what you expect to hear. They will tell you that you can probably toss a coin and come up with the same predictive capability that an ARMA model tells you. In short, ARMA is pretty useless if one tries to apply it to model complex system be it biological system, climate system, economic system, etc…
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 11:48 am
It should probably be remembered that we are a small island nation in the south Pacific whose total emissions are only a fraction of what the world emits each year. If the world is going to seriously do something about climate change, it needs to be a GLOBAL effort. No point in busting our boiler trying to clean the mess up, only to see a much bigger polluter – China, India, U.S., Russia among others – wipe it out with their ineptitude.
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 12:19 pm
I think this is a religious debate.
billr: Will the NZ Climate Centre conference be the usual Te Papa eco-socialist echo chamber, or will sceptics be invited to present their side?
Your answer will determine whether it will be worth my while attending.
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 12:26 pm
big bruv – thanks.
philu – appreciate your giving people the link. Let’s see if they agree with you.
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 12:40 pm
Billr, if El Nino is weather then it is a response to other forcings and therefore a negative feedback which can be expected to continue. As will generation of aerosols by burning fossil fuels.
Therefore Foster’s theoretical warming will not happen as it ignores the real negative feedbacks that operate. And I was already familiar with Foster’s claims.
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 12:51 pm
92? I’d say cognitive function is declining fairly rapidly by 92.
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 1:08 pm
Thanks for the link Phool.
Vote:ansell IMO came across as resonable and sane.Hone as always came across as the radical that he is.
I read your post the other day Phool about you thinking George W flattened the WTC,best laugh I have had for a while,im sorry but the drugs have simply fucked your little brain,i hated reading your previous posts with all the ./,** in them but now cant wait to read the complete crap that you are capable of coming out with.
April 25th, 2012 at 4:00 pm
hello
john Ansell: this is not a religious debate, it’s originally science, which has been taken up by people who don’t like the consequences of the science, ie. changes are coming that they don’t fancy as they percieve that it impinges on their ability to do stuff. So what they do, rather than determine a way through to resolve or mitigate the consquences, they attack the science as if it is some political cheap points scoring game – it’s not. What’s stopping you going to the te papa thing? I don’t know how to obtain tickets, if i had the time i would go myself. No one’s stopping you.
to alan wilkninson, what i have read of el nino/la ninia it has to do with temperature being raised/lowered above normal for three months, or rather that an el nino/la ninia phase has occurred when this happens for three months at a time. Here’s an interesting link by John Nielsen-Gammon who is the Texas State Climatologist and a Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A&M University.
http://climatecrocks.com/2012/04/24/the-lack-of-recent-warming-canard-no-cigar-but-thanks-for-playing/
he’s charted the recent el nino/la nina temps over the past few years, they’re all pointing one way, upper right quadrant, in fact this recent el nino is the warmest on record. here’s his closing para:
But be honest: doesn’t it seem likely that, barring another major volcanic eruption, the next El Niño will cause global temperatures to break their previous record? Doesn’t it appear that whatever has caused global temperatures to rise over the past four decades is still going strong?
So, Falafulu Fisi, if you think that you are so right, and Foster and Rahmstorf so wrong [it also appears that Foster is Tamino, google is your friend remember] then why don’t you take it up with them directly? You can email them.
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 5:13 pm
Billr, your problem is that you act like 14 year old virgin girl. Your uninformed virgin mind, was violated by Tamino’s simpleton auto-regression analysis and you simply fell in love with it. I bet that you don’t have a background in science? Now, be careful not to just stormed into a crowd (like you do here) and start acting as if you know because you don’t know if the crowd has got science/physics PhD qualified people in there.
I had debated with the warmists at RealClimate including Gavin Schmidt, Tamino, et al a few years back on exactly the same topic (even though not on the paper you cited) of auto-regression. I was banned for calling Gavin Schmidt a blind faith in taking the AR(1) process without explaining why order 1 and not order 2, 3, 4, etc… I pointed out to Prof. Schmidt that he was simply guessing because he simply assumed that it was AR(1) from the beginning, with no justification given. He in fact learnt something from me. I told him that had he used System Identification (or SysId for short), then he would have come up with a different order, based on BIC (Bayesian information criterion) fitness model identification. It turned out that none of RealClimate professors had head of SysID?
Anyway the debate at RealClimate involved skeptic’s paper at the time, Dr. Stephen Schwartz on:
Stephen Schwartz on climate sensitivity
The warmists at RealClimate attacked Dr. Schwartz’s paper and I went in there to defend it. Their attack was based on using an AR(1) model of theirs which they used to dismiss Schwart’s work based on their model. I have pointed out that their analysis was not only wrong, but inappropriate. I told Prof. Gavin Schmidt that he (& his authors) are blind believers in statistics and I was banned. I’ve never been back there since.
Again, if the AR or ARMA model shows an increasing trend, then it doesn’t show tell one, whats’ the cause? AR and ARMA model is not a causal model, since it is not based on physics, its pure statistics. Do you understand the difference?
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 5:20 pm
I said…
had head of SysID?
meant to say…
had heard of SysID?
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 5:40 pm
Lovelock, Gore and the Greens are absolute nut cases and/or liars on this issue.
Even the UN’s IPCC (hardly an impartial body on this issue) says that the MAXIMUM sea level rise it thinks will happen by 2100 is 59cm over 2000 levels. That is less the two school rulers. The IPCC says the rise may be as little as 18cm, so that is a midpoint of 38.5cm. See http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/spms3.html#table-spm-1 What’s more, in every IPCC Assessment Report since 1990, the sea-level rise forecasts have fallen and it is expected they will fall again when the next IPCC report comes out in a couple of years.
Of course, a 59cm sea-level rise would no doubt be very bad news for the Maldives and Tuavlu but the vast majority of the world, including NZ, wouldn’t even notice (especially as this happens over 100 years, or 5mm a year!) Never has there been so much passion over something so irrelevant, one way or the other.
It is disgusting that greenies would call people “deniers” for making the case there is no need to panic over the issue, when they deny what even their own precious IPCC has to say.
From personal experience, the greenie commentators attacked me as being part of, for example, being part of an “agenda of denial … not backed up by evidence” when I quoted the IPCC reports in a recent NBR column at http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/sanity-prevail-climate-change-policy-115955
And, of course, the ETS is completely loony. It is interesting, though, and welcome, that DPF now seems to be changing his position on these issues after being an ETS supporter when Nick Smith was Climate Change Minister.
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 5:40 pm
Hello again falafulu Fisi, nice of you to stoop to the insults so quickly. So what you are saying is that you also insulted the people on Realclimate and they kicked your arse?
do you deny then that there is global warming? and that it is caused by man’s consumption of fossil fuels, a straight yes or no will do.
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 5:42 pm
billr
Questions for you:
1. do you think the IPCC forecasts here are wrong: See http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/spms3.html#table-spm-1
2. Will the Te Papa conference discussions you mention be based on these forecasts or on other ones?
3. If the conference discussions will be based on other forecasts, what happened to the “global scientific consensus”?
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 5:45 pm
billr, global warming isn’t something you believe in (if you are a scientist). It is something you measure. There are a variety of ways of attempting to measure it. (Since it is a global average it is a statistic not a direct observable.) The results show a range of behaviours in which some decades warm, some don’t and some even cool.
I don’t know what you believe, nor do I care. I only care about facts.
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 5:51 pm
Billr, there is warming that’s caused by man’s activities (CO2 emission), even skeptics like Prof. Richard Lindzen and others agree. The disagreement is whether man is the main culprit or not. Most skeptics including myself, because that we (man) is not the main culprit even though we do contribute to the warming of the atmosphere. I deny that man is the culprit something else is.
Take a look at the following paper by skeptic Dr. Nicola Scafetta:
Testing an astronomically-based decadal-scale empirical harmonic climate model versus the IPCC (2007) general circulation climate models
Pay attention to his model/s on reconstruction and prediction of global temperature. It trumped all the IPCC various models.
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 5:52 pm
do you deny then that there is global warming? and that it is caused by man’s consumption of fossil fuels, a straight yes or no will do.
Global warming? Hmmm, maybe
Caused by man? No. I do not believe that.
Check out the Global Warming Primer from National Center for Policy Analysis.
http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/GlobalWarmingPrimer.pdf
* Greenhouse gases make up 1% – 2% of the Earth’s atmosphere.
* Of that 1 or 2% of “Greenhouse gas”, 95% is water vapour, and about 3.62% is CO2
* Of that 3.62% that is CO2, humans cause approx 3.4%
* So, the total human contribution of CO2 is approx 0.28%
In other words, negligible. It wouldn’t matter if we were here or not. The carbon trading thing is a huge scam.
*
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 5:57 pm
Fletch – I presume you know National Center for Policy Analysis is a free market “think tank”? Funded by private foundations established by wealthy conservative business families.
Science is not their primary aim.
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 6:02 pm
April 25th, 2012 at 6:01 pm
Conoco plays down plans to expand Gladstone LNG
by: Matt Chambers
From: The Australian
April 25, 2012 11:49AM
A SECOND oil major has toned down its Gladstone LNG expansion plans, with ConocoPhillips now saying it may not expand beyond two trains already expected to go ahead at the site.
Conoco, who with partner Origin has previously flagged a four-train project at their Australia Pacific LNG project, told US investors it was unsure if building a third train was the way to go.
Vote:http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/conoco-plays-down-plans-to-expand-gladstone-lng/story-e6frg9df-1226337898611
Too much oil being found to justify gas trains.
April 25th, 2012 at 6:08 pm
Pete – so what’s the primary aim of all the institutions who’s non-private funding is dependent on them agreeing with the government?
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 6:21 pm
Pete, this is the data the NCPA references.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
You can see that in order to artificially increase the amount of CO2 present in “greenhouse gas”, the official researchers rather deceitfully leave out water vapour (a key component in greenhouse gas). You can see tables of data with and without taking water vapour into account.
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 6:21 pm
fletch
you merely echo the point that i made earlier, you don’t like the ‘cures’ to the problem, so you attack the science, and you clearly demonstrate that with you one liner on carbon trading. we should be getting on the programme now, trying to work out ways to ameliorate the distress that is coming our way, and if we start now, then it will be easier. If we don’t it wont.
It does not matter that greenhouse gasses are 1 or 2 percent of the atmosphere, that has nothing to do with it, it’s not a proportional game.
here’s a light heared look at this myth that CO2 is a trace gas. http://www.skepticalscience.com/CO2_is_a_trace_gas.html
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 6:22 pm
Q1: The earth’s climate has warmed and cooled for eons. It has been warmer than today with lower Co2, and cooler with higher C02. The MWP and LIA were global events, well recorded in modern history. Care to hazard a guess at anthropogenic C02 emissions then?
Q2: Yes, I deny that assertion
Separately, have you done any research on solar cycles c.f. the Maunder Minimum? The National Astronomical Observatory Of Japan suggest that World May Be Entering Period Of Global Cooling after detail and peer reviewed analysis of historical solar cycles. It makes interesting reading.
billr, You’ve been duped. Pure, simple, and probably a tad humiliating. I guess there are millions like you, and it’s going to be interesting to watch the psychosocial consequences for you all as the Church of Climatology disintegrates
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 6:31 pm
billr, I’m saying, that our human contribution is so small, that whatever we do to ameliorate what we consider to be a problem will have no effect whatsoever on the climate, and we are foolish if we think it will.
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 6:39 pm
Fletch: I’m saying, that our human contribution is so small
With what degree of certainty do you say that? There is far more scientific research saying otherwise, do you regard all that as worthless?
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 7:22 pm
Pete, according to whom? The so-called scientists that the IPCC employ? Many of whom are trainees and never wrote a paper before being employed to write on the climate?
I thought it OK to present this except, as it is available to see at Amazon.com, utilizing the “look inside” feature.
http://www.amazon.com/Delinquent-Teenager-Mistaken-Climate-ebook/dp/B005UEVB8Q/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1335337616&sr=8-2
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 8:32 pm
Fletch: thought experiment for you. I have a bucket. It holds 8 liters of water. I have a tap dripping into it, it adds 1 litre an hour. I have a small hole in it, that hole drains 1 litre an hour when the bucket is half full (when the bucket is a bit more full, it drains a bit faster due to extra pressure).
Someone walks past, and they change the tap very very slightly. It now drips 1.0000001 litres per hour. Over a year, my bucket gets more full. Did the person adjusting the tap cause the bucket to be more full? Because the extra water they put in is only .00001% of the total.
See if you can follow the analogy.
I don’t believe in catestrophic global warming, but I do believe man has both increased CO2 in the atmosphere, and that the increase has increased global temperatures. But my simple logic (I’ve actually done some research, and nothing I saw changed my mind) is that the climate has a lot of natural variability, over which a long-term trend lays. So if things getting warmer led to run-away warming, then it would have happened in the past. And it didn’t. But interestingly, the climate is quite susceptable to cooling – ice ages are common step-changes in temperature. My simplistic interpretation is that the world broadly has two stable states – one around the temp we are now, another where there’s lots of ice reflecting heat back into space, and presumably a lot less moisture in the air. I know which one of those two stable states I prefer.
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 8:43 pm
PaulL, according to Hungarian Physicist Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi, the Earth is more or less self regulating as far as temperature, because of the oceans, etc, and the temp cannot ever get too high because of this “Miskolczi Constant”.
Go to the link above and check it out, and read the papers there.
Vote:No one has come forward able to disprove the theory…
April 25th, 2012 at 8:47 pm
krazykiwi
here’s what you said.
Q1: The earth’s climate has warmed and cooled for eons. It has been warmer than today with lower Co2, and cooler with higher C02.
that’s all very true.
The MWP and LIA were global events, well recorded in modern history. Care to hazard a guess at anthropogenic C02 emissions then?
The MWP was not global.
Q2: Yes, I deny that assertion
Separately, have you done any research on solar cycles c.f. the Maunder Minimum? The National Astronomical Observatory Of Japan suggest that World May Be Entering Period Of Global Cooling after detail and peer reviewed analysis of historical solar cycles. It makes interesting reading.
the simple thing is this, all of the ‘normal forcing’ orbital change, solar maxima, volacnoes etc. are all still there, and they still have an effect, however, it is so trivial compared to the effect that CO2 is having to render it meaningless. take for example the last ten years or so. the hottest on record, but they have plateaued, why? lower sun output, el nino etc.
billr, You’ve been duped. Pure, simple, and probably a tad humiliating. I guess there are millions like you, and it’s going to be interesting to watch the psychosocial consequences for you all as the Church of Climatology disintegrates
pure spin, nothing else, there is far too much credible science around AGW, it’s been tested, flora and fauna are moving changing their patterns, ask gardeners, the seasons are coming earlier. it’s all there for those that can see.
Also, Fletch asks about the scientists that the IPCC employs. they don’t. the IPCC takes research as it exists and brings it together.
you are all taking this the wrong way. as i said before you see it as a political game, it’s not.
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 8:57 pm
billr, the IPCC chooses which authors to write for it’s so-called climate bible. They ignore research and opinions of experts in their fields who do not subscribe to the theory of global warming.
It is not a matter (as I think you believe) where they take all available research and extrapolate their theories from that – far from it.
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 9:04 pm
Fletch, you’re wrong: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Skeptical_IPCC_Contributors
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 9:08 pm
I’ve provided a reference to a peer reviewed study that shows the LIA amd MWP were global events. Feel free to provided suitable evidence to the contrary. Remember, people who felt that the MWP was a bit inconvenient to the religion of Climatology thought it was ok to completely expunge its existence from Wikipedia. I wonder why that was? Any ideas billr?
Trivial [so as] to render meaningless?!?! How do you explain how the LIA and the MWP, which in the total absence of anthropogenic C0, showed both warmer and cooler temperatures than we experience today? How his that meaningless?
You have been duped. That’s not spin. It’s fact.
Vote:April 25th, 2012 at 9:12 pm
billr, no I’m not.
No one even knows who most of these authors are, or why they are chosen. All that is given out is the name of the country they are from. Known contributors are activists from Greenpease, the WWF, etc etc… The IPCC has made a point of selecting contributors from every country, although some admit they do not know what they are doing. They also make a point to be politically correct and choose the right amount of women (they are based at the U.N of course).
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 2:31 pm
Man, what is with this blog and people calling anyone they don’t agree with a socialist? Yes, of course, all people who believe in a causal link between man made carbon emissions and global temperature must also believe that the state ought to own the means of production. Stands to reason.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 2:55 pm
No, it’s those who believe there is a causal link between carbon emissions and future climate catastrophe requiring worldwide Government interventions, regulations, taxes, subsidies and compulsory artificial trading systems who are the socialists.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 8:18 pm
to krazi kiwi, fletch and alan
you really are conflating two issues, ie. that of agw and the potential cures. the fact that you don’t like the latter is seriously prejudicing you against seeing the self evident, worldwide backed research into this area.
If you are so convinced that you are correct, why don’t you pick your fights with those who publish peer reviewed papers?
kind regards
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 8:28 pm
billr, no, I’m certainly not conflating those issues. Unfortunately the converse is not true. The advocates for urgent political intervention have been corrupting politics, business, science, science journals and the peer review process.
The fight is against that religious advocacy for the public mind. When that is won, the corruption will self-correct – though I am not sure that science journals will survive in the internet era. There is no justification for publishing publicly-funded research behind the pay-walls that fund the likes of the Elsevier empire.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 8:36 pm
You are wasting your breath with the alt science brigade on here Bilr
beats watching comedy central
Vote:Mind you some of the stuff they come out with
April 26th, 2012 at 9:41 pm
Griff, that’s an empty comment. The point is that as Lovelock accepts global temperatures have not responded to CO2 increases as the climate modelers and alarmists predicted. This is hardly in question since all of the estimates of global temperature confirm this leaving the alarmists with the silly self-justification that “this is the warmest decade on record” which could be true even if the temperature was falling rather than rising.
On the one hand Billr asserts this is partially because the sun’s activity has reduced yet in the next breath he tells us that natural causes are insignificant relative to the impact of CO2. Logic fail.
Then he quotes Foster as showing the failure for temperatures to respond to CO2 is because of El Nino and aerosols as well as sun activity changes. However, El Nino is itself a climate response and aerosols are a by-product of CO2 production so the Foster’s claim that there is an underlying temperature increase is simply false.
Alt science has been produced by the bucket load in pursuit of AGW funding. It is also true that some popular criticism of CAGW is unscientific nonsense. But much is not.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 10:12 pm
I’m sorry I missed Hooten and the drivel he has been spouting, unchallenged, around our air waves and now blogs.
This paper would be a good place for him to start to understand why he is distorting the careful science the IPCC presented on sea level rise.
http://www.nature.com/climate/2010/1004/full/climate.2010.29.html
To put it in simple terms even Hooten may be able to comprehend, the IPCC excluded ice melt from its range of projections because it was not satisfied the science was advanced enough at that time. The above paper shows that the science is coming in thick and fast.
Most, if not all, of the other rubbish posted above is not worth rebutting as it is ideology, not science.
All Lovelock appears to be doing is backing off his most dire predictions which was not mainstream science, anyway, and which I (who has actually read his books on the matter) found extreme – but I did shudder at the “what if” thought!
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 10:44 pm
For all your most practiced superciliousness, you and your fellow alarmists are on a hiding to nothing here Luc. With each passing day public opinion, and the widening flow of empirical evidence moves against the lies and deceit that have characterized the CAGW movement.
But you go on believing. Perhaps one day a manufactured ‘crisis’ will fool the masses into yielding their economic and democratic sovereignty. It’s been close, perhaps closer than with global cooling in the 70′s, but it won’t be this time.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 10:51 pm
The temperature has failed to greatly accede an anomaly of a high temperature recorded in 1998
however this abnormal temperature has now stabilized as the norm for how long who knows.Even in this small rise there is significant scope for devastating local effect. As you are aware we are learning more daily as we put together the giant jigsaw that is climate change.
The consensus among the science fraternity is its real and it will happen.
There is no controversy just nut job alt science politically motivated weirdos.
Que list of retired engineers and astronauts from the fifties as valid scientists.
Vote:April 26th, 2012 at 11:08 pm
Isint it funny how lies and Deceit come from all major scientific bodies most world governments the UN major university and government research institutes and the true comes from a small cohort of weirdos funded by political lobbyists the likes of heartland and the Cato institute.
Vote:All wrapped up with intelligent design and Cristian Xian cults
Dont you love USA Cristian right conservatives
Keep on drivingF150 and turn the aircon up full Church and the flag
April 27th, 2012 at 12:56 pm
Griff, blustering claptrap. As usual sceptics debate the science, alarmists make ad hominem attacks, appeal to consensus and authority and refuse to look at the data – which is simply not alarming. End of story.
Vote: