Sunday, March 23, 2008

If suddenly there were no more global warming...

...life will suddenly become a whole lot more interesting.

A great many founts of authority, from the Royal Society to the UN, most heads of government along with countless captains of industry, learned professors, commentators and journalists will be profoundly embarrassed. Let us hope it is a prolonged and chastening experience.

With catastrophe off the agenda, for most people the fog of millennial gloom will lift, at least until attention turns to the prospect of the next ice age. Among the better educated, the sceptical cast of mind that is the basis of empiricism will once again be back in fashion. The delusion that by recycling and catching public transport we can help save the planet will quickly come to be seen for the childish nonsense it was all along.

The poorest Indians and Chinese will be left in peace to work their way towards prosperity, without being badgered about the size of their carbon footprint, a concept that for most of us will soon be one with Nineveh and Tyre, clean forgotten in six months.

The scores of town planners in Australia building empires out of regulating what can and can't be built on low-lying shorelines will have to come to terms with the fact inundation no longer impends and find something more plausible to do. The same is true of the bureaucrats planning to accommodate "climate refugees".

Penny Wong's climate mega-portfolio will suddenly be as ephemeral as the ministries for the year 2000 that state governments used to entrust to junior ministers. Malcolm Turnbull will have to reinvent himself at vast speed as a climate change sceptic and the Prime Minister will have to kiss goodbye what he likes to call the great moral issue and policy challenge of our times.

It will all be vastly entertaining to watch.


Condemned to an existence of boredom and unrequited schadenfreude is one Christopher Pearson, a writer at The Australian. Detect any frustration-betraying bitterness? I guess global warming just keeps bumping into his world-view.

So what has inspired his flight of fancy, this babbling brook of consciousness, this denialist delight?

Jennifer Marohasy has. She bears news of an "impending collapse of the global warming paradigm" in an ABC Radio National discussion with the similarly excited Michael Duffy.

Duffy: "Can you tell us about NASA's Aqua satellite, because I understand some of the data we're now getting is quite important in our understanding of how climate works?"

Marohasy: "That's right. The satellite was only launched in 2002 and it enabled the collection of data, not just on temperature but also on cloud formation and water vapour. What all the climate models suggest is that, when you've got warming from additional carbon dioxide, this will result in increased water vapour, so you're going to get a positive feedback. That's what the models have been indicating. What this great data from the NASA Aqua satellite ... (is) actually showing is just the opposite, that with a little bit of warming, weather processes are compensating, so they're actually limiting the greenhouse effect and you're getting a negative rather than a positive feedback."

Duffy: "The climate is actually, in one way anyway, more robust than was assumed in the climate models?"

Marohasy: "That's right ... These findings actually aren't being disputed by the meteorological community. They're having trouble digesting the findings, they're acknowledging the findings, they're acknowledging that the data from NASA's Aqua satellite is not how the models predict, and I think they're about to recognise that the models really do need to be overhauled and that when they are overhauled they will probably show greatly reduced future warming projected as a consequence of carbon dioxide."

Duffy: "From what you're saying, it sounds like the implications of this could beconsiderable ..."

Marohasy: "That's right, very much so. The policy implications are enormous. The meteorological community at the moment is really just coming to terms with the output from this NASA Aqua satellite and (climate scientist) Roy Spencer's interpretation of them. His work is published, his work is accepted, but I think people are still in shock at this point."


Hmmm, The new NASA Aqua Satellite data, as interpreted by fossil-fuels favourite, Dr Roy Spencer. I expect we'll hear a lot of this from the shills, Bolt; Ackerman; Blair; Devine; and, Albrechton, et al., and it should be interesting to see them construct their narrative. I'll Global Warming Watch this one.

Roy Spencer was the fellow who put out a paper showing satellite data was not correlating with the climate data, and showed cooling. For years and years there was this incongruent satellite data. Then the paper was reviewed by Science Magazine in 2005, whereupon they found that Christy and Spencer had failed to take proper account of satellite drift, which produced a spurious cooling trend to their dataset.

Update
Is there a smell of freshly laid astroturfi? Yahoo7 Answers already have the question up, posed by an eric c

Update 2
Glitch, long-time reader, typically a pleasant chap (but yes, one of those skeptics) is positively rubbing his hands with glee.

LOL, this is just wonderful.... Such VERY BAD good news for the enviro-socialists...

The plot thickens. Someone thunks global warming theory has been debunked, and this is bringing on the long-promised Raptures for the AGW Skeptics. Am I witnessing Deliverance for The Doubtful Loyal?

I checked the headlines, and Reuters. Nothing.

It'll come. It's lurking out there in the gloom, ready to break the water. I'm starting to feel very Old Man Of The Sea-ish. I'm baitin' up big.

Update 3
Spencer's bio at the fossil-fuel funded Marshall Institute site tells us: He currently is the U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA's Aqua satellite.

It also says: Dr. Spencer is the recipient of NASA's Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement and the American Meteorological Society's Special Award for his satellite-based temperature monitoring work.

In 1996, from what I can tell. The paper was debunked in 2005. That bio needs updating.

Think I'll check out Realclimate, or Deltoid. See what they have to say.


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15 comments:

Unknown said...

NO!!!!! GLOBAL WARMING IS TRUE!!!! NO MATTER WHAT THE SAT's SAY!!!

I know this because the UN and Enviro-Pundits have told me so.

:)
Please, let's not confuse the issue with FACTS :):)

LOL, this is just wonderful.... Such VERY BAD good news for the enviro-socialists...

Wadard said...

Hi Glitch, nice to see you again.

Feisty as ever. So you're onto this NASA Aqua Satellite data too? Interesting.

Unknown said...

yes. sorry :)...couldn't help myself old boy :)

Wadard said...

Got any links so I can educate myself? Least you can do since I featured you in my post ;)

Unknown said...

I'll be happy to be your blogs example of one of those "wong-headed denialists" you warn about :)!

you know my friend,

IF i actually saw valid evidence that anthropomorphic (sp???) global warming (or "climate change") was indeed happening and that is was remotely plausible that we could turn the earth into another Venus if "WE DON'T STOP ALL CO2 EMISSION NOW!!!!!!!!!" I would "climb on the bus", so to speak.

Unfortunately my political nose smells the unmistakable (sp?) whiff of a socialist agenda. It's interesting to note that ALL of the proposed "solutions" to this crisis entail increased government restrictions of all aspects of human activity (if you do not control something then you don't own it...when does personal property become a "rental" from the government?). They also condemn the vast majority of humans in the undeveloped/underdeveloped world to living in unending poverty.

Sadly, it's also true that environmentalists can be measured by their accusations - example: Respond to critics by calling them "denialists" (whatever you do, DO NOT respond to whatever inconvenient fact the critic has brought up). ...So typically the environmentalist is the one demonstrating a "denialist" mentality. Any scientific evidence not fitting their current fad, err, I mean "scientific model" is a plot hatched by those evil capitalist energy companies.

For the CO2 "pushing" model to be true, I contend that you would have to have human generated CO2 emissions orders of magnitude higher than humans are capable of over the next 100 years - and you would also have to have this increase in a much shorter period of time than is remotely plausible.

The real drivers of "climate change":
1. Our Sun
2. Our Sun
3. Our Sun
4. Volcanic Activity

...did I mention our Sun?

....oh! I visited your blog a while back and saw some drivel about how nuclear power is not a solution to "climate change"...

It may have been an advert from someone else or something from a visitor. You're not anti-nuclear are you??? :)

I'll be happy for forward links your way. I've got 10$ (not worth as much as it used to be to my international friends :)) that says all links will be questioned - not on the actual facts... but their author's motives will be.

Unknown said...

But I must say, even though your post may be a shade "enviro-smug", I respect you for at least posting it.

It's ironic that in your update you mention there's nothing on the news about it. :):)!!!!! BECAUSE IT DOES NOT FIT WITH THE ACCEPTED ENVIRO-BANDWAGON LINE. You won't see "mainstream" media coverage until they have the usual "environmental experts" lined up to refute it. :).

You know this is true. And all the "corporate green" marketing crud currently all the rage is just that: A way to make a buck on the latest fad.

Wadard said...

Thank you for your kind offer to be my blogs example of a denialist. You're perfect(My readers have a gentle disposition, and I would rather it were you, than some extremist Neo-Luddite.)!

Besides, we can at least talk.

Oh, of course I'll question the motives of a scientist who doesn't publish in a peer-reviewed journal.

I got my standards you know. I don't just go with the first thing that comes along. Unlike some hey? ;)

I look forward to those links, and Happy Easter to you and yours, big fella.

Unknown said...

"Peer Reviewed".... (sigh). Question: Why does every entry attributed to "Deniers" begin with "person X at the "evil oil company" funded center Y... ?

Why do all the alarmist "end of the world" "scientific", "peer-reviewed" entries not start with: Person X funded by government grant y... ?

There's a lot of Gov't grant $$$$'s out there for Chicken Little's - the more alarming the "funded" report, the more money will be forked over next year.

a bit "myopic" if you ask me.

I just want to make a few things clear:

1. I am what I would call a rational conservationist.
2. I am totally in support of "out-growing" fossil fuel dependence.
3. I like clean air :).
4. I don't like pollution.
5. I drive a Kia Rio 5, not a Hummer.
6. I am into increasing energency efficiency - not because I'm arrogant enough to think humans can destroy the planet, but because it makes sense economically.

Fossil fuel dependence will decrease as more economically efficient alternatives are available - and they will be. (Nuclear, new Solar Tech, hell, even possibilities with "vacuum energy", etc).

If we don't through the world into a crippling depression or world war, I see a move away from fossil fuels over the next 30 years. Without destroying the global economy.

Unknown said...

energency = energy (lol)

Unknown said...

Leave you with this...

Heritical thoughts:
1. Over the next 30 years, the United States should INCREASE their fossil fuel PRODUCTION to where it offset's our domestic CONSUMPTION.
2. Build Nuclear Power Plants during that 30 year period, retiring our Oil and Coal burning plants. At the same time utilize VOLUNTARY incentives to complete our migration to a "post fossil fuel" technology.

(notice I did not say we the US should not import oil...this is silly - oil is a market and is "fungible")....having a "net-0" energy consumption budget will do the trick.

This would have the effect of greatly reducing the current flow of $$$ into the hands of some really naughty people (Opec, Russia(?), etc) by knocking the price of oil back down to 50-60$ a barrel.

Have fun tearing that one up! :)

Anonymous said...

Sea level extent does not seem to be cooperating with the alarmist either, as seen here

Best regards,
ClimateSanity

Simon said...

The claims by Marohasy about global temperature leveling off or dropping are unfounded. A simple email to her source, Roy Spencer at NASA, can clear it up. Which is what I did. Roy says that Marohasy is confused. He states that the data is not from the much vaunted Aqua satellite project as Marohasy claimed, and is not global average but a much smaller sample of 20 degrees either side of the equator.

Paper published by Roy Spencer can be found here:
http://www.weatherquestions.com/Spencer_07GRL.pdf

Now for some clearly needed Ad hominem. Marohasy, the scientist who has misrepresented the information in the interview, appears to have published only a dozen scientific papers or so in areas such as biological control. Her expertise is clearly not climate. She has had a long association with banking, industry and anti-conservation environmental groups that advocate actions like whale hunting. Not the person I would be quoting on climate change.

Check out Marohasy's web site:
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/about.php

Unknown said...

ahh, of course...

question repeated: why oh why is every single scientist that's questioning your religion, err, I mean your scientific viewpoint inevitably dismissed as an "evil capitalist"?

question: where does the billions of $'s that global warming alarmists spend come from? Does it just appear magically because their motives are pure? No, it comes from government grants - and we all know how honest and pure governments are, especially socialist gov'ts (no offense). Natually, to get those wonderful grants it only makes sensse that one would have to rachet up the alarmist rhetoric each and every year. I see a symboitic relationship that sadly has less to do with science and more to do with govt's remaining in power (and increasing their power)...

Those evil capitalists.... history will look back and shake it's head in amusement. :). It's becoming more clear every day that there's another agenda at work here - and it's not to "save the planet" - unless they mean to save it from capitalism, the concept of limited government and personal liberty, and of course the most evil concept of all: private property.

If every nation on earth inacted the kyoto protocal tomorrow - what do those gw climate models say the result will be? 1 degree less warming in a century? less? Now, how many millions (billions) will die or be forced to live in squalor to achieve this goal?

Oh, btw, can someone point me to the "climate change" model that accurately predicts historical weather trends? If so, why have NONE of the alarmist predictions I've heard since the 80's been realized?

Anonymous said...

why is it that there are so many issues and conflicts on how we interpret data related to global warming and climate change.

global warming is real... so we have to take action. we can do little things just like doing this tips on minimizing the effects of global warming

Anonymous said...

Here's my prediction: in a couple of years, it'll become crystal clear that none of the alarmist predictions have come true.
So Saint Al Gore and all the alarmists will declare that all their early action had the desired result. More Nobel prizes for everyone! The planet is safe (until Y3K, of course).

GlobalWarmingInsanity.com