Excessive Weather

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Hi DG

I am very relaxed about the whole thing and quite resigned to the inevitable cooling of our little country. Yes the result of global warming will be the cooling of the UK by as much as 5degC.

To explain: warming temperatures are melting the Greenland Icesheet and dumping thousands of tons of freshwater into the North Atlantic which dilutes the ocean salinity which in turn has a drastic effect on what is called the Ocean Conveyor (gulf stream) and changing the flow direction of the warming water moving it away from the UK.

This is the tipping point to which I refer.

Whilst we are on the subject of oceans have you considered the impact on the atmosphere when the methane that is trapped within the oceans is released by mythical global warming.

Paul

Axe is still very blunt.

[Dodgy Geezer 1Participant @dodgygeezer1]

Paul,

"This is the tipping point to which I refer…"

You will find that predictions such as these are based on model findings which are good for attracting grants and column inches, but which fail to match real-life observations, and are consequently completely wrong. We are lucky to have a record of one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century, Richard Feynman, pointing this out here:

**LINK**

In this case the disproof comes from Rossby et al (2014), which can be found here:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013GL058636/abstract

In brief, the last 20 years of actual data show no diminution of Gulf Stream flow at all. You should also read data on the Greenland Ice Sheet mass balance with this paper in mind:

**LINK**

I am very happy to point out the many issues with your assertions, though it would help me to address them more precisely if you could provide some references for them. However, I suspect that Colin would find this to be a complex and drawn-out technical discussion of limited interest to boat modellers, and I would be happier to take it to an exchange of PMs….

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

This is a separate topic so people can read it or not as they wish so carry on if you like.

Colin

[Dodgy Geezer 1Participant @dodgygeezer1]

Thank you, Colin.

 

In that case, let me address the second point made in Paul's comment:

"Whilst we are on the subject of oceans have you considered the impact on the atmosphere when the methane that is trapped within the oceans is released by mythical global warming."

As I indicated above, global warming is, at present, entirely mythical. For the last 19 years no warming of the atmosphere has taken place.

This is an acute embarrassment to supporters of the AGW theory, because their models unequivocally predict INCREASING warming as CO2 concentration goes up. Many attempts have been made to retain the theory, which now has trillions of dollars backing it. 'Adjustments' have been made to the surface temperature data to try to bring it into line with the models – all possible additions have now been made and the data still do not show sufficient warming. One theory was that the heat had 'gone into the ocean' – a theory born of desperation, since it seems to breach fundamental thermodynamic principles. Nevertheless, a world-wide set of temperature monitors was set up to detect this proposed increase – the 'ARGO' buoy network (see here) **LINK**. It hasn't found the 'missing heat'. So ocean-bed methane isn't going to be evolved in vast quantities.

You may find this discussion of ocean temperature enlightening. It explains a number of the tricks used by the increasingly frantic AGW supporters to 'find heat somewhere'. Unfortunately, there is none to be found. **LINK**

As an aside, methane concentration in the atmosphere IS slowly increasing – much like the CO2 concentration. A lot of this is going to be biotic – you will recall from the Vostok cores that CO2 increases FOLLOW temperature rises rather than precede them, probably due to increased plant activity, and I guess CH4 is no different. And by observation, the impact on the atmosphere heat is nil, given we are seeing no temperature increase. At this point, a lot of AGW supporters point to basic physics, and say:

"The atmosphere MUST be getting hotter – these gasses cause radiative imbalance! Something MUST be wrong with the observations."

I prefer to hold to the real observed data. If we know that there should be a (very small) rise in temperature due to CO2, and yet we can't find it, something must be 'getting rid' of the extra heat. There are many candidates for natural processes that would do this, and they have all been ignored by the GCMs (global temperature models). Foremost amongst these processes are cloud cover and thunderstorm power/frequency. Neither of these processes are well understood, and they are not modelled at all, yet a small increase in cloud cover duration would reflect far more heat away from our planet than the calculated increase, and a small increase in thunderstorm frequency would shift huge amounts of heat up through the stratosphere and into space.

It seems obvious to me that this is where the 'extra' heat is going, but there is now too much money and prestige at stake for anyone in the climate science game to admit as much. Look at the difficulty that Svensmark had getting CERN to run his groundbreaking CLOUD experiment. And when it proved successful, look at the attempts to bury the results that CERN undertook. Climate science is now more about politics and religion than science…

Edited By Dodgy Geezer on 02/01/2016 15:46:36

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.

This is a quote from one of my favourite physicists who's work in quantum mechanics has been a source of fascination to me and I am glad that you have referenced him in your postings.

You and I both realise that research results can be watered down or manipulated in other ways by unscrupulous individuals to achieve political or financial ends and we both know that the only research worth looking at is the pure unaltered results directly produced by the teams involved.

I don't believe that I have been influenced by activists, buzz words or Hollywood but with the first principal in mind I am going to spend some time reviewing all of the available raw data.

I am not converted as I still believe that Global Warming is a real phenomena but I am prepared to accept that the validity of the data should be tested.

Paul

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

DG

To get a more informed view on this subject I am going back to my old school to have a chat with Kevin Anderson.

Paul

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

This Kevin Anderson? **LINK**

Colin

PS If so he seems to be pretty firmly entrenched in one camp!

Edited By Colin Bishop, Website Editor on 04/01/2016 13:51:41

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Hello Colin

Yes that's the chap. I have just returned having missed him today but I had a nice chat to some of his team.

I don't agree with the 'entrenched in one camp comment' simply because this implies that Kevin has made a conscious decision to support a particular point of view no matter what the real truth might be.

What I know of Kevins integrity convinces me that he will only support the scientific truth no matter how unpalatable this truth might be.

The following statement sums up his philosophy

The value of science is undermined when we adopt questionable assumptions and fine-tune our analysis to conform to dominant political and economic sensibilities. The pervasive inclusion of speculative negative emission technologies to deliver politically palatable 2°C mitigation is but one such example. Society needs scientists to make transparent and reasoned assumptions, however uncomfortable the subsequent conclusions may be for the politics of the day.

Paul

Edited By Paul T on 04/01/2016 16:41:08

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

I don't think I implied that Paul, just that he is clearly in the climate change camp. I have no reason to doubt that this position is what his researches lead him to believe.

However, for the rest of us chickens who are not really equipped to evaluate the arguments in detail, it remains disconcerting that you can have objective scientists on both sides of the argument equally convinced that their view is correct.

It is hardly confined to climate change, you see exactly the same thing in medicine, archaeology, vehicle emissions and a host of other areas. What is certain is that someone must be wrong but not necessarily that someone must be right. Hindsight frequently shows that unforeseen factors have not been considered or that known factors have not been given a correct weighting; above all that things are often more complex than people appreciate.

When I was a boy, Fred Hoyle's cosmology was considered in most quarters to be the cutting edge. Now he is totally discredited by new discoveries uncovered by new technology such as Hubble. Similar with plate tectonics which was considered a wild laughable theory and is now mainstream science.

Back in the 19th Century, it was confidently asserted that all that there was to be known was now known. No conception of radio, nuclear physics or many of the day to day things we now take for granted.

Climate change is a relatively new science, history suggests that it has a way to go before it is mature.

Colin

Edited By Colin Bishop, Website Editor on 04/01/2016 17:04:00

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Hi Colin

Sorry, I am starting to be concerned about the outcome of this discussion as eventually we might begin calling into question the integrity of one or more scientists, as you quite rightly point out the rest of us chickens are not really equipped to evaluate the arguments in detail.

I could make a very strong case in favour of global warming and I am sure that DG could make an equally strong case in opposition. So I think that we should simply agree to disagree and get back to model boats.

Paul

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

I don't think it is a matter of questioning people's integrity Paul. Differing conclusions can quite legitimately be drawn from the available data simply by giving differing weights to different components. Climate change is not an exact science, nor are the other areas I mentioned so there is still a lot of wriggle room.

Where of course it all goes wrong is when less expert people with an axe to grind run away with the conclusions that fit their perception of the issue and publicise it on a wide scale to the population at large. Look what happened with the MMR scandal for example. I don't think that what mankind is doing to the planet wins the approval of anyone except those getting rich from it, but precisely evaluating the effect in the midst of all the variables isn't at all easy and provides endless opportunities for 'talking up' differing views. It may all come out in the wash, it may not.

Irrespective of global warning there is much to be said for the view that mankind is something of a plague on the poor old planet which will ultimately either be cured or succumb. Neither outcome is likely to benefit the human race!

Happy New Year anyway!

Colin

[Bob Abell 2Participant @bobabell2]

Just an interesting snippet, I spotted on the gogglebox……..Knowing that ice is 4/5ths underwater, by volume……….Should the ice melt in any large quantities…………The sea level would drop!

That took me completely by surprise!

Worth a comment?

Bob

[Dave MilbournParticipant @davemilbourn48782]

I, on the other hand, would rather you progress the fascinating discussions, going back over some hundreds of years, which concern the number of angels which could fit onto the head of a pin. There's absolutely no physical evidence to suggest that any number is more accurate than any other, so it comes down in the end to force of will to establish who prevails – or gives a tinker's cuss. What a total waste of time and effort.

Meanwhile the rain gets rainier; the floods get floodier; the droughts get droughtier; the Atlantic Elevator, the jetstream and El Nino get more unpredictable and the BBC scares us all to death 24 hours a day with tales of Jihadi terrorists, Chinese military ambitions and super-bacteria. It hurts my poor head so…

Yep – model boats suits me down to the ground, Paul.

Dave M

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

But which ice Bob? The stuff sitting on the Antarctic and Greenland ice caps would all run off into the oceans and the sea level would rise.

Sea levels have been going up and down many times over the geological timescale. During ice ages the snow accumulates on land and sea levels go down – a lot! During the periods between ice ages, one of which we are supposed to be in at the moment, the glaciers retreat, melt into the oceans and the sea levels rise.

Somebody mentioned the land sinking but this is likely to be a more localised effect caused by earthquakes and tectonic movements plus of course it simply gets washed away by the sea. In other places however the land builds up as rivers become silted up.

Another interesting fact is that Britain is slowly tipping up. The weight of ice over Scotland during the last ice age caused the land to sink but now the glaciers have gone it is now springing back up again whilst the South is gradually subsiding. So someone like me in Surrey will probably use more fuel driving up to Scotland than on the homeward trip.

There is endless fun to be had with these things.

Colin

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Dave,

Are you referring to panel pins, dressmaker's pins (note apostrophe) or hatpins. There is a significant variation in their respective surface areas – plus some are convex….

There were some quite floody floods back in the late 60s when I had to wade through waist high water to reach my Parent's place. They were flooded out twice in the space of four years but the area has never flooded since.

The winter of '68 was a bit parky too as I recall. The big difference between then and now, as has already been pointed out, is that everyone has a mobile phone with a camera so we all know about it on a literal 'blow by blow 'basis.

Colin

Edited By Colin Bishop, Website Editor on 04/01/2016 20:11:32

[Bob Abell 2Participant @bobabell2]

I know it is debateable, Colin……….But I seem to think, the Arctic is just solid ice

Don`t the big subs surface through the ice?………..Or is that just Hollywood talk?

Bob

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Bob, the Arctic is indeed solid floating ice but I mentioned the Antarctic at the South Pole where most of the ice is sitting on the Antarctic continent, a lot more of it than there is at the North Pole which is in the middle of the ocean.

Colin

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Everybody knows what needs to be done – but nobody wants to do it!

Bob

[Dave MilbournParticipant @davemilbourn48782]

Colin
Are you referring to panel pins, dressmaker's pins (note apostrophe) or hatpins. There is a significant variation in their respective surface areas – plus some are convex….

Yes to all, as long as that refers only to one dressmaker. If more then the apostrophe jumps to the end of the word. BTW you never asked what the average size of an angel is….or mentioned hatpins, ten-pins or terrapins.
I'm sure you'll find this quite absorbing **LINK**

Bob

Never mind pins – you've hit the nail squarely on the head.

Dave M

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

How many angels can fit onto the head of a pin

You might ask the same question in relation to tooth fairies, goblins, elves and honest politicians

The answer is 0…..as none of these things exist.

Bob

The Arctic is made almost entirely from sea ice and polar bears, the subs did surface through the ice. Whereas the Antarctic is a rocky continent covered in 2km thickness of ice.

Dave

Let the Chinese military sort out the Jihadi terrorists with weapons grade super-bacteria and set the Daily Mail on to the BBC to see who can win the bulls-it race.    

 

Edited By Paul T on 05/01/2016 12:14:28

[Dodgy Geezer 1Participant @dodgygeezer1]

Ah, climate arguments…!

If Antarctica (which has, I think, over half the ice on the planet, were to melt it would certainly have an effect. However, I note that the Antarctic has been gaining ice extent steadily for the last 35 years (since satellite records began), hitting an all-time record in 2014. So it's probably not going to be flooding us out this year…

**LINK**

@Colin

…However, for the rest of us chickens who are not really equipped to evaluate the arguments in detail, it remains disconcerting that you can have objective scientists on both sides of the argument equally convinced that their view is correct…

Actually, As Paul T pointed out to me elsewhere, it's quite easy. All you do is look at the data, read the papers and examine the arguments critically. As a rule of thumb, if someone knows what they are talking about, they can explain it simply. If they don't, claiming that everything is too complicated to explain is a well-known trick to avoid discussion. That rule applies equally to double-glazing salesmen and university professors.

The other classic test of scientific correctness is that predictions can be made from theories which can then be validated. The classic issue here is that the GCMs (the models that predict global warming) consistently overestimate the temperature, and this overestimation is getting worse as time goes on. It is known as 'the divergence problem (and was first seen with dendrochronology predictions). Here is an example graph of the difference between prediction and reality:

**LINK**

But the other point I would take issue with Colin on is this quote:

"Irrespective of global warning there is much to be said for the view that mankind is something of a plague on the poor old planet which will ultimately either be cured or succumb. Neither outcome is likely to benefit the human race! "

There is certainly a lot said about humans as a plague on the planet – people were saying this well before Malthus, though the voices certainly got shriller after him. I suggest that people read Julian Simon as an antidote. Simon points out that, though people like to complain, in reality EVERY generation of humans, throughout history, has had a better life than their forefathers in terms of material possessions and general welfare. Even our footprint on the Earth is diminishing as our population gets larger – it was the late middle ages which deforested Britain, for instance, and we are busy INCREASING forest area.

Simon explains this apparent contradiction by showing that human well-being and civilisation depends on two things – resources and human ingenuity. Environmental activists tend to concentrate on resources, seeing them as fixed and claiming that they will soon run out if we use them – Simon showed that humans constantly create entirely new resources by using their ingenuity. If resources are only limited by ingenuity they are, in fact, infinite – and this is the reason that, throughout ALL of recorded history, more humans have continuously lived in better conditions than their predecessors, in spite of continual predictions of doom.

I have necessarily paraphrased Simon's arguments extensively, and omitted data references, but a good recent illustration of his theory is the 1970s predicted oil shortage. Remember 'Peak Oil'? Not going to happen, is it?

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

DG

I always considered Julian Simon to be a chancer, he was very lucky when he made the famous wager and Ehrlich was stupid in accepting just five metals.

Hubberts peak oil predictions were at best premature as he didn't allow for new technology's in oil extraction, the famous fracking being one. More sensible estimates at the time placed Peak Oil at around 2020 however current models indicate that oil extraction will easily meet demand well beyond 2030

What are your views on the Malthusian catastrophe concept?

Paul

[Dodgy Geezer 1Participant @dodgygeezer1]

I always considered Julian Simon to be a chancer, he was very lucky when he made the famous wager and Ehrlich was stupid in accepting just five metals.

A 'chancer'? Simon did 10 years work on his theory before presenting it. He was ridiculed, and he offered the bet to the world.' You could name your own terms: select any raw material you wanted – copper, tin, whatever – and select any date in the future, "any date more than a year away," and Simon would bet that the commodity's price on that date would be lower than what it was at the time of the wager.'

Ehrlich was not forced to accept – he jumped at it. He saw it as easy money –

"I and my colleagues, John P. Holdren (University of California, Berkeley) and John Harte (Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory), jointly accept Simon's astonishing offer before other greedy people jump in."

was what he said. 'Ehrlich and his colleagues then picked five metals that they thought would undergo big price rises: chromium, copper, nickel, tin, and tungsten. Then, on paper, they bought $200 worth of each, for a total bet of $1,000, using the prices on September 29, 1980, as an index. They designated September 29, 1990, 10 years hence, as the payoff date.'

Note that Ehrlich was not just 'taking Simon's money' – he was betting that his Malthusian view of raw materials was the correct one, and he picked a 10 year period specifically to avoid lucky, unpredictable, short-term variations. He picked all the detailed terms of the wager to support his view

And Simon won. As he knew he was going to. Because he was right.

The result was not what Simon expected. Instead of people listening to his theory, and the masses of data that he had painstakingly collected to support it, they elected to ignore him, and attack him for 'rocking the boat'. Ehrlich was loaded with honours – Simon had to fight to get his few books published. 'For some reason he could never comprehend, people were inclined to believe the very worst about anything and everything; they were immune to contrary evidence just as if they'd been medically vaccinated against the force of fact. Furthermore, there seemed to be a bizarre reverse-Cassandra effect operating in the universe: whereas the mythical Cassandra spoke the awful truth and was not believed, these days "experts" spoke awful falsehoods, and they were believed. Repeatedly being wrong actually seemed to be an advantage, conferring some sort of puzzling magic glow upon the speaker.'

Ehrlich, famously, has been wrong with every prediction that he made ever after. And has received honour after honour. Each time he is shown to be wrong he just says "We didn't allow for x – more sensible estimates now place the catastrophe at y (naming a new date conveniently in the future). I note this technique is also used in the post above…

The Doomsayers could not airbrush the results of the Simon-Ehrlich wager out of history. So they did the next-best thing – they generated the story that Simon was just incredibly lucky, and if they picked some dates in the past for themselves they could show prices rising. The Wiki is full of this sort of rubbish – attempts to write the theory out of existence.

I'm surprised that people still fall for this smear, given the vast mass of data showing Simon's theory to match reality far more closely that Malthus. But there we are – some people still haven't read Charles McKays excellent book…

 

Disclaimer – some paras pasted out of a 'Wired' article for speed, because that says what I wanted to say more elegantly…these are indicated by '..'

 

 

 

Edited By Dodgy Geezer on 05/01/2016 16:35:29

[Dodgy Geezer 1Participant @dodgygeezer1]

While we're at it…

What are your views on the Malthusian catastrophe concept?

 

Malthus  (Essay on the Principle of Population – 1798) claimed that famine was inevitable because humans reproduced geometrically while agriculture improved arithmetically.

Ehrlich said (Population Bomb – 1968) "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970's and 1980's hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now."

Simon said (1970) that human ingenuity would enable famines to be avoided.

 

India, China and Africa used to experience regular famines – as did Europe in the middle ages. We now have no crop-failure famines anywhere in the world (though food may be temporarily short in war zones), and are capable of generating enough food on our present agricultural footprint to feed a world population twice the size we have now (top of the head estimate, because my memory of FAO stats is not 100%, but we waste 33% of our food anyway, so it shouldn't be hard…)

Since we have effectively abolished famine, activists are forced to fall back on 'malnourishment' – a claim that, although there is no 'dying' problem, people aren't eating the 'right' amount of food. I expect that we will sort that out shortly, if indeed it is a problem.

Does that give you an idea of my views on the Malthusian hypothesis? They are not based on scaremongering, but on an appreciation of the data…

 

 

Edited By Dodgy Geezer on 05/01/2016 17:07:24

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

DG, I think some of your earlier assertions are on somewhat thin ice (sic), but I lack the energy to pursue them in detail.

There are many instances when succeeding generations have been worse off than their forefathers, the collapse of the Bronze Age trading economy, the fall of the Roman Empire, Black Death and various starvation events.

The human race is indeed good at adapting its environment to its requirements but largely at the expense of the other fauna and flora which share the planet with us. Even in the good old UK there is only a fraction of the indigent wildlife to be seen compared to when I was a boy. We used to go butterfly catching, they were everywhere, now if you see a solitary cabbage white it's 'Ooh look – a butterfly!'

As for looking at the data well, the old adage that there are lies, damned lies and statistics is as true as it ever was and climate change should not be exempt. If the data was as clear to objective observers as you contend then they would all reach similar conclusions and manifestly they don't. Whilst there are people with particular axes to grind I refuse to believe that all climate change supporter scientists are charlatans although they could still be wrong!

So I'm afraid it still leaves us chickens perplexed and bewildered. The data may be presented to us but we are still reliant on the various proponents to explain it to us and they still say different things.

After all, it should be really, really, easy to conclusively decide on such a simple matter as whether lubricating your prop shaft is a good thing – shouldn't it?

Colin

 

Edited By Colin Bishop, Website Editor on 05/01/2016 17:22:03

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