Western Antarctica Melting

[Retrograde (Pete)]

Originally Posted by Renato1

....the ABC and left-wing media.......

Left-wing media is another myth. Our media is largely run by right-wing billionaires Rupert Murdoch, Gina Rinehart and Kerry Stokes.

An independent journalism study showed how the Australian media (particularly the Murdoch media) steadfastly promotes climate-science scepticism: http://theconversation.com/big-austr...-science-19727 (there is a direct link to the study in the article).

[Renato1 (Renato)]

Originally Posted by andyc

Renato, merely referencing good papers does raise you above people like the anti-vaxxers quoting Andrew Wakefield. Misinterpreting a good paper's results in order to suit your pre-determined views doesn't exactly do you any favours!

One of the underpinnings of science is that you consider evidence that is contrary to your viewpoint, and if that evidence is sufficient, you change your view to one that is consistent with the evidence.

Below you made this comment:
I have pointed out to you more than once that >90% of the extra heat accumulation goes into the oceans, which continue to rapidly gain heat (e.g. Levitus et al 2012, IPCC AR5 WG1chapter 3 and many references therein). Only a few percent goes into surface temperatures. Box 3.1 in the IPCC chapter, page 264, shows the total energy gain by the various components of Earth as a result of the energy imbalance (see attached image). Earth has gained about:
1970-1980: 40 ZJ (zettajoules, 10^21J)
1980-1990: 60 ZJ
1990-2000: 45 ZJ
2000-2011: 130 ZJ

But according to Renato, the Earth stopped warming recently!!

Ocean warming observations are consilient with the most rapid sea level rise being since 2000, accelerated melting of tidewater glaciers and marine-terminating ice sheets, and the observed energy imbalance at the influential CO2 bands in the infrared spectrum of Earth.

So Renato, do you now accept that Earth has gained more heat since 2000 than in comparable periods prior to 2000? Are you scientific??

Andy,
With respect, this is ridiculous.

The four previous IPCC assessments reports cited atmospheric warming rates of 0.15C per decade, and were confidently predicting warming rates of 0.2C per decade.

But the current 5th Assessment Report clearly and unambiguously refers to the "Hiatus" - citing rates of 0.05C and 0.04C per decade, which is within uncertainty of measurement and statistically insignificant from zero.

It's pointless pretending as John Cook does, that this isn't the biggest conundrum facing climate modellers across the planet. To date, I read somewhere that 12 explanations have been offered to try account for this unpredicted occurrence, including the warming oceans - but they all have their critics (e.g. observed temperature/energy increase in the ocean can't account for the Hiatus), and plainly they can't all be right.

If the Hiatus continues, it's a case of back to the drawing boards.
Regards,
Renato

[Astro_Bot]

Originally Posted by Renato1

That guy seemed to have been pretty spot on in his assessment.

Did he perhaps mention that the earth had stopped heating? Your chat was about a year after Bob Carter first wrote it in a newspaper article, where he was subsequently roundly condemned as a nutter the world over by Climate Scientists who were then in their Pause/Hiatus-is-Heresy phase, before they become believers last year.
Regards,
Renato

Bob Carter? The guy paid by the US Heartland Institute (an anti-climate change lobby that receives private funding mostly from resources and manufacturing businesses)? Bob Carter whose main qualifications are in geology and paleontology? Bob Carter who is attached to the Institute of Public Affairs (the well-known right-wing think tank)?

And there you go again: re-stating - as though it were some incontrovertible fact - something already shown to be a gross distortion. Say it enough times and maybe someone will believe it, perhaps? Your strange persistence, and reliance on repetition of common anti-climate-science talking points, speaks volumes. After all, you only need to create doubt, right?


Oh, here's some related news from today:

Barack Obama plans 30 per cent cuts in power carbon emissions, hailed as 'super bowl of climate change' regulation

[Nikolas (Nik)]

Originally Posted by Renato1

Sad to see the current bane of the ABC and left-wing media, anti-Catholicism, entering the discussion here.
Regards,
Renato

define left wing

[Renato1 (Renato)]

Originally Posted by Retrograde

Left-wing media is another myth. Our media is largely run by right-wing billionaires Rupert Murdoch, Gina Rinehart and Kerry Stokes.

An independent journalism study showed how the Australian media (particularly the Murdoch media) steadfastly promotes climate-science scepticism: http://theconversation.com/big-austr...-science-19727 (there is a direct link to the study in the article).

Unfortunately, I don't think that you are quite right.

Murdoch owns a small number of newspapers, which a huge number of readers want to read - no doubt because he believes in a diversity, and his papers employ both left-wing and conservative columnists. Murdoch is also a minor shareholder Foxtel.

Fairfax owns a small number of newspapers, which used to be huge, but which now make a loss most days of the week, since they seem to cater mainly for inner urban lefties, and will not employ a conservative columnist, relying instead on guest pieces from retired conservative politicians as their contribution to balance. Fairfax also runs quite a number of talk back radio stations, some that do very well, and some slipping. Rhinehart is a shareholder in Fairfax, but they refuse to give her a board seat.

Stokes controls Channel Seven, Rhinehart is a shareholder in but does not run Channel 10, and I've lost track of who runs Channel Nine.

The Guardian is a little read on-line lefty paper owned by some one in Britain, happily replicating the failure of Fairfax by taking many of their journalists.

West Australian News isn't run by any of the above.

The most hilarious section of that piece you linked to says,
"Readers of sceptical papers receive almost no information that would enable them to understand the complexities or likely impacts of climate change domestically or internationally. The research findings of climate scientists are largely rendered invisible for News Corp audiences. Its tabloid publications produce no critique of the sceptic position."

Why it is ridiculous and hilarious is because such readers would have been aware many of those inconvenient citations from the IPCC 5th Assessment report that I posted in my "The Sun is So Boring" thread from reading those newspapers. And they would have been aware of the facts even before the IPCC went and wrote them up in that report.

What is doubly hilarous is that those people from the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism at University of Technology are unaware of is that the 5th Assessment Report is very similar to a financial newsletter - it makes predictions about what to buy, and when they turn out to be dud predictions, they can always point out to some obscure factor somewhere in previous issues which showed why the result was actually foreseeable - didn't you read it?

The same holds true for the 5th Assessment report - plenty of predictions in the headlines, but plenty of possible outs when you read the detail, so that they are always right.

When The Australian reported last year that Dr. Pachauri (Head of IPCC) had admitted there was a pause in global temperatures, it sent shockwaves around the world, but nowhere moreso than to Fairfax readers and ABC listeners. But that fact was ancient news to readers of the so called skeptical newspapers.
Regards,
Renato

[Renato1 (Renato)]

Originally Posted by Astro_Bot

Bob Carter? The guy paid by the US Heartland Institute (an anti-climate change lobby that receives private funding mostly from resources and manufacturing businesses)? Bob Carter whose main qualifications are in geology and paleontology? Bob Carter who is attached to the Institute of Public Affairs (the well-known right-wing think tank)?

And there you go again: re-stating - as though it were some incontrovertible fact - something already shown to be a gross distortion. Say it enough times and maybe someone will believe it, perhaps? Your strange persistence, and reliance on repetition of common anti-climate-science talking points, speaks volumes. After all, you only need to create doubt, right?


Oh, here's some related news from today:

Barack Obama plans 30 per cent cuts in power carbon emissions, hailed as 'super bowl of climate change' regulation

That's right Professor Bob Carter - our very own Aussie, who was the very first man on the planet to see the Pause, and who was game to wear the opprobrium and publish it.

Why do you think he has all those positions you cite?

It was because he called it right, and it only took the IPCC another seven years to be dragged kicking and screaming and have to agree that he was right.

As you plainly disagree with me that an "Hiatus" in world temperature exists, well - go and complain to the IPCC. They are the authoritative body that coined the term to describe the hiatus in world temperature.
Regards,
Renato

[Renato1 (Renato)]

Originally Posted by Nikolas

define left wing

Wikipedia do a good job of describing it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_politics
Cheers,
Renato

[Retrograde (Pete)]

Originally Posted by Renato1

Unfortunately, I don't think that you are quite right.

Murdoch owns a small number of newspapers, which a huge number of readers want to read

Wrong - Murdoch own 142 different mastheads across the country. hardly a small number.

Originally Posted by Renato1

Fairfax owns a small number of newspapers, which used to be huge, but which now make a loss most days of the week,

You mean like The Australian which hasn't made a profit for many, many years but is kept on as a political propaganda vehicle?

Originally Posted by Renato1

and will not employ a conservative columnist

You've clearly missed Paul Sheehan and Chris Berg for starters.

Originally Posted by Renato1

Stokes controls Channel Seven, Rhinehart is a shareholder in but does not run Channel 10

Lachlan Murdoch runs (or up until recently ran) Channel 10. He is of course Rupert Murdoch's son.

Originally Posted by Renato1

West Australian News isn't run by any of the above.

Wrong - it is part of the Seven West Media group run by Kerry Stokes.

Originally Posted by Renato1

Why it is ridiculous and hilarious is because such readers would have been aware many of those inconvenient citations from the IPCC 5th Assessment report

You mean a cherry-picked bunch of out-of-context canards deliberately selected to give a one-sided view of the AR5 in order to maintain the company's ongoing misrepresentation of science?

Sorry but your reasoning is both hilarious and convoluted and in no way refutes the report.

As for Bob Carter he's a geologist who shills for the fossil-fuel industry and has perpetrated what amounts to scientific fraud: http://www.climateshifts.org/?p=4968
If you believe him over actual climate-scientists then you really have disappeared down the rabbit hole and no amount of reasoning will convince you of the facts. I see in your response you are steadfastly refusing to accept the peer-reviewed scientific paper cited by Andy despite pretending to be in favour of 'real science'.

[graham.hobart (Graham stevens)]

I still don't understand, why, even if there is 10% doubt or 90% doubt about the figures, that we would continue to blindly follow the same path when there is a chance we are wrecking our only planet for our children.
Oh yes!- it's the Dollar isn't it.
Like other posters have said, what are we going to tell our children and our children's children?
You can argue about a hiatus or 2'c rise or 100 years before we feel the global effect of GW (irreversible) but it's like running a (petrol) car until bits start to fall off and the engine blows, then handing it to your offspring- "here kids, here's your car I looked after for you"
Entrenched views seem immoveable and meanwhile a soft violin was heard as Rome burned.
Look your kids in the eye and say " I am willing to take the gamble on your future because this is what I believe NOW."
Only the potent smell of money could make so many vested interests so stubborn.
There is a word I don't often use and it's Procrustean- it means rigidly inflexible and was derived from an ancient Greek (I think) criminal who was put on the rack and refused to spill the beans.
Yep- rigidly inflexible-Procrustean should be the IIS word of the day.
Graham
with regards to all who have taken part in this illuminating and sometimes funny debate

[el_draco (Rom)]

Originally Posted by Nikolas

define left wing

Opposite to right wing.....

[el_draco (Rom)]

Originally Posted by Retrograde

As for Bob Carter he's a geologist who shills for the fossil-fuel industry and has perpetrated what amounts to scientific fraud: http://www.climateshifts.org/?p=4968
If you believe him over actual climate-scientists then you really have disappeared down the rabbit hole and no amount of reasoning will convince you of the facts. I see in your response you are steadfastly refusing to accept the peer-reviewed scientfic paper cited by Andy despite pretending to be in favour of 'real science'.

As I said at the start, Renato has an agenda. He makes no attempt to address the basic fundamental question repeated by me and others in various forms:

If there is a 1% risk of AGW being a reality, we need to be acting, individually locally, nationally and Globally.

So RENATO, answer the damn question:,

"Are you prepared to risk the lives of our children, and their children on the infinitesimal chance that 50% of your engineering mates or the rantings of some wank*er sell out burned out discredited geologist are right?"

WELL???

[el_draco (Rom)]

News flash:
HRH Abbot has just welcomed the U.S. governments proposed cuts to power station emissions How noble of him. Couldn't give a rats about Aus., but happy to let others do the work.

[andyc (Andy)]

Originally Posted by Renato1

Andy,
With respect, this is ridiculous.

Dead right. Every time I mention total heat content gain, of which >90% goes into the oceans, you ignore it. You've done that many times now, including on the Sun thread you hijacked. You pretend that ocean heat measurement doesn't exist, so you can push some denier memes about heat within 2% of the Earth system.

I'll ask again. Did Earth gain more energy from 2000-2011 than when compared to similar periods prior to 2000?
In your answer, you can use the copious references in the IPCC chapter I highlighted previously (and the figure), after all you're fond of the IPCC when you think it supports your position .

Even in the tiny part of the system that is surface temperature, you cherry pick noise over signal. If I played your game, I could look at the 16 year trend between 1992 and 2007. It's almost double the long-term trend, and yet greatly overlaps the period you like to quote. Did warming 'double' up to 2007? If not, why not? Could there be a reason climatologists use 30-year trends?

[Amaranthus (Barry)]

It's looking increasingly likely that we are moving towards a 'super' El Nino this year and next (http://science1.nasa.gov/science-new.../19may_elnino/), which, stacked up on top of 16 years of incremental warming since the 1997/1998 event, should set a lot of records.

Most of the 'missing' heat/energy seems to be moving into the deep oceans at a more rapid rate than was previously assumed, as revealed by the ARGO data and other monitoring: http://www.nature.com/news/climate-c...g-heat-1.14525

This is part of my day job.

[graham.hobart (Graham stevens)]

Very interesting stuff Barry. Thanks for posting.
Graz

[andyc (Andy)]

Thanks very much Barry! El Nino is also a part of my day job but I hadn't seen much about Jason-2. One to explore tomorrow...

Absent a major equatorial volcanic eruption, there's pretty good odds of an annual global temperature record this year with already high anomalies in the GISS dataset, so surpassing 2010 and 2005 as the previous record holders. If El Nino fully develops, there is a very high chance of a significant record for 2015 (there's approximately a 6-month lag in overall global temperature response to El Nino and so the year afterwards is usually warmer). If we have anything approaching a 1997-98 El Nino, it'll be a huge record in 2015, and the surface temperature 'hiatus' will completely evaporate in a puff of statistical noise...

[clive milne]

Originally Posted by Renato1

Hi Clive,
Someone arbitrarily made the magic point of concern 2C above pre-industrial times. So we are half way there. Using the best estimate ECS of 3C in the previous assessment reports led to predictions of temperature rises of 0.2C per decade. So that's 50 years to achieve that one degree C.

But if ECS is only 1.5C, well that'll be around 100 years - which is good news. Lots of time to formulate mitigation strategies, come up with better renewable energy sources or even to see if the ECS figure of 1.5C is accurate or too high.

Anyhow, it's all irrelevant. China, India, Brazil aren't going to cut their emissions any time soon. Japan couldn't even meet it's Kyoto protocol target. Let's hope the true ECS figure is indeed the low one of the IPCC range.
Regards,
Renato

Hi Renato,
I think you have missed the significance of a couple of very important points in the discussion.

* There seems to be some confusion around the terms 'heat' and 'temperature' they are related but not the same thing. Heat is a measure of the total energy in a substance. If you imagine a glass full of water and a bathtub full of water and both are at the same temperature, the bathtub has hundreds of times more energy. Similarly if you have a bathtub full of air and a bathtub full of water and you apply 10 joules of energy to both, you will see a huge difference in the change in relative temperature of the air compared to the water. If you have a bathtub half full of air and half full of water and apply 10 joules to the system, nearly all of the heat will end up in the water once the temperature stabilises. Implicitly.. air temperature alone is not a good measure of the total heat in the planet's biosphere, so to use it as a means to infer what is going in to the oceans is specious in the most generous interpretation of things.

*When we talk about the impact of any given step change in atmospheric CO2, it really is important not to get seduced into thinking that global average temperatures respond immediately. The system takes multiple decades before it even approaches equilibrium. If we take a measure of global average temperatures today and they are 1 degree above the pre-industrial average (the average derived over several decades) It is possible to estimate that the Earth will be around 2C warmer once the oceans catch up assuming no additional CO2 is added to the system. Similarly, it may be comforting to select a time period of 10 years or so and point to the trend evident in 'that' particular slice of time, but it really isn't meaningful when the time domain selected preferentially amplifies the noise and suppresses the signal.

*In the example you quoted above you have made the error of extrapolating the impact of our CO2 emissions based on an unrealistic best case scenario using cyclical noise instead of data derived from long term trends and applying a linear function to those misleading numbers instead of the exponential function that accurately describes it.


*You are most likely correct with respect to the BRICS. I think considering the resources we have at our disposal, and the manner in which the example we set influences them, it should actually be a source of shame for us.


Basically the point being; any rational estimate of the risk we face on this issue cannot be derived using an inappropriate mathematical function, it cannot be based on a dataset dominated by noise and it must not ignore the inertia in the system. Anything less is just folly.

[clive milne]

Im not a betting man but if anyone one wants to take even odds,
I've got a thousand bucks on 2014 global average temperatures being above the pre-1976 average....

For the denialistas; If you're not prepared to have a punt on that, why do you expect the rest of humanity to risk its entire future when you lack the strength of your convictions even to that extent?

[el_draco (Rom)]

Originally Posted by clive milne

Im not a betting man but if anyone one wants to take even odds,
I've got a thousand bucks on 2014 global average temperatures being above the pre-1976 average....

For the denialistas; If your not prepared to have a punt on that, why do you expect the rest of humanity to risk its entire future when you lack the strength of your convictions even to that extent?

I'd be happy to make that up to 2$k. I love a dead certainty, even though we all lose in this case.... Two grand would pay for about 4000 trees. Go ahead, help me cool my world.

[Nikolas (Nik)]

Originally Posted by Renato1

Wikipedia do a good job of describing it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_politics
Cheers,
Renato

No define it as YOU see it and understand it.
Don't obfuscate and bow down to wikipedia.