Bishop Hill Glikson on the MWP
Sep 23, 2011 Climate: MWP Climate: Sceptics Australian scientist Andrew Glikson has a very strange article in the Conversation. He appears to believe that we sceptics are like something out of 1984.
Ideologically dominated or totalitarian societies – such as George Orwell’s famous “1984” Ingsoc – are marked by:
- attempts to alter reality (“2 + 2 = 5 if the party says so”)
- elimination of history (“He who controls the past, controls the future”)
- rewriting collective memory (“Oceania is at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia”)
- The corruption of logic through aleration and elimination of language “Newspeak”
- mind control (“thought crime”).
But even science fiction writers such as George Orwell, Aldous Huxley or Doris Lessing did not envisage a civilisation that would knowingly, against the best scientific evidence, devastate its own atmosphere and ocean system as comprehensively as has been and continues to be done through anthropogenic (human-induced) climate change.
He goes on to list some alleged sceptic transgressions, among which one of the highlights is the claim that we are engaged in
3) Negating empirical scientific measurements by misciting the literature and propagating unreferenced plots from unknown sources. An example is the exaggeration of the Medieval Warm Period, which reached less than 25% of 21st century warming.
Given that his criticism is "unreferenced plots from unknown sources", it is unfortunate that he doesn't actually give any source at all for his claim about the MWP. This is known in the trade as a "carcrash", I believe.
But what a strange claim it is - only 25% of 21st century warming? Can this be correct? Here's the graph from the Fourth Assessment Report:
Andrew Glikson is a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University.
Bishop Hill
Glikson has responded in the comments and says his source is
- this paper by Hansen
- the IPCC.
Which is strange, because the IPCC clearly doesn't support his case and I can't find any mention of the MWP in Hansen.
I wonder if he was involved in writing the Times Atlas of the World?
Bishop Hill
Andrew Glikson has responded again. When he says:
An example is the exaggeration of the Medieval Warm Period, which reached less than 25% of 21st century warming.
he is actually referring to a theoretical modern warming - he suggests that warming would have been much greater were it not for the mitigating effect of aerosols. Amusingly, he refers to this theoretical greater warming as the "real temperature rise".
Reader Comments (64)
Don't you mean "Andrew Glikson was a scientist"?
Quite a good one looking at his bio. Pity Climate change addled his brain
ah but then we can call the anomaly from now on the "unreal temperature rise"
I knew we could find points of mutual agreement , "us" and the warmists :)
Would the real temperature rise please stand up?
...I'm the real temperature rise!
(apologies to the Spartans)
Don Keiller
Don, you should look into the private life of Issac Newton. Just because you do good science now and then doesn't mean you do it all the time or even most of the time. And even Einstein blew it when it came to the "big bang" verses static universe, even though he actually had "dark energy" built into his equations (the cosmological constant). It appears that he objected to the big bang on religious grounds (Lemaître was a Jesuit priest)
In science you are as good as your last equation. Even today E=MC*C is in question.
Still I suspect both Newton and Einstein will continue to be high in the scientific pantheon, while Glikson will not get through the gate.
Let's see here...
a) attempts to alter reality - check
b) elimination of history - check
...I think I can stop now. Glikson's batting at least .600 on his own checklist.
Andrew Glikson has form. He was a regular troll on the Benny Peiser CCNeT Cambridge Conference forum for several years and got people upset by his tactics (Benny Peiser in a previous role). I think I can remember reading about him on Joanne Nova's blog in Australia. He is otherwise a good scientist - but he likes to comment on other subjects to his own specialisation.
Like all good propagandists, if you want to hide the truth of your own behaviour, simply accuse the opposition of that self same behaviour.
If we had some root beer we could have root beer floats, if we had some ice cream.
=================
I've seen poor Andy on TV here in Australia. He didn't look to be too tightly wrapped to me.
Speaking of "•rewriting collective memory", Andrew Glikson claims;
"1) Global temperature has already exceeded the upper target of a +2°C relative to pre-industrial levels set by the international community at both Copenhagen and Cancun.
Thus, atmospheric greenhouse gas-forced energy rise (solar heat trapped in the atmosphere) has now reached levels equivalent of +2.3°C.
This figure is masked only by a short-lived -1.1°C cooling effect, caused mainly by industrially emitted sulphur dioxide stratospheric aerosols – particles, which partly block sunlight from reaching the surface and warming the earth.
Incredibly the +2°C target is still discussed in political and economic reports as if it hasn’t been reached."
The link he provides for the "the upper target of a +2°C relative to pre-industrial levels" is:
http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/cop15/eng/l07.pdf
This document says nothing about pre-industrial levels and provides no other baseline time for this relative increase. Reading this document one can only surmise that they mean from the time of the document, i.e. 2009.
The GISS global trend suggests an increase of of <0.9°C since 1880.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
Subtracting the purely hypothetical -1.1°C cooling effect from aerosols gives something less than the 2.3°C increase he claims. Does anyone else seriously claim this to be true?
Glikson is obviously CONfused by the CONsensus he is describing.
I hope to never share a thermostat with a CAGW believer such as him.
The discussion is now degenerating at THE CON.
Here's a recent comment and reply that might interest, preserved here as I suspect it won't be up for long if "community standards" are adhered to:
Mike Hansen
Mr
logged in via email @gmail.com
Gliskon's point is that the current debate over climate science is not a scientific debate but a debate between scientists and right-wing idealogues.
Perhaps Marc would like to list some prominent climate change deniers who are not members of right-wing think tanks.
reply
permalink •
about 10 hours ago
Marc Hendrickx
Geologist
Dear Editor/Moderator,
Is Mike's comment an example of something that is in line with The Con's "Community Standards"? If so, that's certainly some community! The following is written in the same spirit as Mike's comment.
Mike,
Firstly, perhaps you can take the time to spell Glikson's name correctly, it's not like it is a rare thing on this page, or on this site? Or was this just another one of your fat finger moments that spontaneously emerge from the reptilian part of your brain with some regularity on this site? Perhaps it's time you exercised your frontal cortex!
Secondly, I wonder Mike, do you keep a list of names in your freezer in the same way that Belinda Neal did? And while we are busy with ad-hom abuse, and given you have set such a very, very high standard of commentary here, and in other places on the internet in this regard; I'd suggest you pay a visit to Stephen Lewandowsky for some assistance with your psychological problems, but it appears he's too busy dealing with his own obsessive conspiracy disorder. Tell me Mike, do you also check under your bed for subversive ideas every night?
http://theconversation.edu.au/an-orwellian-climate-3243
Update on Sep 23, 2011 by Bishop Hill
Andrew Glikson has responded again. When he says:
An example is the exaggeration of the Medieval Warm Period, which reached less than 25% of 21st century warming.
he is actually referring to a theoretical modern warming - he suggests that warming would have been much greater were it not for the mitigating effect of aerosols. Amusingly, he refers to this theoretical greater warming as the "real temperature rise".
Or maybe its the reduction in absolute humidity, caused by the increase in co2 as discussed in Ferenc Miskolczi's Saturated greenhouse effect theory, where he shows that increases in co2 leads to a decrease in absolute humidty and visa-versa, causing the total greenhouse effect to simply fluctuate around its natural equilibrium.
From this it can be seen that increasing co2 would cause no net "global warming" at all.
Surface warming is only possible if the available energy increases. Natural variations such as solar activity, orbital variations and heat exchange between oceans and atmosphere can cause this but co2 cannot as it has no ability to produce energy itself, it can only reflect it.