Bishop Hill Who is briefing Davey?
Nov 15, 2013 Climate: WG2 
Nigel Lawson and Ed Davey were both on BBC Question Time last night (from 34 mins), and the conversation inevitably turned to hurricane Haiyan. At first, Davey was somewhat less belligerent than normal, offering qualified agreement with Lawson's suggestion that there was no connection between global warming and hurricanes. His qualification was, however, significant. He said in essence that while global warming was not affecting hurricane frequency, it was increasing their intensity.
This is not true.
Once again, the IPCC says there is low confidence in any global change in intense hurricane activity and low confidence in any human contribution to what changes there have been. Hurricane activity has been very low for the best part of 20 years.
And as if to underline the point, Paul Homewood has reviewed the data for the most intense typhoons and found that we have spent most of the last 20 years almost completely free of any such storms.
Reader Comments (68)
EM
Just as weather patterns have been responsible for the lower sea ice extent in the Arctic in recent years.It is the way you guys insist on having your cake and eating it that turns honest sceptics into downright cynics.
Greenland's sea is freezing 3 weeks earlier than usual this year. Munich's winter start was the coldest in 200 years. 100,000 cattle froze to death in early Colorado snow.
The reason for this is that the World's climate operates as a patchwork quilt. N America and N Europe are defined by the jet stream, in turn low solar EUV. On Thursday night, flights from Montreal to Heathrow took 5 1/2 hours with record tail winds. Our winter will be as cold as 2010-2011 but that cold will persist until March. If we have heavy snow as well, like in 1962-63, the green fascists will have a very nasty shock via many 10s of 1000s of extra deaths of the UK elderly.
" Speaking to journalists in Sri Lanka, Mr Cameron said: “There is no doubt there have been an increasing number of severe weather events in recent years.""
Obviously he gets his briefings from the same source as Davey.
People like Ed Davey and Obama should be extremely careful in the uninhibited enthusiasm with which they claim that CO2 induced climate change is making specific events such as Typhoon Haiyan worse. Whilst their objective may be to push their own political agenda, the greater consequence could be either moral or legal pressure on the developed world to cough up for the costs of such events. In this case, that would be the lives of 3000 people and billions of dollars in clean up costs, making the reparations that could eventually be paid out to communities such as the Maldives seem like chicken feed. Surely, it should be the objective of any government representative in the first instance to be very wary in making such claims and admissions, if only in the interests of protecting the electorate who they represent. What an idiot is Davey!
Colin Porter: They are probably using this for very short term political reasons. The UK Public has woken up to the fact that it is being ripped off by Government enriching crony capitalists. Davey has to repeat the mantra. Cameron seems to be riding two horses at once. The aim as is always the case for politicians is to move in time to avoid the axe. That axe will come this year from a very cold winter and trouble in the NHS.
What really comes across time and again from the alarmist side is the obvious raft of contradictions in the entire argument.
Storms are getting stronger and more frequent, yet they're not.
Missing heat is in the ocean, except there's precisely nothing to support this assertion.
Computer predictions suggest we need to act now...except the models have repeatedly failed.
Sea levels are rising - sure they are, at a rate that may or may not add the height of a can of coke to the ocean a century from now.
All these assertions of certainty and fact from Davey, the IPCC, alarmists everywhere...the only truth they need face is they cannot explain the Pause and it flatly contradicts their scary theory.
How humiliating.
They are reduced to spouting unproven nonsense to keep their theory on the rails. In truth AGW theory is on life support because observations are not in line with the theory. Thus they are revealed to not have a clue about what they're on about.
We're seeing David Blunkett and Jack Straw row back on New Labours uncontrolled immigration programme as the true consequences become clear, and impossible to defend. The same will happen with AGW proponents and their lunatic 'renewables' policy.
History will not be kind to them.
Cheshirered: you easily show AGW theory wrong. Read http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1981/1981_Hansen_etal.pdf . This is the first GISS modelling paper and got them the exposure and the funding. Para 2 claims CO2 blocks 'Atmospheric Window' IR, 8 - 14 microns. Para 4 claims GHE = lapse rate cooling, 33 K to the '-18 deg C emission zone'.
There is no such entity, it's the average of 15 deg C AW, -1.5 deg C (2.6 km temperate) H2O and -50 deg C lower stratosphere CO2 IR. In 2010, Lacis claimed using the GISS - E model that removing all CO2 would in 25 years make the planet a -18 deg C ice ball. You easily disprove this by a thought experiment - remove all GHGs, 43% higher SW to the surface makes its average temperature 4 to 5 deg C; present GHE = ~11 K. 33/11 = 3 is the imaginary positive feedback. They now admit that CO2 blocks 15 micron IR but this is easily bypassed.
Alec M
Since making my comment above concerning the foolishness of our own government ministers to making unfounded claims in relation to major storm events and sea level rise for their own political ends, with a useful contribution from yourself, I have been catching up on my weeks reading and note that the same points are being made in Dellars Blog
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100245988/do-climate-sceptics-really-deserve-to-be-executed-because-of-typhoon-haiyan/
and in the Guardian rag
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/13/climate-talks-typhoon-haiyan-philippines
It seems that others are likewise concerned and that the American government is now reigning back on such statements, for fear of picking up the bill for all of these natural weather events. They were less concerned about screwing BP with the Mexican Gulf disaster, but perhaps it is coming home to them to realise what big bucks are involved when it comes to climate.
It goes to emphasise what shear stupidity is being shown by our own ministers in this area and that the war time caution on "idle talk" should be remembered. I think that this issue is so important that it deserves a greater airing, and perhaps if it can get back to our own government ministers and advisers, they might become a little more circumspect in their proclamations.
What is the connection between Nigel Lawson and global warming ? Apart from the fact he is related to Monckton.
A transcript of that segment of Question Time is now here:
https://sites.google.com/site/mytranscriptbox/home/20131114_qt
The misinformation on display in that show had ne shaking my fist at the TV. At least Dimbleby tried to apply some balance.
steve
Add salt to water and the freezing point drops. Thus seawater freezes at a lower temperature than fresh water.
This is how gritting the roads with salt clears ice.
In the case of Antarctica, the ice sheet is losing 100 cubic kilometres per year, melting into the surrunding ocean and diluting it.This allows floating ice to form more easily, at a higher temperature.
http://congrexprojects.com/docs/12c20_docs2/2-grace_esa-clic_forsberg.pdf?sfvrsn=2
mike jackson
I just follow the science. It happens to be a lot more complex than the simple stories purveyed by the spin-sceptics. If you can get beyond their simplistic output, I suggest going to the sources and reading the science directly. You will find the sceptic straw man suggesting that the increasing Antarctic ice extent indicates a lack of warming is inaccurate.
To briefly recap, the Arctic is an ocean mostly surrounded by land. The dominating factor in determining ice extent is temperature over the icepack and over the surrounding land, with secondary input from ocean currents and weather patterns.
The Antarctic is a land mass surrounded by ocean. The dominating effects on sea ice extent are the degree to which wind breaks up and disperses floating ice away from the coastline and the salinity of the surface waters.Temperature is secondary.
The winds have become stronger and more meridional in recent years, pushing the ice edge further North.
The salinity has reduced, allowing the ice to form at higher temperatures and fill in the gaps between floes more easily.
Both promote more extensive Winter ice cover.
I must admit that as an ordinary person retired from business Entropic man baffles me with his explanations.
"Antarctica covers an area of almost 14 million square km (5.4 million sq. miles) and contains 26.5 million cubic km of ice" How can you measure 100 cubic km? It is a drop in the water. The uncertainty in measuring surely exceeds the measurement itself. It cannot possibly have any climatic effect.
John Peter
And even those of an alarmist bent are inclined to agree, when pressed, that weather patterns played a role in the Arctic ice loss of recent years.
To be honest, I'm not at all sure that the amount of ice at either pole is of great significance given that the melting point is ~0C and that the amount of latent heat needed to melt a significant volume (normal summer Arctic melt aside) is more even than the alarmists are prophesying.
But as long as they point to the summer ice melt patterns for the last 34 years and shout "woe! woe!" while ignoring the several million years before that then they are likely to be reminded that at the other end of the planet ice cover is increasing.
It is the way you guys insist on having your cake and eating it that turns honest sceptics into downright cynics.
Nov 16, 2013 at 10:50 AM | Mike Jackson
The problem is that the sceptics are fed a grossly oversimplified version of climate by the spin-sceptic propoganda sites. Thus when different environments like the Arctic and Antarctic are discussed, the sceptic tendency is to assume that they behave in exactly the same way. Any attempt to discuss the differences is regarded as "having ones cake and eating it"
For example, when winds blow Northwards from the Winter Antarctic, ice is pushed further from the coast. Similar winds in the Arctic push the ice Southward against the coastline, where it stops.
In the Summer Antarctic the minimum area is reached when the shrinkage reaches the coastline and ice sheets replenished by glaciers. In the Arctic the ice edge retreats northwards into ocean ocean.
These are why climate change affects mostly Summer ice in the Arctic and Winter ice in the Antarctic.
John Peter
If you have library access, read this paper.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009GL040222/abstract
If not, try this summary.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Grace/news/grace20121129.html
Try to read Velicogna's paper if you can. It has a more detailed discussion of the measurement techniques and the degree of uncertainty. Even the abstract includes uncertainty values for the annnual changes.
Actually, the IPCC AR5 chapter 14 states: "Based on process understanding and agreement in 21st century projections, it is likely that the global frequency of occurrence of tropical cyclones will either decrease or remain essentially unchanged, concurrent with a likely increase in both global mean tropical cyclone maximum wind speed and
precipitation rates." (Summary, page 4, section on Cyclones)
Which means Davey made a correct statement that the science (i.e. IPCC) says hurricanes will stay the same wrt frequency, but may increase in intensity.
If one goes beyond the Summary there are statements in line with what has been said in previous comments here regarding the increase in intensity, basically that it is a very small increase and the statistical significance of it is questionable.