Bishop Hill Deben's doubtful stories
Sep 19, 2013 Climate: WG2 Deben A bit of a car crash for Lord Deben this morning, claiming that Bangladesh is sinking beneath the waves and that refugees are already fleeing the delta.
Deniers/dismissers upset. Say no homelessness attributable to climate change. Yet 1000s in Bangladesh forced from homes by rising sea levels.
Unfortunately, his rather better informed followers on Twitter were quick to point out to him that Bangladesh is actually expanding:
New research shows Bangladesh may not be as vulnerable to rising sea levels caused by climate change as previously feared, scientists in Dhaka say.
They say satellite images show the country's landmass is actually growing because of sediment dumped by rivers.
I wonder what other fairy stories the Climate Change Committee tells the government.
Reader Comments (65)
That isn't John as in John Selwyn Gummer, is it?
The John Selwyn Gummer brand had become so contaminated that only a complete change of public identity would do.
Ten quid says "John" is a warmist yanking our chain.
Entropic you heard about the floods and the landslides in Acapulco.
So with immanent Climate Change Catastrophe exactly how much money is exotic beach front property these days .With melting ice caps Hurricanes Typhoons and rising sea levels everybody on the coast must obviously be selling up quick and cheap and moving in land surely.
Must be plenty of knock down priced Holiday Villas going cheap in the Maldives you would think.
Perhaps maybe not .Shows just how much little confidence estate agents and investors have in your Climate Change Scare stories..
Make for an interesting survey, Climate Change and the falling or perhaps rising value of global coastal property .
Sep 19, 2013 at 8:09 PM | Unregistered CommenterJames Evans
Perhaps he's having a conversation with himself?
Re the paper referenced which triggered of this conversation. It says, amongst other things:
Given that climate sensitivity can depend on the initial climate state and on the magnitude and sign of the climate forcing, a continuous record of global temperature over a wide range of climate states would be especially useful.
Followed in the same paragraph by
We use surface temperature proxies
Two paragraphs later this sentence appears
However, this approximation breaks down in the Late Cenozoic for two reasons.
Having seen "assumption", "estimate","simulations" and so non scattered throughout the document. I recalled my mothers saying "If ifs and ands were pots and pans there'd be no need for tinkers" and gave up.
If someone more dedicated than I am reads said paper and says it is ground breaking repeatable research using empirical cast iron data then well and good. For me it is another reference for which the only positive thing one can say about it is that I didn't have to watch Location, Location, Location
So now we have EM, with apparently a new friend providing a foil to argument! Hard to believe, almost. John sees the points EM is making and they have their own side conversation. Who would have thought it, that EM would find a like minded fellow here? Someone who can immediately see how Steveta's comment is not entirely reasonable...Its almost as though they had met in a past life, or were destined to meet.
Sometimes you just get that feeling that its just too....coincidental. I hope our host is keeping a tab on real identities. What with EM acting like an RC moderator, throwing in a vast resource of references, apparently on topic, but on investigation not really...and now we have John...
Consider this, John: throughout the earlier part of this century, the AGWists were predicting that the average temperatures would rise with the levels of CO2; the temperature rise will be “catastrophic”; hurricanes were going to be more severe; sea levels were rapidly rising, and would soon swamp low-lying countries (such as Bangladesh); the ice caps were shrinking so fast we would have an ice-free Arctic around 2013 (i.e. now!).
Now, look at reality: CO2 levels have risen pretty constantly, yet the average global temperature has been pretty steady for 13/15/17 years (depending on which year you “cherry-pick”); without the benefits of the Crystal Ball of Doom, no-one appears to know what the “perfect” climate is, though the suggestion is that we had it not long ago, yet no “catastrophes” are happening; hurricanes are becoming less frequent, and less violent; sea levels do not appear to be rising at any rate, let alone an alarming rate – Bangladesh and other low-lying countries actually appear to be expanding (just look at the BBC for that); the Antarctic ice cap continues to grow, and the Arctic ice has grown to pretty average levels.
Why do you think that those who are a little sceptical about the doom and gloom pronounced with such glee by the followers of the IPCC should not be in doubt about its reality?
You are right, these blogs are dominated by opinion; this does not meant that they do not refer to scientific research. And this does not mean that scientific research cannot be flawed, and may even be totally wrong!
And this does not mean that scientific research cannot be flawed, and may even be totally wrong!
Most scientific research, at least that is published, is wrong in one way or another. Anyone who is specialist in any field knows this. The danger is when people, for whatever reason, pretend this is not true.
The worst of the AGW crowd will not concede that any of their research is wrong. They have to defend it all. Hence they cannot be trusted to distinguish good from bad. (Climategate told us that they knew privately all along that much of the work has major errors or omissions. It's only in public they won't admit it.)
There are some who will call out bad research. Such people (Curry, Pielke etc) are treated with nothing but disrespect for saying what everyone knows to be true. As a result my intuition is that Curry and Pielke are much more likely to be right than Mann or Hansen.
This is all that lord fancy pants needs to know - Deben-Johnboy-Gummer whatever his name is:
Ross McKitrick.
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2013/09/16/ipcc-models-getting-mushy/
Got that?
May I add once more a plea that my view that there can be no significant CO2-AGW be considered, along with my view that the 80s and 90s the warming was Asian aerosols decreasing cloud albedo.
It is easily proved by correcting the many elementary errors in Climate Alchemy introduced by Sagan, Houghton, Hansen, Trenberth and Raamanathan.
But you have to accept that Tyndall's experiment has been seriously misinterpreted by failing to understand the most basic aspects of statistical thermodynamics.
EM
"cogniscenti"
It only works if you can spell it.. :-)
Mooloo
"It's only in public they won't admit it"
I often wonder how many soi-disant warmologists really believe what they claim. Will Flannery 'fess up now his income doesn't depend on it..?
James P
See my earlier comments about childhood dyslexia.
Sep 19, 2013 at 8:09 PM | James Evans
Alternative hypothesis:
'John' is Lewandowsky researching the psychology of deniers. Discuss.
entropic man,
"See my earlier comments about childhood dyslexia."
1) Really? We're that interested in you?
2) Childhood dyslexia. So, you don't have it now?
3) Are there previous comments I can look at where you talk about spell checkers?
4) Honestly - do you know "John" from elsewhere?