Monday
Nov242014
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Debating the IPCC
Nov 24, 2014 Climate: IPCC Climate: Parliament Last week MPs were given the chance to debate the Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee report on the Fifth Assessment. I haven't the time to read the whole thing at the moment , but it looks at least as if some pertinent points were made, with Yeo furiously stoking the engine of the gravy train and Graham Stringer and Peter Lilley briskly hosing it down with a few facts.
Read it here.
(H/T Barry Woods)
Reader Comments (55)
I love trougher Tim's first statement about Rochester and Strood:
Oh dear, out of touch with reality again. He should stick to keeping his snout in the trough.
Of course the most vocal proponents of Climate Change are often the greatest beneficiaries.
Does this suggest a conflict of interest?
No, of course not!
I assume that when you say - "Peter Lilley briskly hosing it down with a few facts.", and Hansard quotes Mr Lilley as saying "there has not been any global warming since 1997", in his very first sentence - you are using the word "facts" in the loosest possible sense?
As noted on unthreaded, Robin Guenier's evidence gets a mention, on the consensus question.
The result at Rochester and Strood does of course have some impact. Given the chance, Ukip will assuredly be on the same side as Graham and Peter and will certainly not have anyone called Ed in charge of our energy policy.
Quentin Wallace, have a look at this satellite temperature record since 1997. It's fairly obvious not much is happening. People who love to plot straight lines through data might say that there has actually been cooling, not warming since then.
Cherry picking aside, not much has happened and we were modeled a catastrophe. Where's my Mediterranean climate I was promised? It's always in the distant future.
Lilly goes out of his way to lose the debate for skeptics by denying the actual logical implication of the skeptical position that the IPCC is basically Enron:
“I did not say anyone had falsified anything; I simply said they had excluded material that was in the main report from the summary for policy makers. I hope he will clarify that. I was not accusing anyone of inventing falsehoods.”
Until these utter poofed up clowns declare falsehoods, scams, lies, crimes, and hoaxes, they are the biggest part of the problem of all. The consensus 97% claim needs be pounced on as pure fraud. That is what it is! The Marcott 2013 bladeless data hockey stick must be exposed very loudly and pounded on. The Steig Antarctica red trend cover of Nature must be exposed and POUNDED ON VERY LOUDLY.
I an disgusted with 97% of skeptics. There are only a half dozen skeptics pressing issues of FRAUD on one of the last unmoderated media platforms: Twitter. All you have daily are Patrick Moore, Tom Nelson, and Steve Goddard. Meanwhile HUNDREDS of posts a day appear on WUWT and Curry’s blog. What the hell is wrong with you pacifist enablers of fake scientists?!
Thank goodness for ongoing aversion of conservatives to science, thank goodness for so many loony creationists now invoking the Christian god to explain clinate variation, for without them, lame skeptics would have made no dent in the ongoing willful destruction of Western civilization by charlatans who create virtual sea level and then illegally label it “sea level.” Only the stem cell research banning creationists stopped severe energy rationing in our era because they hate science, not because they care about it. Climate alarm is a new religion that threatens their existing doomsday religion in which Man is a sinful and shameful creature.
It seems it will be up to a younger generation to expose the actual fraud of the hockey stick team that controlled the IPCC.
Hansard quotes Mr Lilley as saying "there has not been any global warming since 1997", in his very first sentence - you are using the word "facts" in the loosest possible sense?
Nov 24, 2014 at 11:52 AM | Unregistered CommenterQuentin Wallace
It seems EM and Raff are past their best and we have a new Troll to replace them.
Nik
people ignore people that sound like they are ranting...
are you disgusted with Andrew, who has actually achieved stuff..
until sceptics are given a seat at the table and thought of as having a right to be there (and that means being civil) nobody will hear us
and most scientists are NOT fake scientists
NikFromNYC, one of the red flags from the warmist side is their vocal conviction they are right. Their confidence levels as it were. A second mistake they make is accusing people of deliberate malfeance when they are acting by their own code of conduct. While there are a few seriously bad eggs within the warmist movement, most of them are working to the best of their abilities. They don't think they're being dishonest. Accusing them and those who believe in them of fraud has the effect of pushing them in the other direction. Not that we should all play softly, softly, we should each respond as we feel appropriate. It has honesty at its core and while that might not be the quickest route to getting noticed, it's the most persuasive.
My sympathy is with Amber Rudd. To save her sanity she should resign and suggest that she be replaced by an I Speak Your Weight Machine because all she is doing is trotting out the DECC official line.
Dr Whitehead obviously believes every word that proceeds from the mouth of
Godthe IPCC and its Summary for Policymakers but reading his contribution it is hard to understand why or whether he really understands what he is saying.Nik
Barry Woods got in ahead of me but I'll say it anyway. Given that politics is the art of the possible we need to cut Stringer and Lilley some slack. The skeptics are still in very much of a minority in this environment and if they give their colleagues the impression that they are flogging a dead hobby-horse (mixed metaphor intentional) then they will make no progress at all.
I was interested in the contribution from Lavery (who coincidentally happens to represent the constituency I was born and brought up in). He may well be someone with a bit of an open mind who at least claims to have changed his mind based on evidence, even if he's changed it the 'wrong' way!
I do actually agree with you that to an extent where are where we are in terms of energy policy because of Enron but that doesn't alter the fact that that is where we are and bull-at-a-gate tactics won't be helpful at this stage.
Politics continues to be..... political.......and the Green blob's as unstoppable as ever...
https://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/
Michael Hart, surely both Mr Lilley and yourself are taking a rather short sighted view of the situation? According to the same data set there has actually been no warming (in fact cooling) since 1981.
Some might also say, that in order to understand a complex metric such as global warming, we should take into account such things as ice, glaciers, sea level, ocean heat content etc. and maybe also consider the short term effects of say ENSO, volcanic eruptions, and solar variation.
Of course these are just hand waving distractions, and I prefer to concentrate on the plain and simple fact (see my link above), that there has been no global warming for 33 years. This exceeds the generally accepted 30 year average definition of climate.
Quentin, back in 1998, nobody from your side was warning that 1998 might be an outlier and that the warming was exaggerated. I don’t remember you protesting about people being premature in their assessment of the situation. You’d have more credibility if you conceded that the pause was worthy of consideration even if it turns out to be temporary.
Quentin, the linear trend is roughly 0.2 per decade on that graph which seems to coincide with what is generally understood.
And why are you taking 'land only'? Climate affects the entire planet and since the oceans account for 75% of the surface it would be odd (to say the least) to ignore them, wouldn't you say?
I would have thought that this might be less contentious — RSS lower troposphere with trend to 2000 and from 2000 to date.
It's bad enough to be accused of cherry-picking without producing statements that can be disproved with two clicks of a mouse!
Tiny CO2,
1. I don't consider myself to be on a "side".
2. You have no idea whether I was protesting for or against any premature assessment of a situation in 1998.
3. I'm sure that if you spoke to any scientist in the field they would concede that all the data is worthy of consideration.
4. To describe a "pause" as possibly "temporary" is somewhat redundant.
Mike Jackson,
1. Michael Hart was rather condescending of linear trend lines earlier. Are you saying it's actually OK?
2. Are you inferring that I am not free to employ my own preferred cherry picks? I thought this type of behaviour was the modus operandi here?
Off topic I know, but after four days writing this in response to Steve Goddard I'd appreciate some feedback from any of the regulars here familiar with the science of greenhouse warming: A scientist's guide to greenhouse warming
Replies
1) Then you are in a minority of one and your own writing suggests you think that you have chosen a side eg "I thought this type of behaviour was the modus operandi here?"
2) Just an enducated guess, please enlighten us if reality differs.
3) Since it was largely glossed over in the IPCC report, it's not being considered other than in private.
4) Of course the pause is temoporary, the question is how temporary and what will the temperature do next? We were alerted to rapid warming. We were told again and again that the temperature rise would resume soon (and make up the difference between reality and models). Whatever games you play with statistics (and both sides does it) the playing field has changed. More tempered language from the warmist side is essential to regain credibility. Regaining credibility does not involve playing games with statistics. And don't whine about the sceptic side doing the same. Anything done here has been done bigger, better and more outragious by the warmist side in the past and present.
So not only is a plateau somehow an increase, we shouldn't worry about the illogic that produced 'extremely likely' because the equally unscientific 'very likely' is bad enough. Nor should we worry about whether the summary actually reflects the report itself because - well because then they'd have to read the actual reports they are pontificating about and we can'thave that. But I think the worst example of sheer rank stupidity among many others was here:
"It is interesting listening to scientists. The argument is, “Should we listen to scientists or should we not?” If the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee is discussing mad cow disease, which affects farmers, experts in the field are listened to..........Of course we are guided by people with knowledge in the field on which the inquiry was focused."
Gawdalmighty - Is it so difficult to remember that BSE was an absolute debacle for all scientists concerned? First they said it was impossible for scrapie in sheeps brains to cause any problems with cows fed it, then when that was disproven they doubled down on stupidity and declared it was impossible for BSE to cause CJD in humans. When that in turn was impossible to deny they just invented magic 'prions' that made the impossible possible and declared a coming epidemic. Strike 3! The end result of following such 'expert' scientists advice - which by the way France completely ignored - was a massive and costly slaughter of cattle. A gross stupidity that was even repeated shortly thereafter due to equally bad scientific advice about Foot and Mouth disease. Yet Lavery does not recall any of this farcically bad scientific, 'expert' advice? How can he possibly negotiate life with such a crap memory? Does he have L and R on his effing wellies or what?
TinyCO2, Oh dear. Maybe you should have a "private" discussion with some friends about your own "credibility".
Quentin Wallace,
"According to the same data set there has actually been no warming (in fact cooling) since 1981."
That doesn't seem to the same data set (it's land only). And it doesn't show cooling since 1981. The rest of the sentence is fine though.
Are you new to this?
James Evans, I suggest you read the entire thread before commenting. On a purely pedantic note - the cherry pick I link to shows a temperature anomaly of, ~0.6 in 1981 and ~0.3 at present. That is a cooling of ~0.3. An ice age cometh.
Quentin Wallace, among my many faults, a lack of credibility is not one. Mockery, yep that's a major flaw. I love to mock warmists for their inability to see basic human thought processes and reactions. I've long since stopped worrying if CAGW is real because with the clowns in charge of alerting us to warming and solving it, nothing substantial will be done anyway. Que sera, sera.
I think debating the IPCC has been effectively and elegant covered by Prof. Tim Ball at WUWT. The CABAL.
Quentin
The RSS land graph that you linked to at WoodforTrees shows a trend of (according to my Mk1 eyeball) about 0.6 of a degree (-.15 to +.45). I'm not making any judgments about other people's views on linear trends other than to say that they can be misleading since they can be used to erase inconvenient data (but then what can't?).
On the subject of cherry-picking, we all cherry-pick to a certain extent in the sense that you have to start from somewhere. It all depends on how honest you want to be and/or how important it is that you are "right". Personally I prefer to use 1999 or 2000 as the start date when I am discussing things like "the pause" because, while earlier dates in the 90s may well be valid, some smartarse will sooner or later derail the discussion by flinging the 1998 El NIno at me.
The point is that in this case (as I said) you have chosen to limit your figures to land only, to one dataset only, and in any case the figures don't back you up. If I thought you thought we on here were so dim that we didn't know how to cross-check figures at WoodforTrees I'd be offended so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
This time.
It amazes me why DECC, making policy for UK energy provision should be using synthesised GLOBAL temperature data and dodgy models, instead of UK temperature data, as in the CET.
It matters not a diddley squat what the temperature in Australia, Argentina, Algeria, the Antarctic or anywhere else on Earth is or has been. Provision for future UK Energy supply should be based on "projections" of UK temperatures.
Now, when we look at http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/ the temperature record for middle England and more representative for the UK than global, there has been a downward trend going back from the last full year 2013 to 1992. That's 21 YEARS. No cherry picking, just going back in time. Continual CO2 rise and 21 years very slight cooling, seems like a good relationship that CO2 causes cooling.
You have to admire the impeccable logic of Dr Alan White, and his firm belief in the IPCC process:
"However, what we do know, with a reasonably high degree of certainty, is that Japanese knotweed is very invasive; it uproots our houses and properties, and needs to be dealt with. Indeed, if a surveyor came along to me if I was attempting to deal with my house repairs and said, “It’s very likely that Japanese knotweed is undermining the foundations of your house,” I probably would not say, “I’m not going to do anything about this, because I want to wait until I know that it’s extremely likely that it is undermining the foundations of my house. So I will just let the stuff get on with it until I am absolutely certain, on scientific grounds, that it is extremely likely that my house will be done over.” Instead, I would probably say, “Well, ‘very likely’ is pretty much good enough for me. I’m going to do something about this, and get my house sorted out.”"
No need to bother with a simple check that the evidence since 1997 seems to be that Japanese knotweed is not going to destroy his house, nor is it even growing in his house, he sanctions a policy that abandons all common sense in electricy generation engineering.
When he got his doctorate, did they neglect to teach him to think for himself?
"On a purely pedantic note - the cherry pick I link to shows a temperature anomaly of, ~0.6 in 1981 and ~0.3 at present. That is a cooling of ~0.3. An ice age cometh."
Now Quentin, don't be silly. You know very well that the trend in that graph is slightly upwards, and therefore we should build windmills. Immediately. Chop chop.
Quentin Wallace: I, too, am somewhat perplexed by others’ responses to you; if you are on a “side”, which side are they on? You seem to have rattled a few cages, and knocked a few out of their comfort zones: are you “Alarmist” or “Sceptic”? At the moment, you are not easy to pigeon-hole, and, so it would seem, a number of people are not comfortable with that – hence, they launch into attack mode. If you can tolerate that sort of reaction, stick on this site, as it is refreshing to see another point of view – provided that you keep to reasonable argument and do not resort to ad homs.
To forestall any more blather about which point to start your straight line from, be aware that applying a linear fit to an obvious non-linear amalgamation of unknown processes is invalid regardless of where you start. You can maybe do what Roy Spencer does and overfit a polynomial. I recommend a least squares cubic spline because I find it usually teases out accurate results from noise (at least for FE results). Then you'll see a rate of change from 1998 that is first up then down. Or just eyeball it. In any event projections weighted on the most recent data have proven to be most accurate in general forecasting and that would strongly hint at a new cool period.
The plain fact is that the climateers weren't expecting a pause/plateau and they don't know which outrageous lie is currently best to try to hide that obvious fact, ranging from "there is no plateau" to "we were expecting this plateau all the time". To any objective mind it is obvious that they clearly haven't a clue what drives global temperature. Smith of the MO was one of the few prepared to be honest in public when he admitted in 'Nature' that "we just don't know". The danger for the scientists, and the reason for them producing synthesis reports and summaries that bear no relation to the reports they purport to summarise, is that if these brain-dead politicos & journos ever wake up and smell what they are being shovelled then there will be far fewer climate scientists in the world.
The government considers shale gas to be non-feasible, stranded assets, without CCS. Renwables are to be 40%. Because of CAGW.
You think you are going to bring that shale gas on stream while the CAGW story rules? You think 40% renewals will create a stable energy system without 40% spinning idle non-renewables? Who but the taxpayer will built 20% utilization gas generators?
Moratoria on fossil fuel development and a nationalized energy grid plus huge, increased taxes to pay for non financially beneficial CCS schemes or royalties paid to foreign corporations. The future of Britain all because CAGW is given credence beyond what reasonable men and women hold in private.
Breath of Fresh Air
Twitcher of the week!
Those here debating temperature trends -cooling, warming or plateau/hiatus - should first read the excellent post by Matt Briggs: 'Netherlands Temperature Controversy: Or, Yet Again, How Not To Do Time Series' http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=14718.
On the basis of his comments the use of the actual temperature record in CET is a more realistic basis for any UK policy decisions or indeed global decisions as CET has been claimed to be a good proxy for the global 'trend'.
Radical Rodent, I have a fair amount of sympathy for trollish behaviour, partly because it gives us something to think about but Quentin Wallace hasn't made the slightest attempt at engagement in his recent posts. He writes a lot like BBD. His graph was just game playing.
Examples of Quentin's bon mots.
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2014/11/20/movie-mann.html
Dear Mr Montford, I think you need to have a good lie down, and then maybe move on to some different foolishness (no offence to any clever fools)?
Nov 20, 2014 at 9:22 AM | Quentin Wallace
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2014/11/20/movie-mann.html
Dear Mr Mailman, what an utterly bizarre and bonkers affirming reply! Did you get lost in the post?
Nov 20, 2014 at 2:00 PM | Quentin Wallace
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2014/11/17/they-all-lived-together-in-a-little-crooked-house.html
I would say that this blog gets funnier and funnier, if it weren't for the fact that it's all so depressingly nasty, and single-mindedly stupid.
Nov 17, 2014 at 11:43 AM | Quentin Wallace
zzzzzzzzz..............
Radical Rodent,
I have been following this site on and off for many years (mainly as a lurker).
I've tried "reasonable argument" before. It usually just tails off into no response, interspersed with plenty of the ad homs you suggest not resorting to.
Myself posting under the pseudonym "anivegmin" -
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2012/4/7/singer-on-mann.html
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/4/14/the-ok-coral.html
I've also posted under other pseudonyms which I forget.
A more recent comment that was ignored by non other then Matt Ridley himself, posting under my real name (although admittedly I did post rather late in the day) -
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2014/11/7/ridleys-response-to-lynas.html
Mike Jackson,
There really is no need to respond to tongue in cheek comments in such an earnest fashion.
Tiny CO2,
I'm rather proud of my little "bon mots". They do seem to have provoked a reaction.
Quentin,
No, we don't have any idea what you were protesting for or against in 1998.
Why don't you please tell us?
For myself I was predicting doom and gloom catastrophic warming without actually being qualified in any way whatsoever to proclaim such?
Show a strength of character and tell us your position please?
I don't understand why anyone is paying attention to the Chinese intention for CO2 emissions to peak about 2030. Chinese CO2 emissions in 2014 will be twice US emissions. By 2030, with a compound growth rate of only 2.7% in Chinese emissions, they will be triple current US emissions by 2030. With the proposed US cutbacks, they will be 4-fold US emissions in 2030. The Chinese population is about 4-fold bigger than US population, meaning that Chinese per capita Chinese emissions will be tied for the highest in the world and more the double the average per capita emissions in the rest of the developed world. Based on the experience in developed countries, the existing infrastructure will be replaced slowly.
By 2030, cumulative Chinese emissions since 1990 (the baseline year for everyone else) will be the largest in the world and growing our times faster than anyone else.
Quentin.
So two years ago people didn’t agree with you and you went back to lurking in a huff.
A few days ago nobody noticed you.
And you’re proud of being finally noticed when you were just plain rude.
Hmmmm…. Are you sure that debate is your forte?
TinyCO2: the quotes you have given are a rather depressing exposé of the character; even in his own defence he reveals his more petty nature, which is a pity. I am often away from the web, so can lose touch, and occasional posters such as Quentin can get past me. While I do like to see people who are prepared to challenge ideas and opinions, and QW gave the impression that he (a sound assumption?) is one to do that, the quotes given, and Quentin’s own defence, really show him to be a rather small-minded individual, a little too wrapped up in his own kudos (“I'm rather proud of my little "bon mots".”). Shame, really. A fresh slant on the whole scam would be interesting.
For Quentin, who says "An ice age cometh":
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/24/surprise-robot-sub-finds-much-thicker-than-expected-antarctic-sea-ice/
I don't know if the IPCC put a "likeliness" value on that.
Good grief, we seem to have a pause denier now.
There are trolls who simply argue against reason for the sake of defending their own blind devotion to a point of view or cause. And there are trolls who simply enjoy an argument. There are trolls who enjoy the introduction of ambiguity and uncertainty, much as a person might enjoy spinning road signs askew to trouble the traveling public. And there are trolls who don't have the intellectual property necessary to follow the topic. All are useful if the response to them is factual, measured, informative and well reasoned. It is then helpful, not to the troll, but to any fair minded lurker that is seeking to figure out what is going on with climate "science". But responding to them is always subject to the law of diminishing returns. Remember that old adage about wrestling with a pig.
Quentin seems to be a coy troll, not wanting to make it easy for us to define his line of trolling. He helps his cause by changing his handle from time to time. So far his approach has been completely devoid of any substantive argument. And you know, now, that if you get close to figuring him out, he will just submerge for a while and the resurface as another personae. I guess that puts him in the category of the people who mess with street signs, but there is no obvious sign of any intelligence in his posts, so he could be that kind of troll as well.
To finally get back to the topic at hand. I was disappointed to read their expectation that CCS would come to the rescue. I thought the coal guy was on to something when he said he'd started hearing about clean coal 30 years ago (where might it have been if Maggie hasn't shut the pits, yawn). But it turned out he wasn't about to point out that there are a great many magic solutions that were proposed 30, 40, 50, 100 years ago that are still on the drawing board because THEY DON'T FLIPPING WORK! If we'd been able to listen to the audio, would we have been able to hear Matt Ridley banging his head on the desk?
Darn. I mean Peter Lilley.
DNTTFT
Thank you all so much for your in depth, wonderfully erudite, and kind remarks concerning my character. I'll "submerge" for now, as predicted, and leave you all to wallow in your own self satisfied "credibility"
Frank, I assure you that I for one am certainly not paying much attention to Chinese intentions for CO2 emissions. They have agreed to nothing other than to issue some vague motherhood statements for Obama's face-saving benefit. They'll clean up their particulates pollution in due course, in their own time. Meanwhile CO2 is going to rise as much as is needed by Chinese development.
And no foreign President is going to tell them otherwise. Remember the EU tried to impose a carbon tax on foreign flights originating outside Europe. It got smacked down. The US tried arguing against in the European Courts. China merely ordered Chinese airlines not to pay it.