Unthreaded
CNN's Amanpour show last night managed to confuse weather with climate, scepticism with blind faith PR and threw in the 'd' word for good measure. Transcript here:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1207/11/ampr.01.html
AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program. And now to the groundbreaking study which finally and unsurprisingly establishes the human connection to recent extreme weather in the United States and around the world.
Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, say manmade climate change, quote, "significantly increase the odds of severe drought, devastating heat waves and freakishly warm winters." With me now is climate scientist, Peter Demenocal from Columbia University.
Didn't NOAA say the same thing about the Russian heatwave before having to retract that? Best bit was this setup:
AMANPOUR: Right. What about the skeptics? Obviously we know that the overwhelming amount of science shows that there is this human link. There are always, though, the skeptics who will just say this is just part of historic weather patterns. What does this kind of study do to that argument?
DEMENOCAL: So first of all, I'd like to correct the idea of skeptics. Scientists, by their nature, by their profession, are skeptics. My job is basically to -- my role is to disprove my peer. And if I can show that my science is somehow superior to theirs, I get a donut. I get something better.
That's our role. That's the basis of our life --
(CROSSTALK)
AMANPOUR: OK, then climate denial (ph) --
DEMENOCAL: So you have the climate deniers is what they are
It's a shame Demoncal doesn't appear to be doing anything to disprove his peers give the wide range of climate press release science to chose from. There's likely to be more PR on CNN's Green Week show tonight.
Atomic Hairdryer
Roger,
I picked it up from the GWPF, and didn't even look at the date! I mistakenly thought it might be Piers Corbin's solar forced Euro heatwave de-cloaking of the port bow... Alas, not. I will bring my brolly in again tomorrow...
Justin Ert
Justin - look at the date of the article - 21st May. I think we did have a few nice days at the end of May?
The article continues: "But the good news continued as long-range forecasters predicted a baking summer comparable with 2003 - which saw Britain’s all-time record 38.5C (101.3F) temperature - and 2006, the hottest on record at an average of 15.8C."
Poor old Met Office - they can't get anything right.
Roger Longstaff
Heatwave going to arrive tomorrow afternoon?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9279849/Forecasters-predict-barbecue-summer-to-rival-2003-as-temperatures-rocket-to-27C-tomorrow.html
A fortnight of hot weather now will surely have the doomsters flagellating with abandon. At least some daft, contentious articles from the usual suspects might add some excitement to this dreary, dull, damp squib of a summer...
Justin Ert
I am not speaking to the moronic, dishonest, and nasty troll, but to others I want to say this: there is nothing at all inconsistent about doubting the value of tree ring proxies for long-term precise temperature reconstructions, and yet welcoming new data, information and analyses.... one might even be glad if a long term tree ring study seems to show results which would complicate or modify previous discussions in the field if that's what one thought is warranted.... it is possible (and very reasonable) to want to learn from such new studies... i.e., it is possible to walk and chew gum at the same time (well maybe not for trolls), and it is possible to be "skeptical" about at least some aspects of a field of study and also glad when insiders in that field see things in a more nuanced or intricate way. It is possible (and very reasonable) to doubt the results of a type of study and yet still be very interested in new results. It is possible (and very reasonable) to welcome any new results which seem to complicate a picture that one thought was previously presented through distorted or over-simplified lenses. It is possible (and very reasonable) to welcome a study out of interest even if one has a different view. Not only possible but sensible....
Skiphil
As the man said.... DNFTT.
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Jul 12, 2012 at 1:11 PM Lord Beaverbrook
We tested this theory by analysing the two CGCMs that were run over several millennia (ECHO-G and ECHAM5–MPIOM; refs 7, 8), and compared the modelled temperature trends with and without orbital forcing (Methods).
The faith of climate scientists in GCM's is truly touching.
To them, running a computer program that someone else wrote and which is inherently incapable of being tested, is a climate science experiment. Are there other fields where unvalidated models are confused with reality?
Martin A
That New Scientist article is weird.
They accept that we've been on a cooling trend of 0.3C for two millenia, superceded by warming of about 0.7C in a century - which must have got us back to roughly where we started.
They then go on to say say But we cannot deny that our hand is still on the thermostat, and is cranking it in the wrong direction.
Well, we know that we're going to run out of fossil fuels and their comfort blanket some time in the next few hundred years - so we'd be well advised to use them to hold off the cooling while we develop reliable alternative energy sources to protect us from the big chill after they run out.
Once we agree that the cooling trend towards the next ice age has been detected and is well underway - the whole CO2 argument begins to look like an arcane bit of religious dogma.
Foxgoose
Orbital forcing of tree-ring data
As suggested previously, we propose that the millennial scale cooling trend retained in N-scan is forced by JJA insolation changes of ~ −6 W m\2 over the past 2,000 years, as other potential forcings, including volcanic eruptions, land use and greenhouse gas changes, are either too small or free of long-term trends. We tested this theory by analysing the two CGCMs that were run over several millennia (ECHO-G and ECHAM5–MPIOM; refs 7, 8), and compared the modelled temperature trends with and without orbital forcing (Methods). The CGCMs revealed similar JJA temperature patterns including a long-term cooling trend over the past two millennia centred in Northern Hemisphere high latitudes (Supplementary Fig. S12).
Lord Beaverbrook
"a long cooling period"
When did that start, then - at exactly the moment we started burning coal?
jamesp
oops, I'm a "climate denier"???
yes I deny that there is a climate..... hmmmmm...... that's a really useful label.