TBR.cc

On yer bike, mate

You read about these sorts of things as apocryphal tales. I remember as a young journalist coming across a story where a wife had thrown out her cheating husband and sold his pride and joy Porsche for $5. Now here's a motorcycling equivalent:

DUCATI NOT FREE

Wellsford police seek information on a missing yellow 2003 Ducati motorcycle, registration 17WBG, which had a sign "free to an honest home" and was parked in Wi Apo Place, Wellsford, after a domestic incident.

The motorcycle was not free and in fact has an owner, police say. Any information contact constable Garth Mackay of the Wellsford Police on 09 423 8228

Classic. Bike, that is.

Journalists, bloggers, lobbyists slammed by climate scientists for distortions

Climate scientists have lashed out at journalists, bloggers and lobbyists as public skepticism about global warming hits new heights.

PS, speaking of distortions:

Images from 2001, top, and 2007 from Philip's Universal Atlas of the World indicated a big decline in Arctic ice, used as proof of climate change

Yeah, and did anyone else notice the pictures are photoshopped? Same cloud cover in 2001 and 2007. What are the chances…

The lighter side of taking a partner with you

A Friday chuckle:

A husband and wife were having dinner at a very fine restaurant when this absolutely stunning young woman comes over to their table, gives the husband a big kiss, says she'll see him later and walks away.

His wife glares at him and says, "Who the hell was that?"

"Oh," replies the husband, "she's my mistress."

"Well, that's the last straw," says the wife. "I've had enough, I want a divorce."

"I can understand that," replies her husband, "but remember, if we get a divorce it means that you don't get any more shopping trips to Paris, no more wintering in Barbados, no more summers in Tuscany, no more Ferraris and Lexus's in the garage and no more yacht club. But the decision is yours."

Just then, a mutual friend enters the restaurant with a gorgeous babe on his arm.

"Who's that woman with Jim?" asks the wife.

"That's his mistress," says her husband.

[Punchline over the break...]

New peer reviewed study sinks claims of sea level rising

In a study certain to embarrass the UN IPCC and certain New Zealand bloggers, a new peer reviewed study has found estimates of sea level increase over the past century have been wildly overestimated:

The eight researchers, hailing from France, Spain and the United Kingdom, obtained a global-average rate of geocentric sea-level rise for the past century, ranging from 1.55 to 1.61 mm/year, depending on whether or not one outlier (of 28 individual regions) was included or omitted from their analysis.

What it means
Wöppelmann et al. say their results are "in good agreement with recent estimates," citing the 1.7 mm/year value derived by Church and White (2006) and Holgate (2007), and that they are also "in good agreement with the sum of steric sea level and land ice contributions estimated by Leuliette and Miller (2009) over the recent period of 2003-2007 (1.5 mm/year) using altimetry, Argo, and GRACE gravity observations." Hence, it would appear that 20th-century sea level rise has not been in any way unusual, even over the most recent decade of supposedly unprecedented warmth

Climate extremists have claimed rising sea levels are drowning Pacific atolls, and on target to cause up to two metres of sea level increase by 2100. However, based on corrections made to existing data by this study, sea level rise by 2100 is now estimated at six inches, or 15cm, which incidentally is close to the 20cm figure I noted as possible on page 214 of Air Con (albeit I was being conservative, and on p215 went for a final figure of 30cm by 2100.

To give credit where it's due, buried deep in the UN's AR4 report is an admission that past century sea level increases may indeed have been overestimated and if so that future increase could be as low as 13cm by 2100.

Wow. Break out the kayaks.

Like shooting fish in a barrel

Can you believe the chutzpah? The thing that gets me about climate Chicken Littles is the way they repeat bogus claims ad nauseum as if true…this comment from Gareth Renowden at Hot Topic tonight illustrates ignorance on this point:

"In deep time, there have been periods when CO2 has been higher than now (how much higher is a matter of study), but lots of CO2 is inevitably associated with a warmer planet."

Invariably?? The blue line is temperature, the black line is CO2:

I defy anyone, including Renowden, to find a pattern in the historical record that proves CO2 is "invariably" associated with a warmer planet. It will be especially hard for him as the ice cores all show CO2 rise lags temperature increase by several hundred years, not precedes it.

Keep telling it often enough, Gareth, and the sycophants at Hot Topic will keep believing you.

UPDATE 29 October:

Colin (CTG over at Hot Topic) makes another incorrect statement as a definitive assertion this morning when he says:

"…there has been no significant change in the sun's activity over the last 50 years, during which time the earth has warmed significantly"

Colin then gets all holier-than-thou:

"So you are saying, let's ignore all the scientific evidence that points to CO2 being the cause of the recent warming, and pretend that there is some scientific evidence that it is the sun?

"Why stop there? Why not pretend that there is some scientific evidence that it is Godzilla that is causing the warming? That might actually be more credible than "it's the Sun, stupid".

Sigh. If only Hot Topic's diehard warmies had actually read Air Con, because if they had they would have seen this study:

"A Doubling Of The Sun's Coronal Magnetic Field during the Last 100 Years", Lockwood et al, Nature, Vol 399, 3 June 1999 pages 437-439", referenced Air Con page 82

That genuine peer-reviewed study boldly states there has been a 230% increase in the solar magnetic field in the past century "which may influence global climate change". More damning for CTG and Hot Topic the study states the majority of that solar increase (140%) has taken place in the past 50 years (since 1964 in fact), coinciding with CTG's claimed temperature rise.

Memo to Hot Topic: If I keep handing you guys bullets, pretty soon you will run out of feet.

UPDATE 2, still October 29

And still it continues. In responding to the initial post here, Renowden accuses me of not sourcing the graph I used in Air Con and above:

And he whips out the chart you see above (click on the thumbnail to be taken to the source). It features (without credit to source) on page 34 of Air Con.

OK, I'll admit the link wasn't clear, but it was there, referenced through the more extensive paleoclimate discussion on pages 31 through 37 of Air Con. Not only was Scotese's work acknowledged at footnote 33, so was the originator of the graph (Geocraft) at footnote 35, and the Geocarb III paper of Berner at footnote 36. Because the graph itself refers to Scotese and Berner, I saw no need to repeat the credits a fourth time.

Read the book properly next time Gareth.

As for his appeals to Royer that CO2 drove ancient climate, others disagree:

"A proper analysis, which avoids this bootstrapping and considers a more realistic pH correction, shows that the global temperature sensitivity to CO2 is still relatively small. Such a conclusion is supported by six additional paleoclimate sensitivity analyses (Shaviv, 2004)."

 

Lies, damned lies and statistics

The Colins from hot-topic, CM and CTG, have been waxing lyrical on temperature trends in trying to deny we are currently in a flatline/cooling mode.

As a subset of this denialism (despite the record-breaking coldsnaps around the world at present), CTG tries to suggest that NASA GISTEMP remains credible and doesn't track overly warmly in its data.

I, and many others, prefer the UAH and RSS lower troposphere data for a couple of reasons, not least of which is that GISTEMP and HadleyCRUT data (both based on land surface readings) has not been independently verified by peer review.

Yes, that's right, the temperature sets most preferred by warming alarmists HAVE NOT BEEN PEER REVIEWED.

I also stated that the satellite data tracks lower than the surface data, which CTG is trying to deny.

But I took the opportunity of running some figures through one of the accepted alarmist sites, and came up with the following. Convince me that there is no trend or magnitude difference between GISTEMP and the others:

Now let's look at the linear trend since 1998 based on the same data:

Ouch! But no wonder those who cling to GISTEMP and Hadley can claim there's been no cooling. GIS is firing upward as if the record-breaking winters did not happen.

Now let's look at the trend line since the start of 2002:

But no. According to Hot-Topic and the Colins, we're making it all up. The claim that there hasn't been any overall warming for the past ten years or so (I'd say eight but others go for ten) is bogus.

After all, Gareth (Trufflehunter) "this is one of the oldest, most debunked of the sceptic arguments around. I debunked it in the book, and it's been debunked many times since. It isn't true. Geddit?" Renowden says so.

Judge for yourself.  

UPDATE: One of the Colins points out I've got it wrong and he's not a Colin:

Somehow he’s also determined that my name is also Colin. Which suggests that when he ‘Investigates’ (which I’ve found he always does when someone challenges him – check out the exchanges at amazon.com), the results aren’t always particularly accurate.

Quite, CM. I noted your email address you used to login but had Colin on the brain when I wrote the post :)

A private life

Primary school teacher Rachel Whitwell is undie investigation for "saucy" shots on an Australian porn website.

Authorities have said that everyone is entitled to a "private life", but nonetheless suspect the porn shots may conflict with her teaching position.

It does. Here's why. A private life ceases to be 'private' to the extent it is publicised voluntarily by the person living it. If she wanted to take 'saucy' shots she could have hired her own photographer and stuck them on her living room wall - that would keep it "private". But submitting your portfolio to a porn magazine and joining their monthly website menagerie puts that aspect of your life well and truly into the public domain, particularly if one is a primary school teacher.

It is a general truism in life that one can't usually have one's cake and eat it too.

Outnumbered by pigeons on 350 Day

Looks like 350 day worldwide, on behalf of global warming believers, turned into a bit of an anticlimatics…

Photos of the 350 protests, aiming to encourage governments to commit to a target of reducing atmospheric CO2 to 350ppm, reveal that in most cases only diehard green protestors turned out – the public voting with their feet:

H/t WattsUpWithThat

Helen Clark's US$250 a head speech

While Phil Goff rails against Act leader Rodney Hide's NZ$45 a head speech, we wonder what he thinks of UNDP boss Helen Clark's US$250 a head ticket price to talk about her UN job?

TGIF Edition has broken the Clark story in NZ, which begins like this:

Helen Clark’s US$250-a-head speech

By Ian Wishart

Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark is at the centre of a growing controversy at the United Nations over allegations guests were charged up to US$250 a head to hear her speak in her capacity as head of the UN Development Programme.

The scandal echoes this week’s fracas over Act leader Rodney Hide speaking at a $45 a head breakfast, but while Labour leader Phil Goff waxed lyrical about the ethics of cabinet ministers charging, it seems he was unaware Clark has been doing it on behalf of her women’s network even more spectacularly in New York.

The story was broken by New York’s Inner City Press, which covers the UN beat, and which has been trying to get Helen Clark to front questions on the controversy since July.

To make matters worse, the $250 a head speech by Clark was publicly listed as supported by the New Zealand Embassy in Washington DC, which drags the NZ government into the fray...

To read the full story, free this weekend only, click on the Flash document below or download the PDF from our website.

To get TGIF Edition regularly emailed direct to your inbox, subscribe

 

 

 

 

Back in the real world

This is too good not to post in its entirety:

OPINION: ENERGY AND CLIMATE REALISM

Jürgen Krönig, Presentation at the German British Forum, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, London, 20 October 2009
<http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/kroenig2009.htm>

The French Statesman Talleyrand once said "that speech is given to man to disguise his thoughts". In today's mass media democracies it could be translated into "speeches are made by politicians to disguise their intentions."

Gordon Browns apocalyptical warnings about the future of the planet if Copenhagen should fail can be interpreted as cry for help: Please make sure that we get a face saving agreement that can be presented as a success. And this is what will come to pass. With or without Barack Obama's presence - Copenhagen will be presented as a great success, like all the other global environmental conferences before.

But the conflict between the West and the new industrial powers cannot and will not be resolved. What we are seeing in the remaining weeks before the conference is an desperate attempt of all major players not to be seen as the culprit who will be blamed for the failure.

The original EU strategy was, we will set an example and go for binding cuts in green house gas emissions and the world will follow - clearly a naive approach, reminiscent of other unilateral intentions in the past.

But now, especially after the financial and economic crisis, this sort of climate unilateralism is untenable - it would mean a dramatic financial transfer from the west to the advantage of our competitors China and India which our economies can ill afford and our populations won't accept. Public opinion in Europe and America, according to the latest research, published by the Financial Times, is further hardening against any financial transfers.

As far as the ambitious targets of the UK and other EU states are concerned, Professor Roger Pielke Jr. is right when he points out that setting "unachievable targets is not a policy, it is an act of wishful thinking". He calls it "a politics of symbolism with no impact on real world outcomes." Pielke adds that the focus on "magical solutions" is leaving little room for the practical.

Leading business figures agree with this damning verdict. The CEO of Eon, Bernotat, said that the British politicians need "to stop misleading the public about what is achievable." He is scathing about the target of 30% electricity coming from renewables in 2020 and refers particularly to the plan to build 33 gigawatts of off shore wind power up from the present 0.6 gigawatt, a plan he calls naïve and unachievable. Of a similar opinion is Tony Hayward, CEO of BP. 

There are too many illusions propagated and circling around alternative and renewable technologies: about their promise and potential, about the time frame, in which they can be introduced and changes be realized, about the jobs, that a new green Keynisanism can create and about the political impact of a radical green policy. Centre left politicians in Britain and Germany, the new leader of the German social democrats, Sigmar Gabriel and the Labour Ministers David and Ed Miliband seem seriously to believe that climate change will be the new mass mobilizing topic and will help saving their parties too. A more likely outcome is that this strategy will neither save the centre left nor will it help to save the planet. Such a strategy seems to drive away voters fearful of loosing the lifestyle of mobility, warmth and comfort.

The arguments against the extensive use of wind are well known. Wind is intermittent and needs conventional backup, the electricity it delivers is extremely expensive, feasible only with high subsidies. It won't even deliver the promise of jobs: Wind turbines can and will be more cheaply built in China, the same goes for solar panels, as Germany recently found out. In the UK, the closure of the turbine factory on the Isle of Wight was another example of the same trend.

This does not stop business to be keen on wind power. It is attracted by huge subsidies, offered by governments, driven by "the pressure of fashionable, green ideology", as James Lovelock writes in his latest book "The vanishing face of Gaia". Lovelocks judgement could not be clearer: "Europes massive use of wind as a supplement to baseload electricity will be remembered as one of the great follies of the twenty first century".

What ever happens, if the folly is continued or not, the next twenty years could be called "the new age of carbon." If the UK really intends to cut CO 2 emissions by 34% till 2022, the UK would need to build in the next 6 years the equivalent of 30 new nuclear power stations. The telling comment of the (Labour) chairman of the "Climate Change Committee" of the House of Commons: "Well beyond our political capacity to deliver".   

More oil, gas and coal will be burned than ever before - and carbon dioxide emissions will continue to rise. Renewables can't and won't deliver the scale of energy needed for a rising world population. For the time being only fossil fuels and nuclear power will be able to deliver the necessary energy. In the light of these facts it is especially sad that Britain and Germany, once leading nations in nuclear technology, have either neglected or given up on it completely and left the field to other, more farsighted nations like the French. 30 years ago Britain had 15 000 nuclear engineers, now the figure is just a tenth of that. Germany decided an atomic exit strategy which at least will be reverted now. But precious time has been lost.   

We can call ourselves lucky that we have gained a bit of breathing space. The global warming trend has stopped, for the time being at least. Since 1998 global average temperatures have not risen. In fact, there has even been a slight fall - despite the fact that CO2 emissions have been rising relentlessly during this period, and in spite of the "binding" agreements in Kyoto to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. 

The climate modellers of the IPCC did not foresee the halt in global warming. Professor Mojib Latif, one of the leading IPCC scientists, admitted to this inconvenient truth recently during a climate conference in Geneva and talked about "one or two decades more of cooling", before he expects the recommencement and continuation of the global warming trend.

One thing is clear. The belief in the accuracy of computer models has suffered. The science is not settled, as many climate researchers claimed in the past few years, a claim which goes against the essence of science and research and should never have been made in the first place.

We are faced with an awkward position. Nobody seems to know what the future holds; even if we are prepared to follow the lead of the IPCC, we are faced with huge, irreconcilable differences of opinion. Some school of thought predicts catastrophe, if not apocalypse, another forecasts at least a massive challenge to our usual way of life while some sceptics seem to suggest, that we will, in a few years time, wake up to the fact, that global warming was just another one of the many unfounded scares which modern mass media societies are prone to fall for.     

What to do? Yes, we need more energy efficiency, we need to decarbonise our industries, we need to diversify our sources of energy as much as possible and we need new, clean technologies. We should start building nuclear power stations, at the moment the only effective way of producing  carbon free electricity. At the same time we should avoid damaging our western economies, either by transferring too much money to our competitors or falling into the trap of the "green-industrial complex," about whose malign influence even James Lovelock, the founder of the Gaia theory, of earth and biosphere being a self-regulating super-organism, and convinced that it is too late to stop 'global heating,' is scathing.

We should in future be more sceptical of computer-based predictions of climate change and focus more on observing what is actually happening in reality: Is there any sign that the rise of global temperature or the sea level is accelerating, for instance. We need to prepare for adaptation and on top of it all we need an insurance policy in form of geo-engineering, in case the worst predictions should come true. Some of the technologies are already available and geo-engineering might prove to be a significantly cheaper solution than the desperate attempt to mitigate climate change, by cutting emissions and creating economic hardship for billions of people.       
Jürgen Krönig is the London correspondent of the German weekly, Die Zeit