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jethro

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

I'd Agree TWS, some folk need 100% 'certainty' before they'll entertain AGW yet will readily adhere to 'natural cycles', that we have only identified over the past 50yrs and no way 'understand', as a favoured reason for our warming.

At the mo. a lot of folk are pinning their hopes on PDO-ve being some type of majik bullet. As we saw this winter the A.A. drove fantastic A.O. values which seemed to 'stall' the PDO and drive it positive again. If we have a PDO already 'weakened' in it's -Ve phase and 'augmented' in it's positive phase the 'cooling' will not be much to speak of (though if A.A. drives A.O. so low again over winter we'll hear the same old from the 'snow/cold impacted N.America/NW Europe'.

Check out the PDO values for the A.O. impacted months of Dec/Jan/ Feb, strange eh?

Edited by Gray-Wolf
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Posted
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and lots of it or warm and sunny, no mediocre dross
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl

GW - it's not a question of refusing to accept or shying away from anything, it's purely and simply looking at the science and seeing that the verdict is still well and truly out on the magnitude which is attributable to humans. That's the mainstream science, not blogoland but bona fide, peer reviewed stuff. Facts are, that some of the warming can be laid at our feet, some due to natural causes.

Why am I not panicking? Well, we can only be who we are and it's just not in my character to panic. Last week I collapsed at work, an ambulance was called and the paramedics had me down for having a heart attack, whilst waiting for it to arrive I was smiling at the dogs licking me and joking with the medics when they got there - I'm a pragmatic optimist through and through.

When it comes to cleaner living, I don't feel guilty about my level of consumption; farmers daughter brought up with the ethics of "we don't own the land, we're custodians for the next generation with a duty to leave it in finer fettle than we inherited it". If the government wants to legislate for a cleaner, greener world, I'll be right behind them but I'm doing my bit already, I've always done my bit and at the end of the day, I'm responsible for me and mine, I'll willingly hold my hand up for the choices I make but I won't judge others for the choices they make.

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

Latest news from E.S.A. and Cryosat2 (which seems to now be "exceeding expectations";

http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEM213WNPBG_index_0.html

"ESA's CryoSat2-2 Project Manager, Richard Francis, commented, "We have been very excited by the level of detail we find in the data. We are seeing things beyond what we had expected. "

Maybe by Sept we'll no longer need to debate the 'state of the Arctic' as we'll posses the complete picture of the place to use a a base for any future comparisons.

As for the detail from Greenland and Antarctica it will certainly end the debate over mass loss/gain and the rates of such. Exciting times indeed!:drinks::)

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Posted
  • Location: York, North Yorkshire
  • Location: York, North Yorkshire

What worries me about those 'alternative theories' YS, is that (rather like comparing real medicine to homoeopathy or mesmerism?) most - if not all of them - seem to be even more flakey than the ones that suggest GHGs contribute to global atmospheric warming...

IMO, just because, according to hypthesis-x, the warming of the last few decades could have occurred without any contribution from CO2by no means means that it has...

In fact, I'd (as I do with homoeopathy and mesmerism) think it far more likely, though not impossible, that it is 'hypothesis-x' that is wrong??

Hi Pete,

Which is the more flakey ..... the supposed effects of CO2 which require a mathematical formulae to estimate supposed positive feedback effects (estimated to be around 300% to get the sort of projections the IPCC are suggesting), or that certain natural cycles that we know impact our climate now (e.g. La Nina / El Nino ENSO / PDO / AMO) could provide an alternative explanation ?

It would take a global change in low cloud cover of less than 1% to change the radiation budget of the Earth to account for all of the warming from pre-industrial to now. We have only just got the technology to start to measure these kinds of relevant changes, but there is at least a suggestion that oceanic cycles can impact on these conditions.

Sure there are theories and theories, .... and of course we have warmed (though pretty constant for the past 10 years), so AGW may be correct. But, an aweful lot just does not stack up to my mind.

Cheers

Y.S

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Posted
  • Location: Edinburgh
  • Location: Edinburgh

It doesn't take a mathematical formula to determine that a dark ocean absorbs much more incoming radiation than white ice. Or that a warmer atmosphere holds more water vapour (a powerful greenhouse gas) than a cold one. Or that warming Arctic permafrost will lead to methane release which leads to more warming, not less. Quantifying them, yes, you need to do your sums [see refs below]. The exact values are of course up for debate, which is why the climate sensitivity appears to be between 2 and 4.5C (best estimate ~3.1C) per CO2 doubling. Palaeoclimate supports this very well (Knutti and Hegerl, 2008).

It might, however, take a bizarre mathematical formula to create a century-scale rising trend, the size and rate of which is unseen in the Late Holocene out of otherwise energy-neutral ocean oscillations. Surely if such heat-trapping processes operate now they would have operated before? Why is it that the PDO, supposedly in a neutral/negative phase since ~2000, occurs in a body of water that has been warmer since 1996 than at any other time, including the previous PDO positive stages? What's the total effect of this body of water on global temperatures? The PDO is a measure of the spatial redistribution of heat, not the total heat content, therefore contributing nothing much to the total global heat content anomaly. Rather like our cold and snowy winter this year compared to the globe, which was unusually warm between December and February. That was a similar, though atmospheric, spatial redistribution of heat/air masses between the Arctic and the mid-latitudes. ENSO also has wide-ranging temporary and spatial effects, but they are short-lived and ultimately energy neutral. There's no observational evidence for these effects to be cumulative.

So we have a lot of evidence for not only the feedbacks themselves, but the fact that they must operate in order to reconstruct palaeoclimate. We do not have evidence for PDO, ENSO or any other ocean oscillation providing anything more than noise to the trend of global temperatures.

http://www.iac.ethz.ch/people/knuttir/papers/knutti08natgeo.pdf [Knutti and Hegerl]

Warren and Eastman, 2007: A Survey of Changes in Cloud Cover and Cloud Types over Land from Surface Observations, 1971–96. Journal of Climate, 20, 717-738.

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~ignatius/CloudMap/Publications/WarrenEtal2007_CloudSurvey.pdf

“The global average trend of total cloud cover over land is small, -0.7% decade-1, offsetting the small positive trend that had been found for the ocean, and resulting in no significant trend for the land–ocean average.â€

Trenberth et al 2005. Trends and variability in column-integrated atmospheric water vapor. Climate Dynamics, 24, 741-758.

Soden et al, 2002. Global Cooling After the Eruption of Mount Pinatubo: A Test of Climate Feedback by Water Vapor. Science, 296, 727-730.

Austin and Coleman, 2007: Lake Superior summer water temperatures are increasing more rapidly than regional air temperatures: A positive ice-albedo feedback. GRL, 34.

http://tomix.homelinux.org/~thomas/eth/8_semester/master_seminar_atmosphere_and_climate_I_ss_2007/unterlagen/papers/augustin_colman__lake_superior.pdf

Some other relevant refs on feedbacks here:

http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/papers-on-global-cloud-cover-trends/

http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/papers-on-ice-albedo-feedback/

http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/papers-on-water-vapor-feedback-observations/

Many of these papers rely on observations, therefore they are rather more than "supposed".

sss

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Posted
  • Location: York, North Yorkshire
  • Location: York, North Yorkshire

It doesn't take a mathematical formula to determine that a dark ocean absorbs much more incoming radiation than white ice. Or that a warmer atmosphere holds more water vapour (a powerful greenhouse gas) than a cold one. Or that warming Arctic permafrost will lead to methane release which leads to more warming, not less. Quantifying them, yes, you need to do your sums [see refs below]. The exact values are of course up for debate, which is why the climate sensitivity appears to be between 2 and 4.5C (best estimate ~3.1C) per CO2 doubling. Palaeoclimate supports this very well (Knutti and Hegerl, 2008).

It might, however, take a bizarre mathematical formula to create a century-scale rising trend, the size and rate of which is unseen in the Late Holocene out of otherwise energy-neutral ocean oscillations. Surely if such heat-trapping processes operate now they would have operated before? Why is it that the PDO, supposedly in a neutral/negative phase since ~2000, occurs in a body of water that has been warmer since 1996 than at any other time, including the previous PDO positive stages? What's the total effect of this body of water on global temperatures? The PDO is a measure of the spatial redistribution of heat, not the total heat content, therefore contributing nothing much to the total global heat content anomaly. Rather like our cold and snowy winter this year compared to the globe, which was unusually warm between December and February. That was a similar, though atmospheric, spatial redistribution of heat/air masses between the Arctic and the mid-latitudes. ENSO also has wide-ranging temporary and spatial effects, but they are short-lived and ultimately energy neutral. There's no observational evidence for these effects to be cumulative.

So we have a lot of evidence for not only the feedbacks themselves, but the fact that they must operate in order to reconstruct palaeoclimate. We do not have evidence for PDO, ENSO or any other ocean oscillation providing anything more than noise to the trend of global temperatures.

http://www.iac.ethz....tti08natgeo.pdf [Knutti and Hegerl]

Warren and Eastman, 2007: A Survey of Changes in Cloud Cover and Cloud Types over Land from Surface Observations, 1971–96. Journal of Climate, 20, 717-738.

http://www.atmos.was...CloudSurvey.pdf

“The global average trend of total cloud cover over land is small, -0.7% decade-1, offsetting the small positive trend that had been found for the ocean, and resulting in no significant trend for the land–ocean average.â€

Trenberth et al 2005. Trends and variability in column-integrated atmospheric water vapor. Climate Dynamics, 24, 741-758.

Soden et al, 2002. Global Cooling After the Eruption of Mount Pinatubo: A Test of Climate Feedback by Water Vapor. Science, 296, 727-730.

Austin and Coleman, 2007: Lake Superior summer water temperatures are increasing more rapidly than regional air temperatures: A positive ice-albedo feedback. GRL, 34.

http://tomix.homelin...ke_superior.pdf

Some other relevant refs on feedbacks here:

http://agwobserver.w...d-cover-trends/

http://agwobserver.w...lbedo-feedback/

http://agwobserver.w...k-observations/

Many of these papers rely on observations, therefore they are rather more than "supposed".

sss

Hi Starry skies,

Read up on some of what Peter Taylor has been looking at. It will test your faith. It certainly did mine.

How come we have flattened on Global temps. Since the 1998 El-Nino we have roughly 5-6% more CO2 in the atmosphere, yet we have never reached that peak. We're dropping right now. Arctic summer temps have been consistently lower than normal this year with the ice melt flattening off. We have a possible record year for Antarctic ice. Overall sea ice cover is .... bang on the normal (based on 30 year trend).

The PDO is turning and La Nina coming on. The predictions are for a cooling trend to develop this year and persist throughout next. If this transpires to be correct, ... what of the all conquering Co2, flattening all natural cycles in its mighty wake !!

Lets see what happens ...

Y.S

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Posted
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.
  • Weather Preferences: Thunder, snow, heat, sunshine...
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.

I don't quite see how natural cycles make the whole AGW (as a result of CO2) theory any less robust; natural cycles exist and CO2 IS a greenhouse gas...

Of course short-term climate cooling, within a long-term upward trend, is possible...Arguably, this is what we are seeing - AGW theory does not rule-out natural oscillation. How could it??

What I would like to see, though, is evidence (any evidence) that genuinely suggests that anthropogenic CO2 is any different (its isotopic ratio notwithstanding) from its natural counterpart. Then, and only then, will I entertain the idea that our emissions do not/have not cause(d) warming...

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Posted
  • Location: Edinburgh
  • Location: Edinburgh

Is this the same Peter Taylor that thinks plutonium has health benefits (Shiva's Rainbow), amongst other outlandish claims? It is. I'd rather get my scientifc understanding from someone with a more reliable grasp of science, and preferrably someone who has studied and published in climate science, specifically. As I've said a great many times, you can say almost whatever you like in a book, but it does not make it factual. Ask historians about the guy who wrote a best-seller claiming that the Chinese reaching America and circumnavigated the globe years before Columbus. Or Mike Baillie, who while being a decent dendrochronologist, wrote a book on a hypothesis that the Black death was caused by a comet. These things might make good stories, indeed they might even sell very well, but there is a key parallel through all of them. They are not supported by the evidence. They are essentially fiction. Or 'pseudoscience'.

Peter Taylor in his own words: "In truth, in the scientific realms in which I worked, and gained by now, some standing, I was an imposter. I am not a scientist. Apart from my brief survey of tree-hole communities when I successfully correlated insect larvae diversity with circumference and aspect of the hole to the sun, which, in any case, had been done many times before, I have never `done' science." From Shiva's Rainbow

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A77M4UTAYXKO7/ref=cm_cr_pr_auth_rev?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview

His claims are dogmatic and unsupported by the evidence, so why do you keep referring to him as if his is the silver bullet that demolishes the science. He does nothing of the sort. If he had, he would have done more than publish a popular work of fiction through a publishing house that does not deal properly with science

Peter Taylor on global warming: "We fight so strongly against the global emissions of carbon dioxide, yet the quietest of questions surfaces: is Gaia, after all, a sentient mother protecting us from the next cooling?". Y.S., do you believe that the Earth is sentient, as Taylor does? Taylor has as much credibility as astrology or homeopathy, yet you say you believe in science?

PDO - a measure of spatial pattern, not total heat content so irrelevant to Earth's total heat content - how can an ocean that is warmer now than all times before the mid-1990s, including all previous 'warm' episodes' be cyclically absorbing and releasing heat to/from the atmosphere? Arctic ice - bang on normal according to steven goddard at WUWT.... and pretty much nobody else. Currently at the second-lowest ever recorded extent, and at the lowest ever volume, not what I would call anywhere near a 30-year average.

sss

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Posted
  • Location: York, North Yorkshire
  • Location: York, North Yorkshire

Is this the same Peter Taylor that thinks plutonium has health benefits (Shiva's Rainbow), amongst other outlandish claims? It is. I'd rather get my scientifc understanding from someone with a more reliable grasp of science, and preferrably someone who has studied and published in climate science, specifically. As I've said a great many times, you can say almost whatever you like in a book, but it does not make it factual. Ask historians about the guy who wrote a best-seller claiming that the Chinese reaching America and circumnavigated the globe years before Columbus. Or Mike Baillie, who while being a decent dendrochronologist, wrote a book on a hypothesis that the Black death was caused by a comet. These things might make good stories, indeed they might even sell very well, but there is a key parallel through all of them. They are not supported by the evidence. They are essentially fiction. Or 'pseudoscience'.

Peter Taylor in his own words: "In truth, in the scientific realms in which I worked, and gained by now, some standing, I was an imposter. I am not a scientist. Apart from my brief survey of tree-hole communities when I successfully correlated insect larvae diversity with circumference and aspect of the hole to the sun, which, in any case, had been done many times before, I have never `done' science." From Shiva's Rainbow

http://www.amazon.co...ostRecentReview

His claims are dogmatic and unsupported by the evidence, so why do you keep referring to him as if his is the silver bullet that demolishes the science. He does nothing of the sort. If he had, he would have done more than publish a popular work of fiction through a publishing house that does not deal properly with science

Peter Taylor on global warming: "We fight so strongly against the global emissions of carbon dioxide, yet the quietest of questions surfaces: is Gaia, after all, a sentient mother protecting us from the next cooling?". Y.S., do you believe that the Earth is sentient, as Taylor does? Taylor has as much credibility as astrology or homeopathy, yet you say you believe in science?

PDO - a measure of spatial pattern, not total heat content so irrelevant to Earth's total heat content - how can an ocean that is warmer now than all times before the mid-1990s, including all previous 'warm' episodes' be cyclically absorbing and releasing heat to/from the atmosphere? Arctic ice - bang on normal according to steven goddard at WUWT.... and pretty much nobody else. Currently at the second-lowest ever recorded extent, and at the lowest ever volume, not what I would call anywhere near a 30-year average.

sss

Starry Skies

Your beliefs and dogmatic dismissal of anybody who is not towing the party-line is quite amazing and also very unfair:

http://video.google....938246449800148

Your might want to check out his background and who he has worked for before.

Peter Taylor is a science analyst and policy advisor with over 30 years experience as a consultant to environmental NGO's, government departments and agencies, intergovernmental bodies, the European Commission, the European parliament and the UN.

His range of expertise stretches from pollution and accident risk, from nuclear operations, chemical polution of the oceans and atmosphere (good knowledge of computer modelling), wildlife ecology and conservation, to renewable energy strategies and climate change.

He has lectured widely in universities ann institutes in Britain, Germany, Sweden, the USA and Japan.

After graduating at Oxford University he set up and directed the Oxford based Political Ecology Research Group and pionerred the development of critical scientific review on environmental issues, both in the examination of official policy and its use as a campaigning tool for legal reforms such as the precautionary principal (he was a leading advocate of this at UN conventions).

He has sat on several government commissions and research bodies. From 2003 to 2003 he was a member of the UK Government's National Advisory Group for Community Renewable Energy.

In 2000 he set up the web-site Ethos to develop cutting edge computer techniques for visualizing change in the rural landscape. He published 'Beyond Conservation: a wildlife strategy' in the spring of 2005 and helped found and organize the wildland network for conservationists, foresters and land managers.

He is a leading advocate or rewilding policies in nature conservation involving minimal human intervention and the reintroduction of exterminated large mammals and sits on an advisory group for the management of National Trust and Forestry Commission land in the Lake District.

He has been a member of the following professional institutes:

The Institute of Biology / The British Ecological Society, The Society for Radiological Protection and The International Union of Radio-ecologists (at times he was on the editorial board of the Journal of Radioecology).

During his work on marine pollution and hazardous industries he both critically assessed and utilized computer models of complex marine and atmospheric pathways and is ideally qualified to review and synthesize climate science across many disciplines, taking a broad and independant view with a brilliant insight into the workings of science.

This is the Peter Taylor you are so keen to dismiss. In fact you seem want to dismiss anybody and everybody that does not hold you own viewpoint which is very sad.

Peter Taylor is clearly not a nut, maverick nor is he unqualified. He has critically assessed and presented his findings / observations and I personally find what he says very compelling.

I am a scientist myself so please cut the patronising remarks about what my beliefs are based on. This has no basis nor adds any merit to your arguments.

Y.S

Edited by Yorkshiresnows
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Posted
  • Location: Edinburgh
  • Location: Edinburgh

Sounds like you're arguing from authority Y.S. I can assure you, authority is not on your (or Taylor's) side:

http://www.logicalscience.com/consensus/consensusD1.htm

I'm not concerned whether Peter Taylor has done good work in other fields, but I am concerned that as he is a self-confessed non-scientist, and with no evident expertise in climate science, he wishes to write a book full of disinformation on the subject. He's sold lots of copies of it, which is unfortunate, but the central point is that he's had to go through no scientific assessment of his claims in order to publish the book. He's in fact able to say any old thing, and he does. It's a pity you find it compelling, but the balance of evidence is not on his side.

Your underlined, un-referenced quote does not show that he has any of the qualifications required to make him 'qualified' on climate science. He's done some complex computer modelling - so have many others, including myself. That doesn't make him an expert in the fundamentals of the theory, for example atmospheric physics, oceanic physics or palaeoclimate reconstruction. Climate science is a great deal more than just models, and the key evidence that supports the AGW consensus is not model-based.

It's not a 'party line' either (the very idea in science is comical), it's a balance of evidence - and that is not in your favour either.

sss

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Posted
  • Location: York, North Yorkshire
  • Location: York, North Yorkshire

Sounds like you're arguing from authority Y.S. I can assure you, authority is not on your (or Taylor's) side:

http://www.logicalsc...consensusD1.htm

I'm not concerned whether Peter Taylor has done good work in other fields, but I am concerned that as he is a self-confessed non-scientist, and with no evident expertise in climate science, he wishes to write a book full of disinformation on the subject. He's sold lots of copies of it, which is unfortunate, but the central point is that he's had to go through no scientific assessment of his claims in order to publish the book. He's in fact able to say any old thing, and he does. It's a pity you find it compelling, but the balance of evidence is not on his side.

Your underlined, un-referenced quote does not show that he has any of the qualifications required to make him 'qualified' on climate science. He's done some complex computer modelling - so have many others, including myself. That doesn't make him an expert in the fundamentals of the theory, for example atmospheric physics, oceanic physics or palaeoclimate reconstruction. Climate science is a great deal more than just models, and the key evidence that supports the AGW consensus is not model-based.

It's not a 'party line' either (the very idea in science is comical), it's a balance of evidence - and that is not in your favour either.

sss

Starry Skies

It makes him perfectly qualified to review and comment on the science, particularly computer modelling, for which he has criticised the IPCC reliance in regards to projections of climate change.

Somebody with his experience taking a step back and reviewing the 'big-picture' can only be a good thing. Again, he has acted as a revieer in the book 'Chill', looking at the evidence as a whole (if you had read the book you would see this, but watch the video as most of the main points are given here).

Arguing from authority, nope, never said I was, arguing with a bit of common sense, ..... maybe, .. arguing after careful consideration of what I have seen, .... yes I believe so....... am I right and you wrong ....... cannot say for certain, but I will not so easily dismiss disenting views.

Have you actually seen his stuff, read anything he has written, do you have an opinion on his queries, is he wrong and if so why ?

If you do not agree with his view, then that's fine and your completely justified to make your own mind up, its the immediate dismissal that winds me up so much. The same goes for Roy Spencer and a whole host of others who have the audacity to question the 'consensus'.

I make my own mind up from reviewing the evidence, looking at the papers and then coming to my own opinion, I only suggested you take a look at his reviews as they coincide with others, primarily in the overreliance on computer modelling to make the case for human emissions as the primary cause of global warming. When you drill into the science you can clearly (to my mind) see obvious flaws.

Nobody will ever convince me that to input a 200% to 300% amplification factor into all modelling (which is liitle more than guesswork based on assumptions regarding water vapour feedback, without looking at the role of clouds) is compelling.

This does not means its wrong, only that there are serious flaws.

Why not take a closer look at the paper that Jethro posted a little while ago (here it is again: http://www.probeinte.../UPennCross.pdf)

Read it .... particularly the section on computer modelling and the effect of water vapour and clouds (its a review document and contains references for both sides of the argument), ..... again the same messages keep coming out.

In the meantime, looks likely we will be entering a cooling phase, if this takes the world temps back to the 30 year running mean ...... I wonder what that will tell us?

Have a good weekend

Y.S

Edited by Yorkshiresnows
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Posted
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.
  • Weather Preferences: Thunder, snow, heat, sunshine...
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.

I personally do not find the opinions of 'scientists' who'd rather write 'bestsellers' than publish papers with proper peer review. I see a conflict of interests, in the shape of mamon...

I recall how persuaded I once was by the New Age witterings of Lyall Watson's Supernature. Yes, using reduced-scale models of the Cheops pyramid to keep razorblades perpetually sharp did have a certain attraction. But why not publish such claims in a peer-reviewed paper??

I wonder if Peter Taylor is not just playing to his target audience??? It's just a suspicion I have, YS...

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Posted
  • Location: York, North Yorkshire
  • Location: York, North Yorkshire

I personally do not find the opinions of 'scientists' who'd rather write 'bestsellers' than publish papers with proper peer review. I see a conflict of interests, in the shape of mamon...

I recall how persuaded I once was by the New Age witterings of Lyall Watson's Supernature. Yes, using reduced-scale models of the Cheops pyramid to keep razorblades perpetually sharp did have a certain attraction. But why not publish such claims in a peer-reviewed paper??

I wonder if Peter Taylor is not just playing to his target audience??? It's just a suspicion I have, YS...

Well, you are entitled to your view Pete. But, please watch the video and hear what the guys says ...... if nothing else, you will get a good story !

Y.S

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Posted
  • Location: Edinburgh
  • Location: Edinburgh

My apologies in advance - this is a long post, basically a review of Mr Peter Taylor's presentation as highlighted by Y.S. Taylor is supposed to be a sufficient authority for his book 'Chill' to be a rather revolutionary text on AGW. Apparently, Taylor's arguments on climate are meant to be very persuasive - I set out to check them using Taylor's video presentation. It turns out they have as much substance as one of Christopher Monckton's talks as debunked by John Abraham. It shows classic examples of cherry picking, failure to understand the subject, use of out-dated and subsequently revised research, as well as deliberate falsehoods. I've used a combination of peer-reviewed research, posts from RealClimate and Skeptical Science (both of which are laden with original peer-reviewed sources, and IPCC documents as support for various debunkings. I'm trying to be objective, and not be personal in my criticism, and have tried to provide links to sources where I think Taylor is wrong.

Review of Peter Taylor video presentation:

Mr Taylor admits he got bored of doing science (several times not finishing courses), and says he's not a scientist. He then quickly places his cards clearly on the table by saying he sees renewables as leading to wind turbines everywhere, forests woodchipped and biofuels everywhere, says that's crazy. My assessment of that is that if you are going to have an opinion on whether the science is right, don't start by complaining about policy choices that may or may not be a consequence of the science (and are not what scientists talk about). "Renewable energy will destroy everything that's beautiful and valuable about our planet". Mr Taylor - that really is not the place to start if talking about the science.

Fallacy #1 and #2 (14:00ish): just as he starts talking about the science, he thinks that water vapour and clouds are more important than CO2 and models are wrong:

http://www.skeptical...mate-models.htm

http://www.skeptical...enhouse-gas.htm

http://www.realclima...ack-or-forcing/

Water vapour is, of course, a feedback, not a forcing. The models have been validated numerous times over.

Fallacy #3: He thinks the first real talk about global warming was in 1985. Ignoring Arrhenius and other 19th and early 20th Century people who quite clearly saw the issue, by the late 1970s/early 80s there was pretty much a scientific consensus already that CO2 would cause warming, just not about how much. Here's the late, great Stephen Schneider on the subject back in 1979:

Schneider 1979:

History of the CO2 greenhouse effect: http://www.aip.org/h...climate/co2.htm

1970s view on AGW: http://www.skeptical...ns-in-1970s.htm

Fallacy #4: "on it's own, it's [CO2] only a marginal effect? Depends on what you think a 1C change will do. 1C globally is quite a large change given the change between ice age and present is only ~4C.

http://www.skeptical...ouse-effect.htm http://www.ipcc.ch/p...s2-3.html#2-3-1

Taylor quotes Richard Lindzen saying in ~1990 that the water vapour feedback might be overridden by a negative cloud feedback. Then claims that the NAS rejected the 2001 IPCC report, leading Bush away from Kyoto. This is demonstrably false:

http://www.nap.edu/c...record_id=10139

You can read the report yourself - it endorses the IPCC findings, and Lindzen is one of the authors.

A summary of this episode is about a third of the way down this page: http://monthlyreview.org/1001jbf.htm

Bush pulled out for economic, not scientific, reasons. Taylor repeats the falsehood that the NAS told the US govt the IPCC report could not be trusted several times. You can read the NAS report yourself. Taylor is demonstrably being economical with the truth.

Taylor then claims not to have an agenda against renewable energy. No? What about what he has already said in the presentation?

Repeats fallacy of how small the total anthropogenic greenhouse effect is (with disparaging remarks about models) at ~2.5W/sq m (it's actually ~1.6W/sq m), by comparing it to a 60W light bulb, then to the change when a cloud passes in front of the Sun. Disgraceful strawman argument there. The imbalance is quite enough to cause significant warming of the Earth. For example:

http://www.ipcc.ch/p...wg1/en/ch2.html http://www.ipcc.ch/p...wg1/en/ch9.html

http://www.ipcc.ch/p...figure-9-5.html

Then onto the suggestion that clouds are "hardly ever mentioned", and the first place he'd go to look would be models of clouds. How about the observations first, Mr Taylor? Observed changes in cloud cover? That would be where I would look:

Many papers here: http://agwobserver.w...d-cover-trends/

Clouds observations in AR4 here: http://www.ipcc.ch/p.../ch3s3-4-3.html

He then suggests clouds changes can explain all of global warming (saying conveniently he's 'not a denier of global warming'). But clearly does not believe in the CO2 greenhouse effect if he thinks 2W/sq m forcing is small... All his cloud theories apparently relate to the solar wind. But these hypotheses have been falsified:

http://www.skeptical...bal-warming.htm

http://www.realclima...inued-interest/

http://www.realclima...mate-relations/

The last link has a series of papers testing cosmic ray hypotheses through Forbrush events, and prove that they do not have an effect on global cloud cover. [Calogovic et al. (2010); Kulmala et al. (2010)]

Then Taylor claims it's all cycles, sounding rather like your good self, Y.S.

Taylor mentions the 200% enhancing of CO2 forcing {like yourself Y.S.}, but hasn't read the research as outlined in my previous posts, where there are plenty of observations to support feedbacks in models.

ISCCP data apparently shows 4% decrease in cloud cover. But he shows the graph for low cloud cover, not total cloud cover, which is misleading. The total cloud amount graph shows a <2% change from the ISCCP site:

http://isccp.giss.na...bp.anomdevs.jpg

http://www.ipcc.ch/p...h3s3-4-3-2.html

ISCCP faulty: http://www.agu.org/p...6GL028083.shtml

The discussion in AR4, and various papers in the agwobserver cloud papers page highlight problems with ISCCP data (such as satellite look direction distortions), and other datasets (HIRS) that show opposite trends over the same period. So showing one graph and claiming that it's the dogs b*llocks when it comes to clouds is being distinctly disingenuous to say the least!

He mentions global albedo, using a faulty dataset from a faulty method (earthshine), and fails to mention that the results have been disputed, and better measures of albedo show little or no long-term trend, and falsify the earthshine method:

http://www.skeptical...bedo-effect.htm [and embedded papers]

He then claims to "scientifically conclude" that much more energy has been coming in than going out, due to clouds. If he was right, global warming would already be catastrophic (8W/sq m is a lot of radiative forcing), but he's using cherry-picked datasets that have been falsified many times over to come to his favoured conclusion. That is not scientific.

He mentions the much-debunked Friis-Christensen and Lassen 1991 study (repeatedly shown to be completely wrong), then talks about cosmic rays and temperature. A persuasive graph from Svensmark of cosmic ray-cloud connections? No, because the correlation has completely broken down since 1995. There is no relationship that holds between cosmic rays and temperature:

http://www.skeptical...bal-warming.htm

http://www.realclima...ic-cosmic-rays/

http://www.realclima...in-new-clothes/

EPA findings: http://rabett.blogsp...-svensmark.html

I've given up on Taylor's presentation from here on. It's a loose collection of of misunderstandings and falsehoods, where he demonstrably gets nearly every branch of climatology wrong, and cherry-picks old papers and papers subsequently shown to be problematic to push his points. He fails to highlight quality research that contradicts his points, which is poor scientific practice, and not one the IPCC or other academic bodies do.

Yet we're supposed to believe that he's right and everybody else is wrong? I don't think so. I believe on this evidence I was right in my assessment of his book as being unsubstantiated and wrong, and this goes to show that people like Taylor with no climate track record, who write books that go through no scientific auditing process, are promoting pseudoscience. I'm sorry to hear you've been taken in by it, I really am, but there's nothing of substance in anything Taylor has said. He's either not read all the relevant research and is thus not sufficiently informed, or he is deliberately misleading his audience. There are no other explanations. Either way it is not a scientific assessment of the research.

Another example of a book shown to be wrong on a subject related to climatology here:

http://www.realclima...tford-delusion/

The message is, as ever, do not trust what you read in a non-academic book: they can, and regularly are, saying whatever they like, even if it's that pigs can fly. They do not have to undergo a review process, and reflect the author's opinion. If you read a book, or see a presentation like this, always verify the sources and check that the research is up-to-date!

sss

Edited by sunny starry skies
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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

Thank you for the work you have obviously put in SSS. After reading that I wonder if I'll bother with the thing or consign it to the growing pile of 'non-sense' I have amassed (over only 5 years!!!)

It's funny ,the only time I hear of AGW being a "money making scam" is in such literature which was obviously produced purely to 'sell' great numbers and gain lots of dosh????

No money making scam here;

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100722/full/news.2010.372.html?s=news_rss

seems we can't rely upon a freshly opened Arctic ocean to work as a CO2 sink as it's already full!!!

Edited by Gray-Wolf
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Posted
  • Location: York, North Yorkshire
  • Location: York, North Yorkshire

Oh Dear,

Thank goodness there is somebody here with good sense and scientific judgement who could expose the ridiculousness of the video. Well thanks Starry Skies, you've saved everybody loads of time and effort. Of course, now that you have exposed these lies and ravings, we can all accept the science as you see it ....... your the one,. Just who do you think you are? Have you any credentials? What are your qualifications, do you have any peer reviewed publications in the relevant field so that we can see that you are a TRUE SCIENTIST, one worthy of such a review?

If not, then how in Gods name can you STATE its a load of rubbish .... that's your personal view ....... NOT A FACT.

(You seem to have failed to point out that all of the points he makes are backed up by multiple peer reviewed scientific papers ...... if you'd read the book you might have noted that fact ..... or you chose not to mention it !!).

The Earth is round and not flat by the way.

I'll add this one more time as you clearly dismiss anything that does not back up you own views:"http://www.probeinternational.org/UPennCross.pdf" (the review paper posted by Jethro) ........ funny how the same stuff that Peter Tylor is outlining is present within this paper, ..... oh and as obviously you dismiss anything in a book, the references are provided for you in this review paper (could always take a look at Climate audit or Roy Spencer's blog, publications, or indeed many others ..... multiple scientists are saying the exact same thing.

Fact, The IPCC computer modal projections work on an amplification factor. Co2 alone just doesn't do it.

Fact. The amplification factor is between 200 and 300% (see review paper and above) and based on the increase in atmospheric water vapour in a warmer climate.

Fact. The models assume no negative feedbacks via the potential for a warmer atmosphere to generate greater cloud density.

Fact. The role of clouds and their impacts are poorly understood.

Fact. To accurately model the 20th century warming the models were tweaked with varying assumptions to the role of sulphar particulates (which shows up in the varying model predictions ........ none of which match the current global temperature).

Y.S

>

<BR>Thank you for the work you have obviously put in SSS. After reading that I wonder if I'll bother with the thing or consign it to the growing pile of 'non-sense' I have amassed (over only 5 years!!!)<BR><BR>It's funny ,the only time I hear of AGW being a "money making scam" is in such literature which was obviously produced purely to 'sell' great numbers and gain lots of dosh???? <BR><BR>No money making scam here;<BR><BR><A class=bbc_url title="External link" href="http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100722/full/news.2010.372.html?s=news_rss" rel="nofollow external">http://www.nature.co...html?s=news_rss</A><BR><BR>seems we can't rely upon a freshly opened Arctic ocean to work as a CO2 sink as it's already full!!!<BR>

<BR><BR>

Yeah, best not bother GW, just add another few doomsday posts on thinning ice..... perhaps something on rotting ice (and don't look at the situation in the Antarctic, ... it would only cause you consternation).

Y.S

Edited by Paul
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Posted
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and lots of it or warm and sunny, no mediocre dross
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl

YS and SSS - it's about time you two agreed to disagree isn't it?

You've both made a case for your viewpoint, you're never going to convince one another to alter your respective views, accept it and move on eh.

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Posted
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.
  • Weather Preferences: Thunder, snow, heat, sunshine...
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.

Thank you SSS, for taking the time to analyze Peter Taylor's book from a scientific perspective...I get the same feeling (call it disquiet) whenever I read anything that's worded as if it were telling me what the author thinks is what I want to hear...

IMO, that sort of rhetoric (from fallacy to erroneous conclusion) works better in the legal system than it does in science???

As an aside. When I last studied climate change (1996) the biggest uncertainty cited was cloud feedback; so said uncertainty is fully acknowledged...

And thanks Y S, for being a polite opponent. I learn from both sides of the argument! :doh:

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Posted
  • Location: Edinburgh
  • Location: Edinburgh

Thanks for the kind comments Pete and G-W. I had a spare evening, and thought I should check out what Taylor had to say (it wasn't his book but a presentation, presumably with much of the same material). Y.S., "ill-informed and ignorant"? That's really not a very nice thing to say. If you think so, but I have provided numerous sources with direct and indirect links to many dozens of peer-reviewed studies that show Taylor to be wrong: the feedbacks are perfectly real processes, the cloud uncertainties are fully acknowledged (the feedback may actually be positive, not negative), and there is not much of an observable trend in cloud cover or cosmic rays that relates to temperature. You can read all these sources and see if you still think Taylor's tale is persuasive! If you still think I was being "ill-informed and ignorant", come back and tell me (with references) why all these studies I used to support my points are wrong, don't just call me names. Taylor had a very poor argument, though if you knew little about climate I could see him being persuasive - it shows to me why one can't immediately trust what one reads in an un-reviewed book, or sees in a random video presentation. He's happy to dismiss huge tracts of research in favour of one or two cherry-picked and usually out-of-date studies (yes, scientific studies, I did not pretend otherwise), well that's up to him but it's hardly good scientific practice to ignore all the data that does not agree with your point.

Shouting 'FACT', or presenting an eloquent video, or writing a readable book, does not make me want to believe those 'facts' unless they are supported by good quality evidence that has not been rebutted in one way or another. I leave it up to others to judge the evidence for themselves, but there was precious little sound evidence I could find in Taylor's presentation. I'm always on the look-out for good alternative hypotheses, as I'd frankly be utterly delighted to be proven wrong on the state of the climate, but there was nothing of substance here and so the search goes on.

sss

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Posted
  • Location: York, North Yorkshire
  • Location: York, North Yorkshire

Thank you SSS, for taking the time to analyze Peter Taylor's book from a scientific perspective...I get the same feeling (call it disquiet) whenever I read anything that's worded as if it were telling me what the author thinks is what I want to hear...

IMO, that sort of rhetoric (from fallacy to erroneous conclusion) works better in the legal system than it does in science???

As an aside. When I last studied climate change (1996) the biggest uncertainty cited was cloud feedback; so said uncertainty is fully acknowledged...

And thanks Y S, for being a polite opponent. I learn from both sides of the argument! :good:

Hi Pete,

Nice and diplomatic, a generous response.

Been away for a week and I'll think I'll take a little longer before posting much on here again, ...... there seems little point in attempting to open a good scientific debate.

There is actually more than simply two sides of this debate, as the argument is not polarised.

There is of course some degree of warming attributable to manmade green house gas emissions ......... its how much, and much more importantly, what component is made by natural cycles.

SSC'S does not see it ...... and probably never will. His posts are a complete wind up and quite arrogant (and in my view ignorant of what the whole purpose was in posting). So best if I bow out for a while.

Lets see what the second half of 2010 brings !!

Good health and have a great weekend.

Y.S :D

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Posted
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.
  • Weather Preferences: Thunder, snow, heat, sunshine...
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.

Hi Pete,

Nice and diplomatic, a generous response.

Been away for a week and I'll think I'll take a little longer before posting much on here again, ...... there seems little point in attempting to open a good scientific debate.

There is actually more than simply two sides of this debate, as the argument is not polarised.

There is of course some degree of warming attributable to manmade green house gas emissions ......... its how much, and much more importantly, what component is made by natural cycles.

SSC'S does not see it ...... and probably never will. His posts are a complete wind up and quite arrogant (and in my view ignorant of what the whole purpose was in posting). So best if I bow out for a while.

Lets see what the second half of 2010 brings !!

Good health and have a great weekend.

Y.S :unknw:

You too mate. http://nwstatic.co.uk/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/drinks.gif :p:)

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Posted
  • Location: Near Newton Abbot or east Dartmoor, Devon
  • Location: Near Newton Abbot or east Dartmoor, Devon

Hi Pete,

Nice and diplomatic, a generous response.

Been away for a week and I'll think I'll take a little longer before posting much on here again, ...... there seems little point in attempting to open a good scientific debate.

There is actually more than simply two sides of this debate, as the argument is not polarised.

There is of course some degree of warming attributable to manmade green house gas emissions ......... its how much, and much more importantly, what component is made by natural cycles.

SSC'S does not see it ...... and probably never will. His posts are a complete wind up and quite arrogant (and in my view ignorant of what the whole purpose was in posting). So best if I bow out for a while.

Lets see what the second half of 2010 brings !!

Good health and have a great weekend.

Y.S :D

That's harsh as, imo, all he does is put what 'science' (universities, national weather services and those bodies that collate data (NOAA, NCDC, GISS and the rest)) do. he is, after all, a scientist...

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Posted
  • Location: Huddersfield, 145m ASL
  • Weather Preferences: Lots of snow, lots of hot sun
  • Location: Huddersfield, 145m ASL

That's harsh as, imo, all he does is put what 'science' (universities, national weather services and those bodies that collate data (NOAA, NCDC, GISS and the rest)) do. he is, after all, a scientist...

For what's it worth, I'll second that. SSS seems to be applying a fairly rigorous and even-handed approach, dare I say it, a scientific approach, which from what I have read of his writings is more than can be said for Peter Taylor............

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Posted
  • Location: York, North Yorkshire
  • Location: York, North Yorkshire

That's harsh as, imo, all he does is put what 'science' (universities, national weather services and those bodies that collate data (NOAA, NCDC, GISS and the rest)) do. he is, after all, a scientist...

So am I !!!http://nwstatic.co.uk/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/air_kiss.gif

No he doesn't, he puts one side and does not acknowledge there is another.

Peter Taylor's 'review' (say that again ... review), is backed up by multiple peer reviewed papers in all areas ........ This constitutes a different view, ... you cannot simply ignore it or state its a load of tosh.

For what's it worth, I'll second that. SSS seems to be applying a fairly rigorous and even-handed approach, dare I say it, a scientific approach, which from what I have read of his writings is more than can be said for Peter Taylor............

You have obviously not read or looked at the evidence as a whole. Where does he apply an even handed or scientific approach?

Where does he provide the alternative references which back up (and are what Peter Taylor used) the alternative view ?

He quotes that Richard Linzden was co-author on the relevant IPCC paper section, but fails to point out that he resigned in protest at the contents, to which he disagreed most strongly. ......... His stance is that any increase in water vapour component to the atmosphere would lead to an increase in cloud formation (which to my mind seems a perfectly plausable outcome !!) leading to a negative feedback effect ...... THE IPCC MODELS DO NOT COMPUTE THIS AS A POSSIBLITY ........ FACT. I could go on and on and on ....... but to what point.

His earlier efforts on defending Michael Mann were laughable (I exposed the fact he had not even read the updated hockey stick paper, ...... and here we go again).

WHY DON'T YOU ALL GO AND READ JESTRO'S EARLIER POSTED REVIEW PAPER (which contains a ton of relevant and upto date references). and then come back on here and state that SSS has provided a decent appraisal ...... complete and utter joke.

Anyway, you folks knock yourself out. We're warming yeah, and we're all doomed, its all down to CO2. Funny how all models now (as predicted back in January by Joe laminate floori) suggest we are about to cool big time (check out the other threads and also Accuweather blogs).

Cheers

Y.S

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Posted
  • Location: Near Newton Abbot or east Dartmoor, Devon
  • Location: Near Newton Abbot or east Dartmoor, Devon

So am I !!!http://nwstatic.co.uk/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/air_kiss.gif

No he doesn't, he puts one side and does not acknowledge there is another.

Peter Taylor's 'review' (say that again ... review), is backed up by multiple peer reviewed papers in all areas ........ This constitutes a different view, ... you cannot simply ignore it or state its a load of tosh.

Easy.

So, you put both sides? No you don't, SSS states it as he see it and so you do. But, for that he's been called several things by you (arrogant and ignorant(oh, and laughable)) - that's what I don't like.

if you case is sooooo much better than the science I, SSS and others, have studied and accept why the need for all the invective? Let your case stand on it's merits.

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