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UK Government: Climate change scientists broke the law hiding data

timesonline.co.uk

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Re: UK Government: Climate change scientists broke the law hiding data

#41

Post by jerf »

xenonite wrote: post #23

Global warming != Climate change 1.) Global warming increases average temperatures. 2.) Climate change might turn the weather to extremes, which implies greater temperature _variance_ locally. Now the pattern I see is: people are trying to focus on 1.), disprove it, then (falsly) claim that 2.) would also be wrong! This is not the case. 1.) does NOT relate to 2.) in any way! The climate change IS happening, this does…

The problem is that nobody care whether the "climate is changing". Change is the only constant. The question is whether it is bad and whether we can do something about it. Neither has been very well established in my mind. If in fact our CO2 contribution's effect is far smaller than the IPCC and environmentalists claim, then natural variation is the dominant factor and even completely giving up industrialization entirely next year may not have a very large effect. This means that it is a lot harder to affect the climate than we have been telling ourselves. And climate changes have been happening continuously for billions of years, so it's not at all obvious that they are a priori bad for anything other than human agriculture. (Which is itself bad, but something we can deal with, and broadly speaking is our problem rather than the ecosystem's problem.)

If environmentalists think they can turn on a dime after thirty years of "anthropogenic global warming -> disaster", they are in for a well-deserved beating in the court of general opinion. Falling back to "The climate is changing" is basically an admission that we have no clue, and more than that, where we thought human effects dominated it, it doesn't seem to. You can't just turn around and apply panic over AGW to panic over "climate change"; it is neither rational nor human-irrational.

If you want to panic over something environmental, how about overfishing, plastic pollution in the pacific, fertilizer runoff, or something else that isn't "debatable" but actually, factually exists? In addition to the fact that it's a bad idea to try to "salvage" climate change as an issue, it isn't even necessary. There are real problems. Unless you personally are driven by using environmentalism as an excuse to destroy democracy and transfer wealth to the poor, if you are really driven by concern for the environment, you don't need to "win" this issue. Trying to build your political case on a lie can only be actively harmful in the long run.

Re: UK Government: Climate change scientists broke the law hiding data

#42

Post by yannis »

gjm11 wrote: post #35
yannis wrote: post #14

I am glad this is breaking out slowly but surely and the C02 saga will probably be the greatest scientific scandal of our time. I have been following the story for as far as I remember as I had an interest in Ice Ages. This article http://www.warwickhughes.com/icecore/zjmar07.pdf is very good at debunking some of the myths. You can play with a model online with this http://cs.clark.edu/~mac/physlets/GEBM/ebm.htm#tipt…

> or you can write your own Clojure one, like the one we had yesterday here at HN. The Clojure one we had yesterday that 1. looked only at data during the "hockey-stick handle" period; 2. found, in his very first graph, a steady increase in temperatures over that period whose magnitude (>2 degrees C) was greater than that in the usual "hockey-stick" graph (~ 0.7 degrees C); 3. plotted a bunch more graphs in ways that…

Just have a look at fig 4 at the paper I quoted above http://www.warwickhughes.com/icecore/zjmar07.pdf You will see the 'hills' I mentioned above.

I am not actually suggesting inaction I support any measures that will lower human impact on the planet, however, I am supporting good science and policies that do not have the word TAX in them.

Re: UK Government: Climate change scientists broke the law hiding data

#43

Post by viggity »

nradov wrote: post #36
yannis wrote: post #14

I am glad this is breaking out slowly but surely and the C02 saga will probably be the greatest scientific scandal of our time. I have been following the story for as far as I remember as I had an interest in Ice Ages. This article http://www.warwickhughes.com/icecore/zjmar07.pdf is very good at debunking some of the myths. You can play with a model online with this http://cs.clark.edu/~mac/physlets/GEBM/ebm.htm#tipt…

While some CO2 will be absorbed by the oceans, that has consequences for ocean life by lowering the pH.

I don't know how much I buy the "the oceans are getting more acidic" line. The oceans are 3 orders of magnitude larger than the atmosphere, and CO2 makes up 380 parts per MILLION in atmosphere.

oceans: 1.384 × 10^21 kg http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1998/AvijeetDut.shtml

atmosphere: 5 x 10^18 kg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth

Re: UK Government: Climate change scientists broke the law hiding data

#44

Post by jessriedel »

TheBranca18 wrote: post #13
TheBranca18 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Verbal purity? They are two totally different concepts. This isn't about making sure you use the right term, it's making sure you understand the difference between the two. And yes it was clear. I think anyone reading the article should come to that conclusion. Your comparison was shallow and silly and I called you on it.

I always thought that global warming was a subset of climate change. The fact that the title of the article included climate change made me puzzled as to why global warming was used.

Yes, technically, "global warming" refers to modern, human-induced climate change. But outside of paleontological circles, they are the same thing.

There's certainly no need to be criticizing people for that usage, since there's no possibility of confusion; we're always talking about modern climate change.

Re: UK Government: Climate change scientists broke the law hiding data

#45

Post by jessriedel »

xenonite wrote: post #23

Global warming != Climate change 1.) Global warming increases average temperatures. 2.) Climate change might turn the weather to extremes, which implies greater temperature _variance_ locally. Now the pattern I see is: people are trying to focus on 1.), disprove it, then (falsly) claim that 2.) would also be wrong! This is not the case. 1.) does NOT relate to 2.) in any way! The climate change IS happening, this does…

So there is allegedly climate change due to carbon dioxide without increasing global temperatures? I've never heard this. What is the mechanism, and what is the evidence?

Re: UK Government: Climate change scientists broke the law hiding data

#46

Post by Retric »

yannis wrote: post #38
Retric wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am shocked by how many up votes this got. C02 can get absorbed by the Oceans and other earth mechanisms and balance out. The worldwide CO2 production is 4.53 metric tons per capita, that’s metric tons of a gas. http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=en_atm_co... Calculate the increase in PPM of CO2 with the human production of CO2 and the numbers work out. It’s not like we can’t figure out how much CO2 we r…

Quote from University of Bristol research ( http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2009/6649.html ): New data show that the balance between the airborne and the absorbed fraction of carbon dioxide has stayed approximately constant since 1850, despite emissions of carbon dioxide having risen from about 2 billion tons a year in 1850 to 35 billion tons a year now. This suggests that terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans have a much…

There are non atmospheric carbon sinks, which as you say absorb a percentage of emissions; however, their net effect is identical to a slightly larger atmosphere. You admit that increasing CO2 concentrations increase temperature and human emissions increase atmospheric CO2 concentrations yet you suggest that it's solar storms which have increased the temperature. Why, as a black body increasing earth temperature from incoming radiation is hard, it's temperature ^ 4 = e which takes a lot of energy for a small increase.

Modeling what the net effects are is a complex topic. Doing a proper cost benefit analysis of reducing carbon emissions is hard. But, we could produce all the energy the US needs from wind and solar, we could even create hydrocarbons from atmospheric CO2 + water, saying that’s not an option is a false choice. The real question is how far should we change, at what cost and for what benefit. I don't know the answers to that question, but I suspect the optimum choice is less costly than what most might while still dramatically altering carbon emissions.

PS: The total carbon emissions from all cars driven in the US is about the same as produced from coal fires in China, if you focus on low cost solutions to the global problem there is a lot of low hanging fruit.

Re: UK Government: Climate change scientists broke the law hiding data

#47

Post by xenonite »

xenonite wrote: post #23

Global warming != Climate change 1.) Global warming increases average temperatures. 2.) Climate change might turn the weather to extremes, which implies greater temperature _variance_ locally. Now the pattern I see is: people are trying to focus on 1.), disprove it, then (falsly) claim that 2.) would also be wrong! This is not the case. 1.) does NOT relate to 2.) in any way! The climate change IS happening, this does…

I was asked to source my statements, as I did not do so before.

The IPCC Third Report concludes that climate change might either be caused of a changing mean temperature, a changing variance, or both. What the real cause for climate change is, needs to be carefully assessed. This supports my statement that climate change is not necessarily caused by increasing mean temperatures.

http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc%5Ftar/?src=/clim...

Re: UK Government: Climate change scientists broke the law hiding data

#48

Post by yannis »

Retric wrote: post #46
yannis wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quote from University of Bristol research ( http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2009/6649.html ): New data show that the balance between the airborne and the absorbed fraction of carbon dioxide has stayed approximately constant since 1850, despite emissions of carbon dioxide having risen from about 2 billion tons a year in 1850 to 35 billion tons a year now. This suggests that terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans have a much…

There are non atmospheric carbon sinks, which as you say absorb a percentage of emissions; however, their net effect is identical to a slightly larger atmosphere. You admit that increasing CO2 concentrations increase temperature and human emissions increase atmospheric CO2 concentrations yet you suggest that it's solar storms which have increased the temperature. Why, as a black body increasing earth temperature from…

Retric you are right that it is a very complex analysis. Water vapor is also a greenhouse gas. Given the present composition of the atmosphere, the contribution to the total heating rate in the troposphere is around 5 percent from carbon dioxide and around 95 percent from water vapor. See for example http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/alternate/page/environment/appd.... If we assume that temperatures rise, evaporation will rise with the result of reducing the solar insolation at surface. If we had the models we could predict the weather months ahead, which we can't.

I quote a more qualified person than me, Prof. S. Fred Singer, atmospheric physicist Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia and former director of the US Weather Satellite Service (See http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html)

There is no dispute at all about the fact that even if punctiliously observed, (the Kyoto Protocol) would have an imperceptible effect on future temperatures -- one-twentieth of a degree by 2050. "

There are a lot of low cost solutions, starting from not falling prey to marketing and consumerism. I am all for a pro-environment world, but I learnt not to buy into the politics and the lobbies of the day.

Re: UK Government: Climate change scientists broke the law hiding data

#49

Post by TheBranca18 »

jessriedel wrote: post #44
TheBranca18 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought that global warming was a subset of climate change. The fact that the title of the article included climate change made me puzzled as to why global warming was used.

Yes, technically, "global warming" refers to modern, human-induced climate change. But outside of paleontological circles, they are the same thing. There's certainly no need to be criticizing people for that usage, since there's no possibility of confusion; we're always talking about modern climate change.

How about criticizing them for an inaccurate comparison?

Re: UK Government: Climate change scientists broke the law hiding data

#50

Post by gjm11 »

yannis wrote: post #42
gjm11 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or you can write your own Clojure one, like the one we had yesterday here at HN. The Clojure one we had yesterday that 1. looked only at data during the "hockey-stick handle" period; 2. found, in his very first graph, a steady increase in temperatures over that period whose magnitude (>2 degrees C) was greater than that in the usual "hockey-stick" graph (~ 0.7 degrees C); 3. plotted a bunch more graphs in ways that…

Just have a look at fig 4 at the paper I quoted above http://www.warwickhughes.com/icecore/zjmar07.pdf You will see the 'hills' I mentioned above. I am not actually suggesting inaction I support any measures that will lower human impact on the planet, however, I am supporting good science and policies that do not have the word TAX in them.

How do you know that the best policies do not involve taxation? (If it's because you take it as an axiom that no good policy involves taxation, then the fact that you don't want taxation in this particular case is perfectly uninformative.)
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