Prince Charles: climate change deniers are ‘headless chickens’

HRH Prince Charles voices strong opinions regarding those who reject the hypothesis that human influence on the Earth’s climate is likely to lead to catastrophic change. Speaking at a prizegiving for young sustainability entrepreneurs he had the following to say, as reported by the Telegraph:

“It is baffling, I must say, that in our modern world we have such blind trust in science and technology that we all accept what science tells us about everything – until, that is, it comes to climate science.

“All of a sudden, and with a barrage of sheer intimidation, we are told by powerful groups of deniers that the scientists are wrong and we must abandon all our faith in so much overwhelming scientific evidence.

“So, thank goodness for our young entrepreneurs here this evening, who have the far-sightedness and confidence in what they know is happening to ignore the headless chicken brigade and do something practical to help.”

The Conspiracy of the Like Minded-truth in data as big lie

w.w.wygart’s thoughts on the MET-O spaghetti scribbles, with some considerable detail on IPCC model forecasts of continued, even accelerated warming…

The Coraline Meme

Update – I’ve added a new figure Fig. 4a below, a version of the AR5 SOD Fig. 1.4 with the “grey swoosh” redacted.

Today, after giving my opinion on the subject of Syria, my sister told me I was being, “Negative, pessimistic, and paranoid” – all possibly true – but being a scientist I am driven to that position by the apprehension of the evidence.

Later in the day I came across the above graphic from the UK MetOffice’s 2014 Decadal Forecast over at Tallbloke’s Talkshop in an article entitled MET- Office: New four year ‘decadal’ forecast spaghetti.  This is what fellow WordPressian Tallbloke had to say:

Ed Hawkins tweeted up  the latest offering from the MET-Office this morning. It’s a “Decadal forecast”, which runs from now to the beginning (not the end, Ed) of 2018. Stop tittering at the back there! But compounding matters, the ‘forecast’ is…

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Andrew Orlowski: Tell us we’re all doomed, MPs beg climate scientists

Andrew Orlowski of the Register has written a lucid account of the Climate Change Committee hearing on the IPCC AR5 climate report. I’ve excerpted a highlight below, but do go and read the whole thing, it’s an excellent summary, and entertainingly written.

Excerpt from: Tell us we’re all doomed, MPs beg climate scientists
by Andrew Orlowski – The register 31-1-14

Lindzen tried to explain that the temperature hiatus really ought cause some soul-searching amongst the establishment’s climate modellers.

The longer this goes on the harder it will be to support a high climate sensitivity. It wasn’t predicted.

Nic Lewis’ own work concludes that CO2 has an impact on the climate – just one that’s lower than the scientific establishment’s most likely impact. It takes more accurate recent observational estimates of aerosols into account. He told MPs that the IPCC’s estimate of greenhouse gas climate sensitivity – the climate system’s response to an increase in (mainly) CO2 – is about three times higher than it should be.

This indicates the models are not to be relied on.

As he explains in his lucid written evidence for the enquiry (written for a layman with a basic grasp of maths) and reminded MPs, Lewis uses a different application of Bayesian maths.

MET- Office: New four year ‘decadal’ forecast spaghetti

Ed Hawkins tweeted up  the latest offering from the MET-Office this morning. It’s a “Decadal forecast”, which runs from now to the beginning (not the end, Ed) of 2018. Stop tittering at the back there! But compounding matters, the ‘forecast’ is a spaghetti of similarly coloured lines. I said STOP LAUGHING! 🙂

Here’s the twitter exchange I had with Ed:

Lord Monckton: Letter to Martin Rasmussen of Copernicus Publications

A week ago,  Christopher Monckton wrote a letter to Martin Rasmussen at Copernicus Publishing, to protest the preremptory closure of journal ‘Pattern Recognition in Physics’, following its publication of our special issue on ‘Pattern in solar variability, their planetary origin and terrestrial impacts’. No reply has been received, and so true to the timeline set out in the latter, he has asked me to publish it here at the talkshop. This document pulls no punches in highlighting the hypocrisy of those who seek to control scientific debate through censorship. Considering the publishers name, and the fact that our research was initiated by Johannes Kepler four centuries ago, a rich irony is in play here.

UPDATE 30-1-2014: Jo Nova has posted an article on the relaunch of PRP proposed by Lord Monckton

Dear Mr. Rasmussen,

Closure and reopening of the learned journal Pattern Recognition in Physics

My kind friend Professor Niklas Mörner of Stockholm, who in close to 50 years has
published approaching 600 papers in the reviewed and general scientific literature, is an
internationally-renowned expert on sea level and is one of the most gifted instructors of
students I have ever had the pleasure to work with, has copied me in on your sad and,
indeed, bizarre decision to bring to an end the excellent learned journal Pattern Recognition
in Physics, less than a year after its first publication in March 2013.

Julia Slingo says it: Sir Mark Walport needs to think about it

I had high hopes when Sir Mark took over as chief scientist from Sir John wet-the-Beddington. I even billed him as having a sensible outlook on the climate debate. But it looks like he’s been assimilated by the Civil Borg. See Bishop Hill for this piece of Hubris:

Climate sceptics should stop attacking the science of global warming and have a “grown-up” debate, the Government’s most senior scientist has said. Sir Mark Walport accused climate sceptics of questioning the scientific evidence in order to dodge the more challenging question of what to do about it.
-The Times-

Sir Mark needs to listen to his own scientists, even if he won’t debate ‘the science’ with us sceptics. Because finally, the MET-O’s Julia Slingo gets it. I’ve been asking this question for  four years:

If the negative phase of natural oscillations can nix global warming for a decade while co2 rises 15%, how much did its positive phase add to ‘global warming’?

H/T to Barry Woods for this gem

“I wonder if Dame Julia Slingo – The Met Office’s Chief Scientist, has told Sir Mark yet, that the ‘pause’ might last 30 years?#innocentface”
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1s02pna

Antarctic Sea Ice Extent On Track For Record High Minimum – Jan 28 2014

Cooling southern ocean keep Antarctic sea ice level high.

sunshine hours

Antarctic Sea Ice Extent  is very much on track to have the highest minimum in the modern satellite era.

The highest minimum was in 2008 at 3.69176 million sq km on day 51, The 2nd highest was in 2013 at 3.65040 million sq km on day 50.

The earliest minimum was day 43 in 1994. And the latest minimum was day 65 in 1986.

Antarctic Sea Ice Extent as of Jan 27 2014 was 1 million sq km above the 1981-2010 mean and 160,000 sq km above 2008.

Day 27 was the 10th daily record of the year.

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Kenyan lake levels and drought solar linkage, Potsdam study, curious silence

The effects of solar irradiation changes on the migration of the Congo Air Boundary and water levels of paleo-Lake Suguta, Northern Kenya Rift, during the African Humid Period (15 ka – 5 ka BP),

Annett Junginger, Sybille Roller, Lydia A. Olaka, Martin H. Trauth,

Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, Volume 396, 15 February 2014, Pages 1-16, ISSN 0031-0182, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2013.12.007.

(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031018213005373)

Abstract: [first sentence from long A.]

The water-level record from the 300m deep paleo-lake Suguta (Northern Kenya Rift) during the African Humid Period (AHP, 15-5ka BP) helps to explain decadal to centennial intensity variations in the West African Monsoon (WAM) and the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM).

A 70-80 year peridiocity identified from tree ring temperatures AD 550 – 1980 in Northern Scandinavia

Here’s a nice confirmation of Harald Yndestad’s work on Long term lunar tides in the north Atlantic. He found a 74 yr cycle.

A 70-80 year peridiocity identified from tree ring temperatures AD 550 – 1980 in Northern Scandinavia

• Juhani Rinne^a, ,
• Mikko Alestalo^a,
• Arto Miettinen^b

• ^a Finnish Meteorological Institute, P.O. Box 503, FI – 00101 Helsinki, FINLAND
• ^b Department of Geosciences and Geography, P.O. Box 64, FI – 00014 University of Helsinki FINLAND

Abstract

The classical Maximum Density data of 65 Torneträsk trees from years 441-1980 AD are studied in millennial, centennial and volcanic scales. The millennial scale is analyzed applying a specific filtering method. In that scale, the climate is cool after 1200-1400 AD. This more or less steady period is suggested to be due to volcanic episodes, which reduced the northward heat transport in the North Atlantic. The century scale variation, on the other hand, is suggested to be due to internal oscillations in sea surface temperature (SST) and to be connected to variations in the Arctic sea ice. Specifically, these oscillations have caused an additional warming and cooling trend in Northern Fennoscandian temperatures before and after 1930’s, respectively.

Variations in the temperature estimates are explained by the results for different temporal scales. All of them show local impacts leading to differences when compared with hemispheric estimates. The long-term estimate of the temperature as derived from the present Torneträsk data is found to be biased. The source of that is unknown.

A 0.6-Million Year Record of Millennial-Scale Climate Variability in the Tropics

A 0.6-Million Year Record of Millennial-Scale Climate Variability in the Tropics†

Kelly Ann Gibson2,*, Larry C. Peterson1DOI: 10.1002/2013GL058846©2014. American Geophysical Union

Abstract

[1] A ~600-kyr long scanning X-ray fluorescence (XRF) record of redox variability from the Cariaco Basin, Venezuela, provides insight into rapid climate change in the tropics over the past five glacial-interglacial cycles. Variations in the sediment accumulation of the redox-sensitive element molybdenum (Mo) can be linked to changes in Intertropical Convergence Zone migration and reveal that millennial-scale variability is a persistent feature of tropical climate over the past 600 kyr, including during periods of interglacial warmth.

Awww. Wind Turbine Fell Over

One down, three to go…

sunshine hours

Mangled Wind Turbine mercilessly attacked by cold or wind or shoddy construction or all three.

“Whenever we came out, we noticed this big mound up there. Then we noticed one of the windmills was missing,” Steyer said.”

(h/t Small Dead Animals)

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Water is a by product of particle space-weathering by the solar wind

Detection of solar wind-produced water in irradiated rims on silicate minerals
John P. Bradley et al.

Significance

Whether water is produced by solar wind (SW) radiolysis has been debated for more than four decades. In this paper, we exploit the high spatial resolution of electron microscopy and sensitivity of valence electron energy-loss spectroscopy to detect water (liquid or vapor) in vesicles within (SW-produced) space-weathered rims on interplanetary dust particle (IDP) surfaces. Water in the rims has implications for the origin of water on airless bodies like the Moon and asteroids, the delivery of water to the surfaces of terrestrial planets, and the production of water in other astrophysical environments. In particular, water and organic carbon were likely delivered simultaneously by the high flux of IDPs accreted by the early Earth and other terrestrial planets.

Nils-Axel Morner: An Unbelievable Decision

An Unbelievable Decision
Nils-Axel MÖRNER
Handling editor of the Special Issue of PRP

The idea that the planetary motions affect and control the solar variability is old, but in the stage of an unproven hypothesis. In recent years major advancements have occurred and in 2013, it seemed that time was ripe for a major, multi-authored, reinvestigation. Therefore, a Special Issue of Pattern Recognition in Physics was devoted to: “Pattern in solar variability, their planetary origin and terrestrial impacts”.

The volume includes 12 separate research papers and General Conclusions, co-authored by 19 prominent scientists. Indeed, they agreed that the driving factor of solar variability must emerge from the planetary beat on the Sun, and by that its emission of luminosity and Solar Wind both factors of which affect the Earth-Moon system.

Speculative climate science destroying European economies

UKIP MEP Roger Helmer asks straight climate-energy-economics question. Gets consenseless reply. Reblogging video doesn’t seem to be working out. You know what to do.

[co-mod: Working video added as first comment. –Tim]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDfxfjJFAJg

Roger Helmer MEP

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Doug Proctor: The Trouble with Global warming is it’s Regional

Guest Post By Doug Proctor.

What sparked my post is  Bob Tisdale’s graphs of global temperature anomalies AND a graph that split the anomalies into Northern and Southern Hemispheres. A clear example of a computational result that misleads: the Northern Hemisphere has been warming while the Southern Hemisphere has been cooling. Not global, regional.

Plot by Bob Tisdale

What does it tell us about, in this case, “global” warming when the temperatures of inland areas correlate well to cloud cover while the coast does not, with a mentioned “protection” from sea winds? It tells us the “global” (in this case the inland + coastal area) will have a temperature rise in its combined data while only the inland area did. And it also tells us that there is no “global” cause: it is the regional cloud cover and lack of cooling seawind that is responsible. Computational, yes, representational, no.

Madrid 1995: The Last Day of Climate Science

Excellent post on the history of the events around the IPCC and attribution of warming to humans.

Enthusiasm, Scepticism and Science

________________________________________________________

MADRID 1995: Tipping Point?—The Quest (Part II)–The Last Day (Part II)

________________________________________________________

We continue our quest for how human attribution was first established by the IPCC with a close look at the dramas on the final day in Madrid using the Australian Delegation Report as our guide. The first and second essays on the  Chapter  8 Controversy will help readers follow the story, but the main tip for new readers is to catch up on the importance of  Barnett et al 1996 in maintaining the scepticism of all but the published version of Chapter 8. Also helpful will be this key to drafts and meetings:

SAR 18Apr95 draft: the version of the Working Group 1 Second Assessment  Report sent out for review before the deadline for comments on chapters in early July 1995
Asheville Meeting of Lead Authors (25-8 Jul) convened primarily…

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Infrared astronomer doesn’t buy CO2

Comment left at Steve Goddard’s by Mike Sanicola

I’m a professional infrared astronomer who spent his life trying to observe space through the atmosphere’s back-radiation that the environmental activists claim is caused by CO2 and guess what? In all the bands that are responsible for back radiation in the brightness temperatures (color temperatures) related to earth’s surface temperature (between 9 microns and 13 microns for temps of 220K to 320 K) there is no absorption of radiation by CO2 at all. In all the bands between 9 and 9.5 there is mild absorption by H2O, from 9.5 to 10 microns (300 K) the atmosphere is perfectly clear except around 9.6 is a big ozone band that the warmists never mention for some reason.

…

I’m retired so I don’t need to keep my mouth shut anymore. Kept my mouth shut for 40 years,

Yep. Lots of void, no evidence for the posit. I’m still waiting for the missing primary dataset, if it can be directly measured. Proxy is wiggle matching. Ozone, sure, been known for 100 years. Angstrom reported it from Sweden.

Sparks and Scute: Features of the orbit of Uranus

A couple of interesting obs have popped up in suggestions, so here’s a thread to pitch them to. I’ll just post Sparks interesting plots from last year and let them have at it. I’m working wit Stuart ‘Oldbrew’ on other orbits today here at Tallbloke Towers.

A RETROSPECTIVE — FUN WITH SEA-ICE

Great piece on Arctic sea ice.

Sunrise's Swansong

 .

Portrait of the artist first writing on sea-ice; coastal Maine, January 1977

The artist “berging;”  coastal Maine, March 1977

(photo credits for above pictures: Joe Nichols)

(Click all pictures and maps in this post to enlarge them.)

A RETROSPECTIVE  — FUN WITH SEA-ICE

PART ONE

Nearly forty years ago, back when nobody talked of Global Warming, I lived up on the coast of Maine during a series of remarkably cold winters in the late 1970’s, residing in a shack on a dock on the Harraseeket River in South Freeport.  I worked landscaping, house-and-dog-sitting, posing as a nude model for an art school, managing a local market, “creasing sails” in a sail loft, in a herring cannery, but mostly as little as possible.  I was young. I was stupid. But I was learning.

One thing I learned about was sea ice, because I sauntered about on it.  Some of the…

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Galileo, the church censors, and his peer reviewers

There are always some gems to be found on WUWT where apes have been scooping up handfuls of mud to fling:

Gkell1 on January 25, 2014 at 3:36 am

The Pompous Git wrote –

“The Dialogue was approved by the censors in 1630 and published in 1632. It was only then that Galielo’s enemies noticed that Galileo had ridiculed the pope, something the pope himself had missed when he read the book.Galileo, in criticising the pope, had left himself open to his enemies, who were not the cardinals of the church, but his fellow academics (The Pigeon League). The cardinals decided that ridiculing the pope was not heresy, but brought in a verdict that Galileo was “vehemently suspected of heresy”.”

At last somebody with enough common sense to partition a political decision from a scientific or theological one. It does not excuse the Church from the effects of that decision which still plague this era by effectively jettisoning its astronomical heritage for some moral dictatorship and leaving the valid objections unresolved.