Pages

October 31, 2011

Toss Another Penguin On The Barbie


As global warming theories circle the drain, its adherents become more shrill and more willing to misrepresent the facts.
From the Daily Mail:
It was hailed as the scientific study that ended the global warming debate once and for all – the research that, in the words of its director, ‘proved you should not be a sceptic, at least not any longer’.

Professor Richard Muller, of Berkeley University in California, and his colleagues from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures project team (BEST) claimed to have shown that the planet has warmed by almost a degree centigrade since 1950 and is warming continually.

Published last week ahead of a major United Nations climate summit in Durban, South Africa, next month, their work was cited around the world as irrefutable evidence that only the most stringent measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions can save civilisation as we know it.
Of course the rhetoric gets hotter as their position gets weaker. Draconian measures must be adopted now, right now, if we are not to die tomorrow. It's the same kind of panic-stricken rhetoric that surrounded the TARP debate just before the politicians pissed away a trillion dollars.
But today The Mail on Sunday can reveal that a leading member of Prof Muller’s team has accused him of trying to mislead the public by hiding the fact that BEST’s research shows global warming has stopped.

Prof Judith Curry, who chairs the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at America’s prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology, said that Prof Muller’s claim that he has proven global warming sceptics wrong was also a ‘huge mistake’, with no scientific basis.
Prof Curry is a distinguished climate researcher with more than 30 years experience and the second named co-author of the BEST project’s four research papers.

Her comments, in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, seem certain to ignite a furious academic row. She said this affair had to be compared to the notorious ‘Climategate’ scandal two years ago.

15 comments:

IanH said...

This is a very serious issue, particularly if the climate change has stopped, especially for all those folks receiving grants! :-)

sig94 said...

Ian - the grants are the problem. Scientists chasing after grants is what helped get the ball rolling on this fake science and it still giving it momentum. Cut out the grants for globull worming and see what happens.

TS/WS said...

All those interns and want a be scientist has a hand in the cookie jar; and the Politicians get their vote, and all the groupies--yes even interns can draw a couple of groupies, with their serious work; and of course convince those college young skulls full of mush, of this, and to voter for Dems.
Other than TARP the Dems. seem to know how to reward their voters pushers.

Gorges Smythe said...

Don't worry about the "scientists," if one theory crashes and burns, they'll soon have another (and funding to go with it).

Anonymous said...

Ok - no point talking about the data and the analysis (of which I have been a part) as you'll simply dispute its credibility and say "it's a hoax". Let's turn this around and ask the deniers to explain something. The greenhouse effect is well understood by scientists - yes? We know CO2 (as well as other gases such as water vapour, nitrous oxide, methane etc) is a greenhouse gas. We know that very small percentage increases in these gases in the atmosphere can promote warming above the level that keeps the Earth comfortably warm today. These are knowns - you can't dispute that. We also know that over millions of years Carbon was buried in carbonaceous rocks and over just a century or so we have released these millions of years worth of buried carbon into the atmosphere as CO2. Some has been absorbed by the oceans, some has been taken up by plant growth - but there's a limit. We have released this CO2 too quickly for the Earth system to deal with. We have disturbed the dynamic equilibrium. HOW could this sequence of events have NOT produced warming, given what we know about the Earth and atmospheric chemistry. Please explain the miraculous mechanism by which warming has not occurred (which it has ..... but facts are not sufficient for deniers .... it's far more likely the entire scientific community is conspiring to STEAL AMERICANS MONEY AND FREEDOMS!!!!!!!!!!)

Woodsterman (Odie) said...

Anon ... It's a Hoax!

Minds that THINK do not follow so blindly.

Anonymous said...

Answer the question then..... if you are so confident it's a hoax then you should be able to explain where all the CO2 is going (or do you dispute that we've been combusting coal and oil - derived from carbonaceous deposits laid down over millions of years - for the last 200 years?. Why would you say the greenhouse effect is not for real? If there were no "natural" greenhouse effect it'd be a bit chilly :S And how do you get climate scientists (and scientists in many related fields) worldwide to conspire to promote this "hoax"? Takes some organization!! All I see among right-wing deniers is blind non-thinking ..... and rarely any scientific reasoning - which is why (in vain it seems) I posed the question above. Amie

Anonymous said...

1. Consensus among scientist isn't scientific.
2. Unexplained unusual heat in the late 1800's and early 1900's.
3. Carbon dating is not true scientific dating of fossil remains--who said that there is artifacts millions of yrs.--maybe just 3 or 4 hundred thousands of yrs.
4. If Co2 is so prevalent now, then you must agree that the forest are more dense now a days than in long past history, trees need Co2.

Anonymous said...

Oh, and the e-mail explained the hoax.

sig94 said...

Anon - what you are relying upon is not science, it is modeling. And the models are designed to support a premise. When the data do not support the premise, then the data os wrong and either ignored or buried. That's why so many gov't temperature monitors are located on buildings next to air conditioning heat exchangers or in asphalt parking lots. Need to get rid of that pesky, non-conforming data.

Anonymous said...

Okay, I give in! I don't know why my comments aren't coming through ..... I hope at least that the owner of this blog has read what I had to say and that it is food for thought. I shall not trouble this blog with my views any more. BR, Amie

Anonymous said...

No, models are built using the laws of science as a foundation, not designed to support a hypothesis. That is the opposite of the scientific method.

Anonymous said...

And I asked you to explain why the laws of science (chemistry) were not being obeyed in your version of the world.

Anonymous said...

And still no believable answer to my question? In so far - "you must agree that the forest are more dense now a days than in long past history, trees need Co2." What????? "Carbon dating is not true scientific dating of fossil remains -- who said there is artifacts millions of yrs.--maybe just 3 or 4 hundred thousands of yrs." Good grief! And the Earth is 4000 years old I guess? And prior historical anomalies? Usually regional, not global (eg Medieval Warm Period) or the forcing factor can be clearly identified (and is not present today).

Anonymous said...

Ah .... comments have returned :o) Well I won't trouble this blog any more ...... but thank you for allowing me to contribute to the debate.