The incredible power of clouds (and Roy Spencer’s work)

Joint Post by Tony Cox and Jo Nova

Clouds cool the planet as it warms

Clouds cover an enormous 65% of the planet and are responsible for about half of the sunlight that is reflected back out to space.[i]  The effects of clouds are so strong that most of the differences between IPCC-favoured-models comes from the assumptions the models make about clouds. Cloud feedbacks are the “largest source of uncertainty”.[ii] Numerous studies show models project wildly different results for clouds, and yet few could correctly simulate clouds as recorded by satellites.[iii] One researcher described our understanding of cloud parameters as being “still in a fairly primitive state.” [iv]

Sunlight that travels 150 million kilometers can be blocked a mere 1km away from the Earth’s surface and reflected back to space.  The situation is complicated though, because clouds also slow the outgoing radiation — which has a warming effect. In general lower clouds are thicker and have a large cooling effect, while higher clouds are thinner and tend to trap more heat than they reflect (i.e. net warming).  Observations show the cooling effect of clouds dominates the warming effect. (Allen 2011[v]) which means that, in general, more clouds means more cooling.

Clouds provide negative feedback

When cloud changes have been measured, measurements show that, in the short term, as the world warms cloud cover tends to increase.[vi] ,[vii]  Satellites monitor the radiation leaving the top of the atmosphere. During 15 strong swings in temperature, Spencer et al 2007[viii] showed the high ice clouds decreased, allowing more radiation to escape to space. Spencer found a strong negative feedback and concluded that the net effect of clouds is to cool the ocean-atmosphere system during its tropospheric warm phase, and warm it during its cool phase. That is, clouds moderate or dampen temperature movement in either direction. Tropical clouds buffer the world somewhat from sharp temperature shifts.

 

 

Other researchers have found positive feedback when analyzing clouds, but usually focused on a small region of the globe, not on the whole tropical band where the most important effects take place. If clouds provide negative feedback, they will moderate any man-made climate changes.

How could clouds not cause climate change?

It seems hard to believe but the IPCC (and Andrew Dessler in particular) assume clouds respond to climate change, but can’t cause climate change. In other words, they assume there are no other factors which could change cloud cover (and which would therefore force the global temperature up or down). It is well known that assumptions are the mother of all foul-ups, and this one reeks.

Clouds might not just be a negative feedback instead of a positive one, they might be a forcing factor themselves, making all the estimates of climate sensitivity incorrect.

The IPCC models assume that clouds change in response to temperature, so they are a “feedback”.[ix]  In other words, they categorically rule out any possibility that some other factor might change cloud cover, which would in turn, warm or cool the Earth. (Why? Just a convenient assumption.) But if ocean currents or wind patterns changed, that would affect evaporation and cloud formation. If cloud seeding nuclei rose or fell, that too would affect the number of clouds and potentially change our weather.

There is plenty of evidence that other factors affect clouds, and thus could be driving global temperatures, not CO2. For example, cloud seeding particles are formed by cosmic rays[x] which in turn are affected by the solar magnetic field[xi] [xii]. This would explain why river flows correlate with sunspot activity.[xiii] ,[xiv] Sunspots occur when the solar magnetic field is active. Fluxes in the heat content of the ocean, and sea levels also correlate with the solar cycle.[xv] Even 200 years ago, the connection between the sun and wheat prices was notable.[xvi]

Spencer & Braswell use the most simple of models to show that unaccounted forcing factors would make it impossible for the global climate models to estimate feedbacks, and calculate climate sensitivity. [xvii] [xviii] [xix]  They demonstrate that clouds can be a forcing factor as well, and that the IPCC climate models significantly overestimate warming.

Spencer & Braswell demonstrate that it’s very difficult to find definitive feedback signals in a dynamic system that is never at equilibrium. The only feedback they can calculate in their 2008 and 2010 papers is negative and means a climate sensitivity of about 0.6°C for a doubling of CO2, though it’s only applicable over short time-frames. They demonstrate the near impossibility of establishing climate sensitivity over long time frames. But if climate sensitivity to CO2 is as low as they find, and dwarfed by potential cloud forcing, it would mean no postponed effect from CO2. We have had all the effect there is and there will be no stored heat lying dormant to cause future climate change. This would explain Trenberth’s concern, expressed in the CRU e-mails, that the pro-global warming scientists “can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t”.

Spencer & Braswell’s 2011 paper  confirms the difficulty in sorting out what is feedback and what is forcing, finding that it is not possible with current methods to separate the two.  Neither the most nor the least sensitive models could predict the changes in energy before or after changes in temperature.

OTHER INFO

I found the best descriptions of what Spencers’ work means in a document by Ken Gregory: Clouds Have Made Fools of Climate Modelers

 REFERENCES


[i^] IPCC, Assessment Report 4, 2007, Working Group 1, The Physical Science Basis, Chapter 8. [PDF] Page 610  8.3.1.1.2 “The balance of radiation at the top of the atmosphere”

[ii]  IPCC, Assessment Report 4, 2007, Working Group 1, The Physical Science Basis, Chapter 8. [PDF] Page 636  8.6.3.2 “Clouds”

[iii]  Zhang, M.H., Lin, W.Y., Klein, S.A., Bacmeister, J.T., Bony, S., Cederwall, R.T., Del Genio, A.D., Hack, J.J., Loeb, N.G., Lohmann, U., Minnis, P., Musat, I., Pincus, R., Stier, P., Suarez, M.J., Webb, M.J., Wu, J.B., Xie, S.C., Yao, M.-S. and Yang, J.H. 2005. Comparing clouds and their seasonal variations in 10 atmospheric general circulation models with satellite measurements. Journal of Geophysical Research 110: D15S02,

[iv]  Randall, D., Khairoutdinov, M., Arakawa, A. and Grabowski, W. 2003. Breaking the cloud parameterization deadlock. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 84: 1547-1564.

[v]  Allan, R [2011] Combining satellite data and models to estimate cloud radiative effects at the surface and in the atmosphere. University of Reading [Abstract] [Discussion]

[vi] Croke, M.S., Cess, R.D. and Hameed, S. 1999. Regional cloud cover change associated with global climate change: Case studies for three regions of the United States. Journal of Climate 12: 2128-2134

[vii] Herman, J.R., Larko, D., Celarier, E. and Ziemke, J. 2001. Changes in the Earth’s UV reflectivity from the surface, clouds, and aerosols. Journal of Geophysical Research 106: 5353-5368

[viii] Spencer, R.W., Braswell, W.D., Christy, J.R., Hnilo, J. (2007). Cloud and radiation budget changes associated with tropical intraseasonal oscillations. Geophysical Research Letters, 34, L15707, doi:10.1029/2007/GL029698. [PDF]

[ix]  IPCC, Assessment Report 4, 2007, Working Group 1, The Physical Science Basis, Chapter 8. (see 8.6.3.2)  [PDF]

[x] Kirkby, J. et al. (2011) Role of sulphuric acid, ammonia and galactic cosmic rays in atmospheric aerosol nucleation, Nature 476, 429-433 (2011). | Article

[xi]  Svensmark, H. 1998. Influence of cosmic rays on earth’s climate. Physical Review Letters 81: 5027-5030. [Discussion CO2Science]

[xii] Svensmark, H. and Friis-Christensen, E.: Variation of cosmic ray flux and global cloud coverage – a missing link in solar-climate relationships, J. Atmos. Sol. Terr. Phys., 59, 1225–1232, 1997.

[xiii]  Mauas, P., Flamenco, E., Buccino, A.  (2008) “Solar Forcing of the Stream Flow of a Continental Scale South American River”, Instituto de Astronomı´a y Fı´sica del Espacio, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Physical Review Letters 101 [http://www.iafe.uba.ar/httpdocs/reprint_parana.pdf])

[xiv] Alexander, W., Bailey, F., Bredenkamp, B., van der Merwe, A., and Willemse, N. (2007) Journal of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering, Vol. 49 No 2   [PDF]

[xv] Shaviv, N.J. (2008) Using the oceans as a calorimeter to quantify the solar radiative forcing. Journal of Geophysical Research 113: 10.1029/2007JA012989. [CO2 Science discussion]

[xvi] Herschel, W. 1801, in Philosphical Transactions of the Royal Society, London, 265 and 354. (See here, and here)

[xvii]  Spencer, R., and W.D. Braswell. (2008). Potential biases in feedback diagnosis from observations data: a simple model demonstration. Journal of Climate, 21, 5624-5628.

[xviii] Spencer, R.W., and W.D. Braswell, (2010), On the diagnosis of radiative feedback in the presence of unknown radiative forcing, J. Geophys. Res, 115, D16109

[xix]  Spencer, R. W.; Braswell, W.D. (2011) On the Misdiagnosis of Climate Feedbacks from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance, Remote Sens. 2011, 3, 1603-1613. [PDF]



9.3 out of 10 based on 65 ratings

212 comments to The incredible power of clouds (and Roy Spencer’s work)

  • #
    Truthseeker

    CO2 is innocent I tell you … it’s clouds wot dun it!

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    • #
      Popeye

      Truthseeker

      Don’t let the cat out of the bag!

      If the red headed witch finds out it’s the clouds she’ll want to start taxing them as well. I can hear her now – “We don’t want to fall behind the rest of the world – they’re doing it so we’ll have to do our bit & help reduce these damn pesky clouds as well”.

      God knows they need every bit of extra tax revenue they can dream up so The Duck can work his magic and pull a surplus out of his hat come July (ha ha).

      Cheers,

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      • #
        Another Ian

        Definitions needed – this might be a post-modern surplus and a post modern hat

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      • #
        The Moon's a Balloon

        I wish all these pollies would stop this navel gazing and get on with digging the coal/iron/wahtever, and actually encourage industry to MAKE SOMETHING to sell to the World. An economy cannot exists on service based workforce, manufacturing is the only thing to create real wealth, not imaginary “green jobs”.

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      • #
        Hasbeen

        I do hope you’re right about where he might pull any surplus out of.

        I am just a little worried he might be trying to pull it out of the same place he talks out of. If so it might be a bit smelly when he puts it on the table.

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    • #
      Jon

      The one ting that the models are really good at is that they are based on and meant too support the politically decided UN convention on climate change(UNFCCC 1992).

      The big and increasing problem seems to be reality.

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      • #

        World leaders lost contact with reality when they saw “nuclear fires” consume Hiroshima on 6 Aug 1945.

        Out of fear and the instinct of survival, history records these official responses to reality, E = mc^2 after 1945:

        1946: Solar interior changed from iron Fe to hydrogen (H)
        1956: Information on “nuclear fires” on Earth was blocked
        1967: The Bilderberg standard solar model is formulated
        1975: Discovery of local element synthesis in Sun hidden
        1977: The scientist that reported the pulsar Sun vanished
        1983: New evidence of iron(Fe)-rich solar interior ignored
        1993: Possibility of nuclear reactor in Earth’s core ignored
        1995: NASA hides Jupiter data confirming 1983 discovery
        2001: NASA/DOE/NAS ignore neutron repulsion discovery
        2001: 178 SNO scientists report solar neutrino oscillations
        2008: Nature assigns credit for the 1993 concept to others
        2009: Climategate emails and documents reveal deception
        2012: Dr. Peter Gleick’s actions revive memories of 1956

        Good News: We are surrounded with abundant energy.
        Bad News: World leaders lost contact with reality in 1945.

        More details: http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/

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  • #

    No no no everyone knows the evil yoomans done it with their evil industrialisation. Them poor clouds is innocent, I tells ya. /sarcoff

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  • #
    DavidH

    The link to the Ken Gregory document (Clouds Have Made Fools of Climate Modellers) doesn’t work.

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  • #
    rukidding

    If the global temperature is raising would that not mean more evaporation and more rainfall along with more clouds.but it seems none of this is happening.It seems that yearly evaporation from the oceans is remaining constant.Yet along the south west coast of WA there is less rain now then previous so how is this.

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  • #
    TonyfromOz

    What has any of this got to do with electrical theory.

    Nothing some of you may say, and for those from the other side of the fence, I can hear the derisive laughter from here where I sit.

    It’s the oddest thing really, and probably only something an electrically trained person would notice.

    It’s been happening now for the last four to six months, and always aware of derisive laughter, I’ll just stay shtum, but sometimes questions need to be asked if you are to learn anything.

    See it once it’s a coincidence, see it twice it’s puzzling, see it three times it may be a pattern.

    Note the above three graphs are (roughly) sinusoudal in nature. They rise from zero in a curve to the maximum, then back down through zero to the opposite maximum, the same value as for the positive, and then back to zero again.

    The first time I noticed this was with a graph of North Polar Ice coverage. The longer the records are taken, the more sinusoidal it looks.

    Everything with electrical theory on the AC side deals with these sine waves of all shapes, but always sinusoidal.

    It seems that most charts I’m looking at these days are in the form of (rough looking) sine waves.

    Now that really is making me think

    Tony.

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    • #
      Popeye

      Yes Tony,

      I’ve also noticed it on MANY different charts (including the one you quoted re ice cover)

      Anyone with half an ounce of CDF must be able to see that it’s cyclic.

      I also noticed news item today saying that power increases are going to be double what the government fools have predicted – oh, really – we didn’t see that coming did we? (sarc off)

      Cheers mate,

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      • #
        Joe V.

        Indeed Tony, cann’t everything be reduced to the constituent sinusoids that make them up. Fourier analysis. Could there be anything more natural than a sinusiod?
        On the other hand, cann’t everything be reduced to politics too? I don’t know what the expression for that is.

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    • #
      pattoh

      Don’t dare say that Tony.
      It is plainly obvious that a hockey stick fits better with the graphic representation of tan………….

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    • #
      gnome

      Electrically trained, Tony? I have a 14 week old pup and the idea of electrical training is becoming very attractive.

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      • #
        TonyfromOz

        Tut tut now!

        Just stick with the doggie training.

        My electrical training took me one three month and two eight month sessions, and the thing is I’m still learning.

        As I mentioned above, the thing that has made me sit up and take notice is this.

        Sine waves are mathematically perfect throughout the full cycle. They weren’t designed that way. It’s just the way they were, and they didn’t ‘see’ that until they could measure them, and then see them when the CRO came into being.

        As I’ve started to notice recently, even things is nature are beginning to look like they too have a cyclical nature about them that looks remarkably similar to that sine wave. These things I have noticed are not as mathematically perfect, and while they are rough at the edges, there is a striking similarity.

        Tony.

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        • #
          MikeO

          Things are cyclic unless they aren’t many things are, the stock market for instance, it is in how you look at the data. Have you checked for absolute sinusoidal curves? If they are it would be remarkable but where would it lead us.

          Why oh why are there people like Gnome? My very left (was a federal labor minister) brother did that sort of thing to me repeatedly rather than take my views seriously. Five years ago I cut off and find it better not to here from him.

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      • #
        Streetcred

        Nothing that a good large chamois can’t fix … no point in getting angry, just take the pup out at regular intervals and then reward it when it does the business. You’d be amazed how well and quickly this works. Good luck, my ‘little boy’ is now house trained 😉

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        • #
          gnome

          Have no fear- I reserve all my anger for the warmists and we don’t do discipline in this household.

          I do a good line in despair though, having been well trained by the ABC and other catastrophist media.

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    • #
      CameronH

      Tony,
      What this also looks like is the movement of a control parameter around a set point in some type of industrial process. From my years in the Power Industry in the chemical treatment area most parameters will move around their set point within their “deadband” in this way. eg The pH measurement will control the ammonia injection rate and will follow this type of curve.

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    • #
      The Moon's a Balloon

      It’s an “Anomaly” according to Spenser {sic}

      cher amis, the ONLY Anomaly worth hearing is this “Anomaly” ….

      Libra Presents Taylor – Anomaly (Calling Your Name)

      …..nice 8)

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  • #
    Grumpy Old Man

    Why the emotive adjective, “enormous”? 65% is as near as dammit 2/3 of the Earth’s surface, more than half but not meriting enormous. Following the Climastrologist habit of over-dramatising everything surely is not the way to convince Joe Public of the righteousness of our cause?

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  • #
    Andrew

    Great post and good bibliography too. The understanding of negative cloud feedbacks does have intuitive logic. Good to know the empirical data are supportive. Do cosmic rays have a role in seeding the higher thinner clouds as well as the lower, thicker clouds? I’ll have a squiz… Fascinating stuff. Very well put together. Thanks both.

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  • #

    Another great post, Jo!

    As I stated in a comment on your last post, since clouds are not a “variable” in the equation the answer has to be wrong! Yet, the modelers tweak and torture the data in order to achieve a preordained outcome!

    Someday, when someone googles the word hubris they will hopefully see a picture of a GCM modeler next to the word. The picture will probably show the modeler standing in an unemployment line somewhere!

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    • #
      The Black Adder

      The picture will probably show the modeler standing in an unemployment line somewhere!

      Ha, thats a Classic Eddy! 🙂

      Will it be Hansen in that line? Hat in hand, unshaven?

      Or will it be Gleick? Computer in hand, unshaven?

      Or will it be Gore? Nobel Prize in hand, unshaven?

      Personally, bugger the unemployment line, I believe they should all be tried for treason against the prosperity of the human race! Trying to force us back to caves is no form of advancement!

      The scam is slowly coming to an end, I hope!

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  • #
    Twodogs

    I reckon my 5 year old would understand this without explanation. Sometimes things are counter-intuitive, but the requirement for evidence is on those proclaiming as such, not the other way around. It always cools down when the sun goes behind clouds, so where is the evidence to the contrary? Duh! It’s not rocket surgery!!

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  • #
    John from CA

    Natural forcing is very difficult to model. For instance, here’s an interesting natural cloud maker that responds to UV.

    When Sun’s Too Strong, Plankton Make Clouds
    source: http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/0702_planktoncloud.html

    “The plankton try to protect themselves by producing a chemical compound called DMSP, which some scientists believe helps strengthen the plankton’s cell walls. This chemical gets broken down in the water by bacteria, and changes into another substance called DMS.”

    “DMS then filters from the ocean into the air, where it breaks down again to form tiny dust-like particles. These tiny particles are just the right size for water to condense on, which is the beginning of how clouds are formed. So, indirectly, plankton help create more clouds, and more clouds mean that less direct light reaches the ocean surface. This relieves the stress put on plankton by the Sun’s harmful UV rays.”

    “The researchers were also surprised to find that the DMS molecules completely refresh themselves after only three to five days. That means the plankton may react to UV rays quickly enough to impact their own weather. Toole and Siegel were surprised by the lightning-fast rate of turnover for DMS.”

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    • #
      Siliggy

      John from CA
      This other form of biota forming clouds may interest you as well. I think the role of biota in all of this is grossly under estimated.
      http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/life-in-the-clouds/

      How do you like this contrary theory? Most of the longer term but recent changes in CO2 were caused by changes on the sun. While humans have returned some of the CO2 that sank limnic lake style into the mantle and formed abiotic oil to the atmosphere. Most of the change has been due to last century’s solar heating of the oceans. The change in CO2 has a significant effect on biota. There is a heat trapping greenhouse effect near the surface. There is also an effective increase in the radiating surface area of the planet from the atmospheric CO2 radiating directly out to space more efficiently from the density at altitude it has gained. While those two heating/cooling effects of CO2 cancel each other, biota effects are delayed by various time lags. The first effect would be an increase in endothermic photo and chemo-synthesis. These endothermic processes provide rapid cooling but by the time the warming reverse life processes would happen the cloud forming biota has increased natural feedbacks. So CO2 after solar warming boils it out from the oceans (Henry’s law altered by temperature), CO2 has the instant effect of global cooling via endothermic biota followed by countering of temperature extremes through increased cloud forming negative feedback. All this will continue happily unless the world runs out of CO2 because of abiotic oil not being utilized fast enough after solar cooling sucks a large part of the CO2 back into the oceans.
      Expect then less stabilizing negative feedbacks and thus extreme temperatures and weather. The Low CO2 could also cause massive world hunger especially if the agriculture is being used for fuel while the abiotic oil sits and waits to burst out on its own in a polluting rush. All made worse if a few volcanoes fertilize the sea to use up the CO2 via rapid plankton growth etc.

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      • #
        John from CA

        Sometimes it seems that the more we learn, the less we know.

        Thanks Siliggy, very interesting article. The IPCC claims to account for natural Aerosols but, I agree, they are likely to be grossly underestimated.

        10

    • #
      Hesperian

      Who woulda thunk it, whales cause global warming. If it wasn’t for their enormous appetite for plankton, we would have a much larger cloud cover.

      Quick, tell the greenies to sign up as crewmen on the Japanese whaling ships; we have to do our bit for the planet.

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      • #
        John from CA

        LOL

        Decomposing plankton emit CO2. Its interesting how many unintended consequences would occur if the “characters” had been allowed to seed the oceans with iron to promote plankton growth.

        Let’s hope they aren’t allowed to hack the climate until they understand how it actually works.

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  • #
    Michael Larkin

    Thanks for this enlightening post, Jo (and Tony). For the first time, really, it enabled me to grasp what the heck the term “forcing” really means.

    It’s not the first time, though, that one of your posts dealing with the science has expressed something more clearly than anywhere else I’ve found. I think that you’re one of the best science communicators around! 🙂

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  • #
    mkelly

    The situation is complicated though, because clouds also slow the outgoing radiation — which has a warming effect. In general lower clouds are thicker and have a large cooling effect, while higher clouds are thinner and tend to trap more heat than they reflect (i.e. net warming).

    Is the sun warmer because there are planets and moons that revolve around it?

    Please show how the above can happen using radiative heat transfer equations. If the surface is at -18 C then when the clouds get to -18 C heat transfer stops. Heat transfer is based on a difference in temperature. I did not say radiation stops.

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  • #
    Jon

    The ocean and atmosphere cools in the day and keeps it warm in the night.

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  • #
    handjive

    Great post Ms. Jonova & Tony. Clear and well written info & references. Thank you.

    Piers Corbyn predicts severe tornado activity 22nd – 24th April

    Explains cycles, sunspots, jets steams and a cooling planet in 12 minute vid and enjoys a moment of correct forecasts. (10/4/12)

    Batten down in the USA, extreme weather coming your way.

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  • #

    Thanks guys, dare I say it, “I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now”.

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    • #
      cohenite

      Good on you Mottie.

      Basically the information in this post disproves AGW. Of course the pro-AGW scientists know this as the 2nd batch of emails show. In this batch there are clear admissions that the AGW models do not understand clouds and that therefore all conclusions are problematic.

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  • #
    Sonny

    It just amazes me that we need a scientific study to prove the bleeding obvious!
    Clouds of H2O act as insulators far more effectively than H2O molecules act as a greenhouse gas. Clouds stop much of the infrared radiation hitting the surface of the earth. I can prove this!
    So

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  • #
    Sonny

    Let’s see how the CAGW (Cult of Anthropogenic Warming) fan club deals with this post Joe!
    You can bet on one thing – it won’t unhinged their faith one little bit.
    Cue Maxine…

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  • #
    spangled drongo

    Thanks Jo and Tony for a great post.

    It shouldn’t need pointing out that when a moist weather pattern crosses a desert, heat is reduced by the corresponding clouds far more than it is increased by the GHE of that same moisture.

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  • #
    Bulldust

    As someone who spent a fair bit of time studying courses in statistics, econometrics, forecasting and modelling I find it remarkable that some scientists of the climate science variety struggle so with the basic logical concepts of exogeneity and endogeneity (it crops up in other fields as well, e.g. medicine). For a description see:

    http://www-personal.umd.umich.edu/~delittle/Encyclopedia%20entries/Endogenous%20variable.htm

    Short version:
    * Endogenous – a variable that is determined by other states/variables in the system.
    * Exogenous – a variable that is determined by states/variables outside the system.

    Clouds are clearly endogenous to the climate system, with both engoenous and exogenous variables potentially impacting cloud formation, which in turn impact other engodenous variables. To assume, to any degree, that clouds are somehow independent (or exogenous) of other relevent climate variabbles is … well … stupid.

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  • #
    Bulldust

    Meanwhile, and now that I have done my bit to be on topic 🙂 I shall stray:

    http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/asio-eyes-green-groups-20120411-1wsba.html

    It seems the Greens are not happy that ASIO is keeping an eye on the more activist elements of the environmental movement, to make sure they won’t impact vital Australian infrastructure (e.g. electricity plants, and the coal that supplies them).

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    • #
      TonyfromOz

      What these ‘Greens’ fail to realise is that the very first time they do evade detection and actually succeed in shutting down a large scale coal fired power plant, the only thing that will be harmed, (and catastrophically and irreparably harmed) will be their own cause.

      Right from that point, people will see, and see graphically, what life without electrical power would be like.

      The backlash against anything green in nature will be enough to critically damage the cause they perceive is ‘so right’.

      Tony.

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      • #
        The Black Adder

        …evade detection and actually succeed in shutting down a large scale coal fired power plant.

        Hahaha lol Tony!

        The Greens are so useless they…

        – could not do it!

        – have trouble brushing their teeth and hair in the one day, let alone brushing off ASIO!!

        – once out of Nimbin or Byron Bay, would soon get lost on the way to any coal mine!

        – have Bob Brown as leader, followed by Christine Milne, Hansonwhatsher name and ex commie, Lee Stalinsovishch errr, i mean Rhiannon.

        They are a disgrace and anti Australian!
        They got no hope….

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  • #
    handjive

    Joanne Nova gets a mention in this:

    90 year old climate scientist rips into UN IPCC over conflicts of interest

    It is a persistent claim by the IPCC and its supporters that since carbon dioxide is the cause of global warming its increase in concentration before any increase in temperature should be apparent in “proxy” measurements of both these quantities from past geological ages.

    The current evidence is equivocal because of the low accuracy of the measurements, but, as has been recently shown by Joanne Nova , the Vostok and Law Dome ice cores show that the temperature rises before the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration for most of the past 42,000 years.

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      Sonny

      Hmmm “realclimate” is just about as real as an “inconvenient truth” is a truth.

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        • #
          memoryvault

          .
          Maybe it’s because it was set up by, and run by, people with a preconceived bias – like Gavin Schmidt – which some** other people think is unscientific – both the approach, AND the bias.

          .
          ** Like these people from NASA who recently wrote a letter about it – I’m sure you’ve heard:

          1. /s/ Jack Barneburg, Jack – JSC, Space Shuttle Structures, Engineering Directorate, 34 years
          2. /s/ Larry Bell – JSC, Mgr. Crew Systems Div., Engineering Directorate, 32 years
          3. /s/ Dr. Donald Bogard – JSC, Principal Investigator, Science Directorate, 41 years
          4. /s/ Jerry C. Bostick – JSC, Principal Investigator, Science Directorate, 23 years
          5. /s/ Dr. Phillip K. Chapman – JSC, Scientist – astronaut, 5 years
          6. /s/ Michael F. Collins, JSC, Chief, Flight Design and Dynamics Division, MOD, 41 years
          7. /s/ Dr. Kenneth Cox – JSC, Chief Flight Dynamics Div., Engr. Directorate, 40 years
          8. /s/ Walter Cunningham – JSC, Astronaut, Apollo 7, 8 years
          9. /s/ Dr. Donald M. Curry – JSC, Mgr. Shuttle Leading Edge, Thermal Protection Sys., Engr. Dir., 44 years
          10. /s/ Leroy Day – Hdq. Deputy Director, Space Shuttle Program, 19 years
          11. /s/ Dr. Henry P. Decell, Jr. – JSC, Chief, Theory & Analysis Office, 5 years
          12. /s/Charles F. Deiterich – JSC, Mgr., Flight Operations Integration, MOD, 30 years
          13. /s/ Dr. Harold Doiron – JSC, Chairman, Shuttle Pogo Prevention Panel, 16 years
          14. /s/ Charles Duke – JSC, Astronaut, Apollo 16, 10 years
          15. /s/ Anita Gale
          16. /s/ Grace Germany – JSC, Program Analyst, 35 years
          17. /s/ Ed Gibson – JSC, Astronaut Skylab 4, 14 years
          18. /s/ Richard Gordon – JSC, Astronaut, Gemini Xi, Apollo 12, 9 years
          19. /s/ Gerald C. Griffin – JSC, Apollo Flight Director, and Director of Johnson Space Center, 22 years
          20. /s/ Thomas M. Grubbs – JSC, Chief, Aircraft Maintenance and Engineering Branch, 31 years
          21. /s/ Thomas J. Harmon
          22. /s/ David W. Heath – JSC, Reentry Specialist, MOD, 30 years
          23. /s/ Miguel A. Hernandez, Jr. – JSC, Flight crew training and operations, 3 years
          24. /s/ James R. Roundtree – JSC Branch Chief, 26 years
          25. /s/ Enoch Jones – JSC, Mgr. SE&I, Shuttle Program Office, 26 years
          26. /s/ Dr. Joseph Kerwin – JSC, Astronaut, Skylab 2, Director of Space and Life Sciences, 22 years
          27. /s/ Jack Knight – JSC, Chief, Advanced Operations and Development Division, MOD, 40 years
          28. /s/ Dr. Christopher C. Kraft – JSC, Apollo Flight Director and Director of Johnson Space Center, 24 years
          29. /s/ Paul C. Kramer – JSC, Ass.t for Planning Aeroscience and Flight Mechanics Div., Egr. Dir., 34 years
          30. /s/ Alex (Skip) Larsen
          31. /s/ Dr. Lubert Leger – JSC, Ass’t. Chief Materials Division, Engr. Directorate, 30 years
          32. /s/ Dr. Humbolt C. Mandell – JSC, Mgr. Shuttle Program Control and Advance Programs, 40 years
          33. /s/ Donald K. McCutchen – JSC, Project Engineer – Space Shuttle and ISS Program Offices, 33 years
          34. /s/ Thomas L. (Tom) Moser – Hdq. Dep. Assoc. Admin. & Director, Space Station Program, 28 years
          35. /s/ Dr. George Mueller – Hdq., Assoc. Adm., Office of Space Flight, 6 years
          36. /s/ Tom Ohesorge
          37. /s/ James Peacock – JSC, Apollo and Shuttle Program Office, 21 years
          38. /s/ Richard McFarland – JSC, Mgr. Motion Simulators, 28 years
          39. /s/ Joseph E. Rogers – JSC, Chief, Structures and Dynamics Branch, Engr. Directorate, 40 years
          40. /s/ Bernard J. Rosenbaum – JSC, Chief Engineer, Propulsion and Power Division, Engr. Dir., 48 years
          41. /s/ Dr. Harrison (Jack) Schmitt – JSC, Astronaut Apollo 17, 10 years
          42. /s/ Gerard C. Shows – JSC, Asst. Manager, Quality Assurance, 30 years
          43. /s/ Kenneth Suit – JSC, Ass’t Mgr., Systems Integration, Space Shuttle, 37 years
          44. /s/ Robert F. Thompson – JSC, Program Manager, Space Shuttle, 44 years
          45. /s/ Frank Van Renesselaer – Hdq., Mgr. Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters, 15 years
          46. /s/ Dr. James Visentine – JSC Materials Branch, Engineering Directorate, 30 years
          47. /s/ Manfred (Dutch) von Ehrenfried – JSC, Flight Controller; Mercury, Gemini & Apollo, MOD, 10 years
          48. /s/ George Weisskopf – JSC, Avionics Systems Division, Engineering Dir., 40 years
          49. /s/ Al Worden – JSC, Astronaut, Apollo 15, 9 years
          50. /s/ Thomas (Tom) Wysmuller – JSC, Meteorologist, 5 years

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            MattB

            Was that letter about Real Climate?

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            memoryvault

            .
            Given that:

            1) – It was about NASA scientists who make unsubstantiated claims about the effects of CO2 and ignore natural variation, and

            2) – That GISS is part of NASA, and

            3) – That James Hansen and Gavin Schmidt work for GISS and make unsubstantiated claims about the effects of CO2 and ignore natural variation, and

            4) – That Gavin Schmidt set up Real Climate and James Hansen features prominently on it, and principally they use it as a platform to make unsubstantiated claims about the effects of CO2 and ignore natural variation.

            I’d say that would be a “yes”.

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            MattB

            Hansen should reply with a letter requesting NASA stop pretending they went to the moon.

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            memoryvault

            .
            Come on Matty – you can do better.
            Where’s the obvious cultist comeback – “but none of them are REAL climate scientists”.

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            memoryvault

            Hansen should reply with a letter requesting NASA stop pretending they went to the moon.

            Oh noes. The arch anti-conspiracy theorist invokes the conspiracy theory argument.

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            MattB

            An old fave site you guys haven’t abused recently, has a few choice words about this petition:
            http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=1401

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            MattB

            And a handy response from NASA’s chief scientist:
            http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=36679

            “After these studies have met the appropriate standards of scientific peer-review, we strongly encourage scientists to communicate these results to the public.

            “If the authors of this letter disagree with specific scientific conclusions made public by NASA scientists, we encourage them to join the debate in the scientific literature or public forums rather than restrict any discourse.”

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            memoryvault

            .
            Right on cue we get the “but they are not REAL climate scientists” and from where else but John Crook’s Cook’s Septic Science blog.

            After all, it’s not as though any of this was rocket science.

            Oh . . . wait . . .

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            MattB

            I think the moon landing is a valid comparison. Out of the many thousands of NASA employees and ex employees you could probably find a bunch willing to sign a petition that the moon landings must have been faked.

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            memoryvault

            And a handy response from NASA’s chief scientist:

            Errh – hate to break it to you Matty, but he isn’t a REAL climate scientist either.
            So, by your own logic (and John Crook’s Cook’s), what would he know about it?

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            Sonny

            Well, there won’t be any more moon landings, what with all these new fangled taxes and restriction on carbon dioxide.

            Pity really, I wonder what other useful human endeavors will be cease to exist after the regulating class criminalizes CO2 emissions.

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          handjive

          A disclaimer

          Readers of the Feb. 14th, 2005 Wall Street Journal may have gotten the impression that RealClimate is in some way affiliated with an environmental organisation.

          We wish to stress that although our domain is being hosted by Environmental Media Services, and our initial press release was organised for us by Fenton Communications, neither organization was in any way involved in the initial planning for RealClimate, and have never had any editorial or other control over content.

          That’s re-assuring.

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      Sonny

      Matt B, your article doesn’t explore the actual scientific claims made but instead resorts to the following kind of rubbish…

      But what makes a paper ‘bad’ though? It is certainly not a paper that simply comes to a conclusion that is controversial or that goes against the mainstream, and it isn’t that the paper’s conclusions are unethical or immoral. Instead, a ‘bad’ paper is one that fails to acknowledge or deal with prior work, or that makes substantive errors in the analysis, or that draws conclusions that do not logically follow from the results, or that fails to deal fairly with alternative explanations (or all of the above). Of course, papers can be mistaken or come to invalid conclusions for many innocent reasons and that doesn’t necessarily make them ‘bad’ in this sense.
      So where does S&B11 fall on this spectrum?

      Page 1 of 3 | Next page

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        MattB

        it is a follow up to the other RC link that more directly addresses the paper. And the Dessler paper in Deltoid… sorry you can’t bluff the way aout by quoting an intro paragraph.

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        BobC

        I see MattB is recycling the claim that critics aren’t “climate scientists”.

        Just to note:

        James Hansen’s degrees are in astronomy and physics

        Gavin Schmidt’s training is in applied mathematics.

        The head of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri, is a mechanical and industrial engineer.

        I breathlessly await MattB’s condemnation of these individuals’ qualifications to speak about “Climate Change”.

        ***************
        And, as for this description of “bad” scientific papers (linked by MattB, of course):

        Instead, a ‘bad’ paper is one that fails to acknowledge or deal with prior work, or that makes substantive errors in the analysis, or that draws conclusions that do not logically follow from the results, or that fails to deal fairly with alternative explanations (or all of the above).

        By these criteria, Einstein’s 1905 paper on Special Relativity would be classified as “bad”.

        These lists of criteria to label papers as “Bad” (or science as “Junk”) are simply ways that those (like MattB) who are not able to argue the merits of the science try to divert the argument. Another tactic is to try to define those who are skeptical of the politically correct attitudes as mentally deficient or even mentally ill, which we have seen tried several times lately.

        When someone tries so desperately NOT to argue the science, it is probably because they know they would lose that argument.

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          MattB

          I’ve not recycled that claim. It is a line in one of the links but not important to me.

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          MattB

          Please BobC don’t leave us guessing. Just why would the paper that founded modern physics be “bad”. Or is it just a baseless throw away line?

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            Matt,

            Are you a little short on sleep today?

            BobC quotes the paper amd cites their criteria. He then writes that applying those criteria would mean Einstein would not have been published!

            Einstein did not acknowledge or deal with others work, he refuted and disproved it!

            When confronted by one hundred authors against Einstein he responded, “If I were wrong, then one would have been enough!”

            Einstein challenged the scientific consensus and was vindicated. Today, a handful of brave souls challenge the scientific consensus against the CAGW hypothesis.

            After reading the climate gate emails there is no doubt that the climate cabal at NASA, GISS and the UEA have conspired to prevent the publication of anyone who disagrees with them.

            Why? Two simple reasons: pride and greed!

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            BobC

            MattB
            April 13, 2012 at 12:28 am · Reply
            Please BobC don’t leave us guessing. Just why would the paper that founded modern physics be “bad”.

            “us”? — is there a mouse in your pocket? Actually, MattB, it’s not that hard to leave you guessing, especially given your inability to research anything by yourself.

            Here’s the answer:

            Einstein’s 1905 paper “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” is “bad” by the quoted definition because:

            1) Einstein “fails to acknowledge or deal with prior work”. In fact, Einstein had no references at all in his paper. He refers to “Lorentzian equations” and “Maxwell-Hertz” equations, but fails to reference Lorentz’s published work on the subject, and completely ignores the modified Maxwell equations that Hertz published in 1892, which already solved the basic problem Einstein’s paper sought to solve. Additionally, he doesn’t even mention Neumann or Gauss.

            The failure to even reference Lorentz’s or Hertz’s work (much less to discuss them) also counts as:

            2) “…fails to deal fairly with alternative explanations”.

            (Oh, and the paper wasn’t peer reviewed.)

            Note that the definition of “bad science” was concocted especially to attack AGW skeptics without having to actually address scientific issues and thus has absolutely no relationship to what actually constitutes good or bad science or scientific papers.

            Or is it just a baseless throw away line?

            No MattB — that’s your speciality.

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            Mark D.

            Nice smackdown BobC, Mattyb has been unusually prickish lately and I believe the reprobate deserved this.

            Thanks!

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            TonyfromOz

            BobC,

            if I may be so bold,

            The failure to even reference Lorentz’s or Hertz’s work (much less to discuss them) also counts as:

            That’s odd, the only thing I thought Lorenz Hart wrote was Blue Moon, Bewithched Bothered and Bewildered, With A Song In My Heart, The Lady Is A Tramp etc etc.

            Nyuk nyuk nyuk!

            Tony.

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          MattB

          I like that you focus on the referencing aspect… and to be honest I can’t comment on referencing in the early 20th century, rather than worry about the key ones:
          “makes substantive errors in the analysis, or that draws conclusions that do not logically follow from the results”.

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            So, Matt, what would those “substantive errors in the analysis and conclusions that do not logically follow from the results” happen to be? I would be grateful if you could provide us with one of your in depth, “cut and paste” free analysis.

            Please, Matt, I need a good laugh?!

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            MattB

            Eddy – I honestly find it amusing that you’d rather I told you rather than actual real scientists!

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            BobC

            MattB
            April 13, 2012 at 11:48 pm
            Eddy – I honestly find it amusing that you’d rather I told you rather than actual real scientists!

            I’m an ‘actual real scientist’, MattB: (peer-reviewed papers, conference talks and all that) — so tell me.

            I’m sure Eddy will be amused.

            I’m comfortable with letting Eddy respond for me: I’m packing the computer up now as the painters are coming.

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            I am curious as to whether or not you are capable of forming a nuanced, cogent argument? Are you capable of critical analysis? Your usual illogical argument from authority is getting quite boring.

            Again, Matt, what would those “substantive errors in the analysis and conclusions that do not logically follow from the results” happen to be?

            On those rare occasions when you cite a paper or post a link it is usually accompanied by your standard “cut and paste” regurgitation. Then, when backed into a corner and pressed upon you vanish like a fart in a whirlwind only to reappear later and repeat the same pattern of mediocre debate.

            So, Matt, the gauntlet has been laced across your face. Are you going to get up off of the debate floor and answer the challenge or are you going to lay there and bleed?

            Come on, Matt, embrace the pain, it is your only hope for enlightenment!

            I await your vapid response!

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            Sonny

            That kind of turned me on a little. When the big boys on this site mean business.

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            Hey BobC,

            I hope the painting of the house is going well!

            I am still waiting on MattB. While on the subject of painting, do you think Matt ate too many lead based paint chips as a child?

            Thanks for entrusting me with the task of take out your intellectual garbage responding to MattB. I am honored to do so. I take my responsibilities seriously; I only wish Matt would reciprocate! Do you think he has grown weary of the intellectual ass whippings he constantly receives on this site? After all, in most cases, a glutton for punishment is inevitably satiated!

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            MattB

            Look Eddy – I could rehash a point or two, or I could link *again* to Real Climate where the world’s leading climate scientists have done the job for me: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/07/misdiagnosis-of-surface-temperature-feedback/

            It is a lot easier for folks like you, eddy, to post your own words as you are singing form a well rehearsed and memorised collective songbook of pseudoscientific dribble.

            The Spencer paper has been trashed, the editor resigned out of embarrassment he published it, peer reviewed rebuttals exist, and you wont listen to any of those, so why would you listed to me?

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            So, Matt, you are incapable of thinking for yourself?! You did exactly what I thought you would do, post a link and advise me to read it.

            Try and grow a pair, Matt!

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            MattB

            When confronted with science, your only option is to make some base reference to masculinity. pathetic really.

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            BobC

            Thanks, Eddy. Yes, the painting is going well, and I am set up in the (unfinished) basement, where my computer is, by some miracle, still connecting to the WiFi 3 floors up (I live in a townhouse).

            Of course Matt can’t think for himself, that’s why he always references RealClimate where they tell you what to think, and the readership simply accepts it meekly.

            MattB’s link is a particularly pathetic example of RealClimate ‘logic’ at work: They admit that Spencer is right that, over 100 years, large unphysical flux errors build up in the models —

            BUT, they say, if you re-set the models every 10 years, the errors are much smaller! One wonders why they didn’t take it the next logical step and re-set them every year and get even smaller errors?

            It apparently never occurs to them (or their sheep-like readership) that this is equivalent to admiting that the models can’t predict anything accurately for more than 10 years.

            Actual empirical tests of climate models show that even this is overly optimistic.

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            When confronted with science, your only option is to make some base reference to masculinity. pathetic really.

            When confronted with a request to discuss the science, or the lack thereof, your only option is to cut, paste and regurgitate! Beyond pathetic!

            Hey BobC, glad to learn that the painting is coming along so well.

            I sent Matt some smart pills. He told me that they taste like rabbit turds. I told him he was getting smarter already! Poor MattB! The only thing he has proven is that P.T. Barnum was right, there is a warmist sucker born every minute and there is a climate scientist someone there to take him!

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            MattB

            So Eddy where is the independent research you’ve been pumping out yourself?

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            BobC

            MattB
            April 16, 2012 at 9:48 am
            So Eddy where is the independent research you’ve been pumping out yourself?

            Really pathetic Matt — Most people learn better come-backs than that in grade school.

            It is a lot easier for folks like you, eddy, to post your own words as you are singing form a well rehearsed and memorised collective songbook of pseudoscientific dribble.

            (So, why don’t you know the counter-melody yet?)

            No, it’s a lot easier for us because we understand what we are talking about, we can back up our statements with empirical fact, and we’re not trying to support a set of falsified hypotheses with logical fallacies that were tired a century ago.

            Also, we don’t claim to know everything which, for some inexplicable reason, convinces you that we are wrong. Perhaps you were just born to be conned.

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            Matt,

            When I comment on the science I post a link and discuss the topic at hand.

            A perfect example is located on Jo’s last post. Your wingman KR went down in flames. At least he had the intestinal fortitude to try and mount some kind of an argument.

            Not so you, Matt! You post a link to RC or skeptical sciences and we are all supposed to take a knee in awe. Your standard operating procedure is to cut, paste and regurgitate and then run and hide behind an appeal to authority. This is occasionally punctured by your feeble attempts at comedy. Every time you tangle with BobC, Baa, Cohenite or any of the other regulars you ALWAYS get your intellectual ass blistered. Perhaps you can cite one exception?

            If I sang from a hymnal I would be a brain dead CAGW zombie like you, Matt! Pseudoscientific dribble? Name one time where we tangled where I did not mop the debate floor with your worthless hide?! If you had any talent we would have witnessed it by now. You don’t have any which is why the best you can do is write “a scientists says it is true!” Yet, you can never explain why! So, Matt, I would suggest you lay there and bleed a while before you taste some real pain! And if you don’t think you can experience what you once termed a “Pinkerton moment” then you had better think again.

            We will see you after you get back from your next brainwashing session. Best regards to your handlers.

            By the way, Matt, if they are so “right” then why don’t they have the guts to show up on this site and give us a lesson in humility? I would imagine they are as incapable of engaging in debate as you are, Matt!

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            MattB

            Eddy I honestly can’t recall a single post where you have even delved remotely in to science. Your modus operendii is to bluster in like some drunk at the sports bar backing up BobC, Cohers or whoever else it is that has a vague clue at that point of time. You’re like a bad warm-up act, or the voice over who encourages the crowd to cheer at the BasketBall when the team is down by 30 points with a quarter to go.

            You may not like it but I see my role here as simply providing, for the most part, links to counter arguments to those championed here, hoping that some may follow to at least see what the climate science community is actually saying (rather than what someone here thinks they are saying). Hoping that they don’t all fall for the Eddy Loveable Drunk routine of boistrous backslapping.

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            Eddy I honestly can’t recall a single post where you have even delved remotely in to science.

            That is because you suffer from short term memory loss. From my post right above yours:

            A perfect example is located on Jo’s last post. Your wingman KR went down in flames. At least he had the intestinal fortitude to try and mount some kind of an argument.

            If you would have clicked on your back browser button you would’ve been able to read the exchange between KR and myself. As usual, you’re just too lazy.

            It amazes me how you have all the time in the world to make idiotic statements as you did at 3:59 PM. Yet, you never have the time it takes to debate or even form a cogent thought?

            I will ask you again, Matt, Show me one exchange between us on any thread on any post where you “won”?

            As far as backing up my fellow regulars on this site allow me to respond: I do and I am proud of it! There has been many a time when I was asleep and they had my back. I am more than happy to reciprocate!

            Matt, you wrote:

            I like that you focus on the referencing aspect… and to be honest I can’t comment on referencing in the early 20th century, rather than worry about the key ones:
            makes substantive errors in the analysis, or that draws conclusions that do not logically follow from the results”.

            You have all the time for your idiotic throw away one liners and you have time to cut and paste but you cannot find the time to tell us what those errors are! Whats the matter, Matt, couldn’t you find something to cut and paste? You write that I have not delved into the science? Wow! Coming from a mental slug like you I find that almost amusing! Again, Matt, hit the back browser button to Jo’s last post and then get back to me with an apology.

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            BobC

            MattB
            April 16, 2012 at 3:59 pm

            You may not like it but I see my role here as simply providing, for the most part, links to counter arguments to those championed here, hoping that some may follow to at least see what the climate science community is actually saying (rather than what someone here thinks they are saying).

            So — your role is to provide links to arguments that we are all familiar with, which are based on unverified theory and tweaked models which have shown no predictive skill, and furthermore have been debunked multiple times on this blog; Both by the main posts and in the comments, and with empirical data, not more theories.

            That’s even dumber than I would have guessed — but I’ll take your word for it.

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      memoryvault

      .
      So, the Editor of a science journal publishes a peer-reviewed paper, all done in accordance with the accepted practices. The paper is critical of the findings of “The Team”. “The Team” howl loudly in protest. The Editor, desperate to stay onside with “The Team”, takes one for “The Cause” and falls on his sword.

      And this is all relevant because . . . .

      Let’s not dwell on the fact that the generally accepted thrust of the Spencer – Braswell paper, was to quote from your link “Climate models get energy balance wrong, make too hot forecasts of global warming“.

      Which is, of course, merely observable fact, definitely NOT to be confused with climate science, which has zero tolerance for “facts”.

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      Robert

      So NASA’s Chief Scientist hmmmm? Don’t you mean GISS’ Chief Scientist? NASA has quite a few scientists, is Hansen the boss of all of them or just the Climastrology group?

      By they way why does he say this:

      If the authors of this letter disagree with specific scientific conclusions made public by NASA scientists, we encourage them to join the debate in the scientific literature or public forums rather than restrict any discourse.

      When he and Gavin don’t have any problem at all with “restricting any discourse” if THEY don’t like it.

      What a hypocritical POS he is, and you think he’s someone to listen to?

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        MattB

        It’s not from Hansen. It is from NASA’s chief scientist. “NASA Chief Scientist Waleed Abdalati ” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waleed_Abdalati

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          Robert

          Regarding his statement:

          If the authors of this letter disagree with specific scientific conclusions made public by NASA scientists, we encourage them to join the debate in the scientific literature or public forums rather than restrict any discourse.

          The only thing that his not being Hansen changes is that this:

          When he and Gavin don’t have any problem at all with “restricting any discourse” if THEY don’t like it.

          What a hypocritical POS he is, and you think he’s someone to listen to?

          becomes this:

          When he, Hansen, and Gavin don’t have any problem at all with “restricting any discourse” if THEY don’t like it.

          What a hypocritical POS he is, and you think he’s someone to listen to?

          He may have the title Chief Scientist, but all he is showing himself to be is the head tool afraid to question the party line. Much like you are a tool afraid to question the party line.

          Useful fools, the party needs you.

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    Joe's World

    Jo,

    Again, planetary rotation is NOT included, nor is the shape of the planet and the angles of solar radiation to the different angles going from equator to poles.
    This still assumes our planet is stationary and a cylinder!

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      Sonny

      That’s Probably the kinds of assumptions required for the calculations to be tractable.
      In other words we cannot model the world accurately and predict the climate response to CO2.
      But wait! We can if we treat science like some cheap marketing brand and only have to fool politicians and te public for long enough to get our piece of the pie!

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    […] Jo Nova Share this:PrintEmailMoreStumbleUponTwitterFacebookDiggRedditLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. This entry was posted in Climate Change and tagged climate research, climate science. Bookmark the permalink. ← Roy W. Spencer: USHCN Surface Temperatures, 1973-2012: Dramatic Warming Adjustments, Noisy Trends […]

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    Skeptical people should take the time to read the criticisms of Spencer’s paper, which are fairly thorough. Spencer and Braswell 2011 failed to prove it’s point, partly because it cherry-picked the data to arrive at a desired conclusion. I’m not saying they couldn’t do a better job if they tried again, and maybe prove their point. I’m saying they didn’t. They tried to use a shortcut, and as a result the paper is a waste of everyone’s time.

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    BobC

    MattB
    April 12, 2012 at 7:16 pm
    I think the moon landing is a valid comparison. Out of the many thousands of NASA employees and ex employees you could probably find a bunch willing to sign a petition that the moon landings must have been faked.

    I used to spend a fair amount of time debunking the various arguments that the “Landers” make, such as “No stars in the pictures taken on the Moon prove they were taken in a studio”, when exactly the opposite is true — basic optical and camera science (and simple experiments you can do yourself) demonstrate that IF stars WERE in the NASA moon pictures then THAT would be proof they were faked.

    I never encountered an actual working scientist (in any field) who believed the Moon landings were faked — they were always people totally unsophisticated in science (like our MattB) who went for this stuff.

    The former NASA scientists who signed the petition have resumes that put to shame some of those whose opinions are favored by the warmists, such as Gavin Schmidt (applied mathematician) or Rajendra Pachauri (industrial engineer). The only real criteria used by MattB, SkepticalScience, RealClimate, et. al., is to have the politically correct opinion.

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      Llew Jones

      If you observe carefully or even casually they are all without exception first and foremost environmental activists e.g. the semi paranoid, self appointed, coal hating, planet saviour, James Hansen. That sort of unhinged activism undergirds their political correctness, not science, which makes their opinions on Earth’s climate scientifically suspect.

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    TonyfromOz

    The only real criteria used by MattB, SkepticalScience, RealClimate, et. al., is to have the politically correct opinion.

    Tony.

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    John from CA

    NASA: Global Climate Change
    http://climate.nasa.gov/uncertainties/

    Climate Uncertainties Page includes:
    – Solar Irradiance
    – Aerosols, dust, smoke, and soot
    – Clouds
    – Carbon cycle
    – Ocean circulation
    – Precipitation
    – Sea level rise

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      Lou

      Typical talking points. I wonder if this is JohnD from Science Guy blog that seems to come up with useless talking points about nothing.

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        John from CA

        Got me confused with someone else Lou. Also, I directly quoted from NASA’s climate site so you should bring the “Typical talking points” issue up with them.

        Clouds. Clouds have an enormous impact on Earth’s climate, reflecting back into space about one third of the total amount of sunlight that hits the Earth’s atmosphere. As the atmosphere warms, cloud patterns may change, altering the amount of sunlight absorbed by the Earth. Because clouds are such powerful climate actors, even small changes in average cloud amounts, locations, and type could speed warming, slow it, or even reverse it. Current climate models do not represent cloud physics well, so the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has consistently rated clouds among its highest research priorities. NASA and its research partners in industry, academia, and other nations have a small flotilla of spacecraft and aircraft studying clouds and the closely related phenomenon of aerosols.

        Aerosols, dust, smoke, and soot. These come from both human and natural sources. They also have very different effects on climate. Sulfate aerosols, which result from burning coal, biomass, and volcanic eruptions, tend to cool the Earth. Increasing industrial emissions of sulfates is believed to have caused a cooling trend in the Northern Hemisphere from the 1940s to the 1970s. But other kinds of particles have the opposite effect. The global distribution of aerosols has only been tracked for about a decade from the ground and from satellites, but those measurements cannot yet reliably distinguish between types of particulates. So aerosol forcing is another substantial uncertainty in predictions of future climate.

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    Myrrh

    More radiation silliness from Spencer living in his AGWScienceFiction world with empty space for an atmosphere and no convection..

    Try putting back the Water Cycle. It’s completely missing from the fictional fisics world of AGW!

    Think desert – without water our Earth, our real Earth, would be around 67°C. The Water Cycle, of which carbon dioxide is part and parcel, cools the Earth.

    All pure clean rain is carbonic acid and so carbon dioxide doesn’t ‘accumulate in the atmosphere for hundreds and thousands of years, which it can’t do anyway because it’s heavier than air.

    There is no ‘greenhouse gases warm the earth 33°C’, it’s an illusion created by taking out the Water Cycle.

    The whole thing is a scam. Designed to be that from the beginning by creating a fictional world of fictional properties with it’s own fictional fisics.

    Why are you playing their game?

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      The Moon's a Balloon

      as was said on another thread …..

      As Miatello points out,
      “The vacuum space is neither cold nor hot, being void of all molecules/atoms (or almost void) and as such has no temperature. Then, you can clearly see the aftermath of Roy Spencer’s wrong idea of ‘cold’ vacuum outer space.”

      Alberto Miatello’s Full Paper (PDF)

      Further analysis by John O’Sullivan

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        Myrrh

        Thank you, I’ve read Latour’s No Virginia. In which, I now decided, he was too polite about the ‘generalisation of climate scientists’.

        These are people who are considered able to think logically and at a high level in science, yet Spencer et al continue to argue against basic well-known traditional physics of properties and processes like tantrumming seven year olds.

        It’s the dumming down of science for children that is the consequence and the deliberate agenda of those who first promoted this fictional fisics, easier than burning all the books and killing all the teachers. Take over the production of infant and primary school teachers and in a generation you have the masses to PhD spouting science gibberish, like visible light heating oceans [water is a transparent medium for visible], and the real heat direct from the Sun which is the thermal infrared not even reaching the surface… And the silly empty space atmosphere Spencer keeps pushing where there is no convection because they’ve declared all real gases with volume, weight and attraction don’t exist [substituting the imaginary ideal gas and its formula, hard dots with no attraction speeding at vast rates through empty space thoroughly mixing by bouncing off each other and able to defy gravity, because they have no gravity in their empty space ideal gas illusion]. Of course they have no water cycle..

        People like Spencer and Monckton are bottom line part of the problem not the solution, they give credibility to AGW by giving this fictional fisics credibility. The fictional fisics paradigm needs to be exposed for the general population to see how they’ve been manipulated and their science education dumbed down by those who think themselves the ‘elite’.

        I noticed on one public school site [English public school, i.e. private fee paying], that the science they were testing on did not include real physics of molecules and convection, which was instead being comprehensively taught but not tested on. Their children will still understand that there’s an ocean of heavy voluminous gas above us subject to gravity and not the empty space troposphere AGWfisics of ideal gases in a container..

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    pat

    meanwhile…

    13 April: Australian: Giles Parkinson: International carbon trading firms queue ahead of tax launch in Australia
    ANOTHER significant move ahead of the carbon price has come from the creation of Australia’s first low-carbon portfolio strategy, completed after 18 months of research by Industry Funds Management and launched with an initial $100 million mandate from Hesta…
    The launch of the strategy comes as international consulting groups such as KPMG and Mercer suggest that climate and carbon issues will become increasingly important for investors in managing risk. KPMG identifies climate change as one of 10 mega-forces investors would need to deal with in the next two decades, while Mercer suggests in a study that the procedures for managing climate change and technology risk within most investment funds are completely inadequate.
    Mercer suggested last year that asset owners will need to migrate up to 40 per cent of their portfolio towards “climate-sensitive investments” to capture the upside of policy changes. In an update published in February, it found that half the funds surveyed decided to include climate change considerations in future risk-management and-or strategic asset allocation processes…
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/international-carbon-trading-firms-queue-ahead-of-tax-launch-in-australia/story-e6frg8zx-1226325273975

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      TonyfromOz

      What pat says here is interesting.

      What absolutely astounds me is that surely someone must be able to see what is going to happen here.

      A large emitting entity, and as an example, I’ll use the constant I always have used that of Macquarie Generation, operators of Bayswater and Liddell.

      They have an implication of almost 21 Million tonnes of CO2 emissions, so there’s 21 million credits at $23, hence a cost to them of around $480 Million.

      Some of that they will have to absorb themselves, but the bulk of it will be passed down to consumers of electrical power everywhere.

      When the ETS comes into play, the cap will be lowered hence they can emit less CO2.

      Power demand will still be the same, so the plants will still have to supply the electricity they always have supplied to keep Eastern Australia running, hence emissions will stay constant.

      The cap now lowered, they then have to purchase extra credits at the most recent auction selling price, and even a fool can see that the sellers can artificially force up the price at that most recent auction, knowing that emitting entities will soon be screaming for them.

      On top of that they then have to pay the fine of 1.5 times the cost of those extra credits, and their next years cap is lowered.

      Can no one see how all that will happen here is that Mac Gen will very quickly go under, ceasing operations and stopping the production of vast amounts of electrical power, because none of those additional extras can be passed on.

      What happens then is that MacGen sells their remaining credits, flooding the market, and driving down the price, because this isn’t a few credits here and there, it’s millions and in fact a good percentage of the overall total of those credits.

      All that happens then is that up to one quarter of the power that drives Eastern Australia is removed from the grids, and imagine the chaos that will cause.

      All that WILL remain is a bunch of now virtually worthless credits, just pieces of paper in reality.

      Now perhaps you can see why the Government has in place in their Legislation specific provisions to keep those plants in operation. These provisions are not designed to actually lower emissions, but to ensure the income from those plants, in the cost of credits, the cost of extra credits, the cost of the fines, and the lowering of the cap, which ensures even more money comes in the following year.

      To inject some humour, a man on a railway station bails up another man to mug him. He says …..”I have this mechanism, so you better pay up.”

      The man being bailed up (coincidentally, the erstwhile Doctor Smith) reaches into his attache case and removes something, replying to the masked assailant, “that’s not a mechanism. This is a mechanism”.

      Tony.

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    incoherent rambler

    I am not old enough to know if the science community has ever got this right, but I once assumed that somebody with the title of “professor” was very knowledgeable in their field.
    It would seem that today (aided by the internet) that one can quickly find a “researcher” and a “professor” who will support ANY crackpot a-scientific idea that you care to name.
    Worse, some of these guys reside at our most prestigious universities.
    What they claim as fact or theory is usually an idea (not even hypothesis) that has no science, empirical support, metrics or mathematics to support it.
    Some distinguished NASA scientists clearly believe that crackpotism will damage the NASA reputation. So I guess they believe that in the near term that the crackpot science will be publicly exposed (by an unwilling media).
    It seems that our academics have found that spin produces more funding than truth.

    This, I think is the underlying problem.
    This is why CAGW has legs.

    Apart from encouraging universities and CSIRO to dump deceptive lying charlatans, how do we solve the problem?

    In the small IT world, my experience with Y2K was that anyone who suggested that Y2k was overblown hype was quickly looking for a career in another field. I presume similar pressures exist regarding AGW. Better to pay the mortgage and be silent.

    How do we solve the problem, so that the next scam on the horizon does not even begin?

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      The Moon's a Balloon

      The Police Fraud Squad needs to get educated, do some investigating in a timely fashion, and then actually enforce the law of Fraud, and get people into Court so as Judges can JAIL THOSE FRAUDSTERS !!!!!

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    BREAKING NEWS

    Bob Brown Has resigned as the leader of the Australian Greens Party and will also resign from the senate.

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      MattB

      Huge act to follow.

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        Bulldust

        “Act” … good choice of words.

        It’s a good move because the Greens aren’t likely to have the balance of power again for years to come, and hopefully less seats now that people have seen what having them in power costs the nation. He is going out on a high that is unlikely to be replicated by that party for a long time to come.

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          Llew Jones

          Also the new Green’s leader, because of her arrogant and economy destroying views on the future of manufacturing is a lot easier person to dislike intensely than the “Earthian” former leader.

          He is possibly mildly bonkers. Given her ascension speech she is out to make the rest of Australia as economically backward as the basket case Tasmania she helped to produce.

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        TonyfromOz

        Huge act to follow.

        I see MattB’s still trying to break into his new role of ‘stand up comic’.

        Tony.

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        The Black Adder

        What act? Being a pansy!!

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      memoryvault

      .
      Time to get into popcorn futures – OZ politics just got interesting again.

      Christine Milne may be Brown’s “Anointed One”, but Lee Rhiannon has never made any bones about her desire/intention to lead the Greens. She knew she could never take the leadership off old Brownshirt, but Ms Milne is another matter.

      Methinks we are about to see a rerun of when Don Chip handed the Democrats over to the ladies.
      I don’t think it will be long before the claws come out and the fur starts flying.

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        TonyfromOz

        Senators are appointed for six years, hence Half Senate Elections at each Reps Election

        Bob Brown was due to come up for re-election at the next election 2013. (or hopefully sooner)

        Bob’s replacement only gets to sit for the remaining duration Brown has.

        Bob would have a (very) large personal following in Tassie, and would be assured of re-election.

        The replacement however will not have Brown’s huge personal following, so he/she now comes back to the average Greens vote percentage.

        Oddly, Milne got her quota more easily than Brown did at the 2007 election, and Bob only just made the quota.

        If (big if, I know) the Greens vote falls over, as evidenced in the recent Queensland election, then that replacement may have to rely on preferences to reach that quota.

        Now think about NSW and Bob Carr, who replaced Mark Arbib, who was due for re-election also at the next Reps Half Senate, so Bob Carr comes up for election at that next election.

        Three Labor Senators are due for re-election at that next election, so placement on the Labor ticket here looks to be problematic for the ALP.

        Where do they put Bob Carr on the ticket because they are looking like dead set certs to lose that third Senate seat, so being placed third on that ticket would virtually ensure loss of their seat.

        The other two due for election are Doug Cameron, and Ursula Stephens.

        I cannot imagine the ALP putting Carr at number three, and good luck even attempting to place Cameron at three, so it looks like Ursula Stephens, now ten years a Senator, will be at three, and will probably lose.

        Want to ball park a little here. Watch for Ursula Stephens resigning in the lead up to the election, you know, to be with family, time to change to younger people etc, either way of no consequence at all because Number Three on the ALP ticket is a no win situation, and surprisingly here, this situation will ensure that The Greens will NOT win a Senate seat in NSW at that next election.

        I feel sure that Bob Brown may in fact have had that writing on the wall moment, because it just seems odd that he is resigning now, when he has never had so much power.

        The luckiest thing that The Greens ever had was the result of the last Half Senate, because at least after the next election they will have five Senators who are not up for re-election.

        The Greens have three Senators up for re-election and Tasmania is probably their best bet, even with the new replacement.

        Ludlam in WA only got in after exhaustive preference distribution, as did Hanson-Young in SA, both of whom did not make a full quota on the primary vote, and if The Greens Vote is down, then the fight will probably be between the Greens and a third Labor senator.

        If that happens, and the Coalition vote holds, then The Greens will not have that balance of power.

        With Labor and The Greens going backwards, then control of the Senate looks likely to fall into the Coalition’s hands, and the full repeal of those 18 (19) pieces of Carbon Dioxide legislation looks more and more likely.

        Again ballpark, but look for Labor to find any excuse they can to call a Double Dissolution, which would limit their losses in the Senate, ensuring at least some of their senior Senators get back in, and to get back at The Greens who would only get the one Quota in (maybe) six States, and fight to get the extra one in Tassie, now without Bob Brown.

        Bob, if nothing, actually looks like he has done his sums here. His day in the Sun has a very short time left to run, and why would he go back to being an also ran voice in the Senate, when there’s all that yummy Super waiting for him as a long serving Senator and as an ex Party leader.

        As memoryvault says, Oz politics just got interesting again, and popcorn futures are indeed looking good.

        Tony.

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          Rereke Whakaaro

          Nice piece of analysis Tony.

          I propose we keep this scenario, see how it plays out, and use it as the basis of a postmortem after Australia gets around to going back to the polls.

          I am a little more pessimistic than you – but that probably means I am not disappointed as often. 🙂

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          The Moon's a Balloon

          I prefer not to call them the “Greens”, instead I use the phrase as coined by David Icke of the Isle of Wight, UK. He has called them the “Traffic Light Tendency”. They are “The Greens who are too Yellow to admit that they are really Reds” …. 😆

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        Bob Malloy

        May Christine show the same ineptitude displayed by Meg Lees and lead the greens to the same political heights now enjoyed by the Democrats.

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      Bulldust

      Meanwhile The Oz claims carbon tax litigation momentum is building, but it could all be a bit of chest-thumping for CoAG:

      http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/state-support-grows-for-carbon-tax-challenge/story-e6frg6xf-1226325588319

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        Catamon

        Please Please Please, will someone do a High Court Challenge to the Carbon Price and MRRT bills!!!

        Clive Palmer and the Premiers have chickened out. Who will save us and get some pertinent questions settled that the state Premiers seem to be backing away from????

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    Bob Brown resigning and not serving full term?

    A bit like the Greens opposing large donations to political parties, but then receiving the largest single donation to a political party in Oz history.

    A bit like Bob Brown saying he opposes preference deals, but then the Greens doing a preference deal with Labor, resulting in the election of that Green putz Adam Brandt.

    Make no mistake, Brown was pushed. He was always going to retire at the end of his term, however his rantings about One World Government etc caused a fair bit of damage to Browns credibility and to the Greens.
    Expect no more talk of One World Government from the Greens new leader Christina Milne.

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      John Brookes

      Bob Brown ranting about One World Government? Has he been talking to you guys?

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      Expect no more talk of One World Government from the Greens new leader Christina Milne.

      Yep, back underground it goes – back to its previous status of, “the outcome that cannot be mentioned”.

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      Speedy

      This was written just after the first lot of Queensland floods, last year. And a warm welcome to Christine…

      If the ABC was Relevant Pt 25.
      (The Merchant of Doom.)

      Bryan: Greens Senator Christine Milne, welcome to the program.

      John: Cheers Bryan.

      Bryan: Senator Milne, what is your reaction to the Gillard government’s proposed flood levy?

      John: Disappointed Bryan. Bitterly disappointed.

      Bryan: You mean at a government’s cynical and opportunistic tax grab to prop up a wasteful and popularist agenda?

      John: Quite the opposite Bryan. The Flood Levy is a sorry saga of lost opportunities.

      Bryan: Including the opportunity to trim wasteful government spending and deliver value to the Australian taxpayer?

      John: No Bryan. Delivering value to the Australian taxpayer is not Greens policy.

      Bryan: Pardon?

      John: Delivering value to the Australian taxpayer is not Greens policy.

      Bryan: Why not?

      John: Because delivering value to the Australian taxpayer is almost as bad giving people money Bryan.

      Bryan: What’s wrong with that?

      John: [Exasperated.] Because if you give people money, Bryan, next thing you know, they’ll be spending it – on things!

      Bryan: But don’t people need things?

      John: Allow us to be the judge of that Bryan.

      Bryan: What’s wrong with “things”?

      John: The Environment, Bryan. The Environment. “Things” require other things to make them. And even other things to package, deliver and distribute those things. Whereas government spending is almost always environmentally neutral.

      Bryan: How come? Don’t governments spend money on things as well?

      John: Sometimes Bryan. But we get it right most of the time.

      Bryan: Then what does government spend money on?

      John: Invest, Bryan. Invest. Governments invest. In policies, initiatives, forums, programs, enquiries, reports and commissions. None of which produce any thing.

      Bryan: That’s terribly unproductive.

      John: Thank you Bryan.

      Bryan: ???

      John: But the very last programs that this government should be slashing are the greenhouse initiatives.

      Bryan: Why?

      John: Because it was global warming that caused the floods in the first place Bryan.

      Bryan: So no global warming, no floods?

      John: The floods were caused by global warming.

      Bryan: How? What’s the connection?

      John: Scientists believe that man-made greenhouse emissions are causing significant and harmful warming of the planet. Higher temperatures increase the rate of evaporation. More evaporation means a more humid atmosphere. More humidity means more rainfall. More rainfall means more flooding. QED Bryan.

      Bryan: But doesn’t global warming cause drought? Tim Flannery, the BOM and the CSIRO et al all say so…

      John: And they are absolutely right Bryan. Which is why governments have invested in desalination plants instead of water catchment dams.

      Bryan: So global warming causes both drought and flood?

      John: Yes Bryan. It’s worse than we thought.

      Bryan: How does it do that Senator?

      John: Scientists believe that man-made greenhouse emissions are causing significant and harmful warming of the planet. Higher temperatures increase the rate of evaporation. More evaporation means a drier landscape. A drier landscape means drought. QED Bryan.

      Bryan: So global warming causes both floods and drought?

      John: I’ve already told you so Bryan.

      Bryan: So there’s no chance that the rain can occur during a drought?

      John: Of course not Bryan – it wouldn’t be a drought then, would it?

      Bryan: But what happens when it’s not flooding or droughting Senator?

      John: If man continues to recklessly emit dangerous levels of greenhouse gases, then floods and droughts will become commonplace. And what we now know as “average” climate will be a novel and exciting event. And this novelty will itself generate a fresh hazard.

      Bryan: A fresh hazard?

      John: Yes Bryan. It’s called DNC.

      Bryan: DNC?

      John: Dangerously Normal Climate. Which is a direct result of global warming.

      Bryan: How can normal climate be considered dangerous?

      John: Consider this scenario Bryan. In the course of a perfectly commonplace drought, a dangerously normal shower of rain occurs. Since it’s not a flooding rain, you neglect to dress appropriately. You go outside, get wet, catch a cold, and die. This is typical of the tragedy that could be repeated millions of times each year in the eastern states alone.

      Bryan: That sounds serious.

      John: It is Bryan. Which is why we must take urgent action now.

      Bryan: So what is being done to combat DNC?

      John: Even as we speak, Bryan, top scientists at Our CSIRO are preparing a robust and definitive report, clearly demonstrating the potential for conclusive links that could connect man-made CO2 emissions to Dangerously Normal Climate.

      Bryan: And when did the CSIRO first become aware of this new and deadly threat to our very existence?

      John: Just as soon as I tell them Bryan. Lend us a phone?

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    TonyfromOz

    Seriously, I think Christine Milne (in the current situation with The Greens in the ‘Balance Of Power’ situation) is more dangerous, because she is just clueless.

    You’d think she would at least find out about some of the things she so rabidly pushes.

    Oddly, now that she’s in charge, I think the Greens are more vulnerable.

    Still, better her than Hanson-Young or Lee Brown, er, O’Gorman, er Rhiannon.

    Her bio says she assumed the name Rhiannon from Welsh Mythology.

    I wish these people would tell the truth.

    Almost makes me want to throw my Fleetwood Mac vinyl LP’s in the bin. (Well no, I’d never do that)

    Tony.

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    memoryvault

    Almost makes me want to throw my Fleetwood Mac vinyl LP’s in the bin. (Well no, I’d never do that)

    Steady on, old chap.
    There ARE limits, you know.

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    J.H.

    60% of the human body is water and 18% is carbon….. Gillard will probably switch to a Water Tax.

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      TonyfromOz

      I’ve actually seen a couple of images of a pensive Dear Leader looking up with her finger under her chin.

      The text for the image indicates a thoughtful Prime Minister considering new ways to better serve the plebs, umm sorry, Working Families.

      Actually, she’s looking at the clouds thinking to herself ….. ‘Now, how can I tax them?’

      Tony.

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    memoryvault

    .
    OMG!

    A published, peer-reviewed scientific paper that claims warming since the LIA is mostly the result of natural cycles.
    It claims the very nature of climate is “cyclical”.

    Heads will be exploding over at Unreal Climate amongst members of “The Team”.
    I wonder how many editors will have to be burned at the stake to atone for this travesty of the peer pal-review process?

    http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/paper-global-warming-since-1850-is.html

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      MattB

      OMG thanks for the alert… I quickly penned a response and had my besties at RealClimate backdate it to late 2011: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/12/curve-fitting-and-natural-cycles-the-best-part/

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        Bruce of Newcastle

        Keep doing those epicycles Matt, I’m sure you’ll get to the right equation eventually.

        I love RC, they take ostriching to an art form.

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        memoryvault

        .
        Funny thing about that Matty. You link to a predicable, unsupported rubbishing at Unreal Climate (and there’s another one at Septic Science). But no link to a peer-reviewed, published, scientific rebuttal.

        Given that we know from another of your links yesterday (Dessler), that it only takes “The Team” 33 days for them to get a rebuttal paper published, one wonders how Humlum et al have managed to survive unchallenged for a year.

        Or is there a peer-reviewed rebuttal but you’ve now decided to go with “science by blog” now?

        Seems to me only recently you were vehemently opposed to “science by blog”.

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        The Black Adder

        Matty, your link is crap!

        Your arguments are crap!

        Your ideology is crap!

        Your typing on a computer, causing CO2 emmissions…you are causing crap!

        You are a hypocrite of the highest order.

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    Myrrh

    Thank you, I’ve read Latour’s No Virginia. In which, I now decided, he was too polite about the ‘generalisation of climate scientists’.

    These are people who are considered able to think logically and at a high level in science, yet Spencer et al continue to argue against basic well-known traditional physics of properties and processes like tantrumming seven year olds.

    It’s the dumbing down of science for children that is the consequence and the deliberate agenda of those who first promoted this fictional fisics, easier than burning all the books and killing all the teachers. Take over the production of infant and primary school teachers and in a generation you have the masses to PhD spouting science gibberish, like visible light heating oceans [water is a transparent medium for visible], and the real heat direct from the Sun which is the thermal infrared not even reaching the surface… And the silly empty space atmosphere Spencer keeps pushing where there is no convection because they’ve declared all real gases with volume, weight and attraction don’t exist [substituting the imaginary ideal gas and its formula, hard dots with no attraction speeding at vast rates through empty space thoroughly mixing by bouncing off each other and able to defy gravity, because they have no gravity in their empty space ideal gas illusion]. Of course they have no water cycle..

    People like Spencer and Monckton are bottom line part of the problem not the solution, they give credibility to AGW by giving this fictional fisics credibility. The fictional fisics paradigm needs to be exposed for the general population to see how they’ve been manipulated and their science education dumbed down by those who think themselves the ‘elite’.

    I noticed on one public school site [English public school, i.e. private fee paying], that the science they were testing on did not include real physics of molecules and convection, which was instead being comprehensively taught but not tested on. Their children will still understand that there’s an ocean of heavy voluminous gas above us subject to gravity and not the empty space troposphere AGWfisics of ideal gases in a container..

    ——————————————————————————–

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    KeithH

    The new Chief Chicken Little Christine Milne was an original NIMBY when the Wesley Vale pulp mill was proposed near her parents farm. She’s another Tim Flannery with her outrageous alarnist claims and has shamelessly rightened the daylights out of little children round the world. I note she says she wants to cosy up to farmers and business. I’m sure she’ll get a great reception there when the true costs for no benefit of the carbon dioxide tax really kick in. She, Gillard, Swan and co., won’t be able to continue giving away mllions of dollars more in votebuying schemes than the iniquitous tax is actually raising. It’s great to see Brown go but it’s a pity it wasn’t three years ago before he could help Gillard do such damage and set Australia on such a downward path.

    The Greens will now go the way of the Democrats because the radicals led by the super-ambitious S.H.Y will figuratively slip a knife into the back of Milne just as quicly as Gillard did to Rudd. Overall, I’d say it’s good news.

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    Winston

    In view of Bob Brown’s demise, I thought I might remind any readers who are interested of the character he played in my Shakespearean play, as shown in the potted character summary below:

    Cassius– A man of overarching ambition and delusions of grandeur, given
    his absence of mandate and the lack of practical applicability for his
    grand schemes of social transformation and “world governance”. A devotee
    of Ludditus, he believes that the plebeians should all return to a stone age
    existence, living hand to mouth in caves. The “lean and hungry look” indeed!
    A devout worshipper of the Earth mother Gaia, the god Sol (God of the Sun) and
    the four Venti (Gods of the four winds), he allows no worship of any other power
    under his auspices……………………………………………………………………………..…………. Bob Brown

    And then, should my play be anywhere near the mark, I ventured this possible outcome for Bob once the moment in the spotlight had past and all things Green had turned to dust……….
    Cassius (Bob Brown), however, saw his dreams of a return to a Stone Age Nirvana crushed with the death of Caesar (Julia Gillard), and he was consigned to exile on a far off isle, where he could never again seek to influence the corridors of power with his regressive and nonsensical philosophy. He wandered through the wilderness aimlessly for many years, talking to the trees and rocks that were his only companions. Finally, he was discovered washed up in the shallow waters of a newly constructed dam commissioned by Marcus Antonius (Tony Abbott), the “Franklinium Aqua Grandis”. Cassius (Brown) had vigorously opposed this dam’s construction in the past, but ironically the dam now provides sufficient power and water to permanently sustain all of Utopia, and thereby rendering the entire Republic “Carbonis-neutral”!
    Some would say truth is often stranger than fiction.

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    Does this woman have no brains whatsoever.

    I’ve just watched the Lateline interview with Christine Milne.

    She actually believes the Clean Energy transition starts on July 1, as quote … we move to that clean energy economy.

    It will be five to ten years at the soonest before any of those renewable plants start to take over even a minor role.

    I actually wish it could be sooner than that, because then people will graphically see that they just don’t work.

    This is from July last year, but it’s worth reading again.

    Senator Christine Milne’s Transition to Renewables – At What Cost?

    Lateline also showed snippets of Bob Brown’s early days, and he was thought of as a flake as he stood to make his maiden speech.

    Clever handover this is then.

    From one flake to another.

    Tony.

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      The Black Adder

      Milne was grinning like a Chesire cat at that press conference!

      Once the public see them teeth…

      …the gold fillings come from Garnauts Gold mine in PNG

      She won`t last a year!

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    Sonny

    I love this site so much.
    It’s so interesting to me that in a genuinely free forum in which any viewpoint can be expressed without moderation, [with light moderation. oggi] post after post it becomes all too obvious that CAGW and all it’s surrounding policies, economics and politics is deliberate and complete and utter fraud.

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    Graeme No.3

    I assume you just saw the latest figures from CRUTem4 for 1979 to 2010.

    Incorporating their latest “adjustments” to the temperature readings, it seems that the World has warmed by 0.84 C, and the Northern Hemisphere by 1.05 C since 1979, at least in their own minds.

    What next? Sun bathing on the beaches of Iceland (in winter)?

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      The Moon's a Balloon

      Incorporating their latest “adjustments”

      Here we go again, time for another UK House of Commons Enquiry/Pantomime/Whitewash. What’s odds would John Mullinger give on that? My guess is maybe as certain as 11/10 if not odds-on.

      😯

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      KeithH

      Roy. Your link takes one to “you’re looking for something that isn’t here”!

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        KeithH

        No malice or censure intended Roy. I just wanted to see what you linked to. As for my work, as the years are rapidly passing I’m well aware mistakes appear in print even after “proof reading’ the damn thing more than once. Very frustrating! And for IT novices like me, the KISS method is appreciated and unfortunately necessary at times! Thanks for that link which highlights the computer modelled virtual reality world in which those on the UNIPCC gravy train and their gullible alarmist supporters choose to live. The Pointman link at 47 starkly highlights the real world! Cheers.

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          Roy Hogue

          Not a problem. I’m glad you caught the mistake.

          Pointman has a lot of good commentary, all solidly based in reality. Would we could say the same for our governments.

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    Kevin Moore

    http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/11/18/al-gore-earths-interior-extremely-hot-several-million-degrees

    Is the Earths mantle a perfect insulator?

    Is the Earths core cooling,if not how does it maintain its temperature?

    I suppose the second question answers the first.

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    KeithH

    Pointman’s latest. Will you ever see it said better than this? I urge everyone to link it wherever they can, email it and/or spread it round the world by whatever means possible, but particularly in Australia.

    The sun is setting on solar power, the money’s gone and nobody’s asking any questions.

    http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/the-sun-is-setting-on-solar-power-the-moneys-gone-and-nobodys-asking-any-questions/

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      Bruce of Newcastle

      Irony that the solar installation in the picture was only installed in December 2009. Potemkin greenery! As far as I can tell it is supposed to be in operation.

      As an aside Tim Blair rather liked the Climate Wars essay. The Pointman is doing good stuff.

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        KeithH

        You’re right Bruce, as far as I’m aware, and that’s precisely the point. The gullible Greenies, CAGW believers and all the other warmist fellow-travellers ignore the devastation caused when erecting solar plants and their great bird-killing idols to Gaia and the Wind Gods and seem to think they’ll go on forever(it’s all “free” energy don’t you know). Don’t worry that they’ll never be able to supply baseload power nor even peak power demands yet will still require constant attention and maintenance to even perform to a quarter of their nameplate capacity. None are so blind as those that will not see!!

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      lmwd

      Excellent read. I wish I was reading this quality of work in media such as The Oz.

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    pat

    13 April: SMH: Bob Brown resigns as Greens leader and Senator
    He (Bob Brown)said that “he will be a Green until the day I die, if not for a long time after that”.
    http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/bob-brown-resigns-as-greens-leader-and-senator-20120413-1wxoz.html

    Bob, this is the unilateral, undemocratic “green” world government you have promoted and praised:

    13 April: Bloomberg: Ewa Krukowska: EU Carbon-Permit Set-Aside Requires Change of Law, Poland Says
    European Union law doesn’t allow withholding carbon allowances from the market and would need to be changed to enable temporary curbs of supply, according to a senior Polish government official…
    The EU is considering tools to tackle the oversupply of emission allowances, which drove carbon prices to a record low earlier this month. Poland, which last month blocked an EU political declaration on climate policies, said earlier this year that a potential set-aside would destroy market features of the European emissions trading system, the world’s largest.
    Any decision to temporarily limit the amount of allowances to be sold would contradict the EU law, which requires auctions to be “predictable,” in particular regarding the timing, sequencing and volumes of permits to be made available, the official said.
    The commission, the EU institution which has the right to propose regulation, declined to comment…
    A set-aside of carbon allowances is “the only possible shorter-term solution to addressing oversupply,” the Geneva- based International Emissions Trading Association said in a briefing note yesterday.
    It would be created by amending the EU regulation on carbon-permit auctions in a process known as comitology, where an implementing measure needs qualified majority support from representatives of member states to pass and then is subject to scrutiny by national governments and the European Parliament.
    A revision of the emissions law, which includes the predictability principle that Poland is referring to, could take more than two years in a politically contentious step also involving the European Parliament…
    The two sides started yesterday a series of meetings to iron out differences on the law. Even if the carbon-permits set- aside option is left out in the energy law, the commission still has the right to propose a measure on withholding allowances at any time at its own initiative.
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-12/eu-carbon-permit-set-aside-requires-change-of-law-poland-says.html

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    KeithH

    Jo or Mods. I posted a comment linking to Pointman’s latest article but it hasn’t appeared. Did it get caught in spam”

    (Found and approved!) CTS

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    pat

    Big Bank/Big Oil desperate to change the rules completely.

    ***N.B. WEATHER PATTERNS ARE “UNKNOWABLE”, YET WE ARE TO BELIEVE CAGW IS KNOWABLE!

    13 April: Platts: Frank Watson: EU carbon trading system needs major overhaul: Deutsche Bank
    The EU Emissions Trading System needs fundamental reform if it is to be capable of sending a long-term price signal for low carbon energy investment, Deutsche Bank said in a report Friday.
    Europe’s flagship policy tool to combat climate change not only needs adjusting to cope with an oversupply of carbon allowances, but also requires a structural overhaul to make it fit for purpose, Deutsche Bank commodities research director Mark Lewis said in the report.
    Specifically, the system must be made more responsive to economic conditions, or risk failure to send price signals that investors can use, he said, noting “enormous” capital outlays required to build a low-carbon economy.
    “The EU ETS is the only commodity market in the world where demand varies in real time but supply is fixed for years in advance,” said Lewis…
    “This is all the more true now that we think the EU economy is in the midst of a second recession within three years and that the implementation of the [EU] Energy Efficiency Directive is likely to reduce demand for EUAs further over 2014-20,” he said…
    ***”Of course, the true impact of the EED could be greater or smaller than this, and this is precisely the problem as far as the current configuration of the ETS is concerned: the impact of all of the key demand drivers (economic growth, weather patterns, and the EU’s policies on renewable energy and energy efficiency) is unknowable ahead of time, and yet the supply of EUAs is fixed years in advance,” said Lewis.
    “That is why the system ends up being hugely over-supplied if demand crashes, and why EUAs have recently fallen to a new all-time low,” he said.
    EUAs for delivery in December 2012 fell to an all-time low of Eur6.23/mt at the close on April 4, according to Platts assessments, down from as high as Eur18.00/mt in May last year…
    “Whilst a set-aside would undoubtedly be the most pragmatic way of re-establishing meaningful price tension in the near term, we do not think it would be enough, on its own, to re-establish long-term credibility of the scheme. This is because industrial investors in low-carbon technologies need long-term predictability on pricing, and as a one-off measure a set-aside by definition could not provide this,” said Deutsche Bank’s Lewis.
    “We think that EU policymakers need to implement a material set-aside as soon as possible — on our estimates withholding 1.2 billion EUAs over 2013-20, or 600 million mt over 2013-16 might well lift prices back into the Eur15-20/mt range — whilst also committing to structural reform of the EU ETS,” he said…

    ‘ENORMOUS’ CAPITAL OUTLAYS NEEDED
    Deutsche Bank said new elements need to be introduced to the EU carbon market to allow the system to deliver more robust price signals that will enable massive investments in Europe’s energy system.
    “Specifically, we think a mechanism is needed to make the ETS cap more responsive to variations in demand,” said Lewis…
    David Hone, chairman of the International Emissions Trading Association and senior climate change advisor at Shell in October 2011 said the EU ETS is fully functional and well designed, but is being stifled by overlapping climate and energy policies at EU and member state level.
    Hone warned that Europe’s planned investments in carbon capture and storage are under threat from low carbon prices, which are a key revenue generator for planned CCS demonstration projects.
    The European Commission had not immediately responded to requests to comment Friday on industry calls for structural reform of the EU ETS.
    http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/ElectricPower/8173110

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    pat

    while the MSM continues to talk as if the July 1 carbon dioxide tax will only impact on our future electricity bills…this is what they should have on their front pages and nightly news broadcasts:

    14 April: Queensland Business Review: Carbon tax countdown begins for farmers
    But as people begin receiving these payments, farmers will be asking them to remember the high cost that the carbon tax will impose on food and fibre production, and upon agricultural supply chains, (Queensland Farmers’ Federation President Joanne) Grainger says.
    “In addition, it would seem wise to remember that the full impacts of the tax will be phased in over several years, eventually dwarfing the initial compensation.
    “Farms, and especially the intensive farms represented by QFF’s members, are reliant on energy-based inputs, including electricity, freight, fuel, and fertilisers.
    “With the exception of fuel used on farm and for transport, the carbon tax will impact all of these inputs to varying degrees, adding up to costs that will be measured in the thousands of dollars or tens of thousands of dollars for individual farmers, and much greater numbers for food processors.”
    Grainger says that for some agricultural commodities, this will inevitably lead to extreme pressure on their supply chain, which will be passed on as higher prices for consumers; while for other commodities it will put further pressure on farmers’ profitability.
    “Just a few months out from the introduction of the carbon tax, one of the biggest problems facing agriculture is the inadequate modelling and lack of understanding of the impact of the carbon tax among rural communities,” she says…
    “This yawning gap and the responsibility for it rests at the feet of the Federal Government. As the impact of the tax becomes clearer the Government will continue to be blamed for keeping industries in the dark and designing a tax that will have increasingly adverse effects.”…
    “The flipside to all of this is that the new State Government is seeking to double food production by 2040, which will more than likely require a lot more emission-intensive inputs.
    “The new State Government is also shutting down a number of costly ‘green’ energy programs, most of which did little for primary producers but more importantly on the basis that the carbon tax should pay for these types of initiatives.
    “It seems that the politics of this tax is not over, and the various contradictions will be played out over several years. Nonetheless, the tax is a legislative reality and as it stands we will have little choice but to deal with it,” she says.
    Ultimately, Grainger says farmers will be looking for a greatly increased understanding from the Government and the public about the cost of this tax, both to farmers and consumers.
    “Much more work will be needed to ensure that agriculture can continue to innovate and grow in the new and challenging environment in which we are about to be placed.
    “It will then be up to the Australian public to determine the efficacy of the carbon tax as a mechanism for reducing climate change and subsequently the future of this tax,” she says.
    http://www.qbr.com.au/news/articleid/79050.aspx

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      Dave

      .
      Pat,

      This is going to become a big problem for agriculture in the future! The new regulations associated with the Carbon Farming Initiative are as follows:

      .
      “3.28.1(c) the human‑induced regeneration, on or after 1 July 2007, of native vegetation, on land that is not conservation land, by:

      (i) the exclusion of livestock; or

      (ii) the management of the timing and the extent of grazing; or

      (iii) the management, in a humane manner, of feral animals; or

      (iv) the management of plants that are not native to the project area; or

      (v) the cessation of mechanical or chemical destruction, or suppression, of regrowth;”
      .

      So in this case (Part i) a cattle farmer gains about 2 tonnes of Carbon offset per head that he doesn’t breed. So in many cases it is cheaper to raise NON-Cattle as opposed to real ones as over time the ETS demands CO2 reduction (same as power stations) each year. So they raise more and more NON-Cattle each year????

      Part (iii) also includes feral pigs – but pigs are monogastrics that did not produce methane as part of their digestive processes! Does this government have a clue. Part (iii) also states in a humane manner – so does this mean you can’t kill them?

      On the Dept of Climate Change website – so many of the highlighted links to aid the agricultural industry have been deleted and comes up with Error 404 (or link removed)!!

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        Roy Hogue

        It’s déjà vu…Peter Spencer all over again. When will they ever learn?

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        KeithH

        Dave. You highlight an increasing problem – the disappearing web page, particularly those that could be used against the Government in any way. If you see something interesting, it pays to capture it before the Government internet spooks have a chance to delete it!

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          Kevin Moore

          KeithH

          Gee, I think your right. I’ve made mention of some web pages only to see them disappear shortly thereafter.

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    LevelGaze

    Well, the thrust of the article doesn’t surprise me at all. When clouds cover the sun, the temperature drops. CO2 concentration unchanged.

    When night falls and it’s cloudy, temperature drops slowly; if sky cloudless, temperature drops rapidly. CO2 concentration unchanged.

    The warm-mongers could have found this out simply by asking any primary school child, it’s been empirical knowledge for a few score millenia, at least.

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    Myrrh

    I’ve only just seen John O’Sullivan covering this: http://johnosullivan.wordpress.com/2012/04/12/australian-government-to-ban-free-scientific-inquiry-on-the-internet/

    We could be running out of time to indulge analysis of their latest AGW fisics tweaks as if these were real science discussions…

    Thinking about the carbon taxes, http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/ireland-faces-popular-revolt-property-tax-16045514

    Around half the people have refused to register after a campaign ‘don’t register, don’t pay’.

    Thinking of the ‘we were only obeying orders’, is payment of taxes that are theft/criminal/fraud becoming party to such?

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    theRealUniverse

    Not exactly topic but here for want of a better place
    Here more dirt on the “war m (ist) ongers:

    Donna Laframboise‘s recent article entitled, The WWF’s Vast Pool of Oil Money chronicles the rise the globalist green charity – seeded with funding from global petroleum giant Royal Dutch Shell, who’s former President of 15 years, John Loudon, later served as president of WWF International for four years after that.

    http://www.infowars.com/big-green-oil-money-wwf-founded-with-money-from-royal-dutch-shell/
    We know whos feeding them..

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    theRealUniverse

    Real scientist and astrophysicist Piers Corbyn has shown that it is the solar proton flux that drives the weather and hence climate by 1. predicting with astounding accuracy extreme weather events in recent years far exceeding any so called predictions by any meteorological office in the world so far. 2. showing the complete relationship to the 60, 23, 11 years cycles which are solar and lunar driven.
    http://www.weatheraction.com/
    Nevermind the arguments over so called feedbacks and other processes.

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      The Moon's a Balloon

      Yes Piers Corbyn should be nominated for Nobel Prize !

      For details of his methods, see this issue of
      Weather Action News No 27 – 15th July 2010
      What Does & Doesn’t cause Climate Change?
      Direct Evidence of Solar driven Weather extremes
      Read or Download the PRESENTATION (PDF 5.5Mb)

      See also a whole Fan Page of Corbyn’s Work at
      Fraudulent Climate of Hokum Science Website

      More stuff at the above website see the QUICK PAGE MENU button thinggy at the top left of the Piers Corbyn Page. There is a lot of Lord Monckton videos and even this –
      Joanne Nova – Non-Science and Un-Reason
      The Great Global Fawning

      8)

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    crakar24

    I love it when Ed gives MattB a right royal smack down.

    Love your work Ed.

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      MattB

      Mods – can you please check that this page is loading correctly. The smackdown referred to here doesn’t appear to be showing up on my screen? I tried refreshing the page but can still only see the same old tired posts from Eddy?

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    crakar24

    Here it is again MattB

    I love it when Ed gives MattB a right royal smack down.

    Love your work Ed.

    Hope this helps

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      MattB

      Nope that is just your reference to said smackdown. What you should have posted was “seems to be working fine for me MattB” 😉

      But honestly providing a summary of the various rebuttals will take some time, that I don’t have. It would be much faster for all of us to just read the links. I know that Eddy would not simply trust my version/interpretation of those links and would much rather consider the parent documents.

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    But honestly providing a summary of the various rebuttals will take some time, that I don’t have.

    Translation: Matt is too lazy to think things through and make an intelligent argument FROM the links he posts. If we wanted to read the posts at their sites we can do that. However, if you make a valid argument it will be “moderated” into oblivion. The day they make it a fair playing field is the day I will consider visiting their sites. Until then, Matt, quit insulting my intelligence and the intelligence of the regulars, as well! You do not comment Matt, you pander for your climate hookers at RC and skeptical science. At least a real pimp provides a service of some sort!

    I know that Eddy would not simply trust my version/interpretation of those links and would much rather consider the parent documents.

    Translation: Matt knows if he ever had the “huevos” to debate instead of cut, paste and point us to a link he would be intellectually savaged! Matt is so tired of being humiliated that he dares not debate! Instead, he cowers behind an appeal to authority and tries to steer traffic to his masters at RC and skeptical science. Why don’t you bring them to the site Matt? You could hold their coats while the crew here has a field day with them! Or, would that shatter your delusion and force you to confront reality?

    By the way, thank you for your kind words, Crackar! I hope all is well with you!

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      The Moon's a Balloon

      Matt has suceeded in his distractions, and caused you to digress. His prolixity serves only to facilitate multiple straw men, so as to attempt to bewilder and baffle. The real story as I see it, is that Spencer is mistaken in his analysis, and in doing so gives credence to the man-made CO2 greenhouse effect.

      As was stated above Spencer makes some flawed assumptions in his postulations.

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    Sean McHugh

    The guy with the scary beanie and aspirations to bad, said:

    Oh well heaven help us – won’t be long before there’s wall to wall redneck LNP governments throughout.

    What if he’s right? Yes, here we have all been thinking that the Greens have been running the Government and driving the disasters but both Labor and the Greens deny this. They tell us that all the problems are due to Abbott and his ‘pathetic’ leadership. There are two sides to every story.

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    […] the models make about clouds. Cloud feedbacks are the “largest source of uncertainty”.[ii] Numerous studies show models project wildly different results for clouds, and yet few could […]

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    […] from Variations in Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance, Remote Sens. 2011, 3, 1603-1613. [PDF] [Discussion […]

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