The Holy Grail of the warmists is to find proof that the Antarctic ice is going to melt. Most of the world’s ice covers the continent, and yet temperatures remain stubbornly locked at levels that suggest that any change will take millennia rather than the decades that are the currency of alarmists. The latest round in the gut-busting efforts by the warmists to concoct evidence that supports their views is chronicled here in Ryan O’Donnell’s forensic taking apart of the Eric Steig’s contention that the Antarctic penninsula is warming at unprecedented levels; this illustrates that global warming supporters will go to any absurd lengths to twist the evidence about temperatures in this part of the world.
The BBC has also entered the fray as part of its renewed front of climate zealotry that I think has been opened up over the past couple of weeks. Richard Black is in overdrive, Roger Harrabin is sharpening his pencil in Oslo with Fiona Fox. The website is currently crammed full of alarmist nonsense, with multiple new entries daily. There’s so much that it is impossible to keep track. But this entry stands out as utter garbage. The theory we are introduced to in this travesty of reporting is that the Antarctic was ultra-warm in the past because of the “extreme greenhouse effect” and a swing is happening again. Our guide to this la-la land is Mr Howard Falcoln-Lang, who pontificates triumphantly:
However, the geological record provides irrefutable evidence that dramatic climate fluctuations have occurred throughout our planet’s history. Indeed, over the past 50 years, the Antarctic Peninsula has warmed by an alarming 2.8C, faster than any other part of the world. So, if this warming were to continue unabated, could an emerald Antarctica be reborn?
Of course, Antarctica has been warm in the past, and may be so again. And indeed, it supported lush life forms, as Mr Falcon-Lang testifies, so what’s the problem? But to suggest that such warming may happen imminently and catastrophically – as is clearly the intention here – is tommyrot. It ignores that Mr O’Donnell has provided in the past few days utterly convincing evidence that the warming statistics for the Antarctic peninsula has been rigged. Mr Falcon-Lang ignores too, that all the evidence points to that the Antarctic ice mass is pretty much constant, rather than receding. This is a BBC man preaching an alarmist sermon and nothing else counts.
Well hold on
If as they say the geological record provides irrefutable evidence that dramatic climate fluctuations have occurred throughout our planet’s history., then that confirms the skeptic argument that climate is always changing, and moreover that such changes can be dramatic. That undermines such evidence as the hockey stick. Present warming is only significant in as much as it is unprecedented. Previous warming cannot be blamed on antropmorphic causes. Ergo it means that present warming also might be natural.
A shot on the foot I would say.
On the contrary, climate-skeptics shoot themselves in the foot by emphasising changes in paleoclimate; logically they should emphasise past climate stability.
Skeptics insist on a lower climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide than that conventionally accepted and yet the higher sensitivity that they reject is necessary to explain the repeated and dramatic swings in Earth’s climate in particular in the last 2.5 million years (repeated glacials and interglacials of the Pleistocene) and more distant events such as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.
If climate stability was indeed low, that eliminates the explanation of how these repeated warmings and coolings occured. The generally accepted mechanism for the ending of glacials is that relatively small changes in the Earth’s orbit increased the amount of energy from the Sun reaching the Earth. This in itself was far too weak to change a glacial to an interglacial. However the small degree of warming was enough to release some carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which caused further warming.
“Natural” requires a physical mechanism; the Earth does not warm and cool spontaneously for no reason – that would be supernatural. Yet many skeptics seem content to label something as “natural” and think that is a satisfactory explanation, when it really explains nothing.
Present warming is not significant because it is unprecedented, on the contrary it is far from unprecendented. In the fullness of geological time the Earth has been so warm as to have aligators in Spitsbergen and so cold as to freeze in the tropics.
What makes the present warming significant is that there is no natural mechanism for it (eg during the most recent and dramatic period of warming the Sun’s output since around 1960 has been stable or in slight decline).
The failure of logic of the “climate changed before humans, therefore all change must be natural” is epic. It is the equivalent of the defence in a murder trial arguing that people have been dying for natural reasons since time immorial and therefore foul play can safely be ruled out when a body with a gunshot wound is found.
I will quickly get out of my depth both literally and metaphorically but how can you talk about present warming when standing up to your arse in snow after a succession of record breaking winters?
It seems to me the human interference in climate theory is possible even probable but not proven while the CO2 as driver theory is possible but with even less less conclusive proof.
The argument is not that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. No sceptic denies that.
The argument is not that the earth has warmed in recent decades. No sceptic would deny that.
There is no argument among warmists and sceptics that climate is in a constant state of fluctuation, sometimes dramatic.. We are in an Ice Age…a period at the end of a long period of cooling and CO2 reduction since the Miocene.
The Ice Age is characterised by a series of pulses of cold, dry conditions in the Northern Hemisphere of some 120, 000 years broken by periods of warmer conditions lasting some 18 to 20, 000 years. These periods of ice advance are called glacials, with the warmer periods called interglacials. A series of pulses going back a very long time.
We are now, in an interglacial. Interglacials are characterised by CO2 rises as a lagging signal to temperature rise.
The causation of the phases is not understood in all its detail. There is no prediction possible.
The argument is whether the quality of the data…satellites only some 30 years , spliced onto controversial proxies can provide a sufficient base on which to base a trend statistically significant against the background noise.
Sceptics say there isn’t.
That is the crux of the argument. It is battle royal coupled to politics.
Hence the metaphorical heat.
If you want to know what caused Climate Change in the last thirty years then you should search in Google Scholar for scientific papers with a phrase relevant to this question, such as ‘Earthshine Albedo’ and ‘Earthshine project’ and ‘CERN pilot CLOUD experiment’ and Cosmoclimatology. It will also explain why Global Warming ended ten years ago and why we have now gone from ‘Hockey Stick’ to ‘Hide the decline’. The main problem we have is the billions of pounds of taxpayers money being thrown on Propaganda produced from the myopic, repetitive “Conformation Biased Science” that convinces morons like David Preiser, but not Mensa members like me.
Once more, Jo Bastardi patiently explains it for everyone, including the idiot Prince of Wales (whose brain circuitry is in dire need of a soldering iron). With these stupid people turning governments in entirely the wrong direction, the damage is going to be multiple – it would have been better if they’d left things alone for a few years, then take stock of the cooling that’s actually in progress.
Instead, we’re warned of the poisonous nature of the otherwise innocent and innocuous CO2 and told to reduce emissions (for no legitimate reason!), and have useless windmills, solar panels, and hopeless “eco-bulbs”, as well as a commitment to pay billions of pounds to Europe for the benefit of banana-republic dictatorships, foisted on us.
Who are the mugs?
http://www.accuweather.com/video.asp?channel=vbbastaj
I managed to get some decent light bulbs in the local pound shop yesterday, thanks to a tip from someone on here. They were only 60 watts but still give a better light than the useless eco jobs.
The article on Antarctica has so many holes that it would be like shooting fish in a barrel for a palaeontologist, geologist or geophysicist.
It sole purpose is to convey the warmist CO2 propaganda.
The uninformed casual reader, or the primary school child is a sitting duck for the pretty pictures, emerald forests, fascinating dinosaurs and an ogre….CO2, of this marketing blurb for the ‘green economy’.
Believe me, the science sucks.
Like all propaganda it contains a kernel of truth but then the ‘creativity’ sets in to turn speculation and oversimplification into a warmist diatribe.
Cynical or naive.
I suspect the former.
The perfect Oslo storm :
It freezes over (impossible) Richard, Roger and Fiona are the last survivors in Norway but manage to stay alive by creating so much hot air by discussing their next BBC commission about how warm the planet is becoming.
But (in a nod to Martin) they eventually die because the ungrateful minimum wage chefs had the temerity to get jobs in the warmer climate of Antartica, and as not one of our trio has ever used a cooker before – disaster !
And as for room service – well, er no !
Can someone just confirm, or otherwise, the truth of this assertion: “One hundred million years ago, the Earth was in the grip of an extreme Greenhouse Effect”.
Is it accepted that solar radiation 100m years ago was at similar levels to today and that the hotter temperatures then were purely a consequence of co2 levels? Because if not, then the whole story is s acremongering fantasy.
The mid-Mesozoic world was hotter than today with 2500-3000 ppm CO2 (and elevated oxygen levels) with a shorter ‘day’ (earth’s rotation has been slowing over millions of years as the earth/moon gravitational dynamics continually operate). It was also crammed full of life.
The cause of the heating was not significantly the result of CO2 alone.
“In the grip of….” is a stylistic device to subliminally suggest ‘in the grip of a cold/fever’, what you will.
PS The geological structures that are now the island continent of Antarctica were welded into a giant continent (Gondwana) that included South America, Australia and India). This giant continent extentend from the latitude of Brazil (today) to high sothern polar latitudes.
Question? Where did all the CO2 come from and where did it go!
To baldy state ‘in the grip of an extreme greenhouse effect is being disingenuous. But serves the warmist narrative.
All those sweet little dinosaurs with big eyes (where they blue eyes?)
Well I mean this is the point. Antarctica was warmer 100,000,000 years ago but NOT simply because of the Greenhouse effect. The article is therefore utter nonsense and quite plainly was written, not to educade about palaeontolgy, but to propagandise about (higher) green taxes.
Slightly off topic, but I saw the new BBC drama “Outcasts” where a group of survivors from a dying Earth establish a colony on a new earth-like planet. These colonists are Earth’s best and brightest and have arrived on fleet of giant inter-stellar space ships, all of which set off from Earth at different intervals.
We aren’t told why the Earth was dying, but there are hints. One of the last to leave Earth spoke wistfully of the air near the sea he lived being as “warm like honey”. And while one of these best-and-brightest was described whimsically as a Nobel Laureate poet, another was mentioned more respectfully as a “climate scientist”.
But like the Soviet films of old, one can detect hidden messages of dissent against the iron fist of political conformity imposed by the state broadcaster, wry stabs that must have flew over the header of the anti-AGW censors.
Yes, the plot was exactly like the scene in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy:
ARTHUR: What’s a “B Ark”?
CAPTAIN: What? Oh, well! What happened you see, was our planet was doomed.
ARTHUR: Doomed?
CAPTAIN: Oh yes. So what everyone thought was, well let’s pack the whole population in some sort of giant spaceship, you see, and go and settle on another planet!
ARTHUR: You mean a less-doomed one?
CAPTAIN: Oh precisely yes. So it was decided to build three ships, three Arks in space, anyway…where’s the soap? Ah! Thank you. Ah! So the idea was that into the first ship, the A Ship, would go all the brilliant leaders…
NUMBER ONE: The scientists…
CAPTAIN: Yes, the great artists, you know, all the achievers. And then, into the third ship, the C Ship, would go all the people who did the actual work; who made things and did things you see. And then in the B Ship –
NUMBER ONE: That’s us.
CAPTAIN: Yes. Would go everyone else, the middlemen you see. And so we were sent off first.
ARTHUR: But what was wrong with your planet?
CAPTAIN: Well it was doomed – as I said. Apparently it was going to crash into the sun. Or was it the moon that was going to crash into us?
NUMBER ONE: No, no, I thought it was that the planet was more or less bound to be invaded by a gigantic swarm of twelve-foot piranha bees.
NUMBER TWO: No, no, no. That’s not what I was told! My commanding officer swore blind that the entire planet was in emanate danger of being eaten by an enormous mutant star goat.
FORD: Oh really, really?
NUMBER TWO: Yes, but he was just hoping that the ship he was going in would be ready in time.
ARTHUR: But they made sure that they sent all you lot off first anyway?
CAPTAIN: Oh yes, everyone said, and very nicely I think –
NUMBER ONE: Oh yes sir. Absolutely charming.
CAPTAIN: That it was very important for moral to feel that they would be arriving on a planet where they could be sure of a good haircut and where the phones were clean.
FORD: Oh yes! Well I- I can see that would be very important.
ARTHUR: Can you?!
FORD: [Now trying very hard not to laugh]Sh-shh Arthur. And er, the, the other ships followed on after you did they?
CAPTAIN: Ah! Well, it’s funny you should mention that…
NUMBER TWO: Yes, yes isn’t it?
NUMBER ONE: Yes.
CAPTAIN: Because curiously enough, we haven’t actually heard a peep out of them since we left…
Douglas Adams’ early passing was a great loss to satire.
I dine out frequently on many of his ballon pricks at the mindsets that so pervade Aunty up to bath level.
A particular favourite is the ‘freely available’ information that lurks behind a locked door in a basement, with a sign saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’.
OT re BBC bias – except they are the ones telling us we are all doomed. I have an article written in a motoring magazine about 1922 saying that the earth was warming – except they considered it a good thing as then motoring holidays could be taken on the Antarctic.
Plus la change, la plus la meme chose – or something like that.
The problem is that the vaunted climate models created by the Warmist scientists in whose trust we’re supposed to place the future of civilization simply don’t work. They didn’t and don’t predict what’s actually been happening, and in fact have been wrong where skeptics like Corbyn and Bastardi have been right. We’re being told to basically strip civilization down to its barest minimum based on models which clearly got it wrong.
A main reason why David Gregory stopped engaging with us a couple years back was because he was always pressured to defend Warmism regardless of the actual topic being discussed. In the middle of a debate about a mundane newsgathering issue, somebody would invevitably start hitting him with climate change stuff. His science credentials were called into question on a regular basis. He got bored with that, and said so at the time.
One thing I definitely remember is that when some of us told him a main reason we were skeptical was because of the obvious watermelon agenda behind it all, disagreed and felt that wasn’t a valid reason to be skeptical. In his view, something was clearly going on and it would be wrong to dismiss that just because of a neo-Marxist agenda.
This is the “research” that is at the centre of the “Climategate 2”
http://cdnedge.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7843186.stm
Black was quite happy to report it. There is no postscript to the article explaining that a paper which showed that the statistical methods used were suspect, and that the paper that reviewed Steigs research was “peer reviewed” by Steig himself.
I wonder if David Gregory can defend this corruption of the peer-review process or like his collegue Black, just press ahead with some more alarmist clap-trap with the sole purpose to make a lot of money from the people who cannot afford it.
The misery that will be put upon the majority of the people in society to pay for this greed cannot be forgiven. Higher and higher energy bills based on a nothing more that the word of a few playstation “scientists”. We are in a new age,my friends, the “Age of Corruption and Dishonesty”. In a truly democratic country there would be a choice. Britain is not such a country.
“No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.”
Jacob Bronowski