Indeed Tim you are correct that tropical system intensity was predicted to increase. Tropical system intensity data however shows no trend and is at historically quite low levels.

http://policlimate.com/tropical/global_running_ace.jpg

James, you seem to be sourcing biased data that is not looking at the whole data set, just the bits that they like. Have a look at the actual peer reviewed studies below.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v436/n7051/full/nature03906.html
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/309/5742/1844.short
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/1520-0493%282000%29128%3C1139%3AASAOTC%3E2.0.CO%3B2
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3/n3/full/ngeo779.html

And one more for good measure:
http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/links/hurricanes.htm

I'd be interested in a 'reply' article from Karoly etc.

Scientists disagree. No change there, then. Unfortunately, we'll likely see climate change deniers picking bits from this article to shore up their attacks on climate science. I'm not suggesting articles like this ought not to be written but that climatologists, in disagreeing with colleagues, should start every article with the bold statement, 'There is no doubt that human activity is causing average Earth temperatures to rise, but...' Might make the deniers think twice about linking to the article ;)

I don't deny climate change, only the fraudulent physics which the IPCC uses to claims it's mostly down to CO2.

The real explanation is mostly natural with net CO2-GW controlled by natural processes to near zero.

I think I'll stick with the report that '97 to 98 percent of working climate scientists accept the evidence for human-induced climate change'.

Alistair, the IPCC doesn't use any physics at all, fraudulent or otherwise. They make no claims either. The scientists who submit to them do however. Do you really have such an interest in this area and not even know how they work?

Out of a sample of 77 I believe. Tell it to the marines

The IPCC claims it uses peer reviewed science.

I rest my case.

Alistair the IPCC does not conduct any research itself, its role is to assess. Your opinion that they "use" physics to make "claims" shows a lack of understanding.

Nope. Sample of over 900, those most published, drawn from over 1300 publishing on climate science. I'm surprised that anyone engaged in the climate debate doesn't know of this study - that's why I didn't bother to link. An overview of such surveys can be seen at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change#Surveys_of_scientists_and_scientific_literature

Not a helpful comment.

Don't try to fool yourself too. The sample was whittled down and down....

A sample of scientists who have built their careers on the theory of man induced CO2 climate change is sampled and 97% agree that it is CO2. Wow, what an astonishing finding...

So Matt - its all a conspiracy. That's a helpful insight.

I didn't say that, but from a statistical point of view, it is clearly a biased sample. I don't know if you work in academia Mike, but there are many cases where a true finding is not able to get ground due to a prevailing group of Professors whose careers have been built on a proposed alternate theory - Australian Nobel prize winner from WA with his work on ulcers comes to mind. He was banging on about it for more than a decade. The same problem occurs in lab based science, where small sample sizes prevail and removal of anomalous data points remarkably allows a theory to get ground.

The article did an excellent job of highlighting why people have doubts about the whole CO2 climate change debate. If these so called respectable scientists say outlandish things and make links to weather as a ruse for climate change, then people have a right to question.

I can understand politicians being poll-driven, but could somebody please advise when scientists adopted this approach in their deliberations.
As I understand it Professor Dan Shechtman was told that his research must be wrong because it was different from the textbooks. Quasicrystals could not exist!!
Robin Warren and Barry Marshall showed the bacterium Helicobacter pylori plays a key role in the development of both stomach and intestinal ulcers and received a Nobel prize, because they disagreed with the vast majority of medical specialists.
It puzzles me that so many scientists are so supportive of people who clearly have a political and financial incentive to accept an AGW mindset.
I will make an unequivocal prediction. Those scientists who seek to prove the accuracy of AGW theories will be as successful as Ptolemaic astronomers and seekers after the Alchemist's Stone.
Further they will never be awarded a Nobel Prize for any scientific breakthrough, because they are merely following slavishly in the footsteps of others.
I must commend Stewart Franks for his humour and his careful measured informative responses.
This would appear to be a model that others might follow, and one that would make them appear to be analytical, educated seekers for knowledge rather than as apparently driven disciples of the ideology that they have been brainwashed with.

Shechtman published peer-reviewed papers on quasicrystals many years before receiving a Nobel prize. Warren and Marshall published peer-reviewed papers on Helicobacter pylori many years before receiving a Nobel prize. Peer-reviewed papers contradicting any aspect of CO2 causing global warming: zilch.

Chris, thank you for supporting my case that the scientific community can and regularly does ignore any information that does not accord with the current consensus.
I have provided links to the Nobel prize website to support this.
You will note that Schechtmann's paper was initially rejected for peer review publication.
This clearly illustrates the censorship that can and does occur when it comes to choice of peer reviewed articles.
The fact that it took so long for both discoveries to be finally recognized by the Nobel committee, as you point out, further confirms my point that the scientific community can be resistant to advances in knowledge when it doesn't agree with their beliefs.
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2011/popular-chemistryprize2011.pdf
"They submitted an article to the Journal of Applied Physics in the summer of 1984. But the article came
back seemingly by return of post – the editor had refused it immediately."
This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes to Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, who with tenacity and a prepared mind challenged prevailing dogmas
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2005/press.html
The time delay before recognition by the Nobel Committee contrasts sharply with Barack Obama's Nobel prize.

Why don't you publish a paper? Co-author with Franks here.

If you overturn Arrhenius, Tyndall, Fourier etc your contribution would be astounding - Astounding would be an understatement.

There's a Nobel Prize there for the taking but there would be so much more than just that if you did.

Please publish in a real journal.

Michael, It seems my sentence referring to you was incorrect. It should have read:
Professor Stewart Franks' article stands head and shoulders above the propaganda that routinely passes for expert commentary on this site by amateurs such as Andrew Glickson and activists like Stephen Lewandowsky and Michael Brown.

This statement better fits with your contributions on the subject at this site.

Are you suggesting Flannery has not overstated the case for Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming?

That's a reply?

I raised issues not about the scientific position, but about whether it's safe to use a couple of sentences in an interview as sufficient evidence of someone's position. "They're all wrong" belongs somewhere in the K-12 range of debate.

Do you know that Flannery's reported-and-edited statements from this interview are accurate and complete, and that he has not revised this opinion in the last five years? Did you, as I asked in my first comment, ask whether he still held these views five years later? Did you ask whether his prediction was meant to apply as soon as 2012?

These are not questions about climate science - and I should not have to state this because it's really obvious - they are questions about whether your thesis regarding Flannery has sufficient evidence for the criticisms to stand.

My opinion is that two sentences in one interview from five years ago do not justify the this demolition. Tear me down on this question if you wish; I have a thick skin and can stand it. But listing people who you think are wrong does not answer a single question I raised.

Another Flannery Quote from a New Scientist editorial contribution:

"But by far the most dangerous trend is the decline in the flow of Australian rivers: it has fallen by around 70 per cent in recent decades, so dams no longer fill even when it does rain. Growing evidence suggests that hotter soils, caused directly by global warming, have increased evaporation and transpiration and that the change is permanent. I believe the first thing Australians need to do is to stop worrying about "the drought" - which is transient - and start talking about the new climate."

http://www.science.org.au/nova/newscientist/105ns_001.htm

Quote from a Flannery Article in the Age News paper:

"Furthermore, the computer models predict that as the Pacific Ocean warms, rainfall across eastern Australia will reduce until a semi-permanent el-Nino-like state is induced.

Again, in the real world this process seems well entrenched.

If climate change is the cause of this drought, then it is no drought at all, but a manifestation of the new climate. Yes, things might get wetter again, but as long as the pollution persists things will never go back to what they were in the 1970s."
END QUOTE

http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/whither-our-weather/2007/01/01/1167500057951.html?page=2

Now it seems it is as wet as the 70s...... and quite persistent La-Nina conditions. Could the models have been wrong to attribute the drought to climate change rather than the ENSO cycle?

"Now it seems it is as wet as the 70s......"

I'll start believing it is as wet http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/rain/index.jsp?colour=colour&time=latest&step=0&map=decile&period=36month&area=nat as the 70s when it is as wet as the 70s: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/lnlist/197376/197306-197603.gif

(Not that warmer air can't hold more water, of course.)

"and quite persistent La-Nina conditions."

I'll believe La Nina conditions are quite persistent when they are quite persistent. The current "conditions" haven't lasted anywhere near as long as a single past La Nina (1973-76): http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/lnlist/

You, on the other hand, can believe whatever your belief system requires you to believe.

All of the above quotes from Tim Flannery are quite considered with caveats included such as "if this then ..."

Nothing unusual or intemperate there.

Also you write: "Could the models have been wrong to attribute the drought to climate change rather than the ENSO cycle? "

Although folks might have been tempted to invoke climate change to comment on pst drought, I don't think any body has attributed a specific drought or flooding event to "the models". Rather model and observations based research by groups such as The Climate Futures Group from the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre suggests that climate variability is likely to increase and they make estimates of by how much. Check them out!

Hello Chris,

Rainfall in Australia in 2010, 2011 and now 2012 is reminiscent of the la-nina conditions in in the 70s. A time series graph illustrates the similarity in rainfall totals.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rranom&area=aus&season=0112&ave_yr=0

Warmer air CAN hold more water - but it must then cool to precipitate.

La Nina is quite persistent - we have just had a double dip la-nina which is similar to the 70s event.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/ts.gif

There is a high correlation between SE Australian rainfall and the El-Nino Modoki index - see

http://www.ccrc.unsw.edu.au/PDF/Taschetto%20SEAus_Modoki2.pdf

Then take a look at the EMI (El Nino Modoki Index) and tell me if high rainfall is likely like in the 70s?

http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frsgc/research/d1/iod/2007/observations/emi_recent.jpg

What is my belief system? What does it require me to believe? Can we please focus on the available observational data rather than stoop to this juvenile irrelevance about belief systems?

"Rainfall in Australia in 2010, 2011 and now 2012 is reminiscent of the la-nina conditions in in the 70s."

It's only reminiscent in the sense of being intensely wet but it's hasn't yet reached the sustained wetness of 1973-1976 in eastern Australia: http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rranom&area=eaus&season=0112&ave_yr=0

"La Nina is quite persistent - we have just had a double dip la-nina which is similar to the 70s event."

It hasn't yet reached the persistence of the 1970s event which I already pointed out. And this is only one event. Franks is hypothesizing about the relative frequency of La Nina/El Nino events and we've only experienced a single La Nina period. That is far too little data to say anything about a change in relative frequencies of La Nina/El Nino.

It's interesting to note that during the flooding, both last year and this year, in those towns with levee banks that had been built many years ago and maintained fairly well, the flood waters did not top those levees. This sugests that these floods are no more extrordinary than previous flood events, possibly in the mid to late 1950's.

Chris,

for the last 5 years rainfall in southern Australia Winter rainfall has been within 1sd of the mean or in other words about average.

http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rranom&area=saus&season=0608&ave_yr=15

The data for winter in southern australia appears over the dureation of the timeseries the record to follow a classical "cyclical fluctuation" in statistical terms. If the cycle does exist we should see a trend towards increasing winter rainfall over the next 20 years.

"for the last 5 years rainfall in southern Australia Winter rainfall"

Flannery was talking about the winter rainfall zone, i.e. the zone where at least half the rainfall falls in the cooler half of the year. "Southern" Australia covers more than that. Try Victoria: http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rranom&area=sa&season=0608&ave_yr=15

Chris, the graph you posted shows no significant variance in the moving average around the zero line and the last 4 years are all well within 1sd of the mean. What precisely are you trying to say about the more localised Victorian winter rainfall?

"the graph you posted"

Try Victoria this time: http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rranom&area=vic&season=0608&ave_yr=15

"the last 4 years"

Climate change is about a lot more than 4 years. Refer to the original point: "a decline in the WINTER rainfall zone".

Chris - as I said the victorian graph you linked to shows the moving average has no such trend. It stays very close to the zero anomaly line. It does not show a decline in the trend for winter rainfall and recently is very close to average.

I would agree that southwest WA does show a trend of reduced winter rainfall over the last 30 years. The regional change in the southwest corner of WA does not imply a decline in winter rainfall across the wider southern australian winter rainfall zone.

"as I said the victorian graph you linked to shows the moving average has no such trend"

It does have such a trend (I linked to SA by mistake the first time) and the trend is in autumn as well.

Chris, unlike the WA clear step change the Victorian winter rainfall trend looks cyclical. There appears to be a repeat of the decline in rainfall similar to the 1920 to 1940 period and recent recovery if sustained will confirm the cycle.

Try this one: http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rranom&area=vic&season=0411&ave_yr=15

The point and trend Victoria has reached is unprecedented in the record.

No doubt that Australians need to find ways to cope with recurring flood, drought and fire in better ways than in the past. But that does not mean ignoring what happens on a global scale. Rising temperatures as a result of human activity will mean rising ocean levels, whatever the affect on local climates, which will mean flooding of current coastlines around the world. Maybe not much of Australia will be affected, I don't know, but the affect on the rest of the world will certainly affect Australia. For any country to ignore this in the hope that others will fix the problem is stupid in the extreme. And I'm pleased to see that Australia recognises this.

Mike - the Flannery quote comes from this Landline interview:
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2006/s1844398.htm

It is, to be fair to the author, linked in the fourth paragraph.

Matthew Thompson,

Thls 7:30 report interview provides further evidence that Stewart Franks initial comments were not too far off the mark.

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2007/s1901854.htm
DR TIM FLANNERY: This month it's the Murray-Darling basin, next year it may be Brisbane, the year after that somewhere else. This is a global water crisis having a particularly big impact on Australia.

Stewart Franks has misquoted Flannery. He actually said "Although we're getting say a 20 per cent decrease in rainfall in some areas of Australia, that's translating to a 60 per cent decrease in the run-off into the dams and rivers. That's because the soil is warmer because of global warming and the plants are under more stress and therefore using more moisture."

It is the plants that are using more moisture, drying out the soil. Franks has completely ignored the role of vegetation in this system. Perhaps he will object to this, but he has to object to what Flannery actually said, not what he misquoted.

"While this may sounds intuitively correct, it is wrong. It completely ignores the known science of evapotranspiration and boundary layer meteorology. That is, when soil contains high moisture content, much of the sun’s energy is used in evaporation and consequently there is limited heating of the surface. However, during drought, soil moisture content is low and consequently nearly all of the incoming radiation is converted into heating the surface. The result is that air temperatures rise significantly."

You seem to be ignoring the role of climate. Australia has seen changing rainfall patterns. If there is less rain, because of drought, there will be less moisture in the soil to evaporate. If the atmosphere is warming due to CO2, it will heat the ground more regardless of what the sun is doing, causing more evaporation. As Flannery pointed out, plants under stress will extract more moisture from the soil. You have been cherry picking.

Dear Matthew,
Dr Frank's reply to my comment was not civil. Its last sentence questioned my motivation. Once that happens, we are no longer engaged in a discussion based on scientific arguments, and is the primary reason why I then dropped out of the discussion.

I think what is undeniable, is that Flannery has made a plethora of statements which seem to have been designed to indicate to the public that we were in really big trouble with regard to the future of our dams. The $15 bn ?? expended on unnecessary desal plants for instance were undoubtedly wasted partly because of many of these statements by a high profile activist who di not have the scientific integrity to study the subject himself and went off half cocked to push the agenda he had started in his much earlier book "The Weather Makers". It is grasping at straws and a gross appeal to semantics to be discussing whether he actually used the word NEVER in regard to dams filling. The implications from his statements is perfectly clear.

Generally speaking, is it fair to say that Flannery has made predictions of extreme water shortages in the future? Did public policy formulation consider Flannery's predictions? Was public money well spent implementing the policy based on Flannery's predictions?

One feels the substance of Frank's essay is being sacrificed on the pedantic alter of delicate pseudo-legal distinctions.

It's fair to say that Flannery made predictions ("in the future" is a tautology after all). But the specific prediction, that Brisbane would never see its dams fill after 2007 was fabrication.

No, the essay isn't being "sacrificed" on any alter. For myself, I only raised editorial considerations, not scientific ones. On any reasonable editorial basis, there were gaps and errors in the article that justified it being amended (as has happened).

There's nothing "delicate" or even "pseudo-legal" about inventing a quote.

Mr Nicol

Where is your evidence that the desal plants were built because of what Flannery said?

Where is your evidence and logic that such expenditure was/will be unnecessary?

As usual the cliamte science pseudo skeptic brigade makes a case without substantiation.

But, if you want to hang Flannery becuase he mispoke - I presume you will be first in line to say mea culpa and accept full responsibility on behalf of the climate science (denialis) psuedo sleptic organisation (of which you are chairman) when the reality of AGW comes home to bite??

Of course I realise you don't accept that will happen - but - hypothetically - will you go on record as being willing to apply the same standard of accountability which you so blithely apply to others??

"There's nothing "delicate" or even "pseudo-legal" about inventing a quote."

Just so. Franks said Flannery said:

""[Tim Flannery] declared that cities such as Brisbane would never again have dam-filling rains"

That has morphed to:

"the dams would NEVER fill again." According to professor Ashely.

This is not the same thing.

There is no doubt Flannery has predicted future drying and advocated the need for desalination plants; this article is a template for a predicted drying future caused by AGW:

http://www.science.org.au/nova/newscientist/105ns_001.htm

It is unequivocal; AGW will mean existing water supply facilities will not be able to supply future water needs. Did Flannery say the "the dams would NEVER fill again." No. Did Flannery mean ""the dams would NEVER fill again."

In my opinion, yes.

Mark,

I will answer your last question first. I have never tried to shield myself from accountability and for that reason have never commented on the Internet nor responded to a newspaper article in "comments" without using my full name and, as you know, often offering my email address and sometimes other details of myself.

I am confident that there will be no future reckoning on any of the statements I have made (at least those which I have not corrected when necessary as soon as possible), but if there is, then so be it!

I am not "hanging" Flannery, but
1. He holds a very high profile in Australia with regard to claims involving CO2 and Global Warming
2 He also must be accountable, and in a manner commensurate with his profile which is very largely self created.

With regard to the future necessity for Desal Plants, I would point out that history tells us how rapidly we use water. The point where it becomes obvious that new water sources are needed, without urging from politicians or the Flanneries of this world, there is time to build such a plant or to institute other processes such as heavier water restrictions and recycling, as has been done in Queensland but for Brisbane of course, this latter option also now serves no purpose at the moment.

Further, when the Brisnbane dam supplies were at 15% three years ago, we were providing water for the Gold Coast on contracts which were 4 or 5 years long. The GCoast supply, the Hinze dam, subsequently filled and was running over the spillway for many weeks. What did the Government do? It continued to supply the GC because the contract had not expired for a further 2 years or so!! - And started to build the desal plat at Southport.

In December 2010, water was released from the Wivenhoe Dam because it was 100% of the city supply level, (~50% of its FULL capacity being reserved for flood mitigation). The Coobie Creek, Perserverence and Cressy Dams which supply Toowoomba and surrounds are very near to Wivenhoe and Somerset Dams and at that time were less than 10% capacity. Infrastructure – pipes and pumps in common language – were in place which could have allowed the spilled water instead to be pumped into these three empty dams. BUT – the council in Toowoomba and the State Government could not agree on who should pay the costs of pumping so much water to fill these dams, even though they continued to pump water from Wivenhoe to Perserverence, but ONLY at the rate of Toowoomba’s consumption so no water was preserved in those dams.

Any government which can act so stupidly surely does not have the combined cerebral sufficiency to make an informed decision as to whether a $2.0 bn desal plant should be built – ever! Particularly when it is broke, in spite of Queensland having had twenty years of mineral royalties at their best, has sold off money making assets to fund recurrent spending and has also saddled Queenslanders with a multibillion dollar debt which will take many, many years to repay.

This is the same government which spent significant money (millions of $) investigating two significant dams in the area and backed down on the both – although I will concede that its preferred dam was shallow and very disruptive and I did not favour it either. The earlier one was larger, deep and not disruptive of the environment – but politically it was not acceptable even at a quarter of the cost of desal construction at the time and would have supplied cheap water which would have virtually drought proofed Brisbane and a wide surrounding area.

Other governments have also sidestepped in the past the building of much cheaper options of dams which would have far better secured our water supply. Why go for a desal? Because they were urged to by someone!
Flannery does make himself pretty clear and has been accepted by governments for a long time as an advisor, culminating in his being named Australian of the Year and taking the appointment as Commonwealth Climate Commissioner. If you wish to continue to be an apologist for Tim Flannery, that is up to you Mark. Go for it!

For example, from the New Scientist, 16 June 2007, page 5:
.........
"The cities need drought-proofing by, for example, installing water tanks in all dwellings that can accept them. Because in affected areas the decline in river flow is three times that in rainfall, water tanks that use roofs as catchments are now far more effective than dams for supplying drinking water in cities such as Sydney and Brisbane.
...........
Desalination plants can provide insurance against drought. In Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane, water supplies are so low they need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 months. Of course, these plants should be supplied by zero-carbon power sources.
(Tim Flannery is professor of earth and life sciences at Macquarie University, chair of the Copenhagen Climate Council, and the 2007 Australian of the Year)
From issue 2608 of New Scientist magazine, 16 June 2007, page 5
For the latest from New Scientiist visit www.newscientist.com";

On Tim Flannery:

The cities need drought-proofing by, for example, installing water tanks in all dwellings that can accept them. Because in affected areas the decline in river flow is three times that in rainfall, water tanks that use roofs as catchments are now far more effective than dams for supplying drinking water in cities such as Sydney and Brisbane.

Desalination plants can provide insurance against drought. In Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane, water supplies are so low they need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 months. Of course, these plants should be supplied by zero-carbon power sources.
Tim Flannery is professor of earth and life sciences at Macquarie University, chair of the Copenhagen Climate Council, and the 2007 Australian of the Year
From issue 2608 of New Scientist magazine, 16 June 2007, page 5
For the latest from New Scientiist visit www.newscientist.com
John Nicol jonicol18@bigpond.com

Still no acknowledgement I notice from Mr Nicol for his incorrect statements on temperature or the courage to admit he was wrong.

This from someone who is so willing to take Mr Fallnery to account for mispeaking but unwilling to apply the same standard to himself.

Alas this is typical of the double standard of the climate pseudo-skeptics

Thanks again Mark for giving our Australian Climate Science Coalition a free plug and highlighting my chairmanship of the little group of very experienced and active scientists who act as free consultants to the group. Some of us are retired, others working in Universities, in different areas which are relevant to investigating what phenomena drive changes in climate and have been causing variations in global temperatures both in the past and in more recent times.

We appreciate your raising our profile, particularly someone who highlights that he holds a doctorate, whatever that may be in. We are also not sure what your background may be or what funding you receive, but that is of no interest to us, we are only interested in very erudite science which we find scattered through your very enlightening posts. In Australia, by the way, we call ourselves sceptics with a “c” not “k”, but that is trivial.

You quote me as saying: “The warming that has happened since 1980 has been counter to natural forcings” I am not sure that I did say that and am not about to waste time trying to verify it, but you should check if it is of importance to you.

My view of course is that the warming since 1979 occurred as indicated by the measurements from UAH, GSS, NOAA and HADCRUT, all of which, within the errors of their measurements and analysis, provide the same general form for the sequential data – Global Temperature means per year from 1979 to 2012 (January). To view one of the more recent presentations, the UAH data, go to:

http://www.ruralsoft.com.au/climatescientific.

I have taken note of all of the links you so kindly put into your several posts for me and will work my way through them very carefully to see if there is anything that one can learn from them, which I am sure there will be – much. However, I have not noticed a lot in them which refers to carbon dioxide as the definitive driver – they all seem to assume that climate change is a result of carbon dioxide without mentioning the mechanism. They are more concerned, as far as my simple mind can ascertain, with showing that there is warming here or warming there, which causes this that or the other, warming which could have arisen for any number of reasons as far as they are concerned, but which says nothing except by assumption, about CO2.

They quote the statement by the IPCC that – abbreviated slightly - “WE believe that most of the increase in global temperatures in the 20th century were very likely due to increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide”. This is then taken as a mantra of proof! The errors which intrinsic properties of the models, solely upon which the IPCC relies for determining its global temperature predictions, while admitting that clouds, precipitation, convection, circulation, the SOI.. are all too heard and that ONLY the results for temperature, (which is necessary of course to impress their government masters who have funded the project to the tune of about $80 bn and still counting,) are what they call reasonably reliable if you think a range of from 1 to 6 degrees represents reliability.

Perhaps I and many others are just very hard to please! However, in my defence, I would have to say it is very difficult to get out of the habit of wanting to see the error bars less than the magnitude of the quantity measured. Oh, silly me! The IPCC do not put any error bars on their quantitative stuff and neither do most of the other people who are trying to hang attribution for global warming on CO2.

I would submit Mark, that if they were to get down and do some genuine physical analysis of the behaviour of carbon dioxide and the effects within the atmosphere, instead of fooling around trying to model the whole impossible thing at once, they may be surprised at the results. They would find they no need to go on a weird search for hotspots and cold spots, to apply attribution – the result would fall out in the science.

Do you know that the position of the area which showed the least warming (most cooling) over the past 30 years corresponds to the area occupied by the Southern Magnetic Pole, while the area which demonstrates the highest increase in temperature (warming) corresponds to the North Magnetic Pole. Do you not think that this suggests the correct attribution might, just might be something to do with the influx of charged particles, the sun, the cosmic rays, the magnetic fields of the galaxy which change as we pass through?

In one of your references, we see the incredibly unsubstantiated statement “We find that since the mid-twentieth century, greenhouse gases contributed 0.85 °C of warming (5–95% uncertainty: 0.6–1.1 °C), about half of which was offset by the cooling effects of aerosols, with a total observed change in global temperature of about 0.56 °C" – all from looking at distributions of temperature in a world whose atmosphere performs such feats of circulation as to distribute energy, particulate matter and yes CO2 as uniformly as it could get, and very rapidly. The temperature is not totally uniform of course, being dependent on Lambert’s Law as well as on circulation. But I have just recently been studying the measured distributions of CO2 over the earth for which the major contributors are relatively localised, yet the CO2 concentrations are uniform to about less than one percent. How is it that this uniform distribution of carbon dioxide, coupled with continuous circulation leads to hot spots which can be identified as being typical of Green House Gas forcing. It beggars belief!!

BTW, thank you also for pointing out my careless mistake with regard to the period of warming before the period which is of interest to the IPCC starting in 1980. I should have looked it up, and felt it was earlier than my statement said,(starting 1940) but I was being caustious not to claim rapid rises too much before carbon dioxide began to increase at the IPCC’s definition of serious increase. I do feel better now that the period was actually 1916 to 1940, 24 years, a long definitive period with a rise of about 0.6 – longer than the more recent period from 1980 1997, with a rise of 0.55 C in which is just the length of time the IPCC and climatologists say is needed to define a pattern, but with as I said earlier, a slightly quicker rise than the earlier one from 1916. I think I will get them to put that picture up at http://www.ruralsoft.com.au/climatescientific along side the UAH warming measurements.
Cheers Mark, John. jonicol18@bigpond.com

Mark,

Timspells his name "Flannery".Regards,
John

I note that Dr Michael Roderick (referred to by Franks) won the 2009 Australasian Science Prize for his world class work on evapouration which he has been researching for a number years.

Roderick explains: “As the air temperature increases [due to global warming]
and water evaporates faster, the public perception is that it will get drier, whereas the scientific basis is that it will rain more on a global average basis. However,locally – in, say, Sydney, Melbourne or the MDB – it will not necessarily rain more. It might or might not. It could rain less... When averaged across all models, a robust prediction is for global precipitation to increase annually by 17 mm for every 1°C of warming.”
The study finds that the increased rainfall globally is not spread evenly. Some
regions will become wetter while others will become drier.

http://www.control.com.au/bi2009/310ASPrize.pdf

and also

http://sciencewise.anu.edu.au/articles/Panning%20out

Dr Roderick's work was discussed at a November 2004 Canberra workshop on pan evaporation.

http://www.science.org.au/natcoms/nc-ess/documents/nc-ess-pan-evap.pdf

which also included contributions from Neville Nicholls and Wenju Cai.

Puts some perspective on Frank's claims.

Yet Roderick's own work suggests that evaporation over land is declining:

Roderick, Michael L. , Michael T. Hobbins and Graham D. Farquhar, 2009: Pan Evaporation Trends and the Terrestrial
Water Balance. I. Principles and Observations. Geography Compass 3/2 (2009): 746–760, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2008.00213.x

Abstract:

Pan evaporation is just that – it is the evaporation rate of water from a small dish located at the ground-surface. Pan evaporation is a measure of the evaporative demand over terrestrial surfaces. Declines in pan evaporation have now been reported in many regions of the world. The trends vary from one pan to the next, but when averaged over many pans, they are typically in the range of −1 to −4 mm a−2 (mm per annum per annum). In energetic terms, a trend of −2 mm a−2 is equivalent to −0.16 W m−2 a−1 and over 30 years this is a change of −4.8 W m−2. For comparison, the top-of-atmosphere forcing due to doubled CO2 is estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to be ~3.7 W m−2. Hence, the magnitude of the pan evaporation trend is large. What is of even greater interest is the direction – a decline – given the well-established warming of the last 30–50 years.

Yes Anthony - hence the prize for Dr Roderick.

http://sciencewise.anu.edu.au/articles/Panning%20out

"Back in 2007, Dr Roderick’s team were the first to effectively explain the falling evaporation rate anomaly. After an extensive study of vast quantities of data, they concluded that the reduced pan evaporation rates were the result of falling wind speeds - and coined the term, global stilling. Over the last 30 years the average wind speed has dropped by 0.01 ms-1 each year resulting in average wind speeds 0.3 ms-1 lower than they were 30 years ago. Given that the average wind speed is around 2 ms-1, this represents a very significant change."

and

“No one is really sure as yet if plant changes are the mechanism behind the reducing wind speeds,” Dr Roderick says, “but what we are sure of is that plants respond directly to even modest changes in CO2 levels and there’s no doubt that those are rising.”

I also like this quote from Dr Roderick

"I think the message here is that climate science is complicated. You can’t just say it’s hotter so it will be drier.”

But according to Franks, you can quote mine climate scientists and claim that an out of context quote is the entirety of their view.

Dr Roderick says above "Some regions will become wetter while others will become drier."

Pretty much the position of all the people who have been quote mined by Franks.

"they concluded that the reduced pan evaporation rates were the result of falling wind speeds - and coined the term, global stilling."

Tell it to the CSIRO:

http://www.csiro.au/news/New-energy-in-search-for-future-wind

Then there is this:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2011/03/23/science.1197219.abstract

Then back to Roderick:

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008GL035627.shtml

Isn't science fun.

Ia agree Marc. I think the problem with the argument over what Flannery did or dib not say is that most of the comments come from TV or radio interviews or from a wide variety of news papers.

It is quite clear from his writings to which he must ascribe to and the myriad of other comments in the varuios forms of the press, that Flannery attempted to push as strongly as possible that we were going to be almost cetainly in continued drought in the East of Australia.

Those who argue against the actual words used by Stewart Franks are just being semantic, playing with words and of course helping unwittingly to strengthen that Flannery has been very, shall we say, to be kind,careless nwith his statements. I would be very surprised if, among all that has been recorded and written of Flannery's many predictions on sea level rises of ??? metres, there are not at least one combination of the words which Franks quoted. John Nicol.

Since there were few others with as high a profile as Tim Flannery when it comes to generalisations of the future magnitude of armagedon climate style, and with such influence in governments, Labor in particular as evidenced by his appointments, it is drawing a very long bow indeed to suggest that his influence was not crucial in the decisions to build the white elephants otherwise known as desalination plants.

If perchance the drought had continued, can you imagine Tim denying responsibility for their development?

So Marc - you have now "jumped the shark" and are denying the science behind the greenhouse effect.

That puts you in the group that the doyen of climate science denial, Fred Singer referred to in his article "Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name".

Here are 3 quotes from Singer

"Now let me turn to the deniers. One of their favorite arguments is that the greenhouse effect does not exist at all because it violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics -- i.e., one cannot transfer energy from a cold atmosphere to a warmer surface."

and

"Then there is another group of deniers who accept the existence of the greenhouse effect but argue about the cause and effect of the observed increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide."

and

"Another subgroup simply says that the concentration of atmospheric CO2 is so small that they can't see how it could possibly change global temperature. But laboratory data show that CO2 absorbs IR radiation very strongly. "

Then there is "skeptic" Roy Spencer who has numerous articles on his web site defending the science behind "greenhouse effect". Here is the most recent

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2012/02/more-musings-from-the-greenhouse/

And of course "skeptic", Dr David Evans who says in an article on JoNova's blog

"The direct effect of CO2 is well-established physics, based on laboratory results, and known for over a century"

and

"The serious skeptical scientists have always agreed with the government climate scientists about the direct effect of CO2. "

Of course this is the problem when you see climate science as a conspiracy and start getting your science from political idologues.

Mike Hansen,

While your quotations of Singer and others are quite true, his remarks do refer to a very small group of enthusiasts whose kind also populates the group who believe strongly that "CO2 causes global warming".

You will notice also that none of the comments applied to the ENHANCED Green House Effect which refers to the rate of increase in temperature caused by increasing carbon dioxide. That industrialisation produces an increase in CO2 is not challenged by any one of consequence, among the very large group of scientific sceptics who are seeking to establish a conversation with those promoting the view that modelling is a satisfacory and unassailable way to determine the effects of increases in this gas and sek to dismiss much empirical evidence which demonstrates the limitations of the models.

Starting with a very small concentration of about 20 ppmv, (present amount 390 ppmv) carbon dioxide and water vapour contribute to atmospheric warming of the atmosphere, on a par with the effect of winds (air/land contact), as is very easy to show, as is the fact that 60% of the solar insolation is returned to the atmosphere through evaporation over the oceans - not because of the green house effect, which refers to the 20% of the sun's energy re-radiated from the earth which is absorbed by these gases and passed into the atmosphere via inter-molecular collisions. The full description of the GHE is rather one of radiation rather than absorption, since it is responsible for about 20% only of the heat transfered to the atmosphere from the surface of the earth (20% GHE, 20% contact/wind, 60% ocean evaporation and subsequent condensation) but responsible for almost 85% of the radiation of energy to space. The radiation from CO2 in the very top of the troposhere and possibly into the stratosphere, accounts for more than 40% of all the energy lost from the earth to space as shown by measurements from satellites.

It is the difference between changes in these two processes, absorption vs radaition which is to be considered in detail in order to determine the magnitude of the ENHANCED Green House Effect, which involves a very close study of the spectral characteristics of the major green house gases, before one can apportion blame for over heating or over cooling. In particular, the far wings of the lines which constitute the absorption bands, whether involved in absorption or radiation, are crucial to this determination. I believe this study is better carried out through a focussed analysis of the "green house" processes than through the much cruder approac by way of models which by their very nature, must work through a very significant related and unrelated parameters in order to arrive at a result. So far, according to the IPCC Section 8.1.2.1 and 8.1.2.2, they have not been able to consistently reproduce known climates through hind casting, but were about to start that process following the release of IPCC Repport AR4 2007. John Nicol

So no, a simple quotation from Singer on a totally irrelevant part of the debate is really of no consequence in this discussion.

Mike I have stated nothing of the sort and if you had a pair you would offer an apology.

The only shark jumper is Flannery, but it seems you sit proudly on his shoulders with your hands clasped tightly over his eyes.

Stopa's article offered merely as a discussion point. I do not endorse all the views therein, as I'm sure you would not necessarily share exactly the same view as dear old Tim.

Shorter Marc Hendrickx

I have stated nothing of the sort
.
.
.
.
Well maybe I did but I did not mean it.

"So far, according to the IPCC Section 8.1.2.1 and 8.1.2.2, they have not been able to consistently reproduce known climates through hind casting,"

I finally got round to checking John Nicol's assertions here and, surprise surprise, he's not telling the truth just like all the other false assertions he repeats over and over again about heat transfer through the atmosphere etc.

IPCC Sections 8.1.2.1 and 8.1.2.2 are entitled "Model Intercomparisons and Ensembles" and "Metrics of Model Reliability" respectively. They don't say anything about not been able to consistently reproduce known climates through hind casting, Section 8.1.2.1 is summarized by its last paragraph:

"Ensembles of models represent a new resource for studying the range of plausible climate responses to a given forcing. Such ensembles can be generated either by collecting results from a range of models from different modelling centres (‘multi-model ensembles’ as described above), or by generating multiple model versions within a particular model structure, by varying internal model parameters within plausible ranges (‘perturbed physics ensembles’)."

Nothing about not being able to consistently reproduce known climates through hind casting there.

Section 8.1.2.2 (Metrics of Model Reliability) states:

"The above studies show promise that quantitative metrics for the likelihood of model projections may be developed, but because the development of robust metrics is still at an early stage, the model evaluations presented in this chapter are based primarily on experience and physical reasoning, as has been the norm in the past."

Nothing about not being able to consistently reproduce known climates through hind casting there either.

Let's thank John Nicol for again showing that people, such as himself, who deny climate science have very little other than misinformation to argue with. It helps make me very confident that the climate scientists are right. Thank you John for enhancing my confidence in them.

Paul,

It is possible that Flannery may well be correct as to what the temperature of the globe may be in 100 year’s time. But I am sure you would agree that he is equally likely to be wrong and the world may be much cooler and in need of totally different adaptation techniques from what is proposed in taxing carbon dioxide. The emphasis should only be onpreparation for problems of any nature –tsunamis, earthquakes, flooding, fires all of which we know will happen and for possible future cooling or warming onl one of which can happen at the same time and for which we have no pertinent indicator despite claims by the IPCC modelers.

I note your comment regarding the “warmest years in the last ten”. This remark echoes the misunderstanding of the most simple of scientific truths by a large number of people, including climatologists, who should know better.

The fact is that if you are travelling in a valley and you go over a hill which was 100 metres in front of you, while you travelling across the top of the hill, any random bump (upwards) must take you to a height which is higher than you have been for last 100 m. If you go across a small dip or gully, you do not return to a level equal to that of the valley. Some of the bumps will be higher than others but all will be “the highest for x metres”.

The same with the global temperature. We have reached some sort of peak or plateau at the moment. Eventually the temperature will change upwards or downwards as either nature or CO2 increase or a combination of both dictates. While we cross this plateau, even if the trend is slightly downwards, the random change in temperature each year ensures, from our position now at the top of the temperature “hill”, that any small upward change in temperature will be among the hottest in 100 years. Nothing to do with physics or climate; just a simple fact of our position in time on the graph!

No one denies that the earth has warmed and that the heat content of the oceans will be commensurately higher but of course lagging, just as for any cooling period under whatever influence, the warmer oceans will slow that process down also, so the very small cooling which we see now is probably the delayed result of the recent solar minimum, but I am not pushing that..

With regard to regional climate, since the models are constructed to take account of the size and shape of land masses, the position of coastlines and the presence of mountains, if they s were accurate enough to find the “average” climate for the whole world, they should be able to give just as accurate regional forecasts down to the size of their available grid. Otherwise one cannot accept their average climate prognosis, since if some of the regions were correctly assessed by the model but two difficult regions gave higher than the correct value for a parameter, then the accuracy of the average is obviously compromised. If it is a statistical thing, and the regional climates determined by the models have a random characteristic so that one might be tempted to claim that they are not necessarily correct, but the average should be correct, then is also nonsense, since the average will also be random.

We see this already in the published results for warming, which is the only parameter out of about seven including circulation cels, convection, clouds, precipitation humidity, which the IPCC tells us it is unable to predict accurately, has a range among 23 models from 1.5 to 4.5 C for a doubling of CO2. With errors in each, the absolute error (about +-3) is thus about twice the size of the smallest value (1.5) found, and the errors allow for a possible cooling effect, even though the models have been chosen as those, which in the words of the IPCC, provide “plausible” values for the change in temperature i.e. above zero.

As far as extreme events in Australia are concerned, a glance at any sequential representations by bar chart, graph or table, show that there are much more extreme conditions and variations in several earlier periods than over very recent years. The large flooding in Queensland in 1841, the Federation drought in the same era as the 1993 floods and one could go on.

Since charcoal is carbon and is produced by heating and slow burning of wood, I cannot see that steel making by charcoal will make any difference from using coal in terms of total emissions of CO2 to produce the same heat – it is likely that charcoal would produce more, although I cannot claim definitive knowledge of that.

Nuclear power should be used anyway, as broadening of our base for power production, and for the reduction in other pollutants – raw carbon, sulphur etc which is scrubbed out but probably not completely. Certainly carbon dioxide is not a “pollutant”.

Yes, since the last ice age 10,000 years ago, the earth has been warming and seas rising in general although some rises and falls relate to the movement of land masses. Also since 1850, the earth has warmed as it comes out of the Little Ice Age when the Thames river and others in Europe froze until about April in some cases. Passing through the LIA, the earth had three choices: it could stay at the same temperature, it could get cooler still or could warm.

It “chose” to warm for whatever reason which is unknown – certainly not because of carbon dioxide as it started to come out of the LIA in about 1750 or earlier. So claiming that it has warmed since 1850 “because of carbon dioxide” does not fir the facts. Sooner or later, as history distinctly shows, it will revert to a full ice age.

The breaking up of the large ice shelves simply follows as the night the day, from the fact that the earth is warming up after an ice age of 10,000 years ago. Nothing significant in that – what else would you expect but for the earth to warm because the influence which caused the ice age in the first place has changed back to an earlier state, just as it did after the previous ice age and the one before that – every 100,000 years or so. This must therefore be a very natural influence I must emphasize, not much effect from human beings then.

Cheers, John Nicol

Hi John,

If the world economy developed the way that I wish then I should hope that a warming correction would be indeed be needed. I suspect that it would not be for the reasons that you are saying. If coal used ended in the next 15 years and we did shift to nuclear and renewables then CO2 levels would be expected to begin to lower. If we adopted widespread bio-char use then they would go down a lot faster.

The climate changes due to forcings. Yes I agree that due to orbital forcings along we need to expect an ice age to be approaching. It is clear that from the short list of evidence that I refer to that this cooling is not happening currently.

The cooling that happens if you look at the average Earths surface air temperatures there is a clear pattern of sharp rise with a large El Nino event followed by slow or little cooling till the next large El Nino.

There is a graph I like that shows this going down in temperature till the next big up.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/going-down-the-up-escalator-part-1.html

The warming that has happened since 1980 has been counter to natural forcings. The only calculated forcing that accounts for that rise is the forcing from CO2 that has increased for the last 150 years from about 300 ppm to 390 ppm. There are other greenhouse gasses also that humans have made. The successful reduction in the acceleration of the rise in fluro carbons used in refrigeration and the increase in areosols from China and India has changed the direction of the warming trend.

The warming from the non condensing greenhouse gasses is more than 10 times the orbital forcings that bring ice ages. So I do not think that we have an equal chance of the planet getting cooler. It is not an accident that that planet gets hotter or colder is it forced by measurable and very large forces.

While the aerosols are poorly measured by satellite we are missing the accuracy needed to use models as proof. The evidence that I find convincing is observational not modelled.

While I did cover mathematical models briefly in my post graduate work it's not my area so I will keep to what experience I have most clearly.

The forcings from the greenhouse gasses are measured well in the lab and by observations which have low errors. You can dispute that if you wish but it's very old physics and chemistry and you will have not credibility by that route.

Personally I have performed too many IR spectrums and used the CO double bond absorption between 600 and 800 wave numbers per cm in my work to give any credibility to claims that science is not sound in that area.

"Since charcoal is carbon and is produced by heating and slow burning of wood, I cannot see that steel making by charcoal will make any difference from using coal in terms of total emissions of CO2 to produce the same heat – it is likely that charcoal would produce more, although I cannot claim definitive knowledge of that."

The difference between charcoal and coal is that one has taken carbon out of the air to make biomass and the other has taken carbon from the ground. The increase in fossil carbon is the issue. Bio-char use does not add fossil carbon. Coal use does add fossil carbon.

The keeling curve has sharp ups and downs twice a year that match the dropping and regrowth of leaves in the NH. If we make bio-char we add to the down ward trend by putting carbon in the soil if we use it for farming but its use of steel is carbon neutral since the carbon was sourced from the air via plant life instead of fossils.

The IPCC work is now out of date. It's too conservative in many areas and I no longer use it as more detailed work in the last few years needs to be considered. With the exception of a few contrarians it details the move away from a stable climate towards a warmer climate that has more extremes.

"The breaking up of the large ice shelves simply follows as the night the day, from the fact that the earth is warming up after an ice age of 10,000 years ago."

If you look at the average temperature record of the last 800,000 years taken from ice cores it is clear that continued warming for 10,000 years is not present following the ending of an ice age. There is nothing natural about the long holocene and the break up of ice shelf's at it's end.
There is no match in the historical record. Your theory is with out evidence.

It does match the start of farming and the increase in greenhouse gasses which have held off the slow decline into an ice age that would have happened "naturally".

All it takes to end the Earth from ever having ice ages is one refrigerations gas production factory. Those forcings from the old refrigeration gasses are larger than orbital forcings. End of the cooling story.

Our control issue for the planet is all about managing warming. CO2 is the largest of the non condensing greenhouse gasses so it is logical that this be the focus of laws to control emission of fossil sourced carbon since it is an out of balance emission and as such is a pollutant.

There is a natural 60 giga tonne cycle per year of life adding and then removing carbon into the air and out again.

The 9 and now 10 giga tonnes per year of fossil carbon is the source of the plenary energy balance issue.

As humans we make many pollutants. However only a very small number risk ongoing planetary warming as a result of there lack of controlled use. Carbon use sticks out as the key control point.

Dear Paul,
Thank you very much for your helpful and informative response to my comments.
First I must admit to being stupid in my remark regarding coal and charcoal as the difference you demonstrate should have been immediately obvious to me. I also accept that if we need to reduce carbon dioxide, that bio-char is a useful way to do it through improvements to farmland. Of course careful farming methods alone can make a significant contribution to this and most farmers are addressing this through soil testing and taking advice from their agronomers. Remember that the biomass grown underground for a good crop of wheat initially contains more carbon than the is above ground including the seed head. So some carbon is being sequestered. Of course the bacteria in the soil break it down and a lot escapes as CO2 as does it from the stubble above although the stubble is much less prone to rotting than the moist underground mass. By returning the dry stubble later to ground there is a significant total input of carbon, which is already I believe making a significant contribution to carbon dioxide reductions.

You commented that “The warming that has happened since 1980 has been counter to natural forcings”

I am not sure that you can confidently say that. The warming shown in the history of the earth’s temperature since the workable thermometer became available, indicates at least, that warming was quicker in the later nineteenth century for approximately 20 to 25 years than it has been since 1979. While the number of valid points in that era will be debatable, the warming from 1940 to 1965 (again approximate but better than in the 1800s) was very nearly equal to what occurred most recently. The IPCC never refer to these periods since they are not regarded as periods when CO2 was sufficiently increasing.
You say “The only calculated forcing that accounts for that rise is the forcing from CO2 that has increased for the last 150 years from about 300 ppm to 390 ppm.”
There is a plethora of at least potential evidence from solar physicists that changes in solar parameters which are much better connected to global temperatures then is the monotonic increase in carbon dioxide. Correlations between CO2 and T are ONLY clearly evident from 1979 to 1996 and then only as monotonically increasing pair. There are no oscillatory components which convincingly demonstrate correlation. On the other hand, solar cyclical phenomena, while apparently weak in terms of energy, show very clear and definitive oscillatory and also linear correlations with temperature. However, the IPCC dismisses these summarily because they appear weak, and do not look for mechanisms which may well amplify these weaker effects.
I know Andy Pitman, UNSW Climate Unit made the well known statement when asked how could you show that CO2 increases caused the global warming from 1979 to 1998 “Carbon dioxide is the only thing that is increasing. What else could it be?”
When I first became interested in studying the evidence behind the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming, I was simply interested in finding out the details behind the physics and accepted totally the consensus as it then was said to be. It did sound very plausible and I had no trouble in accepting the absorption characteristics of CO2 and collisional redistribution as a process of atmospheric warming. In order to become informed , I wrote to the CSIRO group under Penny Whetton, believing that they would be an immediate source of references showing the detailed background science behind Global Warming. (I had had very good relations with CSIRO groups in the past and knew a lot of their scientists who were working in various areas of spectroscopy and laser physics in both chemistry and physics.) However, Penny wrote back saying she would need some time to look for something which I must say surprised me since I had said I would be happy to receive anything included brief internal reports which used to be one of the ways scientists exchanged views quickly and without ceremony. After a few more exchanges of letters in which I posed a few questions which I had expected she could answer off the top of her head, but could not, she had a colleague in some related group in Brisbane to send me a couple of quite simple calculations and analysis by a Polish author Zastawny which used the HITRAN data and found a forcing about ¼ of that used by the CSIRO. In the end, and after total of some dozen or more exchanges of emails within about two and half years she finally referred me to the standard IPCC statement which also appears in the CSIRO Report – Climate Change in Australia 2007 published about the same time as AR4 and which states “We believe that most of the increase in global temperatures during the second half of the twentieth century was very likely due toincreases in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide.”
After that very disappointing exchange and letters to Andy Pitman and David Karoly with exactly the same success, I decided to set up my own calculation using simulated data which took account of the variation of line width and shapes through changes in the Lorenz and Doppler components, but nothing else, even in the far wings which I know is not quite correct.
From my exchanges with the leading climatologists in Australia and the results of my own crude theoretical analysis, which incidentally were consistent with the findings of Prof Jack Barrett, an IR spectroscopist from Imperial College London who, in 1985, was pilloried by the environmental movement for daring to suggest that the line and band shapes of CO2 do not lend themselves to supporting the Enhanced Green House Effect, (as opposed to the Green House Effect which every one accepts) as determined from his laboratory measurements, I became a sceptic and have seen nothing in the ensuing four or five years to make me change that view.
However, if you have some better information than given to me by Barrett and in contrast by Whetton, Karoly and Pitman, I would be very appreciative. One thing I have searched for over a long time without success, is a value for the B coefficients of the CO2 vibration-rotation transitions for each of the lines in the absorption bands, but in particular for the 14.9 micron band. Would you be able to point me in the direction of a source for that? I can only obtain approximate values working backwards from HITRAN data, the oft quoted value of “about” 10^5 for the A coefficient and some diagrams showing the absorption in laboratory experiments many of which have insufficient resolution to demonstrate the value at the very peak of the lines. One also looks for consistency in statements about the optical depth but many of the given values are averages over the spectrum and in fact usually show very little consistency anyway which is any where near the required accuracy for estimating a possible Enhanced Effect..
You say: “There are other greenhouse gasses also that humans have made. .....” I do not, and nor does any scientific sceptic dispute the initial forcing by all greenhouse gases, nor that many of them are produced by man and end up in the atmosphere. I am also aware of the many measurements made which show the absorption in laboratory experiments and in the atmosphere itself. No contest.
The point that Jack Barrett made, which is only one of many which can be suggested for the lack of an increase in warming with increased CO2, was that the shape of the spectra did not accommodate the basic premise that increases in density of CO2 would increase absorption in the unsaturated wings to a degree which would significantly increase the net energy transfer to the air though subsequent non-adiabatic collisions, as claimed by the modelers at that time and subsequently by the IPCC.
Another feature which puzzles me sometimes and which you, as a chemical IR spectroscopist may be able to throw some more light on, is in the measured radiation spectrum of CO2 at the top of the atmosphere. Claims are made that increased CO2 will cause the radiation to occur at a higher and therefore cooler altitude, leading to a lowering of the radiation until the earth below warms to the point that the fairly constant – it is assumed – adiabatic lapse rate, causes that higher position in the atmosphere where CO2 can now radiate as before, to warm until equilibruium between radiation and insolation is re-established.
In the published satellite spectra, what I assume to be the strong Q branch of the 14.9 Micron spectrum of CO2 is shown as radiating more strongly than the other broader parts of the spectrum, implying from their analysis of the situation based on power, that this narrow part of the spectrum is radiating according to a higher temperature and hence from a lower height than those molecules radiating in the other parts of the band.
Since the Q Branch is the stonger line, whether fromm a higher A coefficient or the overlap of lines giving a higher weighting, the fact is that the absorption coefficient depends inseparably I believe, on both the number density (of CO2) and the line strength. K=2*Nco2*Bij*h*fij/(Gamma*Pi*c) where Nco2 is number density, Bij the Einstrin B coefficient, h is Planck’s constant, fij is the frequency for the transition ij, gamma is the line width, Pi....usual, and c is vel. light
Thus there appears to be no essential difference between the effect of Bij increasing and Nco2 increasing, which would seem to indicate that the strong Q branch should be radiating at a higher level and hence colder temperature than the rest of the line. My own possible interpretation of the facts is that the weaker level of radiation shown for the P and R components, is that the resolution of the satellite spectroscope – probably an FT instrument, cannot resolve the much higher peaks of the now very narrow P and R line components of the band, which on my comments above ought to be shown as higher (warmer temperature) than the stronger, broader Q branch which is much better resolved. Do you agree?

I am also not sure how you can categorically say that the green house forcings are stronger than natural forcings. The climatologists tell us that at the present time the lack of warming is because of a transient natural forcing which in decline will return us to future warming.
Thank yoiu again for your well thought through and stimulating comments. I will look forward to your reponse tho this if you have the time. Kind regards, John Nicol jonicol18@bigpond.com

Hi John,

I'm an ex petroleum chemist who changed to medical manufacturing after becoming very sceptical about the petroleum industry being able to play a good role in the climate issue in 1986. My PhD supervisor use to joke about the prospect of running out of light crude by saying there was enough alternative feedstock to bake the planet from the greenhouse effect. I was one of a few hundred young scientists at the time developing alternative feedstocks for when the light crude ran out. I've been interested in the climate change issue ever since. I take his joke literally - as correct. Not quickly but possible over time if BAU continues into next the next century.

I would have thought that http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
was enough to give confidence in the ability of additional CO2 being able to contribute to an enhanced greenhouse effect. Also http://www.eumetsat.int/Home/Main/Publications/Conference_and_Workshop_Proceedings/groups/cps/documents/document/pdf_conf_p50_s9_01_harries_v.pdf

You are right that I don't have the time to respond to your research interest into CO2 spectra. I noted you honours project. I'm a commercial scientist responsible for the goods in my supply chain. The TGA is a strict task master. But your post has prompted me to get on with the brief for a court case. (Every nudge through the procrastination is a genuine move forward that I appreciate. The delights of being in business!) Forensic accounting became more appealing for a few hours after the idea of doing the research into your post. It's obvious that you enjoy your topic. It is an approach I'd not considered taking so I appreciate the broadening of my possible interests in the climate area.

Usually I research the science behind the posts I read and enjoy it. Just now the economy is tight and as a scientist entrepreneur the AU$D is my tightest task master! I do a lot of export.

The Harries paper has been critiqued here:

http://landshape.org/enm/interpretation-bias/

Dear Paul,
Thank you for your comment and response. It is a pity you do not have time to continue this discussion but I respect that. It is interesting to know that your change of employment as a scientist from petroleum to medical goods and that Australia is an exported in this area. Well done. As a retired person I do not have many deadlines to meet but one keeps surprisingly busy! What with all this climate stuff!!

I have looked at your references which I had seen before. I guess it may be since you were following climate change closely, but the Harries et al. (with Brindley) paper has been demonstrated to be wrong from a number of points of view and in 2002 they published a sort of retraction against the accuracy claimed earlier. For my own, the fact that making both relative and absolute measurements of radiation intensity in the laboratory at visible wavelengths is hard enough, and even more difficult at IR where the temperature of the surrounds is critical, even using the same apparatus.

Their errors were also huge compared with the measurement they claimed to have made. A second problem of course was that the spectrometers in both satellites were Fourier Transform which may well be why the shaper CO2 spectra came out differently from the much more constant spectra of H2O. They had also found a similar result for O3 to that for CO2 – this is also a rapidly varying spectra.

Put the equipment in a satellite with comparatively low resolution, use different equipment with different apertures 30 years apart – and boy have you got trouble. I have never been able to accept their results for this reason, without redoing the analysis of the data. The second point is that the major effect on global temperature is the result of feedbacks from increased water vapour which provides 85% or more of the assumed increase in temperature while CO2 provides the trigger as it were.

However, in the earliest Harries Paper (2001), while they attempt to show the 1970-1997 difference is negative for CO2, their results appear to show that for water vapour, the effect is the opposite, which is counter to what they are claiming to show. Several papers have also been critical of their work and in 2002 they have published a sort of retraction on the accuracy which they admit is not sufficient to use for determining feedbacks and also casts considerable doubt of their own on the earlier claims. Nevertheless, the IPCC quotes ONLY the 2001 paper as part of its warming claims but neglects to include this 2002 publication which to my tiny sceptical mind, smacks of cherry picking in the nth degree to the point of being downright dishonest.

It doesn’t stop there as in my quest for references showing that CO2 is to blame for warming, the only paper which has been referred to me, by Matthew England from UNSW, was the Harries et al. 2001. No one has ever raised the Brindley and Harries 2002 rescinding nor any of the other peer reviewed literature which demonstrated its irrelevance.

Brindley and Harries 2002
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0442%282003%29016%3C3820%3AOOTIOS%3E2.0.CO%3B2
Best wishes,
John Nicol, jonicol18@bigpond.com

Dear Michael,

Thank you again for helping so effectively to promote the Australian Climate Science Coalition which is dedicated to providing information on the science behind global warming. Chris and Mark are also contributing, so I thank you also.

Our pages include news on current climate change, likely causes of this change, be it increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide, variations in the solar cycle, the effects of cosmic rays (Svensmark and his research group in Denmark), Miskolczi from NASA working on semi- opaque atmospheres, the solar magnetic modulation of charged particulates in the upper atmosphere (formation of clouds), semi-cyclical events of the PDO and ENSO, or the partial effects of the major determinants of the ice ages, the Milankovich cycles.

The little band of experienced independent scientists who form our advisory panel, of which I am honoured to be the nominal chairman, are also dedicated to determining a more accurate understanding of the many forces which determine the climate, forces which have acted for millions of years, and among which CO2 may well be a small partner. I am sorry to know that you are disappointed that these distinguished scientists prefer not to publish in the so-called “climate” journals, although very few journals of longstanding reputation have the word climate in their title. More erudite and "climate relevant" publications by these people are better located in the traditional upper level journals which provide both a bigger readership of the larger scientific groups and with it more prestige for their institutions and research groups.

These people, each of whom has behind him/her a lifetime of research experience, which is continuing, are mostly trained in those disciplines traditionally known as the “hard” sciences, and are well published in those relevant, major, journals, which accommodate only the most significant work of the particular discipline.

Atmospheric physics, which is one area of research relevant to climate as well as radiation transfer, absorption and radiation of electromagnetic waves, collisional excitation/de-excitation convection and the transformation of energy through changes in gas pressure, are NOT the singular domain of climatologists.

The physics of climatology is a pot pourri many different well established disciplines, mostly in physics, but NONE of which has been developed originally in relation to climate. For this reason, those continuing to work in these specialised areas, have, in general, much more to contribute to the scientific discussion on global warming than do the acclaimed “generalists”, the climatologists.

Many of those scientists in these disciplines who have never published in a “climate “ journal or even one in geophysics, have much more to contribute to the study of the forces controlling climate than do many of the self-styled climatologists, most of whom have learned a little, perhaps a lot, about the application of physics to their discipline, but demonstrate in many of their peer reviewed publications in the “climate” journals, that their understanding is limited and that they would be incapable of contributing to a major journal in the central discipline which is relevant to those features of the climate which they are struggling to understand.

Having said all that by way of partial explanation of what has been done by members of the scientific advisory group of the Australian Climate Science Coalition, I wish to thank you all again for the unexpected respect you have all shown for our group through your unqualified and dignified mention of us in your many postings.

Yours sincerely, John Nicol jonicol18@bigpond.com

Hi Rob,

If you have any link which shows that the periodicity of ENSO is changing in anything other than a cyclical way similar to the past or that its amplitude is intensifying compared to past events please share it.

I would expect that we will have futher el-nino and la-nina in the next decade. I would agree that with our severely limited ability to predict the change beyond a week or two any prediction is really just a gamble. The ENSO model ensemble forecasts for the next six months include every ENSO possibility from moderate el-nino to another la-nina dip and everything in between - see link .

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/CDB/Forecast/figf4.gif

James - not just links but peer-reviewed scientific papers. Paleo data indicate that ENSO has been around for a very long time - maybe as far back as the Miocene. When the background Pacific climate state is warm, the return cycle is shorter, and longer when the background state is cool -as it was in Medieval times.

And you appear to be confused about what this means. ENSO is very unlikely to disappear, the opposing warm/dry (El Nino) and cool/wet (La Nina) phases are likely to become more extreme. This seems apparent in the sea level trend in the last few years.

It may seem to be more 'jumping the gun', but unlike Tim Flannery's claims highlighted in this article, it's based on well-grounded scientific research.

Anyway, I'll write up a blog post later in the week and link to it.

One thing that Don Aitkin will never mention is that satellite measurements indicate 0.45 deg C of global warming since they started measuring.

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/plot/uah/trend

What on earth has that got to do with what I posted above?

As it happens, your reference does not show 0.45 deg C of global warming, but the GTA in the lower troposphere, which the UAH readings indicate as being about where they were in 1980. I would not dwell on that anyway, but point out to the curious that you can read the chart in a number of ways — drawing a straight line through it is not the most obvious thing to do!

And I don't dispute the likelihood of warming over the past 30 years. I do dispute that the methodology used allows us to make comparisons between the GTAs of recent years to three decimal places. That cannot be sustained.

"the UAH readings indicate as being about where they were in 1980... you can read the chart in a number of ways"

We're well aware of that. It's referred to as cherry-picking. Some people think this is the most obvious thing to do.

"I don't dispute the likelihood of warming over the past 30 years."

So what's the point of saying "there's only thirty years' worth" of data? The important thing is the amount of warming they have measured. Does it make sense to say "only" 0.45 degrees of warming? Are you claiming 0.45 degrees is insignificant?

"I do dispute that the methodology used allows us to make comparisons between the GTAs of recent years to three decimal places."

No-one is doing that, calculation accuracy notwithstanding. And that's rather a non-sequitur to not disputing warming over the past 30 years.

No, Chris, it's not called cherry-picking — that refers to starting and finishing trend lines at points that support one's argument. I didn't select this chart: you did. I merely point out that putting a single trend line through it is only one of the ways you can interpret the data. You could see the el Nino high-point of 1998 as a separator, and show the warming trends before and after. You could take out the el Nino as an 'event' and re-compute. Lots of people have played with woodfortrees. You can show anything much you want to. Go to 'Climate etc' and see how they do it. The results don't mean much, for the reasons I have set out elsewhere in the Conversation.

No, Chris, that's not what I said. I pointed out that while you talked about an addition of 0.45 deg C, the chart you (yes, you) cited as a reference does not actually do that. It refers to GTA in the lower troposphere.

No, Chris, the CSIRO and BoM talk about the recent years and how some are warmer than others. That's in the article at the top of this thread.

Chris, this is the last time I respond to you. From my perspective, you behave like a troll, infesting the threads to say 'gotcha!' when you think someone has made a mistake, or where you seem to want to sidetrack what others have said. If you want to take part in a Conversation, you need to make an argument, consider how someone else could counter it, adjust your argument, and then present it. You might learn something that way.