Sunday, July 04, 2010

Another Leftist false prophet

We all roasted in the year 2000, apparently











By Matt Ridley













Observed Global Temperature changes as a Random Walk

A recent refereed journal article from China shows that global temperature changes from 1850 onwards fit a model of purely random changes. Summary below. Full paper here

Cause of Temperature Change

The cause of temperature change is hard to determine because humans cannot create another earth without humans as control as the common experiments do. Therefore the cause of temperature change is more or less likely to be determined by using models to fit the recorded temperature: the underlined cause for the model, which fits the recorded temperature best, would be the cause inducing temperature change.

Current Modeling

Recently when we studied the possible impact of global warming on the evolution of protein families from influenza A viruses [see, publications], we noticed the fluctuations in recorded temperature. These fluctuations cannot explained by the current climate models because their outputs are smooth curves representing the temperature trend. This leads us to consider whether we need to consider a random model, of which the random walk model comes first.

Fitting of Global Temperature using Random Walk Model

Very recently, we used the random walk model to fit the temperature walk, which is the conversion of recorded temperature, and the recorded temperature, and we got a relatively good fit (see the following figures) although we cannot compare our results with the results obtained from other models because they are not available.

Cause of Temperature Change

If the underlined cause of a fitting model is the cause of temperature change, then our fittings would suggest that the temperature change is mainly due to the random mechanism, which however could be the combination of all the known and unknown factors because some of them are difficult to explicitly present.


China’s 2,000 Year Temperature History

More pesky findings from China. Chinese scientists are clearly not in the (Greenie) club of the righteous and the holy









In summarizing their work, Ge et al. report :




SOURCE (See the original for links, graphics)






(In his June testimony to the Inter Academy Council, Christy testifed that he felt the IPCC's overconfidence in climate models was not justified. He also said: "The first objection I raised regarding the Third Assessment was that the fabled Hockey Stick was oversold as an indicator of past climate change. This was well before the critical work of the Wegman Report, National Academy of Sciences, McIntyre’s papers and the East Anglia emails. Indeed, I urge you in the strongest terms to engage Stephen McIntyre in your deliberations at a high level as he has accurately documented specific failures in the IPCC process, some of which I can attest to, as I was there.")

Examiner: What unresolved issue or issues should the scientific community be focussing its gaze on with regards to climate change in 2010? Atmospheric sensitivity to a doubling of CO2?

J.C. Evidence is building that the sensitivity is less than models assume.

Examiner: The role of the oceans in exchange of CO2 and heat?

J.C. This relates to sensitivity.

Examiner: The role of the clouds?

J.C. This is directly related to sensitivity, i.e. how do the reflective clouds respond to an impulse of warming - evidence indicates they expand (reflecting more sunlight) and counteract the warming. This has also been shown for cooling events, i.e. that clouds contract when a global cool spell occurs to let in more sun and warm the planet.

Examiner: The accuracy of the historical records?

J.C. This is an ongoing effort - to build an archive of raw observations in which all parties have confidence.

Examiner: What are you personally focussing on in your work?

J.C. Measurements of all types. I just recently had a paper on snowfall in the southern Sierra published showing no trend in the last 94 years which indicates natural water resources in the San Joaquin Valley are fine, so that shortages are clearly a function of management and law (see attached). I am still building temperature datasets of the surface and upper air to document the response (temperature is a good response variable to forcing) of the atmosphere to forcings of all types.

Examiner: What are your beliefs about what is happening to the Earth's climate?

J.C. Natural variability is still the major driver of the climate changes that create challenges for society. The one confident conclusion we can make about added CO2 is that the biosphere has clearly been invigorated - plants love what we do with carbon-based energy because its by-product is CO2 - plant food. (I can hear the shrieks of horror all the way here in Alabama from California, my home state.)

Examiner: What do you think governments and their citizens should be doing to protect our environment and our future?

J.C. In my experience, the wealthier the country is, the better is its environment (mainly because energy in wealthy societies is produced in high density processes like power plants rather than gathering of wood and biomass which destroys habitats.) Policies that allow human wealth and security to be enhanced are policies that can sell. The wealthier a society is, the greater emphasis it can put on protecting natural habitats, cleaning the air and water, and protecting its citizens from threats of all kinds (i.e. disease, weather disasters, etc.) This wealth building occurs best in democratically accountable societies which establish human rights for all citizens, including women and children.

Examiner: Paul Krugman recently took up a current argument that in the face of uncertainty our actions should be more vigorous, not less. How would you respond to this?

J.C. Will these actions advocated by Krugman cause economic decline, lower standard of living, etc? If so, they don't have a chance in a democratically accountable society. I think we are creating more certainty about the idea that the climate is less sensitive to CO2 than promoted in the past 2 decades. We are not all going to die on a roasting planet. The real challenge today is to prepare for the unquestionable continued rise in energy demand. Energy makes life much, much better in countless ways, so it's demand will only increase, especially in poorer countries. At some point, even carbon-based energy won't meet the demand, so new and voluminous sources of energy are needed ... and the sooner the better.

Examiner: Stephen Schneider recently co-authored a paper published in PNAS exploring the level of expertise found in scientists who support the consensus position on climate change compared to those who do not agree with the consensus. What is your reaction to this paper?

J.C. I was one of only three scientists who made both the "good guy" and the "bad guy" lists. Quite an honor I suppose. However, I think the study was pathetic. It basically says, "Those of us who agree with each other like to cite the work of our friends and not the other guys." Duh. (One of my fellow scientists calls this "tribalism" - an appropriately primitive description.) I think the more sinister motive was evident in that the paper chided the media, such at the SF Chronicle, to stop investigative-reporting and just "trust us" (the guys on the "good guys" list) when it comes to climate change. It really was an attempt to make a blacklist. In that sense, I guess I ended up being gray, which fits my hair color now.

Examiner: The IPCC accepts the submission of general circulation models from all participating countries. I think there are 23 or 24 of them right now. Is that a useful number of models to analyze?

J.C. What you want is a set of models that at least represent the real atmosphere (which none of these do faithfully relative to tests we've performed.) This does seem like a high (and expensive) number.

Examiner: Does an average derived from an ensemble of models tell us anything useful? If so, what? If not, what are the defects of looking at an ensemble of models.

J.C. Probably not. Cloud processes and responses are particularly off the mark (or at least widely varying). The question here addresses a fault with consensus - over time, individuals tend to drift toward consensus (a human foible) whether it is right or wrong. Many of the parameterizations in the models are very similar and could be very wrong, so agreement with each other is often a dangerous result as it confirms one's prejudices and gives one a false sense of success. I deal in the world of observations - i.e. what does the real world show. What we find is that models have a long way to go, which is a little ironic because they modelers have a legitimate reason to clamor for more funding to improve their poorly-performing models.

Examiner: Human emissions of CO2 declined 2.6% in 2009, although concentrations didn't change. How hopeful are you that our actions can reduce emissions further?

J.C. It is very clear that economic decline means less energy is used, and people are poorer as a result. So, one should congratulate those who created the recent economic collapse for the "good" news on emissions. However, I don't see economic decline as a long-term strategy for society to follow. The most useful option to slow the decline in emissions is to proceed on a massive construction initiative in nuclear power (which has other defensible reasons to back it up - not just alleged climate change.) In this way, gigawatts of power can be produced with little emissions. Alternatives (wind, solar, animal methane) will be just an expensive and unreliable blip on the world-wide scale of emissions growth.

Examiner: What is your best guess or opinion on what will happen to the Earth's climate over the coming decades?

J.C. The climate will throw some surprises at us and the interannual variations that we've always had will continue to cause the greatest developmental challenges. As I said 22 years ago my general rule of climate is: "If it happened before, it will happen again ... and probably worse." Are we prepared for the variations we have already experienced (i.e. 1930's, 1950's droughts, 1993 floods, any hurricane, freeze of 2007, snow of 2009-10, etc.?"). If we are prepared for those, anything induced by humans on top of the climate system's large natural variability will be manageable in my view.


A Green vote is madness

From Andrew Bolt in Melbourne, Australia

ENOUGH'S enough. If you're really this keen to vote Green in the state election, why not prove you're serious? Why not live the life you apparently want the Greens to inflict on the rest of us? Go turn off your own lights first. Kill your fridge. Cook your roast over a solar-powered candle.

Then go to work and turn off the machines. Junk the computer. Tell your hospital to switch off the machines that go "bing". And harness some donkeys to pull our trains. Can't find donkeys, you say? Nonsense. Look at yesterday's Newspoll, which reports a record 18 per cent of Victorians plan to vote Green. Plenty there. Hook 'em up.

I laugh, but dear God, we're drowning, up to our necks in unreason.

"There, there," coos my wife, when I sob that even some of our frequent-flyer friends vote Greens. "They wouldn't vote Greens if they actually thought they'd win ... "

No? Well, they're winning enough already, like the battle for our brains.


We've already seen what depths of insanity Labor will cater to, to prove it's as green as the next idiot. Why else has this great city been on water restrictions for an embarrassing seven years? Why this insane ban on a new dam for our fast-growing capital?

Why did the Government wait until it was almost too late to even start building its new $3.5 billion desalination plant, at three times the price of a dam for a third of the water? Madness, and the Greens promise yet more of it - and less of everything else.


The Greens demand the instant closure of Hazelwood power station to save the world from global warming. It's a noble policy, which sounds warm and fuzzy, until you realise it will leave us cold and shivering, while making not a spit of difference to the planet.

Hazelwood - and I know this is an irrelevant detail to a planet-saver - happens to produce a quarter of this state's electricity. You know, the stuff that powers your home, your factory, your office, your hospital, your computer, your trains, your airport, your street lighting, your cinema, your trams, your traffic lights ...

Now I don't want to seem like a spoilsport, but I would just like to be reassured on one small point: how the hell do the Greens then plan to power our state? After all, they don't plan to stop at Hazelwood, either. Their policy is to shut every coal-fired plant, leaving us with just 5 per cent of the electricity we now use - with nuclear power banned, new hydro power banned and wind power as reliable as, well, the wind.

It's madness of the kind you get from a child who wants her fifth ice cream but not the upchuck that goes with it. Still, you'd think the Greens would have worked out by now these small details about how to keep the lights burning....


Then go around your home - and, more importantly, your factory - and switch off half the power. With all appliances off, look proudly at the appalled people around you in winter and say, "Isn't it great we're all freezing to death for the planet?" Or, in summer, for variety, ask: "Isn't it lovely to be sweating in this furnace now that I've switched off the aircon?"

And then, by the kerosene lamp at home, try to figure out the next step. After all, you're still only halfway to replacing the 95 per cent of electricity the Greens plan to ban.


For Earth Hour this year, the zealots at Melbourne University tried especially hard to cut their power. The university exhorted staff and students to do their best to save the planet from their electricity, and to "turn off all lights and appliances". All of them. And the result? Read the University's boast: "Electricity consumption on the Earth Hour weekend dropped by 5.51 per cent compared with a 2010 business as usual weekend."

Less than 6 per cent? After all that special sacrifice? For just one weekend? Whoopee do. And that's from a mere university, mind, which runs no heavy industry or essential services, and had almost no one in the joint over that weekend actually wanting to work or switch on so much as a toaster or kettle. Just 90 per cent to go, guys, before you live the Greens' dream.

But there I go, trying to marry consequence to action, like I was an adult or something. Don't I realise the times have changed? After all, this is the Age of the Use Less, in which our brainless and godless rich resent their own wealth - well, resent the wealth of everyone else, at least. And then, for penance, suggest ingenious ways to make us poor again.

Example: remember how this Labor Government told us for years we didn't need more water supplies, claiming we could get by if we just Used Less? And so our ovals turned brown, our gardens died and we broke our backs carting buckets to the most precious of our plants. Use Less, heaven!

Ah, but you think I exaggerate this madness of our times. So let me introduce you to the latest guru of this Use Less creed, "anti-poverty crusader" Richard Fleming, as featured this week in the Herald Sun and on Channel 7's Today Tonight.

He, too, preaches Use Less, or eat less, actually. He's promoting his $2 a day "Live Below the Line" diet, which restricts you to eating the very cheapest of foods - hummus, watery soup, dahl, rice, marmalade and peanut paste.

No real reason for this torture, other than to make you realise what it must be like to be some starving Bangladeshi, wishing you were lucky enough to live in a country where you had so much to eat that you'd, er, starve yourself instead. Out of sheer, mindless guilt.

"There's a level of stupidity in all this," Fleming admits, but he should be less hard on himself. He's the poster boy of a state in which so many finger-waggers want to deny the rest of us the harvest of our science and ingenuity - cooling on hot days, heating on cold ones, water for green gardens and food for a feast.

Fine, if that's what you want for yourself. But, please, before you vote to inflict this on the rest of us, first try living as the Greens prescribe and see if it truly suits even high-minded you. Lights out. Heating, too. Starve and shiver for your faith. At least live as miserably as you plan to vote.





No comments: