Climate Science not settled

[Pa Marmo]

I'm not trying to argue that something significant isn't going on, just that we aren't the 100% root cause, and the science isn't as clear cut as many believe.

[Mugwump]

^ The science is pretty clear cut that CO2 concentrations will cause warming. It's pretty basic physics. And also that we are putting a lot of CO2 into the air by planetary standards. Just how much warming can be attributed to that is something that people of goodwill can argue about. But this is one where, for the sake of our grandchildren, a denialist had better hope they are right !

[HAL]

More than a little, less than a lot.

[pietillidie]

[pietillidie]

[think positive]

[Mugwump]

^ "mugwumps" were people who switched party from Republican to Democrat in New York in the 1880s, over a cause which is now long-forgotten and irrelevant to anything much.

It must have travelled to Australia, however, because it's what my father used to call me when I was a small child. In those pre-lingual days I used to confuse it with "magpie". So i grew up thinking I supported the mugwumps, and it seemed an obvious username here !

[think positive]

Hahahahahaha! I actually LOL! Love it,cheers!

[thebaldfacts]

Whilst we all agree that CO2 is rising in the atmosphere, this does not automatically translate to global warming. No global warming for 18 years just shows how much we do not know about the interactions of the Eco system as a whole. The simplistic view that rising CO2 translates to global warming is not a sufficient basis to make policy on.


(CNSNews.com) – The Earth’s temperature has “plateaued” and there has been no global warming for at least the last 18 years, says Dr. John Christy, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center (ESSC) at the University of Alabama/Huntsville.
“That’s basically a fact. There’s not much to comment on,” Christy said when CNSNews.com asked him to remark on the lack of global warming for nearly two decades as of October 1st.


http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara-hollingsworth/satellite-data-no-global-warming-past-18-years

[Pies4shaw]

It appears that it is still critically important for our Government to search broadly for authoritative information on the subject:

'Environment Minister Greg Hunt was given a thorough briefing about the effects of climate change on Australia's weather patterns three weeks before he told a BBC radio interview he had sourced information on bushfires and global warming from Wikipedia.

Confidential Bureau of Meteorology briefings, obtained by Fairfax Media through freedom-of-information laws, show senior officials warned Mr Hunt that the extreme heat that baked Australia in 2013 was "unprecedented" before Mr Hunt downplayed any link between fires and climate change in an interview with the BBC's Newshour in October last year.

The initial briefings show officials advised Mr Hunt that recent extreme heat was consistent with "a pattern of global warming", while subsequent advice in November said climate change had increased the odds of "severe weather conducive to severe bushfires occurring".

Firefighters battle a blaze in the Blue Mountains in September, 2013, a month of "unprecedented" high temperatures.
Firefighters battle a blaze in the Blue Mountains in September, 2013, a month of "unprecedented" high temperatures. Photo: Nick Moir

The documents shatter claims made by Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who last year dismissed any link between global warming and bushfires, and show the extent to which the government has been advised of climate change's influence on recent extreme weather in Australia.

Mr Hunt was questioned on Newshour on October 23 last year and appeared to use Wikipedia to defend the Prime Minister's assertion that United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres was "talking out of her hat" when she said bushfires were linked to climate change.

Mr Hunt said he had "looked up what Wikipedia says" and had learnt that "bushfires in Australia are frequently occurring events during the hotter months of the year … That's the Australian experience".

Pressed about the impact of climate change on bushfires, Mr Hunt responded: "Well, we all have to be very careful. In talking with the senior people of the Bureau of Meteorology, for example, they always emphasise never try to link any particular event to climate change."

But the briefing papers released to Fairfax Media show that, three weeks earlier, on October 3, the weather bureau's director, Rob Vertessy, had told Mr Hunt that the intensity, extent and duration of record high temperatures in the preceding month had been "unprecedented" since at least 1910, when records began.

While Dr Vertessy said "it is not possible to attribute any single weather event to global warming", he emphasised "recent extremes are consistent with the general pattern of warming".

"A number of more recent studies are drawing probabilistic links between more extreme seasonal heat records and climate change, including the Australian summer of 2012-13," he said.

Subsequent weather bureau briefings provided to Mr Hunt and his office elaborated on the links between climate change and the likelihood of extreme heat and bushfires.

On October 31 last year, the bureau emphasised that "long-term warming trends observed around Australia are consistent with global-scale warming" and "extreme heat is increasing, while extreme cold is decreasing".

Mr Hunt said on Monday that during the October 23 interview he had "reconfirmed on multiple occasions our support [of] the science but also reaffirmed the advice of the scientists not to attribute individual events."

In relation to the suggestion that he sourced his information from Wikipedia, on Monday Mr Hunt said: "This is an absolute distortion ... I must have done 200 interviews referring to the science and the scientists. This was an overseas [interviewer], who has no idea about the CSIRO. The point was that even the most basic sources will say Australia has always had massive bushfires."

In November last year, the bureau warned "climate change experienced to date has increased the odds of severe weather conducive to severe bushfires occurring".

"This is due to expected higher temperatures, higher evaporation, lower rainfall and, for the south-east, the potential for summertime weather systems that are associated with the most extreme and damaging bushfire activity," it said.

The bureau also strengthened its judgment that Australia's "unusual warmth" of 2013 was a result of climate change rather than natural variability.

"At a global scale, 2013 has seen neutral conditions in the Pacific Ocean (i.e. neither El Nino nor La Nina) meaning that natural large scale drivers have not been present," the bureau told Mr Hunt's office. "This means that the recent conditions over Australia cannot be explained by natural drivers."

That position was backed by five separate studies by Australian universities published last week, all of which concluded that record temperatures in Australia last year were almost certainly caused by man-made climate change.

What they said

Greg Hunt in a BBC interview on October 23, 2013:
"In talking with the senior people of the Bureau of Meteorology ... they always emphasise never try to link any particular event to climate change."

October 3, 2013, briefing paper for Mr Hunt prepared by bureau director Rob Vertessy:
"A number of more recent studies are drawing probabilistic links between more extreme seasonal heat records and climate change, including the Australian summer of 2012-13."'


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/bureau-warned-greg-hunt-about-climate-change-before-he-cited-wikipedia-20141006-10qyg0.html#ixzz3FULG5iqi

[thebaldfacts]

Not only has the world not warmed for nearly 2 decades, but it seems that linking global warming to extreme weather events is also contentious at best.


Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have demolished claims by global warming activists that global warming caused or worsened many extreme weather events last year.

According to NOAA’s new publication, Explaining Extremes of 2013 from a Climate Perspective, there is no discernible connection between global warming and 2013 extreme weather events such as the California drought, Colorado floods, the UK’s exceptionally cold spring, a South Dakota blizzard, Central Europe floods, a northwestern Europe cyclone, and exceptional snowfall in Europe’s Pyrenees Mountains.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2014/10/09/noaa-destroys-global-warming-link-to-extreme-weather/

[Pies4shaw]

It was chilly this evening. There - I've disproved global warming. Again.

[thebaldfacts]

Great article from the Australian today highlighting scientific studies which show how limited our understanding is of the complexities of the Eco system.

Given the title of the article, very appropriate to post in this thread.


Plant growth, ocean studies show climate science far from settled
THE AUSTRALIAN OCTOBER 15, 2014 12:00AM
Print
Save for later
180
Graham Lloyd

Environment Editor
Sydney
NEW research into plant growth and ocean life highlights how much there is still to learn about the way nature responds to rising levels of carbon dioxide and what this means for climate change.

New research does not suggest there is no longer anything to worry about from rising levels of CO2, but with some people suggesting the “hiatus” in global warming has now hit 18 years, and with fresh uncertainty about the sensitivity of the climate system to CO2, the new findings provide further pause for thought. One paper — published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science — says plants will absorb 130 billion tonnes more carbon dioxide this century than current models suggest. This amount is equal to about four years worth of global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. The research says the contribution of increasing CO2 to plant growth has been underestimated by as much as 16 per cent.

There are still uncertainties but this knowledge has the potential to reduce forecast levels of warming. In particular, it provides great encouragement for reforestation and other land-based ­approaches to sequester CO2.

Other research, from Western Australia and published in Geophysical Research Letters, says plankton in the Arctic Ocean increased production and stored more carbon in response to greater UVB radiation. Contrary to expectations, Arctic plankton production increased by almost 40 per cent in more than three-quarters of the plankton communities sampled.

An analysis of the findings said this would combat the impacts of increased Arctic warming and increase food in the Arctic Ocean.

What both research findings show is natural systems are complex, difficult to model and not fully understood. Models have been unable to accurately predict several key issues, including the unexpected growth in Antarctic sea ice to record levels. The ­reality is models will always be only as good as the information they process. That’s why science will ­always be a long way from settled.

[3.14159]

[Pa Marmo]

The Truth About Climate Change
What's really going on?

by KIT DANIELS JANUARY 17, 2015

Man-made “climate change” is largely a myth promoted by politicians to scare the public into accepting a vast expansion of government to supposedly stop “global warming.”
Global warming is a manufactured problem played up by the government to instigate a public reaction – fear – the government then exploits to offer a predetermined solution: the expansion of government at the public’s expense.
This strategy, now known as the Hegelian Dialectic, has been used successfully by politicians for millennia to expand government, which can only grow at the expense of individual liberties.
The Bush administration used the strategy successfully in 2003 when it gained enough public support for the invasion of Iraq by claiming the country had weapons of mass destruction, and the war ultimately expanded the military-industrial complex and America’s emerging police state.

Today “global warming” is used as the bogey man because it allows the United Nations to scare the world’s population into believing “man-made climate change” is too big of a threat for their country to handle alone and thus it can only be “defeated” through the expansion of the U.N. at the expense of their nation’s sovereignty.
And state-funded scientists are given thousands and even millions of dollars to help promote the myth of “global warming” by fitting their data into the fearmongering agenda.
“This was viewed as the most likely to succeed because it could be related to observable conditions such as smog and water pollution – in other words, it would be based partly on fact and, therefore, be credible,” G. Edward Griffin wrote in his book The Creature from Jekyll Island. “Predictions could be made showing end-of-earth scenarios just as horrible as atomic warfare.”
“Accuracy in these predictions would not be important; their purpose would be to frighten, not inform.”
And the latest claim that 2014 was the hottest year on record certainly rejected accuracy in favor of fear.
“Any temperature claim of ‘hottest year’ based on surface data is based on hundredths of a degree hotter than previous ‘hottest years,’” Marc Morano of Climate Depot reported. “This immeasurable difference is not even within the margin of error of temperature gauges.”
“The claim of the ‘hottest year’ is simply a political statement not based on temperature facts; ‘hottest year’ claims are based on minute fractions of a degree while ignoring satellite data showing Earth is continuing the 18-plus-year ‘pause’ or ‘standstill’ [in warming.]”
The standstill he refers to can be found in Remote Sensing Systems satellite data that shows there has been no significant rise in global temperature since Oct. 1996, which is more than half the 36-year satellite record.
And this pause in warming could last at least another decade.
“The Great Pause is a growing embarrassment to those who had told us with ‘substantial confidence’ that the science was settled and the [climate change] debate over,” climate analyst Lord Christopher Monckton wrote. “Nature had other ideas.”