UK Government: Climate change scientists broke the law hiding data
timesonline.co.uk
timesonline.co.uk
There is no doubt that an increase in CO2 will increase temperatures. However, this is only part of a model. C02 can get absorbed by the Oceans and other earth mechanisms and balance out. If you follow the Palaeoclimate literature (ice cores in Antartica) the rise in temperature gave a rise to C02 and not the other way round.
You can look how the famous hockey stick curve looks if plotted against historical times (it looks more like a series of hills).
Serious variations in temperature (on a global level) are caused mostly by sunspot activity. I am sure other HN posters can add 100's more argument to these.
However, as humans there is no doubt that we are destroying our environment. As such I am very much for better policies in this respect but certainly NOT for trading carbon credits and fattening fat cats further.
Calculate the increase in PPM of CO2 with the human production of CO2 and the numbers work out. It’s not like we can’t figure out how much CO2 we released in the last 10 years, and compare atmospheric concentrations of CO2 from 10 years ago. I could do these calculations for you, but work them out for yourself and you can see that yes humans do produce plenty of CO2 to alter the concentration in the atmosphere.
PS: Mass of gas in the atmosphere * concentration increase vs. Mass of gas produced.
New data show that the balance between the airborne and the absorbed fraction of carbon dioxide has stayed approximately constant since 1850, despite emissions of carbon dioxide having risen from about 2 billion tons a year in 1850 to 35 billion tons a year now.
This suggests that terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans have a much greater capacity to absorb CO2 than had been previously expected.
No-one is denying that concentrations are rising, the Modelling of these processes is being questioned. Also I don't doubt the need for well thought action. In the 70's-80's similar lobbies killed nuclear energy which is one of the cleanest means of generating energy. Since hydrocarbons will one day run out, we should be spending more money towards this. Granted a portion can be generated with solar and wind, but solar or wind on its own cannot provide the current or projected needs.
Modeling what the net effects are is a complex topic. Doing a proper cost benefit analysis of reducing carbon emissions is hard. But, we could produce all the energy the US needs from wind and solar, we could even create hydrocarbons from atmospheric CO2 + water, saying that’s not an option is a false choice. The real question is how far should we change, at what cost and for what benefit. I don't know the answers to that question, but I suspect the optimum choice is less costly than what most might while still dramatically altering carbon emissions.
PS: The total carbon emissions from all cars driven in the US is about the same as produced from coal fires in China, if you focus on low cost solutions to the global problem there is a lot of low hanging fruit.
I quote a more qualified person than me, Prof. S. Fred Singer, atmospheric physicist Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia and former director of the US Weather Satellite Service (See http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html)
There is no dispute at all about the fact that even if punctiliously observed, (the Kyoto Protocol) would have an imperceptible effect on future temperatures -- one-twentieth of a degree by 2050. "
There are a lot of low cost solutions, starting from not falling prey to marketing and consumerism. I am all for a pro-environment world, but I learnt not to buy into the politics and the lobbies of the day.
The Clojure one we had yesterday that
1. looked only at data during the "hockey-stick handle" period;
2. found, in his very first graph, a steady increase in temperatures over that period whose magnitude (>2 degrees C) was greater than that in the usual "hockey-stick" graph (~ 0.7 degrees C);
3. plotted a bunch more graphs in ways that would inevitably make changes of ~0.7 degrees invisible (look at the last one -- range from -20 to 80 degrees on the y-axis);
3. claimed to have shown by all this that the hockey-stick is not real?
That one?
> CO2 can get absorbed by the Oceans and other earth mechanisms and balance out.
Perhaps it can, but since it's possible to measure CO2 levels and they are in fact increasing that's not actually happening.
I am not actually suggesting inaction I support any measures that will lower human impact on the planet, however, I am supporting good science and policies that do not have the word TAX in them.
What evidence do you have that the money received in tax would not purchase goods and services that would increase emissions?
I never made an axiom that no good policy involves taxation. It was your assumption. The least you could have done was to ask me to clarify my position.
Eh? Where did I say or imply that it wouldn't? I asked why you're so sure that taxation couldn't be part of the best policy. I didn't say I'm sure that it should be. I don't know what the best policy is.
(In any case, surely what's relevant is not whether any tax revenue would go to purchasing things that increase emissions, but whether the net effect would be an increase in emissions.)
> I never made an axiom. [...] It was your assumption.
You might want to remind yourself of the meaning of the word "if".
> The least you could have done was to ask me to clarify my position.
Curiously, that is exactly what I did.
oceans: 1.384 × 10^21 kg http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1998/AvijeetDut.shtml
atmosphere: 5 x 10^18 kg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth
I just cant decide who can be trusted as a source for accurate and unbiased information/opinion.
Considering the egos of the people who would need to go out and say "when the facts change, I change my mind" to clean up this mess, it could take decades. We're hearing a lot about market failure these years, how's this for government failure?
Govt failure isn't new.
Govt is systemic risk.
When US car companies decided that they didn't want to make the kind of vehicles that I wanted, Toyota was willing to do so.
When the US govt decides to do something dumb, I'm expected to pay for it. And when I point out that it's doing dumb things, I get yelled at by folks who think that I have some obligation to fix the govt that they broke.
Screw that.
> And screw these pointy-headed academics with their sinister hidden agendas, telling businessmen what to do.
If something is such a great idea, spend your money and get rich. Of course, I also expect you to take the loss if you're wrong.
What? You're not willing to risk your money?
Which congress critters do you think can run your life better than you can? Seriously - I want names.
Democracy? Would you choose Congress to run anything
Really? I'll give you a more plausible conclusion: that the scientists in question got tired of responding to repeated Freedom of Information requests from people whose only interest was to disseminate distortions of their findings.
Lets get the data sorted out; not so that we know what to do (that is easy, and almost irrelevant to GW issues - just no one is really bothering....) but so that the politicians can't abuse the figures for their own end.
The climate work, IMO, is about talking a very very close look at how much of an impact we are having - and assessing if our response is enough or if more is required.
But all I see, especially recently, is corruption, money and political manoeuvring on both sides.
EDIT: I disagree with your appraisal of the 2 camps though (I'm guessing you fall into the believers camp). As someone sat in the middle, in frustration, both camps are as bad as the other.
I totally agree with this position. There are numerous benefits to developing better clean air/water standards.
The climate "work" has been on going for decades. The science supporting the theory of anthropogenic global warming is sound.
Their may be some "believers" when it comes to global warming that just take at face value. I'm more of an accepting skeptic. I was skeptical at first that we could 1) Change our climate 2) Predict climate change with any amount of reasonable certainty. Once you understand the science you can see why its obviously true.
Sorry, this is my hang up. I understand the science - but the data and methodologies that we know about dont quite follow through for me (sometimes anyway)
The data HAS been sorted out, by people who have spent the better part of their lives studying climatology. And among the group that has spent the most time studying Earth's climate, there is broad consensus that a) Earth's climate is warming and b) increased CO2 levels from human activities is the primary cause.
The great thing about this debate, if you're a lobbyist for industrial groups opposing any action to limit CO2 on financial grounds, is that you don't have to prove all those people wrong. You just have to cloud the issue enough to create the illusion of debate over points a and b. It's the PR equivalent of 'reasonable doubt'.
How do you know the intent of those asking for information? It seems to me that there are plenty of people here on HN that would just like to try their own hand at models. Who gets to decided when a request merits a response?
the scientists in question got tired of responding to repeated Freedom of Information requests
The one who pays the piper calls the tunes. If you're going to build your business (yes, research and universities are businesses) on public funding, then you've got to be prepared to have your customers -- the public -- ask about what you're doing. It seems to me that they ought to have at least an intern dedicated to maintaining a public web site where everything is made available. Then no annoyance to the researchers would occur.
My instinct tells me that we're destroying the planet. The effect of global warming is hard to see, but it's not hard to imagine given all of the other messes we've made.
Seriously, whenever money or prestige is involved, the bad science has a much better chance.
Money and prestige? Really? I wasn't aware climate science was the path to fame and wealth. Do you only trust the poor and obscure?
Phil Jones is famous and was reasonably comfortable tenured professor with a guaranteed steady income, and wielding power over most of the western world with prophecies of doom and gloom. It's unlikely he'll say "I've been wrong for the last 20 years" regardless of what science shows.
There are numerous examples: Read Michael Pollen's NYTimes "Unhappy meals", "Is it all one big fat lie" or Gary Taubes "Good Calories, Bad Calories" on how nutrition science is perverted for profit.
Read about the recent raw milk legislation about how medical science is perverted for profit.
edit: Wanted to say I'm not stating anything about climate research, as I don't know enough about it; just that I don't share the "good science outnumbers bad science" view.
Isn't that clear?
And yes it was clear. I think anyone reading the article should come to that conclusion. Your comparison was shallow and silly and I called you on it.
There is hardly any harm done in using both terms interchangably.
(Edited out ocean acidification - I guess that one is strictly speaking neither an effect of climate change nor of gloabal warming. It's rather just caused by the same thing that also causes the current climate change.)
The only caveat is that Global Warming has been intrinsically linked to the word "Man Made" by various people. Rightly or wrongly the phrase has a much more specific connotation than just a subset of climate change.
You will not change that by complaining about definitions and how words are used. In the 19th century light implied aether. No change of the dictionary could change that, there had actual scientific work to be done to change that.
This is the part of the issue under debate...
However: the world appears to be warming up - that is why the phrase global warming was used. There was no man made connotation either way when it was first used. The linking has been made for various reasons.
That's not a problem and not a central issue.
Speaking of poorness of comments, I guess in this matter you can rely on how they are upvoted. No offense, just see for yourself..
Flipping it over on me doesn't change the fact that your comment was poor. There are also obvious counterarguments to your point that popularity means you're right but I don't need to go into them.
Dear Mr Brain Police, I did back up my point in another subthread. You were busy here with proving how silly I am so you haven't noticed.
Again, please digest a feedback you're receiving (votes!) and rethink.
Not at all. The term "climate change" didn't come into the discussion until the temperature data started to diverge from the predictions. The terminology change was one of many things done to "hide the decline".
There's certainly no need to be criticizing people for that usage, since there's no possibility of confusion; we're always talking about modern climate change.
Btw if you care about your taxes, what about Carbon tax?
It can also hurt developing countries where better energy sources are not available or insanely expensive. I specifically mean eastern part of the EU where carbon tax is likely to be forced.
1.) Global warming increases average temperatures.
2.) Climate change might turn the weather to extremes, which implies greater temperature _variance_ locally.
Now the pattern I see is: people are trying to focus on 1.), disprove it, then (falsly) claim that 2.) would also be wrong!
This is not the case. 1.) does NOT relate to 2.) in any way!
The climate change IS happening, this does not change by disproving 1.)
If environmentalists think they can turn on a dime after thirty years of "anthropogenic global warming -> disaster", they are in for a well-deserved beating in the court of general opinion. Falling back to "The climate is changing" is basically an admission that we have no clue, and more than that, where we thought human effects dominated it, it doesn't seem to. You can't just turn around and apply panic over AGW to panic over "climate change"; it is neither rational nor human-irrational.
If you want to panic over something environmental, how about overfishing, plastic pollution in the pacific, fertilizer runoff, or something else that isn't "debatable" but actually, factually exists? In addition to the fact that it's a bad idea to try to "salvage" climate change as an issue, it isn't even necessary. There are real problems. Unless you personally are driven by using environmentalism as an excuse to destroy democracy and transfer wealth to the poor, if you are really driven by concern for the environment, you don't need to "win" this issue. Trying to build your political case on a lie can only be actively harmful in the long run.
The IPCC Third Report concludes that climate change might either be caused of a changing mean temperature, a changing variance, or both. What the real cause for climate change is, needs to be carefully assessed. This supports my statement that climate change is not necessarily caused by increasing mean temperatures.
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc%5Ftar/?src=/clim...
It's currently increasing at both.... The polar bear populations are increasing too.
> the dead coral reefs
Runoff from deforestation is killing most of them.
There's some effect from increased disolved CO2, but it goes both ways. (Some creatures/plants benefit, others have problems, and still others don't seem to care.)
You can look up the polar bears yourself. You'll find that the population now is about 4-5x the population in the 60s. It may be decreasing slightly in the past few years, but that's in the noise compared to the recent increases. There's no reason to suspect temp change has had an effect comparable to direct intervention by humans.
With respect to the polar bears, I searched around and found many articles which state that the population in the 60's had been diminished because of hunting and that, currently, the plurality of polar bear populations are in decline because of climate change. The one article I found that supports your argument was from Fox News (no bias there ;-)).
I note that you didn't mention the relative sizes of these changes, the former being >4x while the latter is close to the margin of error.
Then again, doing so doesn't fit your beliefs.
I'm not looking to do battle here. In fact, I thought I was being humorous and polite. Moreover, I'm happy to see that the polar bear situation is not as dire as I thought. I've adjusted the thermostat in my apartment accordingly.
I did. Hunting is part of "direct intervention by humans". Habitat is another.