Tag Archives: CRU

Say “Climate Change” and You get Funding

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Posted by JJ on February 25, 2010 – 10:50 pm
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“A New Way to Understand what`s changing the Earth`s Climate?”

According to the Spacedaily website,”a new study led by Nadine Unger of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City offers a more intuitive way to understand what’s changing the Earth’s climate. Rather than analyzing impacts by chemical species, scientists have analyzed the climate impacts by different economic sectors”.  In a paper published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Unger and colleagues described how they used a climate model to estimate the impact of 13 sectors of the economy from 2000 to 2100. They based their calculations on real-world inventories of emissions collected by scientists around the world, and they assumed that those emissions would stay relatively constant in the future.

Inventories of emissions.   This study purports to be about “climate impacts by different economic sectors”.  It is nothing of the kind.  It studies only the proportions of man-made CO2, methane and aerosols introduced to the atmosphere by each sector.  Proportions, incidentally, that are only a fraction of what nature itself introduces.  But it sells itself as an analysis that “shows that emissions from the power, biomass burning, and industrial sectors of the economy promote aerosol-cloud interactions that exert a powerful cooling effect, while on-road transportation and household biofuels exacerbate cloud-related warming”.  How do they reach that conclusion?  By calculations based on the “climate impacts” of the emissions that they have studied.  It seems that they have assumed rather more than just the constancy of the emissions.

No impact has actually been measured.  The climate impacts are assumed from computer modelling that assigns climate impacts in the model parameters.  So if the present temperature variations of the earth are within a bull’s roar of the variations predicted by the models, it is assumed that the assigned impacts must be correct.   If the temperature variation cannot be explained without those assigned impacts, the impacts must be true.  That is argument from ignorance.  Nevertheless, “studies” like this one accept those impacts as the truth, and base their analysis on those assumptions.

There are many analyses that discredit those assumptions, but none from the AGW camp that actually test them.

Now, if the study had collected the data, verified it, classified it and produced an inventory of emissions by economic sector as its output, it would have been worth while.  It would have provided potentially valuable information about the emissions of the identified economic sectors.  We actually need the data.  Pollution was a problem long before the emergence of the AGW spectre, and will remain a concern long after AGW goes the way of Y2K and all the other false Armageddons.

But of course, it would not have obtained the necessary funding.  So instead, it calls itself a climate study and presents its results in the form of advocacy for the IPCC agenda.  And that makes this “study” nothing but propaganda using the language of scientific jargon.  We are seeing too much of this from GISS, the CRU, the IPCC et al.  Tragically, this study will swell the vast pool of so-called “overwhelming evidence” relied upon by evangelical AGW advocates, television pop-science presenters and tax-hungry politicians.  But then, that was why it was commissioned.

References:

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Road_Transport_Key_Driver_In_Global_Warming_999.html

Phil Jones on modern Global Warming Rates

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Posted by JJ on February 14, 2010 – 4:17 pm
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Q&A Part Two: Prof. Phil Jones on Global Warming Rates

Phil Jones is director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA).  The BBC’s environment analyst Roger Harrabin interviewed Professor Jones recently.  Professor Jones’ answers to the first two questions reveal that there is nothing unusual about the rate of warming in the twentieth century.  They also reveal strength of character.

Here’s the question about latest rates of warming compared with other known rates:

Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?

Here is Phil Jones’ answer:

The warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.

Here are the trends and significances for each period:

Period Length Trend
(Degrees C per decade)		 Significance
1860-1880 21 0.163 Yes
1910-1940 31 0.150 Yes
1975-1998 24 0.166 Yes
1975-2009 35 0.161 Yes

.

Here’s the question about global temperature change since 1995:

Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming?

Here is Phil Jones’ answer:

Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level.

Jones is obviously uncomfortable about the implications of the questions (“Yes (I agree), but only just..”).  But he has the integrity to answer truthfully, knowing that the answers cast yet more doubt on the AGW cause, and especially on the IPCC, the CRU and the other organisations that promote AGW.

Because the first proves that there is nothing unusual about the rates of warming we have observed, even though there are now much higher levels of atmospheric CO2 that there were in 1880.  And the second confirms what skeptics have been saying for years – there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995.  This is in spite of increased atmospheric CO2, and contrary to the exaggerated, repeated claims of accelerated global warming by NASA, the CRU and the IPCC.  So much for the need for urgent action.  We do have time to investigate properly the climatic effects of CO2, methane and whatever other demons are conjured up.

Now, if we could show that the Medieval Warm Period was as warm or warmer than present-day temperatures, and that it was global in extent, we could finally establish that the present global temperature is nothing out of the ordinary.  And that would mean that there is no need for any action at all – at least, not in respect of climate change.  Refreshingly, Phil Jones does not deny the MWP, and is aware of its impact on the debate.  See “References” section below for another blog on Phil Jones answers to the MWP question in the same interview, and how we can test the its extent and temperature during that period.

There are other real environmental issues with which we should deal, and other concerns about depending on diminishing commodities for our energy.  We don’t need global warming baloney to help us recognise those real issues – on the contrary, all the AGW noise has obscured them.

References:

Phil Jones on the MWP: http://www.herkinderkin.com/2010/02/phil-jones-on-the-medieval-warm-period/

BBC Interview with Phil Jones: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm

Phil Jones on the Medieval Warm Period

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Posted by JJ on February 13, 2010 – 11:52 am
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Q&A Part One: Prof. Phil Jones on the MWP

Phil Jones is director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA), which has been at the centre of the row over hacked e-mails.

The BBC’s environment analyst Roger Harrabin put questions to Professor Jones, including several gathered from climate sceptics.

Here’s the question about the MWP:

There is a debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was global or not. If it were to be conclusively shown that it was a global phenomenon, would you accept that this would undermine the premise that mean surface atmospheric temperatures during the latter part of the 20th Century were unprecedented?

Here’s Phil Jones’ reply:

There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia. For it to be global in extent the MWP would need to be seen clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern Hemisphere. There are very few paleoclimatic records for these latter two regions.

Of course, if the MWP was shown to be global in extent and as warm or warmer than today (based on an equivalent coverage over the NH and SH) then obviously the late-20th century warmth would not be unprecedented.

Thanks, Phil.  Now, let me help you.  There may indeed be very few paleoclimatic records for the tropics and the Southern hemisphere, but there are data.  Plenty of data.

In Antarctica, there are very old glaciers, and cores samples have been extracted.  Would it not make sense to have core samples analysed to see what could be calculated about temperatures and CO2 content from, say 1 AD to the present?  So far, researchers have concentrated on the great ice ages, but nothing has been published about the last two millennia.

We know that in the northern hemisphere, temperatures declined markedly during the fourteenth century.  The Maori people, indigenous in NZ, were established by the beginning of the fourteenth century and were settled in both the North Island and the South Island.  Archaeological records of the population distribution of Maori at the beginning and end of that century could be very revealing.  It has been suggested that there was a large-scale shift in the Maori population from the South Island to the warmer North Island during that century.  If that can be confirmed, the most probable reason would be climate.  The Maori at the time had no tailored clothing and no shoes.  Without those, the snow and ice in the South Island would be very uncomfortable.

Core sample from the New Zealand glaciers might also give us some idea of climate changes in NZ between 1000 AD and 1500 AD.

There are kauri trees in New Zealand that are more than two thousand years old.  It is now illegal to fell them, but there are still plenty of stumps.  Tree-ring proxy data just waiting to be collected.

If Climate Change science claims that the twentieth-century warming is unprecedented, then it must rigorously test the claim.  The science is well-resourced and well-funded.  Why has it not gone looking for evidence of the climate in the Southern Hemisphere during and after the MWP?  Given Phil Jones statement highlighted above, it would seem to be very important.

References:

BBC Interview with Phil Jones: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm