Off-topic chat, page-28

Interesting figures, BB.

My interestin the issue of AGW was sparked back in 2010, when in response to my question,a friend responded with an interactive graphic of the globe, displaying theflooding from various extents of sea level rise.  I did not think this was a thoughtful response, simply to quote an authority.  (I think the source was from an IPCC or related website, but it had some currency at the time. This particular graphic was subsequently withdrawn,  perhaps out of embarrassment.)  So I decided to read the latest IPCC report (20017, I recall), and concentrate on temperature, sea level and ice.  I chose those indicators as being comprehensible and pertinent.  I read a selection of the scientific papers, as well as the Summaries for Policy Makers.  Familiar as I am with reading all kinds of documents, I found a dissonance between the caveats expressed by the scientific authors about  their work and conclusions, and the certainty expressed in the Summaries.  The other concerning point was that sometimes in the midst of a scientific explanation there would be simple English statements such as “this is clear evidence of . . . “;  “has this been edited in?” was the question that first occurred to me.  Subsequently I found out that indeed the lead authors exercised the practice of applying edits without reference to the author.  This was one of the practices to which Landsea in particular drew attention.

So myinterest was indeed piqued.  Here briefly are some key matters I have discovered.

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  Carbon dioxide rise and fall followtemperature rise and fall, not the inverse, by 800-100 years.

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Over the last century, ocean levels haverisen about 200-300 mm on average.  At Fort Denison in Sydney Harbour, a geological stable region, the rise has been about 100 mm over the last century (anyone can readily check these figures from official sources).   No acceleration in the rate of rise has been demonstrated – an significant point.

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I had been quite unaware of theLittle Ice Age (with its peak around of around 1780-1820, I recall).  Since then, the Earth has been warming again.  We had a Minoan Warm Period, a Roman Warm Period, and a Medieval Warm Period (think Eric the Red, and Greenland settlements up the slopes, now being revealed as some of that ice melts), when temperatures were higher than they are now. And as Stockcount tells us correctly, carbon dioxide levels were much lower than at present.  The period of cooling between the Roman and Medieval Periods explains for me why the Dark Ages – cold is tough on humans, they die from not enough food production, they are prone to higher levels of disease from crowding in shelter, and travel is restricted.   No wonder it was such a dark period.

·       Recent warming – well, we had awarming here in Australia from about 1910 to around 1940 (how I remember thosereally hot summer days as a child on the foothills of Sydney’s Blue Mountains),and then a cooling  until the 1970s (when some scientists were tipping we were going to enter an ice age), then a warming until around 2000, and a relatively stable level since then (some Russian scientists are suggesting we may be about to enter a cooling phase, given the almost zero current sunspot activity.)  Incidentally, a graph of temperature rise from the 1910-1940 period shows a similar rate of rise as from 1970-2000.

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In the Western world, I think mostpeople under 40 years of age have received a consistent message about AGW, tothe extent that convictions have become embedded, and no questioning or deeperreading is undertaken. And most people, especially the tertiary educated, areconditioned to accept the authority of the “experts”.

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Western meteorological organisationsgenerally ignore any temperatures prior to 1910 (in Australia, the spread ofthe Stevenson Screen), and then happily toss up phrases such as “warmest onrecord”.  Haven’t read of the January 1896 temperatures in Sydney?  Or those bushfires of the 1800s, or the temperatures so diligently recorded by our forebears?

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The climate models which serve asthe basis for almost every prediction of increased and dangerous temperatures,are almost entirely wrong.  Look them up if you don’t believe me.  Observations must always take precedence over models.

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Art Vandelay has already commentedabout the failed predictions – look them up also, if you wish.

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I am reminded of the Y2k worries –remember when we were told that as we rolled over into the year 2000, a wholeraft of computer programs would fail because programs catered for dates in theddmmyy format, not ddmmyyyy.  All hell would break loose.  It didn’t.  Hardly a hiccough.  Some IT companies were smiling all the way to the bank, having made a pile of rewriting a lot of programs.  Sound familiar?

So I don’t think the planet needs saving, atleast not in the way that the global warming scenario plays it.  But I do think we need much better batteries for all the uses we can imagine, and as we are all wishing, Anteo should be pivotal in helping achievethat.