C
Captain Compassion
Guest
Climate change confirmed but global warming is cancelled
http://www.nbr.co.nz/home/column_article.asp?id=21153&cid=39&cname=NBR+Comment
Unlike so many of the hapless victims on TVOne's daily Crimewatch
(also known as One Network News) I have recently been lucky enough to
be in two right places at the right time.
In December last year, at the UN conference in Bali, I heard Viscount
Monckton present a paper prepared by himself, the Australian Dr David
Evans and our own Dr Vincent Gray (who were at Bali, too) that showed
while the IPCC models predict that greenhouse gases would produce an
extensive "hot spot" in the upper troposphere over the tropics, the
satellite measurements show no such hotspots have appeared.
Monckton and Evans found a large part of this discrepancy is the
result of some basic errors in the IPCC's assessment of the
Stefan-Boltzmann equation. When they applied their revised factor to
the effect of greenhouse gases, the temperature rise was about a third
of that predicted by the IPCC.
So by late last year we not only knew IPCC forecasts of atmospheric
global warming were wrong; we were beginning to understand why they
are wrong.
The key issue in this debate is whether anthropogenic greenhouse gases
or natural solar activities are the prime drivers of climate change. A
closely related argument is whether the climate is highly sensitive to
carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere.
Doubtful predictions
Put together, these uncertainties raise doubts as to whether the IPCC
models can accurately forecast the climate over the long term. If they
cannot, then we have to wonder how much damage we should risk doing to
the world's economies in attempts to manage the possibly adverse
effects of these "predictions."
The findings that the predicted "tropical hot spots" do not exist are
important because the IPCC models assume these hot spots will be
formed by increased evaporation from warmer oceans leading to the
accumulations of higher concentrations of water vapour in the upper
atmosphere, and thereby generating a positive feedback reinforcing the
small amount of warming that can be caused by CO2 alone.
Atmospheric scientists generally agree that as carbon dioxide levels
increase there is a law of "diminishing returns" - or more properly
"diminishing effects" - and that ongoing increases in CO2
concentration do not generate proportional increases in temperature.
The common analogy is painting over window glass. The first layers of
paint cut out lots of light but subsequent layers have diminishing
impact.
So, you might be asking, why the panic? Why does Al Gore talk about
temperatures spiraling out of control, causing mass extinctions and
catastrophic rises in sea-level, and all his other disastrous outcomes
when there is no evidence to support it?
The alarmists argue that increased CO2 leads to more water vapour -
the main greenhouse gas - and this provides positive feedback and
hence makes the overall climate highly sensitive to small increases in
the concentration of CO2.
Consequently, the IPCC argues that while carbon dioxide may well "run
out of puff" the consequent evaporation of water vapour provides the
positive feedback loop that will make anthropogenic global warming
reach dangerous levels.
This assumption that water vapour provides positive feedback lies
behind the famous "tipping point," which nourishes Al Gore's dreams of
destruction, and indeed all those calls for action now - "before it is
too late!" But no climate models predict such a tipping point.
However, while the absence of hot spots has refuted one important
aspect of the IPCC models we lack a mechanism that fully explains
these supposed outcomes. Hence the IPCC, and its supporters, have been
able to ignore this "refutation."
So by the end of last year, we were in a similar situation to the 19th
century astronomers, who had figured out that the sun could not be
"burning" its fuel - or it would have turned to ashes long ago - but
could not explain where the energy was coming from. Then along came
Einstein and E=mc2.
Hard to explain
Similarly, the climate sceptics have had to explain why the hotspots
are not where they should be - not just challenge the theory with
their observations.
This is why I felt so lucky to be in the right place at the right time
when I heard Roy Spencer speak at the New York conference on climate
change in March. At first I thought this was just another paper
setting out observations against the forecasts, further confirming
Evans' earlier work.
But as the argument unfolded I realised Spencer was drawing on
observations and measurements from the new Aqua satellites to explain
the mechanism behind this anomaly between model forecasts and
observation. You may have heard that the IPCC models cannot predict
clouds and rain with any accuracy. Their models assume water vapour
goes up to the troposphere and hangs around to cook us all in a
greenhouse future.
However, there is a mechanism at work that "washes out" the water
vapour and returns it to the oceans along with the extra CO2 and thus
turns the added water vapour into a NEGATIVE feedback mechanism.
The newly discovered mechanism is a combination of clouds and rain
(Spencer's mechanism adds to the mechanism earlier identified by
Professor Richard Lindzen called the Iris effect).
The IPCC models assumed water vapour formed clouds at high altitudes
that lead to further warming. The Aqua satellite observations and
Spencer's analysis show water vapour actually forms clouds at low
altitudes that lead to cooling.
Furthermore, Spencer shows the extra rain that falls from these clouds
cools the underlying oceans, providing a second negative feedback to
negate the CO2 warming.
Alarmists' quandary
This has struck the alarmists like a thunderbolt, especially as the
lead author of the IPCC chapter on feedback has written to Spencer
agreeing that he is right!
There goes the alarmist neighbourhood!
The climate is not highly sensitive to CO2 warming because water
vapour is a damper against the warming effect of CO2.
That is why history is full of Ice Ages - where other effects, such as
increased reflection from the ice cover, do provide positive feedback
- while we do not hear about Heat Ages. The Medieval Warm Period, for
example, is known for being benignly warm - not dangerously hot.
We live on a benign planet - except when it occasionally gets damned
cold.
While I have done my best to simplify these developments they remain
highly technical and many people distrust their own ability to assess
competing scientific claims. However, in this case the tipping point
theories are based on models that do not include the effects of rain
and clouds.
The new Nasa Aqua satellite is the first to measure the effects of
clouds and rainfall. Spencer's interpretation of the new data means
all previous models and forecasts are obsolete. Would anyone trust
long-term forecasts of farm production that were hopeless at
forecasting rainfall?
The implications of these breakthroughs in measurement and
understanding are dramatic to say the least. The responses will be fun
to watch.
Alarmists, 'experts' face a new inconvenient truth
Christopher Pearson, of The Australian newspaper (March 22), has
written up a remarkable ABC television interview with Dr Jennifer
Marohasy, a senior fellow of the Institute of Public Affairs, a
Melbourne-based think tank.
Dr Marohasy says the impact of the Aqua satellite and Spencer's
interpretation of the data and prompts the reporter to conclude with
some pungent observations of his own:
"If Marohasy is anywhere near right about the impending collapse of
the global warming paradigm, life will suddenly become a whole lot
more interesting.
"A great many founts of authority, from the Royal Society to the UN,
most heads of government along with countless captains of industry,
learned professors, commentators and journalists will be profoundly
embarrassed. Let us hope it is a prolonged and chastening experience.
"With catastrophe off the agenda, for most people the fog of
millennial gloom will lift, at least until attention turns to the
prospect of the next ice age. Among the better educated, the sceptical
cast of mind that is the basis of empiricism will once again be back
in fashion. The delusion that by recycling and catching public
transport we can help save the planet will quickly come to be seen for
the childish nonsense it was all along.
RAIN CHECK: Spencer's analyses based on new satellite data pour cold
rain on warming theory
"The poorest Indians and Chinese will be left in peace to work their
way toward prosperity, without being badgered about the size of their
carbon-footprint, a concept that for most of us will soon be one with
Nineveh and Tyre, clean forgotten in six months.
"The scores of town planners in Australia building empires out of
regulating what can and can't be built on low-lying shorelines will
have to come to terms with the fact inundation no longer impends and
find something more plausible to do. The same is true of the
bureaucrats planning to accommodate 'climate refugees."
--
If you disagree with the theories and dogmas of Marxism or Scientific Socialism
then you are a tool of Capitalist interests. If you disagree with the theories
or dogmas of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming then you are a tool of
Capitalistic interests. Notice a pattern here? -- Captain Compassion
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to
escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. -- Marcus Aurelius
"...the whole world, including the United States, including all that
we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark
Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights
of perverted science." -- Sir Winston Churchill
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMcharter.net
http://www.nbr.co.nz/home/column_article.asp?id=21153&cid=39&cname=NBR+Comment
Unlike so many of the hapless victims on TVOne's daily Crimewatch
(also known as One Network News) I have recently been lucky enough to
be in two right places at the right time.
In December last year, at the UN conference in Bali, I heard Viscount
Monckton present a paper prepared by himself, the Australian Dr David
Evans and our own Dr Vincent Gray (who were at Bali, too) that showed
while the IPCC models predict that greenhouse gases would produce an
extensive "hot spot" in the upper troposphere over the tropics, the
satellite measurements show no such hotspots have appeared.
Monckton and Evans found a large part of this discrepancy is the
result of some basic errors in the IPCC's assessment of the
Stefan-Boltzmann equation. When they applied their revised factor to
the effect of greenhouse gases, the temperature rise was about a third
of that predicted by the IPCC.
So by late last year we not only knew IPCC forecasts of atmospheric
global warming were wrong; we were beginning to understand why they
are wrong.
The key issue in this debate is whether anthropogenic greenhouse gases
or natural solar activities are the prime drivers of climate change. A
closely related argument is whether the climate is highly sensitive to
carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere.
Doubtful predictions
Put together, these uncertainties raise doubts as to whether the IPCC
models can accurately forecast the climate over the long term. If they
cannot, then we have to wonder how much damage we should risk doing to
the world's economies in attempts to manage the possibly adverse
effects of these "predictions."
The findings that the predicted "tropical hot spots" do not exist are
important because the IPCC models assume these hot spots will be
formed by increased evaporation from warmer oceans leading to the
accumulations of higher concentrations of water vapour in the upper
atmosphere, and thereby generating a positive feedback reinforcing the
small amount of warming that can be caused by CO2 alone.
Atmospheric scientists generally agree that as carbon dioxide levels
increase there is a law of "diminishing returns" - or more properly
"diminishing effects" - and that ongoing increases in CO2
concentration do not generate proportional increases in temperature.
The common analogy is painting over window glass. The first layers of
paint cut out lots of light but subsequent layers have diminishing
impact.
So, you might be asking, why the panic? Why does Al Gore talk about
temperatures spiraling out of control, causing mass extinctions and
catastrophic rises in sea-level, and all his other disastrous outcomes
when there is no evidence to support it?
The alarmists argue that increased CO2 leads to more water vapour -
the main greenhouse gas - and this provides positive feedback and
hence makes the overall climate highly sensitive to small increases in
the concentration of CO2.
Consequently, the IPCC argues that while carbon dioxide may well "run
out of puff" the consequent evaporation of water vapour provides the
positive feedback loop that will make anthropogenic global warming
reach dangerous levels.
This assumption that water vapour provides positive feedback lies
behind the famous "tipping point," which nourishes Al Gore's dreams of
destruction, and indeed all those calls for action now - "before it is
too late!" But no climate models predict such a tipping point.
However, while the absence of hot spots has refuted one important
aspect of the IPCC models we lack a mechanism that fully explains
these supposed outcomes. Hence the IPCC, and its supporters, have been
able to ignore this "refutation."
So by the end of last year, we were in a similar situation to the 19th
century astronomers, who had figured out that the sun could not be
"burning" its fuel - or it would have turned to ashes long ago - but
could not explain where the energy was coming from. Then along came
Einstein and E=mc2.
Hard to explain
Similarly, the climate sceptics have had to explain why the hotspots
are not where they should be - not just challenge the theory with
their observations.
This is why I felt so lucky to be in the right place at the right time
when I heard Roy Spencer speak at the New York conference on climate
change in March. At first I thought this was just another paper
setting out observations against the forecasts, further confirming
Evans' earlier work.
But as the argument unfolded I realised Spencer was drawing on
observations and measurements from the new Aqua satellites to explain
the mechanism behind this anomaly between model forecasts and
observation. You may have heard that the IPCC models cannot predict
clouds and rain with any accuracy. Their models assume water vapour
goes up to the troposphere and hangs around to cook us all in a
greenhouse future.
However, there is a mechanism at work that "washes out" the water
vapour and returns it to the oceans along with the extra CO2 and thus
turns the added water vapour into a NEGATIVE feedback mechanism.
The newly discovered mechanism is a combination of clouds and rain
(Spencer's mechanism adds to the mechanism earlier identified by
Professor Richard Lindzen called the Iris effect).
The IPCC models assumed water vapour formed clouds at high altitudes
that lead to further warming. The Aqua satellite observations and
Spencer's analysis show water vapour actually forms clouds at low
altitudes that lead to cooling.
Furthermore, Spencer shows the extra rain that falls from these clouds
cools the underlying oceans, providing a second negative feedback to
negate the CO2 warming.
Alarmists' quandary
This has struck the alarmists like a thunderbolt, especially as the
lead author of the IPCC chapter on feedback has written to Spencer
agreeing that he is right!
There goes the alarmist neighbourhood!
The climate is not highly sensitive to CO2 warming because water
vapour is a damper against the warming effect of CO2.
That is why history is full of Ice Ages - where other effects, such as
increased reflection from the ice cover, do provide positive feedback
- while we do not hear about Heat Ages. The Medieval Warm Period, for
example, is known for being benignly warm - not dangerously hot.
We live on a benign planet - except when it occasionally gets damned
cold.
While I have done my best to simplify these developments they remain
highly technical and many people distrust their own ability to assess
competing scientific claims. However, in this case the tipping point
theories are based on models that do not include the effects of rain
and clouds.
The new Nasa Aqua satellite is the first to measure the effects of
clouds and rainfall. Spencer's interpretation of the new data means
all previous models and forecasts are obsolete. Would anyone trust
long-term forecasts of farm production that were hopeless at
forecasting rainfall?
The implications of these breakthroughs in measurement and
understanding are dramatic to say the least. The responses will be fun
to watch.
Alarmists, 'experts' face a new inconvenient truth
Christopher Pearson, of The Australian newspaper (March 22), has
written up a remarkable ABC television interview with Dr Jennifer
Marohasy, a senior fellow of the Institute of Public Affairs, a
Melbourne-based think tank.
Dr Marohasy says the impact of the Aqua satellite and Spencer's
interpretation of the data and prompts the reporter to conclude with
some pungent observations of his own:
"If Marohasy is anywhere near right about the impending collapse of
the global warming paradigm, life will suddenly become a whole lot
more interesting.
"A great many founts of authority, from the Royal Society to the UN,
most heads of government along with countless captains of industry,
learned professors, commentators and journalists will be profoundly
embarrassed. Let us hope it is a prolonged and chastening experience.
"With catastrophe off the agenda, for most people the fog of
millennial gloom will lift, at least until attention turns to the
prospect of the next ice age. Among the better educated, the sceptical
cast of mind that is the basis of empiricism will once again be back
in fashion. The delusion that by recycling and catching public
transport we can help save the planet will quickly come to be seen for
the childish nonsense it was all along.
RAIN CHECK: Spencer's analyses based on new satellite data pour cold
rain on warming theory
"The poorest Indians and Chinese will be left in peace to work their
way toward prosperity, without being badgered about the size of their
carbon-footprint, a concept that for most of us will soon be one with
Nineveh and Tyre, clean forgotten in six months.
"The scores of town planners in Australia building empires out of
regulating what can and can't be built on low-lying shorelines will
have to come to terms with the fact inundation no longer impends and
find something more plausible to do. The same is true of the
bureaucrats planning to accommodate 'climate refugees."
--
If you disagree with the theories and dogmas of Marxism or Scientific Socialism
then you are a tool of Capitalist interests. If you disagree with the theories
or dogmas of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming then you are a tool of
Capitalistic interests. Notice a pattern here? -- Captain Compassion
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to
escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. -- Marcus Aurelius
"...the whole world, including the United States, including all that
we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark
Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights
of perverted science." -- Sir Winston Churchill
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMcharter.net
