Climategate

[leo9]

Beside O3 itself is not the pollutant, so why artificially inflate the numbers with out trying for a real average?

I think we are at cross purposes. You appear to imagine that the ozone level has some relevance to AGW research, and that therefore you are exposing data manipulation on this subject.

The reason people measure ozone levels is that artificially generated ozone is a polutant. It causes sometimes life threatening asthma in susceptible people, and for this reason it is important for those at risk to know when the level is dangerously high. Therefore it is measured at locations where it may become high, because that is where the danger lies.

These measurements are supremely irrelevant to any aspect of global climate research. As Thorne noted, you may perhaps be confused by the tendency of anti-environmentalists to conflate the current concern over CO2 with the 1980s concern over ozone depeletion. The two are entirely separate issues. (Well, almost. A serious increase in ozone depletion might conceivably add to incoming solar radiation enough to have an impact on climate, but the contingency is happily remote, since we seem to have successfully limited the release of ozone depleting pollutants.) In any case, the previous concern was over loss of ozone, so environmental fraudsters would hardly be trying to exagerate the levels, leaving aside that they would be taking measurements several hundred feet too low if that were the object.

All this you could have discovered for yourself with five minutes on Google, so why do we have to keep educating you in the basics?

[leo9]

It appears now the the prime arbiter of Global Warming data admits that the data does not exist!
Phil Jones, University of East Anglia, says the data used to create his assessment of Global Warming is lost!
Further, he states that there has not been a single case of Global Warming since 1995.

Whilst I do take your point that noting the source of these amazing things you tell us would reduce the entertertainment value of the news for you, you cannot expect us to take these pronouncements seriously if you can only reference them by saying you heard it somewhere and you guess they got it from AP.

There is no need to spoil your viewing pleasure by taking notes: that's one of the many things Google is for. Just trace the news item you heard, copy and paste the link, and your comments might actually carry some weight, if it turned out that the item really said what you quote.

[leo9]

On the contrary, smoke detectors are placed outside bedrooms so that the occupants might hear the alarm in the middle of the night, when most home fires occur.

Not that this has anything to do with the original thread...but because it was being used as an argument, I thought I would clear the air. I am a member of both a CERT and a DART team and have had fire and disaster training. During our training it was explained why smoke detectors are placed in those locations.

Which will teach me to follow my own frequently given advice, and not assume that my country's practice is universal. UK firefighters and safety organisations advise us to place detectors at high points in the ceiling, at the tops of stairs etc, with the object of making sure the smoke reaches them as soon as a fire starts. Apparently they assume the alarms are loud enough that the distance from the bedroom is less important than getting the earliest possible warning.

A reminder to all of us that what seems so logical that it must be the same everywhere, may be only a local practice.

[Thorne]

At the water's edge and not inland? Here one is on the great lake and another is placed on anther body of water. Water is naturally higher in O3 regardless of pollution. Beside O3 itself is not the pollutant, so why artificially inflate the numbers with out trying for a real average?

I can't find any information regarding the natural concentration of ozone in water. In fact, unless the water is pure, the ozone would quickly react with any contaminants, destroying the ozone.

And ozone (O3) IS a pollutant at low levels. It can cause headaches, burning in the eyes, and respiratory irritation. People with resperatory problems already are particularly affected. So monitoring those levels is very important. And I would expect the monitoring to occur in those areas which are most likely to have high concentrations.

[DuncanONeil]

I think we are at cross purposes. You appear to imagine that the ozone level has some relevance to AGW research, and that therefore you are exposing data manipulation on this subject.

I do not so think. My point is that the O3 data is itself being manipulated by choosing ONLY positions that WILL result in high O3 levels

The reason people measure ozone levels is that artificially generated ozone is a polutant. It causes sometimes life threatening asthma in susceptible people, and for this reason it is important for those at risk to know when the level is dangerously high. Therefore it is measured at locations where it may become high, because that is where the danger lies.

Measuring O3 at the shore of a Great Lake, and the edge of other bodies of water and places that may produce O3 is not a true valid indicator of the O3 levels throughout the city. The data may be accurate but by definition it is biased.

These measurements are supremely irrelevant to any aspect of global climate research. As Thorne noted, you may perhaps be confused by the tendency of anti-environmentalists to conflate the current concern over CO2 with the 1980s concern over ozone depeletion. The two are entirely separate issues. (Well, almost. A serious increase in ozone depletion might conceivably add to incoming solar radiation enough to have an impact on climate, but the contingency is happily remote, since we seem to have successfully limited the release of ozone depleting pollutants.) In any case, the previous concern was over loss of ozone, so environmental fraudsters would hardly be trying to exagerate the levels, leaving aside that they would be taking measurements several hundred feet too low if that were the object.

I know there is a difference. But as to Global Warming I suggest you check out the new things Phil Jones is saying!

[steelish]

Which will teach me to follow my own frequently given advice, and not assume that my country's practice is universal. UK firefighters and safety organisations advise us to place detectors at high points in the ceiling, at the tops of stairs etc, with the object of making sure the smoke reaches them as soon as a fire starts. Apparently they assume the alarms are loud enough that the distance from the bedroom is less important than getting the earliest possible warning.

A reminder to all of us that what seems so logical that it must be the same everywhere, may be only a local practice.

We don't exactly place the detectors at floor level! But if you have vaulted ceilings in the living room, and normal ceiling height in the hallway outside the bedroom...the smoke detector is still placed outside the bedroom regardless of the higher ceilings elsewhere.

[DuncanONeil]

From an interview with the BBC!
I find you immediate reaction suggesting the report is made up insulting!

Further revelations by Phil Jones;

• Warming in the 20th century is not unique,
• There were two other recent periods,
  • between 1860 and the 1880s
  • in the forties
• The planet has been cooling since 2002
• The Medieval Warm Period was warmer than it is now
• Jones admits there is no consensus among climate scientists

So before I can use anything I have heard or read I have go back a research it all over again?

Whilst I do take your point that noting the source of these amazing things you tell us would reduce the entertertainment value of the news for you, you cannot expect us to take these pronouncements seriously if you can only reference them by saying you heard it somewhere and you guess they got it from AP.

There is no need to spoil your viewing pleasure by taking notes: that's one of the many things Google is for. Just trace the news item you heard, copy and paste the link, and your comments might actually carry some weight, if it turned out that the item really said what you quote.

[DuncanONeil]

In addition to outside the bedroom we are also instructed to have one on each floor to include the basement!

Which will teach me to follow my own frequently given advice, and not assume that my country's practice is universal. UK firefighters and safety organisations advise us to place detectors at high points in the ceiling, at the tops of stairs etc, with the object of making sure the smoke reaches them as soon as a fire starts. Apparently they assume the alarms are loud enough that the distance from the bedroom is less important than getting the earliest possible warning.

A reminder to all of us that what seems so logical that it must be the same everywhere, may be only a local practice.

[DuncanONeil]

That "high concentration" decision is part of the problem. I live in a city where the eastern boundary is a Great Lake. Levels of O3 are higher, at this point I can't quote a source other than a local news station, are higher in the vicinity of bodies of water. The level of concentration is not "in" the water, but in the immediate vicinity of the water. Most all of the recording stations are in such locations. But to presume that such readings have any bearing within the city confines five miles away can not be supported. Heck the ambient temperature does not remain constant over that distance!

I can't find any information regarding the natural concentration of ozone in water. In fact, unless the water is pure, the ozone would quickly react with any contaminants, destroying the ozone.

And ozone (O3) IS a pollutant at low levels. It can cause headaches, burning in the eyes, and respiratory irritation. People with resperatory problems already are particularly affected. So monitoring those levels is very important. And I would expect the monitoring to occur in those areas which are most likely to have high concentrations.

[DuncanONeil]

Did some looking. much of the generic data on Ozone does not get terribly specific. It may take trying to find the actual data from the actual monitoring units.

I can't find any information regarding the natural concentration of ozone in water. In fact, unless the water is pure, the ozone would quickly react with any contaminants, destroying the ozone.

And ozone (O3) IS a pollutant at low levels. It can cause headaches, burning in the eyes, and respiratory irritation. People with resperatory problems already are particularly affected. So monitoring those levels is very important. And I would expect the monitoring to occur in those areas which are most likely to have high concentrations.

[leo9]

Unlike certain people I have never denied that the planet had been experiencing a warming. However since that pronouncement has as its start date the end of a period called the "Little Ice Age" hardly seems like man could be the source. When the proponents of Global Heat Disaster dismiss the fact that the planet itself has done this before makes it hard to accept the edict that we puny humans are the sole cause, or even the proximate cause. When the aforementioned disasterites dismiss every bit of evidence that the planet has begun a cooling as an aberation and not worthy of consideration again tends to weaken their position.
Personally I make every effort to avoid the term conspiracy. However I will admit an agenda for the AGW crowd.

OK, let's go further back and try to start from basics.

A) CO2 is a greenhouse gas, one that absorbs infra-red, thus increasing the net heating of the atmosphere for the same level of insolation. There are other significant greenhouse gasses - methane for one, hence the concern over the rapidly increasing release of methane from warming permafrosts - but CO2 is the one whose level is the most directly affected by human activity.

B) Since the Industrial Revolution began the large scale burning of fossil fuels, the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen ever more rapidly.

C) The world's climate, and specifically the world's temperature, varies according to a number of cyclical patterns. The net influence of these cycles has been being studied for a hundred years or so and is pretty well understood, and the theory agrees with observation beautifully - up to the last few decades, when the curve went off in entirely the wrong direction. According to the theories that all climatologists were happy with until AGW came into the picture, the world should be gently cooling down (hence the 1970s scare about a "new Ice Age".) Instead it is warming ever faster.

Now my first question is, which of these propositions don't you believe? If (A), you can borrow space in any High School science lab for an afternoon and test it yourself. If (B), note that this is not just one researcher or group of researchers' opinion. The chemistry of the atmosphere is available for anyone to study, and people have been doing quantitative analyses of it since the 19th Century; the results are not hidden or secret or held in one database open to fudging.

I note that you don't dispute that the warming is happening, so the question is the cause. If you believe that the existing theories of climate cycles are enough to account for it, then you can either take my word for it, or do the research yourself to find out, that back in the mid-20th Century, when AGW was a minority crank theory, the consensus of climatology was that no such warming could possibly happen because they knew how the cycles worked and they were on a downward phase. That is why the majority have come around so solidly: they saw results that didn't fit the established theory, so they looked for a theory that correctly predicted what actually happened. That's how science works.

The point is, if you accept the evidence but you don't accept the theory, you are left with the conclusion that something contrary to previous climatological theories is happening, and it is completely unexplained and mysterious. And since there is an explanation available for it which is simple physics, this is a bit like insisting that a pan on the stove is growing hot due to mysterious and unexplained forces, while refusing to see that the stove is heating it.

[steelish]

Oh my

[Losalt]

OK, let's go further back and try to start from basics.

A) CO2 is a greenhouse gas, one that absorbs infra-red, thus increasing the net heating of the atmosphere for the same level of insolation. There are other significant greenhouse gasses - methane for one, hence the concern over the rapidly increasing release of methane from warming permafrosts - but CO2 is the one whose level is the most directly affected by human activity.

B) Since the Industrial Revolution began the large scale burning of fossil fuels, the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen ever more rapidly.

C) The world's climate, and specifically the world's temperature, varies according to a number of cyclical patterns. The net influence of these cycles has been being studied for a hundred years or so and is pretty well understood, and the theory agrees with observation beautifully - up to the last few decades, when the curve went off in entirely the wrong direction. According to the theories that all climatologists were happy with until AGW came into the picture, the world should be gently cooling down (hence the 1970s scare about a "new Ice Age".) Instead it is warming ever faster.

Now my first question is, which of these propositions don't you believe? If (A), you can borrow space in any High School science lab for an afternoon and test it yourself. If (B), note that this is not just one researcher or group of researchers' opinion. The chemistry of the atmosphere is available for anyone to study, and people have been doing quantitative analyses of it since the 19th Century; the results are not hidden or secret or held in one database open to fudging.

I note that you don't dispute that the warming is happening, so the question is the cause. If you believe that the existing theories of climate cycles are enough to account for it, then you can either take my word for it, or do the research yourself to find out, that back in the mid-20th Century, when AGW was a minority crank theory, the consensus of climatology was that no such warming could possibly happen because they knew how the cycles worked and they were on a downward phase. That is why the majority have come around so solidly: they saw results that didn't fit the established theory, so they looked for a theory that correctly predicted what actually happened. That's how science works.

The point is, if you accept the evidence but you don't accept the theory, you are left with the conclusion that something contrary to previous climatological theories is happening, and it is completely unexplained and mysterious. And since there is an explanation available for it which is simple physics, this is a bit like insisting that a pan on the stove is growing hot due to mysterious and unexplained forces, while refusing to see that the stove is heating it.

Regarding A don't forget H2O in gas form
As for B and C..
Well, we have ice samples from the last ice age (not the little one, the real one with northern europe covered in ice) where a little of the gasses of the atmosphere is caught allowing us to actually measure how it was then.
Also we can dig up the seeds of various planets to see what was growing where getting an idea about how the climate was earlier.
So to prove your point all we have to do is to compare those two
And then there's trees..
The rings in them change in size depending on growing conditions if I don't remember wrong.
It's a good thing we're not limited to measuring how the weather is today ^^

For the record, this post is in support of Leo9

[steelish]

Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995
By JONATHAN PETRE

Data for vital 'hockey stick graph' has gone missing
There has been no global warming since 1995
Warming periods have happened before - but NOT due to man-made changes


The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.

Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers.
Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.

The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

The admissions will be seized on by sceptics as fresh evidence that there are serious flaws at the heart of the science of climate change and the orthodoxy that recent rises in temperature are largely man-made.

Professor Jones has been in the spotlight since he stepped down as director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit after the leaking of emails that sceptics claim show scientists were manipulating data.

The raw data, collected from hundreds of weather stations around the world and analysed by his unit, has been used for years to bolster efforts by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to press governments to cut carbon dioxide emissions.

Following the leak of the emails, Professor Jones has been accused of ‘scientific fraud’ for allegedly deliberately suppressing information and refusing to share vital data with critics.

Discussing the interview, the BBC’s environmental analyst Roger Harrabin said he had spoken to colleagues of Professor Jones who had told him that his strengths included integrity and doggedness but not record-keeping and office tidying.

Mr Harrabin, who conducted the interview for the BBC’s website, said the professor had been collating tens of thousands of pieces of data from around the world to produce a coherent record of temperature change.
That material has been used to produce the ‘hockey stick graph’ which is relatively flat for centuries before rising steeply in recent decades.

According to Mr Harrabin, colleagues of Professor Jones said ‘his office is piled high with paper, fragments from over the years, tens of thousands of pieces of paper, and they suspect what happened was he took in the raw data to a central database and then let the pieces of paper go because he never realised that 20 years later he would be held to account over them’.
Asked by Mr Harrabin about these issues, Professor Jones admitted the lack of organisation in the system had contributed to his reluctance to share data with critics, which he regretted.

Asked about whether he lost track of data, Professor Jones said: ‘There is some truth in that. We do have a trail of where the weather stations have come from but it’s probably not as good as it should be.

‘There’s a continual updating of the dataset. Keeping track of everything is difficult. Some countries will do lots of checking on their data then issue improved data, so it can be very difficult. We have improved but we have to improve more.’

He also agreed that there had been two periods which experienced similar warming, from 1910 to 1940 and from 1975 to 1998, but said these could be explained by natural phenomena whereas more recent warming could not.
He further admitted that in the last 15 years there had been no ‘statistically significant’ warming, although he argued this was a blip rather than the long-term trend.

And he said that the debate over whether the world could have been even warmer than now during the medieval period, when there is evidence of high temperatures in northern countries, was far from settled.

Sceptics believe there is strong evidence that the world was warmer between about 800 and 1300 AD than now because of evidence of high temperatures in northern countries.

But climate change advocates have dismissed this as false or only applying to the northern part of the world.

Professor Jones departed from this consensus when he said: ‘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 palaeoclimatic 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, then obviously the late 20th Century warmth would not be unprecedented. On the other hand, if the MWP was global, but was less warm than today, then the current warmth would be unprecedented.’

Sceptics said this was the first time a senior scientist working with the IPCC had admitted to the possibility that the Medieval Warming Period could have been global, and therefore the world could have been hotter then than now.

Professor Jones criticised those who complained he had not shared his data with them, saying they could always collate their own from publicly available material in the US. And he said the climate had not cooled ‘until recently – and then barely at all. The trend is a warming trend’.

Mr Harrabin told Radio 4’s Today programme that, despite the controversies, there still appeared to be no fundamental flaws in the majority scientific view that climate change was largely man-made.

But Dr Benny Pieser, director of the sceptical Global Warming Policy Foundation, said Professor Jones’s ‘excuses’ for his failure to share data were hollow as he had shared it with colleagues and ‘mates’.

He said that until all the data was released, sceptics could not test it to see if it supported the conclusions claimed by climate change advocates.
He added that the professor’s concessions over medieval warming were ‘significant’ because they were his first public admission that the science was not settled.


My conclusion...even the top scientists cannot agree, therefore why can't we take a step back and finish the investigation before spending trillions more on a project that will have profound effect on the country and our children's future?

[denuseri]

I have no problem with continuing to reaserch the real cuases of climate change.

Ive allways been a proponent of more reaserch.

As for some of the projects....well, some of the projects in question, (like reducing or eliminating our dependence on non-renewable rescources) in my opinion are still just as nessesary for the furture of our specieis as a whole regardless of the cuases of global climate trends becuase there are larger issues looming over the horizon conserning them in regards to population expansion vs resource aquisition.

Also I do believe, given sufficient time, we as humans can and will impact the enviroment in such a mannner that we will wish we did change how we conduct our stewardship of the earth sooner rather than later some day.

Additionally, I see no reason good enough to support a position that promotes polution of our enviroment soley for the sake of corporate greed without regard for the wellfare of everyone involved.

The planet certianly isnt going to give us any second chances, and I don't see a viable place to expand into floating nearby that we can just fly over too any time soon.

[steelish]

I have no problem with continuing to reaserch the real cuases of climate change.

Ive allways been a proponent of more reaserch.

As for some of the projects....well, some of the projects in question, (like reducing or eliminating our dependence on non-renewable rescources) in my opinion are still just as nessesary for the furture of our specieis as a whole regardless of the cuases of global climate trends becuase there are larger issues looming over the horizon conserning them in regards to population expansion vs resource aquisition.

Also I do believe, given sufficient time, we as humans can and will impact the enviroment in such a mannner that we will wish we did change how we conduct our stewardship of the earth sooner rather than later some day.

Additionally, I see no reason good enough to support a position that promotes polution of our enviroment soley for the sake of corporate greed without regard for the wellfare of everyone involved.

The planet certianly isnt going to give us any second chances, and I don't see a viable place to expand into floating nearby that we can just fly over too any time soon.

On all of this, I agree wholeheartedly. The project I am referring to is Cap and Trade and of course the multitude of stifling federal regulations placed upon manufacturers.

[symphony]

I beg to differ!! Top scientists do agree, science is not cut and dry and you will NEVER get an 100% concencus, I study climate and geology at university and I can tell you that 95% of scientists agree that the climate is warming and that we are either contributing or causing this. the problem is that the media gives the 5% and the 95% equal(ish) air time which makes people think that there is large disagreements.

We should currently be swinging back to a cooler period due to molanchovich cycles and we arnt.

I ask you does it really matter weather there is a concencus about weather its all our fault or just partly our fault the fact is that its happening.

We must spend money now as we need to level off our emissions 2015 to prevent a 2 degree warming which would cause food shortages and mass migrations causing huge strains on people.

look it up if you dont believe me and please dont google it. Try looking in journals and scientific publications. The news doesnt speak the truth all the time now does it!

[steelish]

Maybe in the UK the news doesn't "report" on global warming/climate change, but in the US we are bombarded daily with it!

[DuncanONeil]

It is very difficult to, with any certainty, say what the actual cause is.
However, there has been no reduction in CO2. And yet Phil Jones himself has said no warming since 1995. Further he is willing to admit that the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was warmer than the current temperatures. In addition that the planet has been cooling since 2002.
On the basis of that is it not reasonable to presume that man is not the prime component of the current cycle of warming. With the MWP being warmer it would seem clear that man could not have caused that.

More study is needed, FROM ALL SIDE, on the subject. No research or study should be tossed aside just because some people do not like it.

As far as the "consensus", again from Phil Jones, the only consensus in the field is that there is no consensus.

OK, let's go further back and try to start from basics.

A) CO2 is a greenhouse gas, one that absorbs infra-red, thus increasing the net heating of the atmosphere for the same level of insolation. There are other significant greenhouse gasses - methane for one, hence the concern over the rapidly increasing release of methane from warming permafrosts - but CO2 is the one whose level is the most directly affected by human activity.

B) Since the Industrial Revolution began the large scale burning of fossil fuels, the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen ever more rapidly.

C) The world's climate, and specifically the world's temperature, varies according to a number of cyclical patterns. The net influence of these cycles has been being studied for a hundred years or so and is pretty well understood, and the theory agrees with observation beautifully - up to the last few decades, when the curve went off in entirely the wrong direction. According to the theories that all climatologists were happy with until AGW came into the picture, the world should be gently cooling down (hence the 1970s scare about a "new Ice Age".) Instead it is warming ever faster.

Now my first question is, which of these propositions don't you believe? If (A), you can borrow space in any High School science lab for an afternoon and test it yourself. If (B), note that this is not just one researcher or group of researchers' opinion. The chemistry of the atmosphere is available for anyone to study, and people have been doing quantitative analyses of it since the 19th Century; the results are not hidden or secret or held in one database open to fudging.

I note that you don't dispute that the warming is happening, so the question is the cause. If you believe that the existing theories of climate cycles are enough to account for it, then you can either take my word for it, or do the research yourself to find out, that back in the mid-20th Century, when AGW was a minority crank theory, the consensus of climatology was that no such warming could possibly happen because they knew how the cycles worked and they were on a downward phase. That is why the majority have come around so solidly: they saw results that didn't fit the established theory, so they looked for a theory that correctly predicted what actually happened. That's how science works.

The point is, if you accept the evidence but you don't accept the theory, you are left with the conclusion that something contrary to previous climatological theories is happening, and it is completely unexplained and mysterious. And since there is an explanation available for it which is simple physics, this is a bit like insisting that a pan on the stove is growing hot due to mysterious and unexplained forces, while refusing to see that the stove is heating it.

[DuncanONeil]

Cap and trade is a very bad idea. Does nothing to change anything. Will do little more than raise the cost of everything. Likely put many companies out of business.

If anything we should be encouraging business. They are the ones that come up with new ideas!

On all of this, I agree wholeheartedly. The project I am referring to is Cap and Trade and of course the multitude of stifling federal regulations placed upon manufacturers.

[DuncanONeil]

Please read message #194 & 195!!

I beg to differ!! Top scientists do agree, science is not cut and dry and you will NEVER get an 100% concencus, I study climate and geology at university and I can tell you that 95% of scientists agree that the climate is warming and that we are either contributing or causing this. the problem is that the media gives the 5% and the 95% equal(ish) air time which makes people think that there is large disagreements.

We should currently be swinging back to a cooler period due to molanchovich cycles and we arnt.

I ask you does it really matter weather there is a concencus about weather its all our fault or just partly our fault the fact is that its happening.

We must spend money now as we need to level off our emissions 2015 to prevent a 2 degree warming which would cause food shortages and mass migrations causing huge strains on people.

look it up if you dont believe me and please dont google it. Try looking in journals and scientific publications. The news doesnt speak the truth all the time now does it!

[steelish]

Here is a claim that global warming is causing an increase in fog around LA

and interestingly enough, here is a claim (a mere 7 months later) that global warming is causing a DECREASE in the fog surrounding LA


Give me a break

[steelish]

cap and trade is a very bad idea. Does nothing to change anything. Will do little more than raise the cost of everything. Likely put many companies out of business.

If anything we should be encouraging business. They are the ones that come up with new ideas!

exactly

[symphony]

i did read them, thats why i posted.
When did i say that they diddnt report in the uk. blatently i said they did, but it is not always advisable to believe it without checking their sources... but i see im not going to get anywhere, and im wasting my time.

[steelish]

the problem is that the media gives the 5% and the 95% equal(ish) air time which makes people think that there is large disagreements.

And my point is...in the US they report it as if 100% of the scientists agree.

[leo9]

Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995
By JONATHAN PETRE

And this shows just how wrong journalists can get it when they try to translate scientific language into journalese without understanding. (I'm doing Mr. Petre the courtesy of assuming it was an honest mistake and not deliberate distortion.)

If you read the actual text of the interview (which is here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8511670.stm , and I am following normal fair-use practioce, as well as good netiquette, by giving a link rather than cut and paste the whole text) you will find that what he says is that the increase in temperature (which is clear in the figures) is not quite "statistically signignificant". Which is to say that even though it's right there in the data, as a conscientious scientist he has to allow that it might be pure coincidence that every successive reading is higher than the last. That is a completely different thing from saying there has been "no warming", which would obviously be nonsense with the rising figures there for all to see.

The problem seems to be that the media, which wouldn't give the job of football correspondent to someone who never learnt the rules, happily give the job of "science correspondent" to journos who flunked Science 101.

Data for vital 'hockey stick graph' has gone missing

Again, this sounds most impressive if you don't have the actual facts available. If you bother to check:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...t-weather-data
you will find that, after the hooraw suggesting that all the weather records in the world had been somehow deleted by one obscure British scientist, what's actually gone missing is the readings from a bunch of weather stations in northern China. (And if the Chinese don't have copies, they're not the bureaucratic state I take them for.)

Warming periods have happened before - but NOT due to man-made changes

Hold the front page! A journalist has just discovered what's in every elementary climatological textbook! World shaking admission!

It's this sort of invincible ignorance that makes the discussion so difficult. One has to educate people from scratch while they try to find a catch in everything one explains.

My conclusion...even the top scientists cannot agree, therefore why can't we take a step back and finish the investigation before spending trillions more on a project that will have profound effect on the country and our children's future?

Because in the meantime the disaster is already happening:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...cts-tajikistan

And while climate change deniers were having lots of fun about the blizzards in Washington, the Winter Olympics have been having to truck in snow so the ski slopes won't be grass.

The investigation is finished, it was finished years ago. It's the political fight that is never going to be finished so long as Big Oil has a million to spare for PR.

[steelish]

The actual text (which I did read) also states that the periods of 1860-1880, 1910-1940, 1975-1998 & 1975-2009 all had similar warming trends. These are things the mainstream media fails to report.

[leo9]

The actual text (which I did read) also states that the periods of 1860-1880, 1910-1940, 1975-1998 & 1975-2009 all had similar warming trends.

Interesting, thanks for noting that. 1860 fits the theory, but I didn't realise they had pushed the data back that far.

These are things the mainstream media fails to report.

The BBC will be fascinated to learn that they are now a fringe medium.

[leo9]

And my point is...in the US they report it as if 100% of the scientists agree.

Except for the Murdoch outlets, which report it as if 50% of the scientists disagree. As I have observed elsewhere, the abysmal standard of science reporting - which is almost entirely written from the point of view of politics, with zero concern for facts - on all sides of the media, is part of the problem.

[denuseri]

Thats becuase there is allmost no pre published peer review or scource checking going on anymore (for journalists) and the journalists (sophists by any other name) not to mention college proffessors and more than a few scientists (keep peer review but still no ethics) are more worried about alcaim, ratings, money and pushing their own political social agendas, then they are about ethics and objectivity.