Greening up 25 million homes

[biffvernon]

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[biffvernon]

The ‘Copenhagen Diagnosis‘, a report by 26 scientists from around the world was released today (24/11/2009). The report is intended as an update to the IPCC 2007 Working Group 1 report. Like the IPCC report, everything in the Copenhagen Diagnosis is from the peer-reviewed literature, so there is nothing really new. But the report summarizes and highlights those studies, published since the (2006) close-off date for the IPCC report, that the authors deemed most relevant to the negotiations in Copenhagen (COP15) next month. This report was written for policy-makers, stakeholders, the media and the broader public, and has been sent to each and every one of the COP15 negotiating teams throughout the world.

Among the points summarized in the report are that:

The ice sheets are both losing mass (and hence contributing to sea level rise). This was not certain at the time of the IPCC report.

Arctic sea ice has declined faster than projected by IPCC.

Greenhouse gas concentrations have continued to track the upper bounds of IPCC projections.

Observed global temperature changes remain entirely in accord with IPCC projections, i.e. an anthropogenic warming trend of about 0.2 ºC per decade with superimposed short-term natural variability.

Sea level has risen more than 5 centimeters over the past 15 years, about 80% higher than IPCC projections from 2001.

Perhaps most importantly, the report articulates a much clearer picture of what has to happen if the world wants to keep future warming within the reasonable threshold (2°C) that the European Union and the G8 nations have already agreed to in principle.

The full report is available at http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.org. Three of us at RealClimate are co-authors so we can’t offer an independent review of the report here. We welcome discussion in the comments section though. But read the report first before commenting, please.

 

[christianb]

Go learn some science or shut up.

I did. 3 years at the University of Liverpool. Environmental degree. Honours.

I'm passionate about numerous ecological issues, but I'm also sceptic-lite on man made global warming.

Here's something that's unlikely to interest you in your amateur capacity. http://ourcivilisation.com/aginatur/sealevel.htm

 

[biffvernon]

Oh dear, Nils-Axel Mörner, :roll:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nils-Axel_M%C3%B6rner
http://www.desmogblog.com/nils-axel-morner
Top line of that article is

I am a sea-level specialist. There are many good sea-level people in the world, but let's put it this way: There's no one who's beaten me.

If your science education at Liverpool was half as good as when I studied there you will have noticed that this is not a scientific paper, nor was it published in a scientific journal but what posted by Philip Atkinson. An even bigger :roll:
Do your own research.

 

[Flyfisher]

Very few people read scientific papers. Even if they did it would make little difference to the debate because scientific papers fuel debate. Even professional scientists, who spend their lives reading and writing such papers, fail to agree unanimously on AGW. And why should we expect them to? Is it really conceivable that we could go from zero to a fully wrapped-up, indisputably-proven theory of something as complex as planetary climate systems in a few decades? No, most people read distillations of scientific papers; review articles, science journals, even - shock horror - newspapers. Of course the rigour and turgidness of the original material can be softened in popular translation and - more shock horror - the authors may even have their own prejudices, but prejudice is hardly unknown in the scientific world is it?

But what really bothers me is the continued denigration of anyone who dares hold contrary views instead of engaging with the facts of the matter being discussed. Despite Biff's criticism of Christianb's reference for not being a peer-reviewed paper (thereby implying it to be unworthy), he's quite happy to provide his own 'popular' references in order to juxtapose Mörner's position on dowsing against his work on sea-levels in order to discredit his entire life's work. Am I alone in finding this tactic rather sinister? Perhaps it's a natural consequence of "the debate is over" zealotry, but I can't help but feel it is counter-productive to the green agenda.

 

[biffvernon]

Despite Biff's criticism of Christianb's reference for not being a peer-reviewed paper (thereby implying it to be unworthy).

The real problem is that the article Christianb referred to is just wrong. Christianb claims to be a scientist and so should know better. Posting stuff which is just wrong needs challenging.

What if I were to say here that asbestos insulation was just fine and dandy, or don't believe what a structural enginneer says when knocking a hole in your wall?

 

[Flyfisher]

Posting stuff which is just wrong needs challenging.

Of course. So why not challenge it with some facts instead of attempted ridicule?

As for asbestos insulation, once upon a time it was deemed to be a suitable material for insulation application but now we know better. Good job the asbestos debate wasn't over 50 years ago.

 

[biffvernon]

So why not challenge it with some facts instead of attempted ridicule?

When someone who claims to have a science degree ("Honours") talks rubbish he makes himself worthy or ridicule. Especially if he claims to have studied in the same university faculty as me. I have a lot more patience with folk who do not claim to be science trained.
Surely nobody would not accuse me of not having given enough facts about AGW on this forum.

 

[Flyfisher]

You've only done what AGW sceptics have done - present facts/interpretation that support your own argument. That's only half of the debate. The other, possibly more important, half is to directly challenge the facts/interpretation presented by the opposition and show precisely how and why they are wrong.

 

[christianb]

Thank you, Biff, for highlighting my imbecility and rightfully questioning my level of education and intelligence.

 

[biffvernon]

Your welcome, christianb
(Just try suggesting inappropriate use of cement and plastic and see what happens.)

Flyfisher, I don't see a debate. Just some people who refuse to accept that the Earth is not actually flat. I don't know why they do it but they are risking all our grandchildren's futures.

 

[middi]

Look here chaps you are worrying the c*^"p out of me, I am trying to figure out how 50/60million of us are going to fend off 3/4 billions indians and chinese knicking our coal !!!!

 

[biffvernon]

Is there coal in Essex?

 

[biffvernon]

The other, possibly more important, half is to directly challenge the facts/interpretation presented by the opposition and show precisely how and why they are wrong.

Sea Level Changes - See page 39 of The Copenhagen Diagnosis http://www.ccrc.unsw.edu.au/Copenhagen/Copenhagen_Diagnosis_LOW.pdf

 

[middi]

No coal in Essex Biff, but plenty of fallen down trees at the moment ( ideal for the log burner).

( what ?, this still pumps bad stuff in the stratosfere, what am I supposed to do wait for for the scientists to come up with an alternative ? :wink: )

 

[christianb]

Your welcome, christianb

Thank you. Mayhap you'd like to cast aspertions on my MA as well.

I don't know why they do it but they are risking all our grandchildren's futures.

This statement makes it patently obvious that simply by "caring" you think you're above those who don't concur with every whip-and-flip of the hardcore climate change lobby. Well, as the father of two children under the age of nineteen months, I can assure you that I care a great deal. So don't ever pull that stunt with me.

When, in twenty years time, our completely enervated economy and industry is unable to prop up what remains of a welfare system and Health Service; China (and its - let's be honest - rather dubious human rights record) is pre-eminent and doesn't give a rat's rear-end about CO2; my children are surviving in a nation a shadow of its former self; and the predictions have been proved fanciful / ridiculous, you can answer to them.

The hysteria about global warming has gone beyond tipping point. Even if de facto evidence that the climate was, in fact, cooling were discovered tomorrow, it would make no difference to those who have found themselves in positions of great influence and power (something beyond the wildest dreams of the average scientist). The propaganda would continue. You know, like the images of power station cooling towers when they actually emit nothing more than water vapour. Or the swimming polar bears when, believe it or not, that's what polar bears actually do. They're quite good at it, in fact.

And maybe you remember the "hockey stick" chart. That was the one that every ginny-come-lately environmentalist rammed down the throats of every one else a few years back. Except that it was Billshut.

Maybe I can even draw a little parallel. What about the furore / panic / lunacy over H1N1. Or even its headline predecessor, H5N1. Squillions were going to become infected. That's what the best government advisors came up with and then were proved absurd.

It's in the best interests of every empowered -ologist attending this-that-or-the-other summit to big-up how bad its going to be. It's their effing job. And you've bought it all - hook, line, sinker and the entire tackle store.

You are, to put it bluntly, a cultist. And a noisy, belligerant one at that.

Toodle pip.

 

[christianb]

Oh, one last thing. I found this piece of regurgitated enlightened-leftist toss posted earlier in the thread:

"This is mostly harmless as belief in god has done no more harm than triggered major wars and genocide."

Stalin? Hitler? Not the type you'd see at Evensong or doing the rounds with the Sally Army.

 

[biffvernon]

And maybe you remember the "hockey stick" chart. That was the one that every ginny-come-lately environmentalist rammed down the throats of every one else a few years back. Except that it was Billshut.

Er, right, ignoring most of your post and focussing on something that may relate to the science, here's the Copenhagen Diagnosis take on the 'hockey'stick:

Reconstructing the last two millennia
Knowledge of climate during past centuries can help us to
understand natural climate change and put modern climate
change into context. There have been a number of studies to
reconstruct trends in global and hemispheric surface temperature
over the last millennium (e.g. Mann et al. 1998; Esper et al.
2002; Moberg et al. 2005), all of which show recent Northern
Hemisphere warmth to be anomalous in the context of at least
the past millennium, and likely longer (Jansen et al. 2007). The
first of these reconstructions has come to be known as the
‘hockey stick’ reconstruction (Mann et al. 1998, 1999). Some
aspects of the hockey stick reconstruction were subsequently
questioned, e.g. whether the 20th century was the warmest
at a hemispheric average scale (Soon and Baliunas 2003),
and whether the reconstruction is reproducible, or verifiable
(McIntyre and McKitrick 2003), or might be sensitive to the
method used to extract information from tree ring records
(McIntyre and McKitrick 2005a,b). Whilst these criticisms have
been rejected in subsequent work (e.g. Rutherford et al. 2005;
Wahl and Ammann 2006, 2007; Jansen et al. 2007) the US
National Research Council convened a committee to examine
the state of the science of reconstructing the climate of the
past millennium. The NRC report published in 2006 largely
supported the original findings of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) and
recommended a path toward continued progress in this area
(NRC, 2006).
Mann et al. (2008) addressed the recommendations of the NRC
report by reconstructing surface temperature at a hemispheric
and global scale for much of the last 2,000 years using a
greatly expanded data set for decadal-to-centennial climate
changes, along with recently updated instrumental data and
complementary methods that have been thoroughly tested and validated with climate model simulations. Their results extend
previous studies and conclude that recent Northern Hemisphere
surface temperature increases are likely anomalous in a long-term
context (Figure 19).
Kaufman et al. (2009) independently concluded that recent
Arctic warming is without precedent in at least 2000 years
(Figure 20) reversing a long-term millennial-scale cooling trend
caused by astronomical forcing (i.e. orbital cycles). Warmth
during the peak of the “Medieval Climate Anomaly” of roughly
AD 900-1100 may have rivalled modern warmth for certain
regions such as the western tropical Pacific (Oppo et al. 2009),
and some regions neighbouring the North Atlantic (Mann et al.
in-press). However, such regional warming appears to reflect a
redistribution of warmth by changes in atmospheric circulation,
and is generally offset by cooling elsewhere (e.g. the eastern
and central tropical Pacific) to yield hemispheric and global
temperatures that are lower than those of recent decades.

The updated version of the 'hockey stick', looking as hockey-stickish as ever can be seen on page 45. Doubtless your MA (sic) qualifies you to describe all this as 'Billshut'.

 

[Schoolmarm]

I don't believe Biff could ever be described as noisy or belligerant :lol: .



What is an MA? I didn't go to Uni so am clueless.

 

[biffvernon]

What is an MA?

It signifies Master of Arts, often taken as a postgraduate degree or (allegedly) paid for with an extra £25 at Oxbridge where it is still called a Master of Arts even in science subjects, other universities calling it a Master of Science or MSc.. In this context denoting "I haven't merely recieved a first degree in an environmental science (Honours) but I have continued my education with postgraduate studies". Had the postgraduate studies been taken at Liverpool in a science subject our friend would have been awarded an MSc. rather than an MA., but who am I to cast nasturtiums?

Here is a whole team's worth of jolly hockey sticks:

View attachment 1
Comparison of various Northern Hemisphere temperature reconstructions, with estimated 95% confidence intervals
shown (from Mann et al. 2008).


Blue line: estimates of Arctic air temperatures over the last 2,000 years based on proxy records from lake sediments, ice
cores and tree rings. The green line shows the best fit long-term cooling trend for the period ending 1900. The red line shows the
recent warming based on actual observations. (Courtesy Science, modified by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research).

Both diagrams from Cop. Diag. Nov 2009