Channel 4 Global Warming Debunkment

[punter]

how can anyone take the IPCC thing seriously?

the UN is a political organisation - its goal is global government

The organisation is fundamentally corrupt.

i'm not inclined to believe a word of what these shyters and VI's say...

Edited March 12, 2007 by punter

[Guest Yeahbutnocrash]

how can anyone take the IPCC thing seriously?

the UN is a political organisation - it's goal is global government

The organisation is fundamentally corrupt.

i'm not inclined to believe a word of what these shyters and VI's say...

Find the sun a bit warm over the weekend?

The sun is not aware of IPCC, UN or VI's...

[OmniCognate]

A bunch of links

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/itc...aint_id=40.html (ITC judgement on a similar program "Against Nature" made by the same writer/director, Martin Durkin - Channel 4 had to apologise for misleading scientists)

http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=4688&tip=1 (read the last paragraph - this is one of the experts on the program - he claims he was duped into appearing)

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/sto...2031455,00.html (scientist from previous link says program was "as close to pure propaganda as anything since World War Two")

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/environme...913959958074602 (Look in the forum postings underneath the article - see the one by "Damian Carrington, Online editor" - Nigel Calder was another of the experts on the program)

http://environment.newscientist.com/channe.../climate-change (New scientist climate change coverage - Calder does not speak for New Scientist)

About the sunspots theory:

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Changes_...arming_999.html (Nature reviews literature and concludes sunspots do not explain global warming)

http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/StottEtAl.pdf (Read abstract - "Nevertheless the results conirm previous analyses showing that greenhouse gas increases explain most of the global warming observed in the second half of the twentieth century.")

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/19990408/ (NASA Goddard Institute For Space Sciences press release - "According to Shindell, the new study also confirms that changing levels of energy from the sun are not a major cause of global warming")

http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/seminars/991118FO.html (US Global Change Research Program Seminar. Conclusion - "Added greenhouse gases provide, by far, the most plausible hypothesis for explaining the warming of the 20th century.")

This is my first post on the forum and sorry it's about something other than HPC. It just annoys the hell out me to see people fall for this garbage.

[Guest Yeahbutnocrash]

A bunch of links

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/itc...aint_id=40.html (ITC judgement on a similar program "Against Nature" made by the same writer/director, Martin Durkin - Channel 4 had to apologise for misleading scientists)

http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=4688&tip=1 (read the last paragraph - this is one of the experts on the program - he claims he was duped into appearing)

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/sto...2031455,00.html (scientist from previous link says program was "as close to pure propaganda as anything since World War Two")

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/environme...913959958074602 (Look in the forum postings underneath the article - see the one by "Damian Carrington, Online editor" - Nigel Calder was another of the experts on the program)

http://environment.newscientist.com/channe.../climate-change (New scientist climate change coverage - Calder does not speak for New Scientist)

About the sunspots theory:

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Changes_...arming_999.html (Nature reviews literature and concludes sunspots do not explain global warming)

http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/StottEtAl.pdf (Read abstract - "Nevertheless the results conirm previous analyses showing that greenhouse gas increases explain most of the global warming observed in the second half of the twentieth century.")

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/19990408/ (NASA Goddard Institute For Space Sciences press release - "According to Shindell, the new study also confirms that changing levels of energy from the sun are not a major cause of global warming")

http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/seminars/991118FO.html (US Global Change Research Program Seminar. Conclusion - "Added greenhouse gases provide, by far, the most plausible hypothesis for explaining the warming of the 20th century.")

This is my first post on the forum and sorry it's about something other than HPC. It just annoys the hell out me to see people fall for this garbage.

It's excellent that you posted this

Many people who saw that programme without any further meaningful discussion may have been misled by it as there was no opposing view presented

(I'm not saying there shouldn't be a platform for an opposing view just that the best way would have been a debate with both sides presenting their evidence)

It can be relevant to the housing market in the future as global warming will affect where people can live or choose to live along with how it effects peoples finances & the economy thru green tax etc

[I Told You So]

I think your missing the point

around 1100AD it was hotter then than now for a few hundred years yet no raised levels of CO2

1940 - 1975 huge increase in industrialisation and thus CO2 yet temps fell consistently

of course there are many arguements over what is the cause but it certainly doesn't seem to be CO2, no ones saying pollution is good for us but this carbon footprint panic feels like a kneejerk reaction.

[OmniCognate]

I wasn't really trying to make a "point". I just posted a bunch of links. If you are unconvinced by the evidence for humans causing global warming that is your choice. However, you should be aware that a large number of extremely clever people who have made studying the climate their life's work disagree with you. If you ever want to know what these people think, all you have to do is go to their websites and look. Why let a discredited documentary maker tell you these people say when you can find out directly yourself? Follow the links and do a bit of googling of your own (stringently restricting yourself to respectable institutions and peer reviewed journals - they aren't hard to spot) and you will rapidly realise what the scientific consensus is.

I'm not saying that you have to believe in AGW, just that when one person tells you there's a scientific consensus and another tells you there isn't, it really is not that hard to find out which is the case. They may be scientists, but they still speak English. Let them speak for themselves. Then you will know what the mainstream view you are disputing actually is.

Here's a tip, BTW - if you are wondering how to spot an actual scientist, a webpage like http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/authors/gschmidt.html is a good sign, while a webpage like http://www.davidbellamy.co.uk/, or even http://www.monbiot.com/ is a bad sign.

Tom

[MarkG]

However, you should be aware that a large number of extremely clever people who have made studying the climate their life's work disagree with you.

It's either that or back to the dole queue on Monday morning... not a lot of jobs in the real world for 'climate scientists'.

[OmniCognate]

Ah, now you agree that there is a consensus but are dubious about why there is a consensus. Here I have to agree with you. The scientists certainly may be saying things because they are being controlled by the people who hold the purse strings. Or they could be under the influence of drugs in the water supply, or alien signals they receive through their teeth. In fact the whole word, including yourself may not exist at all. Or they might just be saying that because it is their professional opinion. I admit that I have no evidence one way or the other.

[bugged bunny]

I think your missing the point

around 1100AD it was hotter then than now for a few hundred years yet no raised levels of CO2

1940 - 1975 huge increase in industrialisation and thus CO2 yet temps fell consistently

of course there are many arguements over what is the cause but it certainly doesn't seem to be CO2, no ones saying pollution is good for us but this carbon footprint panic feels like a kneejerk reaction.

The industrialisation between 1940 - 1975 threw up huge quantities of soot and other pollutants into the atmosphere which caused global dimming:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming.

This more than counteracted the greenhouse effect of increased CO2 in the atmosphere.

Since the 1990s especially, the cleaning up of emissions from cars, factories etc have diminished the global dimming effect, hence global temperatures have risen.

Edited March 12, 2007 by bugged bunny

[Guest Yeahbutnocrash]

I think your missing the point

around 1100AD it was hotter then than now for a few hundred years yet no raised levels of CO2

1940 - 1975 huge increase in industrialisation and thus CO2 yet temps fell consistently

of course there are many arguements over what is the cause but it certainly doesn't seem to be CO2, no ones saying pollution is good for us but this carbon footprint panic feels like a kneejerk reaction.

The discussion is around whether we are now contributing to the warming which I suspect can be shown by the current rate of warming which was of course not mentioned in the programme

As I mentioned in an earlier post during the 1940 - 1975 period we were pumping a great deal of other chemicals into the atmosphere which seem to have masked the true extent of the warming as those chemicals consisted of particles which reflected some of the suns heat away

Also it seems both sides agree we are in a period of global warming and that's what needs to be dealt with

Also you could see the links posted by OmniCognate above which includes:

http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/StottEtAl.pdf (Read abstract - "Nevertheless the results confirm previous analyses showing that greenhouse gas increases explain most of the global warming observed in the second half of the twentieth century.")

Edited March 12, 2007 by Yeahbutnocrash

[no accountant]

Ah, now you agree that there is a consensus but are dubious about why there is a consensus. Here I have to agree with you. The scientists certainly may be saying things because they are being controlled by the people who hold the purse strings. Or they could be under the influence of drugs in the water supply, or alien signals they receive through their teeth. In fact the whole word, including yourself may not exist at all. Or they might just be saying that because it is their professional opinion. I admit that I have no evidence one way or the other.

A few of them seem to have escaped the effects of the water supply, here is 17,000 of them, signed up to a petition:

Admittedly it's from 2001, but a lot of very qualified people none the less:

petition

Explanation

Edited March 12, 2007 by no accountant

[wickywackywoo]

I have seen a cooked frog.

I've eaten a cooked frog, in Thailand. Beat that!

[Daft Boy]

However, you should be aware that a large number of extremely clever people who have made studying the climate their life's work disagree with you.

Sounds a bit like the clergy and religion to me , more belief than fact. If there is global warming it must be the will of God or Allah so stop interfering. You can't have it both ways.

[Sinking Feeling]

The industrialisation between 1940 - 1975 threw up huge quantities of soot and other pollutants into the atmosphere which caused global dimming:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming.

This more than counteracted the greenhouse effect of increased CO2 in the atmosphere.

Since the 1990s especially, the cleaning up of emissions from cars, factories etc have diminished the global dimming effect, hence global temperatures have risen.

This makes sense from a western perspective, but when you consider that the old soviet states are still using factories set up in the 1930s, coupled to the growth in polluting heavy industry in China and India, this theory also starts to look less stable.

[Saving For a Space Ship]

coming up on BBc 2 NewsNight shortly, scientists go head to head on whether humans cause global warming.

Watch again - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/default.stm

Edit: On now-Interviews with scientists & talks about C4 sceptic programme & Al Gore film

For rewatch, it starts approx. 13 mins from end of programme

Edited March 12, 2007 by Saving For a Space Ship

[bugged bunny]

This makes sense from a western perspective, but when you consider that the old soviet states are still using factories set up in the 1930s, coupled to the growth in polluting heavy industry in China and India, this theory also starts to look less stable.

I don't see why this might discredit the theory. There's evidence that dimming is happening in China:

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=1566139

Global dimming is still having an effect, however, it is puny in comparison to the main causes of global warming: increased CO2 emissions, deforestation, farting cattle. Hence the net outcome is global warming.

[surfcat]

It's either that or back to the dole queue on Monday morning... not a lot of jobs in the real world for 'climate scientists'.

Yeah, I mean everyone who doesn't see the point in wasting their degree sucking corporate **** in the city must be destined for the dole queue.

[surfcat]

1940 - 1975 huge increase in industrialisation and thus CO2 yet temps fell consistently

The documentary did seem to have rather a funny unsourced temperature diagram. This one's from the HadCRUT3 dataset (The hadley centre at the met office in exeter and the climatic research unit at UEA), and doesn't quite have the dramatic falls from 1940 lasting until the 1970s. Incidentally, the fall at 1940 is caused by sulphate aerosol emissions due to volcanic eruption.

[i_godzuki]

This is worth a read. Shows what a load of tosh the documentary was.

Guardian story debunks the debunkment

[surfcat]

This is worth a read. Shows what a load of tosh the documentary was.

Guardian story debunks the debunkment

And here's a partial reply from Carl Wunsch, one of the swindled experts in the programme...

http://ocean.mit.edu/~cwunsch/papersonline/channel4response

[Guest Yeahbutnocrash]

This is worth a read. Shows what a load of tosh the documentary was.

Guardian story debunks the debunkment

Yes this certainly seems to debunk the programme and you can see why their 'evidence' can't be taken seriously

Why would there be a conspiracy / What's the point? They all agree the warming is happening in any case - It just seems that some individuals have applied bad science or have attempted to come up with their own theories

Current scientific understanding says CO2 is definately a greenhouse gas

But of course in the past it has not always been CO2 which caused previous episodes of warming but it did contribute once enough of it had been produced in a 'feedback' type of effect

The situation is different now as we are contributing additional CO2 into the cycle

Edited March 13, 2007 by Yeahbutnocrash

[no accountant]

After another 5 hours of googling and reading reports the picture gets more and more bitchy. The IPCC needed a 'smoking gun' for Kyoto, and Michael Mann obliged with the 'hockey stick' temperature charts of the last 1000 years

"Of course, Kyoto fans were delighted. Despite being at odds with most of the scientific literature, and the fact that the MBH98 study was only one of thousands of possible millennial temperature constructions, advocates of the GHG hypothesis of climate change started to promote Mann's results as the definitive global temperature history. Within a year, with little real debate, the hockey stick became entrenched as the new orthodoxy, showing up in official documents everywhere.

...

None may have the long-term impact of the paper published yesterday [oct 2003] in the prestigious British journal Energy and Environment, which explains how one of the fundamental scientific pillars of the Kyoto Accord is based on flawed calculations, incorrect data and a biased selection of climate records.

A detailed audit revealed numerous errors in the data. After correcting these and updating the source records they showed that based on Mann's own methodologies, his original conclusion was flawed. "

http://www.sepp.org/Archive/NewSEPP/Kyoto-Patterson.htm

Correcting and updating the proxy database used by Mann and his co-authors and then repeating Mann's methodology, McIntyre and McKitrick showed that the MBH98 study in fact reveals that the late 20th century Northern Hemisphere temperature trend is unexceptional compared to the preceding centuries.

McIntyre and McKitrick's web page:

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/trc.html

The National Research Council Report on the hockey stick was released in June 2006. They accepted our argument that Mann's method is biased towards producing hockey stick-shaped PCs, [Principal components]

Despite being put down by the National Research Council the paleoclimate community hits back! (Mostly on RealClimate.org) Mann's response even devised 2D diagrams of his superior peer review process.

"If MM had applied standard selection procedures, they would have retained the first 5 PC series, which includes the important 'hockey stick' pattern. The claim by MM that this pattern arises as an artifact of the centering convention used by MBH98 is clearly false".

But then M&M reply saying they never said that the hockey stick dissappeared, just that the methodology was flawed.

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/StupakResponse.pdf

Wahl and Ammann join in defending Mann:

“A further aspect of this critique is that the single-bladed hockey stick shape in proxy PC

summaries for North America is carried disproportionately by a relative small subset (15)

of proxy records derived from bristlecone/foxtail pines in the western United States,

which the authors [MM] mention as being subject to question in the literature as

local/regional temperature proxies after approximately 1850 …. It is important to note in

this context that because they employ an eigenvector-based CFR technique, MBH do not

claim that all proxies used in their reconstruction are closely related to local-site

variations in surface temperature.” Wahl and Ammann, (2006, p.9 in the 24 February

2006 draft).

M&M

As we testified, it would seem that there is some

substantial likelihood that the bristlecone/foxtail pines are CO2 fertilized

and hence are reflecting not temperature at all but CO2 concentration. It is

a circular argument to say increased CO2 concentrations are causing

temperature increases when temperature increases are estimated by using

proxies that are directly affected by increased CO2 concentrations.

..

The fact that Wahl and Ammann (2006) admit that the results of the MBH

methodology does not coincide with the results of other methods such as

borehole methods and atmospheric-ocean general circulation models and

that Wahl and Ammann adjust the MBH methodology to include the PC4

bristlecone/foxtail pine effects are significant reasons we believe that the

Wahl and Amman paper does not convincingly demonstrate the validity of

the MBH methodology.

etc etc

So who knows who is correct?? I certainly don't. Each side looks like it uses questionable methods to back up it position. Most of the argument is centered around two trees...

Mann has given some ground, but neither side is backing down. It's M&M et al (climateaudit.org) Versus the 'Hockey Team' (realclimate.org).

[no accountant]

This is worth a read. Shows what a load of tosh the documentary was.

Guardian story debunks the debunkment

I don't much like the tone in that Guardian article, 'we at the Gruniad are the real scientists, Channel 4 are biased reporters'.

In fact as I mentioned above it looks like the much publicised Kyoto assumptions are actually biased too. If one side is allowed to be biased then it's only fair to let the other side have a go too! If you're going to write personal attacks on being biased, it should apply equally to both sides. People are naturally biased, and if the program leads me to do hours and hours of information gathering, this should be welcomed. (unless I find out the 'wrong' answer of course!)

If anyone else quotes links from RealClimate.org, they should be aware who it's set up and run by. The bloggers even say 'Thank you so much' when someone on there debunks a debunkment. 'Thank you for you guidence, oh holy one of the Great Real Climate! I'd be lost without You'.

Edited March 13, 2007 by no accountant

[right_freds_dead]

for every mile simon cowell flies on a jumbo, i donate 1x fox's glaxier mint wrapper to the street litter....

saving cans and recycling is for broken morons...

[no accountant]

This is worth a read. Shows what a load of tosh the documentary was.

Guardian story debunks the debunkment

One of the insightful comments underneath the article (pretty much what I think too):

How do you take the temperature of the Earth to see if it is running a fevr? How do you tell if the climate is in long-term trouble? In the first case you use records from all round the world and apply smoothings and corrections. You do this in a controlled and unbiased manner and then let your contemporaries check your results. In the second case you find something in the past that indicates ancient conditions and compare the past with the present.

Unfortunately, both procedures are problematic. The process whereby the temperature is taken has been deemed by the team which created it as too important to share -- one member actually told an inquiring scientist that he only wanted the figures so he could criticise them. Well, yes; that's called science. The second case produced the hockey stick, that iconic graph where the world ticks along happily until the twentieth century and then the temperature goes haywire. The results were peer reviewed and published. Unfortunately, some of the tree rings used turned out to be an indicator not of temperature but of rainfall, and a far-from-simple statistical error overloaded the significance of the faulty series. Peer review failed to spot the error because the scientific team were not statisticians. When a statistician noticed the error he tried to obtain the data and methods used and, worryingly, met with obfuscation and obstruction.

Is the world running a fever? How can we tell when a new graph of temperatures for the last 150 years suddenly shows that the past was .2 degree colder than before. That's right, the past is getting colder. So, of course, we've warmed up a bit. How was the calculation done, where is the data archived? You only ask that because you want to look at it and find fault. This is not science, it's the modus operandi of the Ministry of Truth.

Peer review has failed as a monitoring system for this debate: part of the problem is that it is a small field and quite often peer review means getting your mates in to tick the boxes -- they're the only people who can understand it without a great deal of work. Data and methods (including the computer programs used to manipulate the data) must be freely available before there is any hope of finding out the scientific truth, and there is nothing like being exposed to criticism to ensure that care is taken.

Computer models are quoted as the way to solve the difficulties: people seem to have forgotten GIGO, garbage in garbage out. Just because the models cost millions and are run on supercomputers, it doesn't mean they're right. Look at the inputs and the level of scientific understanding of each input -- low, very low, low, low. Over and over again the people running these models admit that their understanding of the basic processes of the atmosphere and ocean is deficient. And in spite of this lack of understanding we are expected to invest billions in carbon capture and mitigation? Think of clouds -- you remember, they cover the sun and spoil your day at the beach by making it colder. Level of understanding for computer models of the climate? Low. Ocean currents, you know, the Gulf Stream, the thing that was going to suddenly stop and freeze Northern Europe but now isn't? Level of understanding, low. Models need numbers. Politicians (and, if it comes to that, newspaper columnists) should be shouting for more science to be done, not jumping onto foolish bandwagons cobbled together from obfuscation, smoke and mirrors. Which reminds me, smoke particles in the atmosphere which block out the sun and lead to cooling: level of understanding for computer modelling? Low.

How do the climate models produce good results? They are adjusted with parameters by dedicated, conscientious technicians. Fudge factors they may be, but they are the best fudge factors money can buy. Clouds -- add a parameter. Smoke, contrails, ice-melting, ocean currents, tumescent martians in tiny spaceships here to rape our women? Fudge factors. Minsky has said that if you don't understand something then don't model it, simulate it. We don't understand the climate well enough even to simulate it.

When you see a climate graph then do a Paxman: why is this lying ******* lying to me? In the C4 programme there was a graph which tied the sun to climate change. Did you notice the cut-off in 1980? Twenty seven years missed off, now why would that be?

The hockey stick frightened me and I began to read around. I'm now confused. I even invented my own explanation of global warming (it's at www.floodsclimbers.co.uk) and I'm fond of it. Is it right? It blames car drivers, oil companies and pollution. No numbers, so don't trust it. Demand more data.

Pro-AGW? Anti? Who knows what we should be? More science, please, more data, because belief without data is not scence, it's religion and that can be expensive.

I was fibbing about the Martians.

JF