Thanks to those who advised me of this amazing email from the Climategate 2 collection, either through comments here or private email. It concerns the pre-1930 cooling of the New Zealand temperature record, and makes food for thought, especially for those supporting NIWA, Salinger and the increasingly shaky AGW story. Although it’s more of a novel, and a bad one at that, with gaping holes in the plot and evidence so carelessly thrown together it fools nobody. Now, as many of us feared was the case, comes evidence that the NZ temperature record has been applied to far more places than where it was observed. We now know it was stretched over far-flung places it was never intended to go. This is the worst result possible.

Cc: t.osborn@uea.ac.uk
date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 00:13:56 +0100 (BST)
from: “Tim Osborn”
subject: New Zealand summer temps
to: p.jones@uea.ac.uk

Hi Phil,

just a quick Q before I go to bed!

I’ve just updated the IPCC paleo chapter Southern Hemisphere plot where we
showed, amongst other things, Ed Cook’s New Zealand TRW reconstruction,
with CRUTEM2v Jan-Mar smoothed temperatures.

For my update I’ve used CRUTEM3v, expecting them to be rather similar but
with a few more years on the end.

But the pre-1930 temperatures are now very different, being much cooler
(by > 0.5 degC for a 25-year low-pass mean) in CRUTEM3v than CRUTEM2v.
Previously they had been, on average, near or even above the 1961-1990
mean, now they’re at -0.5 degC.

Is this a result of some homogenization work on New Zealand summer temp
data? Or just some random artefact of minor changes somewhere?

Cheers

Tim

– Dr. Tim Osborn RCUK Academic Fellow Climatic Research Unit School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timo/

Denier, denier, pants on fire

Deniers claim debate is ‘over’ because they can’t win it

Constant practise of scepticism is the root of good science

Hot Topic have been reviling our good friend and climate warrior Bryan Leyland for his opinion piece published recently. Not to mention several other sceptical climate articles by other people which they cannot tolerate. In the process Gareth Renowden and his gang spill the beans on their evidence—they don’t have any.

Because, pressed for some evidence of catastrophic man-made warming of our planet, they don’t reveal any. Renowden, Dappledwater and the rest of the fourth-formers threaten that evidence not only exists but increases beyond doubt, yet they still refuse to disclose it.

They also make unsubstantiated allegations of impropriety or even falsehood against Bryan.

Their arguments always seemed fact-poor and this proves it. Again and again they ignore reasonable requests for supporting information or peer-reviewed papers and resort instead to attacking the questioner. Read more… »

A headline caught my eye today. It was a case of over-sensitivity caused by too many hits on the same nerve – the climate change nerve, but it illustrated the masterful social engineering that went on 20 years ago. The headline was from the Mother Nature Network:

Climate change gives gardeners new options

Curious, I thought, it’s probably about shifting climate zones, and it was.

The US Department of Agriculture has updated its Plant Hardiness Zone Map. It lets you know what plants or crops will thrive in your area and what won’t. Because of the slight late-twentieth century warming, those areas have changed a bit. Read more… »

The following article was just published in none other than the Wall Street Journal, signed by the 16 scientists listed at the end of the article. The mood towards catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) is surely in some upheaval. It’s wonderful to hear the disgraceful treatment of Chris de Freitas described in sympathetic terms, and the scandalous behaviour of the warmist clique towards him condemned. No doubt those enthusiastic world-savers would love to hide their dirty deeds and save their skins, but one day Salinger (the ring-leader in attacking de Freitas as both editor and academic), Jones and Schmidt, with others who have long flouted scientific courtesy, will reap the consequences of the odious conduct they have sown. Ignorant people might be expected to deny free speech to those who disagree with them, but climatology is alone in science in its disgraceful tolerance of conspiracy to prevent scientific critics being published. It’s a further scandal that the IPCC, while paying mere lip-service to solid science, does nothing to clean it up, even after severe criticism in August last year of its processes and attitudes by the InterAcademy Council (representing national academies of science such as the Royal Society) on behalf of the UN and the IPCC itself. It is left to us to preserve memory of their shameful practices, and we’ll do that despite attempts by our local climate deniers to bully local newspapers into silencing us.

No Need to Panic About Global Warming

A candidate for public office in any contemporary democracy may have to consider what, if anything, to do about “global warming.” Candidates should understand that the oft-repeated claim that nearly all scientists demand that something dramatic be done to stop global warming is not true. In fact, a large and growing number of distinguished scientists and engineers do not agree that drastic actions on global warming are needed.

This is an adopted article.

In September, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ivar Giaever, a supporter of President Obama in the last election, publicly resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) with a letter that begins: “I did not renew [my membership] because I cannot live with the [APS policy] statement: ‘The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.’ In the APS it is OK to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?” Read more… »

No investigation was ordered, no scientific survey was done, no public debate was held, there was no waiting around for the results of a Royal Commission of Inquiry and there were certainly no tiresome disputes over the interpretations of any actual experiments.

The Framework Convention on Climate Change written by these geniuses bypassed all that inconvenient and unnecessary process. They weren’t going to ask for proof for something so important as determining the welfare of mankind, because it was obvious what had to be done. They cut to the chase. So the Convention begins:

“… human activities have been substantially increasing the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, … these increases enhance the natural greenhouse effect, and … this will result on average in an additional warming of the Earth’s surface and atmosphere and may adversely affect natural ecosystems and humankind”

Otherwise, we could say: in the beginning was a scientific inquiry. Read more… »

Lord Turnbull, former Cabinet Secretary and head of the Civil Service from 2002 to 2005.

From the GWPF come these remarks by Lord Turnbull to the House of Lords on January 12th, two days ago.

House of Lords: That this House takes note of the Government’s green agenda: My Lords, in a short debate, I will concentrate my remarks on one issue only, the governance of the science, as this is vital for the credibility of the thinking upon which the Government’s policies are based.

In a debate in December 2009 on a report by the Committee on Climate Change, I said:

“Below the surface there are serious questions about the foundations on which it has been constructed”.—[Official Report, 8/12/09; col. 1051.]

Complete decarbonisation

Over the subsequent two years my concerns have increased rather than been assuaged.

This is an adopted article.

The governing narrative for our climate change framework can be summarised as follows. Read more… »

Hand-in-hand with the IPCC theory that we’re dangerously changing the climate go many inaccuracies, distortions and outright lies supporting its stupendously false diagnosis, ruinously expensive remedies and tyrannical administration.

The distortions have wormed their way into thousands of places, both public and private, open and secret, taking our taxes and governing us in ways we’re already forgetting, even if we knew when they began. Will we ever be rid of them?

For to destroy each of the distortions, you need time and patience to find references to, references against and develop a refutation. Then you wait for people to hear about it and agree with you. It’s slow work.

Here’s one of the lies: mankind is ruining a perfectly good climate which never changed before we came along. Read more… »

There has been no significant global surface warming this century, yet experts say that temperatures rose during the first decade, becoming seriously hot. Hotter than ever before, in fact. For example:

January 21, 2010:

Past Decade Warmest on Record, NASA Data Shows

The decade ending in 2009 was the warmest on record, new surface temperature figures released Thursday by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration show.

The agency also found that 2009 was the second warmest year since 1880, when modern temperature measurement began. The warmest year was 2005. The other hottest recorded years have all occurred since 1998, NASA said.

James E. Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said that global temperatures varied because of changes in ocean heating and cooling cycles. “When we average temperature over 5 or 10 years to minimize that variability,” said Dr. Hansen, one of the world’s leading climatologists, “we find global warming is continuing unabated.”

But the only thing continuing “unabated” is the linear trend line — it’s still going up, and its slope hasn’t changed. “It’s all right. Only the data show a decline.” Read more… »

David Archer, contributor at Real Climate, gives much reassurance today about the dangers of methane clathrates. Interesting article, with lots of things I hadn’t heard of. Nice of him, too, to put our minds at rest.

I wonder why he didn’t explain all this long before now, about ten years ago or more? Why he let all the wild, alarming speculation continue in the world’s press and in the blogs for quite so long. Why he let us worry for so long. Why, especially, he now calls us “friend” (see the end).

He says the ocean hydrates are “mostly so deep in the sediment column that it would take thousands of years for anthropogenic warming to reach them.” Well, that’s a good piece of sense, David; thanks for bringing it up. I’m sure some of us have said so already, but good of you to confirm it. Read more… »

Here in New Zealand, the NZ Climate Science Coalition has battled for several years to understand the national temperature record and get the data released that lies behind it. Now we battle to correct it.
 
Because NIWA, in “reconstructing” the record, manages miraculously to lower past temperatures and increase recent ones to create a spurious warming that overstates the actual national warming over the last hundred years by 168%!
 
We’ve told NIWA about it and we’ve sent them our report that proves it, but they refuse to acknowledge our finding, much less explain themselves. It is a national disgrace which our newspapers, magazines, radio stations and television channels strangely refuse to investigate.
 
The warming is truly man-made, for it hasn’t happened in the real world, it has been created only by the adjustments.
 
Now, from C3 Headlines, we learn that an even more invidious process has been going on in the United States. Read more… »

At Durban’s COP 17 climate conference, the EU secured a road map aiming at an international agreement by 2015, to be ratified by all parties by 2020.

Although there was much arm-waving celebration of this “extension” of the Kyoto Protocol, nobody actually believes any legally-binding replacement can be sewn up during the next decade. Some of the most important players think 2020 is too ambitious. The “delayers” include USA, Canada, Japan and Russia. Read more… »

A fresh breath of air just blew through the climate. New Zealand (with its buddies Australia) refuse to do more for the climate if nobody else does.

Our climate negotiator, Tim Groser, said what we’ve been telling the Nats for years: “You will not carry public opinion if the debate is ‘you are the only idiots doing anything.’”

The Nats have finally given up the world-leading role they took on climate. Hurrah, hurrah, and break out the balloons! Read more… »

When Naomi Klein uses the word “denier” and its derivatives no fewer than 28 times* in a single article, she telegraphs her belief that those so labelled cannot be motivated by facts. Jo Nova, once again prepared to fearlessly battle climate bigotry, confronts Klein’s vacuous arguments with her usual cutting perspicacity, real science and humorous mockery of her opponent’s weaknesses.

Though there’s little chance of any direct reply from Klein, the sceptical climate scene is sadly lacking in such talented writers and thinkers as our beloved Jo. Here, she’s done it again, treating another breathless Earth-saver with robust scorn.

Naomi Klein’s lengthy ramble is notable for not commenting on the science or refuting sceptical claims. Instead, she rabbits on about opinion polls, political loyalties, age and ethnic groups and, of course, it’s all about America — the rest of the world doesn’t exist. Read more… »

Everyone loves well-crafted prose, even when the author of it opposes their point of view. So it is with Matt Ridley, well-known author of The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, in less than a week earning nearly 9000 Google hits on his “Scientific heresy” address to the Royal Society of the Arts in Edinburgh on 31 October, posted at Bishop Hill. Even alarmist Gareth Renowden appreciates Ridley’s wordcraft before scorning his so-called climate science.

Ridley’s given us an admirable piece of work on several levels. His writing is a pleasure to read, he gives good information and clearly sets out his thinking on a tour of the weaknesses in the current alarmist view of the global climate. In doing so he warms the cockles of sceptical hearts everywhere while enraging the alarmists with his “well-known sceptic tropes”. That’s the view according to Renowden. Poor things; claiming emptiness for Ridley’s contentions is a flaccid stand-in for a cogent rebuttal.

Ridley concludes that science “needs heretics” and one can appreciate the radical point that even heretics should be heard. But he leaves unstated his crucial implication that evidence elevates the climate “heretic” above all the cereologists, astrologers and eugenicists in history, while true heretics need no evidence.

Here’s his address, copied from Bishop Hill with appreciation and thanks. I also repost the document Mr Montford prepared, with its helpful diagrams (pdf, 1865KB).

Matt Ridley

Scientific heresy

by Matt Ridley

It is a great honour to be asked to deliver the Angus Millar lecture.

I have no idea whether Angus Millar ever saw himself as a heretic, but I have a soft spot for heresy. One of my ancestral relations, Nicholas Ridley* the Oxford martyr, was burned at the stake for heresy.

My topic today is scientific heresy. When are scientific heretics right and when are they mad? How do you tell the difference between science and pseudoscience?

Let us run through some issues, starting with the easy ones.

Astronomy is a science; astrology is a pseudoscience.

Evolution is science; creationism is pseudoscience.

Molecular biology is science; homeopathy is pseudoscience.

Vaccination is science; the MMR scare is pseudoscience.

Oxygen is science; phlogiston was pseudoscience.

Chemistry is science; alchemy was pseudoscience.

Are you with me so far? Read more… »

Now where should we start?

How confusing is this?

Climate Realists announce that new satellite data from Japanese scientists show carbon dioxide is emitted mostly by the third world, with much less coming from industry in the west. For those asleep in the back, that’s the reverse of our previous understanding (so it’s a confusing result). On the map, pink is where emissions are occurring, green is where absorption is occurring.

Hmm, New Zealand apparently doesn’t exist. Panic!

Life is now officially upside down — the giant northern hemisphere economies are not emitting CO2 after all, they’re absorbing the stuff! Read more… »

Well, now we have a peer-reviewed scientific paper that says you can.

It’s hard to know what to say about Tom Wigley’s new paper on the climatic repercussions of replacing coal with natural gas: he says gas and coal are both good, and they’re both bad, but the truly remarkable thing is that, where for years the greens have been telling us to hate coal and everyone who uses it, now it’s hard to choose between coal and gas.

It doesn’t matter whether you believe mankind is warming the planet dangerously or not, Wigley tells us that it makes hardly any difference to the warming whether you use gas or coal. So why switch to gas? There’s no advantage in it. Read more… »

Human emissions of CO2 1990 to 2010.
From PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.

Two days ago we heard about the long-term trend in atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions, copied above.

This graph functions as a fine graph of productive output, and doesn’t it reveal the new world order? The countries with the highest emissions are (broadly speaking) doing the most work, making the most money and having the most influence.

It was ever so. If our leaders wake up to that simple fact they might be able to make sensible plans to maximise our work. Perhaps improve on the half-baked notion of a magic “knowledge economy” — as though knowledge alone would succeed without the application of intelligent planning, consistent effort and good service. Read more… »

The nuclear-powered USS Skate at an ice-free North Pole in 1959. (Click to go to the Real Science list of newspaper articles.)

Australis posted this link to Steven Goddard’s Real Science list of newspaper articles for us here in comments. I highly recommend it.

Whenever anyone – anyone at all – becomes anxious over apparently excessive melting of Arctic sea ice, this long list of previous such meltings will demonstrate that Nature can cope with it and bounce back from it.

Whenever anyone tries to alarm others with the modern, allegedly excessive, melting of Arctic sea ice, this long list of historical events will stop them in their tracks and prevent alarm.

It’s what we might call proof that modern sea ice melting is not unprecedented, despite the efforts made by the likes of Greenpeace to make us believe that it is.

Speaking of Greenpeace

For example, in August 2009, Greenpeace were caught in a lie. Read more… »

Village fires cause global warming, apparently. But the immediate local health risk is more important, so our scientists shouldn’t be so short-sighted. (Sorry about the tongue-twister.) Before anything, we should improve the fireplaces themselves. How hard can it be?

How convenient this is! With all the doubt now falling on the culpability of carbon dioxide (“carbon”) in the crime of global warming, the worried warmists have wheeled in a new culprit accused, already chained and bearing a conspicuously disreputable name — Black Carbon.

Just as CO2 has been wilting under an intensive examination and showing undisputable signs of innocence, how lucky to have soot standing by to shoulder the blame on behalf of we horrid humans. Read more… »

Albert Einstein.

To defeat relativity one did not need the word of 100 scientists, just one fact.

– Albert Einstein.

This statement is not true because Einstein made it — it’s true because it accords with reason. Theory must always bow to observation.

… or just one paper

Unfortunately, in CAGW (catastrophic anthropogenic global warming) we have a theory which is undefined in a peer-reviewed paper, which means it’s almost impossible to refute. This is deliberate. Sceptical questions provoke the inevitable challenge to “produce a better theory” — as though their opponents’ failure to do so proves the half-baked theory correct, which it cannot.

Any evidence contrary to part of the theory is answered by talking about some other part. “Heads we win, tails you lose.”

Any change in the climate, especially any violent weather event which injures us or damages our property, “proves” climate change, which, by a mere trick of linguistic association, “proves” global warming. That, in turn, is our fault. After all, so many people wouldn’t be talking about how to prevent it if it didn’t exist, right?

Well, no, actually. Read more… »

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (July 26, 2011) — Data from NASA’s Terra satellite show that when the climate warms, Earth’s atmosphere is apparently more efficient at releasing energy to space than models used to forecast climate change have been programmed to “believe.”

The result is climate forecasts that are warming substantially faster than the atmosphere, says Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist in the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Read more…

from a variety of sources & correspondents

What a month

A visit from the incomparable Monckton was suddenly proposed and he’s already on his way. There’s nothing like hearing your own community mentioned by the famous, so here’s hoping he finds local matters to comment on and to make our leaders respond. People like Key, Smith and the honchos at NIWA have been simply avoiding our sceptical questions, which makes it impossible to hold their feet to the fire.

I wanted to attend both the Northern Club lunch and the debate at AUT but I will only get to the evening debate.

Hessell

The other day an article titled Jim Hessell: Climate change and hot air appeared in the Herald. An odd little rambling article to match its headline. Read more… »

There is no statistically significant warming trend since November of 1996 in monthly surface temperature records compiled at the University of East Anglia. Do we now understand why there’s been no change in fourteen and a half years?

Well, yes, because “blame” for this interruption in warming has been placed on sulphates emitted by China’s power stations zealously burning coal. Hasn’t it?

Has this hypothesis been tested? No. Can it be tested? Yes.

Most of the aerosols are in the northern hemisphere, and there’s little mixing of air between the hemispheres. Reason tells us that the northern hemisphere should be cooling and the southern hemisphere should be warming.

Well, go on, this is the big test, look it up. Read more… »

What is weather?

(h/t Bob D for most of the references)

Journalist Chris Barton has a story in yesterday’s Herald titled The climate dissenter holds his ground. After looking at Barton’s alarmist arguments I’ll stand with Chris de Freitas on the solid ground.

The story begins with the implication (not that the journalist says it this plainly) that, even with the planet battling weather extremes, that is not enough to convince an Auckland climate scientist (Associate Professor Chris de Freitas, at the University of Auckland) of the truth of human-induced global warming. We’re supposed to feel exasperation: “What will it take to get that man to see sense?”

But Barton is dead wrong. For why should “extreme” weather be an indication of man-made global warming? How could we get more extreme weather out of global warming? Read more… »

Global Warming Hysteria: Gore’s Profound Failure of Leadership

First published in www.firstthings.com
Sunday, June 26, 2011
by Wesley J. Smith

Ouch. A notable political scientist (and believer in global warming, at least in the general sense) has mounted a powerful critique of the disastrous political leadership on the issue by Al Gore. From “The Failure of Gore, Part 1″ by Walter Russell Mead in his blog at The American Interest:

Gore has the Midas touch in reverse; objects of great value (Nobel prizes, Oscars) turn dull and leaden at his touch. Few celebrity cause leaders have had more or better publicity than Gore has had for his climate advocacy. Hailed by the world press, lionized by the entertainment community and the Global Assemblage of the Great and the Good as incarnated in the Nobel Peace Prize committee, he has nevertheless seen the movement he led flounder from one inglorious defeat to the next. The most recent, failed global climate meeting passed almost unnoticed last week in Bonn; the world has turned its eyes away from the expiring anguish of the Copenhagen agenda.

This is an adopted article.

The state of the global green movement is shambolic. Read more… »

Woolly thinking?

No, this is the Royal Society of NZ.
Listen carefully as they try to pull the wool over your eyes.

With the Royal Society smoke ‘n’ sea level rise

Last September, the Royal Society published a report entitled “SEA LEVEL RISE Emerging Issues”, available as a pdf (645 KB). In the accompanying press release they had this to say:

Professor Keith Hunter, the Society’s Vice President of Physical Sciences, who contributed to the paper, says researchers are starting to be able to estimate the amount of rise that we should expect to see over this century and beyond. But he says these projections of future sea level rise depend upon the future melting of ice sheets, which is poorly known.

“The uncertain knowledge about ice sheet behaviour is the key reason why IPCC projections in 2007 did not state upper bounds for sea level rise. Similarly, Ministry for the Environment guidance in 2008 wisely left open the question of any upper limit on sea level rise.”

The paper states that some early scientific work into the effect of a warming climate on ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica suggested that many metres of sea level rise could occur within a century. However, it says few scientists now consider that such rates are possible.

What do we learn from this?

We learn that we can’t guess future sea level rise, since we can’t guess future ice sheet melting; our mates at the UN and the MfE won’t touch it, and our first guess was several metres but now only the cranks go that far.

The press release expresses complete ignorance on future sea level rise. Great. So we also learn that scientists can make complete ignorance appear very interesting. Read more… »

Alexa NZ rankings

The best in New Zealand is no. 1. All others fall into line astern according to their number. So far, we at the Climate Conversation are proud of our standing. However, should this ranking fall, we will still be proud of our standing.

Latest rankings – 21 June, 2011

(The closer the number is to 1, the more popular the site.)

Climate Conversation – 928    SciBlogs – 1879    Hot Topic – 3478    Open Parachute – 3602

This is a dose of reality. Has the warmist bluster lost its lustre?

20 June, 2011 — CCG 989;           SB —;           HT 4204;           OP —

14 June, 2011 — CCG 1021;           SB 1709;           HT 4142;           OP 4988

12 June, 2011 — CCG 1038;           SB 1611;           HT 4398;           OP 6013

9 June, 2011 — CCG 1045;           SB 1584;           HT 4122;           OP 7113

8 June, 2011 — CCG 1100;           SB 1541;           HT 4113;           OP 6504

All of the 159 documents in BoM’s “Schedule” are said to be communications received in confidence by the Australian Federal Government from a foreign Government.

Hah!

They simply cannot reconcile that claim with these actual Bureau descriptions:

Have a look at them: Read more… »

Amazing Australian storm seems to reach down to a puny, isolated ship. This is emblematic of our lonely struggle with a gargantuan government bureaucracy. What secrets, sinister or not, does the storm conceal? Will our two countries’ information laws combine to reveal them or to hide them away forever?

In Australia, Warwick Hughes has followed with interest our attempts to obtain from NIWA details of their adjustments to the NZ temperature record. When the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) supplied a letter apparently certifying the Bureau’s “peer review” of NIWA’s review of the temperature record, he noted our complaint that “there must be more than this.”

Hearing of my request to NIWA for records relating to that review by the Bureau, he was minded to help. So, back in February, he filed a Freedom Of Information (FOI) request with the Australian Information Commissioner.

In response to that FOI request, the Bureau submitted to the Information Commissioner a Schedule of Documents dated 6 May 2011.

Somebody at the Bureau has put in hours of work tracking these documents down, describing them, analysing their relevance to Warwick’s request and assessing whether they met the provisions for exemption. Well done, them.

The schedule describes 159 relevant documents, amounting to several thousand pages, and what do you know? The BoM claims full exemption from the FOI Act in respect of every single page! Who could have predicted that? Read more… »

he has nothing else — his climate predictions have failed

he’s a disgrace

Dr James Hansen arrested at the White House, protesting against mountaintop removal and the use of coal.

I received a report about Hansen’s address at Massey last night. Don says:

I have just returned from James Hansen’s lecture at Massey. The Japan Lecture Theatre was packed; I didn’t count, but there were probably about 200 people in the audience.

At the end I got to ask a question. I was very polite, and said how grateful we all were that such a distinguished expert had come to talk to us about his beliefs, but I was concerned that his whole talk rested on the premise that the science is settled. He had said the only dissenters are those in the pay of the oil industry, and I expressed regret that they hadn’t offered any lucre to me.

Dr Richard Lindzen, renowned climate scientist.

His reply was polite, but condescending. He conceded there are a few scientists whose chronic skepticism blinds them to the truth. For example, he said, he knows Richard Lindzen, who is a nice guy, but doesn’t dare, when he’s with other scientists, talk the kind of nonsense he writes in his newspaper columns. Also, Lindzen has never accepted that tobacco causes cancer, so obviously his judgement can’t be trusted.

Afterwards a few members of the audience came up and thanked me for what I had said.

The belief is strong in that one

Thanks for that, Don. That’s an intriguing look into ‘Slick’ Hansen’s attitudes. Read more… »

Crowd-pleasing banner uniting People Of The Ilk.

With regard to Treadgold and his ilk, I have to say that there is nothing they say that I can relate to.

– Prof. Keith Hunter, marine and freshwater chemistry, Otago Univ.

People Of The Ilk (POTI), we stand at a cross-roads.

Around us, people are losing their heads to the global warming madness and blaming it on the sceptics.

They accuse us of being potty, but, secure in our self-knowledge as the POTI, their slurs do not touch us.

Yet the science we revere, being spoken unto them, yea, even unto common, easy-to-understand English phrases, is mocked, and spat upon and reviled. The blessed truth is ignored and trampled on in mainstream media and amateur blog alike. Even the peer-reviewed scientific journals scorn the time-honoured practices and conspire to conceal the scientific truth.

Shall we surrender?

Shall we fight on?

Shall we apply for government funding?

Shall we infiltrate Greenpeace?

Shall we pray for divine assistance?

Shall we poison the water supply? (All right, that’s a joke!)

What are we to do?

A recent snapshot of People Of The Ilk quite keen on recent developments.

Talk to us again, Keith.

All it would take is some evidence

Professor Keith Hunter didn’t continue his conversation with us here (which we all felt was proceeding very well). He based that decision on unspecified comments from some of our readers. But he’s not above visiting Hot Topic and throwing us a barb from there.

He had this to say a few days ago:

With regard to Treadgold and his ilk, I have to say that there is nothing they say that I can relate to, as an active scientist who works in the climate change arena and who speaks on behalf of many others down here at Otago in that arena. I have told Richard this. For better or worse, my view is that they (RT and co) do not speak for the genuinely skeptic community.

The time for their brand of skepticism is past, I am afraid.

Sincerely. Keith

How strange. He’s identified in us a unique brand of scepticism. It must be the brand which won’t go away until evidence turns up. But instead of waxing psychological and talking about scepticism, he should listen to what we’re asking. It’s not very hard.

I cannot imagine Keith’s flexible, wide-ranging intellect being unable to “relate” to the following, because it’s just not difficult to understand! Let me say it slowly:

THERE – IS – NO – EVIDENCE

Read more… »

There are many temperatures in this place. Which one is the ‘right’ temperature?

– by Barry Brill, Chairman of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition

Official temperature records have been maintained in New Zealand since shortly after European settlement began in 1840. Throughout the ensuing 150 years, mean temperature levels appeared to remain stable. But NIWA (the responsible Government agency) has recently questioned the historical record, suggesting a long-term warming trend may have been hidden in the data.

Publications from 1868¹, 1920² 1960³ and contemporary records⁴ indicate that mean temperatures in New Zealand cities have not significantly changed since records began (Tables 1,2,3). Degrees Fahrenheit in the early figures have been converted to degrees Celsius. Read more… »

Light shining through water reminds us of heat and depth, subjects of this brief review,
while giving us enjoyable images.

Richard Cumming takes a look at recent observational data on two topics often raised and guaranteed to cause concern. They are used both to “prove” the existence of rapid warming and as an example of the ills soon to befall us if we don’t prevent them. But both uses fail on a cool examination of the facts. The Climate Conversation Group calls for calm to prevent public hysteria.

Recent global mean sea level and ocean heat content trends

by Richard Cumming

UPDATE 31 JAN 2011

“The sea level continues to rise” is a familiar refrain, but the AGW hypothesis, along with the IPCC AR4, both predict an accelerating rate of rise in the global mean sea level. The IPCC prediction is simply:

“Anthropogenic forcing is also expected to produce an accelerating rate of sea level rise.”

That sea levels are rising is undisputed, but what are the recent trends of both mean sea level (MSL) and its companion, ocean heat content (OHC)? Is MSL accelerating in accordance with the predictions?

Cumulative sea level change from 1905 to 2000, adapted from Holgate (2007), shows a steadily decelerating trend over the period: Read more… »

A natural manifestation of the mythical sky-dragon, fabled embodiment of a generalised enemy.

‘Personal mission’ abandoned

No possibility of a ‘single grand deal’

Those unconvinced of the possibility of catastrophic global warming caused by human activity could, perhaps, be forgiven for relaxing their guard a little.

Everywhere you look, there are signs that the theory of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) has been defeated or is in the process of being defeated.

From the revelations of Climategate, where the venal motivations and cynical manipulations of leading climate scientists were made embarrassingly public, to the geological history of the last 5 million years of temperature (which shows a slow decline, meaning the modest modern rise is not a bit unprecedented), mounting evidence of severe quality problems with the surface instrumental temperature record, evidence of declining SSTs and surface air temperatures, no evidence of acceleration in sea-level rise, no increase in ocean acidification or bleaching of coral reefs, natural cycles reported as well capable of accounting for late-20th century warming and strong support for a solar influence on cloud formation moderated through intergalactic cosmic rays, not to mention changing results from opinion surveys around the world, it is beyond doubt that support for the CAGW hypothesis, based almost entirely on human emissions of the minor greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, is evaporating. Read more… »

UPDATE 22 JAN 2011

Temperatures dishonestly twisted

stasis: Latin; to stand; inactivity.

There is a simple trick by which the recent non-rising temperature record is pretended everywhere to be soaring dangerously.

A merry wee post at Treehugger put me on to this handy table of figures from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) State of the Climate report for 2010. The figures come from the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) and show the top ten average global temperatures since 1997. I started thinking about them.

Notice that the table shows your (US) tax money at work — public scientists toiling for the good of their fellow citizens, finding never-ending practical uses for the torrent of objective science pouring from publicly-funded institutions, laboratories and universities. A process which no doubt repeats itself in progressive democracies around the world. Read more… »

by Richard Cumming

The Climate Conversation Group mounts no argument in favour of real pollution. Real pollution should be eliminated at source, no argument. But nervous, susceptible people call carbon dioxide “pollution” even though all plant life depends utterly upon it and never complains when it gets more. So, to demonstrate the purity of carbon dioxide, here is a picture of it. Forget the images of nuclear power stations puffing steam from their cooling towers, or even, criminally, factory chimneys belching dark, evil gases from their flues; they are put before us to illegitimately malign carbon dioxide and for no other reason. Here is the life-giving carbon dioxide in the raw — clear, odourless, tasteless, so rare we measure it in parts per million (now at 400 ppmv) and completely natural. Breathe deeply.

Our approach

The reality of political decision-making is that much of it is driven by the bevy of backroom advisers retained by the government for the purpose of providing sound, unbiased and well-researched information as the basis on which to make the aforesaid decisions. This group of people are at the forefront of policy formation and much of the research and analysis by them is economic in nature.

What better place then, to go looking for an example of economic analysis to gauge the level of analytical critique directed at the NZ ETS, than the Institute of Policy Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand?

A convenient example that addresses an ETS issue “Free Allocation in the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme A Critical Analysis” Policy Quarterly – Volume 6, Issue 2, February 2010, by Christina Hood will do nicely. The author has impeccable credentials and presents some perfect material for us to gain an insight into the sphere of policy influence in respect to climate change policy. It should be noted that the article has been sourced from outside of the stream that would normally be compiled into executive summary for ministerial consideration, but it is not out of the realm of possibility that an article such as this may gain some traction on the strength of its source — hence the caveat next. Read more… »

More media taking firm stand against alarmists

Cancun anti-climate beach conference.

Around the world more and more publications, commentators and blog writers are declaring opposition to, even outright disgust of, the global warming scam.

Increasingly, people are waking up to the fact that, in the words of senior IPCC official, Ottmar Edenhofer, we must “free ourselves from the illusion” that international climate policy has anything to do with environmental problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.

That is in addition to the extreme disillusionment arising from the failure of the scientific climate predictions to come anywhere near true. Read more… »

The Cancun anti-climate conference, for the enjoyment of those hard-working household names, our beloved representatives, was held at a beach resort. But one must giggle, for the climate, being irritated, raised objections. Said Anthony Watts: “One record low was funny, three in a row was hilarious, a new record low for the month of December was ROFL, but now six straight days of record lows during the U.N. COP16 Global Warming conference? That’s galactically inconvenient.”

No we can’t

UPDATE 1: 5:10 p.m. NZT

The conference is over. There are 25 separate documents listed here at the UNFCCC web site called “Cancun Agreements” which one must presume represent what has been agreed to. Plus a joint expression of gratitude to Mexico and its leaders for running the conference (and who knows what horrors could be hidden away in that one?). Total: 26 documents.

They’re in two groups, reflecting the fact that two conferences were taking place (COP 16 and CMP 6). Actually, I mislead you: there were three other conferences also taking place. Confusing, isn’t it?

Who could distinguish who was who with so many hats being swapped and shared?

It could take a while to find out what the heck they’ve been up to. Read more… »

The UNFCCC is the administrative core of the United Nation’s anti-global warming crusade.

Thursday, 2 December 2010, 11:23 am

Press Release: New Zealand Climate Science Coalition

by Hon Barry Brill

There are implications for New Zealand arising from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that will get down to business for the 16th time in Cancun, Mexico next week [this week - Ed]. While packing their bags for their departure on Monday, the New Zealand Ministers, Tim Groser and Dr Nick Smith, need to pause to consider what will be in the best interests of we Kiwis whom they will represent. They know already, in advance, that no decisions of any consequence will emerge from Cancun. Rather than seeking to bask in international acclaim by supporting tiny steps toward an uncertain and not yet fully understood destination, they should lead a call for a review of the science to determine, once and for all, whether there are valid grounds for the computer-modelled hypothesis of dangerous warming being caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases.

Unless and until science can definitely confirm that hypothesis, there is no point in allowing money to continue dominating the agenda, as the 193 countries in attendance try to reach consensus on a Long-Term Co-operative Action (�LCA�) agreement to reduce greenhouse emissions. Read more… »

Does this new method perform better than the IPCC?

NIWA, where are you?

The Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, is calculated from the monthly or seasonal fluctuations in the air pressure difference between Tahiti and Darwin.

In July last year three climate scientists published a paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research. “Influence of the Southern Oscillation on tropospheric temperature” concluded that nature, not man, was responsible for “recent global warming.”

The paper, by John McClean, Chris DeFreitas and Bob Carter, shows that what the SOI does now, the temperature will do in between five and eight months’ time.

Simple. But does it work to predict global temperatures? Read more… »

The Royal Society building, London.

Global warming basic maths error

First published at Suite101.com Thursday, October 14, 2010

by John O’Sullivan

Top international experts prove British numbers on carbon dioxide are wrong. Royal Society blunder grossly exaggerates climate impact.

This is an adopted article.

German born chemist, Dr Klaus L. E. Kaiser has published evidence that proves the Royal Society (RS), London, has been caught out making schoolboy errors in mathematical calculations over the duration of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in Earth’s atmosphere. Backed up by a review by a leading Swedish mathematics professor the revelation is a serious embarrassment to the credibility of the once revered British science institute and a major setback for its claims about climate change.

A gaffe in their own basic calculations led the RS to falsely find that CO₂ would stay in the atmosphere for thousands of years rather than a dozen or so as per peer-reviewed studies show. Global warming skeptics have been quick to condemn the error and demand an apology and immediate correction.

The Royal Society advises the British government on matters concerning climate change. Due to the scale of the error any forthcoming review will necessarily result in a substantial downward revision of the threat posed by CO₂ in the official government numbers. Read more… »

Figuratively, of course, not literally, but this is what happens to scientists being employed in today’s climate (pun perhaps intended). Here’s a stern test of the neutrality of any science organisation, such as NIWA: does any scientist who doesn’t believe in man-made global warming work for them? If such “denialist” scientists are employed by a public science body in New Zealand, let us meet them to discuss the difficulties they face!

Anthony Watts announces what he calls “an important moment in science history.” Professor Harold Lewis reluctantly discards his 67-year membership of the American Physical Society in protest at the global-warming-driven corruption of science (h/t val majkus).

It’s worth reflecting on the significance of this prominent resignation and the reasons he cites for offering it. Here is a sample from his letter:

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Read more… »

I apologise to our overseas friends, supporters and casual visitors who came here over the past 24 hours or so wanting to know the latest development in our long-running national temperature saga but instead found a story so hard to follow it was worse than finding footprints through a coal mine at night while wearing sunglasses.

I’m sorry we let you down

Our local supporters found it informative, but they’ve been following events more closely. For those who haven’t been so close it was very frustrating.

It was my fault. I completely misjudged the interest this story would generate. It was especially regrettable since I’m keen to encourage investigations into climate organisations around the world and this hardly gives a good example of how to proceed.

Your presence here has been a tremendous boost to everyone involved; the web traffic stats have gone through the roof and we’re grateful for your visits. It’s all helping to spread important anti-consensus messages where just a short time ago there were almost none.

But not only was the story difficult to penetrate, the two most important supporting documents weren’t yet available online. I thought it would be a simple matter of posting them on this web site, and what would it matter if they were posted a few hours after releasing the article (who would notice? — FAIL!) but the legal advisor said keep it on the originator’s official site. It took precious time for messages to go between the people involved and the files were posted late this morning (when I wasn’t here to announce it).

Pretty busy right now

On a personal note: I must earn a living, so most mornings I’m away from the home office. It means that for six to eight hours a day there’s no response on the web site. Also, the end of the university semester is a busy time, with students wanting their reports and papers edited, which takes up another two to six hours per day, so I have little time to spare on this most enjoyable climate pastime. If I am slow to respond, please forgive me; I will get around to answering you, but perhaps not quickly.

This climate work is at the moment a pastime; I would prefer it to be a full-time activity but I haven’t found a sponsor…

The next major job is to write a report on the temperature saga in a way that lets our overseas brothers and sisters share in the excitement. It won’t be tomorrow or even the day after, but it will arrive and it will be something to look forward to, I promise.

It will be as thrilling as any story about a disputed national temperature record, strange decisions in a public agency, unpaid sleuths fighting bureaucracy, ancient feuds, simmering tensions, budget blowouts, questions in the Parliament and conspiracies that circle the globe.

Who could miss it? Stay tuned.

Either that, or read all the previous posts, plus those Statements of Claim and Defence and write a story for us. We’ll post it if it’s good enough.

Cheers.

– Richard

A 10:10 tag, fashioned in aluminium from a jet airliner now withdrawn from service. The Boeing 747 was en route to Auckland in 1982 when she flew into the plume of volcanic ash from the eruption of Mount Galunggung. For the first time ever, all four jet engines in a Boeing passenger aircraft failed simultaneously. However, they miraculously restarted and the crew made a successful emergency landing in Jakarta. Just imagine the CO2 emissions from smelting 150,000 of these things.

UPDATE1: OCT 3 12:25 AM

Apology from O2. See end of story.

UPDATE2: OCT 3 10:30 AM

Many more sponsors and partners than I realised. H/T Huub Bakker.

Join the boycott of Sony, O2 and Kyocera

(see end of story)

After all the work they put into it, the film “No Pressure” lasted just a few hours on the Internet before the torrent of abuse from scandalised viewers forced the producers to apologise and withdraw the movie. Or they tried to. Unfortunately for them it went viral and is still available all over the place. Anyway, their apology wasn’t worth the ether it was posted into.

What a storm of outrage the film aroused! Oddly enough, it affronted both sides of the climate debate equally. The film was deeply disturbing because it crossed a boundary in gruesomeness and the corruption of youth. Even in the cause of saving the Earth, reasonable people everywhere are saying “that’s a brutality too far.”

Slick but sick

I’m talking, of course, about the mini-movie released yesterday by 10:10, a global campaign to “cut carbon” by 10% a year, starting in 2010.

Produced by Richard Curtis (writer of Blackadder, Four Weddings, Notting Hill and others), acted by some famous names along with footballers from Tottenham Hotspur and with a full professional film crew giving their time for free, the film production was certainly slick.

Slick, but sick. Let us hope we never see its like again for any reason. The production of “No Pressure” marks a terrible new low in the propaganda that passes for information in the climate wars. What a shame all that effort went for nothing. Read more… »

This is an adopted article.

by Ben Webster of The Times
Wednesday, September 29, 2010, 22:09

The Royal Society, bastion of conventional thinking on global warming, is about to announce a change in its thinking! What a glad day. I cannot wait to read their whole statement.     - Richard

Here’s the full story: Read more… »

This is the stuff of nightmares; the Royal Society paper is the stuff of drowsy afternoon picnics.

UPDATED 30 Sep 2010, 16:00

New graph comparing predictions from RSNZ and IPCC. Eye-opening!

The Royal Society of New Zealand just published a paper, Sea Level Rise – Emerging Issues. It reports new, more alarming predictions of sea level rise around New Zealand during the rest of the century. Or does it?

The paper warns us to expect the sea to rise several metres by 2100. Or does it?

Actually, it doesn’t and it doesn’t. We can all go home.

On a careful, sensible reading, the paper says very little but, by employing phrases such as “increasingly rapid melting”, “recent estimates of future rise are greater” and “global sea levels rose by around 120 metres”, among others, the casual reader gains the impression of dangerous rises to come. The story imparts grave concern.

But it’s all air kissing, candy floss and nonsense. They say nothing that would scare a butterfly. The only substantial statement in the entire paper is the very last one:

… the magnitude and rate of rise is poorly known, as is the way in which our coastline may respond [sic] these changes.

Which, I am sure you’ll agree, dear reader, is distinctly underwhelming. True it is, yet mild and unthreatening as the morning dew.

Search in vain for guidance

Elsewhere the paper drags us through such turgid passages as these (emphasis added to show the absence of anything worth saying or the saying of anything worth nothing): Read more… »

Mrs Christina Figueres, appointed as Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC earlier this year to replace Yves de Boer, who resigned after Copenhagen failed to achieve a treaty to replace Kyoto. She sounds just as unscientific as her predecessor in her beliefs about mankind’s influence on the climate and she looks well capable of getting her own way in an international (or any other) forum.

On 17 May, 2010, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the appointment of Mrs Christina Figueres as the new Executive Secretary of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat based in Bonn, Germany. The appointment was endorsed by the Bureau of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). She replaced Yvo de Boer, who resigned in February, 2010, declaring himself “appalled” by the failure of the international community to reach agreement at Copenhagen on “fighting climate change”.

Yvo De Boer — “appalled” at failure.

The AP quotes Mrs Figueres as saying today in Beijing, China:

“Countries have felt a renewed urgency to address global warming given this year’s series of frequent and catastrophic disasters, including massive flooding in Pakistan, drought and fires in Russia, and mudslides and floods in China.”

Have they, indeed? First, how does she know this, or is she merely stating what she would like to hear? Read more… »

Rajendra Pachauri – is science his real concern?

From the New York Post, September 1, 2010.

If this keeps up, no one’s going to trust any scientists.

The global-warming establishment took a body blow this week, as the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change received a stunning rebuke from a top-notch independent investigation.

For two decades, the IPCC has spearheaded efforts to convince the world’s governments that man-made carbon emissions pose a threat to the global temperature equilibrium — and to civilisation itself. IPCC reports, collated from the work of hundreds of climate scientists and bureaucrats, are widely cited as evidence for the urgent need for drastic action to “save the planet.”

But the prestigious InterAcademy Council, an independent association of “the best scientists and engineers worldwide” (as the group’s own web site puts it) formed in 2000 to give “high-quality advice to international bodies,” has finished a thorough review of IPCC practices — and found them badly wanting.

False claims, no evidence

For example, the IPCC’s much-vaunted Fourth Assessment Report claimed in 2007 that Himalayan glaciers were rapidly melting, and would possibly be gone by the year 2035. The claim was actually false — yet the IPCC cited it as proof of man-made global warming. Read more… »