re-9: global warming – dialog

by

2009-12-19

Richard Moore

Bcc: contributors
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Greetings,

Thank you for bearing with me during this dip into climate science. I’ve now got a thesis. Doesn’t mean it’s final, but until you have a thesis you never make progress in understanding anything. The thesis regarding climate change is that there isn’t anything to worry about, unless it be the onset of an ice age. 
The thesis regarding the warming hype is simply that the banksters have found a way to create a balloon out of energy markets, and they’ve found a way to con us into embracing their ‘solution’ to their invented ‘problem’. And of course part of the ‘solution’ will be another supra-national agency, along with WTO, IMF, WHO, etc ad tyrannicum. The scientists in East Anglia are simply doing what scientists do – pushing their models as long as they can get funding; doing well while having fun. No big sins there. Anyone who can’t make their model fit the data isn’t a professional.
So it’s a clear, unambiguous thesis, and I’m open to contrary evidence.
But in fact, it makes no difference what any of us think about climate. No one is listening to us. Whatever happens, naturally or politically, will happen. We are spectators. I can only chuckle at angry messages from people, saying I’m endangering lives by spreading false skepticism about global warming. They have a greatly exaggerated opinion of the importance of what they believe, as well as an exaggerated fear that people’s minds can be easily changed (everyone but them, that is).
As we get into the dialog we’ll find that the climate discussion is also a continuation of our belief thread.  Some people are very attached to global warming, and get very upset and angry seeing the thesis questioned. Some are attached and yet respond reasonably. 
rkm
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From: “A. Gayle Hudgens, PhD” 
Date: 17 December 2009 03:21:41 GMT
To: Richard Moore <•••@••.•••>
Subject: unsubscribe

A. Gayle Hudgens, Ph.D.
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From: Torstein Viddal 
Date: 17 December 2009 12:38:45 GMT
To: Richard Moore <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: re-7: global warming – status of investigation

Rickard,

The warming since the last Ice Age is interesting, and puzzling to many, for sure.
On a hiking map for our southernmost glacier Folgefonna – which covers 214 km² – about thrice the size of Copenhagen kommune – I found information that the glacier was in no way a remain from the Ice Age – it was gone completely until it reformed starting 5000 years ago.

Hi Torstein,
Very interesting. Here’s the temperature chart starting 5,000 years ago. Indeed, it begins with a dip that goes down as low as our recent Little Ice Age. While the slope is going down, that’s glaciers growing:
cheers,
rkm

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From: “Ch.Triplett” <•••@••.•••>
Date: 17 December 2009 12:42:23 GMT
Subject: Re: re-7: global warming – status of investigation

Here, here! well stated!

Hi Ch,
Thanks, that makes up for some of the abuse I’ve been getting.
rkm

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From: Dion Giles
Date: 17 December 2009 12:53:58 GMT
To: Richard Moore <•••@••.•••>
Subject: re-7: global warming – status of   investigatio n

Alarm at trends is justified if the trends have actually appeared and are not merely computer simulations.  
 What islands have been submerged?  How great a rise in sea level is enough to submerge them?  Discount islands that are actually sinking because of undermining rather than the sea level rising.  It has been said the islands are more vulnerable to storm surges.  By how many centimetres?   Presumably if the sea rises by 10 cm the storm surges are 10 cm higher than before. Computer simulations designed to be scary, and projected to 2100 (long after all the oil will be gone – but still assuming burning at the same rate or even (worse) on the same slope of increase) will certainly cause alarm in the islands.  
 And of course, how much of these rises are part of a natural progression in this geological period?  A rain dance would be as effective against natural progression as all the New World Order schemes demanded at Copenhagen.
 Glaciers?  They are melting and have been all the way out of the last ice age.  What evidence is there that this process has accelerated?  
 Droughts?  Heat waves?  Bush fires?  Australia has had some droughts and heat waves.  There was a terrible drought in the 1890s.  There was an extremely destructive bush fire with scores of lives lost in 1939.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_(1939)#Comparison_with_other_major_Australian_bushfires to put more recent (and older) fire disasters in context.  Australia has destroyed most of its forests – surely a change in Australia’s climate can be expected from that alone: how much does it contribute compared with CO2 emission and extraterrestrial changes?  
     I have no idea what the answer to these questions is but strongly suspect – just from the way these pundits hype their case – that the answers are being ducked in service of economic pressures that have nothing to do with the weather.  If they’d talk straight instead of trying to present a case as if it was a court room (and courtroom procedures are designed to conceal truth) they might be more credible, for longer before the popular mood swung back to ho hum.
     What a height of absurdity when they vigorously debate whether to go for a rise of 2 degrees or 1.5 degrees!  Who has a theory reliable enough to make such estimates, presumably based on some formula factoring in the amount of CO2 we produce.
Dion Giles

Hi Dion,
You have a healthy skepticism and ask the right kind of questions. I like your comment about courtroom procedures, which are intentionally adversarial. What I’d really like to see is a seminar, including scientists with the various points of view, rationally discussing their findings and their evidence. In my dreams. And it’s always the orthodox ones who behave the most defensively.
cheers,
rkm
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From: “Madeline Bruce” 
Date: 17 December 2009 15:24:35 GMT
Subject: Re: global warming – status of investigation

What a mind you have, Richard, to be able to take on all this scientific research, plus systems analysis, plus book writing, plus communicating with many people online.  Thank you for all your efforts to help mankind.  You are indeed beacon in the darkness.  – Madeline Bruce, Nanaimo, B. C. Canada. 

Hi Madeline,
5% inspiration, 95% perspiration, and lots and lots of time. All in the hope that people will stop believing and start thinking. Not about climate, but about everything. In my inventory of martyrs, Socrates ranks at the top.
thanks for your kind message,
rkm
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From: “Jerold Hubbard” 
Date: 17 December 2009 16:41:04 GMT
To: “Richard Moore” <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: global warming – status of investigation

Dear Richard;
Could you give me the direct email address for Mr. Blum?  With his permission of course!
  Thanks for offering an interactive site!
 Jerold Hubbard
—

Dear Richard;
 Bill has already contacted me, so your site is responsible for lots of interaction!  Please keep up the interactive dialogue!
 Jerold Hubbard 

Hi Jerold,

Glad to be of service. We are interactive compared to a broadcast only list, like Global Research. But some people are upset that we’re not more interactive, as we’ll see in the next message. I try to steer a happy medium, with time being a constraint.
cheers,
rkm

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From: Tim Murphy <•••@••.•••>
Date: 17 December 2009 17:27:00 GMT
Subject: Re: re-7: global warming – status of investigation

I think you are having a mental health crisis and I have realised that you have a personality disorder… irrespective of whether AGW is right or wrong.
You don’t let your corespondents talk to each other….
You don’t permit dialogue, you only allow snippets of your subscribers opinions to appear in your messages as grist to your mill.
You rarely include the full email address of others and often exclude the full references to things you quote.
You are not the person to find out the truth about AGW or debate it with…
Take me off your lists because you are obviously unwell and unsuitable to discuss this with both in terms of your censorship of the debate and in terms of your inability to respond to my points repeatedly made that you are recycling worthless, discredit material.
The fact that you can say what you just have about the graph you have shown below is the final straw… the graph actually shows just the opposite of what you have said and you have removed it from it’s context and the full references.
You are a typically psychologically disturbed American who can’t discern the truth from the UFO psychosis.
A sad situation. You have already made up your mind about AGW and are bending the facts to fit your feeling. You feel it is a scam and are trying to prove it. Me personally I don’t know one way or the other but on balance I think we have to rely on science which shows that AGW is real… They could be wrong but the chances they are wrong and the corporate funded denialist are right are very slim.
Take me off all your lists… now…

Hi Tim,
I won’t try to reply to you, because you always ignore what I say and then repeat yourself more loudly. Not one of the messages you’ve sent me has made much sense, and they’ve all been rude and arrogant. There are lots of online forums where you can sign up and rant to your heart’s content. Here I like a modicum of civility.
Your email address is included above, as you wish. Most people want their address hidden to avoid spam. The archives are most likely scannable by address scavenger robots. I do include email addresses for people who publish on the net, as their address is already public knowledge.
By the way, I can easily set up an open forum for cyberjournal subscribers. But when I did it in the past exactly two people signed up for it, and neither of them posted anything. The fact is that people hang around with cyberjournal because they like the kind of material I post, or they like to hate the material. I haven’t changed the style of the place in many years. What you see is what you get. If it’s not your cup of tea, no one’s forcing you to stay.
ciao,
rkm

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From: Lynette
Date: 17 December 2009 23:22:55 GMT
To: “Richard Moore” <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: global warming – status of investigation

Richard,
  I agree with your consensus that climate is cyclical and that data is being manipulated to suit the global warming viewpoint.  Just think of all the money to be made primarily from us in the form of tax grabs and ‘cap and trade’, which will benefit the same elite the over excesses of the past have done.  If there were not big bucks in this for the elite, it wouldn’t be pushed and they wouldn’t be manipulating the masses to pay for what will amount to double taxation for the masses to fill the coffers of all who have always profited at our expense.
  I am not saying we can’t live environmentally conscious either.  But, we are the people who will be penalized while the elite live the profligate lifestyles in which they always have done.  The Soylent Green scenario of the elite having fresh fruit while everyone else eats recycled garbage does come to mind.
 Lynette

Hi Lynette,
Soylent Green was recycled people, and that’s much closer to our current scenario. In The Matrix they put people in pods, in Soylent Green they made food out of them, and today they just starve them to death and let them rot. And don’t forget the pandemic project, just because it’s been a bit out of the headlines. There are more shoes to drop in that scenario. 
It’s not about environmental consciousness. It’s about power. Those who have the power pursue their own interests. Until we reclaim power over our own affairs our consciousness is of little consequence. I said at the top that we are spectators. That’s a fact but it need not be so. Until we recognize that power is the issue, spectators we shall surely remain.
It’s not about big bucks either. In terms of bucks, it’s just one more scam, like the housing bubble, the derivatives, and the bailouts. What’s special is the push to create a global agency with the power to micromanage global resource usage. Already in Britain they’re talking about carbon rationing.
cheers,
rkm

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From: John Fellowes
Date: 18 December 2009 00:45:39 GMT
To: Richard Moore <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Insanity

I really enjoyed your work when you wrote the Matrix but it seems that you have not had an original thought since which has caused some sort of insanity. Your not making the world a better place with what your doing, only spreading the worst the sick have to offer. Please, please, take me off your list.
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From: Jim Bearden
Date: 18 December 2009 03:29:57 GMT
To: Richard Moore <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: “global warming” postings

Richard–
I’ve been trying to follow your postings, basically denying the seriousness, or even the existence, of anthropogenic global warming. I’m not an expert in this field, and I suspect you’re not, either, so I’m not going to attack your ideas. However, before you get too deeply into bed with the climate-change deniers, you might want to take a look at a couple of review articles from “Scientific American” which deal with most of the arguments advanced by the deniers, some of which you have been repeating:
As a non-expert, I wouldn’t go too far out on that limb, myself–
Jim Bearden

Hi Jim,
Thanks for the article. It is more coherent and comprehensive than the dozens of similar articles and websites that people have been sending me. I’m sure the article is extremely effective in helping people to dismiss any doubts they might have about global warming. As propaganda it is excellent, but science it is not. Like all such articles I’ve seen, it misrepresents the arguments of skeptics, and then quotes the inadequate rebuttals of climate modelers as ‘proof’ that the skeptics are wrong. I know the article is misrepresenting the skeptics, and that the rebuttals are inadequate, because I’ve been looking at all the different arguments in great detail. Anyone who got decent grades in university chemistry and physics, and hasn’t forgotten how to think, can follow all the arguments.
In the course of these discussions I’ve found that the warming believers rarely look at the science, but focus entirely on the people writing the articles, and how their research is funded. And of course the believers have a double standard here. Their concern about funding and bias only applies to skeptics. They are the first to dismiss the emails as irrelevant – in this case they say, ‘look at the science not the people’. But they aren’t so open-minded when it comes to the skeptics. As regards the IPCC and conflicts of interest, here’s an interesting article:
Climategate: IPCC conflicts of interest
That’s why I abandoned all sources, and began analyzing the data myself. It seems quite clear that no significant unusual warming is occurring, at least not yet. It is conceivable that unprecedented levels of Co2 will have an unprecedented effect, but this has not been demonstrated, it has only been modeled. The fact that the IPCC folks have gone to great lengths to distort the historical temperature record, indicates that they know they can’t demonstrate a strong influence by Co2, and so they are trying to bolster their ‘proof by correlation’. 
Some people argue, “Since Co2 is a warming agent, and it is present in unprecedented amounts, it must have a strong effect on climate”. This simply does not follow. It might have a strong effect, or it might not, it remains to be demonstrated. It is possible, for example, that the upward pressure on temperature from Co2 causes more water to evaporate from the oceans, causing extra clouds, which reflect back more heat than the Co2 retains. I’m not saying that’s what’s happening, but I am saying the simplistic “must have a strong effect” is wrong.
All true science begins with observation of data. When theories match the data, they are useful. But when the theories do not match the data, the theories need to be re-examined. Unfortunately, scientists get totally attached to their theories, and will go to great lengths to make them fit. They’ll even go so far as to that assume most of the universe cannot be detected, if that’s what it takes to retain their simplistic gravity models of cosmology. It has nothing to do with conspiracies by scientists. It’s just human psychology.
cheers,
rkm

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From: rusty 
Date: 18 December 2009 03:48:21 GMT
To: Richard Moore <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: hacked emails

“fudging numbers” counter argument
the crucial question is whether these emails reveal that climate data has been falsified. The most quoted email is from Phil Jones in 1999 discussing paleo-data used to reconstruct past temperatures (emphasis mine):
   “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”
What do the suggestive “tricks” and “hiding the decline” mean? Is this evidence of a nefarious climate conspiracy? “Mike’s Nature trick” refers to the paper Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries (Mann 1998), published in Nature by lead author Michael Mann. The “trick” is the technique of plotting recent instrumental data along with the reconstructed data. This places recent global warming trends in the context of temperature changes over longer time scales.
The “decline” refers to the “divergence problem”. This is where tree ring proxies diverge from modern instrumental temperature records after 1960. The divergence problem is discussed as early as 1998, suggesting a change in the sensitivity of tree growth to temperature in recent decades (Briffa 1998). It is also examined more recently in Wilmking 2008 which explores techniques in eliminating the divergence problem. So when you look at Phil Jone’s email in the context of the science discussed, it is not the schemings of a climate conspiracy but technical discussions of data handling techniques available in the peer reviewed literature.

Hi Rusty,
Thanks for bringing this material to my attention. I’ve read other similar articles as well. The articles work very well to help people dismiss the emails, if they already want to dismiss them. However the articles do not diminish my own concern with the emails.
The key phrase in the Phil Jones quote is “to hide the decline”. He is expressing an intent  to misrepresent a trend, to seek a certain result. The articles then try to establish that the ‘trick’ used in this particular case was benign. Perhaps it was, or perhaps not, the explanation above is not particularly reassuring. 
My own view is that Phil and his buddies have quite clearly been manipulating the data, and the proof is the chart they came up with of “Reconstructed Temperature” for the past 2,000 years. It is completely out of line with the Greenland ice-core data. And the NOAA website claims that the Greenland data is typical of other global records, the same trends happening everywhere “within seven years”. 
In order to get such distorted ‘reconstructions’ there are several tricks you can use. You can be selective about which data sets to include. You can give greater weight to selected data when you compute averages. You can tell your model to ‘adjust’ past data, based on some theory of the modeler. If you have an intention to show certain results, there are countless ways you can tweak a model, and you can probably find some semi-plausible grounds to justify each tweak. I say the proof is in the pudding, which is their bizarre reconstruction.
I’ve also seen several reports, where local climate people say their own data has been misrepresented in the IPCC models. Here’s one recent article, sent to me by Omas Schaefer:
     Russians claim major bias in IPCC data
cheers,
rkm

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From: rusty 
Date: 18 December 2009 22:20:52 GMT
To: richard moore <•••@••.•••>
Subject: soon/robinson/robinson

richard, for what it’s worth…..

rusty


Critical Review of Robinson, Robinson, and Soon’s “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide”
prepared by Mike Powell (December 2007)

This document is a critical review of the first four pages of “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide,” by Arthur B. Robinson, Noah E. Robinson, and Willie Soon, which was published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons in 2007 (12:79-90). 

Mike Powell (Kennewick, Washington) prepared this review in December 2007. The review is organized in a point-by-point format starting with the second paragraph of Robinson et al. and working forward through their paper. Quoted text below is from Robinson et al. unless otherwise noted.

http://rabett.blogspot.com/2009/10/critical-review-of-robinson-robinson.html
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Hello again,
I do try to approach each article with an open mind, and I don’t dismiss material based on who wrote it. Once again, in this case, I find that the critique is very inadequate. 
Let me give one example. In their point #2, they critique the temperature graph used by Robinson and Soon. They say it is only for the Sargasso Sea. That part is true enough. Then they refer to the IPCC’s reconstructed temperature, as being the correct global picture, thus ‘invalidating’ Robinson and Soon.
When I look at the Greenland data for the same period, I get a chart very similar to the Sargasso Sea chart. If someone can come up with measurements at other stations that are very different from these two independent charts, I’d like to look at them. But the IPCCs bizarre reconstruction is not ‘evidence’ of anything, except what it is possible to accomplish with computer models.
In every case these critiques seek out individual items that can be called into question, but they don’t really engage the essential points being made by the skeptics. And they always refer to the IPCC’s models as counter evidence. This is illogical, because it is the assumptions made in the models that are being called into question. A rebuttal cannot come from the model, it must come from data that verifies the assumptions of the models. 
These critiques all exhibit a debate attitude. In a debate, the goal is to win the argument by any means available, to ‘score points’ with the audience. The goal is not to clarify the issues under discussion. Such an article, with such an attitude, is more propaganda than journalism or science.
Do keep sending articles you run across.
best wishes,
rkm

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Date: 18 December 2009 07:45:04 GMT
To: Spam Moderators <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Moderator’s spam report for •••@••.•••

The following suspicious messages were sent to your group, but are being held in your moderation queue because they are classified as likely spam messages.

——- 1 of 1  ——-
Subject: re-8: global warming – temperatures 4,000 BC – 2010
From: Richard Moore <•••@••.•••>
Date: Dec 17 10:55PM

Very interesting. I’ve never gotten one of these reports before. I assume it must be generated automatically. I can’t imagine what their robot finds ‘suspicious’. It couldn’t just be ‘global warming’ in the title, because that’s very common these days. 

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From: “bill aal”
Date: 18 December 2009 03:04:53 GMT
To: “‘Richard Moore'” <•••@••.•••>
Subject: FW: Ice cores show Co2 not climate driver

Richard,
  The scientific data is complex and I don’t claim to understand the complexities, but selective reading of one paper from 2003 is not good science.  Here is an extract from a later article in Science that year that refutes the finding that this paper is based on.
Bill

After constraining the “gas age – ice age difference” several studies have determined that initial Antarctic air temperature increase preceded CO2 rise on glacial terminations, typically by about 600 to 3000 years. One study used the δ40Αr isotopic temperature proxy, measured on the same air samples as CO2, and found a lead of 800+200 years at Termination 3. These observations suggest that CO2 rise did not trigger temperature increase.

However, these same studies show that approximately 80% of deglacial warming was synchronous with CO2 rise. Furthermore, sensitivity studies indicate that the magnitude of deglacial warming in response to orbital insolation changes requires substantial feedback from greenhouse gases. Scaling these results to make predictions about the next century is difficult, but past climate change is consistent with CO2 exerting a strong positive feedback on surface temperature.

Hi Bill,
Thanks for the critique. I read it, which wasn’t easy, and the above summary is accurate. The thesis of the article is that Co2 plays an important amplifying role in a major deglaciation cycle. Our last deglaciation cycle was about 15,000 years ago. That’s when the last Ice Age ended, and temperatures rose rapidly up to the level of our current inter-glacial plateau. 
Temperatures at the end of the last Ice Age were almost 20 degrees cooler than now, which enabled an immense amount of Co2 to be stored in the oceans. As the temperature began to rise dramatically, for reasons other than Co2, vast amounts of Co2 were released from the oceans. The article argues that this vast amount of Co2 played an important role in accelerating the emergence from the Ice Age.
This sounds credible to me, but it is not a rebuttal the original article, “Ice cores show Co2 not climate driver”. The temperature fluctuations we’ve been experiencing for the past few centuries amount to less than 2 degrees. Such small changes do not release enough Co2 from the oceans to cause the amplifying effect that occurs in a major deglaciation cycle. We can see this by looking at the graph as we emerged from the recent Little Ice Age. The emergence has been gradual, unlike the nearly vertical emergence from the last big Ice Age. 
The main point of the original article is that Co2 increases lag behind temperature increases. The ‘rebutting’ article accepts this point, and then shows that at very special times, this lagging Co2 can accelerate warming. This is not one of those special times, so the main point of the original paper remains.
cheers,
rkm

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