Is climate change really a damp squib?

Well, it would be nice, yes. However, if I wanted to be negative, I’d say that what we have here is a zoologist who is trying his hand at climate science (presumably he regards it as the next great challenge, following his resounding success in the banking world), quoting the works of a “semi-retired financier” who we are assured is very good at maths and science. I’m actually not that negative, but I can imagine there are plenty of people who are, and this ain’t going to convince any of them. It doesn’t do much more than cause me to raise a hopeful eyebrow, and I have fairly hyperactive eyebrows.

But I bet you’ll get a good comment thread out of it, anyway. Glad I got in before the mudslinging starts in earnest.

On climate, Ridley is an idiot and you’re a fool for taking him seriously.

I seem to recall Moonbat is a zoologist. Greens don’t seem to mind him opining on the subject.

I am surprised to see Mr Connolley on here. I should have thought he had his hands full over on Wikipedia keeping all the warmist plates in the air in the face of the refusal of the oceans to boil over. 16 years now…

If there’s anyone I trust to get the maths right, it’s former Northern Rock chairman Matt Ridley.

> @Rob: it seems from the article that the retired financier is also an expert reviewer for the IPCC, so they must be reasonably assured of his credentials?

Does anyone really fall for that? Good heavens, there are some mooncalves about. Anyone saying “trust me, I’m an IPCC expert reviewer” is a cretin. *Anyone* can be an “expert reviewer” just by asking to see the draft. It doesn’t mean the IPCC have vetted you in any way.

Sebastian Weetabix: you’re an ignorant tosser. But if you want to see if I’m busy at wiki, its easy enough to check my contribs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/William_M._Connolley Nope. Doesn’t look like I’m busy.

Andrew Duffin: I can’t recall Feynman cherry-picking 15 years, that kind of stuff belongs to the cargo-cult people he railed against. Anyway,

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/12/13/global-temperature-update/

Didn’t Connelly get chucked off Wikipedia as a result of his shenanigans?

People busy making an honest living don’t have time for Wikipedia edit wars.

On the subject of credentialism very few of the proponents of AGW have relevant credentials- the IPCC is headed by a railway engineer for a start. I don’t see that as reason to ignore their arguments, or to accept them. The arguments must stand or fall by themselves.
The (obviously nonsensical) “no warming” meme, is an established fact- at least with the proviso “significant”. The medieval warm period has been established as, well, warm; something which the IPCC once denied via. its acceptance of the hockey stick graph. It is at present unclear whether or not it was warmer than today (as was accepted prior to the acceptance of the hockey stick), but it was clearly warmer than the last two hundred years.
To judge by pre-release versions of the current IPCC report the sun’s activity affects the earths climate (who’d have thought it) something the IPCC was denying ten years ago.
The fact that the IPCC got these wrong should lead us to check its other pronouncements before investing billions of pounds on schemes to solve the problem.

I wonder if William M Connolley is similarly impressed with the credentials of those who don’t agree with him and are also published/peer reviewed (and not by their mates either)?

Or is he going to be abusive to me as well?

Mr Connolly. Perhaps you can remind us on the qualifications you hold to back up your opinions.

It is virtually undeniable that mankind has, to some degree or other, created or contributed to global warming by burning 150 billion tons of coal and 100 billion tons of oil (plus lots of gas, wood, paper, straw …) in the last 30 years. The big question is not “should we slow down” but what is the optimum trade-off between the long-term ill-effects of burning fossil fuel and the short-term ill-effects on the world’s poor of preventing them burning fossil fuel.
It is, therefore, unfortunate that the debate has hi-jacked by two groups, “alarmists” and “denialists” with scant regard for good manners or even the truth to the extent that the rational sceptics, and even moderate affirmers like myself who would like the UEA to tell the truth and the IPCC to check its facts, are denounced as “denialists” as if we were fans of Auschwitz by affluent alarmists who do little to curb their personal consumption.
If William M Connolley could get round to reading Tim’s post before hurling insults he might learn that it was the Wall Street Journal that took Matt Ridley seriously enough to publish him and that Tim said ” it’s an important enough question that I’d need more than just Matt’s word for it”.

I’m wondering if William M. Connolley is in fact ‘Arnald’ under another identity? Certainly the same level of abuse, profound ignorance and bile that we get from Guernsey’s finest, and of course his principal claim to fame is that Wikipedia threw him out.

PW> Are you suggesting that Nic’s analysis has nothing useful to contribute to this?

Certainly I am. I don’t think NL has anything useful to say. “Mr. Lewis has made significant contributions to the subject of climate change” is, AFAIK, just puff from Ridley (and as I’ve already said, you should ignore everything Ridley says on climate).

If Ridley, or NL, were basing their stuff on an actual paper – and what Ridley writes is so vague its hard to tell – then I’d say read that paper instead of their inaccurate gloss.

Well, given we have arch pier, fabricator, and general bozo Connelly commenting on the thread against Ridley, I is pretty much a given that Ridley is correct. Connelly, like the other deliberate fabricators prefers to spend his time gatekeeping to prevent relevant research being performed.

Your deliberate distortions and mendacious behaviour as shown on the Wikipedia farce should have you laughed off any serious forum Connelly. You are even stupid enough to think that MBH 1998/9 was serious science !

William M. Connolley – “bloke in spain: you can’t spell, and you’ve got my title wrong. I’ve got a doctorate. Look me up on wiki, you lazy little git, its not exactly difficult.”

Plenty of scientists have been unpleasant people. God knows. But usually it does not affect their science. Or if it does, it is only them, it is not the whole field.

But with Climate “science” Bill here really is the rule not the exception. This is not how real scientists behave. If they do, their peers stop them. If they have facts and theories to argue, they argue the facts and the theories. The fact that Bill here sees a need to smear people rather than discuss the facts shows the reality of climate “science” better than Ridley could – it isn’t science, it is Lysenkoism.

Dr Connolley,

Are you really saying that that we should rely a 6-year old blog post? Surely there is something more up to date given the m£’s (quite rightly IMHO) spent on climate research?

Surely there is something more recent that isn’t alarmist that we can read?

William Connolley – I don’t see your D.Phil. on Amazon which lists theses which are in Oxford’s Bodleian library. Why is this ?

@William Connolley

In fact I have just checked all my mates from Oxford and all their D.Phils. are on Amazon.

Did you actually succesfully defend your thesis because all Oxford D.Phils are automatically stored in the Bodleian library and are all on Amazon.

Sorry, Oxford’s system has stupid links that expire after 5 minutes. Click the link above and type “william connolley” into the search box.

@johnb – ok thanks. I withdraw my premise.

The work Matt Ridley is quoting is by Nic Lewis, a mathematician.

Here
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2012/12/19/why-doesnt-the-ar5-sods-climate-sensitivity-range-reflect-it.html

and here
http://judithcurry.com/2012/12/19/climate-sensitivity-in-the-ar5-sod/

Wikipedia’s eminent proctor
Muttered “Post hoc ergo propter
hoc. Now don’t make me shout
You ignorant lout,
And kindly address me as Doctor.

The entire global warming (I refuse to call it climate change) debate is descending to the level of philosophers arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. We’re all arguing over long term trends that are, as far as I can tell, not much more than noise given the quality of the dataset. Arguments over whether sea-level rise is 1, 2, or 3mm/year make me yawn. An earthquake can drop (or raise) local ground level by 20m easily.

The only reason for ever taking it seriously was the tipping point argument. A gradual change over centuries – which is quite rapid in geological terms – we can easily adjust to.

The only thing that matters is will there be a sudden shift – a la the Day After Tomorrow. From what has happened over the last 30 years or so, I doubt it.

There’s precisely one fact in the whole debate – CO2 levels have risen. Everything else is supposition.

That Willy Conly bloke sure knows how to win people over to his side.

SimonF> Are you really saying that that we should rely a 6-year old blog post?

No, certainly not. Ideally, you would rely on the peer-reviewed literature its talking about.

However, its a fairly helpful close-to-layman’s language introduction to a difficult topic. Given the level of debate you find here, I doubt that many are capable of reading the scientific literature itself. Certainly its hard to see any sign that they (or you) have done so.

LJAR> http://www.clim-past.net/8/765/2012/cp-8-765-2012.pdf

Did you read that? It doesn’t show the MWP as warmer than now. See fig 7. Its also only extra-tropical NH, but that’s a quibble.

> show a medieval warm perod with large fluctuation in temperature without corresponding changes in CO2

You’re fighting strawmen. No-one says that only CO2 causes temperature change, and no-one says there was nothing at the MWP.

Ltw> We’re all arguing over long term trends that are, as far as I can tell…

This is just Argument From Personal Ignorance. It means nothing, except you’ve failed to do your homework. If you’re actually interested in the subject, you need to read up the literature on the subject, or (more plausibly, since wading through the primary literature is hard) a good summary. Like the IPCC reports.

If you quit the name calling and explain how the models are so far out of step with reality I might start listening and debating. Right now, I know who is looking like the cretin here.

Connolley et al at it again ? Must be a proctologists … seems like they perpetually havea finger up someone’s rectum … oh sorry, it’s their own !

@WC “And you can’t spell (I know, its so difficult).”

It’s not its.

How disgusting that Dr Connolley should call somebody an idiot, whatever their view. How disgusting that a person of such prejudice is allowed special influence at Wikipedia — this explains that encyclopedia’s extraordinary one-sidedness on the subject. How disgusting that he resorts to ad-hominem argument rather than addressing the issues raised in my article.

For Connolley’s benefit, I first wrote about climate change in 1987 for the Economist when I was science editor. At the time I was an alarmist, accepting the Charney sensitivity estimates without question and to my shame dismissing the doubts of colleagues about this. I have since gradually come to the view that the extra feedback necessary to make CO2 warming dangerous is increasingly implausible, though still possible, and that the measures we are taking to cut carbon emissions are doing and will do more harm especially to poor people than warming itself. I may be wrong in this, but it’s not unreasonable to debate this possibility — and nor is it outside the scientific consensus, by the way.

I bring to the subject the same technique that I bring to all the topics I cover as a journalist. (Only on climate (and religion) am I told that my credentials disallow me from even having a view.) I read both sides of the question, I challenge assumptions and I listen to arguments. In this case reputable climate scientists like Judith Curry and Richard Betts agree that Nic Lewis has made a good case and deserves to be considered and debated. Would that Dr Connolley would show the same open-mindedness.

Matt Ridley

He may well be right about the science, I don’t know, but I think Connolley sounds like a very angry man on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

It would not at all surprise me to wake up one morning to find he had killed his family and half the village before being slotted by armed police.

And that he had been wearing a suit made entirely of tinfoil at the time. Don’t say you weren’t warned!

Wow, I knew William Connolley was not great at understanding the concept of science (after all, Mr Connolley, you are but a software engineer, aren’t you? By your logic you can’t possibly know anything about the philosophy of science) but I never knew he was so angry.

Nothing but rage here, and of course the usual logical fallacies. I have yet to see a single argument for CAGW that did not involve the results of a model or a logical fallacy that any decent Greek philosopher could have discarded. Mr Connolley’s comment here are no exception.

So Mr Connolley you have been closely involved with climate modelling. What is the empirical evidence to back the claims from the models that humans have caused almost all of the late-20th-century warming? What is the empirical evidence that the strong positive feedback in temperature assumed in all the models is correct? How do you explain the difference between the models and real-world observations in the temperatures between 20N and 20S between 300 hPa and the tropopause? Does this difference not mean that the models are fundamentally flawed?

Quick hint: I have a degree in Earth Sciences and some informal education in philosophy, so I will not just accept bluster and logical fallacies. Empirical evidence trumps theory and models every time. Appeal to authority is good guidance as to what to read, it is not evidence nor a strong argument; ad hominem dismissals are utterly meaningless.

Ad hominem attacks on your interlocutors are especially amusing when you then make a fool of yourself in similar vein (or perhaps vain in your case).

” its not a great page”

You might check your grammar before criticising other people’s spelling.

Clovis Man said: “If you quit the name calling and explain how the models are so far out of step with reality I might start listening and debating. Right now, I know who is looking like the cretin here.”

Although it is from 2007 and hopefully things are better now, try this from Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the USA National Center for Atmospheric Research occasionally a lead author of IPCC Scientific Assessments:

“In fact there are no predictions by IPCC at all. And there never have been. The IPCC instead proffers “what if” projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions scenarios. There are a number of assumptions that go into these emissions scenarios. They are intended to cover a range of possible self consistent “story lines” that then provide decision makers with information about which paths might be more desirable. But they do not consider many things like the recovery of the ozone layer, for instance, or observed trends in forcing agents. There is no estimate, even probabilistically, as to the likelihood of any emissions scenario and no best guess.

Even if there were, the projections are based on model results that provide differences of the future climate relative to that today. None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate. In particular, the state of the oceans, sea ice, and soil moisture has no relationship to the observed state at any recent time in any of the IPCC models. There is neither an El Niño sequence nor any Pacific Decadal Oscillation that replicates the recent past; yet these are critical modes of variability that affect Pacific rim countries and beyond. The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, that may depend on the thermohaline circulation and thus ocean currents in the Atlantic, is not set up to match today’s state, but it is a critical component of the Atlantic hurricanes and it undoubtedly affects forecasts for the next decade from Brazil to Europe. Moreover, the starting climate state in several of the models may depart significantly from the real climate owing to model errors. I postulate that regional climate change is impossible to deal with properly unless the models are initialized.”

“Elsewhere in the same article Ridley claims this amount of warming will do net good.

Is the (economic) model he is relying on for that claim ‘empirical’ and ‘proven’ then?”

Did he say he used a model? There is certainly empirical evidence suggests that warm weather is beneficial for humanity; culture has stagnated in cool climate and advanced when the Earth has been warmer such as the Mediaeval Warm Period and the Roman climate optimum. Given that he is arguing against bare assumptions, not even modelled, that is not an unreasonable argument.

Don

“What do you think the responsible course of action is when someone makes a scientific claim that contradicts a large body of existing evidence? ”

What large body of evidence? Can you tell me what the empirical evidence is for attribution of climate change to human activity and for large positive feedback? I know of none.

Model runs do not count as evidence. Models are useful in analysing evidence, and in finding out what evidence to look for to confirm theory, but (contrary to what climate “scientists” will tell you) they cannot provide evidence independently of empirical data.

Connolley’s comments degrade this thread, and display an all-but-unhinged intolerance.

He has played a prominent part in the promotion of alarm over CO2 thanks to his frequent interventions on Wikipedia. He thereby helped degrade that knowledge-sharing initiative as well. Some details of that can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate_change/Proposed_decision#William_M._Connolley_.28remedies.29. A selection of key comments from this decision by Wikipedia was given here by commenter ScientistForTruth: http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/10/14/going.html. They are:

“8.2) William M. Connolley has been uncivil and antagonistic to editors within the topic area, and toward administrators enforcing the community probation.

8.3) …William M. Connolley has shown an unreasonable degree of Ownership over climate-related articles and unwillingness to work in a consensus environment.

8.4) William M. Connolley has repeatedly violated the biography of living persons policy. Violations have included inserting personal information irrelevant to the subject’s notability, use of blogs as sources, inserting original research and opinion into articles, and removing reliably sourced positive comments about subjects. He has edited biographical articles of persons with whom he has off-wiki professional or personal disagreements.

8.5) William M. Connolley has focused a substantial portion of his editing in the Climate change topic area on biographical articles about living persons who hold views opposed to his own with respect to the reality and significance of anthropogenic global warming, in a fashion suggesting that he does not always approach such articles with an appropriately neutral and disinterested point of view.”

Don Blue: “What do you think the responsible course of action is when someone makes a scientific claim that contradicts a large body of existing evidence.”

Are you talking about positive feedbacks? If you have any evidence let alone a large body of it, let’s have it, you’d become the doyen of the alarmist movement overnight. Billy Connolly would be singing your praises on Wiki in a heartbeat.

There is no evidence of positive feedbacks, I heark back to the Charnley report, where water vapour was first postulated as a positive feedback, they’ve had 33 years to gather the evidence, so let’s see whatcha got.

Thon Brocket> I hang around in the saloon bar at WUWT… the global temperatures have stalled over the last 16 years… maybe you could explain to me… how reality’s wrong and all them fancy models are right.

You need to stop reading trash blogs if you don’t want to read trash. There, that was easy. Try http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/12/13/global-temperature-update/ instead.

Matt Ridley> How disgusting that Dr Connolley should call somebody an idiot, whatever their view.

Darling, you’re such a delicate flower. But this is Timmy’s blog, where calling people gibbering loon is quite acceptable. So you’ll just have to live with me calling a spade a spade. But I also notice that you seem to passed lightly over the insults from the wackos.

> At the time I was an alarmist, accepting the Charney sensitivity estimates without question

See? You are an idiot. Accepting the std climate sensitivity values makes you part of the scientific mainstream, not an alarmist. You’ve drifted so far into the denialist camp that you’ve totally lost your bearings.

Doubting Rich> By your logic you can’t possibly know anything about the philosophy of science

Err, no. Try reading what I wrote. I said that nothing that Ridley (or NL) writes on climate change is worthwhile (actually, I said “On climate, Ridley is an idiot and you’re a fool for taking him seriously”). That’s true. I didn’t say *why* that was so, nor did I invoke credentials.

If you want to know why I say it, well, its because I’ve read Ridley’s stuff before, and it reliably checks out as junk.

How are you, humble members of the public with no particular expertise, supposed to know who is telling the truth and who is foaming at the mouth? Well, you could be an utter cretin and try to judge it by who is speaking politely to you and smarming you with pretty words. But you’re not dumb enough to believe that kind of crap from politicians, so why are you dumb enough to believe it in science?

Better still, you could try reading and understanding the science for yourself. But none of you have the patience for that, sadly. So you have no choice but to rely on some authority. Which is what you’re doing, whilst simultaneuosly whinging about credentialism. But what you really mean is, that you refuse to accept the actual scientific authorities because what they’re saying is something you dislike.

> I have yet to see a single argument for CAGW

CAGW is the denialist strawman. If you haven’t realised that yet, you’re lost in the denialist camp so far you can’t see the edge.

> What is the empirical evidence to back the claims from the models that humans have caused almost all of the late-20th-century warming?

Ah, at last, a question. If you want to know, you can read the IPCC reports. Or you can read the summary here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_change (an no, don’t whinge that its wiki so its all biased against you and you’re really sad; you can follow the links to the refs).

geronimo> Charney report, written over three days in July 1979 estimated the sensitivity as 3C +/-1.5C

Yup. It turned out to be right, somewhat by luck.

> it’s obvious that the science hasn’t moved on much since then

Logical fallacy. Just because the answer hasn’t changed, doesn’t mean the evidence for it and the science behind it hasn’t improved.

This gets funnier by the minute. Don’t worry, WC, I’m not offended, but I am disgusted that you should think insult passes for argument. Still not a word on NL’s points in your ripostes.

As for who’s the delicate flower, remember this from your own blog when redacting Ben Pile’s response to your insulting him:

“William, interesting that you ‘redact’ the word ‘[redacted – W]‘, but ‘clueless’, ‘idiots’, ‘lying’ are fine.

[Its my blog -W]”

Who’s so delicate he needs to redact rude words?

It’s clearer by the day that WC is a double agent paid by the Koch brothers to discredit alarmism. In which case he is doing a fine job.

(By the way I use the word alarmist to mean somebody who thinks we should be alarmed about climate change whether mainstream or not. No insult implied.)

Mr Connolley what a prick you are.

Hi William,

You say at post 23 that Nic Lewis’s analysis has nothing useful to add to sensitivity. I would be interested specifically to know why you believe that to be the case?

You say: if “..or NL, were basing their stuff on an actual paper”. I notice that Nic Lewis has been author or co-author of a couple of recent papers on climate sensitivity, one of which – if I understand it correctly – challenged the way that, within AR4, the IPCC may (wrongly) have altered a peer reviewed paper (Forster / Gregory 2006) to suggest a higher sensitivity?

In addition to both the links you very kindly provided and other information from IPCC etc, it appears that much of the earlier “model based” work on this subject suggested higher sensitivities (and some of these catastrophic). Indeed James Annan’s observational work (your reference above from 2006) itself then appeared to bring the bar down in effect compared to earlier papers that were previously considered to be “within the consensus”. He himself said in his article: “We think it (his paper) poses a strong challenge to the “consensus” that has emerged in recent years”.

I have seen many references to more recent papers, since publication of AR4; which indicate sensitivities widely ranging from as low as ~1C to as high as 6C, or even as high as 8 or 9C “at the maximum” (Hansen, Dowsett, Pagani etc).

I am aware that many papers are variously criticized / rebutted / counter rebutted etc.

I also understand your suggestion that one should read the papers and understand them before judging. I accept that I am doing no such thing here (most of us will not have the time, even if we had the very broad level of expertise required). I try to look in summary at what those, with far more knowledge than me, are summarising (or are being reported as summarising) as a result of their separate specialist research.

At that point, I am rationally led to the (what I regard as healthily sceptical) conclusion that, in this area at least, there does still appear to be a lack of consensus (or that any consensus that exists may still appear to be evolving), and hence that the science may not appear to be anything like as settled as some may seek to assert?

I am not actually sure myself why that is a bad thing (as you seemed to suggest with your “silly” comment above)? Science evolves; and it would appear clear that climate science is – relative to some other areas of science – still in its infancy.

Matt, I would advise against debating with PaulB. He is a revolting man who is loudly and proudly in favour of the drone-murders of children in Pakistan.

Well, s’pose this thread puts the final nail in the climate change coffin. When you have the guy who designed the models the whole nonsense’s based on batting this hard for a particular interpretation, you can only presume the models are fixed to produce the desired outcomes. Bit like getting a mechanical report on a car from the garage who’s selling it. Doesn’t need a science degree to spot a scam.
Mr Connolley, with or without your ‘e’, you’re peddling snake-oil.

What a deeply unpleasant fellow

Here are some (science)facts

Fact #1:

Everybody is stupid except for me

Fact #2:

The sensitivity of the Earth’s climate is determined by whatever the hell my colleagues and I say it is. If you want to talk about this, that’s fine but first refer to Fact #1.

Fact #3:

You are a stupid moron with an ugly face

For those just tuning in, a summation:

Connolley: “Nic Lewis and Matt Ridley are stupid poopy-heads”

Crowd: “What colourful language! Care to elaborate?”

Connolley: “Just because I call people stupid poopy-heads doesn’t mean they are not stupid poopy-heads”

Crowd: “Yes but why not discuss the actual substance of what they are saying instead of ad hominem attacks?”

Connolley: “Read this 6 year old blog post”

Crowd: “Yes, but what specifically about Nic Lewis’ analysis do you disagree with or see errors?”

Connolley: “Just because I call someone a stupid poopy head doesn’t mean I’m wrong!”

Larry

Frankly, I dislike Tim’s use of such words too. But at least he then gives reasoned arguments for his conclusion that somebody is a … whatever. WC didn’t. As I said above I had no attack of the vapours, I just don’t think insult should substitute for argument.

Matt

WC: >>Part of my service as a blog-owner is to help the signal-to-noise ratio by stopping the commentators calling each other “what a prick you are” <<

What a hand-wave. You nonetheless set different standards for yourself. If signal-to-noise ratio is upset by the exchange of such language, it is as true of the exchange between blogger and commenters as it is between commenters.

The point is not to say 'thou must not…'. I've used words like 'moron' a number of times. I think you are a moron, and have said so on Twitter. Not because I think you're wrong, but because you seem incapable of understanding words that (I must assume) are in front of your eyes. Maybe it's just a blind-spot, rather than a comprehensive mental failure, but the double standards, intransigence and the grotesque self-justification are clues to something inadequate about your level of thinking.

To be more charitable about it, it's an ideological epiphenomenon, I argue, rather than an organic problem. The idea that someone might dare to estimate climate sensitivity for themselves, outside of official climate science seems to offend you personally. Indeed, challenges of any form to official climate science provoke such rage, we can't just be talking about cold, hard, objective science. The debate has been internalised. It's not a dispassionate discussion of facts. The question I have is about the extent to which that internalisation precedes — and contaminates — the discovery of cold, hard, objective facts. If you can't take the fact of challenges to The Science seriously, or at face value, what does that say about The Science? If you can't accept challenges to The Science, a priori — however well or poorly conceived those challenges are — it's not unfair to wonder if The Science is in fact merely dogma, and you a zealot.

You just seem so spectacularly unaware of yourself. You're not alone. That demands some explanation.

Excellent, so we agree that I have never said a word in favour of drone murders of children, and that you are a liar.

In this thread (below), you said the only decent thing to do in the US election was to vote for Obama.

To give PaulB his due, both the (any chance at being elected) candidates were pretty much in favour of drone strikes. That being given, then, you can take a nugatory moral stance and refuse to vote for anybody who would countenance collateral damage in military / intelligence operations (which excludes pretty much every politician everywhere, everywhen) or encourage people to vote for the best (or, at least, least-worst) choice.

Which in PaulB’s opinion was the less wealthy, slightly darker hued of the Rombama twins.

PW> Nic Lewis’s analysis has nothing useful to add to sensitivity. I would be interested specifically to know why you believe that to be the case?

I think its more up to you to say why you think it is valuable. I can’t really say I’ve bothered to read it yet. Oh go on then, I suppose I’d better. I’ll look at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/19/why-doesnt-the-ar5-sods-climate-sensitivity-range-reflect-its-new-aerosol-estimates/ . OK, having skimmed the first bit: the basic problem is he is using purely observational estimates. This restricts the time period you can use, and the data you can use, and means that the uncertainties (if you do it honestly) are too large to produce a useful value. Quite how he has fudged his error range down so small would take rather more poking about it the data to discover.

> Nic Lewis has been author or co-author of a couple of recent papers on climate sensitivity

Really? Are you sure you’re not picking that off Ridley, who has carefully phrased his language to make it appear so? I don’t know of any of his, but I would say that, wouldn’t I. But its easy to solve this: you or Ridley should ref the papers he’s written.

> one of which – if I understand it correctly – challenged the way that, within AR4, the IPCC may (wrongly) have altered a peer reviewed paper (Forster / Gregory 2006) to suggest a higher sensitivity?

Ah, no, now I know where you’re coming from: you are just reading Ridley’s stuff. But Ridley doesn’t say NL wrote a paper. “He first collaborated with others” is designed to make you think he did, though.

I could be wrong though. Point me at the actual paper and I’ll read it.

Ben Pile > I think you are a moron, and have said so on Twitter

Oh sorry, I’d forgotten you. Yes, you’re a fool. See http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2012/08/16/more-weird-sea-ice-stuff/ for details.

SE: and the same applies to torture, but the drone-enthuser cut Romney no slack there.

I think (from memory – and I did try to avoid the soap opera the US had instead of an actual election) Obama has a (very slightly) less crazy position on torture than Romney. But I think a hideous percentage of the US population get their views on the effectiveness of torture from watching “24”.

There’s a good reason torture is banned by (unfortunately not comprehensive) international agreement – it is inhumane. There’s a good reason the US is the only country which has tried to overturn its own ban – it simply doesn’t work.

Is it just coincidence that Warmists never argue the science but instead resort to ad hominem attacks.?

@ William M Connolley
“You’re fighting strawmen. No-one says that only CO2 causes temperature change, and no-one says there was nothing at the MWP. ”
May I request that you visit the Liberal Conspiracy website sometime? I have been shouted down and abused for suggesting that variations in solar emissions, let alone the heat generated by burning fossil fuels, might contribute to global warming. Even pointing out that the Industrial Revolution post-dated, rather than caused, the end of the “Little Ice Age” was treated as heresy.
I find myself a lone voice calling for honesty in the debate.

john77> May I request that you visit the Liberal Conspiracy website sometime?

Well, I looked at http://liberalconspiracy.org/2012/11/01/why-climate-change-is-more-relevant-to-everyday-concerns-than-ever/

It wasn’t a very interesting post, but it had plenty of people shouting it down pointing out the flaws, including Timmy. Is there a better example?

@ Ben Pile
Even Teddy Hall doesn’t take morons.
If you are serious in thinking William M Connolley is a moron then *you* are stupid.
@ geronimo #64
Try reading the links. It is totally implausible that if William M Connolley had been bullied at school he would have chosen to go to Teddy Hall which was famous for rugby rather than intellect. The gentlest person I knew at SEH was a boxing blue (yeah, they tended to be gentler than the rugby types).

@ WMC
You may have noticed that I wasn’t on that post because I’d given up on LC. Give me a couple of days – their archive system frequently fails – and I’ll find a couple.

@SE ‘There’s a good reason torture is banned by (unfortunately not comprehensive) international agreement – it is inhumane. There’s a good reason the US is the only country which has tried to overturn its own ban – it simply doesn’t work.’

I think there are some words missing from your second sentence there, or else the words are there but they’re in the wrong order, or something.

But anyway, if it worked, it would still not be OK, despite that fact, because it’s ‘inhumane’?

Well, it’s a view.

To me, it’s no more inhumane that shooting someone, or dropping bombs on them. The question of its efficacy is the only one.

If it doesn’t work, it must just be that lots of professional spooks just like hurting innocent people for no good reason.

Maybe that’s true, but I doubt it.

Anyway, PaulB still actively encourages people to vote for the guy who dramatically upped the drone hits on schools in Pakistan. Nice chap.

I have been working out the real physics for nearly 3 years now. Only recently was I able to prove that there can be no CO2-AGW on any planet.

It’s because of basic radiative equilibrium principles, known to every process engineer like me.

What happens is that the near black body 15 micron CO2 IR annihilates the near black body surface IR so there is no IR to be absorbed by atmospheric CO2.

The immediate consequence of this is that there is no positive feedback, needed for the other part of the Hansenkoistic fraud, the claim that all lapse rate warming is due to the GHE.

This appears to have taken the wind out of the sails of the warmists.

@ John77 – >>If you are serious in thinking William M Connolley is a moron then *you* are stupid.<<

I go to some lengths to explain what I mean, and that what is at issue is his intransigence, his refusal or inability to take arguments in front of him at face value, and his lack of self-awareness. Those things, common to environmentalists in particular, need some explanation. How is it that such seemingly intelligent people have internalised things so comprehensively, that, even if they are right, they have such difficulty with dialogue, it is as if they see nothing at all?

Of course it's not as simple as 'WC is a moron'. It just looks that way. I believe I know why. Is he bright? Possibly. Is he exceptional? Not at all. Nonetheless, he casts himself as a planet-saver, and has all the zeal of someone so consumed by the sense of self-importance that only self-styled superheroes can manufacture.

The reason I think WC can't see the world, the climate, and the relationship between them is not that he is incapable of seeing them. I think it is difficult for him to see anything other than himself because he is bent over with such self-regard that his head is jammed up his arse.

WC = zealot

You cannot reason with a zealot. They are blinded by their belief. The ultimate control freaks, rather than adjust their view to match reality, they are driven uncontrollably to change the world around them to match their beliefs.

Aldous

Beautifully summarised. A classic post, sir.

Every time Billy Connelly does this I wonder if he’s posting from either a pub or backstage at a comedy club.

Has he used the word bozo yet? That’s his typical introduction.

If I read this thread correctly he posted several dozen insults about Ridley, Lewis et al before acknowledging that he hadn’t read Lewis. Typical.

It’s not about debating facts, papers or even issues. For this twat it’s all about controlling the conversation.

One-third of all human emissions of CO2 have occurred since 1998 without any visible effect on global average temperatures, which plateaued at that time.

Connelly wants to talk about how stupid we all are for noticing that and wondering what it means for elaborately constructed theories of high sensitivity. But he wants to talk about our stupidity precisely so we don’t discuss sensitivity.

Dr Connelley said:
“How are you, humble members of the public with no particular expertise, supposed to know who is telling the truth and who is foaming at the mouth?”
Well, I use the scientific method. I look at what the theory predicts, then I look at the evidence (data about reality). If the evidence does not support the theory, then suspect that the theory is false.
As far as I can see, the CAGW theory is not supported by the evidence.

Dr Connelley said:

“How are you, humble members of the public with no particular expertise, supposed to know who is telling the truth and who is foaming at the mouth?”

If I were not a scientifically-educated member of the public I would look at the honesty and openness of the proponents of each side. Given the proven dishonesty, indeed admitted dishonesty in many cases, of the alarmists that would lead me to the same conclusion as the science does.

As for openness, well we know how much effort is made to avoid the disinfectant of sunlight on cankerous sores of climate alarmism don’t we? We know it before the first release of the CRU emails, and after two sets and some further scandals it is worse than even I suspected.

Tom Fuller> Has he used the word bozo yet?

No, I was waiting for you to show up.

> he posted several dozen insults about Ridley, Lewis et al before acknowledging that he hadn’t read Lewis.

OTOH I have, *now* read Lewis. Aaannnddd: I’m still the only contributor to this thread who has read Lewis (to the extent of working out where he is getting his numbers from, rather than simply reading the headline and thinking “hmm, I like that conclusion, I’ll take it”. Not one of you so called non-credentialists have bothered to actually follow Lewis’s argument. Timmy certainly didn’t, because he can’t, and he’s got more clue than most of you.

mr Connelley has a bit of a problem here trying to challenge Nic Lewis. Shortly before the IPCC Ar5 submission deadline Nic Lewis sent me a copy of his latest paper on ECS. Essentially, it takes Forrest 2006 to pieces. One issue there is another case of missing data. If Billy checks the Draft of AR5 version he will see that Nic’s latest paper is referenced ( Lewis 2012 ). Simply, Nic Lewis is no slouch. If he checks the record he will also find that the IPCC has issued an errata WRT another error that Lewis uncovered in Ar4. I trust the IPCC rather than Connelley when it comes to evaluating Nic Lewis’s work. The IPCC is right and Connelley is wrong. Now Nic has another contribution, using a method for estimating ECS vetted by previous IPCC reports. That approach, using a method previously accepted and more recent data produces a lower estimate for ECS. That is hardly the end of the story. In the past the IPCC has had similar low estimates for ECS counter balanced by higher estimates and nobody had a cow. Nic’s estimate falls in the lower range of the IPCC, what is the problem? Why would Connelley attack somebody who the IPCC relies on? I bet Connelley hasnt even read Lewis 2012 and didnt even know it was accepted.

Aw, Steve–now you’ve done it. Gone and introduced facts and all that. Now Connelly will retreat to his hidey hole and commiserate with his toadies.

I find it amazing that a failed scientist like Connelley, a failed politician and a failed blog owner has such a high opinion of himself.
He no longer works in the field but the ‘professor’ thinks his views are so very important.

To be his age, with no research group, grants or job tells you everything you need to know. I’m sure he is well respected for his Wikipedia articles.

You are a unpleasant joke little William and this thread is read by large numbers of people and they are all laughing at you.

Is William Connelley a Poe’s Law bot that escaped the lab?

A joke.

Q:What do men with pony tails and horses have in common?

A: When you lift the tail you find an arsehole.

Sometimes this is more accurate than others.

Category: questions in Tim’s blog we can answer.

In the affirmative.

“So I don’t see that they have evaluated his work.”

And of course yours is regularly quoted! Is the IPCC now quoting Wikipedia?

So the IPCC do not not evaluate literature now Willy?

Lawrence Solomon: “All told, Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. His control over Wikipedia was greater still, however, through the role he obtained at Wikipedia as a website administrator, which allowed him to act with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it — more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred — over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions. Acolytes whose writing conformed to Connolley’s global warming views, in contrast, were rewarded with Wikipedia’s blessings. In these ways, Connolley turned Wikipedia into the missionary wing of the global warming movement.”

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=62e1c98e-01ed-4c55-bf3d-5078af9cb409

Sorry–Doctor Idiot. His comedian namesake makes more sense than this fuzzy fool.

Ah, Connolley has gone back to his cess pit, like all good trolls he can’t stand the light. Maybe his Wiki buddies can salve his fragile ego.
Will he be missed, who?

Hi tom

I expect connelley to ignore the facts.

1. lewis 2012 is cited in ar5
2. his estimate is within the range established
as the consensus range
3. He used accepted methods and data.

as with all estimates of ecs there are grounds for quibbling. But arguing that ecs lies below
3c is not skepticism, not denialism and not
a form of conspiracy thinking.
connelley has nothing

and of course we can all comment at ConnollEEEEEEEy’s web-site…except we cannot because he does not welcome debate…I know , I have tried on 3 occasions to express anassenting opinion – one was about discount rates…still he knows more than I do as an investment advisor

Geez–how did I leave Eli Rabett off that last list? He’s almost as bad as WC.

William S Connolley says:

“I’ll be blogging on it in a day or two – you know where I live. Whether the brave folk over here will be brave enough to show up and debate is another matter.”

You think us “humble members of the public with no particular expertise” plebs are that stupid to think you of all people are going to host an open, un-censored debate at your blog? No-one is going to turn up at your blog where you can behave like RC and edit comments out you don’t like. And no-one is going to flatter your ego and vanity by doing so either.

You are so cock sure and want an open debate with the likes of Nic Lewis? Why don’t you take up the challenge and blog somewhere where everyone knows the comments are not going to be censored. The obvious venue would be Bishophill where I am sure Andrew Montford would be more than happy to guarantee there is no censorship.

The problem for you is that you know, deep down, on a level playing field , you have no hope of winning at all against people who actually know what they are talking about.

Wow. It seems that leftists (with an ‘e’) really do not like having their pronouncements questioned.

RE: Tom Fuller says:

“Connelly certainly doesn’t have the guts to debate here–witness his behaviour to date. Shows up, drops his load, takes off.”

Premature evacuation?

ThinkingScientist: +1

Instead of citing your own droppings, read Moshers. What a maroon you are, WC.

You’re the one who hadn’t read Lewis, remember? Not Mosher, not the rest of us–you.

You slammed Lewis and his paper. Then you admitted you hadn’t read it. Now you’re shucking and jiving, singing and dancing, doing your usual WC failure dance–we’ve all seen it a hundred times before.

Vinny Burgoo says:

“Has Connolley slowed his posting frequency at Stoat in recent years because he’s tired of moronic clones from WUWT and Wikipedia (and AUE) invading the comments?”

How patronising to us “humble members of the public with no particular expertise” to suggest we are all “moronic clones”. Of course its not possible that we could have opinions that differ from those of the infinite wisdon of Dr William M Connolley (with an “e”) and that he could be wrong and one or more of us could be right. Or is anyone who disagrees with Connolley simply to be sneered at as some inferior?

For continued warming since 1998 I cite evidence like this:
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/giss.gif

MAMWAPT says:

“Err, well, you’re clearly lying about something. If you’re a scientist, as your username says, and you have prof exp, then you’re not a member of the general public. Make your mind up.”

So just to be clear…your is your point (a) educated people cannot be members of the general public of (b) educated people can be members of the general public but then must be considered liars or (c) the general public cannot include educated people or people that cannot think for themselves.

Just an Observer> Wow I have heard so much about this Connolly guy

Praise me more.

MAMWAPT says:

“You’re a bozo and an obvious liar. I’m here, debating.”

I think you will find that the consensus view on what you are doing here is either (a) being insulting or (b) making a fool of your self.

Possibly both.

For those that don’t know,

MAMWAPT = WMC

For the (cryptic) explanation see:

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2012/12/20/reactions-to-low-climate-sensitivity.html

have you begun to invest as much in future generations as in your own pension fund, ConnollEEEEEEEy? Otherwise, you might come across as a hypocrite.

(sorry, I’m monopolising the conversation, how rude of me. I’m off to bed now, so you can flame as much as you like:)

One last thought: by my usual measure of “fuss”, which is some bozo popping up on wikipedia trying to force the latest nonsense into the GW page, this one scores a zero.

If I have this right spelling actual words is of no import. The only important issue facing the human race is to spell the name of our holy wiki gatekeeper correctly? Damn and all I cared about was if it’ll snow any more.

In my defence I am an avowed conspiracy nut (it’s in my job title) and it’s heartwarming to know that I am not unique in my delusions of grandeur.

I do wonder – which I believe is still legal despite the consensus – what if there was a spellibg mistake in the code? Easily happens in most jobs. I’ve seen the funniest stuff slip through a ‘proof read’.

Any way must go as it’s 21 12 12…see you in the next life pal 😉

By the way, WC–in addition to Mosher and several others on this thread, I also read Lewis. So you’re the liar.

ThinkingScientist says: “How do you get an LIA or an MWP?”

The LIA and MWP weren’t close to 1.7C warming or cooling departures. So if a doubling of CO2 produces 1.7C warming as Lewis argues, and given we stand to more than double CO2 (with other ghg equiv), the human warming from GHG stands to dominate over natural variation.

There is no arrogance here, just common sense. If you accept a doubling of CO2 produces as much as 1.7C warming then you can’t believe anything but man is driving climate.

Nature simply doesn’t operate typically on that scale over such a short-timescale.

“How do you get the Younger Dryas event? How do you get Dansgaard-Oeschger, 25 times during the last glacial period?”

Mainly regional events. Globally the fluctuations are thought to be much smaller. And we aren’t going to have any of those in the 21st century.

“How do you get an ice age? and then a warm period, and then another ice age, then another warm period, followed by an ice age….?”

Those took long periods of time. Likely a small orbital forcing, amplified by feedbacks. Again it’s not going to happen this century, also as an aside it’s a reasonable argument for climate sensitivity being higher than 1.7C.

Someone call?

Eli>

Someone called you a rabid rent-seeking fraudulent cunt. The first step in changing yourself is accepting who you are, so good on you for responding to that title, I guess.

dave someone said you raped children.

is this true?

Lolwot>

I believe they were talking metaphorically. It wouldn’t be unfair to describe the beatdowns people give the likes of you and Scharführer Connelley as metaphorically raping intellectual children, given the degree of resistance you are able to put up to your violation. I’ve been known to dabble.

“William M. Connolley // Dec 19, 2012 at 3:04 pm

On climate, Ridley is an idiot and you’re a fool for taking him seriously.”

——-
On climate, he’s figured out the Magic Gas isn’t hiding the Magic Heater in the Sky from the most sophisticated electronic space-age you’ll ever apply your criminopathy to.

Connolley’s behaviour and aggression suggests deep insecurity. There are two periods in peoples’ lives when growing up that are crucial to their emotional development and feeling of security: from infants to children (ages 4 to 6 approx); from childhood to adolescence (ages 11 to 13 approx). Any trauma such as an accident, illness, child abuse (that may or may not be sexual), or violence (including the threat of violence) while itself is bad, the real tragedy is that he or she was not believed or listened by his or her primary caregivers, particularly in the case of abuse. This last point is worth repeating: while the abuse is itself bad it is the disbelief or lack of (loving) support by the primary caregivers that does much of the damage and helps creates the insecurity.

This impact is exacerbated by the trauma or abuse happening at a very young age (under 6 say) when the child is preliterate, i.e. is unable to express themselves, and also when the caregivers themselves also carries this insecurity. This latter point is very common in dysfunction families and some like-minded groups (groupthink?) for the simple reason that many sufferers recognise in other people that “you think just like I do”, not recognising (or even having the ability to know) that the similarities in thinking and behaviour are the result of the unbelieved or unresolved trauma or abuse.

It has only recently been discovered (via MRT brain scans) that there is empirical evidence now to support this social welfare theory on the impact of trauma on preliterate children. The almond-sized and shaped amygdala, a lobe of the brain’s cerebellum, controls (in part?) the body’s fight or flight response, i.e. the impact of adrenalin on the system. In traumatised children, especially those of preliterate age (say under six) the sudden onrush of adrenalin would be enough to overwhelm and kill an infant; the amygdala overcomes this (somehow?) by controlling the onrush so as not to jeopardise the health of the infant – which is why small infants can seemingly witness violence or abuse and remain “unaffected”.

Unfortunately they are affected as the amygdala’s response is to imprint behaviours on the brain such that anytime in the future that person undergoes any stress that releases adrenalin the response is the same: fight or flight, more often than not resulting in aggressive, violent (be it in word or action), abusive, loopy or otherwise inappropriate behaviour – this manifests in the personality as a type of narcissism, most commonly expressed as blaming others for one’s own (negative) feelings, or of feeling superior. The other unfortunate aspect is that to these people their behaviour is “normal”, it being what they are used to, and the older they get the less likely they will do anything about it except “blame the other”.

TallDave // Dec 20, 2012 at 4:48 pm

‘I’ve seen variations on that claim a few times, but nothing ever seems to come of it. Are there any published papers supporting this claim’

I think you meant me not Aldous. This is basic radiative equilibrium. The atmosphere is a near black body emitter in the major GHG bands as is the Earth’s surface. You go back to Maxwell’s Equations. Only net radiative flux in any wavelength can do thermodynamic work, Poynting’s Theorem. So when the models assume 396 W/m^2 goes up as a real flux, when it is an artefact of the pyrometer, and 333 W/m^2 goes down, but is also an artefact, they exaggerate warming and create imaginary feedback.

In reality the main CO2 signal disappears. The main residual IR absorption is a bit of water vapour side bands, not in self absorption and ozone. The two-stream approximation used by Houghton is wrong at the boundaries and there can be no CO2-AGW. Most of the GHE is the rise in surface temperature from reduced surface emissivity.

It’s taken an engineer with a PhD in applied physics to show the climate dolts got basic heat transfer wrong, shouted about it too early and are now hoist with their own petards, inventing imaginary polluted cloud cooling and ‘abyssal heat’ to try to finesse AR5.

Ultimately, we have a bad case of mass hysteria, the belief that ‘pyrgeometers’ measure a real energy flux when the signal is temperature. The manufacturers correctly mention in the small print that only the net signal is an energy flux, the most basic of physics imaginable: http://www.kippzonen.com/?product/16132/CGR+3.aspx [near the bottom].

This is an amazing story of experimental incompetence allied to the hubris of arrogant people. And yes, I have done lots of experimental work with coupled heat transfer!

Somehow, I think we humble members of the public here have worked that out.

It is a fairly reasonable assumption, possibly even the modern usage of Occam’s razor (but not the original formulation which was a ‘proof’ of the existence of God) that anybody screaming about “THE TRUTH” is probably no closer to ‘the truth’ than could be achieved by me and a dart board (or any other high-entropy randomisation method).

Blimey, its like one of those brawls in a cowboy film that starts in a bar between two cowboys and slowly sucks in the rest of the cowboys in the bar. It then spills in to the street and drags in all the cowboys from nearby bars. Eventually everyone’s forgotten what the initial row was about, if they even knew or cared, but they’re enjoying the fight anyway.

Its been a good way for Tim to attract traffic though!

Of which this is one: http://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-glenda-slag-geoengineering-prize.html

“But ‘climate sensitivity’, in this context, is to doubling of CO2. And you posit that the long term natural fluctuation in temperature is due to orbital effects. So unless there is a very significant causal effect on global CO2 emissions either from the orbital change itself or the consequent rise in temperature, the climate sensitivity value is an irrelevance in this case.”

There is a significant causal effect on global CO2 emissions. Part of the feedback to and from “ice ages” included large changes in CO2.

Moshling: wake me up when Lewis is actually published. Or, as I said, feel free to send me a pre-release copy if you want me to read it. Since you appear to have declined that invite my best guess is that you don’t want me to read it.

> Nic Lewis’s 2012 paper identifies some fundamental problems with F2006

That would be fun, if true. But no, I’m not going to trust an unpublished paper, nor am I going to trust your assessment of it.

> You, without checking facts, doubted Lewis’s credentials. I presented the credentials.

Lewis’s credentials, as presented by you, are (a) being cited by the IPCC and (b) being published. Well, the latter isn’t quite true. The former, I agree, is a credential. But isn’t it rather ironic, if you read back over the “credentialist” part of this thread from all your fellow-travelling wackos? They certainly wouldn’t accept either as a valid credential.

And, in fact, I had very little to say re Lewis’s credentials. Go back and re-read #9, #23. You’re making things up. And you *still* have nothing to say about the actual content of Lewis’s work.

Frederick: I am writing it up.

The radiative heat transfer physics I am using is standard from long before climate science borrowed the incorrect two-stream approximation from astrophysics and made the mistake, from meteorology, of assuming a pyrometer measures energy flux instead of a temperature signal.

Read up the heat transfer chapter in Perry’s Chemical Engineering handbook, co-written by Hoyt C. Hottel who first established GHG physics in the 1940s at MIT. this is the baseline to which climate science must return before it can get back on the true path….

LolWot successfully explains why the Moshers, Currys and Fullers of this world are ridiculous: the assertions they make are blatantly internally inconsistent and self-contradictory.
And here they are demanding we believe that some unpublished paper giving a particular sensitivity value trumps the dozens of published papers that give similar sensitivity values.
How many times have we seen this happen before? They seize on these tiny scraps – and each time it’s the final nail in the coffin of global warming….and each time they look like chumps when their scrap turns out to have been wrong.
And yet they keep coming back for more.

The average Joe public knows damn well that climate change denialism is stupid because the average Joe can see perfectly well that this denialism relies on every logical fallacy in the book.
And cranks like the looney posting above.

Craid:
I thought the significance of the Lewis work had to do with not using the output of simulations as data ?

The average Joe public knows damn well that climate change denialism is stupid because the average Joe can see perfectly well that this denialism relies on every logical fallacy in the book.

Really? From my experience the average Joe public took on board all the dire warnings in the 80’s and 90’s, and let’s not forget that even Maggie Thatcher was convinced by the arguments then, and is now wondering what all the fuss was about. An increasing number of them are starting to think they’ve been had.

The global warming clowns have tried to teach to all who’ll listen that an incredibly plentiful stream of incoming infrared,

when initially blocked for all the gases are worth by a class of infrared opaque gases

when that stream of infrared photons coming from a disk cross section many, many times the size of earth itself – hence that stream coming from almost 5 sides – dead on, above/below/left/right –

after these gases block this incoming infrared energy to the point they’ve stopped 20% of the sun’s energy from getting to earth,

whatever does get to earth is then picked up by the majority species of that class of infrared gases – water – and tunneled upward in a convective engine comprising an actual phase change refrigeration cycle –

to hillbillies who believe in Magic Gas, this class of gases accomplishing all this, is WARMING the earth.

Blocking 20% of the sun’s incoming energy then creating an atmospheric pressures gradient phase change refrigeration system is WARMING to hicks like Connolly who apparently, can’t have the effect of a screen blocking incoming radiation explained to him.

He’s a fraud perpetrating fraud so his friends can perpetrate as much fraud as possible and he’s a criminal.
Period.
If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have found himself grouped in with the men who foisted that a battery drill is too difficult to get into the woods to take bores on trees,

grouped with the men who foisted that ignorant scrawls making hockey sticks are a ‘whole new branch of mathematics!’

grouped with the men who foisted that the magic hockey stick looker, makes a bore hole, a treemomitur

grouped with the men who had their political leader try to add CO2 to a jar and have that jar cool and therefore have to switch thermometers.

Switching thermometers and getting caught???

grouped with the men who were found using government databases as nothing more than hog wallows, in which endless streams of alterations, deletions, and sheer manipulations, not were – but ARE the course of the day.

It’s crime, Connolley’s one of them. And he deserves to be in jail with his science hick friends.

Bizarre claims, of entire atmospheric infrared energy components, so large they can change entire economies –

when the entire infrared astronomy field looking since the BEGINNING of the entire, infrared astronomy field,

sees precisely Z E R O of this prepostrous “Magic Gases that can only Warm’

SCAM.

The entire optical astronomy field – the guys who put Einstein on the map helping him measure the deflection of a beam of starlight by gravity as it was passing something in space

yeah those guys –

computerized, motorized, mirror flexing apparatus in place, to secure quality of viewing in face of EARTH SHINE FREQUENCY INFRARED DRIVEN CONVECTION –

THE definition of HEAT on gas being MOTION therefore unMASKable –

all these optical astronomers, in ALL these years, checking atmospheric infrared levels each day, marking down how much exists each hour, so people can know which experiments can be best done on what days –
this studious marking of every measurable parameter of the sky, from the ground, from space –

not ONE mention of ‘rising atmospheric infrared limiting viewing through many earth-based telescopes’

– this kind of reason means nothing to intellectual cockroaches like Connolley.

He’s an ignorant criminopathological hick who was too stupid to know that his exploits will have his grandchildren being pointed to as descendents of one of the most evil men of the early 21st century.

It’s crime.
Put him in jail.

At least if I can’t put you in jail I can point you out all over the internet and then explain to my kids that if the SCAM you PRESENT was real, astronomers would have been systematically measuring the rise in motion in the atmosphere.

The stars twinkling.

Since you can’t scam all things, stupid,

your kids are going to know you as just another prodigious, but evil, criminal,

weather scammer.

At least you will to my children, and their dad’s an electronic engineer who’s specialty is the transmission, capture, and analysis of electromagnetic energy through the atmosphere, space, and industrial compounds needed to make all that happen.

Your kids will be ‘that weather scammer guy’s’ kids.

Forever hick.

What did I tell you!?
What
did
I
tell
you
hick?

Watch.

William M. Connolley // Dec 21, 2012 at 3:18 pm

> What Did I Tell You!? …misc Sky Dragon Ranting…

All very dull, and you’re not even brave enough to use your real name. Still, its a nice illustration of the S/N problems you get at unmoderated blogs

————————-

It’s moderated by the fact you can’t find a hillbilly who can feed CO2 into the jar Al Gore had to switch thermometers in.

It’s moderated by the fact you’re too stupid to explain to your children why your Magic Gas is making the atmospheric infrared grow

but not a single
optical
or
infrared

instrument
on earth or in space

has found it,
and that BECAUSE the Magic Gas is so magic,

the STARS even don’t twinkle more.

Hillbilly Hick.

Interesting, that Matt Ridley takes is disgusted when people make nasty insinuations against others:

–snip–

How disgusting that he resorts to ad-hominem argument

–snip–

Interesting that Matt Ridley’s disgust seems to be rather selective:

–snip–

The big question is this: Will the lead authors of the relevant chapter of the forthcoming IPCC scientific report acknowledge that the best observational evidence no longer supports the IPCC’s existing 2°-4.5°C “likely” range for climate sensitivity? Unfortunately, this seems unlikely— ***given the organization’s record of replacing evidence-based policy-making with policy-based evidence-making, as well as the reluctance of academic scientists to accept that what they have been maintaining for many years is wrong.***

[…]

On behalf of all those poor people whose lives are being ruined by high food and energy prices caused by the diversion of corn to biofuel and the subsidizing of renewable energy ***driven by carboncrats and their crony-capitalist friends,*** one can only hope the scientists will do so.

–snip–

Interesting, and sad.

Okay that’s not true it’s being taught everywhere government grant money can buy prestige enough to run education into the ground.

I want some Magic Gas.

It’s crime. It always was, it is now, it was, when it was Hansen-Odie-Ology about the ‘mite bee ‘asPLODING tropopause!’ scam.

It was crime when Al Gore used it to sway energy markets,

It was crime when Mann et al got in front of Congress and lied about a battery drill being too hard to get into the forest to take more bore holes,

It was crime whenever one of these weather scammers wrote a program that made hockey sticks from calibration data, then claimed it made a tree, a treemomitur.

It’s crime, and Connolly’s one of the criminals that keeps the criminal wheel running by pretending he believes magic gas is hiding infrared spectrum light in the atmosphere not a single detector can find.
Not one optical telescope,
not one infrared telescope,
not one amateur looking for that ‘easy A’ paper, getting out photos of the sky over periods of years through particular instruments, and noticing – “Hey – look – more, and more, atmospheric scintillation as earth-shine frequency light, aka heat, builds up in the atmosphere!’

Not one.
Not one.

Because everybody doesn’t understand the magic gas like Connolly over at unmoderated wikipedia, where people drive thousands of articles into the ground, frivoling drivel about magical infrared light spectra so special we can’t really understand the giant heater in the sky.

It’s crime pure and simple, and you can see it with the offhand ease of explaining why the stars twinkle to a seven year old –
as long as you leave out Connolly’s Magic Gas-ie-odie spectral epileptic fit, where the laws of optical astronomy get suspended.

Wuh? I come back to this thread after one day, and there’s more shit being thrown than at a drunken baboon’s Christmas party.

Doubting Rich – I believe you asked what empirical evidence there is for global warming being mainly our fault. There’s plenty if you want to look. As a starter for ten:

Regarding the link between fossil-fuel burning and the CO2 increase, there’s the changing ratios carbon isotope ratios in the atmosphere and the decreasing oxygen concentration.

Regarding the link between CO2 and most of the surface warming a) the stratosphere is currently cooling – expected from CO2 warming, but the opposite of what would happen if the Sun was responsible. And b) ocean heat content is going up, whereas it would be going down if the oceans were responsible.

And not a ‘model’ in sight – at least in the sense I think you mean.

Yup, I should’ve guessed some of that brown stuff was gonna hit me too.

Have a good Christmas, WDITY!?

Not sure, but I think Tim’s been reverse trolled there. By the WDITY poster. Load of tinfoil hat ranting to break up the discourse. Probably by someone who spells his name with an ‘e’ or one of his pals.

Someone does not understand about IR astronomy

“explain how all the infrared and optical astronomical observers for the past thirty years are Magically blinded by the Magical Gas that Magically hides Magically held heat”

In majic airplanes of course:) The semi-serious answer is that at the least you have to get very high up (Mauna Kea or the Atacama) in dry places to eliminate the water vapor, and if you want to look in the regions of the IR covered by the ozone and CO2 bands you need satellites

It would help if you stopped embarrassing yourself

PaulB is doubtless too modest to point out his own useful contribution, so I will: http://pb204.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/fears-of-climate-change.html

For those of you who aren’t thoroughly familiar with this entire Magical Gas scam,

Eli Rabett is one of the original internet kooks who was championing Magic Gas online. He’s a Hockey Schtick Scam Team Groupie from the early days when they still took groupies.

As far as 3X2 goes he’s just someone on a blog,

and maybe he’s really a seriously inquiring person;

or, maybe he’s just another Magic Gas MoonBatBilly who thinks the giant heater in the sky
is too special to be analyzed by the soiled minds of carbon sinning doubters.

In any case, it’s a scam.

It’s why these people are found scamming,
scamming,
scamming:
Mann with his fake math
Connolly with his thousands of scientific articles defaced,
Hansen with his ‘the tropopause could AsPloDE!’
Jones with his utterly destroyed world climate data repository that he, and his cohorts TRASHED until it’s no longer even a database –

lying through their teeth at every turn – go check Al Gore’s online “24 hours of climate truth” experiment where he SWITCHED the THERMOMETERS –

and why the government employee criminals doing it, are fighting Freedom of Information Act law at every turn.

Don Blue // Dec 21, 2012 at 8:46 pm

http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/

Handily, it’s the first result you get if you Google “ocean heat content”.
———————————–

Don you DO realize that those heat calculations are just that: calculations and there wasn’t a way to actually sample ocean heat content until the ARGO buoys correct?

Don Blue if you’re one of those who are legitimately investigating this, my apology for presenting as though nothing you think or say matters to me.

This is a scam that has had many years’ evolution.

And Arnald I’m going to stop now. You guys have a nice and safe and good and enjoyable Christmas.

Sorry if whoever’s blog this is, got offended at me burning down that criminal trash’s hut on his page.

Tell the people in this forum again how you believe speaking of yourself in the third person as though you’re a media savant makes you anything but demonstrated as having a personality disorder.

Magic Gas Hick.

I said ‘optical astronomical photography of the sky’

I meant to say ‘highly magnified optical astronomical photography, of the night sky.’

In any case they’re scammers and all you’ve got to do is imagine sitting there under those stars,

asking yourself what Connolly and all Magic Gassers MUST TELL THEIR CHILDREN about why the sky has more infrared energy in it,

but the infrared and optical astronomy fields are PIN-DROP QUIET about how their instruments can’t see the infrared,

and all that heat.

The entire field of earth-based optical astronomy AWE STRUCK that the ATMOSPHERIC INFRARED just keeps CLIMBING and CLIMBING

but the stars don’t waver more under the defined action of that heat, on that gas, scintillation.

Not a word.
Not one professor looking for that stunning proof there really is magic gas holding magical heat.

Not one student looking high and low for that easy A, for that position as assistant, for that paper that makes their mark in the world of atmsopheric energy dynamics.

Every semester.
Around the world.

Not a single word about how all that Magic Gas, has Magically trapped all that Magic Infra Red, and those stars are showing that indeed, HEAT on GAS does equal MOTION.

Not a word.

Magic Gas Hillbillies: they’re what’s left when the Magic Gas requires telling children the sky’s warmer, but the stars don’t twinkle more,

because they’re sad because of carbon sin.

Hicks.

The Argos era? Well I did shop there a bit in the 90s…

Seriously though, AlecM, I had a look at charts 4&5 on the NOAA link a provided, if that’s what you’re referring to. I’m not seeing the decrease since the 50s I’d be looking for. Care to elaborate?

Moshler: so you’d still rather I didn’t read the paper? No surprise then.

More fun: http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2012/12/22/cage-fight-ridley-vs-romm/

My my Connelly( with an e) you’re still one angry dude, wheels falling off the AGW wagon one by one. And poor old Willy missed the gravy train all those teamsters rolling in the celebrity and money grants and poor old Willy left outside in the cold, no grants to do any modeling,no Wiki to alter history,fact or peoples achievments..all thats left is to come on to blogs and bloivate and call people names,how the might(in his own mind ) have fallen,cock of the roost on daye feather duster the next, ain’t live a bitch,LOL,LOL,LOL,

Mycroft, now some, not Eli to be sure, might think it was Dave not Wm. who said

“Someone called you a rabid rent-seeking fraudulent cunt. The first step in changing yourself is accepting who you are, so good on you for responding to that title, I guess.”

and others, not Eli to be sure, might think it was Ed who said

”

Well, given we have arch pier, fabricator, and general bozo Connelly commenting on the thread against Ridley, I is pretty much a given that Ridley is correct. Connelly, like the other deliberate fabricators prefers to spend his time gatekeeping to prevent relevant research being performed.

Your deliberate distortions and mendacious behaviour as shown on the Wikipedia farce should have you laughed off any serious forum Connelly. You are even stupid enough to think that MBH 1998/9 was serious science !”

Angry dudism is so yesterday.

Don Blue:
“Regarding the link between CO2 and most of the surface warming a) the stratosphere is currently cooling .”

Where did you find these erroneous readings?

@ eli rabett
and where do you placey yourself in all this.Another gatekeeper or climate activist troll who comes to blogs to stick his fingers in his ears and shout BLAH BLAH BLAH whenever skeptics bring a new piece of data,method, to the table???ithink i know but would be interested to know how you describe yourself?

Two more thoughts: 1) temperatures response to carbon dioxide is inelastic, and carbon dioxides response to economic growth is inelastic too.

In short, if you reduce growth, carbon dioxide doesn’t change much, and if you do that, temperature doesn’t change much either.

How much is not much? These two elasticities show behavior that is far less sensitive than, say, the response of cigarette smokers to price.

Well Mycroft, what exactly did Eli post to set the nutters (TM Wm Connolley) off? As to information, Eli did present some about infrared astronomy and then had to spend some time wiping the inside of his monitor screen off from What’s spittle. Hard work that.

In short, you want a reasoned discourse, play by the rules of reasoned discourse. You want a knife fight, don’t object when others haul out their machette.

Still, just to show what a nice Bunny Eli is allow him to make a comment about the stuff Dave Tufte is selling the first link of which is:
——————————

One pitfall in doing these calculations is that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is a ratio measurement, while the temperatures we’re used to are interval measurements. The solution is easy: use the Kelvin temperature.

Data on temperature is easy to come by. World average temperature is about 290º (big differences in that guesstimate will have little bearing on my final result). Over the past 50 years, temperatures have increased from about 289.8º to 290.5º. That’s a change of 0.25%.

Data on carbon dioxide concentration is also easy to come by. Over the past 50 years it has increased from 315 to 392 ppm. That’s a change of 24.44%.

Very roughly, the elasticity of temperature with respect to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is the ratio of those two percentages: 0.25%/24.44% = 0.01.

———————————

There are two simple mistakes in this calculation, one in the numerator, the other in the denominator.

Let us look at the more significant one first. A BOE (back of the envelope) calculation of the percent change of temperature for looking at elasticity is not the full interval (290K), but the average earth temperature without any greenhouse gases, generally given as 255 K (lots of sources for that, lots of quibbles, and lots of detail if you really care, but close enough for our purposes).

Thus the difference of 0.7K/35K or about 2%.

The response of the atmosphere to CO2 changes is not linear, but sub linear, roughly logarithmic, so the ratio of the forcing would be (again roughly)
[log (392)-log(315)]/log(392) = 3.6%

and the ratio of [CO2]/DT is about 1.8

The reason for going into this detail is that youse (Eli comes from Brooklyn) guys overestimate what you know, and underestimate what the climate scientists know. This leads to the sort of nonsense we are seeing here. Don’t feel bad, condensed matter physicists do the same.

And Eli does not beat Ms. Rabett (except occasionally in cribbage). Among other good habits the Bunny does not answer ill formed questions from bags of wind with the earned derision, so Mycroft, enjoy your Christmas Holiday:) Good Cheer

“And here they are demanding we believe that some unpublished paper giving a particular sensitivity value trumps the dozens of published papers that give similar sensitivity values.”

I am doing no such thing.

First, I am arguing that Connelley was wrong to dismiss Lewis out of hand and wrong to question his bone fides. I am arguing that on the basis of.

A) having read his paper accepted by the Joc
B) having read the IPCC evaluation of his work
C) having read the errata to Ar4 that his error catching occassioned.
D) having read his work ( and code ) for his paper on Antarctica.

As I stated above I do not think his lowest estimate is
A) outside the consensus
B) the final word.

I would say that it’s more likely than not that the true ECS lies between 1.5 and 3C. That is, I am more than 50% confident that ECS is less than 3C. This is actually the consensus position although they dont state it that way. Loking at the time period involved in most of Nics work I would say that his values do not likely include slow feedbacks.. Perhaps his value is more representative of TCS than ECS, but there is rich debate there. His work is not the last word and I actually prefer hansen’s Paleo approaches, which indicate higher numbers.

But in all of this I think an unbiased look at all the methods for ESTIMATING ECS reveals that there is room for honest debate about the true value, whether it is 1.6 or 4.5 IS AN HONEST DEBATE, its not denialist bull crap. Denying Nic contributions out of hand is denialist bullcrap. Accepting it without question is over reaching bullcrap. So, stop the bullcrap. The consensus is that the value lies between 1.5 and 4.5. deal with that. Dont have a cow when somebody publishes 1.6 and dont plan a parade when somebody else published 4.2. Dont claim victory when somebody publishes 1.6 and dont scream fraud when Hansen argues for 3C.

Mycroft darling, Eli is neither gatekeeper nor troll, he is but a simple bunny.

Mind you one of the worst.
In the country.
With the most physics professors
With the most PROFESSORS

in the country, he’s rated one of the
VERY

WORST.

@eli rabett or can i now call you Joshua…. Ouch thats gotta hurt
perhaps instead of spend a large amount of your time on the internet gatekeeping or trolling for the Warmists, you should concentrate on your job.
Teaching is a seriuos job you should be a role model for your students…not a turn off.
Just another turn and collect your paycheck eh no wonder you fit in with the Team so well ,with comments like those from your students i’d start looking for a new tenure or better still a new job,sleeping well are we Bunnykins..

” NASA University Research Center (BCCSO)

The Beltsville Center for Climate System Observation (BCCSO) is a NASA University Research Center located at the Beltsville, Maryland campus of Howard University. BCCSO consists of a multidisciplinary group of Howard faculty in partnership with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Earth Sciences Division, other academic institutions, and government. This group is led by three Principal Investigators, Everette Joseph, also the director of BCCSO, Demetrius Venable and Belay Demoz. BCCSO trains science and academic leaders to understand atmospheric processes through atmospheric observing systems and analytical methods.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_University#Notable_alumni

http://bccso.howard.edu/about

So we can all see clearly Joshua B Halpern is nothing more than a know-nothing who thinks Magical Bakkerd’s Radiation is proved pointing a thermometer at the sky. Who – TEN BUCKS BETCHA – was told test for MBR (Magical Bakkerd’s Radiation) that way by one of these guys:

http://bccso.org/about/investigators

They’re investigating whether civilization needs to be shut down.

But over there at Howard University they’ve got Joshua Halpern waving the IR thermometer.

The guy on the telescope reads it because the thermometer is so far away when Halpern holds it up on tippie toe for those higher altitude readings you can’t take from earth.

I wonder if Halpern should ask one of his NASA advisors if heat on gas is really still motion, or if that has been changed because lower income inner city students don’t really understand science all that well?

Maybe he could tell Halpern whether or not the Magical Bakkerd’s Radiation is uh… HIDIN frum his TELESCOPE, TOO!
Now that’s Magical Bakkerd’s Radiation which is why they NAMED it, Magical Bakkerd’s Radiation after NASA researcher Dr. M. Bakkerd.

A lot of that stuff was discovered between Dr. Bakkerd and Dr. Mann, Mann of course doing the sophisticated math that makes a bore hole a treemomitur.

That’s why it’s all NAMED: Magic Bore Holes, Magical Treemomiturs, Magical Mannian Math, etc..

Jesus fucking Christ on a weeping tricycle

“The crucial question has always been: what is climate sensitivity?

How much warming do we get for a doubling of greenhouse gases?”

That’s two questions, I’ll add another:

When the claimed “Greenhouse Effect of 33°C warming from minus 18°C to 15°C by greenhouse gases” is an illusion?

The concept has been created by tweaking real physics, by sleights of hand. You’re arguing about the stitching on the Emperor’s New Clothes, which you cannot see.

Wakey, wakey.

“..when the Water Cycle is put back into the AGWScienceFiction’s Greenhouse Effect Energy Budget, then the “33°C warming from -18°C by greenhouse gases” is seen to be an illusion.

Without any of our atmosphere of mainly nitrogen and oxygen the temperature would be minus18°C.

AGWSF lies that this is the temperature “with nitrogen and oxygen in place”, and only without its greenhouse gases ..

Our full atmosphere of real greenhouse gases, which are not ideal gases but have volume, weight, attraction and subject to gravity, act as a blanket weighing down a ton per square foot around the Earth keeping the heat from the Sun’s warming of the Earth from escaping too quickly before the Sun again heats the surface. Compare with the Moon.

Taking the Water Cycle out of this the temperature would be 67°C, think deserts.

In other words, the Earth’s atmosphere of practically 100% nitrogen and oxygen alone, without water, would be 52°C hotter – so much hotter, these are the real gases actually acting like a heavy blanket around the Earth..

The Water Cycle cools the Earth down to 15°C from the 67°C it would be without water.

By clever sleight of hand AGWSF has created a direct warming from the minus18°C to 15°C without any connecting logical process, from beginning with the science fraud that the -18°C doesn’t include absence of our great heavy real gas blanket of nitrogen and oxygen and by removing entirely the Water Cycle.

Real physics is logical in its connections with internal coherence..

The “Greenhouse Effect of 33°C warming by greenhouse gases” is an illusion, a magic trick.

@ianam
WOW!!!CO2 is able to distinquish between skeptics and Sheep.wonderful thing this CO2
brings life and warmth? and is now sentient!!!
which is a lot more than you.

Sorry to join the party so late, but regarding Lewis’ “analysis” of climate sensitivity, I’d like to make a few comments.

First off, I’m surprised how much attention Lewis gets for posting a back-of-the-envelope calculation on a blog post, versus the attention that peer-reviewed papers get that obtain largely the same result.
I would expect that, if Lewis really thinks that his estimate of 1.6 C climate sensitivity is relevant, that he would at least write a decent scientific paper on that and get it reviewed and published.

Especially since Lewis does not actually calculate the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity factor that is commonly referred to by the IPCC and paleo-climate analyses, but instead the on-going “effective” climate sensitivity as Gregory et al 2002 already pointed out.

Apart from this difference in definition of what Lewis is actually trying to calculate versus what the IPCC CSE definition stands for, I think his number of 1.6 C/doubling-of-CO2, if accepted by the climate “skeptic” community, would be a significant achievement. After all, it is more than a factor 3 higher than previous “skeptic” assessments of climate sensitivity such as by Lindzen and Monckton.

Do “skeptics” disagreeing with IPCC assessments really accept Lewis’ results ?

If so, then maybe Lewis unpublished back-of-the-envelope calculations can be the start of a real dialogue between “alarmists” and self-proclaimed “skeptics”.
If not, and “skeptics” go back to long-debunked arguments of climate sensitivity below 1 C/doubling, then why would any scientist even want to look at Lewis’ unpublished back-of-the-envelope calculations ?

Your style is really unique compared to other people I have read stuff
from. I appreciate you for posting when you have the opportunity, Guess I’ll just book mark this page.