Disqus - Latest Comments for timcurtin

Re: Robustness of Natural Variation

timcurtin — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:41:51 -0000

Interesting stuff, only problem is the underlying "global temperature" data itself, which is deeply corrupted by the southerly march of temperature records in the NH, and northerly march in Australia and South America. EM Smith has documented this exhaustively at his site http://chiefio.wordpress.com
So far as can be determined, NOAA/GISS, BoM, and CRUT make no attempt to weight their global series for departures and/or relocations of Met stations. Instead it appears they weed out stations showing declining trends and keep only the warmers. Is that fair comment? Probably, especially for CRUT and Gistemp. Incredibly it appears GCHN now has only 2 "compliant" stations for England, Bournemouth and Waddington of all places. In Australia cool Tasmanian stations have been replaced by warm ones in NT - consistent with the trend for "public" servants to become Political Commissars (as at CSIRO, see Spash affair in this week's Australian).

Re: Replicating McLean

timcurtin — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 11:31:53 -0000

Andrew - you are on the ball! Moroever your comments point to the absurdity of Greenpeace on the one hand protecting whales from the Japanese, and on the other demanding not 80% but 100% cessation of all anthropogenic emissions of CO2 even though 57% of all such emisions since 1958 have been taken up by oceanic and terrestrial biospheres; the oceanic uptake of CO2 apart from dissolving CO2 mostly comprises photosynthesis by marine vegetation (phytoplankton) which is eaten by krill who are eaten by whales et al., but not after Greenpeace have their way. Whales will die in droves and Greenpeace will never admit responsibility. Brave new world!

Re: Replicating McLean

timcurtin — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 11:25:19 -0000

Exactly. Nick what is your problem with that? Mauna Loa provides a perfect example of Karl Popper's black swan. End of IPCC.

Re: Replicating McLean

timcurtin — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 07:24:48 -0000

Nick, where did I say the temperature at Mauna Loa is "global"? What I did say and I repeat is that it is very odd that (1) temps at Mauna Loa are ignored by GISS and Hadley in their stats on GMT; (2) there is no correlation between CO2 at Mauna Loa and temps at Mauna Loa; (3) there is also no correlation between CO2 at ML and temps at Honolulu Observatory; (4) there is - oh frabjous day at GISS and Hadley! - a great correlation between CO2 at ML and temps at Honolulu Airport, Bingo!

What has happened is that CO2 has been deemed to be the source of AGW as measured mostly at airports, when in reality the trend in GMT if any is due to human economic activity (industrial, agricultural, etc) that is associated with CO2 but not caused by it. CO2 is merely a minor and incidental by-product of human economic activity with a relationship to temperature only in the general area where such activity is occurring.

Re: Replicating McLean

timcurtin — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 18:23:22 -0000

David S: the argument I am trying to make is that the IPCC et al have a hypothesis that the atmospheric concentration of CO2 (hereafter [CO2]) is correlated with global mean temperature (GMT). The IPCC's AR4 stated that it was more than 95% "confident" that this is the case and that therefore global warming is a function of [CO2]. The upcoming Copenhagen Conference is wholly dependent on this correlation being correct. When we then find that the IPCC's norm for [CO2] measurements is those at Mauna Loa, and we also find virtually no correlation of temperatures at Mauna Lo with [CO2] then by both Einstein and Popper the hypothesis fails. The reason it fails is because while temperatures are indeed correlated with anthropogenic causes, that cause is not [CO2] which is nothing more than a minor by-product of human activity involving large usage of energy apart from that deriving from fossil fuels. For example we none of us need eat or drink the output of burning fossil fuels unless our food and drink are processed using fossil fuels. However ALL of what we eat and drink has as its main constituent the carbohydrates emerging from use of [CO2] in the photosynthesis process which produces all of what we eat in its primary form – and is the source of all human energy and activity. That activity is what produces warming, measurable now even at South Pole where the US et al have built a sizable town.

And that is why the plan at Copenhagen to coerce the whole world to reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions by at least 60%, i.e. to 40% of the 2000 level, is so dangerous, because that level of around 2-3 Gt is below the current annual growth of new utilization of CO2 emissions now at a level of 6 GtC p.a., which has kept pace with those emissions since 1958, resulting in aggregate absorption since 1958 of 57% of total emissions from fossil fuels etc.

I hope I do not need to go on, but do please note that the history of mankind is based on use of energy in all its forms, not just fossil fuels. The reason there is no correlation between [CO2] and temps at Mauna Loa is clearly not because of the absence of CO2 but because of the absence of any significant economic activity there using energy in any form.

It follows that the IPCC’s scientists have misdirected themselves, to the delight of all too many Green groups who are at the end of the day more opposed to human economic activity in general than they are to global warming.