The Met Office lacks no certainty when it comes to climate change. It tells us that it now offers “weather and climate change forecasts for the UK and the world”. It seeks to forecast short term weather, ten year general climate, and 100 year climate cycles. It belongs to the school of thought which says that we are living through a period of global warming, and argues that has been brought about by human generated CO2.
To reinforce the message the website is punctuated by the symbols of dangerous climate change. There is a picture of a baked landscape, clearly suffering from excessive heat and no rain. England in 2012 did not look like that anywhere. There is a thermometer obligingly showing 30 degrees C, a temperature we so rarely experience here in the UK. Today I thought I would share with you some of their more interesting forecasts and statements from 2012.
February 2012 “Climate change and drought video”. The Met Office was warning us abouta serious UK drought.
23 March “The forecast for average UK rainfall slightly favours drier than average conditions for April-May-June as a whole….the water resources situation in southern, eastern and central England is likely to deteriorate further during the April-May-June period”
End 2012 ” the second wettest year in the UK dating back to 1910 … with April and June being the wettest on record.”
“Throughout the year (2012) accurate forecasts and warnings from the Met Office have helped everyone…”
The mean temperature for 2012 was 0.1 degrees C below the 1981-2010 average.
On December 24th they lowered their ten year temperature forecast based on a new model.
This record invites a few questions:
Do the Met office agree there has been no warming for the last decade?
Do they agree that world temperatures can be increased or diminished by solar action? How do they model that?
Do they agree that the move to the Medieval Warm period and then back to the Mini Ice Age was unconnected with human CO2? How do they model for similar changes in the future?
Is their current forecast for mild wet winters and hot dry summers in the UK as global warming progresses? That was what they were saying in their general climate change views.
Could the change in currents and winds that gave us cold winters and cool wet summers recently affect future years?
What is the role of water vapour as a greenhouse gas? What influence can human conduct have on water vapour and cloud formation?
Wouldn’t it be a good idea to concentrate their money and research on weather, and try to improve the accuracy of the forecasts for the next few months, rather than attempting ten year and 100 year forecasts?
January 11, 2013
When do you think the 2008 Climate Change Act with all the related target’s for renewable energy and the reduction of CO2 should be repealed?
How is Germany able to build 20 new coal fired power station’s and meet CO2 targets yet we have to close some of ours?
The USA has reduced its output of CO2 by switching to gas from coal, when do we start Fracking?
January 11, 2013
Perhaps it’s worth pointing out that Germany’s CO2e emissions are already almost 60% higher than the UK’s, and their per capita emissions are more than 20% higher. Some of the power stations are being built in other countries to supply Germany, partly so the emissions won’t appear on their books too.
January 11, 2013
Mr Redwood, thank you. At last a politician starting to question the “settled ” religion (science). The atmosphere contains 0.034% of CO2. To put this into context, much less than 1/10th of one percentage point. It is a naturally occurring trace gas and plant food that aids photosynthesis (green producing stuff). Can it be feasable that this amount of CO2 is driving climate change? Even if it influenced it, only a tiny proportion of that CO2 is made by man. The majority is produced by volcanoes, our oceans and domesticated animals and wildlife. There has always been climate change since time began. Most of it influenced by our relative position to the Sun, our orbit, its intensity and the globes moving tectonic plates altering climate in differing regions. The question is, is man really making a difference to climate and if so, can it be changed with “reasonable costs? Moreover, can we get international consensus to act as there is only one planet and we produce less than 2% of the globes manmade stuff or go back to the dark ages and/or export most of our industry? 86% of the globes Governments recently refused to continue the Kyoto agreement including the worlds largest emittors, USA, China etc. The exceptions were almost exclusively the UK/EU! What does that tell us about the quality of our leaders here and in Brussels? It makes them feel good and mighty all at our expense. So what is Mr Davey our Libdum Energy Minister doing? Why, he’s about to give another £2 billion in foreign aid to stop amongst other things South American cattle breaking wind and building more windmills at our expense in Africa that simply don’t work.
I watched his performance on Question time last night and frankly if he is an example of leadership and how we go forward, we are doomed. So now he and Mr Clegg say we need to remain in the EU to repatriate all those nasty criminals between EU states that wasn’t a problem…………… until we allowed them free movement of travel. How about stopping free movement? The Europhiles are clutching at straws. Soon we’ll have the 3 million jobs at risk with a £50 billion trade deficit, of course the USA cares about us more than its own self interest and the Germans/French want us to stay to pay the bills whilst they make billions in exports and we pay for their farmers!! Less influence in the world, no voice, pooer etc. If it was so good why don’t the USA, Japan, China, Australia, the BRICS all sign up to the EU? Because its nonsense. Political union NOT trade!
January 11, 2013
Time to debunk this nonsense.
1) A concentration of 0.16% of Carbon Monoxide in the atmosphere would be fatal to all of humanity. Just because something is present in very small amounts doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous.
2) Scientific evidence shows that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and is responsible for global warming.
3) As long as humanity keeps producing more and more CO2 the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere will continue to increase. As a result global warming continues to increase.
4) Kyoto is an agreement between the major producers of CO2. It doesn’t need the support of the every country in the world because most of humanity’s CO2 is produced by a few developed countries.
5) The EU has always been about political union.
January 12, 2013
uanime5 : “A concentration of 0.16% of Carbon Monoxide in the atmosphere would be fatal to all of humanity.”
Do you even know the difference between Carbon Monoxide and Carbon Dioxide?
January 12, 2013
1) Carbon Monoxide is a poisonous gas, CO2 is not, so your point is irrelevant
2)No-one questions that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, this is a straw man argument. The question is how much warming does it produce. There is no evidence that CO2 emissions by humanity are the main cause of global warming, its a hypothesis which the observed data don’t support
3)See above. The question is how much warming will be created.
4) Kyoto is dead and there is no replacement as countries outside the EU are not prepared to impoverish their populations based on the doubtful theory of man-made global warming
5) That isnt’ the way it was sold and has been defended in the UK. If that is the pro-EU argument in the referendum when it happens, the UK will leave.
January 12, 2013
China is not a party to Kyoto or Doha. It is the world’s largest CO2 emitter. By 2020, its emissions would reach half the global total in 2010 if they maintain their recent rate of growth.
January 12, 2013
1. So what? Your point is? Where’s your evidence?
2. Evidence is in short supply as there hasn’t been ANY warming for at least 15 years! What climate change has occurred has been attributed by “reliable and trustworthy” non sponsered scientists as the strength and weakness of the Sun that impacts the jetstream and in due course weather.
3. As 2 isn’t proven and hasn’t happened how can 3 be assumed. It can’t! Let us pray.
4. Kyota wasn’t adopted/renewed by 86% of the Globes leaders. Fact. Google it, despite the spin by the Global warming/climate change religion. The rest of the world has moved moved on whilst the benemoth, intransigent EU hasn’t as it has so much of our money invested in it. Windmills and solar panels don’t work most of the time. Saving face springs to mind. Does that remind you of anyone? 0.034% CO2!!!!
5. Yes. FCO 10/3048 from the FCO sums up the lies and stealthy deceipt practised on the British people by the mainstream politicians over 40 years. Now the truth is out and all polls show that the English people will vote for leaving the undemocratic, costly, regulatory monster. Now known as the EU!
January 12, 2013
@uanime5
“As a result global warming continues to increase.”
Reply: Do you mean like it hasn’t increased for the last decade?
Or do you mean the way it increased at the end of the ice age?
“The EU has always been about political union.”
Reply: Apart from when they asked the British public to vote in a referendum, they told us it was purely a trading arrangement, and it was called the EEC “European Economic Community”, all subsequent steps towards federalism have been done without the further consent of the population.
January 11, 2013
Mark, they also made a song and dance about shutting their Nukes, but they still import Nuke electric from France.
If you haven’t already, have a look at http://www.resource.uk.com/article/Latest/Gas_Generation_Strategy_released-2521#.UPBBB-SpDTo .
Link through to the DECC “Gas Generation Strategy” paper. I think Secretary Davey has seen the light, and beheld that it will be intermittent when the sun don’t shine and the wind don’t blow. And, it is not a real cost effective power station, unless you are getting a thousand Megawatts off a plot the size of a couple of football pitches.
Regardless of all the cods about renewable, solar voltaic is starting to look promising. The price of 200 – 250 watt panels has come down fast and the technology is practically following Moore’s Law. The Chinese are turning them out faster than TV flat panels. Average Lifetime Levelized Electricity generation cost is getting to be near sensible.
January 11, 2013
What is your source for Germany’s emissions? They seem unlikely due to Germany getting much more of its energy from renewable power.
January 12, 2013
9% of Germany’s energy comes from hydro power or renewables such as wind, solar, and 8% from nuclear. The rest is oil (37%), gas (21%) and coal (25%).
For comparison the UK produces just 4% as renewables, 8% as nuclear, 36% oil, 36% gas and just 16% coal.
Have fun here:
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/refreshTableAction.do?tab=table&plugin=1&pcode=tsdcc320&language=en
January 11, 2013
And don’t forget that other purveyor of global warmng propaganda – the Beeb!
January 11, 2013
The BBC quietly slipped out an article that should have been mainstream news (along with a mea culpa admitting they were wrong to regard the science as settled that I guess will only happen once the organisation has a cleanout). Meantime, they gave headlines to the hot weather in Australia and pushed the idea that weather=climate when it’s hot once again.
January 11, 2013
No chance of a clean out at the BBC with Lord Patten and fake green David Cameron is there? We see in the pathetic dramatisation of the sad death of a baby elephant in the new Africa series just how easy it is for the BBC, charities and the government to manipulate the gullible on so many issues. They usually use it mainly on Climate Alarmism, the “need” for ever more tax and government and the “need” for ever more EU and the “need” for ever more wind farm and silly electric car nonsense. All using our taxes to indoctrinate.
January 11, 2013
Lifelogic, I agree as usual with your comments, and would just like to add, as the mercury is plummeting, those wind farms which you mention are delivering 570MW, last night it was below 25oMW, from a nameplate capacity of>6900MW
January 11, 2013
True value of the 250MW perhaps just £1200 Per Hour, I think the rare birds killed by the turbines then stuffed and sold might well be worth nearly the same. Not to mention the exploded bats.
Insanity on stilts all cheered on by the BBC, Libdems, the EU and Cameron.
January 11, 2013
Scrap the Climate Change Act, scrap the EU emission target drivel, scrap DECC, get Lib Dems out of DECC. In the Middle Ages water mills were preferred every time to wind mills as a source of reliable energy, Lib Dems are out by about 700 years on their thinking. But what sane person would believe a word Nick Clegg says?
Privatise BBC, no need for the BBC Trust quango, it is ineffective as we have seen with the selection of its leader or the Saville scandal or the policy debate about being bias towards global warming, EU etc.
January 11, 2013
In the Middle Ages water mills were preferred every time to wind mills as a source of reliable energy
What exactly were they powering in the middle ages? You need to study more history.
January 12, 2013
uanime5: “What exactly were they powering in the middle ages?”
Mills for grinding wheat and corn etc.
January 12, 2013
I’ve read my history! They were grinding corn.
January 12, 2013
Here’s a horrific tale of BBC brainwashing.
I was having a chuckle with my 7 year old niece recently over a BBC children’s comedy: ” Horrible History”.
She proudly showed me a book written by the chap who produces the TV series, Terry Deary.
I was horrified to realise that the theme of the book is to thoroughly denigrate our entire Western Society.
Targets include God, & religions of all denominations.
The rule of law is belittled, & history itself.
The following are direct quotes:
“We learn nothing from history” Hegel (1770-1831).
“We cannot escape history” Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865).
“Did you know Archbishop James Usher (1581-1656) explained that according to the Bible: ‘History began when God made the world in 4004 BC’. But sorry, God – Jim Usher was WRONG. Probably. ( We’ll find out when we die and God will either be a) very angry because we said his Bible told lies or b) laughing her socks off and saying,’I told you so!’ because her Bible was right all along.)
The Law is thoroughly denigrated, from among others,
Hammurabi’s code, The Ten Commandments & the The Twelve Tablets of Roman Law
Goddess Kali is cruel, Christians are cruel, Torquemada the Churh’s chief torturer, Protestants are silly, Criminals are Cruel & on & on ad nauseam through 90+ pages.
Why in the middle of these 93 pages of murder, gore, betrayal, cannibalism is there not one single word about the progress made in the free world?
Why are the only words of praise for China, which has never achieved a democratic system of govt in it’s 5000+ year history?
Why indeed.
I do not consider this book suitable for young minds.
It is aimed at 7-13 year olds, & is freely available at your local library, where the shelves are crammed with companion books to the TV series along with endless propaganda re the Global Warming Scare Scam.
I regard this work as an attempt to subconsciously subvert our childrens’ minds against every foundation stone of our Western civilisation.
I have shown this work to a couple of parish priests & a vicars assistant so far, & I urge you all to nip down to your local library & verify what I’m saying.
The BBC is a traitorous organisation, working against the best interests of this country.
January 11, 2013
The fact that you couldn’t provide this article leads me to suspect that it doesn’t exist.
January 12, 2013
Given you also do not give us any references to articles supporting your comments why are your claims any different?
January 12, 2013
Well, that would have been quite normal for the BBC: fail to report anything that criticises inaccurate climate science. But in this case they did – although the language carefully avoided pointing out the reality that the previous models were wrong.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20947224
January 11, 2013
John, these questions have been asked on various blogs here in the UK and elsewhere.
The answers are pretty obvious.
The questions which must be asked in Parliament, and which we tax payers have been asking our MPs, are these:
When will the Climate Change Act be repealed?
Why hasn’t it be done already?
Why do we have to pay for something which is not happening, why are we ruining our economy, why are we killing off our elderly with ‘carbon taxes’ to ‘prevent’ something which is not occurring?
Why is Parliament, why is our government, not telling the Whitehall Mandarins to stop this nonsense and tell the EU where to get off?
(Oh – and why cannot somebody tell the BBC to stop propagating this nonsense?)
January 11, 2013
Fully agree.
Besides which my eyes, liked finger and piece of sea-weed are a better indicator each day.
January 11, 2013
Typo! should be “licked”
January 11, 2013
What is the real agenda of the climate change lobby?
January 12, 2013
The next level are the bureaucrats in it both for the money & the feeling of power they get from believing they are ‘saving the world’. UN, EU & UK bureaucrats come into this category.
The next level down are the believers in the new Green religion, who also believe they are saving the planet. These people do not respond to logic or reasoned argument or scientific facts. Anthropogenic Global Warming is ‘ a proven fact, supported by 97% of scientists’, despite the fact that any reasonably intelligent person who devotes a reasonable amount of time to investigating Global Warming can only come to the conclusion that it is both nonsense & certainly not a crisis:
(link removed as may be filmed without consent)
January 13, 2013
Now we get to the really frightening bit.
Who has the power & wealth to corrupt our bureaucracy, media & political class?
Who can do precisely the same in the EU, US & Australia?
Who can persuade the UK to shoot itself in the foot with expensive & unreliable power generation, such as solar & wind,
while history teaches us that cheap & reliable power is one of the foundation stones of economic & social progress?
In short, 2 forces:
1) Communism, which we have deeply infecting our schools, bureaucracy, universities, media & politicians.
We have a deeply ingrained anti business ethos in the West.
Profits are seen as immoral, not the means of human progress, & are to be grabbed by politicians, ostensibly for the benefit of those deserving, but actually to their degredation into state supported pets, without human dignity & the self respect which comes from earning your own living in a competetive market.
In this class I include not only the denizens of the sink estates which Theodore Dalrymple has written so well about, but also all the higher echelon drawers of the dole: the BBC, the Royal Opera House; the numerous charities, NGOs which proliferate in our green & so unpleasant land.
Knowing they are in a ‘soft’ & protected marketplace, that they are, in effect, pets of the taxpayer, the denizens of the sink estates erect their citadels of self respect by outwitting plod by earning on the black economy, burglaries, drug dealing etc etc.
The higher echelons of dole drawers erect their own citadels of self respect, while deep down knowing they are pets of the system, not their own masters, by convincing themselves that they are working for the greater good of all humanity, of the planet itself indeed.
Among this class of traitor are most of our politicians who are not just in it for the money.
&2) The Central Banks. & in particular the FED in the US.
I know Mr R has pooh poohed my remarks about the FED in the past, but here goes.
Since it’s inception in a dubious 1913 manoeuvre when most congressmen were absent for the Christmas break, the FED has presided over a decline in the value of the dollar down to it’s present value of about 3 cents. This is theft by devaluation through inflation of the value of savings & pensions on a monumental scale which is totally immoral.
In the UK, our govt & central bank have colluded through inflation designed to make our debts look easier to repay of an effective devaluation of our currency since about 1970 such that a £ is now worth around 7p.
To destroy pensions & discourage savings in this manner is simply immoral.
TBC
January 14, 2013
The taxation of global profits has actually shrank to an all time low. Leading companies in the FTSE 100 paid just 24.5% of their global profit in taxes to governments around the world down from 38.5% in 2009. The tax regimes enjoyed by big business here to send their money to offshore accounts and not pay for the infrastructure that has created them is just wrong.The only communism it seems happening is communism for the rich and in your fantasy of having the working poor compete further with each other for the penny paying jobs provided by high profit companies such as supermarkets. You quote another fantasist called Anthony (A.M.) Daniels who writes under the bizarre pen name of Theodore Dalrymple “chose a name that sounded suitably dyspeptic, that of a gouty old man looking out of the window of his London club, port in hand, lamenting the degenerating state of the world” whose main belief is that everyone is responsible for their own fate. The average person then? How this is possible in a complex financial economys like those that exist in the west is not answered. The actual poverty is from a lack of education and opertunintys as well as money. Making them more desperate will not work.The fact that disease, welfare, low paid or no work, education and criminality is not factored in by the state beggars belief and is the belief of right wing simpletons looking for the simple answer of blaming the individual. The idea that bankers are there entirely because of their own merits is laughable. My respect for academic idiots like this and their followersis paper thin at best. Ram it.
January 11, 2013
I suspect that politicians won’t ask theses questions because real scientists will point out just how stupid and uniformed their comments are.
January 12, 2013
There are many ‘real scientists’ who do not accept the theory of man-made global warming and are opposed to the expensive measures enacted to counter it. Denigrating your opponents does nothing for your argument.
January 12, 2013
Which ‘real’ scientists are you speaking of?
Are those scientists who have been showing up the errors in the various AGW projections not ‘real’?
January 12, 2013
Unamime5,
Its just a shame for you and your always right “scientists” with their computer models using only the best peer reviewed data of course, that their dire predictions of rapidly accelerating temperatures from 2000 have already not come true.
January 13, 2013
Indeed but we have Cameron, the BBC the loopy libdems, schools, many universities and a whole state sector in love with and attached to the catastrophic global warming religion. Group think is like on oil tanker hard to turn round quickly. They just all go over the cliff together, just like Major and his ERM.
They rarely even apologise either. Unless it was for something they did not do – like the potato famine.
January 11, 2013
They are wrong so often with their medium range forecasts, it makes you wonder when they’re right, whether it’s just luck.
They should be required with each forecast to specify how they will measure the success of the forecast and when, and then publish the measure at the appointed time.
January 11, 2013
Here is something for all you climate change skeptics to consider. Here in downtown Bristol I have african violets in full bloom in my garden but no snowdrops as of yet. Yesterday I also spotted a bee buzzing around. Whats going on then?
January 11, 2013
Nina you may label me a climate change skeptic but only so far as the CO2 myth goes.
There was a time when cows and sheep could be found roaming green pastures in Greenland.
Back in the 15th century to be precise.
Somehow I don’t think it was man made CO2 that caused that climate change?
January 11, 2013
Cows and sheep aren’t native to Greenland so they’d only be present if the Norse brought them, not because they naturally lived there.
I suspect that they’re no longer present because the climate isn’t suitable for them (short growing season) and the Inuits killed them when they started to colonise Greenland in the 14th and 15th centuries.
January 12, 2013
Your ridiculous reply very carefully avoids the main point uni which is:-
Why was Greenland once green and why did it then become an ice covered area?
January 11, 2013
No-one is in the slightest bit sceptical about climate change. What they are sceptical about is that climate change is man-made. Answer this question: What caused the last ice age ? It couldn’t have been man.
January 11, 2013
Indeed what cause the ice in Wales to melt – it clear was rather before the co2 emissions.
January 12, 2013
lifelogic: ” Indeed what cause the ice in Wales to melt ”
It was Llywelyn ap Gruffydd what did it, his (word left out) Druids ran amok with a new incantation. That was why the English king had to invade.
By the time Wales had been subjugated, it was too late, druid (power) is strong like that.
January 11, 2013
Let’s take this “logic” to its logical conclusion. Mankind did not cause the extinction of some random species a million years ago and therefore could not possibly cause the extinction of any species today.
January 11, 2013
Just because an ice age wasn’t caused by man doesn’t mean that man’s increased CO2 production isn’t causing the global temperature to rise.
January 12, 2013
uanime5: “that man’s increased CO2 production isn’t causing the global temperature to rise.”
But since the last ice age, when temperatures were very cold and glaciers covered much of what is now the UK, the temperature has been on an inexorable upward trend.
Even with the mini ice age between 1550 – 1850, the overall trend was toward higher temperatures when viewed with the starting point at the end of the last ice age.
Your task, to show that the upward trend since the end of the last major iceage is a result of anthropogenic global warming. What was it that humans did to trigger the collapse of the last ice age and the retreat of the glaciers – heap powerful magic whatever it was!
And why that thing, is only today projected to have an impact of 1 degree in a century by your ‘scientific’ colleagues at the CRU et al?
January 13, 2013
And further to show that the effect of C02 will be catastrophically damaging, that reducing c02 will prevent this catastrophe and is the best way to deal with it and further that it can be achieved on a world basis. Clearly this is an impossible task.
Most sensible scientist this it is very minor and indeed has a slightly positive effect on climate. Anyway cooling the climate is not even best done by reducing c02. There are more efficient ways, in the unlikely event there were ever needed.
January 12, 2013
No uni, but it does prove that there must be many other factors that have had a huge impact on the planets climate centuries before industrialisation.
Suddenly only mankind is driving change in the planets climate, it is claimed.
What caused all the massive changes before mankind exisited?
January 13, 2013
I’m with Buzz Aldrin on this one:
” The Earth’s climate has been changing for billions of years.”
In fact for about 4.5 billion tears, the age of the Earth.
The Earth is now on it’s 3rd atmosphere.
The first was burned off because Earth was too hot. 🙂
The second I cant recall because I’m too inebrisated, 🙂
but the third is being abused by the hot air coming from Al Gore & his cronies. :0).
January 14, 2013
My point is this: if you are unable to tell me what caused the last ice age then I cannot put any faith at all in the predictive powers of the computer programs which are the only “evidence” offered that the current climate change is man-made – there are obviously some very major factors missing from those programs – the factors that DID cause the last ice age.
January 11, 2013
Haven’t a clue as to what might be going on but remember that in Roman times in what is now the UK wine grapes were being grown in the North of the country. On the other hand, during the ‘Maunder Minimum’ period (1645 – 1715) the sun went quiet for 70 years, during which time average temperatures dropped across northern europe such that the Thames and other rivers stayed frozen for long periods in winter, as did the canals in Holland.
Last year, according to leading climate scientists, “after emitting unusually high levels of energy throughout the 20th Century, the sun is now heading towards a ‘grand minimum’… threatening cold summers, bitter winters and a shortening of the season available for growing food.”
“There is a 92 per cent chance that both Cycle 25 and those taking place in the following decades will be as weak as, or weaker than, the ‘Dalton minimum’ of 1790 to 1830,” said a paper issued last week by the Met Office. “In this period, named after the meteorologist John Dalton, average temperatures in parts of Europe fell by 2C.”
“However, it is also possible that the new solar energy slump could be as deep as the ‘Maunder minimum’… in the coldest part of the ‘Little Ice Age’ when, as well as the Thames frost fairs, the canals of Holland froze solid.”
“Meanwhile, since the end of last year, world temperatures have fallen by more than half a degree, as the cold ‘La Nina’ effect has re-emerged in the South Pacific.”
So, take you pick of the expert views; according to some we shall all be cooked by AGW, or frozen according to others. The wonderful thing for AGW prophets is that when faced with a decline in sun activity and thereby reduced global temperatures they can claim that this would only slow planet warming and that unless we continue to build windmills and return to candles for light regardless of what the sun does we shall all be cooked. NB. the w0rking life for those windmills that don’t seize up, catch fire, throw their blades or simply fall over as so many across the world already have, is now calculated to be a mere 20 years. Now there is a sound business case for buying shares in windmill manufacturing!
January 11, 2013
1) The Romans tried to grow grapes in the UK but this failed and they had to import wine. Also the Romans described the UK as “cold, wet, and boggy”.
2) The “Maunder Minimum” was during the Little Ice Age (1350-1850) and is most likely unrelated given that temperatures remained low before and after this period.
3) Climate scientists (I noticed that you couldn’t name them) never made any of the claims you mentioned.
4) The MET Office didn’t issue the paper you claimed they wrote and the Dalton minimum was due to volcanic activity, such as the eruption of Mount Tambora.
5) Finally climate scientists aren’t the ones who are claiming that global warming is due to the sun (they’re denier who are trying to muddy the issue).
January 12, 2013
Please provide sources for your assertions.
January 14, 2013
The AGW theory is not a proper theory because it is not falsifiable. Whatever happens to the climate, whether it getts hotter or colder or stays the same, or is more “extreme” or less “extreme”, the AGW scientists will claim it supports their theory. NO observations anyone can make will cause them to agree that the theory is incorrect.
Bit of a philosophical point there, but I (unlike uanime5) am actually a qualified scientist in this field.
January 13, 2013
“Now there is a sound business case for buying shares in windmill manufacturing!”
Well only if you think the government will keep tipping cash into their idiotic subsidy and will not come to its senses eventually.
January 11, 2013
Dear Nina
As African Violets are HOUSEPLANTS maybe you a) have your central heating up too high or b)If you have them in your garden they aren’t African violets c) they must be very hardened/mutant African violets to survive the massive amount of rain fall we’ve had recently.
January 12, 2013
We all agree on climate change BUT this has been going on for millenia. The Sun and geology have far more influence than puny man.
January 11, 2013
I’d say that there’s a clear case for privatising the Met Office. Let them see how much the people who would then be paying the bills value their obsession with AGW. How many customers would pay a privately-owned Met Office for their 100 year climate cycle forecasts? If, as you suggest, they used their energy and resources to improve their near-term forecasts then their financial future would surely be secure. Why is it now a part of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills? Why hasn’t it been sold off if it is indeed confident in its abilities as a world-class forecaster? COme on, George Osborne, let’s cut the debt by a few hundred million and sell the Met Office in a Thatcher-style float.
January 11, 2013
Censorship and threats won’t change the fact that the average temperature of the planet keeps rising.
January 11, 2013
Thank God for a politician, who views the CO2 climate change debate with some scepticism. I find it difficult to believe that CO2, which represents less than 0.5% of the atmosphere, has heated up this massive globe of boiling iron that we live on. All this hysteria based on simplistic models is costing us a fortune. Daft carbon credits and carbon capture schemes; describing CO2, which is essential to plant life, as a pollutant – when will this collective madness end? And is it true that there has there been no temperature increase for the last eight years?
January 11, 2013
Actually it is only .039%
January 11, 2013
A concentration of 0.16% of Carbon Monoxide in the atmosphere would be fatal to all of humanity. Just because something is present in very small amounts doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous.
Also every decade has been warmer than the previous decade.
January 12, 2013
“every decade has been warmer than the previous decade”
Rubbsh get your facts right.
What since the dawn of time!
Only recently and the recent trend is now falling.
January 13, 2013
uanime5: “A concentration of 0.16% of Carbon Monoxide in the atmosphere would be fatal to all of humanity.”
Now I freely admit to speculating here, but imagine that in this scenario – 0.16% atmospheric CO, where O2 was still at 20% bv.
Would we really all die of carbon monoxide poisoning? I doubt it.
When an individual dies from carbon monoxide poisoning, it is usually in a confined space and due to both excessive CO but also falling O2 ( a result combustion of O2 and lack of fresh air due to the the confined space ).
So I believe your scenario of 0.16% CO in an atmosphere of 20% pure O2 killing everyone is, like everything else you say, wrong.
January 11, 2013
Dear John. These questions have been asked of the Met by climate sceptics, especially Andrew Montford of the blog, “Bishop Hill” a reference to local geography, not an assumption of God’s favour, for several years now. Andrew Betts of the Met O has engaged with the blog and bloggers, to the benefit of both parties. Montford has written several books, including, “The Hockey Stick Illusion” which set out the sceptic position. It is good that an MP with a scientific/engineering background is now asking pertinent questions. I hope you will not find yourself a lone voice in Parliament on this issue, and that other MP’s with similar backgrounds will stand up and be counted. The fact that the Warmist ideologues in the DECC and Cabinet are firmly set on a course which will substantially lower living standards, particularly affecting the poorest in our society, should give every MP pause for thought.
January 11, 2013
“It is good that an MP with a scientific/engineering background is now asking pertinent questions.”
Mr Redwood has a degree in Modern History, which last time I looked was not considered science or engineering. There are very few scientists or engineers who are MPs. (I think there is only one who has a Ph.D. in science.) This is part of the problem. There are far too many humanities (in particular, Oxford PPE) graduates running the country.
Reply: I have also chaired engineering businesses and have a financial qualification.
January 11, 2013
Perhaps John should read publications by scientist who have studied global warming, rather than books by cranks who don’t have any scientific understanding.
January 12, 2013
Good idea. Try Profs Freeman Dyson, Richard Lindzen or Ian Plimer, all eminent scientists. Or are they ‘cranks’ in your view?
January 12, 2013
“cranks”
left wing speak for people who dare to challenge the Party’s orthodoxy.
As once described by George Orwell
January 11, 2013
Indeed the Met office (and the BBC, the EU and most political parties other than UKIP) have been acting as political soothsayers not a scientists – rather like TV evangelist crooks. Prediction of future climate long distance, a chaotic system (and without even having all the input data such as the sun’s output for 100 years available) is clearly absurd. Especially when they cannot even predict things like hurricanes and floods a couple of hours beforehand.
The parallels are between global warming alarmists, tv evangelists and creationists. The BBC is on the anti science side of the debate. So where does Michael Gove stand on all the distortion of science being pushed at children in school text books on this warmist religion?
Even if they were right on the CO2 alarmism, the solutions they propose clearly do not even work in their terms. All the evidence suggests that warmer is better than colder and world agreement will not be forthcoming anyway.
Can we please stop all the government grants for the Bat and Bird chomping and totally pointless wind farms now. But alas we have fake green tax, print, borrow and waste Cameron and worse still the loopy Libdems that he lumbered us all with. This due to his incompetence at and after the last election. Pushing soft left, fake green, pro EU, big tax, big state, drivel at an electorate wanting a positive vision of a smaller parasitic sector and growth.
January 11, 2013
I am not even sure they should even concentrate on predicting the next few months – they should perhaps restrict themselves to a week – when, and if, they ever start getting good at that perhaps they should move on to 8, 9 or 10 days.
January 11, 2013
Lifelogic no matter how much you post this nonsense it will never become true.
Scientists are the ones who claim global warming is real, it’s the uneducated cranks who claim it’s a communist conspiracy.
January 11, 2013
As an example of the Met’s bad science, see here.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/01/10/spot-the-difference/
January 11, 2013
Just because the temperature has risen faster than predicted doesn’t make it bad science.
January 12, 2013
But uni, it spoils the accuracy of the original prediction and therefore it should make any proper open minded scientist to question the validity of the original input data used to formulate these predictions.
If it isnt a religion of course.
January 11, 2013
I thought in the last few days they had reported (but kept it rather quiet) that little global warming/climate change had happened in the last 15 years, although global Co2 had risen !.
They failed to explain the reasons for this sequence, other than perhaps suggesting that the activity of the Sun may have had something to do with it.
Thus it seemed that the Suns activity was rather more important to our weather than any rise or not of Co2. !!!!!!!
I bet no Government will relate to this latest information with a reduction in green taxes though.
January 11, 2013
This is a key point, Alan. CO2 levels have continued to rise considerably and yet no significant global “warming” has taken place in recent year. This would indicate to anyone with any common sense that CO2 emissions are not the causal factor in global warming, OR, if the emissions are a causal factor there is a counter/balancing effect from some other factor i.e. there is not the simplistic relationship between rising CO2 and rising temperatures, which the global warmers insist on. There are other factors at play (see Global Warming Policy Foundation website for an objective/balanced presentation of the scientific arguments/papers circulating). Any student of palaeoclimatology, and indeed many others with good general knowledge know that there have been successive cycles in climate/global temperatures over millions of years. These are completely unrelated to man’s activities and carbon dioxide emissions. I suggest those concerned about our environment concentrate on the activities of multinationals cutting down the rain forests in the Amazon, south east Asia and elsewhere. The forests of the Amazon basin were not referred to as the “lungs of the earth” for nothing.
January 11, 2013
Care to provide this article where they claimed this? Thought not because it doesn’t exist.
January 12, 2013
Uanime5
Information gained from James Dellingpoles report in the Daily Mail Thursday January 10th 2013
Before you scream the Daily Mail properganda.
He Quotes.
The Met Office Quietly readjusted its temperature projections on its website on Christmas Eve………..
Further…….
According to Dr David Whitehouse of the Think Tank for Global Warming Policy Foundation, the climbdown couldn’t be more dramatic or more devastating for the Met offices crediblity.
Yes it is only a newspaper report, and yes Newspapers can tell fibs.
But ask yourself, is Christmas Eve a good day to bury bad news ?
January 12, 2013
The claims for no increase in global temperature for 16 years running was based on a NOAA report “state of the climate in 2008” and highlighted in an open letter from 125+ scientists to Ban Ki Moon dated 29th November 2012 reported in the Financial post on that date.
This has been explained to you at least twice before yet you chose to ignore it and pretend it never happened. You have certainly never refuted it of offered counter claims. Instead you claim, despite all evidence to the contrary, that no scientist (climate specialist or otherwise) questions the alarmist AGW twaddle you and others continue to peddle.
January 11, 2013
Excellent!
January 11, 2013
Climate is complex. Anyone who is arrogant enough to pretend they can model its future needs to be viewed with extreme caution. The fact that some of the major proponents of the man-made global warming scare have manipulated data and/or hidden it from scrutiny adds to this caution.
The open letter by Clive Francis in 2010 concerning the climate change act sums up the position far better than I can:
http://autonomousmind.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/an-open-letter-to-the-chancellor/
January 11, 2013
Indeed a good point and good link I agree fully – the (misinformed?) Chris Huhne even gets a mention.
January 11, 2013
Anyone who pretends that climate is complex clearly has no idea what they’re talking about. The climate of anywhere on earth is mainly determine by the temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, precipitation, and atmospheric particle count; all of which are easy to measure.
January 12, 2013
You have listed six variables: temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, precipitation, and atmospheric particle count, and used the phrase “anywhere on earth”. There are other variables, but for the sake of argument, let us stick with the six you have listed.
I am intrigued to know how you can assemble enough data on these six measurements “anywhere on earth” (510 million square kilometres, mostly over the ocean), so that you can then use them, in whatever formula you may have, to calculate the climate. Your formula will need to be pretty sophisticated to take into account how these variables interact with one another. Having validated your calculations against known data from the past (where would you get those from?), you will then need to make reliable projections several years into the future. These projections, of course, would then be used to justify the windmills and carbon taxes – the unintended consequence of both being to rob the poor to pay the rich.
January 12, 2013
Uni,
Rubbish
No computer yet invented by mankind has the powers to consider all the variables of this planets natural physical elements and get them right.
We can measure these variables as historic data but we cannot compute the future interactions of all these variables with great accuracy.
This why science is never settled.
January 12, 2013
uanime5
If it is so easy, how come so called brilliant people with super computers cannot get the weather forcast right, for more than a few days forward at a time.
January 14, 2013
You misunderstand the meaning of the word “complex”. Because the independent variables are easy to measure does not mean that their interactions are not complex – that’s why your chums need giant supercomputers running for hours at a time to generate their (incorrect) predictions that average temperature should have risen over the past 16 years.
January 11, 2013
And . . . when you talk about there having been no warming over the last decade, this will be based on information from the climate “scientists”, who can be relied upon to have doen everything in their power to show the opposite (remember Climategate).
Even on their own published information, the climate “scientists” trend for CO2 in the atmosphere cannot possibly have caused the global temperature changes they report. If there is a good theoretical reason why CO2 should affect global temperatures, either the effect is insignificantly small or the theory is wrong.
We will all be better off if the climate “scientists” get back to science and leave the politics to others.
January 11, 2013
And . . . when you talk about there having been no warming over the last decade, this will be based on information from the climate “scientists”, who can be relied upon to have doen everything in their power to show the opposite (remember Climategate).
Even on their own published information, the climate “scientists” trend for CO2 in the atmosphere cannot possibly have caused the global temperature changes they report. If there is a theoretical reason why CO2 should affect global temperatures, either the effect is insignificantly small or the theory is wrong.
We will all be better off if the climate “scientists” get back to science and leave the politics to others.
January 11, 2013
Take a look at these pie charts to see the stupidity that is the climate change act:
http://www.glebedigital.co.uk/blog/our-co2/
January 11, 2013
Another excellent link. How do the Libdems, fake green Cameron and C Huhne respond to that?
Needless to say they do not bother.
January 11, 2013
Who knows what the human contribution has been to the 0.7C warming that has taken place over the last 150 years. It is increasingly clear however that the rate of warming forecast by the IPCC and other bodies since the late 1980s has turned out to be hugely over-estimated. This should call into question the forecasts for runaway global warming and catastophic consequences for this century upon which all the expensive environmental regulations and taxes are based.
It is essential, notwithstanding David Cameron’s green evangelism of 2005 – 2007 or so, that the Conservative Party finds a way of de-coupling itself from these disasterous ‘green’ policies in the mind of the electorate well ahead of the next election. The LibDems and Labour wont be able to, they are too tainted. But abolition of renewable energy subsidies and refusal to enact policies based on these flawed climate models could be a real vote winner. Time for other backbench MPs to force this issue.
January 11, 2013
“On December 24th they lowered their ten year temperature forecast based on a new model.”
They do like to bury their bad news.
Forecasting must be quite a simple procedure, if you can change your model every time the data displays some inconvenient truth.
January 11, 2013
About 10 years ago the Met Office were invited to Perth Airfield by our flying club. We looked forward to an interesting and informative lecture on meteorology. How naive we were! No knowledge of any use to pilots was imparted. The entire talk consisted of self-promotion and “hot air” and was accompanied by a thick glossy brochure, again consisting of PR-speak with no useful practical purpose other than to promote the organisation.
January 11, 2013
The thicker and glossier the brochure the more drivel, padding and lies they contains, in my experience.
January 11, 2013
Mr Clegg has offered, on LBC, an explanation for their decision to borrow money to buy windfarms for Africans. It is because if we improve their quality of life, then they will not chose to migrate en masse to Europe. Presumably, this explanation would explain the aborted policy of the LibDems to build PV farms in the Sahara and send the electricity to Europe . If the Arabs were paid a lot for looking after the panels, then they would not wish to start any naughty stuff with explosives.
January 11, 2013
If politicians stuck to the real political reasons why they invest in green technology instead of hiding behind the ‘pscience’ they might actually have a stronger argument.
Of course they would still rightly be criticised for the huge number of conflicts of interest we have from the PM down, including his deputy PM and a large proportion of DECC.
And criticised for prioritising all this junk ahead of anything affecting the UK more directly.
January 11, 2013
Is the real reason because they have “consultancies” with companies benefiting from the subsidies? Or this there some other one I have missed?
January 11, 2013
The following is a direct quote from the Met Office website under the heading Climate Change:
“Climate change has become an increasingly important issue and our research continues to create an ever clearer picture of how it will affect the planet and our lives. This plays a vital role in providing evidence to support climate predictions which show the planet is now locked into at least 2 °C of warming and rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are required to ensure this does not rise further for future generations.”
This doesn’t sound like an objective scientific approach to the subject to me but rather a predetermined approach. You are therefore unlikely to receive answers to your questions unless you can get them out of your colleague, Mr Cable, as I note that the Met Office is “a Trading Fund within the Department for Business Innovation and Skills”. Although I understand the Met Office costs the taxpayers £200million per annum I don’t suppose you will get much joy there either.
January 11, 2013
The true cost of the Met office is not the £200M PA but the countless Billions PA wasted on the AGW religion. All cheered on by the absurd Cast Iron Dave.
January 11, 2013
If you could debunk another few myths that would be good too.
Starting with the raving anti car nutters who inhabit all layers of bureaucracy nowadays. People who think it’s a great idea to thin right down the main road between a city centre and the nearest A & E department leading to the inevitable problems for ambulances getting through in heavy traffic, any time there is a breakdown, buses stopping, light snow, and so on. I still think http://www.abd.org.uk/ offers a ready source of well thought through alternate policies for any party with its thinking head on.
How about the “affordable housing” stuff? Though shalt have a small house with no drive or car parking spaces… is very open to debunking.
Or how about the “equality” industry? An industry and the political correctness it has spawned and the obvious and widespread discrimination against large sections of the British people it endorses, mainly the working class it has to be said.
A little common sense like this could really turn electoral chances round.
How about the civil service and the BBC being banned from having more than 50% of their graduate intake being arts grads, force them to balance it out with folk with a scientific grounding!
January 11, 2013
Spot on, these arts graduated should stick to playing Bach and leave logic, engineering and science to those who understand it. Would you want to fly on a plane that the BBC had any design involvement in? Come to think of it the Bach might be better with scientist too.
January 12, 2013
lifelogic – can’t agree with your dissing of Bach.
Arts graduates cannot play Bach in any case because that would require years and years of hard work, a.k.a. practising.
We all know that most art graduates are extremely good at talking fluff, with lots of hot air – but hot air and fluffy talking does not qualify one for playing Bach, nor even spouting verbose phrases about him.
(I still love you!)
January 14, 2013
These things you mention, anti-car, affordable ( &impracticle) housing, equality, etc are all PC.
PC is cultural marxism, driven by The Frankfurt School.
Literally thousands of our graduates in media, the civil service, our teaching professions & our politicians have absorbed these pernicious teachings.
When our state broadcaster can launch a completely unfounded attack on an ex cabinet minister & smear him as a paedophile WITHOUT A SINGLE SHRED OF EVIDENCE, then you know that the marxist cancer is grown large within the body of this country.
To be plain, a 16 year old apprentice journalist, would be laughed at on the smallest provincial newspaper, or one of our major national dailies, if he brought forward this supposition as a possible story.
“Where is your evidence?” he would be asked, rightly.
“All evidence must be at least double-sourced for credibility.” he would be told.
When none of this basic professional journalistic procedure is done, & the vicious smear story goes out anyway. you know that we have as state broadcaster an evil left wing gang, of monumental incompetence & spite.
When the incompetent at the top is rewarded with a £450,000 bonus & an inflation proof pension, you know that the BBC has no intention of discouraging this sort of behaviour. Other incompetents were merely moved sideways.
This bunch of incompetents were the same ones who sat in on the meeting in Jan 2006 which gave out the lie that that a panel of 28 ” scientists & experts” had come to the conclusion that the science was “settled”, & that henceforth the BBC had no duty of impartiality in the AGW debate. Thereafter we got straight left wing pro warmist propaganda.
The closest to a scientist of the 28 was Mike Hulme.
(personal attacks followed etc)
The crypto communists of The Frankfurt School obviously infect the BBC & our body politic deeply.
Can this soon to be bankrupt country be saved?
We live in interesting times.
January 11, 2013
There is so much noise around this issue it is best to try to focus on a single question when debating the environmental taliban.
What caused the last ice age ?
The answer is no-one knows. Therefore no-one can predict the next one. Therefore no-one can predict any future climate changes.
Simple.
January 11, 2013
Just because people don’t know what caused an ice age thousands of years ago (when no one was around to measure it) doesn’t mean that you can’t predict how the climate will change during a time period when you can measure it.
Let me know when you have an argument that isn’t so ridiculous.
January 12, 2013
Glib comments like this don’t answer the question,Uni,
The climate changed dramatically before mankind was established on Earth.
What caused these rises and falls??
January 14, 2013
I’m with Buzz Aldrin on this one:
” The Earth’s climate has been changing for billions of years.”
Approx 4.5 billion years, the age of this Earth.
This Earth is now on it’s 3rd atmosphere, it’s still changing & will continue to change, it’s known as a chaotic system.
The best presentation I’ve come across to help a non scientist such as myself understand the AGW debate is this:
(link removed as unchecked)
Dr.David Evans can fairly be described as a proper scientist, holding I think 6 university degrees including one in electrical engineering, which gives him, as a mathematician & engineer, a good understanding of the complex feedbacks which lie at the heart of understanding climate change.
He was a committed warmist who studied the evidence, reached his conclusions, & became a sceptic.
January 11, 2013
The Met Office forecasts are every bit as accurate as the Bank of England and Treasury forecasts. They are pure propaganda for their own ends. If you believe them or even bother reading them you’re wasting some of your irreplaceable time on Earth. Do something more productive, anything but take notice of those idiots.
Lies, damn lies and government forecasts.
January 11, 2013
If only Bank of England forecast and Treasury forecasts were as accurate as weather forecasts.
We spend our irreplaceable time on earth posting on here when there are many other more productive things we could be doing instead!
January 11, 2013
How does one really affect change on our nonsense policies when our ,so called, leaders blatantly ignore facts and public opinion?
All the comments made are valid – how the hell can Germany increase coal use [of the most polluting coal] when we are ‘ordered’ to shut down our facilities? Who negoitiates on our behalf – Micky Mouse?
We are all being taken for mugs but paying the bill and I’m getting increasingly aggravated by it all.
January 11, 2013
“Man made global” is pure fraud used by a criminal cabal (ring of (investment bank-ed) governments) to transfer taxes collected to their excuses for fighting it, ie wind mill manufacturers etc. What no one wants to talk about is the effect CHEMTRAILS are having on the weather. I have even written to Oliver Heald asking him about this issue and he stated he is not aware of any weather modification going on in the UK. Now this is total garbage, so is he a paving slab short of a patio or a complete liar? Many governments have admitted to geoengineering like China, Russia & the US and there is documented proof that the UK was experimenting with weather modification as far back as the 1950’s. Never mind having it in writing you only have to look up at the skies to see those “contrails” that hang in the air for hours on end which isn’t possible if it was condensation. They spray the air with carcinogenic aluminium and Barium in these experiments and admit they have no idea of the long term affects this will have.
So without taking these experiments in to account it is totally impossible to have any idea about how our weather is changing as your not taking in to account how much it is being manipulated.
January 11, 2013
David,
Thanks for raising this worrying subject. Perhaps our host would care to shed some light on it or is it too secret to discuss?
January 11, 2013
> Do the Met office agree there has been no warming for the last decade?
This is a graph of the last 32 years of global average temperature. The blue line is a 12 month rolling average, the red line a “best fit” polynomial which actually closely resembles the 10 year rolling average over the period.
If now look at the last 132 years, with the blue line the same, and the red line the 10 year rolling average, you can see both the general trend ( up! ) and the decadal variation:
> Do they agree that world temperatures can be increased or diminished by solar action?
> How do they model that?
Of course. By measuring solar irradiation and putting those numbers into their model.
> Do they agree that the move to the Medieval Warm period and then back to the Mini Ice > Age was unconnected with human CO2?
The MWP and MIA are almost certainly unconnected with humans. On the other hand, this has nothing to do with the known greenhouse effect of CO2.
> How do they model for similar changes in the future?
Many of the possible causes of global temperature variation are random – If a string of large volcanic eruptions happens over the next 30 years, sea ice might grow enough to reduce global temperatures for 90 years.
> Is their current forecast for mild wet winters and hot dry summers in the UK as global
> warming progresses? That was what they were saying in their general climate change
> views.
> Could the change in currents and winds that gave us cold winters and cool wet summers
> recently affect future years?
If anyone is claiming to know what global warming will do to the weather in the UK, they are mistaken. Northern Europe has a very warm climate for its latitude – changing climate could do almost anything – wetter, drier, warmer, colder. It will depend on what happens to ocean and atmospheric circulation.
> What is the role of water vapour as a greenhouse gas? What influence can human conduct
> have on water vapour and cloud formation?
Water vapour is a potent greenhouse gas. The lovely thing about water, though, is that its concentration is sensitive to temperature. Random variation leading to brief cooling will rapidly remove water from the air – i.e. it will rain. This does not happen to CO2.
The easiest way humans can influence water vapour in the atmosphere is to alter the concentration of CO2 – increasing it will lead to increased temperatures which will lead increased average water vapour. Decreasing CO2 will lead to decreased global averages, and thus less water in the air.
January 11, 2013
Simonro: Please define the “greenhouse effect” in terms that can be empirically tested and measured, i.e. how does it work, so we are all clear about what you mean, seeing as you claim it’s real, contrary to what the MO are now beginning to realise.
January 11, 2013
Ilma it’s clear they you’re pretending to know about science when you clearly know nothing.
A definition isn’t something that can be empirically tested, you can only test a hypothesis.
You can determine whether the greenhouse effect is real by comparing the average temperature from 1850 to the average temperature from 2011. If the 2011 temperature is higher then something must have caused it to rise.
You can determine whether CO2 is a greenhouse gas by creating a sealed environment and measuring the temperature, then add some CO2 and measure the temperature. If the temperature is higher after adding CO2 then huger CO2 levels cause the temperature to rise.
You can determine whether CO2 is responsible for the change in temperature by comparing the average CO2 levels from 1950 to the average CO2 levels from 2011. If they’re higher then higher CO2 levels are responsible.
January 12, 2013
What else do you think I meant by ‘defined’ but a hypothesis (which I clearly use in other comments)? It is a hypothesis that you test and measure to determine whether it’s correct or not, and if wrong, you drop it and try another hypothesis. the CAGW adherents have clearly clung to this hypothesis despite its failure (no temp rise in 15+ years, something not accounted for in the hypothesis models).
Comparing two temperatures 150 years apart says nothing about causation, simply that the temps are different. Earth has gone through far larger temp changes throughout geological history without man’s involvement, and is currently still coming out of the last mini ice-age, so completely unsurprising that the temp has risen over that period, but even that was not continuous as was expected by the CO2 hypothesis, but up and down in approx 30-year periods overlaid on the underlying ice-age exit climb.
The CO2 in a sealed container experiment has been repeated since the original, and under much stricter conditions, and it has been demonstrated that CO2 makes no difference. read “Experiment on the Cause of Real Greenhouses’ Effect – Repeatability of Prof. Robert W. Wood’s experiment” by Prof. Nasif S. Nahle at http://www.biocab.org/Wood_Experiment_Repeated.html There is no greenhouse gas effect, it is junk science. I’m sorry if that’s an inconvenient truth to you, but that’s how it is. If you cite Al Gore’s telethon version, that was clearly (questioned) as has been shown at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/18/replicating-al-gores-climate-101-video-experiment-shows-that-his-high-school-physics-could-never-work-as-advertised/
Measuring the change in CO2 levels over the same 150 year period tells you nothing, only that the level has changed. Just saying that the CO2 and temp have risen, therefore the CO2 rise caused the temp rise is pure conjecture. Remember, correlation is NOT causation. I could equally say that the temp rise caused the CO2 rise, which is actually the way round it happens (the well known chemistry of ocean CO2 absorption and outgassing that is temperature driven).
I have also posted the huge maths error that demonstrates that the greenhouse effect by back-radiation cannot work, irrespective of the composition of the atmosphere. An error so simple that it needs no citation to published papers, and one which I have checked through with a number of scientists, none of which have refuted it. I also see no replies to the post here (nor on any other sites where I’ve posted it). It is really that simple.
So tell me, who is it that knows nothing?
January 11, 2013
Simonro: You seem confused. On the one hand you say that it’s easy for humans to affect the climate via water vapour by the amount of CO2 we emit, then on the other hand you say “changing climate could do almost anything – wetter, drier, warmer, colder” and that “If anyone is claiming to know what global warming will do to the weather in the UK, they are mistaken”. You’re even more confused than the MO.
So, as per my question (reframed), how can the effect on temperature by CO2 work, and how can it be empirically tested and measured?
January 11, 2013
If you had bothered to read what Simonro wrote you’d know that the effects climate change will have depend upon the ocean and atmospheric circulation.
January 14, 2013
Ilma, please see my remarks above re Dr. David Evans.
@ 8.13 am.
🙂
January 14, 2013
Seems the link has been removed.
Also my post citing the repeat of the Wood experiment has been altered slightly,
Reply: Yes, I moderated out unproven allegations against a named individual as I usually do, as I wish to protect you and this site from any legal action.
January 11, 2013
At last a post which deals with the questions in the JR post rather than the waffle normally found on this topic. Spot on Simon – thank you.
January 11, 2013
Peter G:
Let me pre-empt the answer to my own question that I’m sure Simonro won’t be able to answer.
My take on the CO2 greenhouse effect hypothesis is this (& I apologise if I’m repeating myself):
If 1 unit of heat energy (temperature) is radiated away from the surface, and a fraction 0.x of that is radiated back by the greenhouse gases, including CO2, then the net level of energy at the surface is -1 + 0.x, i.e. less than 1 = cooler, and *not* +1 , i.e. greater than 1 = warmer. This is the *BIG* math mistake that greenhouse gas adherents make – they create 2 units of heat energy out of nothing, which is impossible.
Further, the above makes no assumption of the composition of the atmosphere, so it could be 100% CO2 (or any other gas, or water vapour) and the same would still hold.
Simonro, I have checked his out with multiple scientists and posted this on a number of blogs and article comments (such as this), and to date there has been not a single refutation of it. So, what was it again about CO2 (or any) being a greenhouse gas?
The whole greenhouse effect (of back-radiation that causes further warming) is junk, bogus, an invention to compensate for incorrect models which use a stationary flat-earth blackbody that receives an averaged out low level on heat input from the sun 24-hours per day to calculate an energy budget, when in reality Earth is a spinning sphere receiving a much higher level of heat energy from the sun over half at a time. The globally averaged surface temperature we have has *NO* need for a greenhouse effect to explain it.
January 11, 2013
Was this the sort of graph you had in mind?
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_Dec_2012_v5.51.png
Hardly vertiginous, is it?
Giving alarmist layman’s answers to reasonable questions does not help advance the debate, which is about, having accepted that CO2 is a ‘greenhouse gas’ in theory, what influence, in reality, overriding all others does anthropogenically derived CO2 have over global climate when other exogenous and endogenous systems have been taken into account; there is absolutely no point in endlessly repeating “CO2 is a greenhouse gas”.
January 12, 2013
It isn’t just the quantity of water vapourised that matters: it is what form that takes. Clouds reflect sunlight and reduce warming. It is clear that the models of cloud formation do not accord with experimental observation. New models are needed.
January 11, 2013
Steve Cox, said:
I couldn’t have put it any better myself Steve.
January 11, 2013
Who would buy it?
January 11, 2013
A common trick of warmist scientists is to simply ignore data which does not fir with their agenda. For eample their aim now is to link CO2 not with global warming but with “climate disruption” and extreme weather events. Hence this quote from the Met Office which John repeats:
2012 was ” the second wettest year in the UK dating back to 1910
But why do they choose 1910 when they keep a rainfall series for England & Wales, which date back to 1766 and which shows the wettest year on record was 1872 ?, well because that doesn’t fit with their agenda.
January 11, 2013
Actually it’s the denier who ignore everything that doesn’t fit with their ideology, then they claim that the scientists who disagree with them are secretly communists.
Also how accurate was the rainfall series for England & Wales and which parts of the country did it cover?
January 11, 2013
Wrong forecasts are worse than useless. They can be wasteful, misleading & dangerous.
Should Govt operate a Payment by Results contract for forecasters?
January 11, 2013
Time for a petition to HMG to change it’s stance on AGW and put a stop to any more wind turbines being erected except on land or a property which is owned by the installer for the installer’s own use
January 11, 2013
There’s a general campaign called the repealtheact, to be found at RepealTheAct, and I’m sure there are windfarm campaigns out there.
January 11, 2013
Civil Servants don’t like taking risk, and thus it is far better for those at the Met Office to concentrate on long term forecasts for ten, a hundred or even a thousand years By doing this they won’t have to answer for their forecasts, they will be long gone. Short term forecasting for more than a week is a mug’s game, something that they will try to avoid at all costs
January 11, 2013
Two points for the next Tory manifesto – abolish the BBC and privatise the Met Office. Post-Cameron, of course.
January 11, 2013
2 points for the current Tory ‘rebels’, (1) abolish David Cameron, (2) abolish the LibDems. Then you can add a 3rd for their manifesto, abolish the EU which is forcing all this climate regulation madness onto us.
January 14, 2013
I’m with Peter Hitchens on this one: the Tory Party is dead & hasn’t realised it yet.
🙂
Vote UKIP.
& TRY & save the country.
Janet Daley wrote an article on Dec 20th accusing all our politicians of lying to us, in the Telegraph.
It has vanished into an Orwellian black hole.
We live in interesting times.
January 11, 2013
a polymath!
January 11, 2013
You raise some very good points. I have long been disatisfied with the service they provide, so much so that for a while I have been making my own forecasts for the local area and I honestly believe that I do a better job.
I hope you don’t mind me giving the link – ( it didn’t work-ed)
For example, 18th December was the first time I mentioned the cold snap that is about to hit, and the dry spell for the beginning of January was forecasted well in advance. 30th November I called a green Christmas.
January 11, 2013
I have just received the Global Warming Policy Foundation newsletter, with links to articles of interest e.g.
“Met Office Accused Of Fabricating Misleading Forecast Data
It would appear that the Met Office have deliberately fabricated a new version of their Dec 2011 forecast, in order to avoid making the original version look too ridiculous. Is this really what “science” has come down to? –Paul Homewood, Not a Lot Of People Know That, 10 January 2013”
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/01/10/spot-the-difference/
January 11, 2013
Nothing to do with the fact that the Met Office is in the pocket of the BBC or vice a versa. As you say there have always been periods of cooling and warming and there always will be.
Whilst I agree in principle that we need to move to a more sustainable way of living by burning less fuel, creating less pollution and stop wiping out wildlife habitats we will not achieve this with the 2008 Climate Change Act.
The sun is known to vary in temperature, something we have not a hope of doing anything about, understanding the science or even forecasting so I agree that trying to build 100 year forecast models is nothing more than propaganda.
If the govt wants us to use less electricity rather than spend millions on these wind turbines why don’t they give every building in the UK a grant to swap over to LED lightbulbs. They use 10% of the power needed by the so called eco fluorescent lightbulbs we have to use and you can buy them in several types of light shade – be it yellow, white etc.
Trouble is they are still quite expensive but if there was a market created for them the price would soon tumble as China ramped up production. Not only that, imagine how much councils could save in lighting streets and public buildings in their electricity bills? – NOW THERES A WAY OF DOING MORE WITH LESS!
January 11, 2013
Even the BBC’s Paul Hudson suggests there are issues over the Met Office data.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/2013/01/met-office-scale-back-global-w.shtml
“I have written several times in the last few years on the subject of Met Office global temperature predictions, and how they have been regularly too warm…..
The new projection, if correct, would mean there will have been little additional warming for two decades despite rising greenhouse gases.
It’s bound to raise questions about the robustness and reliability of computer simulations that governments around the world are using in order to determine policies aimed at combating global warming….”
January 11, 2013
Why is Academia complict in propagandising the AGW Climate Scam leading to our disasterous Energy Policy
Comment here seems well informed
The BBC and Met Office policy on Climate is a disgrace
Didnt PM Thatcher create the Met Office to rid herself of the Miners?
January 11, 2013
Thank goodness there’s a few MPs that understand that man does not drive the climate by way of his CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels. Just another appro 600 to go, or at least nought to consign the ludicrous Climate Change Act to the dustbin of history.
As for mid-long term weather forecasts, the Met Office have provided overwhelming evidence that they are so incompetent, it’s hard to know what to so with them except for shutting it down – completely, and letting the short term (5-7 day) group set up as a private outfit where their accuracy in the real world will determine how successful they are.
There are other forecasters out there who are vastly better at mid-long term forecasts, with Piers Corbyn at WeatherAction.com probably having the most accurate record of all. He has consistently predicted all the major weather events, e.g. the harsh winters of the recent 2-3 years, months ahead. This accuracy of forecast, even if not down to the precise day, does allow for good preparation so that people can stay safe, e.g. fatal road accidents prevented, and companies and organisations can plan contingencies and adjust business plans in sufficient time. Yet because he doesn’t subscribe to the CO2 hypothesis and orthodoxy help by the MO/BBC etc., he has been shut out and ignored, except by those sceptics who understand the validity of his methodology and his customers who have obviously benefited from his forecasts, or else he would be out of business.
p.s. Can I now claim a rebate on all the climate/CO2 based taxes I’ve paid over the last several years, as obviously the CO2 hypothesis has no basis in fact?
January 11, 2013
[Apologies for the typos!!
“appro” -> “approx”
“nought” -> “enough”
“what to so with” -> “what to do with”
January 11, 2013
Clearly a functrion which should be handed over to the bidder with the most successful record. And would have been long ago if the purpose had been competence rather than patronage.
January 11, 2013
The climate surely did change for The Met Office – when they moved from Bracknell (in the driest, warmest corner of Blighty – know where tha means ? – Johnny !) to Exeter (on the wetter side of Blighty) in ’03 !
January 11, 2013
Mr Redwood: take a look at this…
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/01/10/spot-the-difference/
… the Met Office appears to have been a bit economical with the vérité.
A they trying to pull the wool, or just another terrible, unintentional mistake?
January 11, 2013
The Met office has obviously invested in a new dart board !!!
January 11, 2013
First time I have read comments without a single disagreement! Something must be done about the Coalition’s lunatic policies.
January 11, 2013
Alas Cameron is clearly a fake green, pro EU Libdem and the Libdems are clearly completely mad – but we are stuck with them, thanks to Cast Iron Dave and his idiotic approach to the last election.
January 11, 2013
And its not just the Met Office.
If you revisit Al Gore’s propaganda film (which was force fed to our primary school children as fact) and the first IPPC report, you can already see that the dire predictions made then have not come true.
We await a similiar climb down soon, from these two.
Bear in mind the dodgy data and computer modelling which eminates from the Hadley Centre, The Met Office and NASA is a merry go round, where the peer reviewing process means all are given greater credence than they deserve.
This group data then informs the IPPC’s reports which in turn informs world Government policy and has led to our disasterously expensive climate Change Act.
But the truth is slowly coming out.
January 11, 2013
Edward ,
Yes it is but the effects of brainwashing will remain with those impressionable children their whole lifetime .
All the EU and the NWO has to do is wait till those of us who have known anything different have passed away .
They don’t need the facts on their side when they have got time on their side .
January 14, 2013
Correct. And now we’re getting to the nub of it.
The WHY of the Global Warming Scare Scam.
January 11, 2013
INDEED Al Gore’s absurd propaganda film (which was force fed to our primary school children as fact).
January 11, 2013
At bottom, this is not a matter of climate science, but about the fact that the main dynamo for promotion of the the alarmist case is a conspiracy to cause maximum damage to Western civilisation through self-inflicted poverty and decay whilst making huge profits for banksters who through ‘carbon credits’ and carbon trading have created a mechanism for exporting our industry to the Orient (which takes absolutely no notice of this scam) whilst enriching the banksters.
etc
January 11, 2013
It should be further pointed out that climate alarmism has been essential for stampeding gullible politicians into making those damaging changes now which the conspirators wish to see implemented.
January 11, 2013
What rubbish.
Bankers can, will and do make plenty of money without use of carbon credits. For example, they speculate on food and cause millions to starve.
January 12, 2013
Far from being rubish credible.
Many people are making billions from the strange new market which is carbon credit trading.
It is one of the biggest growing lucrative new markets in the world financial sector.
If you bother to do some checking there are some very interesting companies and individuals involved.
January 13, 2013
That is a non argument. If you are worried that bankers/traders are making money as your first post suggests, then it is not the availability of carbon credits that is the cause. If there was no carbon credit trading, they would still (and do) make money trading in something else.
January 13, 2013
My objection, Credible, is simply because carbon trading is an artificial market created by the bogus global warming theory’s belief that carbon must be reduced to save the planet.
Therefore a value and a scarcity has been placed upon it.
I don’t bame the traders they are doing their jobs and I don’t even envy their riches from their trading.
However I do believe they would be doing something far more useful if they ignored the carbon trading market and concentrated on proper and real markets.
Carbon Trading is just the complex financial outcome of the biggest hoax in the history of this planet.
January 14, 2013
I’ve dug out these:
Ron Paul’s Greatest Debate Performance ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YjBoHAzhiU 12mins.
Also, Ron Paul’s Farewell Speach to Congress.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOgg0LdgTD0 48 mins.
A voice of sanity, he would have stopped America building an Empire through foreign wars waged unconstitutionally, tried to reduce US deficits & debt & sacked half the govt bureaucracy.
etc
For a non economist like myself it provide a graphic & striking demonstration of the size of the Debt & the foolishness of the “Tax the Rich” reaction.
http://www.terrysmithblog.com provides much sound comment on matters political, financial & climatic in the UK, EU & US.
January 11, 2013
This is a very timely blast at the inadequacies of the Met Office climate forecasts.
The revised temperature forecast – in effect acknowledging that global temperatures (as they define them) have flatlined since c2000 – was slipped out on 24 December 2012. Presumably the Met Office hoped no one would notice. They got away with it until Talkbloke, a blogger with an interest in these matters, spotted the change and published the before and after charts on his website on 5 January 2013. Even so the BBC, through its reporter Shukman, managed to garble the change saying that temperatures would increase between now and 2017 by 0.41 degrees C whereas what the MO actually said that the average would rise by 0.41 degrees C above the average 1971-2000 baseline! This could only be the consequence of a deliberate attempt to mislead or Mr Shukman did not understand what he was talking about. Let us give him the benefit of the doubt and judge him incompetent.
The Met Office, again aided and abetted by the BBC, has been talking up recent rainfall as the second wettest on record, just behind 2000. This was based on records going back to 1910. However a Paul Homewood has pointed out that the Met Office has records going back to 1766 for England and Wales. This record does not support the Met Office account that 2012 rainfall was unprecedented. There have been worse years on the record. He also has a revealing post on their revised temperature forecast In it he points out what he describes an apparent change to earlier forecasts. There are some interesting comments on this post. I liked the reference to Met Office “wishcasts”. It has been evident for some time now that is a regular practice of the “climate scientists” to rewrite history, usually to depress earlier temperature records to make the present look hotter, to the point that mistrust of their data is widespread. To borrow a phrase, “unfit for purpose” seems appropriate.
January 11, 2013
There is a long discussion about the new forecast over at the Bishop Hill blog, with a contributions from Dr Betts of the Met Office who commented:
“The white lines show hindcasts, ie: model simulations started from older initial conditions and then run onwards, and compared with the observations to see how well the model does. The point here is that the hindcasts with the new model (HadGEM3) compare better with the observations than the old model (HadCM3) and so this gives us more confidence in the new model.”
However these “hindcasts” are different from the earlier prediction/projections made by the Met Office on the basis of the earlier earlier model, which they now acknowledge were inaccurate and not fit for purpose. Nevertheless it was these earlier models which were used to inform public policy and, no doubt, helped promote the passing of the Climate Change Bill into law. We need and deserve to know what these earlier forecasts were.
It would be a considerable public service if you were to prevail upon the Business Secretary to require the Met Office to publish, for the record, a comparison of the successive temperature forecasts they have made over the past 20 years, for what purpose, without any after the event adjustments (as witnessed in the latest hindcasts), and how they compare with the actual reported temperatures over the same period.
In conclusion I noted this quote, among the comments, from the IPCC`s Third Assessment Report or TAR as it is abbreviated: ” … In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.” IPCC
3rd IPCC TAR, Section 14.2 “The Climate System”, page 774.”
Somehow this appears to escaped MPs when they consiered the Climate Change Bill.
January 11, 2013
It is no wonder they cannot forecast with any accuracy. Their weather model ( as of the last time I checked) was the same as their climate prediction model.
The only difference was in cell size ( I recall working out that the smallest cell size they used for forecasts was roughly 1 billion tons of air) with the climate model having much larger cell sizes.
Given that they openly publish their conviction that the climate is warming it is hardly suprising that their shorter range predictions are woeful, and almost comedic.
Indeed the reliance on computer models is worrying in all facets of decision making. As a software engineer if someone asked me to construct a computer model I would need to know what it was that they wanted to predict.
This is however a paradox here, namely Bonini’s paradox. A simple model which is easy to understand is inaccurate whereas a complex model is as complex as the area of study hence the model itself is fundamentally impossible to understand. Neither is useful,.
Any computer model which could accurately predict the weather would require inputs and an understanding of the forces at work of unimaginable complexity and accuracy. Merely taking a single input, namely the sun, it is impossible to predict it’s behaviour with regards to sunspots and solar storms with any certainty so why would anyone be stupid enough to predict the weather 100 years hence?
No human truly understands the weather, or climate for that matter so why would anyone think they could program a computer to do so?
Rubbish in, rubbish out and the not so old saying goes.
One other aspect which irks is the notion that scientists should advise on policy. Frankly anyone can call themselves a scientist so long as they have psitticine tendencies.
An engineer on the other hand who has years of experience in dealing with the forces which scientists merely measure in the real world is ignored.
January 11, 2013
Also, computer models are only one tools in an array of tools, and true scientists never forget that. The tragedy was that these computer models have been set up on pedestals and accorded “superpowers” which they simply do not have. Two of the best tools available to scientists are common sense and integrity.
January 11, 2013
Confusing weather and climate undermines your argument. The latter is much simpler to predict as it has fewer variables.
January 12, 2013
On the contrary: climate has many more variables to consider that have no impact on the timescale of a weather forecast. For example: variations in the earth’s orbit, geological processes that affect the oceans and land area, desertification vs spread of vegetation that affects the earth’s albedo and so forth. Weather forecasts simply depend on data about pressures, wind speeds and moisture content/clouds and temperatures.
January 11, 2013
climate change is continuous and one only needs to look at the geological evidence to understand that era after era , there is melt down and freeze and continental shift, but how that impacts on humankind in the near future is left to nature itself, however earths cycles have never been as directly affected by the usage of fossil fuels and manipulation of the landscape by any other animal ( I think that is correct Mr Attenborough?)
It is financially sensible to use other energy source rather than a finite one . It is also politic to become self sufficient , than to risk dependence on other countries’ black stuff.
January 11, 2013
Mr Redwood, Sir, good to see you once again asking the right questions. As you are no doubt aware the whole detection and attribution of the anthropogenic finger print of global warming is based on computer modelling. And this is what the IPCC has to say about modelling
1. ” … In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.” IPCC
3rd IPCC TAR, Section 14.2 “The Climate System”, page 774.
So Mr Redwood can you please explain to us citizens why the taxpayer is paying millions of pounds in attempting the impossible?
Seriously.
Thank you.
January 11, 2013
It’s pretty clear that the Met Office has been hijacked to become an advocacy agency for CAGW and is motivated to continue the scare.
I’d suggest splitting it in two, and separating the two halves geographically as well as by charter. A meteorological service which doesn’t stray into ‘climate’ and a climate research and advocacy QUANGO which can be quietly defunded and scrapped.
January 11, 2013
Are you not deluding yourselves?
Too much political capital is invested in the green climate change religion and the ability to raise taxes, sell permits, futures etc. What Politician is going to say “I got it all wrong, I was not competent to decide those issues on your behalf. I am sorry I cannot refund the extra taxes because we have spent the money”. Names on the back of a postage stamp please.
Follow the money. There is no money the pro climate change academics admitting they were wrong.
Like Switzerland we need more referenda binding on government. On the whole Politicians cannot be trusted to act in our interests only in their own.
Referendum topic “Do you agree to pay substantially higher energy costs to subsidise green energy like windmills). If the answer is no then it is no.
Don’t hold your breath
How about a referendum to decide on do in the benefiting playersI think you are a
January 11, 2013
Are you not deluding yourselves?
Too much political capital is invested in the green climate change religion and the ability to raise taxes, sell permits, futures etc. What Politician is going to say “I got it all wrong, I was not competent to decide those issues on your behalf. I am sorry I cannot refund the extra taxes because we have spent the money”. Names on the back of a postage stamp please.
Follow the money. There is no money the pro climate change academics admitting they were wrong.
Like Switzerland we need more referenda binding on government. On the whole Politicians cannot be trusted to act in our interests only in their own.
Referendum topic “Do you agree to pay substantially higher energy costs to subsidise green energy like windmills). If the answer is no then it is no.
Don’t hold your breath to save CO2.!
January 11, 2013
John,
We won’t know whether the predictions are true until after they have happened or not.
If it is true that those proposing man-made global warming are a bit too certain, then so are the climate warming skeptics who seem to be even more certain that it won’t happen.
January 12, 2013
What rubbish.
Are you suggesting we should ignore all the alarmist drivel based on defective models that has already been churned out? The alarmists’ climate models have been getting their predictions wrong for 30 years but for some reason the BBC et al have not been interested in reporting this. So who is so ‘concerned’ about carbon? Surely not the banks; they are too bust ripping us off in other ways:
January 12, 2013
Search image for “Deutsche bank carbon counter”
January 11, 2013
In the Brown administration the Met Office started to fund a multi-million pound project to track climate change. I recall PwC was doing the consulting…is this still in place.
January 11, 2013
To reinforce the message the website is punctuated by the symbols of dangerous climate change. There is a picture of a baked landscape, clearly suffering from excessive heat and no rain.
That might be somewhere in central Africa that has suffered from desertification because of the increased temperature and constant droughts.
End 2012 ” the second wettest year in the UK dating back to 1910 … with April and June being the wettest on record.”
In April there were hosepipe bans in the Midlands and the south because there was a drought; while in the north of England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland there were floods because it was raining so much. I believe this happens most years.
The problem with the rain count throughout the UK is that it doesn’t take into account regional variation. Just because the northern areas are wet doesn’t mean that the south and Midlands have enough water.
The mean temperature for 2012 was 0.1 degrees C below the 1981-2010 average.
Do the Met office agree there has been no warming for the last decade?
Perhaps you should compare the temperature in 2012 to the preceding decade (2001-2011), rather than the last three decades.
Do they agree that world temperatures can be increased or diminished by solar action? How do they model that?
If you’re referring to solar flares scientist they can easily monitor these by examining the surface of the sun as solar flares follow a predictable pattern.
Scientific studies have determined that the effect of the sun on global warming has been negligible. They’ve also found that as global warming continues to increase while solar flares are decreasing this means that the two are not related.
Do they agree that the move to the Medieval Warm period and then back to the Mini Ice Age was unconnected with human CO2?
John no one knows the cause of either or whether humans played a part in them. It’s entirely possible that humanity caused the MWP through mass deforestation (950-1250 AD), this lead to a huge number of deaths, and the result was the MIA (1350-1850).
Could the change in currents and winds that gave us cold winters and cool wet summers recently affect future years?
Yes but they won’t be sufficient or regular enough to offset the change in climate.
Wouldn’t it be a good idea to concentrate their money and research on weather, and try to improve the accuracy of the forecasts for the next few months, rather than attempting ten year and 100 year forecasts?
No it would be better to warn people about the incoming problems and try to prevent it, rather than ignore it because it doesn’t fit with the ideology of certain politicians. Also wouldn’t it be better if politicians actually looked at the facts rather than trying to muddy the waters and constantly raise pointless objections.
In other news the economy contracted by 0.3% in the last quarter, so if it also contracts in the first quarter of 2013 there’ll be a triple dip recession. One has to question the economic policies of the Chancellor if there are two recessions in under 3 years.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/9796123/UK-GDP-shrank-0.3pc-in-fourth-quarter-says-Niesr.html
January 11, 2013
Just to randomly take one of the questions that Mr Redwood is allegedly interested in knowing the answer to (although evidently, from his last paragraph, he does not want to pay for any research which answers these questions).
“Do they agree that the move to the Medieval Warm period and then back to the Mini Ice Age was unconnected with human CO2? How do they model for similar changes in the future?”
Yeah, I’m sure those dumb climate scientists haven’t thought about this at all.
If Mr Redwood wants to be patronising then that is his prerogative, but if he were seriously concerned about this issue, then he would ask his contacts in Oxford to explain things, rather than whine perpetually that he, as a non-climate-scientist, doesn’t know the first thing except what he reads on denialist blogs.
January 11, 2013
I conclude by his absense that not even Bazman can criticise this post for its ‘right wing fantasies’.
Ram it !
January 12, 2013
uanime5 @ 10:16: ” leads me to suspect ”
uanime5 @ 1018: ” I suspect that ”
uanime5 @ 10:29 “I suspect that ”
Electro-Kevin: “not even Bazman can criticise this post”
Don’t worry, we’ve still got uanime5, who seems to have stumbled on a new word in his dictionary today.
January 13, 2013
The right wing fantasy is as ever that doing nothing and denying that anything could or should be done and as long as we are not effected. ‘We’ being anyone with enough money to buy themselves out of a situation or in circumstances that means they will personally not be affected. However money will have to be spent on tackling global warming or by the consequences doing nothing and denying its existence. Ram it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/12/us-scientists-effects-global-warming
January 12, 2013
Thamk you Mr Redwood for a voice of sanity in a crazy climate.
For a laugh go to http://www.wattsupwiththat.com & look at Josh on IPCC AR5 leaks.
🙂
January 12, 2013
My son, who was evangelised at school by the Gore film and teachers. He attends a top business course at a british university and recently returned from a swap with a foreign university. There he attended lectures with study projects organised by a ‘top’ climate change professor. He was told that it was important for business students to become involved because of their input in organising and spreading the maessage. The project involved the prediction of mass population movements because of the destruction of habitats. In Europe it will be from Africa. In the US., from Central and South America.
Talking about this, he seemed disappointed that I thought most of the anti warming measures were useless and damaging our economy, while the rest of the developing world was producing vastly more CO2 and actually the latest forcasts were revising warming downwards, the computer modelling being faulty. He had been told that China is leading the world in green techniques. They are after all manufacturing most of the solar heating and PV equipment and bashing out nukes at a fraction of the price and time.
The interesting thing for me was that, after 3 years study, he had no idea that any scientists or engineers disagreed with the warmists ar that there was a raging debate going on available on the internet. There had been no reference at all to any revised thinking or studies.
January 12, 2013
delete ‘who’. sorry about typos.
January 12, 2013
I am reading a book entitled A Prehistory Of The North (by Hoffecker) because I am interested in Archaeology, not by reason of what I found that it says on Climate (non) Change. I have been amazed to find that the book is simply packed, every page, with references to huge changes in temperature, up and down of course, and what that does to me is cause me to doubt, even more than before, either the competence or (because a lot of them are far from disinterested financially) the integrity of those squawking on as they do (at enormous cost) about the scarcely measurable recent changes – that is assuming, in accord with the very latest evidence, such changes exist at all, which, even if they do, in any event to me do not even qualify as ‘noise’. Apart from all else, why on earth anyone should expect complete constancy is beyond me. That is not how equilibria work. And I did like Unanime5’s reference to low concentrations of Monoxide being dangerous, which it would be, given that Monoxide is lethally poisonous (whereas Dioxide is necessary to life). Why stop there? Why not introduce say Dioxin in to the (non) argument–now that would really be something to worry about.
January 12, 2013
Hot off the press Mr. R.
One of Al Gore’s “trained” presenters debates a competent & honest sceptic.
Clandestinely recorded, unfortunately (?), so the quality is not the best, but Gore’s goons refuse to debate in front of cameras.
It’s all there, clear & calm presentation of facts V falsehoods, anecdotes & the inevitable ad hominem attacks.
Deserves to be broadcast far & wide.
Regards
JD.
January 12, 2013
Forgot the ref. 🙂
http://www.wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/12/finally-one-of-gores-trained-presenters-debates-a-climate-skeptic
January 13, 2013
The met office stands by its long term forecasts and the evidence is mountion of man made global warming. Right wing fatalism is not the answer.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/12/us-scientists-effects-global-warming
January 13, 2013
As I have pointed out many times a man made self sustaining eco system even on a small scale has not be successfully produced. The idea that man can do what he likes to the eco system and the earth will continually correct itself to help man is fatalistic thinking more often seen in religious people and has no basis. The idea that trillions of tonnes of fossil fuels can be burned indefinitely without any consequences is for the birds. These are the same people that continually said the markets if left to their own devices would self regulate and self balance, but are now saying there need to be regulation of the regulations so nothing is regulated and the market can thrive without regulation and are the same ones who are arguing that if every US citizen had access to any number of weapons there would be less gun deaths. Russian mentality of many is that once we are gone everything is gone and can be seen in many here too. While I am on this anti right wing rant I’ll add to it that they are also saying that gay marriage undermines heterosexual marriage. It might undermine your marriage, but for the rest we could not care less and we know why it undermines your idea of marriage. etc
January 13, 2013
Fair enough Baz, but what caused the huge variations in climate and temperatures before mankind was even on this planet?
Got any answers?
No I thought not.
Dont believe everything you read in the Guardian.
January 14, 2013
Don’t blame the newspaper for telling the story. A sttory thta unlike Daily Mail and Telegraph propaganda stands.
January 14, 2013
One mans propaganda is another mans fact, it all depends on your politics and your opinions.
January 14, 2013
The newspaper report a study by scientists. Whether you agree with this is open to question, but do not blame the paper for writing about it and call it propaganda. The daily mail posted a story about a woman on benefits that had saved over 2k. That is a propaganda story and nothing to do with facts or opinions.
January 14, 2013
Still no answer to my original question I note.
January 15, 2013
The evidence of global warming since the industrial revolution points to rising temperatures from CO2 the most likely source being the trillions of fossil fuel burned since then. Most scientist who do not believe this tend to be in the crackpot or vested interest camp pr like your self just fatalistic who will never accept global warming is occurring or that it is caused by man made CO2 no matter how much evidence is put forward. Not unlike free market fantasists who believe the market always works for the good of the population in general.
Right wing bigotry and denial go hand in hand with many thing and no amount of facts or proof will change their beliefs until the problem affects them, then it is they who cry the most. Usually middle aged or older, middle class men with financial padding that they without the help of any circumstances produced. Ram it.
January 14, 2013
The real enemy ( The Central Banks) are using UN Agenda 21 to effect a world takeover. These people have so much money that power is their jolly.
Power corrupts, & absolute power corrupts…
Behind a respectable green cloak of ” Sustainable Development”, of course.
Since it’s inception in 1992 at the Rio Earth Summit, the US govt, acting through it’s
EPA bureaucracy, has nationalised I think about 50 million acres of land.
George Bush Snr, signing it in 1992, hailed it as a “New World Order”
Bill Clinton signed it in 1993. Neither brought it before Congress.
This makes it unconstitutional, & is the reason that Alabama was able to ban UN Agenda 21 in June of this year:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/11999-sustainable-freedom-surging-opposition-to-agenda-21-“sustainable-development”
January 14, 2013
UN Agenda 21 advocates the following:
The impoverishment of the First World , the US, EU UK etc, & the enrichment of the Third world to parity, which we are surely witnessing since 2008.
The abolition of private property, which we are seeing being progressed through US land grabs by the EPA bureaucracy. Google it.
The abolition of the family. This policy has been encouraged in the UK longer than I can recall, with single mothers housed & pampered while little help is being provided through the tax system for families.
Illegitimacy rates are through the roof. The institution of marriage is virtually a thing of the past on our sink estates in particular. This produces harassed single mothers, who have been dumbed down by going through our state school system.
This in turn makes it easier to indoctrinate their kids in our state schools, whose state educated teachers believe in the Global Warming religion absolutely.
I read last week of a European professor calling for the death penalty for Global Warming deniers. The indoctrination has truly been thorough. The Warmist Fascists call sceptics deniers in order to smear them with the holocaust brush, a very low tactic. We are seeing the abolition of the family in slow progress.
The elimination of 80%-90% of the world’s population, to a “sustainable” level”
etc