Thursday 29 August 2013

Sins of omission & carbon taxes for the remission of emissions
I listened to the " Life scientific " interview of Joanna Haigh. At about 1min30s-2min in she said temperature has gone up & up then wobbled a bit then she expects it will go up & up again. That doesn't sound very scientific. Would have expected her to give a reference to the graph she was thinking of and some detailed figures.
Hans Von Storch gave a more detailed account to Der Spiegel on 20th Jun 2013 : Storch: So far, no one has been able to provide a compelling answer to why climate change seems to be taking a break. We're facing a puzzle. Recent CO2 emissions have actually risen even more steeply than we feared. As a result, according to most climate models, we should have seen temperatures rise by around 0.25 degrees Celsius (0.45 degrees Fahrenheit) over the past 10 years. That hasn't happened. In fact, the increase over the last 15 years was just 0.06 degrees Celsius (0.11 degrees Fahrenheit) -- a value very close to zero. This is a serious scientific problem that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will have to confront when it presents its next Assessment Report late next year.
Yet later in Life scientific interview ( 17min28s) Joanna Haigh said " over recent months increasing trend seems to have flattened off a bit "
, would have thought when it has been over 12 months Joanna should have started using ' years '
I would like to see the reports that back up the claim that the IPCC summaries have been "reviewed more heavily than any scientific paper you could ever imagine " ( 16min 9s). " , me thinks she protests too much, she then waffled about hundreds & hundreds of referees comments. Which reports should i look at ? Joanna Haigh should have said that reviews of the hockey stick graph by Steve McIntyre & Ross McKitrick showed it was seriously flawed, and read all about it in Andrew Montford's books.
When Joanna talked about the reviews she said, " They couldn't just say, " That's stupid " , they have to say why they think it is stupid ". Isn't that the sort of comment you'd expect to hear in primary school ? Would have thought it would be more like, " That comment is contested by this paper ref xyz "
Maybe Joanna Haigh should have recommended people do their own survey of all the competing ideas and work it out for themselves - as an interesting exercise in looking at the details. Also give some positive views on CO2 like recommending Dr William Happer on Youtube who points out that below 150 ppm of CO2 plants would die and atm was not much above that pre industrial revolution so in fact our mining & driving cars & flying planes may have helped life on earth more than harmed it.
She could have recommended reading Andrew Montford's books for a contrasting opinion and make your own mind up, be educated about the full debate. Or read Nigel Lawson's " An appeal to reason " which gives alternative approaches as to how to respond to the IPCC alleged threats. Or read " Punchdrunk from CO2, dizzy from spin " by Peter Sullivan.
Don't worry - Drive - be happy

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