Monthly Archives: June 2007

IPCC, News and Views, Water

Politician speaks truth

17 Comments

Tim Blair reports how the NSW Treasurer Michael Costa, in the NSW Upper House, referred to Dr Tim Flannery as an idiot. I would say that if you are going to run around making pro IPCC, doomster predictions knocking the idea that rain will fill dams, influencing national policy, then when the opposite happens, you have to wear it.

The NSW Treasurer, Michael Costa, has called Tim Flannery an “idiot” …

Mr Costa, a renowned climate change sceptic, made his comments in question time in the Legislative Council, saying the environmental campaigner Mr Flannery was wrong to say that dams were going to dry up because of climate change.

Mr Costa referred to “idiots like Tim Flannery saying it’ll never rain” as he launched into a tirade against the theory of greenhouse gases.

He said Mr Flannery and others continually came up with “ridiculous propositions” and told Coalition MPs he would not have appointed Mr Flannery Australian of the Year.


Note on the Gippsland floods

I love seeing the Victorian Premier Bracks on morning TV, fresh from approving a giant, money wasting $3.1Billion seawater desalination plant at Wonthaggi, now prattling on about GL here and there as though he is an expert in dams, river flows, whatever. Pathetic. Fresh from just doubling water prices too.

Remember that Greens and weak kneed politicians killed the proposal for a dam on the Mitchell. Will anyone calculate the value of the water wasting to sea down the Mitchell river, at the cost of water from the proposed Wonthaggi desal plant ? I think it is a non PC calculation that I might eventually have to do.

IPCC, News and Views, Sea levels

Did Australian scientists/students pull down this tree in the Maldives ?

34 Comments

It is well known that the IPCC has made publicity about the threat of rising sea levels to island states such as the Maldives. The media has run many articles puffing up this notion that the islands are doomed.

Dr Nils-Axel Mörner recounts in a recent interview how he visited the Maldives and found various evidence that sea levels have been stable within a range for many decades. On pages 3-4 he relates how,

“There came an Australian sea-level team, which was for the IPCC and against me. Then the students pulled down the tree by hand! They destroyed the evidence. What kind of people are those?”

The picture I have used here is from the documentary “CBC – Global Warming Doomsday Called Off” which can be viewed on VideoGoogle. The short section mentioning this tree starts at about 27 minutes.

I am keen to discover who it was in 2003 that pulled this tree down, what University or Institute did they come from ? Does anyone know of a “sea level team” that visited the Maldives in 2003 ? I can be emailed sanur2007 AT warwickhughes.com

Atmospheric science, IPCC, News and Views

Sensational statements by Dr Kevin Trenberth, IPCC supporter

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Dr Trenberth says,

“In fact there are no predictions by IPCC at all. And there never have been. The IPCC instead proffers “what if” projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions scenarios.”

There are an awful lot of policy makers and others driven by the the content of the Al Gore movie and the general blizzard of scary predictions of the future pumped out by the media, that are sure acting as though they believe the IPCC makes predictions; and good, believable predictions too.

For the full statement by Dr Trenberth and many comments, go to the Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr. Research Group Weblog.

Atmospheric science, IPCC, Jones et al, Surface Record, Urban Heat Islands

Review comments on papers by the “great and the good”

5 Comments

A catch-all post for comments on my various reviews on significant pro IPCC climate papers.

Dr Rolf Philipona has kindly replied to my comments on his 2005 paper. I intend to present more data for various parameters in the weeks ahead.

Just for now though I want to restate that the Greenhouse Effect has to act in the lower atmosphere and then some of that heat is re-radiated to the surface. See basic descriptions on this NOAA site.

Hence my comment that I feel it is odd to ignore lower troposphere trends, because that is where AGW has first to take place.

IPCC Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is driven by increases in trace gases carbon dioxide, methane etc plus contentious postulated positive feedbacks from water vapour which as many authorities state is by far the most abundant greenhouse gas.

To wrap up for now, just a few very general points. Readers who follow weather forecasts and associated satellite imagery do not need me to point out that the lower atmosphere is characterized by constant large scale movement, lateral and vertical and circulation of air masses on hemispheric scales. Dr Philipona has alluded to looking to understand European warming to some extent outside the influence of the NAO and other people may comment on that.

Then there are issues of truly colossal scale heat transport such as the ever present Gulfstream which prevents the European climate from being significantly more frigid.

I have trouble imagining that Dr Philipona’s “line to the sky” radiation measurements from his Alpine site, however beautifully expressed in mathematics, can explain European warming in the face of these other confounding weather and climate factors.

IPCC, Surface Record, Urban Heat Islands

Daily temperature range (DTR), max minus min, some ramblings

2 Comments

Philip B commented on “Climate predictions “right only half the time””

Warwick you wrote:

Since the nighttime temperatures are rising three times as fast as the daytime temperatures (Karl et al., 1993), it implies a non-climatic signal in the nighttime data equal to about one half of the total warming. It implies the reported global warming of 0.6 C in the twentieth century should be reduced to about 0.3 C.

Have you seen the analyses of Australia temperature data at Gust Of Hot Air?

It shows that rising minimum temperatures are giving a false impression of rising nighttime temperatures, which are rising much less than the minimum, in a number cases there is no rise at all even though the minimum is rising.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that rising minimum temperatures reflect increased daytime warming and not increasing nighttime temperatures. As well as that increasing minimum and maximum temperatures are showing more heat gain to the system than there is.

After replying, I thought we needed a new thread

You had me searching for that quote Philip. It is on a page written by Dr Doug Hoyt, just above his references.

I agree with his thrust there as I have thought for years now that IPCC supportive scientists have attributed DTR closure to a greenhouse signal when in fact it is exactly a UHI signal – which they always manage to either ignore, trivialise or minimise in some way.
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News and Views, NZ Climate Science Coalition

Climate predictions “right only half the time”

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From: Terry Dunleavy [terry.dunleavy@nzclimatescience.org.nz]

The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition

Media release (immediate) 7 June 2007

World climate predictors right only half the time

“The open admission by a climate scientist of the New Zealand National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), Dr Jim Renwick, that his organisation achieves only 50 per cent accuracy in its climate forecasts, and that this is as good as any other forecaster around the world, should be a wake-up call for world political leaders,” said Rear Admiral Jack Welch, chairman of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition.

Yesterday the coalition published an analysis of seasonal climate predictions by NIWA over the past five years which found that the overall accuracy of the predictions was just 48 per cent.

Defending the Niwa record, Dr Renwick said his organisation was doing as well as any other weather forecaster around the world. He was quoted by the country’s leading newspaper, the New Zealand Herald as saying: “Climate prediction is hard, half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable, so we don’t expect to do terrifically well.” Later on New Zealand radio, Dr Renwick said: “The weather is not predictable beyond a week or two.”
Continue reading Climate predictions “right only half the time” →