When I started this blog it was with some trepidation as I outlined in my very first post .
And I wondered whether anyone would comment. I like comments because I like to know what I might have got wrong, and what I might have got right and I like to read different perspectives and have my ideas challenged.
Louis Hissink definately gets the prize for the most comments at this blog.
Sometimes I laugh, sometimes I cringe, sometimes I learn something, when I read the comments from Louis.
If you do a google search on Louis you will find comment that includes:
"Regarded as the best diamond field geologist in Australia."
"His free time is spent researching ancient history, writing comments on environmental or mining matters and, as frequently happens, re-installing the operating system on the computer. He is a book worm and writes book reviews for Henry Thornton,
http://www.henrythornton.com/contributors.asp?contributor=9 ."
Louis has won a prize for posting the "worst argument" against global warming. Given the judge (Tim Lambert) listed other contenders as
McKitrick & Michaels, Baliunas and Soon - he can perhaps feel honoured.
There was a period recently when there were no comments from Louis. I gather he had headed off bush for 3 weeks to Wooleen,
http://www.wooleen.com.au/
Louis has written about Wooleen:
"I think it (the homestead) cost 145,000 pounds to build a century ago - wool really was the go then. Not now any more - current stocking is 2000 head from the usual 14,000. Drought is in 5/7 year cycle, so another 2 years of pain apparently."
Thanks Louis for your contribution, for taking the time to comment.
Hope that increase in El Nino frequency has nothing to do with GW!!
Global Patterns of Predator Diversity in the Open Oceans
Published online July 28 2005; 10.1126/science.1113399 (Science Express Reports )
Boris Worm 1*, Marcel Sandow 2, Andreas Oschlies 3, Heike K. Lotze 1, Ransom A. Myers 4
1 Biology Department, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada B3H 4J1; Leibniz Institute for Marine Science, Düsternbrooker Weg 20, 24105 Kiel, Germany.
2 Leibniz Institute for Marine Science, Düsternbrooker Weg 20, 24105 Kiel, Germany.
3 Leibniz Institute for Marine Science, Düsternbrooker Weg 20, 24105 Kiel, Germany; National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, SO14 3ZH, UK.
4 Biology Department, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada B3H 4J1.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Boris Worm , E-mail: bworm@dal.ca
The open oceans comprise most of the biosphere, yet patterns and trends of species diversity are enigmatic. Here, we derive worldwide patterns of tuna and billfish diversity over the past 50 years, revealing distinct subtropical "hotspots" that appeared to hold generally for other predators and zooplankton. Diversity was positively correlated with thermal fronts and dissolved oxygen and a nonlinear function of temperature (~25°C optimum). Diversity declined between 10% and 50% in all oceans, a trend that coincided with increased fishing pressure, superimposed on strong El Niño Southern Oscillation-driven variability across the Pacific. We conclude that predator diversity shows a predictable yet eroding pattern signaling ecosystem-wide changes linked to climate and fishing.
No John I did not get it wrong I said if you read it properly:
This is defined as the position where the warming of the atmosphere is either natural, OR not happening or OR insufficient evidence exists.
The ORs are in capitals so that you can see them. I tried to cover all the bases.
So you accept that some AGW warming will occur. That puts you in the second group of skeptics. The ones that cannot explain away the science of AGW so they say "well it will not be much compared to natural so we do not have to worry"
Is that the same John McLean's website who is commenting here?
I took a look at the website. Started off on the home page (some nice photography!) then moved to the global warming pages.
The first thing I read - at the top of the first global warming page (http://mclean.ch/climate/global_warming.htm) - was that global temperatures were not increasing, because they had been going down since 2002 - a 2 year trend.
I stopped reading after that. Anyone who begins their argument with such a weak point is not worth listening to. I've got better things to do with my time.
The more you think about the anti-AGW argument the more you miss the point.
World is near Peak Oil - mobile energy is about to become a major issue.
Hydrogen is a long way off - leaks like crazy, dangerous, no distribution infrastructure, most generation methods produce CO2, probably damages the ozone layer. Biofuels don't add up - not enough arable land. Fusion still not viable. Fission - well hell I don't mind but most do. AND nobody is prepared to go back to the Stone Age or ride their bikes.
But USA has about 250 years of coal - Australia has several 100s of years. So we can use relatively mature coal gasification technology to produce gasoline. Fischer Tropsch synthesis of liquid hydrocarbons...
Only one problems - heaps of CO2 !!
SO explains the position of the USA House Energy Committee on Mann et al doesn't it. The whole business as usual gig is at stake from scientists who may know too much. So we'll rough them up and discredit them.
Explains our recent little pact with USA, China and India too eh?
So strap yourself in guys we're gonna at least go triple pre-industrial CO2 atmospheric concentration - anyone for quadruple ?? Anyone concerned - chicken if you are ! Bet you the transatlantic conveyor doesn't budge an inch.
John's right - RELAX - it will just make the plants grow and there will no effects on climate.
In my exile/ self-imposed vacation from this blog I intended to discipline myself by taking up smoking and reading John McLean's anti-sites as penance...
Well I have had two Alpines and I don't think I can take up smoking so onto phase II.
So I randomly pick this site to start my re-education. And it will be a very difficult re-education as I have to un-learn everything I know. I must be open to new ideas and not be the rampant pro-AGW fanatic which John says I have become (well I had some doubts on a number of things but given John says I am a fanatic then I must be .. coz he's right you see and he's very sure of himself - totally).
Anyway John's web site "CO2 and the dire predictions" :
http://mclean.ch/climate/CO2.htm
On the 1959-2004 table John shows us some interesting numbers then does a linear projection (which I get different numbers for)to 2100. But I thought the old reality CO2 in the real atmosphere graph was going exponential in shape - why are we doing linear projections. And are not the IPCC scenario ranges dependent on what mankind does with CO2 emissions?
So how does this work then. I just having a little bit of trouble understanding.
Then we have a look at the next table and he shows us that life doesn't add up... but then I notice that 1976 was a La Nina "cold event" which will influence global temps down and that 2004 was a mild "warm event" which will bias global temps up. SO I have to do some learning about using this point analysis stuff.
And I don't understand how temp records look like they make be broken in 2005 ....
And are there also not a few other things going on like solar activity, volcanism , global dimming, seasonal, interannual and decadal effects. And that's why you need to model things to take into account all these interactions. Just like in:
http://meop0.troja.mff.cuni.cz/workshop05/
Gee if I didn't know that John was really good I would think he was just picking numbers to suit his argument, ignoring other intercations - like well known effects of El Nino and La Nina on global temperature, and doing linear transforms on non-linear problems.
Gee I just had a really dreadful thought - what if John was a naughty sophist after all...
gee this would drag a lot of his creds into doubt wouldn't it.
Anyway silly me - that wouldn't be right. Anyway might try Benson and Hedges and see if they work better.
P.S. Thanks John - you liitle beauty - I really couldn't have believed it was that simple. - Ender and other "worried about possible GW" colleagues - read John's site and ROFTL....
This wouldn't pass Grade 8 science !!
So who's been a naughty boy then - coz he's obviously a lot smarter than Grade 8.
P.P.S. Yes we need to be careful where we get our advice from. And Jen if John's sites are the basis of your skepticism - you're going to hack to march down the back at the demos I'm afraid. We have our reputations to protect.
Now where was that copy of Barnett's paper John told me to throw away......
John, you ignored my argument completely.
You try to cast me as having blind faith, and yourself as being interested in science.
My point was that, I have faith in the interpretation of the IPCC, the best summary of climate science there is, whereas you have faith in your own opinion. Good for you for having faith in your own opinion, but for me, your opinion is irrelevant next to more authoritative sources of information.
I think scepticism can and is an often valuable contribution to society. However, when scepticism is combined with an oversized contempt for existing, accepted institutions, and paranoia that everyone else is corrupt and only your own analysis can be pure, then it becomes an obsessive and timewasting exercise.
You value your own non-expert opinion, and beleive that your choosing of a handful of references is sensible against the mountain of evidence summarised in IPCC documents. I would question that.
By the way, the majority of scientists were not wrong on the earth being the centre of the universe. I believe that was the church who were wrong, and scientists corrected them.