No one can deny that in recent years the need to "save the planet" from global warming has become one of the most pervasive issues of our time. As Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, claimed in 2004, it poses "a far greater threat to the world than international terrorism", warning that by the end of this century the only habitable continent left will be Antarctica.
Inevitably, many people have been bemused by this somewhat one-sided debate, imagining that if so many experts are agreed, then there must be something in it. But if we set the story of how this fear was promoted in the context of other scares before it, the parallels which emerge might leave any honest believer in global warming feeling uncomfortable.
The Sunday Telegraph: 'The deceit behind global warming'
New Book:
Scared to Death: From BSE To Global Warming — How Scares Are Costing Us The Earth by Christopher Booker and Richard North (Continuum, £16.99)
Paul
what is your problem? According to the conspiracy theories, AGW research means scientists refusing to admit when they are wrong. The basic science is still the same, the stratosphere is cooling, as predicted, because the troposphere is warming.
That would be the 'Low' LOSU solar mechanism would it?
I remember RC's failed explanation:
7 December 2004
Why does the stratosphere cool when the troposphere warms?
Filed under: Attic— gavin @ 11:21 AM - ()
This post is obsolete and wrong in many respects. Please see this more recent post for links to the answer.
14/Jan/05: This post was updated in the light of my further education in radiation physics.
25/Feb/05: Groan…and again.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=58
Latest improved attempt here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/the-sky-is-falling/
Well Tinkerbelle if you want to get advice from ex-tobacco industry shills go ahead.
Strangely Paul, the stratospheric cooling seems to be global not just polar not what you'd expect from a solar mechanism at all.
http://www.remss.com/msu/msu_data_description.html
Some people get very excited about a 20 year or so window in climate that they can't explain on the basis of the IPCC's 'Low' 'level of scientific understanding' for 'solar irradiance,' and a 'very low' understanding for everything else related to solar.
Isn't the stratosphere cooling due to ozone depletion rather than CO2, not that we fully understand that either.
"A tobacco industry defender's opinion is worth ZERO."
An ad hominum attack is worth ZERO.
John - there was more written than Modtran and Milloy doesn't address it.
Lawrie's specific comments were: "any global warming" - we are not arguing sensitivity.
A tobacco industry defender's opinion is worth ZERO.
Golly not even Biggsy or the cosmic ray guys are not at zero ! I wonder why that darn stratosphere is cooling.
John
there are physical limits to the temperature rise, eg, a relatively fixed output from the sun.
The issue is that eco systems are optimised to their environment. Change that environment too quickly, which is what is happening, and there are going to be serious problems coping with that change. Rapid change = chaos.
If it's not RealClimate it's MODTRAN for Luke.
MODTRAN is theoretical in that it doesn't incorporate other climate influences in the real world, in particular feedbacks. The popular belief among alrmists is that almost every feedback is positive but wouldn't the Earth have fried to a crisp long ago if that was the case?
The other problem with MODTRAN is the question of converting Watts/sq m into temperature. Steve Milloy has a detailed discussion of the many different claims at http://junkscience.com/Greenhouse/What_Watt.html.
In other words saying "MODTRAN says..." doesn't prove much at all.
"is absorbed"