I was interviewed by journalist John Stewart on ABC TV’s Lateline program tonight.
The segment was about global warming with a focus on blogging.
Mr Stewart made the claim that the only place where the science is still debated is on the internet amongst bloggers. In fact we were accused of still “attacking” the science of global warming.
Interestingly Andrew Bolt was not described as one a News Ltd columnist but rather as a skeptic and a blogger. He was shown making the point that there has been no increase in global temperatures for ten years.
I was also as described as a blogger and also shown making the point that over the last 10 years it hasn’t got any warmer.
If Mr Stewart had gone to the trouble of checking the internationally recognised sources of real world (as opposed to computer generated) data on global temperatures he would have been able to confirm that what Mr Bolt and I said was correct: there has been no warming over the last ten years.
Monthly globally averaged lower atmospheric temperature anomaly since 1979 as measured by NOAA and NASA satellites.
With the additional mark up from gorelied.blogspot.com, with thanks.
Even James Hansen’s GISS data shows that global temperatures have plateued, if not cooled over the last ten years.
NASA GISS Monthly Mean Surface Temperature Analysis since 1998
But instead of the news program confirming our pronouncements with reference to the data (as they might on a business program), I was accused of “spreading doubt about the world getting hotter”.
Graeme Pearman was then introduced, not as a warmaholic, but as a former CSIRO scientist, with Mr Stewart explaining that he believed the data from the Hadley Centre in the UK provided no evidence that the world is getting cooler. [So does this mean the world might not be getting warmer?]
Monthly near-surface from 1850, from the Hadley Centre
Direct comment from Dr Pearman then followed in which he appeared to avoid reference to global temperatures instead making comment about temperatures in Australia – but the average viewer probably thought he was referring to global temperatures.
I did get to make two final important points: 1. that Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, should look at the global temperature data and, 2. that it was wrong for the Minister to suggest, as she did recently with the release of the green paper on emissions trading, that 12 of the last 13 years have been the warmest in history.
This is indeed an outrageous claim with the Minister ignoring much of geological history.
The Minister might have got away with saying that of the last 150 years, the last 13 have been relatively warm. But to suggest that 12 of the last 13 are the hottest ever is just plain wrong. Whatever happened to the medieval warm period, not to mention that planet earth is very old – in fact about 4,550 million years old.
Of course the earth’s climate has always changed and continents have moved, mountain ranges formed and when continents have pulled apart huge quantities of volcanic water, carbon dioxide and methane have been released into the atmosphere.
Don't forget that just 120 million years ago Australia was at the South Pole but it wasn’t cold. Global sea levels were about 100 metres higher than at present and the sea surface temperature was 10-15C higher than now. Indeed parts of inland Australian were once covered in a shallow tropical sea.
The Lateline segment finished with John Stewart stating that we, the bloggers, aren’t going to go away. He has got that bit right.
I would have like to have made a couple of additional points, ten years is not a very long period of time, but there is now a breakdown in what was a close correlation for about 30 years between increasing levels of carbon dioxide and increasing global temperatures.
It may of course start warming again next year – but a recent paper in the journal Nature suggests global temperatures may now plateau until at least 2015 – that is there may be no more warming for a few years.
Of course it is worth remembering that there has been a general warming trend for the last 18,000 years and over this period sea levels have risen about 100 metres.
All in all I think John Stewart did a pretty good job with a difficult topic.
In fact, I’m hoping he will now become a regular reader of blogs and start checking the temperature data and pondering the difference between correlation and causation with us.
Cyclone Nargis - of course it's easier to read a graph than a cyclone.
Update
A video clip of the segment is now here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2008/07/29/2318074.htm
Just came across this blog. What are you guys talking about? As a scientist with no horse in this race I look at the "GoreLied" graph and say of course there is a warming trend in that graph. Any statistician, anyone familiar with reading a graph can see that. Don't believe me? Cover the part of the graph below the zero line and look at the volume under the graph above the line. Then compare it to the volume below the line. Of course there is a warming trend. What the graph shows is that while there are ups and downs every year, the trend shows warming over an alarmingly short 30 year period; 10E-9 % of the age of the earth.
Prof Dick Thoenes of Holland and I worked together in the 1970s. He was one of the authors of the New York Heartland Report at the start of 2008. He now writes to me that -
"I believe the situation in Europe is rather frightening and quite complex.There seems to be a huge and powerful coalition. All politicians of all parties in all countries agree that global warming is a serious problem that requires huge funds, for them to spend. Then there is a powerful group of scientists who proclaim the IPCC gospel, since their research funds depend completely on it. Our national weather bureau belongs to this group. There are also a huge commercial interests involved, especially the wind turbine industry. The media only cite the believers. There is no newspaper or TV station in Europe that I know of that openly contradicts them. Sceptics are ignored completely. They are considered village idiots, particularly in England and the Netherlands.
The worst is that democracy appears to have been lost in the battle. There is in fact no free press any more, and it is only Big Brother that you hear.
To me it is unbelievable that this situation has prevailed in Europe for more than twenty years. Indeed, the politicians and the media ignore what happens elesewhere in the world.
The small group of sceptics in this country that occasionaly publish their papers on websites and in obscure journals appeart to have no influence at all. I have more confidence in the American NIPCC and the Canadian ISPM."
So, if you think Australia is in the grip of extremists.....
Thanks for the support Nelson.
My worry is that those who are ignorant of the real facts will read opinions like those expressed by Gordon above and believe them. Mis-information is what it is and we don't realy have the time to refute it.
As I said above, we are heading into uncharted territory with rises in sea levels and changing rainfall/temperature patterns which will wreak havoc to the worlds population. The potential loss of species diversity is frightening. If our inaction adds anything to the loss of the Koala, then Australia must hang her head in shame.
These things are likely to happen anyway as we already have enormous volumes in the atmosphere, even if we take firm action now (including in the international arena). We are going to see the effects well within our own lifetime. So sober up and accept the evidence and help us get on with it.
'Why is he talking all that drivel about statistical noise, the language of mathematicians? Doesn't he know how to read a graph?'
I think you're out of your depth. Please, read Tamino's blog: I've probably been a bit casual throwing the term 'noise' around, but my point stands. The global warming signal is small, much less than normal interannual variation. Consequently you entirely expect periods of apparent temperature stasis - underlying warming is simply (temporarily) obscured. It's a simple concept!
http://tamino.wordpress.com/
It's a great resource for laymen like us.
Remember noise goes in both directions. Will you suddenly agree with Tamino when there's a spike in the data that appears to show powerful warming? Then will you finally understand the importance of statistical significance when analysing any data series?
Your casual dismissal of rigorous trend analysis by a professional statistician in favour of, uhm, eyeballing is very scary indeed. I hope you don't invest money by just eyeballing.
'There are only 38 molecules of CO2 in 100,000 molecules of air'
This is another fundamental and ugly misunderstanding. Where on Earth do you get your science from? You have to consider potency! Would you be content breathing in nerve gas at 380 ppm, for instance? It's only 38 molecules per 100000...
'Man-made CO2 accounts for less than 3% of all CO2 in the atmosphere.'
Wrong again. Atmopsheric CO2 has increased by 30% since the Industrial Revolution. It's increasing by 3ppm per year. That there is a huge natural carbon cycle is irrelevant: anthropogenic CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere (and if you dispute this, you're plumbing new depths of denialism). And CO2 - so 'insignificant it's ridiculous'? It's responsible for 9-26% of the total greenhouse effect.
If the choice is between Realclimate and whatever blogs you visit, I think I know where to get real science from.
Ricki said..."The science appears too strong".
Ricki...there is no science, that's what the arguement is about. Global warming computer model theory is in its infancy and is an imprecise science. Models can do a backward prediction of 'known' temperature history but they have to be tweaked to get agreement. If you know what you're looking for it's a lot easier to get there.
Computer model theory is responsible for the focus on CO2 warming because the models are based on a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere. They have predicted increasing global warming from increasing CO2 densities, and they have predicted the mid-troposphere will warm about 1.3 times the surface temperature. That has not happened, the models are wrong.
Then you said: "There has been a fairly steep rise in average temperature in the last 3 to 4 decades".
You've been looking at those doctored IPCC hockey stick graphs, haven't you? Do you call 4/10ths of a degree C a 'fairly sharp' increase? How is that going to cause the problems you mention? The models predicted three times that warming, at least. You need to put a little more trust in Mother Nature. She seems to know a lot more about this than we do.
Then you said: "These gases, primarily H2O and CO2 makes Earth about 33C warmer than if these gases weren’t present..."
No, no no...you have to stop reading that propaganda. The greenhouse gases (GHG's) are not primarily H2O and CO2, it's pretty well ALL H20. CO2 is so insignificant it's ridiculous. Water vapour accounts for about 1% of all atmospheric gases, including nitrogen, oxygen, etc., while CO2 is about 0.03%. There are only 38 molecules of CO2 in 100,000 molecules of air (380 cups CO2 in 1 million cups of air).
H2O (vapour, that is) accounts for over 97% of the greenhouse effect. Man-made CO2 accounts for less than 3% of all CO2 in the atmosphere. That's right, over 97% of the CO2 in the atmosphere is from natural sources, not only that, 98% of the CO2 is reabsorbed by vegetation, the land and oceans. According to Roy Spencer, the human contribution to the atmosphere is 1 molecule of CO2 in 100,000 molecules of air every five years.
Ricki...you've really got to stop getting your information from realclimate or desmogblog. Your theory about the last 250 years is represented perfectly on those sites. Has it never occured to you that your theory is a little too cute, and maybe the atmosphere and environment is a whole lot more complex? That's what the satellite data is telling us.
Nelson said "Tamino explains why with a clarity far better than I can offer"
Tamino seems to have enrolled in the Gavin Schmidt school of statistical bombast. Why is he talking all that drivel about statistical noise, the language of mathematicians? Doesn't he know how to read a graph?
The graph we are talking about comes from the top of this page. It is ACTUAL satellite data, not statistical inference. I'm not interested in fools who try to twist actual data with mathematics. The noise has already been removed.
That graph was created from data sets made from the actual temperatures measured in the atmosphere by satellites. The data sets were made by John Christy and Roy Spencer, two real climate scientists who were trained for at least 7 years each in atmospheric physics. How much training does Tamil have in that discipline?
Christy and Spencer are experts in creating data sets. They are both Ph.D's and they know all about what is noise and what is signal. Spencer is an expert in satellite instrumentation.
Why are you wasting your time reading what Tamil thinks when you can get the information first hand from two of the leading climate scientists in the world?
Neslon: "Tamino explains why with a clarity far better than I can offer:"
so what about the 1000 -1500 year wiggles like the Dansgaard/Oeschger events and their interglacial cousins the bond events.
Under those circumstances anything less than a 2000 year trend is like to be insignificant.
I can see no hope in the latest few years data that the long term trend of the last 100 or so years has turned down. The pause that might very well be visible in the graph does not presage much when you look at the long term trend. The pause in the 1940's was much deeper, but it still turned up quickly in the 50's. The increase in the steepness of the curve in the last 30 years indicates we are accelerating. See the BOM web site for the global graph...http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/reg/cli_chg/g_timeseries.cgi?variable=global_t®ion=global&season=0112.
I am afraid I cannot agree with you Jennifer that it is all a big hoax. The science appears too strong. Try this quote from a better person than I that basically puts a clear argument:
"There has been a fairly steep rise in average temperature in the last 3 to 4 decades. The heat content of the ocean’s upper layers has increased over this same time period. Mountain glaciers, nearly everywhere have been shrinking at increasing rates,and arctic sea ice is melting, also at an accelerating pace. Greenland’s ice cap is doing the same. The diurnal temperature range is decreasing due to a quicker increase in night time over day time temperatures. Hurricane intensity is increasing (see http:wind.mit.edu/~emanuel/papers_data_graphics.htm). Flora and fauna have been migrating to higher latitudes and to higher elevations. The average temperature of the globe has increased about 0.7C over the last century or so. These phenomena are based on observations.
A well established principle of physics states that climate results in a balance between incoming solar energy and the amount of heat that the planet radiates away to space. An atmosphere can absorb some of that outgoing energy, altering the energy balance which would keep that planet warmer than it would otherwise be- the greenhouse effect. These gases, primarily H2O and CO2 makes Earth about 33C warmer than if these gases weren’t present. Changes in the amounts of these gases will change this number, and carefully measured values of CO2 show that this gas has increased significantly since the dawn of
the industrial age.
For the last 250 years or so we’ve been burning fossil fuels which releases carbon into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, CO2. About half of that carbon remains in the atmosphere resulting in an increase of about 115 ppmv of C02 since the start of the industrial revolution (from 270 to 385). From an examination of ice core data, this number is higher than it has been in at least the last half million years. Deforestation and land use practices also affect climate. These factors have to be taken into account to explain the recent changes in climate, described above."
We can argue about the detail, but when its boiled down, there is too much going on to refute the general understanding that we are over-polluting our atmosphere and have to stop. If we don't our descendants will suffer.