IN September, Patrick J. Michaels likened the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to a treed cat. He wrote, “Instead of closing its eyes and scurrying to the ground, it climbs onto even higher and thinner branches, while yowling ever louder.”
Dr Michaels then went on to ask, how does the IPCC back down from a quarter-century of predicting a quarter of a degree (Celsius) of warming every decade, when there’s been none for 17 years now?
Chris Turney, professor of climate change at the University of New South Wales, could be described as a cat stuck on a high branch tweeting, but he’s actually at the Antarctic and should be considering abandoning ship, except that there is no clear water into which to launch a life raft.
According to the website Boatsafe.com it can be a difficult decision knowing just when to make the call and it is quite common for captains to wait too long to successfully get clear of a floundering foundering boat.
Four days ago the Professor Captain tweeted: “Great news. Icebreaker Snow Dragon on horizon with penguins! Everyone very happy!”
Happy because the Chinese ice-breaking vessel Snow Dragon was expected to clear a path for the stricken ship by Friday night, avoiding the need to abandon ship.
That was after this 233-foot-long Russian-flagged ship sent out a distress signal on Christmas Eve, which was picked up by the Falmouth Maritime Rescue Coordination Center, in the U.K. As the floundering ship is in the Australian search-and-rescue region, the message was passed on to AMSA, and three ice-breaking ships were sent to the rescue.
So far there has been no mention of the climate by the professor of climate change.
But some positive reporting of the weather.
When it looked like the Snow Dragon would be unsuccessful in its bid to cut through 20 kilometres of sea ice frozen to an average depth of perhaps 10 metres, Professor Captain Turney explained that the weather had improved and the ship was no longer in a blizzard.
So, presumably no need to abandon ship.
Next day the Professor Captain tweeted that the ice was cracking. Still no mention of climate. But this time he did report that the weather had deteriorated with snowfalls and stronger winds.
Still no suggestion they abandon ship. In fact Turney tweeted confidently that the second ice-breaker, an Australian ship the Aurora, would be able to successfully rescue them. This despite reports that there was a growing distance between their floundering stricken ship and open water.
Oh. And wind conditions were putting a lot of strain on one side. Turney added that, “The build-up of ice on one side has given it quite a tilt.”
Not the climate, but the ship.
In fact must be five days stranded now, no clear water, and no mention of climate change.
I am surprised because there is surely potential for some simple climate change type calculations that could be done by the many scientists onboard.
For example, Professor Captain Turney has explained that sea ice can buildup fast because of high winds. Note. High winds, no mention of climate change.
But let me continue.
When the Captain Professor first realized there was no open channel through the ice they were only about two nautical miles from open water. Next thing, more than 20 miles of ice had built up. Now it’s apparently closer to 50 kilometers.
As someone genuinely interested in climate change I ask, “Given the tilting ship, is about 2,800 kilometres south of Hobart, if this catastrophic cooling trend continues, how many days before it is possible to skate across Bass Strait, from Hobart to Melbourne?”
But I digress. Back to the key issue: When is the right time to abandon ship?
As I write the distance between open water with the ice breakers and the tilting ship is somewhere in the vicinity of 50 kilometres. I don’t know how many penguins.
Of possible significance they are running out of coffee.
***
Sources of information
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/ipcc-political-suicide-pill
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/27/22059393-great-news-rescue-vessel-within-sight-of-explorer-ship-stuck-in-antarctic-ice
http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/rescue-vessel-near-university-nsw-professor-chris-turneys-icetrapped-cruise-ship/story-fnizu68q-1226790782675
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/27/22068563-icebergs-blizzards-and-a-creaking-ship-antarctic-explorers-tense-wait-for-rescue?lite
http://www.iol.co.za/scitech/science/environment/vessel-still-stuck-in-antarctic-ice-1.1627313#.UsFrbf2Tqro
Tom Biegler,
"I therefore decided that I must leave that to the experts. And I do have faith that they will sort it out, eventually. But that’s just me. You can do as you wish."
Hope and change hasn't worked very well here in the US or anywhere else people abdicate their rational abilities to so called experts busy pocketing our money.
And, at the risk of labouring the point, Maurice Newman was perfectly correct to state:
"global temperatures have gone nowhere for 17 years"
Characterized by Karoly as "flat-earth thinking". How that's inferred, I don't know.
>"Leave it to the scientists to sort out"
I've already detailed their fundamental pickle that climate scientists will have to "sort out" up-thread here Tom:
https://climatelab.com.au/2013/12/when-is-the-right-time-to-abandon-ship/?cp=all#comment-546029
But given their scrabbling around for explanations to explain the lack of 21st century warming (they don't know in AR5 - no science, just some speculation) after 25 years of IPCC Assessment Reports, how long will we have to wait for them to "sort out" their model failure (see bottom of comment link above)?
The IPCC points to solar change and oceanic cyclicity to explain the 21st century temperature "pause" they didn't predict, which ironically, in the case of the latter (ocean cyclicity), has been what sceptics have been saying explains temperature oscillations over the past 100 years or so. At least the IPCC are on to that now.
And in the case of the former (solar change), sceptics (some not all) have been saying that explains the underlying upwards trend in temperature since the 1600s and will explain a good portion of future temperature trend as well (probably downward for a few decades).
We (the AGW sceptics) haven't had much choice but to "leave it to the scientists to sort out" Tom, it's just that they're taking so long to figure out what sceptics already know that rankles.
BTW, I see in the SMH David Karoly, Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Melbourne and a member of the Climate Change Authority, asserts as "fact" that:
'Maurice Newman's flat-earth thinking ignores climate change facts'
"....the global average surface temperature has warmed over the period 1997 to 2013"
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/maurice-newmans-flatearth-thinking-ignores-climate-change-facts-20140101-305h6.html#ixzz2pDqYS3aJ
Karoly's GAST "fact" appears to be somewhat problematic given the following:
Statistical Significances – How Long Is “The Pause” (includes September data)
On all data sets below, the different times for a slope that is at least very slightly negative ranges from 8 years and 9 months to 16 years and 11 months.
1. For GISS, the slope is flat since September 1, 2001 or 12 years, 1 month. (goes to September 30, 2013)
2. For Hadcrut3, the slope is flat since May 1997 or 16 years, 5 months. (goes to September)
3. For a combination of GISS, Hadcrut3, UAH and RSS, the slope is flat since December 2000 or 12 years, 10 months. (goes to September)
4. For Hadcrut4, the slope is flat since December 2000 or 12 years, 10 months. (goes to September)
5. For Hadsst3, the slope is flat since November 2000 or 12 years, 11 months. (goes to September)
6. For UAH, the slope is flat since January 2005 or 8 years, 9 months. (goes to September using version 5.5)
7. For RSS, the slope is flat since November 1996 or 17 years (goes to October)
RSS is 203/204 or 99.5% of the way to Ben Santer’s 17 years.
On several different data sets, there has been no statistically significant warming for between 16 and 20 years.
The details for several sets are below.
For UAH: Since November 1995: CI from -0.001 to 2.501
For RSS: Since December 1992: CI from -0.005 to 1.968
For Hadcrut4: Since August 1996: CI from -0.006 to 1.358
For Hadsst3: Since May 1993: CI from -0.002 to 1.768
For GISS: Since August 1997: CI from -0.030 to 1.326
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/03/statistical-significances-how-long-is-the-pause-now-includes-september-data/
Don't you think David Karoly (a "scientist", and "climate change authority", apparently) is twisting his "facts" Tom?
@James Mayeau December 31st, 2013 at 3:38 pm
>"Inventions. What a joke. Still waiting for the first invention featuring the principle of back radiation."
Exactly James. There's about 400 W.m2 DLR available at Darwin 24/7, no invention to harness that yet. Fact that DLR has completely negligible heating effect on material (land, water, metal, human skin, etc) irrespective of wattage may have something to do with it i.e. solar SW is "tuned" to heat materials, DLR isn't, and doesn't.
BTW everyone, I see at WUWT that the 'Spirit of Shackleton' expedition 2007 met a similar fate to the 'Spirit of Mawson' 2013.
Could be they need more than just "spirit" to recreate those early expeditions.
Yes like the right tends to be sceptical of tobacco related illness, water pollution, air pollution and reigning in anything that might interfere with the share price regardless of the human cost. Try harder charles.
Strange above - I thought for a moment Cohenite was describing any anti-AGW sceptic manifesto of nonsense
All the to ing and fro ing of Tom Biegler is interesting. To say you have spent many years working with scientists and never having detected one who was not devoted to grant chasing, vested interest or just plain chasing the goodies (i.e. money, power, overseas junkets, acknowledgement, etc.) that come with a successful Gravy Train topic launch, is quite unbelievable.
Over the 30 + years that I worked as research scientist along side scientists from CSIRO, Universities, and other public and private science institutions I saw many who belonged to the latter group and precious few to the group Tom describes as his working colleagues.
It is also interesting that Tom while professing to be of curious mind claims he is not even qualified to think about climate science. In my view science is just an understanding of the logic of a variety of physical processes, which is relatively easily understood by anyone who uses logic as a thought process (i.e. pretty much everyone). Where science comes undone is when someone prefers to believe their own ideology (or how they wish things might be organised) over quantitative evidence, then we get the rise of the True Believer who thinks we are cooking the planet with our presence, because that is what they would like to believe, and would like to ignore what is really happening (because that is what they do not wish).
Since we get strength in belief in AGW usually along political lines (i.e. Left generally believes and Right tends to be sceptical) Tom falls somewhat outside both parameters and even though he has all the credentials to have a view, he forgoes that opportunity due to what could be described as a relatively low discouragement level.
Unique I would say.
When did Tom cite the IPCC?
First he rolled out You're not a climate scientist whats been published in the Good Book of climate bigotry so why should anyone listen to what you say?
Then he sidled over to the, I'm pretty darned smart but I can't make heads or tails of that climate science. It's so complicated. It makes my head spin and my eyes roll. bunch of gobbledygook.
Then he sashayed over to We should trust the self appointed experts whose livelyhood depends on panicking the public, whose main talent is blocking and punishing unapproved analysis to create the appearance of consensus. Because.... Well.
That's the point where Tom went a bit fuzzy.
Must have missed that post citing the IPCC, Tom. Maybe it's in the batters box on your tray at home?
The IPCC is a political institution set up to promote AGW not prove it:
http://www.ipccfacts.org/history.html
As for its scientific credentials Tom should read the assessment of the IPCC by the IAC in 2010:
http://www.ipccfacts.org/history.html
Many conclusions of AR4, which the IAC analysis concentrated on, were based upon little or no evidence, and were not traceable to the underlying science if it existed; these include:
•Unpublished and non-peer-reviewed literature was used in violation of even the weak procedure then existent and was almost never appropriately flagged.
•There was no traceability in the assignment of ratings for level of scientific understanding and likelihood.
•Quantitative probabilities (as in the likelihood scale) were used to describe the probability of well-defined outcomes when there was insufficient evidence i.e exaggeration
•The confidence scale was used to assign subjective probabilities to ill-defined outcomes.
•Formal expert elicitation procedures were not used to obtain subjective probabilities for key results.
•Inappropriate use of unpublished and non-peer reviewed material which has not been critically evaluated compounds the uncertainty of any conclusions.
•High confidence was attributed on little evidence and to vague statements.
•Many statements have weak evidentiary basis.
•Conclusions were stated so vaguely as to make them impossible to refute.
•Authors reported high confidence in statements for which there is little evidence.
•Anonymous unsubstantiated ratings are worthless.
•WG2 SPM assigned high confidence on little evidence.
Tom seems exceptionally naïve.
The UK Daily Mail had the best headline.
"Global warming scientists forced to admit defeat... because of too much ice: Stranded Antarctic ship's crew will be rescued by helicopter"
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2531159/Antarctic-crew-build-ice-helipad-help-rescuers.html#ixzz2p6N2f5Rv
Maybe Tom has been labouring under the belief that the IPCC is a scientific organisation rather than an all too typical UN political trough, as described by Vaclav Klaus. That would explain a lot.
Anyway, Max mentions 1927 in America. Fans of US extremes might want to look at the twelve month period which took in the Labour Day Hurricane, then the historic coldwave in the north, followed by the Big Heat of 1936. They managed lots of dust and quite a bit of flooding as well. Of course, our own dry-to-wet swing around 1916 would rate highly in the extreme stakes, as would the extraordinary stalled weather system of 1950, which absolutely drenched eastern Oz and left the rest dry.
Remind me to ask Professor Turney about why climate changes so dramatically. When he's available.