Navy Chemist Trashes NYT for 'Regurgitating fear-mongering, anecdotal clap trap of global warming'

Climate Depot ^ | August 19, 2009 | Martin Hertzberg

[palmer]

Unbelievable. They compare a summer month with twelve month averages THAT INCLUDE THE WINTER MONTHS and find....there is less ice.

Since Cog is busy, I point out that climatedepot is completely wrong. The ice summer ice extent minimum is being compared to the average summer ice extent minimum for those prior years. The ice extent minimum from satellite was about 8 million sq km in 1979 and drops to 5 point something this year, apples to apples.

What Cog won't point out is that the comparing any further back can be apples to oranges, or in the case of the chart he posted, fresh apples to simulated plastic decorative apples. The estimates showing complete flat ice before 1953 are derived from a temperature data set that is also curiously flat.

[Old Professer]

Warming up,

[Old Professer]

I’ve tried to make a number of points clear to you over the past several years about why caution is the better course of action for now and debate ought be encouraged, not shut out; but here, in one brief essay written for post tomorrow from Australia sums the whole thing up to where we find ourselves today.

It’s worth the few minutes it takes to read:

http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/09/why-i-am-an-anthropogenic-global-warming-sceptic-michael-hammer/#more-6422

[Old Professer]

Here’s a classic video from 1990 where all the classic arguments are made and the elements of politics are covered; Idso and Lindzen were younger then, my how time flies.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5949034802461518010#

[cogitator]

I’ve tried to make a number of points clear to you over the past several years about why caution is the better course of action for now and debate ought be encouraged, not shut out;

One of the reasons that I have tried to mostly withdraw from the global warming conversation here on FR is that when presented with an article such as the one you have offered, I realize that I cannot possibly devote sufficient time to correcting the repetitive misconceptions contained therein.

This article says nothing new. This article repeats a large number of points that have been raised by skeptics, miscontrued and twisted by skeptics, and then acquired by someone such as this apparently well-meaning guy, who then processes them, aligns them with his belief structure, and then does not question them a whit after that.

I blanch when I read something like this:

"In those terms, human emissions amount to about 2.7 PPM equivalents. Now NASA have published a diagram showing annual CO2 transfers for the planet. This shows terrestrial plants absorbing about 61 PPM equivalents. We know that both rising CO2 and rising temperature favour faster plant growth. That’s why horticulturalists artificially raise CO2 levels in glass houses to about 1000 PPM. It is also why plants grow faster in the tropics than in cooler locations on earth. More to the point, a recent study showed average plant growth has accelerated by about 6% over the last 30 years. A 6% increase in plant growth means a 6% increase in absorbed CO2, from 61PPM equivalents to 64.7 PPM equivalents. This means that human emissions have increased by 2.7 PPM equivalents but plants have increased their absorption by an extra 3.7 PPM equivalents over the same period. The increased plant growth is consuming more than 100% of human emissions. Is there another (natural) factor contributing to CO2 increases?"

Can you not SEE how wrong this is?

Is it not obvious why he's so wrong?

[Old Professer]

I find it more than passing strange that there seems to be no updated carbon cycle diagram such as the one you have posted ad infinitum from 12 years ago; but, on a lighter note I’ve been reading Tom Fuller’s website for a couple of months and keep running across this guy in the ‘comments’ section:

[CBDunkerson says:
Logic tells me that the scale of conspiracy required to fake all the evidence that AGW is a serious problem, almost certain to exceed the ‘just 2 degrees’ scope you envision, cannot possibly exist.

Obama is NOT veering away from mainstream science. He’s just more up to date on what mainstream science is saying than you are;

www.ens-newswire.com/ens/sep2009/2009-09-25-02.asp
September 26, 4:14 AM]

Are you CBD or merely an alter ego?

[Old Professer]

You like graphs, what do you think of this one?

[cogitator]

I find it more than passing strange that there seems to be no updated carbon cycle diagram such as the one you have posted ad infinitum from 12 years ago;

Do a Google image search with the phrase "carbon cycle" and you'll see plenty; I just happen to like that one. One of the things that is a basic in the discussion is that these fluxes don't change much. If people don't understand the basic exchanges between reservoirs, they are going to have trouble with the subtleties.

Are you CBD or merely an alter ego?

I never heard of CBD or Tom Fuller, but the statement has been echoed many times. To believe in global concerted fakery of the scientific evidence for global warming requires such an acceptance of a stunning collusional ability of the scientific community that it threatens basic comprehension of reality itself.

[calex59]

He is an expert...On climate change. I will trade the truth ripping into the NYT and other left wing rags for a little after the fact BS about the Iraq war. Nothing he says about it now can hurt Bush or the war as far as that goes. He did a great job refuting the global warming crap and for that I am grateful.

[cogitator]

C.1 Observed Changes in Globally Well-Mixed Greenhouse Gas Concentrations and Radiative Forcing

Sorry this is 2001; couldn't find the fourth assessment yet. Note footnote "c" under the table.

So what is the source of the 100-year residence time? Here's the deal; the IPCC only synthesizes research papers; they do not do any research themselves. So this choice (I found a different version of the graph that called it a choice) must come from a reference(s). Show me those citations, and maybe we can dialogue. Otherwise, I will say that the range of CO2 residence times is 5-200 years, and I've referenced why.

More:

Why I am an anthropogenic global warming sceptic, part 3

Read Englebeen's comments. Perusing some of the comments, and thinking about it myself, my interpretation of the overlying graph is that someone confused two different concepts. More evidence is necessary to determine if my interpretation is valid.

Next, on the underlying graph: Cool spells in a warming world

Now, how any decade that ends up with 9 of the 10 warmest years in history could be called "cooling" flummoxes me (I'm anticipating this year ending up between 4 and 7), but anybody that starts their journey on the highest mountain in the range has nowhere to go but downhill, do they?

[Old Professer]

Well you could start by noticing that all of the warmest conclusions are based on NOAA adjusted data and that most of the warmest readings come from the same parts of the world that have the fewest thermometers.

Still, the bellringer year remains 1998 and I am expecting NOAA to release something in Dec. stating 2009 matches or exceeds that year, thereby reversing any argued 10 year trend and rescuing the red-faced Copenhagen delegates from their imminent failure to recreate the Kyoto enthusiasm.

If it’s in the cards as you say, then going bankrupt now is going to leave us all ill-prepared to move to higher ground later.