Thanksgroaning
November 25, 2009There is waaaay too much going on right now to do any service to the number of things happening. I’ve been running helter-skelter all day trying to prepare for our big feast tomorrow. Even still, here’s a fun little roundup:
- Chris Mooney at CSI has a nice piece comparing the current round of insanity to earlier battles in the intelligent design mess.
- Philosopher Brian Leiter weighs in on the CRU hack, noting: “Dr. Jones concedes that the stolen e-mails “don’t read well.” Goodness, they read better than mine–no expletives, for example. And that scholars would be incensed when crackpots and ideological hacks sneak their work into ordinarily reputable journals is hardly surprising.” I’m hoping he’ll say something about the absurd consideration of the Competitive Enterprise Institute to sue Gavin Schmidt for blogging while at work.
- The Washington Post has a nice editorial out on the CRU hack. They say that skeptics are being irresponsible. Given what I’ve been reading recently, they might as well add “irrational,” or arguably, “non-rational.”
- CRU issued a statement.
- Obama is going to Copenhagen to with an emissions target. I’ll be there. Anybody wanna grab a drink?
- The Copenhagen Diagnosis is out, and yeah, it’s worse than we thought.
Here. Give thanks for this:
Global ice-sheets are melting at an increased rate; Arctic sea-ice is disappearing much faster than recently projected, and future sea-level rise is now expected to be much higher than previously forecast, according to a new global scientific synthesis prepared by some of the world’s top climate scientists.
Cruel Mistress 
Ah. Another “synthesis.”
AKA: globaloney. Just what we need more of, right?
“Synthesis” and data “adjustments” are what rent-seeking grant hogs use to line their pockets with tax money with a completely bogus scare over “carbon” [by which the scientific illiterati mean carbon dioxide, a harmless and beneficial trace gas].
This has more truth than the IPCC and CRU shenanigans doubled and squared.
BTW, that ‘synthesis’ is flat wrong. The sea level is rising at a lower rate than it has since the LIA. Instead of a “synthesis”, let’s look at the facts:
First, the ‘rising much faster than previously forecast’ sea level canard:
See, the sea level rise has slowed dramatically over the past few years. That’s a fact:
And:
And:
http://bp2.blogger.com/__VkzVMn3cHA/SFc69IZ90yI/AAAAAAAAACk/7pcWSxd5Vug/s1600-h/UC+Global+Sea+Level.bmp
Next, as usual, these globaloney purveyors lie outright about sea ice declining. Notice that they always disregard Antarctica. But global warming means global, see:
And:
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/Mar/S_03_plot.png
And:
Best to just stick to a dead end field like philosophy or maybe propaganda — and leave the honest science to the big dogs.
Finally, CRU was not “hacked.” That’s the lame talking point intended to distract from the central question of fraud. It’s not working: a CRU employee posted the incriminating emails. Everything these jamokes say is nothing but damage control: their emails show conclusively that they deliberately fabricated the data to show AGW. Anyone who believed Dan Rather’s ‘fake but accurate’ would believe the CO2=CAGW fairy tale, too. It’s perfect fodder for the gullible, who carry their water; all talk and no substance [ie: no verifiable raw data].
And if you liked those charts, I have over a hundred more like them, peer reviewed in most cases. Just ask. Or not, maybe learning the truth hurts too much. You sure won’t learn the truth from those sucking at the public teat.
You can get a pretty good idea of Smokey’s credibility by his claim that a CRU employee posted the emails. He just made that up — there is no evidence for it at all.
And if you want to see a current graph of sea level, rather than the out-of-date one he linked, look at this
http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/sl_hist_last_15.html
(or just read the Copenhagen Diagnosis)
If Smokey’s climate science is anything like his philosophy, which I suspect it is, he hasn’t earned much credibility from me.
I think it is interesting that the graphs of sea level rise linked by smokey and Tim (graphs which seem to me very similar) show (on my computer screen) approximately the actual sea level rise, ie 10mm (1cm) on the screen is 10 mm on the sea. So the the average sea level has only risen about 6 cm (2.5 in) since the early 90s.
Ruth, Tim was referring to Smokey’s first SLR graph. As you say his second one and Tim’s are nearly the same.
6 cm doesn’t sound too terrible, but the problem is that we’re in the early stages of an acceleration that will result in a 1 to 2 meter rise by 2100 (assuming the ice sheets don’t do anything really abrupt). Note that even 12 inches of additional rise by 2100 (a linear extrapolation of the rate shown on the graphs) would have some rather bad consequences.
Steve
1. I don’t see evidence of an acceleration in sea level rise, or any reason to expect one. But I realise that opinions differ on this.
2. It would be possible to adapt to a 12 inch rise in sea level over 90 years, and to help developing countries to do so. Similar changes have been coped with during the last few hundred years in various parts of the world.
Ruth, it should be obvious to you that a 16-year graph may not show the long-term trend. You seem very eager to draw firm conclusions from partial information.
Re the ease of adapting to even a 12″ rise, you’re quite the optimist. If you lived in a poor country I suspect you’d be less sanguine about the willingness of rich countries to help.
No, Steve, I was referring to the Mean Sea Level record from 1880 as shown here http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Recent_Sea_Level_Rise.png
As to your second point, is it really more optimistic to think that some specific adaptation measures can be put in place than that the whole energy economy of the world can be decarbonized in a few decades? My sincere worry is that in trying to do the latter there really will be no funds available for the former. And some degree of adaptation will be needed regardless of the success or otherwise of emissions cuts.
Happy Turkey Day, Ben!
prf.hale:
1) i’m sorry to disagree with your “current round of insanity to earlier battles in the intelligent design mess.” please! “the mess” was done by mr.jones, mann et.al, and all us are “insane” with theirs wrongdoings…
2) who did the copehagen diagnosis?? yes! Prof.Mann et.al! please again!!!
3) belle voyage to copenhagen!! (and excuse my english)
P.S. do you know that there is a thing call “teleconference”???
1) Are Jones, Mann, et al. involved in the creationism discussion? I wasn’t aware of that.
2) The “et al” is a very large et al indeed. In fact, it involves an enormous segment of the scientific community. How far deep should our skepticism run? Should we discard forestry more generally? Plasma physics? Evolutionary biology?
3) There is such a thing as a teleconference, of course, but it would be mighty hard to do that with 20,000 people over two weeks.
prof.hale:
1) i don’t understand. you said “chris Mooney (…)has a nice piece comparing the current round of insanity to earlier battles in the intelligent design mess.” what i said (and say) was that now the “mess” was done by prof.jones, mann, etc. with theirs stupidities. do you think that those who protest those stupidities are insane?? or are those who protest creationist? may be but not all of them!! I.T. is an U.S.A.’s crap, in uruguay, my country, fortunately there is not a single creationist, even catholics accept darwin!!. and i think that i’m prety sane, but… well!
Again, if prof, jones, mann, etc. have done his works properly, were we now discussing this mess?? hummm…
i also think mr.mooney’s article is a poor control damage report, but, it is my humbre opinion.
2) the copenhagen diagnosis, was done by a most 12 peoples (in spanish a dozen is not “enormous”) i’m not skeptist, what i said that “diagnosis” was done by the same people who did the actual mess were are discussing. and i’m now looking with a lot of skepticism what THEY say.
3) 20.000 humans being are a lot of people, that there are too much, carbon footprint apart. i think Clive Crook’s article in The Atlantic, has a good point, but again, is my humble opinion
again, excuse my english and bon voyage!!!