Climate Change

Ideo said:

The term is scientific consensus.

If the scientific consensus shifts, I am happy to go with that. I am not an expert in the field, so I do not proclaim to know more than them.

The figures you are talking about represent less than 3% of the scientific community in the field.

Where there is notable disagreement in the field is in the effect of global warming.

I repeat. 97%. This is not a 55%-45% matter.

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This appears to be the source for the 97% figure. It's a v. short paper - I wouldn't really consider it scientific consensus.

In summary, 10,000+ Earth scientists were invited to participate in a web based survey in 2009 - only 3,000 responded. Of those only 77 were considered climate specialists, and 75 (97%) answered Yes to the question Has Human Activity been a significant factor in changing global temperatures ?.

The 97% figure appears to be an attention grabbing headline based on a v. small, self-selected sample 4 years ago to a broad question.

Macca said:

Hi BV,

I can't talk about Victoria but I can talk about my little patch.

Here in Port Stephens NSW about 10 years ago it was decided by the council that the sea level would rise a centimetre a year.

One of our family built a rock wharf on a rock foundation about 50 years ago, to this day there is no noticeable difference in water height on that wharf.

Makes you wonder doesn't it

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I've been visiting the Mornington Peninsula - Rosebud mainly - my whole life on and off.

I spent many hours at both the Rosebud and Dromana piers as a kid - I'm 52 now.

We have been living in Dromana since 2000 and visit the pier every week or so, the Rosebud one every few months.

I can say with no exaggeration that the water level on both has not moved one discernible iota on both of those piers in the whole 40 odd years of my consciousness of such a thing.

Let's call it 1cm of movement (maybe a lower water level than 40 odd years ago - you cannot tell) for the sake of saying there was any change at all, just to cover any doubt.

Can we rename CT "Urban Myth" and move on now?

keithj said:

This appears to be the source for the 97% figure. It's a v. short paper - I wouldn't really consider it scientific consensus.

In summary, 10,000+ Earth scientists were invited to participate in a web based survey in 2009 - only 3,000 responded. Of those only 77 were considered climate specialists, and 75 (97%) answered Yes to the question Has Human Activity been a significant factor in changing global temperatures ?.

The 97% figure appears to be an attention grabbing headline based on a v. small, self-selected sample 4 years ago to a broad question.

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97% also comes from:

W. R. L. Anderegg, ?Expert Credibility in Climate Change,? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Vol. 107 No. 27, 12107-12109 (21 June 2010); DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1003187107. (attached)

The other reference is also attached.

Both are peer reviewed. I haven't seen any papers in the peer reviewed literature that question the validity.

BayView said:

I've been visiting the Mornington Peninsula - Rosebud mainly - my whole life on and off.

I spent many hours at both the Rosebud and Dromana piers as a kid - I'm 52 now.

We have been living in Dromana since 2000 and visit the pier every week or so, the Rosebud one every few months.

I can say with no exaggeration that the water level on both has not moved one discernible iota on both of those piers in the whole 40 odd years of my consciousness of such a thing.

Let's call it 1cm of movement (maybe a lower water level than 40 odd years ago - you cannot tell) for the sake of saying there was any change at all, just to cover any doubt.

Can we rename CT "Urban Myth" and move on now?

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5mm rise a year for 40 years = 200mm / 20cm rise

Max spring high tide in Rosebud is around 1.7m lows around 0.3m. = 1.4m tidal variation.

You would be using your eyeball to spot a 20cm rise in sealevel over 40 years within a 1.4m tidal variation... I couldn't spot it. Any more than I could "feel" if the average temperatures had risen 0.4C within the seasonal and diurnal variation over the same period.

keithj said:

This appears to be the source for the 97% figure. It's a v. short paper - I wouldn't really consider it scientific consensus.

In summary, 10,000+ Earth scientists were invited to participate in a web based survey in 2009 - only 3,000 responded. Of those only 77 were considered climate specialists, and 75 (97%) answered Yes to the question Has Human Activity been a significant factor in changing global temperatures ?.

The 97% figure appears to be an attention grabbing headline based on a v. small, self-selected sample 4 years ago to a broad question.

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Keith, I find this fairly disingenuous. For anyone who keeps across the peer reviewed literature on this subject, there are almost zero papers saying that humans aren't increasing GHG levels in the atmosphere, that those gases aren't transparent to visible light yet absorbent and re-emitting infrared, that these levels aren't therefore trapping heat in the atomsphere and creating more energy for our climate to deal with and increasing ocean acidification due to the solubility of CO2 as the main GHG.

The only issue is the level of impact - will the impacts be serious or relatively benign? Will they be positive to humans but destructive for other species? Will there be a runaway effect as the increased heat causes greater decomposition of organic matter leading to higher GHGs etc etc etc

The idea that nothing is happening at all is just not a credible one - there is far too much evidence to show that something is happening. Of course humanity's response should be dependent on how bad the impacts are going to be over what time-frame and the jury is still out on that, clearly. Although a reasonable idea of the consensus on that subject can be found in the IPCC reports.

By the way, the error range in successive IPCC reports and other scientific literature has been narrowing considerably over the decades I've been watching it. Twenty years ago, people were saying sea levels could rise by 2100 from anywhere between 0m and 10m. Since then, the estimate range has tightened considerably, fortunately toward the lower end of the earlier range. Back then, the detailed work had just not been done for us to know what the impact will be. Now we have a much better idea and while it's not as bad as originally feared, it's still well above nothing.

And yes, we have known for a long time that during the Cambrian period (500 million years ago) CO2 levels were around 4500ppm as against 390ppm today. However there were no land plants back then and evolution had only just started branching out from single cell organisms into some aquatic life such as molluscs. There were certainly no people around! I'm not sure what the point of mentioning that the Earth has been there before is - do we want to go back to that perhaps?

Oh dear god, now we are going back 500 million years....!

This is absolute BS.

We are but minnows on a planet that has been around for what...? How many years huh?

Come on, tell me how many years this planet has existed?

How far back can you go?

Infinity/eternity.

Trouble is people like to have a definite start for "things" to measure "things" by. But in reality we live in a something with no beginning and no end.

The scientific community cannot deal with that no mater how hard they try, it is the only thing humans cannot fathom yet they bang their heads so hard to come up with the answer to it all so they can put some sort of control on others yet they cannot definitively tell us exactly what is relevant or true because there is no beginning and no end.

Have a think about it.

Edit: before anyone wants to stick the "what an idiot" knife in me, I am a concerned human for humans and the Earth we live on and I do my very very best I can to look after people and the earth. I also think Im more in tune with it than many city folk who have not had much to do with the land. But of course that does not count so forget about that if you like, but it suits me just like CC suits alot of others.

of course the climate is changing, as Keith points out, it wether we are totally responsible or just a small part.

TF - it is the sceptics / deniers who keep bringing up how high CO2 levels have been in the past, back when there were no people around. I agree with you- it's irrelevant!

keithj said:

This appears to be the source for the 97% figure. It's a v. short paper - I wouldn't really consider it scientific consensus.

In summary, 10,000+ Earth scientists were invited to participate in a web based survey in 2009 - only 3,000 responded. Of those only 77 were considered climate specialists, and 75 (97%) answered Yes to the question Has Human Activity been a significant factor in changing global temperatures ?.

The 97% figure appears to be an attention grabbing headline based on a v. small, self-selected sample 4 years ago to a broad question.

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That's an intestesting survey. But a meta analysis of peer reviewed scientific papers found this:

Based on our abstract ratings, we found that just over 4,000 papers took a position on the cause of global warming, 97.1% of which endorsed human-caused global warming. In the scientist self-ratings, nearly 1,400 papers were rated as taking a position, 97.2% of which endorsed human-caused global warming.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/may/16/climate-change-scienceofclimatechange

You might also want to take a really good look at the site you linked to.. Professor Peter Doran who says this...

Our 98% number has been supported twice since by completely independent studies (the only ones I know of in peer-reviewed journals) taking different approaches.

Once you are done with the chicken entrails you might want to read the whole page https://sites.google.com/site/professorpeterdoran/student/concensus-on-climate-change

The Fence said:

I also think Im more in tune with it than many city folk who have not had much to do with the land. But of course that does not count so forget about that if you like, but it suits me just like CC suits alot of others.

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You sure TF? Adam Bandt can read the tea leaves at the bottom of his caf? latt? and all he does is stay in the CBD.

Bigblu said:

I'll give you four:

It's gotten about 0.8C hotter in Vic.

It's gotten drier in Vic.

The sea level has gone up.

The ocean heat content has gone up.


From: http://www.csiro.au/Outcomes/Climate/Understanding/State-of-the-Climate-2012/Temperature.aspx

More tropical species hanging around the coastline (attached papers on next post).

Anything else?

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Big Blu, you work for the CSIRO don't you? I think I remember you saying that? I'm not going to argue that its not getting hotter, or that the climate is changing. It is. But why do you keep on with this getting dryer rubbish?

In your post above, as your example of it getting dryer in Victoria you post this,



a map showing April to September (autumn and winter) rainfall deciles from 1997 to 2011. What a bloody joke! We all know what happened in 2012 don't we?

Your not helping the CSIRO's cause here. How on earth did they ever conclude that it's getting dryer? It's complete rubbish.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/i...y-scientists-20090829-f3cd.html#ixzz1exV8ooUb

SCIENTISTS studying Victoria's crippling drought have, for the first time, proved the link between rising levels of greenhouse gases and the state's dramatic decline in rainfall.

A three-year collaboration between the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO has confirmed what many scientists long suspected: that the 13-year drought is not just a natural dry stretch but a shift related to climate change.

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Then, and even more laughable, Tim Flannery is the mouthpiece of this load of garbage, making some astoundingly dumb statements. Claims that cities such as Brisbane would never again have dam-filling rains, as global warming had caused a 20 per cent decrease in rainfall.?

Why the hell didn't the CSIRO and BOM tell Flannery to pull his head in? You blokes must have known what a load of absolute crap this all was? Or were you all in on the big scare campaign?

The reason people have trouble believing a lot of what you blokes say is because of scams like this rainfall declining stuff. It is crap, and it's easy for simple blokes like myself to get the info and show it's crap. People all around the country have been keeping rainfall records, and compiling them. There is also websites like BOM who show all manner of info, and most of it comes from the people I've just mentioned, just farmers and others who have kept this info.

I can look up the BOM website and see a map like this,



Rainfall since 1900 over most of Australia has increased. In Victoria it is the same.

I can get info like this,



It's a bar chart of Australia's rainfall deciles. Rainfall over the whole of Australia has increased pretty significantly since 1900. However it's mostly been in the summer dominant rainfall zone, like where I live. I could change it to totals if I want. I can change it to regions. I can change it to any of the seasons.



So tell me, why, when you know all this info is out there and available to plebs like me, do you and the CSIRO continue to tell people that it's getting dryer due to global warming?


See ya's.

topcropper said:

It's a bar chart of Australia's rainfall deciles. Rainfall over the whole of Australia has increased pretty significantly since 1900. However it's mostly been in the summer dominant rainfall zone, like where I live. I could change it to totals if I want. I can change it to regions. I can change it to any of the seasons.



So tell me, why, when you know all this info is out there and available to plebs like me, do you and the CSIRO continue to tell people that it's getting dryer due to global warming?


See ya's.

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Can you give me the link to that rainfall bargraph and if I can reproduce it I'll kick it over to the atmospheric/rainfall guys with a gentle WTF? I've asked for it previously. Unless you give the link then I'm going to think you generated it excel/photoshop.

Bigblu said:

Can you give me the link to that rainfall bargraph and if I can reproduce it I'll kick it over to the atmospheric/rainfall guys with a gentle WTF? I've asked for it previously. Unless you give the link then I'm going to think you generated it excel/photoshop.

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Here you go.

http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rain&area=aus&season=0112&ave_yr=0

Change region to southeastern Australia. Change season to winter.


See ya's.

TC, I'd be keeping copies of those graphs, sounds like the Big Bluer will have them changed cause they don't suit his needs....gentle WTF....lol!

It's all coming out now.

The Fence said:

TC, I'd be keeping copies of those graphs, sounds like the Big Bluer will have them changed cause they don't suit his needs....gentle WTF....lol!

:

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Rainfall is a simple thing to record. There are hundreds of thousands of little nobodies like ourselves all over this great land taking down the info. It's something that over the long term can't be bodgied up.


See ya's.

Agreed TC, but they love to extrapolate remember.

The Fence said:

TC, I'd be keeping copies of those graphs, sounds like the Big Bluer will have them changed cause they don't suit his needs....gentle WTF....lol!

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Careful, nobody likes a data falsifier around here. That's a sackable career destroying offence. Probably like cattle rustling where you come from.

By the way, the topic of measured rainfall and climate change in Australia is heavily influenced by land clearing in those areas that have experienced it. Cleared land gives off much more heat than a forest and influences local weather systems considerably.

This is a big issue in WA. For example, just today we have further confirmation of the impact of land clearing in the SW.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-...o-rainfall-reduction-found/5107392?section=wa

IMO this is an even bigger issue for the Wheatbelt, which was cleared up to 90%. That wasn't the focus of the study, which centres around water supplies, but it is a big issue for agriculture!

On top of this, we can generally bank on circa 25% of the Wheatbelt being lost to salinity as a result of the loss of tree cover and the fact that most of the rain that does fall doesn't find its way into rivers but instead ends up in the water table, which raises it. The lower rainfall has just slowed the process a bit. We get to choose between 25% tree cover or 25% lost to salinity - that water needs to evaporate somehow - which do we want?

The Fence said:

of course the climate is changing, as Keith points out, it wether we are totally responsible or just a small part.

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Us?

No part.

And, there is no CC.

Well; there actually is, but it is a normal, weekly, monthly, yearly occurrence of nature that will go on for the next billion years unless the Sun explodes.

Thanks for a bit of reality Keith.

No scientist with an agenda, or threat of job loss for not toeing the official line, etc - just a normal farmer who keeps records for his own interest.

LibGS said:

Once you are done with the chicken entrails you might want to read the whole page https://sites.google.com/site/professorpeterdoran/student/concensus-on-climate-change

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Thanks for the link.....

b) Cook et al 2013, Environmental Research Letters, V8, DOI 10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024 found the following: " We analyze the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, examining 11 944 climate abstracts from 1991-2011 matching the topics 'global climate change' or 'global warming'. We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming"

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I've bolded the relevant bit. Would you agree that a more accurate headline would be Over 67% of Peer Reviewed Climate Scientist Papers DON'T agree with AGW ?

keithj said:

Thanks for the link.....

I've bolded the relevant bit. Would you agree that a more accurate headline would be Over 67% of Peer Reviewed Climate Scientist Papers DON'T agree with AGW ?

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I would not agree with that headline.

66.4% with no opinion expressed does NOT mean that there is no agreement. It just means that. No opinion expressed.

A paper may have stated that global warming is happening. It may not be the aim of a paper to look at a cause. Or it may be impossible to determine a cause.

It's a very long bow indeed to say that no opinion expressed means that there is no agreement with AGW.

The fact does remain that from those papers where an opinion is expressed, an overwhelming majority support AGW.