> I wonder how Slowman will blather his way out of this ? And how will the
> IPCC deny it's been 'fiddling the figures' and 'cherry picking' its
> sources ?
>
> Graham
I particularly liked their graph that uses tree ring data to prove temperatures have really been falling for 50 years. Hard to believe someone has been deliberately been messing with the calibration of all the thermometers in the world. Perhaps they hired father Christmas to do it?
Which to believe?
a) That tree ring data is an accurate proxy for temperature or b) modern thermometers are accurate.
1) If the tree ring data is not reliable between 1960-2009, why should it be reliable between 1000AD-1850AD ?
2) If we assume that the tree data is accurate prior to 1960, then it appears that some systematic errors are made in temperature measurements after 1960, such as failing to remove _all_ measurements suffering from UHI.
One must ask, which is worse for the creditability of the IPCC ?
The lack of any nuclear airbursts prior to 1945 is the main reason. We managed to inject a fair amount of extra C14 into the environment by fast neutrons impacting on nitrogen nuclei in the air. See for example:
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It wasn't until there was significant above ground testing at high yields starting in the mid 1950's that C14 ratios were messed up. They were briefly out of kilter by almost a factor of two around 1962 in some places and with significant geographical variations.
The IPCC should have made clear why certain decisions were made about which datasets to use. Actually in the copy of the 1999 report I have it
*does* make clear in the relevant graphs that direct temperature measurements were used after 1960 and the proxies prior to that.
No it is isotopic composition of carbon in the atmosphere that is a bit messed up after the nuclear era airbursts. It is gradually coming back down to the natural baseline cosmic ray induced and in another few decades the effects of on C14 will be largely gone.
I am aware of the problem associated with C14 dating of old organic matter.
The assumption is that when the organism was killed, the C14 content drops in a predictable way (C14 half life) and by measuring the remaining C14/C12 ratio, you could determine, when the organism was killed.
Unfortunately, the human activity during the last two centuries has mixed up the ratio, hence we must be very careful when talking about prehistoric samples, if we are talking about C14 dated years or "calibrated" years. The difference can be up to two centuries.
As for tree ring data, my understanding is that you just cut an old living tree (or just get a sample) and under the microscope, measure the width of each tree ring.
At least for high latitudes, it assumed that the width of the tree ring is proportional to the length of the growing season and hence spring and autumn temperatures.
It does not tell much about winter or summer temperatures or precipitation.
The claim that nuclear air blasts somehow altered the tree rings would require that the global tree growth was somehow inhibited by these blasts, either directly or by shortening the growing season. I have never seen such claims before.
In case someone would claim that this method is usable only to areas, in which trees lives for several centuries, just take a tree from an old building or from old tree trunk found from the bottom of a lake.
Assuming these old trees have lived for some decades during their end of their life at the same time as current living trees, there is a long period of overlap between the tree rings, a continuous sequence can be created. By this way, you can reach at least 1000-2000 years even if the individual tree lives less than a century.
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Anyway, the claims that this decade has been the hottest since the last ice age seems to be quite ridiculous.
Here in Finland beech trees were common at least to 65N and even above the Artistic circle 67.5N, beech trees have been found in the bottom of the lakes.
These days beech trees are found in some rare parks in the most southern part of Finland (below 60 N). Beech trees are more common in southern Sweden and northern Germany (55 N).
Since trees needs quite a long period to propagate such huge distances to the North, the warming event must have lasted for centuries.
Of course the IPCC supporters claim that this was just a local event, but I would like to see some independent (non-IPCC) records from the same time period claiming that the Earth was extremely cold at other areas at that period (holocene climate optimum).
I have seen time series labeled "Helsinki-Vantaa Airport" starting in the early 19th century :-). That airport was opened just before the
1952 olympics. The airport is about 20 km from the sea.
Apparently more than a century of that time series was taken on a meteorological station in central Helsinki, sitting on a narrow peninsula sticking into the Bay of Finland, with much more "maritime" climate than a bit inland.
The geographical coordinates are even further inland than the actual airport.
While I do not expect that the heat islands have effected the measurements very badly, moving the station from the coast line far into the woods and displaying the results on a single time series sounds a bit strange to me.
At appears that similar things are done at other places as well to create long measurement series. Then global time series are created based on such station specific time series that may contain some systematic errors.
That assumption has been called into question by stable isotope methods. It looks increasingly like a fair proportion of the growth at high latitudes is determined by depth of winter snowpack precipitation - although the jury is still out. A recent paper based on SIRA measurement techniques where the actual weather is also known have been testing this eg.
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I only know about the instrumentation used I cannot comment on their conclusions, but I think they may have a point.
It tells you something about both. The trouble is that tree rings on their own tell you only how well a tree was growing each year. If you can analyse for delta-C13 and delta-O18 reliably then you can get additional information about the prevailing conditions.
It works a lot better in the oceans where O18 is preferentially concentrated when lots of permanent ice is trapped in glaciers.
It just messed up one of the ways of dating things. Post 1960 we have direct measures of temperature and post 1970 satellite monitoring and they are better data than the proxies.
We don't have a choice about using proxies for historical data. What we know has to be deduced from measurements of air trapped in ice cores and the isotopic composition of the ice itself. Or certain slow growing marine organisms which are also analysed by a similar method to tree rings. They are much more informative using SIRA.
Yes. Some of the weather stations are located next to air conditioner units, concrete etc. The article has a breakdown of the ones surveyed so far. Some are supposedly off a degree, others 3 or 4, still others almost 5 degrees F.
Let's draw a "table" Situation (rows): Global warming is real - (A) Global warming is hoax/propaganda - (B)
Humankind response ("columns"): Do something about it -(X) Ignore it - (Y)
Let's consider options: (A)(X) Pros: disaster may be prevented (in the nutshell). Cons: $$
(A)(Y) Pros: Business as usual, save $$ Cons: There is a lot of info out there about the consequences. It cannot be overestimated.
(B)(X) Pros: getting less dependent of fossil fuels. If you have a bank account without means to replenish it, would you live off the principal or interest? Humans have been living off principal when it comes to natural resources. Cons: $$, headache (only until dust settles, people will get used to windmills, solar panels, etc)
(B)(Y) Pros: business as usual Cons: what our descendants are going to burn? what air are they going to breathe?
Think about it. Immediate reaction like "this is leftist/alarmist/communist/Obama/ liberal BS" is indicator of lack of thought process.
Pros: keeps the anti capitalist brigade happy. It will do nothing for GW because the problem is population growth, 7 billion to 9 billion by
2050.
Cons: destroy jobs in the developed world and send the work to other countries under the guise of carbon credits
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The real gain to Corus from stopping production at Redcar, however, is the saving it will make on its carbon allowances, allocated by the EU under its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). By ceasing to emit a potential six million tonnes of CO2 a year, Corus will benefit from carbon allowances which could soon, according to European Commission projections, be worth up to £600 million over the three years before current allocations expire.
But this is only half the story. In India, Corus's owner, Tata, plans to increase steel production from 53 million tonnes to 124 million over the same period. By replacing inefficient old plants with new ones which emit only "European levels" of CO2, Tata could claim a further £600 million under the UN's Clean Development Mechanism, which is operated by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change ? the organisers of the Copenhagen conference
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