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as the jamboree gets under way

28 November 2015
Climate change

As the climate jamboree gets under way there have been some nice contradictory blogs posted in the nether regions of the Net which serve to counter some of the alarmism now spinning wildly at a conference centre near an airport on the outskirts of Paris. Most remarkable of all is a piece in the November 26th journal Science – didn't anyone tell them not to rock the boat.

It seems increased co2 in the atmosphere not only falls back down on the land via rainfall but has been seeding the oceans – which is where the idea of ocean acidification comes from. However, rather than being detrimental to the oceans (as the acidification doomsaying is largely hype) it is actually beneficial to life in the oceans. Therefore, just as co2 makes plants grow and improves crop yields so too does co2 have the same affect on coccolithophores – the foundation of the marine food chain. This discovery was opposite to what the scientists concerned had expected – or that is the story line. Is it such a surprise? The Jurassic and Cretaceous periods are supposed to have been much warmer than the modern world (but some would no doubt question this) and mainstream geology has taken onboard a steep rise in co2 was involved. The Cretaceous is notable for the amount of chalk rock it produced – originating as a sludge on the ocean bottom and almost exclusively formed from coccolithophores (blooms of plankton). Mind you, the researchers have a CAGW angle too (necessary in order to be published) – read the link to find out more. Go to http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/27/increased-carbon-dioxide-enhances-…

Pierre Gosselin has now found a German meteorologist off-song – see http://notrickszone.com/2015/11/26/prominent-german-meteorologist-thomas… … it seems that Thomas Globig thinks the climate at the moment is quite normal – nothing out of the ordinary. He also says climate cannot be forecast over periods of 20 years let alone 50 years or more.

At www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2015/11/27/our-biggest-problem-is-poverty.html … which concerns an interview conducted by Dutchman Rolf Bodelier with Indur Goklany, who was there at the beginning of the IPCC. The Indian scientist, based in the US, has since earned a reputation as being critical of CAGW alarmism. One reason is that he thinks the world has far greater problems and westerners getting excited and worrying about a small increase in temperature is being self indulgent. They are in effect wasting huge amounts of money that could be better spent bringing third world countries into the modern world with abundant energy and sustenance. It is technologically possible right now. It is not a futuristic ambition. He says there are still one billion people in the world living in 'absolute poverty' – which can't be right when in the west we are living in societies blessed with all manner of luxuries and ample energy and supermarkets with aisles of cheap food. Mind you, once the power cuts kick in over the next few years at least one side of modern life might be brought home to the alarmists – their mobile phones and gadgets require a reliable source of energy (if only to charge them up).

Towards the end of the interview he says something rather interesting – 'we are all social animals. We do, say, and believe what everyone believes, says, and does. No one likes to place himself outside the group by putting forward critical arguments against a deep and widely shared faith. Partly this is explained because we are all exposed to the same ideas, distributed by the press and universities. What's not really helping either is that climate change generates a lot of money. Scientists, NGOs and Companies know that only too well … etc'

Over at https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2015/11/27/cet-says/ … cet is shorthand for the Central England Temperature record, the longest one in the world – but not nearly long enough as it only goes back to the late 17th century. It therefore dates after the extremes of the Little Ice Age and begins when the temperatures were somewhat better – although sun spot numbers were not too many or too often. See http://climexp.knmi.nl/tcet.data

EM Smith has a go at analysing the 17th century data with the temperature record of the last couple of decades. Lo, and behold, the differences are not as much as he expected. However, those differences he thinks he has winkled out of the dataset could, he acknowledges, be put down to something like the modern urban heat island effect (modern towns and cities are much warmer than they would have been in the 17th century). Therefore, the comments are interesting as they raise some criticism of his analysis. See also http://climatereason.com/Articles/ … a blog run by Tony Brown, known as tonyb on the comment sections of various sceptic sites. He has taken  a close look at CET data.

 

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