<DrumBeat: April 15, 2007The Oil DrumDrumBeat: April 16, 2007>
<My Interview About Community OrganizingThe Oil Drum: LocalSpitzer Promotes Clean Energy, Minus Ethanol>

21 comments on NYC's Carbon Inventory

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

Laurence Aurbach on April 16, 2007 - 8:49am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

On the mini-ice age recovery, Coby Beck's We are just recovering from the Little Ice Age:

This argument relies on an implicit assumption that there is a particular climatic baseline to which the earth inexorably returns -- and thus that a period of globally lower temperatures will inevitably be followed by a rise in temperatures. What is the scientific basis for that assumption?

There is no evidence of such a baseline.

... Another problem with appealing to a natural recovery from the LIA is that temperature has now risen to levels higher than the assumed baseline climate. So even if some recovery were to be expected, why have we now exceeded it?

On the scientific credibility of the IPCC, Hayhoe and Dessler's Global warming: Stop arguing and start planning:

On Feb. 2, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its fourth assessment report on the science of global warming. The report was written by hundreds of climate scientists from 130 countries. It has been reviewed by thousands of other climate scientists and hundreds of government agencies, and it has been opened for public review as well.

This IPCC report is perhaps the most thoroughly vetted document in the history of science. For this reason, its assessments are widely regarded as the most authoritative summaries of what we know about global warming.

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
RodG on April 17, 2007 - 2:38am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

It is also one of the mostly highly politicised documents around, remember the political summary came out first. I've seen blogs from scientists (sorry I forgot to add them to favorites so I can't quote their sites here) who when asked to review a paper were refused access to original data by IPCC and the original authors. How can the report be peer reviewed when you can't review the science, only agree or not agree?
The hockey stick was released and widely communicated as fact by the IPCC and it took years for the source data to finally emerge. When it did it was clear that the statistical analysis was heavily flawed and the whole hockey stick findings completely wrong. This happened because IPCC refused access to the original data and refused to make the responsible scientists divulge their data. IPCC is still up to the same tricks, so how can you rate their credibility?
Result is yet another scientist refusing to be part of the IPCC political game. Yes hundreds of scientists contributed, but only a relative handful have control over what gets written. If you review and disagree, it appears that your vote is never published, but you do count as one of the vetting scientists!#@!
Concensus does not a fact make!
I would love links to any site that explains the science (not the story or belief) behind how CO2 causes warming. I need infrared frequencies and temperatures at which CO2 can absorb energy and how they relate to overlapping absorbtion frequencies for water vapor. Please then back this up with actual measurements (satellite data from NASA would be good) that show predicted warming is actually happening.
The only sites that explain the science seem to clearly show CO2 is a very minor contributor. Show me the science! I'm ready to accept arguments either way, but I can't just accept stories from politicians and political scientists. Yes one or two sceptics have been paid $10,000 or so here and there, but governments have paid billions to pro CO2 scientists!

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Laurence Aurbach on April 17, 2007 - 11:21am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

The "Hockey Stick" study and source data have been verified by numerous scientific investigators, including the National Academy of Sciences:

Based on the analyses presented in the original papers by Mann et al. and this newer supporting evidence, the committee finds it plausible that the Northern Hemisphere was warmer during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period over the preceding millennium.

And from Beck's The hockey stick is broken:

The fact is, there are dozens of other temperature reconstructions. They tend to show more variability than the original hockey stick (their sticks are not as straight), but they all support the general conclusions the IPCC TAR presented in 2001: late 20th century warming is anomalous in the last one or two thousand years, and the 1990s were likely warmer than any other time in that period.

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.