Still Waiting for Greenhouse was started by John Daly in 1996 and was run by him until he died in January 2004. Still Waiting for Greenhouse continues to be run by his family and associates but is now only a shadow of its former self, apparently intent on posting `exciting' items such as Updated El-Nino/Southern Oscillation data! In a perverse way, the present Still Waiting for Greenhouse is a tribute to John Daly - it highlights the remarkable energy that he (unfortunately misguidedly) put into the cause of greenhouse contrarianism and shows how, in contrast, his successors have so miserably failed.
There will therefore be little activity on this site from now on. It may provide useful examples of the techniques that the greenhouse contrarians use to distort the science of climate change.
Note added, 30 April 2016: There has been no activity on Still Waiting for Greenhouse since 15 Aug 2008. I think this means that it is effectively dead. What's Wrong With Still Waiting for Greenhouse was updated today to fix broken links, but no further changes are planned.
A helpful site that rebuts many of the current claims of the greenhouse contrarians is RealClimate.
A good introduction to Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis is to read the Summary for Policymakers, then perhaps move on to the Technical Summary and then read chapters that take your interest. This whole report was written by 122 Lead Authors and 515 Contributing Authors. A draft of the report was assessed by 420 reviewers, followed by a further review in which several hundred more experts participated. Therefore, well over 1000 experts participated in this report. But again, remember that this document is only a review - it cites thousands of published papers, which would each have one or more author(s).
In summary, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, represents the work of thousands of experts on the subject of climate change.
On the other hand the second document, Still Waiting for Greenhouse, was originally the work of one man - John Daly, an ex-Merchant Navy officer who was later a school teacher in Launceston, Tasmania, Australia. Much of Still Waiting for Greenhouse is devoted to criticism of the IPCC, and in particular the findings of Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis.
Which would you rather believe?
John Daly often referred to the `Greenhouse Industry' in an effort to suggest that scientists and policy-makers involved in climate change gain a benefit from over-emphasising the probable effects of anthropogenic global warming (see for example). Here is an example of one particularly clumsy attempt to cast the `Greenhouse Industry' slur. It also appears to be a good example of contrarianism: holding to a particular view in in the absence of any supporting evidence and/or in the face of totally contrary evidence.
While it is not the purpose of this site to discuss the politics of global warming, it is no secret where John Daly's persuasions lay. Here is an extract from an article downloaded from Still Waiting For Greenhouse on 7 October 2003 (paradoxically promoting the development of cheap solar cells!):
For any young scientist wanting to be part of the future and not languish in some moribund bureaucracy bemoaning lack of funding, the market is where the exciting action is, not government institutions. In the final analysis, governments do not create - they merely re-distribute, and usually make a mess of that.
This is the future, a future where fossil fuel use may decline, not because bureaucrats and UN environmentalists demand it as a means to impoverish whole societies, but because the market finds new, better, and cheaper ways to obtain power. It is the market, not governments, that have transformed our standard of living in the 20th century. The same markets are doing and will continue to do this work of technological advancement long after the IPCC are just a bitter aftertaste in history books.
Gore also slurs the so-called `climate skeptics' (such as this website). He said "Yet in spite of the clear evidence available all around us, there are many who still do not believe that Global Warming is a problem at all. And it’s no wonder: because they are the targets of a massive and well-organized campaign of disinformation lavishly funded by polluters who are determined to prevent any action to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, out of a fear that their profits might be affected if they had to stop dumping so much pollution into the atmosphere." Lavishly funded by polluters? `Still Waiting for Greenhouse' is one of the few websites openly skeptical of the IPCC's scenarios of gloom and doom, and a primary source of what Gore regards as `disinformation'. His `lavish funding' accusation is not just disinformation by him, but also an outright lie. In the last 12 months, this website has received funding of - wait for it - $50. That `lavish funding' took the form of a single donation cheque to this website. A powerful motive indeed to spread disinformation. My information from other skeptic sources suggests equally small amounts being donated. We do what we do because we believe strongly in the truth of our case regardless of the level of, or lack of, funding. The fact that a $4-billion-a-year industry feels threatened by skeptics working on a financial shoestring speaks volumes about the bankruptcy of the industry's message and their resort to character slurs. If the `polluters' have really been dumping
`lavish funding' on the skeptics, the cheques must still be in the mail. Copied from Still Waiting for Greenhouse , 24 Jan. 2004 (part of article only) |
John Daly wanted us to believe that the typical funding for Still Waiting for Greenhouse is only $50 per year and that, in general, the `skeptics' are `working on a financial shoestring'. Here are a few facts:
In response to a request concerning his funding, John Daly sent an email to the author of this site on 22 October 2001, which included the following statement:
In 13 years, my total earnings from book royalties, articles, seminar
fees, reports etc. amounts to $44,300 Australian (equivalent to $22,150
U.S.). This works out at $3,407 Aust. per year, or $65.50 per week ($33 US).
So, on his own admission, John Daly's average annual income (over a period of 13 years)
for his contrarian activities was
But this is small fry. It is more enlightening to look at John Daly's previous associates and the amount that they spend on promoting the contrarian agenda.
The 2000 Annual Report of Western Fuels Association Inc. contains the following passage:
Where does our advocacy stand, today? Based on work by our newest science advisor
John Daly concerning the fatal flaws of the
ground-based temperature record and revelations concerning agreement among ground-based
thermometers, instruments
onboard satellites, and carried aloft by weather balloons, Western Fuels is now prepared
to argue that no reliable record exists to
show a warming globe, and second, to establish the lack of warming, apocalyptic or otherwise.
So, John Daly was an influential science advisor to Western Fuels Association Inc.. What is
this organisation and what does it do? According to its web site:
Western Fuels Association, Inc., operates on a not-for-profit basis to provide coal for the
generation of electricity by consumer-owned utilities throughout the Great Plains, Rocky
Mountain, and Southwest states, and in Louisiana. We are a cooperative. Our 19 member/owners
are rural electric generation & transmission cooperatives, municipal utilities, and other
public power bodies.
It also engages in what it calls `advocacy' (i.e. contrarian
propaganda), funding a network of contrarian organisations, including:
We lost $583,000 in 1997, even though coal deliveries were substantially over 20 million tons. 1997's `red ink' was not due to adverse operational performance either in coal deliveries or by management. ..... On an ongoing basis, Western Fuels is operating substantially `in the black'. Our half-million dollar shortfall is due entirely to our advocacy in the area of climate change.In summary, although John Daly claimed that he only received
It is the work of people like John Daly that has made that happen. In the
meantime, we have a new 500 pound guerilla in the form of China that has
come on the scene. China's compound growth rate for fossil fuel consumption
moots not only Kyoto, it moots Rio as well.
Rest in peace, John.
The media ignored John but he was effective nonetheless. It is now 16 years
since the drumbeat for regulating the production and use of fossil fuels
started in the United States. Even though the US signed the Rio Treaty
itself, no laws have been enacted for the regulation of CO2 and Congress
has rejected the proposition on the several occasions since that it has
been presented.
(Incidentally, the 1998 and 2000 Annual Reports
of Western Fuels Association make interesting reading if you want to try and understand the
mindset of the fossil fuel industry - in particular, read page 7 of the 1998
report and pages 8-11 of the 2000 report.)
Globally, it is very likely that the 1990s was the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the instrumental record, since 1861.
where `very likely' and other related terms are specifically defined by:
In this Summary for Policymakers and in the Technical Summary, the following words have been used where appropriate to indicate judgmental estimates of confidence: virtually certain (greater than 99% chance that a result is true); very likely (90-99% chance); likely (66-90% chance); medium likelihood (33-66% chance); unlikely (10-33% chance); very unlikely (1-10% chance); exceptionally unlikely (less than 1% chance).
This means that there is a 90 to 99% probability that the statement `the 1990s was the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the instrumental record, since 1861' is correct. Obviously, scientists would be happier if this probability was nearer to 100% (since there is at least a 1 in 100 chance, and possibly a 1 in 10 chance, that the above statement is wrong!), but unfortunately this is the nature of greenhouse science - it is uncertain. Climate scientists do not pretend otherwise but, instead, seek to quantify that uncertainty.
On the other hand, this is what Still Waiting for Greenhouse had to say (19 July 2003) about the temperature at Willis Island in the Coral Sea, based only on a visual inspection of a record of annual mean temperature from 1939 to 2002:
Willis Island shows no significant climate change .....
Note that there is no qualification of the meaning of `significant climate change' or whether it can be determined by visual inspection of a graph of annual mean temperatures (it most certainly cannot). There is also no concession that the statement could possibly be wrong. Unfortunately, in the field of climate science (as in most other fields, if we are honest), we cannot be 100% certain of anything.
Henry Pollack has recently written an excellent book for the lay audience on the subject of uncertainty, in which he makes special reference to climate change. It is:
Uncertain Science ... Uncertain World by Henry N. Pollack, Cambridge University Press, 2003.This book cannot be recommended more highly to anyone seeking to delve deeper into this subject.
These factors must be taken into account when considering each individual tide gauge record.
If you are able to apply the technique of linear regression to a record, then you can illustrate this for yourself. Take a tide gauge record (e.g. from The Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL)) and estimate its trend. Then remove a month (or a year) of data from one end and re-do the analysis, and continue repeating the process. You will soon see how wildly the trend estimates vary for records that are only ten or so years long.
Example 1: The August Heatwave in the U.K.
In August 2003, the following article appeared in Still Waiting for Greenhouse:
The
hottest temperature ever recorded on the surface of the earth runs to
thousands of degrees celsius. How is that possible, one might ask?
Easy, place a thermometer into a blast furnace and presto. You have a
temperature which would vie for `hottest temperature ever recorded'.
How about a temperature taken in the `free atmosphere' in the slipstream
of a jumbo jet? Does that qualify? Again, obviously not. But
that's exactly where Britain's `all-time record' of 38°C set a couple
of days ago was set - at the world's busiest international airport -
Heathrow, near London, an airport with steadily growing traffic volume.
So, most of the south-eastern part of England (of which London is a part) only showed temperatures in the 20s, not the 30s. That's still warm, even hot by British standards, but as much as 15°C lower in the case of Hastings which is only an hour's drive from London. It is both misleading and fraudulent to characterise that `all-time record' as anything but a hot temperature induced by a local man-made environment hardly different to a blast furnace. Update: (15 Aug 03). Gravesend Pips Heathrow Copied from Still Waiting for Greenhouse , 19 Aug. 2003 |
This report was so sloppy that it did not even note the day to which the temperature observations referred - this was later ascertained to be 10 August 2003. Where did John Daly get his figures from? It transpired that he had simply copied the figures from a slightly longer table posted by a Wilson Flood on the Yahoo discussion group climatesceptics on 11 Aug. 2003:
Birmingham 26 Bristol 28 Clacton 25 Hastings 23 Oxford 29 Leeds 27 Glasgow 23 Aberdeen 19
(Notice how John Daly did not even copy Wilson Flood's numbers correctly - he interchanged Birmingham and Bristol!)
Unfortunately, Tudor Hughes (U.K.) queried the original source of these figures, prompting John Daly to ask Wilson Flood on climatesceptics (18 Aug. 2003):
Do you have a source for your figures?
to which Wilson Flood replied (19 Aug. 2003):
The figures I quoted are from the weather page of The Times of
London. ....... Please contact Tudor Hughes and ask him to
obtain the newspaper for the 11th of August (I think) and he can
see for himself.
presumably indicating that Flood had not even kept the source of his data, and didn't even know the date of the newspaper!
The situation gets even more bizarre with Wilson Flood claiming in another posting on the same day that the prominant contrarian, Chris de Freitas, had apparently lifted chunks of Flood's original posting (including the errant figure for Hastings) for use in a discussion published in the Guardian on 16 August 2003.
So what exactly was the original data and how trustworthy was it?
The temperature values were indeed copied from the Times of 11 August. Unfortunately, one crucial figure (the temperature for Hastings) was incorrectly given in the newspaper - it should apparently have been 33 deg C instead of 23 deg C - an error which could so easily have been revealed by simply looking at the web site of the U.K. Meteorological Office. So here is a repeat of the table showing John Daly's and the (most probably) correct figures:
Location John Daly's Value Correct Value Birmingham 28 26 Bristol 26 28 Hastings 23 33 Oxford 29 29
In summary:
(My thanks to Tudor Hughes for bringing this to my attention.)
A Watery North Pole (27 Nov 2000) A few months ago, the world was alarmed by reports that there was open water at the North Pole during a mid summer icebreaker cruise in August this year. It later turned out that stretches of open water are common in summer in the Arctic, and the `New York Times' which first ran the story had to retract it. It was to their credit that they did so. But `environmental scientists' claimed that this was the first time in 50 million years that the North Pole had been ice free. No evidence of course, but a good headline grabber for the Greens in the run up to The Hague talkfest. Here is a photo of an American submarine at the North Pole. Notice all the loose water around. Notice the slabs of sea ice on the foredeck, about 6 inches thick only, left there as the submarine surfaced.
This was not high summer. It was in mid March, only the first month of Spring. Such thin ice, so much loose water around, so early in the year. Surely that must be the dreaded Global Warming? The vessel is the USS Skate, the date is 17th March, the year is 1959, 50 million years ago.
Copied from Still Waiting for Greenhouse , 28 Nov. 2000 |
The article was meant to indicate that the North Pole had been ice free, even in spring, during the mid-20th century. However, we are not disputing this point here - rather, we examine whether the photograph was indeed of the USS Skate at the North Pole on the 17th March 1959 - i.e. whether the data had been honestly and correctly quoted.
There are two easily-accessible references, which describe the surfacing of the USS Skate at the North Pole on the 17th March 1959 (the first submarine to do so):
`Global Mean Temperature' - Disputed Data
Copied from Still Waiting for Greenhouse , 23 September 2003 |
The important things to notice are the different temperature scales used in the above figures; on the upper plot, one degree Celsius covers over twice the vertical distance that it does on the lower plot. This tends to flatten out the trend shown by the U.S. record. If, instead, we plot the two records on the same scale, we get a very different picture (the curves show the 5-year mean values, while the trend lines are based on the annual values, and the records are slightly more up-to-date than the ones shown in Still Waiting for Greenhouse):
It is clear that, when plotted on the same scale, the global and U.S. records are very similar - not `completely at variance', as claimed by John Daly. Their trend lines (fitted by linear regression) differ by only 13%.
So, remember what John Daly said about the U.S. record: `The US has the best maintained network of weather stations in the world, and this must surely be a better representation of the global picture too.' So he was asserting that, since 1880, global temperatures have been rising at a rate of around 0.44 deg C / century!
(My thanks to Barton Paul Levenson for bringing this to my attention.)
This Week - Sea Level at Hobart, Tasmania
Copied from Still Waiting for Greenhouse , 2 June 2003 |
This particular record (coded 680/201) was obtained from the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level in the U.K. It carries the caveat that, because accurate survey information has not been used to provide the necessary vertical reference (which often varies in time due, for example, to relocation of the tide gauge), `It is a good general rule, therefore, that (the data) should NEVER be used for time series analysis or for the computation of secular trends'. However in this case John Daly threw caution to the wind, fitting a trend line to the data and pronouncing that `Hobart shows no sea level rise over the 40 years of this record'.
So, let's look at the record in more detail. The record shows a number of what are called `datum shifts'. These are clear steps in the record that are significantly larger than we would expect for normal changes in sea level. They are generally caused either by adjustments made to the tide gauge or by a complete relocation of the instrument. The Hobart record is well known to have a number of such datum shifts. Here are examples of obvious ones shown in the above plot (there are very probably other ones that are not so visually obvious, but which would still significantly corrupt any estimation of the overall trend):
It is somewhat surprising that John Daly, who apparently pretended to have some knowledge in these matters, should have made the elementary mistake of missing such large datum shifts. Did he really believe that mean sea level at Hobart can vary by over half a metre from year to year, and in an extreme case, fall by 1.3 metres from 1974 to 1976?
It is also interesting to investigate John Daly's claim that the record `shows no sea level rise over the 40 years of this record' (bearing in mind that the actual trend is meaningless, due to the known datum shifts - this is just a test of what John Daly meant by `no sea level rise'). The trend of the data shown above is in fact 0.8 mm/year, which only just below the lower bound of the IPCC's estimate for global average sea level rise for the 20th century of 1-2 mm/year ( Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis). So, in Daly-speak, `no sea level rise' could mean `about the same size as the observed rate of global sea level rise'!
Firstly, the reader is led to believe that results of this type are new. On the contrary, the paper by Torok et al. is a review of work stretching back to 1972, with some new observations made in the early 1990s. Secondly, John Daly's article gave the distinct impression that the paper indicates that records used `for detection of genuine climate change' from cities of the size of Hobart or Melbourne are corrupted by urban heat island (UHI) effects as large as 6 or 7 deg. C. However, the crucial word in the formula that forms the title of John Daly's article is `max', which signifies that the equation quoted and plotted in John Daly's article is the maximum observed urban-rural temperature difference -- i.e. not the average urban-rural temperature difference. Here a few quotes from Torok et al's paper:
(Note that this refers to other people's work, but nevertheless you should compare this 0.1 deg C for the mean annual temperature difference with the 3.6 deg C you get from Torok et al.'s formula for the maximum temperature difference.)
The reader is led to believe that the above graph shows no sea level rise at Tuvalu. Now, the IPCC report, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, provides an estimate (based on observations) for the global average sea level rise for the 20th century of 1-2 mm/year. Now, 1-2 mm/year over the length of the above record (22 years) would amount to a total rise of 0.022-0.044 metres, roughly equivalent to the thickness of the blue (`Mean') line on the graph. Would you be able to tell, just from looking at the graph, whether the overall rise was of this magnitude? Of course not - the variations (the `noise') in the record would effectively mask any rise that is comparable with the IPCC's figures for global average sea level rise. In fact, a detailed analysis of the observations from Tuvalu ( A Note on Relative Sea Level Change at Funafuti, Tuvalu) shows that the trend of the blue (`Mean') line on the graph is over 2 mm/year (using a slightly longer 24-year record) - larger than the range of global average rise estimated by the IPCC. However, it has been shown that the tide gauge at Tuvalu is actually sinking at about 1 mm/year, so that the rate of sea level rise relative to the major land mass of the island of Funafuti is just over 1 mm/year - i.e. entirely consistent with the IPCC's figures for global average sea level rise of 1-2 mm/year.
John Daly was told more than once about the above report on Tuvalu, but steadfastly refused to change the information on his web page.
Sea level records show considerable variation over a wide range of time scales - from the waves that lap on the shore every 5 or so seconds to variations with cycles that are a decade or so in duration. If we are to estimate any long-term trend (i.e. something that may last for, say, a century) we need long records of sea level. Douglas (2001) estimated that a sea level record should be at least 60-70 years long in order to yield a reliable estimate of any long-term trend. The record from Tuvalu is 24 years long, and hence the above estimates of long-term sea level rise are subject to an undesirably large error (+/- 0.8 mm/year). However, longer records from all over the world have indicated that the global average sea level rise very probably lies within the range 1-2 mm/year. The best we can say about the long-term sea level rise at Tuvalu, based on a rather short record, is that it is entirely consistent with the global average.
Another article on Tuvalu in Still waiting for Greenhouse carries a similar message.
Read more about Tuvalu later
Example 2: The `Shortt' Observation and the Tasmanian State Datum
In March, 2003, Still Waiting for Greenhouse carried an article entitled Tasmanian Sea Levels: The `Isle of the Dead' Revisited in which appeared the following figure:
still waiting for greenhouse john daly
Copied from Still Waiting for Greenhouse , 18 Mar. 2003 (part of article only) |
This figure is John Daly's interpretation of the various observations of sea level made at Port Arthur between 1841 and the present. The centre of each vertical green line represents an observation, and the length of the line indicates the uncertainty of the observation. We will just concentrate on the single observation made by Captain Shortt on 24 February 1888 (marked as `Shortt' in the figure), which shows mean sea level to be 29 cm below the benchmark. If John Daly had `allowed' this point to be any lower, it would have implied a significant rise in sea level from 1888 to the present.
There is, however, another observation which Daly omitted to mention, although he actually knew all about it. It was the subject of much of a talk given in Hobart on 22 January 2003, and which was attended by John Daly. John Daly was also allowed to tape the talk, so he had a record of all that was said. The observation in question is the Tasmanian State Datum, which was based on mean sea level in Hobart during the period 1875 to 1905 (which, coincidentally, is centered on 1890, very close to the `Shortt' observation). This datum, when transferred to Port Arthur, is 54.5 cm below the benchmark, with an estimated uncertainty of +/- 10 cm (mainly related to levelling uncertainties between Hobart and Port Arthur). When added (as the thick green line) to the above figure it looks like:
Adapted from Still Waiting for Greenhouse |
Now John Daly really had a problem. In order to reduce the apparent sea level rise during the 20th century, he had already moved the `Shortt' observation up by 5 cm (which he justifies as an attempt to `correct for El Nino') and reduced the uncertainty to a figure that was less than half the uncertainty expected for a single (tidally adjusted) observation of sea level in this area (Hunter et al., 2003). The result was a large gap between the observation of Shortt and the Tasmanian State Datum. Now it should be noted that the `true' value associated with each observation does not have to lie within the uncertainty range shown - there is, in fact, about a 68% chance that it does (assuming that the uncertainties represent plus or minus one standard deviation). However, the further we move away from (and out of) the uncertainty limits, the less likely it is that we are located at the `true' value. In the above figure, the gap between the observation of Shortt and the Tasmanian State Datum is so large that any position for the `true' sea level is highly improbable. This inconvenience was no problem to John Daly, however - he just `picked the cherry' that suited him (the `Shortt' observation) and ignored the other one (the Tasmanian State Datum).
All the observations can, however be reconciled if the various levels and uncertainties are selected objectively. The figure below is copied from the paper by Hunter et al. (2003):
Here each observation is shown by a rectangle, the height and width of which represent the uncertainty(+/- one standard deviation) and duration, respectively. The line marked `0.8 +/- 0.2 mm/year' is the line that passes through the `Lempriere/Ross' and the `Present' observations. This line passes within 1.5 standard deviations of all the observations and is therefore highly likely and a good representation of the average sea level rise at Port Arthur from 1841 to the present.
On 11 June 2003, John Daly mounted a new attack on this study. Here is a reply which addressed his claims.
John Daly's `last paper' (22 February 2004) is a sad and pathetic epitaph to the creator of Still Waiting for Greenhouse. It attempts to argue that the simple rejection of his manuscript (a Comment, criticising Hunter et al. (2003) and submitted to Geophysical Research Letters) is evidence that climate science is politically corrupt, and that the peer review system has `become a vehicle for censorship' by the `Greenhouse Industry'. All scientists feel hurt, and perhaps angry, when the results of their work are rejected by a journal but few would resort to the grandiose claims of the `last paper'.The `last paper' neither needs, nor indeed deserves, further comment.
So, the `IPCC estimates' of global average sea level rise have been based on a careful selection of tide gauge records, involving the rejection of around 98% of the records as unsuitable. What would be the implication of one `new' long-term observation of sea level change? Well, here is what Still Waiting for Greenhouse had to say regarding the observations from Port Arthur:
How does this relate to Global Warming today? The IPCC, in their 1995 Report, clearly stated that sea levels had already risen 10-25 centimetres this century. It is a claim which has been repeated numerous times as part of the Kyoto Protocol politics. But when we look at the Ross-Lempriere 1841 benchmark, regardless as to how its meaning is interpreted, no matter what the plaque might have said, one thing is clear. There has been no sea level rise this century - none at all. The benchmark was observed by myself a few weeks ago, observed by Hamon [4] in 1985, by Captain Shortt in 1888 [10], and in each case the benchmark was about the same height above mean sea level - about 30 centimetres. In this regard, the greenhouse industry finds itself in a lose-lose situation, which may explain why it has not been publicised in spite of extensive scientific effort and interest. Whether or not we go the one further step and acknowledge the possibility that there was a significant sea level fall before 1890 does not alter the central message of the `Isle of the Dead' - The IPCC sea level claims are false. Copied from Still Waiting for Greenhouse , 16 Sept. 2000 (part of article only) |
Now, we can actually test what the effect would be of including, say, a sea level fall at Port Arthur into the estimate of Douglas (1997). Over the years, John Daly made a number of claims about the height of mean sea level relative to the benchmark in 1841, but most of his arguments basically put mean sea level near the benchmark at that time. For the sake of argument, let's put mean sea level exactly at the benchmark in 1841, in which case it is now about 0.31 metres lower than it was then (relative to the land). This implies an average rate of fall of 1.9 mm/year over the intervening 160 years. If this figure is adjusted for a vertical rise of the land of about 0.2 mm/year (this is the figure assumed by Hunter et al., 2003), we arrive at an absolute rate of fall of mean sea level of 1.7 mm/year. So, let's now incorporate this `new' observation into the estimate of Douglas (1997), who used 24 stations spread over the world, with records longer than 60 years. He grouped the stations into regions, prior to taking the final average, so as to improve the accuracy of the estimate. Since there was no contribution for Australia in Douglas's figures, let's place Port Arthur in the `New Zealand' region, and re-calculate the average. The result is a change of Douglas's original value of 1.83 mm/year to 1.76 mm/year - a change of less than 0.1 mm/year!
So, how on earth can Still Waiting for Greenhouse claim that the `the central message of the Isle of the Dead' is that `The IPCC sea level claims are false'?
The above claim from Still Waiting for Greenhouse is a bit like the following example: I take 25 numbers that are similar, but of not exactly the same value. I then hold back one number (the `Port Arthur' number) and ask you to take the average of the remaining 24 numbers. After you have done this, you tell me the result. I then say `your average must be false, as it doesn't agree with this number that I withheld in the first place'. The argument is nonsense, isn't it? There is no rule that says that the numbers that contribute to an average have to have the same value as the average.
SOLAR ACTIVITY: A DOMINANT FACTOR IN CLIMATE DYNAMICS by Dr Theodor Landscheidt Schroeter Institute for Research in Cycles of Solar Activity Nova Scotia, Canada Copied from Still Waiting for Greenhouse , 21 Mar. 2003 |
The `spin' here is to make us believe that the observed climate change is all caused by variations in the strength of the sun's radiation. However, climate modellers acknowledge that, while the sun's variation is important, so too is the effect of anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gasses. It is not a case of one or the other being important; both effects are important. Here is a figure from Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis:
The top left-hand graph shows the predictions of a climate model (grey line)where the long term variations are forced only by natural processes (solar variation and volcanic activity), with the observations shown in red. It is evident that some features of the observations and predictions agree quite well, although there is significant disagreement at other times. In particular, the model fails to simulate the significant rise in temperature since about 1975.
The top right-hand graph shows the predictions of a climate model (grey line) where the long term variations are forced only by `anthropogenic' effects (anthropogenic greenhouse gases and an estimate of sulphate aerosols). As with the first graph, there are some periods of agreement and some periods of disagreement. However, this second graph shows that the model simulates quite well the observed temperature rise since 1975.
The lower graph shows the results of the simulations of a model forced by both natural and anthropogenic effects. It is evident that the agreement between simulations and observations is much better than in either of the first two graphs.
So, simulation of annual global mean surface temperatures requires the inclusion of both natural effects (e.g. those due to solar variability) and anthropogenic effects (e.g. those due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases). Both types of effect are important.
Finally, an excellent site advising you on ways of assessing a web site for reliability.
still waiting for greenhouse john daly
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still waiting for greenhouse john daly