The Global Warming Consensus Conundrum

It might be the case that power and money are trumping the truth in global warming. But that power and money is fortified by a belief in the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming hypothesis. This in turn is based on “everybody” who is “anybody” agreeing with everyone else who is “anybody” and claiming that those who question what “everybody” who is “anybody” accepts is a nobody. But the source of the knowledge that “everybody” who is “anybody” agrees with is nobody.

This is in response to the comment by Craig King:-

It is going to take a lot more than facts and evidence to stop this behemoth. Too many people have got too much invested in the CAGW construct for it to be stopped by the truth. Aye, theres the rub, money and power trumps the truth any day of the week.

Abused Women and Claims of Climate Consensus

Steven Goddard, in explaining why women consistently show stronger support for President Obama than men, comments.

Many people with feminine personalities fall into co-dependency, and are satisfied by ridiculous lies in a thoroughly abusive relationship.

That is a bit strong. In modern terminology, women tend to network more than men. In older terminology, they like to gossip and form opinions on the basis on their social interactions. Such characteristics help hold social units together, but do make women more prone to being won over by emotive arguments that males.

But women in abusive relationships have very low self-esteem being continually told that they are inferior. The men in their lives tell them that their opinion does not count. Any signs of questioning are rebutted verbally, emotionally and physically. The greatest abusers tend to be the biggest liars and the most emotionally inadequate. In more traditional, male-dominated communities such abusers claim legitimacy from that society for practices (such as adultery) that it would not condone. Unfortunately the traditional male-dominated churches have used alleged biblical authority to support the male-abusers in marriage, and even to excuse or down-play paedophilia.

In terms of climatology, claims of superiority of climate scientists have some parallels with these abusing and hate-filled men. Supporters of climate consensus claim that deniers are psychologically inferior and totally incapable of understanding the world around them. They stamp down on any dissent with spurious reasons, such as alleged funding by big oil, yet do not admit to their own funding, nor (and far more dangerously) their own very dogmatic belief systems. They claim the authority of science, but never define what science is, nor how their dogma fits into the best traditions of science.

There are increasing exceptions to the feminine submissiveness. The late Margaret Thatcher is the most extreme. She had a strong sense of values and phenomenal determination to pursue those values. But Thatcher also considered and vigorously questioned any briefings before making decisions. If a case could be made she would change her mind. This may in part be due to a traditional training in science. It is part also due to a feminine side of empathy with opposing points of view.

This feminine trait of talking to other people and listening to different views might explain why although all sides of the climate argument are dominated by men, the most prominent climate bloggers women are sceptical. This includes Joanne Nova, Donna Laframboise, Judith Curry and Lucia. Before someone points out some women alarmists blogs, their respective Alexa rankings are currently 149873, 883955, 393802 and 619501.

Esper et al 2012 Orbital forcing of tree-ring data – Corroborating the Sceptic Position

A new summer temperature reconstruction using of tree ring densities in Northern Scandinavia stir, raising some difficult questions for those who believe that C20th warming was caused by human activity

There are a couple of elements that corroborate sceptical beliefs that are not alluded to elsewhere.

Pointer to a low influence of CO2

There has been a decline in summer temperatures of 0.6 degrees.


From the abstract

Solar insolation changes, resulting from long-term oscillations of orbital configurations1, are an important driver of Holocene climate23. The forcing is substantial over the past 2,000 years, up to four times as large as the 1.6 W m−2 net anthropogenic forcing since 1750

That is (From the supplementary information figure S13), a decline in temperatures of around 0.6 Celsius is due to a net reduction in orbital forcings of 6 W m−2.

From a 1998 article by Sherwood Idso* on climate sensitivities,

a total greenhouse warming of approximately 33.6°C sustained by a thermal radiative flux of approximately 348 W m–2

That is 6 W m−2 gives approximately 0.6 degrees temperature change. This implies 1.6 W m−2 gives approximately a 0.16 degree temperature change, so CO2 is not the largest influence on C20th warming.

Pointer to the global temperature adjustments being wrong

Yesterday I reblogged pieces of evidence by Steven Goddard indicating that the historical temperature record has been systematically manipulated. In particular, the inter-war warming has been reduced, whilst recent warming has been increased. From the paper, this abstract of the more recent warming trends.

Now compare with two versions of the Reykjavik mean temperatures to see which is closer. I know that Reykjavik is between 50 and 350 miles south of the area surveyed, but it does seem to corroborate one version over the other.

A possible alternative explanation to the lower late C20th temperatures  is in the comments at NoTricksZone. DirkH says

The line actually becomes unreliable from 1912 to the present as it is done with a “100 year spline filter” the paper says. Don’t give to much on the shape of the final wiggle. Can’t find any more information but obviously the window for the filter shrinks near the end, how will it react? Dunno…

Hu McCulloch ain’t too impressed: (2009)

http://climateaudit.org/2009/08/23/spline-smoothing/

*Joanna Nova has a summary here.

This post by Steven Goddard brings together a number of pieces of evidence that “real world” data has been systematically adjusted to fit the theory.
BEWARE THE FLASHING GRAPHS LOWER DOWN.

This is only the second time I have reblogged somebody else’s work in the four years my blog has been running. The reason is that I often observe lots of pieces of evidence that suggest bias, but rarely are some of the pieces of evidence put together to corroborate each other.
Other bits of evidence (from memory)
1. The Darwen, Australia temperature record.
2. The temperature record for New Zealand.
3. The temperature record for Australia – which has recently be replaced to evade an external audit.
4. The HADCRUT temperature series being brought into line with GISTEMP to save having to hide the divergence.

It is not just ex-post adjustments of individual temperature series that creates an artificially large warming trend. There are also the statistical methods used to determine the “average” reading.

Real Science

There wasn’t any hockey stick prior to the year 2000.

The 1990 IPCC report showed that temperatures were much cooler than 800 years ago.

www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/far/wg_I/ipcc_far_wg_I_full_report.pdf

Briffa’s trees showed a sharp decline in temperatures after 1940

The 1975 National Academy Of Sciences report also showed a sharp decline in temperatures after 1940

www.sciencenews.org/view/download/id/37739/name/CHILLING_POSSIBILITIES

NCAR reported a sharp drop in temperatures after 1940

denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf

The USHCN daily temperature data showed a sharp decline in temperatures after 1940

GISS graphs from the eastern Arctic showed a sharp decline in temperatures after 1940

Data.GISS: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis

GISS US temperature graphs showed a sharp drop in temperatures after 1940

NASA GISS: Science Briefs: Whither U.S. Climate?

The Directors of CRU and NCAR forecast a continuing drop in temperatures.

Hubert Lamb CRU Director : “The last twenty years of this century will be progressively colder

http://news.google.com/newspapers/

John Firor NCAR director : “it appears…

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