An open letter reply to a letter written to government by 18 different scientific organizations concerning climate change legislation by Dr. Arnd Bernaerts.
The original letter:
October 21, 2009
Dear Senator:
As you consider climate change legislation, we, as leaders of scientific organizations, write to state the consensus scientific view.
Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver.
These conclusions are based on multiple independent lines of evidence, and contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science. Moreover, there is strong evidence that ongoing climate change will have broad impacts on society, including the global economy and on the environment. For the United States, climate change impacts include sea level rise for coastal states, greater threats of extreme weather events, and increased risk of regional water scarcity, urban heat waves, western wildfires, and the disturbance of biological systems throughout the country. The severity of climate change impacts is expected to increase substantially in the coming decades (1). If we are to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change, emissions of greenhouse gases must be dramatically reduced. In addition, adaptation will be necessary to address those impacts that are already unavoidable. Adaptation efforts include improved infrastructure design, more sustainable management of water and other natural resources, modified agricultural practices, and improved emergency responses to storms, floods, fires and heat waves. We in the scientific community offer our assistance to inform your deliberations as you seek to address the impacts of climate change.
(1) The conclusions in this paragraph reflect the scientific consensus represented by, for example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and U.S. Global Change Research Program. Many scientific societies have endorsed these findings in their own statements, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Chemical Society, American Geophysical Union, American Meteorological Society, and American Statistical Association.
and the reply:
Subject: Letter to Senators concerning climate change legislation – 21.Oct.2009 (right top box).
Dear President or Executive Director,
How could it happen that more than a dozen of the most prestigious scientific associations signed and submitted this letter on ‘climate change’ without having ensured that the used terminology is sufficiently defined. Good science can and is required to work with reasonable terms and explanations. The science about the behaviour of the atmosphere should be no exception. But WMO1, IPCC and other institutions simply are using the layman’s term of weather and climate not even recognizing that this is very unscientifically. Actually nowadays climate is still defined as average weather, which may be fine for the general public, but nonsense as scientific term. This can be well demonstrated with the most relevant international legal instrument, namely the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, 1992 (FCCC).
Article 1 of the FCCC providing definitions offers none on the term “climate”, and if it had been based on the common explanation on “average weather”, the word “weather” would have required a definition as well. That the drafters failed to do so is a clear indication that they either lacked the scientific competence to do so, or they knew it would make no sense, because ‘average weather’ is statistics, and remain statistics regardless of any name given to the set of statistics.
Instead the FCCC defines in
- Para. 2. “Climate change” means a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.
- Para. 3. “Climate system” means the totality of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere and geosphere and their interactions.
Both explanations explain nothing. It is nonsense to say: Climate change means the change of climate, while ‘climate system’ does not say anything more as the interaction of nature. Science is using layman’s terms without being able or willing to define them in a scientifically reasonable manner, or not to use them at all. A detailed discussion is available at:
http://www.whatisclimate.com/.
It is therefore very unfortunate if the reference letter of just 240 words mentions ‘climate change’ seven times. If your organization believes that “rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities“ has an impact on air temperatures, then any alert should be restricted to this aspect. But as long as science is not able and willing to define CLIMATE, and subsequently CLIMATE CHANGE it is misleading and wrong to tell the general public and politics, that greenhouse gases are the “prime driver” of climate. That are the oceans as expressed in a letter to NATURE 1992: “Climate is the continuation of the oceans by other means”2, or to say it with Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519): “Water is the driver of nature”.
Yours sincerely
Arnd Bernaerts
the Air Vent 
Interesting and incredible: here is the letter with signatures of the orgainsations as published by AAAS:
Click to access 1021climate_letter.pdf
Who is responsible for the text of the FCCC? Presumably foremost the United Nations as it is a UN convention. But what about the role of the WMO and IPCC? Why did they fail to see the flaws?
The matter deserves a thorough discussion!
Hi Jeff,
thanks for posting the Open Letter and your views at your post „Gone for Several Days“ (13Nov). Have a fine time. You are right. Presumably quite a number of members of the 18 organizations have never been asked, have never voted, or would never have agreed with their society leader. But it is easy to claim consensus if talking about a term which means nothing, as outlined in the Open Letter, including Footnote (1), that reads as follows:
Footnote [1] The WMO site has a theme-section, which include the two terms in question. Concerning weather the section “Weather” offers no explanation but has the opening sentence: “Everyone is interested in the weather”, while subsection: What is Climate begins with the sentence: “At the simplest level the weather is what is happening to the atmosphere at any given time.” In the same section the Organization offers for climate three options namely:
___in a narrow sense Climate is usually defined as the “average weather,”
___in a more rigorously way, Climate is the statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of time, and
___in a broader sense, Climate is the status of the climate system which comprises the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the cryosphere, the surface lithosphere and the biosphere.
Don’t laugh! Why not? Laugh: “Climate Change means the change of climate…”;
there seems to be a lot of incompetence around, but excellence in misleading the ordinary people!
I am not sure this is the consensus scientific view, and would like to propose an actual test of the matter, namely a poll of membership in the named organizations. Further, I would like to suggest that the poll be undertaken by several different polling organizations. One should be Rasmussen, since they have the better track record in non-tendentious and long-run-accurate polling of hot political issues. The poll should stratify responses by scientific formation. I think we will find that the atmospheric scientists do not believe but don’t want to say so, that most of the better scientists are hiding under the bed or quibbling to conceal their doubts, and that the sturdiest believers in AGW are in irrelevant fields of study.
The problem is that if weather is chaotic, which seems likely, then a statistical description of a limited time span, say 30 years, is nearly meaningless. There is no reason at all to expect that the statistical properties of the next 30 years will be comparable to the those of the previous 30 years. As Tom Vonk has described, if the climate system can be described by two attractors and the system spends equal times near each attractor, the average properties of the system will describe a state that almost never exists.
Hi to all commentators. Thanks.
What the OPEN LETTER is about, may be best explained (and may answer some of your points) is a discussion, which started yesterday at: http://www.sindark.com/2009/11/16/strategy-for-denier-commentors/#comments
Under the title: Strategy for denier commentors, November 16, 2009.
The main points are in the APPENDIX below.
In a previous posting at that site: “Why conservatives should love carbon taxes
November 10, 2009”
(http://www.sindark.com/2009/11/10/why-conservatives-should-love-carbon-taxes/#comment-83886), one discussion was about the climate terminology – starting with the 1st comment: aber November 16, 2009 at 7:33 am ; Here some excerpts:
___(Milan says):
If you really want to argue that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – which differs from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – doesn’t understand what ‘climate’ means, let me know. In reality, the IPCC reports consider the natural functioning of the climate system in great deal, as well as identifying and attributing the warming trend induced by human greenhouse gas emissions
___(aber says)
#Milan, If someone wants to say that weather and climate is different, after having stated that: „ Climate is generally defined as average weather, and as such, climate change and weather are intertwined.”, seems to have problems. A highlight is such an explanation:
As an analogy, while it is impossible to predict the age at which any particular man will die, we can say with high confidence that the average age of death for men in industrialised countries is about 75.
To find at FAQ, 1.2 , IPCC 2007 : What is the Relationship between Climate Changeand Weather?
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_FAQs.p df, which starts as follows
___(Milan says)
This is just confused.
For any unit of time, you can measure a statistic like mean global temperature. Obviously, this varies due to factors like season.
___(Milan says)
The observations detect that climate is changing, while the modelling makes a compelling case that anthropogenic GHGs are the cause.
___(aber says)
My comment is about terminology and in this respect WMO, IPCC and others are not up to resonable scientific standards, see FN 1, at http://www.whatisclimate.com/:
The WMO site has a theme-section, which include the two terms in question.
___(Milan says)
So what exactly are you arguing? That climate change is happening, but that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change doesn’t define terms in the way you like?
Nobody else seems to think this is a problem. Climate change is happening because of human emissions, and we need to stop. That is basically the situation.
___(Milan says)
An alternative way to approach the issue would be to define climate change to include “natural climate variability” and specificy anthropogenic climate change as the sort induced by human activity. That being said, it is perfectly rational to call natural variability just that, and use the term ‘climate change’ to refer to anthropogenic climate change.
___(aber says)
Define first CLIMATE in a scientifically reasonable manner, and then go for CLIMATE CHANGE. If that is impossible, and you wish to use the word climate, then give it with regard to studying atmospheric behaviour a reasonable meaning, for example what is the most relevant aspect of atmospheric dynamics, respectively the driving source.
___One source is certainly the sun. BUT the sun does not makes the weather on this planet (see the moon, which is in relation to the sun in the same situation).
___Consult Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) who has said: “Water is the driver of nature”.
___Chose the prime driver on earth, and say: “Climate is the continuation of the oceans by other means”; as expressed in a Letter to the Editor, NATURE ,1992, Climate Change, Vol. 360, p. 292; http://www.whatisclimate.com/1992-nature.html
Conclusion: With the oceans in focus the climate change debate would presumably be going very differently.
APPENDIX (excerpt from http://www.sindark.com/2009/11/16/strategy-for-denier-commentors/ ):
Ordinarily, I am happy to debate with people and try to provide quality information. That being said, it can take up a lot of time to try to refute those who repeat faulty arguments over and over. These people call themselves ’skeptics,’ but I think they are mis-applying the term. I have yet to encounter one that is willing to back away from even thoroughly discredited positions. Instead, they just move on to another misleading argument.
The question, then, is how to deal with these commentors without losing all scope for socializing and personal projects. Some of the options:
___Briefly assert that their position is incorrect and point to a resource that says why. Ignore further attempts at rebuttal.
___Point all such commentors towards pre-existing posts and conversations, without offering specific responses.
___Adopt the Zero Carbon Canada approach: “ATTN climate change denier trolls: you are cooking our kids and will be deleted.”
___Continue to provide detailed, personalized responses as much as possible.
Hi to all commentators. Thanks, and a response is made in two separate postings, as it went not through when submitting it in one lot. There was one discussion about the climate terminology at http://www.sindark.com : “Why conservatives should love carbon taxes November 10, 2009” (http://www.sindark.com/2009/11/10/why-conservatives-should-love-carbon-taxes/#comment-83886), o – starting with the 1st comment: aber November 16, 2009 at 7:33 am ; Here some excerpts :
___(Milan says):
If you really want to argue that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – which differs from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – doesn’t understand what ‘climate’ means, let me know. In reality, the IPCC reports consider the natural functioning of the climate system in great deal, as well as identifying and attributing the warming trend induced by human greenhouse gas emissions
___(aber says)
#Milan, If someone wants to say that weather and climate is different, after having stated that: „ Climate is generally defined as average weather, and as such, climate change and weather are intertwined.”, seems to have problems. A highlight is such an explanation:
As an analogy, while it is impossible to predict the age at which any particular man will die, we can say with high confidence that the average age of death for men in industrialised countries is about 75.
To find at FAQ, 1.2 , IPCC 2007 : What is the Relationship between Climate Change and Weather?
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_FAQs.p df, which starts as follows
___(Milan says)
This is just confused.
For any unit of time, you can measure a statistic like mean global temperature. Obviously, this varies due to factors like season.
___(Milan says)
The observations detect that climate is changing, while the modelling makes a compelling case that anthropogenic GHGs are the cause.
___(aber says)
My comment is about terminology and in this respect WMO, IPCC and others are not up to resonable scientific standards, see FN 1, at http://www.whatisclimate.com/:
The WMO site has a theme-section, which include the two terms in question.
___(Milan says)
So what exactly are you arguing? That climate change is happening, but that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change doesn’t define terms in the way you like?
Nobody else seems to think this is a problem. Climate change is happening because of human emissions, and we need to stop. That is basically the situation.
___(Milan says)
An alternative way to approach the issue would be to define climate change to include “natural climate variability” and specificy anthropogenic climate change as the sort induced by human activity. That being said, it is perfectly rational to call natural variability just that, and use the term ‘climate change’ to refer to anthropogenic climate change.
___(aber says)
Define first CLIMATE in a scientifically reasonable manner, and then go for CLIMATE CHANGE. If that is impossible, and you wish to use the word climate, then give it with regard to studying atmospheric behaviour a reasonable meaning, for example what is the most relevant aspect of atmospheric dynamics, respectively the driving source.
___One source is certainly the sun. BUT the sun does not makes the weather on this planet (see the moon, which is in relation to the sun in the same situation).
___Consult Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) who has said: “Water is the driver of nature”.
___Chose the prime driver on earth, and say: “Climate is the continuation of the oceans by other means”; as expressed in a Letter to the Editor, NATURE ,1992, Climate Change, Vol. 360, p. 292; http://www.whatisclimate.com/1992-nature.html
Conclusion: With the oceans in focus the climate change debate would presumably be going very differently.
For the entire discussion see: http://www.sindark.com/2009/11/10/why-conservatives-should-love-carbon-taxes/#comment-83886
Clear, correct, and understandable terms and explanations are the very basis for any fruitful discussion. That is what the OPEN LETTER asks for. How much this is needed can be shown with a posting, which started yesterday at: http://www.sindark.com/2009/11/16/strategy-for-denier-commentors/#comments ; Under the title: Strategy for denier commentors, November 16, 2009.
The main points are as follows (excerpt).
Ordinarily, I am happy to debate with people and try to provide quality information. That being said, it can take up a lot of time to try to refute those who repeat faulty arguments over and over. These people call themselves ’skeptics,’ but I think they are mis-applying the term. I have yet to encounter one that is willing to back away from even thoroughly discredited positions. Instead, they just move on to another misleading argument.
The question, then, is how to deal with these commentors without losing all scope for socializing and personal projects. Some of the options:
___Briefly assert that their position is incorrect and point to a resource that says why. Ignore further attempts at rebuttal.
___Point all such commentors towards pre-existing posts and conversations, without offering specific responses.
___Adopt the Zero Carbon Canada approach: “ATTN climate change denier trolls: you are cooking our kids and will be deleted.”
___Continue to provide detailed, personalized responses as much as possible.
My CONCLUSION: This sort of approach has a lot to do with unclear, superficial, and nonsense terminology.
ArndB,
I’ve seen quite a few posts from people who really are deniers. Some of them may be educable. Others don’t seem to be. Unfortunately, the resources to point them to are difficult to find. Of course there are deniers on both sides of the issue, hockey stick defenders for example.
We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps.
We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents.
Hopefully it will give some insight into the science and the people behind it.
This is a limited time offer, download now: http://ftp.tomcity.ru/incoming/free/FOI2009.zip
Sample:
0926010576.txt * Mann: working towards a common goal
1189722851.txt * Jones: “try and change the Received date!”
0924532891.txt * Mann vs. CRU
0847838200.txt * Briffa & Yamal 1996: “too much growth in recent years makes it difficult to derive a valid age/growth curve”
0926026654.txt * Jones: MBH dodgy ground
1225026120.txt * CRU’s truncated temperature curve
1059664704.txt * Mann: dirty laundry
1062189235.txt * Osborn: concerns with MBH uncertainty
0926947295.txt * IPCC scenarios not supposed to be realistic
0938018124.txt * Mann: “something else” causing discrepancies
0939154709.txt * Osborn: we usually stop the series in 1960
0933255789.txt * WWF report: beef up if possible
0998926751.txt * “Carefully constructed” model scenarios to get “distinguishable results”
0968705882.txt * CLA: “IPCC is not any more an assessment of published science but production of results”
1075403821.txt * Jones: Daly death “cheering news”
1029966978.txt * Briffa – last decades exceptional, or not?
1092167224.txt * Mann: “not necessarily wrong, but it makes a small difference” (factor 1.29)
1188557698.txt * Wigley: “Keenan has a valid point”
1118949061.txt * we’d like to do some experiments with different proxy combinations
1120593115.txt * I am reviewing a couple of papers on extremes, so that I can refer to them in the chapter for AR4
My comment dated (November 17, 2009 at 4:44am) is still awaiting ‚moderation ’(sent before: ArndB said; November 17, 2009 at 4:45 am);
HERE is the first paragraph from that text (without any of the extracts); but PLUS the most recent:
QUOTE
Hi to all commentators. Thanks, and a response is made in two separate postings, as it went not through when submitting it in one lot. There was one discussion about the climate terminology at http://www.sindark.com : “Why conservatives should love carbon taxes November 10, 2009” (http://www.sindark.com/2009/11/10/why-conservatives-should-love-carbon-taxes/#comment-83886), o – starting with the 1st comment: aber November 16, 2009 at 7:33 am ; Here some excerpts :
UNQUOTE
(the experts are not repeated here) except the last two
___(Milan says)
An alternative way to approach the issue would be to define climate change to include “natural climate variability” and specificy anthropogenic climate change as the sort induced by human activity. That being said, it is perfectly rational to call natural variability just that, and use the term ‘climate change’ to refer to anthropogenic climate change.
___(aber says)
Define first CLIMATE in a scientifically reasonable manner, and then go for CLIMATE CHANGE. If that is impossible, and you wish to use the word climate, then give it with regard to studying atmospheric behaviour a reasonable meaning, for example what is the most relevant aspect of atmospheric dynamics, respectively the driving source.
___One source is certainly the sun. BUT the sun does not makes the weather on this planet (see the moon, which is in relation to the sun in the same situation).
___Consult Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) who has said: “Water is the driver of nature”.
___Chose the prime driver on earth, and say: “Climate is the continuation of the oceans by other means”; as expressed in a Letter to the Editor, NATURE ,1992, Climate Change, Vol. 360, p. 292; http://www.whatisclimate.com/1992-nature.html
Conclusion: With the oceans in focus the climate change debate would presumably be going very differently.
THEREON:
____Milan says (Nov17, 10:52) :
I am totally confused by you.
____Milan says (Nov17; 4:14pm)
I find it remarkable that Aber has set up an entire website, but cannot express his key point in a form I find comprehensible enough to respond to
___aber says (Nov18; 2:04am)
“Until one has experienced the sea around one,
One has no idea of world and its relation to the world.”
(Johann – Wolfgang v. Goethe , 1749-1832, “Italian Voyage”, 1787)
Hence here is oceanology in 30 seconds:
___the oceans hold 1000 times more water than the atmosphere,
___the average temperatures of the oceans is below 4°C,
___only a very thin ocean surface layer and at lower latitude regions have more than 10°C,
___The atmospheric vapor is completely exchanged every two weeks.
___ The upper 3m of the ocean surface layer has the same heat capacity as the whole of the atmosphere. Hence the heat required to raise the temperature of the atmosphere (10’000m) by 1ºC can be obtained from cooling the upper 3m of water by the same amount. As weather takes primarily place in up to 1000 m, the mentioned heat supply into this sector could be easily 10 and more degrees.
“Everything comes from water!
Everything is maintained through water!
Ocean, give us your eternal power!”
(From the drama Faust II, Thales, by Johann-Wolfgang v. Goethe, (1749-1832)
THE ENTIRE discussion at:
http://www.sindark.com/2009/11/10/why-conservatives-should-love-carbon-taxes/#comment-83949
If, according to the UN FCCC, “Climate change” means climate change directly or indirectly attributed to Human activity, what is climate change called when it is not?
@John Bowman
As long as one does not say what CLIMATE is, it does not matter what you attribute with the word “change”, which IPCC did, see the “Summary for Policymaker, 2007” (Footnote 1)
Click to access ar4-wg1-spm.pdf
by saying:
“Climate change in IPCC usage refers to any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity. This usage differs from that in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, where climate change refers to a change of climate that is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and that is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.”
That seems to be “wild west” in international law:
as the IPCC is according mandate assigned to “concentrate its activities on the tasks allotted to it by the relevant WMO Executive Council and UNEP Governing Council resolutions and decisions as well as on actions in support of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change process”. Although IPCC is fully aware that its task is to provide Special Reports and Technical Papers on topics where independent scientific information and advice is deemed necessary and to support the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), IPCC seems to care little for the legal conditions its mandate is based on.
(the matter is discussed at: http://www.whatisclimate.com/b205a-governments-ipcc-un-convention-climate-change-unfcc.html )
Conclusion:
___IPCC arbitrarily changes the rules; and very dramatically by including “natural variability”, in a Footnote, without any attempt to change the Convention; although it remains saying that: >>“Climate Change” means the change of climate ….<<.
___The United Nations and its organizations do not see it, and/or do not care.
The key elements of the general climate science and policy consensus are:
* On average, the planet is warming.
* Most of this is because of human emissions of greenhouse gasses.
* Continued warming would be harmful, and perhaps very risky when it comes to human welfare and prosperity. Anticipated changes include melting glaciers and polar ice, more extreme precipitation events and heat waves, agricultural impacts, wildfires, heat waves, increased incidence of some infectious diseases, sea level rise, ocean acidification, and increased hurricane intensity.
* By most accounts, the cost of mitigation is less than the cost of adaptation. Some anticipated changes may overwhelm the capacity of human and natural systems to adapt.
While there is a public perception that there is a lot of scientific disagreement about the fundamentals of climate science, this really is not the case. Back in 2004, a survey of peer-reviewed work on climate science demonstrated this. There is also a notable joint statement from the national science academies of the G8, Brazil, China, and India.
To borrow a phrase from William Whewell, there is a ‘consilience of evidence’ when it comes to the science of climate change: multiple, independent lines of evidence converging on a single coherent account. These forms of evidence are both observational (temperature records, ice core samples, etc) and theoretical (thermodynamics, atmospheric physics, etc). Together, these lines of evidence provide a conceptual and scientific backing to the theory of climate change caused by human greenhouse gas emissions that is simply absent for alternative theories, such as that there is no change or that the change is caused by something different.
More information, and sources: http://www.sindark.com/2009/11/06/one-page-climate-briefing/
I’ve removed the link everyone’s looking for. I will not hide data if it’s legal. See my latest post, find a lawyer and let me know what I can do with it.
Milan,
The cost of mitigation is only less than the cost of adaptation if you assume a very low discount rate and maybe not even then. The Stern report, which claimed that mitigation was cheaper, was thoroughly debunked by Richard Tol. By most accounts, to use your phrase, if we don’t destroy the economy in a probably futile attempt at mitigation, our ancestors will be about an order of magnitude richer than us in current dollars. So we should beggar ourselves so our ancestors will be slightly richer? I don’t think so.
Has anyone made a site where FOIA’s data can be viewed or downloaded?
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XD050VKY
On Mitigation (Milan & DeWitt Payne)
Concerning mitigation: What is climatology suggesting and governments are doing, when it turns out that the oceans are the driving force of weather and climate? They can do nothing, only admitting that they got it with the “emissions of greenhouse gasses” desperately wrong. Over the last few millions of years the global average temperatures have presumably never been higher than 5-8 degrees Celsius as nowadays. But if the oceans warm up the atmosphere, or cool it down, there is no way to stop ocean dynamics. Any warm up phase is a rather slow process, while the oceans can drive the earth into a new ice age within a very short time.
To minimize this risk it is necessary to know more about the oceans. As this knowledge is very limited, it is necessary to do what ever possible to improve the situation. This requires the full application of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea as suggested in 1992 in a letter to NATURE as mentioned in the OPEN LETTER (above). Here is the entire text:
“SIR – The Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and the earlier struggle for a Convention on Climate Change may serve as a reminder that the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea has its tenth anniversary on 10 December. It is not only one of the most comprehensive and strongest international treaties ever negotiated but the best possible legal means to protect the global climate. But sadly, there has been little interest in using it for this purpose. For too long, climate has been defined as the average weather and Rio was not able to define it at all. Instead, the Climate Change Convention uses the term ‘climate sys- tem’, defining it as “the totality of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere and geosphere and their interactions”. All that this boils down to is ‘the interactions of the natural system’. What is the point of a legal term if it explains nothing? For decades, the real question has been who is responsible for the climate. Climate should have been defined as ‘the continuation of the oceans by other means’. Thus, the 1982 Convention could long since have been used to protect the climate. After all, it is the most powerful tool with which to force politicians and the community of states into actions. ” NATURE, 1992, “Climate Change”, Vol. 360, p. 292; available at: http://www.whatisclimate.com/1992-nature.html
TO: FOIA (# 10 & 19)
You did it. You made many people very, very happy with your visit here and the given link. Luckily Jeff Id discovered it immediately: “This is the biggest news ever broken here. hunter said November 20, 2009 at 12:01 am , „Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
God bless you.“ And at : http://www.examiner.com Terry Hurlbut (Nov19; 9:42 PM) said: „Commentary on all the blogs involved has been brisk, except, oddly enough, at The Air Vent, where only seven comments have been received.“
Allow me to assume you did it intentionally with regard to the subject OPEN LETTER. That would at least make me very happy, as it would be a clear indication that there are other person out (at minimum one), which would agree with me that a science is nuisance if it is not able and willing to define in a reasonable scientific manner what it is talking about. That the talking about a definition on CLIMATE should not be taken lightly, is indicated in my previous comment. If a nonsense term is used by science it is not only misleading the simple people, but also shows that they do not understand what they are talking about. That is the real tragic of all the talking about the CO2 greenhouse gases since the James Hansen’s AGW claim before the US Senate in 1988. They stare in the air, without knowing where they are going to. OK. Currently, presumably only you, (few other ?) and I know. That should change, and your kind appearance here may have been a help, hopefully, for which you deserves my highest appreciation, and sincere thanks.
Gratefully yours
Arnd Bernaerts
I learned a lot. The OPEN LETTER was more than due. Many comments have been very helpful. I wonder what Milan #14 is saying with regard to: ‘general climate science and policy consensus’. He came just in time for that FOIA zip with hundreds of docs and emails, to check out on what’s going on
FOIA!
Is there more comming?
FOIA, if you’re reading, I suggest you to post the rest (if there is any) on Wikileaks.
Well, I guess I better go out back and burn a few more tires and bibles, so I can piss off the creationist nuts and the global warming nuts.
If CO2 were actually relevant, I’d be doing my part to raise the temperature closer to the Earth’s actual “average,” as measured by several million years of O2 isotope deposits and other measurable factors.
Of course, as creationist nutjobs believe the world is 6000 years old, and AGW nutjobs believe there was no climate before 1880, and CO2 in the minuscule percentages in Earth’s atmosphere are effectively irrelevant*, I’ll just settle for pissing them all off.
*in the context that we have geologic and tectonic factors, solar cycles, cosmic radiation, solar devolution and several other factors, all of which at this point suggest a warming trend for the next several million years, out of the icehouse we’re currently in.
But “Carbon is bad” is so much simpler to sell to the public, isn’t it?
FOIA data has been posted to wikileaks
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_emails%2C_data%2C_models%2C_1996-2009
story is being covered on various blogs and sites such as “watts up with that”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/19/breaking-news-story-hadley-cru-has-apparently-been-hacked-hundreds-of-files-released/
“95% water vapour” Global warming debunked by New Zealand Meteorologist
http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/main/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/849/quot95-water-vapourquot-Global-warming-debunked-by-New-Zealand-Meteorologist.aspx
Water vapour was responsible for 95 per cent of the greenhouse effect, an effect which was vital to keep the world warm, he explained.
“If we didn’t have the greenhouse effect the planet would be at minus 18 deg C but because we do have the greenhouse effect it is plus 15 deg C, all the time.”
The other greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen dioxide, and various others including CFCs, contributed only five per cent of the effect, carbon dioxide being by far the greatest contributor at 3.6 per cent.
However, carbon dioxide as a result of man’s activities was only 3.2 per cent of that, hence only 0.12 per cent of the greenhouse gases in total. Human-related methane, nitrogen dioxide and CFCs etc made similarly minuscule contributions to the effect: 0.066, 0.047, and 0.046 per cent respectively.
“That ought to be the end of the argument, there and then,” he said.
“We couldn’t do it (change the climate) even if we wanted to because water vapour dominates.”
Jeff,
It is very important that you purge your Apache logs ASAP. They will certainly come after you to find out who made that post. My guess is that the person that posted that was smart enough to use multiple proxies and can’t be tracked. However, in the unlikely event that they could lead back to the individual (or individuals) responsible for this post, you should wipe your Apache access logs pronto. My guess is that the lawsuit will be served on you to produce those logs at 8:00 a.m. on Monday morning.
I’ve been in IT for 25 years and I personally don’t believe the CRU at EAU was hacked. I think it was an inside job. I’m just saying.
Rob Kiser
http://www.peeniewallie.com
[REPLY: Rob, After considering, I’m pretty sure that’s the opposite of what I should do. When the individual involved put the link here (and at least one other place) they accepted the risk and responsibility. My protecting them would be some form of aid. I’m guessing you are right though as far as the ability to track them, the people who did this used at least an endpoint proxy in a country not particularly friendly to western interests. If they decide to escalate this to confiscation of my computers, first I will cooperate and second I’ll do my best to make the most public mess of the situation they could imagine. ]
THANKS
The Adjuster said , November 21, 2009 at 4:28 pm
But please take into account that the oceans control the “95% of water” you mentioned ;
see: Comment #11 (above) emphazising i.a.:
Hence here is oceanology in 30 seconds:
___the oceans hold 1000 times more water than the atmosphere,
___the average temperatures of the oceans is below 4°C,
___only a very thin ocean surface layer and at lower latitude regions have more than 10°C,
___The atmospheric vapor is completely exchanged every two weeks.
___ The upper 3m of the ocean surface layer has the same heat capacity as the whole of the atmosphere. Hence the heat required to raise the temperature of the atmosphere (10’000m) by 1ºC can be obtained from cooling the upper 3m of water by the same amount. As weather takes primarily place in up to 1000 m, the mentioned heat supply into this sector could be easily 10 and more degrees.
No. No. I really mean it this time.
Anyone with the scientific knowledge of a pulverized clam can slaughter these people at a glance, but they are so paid, man, and the gig is so important because it involves whether governments – as we know them – are going to survive as the profligate spending behemoths we’ve come to know and despise without actually doing anything to change this culture ourselves since about the late fifties.
Put simply, governments are in debt; mainly to Japanese and Chinese central banks as well as their own citizens. To service this debt and to keep spending like hammered millionaires they need to collect taxes. That’s something they’re bad at because to be a tax fascist is to commit political suicide as well as making the fuhrer’s social life at the office something of a cause for a compensation claim. This isn’t about a scientific understanding at all. It’s about whether government as we know it is going to continue to exist, the quality of people in public service, and the movement of populations, multiculturalism, internicine conflict, and who’s going to pay for it. Not the boomer generation baby, that’s for sure.
Read comment nr 8 in this blog: crosspatch (22:32:47): An excellent summary of the situation.
The worst is what you cannot see
It is important to emphasize that the worst damage is not what you can see – the FOI refusals, the successful efforts to get skeptical researchers sacked – it’s what you can’t see.
All the researchers lower in the hierarchy who witness that a skeptic gets fired, who get promoted, who’s got the big money to spend on research – they realize pretty qickly what they should think and do to get a career going – and even more so what NOT to say.
Sacking, ridicule, denial of space in publications and so on is reported from many countries, not only Great Britten and USA.
The parallel to the situation in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union is obvious – and be clear on this: many believers in communism and nazism believed that they were doing the right thing – just as many AGW proponents are about the climate today. There was no lack of “good faith”. It is the system that is to blame.
What does “consensus” mean in a situation like this?
What we soon will see is the Empire strikes back. Many researchers, who has conformed and lived well in this political system, will protest. They will in essence say: “No, I didn’t agree because of cowardnes, I believe in AGW!” But the main strategy will be denial and – silence.
Even worse is the situation in the political circles. So many has committed themselves to the belief in AGW. It is pretty difficult to come forward now and publicly express uncertainty or doubt, not to mention a change in their conviction.
And all the big shots in poor countries that already could smell the money soon coming to line their pockets. They will do all they can to maintain the current situation, to deny any need for change in the IPCC, academic hierarchies, allocation of funds etc and they will blame “capitalists”, “imperialists”, “reactionaries”, “liars”, etc.
The repair of the system will take years – if it can be repaired. But we must try. In the end – this is about protecting our democracy.
Looks like “climate change” will go down in history as the biggest scam/fraud/bullshit campaign in history.
I would like to thank FOIA for blowing the biggest whistle in history.
There was plenty of evidence without those emails; only a moron could have ignored all the other evidence (or really “non-evidence,”), but, apparently, planet earth is inhabited by many many morons!
Now the real question: is there a special HOT place in HELL for these people who almost wrecked civilization with their global moron-ing?
FOIA i love you
Google AGRAGATE for the eugenics program where agriculture retreats and the frontier expands.
Bonjour
Le soleil, nous-mêmes et les autres planètes de notre système, sommes réchauffés et refroidis par les pressions et dépressions de l’éther local dans lequel nous baignons. Mais il n’en demeure pas moins que la pollution que nous produisons doit s’ajouter à cette pression réchauffante de l’éther local.
http://www.liberes-des-mathematiques-savoir-enfin-ce-qu-est-l-univers.net
Cordialement Jean Vladimir Térémetz
Worst problem is our democratic rights are confiscated by Clause 38 of treaty – IPCC/UN appoints COP which rules our governments = Taxation without Representation. Check it out and protest.
http://canbyte.newsvine.com/_news/2009/11/28/3559804-cooking-the-frog-slowly-
What email number is this in?
I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps
to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from
1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”
thank you
0942777075.txt
LETS HOPE MORE LEAKS COME OUT ,WE THANK WHOEVER DID THIS GREAT SERVICE TO THE WORLD AND REAL SCIENCE YOUR A HERO.
FOIA (Comment 10) the world is discussing your invaluable contribution more and more, and you need to remain unknown, by name, picture and finger prints. A huge community laureates you highly and wishing you all the best, and that you feel satisfied with what you did, and the result of it.
Sir,
As a scientist you have brought out forcing once again the point that greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver for this climate change.
You have rightly pointed out that emissions of greenhouse gases must be dramatically reduced. Attention should be given to address those impacts that are already unavoidable. Efforts should be made to improve infrastructure design, management of water etc.
Thank you,
Bhaskaran.
Bhaskaran, you are a moron.
To FOIA From Comment #10:
The filenames of “Climategate” emails correspond to the Eastern Time Zone.
The file “1258039134.txt” is the most recent “climategate” email based on the UNIX timestamp that makes up the number portion of the filename and the date in the text of the email itself.
The date in the text of the email is: Thu Nov 12 10:18:54 2009 .
The number portion(unix tstmp) of the filename “1258039134” converts to: Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:18:54 GMT or 3:18PM GMT. Not 10:18AM as in the email text.
The filename tstamp, “1258039134”, only gives the date of Thursday, November 12, 2009 10:18:54 AM when calculated in relation to the Eastern Time Zone.
The Unix Epoch date should be “1258021134” for Thu Nov 12 2009 10:18:54 AM GMT if the date was generated on a mail server in the UK.
The email filenames (based on Unix Epoch time) appear to have been generated by an Epoch Time Converter (possibly at an online coverter that left footprints = BUSTED) – or a date routine/algorithm in a program. Probably someone in the eastern part of North America – Eastern Time Zone. That means the filename “1258039134.txt” did not come from a server in the UK. The emails may have been gathered from several different systems, stripped of header info and renamed with generated unix times. That would mean the FOI zip file(at least the email portion) was packaged in the western hemisphere and shipped back overseas to GMT.
Merry Christmas
# 71; Tom Bombadil.
Impossible for me to say anything about your analysis, but I am sure many would like to know as much as possible about the file processing before being placed as Comment 10 (above). Lets see whether other readers can verify your assessment and provide further contributions.
To the contributor of FOIA-Comment 10 (17 Nov), and to all other visitors:
A Happy Holiday Season and a NEW YEAR 2010.
test test test %Macro1% %Macro2% %Macro3% test test
Pretty nice blog you’ve got here. Thanx for it. I like such topics and everything that is connected to them. I would like to read more soon.
Best regards
Interesting, i’ll post more when i know more lol
cheers
the sky is falling the sky is falling!
UN’s climate change context: The ultimate crock of ad hominem crap, courtesy of Mann, et al, especially at the CRU.
Expose the lies, investigate the vested and their activities, prosecute them ’til they finally shutup!
Cool content. Waiting for you to continue the topic.
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