Sunday, January 19, 2014

Robson's excellent overview of the Earth's climate

John Robson isn't a climate scientist, nor does he claim to be.  But he's a very smart, reasonable guy.  On Friday's Byline show he presented a layman's overview of the history of the Earth's climate in relation to CO2 and the chaotic nature of the climate system.



To summarize, John's main points were:
(1) historically, temperature is completely uncorrelated with atmospheric CO2 levels
(2) atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have been far above today's level for most of the planet's history (more than 20 times higher at one point)
(3) today's CO2 concentrations are near historic lows
(4) the earth's average global temperature today is well below historic averages
(5) the climate system is chaotic, sometimes unstable and generally unpredictable
(6) UN "Climate Change Convention Executive Secretary", Christiana Figueres (channeling Justin Trudeau's admiration of China), is a dope.

Bottom line takeaways:
(1) Is there global warming? Robson didn't discuss it.  From recent data, apparently a little.
(2) Should we be alarmed by it? Hardly.
(3) Can we trust UN climate change policy? No frackin' way!


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

No, he isn't a climate scientist. If he were, he'd have no problem with the very settled science of global warming.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/01/14/climate_change_another_study_shows_they_don_t_publish_actual_papers.html

Out of 13,950 peer-reviewed articles published on climate change, 13,926 support the reality of warming. If you look at peer-reviewed studies between Nov 2012 and Dec 2013, only a single study out of 2,258 peer reviewed articles rejected anthropogenic climate change.

The denialist literature is very loud, but very thin.

Anonymous said...

What I would really like to see take place is a study of the temperature effects "CO2 emissions" on Earth have had on the global temperatures on say the Moon and Mars. Other celestial bodies in our immediate solar system. But we can already guess the results of these type of comparative studies...the Climatologists are terrified and know they will see the same proportional results of the temperature changes we are seeing here on earth... They will simply discount the data as junk science.

Anonymous said...

What really needs to happen is dropping this redistribution of wealth based on a carbon measurement and start putting some teeth into pollution fines. I couldn't give less of a rats ass of what the carbon foot print is of any nation... I'm more concerned with the radioactive, carcinogenic, and other pollutants countries and irresponsible industrialization in countries like China are dumping into our atmosphere, Climate, Oceans, and how it will be effecting the entire eco system/circle of life on planet Earth... we only have one Earth

Alain said...

The moment I read or hear someone claim that anything, in this case global warming, is settled science, it confirms that the person is ignorant of science, real science that is. Science is NEVER settled, since it must constantly change with new scientific discoveries. Be it Newton's or Einstein's theroies or any other, they have since been shown to be incorrect with the discovery of quantum physicis, and that may also need to change in the future.

Of course what these blind followers really mean by the science is settled is that you have no right to dissent, and I call rubbish.

JR said...

Anonymous #1,
Most babble about "consensus" and claimed numbers of peer-reviewed studies supporting AGW is pure propaganda - 100% worthless nonsense.

Nearly all climate scientists (skeptics included) are in complete agreement on greenhouse gas theory and that human contributions have an effect. Climate skeptics, however, are highly skeptical of claims that the human contribution is dangerous, that CAGW alarmism is valid. The real world data do not support the CAGW alarmist hypothesis. And there are many, many peer-reviewed papers that support this skepticism.