Friday, April 10, 2009

The question haunts scientists -- is it too late?

Canwest News Service: As a world-recognized climatologist and director of the Tyndall Centre of Climate Change Research in Manchester, England, Dr. Kevin Anderson hopes his prediction is right because his reputation as a scientist depends on the accuracy of analysis. As a representative of humanity, Mr. Kevin Anderson hopes his prediction is wrong because the implications for humanity are so dire.

This is the conflict confronting him as he measures increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, plots the corrective measures being taken by the world's countries, then anticipates the consequences. "As an academic," he confesses, "I wanted to be told that it was a very good piece of work and that the conclusions were sound. But as a human being, I desperately wanted someone to point out a mistake, and tell me we had got it completely wrong" (Guardian Weekly, Jan. 01/09).

At least 2,500 of the world's other leading environmental experts believe he has made no mistake and his conclusions are correct. In speaking for the collective concern of his colleagues, Dr. Anderson says, "Scientists have lost patience with carefully constructed messages being lost in the political noise. We are now prepared to stand up and say enough is enough" (The Vancouver Sun, Mar. 13/09).

…Scientists, by virtue of their discipline, try to choose the side of reality. And this objectivity is why Dr. Kevin Anderson -- despite wanting to be wrong -- reluctantly accepts that he is right. At the very least, his choice should give us pause for sober reflection.

"Cassandra" painted by Evelyn de Morgan (1855-1919)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Anderson an expert? Certainly not a climate expert, he's an engineer.

Anderson's bio at Manchester Tyndall: Research Director of Tyndall-Manchester's Energy and Climate Change programme and manager of the Tyndall Centre's energy pathways to global decarbonisation programme.

"Kevin is based in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering at the University of Manchester and is an honorary lecturer in Environmental Management at the Manchester Business School."

"Managing and understanding the linkages between the disparate projects demands a genuinely interdisciplinary approach, synthesising, for example, highly technical electrical power systems research with conceptually demanding interpretations of equity and carbon emissions scenarios for the UK's energy system."

Conceptually demanding interpretations? Exactly, all down to interpretation. This is just sociological claptrap.

He is certainly not researching climate, he starts from the view point that Global Warming as per IPCC is a given and then proceeds to play computer games around it.

The only experiments are thought experiments which simply is not science. There is no research, there is no new science, there is just computer modelling, with inadequate data on the atmosphere producing unbelievable scenarios that exist only on a computer screen. The approach is: "given this, what will happen if that".

IPCC says that global temperature rose by 0.7degC since 1850. Thank goodness it has, because we were in the depths of the Little Ice Age for 500 years before then, when temperatures were up to 2 degrees colder than today.

Who decides what the correct temperature of the Earth should be? Surely it shouldn't be what it was in 1850, we would be using massive amounts of energy for heating if it were.

They also say that it is very likely that humans have caused the temperature rise over the last fifty years.

Strange thing is that for the UK, annual temperature fifty years ago in 1959, was 10.48deg C. In 2008 UK annual temperature was 10.02 deg C. In that time atmospheric CO2has risen by 22%.

Will someone please tell me how a) a 0.46 degree fall in temperature is global warming and b)If CO2 drives temperature, why hasn't it?