Another academic shows they are clueless on climate.

Posted on 9 July 2014 by Scottish-Sceptic

Over at “The End of Physics” we find a gem of a piece from this academic who says:

This one is particularly irritating because it’s essentially a silly circular argument. “Yes, we’ve warmed. However, we can’t tell, using a statistical model, if that warming was natural or not. Also, the only way we can tell if it is statistically significant is using a statistical model. Therefore we don’t know if it is natural or not.”
You’d like to think that people might eventually be embarrassed to have made such an argument.

On the positive side, he seems to have grasped the basic theory that one requires a model of “what is normal” in order to tell what is “abnormal”, but on the negative side, instead of admitting this means we do not have any certainty of human causation, he instead cannot bring himself to accept this, so turns the argument on its head to claim: “because we must be able to know it’s caused by mankind … it’s silly for skeptics to demand that we know what is normal …” before he jumps in like the big twit he is to say “of course global temperature is abnormal … I know because I’m a omnipotent academic and therefore the basic laws of physics and statistics must be wrong.
It’s a basic requirement that in order to know what is abnormal, we must first know what is normal.
Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Climate | 9 Comments

It is morally wrong to pay the BBC TV charge

Posted on 8 July 2014 by Scottish-Sceptic

The BBC have been given ample chance to obey the legal requirements of its own charter. It has failed to do so.
There is no ambiguity in this.
If your views are scientifically skeptic, whether someone like Bob Carter, who is fully qualified to speak on the science, someone like Lord Lawson who more than qualified to speak on the policy implications or someone like me who is qualified to speak on almost any area, we are all being banned in favour of a narrow minded view from a narrow group of climate catastrophists who represent no science, no evidence, nothing but their own narrow minded bigotry: a hatred for all the advances we gave the world through our  industrial society.
As such, the BBC is now an illegal organisation and paying the TV charge would be funding an illegal organisation.

It is morally & legally wrong to pay the BBC TV charge.

BBC has lost its balance over climate change Continue reading →

Posted in Climate, General | 6 Comments

“Green” Energy Suspected of killing Red Kites to Clear for Windparks

Posted on 7 July 2014 by Scottish-Sceptic

Red Kite (from Wikipedia)

Red Kite
(from Wikipedia)


By P Gosselin on 7. Juli 2014
The dispute over windpark development on some of Germany’s most idyllic landscapes is heating up rapidly and massively. And should the dispute continue on its current trajectory, it won’t be long before the ugly contraptions get stopped for good.
The dispute reached a boiling point recently with windpark opponents suspecting green energy activists of poisoning birdlife in order clear the way for an unobstructed windpark permitting.
According to south Germany’s online Stuttgarter Nachrichten, a number protected red kites have been found poisoned by the E 605 herbicide – in rural areas that just happen to be sited for the installation of large-scale industrial windparks.
See more at: http://notrickszone.com/2014/07/07/green-industry-suspected-of-red-kite-cleansing-to-clear-the-way-for-windpark-permitting/#sthash.SaPNoCQw.dpuf
 

Posted in Climate, Wind | 2 Comments

The Skeptic demands: temperature data (draft)

Posted on 7 July 2014 by Scottish-Sceptic

Judith Curry: trying your best is not the same as delivering something fit for purpose

Judith Curry: trying your best is not the same as delivering something fit for purpose


Judith Curry had a post today which just made my blood boil when she tried to excuse the appalling culture within those groups producing a “global temperature figure” by saying “They are doing their best”. In my experience, that comment is usually only said when someone has done an appalling bad job – with poor quality materials, methods and training. So I posted a quick list of what I thought was needed:
1. Fully audited methodology and systems
2. Quality assurance to ISO9000
3. Some come back WHEN we find out they weren’t doing the job to the standard required that doesn’t involve putting them in jail.
4. Accountability to the public – that is to say – they stop saying “we are doing our best” and start saying “what is it you need us to do”.
Before I go much further I would be interested in some feedback. At the heart of my proposal is the need to remove the compilation of a “global temperature” figure from the current academics who just don’t seem to be up to the job. So what would we have instead? Continue reading →

Posted in Climate, Sceptics | 17 Comments

Time to Deny the Establishment Broadcasting Company its funding

Posted on 7 July 2014 by Scottish-Sceptic

In my last post I said the BBC are really just “The Establishment Broadcasting Company” – the broadcaster of and for the establishment. Their view was outdated in the era of empire radio in the 1920s when they were founded, but today it is totally at odds with modern society and our internet peer-to-peer communication which has more or less broken down the presumed barriers and authority of the “establishment”. But,

the EBC just cannot get it.

Jimmy Saville Paedophile and protected by the establishment at the EBC

Jimmy Saville Paedophile and protected by the establishment at the EBC


It just get worse and worse see this on Bishop Hill: New BBC policy: right is wrong, wrong is right.
For example they will allow all the following to speak on climate:

  1. Nurse – a geneticist
  2. Walport – medical science
  3. Jones (of the notorious Jones report into BBC impartiality) research into medical areas.
  4. Lord Lawson – not a scientist – just a member of the establishment

In contrast, someone like me, when chairman of the Scottish Climate and Energy Forum (the only group representing skeptics) who (like Andrew or many other skeptics) had a climate relevant degree (physics), who  has worked in renewables and studied climate for years…

was totally ignored despite the BBC knowing full well who I am and my qualifications.

This proves the EBC take only one thing into account:

“are you part of the establishment”? Continue reading →

Posted in bbc, Climate, Sceptics | 5 Comments

Time to reform the Biased Broadcasting Company

Posted on 7 July 2014 by Scottish-Sceptic

The BBC, a dinosaur organisation created in the era of empire radio, still sees its mission as being the mouth piece of the establishment. As such it epitomises the patronising establishment preaching to the uncouth, uneducated, non-establishment plebs.
That view was outdated even in 1927 when it started preaching. Today, when 50% get a university education and the public no longer have to take our information from the likes of the BBC, their “we only broadcast establishment views and not the hoy paloi” view makes them unfit as a PUBLIC service broadcaster.
In particular, the way they constantly refuse to publish any views or interview anyone with climate-relavent qualification who is not part of the establishment is a crime. (Their charter is legally biding)

The BBC is not the EBC – the Establishment Broadcasting Company

So this news via the GWPF is great news:

More than half the public think the television licence fee should be scrapped and the BBC forced to find new ways to fund itself, according to a poll published today.

Sajid Javid

Sajid Javid, the Culture Secretary, says he is prepared to be radical in reconsidering BBC funding Photo: Bethany Clarke

The broadcaster should generate income from advertising rather than relying on taxes or higher licence fee funds, the findings suggest.
There is also substantial support for replacing the licence fee with a subscription charge which is paid only by those wanting to view BBC programmes.
The results, from a survey of more than 2,000 people by ComRes, come as ministers and BBC executives prepare for the government’s review of the broadcaster’s charter in 2016.

Read More at GWPF

Posted in bbc, Climate | Comments Off on Time to reform the Biased Broadcasting Company

Mathematical requirement for fractals? Implications for 1/f noise and climate.

Posted on 5 July 2014 by Scottish-Sceptic

Fractal systems all have feedbacks. They all have infinite self-similar states at different scale. As such it seems the fractal nature is caused by the feedback. Therefore I suggest that if P is the probability function of a system describing all these self-similarities. For a fractal system, the feedback must be such that the in general the probability function itself is in some sense fractal with the result that the feedback causes the number of self-similar states to increase whilst the probability of each self-similarity state. The result is that the feedback, tends to increase the information content (proportional to -ln(p)) so that it tends to infinity.
Applying this to 1/f type noise as is often seen in the climate ( see Global Warming disproved: Bad posts, CET, Antarctic Ice and Fractal Noise), As 1/f noise appears in general to be fractal, then it appears only necessary to show that the complexity of the system and self-similarity increases due to feedbacks to show that they are fractal noise.
Or conversely, it may be that 1/f type noise (which no one seems to know how it originates) is a system where the feedback increases the number of self-similar states or put another way, each feedback increases the complexity and information of the system.
This is in contrast to white noise which is seen to be due to physical processes such as the discrete nature of electrons or nuclear decay. So 1/f type noise, may not be the result of physical properties as such, but the result of certain types of feedback mechanisms which create chaos of this form.

Posted in 1/f, Climate | 2 Comments

Advanced Green House Theory

Posted on 5 July 2014 by Scottish-Sceptic

I want to explore how the adiabatic cooling as we move up the atmosphere works with radiant cooling. I hope this post will clarify the concept. However first, the other relevant discussions:
In this first post The CO2 Green-house effect is real (sometimes), I introduced the Advanced Green-House Gas Theory in its simplest form which is a semi-transparent layer in an otherwise transparent atmosphere.
In the second post Reconciling skydragons and mainstream skeptics? , I clarified some points and showed how the Advanced Green-House Theory is compatible with both the Basic Green-House Theory (which is very problematic) and the Skydragon ideas of adiabatic cooling.
Finally there is an excellent discussion at Tallbloke

Definition: Green-House Warming

Before I start, I want to stop arguments of the form “greenhouse warming doesn’t exist because its not what we mean by it”. So instead of the wooly conceptual definition which no one really seems to know what it means, I want to define “green-house warming” in a way that isn’t linked to a particular theory but is a general concept. So, I am defining the Green-House Effect in this quantifiable form:

“The amount the real world is warmer than a theoretical world with no atmosphere.

Continue reading →

Posted in Advanced Greenhouse Theory, Climate, Ice age, Proposals | 13 Comments

Skydragons: good physics – appalling PR.

Posted on 4 July 2014 by Scottish-Sceptic

Skydragons were right on the physics, but appallingly wrong on the PR. What they are describing is the greenhouse effect by another name. But by denying the (Noddy) “greenhouse effect”, on climate alarmist sites,  they have done untold damage to themselves and caused all skeptics to be labelled as “deniers”.
For details of “Advanced Greenhouse Theory” see: Reconciling skydragons and mainstream skeptics?
Note: I suspect “skydragon” may be derogatory. Unfortunately, I don’t know another term and I need to refer to this group by some name so apologies to all “skydragons”.
I first encountered a skydragon, when doing the “sceptic view“. Their view was a big headache for me when trying to pull together a “consensus” view, because it was only one or two people within the group nebulously called “skeptics” that were presenting what appeared to be a very different view rejecting “greenhouse warming”.
I had to find out why they were presenting this view and whether there was any validity in what they were saying. I read what I could find and eventually came to a very good paper by an East European who seemed to have a good argument showing that all the supposed “greenhouse warming” could be explained by adiabatic (and similar) cooling through the atmosphere.
This was a paradox. I could not fault the physics, nor was the basic idea of greenhouse warming wrong (even if I felt there were problems). Eventually all I could do was to say “and there is also a group of skeptics who have other views on greenhouse warming”. Continue reading →

Posted in Advanced Greenhouse Theory, Climate, Proposals | 21 Comments

Reconciling skydragons and mainstream skeptics?

Posted on 3 July 2014 by Scottish-Sceptic

Greenhouse gases, are not so much “trapping” heat, as acting by “tapping” heat. They are acting as a vector (tap) enabling the flow of energy between the adiabatic controlled atmosphere and the IR radiation that eventually leaves the atmosphere. And it is because the adiabatic cooling reduces the temperature, that the apparent temperature of earth from space is cooled. This may reconcile the “Dragon slayers” with mainstream skeptic views.

Introduction: why colder means warmer

The warmer windows are warmer because to lose more heat.

The warmer windows are warmer because to lose more heat.


Talking through my post yesterday with a physicist (The CO2 Greenhouse effect is real (sometimes), it was clear I needed to spend a bit more time explaining what may appear counter intuitive. That is why when the apparent temperature of the earth from space decreases, that this must mean the planet is warmer.
This is easiest to explain using the analogy of a house. To the right is a thermal image of a house, clearly showing the windows and doors are much warmer than the better insulated walls and roof. Why are they warmer? Because the internal heat can more easily penetrate the thin insulation of windows and doors. So, for a constant level of heating (at night**), if all the house were covered in the glass windows with the red (hot) appearance, then more heat would be lost from inside. Conversely, if there were no windows or doors all the outside would be the cold blue and less heat would be lost. Continue reading →

Posted in Advanced Greenhouse Theory, Climate, My Best Articles, Proposals | Tagged , , | 47 Comments