Saturday, May 03, 2008

William Connolley:Climate Scientist And Grumpy Guy

From The Post's Lawrence Solomon:

Next to Al Gore, William Connolley may be the world's most influential person in the global warming debate.

Well not really. William Connolley runs one of my favorite climate change blogs-- Stoat: Taking Science By The Throat Blog--as well as serving as a wikipedia editor for articles re the AGW debate. You can get a flavor of the blog from his response to the much covered Noel Keenlyside paper on average temperatures over the course of the next decade:

...the Torygraph quotes them as saying Noel Keenlyside of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, Kiel, Germany, said: "The IPCC would predict a 0.3°C warming over the next decade. Our prediction is that there will be no warming until 2015 but it will pick up after that." No, thats not what the IPCC "predicts", and no, no-warming is not what your own model predicts. Just look at your own figure 4, you dolt. It quite clearly shows warming from 2005 to 2015.

[...]

Connect the dots from 2005-2015 and you end up with 0.2 oC/decade, which is fairly standard. Maybe the annual data shows different, but they don't show that. Why are people lapping this stuff up without even comparing the words to the figures?

As for the rest of it, ignore Solomon: Fred Singer did once believe in Martians; Peiser did not refute Oreskes, and indeed admitted as much.

18 comments:

Rob said...

A decidedly excellent discovery - thanks for the recco on Connolley.

biff said...

To recap:

- the last hundred million years, warming and cooling were natural phenomena

- a decade ago we pronounce that THIS warming cycle isn't natural and the models say it will really start to get hot.

- it's starts to cool instead of warming, which is still pronounced the "natural" part of the cycle

- but if and when it does start to warm, that's the "unnatural" part.

cycles natural

cooling natural

warming unnatural.

Got it.

Ti-Guy said...

I wish I lived 3 feet up my arse like Biff does. The world is much simpler when you're stupid. And that's not just crabby opinion; it's the truth.

They just shouldn't be allowed the Internet. The Gammas should be encouraged to engage in more productive activity.

Biff...How did you ever graduate High School?

Anonymous said...

ti-guy - you mus live three feet up yer own arse to prattle on the way you do.

The best three years of your life were grade 4. Or was it 5 ?

Dante said...

Well I'm thrilled. Calling off warming for another 10 years is a weasel move.

I do have a question though. If the temperature does not rise as predicted, how do you think the premise that global warming is responsible for melting the polar is cap will go when there hasn't been any warming for 20 years opposed to 10 years?

Do you think the next move will be to admit that polar melting is not caused primarily by global warming but by a shift in ocean currents?

Ti-Guy said...

Do you think the next move will be to admit that polar melting is not caused primarily by global warming but by a shift in ocean currents?

What's causing the shifts in ocean currents now?

In any case, I'm hoping I'll be dead in 20 years (as it stands, I'm likely to stick around for another 40), because I don't see the current generation of retards being marginalised until they enter dotage. Until then, it's going to be a real drag.

Dante said...

What's causing the shifts in ocean currents now?

I'm no expert but my understanding is that oscillations with currents are primarily caused by forces such as gravity.

Ti-Guy said...

Uh, no. Ocean currents are caused by differences in water temperature.

biff said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
biff said...

Playing defence for insult hurling ti-guy.

Now that IS low.

To recap once again:

ti-guy hurls insults (acceptable)

I call him on it (unacceptable and must be censored).

Pathetic (oh, and cut, pasted and saved for posterity).

Cheers.

bigcitylib said...

Biff,

I only censor people when they don't amuse me.

Your last didn't amuse me. Be funnier.

biff said...

No,

I think I'll leave you to the likes of ti-guy.

He's about your blog's speed.

Funny though, I haven't quite figured out why this blog never really generates more than a handful of commenters with ti-guy being your true commenting stalwart.

A mystery really.

Ciao.

bigcitylib said...

"Funny though, I haven't quite figured out why this blog never really generates more than a handful of commenters with ti-guy being your true commenting stalwart."

Most people say its because I allow too many conservative trolls.

Ti-Guy said...

Funny though, I haven't quite figured out why this blog never really generates more than a handful of commenters with ti-guy being your true commenting stalwart.

Who are you trying to kid? If we totted up all the comments you made under various sock-puppets, I'm sure your output would greatly exceed mine.

You are devoted to this blog. Addicted, even.

You're such a liar, Biff. Liar, liar, liar, liar, liar, liar...

...*inhales*...

...liar, liar, liar, liar...

Holly Stick said...

Hey biff, it's perfectly natural for humans to be born and then to die - it's been happening for many many years. So if I were to shoot bullets into your skull cavity until one of them hit your poor shrivelled brain, you would have died a natural death, right? Because if people naturally die it's not possible to murder them by human actions, right?

biff said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
biff said...

Actually Holly,

the better analogy would be that I died in the nursing home at age 85,

around the same age, and in the same manner as many of the other nursing home residents,

but there was a group of doctors who were studying the effects of disease X (the existence of which was disputed, let alone the ability to predict mortality of it), and had a lot of research money riding on proving it correct, and they computer modeled that I would die at age 45 from that disease, but instead I died at 85 like about everyone else,

but instead of admitting they were wrong, they came out with some lame, "uh, yeah he should have died earlier, but 'natural causes interfered' excuse.


I think that's a more apt analogy.

John Cross said...

Biff: i always like to lay it out as follows:

1) We are responsible for ALL the recent rise in CO2.

2) Adding CO2 will cause an enhanced greenhouse effect and cause more IR radiation to strike the surface of the earth.

3) If you provide an object with more IR radiation it will either warm or cool less quickly.

Now, which do you not agree with?

Regards,
John