This is a very good graph

To my readers, There are three items of interest on this subject in this post.

1. There are some new postings from Steve McIntyre (and here) that show us the hidden decline in Briffa’s tree ring data – basically it appears that Briffa only published the data up to 1960, and that ignoring the tree ring proxies past 1960 because they don’t match the instrument data!   In McIntyre’s re-plot there is a distinct decline in the tree ring proxy data.  Now to me this doesn’t show us that the world was actually cooling – the instrument data appears to indicate warming.  But what is does show is that the tree ring proxies are not good proxies to global temperature.  So we should be loathe to trust them as a historical record of temperature.

This of course makes sense to me.   How can the density of tree rings be correlated to temperature without knowing the levels of precipitation, sunlight intensity.  Also, tree ring data give annual average tree growth so information about whether a year started dry, wet, cold or warm and CHANGED during the year cannot be easily detected in the tree rings.  I’m no dendro-chronologist, but I see unanswered questions.

2. Phil Green published a good article in the National Post today, mostly comparing the daily average minimum temperatures for Europe and North America to the monthly average anomaly temperatures that CRU published for the IPCC.    He makes some very good points about data sharing – if Courtillot has data that doesn’t match the CRU data, why won’t CRU share the data so he can compare more closely?

Green also makes some very good points about the averaging/smoothing of data that CRU has done.  If you have a bunch of data, averaging it out will remove a lot of the information.  If Courtillot has daily data from 44 European stations and 153 US stations for most of the 20th century, then CRU must have at least that much data.  But why then do they average the data out on monthly and annual bases?  I recognize the need to grid the planet for the computer models, and that there has to be some relationship between the measured stations and the grid locations (which is an interesting mathematical challenge) – but the gross averaging of data seems questionable to me.

Further, the use of anomalies instead of actual temperatures is misleading because the selection of the normal period changes the appearance and interpretation of the results.

3. Along the lines of these posts, Chemical Engineering Progress, published by AIChE, has a great article (membership required) this month about numerical errors and gives a great example about how different plotting methods can provide very different assessments of how well two datasets are correlated.  This has a lot to do with data fitting and explains why using the wrong method can obscure the important information.    Here are two graphs from that article:

The captions of the two figures are self explanatory.  In this case, the first method appears to show good correlation, whereas in the second it is clear that there is a distinct curvature, indicating the correlation is not very good.   This is exactly the same problem as comparing Courtillot’s daily data with the heavily smoothed CRU data.  The clearly significant averaging and smoothing of the data (and the use of “anomalies”) has obscured the useful information.

Here are some more great pieces from the CRU leak:

CO2 is Ultimately a Political Decision

Cooling masked from Public

In todays’ papers, there is a story about how climate change (aka global warming) puts billions of dollars in Canadian Assets at Risk.  Of course, this whole assessment by Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research is based on the ASSUMPTION that the climate is changing…

Which it is becoming more clear from the evidence released last Friday is a fabrication.  Lorne Gunter gives a good overview of the hacked/released Hadley Climate Research Unit (CRU) emails, but I think it is the data files and code that make it very clear that the CRU scientists (and therefore the UN IPCC) have been making it all up.  Excerpt from the HARRY_READ_ME.txt file from the CRU dataset (bold my emphasis):

Deduce that .glo files, after the header, contain data taken row-by-row starting with the Northernmost, and presented as ’8E12.4′. The grid is from -180 to +180 rather than 0 to 360.

This should allow us to deduce the meaning of the co-ordinate pairs used to describe each cell in a .grim file (we know the first number is the lon or column, the second the lat or row – but which way up are the latitudes? And where do the longitudes break?

There is another problem: the values are anomalies, wheras the ‘public’ .grim files are actual values. So Tim’s explanations (in _READ_ME.txt) are incorrect…

And again:

So.. we don’t have the coefficients files (just .eps plots of something). But what are all those monthly files? DON’T KNOW, UNDOCUMENTED. Wherever I look, there are data files, no info about what they are other than their names. And that’s useless.. take the above example, the filenames in the _mon and _ann directories are identical, but the contents are not. And the only difference is that one directory is apparently ‘monthly’ and the other ‘annual’ – yet both contain monthly files.

And more!

I am seriously worried that our flagship gridded data product is produced by Delaunay triangulation – apparently linear as well. As far as I can see, this renders the station counts totally meaningless. It also means that we cannot say exactly how the gridded data is arrived at from a statistical perspective

And more!

The suggested way forward is to not use any observations after 1989, but to allow synthetics to take over. I’m not keen on this approach as it’s likely (imo) to introduce visible jumps at 1990, since we’re effectively introducing a change of data source just after calculating the normals. My compromise is to try it – but to also try a straight derivation from half-degree synthetics.

This one if particularly good…

Oh, GOD. What is going on? Are we data sparse and just looking at the climatology? How can a synthetic dataset derived from tmp and dtr produce the same statistics as an ‘real’ dataset derived from observations?

Ah, Bingo was his name-o! as I was hoping (well OK it’s a bad kind of hope), the reason it’s all the same is that it is by and large defaulting to the climatology. Which means that not much (any?) data is getting through, no matter if we use synthetic, observed, or both together. What’s odd about that conclusion is that the synthetic data is derived from TMP and DTR – two very well-populated datasets! So synthetics alone should pretty much fill the.. hang on, just though of something horrendous.. oh, okay, probably not that. I was wondering if glo2abs.for was factoring the normals so that the anomalies were insignificant, but the equation is: absgrid(ilon(i),ilat(i)) = * nint(anoms(ilon(i),ilat(i))*10) + normals(i,imo) ..so the anomaly is getting the weight! But still – - not a wise thing to leave to automatics. So glo2abs should prompt the user.. but with what? Just one anomaly and normal? Several? The same one from different timesteps? Eeek.

This would seem to indicate that the model being referred to here is using the climatology (the theory) and ignoring the data… good way to get the answer you want…

My favorite though:

The problem is that the synthetics are incorporated at 2.5-degrees, NO IDEA why, so saying they affect particular 0.5-degree cells is harder than it should be. So we’ll just gloss over that entirely ;0)

ARGH. Just went back to check on synthetic production. Apparently – I have no memory of this at all – we’re not doing observed rain days! It’s all synthetic from 1990 onwards. So I’m going to need conditionals in the update program to handle that. And separate gridding before 1989. And what TF happens to station counts?

OH **** THIS. It’s Sunday evening, I’ve worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done I’m hitting yet another problem that’s based on the hopeless state of our databases. There is no uniform data integrity, it’s just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they’re found.

So, the CRU people:

• don’t actually have data in a format that is documented as to what it means
• are trying to DEDUCE the source and format of the data
• all of the modeling is based on SYNTHETIC (artificial / invented) data from 1990 onwards.
• The models may not use the data at all, but something in the code is overriding with the theory

Now, I admit that I do not know all of the context behind this stuff, but CRU had better release EVERYTHING so that real peer review can happen.  We need knowledgeable people to review all their files and see if this is as big a house of cards as it currently appears to be.

And as for Copenhagen, I would hope our politicians call it off until the science is better understood!

The President of the Czech Republic made a great speech in Washington, leading up to the Copenhagen Summit.

We should not forget how the doctrine of global warming came into being. In a normal case, everything starts with an empirical observation, with the discovery of evident trends or tendencies. Then follow scientific hypotheses and their testing. When they are not refuted, they begin to influence politicians. The whole process finally leads to some policy measures. None of this was the case with the global warming doctrine.

It started differently. The people who had never believed in human freedom, in impersonal forces of the market and other forms of human interaction and in the spontaneity of social development and who had always wanted to control, regulate and mastermind us have been searching for a persuasive argument that would justify these ambitions of theirs. After trying several alternative ideas — population bomb, rapid exhaustion of resources, global cooling, acid rains, ozone holes — that all very rapidly proved to be non-existent, they came up with the idea of global warming. Their doctrine was formulated before reliable data evidence, before the formulation of scientifically proven theories, before their comprehensive testing based on today’s level of statistical methods.

He explains clearly that cap-and-trade is not a market solution – it is government intervention on the largest of scales.  and he finishes exceptionally:

But we should return to the beginning. Despite huge scientific efforts and spending, it has not been proved that the human effect on the climate is statistically significant. Once again Lord Monckton: “the correct policy to address a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing.”

This country, my country, as well as the rest of the world face many real issues. We do not need to solve non-existing problems. I don’t think the real issue is temperature and/or CO2, but a new utopian vision of the world. We have only two ways out: salvation through carbon capping or prosperity through freedom, unhampered human activity, productivity and hard work. I vote for the second option.

Jim Harris, the former Green Party leader, writes in the National Post today about how Denmark is a leader in wind power, yet he fails to point out how wind power in Denmark has not been the magically solution to carbon emission reductions, and that the cost is prohibitive.

Notably:

Much has been written about Denmark’s success as the world’s wind power pioneer. But the regularly repeated claim – that Denmark generates 20 percent of its electricity demand from wind sources – is highly misleading. That 20 percent of electricity is not supplied continuously from wind power. Denmark’s wind supply is so variable that it relies heavily on neighbors Norway and Sweden, taking their excess production.

From the National Post in April 2009:

Denmark, the world’s most wind-intensive nation, with more than 6,000 turbines generating 19% of its electricity, has yet to close a single fossil-fuel plant. It requires 50% more coal-generated electricity to cover wind power’s unpredictability, and pollution and carbon dioxide emissions have risen (by 36% in 2006 alone).

the Danish experience is instructive. Its electricity generation costs are the highest in Europe (15¢/kwh compared to Ontario’s current rate of about 6¢). Niels Gram of the Danish Federation of Industries says, “windmills are a mistake and economically make no sense.” Aase Madsen , the Chair of Energy Policy in the Danish Parliament, calls it “a terribly expensive disaster.”

It seems like wind power in Denmark is not the magic bullet!  It is expensive and hasn’t allowed Denmark to close any fossil-fuel plants at all.

Additionally, the evidence is in that wind power needs high subsidies (or feed-in-tariffs) to make it economic:

Wind Band 3 tariff levels should also be changed from a proposed 15-50kW to 15-100kW to more accurately reflect the current nature of the small wind market, the BWEA said. It believes that a reasonable tariff for the expanded band would be the currently suggested 20.5p/kWh.

Note that if electricity today in Canada costs 6-10 cents per kWh, a feed-in-tariff of 30 cents per kWh has to be paid by someone.  Either consumers are going to see their power bills rise by 3-5 TIMES, or their taxes are going up.  Are Canadians’ prepared for that?  Could Jim Harris please include this in his columns so Canadians know he wants to drive up their cost of living?

EDIT: Everyone should read the report identified by one of my commenters

In today’s National Post, and elsewhere around the net, there is much commentary about the upcoming Copenhagen Conference where the UN and the Climate Change Priesthood will try to guilt the western world into signing on to a treaty that will cripple their economies and transfer wealth to the developing world.

• Peter Foster does a good job of explaining why the TD / Suzuki / Pembina report likely underestimates the economic consequences of trying to reduce carbon emissions.
• Kevin Libin and John Ivison do a good job of pointing out that Canadians need to wake up to the economic cost we will all be asked to bear.  Ivison also makes it clear that the government needs to provide clearer leadership on this subject and be more honest with the people.
• But the best is from Jack Mintz, who lays out the truth – not every nation is going to agree to curtail economic growth in the name of maybe reducing climate impacts a century or more in the future.  And the ones that do will suffer economic pain as industry moves to places that don’t restrict economic performance.  For any western country to sign on to this is economic suicide.
• The worst is Jim Harris, who claims that technological innovation is going to magically solve our problems.  He incorrectly compares the improvements in productivity created by the industrial revolution to the hoped for improvements in energy efficiency.  The fact is, a lot of energy use is extremely efficient.  Household furnaces are now available with >90% efficiency.  You can’t get to 100%.  The laws of thermodynamics say so.   You can’t insulate buildings to lose or gain no heat from their surroundings.  There is a limit to energy efficiency because delta S (entropy) must rise.   Coal or gas fired power plants can be up to 60% efficient – more requires circulating low grade hot water to heat buildings.  But that means moving the power plants to where the people are, which costs money because we already have 100 years of infrastructure built up.  It’s not going to change overnight.

Canada should skip the Copenhagen conference altogether.  The draft text of the treaty tells us enough that we don’t want to go near it.  We don’t want UN bureaucrats in Geneva or New York imposing sanctions or demanding tribute to the green gods because we don’t want to impoverish ourselves by shrinking the economy.

OK, I’m confused.  Michael Ignatieff has complained in the past that the government of Canada wasn’t spending enough money on stimulus, then complained that the government of Canada was running too large of a deficit (i.e. spending too much), and now promises to spend even MORE money on clean energy (whatever that might be).

Michael – please explain how you are going to pay for it.  In detail.

The upcoming “negotiations” in Copenhagen will be the downfall of civilization if the so-called “Green” movement is successful and nations are foolish enough to sign on to the son of Kyoto treaty.  Kevin Libin writes at length in the National Post on the details of the draft Copenhagen Treaty that would take sovereignty out of the hands of nation states at place it in the hands of the UN bureaucracy.  It would demand massive transfers of wealth from rich nations to poor, in effect “climate reparations” to help the poor countries “reduce their emissions”.  It would also give poor nations the power to dictate terms of world trade, especially with rich nations who do not reduce their emissions to the levels prescribed by the UN…

One of my friends described many years ago that the whole Global Warming scenario was a plot by communists, derived as the Soviet Union collapsed and socialism was facing the doom it deserved and earned.  He believed that the communists looked at the free world and said “how do will kill them with their own actions” and that recognized that if they could convince the west that CO2 was destroying the world, they could cripple the capitalist economies.  I didn’t believe him then. I do now.

I think that the warmists can be divided into three groups:

• True environmentalists, who earnestly believe that human activity is affecting the climate negatively and that action should be taken to limit the damage or even rectify the situation.  Arguing with these people can be effective if they are willing to recognize contrary scientific data.
• Bandwagon hoppers, who are pulling the party line because they think it is the popular or “right” thing to do, or it will gain them political power in some way.  These people are not worth your time to fight.
• Communists and socialists, who could care less whether the climate is changing or not.  They see this solely as a way to transfer wealth to the poor nations, to destroy western civilization and to create the “workers paradise” that Marx envisioned in the 19th century.  These ar the most dangerous of the “warmists”, and the ones the most effort should be focussed on unveiling and defeating.

Write to the Prime Minister of Canada and and your member of Parliament, explaining to them why they should simply skip Copenhagen and maintain Canada’s sovereignty.

It appears that the solar minimum we are experiencing has resulted in a significant increase in cosmic radiation reaching the earth.  There are two issues here:

1. If there is a 20-30% increase in cosmic radiation reaching the earth, then we should be seeing an increase in cloud cover (since cloud formation can be triggered by high-energy particles, which would increase the albedo of the earth and reflect more solar energy into space.  This would cool the earth.
2. Since the increase in cosmic radiation is due to a reduction in solar activity (wind and magnetism), this would also indicate that the earth is receiving less energy from the sun in the first place.  This would cool the earth.

So the question must be, did the climate modelers who predict doomsday include such an event?  What are the consequences?  If this is the reason the world has cooled since 1998 (in the face of rising CO2 levels), it would appear to me that the extraterrestrial influences can easily overwhelm anything that might be attributable to human activity.