Evaluating The Integrity Of Official Climate Records 41

[zdas04]

There is a 53 minute presentation at Evaluating The Integrity Of Official Climate Records from Steve Goddard (who starts by describing his qualifications which seem to be rock solid) that shows many high quality examples of how dramatically the climate data has been modified. One interesting observation is that approximately 50% of U.S. weather stations have been taken out of service in the last 30 years (primarily rural) and the data is "estimated" based on the remaining stations which are primarily urban (and most have been "corrected" for heat island effects). His data shows clearly exactly how the climate data has been manipulated (always in the same direction). It is worth 53 minutes to see if your credibility button gets pushed.

[bold]David Simpson, PE[/bold]
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[ornerynorsk]

No, thank YOU for playing! It takes a couple of hardcore enthusiasts to make the game exciting.

So let’s say for a moment that CO2, and CO2 alone, is the cause, and reducing it will stave off all of the untold horrors that are fueling everyone’s cause for high blood pressure. According to IRstuff's recent chart, we should cut output by a factor of 15, and even then we're still eventually in trouble. What does that mean in terms of real impact on the developed world’s daily life? No more air travel? Rolling brownouts or electrical rationing at a level not to exceed what percentage of the current usage? No personal vehicles getting less than x miles per gallon? I’m not talking voluntary measures, what are the mandatory measures that are going to be required and enforced of the population at large?

And here’s the $64K question . . . how do you implement it without immediate and widespread revolution? Are people going to be that understanding and have the foresight and ability to suppress their own comfy lifestyles? We are talking about way more than carbon taxes here. This has the tone of a Soviet style system where all of us peasants get to go live in the countryside and raise cabbage whilst the elite still do what they do. I'm serious as a heart attack, what is a real solution, because these feel-good ideas like carbon tax and sequestration either don't have the real clout or the scalability to do the job.


It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[cranky108]

Hidden sugar in food likely has more ill effects than coal smoke. Yet the media is more concerned about coal smoke (or what they think is coal smoke).

So how do you measure the amount of CO2 from a coal plant? We provide the numbers, and the media does not believe us. Are the numbers reported real, or made up? Depends on your source.

Has anyone measured the other gases in natural gas? You do know there are plants to extract He from raw natural gas, so what else is left in there? Maybe radon?

 

[zdas04]

cranky108.
Yeah, there are times to both determine the makeup of inerts in natural gas and times to determine trace components. It doesn't get done all that often, but it does get done. I've never seen radon show up in the trace analysis, but who knows, the next field over may have some.

An interesting story (at least to me). I ran Amoco's Reserve Inventory System in the 1980's. During that time we developed the Bravo Dome CO2 field in NE New Mexico to produce CO2 for an enhanced oil recovery project in the Permian Basin. I believe it was 1983. That year we booked the CO2 reserves and it was a very very large number. During the annual crises to get year-end reserves reports to the regulators and stockholders (reserves represents the single largest asset of any oil company, usually over 90% of the total assets) I got a call on a Sunday Afternoon that worldwide gas reserves were 4 times the closing reserves of the previous year. After a number of phone calls, the lead programmer and I went to the office. 20 hours of digging later we determined that all the numbers were reasonable except the division that included New Mexico. The programmer finally said, it is the Bravo Dome stuff, look at the size of that number. I stared at him for a long time and finally asked if he had added CO2 and Natural Gas? He said "they are both in MCF, why not add them?". My point is that there is a lot of stuff in the ground (the next field over from Bravo Dome is the biggest Helium field ever discovered). I don't remember the exact numbers 30 years later, but the CO2 in Bravo Dome and the Uinta Field in Utah would make up a significant percentage of the entire atmosphere. Wonder where that came from?

[bold]David Simpson, PE[/bold]
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[JNieman]

Oh, and here are a couple of gems from Pieter Tans, the scientists in charge of NOAA's Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network, taken from this article:

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2016/06/17/CO2-hit...

Quote exhibit A: "Researchers say CO2 levels haven't been this high at the South Pole in 400 million years." (Implying that CO2 levels, have, in fact, been this high prior to man's influence)

Quote Exhibit B: "We know from abundant and solid evidence that the CO2 increase is caused entirely by human activities," Tans added. (a rather tacit affirmation to the contrary of previous quote)

Hmmmmmm, I wonder why there is doubt regarding the veracity of all of this "data". I find it utterly hilarious.

1) ~400 million years ago was the second-largest extinction event in planetary history. That's a pretty big deal. "It happened before" is no reason to think it's "ok".

2) That a high CO2 concentration existed before humans, does not in any way mean all high CO2 concentrations are caused by sources other than humans. Your logic sorely lacking.

 

[Maui]

JNieman,

The Devonian period spanned from 419 million years ago to 359 million years ago. During this period,

CO2 levels dropped steeply throughout the Devonian period as the burial of the newly evolved forests drew carbon out of the atmosphere into sediments; this may be reflected by a Mid-Devonian cooling of around 5 °C (9 °F)..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devonian

The late Devonian extinction is described here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Devonian_extinction

Maui

 

[cranky108]

The intelligent populations ~400 million years ago were dumping so much CO2 that they killed off there own existence.

 

[ornerynorsk]

Thank-you for point number 2 JNieman. My logic happens to be quite lucid, I assure you. My point being that humans, in fact, do not necessarily cause all of the rise in CO2. In fact, it's quite accurate to say that the highest levels of CO2 in earth's history had absolutely no help whatsoever from humans.

Now, if I were the worrying type, which I'm not, I would be far more worried about what we have absolutely no control over, than what we do. 400 ppm might be the least of our worries. Sorry, I don't intentionally mean to be flippant, but let's keep perspective. What's the point in effectively enslaving the human race to a stone-age like existence with taxes and regulation if it may be of no consequence. Bon vivant!

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[rconnor]

the highest levels of CO2 in earth's history had absolutely no help whatsoever from humans

Of course they didn’t but they also weren’t caused by MAGIC! Past spikes in CO2 were usually massive volcanic action or bolide impacts. Orbital cycles can impact CO2 concentrations as well but that process takes thousands of year.

So what does you point say about the recent change in CO2? Absolutely nothing. It’s a non sequitar. Or perhaps you can enlighten me on the massive volcanic eruption or bolide impact that caused this spike in CO2. None have occurred. Orbital cycles cannot explain the rate or timing or even direction of CO2 rise (the next cycle, in ~50,000 years will reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations). So all the mechanisms that caused past increases in CO2 cannot explain the timing, rate or extent of the recent increase.

So what caused it? You might say MAGIC! I say human activities. It’s almost certainly, based off numerous lines of evidence, the latter.
[image

http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/matrix_CO2_2.jpg

]

 

[JNieman]

Yes, you're right - humans are not the only cause of elevated CO2 (above normal levels that support life as we know/like it) but then again, that's a point which fights an argument no one is making. No one is saying the current elevated levels of CO2 MUST be anthropogenic because humans are the only ones who could do it... rather, they draw from logical conclusions that support the assertion. Me, I personally do NOT care one BIT whether or not the source is anthropogenic or not. I care only that 1) greenhouse gases are increasing into dangerous levels, and 2) whether or not, and how, we can make a difference to mitigate problems. I only say that so that you don't immediately caste me into some "AGW zealot" and assume too much about my opinions/motivations. I'm mainly reading along for educational purposes and thought I saw a pretty big flaw in your post.

I agree with the ineffectiveness of 'carbon credits' and such feel-goods. It's silly political pandering. That doesn't affect the science. In fact, I think politics (like usual) is the biggest enemy of credibility in science.

 

[zdas04]

rconnor,
Nice matrix. Has about as much value as this one

In other words, when you say that the timing "strongly supports" anthropogenic sources you are saying that you are perfectly willing to ignore anything that even hints that CO2 lags warming by 50-450 years that your climate proxies support as well as the apparent thinking that it leads warming by a few minutes. Sorry Tic-Tac-Toe is more productive.

[bold]David Simpson, PE[/bold]
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[ornerynorsk]

"No one is saying the current elevated levels of CO2 MUST be anthropogenic"

Sorry JNieman, hate to beat a dead horse and be an a$$ about it, but that is EXACTLY what "everyone" (hyperbole intended) is saying !!!

I do wholeheartedly agree with you about the politics of it.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[canwesteng]

Ok, are we now at the point where we are questioning if we are responsible for increased CO2 levels? I mean you can witness CO2 emissions yourself when you start your car. I'm not sure what there is to dispute here.

 

[zdas04]

"You can witness CO2 emissions yourself when you start your car"????? Give me a break. You can witness them when a moose exhales as well. Polar bear populations are up and they are all exhaling too. The permafrost is retreating in the northern hemisphere (no one is saying that temperatures don't change, just disagreeing about why they are changing) and every foot of retreat exposes cubic miles of organic material to biological activity. I'm sure that has nothing to do with increasing atmospheric CO2, it is just my Land Rover. See if that passes the red-face test for you personally.

In 2014 when I was writing One Engineer's Perspective on Global Warming I looked for a non-political list of the sources of atmospheric CO2 (man, his chattels and artifacts were number 9, Krill was number one followed by termites and rotting vegetation which together were over 80% of the total) and found 3 sources that I found to be reputable and largely agreed with each other. That was August 2014. Two years ago. This morning I put in the same query and found incredibly detailed breakdowns of anthropogenic sources, NOTHING on other sources. They are all either gone or are being filtered by Google, Bing, and Yahoo. I do not have a clue what is going on, but nearly half of the bookmarks in my "Climate Change" folder give me a 404 error this morning. I'm sure that it is just a coincidence that data that was readily available 2 years ago is not coming up today and that stored links have been taken down wholesale. Nothing to see here. No one is messing with data.

[bold]David Simpson, PE[/bold]
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[moltenmetal]

If you don't accept that the CO2 rise is largely the result of human activities, there is no level of evidence that will convince you of anything in relation to the entire climate change topic. Further conversation with people who deny this is totally pointless.

 

[canwesteng]

The moose exhales CO2 that came from plants. The plants absorbed it from the atmosphere. So the moose can't increase the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. This is a basic grade school level understanding of the carbon cycle.

 

[zdas04]

canwesteng,
That is absolutely true on a geologic timescale. It is absolutely untrue on a day to day timescale.

moltenmetal,
If you do accept that the CO2 rise is largely the result of human activities, there is no level of evidence that will convince you of anything in relation to the entire climate change topic. Further conversation with people who deny this is totally pointless. Wonder where that leaves us?

[bold]David Simpson, PE[/bold]
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[cranky108]

Are you implying that the internet is being censored? Could it be that the three internet sites you listed are run by left leaning CEO's?

Is this also where you look for study results on this topic? May this also be the reason most people can't find different points of view?

This may have nothing to do with this topic, but more to do with the worldview of the CEO's of these sites.

Sort of reminds me of the media over all.

 

[rb1957]

getting back to the original question ... am i right in thinking that they overwrite the original data ? that has to be unusual treatment of data.

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

[Maui]

Consider the dire predictions quoted in this article that never materialized:

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/...predictions-haunt-the-global-warming-industry

Maui

 

[cvg]

data sets using natural temperature sensitive proxies(corals, ice cores, speleothems, lake and ocean sediments, and historical documents

since when does sensitive proxy = temperature measurement? Since the thermometer has only been in wide spread use for say 150 years to be generous, there really is not much actual data out there. I'm glad we can "reconstruct" all the necessary temperature data from these sensitive proxies.