Thursday, May 14, 2015

A digression, the Piers Corbyn Story


I'm active on the internet, commenting and responding to responses.  Once in a while a dialogue comes along I feel needs to be shared over here because of it's text book quality example of disconnect and climate science denial.

Although I didn't have time for this, especially not today, I'm a sucker for chasing such bones and since the name Piers Corbyn rang a bell but I couldn't place him.  I found myself googling him.  Oh yeah, that guy, Mr. the CO2 story is over Corbyn and his mini ice age machinations.  Eventually, I found myself listening to his YouTube "Weather Action Meeting 27/2/12" video which turned out to be an epic example of Dunning-Kruger effect in action.

Since I wasted so much precious time on this joker I'm going to get something constructive out of it by posting my findings over here.  I'll begin with P.M.'s phenomenal 700 word gish gallop dodge of the Earth observation sources I was sharing, such as NASA's summation of the evidence.  Following that I look at Piers' "Weather Action Meeting 27/2/12." 

Then I share a most excellent documentary that looks at our global heat and moisture distribution engine's various components and how they interact, followed by a couple video shorts from a real expert on greenhouse gases Professor Richard Alley as he explains the reality of CO2.

This in turn is followed by a score of links spanning 2005 to a couple months ago - for those who are interested in learning more about this example of Unidirectional Skepticism Piers Corbyn.
  
M.P. wrote:

Thanks for the reply. Like you, I have spent a lot of time over the past few years looking at the different arguments around climate change. I came into it out of an interest in Long Range weather forecasting, sparked by a radio interview with Piers Corbyn, a very well qualified scientist who developed very accurate long range forecasting by examining the various solar and lunar cycles and the effect of magnetic and other forces on the earth.  
As the issue of global warming started to become more publicised by such as Al Gore, I took an immediate interest and decided to look into the claims that he was making, and of course those in his Inconvenient Truth movie, which I had thought was a documentary, but soon realised that it was a work of fiction. Government (I live in the UK) and UK state organisations such as the BBC and the Met Office started to air the issue and I started to become rather concerned. There seemed to be a push from Governments and certain rich people to spread far too much fear with far too little science. The headlines were not met by the science. When the East Anglia University emails hit, it was clear that things were not as they should be, and that the Scientific process had been broken. Scientists were being paid to find links to manmade global warming but funding for other projects was withheld or diminished. When the 97% consensus figures came out I was shocked as there seemed to be so many eminent scientists who did not believe that man is responsible for catastrophic global warming via carbon dioxide emissions. It did not make sense and indeed has proved again to be another lie
All I see now is lie upon lie with spin being used to obscure reality, yet the figures are not there to back it up.
 
A year or so ago when I had some spare time, I decided to see what had happened to weather in the UK over the previous 100 years so I went and got the official seasonal average temperatures and plotted them on a graph with trend lines. The result was a small trend upwards overall (1 degree Celsius over the 100 years) with the very slight growth coming from warmer winters, whilst summer was a flat-line. More importantly the changes that were there were not accelerating at any point - it was a pretty linear rise over the whole 100 year period. Now it was clear that all the noise about every rainstorm, hot summer, cold winter, record freeze, record high being attributed to man-made climate change was just wrong. Sure I only took the UK figures and know that we are looking at Global climatic conditions, but given that the UK has a very interesting weather system, being kept warm by the North Atlantic Drift, it seemed to me that The UK should be being hugely affected by man-made global warming. The fact is that it isn't.

The hockey stick has been completely dismissed now, and the pause in global warming should allow us to all pause and think a little more about the headlong rush to demonise CO2 and maybe spend some money looking at other influences on climate change such as the activity of the Sun, something that the IPCC computer models ignore.
It strikes me that we are in a simple cycle that has been going on for millennia. It is even possible that we are heading into a mini ice age, something far worse than global warming. 
 
All I know for sure is that the science is NOT settled. There are lots of questions out there. There are lots of bemused scientists out there, and we are being told that things are FACT when they are not. We are then being taxed, to fund the fight against man-made Global warming. Worse than that People are dying in the third world because of the international controls we are pushing onto their countries. 
Just please for once consider that there is merit in a lot of the realist/sceptical science.I would also suggest you take a look at Piers Corbyn's work.
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Piers Corbyn's Weather Action Meeting 27/4/12
Published on Apr 29, 2012
Piers discussing and predicting the weather during the months of 2012. 

0:50 "For example, when we talk about climate change in real terms, it means that jet stream moving around (the globe) and it's only us who can forecast. The other things all around don't explain any of that."
What is this man suggesting?  That the jet stream is somehow independent of oceans, land and polar ice caps, and that the composition of the atmosphere, or the various convection currents between atmosphere and Earth or those within the oceans have no bearing on the jet stream.  It's kindergarden shallowness, and I'll repeat it, an example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
1:15 "Under the second part we're going to talk about,The delusional work of (?) et al in Nature and the confusion of cause and effect on Svensmark's paper on cosmic rays "
     about Svensmark:
1:40 "Science! right.  we're gonna talk about two scientific papers recently published.The first one... I call it a 3D paper, dishonest, delusional and dangerous (as he's holding up a magic marker drawn "graph") They make us believe that this stuff can pass peer review process which clearly points to the corruption of the peer review process ..."

At about three minutes in, Pier claims that evidence for CO2's greenhouse properties are derived from paleoclimate studies while he totally ignores the two centuries of physics and 1950/60s atmospheric studies conducted by the US and Australia's Air Force, which are the actual sources of our understanding of the greenhouse effect.

Well M.P. that's about all of Piers grade school nonsense I can stand.  What's amazing is the absolute certainty this man has in his own interpretation and how totally oblivious he is to all he doesn't know.  It may work great on all those people who know even less than he does.  But for anyone who's spend any sincere effort learning about how our 'global heat and moisture distribution engine' operates, it's pathetic gibberish.

Here take a look and behold our magnificant Global Heat and Moisture Distribution Engine:

Earth From Space Full HD Nova 



Program Description

"Earth From Space" is a groundbreaking two-hour special that reveals a spectacular new space-based vision of our planet. Produced in extensive consultation with NASA scientists, NOVA takes data from earth-observing satellites and transforms it into dazzling visual sequences, each one exposing the intricate and surprising web of forces that sustains life on earth. ____________________________________________________________________________

Oh about that CO2 not being responsible for current global warming:

_____________________________________________________________________________

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For a more complete explanation watch this:

Richard Alley: "The Biggest Control Knob: Carbon Dioxide in Earth's Climate History"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RffPSrRpq_g

_____________________________________________________________________________

On to further information regarding Mr. Corbyn:
Piers Corbyn

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Trying to bet on climate with Piers Corbyn
May 26, 2005
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Whatever happened to the 'coldest May in 100 years'?
Leo Hickman  |  June 1, 2012 
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Portrait of a climate science denier: Piers Corbyn
 Erik Curren   |  August 20, 2012
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ITV’s weird exchange of skeptic views - on the Alan Titchmarsh show
Robin Webster and Roz Pidcock  |  Oct 18,  2012
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Open Letter to London Mayor Boris Johnson - Weather is not Climate
Dana Nuccitelli  |  January 21, 2013
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Piers remains a believer, the story from his side:

Piers Corbyn: Mini Ice Age is upon us and the CO2 story is over
March 15, 2013
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But, he's still dead wrong:

Boris claims he ‘didn’t know’ his favourite climate sceptic was a crank
James Bloodworth  |  September 19, 2013
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The UK winter of 2014-15: Another Tabloid FAIL
March 26, 2015  |  John Mason

6 comments:

Frank said...

Well you certainly have your bias, don't you? Completely independent of observational realities, you, like all your cohorts, simply label detractors "crazy, idiot, charlatan, etc."

The problem with AGW believers is you are only interested in hypothetical realities that have so far not born out in actual reality.

But, I learned long ago it's not about rational debate with you people, but a pissing contest and an inflated ego whereby you think you're on a mission to save the Earth from the life giving gas, Co2.

citizenschallenge said...

Hmmm, I reread my post and can't find "crazy" anywhere. I couldn't find "idiot" either. Nor does the world "charlatan" appear anywhere in my text.

So tell me Frank, who's suffering from blinding bias here???
Yes I do have my bias, but at least it's not of the blinding variety.
Learning is my thing and that means having to put facts above my ego.
I love this Earth and learning about how it operates.
Can you describe your bias?

I did write that Piers video was: "an epic example of "Dunning-Kruger effect" in "action" and I linked to definitions for clarity.

I also said "this example of Unidirectional Skepticism Piers Corbyn."
Meaning skepticism that totally focuses on one point of view - it equals "Denial."
Frank, do you ever engaged in self-skepticism?

I did say "joker" but it fits both Piers and P.M. and your words as well.
Later I said the logic in his video was infused with "kindergarden shallowness" and that it amounted to "pathetic gibberish" you've done nothing to show us otherwise.

==============
HOW ABOUT POINTING OUT WHAT FACTS I GOT WRONG?

Then you finish with this gem: "But, I learned long ago it's not about rational debate with you people, but a pissing contest and an inflated ego whereby you think you're on a mission to save the Earth from the life giving gas, Co2."

Talk about "Projection."
In reality folks like me would love nothing more than to see a "rational debate" between us - that is a debate that puts learning and defending the known facts at the center of the discussion rather than political posturing.

So here goes:
Piers says our understanding of CO2 effect is based on paleo studies, when that is a bold-faced lie.
Piers implies the Jet Stream is independent of other components of our global heat and moisture engine.
And now you come up with the bizarre logic that because CO2 is an integral part of life - we should ignore its atmospheric insulation properties.

Oh and you seem oblivious to the fact that too much of a good thing can be a very bad thing

mikeyp said...

What exactly are the insulation properties of co2 that you talk about?

You talk about Piers Corbyn and Grade School Science despite his real credentials being vastly in advance of your own yet talk rubbish.

what insulation properties to individual co2 particles have when they are at in the upper atmosphere at a much colder temperature than the warmer air they are supposedly insulating.

citizenschallenge said...

Now you are being silly and pulling that contrarian device of demanding expert knowledge when you aren't even in a position to understand the answer or what to do with it, even if I could give it to you - which of course I can't. I haven't spent a life time of dedicated learning about higher math and the scientific details. My life long learning has been about understanding the whole spectrum our lives, including humanity's pageant and this fantastic planet Earth I inhabit for my few short years, well the universe around it is quite interesting too.

That's why we have experts and each other. Everyone brings something into the dialogue, holistic learning is the object, but we need each other to keep ourselves honest! You on the other hand (like Piers C.) come across as seeing everyone who disagrees with you as an enemy - just look at the words you use and the mental image you've created of me.

Mike another question, why do you think you are smarter than experts?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On lookers please notice the malicious thing being done here - wasting precious (irreplaceable) time with such childish distractions, in order to ignore all the stuff that IS happening on this planet, and all the stuff that we do understand!

Most hateful is that demand for 100% accurate measurements of every component of our global heat engine while ignoring indisputable and alarming basics - It reveals such a profound disconnect from the reality of this planet we depend on for everything, that it seems hopeless. So tragic. So egomaniacal.
Our children will pay dearly for our collective foolishness.

mikeyp said...

my point has always been that the Science is not settled. You seem to believe everything the IPCC say is true and any scientists that have evidence that supports the IPCC message are valid yet anybody else is wrong, a crank or deluded.

My stance is that their is valid data on both sides ( if indeed it is as simple as a 2-sided argument. As we are collectively spending billions because of what the IPCC say, and are causing misery and death in the third world as a direct result of these policies, it is critical that the evidence is proven.

Clearly to me, there has often been huge errors with IPCC and other Corrected data, and even the IPCC models which have proven to be more than rather inaccurate in all their incarnations to date.

The scientific process has always been about different sides presenting their cases and supporting data, but the complete bias where anybody that shows that man made ico2 is not causing global warming, or has little effect is demonised and struggles to find funding.

To do the right thing there needs to be proper funded scientific analysis and experimentation looking at both sides.

Much data indicates that we could be coming to the end of a natural global warming phase, and there is even evidence that we could be heading into a mini ice age. This would have a dramatic affect on earth. Many millions would die or be displaced and many millions more would starve.

As the IPCC claims have often proved to have been determined by manipulated data, inaccurate models and unproven science, surely the right thing to do is to take a step back and look at al the other areas where credible scientists disagree with the IPCC message.

citizenschallenge said...

You are doing nothing but empty finger pointing and lots of assumptions and way too much certainty on your part.

How about some specifics ???

How about explaining exactly what you believe isn't "proven" enough ???

As for this "certainty" please show us where this certainty is displayed in scientific studies? >> or in the collection that the IPCC has put together for us? http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/

All you've done is prejudiced opining - without offering anything solid. Be specific. Oh, and how much proof do you expect?
What is it the you believe is missing for us to take real action to slow this trend?

Incidentally, why do proud Republican types only need 1% suspicious to start wars and such - yet you demand absolute proof before entertaining changing bad habit?
What proof is missing?
Are you familiar with Earth observations???

Oh and Mikeyp I wish your sentences didn't sound like cut and pastes from Heartland or CATO, which are political and not scientific organizations.

How do you justify your rejection of trusting the actual experts in the field.

Mikeyp, are you capable of explaining some of these mysteries.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Oh and about this fool Piers you seem to think is an authoritative source - how about it???
http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2015/05/debating-piers-corbyn.html