Global Warming?

John Thornton jthorn16 at home.com
Sat Dec 9 10:28:51 PST 2000



> >, John Thornton writes
> >
> >Try reading the Sept. 1993 'Bulletin of the American Meteorological
Society'
> >review of Robert Balling's work written by Michael MacCracken. He had
been
> >at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for 25 years as a climate
modeler.
> >He was later director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program.
> >For Patrick Michaels work try the Summary for Policy Makers, Second
> >Assessment Report by the IPCC Working Group I from spring '96. It
addresses
> >his findings specifically. These are both excellent places to start. [JT]
>
> Well I shall certainly look out for it, but why don't you enlighten us
> here?[JH]

I am not certain what you want. Are you wanting me to directly critique Balling & Michaels new book 'The Satanic Gasses'? Are you wanting a critique of their periodical 'The World Climate Report'? Which incidentally is funded by the Western Fuel Association and is NOT a peer-reviewed publication. I could give an extremely limited example of deliberate misrepresentation of data on the part of both scientists. They have both claimed at various times that satellite based temperature readings show no more warming of the atmosphere than can be explained through natural variables even after they had been made aware of the fact that in August 13 1998 vol.394 of Nature that showed when corrected for orbital decay the measured warming trend of the lower troposphere was consistent with the ground surface temperature trend. A small but DELIBERATE deception that makes one question their motives. [JT]
>
> Balling and Michaels demonstrate that the model of global warming
> adopted at the Rio Summit has consistently deviated from the recorded
> temperatures, calling it into doubt. (Prometheus 1) They show that in
> 1995 the IPCC was already having to revise its estimates of global
> warming to save the data.

This is just wrong. The 'revisions' have to do with the model used by the Hadley Centre including the negative forcing effect of aerosol sulfates that were not originally included. One would expect revisions as our knowledge grows and the models become more refined. The deviations between the models projections and recorded temperatures were cited incorrectly by Michaels. He cited a sensitivity of 4 degrees C when it fact it is a sensitivity of 2.5 degrees C. He has probably confused it with the Syukuro Manabe Global Climate Model used by NOAA and has a sensitivity of 4 degrees C. Now I'm getting in about as far as I'm comfortable going. I have said before I am not an expert in this field. I don't have all this information in my head and I am having to do more re-reading than I would like. Anyone who knows more want to jump in?[JT]
>
>
> Then you are exceptionally naive.[JH]

Please don't make personal statements like this, it is counterproductive.And unpleasant to read.[JT]
>
> For my part I am delighted that these industrial capitalists are funding
> research, whose results can be tested against the evidence. By contrast,
> the IPCC has attempted to decide the scientific matter by political
> fiat, which is a threat to free scientific enquiry. But your suggestion
> that Balling changed his mind because he was paid to is a gratuitous
> insult, that you would not have the courtesy to repeat to his face, and
> therefore unworthy of comment.
> But perhaps you ought to tell us who you are working for, if you want to
> go down that road.

You're delighted the foxes have decided to safeguard the henhouse? I have not suggested Balling changed his mind about anything. I have no way to know his opinion about anthropogenic influences on climate change prior to '91 because he hadn't published anything on the subject before that. I only pointed out that his original work was as a researcher paid by Western Fuels. I would be more than willing to question his objectivity to his face.I still don't see how you can consider the work of Michaels, Balling, Lindzen, and Idso relatively unbiased. Besides fossil fuel industry funds they also receive money from the Competitive Enterprise Institute whose moto is "advancing the principles of free enterprise and limited government". Sounds suspiciously like an biased agenda to me.[JT]



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