Good News!
It has now been conclusively proved that global warming is not a problem. The science is settled. That at least is the impression Piers Corbyn came away with from a recent 2 day conference in London.
He documents it on his WeatherAction site.
The amazing international parade of excellent Presentations from highly qualified and informed scientists and researchers in meteorology, astrophysics and other professions in Meteorological production and academia proved beyond a shadow of doubt that the man-made climate change story is a pack of lies and delusional nonsense both in general terms and in every specific field of claims involving temperatures, sea levels, ice and weather extremes.
He goes on to say (in red)
... no honest scientist can now come forth with any evidence that the Climate Change story is anything other than a heap of POLITICALLY DRIVEN delusional nonsense and fraud.
Fortunately I am not not a scientist, honest or otherwise, so can talk about the evidence.
New Dawn
The conference was called The New Dawn Of Truth which sounds like it's either a new age magazine or the latest neo-fascist party. with a logo that could apply to either. (As far as I can see, there's no relation with the New Dawn magazine.)
The two day conference was put on by an organization calling itself the Independent Committee on Geoethics,
whose members include Christopher Monckton.
It's surprising this revolutionary conference hasn't received more attention on skeptical
sites -
Watt's Up With That carried one story about it (written by Christopher Monckton, a founding member of the committee),
but with a disclaimer from Watts:
While I carry this story on WUWT for informational purposes, that should in no way imply that I endorse the topics of the conference itself or the speakers.
But since then there's only been an oblique reference in this post,
where he says that on seeing a couple of the papers I knew then I would not attend this conference, even if invited.
This post did not go down to well with one of the other presenters at the conference, Roger Tallbloke.
Piers Corbyn's Contribution
Corbyn's presentation - The total failure of the ManMade Climate Change story. has a slide show here. There's also a video of his 20 minute lecture which doesn't add much to the slides. Considering the promises of the title it's all rather disappointing - nothing new at all. Just the same arguments he's been putting forward for years and mostly the same slides, not even updated to reflect the fact it is now 2016.
However, it does give me an excuse to comment on a few of Piers Corbyn's claims.
Self Promotion
Around a quarter of the slides (and half the lecture) are about how good Corbyn's WeatherAction is at forecasting the weather. He's implying that this proves CO2 is not responsible for climate change. That's because his forecasting relies on the claim that solar activity controls the weather - and therefore is the only factor that controls the climate. But his logic is wrong.
- Even if his forecasts were accurate it would not prove that solar activity was the cause of the weather. Corbyn keeps his methods a closely guarded secret, but they include factors other than solar activity. Unless he publishes his research there is no way of knowing how much his success is due to solar factors.
- Even if solar activity could be used to predict weather, it would not prove that the sun controls the climate. Climate and weather are very different things.
- Even if the sun does have an effect on the climate (it probably does), this does not mean that CO2 has no affect on the climate.
Moreover, I've yet to see any convincing evidence from Corbyn or anyone else that he can predict the weather, especially not to the level of confidence he claims. The bulk of his claimed accuracy is just confirmation bias - remembering the times when he's got something correct, but forgetting all the times he's been wrong. Thus he has slides confirming his prediction of heatwaves last month (August 2016), his prediction that July 2012 would be very wet, the Great Storm of October 2013, and the exceptional cold of December 2010. But they make no mention of his failures - that December 2011 would be exceptionally cold (it was a degree above average), that May 2012 would be one of the coldest in 100 years (the month as a whole had average temperatures), that February 2014 would be one of the driest in 100 years with drought developing in the South (it was one of the wettest) that August 2014 would likely be the hottest on record (it was the only month that year to be below average). Most of these he predicted with greater than 80% confidence, sometimes as much as 95%. (All the above are forecasts for the UK.)
Even his claimed successes on closer examination are not always the spot-on successes he implies.
Take his forecast for July 2012 (slide 53).
The headline in the slide is The Apocalyptic deluges of July 2012 were well captured in WeatherAction DETAIL 45-75d ahead.
July was certainly wet, twice as much rainfall as average - but the forecast makes more specific claims.
Rainfall likely to be (90% confidence) wetter than July 2007 in England and Wales and in the 12 wettest Julys in 247 years of records since 1786. Wettest or in 4 wettest Julys in 100 years in SE England.
But the data shows (Met Office Hadley Centre) none of those forecasts were correct.
- Rainfall for England and Wales July 2007 was 137.9mm, July 2012 was 120.7mm.
- July 2012 was the 33rd wettest July in the England and Wales 247 year record.
- July 2012 was the 13th wettest July in the 100 year SE England set.
What Piers Corbyn fails to do is provide any statistical analysis that his results are better than chance,
let alone the claimed 85% accuracy made from months in advance.
The closest thing to actual evidence is a single paper which he claims showed significant skill
.
The problem is that this paper, by Denis Wheeler, failed to show any significant skill.
In particular it looked at a two year period of forecasts for storms in the UK,
and failed to show a statistically significant correlation between the forecasts and actual storms over winter months.
Cycles
In several slides Piers talks about cycles influencing the weather. These cycles are claimed to come from the sun and the moon, but his evidence is scarce and the various cycles presented are contradictory. The sun has an 11 year sun spot cycle and this is thought to have some influence on the climate, but according to Piers it's the 22 year Hale cycle that matters more, and this is modulated by a lunar cycle every 9.3 or 18.6 years. (Slide 17)
On slide 18 he explains how this leads to a 132 - 133 year cycle, corresponding to how these two cycles interact. He explains that 6 x 22 = 132, and 7 x 19 = 133. This at least makes some sense; if the sun and moon affect climate then there might be a corresponding beat when both are at there strongest. Except he's already said the lunar cycle is 18.6 years, not 19, so there should be a peak every 130 years, not 133 as he claims. This wouldn't be much of a problem if we were only talking about approximate lengths of time, but Corbyn is claiming an exact period - or at least his only evidence is the fact that a short sequence of UK summer flooding repeated a pattern exactly every 132 years.
But then he starts talking about an approximately 60 year cycle (slides 24 and 25), which he also claims is governed by the same solar and lunar cycles. You cannot fit a 60 year cycle into a 132 year cycle and claim that both are governed bhy the same two factors. It also means that the 60 year cycle is not in step with the 11 or 22 year solar cycle. If one 60 year cycle starts when the sun is at solar maximum, the next will start when the sun is at its minimum.
The only evidence for these cycles is a pair of graphs showing rises in temperature happening approximately 60 years apart - except the trend lines appear to have been stuck on in order to confirm the 60 year cycle. Even then there isn't much consistency. In the graph showing USA temperatures for example, there is a claimed warming peak in 2002/3 (based on just 5 years of data), but the previous peak happened 70 years earlier.
Piers Corbyn explains how he gets a 60 year cycle from the solar and lunar cycles on slide 24 using this equation, B - n - 2H, where n is twice the inverse of the Lunar nodal Retreat rate, and H is half Z. Z = 1 / Sunspot period = 1/11.1 /yr. (Why he didn't use Z rather than 2H I don't know.) Inverting B gives his ~58 year cycle.
There's no explanation as to why this equation makes any physical sense - it looks like he simply played around with equations until he got the result he wanted. Possibly the explanation is on slide 32 when he says:
Things are not always what they seem!
In Physics Drawing a diagram or writing an equation does not mean that you are showing something real
It's Cooling
It is one of Corbyn's main claims that we have entered a new mini-ice age, or a period of global cooling. That is he doesn't just claim there was a pause, he's claiming there's been actual global cooling. But obviously he provides no evidence to support the claim, and is very vague as to when he thinks this started.
So what we get is lots of strong assertions.
Sometimes these are predictions of imminent cooling Solar Activity Predicts Major COOLING
(slide 36),
other times he's claiming there has been actual cooling -
Real temperatures are falling as CO2 warmist models rise
(slide 47),
BUT Whatever they do, even with 'new' data the WORLD IS COOLING while CO2 still rises
(slide 48),
The problem is all these claims are based on meaningless time scales producing insignificant cooling. For example on slide 38 he claims there was cooling between 2007 and 2013. Any cooling over that period would be indistinguishable from noise. In any event he's wrong - all datasets including satellite data show a warming trend from 2007 to 2013.
Finally - More Termites
Of course he's still got it in for the termites. Slides 41 and 42 both make the false claim that they produce 10 times as much CO2 as humans.
