Recently Nexus 6 caught Andrew Bolt a beauty. Bolt posted a graph showing that April in Australia was cooler than average, hence disproving global warming. There were just two problems with this astonishing claim. The first was that the graph showed April 2006 as below long-term average, whereas April 2007, missing from the graph he produced, was actually plus 0.86C.
The second problem for the amateur climatologist, is that real climatologists distinguish between weather and climate. As a rule of thumb for changes in weather patterns to represent changes in climate they have to persist over 30 years or more.
Last year Jennifer Marohasy took one cool day in May to suggest that the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) was way off beam when it said:
Australia and the globe are experiencing rapid climate change. Since the middle of the 20th century, Australian temperatures have, on average, risen by about 1°C with an increase in the frequency of heatwaves and a decrease in the numbers of frosts and cold days.”
Unfortunately for Jennifer the May average in Brisvegas turned out to be 1.9C above average. That’s the maximum, the minimum was indeed colder by 0.9C.
Paul Norton’s sensors were more accurate. Interestingly you could take his post on May 2006, insert April 2007 and it is virtually the same story in terms of the anomalies.
The April observations as against the averages show the maximum temperature as plus 1.9C, the minimum as plus 0.7C and the rainfall at 3.2mm is below decile 1 (12.8mm). Not surprisingly evaporation averaged 5.4mm per day, which is 46% above the mean of 3.7mm.
We are promised better times for May - July . So far in May we’ve scored maximum temps of 5.6C above normal and no rain.
So these observations mean squat in terms of climate change, but I’d have to say it is far easier to cite instances that accord with the forecast trends of climate change than the reverse. You have to be very selective and ignore a lot to cherry pick the way some denialists do.
Monbiot spells out very clearly in his book Heat what denialists have to do. They have to ask themselves four questions:
1. Does the atmosphere contain carbon dioxide?
2. Does atmospheric carbon dioxide raise the average global temperature?
3. Will this influence be enhanced by the addition of more carbon dioxide?
4. Have human activities led to a net emission of carbon dioxide?If you are able to answer ‘no’ to any one of them, you should put yourself forward for a Nobel Prize. You will have turned science on its head.
So forget the cheap shots.
On the other hand for those of us who accept the established scientific paradigm, when you are shaping up for your eighth dry autumn/winter/spring in a row, as seems the case here in Brisvegas, you are entitled to talk about worrying emerging trends.
Amen to that. Bolt was on The Insiders arguing global warming was a scaremongering beat up, and, rather rashly, predicting that the whole issue would disappear in a few years.
If there’s any justice in the world, Bolt will disappear from the media in a few years!
5. Do I really want to be the dufus schoolkids chuckle at in enviro-history classes next century?
Pseudo Lefty E you are already!
And into moderation you go, patrick.
The global warming denialists were out in force at the Labour Day rally in Brisbane yesterday handing out a newspaper full of Bolt type nonsense. Interesting that the ETU, CFMEU,MUA and the stronger union members refused to take the papers being offered to them.
Entitled? Bollocks to that!
I do see an emerging pattern, but it’s a pattern in the media, not in the climate: those who ‘accept’ global warming theory continually trying to shut down debate by bogus use of terms like ‘entitled’ and invocation of ‘established paradigms’.
Hmmm, ‘established scientific paradigm’ should have been bolded, not struck out.
Copernicus lived his entire life in fear of retro-renaissance rod-walloper types, like Andrew Bolt, lest he be outed for his heliocentricity and cop approbrium similar to that dished out to Galileo and Co. The big C was 70 and on his deathbed before he had the asteroids to release his firmament altering tome.
Cheap rent-a-hacks like Bolt have plagued scientists of method and integrity for centuries on behalf of powerful vested interests. Andrew is becoming something of a “celebrity denialist” isn’t he? And he loves the lime-light so.
Relentless public ridicule will eventually penetrate his thick hide.
Steve, that ‘newspaper’ was just the LaRouche rag, ‘The Citizen’ wasn’t it?
Bolt should live in Brisbane and he wouldn’t make such elementary blunders: it’s been a full two-degrees hotter than the long term average throughout April. On the other hand, he’s already a hot-head…
Uh huh. And I had no dreams last night, therefore there are no such things as dreams.
And I never read Bolt’s columns, therefore there is no such thing as Andrew Bolt.
If we’re throwing subjective impressions around, it’s been an unusually warm early May in Melbourne, after an unusually warm April.
And Bolt doesn’t seem to grasp the concept that global warming doesn’t simply result in a simple raise in average temperatures, but in increased volatility in the weather. Sure, there will be plenty of warm and hot days, but there’s going to be a greater likelihood of cold snaps and sudden downpours as well - and, naturally, the denialists among us will happily jump on those symptoms rather than the root cause.
Speaking as a former North Queenslander, all i can say is global warming can’t come soon enough.
It should be illegal for the mercury to drop below 20 C - evah.
Hilarious, isn’t it, that those who accuse people concerned about action on global warming of being unquestioning sheep have such a ludicrously simplistic view of climate?
Andrew the dolt seems to scare the rest of the “insiders”panel ridgid,he dominates them like a school bully.It should have have been so easy to ask him what it is that he kmows that contradicts the authentic scientific community.
Where in the media could you find an “insider” to “balance” this nonsense spewing propagandist?
It’s all Riddley Scott’s fault. Or something.
Not necessary L.Duce. People like Bolt should simply be informed that 93% of people disagree with them and the laughed at.
Chris, on Sunday Bolt DID have this pointed out to him. Matt Price made a number of valiant attempts to say that look, Andrew, you can say this is all nonsense, but you have to appreciate the fact that the vast majority of Australians DO NOT THINK THIS IS ALL RUBBISH. But it fell on deaf ears. Bolt waved his hand and went straight back into his prepared soundbytes about “the green cult” and the “new green religion” with relief.
The fact is he’s backed himself so far into a corner now that NOTHING will EVER make Bolt admit there might be something to it. You might as well try to convince your pet guinea pig to listen to reason.
Hmph. I’ll have you know my late pet guinea pig was exceptionally open to rational discourse.
I found that a very weak but interesting response. The saturation of media, both old and new, including blogging, is changing how we know the world, and overwhelming other, older, ways of knowing, with different legitimizing bases and epistemologies. The meeja, with its very limited forms of constructing expertise and legitimacy (10 minute panel discussion on tv, op-ed columns) is crowding out science and scholarship, which are disconnected from the meeja’s vague legitimizing notions of the popular, the democratic or the public interest. So for Price, as a political “journo”, what makes global warming legitimate is not (to him incomprehensible) science, but the “punters”.
Bolt, of course, uses something that looks like science to legitimize his arguments, with his graphs and figures, except it is obviously selective, wrong or misrepresentative. It’s only part of his back of tricks, though. He also deliberately positions himself again the idea of the “public” or “popular”.
However it works, the people we almost never hear from are actual scientists.
Brian,
Are you trying to convince Andrew Bolt that global warming is actually happening? Forget it! He will still be arguing the case against global warming six feet under water. There are people in first world countries who still believe the world is flat and when you argue that people went to the moon they say ‘Oh yeah, but all that was photographed in a studio! Why aren’t there any shadows?’
Do you see what I mean? You can ask them to ask themselves all the logical questions they like, they will always cling to what they want to believe. Actually they are really very very frightened by it all, the poor things. The only way you can stop Andrew Bolt from continuing to spread his misinformation far and wide is either A) shoot him or: B) manage to get a job alongside him and put your message out there and shoot him.
Kim
For the life of me I cannot possibly imagine what distrurbing form of “justice” you could be tapping into. As far as I am aware, Andrew Bolt is the star columnist for Australia’s highest circulation newspaper. A non-state newspaper at that.
Perhaps your peculiar spin on “justice” might be more colourfully painted if you’d proffer a suggested replacement for the Centrelink-bound Bolt?
Are you sure you would not be happier living in North Korea or Cuba?
Yes.
Why don’t you step up to the plate, John? I’m sure there’s a market for the endless repetition of the term “luvvies”.
Kim
Well if you’re going to desert us by “bolting” (ROFLMAO) to North Korea, it would hardly be worth it! Who would I have to piss off twice a week!?
jg: I’m sure Kim can defend herself, but allow me to point out that she just said that she would _not_ be happier in North Korea or Cuba. So I doubt she’s going anywhere.
Thanks, Andrew.
Well, if JG wants to buy me a ticket to, say, San Francisco, I might consider going somewhere…
With his first cheque from News Ltd.
I’m with sublime cowgirl. I’d be happy if the temp didn’t go below 20C. I always think the dire warnings of heaps of people dying with extra heat because of GW are overdone.
Lovelock says that mainstream life flourishes between 25C and 35C. I think if brain work is to be done we need 18C to 26C in the shade with clothes and 3 or 4 degrees warmer if you’re in the buff (explanatory article here).
April in Brisvegas is pretty much within that optimal operating zone 24/7, which is why it’s my favourite month. But subjectively a couple of degrees do matter.
The Bolter is skating on thin ice. Rupe (at Wendy’d nudging) is now a believer. Is there life after News?
Ms Marohasy is forever making a fool of herself on climate science. She should stick with her area of expertise- bug science. Take this for instance- http://allocasuarina.blogspot.com/2007/05/marohasy-gets-it-wrong-again-once-again.html
Who is Andrew Dolt? Or is it Andrew Dogbolter, named after a locally brewed beer? But seriously, his mission is to subvert, obfuscate, deny, confuse and create doubt. But what are his motives? For an ex-Labor staffer he sure has moved to the right.
Is his misguided mission his own, or is there a Svengali?
I would like to say it doesn’t matter, most people can see his nonsense for what it is. Unfortunately, I know many Heraldsun take at least some of his mistruths on board. I have heard comments link “It is in the paper so it must be true” Sigh.
St Margaret, re your comment my preferred instrument would be one of the stun guns they use to knock out elephants. But seriously, Bolt and Marohasy do a good job themselves in making themselves look like dipsticks.
I’m concerned that the ABC still seems to think they have to include the denialist case to meet the requirements of their internal thought police.
On Difference of Opinion Warwick McKibbin was clearly chosen to present the denialist case, but when McMullen gave him the lead he failed to deliver.
Phillip Adams last week hosted a stoush between Bob Carter and Stephen Schneider who is Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies in the Department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University. We would have got a lot more value for the time spent if Adams had just interviewed Schneider.
Recently Michael Duffy at Counterpoint interviewed Emeritus Professor Garth Paltridge, another well-known denialist, with this little lead-in:
The complaint was that the climate scientists were more interested in careers than science, and that you couldn’t get any funding to prove that the moon was made of cheese.
Of course Duffy and his partner in crime on the program are signed up denialists and have this little patter about the ‘carbon train’ in one of their program promos.
I expect better from our ABC.
all global warming heretics should be burnt at the stake.
The point of the debate is none of the points raised by Monibot. The debate centres around (1) how big is the impact of recent additions to co2-e; (2) what has caused recent changes in the climate; (3) what will the consequences be; and (4) what can we do about it.
All of these questions are areas of legitimate debate… and that is where the legitimate debate has been occuring. Despite the alarmists wanting to delcare the debate over… many reasonable mainstream and skeptical people are having a good ol’ debate. As they should.
Given that all reasonable people know that Monibot’s four points aren’t relevant to the real debate — why did he ask them?
In his book, John, Monbiot devotes a whole chapter to unmasking a concerted attempt to confound and confuse the public debate. He details the people and organisations funded by Exxon for example. Surprisingly, he reckons the initial push came from Philip Morris.
He reckons they have delayed a proper response to global warming by several years.
The book is at the other end of the house, but I might try to find a quote tomorrow.