http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/ ... 70,00.html
Quote:
Climate change sceptics issued with challenge
Robin McKie
Sunday December 24, 2006
The Observer
Britain's leading climate scientist has challenged those who question the impact of the human population on global warming to defend their claims that car and factory emissions of carbon dioxide are not heating up the planet.
Alan Thorpe, chief executive of the Natural Environment Research Council, said yesterday he planned to defeat so-called 'deniers', first on-line and later at a public debate.
'We need, very urgently, to discuss what to do now to mitigate the effects of climate change,' he said. 'Yet a handful of scientists, politicians and writers are still claiming humans are not responsible at all. We have got to kill off this notion so we can get on with the real work: protecting ourselves from future climate change. That is why I am challenging these deniers. I want them to outline their case so that it can be judged by scientists. That is something these people have been reluctant to do so far.'
Fiona Fox, director of the Science Media Centre, backed the battle. 'Too often mainstream science is accused of trying to close down debate and stamp on doubters and minority views. By involving sceptics now, we can demonstrate the strength of the scientific consensus.'
Particular targets for Thorpe's attack include scientists Pat Micheals and Dick Lindzen in the US, weather forecaster Piers Corbyn in the UK, British botanist David Bellamy and former Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson. All have claimed, in recent articles and speeches, that carbon dioxide is not responsible for the increase in global temperatures that the world is currently experiencing.
Bellamy claimed in 2004 that the theory of man-made global warming was 'poppycock' and argued the next year that instead of shrinking, as most scientists believed, the world's glaciers were advancing.
Yesterday Corbyn welcomed the challenge. 'I relish the prospect of a debate,' he told The Observer. 'There is no evidence that carbon dioxide is involved in global warming. The rise in global temperatures that we have seen over the past few decades is due to changes in the sun's energy output and to changes in the Earth's magnetic field.'
Corbyn's point is disputed by Thorpe, however. 'If you look at the computer models we created years ago, only those that take account of increases in carbon dioxide emissions have provided forecasts that have been accurate. The importance of carbon emissions is accepted by just about every scientist today, except for this handful of deniers. So let's see their figures and let us judge them when we have analysed their data.'
Eh? Our leading climate scientist says that:
'If you look at the computer models we created years ago, only those that take account of increases in carbon dioxide emissions have provided forecasts that have been accurate.'
So the evidence of causation is the correlation with a model? And the model was designed by people looking at models of causation? And the people designing the models held AGW via CO2 as a likely theory? And they want me to take them seriously?
Actually, on reflection, I expect I'm being harsh and he probably actually pointed to correlation with the model as one, possibly small, element of confirmation of other theories and data.
Like my Safe Speed work, it's really a giant jigsaw puzzle type problem and looking at the fit of a pair of puzzle pieces is no test of the quality of the jigsaw, let alone the picture it makes.
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
Members
)
You see, if you'd spent more time reading what I've said, and less time trying to make those ridiculous killer put-downs you'd realise that my only