Monkton, the truth is not in him

Old Rocks

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Oct 31, 2008
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http://hot-topic.co.nz/monckton-high-priest-of-climate-sceptics-tells-lies-on-tv-nz/

One of his themes for this tour seems to be that the “UN’s climate panel” has exaggerated the warming to be expected from a doubling of CO2 by “six or seven times”. Asked about this on Breakfast, he said (my transcription – starts about 1 minute into the interview):

The scientists have indeed got their sums wrong, because there are only perhaps 40 or 50 scientists involved in calculating that one central quality, which is known as climate sensitivity, how much warming will you get. It’s a very narrow, very specialist field in which I have actually published work in the [slight pause] reviewed literature, and there’s not many people who have done that. Very few people people have actually done work in this field, and unfortunately what they have done is they have preferred at the UN’s climate panel to rely on computer models which are in effect a form of guesswork.

You could describe this whole statement as a big lie, because it contains so many constituent falsehoods. For instance, the assertion that the IPCC has preferred to “rely on computer models” for estimates of climate sensitivity is simply not true, as a quick glance at AR4 WG1 Chapter Nine, section 9.6 Observational Constraints on Climate Sensitivity shows. But the really outrageous falsehood is his claim to have published a paper in the “reviewed literature”. He has done no such thing. He wrote a “paper” which appeared in the July 2008 American Physical Society Physics & Society newsletter (here). Monckton’s employers at the Science and Public Policy Institute (an organisation with close ties to the Scaife funded Frontiers for Freedom Institute) sent out a press release claiming it to be “peer-reviewed”, prompting the APS to add this to the start of the article:

The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review, since that is not normal procedure for American Physical Society newsletters.

The only peer who reviewed Monckton’s piece appears to have been himself. That may go some way to explain why it contains so many mistakes. Arthur Smith catalogued 125 errors, and Tim Lambert at Deltoid provided a nice (and much shorter) overview of Monckton’s sleight of hand with the numbers here. Bottom line? Monckton is quite wrong.
 
Amazon could shrink by 85% due to climate change, scientists say | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Global warming will wreck attempts to save the Amazon rainforest, according to a devastating new study which predicts that one-third of its trees will be killed by even modest temperature rises.

The research, by some of Britain's leading experts on climate change, shows that even severe cuts in deforestation and carbon emissions will fail to save the emblematic South American jungle, the destruction of which has become a powerful symbol of human impact on the planet. Up to 85% of the forest could be lost if spiralling greenhouse gas emissions are not brought under control, the experts said. But even under the most optimistic climate change scenarios, the destruction of large parts of the forest is "irreversible".

Vicky Pope, of the Met Office's Hadley Centre, which carried out the study, said: "The impacts of climate change on the Amazon are much worse than we thought. As temperatures rise quickly over the coming century the damage to the forest won't be obvious straight away, but we could be storing up trouble for the future."

Tim Lenton, a climate expert at the University of East Anglia, called the study, presented at a global warming conference in Copenhagen today , a "bombshell". He said: "When I was young I thought chopping down the trees would destroy the forest but now it seems that climate change will deliver the killer blow."
 
85% of the Amazon rainforest may be lost due to global warming

Warming climate could decimate up to 85 percent of the Amazon rainforest by 2150, according to a new computer model.

The study, to be published in Nature Geoscience by researchers from the UK Met Office's Hadley Centre, found that even a 1-degree rise in global temperatures would cause the "irreversible" loss of large tracts of forest. A larger increase could be "devastating" — 75 percent for a 3-°C-rise and 85 percent for a 4-°C-rise.

"A temperature rise of anything over 1°C commits you to some future loss of Amazon forest. Even the commonly quoted 2°C target already commits us to 20-40 percent loss," said lead author Chris Jones, speaking at a climate conference in Copenhagen. "On any kind of pragmatic timescale, I think we should see loss of the Amazon forest as irreversible
 
Global warming may destroy Amazon rainforest | NowPublic News Coverage

Global warming may destroy Amazon rainforest
Share: by Dave Ward | December 30, 2006 at 03:00 am
2245 views | 0 Recommendations | 5 comments
Global warming could wipe out the Amazon rainforest in less than a century say Brazilian researchers:

Jose Antonio Marengo, a meteorologist with Brazil's National Space Research Institute, said that global warming, if left unchecked, will reduce rainfall and raise temperatures substantially in the ecologically rich region.

"The worst case scenario sees temperatures rise by 5 to 8 degrees until 2100, while rainfall will decrease between 15 and 20 percent. This setting will transform the Amazon rain forest into a savanna-like landscape," Marengo said.

The more optimistic scenario supposes governments take more aggressive actions to halt global warming. It would still have temperatures rising in the Amazon region by 3 to 5 degrees Celsius and rainfall dropping by 5 to 15 percent, Marengo said.
 
Yep, those were the articles (from 2008/2009) that were just debunked. Thanks for remind us!
 
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Quite on the contrary, they were not "debunked". And you are waxing stupider than your norm.

How the hell can you debunk an article from 2008/2009 in a report done in 2007?

Do you ever pause for thought before posting?
 
Quite on the contrary, they were not "debunked". And you are waxing stupider than your norm.

How the hell can you debunk an article from 2008/2009 in a report done in 2007?

Do you ever pause for thought before posting?
You're confusing journal articles for press releases. You posted press releases (2008/2009) about a debunked set of journal articles (2007).
 

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