"greatly reduced future warming projected as a consequence of carbon dioxide"

Al Gore, call your office:

Last Monday - on ABC Radio National, of all places - there was a tipping point of a different kind in the debate on climate change. It was a remarkable interview involving the co-host of Counterpoint, Michael Duffy and Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of Melbourne-based think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. Anyone in public life who takes a position on the greenhouse gas hypothesis will ignore it at their peril.

Duffy asked Marohasy: "Is the Earth stillwarming?"

She replied: "No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you'd expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years."

Duffy: "Is this a matter of any controversy?"

Marohasy: "Actually, no. The head of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has actually acknowledged it. He talks about the apparent plateau in temperatures so far this century. So he recognises that in this century, over the past eight years, temperatures have plateaued ... This is not what you'd expect, as I said, because if carbon dioxide is driving temperature then you'd expect that, given carbon dioxide levels have been continuing to increase, temperatures should be going up ... So (it's) very unexpected, not something that's being discussed. It should be being discussed, though, because it's very significant."

Duffy: "It's not only that it's not discussed. We never hear it, do we? Whenever there's any sort of weather event that can be linked into the global warming orthodoxy, it's put on the front page. But a fact like that, which is that global warming stopped a decade ago, is virtually never reported, which is extraordinary."

Duffy then turned to the question of how the proponents of the greenhouse gas hypothesis deal with data that doesn't support their case. "People like Kevin Rudd and Ross Garnaut are speaking as though the Earth is still warming at an alarming rate, but what is the argument from the other side? What would people associated with the IPCC say to explain the (temperature) dip?"

Marohasy: "Well, the head of the IPCC has suggested natural factors are compensating for the increasing carbon dioxide levels and I guess, to some extent, that's what sceptics have been saying for some time: that, yes, carbon dioxide will give you some warming but there are a whole lot of other factors that may compensate or that may augment the warming from elevated levels of carbon dioxide.

"There's been a lot of talk about the impact of the sun and that maybe we're going to go through or are entering a period of less intense solar activity and this could be contributing to the current cooling."

Duffy: "Can you tell us about NASA's Aqua satellite, because I understand some of the data we're now getting is quite important in our understanding of how climate works?"

Marohasy: "That's right. The satellite was only launched in 2002 and it enabled the collection of data, not just on temperature but also on cloud formation and water vapour. What all the climate models suggest is that, when you've got warming from additional carbon dioxide, this will result in increased water vapour, so you're going to get a positive feedback. That's what the models have been indicating. What this great data from the NASA Aqua satellite ... (is) actually showing is just the opposite, that with a little bit of warming, weather processes are compensating, so they're actually limiting the greenhouse effect and you're getting a negative rather than a positive feedback."

Duffy: "The climate is actually, in one way anyway, more robust than was assumed in the climate models?"

Marohasy: "That's right ... These findings actually aren't being disputed by the meteorological community. They're having trouble digesting the findings, they're acknowledging the findings, they're acknowledging that the data from NASA's Aqua satellite is not how the models predict, and I think they're about to recognise that the models really do need to be overhauled and that when they are overhauled they will probably show greatly reduced future warming projected as a consequence of carbon dioxide."

Duffy: "From what you're saying, it sounds like the implications of this could beconsiderable ..."

Marohasy: "That's right, very much so. The policy implications are enormous. The meteorological community at the moment is really just coming to terms with the output from this NASA Aqua satellite and (climate scientist) Roy Spencer's interpretation of them. His work is published, his work is accepted, but I think people are still in shock at this point."

If Marohasy is anywhere near right about the impending collapse of the global warming paradigm, life will suddenly become a whole lot more interesting.

Hmm... an inconvenient truth for some wouldn't you say?

 

Comments

[Simon Forsyth]

The claims by Marohasy about global temperature leveling off or dropping are unfounded. A simple email to her source, Roy Spencer at NASA, can clear it up. Which is what I did. Roy says that Marohasy is confused. He states that the data is not from the much vaunted Aqua satellite project as Marohasy claimed, and is not global average but a much smaller sample of 20 degrees either side of the equator.

Paper published by Roy Spencer can be found here:
http://www.weatherquestions.com/Spencer_07GRL.pdf

Now for some clearly needed Ad hominem. Marohasy, the scientist who has misrepresented the information in the interview, appears to have published only a dozen scientific papers or so in areas such as biological control. Her expertise is clearly not climate. She has had a long association with banking, industry and anti-conservation environmental groups that advocate actions like whale hunting. Not the person I would be quoting on climate change.

Check out Marohasy's web site:
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/about.php

Finally, the author of the article, Pearson, complains about The Age leaving out some phrases that soften the claims of one of their climate change articles. Pearson has done the exact same thing in this article. See the quoted paragraph from the readily available transcript of the interview from the unashamedly right wing Counterpoint program on the Radio National web site.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2008/2191714.htm

"Jennifer Marohasy: It is extraordinary, though I perhaps should pick you up on 'global warming has stopped'. It has stopped for the last ten years, but that's a very short timeframe. If you look over the last 100 years, it's mostly been warming over the last 100 years but there was some cooling from 1940 through to 1975 and now there appears to be some cooling since 1998. But if you look at the longer timeframe, say, since the last glacial maximum, well, that's going back, say, 16,000 years, then there actually has been significant warming, and sea levels of course have risen over 100 metres over this period. So the last eight to ten-year dip may just be a dip, and there may be continued warming into the future, or it could be the end of this interglacial warm period and we could go into another ice age. We don't know what the future holds."

[Morgan K Freeberg]

Your objection is to the data gathered, but the source paper you linked from Spencer has to do with what to do with the data once it is gathered, making a recommendation about considering interseasonal oscillations in the troposphere when constructing climate models that will be used to predict global warming.

So I don't see how the information you offer backs up the point you're trying to make. If the point you're trying to make is that the prediction of global warming is in a constant state of flux, which would necessarily mean it's logically impossible for the science to be "settled" in the way we're constantly told it is, well go ahead. Twist my arm.

Would you say it's fair for us to casually dismiss climate change experts who have too great an interest in, or too distinguished of a perceived bias toward, think tanks and foundations that stand to profit from climate change activism -- the way you have dismissed Marohasy on the same grounds?

[Simon Forsyth]

The source page is that referred to by Roy Spencer when asked about Marohasy's comments about his work. Spencer's watering down of Marohasy's statements is very important to the overall impact of the original interview.

My point is that the interview of Marohasy can be ignored as it is based solely on incorrect use of data.

My clearly marked ad hominem shows Marohasy's predisposition to be anti-conservation, and her limited scientific background.

My point with Pearson highlights his hypocrisy. I'd encourage everyone to look into the background of all the players mentioned, Michael Duffy, Jennifer Marohasy, Christopher Pearson, Roy Spencer.

Of them all, I would say I respect Roy the most, but it does nobody any good when his research is misused by people with such poor reputations.

Bad science or reporting of science on either side of this political debate should be attacked by BOTH sides.