Bishop Hill Chris Rapley, cherrypicker
Aug 6, 2012 Chris Rapley has clearly decided that if he just repeats the "climate change is causing extreme weather" line just one more time, people will believe him.
Warming doesn’t take place uniformly. In particular, the poles warm more quickly, as is evident from the rapid melting of the Arctic ice. Differential warming changes geographic temperature gradients, leading to shifts and changing volatility in weather patterns. The 0.8 degrees of current warming has made more likely the weather extremes that hit Russian wheat in 2010 and are hitting US maize now.
It's a lovely second sentence. The poles warm more quickly, as shown by the Arctic. And the Antarctic ice, I hear you say?
;)
It doesn't exactly support Rapley's case, does it?
Equally, his case that weather extremes are expected to increase seems strange. If the temperature difference between pole and equator is expected to decrease, then hurricane activity should decrease. Or is Rapley picking and choosing his weather extremes too?
Reader Comments (21)
These people simply want to 'win', and will not let inconvenient things such as measurements and real-life observations get in their way.
They will obfuscate, cherry-pick, falsify, smear, vilify and demonise, hide and manipulate until they achieve their 'victory'.
Can you imagine what the world would be like if they got their way?
As Pielke, Jr. said, Who You Gonna Believe, Paul Krugman or Research?
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2012/07/krugman-vs-research-who-you-gonna.html
Rapley has made up his mind. My late father often said, don't confuse him with the facts, his mind is made up.
A little insight into Chris Rapley and his thoughts about scientists not being activists. Seems to think he should use dramatists and artist to get the message over! Because of "their role in society"?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9ivgiraFgQ
Didn't Rapley used to work for the British Antarctic Survey? You'd think he'd know something about the climate there, but perhaps he stayed behind a warm desk...
"Didn't Rapley used to work for the British Antarctic Survey?" He knows enough to point to the Arctic warming but stay schtum about the Antarctic cooling.
Green Sand's video opens with a forest fire in the background, and the words
"Chris Rapley Former director Science Museum and Braitish [sic] Antarctic Survey".
Wikipedia's lying by omission seems to fit the bill here. Prof Rapley
should have knownknows better than to refer to the Arctic without reference to the Antarctic. And to check he's been reported correctly.I'm not sure if you have ever written a more scientifically confused post (actually you probably have). Maybe you should stick to the conspiracy theories?
anivegmin
I would have thought that if anyone here was scientifically confused (or possible even dishonest depending on how you look at) it was Rapley.
A man of his experience must know that Arctic ice loss is attributable to other factors in addition to temperature, that (as the Bishop points out) a flatter temperature gradient between equator and pole is, according to best evidence, likely to reduce storm activity, that whatever may be going on up North the Antarctic is not warming (see the graph, or don't you believe it?) and that to omit to mention that in the context of the case he is trying (and failing) to make is misleading, to put it politely.
The 0.8 degrees of current warming has no timescale attached to it — week?, month?, year?, century even? — which is equally "misleading" as is the scaremongering attempt — borrowed straight from Hansen's most recent piece of pseudo-scientific "research" — to pin the current US heatwave and the 2010 Russian event on "global warming", a technique that is starting to become just a mite boring.
A bit like those anonymous posters who make gnomic comments designed to do ,,,, what, exactly?
anivegmin
You are ZedsDeadBed and I claim my £5.
David S
Nah! Not nearly snide enough. Say what you like about Zed, gnomic she ain't.
..ah...a Kolley Kibber reference. Clasic....takes me back to A level lit at school..happy days.
MIke Jackson
1. Yes other factors are at work regarding Arctic ice loss. For example the dramatic reduction of 2007 sea ice extent was in large part due to unusual weather conditions (warm winds). But the long term/big picture reduction in Arctic sea ice IS due to increasing temperatures.
2. Yes the best evidence does speak of a reduction in the frequency of storm activity but you neglect to mention that it also predicts an increase in the severity of storms.
3. What? You are categorically wrong. The Antarctic IS warming. There are satellite measurements to prove it. The graph shown above is for sea ice area, NOT temperature. It is actually written above the graph for all to see!
4. I think you need to get out more - The 0.8 C of warming is the generally accepted approximation for the increase in the earth's mean surface temperature over the last 100 years.
I'm mildly curious about the exact provenance of the article in terms of who wrote what - given that the byeline is shared with Howard Covington - a prominent banker.....
1. Unusual weather conditions (warm winds) - Niet - it was the direction and duration.
2. Measured in $ maybe, but by any recognised physical metric, No!
3. Rapley talks about the reduction of ice in the Arctic but does not mention the increase in the opposite.
4. Everybody, including the great and good of the AGW protagonists’ brigade accept that the planet has been warming since the LIA. The 30 year trends (WMO spec/advise) of all global temperature databases are off their peaks, therefore the rate of increase is slowing. At their peaks the highest was 0.19C per decade or 1.9C per century.
So pray tell just why a 2.0C increase in 30 years is inevitable when the present rate of increase is down to 1.6C in 100 years and the trend appears to be slowing?
So pray tell just why a 2.0C increase in 30 years is inevitable when the present rate of increase is down to 1.6C in 100 years and the trend appears to be slowing?
Aug 6, 2012 at 11:24 PM | Green Sand>>>>>
After the statistically zero rise [or was that 0.02C mean?] over the past 15 years, I'd be inclined to say your 1.6C appears to have become a big fat zero!
It looks as if the Chinese, Indians and Brazilians [the people taking our jobs because our industries can't afford the green inflated energy costs in the UK] keep pumping out CO2 at the present rate, we could all end up freezing our socks off.
anivegmin,
It would seem that there is indeed some scientific confusion in this thread, though I’m not sure it lies with our host.
I see Green Sand has already answered your little list of bullet points, but your number three intrigued me. Your claim that there were satellite measurements that “prove” the Antarctic is warming was news to me, so I went searching. Try as I might though, I can’t find them. So, for possibly the first time in the five years or so I‘ve been looking into this AGW thing, I’m going to have to ask for a reference. The only “satellite measurements” I can find that might possibly be what you are putting forward as proof, are those in this 2007 NASA study here:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=8239
I sincerely hope this isn’t what you’re referring to, though I have a horrible feeling it is. If it is, then you might want to read it again. However, if it’s something new that you have found, then I’d really appreciate the opportunity to take a look.
Thanks
The article is co-authored by Howard Covington - I really did wonder reading it - who put which bits in....
Mr Covington being a zillionaire banker of sorts and a stratospheric academic nabob 'n all.
Nah..anivegmin sounds like another sock puppet of Neven...
Anivegmin - an anagram of mini-vegan.
'Nuff said?
Go to the fridge and open the ice box. Look at the ice and frost inside. What is the temperature? You don't know. You just know it is less than 0 Celsius.
The phase change of freezing water/melting ice is not much use when quantifying temperature changes without knowing heat fluxes. Quite the opposite. It introduces confounding factors.
That pure water is liquid [fractionally] above 0 Celsius, and is solid [fractionally] below 0 Celsius, is taught in the most basic school science lessons. Chris Rapley must know this. So why does he choose not to mention it? Does he assume that people are too stupid or ignorant to understand? I hope not. Working at a University, it is not his duty to indoctrinate people, but to educate them. Or at least not confuse them.
The graph give us the clear view about the weather and temperature. And your concept is really great and witch the way you write this article i like it very much . You trying to say that If the temperature difference between pole and equator is decrease then hurricane should be decrease. cherry picker hire