----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris" <[log in to unmask]>
To: "Malcolm Levitt" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2006 11:16 AM
Subject: Re: Monckton article
>I am not in a position to argue the science with any authority, except to
>say the principle of Occam's Razor ( when you have two competing theories
>which make exactly the same predictions the one that is simpler is the
>better) would seem to apply here.
>
> CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas, the more CO2 the more heat trapped, and
> based on increasing atmospheric levels of CO2 it has been predicted that
> temperatures would rise and, hey presto, temperatures are rising.
>
> Work such as Monckton's is only designed to undermine the momentum for
> change (and I for one, unfortunately, do find myself susceptible to such
> messages, and often lack the courage of my own convictions).
>
> Here's an article refuting the role of solar cycles in current warming
> titled 'No cosmic ray climate effects'
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3419975.stm
>
> Chris Shaw
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Malcolm Levitt" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 08, 2006 11:08 PM
> Subject: Re: Monckton article
>
>
> This is a message I sent in reply to Naz:
>
> I agree with you. Assuming black-body behaviour means ignoring factors
> such as the trapping of
> infrared by the atmosphere, i.e. the greenhouse effect. So Monckton is
> disproving the greenhouse
> effect by using an equation which only works if there is no greenhouse
> effect..
>
> I dont know the details of the climate modelling, but I'm sure that a
> large computational effort in
> these models is spent on estimating the net energy input from the sun at
> the earth's surface and
> the net effect of irradiation back into space through the atmosphere, i.e.
> the modelling of
> deviations from the SB law, which are essential to understand if one wants
> to predict climate on a
> complex very-unblack body like the earth. So that whole section of
> Monckton's criticism is pure
> crap.
>
> His statement that there was no ice at the poles in 1421 since the chinese
> sailed around it is
> apparently purely based on a sensationalist book which is also pure crap
> (see http://www.
> 1421exposed.com/
>
> Despite that I thought that his criticism of the "hockey-stick graph" and
> its misuse rings true. I
> can easily imagine a single influential scientist misprepresenting the
> data like that, in part out of
> carelessness, in part out of sloppiness. And I can imagine that such
> representations may easily get
> picked up and used way beyond the expectations of the original authors,
> given the politically
> charged atmosphere. Scientists can be very naive in that way. But the
> issue of climate change and
> its modelling is a huge body of work, most if it highly rigorous, and it
> does not all boil down to
> one (possibly) misleading and misused graph.
>
> I also dont believe Monckton's graph in which the Mediaeval Warm Period is
> a monstrous bulge
> bigger than the current temperature blip.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_warm_period
> shows a variety of plots in which the MWP appears but is far less
> prominent than in Monckton's
> plot. Apparently there is evidence that the MWP was rather local to
> northern Europe.
>
> best wishes
> malcolm
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