Research by Catherine Blaiklock
Q. Is it true the more C02 in the atmosphere the higher the temperature?
A. No. The present C02 level is 407 parts per million, and the average temperature 14 Celsius. 650 million years ago the C02 level was 4000 parts per million and the earth was a giant snowball with a temperature of -58 Celsius
Q. So why today is it important to reduce the amount of C02 in the atmosphere to slow global warming ?
A. It isn’t. C02 levels are already dangerously low. They have been falling from around 7000 parts per million for 66 million years to their present level, whether the earth was hot and tropical or cold and icy. We should be glad they are going up a bit now.
Q. Why?
A. At 170 parts per million plant life starts to die off.
Q. So why do we need to reduce C02 in the atmosphere ?
A. We don’t. Modern human beings are responsible for a tiny fraction – a comparison would be 16 grains of sugar (carbon) made by man out of 10,000 grains of sugar – all the carbon – released into the atmosphere. The rest, 96%, comes from the growth and decay of plants, animal farts, termites, volcanoes, all other forms of biological life.
Q. Where is most of the C02?
A. In the sea.
Q. How much is in the sea?
A. Fifty times more than in the atmosphere.
Q. Does it stay in the sea?
A. No. When the sea warms it releases C02 and when it gets cold it absorbs it, just as warming a bottle of bubbly releases the bubbles while corking it and putting it in a bucket full of ice cause the bubbles to dissolve back into the drink.
Q. What warms the sea ?
A. The sun. The sun controls the vast bulk of C02 released into the atmosphere.
Q. What happens to C02 when there is less sun?
A. It is dissolved in the sea. It sinks to the bottom of the cold Arctic and Antarctic waters and, over 500 years, is carried by currents around the globe to the warmer Pacific where it bubbles up again into the atmosphere.
Q. So the C02 we are now seeing in the atmosphere is the result of the sun warming the sea 500 years ago ?
A. Possibly. It has almost nothing to do with the tiny 0.4% of C02 that our cars, factories and aircraft etc manage to produce each year. Trying to remove it will bring our economies to a halt and it won’t change the temperature.
Q. How much will that cost?
A. Billions of dollars per year
Q. With what result?
A. None.
Q. How will that affect me?
A. By closing power stations, installing expensive green energy etc, your grandchildrens’ standard of living will revert to the 1850s.
I read the article and all the comments. Catherine quite rightly pointed out that CO2 in the past has not had the effects the current orthodoxy want us to believe. What I am most impressed by is that the arguments to and from are all ‘educated guesses’ not fact. No one can realistically predict the future and in meteorology the ‘weather forecast’ by default is a guess, the probability of that guess for temperature has got better but can only give us a degree of accuracy 3+/- deg C up to 10 days at most. Ah, you say “but that is weather Craig, not climate”… well with any computer model of ‘climate change’ it relies on assumptions.
These ‘assumptions’ in Climate models are now used as ‘fact’ and have replaced ‘observed’ data. Observed data (the reduction in REAL stations is a problem and have been replaced by computer models) that does not fit the climate-alarmism is not reported and data that does is often over-represented or taken out of context.
For instance the highest temperature recently recorded in the Antarctic in March was heavily reported by the BBC, Guardian and MSM… from Esperanza base camp, some 2,922km away from the South Pole. That is like taking the temperature for the North Pole in Oslo Norway. The lowest temperature ever recorded for the same month at the Vostok weather station on Antartica, 1300km from the South Pole was -75.3deg C which got ZERO coverage by the MSM.
As to the future, you know when a theory is flawed… when people say the science is settled.
Dear Craig, I think your point about the reporting of the ‘highest temperature recently recorded in the Antarctic’ is dead on. There is a troubling zeal on behalf of those who wish to push the ‘imminent climate catastrophe caused by man’ argument, and they ignore any measurements which run counter to the story they want to tell, such behaviour indicates very poor scientific method.
R
Excellent Myles & I agree with every word of it. The forces of convection would be needed to get the CO2 up into the atmosphere in the first place, and it doesn’t stay there long, probably about 5 or 6 years max. I think, then it’s back into the soil and mostly the oceans, which is not surprising when you think about, after all it’s heavier than air with a molecular wt. of 44 compared to nitrogen at 28 and oxygen at 32. Keep up the good work
You are right about the new catechism. Although long articles full of unprovable numbers are ridiculous. No zealot will be convinced or de-convinced. Either you believe the world is burning, and you want cowardly bestial socialism. Or you think maybe it’s a crock of schism and even if it was true what’s the point of cowering in the corner under a rainbow flag. Bring it on.
Hey. That picture is Captain Oates going to his death. There were many failings with Scott’s expedition, and while I’m not much into the “glorious defeat” narratives (Light Brigade, Thermopylae, the Revenge) we shouldn’t make a joke of Oates. If we believe Scott’s account, he died trying to help the rest of them.
Sorry, but where does this absolute specious nonsense come from? How can you possibly compare the situation today with that 650 million years ago?
This is moronic twaddle. You should be ashamed and embarrassed to give it space.
Okay. Here’s two experiments you can do.
1. If the temperature 50 or 100 years hence can be predicted, getting tomorrow’s right should be a piece of cake. Today, where I am, it’s cool and showery. yesterday’s forecast on Sky was for 20 degrees and cloudless sky. Check how good the experts are for yourself.
2. Next time you ride in a car, note how the temperature changes over very short distances of a mile or so. What figure would you enter in the log? We are told that some of the Stevenson boxes doing the recordings are in the same place they were before airports, roads, or industrial estates were built nearby. Others have been moved to more accessible places, and some have been painted with a different paint, and some fitted with devices whose affect on recordings has been ignored.
If the temperature movements were large, all this would not matter – but fractions of a degree over 100 years?
The same applies to sea levels which have resisted rising as has been predicted since the 60s. Ever wondered how easy it is to measure sea levels?
Absolutely right. And the ‘rising sea levels’ nonsense is the easiest to demolish. Just look at Georgian/Victorian high tide water marks and old boatyards around the world – they haven’t budged, the climate loons keep showing floods and storms, that’s something quite different but makes good TV for numpty believers.
The Maldives and Venice were supposed go under the sea 25 years ago. I’ve heard The Maldives made quite a packet from ‘last chance to be a tourist’ crowds, has since reclaimed more land from the sea and built new airports. My local university was among those handsomely paid to catalogue the flora that was about to disappear.
Oh don’t be so stupid Michael. It’s quite obvious that you can more easily forecast a global average than the exact temperature at your specific location. As it happens, weather forecasters (distinct from climate forecasters) have improved massively with advances in technology and models and are pretty accurate anyway.
And if you think global climate models are reliant on readings from 100 year old equipment then you are more dense than I thought you were.
What has brought you to this pitch of rage I wonder, not for the first time.
The peacock’s tail is a puzzle because though females select it yet it is in itself an impediment to survival (flight handicap, predator target). A female blindly keeping her genes in the pool might be expected to select a male that is not going to burden her male offspring with such a tail. You might also ask why nature is burdened by so many males when few are needed to keep the population steady or expanding. In many human societies males are more valued than females who are even selectively aborted. Where’s the evolutionary origin of that? Makes no sense. If we argue that humans have interfered with natural forces, how did that tendency evolve? and do other flora and fauna do it?
My point was the general one that scientific thinking and findings are never done whether climate or evolution: the claim by climatists and the like that ‘the’ science is settled is false and simply drives sceptics to more extreme positions. I was using evolution by natural selection as a further example since you asserted that it was settled. It’s not. It’s the best explanation – so far. What’s more, the identitarians are reviving Lysenko and Haldane, though they don’t know it.
The climatists don’t claim the science is settled (although Blaiklock seems to – despite her ‘expertise’ ending in 1985). In fact, almost every new observation and model says things are much worse than previously thought.
Your peacock and male abundancy quibbling is irrelevant and you can read the solutions to those yourself. Nothing in that is going to overturn the basic facts. There are two such facts you need to know. DNA is a molecule that can reproduce itself with random inaccuracies, and it drives the development of subsequent generations of organisms. The rest follows from statistical inevitability. Nothing is absolutely guaranteed, there is no driving force other than the laws of probability. There isn’t going to be an explanation of the variety of life forms on Earth by any other mechanism. DNA is as hard a scientific fact as you are ever going to see.
And what brought me to that “pitch of rage” is the realisation that such ignorant views are presented and apparently respected in Britain in 2020. We’re going back to the dark ages.
Werdna , Catherine Blaicklock studied climate science at Christ Church Oxford. You are a scientific illiterate if you do not recognise the principle of falsifiability. The statement that carbon dioxide determines the temperature of the planet is not universally true although climate change fanatics have based their religion entirely upon this idea. In fact the more you go into it the more you realise that nobody knows what determines the climate, but then silly abuse is all you have to offer.
This post by Werdna has been removed because it contains an unacceptable personal attack.
The ‘dark ages’ were notable for a lack of debate and a failure to accept that there is more than one opinion, so you’re right there but not in the way you think.
Dark ages eh? Friend of Roger Stone are you?
This post by Werdna has been removed because it contains offensive swear words
This post by Werdna has been removed as it contains a personal attack and uses swear words
It seems a bit strange to claim authority on climate science over the professionals who are out making new observations continually, on the grounds of studying geography, even at Oxford, fully 35 years ago. Even in my subject, astronomy, advances since I graduated at the same time mean I can’t remotely consider myself expert enough to pronounce judgements such as she does here.
An MA (hons apparently – though not specified)? You’re having a laugh. She’s a banker, not a scientist, and shouldn’t be given a platform as such.
When I was at ChCh studying climatology in the 1980’s, we spent the entire time working on when the next overdue ice age would be.
And yes, I have studied climatology at Oxford as well as geology, geomorphology, and biogeography. I came from a family that was extremely interested in these subjects. My father Mr K V Blaiklock was an Antarctic explorer and our house was full of earth scientists.
During the Pleistocene, there were one thousand advances and retreats of the ice caps, thousands of miles in 100,000 years. That ended just as early man was starting to hunt and develop – no cars than to cause all that change.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn who never studied science (and got 2 rather bad social science A levels) believes in man-made global warming. His brother, Mr Piers Corbyn who I have been recently working with is a professional climatologist working on this full time.
Piers got a first from Imperial in Physics, then a PHD and has run a long-range weather forecast company called ‘Weather watch’ which was at one point listed on the stock exchange. Piers thinks global warming is complete and utterly false. He makes a living by predicting.
I can produce plenty of research from Piers if anyone is interested with dozens of papers cited. Corbyn will argue that the CO2 being released has a 500 year time lag .
Another interesting little anecdote is that just as they reduced the number of weather station points by 66%, the temperature went up at exactly the same time. Funny that.
Of course, the problem is threefold.
1. When $400 billion is spent on producing one answer, you get one answer.
2. People seem to ‘want’ to believe one thing or the other. Most of the people who make insulting comments have never looked at the research at all. It is a ‘religion.’
The fact that insults need to be produced suggests this only too well. Anyone who would like to challenge any of the statements needs to produce their evidence and I will produce mine.
3. It is taught as ‘fact’ in schools, universities and by our media. It is a theory and that is all. The problem is we cannot ‘prove’ in any scientific or Popperian way how climate works. Does CO2 cause temperatures to rise? Or do rising temperatures cause CO2 to rise?
Is there a lag? Or there a correlation at all?
The only thing we really know is that the sun is the main driver of overall temperature. I think even the climate warmers would be hard-pressed to deny that completely – although I have no doubt some will.
And finally – what causes death in humans? Well, things like disease and famine. Things like the Coronavirus don’t live very well in summer. Crops grow better when it is warmer.
How many will die if the climate does get colder? From famine and flu and hyperthermia?
“Does CO2 cause temperatures to rise? Or do rising temperatures cause CO2 to rise?”. Well, it can be proven in a lab that CO₂ causes temperatures to rise. If the reverse is also true then what you have is a runaway greenhouse effect. Not great.
And it looks as though, rather than “study climatology” at “ChCh” you did one relevant module amongst others in a geography degree and spent most of that on one specific topic at that. You’re no more an authority on the climate than I am.
What degree did you get?
We can only admire those who with just a bit of ‘research’ (no sources cited), one supposes courtesy of climate change denying websites, can master the complexities of geology, geophysics, meteorology, climatology, atmospheric chemistry, atmospheric physics etc. necessary to make sense of the available data. Clearly the climate scientists who do have the expertise, and overwhelmingly support the anthropogenic global warming thesis, are part of a worldwide conspiracy.
I agree, Tomas Dusek, that Miles and Catherine are talking out of an orifice not usually associated with speech.
But so, I fear, are the “climate scientists” in whom you place your trust.
Any scientists who disagree with the prevailing orthodoxy are likely to lose their jobs. There is no “peer review” of “climate science”, because nobody dares to disagree. It may be that the world is going to get much hotter, or it may be that the world is going to get much colder, but there’s no way of knowing, because “scientists” are appointed and quoted nowadays not because of their scientific skills but because of their political correctness.
But there are some things that the Extinction Rebellion gang and the Traditional British gang can agree about.
We don’t need more houses.
We don’t need more roads.
We don’t need more schools, hospitals, prisons, policemen or art galleries.
We don’t need a points-based immigration system, or up to 3,000,000 Hong Kong immigrants.
What we need is fewer people.
We need fewer people.
We need fewer people.
We need fewer people.
And so on ad infinitum, until people start to take notice of the most obvious political fact in the history of political facts.
Well, if truth be told, we need more of certain types of people and fewer of other types. But now it’s getting edgy, so I’d better fetch me coat….
Please see my comment above. PJR
I have studied climatology and I would like you to produce your souces rather than being rude.
Which particular statement would you like to challenge?
Which papers do you cite and who funded them?
Catherine Blaiklock:
I apologise for offending you – and for offending our sainted editor, if he was also offended. My argument was with Tomas Dusek, not with you. If you re-read my comment, you’ll see that everything after the first sentence was intended to support what you wrote, not to oppose it. My first sentence was merely rhetorical, and intended only to capture Tomas’s interest before demolishing the basis of his comment.
Don’t you agree that we need fewer people?
Climate denying websites? So you’ve made your mind up before looking? Paul Homewood’s site uses the alarmists own graphs and data to show that they are distortions of the truth, or what is most likely the truth since no one knows the future.
You don’t need a conspiracy to maintain a fiction that keeps numberless people in safe, stress-free non-jobs.
Why place your trust in Paul Homewood and his statistical interpretations? You can make a graph show anything you like with a bit of statistical editing. The problem as I see it is that if the opinions of those best qualified to pronounce judgement – i.e. the relevant scientists – are written off, all we are left with is people who know next to nothing of the subject and merely select the facts which suit their preconceptions. Is it not just possible that there is a reason for the existence of a consensus orthodox view on global warming (like there is on relativity, evolution, quantum mechanics, the shape of the earth etc.), which is that on balance the facts support it?
There are dissenters on all of the topics you list but the shape of the earth. technical matters of evolution by natural selection are still disputed. Why do peacocks still have colouring and a tail that makes them vulnerable to predators and less able to fly? How does E by NS explain suicide, homosexuality and so on. Theoretical physics makes no sense in the ordinary meaning of the word and I’m not aware of anyone who does not expect some corrections to sort the clash between QM and relativity. No one can answer the questions posed 2500 years ago: how could something come from nothing (the big bang) and if it didn’t what was there before, and how could it change if it was infinite in time and space. Let there be light, says the Genesis version of Big Bang – and that’s as far as we’ve got.
Thomas Kuhn (Scientific Revolutions) showed how tenacious we are to theories. The abuse and cancelling that greets any challenge to the climate consensus would surprise even him – the latest recantation by a former alarmist is an example.
It’s one thing to say climates change but quite another to claim people can have any significant effect on the power of, for example, the sun or a volcano or the tides. Just one thundercloud has a billion volts and more energy than any nuke yet in my childhood we were told boms would shift the earth on its axis and eliminate us all.
The basic idea of evolution by environmental AND SEXUAL selection (which explains peacocks) isn’t disputed. The mechanism is well understood, the actual pathways perhaps have future discoveries to come.
Tomas Dusek: But you yourself are writing off the opinions of Catherine Blaiklock, who has the credentials of an expert.
“Climate Change” has become a secular religious dogma, and any “relevant scientist” who doubts it (such as Catherine Blaiklock) suffers the penalties of heresy.
Meanwhile, it remains true that one doesn’t need to be an expert to see that our planet is monstrously over-populated, and that the effects of both global warming and global cooling would be mitigated if they’re weren’t so bloody MANY of us.
No PJR, Blaiklock doesn’t have any real credentials other than a single climate module within an early 80s undergraduate geography degree. A bit like a Sinclair Spectrum enthusiast pontificating on the future of quantum computing. Her claimed authority is laughable.
Thomas Dusek. See my reply to Werdna above. Most arguments about the climate for and against change, are religious not scientific , or inspired by panic.. In the eighties Iif you went up to university to study climate science you studied climate science not a compulsory religious view that you had to follow about climate change or find yourself booted out
If she studied “climate science” at Oxford she would not have been taught anything that you’ve quoted in the article. Had she ever done any actual work in the field, or even referenced the data of those that have, she might be able to speak with some authority. Unfortunately, all she’s doing is parroting ignorant conspiracy crap.
One cannot cite sources in a short blog. When the BBC says global warming day after day, no sources are cited.
See the comment above and yes I have studied climatology – indeed it was climatology that got me interested in politics before Brexit.
I wrote to Stuart Agnew, UKIP MEP and Norfolk Farmer.
He told me a wonderful story of how he started going to climate change events in the 1990’s.
They told him it was going to get hotter and he needed to change and plant desert crops in grey soggy Norfolk. He did for a number of years and nearly went bankrupt.
He went back to the warmers and they said, it needed more time. That was a long time ago.
Funnily enough, when we bought our present Yorkshire house 25 years ago the owners had turned the garden into one of those bleak Japanese gravel beds following the same advice.
We got a few tons of topsoil delivered and the only time the several rain barrels we inherited have been empty has been in a few dry springs. We border a busy road but despite the doomsters we have every imaginable bird and butterfly visiting including a heron and kites whistling overhead. Every year bees take one our nest boxes and we have wasps in the roof space. No extinction emergency here. The other day I overheard a woman passer by telling her husband our garden was ‘over-planted’.
“When the BBC says global warming day after day, no sources are cited.”
Nonsense, the BBC has presented plenty of evidence, while also giving deniers an unearned platform. In any event, the case for anthropomorphic climate change is so ubiquitous it hardly needs citing specifically.
A great rebuttal of the climate hysteria that I have passed on to the dupes.
Excellent service to the Peoples of the Earth by Editor Harris, Madame Blaiklock and the SR.
This article presents valid points -all valid points.