From WUWT
masonmart (23:49:30) :
Monbiot refused to debate the issues with Plimer (as all AGW proponents refuse debate with knowledgeable skeptics) and I, who know nothing, would gladly debate Climate change with Monbiot.Monbiot has stated that he will not debate unless written answers are provided to his questions. These answers have not been provided therefore no debate.
As you have read Plimers book from which all answers may be obtained (according to Plimer) Perhaps you could answer both Plimer and Monbiots questions here?
Q to Plimer
1. The first graph in your book (Figure 1, page 11). How do you explain the discrepancy between the HadCRUT3 figure and your claim?
2. Figure 3 (page 25) is a graph purporting to show that most of the warming in the 20th Century took place before 1945 closely resembles the global temperature graph in the first edition of Martin Durkin’s film The Great Global Warming Swindle - since retracted as false. What is the source for the graph you used?
3. You maintain that “the last two years of global cooling have erased nearly thirty years of temperature increase.” (page 25)
a. Please give the source for your claim.
b. How do you reconcile it with the published data?
In your discussion of global temperature trends, you maintain that “NASA now states that […] the warmest year was 1934.” (p99)
a. Are you aware that this applies only to the United States?
b. Was this a mistake or did you deliberately confuse these two datasets?
5. Discussing climate trends in the Arctic, you state that “the sea ice has expanded” (p198). Again, you give no reference.
a. Please give a source for this claim.
b. How do you explain the discrepancy between this claim and the published data? http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
6. You state that “If the current atmospheric CO2 content of 380 ppmv were doubled to 760 ppmv […] [a]n increase of 0.5C is likely” (p366). Again you give no source. Please provide a reference for this claim.
7. You claim that “About 98% of the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere is due to water vapour.” (p370). Ian Enting says “In some cases the numbers given by Plimer are exaggerated to such an extent as to imply that without water vapour, Earth’s temperature would be below absolute zero - a physical impossibility.”
a. Please provide a reference for your claim about water vapour.
b. Please explain how your two statements (98% of the greenhouse effect is caused by water vapour and 18C can be attributed to CO2) can both be true
8. You cite a paper by Charles F Keller as the source of your claim that “satellites and radiosondes show that there is no global warming.” (p382)
a. How did you manage to reverse the findings of this paper?
b. Was it a mistake or was it deliberate misrepresentation?
9. You state “The Hadley Centre in the UK has shown that warming stopped in 1998″ (p391). Again you produce no reference.
a. Please give a reference for your claim.
b. How do you explain the discrepancy between your account of what the Hadley Centre says and theirs?
10. You state that “Volcanoes produce more CO2 than the world’s cars and industries combined.” (p413)
a. Please provide a reference for your claim.
b. How do you explain the discrepancy between this claim and the published data?
11. You maintain that “termite methane emissions are 20 times potent than human CO2 emissions”. (p472) Please provide a source for this claim.
Plimer to Monbiot
1. From the distribution of the vines, olives, citrus and grain crops in Europe, UK and Greenland, calculate the temperature in the Roman and Medieval Warmings and the required atmospheric CO2 content at sea level to drive such warmings. What are the errors in your calculation? Reconcile your calculations with at least five atmospheric CO2 proxies. Show all calculations and justify all assumptions.
2. Tabulate the CO2 exhalation rates over the last 15,000 years from (i) terrestrial and submarine volcanism (including maars, gas vents, geysers and springs) and calc-silicate mineral formation, and (ii) CH4 oxidation to CO2 derived from CH4 exhalation by terrestrial and submarine volcanism, natural hydrocarbon leakage from sediments and sedimentary rocks, methane hydrates, soils, microbiological decay of plant material, arthropods, ruminants and terrestrial methanogenic bacteria to a depth of 4 km. From these data, what is the C12, C13 and C14 content of atmospheric CO2 each thousand years over the last 15,000 years and what are the resultant atmospheric CO2 residence times? All assumptions need to be documented and justified.
3. From first principles, calculate the effects on atmospheric temperature at sea level by changes in cloudiness of 0.5%, 1% and 2% at 0%, 20%, 40%, 60% and 80% humidity. What changes in cloudiness would have been necessary to drive the Roman Warming, Dark Ages, Medieval Warming and Little Ice Age? Show all calculations and justify all assumptions.
4. Calculate the changes in atmospheric C12 and C13 content of CO2 and CH4 from crack-seal deformation. What is the influence of this source of gases on atmospheric CO2 residence time since 1850? Validate assumptions and show all calculations.
5. From CO2 proxies, carbonate rock and mineral volumes and stable isotopes, calculate the CO2 forcing of temperature in the Huronian, Neoproterozoic, Ordovician, Permo-Carboniferous and Jurassic ice ages. Why is the “faint Sun paradox” inapplicable to the Phanerozoic ice ages in the light of your calculations? All assumptions must be validated and calculations and sources of information must be shown.
6. From ocean current velocity, palaeotemperature and atmosphere measurements of ice cores and stable and radiogenic isotopes of seawater, atmospheric CO2 and fluid inclusions in ice and using atmospheric CO2 residence times of 4, 12, 50 and 400 years, numerically demonstrate that the modern increase in atmospheric CO2 could not derive from the Medieval Warming.
7. Calculate the changes in the atmospheric transmissivity of radiant energy over the last 2,000 years derived from a variable ingress of stellar, meteoritic and cometary dust, terrestrial dust, terrestrial volcanic aerosols and industrial aerosols. How can your calculations show whether atmospheric temperature changes are related to aerosols? All assumptions must be justified and calculations and sources of information must be shown.
8. Calculate 10 Ma time flitches using W/R ratios of 10, 100 and 500 for the heat addition to the oceans, oceanic pH changes and CO2 additions to bottom waters by alteration of sea floor rocks to greenschist and amphibolite facies assemblages, the cooling of new submarine volcanic rocks (including MORBs) and the heat, CO2 and CH4 additions from springs and gas vents since the opening of the Atlantic Ocean. From your calculations, relate the heat balance to global climate over these 10 Ma flitches. What are the errors in your calculations? Show all calculations and discuss the validity of any assumptions made.
9. Calculate the rate of isostatic sinking of the Pacific Ocean floor resulting from post LGM loading by water, the rate of compensatory land level rise, the rate of gravitationally-induced sea level rise and sea level changes from morphological changes to the ocean floor. Numerically reconcile your answer with the post LGM sea level rise, oceanic thermal expansion and coral atoll drilling in the South Pacific Ocean. What are the relative proportions of sea level change derived from your calculations?
10. From atmospheric CO2 measurements, stable isotopes, radiogenic Kr and hemispheric transport of volcanic aerosols, calculate the rate of mixing of CO2 between the hemispheres of planet Earth and reconcile this mixing with CO2 solubility, CO2 chemical kinetic data, CO2 stable and cosmogenic isotopes, the natural sequestration rates of CO2 from the atmosphere into plankton, oceans, carbonate sediments and cements, hydrothermal alteration, soils, bacteria and plants for each continent and ocean. All assumptions must be justified and calculations and sources of information must be shown. Calculations may need to be corrected for differences in 12CO2, 13CO2 and 14CO2 kinetic adsorption and/or molecular variations in oceanic dissolution rates.
11. Calculate from first principles the variability of climate, the warming and cooling rates and global sea level changes from the Bölling to the present and compare and contrast the variability, maximum warming and maximum sea level change rates over this time period to that from 1850 to the present. Using your calculations, how can natural and human-induced changes be differentiated? All assumptions must be justified and calculations and sources of information must be shown.
12. Calculate the volume of particulate and sulphurous aerosols and CO2 and CH4 coeval with the last three major mass extinctions of life. Use the figures derived from these calculations to numerically demonstrate the effects of terrestrial, deep submarine, hot spot and mid ocean ridge volcanism on planktonic and terrestrial life on Earth. What are the errors in your calculations?
13. From the annual average burning of hydrocarbons, lignite, bituminous coal and natural and coal gas, smelting, production of cement, cropping, irrigation and deforestation, use the 25µm, 7µm and 2.5µm wavelengths to calculate the effect that gaseous, liquid and solid H2O have on atmospheric temperature at sea level and at 5 km altitude at latitudes of 20º, 40º, 60º and 80ºS. How does the effect of H2O compare with the effect of CO2 derived from the same sources? All assumptions must be justified and calculations and sources of information must be shown.
Remember Plimer says his questions' answers can be found in his books.
So we have Monbiot mainly requesting sources of Plimer's eronious statements (surely a simple request to answer?) and Plimer requesting a journalist to provide original scientific research and to derive models from first principles. As Monbiot admits - he is not a research scientist so the questions are outside his knowledge.
Some of Monbiots questions (have now been answered on realclimate)
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/09/14/correspondence-with-ian-plimer/
Oh dear!!!!!!!!!!!
Rabett Run
