Spectator Magazine front page spread: 'Relax: Global Warming is a myth'

[Undesired Walrus]

http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/3755623/meet-the-man-who-has-exposed-the-great-climate-change-con-trick.thtml

This surprised me. For those of you who don't know, the Spectator is a centre-right magazine that used to be published by Boris Johnson, current Mayor of London.

Despite the fact that I disagree with their political leaning, I always thought they were rational conservatives, who accepted things like Global Warming. No more:

Imagine how wonderful the world would be if man-made global warming were just a figment of Al Gore’s imagination. No more ugly wind farms to darken our sunlit uplands. No more whopping electricity bills, artificially inflated by EU-imposed carbon taxes. No longer any need to treat each warm, sunny day as though it were some terrible harbinger of ecological doom. And definitely no need for the $7.4 trillion cap and trade (carbon-trading) bill — the largest tax in American history — which President Obama and his cohorts are so assiduously trying to impose on the US economy.

Imagine no more, for your fairy godmother is here. His name is Ian Plimer, Professor of Mining Geology at Adelaide University, and he has recently published the landmark book Heaven And Earth, which is going to change forever the way we think about climate change

‘The hypothesis that human activity can create global warming is extraordinary because it is contrary to validated knowledge from solar physics, astronomy, history, archaeology and geology,’ says Plimer, and while his thesis is not new, you’re unlikely to have heard it expressed with quite such vigour, certitude or wide-ranging scientific authority.

[Megalodon]

http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/3755623/meet-the-man-who-has-exposed-the-great-climate-change-con-trick.thtml

This surprised me. For those of you who don't know, the Spectator is a centre-right magazine that used to be published by Boris Johnson, current Mayor of London.

Despite the fact that I disagree with their political leaning, I always thought they were rational conservatives, who accepted things like Global Warming. No more:

Ok, one more of the deep end... Professor in Mining Geology, that's all the credentials I need to trust a non peer reviewed publication that purports to upturn a complete field of science (and the corroboratory evidence from several others). :rolleyes:

[Molinaro]

I don't know what to say other than to echo Megalodon's post... Prof of Mining Geology?

[Alex Libman]

It's inaccurate to call global warming a "myth".

"Hoax" is a much more appropriate word.

[Seren_]

Critical review of Heaven and Earth.
http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/04/23/ian-plimer-heaven-and-earth/

Nothing groundbreaking in there.

[Megalodon]

It's inaccurate to call global warming a "myth".

"Hoax" is a much more appropriate word.

Conspiracy Theories is two doors down, to the left.

Don't let the door hit you...

[Alex Libman]

"Welcome to our Glorious Skeptical People's Forum. Opinions that agree with us may be posted freely. Opinions that disagree with us go to Siberia."

So then, once again, the word "myth" implies something that emerges organically, like through an oral tradition. Something that involves institutionalized academic pressure through thousands of government cronies is in fact a "hoax" and a "conspiracy".

[Megalodon]

"Welcome to our Glorious Skeptical People's Forum. Opinions that agree with us may be posted freely. Opinions that disagree with us go to Siberia."

No, stupid conspiracy theories should go to the Conspiracy Theory forum.

You can, of course, back up your "hoax" assertion with evidence, and shame me in public...


...yeah, right :rolleyes:

[Twiler]

"Welcome to our Glorious Skeptical People's Forum. Opinions that agree with us may be posted freely. Opinions that disagree with us go to Siberia."

So then, once again, the word "myth" implies something that emerges organically, like through an oral tradition. Something that involves institutionalized academic pressure through thousands of government cronies is in fact a "hoax" and a "conspiracy".

Please explain:

1. When the conspiracy started.
2. Why the conspiracy started.
3. Who started the conspiracy.
4. Who is currently running the conspiracy.
5. Who isn't part of the conspiracy.
6. The truth of the matter.

[casebro]

I'm waiting for a few more years of satellite data before I make up my mind.

So far we've got 'proxies' instead of ancient temperatures, 'models' instead of contemporary data, and what contemporary data we have is finagled with an "urban heat island" adjustment. AND, it was all started by an avowedly exaggerated "hockey stick graph".

Tell you the truth, I half expect to hear that Obama tells the NASA/NOAA to fudge the data to make GW look worse. But if so, we won't hear about that for years.

Of course this is based on my understanding that one set of satellite data is surface temps, and another is incoming energy levels. Am I right about that?

[Cuddles]

Regardless of the reality of global warming, I find nonsense like this just bizarre.

Imagine how wonderful the world would be if man-made global warming were just a figment of Al Gore’s imagination.

What is the deniers' obsession with Al Gore? He made a film about established science that was already discussed all over the media. And for all the fuss about it at the time, I still don't even know anyone who's actually seen it. Why do deniers like to parade Gore around as some kind of anti-Messiah who invented the entire thing?

No more ugly wind farms to darken our sunlit uplands.

Personally I find wind farms far nicer to look at than large concrete boxes belching out clouds of steam and smoke. Of course, it's yet another bizarre fantasy of the deniers that global warming is the only driver behind renewables. Do they really think clean, unlimited power is somehow a bad thing that no-one would be at interested in if global warming had never existed?

No more whopping electricity bills, artificially inflated by EU-imposed carbon taxes.

Oddly enough, by far the biggest influence on energy bills recently has been the price of oil. In fact, it's rather ironic that the same people complaining about alternative energy sources are the same ones complaining about the prices, given that sticking with past policies would result in financial disaster. In fact, as I noted just recently (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=147720), it may well already be too late.

No longer any need to treat each warm, sunny day as though it were some terrible harbinger of ecological doom.

I generally just treat sunny days as an excuse to get outside and enjoy myself. To each his own, I guess.

contrary to validated knowledge from solar physics, astronomy, history, archaeology and geology

So the idea of humans affecting the environment is contrary to two fields of science that deal solely with places humans have never been, one that deals almost exclusively with times when humans did not exist and two that demonstrate that humans have caused major changes to the environment? There's plenty of stupidity surrounding climate denial, but this is pretty special.

wide-ranging scientific authority.

Huh? The wide-ranging authority of someone who has no expertise in the relevant area and has never actually published anything on the subject? Who describes anyone who may actually have relevant expertise as "pompous academics", while rather ironically complaining about "vitriolic ad-hominem attacks"? Even if you agree with his opinion you'd have to be particularly stupid to pretend he has any kind of authority.

[casebro]

Please explain:

1. When the conspiracy started.
2. Why the conspiracy started.
3. Who started the conspiracy.
4. Who is currently running the conspiracy.
5. Who isn't part of the conspiracy.
6. The truth of the matter.

I guess I don't think "conspiracy" is the right word. I think "Conspiracy" means "for a group to plan together in secret". I don't think there was any "AGW Planning Group". I think Mann's hockey stick started it, and a bunch of other people who thought that jumping on the band wagon would be good for their individual vested interests. Like the way many individual oil speculators drove up the price of gas a couple years ago. Or the way the stock market works- "Look, stock ABC is going up, BUY IT", which drives the price up, and others also buy it. But no conspiracy, just traders who spot a good thing.

Some with personal interests that would gain advantage via a AGW scare:

1) Weather scientists, who got grants/jobs/limelight.

2) News media, who realize scary news sells papers

3)Politicians who live by the maxim "Keep the people scared, then they will vote for me to lead them to safety".

4) Environmental organizations, similar to #3, but instead of votes, greater notoriety and $$$ in donations.

5) "Clean Industries", like solar energy.

6) Now to add the US Government, with various tax proposals that will pay for the various bail outs. And to fund more clean energy, see #5 above. This, #6, is the most conspiratorial chapter.

So, the proof of the pudding will be in the satellite data, but wait a couple years for the whistle blowers or the lack thereof.

[sol invictus]

So far we've got 'proxies' instead of ancient temperatures, 'models' instead of contemporary data, and what contemporary data we have is finagled with an "urban heat island" adjustment. AND, it was all started by an avowedly exaggerated "hockey stick graph".


What was wrong with the hockey stick graph? (I'm honestly asking - I don't know much about it, but my impression was it turned out to be essentially correct, to within the uncertainties the authors themselves described.) http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v441/n7097/full/4411032a.html

And why do you say "it was all started" by it? Here are some references I dug up with a three minute google going back to the 70's:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v360/n6404/abs/360573a0.html
http://www.springerlink.com/content/tm2507685mql8385/
http://www.nature.com/doifinder/10.1038/2261037a0

Personally, I'm a global warming skeptic in the same way I'm skeptical about all scientific results, particularly those involving extremely complex systems like climate and weather. If you put me in a time machine and jumped me ahead 30 years, I wouldn't be shocked if it turns out some as yet poorly understood effects had kept the global climate stable. But I think it's much more likely that the current science is essentially correct.

You have to face the facts: based on the best evidence we have the climate is warming, there is a mechanism that causes warming to happen when greenhouse gas levels increase, and greenhouse gas levels are increasing due to human activity.

Given that, the burden of proof is quite solidly on anyone what doesn't believe human activity is changing the climate. And yet I've seen no one really take up that challenge and make the argument based on real science and data - all I see are shrill, politicized attacks on the people actually doing the science, because the science keeps turning out the "wrong" way. And it's a shame, because the environment those attacks create is far from optimal for scientific progress.

[Molinaro]

"Welcome to our Glorious Skeptical People's Forum. Opinions that agree with us may be posted freely. Opinions that disagree with us go to Siberia."

So then, once again, the word "myth" implies something that emerges organically, like through an oral tradition. Something that involves institutionalized academic pressure through thousands of government cronies is in fact a "hoax" and a "conspiracy".

Bolding mine.

I am completely at a loss to understand how anyone could honestly believe what you just typed.

To me, it looks like a statement of extreme paranoia if not outright insanity.

[Megalodon]

I guess I don't think "conspiracy" is the right word. I think "Conspiracy" means "for a group to plan together in secret". I don't think there was any "AGW Planning Group". I think Mann's hockey stick started it, and a bunch of other people who thought that jumping on the band wagon would be good for their individual vested interests.

You are wrong... The theory is much older than Mann's paper. It started a long, long time ago, when Arrhenius posited a mechanism by which atmospheric CO2 warmed the planet. As early as the 50's physicists started worrying about the emission of CO2, and several papers in the 70's show this concern.

The theory was dismissed by most scientists for a long time until evidence, both from the emergent field of climatology and several other scientific disciplines, and accurate projections were finally enough to convince the majority of scientists that AGW theory was essentially correct.

There was no bandwagon to be jumped on! There was, like with all groundbreaking theories, a tooth and nail fight for acceptance. A fight fought with solid evidence.

Like the way many individual oil speculators drove up the price of gas a couple years ago. Or the way the stock market works- "Look, stock ABC is going up, BUY IT", which drives the price up, and others also buy it. But no conspiracy, just traders who spot a good thing.

This is actually a conspiracy theory, since you are accusing thousands of independent researchers, of different scientific disciplines, of making up corroboratory data to somehow feed this "good thing".

Some with personal interests that would gain advantage via a AGW scare:

1) Weather scientists, who got grants/jobs/limelight.

Wrong! As late as the 90's people would avoid using the expression "global warming" in the grant proposals, for fear of being rejected outright. This theory wasn't born popular, much on the contrary. It stepped on to many toes, and it still does.

2) News media, who realize scary news sells papers

The news media couldn't care less about any kind of science, scary or not. And you might as well accuse them of killing Anna Nicole Smith and Michael Jackson since you're at it...

3)Politicians who live by the maxim "Keep the people scared, then they will vote for me to lead them to safety".

The same politicians that get huge contributions from fossil fuel companies, that give them more subsidies than to renewables and appointed politicians to alter scientific reports to discredit AGW... I can see real champions for AGW in that lot.

4) Environmental organizations, similar to #3, but instead of votes, greater notoriety and $$$ in donations.

Yes, the great influence of Greenpeace and WWF on international politics...

5) "Clean Industries", like solar energy.

You're kidding right?

6) Now to add the US Government, with various tax proposals that will pay for the various bail outs. And to fund more clean energy, see #5 above. This, #6, is the most conspiratorial chapter.

The same government that until quite recently denied AGW to the point of altering scientific reports?

So, the proof of the pudding will be in the satellite data, but wait a couple years for the whistle blowers or the lack thereof.

No, the proof of the pudding is in the next El Niño, that will in all probability blow the 2005 record out of the water.

[Alex Libman]

You can, of course, back up your "hoax" assertion with evidence, and shame me in public...

Ah, the old "prove there's no God or obey the Church" dogma... How original...


1. When the conspiracy started.

Hoaxes similar to "global warming" predate written history. One example is a tribal shaman claiming that the sun will not go up in the morning unless he gets to have his way with a virgin the night before. Those lies were eventually formalized into popular mystical traditions and eventually evolved into religions, and in some ways have influenced the governments of the modern age. As the popular level of education has increased, so did the complexity of the hoax.


2. Why the conspiracy started.

Greed for unearned wealth and power.


3. Who started the conspiracy.

As I've stated above, this conspiracy does not have a definitive point of origin because it gradually evolved out of previous conspiracies: pagan traditions, mother earth, resisting evil spirits, mandate of heaven, the great chain of being, the divine right of kings, democracy, and so on. In every case, the conspiracy is perpetuated, whether wittingly or unwittingly, by a class of people who benefit from it.


4. Who is currently running the conspiracy.

You need to understand that complex systems emerge naturally when people act in their own interest: there is no central planner making sure there is a general store, a pharmacy, and a gas station in every town, people acting in their own interest open those establishments whenever an opportunity presents itself. And opportunities to take advantage of human stupidity are a dime a dozen.


5. Who isn't part of the conspiracy.

That's kind of like going back to 16th century Spain and asking who isn't a part of the "divine right of kings" conspiracy. The heretics being burned at the stake clearly aren't, but aside from that it gets pretty vague. Deep down, who knows what people truly believe...



6. The truth of the matter.

The truth of the matter is that human beings are fallible and untrustworthy, and should not be trusted to make rational decisions through a collective orthodoxy. When individual human beings are allowed to think for themselves, experiment, reap the individual consequences of their actions, and learn from their experiences as well as the experiences of others, free competition of ideas tends to result in social evolution: good ideas are favored over bad. That doesn't mean that bad ideas disappear outright, but only foolish individuals are harmed by them, while reasonable and cautious people have a chance to do what is right.

Some of the most fundamental ideas that human societies have throughout history found beneficial are called "natural rights" - the notion that cooperation is mutually beneficial, but only to a specific degree. The basis of this beneficial cooperation is "self-ownership" - rational economic actors (i.e. human beings) are most productive when they can expect other rational economic actors to recognize that they should not be killed, enslaved, raped, or stolen from. Societies that do the best job of protecting those rights tend to have a competitive advantage over societies that don't. Natural rights are protected through one's ability to defend oneself autonomously, to hire others to defend you, or to form mutual defense agreements with other individuals - in other words in a voluntary and decentralized manner, without any need for a centralized monopoly (i.e. government).

A natural right that becomes particularly important for societies that advance past the hunter-gatherer stage is the right to homestead, buy, sell, defend, manipulate, and otherwise rule one's private property. The ability to keep the consequences of one's actions (i.e. "fruits of your labor") for your own benefit creates an incentive for human beings to be ever-more productive, eventually learning to farm, build cities, write books, conduct scientific experiments, engineer better iPods, and so on.

Of course social evolution is not perfect, and throughout history individual rights have been recognized only to a degree. There have always been violent people doing great harm to others, but they've eventually learned that it is more profitable to ration one's violence - if you steal everything a productive person earns, he'll not bother working anymore, but if you only steal half then he'll continue working and you can steal from him again and again. Eventually those violent enterprises have evolved into regional monopolies called governments, and found new innovative ways to brainwash their victims to give up their loot peacefully and even willingly, using deception tactics like "God", "democracy", "global warming", or whatever other stories they find most effective in justifying their violence. People are taught to identify with the criminal enterprise that controls them, salute its flag, follow its rules, and so on. That has perpetuated an illusion that those violent monopolies are necessary to "rule" society, but in reality they have only kept a better, decentralized system of peer-to-peer governance from emerging.

So now let's get back to the specific issue of "global warming", which constitutes the ideal excuse for the governments' ultimate goal: worldwide control. For millenia governments have used divisive tactics to encourage the loyalty of their subjects - "serve me, or the neighboring king will conquer you and he's even worse than I am!" This regional competition has created a limit on tyranny to some degree, because the plebs could support the government that abuses them the least, thus creating historical success stories like Holland, England, and the United States that all other governments have been struggling to catch up to. With a world government in place, the plebs would have no where to go, and the entirety of the human civilization can be homogenized into a single control structure for the benefit of the ruling elite. The spin that the ruling classes will need to put on this massive power grab is very important - they need an alleged crisis that only world-wide central planning can cure. Thus we have the modern-day version of "worship us or the world will end" type of hoax.

The objective reality, that the ruling class is trying hard to suppress, is that we live in a plentiful universe that has mind-boggling quantities of natural resources. E does equal M times C squared, and there is a whole lot of M out there. Science and capitalism (which are one and the same really) have been tremendously effective in bringing about ever-better and ever-more-efficient power generation, transportation, and other technologies. The governments only stood in the way of progress, regulating the best technologies out of our hands, throwing trillions of dollars toward weaponization rather than market-driven innovations, subsidizing cheap production of the most primitive energy sources (i.e. oil and coal), preventing the establishment of market-driven commoditization of negative externalities (i.e. pollution), and so on. There is no "environmental crisis" except for the one the government has itself created!


[...] To me, it looks like a statement of extreme paranoia if not outright insanity.

It's called skepticism.

[Seren_]

Why do you feel the need to quote large extracts from the AnCap Little Red Book in every thread ?

[Alex Libman]

There are no quotations in my previous post.

Just 100% pure verbal diarrhea a la Alex Libman. ;)

[Megalodon]

Ah, the old "prove there's go God or obey the Church" dogma... How original...

The old "I have no evidence so I'll try some sleight of hand"... how dishonest.

Tell me Alex, isn't the slander of thousands of committed professionals akin to initiation of force in you wacky personal ideolwoogy?

Or is only force when harm is done to you?

[macdoc]

Casebro

I'm waiting for a few more years of satellite data before I make up my mind.

So far we've got 'proxies' instead of ancient temperatures, 'models' instead of contemporary data, and what contemporary data we have is finagled with an "urban heat island" adjustment. AND, it was all started by an avowedly exaggerated "hockey stick graph".

Tell you the truth, I half expect to hear that Obama tells the NASA/NOAA to fudge the data to make GW look worse. But if so, we won't hear about that for years.

Of course this is based on my understanding that one set of satellite data is surface temps, and another is incoming energy levels. Am I right about that?

same answer as to others...

a) temperature is a minor aspect - energy gain is critical....energy transforms are different depending on the geo-system observed.

b) it would seem the critters, aka biota - birds, fishes, mammals are in on this "conspiracy".....their change in migration patterns match to a warming planet....none of them read the news nonsense.....

For your browsing to see the confirmation

Biological systems just ignore human squabbles and get on coping with the change we inflict.
They are the best indicators of what we are seeing in climate change.

Analogue - birds, animals, fish, insects...

Insects
http://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-event...global-impact/

animals
http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/6-10-26/47436.html

birds
http://www.terradaily.com/2006/06102....5tvasjk8.html
http://www.twilightearth.com/2009/02...limate-change/

fish
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4541429.stm
http://aprn.org/2008/09/03/beaufort-sea-survey-finding-fish-moving-north-to-arctic-waters/

and to see the changes on a larger scale from mulit-discipline and including a portion of the cryosphere where change is happening most rapidly

http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/land.html

The energy aspect is critical - the latent heat for melting ice is very high so incredible amounts of heat are drawn out as glaciers and permafrost melt....so the local temperature may not change at all.....the cryosphere buffers our climate dramatically from intense and sudden swings..

Yet 600 plus cubic KM of net mass loss for glaciers alone occurs each year and that has accelerated in the past 3 decades...

Antarctic Ice Loss Speeds Up, Nearly Matches Greenland Loss
ScienceDaily (Jan. 24, 2008) — Ice loss in Antarctica increased by 75 percent in the last 10 years due to a speed-up in the flow of its glaciers and is now nearly as great as that observed in Greenland, according to a new, comprehensive study by NASA and university scientists.

continues..
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080123181952.htm

Satellites and ground stations only serve to confirm what is already observed...on a global and massive scale.....

[Safe-Keeper]

The truth of the matter is that human beings are fallible and untrustworthy, and should not be trusted to make rational decisions through a collective orthodoxy. When individual human beings are allowed to think for themselves, experiment, reap the individual consequences of their actions, and learn from their experiences as well as the experiences of others, free competition of ideas tends to result in social evolution: good ideas are favored over bad. That doesn't mean that bad ideas disappear outright, but only foolish individuals are harmed by them, while reasonable and cautious people have a chance to do what is right.

Some of the most fundamental ideas that human societies have throughout history found beneficial are called "natural rights" - the notion that cooperation is mutually beneficial, but only to a specific degree. The basis of this beneficial cooperation is "self-ownership" - rational economic actors (i.e. human beings) are most productive when they can expect other rational economic actors to recognize that they should not be killed, enslaved, raped, or stolen from. Societies that do the best job of protecting those rights tend to have a competitive advantage over societies that don't. Natural rights are protected through one's ability to defend oneself autonomously, to hire others to defend you, or to form mutual defense agreements with other individuals - in other words in a voluntary and decentralized manner, without any need for a centralized monopoly (i.e. government).

A natural right that becomes particularly important for societies that advance past the hunter-gatherer stage is the right to homestead, buy, sell, defend, manipulate, and otherwise rule one's private property. The ability to keep the consequences of one's actions (i.e. "fruits of your labor") for your own benefit creates an incentive for human beings to be ever-more productive, eventually learning to farm, build cities, write books, conduct scientific experiments, engineer better iPods, and so on.

Of course social evolution is not perfect, and throughout history individual rights have been recognized only to a degree. There have always been violent people doing great harm to others, but they've eventually learned that it is more profitable to ration one's violence - if you steal everything a productive person earns, he'll not bother working anymore, but if you only steal half then he'll continue working and you can steal from him again and again. Eventually those violent enterprises have evolved into regional monopolies called governments, and found new innovative ways to brainwash their victims to give up their loot peacefully and even willingly, using deception tactics like "God", "democracy", "global warming", or whatever other stories they find most effective in justifying their violence. People are taught to identify with the criminal enterprise that controls them, salute its flag, follow its rules, and so on. That has perpetuated an illusion that those violent monopolies are necessary to "rule" society, but in reality they have only kept a better, decentralized system of peer-to-peer governance from emerging.

So now let's get back to the specific issue of "global warming", which constitutes the ideal excuse for the governments' ultimate goal: worldwide control. For millenia governments have used divisive tactics to encourage the loyalty of their subjects - "serve me, or the neighboring king will conquer you and he's even worse than I am!" This regional competition has created a limit on tyranny to some degree, because the plebs could support the government that abuses them the least, thus creating historical success stories like Holland, England, and the United States that all other governments have been struggling to catch up to. With a world government in place, the plebs would have no where to go, and the entirety of the human civilization can be homogenized into a single control structure for the benefit of the ruling elite. The spin that the ruling classes will need to put on this massive power grab is very important - they need an alleged crisis that only world-wide central planning can cure. Thus we have the modern-day version of "worship us or the world will end" type of hoax.

The objective reality, that the ruling class is trying hard to suppress, is that we live in a plentiful universe that has mind-boggling quantities of natural resources. E does equal M times C squared, and there is a whole lot of M out there. Science and capitalism (which are one and the same really) have been tremendously effective in bringing about ever-better and ever-more-efficient power generation, transportation, and other technologies. The governments only stood in the way of progress, regulating the best technologies out of our hands, throwing trillions of dollars toward weaponization rather than market-driven innovations, subsidizing cheap production of the most primitive energy sources (i.e. oil and coal), preventing the establishment of market-driven commoditization of negative externalities (i.e. pollution), and so on. There is no "environmental crisis" except for the one the government has itself created!
Wow. Just wow. Move to History, Conspiracy Theories or Social Issues and Current Events?

As for the OP's quote, I want to address this one in particular:
Imagine how wonderful the world would be if man-made global warming were just a figment of Al Gore’s imagination. No more ugly wind farms to darken our sunlit uplands. No more whopping electricity bills, artificially inflated by EU-imposed carbon taxes. No longer any need to treat each warm, sunny day as though it were some terrible harbinger of ecological doom. And definitely no need for the $7.4 trillion cap and trade (carbon-trading) bill — the largest tax in American history — which President Obama and his cohorts are so assiduously trying to impose on the US economy.What is it with this new requirement, imposed seemingly only on wind turbines and hydroelectric power facilities, that they need to be aesthetically pleasing? Would the people that so oppose wind turbines rather have a coal power plant in their neighbourhood?

There are legitimate arguments against windfarms, just like there are legitimate arguments against every source of power. "It's ugly" surely can't be one of them.

[Twiler]

If there's no centralised conspiracy, then why would environmentalists provide evidence for global warming?

[Molinaro]

It's called skepticism.

Skepticism has nothing to do with imagining conspiratorial motives on behalf of 1000s of people you've never met.

[Pipirr]

I'm no editor, but this just doesn't strike me as front page worthy.

If it was the Royal Society saying not to worry about global warming, sure. But it isn't the Royal Society. It's just some guy that wrote a book.

[macdoc]

and millions of critters that can't read.....:garfield:

•••
Twiler
If there's no centralised conspiracy, then why would environmentalists provide evidence for global warming?

that's akin to "have you stopped beating y our wife yet? ":rolleyes:

It's only a "conspiracy" in your mind......climate science has observed warming and the science goes back a hundred years plus as to the GHG mechanism.

What environmentalist do with ANY scientific knowledge is up to the particular mandate of the group....

When senior climate scientists come out of the ivory tower and issue warnings.....best take heed as we did collectively with Ozone depletion and acid rain....
and act on it.....

There are more than climate reasons to go to C02 neutral

How bad could it be...

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said that if the*
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/13/scientist-warming-could-cut-population-to-1-billion/

Monaco declaration
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7860350.stm

MITs updated assessment
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090519134843.htm

Climate impact and policy resources compendium up to date
http://www.iisd.ca/publications_resources/climate_atm.htm

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6529307.ece

[BenBurch]

Next in Spectator Magazine; "Relax; AIDS is a Myth!"

[Safe-Keeper]

and millions of critters that can't read.....:garfield: ...and the melting permafrost, the 'drunken trees', receding glaciers, erratic storms and precipitation, temperatures increasing, and the melting Arctic... nature is in on it! Who knew the powers of the Illuminati could reach so far?

[Twiler]

Actually, I meant that if the supposed conspiracy is not centralised, as Alex Libman seems to believe, then he needs to give an explanation for environmentalists providing evidence of global warming, other than global warming being real. If there is no explanation, then such a conspiracy seems unlikely.

[Alex Libman]

The old "I have no evidence so I'll try some sleight of hand"... how dishonest.

For the millionth time, you government apologists clearly don't understand what "evidence" is! You are 100% identical to the Catholic inquisitors placing the burden of proof on the alleged atheists!

The burden of proof is on the buyer, not the seller. If there is violence involved, then the burden of proof is always on the party initiating the aggression, that is the government. If I shoot an intruder on my property, it is up to me to prove that I acted in self-defense! If the government steals money from me, "regulates" me, and so on then whatever moral imperatives or justifications it claims to have must stand the test of open inquiry!


Tell me Alex, isn't the slander of thousands of committed professionals akin to initiation of force in you wacky personal ideolwoogy? Or is only force when harm is done to you?

Free speech does not constitute aggression. Aggression is a violation of a natural (negative) right (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights). There's no such thing as "a right to force people to obey and silence their skepticism of the system you are forcing on them"!


Actually, I meant that if the supposed conspiracy is not centralised, as Alex Libman seems to believe, then he needs to give an explanation for environmentalists providing evidence of global warming, other than global warming being real. If there is no explanation, then such a conspiracy seems unlikely.

(1) Governments derive their power from the alleged need for centralized control over an economy.

(2) "Global Warming" represents a limitless excuse for centralized government control. Only an extraterrestrial invasion, an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, or a major pandemic would have a similar effect, and those are slightly more difficult to fake.

(3) The vast majority of academic and research institutions are either funded entirely by governments, or are controlled by them significantly. Interpret a complex set of variables the way your employer wants, and you have a cushy job and a feeling of academic righteousness. Interpret them undesirably, and you will find yourself teaching 4th grade science in an inner-city school for less than half the money.

Which part of this progression escapes you?

[macdoc]

what "evidence" is

Then why are the critters in on it.....??.:garfield:

have they been subverted too...seems we have another libby lurking....

[lomiller]

What was wrong with the hockey stick graph? (I'm honestly asking - I don't know much about it, but my impression was it turned out to be essentially correct, to within the uncertainties the authors themselves described.)

Long story short there was a legitimate error in the statistical method used in the original paper. This error was potentially serious, but it turned out that correcting the error didn’t actually change the final result. Applying other techniques entirely still gave the same result and there has also been a dozen or more papers since that reconstruct global climate, and all of them give similar results to MBH98.

End result is that while it’s conclusions were basically accurate, but if we only had MBH98 to look at we couldn't really be sure this was the case. Since we have many newer papers that say the same thing this is pretty much irrelevant at this point.

[Cavemonster]

You are 100% identical to the Catholic inquisitors placing the burden of proof on the alleged atheists!


You'd best be quiet, or we'll make you sit in the comfy chair!
gldlyTjXk9A

[Megalodon]

For the millionth time, you government apologists clearly don't understand what "evidence" is! You are 100% identical to the Catholic inquisitors placing the burden of proof on the alleged atheists!

Spare us the histrionics. You know nothing about me, or any of the thousands of scientists you're slandering.

Free speech does not constitute aggression. Aggression is a violation of a natural (negative) right (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights). There's no such thing as "a right to force people to obey and silence their skepticism of the system you are forcing on them"!

That's not free speech, that's slander. If I, as an example, say that Alex Libman is a convicted criminal, I am violating your right to a clean reputation.

Exactly the same way you are doing with thousands of scientists!

But as I suspected, it's only initiation of force if someone else does it to you... You are a hypocrite.

[Perpetual Student]

Whether GW is real or imaginary can only be verified through ongoing scientific investigation.
Unfortunately, there are political and financial rewards that favor both sides of this debate -- if they are correct. So the popular media is saturated with quasi-scientific propaganda from both sides. This leaves the poor scientifically challenged layman to fend for himself -- with unfortunate results. Personal beliefs have become linked to political dogma instead of genuine thought.
So far, any fair minded informed, rational layman would conclude that the evidence leans toward the reality of GW, but as s. i. said, there is reason to remain "skeptical about all scientific results, particularly those involving extremely complex systems like climate and weather."

[Alex Libman]

That's not free speech, that's slander. If I, as an example, say that Alex Libman is a convicted criminal, I am violating your right to a clean reputation.

I don't have a "right to a clean reputation". I earn it, or fail to do so, based on my own merits, without initiating aggression against others, which is what any slander laws in fact are.


But as I suspected, it's only initiation of force if someone else does it to you... You are a hypocrite.

I am actually in a position where I can sue some people for defamation on the grounds that opposing the drug prohibition does not make you a "crackhead", opposing the child pornography prohibition does not make you a "pedophile", and so on. Needless to say, I will not initiate legal proceedings, because I believe in unlimited free speech. You can disagree with my stated opinions, but you have absolutely no basis for call me a hypocrite.

[macdoc]

Perpetual Student wrote
Whether GW is real or imaginary can only be verified through ongoing scientific investigation.
Unfortunately, there are political and financial rewards that favor both sides of this debate -- if they are correct. So the popular media is saturated with quasi-scientific propaganda from both sides. This leaves the poor scientifically challenged layman to fend for himself -- with unfortunate results. Personal beliefs have become linked to political dogma instead of genuine thought.
So far, any fair minded informed, rational layman would conclude that the evidence leans toward the reality of GW, but as s. i. said, there is reason to remain "skeptical about all scientific results, particularly those involving extremely complex systems like climate and weather."

What reasons would those be.....care to argue with someone who knows....
would you like his email so you can tell him to be skeptical of what he KNOWS

e-mail: gammon@u.washington.edu

Here is what Gammon had to say concerning links between humans and climate change.

*“This is like asking, ‘Is the moon round?’ or ‘Does smoking cause cancer?’ We’re at a point now where there is no responsible position stating that humans are not responsible for climate change. That is just not where the science is.…For a long time, for at least five years and probably 10 years, the international scientific community has been very clear.”

In case there is any doubt, Gammon went on:
*"This is not the balance-of-evidence argument for a civil lawsuit; this is the criminal standard, beyond a reasonable doubt We’ve been there for a long time and I think the media has really not presented that to the public.”

Dr. Richard H. Gammon
Professor of Chemistry and Oceanography*
Adjunct Professor Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington



You may indeed and should be skeptical of proposals about what to do about it....that's where the skeptical eye should reside.....the science is clear.....the roll out and extent of the consequences.....less so....( timing, extent - for instance the Arctic is way way ahead of anticipated change timing )

[lomiller]

For the millionth time, you government apologists clearly don't understand what "evidence" is!

The peer reviewed literature and appropriate scientific bodies is the place to go for evidence. If you decide these are corrupt and suppressing the real facts, well, that’s an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary proof.

For a real skeptic, any suggestion that the peer reviewed literature and major scientific bodies are involved in some conspiracy or hoax *must* be accompanied with extraordinary proof. The reason for this is that rejecting these and using other sources instead allow you to “prove” just about anything. This includes, but is not limited to, Intelligent design, Moon landing = hoax, 9/11 conspiracy, UFO conspiracies, Homeopathy, etc.

In fact nearly every piece of crackpotery, quackery and woo at some point insists we much reject the views of the scientific community and accept their sources instead. It is in fact the seminal characteristic of such people. Therefore anyone who insists we should disregard the peer review literature and science organizations (in this case you) absolutely must come forward with extraordinary evidence. Now, will you provide such evidence or continue to wave your hands?

[Alex Libman]

The peer reviewed literature and appropriate scientific bodies is the place to go for evidence. If you decide these are corrupt and suppressing the real facts, well, that’s an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary proof.

Yeah, yeah... "A billion people pray to Allah! Emirs pray to Allah! Shahs pray to Allah! So you must pray to Allah! Or we'll chop your head off!"

Different gods, same tactics. Nice try, but the burden of proof is still on the seller.


For a real skeptic, any suggestion that the peer reviewed literature and major scientific bodies are involved in some conspiracy or hoax *must* be accompanied with extraordinary proof.

Nope. Take your Koran and shove it.


The reason for this is that rejecting these and using other sources instead allow you to “prove” just about anything. This includes, but is not limited to, Intelligent design, Moon landing = hoax, 9/11 conspiracy, UFO conspiracies, Homeopathy, etc.

I've just reiterated a very clear case for U.S. government complicity in 9/11 (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=147773). The moon landing can be independently verified, but it initially could have been a hoax, and skepticism of government power is always beneficial, especially when it comes to economically-irrational mega-projects like the moon landing (which could have been done by the free market a few decades later for 1/50th the cost).

The other issues you've listed are subjective cultural attributes that I am free to abstain from, so they should not be mixed into the same category.


In fact nearly every piece of crackpotery, quackery and woo at some point insists we much reject the views of the scientific community and accept their sources instead. It is in fact the seminal characteristic of such people. Therefore anyone who insists we should disregard the peer review literature and science organizations (in this case you) absolutely must come forward with extraordinary evidence. Now, will you provide such evidence or continue to wave your hands?

You're confusing science and government - the ultimate good and the ultimate evil as far as I'm concerned. You need to understand that science is a method, not a government-funded hierarchy of authority that must be obeyed uncritically.

[Perpetual Student]

Perpetual Student wrote


What reasons would those be.....care to argue with someone who knows....
would you like his email so you can tell him to be skeptical of what he KNOWS



The reasons are simply -- that ALL scientific theories are subject to revision, augmentation, or outright overturning -- complex models of chaotic systems like climate are especially tenuous. But, as I have already said, the evidence favors the reality of GW. I appears that it is quite unlikely that all of the observations supporting it are merely coincidence or fanciful.
Would I "care to argue with someone who knows"? Why would I do that? I have no basis for arguing against the reality of GW.

[lomiller]

Ah yes the old “science is just another religious belief!!!” argument. You can’t swing a dead cat in ID forums without running into that one.

[Safe-Keeper]

Alex, your "progression" is basically just a series of generalized political views with no examples or evidence:boggled:, but I'll address them anyhow.

(1) Governments derive their power from the alleged need for centralized control over an economy.But is the goal of every politician and government the complete and utter domination of the economy? The idea that the State is always, without exception, this evil bogeyman that's out to turn your nation into a dictatorship, and that every single regulation and governmental intervention, from seat belt laws to gun control, is a step towards this goal has worn itself a little thin in my ears over time. Give me memos. Give me secret meetings. Give me some solid evidence that our current world leaders are using AGW to turn our world into a new Soviet State.

Anyone - 9/11 conspiracy theorists easily come to mind - can make generalized references to past shamans, inquisitors, politicians and other people of power. I'm not interested in those. I want evidence our leaders are working to turn our world into USSR II, that they're using AGW to get this plan through, and that they've bribed enough scientists to accomplish this end that it makes the bribery of 9/11 conspiracy theories seem like nothing.

(2) "Global Warming" represents a limitless excuse for centralized government control. Only an extraterrestrial invasion, an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, or a major pandemic would have a similar effect, and those are slightly more difficult to fake.An asteroid on a collision course is more difficult to fake than global warming?

Global warming and its effect can be observed, and is observed, by countless people every day. Those of us who live in affected areas don't need some man in black to tell me weather patterns have become more erratic. Rather, we often feel we're the ones telling everyone else. Telling me global warming doesn't exist is like telling a Manhattan resident that planes can't be hijacked and used as missiles.

An inbound alien invasion fleet or asteroid, on the other hand? How do we laymen without hugely powerful telescopes disprove that one? Seriosly, do you propose I should go out into our backyard with our hobby telescopes and try to spot the threat for then to calculate its trajectory with our pocket calculators?

If I was a government agency with the world's entire scientific body in my employ, an asteroid disaster about to happen would be far higher on my list than AGW - it's harder to disprove, more of a threat, and can't be as easily by ridiculous cop-outs like "it's happened before, and we're still around, therefore it must be harmless!". Try using the "we'll adapt" bullocks with an inbound asteroid packing the blast power to punch an Australia-sized hole in the Earth.

More on topic, though, the fact that AGW is a "limitless excuse" to get some arbitrarily decided-upon plan through doesn't automatically mean it's false. Osama bin Laden's attack on the WTC on 9/11 provided Bush with ample excuse to invade Iraq, but it doesn't automatically follow from this that 9/11 was an inside job. The sale of cancer remedies is possibly big business for "Big Pharma", but it doesn't follow from this statement that the cancer remedies must be worthless.

(3) The vast majority of academic and research institutions are either funded entirely by governments, or are controlled by them significantly. Interpret a complex set of variables the way your employer wants, and you have a cushy job and a feeling of academic righteousness. Interpret them undesirably, and you will find yourself teaching 4th grade science in an inner-city school for less than half the money. The problem with this line of reasoning, and the variations put forward by the salesmen of Creationism, the supernatural, alternative medicine, and the flat earth, is that I have a feeling you don't dis science when it tells you things that do not interfere with your political views or philosophies. I bet you paid attention when the scientists told us about the discovery of Ida or their new advancements in the fight against cancer. It's only when their pet theory is questioned, be it Creationism, homoeopathy, or a magical earth with no temperature variations, that science is all of a sudden corrupted, controlled by Big {relevant evil agency here}, anti-{your religion or ideology} and essentially untrustworthy and worthless.

For the millionth time, you government apologists clearly don't understand what "evidence" is! AGW doesn't come from governments more than it comes from Al Gore.

[Undesired Walrus]

Yeah, yeah... "A billion people pray to Allah! Emirs pray to Allah! Shahs pray to Allah! So you must pray to Allah! Or we'll chop your head off!"


I'm scratching my head trying to work out what relation this has to what lomiller said. Are you saying that when scientists fight their way through the system, holding their claims up to vigorous standards of scrutiny (peer-review), this is somehow a bad thing?

[TellyKNeasuss]

The burden of proof is on the buyer, not the seller.
.
.
.
(1) Governments derive their power from the alleged need for centralized control over an economy.

(2) "Global Warming" represents a limitless excuse for centralized government control. Only an extraterrestrial invasion, an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, or a major pandemic would have a similar effect, and those are slightly more difficult to fake.

(3) The vast majority of academic and research institutions are either funded entirely by governments, or are controlled by them significantly. Interpret a complex set of variables the way your employer wants, and you have a cushy job and a feeling of academic righteousness. Interpret them undesirably, and you will find yourself teaching 4th grade science in an inner-city school for less than half the money.

OK, do you you want everyone else to do: provide proof that there is a conspiracy and that one or more governments are involved in it. Motive (not that your alleged motive is at all credible - there are far better ways that the government can scare its citizenry than by claiming that if they don't reduce fossil fuel usage then coastal cities might be flooded at some point after most of the current population has died) and opportunity do not constitute proof. I had the motive (we all could use more money) and the opportunity (everyone at my end of the hall is either on vacation or on business travel, so no one would have noticed had I slipped out for an hour) to rob a bank this morning.

[macdoc]

Libman take a hint :rolleyes:

[Alex Libman]

(Burned out for a while - will reply to everything else if I'm not banned later this week, but that's a big if.)


Libmantake a hint :rolleyes:

I use my real name online. Why is my Russian-Jewish heritage relevant here?

[macdoc]

May be indeed - may not be..... but a "alex libman" libertarian google search is oddly enlightning....:whistling

why even a search on JREF turns up this



I always find it amusing how, no matter the issue, a Libertarian always manages to get their Libertarianism into the argument. Alex Libman is an example. I don't think he has made a single post that has not been about his Anarcho-Libertarianism.
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=4553727#post4553727

Methinks the lady doth protest o'er much

This IS a science forum....Politics and CT over yonder.....:garfield:

[Prometheus]

I guess I don't think "conspiracy" is the right word. I think "Conspiracy" means "for a group to plan together in secret". I don't think there was any "AGW Denial Planning Group". I think Mann's hockey stick started it, and a bunch of other people who thought that jumping on the band wagon would be good for their individual vested interests. Like the way many individual oil speculators drove up the price of gas a couple years ago. Or the way the stock market works- "Look, stock ABC is going up, BUY IT", which drives the price up, and others also buy it. But no conspiracy, just traders who spot a good thing.

Some with personal interests that would gain advantage via a AGW scare:

1) Weather non-scientist bloggers , who got grantskickbacks/advertising/jobs/limelight.

2) Right-wing News media, who realize scaryangry paranoid news sells papers

3)Politicians who live by the maxim "Keep the people scaredignorant and riled up, then they will vote for me to lead them to safetyFantasy Island".

4) Anti-Environmental organizations, similar to #3, but instead of votes, greater notoriety and $$$ in donations.

5) "Clean Dirty Industries" like "clean coal".like solar energy

6) Now to add the US Governmentprevious administration, with various tax proposals that will pay for tax breaks for billionaires, while forcing a financial meltdown that will cause the next guy to have to issue the various bail outs. And to fund moreless clean energy, see #5 above. This, #6, is the most conspiratorial chapter.

So, the proof of the pudding will be in the satelliteis in the massive amount of diverse data, but wait a couple years for the whistle blowerspolar bears or the lack thereof.

You know, once all the typographical errors have been fixed, I think I you're right! :rolleyes:

[Prometheus]

Wow. Just wow. Move to History, Conspiracy Theories or Social Issues and Current Events?

As for the OP's quote, I want to address this one in particular:
What is it with this new requirement, imposed seemingly only on wind turbines and hydroelectric power facilities, that they need to be aesthetically pleasing? Would the people that so oppose wind turbines rather have a coal power plant in their neighbourhood?

There are legitimate arguments against windfarms, just like there are legitimate arguments against every source of power. "It's ugly" surely can't be one of them.

It's because no one builds coal/nuclear powerplants in rich peoples' back yards (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Wind).

[BenBurch]

You know, once all the typographical errors have been fixed, I think I you're right! :rolleyes:

Where is the "high five" smiley?

[varwoche]

It's inaccurate to call global warming a "myth".

"Hoax" is a much more appropriate word. You're not the first to make such a claim. Getting a vaguely coherent explanation of these claims, much less evidence, has proven to be elusive however. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=104463) You (yes you) can be the first, though it doesn't look very promising so far.

[Megalodon]

You can disagree with my stated opinions, but you have absolutely no basis for call me a hypocrite.

Why should I need a basis? You don't have a right to a clean reputation, and you certainly haven't earned one...

[JihadJane]

What is the deniers' obsession with Al Gore?

Most groups have their special friend demon, like Alex Jones to the 911's Truers.



The objective reality, that the ruling class is trying hard to suppress, is that we live in a plentiful universe that has mind-boggling quantities of natural resources.

We live on planet Earth and earth feeds us. Because of the temporary abundance provided by fossil fuels we are probably in population overshoot.

[Corsair 115]

It's inaccurate to call global warming a "myth".

"Hoax" is a much more appropriate word.


The follow-up questions then being: Perpetrated by whom and to what purpose?

[Megalodon]

Alex seems to have left the building...

[Poptech]

Ok, one more of the deep end... Professor in Mining Geology, that's all the credentials I need to trust a non peer reviewed publication that purports to upturn a complete field of science (and the corroboratory evidence from several others). :rolleyes:

Ian R. Plimer, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne

[Poptech]

What was wrong with the hockey stick graph? (I'm honestly asking - I don't know much about it, but my impression was it turned out to be essentially correct, to within the uncertainties the authors themselves described.)
It is a fraudulent reproduction of temperature proxies where the program used to produce the historic temperature curve produced a hockey stick shape even when fed junk data.

"Simulations with red noise do lead to hockey sticks. McIntyre and McKitrick’s criticism on the hockey stick from 1998 is entirely valid on this particular point." - Hans von Storch, Ph.D. Climate Statistics Specialist

What is the ‘Hockey Stick’ Debate About? (http://www.uoguelph.ca/%7Ermckitri/research/APEC-hockey.pdf) (PDF) (Ross McKitrick, Ph.D. Professor of Environmental Economics)

Corrections to the Mann et al (1998) Proxy Data Base and Northern Hemisphere Average Temperature Series (http://www.uoguelph.ca/%7Ermckitri/research/MM03.pdf) (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 14, Number 6, pp. 751-771, November 2003)
- Stephen McIntyre, Ross McKitrick

The M&M Critique of the MBH98 Northern Hemisphere Climate Index: Update and Implications (http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/mcintyre.ee.2005.pdf) (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 16, Number 1, pp. 69-100, January 2005)
- Stephen McIntyre, Ross McKitrick

Hockey sticks, principal components, and spurious significance (http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/mcintyre.grl.2005.pdf)
(Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 32, February 2005)
- Stephen McIntyre, Ross McKitrick

Their method, when tested on persistent red noise, nearly always produces a hockey stick shape...

[macdoc]

:v: Critters beg to differ.....the hockey stick confirms THEIR assessment - and they at least, unlike certain hairy beach apes get on with adapting....:garfield:

You need to get out more....y'know real world n'all....that 100%er place where analogue rules....

[Poptech]

"The Hockey Stick" is a discredited farce.

Hockey Stick - What is Normal? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LUHNYznNXI) (Video) (8min)

[macdoc]

The critters response is real.....unlike your nonsense....


04 March 2009

Climate change is already having a detectable impact on certain species struggling to survive in Wales.

Today [Wednesday 4 March], a group of scientists have published findings that create the world’s first indicator of the climate change impacts on wildlife across Europe.

Published in the journal PloS ONE, scientists have shown a strong link between the already observed population changes of individual species and the projected range change associated with climate change, among a number of widespread and common European birds. By pulling both sets of data together, the team has compiled an indicator showing how climate change is affecting wildlife across Europe.

continues

http://www.rspb.org.uk/news/details.asp?id=tcm:9-211865

So explain how the biota are misguided.....THEY know it's warming....you're just deluded in thinking it's not......

See unlike you ...I have hundreds of papers and observations from primary science sources confirming the analogue signal...you have nothing but discredited trash whose "best by date" is long long past...

[Poptech]

Yawn, yes there is evidence for a mild warming trend since the LIA. This is hardly news.

Mac, you seem obsessed with this yet I never made no claim disputing the existence of climate change.

[Poptech]

What is the deniers' skeptics obsession with Al Gore? He made a film about established science that was already discussed all over the media. And for all the fuss about it at the time, I still don't even know anyone who's actually seen it. Why do deniers skeptics like to parade Gore around as some kind of anti-Messiah who invented the entire thing?
Al Gore, B.A. Government, Divinity and Law School Dropout (no science degree)

The Education of Al Gore (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2000/mar/25/20000325-011032-8259r/) (The Washington Times)

Mr. Gore's high school performance on the college board achievement tests in physics (488 out of 800 "terrible," St. Albans retired teacher and assistant headmaster John Davis told The Post) and chemistry (519 out of 800 "He didn't do too well in chemistry," Mr. Davis observed) suggests that Mr. Gore would have trouble with science for the rest of his life. At Harvard and Vanderbilt, Mr. Gore continued bumbling along.

As a Harvard sophomore, scholar Al "earned" a D in Natural Sciences 6 in a course presciently named "Man's Place in Nature." That was the year he evidently spent more time smoking cannabis than studying its place among other plants within the ecosystem. His senior year, Mr. Gore received a C+ in Natural Sciences 118.

At Vanderbilt divinity school, Mr. Gore took a course in theology and natural science. The assigned readings included the apocalyptic, and widely discredited "Limits to Growth," which formed much of the foundation for "Earth in the Balance." It is said that Mr. Gore failed to hand in his book report on time. Thus, his incomplete grade turned into an F, one of five Fs Mr. Gore received at divinity school, which may well be a worldwide record.Al Gore is directly responsible for the current hysteria especially in the United States. He made a science fiction film that has been debunked in a court of law and in science journals. But he clearly did not invent the alarmism, that was started by James Hansen, Gore only created the recent hysteria all based on fallacies and his science fiction fantasy.

Proof: 'An Inconvenient Truth' is Science Fiction (http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?RsrcID=2214) (Video) (1min)

Judge attacks nine errors in Al Gore's 'alarmist' climate change film (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=486969&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source) (Daily Mail, UK)

20 More inaccuracies (http://www.ukprwire.com/Detailed/Science/Al_Gore_s_Inconvenient_Truth_More_inaccuracies_123 42.shtml) (PDF (http://www.newparty.co.uk/UserFiles/File/carterstatement.pdf)) (UKPRwire)

35 Inconvenient Truths: The errors in Al Gore’s movie (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html) (Science & Public Policy Institute)

A Skeptic's Guide to An Inconvenient Truth (http://www.cei.org/pdf/5820.pdf) (PDF) (Marlo Lewis Jr. Ph.D.)
Unmasking "An Inconvenient Truth" (http://www.ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20070330_kininmonth.pdf) (PDF) (William Kininmonth, M.Sc. Retired Head of the Australian National Climate Centre)

An Inconvenient Truth : a focus on its portrayal of the hydrologic cycle (http://www.springerlink.com/content/183521n688t7817g/) (David R. Legates, GeoJournal, Volume 70, Number 1, September 2007)

An Inconvenient Truth : blurring the lines between science and science fiction (http://www.springerlink.com/content/y4116185812q1653/) (Roy W. Spencer, GeoJournal, Volume 70, Number 1, September 2007)

[Wangler]

Quoted by macdoc:

"We’re at a point now where there is no responsible position stating that humans are not responsible for climate change." Dr. Gannon

MacDoc, do you have any idea if he (Dr. Gannon) means that humans are perhaps responsible for accelerating climate change, or are wholly responsible for climate change?

[Poptech]

If there's no centralised conspiracy, then why would environmentalists provide evidence for global warming?
Lets put all the conspiracy theories to rest. So can everyone who supports AGW theory please answer this question:

"Socialism or Free Market Capitalism?"

[TellyKNeasuss]

Ian R. Plimer, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne

We were all aware of Dr. Plimer's title. Is there a reason why you felt compelled to mention this (and even bold it)?

[TellyKNeasuss]

Al Gore, B.A. Government, Divinity and Law School Dropout (no science degree)

The Education of Al Gore (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2000/mar/25/20000325-011032-8259r/) (The Washington Times)

Al Gore is directly responsible for the current hysteria especially in the United States. He made a science fiction film that has been debunked in a court of law and in science journals. But he clearly did not invent the alarmism, that was started by James Hansen, Gore only created the recent hysteria all based on fallacies and his science fiction fantasy.

Proof: 'An Inconvenient Truth' is Science Fiction (http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?RsrcID=2214) (Video) (1min)

Judge attacks nine errors in Al Gore's 'alarmist' climate change film (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=486969&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source) (Daily Mail, UK)

20 More inaccuracies (http://www.ukprwire.com/Detailed/Science/Al_Gore_s_Inconvenient_Truth_More_inaccuracies_123 42.shtml) (PDF (http://www.newparty.co.uk/UserFiles/File/carterstatement.pdf)) (UKPRwire)

35 Inconvenient Truths: The errors in Al Gore’s movie (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html) (Science & Public Policy Institute)

A Skeptic's Guide to An Inconvenient Truth (http://www.cei.org/pdf/5820.pdf) (PDF) (Marlo Lewis Jr. Ph.D.)
Unmasking "An Inconvenient Truth" (http://www.ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20070330_kininmonth.pdf) (PDF) (William Kininmonth, M.Sc. Retired Head of the Australian National Climate Centre)

An Inconvenient Truth : a focus on its portrayal of the hydrologic cycle (http://www.springerlink.com/content/183521n688t7817g/) (David R. Legates, GeoJournal, Volume 70, Number 1, September 2007)

An Inconvenient Truth : blurring the lines between science and science fiction (http://www.springerlink.com/content/y4116185812q1653/) (Roy W. Spencer, GeoJournal, Volume 70, Number 1, September 2007)

Believe it or not, few people here formed their opinion on climate change from watching An Inconvenient Truth. I realize that deniers need to turn everything into a personality issue because they don't have the science to back up their opinions, but you really are boring us with this.

[TellyKNeasuss]

Lets put all the conspiracy theories to rest. So can everyone who supports AGW theory please answer this question:

"Socialism or Free Market Capitalism?"

This has what relevance to global warming?

[Poptech]

We were all aware of Dr. Plimer's title. Is there a reason why you felt compelled to mention this (and even bold it)?
Actually you are not aware of his background in environmental science only his current position.

Believe it or not, few people here formed their opinion on climate change from watching An Inconvenient Truth. I realize that deniers skeptics need to turn everything into a personality issue because they don't have the science to back up their opinions, but you really are boring us with this.
This was in direct response to the inquiry about Gore. I have the science to back up my opinions.

This has what relevance to global warming?
I am attempting to put conspiracy theories to a rest please answer the question.

[Poptech]

The same government that until quite recently denied AGW to the point of altering scientific reports?
Total Lie.

Science vs. Expert Opinion: Did the Bush Administration Really Censor Science? (http://ff.org/images/stories/sciencecenter/science_vs_expert_opinion.pdf) (PDF) (Center for Science and Public Policy)

[Poptech]

The peer reviewed literature and appropriate scientific bodies is the place to go for evidence.
And when you go to the peer review literature (all of it) you can come to very different conclusions.

Climate Change Reconsidered (http://www.heartland.org/publications/NIPCC%20report/PDFs/NIPCC%20Final.pdf) (PDF) (NIPCC)

Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions? (http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/0809.3762.pdf) (PDF) (Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Atmospheric Science, MIT)

Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don't Want You to Know (2009) (http://www.catostore.org/index.asp?fa=ProductDetails&method=&pid=1441420) (Patrick J. Michaels, Ph.D. Ecological Climatology ; Robert C. Balling, Ph.D. Professor of Climatology)

[Poptech]

Ah yes the old “science is just another religious belief!!!” argument.
Science may not be religious but environmentalism is.

Environmentalism as Religion (http://www.michaelcrichton.com/speech-environmentalismaseligion.html) (Michael Crichton, A.B. Anthropology, M.D. Harvard)
[/URL]
[URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idYdVQ6nwfA"]Environmentalism Is the New Religion (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv9OSxTy1aU) (Video) (5min) (Ian R. Plimer, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus of Earth Sciences)

Hey look there is our buddy Dr. Plimer who is a supporter of evolution and a skeptic of all things in the tradition of JREF. Yet because he is skeptical of AGW - he cannot be trusted! LMAO!

[BenBurch]

Have anything for us other than linkspam, Poptech? Anything at all? Anything with some actual merit? Anything that is not another collection of Republican lies?

[Poptech]

Have anything for us other than linkspam, Poptech? Anything at all? Anything with some actual merit? Anything that is not another collection of Republican lies?
I have extensive information which I linked for you, it is not spam. All of it has merit and nothing of it has to do with the U.S. Republican political party.

So Ben lets put the conspiracies to rest:

"Socialism or Free Market Capitalism?"

[BenBurch]

False Dichotomy.

[TellyKNeasuss]

We were all aware of Dr. Plimer's title. Is there a reason why you felt compelled to mention this (and even bold it)? Actually you are not aware of his background in environmental science only his current position.

Am I supposed to be impressed? I know more than a dozen people who have Ph.D.'s in meteorology/climatology/atmospheric chemistry/environmental science.


This was in direct response to the inquiry about Gore. I have the science to back up my opinions.

When are you going to start posting some of it?

I am attempting to put conspiracy theories to a rest please answer the question.

I don't know what it's asking. It isn't a complete sentence. IIRC, a complete sentence needs a verb, and none of those words are verbs.

[TellyKNeasuss]

And when you go to the peer review literature (all of it) you can come to very different conclusions.

Climate Change Reconsidered (http://www.heartland.org/publications/NIPCC%20report/PDFs/NIPCC%20Final.pdf) (PDF) (NIPCC)

Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions? (http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/0809.3762.pdf) (PDF) (Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Atmospheric Science, MIT)

Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don't Want You to Know (2009) (http://www.catostore.org/index.asp?fa=ProductDetails&method=&pid=1441420) (Patrick J. Michaels, Ph.D. Ecological Climatology ; Robert C. Balling, Ph.D. Professor of Climatology)

I guess I'm the one who is stuck having to break the news to you, but none of those are articles from peer-reviewed scientific journals.

[Poptech]

False Dichotomy.
Then please list your economic system of choice.

Am I supposed to be impressed? I know more than a dozen people who have Ph.D.'s in meteorology/climatology/atmospheric chemistry/environmental science.
I made no claim you should be impressed. This is merely to show his background in environmental science as opposed to what is portrayed here.

When are you going to start posting some of it?
I have posted it extensively. I suggest reading my posts.

I don't know what it's asking. It isn't a complete sentence. IIRC, a complete sentence needs a verb, and none of those words are verbs.
Yes of course word games are good way to not answer. Begin with "do you support...."

I guess I'm the one who is stuck having to break the news to you, but none of those are articles from peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Really? Amazing, I had not idea (that was sarcasm for the slow). Except for the fact that they reference hundreds of peer-reviewed papers.

[macdoc]

Originally Posted by Poptech
And when you go to the peer review literature (all of it) you can come to very different conclusions.

Climate Change Reconsidered (PDF) (NIPCC)

Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions? (PDF) (Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Atmospheric Science, MIT)

Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don't Want You to Know (2009) (Patrick J. Michaels, Ph.D. Ecological Climatology ; Robert C. Balling, Ph.D. Professor of Climatology)

Heartland junk :rolleyes:
wearisome nonsense....

The Inconvenient Truth about Robert C. Balling

In a recent post in The Citizen.com, Dr. Robert C. Balling, director of theOffice of Climatology at Arizona State University, launches pseudo-scientific attack on Al Gore's move, An Inconvenient Truth.

As with a clutch of other industry-funded academics who quibble over climate change, Dr. Balling is happy to use his Ph.D. and his title to suggest expertise and to imply scientific objectivity. But readers might be better able to judge the quality of his input if they knew that he has been the eager recipient of funding from such philanthropic organizations as ExxonMobil, the British Coal Corporation, Cyprus Minerals and OPEC. Per the link above, Sourcewatch lists his take from these sources at a little over $400,000 in the last 10 years.

Lindtzen is a discredited joke....... and the NIPCC??

:dl:

Like a sulky bunch of 6 year olds afraid of reality......or paid to muddy the waters....

The critters loudly think you are full of it......

Rijnsdorp, A. D., Peck, M. A., Engelhard, G. H., Möllmann, C., and Pinnegar, J. K. 2009. Resolving the effect of climate change on fish
populations. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 66: 1570–1583.

This paper develops a framework for the study of climate on fish populations based on first principles of physiology, ecology, and available observations. Environmental variables and oceanographic features that are relevant to fish and that are likely to be affected by climate change are reviewed. Working hypotheses are derived from the differences in the expected response of different species groups.
A review of published data on Northeast Atlantic fish species representing different biogeographic affinities, habitats, and body size lends support to the hypothesis that global warming results in a shift in abundance and distribution (in patterns of occurrence with latitude and depth) of fish species. Pelagic species exhibit clear changes in seasonal migration patterns related to climate-induced changes in zooplankton productivity.
http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/66/7/1570

Just science.....

http://www.globalchange.gov/templates/globalchange/images/logo.png
Key findings....

1. Global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced.
Global temperature has increased over the past 50 years. This observed increase is due primarily to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases. (p. 13)

2. Climate changes are underway in the United States and are projected to grow.
Climate-related changes are already observed in the United States and its coastal waters. These include increases in heavy downpours, rising temperature and sea level, rapidly retreating glaciers, thawing permafrost, lengthening growing seasons, lengthening ice-free seasons in the ocean and on lakes and rivers, earlier snowmelt, and alterations in river flows. These changes are projected to grow. (p. 27)

3. Widespread climate-related impacts are occurring now and are expected to increase.
Climate changes are already affecting water, energy, transportation, agriculture, ecosystems, and health. These impacts are different from region to region and will grow under projected climate change. (p. 41-106, 107-152)

lots more

http://www.globalchange.gov/publications/reports/scientific-assessments/us-impacts/key-findings

http://www.globalchange.gov/
Do not hot link pictures.

[Poptech]

No Mac they are only discredited in your own mind.

MIT's inconvenient scientist (http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2006/08/30/mits_inconvenient_scientist/)

Here's the kind of information the ``scientific consensus" types don't want you to read. MIT's Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology Richard Lindzen recently complained about the ``shrill alarmism" of Gore's movie ``An Inconvenient Truth." Lindzen acknowledges that global warming is real, and he acknowledges that increased carbon emissions might be causing the warming -- but they also might not.

I decided to check out Lindzen for myself. He wasn't hard to find on the 16th floor of MIT's I.M. Pei-designed Building 54, and he answered as many questions as I had time to ask.

He's smart. He's an effective debater. No wonder the Steve Schneiders and Al Gores of the world don't want you to hear from him. It's easier to call someone a shill and accuse him of corruption than to debate him on the merits.

[Poptech]

LMAO, first Mac goes to Thinkprogress which is why he did not link to the Dr. Balling smear, which of course links to sourcewatch, who's credibility is no better than Wikipedia!!! Mac you are desperate and it is clear now you are scared someone might read what I post.

Sourcewatch

$$$ Funded by The Center for Media and Democracy (http://www.prwatch.org/)

- Sourcewatch (http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupprofile.asp?grpid=7352) (Discover the Networks)

SourceWatch seeks to expose what it calls the "propaganda activities of public relations firms" and the activities of organizations working "on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests." These "exposes," which tend to be critical of their subjects, deal predominantly with conservative entities... [...]

As with the online reference Wikipedia, the contents of SourceWatch are written and edited by ordinary Web users. Says SourceWatch: "You don't need any special credentials to participate -- we shun credentialism along with other propaganda techniques." While stating that it seeks to maintain fairness in the profiles and articles appearing on its website, SourceWatch does acknowledge that "ignoring systemic bias and claiming objectivity is itself one of many well-known propaganda techniques." [...]

...The perspectives are mostly leftist; the entries rely heavily on leftist and far-leftist sources.- Center for Media and Democracy (http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7353) (Discover the Networks)

An anti-capitalist, anti-corporate organization that seeks to expose right-wing "public relations spin and propaganda".

In CMD's view, capitalism generally, and corporations in particular, are the principal root causes of societal ills in the U.S. and abroad. The Capital Research Center, which rates the ideological leanings of nonprofit organizations, places CMD near the extreme far left of the spectrum. The website ActivistCash, which provides "information about the funding source[s] of radical anti-consumer organizations and activists," characterizes CMD as "a counterculture public relations effort disguised as an independent media organization." [...]

CMD was founded by the leftist writer and environmental activist John Stauber, who continues to serve as the Center's Executive Director. Stauber began his activism in high school when he organized anti-Vietnam War protests and early Earth Day events. The co-author (with SourceWatch founder Sheldon Rampton) of six books, Stauber created the now-defunct website Vote2StopBush.org. He is also an unpaid advisor to several organizations, including the Action Coalition for Media Education, the Center for Food Safety, the Liberty Tree Foundation, the Media Education Foundation, and the Organic Consumers Association.

The aforementioned Sheldon Rampton currently serves as CMD's Research Director. A graduate of Princeton University, Rampton was formerly an outreach coordinator for the Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua, a group established in 1984 to oppose President Reagan's efforts to stop the spread of Communism in Central America, and currently dedicated to promoting a leftist vision of "social justice in Nicaragua through alternative models of development and activism."

An April 2001 commentary in the liberal publication Village Voice said of Rampton and Stauber: "These guys come from the far side of liberal."

Hey look real scientists who do not agree with Mac's alarmism, amazing!

Robert C. Balling Jr., Ph.D. Professor of Climatology, Arizona State University (http://geography.asu.edu/balling)
Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Atmospheric Science, MIT (http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen.htm)

We will now pretend they do not exist to make you feel better.

[lomiller]

False Dichotomy.

And completely non-sequitur

[macdoc]

Hey look real scientists who do not agree with Mac's alarmism, amazing!a ) scientists with tainted backgrounds of "science for sale"

b) don't attribute ...Pop...the critters being OBSERVED as they cope with the reality you deny, disapprove..

We know the your fishing pool is severely challenged for even agreeable minnows...even the one somewhat credible gadfly Pelke Sr has gone over the edge recently..
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/07/more-bubkes/

..to the dissension in the ranks at the Heartland conference which was amusing...

As a physicist, I am concerned that some skeptics (a very few) are ignoring the physical basis,” Dr. Singer said in an e-mail message. “There is one who denies that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, which goes against actual data,” Dr. Singer said, adding that other skeptics wrongly contend that “humans are not responsible for the measured increase in atmospheric CO2.”
There are notable absences from the conference this year. Russell Seitz, a physicist from Cambridge, Mass., gave a talk at last year’s meeting. But Dr. Seitz, who has lambasted environmental campaigners as distorting climate science, now warns that the skeptics are in danger of doing the same thing.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/science/earth/09climate.html

fools counseling the blind...some so bad like your viewpoint that even the likes of Seitz and Singer can't stomach it...

Your "it's the sun" as a case in point...Lindzen's comment...

Speaking of the sun’s slight variability, he said, “Acting as though this is the alternative” to blaming greenhouse gases “is asking for trouble.”Keystone Kops come to mind....:garfield:

[Poptech]

a ) scientists with tainted backgrounds of "science for sale"
This is not the conspiracy section.

b) don't attribute ...Pop...the critters being OBSERVED as they cope with the reality you deny, disapprove..
You have some bizarre obsession with "critters". Now you are lying. I have never denied climate change.

Do you think just constantly throwing out offtopic stuff like this makes any sense?

even the one somewhat credible gadfly Pelke Sr has gone over the edge recently..
Shock another REAL scientist who does not agree with the alarmists at RealClimate. Thanks for proving my point.

Response By Roger A. Pielke Sr. To The Real Climate Weblog “More Bubkes” (http://climatesci.org/2009/07/02/response-by-roger-a-pielke-sr-to-the-real-climate-weblog-more-bubkes/)

..to the dissension in the ranks at the Heartland conference which was amusing...

fools counseling the blind...some so bad like your viewpoint that even the likes of Seitz and Singer can't stomach it...
You have no idea what you are talking about. The NYT takes out of context comments to create controversy. Singer helped write the NIPCC report and Seitz does not believe in alarmism.

Your "it's the sun" as a case in point...Lindzen's comment...
Where did I state Lindzen supports this? You will find debate between many skeptical scientists as to the cause but you will find complete agreement that there is no alarm.

Mac you are REALLY slow all this stuff is old news.

[SezMe]

It is remarkably convenient that just as Libman takes a permanent powder, Poptech steps in with his heaping plate of absolute certitude. Ugh.

[macdoc]

out of context comments to create controversy

:dl:

Everything you post POP is old news or distorted crap from discredited sources....

http://www.scienceprogress.org/2008/04/manufactroversy/

Now about those 5 Nature papers supporting your view ( whatever that maybe ) you so conveniently ignore the request for....:garfield:

This IS a science forum - not a dumping ground for your libbylight denier garbage.....
••

So you say you don't deny climate change.....we'll assume you mean CURRENT climate change - just to be sure since you like to weasel word things.....

Then please explain what is the driver for the current increase in energy in the global geo-systems???

and be prepared to defend

the physics behind it

the observations it is based on

how GHG mechanism has suddenly stopped in favour of your driver.....

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m269/macdoc/Picture5-1.png

[Megalodon]

Finally the cover is down... After all these threads, what Poppy actually wanted to say was something like:

'The science it's wrong because the free market couldn't have screwed up so badly. Scientists are all godless socialists!'

The typical right wing manure... And as a good obstructionist, he's littering the forum whit lies that have been debunked time and time again.

[Poptech]

Everything you post POP is old news or distorted crap from discredited sources....
Nope they are not distorted crap or discredited.

http://www.scienceprogress.org/ (http://www.scienceprogress.org/2008/04/manufactroversy/)
LMAO yes more progressive nonsense.

Now about those 5 Nature papers supporting your view ( whatever that maybe ) you so conveniently ignore the request for
Oh now it is just Nature? Not the subjective "high-impact". I already posted them and will GLADLY post my whole citation list again. Just get permission from the moderators.

Then please explain what is the driver for the current increase in energy in the global geo-systems???I am still waiting for your scientific evidence of AGW without using computer climate models.

Finally the cover is down... After all these threads, what Poppy actually wanted to say was something like:

'The science it's wrong because the free market couldn't have screwed up so badly. Scientists are all godless socialists!'
No what I said was lets put conspiracies to rest so will every AGW supporter answer the following question,

"Do you support Socialism or Free Market Capitalism?"

I am not right wing or religious so please keep trying because it is laughably embarrassing to watch your desperation. Don't be afraid to answer as it is clear EVERYONE here is (and I suspect why)

[Megalodon]

You were given evidence of AGW from sources as different as climatology, physics, biology, forestry, oceanography... you refused all of it because some blog told you so.

You are a clown...

[Megalodon]

No what I said was lets put conspiracies to rest so will every AGW supporter answer the following question,

"Do you support Socialism or Free Market Capitalism?"[/SIZE]

Well, then start by answering your own question...

And btw, I support neither of your options.

[Poptech]

You were given evidence of AGW from sources as different as climatology, physics, biology, forestry, oceanography... you refused all of it because some blog told you so.
No I was given evidence of Climate Change. None of it proves AGW.

Well, then start by answering your own question...

And btw, I support neither of your options.
I support free market capitalism as I have always supported personal liberty and economic freedom. So please tell me what economic system you support?

[Undesired Walrus]

No what I said was lets put conspiracies to rest so will every AGW supporter answer the following question,

"Do you support Socialism or Free Market Capitalism?"


Socialism. I'm confused, does that now mean AGW is disproved? Oh, curse these lips of mine!

[Poptech]

Socialism. I'm confused, does that now mean AGW is disproved? Oh, curse these lips of mine!
Thank you for answering. No this question does not have to do with disproving AGW. It has to do with the AGW conspiracy claims mentioned here. If everyone could answer we could get to the bottom of this rather quickly.

[Pixel42]

No I was given evidence of Climate Change. None of it proves AGW.
1. All known causes of previous climate change (Milankovich cycles, solar variability, vulcanism, asteroid impact, plate tectonics) have been investigated and eliminated as the cause of the current climate change.

2. There are no episodes of previous climate change that cannot be explained by these known causes, so no good reason to believe there are additional natural causes of climate change which are currently unknown.

3. A sudden rise or fall in the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would be expected to cause climate change.

4. The concentration of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by 35% in the last 150 years.

5. During the last 150 years vast amounts of fossil fuel has been burned, a process which produces carbon dioxide.

6. Isotopic analysis of the extra CO2 in the atmosphere shows that it is a product of the burning of fossil fuels.

7. The warming during the last 150 years is roughly what would be expected as a result of a 35% increase in carbon dioxide's atmospheric concentration.

None of the above constitutes absolute proof, but it does suggest very strongly that the current warming is due to human activity. Only someone who is heavily emotionally invested in a dogma which is threatened by that conclusion would refuse to accept it as by far the most likely explanation.

[Herzblut]

None of the above constitutes absolute proof, but it does suggest very strongly that the current warming is due to human activity.

It only suggests that you're inclined to circular reasoning.


Only someone who is heavily emotionally invested in a dogma which is threatened by that conclusion would refuse to accept it as by far the most likely explanation.
Very funny, you own the one and only truth and all dissenters are "dogmatic".

[CapelDodger]

It only suggests that you're inclined to circular reasoning.

How so? Please elaborate.


Very funny, you own the one and only truth and all dissenters are "dogmatic".

What a bizarre interpretation. Perhaps you could elaborate on that as well.

[casebro]

A question. Re: "1. All known causes of previous climate change (Milankovich cycles, solar variability, vulcanism, asteroid impact, plate tectonics) have been investigated and eliminated as the cause of the current climate change."

What accounts for the cooling for the last several years? (Hasn't it been 3-5 years?) I'm sure humans haven't done anything meaningful about C02. That leaves only a natural cooling trend, which hints that the recent (150 years) warming trend had been natural too.

My biggest fear re AGW is that we will start to actually do something just as a natural cooling trend starts. Commonality will be mistaken for causality, we will be changing our society for no reason.

[Pixel42]

What accounts for the cooling for the last several years?
Noise. The expected "signal" of AGW is an underlying upward trend of about 0.3 degrees per decade; the noise is plus or minus anything up to a degree from one year to the next. So the expected warming can only be confirmed (or otherwise) by looking at the trend over decades, no period of a few years can be used as evidence either for or against it.

[BenBurch]

Have you looked at the data set casebro? It has periodic several year cooling cycles in it;

And every time it dips a little, the politically-motivated deniers trumpet "See! Global Warming Is Over!" but the trend line remains the same under all that noise.

Sorry.

Its just reality.

But reality has a well-known Liberal bias.

[BenBurch]

This does not look like a warming trends to me;

http://forums.randi.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=14548&d=1247183581

[Herzblut]

Noise. The expected "signal" of AGW is an underlying upward trend of about 0.3 degrees per decade; the noise is plus or minus anything up to a degree from one year to the next. So the expected warming can only be confirmed (or otherwise) by looking at the trend over decades, no period of a few years can be used as evidence either for or against it.
The fact that you're personally expecting a simple, linear trend doesnt mean such a trend may exist at all. Actually, complex non-linear systems like climate don't do you the favor of being simple and linear, for you to easily understand them in nice and clear policy-relevant terms.

http://climatesci.org/2009/07/10/what-is-weather-noise-is-this-concept-applicable-to-assessing-the-climate-change-metrics-of-global-warming/

[Poptech]

This does not look like a warming trends to me;
Cherry Pick Much? Globally there has been no net change.

[BenBurch]

Did the graph I posted look like a simple, linear trend? But it's pretty clear which way it's heading, isn't it?

[BenBurch]

More lying with statistics, PT.

Not that I expect more.

Those are not honest graphs.

[Poptech]

More lying with statistics, PT.

Not that I expect more.

Those are not honest graphs.
Yes of course everything that does not support you conclusions is dishonest. I see the pattern. See is it shows a northern hemisphere decline and a southern hemisphere increase. Something you leave out.

[macdoc]

NO Pop -you just regurgitate denier junk.

Care to look at net glacial mass loss or multi-year ice......no you wouldn't because it would prove you are mis-informed....self inflicted or just ignorant.

You know NOTHING about the cryosphere - or other geo-systems...that's abundantly clear....

New Data Show Rapid Arctic Ice Decline

Proportion of Thicker, More Persistent Winter Cover Is the Lowest on Record

In this July 11, 2008 photo, a giant glacier is seen making its way to the waters of Croaker Bay on Devon Island. Arctic sea ice is melting so fast most of it could be gone in 30 years, according to a new report to be released Friday, April 3, 2009. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Jonathan Hayward, File) (Jonathan Hayward - AP)

By Juliet Eilperin and Mary Beth Sheridan (http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/email/juliet+eilperin+and+mary+beth+sheridan/)
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, April 7, 2009; Page A03

The Arctic sea ice cover continues to shrink and become thinner, according to satellite measurements and other data released yesterday, providing further evidence that the region is warming more rapidly than scientists had expected.


Cumulative mass balance loss....

http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/cum_bal_total.jpg?w=500&h=305

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/02/03/glacier-mass-balance/

Care to explain where the energy is coming from???? You DO understand the latent heat implications of course.....:garfield:

[macdoc]

Oh yeah - about the southern hemisphere small increase in "cover" - it's anthro as well.....but you would not know why.....:rolleyes:

[Poptech]

Care to look at net glacial mass loss or multi-year ice.....

Cumulative mass balance loss....
So 30 Glaciers represents net glacial mass? I don't think so. But Mac we are discussing sea-ice extent. Go look at Ben's post and try to follow along.

Oh yeah - about the southern hemisphere... increase... - it's anthro as well....
Oh I know why, no matter what happens, warming or cooling, more ice or less, it is all caused by man! I am well aware of the doctrine.

[macdoc]

Answer the questions

1. Account for the net mass glacial loss
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?old=2008012326052

2. Why is the small sea ice extent in the South anthro???

or admit you don't know which is obvious.....

I'll even give you a hint on the latter......be careful with that hairspray

Science answers...not your dodging garbage from someone who is demonstrably profoundly ignorant about earth science as it relates to climate and earth geo-systems....

You don't even know why sea ice extent is of marginal value in assessing change compared to multi-year which you pointedly ignore....

[TellyKNeasuss]

I aml waiting for your scientific evidence of AGW without using computer climate models.

Warming during a period of declining insolation (the peak of cycle 23 was less than the peak of cycles 21 and 22).
High latitudes warming faster than tropics.
Minimum temperatures rising faster than maximum temperatures.
Basic physics.


No what I said was lets put conspiracies to rest so will every AGW supporter answer the following question,

"Do you support Socialism or Free Market Capitalism?"

I am not right wing or religious so please keep trying because it is laughably embarrassing to watch your desperation. Don't be afraid to answer as it is clear EVERYONE here is (and I suspect why)

I support an anarcho-syndicalist collective in which each person gets to serve as the chief executive for 2 weeks and decisions are reached by a vote, a simple majority for internal matters and a two-thirds majority for foreign policy decisions.

[Poptech]

Answer the questions

1. Account for the net mass glacial loss
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?old=2008012326052
Lets read carefully...
Rignot said the losses, which were primarily concentrated in West Antarctica's Pine Island Bay sector and the northern tip of the Antarctic PeninsulaAlarmist love to use the one part of Antarctica that extends outside the Antarctic circle.
There are all sorts of studies on Antarctica...

Antarctic Temperatures Disagree With Climate Model Predictions (http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/anttemps.htm) (Ohio State University)
Ice Core 'Dipstick' Indicates West Antarctic Ice Has Thinned Less Than Believed (http://uwnews.org/article.asp?articleid=9129) (University of Washington)
No Major Changes Seen In Stability Of Antarctic Ice Sheet (http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/satice1.htm) (Ohio State University)
Pondering A Climate Conundrum In Antarctica; Unique, Distinct Cooling Trend Discovered On Earth's Southernmost Continent (http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/02/pr0203.htm) (National Science Foundation)
Scientists Detect Thickening Of West Antarctic Ice Sheet (http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/3913) (University Of California Santa Cruz)
Scientists Rule Out One Threat Of Antarctic Collapse (http://www.media.rice.edu/media/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=499&SnID=2) (Rice University)
The Antarctic deep sea gets colder (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-04/haog-tad042108.php) (Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research)

2. Why is the small sea ice extent in the South anthro???
I am aware of the excuse. You see CO2 is only found in the Arctic and CFCs in Antarctica. It is nice to have excuses for everything. All caused by man!

[BenBurch]

You want to talk about GLOBAL sea ice coverage?

Credit: Cryosphere Today - http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

Large image; http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg

[Megalodon]

No I was given evidence of Climate Change. None of it proves AGW.

That's funny... so you do admit that there is global warming?

So please tell me what economic system you support?

Government regulated capitalism.

[Megalodon]

You want to talk about GLOBAL sea ice coverage?

Credit: Cryosphere Today - http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/

Large image; http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg

Here's a nice closeup on that graph

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_28149d0bf3c51a51.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=15837)

[CapelDodger]

Yes of course everything that does not support you conclusions is dishonest.

Everything that supports your preconceptions is dishonest, as you will find out over time. Perhaps it will teach you to be sceptical of what you find comforting.

I see the pattern. See is it shows a northern hemisphere decline and a southern hemisphere increase. Something you leave out.

And something you fail to explain the significance of, in your mind. BenBurch also left out the Crimean War and Spanish Flu. Among other thinngs.

What's your point? What significance do you think the NH decline and SH increase has? How does it invalidate BenBurch's point?

[BenBurch]

Here's a nice closeup on that graph

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_28149d0bf3c51a51.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=15837)

Great image!

He is so easy to debunk. Not much challenge.

[BenBurch]

Ah! And here is the graph I was looking for earlier;

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/28149d1e907d3f18.jpg

[Poptech]

I support an anarcho-syndicalist collective
Which is a socialist system.

"To acquaint the workers with the technical management of production and economic life in general and prepare them to take the socio-economic organism into their own hands and shape it according to socialist principles"

Thank you next.

[Poptech]

Government regulated capitalism.
Which is a mixed economy that includes socialism.

Thank you next.

[Megalodon]

What accounts for the cooling for the last several years? (Hasn't it been 3-5 years?) I'm sure humans haven't done anything meaningful about C02. That leaves only a natural cooling trend, which hints that the recent (150 years) warming trend had been natural too.

As Ben referred, the old "AGW is over!"

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_28149d1e907d3f18.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=15845)

Edit: Bah, Ben beat me to it...

[CapelDodger]

Lets read carefully...
Alarmist love to use the one part of Antarctica that extends outside the Antarctic circle.

Denialists love to use that part of the Antarctic which is so high and, reflective, and isolated from the oceans that it never gets anywhere near 0C as evidence that ice isn't melting. It's a favourite retreat. No wonder you're so familiar with it.

Denialists hate the Arctic.

There are all sorts of studies on Antarctica ...

There are, but none of them are relevant to AGW. Not the ones you're familiar with anyway. That's why you've been made familiar with them. You're the perfect audience for your chosen sources. You don't question, you just take it in and parrot it out by cut-and-paste.

I am aware of the excuse. You see CO2 is only found in the Arctic and CFCs in Antarctica. It is nice to have excuses for everything. All caused by man!

You're aware of the fantasy. What you're apparently unaware of is the role of the oceans in climate and the physical nature of Antarctica. There is an ozone-hole over the Arctic, but there's also an ocean under it so the atmospheric circulation is very different.

Your sources won't have pointed that out to you, but here I am generously doing so. Who are you going to trust? Who is more likely to be manipulating you?

[BenBurch]

Which is a mixed economy that includes socialism.

Thank you next.


You freaking don't have a clue what socialism is, do you?

You want to know what a true free-market economy looks like? It's called Somalia. No government to trouble you with taxes or regulations or services or roads or sewers or water or protection.

You are a rich man there, brother, and you have a problem. You do not have credible policing to deter those who will simply come and take what you have, so you have to spend an incredible amount of your wealth on walls and barb-wire and guards and weapons. And you know those guards? You better pay them really well, my friend, or they may decide that living in the mansion is nicer than living in the barracks, and you suddenly find you have more to fear from them than from the mob.

And your business; Do you think you can get goods to market without roads? Or get in raw materials?

Do you think you can run a manufacturing plant without running water or reliable power?

And when you DO get something produced and get it to market, who enforces the contract you had with the jobber who took on your shipment? What stops him from just selling the goods and pocketing the whole amount? are you going to send out your guards as enforcers? Are they going to have a firefight with HIS guards?

You got no clue about what communism is, or what socialism is, traditional economy is, or what a panned economy is, or what a mixed economy is or what anarcho-syndicalism is, or even what a market economy is.

You got no clue at all, so don't pretend you have something over somebody else because he thinks that an utterly governmentless system isn't even marginally desirable.

[Megalodon]

I support an anarcho-syndicalist collective in which each person gets to serve as the chief executive for 2 weeks and decisions are reached by a vote, a simple majority for internal matters and a two-thirds majority for foreign policy decisions.

Which is a socialist system.

Another one that went over your head...

But so is the violence inherent in the system.

[Herzblut]

What's your point? What significance do you think the NH decline and SH increase has? How does it invalidate BenBurch's point?
It disproves the devious imagination that Earth is currently accumulating heat by melting sea ice, glaciers or whatever.

[BenBurch]

Another one that went over your head...

But so is the violence inherent in the system.

Help! I'm being oppressed!

[casebro]

Noise. The expected "signal" of AGW is an underlying upward trend of about 0.3 degrees per decade; the noise is plus or minus anything up to a degree from one year to the next. So the expected warming can only be confirmed (or otherwise) by looking at the trend over decades, no period of a few years can be used as evidence either for or against it.

I think I understand. The earlier mention of "Just wait until the next El Nino Year!!!" was also false.

Also, the mere 150 year trend is ridiculous too. In glacial time frames, it's been hotter before, it's been cooler before. CO2 has been higher before. Man (or Mann) had nothing to do with those "short term trends" either.

[CapelDodger]

As Ben referred, the old "AGW is over!"

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_28149d1e907d3f18.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=15845)

And bet your life it'll be over again. Not for a few years though. I expect a good few of the usual suspects will have dropped off the perch by then.

I'm intrigued as to what the denialist talking-points will be in the meantime. There'll be shameless references to the coming El Nino and cherry-picking, of course, but is that enough to sustain them? The "warming Mars" retreat is no more, and was never going to last. Once the Ross Sea is ice-filled it can't get any fuller so that doesn't have legs. There are only so many US weather-station photos for WattsUpMyButt to collect. Where are they going to turn?

No doubt they'll think of something even I couldn't make up. I have the greatest respect for their ingenuity.

[CapelDodger]

It disproves the devious imagination that Earth is currently accumulating heat by melting sea ice, glaciers or whatever.

It does nothing of the sort. It refers only to sea-ice extent, not to glaciers, ice-caps, nor global ice volume, which is obviously a very different thing.

Are you disingenuous or just stupid? 'Fess up. It's hard to judge from your terse contributions. Despite the terseness this contribution does make you look stupid at first sight. Terseness is not a sound defense when it includes such definite statements as "it disproves".

Care to expand on your "proof"?

[Achán hiNidráne]

Another one that went over your head...

But so is the violence inherent in the system.

Bloody peasant!

[Megalodon]

Bloody peasant!

What a giveaway!

[Poptech]

..as evidence that ice isn't melting.
Antarctica is not melting, unless of course you continue to use the tip of the peninsula outside the antarctic circle.

There are, but none of them are relevant to AGW. Not the ones you're familiar with anyway. That's why you've been made familiar with them. You're the perfect audience for your chosen sources. You don't question, you just take it in and parrot it out by cut-and-paste.
Nothing about the Arctic is relevant to AGW. There is however evidence of natural causes...

Winds, Ice Motion Root Cause Of Decline In Sea Ice, Not Warmer Temperatures (http://uwnews.washington.edu/ni/article.asp?articleID=7070) (University Of Washington)

Solar Arctic-Mediated Climate Variation on Multidecadal to Centennial Timescales: Empirical Evidence, Mechanistic Explanation, and Testable Consequences (http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/%7Ewsoon/SunClimate09-d/Soon09-June4-PGEO_30n02_144-184-Soon.pdf) (PDF)
(Physical Geography, Volume 30, Number 2, March-April 2009)
- Willie H. Soon

Variable solar irradiance as a plausible agent for multidecadal variations in the Arctic-wide surface air temperature record of the past 130 years (http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/%7Ewsoon/myownPapers-d/Soon05-SolarArcticTempGRLfinal.pdf) (PDF)
(Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 32, L16712, 2005)
- Willie H. Soon

And historical evidence of this as well.

Less Ice In Arctic Ocean 6000-7000 Years Ago (http://www.ngu.no/en-gb/Aktuelt/2008/Less-ice-in-the-Arctic-Ocean-6000-7000-years-ago/) (Geological Survey of Norway)

Accounts from 19th-century Canadian Arctic Explorers' Logs Reflect Present Climate Conditions (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2003/2003EO400003.shtml)
(Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union, Volume 84, Issue 40, p. 410-412, 2003)
- James E. Overland, Kevin Wood

Historical variability of sea ice edge position in the Nordic Seas (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006.../2004JC002851.shtml)
(Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 111, Issue C1, January 5, 2006)
- Dmitry V. Divine, Chad Dick

You freaking don't have a clue what socialism is, do you?

You want to know what a true free-market economy looks like? It's called Somalia. No government to trouble you with taxes or regulations or services or roads or sewers or water or protection.
No that is called anarchy. You are confusing Anarchy with Free-Market Economics. Your constant assumptions about my positions are laughable and you continue to be wrong. I made no claim to abolish government. Oh I understand all of it very well apparently better than you.

[Poptech]

Another one that went over your head...
Oh God, Monty Python? Of which I can't stand... I don't find the English funny (Sorry I don't watch bad comedy).

Well if you do not support Anarcho-syndicalism what do you support?

A fantastic quote:

This weirdly persistent cult of Python is yet another unfortunate by-product of tyrannical media dominance by that cosseted Sixties generation: men now approaching their own 60s who still dress like 12-year-old skateboarders, in an inept attempt to demonstrate that they are still in touch "wid de yoof". Unfortunately, the only thing their slogan-bearing T-shirts demonstrate is their middle-aged tubby figures.

[Herzblut]

It does nothing of the sort.
Oh yes. It destroys the weird image in some people's mind.

[BenBurch]

No, if you have no government, you have anarchy. Sorry to break it to you.

If you don't want that, police, and a military at the minimum. But you also need public health regulation, sewers, water, roads, etc, or you cannot hold the police or military together or allow them to be effective.

And SO, my fine feathered friend, you need * gasp * TAXATION.

And so you need a bureaucracy to fairly administer that taxation.

And if the taxation is not going to be effected by a Tyrant, you need some sort of representation, so a Parliament or a Congress or a direct Athenian-type democracy.

And you know, just having police does you no good without laws.

And laws do you no good without courts.

And all that costs money.

And so the taxes go up.

And pretty soon you have something that looks just like we have now here in the USA or what Canada has or what Germany has or what Australia has.

And none are tax-free gardens of pure ideology, free from the troubling protections of government.

That is Somalia.

[Reality Check]

Antarctica is not melting, unless of course you continue to use the tip of the peninsula outside the antarctic circle.
You need to keep informed of the current science.

The International Polar Year (http://www.ipy.org/) ended its season of research in March 2009. The scientists involved were expecting what you state - warming concentrated on the Antarctic Peninsula. What they found was that "The warming we see in the peninsula also extends all the way down to what is called west Antarctica (http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/02/25/antarctica-glacier-melt.html)" (a news article but I cannot find any published papers on this yet).

You may be interested that the loss of ice from the Pine Island Glacier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Island_Glacier) (which is not on the peninsula and is inside the circle) has been known about for some years. For some reason your sources of information about Antarctica have not picked up on this fact. Are they incompetent or merely biased?

[Poptech]

No, if you have no government, you have anarchy. Sorry to break it to you.
Sorry to break what to you? Your strawman? Please show me where I stated no government.

If you don't want that, police, and a military at the minimum. But you also need public health regulation, sewers, water, roads, etc, or you cannot hold the police or military together or allow them to be effective.
Military can be largely reserve and privatized (when needed). No public health regulation is needed. You have heard of people who have wells and septic systems? Even still the city systems can be privatized. No taxes needed there you pay your water and sewer bill directly.

And pretty soon you have something that looks just like we have now here in the USA or what Canada has or what Germany has or what Australia has.
LMAO! The current government monstrosity has nothing to do with just providing these basic, basic services but includes massive entitlement costs for social security, medicare, medicaid ect... and the ginormous amount of useless agencies and government bureaucracies.

And none are tax-free gardens of pure ideology, free from the troubling protections of government.
Ben, how did the U.S. Government operate before the 16th amendment? You have been living for so long in a progressive/socialist fantasy land of big government you don't even recognize what limited government is anymore.

[Megalodon]

Oh God, Monty Python? Of which I can't stand... I don't find the English funny (Sorry I don't watch bad comedy).

No need to apologize... I wouldn't think that inteligent humour would be your thing.

Well if you do not support Anarcho-syndicalism what do you support?


Getting confused, aren't you?

A fantastic quote:

Yes, but not for the reasons you seem to think. You will believe any conspiracy theory out there, won't you?

That is just...

[Poptech]

You need to keep informed of the current science...
Yes you do...

Revealed: Antarctic ice growing, not shrinking (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25349683-11949,00.html) (The Australian)

Antarctic sea ice increasing: study (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/23/2550456.htm) (ABC News, Australia)

[BenBurch]

So the IPY Scientists are part of a grand conspiracy, then, Poptech? Because theey directly contradict the popular science journalism you linked in. Keep in mind that science journalists have axes to grind too!

[brantc]

Spare us the histrionics. You know nothing about me, or any of the thousands of scientists you're slandering.



That's not free speech, that's slander. If I, as an example, say that Alex Libman is a convicted criminal, I am violating your right to a clean reputation.

Exactly the same way you are doing with thousands of scientists!

But as I suspected, it's only initiation of force if someone else does it to you... You are a hypocrite.


You are a freak!!!!

[brantc]

The latest global averaged satellite temperature data for June 2009 reveals yet another drop in the Earth's temperature. This latest drop in global temperatures means despite his dire warnings, the Earth has cooled .74°F since former Vice President Al Gore released "An Inconvenient Truth" in 2006.

http://www.climatedepot.com/a/1799/Global-temperatures-have-plunged-74degF-since-Gore-released-An-Inconvenient-Truth

[Poptech]

So the IPY Scientists are part of a grand conspiracy, then, Poptech?
What is your obsession with trying to label anyone skeptical of AGW a conspiracy theorist? It is getting old.

[CapelDodger]

Oh yes. It destroys the weird image in some people's mind.

That's better. You have to be cryptic. Not as specific as claiming that sea-ice extent disproves the melting of glaciers and ice-caps and ice volume, which is the mistake you made earlier.

Not that it helps you much because you didn't leave enough time for your previous error to fade away, nor did you jump threads. A week or two would have been better. As it is you give me another opportunity to quote

It disproves the devious imagination that Earth is currently accumulating heat by melting sea ice, glaciers or whatever.

(which is so clearly stupid) without a laborious search, whch is something I can't usually be bothered with.

By so doing I can keep the image of you making a fool of yourself fresh in people's minds, and by this more cryptic post you just help to embed it. A period of silence on your part would be beneficial (to you, I mean, but not to me).

The advantage I have in this exchange is that the image of an idiot is by no means weird to most people, whereas sea-ice as a measure of glacial volume is quite foreign. Idiots we come across all too often in our day-to-day lives. (The vulgar term is "management", in any language.) The concept you're presenting ... well, not so much.

[CapelDodger]

What is your obsession with trying to label anyone skeptical of AGW a conspiracy theorist? It is getting old.

Best watch your words in future, because I'm bookmarking that post and I doubt I'm alone. Fair warning.

[Poptech]

(which is so clearly stupid)
No it is very logical. You are just mad because people might actually see this information without your accompanying ranting diatribe.

Does you pathetic attempt at nonsensical intimidation really work? I find it laughable.

Best watch your words in future, because I'm bookmarking that post and I doubt I'm alone. Fair warning.
That may be the first time you actually read what I wrote. None of you are very good at this, you collectively think AGW skeptics are some combination of creationist, 911 truthers and Rush Limbaugh listeners who only vote Republican. For a skeptics forum I find this embarrassingly sad. You need to stop embarrassing yourselves with your horrendous assumptions.

[CapelDodger]

The latest global averaged satellite temperature data for June 2009 reveals yet another drop in the Earth's temperature. This latest drop in global temperatures means despite his dire warnings, the Earth has cooled .74°F since former Vice President Al Gore released "An Inconvenient Truth" in 2006.

http://www.climatedepot.com/a/1799/Global-temperatures-have-plunged-74degF-since-Gore-released-An-Inconvenient-Truth

We are so going to enjoy you. Welcome to the forum.

[CapelDodger]

You are a freak!!!!

That was a great start. No mention of Al Gore at all. I doubt anybody's surprised you couldn't keep it up.

[Herzblut]

That's better. You have to be cryptic. Not as specific as claiming that sea-ice extent disproves the melting of glaciers and ice-caps and ice volume, which is the mistake you made earlier.

The fact that you don't understand what I say and quote me wrongly is hardly my mistake. I said that it disproved WHAT? Just a little hint: read carefully or you don't get my message.

[CapelDodger]

Another one that went over your head...

But so is the violence inherent in the system.

We are the violence inherent in the system :cool:.

Which is why we're not covered in crap.

[macdoc]

Poptech

Originally Posted by macdoc
2. Why is the small sea ice extent in the South anthro???I am aware of the excuse. You see CO2 is only found in the Arctic and CFCs in Antarctica. It is nice to have excuses for everything. All caused by man!CO2 only found in the Arctic ...CFCs only in the Antarctic

:dl: that's worthy of a second :dl:

What a failure you are trying to pretend you know anything..... you shoe shuffle like a 6 year old caught out...and call it an "excuse"

IT'S ANTHRO!!!!!!! - an impact of our activities on the atmosphere and a regional outcome
Just as the increase in C02 is and the subsequent energy gain is having an inordinate impact in the north......

Why Antarctic ice is growing despite global warming

17:50 20 April 2009 by Catherine Brahic

It's the southern ozone hole whatdunit. That's why Antarctic sea ice is growing while at the other pole, Arctic ice is shrinking at record rates. It seems CFCs and other ozone-depleting chemicals have given the South Pole respite from global warming.

But only temporarily. According to John Turner of the British Antarctic Survey, the effect will last roughly another decade before Antarctic sea ice starts to decline as well.

Arctic sea ice is decreasing dramatically and reached a record low in 2007. But satellite images studied by Turner and his colleagues show that Antarctic sea ice is increasing in every month of the year expect January. "By the end of the century we expect one third of Antarctic sea ice to disappear," says Turner. "So we're trying to understand why it's increasing now, at a time of global warming."

In a new study, Turner and colleagues show how the ozone hole has changed weather patterns around Antarctica. These changes have drawn in warm air over the Antarctic Peninsula in West Antarctica and cooled the air above East Antarctica.http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16988-why-antarctic-ice-is-growing-despite-global-warming.html

see that puts a gaping hole in the out of date papers that you don't even understand - eg


NSF PR 02-03 - January 13, 2002

Pondering a Climate Conundrum in Antarctica
Unique, distinct cooling trend discovered on Earth's southernmost continent

Antarctica overall has cooled measurably during the last 35 years - despite a global average increase in air temperature of 0.6 degrees Celsius during the 20th century - making it unique among the Earth's continental landmasses, according to a paper published today in the online version of Nature.from your own list
http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/02/pr0203.htm

and the conundrum answered 7 years later by science - not by political hacks like you and you still think your papers somehow support your nonsense

Your Rice paper is 1999
U of C 2002
Ohio State 1998!!!!!!:boggled:
U of W at least is 2005 but has nothing to do with the issue -

and your most recent Ohio State wow 2007 :rolleyes: answered by the ozone information which if you were actually keeping up on the science you would have known....AND UNDERSTOOD THE IMPLICATIONS

So since you acknowledge CFC then you should have known it's anthro

are you also then saying you support the information in the papers you quote??
...got one that offers an alternative climate driver?
••



Now about the net glacial mass loss you dodge..

Got an explanation??

[CapelDodger]

No, if you have no government, you have anarchy. Sorry to break it to you.

Somalia's the place for libertarians, I hear. They get to play pirate and carry guns and do pretty much anything they like. No immigration controls, no taxes, no questions asked. I'm surprised they aren't all there already. irony

[CapelDodger]

are you also then saying you support the information in the papers you quote??

I rather think PopTech cuts-and-pastes from his favoured sources because he assumes that they must say what he wants them to say. Otherwise his favoured sources wouldn't have carried them. A fatal assumption.

We'll all have noticed by now that PopTech never contributes any of his own thoughts or interpretations.

[SezMe]

We'll all have noticed by now that PopTech never contributes any of his own thoughts or interpretations.
I've noticed that. It seems like argument-by-link-blizzard but there's probably a more formal name for it.

[CapelDodger]

The fact that you don't understand what I say and quote me wrongly is hardly my mistake. I said that it disproved WHAT? Just a little hint: read carefully or you don't get my message.

I quoted you directly. And you weren't being cryptic. Now you are, but it's too late. Your message was all too obvious (a mistake you don't usually make).

Here it is again

It disproves the devious imagination that Earth is currently accumulating heat by melting sea ice, glaciers or whatever.

(By "it" in "Here it is again" I mean what you posted, and what you now claim I quoted "wrongly". Go ahead, get cryptic about what you meant by "wrongly". Make my day.)

What you meant by "it" was a graph of global sea-ice extent. Which very obviously has no reference to glaciers, nor even to sea-ice volume. So try as you might you can't wriggle out of the message you sent.

(By "sent" I'm referring to the "Submit Reply" button and you clicking on it, and by "it" there I'm referring to said button, meaning the "Submit Reply" button. I hope that's clear.)

But go ahead, keep trying.

[CapelDodger]

I've noticed that. It seems like argument-by-link-blizzard but there's probably a more formal name for it.

A number of vulgar names spring to mind :).

[TellyKNeasuss]

Oh God, Monty Python? Of which I can't stand... I don't find the English funny (Sorry I don't watch bad comedy).

Well if you do not support Anarcho-syndicalism what do you support?


An irrelevant question to this discussion, or any other in this forum. If you want to quiz people on their political beliefs, start a thread in the politics forum.

[Poptech]

CO2 only found in the Arctic ...CFCs only in the Antarctic
Mac.... you seriously don't know what sarcasm is? Is Sarcasm something foreign to JREF because I have NEVER met this many people who don't get it.

IT'S ANTHRO!!!!!!! - an impact of our activities on the atmosphere and a regional outcome
Scream it louder it doesn't make it scientifically valid.

see that puts a gaping hole in the out of date papers that you don't even understand
Mac, really this has been going on for weeks now. Can you please show me where I stated I do not believe in a mild warming since the LIA?

...and the conundrum answered 7 years later by science - not by political hacks like you and you still think your papers somehow support your nonsense
Actually it is not answered...

Chemists poke holes in ozone theory (http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/%7Ewilkins/energy/Resources/Essays/nature-kickhole.pdf) (Nature)

We again find evidence for natural factors...

Huge 2004 Stratospheric Ozone Loss Tied To Solar Storms, Arctic Winds (http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2005/93.html) (University of Colorado at Boulder)
"Raining" Electrons Contribute To Ozone Destruction (http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/pdf/71109main_00-091.pdf) (PDF) (NASA)
Solar Storms, Arctic Winds Swirl In A Double Dip Cone Of Ozone Loss (http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/ozone-solarstorms.html) (NASA)
Solar Storms Destroy Ozone, Study Reconfirms (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?old=200108015015) (NASA)
Strong Winds Trigger Increases In Ozone Destroying Gases In Upper Stratosphere (http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2006/313.html) (University of Colorado at Boulder)

Now about the net glacial mass loss...

Got an explanation??
33 Glaciers is hardly "net". So when did those glaciers first start to melt?

[casebro]

The latest global averaged satellite temperature data for June 2009 reveals yet another drop in the Earth's temperature. This latest drop in global temperatures means despite his dire warnings, the Earth has cooled .74°F since former Vice President Al Gore released "An Inconvenient Truth" in 2006.

http://www.climatedepot.com/a/1799/Global-temperatures-have-plunged-74degF-since-Gore-released-An-Inconvenient-Truth

That site seams pretty biased. I believe the chart they post could be truncated, why stop at '78?

<http://algorelied.com/?p=2429> but the chart is from the U of Alabama

So, is there another chart posted elsewhere, containing the '09 data, and going back further? Oris this satellite only data, not started collecting until '78?

That chart does show a spike at 1988, and a later lowering trend of 05-09.

CapelDodger, you did once say you would be convinced of the "No AGW , it's a natural peak" arguments if you saw a ten year cooling trend. I suppose you don't want to count 1988 as a start of that trend, but you've got to consider 2005? We are about half way there.

I'll wait the five more years before I make up my mind. Even though it's been eleven since the peak.

[Poptech]

What you meant by "it" was a graph of global sea-ice extent. Which very obviously has no reference to glaciers, nor even to sea-ice volume. So try as you might you can't wriggle out of the message you sent.
Please stop beating up on Ben (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=4895096&postcount=98) like this I cannot stand seeing him get eaten by his own.

You guys are classic!

[macdoc]

Do you know what a peak El Nino to back to back La Ninas implies...:mgbanghead

Burying heat in the Pacific via La Nina hardly changes anything....buys a bit more time....

http://www.theadventurelife.org/2009/01/nws-la-nina-is-back-bringing-her-flakey-friends/

Then El Nino comes back around

snip

The previous El Niño, which occurred in 2006–2007, produced relatively tepid effects. But one of its recent predecessors, in 1997–1998, was considered the strongest ever recorded. It caused the average sea-surface temperature in the central Pacific to rise as much as 5°C above normal and warmed average global air temperatures temporarily by about 2.5°C --some five times higher than an El Niño normally generates. That episode also more than doubled 1997–1998 seasonal rainfall over Southern California, washing out roads and bridges and causing landslides.

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/709/2

That's the peak you are dealing with...

[Poptech]

I believe the chart they post could be truncated, why stop at '78?
That is because we did not have satellite measurements before then. What we had before then was surface stations (http://www.heartland.org/books/PDFs/SurfaceStations.pdf).

[Poptech]

An irrelevant question to this discussion, or any other in this forum. If you want to quiz people on their political beliefs, start a thread in the politics forum.
That is because you can't answer the question. Don't be scared. Ben will not answer it either. But this is very relevant as claims of conspiracy were made in this thread.

[TellyKNeasuss]

Chemists poke holes in ozone theory (http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/%7Ewilkins/energy/Resources/Essays/nature-kickhole.pdf) (Nature)

Yet more reason to believe that you don't actually read the articles that you link to. From the last paragraph of the article:


Nothing currently suggests that the role of CFCs must be called into question, Rex stresses. “Overwhelming evidence still suggests that
anthropogenic emissions of CFCs and halons are the reason for the ozone loss. But we would be on much firmer ground if we could write down the correct chemical reactions.”

[macdoc]

Get on topic Poptech or get out


Spectator recycles climate rubbish published by sceptic

Ian Plimer's work of climate fiction is riddled with schoolboy errors the Spectator appears prepared to believe

Seldom has a book been more cleanly murdered by scientists than Ian Plimer's Ian Plimer's Heaven and Earth (http://www.amazon.com/Heaven-Earth-Warming-Missing-Science/dp/0704371669), which purports to show that manmade climate change (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-change) is nonsense. Since its publication in Australia it has been ridiculed for a hilarious series of schoolboy errors, and its fudging and manipulation of the data. Here is what the reviews have said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/jul/09/george-monbiot-ian-plimer

[Poptech]

Yet more reason to believe that you don't actually read the articles that you link to. From the last paragraph of the article:
Oh I read it...

"If the measurements are correct we can basically no longer say we understand how ozone holes come into being."Yet of course the article ends with ridiculous conclusions.

Get on topic Poptech or get out
From the king of offtopic comments? Or is every topic about "critters".

Do you support Socialism or Capitalism?.... answer the question!

[TellyKNeasuss]

We again find evidence for natural factors...
.
.
Strong Winds Trigger Increases In Ozone Destroying Gases In Upper Stratosphere (http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2006/313.html) (University of Colorado at Boulder)

Again quoting the article.
First paragraph:
A surprising new University of Colorado at Boulder study indicates winds circling high above the far Northern Hemisphere have a much greater impact on upper stratospheric ozone levels than scientists had thought.
And the start of the seventh paragraph:
The upper stratosphere lies several miles higher than the ozone hole region, which forms in the lower stratosphere...

Another Epic Failure for Poptech!

[TellyKNeasuss]

That is because you can't answer the question. Don't be scared. Ben will not answer it either. But this is very relevant as claims of conspiracy were made in this thread.

Don't tell me what I can and can't do. I don't care about your stupid political drivel. Take it to the politics forum. You've just shown that you have no ability to comprehend any article having to do with science.

[Poptech]

Another Epic Failure for Poptech!
No it is your epic failure to read. It says..

"The atmosphere is part of a coupled system, and what affects one layer of the atmosphere can influence other layers in surprising ways,"

[Poptech]

Don't tell me what I can and can't do. I don't care about your childish poliical drivel.
You don't care about debunking conspiracy theories? Claims were made about AGW supporters, I am attempting to determine if these theories are true from the sampling of AGW supporters in these forums. So please answer the question (no you don't have to).

[Wangler]

Nothing about the Arctic is relevant to AGW. There is however evidence of natural causes...

Winds, Ice Motion Root Cause Of Decline In Sea Ice, Not Warmer Temperatures (http://uwnews.washington.edu/ni/article.asp?articleID=7070) (University Of Washington)

I'm not sure about your first sentance there, but that link was interesting....I wonder if the Artic Oscillation "high" they refer too coincides with other happenings elsewhere on the globe.

[UnrepentantSinner]

Lets put all the conspiracy theories to rest. So can everyone who supports AGW theory please answer this question:

"Socialism or Free Market Capitalism?"

Aaaaand the transparency of your ideologically/politically driven postion on this subject moves from wax paper to Saran wrap.

[shadron]

It is remarkably convenient that just as Libman takes a permanent powder, Poptech steps in with his heaping plate of absolute certitude. Ugh.

That's the end of the argument from Mr. Libman: http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=147844

[TellyKNeasuss]

No it is your epic failure to read. It says..The atmosphere is part of a coupled system, and what affects one layer of the atmosphere can influence other layers in surprising ways

Another pathetic attempt to weasal out of being caught lying by taking a statement out of context. There is nothing in Dr. Randall's statement that contains any implication that there is a possibility that NOx could be responsible for the lower stratosphere ozone hole.

[TellyKNeasuss]

I'm not sure about your first sentance there, but that link was interesting....I wonder if the Artic Oscillation "high" they refer too coincides with other happenings elsewhere on the globe.

It is pretty widely accepted that unusual winds were a contributing factor to the large decline in sea ice in 2007. The reason why the wind was able to push the ice so easily is because the ice has become thinner over the past few decades.

[Poptech]

Aaaaand the transparency of your ideologically/politically driven postion on this subject moves from wax paper to Saran wrap.
Again, it was in response to claims of conspiracy. Read the whole thread again. I am attempting to put the issue to rest through a sampling af JREF AGW supporters.

That's the end of the argument from Mr. Libman: http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=147844
I actually believe it is better when you debate them. I specifically made a post (http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/06/debunking-911-conspiracy-theories.html) to debunk 911 conspiracy theories.

[Poptech]

There is nothing in Dr. Randall's statement that contains any implication that there is a possibility that NOx could be responsible for the lower stratosphere ozone hole.
And there is nothing saying it can't either. You have evidence that how ozone holes are formed is not fully understood and you have evidence for natural factors such as solar storms destroying Ozone. The science is not settled.

[Pixel42]

Whenever an issue divides people of different religious or political beliefs we all need to be careful that we do not automatically gravitate to the side which agrees with whichever dogma we instinctively support. We need to assess the evidence and arguments as objectively as possible, and be prepared to accept that reality is not as we would want it to be. I find the best way to work out which side is right is to ask these two questions:

1. Which side can point to overwhelming evidence to support their arguments?

2. Which side has little or no evidence to point to, produce arguments that are either increasingly implausible attempts to explain away the other side's evidence or arguments from incredulity, and are eventually reduced to postulating some sort of huge conspiracy to hide or distort the truth?

As a instinctive socialist I had to reluctantly accept the evidence from history that capitalism and a free market economy was the better economic system, so I can well understand the reluctance of those who won that argument to accept this new evidence that it has long term consequences which could be disastrous. But reality is what reality is, and no amount of blustering will make it otherwise.

[SezMe]

1. Which side can point to overwhelming evidence to support their arguments?

2. Which side has little or no evidence to point to, produce arguments that are either increasingly implausible attempts to explain away the other side's evidence or arguments from incredulity, and are eventually reduced to postulating some sort of huge conspiracy to hide or distort the truth?
False dichotomy. In extremely complex issues such as global warming, these two choices rarely, if ever, exist.

As a instinctive socialist I had to reluctantly accept the evidence from history that capitalism and a free market economy was the better economic system, so I can well understand the reluctance of those who won that argument to accept this new evidence that it has long term consequences which could be disastrous.
Perhaps you could provide an example of a "free market economy" that you find so persuasive.

[macdoc]

In extremely complex issues such as global warming, these two choices rarely, if ever, exist.

The physics of the energy trapping of GHG is very well understood as is the evidence of the energy gain playing out which is obvious across dozens of disciplines.
So in that - it is not complex and and there is overwhelming evidence.

The complexity arises in the consequences of how that energy gain will be expressed in the various geo systems and what strategy humans as individuals and groups should or can undertake to deal with the self imposed alterations.
.....that indeed is complex and there is no obvious one best path.

[Pixel42]

False dichotomy. In extremely complex issues such as global warming, these two choices rarely, if ever, exist.
Obviously the harder it is to answer my two questions the more difficult it is to reach an objective assessment as to which side has the stronger argument. In the case of AGW I don't think it's particularly hard for someone who has had a minimal scientific education, though it's certainly not as easy as it is with the creationism/evolution dispute or most conspiracy theories.

Perhaps you could provide an example of a "free market economy" that you find so persuasive.
My assessment that capitalism won the argument over socialism is based on a simple, not to say simplistic, comparison of the standard of living achieved in the West with that of the Soviet Bloc by the time the latter collapsed.

[Megalodon]

You are a freak!!!!

Flattery will get you nowhere...

[Megalodon]

CapelDodger, you did once say you would be convinced of the "No AGW , it's a natural peak" arguments if you saw a ten year cooling trend. I suppose you don't want to count 1988 as a start of that trend, but you've got to consider 2005? We are about half way there.

I'll wait the five more years before I make up my mind. Even though it's been eleven since the peak.

That sounds like Tamino's bet (http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/you-bet/).

Worth a read...

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_28149ad331c696cc.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=15488)

[Reality Check]

Yes you do...

Revealed: Antarctic ice growing, not shrinking (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25349683-11949,00.html) (The Australian)

Antarctic sea ice increasing: study (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/23/2550456.htm) (ABC News, Australia)

Your statement was:
Originally Posted by Poptech http://forums.randi.org/helloworld2/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=4895542#post4895542)
Antarctica is not melting, unless of course you continue to use the tip of the peninsula outside the antarctic circle.

The highlighted bit was what I was addressing.

What you should had said is:
"There are news reports that there are areas in the Antarctica peninsula and west Antarctica that are losing ice at an accelerating rate (acording to the scientists involved in the IPY (http://www.ipy.org/)).
I (Poptech) have read news reports that state that some scientists think that the total amount of Antarctica ice is constant or even increasing."


ETA:
A bit from Wikipedia . This is not an authoritative source but usually a good place to start.

Melting of floating ice shelves (http://forums.randi.org/wiki/Ice_shelf) (ice that originated on the land) does not in itself contribute much to sea-level rise (since the ice displaces only its own mass of water). However it is the outflow of the ice from the land to form the ice shelf which causes a rise in global sea level. This effect is offset by snow falling back onto the continent. Recent decades have witnessed several dramatic collapses of large ice shelves around the coast of Antarctica, especially along the Antarctic Peninsula (http://forums.randi.org/wiki/Antarctic_Peninsula). Concerns have been raised that disruption of ice shelves may result in increased glacial outflow from the continental ice mass.[66] (http://forums.randi.org/#cite_note-rignot2004-65)
On the continent itself, the large volume of ice present stores around 70 % of the world's fresh water.[19] (http://forums.randi.org/#cite_note-howstuffworks-18) This ice sheet (http://forums.randi.org/wiki/Ice_sheet) is constantly gaining ice from snowfall and losing ice through outflow to the sea. West Antarctica is currently experiencing a net outflow of glacial ice, which will increase global sea level over time. A review of the scientific studies looking at data from 1992 to 2006 suggested a net loss of around 50 Gigatonnes (http://forums.randi.org/wiki/Gigatonnes) of ice per year was a reasonable estimate (around 0.14 mm of sea level rise).[67] (http://forums.randi.org/#cite_note-shepherdwingham2007-66) Significant acceleration of outflow glaciers in the Amundsen Sea Embayment (http://forums.randi.org/wiki/Amundsen_Sea_Embayment) may have more than doubled this figure for the year 2006.[68] (http://forums.randi.org/#cite_note-rignotbamber2008-67)
East Antarctica is a cold region with a ground base above sea level and occupies most of the continent. This area is dominated by small accumulations of snowfall which becomes ice and thus eventually seaward glacial flows. The mass balance of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (http://forums.randi.org/wiki/East_Antarctic_Ice_Sheet) as a whole is thought to be slightly positive (lowering sea level) or near to balance.[67] (http://forums.randi.org/#cite_note-shepherdwingham2007-66)[68] (http://forums.randi.org/#cite_note-rignotbamber2008-67) However, increased ice outflow has been suggested in some regions.[68] (http://forums.randi.org/#cite_note-rignotbamber2008-67)[69] (http://forums.randi.org/#cite_note-Chen2008-68)

(emphasis added)

[BenBurch]

... My assessment that capitalism won the argument over socialism is based on a simple, not to say simplistic, comparison of the standard of living achieved in the West with that of the Soviet Bloc by the time the latter collapsed.

None of those Western economies were free markets.

[Pixel42]

None of those Western economies were free markets.
True, like I said I was being simplistic, but let's not derail this thread with political arguments any more than it already has been.

[Reality Check]

Do you support Socialism or Capitalism?.... answer the question!
Can you please take this question about politics to the Politics sction of the forum.
This is the Science, Mathematics, Medicine, and Technology (http://forums.randi.org/forumdisplay.php?f=5) section.

[lomiller]

I specifically made a post (http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/06/debunking-911-conspiracy-theories.html) to debunk 911 conspiracy theories.

A stopped clock is still right twice a day...


The fact that you could fall on opposite sides of identically presented arguments simply tells us that the argument being made plays no role in your decision over which to support.

[aleCcowaN]

[Link to article]

This surprised me. For those of you who don't know, the Spectator is a centre-right magazine that used to be published by Boris Johnson, current Mayor of London.

Despite the fact that I disagree with their political leaning, I always thought they were rational conservatives, who accepted things like Global Warming. No more:I fail to see why a conservative magazine shouldn't publish that article. Reading the title "Meet The Man Who Has Exposed The Great Climate Change Con Trick" and the front page "Relax: Global Warming Is All a Myth" one could think they are being ironic rather than thinking this magazine endorses the author and the conclusions of his book. I know that the colours chosen for the front page and some language may be a hint of some target public -maybe not much educated lower mid-class -, but the style chosen -one that resembles the classical action movie where the hero, with justice on his side, slashes the bad ones as they conveniently show one by one in order to allow the blood to flow along with the film- may be a hint of "hey! notice what controversial things says this bloke".

I know the article is confusing, as it doesn't show clearly which opinions come directly from Plimer, which ones are extracted by Delingpole from the book and which parts are Delingpole's. There is also some classical bad argumentations using a sort of adjective hoarding to hide the lack of data, as in "... he has recently published the landmark book Heaven And Earth, ... says Plimer ... you’re unlikely to have heard it expressed with quite such vigour, certitude or wide-ranging scientific authority" and later "Reading Plimer’s Heaven And Earth is at once an enlightening and terrifying experience. Enlightening because, after 500 pages of heavily annotated prose (the fruit of five years’ research), ..." in a typical argumentative structure that takes the classical "This is what I'm going to say. Now I'm saying it. And this is what I said." and replaces it with "These are the wonders I'm going to said. And these are the conclusions of what I say that I have said."

The article looks like aimed to stir up something and to explain little, so it leaves little to discuss, as we cannot be sure about each single argument and its sources.

[English student. Forgibb my misteakes]

[casebro]

That sounds like Tamino's bet (http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/you-bet/).

Worth a read...

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_28149ad331c696cc.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=15488)

The chart on Tamino's site is at least a year and a half out of date. Looks like we can put a couple more spots on below the blue line.

[Pixel42]

The chart on Tamino's site is at least a year and a half out of date. Looks like we can put a couple more spots on below the blue line.
If you scroll down to the last few comments you will find recent posts giving the 2008 anomaly as 0.4871. That looks to be about half way between the solid red line and the solid blue line. So no help there.

[Megalodon]

The chart on Tamino's site is at least a year and a half out of date. Looks like we can put a couple more spots on below the blue line.

No, the graph I posted is mine and up to date, using the NCDC data instead of the GISS data that Tamino used.

[BenBurch]

...
[English student. Forgibb my misteakes]

You did great!

Welcome to JREF!

[aleCcowaN]

You did great!

Welcome to JREF!Thank you very much!

Anyway, I have one tense mistaken but it seems I'm not able to edit my own messages (but I can report them! nice feature :rolleyes:, as useful as an ashtray attached to a motorcycle ). I don't know if that edit-you-not feature is general for all posters but moderators, or it's just a special treat for newcomers. I'll appreciate any feedback about that.



__________________________________________________ __________
[I]Si razona el caballo ¡se acabó la equitación! - césaR brutO

[English student. Forgibb my misteakes]

[BenBurch]

Thank you very much!

Anyway, I have one tense mistaken but it seems I'm not able to edit my own messages (but I can report them! nice feature :rolleyes:, as useful as an ashtray attached to a motorcycle ). I don't know if that edit-you-not feature is general for all posters but moderators, or it's just a special treat for newcomers. I'll appreciate any feedback about that.



__________________________________________________ __________
[I]Si razona el caballo ¡se acabó la equitación! - césaR brutO

[English student. Forgibb my misteakes]

I think you get to edit after you have been here a while.

About the same time you are allowed to post links.

It is to prevent spammers.

-Ben

[aleCcowaN]

I think you get to edit after you have been here a while.

About the same time you are allowed to post links.

It is to prevent spammers.

-BenThanks again, Ben!

Then, meanwhile I'm going to be more careful while typing.

[Corsair 115]

Alex Libman never addressed my question from post #53, so I'll pose it to Poptech instead:

If global warming/climate change is a hoax, then who is it being perpetrated by and to what purpose?

[TellyKNeasuss]

And there is nothing saying it can't either. You have evidence that how ozone holes are formed is not fully understood and you have evidence for natural factors such as solar storms destroying Ozone. The science is not settled.

The article also didn't say that ozone holes aren't caused by Santa Claus driving his sleigh too fast through the stratosphere and triggering chemical reactions by heat caused by friction.

Neither story contained any implication that any of the scientists involved had doubts that CFCs caused the antarctic ozone hole. But I guess that you don't have any good alternatives to quote mining.

[macdoc]

and in no way takes away from the impact of the ozone hole on the antipodal sea ice extent..distinguishing the southern response to AGW from the Arctic response.:rolleyes:

Science does not understand completely all the mechanisms of gravity or evolution or chemical reactions....etc etc etc
.....does not in anyway discredit the ongoing body of established science....

[UnrepentantSinner]

Again, it was in response to claims of conspiracy.

How so? What does the economic positions of JREF forumites have to do with the conclusions of the IPCC? No one who is concerned about AGW/Climate Change has made an economic argument about it in the several years it's been on our debate radar here. The only people who make the economic argument are deniers from what I've seen.

Instead of dancing, let me be up front with you. I'm pretty convinced, based on a number of evidences, that Climate Change is happening, and whether or not they're naturalistically cyclic or not, that our carbon emissions could add to the effect of those natural fluxations.

Basically I'm centrist on this issue and tilting towards the AGW side. I do not, however, once consider the economic implications of AGW in my conclusions of its veracity or the lack thereof. The reason I am critical of deniers like you is that your ilk seems utterly oblivious to the Tragedy of the Commons. "Gas is still $2.50/gal., I like setting my heat to 80 degrees and I don't live in Kiribati or the Gulf Coast so who cares about coral bleaching, Pikas or loss of glaciation."

To cut to the chase, ideological/political driven deniers like you that claim AGW is a hoax are like Nero fiddling while Rome burns. Obviously Climate Change won't wipe out life on Earth - the rats and roaches will long outlast us - but the world you live in and enjoy today won't be here in 10 or 20 years if the most dire predictions are correct and it won't be here for your children if the most optimistic predictions are correct.

I'm an atheist with no children so all will be nothing after I die, but I seems so strange to me that most deniers are "family oriented" political conservatives who don't seem to care about leaving the Earth a better place than they found it.

Read the whole thread again. I am attempting to put the issue to rest through a sampling af JREF AGW supporters.

What makes you think I have not? And again, you seem to have no awareness of the transparency that your position is based on economic/ideological/political grounds more so than science.

[Poptech]

If global warming/climate change is a hoax, then who is it being perpetrated by and to what purpose?
This sort of comment seems to just perpetually come up no matter how many times I say it.

I never once stated that global warming or climate change is a hoax or any sort of conspiracy. There is a difference between global warming and AGW (Anthropogenic [man-made] global warming). I fully believe there is evidence for a mild warming since the little ice age. The argument revolves around man-made CO2 and it is not just if it is contributing to climate change but by how much. This is key because many skeptical scientists support that man has contributed to climate change in general, say through land use changes but they disagree on the extent (especially for CO2) and all skeptical scientists disagree on the claims of alarmism. See the problem is the debate has been distorted by alarmists (including many here) as if the science or their imaginary consensus supports their alarmist declarations, it does not.

Being a computer science (yes with a degree and over 20 years in the field) I understand the limitations of computer systems very well. This is why it is not possible for me to accept any predictions, scientific conclusions or policy decisions based on computer climate or economic models. I only believe reality not virtual reality.

[SezMe]

Being a computer science (yes with a degree and over 20 years in the field) I understand the limitations of computer systems very well. This is why it is not possible for me to accept any predictions, scientific conclusions or policy decisions based on computer climate or economic models. I only believe reality not virtual reality.
Having a degree and experience in computer science gives you no chops whatsoever to evaluate climate science.

Do you have a similar disdain for all computer models or just those of climate and economics?

[Poptech]

Having a degree and experience in computer science gives you no chops whatsoever to evaluate climate science.

Do you have a similar disdain for all computer models or just those of climate and economics?
You computer illiteracy is evident by that statement. My degree and extensive experience give me MORE "chops" than the scientists making the models to begin with. Computer code is computer code no matter what name you give the code. Calling something a computer "climate" model does not change how FORTRAN or Python code it written or compiled.

I have no disdain, I merely understand their limitations for prediction, scientific conclusions and policy. The sad part is how they can BS all the computer illiterates.

[Wangler]

You computer illiteracy is evident by that statement. My degree and extensive experience give me MORE "chops" than the scientists making the models to begin with. Computer code is computer code no matter what name you give the code. Calling something a computer "climate" model does not change how FORTRAN or Python code it written or compiled.

I have no disdain, I merely understand their limitations for prediction, scientific conclusions and policy. The sad part is how they can BS all the computer illiterates.

Poptech, you do understand that to understand the limitations for prediction and scientific conclusion, you must understand the model? Therefore, I don't think you have more "chops" than a climatologist.

Understanding the code is one thing, all the IF..THEN..ELSE loops, function calls, and so forth. All of those internals are well defined, and well behaved. No ambiguity there.

The complex differential equations that many computer models employ, those are the real items that require scrutiny. How does the algorithm treat the data? How does the algorithm converge? Are there areas where the model demonstrates poor behaviour? Does it handle inflection points well? Shall we go with Simpsons' Method? Runge-Kutta?

If I give you an algorithm in pseudo-code, I have no doubt you would give me a functioning program. I'm sure you would even do some structural testing and such to ensure I get a quality piece of code.

It's up to me to test the model for convergence and suitability for my purposes, among others. I would not expect you to test for those critiera, no would I trust you to do so.

That in no way is meant to reflect poorly on your skills as a computer programmer/administrator/scientist.

[SezMe]

You computer illiteracy is evident by that statement. My degree and extensive experience give me MORE "chops" than the scientists making the models to begin with. Computer code is computer code no matter what name you give the code. Calling something a computer "climate" model does not change how FORTRAN or Python code it written or compiled.
Thereby completely discrediting your opinion. A climate model consists of the physics as embodied in the equations used to model the situation and the initial and boundary conditions. Period.

A computer implementation of that model is used to generate numerical results for pre- and post-diction.

Tis a shame that that utterly escapes you.

[macdoc]

For the graphophiles amusement

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/07/pielke_srs_new_statistical_tec.php

:garfield:

[shadron]

OK, then, let's go right to the roots. What is it in your, or my, code that you find wrong?

If you have problems with modeling anything on a computer, I'd have to say you're in the wrong field, as software running on a computer is always a model of something. A checkbook program models your bank account, a drawing program models using paint or pencil on a hard surface. Running this client/server forum software models using a bulletin board in an office.

Or is it the fact that using computer code allows the cognoscenti to cheat? You can model deriving an definite integral using Newton-Coates or Gaussian, or any other numerical integration formula. The result will not be exact under any real meaning of the term, but can be as precise as you want it to be, given appropriate coding methods. So, then, is your problem:

- that the climate is somehow inherently indescribable in mathematical terms, and so a computer program cannot be adequately specified?
- or is it that you mistrust the analysis to be able to define the problem well enough that a suitable mathematical expression can be chosen to encompass the physics?
- or that the up front analysis is wrong, and so the chosen algorithm is inadequate?
- or that the method is incorrectly coded and yields bad answers?
- or that the coder deliberately can cheat and pull a value out of a random number generator to deliver?

It is obvious to me that I can create a program which can faithfully render a 3D view of a structure - say, a house - to whatever level of faithfullness that a user desires. I have the plans and specifications, I can break them down into components for rendering, I can then render them based on an assumed viewpoint. I have done it. If the user determines that he wants the studs behind the walls modeled rather than just the wall surfaces, then the model can be modified to add that to the model. If he wants the thickness of the drywall modeled, that can be added. Piecewise, the model can be made as exact as it is needed to be.

So tell me, then, at what point in this mathematically driven, iteratively improved method of modeling reality on a computer do you find fault? You seem to be saying that the problem is fundamental, that it cannot be fixed. Tell me what part of the process is the problem.

[Myriad]

A deep understanding of computer program code and the systems that execute it is every bit as useful for understanding the capabilities and limitations of computer models as a deep understanding of printing press technology is for understanding literature.

Respectfully,
Myriad

[macdoc]

clever ....:thumbsup: :garfield:

[tsig]

The fact that you don't understand what I say and quote me wrongly is hardly my mistake. I said that it disproved WHAT? Just a little hint: read carefully or you don't get my message.

Your message, whatever it may be, is covered in deep sounding, pseudo-philosophical cow flops.

[BenBurch]

You computer illiteracy is evident by that statement. My degree and extensive experience give me MORE "chops" than the scientists making the models to begin with. Computer code is computer code no matter what name you give the code. Calling something a computer "climate" model does not change how FORTRAN or Python code it written or compiled.

I have no disdain, I merely understand their limitations for prediction, scientific conclusions and policy. The sad part is how they can BS all the computer illiterates.

I ask a similar question when I interview people for jobs in software engineering. I would not hire you.

[aleCcowaN]

A deep understanding of computer program code and the systems that execute it is every bit as useful for understanding the capabilities and limitations of computer models as a deep understanding of printing press technology is for understanding literature.
A very good comparison if taken moderately, just to illustrate the opposite point of view.

I reckon that in computer modeling of the climate the power of the code and power of the machine, so to speak, are bound to the validity and scope of the model much more the measure good literature depends on the media -some pieces of good literature are drawn with chalk-. I don't think that code and equipment are to the predictions and analysis they process the same way basic organic chemistry is related to behavior of human beings. They are much more related.

I'd like to think that the discussions aroused here originated in some people thinking that core variables and interactions laid out properly are somewhat to be limited by internal errors and inconsistencies much more than computing "throughput", while other fellow thinks that limitations in the field of simulation posed by soft and hardware make those reassurances premature.

What I can't gather is why discussions seem to be here so Manichean, have so many posts and leave initial topics so easily just for discussing things from opposite extremes of a scale. When I can agree with most of forum members just because they have the same opinion I have at the moment or they just show a way of reasoning I can concur with but not for the reasons and data given by them, all blurred and contaminated by hyperbolic versions of all kind of antique and modern fallacies, then I wonder which are the real purposes of these forums besides to provide a sandbox for the guys to brawl a bit with eager minds and sharp tongues.

[Sorry. I may have carried away myself way beyond my real English abilities]

[Morrigan]

Count me in as another programmer who calls BS on Poptech's opinion.

[Poptech]

Poptech, you do understand that to understand the limitations for prediction and scientific conclusion, you must understand the model? Therefore, I don't think you have more "chops" than a climatologist.

Understanding the code is one thing, all the IF..THEN..ELSE loops, function calls, and so forth. All of those internals are well defined, and well behaved. No ambiguity there.

The complex differential equations that many computer models employ, those are the real items that require scrutiny. How does the algorithm treat the data? How does the algorithm converge? Are there areas where the model demonstrates poor behaviour? Does it handle inflection points well? Shall we go with Simpsons' Method? Runge-Kutta?

If I give you an algorithm in pseudo-code, I have no doubt you would give me a functioning program. I'm sure you would even do some structural testing and such to ensure I get a quality piece of code.

It's up to me to test the model for convergence and suitability for my purposes, among others. I would not expect you to test for those critiera, no would I trust you to do so.

That in no way is meant to reflect poorly on your skills as a computer programmer/administrator/scientist.
No you do not understand computer climate simulations are attempting to recreate real world conditions. The false assumption is that this can be done "good-enough" and the results can be relevant. This is the big lie and it is simply do to a lack of understanding what a computer cannot do. That is it cannot fill in the blanks for everything you do not know about the climate system as if you were doing an experiment in the real world since everything must be programmed into them from the beginning and everything must be 100% correct. Otherwise the results are meaningless.

Thereby completely discrediting your opinion. A climate model consists of the physics as embodied in the equations used to model the situation and the initial and boundary conditions. Period.

A computer implementation of that model is used to generate numerical results for pre- and post-diction.

Tis a shame that that utterly escapes you.
The physics are not identical to the real world and thus are not modeling the "situation". Yes you will get results but they will not be relevant.

OK, then, let's go right to the roots. What is it in your, or my, code that you find wrong?

So, then, is your problem:

- that the climate is somehow inherently indescribable in mathematical terms, and so a computer program cannot be adequately specified?
- or is it that you mistrust the analysis to be able to define the problem well enough that a suitable mathematical expression can be chosen to encompass the physics?
- or that the up front analysis is wrong, and so the chosen algorithm is inadequate?
- or that the method is incorrectly coded and yields bad answers?
- or that the coder deliberately can cheat and pull a value out of a random number generator to deliver?
All are correct. But there are many ways to cheat and they can all be scientifically justified (in the current environment).

If you accept CO2 climate forcing equations as valid and implement them in your model you will always get increased temperatures. That does not make this proof of this behavior in the real world.

You seem to be saying that the problem is fundamental, that it cannot be fixed. Tell me what part of the process is the problem.
Modeling used for 3D rendering is vastly different from ones that try to predict chaotic systems.

A deep understanding of computer program code and the systems that execute it is every bit as useful for understanding the capabilities and limitations of computer models as a deep understanding of printing press technology is for understanding literature.
This is just an ignorant statement. I made no claim that my knowledge in computer systems gives me knowledge about climate science, what it does do is give me extensive knowledge about virtual reality. Just because a climate scientist decides to use virtual reality for their "science" does not change the limitations of virtual reality.

I ask a similar question when I interview people for jobs in software engineering. I would not hire you.
What is your degree in? Software engineering for what? Have you ever looked at some of these models code? If you find that crap acceptable then either you work for the government or a university. In the real world it is not so easy to get away with that crap.

[Wangler]

No you do not understand computer climate simulations are attempting to recreate real world conditions. The false assumption is that this can be done "good-enough" and the results can be relevant. This is the big lie and it is simply do to a lack of understanding what a computer cannot do. That is it cannot fill in the blanks for everything you do not know about the climate system as if you were doing an experiment in the real world since everything must be programmed into them from the beginning and everything must be 100% correct. Otherwise the results are meaningless.


The physics are not identical to the real world and thus are not modeling the "situation". Yes you will get results but they will not be relevant.

There are many non-linear processes that can be modelled using computers. Extreme care must be taken in the interpretation of the results, but you must be careful with the results regardless of whether you are modelling linear, well-behaved processes or complex, non-linear ones.

[shadron]

All are correct. But there are many ways to cheat and they can all be scientifically justified (in the current environment).

So the problem isn't that modeling cannot be done but rather that the climatologist and programmer who together created the model are consciously cheating - making the model unrealistic in order to push some agenda.

If that is your thesis, then how do all these models (and there are a lot of them, all differently composed and designed by unrelated people) all come to the same conclusions? Are these people interacting through some sort of undetected back channel? Like all conspiracy theories, this one dies because of the utter improbability that that many egos can cooperate and no one ever talks in their sleep or while drunk in a bar.

If you accept CO2 climate forcing equations as valid and implement them in your model you will always get increased temperatures. That does not make this proof of this behavior in the real world.Is this a contradiction of your thesis above, that the problem is in the modeling and not because of cheating? If you really mean this rather than your assertion above, then I'll counter with, Why is this true? Are you saying then that climate cannot be modeled realistically? If that's true then you must be trying for some sort of supernatural intervention.

Modeling used for 3D rendering is vastly different from ones that try to predict chaotic systems.Absolutely true, but that doesn't alter the fact that they are both physical modeling systems and both work, and make valid predictions. Modeling an atomic blast is a chaotic system, and yet the supercomputers at Los Alamos manage to do that without problems, to the extent that the scientists use them rather than atomic testing to verify advances in atomic weaponry. I would argue that if you consider climate to be chaotic then you haven't seen anything until you've modeled the interior of a hydrogen weapon when the hohlraum gets hot.

The second point is that if the model failed then the predictions it makes would not be verified, but they have. Modeling of the effects on the Artic ice, on the effects of volcanic explosions and the effects of El Nino have all been modeled and verified successfully.

So, then, which is it? Is climate able to be modeled, or are the models being sabotaged by some secretive cabal of back office scientists who have some arcane reason for doing this? These cannot both be true; if the climate cannot be modeled then why do scientists even need to fake it? Tell us what your beef is so we can argue the real problem, not some chimera.

Personally, I think you don't really know wwhat the supposed problem is - all you have is your fact that the modeling isn't coming out the way you believe that it should. You don't have a clue where the supposed problem might be, and so you appear to stab in all directions trying to find a vulnerability.

[BenBurch]

Count me in as another programmer who calls BS on Poptech's opinion.

I suspect he couldn't code his way out of an infinite loop.

[SezMe]

The false assumption is that this can be done "good-enough" and the results can be relevant. This is the big lie and it is simply do to a lack of understanding what a computer cannot do. That is it cannot fill in the blanks for everything you do not know about the climate system as if you were doing an experiment in the real world since everything must be programmed into them from the beginning and everything must be 100% correct. Otherwise the results are meaningless.
This is incorrect. Idiotic, in fact. Computer simulations of both simple and complex systems can be quite useful and not be 100% correct. In fact, the very notion of "100% correct" is useless. What, to be 100% correct you have to model the motion of every molecule in the atmosphere? Every atom?

Of course not. Climate models produce aggregate behavioral results which then need careful interpretation to understand (as Wangler correctly noted above). No wonder you're so far off base. You don't even understand computer simulation much less climate models.

[Herzblut]

So the problem isn't that modeling cannot be done but rather that the climatologist and programmer who together created the model are consciously cheating - making the model unrealistic in order to push some agenda.

No, the problem is that skillful multi-decadal climate prediction is impossible.

[shadron]

No, the problem is that skillful multi-decadal climate prediction is impossible.

Why? Is it the "skillful" part that is a problem, or did you mean "accurate" instead?

If you are referring to the 20-30 year pacific decadal oscillation, it is an oscillation, and largely reverses its effects through a complete oscillation cycle. The models we are discussing mainly make predictions within a short span of that cycle extending out to a few cycles, and the effects of possible error increase over time because of it and other chaotic effects.

[Herzblut]

Why? Is it the "skillful" part that is a problem, or did you mean "accurate" instead?

If you are referring to the 20-30 year pacific decadal oscillation, it is an oscillation, and largely reverses its effects through a complete oscillation cycle. The models we are discussing mainly make predictions within a short span of that cycle extending out to a few cycles, and the effects of possible error increase over time because of it and other chaotic effects.
I am referring to the given fact that no climate model makes any credible long-term prediction whatsoever, in contrast to what you happen to claim.

See for instance at Climate Science:

http://climatesci.org/2008/07/31/on-the-credibility-of-climate-predictions-by-koutsoyiannis-et-al/

Abstract:

“Geographically distributed predictions of future climate, obtained through climate models, are widely used in hydrology and many other disciplines, typically without assessing their reliability. Here we compare the output of various models to temperature and precipitation observations from eight stations with long (over 100 years) records from around the globe. The results show that models perform poorly, even at a climatic (30-year) scale. Thus local model projections cannot be credible, whereas a common argument that models can perform better at larger spatial scales is unsupported.”

Extract from the conclusions:

“At the annual and the climatic (30-year) scales, GCM interpolated series are irrelevant to reality. GCMs do not reproduce natural over-year fluctuations and, generally, underestimate the variance and the Hurst coefficient of the observed series. Even worse, when the GCM time series imply a Hurst coefficient greater than 0.5, this results from a monotonic trend, whereas in historical data the high values of the Hurst coefficient are a result of large-scale over-year fluctuations (i.e. successions of upward and downward ‘trends’. The huge negative values of coefficients of efficiency show that model predictions are much poorer than an elementary prediction based on the time average. This makes future climate projections at the examined locations not credible. Whether or not this conclusion extends to other locations requires expansion of the study, which we have planned. However, the poor GCM performance in all eight locations examined in this study allows little hope, if any. An argument that the poor performance applies merely to the point basis of our comparison, whereas aggregation at large spatial scales would show that GCM outputs are credible, is an unproved conjecture and, in our opinion, a false one.”

A fundamental and societally relevant conclusion from this study is that the use of the IPCC model predictions as a basis for policy making is invalid and seriously misleading.

Let me know if anything is still unclear to you in the given statements.

[Poptech]

There are many non-linear processes that can be modelled using computers. Extreme care must be taken in the interpretation of the results, but you must be careful with the results regardless of whether you are modelling linear, well-behaved processes or complex, non-linear ones.
There is only a belief by some that this can be done accurately. Complex systems such as the Earth's climate cannot be modeled for predictions, scientific conclusions or for policy decisions.

So the problem isn't that modeling cannot be done but rather that the climatologist and programmer who together created the model are consciously cheating - making the model unrealistic in order to push some agenda.
Did you read what I stated? It is all of them you listed. Yes the problem is the modeling cannot be done and the "cheating" can easily be done through "unconscious" bias. What goes into a computer climate model is based on the subjective opinions of the scientists creating them.

If that is your thesis, then how do all these models (and there are a lot of them, all differently composed and designed by unrelated people) all come to the same conclusions? Are these people interacting through some sort of undetected back channel? Like all conspiracy theories, this one dies because of the utter improbability that that many egos can cooperate and no one ever talks in their sleep or while drunk in a bar.
They actually don't. Every model produces distinctively different results. You are confusing "close-enough" with the same. But they average within the same linear trend. Because they all include similar CO2 climate forcing equations. What conspiracy? Who said something was a conspiracy? Show me the model that does not include similar CO2 climate forcing equations. You really don't seem to get this. Say to prove greenhouse theory the results of my model have to get over 1000. I have a number of equations that add and subtract numbers from 0.000000000001 to 0.1. Yet I have one end equation that always adds +1000. My model will always produce a number over 1000. The whole thing is a big joke. There are no equations in the models that would produce a long term lower temperature. This is not science, it is predetermined conclusions using excessive math.

Is this a contradiction of your thesis above, that the problem is in the modeling and not because of cheating? If you really mean this rather than your assertion above, then I'll counter with, Why is this true? Are you saying then that climate cannot be modeled realistically? If that's true then you must be trying for some sort of supernatural intervention.
It is actually both. But not "cheating" in the evil intentional sense, but from subjective bias. Yes the climate cannot be modeled realistically.

Absolutely true, but that doesn't alter the fact that they are both physical modeling systems and both work, and make valid predictions. Modeling an atomic blast is a chaotic system, and yet the supercomputers at Los Alamos manage to do that without problems, to the extent that the scientists use them rather than atomic testing to verify advances in atomic weaponry. I would argue that if you consider climate to be chaotic then you haven't seen anything until you've modeled the interior of a hydrogen weapon when the hohlraum gets hot.
Actually computer climate models have not made valid predictions. How do you know the advances were verified without testing? The climate is also more complex than an atomic blast and has a slightly longer duration.

The second point is that if the model failed then the predictions it makes would not be verified, but they have. Modeling of the effects on the Artic ice, on the effects of volcanic explosions and the effects of El Nino have all been modeled and verified successfully.
No they have not been verified.

So, then, which is it? Is climate able to be modeled, or are the models being sabotaged by some secretive cabal of back office scientists who have some arcane reason for doing this? These cannot both be true; if the climate cannot be modeled then why do scientists even need to fake it? Tell us what your beef is so we can argue the real problem, not some chimera.
Why the constant need to fabricate strawman conspiracy theories? This is like a JREF obsession. Scientists who rely on computer climate models simply do not understand the limitations of the simulations. It is simply a matter of ignorance.

Personally, I think you don't really know wwhat the supposed problem is - all you have is your fact that the modeling isn't coming out the way you believe that it should. You don't have a clue where the supposed problem might be, and so you appear to stab in all directions trying to find a vulnerability.
I do know what the problem is egos and computer illiteracy.

This is incorrect. Idiotic, in fact. Computer simulations of both simple and complex systems can be quite useful and not be 100% correct. In fact, the very notion of "100% correct" is useless. What, to be 100% correct you have to model the motion of every molecule in the atmosphere? Every atom?
Your false belief in non-100% correct simulations as being useful just demonstrates your lack of understanding of the limitations of computer systems. Yes to be correct they would have to do just that in real time for relevant predictions anyway.

No, the problem is that skillful multi-decadal climate prediction is impossible.
Exactly.

[Prometheus]

IOW, climate models are not "fair and balanced". :rolleyes:

[Poptech]

IOW, climate models are not "fair and balanced". :rolleyes:
Nope but subjective bias in computer climate models does not empirically prove anything. Correction it does for those who suffer from massive computer illiteracy.

[Herzblut]

I do know what the problem is egos and computer illiteracy.

Poptech, my perception is quite different. From what I understand, guys like Capel or Ben etc. are far from being computer illiterates. In contrast, they are computer experts. But what they are not are scientists. They hold a naive confidence in the power of computer technology to resolve complex scientific issues. It's an engineer's attitude, that all can be calculated.

Like the well-known, naive 19th century mechanistic world view. Or the enthusiastic notion after the discovery of antibiotics that infectious diseases will all be eradicated in a few years.

All of that proved dramatically wrong.

[Reality Check]

IOW, Poptech wants the computer models to produce 100% accurate results.
That is totally ridiculous. He knows that climate is a complex system.

Scientists know lots about climate and can create scientific models of climate. Like all models these are an approximation to reality since scientists do not know everything about climate. By definition any results from scientific models (however evaluated) will never be 100% accurate. The best that scientists can do is test that their models produce results that are close to reality.

Poptech is holding climatology to an impossible standard. He is saying that he personally wants climatology to give 100% accurate results. It does not so he is throwing it away.

[Poptech]

Poptech, my perception is quite different. From what I understand, guys like Capel or Ben etc. are far from being computer illiterates. In contrast, they are computer experts. What they are not are scientists. They hold a naive confidence in the power of computer technology to resolve complex scientific issues. It's an engineer's attitude, that all can be calculated.

Like the well-known, naive 19th century mechanistic world view. Or the enthusiastic notion after the discovery of antibiotics that infectious diseases will all be eradicated in a few years.

All of that proved dramatically wrong.
Which is why I included egos. I have met many like them who cannot deal with the possibility of things being unpredictable or rather uncontrollable.

[SezMe]

Yes to be correct they would have to do just that in real time for relevant predictions anyway.
Yikes! You want a real-time model for processes that take place over decades? You are reduced to gibberish.

[Poptech]

IOW, Poptech wants the computer models to produce 100% accurate results.
That is totally ridiculous. He knows that climate is a complex system.

Scientists know lots about climate and can create scientific models of climate. Like all models these are an approximation to reality since scientists do not know everything about climate. By definition any results from scientific models (however evaluated) will never be 100% accurate. The best that scientists can do is test that their models produce results that are close to reality.

Poptech is holding climatology to an impossible standard. He is saying that he personally wants climatology to give 100% accurate results. It does not so he is throwing it away.
No what is ridiculous is believing the models are anything but a big waste of time for predictions, scientific conclusions and policy decisions.

Scientists can create computer code that they call climate models but they do not relate to reality. They are all wrong because they are not 100% accurate.

I am holding computer climate models to the standard that is needed for them to have any predictive ability. Climatology as a field is very broad and empirical experiments and observations are useful.

[SezMe]

I do know what the problem is egos and computer illiteracy.
You have accused climate scientists of ignorance and computer illiteracy. Have you ever given consideration to the possibility that YOUR ego is a serious problem?

[Reality Check]

No what is ridiculous is believing the models are anything but a big waste of time for predictions, scientific conclusions and policy decisions.

Scientists can create computer code that they call climate models but they do not relate to reality. They are all wrong because they are not 100% accurate.

That is the nutty part of your opinion. What if the climate models were 99.99999% accurate? Would they be right or wrong?


I am holding computer climate models to the standard that is needed for them to have any predictive ability. Climatology as a field is very broad and empirical experiments and observations are useful.
What is the standard that you are using and where is it published.

[Herzblut]

Which is why I included egos. I have met many like them who cannot deal with the possibility of things being unpredictable or rather uncontrollable.
Yeah, it's tough to deal with acknowledging man's limitations. It's more comforting to imagine you could "engineer" everything, even Earth itself.

[DogB]

They are all wrong because they are not 100% accurate.

That statement shows just how far from a true understanding you've strayed. Listen real careful now - in science nothing is ever 100% accurate.

[Poptech]

You have accused climate scientists of ignorance and computer illiteracy. Have you ever given consideration to the possibility that YOUR ego is a serious problem?
I'm not the one claiming to predict the future

That is the nutty part of your opinion. What if the climate models were 99.99999% accurate? Would they be right or wrong?
But this is under the false assumption that you can determine that.

What is the standard that you are using and where is it published.
There are basic forecasting standards which they do not follow:

Global Warming: Forecasts by Scientists Versus Scientific Forecasts (http://www.aei.org/docLib/20080204_armstrong.pdf) (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 997-1021, December 2007)
- Keston C. Green, J. Scott Armstrong

The IPCC WG1 Report was regarded as providing the most credible long-term forecasts of global average temperatures by 31 of the 51 scientists and others involved in forecasting climate change who responded to our survey. We found no references in the 1056-page Report to the primary sources of information on forecasting methods despite the fact these are conveniently available in books, articles, and websites. We audited the forecasting processes described in Chapter 8 of the IPCC’s WG1 Report to assess the extent to which they complied with forecasting principles. We found enough information to make judgments on 89 out of a total of 140 forecasting principles. The forecasting procedures that were described violated 72 principles. Many of the violations were, by themselves, critical.

The forecasts in the Report were not the outcome of scientific procedures. In effect, they were the opinions of scientists transformed by mathematics and obscured by complex writing. Research on forecasting has shown that experts’ predictions are not useful in situations involving uncertainly and complexity. We have been unable to identify any scientific forecasts of global warming. Claims that the Earth will get warmer have no more credence than saying that it will get colder.and...

Useless Arithmetic: Ten Points to Ponder When Using Mathematical Models in Environmental Decision Making (http://www.aspanet.org/scriptcontent/custom/staticcontent/t2pdownloads/PilkeyArticle.pdf) (PDF)
(Public Administration Review, Volume 68 Issue 3, Pages 470-479, March 24, 2008)
- Linda Pilkey-Jarvis, Orrin H. Pilkey

[Poptech]

That statement shows just how far from a true understanding you've strayed. Listen real careful now - in science nothing is ever 100% accurate.
This just shows how much you assume. I made no claims of this. What I did state is the real world is 100% accurate.

[Herzblut]

This just shows how much you assume. I made no claims of this. What I did state is the real world is 100% accurate.
Weeeeeell, you said something like

Scientists can create computer code that they call climate models but they do not relate to reality. They are all wrong because they are not 100% accurate.

Why don't you refine your arguments? The level of model accuracy might be discussed after it's clear that those models have any credibility whatsoever. Which I cannot see at the moment.

I like your excellent link to Pilkey

http://www.aspanet.org/scriptcontent/custom/staticcontent/t2pdownloads/PilkeyArticle.pdf

that is really a brilliant source to read.

[SezMe]

I'm not the one claiming to predict the future
Evasion noted. Answer my question.

[Reality Check]

But this is under the false assumption that you can determine that.

We can determine that - test against existing data, make predictions and then test the predictions.


There are basic forecasting standards which they do not follow:

Global Warming: Forecasts by Scientists Versus Scientific Forecasts (http://www.aei.org/docLib/20080204_armstrong.pdf) (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 997-1021, December 2007)
- Keston C. Green, J. Scott Armstrong

and...

Useless Arithmetic: Ten Points to Ponder When Using Mathematical Models in Environmental Decision Making (http://www.aspanet.org/scriptcontent/custom/staticcontent/t2pdownloads/PilkeyArticle.pdf) (PDF)
(Public Administration Review, Volume 68 Issue 3, Pages 470-479, March 24, 2008)
- Linda Pilkey-Jarvis, Orrin H. Pilkey
Who is "they"?
Citing what is essentially a trade journal and a non-science journal in a science discussion is not wise. The second paper does have some valid points. It is a pity that none of the examples they use are climate models - they concentrate on shoreline beach models for some reason.

Actually who cares - the proof of a model is whether its predictions match what happens. The proof of a collection of models is whether their range of predictions covers what actually happens.
For example the IPCC TAR projections from 2001 have been verified up to 2008.
See for example Recent climate observations disagreement with projections (http://landshape.org/enm/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/ee-20-4_7-stockwell2.pdf) (PDF) (David R. B. Stockwell, Ph.D. Ecosystem Dynamics) and note that his Figure 1 has the curve fitted to the observed data in the middle of the IPCC TAR projections.

[TellyKNeasuss]

This just shows how much you assume. I made no claims of this. What I did state is the real world is 100% accurate.

Therefore your thread about problem with the US weather monitoring network is bogus?

[Herzblut]

Actually who cares - the proof of a model is whether its predictions match what happens.

Yeah, right. I have a model which predicts that sun is going up tomorrow morning and going down tomorrow evening. That proofs credibility of my model, doesn't it?


The proof of a collection of models is whether their range of predictions covers what actually happens.

I'm running an ensemble of two models predicting the global average temperature T on Earth. One states that T=0C everywhere on Earth, the other predicts that T=30C all over the planet. So look, the ensemble average of 15C coincides so well with empirical obserations, it clearly proofs the skillfulness of my ensemble of models, right?

[TellyKNeasuss]

No what is ridiculous is believing the models are anything but a big waste of time for predictions, scientific conclusions and policy decisions.

What models are 100 percent accurate? Are computer models more or less accurate than analog models? Is Newtonian physics "wrong" because it didn't include quantum mechanics?

Scientists can create computer code that they call climate models but they do not relate to reality. They are all wrong because they are not 100% accurate.

Is there a difference between "wrong" and "imprecise"? If I take my temperature with a digital thermometer that's only accurate to 1 degree and it reads 99 degF instead of 98.6 degF, is the thermometer "wrong"?

[TellyKNeasuss]

There are basic forecasting standards which they do not follow:

Global Warming: Forecasts by Scientists Versus Scientific Forecasts (http://www.aei.org/docLib/20080204_armstrong.pdf) (PDF)
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 997-1021, December 2007)
- Keston C. Green, J. Scott Armstrong



That article didn't mention a single specific flaw in any specific model. In fact, it's clear that the authors haven't even researched any of the models. They apparently just emailed some vague questions to some of the scientists and drew whatever conclusions they wanted from those answers. Do you post these links and hope that no one reads them?

Poptech, why do you believe that everything that's printed in a trade magazine whose editor admits to having a politcal agenda is true and everything that's printed in the respected scientific journals is false?

[TellyKNeasuss]

Poptech, my perception is quite different. From what I understand, guys like Capel or Ben etc. are far from being computer illiterates. In contrast, they are computer experts. But what they are not are scientists. They hold a naive confidence in the power of computer technology to resolve complex scientific issues. It's an engineer's attitude, that all can be calculated.

I don't know what the others' backgrounds are, but I find Capel and Ben to be reasonably well-read about climate change. Unlike you, who appears to know nothing about the subject, to the point of not even realizing that energy companies keep track of how much petroleum, coal, etc., that they produce.

[Wangler]

That article didn't mention a single specific flaw in any specific model.

I'm not sure that their purpose was to identify specific flaws in any model, but rather to critique the forcasting methodology presented in the IPCC report.

[Herzblut]

I don't know what the others' backgrounds are, but I find Capel and Ben to be reasonably well-read about climate change. Unlike you, who appears to know nothing about the subject, to the point of not even realizing that energy companies keep track of how much petroleum, coal, etc., that they produce.
What you find and what appears to you is of what relevance, in scientific terms?

[SezMe]

Yeah, right. I have a model which predicts that sun is going up tomorrow morning and going down tomorrow evening. That proofs credibility of my model, doesn't it?
Don't be obtuse.

I'm running an ensemble of two models predicting the global average temperature T on Earth. One states that T=0C everywhere on Earth, the other predicts that T=30C all over the planet. So look, the ensemble average of 15C coincides so well with empirical obserations, it clearly proofs the skillfulness of my ensemble of models, right?
The only thing it demonstrates is your lack of knowledge of error bars and variance. Thank you.

[TellyKNeasuss]

What you find and what appears to you is of what relevance, in scientific terms?

Since you felt free to assess others' scientific literacy, why do you ask why I did so?

[TellyKNeasuss]

I'm not sure that their purpose was to identify specific flaws in any model, but rather to critique the forcasting methodology presented in the IPCC report.

Did the IPCC create models or did they report on the results of models created by various researchers?

[Herzblut]

Since you felt free to assess others' scientific literacy, why do you ask why I did so?
You actually fantasize that your question answers my question?

[Reality Check]

Yeah, right. I have a model which predicts that sun is going up tomorrow morning and going down tomorrow evening. That proofs credibility of my model, doesn't it?

Actually not.
It is evidence that your model might be correct tomorrow.
The evidence that your model may be correct is the past risings and setting of the Sun that it predicted. In addition the predictions should be numerical, e.g. the times of the events, to provide a measure of their accuracy.


I'm running an ensemble of two models predicting the global average temperature T on Earth. One states that T=0C everywhere on Earth, the other predicts that T=30C all over the planet. So look, the ensemble average of 15C coincides so well with empirical observations, it clearly proofs the skillfulness of my ensemble of models, right?
No. You have just falsified both models.

I'm running an ensemble of two models (A and B) predicting the global average temperature T on Earth.
A predicts that T=14 +/- 2 C everywhere on Earth.
B predicts that T=16 +/- 2 C all over the planet.

An observed value of T = 14 +/- 1 C invalidates model B
An observed value of T = 16 +/- 1 C invalidates model A
An observed value of T = 15 +/- 1 C supports models A and B.

[Wangler]

Did the IPCC create models or did they report on the results of models created by various researchers?

It is my understanding that the IPCC presented forecasting based upon various models created by assorted researchers.

The purpose of this forecasting was to lay a foundation for consideration of potential policy direction.

This type of process was what that paper was directed at, if I understand correctly.

[aleCcowaN]

...
An observed value of T = 15 +/- 1 C supports models A and B.And an observed value of T = 15 +/- 0.1 C invalidates models A and B, right?

So, if that is right, one can always set an error margin low enough to invalidate any model.

So, giving "the nature of nature" as I can easily accept a model for Solar system, even the Milky way, that predicts the position of the Moon 100 years ago while running reversely, but not one that predicts the position one million years ago of the asteroid -and any particle it captured- that impacted 900 years ago the Moon, as I find very difficult to accept that there's a Destiny and it can be modeled an run forwards and backwards, then I am to conclude that one can always set the error level the required value to discard the arguments of one's opponent when based on computer modeling that predicts any thing.

So, one can say computer modeling will fail to predict any thing. It sounds like a variation of the "who is your real father?" argument.

Additionally, if I was a butcher and I should say "computers ain't predict nothing, pal" I would be probably wrong -or not, setting a margin wide enough in some place-, but if I was a computer expert and used trade language to say the same, the "error margin" would vary (?). Let me put it this way, "as I am loosely sort of an expert in that subject you have to accept the extremely fine margin that I set and the absolute truth that comes with it."

The magazine article that motivated this thread has a lot of these "logical" structures, although it's not clear if the interviewer, the interviewed or the book are to blame.

[lomiller]

From what I understand, guys like Capel or Ben etc. are far from being computer illiterates. In contrast, they are computer experts. But what they are not are scientists. They hold a naive confidence in the power of computer technology to resolve complex scientific issues. It's an engineer's attitude, that all can be calculated.

Since were into opinions of people my impression of you is as someone who has no scientific background whatsoever. You’re level of understanding is barely above PT, you occasionally try to throw around bigger words but frequently misapply them.