Global warming [Archive] - Page 11

Pipirr

16th November 2007, 05:37 PM

Assume it is desirable to prove that AGW was strictly by human factors.
Assume you are on the scientific team that was asked to prove that.

How would you do it?

"Assume it is desirable"? Desirable to whom?

Okay, how to do it. I guess I would need to get the right people on board. The COMINTERN would be essential; they hate America and have branches everywhere. Their comrades in the US chapter, the Democratic Party, would be extremely valuable. They could get control of the EPA and destroy America through over-regulation, not to mention stuff all the science funding bodies with people that only approve grants for projects that "prove AGW". NASA, too, better get them in on it. Everybody trusts NASA. That should stitch things up nicely. If I have control of all the scientific funding bodies and practicing climatologists, the US government, the EPA and NASA, I reckon I could prove whatever is "desirable".

The only problem I can see would be the oil and coal industry. But how much of an obstacle could they be? Nothing the UN can't handle, I'm sure.

Oh yes, and I'll hire a bunch of Guardian eating, sandal reading, left wing pinko liberals to push the party sorry, science line on internet blogs and forums. Heck, they'd probably do it for free.

That's one way to "prove that AGW was strictly by human factors".

Of course, if I was testing the hypothesis my approach would have to be quite different, and the outcome wouldn't be anywhere near as certain.

"Assume it is desirable to prove that AGW was strictly by human factors." Really, is that how you think climate science has been done?

mhaze

16th November 2007, 09:16 PM

"Assume it is desirable"? Desirable to whom?

Okay, how to do it. I guess I would need to get the right people on board. The COMINTERN would be essential.... "Assume it is desirable to prove that AGW was strictly by human factors." Really, is that how you think climate science has been done?

I must not have said what I meant to say.

So let me try again.

It is well established that past (MWP) was similar to today's climate.

You are asked to form several, if possible, theories with as strong support as possible that current warming is largely man made.

How is it done?

AGW is now just GW.

Natural GW causes.... glaciers receding, sea level rise, arctic ice loss, species migration, hurricane intensity, drought, Katrina....

And no one is worrying about polar bears.

mhaze

16th November 2007, 09:20 PM

I take two things from this post:

First, if this is the sort of work that gets by peer review, what's to stop ClimateAudit? If you can do better than that, do.

Second, the paper was presented at a meeting at the Royal Society in London. If it strikes you as more speculative than scientific articles usually are, that could be the reason why. It's a paper from a Discussion Meeting.

You can read more here. (http://www.royalsociety.ac.uk/event.asp?id=3083&month=11,2006)

It was not peer reviewed?

a_unique_person

16th November 2007, 09:23 PM

I must not have said what I meant to say.

So let me try again.

It is well established that past (MWP) was similar to today's climate.

Even if you accept that, the science is saying, it's not going to stop there. It's going to keep rising.

a_unique_person

16th November 2007, 09:31 PM

More than good soundbites? Yes, there are in AGW all the parts of a good monsters in the closet story told to young children to frighten them before they go to bed.

Maybe that was why the scientists thought it might be an idea to tell someone. Just as other scientists pass it on when they find out about carcinogens, the need to exercise, not eat a high sugar diet, etc. Would you believe they actually tell this to kids, so they won't get diabetes when they are young, or die prematurely? The scoundrels.

To accurately answer your question, though, here goes. There was a MWP as warm or warmer than today.

Assume it is desirable to prove that AGW was strictly by human factors.
Assume you are on the scientific team that was asked to prove that.

Assumptions are pretty pointless, unless you are going to come up with some evidence to prove them.

Which is what appears to be lacking every time this accusation is raise.

varwoche

17th November 2007, 01:30 AM

*yawn* Right... see here: Less Than Half of all Published Scientists Endorse Global Warming Theory (http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=b35c36a3-802a-23ad-46ec-6880767e7966)
According to James Inhofe, whack job and a half.

Have I EVER referenced Fox News or a WSJ editorial? No. I've cited peer-reviewed papers and documents from people that have been actively correcting mistakes made in the climate science field. See above.

a_unique_person

17th November 2007, 02:23 AM

*yawn* Right... see here: Less Than Half of all Published Scientists Endorse Global Warming Theory (http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=b35c36a3-802a-23ad-46ec-6880767e7966)

*yawn*

http://rabett.blogspot.com/2007/09/eli-does-schulte-it-occurred-to-eli.html

You can do this yourself, but the interesting things are

1. A large majority of the references dealt with the economic and biological consequences of global climate change showing the wide scientific consensus agreeing with the IPCC AR4

2. In the first 200 or so listings there were none that argued against the conclusions of the IPCC AR4.

Everybunny is welcome to repeat this exercise. Remember to use the advanced search (http://scholar.google.com/advanced_scholar_search) in Google Scholar, enter the string "global climate change" in the match exact phrase box and set the limits for the year that you want.

Please send your results to Princess Denial c/o Energy and Environment.

Locri

17th November 2007, 06:50 AM

*yawn*

http://rabett.blogspot.com/2007/09/eli-does-schulte-it-occurred-to-eli.html

That link isn't working for me... could you fix it/find a new one?

mhaze

17th November 2007, 07:01 AM

According to James Inhofe, whack job and a half.

See above.

You mean according to Senator James Inhofe, who you do not like because he does not share your far left views on numerous matters?

mhaze

17th November 2007, 07:05 AM

I must not have said what I meant to say.
So let me try again.
It is well established that past (MWP) was similar to today's climate.

You are asked to form several, if possible, theories with as strong support as possible that current warming is largely man made.

How is it done?

AGW is now just GW.

Natural GW causes.... glaciers receding, sea level rise, arctic ice loss, species migration, hurricane intensity, drought, Katrina....

And no one is worrying about polar bears.Even if you accept that, the science is saying, it's not going to stop there. It's going to keep rising.

To put this is the correct frame of reference, AUP, this is my response to Pipirr's pretty good question of "Why does the MWP matter all that much?". Or well, my second attempt to respond to that question....

Locri

17th November 2007, 07:35 AM

According to James Inhofe, whack job and a half.

Er... no, the paper itself was done by Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte, apparently. After digging it a bit I realized that this paper has already been discussed to death earlier on in the thread because of it's relation to Monckton, so it's probably not the best paper to reference afterall.

I'll see if I can find something else for you. I did find a page or two that had some notes of interest on the consensus thing, but I'd like to find something a bit more solid.

Regardless, as I've said earlier, consensus does not equal science. There are enough scientists out there that disagree with the AGW theory that (to me) it's fair to say the science isn't settled yet.

mhaze

17th November 2007, 03:52 PM

Er... no, the paper itself was done by Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte, apparently. After digging it a bit I realized that this paper has already been discussed to death earlier on in the thread because of it's relation to Monckton, so it's probably not the best paper to reference afterall.

I'll see if I can find something else for you. I did find a page or two that had some notes of interest on the consensus thing, but I'd like to find something a bit more solid.

Regardless, as I've said earlier, consensus does not equal science. There are enough scientists out there that disagree with the AGW theory that (to me) it's fair to say the science isn't settled yet.

Science is not settled?

Talking points for the British Ministry of EverTruthy Climate Propaganda says to always say the science is settled.
Warm Words (http://www.countryguardian.net/warm_words.pdf)
a spin doctor’s manual for convincing the public that they face a climate catastrophe

CapelDodger

17th November 2007, 05:16 PM

Yes, I did read what you said. But if the MWP and LIA exists, it makes sense that we'd be warming up again.

It doesn't make sense that it would be happening for no observable reason. Climate change doesn't just happen. It has causes.

We weren't around in the 9thCE to observe the global (and solar) processes that led to warming, or the processes in the 15thCE that led to cooling. We had a wide enough coverage in the 19thCE to recognise how much vulcanism there was, which goes a long way to explain the cold climate in that century and the warming after the 1880's when vulcanism died down. There's also evidence of an increase in solar activity in the first half of the 20thCE.

We now have a very wide and close observation of the planet (and of the Sun) and would surely be seeing natural influences on climate, say equivalent to what led up to the MWP. We don't have to speculate, we can observe.

I would agree that there is possibly some additional warming due to manmade GHG, but not to the extent that many AGW people believe.

AGW is not speculative, it's based on sound science going back a century-and-a-half. What natural warming influences have been observed over these last three decades? Where's the extra energy coming from?

There's no consensus answer to those questions even amongst contrarian scientists (a relevant BBC link has been posted, I think).

CapelDodger

17th November 2007, 05:27 PM

You mean according to Senator James Inhofe, who you do not like because he does not share your far left views on numerous matters?

Inhofe is a buffoon, senator or not. There are left-wing buffoons as well (Huey Long, George Galloway, just off the top of my head); buffoonery is not confined to any particular part of the political spectrum.

Nor, by the way, is acceptance (or denial) of AGW in any way evidence of a political stance. There are far-left denialists a-plenty. "AGW is a Western Imperialist plot", that sort of stuff.

CapelDodger

17th November 2007, 06:23 PM

I suggest going through and reading at least the first few pages of the paper I linked to. It talks about some of the policy decisions that were made in terms of how the IPCC reports on the scientific reports and this basically is breaking one of their own rules in how they report things.

The only policy decision I can recall is the Kyoto Protocol, which was windbaggery. I'm not at all convinced that the IPCC broke its own rules, despite this guy's assertions (who was it again? I've been a bit absent recently).

See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7082088.stm for a description of how the IPCC produces its reports.

"The IPCC is not, as some believe, a group of scientists, but a panel set up by the United Nations comprising representatives from about 140 governments to consider what we currently know about climate change.

The panel decides whether an assessment is needed, and then engages scientists to conduct it.
Since its establishment in 1987, there have been four such major assessments, published roughly every five years (1990, 1995, 2001 and 2007), sprinkled with occasional special reports on specific topics. Why this government role? The reason is because governments need a sound summary of knowledge which, once commissioned and adopted, becomes accepted by them."

If rules were broken governments have enough lawyers available to spot it, without needing to be told after the fact. It's not as if governments are hearing what they want to hear, after all. AGW is very unwelcome to governments, but they have come to accept its reality - even the current White House.

Yes, I have considered that actually. From what I can tell, the story told by McIntyre and others is far more logical than doing things like citing unpublished papers in order to back up the Mann et al reconstruction.

On the one hand a story (full of sound and fury), on the other pre-publication papers amid lots of post-publication papers.

*yawn* Right... see here: Less Than Half of all Published Scientists Endorse Global Warming Theory (http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=b35c36a3-802a-23ad-46ec-6880767e7966)

I think that's been soundly kicked to death.

Have I EVER referenced Fox News or a WSJ editorial? No.

Did I ever claim you had? No. The message that you claim has been muffled does get covered by them (amongst others), which is counter-evidence to muffling.

I've cited peer-reviewed papers and documents from people that have been actively correcting mistakes made in the climate science field.

Yet you claim they've been muffled.

You missed the point of that comment completely... it was a joke because you said (probably off the cuff):

I was joking about nit-picking it because I know you didn't mean it like that... I guess jokes don't fly to well here.

That rather depends on the joke.

I meant that you must have changed your position. I seem to recall you arguing that IPCC was a scientific organization and therefore we could trust it.

You seem to recall wrong. The IPCC was set up by governments, under the auspices of the UN, to collate the research done by scientific institutions and present it to said governments. It does not do research itself.

I'm a bugger for consistency. (Brit idiom :))

But we agree that the IPCC is a political organization then (regardless of the correctness of what they report)?

Yes. It's an interface between the scientific world and the political world, and so has some politics in it. It's not the only interface - all major governments have their own scientific advisory bodies that they can call on to assess the IPCC reports. Those (let alone the lawyers) are probably more politicised than the IPCC. That's a lot of oversight, but governments still accept the IPCC reports. McIntyre is apparently less influential, even though freely available to said governments.

You keep on going back to this red herring, I am not arguing that it's not gotten warmer. That's a pointless statement that has no relevance to what I was saying.

It's still worth pointing out. For all the flaws of the first three IPCC reports - and they have been picked over obsessively - nothing has happened to invalidate them. It seems the IPCC has been doing something right. It could be luck, but there's an old saying : "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action". (Also there's "the third time's the charm", whatever that means.)

a_unique_person

17th November 2007, 09:22 PM

That link isn't working for me... could you fix it/find a new one?

Works for me, try again.

mhaze

18th November 2007, 12:40 PM

Inhofe is a buffoon, senator or not. There are left-wing buffoons as well (Huey Long, George Galloway, just off the top of my head); buffoonery is not confined to any particular part of the political spectrum.

Nor, by the way, is acceptance (or denial) of AGW in any way evidence of a political stance. There are far-left denialists a-plenty. "AGW is a Western Imperialist plot", that sort of stuff.

Leaving aside your examples of other buffoons, which I might well take exception with but which have not relation to the discussion, I assume you have some evidence, then the Inhofe is a buffoon?

Since he doesn't share your point of view concerning AGW, I can completely understand that you'd like to disparage him in some easy way. It's an easy way to shrug off some unpleasant truths and realities - a lot easier than confronting them.

But I've gone to the trouble to substantiate my comments about Gore and Hansen, and now Mann, with a great many facts.

You've got some that support the Honorable Senator Inhofe being a buffoon, right?

Let's see - references to the Congressional Daily, speeches full of Buffoonery, strange antics on the floor of the Senate?

varwoche

18th November 2007, 01:16 PM

I assume you have some evidence, then the Inhofe is a buffoon? Somehow I don't imagine that the fact that Inhofe considers GW an out and out hoax (second in magnitude only to the separation of church and state "hoax") will convince you he's a nut. ;)

If you wish to discuss the fact that Inhofe's loony mythological beliefs drive his policy positions ("I believe very strongly that we ought to support Israel; that it has a right to the land. This is the most important reason: Because God said so. As I said a minute ago, look it up in the book of Genesis") perhaps you should start a thread in the politics section.

mhaze

18th November 2007, 01:48 PM

Somehow I don't imagine that the fact that Inhofe considers GW an out and out hoax (second in magnitude only to the separation of church and state "hoax") will convince you he's a nut. ;)

If you wish to discuss the fact that Inhofe's loony mythological beliefs drive his policy positions ("I believe very strongly that we ought to support Israel; that it has a right to the land. This is the most important reason: Because God said so. As I said a minute ago, look it up in the book of Genesis") perhaps you should start a thread in the politics section.

That he considers AGW a hoax makes him a nut? No, that makes him rational. But even to those whom thought it did, a nut is not a buffoon.

As for your disrespect to his religious beliefs, makes no difference to me. As you may be aware, Hansen has quite strong religious beliefs; so does Christy and many others. You, you've expressed a preference for Atheism (and/or Odin, IIRC). I've got no problem with that; of course; some might say you were a nut, but not a buffoon.

Thanks for the reply; you've convinced me of what I thought, that a rational, serious opponent to the extreme left wing environmental position, such as Senator Inhofe, is easier delt with by way of Ad Hominem attacks than actually debating his position.

mhaze

18th November 2007, 02:01 PM

More hockey stick.

1. Hundreds of studies show the Medieval Warming Period (http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/data/mwp/mwpp.jsp), which is NOT on the Hockey Stick. Without the MWP, the AGW theory loses all circumstantial evidence (AGW becomes GW, not man made) as cited in #2.

2. Gore uses the Hockey stick for evangelizing the Hellfire of Warming and the Damnation of CO2 producers. "The north polar ice cap is melting, the fires are burning, the sea level is rising, living species are going extinct. These and many other manifestations, including half the U.S. being in drought last year, are visible to the naked eye. We have got to recognize that even though it's never happened before, it is happening right now."
3. Specifically, Gore uses the Mann hockey stick (although he says it's Thompsons, he seems to just be a bit confused on that.)

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_142244739ac8177fa7.png (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=9183)

4. Mann recently had a graduate student, Abadneh, who updated one of the key tree core series in the hockey stick to the present day. This series of pine trees was the heaviest weighted in Mann's MBH98 PC1, something like 390 times weighted than the least weighted series. Also, it was the most heavily weighted in MBH99 PC1 and in the Mann and Jones 2003 PC1.

The Ababneh Thesis (http://www.geo.arizona.edu/Antevs/Theses/AbabnehDissertation.pdf) shows no hockey stick. This graph is from the discussion at climateaudit, here. (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2371)

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_142244740a5d39fc26.png (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=9286)

Black is Ababneh.

5. The Wegman commission studied the work of Mann and produced a report highly critical of it. In it they suggested that bristlecone pine proxies not be used; Mann continued to use them. Recently a study has came out, Loehle 2007 (http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3025), of temperatures of the last 2000 years which does not use tree ring measurements at all. There is no hockey stick; there is a pronounced MWP and LIA. Discussion here. (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2380#comment-162990)

Talking points (http://www.countryguardian.net/warm_words.pdf) for the British Ministry of EverTruthy Climate Propaganda says to always say the science is settled. Mann claims that the MWP was just European, not world wide.

Efforts to effect this historical revisionism seem to have not worked. Personalized Results 1 - 10 of about 107 for "medieval ice age".
Personalized Results 1 - 10 of about 578 for "european ice age"
Personalized Results 1 - 10 of about 383 for "european warm period".
Personalized Results 1 - 10 of about 453,000 for "little ice age"
Personalized Results 1 - 10 of about 125,000 for "medieval warm period"
Recent years have not shown an increase in temperature "unprecedented and alarming" which "require urgent action now". Given these facts, how does one integrate into a balanced and reasonable view of science published, peer reviewed work such as the following, from Hansen?
thick ice sheets provide not only a positive feedback... potential for cataclysmic collapse.....projected warmings under BAU would initiate albdeo-flip changes...

possible to save the Arctic from complete loss of ice...if absolute reduction of air pollutant forcings is achieved along with a reduction of CO2 growth...most rapid feasible slowdown of CO2 emissions, coupled with a forced reductions of other forcings, may just have a chance of avoiding disastrous climate change.....albedo feedback whipped the planet to hellish hothouse conditions...whipsaw between cold and warm.........imminent peril is initiation of dynamical and thermodynamical processess on the West Antartic and Greenland ice sheets....devastating sea-level rise will inevitably occur....activate the albedo-flip trigger....BAU GHG scenarios would cause large sea-level rise this century......best chance for averting ice sheet disintegration seems to be intense simultaneous efforts to reduce both co2 emissions and non-co2 climate forcings...
Climate Change and Trace Gases Hansen et al 2007
doi:10.1098/rsta.2007.2052

CapelDodger

18th November 2007, 04:00 PM

That he considers AGW a hoax makes him a nut? No, that makes him rational. But even to those whom thought it did, a nut is not a buffoon.

It makes him as rational as someone who believes 9/11 was a hoax.

As for your disrespect to his religious beliefs, makes no difference to me. As you may be aware, Hansen has quite strong religious beliefs; so does Christy and many others. You, you've expressed a preference for Atheism (and/or Odin, IIRC). I've got no problem with that; of course; some might say you were a nut, but not a buffoon.

"Strong religious beliefs" do not extend automatically to the quote varwoche provided. That's not strong religious belief, that's tiny-minded bigotry. I know a buffoon when I see one, and Inhofe is a buffoon. Buffoons in Congress - or Parliament - are a grand old tradition.

Thanks for the reply; you've convinced me of what I thought, that a rational, serious opponent to the extreme left wing environmental position, such as Senator Inhofe, is easier delt with by way of Ad Hominem attacks than actually debating his position.

Rational and serious? Crazed and extreme more like.

His opposition is not to extreme left-wing environmentalism, it's to anything that doesn't fit his cosy world-view. Such as the reality of AGW - which does not require an extreme left-wing position to accept. Trust me on that. AGW as a fact is not a political question. It is to Inhofe, of course, but then he's a buffoon.

CapelDodger

18th November 2007, 04:34 PM

mhaze

18th November 2007, 05:39 PM

It makes him as rational as someone who believes 9/11 was a hoax. "Strong religious beliefs" do not extend automatically to the quote varwoche provided. That's not strong religious belief, that's tiny-minded bigotry. I know a buffoon when I see one, and Inhofe is a buffoon. Buffoons in Congress - or Parliament - are a grand old tradition.

Rational and serious? Crazed and extreme more like. His opposition is not to extreme left-wing environmentalism, it's to anything that doesn't fit his cosy world-view. Such as the reality of AGW - which does not require an extreme left-wing position to accept. Trust me on that. AGW as a fact is not a political question. It is to Inhofe, of course, but then he's a buffoon.

My, my, you misunderstand. I only asked for quotes and or evidence to support your assertion that he is a buffoon. In the absence of direct evidence, I'll then assume you just want to denigrate him for being on the "other side". Really, there is a long history of this with you, AUP, Varoche etal: Relative to any and all persons, organizations, journals, and what not that didn't fit your neat tidy little AGW world view.

General spin points, such as what you've mentioned, do not qualify for the positive assertion of buffoonery. You are quite welcome to show by an evidence based approach that a reasonable person should consider him either a nut or a buffoon.

Trust? No, that isn't what I do.:)

mhaze

18th November 2007, 05:58 PM

The MWP is on the Mann et al reconstruction, just not with the prominence you desire.

Now that's good for a laugh. I thought I better zoom way in and use extra arrows to help find it.

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/142244740de7844279.png (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=9293)

Global warming caused by what? Where's the extra energy coming from, and why aren't we able to detect it? OK, the energy must be coming from the Sun, but why is it accumulating? Do you have anything on that? Surely somebody has, and surely you'll have heard about it on ClimateAudit. What is it?

The second obvious question is : why isn't energy accumulating because of the increased greenhouse effect from increased greenhouse gases?

Supplementary to the second question : if something's preventing warming by increased greenhouse effect, why isn't it preventing warming by the answer to the first question? What is so peculiar about greenhouse warming?Well, I think those are good questions, as long as they don't lead in the direction of something like "it must be AGW because Gosh Darnit we just can't think of anything else!!!".

You're asking for an energy budget, basically.

But isn't this the same as asking for corrections to the radiative forcing chart of the IPCC? That would be either in terms of correcting, say the solar factor or the cloud effects.

Or for the feedbacks, correcting the positive feedback noted for water cycle to a negative feedback.

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/142244696b7a46ad59.bmp (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=6998)

CapelDodger

18th November 2007, 06:17 PM

I had a look at the CO2Science link, but didn't go through all the references. Are there really hundreds of them? It didn't look like it, but I didn't actually count them.

I did take a look at the Asian Level 1 references.

Yakushima Island

The authors analyzed δ13C variations of Japanese cedars growing on Yakushima Island, southern Japan (30°20'N, 130°30'E), in
an effort to reconstruct a high-resolution proxy temperature record over the past two thousand years. The Medieval Warm
Period occurred between AD 800-1250 and from the authors' Figure 3, peak warmth during this time was about 1°C above that of
the Current Warm Period.

Sadly the graph ends at about 1970, before the Current Warm Period. And one is bound to wonder why Japanese cedars are so much more dependable than bristlecone pines - has this been audited by McIntyre et al?

Polar Ural Mountains, Russia

This work revealed that "a large number of well-preserved tree remains can be found up to 60-80 meters above the current tree
line, some dating to as early as a maximum of 1300 years ago," and that "the earliest distinct maximum in stand density occurred
in the 11th to 13th centuries, coincident with Medieval climatic warming." Since Marzepa cites many studies that conclude that
"increases in tree-line elevation, and associated increases in tree abundance within the transient tree-line ecotone, are
associated with extended warm periods," and that "the vertical gradient of summer air temperature in the Polar Urals is
0.7°C/100 m," we conclude that the Medieval Warm Period lasted from approximately AD 700 to 1300 and that significant
portions of it were as much as 0.56°C warmer than the Current Warm Period.

Notice the "extended warm periods"? I don't think that refers to thirty years, which is the extent of the Current Warm period.

Note also that the conclusion is apparently arrived at by the people at CO2Science, not the authors of the paper. The specificity of 0.56C rather gives that away, quite apart from the fact that there are no quotes around it. It's rather silly - but that's CO2Science for you. Mature trees springing up overnight, or perhaps moving upwards when opportunity presents and nobody's watching.

Pearl River Delta, Shenzhen Bay, China

(Honghan, Z. and Baolin, H. 1996. Geological records of Antarctic ice retreat and sea-level changes on the northern bank of the
Shenzhen Bay. Tropical Sea 4: 1-7.
Zicheng, P., Xuexian, H., Xiaozhong, L., Jianfeng, H., Guijian, L. and Baofu, N. 2003. Thermal ionization mass spectrometry
(TIMS)-U-series ages of corals from the South China Sea and Holocene high sea level. Chinese Journal of Geochemistry 22:
133-139.)

In an analysis of past sea level history in the South China Sea, Zicheng et al. (2003) cite the work of Honghan and Baolin (1996,
in Chinese), wherein they say these authors found that "the climate temperature at 1000 a B.P. is 1-2°C higher than that at present
time," referring to the Futian section on the eastern bank of the Pearl River, Shenzhen Bay, China (~22.5°N, 113.5°E).

This seems a tad convoluted. CO2Science cites one paper that cites another that specifically relates Antarctic ice retreat to
sea-levels in Southern China. Admittedly the Honghan paper is in Chinese, but I can rustle up a couple of Chinese readers with no trouble. They're not particularly science-literate, but you'd have thought CO2Science has the resources to find a Chinese reader who is.

Nothing mentioned about the corals in the (presumably English-language) Zicheng paper. Odd that.

Lake Qinghai, China
The authors developed a quantitative reconstruction of temperature changes over the past 3500 years based on alkenone
distribution patterns in a sediment core retrieved from China's Lake Qinghai (37°N, 100°E), based on the alkenone unsaturation
index that has been calibrated to the growth temperature of marine alkenone producers and "to temperature changes in
lacustrine settings on a regional scale." This work revealed that the peak warmth of the Medieval Warm Period (AD 900-1500)
exceeded the temperature of the latter part of the 20th century by about 0.5°C.

Now we have 0.5C (not 1-2C), a MWP of 900-1500CE, and the "latter part" of the 20thCE. And, according to the graph presented,
there's been a cooling during the 20thCE. I can't help thinking McIntyre could shred this had he the time and inclination.

Dengloujao Reef, Leizhou Peninsula, China
In an analysis of past sea level history in the South China Sea, Zicheng et al. (2003) cite the work of Baofu et al. (1997, in
Chinese), who investigated palaeotemperatures of the coral reef at Dengloujao, Leizhou Peninsula, China (~20.25°N, 110°E) and
reported that "sea-surface temperature at 1170 a B.P. is 2°C higher than that at present time."

Again we get nothing directly, just a citation of another study. Why is that? Were there other citations that were not so CO2Science friendly? Perhaps McIntyre could take some time to find out, if he's not still busy cooling Africa the way he cooled the US lower-48.

Seriously, how much of this do you think would survive the ClimateAudit treatment? It won't get it, of course, because that's not what ClimateAudit is about, but hypothetically?

What we end up with is a movable MWP, a movable temperature difference, and possibly moving trees.

I've no problem with there being a Medieval Warm Period similar to the 20thCE before about 1970, due to similar conditions - low levels of vulcanism and relatively high levels of solar activity. What I have a problem with is there being any sign of the rapid climate change that has occurred in the last three decades or so. Which is the relevant period when it comes to AGW.

CapelDodger

18th November 2007, 06:41 PM

My, my, you misunderstand. I only asked for quotes and or evidence to support your assertion that he is a buffoon. In the absence of direct evidence, I'll then assume you just want to denigrate him for being on the "other side". Really, there is a long history of this with you, AUP, Varoche etal: Relative to any and all persons, organizations, journals, and what not that didn't fit your neat tidy little AGW world view.

Jeebus H fu...

(Pause and count to 10. Calm now? OK, continue)

It isn't my habit, nor that of Schneibster, aup, varwoche, Megalodon et al to politicise and personalise AGW. We don't obsess about Al Gore, Hansen, Mann, the IPCC, and all the other demons you and yours go on and on about. I don't even claim that Inhofe is a right-wing buffoon. He's just a buffoon.

General spin points, such as what you've mentioned, do not qualify for the positive assertion of buffoonery. You are quite welcome to show by an evidence based approach that a reasonable person should consider him either a nut or a buffoon.

Trust? No, that isn't what I do.:)

It most certainly is. You also distrust, according to your own desires. Do you seriously think this isn't obvious? Sadly, you probably do.

Why don't we just drop the personalisation and politicisation? Forget left-wing extremism and anti-industrial scientific conspiracies on the one hand, Inhofe, FoxNews and weblogs on the other. AGW isn't about that.

Most particularly, forget Al Frickin' Gore. He never was POTUS, and never will be.

mhaze

18th November 2007, 06:48 PM

I had a look at the CO2Science link, but didn't go through all the references. Are there really hundreds of them? It didn't look like it, but I didn't actually count them.

I did take a look at the Asian Level 1 references.

Sadly the graph ends at about 1970, before the Current Warm Period. And one is bound to wonder why Japanese cedars are so much more dependable than bristlecone pines - has this been audited by McIntyre et al? Notice the "extended warm periods"? I don't think that refers to thirty years, which is the extent of the Current Warm period.

Note also that the conclusion is apparently arrived at by the people at CO2Science, not the authors of the paper. The specificity of 0.56C rather gives that away, quite apart from the fact that there are no quotes around it. It's rather silly - but that's CO2Science for you. Mature trees springing up overnight, or perhaps moving upwards when opportunity presents and nobody's watching.

This seems a tad convoluted. CO2Science cites one paper that cites another that specifically relates Antarctic ice retreat to
sea-levels in Southern China. Admittedly the Honghan paper is in Chinese, but I can rustle up a couple of Chinese readers with no trouble. They're not particularly science-literate, but you'd have thought CO2Science has the resources to find a Chinese reader who is.

Nothing mentioned about the corals in the (presumably English-language) Zicheng paper. Odd that.

Now we have 0.5C (not 1-2C), a MWP of 900-1500CE, and the "latter part" of the 20thCE. And, according to the graph presented,
there's been a cooling during the 20thCE. I can't help thinking McIntyre could shred this had he the time and inclination.

Again we get nothing directly, just a citation of another study. Why is that? Were there other citations that were not so CO2Science friendly? Perhaps McIntyre could take some time to find out, if he's not still busy cooling Africa the way he cooled the US lower-48.

Seriously, how much of this do you think would survive the ClimateAudit treatment? It won't get it, of course, because that's not what ClimateAudit is about, but hypothetically?

What we end up with is a movable MWP, a movable temperature difference, and possibly moving trees.

I've no problem with there being a Medieval Warm Period similar to the 20thCE before about 1970, due to similar conditions - low levels of vulcanism and relatively high levels of solar activity. What I have a problem with is there being any sign of the rapid climate change that has occurred in the last three decades or so. Which is the relevant period when it comes to AGW.

Yeah, I think in terms of MWP being hundreds of years in duration. Not sure how you precisely relate it to the last 30. what exactly would be the point of that? Where do you get 30 being the extent of the current WP?

I figured it perhaps from 1900 or so.
What we end up with is a movable MWP, a movable temperature difference, and possibly moving trees.
Should all that be precise?

Like, everything starts like clockwork?

Then maybe it did I but available records only show a glimpse here and there.

CapelDodger

18th November 2007, 07:18 PM

Now that's good for a laugh. I thought I better zoom way in and use extra arrows to help find it.

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/142244740de7844279.png (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=9293)

There it is, peaking around 1300CE. That would be good enough for CO2Science (were it not for the upsurge towards the end).

Well, I think those are good questions, as long as they don't lead in the direction of something like "it must be AGW because Gosh Darnit we just can't think of anything else!!!".

If they do lead that way they become bad questions? Isn't that a tad judgemental?

You're asking for an energy budget, basically.

I'm asking for reasons why it's changed, certainly.

But isn't this the same as asking for corrections to the radiative forcing chart of the IPCC? That would be either in terms of correcting, say the solar factor or the cloud effects.

We have a good knowledge of the solar and cloud factors from direct observations, by satellites. What else you got?

Or for the feedbacks, correcting the positive feedback noted for water cycle to a negative feedback.

How would that explain a positive energy-balance?

Surely what you need is an unexplained positive feedback to explain that - but not a positive feedback to a CO2-forcing. It would have to be a very specific positive feedback, one that doesn't amplify a CO2-forcing but does amplify some other forcing - whatever it is.

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/142244696b7a46ad59.bmp

Looking at the positive forcings there, CO2 is well ahead of the field. What comfort are you finding in it?

David Rodale

18th November 2007, 07:42 PM

There it is, peaking around 1300CE. That would be good enough for CO2Science (were it not for the upsurge towards the end).

If they do lead that way they become bad questions? Isn't that a tad judgemental?

I'm asking for reasons why it's changed, certainly.

We have a good knowledge of the solar and cloud factors from direct observations, by satellites. What else you got?

How would that explain a positive energy-balance?

Surely what you need is an unexplained positive feedback to explain that - but not a positive feedback to a CO2-forcing. It would have to be a very specific positive feedback, one that doesn't amplify a CO2-forcing but does amplify some other forcing - whatever it is.

Looking at the positive forcings there, CO2 is well ahead of the field. What comfort are you finding in it?

We have a good knowledge of the solar and cloud factors from direct observations, by satellites. What else you got?
More talk without references. Spencer studies clouds and precipitation systems. Can you just ignore his work?
http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm
FACTOID: Al Gore likes to say that mankind puts 70 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every day. What he probably doesn't know is that mother nature puts 24,000 times that amount of our main greenhouse gas -- water vapor -- into the atmosphere every day.

More on clouds if you didn't notice in a previous post:
http://irina.eas.gatech.edu/EAS_spring2006/Stephens2005.pdf

What else you got?

Question: How much more does water (oceans) absorb/store heat than the atmosphere (vapor)?

Answer: Oceans absorb/store 1000x the heat than the atmosphere. The rest isn't hard to figure out.

Do you ever read CA in depth?
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2386#more-2386
Apologist Eli Rabett (Joshua Halpern) recently lamented that in order for dendrochronologists to update tree ring studies used in MBH98/99 (aka Mann’s Hockey Stick) that they “have to drive out to the ass end of nowhere”. It’s such an inconvenience for those that just perform data wrangling in the office, instead of going out to get their hands dirty, that a study used as the basis for legislation hasn’t had its data updated in almost 10 years!

Thanks to Mr. Pete and Steve McIntyre, a recent outing in Colorado to get updated core samples from the very same trees used in Mann’s study proved that it’s not so hard after all. In fact they were able to have a Starbucks in the morning, do the field work, and were back home in time for a late dinner. No futzing with grant proposals, no elaborate plans submitted for approval, just basic honest field science. The samples they collected are in a dendrochronology lab undergoing analysis.

Another ongoing discussion about MWP and Loehle's reconstruction, all out in the open, no games, no refusal to submit data, methodologies or other games Mann & friends are so good at.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2380

Correlation is not causation right? At some point however it must mean something wouldn't you agree? There certainly is no correlation of CO2 to temperature. Please review the following paper and summarize what is incorrect with references of course.
http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/gwreview_oism150.pdf

We're still waiting for a peer reviewed paper of how CO2 raises temperature ~2.5C with 2xCO2. Climate models are not evidence.

CapelDodger

18th November 2007, 07:52 PM

Yeah, I think in terms of MWP being hundreds of years in duration. Not sure how you precisely relate it to the last 30. what exactly would be the point of that? Where do you get 30 being the extent of the current WP?

It's only during the last thirty years or so that the accumulated CO2 has reached a high enough level to have a significant impact. Had it not been for sulphate aerosols - another product of industrialisation - it might well have shown fifty years ago, but that's speculation.

I figured it perhaps from 1900 or so.

Why?What we end up with is a movable MWP, a movable temperature difference, and possibly moving trees.Should all that be precise?

If you're using it as a counter to the warming over the last thirty years, yes.

Like, everything starts like clockwork?

Isn't that what you're demanding when you ask for a direct correlation between CO2-load and climate?

Then maybe it did I but available records only show a glimpse here and there.

Not surprising given how slowly - but exponentially - CO2-load has increased since the dawn of the industrial era. Warming during the early part of the 20thCE (the positive energy-budget) is explicable by the reduction in vulcanism after Krakatoa, which was the last really big one, with some small contribution from increased solar output. A gradual return to normal, essentially. From the early 40's growing anthropogenic sulphate aerosols came of age, replicating the effects of vulcanism (CO2 accumulation was having an opposite effect, minor in comparison but also growing). In the 70's efforts were introduced to reduce sulphate aerosols for reasons unrelated to climate change, so that effect declined. CO2 continued to accumulate, and that accumulation continues.

CapelDodger

18th November 2007, 08:17 PM

More talk without references. Spencer studies clouds and precipitation systems. Can you just ignore his work?
http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm

Yup.

Mind you, given the weather here today, I did notice this :

"
FACTOID: Al Gore likes to say that mankind puts 70 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every day. What he probably doesn't know is that mother nature puts 24,000 times that amount of our main greenhouse gas -- water vapor -- into the atmosphere every day."

I couldn't ignore how much water vapour came out of the atmosphere around here. I didn't notice any CO2 doing the same - but it wouldn't be so obvious, so I may have missed it.

More on clouds if you didn't notice in a previous post:
http://irina.eas.gatech.edu/EAS_spring2006/Stephens2005.pdf

And yet I still don't feel out-flanked.

What else you got?

I didn't have those in the first place. I've got about a third of a bottle of Famouse Grouse Malt, 1992 vintage, right here beside me. Can you say the same?

Question: How much more does water (oceans) absorb/store heat than the atmosphere (vapor)?

Quite a bit, from first principles.

Answer: Oceans absorb/store 1000x the heat than the atmosphere. The rest isn't hard to figure out.

The rest of what?

Do you ever read CA in depth?
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2386#more-2386

I know a cess-pit when I see it, and I don't dive in. I'm prepared to look at it, but not live in it.

Another ongoing discussion about MWP and Loehle's reconstruction, all out in the open, no games, no refusal to submit data, methodologies or other games Mann & friends are so good at.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2380

Well there's a thing.

Correlation is not causation right?

Cliched.

At some point however it must mean something wouldn't you agree?

No.

There certainly is no correlation of CO2 to temperature. Please review the following paper and summarize what is incorrect with references of course.
http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/gwreview_oism150.pdf

I appreciate your polite request, but what with having a life and everything I'll politely decline.

We're still waiting for a peer reviewed paper of how CO2 raises temperature ~2.5C with 2xCO2. Climate models are not evidence.

There's your problem. You demand one paper that proves it.

mhaze

18th November 2007, 08:36 PM

Yup.
I know a cess-pit when I see it, and I don't dive in. I'm prepared to look at it, but not live in it.

Even keeping trade of one thread there is a chore, there are hundreds. Six months ago Climateaudit.org could be kept up with. No way now.
Another ongoing discussion about MWP and Loehle's reconstruction, all out in the open, no games, no refusal to submit data, methodologies or other games Mann & friends are so good at.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2380
He submitted it to blog for critical review. To make a better peer reviewed paper?

varwoche

18th November 2007, 09:11 PM

That he considers AGW a hoax makes him a nut? No, that makes him rational. A hoax involves deliberate deception. Are you claiming that AGW science is a wide spread hoax?

a_unique_person

18th November 2007, 09:43 PM

Even keeping trade of one thread there is a chore, there are hundreds. Six months ago Climateaudit.org could be kept up with. No way now.Another ongoing discussion about MWP and Loehle's reconstruction, all out in the open, no games, no refusal to submit data, methodologies or other games Mann & friends are so good at.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2380
He submitted it to blog for critical review. To make a better peer reviewed paper?

After reading that link, I'm thinking it would be better to have a global organisation, with a formal charter, and rules to follow. There is too much ad hoc chatter, crossed discussion, irrelevent waffle, uninformed comment and unanswered questions for it to be of any real use to anyone. They could then concentrate on collating what they claim to know, in an orderly fashion, with regular reports being produced that allow others to see just exactly what it is they are claiming, and be able to properly evaluate it.

mhaze

19th November 2007, 05:26 AM

After reading that link, I'm thinking it would be better to have a global organisation, with a formal charter, and rules to follow. There is too much ad hoc chatter, crossed discussion, irrelevent waffle, uninformed comment and unanswered questions for it to be of any real use to anyone. They could then concentrate on collating what they claim to know, in an orderly fashion, with regular reports being produced that allow others to see just exactly what it is they are claiming, and be able to properly evaluate it.

Because there is no organized, coherent "they". It's a blog. But you are right, no one takes on the task of collating what is a vast information, fact and comment base.

Well, almost no one. I saw one guy had taken the comments from one thread and combined the best of them into a paper that was published, seems like it was on IPCC organization style or the like.

mhaze

19th November 2007, 05:30 AM

A hoax involves deliberate deception. Are you claiming that AGW science is a wide spread hoax?

I don't need to claim anything. Just asking for specific quotes or references to support Inhofe being a buffoon or a nut.

Surely you understand that the first impression of someone saying a certain politician is a buffoon or a nut is just to presume that the person voicing the opinion is of the opposite persuasion on some issues?

David Rodale

19th November 2007, 08:13 AM

Because there is no organized, coherent "they". It's a blog. But you are right, no one takes on the task of collating what is a vast information, fact and comment base.

Well, almost no one. I saw one guy had taken the comments from one thread and combined the best of them into a paper that was published, seems like it was on IPCC organization style or the like.

Unless you follow along consistently it can be difficult to understand what's going on. However, Steve McIntyre and a few others know what's going on and he does collate certain topics into a new thread. Take for instance the Loehle reconstruction paper. I followed it from the beginning so have a good grasp of the subject matter. JEG jumped in with very critical remarks and the usual ad hom attacks which seems to be the gold standard for the hockey Team.

Now that everyone knows who JEG really is, by criticizing Leohle like he did, he inadvertently condemned the Mann et al hockey sticks.

Read here:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2388

Emile-Geay asks of Loehle:

Where are the CE, RE, and most importantly R-squared statistics that are so dear to ClimateAuditers ? How are we supposed to guess whether the reconstruction has any skill ?

I agree with this 100%. These statistics are part of the game and should be provided. While I think that these statistics have to be very carefully assessed and that the risk of spurious RE statistics is not understood by climate scientists at all, I agree that readers are entitled to such information about any proposed reconstruction presented as a positive alternative.

But the more interesting issue in this demand is surely not the performance of the Loehle reconstruction, but the dissonance between Emile-Geay’s demand for a verification r2 statistic from Loehle as compared to past contortions by Mann (and Ammann) in trying to cover up the MBH verification r2 failure.

Read on.

varwoche

19th November 2007, 10:12 AM

I don't need to claim anything. Just asking for specific quotes or references to support Inhofe being a buffoon or a nut. Inhofe claims that AGW is a massive hoax and you think he's rational. I infer from this (and other of your posts) that you also think that AGW is a massive hoax. You are welcome to correct me of course.

Surely you understand that the first impression of someone saying a certain politician is a buffoon or a nut is just to presume that the person voicing the opinion is of the opposite persuasion on some issues? Not really. An open-minded person learns the facts before knee-jerking to a partisan presupposition.

mhaze

19th November 2007, 12:13 PM

Inhofe claims that AGW is a massive hoax and you think he's rational. I infer from this (and other of your posts) that you also think that AGW is a massive hoax. You are welcome to correct me of course.

Certainly, here are your corrections.:)

What is not rational? What is buffoonery? Where is a nut?

Inhofe: January 4, 2005As I said on the Senate floor on July 28, 2003, "much of the debate over global warming is predicated on fear, rather than science." I called the threat of catastrophic global warming the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," a statement that, to put it mildly, was not viewed kindly by environmental extremists and their elitist organizations. I also pointed out, in a lengthy committee report, that those same environmental extremists exploit the issue for fundraising purposes, raking in millions of dollars, even using federal taxpayer dollars to finance their campaigns.

For these groups, the issue of catastrophic global warming is not just a favored fundraising tool. In truth, it's more fundamental than that. Put simply, man-induced global warming is an article of religious faith. Therefore contending that its central tenets are flawed is, to them, heresy of the most despicable kind.

Furthermore, scientists who challenge its tenets are attacked, sometimes personally, for blindly ignoring the so-called "scientific consensus." But that's not all: because of their skeptical views, they are contemptuously dismissed for being "out of the mainstream." This is, it seems to me, highly ironic: aren't scientists supposed to be non-conforming and question consensus? Nevertheless, it's not hard to read between the lines: "skeptic" and "out of the mainstream" are thinly veiled code phrases, meaning anyone who doubts alarmist orthodoxy is, in short, a quack.

I have insisted all along that the climate change debate should be based on fundamental principles of science, not religion. Ultimately, I hope, it will be decided by hard facts and data-and by serious scientists committed to the principles of sound science. Instead of censoring skeptical viewpoints, as my alarmist friends favor, these scientists must be heard, and I will do my part to make sure that they are heard.[/quote]

Not really. An open-minded person learns the facts before knee-jerking to a partisan presupposition.But will you?

CapelDodger

19th November 2007, 03:44 PM

Now that everyone knows who JEG really is, by criticizing Leohle like he did, he inadvertently condemned the Mann et al hockey sticks.

No, he didn't. What he was pointing out was the double-standards exhibited by ClimateAudit. McIntyre was either incapable ( as you clearly are) of recognising that, or was deliberately disingenuous. Emile-Geay didn't claim (in the provided quote) that the R-squared statistics are relevant (a subject of some controversy, as I understand it). He pointed out that ClimateAudit hadn't red-flagged the absence, despite claiming that it's crucially relevant in respect to Mann et al. One standard for what McIntyre et al regard as friendly studies, and another for those they don't.

Reading on,

"
While I fully agree that Loehle should have reported the verification r2 statistics for his reconstruction (and I would be surprised if they were any better than the results for MBH or other Team studies), it is extremely hypocritical (and all too characteristic of Team climate science) for Emile-Geay to criticize Loehle for this omission given the history of obstruction on this matter by Mann and Ammann. If Mann wouldn’t provide this information to the NAS panel even when asked directly, shouldn’t that (and related ) refusals have occasioned Emile-Geay’s disapproval long before his opprobrium against Loehle’s omission of this statistic (an omission which should be corrected)."

Misrepresenting what Emile-Geay was saying. Emile-Geay was not heaping opprobrium on Loehle's ommission, he was directly referring to the hypocrisy of ClimateAudit. For which McIntyre calls him a hypocrite. Fairly typical of McIntyre, from my limited experience.

Apparently you didn't notice that. No wonder you find ClimateAudit such a comfort-zone.

I alluded to the same thing in my earlier comments on CO2Science and its "proofs" of a warmer MWP than today. Would they survive the McIntyre treatment if they were supportive of AGW? They wouldn't, would they? But they won't be subject to it because that's not what ClimateAudit is about. ClimateAudit is about denigrating AGW whatever happens, and whatever it takes.

CapelDodger

19th November 2007, 03:47 PM

What is not rational?

Is it your contention that claiming AGW as a hoax is rational?

Is it your contention that claiming 9/11 was a hoax is rational?

If your answers to those questions differ, please explain why.

mhaze

19th November 2007, 04:01 PM

Is it your contention that claiming AGW as a hoax is rational?

Is it your contention that claiming 9/11 was a hoax is rational?

If your answers to those questions differ, please explain why.

Hmm....questioned about buffoon, shift to nut, question about nut, shift to hoax....., question about hoax, align hoax with 9/11 conspiracy...

All I did was ask on what basis Inhofe was a buffoon or nut, and getting no serious responses, I posted a bit of his opinions on this subject, "AGW". Just looking over his perspective, looks like he's not a nut, not a buffoon, just another skeptic, but on a subject where you don't like to see skepticism.

Whoopss~!!! That's exactly the issue Inhofe criticizes in the above paragraphs -

Inhofe: January 4, 2005As I said on the Senate floor on July 28, 2003, "much of the debate over global warming is predicated on fear, rather than science." I called the threat of catastrophic global warming the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," a statement that, to put it mildly, was not viewed kindly by environmental extremists and their elitist organizations. I also pointed out, in a lengthy committee report, that those same environmental extremists exploit the issue for fundraising purposes, raking in millions of dollars, even using federal taxpayer dollars to finance their campaigns.

For these groups, the issue of catastrophic global warming is not just a favored fundraising tool. In truth, it's more fundamental than that. Put simply, man-induced global warming is an article of religious faith. Therefore contending that its central tenets are flawed is, to them, heresy of the most despicable kind.

Furthermore, scientists who challenge its tenets are attacked, sometimes personally, for blindly ignoring the so-called "scientific consensus." But that's not all: because of their skeptical views, they are contemptuously dismissed for being "out of the mainstream." This is, it seems to me, highly ironic: aren't scientists supposed to be non-conforming and question consensus? Nevertheless, it's not hard to read between the lines: "skeptic" and "out of the mainstream" are thinly veiled code phrases, meaning anyone who doubts alarmist orthodoxy is, in short, a quack.

I have insisted all along that the climate change debate should be based on fundamental principles of science, not religion. Ultimately, I hope, it will be decided by hard facts and data-and by serious scientists committed to the principles of sound science. Instead of censoring skeptical viewpoints, as my alarmist friends favor, these scientists must be heard, and I will do my part to make sure that they are heard.[/quote]

Looking over his viewpoint as expressed on the Floor, looks like he's -
not a nut
not a buffoonJust another skeptic,

mhaze

19th November 2007, 04:05 PM

CapelDodger

19th November 2007, 04:05 PM

Actually, mhaze, by your highlighting you've done the job for us. The man's a self-confirmed buffoon.

CapelDodger

19th November 2007, 04:16 PM

Because there is no organized, coherent "they". It's a blog. But you are right, no one takes on the task of collating what is a vast information, fact and comment base.

You're so easy to mock it's almost like bullying.

Well, almost no one. I saw one guy had taken the comments from one thread and combined the best of them into a paper that was published, seems like it was on IPCC organization style or the like.

One guy, one thread, one paper (about what, published where?), and all of a sudden ClimateAudit equates to the IPCC (which, in case you haven't twigged yet, was what aup was alluding to). And presumably McIntyre equates to Hansen as the eminence grise.

mhaze

19th November 2007, 04:27 PM

Buffoon count == 0.

You may be misunderstanding, though.

I said that one thread on CA, the subject of which was the IPCC had been made into a paper on the IPCC, then published.

Alternately, as another politician has said, you may be ...

"misunderestimating".

CapelDodger

19th November 2007, 04:28 PM

Huh? Loehle invited criticism of his paper, Rabbit did exactly that along with some remarks about CA in general.

My mistake, I subsituted "Loehle" for "Emile-Geay" a couple of times. Mea culpa.

Getting back to my substantive point, Emile-Geay was not criticising Loehle's omission of R-squared statistics, as McIntyre pretends, he was highlighting ClimateAudit's hypocrisy in not criticising the omission. I'll edit the post.

CapelDodger

19th November 2007, 04:59 PM

Hmm....questioned about buffoon, shift to nut, question about nut, shift to hoax....., question about hoax, align hoax with 9/11 conspiracy...

Inhofe claimed, of his own free will, that AGW is a hoax. Not just a hoax but the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people". My question is : do you regard that as rational?

If it is a hoax, it hasn't just been perpetrated on "the American people". I doubt a buffoon like Inhofe really apreciates that there's a world of any significance outside God's Own Country/The Shining City On The Hill, but there is. Trust me on that, I live in it. So does aup.

All I did was ask on what basis Inhofe was a buffoon or nut, and getting no serious responses, I posted a bit of his opinions on this subject, "AGW". Just looking over his perspective, looks like he's not a nut, not a buffoon, just another skeptic, but on a subject where you don't like to see skepticism.

Just another sceptic? As a sceptic yourself, does this mean that you identify with this guy? That you think that AGW is a form of religious mania that has swept through the world? Even penetrating the current White House, so often accused of a more established variety of religious mania? (By which I mean born-again rapture-ready Christianity, not neoconservatism; let's not get into that diversion.)

As to my not liking to see scepticism on AGW, who would I have to make such easy fun of if not the likes of you and Inhofe? Philosphers and faith-heads is all, and that got old years ago.

CapelDodger

19th November 2007, 05:43 PM

I said that one thread on CA, the subject of which was the IPCC had been made into a paper on the IPCC, then published.

That's one question answered : the paper was about the IPCC, not about AGW. Another question remains : published where?

Alternately, as another politician has said, you may be ...

"misunderestimating".

It's not terribly likely though.

I gather there's some diplomatic jam-fest coming up soon to discuss negotiations about the post-Kyoto windbaggery, and I'll bet plenty of material for published papers will emerge from that. Not scientific papers, obviously, but there are other academic fields - History, Economics, Politics, Theoretical Journalism, stuff like that.

eta : International Law (that's seriously academic).

mhaze

19th November 2007, 09:06 PM

Inhofe claimed, of his own free will, that AGW is a hoax. Not just a hoax but the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people". My question is : do you regard that as rational?

If it is a hoax, it hasn't just been perpetrated on "the American people".

Just another sceptic? As a sceptic yourself, does this mean that you identify with this guy? That you think that AGW is a form of religious mania that has swept through the world?

Hmm... AGW as both a hoax and a religion.

Crichton's opinion. (http://www.michaelcrichton.com/speech-environmentalismaseligion.html)http://www.michaelcrichton.com/images/title-environmentalism.jpg Michael Crichten

This was not the first discussion of environmentalism as a religion, but it caught on and was widely quoted. Michael explains why religious approaches to the environment are inappropriate and cause damage to the natural world they intent to protect. There are two reasons why I think we all need to get rid of the religion of environmentalism.

First, we need an environmental movement, and such a movement is not very effective if it is conducted as a religion. We know from history that religions tend to kill people, and environmentalism has already killed somewhere between 10-30 million people since the 1970s. It's not a good record. Environmentalism needs to be absolutely based in objective and verifiable science, it needs to be rational, and it needs to be flexible. And it needs to be apolitical. To mix environmental concerns with the frantic fantasies that people have about one political party or another is to miss the cold truth---that there is very little difference between the parties, except a difference in pandering rhetoric. The effort to promote effective legislation for the environment is not helped by thinking that the Democrats will save us and the Republicans won't. Political history is more complicated than that. Never forget which president started the EPA: Richard Nixon. And never forget which president sold federal oil leases, allowing oil drilling in Santa Barbara: Lyndon Johnson. So get politics out of your thinking about the environment.

The second reason to abandon environmental religion is more pressing. Religions think they know it all, but the unhappy truth of the environment is that we are dealing with incredibly complex, evolving systems, and we usually are not certain how best to proceed. Those who are certain are demonstrating their personality type, or their belief system, not the state of their knowledge. Our record in the past, for example managing national parks, is humiliating. Our fifty-year effort at forest-fire suppression is a well-intentioned disaster from which our forests will never recover. We need to be humble, deeply humble, in the face of what we are trying to accomplish. We need to be trying various methods of accomplishing things. We need to be open-minded about assessing results of our efforts, and we need to be flexible about balancing needs. Religions are good at none of these things.

How will we manage to get environmentalism out of the clutches of religion, and back to a scientific discipline?
http://www.michaelcrichton.com/speech-environmentalismaseligion.html

a_unique_person

19th November 2007, 09:18 PM

Utter drivel. Crichton is an expert at using what little writing skills he has to construct the most elaborate strawman arguments. He should stick to writing lousy novels.

a_unique_person

19th November 2007, 09:42 PM

David Rodale

19th November 2007, 10:29 PM

No, he didn't. What he was pointing out was the double-standards exhibited by ClimateAudit. McIntyre was either incapable ( as you clearly are) of recognising that, or was deliberately disingenuous. Emile-Geay didn't claim (in the provided quote) that the R-squared statistics are relevant (a subject of some controversy, as I understand it). He pointed out that ClimateAudit hadn't red-flagged the absence, despite claiming that it's crucially relevant in respect to Mann et al. One standard for what McIntyre et al regard as friendly studies, and another for those they don't.

Reading on,

Misrepresenting what Emile-Geay was saying. Emile-Geay was not heaping opprobrium on Loehle's ommission, he was directly referring to the hypocrisy of ClimateAudit. For which McIntyre calls him a hypocrite. Fairly typical of McIntyre, from my limited experience.

Apparently you didn't notice that. No wonder you find ClimateAudit such a comfort-zone.

I alluded to the same thing in my earlier comments on CO2Science and its "proofs" of a warmer MWP than today. Would they survive the McIntyre treatment if they were supportive of AGW? They wouldn't, would they? But they won't be subject to it because that's not what ClimateAudit is about. ClimateAudit is about denigrating AGW whatever happens, and whatever it takes.

Please provide a detailed exposition of how IPCC arrives at 2.5C from 2xCO2.

That's the paraphrased request Steve McIntyre has asked for on multiple occasions. Thus far, including this forum, nobody has provided such an exposition. He has also stated he's not saying it doesn't exist, but that no such paper has been put forth, even by IPCC which he suggested to them.

As someone noted here, he was not interested in Gerlich's paper.

You're right though, you are very limited.

Here's the actual verbiage which you did not quote:
While I fully agree that Loehle should have reported the verification r2 statistics for his reconstruction (and I would be surprised if they were any better than the results for MBH or other Team studies), it is extremely hypocritical (and all too characteristic of Team climate science) for Emile-Geay to criticize Loehle for this omission given the history of obstruction on this matter by Mann and Ammann. If Mann wouldn’t provide this information to the NAS panel even when asked directly, shouldn’t that (and related ) refusals have occasioned Emile-Geay’s disapproval long before his opprobrium against Loehle’s omission of this statistic (an omission which should be corrected).

Further,
JEG condemns Loehle's paper, yet:
As we speak in November 2007, Mann has never reported the verification r2 (or CE) statistics for any MBH98-99 steps prior to the AD1820 splice.

Who is the real hypocrite? It's the Mann defenders propping up junk science.

You also failed to mention that Steve M did not comment on the Loehle discussion for quite some time into the discussion, as was noted at the beginning of the original post.

Here's Steve M's first reply to the discussion, two days after the original posting.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2380#comment-162210

It looks like the only posts you read were from JEG.

a_unique_person

19th November 2007, 11:39 PM

That's the paraphrased request Steve McIntyre has asked for on multiple occasions. Thus far, including this forum, nobody has provided such an exposition. He has also stated he's not saying it doesn't exist, but that no such paper has been put forth, even by IPCC which he suggested to them.

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter9.pdf

Chapter 6

bobdroege7

20th November 2007, 04:31 AM

Correlation is not causation right? At some point however it must mean something wouldn't you agree? There certainly is no correlation of CO2 to temperature. Please review the following paper and summarize what is incorrect with references of course.
http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/gwreview_oism150.pdf

Let me summarize briefly. There is no science supporting the AGW position, so the US should build 500 nuclear power plants to reduce its dependance on foriegn oil.

I'm in.

I don't buy any of his arguements, and see varwoches sig line for rebuttals of all his arguements, but I endorse his solution.

mhaze

20th November 2007, 05:57 AM

Let me summarize briefly. There is no science supporting the AGW position, so the US should build 500 nuclear power plants to reduce its dependance on foriegn oil.

I'm in.

I don't buy any of his arguements, and see varwoches sig line for rebuttals of all his arguements, but I endorse his solution.

I fully endorse that solution to the Probable Non Problem of AGW, but do not think that teaching and promulgating greenhouse gas fear driven propaganda is a necessary part of creating a consensus of public opinion for that.

Lucifuge Rofocale

20th November 2007, 07:39 AM

Count me in too :)
Let me summarize briefly. There is no science supporting the AGW position, so the US should build 500 nuclear power plants to reduce its dependance on foriegn oil.

I'm in.

I don't buy any of his arguements, and see varwoches sig line for rebuttals of all his arguements, but I endorse his solution.

David Rodale

20th November 2007, 07:45 AM

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter9.pdf

Chapter 6

Nice try AUP, but it's not there. It would include, as has been clarified previously rather than paraphrased as I did, a peer reviewed paper including all forcings and feedbacks, physics, chemistry etc.

Climate models are not evidence. If they were, there would only be need for one, not dozens with different outputs.
Chapter 9- 339 instances of "model", 52 "climate model".

But hey, go ahead and post it at CA Unthreaded #23.

Lucifuge Rofocale

20th November 2007, 07:52 AM

Or just the algorithm that shows how that increment is calculated. It should be very simple and take into account the limit of CO2 as GHG.

mhaze

20th November 2007, 08:23 AM

Nice try AUP, but it's not there. It would include, as has been clarified previously rather than paraphrased as I did, a peer reviewed paper including all forcings and feedbacks, physics, chemistry etc.

Climate models are not evidence. If they were, there would only be need for one, not dozens with different outputs.
Chapter 9- 339 instances of "model", 52 "climate model".

But hey, go ahead and post it at CA Unthreaded #23.

CA Unthreaded #23? Dream on.....

The real hockey stick
is the blog message response curve on www.climateaudit.org.
Try Unthreaded #25 up to 400 or so.
100-200 posts per day in just one thread???

AUP I assume you did not mean to say this but I do like it:)
RC is just a big black hole of random musings, asssertions and cries of "where's Waldo", with ad hoc requests from McIntyre to stick to the point and stop acting like children.

varwoche

20th November 2007, 10:12 AM

What is not rational? What's not rational -- stunningly so -- is establishing policy positions based on literal interpretation of biblical texts.
I believe very strongly that we ought to support Israel; that it has a right to the land. This is the most important reason: Because God said so. As I said a minute ago, look it up in the book of Genesis ...That is God talking. link (http://inhofe.senate.gov/pressapp/record.cfm?id=183110) And on the topic of a/gw: Now look, God’s still up there. We still have these natural changes, and this is what’s going on right now. link (http://www.newshounds.us/2006/11/20/senator_james_global_warming_is_hoax_inhofe_rok_se ems_to_think_hes_working_for_fox_news.php) Note to self: Add Inhofe to the doofus list (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=3075882#post3075882).

mhaze

20th November 2007, 10:37 AM

What's not rational -- stunningly so -- is establishing policy positions based on literal interpretation of biblical texts.
And on the topic of a/gw: Note to self: Add Inhofe to the doofus list (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=3075882#post3075882).

from your source...INHOFE: You said, in talking about a shift that was coming -- you said, "If the Gulf Stream were to shift again, the British Isles could be engulfed in polar ice and Europe's climate could become frigid." That's another scary story.

O'BRIEN: But that also is a potential outgrowth of global warming when you talk about the ocean currents being arrested. This is "The Day After Tomorrow" scenario that we're talking about.
another scary story? Yep. And on the topic of a/gw:

Note to self: Add Varoche to "AGW true believers in Day After Tomorrow scary story" list? And on the topic of a/gw----

What's not rational -- stunningly so -- is establishing policy positions based on literal interpretation of (religious) environmental texts and or movement leaders.

Inhofe, a reasonable person (on this subject) says. I have insisted all along that the climate change debate should be based on fundamental principles of science, not religion. Ultimately, I hope, it will be decided by hard facts and data-and by serious scientists committed to the principles of sound science. Instead of censoring skeptical viewpoints, as my alarmist friends favor, these scientists must be heard, and I will do my part to make sure that they are heard.

mhaze

20th November 2007, 12:41 PM

And on the topic of a/gw: Note to self: Add Inhofe to the doofus list (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=3075882#post3075882).

Doofus list, eh?

Global Warming, Or Global Con?
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, November 19, 2007 4:20 PM PT

Climate Change: A U.N. that can't save the world from war, famine, disease and pestilence now releases a report saying global warming will cause all of the above — and it's your SUV that's doing it.

The fourth and final assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reads like the Bible, but gospel it is not. It is a "consensus" in that it started with a foregone conclusion — that man-made pollution is dooming the planet — and gathered in any and all opinions that supported it.

The report incredibly warns that the 630,000 cubic miles of the Greenland ice sheet will virtually disappear in the near future, raising sea levels by almost 30 feet, and the Amazon rain forest will become a dry savannah.
There will be widespread species extinction, as up to three-fifths of wildlife will die out. The Great Barrier Reef will die. And, oh yeah, winter sports in the Alps will be a thing of the past.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who attended the report's release Saturday in Valencia, Spain, told the Independent, a British newspaper, that he found the "quickening pace" of global warming "very frightening."

He did not say if he found the "quickening pace" of Iran's nuclear bomb program "very frightening," or explain exactly what he's doing about it right now.

From genocide in Rwanda and the Sudan to wars and rumors of wars in the Middle East and the Balkans, the U.N. has done little to protect the human species as millions die at the hands of despots that sit on its human rights panel.

David Rodale

20th November 2007, 12:57 PM

Perhaps #1 and #2 on the doofus list, AGW journalists and the U.N, not necessarily in that order:

From the NYT November 1, 2007:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/business/01tourism.html
How Do You Ski if There Is No Snow?
PARIS — Global warming’s foes rarely cite ski resorts and golf courses among its victims.

But, though they may be less adorable than penguins and less gripping than melting ice caps, resort owners and tour operators will be directly and strongly affected by climate change. Indeed, few livelihoods are more dependent on the weather, other than farmers’.

Last month, organizers of a United Nations conference in Davos, Switzerland, sought to hammer that point home to officials and tour operators from nearly 100 countries.

“The entire tourism product will be affected,” said Geoffrey Lipman, assistant secretary general of the United Nations World Tourism Organization, “Every destination has a climate-related component.”

November 15, 2007:
http://www.fasttrackski.co.uk/ski-news/switzerland/swiss-snow-makes-50-year-record-200711151407.php
Swiss Snow Makes 50-year Record
Swiss ski resorts are expecting a record season after promising early snowfall, it has been reported.

Ski break spots including Davos, St Antonien and Braunwald have experienced exceptionally strong snowfall for so early in the season, swissinfo has reported.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

CapelDodger

21st November 2007, 05:38 PM

That's the paraphrased request Steve McIntyre has asked for on multiple occasions.

What's that got to do with McIntyre's misrepresentation of what Emile-Geay said as quoted by McIntyre in the post in question?

You're right though, you are very limited.

You appear to be very confused, or at least disorganised in your thinling.

Emil-Geay did not claim that the R-squared statistics are relevant, he pointed out that the McIntyre groupies weren't decrying the paper despite that fact that they do decry the absence in the case of Mann et al. A case of double-standards.

Here's the actual verbiage which you did not quote

In fact (as anyone can see) I quoted exactly the same extract as you do. Extracting from that piece :

"it is extremely hypocritical (and all too characteristic of Team climate science) for Emile-Geay to criticize Loehle for this omission given the history of obstruction on this matter by Mann and Ammann."

(Bolding yours.)

McIntyre's hypocrisy is in claiming that Emile-Geay was crticising Loehle, when in fact he was drawing attention to the double-standards displayed (very visibly) by McIntyre groupies on ClimateAudit.

Who is the real hypocrite? It's the Mann defenders propping up junk science.

The real hypocrite is McIntyre, misrepresenting Emile-Geay so as to accuse him of hypocrisy. That really is hypocritical.

You also failed to mention that Steve M did not comment on the Loehle discussion for quite some time into the discussion, as was noted at the beginning of the original post.

So what? Maybe it took him a while to work out how he was going to misrepresent Emile-Geay to his own advantage. In the post we're quoting he laid his own hypocrisy bare.

It looks like the only posts you read were from JEG.

The only post I read was the McIntyre one you linked to. I took the Emile-Geay quote from that post, since McIntyre provided it himself. If it isn't actually representative of what Emile-Geay said, McIntyre stands condemned of misrepresentation anyway.

However much you wriggle, McIntyre demonstrates himself to be a hypocrite - and not even a very clever one, I doubt he'd have made it as a lawyer - in that very post.

CapelDodger

21st November 2007, 06:17 PM

Nice try AUP, but it's not there. It would include, as has been clarified previously rather than paraphrased as I did, a peer reviewed paper including all forcings and feedbacks, physics, chemistry etc.

The IPCC reports do not include papers. The IPCC exists to collate science done by scientific research insitutions, which leads to published papers.

Perhaps what you mean to say is that it should include a reference to one paper containing everything you demand, and perhaps raisins and a silver sixpence too (etc is so useful, isn't it? Nobody can ever satisfy a demand for an etc). There is no such paper, nor is its existence even credible. Which, I suppose, is why you keep demanding it. Does McIntyre take the same tack? It wouldn't surprise me, frankly.

The chapter aup cites references many papers and explains how the range of climate-sensitivity is arrived at . Which is what McIntyre is asking for, is it not? It's written to be understood by the educated layman, and presumably that includes McIntyre.

But hey, go ahead and post it at CA Unthreaded #23.

Do you really think aup's cite hasn't been posted on CA already? No disrespect to aup, but it doesn't exactly take much digging. The AR4 report is quite prominent, after all. I expect it to be strongly featured in Bali - maybe Stevie should get over there to do some counter-lobbying amongst the diplomats. Or is that already on his itinerary? Hopefully so, since decent hotel-rooms are going to be like gold-dust.

mhaze

21st November 2007, 06:24 PM

What's that got to do with McIntyre's misrepresentation of what Emile-Geay said as quoted by McIntyre in the post in question?

However much you wriggle, McIntyre demonstrates himself to be a hypocrite - and not even a very clever one, I doubt he'd have made it as a lawyer - in that very post.

CA is an open forum.

You can make such criticism on climateaudit.org.

Try doing that at surRealclimate.org.

CapelDodger

21st November 2007, 06:46 PM

What's not rational -- stunningly so -- is establishing policy positions based on literal interpretation of biblical texts.

Actually, such thinking is rational within the caricatures of real worlds that buffoons inhabit. It's the cartoon-reality that marks them out as buffoons. Consider Bin Laden - another buffoon, just a different cartoon. Chrichton - the buffoon's buffoon.

McIntyre et al, on the other hand, are weasels. A very different beast. Bellamy : buffoon. Lindzen : weasel. The Face Of CO2Science : weasel. mhaze : buffoon.

There's potential for two lists here :).

CapelDodger

21st November 2007, 07:07 PM

CA is an open forum.

You can make such criticism on climateaudit.org.

Try doing that at surRealclimate.org.

Find cause for such criticism at RealClimate, then post it. Go on, try it. If it doesn't appear, tell us what the cause was. This is an open forum, after all. That will persuade us that RealClimate will refuse to allow such criticism.

I've called McIntyre a hypocrite here, on this open forum, strictly on the basis of what he posted on ClimateAudit and David Rodale linked to. I've given my reasons - he misrepresented what Emile-Geay said and then accused others of hypocrisy on that basis.

Since you can't refute my post you take refuge in misdirection and claims about RealClimate that are unfounded on any evidence. Give us the evidence. Find such blatant hypocrisy on RealClimate and make a post. Don't just tell us that it wouldn't appear, show us it not appearing. Go on, try it.

I'm not interested in any hearsay you may have to offer. Show me yourself, by demonstration.

I was invited - nay exhorted - to look at ClimateAudit and I demonstrated hypocrisy in the first page presented to me. I didn't even have to search for it. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, will be a lot trickier.

mhaze

21st November 2007, 07:28 PM

Find cause for such criticism at RealClimate, then post it. Go on, try it. If it doesn't appear, tell us what the cause was. This is an open forum, after all. That will persuade us that RealClimate will refuse to allow such criticism.

Their censorship is a thing of legend.

I've called McIntyre a hypocrite here, on this open forum, strictly on the basis of what he posted on ClimateAudit and David Rodale linked to. I've given my reasons - he misrepresented what Emile-Geay said and then accused others of hypocrisy on that basis.

Since you can't refute my post you take refuge in misdirection.......Your mission, should you choose to accept it, will be a lot trickier.I could not really get what your complaint about McIntyre was from your prior post. Can you make it a bit simpler?

CapelDodger

21st November 2007, 07:38 PM

Note to self: Add Inhofe to the doofus list (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=3075882#post3075882).

Inhofe only crossed my horizon when I heard that Chrichton had been called to give evidence to Congress on AGW. Chrichton I had heard of, as an author of airport-novels that were a cut above the norm, in that a few were made into bad films. And one whose latest oeuvre was being feted in the blogosphere despite the fact his so-called science and most of the plot were derived from said blogosphere. Celebrity endorsement - and in that company, Crichton is a celebrity. But before Congress?

That's when I discovered Inhofe. Not a new species by any means, and no great surprise. Nor any surpise that he's no longer in charge of that Senatorial Committee or whatever his plaything was for a while.

I've been pitching this I'm a Contrarian Celebrity Get Me Off This Pacific Atoll reality TV show, so far without takers. It would be a valuable vehicle for the contrarian argument, and there's no lack of funding available, so I still have hopes that Fox will commission it. All I have to do is drum up the celebrities.

mhaze

21st November 2007, 07:51 PM

I've been pitching this I'm a Contrarian Celebrity Get Me Off This Pacific Atoll reality TV show, so far without takers

Probably because is reality the island....

Isn't Sinking?

No Alarming AGW there!

CapelDodger

21st November 2007, 07:52 PM

Their censorship is a thing of legend.

For all the evidence available it's actually a myth. Provide some evidence. Post something on RealClimate, have it rejected, then tell us what it was. Then RealClimate's reputation will not just be talk, it will be solid.

I could not really get what your complaint about McIntyre was from your prior post. Can you make it a bit simpler?

McIntyre claims that Emile-Geay was criticising Loehle, when in fact Emile-Geay was criticising ClimateAudit. Simpler than that I cannot make it.

CapelDodger

21st November 2007, 07:54 PM

Probably because is reality the island....

Isn't Sinking?

No Alarming AGW there!

Are you drunk?

CapelDodger

21st November 2007, 08:17 PM

Swiss Snow Makes 50-year Record

Sorry, couldn't resist.

I'm not at all surprised. You think snowfall equates with cold weather and therefore with a cool climate, don't you? It's easy to understand that belief - in your cultural experience snow and cold weather coincide.

Snowfall in the Alps actually depends on evaporation from the North Atlantic, and that depends on its surface-temperature. A cold ocean means less evaporation and less snow. After all, that water has to get from Atlantic to Alps somehow, and it's not doing it by land or sea.

So what you've pointed out is how warm the North Atlantic is at the moment. The measure of climate-change is not snowfall in the Alps, but how long the snow lies on the ground up there. The Alpine ski-season has got off to a good start, but how long will it last? Only time will tell - but not much time, nothing like three-to-eight years.

You may well come to regret your enthusiasm's triumph over your resistance.

mhaze

21st November 2007, 08:59 PM

McIntyre claims that Emile-Geay was criticising Loehle, when in fact Emile-Geay was criticising ClimateAudit. Simpler than that I cannot make it.

Emile-Geay was criticising Loehle (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2380#comment-162058)
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2380#comment-162058

Only in the last 2 Paragraphs does he mention Steve or CA...

In summary, this is a rather obscure compilation of proxy data, with a conciseness in methodology that borders on farce.I’m willing to lend a mildly sympathetic ear to the Wegman claim that all climatologists are in bed with each other and even to the conspiracy theory that Nature and Science are personal allies of the Mann family and have sworn the death of ClimateAuditors . But let’s be serious here for a minute ! What on Earth do you expect from a GRL editor when they see such a piece of junk in their inbox ? It leaves much to say about E&E’s standards. Are we to surmise than any anti-Global-Warming or anti-hockey-stick paper gets a go ?
McIntyre & McKitrick (GRL, 2005) showed much competence in their rebuttal of the hockey-stick . Though i have my issues with that paper, it is a legitimate criticism of MBH98, one that was deservedly published, and is precisely the kind of work that lends credence to ClimateAudit. The latter community would be well-inspired to apply the same rigorous standards to all climate studies, regardless of their scientific or political outcome. It’s hard enough sifting through the comments of ignorant global-warming-denialists on this site - but so far i still do because of some very incisive and insightful climate investigations that question (and i believe, ultimately enrich) mainstream climatology. CA must now put their mind where their mouth is. Mr McIntyre, the ball is in your camp.
Are you with science, or are you for the obscurantists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obscurantism) ?

CapelDodger

22nd November 2007, 04:52 PM

Emile-Geay was criticising Loehle (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2380#comment-162058)
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2380#comment-162058

Only in the last 2 Paragraphs does he mention Steve or CA...

To my mind :

"Where are the CE, RE, and most importantly R-squared statistics that are so dear to ClimateAuditers ?"

constitutes a reference to ClimateAudit. It's quoted by McIntyre in the piece David Rodale linked to "Emile-Geay and Verification r2 Statistics (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2388), which is where McIntyre waxes hypocritical.

Perhaps you don't do irony, but that's what Emile-Geay is engaging in. (Actually his style verges on the sarcastic, but I have high standards,) Emile-Geay certainly criticises Leahe's paper in the rest of the post, but not on the grounds of R-squared statistics. For instance, that quote in context

"- VALIDATION :
this is where the paper shatters all publication standards. There is :
- No error analysis (in Y, not to mention X)
- No significance testing.
- No cross validation.
Impressive ! Where are the CE, RE, and most importantly R-squared statistics that are so dear to ClimateAuditers ? How are we supposed to guess whether the reconstruction has any skill ?"

There's plenty there to justify the last question without giving any weight to the R-squared statistics so dear to ClimateAuditors - when it suits them, that is.

You'll have noticed that McIntyre leaves out the first three objections - no error analysis, no significance testing, no cross validation - and leaves "How are we supposed to guess whether the reconstruction has any skill ?" apparently hanging solely on "Where are the CE, RE, and most importantly R-squared statistics that are so dear to ClimateAuditers ?".

Whereas, of course, it hangs on rather more than that.

mhaze

22nd November 2007, 05:17 PM

To my mind :
constitutes a reference to ClimateAudit. It's quoted by McIntyre in the piece David Rodale linked to "Emile-Geay and Verification r2 Statistics (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2388), which is where McIntyre waxes hypocritical.

Perhaps you don't do irony, but that's what Emile-Geay is engaging in. (Actually his style verges on the sarcastic, but I have high standards,) Emile-Geay certainly criticises Leahe's paper in the rest of the post, but not on the grounds of R-squared statistics. For instance, that quote in context

There's plenty there to justify the last question without giving any weight to the R-squared statistics so dear to ClimateAuditors - when it suits them, that is.

You'll have noticed that McIntyre leaves out the first three objections - no error analysis, no significance testing, no cross validation - and leaves "How are we supposed to guess whether the reconstruction has any skill ?" apparently hanging solely on "Where are the CE, RE, and most importantly R-squared statistics that are so dear to ClimateAuditers ?".

Whereas, of course, it hangs on rather more than that.

Nonsense. Go ask JEG what he is saying if you want it clarified.

mhaze

28th November 2007, 08:35 PM

good article from Reason mag - Bold is mine.

Techno-Optimistic Environmentalism

Reframing the dismal science of ecology for the 21st century
Ronald Bailey (http://reason.com/staff/show/133.html) | November 27, 2007

In their 2004 essay (http://www.thebreakthrough.org/images/Death_of_Environmentalism.pdf) "The Death of Environmentalism," activists Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus famously declared, "We have become convinced that modern environmentalism, with all of its unexamined assumptions, outdated concepts and exhausted strategies, must die so that something new can live."

What killed environmentalism? Man-made global warming. The pair argued that the problem of global warming is too big to be handled by green incrementalism. Switching to bioethanol and compact fluorescent lighting simply won't do. Something much bigger is needed. And they argued that modern environmentalism was not up to the task.

They blamed environmentalism's political ineffectiveness on the fact that environmentalists were perceived as being little more than another special interest group. In addition, the two excoriated movement activists for their "failure to articulate an inspiring and positive vision." Environmentalists turned off possible supporters because they were invested in telling the public doom-and-gloom "I have a nightmare" stories rather than delivering "I have a dream" speeches.

Read the rest here. (http://reason.com/news/show/123660.html)

bobdroege7

29th November 2007, 12:16 AM

mhaze

29th November 2007, 05:43 AM

So... are you with em or agin em?

Michael and Ted that is.

Norhaus, I have quoted here numerous times, warmers always derisive because he is an economist, not a climatologist.

His peer reviewed articles make sense.

Nordhaus (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2890007&postcount=411) - Against the IPCC or Gore CO2 mitigation plan being economically effective
Nordhaus 2007 (http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/dice_mss_072407_all.pdf) The Challenge of Global Warming: Economic Models and Environmental Policy Nordhaus, 2007 (http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/stern_050307.pdf) - The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change

bobdroege7

29th November 2007, 11:18 PM

Norhaus, I have quoted here numerous times, warmers always derisive because he is an economist, not a climatologist.

His peer reviewed articles make sense.

Nordhaus (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2890007&postcount=411) - Against the IPCC or Gore CO2 mitigation plan being economically effective
Nordhaus 2007 (http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/dice_mss_072407_all.pdf) The Challenge of Global Warming: Economic Models and Environmental Policy Nordhaus, 2007 (http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/stern_050307.pdf) - The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change

So you agree that

"The underlying premise of this study is that global warming is a serious, perhaps even a grave societal issue."

mhaze

30th November 2007, 11:28 AM

So you agree that

Are you reading to find little juicy tidbits to cherry pick, or are you trying to understand what he had to say?

mhaze

30th November 2007, 11:39 AM

His peer reviewed articles make sense.

Nordhaus (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2890007&postcount=411) - Against the IPCC or Gore CO2 mitigation plan being economically effective
Nordhaus 2007 (http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/dice_mss_072407_all.pdf) The Challenge of Global Warming: Economic Models and Environmental Policy Nordhaus, 2007 (http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/stern_050307.pdf) - The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change
So you agree that
Originally Posted by nordaus; "The underlying premise of this study is that global warming is a serious, perhaps even a grave societal issu

A clarification. Nordhaus is an economist, not a climate scientist. Therefore he starts with some presumptions, and on those builds economic models.

For example, here is an assertion that is testable by an economist. "Man made global warming requires urgent action now!".
How may that be done?

Presume that there is some "Man made global warming". Pick some range for it.
Study the consequences of "urgent action now", "no action", "urgent action later", "cap and trade", "fines and regulation", etc.The method makes sense.

What does not make sense is what has been seen on this forum, of people disrespecting economists' input to the overall AGW/GW issue, and further, of presuming that "climate scientists" are capable of formulating public policy "solutions" that are essentially exercises in economics with any degree of professional competence.

CapelDodger

30th November 2007, 04:59 PM

What does not make sense is what has been seen on this forum, of people disrespecting economists' input to the overall AGW/GW issue, and further, of presuming that "climate scientists" are capable of formulating public policy "solutions" that are essentially exercises in economics with any degree of professional competence.

The disrespect is shown to those who put up economic arguments in a scientific discussion.

Economists (Stern, for instance) can argue about the implications of AGW in economic terms, and the implications of various (including no) mitigation strategies. As long as they don't try to intrude on scientific matters they're due the same basic respect any theoretical economist is.

CapelDodger

30th November 2007, 05:02 PM

How come we've switched threads again? What's that all about?

CapelDodger

30th November 2007, 05:37 PM

So you agree that

"The underlying premise of this study is that global warming is a serious, perhaps even a grave societal issue."

The point that attracts mhaze (and his source) to Nordhaus is that he's arguing that even if this is the case, doing nothing that will disturb the free market response is the best option. It's the fall-back position. Impregnable, really, since after the event claims that things would have been worse given other policies are impossible to refute.

We're getting into the end-game, in political terms. The reality and importance of AGW is established, now comes the negotiation ...

Whether Stern or Nordhaus dominate procedings at Bali makes no difference because the Bali Conference itself will make no difference. We've bought the ticket, now we have to take the ride.

We're screwed.

CapelDodger

30th November 2007, 05:58 PM

I just have to get onto this from Nordhaus in May 2007

The Review’s unambiguous conclusions about the need for extreme immediate action will not survive the substitution of assumptions that are consistent with today’s marketplace real interest rates and savings rates.

The consistency in such rates over the subsequent six months does call into serious question the efficacy of this line of thinking. Especially given that it's not in any way linked to AGW.

As I always say, to each economist the respect they're due. And the ridicule, of course.

mhaze

30th November 2007, 06:24 PM

I just have to get onto this from Nordhaus in May 2007

The consistency in such rates over the subsequent six months does call into serious question the efficacy of this line of thinking. Especially given that it's not in any way linked to AGW.

As I always say, to each economist the respect they're due. And the ridicule, of course.

Can you make what you are trying to say a bit clearer? I probably know what you meant, and assume you are referring to Nordhaus's critique of Stern. By the way, Stern's an idiot. I've never read such a piece of garbage as the Stern Report. Your government should have refused to pay him for that work (except that his conclusions were what they told him they wanted, I presume).

a_unique_person

1st December 2007, 03:39 AM

Are you reading to find little juicy tidbits to cherry pick, or are you trying to understand what he had to say?

I would have thought that juicy little tidbit was the whole point, or what the hell are these threads all about?

mhaze

1st December 2007, 06:14 AM

Well, as I asked. So you want to discuss economics? Every time I've brought the subject up you treated it derisively since economics were not "climatologists". But okay, read the articles by Nordhaus and let's discuss them.

a_unique_person

2nd December 2007, 03:05 AM

Two excellent articles on the 'enhanced' greenhouse effect, and why the continual attempts by deniers to use science that is a 100 years old to dismiss AGW are invariably wrong.

(Schwartz, Motl, I'm looking at you.)

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument-part-ii

lenny

2nd December 2007, 05:07 AM

back to Armstrong, Are forecasts by scientists scientific forecasts?
numbers in brackets are page numbers to version 69 of the paper.

Sounds like we are in agreement on the approach to the issue, then
if it is shown that Armstrong's method has systematic flaws when applied to physical systems as a whole, particularly in climate-like problems (extrapolation) then we have sufficient evidence to conclude it does not help in "chapter 8".

Armstrong's basic claim is that any analysis which fails to follow his principles fails to yield a scientific forecast. the question is whether or not his approach is applicable/helpful or not in climate science, not whether or not i like it.

armstrong cites quite a few (~50) "Clear Violations" of his forecasting principles, while the vast majority can be rejected i think some are very useful. the paper is hard for a physical scientist to read as armstrong stays in his own jargon (?what is "face validity"?) and preaches a bit. this paper is widely rejected because his "examples" confuse examples of good practice when forecasting physical systems with good practice when forecasting social or economic systems.

in short, he tends to deny the practical differences between forecasting a pendulum and forecasting the spot price of electricity.
that makes most of his arguments irrelevant to physical systems, and hence to chapter 8.

mhaze, what do you think is his most insightful/stunning criticism?

in terms of the IPCC, do you want to defend the relevance of his [11]:

"Prior to forecasting, agree on actions to take..."
"Select simple methods..."
"Shrink forecasts of change if there is high uncertainty..."
"Use safety factors..."
"Use out of sample error measures."
"Base comparisons of methods on large samples of forecasts"
"Conduct cost-benefit analysis"

there is also what appears to be a great deal of linear-systems intuition in his claims, would you defend [3]:

"When there is uncertainty in forecasting, forecasts should be conservative."

do people on this thread generally feel that forecasts for electricity prices, population growth, General Motors sales, are similar to forecasting whether or not it will rain within Manhattan on the day after tomorrow?

and more generally, should forecasters be telling policy makers what the must do, or should they merely aim to communicate what they know and what they know they do not know? (re: "...a policy maker first has to select an appropriate statistic..." [3])

bobdroege7

3rd December 2007, 01:03 AM

Are you reading to find little juicy tidbits to cherry pick, or are you trying to understand what he had to say?

Gimme a break, and some respect.

That is not cherry picking, that is a central theme to that paper.

Neither extremes-do nothing or stop global warming in its tracks-are sensible targets today

OK, not as chicken littleish as Gore, but something needs to be done.

While economic studies in this area are subject to large uncertainties, the best guess in this study is that economic damages from climate change with no interventions will be in the order of 2 1/2 percent of world output by the end of the 21st century

Looks pretty expensive to me, why not spend 2 1/2 percent of US GDP now?
Pay me now or pay me later.

We suggest that a hybrid approach might help combine the strenghts of both quantity and price approaches. An example of a hybrid system might be a cap and trade system combined with a base carbon tax and a safety valve available at a penalty price. For example, the initial carbon tax might be $30 per ton carbon with safety valve purchases of additional permits available at a 50% premium.

Cap and trade plus carbon taxes. Doesn't mention subsidizing alternate energy sources, nuclear power and shifting to a hydrogen ecomomy.

It is a fairly long paper and my english skills are limited at best, but I'll argue that this is one of the theses put forth in the Nordhaus paper

Economic history and analysis indicate that it will be most effective to use market signals, primarily higher prices of carbon fuels, to give signals and provide incentives for consumers and firms to change their energy use and reduce their carbon emmission

That sound alright with you Mhaze?

bobdroege7

3rd December 2007, 01:10 AM

A clarification. Nordhaus is an economist, not a climate scientist. Therefore he starts with some presumptions, and on those builds economic models.

For example, here is an assertion that is testable by an economist. "Man made global warming requires urgent action now!".
How may that be done?

Presume that there is some "Man made global warming". Pick some range for it.
Study the consequences of "urgent action now", "no action", "urgent action later", "cap and trade", "fines and regulation", etc.The method makes sense.

What does not make sense is what has been seen on this forum, of people disrespecting economists' input to the overall AGW/GW issue, and further, of presuming that "climate scientists" are capable of formulating public policy "solutions" that are essentially exercises in economics with any degree of professional competence.

I'll agree with you on one principle, that the solution to global warming needs the input of more than just politicians and climate scientists. We do need to ask the questions, how do we do it and how do we pay for it. Economists and engineers are part of the solution.

a_unique_person

3rd December 2007, 01:45 AM

I'll agree with you on one principle, that the solution to global warming needs the input of more than just politicians and climate scientists. We do need to ask the questions, how do we do it and how do we pay for it. Economists and engineers are part of the solution.

It would be helpful if economists, as a whole, would be more constructive in their criticism. The scientists have come up with plan A, based on a successful implementation of the general plan with sulphates, but the net result from economists has been denial, with little in the way of something better than Kyoto.

bobdroege7

3rd December 2007, 02:48 AM

lenny

3rd December 2007, 03:24 PM

It would be helpful if economists, as a whole, would be more constructive in their criticism.

yep, but then economists do not tend to do things as a whole. and they attack each other at least as strongly as they attach the physical scientists. World Economics Vol 8 #1 is mostly economist vs. economist (on climate). there is one apology reported (Tol to Team Stern ).

it would be nice of they were constrictive, but i'd rather have them clarify/agree on what their fundamental points of disagreement are/were...

CapelDodger

3rd December 2007, 05:34 PM

It would be helpful if economists, as a whole, would be more constructive in their criticism. The scientists have come up with plan A, based on a successful implementation of the general plan with sulphates, but the net result from economists has been denial, with little in the way of something better than Kyoto.

I think there's some selection bias there, since contrarian (or even non-contrarian but presented that way) economists get an inordinate amount of coverage. Economists (like scientists) are not typically shouty types.

There'll be a wealth of new evidence about economists from the Bali conference and its aftermath. Stern is attending as part of the UK delegation. Whether anybody's taking McIntyre along I don't know; the Aussie option has certainly slammed shut :).

The problem with the current economic orthodoxy is that it's very market-oriented, which means variations around cap-and-trade are pretty much all we can expect (since that coincides with current political orthodoxy). Maybe that is the best way to go, but it's still a choice of one from one.

CapelDodger

3rd December 2007, 05:51 PM

I'll agree with you on one principle, that the solution to global warming needs the input of more than just politicians and climate scientists. We do need to ask the questions, how do we do it and how do we pay for it. Economists and engineers are part of the solution.

There's no shortage of economists to propose grandiose schemes (politicians love those) but there's not many that take account of how many engineers are available. They're not like yards of concrete, after all.

A nephew of mine, a very smart lad, is going into engineering and I'm well pleased. Any parents out there should impress on their offspring that engineers are going to be like gold-dust in coming decades, name your price. Whatever happens there's going to be an infrastructure boom the like of which hasn't been seen since the 60's.

CapelDodger

3rd December 2007, 06:20 PM

Can you make what you are trying to say a bit clearer?

I could dumb-down, but I don't do that.

I probably know what you meant, and assume you are referring to Nordhaus's critique of Stern. By the way, Stern's an idiot. I've never read such a piece of garbage as the Stern Report. Your government should have refused to pay him for that work (except that his conclusions were what they told him they wanted, I presume).

(You'll appreciate by now how little weight your opinion carries.)

Your presumption is paranoid. Pure and simple. Your judgement of the Stern Report wasn't arrived at directly, it was via Nordhaus which was the safe route pointed out to you. You transparently lack the ability to crtique the Stern report, or even understand much of it.

Far from being unremunerated, Stern is going to Bali (may well be there already). Getting back to your paranoia, what is it you find so scary about the UK gummint? Why did they order Stern to produce a coherent and widely convincing report on the economic consequences of AGW that confirmed the AGW consensus and recommended action? Why have they taken him along to Bali? What is the UK gummint's motivation? To get at you?

Why the Bali Conference at all? Because "Stern's an idiot"? You should take care what words you introduce into the general discourse.

To expand on my original comment, it regarded Nordhaus's reference to "today's" interest and discount rates back in May 2007, which will (mark my words) prove to be a cyclical peak and so not representative of the medium-term (measured in decades, not "today"). The fever broke over the summer.

Stern does nothing so idiotic, of course; he bases his discourse on longer-term averages. There's far too much noise for "today" to be fed into a useful equation.

mhaze

3rd December 2007, 07:12 PM

Your presumption is paranoid. Pure and simple. Your judgement of the Stern Report wasn't arrived at directly, it was via Nordhaus which was the safe route pointed out to you. You transparently lack the ability to crtique the Stern report, or even understand much of it.

Nonsense, poorly contrived at that.

Care to summarize the fist 20 pages of Stern?

lenny

4th December 2007, 02:49 AM

Care to summarize the fist 20 pages of Stern?

happy to, but while i am doing that, can we take up your offer to discuss Armstrong?

back to Armstrong, Are forecasts by scientists scientific forecasts?
numbers in brackets are page numbers to version 69 of the paper.

mhaze

4th December 2007, 11:16 AM

happy to, but while i am doing that, can we take up your offer to discuss Armstrong?

Well, don't waste your time on Stern.

Sorry for the late reply, I've had a bit of work.

1. Where do you get version 69? I've got several versions, but don't see any such numbering. Send me a link or we could just use the published copy in E&E for reference, then I can reference your quotes directly.

2. Regarding your assertion that Armstrong fails in applying principles that
his "examples" confuse examples of good practice when forecasting physical systems with good practice when forecasting social or economic systems.
You appear to be asserting here that the climate models are predictive of physical systems, and that Armstrong fails by applying forecasting that is intended for social or economic systems. Is that right?

Here is the matter as I see it. Yes, the climate models should be models of physical systems. "Should be" is not the issue. Armstrong simply asks, "What's in Chapter 8?"

If you've read the article you understand it's a bit more involved than that - he did a survey and asked people, and was led to Chapter 8 as the authoritative source, then determined Chapter 8 was proper for analysis.

Accordingly, we have to grapple with the logic or lack of in Chapter 8 in making it's case. Armstrong said it was poorly written, as I recall. The following quotes are quite relevant -
We are not suggesting that climate change cannot be forecast, only that this has yet to be demonstrated. We expect that such methods as the naive model with drift, rule-based forecasting, well-specified causal models, and combined forecasts might prove useful. All of these methods are discussed in Armstrong (2001). To our knowledge, none of these methods has been examined to date.
Others are invited to provide audits of Chapter 8 or other studies relating to climate forecasting. Audits should also be done for other studies in an attempt to find climate studies that do not violate evidence-based methods for forecasting.

As an example, JREF could use Armstrong's forecasting software to example various issues.......

Note that Armstrong has put out another paper, this time on our ever cherished (At least to Warmers) subject of Polar Bears, and has started digging into the sea level rise issue for a third paper, apparently. These are known areas where seeming bad science / bad forecasts dominate, as may be noted by the often seen quip that if if a AGW believer has trouble in an argument, he tends to "run for the ice and bears" (translating, he goes to a place where nothing can be proven or disproven authoritatively).

mhaze

4th December 2007, 11:22 AM

I could dumb-down, but I don't do that.
(You'll appreciate by now how little weight your opinion carries.)

Your presumption is paranoid. To expand on my original comment, it regarded Nordhaus's reference to "today's" interest and discount rates back in May 2007, which will (mark my words) prove to be a cyclical peak and so not representative of the medium-term (measured in decades, not "today"). The fever broke over the summer.

Stern does nothing so idiotic, of course; he bases his discourse on longer-term averages. There's far too much noise for "today" to be fed into a useful equation.

And what were those long term discount rates, respectively, for Stern and Nordhaus?

mhaze

4th December 2007, 05:31 PM

Originally Posted by mhaze http://forums.randi.org/helloworld2/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=3201450#post3201450)Are you reading to find little juicy tidbits to cherry pick, or are you trying to understand what he had to say?
Gimme a break, and some respect.That is not cherry picking, that is a central theme to that paper. Originally Posted by Nordhaus
Neither extremes-do nothing or stop global warming in its tracks-are sensible targets today
OK, not as chicken littleish as Gore, but something needs to be done. Originally Posted by Nordhaus
While economic studies in this area are subject to large uncertainties, the best guess in this study is that economic damages from climate change with no interventions will be in the order of 2 1/2 percent of world output by the end of the 21st century
Looks pretty expensive to me, why not spend 2 1/2 percent of US GDP now? Pay me now or pay me later.

I certainly do respect you and don't mean to offensive, or on the offense.

Quoting from the section critical of Stern -"A related feature of the Review's near zero time discount rate is that it puts present decisions on a hair trigger in response to far-future contingencies. Under conventional discounting, contingencies many centuries ahead have a tiny weight in today's decions. Decisions focus on the near future.

the Review would justify reducing per capita consumption for one year today from $10,000 to $4400 in order to prevent a reduction of consumption from $130,000 to $129,870 starting two centuries hence and continuing at that rate forever after."
This presumes the efficacy of the action and the certainty of the climate change causation. We don't have
certainly effective actions
certainty as to causation.Suppose there is a 1/3 chance that Biggie Kyoto does the job it was intended to and a 1/3 chance that the problem as believed to exist, actually exists in that shape and form.

The chance of having the expected, useful, "good" outcome is only 1/9.
But this comes at a current day cost, and that current day cost continues and has an effect on the future growth of per capita income.

Is the future per capita income still $129,870-130,000? One would think not, because the investments at the start were considerably lowered, simultaneously with jacked up regulations, restrictions on business and the like.

Perhaps the future income level drops to $87,000. Maybe with more drastic "payments now", that future number is $34,000.

CapelDodger

4th December 2007, 06:57 PM

Nonsense, poorly contrived at that.

Care to summarize the fist 20 pages of Stern?

Would you care to explain this presumption :

Your government should have refused to pay him for that work (except that his conclusions were what they told him they wanted, I presume).

If Stern's report was rubbish Gordon Brown (then running the Treasury) would have rubbished it, but not so. This leaves us with your presumption that Stern produced what he was ordered to by the (Blair/Brown dominated) British gummint. What can you conjure up as their motivation? Are they out to get you?

Stern's at Bali, is Nordheim? Is McIntyre, the sainted Guru of the Gaps?

CapelDodger

4th December 2007, 07:29 PM

And what were those long term discount rates, respectively, for Stern and Nordhaus?

Nordhaus's idiocy was to refer to "today's" circumstances, back in May '07 when the wave was cresting and a debt-based property boom was dragging capital out of the financial system. Interest rates remained low because of an insane (in hindsight) focus on short-term profit from medium -term extension of credit. That put all the strain on discount rates, multiplying them enormously - payback-time reduced to a few years. Fine for property development, not so good for nuclear power stations.

It's all unwinding around us, discount rates will fall, and long-term predictable returns will become more attractive.

The Stern Report, on the other hand, hasn't been undermined at all by the recent six-month glitch. Evidence of a firmer foundation, don't you think?

mhaze

4th December 2007, 07:34 PM

Originally Posted by mhaze http://forums.randi.org/helloworld2/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=3212913#post3212913)And what were those long term discount rates, respectively, for Stern and Nordhaus?

Nordhaus's idiocy was to refer to "today's" circumstances, back in May '07 when the wave was cresting and a debt-based property boom was dragging capital out of the financial system. Interest rates remained low because of an insane (in hindsight) focus on short-term profit from medium -term extension of credit. That put all the strain on discount rates, multiplying them enormously - payback-time reduced to a few years. Fine for property development, not so good for nuclear power stations.

It's all unwinding around us, discount rates will fall, and long-term predictable returns will become more attractive.

The Stern Report, on the other hand, hasn't been undermined at all by the recent six-month glitch. Evidence of a firmer foundation, don't you think?

Originally Posted by mhaze http://forums.randi.org/helloworld2/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=3212913#post3212913)
And what were those long term discount rates, respectively, for Stern and Nordhaus?

CapelDodger

4th December 2007, 07:54 PM

happy to, but while i am doing that, can we take up your offer to discuss Armstrong?

To fully appreciate that it has to be taken the context of the very next line posted (by mhaze, as it happens, in response) :

"Well, don't waste your time on Stern"

mhaze has a hard-on for Stern right now, and the organ he's led by is extra-cranial.

Standard mhaze havering and demands after that - contrarians are so demanding, don't you find? It's all "What about this?" and no "Well, what about it?" - but perhaps you can squeeze some meaning out. Be prepared for accusations of moulding meaning out of it.

I doubt anybody's taken Armstrong to Bali. Competition for that jam-fest must have been frickin' intense.

CapelDodger

4th December 2007, 07:59 PM

mhaze

4th December 2007, 08:22 PM

What are they? You're the expert on Nordheim and Stern, aren't you? Give 'em up, why don't you.

Another idiot. Since we are on the subject!
George Monbiot (http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/09/george_monbiot_1.php), everyone's favourite controversial climate commentator, launched the Be The Change (http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/10/be-the-change-conference.php) conference with a bang here in London yesterday. He leaped off the starting blocks with the statement that not only is it imperative that we reduce Co2 emissions by 100%, but that it's perfectly possible to do so.
100%.:jaw-dropp

a_unique_person

4th December 2007, 09:59 PM

Another idiot. Since we are on the subject!George Monbiot (http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/09/george_monbiot_1.php), everyone's favourite controversial climate commentator, launched the Be The Change (http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/10/be-the-change-conference.php) conference with a bang here in London yesterday. He leaped off the starting blocks with the statement that not only is it imperative that we reduce Co2 emissions by 100%, but that it's perfectly possible to do so.
100%.:jaw-dropp

He's a commentator who's free to say what he likes, who know's, maybe he's right. What's that got to do with the science or the actual politics?

bobdroege7

5th December 2007, 01:22 AM

[/LIST]Suppose there is a 1/3 chance that Biggie Kyoto does the job it was intended to and a 1/3 chance that the problem as believed to exist, actually exists in that shape and form.

The chance of having the expected, useful, "good" outcome is only 1/9.
But this comes at a current day cost, and that current day cost continues and has an effect on the future growth of per capita income.

Is the future per capita income still $129,870-130,000? One would think not, because the investments at the start were considerably lowered, simultaneously with jacked up regulations, restrictions on business and the like.

Perhaps the future income level drops to $87,000. Maybe with more drastic "payments now", that future number is $34,000.

I think economic projections 95 years out with business as usual are moot.

http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/oil.html

Using these data (estimated reserves: 800 billions of barrels, world consumption: 76 millions per day), it looks like planet Earth has have oil for about 10,000 days, i.e. about 27 years.

http://www.worldcoal.org/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=188

Coal reserves are available in almost every country worldwide, with recoverable reserves in around 70 countries. At current production levels, proven coal reserves are estimated to last 147 years.

We'll be running out by then anyhow.

mhaze

6th December 2007, 05:44 AM

I doubt anybody's taken Armstrong to Bali. Competition for that jam-fest must have been frickin' intense.

No doubt. Perhaps some were just turned away? skeptics of IPCC and Gore science perhaps? (http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/12/04/skeptics-denied-press-credentials-un-climate-meeting-bali)

mhaze

6th December 2007, 07:59 AM

I think economic projections 95 years out with business as usual are moot.

http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/oil.html
http://www.worldcoal.org/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=188
We'll be running out by then anyhow.

A few centuries ago, the concern was that there might be a shortage of whale oil for household lamps...

Agreed on the lunacy of such long term forecasts.

I've heard 2074 as a run out of fossil fuels projection. Also that we could not double atmospheric CO2 by using it all up....

lenny

6th December 2007, 03:21 PM

Sorry for the late reply, no worries...I've had a bit of work.
i hate it when that happens...

lets use the published version (http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/Public_Policy/WarmAudit31.pdf)
You appear to be asserting here that the climate models are predictive of physical systems, and that Armstrong fails by applying forecasting that is intended for social or economic systems. Is that right?

correct: i am asserting that climate models aim to forecast a physical system. agreed?

and i assert many of Armstrong's "principles" are taken from experience with, and only usefully applied to, empirically based modelling (his examples are socio-economic: my criticism is on the class of models: are they at core physical-simulation or or statistical-empirical)

Armstrong simply asks, "What's in Chapter 8?"

not quite simply that simple, he quotes his own work and his own book much more than Chapter 8, and he lists dozens of his previously published "principles", casts the IPCC into that framework and finds it wanting.

i'd classify the principles he claims the IPCC fails as:

irrelevant (unlikely to apply when forecasting any physical system)
unhelpful (unlikely to be of use in the particular system under consideration)
unprincipled (eg attacks properties of the question, not the problem soln)
naive (wonderful in principle, but displaying an ivory tower separation from the facts on the ground)
agreed (already widely implemented)
on target (under-appreciated or overlooked, and carrying nontrivial implications for climate science)

i find those in the last class the most interesting, and jsut want to get through those in the first four quickly if we can.

i asked:
mhaze, what do you think is his most insightful/stunning criticism?
to see which class the answer fell (i remain interested)

and i asked:in terms of the IPCC, do you want to defend the relevance of his:

"Prior to forecasting, agree on actions to take..."
"Select simple methods..."
"Shrink forecasts of change if there is high uncertainty..."
"Use safety factors..."
"Use out of sample error measures."
"Base comparisons of methods on large samples of forecasts"
"Conduct cost-benefit analysis"

to see if you wanted to define those i would argue do not apply.

plenty in this paper for discussion.

i will aim to answer every direct question you post, if i miss one when i reply, give me a day or two and then feel free to yell at me.

CapelDodger

6th December 2007, 08:21 PM

No doubt. Perhaps some were just turned away? skeptics of IPCC and Gore science perhaps? (http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/12/04/skeptics-denied-press-credentials-un-climate-meeting-bali)

It's invitation only. You have to get in as part of a national delegatiion. The Bali Conference is at that level. That's how Stern's there - part of the UK delegation. Anybody's welcome to be in Bali if they can find a place to stay at the silly prices taxpayers are funding. Let alone the bar-prices.

What they weren't was invited. Not by anyone. Not even by Russia, Ukraine, or Kazakhstan. Makes them look a bit small and whiney, doesn't it? And that's not even to get into the Nobel Prize.

CapelDodger

6th December 2007, 08:40 PM

A few centuries ago, the concern was that there might be a shortage of whale oil for household lamps...

Whose concern where? Even 18thCE New England had turpentine - possibly an explanation for this local scare. That's being charitable enough to assume you haven't just plcked this out of nothingness.

Agreed on the lunacy of such long term forecasts.

The medium-term does creep up on one.

I've heard 2074 as a run out of fossil fuels projection. Also that we could not double atmospheric CO2 by using it all up....

You've no doubt read all sorts of things and heard and seen far more, but nobody really gives a toss except you.

CapelDodger

6th December 2007, 08:56 PM

I think economic projections 95 years out with business as usual are moot.

95 years ago the German model of an industrialsed modern nation was widely idealised. Check that projection out.

And now, after the Cold War (who ordered that?) the Far East is back, already big-time and surging. Let alone climate-change, the dollar in the toilet, and the dash for Africa.

Business ain't as usual - and it never was :).

a_unique_person

6th December 2007, 09:01 PM

Anyone feel like having a laugh at Monckton?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/may/06/observerreview.climatechange

CapelDodger

6th December 2007, 09:15 PM

No doubt. Perhaps some were just turned away? skeptics of IPCC and Gore science perhaps? (http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/12/04/skeptics-denied-press-credentials-un-climate-meeting-bali)

OK, checked out the link, and it was worth it just for the Conservative T-Shirt thing. I feel I'm coming to undrestand you more.

So the turned away is about press credentials, and there'll have been intense competition. Was there ever any prospect of these people paying for hotel-space in Bali around now? If so, who was paying? And had they booked ahead?

Was it The Heartland Institute? If they did they'll have sub-let for a very tidy taxpayer-funded profit.

This is just more whining, frankly, and set up precisely for that purpose. You and yours are not paid serious attention because you're not worth it. Not because you're being discrriminated against but because you've got nothing to say.

All those years dissing Kyoto and what do we see? The Bali Conference. Without influence, I suppose whining's all you've got left.

While I'm here, have you got anything yet on why the UK gummint ordered Stern to produce the report he did?

a_unique_person

6th December 2007, 11:13 PM

"Re-defeat Communism" tee-shirt, with a picture of Hillary Clinton on it. At least they have a sense of humour.

Um, it was a joke, wasn't it?

CapelDodger

7th December 2007, 06:29 PM

Anyone feel like having a laugh at Monckton?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/may/06/observerreview.climatechange

"
Not all of the response was positive. George Monbiot of the Guardian trashed Monckton's argument with the help of Dr Stephan Harrison, senior research associate at the Oxford University Centre for the Environment, who wrote: '[Monckton] purports to show how scientists from a wide range of different disciplines, including atmospheric physics, atmospheric chemistry, climatology and palaeoclimatology, have misunderstood and misused the science of climate change and he tries to debunk them all. Let it not be said that the man lacks ambition.' Harrison went on to refute in close detail many of Monckton's claims."

I hear the scratching sound of the Oxford University Centre for the Environment being added to a list or two. Cambridge was always going to be at the heart of AGW darkness, but has even Oxford fallen to dark forces? Apparently so. The Philosophers have switched sides - and they do pride themselves on their flexibility.

Ironically enough Thatcher's promotion of AGW in the late 80's gave it one hell of a boost. It was an argument for nuclear power, which served one of her clique's obsessions - being a Nuclear Power.

CapelDodger

7th December 2007, 06:37 PM

"Re-defeat Communism" tee-shirt, with a picture of Hillary Clinton on it.

I didn't notice any details of the shirts, to be honest. It was the principle of the thing that drew my attention.

mhaze

7th December 2007, 09:58 PM

I didn't notice any details of the shirts, to be honest. It was the principle of the thing that drew my attention.

Principles -

of free, capitalistic markets, of steady individual liberties, and economic prosperity for increasing percentages of the world -

Such principles are abhorrent to you and those whom you do respect.

lenny

8th December 2007, 03:33 AM

The Philosophers have switched sides

what an absurd suggestion. to switch sides they would have to have taken a definitive stand to switch from. they cannot switch as they maintain a superposition over all know sides, with a little bit held back for new sides as yet unstated.

a_unique_person

8th December 2007, 06:53 AM

Principles -

of free, capitalistic markets, of steady individual liberties, and economic prosperity for increasing percentages of the world -

Such principles are abhorrent to you and those whom you do respect.

:wink8:

CapelDodger

8th December 2007, 07:10 AM

what an absurd suggestion. to switch sides they would have to have taken a definitive stand to switch from. they cannot switch as they maintain a superposition over all know sides, with a little bit held back for new sides as yet unstated.

:o

As if that wave-function will ever collapse ...

I meant Oxford men, as distinct from Cambridge men (aka "The Scientists" or, more often, "The Oiks").

David Rodale

8th December 2007, 02:22 PM

I think this is an accurate summary of the debate:

The Road to Bali
http://www.financialpost.com/analysis/story.html?id=eec03f41-5fa7-41b9-b179-614151eaf15e&k=87348
The real theme of this United Nations gabfest -- like that of its 12 predecessors, and of the hundreds, if not thousands, of related meetings --is whether globalization and trade liberalization will be allowed to continue, with a corresponding increase in wealth, health and welfare, or whether the authoritarian enemies of freedom (who rarely if ever recognize themselves as such) will succeed in using environmental hysteria to undermine capitalism and increase their Majesterium. Any successor to Kyoto will be rooted in hobbling rich economies, increasing the poor world's resentment, unleashing environmental trade warfare, and blanketing the globe with rules and regulations that benefit only rulers and regulators. Bali is not about climate; it symbolizes the continued assault on freedom by those who seek -- or pander to -- political power under the guise of concern for humanity.

CapelDodger

8th December 2007, 03:52 PM

:wink8:

I seems mhaze has succumbed to Diamond Syndrome.

fsol

8th December 2007, 04:29 PM

I seems mhaze has succumbed to Diamond Syndrome.

DR doesn't seem to be immune either judging by his last post.

David Rodale

8th December 2007, 04:38 PM

DR doesn't seem to be immune either judging by his last post.

Read it then comment on why you disagree.

CapelDodger

8th December 2007, 04:42 PM

I think this is an accurate summary of the debate:

Given the evidence so far, that's not at all surprising.. Would it, then, be fair to take it as a summary of your opinion?

The Road to Bali
http://www.financialpost.com/analysis/story.html?id=eec03f41-5fa7-41b9-b179-614151eaf15e&k=87348

The hysterical tone stands out from the very start. Even for editorial comment it's remarkably strident. Then there's paranoia and Procrustean efforts to cram Bali into a prepared (and, I daresay, immutable) ideological framework.

"The fate of the Earth hangs in the balance ... the authoritarian enemies of freedom ... environmental hysteria [sic] ... undermine capitalism ... increase their Majesterium ... hobbling rich economies ... environmental trade warfare ... blanketing the globe with rules and regulations ... assault on freedom ... pander to ... Marxism ... Soviet Union ..."

To a simple soul globalisaton and free trade are subjects for WTO meetings, so it seems the "authoritarian enemies of freedom" have been doing their work there as well. All that stuff about agricultural subsidies is, presumably, a smokescreen. I don't buy it, frankly. Call me unsophisticated, but I blame the European, Japanese and US farm lobbies in the main.

So anyway, Bali is aiming to stop progress at the WTO according to Peter Foster (and, presumably, you).

But wait. In the midst of the hysteria :

"Bali will see nothing but posturing and preening, "tough" negotiations, and an agreement to talk further, in yet more exotic locations."

The implacable enemies of freedom had some actual cojones back in the day. It seems - and it really does seem - that this is just another diplomatic jam-fest like WTO Meetings, G8 Summits, Anti-AIDS Conclaves and what-all else. What distinguishes Bali as the work of dark forces?

"Democratic governments have no choice but to cater to the ignorance/alarm/hypocrisy engendered in their electorates. This catering in turn reflects greater or lesser degrees of cynicism, skepticism, or moralistic bloviation."

The electorate is hypocritical now, it seems. I'm starting to question how deep Foster's commitment to democray is. Is democracy perhaps a danger to freedom in its flabby weakness? The forces of darkness are making free with the population's head-space whicle democrats and capitalist media-barons merely pander to it. How the West survived the Cold War is a mystery. (Irony)

The whole piece smacks of the need for Strong Government to resist the onslaught of environmentalism on capitalism. I suggest China as an good example. There'd be none of this environmental nonsense if ever nation adopted the Chinese system.

CapelDodger

8th December 2007, 05:26 PM

DR doesn't seem to be immune either judging by his last post.

Cards are coming down on the table, aren't they?

Touch of irony : as you're probably aware, there's a Marxist wing to AGW contrarianism, which condemns it as a Capitalist-Imperialist plot to feudalise the Thirld World (more or less the ex-colonial territories but with Northern India and East Asia in the Capitalist-Imperialist camp). Strange bedfellows. What they share, I think (extreme capitalists and extreme socialists, that is) is the assumption that the world is what you make of it, it can be imposed on without limit if sufficient physical effort is brought to bear. There are no limitations built into the ideology, and there is nothing outside the ideology.

(I've had plenty of experience of Leftists, and the list of things they regard as bourgeoise digressions is remarkable - racism, sexism, fertility-control, environmentalism, homophobia, a life outside, and I've probably missed some stuff. Come the correct economic system everything else will fall into place. Mostly they grow out of it. Scary they ain't.)

So anyway, and rather weirdly, two ideological camps are blaming each other for the same thing they've taken up arms against.

What we might get, if we're lucky, is some higher definition presentation of what our ideologies are in the minds of some regulars here. Innuendo is so tawdry, don't you think? The forces of darkness laugh at innuendo.

"the authoritarian enemies of freedom (who rarely if ever recognize themselves as such)"

I rather think Foster means us by that - and others too many to mention. Foster (and, I daresay, David Rodale) regards himself as a rather better judge than we are of ourselves. Which is rich coming from such a transparently poverty-stricken intellect.

CapelDodger

8th December 2007, 05:34 PM

Principles -

Would the joke have worked better if I'd used thrust instead of principle? It stretches the bounds of good taste, but I'm shameless in pursuit of a laugh.

mhaze

8th December 2007, 06:18 PM

Cards are coming down on the table, aren't they?....the assumption that the world is what you make of it, it can be imposed on without limit if sufficient physical effort is brought to bear. There are no limitations built into the ideology, and there is nothing outside the ideology.....(I've had plenty of experience of Leftists, and the list of things they regard as bourgeoise digressions is remarkable - racism, sexism, fertility-control, environmentalism, homophobia, a life outside, and I've probably missed some stuff. Come the correct economic system everything else will fall into place.

Victor Klaus speaks from long, bitter experience - (Not your friend or ally in the cause, eh? )there is another threat on the horizon. I see this threat in environmentalism which is becoming a new dominant ideology, if not a religion. Its main weapon is raising the alarm and predicting the human life endangering climate change based on man-made global warming. The recent awarding of Nobel Prize to the main apostle of this hypothesis was the last straw because by this these ideas were elevated to the pedestal of “holy and sacred” uncriticisable truths.

It became politically correct to caricature us, who dare to speak about it, as those who are talking about things they do not understand and are not experts on. This criticism is inappropriate. People like me do not have ambitions to enter the field of climatology. They do not try to better measure global temperature or to present alternative scenarios of the future global climate fluctuations.

They need not do it because the climate change debate is basically not about science; it is about ideology. It is not about global temperature; it is about the concept of human society. It is not about scientific ecology; it is about environmentalism, which is a new anti-individualistic, pseudo-collectivistic ideology based on putting nature and environment and their supposed protection and preservation before and above freedom. That’s one of the reasons why my recently published book on this topic has a subtitle: “What is Endangered, Climate or Freedom?”
Full text here. (http://klaus.cz/klaus2/asp/clanek.asp?id=73lC09VpjtyZ)

CapelDodger

8th December 2007, 07:09 PM

Victor Klaus speaks from long, bitter experience - (Not your friend or ally in the cause, eh? )

What cause would that be, then? My only acknowledged cause where AGW is concerned is the defence of science, which I regard as the supreme achievement of HomSap. You've done your best to besmirch Science's honour, and you have a clearly acknowledged cause which has nothing to do with Science. An ulterior motive. It's hardly a coincidence that your beliefs about AGW exactly fit your ideological beliefs, as typified by the Heritage Institute.

If we must personalise matters, the big bad analogue models have been allies of science. The BBA physical model can do no other (physics is physics, after all, no appeal) and the BBA political model is constrained in the end. Reality beats ideology in the end - look what happened to the USSR.
Despite all the contrarian effort over decades Bali's happening and the zeitgeist trends ever more towards concern about AGW. Not because people haven't seen the right graphs but because they have seen what's going on around them.

mhaze

8th December 2007, 11:33 PM

....defence of science.....Science's honour....nothing to do with Science....ideological beliefs

I like the way you give her a proper capitalized name.

Is she hot?

mhaze

9th December 2007, 11:09 AM

lets use the published version (http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/Public_Policy/WarmAudit31.pdf)

Originally Posted by mhaze
You appear to be asserting here that the climate models are predictive of physical systems, and that Armstrong fails by applying forecasting that is intended for social or economic systems. Is that right?
correct: i am asserting that climate models aim to forecast a physical system. agreed?

Agreed. Where it gets muddy is whether (1) the modelers do a decent job of forecasting climate based on the applicable subset of principles fronted by Armstrong (2) whether Chapter 8 does a decent job of summarizing the predictive merits of these models and their faults (again based on the applicable subset of principles).

and i assert many of Armstrong's "principles" are taken from experience with, and only usefully applied to, empirically based modeling (his examples are socio-economic: my criticism is on the class of models: are they at core physical-simulation or or statistical-empirical) Armstrong says -

econometric methods are not confined to economic problems, but can be applied to forecasting in situations where you have theories about what causes changes in the thing that you are forecasting. In order to forecast using econometrics, you will also need to have data on the causal variables. These data need to vary, and to make the exercise worthwhile you will need to be able to forecast the causal variables sufficiently accurately that the overall error attained is smaller than could be achieved by extrapolation.

How do we understand the merits (or lack of) of Armstrong's method? I come up with three primary sources, and a method.

The sources are:
the FAQ (http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/FAQ.html).
Armstrong's use of phrases-Forecasting Dictionary (http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/dictionary/index.html).
The forecasting principles are here (http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/softwareprinciplessumary.html), divided into groups.His book, Principles of Foreasting, is $80.10 at Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Forecasting-International-Operations-Management/dp/0792374010/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-5314451-6533537?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177932652&sr=1-1) but $254 for the online pdf....I'll go for the dead tree book. Amazon has reviews here (http://www.amazon.com/review/product/0792374010/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt/104-0002793-7623173?%5Fencoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1), all 5 stars. A new feature: Buy a book from amazon now and for a fraction more (here $19) you get electronic access. Doesn't look like a pdf but some kind of in-a-window browse edit print and save.

And the Method is:

The "Forecasting Audit" is the method used to evaluate the target (Chapter 8, IPCC here) I set up a login and password to do an audit. NO GO with Firefox, IE worked like a champ.

That's done here (http://armstrong.wharton.upenn.edu/fa/create_user.html). As used by Armstrong, a "Forecasting Audit" is the auditor answering a set of questions in more than a dozen categories based on the "formal procedure". It's a simple issue of whether the formal procedure follow the standard?

Questions are answered "Not Applicable", -2 to +2 for "following the standard", or "question mark". After completing the audit, the audit is saved, and the user can later log on again and edit the work. Perhaps the first time around, some sections were not understood, and additional review of the material was required prior to completing them. These can be answered "?". "?" also brings up an explanatory page on that forecasting principle.

Next do a test "Forecasting Audit" - and this answers several of your questions right off the bat.

Principles can be marked as "Not applicable". irrelevant (unlikely to apply when forecasting any physical system)
unhelpful (unlikely to be of use in the particular system under consideration)
unprincipled (eg attacks properties of the question, not the problem soln)
naive (wonderful in principle, but displaying an ivory tower separation from the facts on the ground)
agreed (already widely implemented)
on target (under-appreciated or overlooked, and carrying nontrivial implications for climate science)
Establish a login, then takes 30 seconds and is the route to understanding the "foreasting audit software". Following are the first several screens (pay NO attention to my answers for now, I was just plugging values in to see where this would all go to) -

Double click to enlarge.

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_14224475c2d082a41c.png (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=9635)

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_14224475c2d2a104fa.png (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=9636)

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_14224475c2d4b174b0.png (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=9637)

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_14224475c2d5cd3b1e.png (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=9638)

lenny

9th December 2007, 04:25 PM

Armstrong says
thanks much for this. will digest it and reply as soon as my day job allows.

CapelDodger

9th December 2007, 06:10 PM

I like the way you give her a proper capitalized name.

Is she hot?

Is that all you've got in response? A bit of guy-stuff to ground yourself?

"The supreme achievement of HomSap." Which is what Science is. It is not the slut you and David Rodale take comfort in imagining.

CapelDodger

9th December 2007, 06:26 PM

Agreed. Where it gets muddy is whether (1) the modelers do a decent job of forecasting climate based on the applicable subset of principles fronted by Armstrong

Is there an applicable subset of such principles that aren't being applied? I don't doubt many of Armstrong's "principles" are simple common sense, however fluffed-up.

(2) whether Chapter 8 does a decent job of summarizing the predictive merits of these models and their faults (again based on the applicable subset of principles).

Again, this assumes that an applicable subset exists that is not addressed by the models, and therefore addressed in Chapter 8.

This has yet to be demonstrated.

Armstrong says -

Quoting Armstrong at this point is not a strong move.

econometric methods are not confined to economic problems, but can be applied to forecasting in situations where you have theories about what causes changes in the thing that you are forecasting. In order to forecast using econometrics, you will also need to have data on the causal variables. These data need to vary, and to make the exercise worthwhile you will need to be able to forecast the causal variables sufficiently accurately that the overall error attained is smaller than could be achieved by extrapolation.

Especially not when followed by something as woolly as that.

How do we understand the merits (or lack of) of Armstrong's method?

Wasn't it about Armstrong's principles a moment ago? What now with the method?

CapelDodger

9th December 2007, 06:32 PM

thanks much for this. will digest it and reply as soon as my day job allows.

I don't doubt you'll spend more time examining and digesting it than mhaze ever has.

Another thing that hacks me off about cut-and-paste artists is having to get your font back to normal in responses. They just chuck it up there willy-nilly. No bloody consideration :mad:.

a_unique_person

9th December 2007, 08:13 PM

Agreed. Where it gets muddy is whether (1) the modelers do a decent job of forecasting climate based on the applicable subset of principles fronted by Armstrong (2) whether Chapter 8 does a decent job of summarizing the predictive merits of these models and their faults (again based on the applicable subset of principles).

Once again, economists thinking they can tell scientists how they should be doing their job. What they are modelling are two distinctly different things. Climate obeys the laws of science, without question. People have free will.

mhaze

10th December 2007, 06:14 AM

Once again, economists thinking they can tell scientists how they should be doing their job. What they are modelling are two distinctly different things. Climate obeys the laws of science, without question. People have free will.

The International Climate Science Coalition, skeptical of the global warming theory, was told it could not present its information at Bali. (http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=281923042847901) And so the true nature of those whose policies you advocate becomes quite clear.

mhaze

10th December 2007, 07:03 AM

Originally Posted by mhaze http://forums.randi.org/helloworld2/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=3226520#post3226520)
I like the way you give her a proper capitalized name.
Is she hot?
Is that all you've got in response? A bit of guy-stuff to ground yourself?

"The supreme achievement of HomSap." Which is what Science is. It is not the slut you and David Rodale take comfort in imagining.

Proper and respectful attitudes at the shrine requested, eh?

Are the barbarians at the gate?

fsol

10th December 2007, 10:54 AM

The International Climate Science Coalition, skeptical of the global warming theory, was told it could not present its information at Bali. (http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=281923042847901) And so the true nature of those whose policies you advocate becomes quite clear.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&hs=pO7&q=%22International+Climate+Science+Coalition%22&btnG=Search&meta=
(http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&hs=pO7&q=%22International+Climate+Science+Coalition%22&btnG=Search&meta=)
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&hs=N4R&q=ICSC&btnG=Search&meta=

:confused:

Any help?

mhaze

10th December 2007, 11:01 AM

Are you trying to look the organization up? If you do that by the initials, that's hopeless - you'll get mostly the shopping center/mall organizaiton, "ICSC" also.

fsol

10th December 2007, 11:54 AM

If you search for the full name you also get nothing. I just wondered who they were.

mhaze

10th December 2007, 12:44 PM

If you search for the full name you also get nothing. I just wondered who they were.

Opinion about Morner and sea level(same article)? I do note this is from June, brought back out as a current interest story.
The change "showed a very strong line of uplift, 2.3 millimeters per year," which just happens to be the same increase that was measured by one of six Hong Kong tide gauges. Morner said that particular tide gauge is "the only record which you shouldn't use" because "every geologist knows that that is a subsiding area. It's the compaction of sediment."

A simple error by the IPCC? Not in Morner's mind. "Not even ignorance could be responsible for a thing like that," he said. "It is a falsification of the data set."

fsol

10th December 2007, 02:54 PM

Opinion about Morner and sea level(same article)? I do note this is from June, brought back out as a current interest story.

The full interview is here

http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/Calen7/MornerEng.html

From the TAR

http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/fig11-8.htm

If you compare the numbers to those from the equivalent chart in the AR4 (Fig 5.14) they look to be pretty much the same. No sudden jump.

I think that's what he is talking about anyway. Something like "the satellite data from before 2003 is fixed to make the sea level rise look more than it was, by using a particular tide gauge to calibrate the satellite." Leaving aside that the calibration of the satellites isn't hung on one particular tide gauge...

It looks like a different slope because the scales on the graphs are different, the numbers however seem to be pretty much the same.

I dunno, it's difficult to follow his train of thought, he does jump around a little. If that's what he means, then I think he is mistaken. It's weird he doesn't mention the inter-decadal variability or the IPCCs warnings that the rate from '93-'03 could just be a manifestation of that variability and not the start of a new trend. Maybe it is ignorance on his part, but I find that hard to believe considering this from the start of the interview. So what else...

Mörner: I am a sea-level specialist. There are many good sea-level people in the world, but let's put it this way: There's no one who's beaten me. I took my thesis in 1969, devoted to a large extent to the sea-level problem. From then on, I have launched most of the new theories, in the '70s, '80s, and '90s.

Easy to check if the numbers have suddenly changed though I guess, by going and looking for the old paper that the data comes from. That right there is one good reason to doubt what he says. All of the proof would be out in the open anyway. Unless of course, the IPCC has powers to confiscate past copies of journals and burn them in some kind of Orwellian scheme to rewrite history. You know, in order to scare us all into building houses on stilts.

Anyway a bit of amusing google-fu

http://www.randi.org/hotline/1998/0012.html Looking in on Sweden! from 1998.

An interesting ClimateAudit comment

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=923#comment-70040

mhaze

10th December 2007, 03:07 PM

The full interview is here
http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/Calen7/MornerEng.html
From the TAR
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/fig11-8.htm
If you compare the numbers to those from the equivalent chart in the AR4 (Fig 5.14) they look to be pretty much the same. No sudden jump.

I think that's what he is talking about anyway. Something like "the satellite data from before 2003 is fixed to make the sea level rise look more than it was, by using a particular tide gauge to calibrate the satellite." Leaving aside that the calibration of the satellites isn't hung on one particular tide gauge...

It looks like a different slope because the scales on the graphs are different, the numbers however seem to be pretty much the same.

I dunno, it's difficult to follow his train of thought, he does jump around a little. If that's what he means, then I think he is mistaken. It's weird he doesn't mention the inter-decadal variability or the IPCCs warnings that the rate from '93-'03 could just be a manifestation of that variability and not the start of a new trend. Maybe it is ignorance on his part, but I find that hard to believe considering this from the start of the interview. So what else...

Easy to check if the numbers have suddenly changed though I guess, by going and looking for the old paper that the data comes from. That right there is one good reason to doubt what he says. All of the proof would be out in the open anyway. Unless of course, the IPCC has powers to confiscate past copies of journals and burn them in some kind of Orwellian scheme to rewrite history. You know, in order to scare us all into building houses on stilts.

Anyway a bit of amusing google-fu
http://www.randi.org/hotline/1998/0012.html Looking in on Sweden! from 1998.
An interesting ClimateAudit comment
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=923#comment-70040

Well, it's not the same issue we were discussing and the 2.3mm doesn't seem terribly out of bounds (I was at 1.8 going to 1.3, and you were on 2.8), neither is that going to sink those islands (which on other grounds, it had been pretty firmly established that the Maldives ain't going under water).

Also I don't get the leap from one of the Hong Kong gauges being 2.3mm to that curiously being related to the IPCC number of 2.3mm.

a_unique_person

10th December 2007, 03:30 PM

mhaze

10th December 2007, 03:49 PM

Originally Posted by mhaze http://forums.randi.org/helloworld2/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=3229464#post3229464)
The International Climate Science Coalition, skeptical of the global warming theory, was told it could not present its information at Bali. (http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=281923042847901) And so the true nature of those whose policies you advocate becomes quite clear.

They can present it anywhere they want, Bali is about acting on global warming. ICSC, nice name, I like it.

Right. You wouldn't want any lack of a consensus.:D

As CD so aptly put it "AGW has muscled it's way onto the world stage". Although I doubt he understood how people would take his words...

a_unique_person

10th December 2007, 05:46 PM

Right. You wouldn't want any lack of a consensus.:D

??? It's not about the science behind global warming. It's about what to do about global warming. Wrong conference, guys.

CapelDodger

10th December 2007, 06:04 PM

They can present it anywhere they want, Bali is about acting on global warming.

You wish :rolleyes:. The Bali Conference is about talking about action. The conference that is about acting will take place on higher ground. Geneva springs to mind, but I'm a traditionalist.

ICSC, nice name, I like it.

Some people know how to pick 'em.

IPCC is very similar to CCCP, you know. Clues like that always give the Illuminati away :).

CapelDodger

10th December 2007, 06:30 PM

As CD so aptly put it "AGW has muscled it's way onto the world stage". Although I doubt he understood how people would take his words...

The muscle that I refer to is the big bad analogue model, and I doubt that has been much misunderstood. What provides the muscle behind your interpretation? Surely you can give it some definition, however wimpish.

The world's decision-makers haven't concluded that AGW is real and significant because they want it to be so. They've accepted it because they've no choice - reality has intruded, and even the White House has accepted that.

What contrarians such as yourself are reduced to is whining about how your little corner is becoming ever more marginalised. The arguments you depend on have long been made, and the powers-that-be have given them the short shrift they deserve.

CapelDodger

10th December 2007, 06:41 PM

Proper and respectful attitudes at the shrine requested, eh?

Have you ever seriously examined your attitude to Steve McIntyre?

Are the barbarians at the gate?

That seems to be more your position. The prominence of the Bali Conference demonstrates how pathetic the assault on Science has been, so don't kid yourself. You are ideologically confined, but reality isn't.

David Rodale

10th December 2007, 07:21 PM

The muscle that I refer to is the big bad analogue model, and I doubt that has been much misunderstood. What provides the muscle behind your interpretation? Surely you can give it some definition, however wimpish.

The world's decision-makers haven't concluded that AGW is real and significant because they want it to be so. They've accepted it because they've no choice - reality has intruded, and even the White House has accepted that.

What contrarians such as yourself are reduced to is whining about how your little corner is becoming ever more marginalised. The arguments you depend on have long been made, and the powers-that-be have given them the short shrift they deserve.

Why isn't the troposphere warming at a faster rate than the surface?

mhaze

10th December 2007, 08:16 PM

Originally Posted by CapelDodger
The arguments you depend on have long been made, and the powers-that-be have given them the short shrift they deserve.
Why isn't the troposphere warming at a faster rate than the surface?
This report is published in the December 2007 (http://science-sepp.blogspot.com/2007/12/press-release-dec-10-2007.html) issue of the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society [DOI: 10.1002/joc.1651]. The authors are Prof. David H. Douglass (Univ. of Rochester), Prof. John R. Christy (Univ. of Alabama), Benjamin D. Pearson (graduate student), and Prof. S. Fred Singer (Univ. of Virginia).

The fundamental question is whether the observed warming is natural or anthropogenic (human-caused). Lead author David Douglass said: “The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming.”

Co-author John Christy said: “Satellite data and independent balloon data agree that atmospheric warming trends do not exceed those of the surface. Greenhouse models, on the other hand, demand that atmospheric trend values be 2-3 times greater. We have good reason, therefore, to believe that current climate models greatly overestimate the effects of greenhouse gases. Satellite observations suggest that GH models ignore negative feedbacks, produced by clouds and by water vapor, that diminish the warming effects of carbon dioxide.

Co-author S. Fred Singer said: “The current warming trend is simply part of a natural cycle of climate warming and cooling that has been seen in ice cores, deep-sea sediments, stalagmites, etc., and published in hundreds of papers in peer-reviewed journals."
The answer to the question is that the troposphere is not warming as predicted by IPCC chapter 9 because there is no heavy co2 influence such as would cause that effect.

Claiming otherwise as CD would do is not the method used in science. This study is presented, others then attempt to critique or rebut it. Or others replicate the work and confirm the findings.

a_unique_person

10th December 2007, 10:26 PM

Well, it's not the same issue we were discussing and the 2.3mm doesn't seem terribly out of bounds (I was at 1.8 going to 1.3, and you were on 2.8), neither is that going to sink those islands (which on other grounds, it had been pretty firmly established that the Maldives ain't going under water).

Also I don't get the leap from one of the Hong Kong gauges being 2.3mm to that curiously being related to the IPCC number of 2.3mm.

[quote]

Woodroffe CD
Late Quaternary sea-level highstands in the central and eastern Indian Ocean: A review
GLOBAL AND PLANETARY CHANGE 49 (1-2): 121-138 NOV 2005
“…Regardless of minor past fluctuations, most reef islands in the Maldives are particularly low-lying and appear vulnerable to inundation, and extracting a more detailed sea-level history remains an important challenge….”
“…Mörner et al. (2004) appear to base much of their narrative of past sea-level change upon their interpretation of the morphology of reef islands. They postulate a series of levels shown schematically in their Fig. 2, representing, they claim, stepwise coastal evolution, including a higher storm level, a sub-recent level now vegetated, and an older and higher island surface….”
“…implied, by Mörner (2004). If there had been such a sea-level fall, then those microatolls that had grown up to the limit of coral growth prior to the fall, would have shown a ‘top hat’ morphology with continued growth during post-fall years constrained at a lower level….”
Kench PS, Nichol SL, McLean RF
Comment on "New perspectives for the future of the Maldives" by Morner, N.A., et al. [Global Planet. Change 40 (2004), 177-182]
GLOBAL AND PLANETARY CHANGE 47 (1): 67-69 MAY 2005
“Here we raise a number of concerns with arguments and data presented by Mörner et al. (2004) that are central to the interpretations and conclusions presented in their paper….”
“…We conclude that the sea level history and data presented by Mörner et al. (2004) is less than compelling and can be readily explained via an understanding of contemporary coastal processes. The region's sea level history remains uncertain. Consequently, we believe that this work does little to inform the international community on new perspectives of the future of the Maldives…”

a_unique_person

11th December 2007, 12:41 AM

Why isn't the troposphere warming at a faster rate than the surface?

Whoa there. Maybe you could actually put some evidence for whatever it is you are claiming, (not just pasted gifs), and let us see what to respond to.

fsol

11th December 2007, 01:27 AM

This report is published in the December 2007 (http://science-sepp.blogspot.com/2007/12/press-release-dec-10-2007.html) issue of the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society [DOI: 10.1002/joc.1651]. The authors are Prof. David H. Douglass (Univ. of Rochester), Prof. John R. Christy (Univ. of Alabama), Benjamin D. Pearson (graduate student), and Prof. S. Fred Singer (Univ. of Virginia).

The fundamental question is whether the observed warming is natural or anthropogenic (human-caused). Lead author David Douglass said: “The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming.”

Co-author John Christy said: “Satellite data and independent balloon data agree that atmospheric warming trends do not exceed those of the surface. Greenhouse models, on the other hand, demand that atmospheric trend values be 2-3 times greater. We have good reason, therefore, to believe that current climate models greatly overestimate the effects of greenhouse gases. Satellite observations suggest that GH models ignore negative feedbacks, produced by clouds and by water vapor, that diminish the warming effects of carbon dioxide.

Co-author S. Fred Singer said: “The current warming trend is simply part of a natural cycle of climate warming and cooling that has been seen in ice cores, deep-sea sediments, stalagmites, etc., and published in hundreds of papers in peer-reviewed journals."
The answer to the question is that the troposphere is not warming as predicted by IPCC chapter 9 because there is no heavy co2 influence such as would cause that effect.

Claiming otherwise as CD would do is not the method used in science. This study is presented, others then attempt to critique or rebut it. Or others replicate the work and confirm the findings.

Fromyour link...

These results are in conflict with the conclusions of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and also with some recent research publications based on essentially the same data. However, they are supported by the results of the US-sponsored Climate Change Science Program (CCSP).

So it leaves me wondering what Douglass et. al. did to get different results from the same data. Did they do something right or wrong?

mhaze

11th December 2007, 07:22 AM

CCSP did note the discrepancy with tropospheric response in the tropics, and if this is noted in IPCC Chapter 9, as they say, as a fingerprint of GW of the CO2 induced variety, then the IPCC is wrong. The article is not on those available to me via the ejournal list, but here is the abstract.
A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions (p n/a)
David H. Douglass, John R. Christy, Benjamin D. Pearson, S. Fred Singer
Published Online: Dec 5 2007 8:29AM
DOI: 10.1002/joc.1651

We examine tropospheric temperature trends of 67 runs from 22 http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/giflibrary/12/lsquo.gifClimate of the 20th Centuryhttp://www3.interscience.wiley.com/giflibrary/12/rsquo.gif model simulations and try to reconcile them with the best available updated observations (in the tropics during the satellite era). Model results and observed temperature trends are in disagreement in most of the tropical troposphere, being separated by more than twice the uncertainty of the model mean. In layers near 5 km, the modelled trend is 100 to 300% higher than observed, and, above 8 km, modelled and observed trends have opposite signs. These conclusions contrast strongly with those of recent publications based on essentially the same data. Copyright © 2007 Royal Meteorological Society
IPCC Chapter 9, sections 9.4.4.3 and 9.4.4.4, page 701, discusses differences between free atmosphere and surface temperatures including in the tropics. It goes into the various uncertainties in some detail. As usual, one should look at the IPCC conclusions which may diverge from the uncertainty of the details discussed. No reason to do that until the PDF of the article surfaces and/or it is reviewed by various blogs (incomplete information at this point).

fsol

11th December 2007, 10:37 AM

Aside from having the thought that the models are now convieniantly reliable if they disprove AGW...You know, the models can't predict stuff accurately enough to say that AGW is real, but here the models say this particular thing should happen and we haven't seen it so the models are accurate enough to disprove AGW...Which story am I to believe? :p

I think it would be interesting see what the "almost identical data sets" and methodologies are that produce the different results and why there is a difference. Not that the methodologies would necessarily mean all that much to me but, interesting all the same.

With a conspiracy hat on, I find it amusing that there seems to be a flood, well, two or three, papers out at the moment, spawning OpEds by the dozen just at the time of the Bali shindig...The Loehle reconstruction was of course seemingly fatally flawed as has been discussed elsewhere. McKitricks UHI analysis doesn't look that robust either...

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/are-temperature-trends-affected-by-economic-activity-ii/#more-507

So I'll wait and see about this one latest one.

mhaze

11th December 2007, 11:32 AM

Aside from having the thought that the models are now convieniantly reliable if they disprove AGW...You know, the models can't predict stuff accurately enough to say that AGW is real, but here the models say this particular thing should happen and we haven't seen it so the models are accurate enough to disprove AGW...Which story am I to believe? :p

Not even a computer is required to show the reasoning behind the hypothetical AGW troposphere warming. Or do you have no physical effects directly attributable to AGW, by model, hypothesis or otherwise?

I think it would be interesting see what the "almost identical data sets" and methodologies are that produce the different results and why there is a difference. Not that the methodologies would necessarily mean all that much to me but, interesting all the same.

seems to be a flood, well, two or three, papers out at the momentTiming the appearance of peer reviewed papers? How? A general increase in climate skeptic inclined papers in the last six months, perhaps.

Loehle reconstruction was of course seemingly fatally flawed as has been discussed elsewhere. Might you wish to dig a bit deeper into that? Someone has been preaching to the choir.

McKitricks UHI analysis doesn't look that robust either...
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/are-temperature-trends-affected-by-economic-activity-ii/#more-507
a Rasmus blog discussion of a peer reviewed, published paper?:D

But of course, all this work must stand on its merits or the lack of (including your aforementioned critiques).

fsol

11th December 2007, 12:40 PM

Not even a computer is required to show the reasoning behind the hypothetical AGW troposphere warming. Or do you have no physical effects directly attributable to AGW, by model, hypothesis or otherwise?

A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions (p n/a)
David H. Douglass, John R. Christy, Benjamin D. Pearson, S. Fred Singer
Published Online: Dec 5 2007 8:29AM
DOI: 10.1002/joc.1651

We examine tropospheric temperature trends of 67 runs from 22 http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/giflibrary/12/lsquo.gifClimate of the 20th Centuryhttp://www3.interscience.wiley.com/giflibrary/12/rsquo.gif model simulations and try to reconcile them with the best available updated observations (in the tropics during the satellite era). Model results and observed temperature trends are in disagreement in most of the tropical troposphere, being separated by more than twice the uncertainty of the model mean. In layers near 5 km, the modelled trend is 100 to 300% higher than observed, and, above 8 km, modelled and observed trends have opposite signs. These conclusions contrast strongly with those of recent publications based on essentially the same data. Copyright © 2007 Royal Meteorological Society

I am just pointing out what their argument is. The model doesn't agree with our findings, this means no AGW. Normally much less weight is placed on the model results as being useful enough to show anything, but when it suits... I find it amusing is all.
Timing the appearance of peer reviewed papers? How? A general increase in climate skeptic inclined papers in the last six months, perhaps.

Yeah, see this is why I said "With a conspiracy hat on..." why you felt the need to quote me out of context however I have no idea.
Might you wish to dig a bit deeper into that? Someone has been preaching to the choir.

This might point out some of it's shortcomings to you.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/past-reconstructions/

Of course it might not...For a more "angry" approach you could try JEGs blog. :)
a Rasmus blog discussion of a peer reviewed, published paper?:D

But of course, all this work must stand on its merits or the lack of (including your aforementioned critiques).

Well, he had a commentary published about their 2004 effort...

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/past-reconstructions/

...and he notes that they have failed to address some of the problems of that paper sufficently well in the new one. McKitrick responds in the comments, it's quite interesting.

Maybe there'll be another commentary along for this one too. Who knows?

Besides, from a commenter on RC, if McKitricks analysis is correct it would mean that the oceans are warming faster than the land masses. That would be a little bit odd if it were the case.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/are-temperature-trends-affected-by-economic-activity-ii/#comment-74696

CapelDodger

11th December 2007, 03:52 PM

I think it would be interesting see what the "almost identical data sets" and methodologies are that produce the different results and why there is a difference. Not that the methodologies would necessarily mean all that much to me but, interesting all the same.

While we might find the methodologies impenetrable, the differences between them would indeed be informative.

With a conspiracy hat on, I find it amusing that there seems to be a flood, well, two or three, papers out at the moment, spawning OpEds by the dozen just at the time of the Bali shindig...The Loehle reconstruction was of course seemingly fatally flawed as has been discussed elsewhere. McKitricks UHI analysis doesn't look that robust either...

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/are-temperature-trends-affected-by-economic-activity-ii/#more-507

Everyday cynicism, I'd say, not conspiracism.

So I'll wait and see about this one latest one.

Perhaps Steve McIntyre - who I gather is a methodology maven - will audit it for us. If he does, and given that Christy and Singer are co-authors, I (cynically) predict a clean bill of health.

To be fair, of course (and even cynics can be fair), McIntyre should also audit the several other recent papers that come to a different conclusion.

I stress "several" because a feature of contrarian behaviour is concentration on single papers that are variance with the general ensemble. They do this because these papers serve their needs. It's not coincidental that such papers usually emerge from the same small coterie of scientists.

mhaze

11th December 2007, 04:37 PM

[b]
I am just pointing out what their argument is. The model doesn't agree with our findings, this means no AGW. Normally much less weight is placed on the model results as being useful enough to show anything, but when it suits... I find it amusing is all.

Thanks for your succint analysis.
Uh, correction: succinct trotting out of the old tired RC dogma.
I'll wait until after I've actually read the paper to comment further.:D

Have you?

fsol

11th December 2007, 05:12 PM

Wow.

So because I have been saying that I'll wait and see about this paper, that means that I'm not going to wait and see? That's quite a tortuous path you must have travelled to reach that conclusion. Oh well.

So, me saying that I find the apparent double standard amusing is RC dogma now as well? I guess you'd better let them know about that then. Just so they can keep up to date. It would be unfair to spring it on them unannounced. It's cute though.

What do you think about the McKitrick land vs ocean temperature rise rates? Does it convince you of his models veracity? I seem to remember you trying to convince yourself that the oceans don't warm up very quickly over on that other thread not so long ago, well according to McKitricks results it might warm up just as quick, if not faster than the land does. How odd.

Incidently, when you can make posts like this...

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=3225872&postcount=2638

...with a straight face and then accuse others of parroting dogma you don't really do yourself any favours..

fsol

11th December 2007, 05:20 PM

I stress "several" because a feature of contrarian behaviour is concentration on single papers that are variance with the general ensemble. They do this because these papers serve their needs. It's not coincidental that such papers usually emerge from the same small coterie of scientists.

It's just another of those puzzles isn't it?

CapelDodger

11th December 2007, 05:52 PM

Thanks for your succint analysis.
Uh, correction: succinct trotting out of the old tired RC dogma.
I'll wait until after I've actually read the paper to comment further.:D

Have you?

For myself, I'm content with what's already been quoted. Let us know how reading it works out for you.

'The fundamental question is whether the observed warming is natural or anthropogenic (human-caused). Lead author David Douglass said: “The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming.” '

Inescapable conclusion?

What defines this "characteristic fingerprint"? Is it the science of AGW?

"Co-author John Christy said: “Satellite data and independent balloon data agree that atmospheric warming trends do not exceed those of the surface. Greenhouse models, on the other hand, demand that atmospheric trend values be 2-3 times greater. We have good reason, therefore, to believe that current climate models greatly overestimate the effects of greenhouse gases. Satellite observations suggest that GH models ignore negative feedbacks, produced by clouds and by water vapor, that diminish the warming effects of carbon dioxide.
Or is it instead the models that are so often dismissed as useless? Models are in no position to demand anything.

When you've read the paper, perhaps you can enlighten us.

Anyhoo, we're told satellite and balloon measurements find no variance in the warming between troposphere and surface. Warming is admitted (necessarily, since that's what's going on), but it bears not the fingerprint of AGW. There are feedbacks being wrongly evaluated, we're told.

The question then arises : if these are neglected feedbacks to greenhouse warming, why are they not feedbacks to whatever is causing the warming? The cloud argument isn't specific to greenhouse warming - it derives from the simplistic notion that more water-vapour in the atmosphere necessarily means more clouds.F

From Christy we hear of the negative feedbacks of clouds and water-vapour. What are the suggested negative feedbacks of more water-vapour per se? You could bear that in mind as you read the paper, and enlighten us.

CapelDodger

11th December 2007, 06:05 PM

A couple of fingerprints of a changing greenhouse effect :

Night and winter surface lows will respond more than day and summer highs.

The polar surfaces will respond more than the tropical surface.

Those fingerprints are all over current warming.

The tropospheric response is much more arcane, which makes it a prime candidate for a refuge.

CapelDodger

11th December 2007, 06:22 PM

It's just another of those puzzles isn't it?

It's one heck of a fingerprint. We could probably work up a full set of ten. A DNA profile would be a stretch :).

Fingerprint #2 : dark and muscular, but shadowy, forces are at work. Details cost lives, but Al Gore's in there, 'nuff said, guvnor, know what I mean?

a_unique_person

11th December 2007, 07:21 PM

CCSP did note the discrepancy with tropospheric response in the tropics, and if this is noted in IPCC Chapter 9, as they say, as a fingerprint of GW of the CO2 induced variety, then the IPCC is wrong. The article is not on those available to me via the ejournal list, but here is the abstract.A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions (p n/a)
David H. Douglass, John R. Christy, Benjamin D. Pearson, S. Fred Singer
Published Online: Dec 5 2007 8:29AM
DOI: 10.1002/joc.1651

We examine tropospheric temperature trends of 67 runs from 22 http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/giflibrary/12/lsquo.gifClimate of the 20th Centuryhttp://www3.interscience.wiley.com/giflibrary/12/rsquo.gif model simulations and try to reconcile them with the best available updated observations (in the tropics during the satellite era). Model results and observed temperature trends are in disagreement in most of the tropical troposphere, being separated by more than twice the uncertainty of the model mean. In layers near 5 km, the modelled trend is 100 to 300% higher than observed, and, above 8 km, modelled and observed trends have opposite signs. These conclusions contrast strongly with those of recent publications based on essentially the same data. Copyright © 2007 Royal Meteorological Society
IPCC Chapter 9, sections 9.4.4.3 and 9.4.4.4, page 701, discusses differences between free atmosphere and surface temperatures including in the tropics. It goes into the various uncertainties in some detail. As usual, one should look at the IPCC conclusions which may diverge from the uncertainty of the details discussed. No reason to do that until the PDF of the article surfaces and/or it is reviewed by various blogs (incomplete information at this point).

More cherry picking, IMHO. There is the non tropic troposphere, and the layers above the troposphere. It appears since they ignored those areas, they are behaving as predicted.

David Rodale

11th December 2007, 09:52 PM

More cherry picking, IMHO. There is the non tropic troposphere, and the layers above the troposphere. It appears since they ignored those areas, they are behaving as predicted.

Come on AUP, please review the literature before making unsubstantiated claims.

Where is the heat at if it's not in the troposphere as climate models say should be there? Hiding in the missing sink with the CO2?

We keep hearing about the mountains of peer reviewed articles supporting the core principles of AGW, but thus far you folks haven't come up with much. I don't have a problem with disagreeing with any paper, however it must be substantive.

Lurkers take note.

BTW, I ran a quick statistical R squared (which Capeldodger hasn't the foggiest what it means) check on the last ten years of temps vs CO2 levels. It's not pretty for AGW.

mhaze

11th December 2007, 10:21 PM

Incidently, when you can make posts like this...
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=3225872&postcount=2638
...with a straight face and then accuse others of parroting dogma you don't really do yourself any favours..

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_14224475f6d8b3d4f3.png (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=9675)

The fingerprint of AGW in the upper troposphere was never there.

Klaus is against dogma. RC is pretty dogmatic in my opinion, granted there are exceptions. RC is much easier to read than climateaudit....

a_unique_person

11th December 2007, 10:30 PM

Come on AUP, please review the literature before making unsubstantiated claims.

Where is the heat at if it's not in the troposphere as climate models say should be there? Hiding in the missing sink with the CO2?

We keep hearing about the mountains of peer reviewed articles supporting the core principles of AGW, but thus far you folks haven't come up with much. I don't have a problem with disagreeing with any paper, however it must be substantive.

Lurkers take note.

They are only looking at the tropics, and only at the troposphere. As I said, why are they only looking at this one particular area of the atmosphere? Presumably, the other areas agree with the model predictions.

BTW, I ran a quick statistical R squared (which Capeldodger hasn't the foggiest what it means) check on the last ten years of temps vs CO2 levels. It's not pretty for AGW.Lurkers take note :eye-poppi An R squared over the last ten years is going to be meaningless.

a_unique_person

11th December 2007, 10:32 PM

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_14224475f6d8b3d4f3.png

The fingerprint of AGW in the upper troposphere was never there.

Klaus is against dogma. RC is pretty dogmatic in my opinion, granted there are exceptions. RC is much easier to read than climateaudit....

Fine, Klaus is against dogma. Perhaps, rather than just raving on, he could point to the papers the IPCC reports are based on and point out which parts of them are dogma.

a_unique_person

11th December 2007, 10:34 PM

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_14224475f6d8b3d4f3.png

The fingerprint of AGW in the upper troposphere was never there.

Klaus is against dogma. RC is pretty dogmatic in my opinion, granted there are exceptions. RC is much easier to read than climateaudit....

Nice two step there. They only refer to the upper troposphere, not to the stratosphere, or the non tropical upper troposphere or lower troposphere.

I'll give you a tip. There will be many areas that you can pick with the model predictions that won't be right, as the years pass by.

fsol

12th December 2007, 01:47 AM

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_14224475f6d8b3d4f3.png

The fingerprint of AGW in the upper troposphere was never there.

Ok. A link to the source of Your clipping would be nice to begin with.

Regional vs Global. There is a difference. Oh, that's probably "dogma" best ignore that then. Here of course we see that the models aren't good enough to predict AGW. Now in the other(? hard to tell without a reference) paper the model predictions seem to be good enough to disprove AGW.

It does remind me somewhat of this

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
"That's some catch, that Catch-22," [Yossarian] observed.
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.Klaus is against dogma. RC is pretty dogmatic in my opinion, granted there are exceptions. If Klaus is against dogma he does a pretty good impression of a dogmatic person.

RC is much easier to read than climateaudit....Could be because of this principle..."If you can't explain something to a first year student, then you haven't really understood it." Maybe.

a_unique_person

12th December 2007, 03:14 AM

Ok. A link to the source of Your clipping would be nice to begin with.

That's maybe the 20th time they've been asked to link to sources. Makes you wonder why they still won't do it.

a_unique_person

12th December 2007, 03:18 AM

Meanwhile

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=501316&in_page_id=1811

Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology.

:hit:

a_unique_person

12th December 2007, 05:08 AM

Stoat has a go at Singer et al.

http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2007/12/tropical_trends.php

The issue of reconciling tropical temperature trends at the sfc and in the troposphere rumbles on, although in a not very serious way: its a good subject for research, but it doesn't seem to be a major septic playing point, probably because the issue is too complex to get much traction.
A brief recap: once upon a time the satellites said the trop, globally, wasn't warming. That disappeared ages ago. We're now looking only at the tropics, which are warming too, and the remaining issue is whether the trop warming is compatible with the surface warming. Models and (we believe) basic physics says the trop T mid-height should warm about 1.4 times as much as the surface. Everyone agrees that for changes like the seasonal cycle, this is true. The issue is whether its true for the long-term trend.
Enter "A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions" by David H. Douglass John R. Christy Benjamin D. Pearsona and S. Fred Singer" in press in IJC; and "Tropical vertical temperature trends: A real discrepancy?" by P. W. Thorne, D. E. Parker, B. D. Santer, M. P. McCarthy, D. M. H. Sexton, M. J. Webb, J. M. Murphy, M. Collins, H. A. Titchner,1 and G. S. Jones; GRL VOL. 34, L16702, doi:10.1029/2007GL029875, 2007.
You don't have to go far to see that Thorne et al is a higher quality paper. The basic conclusion is that the uncertainty in the trends from the satellites is large enough that there is no inconsistency.
Weirdly enough, Singer et al come to the opposite conclusion: that they are inconsistent. I doubt very much whether their error analysis is good enough to conclude this. One problem is that they lump all the IPCC runs together, without noticing that some are rubbish (though to be fair the IPCC does this too). There are clearly errors in the review copy: model 17 has a trend, in unspecified units, of 219 at the sfc at -1275 at 1000 hPa; they should be very nearly the same (model 2 has a simlar problem. Curious. Singer et al very late on remove these "outliers"). The uncertainty in the modelled trends is taken to be the inter-model SD/sqrt(n-1), which I think is dodgy. And table III invites us to believe that the obs have no uncertainty, which is tricky, since they disagree amongst themselves.

fsol

12th December 2007, 05:59 AM

Meanwhile

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=501316&in_page_id=1811

:hit:

It's beautiful. The Daily Mail and the Pope in one bite sized piece. :covereyes

mhaze

12th December 2007, 06:14 AM

It's beautiful. The Daily Mail and the Pope in one bite sized piece. :covereyes
His remarks reveal that while the Pope acknowledges that problems may be associated with unbridled development and climate change, he believes the case against global warming to be over-hyped.

A broad consensus is developing among the world's scientific community over the evils of climate change. But there is also an intransigent body of scientific opinion which continues to insist that industrial emissions are not to blame for the phenomenon.

Such scientists point out that fluctuations in the earth's temperature are normal and can often be caused by waves of heat generated by the sun. Other critics of environmentalism have compared the movement to a burgeoning industry in its own right.

In the spring, the Vatican hosted a conference on climate change that was welcomed by environmentalists. But senior cardinals close to the Vatican have since expressed doubts about a movement which has been likened by critics to be just as dogmatic in its assumptions as any religion.

From your linky. And your problem with this is.... ?

mhaze

12th December 2007, 06:24 AM

Stoat has a go at Singer et al.

http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2007/12/tropical_trends.php

My My My.

Even when you try to get away from RC, you are still at RC.

You have linked to a comment by Connelly, a primary RC contributer. As usual, the blog comments are more telling than the dogmatic article by Connelly.

Why is there such a rush to discredit a scientific published paper by bloggers who refuse to link to the paper?

Must you go ask skeptics for actual sources?:)

mhaze

12th December 2007, 06:30 AM

Stoat has a go at Singer et al.

http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2007/12/tropical_trends.phpWeirdly enough, Singer et al come to the opposite conclusion: that they are inconsistent. I doubt very much whether their error analysis is good enough to conclude this.
Weirdly enough, Singer et al come to the opposite conclusion: that they are inconsistent.
Duhh... Yes, that is the subject of the paper.I doubt very much....
And does anybody care about your doubts?

Not a critique phrased as a scientist, but a polemicist.

Someone with....

Dogma.

mhaze

12th December 2007, 06:55 AM

RC is much easier to read than climateaudit....

Could be because of this principle..."If you can't explain something to a first year student, then you haven't really understood it." Maybe.

Yes! You definitely have the answer there.

RC predigests those annoying facts and spits them out for people who want such. A Climate Nannyblog. Only the bottles of warm milk for the readers are lacking.

fsol

12th December 2007, 10:29 AM

fsol

12th December 2007, 10:38 AM

His remarks reveal that while the Pope acknowledges that problems may be associated with unbridled development and climate change, he believes the case against global warming to be over-hyped.

A broad consensus is developing among the world's scientific community over the evils of climate change. But there is also an intransigent body of scientific opinion which continues to insist that industrial emissions are not to blame for the phenomenon.

Such scientists point out that fluctuations in the earth's temperature are normal and can often be caused by waves of heat generated by the sun. Other critics of environmentalism have compared the movement to a burgeoning industry in its own right.

In the spring, the Vatican hosted a conference on climate change that was welcomed by environmentalists. But senior cardinals close to the Vatican have since expressed doubts about a movement which has been likened by critics to be just as dogmatic in its assumptions as any religion.

From your linky. And your problem with this is.... ?

It wasn't my link and I didn't say I had a problem with it. Uk based followers of the thread are probably familiar with the perception of the Daily Mail amongst a significant portion of the population, myself included. The icing on the cake is the marvellous quote from The Pope, who apparently enjoys throwing stones about inside glass houses. Although, I'd imagine his house is made from bullet proof glass...just in case Our Lady of Fatima is busy and she hasn't arranged a locum.

a_unique_person

12th December 2007, 02:06 PM

My My My.

Even when you try to get away from RC, you are still at RC.

You have linked to a comment by Connelly, a primary RC contributer. As usual, the blog comments are more telling than the dogmatic article by Connelly.

Why is there such a rush to discredit a scientific published paper by bloggers who refuse to link to the paper?

Must you go ask skeptics for actual sources?:)

Once again, I am not a scientist, I am especially not a scientist who is researching in this area. Scepticism from ignorance is no advance in the debate.

CapelDodger

12th December 2007, 03:08 PM

"In the spring, the Vatican hosted a conference on climate change that was welcomed by environmentalists. But senior cardinals close to the Vatican have since expressed doubts about a movement which has been likened by critics to be just as dogmatic in its assumptions as any religion."

Thee's no doubt that critics of of AGW often describe it as dogmatic and a religion. What is very much in doubt is the ability of senior cardinals or Benny Da Pope to judge the validity of those acccusations.

While it's true that "A broad consensus is developing among the world's scientific community over the evils of climate change" (to put it mildly), the contrary message is not only pushed by "an intransigent body of scientific opinion" but by a multi-faceted lobby. It seems the vatican has been nobbled. Considering the ludicrous things they (presumably) believe, that can't be too difficult.

The cynic in me naturally wonders how much Church money is invested in the fossil-fuel industry.

mhaze

12th December 2007, 03:21 PM

CapelDodger

12th December 2007, 03:27 PM

You have linked to a comment by Connelly, a primary RC contributer. As usual, the blog comments are more telling than the dogmatic article by Connelly.

Connelly says :
"There are clearly errors in the review copy: model 17 has a trend, in unspecified units, of 219 at the sfc at -1275 at 1000 hPa; they should be very nearly the same (model 2 has a simlar problem. Curious. Singer et al very late on remove these "outliers"). The uncertainty in the modelled trends is taken to be the inter-model SD/sqrt(n-1), which I think is dodgy. And table III invites us to believe that the obs have no uncertainty, which is tricky, since they disagree amongst themselves."

Is he wrong?

Thorne et al conclude that "the uncertainty in the trends from the satellites is large enough that there is no inconsistency". (That doesn't appear to be dogma.) Singer et al come to the opposite conclusion. Why is that, do you think?

We know that Singer has been denying AGW for decades (when he hasn't been busy denying tobacco's effects on health), and Christy for a good while, so naturally one suspects they reached their conclusion before they made the data fit their dogma.

Singer and Christy have also been known to describe AGW as a "religion". Not very scientific, but they do engage in polemics a lot. Singer, for instance, was one of the Swindlers (I can't recall if Christy was).

Must you go ask skeptics for actual sources?:)

There's clearly little point in asking you or David Rodale; you seem to prefer isolated pictures clipped (I presume, for want of correction) from ClimateAudit.

CapelDodger

12th December 2007, 04:02 PM

Don't forget the multi faceted "pro environmental lobby".

Don't you forget the multi-faceted anti-AGW lobby - which, by the way, includes the Daily Mail. (They also have a thing about MMR, and about Princess Diana being murdered by MI6.)

So these guys in the Vatican see right through Hansen's preaching (likely from having considerable experience in the profession of preaching?)

Rather, they haven't seen through the lobbying they've been subjected to. They seem to have bought into AGW as stepping on their territory. They're understanding of science - even in principle - is questionable. The Vatican is a highly politicised institution - perhaps not in the way you understand politics, but politicised all the same. They don't have much time to spare on science. Remember, these are the people who claim that HIV can wriggle through condoms.

How's the Arctic doing? Any Polar Bears drowning lately?

The Alaskan Arctic has been remarkably warm recently, for the time of year.

All the polar bears are tucked-up in dens in a dormant state (not actual hibernation, but close). They come out when the Sun comes up. They're not really cut out for hunting in the dark (the colouration gives that away), and anyway their prey isn't on the ice at this time of year.

a_unique_person

12th December 2007, 04:04 PM

CapelDodger

12th December 2007, 04:20 PM

BTW, I ran a quick statistical R squared (which Capeldodger hasn't the foggiest what it means) check on the last ten years of temps vs CO2 levels. It's not pretty for AGW.

I don't need to know what r-squared is to realise that no correlation between CO2-load and temperature can be expected except in an equilibrium state - which this isn't. AGW is a cumulative effect. It doesn't create energy, it changes the planet's energy-budget - the energy comes from the Sun. Doubling pre-industrial CO2-load overnight will not cause a 2C warming overnight. It will over decades.

If I'm wrong, explain to me why your r-squared calculation is significant.

Global temperatures are not yet at equilibrium with current CO2-load, which is continuing to increase and will for the foreseeable future.

CapelDodger

12th December 2007, 04:45 PM

My guess is it's another 'reds under the bed' scare.

I can actually point you to these people if you want. They are a motly collection of lost souls who stand on a street corner in the city from time to time, and are ignored by 999 out of a 1000 people who wander past. That they are the secret driving force behind the IPCC and the scientific research is laughable.

There are people out there who still mourn the loss of the USSR - and not just the sad few who waste their Saturday mornings pushing The Morning Star in the High Street. After the euphoria of beating the Marxist menace dies down there's a hole left in their lives. With no menace to combat, where's the meaning?

David Rodale recently linked to a right-wing editorial that connected the emergence of AGW as a force with the Fall of the Wall. The new menace to fill the hole. And there was I thinking the post-Marxist menace was Islamist Terrorism (which, for the mainstream, it is).

Marxist eco-fascists (which I get the feeling includes me and thee) are the menace of choice for some. Dogmatic Marxist eco-fascists, even. Scary. The capitalist system will be hard-put to survive that onslaught.

BobK

12th December 2007, 04:51 PM

Here is a PDF of the article. Haven't read it myself yet.
A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions (http://icecap.us/images/uploads/DOUGLASPAPER.pdf)

CapelDodger

12th December 2007, 04:53 PM

They are only looking at the tropics, and only at the troposphere. As I said, why are they only looking at this one particular area of the atmosphere? Presumably, the other areas agree with the model predictions.

Cynical. Good on yer, mate :).

Contrarians are getting backed into tighter and tighter corners. It must be frustrating. I like to think so, anyway.

Lurkers take note :eye-poppi An R squared over the last ten years is going to be meaningless.

If it has any meaning I think we should all be told what it is.

CapelDodger

12th December 2007, 05:13 PM

Yes! You definitely have the answer there.

RC predigests those annoying facts and spits them out for people who want such. A Climate Nannyblog. Only the bottles of warm milk for the readers are lacking.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument/langswitch_lang/in

That's hardly regurgitated pap, is it? You can probably find some annoying facts in it if you look hard enough.

If you still have the stomach for it you could move on to

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument-part-ii

More annoying science, and at east this annoying fact :

"The discussion here is based on CO2 absorption data found in the HITRAN (http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/hitran//) spectroscopic archive. This is the main infrared database used by atmospheric radiation modellers. This database is a legacy of the military work on infrared described in Part I (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument) , and descends from a spectroscopic archive compiled by the Air Force Geophysics Laboratory at Hanscom Field, MA (referred to in some early editions of radiative transfer textbooks as the "AFGL Tape")."

The military work on infrared :

"The breakthroughs that finally set the field back on the right track came from research during the 1940s. [US] Military officers lavishly funded research on the high layers of the air where their bombers operated, layers traversed by the infrared radiation they might use to detect enemies. Theoretical analysis of absorption leaped forward, with results confirmed by laboratory studies using techniques orders of magnitude better than Ångström could deploy. The resulting developments stimulated new and clearer thinking about atmospheric radiation."

US military research in the 40's is a pristine source, wouldn't you say? No reason for it to be manipulated. Everybody involved wanted the right answers, after all.

CapelDodger

12th December 2007, 05:24 PM

It's beautiful. The Daily Mail and the Pope in one bite sized piece. :covereyes

Strange times, strange bedfellows.

"How many oil-wells does the Pope have?" :). (That's a joke, people.)

CapelDodger

12th December 2007, 05:32 PM

Here is a PDF of the article. Haven't read it myself yet.
A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions (http://icecap.us/images/uploads/DOUGLASPAPER.pdf)

It's beyond my expertise, I'm afraid. Do let us know how it works out for you :).

I'm off to read this

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/tropical-troposphere-trends/langswitch_lang/in

Hot off the press, so to speak.

CapelDodger

12th December 2007, 06:11 PM

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/tropical-troposphere-trends/langswitch_lang/in

Some old-timers will remember a series of 'bombshell' papers back in 2004 which were going to "knock the stuffing out" of the consensus position on climate change science (see here (http://tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=081204D) for example). Needless to say, nothing (http://timlambert.org/2004/08/gwarming2/) of the sort happened (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/peer-review-a-necessary-but-not-sufficient-condition/). The issue in two of those papers was whether satellite and radiosonde data were globally consistent with model simulations over the same time. Those papers claimed that they weren't, but they did so based on a great deal of over-confidence in observational data accuracy (see here (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/08/et-tu-lt/) or here (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/08/the-tropical-lapse-rate-quandary/) for how that turned out) and an insufficient appreciation of the statistics of trends over short time periods.

Well, the same authors (Douglas, Pearson and Singer, now joined by Christy) are back with a new (but necessarily more constrained) claim (http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/117857349/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0), but with the same over-confidence (http://science-sepp.blogspot.com/2007/12/press-release-dec-10-2007.html) in observational accuracy and a similar lack of appreciation of short term statistics.

"Necessarily more constrained". Nice. Makes my "backed into corners" seem doltish :o.

To be sure, this isn't a demonstration that the tropical trends in the model simulations or the data are perfectly matched - there remain multiple issues with moist convection parameterisations, the Madden-Julian oscillation, ENSO, the 'double ITCZ' problem, biases, drifts etc. Nor does it show that RAOBCORE v1.4 is necessarily better than v1.2. But it is a demonstration that there is no clear model-data discrepancy in tropical tropospheric trends once you take the systematic uncertainties in data and models seriously. Funnily enough, this is exactly the conclusion reached by a much better paper by P. Thorne and colleagues (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2007GL029875.shtml). Douglas et al's claim to the contrary is simply unsupportable.

The "systematic uncertainties in data and models" are, I suspect, the reason why Singer et al are drawn to this particular "fingerprint" of AGW. Fertile territory for obfuscation and the blinding by the science ...

Much like climate reconstructions, from which Singer - a busy and multi-skilled chap - extracts a 1500 year (+/- 500) climate cycle that, you know, just happens. He may have some solar thing going as well, it's hard to keep track of someone that frenetically engaged. Remarkable for a chap his age. Probably never a heavy smoker, which helps.

There are two fingerprints of AGW that are rather more obvious, and have nothing to do with models. Night and winter lows will increase faster than day and summer highs. And the poles will warm faster than the tropics. Both derive from the nature of AGW, but not from (for instance) the nature of solar warming.

Both are very evident.

mhaze

12th December 2007, 06:47 PM

Originally Posted by a_unique_person http://forums.randi.org/helloworld2/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=3235999#post3235999)
They are only looking at the tropics, and only at the troposphere. As I said, why are they only looking at this one particular area of the atmosphere? Presumably, the other areas agree with the model predictions.

Cynical. Good on yer, mate :).

Contrarians are getting backed into tighter and tighter corners. It must be frustrating. I like to think so, anyway.If it has any meaning I think we should all be told what it is.

No corner at all, its the upper troposphere at the equator that matters for this issue.

If Douglass et all are right, climate sensitivity backs out to perhaps 1C for co2 doubling. See Motl http://motls.blogspot.com/

a_unique_person

12th December 2007, 06:51 PM

No corner at all, its the upper troposphere at the equator that matters for this issue.

If Douglass et all are right, climate sensitivity backs out to perhaps 1C for co2 doubling. See Motl http://motls.blogspot.com/

Once again, a blogger with no expertise in the topic, gives an opinion.

If you look at realclimate, the accuracy of the measurements is such it is far too short a scale to make such a claim, and another paper on the same topic comes to a different conclusion.

mhaze

12th December 2007, 08:27 PM

Once again, a blogger with no expertise in the topic, gives an opinion.

If you look at realclimate, the accuracy of the measurements is such it is far too short a scale to make such a claim, and another paper on the same topic comes to a different conclusion.

Motl is a world renowned Harvard physicist.

mhaze

12th December 2007, 08:43 PM

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument/langswitch_lang/in

That's hardly regurgitated pap, is it? You can probably find some annoying facts in it if you look hard enough.

Yes, it is regurgitated pap.

If you still have the stomach for it you could move on to
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument-part-ii
You may ignore everything Spencer Weart says.:) For your dose of pro AGW spectroscopy go to Eli Rabbet. He knows that stuff. Weart could not tell a differential equation from a cube root.

a_unique_person

13th December 2007, 12:46 AM

Motl is a world renowned Harvard physicist.
Let me know when he's a world renowned climatologist, actively researching the area.

a_unique_person

13th December 2007, 12:47 AM

Yes, it is regurgitated pap.

You may ignore everything Spencer Weart says.:) For your dose of pro AGW spectroscopy go to Eli Rabbet. He knows that stuff. Weart could not tell a differential equation from a cube root.

Weart is a scientist who has been involved in AGW for several years now. Perhaps you could rebut his science.:D

a_unique_person

13th December 2007, 12:53 AM

Thee's no doubt that critics of of AGW often describe it as dogmatic and a religion. What is very much in doubt is the ability of senior cardinals or Benny Da Pope to judge the validity of those acccusations.

While it's true that "A broad consensus is developing among the world's scientific community over the evils of climate change" (to put it mildly), the contrary message is not only pushed by "an intransigent body of scientific opinion" but by a multi-faceted lobby. It seems the vatican has been nobbled. Considering the ludicrous things they (presumably) believe, that can't be too difficult.

The cynic in me naturally wonders how much Church money is invested in the fossil-fuel industry.

As it turns out, the reporter was actually indulging in some creative paraphrasing....(err, lying).

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/12/simon_caldwell_is_a_liar.php#more

I don't think I've ever seen a more dishonest piece of reporting than this whoppper (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=501316&in_page_id=1811&ito=1490) from Simon Caldwell at the Daily Mail:
Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology.
The leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics suggested that fears over man-made emissions melting the ice caps and causing a wave of unprecedented disasters were nothing more than scare-mongering.
Needless to say, this story was linked by Drudge and all the other denialists (http://www.technorati.com/search/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailymail.co.uk%2Fpages%2Flive%2F articles%2Fnews%2Fworldnews.html%3Fin_article_id%3 D501316). But the Pope's actual statement is online, so we can see that Caldwell is lying about it. What the Pope actually said (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/peace/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20071208_xli-world-day-peace_en.html):
We need to care for the environment: it has been entrusted to men and women to be protected and cultivated with responsible freedom, with the good of all as a constant guiding criterion. ... it means not selfishly considering nature to be at the complete disposal of our own interests, for future generations also have the right to reap its benefits and to exhibit towards nature the same responsible freedom that we claim for ourselves.
Looks like he agrees with Stern about low discount rates.
Nor must we overlook the poor, who are excluded in many cases from the goods of creation destined for all. Humanity today is rightly concerned about the ecological balance of tomorrow. It is important for assessments in this regard to be carried out prudently, in dialogue with experts and people of wisdom, uninhibited by ideological pressure to draw hasty conclusions,
And he thinks you should listen to the IPCC.

fsol

13th December 2007, 01:42 AM

The Daily Mail, umm...not quite telling the truth? Say it isn't so! :jaw-dropp

fsol

13th December 2007, 01:49 AM

Yes, it is regurgitated pap.

Regurgitated from where? Which parts of it do you disagree with then? If you can tell so authoritatively that it's pap there must be some reasoning behind your opinion no?

mhaze

13th December 2007, 08:10 AM

Regional vs Global. There is a difference. Oh, that's probably "dogma" best ignore that then. Here of course we see that the models aren't good enough to predict AGW. Now in the other(? hard to tell without a reference) paper the model predictions seem to be good enough to disprove AGW.

In looking at the two bloggers' critiques of the Douglass et. al. paper, I find that in large part, that they launch on to "self criticisms" made by Douglass et.al. as their "talking points". In a rush to immediately discredit a paper by climate skeptics (apparently, that is what is going on here) they do no real digging into the issue.

It should be noted that a good scientific paper does its best to point out possible alternative approachs; possible alternate explanations, and then goes further into explaining why the particular approach used was chosen, when these alternatives exist. Douglass etal does this, the two critiques are superficial at best, and more likley, unscientific and polemical.

The arguments presented in these two critiques and cut and pasted from those blogs to JREF seem to not be worth discussing. Perhaps I've missed something material, if so please feel free to point it out. Douglass et al. addresses an obvious problem, noted by the CCSP, that has been discussed at length in the climate community. The fingerprint of AGW predicted by models isn't in the tropical mid troposphere observations. Why?

Some say it is because the measurements are in error ("AGW is really there but the instruments are not sensitive enough to prove it). Okay, then you don't have a "fingerprint of AGW" demonstrated.

Others (Douglass, Christy etc) say that the measurements show exactly what they show - there is no fingerprint of AGW because CO2 and other greenhouse gases do not have the high climate sensitivty that would create that fingerprint. EG, no fingerprint, no AGW (at the modeled levels of climate sensitivity).

The upper troposphere AGW "fingerprint" is perhaps the single strong bit of evidence that would show the effect of greenhouse gases at the supposed levels of climate sensitivity. Without that, AGW must rely on circumstantial evidence ("unprecedented" arctic ice loss, glaciers moving (umm, but they are supposed to move..., ice shelf collapse here or there, a category 3 hurricane hitting the shore (yawn), the list can go on).

Fsol considers it ironic that the models might be used to discredit the models.

So do I.

Pixel42

13th December 2007, 10:40 AM

2007 data confirms warming trend

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7142694.stm

fsol

13th December 2007, 11:21 AM

Fsol considers it ironic that the models might be used to discredit the models.

No he doesn't.

The rest of your post "seems to not be worth discussing" as you clearly haven't made any effort to understand the criticisms of the paper.

mhaze

13th December 2007, 12:08 PM

No he doesn't.

The rest of your post "seems to not be worth discussing" as you clearly haven't made any effort to understand the criticisms of the paper.

As I mentioned, most of the "criticisms" seemed to be pulled from the paper's self criticisms. Actually reading the paper helps.

mhaze

13th December 2007, 01:06 PM

No he doesn't.

The rest of your post "seems to not be worth discussing" as you clearly haven't made any effort to understand the criticisms of the paper.

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_14224476190301dd1a.png (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=9710)

Models are wrong.

fsol

13th December 2007, 01:08 PM

As I mentioned, most of the "criticisms" seemed lo be pulled from the paper's self criticisms. Actually reading the paper helps.

Well gee, lucky I have looked at the paper then isn't it?

What do you think about RCs criticism of the method they used to determine the uncertainty of the models? What do you think about Douglass et al. using RAOBCORE v1.2 rather than the more recent v1.4? Are these valid criticisms? If not, why not?

Why do you think Douglass et al. came to a different conclusion to Thorne et al?

These are the sorts of things that you should answer instead of just saying, it's "pap" and it "seems to not be worth discussing."

If the criticisms are unfounded and are addressed in the paper already then you can just point the way can't you. Wouldn't that be a little bit more constructive?

CapelDodger

13th December 2007, 04:02 PM

As it turns out, the reporter was actually indulging in some creative paraphrasing....(err, lying).

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/12/simon_caldwell_is_a_liar.php#more

Wow. If you're going to tell a lie, tell a great big one. I fell for it - and my bad. I must confess to an uncharitable attitude towards the Vatican. Thanks for chasing it down.

"Respecting the environment does not mean considering material or animal nature more important than man. Rather, it means not selfishly considering nature to be at the complete disposal of our own interests, for future generations also have the right to reap its benefits and to exhibit towards nature the same responsible freedom that we claim for ourselves. Nor must we overlook the poor, who are excluded in many cases from the goods of creation destined for all. Humanity today is rightly concerned about the ecological balance of tomorrow. It is important for assessments in this regard to be carried out prudently, in dialogue with experts and people of wisdom, uninhibited by ideological pressure to draw hasty conclusions, and above all with the aim of reaching agreement on a model of sustainable development capable of ensuring the well-being of all while respecting environmental balances."

Moderate and sensible. Not Daily Mail material by any stretch. So it morphs into

"Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology.
The leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics suggested that fears over man-made emissions melting the ice caps and causing a wave of unprecedented disasters were nothing more than scare-mongering."

Shameless. Contemptible. Typical Daily Mail.

From the Daily Mail piece, and a sample of crimson-cap scientific accumen :

"In October, the Australian Cardinal George Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, caused an outcry when he noted that the atmospheric temperature of Mars had risen by 0.5 degrees celsius.
"The industrial-military complex up on Mars can't be blamed for that," he said in a criticism of Australian scientists who had claimed that carbon emissions would force temperatures on earth to rise by almost five degrees by 2070 unless drastic solutions were enforced."

a_unique_person

13th December 2007, 04:09 PM

Wow. If you're going to tell a lie, tell a great big one. I fell for it - and my bad. I must confess to an uncharitable attitude towards the Vatican. Thanks for chasing it down.

Hey, I'm an ex Catholic. I still can't stand the Pope and Rome. :)

CapelDodger

13th December 2007, 04:14 PM

Yes, it is regurgitated pap.

No, it isn't. Where's it regurgitated from?

You may ignore everything Spencer Weart says.:) For your dose of pro AGW spectroscopy go to Eli Rabbet. He knows that stuff. Weart could not tell a differential equation from a cube root.

The CO2 and H2O absorption measurements that were made in the 40's under the auspices of the US Air Force weren't taken by Spencer Weart, just reported by him as historical fact. They're what lie at the heart of AGW science. I think Eli Rabbet would confirm that if you asked him.

Do you have any comment to make on those measurements and/or their implications?

CapelDodger

13th December 2007, 04:20 PM

Hey, I'm an ex Catholic. I still can't stand the Pope and Rome. :)

I should not let my deep and abiding loathing influence my thinking. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

It appears that Sydney's Cardinal Pell has fallen in with local vested interests. No surprises there, then.

CapelDodger

13th December 2007, 04:34 PM

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_14224476190301dd1a.png (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=9710)

Models are wrong.

Where are the error bars on the observations? I thought you were keen on error bars.

The models won't be exactly right in every respect, of course. Theory predicts that the temperature gradient between surface and mid-troposphere will flatten, implying faster warming up there (until equilibrium, but we're far away from that). What theory is not so good at - in the real fluid world - is predicting how much quicker.

Which goes some way to explain why it's become a contrarian focus. Lots of wriggle-room and uncertainty. Unlike, say, nights and winters warming more than days and summers, which anybody can understand and observe for themselves.

CapelDodger

13th December 2007, 04:53 PM

2007 data confirms warming trend

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7142694.stm

Thanks for the link.

Hanging a hat on something in there :

""The year began with a weak El Nino... and global temperatures well above the long-term average," said Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (UEA).

"However, since the end of April, the La Nina event has taken some of the heat out of what could have been an even warmer year."

"Taking the heat out" is a fine choice of words. During La Nina's heat is taken out of the surface system and stored away in the Western Pacific. El Nino's let it back out. The next long El Nino is going to be something to watch. From a safe perch, of course. And it will come.

a_unique_person

13th December 2007, 08:19 PM

From realclimate.

Previously, the claim was that satellites (in particular the MSU 2LT record produced by UAH (http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/tltglhmam_5.2)) showed a global cooling that was not apparent in the surface temperatures or model runs. That disappeared with a longer record and some important corrections to the processing. Now the claim has been greatly restricted in scope and concerns only the tropics, and the rate of warming in the troposphere (rather than the fact of warming itself, which is now undisputed).

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/tropical-troposphere-trends/#more-509

So it is even more cherry picking than I at first thought. They are only referring to the rate of warming.

a_unique_person

13th December 2007, 08:24 PM

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_14224476190301dd1a.png

Models are wrong.

Models are looking good

http://www.realclimate.org/images/dpcs_corr.jpg

http://www.realclimate.org/images/dpcs_corr.jpg

bobdroege7

14th December 2007, 01:08 AM

Meanwhile, Greenland is still melting,

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/greenland-melting-47120614

And the arctic permafrost, well it is not so permanent

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/7482

mhaze

14th December 2007, 06:04 AM

Models are looking good

http://www.realclimate.org/images/dpcs_corr.jpg

http://www.realclimate.org/images/dpcs_corr.jpg

Let me know when that is published as a rebuttal in a peer reviewed journal.

If it is so accurate they should have no problem doing that.

a_unique_person

14th December 2007, 06:10 AM

Let me know when that is published as a rebuttal in a peer reviewed journal.

If it is so accurate they should have no problem doing that.

Fair go, the paper it's rebutting only came out yesterday! As for peer reviewed work, you'd be almost silent if that's all you came up with here.

mhaze

14th December 2007, 06:22 AM

Fair go, the paper it's rebutting only came out yesterday! As for peer reviewed work, you'd be almost silent if that's all you came up with here.

And who wrote that hot-off-the-press, rushed to the blog rebuttal at RC?

Hint: when Douglass et al responds, we would like to know exactly who the idiot was.

mhaze

14th December 2007, 07:46 AM

Originally Posted by mhaze http://forums.randi.org/helloworld2/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=3241257#post3241257)
As I mentioned, most of the "criticisms" seemed lo be pulled from the paper's self criticisms. Actually reading the paper helps.

Well gee, lucky I have looked at the paper then isn't it?

I'm reminded here of one of AUP's best comebacks, which I shall quote hoping you get the irony (my intent), and not the affront (unclear which way he meant it)-

"Feeling lucky, punk?"

What do you think about RCs criticism of the method they used to determine the uncertainty of the models? What do you think about Douglass et al. using RAOBCORE v1.2 rather than the more recent v1.4? Are these valid criticisms? If not, why not?
Uncertainty is well discussed in the paper, and spun out of context in RC. I have no problem with the handling of uncertainty vs. range or the choice of the standard deviation definition. Do you?

As for the choice of RAOBCORE v.12 vs. v1.4? Beats me. We can just let Douglass et al. explain that. No doubt there is a good reason. If it does not surface in a few days I'll email them.

Why do you think Douglass et al. came to a different conclusion to Thorne et al?
You've read the paper, then you understand that Douglass et al. discusses this very issue. Is there a point in quoting from the paper to refute the point made poorly by RC? IF RC makes a point that is already discussed in the paper it's somewhat moot, isn't it?
RC rushes out this poorly spun "Rebuttal" (but no one would sign their name to it)
RC won't link to the actual article (give the audience predigested pap, not real food).
These are the sorts of things that you should answer instead of just saying, it's "pap" and it "seems to not be worth discussing." If the criticisms are unfounded and are addressed in the paper already then you can just point the way can't you. Wouldn't that be a little bit more constructive?Pap -
1. A soft food for infants, made of bread boiled or softtened in milk or water. 2. Nourishment or support from official patronage; as, treasury pap. [Colloq. & Contemptuous]
Gee, I don't know. "Pap" fits pretty well.:D

a_unique_person

14th December 2007, 02:04 PM

=As for the choice of RAOBCORE v.12 vs. v1.4? Beats me. We can just let Douglass et al. explain that. No doubt there is a good reason. If it does not surface in a few days I'll email them.
You've read the paper, then you understand that Douglass et al. discusses this very issue. Is there a point in quoting from the paper to refute the point made poorly by RC? IF RC makes a point that is already discussed in the paper it's somewhat moot, isn't it?
RC rushes out this poorly spun "Rebuttal" (but no one would sign their name to it)
RC won't link to the actual article (give the audience predigested pap, not real food).

Gavin would be the author, since he has signed all the comments.

The peer reviewed response is already out there, as stated in the RC topic.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2007GL029875.shtml

If they had to do peer reviewed science on every denier claim, they would never get any real work done. Gavin et al actually have day jobs doing real research.

mhaze

14th December 2007, 02:38 PM

Gavin would be the author, since he has signed all the comments.

The peer reviewed response is already out there, as stated in the RC topic.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2007GL029875.shtml

Reverse that to get it right.
Douglass is a response to Thorne.

If they had to do peer reviewed science on every denier claim, they would never get any real work done. Gavin et al actually have day jobs doing real research.Wow. Now I get it.

Peer reviewed article by Douglass ..... "denier claim"
Blog by Gavin refutes peer reviewed article.
Gavin must be very important.
By the way....

Why didn't he do very well debating Michael Crichton? (http://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/TranscriptContainer/_GlobalWarming-edited%20version%20031407.pdf)

(Gavin speaketh...)
http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_142244762f78c7036a.png (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=9730)

Did the audience not buy into it?

The style of grammer and the level of professionalism of the article at RC leads me to think that it was not written by Gavin. He's pretty sharp.

mhaze

14th December 2007, 04:50 PM

Meanwhile, Greenland is still melting,

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/greenland-melting-47120614

What might be causing that melting?
What might have caused this melting? (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071210094332.htm)
Will the DailyGreen clue us in?

If DailyGreen will not clue us in, should we trust them as a reliable source of climate information? If not DailyGreen, then who?

mhaze

15th December 2007, 06:28 AM

Originally Posted by bobdroege7 http://forums.randi.org/helloworld2/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=3243308#post3243308)
Meanwhile, Greenland is still melting,
http://www.thedailygreen.com/environ...lting-47120614 (http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/greenland-melting-47120614)

What might be causing that melting?
What might have caused this melting? (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071210094332.htm)
Will the DailyGreen clue us in?

If DailyGreen will not clue us in, should we trust them as a reliable source of climate information? If not DailyGreen, then who?

Volcanic action under NE Greenland (http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20071213/sc_livescience/magmamaybemeltinggreenlandice;_ylt=ApZ655aHtp4hZZF svFaeMwQDW7oF), also not told us by DailyGreen.

Geckko

15th December 2007, 06:39 AM

Models are looking good

http://www.realclimate.org/images/dpcs_corr.jpg

http://www.realclimate.org/images/dpcs_corr.jpg

I am not so sure.

According to that article, those confidence bands represent 80% confidence. Taking that chart as read effectively means that the models can't simulate any trend statistically different from zero at any altitude for any acceptable level of statistical certainty (usually 95% at a minimum).

mhaze

15th December 2007, 07:05 AM

And the arctic permafrost, well it is not so permanent

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/7482

Daily Green opinion is not so permanent either -

http://www.newsdaily.com/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20070521-09395400-bc-germany-permafrost.xml

varwoche

15th December 2007, 09:49 AM

Volcanic action under NE Greenland (http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20071213/sc_livescience/magmamaybemeltinggreenlandice;_ylt=ApZ655aHtp4hZZF svFaeMwQDW7oF), also not told us by DailyGreen. And that's a good thing. Because if you read the entire article you would have seen: It could be that there’s a volcano down there but we think it’s probably just the way the heat is being distributed by the rock topography at the base of the ice.

mhaze

15th December 2007, 01:42 PM

Originally Posted by mhaze
Volcanic action under NE Greenland (http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20071213/sc_livescience/magmamaybemeltinggreenlandice;_ylt=ApZ655aHtp4hZZF svFaeMwQDW7oF), also not told us by DailyGreen.
And that's a good thing. Because if you read the entire article you would have seen:

Quote:
It could be that there’s a volcano down there but we think it’s probably just the way the heat is being distributed by the rock topography at the base of the ice.

Which of course I did see and your point is...????

Does this soon to be revealed point it refute the apparent pro-AGW DailyGreen disinformation?

varwoche

15th December 2007, 03:28 PM

Which of course I did see and your point is...???? Ah, so you willfully misrepresented the article. Got it. Thanks for the refreshing admission.

Does this soon to be revealed point it refute the apparent pro-AGW DailyGreen disinformation? No. I don't know thing one about DailyGreen.

Nice to know you've seen the light though. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=3075882#post3075882)
Or are you still a rank hypocrite? (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2847345#post2847345)

CapelDodger

15th December 2007, 07:08 PM

Which of course I did see and your point is...????

The point being that you said "also not told us by DailyGreen", even though it was mentioned.

Does this soon to be revealed point it refute the apparent pro-AGW DailyGreen disinformation?

Like varwoche and the rest of the world I don't put much (if any) store by the DailyGreen, but you seem to care enough to misrepresent it while attacking it. Not even you can blame the DailyGreen for the Bali Conference and its outcome.

Got any comments on that subject?

mhaze

15th December 2007, 07:20 PM

Originally Posted by mhaze http://forums.randi.org/helloworld2/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=3247597#post3247597)
Which of course I did see and your point is...????

The point being that you said "also not told us by DailyGreen", even though it was mentioned.

Got any comments on that subject?

Sure.
Where is it mentioned?:D

CapelDodger

15th December 2007, 07:21 PM

There's a new poll on AGW that I won't be contributing to, since my position is hardly a mystery.

Thread-jumping really irritates me. An answer and explanation of it is all a poll calls for; argument can be enagaged in on this thread - "Global Warming" is about as inclusive a title as could be asked for.

CapelDodger

15th December 2007, 07:51 PM

Sure.
Where is it mentioned?:D

You actually edited out " Not even you can blame the DailyGreen for the Bali Conference and its outcome." In front of everybody's eyes.

The Bali Conference has had a lot of mention. Do you have any comment to make on it? Any attachment of blame? Perhaps something about the influence (malign or otherwise) of DailyGreen?

As quoted from DailyGreen by varwoche :

"It could be that there’s a volcano down there but we think it’s probably just the way the heat is being distributed by the rock topography at the base of the ice. "

Hardly dogmatic, nor likely to have much impact. And it does mention the alternative volcanic interpretation. One volcano, one (untypical) place, one blog, and you take desperate refuge in it.

I can see why; you must find everything global pretty disheartening these days. Nil desperandum, the next three-to-eight years of persistence might see you validated.

mhaze

16th December 2007, 07:45 AM

You actually edited out " Not even you can blame the DailyGreen for the Bali Conference and its outcome." In front of everybody's eyes. The Bali Conference has had a lot of mention. Do you have any comment to make on it? Any attachment of blame? Perhaps something about the influence (malign or otherwise) of DailyGreen? As quoted from DailyGreen by varwoche :

Quote:
"It could be that there’s a volcano down there but we think it’s probably just the way the heat is being distributed by the rock topography at the base of the ice. "
Hardly dogmatic, nor likely to have much impact. And it does mention the alternative volcanic interpretation. One volcano, one (untypical) place, one blog, and you take desperate refuge in it.

The quote you ascribe to Varoche is from my reference, not from your disinformation associates at DailyGreen.

Confused a bit?

That rumbling sound you hear is the collapse of malformed but key supports of the castle of AGW. Hold those walls up - but seek help. The ex Iraq Information Maestro, Bagdad Bob (http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com/), might be available.Furloughed Iraqi Information Minister Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf (M.S.S.) is named "Stupidest Person in the World" at the first annual World Stupidity Awards, held in Canada. And so the first, albeit small, step in his long campaign for the Nobel Peace Prize is completed.
"I have detailed information about the situation . . . which completely proves that what they allege are illusions . . . They lie every day." lies and more lies!" "We are in control. They are in a state of hysteria. . . . .I think they will not win, those bastards."

mhaze

16th December 2007, 08:25 AM

You actually edited out " Not even you can blame the DailyGreen for the Bali Conference and its outcome." In front of everybody's eyes.

The Bali Conference has had a lot of mention. Do you have any comment to make on it? Any attachment of blame?

Sure, Bali.

Our Modern CO2 Illusionists (http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/iWeb/Global%20Warming%20Politics/A%20Hot%20Topic%20Blog/F9EFFCF5-2731-4A10-BB07-40A95D13669C.html)The magician displays a bird cage, holding it between both hands. Often there is a bird (fake in these more sensitive times) inside. The magician offers the cage for inspection by a member of the audience, but the illusionist never releases his grip. Then, without covering the cage, he makes a sudden motion, and the cage (bird and all) vanishes from sight. Of course, the cage is built to collapse, and to run, hidden, up the illusionist’s capacious sleeve.

Today, our politicians are pulling off an equally tacky illusion, as carbon dioxide emissions vanish in their capacious rhetoric.(more) (http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/iWeb/Global%20Warming%20Politics/A%20Hot%20Topic%20Blog/F9EFFCF5-2731-4A10-BB07-40A95D13669C.html)