Global warming [Archive]

Big Al

17th July 2007, 09:18 AM

Again, somebody asks an honest question and is flamed to cinders immediately.

Schneibster, if a woo believer said that the great Fourier and Arrhenius believed in God, I'm pretty sure you'd snap back that they were committing an Argument from Authority fallacy. Neither Fourier nor Arrhenius is famous for climatology.

Why is it so hard either to keep a civil tongue and answer coolly and clearly, or just not to answer?

Please don't say it's because you've been just forced to answer the same questions over and over: I've seen streams of Young Earth creationists, Geller hagiologists, rampant theists and self-deluded Remote Viewers treated with far more courtesy after a hundred inane posts. I've lost count of the number of Occam's Razors, Flying Spaghetti Monsters. Weak Anthropic Principles and explanations of logical fallacies that have whipped across the screen.

I know the weather's been getting warmer on the average for some time, but I'm not convinced about the androgenic aspects of it. OK, I understand a study has exonerated the sun, but I don't see a convincing tracking of historical temperature with CO2. I've heard the argument that the several-century lag of CO2 increase behind temperature rise is because a change of CO2 increases temperature immediately, which later causes a much greater increase in CO2 from oceans etc.

That strikes me as nonsensical: surely, that would be a runaway positive feedback mechanism. Why does the later, greater emission of CO2 not cause an absolutely huge temperature excursion? I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable answer to that, but I couldn't find it on Google, and I'm not a climate scientist. So why not help, instead of haranguing?

What's wrong with just a tiny bit of civility in replies to climate questions? Either that, or restraining the need to answer at all?

Schneibster

17th July 2007, 06:38 PM

Again, somebody asks an honest question and is flamed to cinders immediately.

Schneibster, if a woo believer said that the great Fourier and Arrhenius believed in God, I'm pretty sure you'd snap back that they were committing an Argument from Authority fallacy. Neither Fourier nor Arrhenius is famous for climatology.

Why is it so hard either to keep a civil tongue and answer coolly and clearly, or just not to answer?I'm not sure what you're talking about, Al. I'm not even entirely certain I care, considering you have at best taken the worst possible interpretation of what I've said in order to criticize, but I'll at least entertain the criticism to the extent of asking you. I note that instead of addressing the points, you're addressing the poster; I'd say it's a relatively civil act on my part to even respond, considering.

I know the weather's been getting warmer on the average for some time, but I'm not convinced about the androgenic aspects of it. OK, I understand a study has exonerated the sun, but I don't see a convincing tracking of historical temperature with CO2. I've heard the argument that the several-century lag of CO2 increase behind temperature rise is because a change of CO2 increases temperature immediately, which later causes a much greater increase in CO2 from oceans etc.Actually, the main argument has nothing to do with that. The main argument is precisely what I have stated above: CO2 has this spectrum here, water vapor has that spectrum there, the Sun has a blackbody spectrum centered here, and the Earth has a blackbody spectrum over here. Given these physical facts, and given conservation of energy, what do you expect to happen? Simple: it's gonna get warmer. And it is. The rest is details. Basically, you're ignoring the obvious gross physical facts and concentrating on the details. Which is something I've told you before, Al.

David Rodale

17th July 2007, 09:18 PM

Actually, the main argument has nothing to do with that. The main argument is precisely what I have stated above: CO2 has this spectrum here, water vapor has that spectrum there, the Sun has a blackbody spectrum centered here, and the Earth has a blackbody spectrum over here. Given these physical facts, and given conservation of energy, what do you expect to happen? Simple: it's gonna get warmer. And it is. The rest is details. Basically, you're ignoring the obvious gross physical facts and concentrating on the details. Which is something I've told you before, Al.

Please cite your evidence it is and will get warmer.

JoeEllison

17th July 2007, 09:27 PM

Please cite your evidence it is and will get warmer.
Ummmm... that would be nearly everything that nearly every single climate scientist, who isn't working for the oil or coal companies, has produced over the last few decades.

Where's your evidence against reality?:cool:

Schneibster

17th July 2007, 09:56 PM

You can argue with that one forever, Joe- it ain't interested in facts. Doesn't think thermometers work.

robinson

17th July 2007, 10:32 PM

I never questioned the coming Global Warming, you know, the one that is a fact, no doubt about it, it has been proven beyond all doubt, everybody agrees with, that Global Warming.

I never even thought about questioning it, looking into it, until I saw the religious like attacks on anyone who did question it. That got my attention. Why would anyone with a brain be so emotional, so irrational, so petty as to personally attack somebody for asking questions, or having a different view about Global Warming?

I'm funny that way, but when I see dumb behavior, stuff that makes no sense, I start wondering why. Why is questioning something viewed as heresy? How did a scientific Theory become the same as Church Doctrine? What the hell is going on when skeptics, logical, scientific people, start sounding like the faithful?

a_unique_person

18th July 2007, 01:20 AM

I stand corrected, having just read the section on Callendar and finding it passed the smell test.

Credit is given to the debunkers of the hockey stick in the bibiography, but the continued use of the graph in the final text section is inappropriate. You don't fix a lie with a footnote.

So yeah, this is bogus. This is ridiculous, really.

It's not a lie.

Big Al

18th July 2007, 01:37 AM

Megalodon

18th July 2007, 03:56 AM

I agree utterly, robinson. It's frightens me. Whenever climate raises its head here, I have to pinch myself to remind me that I'm not on a fundie or woo site. I've never, ever ever heard a skeptic repond to a YE Creationist with something like "There's a bloody CONSENSUS about the Big Bang, you moron! Do you actually know how to read?"

So you ask a question, get it answered, ignore the answer and raise a strawman...

A couple of years of similar debating techniques is exactly why some people dismiss the denialists after a couple of posts. We all have been there and done that.

It's quite simple, and not at all dependent in a "consensus":
What we know about physics tells us that it should get warmer, unless there's a dramatic negative feedback in the system;
What we know about the world tells us that no such negative feedback exists, and that some positive feedbacks are not only possible but highly probable;
Real world measurments show that it's getting warmer.

It's simple. Not that a denialist will acknowledge it, in the exactly same way as a creationist will never acknowledge the fact of evolution... but it is simple.

mhaze

18th July 2007, 05:53 AM

Apparently a Denialist is someone who does not believe whatever exact brand of Christia - oops, exuse me - Alarmism that the person using the phrase, Denialist, is.

The fact about another 2000 papers are published each year in climate science seems to indicate that there are quite a few open question marks. I regularly visit numerous websites and blogs where these subjects are discussed, often with strong opinions; however there is no of the personal attacks, insults and cynicism that is seen on JREF. People agree to disagree and then make detailed lists of their areas of disagreements, and agreements.

So yeah, what is the big deal?

JoeEllison

18th July 2007, 05:57 AM

You can argue with that one forever, Joe- it ain't interested in facts. Doesn't think thermometers work.
Is there a worldwide mercury conspiracy at work?:cool:

Diamond

18th July 2007, 06:09 AM

It's not a lie.

That's true. It's a scientific fraud.

Diamond

18th July 2007, 06:12 AM

So you ask a question, get it answered, ignore the answer and raise a strawman...

A couple of years of similar debating techniques is exactly why some people dismiss the denialists after a couple of posts. We all have been there and done that.

It's quite simple, and not at all dependent in a "consensus":
What we know about physics tells us that it should get warmer, unless there's a dramatic negative feedback in the system;
What we know about the world tells us that no such negative feedback exists, and that some positive feedbacks are not only possible but highly probable;
Real world measurments show that it's getting warmer.

It's simple. Not that a denialist will acknowledge it, in the exactly same way as a creationist will never acknowledge the fact of evolution... but it is simple.

Clean up on aisle 6. Enormous can of stupid logical fallacies burst wide open.

Bring the dump truck because this one's a biggie.

Megalodon

18th July 2007, 06:19 AM

The fact about another 2000 papers are published each year in climate science seems to indicate that there are quite a few open question marks. I regularly visit numerous websites and blogs where these subjects are discussed, often with strong opinions; however there is no of the personal attacks, insults and cynicism that is seen on JREF. People agree to disagree and then make detailed lists of their areas of disagreements, and agreements.

So, to clarify your statement, would you think that the papers published every year in evolutionary biology, molecular biology and genetics mean that evolution is not a fact, because there are "quite a few open question marks"?

Megalodon

18th July 2007, 06:22 AM

Clean up on aisle 6. Enormous can of stupid logical fallacies burst wide open.

Bring the dump truck because this one's a biggie.

Well, they do say that plagiarism is the more sincere form of flattery...

Personally, I find it depressing.

BTW, care to show those logical fallacies?

mhaze

18th July 2007, 06:34 AM

So, to clarify your statement, would you think that the papers published every year in evolutionary biology, molecular biology and genetics mean that evolution is not a fact, because there are "quite a few open question marks"?

:) I would think that there were a few open question marks in the areas addressed by the papers published in those areas.

In the case of climate science, this is an issue that has been latched onto, quite possibly erroneously, by politicians. There are trillions of dollars in taxes, carbon credits, and behavior change riding on climate change interpretations.

Creationism is not taught in most schools, but Gore Alarmism is taught, as the Gore movie with it's pack of Alarmist Lies is pretty standardly shown in schools and is taught as fact.

Do you have a little problem with that or not?

Diamond

18th July 2007, 06:42 AM

Well, they do say that plagiarism is the more sincere form of flattery...

Personally, I find it depressing.

BTW, care to show those logical fallacies?

Why certainly. Let's go through them at a pace you can understand. I'll type extra slowly for clarity.

So you ask a question, get it answered, ignore the answer and raise a strawman...

Completely unlike your "answers" presumeably.

A couple of years of similar debating techniques is exactly why some people dismiss the denialists after a couple of posts. We all have been there and done that.

The ad hominem attack - first call your opponent a "denialist" rather than a skeptic. "Denialism" is of course an attempt to conflate skepticism of AGW alarmism with Holocaust denial.

Now patronize your opponent with an apparently simple syllogism:

It's quite simple, and not at all dependent in a "consensus":
What we know about physics tells us that it should get warmer, unless there's a dramatic negative feedback in the system;
What we know about the world tells us that no such negative feedback exists, and that some positive feedbacks are not only possible but highly probable;
Real world measurments show that it's getting warmer.

So rising carbon dioxide should all things being equal cause a rise in temperature.

Except that all of the high resolution ice cores show carbon dioxide rise as a centuries delayed response to climate warming and never a forcing. Which means that the syllogism fails the experimental test. There must be a large negative feedback in the system to cause this, and to prevent the climate system running away to either Venus-style greenhouse or Ice House attractors, which the Earth has managed to avoid for billions of years despite having carbon dioxide levels (and temperatures) significantly higher than today.

But sadly simple syllogisms appeal to simple people.

It's simple. Not that a denialist will acknowledge it, in the exactly same way as a creationist will never acknowledge the fact of evolution... but it is simple.

And finally, when you're flogging a denialist dead horse, compare your opponent to a creationist.

Actually here's my favourite quote from a real creationist:

"One of the most basic laws in the universe is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This states that as time goes by, entropy in an environment will increase. Evolution argues differently against a law that is accepted EVERYWHERE BY EVERYONE. Evolution says that we started out simple, and over time became more complex. That just isn't possible: UNLESS there is a giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy. If there were such a source, scientists would certainly know about it.

That made the FSTDT Post of the Year for 2005 (http://www.fstdt.com/fundies/top100.aspx)

Now of course if anyone were to compare syllogisms, then bright people might be impressed by the same use of illogic and the same ignorance of science in both.

But then that would be a straw man. The megacans of stupid are rapidly bursting in the heat - the cleanup on aisle 6 will continue shortly...

Megalodon

18th July 2007, 06:50 AM

:) I would think that there were a few open question marks in the areas addressed by the papers published in those areas.

You would be right...

In the case of climate science, this is an issue that has been latched onto, quite possibly erroneously, by politicians.

Is this going to turn into a "it's a international enviro-socialist conspiracy to sink the US" argument? If it is, I have more important things to do with my time.

There are trillions of dollars in taxes, carbon credits, and behavior change riding on climate change interpretations.

What does that have to do with the science?

Creationism is not taught in most schools, but Gore Alarmism is taught, as the Gore movie with it's pack of Alarmist Lies is pretty standardly shown in schools and is taught as fact.

I have not seen Gore's movie, but given your persistent entumescence for the guy, forgive me if I take this with a grain of salt.

Do you have a little problem with that or not?

As I said, haven't seen the movie.

Anyway, did you have a point to begin with?

Schneibster

18th July 2007, 06:56 AM

JoeEllison

18th July 2007, 06:59 AM

What does that have to do with the science? Nothing... but it has EVERYTHING to do with the denialists. Remember, the misinformation about global warming that the denialists have been suckered into believing comes mainly from corporate sources, that have a stake in continuing to sell fossil fuels and pollute the environment. Not a lot of peer-reviewed research, but a whole stack of money from the oil companies.

And then they wonder why their claim of being "skeptical" is mocked and laughed at?

JoeEllison

18th July 2007, 07:01 AM

I wonder the same thing. And I look at this thread. And you know what I see?

Yeah.
Yeah. Me too. Funny, isn't it?

mhaze

18th July 2007, 07:05 AM

You would be right...

Is this going to turn into a "it's a international enviro-socialist conspiracy to sink the US" argument? If it is, I have more important things to do with my time.

What does that have to do with the science?

I have not seen Gore's movie, but given your persistent entumescence for the guy, forgive me if I take this with a grain of salt.

As I said, haven't seen the movie.

Anyway, did you have a point to begin with?

Suit yourself, but you are welcome to show that I am wrong; for example show me where children in schools are taught that sea level rise is 2-3 mm per year, after they see Gore's movie. Curriculums are published, that should not be a problem right? So can you show where the actual science is taught and not the Alarmism?

RE "what does it have to do with the science", and "environ-conspiracy", I am a bit puzzled that the answers are not obvious. So here are just a couple answers.

1. What, exactly, do you tell people to change their behavior on? (determined by science, not alarmism)
2. What, exactly, do you spend public money and do reasearch on?
3. What changes, exactly, do cities make to have less adverse environmental impacts?
4. What is the focus of policy toward the third world?
5. Are carbon credits and carbon offsets good? Should they be implemented? How about straightout emissions taxes? (Based on science right?)

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/14224469e0d61cdfab.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=7082)

Big Al

18th July 2007, 07:07 AM

So you ask a question, get it answered, ignore the answer and raise a strawman...

No strawman there, Megalodon. Although some of the individual words may vary, I've seen pretty much those sorts of putdowns. I have actually seen the "consensus" staement used as the be-all and end-all of the argument. No discussion. Case closed.

A couple of years of similar debating techniques is exactly why some people dismiss the denialists after a couple of posts. We all have been there and done that.

I've heard that one, too. Why the need to post at all if you're that ticked off? Why are the same posters only too happy to point out strawman arguments, Occam's Razor, Argument from Personal Incredulity, the Forer Effect and god knows how many other of the same principles again and again and again. They never seem to tire of that.

The answering posts may get a little tetchy if the same questioner carries on being wilfully ignorant, but they aren't dismissive from the off.

It's quite simple, and not at all dependent in a "consensus":
What we know about physics tells us that it should get warmer, unless there's a dramatic negative feedback in the system;

OK, what about those who say the CO2 concentration has been much higher in the prehistoric past, without the temperature being radically higher? Are they lying?

CO2 concentration has been rising pretty much steadily since the industrial revolution. After several decades of rises, the average yearly global temperature dropped fairly steadily year-on-year from approximately 1941 to 1975. We are told this is due to sulphate emissions creating a negative forcing. Why were sulphate emissions not seriously affecting the climate until the 1940s? They, too, were important industrial emissions. What caused the sulphate level to rise so dramatically in the 1940s that not only did they allay the temperature-increasing effect of the rising CO2 concentration, they reversed it? CO2 was still rising, after all.

Assuming that sulphate emissions were gradually curtailed as a result of Clean Air policies, why do we not see a gradual lessening of the temperature decrease until CO2 begins to dominate again? Why the sudden, steady increase in temperature from 1975, instead of a curve as SOx dropped out and the still-increasing CO2 began to take over?

What we know about the world tells us that no such negative feedback exists, and that some positive feedbacks are not only possible but highly probable;

I humbly suggest "what we know about the world" is insufficient to predict the climate. I've seen a huge spread in predictions of the rate of increase, confusion as to whether the rise will continue perpetually or peter out, whether the Northern Hemisphere will become a desert or an ice-bowl. Current climate models do not postdict the Little Ice Age or the Medieval Warm Period, which were significant climatic events. However, they did not depend on CO2 as a forcing. Cloud formation seems to be all but absent in climate models, but is almost certainly an important forcing.

Real world measurments show that it's getting warmer.

And I have never, ever denied that. OK, this year, in the UK at least, is so far considerably cooler than last year, but I do appreciate the difference between weather and climate.

However, there is the fact that a large number of weather stations in Siberia and in non-urban areas have ceased to be. They are no longer taking measurements at all. And yet all I've seen as a rebuttal to the urban heat island forcing is along the lines of, "Oh, that's irrelevant."

We do not know all the factors affecting climate, not by a long chalk. The 30s were pretty warm in the UK. Builders started to put water pipes on the outside of new houses because they believed there was never going to be a cold winter again. Global warming was happening - after all, the temperature had been steadily rising for 30 years. It was simple.

This was proved to be an incorrect decision during the chilly winters of the late 40s to the mid-70s, as water pipes burst all over the UK.

In the 70s, climatologists just knew we were heading for another ice age. The temperature fell steadily for 30 years. That proved it. It was obvious.

Since then, the climate has been warming up for 30 years. That means global warming is here.

Really, the simple fact that the mercury's higher than it was thirty years ago says absolutely jack about continued trends. I have never denied that recent years have been warmer than in my youth. That is both simple and obvious. Yes, I would be an idiot to deny that.

Is it simple and obvious that human beings are causing the rise in temperature? Is it simple and obvious that the temperature will continue to rise without limit? Is it simple and obvious that carbon dioxide forcing is the only game in town? I don't think so.

It's simple. Not that a denialist will acknowledge it, in the exactly same way as a creationist will never acknowledge the fact of evolution... but it is simple.

A creationist denies that evolution is happening at all. I don't deny we're in a warming cycle. I just think we don't know enough about the climate to predict what's going to happen tomorrow, let alone a hundred years from now.

I'm all for recycling and cutting down pollution on a general principle: it would be nice to stop poisoning the earth. So basically, I'm happy to walk the walk. I'm just not convinced enough to talk the talk.

Megalodon

18th July 2007, 07:12 AM

Why certainly. Let's go through them at a pace you can understand. I'll type extra slowly for clarity.

Having read your post, I can say it didn't help... try thinking next time.

The ad hominem attack - first call your opponent a "denialist" rather than a skeptic.

Depressing... An ad hominem fallacy means that I would be attacking the arguer instead of the argument. I explained my position based on the poster's behaviour and made an argument myself. At most you could have said that I was poisoning the well, but even that one wouldn't fit, since I was explaining the reason why some regulars are less than polite.

And BTW, sceptics look at the evidence...

"Denialism" is of course an attempt to conflate skepticism of AGW alarmism with Holocaust denial.

And you are of course a plaid marsupial from Omega 3... as an exercise, find the similarity between both assertions.

Now patronize your opponent with an apparently simple syllogism:

Even if it was true, is patronizing a logical fallacy now? And by the way, that was not a syllogism. Don't use big words if you don't know their meaning.

So rising carbon dioxide should all things being equal cause a rise in temperature.

Apparently you got it....

Except that all of the high resolution ice cores show carbon dioxide rise as a centuries delayed response to climate warming and never a forcing. Which means that the syllogism fails the experimental test. There must be a large negative feedback in the system to cause this, and to prevent the climate system running away to either Venus-style greenhouse or Ice House attractors, which the Earth has managed to avoid for billions of years despite having carbon dioxide levels (and temperatures) significantly higher than today.

...but then, disaster.

But sadly simple syllogisms appeal to simple people.

Yes, I agree the list was simplified to drive a point across. Is that a logicall fallacy, now?

And finally, when you're flogging a denialist dead horse, compare your opponent to a creationist.

You're wrong as usual... but I know you're not going to let it stop you.

Now of course if anyone were to compare syllogisms, then bright people might be impressed by the same use of illogic and the same ignorance of science in both.

Well, I am surely impressed with your grasp of the terms "syllogism" and "logical fallacy".

So, back to your earlier claim: Can you show us the the logical fallacies?

JoeEllison

18th July 2007, 07:13 AM

1. What, exactly, do you tell people to change their behavior on? (determined by science, not alarmism)
2. What, exactly, do you spend public money and do reasearch on?
3. What changes, exactly, do cities make to have less adverse environmental impacts?
4. What is the focus of policy toward the third world?
5. Are carbon credits and carbon offsets good? Should they be implemented? How about straightout emissions taxes? (Based on science right?)

So, you now accept that changes need to be made? Or are you going to claim that unsatisfactory answers to your question are somehow proof that there's not a problem at all?

Big Al

18th July 2007, 07:20 AM

Nothing... but it has EVERYTHING to do with the denialists. Remember, the misinformation about global warming that the denialists have been suckered into believing comes mainly from corporate sources, that have a stake in continuing to sell fossil fuels and pollute the environment. Not a lot of peer-reviewed research, but a whole stack of money from the oil companies.

Joe Newman of Perpetual Motion fame has said exactly the same thing. Guess there must be something in his claims after all.

Let me put things another way:

In the 1930s, it was warming, and people thought it would go on forever. It didn't. Scientists knew about the Greenhouse Effect then, they knew carbon dioxide was a GG, and they took measurements. Where did they go wrong in their predictions?

In the 1970s, it was cooling, and people thought it would go on forever. It didn't. Scientists knew about the Greenhouse Effect then, they knew carbon dioxide was a GG, and they took measurements. They also know SOx was a negative forcing. Where did they go wrong in their predictions?

The temperature is increasing now. How do we know we're right in the assumption of ever-increasing temperature? Because we know so much more about the climate than in the 30s and 70s? Then why can't we agree on what the rate of rise will be, or for how long it will continue? Is this part of the great consensus?

JoeEllison

18th July 2007, 07:44 AM

Joe Newman of Perpetual Motion fame has said exactly the same thing. Guess there must be something in his claims after all.

Let me put things another way:

In the 1930s, it was warming, and people thought it would go on forever. It didn't. Scientists knew about the Greenhouse Effect then, they knew carbon dioxide was a GG, and they took measurements. Where did they go wrong in their predictions?

In the 1970s, it was cooling, and people thought it would go on forever. It didn't. Scientists knew about the Greenhouse Effect then, they knew carbon dioxide was a GG, and they took measurements. They also know SOx was a negative forcing. Where did they go wrong in their predictions?

The temperature is increasing now. How do we know we're right in the assumption of ever-increasing temperature? Because we know so much more about the climate than in the 30s and 70s? Then why can't we agree on what the rate of rise will be, or for how long it will continue? Is this part of the great consensus?

I guess if every scientist doesn't agree 100% with every other scientist, then the bulk of the evidence can be thrown out?

You sound like one of those "evolution is a theory in crisis" creationists.

mhaze

18th July 2007, 07:44 AM

So, you now accept that changes need to be made? Or are you going to claim that unsatisfactory answers to your question are somehow proof that there's not a problem at all?

First of all I would like to say that I am willing to discuss this with you. I am not willing to play little discussion board flame wars and/or knee jerk troll responses. If you want to insult me, go right ahead. I flat don't care. But you will not get a response from it...

Since the beginning of recorded history, various people have discussed "changes that need to be made" and "changes in behavior that would be good". That ain't gonna stop, right? Overall, the result of that is better than if discussion does not occur or is severely proscribed in extent.

In a practical sense, though it is difficult or impossible to get into subtle questions of logic and science in a message board where the noise to signal ratio is high. Nonetheless, why don't you pick one of those topics I mentioned, and comment on it? Then I'll comment on or expand or refute your comment. Etc.

Schneibster

18th July 2007, 07:53 AM

No strawman there, Megalodon. Although some of the individual words may vary, I've seen pretty much those sorts of putdowns. I have actually seen the "consensus" staement used as the be-all and end-all of the argument. No discussion. Case closed. You know, I specifically asked you what was a "put down." You never answered. I never mentioned any consensus, and neither did Megalodon. So what are you talking about here?

Looks like a strawman argument to me.

I've heard that one, too. Why the need to post at all if you're that ticked off? Why are the same posters only too happy to point out strawman arguments, Occam's Razor, Argument from Personal Incredulity, the Forer Effect and god knows how many other of the same principles again and again and again. They never seem to tire of that.So basically we should just ignore logical fallacies? What are you saying here? Do you have the slightest clue what you're implying? You're implying that we should abandon thinking. Not just a real great start, Al. That doesn't work for me.

The answering posts may get a little tetchy if the same questioner carries on being wilfully ignorant, but they aren't dismissive from the off.People who don't have an agenda don't accuse people of being nasty without being able to prove it, Al. I asked you to present specific criticisms. You didn't. I guess you don't have any. If you don't, then where did this claim come from?

OK, what about those who say the CO2 concentration has been much higher in the prehistoric past, without the temperature being radically higher? Are they lying?Apples and oranges, Al. Also, what's this about the CO2 level being "much higher," without the temperature being "radically higher?" You got anything to actually cite that wasn't written by an oil company shill that shows this? Any of that, you know, evidence stuff?

CO2 concentration has been rising pretty much steadily since the industrial revolution. After several decades of rises, the average yearly global temperature dropped fairly steadily year-on-year from approximately 1941 to 1975. We are told this is due to sulphate emissions creating a negative forcing. Why were sulphate emissions not seriously affecting the climate until the 1940s? They, too, were important industrial emissions. What caused the sulphate level to rise so dramatically in the 1940s that not only did they allay the temperature-increasing effect of the rising CO2 concentration, they reversed it? CO2 was still rising, after all.Gee, I dunno, maybe it was that little thing they had then, I think they called it World War 2. You never heard of that, right? And then they had to rebuild Europe afterward, and Asia; you know, all that stuff that got bombed. And then people started realizing that there was a lot of pollution being made, and started yelling about it. I seem to recall a little something about that in the 1960s. Maybe it's just me.

Assuming that sulphate emissions were gradually curtailed as a result of Clean Air policies, why do we not see a gradual lessening of the temperature decrease until CO2 begins to dominate again? Why the sudden, steady increase in temperature from 1975, instead of a curve as SOx dropped out and the still-increasing CO2 began to take over? Sulphates don't have a long half-life in the air, Al. You have to keep pumping them out, or they go away pretty quick. That would be some of that, you know, science and stuff.

I humbly suggest "what we know about the world" is insufficient to predict the climate. I've seen a huge spread in predictions of the rate of increase, confusion as to whether the rise will continue perpetually or peter out, whether the Northern Hemisphere will become a desert or an ice-bowl. Current climate models do not postdict the Little Ice Age or the Medieval Warm Period, which were significant climatic events. However, they did not depend on CO2 as a forcing. Cloud formation seems to be all but absent in climate models, but is almost certainly an important forcing. So, basically, because we don't know everything, we don't know anything. This is the same argument the cretinists use, Al. I thought you didn't like them.

And I have never, ever denied that. OK, this year, in the UK at least, is so far considerably cooler than last year, but I do appreciate the difference between weather and climate.

However, there is the fact that a large number of weather stations in Siberia and in non-urban areas have ceased to be. They are no longer taking measurements at all. And yet all I've seen as a rebuttal to the urban heat island forcing is along the lines of, "Oh, that's irrelevant." See, it's mischaracterizations of opposing arguments like this that irritates people, Al. Anybody who knows what the real argument is in this case can spot this a mile off.

If you've only got one measurement, then you question it, you look it over, you pound on the top of the box to see if the meters are maybe stuck. But when you measure that same thing five or six completely different ways and get the same answer from all of them, then it becomes a lot clearer what the facts are. And the thing is, Al, we've got those five or six different ways. And they all say the same thing. So when you concentrate on one of them, and ignore the others, what is that?

In the 70s, climatologists just knew we were heading for another ice age. The temperature fell steadily for 30 years. That proved it. It was obvious.And another one. Every time you go look this up, it turns out a coupla guys said, well, maybe if things are just like this, we might be headed for an ice age. I think we oughta go check it out. And the media trumped that up into a big headline, and the guys are like, where did you get that? We never said that. We just said maybe we oughta go check it out. But now it's like, all the scientists said this. They didn't. All the newspapers did.

Really, the simple fact that the mercury's higher than it was thirty years ago says absolutely jack about continued trends. I thought it was all "urban heat islands," Al. Losing the thread of the argument a bit there?

Is it simple and obvious that human beings are causing the rise in temperature? Well, gee, Al, the CO2 concentration seems to be rising, and the isotopes (measured two different ways) say that's carbon that hasn't been where it can absorb C14 from the atmosphere for a long, long time. Anybody can go check out the figures for how much CO2 we're making; it's pretty simple. Economists keep track of stuff like that. So given we know we're making this amount of CO2, and given the concentration is rising that much, and given the isotope results, I guess it looks like we are making the CO2 levels rise. And given all the really obvious physics above, which you still haven't said anything about, gee, I guess that really does mean humans are causing the rise in temperature.

Did you have some point here?

Is it simple and obvious that the temperature will continue to rise without limit? Who ever said that? Gimme a source, Al. I just don't see it. I haven't heard it. I think you either have listened to someone who didn't know what they're talking about, or you're obfuscating. Which is it, Al?

Is it simple and obvious that carbon dioxide forcing is the only game in town? Al, nobody ever said CO2 forcing is the only forcing. Again, who ever said that? You know, that evidence stuff.

A creationist denies that evolution is happening at all. I don't deny we're in a warming cycle. I just think we don't know enough about the climate to predict what's going to happen tomorrow, let alone a hundred years from now.What's going to happen tomorrow ain't climate, Al. It's weather. Global warming is not weather.

I'm all for recycling and cutting down pollution on a general principle: it would be nice to stop poisoning the earth. So basically, I'm happy to walk the walk. I'm just not convinced enough to talk the talk.A link that provides answers to every point you've brought up here, and a lot more besides, is produced. Have you read the articles at that link, Al? Are you actually interested in the evidence, or are you just saying you are because it sounds good?

Big Al

18th July 2007, 07:53 AM

I guess if every scientist doesn't agree 100% with every other scientist, then the bulk of the evidence can be thrown out?

I never said that. Please stop putting words in my mouth. However, when a "near-100% consensus" seems to be used as a major piece of evidence in its own right, it does make me wonder what the absolute knock-down argument is. "Consensus" isn't it as far as I'm concerned.

You sound like one of those "evolution is a theory in crisis" creationists.

Nice little ad hom that neither addresses my questions nor advances one iota of evidence.

mhaze

18th July 2007, 08:04 AM

I never said that. Please stop putting words in my mouth. However, when a "near-100% consensus" seems to be used as a major piece of evidence in its own right, it does make me wonder what the absolute knock-down argument is. "Consensus" isn't it as far as I'm concerned.

Nice little ad hom that neither addresses my questions nor advances one iota of evidence.

Here is IMHO an example of just one kind of Science that cannot be discussed on JREF due to the various attempts to stifle discussion that may be contrary to True Believers. This is a quote from Armstrong et. al. who are heavyweights in economics in the area of forecasting and prediction.
The full paper is downloadable as pdf, it is worth reading.

“Global Warming: Forecasts by Scientists versus Scientific Forecasts (http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/Public_Policy/WarmAudit31.pdf)”

We conducted an audit of Chapter 8 of the IPCC’s WG1 Report. We found enough information to make judgments on 89 out of the total of 140 principles. The forecasting procedures that were used violated 72 principles. Many of the violations were, by themselves, critical. We have been unable to identify any scientific forecasts to support global warming. Claims that the Earth will get warmer have no more credence than saying that it will get colder.

This brief quote of course does not do Armstrong's work justice.

JoeEllison

18th July 2007, 08:10 AM

I never said that. Please stop putting words in my mouth. However, when a "near-100% consensus" seems to be used as a major piece of evidence in its own right, it does make me wonder what the absolute knock-down argument is. "Consensus" isn't it as far as I'm concerned.

Nice little ad hom that neither addresses my questions nor advances one iota of evidence.

We've pretty much established that "evidence" has very little to do with your viewpoint. Therefore, we're forced to look for other sources for your position. Noting that your denial of readily-available evidence is very similar to the creationists is a pretty good starting place, I think.

So, for instance, I point out the general scientific consensus, not as evidence, but to wonder what sort of special insight you claim to have, that the entire rest of the world doesn't have. Since evidence doesn't sway your worldview, I'm curious to understand how you came up with that worldview in the first place. Usually it boils down to political ideology, so my first guess would be that you're a "free market capitalist"...

... although I could be wrong.

JoeEllison

18th July 2007, 08:13 AM

Here is IMHO an example of just one kind of Science that cannot be discussed on JREF due to the various attempts to stifle discussion that may be contrary to True Believers.

Here we see the persecution complex, also common among the sort of mindset that usually lies underneath the fringe belief system.

JoeEllison

18th July 2007, 08:25 AM

mhaze

18th July 2007, 08:35 AM

Oh, and a quick Google search turns up that the “Global Warming: Forecasts by Scientists versus Scientific Forecasts” is being published in Energy and Environment, which is a clearinghouse for substandard papers, often in support of right-wing political viewpoints, and is widely criticized for its poor peer-review process.

So, no surprise that a "journal" that seems to exist in large part to promote unfounded right-wing fringe beliefs would be a source for our friends who deny AGW.

:) Much better than ad hominem. But by the way, I have read numerous of the issues of E&E and do not find the content reflects your assertions. Whatever.

But what about the actual science?

Here are some bits of the paper to chew on -

…some of the well-established generalizations for situations involving long-range forecasts of complex issues where the causal factors are subject to uncertainty (as with climate):

• Unaided judgmental forecasts by experts have no value. This applies whether the opinions are expressed by words, spreadsheets, or mathematical models. It also applies regardless of how much scientific evidence is possessed by the experts. Among the reasons for this are:
a) Complexity: People cannot assess complex relationships through unaided observations.
b) Coincidence: People confuse correlation with causation.
c) Feedback: People making judgmental predictions typically do not receive unambiguous feedback they can use to improve their forecasting.
d) Bias: People have difficulty in obtaining or using evidence that contradicts their initial beliefs. This problem is especially serious for people who view themselves as experts.

• Agreement among experts is weakly related to accuracy. This is especially true when the experts communicate with one another and when they work together to solve problems. (As is the case with the IPCC process).

• Complex models (those involving nonlinearities and interactions) harm accuracy because their errors multiply. That is, they tend to magnify one another. Ascher (1978), refers to the Club of Rome’s 1972 forecasts where, unaware of the research on forecasting, the developers proudly proclaimed, “in our model about 100,000 relationships are stored in the computer.” (The first author [Amrstrong] was aghast not only at the poor methodology in that study, but also at how easy it was to mislead both politicians and the public.) Complex models are also less accurate because they tend to fit randomness, thereby also providing misleading conclusions about prediction intervals. Finally, there are more opportunities for errors to creep into complex models and the errors are difficult to find. Craig, Gadgil, and Koomey (2002) came to similar conclusions in their review of long-term energy forecasts for the US made between 1950 and 1980.

JoeEllison

18th July 2007, 08:42 AM

First of all I would like to say that I am willing to discuss this with you. I am not willing to play little discussion board flame wars and/or knee jerk troll responses. If you want to insult me, go right ahead. I flat don't care. But you will not get a response from it...

Since the beginning of recorded history, various people have discussed "changes that need to be made" and "changes in behavior that would be good". That ain't gonna stop, right? Overall, the result of that is better than if discussion does not occur or is severely proscribed in extent.

In a practical sense, though it is difficult or impossible to get into subtle questions of logic and science in a message board where the noise to signal ratio is high. Nonetheless, why don't you pick one of those topics I mentioned, and comment on it? Then I'll comment on or expand or refute your comment. Etc.
Why are you pretending that people are flaming and/or persecuting you?

I asked a pretty simple question... I've asked you before I think, and I think you avoided answering then as well.

Here, let me try again: So, you now accept that changes need to be made? Or are you going to claim that unsatisfactory answers to your question are somehow proof that there's not a problem at all?

Or, more bluntly, what does a plan to fix the problem have to do with the existence of the problem?

mhaze

18th July 2007, 09:03 AM

Here, let me try again: So, you now accept that changes need to be made? Or are you going to claim that unsatisfactory answers to your question are somehow proof that there's not a problem at all?

There are changes, investments, and areas of study that are beneficial whether or not there is man made global warming, or any other specific issue. There are good changes that could be made to Bangladesh. They would be good irregardless of global warming.

But to assert that we in the US need to be buying compact flouresecent bulbs, using public transportation instead of our cars, because we might cause a rise in the sea level that would affect Bangladesh is lunacy.

Or, more bluntly, what does a plan to fix the problem have to do with the existence of the problem?Everything. We do devise plans to handle bird flu, without it's actual existence.

And we can build 450 nuclear plants, shut down an equal number of coal fire plants. Do that, and the CO2 emissions are reduced to what the IPCC say is the midline requirement for their projections. Ergo, there is no global warming problem, and no requirement for alarmism, just a need to build some stuff.

Later, if there was no bird flu pandemic, everyone is happy.

And if later history determines no Global warming, those powerplants exist, and benefit everyone.

So there are Win-Win solutions. You may say in the alternative, that some groups would oppose the nuclear powerplants. I would then argue that the shrillest of the Alarmist and Denialist arguments would be rightfully used to Shut Them the F*** UP.

back2basics

18th July 2007, 09:08 AM

This is a quote from Armstrong et. al. who are heavyweights in economics in the area of forecasting and prediction.
The full paper is downloadable as pdf, it is worth reading.
.[/B]

Heavyweight in economics? Well he is a Marketing professor, kind of similar. But you would have though Wharton would have made him an actual economics prof. if he was such a heavyweight.

He has no science background, no background in climatology.

And when you look in to this "heavyweight" claim it just doesn't hold up, at all.

Armstrong cites himself more than anybody else cites him.

http://ideas.repec.org/e/c/par65.html

Armstrong, J Scott & Collopy, Fred, 2001. "Identification of Asymmetric Prediction Intervals through Causal Forces," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(4), pages 273-83, July.
Cited by:

J. S. Armstrong & R. Brodie, 2005. "Forecasting for Marketing," General Economics and Teaching 0502018, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
J. S. Armstrong, 2005. "Decomposition by Causal Forces: A Procedure for Forecasting Complex Time Series," General Economics and Teaching 0502015, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
Other versions:
Armstrong, J. Scott & Collopy, Fred & Yokum, J. Thomas, 2005. "Decomposition by causal forces: a procedure for forecasting complex time series," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 25-36. [Downloadable!]
J. Scott Armstrong & Kesten C. Green

Just one example from the link. So his 2001 paper is only cited by himself. In 6 years nobody else found his work usefull, apart from himself.

The paper you posted cites himself more than any paper. His own citations are around a 1/3rd of all the footnotes. And that ironic because he accused scientists of citing their own UN report in his questionaire.

A quick google search turns up almost nothing about him. His wiki page is slim and inaccurate (he didn't predict the 2004 election for example). Reading the report, is interesting because he offer little evidence for such a huge claim. His main point seems to be that the actual report does not have sufficient detail and he made attempt to look in to or understand the models other than reading the report.

He seems to like to promote his own ideas and methodologies, but other people are not many people are bighting.

Amazing what a certain amount of skepticism can turn up in just a few minutes.

JoeEllison

18th July 2007, 09:08 AM

There are changes, investments, and areas of study that are beneficial whether or not there is man made global warming, or any other specific issue. There are good changes that could be made to Bangladesh. They would be good irregardless of global warming.

But to assert that we in the US need to be buying compact flouresecent bulbs, using public transportation instead of our cars, because we might cause a rise in the sea level that would affect Bangladesh is lunacy.

Everything. We do devise plans to handle bird flu, without it's actual existence.

And we can build 450 nuclear plants, shut down an equal number of coal fire plants. Do that, and the CO2 emissions are reduced to what the IPCC say is the midline requirement for their projections. Ergo, there is no global warming problem, and no requirement for alarmism, just a need to build some stuff.

Later, if there was no bird flu pandemic, everyone is happy.

And if later history determines no Global warming, those powerplants exist, and benefit everyone.

So there are Win-Win solutions. You may say in the alternative, that some groups would oppose the nuclear powerplants. I would then argue that the shrillest of the Alarmist and Denialist arguments would be rightfully used to Shut Them the F*** UP.

your post is one of the weirdest ones I've read in awhile. Wow. I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to get from this. Apparently, global warming can't exist, because if it did it would mean we might be inconvenienced VERY slightly in order to help people in other countries? Global warming doesn't exist because we aren't building nuclear power plants?

I'm trying to see how any of this has anything to do with anything else you've posted about global warming.

robinson

18th July 2007, 09:21 AM

When did ad hom and "everybody knows it" become a substitute for "here is the peer reviewed articles showing why it is the current theory."?

If I hear one more idiot declare "you are a denialist" instead of debating the evidence, I think I am going to start hitting the report post button.

Calling someone a name, and apparently a name that has some sort of insulting meaning, (I never heard the word denialist until I read these forums), is not civil or intelligent. It is dumb.

And denialist isn't even a word.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=denialist&go=Go

I know, I know, you Woos think that making up a word that a "cool in group considers a real word", you think that makes it a word. Maybe to you it does, but the majority of intelligent thinkers in the world would consider you dumb.

And insulting. If all you got is calling someone a made up word, you got nothing.

back2basics

18th July 2007, 09:23 AM

Unaided judgmental forecasts by experts have no value. This applies whether the opinions are expressed by words, spreadsheets, or mathematical models. It also applies regardless of how much scientific evidence is possessed by the experts. Among the reasons for this are:
a) Complexity: People cannot assess complex relationships through unaided observations.
b) Coincidence: People confuse correlation with causation.
c) Feedback: People making judgmental predictions typically do not receive unambiguous feedback they can use to improve their forecasting.
d) Bias: People have difficulty in obtaining or using evidence that contradicts their initial beliefs. This problem is especially serious for people who view themselves as experts.

This quote is just great. He says "Unaided judgmental forecasts by experts have no value" because amoungts other things "People confuse correlation with causation". Is he actually saying that the IPCC scientists confuse correlation with causation, a science 101 topic? He really cannot be serious.

Then to top that, this;

Bias: People have difficulty in obtaining or using evidence that contradicts their initial beliefs. This problem is especially serious for people who view themselves as experts

This is deeply ironic. But shows a complete and utter lack of knowlege about the scientific method. With his background in Marketing thats acceptable, but why is he even injecting himself in something that is clearly way above his head.

Obviously the latest "expert" paid for and sent out by people with agendas.

robinson

18th July 2007, 09:24 AM

Now with that off my chest, I am sure the planet is warming, due to increased CO2 and other man made factors. And I definitely support reducing fossil fuel use, if for no other reason than to protect the air I breath.

But enough of that. What is the other factor in this matter? I looked at the ice core data. Very interesting. Anybody else notice something strange there?

mhaze

18th July 2007, 09:30 AM

Apparently, global warming can't exist, because if it did it would mean we might be inconvenienced VERY slightly in order to help people in other countries? Global warming doesn't exist because we aren't building nuclear power plants?

Nuclear power plants do not emit greenhouse gases. Coal fired power plants emit double the amount as oil fired, and coal fired power plant construction is increasing. Power plants are a major source of CO2 emissions. We need power plants that do not create CO2 emissions. Therefore, we need nuclear power plants. A calculation shows that doubling the number of nuclear plants achieves the CO2 emission reductions required in the midlevel IPCC reports by the year 2050.

Other calculations show that most of the proposed "behavioral changes" supposedly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are ineffective or nowhere near close to meeting the emissions reductions of the midlevel IPCC reports.

Got it?

I'm trying to see how any of this has anything to do with anything else you've posted about global warming.

Really?

JoeEllison

18th July 2007, 09:34 AM

mhaze, do you think that global warming is real and at least partially driven by human behavior?

Diamond

18th July 2007, 09:35 AM

Having read your post, I can say it didn't help... try thinking next time.

And back to the insults. Can't deal with the science, so just insult instead.

Depressing... An ad hominem fallacy means that I would be attacking the arguer instead of the argument. I explained my position based on the poster's behaviour and made an argument myself. At most you could have said that I was poisoning the well, but even that one wouldn't fit, since I was explaining the reason why some regulars are less than polite.

And BTW, sceptics look at the evidence...

So "denialist" isn't designed to be an insult akin to comparing someone to a Holcoaust Denier?

I call BS. The repeated use of the epithet "denier" is an ad hominem attack, and sighing about it isn't a defence.

And sceptics reserve judgement until the evidence demonstrates the proposition. So far, there is no evidence that carbon dioxide has ever caused warming in the real Earth atmosphere (and by that, I don't mean a computer model)

So where's the evidence?

And you are of course a plaid marsupial from Omega 3... as an exercise, find the similarity between both assertions.

Tedious attempts at humour aren't evidence either

Even if it was true, is patronizing a logical fallacy now? And by the way, that was not a syllogism. Don't use big words if you don't know their meaning.

I do know what they mean. You don't which is apparently where you cut out the argument because you realised it couldn't be defended.

So as a service, I'll put it back in:

It's quite simple, and not at all dependent in a "consensus":
What we know about physics tells us that it should get warmer, unless there's a dramatic negative feedback in the system;
What we know about the world tells us that no such negative feedback exists, and that some positive feedbacks are not only possible but highly probable;
Real world measurments show that it's getting warmer.

But the syllogism is false.

Real world measurements show its getting globally warmer, as it has been since the 17th Century, the trough of the Little Ice Age. The warming was strongest long before any increased in carbon dioxide. So the syllogism is really a fallacy about correlation and causation.

The ice core records show carbon dioxide rise as a response to warming and never a forcing, indicating that the positive feedbacks (if there are any) are feeble and counteracted by much larger negative feedbacks which keep the climate stable over billions of years. By the way, the temperatures fall well before carbon dioxide starts to fall - indicating the relationship is the opposite way to that proposed by AGW theory.

There I've put the arguments back in that you can't be bothered to challenge or defend.

Yes, I agree the list was simplified to drive a point across. Is that a logicall fallacy, now?

It's a logical fallacy of correlation being the same as causation.

We know that temperature has risen - check.
We know that carbon dioxide has risen - check.
Since carbon dioxide should cause warming therefore carbon dioxide rise caused the temperature rise - no its doesn't.

The fallacy of correlation implying causation is used hundreds of times on this Forum, and not exclusively to Global Warming, but AGW is certainly mainlining it like its going out of fashion.

You're wrong as usual... but I know you're not going to let it stop you.

And back to empty rhetoric. Haven't produced an argument so straight back to insult.

Well, I am surely impressed with your grasp of the terms "syllogism" and "logical fallacy".

You should be.

By the way, I'm not comparing you to a creationist, but I did accurately show a near identical argument from illogic to yours. Same construction and same lack of comprehension.

So instead of boring us all with another tedious reply of half-witted syllogisms and bad logic, why not actually present evidence that carbon dioxide has caused warming in the real atmosphere on the real Earth by reference to actual research showing this, something like:

"In this reconstruction from Proxy X, we see that carbon dioxide (red line) clearly rises before reconstructed temperature (blue line) and has consistently done so many times"

You know, something like evidence.

And by evidence I don't mean this:

What we know about the world tells us that no such negative feedback exists, and that some positive feedbacks are not only possible but highly probable;

Who is this "we" but an appeal to popularity?

mhaze

18th July 2007, 09:36 AM

If I hear one more idiot declare "you are a denialist" instead of debating the evidence, I think I am going to start hitting the report post button.

That's a really good idea. I have no problem with posting a controversial link or subject, but hey.....what was that word...."controversial"? Yep, there it was....

mhaze

18th July 2007, 09:42 AM

mhaze, do you think that global warming is real and at least partially driven by human behavior?

We've put more CO2 in the air and the air should warm up a bit because of that. Relatively affluent, say Western, lifestyles, cause 10-20 tons of CO2 per person to be released. Western lifestyles are a form of behavior, so yes, global warming is real and is at least partially driven by human behavior.

From that one must ask, well, what are we talking about here? Is it a 0.5 C rise over 50 years (does not matter at all) a 6 C rise over 50 years (not good) or a completely unknown rise because we ain't that smart to figure it out?

mhaze

18th July 2007, 09:45 AM

back2basics

18th July 2007, 09:50 AM

I'm afraid he is quite serious.

“Global Warming: Forecasts by Scientists versus Scientific Forecasts (http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/Public_Policy/WarmAudit31.pdf)”
We conducted an audit of Chapter 8 of the IPCC’s WG1 Report. We found enough information to make judgments on 89 out of the total of 140 principles. The forecasting procedures that were used violated 72 principles. Many of the violations were, by themselves, critical. We have been unable to identify any scientific forecasts to support global warming. Claims that the Earth will get warmer have no more credence than saying that it will get colder.

Tragic isn’t it?

He should stick to Marketing.

JoeEllison

18th July 2007, 09:51 AM

We've put more CO2 in the air and the air should warm up a bit because of that. Relatively affluent, say Western, lifestyles, cause 10-20 tons of CO2 per person to be released. Western lifestyles are a form of behavior, so yes, global warming is real and is at least partially driven by human behavior.

From that one must ask, well, what are we talking about here? Is it a 0.5 C rise over 50 years (does not matter at all) a 6 C rise over 50 years (not good) or a completely unknown rise because we ain't that smart to figure it out?

Ummm... ok. Weird, but ok.

So, what I'm getting from all this is that you reject the idea that you should have to change your behavior in any way, and therefore you are much more willing to accept evidence and ideas towards solutions that require any personal sacrifice on your part. On the other hand, you embrace evidence and ideas that confirm your belief that your behavior does not have to change in any significant way.

Am I reading this correctly?

mhaze

18th July 2007, 09:53 AM

JoeEllison

18th July 2007, 09:57 AM

97 working papers and 68 published articles.

Amazing what a bit of skepticism can turn up.
So, shall we post the total number of papers and articles from the people who disagree with him? Would it make a difference?

I'm not sure what your point is here, either... especially since we know that the paper you posted to is being "published" in a less-than-respected journal.

mhaze

18th July 2007, 10:00 AM

Ummm... ok. Weird, but ok.

So, what I'm getting from all this is that you reject the idea that you should have to change your behavior in any way, and therefore you are much more willing to accept evidence and ideas towards solutions that require any personal sacrifice on your part. On the other hand, you embrace evidence and ideas that confirm your belief that your behavior does not have to change in any significant way.

Am I reading this correctly?

You are on track except for one thing. You use words like "willing", "embrace" and "belief". I do not. To me this is really just calculations.

We can calculate what effect various behavior changes will have on CO2 emissions. And we can calculate what effect going to nuclear powerplants will have. Then we have some actual numerical numbers to tell us what to do, right?

So if the numbers told me behavior change, then I'm for it. They didn't.

back2basics

18th July 2007, 10:08 AM

97 working papers and 68 published articles.

Amazing what a bit of skepticism can turn up.

Where were these papers published?

This is not the way critical thinking or skepticism works. You made a claim he was an economic heavyweight. He isn't even an economist. His field is marketing, I should have to explain that a marketing professor is hardly qualified in economics or climatology.

Papers really don't count unless they are peer reviewed and in index journals.

They certainly don't fit those criteria. International Institute of Forecasters was set up by himself, it's not peer reviewed. That accounts for nearly every paper he has ever published. So he publishes his own work? Big deal, this gives him zero credibility. It shows him to be fearful of publishing in peer review journals and a self promoter. He is just not credible, in an sense. Harvard business review is also not a peer reviewed journal..

I am just amazed he was even brought in to the debate.

mhaze

18th July 2007, 10:10 AM

Tragic isn’t it?

He should stick to Marketing.

Tragic it is. That the IPCC, which should be just science, has stooped to marketing, and done a poor job of marketing, at that.

A pretty good discussion of Armstrong's work (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1807), (both pro and con as I recall) is at climateaudit.org.

JoeEllison

18th July 2007, 10:10 AM

You are on track except for one thing. You use words like "willing", "embrace" and "belief". I do not. To me this is really just calculations.

We can calculate what effect various behavior changes will have on CO2 emissions. And we can calculate what effect going to nuclear powerplants will have. Then we have some actual numerical numbers to tell us what to do, right?

So if the numbers told me behavior change, then I'm for it. They didn't.So, again, this is all a matter of what you're willing and not willing to do, and really not about all that pesky evidence stuff at all? Because, really and truly, that's where you seem to be coming from.

mhaze

18th July 2007, 10:12 AM

So, again, this is all a matter of what you're willing and not willing to do, and really not about all that pesky evidence stuff at all? Because, really and truly, that's where you seem to be coming from.

And what pesky evidence would that be?

JoeEllison

18th July 2007, 10:20 AM

And what pesky evidence would that be?

The wheels on the bus go round and round... :covereyes

back2basics

18th July 2007, 10:24 AM

Tragic it is. That the IPCC, which should be just science, has stooped to marketing, and done a poor job of marketing, at that.

A pretty good discussion of Armstrong's work (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1807), (both pro and con as I recall) is at climateaudit.org.

I am done, your sources are terrible which is why your conclusions are wrong.

Everybody you choose to believe is paid for and owned by energy companies. Steve McIntyre is still challenging the original hickey stick report which has been verified in multiple peer reviewed journals. He again doesn't publish, has no credibility, he does have a blog though.

If you cannot see the irony in the link you posted, and the logical flaws then this debate will go nowhere. It's just a waste of time, you don't want to work within the bounds of skepticism and critical thinking, or offer good sources or articles from real journals.

As far as I can tell the last peer reviewed reports questioning methods of climate change science were to do with the suns impact. These have just been blown away by the recent study that shows there is no correlation between sun spot activity and energy reaching Earth.

varwoche

18th July 2007, 10:30 AM

Well he is a Marketing professor Once upon a time this cite -- in the science section of a skeptical forum no less -- would have boggled my mind. Instead, with bleak amusement and a ho-hum, I add marketing professor to the list of goofy cites that I've seen on jref posted by pseudo-skeptics that includes (no joke): a bumbling associate economics professor, Lyndon Larouche, Malloy/junkscience, Michael Crichton ad nauseum, an oil industry businessman :boxedin:, a coal mining engineer, right-wing lobbyist DCI and countless other bags of free market hot air, anonymous bloggers, "here", paid Exxon shills, the Czech president (who freely admits to ignoring scientific evidence), and last but certainly not least, a construction worker.

JoeEllison

18th July 2007, 10:40 AM

I am done, your sources are terrible which is why your conclusions are wrong.

Everybody you choose to believe is paid for and owned by energy companies. Steve McIntyre is still challenging the original hickey stick report which has been verified in multiple peer reviewed journals. He again doesn't publish, has no credibility, he does have a blog though.

THAT'S the sort of thing that people need to be skeptical about. Mining company executives creating websites that pretend to have an interest in objective science, hyping the work of people published in obscure "journals" with substandard peer review, which are then touted as "evidence" by oil company-funded "think tanks". Then, of course, they go straight to Fox "News" and the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal.

The whole thing is a gigantic political scheme to market ideas with little or no scientific merit, right out there in the open for anyone with Google and a spare 15 minutes.

mhaze

18th July 2007, 10:40 AM

[quote=back2basics;2779154]I am done, your sources are terrible which is why your conclusions are wrong.

Everybody you choose to believe is paid for and owned by energy companies. Steve McIntyre is still challenging the original hickey stick report which has been verified in multiple peer reviewed journals. He again doesn't publish, has no credibility, he does have a blog though.
[quote]

Really?

Do anything but actually debate or refute the actual paper and its arguments by Armstrong.

Another example of increasing the noise to signal ratios.

JoeEllison

18th July 2007, 10:46 AM

Another example of increasing the noise to signal ratios.

Nope, another example of how easy it is for anyone to go online and show how much "noise" is produced, and how little "signal" lies behind the anti-GW position.

*shrugs*

You've been taken in by con artists and frauds, and I know it will be almost impossible for you to admit it to yourself, let alone the rest of us. I'm sorry that it happened to you.

JoeEllison

18th July 2007, 10:51 AM

Hans von Storch, anyone?

robinson

18th July 2007, 11:05 AM

Has anyone here studied the ice core data? Fascinating stuff. There is another issue as well, that hasn't made it into the model yet.

JoeEllison

18th July 2007, 11:17 AM

Has anyone here studied the ice core data? Fascinating stuff. There is another issue as well, that hasn't made it into the model yet.

My understanding is that the ice core data confirms the general consensus that human activity is responsible for the current CO2 levels, which are higher than they have been in the past half-million or so year.

Yes, fascinating how every new piece of evidence helps to support and refine the scientific position.

mhaze

18th July 2007, 11:40 AM

Hans von Storch, anyone?

Smart guy, but what is your point (http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,342376,00.html) -

From his article a while back in Der Spiegel

Other scientists are succumbing to a form of fanaticism almost reminiscent of the McCarthy era. In their minds, criticism of methodology is nothing but the monstrous product of "conservative think-tanks and misinformation campaigns by the oil and coal lobby," which they believe is their duty to expose. In contrast, dramatization of climate shift is defended as being useful from the standpoint of educating the public.

The principle that drives other branches of science should be equally applicable to climate research: dissent drives continued development, and differences of opinion are not unfortunate matters to be kept within the community. Silencing dissent and uncertainty for the benefit of a politically worthy cause reduces credibility, because the public is more well-informed than generally assumed. In the long term, the supposedly useful dramatizations achieve exactly the opposite of what they are intended to achieve. If this happens, both science and society will have missed an opportunity.

cloudshipsrule

18th July 2007, 11:47 AM

Does anyone posting in this thread actually think there isn't money to be made for the pro-gw groups as well as the anti-gw groups? If there is a way to exploit peoples sensibilities, someone will do it.

P.S. There's always a way.

Big Al

18th July 2007, 12:04 PM

You know, I specifically asked you what was a "put down." You never answered. I never mentioned any consensus, and neither did Megalodon. So what are you talking about here?

Looks like a strawman argument to me.

So basically we should just ignore logical fallacies? What are you saying here? Do you have the slightest clue what you're implying? You're implying that we should abandon thinking. Not just a real great start, Al. That doesn't work for me.

People who don't have an agenda don't accuse people of being nasty without being able to prove it, Al. I asked you to present specific criticisms. You didn't. I guess you don't have any. If you don't, then where did this claim come from?

Apples and oranges, Al. Also, what's this about the CO2 level being "much higher," without the temperature being "radically higher?" You got anything to actually cite that wasn't written by an oil company shill that shows this? Any of that, you know, evidence stuff?

Gee, I dunno, maybe it was that little thing they had then, I think they called it World War 2. You never heard of that, right? And then they had to rebuild Europe afterward, and Asia; you know, all that stuff that got bombed. And then people started realizing that there was a lot of pollution being made, and started yelling about it. I seem to recall a little something about that in the 1960s. Maybe it's just me.

Sulphates don't have a long half-life in the air, Al. You have to keep pumping them out, or they go away pretty quick. That would be some of that, you know, science and stuff.

So, basically, because we don't know everything, we don't know anything. This is the same argument the cretinists use, Al. I thought you didn't like them.

See, it's mischaracterizations of opposing arguments like this that irritates people, Al. Anybody who knows what the real argument is in this case can spot this a mile off.

If you've only got one measurement, then you question it, you look it over, you pound on the top of the box to see if the meters are maybe stuck. But when you measure that same thing five or six completely different ways and get the same answer from all of them, then it becomes a lot clearer what the facts are. And the thing is, Al, we've got those five or six different ways. And they all say the same thing. So when you concentrate on one of them, and ignore the others, what is that?

And another one. Every time you go look this up, it turns out a coupla guys said, well, maybe if things are just like this, we might be headed for an ice age. I think we oughta go check it out. And the media trumped that up into a big headline, and the guys are like, where did you get that? We never said that. We just said maybe we oughta go check it out. But now it's like, all the scientists said this. They didn't. All the newspapers did.

I thought it was all "urban heat islands," Al. Losing the thread of the argument a bit there?

Well, gee, Al, the CO2 concentration seems to be rising, and the isotopes (measured two different ways) say that's carbon that hasn't been where it can absorb C14 from the atmosphere for a long, long time. Anybody can go check out the figures for how much CO2 we're making; it's pretty simple. Economists keep track of stuff like that. So given we know we're making this amount of CO2, and given the concentration is rising that much, and given the isotope results, I guess it looks like we are making the CO2 levels rise. And given all the really obvious physics above, which you still haven't said anything about, gee, I guess that really does mean humans are causing the rise in temperature.

Did you have some point here?

Who ever said that? Gimme a source, Al. I just don't see it. I haven't heard it. I think you either have listened to someone who didn't know what they're talking about, or you're obfuscating. Which is it, Al?

Al, nobody ever said CO2 forcing is the only forcing. Again, who ever said that? You know, that evidence stuff.

What's going to happen tomorrow ain't climate, Al. It's weather. Global warming is not weather.

A link that provides answers to every point you've brought up here, and a lot more besides, is produced. Have you read the articles at that link, Al? Are you actually interested in the evidence, or are you just saying you are because it sounds good?

Schneibster,

'Well, gee, Schneibster, I guess if you can't understand something simple like the fact that what we grown-ups call "talking down" to people is really patronising (look the big word up in the dictionary if you don't understand it, Schneibster), I can't help you.'

or, as you more succinctly put it, 'That would be some of that, you know, science and stuff.'

Basically, bloody patronising.

This is a long post and it deserves a detailed response. I will post one hopefully some time tonight.

However, one thing I would like an apology for right now. That is your strawman argument that I advocated not exposing logical fallacies. I certainly did not. I just said that repeatedly giving the same climate information to climate "deniers" did not seem a plausible explanation for terseness, since I had seen members patiently point out any number of logical fallacies again and again to other errant posters, on other subjects. You don't seem to tire of that; it's only when climate issues are addressed when the patronising patient-kindergarten-teacher or angry-elder voice seem to come into play.

What I also object to is the implication that because I have expressed some doubt about this serious issue, or at least made my mind up, that I am an unreliable thinker likely to espouse any number of junk ideas.

However, that aside, I am happy to converse in a reasonable, measured and adult tone if you are, without sarcasm or down-talking.

I'll reply in greater detail later on.

mhaze

18th July 2007, 02:18 PM

This quote is just great. He says "Unaided judgmental forecasts by experts have no value" because amoungts other things "People confuse correlation with causation". Is he actually saying that the IPCC scientists confuse correlation with causation, a science 101 topic? He really cannot be serious.

Then to top that, this;

This is deeply ironic. But shows a complete and utter lack of knowlege about the scientific method. With his background in Marketing thats acceptable, but why is he even injecting himself in something that is clearly way above his head.

Obviously the latest "expert" paid for and sent out by people with agendas.

Is he a heavyweight?

Yes, he is a heavyweight. If you just do not like his paper on the IPCC, continue to blast him in this discussion but.... then use him next time you are debating the "war on terror". :D

But it looks to me like the evidence based forecasting approach is well suited to the problems of climate science.

He wrote the handbook (40 plus contributing arthors) started several journals, has an encyclopedic website, and has published on numerous subjects. Start with wikipedia and go from there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forecasting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrong%2C_J._Scott

In 2003 Armstrong gave a BBC radio interview, applying his investigations of forecasting to "the war on terror". The BBC reported that "unaided judgments by college students were no better than chance. But when they asked experts... they were no more accurate than the students. Based on the research to date, then, discussions about what to do in situations such as in Iraq, are based on worthless forecasts!" [2] (http://mktg-sun.wharton.upenn.edu/ideas/pdf/Armstrong/Mass%20Media/BBC%202003.pdf).
Armstrong has made contributions to rule-based forecasting, conflict simulated interaction, structured analogies, decomposition by causal forces, auditing procedures for forecasting, and relative absolute error (See #Links to Full-Text Papers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrong%2C_J._Scott#Links_to_Full-Text_Papers)).[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrong%2C_J._Scott#_note-major_findings)
He was a founder {Journal of Forecasting (see Journal of Forecasting, 1,1982, p. 1-2)}and editor of the Journal of Forecasting (http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/2966), the International Journal of Forecasting (http://www.forecasters.org/ijf/), and the International Symposium on Forecasting (http://www.forecasters.org/isf/). He is the author of Long-Range Forecasting (http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/Long-Range%20Forecasting/contents.html). His 2001 book, Principles of Forecasting: A Handbook for Researchers and Practitioners and the web site he founded, forecastingprinciples.com (http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/), discuss forecasting methods.
Armstrong has applied his findings about combining forecasts (http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/paperpdf/Combining.pdf) to political forecasting (http://www.politicalforecasting.com/). It provided an accurate forecast of the 2004 U.S. presidential election (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._presidential_election), data and methods available online at PollyVote.com (http://www.pollyvote.com/).There is a diverse group of subjects that he has applied his methods to. No evidence of oil companies here!

http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/special%20interest.html

I'm afraid he is quite serious.

“Global Warming: Forecasts by Scientists versus Scientific Forecasts (http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/Public_Policy/WarmAudit31.pdf)”
We conducted an audit of Chapter 8 of the IPCC’s WG1 Report. We found enough information to make judgments on 89 out of the total of 140 principles. The forecasting procedures that were used violated 72 principles. Many of the violations were, by themselves, critical. We have been unable to identify any scientific forecasts to support global warming. Claims that the Earth will get warmer have no more credence than saying that it will get colder.
Yep, he is serious. Sorry about that.

Climateaudit.org discussion here. (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1807)

Diamond

18th July 2007, 03:49 PM

Once upon a time this cite -- in the science section of a skeptical forum no less -- would have boggled my mind. Instead, with bleak amusement and a ho-hum, I add marketing professor to the list of goofy cites that I've seen on jref posted by pseudo-skeptics that includes (no joke): a bumbling associate economics professor, Lyndon Larouche, Malloy/junkscience, Michael Crichton ad nauseum, an oil industry businessman :boxedin:, a coal mining engineer, right-wing lobbyist DCI and countless other bags of free market hot air, anonymous bloggers, "here", paid Exxon shills, the Czech president (who freely admits to ignoring scientific evidence), and last but certainly not least, a construction worker.

Varwoche come on down! (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=59441&highlight=varwoche)

Lets see if varwoche can produce evidence of the "oil industry businessman" that he failed to produce last time.

Or maybe he's just the cowardly liar that I take him to be.

robinson

18th July 2007, 06:25 PM

varwoche

18th July 2007, 09:24 PM

Varwoche come on down! (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=59441&highlight=varwoche)Lets see if varwoche can produce evidence of the "oil industry businessman" that he failed to produce last time.

Or maybe he's just the cowardly liar that I take him to be. It's perplexing that you persist with this nonsense, given that I posted solid evidence (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=1627607#post1627607), as opposed to your unsupported spleen venting. If you have new evidence, I'll be glad to consider it though I suggest that the thread you devoted to the topic would be the best place for it.

And speaking of perplexing, I welcome you to clarify some of your other whimsical rants:
Here (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=1628560#post1628560) you cite a construction worker, claim he is an oceanographer, and then ditch when exposed.
Here (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=1549485#post1549485) you falsify a quote and refuse to correct the record.
Here (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2000607#post2000607) you cite non-posts as evidence. (Are you still a Rasputin adherent? ;) )
Here (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=1627104#post1627104) you are exposed making stuff up ex nihilo, and ditch when exposed.
Here (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=1632351#post1632351) again you make stuff up and and ditch when exposed.
Here (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=1651574#post1651574) your "debate" tactics are challenged and you ditch.
Here (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=1566038#post1566038) you wave M&M as a magical talisman to "debunk" any and all GW studies presented, including studies that postdate M&M that you "don't have time to read".
Here (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2602879#post2602879) is where your virulent anti-science agenda takes a truly surreal turn, accusing climate scientists of being part of a broad Marxist cabal.Sorry Diamond, but you aren't within shouting distance of being taken seriously. You do a good job of disruption though.

Schneibster

18th July 2007, 11:32 PM

David Rodale

19th July 2007, 12:09 AM

Heavyweight in economics? Well he is a Marketing professor, kind of similar. But you would have though Wharton would have made him an actual economics prof. if he was such a heavyweight.

He has no science background, no background in climatology.

And when you look in to this "heavyweight" claim it just doesn't hold up, at all.

Armstrong cites himself more than anybody else cites him.

http://ideas.repec.org/e/c/par65.html

Just one example from the link. So his 2001 paper is only cited by himself. In 6 years nobody else found his work usefull, apart from himself.

The paper you posted cites himself more than any paper. His own citations are around a 1/3rd of all the footnotes. And that ironic because he accused scientists of citing their own UN report in his questionaire.

A quick google search turns up almost nothing about him. His wiki page is slim and inaccurate (he didn't predict the 2004 election for example). Reading the report, is interesting because he offer little evidence for such a huge claim. His main point seems to be that the actual report does not have sufficient detail and he made attempt to look in to or understand the models other than reading the report.

He seems to like to promote his own ideas and methodologies, but other people are not many people are bighting.

Amazing what a certain amount of skepticism can turn up in just a few minutes.

I read it here first; statistics is not a science. Interesting. Just as interesting is the custom in this forum when in doubt, attack. Always attack.

Would you also consider W. Edward Deming insignificant? He was not an engineer yet was instrumental in rebuilding Japan's business and manufacturing economy after World War II to the status of bringing the Big 3 to it's knees.

Can you name any field of science not reliant on statistics, or any area of modern society for that matter? In fact, statistical science, though crudely applied, dates back thousands of years.

Forecasting is not something Armstrong made up. A statistician knows this, but then, you aren't a statistician and therefore not qualified to comment (sorry for the ad hom).

A statistician designs experiments, collects, analyzes, and interprets numerical data among other things. That could include but is not limited to climatology. To say Armstrong is not qualified because he has no background in climatology is baseless. Just as statisticians are not climatologists, the inverse applies.

Here is supporting documentation on the subject matter contained in Armstrong's paper referred to as social networking. Indulge:
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/StupakResponse.pdf

If Armstrong's analysis on climate models is inadequate, then perhaps you can provide evidence to the contrary? Being familiar with models of a different sort, I am confident your results will be less than stellar. Prove me wrong, and when you've exhausted your resources, I will be happy to provide some useful information on climate models. As a guide, be sure to look for the word 'uncertainty' and be wary of 'proxies'. Always use statistical tools to evaluate the referenced material before posting.

In any event, since there seems to be much confidence in climate models, as there must be in order to propagate the Holy Writ of AGW, why not become a "proxy" for Al Gore and take up Armstrong's challenge:
http://theclimatebet.com/2007/06/16/a-global-warming-challenge/
Members in this forum can post their displeasure with Armstrong's analysis by commenting in the blog. Heck, you could even call him a denialist.

Edit: I missed your post Scheibster. Did you ever locate the experiments used to test the hypothesis of CO2 being the main driver of climate? What about the climate sensitivity, any word on that?

Diamond

19th July 2007, 03:44 AM

It's perplexing that you persist with this nonsense, given that I posted solid evidence (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=1627607#post1627607), as opposed to your unsupported spleen venting. If you have new evidence, I'll be glad to consider it though I suggest that the thread you devoted to the topic would be the best place for it.

Then go to it (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=59441&highlight=varwoche).

Please explain on that thread (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=59441&highlight=varwoche) how Steve Mcintyre, who has never worked in the oil industry in any capacity can be an oil industry businessman.

There is no "solid evidence" at all, as you well know because you have been told repeatedly.

Its an ad hominem smear against Steve McIntyre to paint him as somehow "paid for" by an industry that is supposedly engaged in a conspiracy against the self-proclaimed defenders of the environment. And all because Steve McIntyre demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that the Mann Hockey Stick was a disgraceful and shoddy piece of trash that you are desperate to defend by any means.

Lets see this "evidence" (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=59441&highlight=varwoche). Or shall we just take you for the liar that you are?

Here's that thread again (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=59441&highlight=varwoche) the one that you bailed on because you couldn't produce any evidence for your repeated lying assertions.

PogoPedant

19th July 2007, 05:34 AM

And denialist isn't even a word.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=denialist&go=Go

I know, I know, you Woos think that making up a word that a "cool in group considers a real word", you think that makes it a word. Maybe to you it does, but the majority of intelligent thinkers in the world would consider you dumb.

Consider the bolded sentence, and then consider the board you're posting on. See if you can't spot the cleverly hidden irony.

JoeEllison

19th July 2007, 05:47 AM

Please explain on that thread (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=59441&highlight=varwoche) how Steve Mcintyre, who has never worked in the oil industry in any capacity can be an oil industry businessman.

BUSTED!!!

You owe an apology. Here's the real story: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_McIntyre)McIntyre was the President and founder of Northwest Exploration Company Limited which merged with CGX Energy Inc., an oil and gas exploration company. McIntrye was a strategic advisor for CGX in 2000 through 2003

So, you've been caught saying something completely untrue. I guess we can throw out your entire position as unworthy of belief now. Thanks!

Megalodon

19th July 2007, 05:54 AM

So, you couldn't find a logicall fallacy, let alone the "megacan"...

Nothing new.

Megalodon

19th July 2007, 06:35 AM

No strawman there, Megalodon. Although some of the individual words may vary, I've seen pretty much those sorts of putdowns. I have actually seen the "consensus" staement used as the be-all and end-all of the argument. No discussion. Case closed.

But not here. Thus your ignoring of the answer and comment to Robinson was a strawman. You might not have intended it, but that's another thing.

The answering posts may get a little tetchy if the same questioner carries on being wilfully ignorant, but they aren't dismissive from the off.

Sorry, but I disagree. I didn't find the answers to the OP dismissive.

OK, what about those who say the CO2 concentration has been much higher in the prehistoric past, without the temperature being radically higher? Are they lying?

Show me a link with the data and I can talk about it. Like this is difficult, since I don't know what period you're refering to.

CO2 concentration has been rising pretty much steadily since the industrial revolution. After several decades of rises, the average yearly global temperature dropped fairly steadily year-on-year from approximately 1941 to 1975. We are told this is due to sulphate emissions creating a negative forcing. Why were sulphate emissions not seriously affecting the climate until the 1940s? They, too, were important industrial emissions. What caused the sulphate level to rise so dramatically in the 1940s that not only did they allay the temperature-increasing effect of the rising CO2 concentration, they reversed it? CO2 was still rising, after all.

Schneibster tackled this one already.

Assuming that sulphate emissions were gradually curtailed as a result of Clean Air policies, why do we not see a gradual lessening of the temperature decrease until CO2 begins to dominate again? Why the sudden, steady increase in temperature from 1975, instead of a curve as SOx dropped out and the still-increasing CO2 began to take over?

And this one also...

I humbly suggest "what we know about the world" is insufficient to predict the climate. I've seen a huge spread in predictions of the rate of increase, confusion as to whether the rise will continue perpetually or peter out, whether the Northern Hemisphere will become a desert or an ice-bowl. Current climate models do not postdict the Little Ice Age or the Medieval Warm Period, which were significant climatic events. However, they did not depend on CO2 as a forcing. Cloud formation seems to be all but absent in climate models, but is almost certainly an important forcing.

I could even agree, if we didn't have a couple of decades of observations in accordance with the models. This is what separates a theory from fluff. Predictions were made, they were in general correct. The theory stands provisionally, being adjusted where it was incorrect.

Scientists must have been doing something right.

And I have never, ever denied that.

And I have never claimed you did.

OK, this year, in the UK at least, is so far considerably cooler than last year, but I do appreciate the difference between weather and climate.

Here in Germany the seasons are all mixed up, and it has been cooler, warmer, rainier and dryer than last year, sometimes in the same week :D... and we still have half of it to go :)

However, there is the fact that a large number of weather stations in Siberia and in non-urban areas have ceased to be. They are no longer taking measurements at all. And yet all I've seen as a rebuttal to the urban heat island forcing is along the lines of, "Oh, that's irrelevant."

Well, that is irrelevant, since temperature can now be readily measured via satellite.

We do not know all the factors affecting climate, not by a long chalk. The 30s were pretty warm in the UK. Builders started to put water pipes on the outside of new houses because they believed there was never going to be a cold winter again. Global warming was happening - after all, the temperature had been steadily rising for 30 years. It was simple.

This was proved to be an incorrect decision during the chilly winters of the late 40s to the mid-70s, as water pipes burst all over the UK.

Again, weather vs climate. We don't put the pipes outside in Portugal, and I lived in the Algarve... It only takes one odd year...

In the 70s, climatologists just knew we were heading for another ice age. The temperature fell steadily for 30 years. That proved it. It was obvious.

Now it's getting silly... The global cooling was a media fad, not a global (or even american, for the US-centrics) scientific consensus. It was a hypothesis put out based on the observations, and showned to be wrong.

Not that the media cares.

Since then, the climate has been warming up for 30 years. That means global warming is here.

No. It's much more than that, and I think you know it by now.

Really, the simple fact that the mercury's higher than it was thirty years ago says absolutely jack about continued trends. I have never denied that recent years have been warmer than in my youth. That is both simple and obvious. Yes, I would be an idiot to deny that.

Never called you that to begin with...

Is it simple and obvious that human beings are causing the rise in temperature?

Yes, given the information we have available to us.

Is it simple and obvious that the temperature will continue to rise without limit?

And who proposed that?

Is it simple and obvious that carbon dioxide forcing is the only game in town? I don't think so.

Again, nobody said that, and you know it. It is the drive of the current warming, but it's not the only forcing in the system.

I'm all for recycling and cutting down pollution on a general principle: it would be nice to stop poisoning the earth. So basically, I'm happy to walk the walk. I'm just not convinced enough to talk the talk.

Well, I don't get any carbon credits for convincing you either :). The info is out there, generally available. People can make up their own minds.

mhaze

19th July 2007, 06:50 AM

I need a friggin list to keep up here. Will everybody that is 100% sure that Global warming because of CO2 produced by people please raise their hand? Then post the proof that convinced you, then link to the source, and then pat yourself on the back.

Thank you in advance.

I get from amateur calculations (mine) 5-20% of current GW due to CO2.

100% sure.... you have no takers so far on that one!:D

mhaze

19th July 2007, 10:23 AM

I read it here first; statistics is not a science. Interesting. Just as interesting is the custom in this forum when in doubt, attack. Always attack.

Now that we have firmly established that Armstrong is a heavyweight, does anyone care to discuss the theory and practice of his approach to the IPCC Chapter 8 findings?

Anyone is quite welcome, including construction workers. I even invite persons who may be lurking on JREF who are employed by oil companies.:D

Big Al

19th July 2007, 12:07 PM

Great, Al, you're going to "rebut" physics. I can't wait.

I posted your own words. I don't see another way to interpret them. You didn't explain, you asked for an apology- for an offense you didn't prove exists. Looks like another strawman, there, Al.

I thought I made myself pretty clear. I was trying to claim that the "repetition makes a poster tetchy" argument didn't seem to apply on a lot of other threads, where the same logical arguments are trotted out again and again with no apparent sign of annoyance. In those cases, mere repetition does not seem to bring about this tetchy reaction.

Somehow, you have chosen to read this as me pooh-poohing logical argument in its entirety. Along with this, you claim that I intend to try to "rebut" science. Doubtless, putting the verb in quotes is to imply that I actually said it.

All I asked for was

a) Some civility
b) Some answers

I have seen none of either. Instead, you seem determined to cast me as some wide-eyed, imbecilic, drool-spattered, anti-science, iconoclastic oil company shill, determined to bring the whole of logic to its knees.

I don't want to fall out with you, Schneibster, so I guess I won't be daring to post on any more climate threads. Well done, mate. You won.

Congratulations.

varwoche

19th July 2007, 01:24 PM

BUSTED!!! You owe an apology. Here's the real story: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_McIntyre)

So, you've been caught saying something completely untrue. I guess we can throw out your entire position as unworthy of belief now. Thanks!Joe, while you are correct that Diamond is being untruthful, the wiki article is based on the same source document (http://cgxenergy.ca/investors/CGX_AR03_part2.pdf) that I referenced -- the CGX annual report -- and thus sheds no new light.

And of course, the annual report is as clear as the day is long in the dead of summer in Barrow that (1) the company is exclusively in the oil and gas exploration business, (2) McIntyre founded CGX's predecessor company, and (3) McIntyre was a strategic advisor to CGX, and this fact was important enough to warrant being mentioned in the annual report. And even Diamond admits that McIntyre isn't a scientist and that he worked for CGX in a business capacity.

It's useful to realize that Diamond's debate tactics are based on making a lot of vitriolic noise, apparently predicated on the hopes that readers won't bother to read source documents and discover that his posts reliably contain numerous exaggerations, unsupported assertions, and outright fabrications.

Of course the fact that McIntyre was (is?) an oil industry businessman is not hugely important, as his bumbling work speaks for itself. (This entire surreal sub-debate originated from a parenthetical comment fer crying out loud.)

robinson

19th July 2007, 02:04 PM

Consider the bolded sentence, and then consider the board you're posting on. See if you can't spot the cleverly hidden irony.

I was hoping somebody would get that. Irony, its funny sometimes.

MilwaukeeMike

19th July 2007, 02:09 PM

People need to think of climate change as Miamification of the Northern United States and Canada. If I can strut around downtown Chicago in January and rest under a palm tree while the gentle 85 degree wind blows through my hair as I sip on a margarita watching beautiful women jog by in bikinis; I wouldn't really care.... The only downside is the actually Miami may be under 20 feet of water and about 130 degrees F....

robinson

19th July 2007, 02:18 PM

The only downside is the actually Miami may be under 20 feet of water and about 130 degrees F....

You say that like it would be a bad thing ...:wackylaugh:

mhaze

19th July 2007, 04:49 PM

Welcome to Texas.

mhaze

19th July 2007, 05:26 PM

I read it here first; statistics is not a science. Interesting. Just as interesting is the custom in this forum when in doubt, attack. Always attack.

Edit: I missed your post Scheibster. Did you ever locate the experiments used to test the hypothesis of CO2 being the main driver of climate? What about the climate sensitivity, any word on that?

More on statistics.

Here is a guy down in Australia (http://gustofhotair.blogspot.com/) doing some statistical analysis of Australian weather. He's figured out something that Jones et. al. didn't get - that you can't use (tmax-tmin)/2 to get the average daily temperature.

Then there is the Wegman report . (http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/0607/07142006_Wegman_fact_sheet.pdf) Wegman, a board member of the American Statistical Association, assembled a committee of statisticians to review the Mann et. al. "hockey stick" work... "Mann et. al. misused certain statistical methods in their work which inappropriately produced hockey sticks"

"although the researchers use statistical methods, they do not seem to be interacting with the statistical community"
Here is Steve McIntyre's initial comments (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1810) on Mann's latest paper "I noticed that Mann has continued to use his PC methodology without changing a comma, notwithstanding the strong statement of Wegman that his PC methodology was simply “wrong” and the statement by the NAS panel that it should be avoided"

PC here does not mean politically correct but refers to a statistical method.

Valid objections to quality of work, all.

oglommi

22nd July 2007, 02:11 PM

Hmmmm... assuming you're serious, you are apparently not aware that the greenhouse effect was proposed in the nineteenth century. By Fourier. As in Fourier transform, which you might have heard of here and there. And investigated by Arrhenius. As in first winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry Arrhenius. They were ultimately proved correct, according to our current knowledge. The theory explains the average surface temperatures of Venus, Earth, and Mars fairly nicely, so there's some observational evidence.

As far as proving it in a laboratory, what precisely do you have in mind? Proving that CO2 is largely transparent to visible light, but has strong spectral lines in the IR? Yep. As far as showing that the radiation from a body at the temperature of Earth has a peak very close to those lines? Yep. As far as showing that those lines occur in a "window" in the absorption spectrum of water vapor, thus increasing the potency of CO2 as a greenhouse gas in our atmosphere? Yep.

So I guess my question is, given evidence that CO2 behaves a certain way in the lab, and given evidence that it works in the atmosphere the way they say it does, evidence from three planets, my question would be, do you believe that CO2 will act differently in the atmosphere from the way it acts in the lab, if so why, and how do you account for the surface temperatures of those three planets if it does?

I don't think CO2 is resposiblity for the possible changing of temperature. It all seems to me as complete hysteria. A sort of modern day "rain dance" were we humans have been bad and must change our ways our mother earth will punish us.
It's not like the first time experts have spread hysteria like the Y2K virus and I'm sure countless other example if i'd bother to look for it.
Don't bother flooding me with silly facts I can't answer. I put my faith that time will prove me right.

Schneibster

22nd July 2007, 02:28 PM

Don't bother flooding me with silly facts I can't answer. I put my faith that time will prove me right.Absolutely classic. "Don't bother me with facts, my mind's made up." Right. I believe that's the end of that particular conversation.

CapelDodger

22nd July 2007, 03:20 PM

Strap me, I turn my back for five minutes and the tone simply plummets.

CapelDodger

22nd July 2007, 03:46 PM

I could even agree, if we didn't have a couple of decades of observations in accordance with the models. This is what separates a theory from fluff. Predictions were made, they were in general correct. The theory stands provisionally, being adjusted where it was incorrect.

Scientists must have been doing something right.

Well and calmly put :) .

varwoche first brought attention to the denialist fixation on the past, and did so some years ago. That was with reference to a re-hash of the 90's Hockey-Stick Fraud Shock; still fighting the same old battles because events have only borne out the consensus predictions. They have not done the contrarian cause any favours at all. And it's clearly losing in terms of public and political perception.

The reason it's losing, obviously, is what's revealed by the biggest, baddest, 100% never-wrong analogue climate model that works in real-time just outside everybody's front-door (if they have one).

The blade of the Hockey Stick has just grown longer. Luck? Coincidence? Conspiracy? Vindication?

The digital climate models that "it's all based on" have proved themselves in action. The modelling of ice-dynamics hasn't performed nearly as well, but as a problem it's of a much higher order. Climate is relatively simple.

CapelDodger

22nd July 2007, 04:11 PM

Absolutely classic. "Don't bother me with facts, my mind's made up." Right. I believe that's the end of that particular conversation.

Best all 'round, I reckon.

Yet another Global Warming thread launched by a recently illuminated one, regurgitator of the half-digested junk-science that has altered his consciousness. Blissed-out on their own epiphany they are consumed with the need to share the revelation ... yadda-yadda.

This one bears the mark of the Three Planets Warming, without reference to all the planets and moons that aren't warming - too confusing, perhaps, or more likely it simply didn't come to mind. To my mind, once you start looking off-planet for comfort (say, because the past is too foreign) you have to check out the whole solar-system. Otherwise, who knows what's lurking? There could be Marxists behind any rock.

Mars is Red, you know :cool: .

CapelDodger

23rd July 2007, 06:57 PM

[Armstrong is o]bviously the latest "expert" paid for and sent out by people with agendas.

I don't think this is "obvious". Attention is a great motivator in itself, and without Armstrong's venture into AGW territory he'd just be another schmuck who can't do Marketing so he teaches it. (You'll know the old saying : those who can, do; those who can't, teach; those who can't teach, teach teachers.)

He may well have attracted funding and promotion subsequently, but I suspect his initial motivation for conjuring up anti-AGW arguments was ideological. Poster-boy status was thrust upon him.

CapelDodger

23rd July 2007, 07:30 PM

I don't think CO2 is resposiblity for the possible changing of temperature. It all seems to me as complete hysteria. A sort of modern day "rain dance" were we humans have been bad and must change our ways our mother earth will punish us.

Science doesn't make value judgements. The science of AGW simply explains what has happened to the climate (and predicts what will happen in general terms) as a result of past and present human activity. Specifically, the burning of fossil-fuels. That activity - unprecedented in Earth's history - has released enough sequestered carbon to add about a third to the pre-industrial atmospheric CO2-load. This has had, and will have, climatic consequences. Significant climatic consequences in human terms.

(At the same time the oceanic CO2 concentration has also been increased; the consequences of that are not well-understood. They may be significant, but maybe not.)

It's not like the first time experts have spread hysteria like the Y2K virus and I'm sure countless other example if i'd bother to look for it.

You seem easily assured. Are you perhaps too young to recall any previous examples?

To characterise the IPCC reports as hysterical is to invite ridicule.

Don't bother flooding me with silly facts I can't answer.

Oh dear ...

Questions need answering. Facts are facts.

I put my faith that time will prove me right.

You'll be disappointed. There's no cooling-phase waiting just up the line, despite Lindzen's Sliding Ten Year Prediction. (It's always "Jam within the next decade" with Lindzen, never "Jam Today!") The world will get warmer throughout your lifetime. I've staked my reputation on it - no small thing for a chap of my age and background.

a_unique_person

23rd July 2007, 08:48 PM

More on statistics.

Here is a guy down in Australia (http://gustofhotair.blogspot.com/) doing some statistical analysis of Australian weather. He's figured out something that Jones et. al. didn't get - that you can't use (tmax-tmin)/2 to get the average daily temperature.

It's an historical way of giving an indication of the average temperature for a day, that was settled on over a hundred years ago as a way of getting a simple metric for temperature. It doesn't claim to be any more than it is, but it is a useful for what it does. Jones et all didn't create the idea, they were just using what is historically accepted, despite the technical issues people can raise. It measures something meaningful, and it has been used for a long time.

oglommi

23rd July 2007, 09:00 PM

oglommi

23rd July 2007, 09:07 PM

I need a friggin list to keep up here. Will everybody that is 100% sure that Global warming because of CO2 produced by people please raise their hand? Then post the proof that convinced you, then link to the source, and then pat yourself on the back.

Thank you in advance.

Excellent idea.

Oglommi=AGW seeing a documentary about some danish scientist debunking global warming with graphs of sun activity and stuff like that convinced me. And Al Gore who seems like a slippery used cars salesman.

Pipirr

23rd July 2007, 09:47 PM

I'm not a scientist and so have to choose who to trust based on my bulls hit detector and who is make more sense. GW seems to be hysterical doomsday preachers (Al Gore) and snotty arrogant articulate besser wissers (this thread). While what I have seen of AGW seems to be far more rational folks.

The "don't bother me with facts I can't answer" English is not my primal language and I can't possible win a discussion here.

Just a word about the terminology:

GW= Global Warming
AGW= Anthropogenic Global Warming (that is, resulting from human activities)

Both are often used in these parts, with these meanings. Your meaning, I suspect, might be different.

Carry on :D

oglommi

23rd July 2007, 10:09 PM

Sorry sorry. I thought AGW was Anti-Global Warming. I do not belive GW is human made.

David Rodale

23rd July 2007, 10:21 PM

Science doesn't make value judgements. The science of AGW simply explains what has happened to the climate (and predicts what will happen in general terms) as a result of past and present human activity. Specifically, the burning of fossil-fuels. That activity - unprecedented in Earth's history - has released enough sequestered carbon to add about a third to the pre-industrial atmospheric CO2-load. This has had, and will have, climatic consequences. Significant climatic consequences in human terms.

(At the same time the oceanic CO2 concentration has also been increased; the consequences of that are not well-understood. They may be significant, but maybe not.)

You seem easily assured. Are you perhaps too young to recall any previous examples?

To characterise the IPCC reports as hysterical is to invite ridicule.

Oh dear ...

Questions need answering. Facts are facts.

You'll be disappointed. There's no cooling-phase waiting just up the line, despite Lindzen's Sliding Ten Year Prediction. (It's always "Jam within the next decade" with Lindzen, never "Jam Today!") The world will get warmer throughout your lifetime. I've staked my reputation on it - no small thing for a chap of my age and background.

With all due respect, each IPCC report has downgraded it's projections (IPCC authors claim they don't make predictions despite numerous use of the word throughout their reports) from the previous. Given this and that climate models are the basis for AGW predictions, how can it be said climate models have any confident degree of certainty? To say current observations match climate model predictions is difficult to follow since each IPCC report is downgraded.

Would it be fair to say the first IPCC in 1990 was hysterical or simply "mistaken"?

I am interested in your evaluation of climate models since the myriad of data suggests they have serious problems with forecasting accuracy. Links to peer reviewed studies (statistical or otherwise) would be helpful and please refrain from long protracted speeches with links to opinions and news headline sensationalism.

There is nothing scientifically based at all in your last five posts. Save the fact of increased use of coal, oil, natural gas and their derivatives to improve our way of life, your entire post is rife with subjective rhetoric and opinion, which seems acceptable from one side of the isle but not the other.

Repeated requests for empirical evidence demonstrating CO2 as the main driver of climate and what the true value for climate sensitivity of the earth is have gone on deaf ears.

Nonetheless, since both of the above are critical in the calculations, shall we have a go at climate models then? After all, they are as has been said the 'Holy Writ' of AGW, therefore we must invoke the infallibility axiom as is done with AGW opposition, or will the new tried and true scientific method of AGW of fake-but-accurate, wrong-but-plausible and inaccurate-but-good 'nuff be the rule?

Let us skip Hansen's 1988 prophecy utterances unless you'd like to re-hash it. No, despite your best efforts to show otherwise by linking to your favorite blogs attempting to spin the numbers, from purely a statistician's evaluation it doesn't cut the mustard; it is statistical garbage.

Your warning to oglommi of ridicule for daring to question the notion of AGW in a "skeptic" forum (an oxymoron) would be equally applied if you quoted yourself verbatim at an actual climate science blog, with the exception of possibly RealClimate, the repository for AGW dogma which has no shortage of groupies ready to welcome you into the fold, but even Gavin has his upper tolerance limit for ludicrous statements.

There is no more validity in your assumption that it will continue to warm etc. etc. etc. than to say it will be colder etc. etc. etc. for the next 50 to 100 years. On the other hand, the last 9 years haven't been a stellar period for AGW.

BTW, I'm not exactly a young greenhorn buck either.

a_unique_person

23rd July 2007, 10:30 PM

Repeated requests for empirical evidence demonstrating CO2 as the main driver of climate and what the true value for climate sensitivity of the earth is have gone on deaf ears.

Deaf ears just not reading the IPCC correctly? The IPCC has never claimed CO2 is the main driver of climate. The Milankovich cycles and sun appear to do that. However when these are stable, as they are at the moment, then CO2 is doing the job.

Pipirr

24th July 2007, 05:26 AM

Sorry sorry. I thought AGW was Anti-Global Warming. I do not belive GW is human made.

No problem. ;)

varwoche

24th July 2007, 09:44 AM

On the other hand, the last 9 years haven't been a stellar period for AGW. What do you base this on?

CapelDodger

24th July 2007, 05:10 PM

With all due respect, each IPCC report has downgraded it's projections (IPCC authors claim they don't make predictions despite numerous use of the word throughout their reports) from the previous. Given this and that climate models are the basis for AGW predictions, how can it be said climate models have any confident degree of certainty? To say current observations match climate model predictions is difficult to follow since each IPCC report is downgraded.

The range of the predictions has narrowed in each IPCC report as the science and observations have advanced. The upper bound (for each emission scenario) has reduced while the lower bound has increased.

Would it be fair to say the first IPCC in 1990 was hysterical or simply "mistaken"?

It would be inaccurate to describe it as either. It did what it purported to, presented a review of the contemporary science. It didn't claim to do anything else, or even to be definitive.

Is there anything in the first IPCC report that you consider to be hysterical or mistaken?

I am interested in your evaluation of climate models since the myriad of data suggests they have serious problems with forecasting accuracy. Links to peer reviewed studies (statistical or otherwise) would be helpful and please refrain from long protracted speeches with links to opinions and news headline sensationalism.

I don't do links much, and know the newspaper industry far too well to associate myself with it on my own time. I do perhaps tend towards the verbose; us old guys do ramble on, don't we.

Global cllimate models have come a long way since we sketched castles in the air over beers back in the 70's. (Of course, there's more computing power in my PC than there was on the whole UEA campus back then, probably more than in the whole of East Anglia come to that.) In principle they're not that difficult a problem - weather-forecasting is of a much higher order. Climate is just about the bounds within which weather happens. GCM's perform very well against historical outcomes - which includes the last two decades, of course. There's no reason to think they'll suddenly deteriorate, so I take their predictions very seriously.

The big push now is into regional weather models, such as hurricane or Indian Ocean monsoon models. Only those can predict the practical impact of any given global climate.

There's some work going into ice-dynamics models, but that's mostly wasted effort, in my opinion. They'll still be playing catch-up when the complicated stuff has left the stadium.

There is nothing scientifically based at all in your last five posts.

Probably not, since they were about this thread and the AGW "scene" generally. Schneibster et al have dealt with the science already.

Save the fact of increased use of coal, oil, natural gas and their derivatives to improve our way of life, your entire post is rife with subjective rhetoric and opinion, which seems acceptable from one side of the isle but not the other.

I've reviewed the post, and I don't see "rhetoric". As to "opinion", well, it's not opinion that science doesn't do value-judgments. It's not opinion that the burning of fossil-fuels has led to 380ppmCO2 - an increase of about a third of pre-industrial levels - and acidification of the oceans. It's not opinion that this will have an effect on the climate, nor is it opinion that it will be significant in human terms. Heck, in human terms two bad summers in a row has a significant effect on a lot of people.

It's my opinion, no question, that the climate will continue to warm. When I stake my reputation on it, I'm not doing it rhetorically. If I turn out to be wrong, I'll hands-up assume the status of prole, and deservedly so. I'm happy to place that stake because I'm betting on physics, not wishful-thinking. And I'm not even betting against a stake. Like evolution, I either lose or survive for yet another round.

Repeated requests for empirical evidence demonstrating CO2 as the main driver of climate and what the true value for climate sensitivity of the earth is have gone on deaf ears.

What you'll find, if you look, is that people have tried to extract specific questions from this general ragout, and have addressed them.

You say, in this particular stew, "CO2 as the main driver of climate". What is one to make of this? Do you mean "the main driver [forcing] of current climate change"? That's very much the consensus scientific view.

If you mean "the main driver [forcing] of historical climate", nobody claims that. Historically, CO2 has been a positive feedback to climate change by other means. There are a few incidents that have been theoretically attributed to sudden CO2-bursts generated by massive methane-clathrate disruption, but it's a controversial subject.

Nonetheless, since both of the above are critical in the calculations, shall we have a go at climate models then? After all, they are as has been said the 'Holy Writ' of AGW, therefore we must invoke the infallibility axiom as is done with AGW opposition, or will the new tried and true scientific method of AGW of fake-but-accurate, wrong-but-plausible and inaccurate-but-good 'nuff be the rule?

Rhetorical.

Let us skip Hansen's 1988 prophecy utterances ...

You mean the state-of-the-80's-art Hansen et al model that, for Scenario B (which turned out to be the best approximation of the actual scenario) turned out to be right there towards the centre of the ballpark?

There were prophecies back then. Clouds will stop it happening, for instance. No, they didn't.

... unless you'd like to re-hash it.

Well, why not? I'm not yet bored by your reasons why being right blows your game.

No, despite your best efforts to show otherwise by linking to your favorite blogs attempting to spin the numbers, from purely a statistician's evaluation it doesn't cut the mustard; it is statistical garbage.

Do you get out much? I mean really out, where you can get rained on? Do you have a garden?

The reason why climate change has crawled its way up a well-greased public-opinion pole over the last couple of decades is nothing to do with statistics. It's down to ordinary people's experiences.

rockoon

25th July 2007, 01:23 AM

The range of the predictions has narrowed in each IPCC report as the science and observations have advanced. The upper bound (for each emission scenario) has reduced while the lower bound has increased.

So we could take the "average", right?

(prediction.max + prediction.min) / 2

Now, there are some technical problems with this methodology, but lets not forget that we are measuring something meaningful :rolleyes:

varwoche

25th July 2007, 10:31 AM

the last 9 years haven't been a stellar period for AGW. What do you base this on?
Unless and until you provide some convincing evidence, I'm left with the opinion that you have picked some sour cherries.

(I'm batting 0 for 2 on this simple question, the last time with casebro (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2759169#post2759169).)

CapelDodger

25th July 2007, 03:19 PM

So we could take the "average", right?

Take it for what? A walk? :confused:

CapelDodger

25th July 2007, 04:21 PM

Your warning to oglommi of ridicule for daring to question the notion of AGW in a "skeptic" forum (an oxymoron) ...

I referred specifically to oglommi's descrption of the IPCC reports as hysterical. Which is ridiculous, and thus likely to be ridiculed. In your mind this transmogrifies into ridiculing any questioning of AGW. Rather typical of the contrarian whining that's charcterised this thread. Frankly, I'm sick of hearing contarians complain about how they can't be heard. There are thousands of websites and blogs out there saying the same thing. It's a constant drone.

... would be equally applied if you quoted yourself verbatim at an actual climate science blog, with the exception of possibly RealClimate, the repository for AGW dogma which has no shortage of groupies ready to welcome you into the fold, but even Gavin has his upper tolerance limit for ludicrous statements.

Would "actual climate-science blog" mean a contrarian one? Been there, tried that, got called a Marxist tree-hugging faggot, cut my losses and left.

That "AGW dogma" is, I assume, your term for AGW science, and climate science in general. Science is the opposite of dogma. Orwellian strategy only works when backed by Orwellian influence. Which you don't got, bro'.

There is no more validity in your assumption that it will continue to warm etc. etc. etc. than to say it will be colder etc. etc. etc. for the next 50 to 100 years.

My conclusion that the world will continue to warm for the next century can (and will) be validated because it is based on physics and sound reasoning. The world will continue to warm.

The assumption that it will get cooler is based on wishful-thinking, and will be invalidated. Not that there won't continue to be predictions of cooling just up-the-line. The Rapture's as likely to occur first. In my opinion.

On the other hand, the last 9 years haven't been a stellar period for AGW.

Could you elaborate on that?

It's been a warming period; the trend is still upwards within the predicted range. The solar and cosmic ray alternative theories have been consigned to the round file by another 9 years of observations. Lindzen's Iris hasn't opened (not that it was ever widely expected to) and cloud-cover has changed in the predicted manner (which is to say, not much).

Outside the scientific orbit, the least persuadable of political cliques (excepting the Poles, who do exception deliberately, if you ask me) have come around and public acceptance of AGW has risen steadily. This can't be attributed to superior marketing vis a vis the contrarian camp. It has to be attributed to what's actually happened.

Thirty years ago AGW was a tentative prediction, twenty years ago it was a worrying prediction, ten years ago it was arguably evident, and now we're clearly experiencing it. It's happening, it's been happening, and it's going to continue happening. Get over it, move on to it not being a big thing. Or even being a good thing if that's your bent

BTW, I'm not exactly a young greenhorn buck either.

You don't look it :) . I reckon oglommi does, though. I don't think it's just a language thing - oglommi's English is commendable.

No offence meant, oglommi, the young get patronised by the old in every language. It's all we've got left :) .

rockoon

25th July 2007, 05:43 PM

Take it for what? A walk? :confused:

A claim was made that the IPCC temperature predictions have been lowered since 1990.

Your response, worded as a refutation, was on the order of "but the predicted low got higher." In other words, you did not use any methodology that would actualy refute the claim, but instead just used words that sound like they refute the claim.

I suggested a methodology that, if implimented, might refute the claim.

Instead of implimenting the methodology (or any other methodology) that might accomplish your goal of refuting the claim, instead you implimented more word tactics.

(If you DID impliment it, you wouldnt like the results, so don't bother)

varwoche

26th July 2007, 12:37 PM

On the other hand, the last 9 years haven't been a stellar period for AGW.

What do you base this on? Since David Rodale won't answer then I will: There is no basis. The inferred claim is so absurd that it defies credulity.

CapelDodger

26th July 2007, 03:23 PM

A claim was made that the IPCC temperature predictions have been lowered since 1990.

Your response, worded as a refutation, was on the order of "but the predicted low got higher." In other words, you did not use any methodology that would actualy refute the claim, but instead just used words that sound like they refute the claim.

I'll try a different formulation. The predictions are that future temperatures will lie within a certain range. That range has narrowed over time, and the upper limit has reduced, but that does not mean that the predictions have lowered. That would only apply if the upper limit was the prediction, which it wasn't.

I suggested a methodology that, if implimented, might refute the claim.

Instead of implimenting the methodology (or any other methodology) that might accomplish your goal of refuting the claim, instead you implimented more word tactics.

There's no methodology that can extract a prediction from the range, since the range is the prediction. David Rodale's claim that the prediction has lowered does rather assume that a specific prediction can be extracted from the ranges, so perhaps you should ask him what methodology he used.

(If you DID impliment it, you wouldnt like the results, so don't bother)

From that I take it you've engaged in this exercise and found that the centre of the range has reduced. Which simply tells us that the uncertainty of the upper bound was (and probably still is) greater than the uncertainty of the lower bound. But less uncertain now than previously.

CapelDodger

26th July 2007, 03:36 PM

Since David Rodale won't answer then I will: There is no basis. The inferred claim is so absurd that it defies credulity.

I think I know this one :cool: .

1998 was the warmest year on record and the result's not yet in on 2007, which is nine bad years, neh? Even Egypt only got seven bad years, and look how they've ended up. Once all the rage, now completely discredited. We're on the ropes, dude. Just one more good punch (such as a credible alternative to AGW or the advent of a real cooling-trend) and we're out.

Safe-Keeper

30th July 2007, 02:36 AM

On the 'How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic' page, the one I thought about was here:
http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics#Stages%20of%20DenialIt's apparently the same arguments, though.

I never even thought about questioning it, looking into it, until I saw the religious like attacks on anyone who did question it. That got my attention. Why would anyone with a brain be so emotional, so irrational, so petty as to personally attack somebody for asking questions, or having a different view about Global Warming?

I'm funny that way, but when I see dumb behavior, stuff that makes no sense, I start wondering why. Why is questioning something viewed as heresy? How did a scientific Theory become the same as Church Doctrine? What the hell is going on when skeptics, logical, scientific people, start sounding like the faithful?Because the fear tactics are working and people are scared. It's like when the US wanted to go into Iraq and everyone who disagreed were hounded mercilessly. I remember trying to participate in forum debates in 2003 and watching every single one slide into mudslinging after only a few posts. The GOP did everything in their power after 9/11 to scare everyone to pieces about terrorism, and it worked. Same with global warming. Same with every issue subjected to the horrors of a fear regime.

It's also disconcerting that everyone who questions the debate or anything in it have to start with an 'I know global warming is real and...' disclaimer to avoid getting flamed to death. All in all, it worries me. It's worried me for quite a while, actually.

I feel a bit like a fundie de-converting when I admit that I've been guilty of this kind of 'fundamentalism' myself.

varwoche

30th July 2007, 09:10 AM

1998 was the warmest year on record and the result's not yet in on 2007 I know about 1998 and el nino. One has to marvel at cherry picking taken to such levels of buffoonery.

(And btw, apparently 2005 surpassed 1998 (http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/2005_warmest.html).)

CapelDodger

30th July 2007, 01:52 PM

The GOP did everything in their power after 9/11 to scare everyone to pieces about terrorism, and it worked. Same with global warming. Same with every issue subjected to the horrors of a fear regime.

(A word to the wise : this could be interpreted to mean that the GOP is drumming-up fear of climate change, and there are unkind people out there who are quite capable of doing that to score points off you.)

What "fear regime" are you referring to here?

It's also disconcerting that everyone who questions the debate or anything in it have to start with an 'I know global warming is real and...' disclaimer to avoid getting flamed to death.

If you think there's flaming going on here, you should check out the Politics Forum. Dive straight in - start with anything concerning the Levant. :eek:

CapelDodger

30th July 2007, 02:54 PM

I know about 1998 and el nino. One has to marvel at cherry picking taken to such levels of buffoonery.

It seems to take the likes of me to say it en claire, though. Otherwise it's left at "a bad nine years for AGW" or some such. That way the dread words "El Nino" need not be used or seen. (I, too, recall the casebro example of the same thing.)

(And btw, apparently 2005 surpassed 1998 (http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/2005_warmest.html).)

That's according to one measure, so you're leaving yourself open to accusations of cherry-picking. An opening some people are unkind enough to exploit. Best not mention in at all, IMO. The less one elaborates, the less contrarians have to play mis-direct with.

"The facts, ma'am. Just the facts." And your esteemed Lists, of course :) .

CapelDodger

30th July 2007, 03:26 PM

It's also disconcerting that everyone who questions the debate or anything in it have to start with an 'I know global warming is real and...' disclaimer to avoid getting flamed to death. All in all, it worries me. It's worried me for quite a while, actually.

Further to this, I came to this thread when it was already well-developed (if that's the appropriate term) and was struck by it's early plot-arc.

Post 1 : OP question.

Post 2 : Schneibster answers OP question.

Posts 3-8 : various links and references relevant to the OP question (one from your good self)

Post 9 : Diamond accuses scientists of deliberate fraud on a wide scale. Really wide.

Post 10 : mhaze agrees with him.

Post 11 : mhaze expresses preference for contrarian posters

Post 12 : JoeEllison posts something uncharitable (as is his wont) but not targeted at any previous poster or post.

Post 13 : mhaze is back to the widespread scientific fraud.

Post 14 Big Al's in there claiming that people are being "flamed to cinders". :confused:

Overwrought? Or hysterical? We report, you decide.

On page 1 mhaze introduces the term "alarmism" and on page 2 (I think) brings in Al Gore. Who saw that coming? Well, quite a few of the older-timers here ...

Diamond turns up with accusations of scientific fraud only remotely related to the OP, later brings up the CO2 lag at the end of inter-glacials (the
irrelevance of which, and explanation for, he's been repeatedly provided with), and "historical revisionism". Once again, right on cue.

You'll appreciate why exasperation has to be actively suppressed, which can lead to tetchyness. So can certain behaviour, for instance

Diamond to Megalodon :"Clean up on aisle 6. Enormous can of stupid logical fallacies burst wide open"

Megalodon : "BTW, care to show those logical fallacies?"

Diamond : "Why certainly. Let's go through them at a pace you can understand. I'll type extra slowly for clarity."

Megalodon : "Having read your post, I can say it didn't help... try thinking next time."

Diamond :" And back to the insults. Can't deal with the science, so just insult instead."How can anyone not want to slap someone like Diamond? I think the restraint generally shown is remarkable. I did let go a bit on another post just recently, but he asked to be spared my "passive-aggression" (politeness to you and me) so I spared him the passive. Always ready to oblige, me. Even for someone who's called me a racist more than once.
There's a debating tactic (it quite possibly has a name) which involves provoking your antagonist then, once the desired response has been elicited, start shouting "Ooh, look, I'm being suppressed! Come and see the violence inherent in the system!". It's seldom used by the side with the stronger arguments.

At this point I'll bring up the claim by the AGW-is-real camp that the Bush White House has use political placemen in federal institutions in an attempt to keep scientists "on-message" vis-a-vis Climate Change. (For instance, referring to "climate change" rather than "global warming" if they really really think they should bring the subject up at all.) I can see how that might be presented as equivalent to the "I'm being suppressed!" argument, but it isn't, for the simple reason that there's no claim that it worked worth a damn. It simply had no chance in the good ol' US of A. Gotta love the place in principle, and quite a lot in practice.

articulett

30th July 2007, 05:58 PM

Capel Dodger-- I find you an eloquent font of clarity and humor amidst the obfuscating spin.

JoeEllison

30th July 2007, 06:01 PM

Post 12 : JoeEllison posts something uncharitable (as is his wont) but not targeted at any previous poster or post.

I have a "wont"? What color is it?:)

CapelDodger

30th July 2007, 06:13 PM

Capel Dodger-- I find you an eloquent font of clarity and humor amidst the obfuscating spin.

I am gratified by your good opinion of what I aim at, since I have a very good opinion of you. Which is the kind of opinion I care about.

David Rodale

30th July 2007, 10:09 PM

Unless and until you provide some convincing evidence, I'm left with the opinion that you have picked some sour cherries.

(I'm batting 0 for 2 on this simple question, the last time with casebro (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2759169#post2759169).)

Some folks have busy lives.....job, family etc. I assure you I will reply to as much as possible in due time.

At such time I too will have some questions of my own. The difference will be you won't be able to answer them with any acceptable degree of scientific evidence or certainty within the bounds of statistical methodology.

Safe-Keeper

30th July 2007, 10:34 PM

Easy there, Dodger, I wasn't saying there was significant flaming here in this thread, nor at JREF forums (I'm unfamiliar with this place), it was more of a general observation.

What "fear regime" are you referring to here?I'm talking about how certain media outlets making this sound as frightening as possible, and of An Inconvenient Truth using fear as a tool (which I felt it did).

articulett

31st July 2007, 01:47 AM

Easy there, Dodger, I wasn't saying there was significant flaming here in this thread, nor at JREF forums (I'm unfamiliar with this place), it was more of a general observation.

I'm talking about how certain media outlets making this sound as frightening as possible, and of An Inconvenient Truth using fear as a tool (which I felt it did).

From my observation and association with various scientists, it would serve humanity well to be more fearful. A suspicious lump is worth looking into and treating, don't you think? This lump is growing. How else would you expect those who understand this to act? If you saw someone with a suspicious growth and you knew that time was of essence, would you be any different? What would it take for you to understand that the fear generated by that film was underplayed? I think much of the media is pretending there are controversies where there are none-- that's the tool I see media using-- because money speaks.

rockoon

31st July 2007, 01:48 AM

I'll try a different formulation. The predictions are that future temperatures will lie within a certain range. That range has narrowed over time, and the upper limit has reduced, but that does not mean that the predictions have lowered. That would only apply if the upper limit was the prediction, which it wasn't.

Can you refute the claim?

(I'll warn you again that you wont like the results if you investigate the matter)

There's no methodology that can extract a prediction from the range, since the range is the prediction.

There is a methodology that extracts an average from a range.

This methodology is legacy earth science stuff that produces a meaningful value. Your partner in alarm, AUP, does not deny this. Infact he states this very thing in this very thread. The measurement of average global temperatures is founded on this very technique.

Perhaps you are claiming that its only a meaningful value if you agree with the result?

David Rodale's claim that the prediction has lowered does rather assume that a specific prediction can be extracted from the ranges, so perhaps you should ask him what methodology he used.

The climate sciences assume that an average can be extracted from ranges.

From that I take it you've engaged in this exercise and found that the centre of the range has reduced. Which simply tells us that the uncertainty of the upper bound was (and probably still is) greater than the uncertainty of the lower bound. But less uncertain now than previously.

Are you stating that there are no other explanations that can be drawn from the field of statistics, that you have identified the only explanation?

Remember. I have looked at the data and you have not. Tread carefully. Yes, I am baiting you. I will again warn you to tread carefully but please do answer my questions honestly. I will accept an answer of "well I really havent thought about it at all and have just been making things up" as a valid termination of this offshoot.

Safe-Keeper

31st July 2007, 06:51 AM

What would it take for you to understand that the fear generated by that film was underplayed? Actually, I feel it was overplayed. I respect and fear global warming, trust me, I do. However, the movie, while balanced, overdid it in some cases. For example, it stated that the Greenland ice was melting rapidly and that if it all melted away, sea levels would rise 20 (?) feet. However, I read elsewhere that the soonest this can happen is in 1000 years, and it seems Al Gore 'forgot' to mention this in his documentary.

I think much of the media is pretending there are controversies where there are none-- that's the tool I see media using-- because money speaks.The Norwegian media, at least the papers I read (Bergens Tidende and Aftenposten, should anyone be interested), seem to be opposite. Norway's #1 in the world when it comes to climate fears, so fear is what sells here.

I made a thread on it here (http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?t=178520), and I think it clarifies matters.

CapelDodger

31st July 2007, 03:52 PM

Can you refute the claim?

I've pointed out that the claim is meaningless. It refers to the IPCC projection as if it is a specific number, which it isn't. The projection is a range.

(I'll warn you again that you wont like the results if you investigate the matter)

That's a bit cryptic.

There is a methodology that extracts an average from a range.

This methodology is legacy earth science stuff that produces a meaningful value. Your partner in alarm, AUP, does not deny this. Infact he states this very thing in this very thread. The measurement of average global temperatures is founded on this very technique.

The IPCC projection is not the average of a range, it is the range itself.

Perhaps you are claiming that its only a meaningful value if you agree with the result?

I'm just trying to use plain English to convey a simple point. The IPCC projection is a range, not the average of a range.

The climate sciences assume that an average can be extracted from ranges.

Of course it can. The IPCC projection, of course, is not an average of a range, it is the range itself.

Are you stating that there are no other explanations that can be drawn from the field of statistics, that you have identified the only explanation?

It's an obvious inferrence, and the obvious is often the actuality. The upper bound has come down further, even in relative terms, than the lower bound has risen. That implies a greater initial uncertainty in the upper bound. It's not a cast-iron implication, but it's good enough to need a strong alternative explanation to raise reasonable doubt. Doubt should be reasonable - we're not Philosophers, after all. We're practical, scientific types.

Remember. I have looked at the data and you have not.

I've read the IPCC reports and looked at the projections. (AGW is a subject I'm quite engaged with, as it happens.) What other data is relevant?

Tread carefully. Yes, I am baiting you.

And making a dreadful hash of it. Please carry on.

I will again warn you to tread carefully but please do answer my questions honestly. I will accept an answer of "well I really havent thought about it at all and have just been making things up" as a valid termination of this offshoot.

Yeah, well, the thing is, you won't be getting that. So just you keep this thing going, it's doing the contrarian camp no end of good. With you and Diamond as poster-boys, how can the cause fail? Your names will go down in the roll-call of history. If I've got any say in the matter, anyway.

CapelDodger

31st July 2007, 04:01 PM

I have a "wont"? What color is it?:)

As black as your heart, you cringing Goreist lackey, streaked with the Deepest Red of the Worker's Flag which you worship :mad: !

I enjoy your posts. Ain't nobody gonna accuse you of passive anything. Of course, you might say such things, and I might smile knowingly, but I couldn't possibly comment. :)

rockoon

31st July 2007, 04:23 PM

The IPCC projection is not the average of a range, it is the range itself.

(high + low) / 2 does not give an average.

I suggest that you correct your reasoning before trying to refute the methodology. You so far have reasoned that (A) this technique produces an average and (B) that averages are not projections.

Since the technique does not produce an average we do not need to visit your claim (B) that averages are not projections.

(although we COULD visit that claim, and destroy it)

It's an obvious inferrence, and the obvious is often the actuality. The upper bound has come down further, even in relative terms, than the lower bound has risen. That implies a greater initial uncertainty in the upper bound. It's not a cast-iron implication, but it's good enough to need a strong alternative explanation to raise reasonable doubt. Doubt should be reasonable - we're not Philosophers, after all. We're practical, scientific types.

This is not how statistics works. You cannot infer information about the certainty of projections using several different techniques just because we applied those techniques in a specific order.

You are claiming that technique D has less uncertainty in the upper bound than technique C, which has less uncertainty than technique B, which has less uncertainty than technique A.

Exactly how do you justify that claim? Surely you arent suggesting that because (D) has a smaller range than (C), that we know something about the certainty of either?

Now, if you could verify that one technique is better than another by estimating their actual certainty .. through a scientific methodology .. then you might have something.

The fact is that we don't know the certainty of ANY of these projections. They are completely unverified.

mhaze

31st July 2007, 04:26 PM

Here is a guy down in Australia (http://gustofhotair.blogspot.com/) doing some statistical analysis of Australian weather. He's figured out something that Jones et. al. didn't get - that you can't use (tmax-tmin)/2 to get the average daily temperature.

It's an historical way of giving an indication of the average temperature for a day, that was settled on over a hundred years ago as a way of getting a simple metric for temperature. It doesn't claim to be any more than it is, but it is a useful for what it does. Jones et all didn't create the idea, they were just using what is historically accepted, despite the technical issues people can raise. It measures something meaningful, and it has been used for a long time.

It comes from an old mechanical thermometer design that auto set a marker at min and max. So that is what data you get and that is all you have to work with. But using this mixed with T average data means all signal is lost in noise.

Invalidates the whole study on UHI by Jones....

CapelDodger

31st July 2007, 04:39 PM

Easy there, Dodger, I wasn't saying there was significant flaming here in this thread, nor at JREF forums (I'm unfamiliar with this place), it was more of a general observation.

Which I used as a hook to hang an observation about this particular thread on. Big Al took the punch-line, you'll notice.

We're pretty civilised around here, except for Politics which does get rowdy.

I'm talking about how certain media outlets making this sound as frightening as possible, and of An Inconvenient Truth using fear as a tool (which I felt it did).

I don't get the "fear regime" vibe from this. FoxNews is certainly not included; over here we have the Daily Mail and Torygraph which are definitely not part of it, and there's still that "balance" in most of the broadcast media that flatters the contrarian cause.

An Inconvenient Truth is meant to be a warning, and how do you warn without introducing fear? Or at least concern? One person's "raising concern" is another's "fear-mongering". Or (buzz-word alert) "alarmism".

The AGW argument has had to swim through mud to get the recognition it has today in political and public opinion terms. It's a triumph of Science. Allied with everyday experience. All this religious BS that seems so critical today will be laughed at in a generation or two. Mark my words.

CapelDodger

31st July 2007, 04:56 PM

Invalidates the whole study on UHI by Jones....

Well that'll make AGW go away. Strap me, we were that close to being screwed and at the last moment the critical study was repudiated.

I was sorta concerned for a while back there. But no more. Which doesn't mean I don't get to enjoy my early blackberry crop or the second raspberry crop that's promised. Absent an early frost, and how likely is that? A late frost is remarkable around here these days.

CapelDodger

31st July 2007, 05:18 PM

(high + low) / 2 does not give an average.

That depends on what you're taking the average of. The IPCC prediction is not an average of anything. It's a range.

I suggest that you correct your reasoning before trying to refute the methodology. You so far have reasoned that (A) this technique produces an average and (B) that averages are not projections.

I've reasoned nothing of the sort. I've stuck with the fact that the IPCC projection is a range. Not any kind of average extracted from said range, but a range.

Since the technique does not produce an average we do not need to visit your claim (B) that averages are not projections.

Which is not my claim. Never was, nor anything like. My only claim is that the IPCC reports each predict a range. Those ranges constitute the predictions.

(although we COULD visit that claim, and destroy it)

Since you built it yourself, you can probably spot its weak-points.

This is not how statistics works. You cannot infer information about the certainty of projections using several different techniques just because we applied those techniques in a specific order.

Did I say that I could? I can't remember doing so, which implies I was drunk at the time; I'm impressed that I could still infer something so convoluted in such a state.

You are claiming that technique D has less uncertainty in the upper bound than technique C, which has less uncertainty than technique B, which has less uncertainty than technique A.

No, I'm not doing any of that. I've made my case. Answer it if you like, or keep making up cases for me and answering them instead.

varwoche

31st July 2007, 05:33 PM

The upper bound has come down further, even in relative terms, than the lower bound has risen. That implies a greater initial uncertainty in the upper bound. It's not a cast-iron implication, but it's good enough to need a strong alternative explanation to raise reasonable doubt. Hey, get with the program CD. How can these marxists scientists be trusted when they constantly revise the numbers? You know, like this evolution business that "skeptics" seem to have swallowed hook, line and sinker. First they say that neanderthals aren't human ancestors. And then they are. Ya sure.

CapelDodger

31st July 2007, 05:47 PM

Actually, I feel it was overplayed. I respect and fear global warming, trust me, I do. However, the movie, while balanced, overdid it in some cases. For example, it stated that the Greenland ice was melting rapidly and that if it all melted away, sea levels would rise 20 (?) feet. However, I read elsewhere that the soonest this can happen is in 1000 years, and it seems Al Gore 'forgot' to mention this in his documentary.

The thousand years you read elsewhere didn't include the Greenland icecap, it simply projects the current 1-2mm per year by thermal expansion into the future. It takes no account of glacial melt at all. We've only starting to see that quite recently, but it's happening more quickly than was expected.

rockoon

31st July 2007, 06:25 PM

I've reasoned nothing of the sort. I've stuck with the fact that the IPCC projection is a range. Not any kind of average extracted from said range, but a range.

You have not shown that the IPCC projections haven't gone down.

You "refuted" the claim that the projections went down by mumbling something about uncertainty, which are facts not on the table. The IPCC themselves state that the certainty of the ranges they give are not the certainty used in a statistical sense. (Note that your arguement relies on it being in the statistical sense, and still falls short)

I suggested a specific metric to you, which has precedence in the climate circles as being applied to ranges, since you yourself also failed to provide a metric that can be used to refute the claim.

You then argued that this metric is an average, and then argued that averages do not apply to ranges or projections.

Since this metric is not an average, you have not argued at all that this metric is not a valid metric for quantifying IPCC projections. We are left with your mumbling about uncertainty.

So the original claim still stands:

The IPCC projections have gone down.

If you wish to show otherwise, please do so.

Perhaps you have simply been unclear about your intent by mixing up words such as 'average' and 'centroid', or 'projections' and 'predictions.'

If you have knowledge of a precedented metric which shows that the projections have not gone down, then simply say what it is.

Which is not my claim. Never was, nor anything like. My only claim is that the IPCC reports each predict a range. Those ranges constitute the predictions.

You specifically argued that the projections have not gone down. You did this without any knowledge of the claimants metric. You still have no knowledge of his metric yet still argue about it.

You also argued that the certainty of the projections has increased. Can I ask what metric you used for this conclusion?

Did I say that I could? I can't remember doing so, which implies I was drunk at the time; I'm impressed that I could still infer something so convoluted in such a state.

You stated that it was an "obvious inference."

Surely you can show why this obvious inference is obvious? Because its not obvious to me since the IPCC doesnt apply satistical certainty to their projections.

The projections are based off running FORECAST MODELS and using the end result of those models as sample points used to derive a projection.

You cannot measure the certainty of the projection in this way, period.

Measuring the certainty of a projection requires objective measurements. What they are measuring and representing with a range is the certainty about where the models end up. They even state this. Did you not read it?

articulett

31st July 2007, 06:26 PM

As black as your heart, you cringing Goreist lackey, streaked with the Deepest Red of the Worker's Flag which you worship :mad: !

I enjoy your posts. Ain't nobody gonna accuse you of passive anything. Of course, you might say such things, and I might smile knowingly, but I couldn't possibly comment. :)

I like JoeEllison too--

Sure, it's off topic... but do you notice how rockoon rhymes with buffoon?

rockoon

31st July 2007, 06:39 PM

I like JoeEllison too--

Sure, it's off topic... but do you notice how rockoon rhymes with buffoon?

I wont make the claim that you are a sock puppet.

JoeEllison

31st July 2007, 06:51 PM

Hey, get with the program CD. How can these marxists scientists be trusted when they constantly revise the numbers? You know, like this evolution business that "skeptics" seem to have swallowed hook, line and sinker. First they say that neanderthals aren't human ancestors. And then they are. Ya sure.
Yeah, and like those doctors too! Sure, yeah, our lifespans have increased steadily, but that's just an effing coincidence! You know, first they say it is demons, then they want to stick leeches on us, then they come up with vaccines that eliminated polio in developed nations... what's next, radiation to treat cancer? New, more powerful drugs?

How about those computer geeks? First the Commodore 64, then the Apple, now this Interwebworld whatever... why can't they just pick something and stick to it? All these changes PROVE that they are just lying to us!

I tell you, they can't be trusted!

mhaze

1st August 2007, 06:04 AM

CapelDodger

1st August 2007, 05:34 PM

I tell you, they can't be trusted!

You can't trust fnord anybody :cool: . Except subliminal shot of kitten on a spit here me. Trust me on that.

A thing about me (look at how I'm pouring my heart out) is that I really like to be right about things. I hate to be wrong, but I'll still risk it given the prospect of the buzz from being right. AGW is a cash-in ticket that just keeps giving. It's a one-horse race however many goats are included.

CapelDodger

1st August 2007, 05:54 PM

No.

That is wrong. Glacial melt is of course part of the model.

No, there isn't a model behind what Safe-keeper read somewhere, what's behind that is a simple projection of the thermal expansion experienced over the last few decades. No climate models accurately represent glacial retreat because they depend on ice-dynamics models that have been proved - by observation - to be seriously flawed.

articulett

1st August 2007, 07:33 PM

The thousand years you read elsewhere didn't include the Greenland icecap, it simply projects the current 1-2mm per year by thermal expansion into the future. It takes no account of glacial melt at all. We've only starting to see that quite recently, but it's happening more quickly than was expected.

Moreover, it neglects feedback loops... and from that front it seems like there was some underestimation.

Everything big starts small... cancer starts as a copying error... and it's a single moment when it breaks off and enters the blood stream to plant itself elsewhere... the sooner you abort or mitigate the process, the better the results... but after a while you are just fighting a losing battle. There is a tendency not to understand exponential outputs amongst the AGW deniers...and the creationists...and those who think overpopulation isn't a problem....

Scientific ignorance has exponentially scary results.

mhaze

2nd August 2007, 06:56 AM

No, there isn't a model behind what Safe-keeper read somewhere, what's behind that is a simple projection of the thermal expansion experienced over the last few decades. No climate models accurately represent glacial retreat because they depend on ice-dynamics models that have been proved - by observation - to be seriously flawed.

Well, I am at a loss for words here. My simple mind which tells me that a 1mm rise per year for 1000 years is 1 meter rise, and a 2mm rise for 1000 years is 2 meters rise, is obviously inadequate.

I am humbled before the perfect knowledge of CP on the peer reviewed article entitled "What Safe-keeper read somewhere". I have no such knowledge, and only presumed that we were discussing 1000 year projections from authoritatitve although flawed sources such as the IPCC.

May I ask what this week's winning lottery numbers are?

Safe-Keeper

2nd August 2007, 02:00 PM

CapelDodger

2nd August 2007, 03:11 PM

Well, I am at a loss for words here. My simple mind which tells me that a 1mm rise per year for 1000 years is 1 meter rise, and a 2mm rise for 1000 years is 2 meters rise, is obviously inadequate.

Hey, don't beat yourself up, it's perfectly adequate as a simple projection.

I am humbled before the perfect knowledge of CP on the peer reviewed article entitled "What Safe-keeper read somewhere".

I did leap wildly to a conclusion there :o .

I have no such knowledge, and only presumed that we were discussing 1000 year projections from authoritatitve although flawed sources such as the IPCC.

The IPCC does thousand year projections? Isn't that way outside their remit?

May I ask what this week's winning lottery numbers are?

Fish :) .

CapelDodger

2nd August 2007, 03:31 PM

mhaze

2nd August 2007, 03:36 PM

It's only a Google search away, pal:

Greenland Melt May Swamp LA, Other Cities, Study Says (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0408_040408_greenlandicemelt.html)
Greenland ice cap 'doomed to meltdown' - 07 April 2004 - New Scientist (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4864)

Yeah. Well, those fall straight into my "alarmist category" and for pretty good reason. Here's why. Greenland does not exist in isolation and cannot melt all by it's lonesome. So let's try to straighten the mess out.

You really need to consider the entire planet glacial balance, right?

There is no perfect understanding of that but what is monitored is found here. (http://nsidc.org/sotc/glacier_balance.html)

As noted in the chart the planet currently loses about 300 km cubed of ice per year. That translates into a sea level rise of 0.6 mm. The generally accepted rule of thumb is that thermal balance is 2/3 of the rise, added water is 1/3. Adding the thermal rise to the 0.6 and you get 1.8mm. So that's roughly where that number came from.

Going the same way with the above mentioned alarmist scenario, you can see that they don't even get the numbers right. 3.85M cu km melting (all of Greenland, as your quote....) yields about 7 meters of sea level rise. Now add the thermal expansion.

Another (relatively non-alarmist, flawed but still authoritative) source for the 20 feet rise, is not the entire melting of Greenland but other studies referenced in the IPCC report 1000 year worst case projection.

Now we need to worry about what, exactly?:rolleyes:

CapelDodger

2nd August 2007, 04:40 PM

Moreover, it neglects feedback loops... and from that front it seems like there was some underestimation.

This argument's been going on so long that it's easy to lose sight of the fact that we can actually start observing feedbacks instead of speculating about them (based on the science, but speculation all the same). Ice-dynamics modellers are playing catch-up with real outcomes, and will be for quite some time, IMO.

... those who think overpopulation isn't a problem....

It won't be for long. It never is. Death is Nature's way of right-sizing.

Scientific ignorance has exponentially scary results.

Yes, but the madness always peaks. It's a truism that in a space-limited system - such as a planet's surface - exponential changes are time-limited, usually catastrophically.

I'm pretty sold on the Great Wave view of history, which envisions a curved saw-tooth representation of human "progress". Relatively long periods of stability and growth with relatively short periods of crisis in-between, when the exponential effect kicks-in wickedly. We're in one of those crisis periods right now. Interesting times. Not what I'd have ordered for myself (I'm satisfied with reading about them in security and comfort) but there it is.

One very clear trend through history is that science, technology, and rational thought keep on prospering. That's a long wave that has never yet peaked. I think they'll come out of this crisis even stronger than they were back in the 50's and 60's. Absence of jet-packs notwithstanding :mad: .

Religion today won't help anybody through what's coming, and will be the talking-point and laughing-stock of near-future generations. Denial of AGW, with its necessary assault on science itself, will be lumped into the same basket.

(Notice how easily I predict times when I'll be dead already :) .)

CapelDodger

2nd August 2007, 04:55 PM

You really need to consider the entire planet glacial balance, right?

Not if you're considering speculative land-purchase in Greenland. A market to get into right now; there are hedge-funds already casting an eye across it. It may look like buying ice, but you're actually buying the land beneath it. Very, very cheaply. And this is the New England commuter belt of the near-future. You don't even have to wait that long to cash-in; buy now, sell to a hedge-fund in a year or two.

CapelDodger

2nd August 2007, 05:57 PM

Yeah. Well, those fall straight into my "alarmist category" ...

If a thousand-year timescale is alarming, that's one wide category.

and for pretty good reason.

What springs to mind is that you're easily alarmed.

Here's why. Greenland does not exist in isolation and cannot melt all by it's lonesome.

But it will feel like it to poor Greenland. And just as much water will abandon it for lower ground.

So let's try to straighten the mess out.

You really need to consider the entire planet glacial balance, right?

See above. If Greenland's the issue, as Safe-Keeper posted and I lost track of, Andean glaciers (for instance) are extraneous.

There is no perfect understanding of that but what is monitored is found here. (http://nsidc.org/sotc/glacier_balance.html)

As noted in the chart the planet currently loses about 300 km cubed of ice per year. That translates into a sea level rise of 0.6 mm. The generally accepted rule of thumb is that thermal balance is 2/3 of the rise, added water is 1/3.

There's a "rule of thumb" already :confused: ? There's no established tradition here. Thermal expansion of the oceans is calculated from estimated (via observed and theoretical extrapolation of) oceanic temperatures and the known physical behaviour of water. The effect of glacial melt-water is calculated from the observed and extrapolated glacial retreat. There's no connection between the two, no "two parts of this to one part of that" that constitute a rule-of-thumb. If it happens to be so at some transitory point it's a passing correlation, not a connection.

Adding the thermal rise to the 0.6 and you get 1.8mm. So that's roughly where that number came from.

Where did this "rule-of-thumb" originate, and what scientist referred to it?

Going the same way with the above mentioned alarmist scenario, you can see that they don't even get the numbers right.

Well, they're only scientists. What numerate are they likely to be?

3.85M cu km melting (all of Greenland, as your quote....) yields about 7 meters of sea level rise.

That's about the 20 feet (imperial measure) quoted as the contribution of a thoroughly melted Greenland icecap to sea-level.

Now add the thermal expansion.

Well, yeah, there'll be that other problem alongside the 7m contribution of the Greenland icecap exit. That's not the point being made. The thermal expansion will depend on ocean temperature, which is minimally connected to what might be streaming (or sliding) off Greenland. You're surely not suggesting that the thermal expansion will be twice the Greenland effect because Nature goes by rule-of-thumb.

Another (relatively non-alarmist, flawed but still authoritative) source for the 20 feet rise, is not the entire melting of Greenland but other studies referenced in the IPCC report 1000 year worst case projection.

The IPCC does a thousand year projection and defines a worst case? I'd love to see that worst case; I bet I could come up with a worse one :cool: .

Now we need to worry about what, exactly?:rolleyes:

Not what's going on in 3007, that's for sure. If I was trying to alarm anybody, I'd use something more immediate.

mhaze

2nd August 2007, 06:55 PM

You're surely not suggesting that the thermal expansion will be twice the Greenland effect because Nature goes by rule-of-thumb.

What, you want to talk about just "extapolating the 1 to 2 mm out to a thousand years" and not give me the right to make up a quick rule of thumb? The ratio was from the IPCC reports. I'm not interested in figuring thermal expansion of oceans, but my opinion is your guess on it is as good as the models. It does not matter. You appear to be focusing on Greenland. Total ice balance is all that matters, right?

The IPCC does a thousand year projection and defines a worst case? I'd love to see that worst case; I bet I could come up with a worse one :cool: .No need to. Hansen, Lovelock and others appear to do that job quite nicely. Oops. They are supposed to be scientists. Hmm... I might have a little trouble with that.

Not what's going on in 3007, that's for sure. If I was trying to alarm anybody, I'd use something more immediate.Or play the Gore game and just leave the 1000 year timescale out. Follow the seas rushing inland with pleas that we gotta act now.

David Rodale

2nd August 2007, 07:51 PM

Yeah. Well, those fall straight into my "alarmist category" and for pretty good reason. Here's why. Greenland does not exist in isolation and cannot melt all by it's lonesome. So let's try to straighten the mess out.

You really need to consider the entire planet glacial balance, right?

There is no perfect understanding of that but what is monitored is found here. (http://nsidc.org/sotc/glacier_balance.html)

As noted in the chart the planet currently loses about 300 km cubed of ice per year. That translates into a sea level rise of 0.6 mm. The generally accepted rule of thumb is that thermal balance is 2/3 of the rise, added water is 1/3. Adding the thermal rise to the 0.6 and you get 1.8mm. So that's roughly where that number came from.

Going the same way with the above mentioned alarmist scenario, you can see that they don't even get the numbers right. 3.85M cu km melting (all of Greenland, as your quote....) yields about 7 meters of sea level rise. Now add the thermal expansion.

Another (relatively non-alarmist, flawed but still authoritative) source for the 20 feet rise, is not the entire melting of Greenland but other studies referenced in the IPCC report 1000 year worst case projection.

Now we need to worry about what, exactly?:rolleyes:

Reading the first sentence in those Greenland links is all it took:
The Greenland ice sheet is all but doomed to melt away to nothing, according to a new modelling study. If it does melt, global sea levels will rise by seven metres, flooding most of the world's coastal regions.
On the one hand Greenland is doomed in the first sentence, then the second begins with If. Now that's reassuring doublespeak. Add the modeling study and what you've got is junk science. It must be true if 'Nature' published it, correct?

A more scientific approach:
http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Chylek/greenland_warming.html
Temperature increases in the two warming periods are of a similar magnitude, however, the rate of warming in 1920-1930 was about 50% higher than that in 1995 - 2005.
So much for "it's warming faster than it ever has".

Not to forget:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/greenland/vintheretal2006.pdf
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/subject/s/summaries/sealevelgreenland.jsp
http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/132.pdf (covers MWP as well)

And perhaps the ball breaker:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070705153019.htm

How many times must it be shown that Greenland warming is neither catastrophic nor "unprecedented"? It is understandable why AGW history re-writers keep attempting to breathe life into a dead horse, which is why it must be kicked every so often to prove it is still dead. Over 200 well documented research papers, and you guys are still putting bandaids on the hockey stick. Amazing.

As for all this unprecedented warming we've had the last 30+ years, it's hard to find. CD, would you point it out for us? Ah, that's right, it's 50 years down the road. Reviewing the numbers from 28 years of satellite monitoring:
http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d54/corn_burner/global%20warming/satellitedata.jpg

IPCC models show methane levels continuing to rise, yet it has stopped flat. Any explanation? Did cows stop flatulating and belching? Looks like a another parameter adjustment is due in the models.

IPCC in 2001 "projected" 21 ft. sea level rise. A bit off there.

CD, you say you base your rock solid predictions of non-stop catastrophic warming on physics and simple reasoning (whatever that means). Would you please cite the physics paper that explains how a 2+C rise in temperature comes about from a doubling of CO2? Also the climate sensitivity. Have fun wading through the monotony of confusion.

Now back to "unprecedented" warming. For the heck of it, I looked up U.S. temperature records. Strange, well over 90% are pre-1970, and that's using surface measurements.
http://ggweather.com/climate/extremes_us.htm

Let's get down to the brass tacks. You are relying on climate models. I will rely on old Mr. Sun. We are currently coming out of solar cycle 23, overdue for SC24. The last 9 years have been flat for AGW. You say it will continue to warm, I say it most certainly will not based on current solar indicators. Keep in mind there is lag response. Watch what happens in the next year or two.

For future reference, please stop posting those silly "fact sheets" which are little more than opinions, appeal to Authority and unsubstantiated garble by journalists.

Safe-Keeper

3rd August 2007, 03:23 AM

On the one hand Greenland is doomed in the first sentence, then the second begins with If. Now that's reassuring doublespeak. Add the modeling study and what you've got is junk science. It must be true if 'Nature' published it, correct?It actually says that the Greenland ice is all but doomed to melt, validating the later 'if'. /nitpick

Over 200 well documented research papers, and you guys are still putting bandaids on the hockey stick. 'Putting bandaids on'? What an exceptionally weird way of describing our support of a model supported by loads of evidence. Look, the original hockey stick was a hoax. New studies, however, proved the hoax to be miraculously accurate. Source. (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/paleolast.html)

So much for "it's warming faster than it ever has".I don't recall saying otherwise. What people say is that the ice is melting faster than it ever has. Big difference there.

How many times must it be shown that Greenland warming is neither catastrophic nor "unprecedented"?:confused:I don't recall calling it catastrophic, as a matter of fact I've just spent some posts trying to clear up just that misconception: Al Gore made it sound as if the Greenland melting was an immediate danger, omitting that the soonest it could cause a 20ft rise in sea levels was a thousand years into the future.

As for all this unprecedented warming we've had the last 30+ years, it's hard to find.Not quite. For starters, there's a very helpful chart in your own post, slightly below the above quoted statement, that shows the warming trend as of late quite clearly.

Now back to "unprecedented" warming. For the heck of it, I looked up U.S. temperature records.You realize what global warming means, right? That the global temperature is, and is going to increase on average, not necessarily that US temperature will. If you have four numeric variables, 3, 3, 3 and 3 (12 in total, 3 on average), and they change to 2, 3, 4, 5 (14 in total, 3.5 on average), the total number and average have both increased, even though not all variables have.

Now we need to worry about what, exactly?:rolleyes:I hope, for your dignity's sake, that you're not trying to make it sound as if a 20ft sea level rise as of 3007 is what we're worried about. I, for one, am concerned with far more... present-day consequences of AGW.

I will rely on old Mr. Sun.Which one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_%28disambiguation%29#People_named_Sun):D?

We are currently coming out of solar cycle 23, overdue for SC24.Waitaminute... how do you know that the Sun will go into another solar cycle and how that cycle will play out? Didn't you say you distrusted climate models? How can it be possible to predict weather trends on the Sun but not on Earth?

Some info on the Sun here (http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/12/28/090/30666), by the way. He's been exonerated a long time ago.

Diamond

3rd August 2007, 04:33 AM

Further to this, I came to this thread when it was already well-developed (if that's the appropriate term) and was struck by it's early plot-arc.

Post 1 : OP question.

Post 2 : Schneibster answers OP question.

Posts 3-8 : various links and references relevant to the OP question (one from your good self)

Post 9 : Diamond accuses scientists of deliberate fraud on a wide scale. Really wide.

Lie #1: I accuse 3 scientists of scientific fraud. The wide scale was inserting that fraud into the IPCC TAR.

Post 10 : mhaze agrees with him.

Post 11 : mhaze expresses preference for contrarian posters

Post 12 : JoeEllison posts something uncharitable (as is his wont) but not targeted at any previous poster or post.

Of course CapelDodgy has never said anything uncharitable. That would be a) beneath him and b) wholly untrue.

Post 13 : mhaze is back to the widespread scientific fraud.

Lie #2: mhaze is reporting what has already been claimed by me. Despite lots and lots of desperate denial, the Mann Hockey Stick remains a scientific fraud.

Post 14 Big Al's in there claiming that people are being "flamed to cinders". :confused:

Overwrought? Or hysterical? We report, you decide.

On page 1 mhaze introduces the term "alarmism" and on page 2 (I think) brings in Al Gore. Who saw that coming? Well, quite a few of the older-timers here ...

This posturing for the high ground is truly pathetic. Please continue...

Diamond turns up with accusations of scientific fraud only remotely related to the OP, later brings up the CO2 lag at the end of inter-glacials (the
irrelevance of which, and explanation for, he's been repeatedly provided with), and "historical revisionism". Once again, right on cue.

Lie #3: I have never been provided with this evidence, despite me asking many times for it. Rather than posture for the moral high ground that you don't occupy perhaps you'd like to provide it?

Oh and carbon dioxide rise causing (ie at least preceding) temperature rise is a classic piece of historical revisionism on a par with the Hockey Stick. It has never happened.

You'll appreciate why exasperation has to be actively suppressed, which can lead to tetchyness. So can certain behaviour, for instance

Oh pulease. Don't mention varwoche because after all he's on the side of the angels.

Diamond to Megalodon :"Clean up on aisle 6. Enormous can of stupid logical fallacies burst wide open"

Megalodon : "BTW, care to show those logical fallacies?"

Diamond : "Why certainly. Let's go through them at a pace you can understand. I'll type extra slowly for clarity."

Megalodon : "Having read your post, I can say it didn't help... try thinking next time."

Diamond :" And back to the insults. Can't deal with the science, so just insult instead."How can anyone not want to slap someone like Diamond? I think the restraint generally shown is remarkable. I did let go a bit on another post just recently, but he asked to be spared my "passive-aggression" (politeness to you and me) so I spared him the passive. Always ready to oblige, me. Even for someone who's called me a racist more than once.

Perhaps that's because you deny historical evidence on the racist grounds. Which makes you a racist.

In any case, for someone who has claimed (rather hysterically) to have very few presuppositions, you spend pretty much all of your time reinforcing your fixed beliefs with airy claims to "consensus" and posturing for a supposed "moral high ground" which is in the middle of a swamp of innuendo that you hilariously ignore.

There's a debating tactic (it quite possibly has a name) which involves provoking your antagonist then, once the desired response has been elicited, start shouting "Ooh, look, I'm being suppressed! Come and see the violence inherent in the system!". It's seldom used by the side with the stronger arguments.

So that's why you always keep referring to a supposed "scientific consensus" and "a majority of scientists" but when push comes to shove, its not an argument from popularity for you are too weary from repeating the evidence that you have never supplied? BS.

At this point I'll bring up the claim by the AGW-is-real camp that the Bush White House has use political placemen in federal institutions in an attempt to keep scientists "on-message" vis-a-vis Climate Change. (For instance, referring to "climate change" rather than "global warming" if they really really think they should bring the subject up at all.) I can see how that might be presented as equivalent to the "I'm being suppressed!" argument, but it isn't, for the simple reason that there's no claim that it worked worth a damn. It simply had no chance in the good ol' US of A. Gotta love the place in principle, and quite a lot in practice.

What the Bush Administration thinks is irrelevant (as well as unlikely IMHO)

The cry of "help, help I'm being repressed" came from arch global warmer James Hansen. Funnily enough a cool quarter of a million dollars from Theresa Heinz Kerry's Foundation in return for endorsing John Kerry for President, helped calm him down. But we won't mention that, because its another "inconvenient truth". And then James Hansen got straight back into trying to prevent any critical examination of greenhouse warming by referencing them as "deniers" and "shills".

We won't mention how the fossil fuel companies have been licking up to the environmentalists, sponsoring conferences on green issues, and generally dunking themselves progressively (I was going to say liberally, but its an insult to liberalism) in greenwash. We won't mention the enormous carbon footprints of Al Gore or the rockstars who appeared in "Live Earth" that most people can never afford to emulate.

Never mind Capeldodgy. And don't mention it.

mhaze

3rd August 2007, 06:26 AM

'Putting bandaids on'? What an exceptionally weird way of describing our support of a model supported by loads of evidence. Look, the original hockey stick was a hoax. New studies, however, proved the hoax to be miraculously accurate. Source. (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/paleolast.html)

Well, that is indeed an interesting subject. Maybe the graphs should all then be labeled "New Improved Hockey Stick Replacing old Scientifically Fraudulent Hockey Stick".:)

But Mann et. al. (Originator of Hockey Stick) is still using his highly questionable RE statistical method and if I recall correctly, has not released his experimental data for independent review.

I hope, for your dignity's sake, that you're not trying to make it sound as if a 20ft sea level rise as of 3007 is what we're worried about. I, for one, am concerned with far more... present-day consequences of AGW.What consequences if any, may there be as a result of this alleged problem that one should be concerned with? That was my question. For example, I think, based on very crude math, that we might have 0.5 C temperature rise from a doubling of CO2 by the year 2050. And that is a "don't care" scenario, right?

Waitaminute... how do you know that the Sun will go into another solar cycle and how that cycle will play out? Didn't you say you distrusted climate models? How can it be possible to predict weather trends on the Sun but not on Earth?

Some info on the Sun here (http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/12/28/090/30666), by the way. He's been exonerated a long time ago.Is this really a road you want to go down? If so please first read the recent paper by Lockwood et al that has pleased all the true believers in AGW and supposedly "nailed the coffin shut on the sun".

Here is the BBC summary (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6290228.stm).

Here is Lockwood's paper (http://forums.randi.org/www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/proceedings_a/rspa20071880.pdf).

mhaze

3rd August 2007, 07:30 AM

Lie #1: I accuse 3 scientists of scientific fraud. The wide scale was inserting that fraud into the IPCC TAR.

Never mind Capeldodgy. And don't mention it.

I'd like to clear something up, Diamond. You've several times accused people of being Marxist. I realize this is an international forum and we may well have some "modern Marxists, progressive socialists, etc" of various flavors who are perfectly content with being labeled as such. But were these comments intended as factual assertions based on behavior and attitude or what?

This question is relevant to the discussion as follows: One might argue that strong government controls, taxation and the like were the "only solution to AGW" and that the only government style that could do this was somewhat totalitarian, eg., Marxist.

varwoche

3rd August 2007, 10:38 AM

On the one hand Greenland is doomed in the first sentence, then the second begins with If. Now that's reassuring doublespeak. Another shameless distortion.

First, these are the words of a journalist, not the scientists who conducted the study. Second, if you had actually quoted the article (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4864), it would have have helped readers see how utterly ridiculous your criticism is.
A more scientific approach:
http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Chylek/greenland_warming.html
So much for "it's warming faster than it ever has". Not to forget:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/greenland/vintheretal2006.pdf
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/subject/s/summaries/sealevelgreenland.jsp
http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/132.pdf (covers MWP as well)

And perhaps the ball breaker:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070705153019.ht (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070705153019.htm)
Why in Odin's name are you citing goofy sources such as CO2 Science and the Marshall Institute?

Further, you need to quote the precise text that supposedly makes your point. A list of links doesn't cut it.

How many times must it be shown that Greenland warming is neither catastrophic nor "unprecedented"? Straw man.

Reviewing the numbers from 28 years of satellite monitoring:
http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d54/corn_burner/global%20warming/satellitedata.jpg
Why in Odin's name are you pointing to an unattributed graphic at an image hosting site?

IPCC models show methane levels continuing to rise, yet it has stopped flat. Your information is outdated: On longer timescales, our results show that the decrease in atmospheric methane growth during the 1990s was caused by a decline in anthropogenic emissions. Since 1999, however, they indicate that anthropogenic emissions of methane have risen again. link (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7110/abs/nature05132.html)

IPCC in 2001 "projected" 21 ft. sea level rise. A bit off there. Evidence?

Now back to "unprecedented" warming. For the heck of it, I looked up U.S. temperature records. Strange, well over 90% are pre-1970, and that's using surface measurements.
http://ggweather.com/climate/extremes_us.htm
You are confusing weather with climate.

The last 9 years have been flat for AGW. Funny how the 9 just happens to include the el nino year! This is cherry-picking in the absurd extreme. From NASA (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/):

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_225846b35451642ea.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=7428)

(I'm not ignoring the Willerslev study -- I'm still reading up.)

mhaze

3rd August 2007, 11:20 AM

mhaze

3rd August 2007, 12:30 PM

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/1422446b3710a68694.bmp (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=7430)
Methane is flat. Another source - the IPCC report, AR4WG1 Chapter 7-v2
Table 7.6, page 542, Sources, sinks, and atmospheric budgets of CH4
Nothing exciting there about methane either.

Cherry picking or nit picking a bit here, Varoche?

Safe-Keeper

3rd August 2007, 12:55 PM

You really need to consider the entire planet glacial balance, right? I'm again not entirely sure what to make of your post. The link you provided pointed to a site where a graph showed clearly that glaciers are melting, yet your post seems to indicate that is not so and that the site would somehow back your position up. Here's the graph in question:
http://gristmill.grist.org/images/user/6932/glacier_mass_balance.gif
It indicates that glacial volume has gone down by 7000 cubic kilometers in forty years. At most, the loss of any given year has been 300+ cubic kilometers. That sounds like melting to me.

mhaze

3rd August 2007, 01:22 PM

I'm again not entirely sure what to make of your post. The link you provided pointed to a site where a graph showed clearly that glaciers are melting, yet your post seems to indicate that is not so and that the site would somehow back your position up. Here's the graph in question:
http://gristmill.grist.org/images/user/6932/glacier_mass_balance.gif
It indicates that glacial volume has gone down by 7000 cubic kilometers in forty years. At most, the loss of any given year has been 300+ cubic kilometers. That sounds like melting to me.

Yes, it is melting to the tune of 300 cubic km as you note. I think I had that in my post. The 300 sounds like a lot but this is a pretty big planet we have here. In fact, it isn't really until you understand that melting 300 cubic km and putting them into the ocean ONLY gives < 1mm sea level rise, that one comprehends how big it really is.

Greenland is at the same time gaining ice in some places and losing it in others, for a net loss if I recall correctly of 100 gigaton per year.

But that does not matter - sea level rise is based on the net loss and gain of the whole planet. One is left with the issue of Greenland melting being a "very interesting local issue" but not one with world wide implications.

Some people in Greenland are definitely going to like it warming up.:)

Safe-Keeper

3rd August 2007, 01:31 PM

Right. I thought you meant they weren't warming. Thanks for the clarification.

CapelDodger

3rd August 2007, 04:16 PM

On the one hand Greenland is doomed in the first sentence ...

Followed, in the same sentence, by "according to ... ". It's not a declaration that the Greenland icecap is doomed, it's reporting that there are models which predict that the Greenland icecap is all but doomed.

... then the second begins with If.

Let's look at again in its stark reality.

The Greenland ice sheet is all but doomed to melt away to nothing, according to a new modelling study. If it does melt, global sea levels will rise by seven metres, flooding most of the world's coastal regions.

It's an exemplary piece of science reporting. The "all but" to reflect the modellers expressed uncertainties, the "according to", and the subsequent "If".

Now that's reassuring doublespeak. Add the modeling study and what you've got is junk science. It must be true if 'Nature' published it, correct?

Why did you make no mention of the "all but" and the "according to" when you twisted the meaning you so obviously need out of those two sentences? Where's the doublespeak? The selective editing and borderline-demented exegesis is all yours.

And I doubt you're winning any converts by it.

David Rodale

3rd August 2007, 07:12 PM

Followed, in the same sentence, by "according to ... ". It's not a declaration that the Greenland icecap is doomed, it's reporting that there are models which predict that the Greenland icecap is all but doomed.

Let's look at again in its stark reality.

It's an exemplary piece of science reporting. The "all but" to reflect the modellers expressed uncertainties, the "according to", and the subsequent "If".

Why did you make no mention of the "all but" and the "according to" when you twisted the meaning you so obviously need out of those two sentences? Where's the doublespeak? The selective editing and borderline-demented exegesis is all yours.

And I doubt you're winning any converts by it.

The title of the article is, if I'm not mistaken Greenland ice cap 'doomed to meltdown'

Oh no, there's nothing implying certain doom in the title.

"It all depends on what the definition of "is" is."

The parsing of words is surely an art of the first order. Congratulations. Rubbing salt in wounds is not my forte', but your reasoning is silly to say the least, if not Clintonesque.

Varwoche, occasionally I use raw data and make my own charts. In this instance I don't recall if that's the case, but it was stored in my file as satellite temp data. If you doubt the data, look it up, or I'll post the raw data.

On the 20 ft. sea level rise, it in fact was not the IPCC. Sometimes it gets confusing with so many different predictions. I believe the 20+ claim is Hansen; he may have even been higher. Nonetheless, IPCC downgraded drastically from 2001. In any event, several papers disagree with all of them.

Maybe more time tomorrow; for now it is late.

articulett

3rd August 2007, 07:35 PM

varwoche

3rd August 2007, 08:13 PM

Varwoche, occasionally I use raw data and make my own charts. In this instance I don't recall if that's the case, but it was stored in my file as satellite temp data. If you doubt the data, look it up, or I'll post the raw data. In other words, you're posting a chart and you don't know where the data comes from. Surely you don't expect this to fly on a skeptical forum.

On the 20 ft. sea level rise, it in fact was not the IPCC. Sometimes it gets confusing with so many different predictions. I believe the 20+ claim is Hansen; he may have even been higher. You already made a mistake by attributing it to IPCC. I suggest you do your legwork instead of offering up this new speculation.

Nonetheless, IPCC downgraded drastically from 2001. In any event, several papers disagree with all of them. I don't mean to give you incessant grief DR, but this is awfully vague. Precisely which papers? And what is "all of them"?

David Rodale

3rd August 2007, 08:25 PM

I notice that those who bring up the "is is" issue are much less didactic over parsing of words such as that done by Alberto Gonzales and President Bush--real lies versus blowjob lies.

David Rodale you are doing the woo dance... go after semantics and obfuscation so that you can miss the point entirely. Semantics goes two ways... but the truth is singular. Words all have shades of meaning, but the facts are the same. AGW is a fact and the longer humans deny that fact or segue off into politics and semantics the harder it is to address the problem in ways that we can address it so that worst case scenarios are less likely.

Whenever I see anyone bring up that stupid "is is" thing I know I'm listening to a right wing nutcake who only follows the party line-- blind to all facts that bespeak dishonesty and corruption in those you worship while grandstanding against the minor pecadillos of others.

There's nothing quite like the right wing nut cakes in America for noticing the non existent sawdust in another's eye while ignoring the huge branch sticking out of their own. Perhaps you ought to check out some more balanced news sources and not just those that parrot what you want to hear.

Capel Dodger is coherent and apologized for his error. You are using tactics on par with a defense attorney with a guilty client-- using language and graphs to say nothing at all but to imply that AGW is a left wing alarmist conspiracy. Speaking of alarmist... have you been listening to the President who tells much bigger lies than "is is" lies? He uses fear mongering to promote his corrupt administration and his minions of blowhards who have completely lost the ability to evaluate anything critically. Also, CapelDodger is not an American so your smarmy clintonesque rhetoric is particularly obnoxious and ethnocentric.

Oh you speak with such Authority with absolutely nothing substantive added to the subject matter.

I don't recall attacking anyone personally. To say I think someone's reasoning is silly is not on par with the vast majority of venomous rhetoric (such as yours) as is common in this forum when someone disagrees with the majority view. I thought this forum was supposed to be a haven for critical thinkers, but apparently was mistaken.

My response was critiquing the article, not the person who posted it. Capel Dodger apparently took it personally and responded in kind.

I don't particularly care for President Bush in many respects. Nice try though. Quite frankly, I don't care what flavor Kool Aid you drink.

Can you find an instance of when I used the word conspiracy? An article entitled "Greenland Ice Cap 'Doomed to Melting' " is not fear mongering or alarmist?

Capel Dodger claims he bases his belief in AGW on physics. He nor anyone else has yet to cite a paper explaining the physics (not consensus or opinion) of temperature rising 2+C due to doubling (or any amount) of atmospheric CO2. There is no empirical evidence for such a claim. There is no scientific evidence supporting the claim that atmospheric CO2 has a life cycle of 120-200 years.

Your statements of pending 'worst case scenarios' are just that....scenarios, no different than reading a fictional novel. Please be more specific. What exactly are these "scenarios" we can expect if we do nothing to curb CO2 emissions?

Great, now it is way past my bedtime.

varwoche

3rd August 2007, 08:29 PM

Wronger than wrong. We are dealing here with the specific sources provided by Safe-keeper and commented on by CP. My comment pertained to DR's absurd word twisting regardless who posted the original cite.

You really need to consider the entire planet glacial balance, right? I'm not sure what you're getting at since glaciers are in retreat globally.

There is no perfect understanding of that but what is monitored is found here. (http://nsidc.org/sotc/glacier_balance.html) You are wasting your time pursuing the Greenland Alarm Bell. I have no idea what you mean here.

Please either refute this or admit that Greenland melting doesn't matter one iota. Refute or admit specifically what? :confused:

mhaze

3rd August 2007, 09:20 PM

In other words, you're posting a chart and you don't know where the data comes from. Surely you don't expect this to fly on a skeptical forum.

You already made a mistake by attributing it to IPCC. I suggest you do your legwork instead of offering up this new speculation.

No mistake, check section 10, chapter 10.

Separately and distinctly, and for different reasons, this claim has been made by Hansen in his typical alarmist mode. Separately again, it has been made repeatedly by people in this forum who heard it numerous places.

mhaze

4th August 2007, 08:03 AM

Another shameless distortion.

First, these are the words of a journalist, not the scientists who conducted the study. Second, if you had actually quoted the article (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4864), it would have have helped readers see how utterly ridiculous your criticism is.
Why in Odin's name are you citing goofy sources such as CO2 Science and the Marshall Institute?

Further, you need to quote the precise text that supposedly makes your point. A list of links doesn't cut it.

Straw man.

Why in Odin's name are you pointing to an unattributed graphic at an image hosting site?

Your information is outdated:

Evidence?

You are confusing weather with climate.

Funny how the 9 just happens to include the el nino year! This is cherry-picking in the absurd extreme. From NASA (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/):

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_225846b35451642ea.jpg

(I'm not ignoring the Willerslev study -- I'm still reading up.)

Ignoring the stern, foreboding and lecturing tone reminiscent of certain preachers....

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_1422446b480efd5ded.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=7438)

Here are northern, southern and global temperatures from satellite data by Spencer and Christy, 2006. The data may be downloaded from their website if I recall correctly. Further, the data has been audited and several errors noted and corrected. Therefore, we can presume that it's pretty good data, right?

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_1422446b485e3631a3.gif (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=7440)

Here is the chart you preferred, from Hensen, a known alarmist. It is described as follows:
(Left) Global annual surface temperature relative to 1951-1980 mean based on surface air measurements at meteorological stations and ship and satellite measurements for sea surface temperature. Error bars are estimated 2σ (95% confidence) uncertainty.
It is a mismash of satellite and ground temperatures. Unless there were some satellites back in 1900...

It mixes up tropospheric and ground data? How can that be good science?

The answer is quite obvious - to get a pronounced rise at the right hand side.

Statistics are fun aren't they?

David Rodale

4th August 2007, 09:12 PM

Ignoring the stern, foreboding and lecturing tone reminiscent of certain preachers....

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_1422446b480efd5ded.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=7438)

Here are northern, southern and global temperatures from satellite data by Spencer and Christy, 2006. The data may be downloaded from their website if I recall correctly. Further, the data has been audited and several errors noted and corrected. Therefore, we can presume that it's pretty good data, right?

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_1422446b485e3631a3.gif (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=7440)

Here is the chart you preferred, from Hensen, a known alarmist. It is described as follows:
(Left) Global annual surface temperature relative to 1951-1980 mean based on surface air measurements at meteorological stations and ship and satellite measurements for sea surface temperature. Error bars are estimated 2σ (95% confidence) uncertainty.
It is a mismash of satellite and ground temperatures. Unless there were some satellites back in 1900...

It mixes up tropospheric and ground data? How can that be good science?

The answer is quite obvious - to get a pronounced rise at the right hand side.

Statistics are fun aren't they?

UAH is likely where I got the graph from. Thanks.

Here is the raw data I believe. It is pretty straight forward using Excel or OO to create the graphs.
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2/uahncdc.mt

varwoche

5th August 2007, 11:53 AM

No mistake, check section 10, chapter 10. Can you post a link?

mhaze

5th August 2007, 12:03 PM

Can you post a link?

It's an 18mb download for the pdf, (which somehow only becomes about a 100 pp file) but there is about two thirds of the way through the projections to the year 3000. There is a summary with the pretty grarphs somewhere else, I think it was in the back of the summary for policymakers.

ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/suppl/docs/AR4WG1_Pub_Ch10-SM.pdf

mhaze

5th August 2007, 01:13 PM

UAH is likely where I got the graph from. Thanks.

Here is the raw data I believe. It is pretty straight forward using Excel or OO to create the graphs.
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2/uahncdc.mt

Those are darn good data points!!! got the sea data in there too. :)

Here is a question related to your question about proving that CO2 changes in the atmosphere affect or cause surface temperature increases.

Let's say I take a radiant lamp and put it 4 feet above a tank of water with suspended solids. Turn the lamp on and the water heats up. Turn the lamp off and feel the air - is it hot? No. Now wait a while and do it again, and the air is hot. Because of evaporation and convection from the air/water interface. Energy went from the lamp to the water and thence to the air. Given this, it seems that a change in CO2 would be a tiny part of the overall heat transfer, not a major part.

Conclusion: Air is pretty hard to heat up directly from radiant energy. Water is easy. Well, anyone who has gone swimming or scuba diving knows that; the top six feet of the ocean or lake are warm (when the sun is out), but as you go down, the water gets cool, then downright cold pretty quick.

It seems that the water should heat the air up, not the other way around.
I haven't done the thermal transfer calculations, just wanted to present the issue in a "dumb question" type of way.

dakotajudo

5th August 2007, 07:38 PM

It is a mismash of satellite and ground temperatures. Unless there were some satellites back in 1900...

It mixes up tropospheric and ground data? How can that be good science?

That's not quite right, is it? Apparently, you only read the caption, not the text. Or did you not track down the original?

This is what I found - from http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/

Our analysis, summarized in Figure 1 above, uses documented procedures for data over land (1), satellite measurements of sea surface temperature since 1982 (2), and a ship-based analysis for earlier years

Your contention seems to be with the satellite measurements. If there were a discontinuity at 1982 - when satellite measurements of sea surface temperature replace ship-based measurement, then perhaps you'd have a point. But it appears that the current linear rise goes back to at least 1975 (and it's a very nice straight line, as these things go). Since there's a clear demarcation between the satellite and ship-based measures, you can't call it a mish-mash, can you?

Following the citations, it would appear that the satellite measurements are calibrated against ship-based measures, so this mixing is a non-issue.

Why would you assume the graph mixes tropospheric and ground data?

I'm also kinda confused - you seem to be contrasting the two data sets, Spencer and Christy vs Hensen. But if it looks to me that if you plot the two on the same scales, they'd be in pretty good agreement - jot down in '85 and '92, peak in '98, overall about a 0.4 degree increase from 1980.

It seems that the water should heat the air up, not the other way around.

Uh, duh?

The key part you seem to be missing is that air is transparent to most energy coming from the sun, but is more opaque to the energy re-radiated from the surface. Sure, CO2 is not that important w.r.t. absorbing incoming light, but it acts to limit the escape of energy back to space.

If you've been in the country on a clear winter night, you might have noticed that it gets much, much colder than on an overcast night. Less heat is lost to space.

That's what greenhouse gases do. Consider the moderating effects of the atmosphere on earth, compared to the surface temperature swings from day to night sides of the moon.

Or did you intend to misstate the obvious?

varwoche

5th August 2007, 08:27 PM

ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/suppl/docs/AR4WG1_Pub_Ch10-SM.pdf I'm confused. I don't see DR's chart. I don't see any raw data that DR's chart may have been derived from. And I don't see any sea level projections.

mhaze

6th August 2007, 08:01 AM

I'm confused. I don't see DR's chart. I don't see any raw data that DR's chart may have been derived from. And I don't see any sea level projections.

Section 10 chapter 10 goes into a lot of detail about sea level. Summary for PolicyMakers - about pp. 11 in the pdf, not sure of the actual page number in their report - notes the 7 meter rise for complete melting of Greenland and various other aspects of it. I'm still looking for the pretty chart of projections to the year 3000, will get back on that. Charts are nice....well, except for those nasty spaggetti charts:)

Not quite sure what the big deal is about noting the effective sea level if Greenland melted, since that's just a matter of dividing one number by another, which leads me to wonder where the "news" was in the article quoted by Safe-keeper, referencing New Scientist (not too great a ref) referencing in turn Nature (which I don't get and thus can't read, so give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe there is some "New Stuff" there in the original article).

DR's chart.

Found and discussion here. (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=831)

I found it in Christy and Spencer's work on satellite temperatures. He notes it as being from the UAH website and references the data set in a link.

I had that chart from a government website, though, and will have to look for it a bit later....just ran out of time.

robinson

6th August 2007, 10:28 AM

Sen. Barbara Boxer had been chair of the Senate's Environment Committee for less than a month when the verdict landed last February. "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal," concluded a report by 600 scientists from governments, academia, green groups and businesses in 40 countries. Worse, there was now at least a 90 percent likelihood that the release of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels is causing longer droughts, more flood-causing downpours and worse heat waves, way up from earlier studies. Those who doubt the reality of human-caused climate change have spent decades disputing that. But Boxer figured that with "the overwhelming science out there, the deniers' days were numbered." As she left a meeting with the head of the international climate panel, however, a staffer had some news for her. A conservative think tank long funded by ExxonMobil, she told Boxer, had offered scientists $10,000 to write articles undercutting the new report and the computer-based climate models it is based on. "I realized," says Boxer, "there was a movement behind this that just wasn't giving up."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20122975/site/newsweek/

David Rodale

6th August 2007, 12:43 PM

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20122975/site/newsweek/

I'll make of note of that for 30 years down the road. It should be good enough for 'Nature' to publish though.

Can we come to agreement there were no satellites in 1880? Hansen's rendition showing a steep rise since 1980 is laughable. With enough resolution a .001 deg rise can be made to look like a cliff.

For those who questioned my original posting of the global satellite temperatures, the raw data is here as noted earlier:
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2/uahncdc.mt

A quick entry into Excel from the raw data matches:
http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d54/corn_burner/global%20warming/Globalsatellite.jpg

Any questions?

robinson

6th August 2007, 01:09 PM

CapelDodger

6th August 2007, 03:20 PM

The title of the article is, if I'm not mistaken Greenland ice cap 'doomed to meltdown'

Oh no, there's nothing implying certain doom in the title.

There are quotes around "doomed to meltdown", so all it implies is that the piece is reporting on a claim. It makes no claim itself. Apart from that, it's a headline, written by a sub-editor, meant to draw attention. Not a bad effort; "doomed" draws the average eye. The quotes indicate that this sub had at least skimmed the piece itself. Which is not something you can depend on in a sub.

When you're reduced to decrying an article by its headline and are misrepresenting (or misunderstanding) even that, desperation is a line that's been crossed.

CapelDodger

6th August 2007, 03:47 PM

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/mpg/169068main_temp_anom_w_date_320x240.mpg

Animation based on temperature data.

Official sources of data and stuff.
http://www.nasa.gov/worldbook/global_warming_worldbook.html
http://geology.com/news/labels/Global-Warming.html

http://geology.com/news/images/climate-change-graph.jpg

That's pretty much the way it's felt to me in my lifetime. I can't say the same for David Rodale's version - the summer of '82 was a good one, but warmer than last year? Not by a long chalk. And the winter of 82-83 was way colder than last winter.

Of course, my experience is of one insignificant island, but it's a very average, moderate island. Reasonably representative, I think.

CapelDodger

6th August 2007, 03:54 PM

I'll make of note of that for 30 years down the road. It should be good enough for 'Nature' to publish though.

Ooh, that's bitchy. Feeling rejected, are we?

mhaze

6th August 2007, 04:00 PM

There are quotes around "doomed to meltdown", so all it implies is that the piece is reporting on a claim. It makes no claim itself. Apart from that, it's a headline, written by a sub-editor, meant to draw attention. Not a bad effort; "doomed" draws the average eye. The quotes indicate that this sub had at least skimmed the piece itself. Which is not something you can depend on in a sub.

When you're reduced to decrying an article by its headline and are misrepresenting (or misunderstanding) even that, desperation is a line that's been crossed.

But where is the NEWS?

mhaze

6th August 2007, 04:22 PM

That's not quite right, is it? Apparently, you only read the caption, not the text. Or did you not track down the original?

This is what I found - from http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/

Your contention seems to be with the satellite measurements. If there were a discontinuity at 1982 - when satellite measurements of sea surface temperature replace ship-based measurement, then perhaps you'd have a point. But it appears that the current linear rise goes back to at least 1975 (and it's a very nice straight line, as these things go). Since there's a clear demarcation between the satellite and ship-based measures, you can't call it a mish-mash, can you?

Following the citations, it would appear that the satellite measurements are calibrated against ship-based measures, so this mixing is a non-issue.

Why would you assume the graph mixes tropospheric and ground data?

I'm also kinda confused - you seem to be contrasting the two data sets, Spencer and Christy vs Hensen. But if it looks to me that if you plot the two on the same scales, they'd be in pretty good agreement - jot down in '85 and '92, peak in '98, overall about a 0.4 degree increase from 1980.

Which is why I noted "statistics is fun". By changing the y and x axis scales and picking a starting chronological point for x, the presentation and apparent conclusions change dramatically.

Hensen mixes up several sources of data in the graph and does not even distinguish them by colored lines. Therefore, I use the phrase "mismash" to describe it. Reading the way that he developed the numbers one could easily be critical of the methods, including the numerous data adjustments and so forth. But that isn't the point I was trying to make - rather it is simply the "how to lie with statistics" issue.

Uh, duh?

The key part you seem to be missing is that air is transparent to most energy coming from the sun, but is more opaque to the energy re-radiated from the surface. Sure, CO2 is not that important w.r.t. absorbing incoming light, but it acts to limit the escape of energy back to space.

If you've been in the country on a clear winter night, you might have noticed that it gets much, much colder than on an overcast night. Less heat is lost to space.

That's what greenhouse gases do. Consider the moderating effects of the atmosphere on earth, compared to the surface temperature swings from day to night sides of the moon.

Or did you intend to misstate the obvious?

Of course, I am familiar with the theory that you have presented, and with a number of interpretations of it. There does seem to be a shortage of actual literature showing the calculation of the Callendar effect though; Plass 1956 comes to mind.

Instead of taking that for granted (no one has in this forum answered David Rodale's simple question -

He nor anyone else has yet to cite a paper explaining the physics (not consensus or opinion) of temperature rising 2+C due to doubling (or any amount) of atmospheric CO2.

I just thought, well, why not start with a blank sheet of paper here. That led me to the above mentioned desktop example. To that example one must add one or manyother factors, right?

But just looking at the simple desktop experiment, it would look like the heat capacity of water would drive the air's temperature, not the other way around. Of course this is a very simplified scenario and hunches of this sort can easily be wrong.:)

CapelDodger

6th August 2007, 04:43 PM

As for all this unprecedented warming we've had the last 30+ years, it's hard to find. CD, would you point it out for us?

Have you not noticed it yourself where you live? Most people have, that's why it's become such an issue.

CD, you say you base your rock solid predictions of non-stop catastrophic warming on physics and simple reasoning (whatever that means).

I said "significant", not "catastrophic". Are you driven to misreprent, or is it simply a failure of comprehension brought on by hysteria? (Rhetorical.)

It will get warmer because the global climate is not yet at equilibrium with 380ppmCO2, let alone what the CO2-load is now or will be in the near future. That's simple reasoning. No matter how much fun you have with statistics in the meantime, that's not going to go away.

Nothing's going to happen to stop CO2-load increasing absent a signficant bolide incident or a big-boy's nuclear-exchange (in which case all bets are off). That's simple extrapolation from observation of the world today. The rate of increase of CO2 production has increased over the last decade - that's the second-derivative heading upwards. That's one hard beast to rein in, and the half-assed political, diplomatic, economic, industrial, and popular response is a flea on its back.

Buy the ticket, take the ride (as we old acid-heads used to say). The ticket's been bought, and we're already on the ride.

CapelDodger

6th August 2007, 05:06 PM

Perhaps that's because you deny historical evidence on the racist grounds. Which makes you a racist.

It goes without saying that I have never done, nor am, anything of the sort. It also goes without saying (I hope) that such an accusation confirms just how far out in shiny-hat territory you're coming from.

In any case, for someone who has claimed (rather hysterically) to have very few presuppositions ...

HTF did I manage to get hysterical over such a bland claim? If you have a moment to spare I'd appreciate a pointer - post number, reference, whatever. I could read through all of my own stuff to find it, and everything else I posted in drink and don't recall, but there's just so much of it. From what I'm hearing it's my best product, or at least most featured. But it's as if my daytime persona was never there.

mhaze

6th August 2007, 05:17 PM

In other words, you're posting a chart and you don't know where the data comes from. Surely you don't expect this to fly on a skeptical forum.

You already made a mistake by attributing it to IPCC. I suggest you do your legwork instead of offering up this new speculation.

Big surprise. I just downloaded a IPCC Summary for Policymakers from AAAS, and it was substantially different than the current one at the IPCC website - the tables on "Sea Level Rise" are different. Not sure what was going on and no real reason to suspect the worst here, but also wonder.....

Maybe that earlier report is what had a lot of reporters going about the 20 foot sea level rise? Hmmm.... Maybe there were just plain errors that were corrected.

CapelDodger

6th August 2007, 05:36 PM

Instead of taking that for granted (no one has in this forum answered David Rodale's simple question -

He nor anyone else has yet to cite a paper explaining the physics (not consensus or opinion) of temperature rising 2+C due to doubling (or any amount) of atmospheric CO2. Is that what it's come down to?

Cite a paper that explains all the physics of the greenhouse effect before it gets to the meat of the issue? Impossible. Papers that address the question of climate sensitivity to CO2-load naturally assume a great deal of well-established science. They're like articles in SciAm, but more so. That's why David Rodale poses the specific question. Of course there's no single paper - notice how "consensus" is specifically rejected from on high in this implicitly crucial (or at least very significant) question - that can be referenced to answer this quasi-question.

The consensus scientific opinion is that about 450ppmCO2 will be in equilibrium at about 2C warmer than the global 1960-91 average, for what that's worth. What it will be is significantly warmer than today, which is (relatively speaking) pretty damn' warm

CapelDodger

6th August 2007, 05:45 PM

mhaze

6th August 2007, 06:26 PM

The latest IPCC Summary isn't current on the IPCC website?

Apparently there ore several versions of the Feb 2007 documents. You don't see the earlier ones. Wayback machine might drag 'em, I found the one on AAAS which is an "earlier" one.

If the 20-foot clue is anything to go by, and we're talking reporters here, the Goreist Greenland Gambit seems to have worked. It surely can't be a coincidence ...

You said it not I.;)

David Rodale

6th August 2007, 06:36 PM

Big surprise. I just downloaded a IPCC Summary for Policymakers from AAAS, and it was substantially different than the current one at the IPCC website - the tables on "Sea Level Rise" are different. Not sure what was going on and no real reason to suspect the worst here, but also wonder.....

Maybe that earlier report is what had a lot of reporters going about the 20 foot sea level rise? Hmmm.... Maybe there were just plain errors that were corrected.

No, it's there in the long version. Your link was the Supplemental. I just didn't bother looking as it really isn't worth the time, but whatever, here it is:
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Pub_Ch10.pdf
page 776 and again 819. See if anyone can make heads or tails of it.

There are so many uses of words such as if, but, however, could, unlikely, might, possibly, unknown and uncertainty, it's hard to follow. Use of arguments against their hypothesis are few and far between or ignored completely; a common trait of IPCC. It is a convoluted mess. Nevertheless, Greenland has been much warmer than today and most would like to forget it existed, so the entire chapter should be rewritten.

To that end, Al Gore was in fact using IPCC numbers, I retract my admission of misstatement, and mhaze can now rest in peace this evening because he was not seeing things.

varwoche

6th August 2007, 07:20 PM

There are so many uses of words such as if, but, however, could, unlikely, might, possibly, unknown and uncertainty, it's hard to follow. In other words, this... IPCC in 2001 "projected" 21 ft. sea level rise. A bit off there. ... is a mischaracterization.

mhaze

6th August 2007, 07:50 PM

In other words, this... ... is a mischaracterization.

I recall the phrase from the report being like "worst case millenium scenario" with the right hand x axis being the year 3000.

mhaze

6th August 2007, 07:53 PM

[/indent]Is that what it's come down to?

Cite a paper that explains all the physics of the greenhouse effect before it gets to the meat of the issue? Impossible. Papers that address the question of climate sensitivity to CO2-load naturally assume a great deal of well-established science. They're like articles in SciAm, but more so. That's why David Rodale poses the specific question. Of course there's no single paper - notice how "consensus" is specifically rejected from on high in this implicitly crucial (or at least very significant) question - that can be referenced to answer this quasi-question.

The consensus scientific opinion is that about 450ppmCO2 will be in equilibrium at about 2C warmer than the global 1960-91 average, for what that's worth. What it will be is significantly warmer than today, which is (relatively speaking) pretty damn' warm

What I had in mind was simplified one dimensional formulas or verifiable rules of thumb. Tabletop model, you know.

CapelDodger

7th August 2007, 05:03 PM

But where is the NEWS?

The findings of a new modelling study which suggest that the Greenland icecap is all but doomed is the news. This is science news, and New Scientist reports science news. Which is no news to anybody.

David Rodale seems to have regarded it as partisan or propagandist, possibly even alarmist, but he's since been disabused of that misapprehension. Or possibly not, who's to say?

CapelDodger

7th August 2007, 05:57 PM

Apparently there ore several versions of the Feb 2007 documents. You don't see the earlier ones. Wayback machine might drag 'em, I found the one on AAAS which is an "earlier" one.

If the earlier ones can't be seen, how is it "apparent" that there are several versions :confused: ?

You said it not I.;)

You're reporting on reporters (who are mostly proles) and reporters do like the dramatic. They don't generally like reading long scientific reports that they think they already have the gist of. (Just as sub-editors don't generally like reading through long, closely-argued, information-rich pieces; they prefer to slap on a headline that accords with their preconceptions :mad: . I digress.) When reporters link the IPCC report to 20ft sea-rise it's because that's what they assume is in there, and why is that? The Goreist Greenland Gambit.

Drama works when it comes to raising awareness, and Greenland has the ingredients. 7m sea-rise (which nobody disputes and we can all relate to) and a strong, simple central character.

mhaze

7th August 2007, 06:43 PM

Sort of a big ad campaign then?

mhaze

7th August 2007, 06:45 PM

If the earlier ones can't be seen, how is it "apparent" that there are several versions :confused: ?

Because you or I can download them...

Tricky

8th August 2007, 08:14 AM

Sort of a big ad campaign then?
Yep.

As the latest Newsweek (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20122975/site/newsweek/page/2/)reports, there has been a concerted effort by some scientists, small in numbers but big in funding, to cast doubt upon the mountains of evidence for human-influenced global warming.
http://msnbcmedia3.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/Newsweek/Components/Photos/Mag/070813_Issue/070813_Cover.standard.jpg

Chief among the culprits is ExxonMobil who mounted a 'greenwash' campaign to dispute global warming findings (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16475341/site/newsweek/). As a geologist in the petroleum industry, I am infuriated by this action by the world's largest oil company. It grieves me that scientists could be bribed away from the principle foundations of science in order to imitate places like "Answers in Geneis" by fitting the data to their preferred conclusions.

Under its former chairman and CEO, Lee Raymond, who retired in 2005 as one of the best-paid corporate executives in history, ExxonMobil was well known for its hostility to government regulations on emissions of carbon dioxide. But, according to the report, the op-eds and position papers were only the visible tip of Exxon’s effort to fund a small group of researchers and an overlapping network of think tanks that could be relied on to spread the message that global warming was nothing to worry about—or at least, nothing the government could or should do anything about. Their frequently repeated call for “sound science” on global warming echoes the tobacco industry’s endless demand for more research on whether cigarettes really, truly, unquestionably cause cancer.

mhaze

8th August 2007, 09:29 AM

Yep.

As the latest Newsweek (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20122975/site/newsweek/page/2/)reports, there has been a concerted effort by some scientists, small in numbers but big in funding, to cast doubt upon the mountains of evidence for human-influenced global warming.
http://msnbcmedia3.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/Newsweek/Components/Photos/Mag/070813_Issue/070813_Cover.standard.jpg

Chief among the culprits is ExxonMobil who mounted a 'greenwash' campaign to dispute global warming findings (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16475341/site/newsweek/). As a geologist in the petroleum industry, I am infuriated by this action by the world's largest oil company. It grieves me that scientists could be bribed away from the principle foundations of science in order to imitate places like "Answers in Geneis" by fitting the data to their preferred conclusions.

It's a regular media blitz, then? A starburst media campaign?
Can you verify all that huge funding, maybe provide a link for the year 2006?

Here's yet another "news report".

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/environment/2007-08-07-gore-climate-change-manipulation_N.htm

Pipirr

8th August 2007, 09:45 AM

Can you verify all that huge funding, maybe provide a link for the year 2006?
[/url]

Why do you want to see that?

Just wondering.

mhaze

8th August 2007, 10:10 AM

Why do you want to see that?

Just wondering.

There is a well known bit of info by Greenpeace concerning this issue - not by any means "new news", that asserts basically the same thing. But when you go and look at the actual data behind the "2.1 million" that they allude to as having been spent to fund "the machine", it is really hard to see any significant allocations that can be identified as anti-gw. There were a few, but nothing substantial.

So I was wondering if some new data had came up, or if this was just more of the same-old-same-old.

CP: I realize that in explaining the "Greenland is doomed" you are accurately explaining the British press, which at least to us in the US is a curious and interesting thing - but here are a couple more headlines the British press might find some use for, all authenticatable by computer models and similar to the Greenland issue, in that the rarified edge of the model's conclusions is used for a headline - :D

NASA's Shuttle is "Doomed to catastrophic explosion in ascent"
London "Doomed to vanish under tital wave from meteor impact"
Airliner "Doomed to fiery crash in major American city"
Ipod users "Doomed to be struck by lightning"

Oops, that last one actually got into the press!:)

Tricky

8th August 2007, 10:47 AM

It's a regular media blitz, then? A starburst media campaign?
Can you verify all that huge funding, maybe provide a link for the year 2006?

Here's yet another "news report".

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/environment/2007-08-07-gore-climate-change-manipulation_N.htm
It doesn't have to be a media blitz if the funding buys access to the right audiences. But yeah, they have several media outlets (http://colorado.mediamatters.org/items/200708020002). Like this one:
Heartland Institute (http://colorado.mediamatters.org/rd?http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=10582). The Heartland Institute received $115,000 from Exxon Mobil in 2006 (http://colorado.mediamatters.org/rd?http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/Files/Corporate/gcr_contributions_public06.pdf#page=3). According to the UCS, between 1998 and 2005 Heartland received (http://colorado.mediamatters.org/rd?http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/exxon_report.pdf#page=32) $561,500, including $119,000 in 2005 (http://colorado.mediamatters.org/rd?http://www.exxposeexxon.org/facts/Exxon2005givingreport.pdf#page=3) alone. Heartland also maintains a separate "Global Warming Facts" Web page (http://colorado.mediamatters.org/rd?http://www.globalwarmingheartland.org/) that promotes books by and offers links to the works of Exxon Mobil-funded skeptics.

Pipirr

8th August 2007, 11:07 AM

mhaze

8th August 2007, 11:24 AM

It's not Greenpeace this time.

The second of the article links that Tricky provided, went to a story about The Union of Concerned Scientists. They have a report detailing how Exxon has been funding climate change disinformation to the tune of $16 million between 1998 and 2005.

Linky to UCS (http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/exxonmobil-smoke-mirrors-hot.html)

Is this something new?

Thanks for the reply - frankly, for me the report from Greenpeace is discredited due to its source (Greenpeace). I'll download this new one and read it. UCS bends pretty far left, but they are not generally loonies.

The Greenpeace document referenced lists of receipients of money from Exxon funded charitable foundations. When I read those actual documents (from the 501C corporate returns) I saw no conspiracy, nothing really at all.

It's worth noting though, that many people - myself included - thought Kyoto was a very, very bad idea. Irrespective of GW and AGW, Kyoto was plain dumb. As it has been implemented, and as costs and "benefits" from it have started to be assayed, well, Kyoto actually looks far more ridiculous than some years ago.

So not yet having read the report - I can see Exxon/Mobil having a legitimate business interest in lobbying and fighting against Kyoto and those who portrayed Kyoto (or Kyoto-like schems) as "the solution". That's why I asked about 2006 - more recently, flaws in Kyoto have become quite clear.

Of course, it's also worth noting that Kyoto isn't dead, and there are various efforts to get the US involved in various carbon offset and credit plans which do not look smart, even if one is a cheerleader for AGW. I've found the folks over at the Gristmill website to be pretty fair and balanced, they are quick to point out scams in carbon trading:)

I'll get back after reading the paper and any verifiable stuff therein.

Pipirr

8th August 2007, 11:56 AM

Thanks for the reply - frankly, for me the report from Greenpeace is discredited due to its source (Greenpeace). I'll download this new one and read it. UCS bends pretty far left, but they are not generally loonies.

The Greenpeace document referenced lists of receipients of money from Exxon funded charitable foundations. When I read those actual documents (from the 501C corporate returns) I saw no conspiracy, nothing really at all.

I suspect that most people around these forums would agree with you; I can't think of any occasion when Greenpeace has been cited as a reputable source....

As for UCS "bending pretty far left", that is to a degree subjective. But does it matter, if they are factually correct in this report?

varwoche

8th August 2007, 12:27 PM

It doesn't have to be a media blitz if the funding buys access to the right audiences. But yeah, they have several media outlets (http://colorado.mediamatters.org/items/200708020002). And what's worse, free market bags of hot air such as Heartland -- DCI Group / Tech Central, George C. Marshall Institute, Malloy@junkscience, CO2 Science [guffaw], Competitive Enterprise Institute, American Enterprise Institute, Cooler Heads Coalition come to mind -- are constantly cited here on a skeptical forum as if their blather should be taken seriously in science debates. This is patently absurd even if they weren't Exxon shills, but that doesn't stop true believers.

David Rodale

8th August 2007, 12:27 PM

There is a well known bit of info by Greenpeace concerning this issue - not by any means "new news", that asserts basically the same thing. But when you go and look at the actual data behind the "2.1 million" that they allude to as having been spent to fund "the machine", it is really hard to see any significant allocations that can be identified as anti-gw. There were a few, but nothing substantial.

So I was wondering if some new data had came up, or if this was just more of the same-old-same-old.

CP: I realize that in explaining the "Greenland is doomed" you are accurately explaining the British press, which at least to us in the US is a curious and interesting thing - but here are a couple more headlines the British press might find some use for, all authenticatable by computer models and similar to the Greenland issue, in that the rarified edge of the model's conclusions is used for a headline - :D

NASA's Shuttle is "Doomed to catastrophic explosion in ascent"
London "Doomed to vanish under tital wave from meteor impact"
Airliner "Doomed to fiery crash in major American city"
Ipod users "Doomed to be struck by lightning"

Oops, that last one actually got into the press!:)

‘Greenland ice cap doomed to meltdown’ That infers certainty does it not? Evidence completely refutes the notion, but it’s “news” and since it comes from a “science” journal it must have merit, so some believe.

Yep.

As the latest Newsweek (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20122975/site/newsweek/page/2/)reports, there has been a concerted effort by some scientists, small in numbers but big in funding, to cast doubt upon the mountains of evidence for human-influenced global warming.
http://msnbcmedia3.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/Newsweek/Components/Photos/Mag/070813_Issue/070813_Cover.standard.jpg

Chief among the culprits is ExxonMobil who mounted a 'greenwash' campaign to dispute global warming findings (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16475341/site/newsweek/). As a geologist in the petroleum industry, I am infuriated by this action by the world's largest oil company. It grieves me that scientists could be bribed away from the principle foundations of science in order to imitate places like "Answers in Geneis" by fitting the data to their preferred conclusions.

Ah yes, objectivity is the rule over at Newsweek. Nothing out of the ordinary in that cover story? Is there anything in the article that raises a flag? Is it not puzzling the opinion writer did not mention $50 billion since 1990 the U.S. government alone has doled out for global warming “research”? Universities, countless scientists, science journals, bureaucrats, environmental groups etc. have nothing to lose should those grants disappear? Is there anything at all odd about such a lopsided article? For those with an agenda it’s perfectly legitimate.

A few small public knowledge notables not mentioned by Newsweek:
1) $3 billion donated by Virgin Air mogul Richard Branson for ‘global warming’.
2) The enormous budgets of environmental organizations such as Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council whose two combined budgets total over $150 million.
3) $250,000 “donation” from Theresa Heinz Kerry to James Hansen.

Let us now research who is really spending the money.

Incidentally, where are all these mountains of evidence supporting the hypothesis of human-influenced global warming, hiding in the ‘missing sink’ with CO2? Unless one believes climate models trump science, the evidence does anything but support AGW as is currently presented.

There are geologists outside the petroleum industry who say it is AGW funding bribing scientists away from the principle foundations of science. Please give examples of how data is being fitted to preferred conclusions by those opposing AGW. They wouldn’t happen to be for example, connected to Greenland ice melt, sea level rise, unprecedented warming, solar influence, CO2, numbers of hurricanes and Medieval Warming Period would they?

mhaze

8th August 2007, 05:17 PM

I suspect that most people around these forums would agree with you; I can't think of any occasion when Greenpeace has been cited as a reputable source....

As for UCS "bending pretty far left", that is to a degree subjective. But does it matter, if they are factually correct in this report?

Add to "the list"
Heartland -- DCI Group / Tech Central, George C. Marshall Institute, Malloy@junkscience, CO2 Science [guffaw], Competitive Enterprise Institute, American Enterprise Institute, Cooler Heads Coalition

If they are factually correct their funding or orientation politically or otherwise does not matter.

varwoche

8th August 2007, 07:51 PM

Thanks for the reply - frankly, for me the report from Greenpeace is discredited due to its source (Greenpeace). I agree. I wouldn't cite Greenpeace not only because they are a biased source, but also because they aren't climate scientists. And even if Greenpeace cited an expert, I'd track down and cite the direct source and not rely on Greenpeace's characterization of the expert ...

Heartland-- DCI Group / Tech Central, George C. Marshall Institute, Malloy@junkscience, CO2 Science [guffaw], Competitive Enterprise Institute, American Enterprise Institute, Cooler Heads Coalition
If they are factually correct their funding or orientation politically or otherwise does not matter. ... but that's because I apply the same criteria universally, whereas apparently you don't.

mhaze

9th August 2007, 07:06 AM

I agree. I wouldn't cite Greenpeace not only because they are a biased source, but also because they aren't climate scientists. And even if Greenpeace cited an expert, I'd track down and cite the direct source and not rely on Greenpeace's characterization of the expert ...
... but that's because I apply the same criteria universally, whereas apparently you don't.

But you will probably be around to correct or criticize any such "error" I might make or any opinion presented that could not be substantiated with evidence.

Caveat: I will reject any rebuttals of an argument that cannot be proven without buying an article online. If you provide a reference, well then, actually provide it, and I'll read it.

mhaze

9th August 2007, 07:30 AM

It's not Greenpeace this time.

The second of the article links that Tricky provided, went to a story about The Union of Concerned Scientists. They have a report detailing how Exxon has been funding climate change disinformation to the tune of $16 million between 1998 and 2005.

Linky to UCS (http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/exxonmobil-smoke-mirrors-hot.html)

Is this something new?

It is an elaboration of the prior report I read, in that it covers more years. The links are to ExxonSecrets.org, as are the appendices (same as the prior report). Exxonsecrets.org is completely different than last time I looked at it, the prior content is no doubt available through Wayback.org. The paper really documents Exxon's opposition - not from 1998 on but from 1992 on - to Kyoto.

Now to the central question.

Exxon obviously has a right to fund research and to pay lobbyists, etc. No one would argue with that. They also have a right to argue against climate change legislation that they believe is ill conceived or detrimental to their business interests or the interests of society at large.

This does not justify "disinformation" or "misinformation".

So it seems like the thing to ask really is did they engage in disinformation or misinformation?

I see no evidence of that whatsoever. The definitely did not like Kyoto, argued against it, lobbied against it, and paid think tanks to generate position papers on this subject.

Well, hasn't the evidence proven them right?

The current mess that Europe, Australia and Canada are in with Kyoto and the fact the US did not get into it (partly due to Exxon influence if you agree with the assertions of this paper, although one FOI email clearly says that they didn't have much influence with the administration).

Just looking at the debacle of Kyoto, though,

If
A. Exxon lobbied, funded, etc. to keep us out of Kyoto
B. Kyoto turned out to be bad/ineffective/non productive/costly
Then
C. Were not Exxon the good guys?

lomiller

9th August 2007, 09:08 AM

But you will probably be around to correct or criticize any such "error" I might make or any opinion presented that could not be substantiated with evidence.

Caveat: I will reject any rebuttals of an argument that cannot be proven without buying an article online. If you provide a reference, well then, actually provide it, and I'll read it.

Given that most major peer reviewed journals require a subscription to view their papers online your position amounts to a total rejection of the top tier research on any given topic…

I’m more then willing to accept a summarized version of the contents on a peer reviewed paper provided:
a) the person doing the summarizing has some background and credentials of their own to give them crdibility in the field
b) the summary isn’t challenged. If it is then I’ll try to look deeper to find out who’s right.

mhaze

9th August 2007, 09:29 AM

Given that most major peer reviewed journals require a subscription to view their papers online your position amounts to a total rejection of the top tier research on any given topic…

I’m more then willing to accept a summarized version of the contents on a peer reviewed paper provided:
a) the person doing the summarizing has some background and credentials of their own to give them crdibility in the field
b) the summary isn’t challenged. If it is then I’ll try to look deeper to find out who’s right.

It's a problem that should be discussed.

A lot of times the papers are floating around the web, or on the scientist's web site. Hansen's are on the NASA site for example. It just seems that way too often, the abstract really isn't sufficient.

lomiller

9th August 2007, 10:27 AM

It's a problem that should be discussed.

A lot of times the papers are floating around the web, or on the scientist's web site. Hansen's are on the NASA site for example. It just seems that way too often, the abstract really isn't sufficient.

Yes it should be discussed, but what usually happens with scientific literature? The average person, even the very well educated person who makes an effort to read and understand the state of the art literature can’t fully understand leading edge science.

How often do you see this lack if understanding preyed on? It’s become a standard playbook for scientific fraud. Convince people that because they don’t understand something the people who spend their lives studying it don’t understand either. Then can either offer them a “simple” alternative explanation, appeal to their political biases to get them on your side or mislead them in some other way. The first step, however is almost always to try and convince people something “isn’t understood”.

This is why scientific consensus is so important; it’s our only real defense against being mislead using the technique of casting doubt in order to offer up an unsubstantiated alternative. Certainly we can’t take a consensus at face value, and even if we don’t fully understand the science itself we are capable of understanding the way the scientific process should operate and should make sure the process, at least, is sound.

To me the biggest red flag of a hoax or misinformation is almost always the attempt to disavow or ignore scientific consensus, or “scientific establishment”. There is a correct way to challenge scientific consensus and that is to put together and fully document a strong alternative and publish it for peer review. When you can put together a strong enough case the consensus will change.

CO2 induced warming has reached this type of consensus, so the challenge to it needs to be more then simply trying to cast doubt. The challenge needs to consist of a well documented alternative cause for global warming or well documented reason why CO2 can’t be causing the current global warming or well documented proof that warming isn’t occurring. So far none of these things are appearing in the peer review literature.

varwoche

9th August 2007, 11:22 AM

But you will probably be around to correct or criticize any such "error" I might make or any opinion presented that could not be substantiated with evidence. True.

You fail to explain why you flat out reject information from Greenpeace but not the free market bags of hot air who shill for Exxon.

I will reject any rebuttals of an argument that cannot be proven without buying an article online. If you provide a reference, well then, actually provide it, and I'll read it. I'm with you here, as the subscriptions to the various journals are expensive* and there are numerous of them. This means that if we're budget conscious, we have to rely on abstracts and sources that are as direct as possible and as non-biased as possible.

* It's especially annoying that we are expected to pay to see government funded studies, seeing as our tax dollars paid for the studies.

mhaze

9th August 2007, 11:25 AM

Yes it should be discussed, but what usually happens with scientific literature? The average person, even the very well educated person who makes an effort to read and understand the state of the art literature can’t fully understand leading edge science.

How often do you see this lack if understanding preyed on? It’s become a standard playbook for scientific fraud. Convince people that because they don’t understand something the people who spend their lives studying it don’t understand either. Then can either offer them a “simple” alternative explanation, appeal to their political biases to get them on your side or mislead them in some other way. The first step, however is almost always to try and convince people something “isn’t understood”.

This is why scientific consensus is so important; it’s our only real defense against being mislead using the technique of casting doubt in order to offer up an unsubstantiated alternative. Certainly we can’t take a consensus at face value, and even if we don’t fully understand the science itself we are capable of understanding the way the scientific process should operate and should make sure the process, at least, is sound.

To me the biggest red flag of a hoax or misinformation is almost always the attempt to disavow or ignore scientific consensus, or “scientific establishment”. There is a correct way to challenge scientific consensus and that is to put together and fully document a strong alternative and publish it for peer review. When you can put together a strong enough case the consensus will change.

CO2 induced warming has reached this type of consensus, so the challenge to it needs to be more then simply trying to cast doubt. The challenge needs to consist of a well documented alternative cause for global warming or well documented reason why CO2 can’t be causing the current global warming or well documented proof that warming isn’t occurring. So far none of these things are appearing in the peer review literature.

Personally I do not feel capable of generalizing to the extent you have. And if you check the IPCC, you will find no consensus and high uncertainty on a number of subjects: Glacial melt, input parameters to climate models, aerosol and suflates effects; clouds and water vapor effects come to mind offhand. Further, and leaving aside the issue of "co2 induced warming" for a moment, in this thread we've had a rather long discussion about a very basic issue: Greenland. And it seems terribly confused, right? Did the IPCC say it was melting? Over what time? Is that right? Who agrees? Etc. And the source article if you trace it back ---

(original newspaper ref by Safe) <--- New Scientist article <--- Nature, a paid article.

Which led me to me comment about original sources. Think about it. We've just had a rather lengthy thread here about Greenland, but (most likely) no one has read the source article.:D. And I feel pretty certain that most or many of the readers here could read and comprehend that article.

You've raised an interesting point, nonetheless.

Lucifuge Rofocale

9th August 2007, 11:28 AM

The challenge needs to consist of a well documented alternative cause for global warming or well documented reason why CO2 can’t be causing the current global warming or well documented proof that warming isn’t occurring. So far none of these things are appearing in the peer review literature.

"Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics 95, 115-121 (2007)
"Multi-scale analysis of global temperature changes and trend of a drop in temperature in the next 20 years"
Lin Zhen-Shan and Sun Xian. The School of Geographic Sciences, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, P. R. China
Full article at http://www.springerlink.com/content/g28u12g2617j5021/fulltext.pdf

[QUOTE]
Lin Zhen-Shan1 and Sun Xian1(1) The School of Geographic Sciences, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, P. R. China

Received: 2 May 2005 Revised: 24 October 2005 Accepted: 6 April 2006 Published online: 31 July 2006

Summary

A novel multi-timescale analysis method, Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD), is used to diagnose the variation of the annual mean temperature data of the global, Northern Hemisphere (NH) and China from 1881 to 2002. The results show that: (1) Temperature can be completely decomposed into four timescales quasi-periodic oscillations including an ENSO-like mode, a 6–8-year signal, a 20-year signal and a 60-year signal, as well as a trend. With each contributing ration of the quasi-periodicity discussed, the trend and the 60-year timescale oscillation of temperature variation are the most prominent. (2) It has been noticed that whether on century-scale or 60-year scales, the global temperature tends to descend in the coming 20 years. (3) On quasi 60-year timescale, temperature abrupt changes in China precede those in the global and NH, which provides a denotation for global climate changes. Signs also show a drop in temperature in China on century scale in the next 20 years. (4) The dominant contribution of CO2 concentration to global temperature variation is the trend. However, its influence weight on global temperature variation accounts for no more than 40.19%, smaller than those of the natural climate changes on the rest four timescales. Despite the increasing trend in atmospheric CO2 concentration, the patterns of 20-year and 60-year oscillation of global temperature are all in falling. Therefore, if CO2 concentration remains constant at present, the CO2 greenhouse effect will be deficient in counterchecking the natural cooling of global climate in the following 20 years. Even though the CO2 greenhouse effect on global climate change is unsuspicious, it could have been excessively exaggerated. It is high time to re-consider the trend of global climate changes.
[QUOTE]

Lucifuge Rofocale

9th August 2007, 11:52 AM

" Peer-reviewed global cooling

A large portion of physicists in Russia, especially solar physicists, have reached a "scientific consensus" - as others would call it - that the Earth will enter a period of global cooling in a couple of years and the temperatures will drop to the minimum sometime in the middle of this century.

If they're right, a period of deep freeze will start around 2055-2060 and last for 50 years or so. These predictions are based on a detailed analysis of internal dynamics of the Sun. 2007 is the International Heliophysical Year so you're not supposed to dismiss this science without reading it. Unfortunately, I cannot verify all these statements.

In the West, it has become popular for many activists such as Naomi Oreskes to claim that there is no peer-reviewed literature that contradicts the fashionable theory of the so-called global warming. Well, that's very far from reality as everyone who is familiar with basic research directions in this field knows very well. Whether or not we think that all these papers are right or not, it's a fact that there is even peer-reviewed literature that argues that we're gonna experience global cooling.

Because problems with similar statements are being looked for about 1,000 times more intensely by certain groups than problems with their own statements, I must offer you several links that would otherwise be unnecessary. ;-)

"Kinematics and Physics of Celestial Bodies" is a peer-reviewed journal that Springer translates from Ukrainian together with other journals in Russian (thanks for the correction, Gene!): click the Springer link, read the first sentence, and find the title of the journal. ;-) An article by Habibullo I. Abdussamatov in this journal published in 12/2005 discusses some of these solar cycles that are relevant for the climate. You may prefer another text about similar topics in conference proceedings published by Cambridge University Press. Other sources where similar articles were written include

* Bulletin of Crimea Observatory Vol. 103, pp. 122-127, 2006
* Proceedings of the All-Russian Conference in Troitsk, Izmiran, pp. 3-8, 2006

It's not just theoretical papers that are dedicated to these questions and explanations.

* Astrometria

is a project to measure the temporary variations of the shape and the diameter on the Russian segment of the International Space Station. The pages belong to the Central Astronomical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Pulkovo."

Go to the original page and follow the link to the peer - reviewed articles. There are too many to cut and paste here

http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/01/peer-reviewed-global-cooling.html

mhaze

9th August 2007, 12:31 PM

Looks like some stuff worth digging into. Quite interesting to see opposition to the GW/AGW arise in Russia; the country is on the verge of a literal goldmine in carbon credits capable of being traded.

Although I guess you could have it both ways; publish literature that there was no GW/AGW and take all the money you could from the West who believed there was....

lomiller

9th August 2007, 01:22 PM

Go to the original page and follow the link to the peer - reviewed articles. There are too many to cut and paste here

I honestly didn’t see that many links to peer reviewed papers on climate change on that blog. The ones that are there mostly deal with either possible future changes in solar output and the impact of solar output in pre industrial times.

The problem is that no one disputes the impact of solar output on pre industrial climate. The fact that that solar output can cause climate change doesn’t mean nothing else can. Furthermore we can effectively exclude solar variation as a factor in late 20th century climate.
From a recent paper for the Royal Society (Can’t link due to post count)

There are many interesting palaeoclimate studies that suggest that solar
variability had an influence on pre-industrial climate. There are also some
detection–attribution studies using global climate models that suggest there was
a detectable influence of solar variability in the first half of the twentieth century
and that the solar radiative forcing variations were amplified by some mechanism
that is, as yet, unknown. However, these findings are not relevant to any debates
about modern climate change. Our results show that the observed rapid rise in
global mean temperatures seen after 1985 cannot be ascribed to solar variability,
whichever of the mechanisms is invoked and no matter how much the solar
variation is amplified.

Regarding some of the specific papers cited.

A large portion of physicists in Russia, especially solar physicists, have reached a "scientific consensus" - as others would call it - that the Earth will enter a period of global cooling in a couple of years and the temperatures will drop to the minimum sometime in the middle of this century.

If they're right, a period of deep freeze will start around 2055-2060 and last for 50 years or so. These predictions are based on a detailed analysis of internal dynamics of the Sun.

This is not a prediction of global cooling, it’s a prediction of reduced solar output something that may or may not trigger global cooling. Since surface temperatures are already rising despite the fact solar output has been stable or slightly declining since ~1960 it unlikely that solar intensity is driving current warming or will cause cooling in the near future.

Despite the increasing trend in atmospheric CO2 concentration, the patterns of 20-year and 60-year oscillation of global temperature are all in falling. Therefore, if CO2 concentration remains constant at present, the CO2 greenhouse effect will be deficient in counterchecking the natural cooling of global climate in the following 20 years.

This is a localized study, which can vary significantly from overall trends. It isn’t saying CO2 doesn’t cause warming but that it’s effect will be swamped by local temperature trends. Those local temperature trends are not based on a physical model, but instead are based on past statistical trends. I’m a little leery of accepting without an underlying physical explanation for those trends especially when they conflict with predictions based on underlying physical models.

lomiller

9th August 2007, 02:10 PM

Personally I do not feel capable of generalizing to the extent you have. And if you check the IPCC, you will find no consensus and high uncertainty on a number of subjects: Glacial melt, input parameters to climate models, aerosol and suflates effects; clouds and water vapor effects come to mind offhand. Further, and leaving aside the issue of "co2 induced warming" for a moment, in this thread we've had a rather long discussion about a very basic issue: Greenland. And it seems terribly confused, right? Did the IPCC say it was melting? Over what time? Is that right? Who agrees? Etc. And the source article if you trace it back ---

(original newspaper ref by Safe) <--- New Scientist article <--- Nature, a paid article.

Which led me to me comment about original sources. Think about it. We've just had a rather lengthy thread here about Greenland, but (most likely) no one has read the source article.:D. And I feel pretty certain that most or many of the readers here could read and comprehend that article.

You've raised an interesting point, nonetheless.

It's impossible not to generalize when dealing with a complex topic in limited space. I think it's fitting that there is a lot of debate over the details of forumlating the IPCC report and the predictions it makes. I don't see much disagreement in the IPCC on the big picture item, that CO2 and other human activity are warming the planet.

Its true there is no real agreement and many unknowns on Greenland melt rates. What is agreed on is that much of the Greenland ice cap has melted with temperatures about 3 deg warmer then today and that would raise sea levels by about 6 meters (20 feet). 3 deg is also within the range of predictions due to CO2 warming. There is little agreement on how fast this melting could occur and the 3 deg of warming starts to get far enough into the future that there is a lot of uncertainty in the models.

Will it happen? It seems a likely possibility, but there is no agreement on when or how quickly so it doesn’t make the final reports predictions for sea level rise (and rightly so). Given the potential damage it’s still a risk that needs to be taken into account when deciding public policy.

You are also correct in pointing out that there is a lot of uncertainty about aerosols, but there is also a lot of agreement that they have a much shorter term effect then CO2. This means that CO2 warming, on which there is a lot of agreement, will continue to rise, while aerosol induced cooling of which there is a lot of uncertainty will be fairly stable. (This was part of the global cooling vs global warming debate in the 70's, both effects were known at the time but there was a lot if uncertianty over which was stronger. Today most people agree CO2 has a greater long term effect due to it's longer lifespan in the atmosphere.)

Lucifuge Rofocale

9th August 2007, 02:24 PM

I was responding to this:

The challenge needs to consist of a well documented alternative cause for global warming or well documented reason why CO2 can’t be causing the current global warming or well documented proof that warming isn’t occurring. So far none of these things are appearing in the peer review literature.

I guess that those things have appeared in peer reviewed literature, as I have showed. The chinese paper conclusions are about global climate, not local weather.

Also , I know very weell how hard is to be published or get grants if you don't agree with the "consensus". Censorship is alive and well (http://www.global-warming-and-the-climate.com/global-warming-scientists.htm, http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200701/CUL20070123a.html, http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200702/CUL20070208c.html)
so is very hard to find American or European papers against AGW. Some scientists (see "the Global Warning Swindle", and for an opinion on that the first link in this post) declare that get funds for research is almost impossible is you don't suscribe to AGW. Comparing the alleged funding from Exxon and others againsts the huge amount of money Government, Foundations, Companies (like Monsanto) and private donors put to stablish AGW as consensus science shows that, if that is a matter of money, AGW activists are the ones bribing scientists.

Anyway, enought ranting. Sorry if it bother you. Got a problem? Blame Global Warming :P
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/2045/

mhaze

9th August 2007, 04:17 PM

True.

You fail to explain why you flat out reject information from Greenpeace but not the free market bags of hot air who shill for Exxon.

Good question, admittedly both are very sided.

A decent answer might be that I would like to see a certain percentage of content to be worth reading or I'll not go back. What is that percentage? Maybe 10-20%? It seems at Greenpeace, I have hit a zero every time I tried reading something. The "gas bags", actually I threw them in the basket just for grins. :)

The two that I recall offhand having repeatedly seen good things at (this is not a specific statement about GW, rather just in general) would be Tech Station and Junk Sci. Cato is also good, of course they are sided by definition being libertarian.

"Free market gas bags" is an interesting apellation - I don't see these websites as accurately describing any particular free market theory or economics, exception being Cato. No doubt they claim they are free market or some such. Obviously, the group of websites above mentioned are not prime on peer reviewed technical articles. We sort of seem to have to scrape the web to find those pdfs, but a lot of them are out there.

I'm with you here, as the subscriptions to the various journals are expensive* and there are numerous of them. This means that if we're budget conscious, we have to rely on abstracts and sources that are as direct as possible and as non-biased as possible.It's a problem. I started reading one of Hansen's the other day and after page after page of talk about "adjustments", just gave up. That would not have been evident in the abstract...

In all fairness, he was dealing with cruddy data sets - but hey, garbage in, garbage out.

* It's especially annoying that we are expected to pay to see government funded studies, seeing as our tax dollars paid for the studies.That is bizzaro.

CapelDodger

9th August 2007, 05:16 PM

Because you or I can download them...

So they can be seen then :rolleyes: .

Look up the meaning of "apparent", and while you're there look up "CapelDodger is probably f**kin' wit' ya", which you should always assume. Mixing "apparent" and "can't see" is to beg for it.

CapelDodger

9th August 2007, 05:27 PM

I suspect that most people around these forums would agree with you; I can't think of any occasion when Greenpeace has been cited as a reputable source....

There are disreputable types who use Greenpeace to characterise the environmentally-concerned position.

As for UCS "bending pretty far left", that is to a degree subjective. But does it matter, if they are factually correct in this report?

WTF is the left of science? Rhetorical :) .

David Rodale

9th August 2007, 05:52 PM

Errors found in NASA temperature records.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
(We wish to thank Stephen McIntyre for bringing to our attention that such an adjustment is necessary to prevent creating an artificial jump in year 2000.)

Who was it again that said Steve McIntyre was not a "scientist"? Ha! Once again a statistician finds the errors. The question is, how many more "errors" are there?

These errors affect several details, including 1998 not being the warmest year in U.S. recorded history as well as decadal rankings.

New rankings here:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/NEW_RANKINGS.pdf

More discussion here:
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2007/08/08/giss-has-reranked-us-temperature-anomalies/
Quote from Steve McIntyre:
#

I have made my 3rd request for access to GISS source code to try to decode what they do. They have refused prior requests. Lack of access to source code makes this sort of exercise far more time consuming than it ought to be.

Yesterday they completely overwrote their US data set, changing virtually every number prior to 2000, explaining this only with a cursory comment on their webpage. In addition, they have changed their UHI adjustments so that in many cases the changed UHI adjustments offset the error in their “raw” data.

Even before these change, I was unable to track their pre-2000 data to any archive. It was sort of like USHCN adjusted data in the 1990s but diverged in earlier periods. I’ve requested a copy of the original data set or information on its provenance.

I would welcome letters to GISS urging them to fully disclose their source code.

BTW the CRU situation is much worse as they have refused to even identify the stations that they use. In fairness to GISS, they provided enough information that you could leverage on it, but CRU has resolutely refused such information.

Comment by Steve McIntyre — August 8, 2007 @ 10:03 pm

Steve's website is down for obvious reasons.
http://www.climateaudit.org

What does this mean? Not a lot since we're talking about tenths of a degree, but the public (including forums such as this) has been inundated with "the hottest _______ since ________" mantra. Can we be spared that at least? Yes it's been warm, but nothing beyond natural variation. Higher temperatures wouldn't be either. What is especially interesting is NASA is scrambling right now and the finger pointing has likely already begun.

And just as a small jab, who is in charge of all this? That's right, Dr. James Hansen.

CapelDodger

9th August 2007, 06:04 PM

And what's worse, free market bags of hot air such as Heartland -- DCI Group / Tech Central, George C. Marshall Institute, Malloy@junkscience, CO2 Science [guffaw], Competitive Enterprise Institute, American Enterprise Institute, Cooler Heads Coalition come to mind -- are constantly cited here on a skeptical forum as if their blather should be taken seriously in science debates. This is patently absurd even if they weren't Exxon shills, but that doesn't stop true believers.

It's manna to don't-want-to-believers as well, and that's most people. AGW is not easy to sell, it's not at all the sort of thing that people want to hear. And they only have to turn to FoxNews to hear it ain't so. Yet, increasingly, people are being persuaded. I think it's because they increasingly find themselves looking out of the window and thinking "this ain't frickin' normal". It can't all be down to Al Gore, surely.

(Damn. I've just Gored my own post :mad: .)

Executive politicians really don't want to hear it, they have enough anthropogenic problems to deal with day-to-day without the frickin' climate getting thrown into the mix. And yet they have been persuaded that AGW is real and that it will have an impact during their political (and/or dynastic) careers. Despite the best efforts of CO2Science et al.

CapelDodger

9th August 2007, 06:16 PM

Errors found in NASA temperature records.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/

Who was it again that said Steve McIntyre was not a "scientist"? Ha! Once again a statistician finds the errors. The question is, how many more "errors" are there?

A statistician should be able to predict a 95% probability range in answer to that. Is McIntyre on that yet? The world needs to know. It can't just be left hanging as an alarming mystery.

These errors affect several details, including 1998 not being the warmest year in U.S. recorded history as well as decadal rankings.

Does 1998's demotion include its role in the "cooling phase" argument, aka the "nine bad years for AGW"?

CapelDodger

9th August 2007, 06:30 PM

I’m a little leery of accepting without an underlying physical explanation for those trends especially when they conflict with predictions based on underlying physical models.

Nicely put.

And welcome to the funhouse :) .

CapelDodger

9th August 2007, 06:45 PM

Looks like some stuff worth digging into. Quite interesting to see opposition to the GW/AGW arise in Russia; the country is on the verge of a literal goldmine in carbon credits capable of being traded.

They're sticking flags in the Arctic oceanbed two miles down to lay claim to the oil and gas reserves that will shortly become available. Russia is already atop a massive fossil-fuel reserve which they are exploiting and getting rich off and using to bully other people ...

They don't give a fig for carbon credits. They do regard global warming from a "can I help it if I love it?" perspective. It's hardly their fault; what about the Chinese, eh? The guys that can still afford to buy Arctic oil off the Russians and fuel a mass car-culture on it.

David Rodale

9th August 2007, 07:28 PM

A statistician should be able to predict a 95% probability range in answer to that. Is McIntyre on that yet? The world needs to know. It can't just be left hanging as an alarming mystery.

Does 1998's demotion include its role in the "cooling phase" argument, aka the "nine bad years for AGW"?

2007-9=1998, which includes 1998. Taking away the El Nino effect (not related to GW), and there was no warming. The temperatures have actually been trending downward.

Get over it. The data was false, we aren't seeing "unprecedented" warming and your CO2 warming hypothesis has more holes than a Windows security patch.

mhaze

9th August 2007, 09:08 PM

Lucifuge Rofocale

9th August 2007, 11:08 PM

That's what happens when you are showing facts to AGW religious fanatics:
They use to say that "there are not peer reviewed articles who contradicts us". When you show one, they claim "But the consensus view is my view". When you show them a lot they say "They are paid by Exxon" or "Ahhh, the Russians (or Chinese) benefit with GW and that's why their Peer Reviewed scientific papers are BS".
Also, when you point at error discovered by McIntyre, he is "just and statician" wich is an "Oil Industry businessmen" and who "confuses degrees with radians", so nothing he writes is worth of attention and that way the AGW's nuts never examinate the claims made by them (or Richard Lindzen). They just use the "paid by Exxon" argument.
That's the double standard used here and everywere. And this sucks because you can't argue against the ad-homs ("Oil businessmen"), the character assasination ("paid by Exxon"), the name calling ("Deniers"), and the rejection to analyse ("Russia is already atop a massive fossil-fuel reserve which they are exploiting and getting rich off and using to bully other people ...").

Creating that level of noise the AGW fanatics are managing to drive this and others threads here. So I stand by the papers, so if you AGW's have a problem with the content of the papers put ut or shut up. If you don't have a comment about the papers other than "what about the Chinese, eh? The guys that can still afford to buy Arctic oil off the Russians and fuel a mass car-culture on it." then GFYS.

They're sticking flags in the Arctic oceanbed two miles down to lay claim to the oil and gas reserves that will shortly become available. Russia is already atop a massive fossil-fuel reserve which they are exploiting and getting rich off and using to bully other people ...

They don't give a fig for carbon credits. They do regard global warming from a "can I help it if I love it?" perspective. It's hardly their fault; what about the Chinese, eh? The guys that can still afford to buy Arctic oil off the Russians and fuel a mass car-culture on it.