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Comments 54301 to 54350:

  1. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    GeoffChambers @130, I assessed the distribution of conspiracy theory responses for acceptors, undecided, and rejectors of AGW. Only for recectors is their any hint of a bimodal distribution; and that hint consists solely of the two dubious proxies. Therefore the suggestion that the distribution is bi-modal is ad hoc. Likewise, based on the limited literature I have read on the topic, there is no record of anyone strongly believing more than a few conspiracy theories simultaneously. Based on that, the supposition that such people do in fact exist and came out of the wood work solely for the benefit of this survey is also ad hoc. We are faced with two theories about the two suspect responses. The first is that they are attempts to game the survey. The theory that people attempted to game the survey is already confirmed , with at least 5% of responses known to have been attempts to game the survey. That makes the first theory both simple, and a theory with support behind it. The alternative theory is complex because it requires the existence of (so far, unsighted elsewhere) universal conspiracy theorists; and also requires a bimodal distribution, but only among rejectors of AGW. Given the choice between a simple theory with supporting evidence, and a complex theory requiring ad hoc hypotheses, I will always choose the former. Never-the-less, I am not saying Lewandowsky should exclude those two responses from the survey. Rather, I am saying he should make people aware of the reasonable doubt, and ideally show that their inclusion makes no difference to the result. (I believe that is indeed what he is claiming, although I have my doubts.)
  2. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    Even if using the same code, weather and climate models are *different*, in some sense analogous to the difference between old-style protein-folding and climate models. Steve Easterbrook gives a good explanation of the difference between models for weather (Initial Value Problem) and climate (Boundary Value Problem). They are different, and knowing something about weather models does not automagically generalize to climate models. See RC's FAQ #1 and FAQ #2.
  3. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    Eric (skeptic) @ 32, Sphaerica @ 36, KR @ 39 Yes. Isn't it odd that Eric is so certain about which portion of the uncertainty range contains the correct answer. Add me to the list of people that would love to hear Eric's explanation, justification, and support for his claim that the range of uncertainty is actually much, much smaller than that seen in the scientific literature. ...because that is basically what Eric has claimed: that the scientifically-indicated range of uncertainty is wrong - that he knows better and that he knows the correct answer is down at one end.
  4. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    Andy S Guilty as charged and +1.
  5. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    Great comment, Kevin@37. I think that we need to be careful with all of these psychological explanations of why climate change "skeptics" think and reason the way they do. Firstly, as you said, it's all too easy to misuse these studies to categorize "skeptics" as somehow deficient in reasoning, which can be, at best, patronizing and at worst, dehumanizing. Secondly, it's all too easy to forget that our thinking processes, which are often driven by emotion first and reason second, are common characteristics of all of us, not just of people we disagree with. It's great fun to see "skeptic" commentators say things in responses to Stephan Lewandowsky's and John Cook's articles that seem to make the original authors' case for them. We must remember, though, that the problem with our, so far, inadequate response to climate change is not because a handful of internet pundits behave irrationally, but rather because of the deeper failure of all of us to respond rationally to a novel, slow-motion, global, invisible threat. We have not evolved the instincts nor developed the social frameworks to address a problem of this nature adequately.
  6. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    Eric (skeptic) - "...all the uncertainty points to lower sensitivity." And now you have explicitly stated a fallacious argument - that all the uncertainty favors your point of view. This is completely contrary to the evidence, wherein the bounds on low sensitivity are quite strong, and the bounds on a much higher sensitivity are in fact less constrictive. The uncertainty actually favors a higher sensitivity, not a lower one. As with Sphaerica - I'm going to have take your position as nonsense (a mix of cherry-picking and confirmation bias) unless you can provide some citations, some evidence, supporting your point of view.
  7. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    Interesting comment from Kevin, thought-provoking. Funny thing is (and it perhaps illustrates Kevin's thoughts in terms of mirroring) last night I paid a visit to Lewandowsky's blog and the comment stream immediately led me to think of "mobbing." Later on I realized that by sheer numbers there was not much of a mob there, really, just a few shouters.
  8. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    OK, I'll have a go at the sociology. Huge D-K caveats over all of this. My principle source is Girard, although there probably bits of Derrida and others mixed in here too. When communities face problems they tend to find outlets for that pressure, in the form of a response which is some modified form of violence. Often this involves the creation of a victim or class of victims (the scapegoat) on which the problems can be blamed. To avoid compromising our own humanity, dehumanisation of the victims is usually a part of the process. The victimisation process release the tension and builds common cause within the community. We all do this, it's our anthropology. Lots of illustrations: Emmanuel Goldstein in 1984, the skeptic community's demonisation of Micheal Mann, immigrants. Is US politics more polarised this year? Related to recession? The conspiracy paper is not about climate. So of little interest to many of us here. However the response is interesting to me, because of the social anthropology. The skeptic community reacted very strongly against it. Elsewhere in the consensus community the paper also got quite a lot of play (e.g. it made the Guardian). Once it attracted criticism, many leapt to its defence (again fewer here), despite it's irrelevance to climate science. What is going on? The paper is very easy to play as a tool for dehumanising skeptics: 'They can't help being skeptics, it is because they are psychologically predisposed to conspiracy theories'. Put like that you can see why it would go down badly. Worse, the more insecure members of our community can use it to reason 'we are rational thinking individuals, they are controlled by their psychology'. That the 'controlled by their psychology' argument cuts both ways is no doubt obvious to a psychologist like Lewandowsky, but it is a common mistake. As a result, I think the paper unintentionally played to and was exploited by the less science-focussed elements of the consensus community and it's followers, and was used to dehumanise the image of the skeptic. The title of the paper certainly didn't help in preventing it from being abused in this way. That's my impression as to what is going on. Biggest caveats: None of my observations are objective and they are all suspect. The patchiness of my social anthropology no doubt biases me to interpret things in the light of the bits I know. On a personal note, the creation and dehumanisation of victims is part of our anthropology, and certainly it comes very naturally to me, yet at the same time I find it abhorrent. I can't stop others doing it to me, but neither can I participate in a community in which doing it to others is normative. Fortunately, SkS has on the whole managed to avoid this.
  9. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    Because Lewandowsky said it was... And Lewandowsky was indeed correct. ...and when McIntyre did find it... Weeks after it was sent. Minimum lesson learned: Read your own email.
  10. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    133, Geoff,
    Because Lewandowsky said it was...
    So what? He said he did, they claim he didn't... oh, wait, McIntyre found it but ignored it. Again, so what? How did this in any way invalidate the study? Or do you just feel for McIntyre's poor, trod on sense of importance?
    Of course it is.
    Oh, Jeeze. So you think there was a warmist conspiracy to pretend to be skeptics, just to get them to look bad? Holy moly...
  11. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    32, Eric,
    ...all the uncertainty points to lower sensitivity.
    This statement is direct contradiction of the science and utterly without support. Please supply a single, published citation that supports this presumption of yours. Looking at the range 1C to 5C and picking 1C because you personally think, in your own thought-experiments, that the "more positive feedback there was from lower dust levels, the lower the sensitivity to rising CO2" is true... ... is just plain insanity. How can you possibly separate yourself from the deniers? You began this thread by claiming "a large majority of skeptics agree with the 97% of climate scientists on AGW." I call "B.S.". You yourself are in complete denial. How can you speak for this large majority (that I have never seen)?
  12. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    Eric (skeptic) - Regarding ice-age dusts, it's not clear whether they provided negative or positive forcings, so again you are assuming ("positive feedback") a one-sided uncertainty. And you're back on the models, which (IMO) represents a cherry-picking of the evidence.
  13. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    Sphaerica #132
    Why do the conspiracy theorists among us actually care that this survey was or was not offered on self-proclaimed-skeptic blogs?
    Because Lewandowsky said it was, and all the major sceptic blogs denied having found it, and when McIntyre did find it, it came from a different person, with a different introduction, attached to a different questionnaire, one week after it had already been publicised and widely discussed on anti-sceptic blogs. All points which need explaining, and which Lewandowsky refuses to address.
    Is the fear that skeptics who visit other blogs aren't representative of "real" skeptics, and so the study was improperly skewed towards a not-acceptable-as-a-real-skeptic population?
    Of course it is. (-Snip-)
    Moderator Response: [DB] Ideology snipped.
  14. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    Ari, if you go back a few decades it's easy to see that Lindzen actually did earn his AGU Fellow badge. That was before he converted his reputation and scientific capital into a simple machine for applying political force. His AGU Fellow status is key part of the little mechanism, might be likened to a fulcrum, with the MIT gig being the long end of a lever. Reduce, reuse, recycle, one might say, with emphasis on "reduce." Using MIT and AGU in this way necessarily reduces them while lifting Lindzen's cause. Being associated w/dousing is bad for efficient functioning of Lindzen's device, akin to the same problem AGU and MIT face.
  15. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    I don't think Lindzen's early stuff (and this one too) had any more legs than his current nonsense.
  16. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    KR, you'll have to be more specific in those threads. Sphaerica, we are at the low end of paleo only because, contrary to KR, all the uncertainty points to lower sensitivity. To give a very simple example, there are layers of dust in ice cores during ice ages. The more positive feedback there was from lower dust levels, the lower the sensitivity to rising CO2. A model incorporating dust is the only way to find out. That is why my focus is on the models.
  17. Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt to Levels Unseen in Millennia
    Sphaeric: energy "looks" cheap The crux of the problem, and we don't respect things that are "cheap." Treat energy as we would a rope suspending us over a bottomless gulf and we'll do better. If the rope we're hanging on is showing obvious signs of fraying, arrange a better rope as fast as possible. Remember that more than one rope is better.
  18. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    Eric (skeptic) - I went back and re-read the thread you referred to; in that thread you repeatedly dismissed observations (including claims that the observations don't make sense without models!), focused entirely on models, and claimed uncertainty regarding those. Followed by (in several threads) suggestions that we wait a few decades until our models improve - while not giving a solid criteria for such improvement, which leaves Moving the goalposts, or Argument by demanding impossible perfection wide open. Sphaerica is (IMO) entirely correct in his assessment that you are overly focused on models, which is itself a form of cherry-picking, an argument from fallacy. You seem to be assuming that if you can, or have, disproven something about one line of evidence, that the entire house of cards falls down - and to support that argument, you refer everything to your focus, 'models'. You are, as John Cook discussed, not looking at the full body of evidence. Now, as to uncertainties regarding dust, jet streams, etc. - you have implied (although not explicitly stated) a different fallacious argument: that such uncertainties go only in one direction. Any uncertainties regarding glacial or interglacial era feedbacks WRT current conditions could just as well mean that we will see worse feedbacks now. There's no reassurance in that kind of uncertainty.
  19. Why Arctic sea ice shouldn't leave anyone cold
    The thermo/haline stratification in the Arctic ocean is one of many elephants in the room. There is enough heat in the deep, salty, slightly warmer (from 1 to 2.5 degrees) water that fills the deep basin of the Arctic ocean to melt all the ice a number of times over. One meter of water which is 1 degree above the freezing point of the ice that lies on top of it contains enough heat to melt 12.5mm of ice (latent heat of ice is 80cal per gram). Much of the Arctic ocean outside of the continental shelves is a thousand meters deep. As the Arctic becomes more open water earlier and earlier there is more energy to power storms such as the one of Aug6. These storms cause upwhelling along the shore and pull this deep "warm" water to the surface. Internal waves which the storm causes break as the reach shallow water and further mix the layers. After each summer storm of the magnitude of the one this year (or greater) will see a dive in the ice extent graph. It is just possible that we could be ice free next year or at most in a couple of years. http://mtkass.blogspot.com/2008/07/arctic-melting-no-problem.html
  20. Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt to Levels Unseen in Millennia
    For all deniers, if: 1) The droughts, fires, heat-waves, increase in storms and other impacts that we've seen in the past decade are the effects of the warming we've seen to date... 2) The melting of the Arctic ice is an effect of the warming we've seen to date... 3) The melting of the Arctic ice further exacerbates that warming to a marked degree... 4) The inertia of the system means that we are still accumulating further warming on top of what we see now, even if we cut all emissions today... 5) More warming will mean that the droughts, fires, heat waves, storms and other impacts become that much worse... 6) These negative factors must continue for at least hundreds of years, maybe more... 7) The economic impacts of those effects of warming for hundreds of years will be huge... ... All because we couldn't/wouldn't invest a little bit of effort into:
    a) A less careless attitude towards energy and resource waste b) Renewable energy sources c) Less profits for fossil-fuel companies d) More jobs through efforts to upgrade and improve our energy and transportation infrastructures e) Lower prices and more efficiency through more local product sources, rather than shipping everything back and forth around the globe because energy "looks" cheap
  21. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    29, Eric, So 1C to 5C for you translates into "let's assume 1C"? Also, your CO2 comment is nonsensical. Normally, CO2 is a feedback, but in our case it is a driver. Yes, every system is different so the feedbacks from one case to another vary, but your silent hope that the same feedbacks or degree of feedbacks suddenly won't apply, just in this one special case smacks of desperate denial to me. Your further statement -- that you need models to estimate the actual feedbacks -- goes back to your own particular tic. You cannot get past the models as your single-minded focus. Everything comes back to the models. And this is your own personal non-sequitur. 1) You don't trust the models. 2) Therefore global warming is not happening.
  22. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    The paleo evidence gives a wide range, about 1C to 5C, for sensitivity due to uncertainties in feedbacks. The only way to narrow the range is with a model. KR points out here that "paleo evidence is a very strong indicator of total feedback". But CO2 is not the only feedback and the feedbacks that are not applicable to today's climate (dust, jet stream shifts, etc) must be subtracted out using a model.
  23. Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt to Levels Unseen in Millennia
    To add to Sphaerica's last point, orbital forcing--the primary forcing behind ice ages--is trying to cool us right now. Yet we warm. Tzedakis et al. (2012) tells us that we need less than 280ppm CO2 for ice age glacial inception. We're at 395ppm right now and growing rapidly. CO2 is going to take a long while to drop, even if we went to zero emissions today. We're not going to go to even zero trend for at least decades.
  24. Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt to Levels Unseen in Millennia
    Jack, looking critically at Arctic maximum requires one first and foremost to take into account land constraints. Max area is constrained by land. If there were no land in the northern hemisphere, the winter max area trend would be much more useful than it actually is. It is a downward trend, but not quite as severe as summer minimum trend, and the trend starts to increase later in the winter series compared to the summer. The area that melts each melt season is also increasing. If minimum were today, 11.35 million km2 would have melted, an instrumental period record. Not surprising, though, since the ice is thinning. While 2012 started out anomalously high in area (against the trend), the drop was staggering in intensity when it came. There were 22 60-day periods where the average daily loss was over 100k km2. There was one such period in the entire instrumental record before this year. Will October be an equally sharp beginning to the race to the maximum? Or will the warmth linger and force the growth spurt to begin in earnest later? Volume trend is down on every day of the year when using the full record as a basis. I get something like 2070 for winter max ice free when I extrapolate a ten year linear to zero intercept. That's unlikely, of course. Funny thing is, I can't tell you why. I suspect that decrease will slow as area max gets closer to the 80 degree line, but if ice is still mobile, then there's no reason to think it might not be susceptible to flushing and mixing. This year's anomaly was, for my money, greatly enhanced by high-temp river drainage. That drainage was high temp thanks to the heat concentrated over parts of Siberia and North America (and the snow cover anomaly). And that, of course, can be tied to polar amplification related changes to the big circulation cells. 2013 is a crucial year. If we get a repeat of 2012, then 2012 will probably be considered the second barrel of the 2007/2012 tipping points. My penny and a half.
  25. Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt to Levels Unseen in Millennia
    Jack W, Your point is certainly worth addressing, and from several angles. (1) First, the facts about ice "recovering" in the winter... yes, it does, and you correctly note that it does not have the same thickness. What matters here is two things. First, most of the Arctic is in 24-hour darkness for about 1/4 of the year. [See this fun toy here and this even better one here.] This means that it is going to get very, very cold up there when the sun is down, so it is no surprise that the ice is recovering (for now). But... despite the mere loss of something that has existed for maybe up to 100,000 to 800,000 years, the loss of summer ice puts in motion some dangerous feedbacks. It doesn't matter much if the Arctic is ice covered in the winter, but if it is open water during the summer, it will absorb rather than reflect the sun's rays. That absorption results in a major change in the energy balance. One scientist recently estimated this as equivalent to adding another 20 years worth of CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. And that's not the only feedback. Scientists grow ever more worried that we are going to release vast quantities of methane tied up both in the permafrost and in the Arctic seabed. Combined, these factors will multiply the effect of man's carbon emissions. We've known that this would happen in general (search for "climate sensitivity" and "positive feedbacks"), but not necessarily this quickly. That's frightening. (2) Beyond this, the fact that the Arctic is returning to an ice-covered state in winter is not guaranteed to continue. Studies have been conducted that the Arctic only has two stable states, ice-covered or ice-free. What we are seeing now may be a short-lived interim period while the system toggles from one state to another, but it may well be that when the globe warms enough and enough ice vanishes that the Arctic does not grow sizable amounts of ice even in months of 24-hour darkness. (3) As far as being beyond the point of no return, yes, that's what has everyone scared... that we've already passed a point to stop this, and the subsequent positive feedbacks will kick in, making things even worse. (4) As far as not being sure what portion to attribute to human endeavors. First look at 1, 2, and 3 and tell me that you're willing to take that risk. Second, consider that what we're seeing in the Arctic hasn't happened to this extent since 6,000 years ago, at the peak of the Holocene Thermal Maximum (i.e. the warmest period of our interglacial -- for thousands of years we've been in the slow decent into the next glacial, and this reversal we see now is unheard of in the 800,000 year ice-age record). Given that all other factors -- a quiet sun, for example -- leave nothing except anthropogenic influences to be driving temperatures higher than they've been in 800,00 years, and given that a completely ice-free Arctic, if we reach that state (which as you've said now seems inevitable), a state that has not existed on this planet for hundreds of thousands of years and maybe not since the start of this ice age (period of glacial/interglacial transitions) 2.6 million years ago... do you really question the anthropogenic influence here? Which of nature's fairies is raising temperatures and melting the Arctic ice in a way this planet hasn't seen in hundreds of thousands and maybe millions of years?
  26. Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt to Levels Unseen in Millennia
    Jack W: Tamino has a graph derived from NSIDC data and a link to (and information extraced from) a paper, Kinnard et al 2008, showing maximum extents and minimum extents. (Note that the NSIDC info requires log-in to view directly and the Kinnard et al paper is behind a paywall.) It appears that maximum extent has declined slightly (insofar as a 1 million km^2 decline is slight). I am not certain your criticism of the graphs is on point. An annual January-December plot of sea ice extent has no 'zero' in the time axis; nor does a sea ice plot since the start of direct satellite measurement (in 1979) or century-long reconstructions (the Kinnard paper). There is also, as far as I can see, nothing misleading about omitting some lower values of sea ice extent that the sea ice hasn't reached, until it becomes necessary (which, to be fair, may be sooner than we would all like).
  27. Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt to Levels Unseen in Millennia
    Jack, the surface of the Arctic ocean will freeze in winter to fill the space available to the ocean itself, regardless of the thickness of the ice. The -maximum- extent of the ice is set by the general geographic arrangement of the ocean and land, so failing us plunging into a new ice age or the planet becoming much warmer than any projections (as far as I know of, anyway) that maximum isn't going to change a lot. As to the scale of the graph, think about a clinician plotting a patient's temperature. Scaling the graph of the temperature of a human body to zero would cause the clinician to miss changes in the patient's temperature indicating drastic health problems. It's kind of the same deal here; the ice extent in summer does not have to drop to zero to tell us we can expect systemic changes in weather and climate in the NH.
  28. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    I'm a little confused here. Why do the conspiracy theorists among us actually care that this survey was or was not offered on self-proclaimed-skeptic blogs? The results were sorted and analyzed based on the answers, not the source. Is the fear that skeptics who visit other blogs aren't representative of "real" skeptics, and so the study was improperly skewed towards a not-acceptable-as-a-real-skeptic population? Or is the problem that someone like McIntyre didn't get to manipulate the outcome by coaching his visitors through the answers? I rather suspect that if the survey had been offered at "real" self-proclaimed-skeptic blogs, the conspiracy-signal would have been magnified. It could only have helped to strengthen the results -- unless the inane, bizarre and quite indefensible comments that I see on self-proclaimed-skeptic blogs are somehow not representative of the nutters that frequent/post on them, or they would have suddenly put on their sanity-caps while filling out the survey, then taken them off in order to post more stupid comments on their favorite self-proclaimed-skeptic blog. It is what it is. Get over it.
  29. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    22, Eric, I did not say that paleo evidence supports the models, I said that it supports the same estimates of climate sensitivity given by the models. Forget the models. And so you also missed my point in #4. The fact that you missed the point clearly demonstrates it! You are in the mode that everything hinges on the climate models, you don't trust them, and you cannot in any way separate from those two facts, so all of your thought processes stop there. I would strongly recommend that you ignore the models completely and begin to study and learn the other aspects of the science. You are trapped in a set of "I don't trust models" blinders. You don't argue against the rest of the science. You simply ignore it (unless it has something to do with the models).
  30. Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
    Bernard@67: Whew!!! I thought this was about *Glenn* Beck, and my head was about to explode...;) Thanks for helping me clear ~that~ particular nasty bit of imagery out of my head!
  31. Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt to Levels Unseen in Millennia
    It's all very intriguing, but I have one question, I'd like to see answered that seems to be whitewashed over. I'd like to pre-qualify that question with the statement, that I'm not disputing Global Warming. Obviously we have it, but what portion to attribute human endeavors I'm not willing to put a figure to. Now my question is, we see how much ice coverage we are getting in the summer, but from all I can find it appears we still have about the same average coverage "area" in the winter. Now obviously the coverage is getting thinner, but we are still getting around the same amount of ice area in the winter. Correct me if I'm wrong and point me to sources disputing that. Now, of course, I'd also like to point out, based on the graphics that the plots are a bit self-serving. I'd like to see graphs with zero points on both axes, and some of the lines are plotted to look more/less severe than they are in reality. Lastly, I'd like to point out, based on the current slope, we might now be in an asymptotic curve (whether geometric or exponential is not clear from the distorted graphs) and there really isn't anything we can do to stop the ever impending and accelerating approach to "Arctic Ice Free Summers". Since it looks like we are not even coming close to icefree winters. Anyway, I've long suspected we were past the point of no return on this item, based on my own readings and math knowledge.
  32. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    Foxgoose@128 ...because anyone with any experience in such surveys knows that you never get 100% response - there will always be someone that won't reply. You take what responses you get, and you move on. McIntyre is no different from anyone else that was contacted about the survey, and I would be surprised if he were to get any different treatment from anyone else - and to give him special treatment and make extra effort to get him to participate (beyond what was established in the protocols for the study) would likely give reason to wonder about the results. You seem to think that McIntyre actually matters as an individual - he's just another one of a group of people invited to participate, and in the context of the study he doesn't mean anything more than "blogger X". He make think he's more important than others, and you may think he's more important than others, but for now all you've got is a tempest in a teapot, and you're still circling the drain of "conspiracy theory".
  33. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    Some of these comments are ingenuous in a Quixotic way that's almost charming even as they surely must be extraordinarily irritating to others sharing the same space. A comment quoted by John Cook rattles off a list of idiosyncratic scientists, including: Nils-Axel Mörner, retired head of the Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics department at Stockholm University, former Chairman of the INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution (1999–2003), and author of books supporting the validity of dowsing... I wonder how Prof. Lindzen feels about being lumped in with dowsers?
  34. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    JohnMashey@18: Just slightly OT, but I hope the point is allowed to be made; I spent more than half my life as a professional auto mechanic, specializing in nifty little LBCs (Little British Cars), and of those, E type Jaguars were high on the list. Most that I worked on were owned by engineers, and they provided me a decent living, by attempting to *fix* the cars themselves, especiually the "simple SU carburettors. I cannot tell you the times I was told, "Oh, *I'm* a _____________ (anything BUT related to cars) engineer, so these "simple" carbs can't be that hard to adjust." Whereupon I charged them $50 to reset them, so that the car would run. *Again.* Like it had, the last time before they'd monkeyed with the SUs. None learned. I made money...;) Back OnT, I see the same thing with all the denialati, and because of my previous experience, recognized it right off the bat. Thanks to you, and others, who've put a finer point on the whole topic for me, as a geologist, who definitely is NOT an expert in climatology, but who certainly has a decent understanding of how to operate the game called Planet Earth, it is really valuable to read these opinions and dissections of positions similar to Eric T.S. Sowwy, gws@23....{:=P
  35. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    actually, I just read through the last fall argument of yours you had linked to (Dessler vs. Spencer), and it is obvious that you moved the goalpost within the discussion until you finally stayed away I will have to go offline again soon, so no time to read teh linked pages answers: - I am a scientist also have also taught about denialism - I am not a skeptic - I have observed Lindzen particularly, and found that his demeanor is very reassuring, but that he uses denialist tactics (to spread doubt) in his talks when you look carefully
  36. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    gws, regarding your fourth dash above, you could answer the equivalent of the questions you asked me in #10. Although CS seems to be the focus here, I should also point out arguments about attribution here and the WashPost weather blog I've also argued about accounting. But the most scientifically narrow (and therefore potentially resolvable) argument is CS. But it's not a new goalpost, nor one that has been moved around a lot.
  37. Vanishing Arctic Sea Ice: Going Up the Down Escalator
    Hi John, Mark, My straw poll of scientists was referring to area rather than volume. Mainly because volume is not well observed. Ed.
  38. Bostjan Kovacec at 01:29 AM on 8 September 2012
    Realistically What Might the Future Climate Look Like?
    Here’s my calculation: Let’s take a FarmVille type of agricultural opperation 22 ha of arable land with 3 yokes of oxen Feed for 6 oxen: 40 kg/day x 365 days x 6= 87.6 t 1 ha of Lolium multiflorum Lam. var. westerwoldicum or Lolium multiflorum Lam. var. italicum or Lolium perenne Lam will give give 45-55 tons of green fodder with 25% dry mater a year (60 to 80 t in a good year). It should feed 3 animals. Set aside 2 ha to feed the oxen. In Roman times an area 1 yoke of oxen could plow a day was 1 jugerum = 2530m2 = 0.25 ha 3 yokes of oxen can do 0.75 ha/day 20 ha / 0.75 ha/day = 26.66 days 2 crop cycles a year require 53.33 day of work of 6 oxen and 4-5 people Add 2 rounds a year for other cultivation and harvest = 53.33 days Oxen would work about 4 months a year and rest 8 months. 20 ha totals 107 days of 4-5 people = 1.3-1.6 manyears => 2 manyears (to be human and give them some time to relax) Compare to tractors and harvesters: 20 ha of corn = 440 hours = 2 months of work of one person 2 ha to fuel the oxen is less than 9% of arable land of the farm. With better plows and higher productivity this number could be as low as 6%. The technology has been tested over extensive period and is readily available. I used Roman times plowing technology and productivity estimates, so I consider my calculation to be conservative. If there are no mistakes than this calculation proves that it is possible to cut fossil fuel emissions from agricultural tractors by 100% using working animals. Horses or other animals could be included in the mix if they are more suitable for work. Keeping 6 big animals on 22 ha doesn’t do any harm to the environment. Additional man power needed represents a huge opportunity to employ people in really green jobs.
  39. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    this is unfair, people have taken over my thread with Eric just because I was offline for a while ... ;-) anyway, just a few more comments: - there are many people like Eric I think; I have argued on forums with at least one more - the basic idea is to hang on to something that gives hope, or that allows continued denial, depending on your ideology; it does not necessarily make you an active denier - you are better at this if you are smart/educated - we all, scientists included, suffer every once form this until we allow ourselves to step back a moment and analyze our own behavior for confirmation bias - if you keep doing it, it does belong to the "five ways" and is known as "moving the goalpost", another favorite denialist tactic. the latest goalpost move in fashion is the "it's not so bad because CS is low argument" - Lindzen and others have focused on low CS as 'the last holdout' as they cannot credibly argue anything else any more, but the weight of the evidence is closing on them as one can find out by surfing SkS on a CS quest, or by being a climate science nerd
  40. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    Sphaerica, Your last 4 points have some validity, particularly #2 and of course #3 :) On #1 (and therefore #4) I have to disagree. I've gone into that before here As for paleo evidence supporting the models, that requires models, see my response to Bernard here JohnMashey, your point is valid. I do know about weather models although I am nowhere near an expert. I know somewhat how the weather must be parameterized in coarser climate models, but not the details.
  41. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    Geoff: Would someone like to ask Stephan whether he can identify the source blogs for individual respondents? Perhaps, if you're lucky. As you've burned your bridges by spewing inane questions about chronology at Lewandowsky guaranteed to eliminate any chance he'll take you seriously, it seems you'll now have to depend on charity. Treat it as an object lesson.
  42. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    The psychology of science denial is pretty fascinating. It's interesting how entirely predictable they are, and how they simply can't help themselves even when their behavior is predicted right to their faces. Just goes to show that there's no sense in arguing with a science denier, because his behavior is not going to change.
  43. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    Kevin C: "It is all focussed on the way people respond as individuals, which is inevitable since it is being studied using the tools of psychology." Psychology is not limited to a focus on individuals. "The tools of psychology" are regularly applied to group dynamics.
  44. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    'gws, no, I'm an engineer. But I understand modeling, I perform statistical analysis and am familiar with the science of weather.' See this discussion. Some technically-trained people over-generalize from the sorts of models they know about into thinking they necessarily understand other kinds. I examined some examples of the *different* ways in which different disciplines tend to over-generalize, if they do. Classical skeptics who do this, when given the right examples, change their minds. One of the examples was of a research chemist, and it turned out his skepticism came from problems with protein folding, although that took a while to figure out, as I'd guess rather few people have any serious exposure to that and climate models. In the extreme skeptic case, this can be "I do Java, therefore I know about climate software :-)"
  45. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    11, 13, Eric, And yet there is a response to you in the very comment thread to which you linked (at RC, 2006).
    Eric, your obsession with resolution is not reflected in reality and seems to be tunnelvision. Worse yet is that it appears to strengthen your skepticsm without foundation. Look at the model results. They speak for themselves. Models of all types (not just climate) do not inevitably improve with continually greater resolution. In fact, it has been shown that there are limits to the benefits of higher resolution. Weather and air quality models clearly show that there is a benefit limit. Air quality model’s performance does not necessarily improve and can degrade significantly when finer resolution is applied. Futhermore, it has been shown in certain applications that a single parameter can more than adequately represent long term trends or patterns depending on the significance. Climate is long term; weather is short term. It is pretty basic.
    I point this out because your form of denial does not entirely demonstrate any of John's tendencies: Cherry-picking, Conspiracy Theories, Magnifying Dissenters and Non-experts, and Logical Fallacies. I say "not entirely" because in fact, as the appended comment demonstrates: 1) You do cherry-pick, by ignoring the evidence that your position on resolution is wrong. 2) You do magnify dissenters, by elevating your own opinion of models and dismissing the actual experts. [Please show qualified citations that support your position that the models are totally inadequate for forecasting climate sensitivity.] 3) No conspiracy theories. Good. 4) Logical fallacies. Well, your entire position is IMO a double non-sequitur, equivalent to "Climate models do not model weather well, therefore all estimates of climate sensitivity are invalid" and "all estimates of climate sensitivity are invalid, therefore we need to ignore all other evidence and wait until the models get better."
  46. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    It is a great article John - and it is like a denialist honey trap - they came in droves and provided a real life demonstration of exactly what you described as the "How". It's notable that they also studiously avoided entering into any serious discussion that provided multiple lines of evidence - instead indulging in the usual gish gallop. Worth analysing when it's done and writing up in a journal almost I reckon :)
  47. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    Eric brings up an interesting point, although his class of skeptic is by my observation exceedingly rare. Is this because there are few of them, or simply that they tend to be quiet in comparison to the loud, obnoxious, and downright boisterous "true deniers"? I don't know, but that fact that we "sense" so few of them is probably why they are not included in John's analysis. I would define his class of skeptic as "focused deniers." They can't bring themselves to be so silly as to refute all of the science, especially when so much of it is so obvious. What they do instead is to cherry-pick one foothold (low climate sensitivity, or only partial attribution to CO2, or the slow rate of warming and "we don't entirely know," or "let's wait a while and see how it plays out, just to be safe," or "the cure is worse than the disease," or whatever). They then cling tenaciously to that, despite the mounds of evidence against their particular position. They feel bolstered in maintaining that position, though, because they can be so reasonable about everything else. The GHG effect is real, there is warming detected, etc., etc.... but... In Eric's case, his entire position is based on suspicion of the quality of climate models, even though there are multiple studies of paleoclimate, observations, and other factors that agree completely with the estimate of a climate sensitivity between 2.0 and 4.5 C. He maintains his position even though some feedbacks (albedo, methane) are unfolding right before his very eyes as we speak (look north). Then there's basic risk aversion... the idea that if there's even a fraction of a chance that the models are right, the intelligent course is to take action... but no, no, lets wait two whole decades to see if the models can get better. After that there's the obvious... the fact that even 0.6 to 0.8 C of warming seems to be pretty darn bad right now (given two monster heat waves, multiple monster droughts, increasing storms, etc., etc.). But no, we can't be sure that's just a spate of natural events, because we don't yet trust the models. There are so many ways to look at this, to say "yes, well, I doubt the models, but the evidence is so strong otherwise"... but Eric's form of focused denial gets to have the best of both worlds. Agree with most of the evidence. Agree with the science. Laugh at the conspiracy theories. Laugh at the faux-skeptics. But cling tenaciously to one argument, blind to reason, and steadfastly claim to be a reasonable, true skeptic untainted by the symptoms of denial. A focused skeptic is not like "them." They're different. They're rational.
  48. Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
    For posterity's sake I should probably have said "...who think that the moon landings were hoaxed...".
  49. Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
    Vrooomie at #66. You're probably looking for the post: http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/10/04/more-nonsense-about-co2/ Similar to it, and following on, was: http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/03/22/remember-eg-becks-dodgy/comment-page-1/#comments They were truly days of denialist insanity. Most of the Beckophiles have now tempered their enthusiasm for his "camel-train of Bactrians marching up hill and down dale", but the occasional more extreme nutter still surfaces - they're probably the same ones who think that the moon landings were hoaxed...
  50. CRU tampered with temperature data
    karl: "I doubt that any of the arguments for adjustments would convince a poorly informed skeptic, who would always point back to the raw data as 'true'." Yes, and most "skeptics" are going to cling to the notion that the theory of anthropogenic global warming is based on surface temperature, and that if one can show that surface temp is not warming as much as projected, then AGW is falsified and the scientists are revealed as frauds.

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