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Comments 54451 to 54500:

  1. Vanishing Arctic Sea Ice: Going Up the Down Escalator
    It is likely the neverending story will repeat itself in 2013, as there is a sizeable chance 2013 levels will be (a bit) higher than 2012. And, when everything will go horribly wrong, they still will be able to shout "recovery !" when some ice will reappear after the first ice-free Arctic summer. The most important question is : will they still have the mainstream media audience they get nowadays, allowing policymakers to sit on their thumbs ?
  2. Realistically What Might the Future Climate Look Like?
    Bostjan@61 You are in principle correct about the animal-based farming. However please take into consideration the population size that this animal-based technology did, and still does support in some parts of the world today. You will notice that it could not, and will not support the current population of 7+ Gperson primarily due to the ratio of animals needed to replace a single farm engine such as a plowing tractor. On a tangent, there is/was an interesting opening sequel in James Burke's Connections-series called 'The Trigger Effect'.
  3. Realistically What Might the Future Climate Look Like?
    Lanfear, right, which is why I mentioned the Carnot cycle, which is what brings batteries of any kind within the sphere of useful in comparison to caveman-style combustion and wretched castings full of thrashing parts. Getting to an apples-apples comparison is not easy but some choices are easy thanks to context. For my driving habit and addiction level an electric car is now easily feasible; I was about to plunk for a Leaf but now am dithering between that and a Focus. I'm one of a vast number of people who can now ponder over this choice and what a terrific thing that is. Tractors, not so easy.
  4. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    Tom Curtis #95 Of course there's a good reason for randomizing the order of questions. No doubt Kwiksurveys offers that feature. That's not what happened. Climate Audit was offered a different survey with different questions and a different ID. So Lewandowsky can claim he was fully justified in announcing the results of his n=1100 survey at Monash, because the survey Climate Audit was invited to participate in was a different one. Or he can continue to claim that 5 sceptic blogs were invited to participate in this survey, (-Snip-), since his n=1100 survey was likely to be swamped by a totally different type of respondent at any moment. He can't logically do both. #96 You say "the reason for using bins is that no single question clearly demarks those who accept AGW from those who reject it". True enough,and it's a serious criticism of the survey that they couldn't even devise a question to do that. The four questions are logically linked, so someone who strongly agrees with one and strongly disagrees with another is not undecided, but more likely seriously confused. No wonder they believe in conspiracies. I can see the use of a battery of questions with the general public, because a single question which adequately distinguishes the warmist from the denier is likely to be too complicated for the average punter to understand. ( -Snip-). But this question is aimed at climate obsessives who weigh the meaning of every word (well, I know I do). A perfect opportunity to devise THE climate question wasted.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Accusations of dishonesty and sloganeering snipped.
  5. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #35
    A comedic excerpt about climate change from a physics lecture at UQ.
  6. Realistically What Might the Future Climate Look Like?
    Doug Bostrom@64 Just to be clear, 45MJ/kg is energy contained in the diesel fuel, but the diesel engine has a practical thermal efficiency of less than 50% (just a quick Wiki-loookup), so one should really compare the drive shaft-output in both cases. Nonetheless diesel still is more 'efficient', but not with that huge a difference.
  7. Miriam O'Brien (Sou) at 15:17 PM on 6 September 2012
    AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    John Cook has written a good article relevant to posts in this thread. It's just been published today on The Conversation (click here). Maybe he'll post it on SkepticalScience as well.
  8. Vanishing Arctic Sea Ice: Going Up the Down Escalator
    Planning on it, skywatcher! Look for an update in October.
  9. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    Re the Lewandowsky research and paper and all the discussion and analyses of it on this thread and elsewhere in the blogosphere. "Much ado about nothing!" Let's get back to discussing and analyzing stuff that really matters.
  10. Vanishing Arctic Sea Ice: Going Up the Down Escalator
    Dana, make sure you update it with 2012's figure once the melt season ends! If we're lucky, it will fit on the bottom of the chart...
  11. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    Further to my comment @90 and @96, here is are the tables for my second point @90 after correcting for the error. The error I made was that, contrary to my intention, the bins where not symmetrical in terms of the number of possible responses that could fit in a bin. That biases the result. Once corrected so that the three main bins are of equal size in terms of possible responses, the results differ from what I first thought them to be. Specifically, as can be clearly seen below, acceptors of AGW are less prone to accept conspiracy theories than either rejectors or undecided. This is so whether or not the two outliers are included. However, the undecided are still more accepting of conspiracy theories than are either acceptors or rejectors. Further, with the two outliers included, rejectors are very similar to the undecided, but without those outliers, they are far closer to the acceptors. Given these more accurate results, it is seen that a key point of my analysis @90 was incorrect. Never-the-less,the conclusion that Lewandowsky's paper misses important detail, and overstates the relationship between rejecting climate change and acceptance of conspiracy theories are still substantiated.
  12. Miriam O'Brien (Sou) at 13:40 PM on 6 September 2012
    AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    Incidentally, the discussion board I referred to is not a conspiracy theory site - it presents itself as a 'normal' discussion board. For some reason it attracts a lot of extreme right-wingers, many of whom are able to hold regular jobs (even quite senior jobs) but are also wacko conspiracy theorists. (At least one of the moderators is a conspiracy theorist along the lines of Jo Nova - gold bug, one world government etc, which may explain its tolerance of wacky and sometimes downright ugly posts and threads.) The main topic of the board also attracts rational people.
  13. Miriam O'Brien (Sou) at 13:16 PM on 6 September 2012
    AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    People can and do believe in a whole range of conspiracy theories at the same time. One discussion board I visit demonstrates that fact. Thing is, how many of those people visit mainstream climate science blogs? (Not many, going by this survey.) See here, for some examples of the mental contortions of some people (as if this thread weren't enough): http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120126152134.htm
  14. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    Your remarks about the excluded middle and the improbability of one person believing in the whole range of conspiracy theories need to be repeated again and again. I'm sure we can all count on it; it'll be thrown right in the same "stone soup" as Geoff's chronological numerology, stirred relentlessly, consumed with gusto regardless of whether anybody understands what Tom's talking about or the relative merits of survey methods versus blog science astrology.
  15. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    geoffchambers @94, the reason for using bins is that no single question clearly demarks those who accept AGW from those who reject it. Taking the "acceptors" under my definition. They must have answered three of the global warming questions with a 3, and a third with a 2 at minimum. Somebody who does that is certainly broadly accepting of AGW, but if we used the question that happened to answer with a 2 as a benchmark, we would mis-classify them. Thus, the use of bins is more robust than basing the classifications on a single question. Having said that, I notice that my bins screen rejectors more rigorously than they screen acceptors. That is an error, which I will correct within the next two days.
  16. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    geoffchambers @92, there is a very simple reason for using multiple surveys. Peoples answers to questions in surveys have been shown to vary depending on the order of the questions. To eliminate this effect, it is not unusual to use multiple surveys asking the same questions, but in different orders. That is a good practice, and is designed to eliminate bias. I do not know that that is what Lewandowsky has done. However, it is a plausible explanation; and no evidence exists which suggests anything more than that.
  17. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    Tom Curtis #90 Thanks for the intelligent and well explained analysis. I’m still not sure why you, like manicbeancounter, choose to divide your groups in this arbitrary way by scoring the climate questions. As you say, what you get is bins, instead of well-defined groups assenting to or denying well-defined propositions. If instead you had chosen those who agreed or disageed with one or other of the climate propositions, you would have two coherent well-defined groups, instead of a population spread out over an arbitrary scale. I suppose it must have some statistical justification which escapes the understanding of us ordinary mortals. Your remarks about the excluded middle and the improbability of one person believing in the whole range of conspiracy theories need to be repeated again and again. Would you consider reposting this on one of the sceptic blogs where this is being discussed? I can promise you, from my experience discussing research into climate scepticism with the psychologist and green activist Adam Corner, that the experience of trying to make contact across the nomansland which separates the two sides is a fascinating one. (Foxgoose thinks I’m an idiot to try, but that’s just our little personal difference). You could drop the accusation that Foxgoose and I believe that this affair reveals a conspiracy. We don’t. We say so again and again. We have never accused Lewandowsky of being party to a conspiracy. My belief (I can’t speak for Foxgoose) is that those who believe that every criticism (of Lewandowsky or the IPCC or whatever) is an accusation of conspiracy have a naively oversimplified vision of how society operates.
  18. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    So..."skeptic blogs" are not then a subset of "pro-science blogs"? Got it.
  19. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    Tom Curtis #87 McIntyre has now stated that he received the reminder on 23rd September, the day that Lewandowsky was announcing his results at Monash University. The questionnaire attached was not the one publicised on the “pro-science “ blogs, but another one. Lewandowsky has never mentioned the existence of a second questionnaire; all his statements, in the method section of his paper and in his blogs, imply (without expressly saying so) that sceptic blogs were to be part of the same survey. In his paper, Lewandowsky says “Links were posted on 8 blogs”. According to Graham Readfearn at desmog blog, who has interviewed Lewandowsky “Some eight "pro-science" blogs agreed to post the link”. Conspiracy? No, simply shoddy science.
  20. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    Tom@87: Well, to be fair, Foxgoose did say "reminder" in his first comment about McIntyre's receipt of the email. Only Foxgoose knows why he wanted to use the later date of the reminder, instead of the date of the original email. He appears to have known exactly what he was doing, though. The comments policy prevents me from expressing my opinion as to why Foxgoose might have done that. Other readers can draw their own conclusions.
  21. Why Arctic sea ice shouldn't leave anyone cold
    In comment 48, I provided a graphic of the daily change in sea ice extent using the IARC/JAXA data, showing how this year's melt was continuing to a greater extent than is typical. I also said I'd update the graph. Here it is, with data up to yesterday. Image and video hosting by TinyPic Same caveats as before: a five-day running mean, running off the end so that the last few days are incomplete. One slight modification: the most recent day in the IARC/JAXA data set seems to always get updated to a larger value the following day (Tamino has mentioned this), so this time I've left it out, as it really kicks the end of the 2012 data downward. If you compare this graph to the one from a week ago, you can see that the last bit of last week's graph has come up - due to the dual effects of the incomplete running mean and the last subject-to-revision data point. A bit of clarification: someone at Neven's blog mentioned that this doesn't show much other than what you see on the direct extent graph. It shouldn't - it's the same data, just visualized a bit differently. What does become clearer in the graph here is that the rapid decrease in ice extent is quite unusual this year. The early August storm shows up clearly - and this was the second period of rapid loss this season. Only 2007 shows a similar drop. This year's data around day 230 is not nearly as dramatic as it appeared in the earlier graph, but it does show that the melt rate was at or past the bottom end of anything seen before for that time of year. Once the line reaches zero and passes into positive numbers, we'll basically be making the passage into freeze season. (Yes, I know: this is extent, not area, so an increase in extent could be less ice spread over a larger area, but the big numbers will be dominated by freezing.) Currently, ice melt continues, but now at rates that are pretty common for this time of year - the line is in the middle of the pack (pun intended) compared to previous years. Other blogs have mentioned that the arctic weather forecast is showing chances of another good storm in the next few days. It will be interesting to see if this has any effect. If something odd shows up, I'll try to post another graph.
  22. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    I have followed up on my analysis, with the following results: First, as regards the possibly scammed nature of the two outliers, I split the data into three groups based on responses to the climate change questions. The groups are the rejectors of AGW (mean score less than 1.34), the undecided (mean score greater than 1.34, and less than 2.67), and the acceptors (mean score greater than 2.67). The distributions for all responses, and for each of the various groups are as follows: {-SD {Mean }Mean }+SD }+2SD }+3SD }+4SD }+5SD }+6SD Total 203 473 319 104 34 8 1 1 2 {1.34 18 23 18 5 4 0 0 0 2 1.34-2.67 15 42 41 11 7 3 0 1 0 }2.67 170 408 260 88 23 5 1 0 0 (Note:I have used { to mean less than, and } to mean greater than to avoid problems with html code.) In each case, the mean is the arithmetic of all responses to conspiracy theory questions, excluding YClimateChange; and the SD is for the all responses likewise. We can expect outliers, but we expect most outliers in the groups with the largest populations, and with the broadest distribution. We do not expect the two most extreme outliers in the smallest group, especially when that group has a narrow distribution. Given this more detailed analysis, I must continue in my belief that the to most extreme outliers are the results of attempts to game the survey. This is particularly the case given that adherents to conspiracy theories tend to follow conspiracy theories favourable to their ideologies, so that adherence to some conspiracy theories will be negative predictors for adherence to other conspiracy theories. My limited reading in the professional literature, and extensive experience debating conspiracy theorists leads me to believe that a conspiracy theorists who strongly believes all of 14, not closely connected conspiracy theories are rare. The belief that two such rarities decided to grace the survey with their presence lacks any warrant. Second, as regards whether the two outliers have an impact on the results, I split the data into three bins as above and determined the mean acceptance of conspiracy theories for each bin. It is not clear to me whether a large number of agreements, or a few number of strong agreements should be given more weight on this issue, so I repeated the analysis using the the Arithmetic, Harmonic, and Geometric mean. In all cases, as can be seen below, rejectors were less accepting of conspiracy theories than the undecided. More importantly, if the two outliers were included, rejectors where more accepting of conspiracy theories than acceptors, but if they were excluded, rejectors were equally or less accepting of conspiracy theories than acceptors. N= 1.34- N= 1.34-(Excl) N= 1.34-2.67 N= 2.67+ ArithMean 70 1.6 68 1.53 120 1.66 955 1.53 Harmean 70 1.42 68 1.35 120 1.48 955 1.37 Geomean 70 1.5 68 1.43 120 1.56 955 1.44 (Note: in this and the following table, x- should be read as less than the number, x; while x+ should be read as more than the number x.) On a hunch I repeated the experiment for the arithmetic mean only, and using only two bins (less than 2.1 and more than 2.1). In the two bin case, the group least supportive of AGW also had the greater propensity to accept conspiracy theories. I suggest that this result is an artifact of the very small number of true rejectors (N=70) relative to the number of undecided (N=120) and supporters (N=955). N= 2.1-(Excl) N= 2.1- N= 2.1+ 154 1.6 156 1.63 989 1.53 It should be noted that among the undecided, those that lean towards rejecting AGW (N=86) significantly outnumber those that lean towards accepting AGW (N=34). Therefore slight changes to the binning algorithm may have significant affects on the apparent acceptance of conspiracy theories by AGW rejectors, and also on the robustness of the result. However, the acceptance of conspiracy theories by the undecided leaning towards rejection is almost identical to that of those leading towards acceptance. Therefore any signficant changes in this result as a consequence of changing the binning algorithm is likely an artifact of the very disparate sizes of the various groups. N= 1.34-2.1 N= 2.1-2.67 86 1.67 34 1.63 All in all, I cannot see how this data supports the claimed correlation between rejection of climate science and acceptance of conspiracy theories. Certainly it supports far better the more interesting result that firm opinions about climate science in either direction are negatively correlated with acceptance of conspiracy theories. There is, however, no discussion of that fact in the paper. For those people trying to find a conspiracy in this incident (geoffchambers; foxgoose), it seems far more likely to me that the "errors" in analysis in this paper are the result of insufficient care in allowing for the very disparate numbers between acceptors and rejectors of AGW in the responses. I place "errors" in inverted commas as it is still not certain that Lewandowsky cannot explain why his result in fact follows from the data, although I am dubious that he will be able to do so. Thirdly, with regard to surveys with no neutral option. Speaking as a taker of surveys, there is no doubt I feel manipulated whenever the neutral option is denied to me. My strong impression is that surveyors taking that option are not interested in my actual opinion, but only in forcing me into their own predetermined categories. The logical fallacy of the excluded middle does not magically become sound because it is used as a survey technique.
    Moderator Response: TC: This post contains a substantial error, which has been corrected @100 below. Most important is the correction to the tables for section 2. The corrected tables are as follows: The corrected table for part 1 is as follows:
  23. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    "As far as I'm aware, there has never been a precedent in free democratic societies for science to be politically directed to reach a specific conclusion" Very funny. Now where is your evidence to support that assertion at all? The IPCC summaries science, it does not fund nor does it direct. I can state catagorically that no scientist in my institution working on climate-related science was directed by anyone to reach a particular conclusion. Your belief that this is so seems to rather confirm Lewandowsky results.
  24. Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt to Levels Unseen in Millennia
    Excellent post, Dana!
  25. Philippe Chantreau at 07:45 AM on 6 September 2012
    AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    This would funny if it wasn't also pathetic. It is also somewhat typical. In the absence of anything they can latch on in the real science that would lead to a serious revision of the consensus model of Earth' climate, so-called skeptics make a target of one tiny, marginally relevant item and try to show all the possible evil they can think of in that item. With passionate self-righteous outbursts to boot. A hurricane in a thimble. And the inevitable acusations against IPCC, of course. These are so self defeating as to defy how any intelligent person could even go that route. Let's think about where the political pressures could come from in IPCC: China, Russia, US, the emerging nations? Russia, a huge producer/exporter of fossil fuels, is already drooling all over the opening Arctic Ocean. China, with enormous reserves of dirty brown coal that they're so glad to have as it dispenses them from importing too much from, say, Australia. The US, a gargantuan powerhouse of fossil fuel burning, where lobby groups for coal, oil and natural gas spend millions of dollars and maintain full time crews to influence the political process. Let's think of who else is in he UN: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, Indonesia, etc, etc. How about Europe? Which one of the European countries does not have a huge infrastructure geared for fossil fuel use? Which one has an agriculture that isn't on a lifeline of fossil fuel? But all of these countries together exercise political pressures in a direction pointing to the eradication of the industrial scale use of fossil fuels. That makes perfect sense. The immense green conspiracy has managed to gather more means and more influence than industries generating billions of dollars in profit every month. They've thwarted the KGB, CIA, overwhelmed Exxon Mobil and Koch brothers, while developing that stupendous power all in secret. Of course, perfectly plausible. How could such a theory not be true? The idiocy of it all greatly reduces the entertainment value...
  26. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    Foxgoose @73&77, McIntyre did not receive the email requesting that he post notice of the survey on the 23rd of Sept as you claim, but on the 6th of Sept. He received a follow up email "two weeks later", which is vague enough that it may have been the 23rd, but equally, may have been as early as the 17th. It seems to me that you are fishing for problems rather than observing the facts for problems that actually exist.
  27. Models are unreliable
    For the modellers and the funders of modellers, the point is not see if the science is right - way past that and as Sphaerica says not needed. What the models can do that other lines cannot, is evaluate the difference in outcomes between different scenarios; estimate rates of change; predict the likely regional changes in drought/rainfall, temperature, snow line, and season on so on. Convincing a reluctant joe public that there is a problem is not the main purpose. And yes, I do agree that we need to understand the limitations but the IPCC reports seems to be paragons of caution in that regard.
  28. Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt to Levels Unseen in Millennia
    funglestrumpet @ 31: DesmogBlog maintains a denier database. Their entry on Pat Michaels is here. It includes some funding info.
  29. Same Ordinary Fool at 06:03 AM on 6 September 2012
    Interactive online map shows over 100 years of local US weather
    Expanding your comparison from summer to 'whole year' permits a broader speculation (though the maps are largely the same). One can imagine a cooling effect from air pollution (mostly from coal burning) carried eastward by the prevailing winds. Which shows up over the longer period, post 1895, in relatively cooler temperatures downwind. But over a shorter period, post 1970,the cooling outcome resulting from the earlier warmer temperatures would not be included. So in our simple post-1970 story, the warming effect of increasing CO2 is acting alongside the effect of the 1970 Clean Air Act.
  30. Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt to Levels Unseen in Millennia
    dana @ 33 Thanks! Just a thought: if scientists disagree, I am sure I am not alone in taking the advice 'to follow the money' to heart. Perhaps a permaneant link to those other sources of such information might help all those who come here for clarification on this issue. There are many for whom this issue is recognised as more than academic; they see it as their and their children's future.
  31. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    Doug, there's built-in irony here, too. Consider the intense scrutiny of Lewandowsky on the one hand and the complete lack of scrutiny of the "climategate" allegations. As gallopingcam . . . err . . . Geoff Chambers (sorry, mixed the two threads) said, the damage is already done in the public mind. So too with climategate. Does GC think we'll be hearing about Lewandosky in the climate-related comment mainstreams, perhaps to the same extent that climategate is mentioned? Not a chance, even though the basis in reason for the SL paper is much more sound than that of the climategate allegations. Has Bishop Hill, WUWT, CA, or any of the usual suspects ever issued a standing statement of rejection of the climategate allegations (and reminded the garbage floating in their comment streams)? If not, nitpicking over the SL paper does seem slightly . . . Foxgoose, are you suggesting that the hundreds of scientists of the IPCC who are summarizing the work of thousands of climate scientists (a whole branch of science) are twisting that science to meet a pre-defined (by politicians) conclusion? And all while none of the scientists whose work has been used are making substantial complaints about that twisting? Or is it that the scientists had been coming to that conclusion for decades and only recently have politicians decided to what sort of consensus and consequences might be at hand?
  32. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    Foxgoose, I wonder if you're familiar with the Monnett case? As an exercise, could you indulge us by diagramming the path of apparently undetectable yet simultaneously powerful and specific political direction leading from the United Nations down to the level of Monnett? Perhaps you can think of another example to show.
  33. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    Foxgoose, your claims regarding climate science & the IPCC are completely and unequivocally false. (I originally wrote 'as far as I can see' but decided upon review to omit that qualifier as it appears unnecessary.) I might add they are quite off-topic for this thread. Searching for 'IPCC' in the search box will lead you to an appropriate thread where you can further develop your claims if you wish. If you wish to persist, please demonstrate, with reference to methodologies, techniques, and data analysis, that a significant fraction (say, 5%) of papers contributing to any given IPCC report are inadequate, and that these inadequacies follow from the IPCC's "politically led and inspired 'science'", on an appropriate thread. I have seen claims similar to yours advanced in the past (such as by Donna Laframboise), and such claims inevitably end up being so much hot air for lack of substantiation.
  34. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    As far as amusing threads go, I think the "waste heat" threads are in close competition, especially as they've also got the feature of built-in irony.
  35. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    doug_bostrom at 03:16 AM on 6 September, 201
    Moderator Response: [DB] Further block quoting of entire comments will result in summary deletion of your comment. Adherence to the Comments Policy is not optional, waivable by personal fiat. Your continued posting privileges are not a right.
  36. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    This is perhaps the most amusing thread I have ever read at SkS.
  37. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    A great many people are sceptical, however, of the politically led and inspired "science" which grew out of the UN inspired IPCC. But let's be clear, not a conspiracy. Sounds like a conspiracy, has the same effect as a conspiracy, but is not a conspiracy.
  38. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    Further to CBDunkerson, it's not just one branch of science that's supposedly included in the conspiracy. As knock-on effects of geophysics reverberate into biology and numerous other arenas of inquiry, researchers in those fields who notice and then remark on observed changes are dragged down into to the mental pit being dug by the conspiratorially-minded sect of ostriches. They have to be, because in order for the plot to make sense in its own hermetic way the envelope of inclusion needs to be expanded to accommodate and explain away new findings. As Lewandowsky's case shows, things become really interesting when social scientists become intrigued by climate change. We're now seeing the emergence of something of a Klein bottle or the like in the way of conspiracy thinking; the conspiracy is being folded back on itself into a weird and tortured topology order to explain away the conspiracy itself. There's really no end to it, except increasing embarrassment for everybody.
  39. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    CBDunkerson at 02:56 AM on 6 September, 2012 How can being 'skeptical' of an entire branch of science, conducted by thousands of scientists over the course of centuries, not in and of itself constitute belief in a conspiracy theory? I don't think anyone is sceptical of any "entire branch of science". A great many people are sceptical, however, of the politically led and inspired "science" which grew out of the UN inspired IPCC. As far as I'm aware, there has never been a precedent in free democratic societies for science to be politically directed to reach a specific conclusion - although there have been several precedents in totalitarian societies.
  40. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    Correction to post 73. "August 23rd" should of course have been "September 23rd"
  41. Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt to Levels Unseen in Millennia
    funglestrumpet @31 - while we might mention an individual or group's funding sources in a blog post, SkS is above all else about the science, which is why we focus on scientific statements and not funding. If you're interested in information about funding sources, sites like SourceWatch and Exxon Secrets are good resources. This is probably what you were thinking of regarding Pat Michaels.
  42. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    Geoff wrote: "The survey is all about linking scepticism of climate science to belief in conspiracy theories." How can being 'skeptical' of an entire branch of science, conducted by thousands of scientists over the course of centuries, not in and of itself constitute belief in a conspiracy theory? The only way you can arrive at 'skepticism' of the overwhelming balance of data is by imagining a vast scientific conspiracy. Heck, Foxgoose is advancing a conspiracy theory about what Lewandowsky hypothetically would have done had 'skeptic' blogs responded to his request and provided different results. Face it. Lewandowsky's survey just stated the obvious.
  43. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    Very scientific, Foxgoose. "I think things might/might not have been different, if something else was different." A concrete case if ever there was one. As the wag on Lewandowsky's site remarked and extending the point, if McIntyre spent more time reading his own mail and less time burrowing into email not addressed to him, McIntyre's acolytes could have been part of the survey and then we'd be able to see your speculation resolved.
  44. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    Foxgoose - The facts of the matter are that McIntyre did not respond, and that Lewandowski announced based on the data he had. You are also, IMO, making an unwarranted assumption that McIntyre's responses would have materially changed the results - that's merely speculation on your part. And as Tom Curtis noted, any response from McIntyre now would be inevitably biased by the preliminary results. --- My impression (my opinion only) is that the complaints by GeoffChambers and Foxgoose are driven more by the results of the Lewandowski study than the methodology. Which, in itself, is supportive of Lewandowskis conclusions...
  45. Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt to Levels Unseen in Millennia
    Hey Bert, #28, that was an interesting link -- I'd never come across 'brinicles' before. Thanks!
  46. AGU Fall Meeting sessions on social media, misinformation and uncertainty
    Tom Curtis at 08:50 AM on 5 September, 2012 (-Blockquote of entire comment snipped-) Well, we know from Steve McIntyre today that his reminder email asking him to post the questionnaire came on August 23rd, the exact day of Lewandowsky's presentation - so I guess you'll agree there is a problem. You seem to be a fair minded chap, Tom - can you honestly say you believe that, if Stephan had received later responses from sceptics blogs which invalidated his "preliminary conclusion", he (-snip-). (-Snip-)
    Moderator Response: [DB] Presumptions of intent to deceive snipped. Further willful violations of the Comments Policy would be ill-advised.
  47. CO2 lags temperature
    opd68, the 'upswing and downswing solar forcings' are actually just the onset and completion of a single cycle. That is, as the Northern hemisphere tilts more towards the Sun it receives more sunlight and then as the tilt swings back it receives less. I'm not sure what you mean about 'breaking the equilibrium'. By definition if you have a forcing you don't have equilibrium. When the 'sign' of the forcing changes the feedbacks do so as well. There is no 'barrier' which needs to be broken in order for this to happen. There are several reasons Antarctic temps rose faster than the global average. First, it was experiencing warming due to the shutdown of Atlantic circulation (which basically pulls cold water North) plus global warming from rising CO2 levels... A+B > B alone. Second, there is less water vapor in colder climes and thus increased CO2 levels have a greater warming impact in those areas than they do in warm areas. Third, melting ice exposes darker land and ocean beneath... which absorbs more sunlight and thus warms faster than areas which had exposed land/ocean to begin with. As to the 'warming plateau', this period is generally called the Younger Dryas and there are a number of theories on its cause. All involve some other forcing coming in to play and temporarily offsetting the ongoing solar forcing / CO2 & ice feedback trend. It is anomalous compared to most previous interglacial periods and thus generally considered some kind of random (rather than regularly recurring) event... asteroid impact, increased volcanism, huge freshwater Lake Agassiz suddenly draining into the ocean, et cetera. So the warming trend was really a 'single ongoing event'... just temporarily interrupted by something else.
  48. Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt to Levels Unseen in Millennia
    I seached for any information regarding any funding that he might have received from what might be considered 'undesirable' sources, but found none. I think such information would be valuable. I found something about Patrick Michaels recently, but have forgotten where. I think I just assumed that should I need it again, this site was bound to have it. Wrong! This information would help in forming an opinion regarding someone's veracity and it would best be found under their'skeptics' section entry. If none is known, then perhaps it should clearly state 'no known funding issues' or such like.
  49. Miriam O'Brien (Sou) at 01:42 AM on 6 September 2012
    Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt to Levels Unseen in Millennia
    NSIDC has just issued another report on the Arctic sea ice - click here. Compared to September conditions in the 1980s and 1990s, this represents a 45% reduction in the area of the Arctic covered by sea ice.... ...In 2012, the rate of ice loss for August was 91,700 square kilometers (35,400 square miles) per day, the fastest observed for the month of August over the period of satellite observations. In August 2007, ice was lost at a rate of 66,000 square kilometers (25,400 square miles) per day, and in 2008, the year with the previous highest August ice loss, the rate was 80,600 square kilometers (31,100 square miles) per day.
  50. Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt to Levels Unseen in Millennia
    Kevin @26 - thanks, I've updated the graphic in the post.

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