Arguments
Recent Comments
Prev 1131 1132 1133 1134 1135 1136 1137 1138 1139 1140 1141 1142 1143 1144 1145 1146 Next
Comments 56901 to 56950:
-
realscience at 05:31 AM on 12 July 2012Medieval Warm Period was warmer
For those interested in a blog from Duke on the SST reconstruction mentioned above http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/thegreengrok/hockeystick-revisited Virtually all the proxies used to reconstruct temperatures over the past millennium — the proxies that yielded the hockey stick — have come from land-based sites. But what about the ocean? With oceans covering some 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, how can we infer global temperatures without using sea surface temperatures? These were just the questions asked by Delia Oppo of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and colleagues, and they decided to do something about it. They analyzed sediment cores lying beneath the Indonesian Seas in the so-called tropical Indo-Pacific Warm Pool. Using the ratio of magnesium to calcium in the sediments as a proxy for sea surface temperature (SST), they found that “reconstructed SST was … within error of modern values from about AD 1000 to AD 1250, towards the end of the Medieval Warm Period.” In other words, temperatures during the MWP were comparable to today’s temperatures, putting a significant bend in Mann’s hockey stick stick just above the handle. and further comment about this means about ghg it does not follow that the current warming also must be due to natural causes even if MWP temperatures were comparable to today’s. Regardless of the cause of the MWP warming, the preponderance of the evidence is that the current warming cannot be explained by natural causes and is due to greenhouse warming from emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases.Moderator Response:[DB] Please note that the graphic given to you above is from Oppo's own study, showing that today's SST's are unparalleled in the reconstructions.
The point is not there there wasn't a MCA (the appropriate term that the science uses for your MWP). It's that today's temps are global, are well above those of the MCA and are driven by mankind. And that a warmer and more synchronously warm MCA means a much higher climate sensitivity than is the current understanding.
And that spells disaster.
-
BaerbelW at 05:29 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
Thank's Dana for this comprehensive rebuttal! Ivar Giaever's presentation and accompanying video must be deemed a "special gift" for the "fake-skeptics" who just like to see and hear their misconceptions validated by somebody who is a Nobel Laureate, regardless of how wrong he is about the topic. A point in case are the video statistics on the Lindau Laureate website: If you look at the list of best rated videos, Giaever's video is currently at rank 10 with 183 ratings and an average of 4,64 and it even tops the list of most viewed videos with 3223 views. These numbers are quite the outliers compared to the other videos available on the website. Mario Molina’s talk (which was given directly before Giaever’s) is the second most watched video, but still only has 274 views and 8(!) ratings with an average of 3,88. Something is clearly “wrong” with these ratings – especially as it is a no brainer of which of the two videos is the factually correct one. So, how can it be that a factually wrong presentation has been viewed a lot more and rated a lot better than a correct one? Most of us here will have an answer to this obviously rather rethorical question I guess! -
Composer99 at 05:23 AM on 12 July 2012Medieval Warm Period was warmer
realscience: As far as I can see, nothing in those documents necessarily shows that the MCA was a monolithic global warm period. They do show that those regions had their own warm spells during the medieval era. I do not think these papers are enough to cast doubt on the conclusions of Mann 2009 and your suggestion that they should is IMO vastly overstating the "take-home message" the three documents present. -
Tom Curtis at 05:21 AM on 12 July 2012Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
Dikran Marsupial @46, the Mass Balance argument establishes beyond a shadow of a doubt that net natural carbon sinks are larger than net natural carbon sources. That, however, is insufficient to establish that natural emissions are not the cause of increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Consider a situation in which an increase CO2 concentration in the atmosphere causes an increase in the rate at which natural sinks draw down CO2 such that, up to a limit, any increase in CO2 is completely drawn down within a year or two. Suppose also that the increase in rate of draw down is capped, so that a sufficiently large increase in emissions will result in an increasing atmospheric concentration. Let the maximum rate of draw down by natural sinks be equal to k. Thus if En+Ea k, Un = k. Suppose then we have the situation that Ea = 0 before 1850, and k/2 after 1850. Suppose also that by coincidence, En increased from k/4 before 1850 to 2k after 1850. In this situation, emissions would have been k/4 before 1850, so atmospheric CO2 would have been constant. After 1850, if there had been no increase in En, En+Ea = 3k/4 so there would have been no increase in atmospheric concentration. In contrast, if the increase in En had occurred but the increase in Ea had not, net emissions would be 2k, so k CO2 would accumulate in the atmosphere every year, increasing the CO2 concentration. Therefore, in this scenario, the increase in natural emissions is both a necessary and a sufficient condition for the increase in atmospheric concentration. That makes it the cause of the increase in this scenario (although anthropogenic emissions would be a contributing factor to the rate of increase). Although you can set up bizarre scenarios like this that are (counterfactual) counterexamples to the mass balance argument as an argument that anthropogenic emissions are the cause of the rise in atmospheric CO2, such scenarios are a small portion of all possible scenarios, and are complex (and hence relatively improbable). Therefore they have a low intuitive probability. Consequently the mass balance argument is a strong inductive argument to the conclusion that anthropogenic emissions are causing the rise in CO2, but it is not a deductive argument. (It is, of course, a deductive argument to the conclusion that net natural sinks are larger than net natural sources.) -
Daniel Bailey at 05:02 AM on 12 July 2012Medieval Warm Period was warmer
1. Your lead source has been misrepresented by the fake-skeptics (they studied 1 site in the Antarctic Peninsula), per the lead author (Li) himself. 2. Per your second source, todays temps are quite a bit higher than those during the MCA:
3. Your third source, the Esper study, delineates a long-term pattern of cooling that mankind has interrupted with the massive bolus injection of formerly-sequestered, fossil-fuel-derived CO2 back into the carbon cycle. There is nothing natural about that. Furthermore, given the already-realized warming and that yet in the pipeline (paid for but not yet delivered), there is little possibility remaining on resumption of that long-term cooling.
Per Tzedakis et al 2012, “glacial inception would require CO2 concentrations below preindustrial levels of 280 ppmv” (for reference, we are at about 395 right now…and climbing).
Earlier, Tyrrell et al 2007 examined this, concluding that we have already skipped the next glacial epoch. Furthermore, Tyrrell concludes that if we continue our present fossil fuel consumption, we will skip the next 5 glacial epochs. So no glacial epochs the next million years…now that's unnatural.
We are currently at 395 ppmv CO2 and growing about 2+ ppmv year-over-year. No down elevators for mankind on this ride.
Now a real skeptic would take pause and try to figure out why their understanding of the science was so out of whack with that of the mainstream climate science.
Hmm, thousands of scientists (the real skeptics) devoting their lifetimes to studying something on one hand or some guy commenting on a blog on the other...tough call.
-
tmac57 at 05:02 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
This article made me think of something that I had read on Wikipedia about the famous 'Monty Hall Problem' that gained much attention after being posed in Parade Magazine in Marilyn vos Savant's column. From Wiki:In her book The Power of Logical Thinking, vos Savant (1996:15) quotes cognitive psychologist Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini as saying "... no other statistical puzzle comes so close to fooling all the people all the time" and "that even Nobel physicists systematically give the wrong answer, and that they insist on it, and they are ready to berate in print those who propose the right answer."
-
Tom Curtis at 04:49 AM on 12 July 2012Christy Exaggerates the Model-Data Discrepancy
angusmac @23, if you are not suggesting that you agree with those other criticisms, your comment is an irrelevant smoke screen. -
Tom Curtis at 04:46 AM on 12 July 2012Christy Exaggerates the Model-Data Discrepancy
Angusmac @22, quoting my discussion of the 2 sigma range of Hansen 88 as evidence that observations are skirting the lower bound of the 2 sigma range of CMIP-3 (AR4) model predictions is disingenuous. Hansen 88 had a lower 2 sigma range, primarily because it did not include major forms of natural variability, in particular ENSO events and random (in time) volcanic eruptions. Therefore, that actual temperatures are skirting the bottom of the 2-sigma range for Scenario B from Hansen 88 implies nothing about their behaviour with respect to the AR4 models. The loose way in which you treat facts if they can be distorted to appear to support your position is very disturbing. -
realscience at 04:41 AM on 12 July 2012Medieval Warm Period was warmer
Danial and DSL, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X12000659 http://www.whoi.edu/main/news-releases/2009?tid=3622&cid=59106 http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1589.html 3 very geographically diverse sets of data, constructed with good scientific methodolgy that should make anyone take pause and think that mann might be wrong. If the south pacific SST, antarctic, and N Scandinavia show the MWP, perhaps it is the global phenomenon that was theorzed before 1998, and not simply some localized events. That should make anyone skeptical about the mann2009 temperature Reconstruction. Do you have information why these papers should not be given strong weight? -
vrooomie at 04:28 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
I think an important point, in this discussion of what the temp of an airless Earth would be, is that on neither side would there be conditions under which present-day life would exist. Dr. Giaever asks the standard deniers' canard, "What is the optimal temperature of the planet?", as if that has never been investigated...and it has, and it's well-known. Roger D@34: your points are well-made, and dead-on, IMHO. For what it's worth, I've gotten *really* good at quickly identifying which conversation with any given denier/skeptic is going to be worth my time, by paying close attention to how they respond to established scientific research: I'm not old, by any means, but 55 is old enough to recognize how much of my remaining time should be spent yelling into the void...>;-/ -
vrooomie at 04:19 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
Thanks, DB: I missed the black body data of earth when I looked first.Moderator Response: [DB] Anytime, glad to help. -
Roger D at 04:04 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
Daniel J. Andrews: You wrote @28: “it seems to me that the energy accumulating here on earth is negligible”. I have to say that this statement could be used as a handy but misleading sound bite along the lines of one that Giaever made when he publicized his APS resignation: He said something like “temperatures have been remarkably stable”, indicating there was no concern regarding earth’s energy accumulation because after all, average global surface temp is only less than a degree Celsius different than it was a hundred years ago. OK, the rate of accumulation may be subjectively “negligible” in comparison to the output of the sun, or to an extraterrestrial studying the energy distribution of our solar system, but it is far from “negligible” with respect to the climates that a significant fraction of life forms on earth will have to put up with. -
Roger D at 04:04 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
I have a "skeptical" acquaintance that occasionally emails news articles me. He sent one when Giaever resigned his membership in the APS over their statement on AGW. I contemplated a response along the lines of "well, that's his prerogative but from everything I can tell regarding his reasons, it seems he doesn't really understand the scientific case in favor of AGW and therefore APS's acceptance of the case” – but in the end I just sighed to myself and never responded knowing from experience the attention span for meaningful drill-down into the heart of Giaever’s criticism was unlikely. I am convinced that most “skeptics” in the general public simply just aren’t that interested in the science. A handy but shallow sound-bite will do just fine, thank you. Basically, I think that much (most ?) of the public believe that when a “really smart noble prize-winning scientist” says he doesn’t believe AGW is a problem, then that in and of itself counts as valid counter-evidence against the science. …” I suppose we all use simplifications but in my experience listening to “skeptical” friends and acquaintances, there is little or nothing below the surface. If say to Frank “OK Frank, I agree, water does account for the largest part of greenhouse effect, please continue and tell why human generated GHGs are not important with respect to climate change”, I almost always get another sound-bite. So Dana, thanks for the post. I will politely bring it to my “skeptic” friends’ attention. -
Daniel Bailey at 03:53 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
Vroomie, the blackbody temperature of the Earth without atmosphere is essentially the same as that of the Earth with an atmosphere lacking in noncondensible greenhouse gases (assuming both are at thermal equilibrium). In addition to the Science of Doom resources I referred you to earlier, please see: 1. NASA Earth Fact Sheet 2. Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing Earth’s Temperature (Lacis et al 2010) 3. Attribution of the present‐day total greenhouse effect (Schmidt et al 2010) Not that it should matter, but I asked Dr. Mann for clarification on this and he indicated the above to be an appropriate response to this situation. -
DSL at 03:30 AM on 12 July 2012Medieval Warm Period was warmer
Esper et al. (2012) is getting serious play out in the trenches -- and being seriously misread. It's a strawman party: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/07/11/new-study-thoroughly-debunks-global-warming-will-media-notice -
vrooomie at 03:28 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
Woops..sorry: I forgot to add to my prior post that I used the moon data because we're essentially in the same orbit as the Moon; there'd be some difference in albedo, but I couldn't find that data. Always learning! -
vrooomie at 03:27 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
I'll not pursue this much farther, in order to not stray too far off-topic but I believe an airless Earth would be MUCH hotter than 255K on the hot side. Source The bottom line that DOES relate is, Dr. Giaever's presentation was poor, at best, and deeply embarrassing, at worst. My point about having to battle "fake experts who happen to have a Nobel prize in some utterly unrelated field" stands....:( -
Composer99 at 03:03 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
Personally speaking, Dr Giaever's admission that his stance on global warming is the result of a few hours' work on Google makes me very embarrased for him. It puts him in such august company as anti-vaccine activist and not-quite-celebrity Jenny McCarthy, who credits "The University of Google" for her understanding of vaccinology and the aetiology of autism spectrum disorders. If your understanding of some subset of science ends up being functionally equivalent to Jenny McCarthy's, then "Google U" is not your friend. -
Daniel J. Andrews at 03:03 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
I knew you meant 'antidote,' but I think 'antidope' is *way* funnier....;)
Agreed! Very much funnier. I'm going to incorporate "antidope" into my vocabulary now. -
Daniel Bailey at 02:42 AM on 12 July 2012Medieval Warm Period was warmer
"It seems there is strong evidence that the MWP was glogal, not a local event" This is exceptionally vague (the word seems is the dead giveaway); you'll need to provide a link to substantiate what is effectively your personal opinion. While I'm pretty sure of both the source of your opinion, the blog you read it on and why both of you are wrong, the onus (i.e., homework) is on you to provide it for sensible discussion to ensue. And no, Virginia, regional studies doth not global make. Regardless of spelling. (BTW, a warmer MCA implies a greater climate sensitivity than is commonly accepted...do you understand the ramifications of that greater sensitivity?) -
Daniel J. Andrews at 02:38 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
In addition to this rapid surface warming, the global oceans have also been accumulating heat at an incredible rate - the equivalent of more than two Hiroshima "Little Boy" atomic bomb detonations per second, every second over a the past half century.
Yes, but the sun produces the equivalent of 10^11 bombs going off every second, so if true, it seems to me that the energy accumulating here on earth is negligible. Just the part where he uses Kelvin to make his point is rather a boggling display of something not complimentary ( [-Snip-]). The lower parts of that scale aren't conducive to life, and don't occur here on earth anyway. On the other hand, that is an argument I hadn't yet seen so kudos for creativity?Moderator Response: [DB] Speculations on motive/character snipped. -
Daniel Bailey at 02:37 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
Vroomie, IIRC, the temperature difference between the Earth as a black body at thermal equilibrium with no atmosphere and the Earth at thermal equilibrium with no non-condensing greenhouse gases is indeed negligible. Again, this is non-intuitive, so I refer you to the awesomeness that is the Science of Doom (listing of pertinent pages here with this page here being a good starting point. Additionally, relevant pages can be found at Skeptical Science here and in this paper by Ramanathan. -
JohnMashey at 02:36 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
See Reasons. Clearly: TEC5 (going emeritus in the bad way). Likely: PSYa (Austin, Happer, Singer), maybe IDE2/POL2. It is truly embarrassing when someone who once did good work goes like this. In the APS Petition list, Syun-Ichi Akasofu (retired eminent aurora researcher) is another sad case like that, although many of the signers haven't had particularly notable careers, and almsoet none ahve done credible (or any) climate research. -
Tristan at 02:18 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
BC, from the abstract: Here, we use an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that (i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers. -
Kevin C at 02:13 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
vroomie, CBDunkerson: The difference between a (presumably rotating) planet with an IR-transparent atmosphere and no atmosphere is more than I can do in my head! I think this is the place to start, but I don't have time to dig through the issues. -
Tristan at 02:02 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
Interestingly, I quoted the same Giaever passage when rebutting his speech on a contrarian site as evidence of his opinion's irrelevance. -
CBDunkerson at 02:00 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
vroomie, without an atmosphere the side of the Earth not facing the Sun would be much colder than 254K... but the side which WAS facing it would be much warmer. The average global temperature would indeed be 254K. Also, an atmosphere without greenhouse gases would likely actually be COLDER than no atmosphere at all... because the atmosphere would block some of the incoming radiation. Earth's current atmosphere retains more heat through greenhouse warming than it blocks as incoming radiation, but both effects exist. -
realscience at 01:54 AM on 12 July 2012Medieval Warm Period was warmer
It seems there is strong evidence that the MWP was glogal, not a local event. We do have the wood's hole reconstruction of SST in 2009, that has similar temperatures. Esper in N. Scandanavia Mxd and TRW supports consistant higher temperatures. The new proxies seem to indicate that past temperatures may well have been above current temperatures. The margin for error is higher than Mann 2009 seemed to indicate, and this had much higher temperatures in MWP than mann 1999. Both of these newer proxies indicate the climate models that say today's temperatures are the highest they have been in 1400 years need to be reexamined. This does not mean ghg are not contributing to current warming, but does mean that natural variability is higher than current reconstructions seem to indicate. -
vrooomie at 01:26 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
Piet, I believe English may be your second language (nothing wrong with that) but given your use of the word "antidope" in referencing the really good works of Molina and Crutzen, I had to laugh out loud at its accuracy..that's my takeaway of the day...thanks! I knew you meant 'antidote,' but I think 'antidope' is *way* funnier....;) -
vrooomie at 01:24 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
Correct, Kevin@14: without *GHGs,* indeed Giaever is about right, but as DB said, Giaever stated "without an atmosphere." That's a glaring example of not much thought being put into a statement, by someome ostensibly thoughtful. W/o an atmosphere, Earth would be WAY colder than 254K! Words--and grammar-- matter...;) In any case, it's somewhat embarrassing to watch an otherwise intelligent person get it so notably incorrect. -
shoyemore at 01:17 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
I found Giaever's presentation uncomfortable and embarrassing in the extreme. So much so I had to turn it off. It is an object lesson for any Emeritius to stick to what he knows best, and not go shooting his mouth off. It was dreadful to see a once-respected scientist make an ass of himself. But no doubt there are those who will pander to his vanity, and seek to gain from the confusion spread. -
Piet R. Zijlstra at 01:08 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
After listening to Mr. Giaever I used as antidope the presentations of Mr. Crutzen and Molina. Together with the above rebuttal of Dana I do feel good again! During the speech of Giaever the public reacted on the humor, they laughed. I really wonder why nobody of the audience stood up and told Mr Grieaver to stop his non-scientifical talk. IMO it was not even pseudoscience. -
JohnMashey at 01:01 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
re: physicists I know a few Nobel physicists and they are quite sensible. In the APS Petition writeup mentioned in #6, {Austin, Happer, Singer, Lewis, Gould, Cohen}, with much campaigning,m managed to get ~200 signers out of ~47,000 aps members, I.E., <0.5%. Id' guess that's lower than most segments. The demographics were very skewed older, slightly skewed male, and somewhat skewed politically conservative. -
dana1981 at 00:58 AM on 12 July 2012Carbon - the Huge and Yet Overlooked Fossil Fuel Subsidy
Alexandre - I'm pretty sure grey means no data available. As noted, it's difficult to determine exactly what qualifies as a subsidy, and to obtain that information from every country. The IEA wasn't even able to estimate it for most of the green countries in Figure 1. -
dana1981 at 00:56 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
John @7 - as someone with a physics background myself, I prefer not to speak ill of physicists! At the same time, I've seen the Giaever xkcd behavior first hand quite a few times. Physicists tend to think pretty darn highly of their intellects, usually for good reason, but it can lead them into Giaever behavior :-) -
Daniel Bailey at 00:43 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
Kevin, what probably threw vroomie was the bit about "Without an atmosphere". IIRC, we know from Lacis & Schmidt that without the non-condensing GHG's Earth's temperature would plunge some 35ºK to it's effective black body temperature, 254ºK. The problem is that this is not necessarily intuitive as being the same as atmosphere-free. -
Alexandre at 00:41 AM on 12 July 2012Carbon - the Huge and Yet Overlooked Fossil Fuel Subsidy
I don't know what the grey color stands for in figure 1. Is it "no data available" or "no subsidies"? I do know that Brazil has subsidies at least for diesel and LP gas, although I don't have the numbers. -
Kevin C at 00:31 AM on 12 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
vrooomie: Never trust your intuition. The roughly 35C colder figure is one of the few things in Giaever's talk which is accurate. See for example IPCC AR4. (But you were pretty unlucky with the claim you picked. The odds of picking one that was right were pretty low.) -
vrooomie at 23:28 PM on 11 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
Just finished watching the video by Dr. Giaever: oh my gosh... He states that "Without an atmosphere, the Earth would be *roughly* 35C colder." Whaaaa? I'm just a geologist but I'm *fairly* certain it would roughly be a LOT colder than that! The amount of uter falsehoods, incorrect assumptions, and misconstrued "facts" in this are, to me, as embarrassing as any of Christopher Monckton's prounouncements. This is indeed one of the myriad reasons I find it so difficult to discuss the science with fake skeptics, when *notable* fake skeptics such Dr. Giaever step into it this deeply. Sigh...... -
BC at 23:26 PM on 11 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
Fig 3 shows that about 800 climate scientists are convinced by the evidence of human caused climate change and around 90 are unconvinced. The percentage of unconvinced here, approx 11%, is higher than the 2%-3% figure from other surveys, which is a worry to me. If you take out the least experienced first pair of figures it gets closer to the 3%. I've sometimes wondered how many climate scientists there are and this implies a bit less than 1000, based on papers published. I'm impressed that someone has published around 900 papers. There's also someone who's published 650 papers who is unconvinced by the evidence! I wonder who these two scientists are. -
Dikran Marsupial at 23:06 PM on 11 July 2012Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
Tom Curtis I don't follow your argument here, please could you explain it in a bit more detail. I can't see how the conclusion of the mass balance argument (that the natural environment is a net carbon sink) can possibly be false if the assumptions (conservation of mass and the relatively low uncertainty in the observations) are true. Can you provide equations for Ea, En, Un and C', such that conservation of mass is observed and where Un < En while at the same time C' < Ea. As far as I can see, this is a mathematical imposibility. -
vrooomie at 22:56 PM on 11 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
curiousd@9: Similar situation for me. Scientist A (let's call him "booomie"), who is a GEOlogist, works with numerous and well-respected GEOphysicists. "Booome' spends about 5 years doing intensive research into a whole host of resources that are concerned with AGW, including becoming a friend toa noted researcher at NASA-Goddard. "Booomie's" discovery of "Sepical Skience" is his next big step, in doing research on the topic of AGW, which sends him even deeper into scholastic sources that support the AGW theory. "Booomie" reads over 1000 papers on the topic and is pretty-well convinced, by the data and interpretation thereof, that AGW is ~anything~ but a "hoax," a "crock," or "bad science." "Booomie" then has the *temerity* to put forth the AGW theory to a few of the Ph.D. GEOphysicists and is agog (I think J. Cook would say "gobsmacked!) when aforementioned GEOphysicists assert, loudly and with *great* authority, that AGW is essentially a crock. "Booomie" is left scratching his head and doing *much* more research on "confirmation bias"......;) -
Composer99 at 22:34 PM on 11 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
I don't know whether Nobel-winnng scientists are more likely than others to go off the rails when speculating on fields outside those they have specialized in (although they may well be, bolstered by the status conferred by the prize). However, they certainly get more publicity (one thinks here of Luc Montaigner), and the Nobel adds unwarranted credibility to their claims, even if the evidence shows their speculations are incorrect. -
Dikran Marsupial at 21:42 PM on 11 July 2012Christy Exaggerates the Model-Data Discrepancy
@angusmac wrote The main point of my post @12 was to query the use of Figure 2, which is lifted directly from RC." This is essentially an ad-hominem, questioning the source of some information rather than the content. Why not get it from RC, from an article written by a climate modeller, who is an expert in the area and knows how to properly determine if there is a model-observation discrepancy. Would it make any difference if we used the version of the diagram that I created from the same model runs? "I asked why not use Figure TS.26 from AR4?" because TS.26 provides only a very brief summary of what the CMIP3 models actually say, and does not provide the required information to determine whethere there actually is a model-observation discrepancy (the answer is "no, not really"). -
Dikran Marsupial at 21:32 PM on 11 July 2012Christy Exaggerates the Model-Data Discrepancy
@angusmac writes "Figure 2 hides the 2-sigma trend in real-world temperatures in a mass of grey, whereas the TS.26 shows this discrepancy very clearly. " The mass of grey in figure 2 is the 2-sigma region, I cannot see how much more clearly it could be depicted than that. This one comment suggests quite strongly to me that you have misunderstood what figure 2 is actually saying. "Figure 2 does not show smoothed data. Once again this tends to hide the discrepancy between real-world temperatures and model projections". No, if you want to determine if there is a model-observation discrepancy you need to look at the data itself. Smoothing hides the true variability of the data, and to detect a discrepancy you need an accurate characterisation of the variability. The observations are currently between the 1-sigma and 2-sigma boiundaries (actually more or less half way). Is this surprising or unusual? No, the observations can be expected to be in that region about 1/3 of the time, even if the models are perfectly correct (so your 1 out of 10 characterisation is rather off). Note that in 1998 the observations were skirting the other side of the 2-sigma region even more closely. Does that mean that in 1998 ecomentalists would have a point in saying that the models underestimate warming? No. An important factor that is often missed is that there is a one in 20 chance of seeing an observation outside the 2-sigma range if you look at a random sample from the distribution. However if you wait for an observation that supports your argument (as the "skeptics" often do), then the chance of such an observation ocurring by random chance increases quite rapidly the longer you wait, until it reaches the point where it is essentially inevitable. This is why statistics has the concept of "multiple hypothesis testing" to compensate for this bias (c.f. the Bonferonni adjustment). While the observations are nearish the 2-sigma region, that doesn't mean that this is statistically surprising in any way. If you want to find out just how unsurprising it would be, then here is an experiment to try. Run a model aith A1B forcings and generate, say, 100 model runs. For each run in turn, treat it as the observations and the rest as the ensemble projection. From the start of the run, count how many years you have to wait to find a model-observation discrepancy as large as the one we see at the moment. Generate a histogram. Compare with the number of years the skeptics have has to wait since the CMIP3 models were completed. I suspect you will find that the probability of having ssen such a discrepancy by now is substantially higher than 1 in 20. I'll try and dig out the data when I have a moment. -
angusmac at 21:15 PM on 11 July 2012Christy Exaggerates the Model-Data Discrepancy
Albatross @16 There is little need for me to criticise Christy, plenty of people on this website are well able to do that. The main point of my post @12 was to query the use of Figure 2, which is lifted directly from RC. I asked why not use Figure TS.26 from AR4? I also explained why TS.26 is better @12 and subsequently @22. -
michael sweet at 20:42 PM on 11 July 2012Carbon - the Huge and Yet Overlooked Fossil Fuel Subsidy
This study does not count the health costs from pollution near fossil fuel sources or the damage from acid rain. I can only eat fish I catch in the pond in my backyard twice a month because they are contaminated with mercury from fossil fuels. Fossil fuels contain many problems beyond the CO2. -
angusmac at 20:23 PM on 11 July 2012Christy Exaggerates the Model-Data Discrepancy
Dikran Maraupial @14 Regarding your, "I would be happy to answer any questions about Figure 2." That's very kind of you and I would be pleased if you would answer one, which is more of a request than a question. Posting the data for your version of Figure 2 on the SkS resource library would be very useful. I have not found the data retrieval process as straightforward as you suggest. Having the numerical data in an easily accessible form (Excel or csv) would allow easy cross-checking for errors, etc. Regarding, "... if you feel that the AR4 diagram tells a different story...", you suggest that I have missed some subtlety and that I start by checking the error bars. Please note that AR4 Figure TS.26 and my version of it in Figure 1 clearly show the error bars. Furthermore, I agree with the comments presented by Tom Curtis @72 and you @73 here that the real-world temperatures are currently skirting the 2-sigma levels in the models. I also concur that Figures 2 and TS.26 both tell the same overall story, namely, real-world temperatures are following the 2-sigma levels from the model ensemble. It is just that TS.26 presents this fact more clearly. My main contentions regarding Figure 2 are as follows:- Figure 2 hides the 2-sigma trend in real-world temperatures in a mass of grey, whereas the TS.26 shows this discrepancy very clearly.
- Figure 2 does not show smoothed data. Once again this tends to hide the discrepancy between real-world temperatures and model projections.
- Figure 2 omits the Commitment Scenario that is presented in TS.26. This scenario should be shown in any projections diagram because it is a very useful benchmark for comparing the accuracy of the projections.
-
curiousd at 18:16 PM on 11 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
Since ad hominum is out, the following will have to be couched in personal recollection. True tale, though: Scientist X receives Nobel in field A. Scientist X retires, essentially, but in an interview with national magazine is asked if he wishes to comment on science in general. X replies, essentially, thus: I do not believe that HIV causes AIDS. (comment related to field B). X Is asked "Why" by interviewer. Response, essentially, is this: Might as well, if you happen to be proven right for a claim that far outside the consensus, you will be famous. No one becomes famous for believing what everyone else does. This twisted kind of reasoning is behind a lot of this, IMO. -
Lars Rosenberg at 17:13 PM on 11 July 2012Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist
Ivar Giaever spent most of his working life at General Electric. In later years he has held a professorship at Oslo University, payed for by StatOil. He seems to belong to Fred Singers vast social network. Giaever wrote a short opinion piece in Aftenposten a few years ago, telling his fellow norwegians that global warming stopped in 1998. The only authority mentioned was Fred Singer. When Giaever resigned by from the APS last september he sent a copy of the e-mail to Fred Singer, who published it at his website. Curiously, he also copied the letter to Hal Lewis, who died half a year earlier.
Prev 1131 1132 1133 1134 1135 1136 1137 1138 1139 1140 1141 1142 1143 1144 1145 1146 Next
