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dana1981 at 01:44 AM on 6 July 2012Lindzen and Choi 2011 - Party Like It's 2009
alexharv074 - Tom Curtis and KR have already said everything I would have said in response to your comments. Everything in the above post is supported by documentation, be it the PNAS letter or the papers being referenced. Your contradictory comments thus far have been wholly unsubstantiated. In short, if you think something in the post is wrong and should be corrected, provide the documentation to support your position. If you are correct, I will amend the post accordingly, but thus far your criticisms are all direclty contradicted by the source documentation linked in the post. -
KR at 01:22 AM on 6 July 2012Lindzen and Choi 2011 - Party Like It's 2009
alexharv074 - "He (Dessler) asserts, for instance, that Lindzen and Choi's paper claims that "clouds cause climate change". In fact, their paper says nothing about clouds or the cause at all." (emphasis added) A minor point here: LC11 lists a total of five keywords after the abstract: "Climate sensitivity, climate feedback, cloud, radiation, satellite" (emphasis added). I'm not impressed with your understanding of the paper you are supporting... -
KR at 01:04 AM on 6 July 2012Lindzen and Choi 2011 - Party Like It's 2009
alexharv074 - "He (Dessler) asserts, for instance, that Lindzen and Choi's paper claims that "clouds cause climate change". In fact, their paper says nothing about clouds or the cause at all." It really appears that you have not read LC11 - the word "clouds" one of the most common nouns in the paper. The sensitivities LC11 derive are with temperatures and radiation lagging cloud changes by several months (1 month for short wave radiation, 3 months for outgoing LWR, IIRC), which is a temporal causal statement (causes do not lag effects!), and they state in section 5:Based on our simple model (...), this ambiguity results mainly from nonfeedback internal radiative (cloud-induced) change that changes SST.
(Emphasis added) They do acknowledge in LC11 that in LC09 they had erroneously used the same causal reversal, with clouds leading temperature changes, in analyzing a number of models where causality specifically goes the other direction - models where SST is an explicit input value and cloud cover results from it. In LC11 they limited the lag values for the models to zero, which in my opinion is equally unphysical (instantaneous response). But they keep the LC09 cloud temporal lead for analyzing the observational data. That seems pretty clear to me, and Dessler 2011 is entirely relevant. "Nonfeedback internal radiative (cloud-induced) change that changes SST" is a claim of forcing, not of feedback. -
Tom Curtis at 00:43 AM on 6 July 2012Lindzen and Choi 2011 - Party Like It's 2009
alexharv074 @8, Lindzen himself has confirmed that one of the reviewers was Dr Patrick Minnis, a person suggested by him, and not by PNAS. The second reviewer approved by Lindzen may have been Albert Arking who was not suggested by PNAS, or Veerabhadran Ramathan, who was suggested by PNAS and accepted by Lindzen as an appropriate reviewer. Whichever of the two, the fact that one reviewer suggested by Lindzen and not previously suggested by PNAS was used shows that had Lindzen expressed a serious objection to all of those suggested by PNAS, then he would have had two entirely of his own choosing. I assume that a paper will be revised for resubmission even if the resubmission is not to the journal it was originally submitted to. Therefore wishing that the reviews will be helpful for the purpose of revision in no way invites resubmission to the journal. The most that can be said is that the editors did not actively forbid such resubmission. -
alexharv074 at 00:40 AM on 6 July 2012Lindzen and Choi 2011 - Party Like It's 2009
KR, the paper is indeed quite short and Dessler clearly had written it with a view to refuting Spencer and Braswell 2011. He seems unaware that Lindzen and Choi's argument is not the same as Spencer and Braswell's. He asserts, for instance, that Lindzen and Choi's paper claims that "clouds cause climate change". In fact, their paper says nothing about clouds or the cause at all. It relates OLR to changes in SST. It is hard to take the paper seriously when it is not even clear that Dessler has even read the paper he briefly criticises. -
alexharv074 at 00:22 AM on 6 July 2012Lindzen and Choi 2011 - Party Like It's 2009
Tom Curtis, not to put too fine a point on it but "approving" of editors selected by PNAS is not the same as "selecting" your editors. Moreover, Lindzen makes clear that the editors PNAS claimed he "approved" were not in fact the editors he did approve. Meanwhile, your bolded text says that the 'current' paper is rejected and hopes that the comments will assist in revising. I assume that one revises a paper only with the intent to resubmit. -
KR at 00:19 AM on 6 July 2012Lindzen and Choi 2011 - Party Like It's 2009
alexharv074 - Your claim, "...there is still no peer-reviewed response to LC11", is flatly incorrect. If you wish to discuss the merits of Dessler 2011, in regards to LC11 or SB08/SB11 (a different thread), then present your arguments. You have, to date, not done so. Dessler 2011 is quite short - 4 pages. I think this primarily speaks to how clear the errors in LC11 and SB11 really are. If those authors or others disagree, they should then comment on D11. However, as I and Tom Curtis have pointed out, you have yet to make a supported (or, in my opinion, supportable) claim in this thread. And just insulting D11 (with phrases such as "a rushed, half-hearted response that probably shouldn't have been published") is not making your case. -
alexharv074 at 00:03 AM on 6 July 2012Lindzen and Choi 2011 - Party Like It's 2009
KR, if you insist, Dessler 2011 is a response - a rushed, half-hearted response that probably shouldn't have been published. When I suggested at RealClimate that it is not a serious response, I don't recall anyone disputing this. I also don't recall anyone claiming that Dessler had settled the matter. The arguments were about justifying why there would never be a serious response to LC11. -
Tom Curtis at 23:54 PM on 5 July 2012Lindzen and Choi 2011 - Party Like It's 2009
alexharv074 @2: 1) Dana did not suggest that Lindzen conceded that there where major flaws in LC09. Rather he said that we (SkS) had noted the existence of major flaws, and the Lindzen had admitted the existence of stupid mistakes. Both statements are true. 2) As to your further points, I quote from the letter to Lindzen:"Dear Dr. Lindzen, The Board appreciates your cooperation in soliciting additional reviews on the paper you recently contributed to PNAS. We consulted the two experts you approved and two others selected by the Board. All four reviews (enclosed) were shared with two members of the Board before reaching a final decision. One of the Board members noted:
(My emphasis) This letter directly contradicts all of your major claims. Specifically, a) It specifies that two of the four reviewers whose reviews where enclosed where approved by Lindzen, and two selected by the board contradicting your claim that Lindzen did not select two of those four reviewers; b) Reading the reviews, it is apparent that all four reviewers did not consider the paper of sufficient quality; and that all four reviewers did not think Lindzen and Choi had justified their conclusions; c) The letter explicitly states that the paper is declined for publication, ie, that it has been rejected. It certainly does not invite L&C to resubmit, contrary to your claim. Finally, none of the reviewers conclude that L&C has shown earlier papers to be flawed, and indeed one of them explicitly criticizes the paper for failing to adress the arguments of previous papers, specifically Dessler 2010. If you are going to try and spin the debate, may I suggest you do so on details which are not so easily checked and rebutted.All of the reviews are thoughtful assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript in question by leading experts, so they provide valuable hints for (possibly) improving the paper…I sympathize with Rev. 4's comments who concludes that the new paper simply has to explain why the opposite conclusions from the same data set by Trenberth et al. are flawed. If that could be achieved through a major review of the current version (hopefully accounting also for other important referee remarks) then the article would provide a crucial contribution to a most relevant scientific debate.
In light of these additional critiques, the Board concurs that the current paper must be declined for publication. I am sorry we cannot be more encouraging at this time and hope the additional reviews will help in revising the work." -
KR at 23:43 PM on 5 July 2012Lindzen and Choi 2011 - Party Like It's 2009
alexharv074 - "...there is still no peer-reviewed response to LC11" That would be incorrect - Dessler 2011 as referenced above is a direct rebuttal of LC11 and of Spencer and Braswell 2011, both of which argue (incorrectly, according to D11) that clouds are a forcing. dana1981 - The Dessler 2011 link in the body of the article is broken. -
KR at 23:38 PM on 5 July 2012Lindzen and Choi 2011 - Party Like It's 2009
It is worth noting that the LC11 article in Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Science is considerably longer than the LC10 PNAS submission that received the reviewer comments described above (I suspect 'skeptics' might object to this opening post on those grounds). However, to a large extent this is due to the page limits in the PNAS journal - the PNAS submission included a very large appendix that was brought into the APJAS article main body, and having read both I find the content significantly identical. The final LC11 paper includes all of these issues: poorly described methodology, tropical rather than global data, no sensitivity testing for the time periods examined, no real addressing of the multiple papers that found much higher sensitivities from the same data, and the rather astounding conclusion that clouds are a forcing rather than a feedback. That final item - clouds as a forcing - appears to be a common element in several attempts to prove climate sensitivities to be low. Dr. Spencer took much the same approach in his book The Great Global Warming Blunder and Spencer and Braswell 2008, where he believes most observed climate change is due to chaotic changes in cloud cover. From that, and an overly simple climate model, he obtained low sensitivity values. This is just foolishness - Dessler 2011 (referenced above) and others have shown that the techniques used in LC11 derive the same low values and cloud forcing from models where the causality operates the other way around - a false conclusion. And contradicted by the responsiveness of humidity and thus clouds on temperature, as a feedback. It's a bad analysis. I suspect, however (just my opinion here), that cloud forcing is attractive to skeptics because such analysis, while flawed, leads to low sensitivity values they find attractive - a confirmation bias temptation. -
alexharv074 at 23:21 PM on 5 July 2012Lindzen and Choi 2011 - Party Like It's 2009
Dana, - you seem to suggest that Lindzen because Lindzen conceded some 'stupid mistakes' in LC09 that this is somehow a concession that it contained 'major flaws'. Saying 'stupid mistakes' is hardly the same as 'major flaws'. - you assert that 'Two of the reviewers were selected by Lindzen, and two others by the PNAS Board.' This is completely wrong. The two reviewers selected by Lindzen were Ming-dah Chou and Will Happer, but these are not among the four reviewers you refer to. (And of course the two reviewers Lindzen selected recommended publication, which is a relevant but omitted detail.) - you write, 'As a result, PNAS rejected the paper, which Lindzen and Choi subsequently got published in a rather obscure Korean journal'. This is, again, wrong. PNAS did not reject the paper; they asked Lindzen and Choi to revise and resubmit. The authors, however, believed that dealing with reviewers #1 & #2 was a waste of time, and decided to submit elsewhere. In general, you have mentioned all the negative comments made by the reviewers and ignored all the positive comments. There is no discussion of the fact that Lindzen and Choi, for instance, have demonstrated that the methods of Forster and Gregory, Dessler 2010 and others, using the simple regression, are almost certainly flawed. What is good about your post, however, is the important reminder that there is still no peer-reviewed response to LC11. -
qurtan at 23:11 PM on 5 July 2012Nil Illegitimi Carborundum
Kurt Persson, Sweden -
fatir.b at 23:08 PM on 5 July 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #26
Bernard thumb up :) -
fatir.b at 23:05 PM on 5 July 2012Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
...net collected from all sources and sinks... that is what ultimately controls atmospheric CO2. -
bill4344 at 23:03 PM on 5 July 2012Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
Caerbannog - John Mashey, surely? -
fatir.b at 23:01 PM on 5 July 2012Lindzen and Choi 2011 - Party Like It's 2009
"some stupid mistakes...It was just embarrassing." nice one :) -
Steve Brown at 22:29 PM on 5 July 2012Nil Illegitimi Carborundum
Steve Brown, London -
Tristan at 21:57 PM on 5 July 2012Carbon Pricing Alarmists Disproven by the Reality of RGGI
Thank you very much Adelady :) -
PaulGood at 20:23 PM on 5 July 2012Nil Illegitimi Carborundum
Paul Goodfellow UK -
Michaelf at 19:03 PM on 5 July 2012Review of new iBook: Going to Extremes
Is there an Android version? -
Neven at 18:26 PM on 5 July 2012Ocean heat flux and the Arctic
Thanks a lot, Daniel! It's a bit of a long read, but as ocean heat flux is what the Maslowksi prediction hinges on, I figured it'd be good to thoroughly describe the whole thing once and for all. I'm now looking into the effect of the PDO and AMO on the Arctic Sea Ice, but it's even less clear-cut than ocean heat flux. Oh well, I'll see how far I can get. In the meantime, the ice is melting big time... -
Tom Curtis at 13:53 PM on 5 July 2012Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
dissembly @27, the graph comes from the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WGBU) special report on Solving the Climate Dilemma: The Budget Approach (Fig 2, page 5) Also of interest is Fig 5.3-5 (page 31) which shows per capita budgets for select individual nations, shown below as modified:
Note that in the WGBU graph, Australia is not included with the US. Australia's actual per capita CO2 equivalent emissions are 28 tonnes per annum.
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Tom Curtis at 13:25 PM on 5 July 2012Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
dissembly @26 I have not forgotten the Green's betrayal of principle and Australia when they rejected Kevin Rudd's Emissions Trading Scheme. All they achieved by that betrayal was to delay the scheme by two years, to implement it in a less effective form, and to provide a massive boost to the opponents of action on AGW in Australia, most noticeably to Abbot and the right faction of the Liberal Party. -
Tom Curtis at 13:15 PM on 5 July 2012Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
dissembly @25, I have discussed your plan elsewhere where it is on topic. For this discussion the relevant question is can you generate the appropriate political will to accept your plan. The minimum cost of your plan amounts to the equivalent of an increase of the GST to 15% plus a 5% tariff on all exports; or alternatively, a 10 year depression (very low or negative growth for 10 years). (See discussion elsewhere.) If you do not have a realistic plan to persuade a major party, and the majority Australians to vote for these consequences as part of your plan before the end of this electoral cycle, you do not have an alternative plan to the Carbon Tax. You only have an unsubstantiated wish list and no way to implement it. If that is the case, my comment about abandoning an acceptable plan for a possibly good plan implemented when the cows come home stands. -
dreater at 13:10 PM on 5 July 2012Nil Illegitimi Carborundum
Dave Eater, Pennsylvania (USA) -
Tom Curtis at 13:09 PM on 5 July 2012Zero Carbon Australia: We can do it
dissembly claims elsewhere to have a plan to tackle global warming, which in some elements resembles the plan discussed above. Therefore I consider this a more appropriate place to discuss his plan. Of course, when I say discuss his plan, I really mean discuss the elements of the plan above which resemble his plan, for he has yet to detail his plan in discussion, or link to a location where it is detailed. In what follows I shall be discussing the costs of a particular plan for reducing GHG emissions. They are large, and IMO worth it. However, there are much lower cost methods of tackling the problem of global warming. So anybody reading this post should not be dissuaded from tackling climate change. The first thing to discuss about the above plan is the cost, given at 3% of GDP per annum over 10 years. Because, for practical purposes, all government income comes from taxation, any contribution by government to this cost must be obtained by taxation, and while governments can tax governments, the money required to pay those taxes must come from further taxes so that, eventually the entire impost must fall on the private sector of the economy. As it happens, in Australia, private expenditure represents 64.3% of GDP. To fund an project requiring 3% of GDP per annum, therefore, the government would need to apply a 5% tax on private expenditure. The most convenient way to do this would be to increase the GST from 10 to 15%, and to apply a 5% export tariff on all exports. Such a large increase in tax and tariffs would have a significant impact on the Australian economy. Indeed, at its simplest it would decrease economic growth by 3% of GDP per annum. As economic growth is typically between 2 and 3%, the plan commits Australia to very low or negative growth for 10 years. That is, it represents a plan for a 10 year depression. If Australia was doing this while the rest of the world continued to drag its feet on climate change, the cost would be greater as businesses relocated overseas to avoid the impost. Regardless of that, I would still favour this plan. Although the cost is substantial, it is less than the prospective cost of climate change. However, even that cost is not sufficient to tackle climate change by this means. First, this plan only deals with stationary energy. It does not include emissions from transport, agriculture, and land use change. dissembly needs to detail how he will reduce emissions in those areas. This will involve additional, probably comparable costs. More importantly, this plan if implemented immediately following the next election, ie, circa 2014, will reduce to zero emissions to late. It is a ten year plan, so if implemented in 2014, it would achieve zero emissions for stationary energy by 224. However, if Australia is not going to free load on climate change, ie, demand a larger per capita emissions target than other nations receive, it must reach zero emissions by (according to figure 1 above) 2020. (In fact, that chart is inaccurate for Australia, which has per capita CO2 equivalent emissions of 28 tonnes per annum, thereby requiring a cessation of emissions by 2015 if we are not to be freeloaders.) dissembly may think he can implement the plan in 6 years, or less, but the most important fact here is that the quicker you eliminate GHG emissions, the greater the economic cost of doing so. That is partly because construction costs of rapid builds are higher. It is also partly because a rapid transition does not allow the time for prices of technologies to decrease as they mature. It is also partly because transitions over a long period can defray costs by replacing infrastructure as it becomes obsolete. Finally, it is partly because rapid transitions create disruptions in the economy, which become noticeable as unemployment and/or inflation. So, while it may be possible to implement the above plan faster, it can only be done at substantially greater cost. The upshot of all this is that the only way Australia can pull its weight in tackling global warming is by allowing an international system of tradible carbon emission credits. In that way Australia can pay for its excess per capita emissions by buying credits from nations who will not consume their full quota. That or pretend we are pulling our wait by insisting on an international agreement requiring equal percentage reductions in emissions for all nations, regardless of per capita emissions. This later option has the same effect as demanding a free transfer of emissions credits from poor nations to wealthy nations. That is, it demands that poor nations subsidize wealthy nations on the basis that the wealthy nations are wealthy, and the primary causes of the problem. (This is currently the western worlds basic negotiating position, and unsurprisingly the third world can see through the self serving nature of that position.) -
skywatcher at 12:42 PM on 5 July 2012Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
dissembly #24: I have a question for you. Why do you think "the majority of average people" oppose the carbon price? Could it possibly be because of a massive right-wing political/media campaign that has successfully reframed the carbon price as a carbon tax? Fueled by the massive right-wing misinformation campaign, the average Australian and small business actually believes they will be poorer - that they are being taxed with no benefits. I'm sure you know this is not the whole story - it's the fallacy of discussing only the costs without the benefits. The truth is that (provided the measures are impemented correctly) most ordinary people and small businesses will not be poorer under the carbon price, as they also get a raft of other tax breaks which should compensate them for the goods and services they pay for that have a higher price directly due to the carbon price. How many average Australians actually know this?? How many of the Aussies who are opposed to this actually realise their take-home pay might go up this month because of the carbon price? Because you certainly wouldn't know this if you listened to Tony Abbott and read The Australian, and a lot of other media. I don't blame the average Australian for not knowing this, because they have been royally misinformed by carbon price opponents. Do you think that big decisions like this should be reversed on account of half-truths and misinformation, and the fact that many average Aussies have been misinformed? -
llewelly at 12:38 PM on 5 July 2012Nil Illegitimi Carborundum
Llewellyn Reese, USA -
Taylor at 12:37 PM on 5 July 2012Nil Illegitimi Carborundum
Taylor Fleet, Virginia, USA -
dissembly at 12:33 PM on 5 July 2012Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
@21, Tom, I'm looking for the source of the graph, and I can't find it. I'm dubious about it's validity, as all of the pro-carbon tax arguments that I've seen on this site assume targets such as 80% reductions. In fact, most genuine environmentalist proponents of a carbon tax have such targets in mind. But this policy will give us something like 2% real reductions (which you hand-waved away saying that this means a 60% decrease in the rate of emissions growth - a substantial shift from the usual metrics used in climate policy recommendations). I can't find your source here, but would I be correct in suspecting that the graph you provided models much more substantial carbon taxation models than what we have? I would expect those dashed lines to be much closer to the solid lines, if the graph were based on what is actually 'on the table'. -
dissembly at 12:23 PM on 5 July 2012Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
@dana1981 "The reality of the situation was that it was the best we could do at the time from a political standpoint" I feel that this only stems from hidden premises about the way in which the political process actually works. It requires one to resign themselves to the machinations of electoral politics. But elected politicians are forced to deal with the reality of what is happening in broader society. A concerted campaign that actually spoke to ordinary people and got them involved (rather than alienating them) could do much better, no matter which party is in power. The carbon tax undermines this process, and makes it much less likely that we will be able to win further action on global warming. I have watched this actually unfold in Australia. Only a few years ago, some of the biggest rallies called (not counting the anti-war protests) rotated around climate change. And people were calling for real action, they had their sights set far higher than Tom with his "when the cows come home" remark. The death of this movement coincided, in part, with the raising of the carbon tax (in direct contradiction to what many people were actually calling for). When the environmentalist organisations (and the Greens) started to resign themselves to this policy, the rallies shrunk rather than growing, and I can't think of any that have happened in the last year. Even the Occupy movement here included anti-environmentalist elements - partly motivated by the carbon tax, for all the economic reasons I've given above. You write: "Sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the good" - but you miss one of the vital points that I am trying to make: What you call "good" in this case (and I question whether any of us would categorise this policy as 'good' outside of the rhetorical saying) in fact helps to *preclude* the perfect (what I would call the "adequate"). I don't think Tom's replies portrayed a realistic assessment of either the local or the global political situation. Just a side note to his earlier claim that opposition to the carbon tax is all either organised by conservatives, or by socialists being misled by conservatives; the Greens in fact had a very good position on Kevin Rudd's carbon tax, describing it as "worse than useless" only a few short years ago. The current carbon tax is even more watered down than it was back then. Their position has not changed as a result of any sudden change in the science, they just want to maintain a particular position within parliament - one which they will most likely lose next election as a result of this. -
otter17 at 12:04 PM on 5 July 2012Help Send Peter Sinclair to the Mt. Baker Glacier
Over at climatecrocks.com, Peter said that he is climbing stairs with heavy loads in his backpack. Great feature. It's awesome how Skep Sci and Climate Crocks bring us closer to the scientists, peer review literature, and how science is done. I had money in my donation budget this year for both sites! -
dissembly at 11:53 AM on 5 July 2012Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
@Tom Curtis #22 - "for the sake of a supposedly good plan implemented when the cows come home." Again, as I said to you earlier, if the plan I outlined can't be achieved, then global warming cannot be addressed. You only imagine the carbon tax to be achievable because that's what's immediately on the table in front of you. Do you have no memory of five years ago? Or ten? Or thirty? If we all used your analysis, nothing would ever have changed, in any field, ever. Your constant snarky denigration of the idea of actually pushing for genuine action in regards to global warming only makes me wonder why you are here in the first place. If you seriously do not believe that anything can be done about global warming (except for the carbon tax, of course), then why do you even bother attending a site to convince people of the reality of it? It won't make a difference either way, according to your attitude. -
dissembly at 11:47 AM on 5 July 2012Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
@Tom Curtis, I disagree with your assessment of my original claim. In fact, your own posts only reinforce what I was saying. Even while you pay lip service to the shocking idea that people could have different views to you *and not be conservative*, you say things like "many people with a socialist bent have been mislead by those conservatives", showing that my post was making quite a relevant and important point, because, clearly, you are an example of one of those people who imagine that all the opposition to the carbon tax somehow stems from conservatives. More importantly, I wasn't claiming only that "the left wing" opposes the carbon tax, but that *the majority of average people* oppose it. It is important, for your argument, that you skip over this vital point, because further down you need to argue that "fair enough's good enough" in terms of having a carbon tax. As if having a carbon tax has no negative effect on our ability to campaign for real action. You can only achieve this by imagining the massive, non-ideological opposition to the carbon tax out of existence. -
Garry Shilson-Josling at 11:07 AM on 5 July 2012Nil Illegitimi Carborundum
I am deeply grateful for your courage and your work. Garry Shilson-Josling. Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. -
dbturton at 09:41 AM on 5 July 2012Nil Illegitimi Carborundum
D. Bruce Turton, Edberg, AB, Canada. Pity we need to take such cowards so seriously insofar as physically threatening, but never admit any intelligence to them. -
davesouza at 07:55 AM on 5 July 2012Nil Illegitimi Carborundum
dave souza, UK -
Pagw at 07:41 AM on 5 July 2012Nil Illegitimi Carborundum
Peter Watson, UK -
adavid at 07:29 AM on 5 July 2012Nil Illegitimi Carborundum
Anthony David Australia (PhD student RSES, ANU) -
real skeptic at 06:49 AM on 5 July 2012Scientific literacy and polarization on climate change
I think my post is somewhat political, maybe a little bit ad-hominem-ish, but pretty much on topic... It would be interesting if instead of just a proxy for overall scientific literacy, they had done some questioning about how informed they are about this specific subject, aiming to be somehow as neutral as possible -- evaluating mere awareness of the main arguments and counter-arguments of both sides, regardless of which side one think is scientifically correct. I have a gut feeling that even though "skeptics" may score higher on overall scientific literacy, they perhaps have more biased and even superficial sources of information in this subject specifically. I'm also curious on how the things would be regarding the acceptance of evolution -- I'm not trying to imply that climate skepticism is equivalent to creationism in terms of scientific validity/unscientific absurdity, I just think that there may be underlying mechanisms (the one I described above) that could cause similar results. For example, I've seen quite a few MDs who are creationists, I assume they would score high on overall scientific literacy (perhaps higher than average, not creationists MDs specifically, but MDs in general), but I can attest that they can be nevertheless utterly ignorant when it comes to the relevant evidence for evolution, and they would repeat even the most flawed anti-evolutionist arguments ("then why still there are monkeys"), exposing a lack of relevant knowledge even in the most basic foundations, and also some sort of "intellectual laziness" and bias towards confirmation. I think something similar may occur with the issue of climate change, people who can be in fact very scientific literate, but who haven't examined this specific subject very carefully, falling for logically sound arguments (and coming up with their own), but not investing much time checking their validity. It surprised me a little bit that in "the other side" the less scientifically literate who still find global warming potentially dangerous don't exaggerate the threat, along the lines of "the day after tomorrow" (or even "inconvenient truth" to some degree). I guess that's perhaps because even though there may be quite a bit of those, they're "smoothed" on the average by the effect of a majority that just have a superficial grasp of the thing, but good enough to sort science from science fiction catastrophe movies. -
Simon Peatman at 05:29 AM on 5 July 2012Nil Illegitimi Carborundum
Simon Peatman Norwich, UK (PhD student at UEA) -
Larry Lazar at 05:09 AM on 5 July 2012Nil Illegitimi Carborundum
Larry Lazar, St. Louis, Missouri, United States -
Bob Lacatena at 04:45 AM on 5 July 2012Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
My vote is Principia Scientific International. -
DrTsk at 03:52 AM on 5 July 2012Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
As a Chemical Engineer, I deal every day with mass, energy, and momentum balances. I just want to pull every hair from my head every time I see such cranks!!! I mean, ancient sophists would have declare him their supreme leader. -
dana1981 at 03:19 AM on 5 July 2012Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
Tom's point @21 is a critical one. In the USA, some liberals opposed the last attempt to implement a carbon cap and trade system 2-3 years ago because they felt it was insufficient. The reality of the situation was that it was the best we could do at the time from a political standpoint (and in fact Republicans managed to block it anyway). Sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the good. We are very rapidly running out of time to sufficiently reduce our emissions enough to avoid nasty climate consequences. Right now any implementation of a carbon pricing system - however imperfect - is a major achievement. Get a system in place and if you think you can improve it, then modify it after the fact. But the longer we wait to get those systems in place, the more our chances of avoiding catastrophic consequences dwindle away. -
keithpickering at 03:01 AM on 5 July 2012Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
Here's an alternative (simpler, though less mathematical) way to explain it. During El Niño events, atmospheric CO2 grows faster, and during La Niña events, atmospheric CO2 grows slower. That does not mean that the oceans and soils emit more CO2 during El Niño, and emit less during La Niña (as Salby would have us believe). Rather, it means that the oceans and soils absorb less CO2 during El Niño, and absorb more CO2 during La Nina. The correlation is real, but Salby's interpretation of its meaning is exactly reversed from what's really happening. -
caerbannog at 02:55 AM on 5 July 2012Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
May I suggest that Dr. Salby submit his paper to the Journal of Scientific Exploration (JSE)? JSE publishes cutting-edge research like this. (I forget who found this gem -- otherwise, I'd give due credit.) -
dana1981 at 02:42 AM on 5 July 2012Carbon Pricing Alarmists Disproven by the Reality of RGGI
Thanks adelady, that's useful information. -
dana1981 at 02:40 AM on 5 July 2012Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
HH @8 - yes, the YouTube host has disabled embedding of this video, but you can watch it by clicking on the link provided when you try to play it.
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