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Riccardo at 00:22 AM on 29 March 2012What We Knew in 82
Daved Green our only hope is that each of us does the right thing. Skeptical Science and the like are just part of it, you personally (and any other) are just as important. -
Stephen M at 23:51 PM on 28 March 2012Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)
Here is another Christopher Monckton porkie. Remarking on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, at the 5:50 mark, he says: "The point is, these accidents will happen. As we scientists say, s--t happens." -
Alexandre at 23:08 PM on 28 March 2012Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)
California is a good example to be mentioned to those who say that US mitigation policies would lead Americans to some kind of caveman way of life. -
markx at 22:34 PM on 28 March 2012Medieval Warm Period was warmer
Bern at 15:50 PM on 26 March, 2012 said: "..... It's about what caused those warmer / cooler periods...." That is indeed why these periods are of so much interest to many. scaddenp at 05:38 AM on 27 March, 2012 said: "...If it has unknown driver, then why do we see something like MCA in forcing-based models? (See the AR4 discussion)...." Thanks scad - I'd be interested to see the modelled MWP, and information on what the drivers were, but I wandered around those threads, most discussion is post 2000, with an occasional chart going back to 1990, and even one from 1900, but I found no mention of the MWP/MCA? Further comment: Recent research on the Antarctic discusses an MWP signal there as well? Again, timing is an issue, but it is still an interesting phenomenon. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2120512/Global-warming-Earth-heated-medieval-times-human-CO2-emissions.html Abstract here http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X12000659Moderator Response: [Riccardo] links fixed -
Daved Green at 22:01 PM on 28 March 2012What We Knew in 82
Dr Mike MacCracken is worried and disappointed , he is not alone when there is so many independently researched lines of evidence showing why its C02 caused and that events related are happening now . It’s going to be a rude shock in about twenty years time when we have decarbonise our lives and we can only hope that it happens that soon . Thanks contributors for your time and effort people like you are our only hope . -
Dikran Marsupial at 21:21 PM on 28 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Regarding the discussion at BH, I posted a few comments over there on the previous thread to show that SkS is interested in openly discussing the science. On Mar 25, 2012 at 10:44 AM, geoffchambers wrote "I thought of contacting them to see if any kind of private dialogue would be fruitful - a Christmas Day game of football in Nomansland. This would mean using their private emails which I shouldn’t be looking at, though." So on Mar 25, 2012 at 3:41 PM I said I would be willing to engage in an email discussion, and gave my email address so that anyone who didn't want to read the hacked post could email me as well. The number of emails I have recieved from BH contributors is so far precisely zero. Despite the fact that on Mar 25, 2012 at 5:00 PM geoffchambers said he would take me up on my offer and the fact that on Mar 25, 2012 at 5:09 PM I clarified that my offer was open to anybody at BH who wanted to discuss the science, not just geoffchambers. I repeated it again on (Mar 25, 2012 at 10:50 PM) when I dropped out of the discussion. So it seems to me that the interest in email discussion was not really genuine. Jonas N apparently rejected the offer saying (Mar 25, 2012 at 11:15 PM) "The "stick to the science" is a weasly condition. Because of the (not very scientifically literate) moderators are not trained or well versed in physical or other hard sciences. Because they equate 'science' with 'words found in published articles'. The method then is to demand that criticisms or any objection must be found in a publication, and also that the phrases and sentences found in the pro-AGW publications must be accepted at face value, and cannot be criticized for what they actually claim and for the actual (carried out, and presented real) science they supposedly draw upon says, shows and more importanly: what it doesn't show or support. " I don't really know where to start with that one. I also answered (Mar 25, 2012 at 9:11 PM) a question about the anthropogenic cause of the rise in atmospheric CO2 from j. ferguson (Mar 25, 2012 at 7:10 PM). There was no acknowlegement of my answer nor was any counterargument made. I also answered a point by shub (Mar 25, 2012 at 8:29 PM) that "My opinion is that if you admit to the uncertainties publicly, your case will become stronger." by pointing out that mainstream science is very open in discussing the uncertainties involved (Mar 25, 2012 at 9:20 PM) and said that we would be happy to discuss them at SkS. AFAICS nobody argued that my comment was factually incorrect, but it did attract criticism of our moderation from Jonas N (Mar 25, 2012 at 9:36 PM) and shub (Mar 25, 2012 at 10:21 PM) Simon Hopkinson questioned the way in which the IPCC describes uncertainty (Mar 25, 2012 at 9:38 PM). I pointed out that I found Curry's papers on this unconvincing (Mar 25, 2012 at 9:45 PM) and asked for a specific example of a problematic IPCC statement, but Hopkins merely said that he did not disagree with Curry, and so no substantive discussion of the issue was possible. I also pointed out that the form of statements used by the IPCC is very similar to the PAC bounds used in Computational Learning Theory (CoLT), so there was unlikely to be a problem with ambiguity. diogenes (Mar 25, 2012 at 10:28 PM) questioned whether we knew anything about sensitivity. Perhaps I should have answered that by mentioning estimates from paleoclimate data, but as he wrote "Buit since this concept of sensitivity is so badly defined, why debate it." there didn't seem to be much point. So, I went over there willing to openly discuss the scientific issues and correct any misunderstandings about comments from the hack taken out of context and I found there was no willingness to discuss the science, just rhetoric, which suggests there is not much point discussing things at BH. BTW I thought "opengate" was actually quite witty, assuming (incorrectly) that it wasn't a hack. -
bill4344 at 21:13 PM on 28 March 2012Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)
Did Monckton claim to have won the Nobel Prize? Yes. (Page 2) In an 'open letter' to John McCain. That's from the SPPI. Wriggle out of that, Your Lordship. (Students of overheated rhetoric should enjoy that particular piece of correspondence. McCain has always struck me as an eminently sane man - Sarah Palin notwithstanding; I wonder how he reacted to this fervent, unsolicited missive regarding 'the climate bugaboo' and 'the contemptible, fumbling, sclerotic, atheistic-humanist bureaucracy of the emerging European oligarchy that has stealthily stolen away the once paradigmatic democracy of our Mother of Parliaments from elected hands here to unelected hands elsewhere'?) See also the Press Complaints Commission's response to Monckton's complaint about this article by George Monbiot.The question of whether the IPCC had taken account of the complainant's ‘contribution' to its 2007 report was irrelevant - the blog was simply, and within the bounds of fair comment, taking a swipe at Viscount Monckton's claim that he could be reasonably termed a Nobel Prize winner because certain statistics in the report had been amended as a result of his intervention.
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Dikran Marsupial at 20:34 PM on 28 March 2012The Skeptical Science temperature trend calculator
barry@24 Tamino is indeed a great educator on statistical topics, especially time series analysis. The key mistake the sceptics make is to assume that no statistically significant warming means that there is no warming. If there is no statistically significant warming, it means either there is no warming, or there is warming, but there is not enough evidence to rule out the possibility that it is not warming (loosely speaking). If you use too short a period, then the latter becomes more likely. The flip side of statistical significance is statistical power, which basically measures the probability of getting a statistically significant trend when it is actually warming at the predicted rate. However the skeptics never mention the statistical power of the test and generally refuse to discuss it when raised (see the discussion with Prof. Pielke at SkS). RC, OpenMind and SkS are also my top three sites, but not necessarily in that order. ;o) -
Paul D at 20:14 PM on 28 March 2012Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)
Believe it or not, we hardly ever hear about Monckton in the UK. There was an unflattering documentary about him a year or two ago about his exploits abroad. That's all. The UK government do not take him seriously. I believe the biggest emission problem in California has been the use of road vehicles, which have a bigger impact on the states emissions than vehicles do in New York. I did have a look into US emissions a while ago, because California was mentioned. -
John Mason at 19:37 PM on 28 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
I see that I am an Earth Scientist (correct) who posts as two usernames at The Guardian: I can reveal the shocking truth is that having had an article published there I changed to my real name so that readers would know it was the author taking part in the discussion. This was at the request of the editors. Made perfect sense to me. I like writing for SkS because a) it gives me chance to explore in great detail interesting palaeoclimate problems and topics with a big geological component - my folders of papers on such topics are starting to bulge alarmingly - and b) because the internal review procedure here has really helped sharpen-up my writing skills, which for anyone can only be improved. So in doing so I've learned a lot both ways. Anyone who has been involved in the management of any successful internet forum will know that there are tiers of management and moderation who have back-office areas, off-limits to ordinary members, in which to discuss financial support, action such as banning/unbanning disruptive members, reporting spammers and just letting off steam in private when the need arises. I would fully expect busy sites such as WUWT to have similar admin areas, but would be equally strongly against such areas being illegally made available to the public: it matters not whether we disagree severely over aspects of climatology. The reason that it matters not is because the bottom line is that without admin/modding teams being able to have such administrative areas, and thereby do their jobs properly, every single forum on the net would be jam-packed to the point of being unreadable with spammers and off-topic trolls, regardless of the subject upon which the forum was based. Given how useful forums can be as helpful information-exchanges on topics as diverse as fishing or gardening or motor vehicle maintenance, that would be a major backward step to the detriment of all. I am sure that those who are delighting in picking through our private conversations would realise that, if they sat and thought about it for a moment. Cheers - John -
Ari Jokimäki at 19:18 PM on 28 March 2012New research from last week 12/2012
Thanks for the nice comments everyone! Barry, I'm eagerly waiting for the new papers you have found for my site. I have really neglected my paperlists recently. There's just too much going on. I have loads of ideas for new lists and old ones could use updates. I hope I can find time for that soon. Doug, see where the Trenberth (2012) abstract link leads to... ;) -
Glenn Tamblyn at 18:58 PM on 28 March 2012Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)
I have spent quite a few years working in automotive industries, applying IT to cars and their testing and manufacture. One thing that is striking is the impart the California Air Resources Board (CARB) has had on vehicle technologies. CARB only has a remit covering California. They set standards for emmissions. But also the underlying technologies to achieve this and how we check that it has been achieved. What data must be available to check a cars emissions. Even what the standard multi-pin plug and the protocols to communicate with the car are are significantly or totally defined by CARB - in consultation obviously with other parties and organisations. But since California is around 20% of the US car market and population, what CARB has to say carries a lot of weight. So defacto, California's standards become US standards since Detroit can't build different cars for California. Then California's standards become de-facto Global standards because without them Volkswagon or Cherry or Tata can't sell into the US. So a few well placed regulatory organisations in the right States, Regions or Countries can have a disproportionate impact. -
chriskoz at 18:57 PM on 28 March 2012Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)
Doug @2, I can add than Monckton considerss himself a "Nobel Laureate" apparently for reviewing IPCC AR4. The story is described here. The link to the source of that claim is therein but does not work for me, but sufficiently many people have pointed this story out to be credible. Now, try to ask Monckton who this "Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Rochester, New York" who gave him the golden pin, is. If he decide to give the name, ask this professor for confirmation and the details of Monckton's contribution to AR4. That's true Moncktongate of climate science!Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] HTML tags fixed (hopefully) -
jyyh at 18:45 PM on 28 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
I can't anymore remember many of the things I've said in the forum. But, by publishing the cracked file the hacker (and those who link to it) have revealed at least: a)my name and age(which was likely previously known if someone bothered to look into it (via my blog @blogspot and two easily guessed additional search words) b)my email (still no additional spam/hatemail, I'll be following that for a long time) c)my hobby (entomology) (which could have been found out by searching by name) d)via my hobby some of the locations I've visited (including two to four guesses on my home address) e)that I'm single f)that I've got a sister (and some of her affiliations, Red Cross, Greens, medical profession, of which she is proud of) g)that I've had a Professor who's good in stats in the family h)that I know a couple of scientists (actual number would be 5, I think interpreted loosely) who have done research on climate related issues (possibly also their emails, which could have been found also by researching the literature) i)my history and experience with weather/climate science (not much) j)the fact that I'm not good in maths/physics (which becomes obvious if one searches the comments I've made elsewhere in the blogosphere) k)that I accept the AGW mainly because of the spectrum taken on TOA, the black-body radiation theory, the changing C12/C13/C14-ratios in the atmosphere, and because I think CO2 has a specific absorption spectrum (I've done a bit of Gas Cromatography during studies) l)that I do not like people who claim to understand physics who do not accept j) showing they understand even less than me. m)my formal education and the university n)that I do not believe in the runaway GHE in the Venusian style occurring on Earth (can't prove it with maths, sorry) in another 1,5 billion years (sun gets too hot then) o)likely my ISP ? p) any additional info that I do not now remember writing about, (f.e. the location of the southernmost location of occurrence of Erebia embla in Finland that I've heard about but not confirmed.) I hope the deniers are having fun reading my 'critical assessement' of one article I know they're interested in, but won't say here what it is, since one should have something to do. It was made entirely tongue-in-cheek and I will likely laugh out loud (LOL) if I see it referred on some blog. -
chriskoz at 18:37 PM on 28 March 2012Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)
...while 120 California state legislators were invited to Monckton's talk, only 5 chose to attend That's very low, given 50+ Reps at Federal level are climate contrarians, AFAIK. Most of them in CA at least ignore Monckton, even if they deny AGW. I don't follow US political scene closely and CA state may differ from federal. So to have a better perspective, can you give the partisanship percentage in CA congress and how many of them deny AGW? -
Fran Barlow2 at 18:34 PM on 28 March 2012Peter Hadfield Letter to Chris Monckton
Ah Andy S ... I see ... In that case ignore. -
monkeyorchid at 18:31 PM on 28 March 2012New research from last week 12/2012
Kilifarska's paper presents an interesting model but what it provides is **correlation not causation**. Hence no hard evidence of any kind is provided. That doesn't make it bad science - it's a hypothesis that's now in need of testing. Deniers, of course, will treat this as proof positive whilst still decrying the (imaginary) lack of proof that CO2 causes warming. In the paper, the lack of any discussion about CO2 after the early methods section shows (I suspect) a complete lack of understanding of how the paper will be used as a propaganda piece by denialists. Kilifarska seems overexcited by his model (several exclamation marks are used in the text, which is bad practice in scientific papers) and is bursting to tell everyone about it. Indeed, he seems to think like a bright but untrained undergraduate, fixating on one factor to the exclusion of all others. It was the responsibility of the editors and reviewers to ensure that this paper was set in the context of the mountains of evidence for CO2 effects on climate, and to add caveats towards the end as is normal for a scientific paper. That they didn't is a failing of them, rather than Kilifarska. In summary, the paper presents correlations, not causation ... and a model for how cosmic rays might affect the climate, not hard evidence. It could make a genuine contribution to understanding within-decade climate variation, but the sloppy or deliberate ignoring of CO2 in most of the paper means that it may become a propaganda piece and do more harm than good. The editors really should have done better work here. -
Doug Hutcheson at 18:26 PM on 28 March 2012Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)
Monckton's further multiplication by a factor of 2.5 is duplicative and erroneous
claims by Monckton are pure fiction
utterly absurd alarmism
Surely, this cannot be the same Lord Monckton who has discovered the one-size-fits-all cure for AIDS, Multiple Sclerosis and assorted other ills afflicting humanity? He must be right: he's a Lord of the Realm and a non-voting member of the House of Lords, or something, isn't he? Posts like this are clearly designed to undermine the Monarchy, so must be a conspiracy by ... by ... by somebody. Next thing we know, they'll be hacking the Fragrant One's mail and calling it Moncktongate. What a shocking way to run a country. -
bill4344 at 17:51 PM on 28 March 2012Monckton Misleads California Lawmakers - Now It's Personal (Part 1)
Ah, the hubris is truly extraordinary! Visiting foreign parts and lecturing the natives on how they don't understand their own economies; how very colonial! I look forward to part 2 - I'm curious as to whether he also repeated some of the very same myths that he's currently running away from Peter Hadfield's debunking of. -
Andy Skuce at 17:37 PM on 28 March 2012Peter Hadfield Letter to Chris Monckton
Fran, I think the intention was to refer to Peter Hitchens, Christopher's reactionary brother. Google "Peter Hitchens climate change" and you'll be treated to the usual Daily Mail nonsense. -
Fran Barlow2 at 15:49 PM on 28 March 2012Peter Hadfield Letter to Chris Monckton
Funglestrumpet said:By way of 'thanks', they get a whole army of people: Delingpole, Philips, Hitchens, The Tea Party, The Republican Party, etc. etc
No way does the late Hitchens deserve to be counted in this crowd. He hasn't (as he acknowledged himself, said much at all on climate change) He puts a kind of Pascal's Wager position here. He admits that "people don't want to hear from me on climate change" and then gives an account of his sympathy for action to protect the biosphere over the ozone layer question -- fumbling about for the right form of words to describe that, and acknowledging his fuzziness. Here's a guy who admits to not having the insight to comment meaningfully on the scientific questions. He was certainly not repudiating mainstream science on Co2 sensitivity or anthropogenesis. A summary of his words is here:The argument about global warming is not whether there is any warming but whether or not and to what extent human activity is responsible for it. My line on that is that we should act as if it is, for this reason, which I borrowed from Jonathan Schell's book on the nuclear question, The Fate of the Earth: We don't have another planet on which to run the experiment. Just as we don't have a right to run an experiment to run an experiment in nuclear exchange on this planet, we have no right to run an experiment in warming it either. So if it turned out to be that there was no severe global warming threat or that it wasn't man-made, then all we would have done would be make a mistake in analysis - which we could correct from. But if it turned out that there was and we didn't do anything about it, then it would be too late to do anything at all. And that would lead to disaster.
Apart from his rather bizarre alliance with Bush over Iraq, he had nothing in common with the Republican/tea party fringe. -
Doug Hutcheson at 15:37 PM on 28 March 2012New research from last week 12/2012
Ari, I laughed out loud at the intro. How disappointing to scan the papers listed and not find one by Springer. I thought hacking into his server might turn up some evidence of original work by him, but I was unsurprised at the absence of any. Perhaps he was ghost-writer for Kilifarska's paper showing how galactic cosmic rays have disproved 150 years of physics? -
Tom Curtis at 15:32 PM on 28 March 2012Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
My comment @5 appears to be in error to this extent at least - the paper in question does discuss global temperatures. I will reserve further comment until I have read the paper more closely: http://www.au.agwscam.com/pdf/SolheimSolarTemperature.pdf -
dana1981 at 15:20 PM on 28 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Since SkS is entirely fact-based (i.e. all of our posts are rooted in the peer-reviewed literature), it's quite obvious that none of us believe 'the facts don't support us'. If we believed that, we wouldn't be contributing to SkS to begin with. Glancing over the BH comments, I saw one commenter surprised at how honest we are in the SkS private forum, which made me laugh. Though frankly the whole discussion kind of ticks me off, because those are private discussions. It's like Montford and his buddies reading through your email - it's just wrong, immoral, and unethical. But at the same time, we all stand behind everything we've said in the forum. Sure, sometimes we say unflattering things about the Bishop Hill types - who we don't think very much of for obvious reasons - but we say them in private so that we won't say them in public, in order to keep SkS focused on the science. Overall though, I do have to say I enjoy watch them digging around our private discussions trying to find something remotely damning, and utterly failing to do so. But I also feel kind of dirty, having read the comments of such unethical people. -
Doug Hutcheson at 15:13 PM on 28 March 2012Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
tompinlb @ 4, you did not provide a link to the paper you cited. Which journal published it? Do you have a link? -
Tom Curtis at 15:06 PM on 28 March 2012Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
tompinlb @4, the fact that the researchers chose to examine the impact of a global effect using only very localized data screams cherry pick to me. If solar cycle length genuinely explains changes in surface temperatures, it would do so globally for the sun is a global influence. Why then did the researchers not apply their techniques to a global temperature index? My guess is that they did, and did not like the result, so they started looking around for a set of local data sets that would give them results they liked. Given the number of such local data sets, it was inevitable they would find something. -
bill4344 at 14:57 PM on 28 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
I reckon it's worth keeping tabs on what they're up to with it, all the same! Also, you guys do science, and do it well; I make no great claims on science, beyond recognising who has the argument in this debate, but I do do people and language. And I'm doing this for me; certain combinations of bone-headed stupidity and breathtaking hypocrisy really, really piss me off! Especially when I think of the damage they've actually succeeding in doing already, and their plans to extend it, despite the fact that their imbecility should be apparent to any educated person in our post-Enlightenment world I don't usually bother with such ineducable types, but I've challenged them to deliver the alleged 'smoking guns' they've all happily convinced themselves they've found, Fearless Leader included; particularly anything that in any way supports the notion that SkS authors 'know the facts don't support them'. But - big surprise! - they've got nothing, and some of the marginally-less-deluded of them must be uncomfortably aware of this at some level. -
Stevo at 14:33 PM on 28 March 2012What We Knew in 82
Thanks for that, Rob. Nice ammo to use against the next person who tries to tell me that all those AGW predictions have been proven to be false, or that AGW is some kind of recently invented political scare tactic. -
tompinlb at 14:13 PM on 28 March 2012Solar Cycle Length proves its the sun
A new paper presents evidence that changes in solar cycle length can account for roughly 40 to 50 percent of the historic change in average temperature at a number of stations in coastal Norway. See Solheim Stordahl and Humlum, The long sunspot cycle 23 predicts a significant temperature decrease in cycle 24, in Journal of atmospheric and solar terrestrial physics, February 2012. The scientists have found that in this area, the solar cycle length is predictive of temperatures after a delay of 9 to 12 years, which delay they believe is related to the time frame for solar influences in the tropics to affect the north Atlantic ocean near Norway. They also make a very specific prediction that the extended length of solar cycle 23 will lead to significant cooling in their area of study. This theory will be tested as we see what happens with temperatures over the next ten years. If they are correct, then solar influence on temperature is much more significant, and the effect of co2 much less significant, than the consensus climate science would argue. -
scaddenp at 14:10 PM on 28 March 2012There's no tropospheric hot spot
Also note, that climate sensitivity isnt about CO2 forcing necessarily, but the sensitivity to any radiative forcing change. As TC notes, the water vapour feedback is established directly - some pretty fundamental physics would have to be wrong if not present. Your comments about "torturing data" are misplaced. The question is whether such measurements are able to show the model effect. Finally, "large and catastrophic effects" is rhetoric. Since this is a science site, perhaps its better to confine discussion to effects actually predicted by the science? (ie AR4 WG2). "Catastrophic" means different things to different people. ie for some it would be forced-migration from large deltas because of salt-invasion; while for others it appears to be higher taxes or fuel costs. The argument is that evidence to date suggests its cheaper to mitigate emissions now, rather than pay cost of adaption later. -
Tom Curtis at 13:56 PM on 28 March 2012There's no tropospheric hot spot
tompinlb @14: 1) The lack of a tropospheric hotspot shows the absence of the lapse rate feedback - a negative feedback. The absence of a negative feedback does not show that there are no significant positive feedbacks. 2) The Water Vapour feedback depends primarily on water vapour concentrations in the lower troposphere which are known by direct observation to have increased. The situation where you have a significant increase in WV in the lower troposphere but not in the mid and upper troposphere would result in a strong WV feedback and a weak lapse rate feedback, thus resulting in an overall stronger net positive feedback from the effects of WV. 3) The total effect depends critically on the actual change in the WV concentration profile, which is not well established so the net final effect cannot be absolutely nailed down. 4) Paleoclimate based estimates of climate sensitivity make no assumptions about the relative contribution of different feedbacks, and still cluster around the 3-4 degree C range per doubling of CO2. It may well be that the net feedback of WV (WV feedback - lapse rate feedback) is weaker than predicted by the models, by the net ice and snow albedo feedback is much stronger (which is almost certain). Focusing on just one part of the equation is no basis for ignoring the paleo evidence on climate sensitivity. -
Albatross at 13:51 PM on 28 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
DSL @112, "Or maybe they'll continue to sit in the dark, contemplating climastrology while mathturbating." Bravo-- that actually made me laugh out loud. On a serious note, it is really unfortunate that the hacker/s in their zeal to try and intimidate SkS, went beyond the pale by not redacting peoples' private information. That act was truly malicious and uncalled for. As I have said before, these criminal acts only go to underscore the fact that this "debate" is not about science or facts for the fake skeptics, but doing whatever is necessary to continue to further their ideological agenda. -
Tom Curtis at 13:44 PM on 28 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
DSL @112, sadly I expect your wrong. I expect the files related to preparing posts on SkS will be largely ignored, as will the files reporting on new scientific papers (except those by "skeptics"). It is clearly evident from the posts by those trawling the files that they have no interest in context, only in something that can be used to demonize SkS and its forum members. -
tompinlb at 13:41 PM on 28 March 2012There's no tropospheric hot spot
I think the argument is not that the tropospheric hot spot is unique to co2 forcing. Instead, I believe what is at question is climate sensitivity. As I understand it, the tropospheric hot spot would reflect the amplification of the co2 forcing by the positive feedback from water vapor that is assumed in the global climate models, through its effect on moist lapse rate. Regardless of how the data may be tortured, as in the "wind shear" argument cited above, all of the radiosonde data shows no evidence for a tropospheric hot spot. And without this tropospheric hot spot, the theory of water vapor multiplying the effect of higher c02 is disproven. Without higher climate sensitivity, the effects of increasing co2 on global temperatures are much more limited. Isn't this the real problem that the lack of evidence for a tropical hotspot presents for the anthropogenic global warming theory, ie. that the theorized high climate sensitivity to co2 increases will have positive feedback with large and catastrophic effects? -
DSL at 13:34 PM on 28 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Oh my god! A secret forum! The "secret forum," of course, reveals nothing of the sort. It is similar to the East Anglia emails, though, in that there is, here and there, more direct language describing the idiocy that is committed and/or bought-and-paid-for denialism (and simply bad science). The forum is so secret that I assumed its existence long before it was revealed to me, and I think that most people must have assumed that some sort of administrative level was required to organize, fact-check, and review the mass of articles. The idea that the primary posters here are using the forum to say things like, "Geez, we've sure fooled 'em with this AGW bit! Ha ha ha!" is simply absurd, and I eagerly await the monumental stupidity that will be required to twist rhetorically forceful bits out of the context of the forum. The thing is, though, I know a number of bloggers who are up to the task--whose very existence as bloggers, in fact, relies on that particular skill. Denialsville, ya got nothin', and so ya had to steal somethin'. One good thing, though, is that in searching for something to mutilate, these people will be forced to encounter the discussion and the science. Maybe a lightbulb will pop on. Or maybe they'll continue to sit in the dark, contemplating climastrology while mathturbating. -
Albatross at 13:15 PM on 28 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Bill @110, Thanks for the support. Don't fret too much on our behalf and let those who revel in using stolen personal information and take delight in others' misfortune, have fun in their own little dark corner of the internet. Rest assured, the SkS team are hard at work as we speak drafting new posts speaking to the science, and will contine to do what we do best-- refuting myths and misinformation disseminated by fake skeptics. Onwards and forwards. -
bill4344 at 12:24 PM on 28 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Thought I'd point out that the ever-dignified and responsible Bishop Hill has gone beyond merely linking to the leaked material (via Tom Nelson and the egregious Shub). Now he's made it the subject of a whole new post. First the man himself has a bit of a gloat and a 'you wish!' ramble -It looks like John Cook and co at Skeptical Science are in a bit of a tizzy because their secret forum has been exposed to public view. Their complaint is that they have been hacked though John Cook admits that their security is almost non-existent. What is interesting, in reading some of the excerpts from the forum posted here, is the similarities between the SkS secret forum and the Climategate emails - i.e. we know the facts don't support what we say but don't tell anyone! That's ok, guys, your secrets are safe with us ;-)
He's christened the event 'Opengate' (zero for originality, but at least the troops will have an easily-remembered shorthand reference for making future snide remarks), has commissioned yet another 'hilarious' cartoon from Josh, and all the little muckers are having a grand old time cherrypicking to their hearts' content in the thread. Now, Watts opposed using the hacked material, and there are two very good reasons for this - principle, and enlightened self-interest, which are not distinct, anyway. As a good example, state leaders don't generally commission the assassination of other state leaders they are in conflict with, if only on the simple basis that sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander! The egregious Montford has effectively renounced any right whatsoever to complain should such an event occur targeting himself, or any of his similarly unprincipled cronies. It's that simple. -
barry1487 at 12:05 PM on 28 March 2012The Skeptical Science temperature trend calculator
Dikran @19 it is some comfort to know even the experts struggle with this. It is a devil of an issue in the climate debates. Hard to explain and easily misunderstood, when indeed it is even brought up, as it should be. Tamino has to be recognized as a great educator on this. RC, Open Mind and SkS, my top three sites on the mainstream explanation of the AGW issue. Cheers. -
barry1487 at 11:57 AM on 28 March 2012The Skeptical Science temperature trend calculator
Daniel @18 Well said. So it seemd to me. My point is that those caveats weren't clearly exposited when mainstream commenters introduced the matter to the lay audience. Hence, skeptics can now exploit the simplified version to advantage. I don't have any answers to the perennial balancing act in reporting science to the GP. It's a tough gig, particularly when there are commenters and pundits who are mining for any tittle that supports their agenda rather than helping to shed light on understanding. -
Doug Hutcheson at 11:46 AM on 28 March 2012An Open Letter to the Future
william @ 26 and pjamm @ 30, clay tablets are fragile and metal tablets are prone to be recycled. Perhaps stone tablets would be more durable. Perhaps they could be stored on a mountaintop somewhere in the Middle East. Maybe we could even boil down our warnings into a few simple rules: ten might do the job. In the arid regions, stone tablets on a mountaintop should be good for a few millennia, until the next tribe of lost souls discovers them. You never know, it might start a movement of some kind. -
Glenn Tamblyn at 11:21 AM on 28 March 2012HadCRUT3: Cool or Uncool?
GISTemp offers an interesting graphing facility that lets you look at land, ocean and combined data by year and latitude. This is SST's with a 3 year averaging. This does not include the adjustments made by Hadley recently that iis attempting to correct for different methods of sampling surface temps by ships in the past and the effect of changing proportions of ships using each method. This is most clearly seen during WWII with August 1945 having been identified as a point where a significant change in the mix of nations sampling SST'2 occurred. And the 'hump' in the 40's is reasonably defined and short duration. This is one of the issues the new Hadley SST series, which is one part of the upcoming HADCruT4 release
In contrast the early 20th century warming on land (again 3 year averaged) is a much gentler 'hump' over more years. And when we look at where the warming happened, it wasn't global. It was mainly high Northern latitudes.
This was happening at the same time as station coverage was increasing (grey areas don't have adequate coverage). So interestingly this warming in substantially the Arctic was occurring at the same time as station coverage was in flux - we didn't have truely global coverage till the late 50's.
Could the addition of new Arctic stations at a time when there was still no coverage in the Antarctic have introduced a bias in the record during this period. There are theories that suggest there is an oscillation between the Arctic & Antarctic with a roughly 1/2 century period. If Antarctica was colder at the same time the Arctic was warming, we wouldn't see it.
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barry1487 at 11:19 AM on 28 March 2012The Skeptical Science temperature trend calculator
Here's the exact quote. "For the next two decades, a warming of about 0.2°C per decade is projected for a range of SRES emission scenarios" I think a reasonable range for "about" would 1.5C - 2.5C per decade. Almost always overlooked is the time frame stipulated - two decades is likely a long enough period for the signal to become apparent. Literally speaking, the estimate should be checked in 2026, 20 years after the 'projection.' And the prediction does not include the possibility of significant events that could skew the predicted trend from CO2 warming, like a series of major volcanic eruptions. For the die-hard skeptics, perhaps the forecast could have been qualified, "all other forcings being equal" or some such. -
Glenn Tamblyn at 10:19 AM on 28 March 2012HadCRUT3: Cool or Uncool?
Chris G Yep, circulation in the ocean is the big difference factor compared to land. Any fluid movement - natural convection, currents etc is a far more efficient transporter of heat than Conduction in a solid such as rock. wrt area weighting of station data, GISTemp uses a system much as you describe so that multiple stations in a region contribute a weighted average to that region. The regions are still gridded squares but they use realtively small sub-grids and allow stations from out-side those sub-grids to contribute to the weighting. Then the average sub-grids to produce larger grid-cells. Your comment about @5 about treating the temperature data as a surface with sample points is much the way I think of it. Map the Earths spherical surface onto a 2D grid. Then each met station is a point on that grid. And the height is the temperature (or better temperature anomaly) at that point. What you end up with is like a wonky bed-of-nails. Then lay a flexible sheet over the 'nails' and it adapts to the conrours created by the height of the nails. I'm sure disciplines like Topology would have some interesting math that could be applied to this. An important think to consider is the question of how 'flexible' the 'sheet' is. A really flexible sheet (imagine it as being like cling wrap) would drap down around the 'nails' so your profile would still look overly spiky. Too rigid a sheet might not flex anough and miss some of the nails. The 'rigidity' of the sheet is essentially an aspect of the climate that determines what level of sampling density we need to adequately determine the true contour. Just how much does climate vary from location to location and hence how close together do the nails need to be. Here the difference between the nails being Temperatures or Temperature Anomalies really matters. With working with temperatures there are local factors that mean relatively close locations can have very different temperatures, local changes in altitude being the most significant. So if we work with temperatures for our nails the 'sheet' is effectively very flexible and we need a high station density. However if we work with Temperature Anomalies, how much each station has changed compared to a baseline average of itself, then the variability between nearby stations is much less, and we can meaningfully work with fewer stations further apart - the sheet is stiffer. This idea really ties a lot of people up in knots and is the underlying driver for much of the 'Dying of the Thermometers', 'Its bad stations' type memes that have had so much traction. Most people can't get their heads around the difference between working with Temperatures and Temperature Anomalies. And Joe Public probably assumes that the calculations are done using Temperatures. I did a 4 part series on this nearly a year ago that goes through a lot of this. -
John Hartz at 10:09 AM on 28 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Riccardo & DB: Interpol will sort it all out in good time. -
Daniel Bailey at 09:12 AM on 28 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Just people making unsupported assertions... -
Riccardo at 09:02 AM on 28 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
Who said that the attack came from Russian hackers? I don't think anyone knows at the moment. -
barry1487 at 09:02 AM on 28 March 2012HadCRUT3: Cool or Uncool?
Very clear explanation, thanks. -
Chris G at 08:46 AM on 28 March 2012HadCRUT3: Cool or Uncool?
Thanks KR, I came up with the basis of that algorithm when working on how to automate the detection of clusters of points on a grid; they jump out to a human eye - not so much to a computer. Coincidentally that was about the same time that Hansen published that paper. Not sure whether to be pleased to have come up with a similar solution, or embarrassed that I was unaware that was what GISS has been doing for so long. Guess I just figured they knew what they were doing and someone would have pointed out otherwise. Kevin, Thanks, I'll have a look. Yeah, complicated only if you think of it as trying to convert unequal grid cells to grid cells of equal size; not at all complicated if you simply calculate the surface area of the grid, and weight the grid that by compared to total surface area. Oh well, comment in haste... -
JMurphy at 08:08 AM on 28 March 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #12
Good program on tonight called 'Global Weirding'. It had Kerry Emanuel, Katharine Hayhoe, Adam Scaife and Mike Lockwood (among others) trying to explain the strange things going on with the weather all around the world. The denialosphere must be apoplectic, especially as it was on that left-wing, UN-backed (supposedly) BBC ! -
TOP at 08:07 AM on 28 March 2012Skeptical Science hacked, private user details publicly posted online
@yocta The general tone here has been that this was some kind of attack on SkS for ideological reasons and yet it has previously been pointed out that the attack came from Russian hackers who would likely be more motivated by money, ego or status. Your acronym leaves out one letter, "S" for stepping stone. The real value to a group of hackers (having had my site hacked once) is to facilitate further cyber-shenanigans. A list of email addresses allows a hacker to attack those computers, installing bots that allow further attacks on other sites. SkS list has to be a real treat since the base is so large and diverse and so many are associated with educational facilities. At least it hasn't made it to wikileaks yet.
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