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muoncounter at 14:11 PM on 18 January 2012The Debunking Handbook: now freely available for download
See this video of Dr. Eugenie Scott, NCSE director, speaking about the US education system. The parallels between the systematic denial of climate change and evolution are striking. Glasgow is clearly a civilized place. We don't often have science lectures in pubs in the US. -
dana1981 at 14:01 PM on 18 January 2012Patrick Michaels: Serial Deleter of Inconvenient Data
Chip, if you really can't see what's wrong with repeatedly deleting inconvenient data from other scientists' papers, then perhaps you should take that as a sign that you've been working with Pat Michaels for too long. -
Albatross at 13:46 PM on 18 January 2012Patrick Michaels: Serial Deleter of Inconvenient Data
I would also like SkS readers to note that Chip elected to post his above comments after Pat Michaels made several untrue, offensive and disparaging comments about Dana and SkS in his post at WCR (which has now predictably been parroted uncritically by Anthony Watts). I find that highly duplicitous on Mr. Knappenberger's part. Chip can drop the "good cop, bad cop" shtick, no one is buying that little act anymore. -
Albatross at 13:31 PM on 18 January 2012Patrick Michaels: Serial Deleter of Inconvenient Data
Chip @25, "Try as I might, I honestly cannot see why the uproar over our treatment of either Schmittner et al. or Gillett et al." Seriously? You are that numb to the severity of your actions?! (-snip-). People are very good at rationalizing and defending even the most indefensible of crimes Chip. It is also probably because you chose to simply ignore/dismiss Dr. Urban's and Dr. Hansen's legitimate concerns-- ignore them and the problem goes away, at least in your mind. If you fail to see the uproar, just shows how completely divorced you are from acceptable and ethical scientific practices. You and Michaels are routinely engaging in scientific misconduct-- but you will deny that, just as you deny the seriousness of continuing along our current emissions path. Anyhow, I for one will from now on respond only to Patrick Michaels (the promulgator of misinformation, distortion and half truths, and the deleter of inconvenient data) (-snip-). I hope your conscience, (-snip-) does not let you sleep well tonight.Response:[DB]Again, let us embody that we wish others to emulate.
Inflammatory snipped.
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muoncounter at 13:23 PM on 18 January 2012Patrick Michaels: Serial Deleter of Inconvenient Data
Chip Knappenberger#25: "... It was never our intention to discuss the intricacies of the paper" That is a recipe for spreading misinformation. By pulling selectively from the abstract and neglecting to analyze the work, you may as well be summarizing a newspaper by reading the front page headlines only. A case in point is Michaels' commentary here: Schmittner et al. results join a growing number of papers published in recent years which ... have come to somewhat similar conclusions, especially regarding the (lack of) evidence to support the existence of the fat right-hand tail. That 'presentation' cleverly missed the fact that Schmittner found low sensitivity in large part by using data that were truncated at the high and low ends and a model with known limitations. There is 'no evidence' of the fat tail because the authors didn't look at the fat tail. But from this you feel free to build false conclusions: But, as the evidence mounts against a high value for the climate sensitivity ... the IPCC is going to be hard-pressed to retain the status quo in its Fifth Assessment Report, especially in light of the enhanced scrutiny that its AR4 misdeeds brought upon the process. Nice to see Michaels taking an opportunity to throw a punch at the IPCC with unspecified 'misdeeds'. Such superficial analysis has lots of color, but no substance. Gross simplification makes it easy to spin, if that is your real goal. -
apiratelooksat50 at 13:22 PM on 18 January 2012Puget Sound, Under Threat From Ocean Acidification, Put on "Waters of Concern" List
Sphaerica at 27 Paragraph 7: Good idea and FedEx and UPS pretty much design their routes like that already. Can't say that for the USPS who runs the same route every day. The private sector companies are in it for a profit and do a much more efficient and cost-effective job than the government run USPS. Paragraph 8: Until someone can offer a better solution than what we have now, please don't refer to my pragmatism as escapism. Again, offer realistic solutions. How comfortable would we be sending our children off to a school out of state where power is intermittent and their physical comfort and health (heating/cooling/hot water/cooked food) is not guaranteed, and we could only contact them sporadically? Paragraph 9: (Back to the OA) Please tell me how I am distracting anyone. I am offering (and actually doing) my part to work on the solution. If you can justify that statement about me you put in quotation marks, I will send a personal check of $100 to any charity of your choice. Otherwise, I expect an apology. (-snip-). OA appears to be a very realistic and troubling issue in which humans may be playing a significant role. Regardless of the significance of our roles in OA, there are many, many things we can be doing now, and should be doing to better protect our marine environments.Response:[DB] All parties, please tone down the personal remarks and dial back the emotions a bit.
Inflammatory snipped.
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Albatross at 13:16 PM on 18 January 2012Patrick Michaels: Serial Deleter of Inconvenient Data
Chip @25, Please let Michaels speak for himself. Why does Pat Michaels send someone else to cover up his dirty work for him? This speaks volumes about Pat Michaels, he likes to try and control the message-- no one is allowed to comment at WCR. How cowardly, how totally untransparent and how nicely designed to evade critique. The double standards at WCR are astounding. I suggest that from now on you let Pat speak for himself and defend his own transgressions. Surely he is man enough to to defend his own work, rather than have a foot soldier do the work for him? What stuns me is that in trying to defend/rationalize/justify his doctoring of graphs, Michaels then elects to propagate more half truths, and misinformation, while making a good few strawman arguments to boot. (-snip-).Moderator Response:[DB] Please, let us model what we wish others to emulate.
Inflammatory snipped.
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Chip Knappenberger at 12:46 PM on 18 January 2012Patrick Michaels: Serial Deleter of Inconvenient Data
dana1981, Try as I might, I honestly cannot see why the uproar over our treatment of either Schmittner et al. or Gillett et al. As Pat pointed out over at WCR, our presentations closely followed the Abstract (as written by the original authors) of each paper. It was never our intention to discuss the intricacies of the paper, but to introduce our audience to their existence and place the findings in some context. Don’t you all, here at SkepticalScience publish collections of abstracts from the recent literature from time to time to alert your readers? Perhaps it would sit easier with you if you just considered us as presenting an “abstract” of main Figures in each paper? And as far as the 1998 testimony goes, your article has added absolutely nothing new to the topic which has been discussed ad nauseum at various point and places across the web. I have laid out my take on the event in various Real Climate discussions (see here and here and my comments esp. #21, #65, and #90 of the first link). Nothing has really changed since then, from either side. So to me at least, your article lacks both novelty and substance—but then again, perhaps I am too close to the situation to offer a fair assessment. -Chip Knappenberger World Climate ReportResponse:[DB] Chip, you are neither the focus of the OP of this thread nor are you the Chief Editor of the World Climate Report (WCR). Michaels is, both. So while your opinion is duly noted, Michaels failing to personally present his case on this thread will be construed as de facto evidence of the merit of the OP.
Unlike WCR, comments are allowed by all parties in this forum, with the caveat that comments be on-topic of the thread on which they are placed and that they also be constructed to comply with the Comments Policy. That standard should prove no difficulty for men of good character and conscience.
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Lessons from the Whitehouse-Annan Wager
ClimateWatcher - "Don't need every square meter, but if there are no measurements within a 5x5 degree box..." You do understand basic geography, I hope - and that at the poles a 5x5 degree box becomes a very small area? Basic distance is a much better criteria than degrees, as it's invariant over the globe. Thou doth protest too much, methinks (Hamlet, Act III, scene II)... -
Tom Curtis at 11:50 AM on 18 January 2012Lessons from the Whitehouse-Annan Wager
ClimateWatcher @10, it appears you have completely ignored Kevin C's post @1, not to mention the evidence that the new Hadley-CRU product shows an increased trend post 1979 relative to HadCRUT3v, with the only known difference being an increase in the number of stations used. There are at least five reasons why GISTEMP could show a greater month to month variability than HadCRUv3: 1) HadCRUTv3 uses less than as many 51.9% as does GISTEMP,with reduced stations resulting in greater variability; 2) HadCRUTv3 has less than 82.7% of the surface area coverage of GISTEMP (and less than 88% of the surface area coverage of NCDC), with less coverage resulting in more variability; 3) The HadCRUTv3 5 degree grid weights tropical stations more strongly than temperature zone stations, and temperate zone stations more strongly than sub-arctic stations. As climate variability increases strongly as you move away from the equator this would artificially result in less variability in HadCRUTv3 than in a strict distance based weighting method as used by GISTEMP (I suspect this is a major, if not the only cause); 4) As I understand it, HadCRUTv3 handles the land ocean interface differently than does GISTEMP, with CRUTEM3 (the land only product) including sea surface temperatures from withing the the 5 degree cell in determining Land temperatures, with a consequent reduction in variability. (This is a technical point on which I am not fully clear. Perhaps Kevin C could elaborate on how much of a factor it would be.); and 5) The areas which HadCRUTv3 does not cover tend to be concentrated in polar regions and areas of high aridity (Sahara desert, Middle East) both of which are regions of higher than average variability in temperature, thereby under sampling total variability. Isn't it amazing how you (Climate Watcher) have managed to pick out as the only relevant factor from these five the only factor which would suggest HadCRUTv3 is more reliable than GISTEMP, and unerringly picked it out without any need for actual numerical analysis? As monthly variability is highly correlated with expected temperature trend due to global warming; the most likely reason for the reduced trend in HadCRUTv3 compared to GISTEMP is the reduced number of stations, the tropically weighted index (due to grid area), and the reduced spatial coverage. That this is the case in confirmed by the fact that by adding additional Russian and Arctic stations, HadCRUTv4 has a higher trend than does v3, and much closer to that of GISTEMP. -
Tom Curtis at 11:16 AM on 18 January 2012Lessons from the Whitehouse-Annan Wager
Kevin C @1, I believe that your research is important enough to bring to a wider audience. Have you considered writing it up, and submitting it to a peer reviewed journal? I know that a major effort would be involved, particularly as it now appears that you would also need to do a comparison between HadCRUv4 and GISTEMP as well (if the relevant data is released). Perhaps you could coordinate with Nick Stokes or some of the other members of the amateur surface temperature analysis community to share the work load. It is ridiculous considering the extent of recent divergence between HadCRUTv3 and GISTEMP that no significant peer reviewed analysis of the reason for that divergence exists. You have done the analysis, so now you need to get it peer reviewed. -
logicman at 11:12 AM on 18 January 2012Patrick Michaels: Serial Deleter of Inconvenient Data
Remember, folks, Patrick Michaels is the guy who republished a map with two entire islands missing and claimed it was accurate, see Michaels Mischief #3: Warming Island I'd bet Michels never won a spot the difference competition. -
ClimateWatcher at 11:11 AM on 18 January 2012Lessons from the Whitehouse-Annan Wager
#6 KR: My disagreement with CW is that, while having some uncertainties (until we cover every square meter of the planet in thermometers), Don't need every square meter, but if there are no measurements within a 5x5 degree box... The GISS process amplifies the readings around the un-measured areas. When the anomalies are positive around an unmeasured area, the GISS will be higher than CRU. When the anomalies are negative around an unmeasured area, the GISS anomalies will be lower than the CRU. This is why the variability ( from month to month ) of GISS is greater than CRU. That's also why the GISS was 0.4 K/century LOWER than the CRU from 1910 through 1945. And it's why the GISS was 0.3 K/century HIGHER than the CRU from 1979 through 2011. In the longer term, for the period 1900 through 2011, CRU = GISS at 0.7 K/century. When one uses the GISS online tool and uses the 250km smoothing, the results are quite similar to CRU ( they're using the same stations after all ). -
dana1981 at 11:01 AM on 18 January 2012Patrick Michaels: Serial Deleter of Inconvenient Data
Michaels has responded on WCR, but his response as usual is a whole bunch of...let's call them untruths. We're discussing whether his comments warrant a response. -
logicman at 10:44 AM on 18 January 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #2
In response to the comments about site searching, Google has a very useful feature for searching specific sites. Just type 'site:' together with the url, a space, and then the search term or phrase. For example: site:http://skepticalscience.com spectral radiance To show the power of the mighty Google, just enter this string and check the top result! site:http://skepticalscience.com search comment threads :-) -
dana1981 at 10:20 AM on 18 January 2012Lessons from the Whitehouse-Annan Wager
If Kevin @1 is correct (and he knows his stuff), then GISS also uses ~twice as many temperature stations as CRU. I didn't realize that. -
Bob Lacatena at 09:58 AM on 18 January 2012Puget Sound, Under Threat From Ocean Acidification, Put on "Waters of Concern" List
Our problem is that we have a seemingly "cheap" energy source that comes with an immense sticker shock we will not experience until after we've already taken it home and unwrapped it (i.e. another 400 Gt of carbon emissions). Our actions should be to be intelligent and realistic thinking creatures and to factor in the full expense of our actions, not simply the obvious, immediate expense. In particular, there is a vast amount of unnecessary waste in the system, and an unnecessary and harmful adherence to an aging infrastructure which keeps us in that rut. Things must change eventually, and that change will be for the better when it comes. The only people who are benefiting from the status quo are those who stand to profit from as yet untapped fossil fuel reserves. Transitions to new behaviors, methods, technologies and systems will create both jobs and savings. The solutions do not all revolve around getting the price per kilowatt of solar power down to some tolerable level. Example: People in the USA do not need everything they buy on the Internet over-nighted to their doorstep. A delivery truck could come through the neighborhood once a week with all of the deliveries for you and your neighbors, but at an immense cost savings. The huge, carbon-emitting infrastructure that routes and delivers zillions of individual packages one by one by one is unnecessary and foolish. But... as long as there is a plurality of people who view ignoring the problem as "pragmatism" rather than escapism we are going to be trapped and tricked into buying a product that comes with a price that we cannot afford to pay, much like any deal with the Devil where the gravity of your own choices does not hit you until all you can do is scream in terror. It is necessary that people like you who are capable of understanding the problem do so in its entirety, and do not attempt to distract others from the realities of our course by saying, in effect, "well, look, a lot of the problem today is from the estuaries, so let's study that and not worry so much about something none of us can change anyway, because I don't want to be bothered with the effort." -
eradani at 09:45 AM on 18 January 2012Lessons from the Whitehouse-Annan Wager
Even though Annan technically lost the bet, hope I do better on my $20 bet that the arctic will see an ice-free day <= 2020. lol that sounds really stupid. Actually I hope I lose that bet but bet that I won't. -
muoncounter at 09:22 AM on 18 January 2012The Debunking Handbook: now freely available for download
NCSE is a terrific organization. They've linked to SkS here (and its above their link to RC). -
muoncounter at 09:17 AM on 18 January 2012New research from last week 2/2012
Shocking news! Tang and Leng 2012 find evidence for negative correlation between 'normalized cloud cover anomaly' and 'normalized temperature anomaly:' More cloud cover does indeed mean less warming. They studied Eurasia over the timespan 1982-2009; there is no hint in their data (see their Figure 3) of anything even slightly resembling cosmic ray flux. Surprise: It's not cosmic rays. -
Lessons from the Whitehouse-Annan Wager
Robert Way - ...And yes, I agree that the HadCRU extrapolation of average global anomaly (rather than the anomaly of the nearest regions) is a horrible method of handling the polar regions. -
Lessons from the Whitehouse-Annan Wager
Robert Way - Actually, I think the GISTEMP data is rather stronger than that. The correlations in temperature anomaly between randomly chosen stations vs. distance are greater than 0.5 at 1200km, making extrapolation to >80% of the world quite reasonable. My disagreement with CW is that, while having some uncertainties (until we cover every square meter of the planet in thermometers), the correlations of temperature anomaly are not speculative, but rather based on quite a lot of data. -
robert way at 08:52 AM on 18 January 2012Lessons from the Whitehouse-Annan Wager
KR and CW Well it is speculative to some degree to use correlation to explain extrapolations in very dynamically different locations such as by Gistemp. However, HadCRU does an extrapolation itself... it assumes that the unextrapolated areas are changing at the rate of the rest of the planet... to say that the arctic is warming only as quick as the entire planet is much more dubious. -
Lessons from the Whitehouse-Annan Wager
ClimateWatcher - "As to whether the extrapolation is accurate, that remains speculative - one cannot verify extrapolations with non-measurments." Actually, it's anything but speculative. Station contributions are geographically center-weighted in a 1200km radius, based upon excellent data as to how these anomalies relate. See Hansen and Lebedeff 1987, Fig. 3, for temperature anomaly correlations between stations having >50 years of data in common. They clearly show the very strong correlation versus distance relationship, including results for various latitudes. Measured correlation, ClimateWatcher. That's not speculative at all. -
Philip Armit at 08:19 AM on 18 January 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #2
Survey response: 10. Definitely a 10. Never have I been had access to the kind of information (articles, etc.) links, and discussion that this website provides. Will continue passing SkS site address on to as many people, especially bloggers, as I can. Truly grateful to all who contribute. -
ClimateWatcher at 07:56 AM on 18 January 2012Lessons from the Whitehouse-Annan Wager
"GISTEMP achieves much better coverage by allowing every station to cover an equal circle of 1200km radius, where in HADCRUT the coverage of a station is a 5x5degree box, which gets smaller as you move to higher latitudes." GISTEMP does not achieve any better coverage - it extrapolates. Large portions of Africa, Antarctica, and Greenland remain un-measured. As to whether the extrapolation is accurate, that remains speculative - one cannot verify extrapolations with non-measurments. -
apiratelooksat50 at 07:35 AM on 18 January 2012Puget Sound, Under Threat From Ocean Acidification, Put on "Waters of Concern" List
Sphaerica at 25 I would use irresponsible or unwise in place of whimsical, and FWIW I agree with you in paragraph 4. I will rephrase what you addressed in paragraph 5. We know there are several different paramaters that affect the health of the bays. Some we can address right now and some we can address in the very near future. The CO2 part of the equation is going to be around for the long term regardless of our actions. So, why not address what we can right now? If we can immediately minimize, or better yet eliminate the human impact of the nutrient input - then we are helping the health of the bay and giving it a better prognosis for survival when facing the rising impacts of the anthropogenic CO2 issue. And, to be perfectly clear, my thought processes continue well past wanting to know more about the biology, chemistry and ecology of the bay. Shame on you for writing that I am not concerned about the other issues. I am one of those guys who actually does something about the environmental health of our waterways, through writing, implementing and/or monitoring Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plans (SWPPP), or Spill Prevention Control and Countermeasure Plans (SPCC). You've seen my environmental consulting website. As matter of fact, when I formed my company my very first consulting job involved studies of cooling water intake structure impacts, riverine tidal zones, and a very complex study of coastal effluent mixing zones using the CORMIX modeling software. That is the area of my expertise and that is where I can help (and make a little money along the way). Other than my personal actions and behavior, there is not a lot I can do about CO2 emissions. I will leave that to the experts in those specialized fields. I am very much cognizant that current CO2 is here to say and future CO2 will only add to the problems. Whether anyone likes it, or not, fossil fuel use is going to be with us a long time. Don't confuse my pragmatism with ignorance or apathy. I am curious as to what you believe the actual problems are and what our "actions" should be? Do you honestly believe they will be solved in our lifetime? You and I probably have a good 30 to 40 years left. We can take that off-line if you would like. Being polite, I will dismiss your last 2 sentences. -
Paul D at 07:13 AM on 18 January 2012New research from last week 2/2012
Re: the weather forecasting test: All I know is that it is starting about Feb this year, will last 3 years or so and is being assessed by the Royal Meteorological Society and the Royal Statistical Society. I think the agreement is to do short term forecasting 1 to 5 days. The Met Office don't believe seasonal forecasting is statistically accurate enough. -
Andy Mayhew at 06:58 AM on 18 January 2012New research from last week 2/2012
As someone who has been assessing Corbyn's forecasts for some years, I have long suspected (though it's unproven)that he updates them based on latest numerical model guidance - his about turn with regards December 2011 for Britain (he went from the coldest on record, to an unsettled, 'zonal' month) appears to be in keeping with this belief. When all model guidance went against him, he issued a completely new forecast which, coincidently went aog with what the modls (and the MetO and others) were indicating. I don't know which forecasts he will be providing for this weather test: the ones he issues months in advance or the ones he issues at the start of each month (which invariably tend to be more accurate for the first 2 weeks than the latter 2). But I am confident those involved know what they are doing and that the final assessment will be fair and open. -
funglestrumpet at 06:41 AM on 18 January 2012Patrick Michaels: Serial Deleter of Inconvenient Data
Re. my further thoughts @16 in yesterday's (16th Jan) posts under the 'Issue of the Week' item. Michaels would seem to be exactly the sort of person I am targetting. -
funglestrumpet at 05:45 AM on 18 January 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #2
Further thoughts I am of the opinion that many of the mis-information brigade will face sanction as the full effects of climate change become obvious to the wider public and they can see just how much danger these persons/organisations have placed them and their families in. As an aid to any possible future criminal proceedings or private prosecutions this site could have a section where instances of disseminating falsehoods were itemised together with the science current at the time of the offence by way of evidence. On top of that, this site could take it upon itself to write to the miscreants pointing out the error of their ways and requesting a retraction (of identical prominence) together with recording any continued failings after the issuance of such notice. These mis-informers should be offered the opportunity to record a paragraph outlining the fundamental basis for their position, citing any relevant peer-reviewed papers in support. I imagine such a record would be of value to any seeking to prosecute either via the criminal legal system or via private prosecution in civil courts. If nothing else, it should give pause to certain individuals who seem to think that their name, reputation or title will protect them from any charge of deliberately endangering life by hindering the political processes necessary to enact legislation essential to combating climate change. Having a title, say, and/or a deep seated psychological need to be the centre of attention would need psychiatric evidence in support if advanced as a defence. Just to be clear, I see this covering not only individuals, but organisations such as media organs and scientific journals whose peer-review process can be shown to be suspect. Any known funding issues should be listed. That should allow the dragnet to catch the fossil fuel industry executives, which should wipe the smile of their collective faces. Heaven knows, as things stand, they must be laughing all the way to the bank. In short, we should go up a gear, if only for the sake of our families. -
pbjamm at 05:05 AM on 18 January 2012The Debunking Handbook: now freely available for download
The NCSE (National Center for Science Education) Picks Fight Against Climate Science Deniers Perhaps SkS can team up with these guys. -
CBDunkerson at 04:53 AM on 18 January 2012Naomi Oreskes' study on consensus was flawed
EnergyPolemist, it would be difficult for Oreskes to have 'possibly understated the level of consensus'... given that she found 0% disagreement. This is not to say that there are not any peer reviewed papers which disagree with the consensus that humans are responsible for most of the warming over the past ~50 years. Oreskes' study didn't find any, but that wasn't meant to suggest that none exist... just to demonstrate that they are so vanishingly rare that the claims of a huge scientific controversy on the issue were nonsense. You'd have to do a much more thorough search to find out that the actual value is something like 0.00023%. -
EnergyPolemist at 04:38 AM on 18 January 2012Naomi Oreskes' study on consensus was flawed
Sorry for the long comments, but I have another one. The sceptics claim that Oreske type studies miss the point about the political nature of science funding. They say that the reason why so many studies agree with the anthropogenic perspective is that you need to be part of the consensus to get funding. I.e., that scientists follow the money. Another point often made is that money or not, you have more chances of being published if you work within the dominant paradigm. After all, you won't see many Marxist or Libertarian papers in mainstream economics journals. Does this mean that Marxist or Libertarian theory is wrong? One thing for sure, you will never convince Marxists or Libertarians of this by saying that "99% of articles in peer-reviewed economics journals agree with mainstream (neo-classical/neo-keynesian) theory". However, I believe the political nature of science is exagerated in physical sciences (as opposed to social sciences). I believe that in many fields, there is no consensus. So what might be useful to silence the sceptics would be comparative studies - compare Oreskes (or the study I proposed above) to other bibliometric reviews. If you can show that there is an unusually robust consensus in climate science, that might be more convincing... -
Bob Lacatena at 04:27 AM on 18 January 2012Puget Sound, Under Threat From Ocean Acidification, Put on "Waters of Concern" List
24, Pirate, I never said they didn't require more study. In fact my exact words were "Further study of ocean acidification in estuaries is warranted because..." I said that such studies are important in addressing the immediate problem, but the uncertainties are not a valid excuse for ignoring the additional, constant influx of CO2 into the oceans due to fossil fuel use, which represents a problem which will dwarf the current issue, and which will have few if any viable solutions once it comes to pass. Yes, the CO2 already released is going to be there a long time, as will every gigaton of CO2 that we add between now and the future on our path to 560 ppm. How can you recognize the first factor, without being at all cognizant of the second? We are "whimsically" burning fossil fuels when American housewives drive 4 ton SUVs by themselves two miles to the grocery store and back, every day, instead of using a more fuel efficient vehicle and more sensible practices. We are "whimsically" burning fossil fuels when companies consider it cost effective to fly an employee from the USA to Germany for a two hour meeting, and then to turn around after the meeting and fly them straight back without even time for a meal let alone an overnight stay, several times a month (my brother did this for years). Odd that you talk about the need for changes and solutions, when your own approach amounts to "we better study more before we act" and "we better study something else and ignore the larger, well-understood and quantified problem." Everything you say points to delay, ignore and business-as-usual. The scientists under discussion flat out said that 560 ppm was going to account for 49% to 82% of a pH drop that was going to be much larger than today's, but instead you choose to focus on what we don't know about estuaries and stop your thought process dead, right there. And in the next breath your make your own lack of foresight evident when you talk about solving the problem within our children's lifetimes. As long as you don't need to solve the problem (because, after all, you think you can't, because you won't even recognize it or attempt to try), it doesn't need one ounce of your attention. So you blatantly want to pass the problem on to all of our children. That is so lame. -
EnergyPolemist at 04:20 AM on 18 January 2012Naomi Oreskes' study on consensus was flawed
I am not a "climate sceptic", far from it, having had the chance to discuss the topic in depth with various scientists. However, I do think that the points raised by Dellewho need to be considered. I have done a lot of "bibliometric" research, which is basically what Oreskes did. With bibliometrics, you need to find the right keyword combination to capture as many relevant publications as possible while excluding the irrelevant. It's not easy. No matter what the keyword combo, you will either end up missing a lot of papers (because your keywords were too strict) or the opposite (if your keywords were too wide). I believe that a lot of papers who might AGREE with the consensus view might not mention "climate change" in their abstract. Like adelady above, I doubt that many sceptics would NOT include those words though. So if anything, Oreskes might have understated the level of consensus! BUT, this needs to be verified. I think a more comprehensive study is needed, one that makes explicit the keyword strategy, and that compares and discusses various alternative strategies (bibliometrics is like statistics, you will get different results with different strategies). I doubt this will result in any significant change in Oreskes' conclusions, but it might help to silence the sceptics... By the way, I am available to do such as study if anyone has funding :) -
apiratelooksat50 at 03:42 AM on 18 January 2012Puget Sound, Under Threat From Ocean Acidification, Put on "Waters of Concern" List
Sphaerica at 23 Starting at paragraph 6... You could not be more wrong in your statement about estuaries and natural factors not requiring further study on the effects of anthropogenic CO2. According to Heely's paper about 25% of the impact to a bay/fjord/estuary system is currently coming from anthropogenic CO2. The rest comes from anthropogenic and natural sources on land. Natural sources from land probably can't be managed, but if we can learn how to manage the anthropogenic input then we greatly reduce pressure on the aquatic systems that are a source for a lot of our food supply. Actions like that essentially buy time while we wean ourselves off fossil fuels. The CO2 already released into the biosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere is going to be there for a very long time even if a miracle energy source were to be developed tomorrow. That doesn't appear likely and furthermore there are not any likely short-term solutions. We are not "whimsically" burning fossil fuels. I don't need to list the reasons we use them, but I know right now that my children and yours live vastly more comfortable and safe lives because we do. I don't think it will happen in mine and your lifetimes, but I do think that within our children's lifetimes we will have solved most of our energy problems. And, hopefully we can solve a lot of our other environmental problems. There are going to be an awful lot more humans by the end the century. To gnash one's teeth about the need for changes without offering solutions is poignant in and of itself. -
Albatross at 03:39 AM on 18 January 2012Patrick Michaels: Serial Deleter of Inconvenient Data
prokaryotes @20, So can we assume that Upton (a staunch anti-science Republican and denies that we need to reduce our GHG emissions) turned a blind eye and failed to follow up? It would not surprise me. Nothing these anti-science extremists do surprises me anymore. -
Albatross at 03:33 AM on 18 January 2012New research from last week 2/2012
Hi PaulD @6, That assessment bothers me. How do we know that Corbyn and Bastardi are not using the numerical weather prediction model guidance, perhaps even the exact same guidance that the Met Office is using? I do not like this idea one bit, is is going to be too easy for Corbyn and Bastardi to cheat. Unless the officiators stipulate that they see the output from Corbyn's algorithm to make sure that his forecasts are consistent with his own methodology. Do you perhaps know where we can find out more about this assessment? Thanks. -
skept.fr at 02:06 AM on 18 January 2012Lessons from the Whitehouse-Annan Wager
Typo : "another byprodct" > another "byproduct" -
2012 SkS Weekly Digest #2
No way to search comment threads (just the original posts), which is frustrating when I know someone has written something relevant, and I want to refer to it. The search capability is, while sometimes helpful, rather crude. I, too, go to the great Googley when I need to find something. -
Kevin C at 02:03 AM on 18 January 2012Lessons from the Whitehouse-Annan Wager
The completeness issues with HADCRUT3 are certainly sufficient to render any conclusion based on short-term behaviour of the index dubious. Here is a comparison of the global coverage of the major indices, using data from December 2005:
The number of stations is not a direct indicator of coverage: GISTEMP achieves much better coverage by allowing every station to cover an equal circle of 1200km radius, where in HADCRUT the coverage of a station is a 5x5degree box, which gets smaller as you move to higher latitudes. Can we find out what the impact of the lack of coverage of HADCRUT is? Tom Curtis suggested a simple approach which I've now implemented. Gridded anomaly maps are produced by all 3 sources. I downloaded all of these, and put them on a common 1x1 degree grid. As a check I made sure I could reproduce the published temperature series from my gridded maps. Then I tried blanking out any cell in the GISTEMP map which was also missing in the corresponding HADCRUT map from the same month. I calculated a temperature series for the resulting map. The results are shown in the following graphs: (a) 60 month moving averageCRU GISS NCDC BEST Number of stations 1451 ≥2796 2796 16340 Coverage: Land 65% 99% 89% 99% Coverage: Ocean 87% 98% 94% Coverage: Global 81% 98% 92% Map 2005/12 
(b) 12 month moving average from 1970
What this tells us is that if the GISTEMP temperature reconstruction is correct, then we would expect HADCRUT to underestimate temperatures since 2001 simply on the basis of its poor sampling of the temperature field. That is exactly what we do observe. That doesn't prove that GISTEMP is right, but it is strong evidence that HADCRUT shouldn't be relied upon. We'll know more once BEST release a gridded dataset.
Why does the divergence only occur after 2001? I did an additional set of comparisons masking all the maps with single years of data, either 1985 or 2007. The 2007-masked data shows about twice the divergence as the 1985-masked data. That suggests that roughly half the divergence is due to changes in coverage since 2000, while the other half is due to changes in the geographical distribution of anomalies changing the effect of the missing data.
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Bob Lacatena at 01:03 AM on 18 January 2012Puget Sound, Under Threat From Ocean Acidification, Put on "Waters of Concern" List
22, Pirate, Let's make it simple. As we have discussed elsewhere, for many tens of millions of years there has been exactly the same amount of carbon in the ocean/atmopshere/biosphere system. It is very, very hard to add more to the system, and doing so generally occurs on very large timescales (i.e. millions of years). The same CO2 cycles among those three areas, with vast stores kept well sequestered underground (fossil fuels and rock) and in the deep oceans (sediments). The largest variation in the distribution of carbon occurs between glacial periods, where levels in the atmosphere increase by 105 ppm from about 180 ppm to 285 ppm of the course of several thousand years. At this point in time, in two hundred years, we have sucked 337 Gt of carbon out of the ground and added it to the system. That's 337 Gt that have been stored underground for hundreds of millions of years. There are only three places for it to go, the atmosphere, the oceans and into biomatter. It's not going to preferentially go into biomatter, or the atmosphere. It's going to go everywhere. So if we go from the 395 ppm that we're at now to 560 ppm, an increase of another 175 ppm over the 110 ppm that we have already added, then a very large and noticeable chunk of that will go into the oceans. Ocean pH will fall. Recognizing this does not require a knowledge of estuaries and natural factors. It does not require further study. Yes, other factors at present are dangerous, require study, and may require action. But all of that will be moot if we continue to whimsically burn fossil fuels at the current rate. Further study of ocean acidification in estuaries is warranted because there are lots of ways to foul up the planet and we'd like to understand all of them. Further study is not needed to find reasons to ignore the dire implications of continuing to burn fossil fuels at a preposterous rate while we patiently other study things in order to figure out just how badly we've messed up by ignoring the obvious. As far as your assertion that you would not play even one round of Russian Roulette, your behavior and comments say otherwise, because you already are (and it's all the more poignant that you don't even know that you are playing). -
Paul D at 00:23 AM on 18 January 2012New research from last week 2/2012
Piers Corbyn is taking part in a weather forecasting accuracy assessment organised by the BBC, along with others, including Joe Bastardi and The Met Office. -
CBDunkerson at 23:52 PM on 17 January 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #1
On the general issue of 'moderation bias' raised by he of the various 'ch' names... I've seen instances which looked like overly generous and overly strict application of the comments policy to both 'sides' of the debate. With multiple moderators you are going to have multiple tolerance levels and inevitably some inconsistent results. That said, I'd agree that the best policy is to err against the 'status quo' of the website. This is a site for debunking 'skeptic' myths... thus, a suspicion of anti-skeptic bias is inevitable. The best way to counter that (to the small degree possible) is to allow skeptics somewhat wider latitude and those who agree with the consensus less. My general impression is that this was the case a couple of years ago, but that the balance has gradually shifted the other way as more and more 'skeptics' have stopped by to 'contribute' to the site. However, it would also be nice if there were some way to inform people why their posts were removed. I've had some disappear that I have no idea what the reason was. For instance, I recall responding to a 'skeptic' post suggesting that 'whether you call it recent cooling or a pause in warming since 1998 the consensus is still wrong' with a two sentence reply saying that 'most people call it continued warming'... the response was removed, but the original post with the 'no warming since 1998' myth remained unchallenged and I don't know what I did 'wrong'. -
CBDunkerson at 23:35 PM on 17 January 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #2
Ease of use is about an 8. Primary difficulty is finding things. In addition to suggestions above about improved search, reshuffling various 'special features' to be more visible/organized, and/or adding an e-mail notification system... it might be worthwhile to have a link for users to see their own posts so that they can check if there has been any follow up. While this is technically possible now, it requires pre-knowledge of the URL structure and a sufficient degree of OCD to track down one's user number through trial and error (and yes, I'm user #1534 :]). Most regulars use the 'Comments' link to try to keep track of conversations, but that means at least skimming everything which gets discussed here... being able to go directly to the few conversations you've commented on to check for updates would be much easier. -
CBDunkerson at 23:24 PM on 17 January 2012New research from last week 2/2012
Looking at these posts makes one appreciate just how staggering the amount of information the IPCC processes must be. Likely there is a degree of pre-filtering provided by the amount of subsequent attention various papers attract, but I've seen some fairly obscure references in the IPCC reports as well. It is also interesting to note that 'anti-consensus' papers seem to get published fairly frequently... which runs against 'skeptic' claims of a 'grand conspiracy to hide the Truth' (though the total number of papers being published also shows how absurd that is), but also indicates more skeptical scientists than I'd thought were still about. Ironically we seem to hear alot more about the ones who publish seldom or never but spread disinformation to the media. -
JMurphy at 22:50 PM on 17 January 2012New research from last week 2/2012
Piers Corbyn would probably be a worthwhile subject for a rebuttal, seeing as how he always seems to predict great freeze-ups and is favoured by quite a few naive so-called skeptics : who prefer his secretive astrology to proper science. No surprise there, then... -
hank at 22:26 PM on 17 January 2012Arctic methane outgassing on the E Siberian Shelf part 1 - the background
You quoted from the abstract of http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/rcm.5290/full: "values near gas hydrates .... can thus be interpreted to result from either the gas source or associated microbial processes" The paper isn't saying samples found near a gas hydrate definitely came from the gas hydrate. It's discussing whether it's possible to tell that or not. Answer: maybe. A clearer description is in the Conclusion: "CONCLUSIONS ... These results suggest than any measured changes in the isotopic values of environmental samples are a direct result of some other fractionation process, such as a different gas source or microbial processes."j The word 'different' was omitted from the Abstract. The ratio may be useful to identify gas found in the water as originating either from gas hydrate or from "a different gas source or microbial process" -- but they found an unexpected change in ratio during formation of the hydrate which is going to take more lab work to characterize before this test can be relied on, if it can. -
Esop at 22:05 PM on 17 January 2012New research from last week 2/2012
What I find curious are Cohens claim of overall NH cooling since 1988. In at least most of Scandinavia and large parts of the US, the exact opposite is the case, except for winters 09/10 and 10/11. Seems that Cohens forecast for the 2011/12 Northern European winter was a warm one, just like the MET office forecast. Spot on so far. Funny to note that Piers Corbyn, the favorite forecaster of the Mayor of London, who lucked out last year, failed miserably this year. The MSM didn't print anything on that failure, though, as they only hassle the MET office, not the professional disinformers.
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