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Bob Lacatena at 04:10 AM on 8 December 2011It's Not About The Hockey Stick!
7, DSL, Just to clarify that thought, you must remember that we are talking about climate change, not climate events. One or two unbelievably long, bad droughts, or storm seasons, or crop losses, or floods or heat waves or whatever are simply events which are symptoms of the permanent change that has taken place. Once people experience these, it is too late to undo the damage not of the particular event but rather of the inherent and ongoing cause, the changed climate. Events like those will necessarily and unalterably repeat and intensify. We can begin to take action then, but the world and the climate will already have changed (for the worse). It would rather be like insisting that you actually die of cancer before you submit to those so-annoying radiation and chemotherapy treatments, just to be sure that you weren't wasting your time with a doctor who really can't otherwise prove to you that your cancer is terminal. -
tmac57 at 04:10 AM on 8 December 2011It's Not About The Hockey Stick!
#7 DSL- My guess is that many will say "Mistakes Were Made...But Not By Me". -
Bob Lacatena at 04:07 AM on 8 December 2011It's Not About The Hockey Stick!
7, DSL, The problem is that if we have to wait that long we are screwed, because it will then be far too late to properly mitigate, and adaptation will instead become the only viable, primary option. That, and the need to very suddenly cut off emissions, causing exactly the sort of wholesale disruption of economies and lifestyles that deniers pretend is being asked of them now, but is in fact unnecessary as long as we start soon, with considered and intelligent moderation, rather than waiting until later when moderation will no longer be an option and panic instead drives policy. -
tmac57 at 04:01 AM on 8 December 2011It's Not About The Hockey Stick!
#4 renewable guy-Thanks for the Barry Bickmore link.It is encourgaging to see that people can change their mind,despite the fact that it goes against their political bias. -
dhogaza at 04:00 AM on 8 December 2011It's Not About The Hockey Stick!
"If you don't know anything about medical science, and you don't trust doctors, who do you go to when you become ill?" Nancy Reagan's astrologer? -
Bob Lacatena at 03:52 AM on 8 December 2011Separating signal and noise in climate warming
22, mervhob, Do you know anything about computer programming and modeling, or is your only frame of reference mathematics? Computer modeling is inherently non-linear (computers are, after all, based on the concepts of iteration, decision making and branching -- complex iteration), even when some linear techniques are (necessarily) used in base calculations. Really, comparing mathematics to computer algorithms is wildly inappropriate. And, once again, you go on and on about what you know, without recognizing what you don't know, or more importantly that, true or not, nothing that you say is applicable to the problem at hand. None of what you say applies to climate models, because they do not work the way you claim they work. You have been corrected repeatedly, and yet you repeat the categorically false statement statement that "...all non-linear behaviour is suppressed. It is argued that no such possibility exists with climate..." This is false. It is flat out, categorically false. Please stop repeating falsehoods unless you are able to support the assertion with a clear and unambiguous citation... something you have been asked repeatedly to do and yet the requests are repeatedly ignored. I would suggest that if from this point on you fail to support your assertions, your comments amount to trolling and should be moderated. You must accept that as evidenced by your statements your own understanding of climate modeling is pitiful. You need to educate yourself and stop pontificating as if everyone else is stupid and you are a genius. You have been directed to multiple sources of information. Please take advantage of them, and put your energy into improving your knowledge base rather than arguing from ignorance. -
DSL at 03:40 AM on 8 December 2011It's Not About The Hockey Stick!
Nobody wants to be screwed ( - snip -), especially when the screwing isn't readily apparent. Chest pain is readily apparent. As I've said before, in my more cynical moments (roughly 23.9 hours a day) I favor the prognosis that it's going to take several years of obvious climate change in the US before the culture starts to transform, and climate change of the type that hits the economy from several directions. AGW needs to present a clear and present danger--again, like chest pain. Suddenly, trust in climate scientists will bloom, apologies will be issued, and Watts will claim that he was always on board--just playing devil's advocate, in the same role that crackers and hackers perform for the online security industry. That might be an interesting followup paper on the psychology of denial: "Escape Pods: What Happens to Committed Doubters When the Writing is On the Wall?"Moderator Response: [Rob P] - reference to deleted comment snipped -
dana1981 at 03:20 AM on 8 December 2011It's Not About The Hockey Stick!
As Dr. Alley says, the 'brocken hockey stick' false narrative makes for a good story for those who don't want to believe the scientific evidence is correct. And it's a real problem when those who influence public policy say "I don't understand science, but I know the climate scientists are wrong." If you don't know anything about medical science, and you don't trust doctors, who do you go to when you become ill? -
dana1981 at 03:11 AM on 8 December 2011Nils-Axel Mörner is Wrong About Sea Level Rise
johroberthunter @37 - very interesting email exchange, thanks for sharing. Email after email of Morner failing to explain how the PSMSL data for Maldives are wrong, claiming that papers which contradict his claims of no sea level rise are "very poor," etc. -
mervhob at 02:58 AM on 8 December 2011Separating signal and noise in climate warming
Sphaerica et al Russian mathematician’s re- initiated the interest in non-linear systems, after their abandonment at the end of the 18th century - I know of only a few American mathematicians that have contributed anything of importance. David's PhD used the asymptotic method of Boguilobov and Mitropolsky - I suggest you access it. The models currently displayed are based on energy balance, forcings and feedbacks. This is a classical 'steady state' scenario - as Poincare pointed out in 1899, the only reliable integrals we can form are those based on energy, 'vis viva'. Only then can we assume the existence of closed integral curves, and a solution. By definition, as energy is a scalar, there is no vectoral information, only increasing or, decreasing total energy. This we can relate to a single variable – temperature, with reasonable accuracy. However, using the same approach in a multivariate dynamic model we have to assume that single, linear ‘steady state’ exists as the bedrock around which the system is perturbed. This is the method of small perturbations as developed by Lagrange and Laplace, the replacement of a dynamic system with no closed integral curves by one where all integral curves are closed by definition. However, if there are non-linear states within the model, which can be accessed by a sufficiently large noise term, the use of ‘smoothing functions’ and integration destroys such behaviours in the model. Very simply, as we found with oscillator models, all non-linear behaviour is suppressed. It is argued that no such possibility exists with climate – with your current models how would you know? Let us say that the increase in freshwater melt from the Arctic ice so dilutes the water of the Northern Atlantic that the Atlantic conveyer turns off. The Atlantic Conveyor has been weakening since the 1980s. Such a change tips the system into a new state space very quickly, with very unpleasant effects for Northern Europe. I would argue that I can apply your assumptions, providing I have sufficient representative data over a long enough period of time to feel safe. Or, sufficient data from comparable dynamic systems. In the case of oscillators, measurement of the noise of a 100Mhz quartz oscillator over 10 sec gives me adequate data – 1 billion cycles worth. But even this proved in some cases a fool’s paradise, as oscillators demonstrating phase hits due to non-linearity merely showed a slightly raised integrated noise level, but had a devastating effect on digital signal links. You could treat the temporary loss of the Atlantic conveyer as the equivalent of a ‘phase hit’ – in overall energy terms it would be. This blog purports to deal with signal/noise effects – I looked at the paper by Santer et al, the noise signatures are very interesting – clear evidence of both 1/f noise and periodic terms, a very interesting dynamical system. However, the linear processing applied, low pass, high pass and band pass filtering is fairly simplistic – I would be tempted to apply a Bayesian filter to the same data, to see if the possibility of sustained trends developing, as you might with radar return data. (-Snip-) No, Laplace did not develop the Laplace transform method – Oliver Heaviside did – Carson transformed Heaviside’s method to one of definite integrals in the 1920’s. David Hilbert’s (-Snip-) foundered on the rock of Godel’s incompleteness theorem in the 1930’s. It is a myth that a non-linear system can be linearised by approximation, if the system is non-linear, it remains non-linear down to its smallest amplitude – Y. H. Ku states, in a paper on his acceleration plane method, ‘Nature is non-linear – even the pendulum of Galileo is controlled by a second order, non-linear equation.’ Those who doubt the sagacity of that remark can examine the performance of the Littlemore clock on the web.Response:[DB] "The Atlantic Conveyor has been weakening since the 1980s. Such a change tips the system into a new state space very quickly, with very unpleasant effects for Northern Europe."
Based on what? Source citation needed.
Inflammatory snipped.
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Albatross at 02:44 AM on 8 December 2011Not so Permanent Permafrost
Daniel @31, Thank you. Yes, that is the one. -
renewable guy at 02:04 AM on 8 December 2011It's Not About The Hockey Stick!
Richard Alley has also produced Earth the operators manual. This has been shown on PBS. Richard Alley right off the bat says that he is a registered republican. One of my cases I like to make is this is not a lefty loony thing. I also like to bring up Barry Bickmore's presentation,http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/how-to-avoid-the-truth-about-climate-change/. This is one of their own supporting the truth of AGW. -
Bob Lacatena at 01:41 AM on 8 December 2011It's the sun
955, Tom, I'm done with Mr. Gaddes, but to clarify (since he seems unable to articulate things clearly himself)... Don doesn't seem to understand the difference between a hindcast and a forecast. The book was published in 1990 with "forecasts" from 1976 to 2001. My assumption then is that A. S. Gaddes actually performed hindcasts from 1976 to 1990 (which is cheating, because he also used that same data to develop his model, so no surprise there if he achieves some degree of accuracy) as well as true forecasts from 1990 to 2000. Don Gaddes further extended those forecasts through 2055. You can e-mail Don to get a copy of the book, to see his actual forecasts in the Appendices. For my part, I'm only curious as to what figures (both data source and thresholds) you (and he) are using to determine when a period is "wet" or "dry" in order to evaluate the veracity of a forecast. And, with that said, I still see no point to the entire endeavor. Predicting wet/dry cycles based on climastrology has no influence whatsoever on the temperature of the real world, and A. S. Gaddes' prediction of an imminent ice age is clearly not coming to fruition. -
Alex C at 01:38 AM on 8 December 2011It's Not About The Hockey Stick!
I'm not sure if I will ever understand the specific and exclusive focus on Mann's 1998 paper. I'm not sure also if the fake skeptics who do specifically and exclusively focus on the paper realize that he, and many many others, have performed paleoclimate work since then. Let's imagine a world without Mann 1998 - what do we have? Mann 2008. Ljungqvist 2010. Moberg 2005. Those are just the "hockey sticks" of surface temperatures too (often NH temps), several exist with sea ice, glacial ice, oceanic temperatures, need I go on? -
Bernard J. at 01:14 AM on 8 December 2011It's Not About The Hockey Stick!
As Peter Sinclair says, the 'hockey stick' is not the proof of the physics of 'greenhouse' gas-caused warming, it's simply evidence of the effects that such gases are having. And the 'hockey stick' is just one line of evidence. Anyone who claims that the 'hockey stick' is broken has to explain why physics and other lines of empirical evidence are also collectively broken, or are lying through their respective metaphorical teeth. -
Alexandre at 01:10 AM on 8 December 2011The Monckton Maneuver
1) I wish more journalists had the knowledge and enthusiasm of Mr. Hadfield. The press all over the world would be vastly more informative. 2) Unfortunately, I think such demonstrations are far too lengthy and dense to reach an audience nearly as wide as Monckton's (maybe some kind of Overkill Backfire Effect?). It's fun to watch and it does give some response soundbites to a few of Monckton's fans, though. 3) Monckton is as informative as a clown. It's astonishing how he gets any attention at all by now. The truth eventually prevails... but I wish we had more time. -
Riccardo at 00:59 AM on 8 December 2011Nils-Axel Mörner is Wrong About Sea Level Rise
johroberthunter I had noticed those emails but although I think they are worth reading I didn't share them with anyone; afterall, those are you personal corrispondence, it's upon you decide if highlight them or not. I much appreciated you decision, thank you. -
dorlomin at 00:00 AM on 8 December 2011Nils-Axel Mörner is Wrong About Sea Level Rise
Blimey thats interesting. -
johroberthunter at 23:32 PM on 7 December 2011Nils-Axel Mörner is Wrong About Sea Level Rise
If Nils-Axel Mörner wants a "sealevelgate", here is a contribution: http://www.members.iinet.net.au/~johnroberthunter/www-swg/morner_emails.txt - this is a series of emails between me and Mörner from 2004. You will have to draw your own conclusion of Mörner from these, but I don't see a "true expert on sea level" - I see a prevaricating duffer who, after a year of obfuscation, provided nothing to substantiate his wild claims. -
Tom Curtis at 23:12 PM on 7 December 2011It's the sun
Don Gaddes, the date I am looking for is 1990, the date of first publication of the book (and hence the predictions). It follows that there were only two actual predictions in the section quoted by Sphaerica, one of which was true, and the other false. That means when it comes to predictions (as opposed to retrodictions), your father is as accurate as a coin flip, on the data available to me. -
dorlomin at 23:11 PM on 7 December 2011Nils-Axel Mörner is Wrong About Sea Level Rise
There was a Guardian article on Mörner the other day. Not a single sceptic attacked Mörner. None of them distanced themselves from him publically. And he is on the advisory board for the GWPF. We seem to be at the stage where you can say anything and remain credible among the contrarians. -
Daniel Bailey at 22:55 PM on 7 December 2011Not so Permanent Permafrost
I believe the relevant graphic from Lawrence 2011 Albatross references above is then that of Figure 6 (Click to enlarge):
Figure 6: Time series of Northern hemisphere near-surface permafrost extent for CCSM3 and CCSM4 for historical and projection periods. Near-surface permafrost extent is the integrated area of grid cells with at least one soil layer within the top 10 soil layers (3.5m in CCSM3, 3.8m in CCSM4) that remains frozen throughout the year. Frozen ground underneath glaciers is not included in the near-surface permafrost extent. The greenhouse gas concentration in CO2-equivalents (ppm) for the year 2100 are listed in parentheses for each SRES and RCP scenario. Shading indicates the ensemble spread.
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dorlomin at 22:47 PM on 7 December 2011The Monckton Maneuver
Potholer54s video series introducing the climate change debate Here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52KLGqDSAjo&feature=channel_video_title And here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoSVoxwYrKI&feature=relmfu Is always an excellent way of showing people what the real debate among scientists is. Also his 'made easy' series on everything from the origins to the universe to human evolution is excellent. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDknzZ9b6rg&feature=channel_video_title He is a real stand out on how to use youtube to make science accessable and to whittle the debates in the public and press down to what the science actually says. -
snoops at 21:08 PM on 7 December 2011It's Not About The Hockey Stick!
Can I suggest to give English subtitles for the videos. this could help me (and many other people) understand the videos. thanks pierre -
Don Gaddes at 20:53 PM on 7 December 2011It's the sun
Tom Curtis (950) The date you seek is 1976. -
Philippe Chantreau at 20:21 PM on 7 December 2011Separating signal and noise in climate warming
Mervhob is trying really hard to sound very educated but he fails to produce any substantiation on any single one tof the terrible accusations he throws around. Could we have some pointers and links to some real substance showing how bad the situations is? As for calling Laplace and Lagrange "not so good mathematicians", once again, let us see links to mervhob's own work, so we all can be in awe before the revolutionary mathematical understanding that it surely is already spreading throughout the world. No doubt that one who calls Lagrange and Laplace in such derogatory terms has an intellect the like of which is witnessed every other century or so. I can't wait to see its products. -
Philippe Chantreau at 20:04 PM on 7 December 2011The Monckton Maneuver
I don't know how you call it Tom, but at any rate it may be more functional a democracy than the kind in which Monckton can testify to the representatives of the people and serve them a hefty portion of BS, yet receive no consequence whatsoever. Strange days we live in... -
Tom Curtis at 18:03 PM on 7 December 2011Economic Growth and Climate Change Part 2 - Sustainable Growth - An Economic Oxymoron?
adamski @54, regardless of my opinion of the current economic system, tying the needed reform to combat global warming to additional reforms desirable (or not) for political or economic reasons merely ensures that the needed reforms to combat global warming will not occur. That is the nature of politics. As it happens, I believe some other reforms of the west's (and particularly Australia's) economic and political systems are also desirable. (I even have a few ideas about the United States political system.) However, I firmly believe that those reforms should be argued on their merits; and that I should not make more difficult the essential (cutting emissions) as a tactical ploy to obtain the merely desirable (by comparison). That is the path of folly. -
adamski5807 at 17:48 PM on 7 December 2011Economic Growth and Climate Change Part 2 - Sustainable Growth - An Economic Oxymoron?
To Perseus/Skep/Tom. Let me understand you better. In light that this current economic system monopolieses wealth and power, you believe the solution to AGW lies within the framework of capitalism where these powers have vested interests to maintain BAU??? -
Albatross at 17:33 PM on 7 December 2011Not so Permanent Permafrost
Agnostic, Charlie A has been told several times on this thread that the data are based on model data. With that said, the caption for Fig.2 needs to be changed to reflect that. But this all detracts form the fact that the permafrost is melting and is expected to continue doing so, especially if emissions follow the A2 scenario. It would help greatly if someone could digitize the curves, or even better contact Lawrence and/or Slater and request the actual data. we can then generate our own hi res graphic. I wonder if that would appease the contrarians? But those data are now outdated. Lawrence et al. (2011) have a new paper out on this subject. They say: "Near-surface permafrost (NSP) and seasonally frozen ground (SFG) area is projected to decline substantially during the 21st century (RCP8.5: NSP – 9.0x106 km2, 72%, SFG – 7.1x106, 15%; RCP2.6: NSP – 4.1x106, 33%, SFG – 2.1x106, 4%). The permafrost degradation rate is slower (2000-2050) than in CCSM3 by ~35% due to improved soil physics. Under the low RCP2.6 emissions pathway, permafrost state stabilizes by 2100, suggesting that permafrost related feedbacks could be minimized if greenhouse emissions could be reduced." -
Tom Curtis at 16:57 PM on 7 December 2011Not so Permanent Permafrost
Charlie A @28, the data is clearly sourced from Lawrence and Slater 2005, and specifically their figure 1 (d), which is reproduced below:
A detailed comparison shows that the UNEP version differs primarily in showing the SRES A1B scenario, rather than the B1 and A2 scenarios shown in the paper. As only the B1 and A2 scenarios were modeled in the paper, and the graph shown matches very closely the A2 projections, it is likely that the UNEP graph has been mislabelled in error. Further, the UNEP graph mislabels the modeled 20th century extent as observed extent.
In Lawrence and Slater, the observed continuous permafrost (figure 1C, and figure 1 above) matches well the modeled permafrost for the 20th century (figure 1).
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Tom Curtis at 16:33 PM on 7 December 2011Nils-Axel Mörner is Wrong About Sea Level Rise
Bob Loblaw @34, you can also set your key board up in windows to produce an umlaut by typing double [shift-inverted comma] followed by a vowel, which produces: ä, ë, ï, ö, and ü. Using the single inverted comma produces: á, é, í, ó and ú. Unfortunately I just stumbled onto this, and cannot tell you which key board setting is required. -
A_Gang_of_Loners at 16:19 PM on 7 December 2011Separating signal and noise in climate warming
5 mervhob "I am deeply worried" Also, you're concern trolling. -
A_Gang_of_Loners at 16:19 PM on 7 December 2011Separating signal and noise in climate warming
When will you deniers get it through your heads that words - prose - like the kind you and I are typing into these textboxes right now - are MODELS of the real physical world? Hence, you already ARE modeling the world. The difference between all the words by all the deniers - or even lectures by non-deniers meant to educate the public, but which must necessarily resort to imperfect metaphors or analogies for clarity and brevity - versus mathematical models, is that only mathematical and logistical models can model 1) the magnitude of things - only math can tell you when one thing is bigger than another, or that there is more of something than another, or that something occurs more frequently than another, or that one form of energy gets much more government subsidies than another 2) logical consistency of cause and effect: i.e. if (as deniers always do) you blame some poor person in India for failing to do enough to get THEIR government to pass stronger restrictions on CO2 emissions, then you must blame (as deniers never do) blame some comfortable person in America or Australia for failing to do enough to get THEIR governments to act, etc 3) test hypothetical what-if scenarios and assert if-then statements 4) no human can memorize all the boundary and initial conditions (i.e. data) that goes into these models. Only computers can. 5) the difference between math models and computer models is: one can test only one "what-if" scenario in a computer model at a time, or, more accurately, one can test only a finite number of them. A math theorem proves assertions that can knock out an UNCOUNTABLY INFINITE number of scenarios, say, if a given forcing function f:R->R, f(t), t=time, is unknown, we can still derive important statements from a math theorem. e.g. if x = some physical variable, x'+x=f(t), we know then that x(t)=integral of exp(t)*f(t) times constants mervhob: here's a quiz: what is the cardinality of continuous functions, f:R->R, from reals to reals? So, saying math and computer models are wrong is like saying language is wrong and should not be used or trusted for making predictions or assertions of any kind. -
A_Gang_of_Loners at 16:05 PM on 7 December 2011Separating signal and noise in climate warming
5,8,12 mervhob Since you make completely false and outrageous claims about what mathematicians know and claim to know and claim to know, I am free to do the same to you. You clearly have never heard of functional analysis: Fredholm operators, Hilbert spaces, Soboleve spaces. It was created by extremely intelligent mathematicians in the early half of the 20-th century to extract results about the properties of non-linear differential equations to deal with the fact that they could not figure out a way to solve these equations exactly. These mathematicians know more than anyone else the difficulties and limitations of their work. And computer programmers know better than any non-programmers the difficulties and limitations of their work. There is a niche of mathematics called differential algebra which is devoted entirely to finding exact solutions. Exact solutions can be defined as finite compositions of certain well-known functions and quadratures (integrals) of such compositions. I personally know many mathematicians who work night and day in this area, searching for new exact solutions. Check out the weekly Kolchin Seminar in Differential Algebra at Hunter College in New York City. You DO know that any partial differential equation (PDE) has a multivariable Taylor series solution that can be computed iteratively from the PDE itself by repeated differentiation, right? If Laplace and Lagrange are "bad" mathematicians, as you claim, then by the same standards WUWT posters and Monckton and Alex Jones don't even deserve recognition as human. Laplace - inventor of the Laplace transform. Lagrange was the discoverer of the Lagrange Interpolation Formula. And Lagrange who achieved the single greatest triumph over the nonlinearity of math still to this day: the Lagrange Inversion Formula for inverting ANY given analytic function, z=g(w), to find w=f(z), and expressing the coefficients of the powers of z in the power series expansion of H(f(z)) for an ARBITRARY function H(t). I'm sure you know all about these achievements, since you claim to be such an expert. -
chriskoz at 15:53 PM on 7 December 2011The Monckton Maneuver
I'd like to bring again this comment by John Hartz quoting Donald Brown, Professor of Environmental Ethics, Science, and Law at Penn State, comparing the climate change disinformation campaign to "A New Kind of Assault on Humanity". Clearly, we are dealing with the person very intelligent and outspoken as Christopher Monckton appears to be; with the degree of journalism, so surely understanding the manipulative mechanisms he employs. We have a perfect case of the assault prof Brown is talking about, with plenty of evidence gatherred by Peter in this this bunkum series. And the harm done by Monckton is also very high: i.e. his testimony in the Congress is a very high profile disinformation, targetted at most influential policy makers. Shouldn't someone name those practices and bring justice to the evidently guilty perpetrators? In Australia, Monckton labels policy makers trying to deal with climate change as 'fascists' here. Well, if he regards the debate about climate change in such terms, then he is simply asking for that himself: to be treated as he is treating others. If prof Brown's teaching turned into law soon, and if law could work backwards, we would have a perfect criminal to watch, as we had them in Hague some half century ago... -
DSL at 15:51 PM on 7 December 2011Nils-Axel Mörner is Wrong About Sea Level Rise
It's alt + 0246 (numeric keypad) in Windows: ö -
Bob Lacatena at 15:45 PM on 7 December 2011Nils-Axel Mörner is Wrong About Sea Level Rise
31, Bob Loblaw, If you have a Macintosh, type option-u then after that the vowel, like option-u then "o" to get ö (or option-e then "e" to get the very common é). I have no idea what the key combination is on a PC. It probably involves using your toes to simultaneously press 8 keys while humming God Save the Queen and eating chocolate pudding with chopsticks, which is why I have a Mac. -
Bob Lacatena at 15:42 PM on 7 December 2011Nils-Axel Mörner is Wrong About Sea Level Rise
27, jimspy, In 1992 Pons and Flieshman both moved to France to continue their work together in/for the IMRA laboratory (part of Technova Corporation, a subsidiary of Toyota). The laboratory closed in 1998 after a ₤12 million research investment with no results. Doesn't sound to me like they were "forever be followed around by a dark cloud over their reputations." It's a fanciful story, but not how it played out. And, with that said, I think the cold fusion case is a once in 50 years occurrence, a peculiar combination of decisions and outcomes. You would be hard pressed to find a similar example that did not involve outright academic fraud. It simply does not apply as a real world example, because it is such an extreme (and yet, even so, does not support your premise that bad-boy scientists would be drummed out of the corps for one mistake). -
Charlie A at 15:41 PM on 7 December 2011Not so Permanent Permafrost
My very basic question of "actual vs. modeled" has not been answered. Is the 1900-2000 permafrost area in Figure 2 of this article based upon observations or is it the result of a model? @27 Agnostic -- to which figure in Lawrence & Slater 2005 does your figure 2 correspond? 1. I could not find any graph in that paper that has the same data as shown in your Figure 2. Your/WWF's figure 2 does have some similarity to the upper bound of the ensemble of models, but it doesn't really match even that. 2. The only actual area data presented in Lawrence and Slater 2005 is a mean area of 10.69 million sq km for 1980-1999. No times series of actual/observed/estimated area is given. The reference WWF supplied, Lawrence and Slater 2005 does not have any information on actual or estimated permafrost area for the period 1900-2000. But your graph shows "actual area" plot going back to 1900. Please explain your Figure 2. 1. Source? 2. Actual or model output? -
Bob Lacatena at 15:34 PM on 7 December 2011Separating signal and noise in climate warming
12, mervhob,So the use of smoothing functions doesn't linearize the system?
Strawman. I never said any such thing. No one has. Tom Curtis already said it at 13, but since the comment was directed at me, please let me reiterate. Please provide a citation for where (anywhere) that someone in a position to know such things says that smoothing functions are in common use in climate models. You are fabricating arguments and lecturing everyone about the mathematics of linear systems when it is not an issue, because climate models are not implemented as linear systems, and the mathematics background of climate modelers is very, very good. Again, instead of lecturing someone you don't know on the mathematics that you presume they (I) don't know, please do as you have been instructed. Your understanding of how climate models are designed and implemented is pathetically bad. Your Russian education in mathematics may be good (but not as good as my American education, I'll wager), however it is irrelevant when the topic at hand is not mathematics (of any sort) but instead complex, state-of-the-art climate modeling techniques. Please educate yourself before continuing this discussion. The following statements that you have made are categorically false, and until you have learned enough to understand this, the conversation amounts to you blustering and refusing to listen:- There is a belief that by the application of ‘smoothing functions’, these variations in systematic boundary conditions may be ignored
- the crude Laplacian ‘steady state’ model favoured by climate modellers
- It is now accepted that linear approximation reduces the potential behaviours in a physical system
- We seem prepared to hang all on a few decades of data, and a very limited understanding of the dynamic behaviours involved
- There is an almost deadly silence on the mathematical background to climate modelling
- smoothing functions were in common use, with seemingly little understanding of their effect on dynamics
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Bob Loblaw at 14:47 PM on 7 December 2011Nils-Axel Mörner is Wrong About Sea Level Rise
Sphaerica @26: Point accepted. Sorry if I'm picking nits. jimspy @ 27: No, you wouldn't know what it has to do with the subject. You seem to think that "science" is some monolithic, centrally-controlled cabal that can "ostracize" people at will. It can't. People like Mörner will always find a platform, and "Science" won't be able to do much but give him no respect and point out the flaws in his reasoning. It's not as if we can vote him off the island. Heck, it's not as if "Science" has one voice. You're creating a strawman view of "Science", and erroneously equating Mörner's success at finding a soapbox with success or acceptance in science. P.S. I got the umlaut (?) over the o in Mörner by cutting and pasting from the title line of the post... Easier than figuring out how to insert it myself. -
scaddenp at 14:38 PM on 7 December 2011Nils-Axel Mörner is Wrong About Sea Level Rise
TOP - um? Do you agree with him that the graph shows no trend from 1992-2007? (Unrotated version at top of page) -
Composer99 at 14:35 PM on 7 December 2011The Monckton Maneuver
Brilliant work, potholer54. A marvellous "smack down". -
Bert from Eltham at 14:31 PM on 7 December 2011The Monckton Maneuver
It is not the dumb bludgeon that works on these deniers. It is the surgeons knife that cuts to the bone of their beleifs. They have been de-hoisted by their own petard! Bert -
TOP at 14:26 PM on 7 December 2011Nils-Axel Mörner is Wrong About Sea Level Rise
I guess I'm still trying to see what is wrong with that graph. It doesn't look tampered with to me. -
Doug Hutcheson at 14:18 PM on 7 December 2011The Monckton Maneuver
The 'Bunkum' series should be compulsory viewing in high schools, to demonstrate the nature of the supposed debate. I have just finished viewing them and the 'response' videos linked above. It is depressing to consider how many MSM column inches are devoted to distortions like this. It is even more depressing to consider how many people rely on the MSM for their world-view. Thank goodness for SkS! The AGW theory can be regarded as pretty well proved, as far as untrained people like me are concerned, but the distortions seem to gain the greatest populist momentum. Sigh. Dumb humanity may deserve the future it is creating. -
scaddenp at 14:01 PM on 7 December 2011Separating signal and noise in climate warming
mervhob - what makes you believe that climate modellers are not competent mathematicians? So far you are pontificating about something you clearly know very little about. Have you read any papers on the mathematical foundations in climate modelling at all? Note also that there are 20 different modelling groups from around the world participating in CMIP5 so lets forget the "my countries education is superior to yours" bit. -
catamon at 13:48 PM on 7 December 2011The Monckton Maneuver
I find it interesting that one of the big problems that proponents of CAGW (Conspiracy theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming) have is that they consider people who think AGW is a problem to hold a "religious" belief in it, not subject to argument or discussion but a matter of faith. Yet, they revere Monkton, hold him up as a brave non-conformist who champions the truth, when he's been repeatedly rebutted by none other than himself? I think that's what makes potholer54's approach so effective. Sarcasm and some mocking, but mainly letting Monkton speak for himself and fairly examining his assetions. -
DrTsk at 13:31 PM on 7 December 2011Separating signal and noise in climate warming
mervhob I do not know what are you smoking. Highly non-linear, but as you may experience everyday it does not jump around between steady states at the global scale. There are no hidden states in the system. Similar to RANS a time-averaging that allows you to ignore local chaotic behavior of turbulence but still lets you make macroscopic predictions of flow behavior. You can add any physics you want, radiation, complex non-linear kinetics etc.. etc.. still tractable under specific assumptions. If you are the genius that uncovered the mathematical scandal please put up or shut up....
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