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Comments 74701 to 74750:

  1. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    Might I suggest a section: Roger's Red Herrings Yeah I know, which Roger? But the last name has the same problem - which Pielke? Dr. Pielke starts by claiming SkepticalScience engages in ad hominen presentations on the subject of the UAH MSU temperature record, an assertion he could not support. When that's noted, he puts forth several scientific issues not related to the topic of the post, asserting that "is where the discussion should be focused". After persistent efforts to try to steer Dr. Pielke back on topic, he asserts that his beef is with titles like "Spencer's Slip Ups" to categorize broadly criticisms of claims being made. But "Spencer's Slip Ups" and "Christy's Crocks" are conclusions. They aren't part of any argument to discredit someone or their argument. The only ad hominen argument here is Pielke's, as he is using the category title to discredit the content, which he hasn't given any indication he's read. Dr. Pielke then went on to reveal that he has a double-standard, admitting his standard is limited to those whom he has not "recently published with and/or closely worked with", while he actively seeks to defend those who has published or worked with. This was good evidence for both tribalism and the title of the post "One-Sided Skepticism". It also explains why Dr. Pielke describes the blog of Anthony Watts as "excellent", and asserting he complies to the highest scientific standards, while trashing the quality of this site, which he's given little indication he's read much of.
  2. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    hank_ I think John has fairly described what happened in the Pielke exhange. Pielke never addressed the substance of the critiques of Christy's and Spencer's statements. He never identified the ad hominem's. Insted he tried to change the subject, posting off topic comments that were clearly tolerated far more than usual by the moderators. He wanted to talk about the science, for sure, but only as long as it didn't involve the science that was misrepresented by Christy and Spencer and which was the subject of the post. In my opinion, you could add another button for Pielke Prevarications. As for the labels, I don't get the same mental image from "crocks" that some do, but I understand the negative response to that word. Still, it's hard to come up with an alliterative word that doesn't have even worse associations. "Christy's confusions" perhaps. I do agree the personalization of the debate is regrettable. You have Santer we have Spencer, you have Alley we have Christy, you have Mann we have Lindzen...it's all part of the attempt to level the terms of debate by assigning a 5-aside to take each other on with their super-powers, x-men like. That said, I'm not sure I am for removing the buttons. The fact is that the personalization is a reality of the public debate, fabricated though it is. I'm not sure ignoring the situation makes sense. These people are so visible compared to your average climate scientist, precisely because they are so rare and must be relied on over and over again to legitimize the "skeptic" arguments. They have asked for the attention, so they deserve the scrutiny. Having them up top provides an immediate way for people who are less informed to quickly locate specific rebuttals to their arguments and to get some context on the real science.
  3. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    In post #113, Dr, Roger Pielke Sr. had this to say about Anthony Watts: "I have worked with Anthony and he is devoted to the highest level of scientific robustness." Dr. Pielke is smart enough to know that people are judged by the company they keep. Has he never read any of the vitriolic diatribes posted by Anthony Watts on his website, WUWT?
  4. Positive feedback means runaway warming
    jpat#61: "more effort into understanding the nature of the limiting mechanisms." Seems to me you are looking for a level of difficulty found on Isaac Held's blog.
  5. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    I think there's reasonable grounds for consideration on this topic. While I don't really see a problem with the titles I think it is perhaps sending the wrong message having these personality-based headers in such a prominent position on the site. From a certain perspective it could be understood as you setting yourselves in opposition to these people, rather than their statements, which is the essence of ad-hominen. You could make the case that these individuals have shown persistent behaviour which is deserving of a label but, still, focusing on personality is perhaps not the route you want to go down. Since most of the articles under the personality-headers relate to statements made by these people in the press, perhaps you could have a 'Skeptics in Public' section, which contains all of them. Within the section you could organise the articles by name - I can't see any reasonable objection to that - similarly to the RCwiki area.
  6. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    Philippe @ 45... Exactly. How can Pielke possibly be offended by just the phrasing of these titles when he surely sees the constant stream of vitriol that gets propagated at WUWT? It strikes me as someone wading through mud to come tell me indignantly that I have a nasty little stain on my tie.
  7. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    Hank @37, I think you need to carefully re-evaluate your position and move beyond the "buttons". It would help if you did that and actually read the series and see for yourself how SkS is addressing misinformation put forth by "skeptics" and calling on the science to do so. This is not about trying to discredit people with opposing views, it is about calling out, addressing and correcting misinformation, myths, distortion and cherry-picking that 'skeptics" routinely engage in. The 'skeptics" discredit only themselves when they do that, but only if it is brought to people's attention. That is where SkS comes in. Since when is is wrong or in poor form to highlight and address these nefarious actions? Hank would you rather SkS ignore the misinformation? And as you surely have seen by now, SkS entertains many differing views, in contrast you are unable to make comments on Dr. Pielke's blog.
  8. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    I can't help thinking that "skeptics" are thin-skinned when it comes to complaining about perceived insults yet are are heavy-handed when it comes to dishing it out. Arthur Koestler coined the word "mimophant" to categorize people with this behavior. An example of this was the absurd claims of blacklisting over the Anderegg et al paper , when lists of prominent climate "skeptics" had been published previously by "skeptic" sites. (Pardon all the scare quotes.) Similarly, the outrage that ensues whenever the word "denier" is used because of the imagined link to Holocaust denier. Yet no objection is raised on the "skeptic" side when climate scientists are equated to the actual perpetrators of genocide, as Monckton has done more than once. Having said that, I don't particularly like "crock" as an expression. It's short for "crock of s [*** snipped ], not the kind of image or language normally regarded as acceptable on this site.
    Moderator Response: [mc] We all know that one connotation of 'crock'; it is not the only one.
  9. Philippe Chantreau at 02:46 AM on 20 September 2011
    Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    Hank, all that John Cook does is point exactly how this little sequence of events proceeded. Dr Pielke did all the work to discredit himself, he needed no help for that. Who really stoops the lowest in this story is clear. Considering the abysmal depths at which WUWT sinks on a regular basis, we could sincerely think we have a way to go. Of course, it is a lot easier for a "skeptic" blog to keep credibility with its readership, all it has to do is to always come to the same conclusion regardless how ludicrous the reasoning, how blatant the incompetence. I gave examples in the other thread. There are plenty more. I won't go waste my time there just for the sake of further substantiation. You do have a point in the sense that our task here is quite a bit more difficult. We do accept the bounds of reality. Blogging life is easier for those who don't. Fake skeptics have had it real easy for years. No accountability whatsoever. The most egregious accusations thrown around. Scientific fraud, as in the Soon and Baliunas fiasco and others since, with very little or no consequence. They even have the government working for them, in the person of Cucinelli and the individuals trying (clumsily) to attack the polar bear researcher. It is high time that the reality based fight back. Inconsistencies, hypocrisy, double standards, harassment, abuse of FOIA, misleading of the public and policymakers, lying to congress all should be met with what they deserve. SkS should do some of that work. Dr Pielke threw accusations around, when confronted on it he had nothing to say and tried to change the suject. That was low. Calling him on it was not.
  10. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    hank_#37: "the long term credibility of your blog ... suffering right now." In what way? Has anyone made a scientific misstatement? Or are you suggesting that 'credibility' suffers because some folks object to the words occasionally used to describe their work? That seems highly subjective.
  11. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    cynicus, As a non-tone troll (or at least as a tone non-troll), I don't like the term "crock" because it has immediate and unavoidable distasteful connotations for myself and for a substantial fraction of other readers - connotations that have nothing to do with the point that is to be made. With regard to other terms, such as "slip-ups", I think this usage is not really unfair: The issue really is arguments that are done in what appears to be bad faith, with the intent to deceive. I don't have any problem with indicating that that is what is going on. But spare me the bathroom associations, please.
  12. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    Hank @ 37... So, you think SkS should never attach misinformation to the misinformants?
  13. SkS Weekly Digest #16
    As noted in the lead article, Dr, Roger Pielke Sr. had this to say about Anthony Watts: "I have worked with Anthony and he is devoted to the highest level of scientific robustness." Dr. Pielke is smart enough to know that people are judged by the company they keep. Has he never read any of the vitriolic diatribes posted by Anthony Watts on his website, WUWT?
  14. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    @Albatross #36 and DSL #40: Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. is smart enough to know that people are judged by the company they keep. Has he never read any of the vitriolic diatribes posted by Anthony Watts on his website, WUWT?
  15. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    It's a fine dance, CW, but the intention is that comments shouldn't be explicitly political or explicitly an attack on the person (though if someone makes a ridiculous argument and receives a response that makes the arguer look silly, well, that's an implicit and perhaps unintended ad hominem). By the way, your comment is in violation of the comments policy: no comments on moderation.
  16. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    Hank, eh? This website is devoted to the communication of climate science. If bad science is being used to confound non-experts, then this site is well within its mission to address that use. Remember, Hank, the arguments here don't start with the pundits; they start with the science and move to the punditry when necessary (this thread, for example). This is not first about Christy or Spencer and then their science; it's about Spencer's and Christy's science and how it is being uncritically promoted. For the 143rd time, where's the ad hominem?
  17. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    Alb, I don't have a problem with Pielke's use of "robustness" there. After all, it's true. Watts does allow the promotion of every theory on his website, no matter how ridiculous. It's the modifier "scientific" in front of "robustness" that makes me question his ability to represent science in general.
  18. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    @John Cook; I think you're doing yourself and this website a disservice by stooping to such levels to discredit people that post opposing views here. Please step back and take an honest, eyes wide open look at what you're saying. Think about the long term credibility of your blog while doing this. It's suffering right now. Sincerely, Hank.
  19. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    Just a follow up from the other thread "One-sided skepticism". On that thread, Pielke was afforded preferential treatment (he has an intriguing take on his experience on his blog), others' posts were deleted and his -off topic posts remained and he was provided a link to discuss his favourite metric (oceanic heat content) on an appropriate thread. On that thread, Dr. Pielke evaded and dodged questions directed at him by readers (his very first post was off-topic and so was his second post and in his third he obfuscates and argues a strawman, and on on it went). In doing so, he missed out on a golden opportunity to address readers' concerns, reassure readers of his willingness to objectively and without bias assess the body of science on AGW, and also demonstrate that he believes that it is more important to stand up for science and truth, than it is to cover up (or defend) misinformation propagated by his associates (e.g., Watts, Spencer and Christy). If anything, Dr. Pielke's actions on that thread make it near impossible to dismiss concerns about him being a one-sided skeptic. One of the more telling (and unfortunate) claims made by Pielke Sr. on that thread was: "I have worked with Anthony and he is devoted to the highest level of scientific robustness"
  20. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    I think there is no need to be cute. "Errors" as in Christy's Errors and Spencer's Errors is straight and to the point.
  21. Positive feedback means runaway warming
    scaddenp #56 - Yes the phase-lock formulation is under-constrained and thus produces a functional (i.e a class of functions) solution. But these functions share common traits which may yield insights regardless of what the real underlying dynamics are. If in fact the climate dynamics are described by something akin to the Van der Pol equations synchronized to the Milankovitch cycles, we know quiet a lot about the dynamics of such systems which may provide insight into the question of primary import: "how hot will it get?" The paper linked above provides a plausible explanation for how small changes in insolation can result in large temperature swings even if the climate sensitivity is low. All that is required is a non-linearity in the feedback loop. The reason for this constraint is apparent. The equations define a limit cycle which precludes a constant forcing from increasing the maximum excursions. Instead, equilibrium is reached by translating the d.c. power into harmonics of the forcing function, hence the need for non-linearity. Now "non-linearity" handwaving is no better than feedback handwaving. But it seems to me that we should be putting more effort into understanding the nature of the limiting mechanisms. It just might save our bacon.
  22. Philippe Chantreau at 01:45 AM on 20 September 2011
    One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    For interested readers, more about S&C here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/08/et-tu-lt/ And here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/how-to-cook-a-graph-in-three-easy-lessons/ These are only 2 examples.
  23. Positive feedback means runaway warming
    jpat - Feedbacks have lags, that's part of physical nature. Water vapor has a lag of 5-10 days. CO2 solubility in the oceans has both a short term (months-years) and long term (~500-800 year) response times, based upon surface water adjustment and deep ocean circulation. Ice melt/accumulation and vegetative changes in albedo have their own response rates. The initial forcing is followed by an amplifying feedback, results continue to amplify (in decreasing amounts), a new stable state is reached (inter-glacial, for example). The initial forcing changes again, decreasing, allowing more CO2 to sequester in the oceans, hence another amplifying feedback until a new stable state is reached based upon the then current forcings (ice age). Rinse and repeat... In the electronic analogies you have used, you need to incorporate resistor/capacitor or resistor/inductor elements - nothing is instantaneous in climate.
  24. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    In my opinion the button designations are fine. These arguments do highlight bad faith on the part of a tiny group of individuals (some scientists and some observers) who engage in dubious practices (e.g. as highlighted in the resignation letter of the editor of Remote Sensing), and then complain about how mean the people are that spotlight it! We'd be remiss not to highlight examples of scientific bad faith. We should have considerable admiration for scientists like Drs Dessler, Wagner and others like those Albatross referred to in his post just above, who do some of the less rewarding work of countering bad faith nonsense at the "coal face". The contributions of SkS are important too, and focussing on some of the individuals who to a greater or lesser extent chose not to properly represent the scientific evidence, is entirely appropriate. I simply can't think of a good reason why we (Joe Public) shouldn't be adequately informed on issues of scientific importance..
  25. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    "To be a good scientist you do not have to be right, the important thing is that you have reached your conclusions by sound reasoning with the concepts and observations available at the time you made them."
    Anders O. Persson
  26. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    Well, then. How about "Spencer's Sputters" and "Christy's Critters"?
  27. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    critical mass, to be blunt... your claims that there are no examples on this site of 'skeptics' being right or 'AGW supporters' being wrong is pure nonsense. There are numerous examples of both. In addition to those already cited consider; "Dr. Muller also dispelled the myth that the surface temperature record is unreliable, and overall his testimony was accurate and reasonable (which may be why he wasn't asked very many questions)."
  28. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    To prevent the impression that Christy is a crock you could change the buttons to "Crocks by Christy". That way it is clear that by "crocks" is meant Christy's arguments, not the person. Spencer' slip ups would then become "Slip ups by Spencer". How does that sound? Perhaps the tone troll is also happy with that?
  29. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    Critical mass: Currently Dr. Hansen and Dr. Trenberth are debating about "missing heat" versus aerosol cooling. It seems likely that one of them will be wrong in the end. Since neither has made an outrageous claim, when the energy path is finalized neither will look bad. The one who is correct will have a new feather for his hat. It will not be necessary to have an article about who is right because that will be determined by consensus. The skeptics need to be countered because they do not conceed when they are incorrect.
  30. Philippe Chantreau at 01:26 AM on 20 September 2011
    One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    Disclaimer: I have been involved with SkS for a while, including early stages during which all the moderation was done by John Cook, most of the time on his Australian schedule. As I live in the US, that gave me the opportunity to endure torrents of verbal abuse from individuals claiming to be skeptics (no grudge here John :-). I digress from my point, which is the following: as the site grew, I did contribute as a moderator for a short time. The site grew faster than my abilities to keep up with the obligations of moderator. I then stepped back from that role and no longer serve these functions. I limit my contribution to comments. I do not edit or delete comments. Attentive readers will notice that moderators put their initials with their blue highlighted comments. However, I do feel entitled to use "we" when redirecting commenters since I did participate (a little) in the growing of the site, including devising the comment poilicy (which has changed since, althoug the underlying principles are conserved). Shub should therefore not address me as "moderator." I believe the moderator on this thread has been mostly DB (Daniel Bailey) but there may be others too. Shub has yet to produce an example of ad-hom fallacy coming from SkS or of personal attack against Spencer or Christy. What he cited in his post #188 certainly does not meet that definition. Saying that Spencer and Christy are "somewhat infamous" as the guys who claimed their data invalidated global warming until others corrected their errors is a mere statement of fact. They did that and are known for it. That is a simple fact.
    Response:

    [DB] "I believe the moderator on this thread has been mostly DB (Daniel Bailey) but there may be others too."

    Nope, mostly me.  I'm the one to blame, nobody else.  But never credit to malice what is better explained by ignorance or incompetance.  ;)

  31. Dikran Marsupial at 01:22 AM on 20 September 2011
    One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    Chris Well said, I couldn't agree more. Self-skepticism is central to being a good scientist.
  32. Positive feedback means runaway warming
    jpat wrote: "Do you really want to argue that f is a constant?" You asked for a formula showing how it could be possible that CO2 lags temperature throughout the glaciation cycle. I provided an example. In that example f was constant for simplicity. However, that does not mean I am claiming that f IS constant in the glaciation cycle... nor is f being constant a requirement for my example. Exactly the same conclusion would be reached with a value of f which changes over time... if the forcing effect is zero then, by definition, the feedback effect is zero - regardless of the value of f. Ergo, feedback MUST follow forcing. Thus, whether f is constant or not is completely irrelevant to the issue at hand. The simple forcing and feedback function in my prior message shows very clearly how a small forcing can produce a large change with a sufficiently large feedback factor. Exactly the same results could be achieved with an 'f' value which starts out at 0.95 and decreases down to 0.86 over time. Thus, we have a very simple mathematical model showing the possibility of CO2 (and other feedbacks) lagging temperature while still strongly influencing the total temperature change. This directly disproves your claim that CO2 must have "a negligible effect" if CO2 changes lag temperature changes. A realistic model would require multiple feedback factors with different signs, different rates of change, and complex interrelation between the factors... basically a full scale climate model. However, that wasn't your stated request. You were asking how it was possible for CO2 to lag temperature... that question has been answered. Simple logic and mathematics both make it obvious that CO2 MUST lag temperature in the glaciation cycle.
  33. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    New paper in Nature Climate Change by Meehl et al. (2011). I am citing this paper, because it is exposes yet again the games (i.e., wanting us to focus on the blimp) being played by Pielke and Watts and those in denial about the theory of AGW. Meehl et al. (2011) know that a brief slowdown or hiatus does not refute the models (yes they are not perfect, never will be, but scientists around the world are working hard to make them even better) or the theory of AGW, because it is a time to extract statistically insignificant trend-- research has shown that one requires at least 17 years or so of data to calculate statistically significant trends (e.g., Santer et al. (2011), Hamlington et al. (2011)); the extract time depends on the nature of data under consideration. So anyone who says there has been no warming (or accumulation in OHC) since 2003 or 1998 is cherry-picking and abusing statistics. In contrast, and being scientists of genuine curiosity to improve our understanding and advance the science, Meehl et al. make the effort to undertake some meaningful research as to what is perhaps going on during such episodes. They are not the only ones, Katsman and Oldenborgh (2011) recently undertook a similar research initiative. From Meehl et al. (2011): "There have been decades, such as 2000–2009, when the observed globally averaged surface-temperature time series shows little increase or even a slightly negative trend (a hiatus period). However, the observed energy imbalance at the top-of-atmosphere for this recent decade indicates that a net energy flux into the climate system of about 1 W m−2 (refs 2, 3) should be producing warming somewhere in the system. Here we analyse twenty-first-century climate-model simulations that maintain a consistent radiative imbalance at the top-of-atmosphere of about 1 W m−2 as observed for the past decade." Dr. Pielke and his associates want everyone to focus on that blimp and ignore pretty much anything else, and focus very closely on anything that in their minds question the theory of AGW or those dratted models or that can be used as to motivate delaying taking action on reducing our GHG emissions. Well people here do not fall for such sleights of hand, especially when they are repeated ad nauseum by "skeptics" and those in denial about the theory of AGW and their apologists. With that all said, Hansen posits the hypothesis that the negative radiative forcing from anthropogenic aerosols is at work, and recent research by authors (and Solomon et. al (2011), Kaufmann et al. (2011) [the latter was spun and misrepresented by "skeptics"] supports that too. So perhaps it is a coincidence, that both mechanisms (aerosols and sequestration of heat in the deep oceans )are at work. Exciting times for science. I know that reputable scientists like Meehl, Solomon, Santer, Dessler, Hansen and Trenberth (and others) will doggedly pursue their research and the search for truth, sadly some (like) Pielke Sr. and his associates will probably continue to cherry pick and use such periods in the data records to spread doubt/uncertainty and confuse the gullible. They will indignantly deny that but their repeated deception in public fora makes their indignance ring hollow.
  34. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    The only change I would make to the titles is to adjust them to add an apostrophe S to each one to further clarify that the subject is the "crock" that is being propagated by that person. Christy's Crocks and Spencer's Slip-ups. And to add to all this, Dr Pielke has yet to address the question of misinformation being given to to Congress under oath by Dr Christy.
  35. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    The deniers should not be allowed to set the standards for Skeptical Science. The current labels correctly describe the content of the posts. Dr. Pielke has demonstrated that what Spencer and Christy say is not defensible.
  36. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    The comparison has been made to Anthony Watts having a post on his site called "Al Gore is an Idiot" relative to an absurd statement he made about the core of the earth being millions of degrees, but that is a completely incorrect comparison. That is clearly an ad hom, an attack on the person rather than the misinformation. When SkS is creating these title's the attack is on the "myth" or the "crock" not on the perpetrator. I'm sure both Spencer and Christy have done lots of good science in their careers. I'm sure they are both intelligent, hard working scientists. However when they step outside of good science and start propagating misinformation the way each of these people have done, then they leave themselves open to having that misinformation called out for what it is. No one is saying that Christy, himself, is a crock. SkS is saying the misinformation is a crock and needs to be called out. Anthony Watts was just flat out calling Al Gore an idiot.
  37. Oceans are cooling
    Were the floats that Willis excluded ever examined? Were they replaced?
  38. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    critical mass (@ 197) I have a different perspective from Dikran concerning the reason that scientists in general don't publish stuff that is wrong. My experience from a quite lengthy period of doing research is that the vast majority of scientists don't publish stuff that's wrong because they do their damnest to ensure that what they publish is correct! The vast majority of science is done in good faith. Scientists participate implicitly in "self peer review" in which they themselves question the reliability of their work and arguments, focussing particularly on observations and interpretations that seem to be in conflict with other work. Usually papers are submitted after the work has been presented in group, departmental or conference seminars where its reliability can be tested against outside expertise. This concept of "self peer review" is second nature to most scientists. It's important to get the work correct (a) because one genuinely wants to find out something about the natural world, (b) because one's next series of experiments analyses is often dependent on its essential validity, (c) professional pride and self respect, (d) serious screwing up is not very good for one's reputation and career. Once one adopts the viewpoint that the processes of science and its dissemination are subservient to ones political or personal agendas, all of this goes out the window. Not only does one dump the essential precept of scientific good faith that underpins the scientific effort, but also apparently the inhibitions against abusing the good faith of others.
  39. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    I have often remarked in my own blog that a sound knowledge of how language works in the real world is a very useful tool in any scientific discipline. That said, I am delighted to see the comments here which demonstrate a depth of linguistic knowledge which many deniers seem to lack. Re: 'crock'. Here in the UK, a 'crock' is a very old car. We celebrate the repeal of the red flag law with our annual London to Brighton Rally, affectionately known as 'The Old Crocks Race'. The race - actually a rally - was celebrated in the excellent movie 'Genevieve'. In that context, a crock has these characteristics: it has historic value but is of no practical use; it is brought out once in a while purely for show; it not entirely original; it tends to run out of steam when faced with the slightest obstacle. Just as the proverbial 'Rolls Canardly' rolls down one hill but can 'ardly get up the next, so the denier arguments fare badly when faced with the uphill struggle against real science. Maybe the Christy button should show an image of Genevieve ?
  40. Positive feedback means runaway warming
    CBDunkerson #57 - Do you really want to argue that f is a constant? If so you've eliminated any functional relationship between temperature and CO2. But of course that's not the argument. f is a function dependent on many factors and climate sensitivity depends on f. If one is to reject the null hypothesis inherent in the paleo record, name Co2 has a negligible effect on temp because effect can not precede cause, one must describe a plausible function f(C02,T,a,...) which under reasonable forcing can replicate the paleo record. I'm not arguing that it is physically impossible or that the CO2 lag proves anything about cause and effect. But by now I would have expected a plausible candidate function to have emerged. If it has, please point me to it so I can understand the dynamics involved. If not, let's stop pretending we have this all figured out and feedback explains everything.
  41. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    critical mass (@ 197), one can inspect Dr. Lindzen's publication record and see that he has made several major contribution to our understanding of the atmosphere largely through research done and published before around 2000. So one could probably list more than 100 papers in which Dr Lindzen "got it right". It's only the smattering of more recent papers that directly or indirectly address questions about Earth climate response to enhanced radiative forcing that show a pattern of flaws. Some of the flaws are particularly problematic (e.g. the astonishing selection of time periods to assess relationships between changes in surface temperature and the TOA response in this paper, as highlighted by, amongst others, Trenberth et al). As for posts here highlighting where largely mainstream climate scientists get it wrong, how about this one which is an account of the retraction by climate scientists of a paper on sea level modeling in which the authors lost confidence in their model due to an error in some of its parameterization.
  42. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    If people are uncomfortable with crocks, perhaps "Christys concoctions?"
  43. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    I agree with Kevin C and DK. Use names. Peter Sinclear though, should not change his use of 'Crocks'. Very revealing (and entertaining) that series of videos. One prediction though: These skeptics cannot be forced. Even if there is only one avenue available, the explicit encouragement will not be interpreted as anthropogenic. At least not as an avenue. Or a forcing. Maybe it’s a feedback? I mean, clouded minds and all. (Sorry, bad joke again).
  44. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    If names are still to be used, I'd like Christy's Curious Claims if it fits...
  45. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    I would point out that from an accessibility POV having links that are only graphics makes it harder for some people to navigate the site. None of the badges/buttons have alternative texts. http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/ "1.1.1 Non-text Content: All non-text content that is presented to the user has a text alternative that serves the equivalent purpose... (Level A)"
  46. Chasing Pielke's Goodyear Blimp
    I also like the idea of more evocative pix on the buttons, I don't think the buttons' names are ad-Homs but the word crocks does make me wince a little...fwiw.
  47. Dikran Marsupial at 00:15 AM on 20 September 2011
    One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    critical mass Firstly, science basically operates by proposal of hypotheses, followed by experimental or observational evaluation, followed by criticism from peers. Most discussion of science is focussed on detecting errors and mistakes, as that is what has been found to be the most effective practice for promoting progress. Thus it is hardly surprising that a scientific discussion should be focussed primarily on criticism rather than praise. A scientist that can't handle criticism won't last long, try publishing a journal paper or submitting a grant proposal and you will sooon find out why. In scientific circles, the closest you get to praise is when your work is cited or people use the tools or data you provide. Thus everytime the UAH satelite dataset is used here, it is implicit acknowledgement that Spencer and Christy do get things right, at least some of the time. There are plenty of tenured academics that serially publish nonsense. It is just the law of averages, there are a lot of academics in the world, some of them will retain their position despite their scientific work rather than because of it. The system of tenure doesn't really help there as once you have tenure, it is very difficult to loose it (or at least that used to be the case). So, why do scientists in the mainstream so rarely publish things that are demonstrably wrong? Simple, it is becase they are generally publishing work that is relatively uncontraversial. Strong claims require strong evidence, thus the papers written by skeptics, that are often claiming to be "the last nail in the coffin of AGW" are making a huge claim, so it is hardly a surprise that the evidence doesn't provide sufficient support for such a huge claim. Less contraversial work on the other hand is less likely to be wrong as it rests on foundations of a vast body of existing work. There is also the point that for every Gallileo, there are 10,000 crackpots. While it is absolutely true that it only takes one scientist to provide the argument that produces a paradigm shift, the odds are heavily against it if you think you are a Gallileo.
  48. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    Sphaerica, the "satellites show no tropospheric warming" rebuttal listing gives an extensive listing of the errors and associated corrections, advanced here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/satellite-measurements-warming-troposphere-advanced.htm In any case I think that a follow up would be warranted. Implying that there remains the possibility of a combined satellite-analysis/model-replicating-cooling problem, v. a model only problem, is - while not outright saying there are problems in the satellite analysis methods - still a judgement based more on speculation supported by precedence, rather than evidence. SkS has not explicitly questioned the record's current reliability, only brought up the point that "satellite data analysis might be the source of at least some of the model-data discrepancy," and then criticized Christy for not also considering that too (when testifying to Congress, no less). While only technically not falling under the accusation Pielke made against us, I think we ought to be wary about how we come off to others, and how close we tread along certain lines. Regardless of that, the allegation of ad-hominem approach is still quite baseless.
  49. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    The really interesting thing about this debate is how often Drs Pielke, Spencer, Christy and Lindzen get it wrong. One would think that these presumably tenured academics with doctorates in their specialties would get it right occasionally. I have never seen it acknowledged on this site that any of these 'usual suspects' get anything right at all. This would then pose the logical question that they are seriously and serially incompetent or motivated by malign forces. Now questioning motivation is by definition an ad hominem attack on this site and therefore I would have thought inadmissable in the authors posts; so the only conclusion is that they are seriously and serially incompetent. One wonders then how they hold PhD's and remain in positions at respected institutions. Conversely, one never sees any of the scientists who write papers broadly supporting the AGW position ever being wrong about anything on this site. Again such omnipotence is somewhat unlikely, so it would help the credibility of this excellent site if a skeptic were actually right about something and a 'settled scientist' wrong about something - hopefully both important.
    Response:

    [dana1981] Just off the top of my head, see our post evaluating William Kellogg's 1979 global warming prediction as one example where a mainstream climate scientist was "wrong".

  50. One-Sided 'Skepticism'
    Shub wrote: "Indeed, the ability of a scientist to quickly admit to errors and provide for corrections advances science" Unfortunately for your intended point... Spencer and Christy did NOT "quickly admit" the errors in their model for estimating global temperature anomalies from microwave emission proxies. Indeed, they loudly proclaimed for years that they were right and everyone else wrong... until the evidence to the contrary became overwhelming. Indeed, there are still some disputed factors in their model. Coincidentally, these factors, like those previously corrected, result in a cooling bias. That said, S&C DID eventually acknowledge the most significant errors in their model and it is now in fairly close agreement with the temperature anomalies derived from surface measurements. This is thus not the primary 'complaint' against them. Rather the 'crocks' and 'slip-ups' series focus on their false statements and extremely flawed scientific analysis on other matters.

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