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Albatross at 14:02 PM on 30 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
Come on Shawn @71, you can do better than that :) My comment @70 was not OT, I asked you a relevant question about John Cook's assessment (which you ignored), and made an observation about your commentary on this thread. Cheers, :) -
Daniel Bailey at 13:48 PM on 30 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
@ Djon & Bern Logicman means the melt season of 2011 will have a month's head-start on that of 2010 due to the much poorer state of the ice currently. Which is why veteran ice watchers such as Logicman feel Maslowski's predictions may now be dated and conservative as the ice conditions seen are much inferior to those present when those predictions were made. And I find myself in agreement with him (L-man). The Yooper -
Djon at 13:34 PM on 30 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Bern, I don't think he means by "I suggest that by mid-April the sea ice will be in a similar condition to that of late August 2010." that the extent will be about the same by mid April as it was in late August 2010. It reads to me as though he was thinking in more qualitative terms when he wrote that. After all, a drop in extent by that much would make the part of his forecast saying "By April 30th, ice extent graphs will show a strong downward trend similar to that of May - June 2010." an incredible understatement. -
muoncounter at 13:31 PM on 30 March 2011Temp record is unreliable
Update to the Berkeley Earth Science Temperature study 'controversy': Watt$ made it up. Anyone surprised? -
johnd at 13:23 PM on 30 March 2011Weather vs Climate
Alexandre at 22:43 PM, I think the JAMSTEC paper is attempting to address most of the difficulties the Rahmstorf paper notes, in being able to produce reliable, and thus useful climate projections. One aspect this introduction of the Rahmstorf study reveals, is the necessity to consider the difference between data sets used by different researchers. Rahmstorf used a rise of 0.33°C in the global mean surface temperature over the 16 years whereas JAMSTEC using NCEP would have used 0.22°C based on a trend of 0.14°C per decade determined over the period 1982 to 2008. This is a huge difference, particularly when being used to project trends. If the NCEP data was used instead in the Rahmstorf study it would appear that the lower temperature trend would have required the study to focus on the lower areas of uncertainty within the IPCC projections rather than the upper areas as it has done. What differences do you see the use of the NCEP data would have made to the study? It would be interesting to see if the error bands of the different trends overlap, if they did, one would be left wondering of their usefulness, if not, the possibility that either one of the two is not a valid representation, or maybe even both. JAMSTEC are not seeking to overturn any accepted basic principles, they acknowledge all known contributing factors. I interpret this paper as not attempting to eliminate any of the factors that combine to produce a changing climate, but rather identify which of those play key roles and in what order of importance under varying circumstances. This thread is about the prediction of weather as compared to the prediction of climate. I feel the JAMSTEC paper ties the two together. It is all very well to make projections about what the average global climate may be at some distant time, but what is most important is to know how it is going to manifest itself specifically in different regions. As is hardly necessary to do, the JAMSTEC paper shows that there is still a lot of uncertainty of what are all the contributing factors that causes our existing climate to manifest itself in the ways it does in the here and now. To alleviate your apparent stress, I guess these are the questions you are referring to. What ocean oscillation became suddenly warmer now then on the last millennium or two? - Why did the outgoing longwave radiation diminish on the last decades? - Why did backradiation become more intense? - Why did IR radiation trapped by GHG have no effect on temperature this time? ...... I'm not certain that anyone can adequately answer such questions. The current understanding is that there is an energy imbalance at the TOA, and the surplus is , well, missing. Until such time the understanding of the processes involved are such that the energy budget can be balanced, then we can only speculate. What I am more interested in is that other threshold that energy has to cross at the surface. Of one thing I am certain, any solar energy that may be sunk by the oceans is firstly subject to the conditions that control that surface threshold, before it can even expect to cross the threshold at the TOA. -
K T at 12:44 PM on 30 March 2011A Plan for 100% Energy from Wind, Water, and Solar by 2050
The plan spelt out in the article above sounds good, but in case I missed out on something, does it (this plan) allow for indefinite exponential economic GROWTH? GROWTH is the holy cow of modern industrial civilzation, never mind its inherent mathematical absurdity, to which all industrialists are effectively blind. If this plan DOESN'T allow for growth (and I don't see how ANY energy plan can), but assumes that our collective energy needs will instead 'flatten out' into a steady state by 2050, then how much appeal will it have for the head honchos around today? Also, to change to all that new technology, you'll still need oil to start with. Have we still enough left to make this change? On such a massive scale? -
Daniel Bailey at 12:24 PM on 30 March 2011The Day After McLean
@ muoncounter (57) Nice! Cue the usual response from the "skeptics"... The Yooper -
muoncounter at 12:16 PM on 30 March 2011The Day After McLean
wingding#50: "None of this happened." That makes 3 strikes (missed solar min, peak neutron and 'peak cooling'). Every picture tells a story, don't it?
-- NOAA solar cycle
--Oulu neutron monitor
--NOAA annual
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Stu at 11:54 AM on 30 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
damorbel (@872) "Fred, what I like about 'Back Radiation' is that it goes straight into the surface, nothing is reflected, even though most of the surface is water with a refractive index of 1,33; I'm sure Fresnel is weeping in his grave!" Care to explain what the refractive index of a substance has to do with its reflectivity? I think the key quantity you should be focussing on is absorptivity, which by Kirchoff's law is always equal to emissivity at a given wavelength. In the thermal infrared (the pertinent wavelength), the emissivity of water is about 0.95. Source: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/emissivity-coefficients-d_447.html -
Bern at 11:53 AM on 30 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Craig, you'd certainly think that increasing wind & wave heights would put more stress on the margins of the sea ice... particularly if the wind was blowing away from the main pack, then the combination would tend to lead to rapid break-up. Whether it has actually *been* a factor, that's an interesting question. Reading the article, I was rather surprised to see a prediction that August 2010 extents may be reached by the end of April. If that happens, then it'll be hard to ignore by the 'skeptic' blogs. It reminds me of the Larsen B ice shelf break-up a few years ago. Scientists knew it was weakening, but were astounded when the entire 200m-thick ice shelf broke up in little more than a month. Could we be seeing the beginnings of a rapid collapse of the Arctic ice pack? Might the Arctic be largely ice-free in summer in only a few years? Interesting times indeed! -
muoncounter at 11:46 AM on 30 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
Gilles#119: "you predict an acceleration, It would be interesting to see how soon it will be measurable." Already happening. Maybe you're not paying close enough attention.
The red dots are the global LOTI temperature anomaly, shifted to 0 in 1880. The curves are deltaT = lambda dF, for 3 values of sensitivity. The small number below each curve is the equivalent sensitivity = deg C/double CO2; although these curves are a bit dated.
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GFW at 11:37 AM on 30 March 2011The Day After McLean
Someone asked: "Is it because, conveniently for him, satellite data responds more dramatically to ENSO than ground-based measurements?" Yes. This has been another installment of short answers to short questions. Given the guy's name, why haven't there been any Die Hard jokes on this thread? (Yeah, it's spelled differently...)Moderator Response: [DB] We're waiting for more FBI guys... -
Stu at 11:10 AM on 30 March 2011The Day After McLean
Well, I was unaware of Archibald's incorrect prediction on the previous page, which was pretty comical, but McLean's is going to tank in a whole 'nother way. I wonder if Josh will make a cartoon about it? By the way, I'd like to pick up more on the fact that he's using satellite temperatures to make a comparison to a year in which temperatures were not measured by satellite... oopsie! Not that it gives him any wiggle room anyway, 2011 will not be the coldest in the satellite record either, barring a massive volcanic eruption. -
shawnhet at 10:56 AM on 30 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
Come on, Albatross, I am familiar with the issues relating to the divergence problem, which as I said previously, was what I was focusing on. My defending myself here on this issue has been ruled OT which is fine with me, but don't complain about what I am saying being OT, then try and needle me with OT comments after the fact, please. -
Craig Allen at 10:34 AM on 30 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
I wonder if the recently published finding by Young, Zieger, and Babanin of Swinburn University that wind and wave heights have been increasing over the last 23 years worldwide includes the Arctic and could be brought to bear in understanding what is going on. If so then the trends will need to be included in models that address ice decline. See the press release and the journal article in Science magazine. -
Albatross at 10:05 AM on 30 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
Shawn @69, "Honestly, Albatross, I don't know Muller from Adam" And you do not know Mann et al. from Adam either, but that has not stopped you from opining about the HS now has it? Anyhow, do you agree with John Cook's assessment of Muller's errors? There is no need to go into the details of the divergence problem to do that. -
RW1 at 09:49 AM on 30 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
damorbel (RE: 869), "Now be so good as to answer my question:- What % of the heat tranferred to the atmosphere from the ground by radiation:- 14%?......40%?.......90%?" I would but I'm not quite sure exactly what you're asking. How much is transferred kinetically? -
shawnhet at 09:00 AM on 30 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
Honestly, Albatross, I don't know Muller from Adam, I have never been interested in him. I think a fair reading of the above is that a substantial part of the opening post is, in fact, about the divergence problem. Since this is not, apparently, the subject of this thread, I will stop commenting on it. I don't know how to address whether someone's statements are factually accurate without talking about the subject of those statements. -
Albatross at 08:55 AM on 30 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
Shawnhet @67, Funny how both you and Cadbury suddenly become uninterested in Muller when you are required to actually consider his errors.....that is not being a true skeptic. A true skeptic would be very troubled by his mangling of the science. You and fellow "skeptics" on this thread are very nicely demonstrating CBDunkerson's astute and insightful observations. The "divergence problem" has its own thread, please go here if you wish to discuss it further. -
shawnhet at 08:40 AM on 30 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
Albatross @66, I will admit that I am not particularly interested in Muller ;), but the only time he is mentioned above is to mention his interpretation of an email quote. The rest is about the divergence problem which I am interested in. Is the topic of this thread only the first section of the OP ;) ? Bibliovermis:"Popular and unpopular research should receive the same level of scrutiny ("policing"). The benefit of consensus is to summarize the results." I think you are being unrealistic here. Some papers may be read thousands of times and some only dozens. Can we really expect them to get the same level of scrutiny? Cheers, :)Moderator Response: (DB) This thread is indeed as Albatross describes it in 66 above; you have been pointed to other discussions here for the dendro issues. -
Albatross at 08:23 AM on 30 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
Shawnhet @65, You seem intent on derailing this thread. Do you have anything of substance and relevance to say about Muller's butchering of the science? You know, the actual topic of this thread :) -
scaddenp at 08:15 AM on 30 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
"what's your guess for the average slope of the temperature increase in the 4 next decades? I you predict an acceleration, " I predict that temperature curve will follow closely the model ensemble trend calculated for the scenario of CO2 emissions that we actually get. I dont predict what the emissions will be because that means guessing to what extent governments will move to limit them, as well as society response to resource constraint when they appear. I also find the risks associated with BAU and high emission scenarios unacceptable. Are you going to answer my question or just try another debating gambit? -
shawnhet at 08:11 AM on 30 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
dhogaza:"Shawnet: if trees near their latitudinal or altitudinal limits aren't good temperature proxies in many cases, you wouldn't find such broad correlation with the dendro series and other proxies and much of the instrumental record. And, if you're right, you'll have to throw out much of what's known about the physiology of plant growth, not just climate science. Ain't likely, dude." Sure, tree rings correlate well with temperature except when they don't. It is the parts where they don't correlate that causes problems for the idea that tree rings are good proxies. If you found a group of perfectly preserved tree rings from a time period where you didn't have independent means of assessing the temperature, could you use their widths to determine the temperature? Of course not. Current history shows more than adequately that the relationship btw tree rings and temperature is much more complex than a straightforward prozy one. Cheers, :) -
Albatross at 08:10 AM on 30 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
Shawnhet @61, "if they were, in fact, a good proxy we would not be having these sorts of discussions at all. Dendrochronology is good science, it is dendroclimatology that is suspect." Interesting then that multiple temperature reconstructions that do not rely exclusively on dendrochronologies produce very similar results. Here is another one, and yet another for good measure. And what the heck, some more. I would argue that you are trying to deflect uncomfortable attention to Muller's manglings of the science by floating all these red herrings and arguing strawmen. -
Gareth at 08:09 AM on 30 March 2011The Day After McLean
No worries. Your graph is more striking! -
Bibliovermis at 08:00 AM on 30 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
shawnhet, Popular and unpopular research should receive the same level of scrutiny ("policing"). The benefit of consensus is to summarize the results. -
adelady at 07:58 AM on 30 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Yes Chris. " exacerbate the warming by shifting ice fragments towards warmer latitudes." No need to shift to a warmer latitude if that warmer water has already come to you. -
dana1981 at 07:50 AM on 30 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
shawnhet #61, I'll simply refer you to dhogaza #60. I don't agree with statements like "real thermometers produce very different values than trees". That's an inaccurate generalization. We've previously discussed the 'divergence problem' elsewhere. -
Chris G at 07:45 AM on 30 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Mmm, a little more reading and a little less writing may be in order, some of my questions answered here under Decline in Arctic Sea Ice Thickness and Decline Causes. -
Bob Lacatena at 07:43 AM on 30 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
14, ClimateWatcher,...but there is no plausible prediction or causal link to identify why for any particular regime, the gyre would dominate, the drift would dominate, or the two would be in relative balance.
But none of that mattered when the ice was relatively solid and well packed throughout the Arctic, which had been the case for the past several thousand years. It's only been in the past decade that the sea ice concentrations have diminished to the point where circulation patterns can have an effect, and exacerbate the warming by shifting ice fragments towards warmer latitudes. It's not that the patterns have shifted. It's that the patterns never even mattered before. -
dana1981 at 07:42 AM on 30 March 2011The Day After McLean
Yeah Gareth, you beat me to the punch on this one! -
shawnhet at 07:41 AM on 30 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
Couple of quick points here: First off, I agree that everyone should police themselves, but clearly a more popular piece of research should be better policed than less popular piece (OTW what is the benefit of a consensus?). You cannot argue that we should put more faith in a consensus viewpoint than a skeptical one if you don't feel a consensus viewpoint should also receive more critical attention. dana:"I presume you were trying to say that no reasonable person can think tree rings are a valid temperature proxy. To which I would respond that just because you feel that way, doesn't mean that every reasonable person should feel that way. There's an entire research field devoted to dedrochronology, and there's strong evidence that in most cases, tree rings are a good temperature proxy." Just a reality check here: if they were, in fact, a good proxy we would not be having these sorts of discussions at all. Dendrochronology is good science, it is dendroclimatology that is suspect. We can be pretty sure that they don't work now(real thermometers produce very different values than trees) and we can be pretty sure that they didn't work well a long time ago. If a temperature sensor can return the same value today as it did 150 years ago when it was ~1C cooler, how do we know what the temperature was 150 years ago? Not by using trees, that's for sure. Cheers, :) -
Gareth at 07:34 AM on 30 March 2011The Day After McLean
Perhaps I could claim a little "prior art"? ;-) -
Chris G at 07:29 AM on 30 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
I've no disagreement with most of the points in the post, except this one is giving me pause: "In plain terms, the 2011 melt season will soon continue more or less where the 2010 melt season left off." I have no question that the thickness of the ice has dropped a lot in the past decade, but it isn't clear to me that 2010 was terribly exceptional in that respect, and I don't see how the extent can be expected to go from where it is now to August 2010 levels within a few weeks. I have been under the impression that Greenland's NE coast is an outflow region; so, I expect ice there to be highly variable. I don't know that it makes the best case for representing the ice pack as a whole. Or, is the point that the region shown is already showing signs of break-up where in years past this has come much later in the season? CW, Thanks for the reasoned response. I think we are mainly in disagreement about cause versus effect, and with feedbacks in play, it can be difficult to distinguish the one from the other. While it is not clear to me that it is possible to predict gyre or drift domination, it should be clear that things are changing. There exist broad patterns of circulation, like Hadley Cells, that can be predicted to change. That wasn't always the case. Just because we may not now fully understand how or why thermodynamic changes that result from an increase in GHGs should result in arctic circulation pattern changes should not be taken to mean that there is no relationship. On the other hand, I don't know that the wind patterns are changing. It could be merely that the thinner ice is more susceptible to wind movement and that the wind itself hasn't changed. That would be an interesting research article: Have the arctic weather patterns changed with respect to their propensity to export ice, over say, the last 50 years? -
dhogaza at 07:13 AM on 30 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
dana1981:There's an entire research field devoted to dedrochronology, and there's strong evidence that in most cases, tree rings are a good temperature proxy.
Not quite. In *some* cases, tree ring are a good temperature proxy, much of the research goes into trying to figure out which stands are, and which stands are not, primarily limited in summer growth by temperature as opposed to other environmental factors. Shawnet: if trees near their latitudinal or altitudinal limits aren't good temperature proxies in many cases, you wouldn't find such broad correlation with the dendro series and other proxies and much of the instrumental record. And, if you're right, you'll have to throw out much of what's known about the physiology of plant growth, not just climate science. Ain't likely, dude. -
Albatross at 07:12 AM on 30 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
Daniel @57, Thanks-- you are too kind. You asked "Where are the real skeptics in all this, I ask?"-- sitting at their desks day and night and weekends and holidays working on trying to satisfy their incredible (and passionate) endeavor to improve the understanding of the climate system and advancing the science. And note too--the real skeptics are not sitting in front of a computer in Toronto somewhere typing up innuendo, and engaging in dog-whistle politics and FUD on an internet blog, while simultaneously aiding the anti-science campaign of Inhofe and Morano. -
Albatross at 06:59 AM on 30 March 2011The Day After McLean
Nice sleuthing Wingding. It seems a con a blog post documenting the numerous bust forecasts made by "skeptics" is in order.... -
wingding at 06:56 AM on 30 March 2011The Day After McLean
Even better another later Archibald paper that appeared in E&E introduces with: "detailed work on the 20th century temperature record in relation to solar cycle length was undertaken by Friis-Christensen and Lassen (1991). This original paper was subsequently amended, and their observation of a correlation between solar cycle length and temperature remains valid" Subsequently amended? He must be referring to C&L 1999 right? If so this is the abstract, I don't see Archibald even mention the key point: "It has previously been demonstrated that the mean land air temperature of the Northern hemisphere could adequately be associated with a long-term variation of solar activity as given by the length of the approximately 11- year solar cycle. Adding new temperature data for the 1990’s and expected values for the next sunspot extrema we test whether the solar cycle length model is still adequate. We find that the residuals are now inconsistent with the pure solar model. We conclude that since around 1990 the type of Solar forcing that is described by the solar cycle length model no longer dominates the long-term variation of the Northern hemisphere land air temperature." Archibald 2009 also makes another prediction: "The monthly neutron count is now higher than it has been at any time for the last fifty years. If the month of solar minimum proves to be July 2009, peak neutron count may not be until mid-2010. On this basis, and according to Svensmark and Friis-Christensen’s hypothesis, peak cloudiness, and therefore peak rate of cooling, will be reached in mid-2010." None of this happened. -
ClimateWatcher at 06:51 AM on 30 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
#10. "Also, sea ice is much more emissive than sea water in the infrared." Emission spectra of black bodies is given by Planck's Law. Granted, neither is a perfect black body, but this is the first I have heard that they are categorically different in that respect. Are you confusing emission with reflectance? You are correct. That statement is in error. Ice and water are both efficient emitters: http://www.infrared-thermography.com/material-1.htm -
ClimateWatcher at 06:43 AM on 30 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
#10. Chris Circulation patterns are driven by patterns of energy imbalances. Without a change in the thermodynamics of the system, there would be no cause for the circulation patterns to change. There are to major circulations that govern Arctic sea ice - the Beaufort Gyre and the Transpolar Drift:
Clearly when the Transpolar Drift dominates the gyre, sea ice is lost to lower latitudes and the multi-year ice declines, which makes the ice more prone to melt in summer.
When the gyre dominates, ice is not lost, but rather spins and accumulates in place, leading to the build up of multi-year ice.
It is certainly true that thermodynamics drive circulation, but there is no plausible prediction or causal link to identify why for any particular regime, the gyre would dominate, the drift would dominate, or the two would be in relative balance.
Different wave patterns arise in the atmosphere from one year to the next, even though the energy imbalances are quite similar. There are multiple wave states for the same initial condition.
Moderator Response: [DB] Fixed image width (too wide). -
wingding at 06:39 AM on 30 March 2011The Day After McLean
massive error! I meant to say: Perhaps McLean is using a similar "trick" as Archibald NOT Perhaps McLean is using a similar "trick" as Friss-Christensen -
wingding at 06:37 AM on 30 March 2011The Day After McLean
I found a good overview of the problems in Archibald 2006 (Solar cycles 24 and 25 and predicted climate response) here: http://n3xus6.blogspot.com/2007/02/dd.html It turns out Archibald doesn't use global temperature records, but uses a handful of stations with no obvious reason why they were picked. Eg from the paper: "To provide a baseline for projecting temperature to the projected maximum of solar cycle 25 in 2024, data from five, rural, continental US stations with data from 1905 to 2003 was averaged and smoothed" Huh? how did this pass peer review of any kind? And it's not like he's actually trying to predict regional temperatures in the US because he goes on to compare those 5 stations in the continental US with the global satellite record: "The flat profile of the last 20 year period is corroborated by the satellite data over that period, which shows only a very weak rise in the temperature of the lower troposphere." This was published in Energy and Environment by the way. Next time some skeptic tries to sweet talk you into thinking E&E isn't just full of fluff, this paper is a great example otherwise. The paper also cites Friis-Christensen and Lassen 1991, but makes absolutely no citation of Friis-Chistensen and Lassen 1999 which pretty much demolishes the earlier paper. Perhaps McLean is using a similar "trick" as Friss-Christensen and is not using a global temperature record when he states "it is likely that 2011 will be the coolest year since 1956 or even earlier". Is he referring to the US record perhaps? -
Alec Cowan at 06:35 AM on 30 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
A very informative article. I don't know if this has been said but the bottom of the graph taken from PIOMAS means a situation of no-ice in September. I'm saying this because many people posting comments -some of them in this website- had claimed about the Y-axis scale in that graph distorted in order to "dramatize" the situation. On the other hand and abusing of the profusion of data, I'd like to ask the author and the participants about data involving CO2 transportation to deep ocean waters as an important byproduct of sea ice. I mean, by new year ice formation in the Arctic amounts to some 2,000,000 m3 per second -that is about the double of all the rivers in the planet together-; that means at least 1GTon/sec of brine rich in CO2 going down and sweeping more sea water to finally reach the bottom of the ocean (that's why we have some 70% of sea water below 4°C in spite the temperature of the atmosphere and the Earth's crust is higher). I'm asking this because we have seen and see here a persistent reduction in the Arctic's ice pack, but the mass of ice formed and melted every year has remained almost unchanged -I think-. I'm interested in what is going to happen when we see a week ice-free Arctic, then a month, then a season, because the provision of chill waters will slow down and that is going to have vast consequences in the long run. Thank you in advance for any information on this subject. -
dana1981 at 06:32 AM on 30 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
shawnhet #56:"Again, any reasonable person should've known that trees were not good temperature proxies a long time ago."
Repeating a false statement does not make it any less untrue. A fact which "skeptics" never seem to learn! -
Daniel Bailey at 06:17 AM on 30 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
@ Albatross (51) "I find this statement incredibly ironic, hypocritical even, especially on a thread demonstrating very clearly yet another example (out of dozens) of a "skeptic" not being "policed" and spouting nonsense. And yet again his diatribe gets free pass by the "skeptics"." Well-said, sir. Like a sleeping bear being poked & prodded I finally have had enough of "skeptics" being given a free pass by other "skeptics" to post a rant-ish comment on the subject only to find that I'd been scooped by you. Well-done. Over the course of the past 3 years, I can recall just one instance of one of our semi-resident "skeptics" taking another "skeptic" to task for inaccuracy. The wounded "skeptic" then responded with hurt indignation at taking a broadside from a perceived member of the "same side". A "Skeptic Code" violation, if you will. Where are the real skeptics in all this, I ask? Sailing darkly through a silent sea to a far and distant shore, perhaps? /Rant The Yooper -
shawnhet at 06:16 AM on 30 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
CBDunkerson:"Given that they do go to great pains to point out flaws and limitations I'm sorry but that is just untrue. Climate science has extensive self-checking and policing. You'll note that even 'skeptics' like Lindzen and Spencer are taken seriously and studied even after they have been found to have shown clear biases and false statements... because they are at least doing actual research and presenting actual theories which can be checked and evaluated as part of the ongoing process. After those there are large numbers of actual skeptics (no 'square quotes') who continually challenge various parameters and findings of the science. Thus we get different views on, for instance, how much mass loss Greenland is experiencing and further study is performed to figure out who is right." Frankly, the behavior of the folks involved answers this question much more effectively than any claims either you or I can make. Again, any reasonable person should've known that trees were not good temperature proxies a long time ago. The fact that many high profile papers were published and made fairly central parts of the mainstream climate picture on such a shaky foundation and that no one except outsiders were making noises about this sort of thing is prima facie evidence of a culture that is poor at policing itself. Cheers, :) -
Albatross at 06:07 AM on 30 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
CBDunkerson, I think that you have the makings of a blog post :) I am actually quite serious. Your post at @53 raises too many valid issues to repeat here. The one that stuck in my mind is the incoherence and contradictory nature of the arguments put forth by the "skeptics"-- what a confusing mess. But that is perhaps what it is mean to be in order to practice FUD? Again, as you noted, their main cause seems to be an appeal to emotion rather than science. And ultimately their approach is anti-science, anti-progress and anti-intellectualism. What I find particularly tragic is when people who should know better, like Muller, embracing this ideology. -
dana1981 at 06:02 AM on 30 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
shawnhet #49:I don't think that a reasonable person can look at the use of trees as temperature proxies and conclude that they are very poor proxies that should not be used in reconstructions.
I presume you were trying to say that no reasonable person can think tree rings are a valid temperature proxy. To which I would respond that just because you feel that way, doesn't mean that every reasonable person should feel that way. There's an entire research field devoted to dedrochronology, and there's strong evidence that in most cases, tree rings are a good temperature proxy."consensus does not have a vigorous self-policing function."
I discussed a good example of "self-policing" when Lindzen and the FEU made the same errors. The "consensus" side jumped all over the FEU and made sure the errors were made known to the public and corrected. I still have yet to see a single "skeptic" correct Lindzen's errors. Instead they have been propagated by various "skeptic" blogs. I think it's quite clear which "side" lacks self-policing. -
CBDunkerson at 05:59 AM on 30 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
Albatross raises a very good point... the quality of 'self policing' on the 'skeptic' side of the debate can be seen in the countless radically different, and often mutually exclusive, arguments put forward. Think about the 'intellectual integrity' of a group which simultaneously embraces those who claim 'it is not warming', 'the warming is a natural cycle', 'the warming is human caused but will be very mild', 'humans cannot cause warming', 'carbon dioxide cannot cause warming', and hundreds of other inconsistent arguments. By any rational basis the 'skeptics' should be broken into hundreds of warring camps as opposed to each others' ideas as they are to anthropogenic global warming. Yet that is not the case. They remain a unified group... because intellectual integrity plays no part whatsoever in this 'movement'. It is entirely an emotional opposition, and thus any pretense for disbelieving 'the enemy' is uncritically accepted. The consensus side agree on far more than they disagree. So while Wu and Jiang may have different estimates of Greenland ice loss both are pursuing actual science and further study is performed and we continue to get a more and more focused picture... instead of the more and more chaotic mish-mash of inconsistencies generated by the 'skeptics'. In a sense the 'skeptics' have developed a kind of 'anti-science'... the more effort devoted to studying the matter the less clear it becomes. -
muoncounter at 05:51 AM on 30 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
shawnhet#49: "even though said consensus does not have a vigorous self-policing function." It's far more likely that the deniersphere does not self-police; from blatant cherry-picks to flat out repetition of debunked arguments, you almost never see one 'skeptic' calling out another. We've seen that here a number of times; there are threads where one 'skeptic' makes an outrageous statement -- especially one that's often been said before -- and all the other 'skeptics' disappear from sight.
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