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Comments 96201 to 96250:

96201. muoncounter at 13:24 PM on 10 February 2011
       Arctic icemelt is a natural cycle
       From here. "the ice cap extents over the last 60 years the north pole all but completly melts EVERY YEAR." Sorry, Briago, but that's just not true; the Arctic polar ice does not all but completely melt each year. The NSIDC has excellent data; see their October 2010 press release for a recent summary. One of the great things about SkS is the information here is based on research and data. In short, facts. Most of the posters also strive to substantiate their claims with evidence. If you are serious about the subject of climate change (and you should be), please put your opinions on hold for a while, look around and learn.
96202. Daniel Bailey at 13:15 PM on 10 February 2011
       Climate Data for Citizen Scientists
       Thanks, Kelly! I visit your site daily during the Arctic melt season; weekly at this time of year. Highly recommended. The Yooper
96203. MattJ at 13:10 PM on 10 February 2011
       The Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism
       Although I am impressed at the quality of the Guide, and the zeal of the translators, I really don't think additional translations are really going to help very much. It is not the kind of effort we really need, since the perps who are destroying our environment are perfectly competent at reading English. However, the two languages that are most likely to do some good are 1) Russian, since Putin and Medvedev are eager to sell as much oil as they can, and 2) Mandarin Chinese, since it was the Chinese who sabotaged Copenhagen, together with the Indians. Of course, the Indians are a perfect example of those who already have the science in a language they can understand -- and they choose to ignore it. I am sure most people here in this forum realize that English IS "the international language of India". They even prefer it over their own language when communicating many fellow Indians since it avoids the political implications of forcing non-Hindi speakers to speak Hindi. Now of those two languages, I think Mandarin is actually the higher priority. Just think of the publicity for the cause when we discover the Chinese Government is blocking access to the guide because the evidence is so damning against them!
96204. muoncounter at 13:01 PM on 10 February 2011
       CO2 is not increasing
       Delightful news: Jan 2011 CO2 = 391 ppm; an annual increase of 2.7 ppm/year. Yes, the recession is over. Do we break 395 this year?
96205. michael sweet at 12:57 PM on 10 February 2011
       Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
       Briago1, Welcome to Skeptical Science. There is a search function in the upper left corner. Please post each of your points in the appropriate thread. I suggest you read the start here button before you proceed. For your question #2 you say "I have no idea how much more is released by other mamals, fish, birds, etc. On the whole 29GT does not sound like much compared to the overall living population of the animal kingdom." If you read the post at the top of this page that data is graphed for you to read. All the information needed to be informed about that subject is included. It appears that you have made no effort to inform yourself, including not reading the post you are responding to. Why did you make such a flaming post? If you want to learn read some of the material. If you seek to disrupt, please go elsewhere. Does anyone know why are there so many trolls this week?
96206. michael sweet at 12:47 PM on 10 February 2011
       Monckton Myth #9: Monckton vs Monckton on heat waves
       Tor B, You said in 4 "“Very cold” October suggests lots of records may have been set; “unseasonable cool December” suggests no more than a few records set". That seems to me like a claim that lots of cold records were set in those months. I do not think your data sources are very reliable for such a claim. I am sorry I referred to the global temperatures, I did not realize you only cared about the USA. Fortunately the site I mentioned has the data for both. At least we both have a reliable data source now. It is my experience that if I have a 117 month data set and I add three months there is little change in the data. This holds up even if all the last three months are extreme, which they were not (one warm, two cold, none hot or frigid). You also suggest that there will be little change. It is a lot of trouble to finish out the data properly. Arguing about good data is a method deniers use to delay action. I am sorry if I responded sharply to your post, there have been an unusual number of trolls lately.
96207. muoncounter at 12:38 PM on 10 February 2011
       How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
       #93: "ongoing furphy that the modest warming of the 17th through 19th centuries *caused* the growth in human population." Especially when the furphy (great word, that) is promoted by the same people who cry foul when anyone points out that temperature increase correlates with atmospheric CO2 increase. That's unacceptable; 'correlation isn't cause!' But warming correlation with population is a valid cause? Does denial require the ability to be hypocritical or is it an after market add-on?
96208. Spencer Weart at 12:19 PM on 10 February 2011
       Climate Data for Citizen Scientists
       There's a peer-reviewed paper that matches the temperature curve by combining volcanoes, El Nino, Sunspots, and anthropogenic emissions: Lean & Rind (2009), Geophysical Research Letters 36, L15708. See http://www.aip.org/history/climate/summary.htm#model
96209. Briago1 at 12:13 PM on 10 February 2011
       Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
       Just a couple thoughts: 1) I read a statement about as the atmosphere warms that will release more carbon dioxide from the oceans making the atmosphere even warmer. This can not be the case otherwise if the atmosphere ever got a little warm, it would be doomed to continue to heat up. Since we have had ice ages and hot "ages", the plant would not have made it to now. 2) The discussion seems to be centered around human activity releasing around 29GT of CO2 annually. However per epa.gov human breathing generates 2.3lbs per average person per day. (2.3lb) x (6,000,000,000 people on the planet) / (2000 lb/ton) x (365 days per year) = 2.5GT CO2 annually. Also, from wiki.answers.com (less reliable source), domesticated animals produce 6GT, and insects produce 48GT. I have no idea how much more is released by other mamals, fish, birds, etc. On the whole 29GT does not sound like much compared to the overall living population of the animal kingdom. 3) For such a small fractional increase (3.8%) compared to the overall amount of CO2 in circulation, a measly 4% increase in plant/algae life would more than make up for the difference. 4) Ice cores tell you nothing about reaction. I keep reading that ice cores show in increase in temperature after an increase in CO2 (this is debatable, but I'll skip that). This tid bit is then being used to say that since CO2 has risen x amount in 30 years, that now we are going to have a temperature rise in the next decade. Ice cores have a resolution in the 1000s (or tens of thousands) of years, not 10. The problem is that the ice core is giving you an average over that 1000 years. Within a given 10 years the CO2 could have been three times higher than it is now, but you can't know because you only have an average over 1000 years. The variations we seen now could have been going on for all of history, and you will NOT see it in ice cores. Remember that you have no source to see a snapshot in time from history until we started keeping regular interval written data, and even that data is questionable as the sampling location evironment is usually not stable over long durations. You only have long duration averages which tell you nothing about how the planet would react from a 2 decade departure from an average developed over the last 12 decades of real data. 5) I read about how the ice caps are melting. Well if you look at the data of the ice cap extents over the last 60 years the north pole all but completly melts EVERY YEAR. I don't care if ice sheets are breaking off the north pole, it happens every year. The south pole, it a little different, the western sheet does seem to be shrinking some, but the easter sheet (4 x larger) is reported to be getting colder and is freezing more ice: "Australia Antarctic Division glaciology program head Ian Allison said sea ice losses in west Antarctica over the past 30 years had been more than offset by increases in the Ross Sea region, just one sector of east Antarctica." (per This article and This Report)
       Moderator Response: Anyone who replies to this, please, please do so by pointing to the appropriate thread.
96210. rustygecko at 12:04 PM on 10 February 2011
       Abraham reply to Monckton
       There is a certain irony in Mr Monckton attacking anyone's academic or scientific credentials concerning climate science as this is a man whose only academic qualification is in "Classics" and he received a bachelors degree, which he insists on calling a masters. Mr Monkton has no scientific qualifications at all. He does however claim to have the cure for HIV. Watch this space. I see a Nobel Prize coming... Do they award Nobel Prizes for BS?
96211. robert way at 11:57 AM on 10 February 2011
       Climate Data for Citizen Scientists
       Great resource, I highly recommend Kelly's site.
96212. adelady at 11:52 AM on 10 February 2011
       Monckton Myth #9: Monckton vs Monckton on heat waves
       If you look at these three covering the months in question, it doesn't look much as though there's anything in these 3 months to affect the record for 120 months. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/national/hprcc/1mt/200910.png http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/national/hprcc/1mt/200911.png http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/national/hprcc/1mt/200912.png This is the best I could get from NOAA. The other series I wanted are currently unavailable for these individual months.
96213. Marcus at 11:15 AM on 10 February 2011
       How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
       You know, I do grow tired of this ongoing furphy that the modest warming of the 17th through 19th centuries *caused* the growth in human population. If that were true, then we should have seen similar population booms during the Medieval Warm Period. What we *actually* see, though, is several major famines, the Bubonic Plague & the collapse of several large civilizations (the Anasazi, the Mayans & the Khmer). The real cause of the population growth from the 17th century on can be summed up in one phrase-The Enlightenment. The unchaining of Science from the shackles of religion allowed for massive leaps forward in medicine, agriculture & manufacturing. This, in turn, allowed for better nutrition, better living standards, & improvements in infant mortality & life expectancy. We are now, however, starting to reap a bitter harvest from these past benefits-with overpopulation, pollution & climate change being a major threat to our continued success. It doesn't help when people like Pirate adopt the typical "head-in-the-sand" approach to these problems-esp. as he's supposedly a *teacher*!
96214. Tor B at 10:57 AM on 10 February 2011
       Monckton Myth #9: Monckton vs Monckton on heat waves
       Michael Sweet (8): “Wild, unsupported claims” in my (4) post? I’m not sure what claims I’ve made, unsupported or otherwise! And aren’t we supposed to avoid unfounded attacks? You appear to be claiming that monthly global temperature averages which are warm to extremely warm (note: global) cannot include American weather station temperature records which might include more record lows than record highs. If you look at Figure 1 near the top of the blog, you will discover it reports on 59 years and 9 months of record high temperatures and record low temperatures in the contiguous USA, so for the rest of this post please ignore what’s happening in the rest of the world. (If you don’t like it, then complain that Figure 1 was included in the blog post in the first place.) The graph was first published in November 2009, so data for the end of 2009 was not available. I’m guessing the data to complete the last decade represented on the graph became available about a year ago, but it seems nobody has put the last three months’ data into the graph. Curious as to what that data might indicate, I did a Google search for 2009 USA temperature records and came up with two short statements about two of the three missing months. I treated that information as being anecdotal, but it was better data than no data. It was also accurate information, as far as it went. Thank you, Michael Sweet, for directing me to the NCDC Climate Monitoring reports (although your link doesn’t seem to work). The Global Mean Temp Anomaly Maps for the three months I consider to be missing from the Figure 1 graph generally confirm the statements I obtained from the Google search, specifically, Oct 2009 - most of contiguous USA, especially the upper midwest, up to 5C below the 1961-1990 base period. Nov 2009 - contiguous USA mostly above the base period (up to 5C) Dec 2009 - contiguous USA mostly below the base period (up to 4C). We do not know from this added information whether there were *any* record high or record low temperatures at individual weather stations in the USA during those three months. However, this added information suggests to me that the 2000’s record high temperature bar might grow some, and the 2000’s record low temperature bar might grow some too, and probably a little more. I do not believe the three months missing data is likely to significantly alter the 2.04:1 ratio derived from 117 months, but I don’t know. I do believe it would be appropriate for each decade represented on the graph to have the same number of months. The graph is apparantly part of a study by authors at NCAR, Climate Central, The Weather Channel and NOAA published in Geophysical Research Letters. I don’t have any leverage with those good folks (nor anybody else) to make the graph cover the entire 60 year period. I figured, however, someone reading this blog might. I’m really just asking for a nifty graph that currently covers 59 years and 9 months to be revised so that it covers an even 60 years.
96215. michael sweet at 10:47 AM on 10 February 2011
       So, you think that learning about climate change needs to be tedious?
       Baerbelw: I think the main issue with the sea level problem is that the problem is so huge it is difficult to summarize. I cannot think of anything that really describes the problem well. Your choice is good. Millions, billions, trillions eventually it adds up to real money.
96216. Philippe Chantreau at 10:32 AM on 10 February 2011
       How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
       Johnd if it is so obvious but ignored, why is Spencer not putting it in a paper? Spencer throws all sorts of wild stuff on his blog to get the denialosphere excited but what has he published lately (or ever) that is fundamentally running counter to the consensus model of Earth Climate? I'm as unimpressed with Spencer as when the errors in his work were uncovered by others.
96217. Phil263 at 10:25 AM on 10 February 2011
       Voicing values and climate change
       @ sphaerica Totally in agreement with your analysis. BTW the message that you are suggesting is broadly the message that came out of the Garnaut Review. May be a shorter version of the Review should be made available to the public.
96218. Marcus at 10:01 AM on 10 February 2011
       Crichton's 'Aliens Cause Global Warming'
       RSVP, do you actually bother to properly *read* other people's comments? Consensus has been frequently overturned in the past-in a number of scientific fields-but only when sufficient evidence was provided to do so. As I showed in my previous post, the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology has been overturned *three times* in the space of only 30-40 years, because evidence was supplied to show where it was in error. By contrast, the members of the Cult of Denial would much rather waste our time whinging about fake conspiracies than in finding the evidence needed to overturn the consensus view on Climate Change. You go further still by wasting our time with claims that burning fossil fuels will deplete our Oxygen, when clearly even if *all* the fossil carbon ever produced in this planet's history were burned up, we'd get less than 10,000ppm of CO2 (or about 1% of the atmosphere), which in turn would reduce the concentration of Oxygen from 22% to 21%. If we were ever able to burn that much fossil carbon, btw, I'd be more concerned about having lethal amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere-assuming that we were still alive, due to planetary temperatures being about 5 degrees warmer than today.
96219. muoncounter at 08:23 AM on 10 February 2011
       Global Warming and Cold Winters
       #164: "yet another Hockey Stick!" What can I say? I'm an old Rangers fan; I guess you're a Red Wings man? Seen any octopus lately? But it's amazing how these things are so consistent. Almost like there's something to this AGW thing, despite what those nitwits in Congress think. I would rag on you for giving us Fred Upton (for those who don't recognize the name, he's a Congressman from Michigan, Yooper's home state), but he's nothing compared to the knuckleheads who come from where I live.
96220. Daniel Bailey at 08:06 AM on 10 February 2011
       Global Warming and Cold Winters
       @ muoncounter (163) Sounds like you've found (mock gasp!) yet another Hockey Stick! (cue Rimshot) Horrors... The Yooper
96221. Daniel Bailey at 07:56 AM on 10 February 2011
       Crichton's 'Aliens Cause Global Warming'
       Re: RSVP (22) I have to ask, for clarity, if English is not your native language? For your statement:

       "For instance, even if the petrolium should never run out, the oxygen will."

       Certainly leaves no doubt to the reader that you mean that the oxygen will definitely run out (emphasis added). Your amplifying comment at 13 above:

       "Combustion depends on oxygen. For all practical purposes oxygen is free "fuel" that is slowly getting consumed, and without oxygen, petrolium becomes quite useless. (I suppose the airlines will be the first to notice this problem.)"

       Further confirms that intent. So then we are left with yet another RSVP nonsciencical circus on yet another SkS thread. How nice. The Yooper
96222. johnd at 07:46 AM on 10 February 2011
       How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
       XPLAlN at 03:14 AM on 10 February, 2011, I totally agree with you regarding "But is he really asking for that?" though I think he is asking tongue in cheek rather than playing sleight of hand. I am left wondering whether Spencer is quietly chuckling to himself or pulling his hair in frustration out as he watches those who tie themselves in knots having overlooked what is most obvious to others.
96223. RSVP at 07:18 AM on 10 February 2011
       Crichton's 'Aliens Cause Global Warming'
       #16-21 Save your breath (and oxygen) on this one folks. I could accuse all of creating straw men as well, since my original comment, #9, was a conditional statement that said IF the petroleum should never run out, the oxygen will. It would just be a matter of time.
96224. BaerbelW at 07:12 AM on 10 February 2011
       So, you think that learning about climate change needs to be tedious?
       Thanks for the feedback! @Sphaerica "save side" on slide 11 was just me not finding another typo (thanks for spotting it) Slide 13 - I'm going to reword the explanation for an updated version of the quiz to make this clearer Slide 24 - I changed the question to Michael Sweet's suggestion (this was somewhat "lost in translation" as I had first created the quiz in German) @Michael Sweet Sea level rise question: I used the numbers as they were shown in the WWF/Allianz-report (I didn't want to get caught in the differences between German and British/US billions) @Phil Sorry about the double-sided printing issue - I can add one more slide as page #2 so that this works better. Thanks for your suggestion to add a link to SkepticalScience - I changed the last slide to do just that. @SME and Peter Offenhartz I see your points about using percentages. On the other hand, they aren't quite as visually intruiging as the graphics of the icecubes currently included. Also, as 0.01% is a very small number it would most likely just cause a reaction of "so what?" which in the case of the Greenland icesheet isn't really warranted. I'll wait until tomorrow in case more suggestions show up in the comments and will then upload modified versions of the PDF- and PPT-files.
96225. Peter Offenhartz at 06:37 AM on 10 February 2011
       So, you think that learning about climate change needs to be tedious?
       I agree with SME (#6) in re using percentages. The absolute numbers are meaningful only in the context of the total ice volume. If you are going to use absolute numbers you should also indicate the total world volume of ice (both poles), which is about 33 x 10^6 cubic kilometers. An even more interesting question is how much heat it would take to melt a proportion of the ice (say 0.01%) compared to the world-wide solar radiation over the course of a year...
96226. muoncounter at 06:25 AM on 10 February 2011
       Global Warming and Cold Winters
       #159: "Chicago has warmed at 0.22C for the past 4 decades." Same procedure I used here. The link to the data viewer (a website from the 'other side') is there; select the map, choose either specific GHCN stations or take the 5x5 grid. Then take the trend line on the resulting graph and select a time window. What struck me as important enough to put together the Europe post was that the recent (50 year) trends are 2-3x the 100 year trends.
96227. Phila at 06:20 AM on 10 February 2011
       How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
       Pirate: the existence of natural thermostatic mechanisms. For (hopefully) the last time, this question has been raised many times over the decades, and investigated in painstaking detail, and the evidence really does not support the existence of a natural mechanism that can account for the current amount and rate of warming. That's largely why AGW is so widely accepted. In other words, that horse bolted from the stable some time ago, and will probably not be coming back no matter how earnestly you peer at the horizon. Saying "But there could be a natural thermostatic mechanism, so let's act as though there is!" is not rational, not scientific...it's not anything but an avoidance maneuver. You're coming perilously close to creating a mechanistic version of the "God of the Gaps": In the absence of definitive proof — which any good Popperian knows is not forthcoming — every uncertainty becomes "evidence" for the only ideologically acceptable explanation for warming. However, the really interesting question here is not the degree of scientific support for AGW, but why a relatively small group of people who would ordinarily respect that degree of support reflexively dismiss it in this instance. (It's also interesting that so many people who claim to believe in "personal responsibility" and "market forces" would go so far out of their way to dismiss human agency, and to misrepresent the scientific information on which we must base our "rational" choices. But that's a rant for another day and another site.) That statement was made to set the ground rules for those who are under the false assumptions that models are fact. You and I may not do that, but others do. Can you give us a specific example of a climate scientist who assumes that "models are fact"? Because if you can't, this is simply another strawman. Which brings up a question that often comes to mind when I'm reading "skeptical" arguments: Why would I trust amateurs who can't form logically coherent arguments, or get basic facts straight, to have a better grasp of climatology than professional climatologists? This may sound insulting, but the intent is constructive: We'd all benefit from logical, coherent, well-informed criticisms of the AGW consensus, instead of the same old handwaving and misconceptions.
96228. Dikran Marsupial at 06:16 AM on 10 February 2011
       How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
       apiratelooksat50@85 I get my understanding of hypothesis tests from statistics textbooks and discussions with experienced statisticians (my research is in a branch of statistics). Frequentist hypothesis tests are widely misunderstood in the sciences, psychology is no different. Not being able to reject the null hypothesis does not mean the alternative hypothesis is false. It is easy to demonstrate that this is true. Say I have a double headed coin and you want to test whether the coin is biased or not. In that case, the null hypothesis is that the coin is fair and so p(head)=p(tail)=0.5. If I flip the coin 4 times and get a head each time, then the p-value = 0.5^4 = 0.0625. That is greater than 0.05, so we are unable to reject the null hypothesis, does that mean the alternative hypothesis is false? No, it just means we haven't seen enough data to establish that the coin is not fair. Re your comment on models. The way models were used to establish that the observed warming is inconsistent with our best understanding of natural variability was not to provide explanations or facts, but to generate testable predictions. Do you agree then that the material in FAQ 9.2 in the IPCC report answers Dr Spencers challenge? I see you have repeated your comment in 88, after it had already been pointed out that the output of models is not treated as such.
       Moderator Response: [muoncounter] Modeling-specific discussion should go to Models are unreliable. [Dikran Marsupial] my comment was on how the models are used rather than whether they are reliable, any discussion of the latter topic definitely belongs on the thread muoncounter mentions, I'll happily discuss that topic there.
96229. apiratelooksat50 at 05:58 AM on 10 February 2011
       How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
       KR I agree that the way Spencer's challenge is worded makes it difficult to make a null hypothesis. We established that earlier. Also, the models (predictions) cannot be used as factual unless determined to be true by observations.
96230. RickG at 05:55 AM on 10 February 2011
       How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
       apiratelooksat50: "Also, I know full well how modeling (predicting) is used." I've always been under the impression that modeling was a set of possible specific scenarios rather than predictions.
96231. KR at 05:48 AM on 10 February 2011
       How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
       apiratelooksat50 - The vital point is that the null hypothesis must make predictions too, not just the alternative hypothesis. If the null hypothesis is undefined (i.e., anything fits the null) then there can be no distinction made between the two hypotheses. Hence, Spencer's challenge is specious. Until a null (with some underlying hypothesized mechanism, and confidence intervals on it's predictions) is specified, he's talking leprechauns. I agree with Dikran - all hypotheses have models, implicit or explicit, which are used to make predictions. You then test the observations against those, and see which one is statistically borne out by the data, given observed noise.
96232. apiratelooksat50 at 05:35 AM on 10 February 2011
       How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
       Dikran, Every reference I find about the null hypothesis basically states the following as found at Psychology Wiki: "In statistics, a null hypothesis (H0) is a hypothesis set up to be nullified or refuted in order to support an alternative hypothesis. When used, the null hypothesis is presumed true until statistical evidence, in the form of a hypothesis test, indicates otherwise — that is, when the researcher has a certain degree of confidence, usually 95% to 99%, that the data does not support the null hypothesis. It is possible for an experiment to fail to reject the null hypothesis. It is also possible that both the null hypothesis and the alternate hypothesis are rejected if there are more than those two possibilities.it isn't statistically approved" Also, I know full well how modeling (predicting) is used. That statement was made to set the ground rules for those who are under the false assumptions that models are fact. You and I may not do that, but others do.
96233. Bob Lacatena at 05:33 AM on 10 February 2011
       So, you think that learning about climate change needs to be tedious?
       Some corrections: Slide 11 says "on save side" when I think what was meant was "on the safe side" (unless "save side" is some sort of weird Aussie colloquialism). Slide 13 explains how CO2 drops in spring/summer, but not how it rises so precipitously again in the fall/winter. I think the gap will lead the ignorant to believe that plant CO2 uptake is a mitigating factor (contrary to the clear evidence of the graph). Slide 24... I agree with Michael Sweet. The wording of the question is confusing, and hence the answers are ambiguous. Then unless one looks closely at the words on the answer slide, one can assume that "10 times as much" means that volcanic is 10 times human, rather than vice versa. You might also add a slight emphasizing the actual cost of doing something about it... that economist compute it as 1% of GDP, with worst case ("alarmist") levels of 3% of GDP.
96234. Dikran Marsupial at 05:05 AM on 10 February 2011
       How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
       apiratelooksat50@82 Firstly, it is incorrect to say that in statistics the null hypothesis is presumed to be true and the alternative hypothesis false. The p-value is the probability of the observations IF you assume that the null hypothesis is true, but that does not mean that we presume the null hypothesis is true. However, classical Fisherian hypothesis tests don't use the alternative hypothesis at all, so it may be that the data are even less likely under the alternative hypothesis than under the null when the null has been rejected! The underpinnings of frequentist statistical tests are rather subtle, and it is not surprising that people often misinterpret them in this way. In short, if you can't reject the null, then both hypotheses remain plausible, it doesn't mean you can reject the alternative hypothesis. What it does mean is that you shouldn't claim the alternative hypothesis is true based only on that specific observation. That is not the same thing as presuming the null is true at all. "And, third modeling (predicting) cannot be used as explanations or facts." O.K., you have just demonstrated that you don't have the first clue about Popper. Without making predictions, no hypothesis can ever be falsified, predictions cannot be made without a model, even if it is implicit. Models and predictions are not used as explanations or facts, so that is a straw man anyway, they allow you to test hypotheses against observations by telling you the consequences of the assumptions underpinning your hypothesis. That is not the same as saying they provide explanations or facts, and indeed nobody is saying that.
96235. Steve L at 05:02 AM on 10 February 2011
       Monckton Myth #9: Monckton vs Monckton on heat waves
       #20 -- Whoops! Thanks. I'll try to look at that paper sometime.
96236. Phila at 04:56 AM on 10 February 2011
       How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
       I'm a big fan of Popper. Then you may want to bear this quote in mind: "[T]he role of evidence is, in the main, to correct our mistakes, our prejudices, our tentative theories — that is, to play a part in the critical discussion, in the elimination of error."
96237. Bob Lacatena at 04:54 AM on 10 February 2011
       Voicing values and climate change
       Phil263, You are describing typical human behavior, which is that if something doesn't cause actual anxiety (i.e. an inbred human behavior to force you to focus on an impending but non-immediate danger), people tend to look instead for ways to rationalize it out of their lives. People want to compartmentalize things, because they have a lot on their plate, and meeting the mortgage or getting that promotion at work or the kids through college is the first priority, unless there's actual anxiety about something pressing. The underlying problem is that that sort of "it's not a problem yet" attitude is exactly where people get into trouble, when reason tells them it's a problem, but emotion doesn't. They ignore that mole on their skin, or that pain in their gut, until treatment becomes anywhere from costly to impossible. And the really deep problem is that it is a problem people should be anxious about, terribly anxious about, not because it's going to affect them today or tomorrow, but because their actions today are going to grossly affect their lifestyle (and that of their descendants) thirty years from today. The big problem with climate change as a whole is that it's slow and uneven, if relentless. Until people accept and admit that climate change is a long term problem, with long term impacts, but without solutions that do not begin today, we're all going to be in trouble. I liken this to the old parable about the man who jumped out a window at the top of a skyscraper. Every time he passed an open window, he was heard to remark "So far, so good!" I think the media, and some climate change messengers, make a bit of a mistake when they try to attribute horrific current events to climate change. It's somewhat useful, in that it helps to provoke that needed anxiety and wake people up, but the reality is that the on-topic message that should be getting to the public is:
       • Climate change takes a long time. Don't expect it to impact your life today, but that doesn't minimize its importance, or urgency.
       • Our actions today are permanently dictating future climate change (you can't thirty years from now undo the damage being done today).
       • The expense and inconvenience of making minor changes now is far less than the expense and inconvenience of mitigating the effects, enduring the suffering, and yet still needing to make major changes tomorrow.
       • Many of the changes needed now will be needed in twenty years anyway, as fossil fuels dwindle and competition for them increases.
96238. Stephen Leahy at 04:45 AM on 10 February 2011
       Voicing values and climate change
       Excellent idea. We're at this strange point in time where every country agreed to a less than 2C target but hardly anyone is doing anything to get there. But it will be difficult to have an honest discussion without it being hi-jacked by those favouring the status quo as happens in every comment section on any CC-related topic.
96239. apiratelooksat50 at 04:41 AM on 10 February 2011
       How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
       Dikran This is an excerpt from a post on another thread that I did. I hope it's not OT. We may actually find some common ground! In statistics, a null hypothesis is a hypothesis that is presumed true until statistical evidence in the form of a hypothesis test indicates otherwise. For example, in a clinical trial of a new drug, the null hypothesis might be that the new drug is no better, on average, than the current drug. We would write H0: there is no difference between the two drugs on average. Special consideration is given to the null hypothesis, due to the fact that the null hypothesis relates to the statement being tested, whereas the alternative hypothesis relates to the statement to be accepted if/when the null is rejected. H0 can be “not rejected”, or H0 can be “rejected in favor of H1”. It can never be concluded to "reject H1", or even "accept H1". “Not rejecting H0", does not necessarily mean that the null hypothesis is true, it only suggests that there is not sufficient evidence against H0 in favor of H1. Rejecting the null hypothesis then, suggests that the alternative hypothesis may be true.. Prior to discussion of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis it should be established that the Earth’s climate has gone through relatively extensive cyclical changes in temperature throughout its history. In the case of warming, the lag between temperature and CO2 is explained as follows: as ocean temperatures rise, oceans release CO2 into the atmosphere. In turn, this release amplifies the warming trend, leading to yet more CO2 being released. In other words, increasing CO2 levels become both the cause and effect of further warming. This positive feedback is necessary to trigger the shifts between glacials and interglacials as the effect of orbital changes is too weak to cause such variation. Additional positive feedbacks which play an important role in this process include other greenhouse gases, and changes in ice sheet cover and vegetation patterns. The fundamental AGW hypothesis is based on the following scientifically verifiable facts: 1) CO2 is a greenhouse gas (GHG) and contributes to the greenhouse effect by absorbing and emitting radiation within the thermal infrared range thus warming the Earth. 2) Through the use of fossil fuels over the past 150 years, humans have contributed to the current rise in atmospheric CO2 levels from 280 ppm to 390 ppm. The AGW hypothesis (H1) then basically states that: current human CO2 emissions significantly affect the climate outside of natural variations. Therefore, the null hypothesis (H0) is: human CO2 emissions do not significantly affect the climate and the variations are the result of natural processes. There are a number of rational and viable scientific objections that have been raised against various parts of the hypothesis, from the nature and sign of the forcings considered and unconsidered, to the existence of natural thermostatic mechanisms. It is the onus of the supporters of the H1 hypothesis to establish enough evidence to reject H0. That is, show where the climate has changed from any historically established norms. First, the climate must be acting significantly anomalously or abnormally. Second, the anomaly must be explained by human actions. And, third modeling (predicting) cannot be used as explanations or facts.
       Moderator Response: [muoncounter] A link to the prior comment is far preferable to repetition. To be fair, a link to prior rebuttals is also warranted. No point re-inventing the wheel.
96240. actually thoughtful at 04:33 AM on 10 February 2011
       How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
       apiratelooksat50: "I'm a big fan of Popper" - Based on past posts, I am going to guess that you are a fan of Popper in that you were exposed to his work in a philosophy of science college class and realized, in the absence of any particular issue, that Popper's methods would indeed move you towards the truth. Now you are struck by something (climate science (aka AGW)) that directly smacks your internal ideology or internal belief system in the face. Popper is still your man. So rather than keep posting the same erroneous claims here over and over - why don't you study Popper with AGW in mind? Hopefully your emotion-free acceptance of Popper when there wasn't something you are so vested in on the table will trump your current stubborn insistence on wrong ideas now. In short the challenge is to correctly use Popper to support any of your skeptic arguments. I realize you are trying to get past your blocks on climate science, and I appreciate that. But you are also very frustrating because 1) you don't appear to internalize any of the science that many, many posters have pointed out to you and 2) you teach science! Which makes it even more annoying that you don't understand it, and a crying shame that you are influencing the next generation with flawed logic. There is no problem questioning the science, there is a big problem with questioning the science, then rejecting the science with no valid reason. Go to Popper, and if philosophy is your strength and you ares still bogged down, check out W.V. Quine's Web of Belief. At least you will have some insight into why it is so important to you to reject well understood, mainstream science.
96241. Dikran Marsupial at 04:24 AM on 10 February 2011
       Global Warming and Cold Winters
       DSL@161 According to Karl Popper, a hypothesis can't be proven, but can only be corroborated (supported) by experiment and observation; however a hypothesis can be disproven, which is at the heart of falsificationism. If I have a hypothesis that a coin has two heads, and I flip it an observe a tail, then my hypothesis has been unambiguously disproven.
96242. Mike G at 04:13 AM on 10 February 2011
       Climate Change Impacts on Ocean Ecosystems
       @ Arkadiusz In addition to the issues others have pointed out, your links on NPP do not show what you claim they do. The first one, which you claim shows an increase in NPP doesn't make any claims about global NPP trends. The only trend shown is for a single grid cell in the Irminger Sea. However, if you follow the link back to the original data source at Oregon State, you do find the presentation Climate Driven Trends in Contemporary Ocean Productivity which shows a decrease in global NPP. Although the data only covers a short period, the result is consistent with in situ measurements of phytoplankton. Note that the authors of that paper warn that global NPP is cyclical, so short the short periods covered by satellite data aren't necessarily useful for determining the long-term trend. Your other link on NPP is just about a new model to convert satellite data into NPP measurements since the latter cannot be measured directly from space. Luckily though, there are other, much older methods of measuring NPP including respirometery, directly measuring chlorophyll concentrations, using Secchi disks, etc. which provide us with data independent of the satellites. It does not follow from your link, that because the satellite algorithms are still being optimized, we know very little about NPP via all other methods.
96243. arch stanton at 03:56 AM on 10 February 2011
       Monckton Myth #9: Monckton vs Monckton on heat waves
       Steve L, good example. BTW, when was the last time you heard someone say: “A record high low was set for this date last night…”?
96244. Albatross at 03:56 AM on 10 February 2011
       Monckton Myth #9: Monckton vs Monckton on heat waves
       SteveL @19, "I do not know, for example, in Albatross @17 if the abstract refers to 24 hour periods or daily maximum values." The title for the paper specifically refers to daytime temperatures, as does the abstract. So that bolded sentence refers to daytime.
96245. DSL at 03:53 AM on 10 February 2011
       Global Warming and Cold Winters
       Actually, mozart, an hypothesis is either supported or not supported by the results of experimentation and observation. There is no "prove" or "disprove" in science. Instances of experiment or observation either raise or lower the probability/certainty for a particular hypothesis and any associated theories. Jackboots, indeed! The heart of this site is the presentation of alternative theories and hypotheses to AGW. I don't recall the brownshirts offering the same type of forum to non-Aryans.
       Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] mozart just invoked Godwin's Law.
96246. Albatross at 03:51 AM on 10 February 2011
       Global Warming and Cold Winters
       Mozart @160, With respect, you are talking though your hat mate. You have clearly not read the literature, nor or you paying attention to what is been claimed by the scientists-- both observational and modelling data have demonstrated that changes in the Arctic ice cover have marked impacts on the the atmospheric circulation, both regionally and afar though teleconnections. The "warm Arctic, cold continents" is one of them, but do not interpret it to mean that all the northern continents will experience colder conditions for the entire winter. Anyways, a couple of those references are provided in the NSIDC reports that I linked to earlier, there are many more examples out there. And you are making the mistake of using data for one point in space to try and refute a hypothesis and conceptual model. Has it occurred to you that where the long-wave trough plunges southwards will vary from event-to-event? That is, each and every single negative phase of the AO is not the same, sometimes the trough will be displaced to the east, sometimes to the west. The maps that I showed above were the loading patterns derived for many events. The same holds true for ENSO, which is very well studied, each event is different-- so looking at data from one point and claiming it refutes ENSO (and its known teleconnections ) because it does not show the expected response because you cannot find a pattern in a particular metric (that you decided on) is pointless. By doing so you are missing the big picture. If you have an issue with the work of the scientists, then by all means do some research, write it up and submit it to a scientific journal for publication. to date all we have seen here are musings and some "fiddling" around with data for one location-- so I find it odd that you are lecturing others here about the scientific method and hypothesis testing. If i were you I would be asking more questions of the knowledgeable people here at SkS-- sincere questions please. Please read my post at 156-- going by your recent post, you seem to have ignored it (as well as posts made by others).
96247. Steve L at 03:34 AM on 10 February 2011
       Monckton Myth #9: Monckton vs Monckton on heat waves
       Yes, unfortunately English lends itself very well to those who would exploit its ambiguity. One example is "a day", which I interpret to mean essentially "one 24 hour period". But I interpret "day" differently if it is mentioned in the same breath as "night" -- under this latter condition the period of time is cut essentially in half. Since nights warming much faster than days is a hallmark of AGW, then it behooves us to be very precise when we're talking about record temperatures. I do not know, for example, in Albatross @17 if the abstract refers to 24 hour periods or daily maximum values. If we can't communicate meaning precisely with one another, then you can imagine how easy it is to obfuscate the meaning of scientific results to the lay public.
96248. Albatross at 03:27 AM on 10 February 2011
       Voicing values and climate change
       Mark et al., A great dialogue. I encourage you to please send this to the cabinet ministers and leaders of all the political parties in Australia. be sure to retain the SkS URL and send along a copy (or link) of the "The Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism". This piece is also just the right length for an op ed in a major daily newspaper, perhaps with a graphic showing the rise of CO2 superimposed on the global SAT record, or some similar attention-grabbing graphic. So please do consider pursuing that avenue as well.
96249. michael sweet at 03:19 AM on 10 February 2011
       Global Warming and Cold Winters
       Muoncounter: I admire your finding out that Chicago has warmed at 0.22C for the past 4 decades. Where did you get that data from? Is it hard to pull out of the database?
96250. XPLAlN at 03:14 AM on 10 February 2011
       How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
       apiratelooksat50: "Dr. Spencer is asking for a paper ruling out natural, internal climate cycles as the cause of "most" of the recent warming" That would be some paper - the one that knows everything. But is he really asking for that? Or is he merely exploiting rhetorically the unsurprising fact that no single paper exists which 'rules out the possibility of natural causes'? I'd suggest that it's the latter - and a clever sleight of hand by Spencer who finds himself with nothing of substance to offer as an alternative to AGW. It really boils down to this: until such time as Spencer actually publishes a proper alternative with sufficient detail that it can be falsified, he doesn't even have a hypothesis to challenge the mainstream theory of AGW. Just rhetoric.

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