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Phil263 at 10:25 AM on 10 February 2011Voicing 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. -
Marcus at 10:01 AM on 10 February 2011Crichton'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. -
muoncounter at 08:23 AM on 10 February 2011Global 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. -
Daniel Bailey at 08:06 AM on 10 February 2011Global Warming and Cold Winters
@ muoncounter (163) Sounds like you've found (mock gasp!) yet another Hockey Stick! (cue Rimshot) Horrors... The Yooper -
Daniel Bailey at 07:56 AM on 10 February 2011Crichton'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 -
johnd at 07:46 AM on 10 February 2011How 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. -
RSVP at 07:18 AM on 10 February 2011Crichton'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. -
BaerbelW at 07:12 AM on 10 February 2011So, 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. -
Peter Offenhartz at 06:37 AM on 10 February 2011So, 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... -
muoncounter at 06:25 AM on 10 February 2011Global 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. -
Phila at 06:20 AM on 10 February 2011How 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. -
Dikran Marsupial at 06:16 AM on 10 February 2011How 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. -
apiratelooksat50 at 05:58 AM on 10 February 2011How 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. -
RickG at 05:55 AM on 10 February 2011How 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. -
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. -
apiratelooksat50 at 05:35 AM on 10 February 2011How 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. -
Bob Lacatena at 05:33 AM on 10 February 2011So, 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. -
Dikran Marsupial at 05:05 AM on 10 February 2011How 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. -
Steve L at 05:02 AM on 10 February 2011Monckton Myth #9: Monckton vs Monckton on heat waves
#20 -- Whoops! Thanks. I'll try to look at that paper sometime. -
Phila at 04:56 AM on 10 February 2011How 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." -
Bob Lacatena at 04:54 AM on 10 February 2011Voicing 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.
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Stephen Leahy at 04:45 AM on 10 February 2011Voicing 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. -
apiratelooksat50 at 04:41 AM on 10 February 2011How 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. -
actually thoughtful at 04:33 AM on 10 February 2011How 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. -
Dikran Marsupial at 04:24 AM on 10 February 2011Global 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. -
Mike G at 04:13 AM on 10 February 2011Climate 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. -
arch stanton at 03:56 AM on 10 February 2011Monckton 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…”? -
Albatross at 03:56 AM on 10 February 2011Monckton 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. -
DSL at 03:53 AM on 10 February 2011Global 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. -
Albatross at 03:51 AM on 10 February 2011Global 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). -
Steve L at 03:34 AM on 10 February 2011Monckton 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. -
Albatross at 03:27 AM on 10 February 2011Voicing 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. -
michael sweet at 03:19 AM on 10 February 2011Global 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? -
XPLAlN at 03:14 AM on 10 February 2011How 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. -
arch stanton at 03:11 AM on 10 February 2011Monckton Myth #9: Monckton vs Monckton on heat waves
Steve L, Billyjoe, Clonmac, villabolo, others, If I may- Ambiguosityologist (am-big-U-osity-olo-gist); someone who makes a practice of intentionally manipulating vague or unclear terminology, or someone who misuses highly technical terminology, with the intent of misleading for propaganda purposes. E.g. the Viscount Monckton.Moderator Response: [DB] Fixed text per request. -
michael sweet at 02:57 AM on 10 February 2011So, you think that learning about climate change needs to be tedious?
These are terrific slides. I think your point about disguising information as fun especially good. I would change the volcanoes question to: How much more CO2 is due to human activity than volcanoes? I find your wording hard to read. I would change the sea level rise question to emphasize the cost more. $25,000 billion doesn't mean much to me. Perhaps 25-28 Trillion dollars would work. The cost is so phenominal that it is difficult to convey properly. -
Dikran Marsupial at 02:49 AM on 10 February 2011How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
apiratelooksat50@78 That is precisely the point I was making! It was not correct to assert that Spencer's challenge was valid simply becuase the definition of "natural internal cycles" was left unspecified, so the hypothesis was impossible to falsify. Essentially it is fine as rhetoric, but it isn't valid science. If you try and specify what "natural internal cycles" actually means and specify mechanisms to the point you can actually define what is and what isn't consistent with the hypothesis, you will end up with somthing rather like a coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model (AOGCM). At which point the experiment has already been done and it has been shown that the observered warming is not consistent with natural cycles, see the post by Daniel Bailey. Dr Spencer ought to be well aware of this, as it is "Frequently Asked Question 9.2" on page 702-3 in the most recent IPCC WG1 Scientific Basis Report. The spread of the model runs tells us what is consistent with our current knowledge of "natural variability" and the current warming lies outside the spread of the model runs if anthropogenic forcings are excluded, which means that the observed warming can't be explained by our best understanding of natural variability. P.S. If you think Spencer's challenge doesn't require a well-defined hypothesis, you do not understand Popper at all. Falsificationism requires as well define hypothesis, that much ought to be obvious to anyone who has even dipped into his writing, never mind a big fan! -
MichaelM at 02:46 AM on 10 February 2011Crichton's 'Aliens Cause Global Warming'
Oxygen 209,460ppm and CO2 398ppm. Could RSVP give some 'scientific' soutces for oxygen running out? To give someone their due respect, sometimes = pointing and laughing. -
apiratelooksat50 at 02:08 AM on 10 February 2011How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
Dikran, First, we would need to define and agree what constitute "natural internal cycles". Otherwise we would be arguing semantics. I see your point about using the scientific method and agree with it. I'm a big fan of Popper. Perhaps Spencer should define a hypothesis, though I am not sure his challenge requires a hypothesis to be formed. -
Daniel Bailey at 01:54 AM on 10 February 2011Crichton's 'Aliens Cause Global Warming'
Re: SteveS (18) As Albatross has stated previously, RSVP has set up a straw man argument (the implicit unspoken statement is twofold: that plant uptake will offset rising CO2 emissions and that if we burn it all then the oxygen will be consumed). The statement clearly demonstrates a lack of understanding of the physical world and the carbon cycle. As to the trace gas depleting a non-trace gas statement: we can actually measure this and it is happening (this graph sums it up nicely):
Further discussion on that here.
The Yooper
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Daniel Bailey at 01:40 AM on 10 February 2011Crichton's 'Aliens Cause Global Warming'
@ XPLAIN (8) Sounds better than most of the drivel coming out of Hollywood these days. Is there a part in it where they find a thriving colony of denialasauri lomborgasi on a remote island (and do they nuke them from orbit)? I'd pay money to see that. Well, only if the popcorn was good. The Yooper -
Dikran Marsupial at 01:32 AM on 10 February 2011How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
apiratelooksat50@76 Sure. For Spencers challenge to be valid, rather than merely rhetorical, the "null hypothesis" that the majority observed warming is due to the natural variability of the climate, must be a valid scientific hypothesis. A requirement of a scientific (rather than a non-scientific) hypothesis is that there exists at least the potential to disprove the hypothesis should it be false. This is a well established part of scientific method, stemming from the work of Karl Popper. It is my contention that the hypothesis of "natural variability" is unfalsifiable, simply becuase the mechanism of "natural variability" is left unspecified, which means there is no means of establishing which phenomena are consistent with the hypothesis and which are not. Thus *anything* we actually observe can be blithely attributed to "natural variability". It would be easy to prove my contention wrong, by giving an example of an amount of warming that is not consistent with the theory of "natural variation" and that was my challenge - specify a condition that is definitively excluded by Spencer's hypothesis. I am happy to clarify further any of these points, if required, but please try to specify exactly what it is that you don't understand. -
apiratelooksat50 at 01:14 AM on 10 February 2011How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
Dikran Can you please rephrase your question? -
SteveS at 00:49 AM on 10 February 2011Crichton's 'Aliens Cause Global Warming'
#16 RSVP: "As far as your comment on the oxygen supply, plants and algae. If CO2 ppm is going up, you must assume that oil combustion is outpacing plants and algae." One of the comments I continually get from someone where I live is that CO2 is a trace gas. I fail to see how increasing a trace gas will deplete a non-trace gas in any appreciable way (unless you believe we're going to be raising the quantity of CO2 to non-trace levels). Do you have any numbers for this? -
Alden Griffith at 00:41 AM on 10 February 2011Crichton's 'Aliens Cause Global Warming'
@RSVPOn the otherhand, there are also things that do not require science to be known. For instance, even if the petrolium should never run out, the oxygen will. So at some point, regardless of global warming, alternative forms of energy will take over.
I'm confused as to why we don't need science to know this. Using "science" to examine this question shows that we could burn through all known fossil fuel reserves without making much of a dent in atmospheric oxygen. We have far greater problems than the non-problem of oxygen supply. -
Bern at 00:28 AM on 10 February 2011Voicing values and climate change
Phil, the obvious answer to the "natural cycles" bit is to compare with tides. Tide comes in, tide comes out, all's good. But what if, each time the tide came in, it was a little higher up the beach? And each time it went out, it didn't go out quite as far as last time? Surely that would be an issue worth worrying about? I hope this new blog comes up with good discussions of possible approaches to fixing the problem of CO2 emissions. Many 'solutions' are net-cash-positive in the long term - such as energy efficiency - I've heard of industrial cases where a $150,000 cost is recovered within two years, and after that it's all gravy (and how many businesses would say no to an extra $50k-$75k profit every year?) -
HumanityRules at 23:41 PM on 9 February 2011So, you think that learning about climate change needs to be tedious?
Moderator #6 One point. From the graph 2010 seems to start at -700 and end at -1150, that's more like 450 Gigatons. I think what you mean is that 600 Gigatons was lost during the melt season, some weight was put on either side of this period.Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] Fair point. Net losses vs peak losses in a noisy time series (thank you for pointing that out). But the system is displaying signs of increasing de-linearity and needs further monitoring. -
RSVP at 23:38 PM on 9 February 2011Crichton's 'Aliens Cause Global Warming'
#15 MichaelIM "If you are going to make stuff up " Sorry if science is second nature to me, as I cant distinguish from what I know and what you call science. As far as your comment on the oxygen supply, plants and algae. If CO2 ppm is going up, you must assume that oil combustion is outpacing plants and algae. Maybe you can "make up some stuff" to explain how this is not so. -
Phil at 23:04 PM on 9 February 2011So, you think that learning about climate change needs to be tedious?
I printed the PDF to put in the Kitchen at my workplace but printing double sided means that the answers are on the front and the questions on the back of the previous page ! I printed out pages 2-25 and then 1 and 26 separately. It would be nice to include the Skeptical Science URL in it too -
Phil263 at 22:22 PM on 9 February 2011Voicing values and climate change
Look forward to the UWA blog too. Just one comment about Mark Edwards' post. While a majority of Australians may think privately that CC is a serious issue, I am not certain that everyone is actually convinced that 1)the impact is going to be significant 2) that we need to do something about it now. Even the recent natural disasters that we had in Queensland did not seem to raise that awareness. I had actually many people telling me " Oh, you are going to say that it's all related to climate change, but it isn't really, it's all about natural cycles..." I think that there is a bit of the "head in the sand " attitude here. People sense that may be our activities are harming the environment, but if we took the science seriouisly we would have to change the way we live and we don't really want to change. This is like someone who is addicted to junk food, who is getting overweight because of it, knows that this habit is likely to cause problems in the future, but still doesn't want to modify their diet because they love junk food so much! This attitude to the CC issue is certainly compounded by the fact that some powerful corporate interests and conservative ideologues work hard to spread doubts about the science. But their attempt at disinformation wouldn't go very far if it did not resonate somehow with private attitudes.
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