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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 100701 to 100750:

  1. Comparing all the temperature records
    #41: Be wary of edge effects when using the Fourier transform and filters at WfT. They can be pronounced and utterly artificial. #42: Yooper, climate science is easy when you're only in it for the cherries.
  2. The Physical Chemistry of Carbon Dioxide Absorption
    nerndt @18 Decomposition rates do not have a significant effect on CO2 levels in the atmosphere, as any CO2 lost via decomposition was taken from the atmosphere to begin with. The carbon from fossil fuels on the other hand has been sequestered from the atmosphere for millions of years. The general topic is discussed here. Also, there is no need to guess about balancing effects, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is directly measurable and it is increasing rapidly. You can find the discussion here.
  3. Conspiracy theories
    Re: NETDR (42) Unless you actually had a conversation personally with Dr. Schneider you should refrain from quoting him as if you did. If you did, when was that? Do you have any way to corroborate that? If you wish to have any credibility here, exercise a little more care when composing your arguments. The Yooper
  4. Conspiracy theories
    Re: Tarcisio José D'Avila (37) Dyson is an extremely poor source to quote-mine from on things related to climate science. While an expert in his field, he admits to knowing next to nothing about climate science and in the remainder of that interview admits to merely offering up an uninformed opinion. Asking Dyson to offer up substantive opinion on climate science is like asking a pastry chef to be a rocket scientist for NASA. The Yooper
  5. Comparing all the temperature records
    PDT 41 Woodfortrees has a Fourier function and global temp data.
  6. Comparing all the temperature records
    Re: Alexandre (40) Not an expert on the satellites, mind you (and from the linked Open Mind thread it would seem even experts have some uncertainty on this matter), but my thought is this: the satellites are calibrated to read a certain way under conditions found the majority of the time. ENSO comes along & throws up a prodigious amount of water vapor and heat higher into the sky than the satellites are calibrated to "read properly". Ergo the discrepancy. Climate science = hard work. If it were easy, anyone with an urge to audit something could do it... The Yooper
  7. Conspiracy theories
    NETDR, The point I was making is that the late Dr Schneider agreed with me that the way to increase funding was to hide doubt and overstate certainty. Nowhere did he mention an increase in funding for climate studies, and nowhere did he suggest that actual science be tweaked to fit a particular view. Again, you are confusing advocacy for mitigation with advocacy for climate science, the two are related but very much distinct.
  8. The Physical Chemistry of Carbon Dioxide Absorption
    Response to Villa#11. Thanks for the response. I would think that when adding gases to the atmosphere, there may be some type of "balaning effect" where part of the atmosphere may recombine to form particulates that may go back to the ground. Response to rocco #15 I will have to read these for I would think that the raising of the ocean temps would be much more than the link you posted. Response to hfranzen #16 If the global temp increases 1deg Celsius, decomposition of matter in the oceans and land mass will increase. Any idea how much of an effect that would be? Also, based on huamn activites, can we measure increased decomposition (which increases CO2) accurately outside of calculating how much fossil fuel emissions are made. Thanks for the healthy discussion! I studied Aero/Astro in college but now I am in biotech (past 20 years - much more complicated!) and feel we are missing some key pieces in studying the earth as a control volume part of the solar system (also a control volume and not a conrol mass, since energy from the sun constantly leaves the solar system).
  9. Conspiracy theories
    The point I was making is that the late Dr Schneider agreed with me that the way to increase funding was to hide doubt and overstate certainty. See the quote in #33 The reason I said "when you are in a hole stop digging" is that your additional words strengthened my case. I can see that if to you CAGW is a given then making it more controversial might make it more interesting to study for you, but the government and public don't work like that. Schneider and I agree there are hundreds of problems all screaming for dollars to solve them and more certainty that there really is a problem would increase funding. To you there is no doubt but you are not representative of "the public"!
  10. Comparing all the temperature records
    Thanks for the answers about the 133 month averaging. That makes sense. Does any one have a link to a Fourier transform of global temperature data?
  11. Conspiracy theories
    meerkat at 06:43 AM on 24 December, 2010 OK meerkat but what what does it matter what Kuhn did or didn't think about "normal science"? Kuhn's was simply a personal effort to encapsulate/generalize something about the progression of scientific knowledge. That's what philosophies of science are. They aren't a description of what science actually is or how science is actually done at any particular point in time. In other words you can't make a vague (and incorrect as and Phila and I have described!) interpretation of what someone considers might be a generalised stage of progression within a scientific field (aka Kuhn's "normal science"), unilaterally assert that the present climate science arena conforms to this, and then attempt to bash this science with the flabby truncheon that you've conjured up! If you've got a specific problem with the nature of climate science then why not describe this explicitly? I've given you some examples of why I consider (like Kuhn did) that "normal science" is a hugely valuable (and fundamental) part of the advance of scientific knowledge. If you think otherwise then you really need to give some specific examples. as for "snark", you're suggesting by insinuation that the current areas of strong consensus constitutes a hindrance to scientific advance, and that there's some sort of unjustifiable attempt to protect a paradigm ("circling the wagons"), and seem to have a notion about "interests" of scientists that we can assume you think problematic (since you raise the point!). That's pretty snarky especially as you don't give any evidence in support of those insinuations. you could certainly help to realign this argument with the subject of the thread (conspiracies!) by giving some examples of how you consider the "interests" of scientists to be problematic (if that's what you think). But please be specific!
  12. Comparing all the temperature records
    Thanks Ian #36 and Daniel Bailey for teh response. Eli Rabett's response was more or less what I intuitively imagined... but why is it that the effect is less on the surface? Maybe the surface's mass itself helps keeping the temperature more stable? Or the lower pressure makes the water vapor content more significant?
  13. Conspiracy theories
    NETDR, Your experience with politics is not indicative of the scientific community. The collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent end of the Cold War did decrease the need for military spending. Finding out that a scientific theory, and the empirical observations supporting it, is inaccurate does not decrease the need for scientific research. No amount of exhortation on how self serving, incompetent hacks are conspiring to hide The Truth(tm) in order to protect their funding will cause the independently validated empirical observations and scientific theories to disappear.
  14. Conspiracy theories
    Interesting response, NETDR. You were familiar with a quote-mined passage that fits in with your opinion. I suspect you've used that carefully- shaped "quote" before to support your arguments. When you are shown the full context, you are unable to read it accurately, and understand the clear difference in meaning. An objective and open-minded response would see the considerable difference in meaning. "To me that part just digs the hole deeper ! When you are in a hole stop digging is rule # 1 ." Now what exactly does this comment mean? How was Schneider in a hole and digging himself deeper? It seems as if you are reading Schneider's actual comment as something additional he said later after some original comment. Otherwise your statement makes no sense. On this site, accurate use of scientific studies is valued and cherry-picking of data to fit a pre-conceived case is seen as a misleading, dishonest tactic. Equally, quote-mining and selectively using a person's words to convey the meaning you would like to attribute to them is misleading, and certainly knowingly dishonest when first done in this case. You might not have known that before what Schneider said in full, but you do now. You might want to re-read what Schneider said, with care and an open-mind, and adjust your understanding.
  15. Conspiracy theories
    NETDR >I worked for several defense contractors. When the Soviet Union cease to be a threat the company I was with closed a division and laid off thousands and I was one of them. Your analogy is not valid. The point makes the false assumption that climate science exists to save us from global warming; it does not. By definition, the purpose is to study and understand climate, whatever the result may be. The "threat" from which climate science is defending is the unknown and the unpredictable, and it's not going away any time soon. Mitigation of known risks is primarily in the domain of economics, politics, and engineering - not climate science. Why would climate scientists be working to help economists keep their jobs? Also consider the fact that the Bush administration was openly skeptical regarding the threat from global warming, yet climate science funding continued unabated turing his presidency. From the perspective of the government, the threat did not exist, and by your logic the funding should have dried up, yet it didn't.
  16. Tarcisio José D at 07:46 AM on 24 December 2010
    Conspiracy theories
    Good question. But it is very difficult to separate conspiracy of consensus on the issue of anthropogenic greenhouse because I think these two factors, conspiracy and consensus, are present in most papers and lectures. Take for example that said Freeman Dyson on "climate modellers; "They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields, farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in." In his book Pluralism: Against the Demand for Consensus, the philosopher Nicholas Rescher defined consensus as a “condition of intellectual uniformity, a homogeneity of thought and opinion.” Most sincerity was James Hansen who wrote; "Our 3-D global climate model yields a warming of ~ 4°C for either a 2 percent increase of So or doubled CO2. This indicates a net feedback factor of f = 3-4, because either of these forcings would cause the earth's surface temperature to warm 1.2-1.3°C to restore radiative balance with space, if other factors remained unchanged.” This indicates a net feedback factor of f = 3-4, because either of these forcings would cause the earth's surface temperature to warm 1.2-1.3 ° C to restore radiative balance with space, if other factors remained unchanged. " Renew, for to reinforce; "if other factors remained unchanged." By studying the thermodynamics of the atmosphere, it is known that heating the soil above the air temperature triggers the mechanism of thermal exchange by convection. And this exchange is dependent on temperature diferecial ground / air. But examine to the more than 80 meteorological stations INMET-Brazil did not find even a measuring temperature of the soil, only the air temperature (two meters above ground level). Then there is the missing link in the study of clima.Só remains the consensus because no one will say anything to the contrary.
  17. The Physical Chemistry of Carbon Dioxide Absorption
    Nerndt #10, There is a greenhouse effect on the moon due to the surface and subsurface lunar regolith (soil) , which has the property of absorbing and storing the incident solar radiation. This is the reason by which scientists are considering that the greenhouse effect on Earth depends more on the surface and subsurface regolith (soil) than on the Earth's atmosphere. Assuming this line of reasoning is based on Hertzberg and Siddons, you may want to read the discussion here. Generally speaking, linking to anonymous content on WikiAnswers is not helpful.
  18. Conspiracy theories
    #33 johnmacmot I honestly see no appreciable difference between what you posted and what I posted. A little more hand wringing and self justification but essentially no difference in the message at all. Schneider said: "And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that, we need, to get some broad base support, to capture the public's imagination." To me that part just digs the hole deeper ! When you are in a hole stop digging is rule # 1 . Sorry !
  19. Conspiracy theories
    When I worked for defense contractors we were a "team" defending our nation against the Soviet Union, and making 6 figure salaries [in today's dollars] doing it and having fun. [The type that only engineers can understand] Anyone who correctly predicted that the Soviet Union was a paper tiger and would soon collapse would have been treated as a pariah and shunned like the plague. Many in the climate industry are genuine team members working for a cause they believe in. Are they evil ? No. Are they wrong ? I believe yes. I thought even when the Soviet Union collapse that I was so valuable that i would be assigned other important work and didn't need to fear losing my job. I was wrong just like many people who study climate change are wrong.
  20. Conspiracy theories
    #32: "the consensus view is under serious attack from the skeptics" That's almost funny. If you want to see the actual condition of this 'serious attack', look at The value of coherence. Perhaps you should look at IPCC is alarmist. In the meantime, you've been doing a good job demonstrating this author's point: In typical paranoid style, they are forced to extend the net of their fantasy further and further, so that not just some scientists, but almost all of the world’s climate scientists, scientific organizations and governments are in on the fraud.
  21. The Physical Chemistry of Carbon Dioxide Absorption
    Another comment regarding #8. The CO2 in the atmosphere in GWPPT6 is based only on what is observed and reported in the Keeling curve. There is no need to consider CO2 cycles or individual losses in determining the GHG effect of CO2 so long as we have the Keeling data. On the other hand comes the question, what is the source of the increases of CO2 in the atmosphere?. I say in GWPPT6 that I see no reaonable alternative but to ascribe the CO2 increase to human consumption of fossil fuels, but that could a limitation on my part. In a way I am saying if you have a better idea please let me know, However in my experience the usual deniers claim is that it comes from the oceans and the second power point on my web site, CB with Buffering (charge balance with buffering) points out some very serious restraints on the reactions of CO2, bicarbonate, and carbonate in the ocean. Those who wish to have the oceans supplying CO2 to the atmosphere must explain the driving force causing the CO2 to evolve. The only reasonable possibility that I can see is temperature, and if this is claimed to be the cause then those who claim it must find the equilibrium constants at the elevated temperature and then calculate the amount of CO2 that evolves. Not a totally arduous task but one the results of which,from my calculation, they will find fall far short of what they are claiming. Finally, the equations of CB with Buffering are for the average temperature of the earth so if the partial presssure of CO2 increases in one place it will decrease in another and there will be no net change. As a long time professor of chemistry it seems to me the deniers have simply not done their homework.
  22. The Physical Chemistry of Carbon Dioxide Absorption
    nerndt: this link has a lot of data about the geothermal flux, if you are interested: http://www.mantleplumes.org/Energetics.html As Bibliovermis notes, the amount of energy (~40TW) is too small to make difference globally. Also, I'm not sure about the "sloughing off" question. Are you suggesting that atmosphere loss plays a role in global energy balance?
  23. Conspiracy theories
    NETDR, you have misquoted Schneider. What he said, in full, was: "On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but—which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that, we need, to get some broad base support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention about any doubts we might have. This “double ethical bind” we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both." That passage was selectively quoted, in the form you have used, by journalists, and has been repeated frequently since. You will notice the difference in meaning and intent when everything he said is included.
  24. The Physical Chemistry of Carbon Dioxide Absorption
    nerndt>There is a greenhouse effect on the moon due to the surface and subsurface lunar regolith (soil) , which has the property of absorbing and storing the incident solar radiation. This isn't a greenhouse effect at all. The surfaces of the earth and moon both have the ability to absorb solar radiation, if they didn't they would appear transparent. In fact, the key to the greenhouse effect is that CO2 doesn't readily absorb solar radiation, but does absorb infrared. You should read up on the greenhouse effect and thermal radiation.
  25. Conspiracy theories
    Several posters have made the point that claiming consensus is not the best way to obtain funding. I disagree and have some experience in a similar situation. I worked for several defense contractors. When the Soviet Union cease to be a threat the company I was with closed a division and laid off thousands and I was one of them. How many people now do what I used to do ? About 25 % but that is just a guess. Some have been reassigned to new threats like roadside bombs and IED detection but it is a shell of it's former self. I ws paid a hansom salary and know nothing about IED detection, so hiring a young cheap engineer who also knows nothing about IED detection makes business sense, but it is hard on my wallet. The point is the required skill set is different. Sure there were other defense related business but it was a game of musical chairs and I was without a chair. I retrained into IT and survived but many didn't. That is what would happen if it were proven beyond a doubt that CAGW was not true. If it were proven to be absolutely true and undeniable vast amounts of resources would be put into mitigation studies, and determining exactly how big the problem was. Since the consensus view is under serious attack from the skeptics it is in the best interest of the climate community to reduce the uncertainties and dot the I's and cross the T's. It is such a complex subject that almost unlimited funds could be spent. I have no doubt that there are many honest sincere researchers who believe in the C in CAGW and thin it is in mankind's interest to exaggerate the problem somewhat to get the public's attention, like Stephen Schneider who said: "We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." Is that an invitation to a conspiracy of silence concerning unfavorable data or results ? I think it is.
  26. The Physical Chemistry of Carbon Dioxide Absorption
    The most important spect of the oxygen to carbon dioxide conversion is that oxygen is infrared inactive - the GHG's are tri-and higher atomic molecules with infrared actives modes. Secondarily, (but given the first not really imortant) the percentage of oxgen involved in the formation of CO2 is miniscule i.e. the rate of formation of CO2 through combustion of fossil fuels is about 3+ ppm per year whereas the air is 200,000 ppm in oxygen. Thanks to Bibliovermis for the core energy loss - I knew it was small, but not how small.
  27. Conspiracy theories
    Chris Briefly, because we're going rapidly off topic, wrt to normal/revolutionary science you're overemphasising the positions Kuhn took in his debate with Popper in the 1960s and overlooking his later, post 1962 publications. Continue on hopos-l if you want, but pls. tone down the snarking! Meerkie
  28. The Physical Chemistry of Carbon Dioxide Absorption
    Nerndt, Our planet's core radiates about 0.01% of the energy in comparison to what we receive from the Sun. I apologize for not providing references as this is being tapped out from my phone.
  29. The Physical Chemistry of Carbon Dioxide Absorption
    Nerdt, why would nitrogen, oxygen or water be removed as a result of CO2 being added?? The addition of CO2 in itself is a complex business, with some being removed from the atmosphere by sinks and some being added by sources. The 'addition' is the result of these processes. On the Moon the surface temperature swings to extremes of hot at day to cold at night.
  30. The Physical Chemistry of Carbon Dioxide Absorption
    Info on the moon's temperature: As you may have learned, the moon doesn't have any air around it. The air that surrounds our earth acts as a nice blanket to keep us warm and comfy! But the moon, since it doesn't have this blanket, gets much colder than the earth and much hotter than the earth. On the side of the moon that the sun is shining on, the temperature reaches 260 Fahrenheit! That is hotter than boiling. On the dark side of the moon, it gets very cold, -280 Fahrenheit. The moon has a tenuous atmosphere comprised by argon, polonium, radon, helium, oxygen, methane, nitrogen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. There is a greenhouse effect on the moon due to the surface and subsurface lunar regolith (soil) , which has the property of absorbing and storing the incident solar radiation. This is the reason by which scientists are considering that the greenhouse effect on Earth depends more on the surface and subsurface regolith (soil) than on the Earth's atmosphere. http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/23oct_ladee/ Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_temperature_on_the_moon's_surface#ixzz18xpvUOer
    Moderator Response: [muoncounter] There's no need to past extensive quotes from an external website. A key point or two with the link is sufficient. However, the paragraphs above your NASA LADEE link do not appear in that page. Please cite more carefully.
  31. The Physical Chemistry of Carbon Dioxide Absorption
    Question: what effect does the earth's core have on the surface temperature compared to that given by the sun?
  32. Conspiracy theories
    26: "What exists is a “conspiracy of self interest”." Perhaps, but you should provide some evidence of this if you want to be taken seriously. However, compare the scale of the interest groups: Some university profs and government researchers vs. the Koch Bros. et al in their lobbying effort against California's Prop 23 is a good example. From the money spent, it's obvious who has the bigger self-interest and thus by your logic who's “invisible hand” is bigger.
  33. The Physical Chemistry of Carbon Dioxide Absorption
    First I want to say this is one of the best articles on this forum in a while. Very impressive. I'm hoping someone can explin the questions I have below: Shouldn't the energy from the core of the earth somehow need be taken into account into the temperature increase calculations caused by higher levels of CO2? Is there an assumption made that for every CO2 molecule put in the atmosphere, is a Nitrogen or Oxygen or Water molecule removed? If so, shouldn't the change in radiative effect be used istead of just the addition of the CO2 effect? I've been told that solar radiation is constantly sloughing off part of the atmosphere (more during solar flares or bursts). How does that fit into the puzzle? A real puzzling question I have: On the moon (virtually no atmosphere, no heated planet core), how quickly does the temperature change from hot to cold as the planet surface goes sunlit to shaded? On the earth, what is the time period of sunlight to cooling in the atmosphere? Is the real reason the air temperature does not hit the extremes due to the radiated heat given off in the evenings from the oceans, planet core and land mass? I feel all of these effects and temperature fluctuations must be taken into account and modeled to better understand the overall effect of CO2 in the atmosphere. Thanks so much for explaining this to me.
  34. Conspiracy theories
    NETDR, Misconceptions of the scientific community (such as "global warming research would be curtailed if it was natural") and misunderstanding of the observational records (look at argument #7, at the moment, in the top left column) are prime examples of contrarian self-interest under the guise of skepticism.
  35. Comparing all the temperature records
    John Cook et al., You could also use GrADS to process the GRIB or NetCDF data. I was using GrADS to look at the ERA-interim data a few months ago. I think that GrADS may be able to process the GRIB data and write it to an array in ASCII format, or one could perhaps even calculate the global mean SAT and output those data. GrADs is free and can be run on a Mac or Windows machine.
  36. Conspiracy theories
    Also, NETDR, this makes no sense: If global Warming were to be found to be entirely natural, funding and staffs would be drastically cut. Why? If global warming were natural, it would still be a good idea to study it, wouldn't it? Wouldn't we still want to know how hot it was likely to get, and how fast, and where? Wouldn't polar melting, drought and wildfires still be a concern? Wouldn't governments and the military be interested in the implications of natural warming for agriculture, weather patterns and the potential for regional resource wars? Wouldn't investors be interested in this information? And even if scientists en masse were afflicted with the weird complacency that natural warming seems to inspire in "skeptics," wouldn't they still be interested in studying it for its own sake, just as they study other natural phenomena? I really don't think you've thought your claims through very carefully.
  37. Conspiracy theories
    NETDR: What exists is a “conspiracy of self interest”. It is to the best interest of all climate scientists for enough plausibility be found in Global Warming AKA climate change AKA climate disruption AKA weirding weather to keep the lights on and their paychecks coming in. If global Warming were to be found to be entirely natural, funding and staffs would be drastically cut. Actually, claiming that the science is settled is not the ideal way to secure funding, for obvious reasons. If I wanted to keep the lights on and the paychecks coming in, I'd probably want to downplay the consensus. Arguably, if anyone has kept money flowing into the pockets of climate scientists, it's the people who are manufacturing doubt about their findings to such an extent that even century-old science is somehow up for debate. Beyond that, most of your claims are entirely speculative, and draw heavily on a longstanding complex of paranoid political scenarios for which there's never been much evidence (old John Birch Society tracts notwithstanding). As this post says, "we should believe a conspiracy theory only when there is strong evidence to support it." In short, anyone can throw prejudicial words like "mafia" around. How about addressing the science, instead?
  38. Comparing all the temperature records

    ECMWF global temperature data comes in two datasets: the 40-year reanalysis, covering 1957-2002, and the "interim" re-analysis, covering 1989-present. While the data is available online, it is gridded, making retrieval in this form difficult at best. However, a graph of ECMWF global temps can be found here: LINK This looks quite similar to GISS, in that the 1977-2010 slope is roughly .18 K per decade, and in that the 1998 peak has been surpassed 4 times (and essentially tied twice).

  39. Conspiracy theories
    So I posted it without caps and it was deleted anyway ? So what is up with that ? If you are discussing conspiracy theories you need to allow conspiracy theories to be discussed ! Sounds logical to me. Is global warming a conspiracy ? Did a group of scientists go to a back room and make up Global Warming to make a lot of money. Of course not. What exists is a “conspiracy of self interest”. It is to the best interest of all climate scientists for enough plausibility be found in Global Warming AKA climate change AKA climate disruption AKA weirding weather to keep the lights on and their paychecks coming in. If global Warming were to be found to be entirely natural, funding and staffs would be drastically cut. Does it take a conspiracy with a central co-coordinator to assure us that human beings will act like human beings ? Many like the late Stephen Schneider think that exaggerating certainties and hiding uncertainties is justified for the good of the planet. Is the price of sugar a conspiracy or the result of thousands of people dong what they think is in their own self interest. ? The “invisible hand” works in all other aspects of human civilization, to believe it doesn’t in climate science is naïve. To be fair around 1998 when there had been many [20] years of continuous warming I can see why the climatologists were concerned. I would have been too. They projected the current temperature rise to mean 3 ° C by 2100. [They exaggerated the rate by about 3 X] They didn’t have a crystal ball to tell them that over the next 12 years temperatures would be flat or slowly fall. And they didn’t have enough knowledge of history to know this 60 year cycle was normal. Studying global warming seemed to make sense. Of course once the laboratories had been built and the scientists hired there was a “constituency “ for further research. Most scientist just want to study something and get paid for it and the best way to do that is to go with the flow. Climate change or global warming in the title of your study triples the chances of it being funded by government or Greenpeace or WWF. After you take their money you had better find serious consequences if you ever want to get any more $.
    Moderator Response: The offending portions of your post have been deleted. Please use this as a future reference for what is or is not permissible given the comment policy for this site.

    Also note that the comment regarding warming since 1998 is addressed here. Please review the List of Skeptic Arguments prior to posting and ensure your comments are placed in the appropriate thread.
  40. Conspiracy theories
    meerkat: Kuhn's question about scientific practice, which he never resolved, was what value should be placed on what he called normal science. One answer he gave was that the historical value of normal science was to throw up empirical anomalies that eventually require a new theoretical framework, incommensurate with the previous one, with stronger capacity to explain and predict. First, that's really not what's happening with AGW. There is no crisis, in Kuhn's sense, and there are no empirical anomalies — at least, that I'm aware of — that are not explicable within the standard theoretical framework. If you disagree, please provide examples. Second, I'd echo Chris at 22, and say that your view of what Kuhn thought about "normal" science isn't quite correct. You might try reading The Road Since Structure, in which he explains more clearly why he believes normal science is both valuable and authoritative, and states specifically that when it comes to choosing one theory over another, "trained scientists should be the highest court of appeal." You can also read a late interview with him here, and consider whether it supports your account of his views. I'd also echo Chris on Feyerabend, and add that Pierre Bourdieu's Science of Science and Reflexivity provides a somewhat more rigorous take on these issues (particularly the issue of "interests"), without falling prey to "the naively idealized vision of the 'scientific' community as the enchanted kingdom of the ends of reason" or "the cynical vision which reduces exchanges between scientists to the calculated brutality of political power relations." Speaking of which: "One area where I would continue to disagree with commentators is on the role of interests, which are as present in science as in any other area of human activity." The claim that commenters here are unaware that scientists have interests comes pretty close to being insulting. To an extent, it sounds like you're having the argument you want to have, rather than responding to things people have actually said. I've occasionally run into "skeptics" who have just skimmed Kuhn or whomever, and think that no one but them has ever considered the extent to which knowledge is socially constructed. It's a bad assumption to make. Of course scientists have "interests." However, one of these interests tends to be accuracy, for reasons that include grubby personal motivations but are not limited to them (Bourdieu's concept of "a regulated struggle" that takes place in "the singular conditions of the scientific field" is helpful in understanding this). Finally, the Wittgenstein quote is "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.". It's about the limits of language, and is too perfect to mess with. I'm familiar with the quote, thanks. My version was a continuation of meerkat's joke at #14.
  41. Comparing all the temperature records
    #9 pdt : you've already been answered, but to plug an old blog article I wrote, [here] is an explanation with graphs. As snowhare explained, 133 months is a reasonable choice!
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] Fixed link.
  42. Comparing all the temperature records
    Alexandre there is a short discussion on sensitivity of MSU's to ENSO at Open Mind
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] See also the Rabett's comment a bit further down that discussion here.
  43. Conspiracy theories
    Why are my posts being deleted ?
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] Your previous 2 comments were deleted as they were in violation of the Comments Policy. Specifically, this part: "Any accusations of deception, fraud, dishonesty or corruption will be deleted" and this part: "No ALL CAPS" As this is a post on conspiracy theories, a certain amount of latitude will be allowed, but be careful with any insinuations (speaking in generalities is advised).
  44. Conspiracy theories
    meerkat at 21:54 PM on 23 December 2010
    "One area where I would continue to disagree with commentators is on the role of interests, which are as present in science as in any other area of human activity."
    You need to provide examples I think. "Commentators" on this thread have given examples of "interests" (corporate/political) that have resulted in misrepresenting science for self-serving purposes. These are blatant attempts (conspiricies) to skew perception of scientific knowledge, often to the detriment of the public at large, and they continue to occur, including in relation to climate science. There's no question that science, being an activity pursued by humans, is subject to "interest" (you would find the rather racy writings of Paul Fayerabend useful to explore this!). But the interests of scientists (proper scientists who make up the vast majority of scientists in the public and industrial spheres) have a strong interest in (i) making true discoveries (ii) getting it right, since the very nature of science (it provides explanations of the natural world and thus can only temporarily make excursions up self-serving false routes), means wayward approaches are found out, often rather quickly. So science creates a framework that predisposes to honesty and care. That's not to say that vanity, the desire for personal advance, and other human traits don't add a delightful frisson to the process!
  45. The Physical Chemistry of Carbon Dioxide Absorption
    Oh, yes, I forgot to add the first point I thought of! People in category 3 may deserve credit, as the article says, but people in category 4 dominate politics -- and have since long before global warming:(
  46. The Physical Chemistry of Carbon Dioxide Absorption
    This is an impressive article. Unfortunately, in the email, the paragraph breaks were dropped, which made it unnecessarily hard to read. But I see the original on the web site had paragraph breaks in reasonable places, so yes, it is impressive and well written in many ways. But (you knew there was a 'but' coming, right?) since it is targeted for "the interested layperson", it needs more figures breaking up the text at intervals (not necessarily regular). And it really didn't need that much repetition of "trasmittance + absorbance = 1", especially not once that is illustrated (hint, hint). Finally, the "interested layperson" is not going to know what a "wave number" is, yet it it referred to w/o comment in the sole figure in the article. Normal people think in wavelength or frequency, only spectroscopists think of "wave numbers";)
  47. Conspiracy theories
    meerkat at 21:54 PM on 23 December 2010
    “Kuhn's question about scientific practice, which he never resolved, was what value should be placed on what he called normal science….
    Lots of problems with that paragraph meerkat, and if you are writing a paper on this subject you should explore I little deeper I think: (i) I don’t agree that Kuhn never resolved to his own satisfaction the “value” to be placed on normal science. I’m not going to plough through his book again, but perhaps you could point out the sections in which that interpretation is apparent. My understanding is that he considered “normal science” paramount to scientific progress else scientific progress simply stops; there would simply be no empirical framework for accepting or rejecting theories and fuelling novel thought that leads to paradigm shifts. In fact although you seemingly consider with your fanciful notion (“circling the wagons” !) that strong efforts to explore and interpret the world within prevailing paridigms makes it “more difficult to achieve scientific progress”, Kuhn thought exactly the opposite, i.e. that the general community of scientists should be robust in supporting the current paradigm so that careful experimentation and interpretation will expose any flaws that exist within it, and so that any novel (potentially paradigm-shifting) ideas are given a good sceptical “workover”! (ii) In any case what does it matter what Thomas Kuhn thought in 1962?! It would be lacking scepticism in the extreme to judge contemporary science solely in Kuhnian terms, for 2 reasons: (a) because many subsequent philosophies of science likely provide a more realistic account of the nature of modern scientific progress [e.g. I would say that both Stephen Toulman and Paul Fayerabend (!) have provided more realistic accounts of the nature of scientific advance]. (b) because one can only really judge scientific progress in a Kuhnian sense from a historical perspective, and we can’t yet look back on contemporary science and consider what new paradigms arose and why. Of course we can be sure that the faux-paradigm of climate “contrarianism” will not prevail since this is neither a scientific one, nor does it have any sort of coherent framework! (iii) You need to address what you mean by “value” …. what value should be placed on what he called normal science….. As in (i) I consider Kuhn was pretty clear about the fundamental value of “normal science”; but you should really think more carefully about what you mean by “value” in the context of contemporary “normal science”, since it seems you’re attempting to bypass objective assessment of science you seem not to like, and and “trash” this science by a self-serving interpretation of Kuhn…. (iv) ….. so forget Kuhn (you’re writing a paper after all and so you should be a little sceptical of lazy interpretations!), and explore examples of scientific advances that have arisen since Kuhn. That might help you to think about the “value” of “normal science” on more objective terms. For example: (a) The discovery of the structure of DNA (revolutionary science; paradigm shift; Nobel prize for Watson Crick and Wilkins): This discovery simply wouldn’t have been possible at that particular time without a supporting framework arising from “normal science” including knowledge of the base ratios in DNA (Chargaff’s rules), the nature of isomerisation of the bases in DNA; understanding the nature of the hydrogen bond and electrostatics; the physics of X-ray fibre diffraction and so on. I don’t think Kuhn would have considered these aspects of “normal science” to be lacking in “value”! (incidentally, one might debate whether some of these might be assigned “paradigm shifts” in their own right). I would say the discovery of the structure of DNA has strong elements of Fayerabendian philosophy! (b) The invention of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) (incidentally, I wouldn’t necessarily call this a “paradigm shift”; Nobel prize for Mansfield and Lauterbur). I would say that this discovery is within the realm of “normal science” ‘though one could quibble about that. I don’t think anyone would question the “value” of this invention or the contributions it has made to basic understanding in anatomy, physiology, biochemistry and medicine. But it follows almost inevitably from a long series of incremental theoretical, and technical advances within the framework of “normal science” (the discovery of magnetic resonance in the late 30’s/early 40’s, and its development through the following decades, the application of spin physics to nuclear spin transitions driven by electromagnetic pulses, the invention of Fourier transform NMR methods, the development of computers with sufficient computational and storage power to collect and process the large digital datasets, the development of high field magnetic and invention of superconducting magnets, etc. etc.). perhaps you could illustrate your Kuhnian ideas with examples...
  48. Comparing all the temperature records
    Note that JRA (Japanese reanalysis) is a different thing from the JMA surface temperature analysis which John linked from the response to my comment 11. The GRIB format, specially designed for gridpoint meteorological data and authorized by WMO, can scale gridpoint values as integers of an arbitrary number (e.g. 11, 12 or 13) of significant bits without padding insignificant bits. This saving of storage has merit when we use data at high spatial and temporal resolution (e.g. global in 1 degree latitude/longitude grid, 30 years in 6 hour time step). (NetCDF has some capabilities of compression, but is not so strong as GRIB at compression by scaling.) When we keep monthly mean gridpoint values, probably we do not need this level of storage saving, so the most convenient format seems (to me) binary 4-byte floating numbers simply put in an array. But then we need ancillary information in a companion text file. ECMWF prefers GRIB probably because of consistency with data at high time resolution. When we want just monthly mean global mean values, probably the most convenient form will be ASCII text.
  49. Comparing all the temperature records
    @32. Daniel Bailey If only all my questions were answered so quickly and comprehensively I would be a wise and wealthy man. :) Thanks v. much. David.
    Moderator Response: (Daniel Bailey) You're very welcome! If only all commenters here were half so polite I would be wealthy in friends, at the very least. :)
  50. Conspiracy theories
    Many "skeptics" claim that climate scientists try to convince us that humans are causing global warming in order to advance their own career and financial interests. I consider that claim laughable. Arguing about motivations is basically a distraction to avoid arguing the facts, which support AGW. But while we're on the topic of motivations, aren't those skeptics just following their own financial interests? They believe that a response to AGW would cost them money. And they think that they can avoid the cost of slowing or stopping AGW if they can convince themselves and others that AGW is a conspiracy.

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