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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 103601 to 103650:

  1. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #86 Bibliovermis I have no problem with Tyndall's observation that H2O vapour and CO2 absorb and emit radiation and, as you write:- "If there is a net difference in the energy flows, yes. If the net energy flow is zero, no." But in #83 CBDunkerson wrote:- "Every object in existence emits energy in all directions and this energy flows into all surrounding objects regardless of their relative temperatures." You can't both be correct.
  2. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    Eric, I suggest you are not a skeptic, but an ill deemer.
  3. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    damorbel, The experiment you are describing was first conducted by John Tyndall in 1859 & the results published in 1861. American Institute of Physics: The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect On the Absorption and Radiation of Heat by Gases and Vapours, and on the Physical Connection of Radiation, Absorption, and Conduction
    Tell me something, as the energy flows do the temperatures of the objects change?
    If there is a net difference in the energy flows, yes. If the net energy flow is zero, no.
  4. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    Marco, thank you, that is a great example. Ljungqvist shows in figure 3 how the proxies vary by shading two standard deviations in temperature from the proxy means versus time. His use of two standard deviations is justified in figure 2A and by the fact that 2 standard deviations is only +/- 0.12 degrees in the verification period. This depiction is not by any means "arbitrary". In contrast the claim above is that "Many of Briffa’s emails actually suggest a desire to ensure that uncertainty was fully explained." But instead we see an arbitrary calculation and coloring of a reconstruction "scoring" (quotes in the original text) which simply ignores the fact that each of the reconstructions had at least one input data set in common. Not just arbitrary but misleading due to the overlap. So where is the rigor that Briffa claims to want to pursue? I suggest that he settled for "gets the message over" instead.
  5. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #83 CBDunkerson you write:- "Every object in existence emits energy in all directions and this energy flows into all surrounding objects regardless of their relative temperatures" Tell me something, as the energy flows do the temperatures of the objects change? If the temperatures change (they will!), can you say how and why?
  6. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    KL, Your "arguments" make no sense whatsoever. Do you now deny that the planet has warmed since 1960? The other day you told me that you agree the planet has warmed. So why keep a specific chronology if it is well-established that the trees in the Yamal region, for some reason, are no longer behaving as suitable thermometers? You seem to think that the "divergence problem" applies to all the dendro chronologies, it does not. Would you rather that they used misleading and erroneous paleo data even though scientists knew from multiple, independent observational data that the planet had warmed quite a bit since 1960? Sorry, but you really do need to learn more about paleo reconstructions and dendro chronology, before opining on these matters. Your comments thus far, indicate that you are only too happy to believe/see whatever fits your ideology, even if it means ignoring the facts and science. Nothing nefarious is going on here; really there isn't. And the data were not "simply" discarded as you claim. As you and others have been told multiple times, several papers have been written on the "divergence problem" going back to 1998.
  7. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #81 Ned you write:- "What do you mean when you say "simply by being there"? Taken literally, that's an absurd suggestion, and one that has nothing whatsoever to do with the greenhouse effect." Take a balloon full of O2/N2 mixture and measure its temperature at various places, top bottom etc.; add some CO2, do you expect any of the temperatures to change? Replace all the O2/N2 mixture with CO2, do you expect a temperature gradient anywhere? If you found one, would you be able to use it to drive an engine? PS1 You can heat the balloon with radiation if you wish. PS2. Temperatures must have stabilised before you do the measurements, just like in the atmosphere.
  8. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    fydijkstra.... I would suggest that the reason we have independent panels perform detailed reviews of issues like this is because of "inattentional blindness." The reviews are not a product of that malady. The are rational responses to it. If each of the six independent investigations had returned different conclusions we would still have an issue here of what was going on. We would have no way to evaluate what was whitewash and what was reality. But that is not what has happened. Every one of the independent reviews has returned essentially the same conclusion that there is nothing there. The chances of six different panels coming to nearly the exact same conclusions should be a strong indicator of where reality lay. You might not believe this from my posts here but I am, by nature, an extremely skeptical person. But when I am presented with convincing and overwhelming evidence I believe that I am capable of altering my position. My problem with so many of the "so called" skeptics is, they lack this very basic capacity.
  9. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    GC, Please read the first sentence of this NOAA article. Also, please look at this graphic
  10. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Damorbel and h-j-m, you've had the flaws in your position explained with simple everyday examples to the contrary which even a child could understand. You've been pointed to numerous resources which disprove your ideas at various levels of technical explanation. Yet you stubbornly repeat nonsensical mis-statements of the second law of thermodynamics. Every object in existence emits energy in all directions and this energy flows into all surrounding objects regardless of their relative temperatures. Since the amount of energy released by objects increases with the amount of energy they contain this inherently means that NET energy flows always run from 'hot' to 'cold'. Your belief that this means energy can ONLY flow from 'hot' to 'cold' is simply nonsense, and rejected as such by all but the outermost looney fringe of modern physics. Energy enters the Earth's climate from the Sun. Greenhouse gases delay the escape of this energy from the atmosphere just as insulation on a house delays the escape of heat generated by a furnace. This delay in energy escape means that the steady incoming energy from the Sun/furnace is supplemented by retained energy which has not escaped yet due to the greenhouse gases/insulation. Thus, the Earth/house is warmer with the greenhouse gases/insulation than without. Really. Insulation on your home DOES actually exist. It DOES allow your house to be warmed to higher temperature than it could without the insulation. This is reality... not a violation of the second law of thermodynamics. You have experienced it actually happening... so why cling to a misinterpretation of physics which says it CANNOT happen?
  11. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    KR, first you say my argument is wrong because any electromagnetic radiation hitting any mater will get absorbed. When I specifically asked tor some evidence for that claim I failed so see any presented. But let me help you out. I assume you have already seen diagrams showing certain types of matter do absorb electromagnetic radiation at different rates depending on the wavelength constituting so called absorption bands. As a rule they show also bands where no absorption takes place. I assume this might constitute some evidence to back my argument. Now you come and accuse me of a logical fallacy saying I am missing necessary technical background. I am ready to accept that if you would be so kind as to explain what is missing in my argument that renders it invalid.
  12. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    Ned @13, Yes, and that is just one of many examples of extremely poor scholarship by McIntyre and McKitrick (2005) and in the Wegman report. But there is a long and sordid history of incompetence by skeptics here. DeepClimate solidly refuted McKitrick's misinformation about the IPCC here. Gavin Schmidt soundly refuted McKitrick and Michaels (2007) here and McKitrick and Michaels (2004) is refuted here. The 2004 paper by M&M, despite allegations of "gate keeping" by "skeptics" and despite the fact that it had been refuted was included in in AR4. In fact, there are also several papers by other scientists "skeptical" of AGW (or skpetical that the warming won't be bad) in AR4 , including papers by Douglass, Singer, Lindzen, Spencer, Christy, Pielke etc....and that is just one chapter in AR4. And as for "attacks" and spreading misinformation about climate scientists, McKitrick and McIntyre are more than happy to do that, see here for just one example. And McIntyre and McKitrick have close ties to the Barton and Wegman scandal too. The shoddy science and games repeatedly come from those claiming to be "skeptics". And look whose name keeps repeatedly coming up in that context.... Here is a link to a list of papers by "skeptics" which have been debunked/refuted.
  13. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    Eric, please see this paper to see a reconstruction using proxies that are hardly ever used. Most, if not all of these are not part of the prior reconstructions mentioned in the Wegman report. Interesting outcome of Ljungqvist's paper? His reconstruction looks very similar to Mann 2008, despite using completely different proxies. No use of methodology that creates hockeysticks according to McIntyre. No "Inverted tiljander". None of that. And yet, the result is again the same. Somewhere someone should start to realise that all the complaints by contrarians may be nitpicking about the fourth decimal. But I guess not.
  14. The Fake Scandal of Climategate
    Marco, I agree with everything you say... but I'm well past caring about the 'contrarians' (though actual contrarians are far better than this lot). As you say, they are well past any sort of reason. At the end of the day climate scientists have been exonerated and Wegman will have been disgraced. It shows that when all is said and done the nonsense these people put out eventually gets unmasked. It will also make a difference to people in the vast majority (those few who hear about it) that do not pay enough attention to really have any opinion but what they think most other people 'like them' have decided. Trying to reason with devoted 'skeptics' is pointless. They have armored themselves with delusion and disinformation and they will cling to these until their dying breath. The real 'battlefield' here is for the hearts and minds of the disinterested... and findings of 'guilty' and 'not guilty' do make a difference to them. When they hear about them at all.
  15. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    Eric writes: "Ned, the hockey stick shape issue is interesting but does not address my question." Understood, Eric. I was just responding to your very broad statement "as is the rest of the report AFAIK" (i.e., the rest of the report is factual). There are now some pretty convincing suggestions of factual errors in other parts of the Report beyond the one you're discussing. These potentially serious misstatements have been obscured by the plagiarism issue, so many people might easily miss them.
  16. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    damorbel, like muoncounter and Tom Dayton I'm often at a loss to figure out what you're trying to say. Just as a friendly suggestion, it might be helpful to try to be a bit more straightforward and clear in your comments. For example, this: I haven't found anything in thermodynamics (or statistical mechanics for that matter) about gases (of any sort) causing a change of temperature simply by being there. What do you mean when you say "simply by being there"? Taken literally, that's an absurd suggestion, and one that has nothing whatsoever to do with the greenhouse effect. So I'm sure you didn't mean that to be taken literally. But I have no idea what you did mean by that sentence.
  17. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    Ned, the hockey stick shape issue is interesting but does not address my question. My question was with what rigor was "10%" selected? More importantly, how does darker coloring which indicates more overlap in data sets become a rigorous definition of uncertainty? From my perspective the two best descriptions of uncertainty in this domain are the verification statistics for each series separately and the cross validation among the series. Briffa attempts to depict both in one diagram (fig 6.10) The attempt, IMO, lacks rigor because it does not take into account the overlap in the input data sets and in fact is biased by that overlap. Perhaps other people would consider 6.10 rigorous, and I would like to hear arguments of why it is.
  18. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    KL @ #82: "The argument then goes - if one bit of this 'science' is dodgy - how do we know that the rest is rock solid - it is called credibility - and that is what all the Climategate fuss is about." Except that is not a logical argument in any way, shape or form--and that's even if we assume for the sake of this post that the "Nature trick" does cast doubt on the reliability of tree-ring proxies. Baby, bath water, and all that.
  19. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    damorbel, your reply again completely misses the point of my comment. I was trying to refute what I thought was your claim that each individual photon carries information about the temperature of its source, and that the target of that photon can use that information to reject a photon that came from a source cooler than the target. If that was not your claim, I apologize for misunderstanding, but then I do not understand why you think the greenhouse gas effect violates the second law of thermodynamics (the topic of this post we are commenting on).
  20. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    Eric, here's an example. From the Wegman report: Figure 4.4: One of the most compelling illustrations that McIntyre and McKitrick have produced is created by feeding red noise [AR(1) with parameter = 0.2] into the MBH algorithm. The AR(1) process is a stationary process meaning that it should not exhibit any long-term trend. The MBH98 algorithm found ‘hockey stick’ trend in each of the independent replications. This figure ("one of the most compelling" in Wegman's own words) was actually produced by picking only a handful of "hockey sticks" after McIntyre's code had already thrown out the 99% of replications that didn't look like hockey sticks. The figure itself is deeply misleading, but the last sentence of the caption is especially problematic. An accurate version of that caption would have said "The MBH98 algorithm found ‘hockey stick’ trend in each of the independent replications when fed input data that we pre-screened to only include hockey sticks."
  21. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    "as is the rest of the report AFAIK" Eric, there are a number of different issues in play in the WR, and it would probably be a good idea to differentiate among them. The issues about choices of proxies are one thing, and the issues about the fundamental methodology are different. Regarding Wegman's claims about methodological flaws in Mann et al, you might be interested in reading the post that Skywatcher links to over at DeepClimate, if you haven't done so already. Aside from the plagiarism issue, there is a potentially serious problem with Wegman's claims that the methodology used by Mann produces hockey-stick shaped PCs from random data. If DC is correct, the code that Wegman used to justify this claim (originally written by McIntyre) actually generates 10,000 random data sets, tests how closely they resemble a hockey stick, and then keeps only the 1% that are the best fit. In other words, it's not Mann's method that produces a hockey stick from random data; it's McIntyre (and, later, Wegman) throwing out the mast majority (99%) of their random data that don't (by chance) resemble hockey sticks. There's no explanation in Wegman's report that this is what he did ... probably because he didn't understand that this is what McIntyre's code did. From the standpoint of the science, this seems much worse than the plagiarism.
  22. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    #78: "about gases (of any sort) causing a change of temperature simply by being there. Do you have a good link?" I don't know what you mean by 'simply by being there', but here's not just one, but two good links. And two more here.
  23. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    skywatcher, your criticism is not fair, figure 5.8 in the Wegman report is factual as is the rest of the report AFAIK. If I can be allowed a small political tangent, I have defended Mike Mann on a conservative forum (where I have posted over 10 years) against what are objectively unfounded charges of financial wrongdoing. I believe the same types of political attacks should be avoided on both sides. Of course the legal attack on Mann is much more serious than the attack on Wegman, but they are both politically motivated attacks IMO.
  24. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    Eric, afraid I can't answer your question directly, but the growing scandal over plagiarism in the Wegman Report would make me severely question the veracity of anything written within it, to say nothing of the intellectual dishonesty of the cherry-picked rehash/copy of MacIntyre's incorrect statistics that is masquerading as original material in the WR (see the recent Deep Climate article which I found at least as shocking as the original plagiarism expose by John Mashey). Why don't you look out the references from IPCC to the data in the original figure and see whether there are significant overlaps in source data for each of the reconstructions? If there are large overlaps, it's a fair criticism, but if there are not, then the criticism is as unfounded as the rest of the Wegman Report.
  25. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    I'n with you there Daniel - every day I hope that somehow the science is wrong; sadly, every day there comes no silver bullet or magic fairy to waft the physics and climatic effects of CO2 away. Arkadiusz, your third paragraph makes no sense to me. The 'divergence problem' is an issue for the past 50 years, but before that, the subset of dendro records affected by the DP track very well with other long proxies and other dendro records not affected by the DP. And of course they also track well with the instrumental record up to ~1960. The subset of affected trees may indeed not be responding to unusual warmth such as the last 50 years, but the same accusation cannot be levelled against the other trees not showing a DP, and the other proxies. What if the MWP turns out to be rather warm? Climate sensitivity must then be high, in order to drive a larger temperature change froom a small solar forcing, and we should therefore be afraid for our future given the size of the current CO2 forcing. Everybody (skeptics included) ought to hope with all their hearts that the global MWP signal is closer to Mann's estimate (cooler) than any estimates indicating a warm MWP...
  26. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #77 muoncounter, you wrote:- "there is a recurring skeptic/denialist meme that the enhanced greenhouse effect somehow violates thermodynamics." I haven't found anything in thermodynamics (or statistical mechanics for that matter) about gases (of any sort) causing a change of temperature simply by being there. Do you have a good link?
  27. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    In the 3/2/2006 email, Briffa is saying that he doesn't want to allow the "uncertainty to swamp the magnitude of the changes through time" and that his goal is to "get the message over but with the rigor required for such an important document". Can someone explain how the color selection is rigorous in figure 6.10 here http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch6s6-6.html where it explains that the arbitrary value of "10%" with the faint color indicates that the outlier fell within one SE in only one reconstruction and increasingly darker colors fell within more reconstructions. As shown in figure 5.8 here http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/WegmanReport.pdf, the darker colors simply indicate that much of the data was reused in the various reconstructions. I conclude that the depiction fails to have any substantial rigor considering that the darkening of the color is directly attributable to the overlap in the input proxy data.
  28. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    Re: fydijkstra It is certainly true that the repeated focus of "skeptics" on Climategate, despite multiple exonerations (truth be told: there exists no amount of investigations by no matter how impartial an arbiter that will ever acquit Mann, Jones, CRU or AGW in the mind of "skeptics") clearly indicts the "skeptics" of cognitive bias and your selfsame "inattentional blindness" charge. A continuing focus on a dead issue reeks of paranoia. Meanwhile the science of climate change is indeed as robust as ever. It is not immutable, but adapts to better understandings as they arise. Hand waving at that adaptation as proof of the falseness of AGW is revealing of the lack of understanding of science and the cognitive dissonance on display by the "skeptics" as well.
    "Which paper has definitely confirmed the warmist view?"
     Strawman argument. Where is the paper from "skeptics" overturning AGW? Anything physics-based explaining why anthropogenic-sourced CO2 doesn't act like a GHG when "normal" CO2 does? Where is the long-promised published analysis of the station drop-out issue? Where are the "skeptics" who are decrying the malfeasance already demonstrated to exist in the Wegman plagiarismgate? And your charge of hiding uncertainties is laughable. Rob Honeycutt has already shattered that myth of yours here. The reality is is that the science of climate change has moved on, and no amount of hand-waving by "skeptics" allows them to be true to the term skeptic. I would love for there to exist some mythical process that will allow the GHG effects of rising CO2 to just "go away". And I search daily for anything in the literature that is science-based that can demonstrate that it is even possible to be so. Diminishing returns is kicking in, though. Aside from espoused fantasies that are so wrong they're not even wrong, I find nothing. And hope fades. The Yooper
  29. Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 01:49 AM on 25 November 2010
    Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    ... sorry - von Storcha = by von Storch
  30. Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 01:47 AM on 25 November 2010
    Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    Is this post it is really detailed and precise explanation, or rather, sometimes (by the amount of text) does not attempt to block out the problem? For example, MWP. Record is clear: Nature, 17.02.2010 - 'Climategate' scientist speaks out: “... the past 40 years of tree-ring data are unreliable temperature proxies, and some argue that using them in older temperature reconstructions, as Jones has done, could understate past warm periods, including the MWP (see Nature 463, 284–287; 2010). "It potentially does," admits Jones, but he adds that analyses using other methods — proxy temperature markers from ice-core samples, for example — still show much the same temperature change over the past millennium.” Jones, Briffa and author of this post. They still do not understand that we would have liked to know more precisely: how much the same temperature change over the past millennium, just enough, "more accurately" - not: “... absolute magnitude of the global MWP. ...” Conscious (?) the inclusion of old, improperly calibrated data series ... “Another outstanding problem in proxy research is the large range of uncertainty for temperatures from before about 1500. Studies published in 2004 (ref. 8) and 2005 (ref. 9), based on a combination of proxies of different resolution, suggest that fluctuations in global temperature during the past millennium may have been larger than initially thought. However, these studies still show late twentieth century warming to be unprecedented, says von Storch. And the most recent decade was warmer still.”(Nature463, 284–287; 2010) Only, that “warmer” von Storcha it’s not „warmer” “Mann and colleagues” ... “As long as we don't understand why the records diverge, we can't be sure that they accurately represent the past.” In the interview (20/02/2010 - in German language) von Storch criticizes the IPCC scientific procedures, and says - for MWP: „Ihr geradezu perfekter Verlauf sollte nachweisen, dass es in den vergangenen 1000 Jahren nie wärmer war als heute. Mein Institut und andere Kollegen haben mit eigenen Computermodellen früh nachgewiesen, dass in der Methodik unzulässige Annahmen steckten.“ I do not translate this text - to not be accused of manipulation. Please use the Google option.
  31. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    fydijkstra, Yes, it is clear that a person's predispositions tend to color their perceptions. When it comes to interpretation of language, would you rather trust the judgment of someone familiar with the language and culture or someone for whom it is foreign. For instance, I work in a technical field; in that context, a 'trick' is a clever solution to a problem. Regarding Dr Mann's trick, he writes a description of the divergence and what he has done next to the graph where he 'hides the decline'. Telling the reader directly is a curious way to 'hide' anything; so, I always that this was an odd item for the deniers to choose to use equip in their arsenal. The other issues I sampled evaporated in a similar manner; the accusations were based on a misinterpretation of the language, or fell apart when a comparison was made of the statements in the email with what happened in actuality. So, no, I don't think that a middle-ground interpretation is accurate. Also, I don't think it is a fair interpretation of the AR4 to say that they downplayed uncertainties. On the other hand, I have seen uncertainty estimates omitted from what others have written about it.
  32. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    #76: "seem to have forgotten the whole dispute is about temperature." I most certainly did not forget that; I saw a high over 29C yesterday, two days before Thanksgiving! My point was -- and still is -- that one can see a broader picture of 'the state of skepticism' emerge by looking at several threads here in context and counting the contradictions. "certain posters on this thread have dismissed the science of thermodynamics" Yes, despite the number of times it is shown to be incorrect, there is a recurring skeptic/denialist meme that the enhanced greenhouse effect somehow violates thermodynamics. "2nd Law of Thermodynamics ... being the basis of all modern physics " I'd quibble with that, but its not at all the topic.
  33. We're heading into an ice age
    #117: "Blue represents an anthropogenic release of 300 gigatonnes of carbon" You've found a typo in the Intermediate Version -- John, this should refer to Figure 4. "Figure 3 examines the climate response to various CO2 emission scenarios." An excellent summary of CO2 emissions is available here. Although the cumulative emissions graph in their Figure 8 goes back to 1750, the caption states that one half of the 270 Gt as of the year 2000 was released from fossil fuel consumption since 1974. Tack on the last 10 years and we're well over the quoted 300 Gtons cumulative. See USEIA emissions data tables for the numbers.
  34. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #75 muoncounter, you wrote:- "This seems to summarize the universe of the skeptic: It is what they say it is; until they say something else and believe that too -- even if it contradicts their prior position." You seem to have forgotten that AGW is all about a rise in global temperature above some historical average i.e. the whole dispute is about temperature. Thermodynamics is the science of heat of which temperature is a measure of strength, intensity - analogous to pressure in fluids. How much heat - is a quantity measure and, for heat, is specified in Joules (ergs or calories if you like). It is interesting to note that certain posters on this thread have dismissed the science of thermodynamics (2nd Law of Thermodynamics and so-forth) as if it were some kind of fantasy, instead of being the basis of all modern physics that it is.
  35. Berényi Péter at 00:47 AM on 25 November 2010
    Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    #81 Marcus at 09:38 AM on 24 November, 2010 the divergence doesn't kick in until the 1960's The simplest explanation is Andrew Ellicott Douglass died on March 20, 1962 (at an age of 94). Up to that time tree ring data were kept in sync with climate out of respect for his climate - sunspot cycle theory. After that things started to deteriorate rapidly and climate diverged from solar activity. In this upheaval trees, for his honor alone, decided to follow sunspots, not climate.
  36. The Fake Scandal of Climategate
    CBDunkerson: let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that Wegman is found guilty of plagiarism. In that case I predict the following range of reactions: 1. Some contrarians will find confirmation of a large-scale conspiracy. Wegman was found guilty because he challenged the consensus! 2. A few other contrarians will hail GMU for an independent and thorough investigation, but moan about such a small thing as plagiarism giving such a verdict. It will be followed by complaints that the much more grievous acts by Jones, Mann, Briffa, Wahl, etc resulted in a whitewash. 3. Yet another group will insist that Wegman's guilt does not undermine the main point of M&M: Mann was wrong. Wegman's report can be thrown in the trash, but it is not needed, and they never considered it relevant anyway. 4. A very tiny group of contrarians will start to think a bit more, and wonder why a respected statistician did such a bad job, and why McIntyre and Judith Curry have been defending the Wegman report so much. Why did they not see what others have found? In other words, it will remain mostly as it was before. The lines were drawn much earlier, between those that took the NRC report as solid, and those that decided only the Wegman report was right.
  37. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Did anyone notice we now have a case of skeptical whiplash? In this thread, #65: "I do not confuse between energy movement and heat flow, I just state that temperature plays a dominant role." In a comment on another thread we read, "Temperature is not a useless metric in given circumstances. It, by itself tho, is a useless metric when talking about climate. ... When talking about climate one must think in terms of heat content. " This seems to summarize the universe of the skeptic: It is what they say it is; until they say something else and believe that too -- even if it contradicts their prior position.
  38. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    Could it be, fydijkstra, that the truth is NOT in the middle? It's actually a well-known fallacy, the golden mean fallacy. Your "inattentional blindness"-link is also irrelevant to the point you are trying to make. The investigations specifically payed attention to supposed problems. Inattentional blindness disappears when one pays specific attention to the initial blind-spot. Note also that none of the criticisms and investigations claimed uncertainties were hidden (no, the IAC review did not do so either), nor was their criticism of not being open to alternative explanations.
  39. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    Marcus #81 There is a simpler explananion: After 1960, the tree ring data did not fit the rising thermometer record - so the tree ring 'decline was hidden' by truncation. Of course thermometer temperatures have been around since about 1860 (100 years prior to 1960) so why should the tree rings from 1860 to 1960 be included at all? Well clearly the reason is that they formed one of those 'multiple lines of evidence' right up until 1960 - when ...well they didn't any more so were simply discarded. All this shows is that tree rings were probably unreliable proxies - all through the time series and that they were used only to support the narrative of increasing warming up until they started to diverge. That is the dodgy part of the 'Nature' trick. The argument then goes - if one bit of this 'science' is dodgy - how do we know that the rest is rock solid - it is called credibility - and that is what all the Climategate fuss is about.
  40. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    #34: "a colder climate is more dangerous than a warmer one. " Spoken from one point of view. Here's another: European heatwave caused 35,000 deaths European heat wave have doubled
  41. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    The discussions about ClimateGate on this site show an interesting feature: observations and interpretations of facts are never objective. Our interpretation of the facts is always coloured by our frame of reference, our theoretical background. There are people who believe, that human activities have changed the global climate, that the present global temperature is unprecedented in at least 1000 years, and that climate change will have dramatic consequences in the next century, unless we immediately stop using fossil fuels. Let’s simply call them warmists. This is not name calling, it’s just the use of a word to characterize a group. There are also people who believe, that the climate has always changed, that human activities do have a certain influence on the climate, but that natural climate fluctuations are dominant, and that we should not be too worried, because mankind has shown to be able to adapt to climate change during at least 100,000 years. Let’s simply call them sceptics. This is not name calling, it’s just the use of a word to characterize a group. Warmists and sceptics have a very different perception of the significance of the ClimateGate documents. We see it in the reactions on the 4 parts of this ClimateGate serial. Warmists claim that the 4 independent investigations of ClimateGate have fully exonerated the group of climate scientists around Jones and Mann. No conspiracy, no perverting peer review, no fraud. Nothing. And the message stands upright: the climate has changed unprecedentedly and will change dangerously, if we don’t act now. The evidence has become even stronger since ClimateGate! Sceptics consider the independent investigations as white washing. The investigations yielded some heavy critics on climate scientists and the IPCC, but this was hidden in very polite recommendations. Maybe nothing illegal has been done, but the hidden critical comments confirm that climate scientists should not hide uncertainties, and should be open for alternative explanations of the facts. Exactly what sceptics have been saying for two decades! And what is that evidence that has become stronger in the previous 12 months? Which paper has definitely confirmed the warmist view? The different perceptions of the facts that could be observed in the slipstream of ClimateGate are well-known in cognitive sciences. It is called ‘inattentional blindness:’ seeing only what you expect to see, or what you wish to see, because your frame of reference steers you in a special direction and makes you blind for other interpretations. Could it be, that both sides of the ClimageGate debate suffer from this kind of blindness? And could it be, that the truth is in the middle?
  42. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Re: gallopingcamel (34) To tag onto Marcus' comment at 35, common sense tells you that people try to adapt to change; my point was that, while you could use the referenced study to say that cold kills more people than heat, that that's not why the study was done. Did you even read the study? I did, 3 times. Which is why I had to edit my comment to avoid...having to make comments like this one. Welcome back, by the way. Also, Google climate change+maximum wet bulb temperatures. Interesting report out there (2010). Aw, heck, here it is. The Yooper
  43. Climategate a year later
    Albatros #66 "what do you believe the equilibrium climate sensitivity to be for doubling CO2?" Anywhere from 0.6 to 3.0 degC.
  44. Climategate a year later
    Albatros #66 "all 'skeptics' by association will be guilty of misconduct and cannot be trusted etc." A bit of an ambit claim there Marco. Anyone who knowingly assists or colludes with the malfeasance surely could be charged with scientific misconduct and rightly so. The act of reading and quoting from a dodgy paper in the belief that it is correct can hardly be guilt by association.
  45. Climategate a year later
    Marco #65 "Regarding your view of AGW: what are your credentials to be able to claim with such certainty that "there is great doubt about the relative contributions of the various forcings - their accuracy of measurement and particularly the future trajectory of the TOA imbalance and the OHC measurement" All I rely on Marco is the argument itself. Happy for you to refute the technicalities of my arguments rather than claim authority from a moniker. By the way I am an engineer (applied scientist) with a working knowledge of thermodynamics (first & second laws) and heat transfer.
  46. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Is that so gallopingcamel? From my experience, I've found that as it gets too cold, I simply wrap myself in more layers of clothing, & I know longer have a problem. When it gets too hot, though, there is a severe limit on what I can do to mitigate it. Sure you can get completely naked but, if you're still too hot, what then? Also, based on my knowledge of First Aid-& Human Physiology studies at Uni-my recollection is that the number of degrees C, below room temperature, that the human body can withstand without detrimental effects is much greater than the number of degrees C *above* room temperature. So no it isn't as "common sense" as you claim. As to what conditions were like 20,000 years ago, how is that even relevant to the conversation? Back then the planet was also further from the sun, & it will probably be many more millenia before it gets that far away again (probably another 10,000 to 20,000 years). Are you, then, suggesting that we should warm the planet so as to avoid a *highly* unlikely ice age?
  47. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    Intriguing highlighted quotes there James. They certainly show that there was no blind pushing by Keith Briffa of unsupported statements into the AR4. Briffa's comment about the 'hockey stick' is certainly reasonable, and shows a truly scientific version of scepticism. Funny that we didn't hear about these quotes from the vocal 'skeptics' about this time last year...
  48. CO2 is not the only driver of climate
    Hot off the press from the Journal of Climate. Cloud data supports the higher end of the estimates of climate sensitivity :-/
  49. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #61 Tom Dayton you wrote:- "I think your comment 56 is okay up to the next to last paragraph where you wrote "...incoming (hot) photons from the star," and the last paragraph's "... a few high energy photons from the hot star or a lot of lower energy photons from a much cooler planet...." " And then:- "You might have a misconception that all the photons coming from a source have the same energy, and that single energy is higher when the source is hot than when the source is cold." No misconception here, the average energy of the photons from a hot source is higher than the average energy of those from a cooler source. But you must recognise that the power (W/m^2 or J/s/m^2) in a stream of photons is proportional to the number of photons/s times hv, their energy. For example the photons from the Sun come from a high temperature source (5780K) these have enough hv to split O2 molecules and thus allow the formation of ozone. The power in this stream of photons from the Sun is 1370W/m^2, which averages to 342.5W/m^2 over the surface. This average power, when converted to heat, produces a temperature in the region of 280K. The Earth then radiates photons with an average energy based on this 280K, keeping the Earth's temperature stable while being bombarded with photons from a high energy photon source at 5780K. The photons radiated from the Earth also have a thermal (Planck) distribution which also allows a very small probability of splitting O2 molecules but the proportion of photons emitted by the Earth at 280K with sufficient energy to do this is very very small, many times smaller than the proportion in sunlight
  50. The Skeptical Chymist at 19:13 PM on 24 November 2010
    The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    Ken @ 148 "Address the main points of my comment" - I already did at 122, 141 and then again at 146. Now you are just changing the topic and pretending it is what you were talking about. "I did not claim that Dr Trenberth's opinions were gospel" - It is interesting that when you thought Trenberth's email/opinions could be used to cast doubt on the link between humans and global warming, he was very quoteable. But since I called you on that, now his opinions aren't "gospel". Ken, if you want other contributors to this site to take you seriously and have a thoughful discussion about unresolved areas in climate science, then you need to be able to admit when you are wrong. Not only is this good for your credibility, but it shows other posters (such as myself) that although we may disagree there is no intellectual dishonesty occuring and engaging with someone is actually worthwhile. Now to be clear, I am not saying you are being dishonest, it is just that, if you can't admit to being wrong, what's the point is going beyond repeating "multiple independant lines of evidence"?

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