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Ken Lambert at 00:42 AM on 18 November 2010Climategate a year later
Soundoff #1 This is Monbiotfrom NOV30 last year: “When it comes to his handling of Freedom of Information requests, Professor Jones might struggle even to use a technical defence. If you take the wording literally, in one case he appears to be suggesting that emails subject to a request be deleted, which means that he seems to be advocating potentially criminal activity. Even if no other message had been hacked, this would be sufficient to ensure his resignation as head of the unit.” So much for Monbiot. Even his name was a little preposterous - but the facts of the matter have not changed. It is hard to claim that damning quotes have been 'taken out of context' when the meaning is explicit and undeniable. -
CBDunkerson at 00:00 AM on 18 November 2010Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy
Karamanski, well there are many articles addressing whether scientists have exaggerated or not (e.g. 'Is the IPCC alarmist?')... so the issue has been covered from that side; predictions of impacts were lower than what has actually been observed, ergo the predictions were not exaggerated. I'm guessing you may mean to go at it from the other direction, how money is allocated... but that is a much trickier thing to pin down given thousands of in and out fluxes of research cash around the world. A third approach would be reviewing the results of research by scientists not in the climate field. If climate scientists were exaggerating AGW's impact on Arctic sea ice then biologists would find that seals and bears are not facing adverse impacts, oceanographers would find that the Arctic ocean was not acidifying, botanists would not find plants growing further North of their previous ranges, et cetera. Yet all these other scientific fields are finding results which support what the climate scientists are saying. Ergo, the 'skeptic' argument really becomes a claim that nearly all members of multiple branches of science all over the world are engaged in a vast conspiracy to exaggerate AGW. Which most people are rational enough to see for the complete lunacy it is. -
Ken Lambert at 23:45 PM on 17 November 2010Climate cherry pickers: cooling oceans
TimTTM #38 I saw this paper somewhere before. Certainly is counter-intuitive, but if it is confirmed then it will certainly have significant effect on the incoming solar radiation budget. Can't say anymore than that. -
CBDunkerson at 23:44 PM on 17 November 2010Naomi Oreskes' Merchants of Doubt Australian tour
Poptech, your repeated demand for evidence of Seitz having overseen research on tobacco inherently misrepresents the issue. Let's say there are no records of Seitz having directed research on the health effects of tobacco. I don't know for certain, but let's assume there aren't any. However, there definitely ARE records of Seitz, RJR, and the George Marshall Institute having CLAIMED that he directed such research and found that there was no scientific link between tobacco and cancer. Muoncounter, Albatross, and others have linked to these records above. So, if we accept your argument that there is no evidence of such studies then they either lied about having conducted them or have managed to destroy or suppress all records. In either case, the supposed evidence that tobacco is safe which they advertised to the public is non-existent. Frankly, it would be better for Seitz's reputation if you were wrong and there ARE records of him having directed such research. At least then it could be pretended that the research was simply in error... rather than completely falsified. -
CBDunkerson at 23:20 PM on 17 November 2010Animals and plants can adapt
h-j-m, setting aside the primary point that CO2 emissions ALSO causes loss of biodiversity and thus is every bit as worth addressing on that front as the other problems you list... there are also several studies showing that rising CO2 levels may further threaten the rainforests by increasing evaporation and decreasing precipitation in the region. Thus, addressing CO2 emissions can also help prevent further rainforest loss. That would also cause rainforest recovery, but only if the land were allowed to revert. -
The Inconvenient Skeptic at 23:18 PM on 17 November 2010Are ice sheet losses overestimated?
Robert, Of course I cannot substantiate that the MWP had comparable mass loss. While there are many clever things that can be found from proxies, this is not one of them (so far at least). What I am saying is that based on the known conditions of Greenland at the time of the MWP, compared to the current conditions, it is very likely that the ice loss was as great or greater than it currently is. I will read the papers in detail today and reply later tonight. -
XPLAlN at 21:40 PM on 17 November 2010Climategate a year later
"So one year’s worth of climategate has given us exactly one typo ...." I'm sorry to have to say that no proper examination of the Himalayan glacier error could correctly sum it up as a 'typo'. There just might have been a typo somewhere between the uncertain source of this claim and its eventual publication in AR4 but that is beside the point - the IPCC not only repeated the obvious error, and ignored the warnings of an "IPCC author", but stubbornly stuck by the claim for 3(!) years: "Georg Kaser, an expert in tropical glaciology and a lead author for the IPCC, warned that the 2035 prediction was clearly wrong in 2006, months before the report was published. "This [date] is not just a little bit wrong, but far out of any order of magnitude," he said." (The Guardian) ...which as anyone who followed this episode would be aware was but one of numerous times when the claim was questioned - not from skeptics - but from proper glaciologists. The IPCC response was two years too late, but more importantly, came after an embarrassing episode of dogmatic refusal to accept fallibility that has damaged the reputation of this important body. I think the customary high standard of rigour at Skeptical Science has slipped in this piece. -
Paul D at 21:21 PM on 17 November 2010Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
actually thoughtfull. I think you are mixing up two different things. I managed to cut my electricity use by changing the way I used it. During the winter I put on more layers of clothing and use the heating less, or turn the thermostat down. I stopped using a tumble dryer for drying clothes. I made a record of my efforts on my blog: http://lovelywaterlooville.blogspot.com/search/label/energy%20consumption Regarding 'green electricity tariffs'. In the UK we have various electricity companies that either invest in renewable energy only, or have a mixture. They set up consumer/business electricity tariffs where by the money taken from consumers is used to invest in more renewables. Usually the cost per kwh is slightly higher although not always. Generally it can be viewed as an accounting exercise, however for a consumer it can be a way of assuring their money is being spent in an appropriate place and encourages companies to invest in renewables. Probably the leading company in the UK is Ecotricity. They have been putting up wind farms since about 1995 and recently started supplying customers with bio-gas produced from Anaerobic Digestion plants and set up a dual fuel tariff (electricity and gas). http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/ The companies owner also developed an electric super car based on a Lotus chassis: http://zerocarbonista.com/ 'Good Energy' and 'Green Energy UK' are another two, also some NGOs such as the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) have tariff schemes with the bigger electricity suppliers. -
Richo at 20:49 PM on 17 November 2010Naomi Oreskes' Merchants of Doubt Australian tour
"Dr. Seitz's credentials are impeccable," Seitz took funding from tobacco companies and oil companies, how can he have credibilty ? Seriously Poptech ? In an interview with PBS Frontline, he remembers receiving money for travel expenses from oil companies, but not $65000 that went directly into his pocket. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hotpolitics/interviews/seitz.html He might have contributed to solid state physics, but in other areas it seems he was not ready to bite the hand that feeds. -
kdkd at 20:12 PM on 17 November 2010Naomi Oreskes' Merchants of Doubt Australian tour
Poptech #Yawn (you do become boring after a short amount of time I'm afraid). 1. "The Marshall Institute PDF you linked to confuses personality with science, and ignores/misrepresents the USDoJ's successful prosecution of the tobacco industry under racketeering laws." There is no confusion because they do not have any published science criticizing the link between tobacco and cancer. No, but they do sow the seeds of confusion in their reports which purport to be scientific reviews. You seem to have a rather selective view of what constitutes science, and this view seems to change depending on what you are trying to defend. 2. I've never counted any institute's report as part of the scientific literature to imply that it is peer-reviewed. I have stated repeatedly that reports that fully reference the scientific literature are on equal standing with other reports that do the same thing. The list of "peer reviewed research" which you've referred to repeatedly in the past completely fails to discriminate scientific quality and validity. Your subsequent justification for this failure has been pathetic. Your counter-argument here is a continuation of this failure. 3. "Typical so-called-sceptic approach of taking a position, emphasising a very small part of the argument (without examining the validity of the argument in the broader context) and then using that to generalise to the whole argument without justifying your case properly." You have presented only strawman arguments in attempting to make your point. I am em-phasing the most serious charge here as it is the knock-out blow to your position, Where is the research that Dr. Seitz oversaw or produced that questions the link between cancer and tobacco? Why is this so hard to produce? Your counter argument here completely fails to deal with the substance of my position by continuing to focus on the minutae rather than the big picture view which I demand from you in order for you to be able to validate your argument. I take it from this that your argument is strong on rhetoric, but that the substance is completely absent. The remainder of your rather tedious post has nothing to do with material that I have posted, so I leave it to others to deal with (or hopefully to ignore - unfortunately I lack the self control to ignore your insightless missives). -
cbp at 18:33 PM on 17 November 2010Climategate a year later
Meanwhile co2 concentration has gone from 385ppm to 388ppm. -
RSVP at 17:53 PM on 17 November 2010Climategate a year later
Philippe Chantreau #3 What more do you want, the subject is climate? -
actually thoughtful at 17:51 PM on 17 November 2010Economic Impacts of Carbon Pricing
* The Cantwell/Collins Cap and Dividend bill should be addressed (this is simply a tax, that is then refunded to the American people) www.capanddividend.org It is the most efficient because it is a tax (you tax what you don't want). I don't believe these studies adequately consider innovation. When you put a tax on Americans - they respond with innovation to avoid the tax. Some will work against the policy - buying gas in Mexico, black market fuel, etc. Some will be neutral - under-the-table biodiesel, for example. Some will be good - increased insulation, car pooling, buying more fuel/energy efficient products (this is what IS in the analysis). Some will be very bad - burning everything. The initial response will be a run on wood stoves, and a huge increase in burning wood/tires/trash for heat (this is "renewable" in the same vague way that mashed potatoes are renewable. Yes you can regrow the wood, yes it is current cycle carbon but NO it is not good for our air quality, and it will release a few hundred years of current cycle carbon in about a decade plus all sorts of products of combustion nasties). And there WILL be paradigm shifting solutions that are to the good. The rate of increase in PV efficiency will increase, solar thermal with above 100% energy conversions (imagine reflectors and other concentrators), wind/wave stuff that is economically viable. This is baked in the models. But the paradigm shift is not (a technology that we are either not thinking about, or currently believe it is on the 50-year horizon). The breakthrough that a tax on energy WILL produce because AMERICANS HATE TAXES! So I will go on record to say that a tax on carbon (especially an efficient one like cap and dividend) will actually INCREASE the GDP over BAU by at least 1%. Another thing that I doubt is in the models is what Americans will do with the money from the energy savings. I have customers who are increasing their retirement savings, using their savings to double down on renewables (ie add renewable electric in a round 2 of energy investments). I have customers who are using the savings to invest in education. I myself am doing two things - affording a house I otherwise could not (somewhat of a waste...) and saving up for my own double down with PV/wind. In other words, there will be tons of unintended consequences from any tax effort - but you can predict that the upside will easily outweigh the downside. (note to the wise - when the tax policy comes into existence and energy prices approach a true cost - incentives will evaporate (no longer necessary). Put in your renewable systems now, with the incentives and laugh all the way to the bank when cap and trade or cap and dividend or a straight tax finally comes to be). Even if the tax never comes, you will make (save) money just based on the inflation of energy costs.) -
Philippe Chantreau at 16:58 PM on 17 November 2010Naomi Oreskes' Merchants of Doubt Australian tour
So Seitz did not conduct any research, he just oversaw a propaganda campaign and allowed his name to be used for credibility. That's supposed to be better? -
Albatross at 16:44 PM on 17 November 2010Naomi Oreskes' Merchants of Doubt Australian tour
kdkd @71, Good points. Here, in my opinion, on this thread we have a perfect example of the techniques used by "skeptics" to deflect and misinform-- techniques which Oreskes and Conway speak to. The "skeptics" supporting Seitz have not read this memorandum, or this news release. -
kdkd at 16:31 PM on 17 November 2010Naomi Oreskes' Merchants of Doubt Australian tour
Poptech seems unable to deal with this part of my argument: "Typical so-called-sceptic approach of taking a position, emphasising a very small part of the argument (without examining the validity of the argument in the broader context) and then using that to generalise to the whole argument without justifying your case properly." Poptech's lack of a broader context is really the knockout blow to his position -
Philippe Chantreau at 16:31 PM on 17 November 2010Climategate a year later
Another non story relegated to oblivion as reality goes on. -
robert way at 16:23 PM on 17 November 2010Are ice sheet losses overestimated?
John Kehr, I would like to know how you substantiate your claim that the current ice loss is comparable to during the MWP. I see no evidence that the rate of change since 2006 is reproducible during the MWP. The following study : http://www.igsoc.org/annals/50/50/a50a028.pdf Finds similar surface mass balance melting during the early 1920s to 1930s as up until 2005, however dynamical ice processes have dominated the ice loss trends since 2006. See Van Den Broeke et al. 2009 or Khan et al. 2010 for example. This year had the largest ice losses for Greenland ever recorded (see my last link for the arctic report card). Prior to 2006 the ice losses were within the realm of the absolute upper end of natural variability but post 2006 and up to 2010 we have seen huge accelerations in glaciers in both Greenland and Antarctica. This does NOT open the possibility that the current warming is natural in cause. The current warming is showing that if the current ice loss continued, we would see sea levels which were globally MUCH higher than during the MWP. If the acceleration occurs as it is going we will see a minimum of 5 times the amount of sea level rise as found during the MWP. That to me does not seem to support your conclusion. Like I said, Grinsted et al. 2010 show that if current temperature (up to 2009) were maintained then SLR would be nearly 2x that of during the MWP by the time the oceans reach equilibrium. Many glaciers in the NH did experience significant retreat during the 1940-1950 period but far less than during the most recent warm period across most regions. A good example is the complete disappearance of ice caps in the high arctic (Anderson et al. 2008) or the significant ice losses in Alaska, Norway, Yukon, Svalbard, and Iceland which are all greater than those experienced during the previous warm period. "If the sheet loss was as great in 1940, then it is very hard to say that CO2 emissions have caused an "unnatural" rate of loss today" This statement is actually very much the opposite and works against you. Considering we know the major mechanisms which caused the early to mid century warming in this region, we can analyze whether the same mechanisms are causing the current warming. We know that the previous warm period involved a lull of volcanic activity, high solar irradiance and a positive AMO. Whereas now we have GREATER ice losses with lower solar, higher volcanic activity and a positive AMO. We would therefore expect that the previous warm period would be at the upper end of natural variability because of the "perfect storm" of natural contributors and yet the ice losses then were lower than now without the same contributors. -
actually thoughtful at 16:10 PM on 17 November 2010Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
The Ville: "I use a green electricity tariff (i'm all electric). I have managed to reduce my energy consumption by about 60% by just doing a few simple things which haven't had a big impact to the quality of life." Do you mind if I ask what those few simple things are? I would enjoy paying for 60% less electricity. Can you explain what "I use a green electricity tariff" means? thanks, Tom -
Chris G at 15:41 PM on 17 November 2010Are ice sheet losses overestimated?
John Kehr, WRT: "This leaves open the possibility that the current warming is natural in cause. " I don't think so. What is the cause in modern times other than AGHGs? What would prevent CO2 from behaving, with regard to the wavelength of photons that in absorbs and emits, in the atmosphere differently than it does in physics labs? Just because it's not clear who killed Oetzi, does not mean that we don't have a pretty good idea who killed Ghandi. -
adelady at 15:36 PM on 17 November 2010Climategate a year later
And for those who get all uppity about how "rude" or "aggressive" the remarks within some of those emails were, Arthur Smith has some extracted comments from other discussions. And remember, these aren't private comments, they're directed to editors of journals. I've made some guesses at what might have been said about some of these papers in private, you can do your own guessing. http://arthur.shumwaysmith.com/life/content/the_nothing_that_was_climategate -
Albatross at 15:12 PM on 17 November 2010Naomi Oreskes' Merchants of Doubt Australian tour
Muoncounter @66, Yes, this is silly, and it would be laughable if it were not such a serious matter. I fear that you may be wasting your time-- there is no sense arguing with those who endorse the irresponsible, criminal even, behavior of those involved in fabricating doubt concerning the existence of the link between smoke and cancer-- a link that was known to exist even according to research carried out by the tobacco companies. Bizarre how some, despite the facts to the contrary (including court rulings), insist on defending those who were involved in delaying taking action against tobacco corporations. Disturbing too how some of the same players are now involved in delaying taking action on anthropogenic climate change. Some seem to think that we live in a world where our actions have no negative consequences or repercussions. Perhaps Poptech should read "Smoke Screen" (one of numerous investigative books on the subject), and s/he should also have a look here. Great that Dr. Oreskes is in Australia. Wish that I could see her talk in person. -
HumanityRules at 15:04 PM on 17 November 2010How significance tests are misused in climate science
56.KR "any uncertainty invalidates human driven global warming" That seems like the extreme end of a spectrum of opinion that starts somewhere near "some uncertainty may question the magnitude of human driven global warming". This may in fact might be where the IPCC sits. I'm happy to agree that the example you highlight is wrong but I don't see that invalidates the whole spectrum. I actually don't know were I sit on that spectrum it probably changes on a daily basis maybe something like "there is sufficient uncertainty that we cannot accurately attribute warming." Anyway I think there are a couple of statements in your post that come out of the false dicotomy of denier/alarmist. They are products of the politics rather than the science. For me this is a barrier for resolving the issue. If Judith Curry can step outside of the consensus to ask questions only to be labelled incompetent or a dupe or worse then I don't think there is much hope for the process. I really don't need to be convinced that the Marshall Institute is wrong, i need to see that Curry asking questions is accepted as part of the normal scientific process. those statements were "But given a pile of reasons on one side of an argument and a pile of illogic, poor data, or contradictions on the other, you can generally make that call. If not, study some more." and "Small uncertainties (part of the nature of science and inductive reasoning) do not unseat an entire block of science - especially when the alternatives presented are hugely more uncertain." It strikes me that "AGW v's the rest of the world" is more Hollywood than science. (anyway sorry this is drifting away from stats) -
DSL at 14:59 PM on 17 November 2010Naomi Oreskes' Merchants of Doubt Australian tour
It is indeed silly. It would be laugh-out-loud silly if not for decades of now well-documented tobacco-funded research dedicated to finding ways of creating stronger addiction to the product. My dad died of oat-cell cancer last year (97% of those who have oat-cell cancer are or were smokers). I'm not quite ready to laugh at the ethical squirming of Big Tobacco and its misguided defenders. On Nierenberg, see Mr. Rabett. -
SoundOff at 14:52 PM on 17 November 2010Climategate a year later
We mustn’t forget all that fuss about Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) either. He was eventually revealed to be “a scrupulously honest man”. http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/08/26/the-smearing-of-an-innocent-man/#more-1281 -
muoncounter at 14:34 PM on 17 November 2010Naomi Oreskes' Merchants of Doubt Australian tour
#64: "evidence ... where is the research" Consultancy agreements 1986 I spoke with Fred Seitz about renewing his and Mac McCarty's consultancy agreements for six months to the end of this calendar year. I said to Dr. Seitz that we would review our entire arrangement at that time and based upon the direction in which our medical research program is going. This is silly and wildly off topic. -
Karamanski at 14:17 PM on 17 November 2010Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy
Since the rebuttal for climategate addresses the cynicism of the skeptics towards climate science another good rebuttal should debunk the argument "climate scientists exaggerate to get more funding". I know this defies the comments policy, but I see this argument everywhere in skeptic blogs and conservative op-eds. I would really like to see this argument get shot down. Do you think a rebuttal for this argument would be a good idea for Skeptical Science? -
robert way at 13:52 PM on 17 November 2010Are ice sheet losses overestimated?
John Kehr, I know that the Gisp2 graph showing of an individual year is completely irrelevant. My exact words were: "You can pick a core or two out as much as you want, but unless you are able to give some sort of comparison to current temperatures then its irrelevant. I could take your GISP2 core and do this: http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/Gisp2Graphedited.png but that doesn't make it right. Showing half the evidence doesn't either... " The orbital forcing is overall cooling in the Northern Hemisphere as is evident in Kaufmann et al. 2009 and in Ruddimann 2006. I will respond to the rest in a minute -
muoncounter at 13:29 PM on 17 November 2010Naomi Oreskes' Merchants of Doubt Australian tour
#61:"accusations are that Dr. Seitz oversaw research funded by R.J. Reynolds that questioned the link between tobacco and cancer." Wow, Poptech using exactly the same 'deny the evidence', 'make it appear there's controversy' tactics pioneered by Seitz and Co. Read RJR's words and weep: Presently, there is a good deal of controversy in the scientific sector on the subject of smoking and health, with prominent medical authorities lining up on each side of the .... arguments. ... For every charge that has been made against cigarettes, there has emerged a strong body of scientific data or opinion in defense of the product. In evaluating and monitoring the special projects that we fund -- particularly the sole-sponsorship programs -- R.J. Reynolds Industries has secured the services of a permanent consultant -- Dr. Frederick Seitz, former president of Rockefeller University. Dr. Seitz is with us today and has agreed to describe these various R-J-R sponsored programs for you. So the RJR position is that there's controversy, a strong body of scientific evidence in their defense, and who is brought in to describe their funded research? -
kdkd at 13:04 PM on 17 November 2010Naomi Oreskes' Merchants of Doubt Australian tour
Poptech. I find it amusing that you refuse to count "think tank reports" as scientific literature, when given a new report from the heartland institute (for example) the so-called sceptics are keen to elevate that material as of equal standing to peer reviewed scientific publications. -
The science isn't settled
Eric - there is a relevant discussion on another thread, starting here (claim of certainty) and here (thoughts on induction in science). -
Naomi Oreskes' Merchants of Doubt Australian tour
Poptech - Several courts of law (and congressional investigations) found that the 'science' pushed by Singer, Seitz, and others was fraudulent and deceptive, to the tune of a rather huge settlement with the tobacco companies. Please see the linked documents here, most are part of the legal case. Given the $$$/time spent on those court cases, I'm inclined to agree with the conclusions of the courts. Either they were deceived by their sponsors, unable to properly perform the science, or they intentionally lied for some reason. I don't know, I cannot determine their motivations - take your pick. [Moderator - I realize I'm stating that someone may have been deceptive; please note I'm only pointing out conclusions from several law cases, which have by legal judgement been established as conclusively true] -
Eric (skeptic) at 12:51 PM on 17 November 2010The science isn't settled
Tom, classical mechanics is 100% certain within a frame of reference in which the evidence (measurements) are 100% consistent with the theory. As string theory evolves along with empirical measurement techniques, it will be validated or invalidated, e.g. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11085-new-particle-accelerator-could-rule-out-string-theory.html Theories that are yet to be grounded or validated in any way are notions, but string theory is grounded since it already reconciles quantum mechanics and relativity. It lacks sufficient technology to be validated by a high energy particle predicted by the theory. Obviously such an area, far outside my expertise and classical intuition, is easy prey for a falsely subjective interpretation. As BP points out in another thread, the theory or hypothesis is correct or not and statistics are suitable for noisy measurements. There is no such thing as a noisy theory, noisy conceptual framework or noisy science. -
How significance tests are misused in climate science
Berényi - Thank you, those are some very interesting papers. I'm a bit concerned that the Joshi et al 1999 only seems to study 90 days of data. We know "weather" is chaotic; climate doesn't seem to show the same fractal nature of variation, and 90 days of data can only support cyclic variations of 30-45 days at most, not millenia. Extending that analysis to thousands of years will take a great deal more data. The CO2 paper states that: "Therefore the long-range correlations in the atmospheric CO2 that deduced from the present analysis can help in recognition of anthropogenically induced changes caused by increased CO2 emissions to the atmosphere on the background of natural atmosphere changes. So they appear to be identifying patterns of variation that be identified superimposed on anthropogenic CO2 change to better identify the signature, and don't seem to make any claims about low frequency (long term) variation coming from "pink noise". Finally, the cloud cover/fractal distribution paper is excellent. That's a very clean analysis of fractal dimensionality. But I don't see the connection between fractal self-similarity and 1/f noise. Nor do I see the significance with regard to tracking climate changes. I really don't see how these descriptions of weather are critical issues for climate. Parametric descriptions of fractal systems are perfectly adequate for analyzing mass behavior, as long as the parametric description includes observed internal variability at the appropriate scales. -
kdkd at 12:42 PM on 17 November 2010Naomi Oreskes' Merchants of Doubt Australian tour
Poptech #55 Not a terribly convincing argument from you. Typical so-called-sceptic approach of taking a position, emphasising a very small part of the argument (without examining the validity of the argument in the broader context) and then using that to generalise to the whole argument without justifying your case properly. This is essentially the technique of claiming that scientists are deliberately misleading while simultaneously constructing arguments designed to mislead yourself. As DSL says, rhetorically fascinating. -
DSL at 12:31 PM on 17 November 2010Naomi Oreskes' Merchants of Doubt Australian tour
That Marshall Institute document is rhetorically fascinating, Poptech. Immediately after pointing out that corporations are ethically bound to do the right thing and that good people just do not do those kinds of things, even when they can make a great deal of money from it, the document then says this: Is all privately-funded research tainted? Is public funding the only “clean” source of support for scientists? Seitz saw a critical role for private funding (through companies and foundations) and saw dangers in science becoming too dependent on either private or public support. (emphasis mine) Those are interesting recognitions of interference for an institute dedicated to decidedly conservative (economic and military) agenda. The last bit is just bizarre, given the initial warnings. What should science be "dependent on"? Backyard scientists? Or is the implication that it should be a 50-50 split between corporate and government money? Who should I trust for my climate science: government-supported scientists or corporation-funded scientists? -
kdkd at 12:26 PM on 17 November 2010Naomi Oreskes' Merchants of Doubt Australian tour
Poptech: Please explain what's wrong with her argument. The Marshall Institute PDF you linked to confuses personality with science, and ignores/misrepresents the USDoJ's successful prosecution of the tobacco industry under racketeering laws. -
How significance tests are misused in climate science
HumanityRules - The reason this is an important point is due to the oft-repeated claims by various people that summarize to "any uncertainty invalidates human driven global warming", or at least needs "sound science", a favorite claim of the Marshall Institute, for example. There is always some level of uncertainty in science, some small chance that your theory doesn't actually match up with the behavior of the universe. Perhaps you need better measurements (Newtonian vs. Einstein's physics, for example) to point it out. Perhaps your epicycles are way too complicated. Perhaps you have been deceived by ideology, or bad choice of drugs! But agreement with known physics and statistical evaluation of the data (whether Bayesian or frequentist) helps you to rank hypotheses in order of agreement with the data. That's key to making a scientific judgement. Yep, it's somewhat subjective. All induction is. But given a pile of reasons on one side of an argument and a pile of illogic, poor data, or contradictions on the other, you can generally make that call. If not, study some more. Yes, there is some possible uncertainty even in the law of gravity - it might stop working tomorrow. Nature may be manipulated by the lawn gnome Illuminati. Climate science may be the result of a cabal of One World Socialists bent on world domination. Or the centuries of scientific research and independent investigators may have identified key elements of how we affect climate by our actions. We can rank the uncertainties - only the last is even remotely a probable (first and second definitions) hypothesis. Small uncertainties (part of the nature of science and inductive reasoning) do not unseat an entire block of science - especially when the alternatives presented are hugely more uncertain. -
Berényi Péter at 12:23 PM on 17 November 2010How significance tests are misused in climate science
#51 KR at 05:17 AM on 17 November, 2010 You state that weather is in a state of Self Organized Criticality - SOC. I have been unable to find any references that indicate this; do you have a paper to link to on this subject? There's a review paper. XE: Extreme Events workshop Developing a Research Agenda for the 21st Century Boulder, Colorado, on June 7-9, 2000 Self-Organised Criticality and the Atmospheric Sciences: selected review, new findings and future directions Suraje Dessai & Martin E. Walter "We suspect theories of complexity, such as SOC, have been underrepresented in the atmospheric sciences because of their "soft science" character. Atmospheric sciences have historically developed from centuries of advancement in the hard sciences, such as physics, mathematics and chemistry, etc. It would have been unlikely to see a quick transition from the classical reductionist and reproducible science approach towards an abstract, holistic and probabilistic complex science. Proof of this is the fact that only a small number of scientists have cited the few applications of these theories in the atmospheric sciences." "Another possibility for the neglect of SOC in the atmospheric sciences is the increased funding of applied atmospheric sciences (e.g. climate change research) vis-à-vis the decreased funding of "basic" research, i.e., according to Byerley (1995) research to increase knowledge; to answer a scientific as opposed to a practical question." This one has some ideas of its own: Fractals, Vol. 7, No. 4 (1999) 421425 IDENTIFICATION OF SELF-ORGANIZED CRITICALITY IN ATMOSPHERIC LOW FREQUENCY VARIABILITY R. R. JOSHI and A. M. SELVAM This is also interesting (possible scale free behavior of atmospheric flows from 1 cm to 1000 km). Science 9 April 1982 Vol. 216 no. 4542 pp. 185-187 DOI: 10.1126/science.216.4542.185 Area-Perimeter Relation for Rain and Cloud Areas S. LOVEJOY Or this one on 1/f noise in a particular time series. Atmos. Chem. Phys., 7, 629634, 2007 Technical Note: Long-term memory effect in the atmospheric CO2 concentration at Mauna Loa C. Varotsos, M.-N. Assimakopoulos & M. Efstathiou -
Naomi Oreskes' Merchants of Doubt Australian tour
Poptech, I have some relevant personal information on this subject. My brother was, for a number of years, one of the public faces of a major tobacco company. His job was to deny the connection between second hand smoke and cancer. He gave me a copy of Thank You for Smoking shortly after he started, telling me that "This is me. This is my job." To deny, confuse, obscure, delay, and otherwise block the science and political action resulting from it. To make s**t up. The science of tobacco and cancer is quite clear; I don't know why Dr. Seitz, Fred Singer, and others pushed the tobacco side of things, but ideological reasons seem to match their behavior. They certainly weren't doing good science in claiming tobacco was harmless. And they weren't operating in their fields of expertise - physics knowledge != biological knowledge. -
The Inconvenient Skeptic at 11:44 AM on 17 November 2010Are ice sheet losses overestimated?
@Robert, I appreciate that you recognize the relevance of the MWP in this particular discussion. I promise to stay strictly on Greenland with regards to the MWP. I will take issue with your statement that: "What the mass loss for Greenland "should be" is completely irrelevant." Let us start on what we should be able to agree upon. The ice loss during the MWP was of a comparable magnitude to what is currently happening. We should also agree that the MWP in Greenland was a natural occurrence. That leaves us with a situation in the recent past that naturally had comparable ice loss to the current day. This leaves open the possibility that the current warming is natural in cause. This is partially why I am curious about the behavior of the ice sheets during the 1940-1950 period. Many NH glaciers experienced significant retreat during this period. That makes understanding the natural sheet loss very relevant. If the sheet loss was as great in 1940, then it is very hard to say that CO2 emissions have caused an "unnatural" rate of loss today. Comparing to the GISP2 would require a comparable smoothing as to what the ice core had. Since most ice cores are heavily smoothed showing a single year is meaningless. A more comparable one would be GRIP which runs until 1989. That is close to the 1990 point you have on the smoothed GISP2. Certainly there is no sudden increase evident in the GRIP data. Since this is much closer to single year data it is a better comparison to the single point compared to the GISP2 you linked. (many will be amused by that from long discussions on my site) The GRIP data shows that the 1930-1940 period were very warm. That is why the sheet loss from that period is relevant. I argue that it could easily have been of comparable magnitude to the current ice loss. If that is the case then CO2 levels have had little impact. I hope that you recognize that I am not just arguing for the sake of arguing. My own analysis of the data indicates that there is reason to believe that the current warming is natural. I would also note that the orbital forcing is cooling summers and warming winters. They do go hand in hand. John Kehr The Inconvenient Skeptic -
robert way at 11:34 AM on 17 November 2010Are ice sheet losses overestimated?
Chris G, It is possible that the crust is still feeling the effects from previous iceloads. There is always a delay in these sort of mechanisms. Maybe 400 years from now it might start to rbound. Who knows... -
kdkd at 11:32 AM on 17 November 2010Naomi Oreskes' Merchants of Doubt Australian tour
Poptech #47 Indeed, very funny. Check the link to the audio in the main article for a demolition of the critique. -
Daniel Bailey at 11:20 AM on 17 November 2010Naomi Oreskes' Merchants of Doubt Australian tour
Re: Poptech (47) Good one. Those who say you don't have a sense of humor are now corrected. The Yooper -
Daniel Bailey at 11:11 AM on 17 November 2010Are ice sheet losses overestimated?
Re: Chris G (22) Apologies are in order. You and Robert Way are correct. In my defense, I had just done a long series on another website on Jason/Topex/Poseideon and ICESAT and still had that in the brain's RAM. Didn't help that I was commenting from the cellphone & had no access to the correct info. Sorry for the confusion. Moral of the story: memory is no replacement for actually looking stuff up. The Yoooper -
HumanityRules at 11:04 AM on 17 November 2010How significance tests are misused in climate science
51.KR 52 Tom 53 Dikran The specifics of SOC aside, I'm not sure where your difference with BP lies, it appears to be one of emphasis. The uncertainty for BP is crucial for the others it's a minor irritation. Specifcally to KR on your point 2. Skeptics seem to believe that the introduction of the IPCC into climate science has caused some leap-frogging in that process you describe in order to get all the way to CAGW and to provide the basis on which policy can be formulated. I'm not sure anybody expects perfection but recognition of the imperfection would be useful start. As an example I was browsing thru Maarten's department website. There's plenty on clouds and the suggestion that we haven't even got the measurements right yet. It becomes a matter of (expert) opinion as to whether that constitutes certainty or uncertainty. Dikran you seem to introduce an element of the subjective into the discussion. The gambler (or us) can judge the hypothesis based on our "belief", we could replace that word with experience or expert opinion. In fact the example you give of 6 heads in a row could very easily lead us down the wrong path. I could point out the chances of that are ~1%, suggest you're trying to cheat me and if this was the Wild West shoot you. That might be evidence of my poor gambling experience (or violent tendancies). The stats in this case have done nothing to bring us to this conclusion it's actually all down to opinion, in fact my poor use of the stats might have contributed to giving me certainty about my wrong decision. As Maarten points out stats don't point us to which is the correct path to take. As I'm ignorant on this subject to what extent do stats rely on subjective judgement? I'd always thought the point of them was to get away from this but from the descriptions I'm reading here at some level subjectivity seems to be part of the process. In Bayesian the attempt is to build it into the process. In frequentist (as in the example in #49) in seems to be added afterwards. -
Ken Lambert at 10:42 AM on 17 November 2010Climate cherry pickers: cooling oceans
kdkd Well it was a good 'orse - took all 13 of the others to beat it... -
Chris G at 10:06 AM on 17 November 2010Are ice sheet losses overestimated?
Thanks Robert, I'd assumed an upward movement since we are talking about a loss of mass above, at least overall, though not necessarily in the interior of Greenland. On another read, I see that you did say, "downward mantle motions". That's very interesting; have to study that one a while. Hard to imagine why the mantle would be moving downward in the interior. Downward relative to the exterior of the ice sheet, which is loosing more mass, sure, but relative to the surface in general...puzzling. -
robert way at 08:52 AM on 17 November 2010Are ice sheet losses overestimated?
Chris G, I guess it is partially my fault with the explanation. Crustal movements are not only upwards. They can be downwards too. So what was modeled was that part of the downwards mass trend in the center of Greenland was due to the crust sinking under the weight of ice... So without the downward mantle motions, you would assume that the reduction in gravitational pull on the grace satellites would be due to ice loss. Wu et al. 2010 hypothesize/model that it is in fact due to a downward crustal motion. -
Chris G at 08:52 AM on 17 November 2010Are ice sheet losses overestimated?
Broken link; should be GRACE.
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