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Daniel Bailey at 14:12 PM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
Thanks, John, for sharing! A long-overdue topic. Like John, I obtain no material benefit from speaking out on what I know. My day job keeps me comfortably employed and sustains my family's needs. We're not rich by any means, but have what we need. I don't do this to pass the time. Indeed, I have to struggle constantly to create the time for this work. My job takes about 70 hours a week for 35 hours pay. Family and sleep fill the rest. So this mission comes at the expense of sleep. Neither do I do this for politics. I have mainly conservative values, but don't feel the overarching need to conform to conservative thinking when an "out of the box" solution is needed. Original thinking is called for when you get your cheese moved. So I have always valued platforms that mirror mine, politically. Sometimes, then, I have voted Democrat, sometimes Republican. While I'm all for saving as much as possible of the Great Outdoors for the enjoyment of future generations, people still have to live. And natural resource utilization, when done in a sustainable manner, is to be admired. And if push came to shove, then "drill, baby, drill". But the main reason I reach out like this is for my faith. Like John, I am a Christian (I did not know that about John when I began reading Skeptical Science; I just learned that fact about him today). Since I was a little boy, I've always loved science. By the age of 11, I had exhausted the children's science book section in the library. By 16, the adult science book section. In college, I majored in Earth Science and Computerized Cartography/Remote Sensing in the early 80's. My strong interest in Climatology changed course when my science advisor told me that: 1. It was a dead-end field (daunting, but not the last straw) 2. Therefore there was no money in it (the last straw; a man's gotta eat) After many years of working for the Department of Defense in Washington, D.C. making mapping products for the military, I tired of the summer heat & the rude people. Tossup which was worse. Returning home to Michigan, I got into sales and then into pharmaceutical sales. The endless studying of medical articles, journals and clinical studies in the various disease states renewed my interests in science and climatology, so I added that to my neverending medical studies. That was a real wakeup call. As I delved into the depths of the literature, a disturbing vista emerged from the new material the matured science had developed since I'd left it. Mankind, in its reaching for technology and the stars, had found that the world was hollow, and in touching the sky, had changed it. But it's one thing to have knowledge; the real test comes in it's application. For when I sit at home with my family and look into the eyes of my children, I see their chances at a happy and normal life diminishing in light of what lies before us. It would be easy to sit back and enjoy the time left to me. But to do so would be to consign my children and the future generations of mankind to a living hell. For the changes ahead, should our course not change, indeed lead down that path. So my faith and my conscience demand that I toil at long hours into the night, searching for a way forward. Science has communicated its consensus to the world on the changing climate, and the world has rejected it. The only answer I have at the moment lies in not giving up. My faith, and the haunting knowledge of what I know, demands no less. John Brookes @ 16 above referenced Edmund Burke: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." An idle steward I will not be. Thanks for your time, The Yooper -
WAG at 14:03 PM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
Great post. As a Christian myself, I've often wondered how so many of us can ignore the command to be stewards of God's earth. Every day in church, pastors tell us that nothing is our own, everything belongs to God... and then we go and muck it all up anyway. I wrote my senior thesis on how conservative Christians reconcile their Christianity with their politics, and the subject of the environment was one that came up over and over. People essentially say this: "We should care for the earth, but we're put here to work it and use its resources for our benefit, and rule over the earth. We should do it responsibly, but we shouldn't just let resources sit around and be idle." In other words, this issue is ripe for reframing and building religious support for stopping climate change. This is an issue of responsible stewardship of God's earth. You just have to emphasize the "responsibility" part of stewardship, not just the "uses the master's resources" part. (Unless you want to point out that opponents of cap-and-trade are preventing us from using our vast wind and solar resources). -
johnd at 14:02 PM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
miekol at 10:08 AM , firstly I want to thank John for sharing his thoughts with us, irrespective of where any of us stand on the issue of AGW, there is always more common ground than disputed when things are put into the right order of importance. Miekol, I too wonder about the tiny amount of CO2. In particular about how the AGW theory decrees that the amplifying effect of water vapour, in fact all forms of atmospheric H2O, means that the majority of heat should be trapped at H2O wavelengths, and the properties of H2O, the points at which it changes state, determining the range at which our climate oscillates over time.Moderator Response: The most recent discussion at Skeptical Science of water vapor's role in global warming may be found here: Evaporating the water vapor argument. An older discussion is here. -
Doug Bostrom at 13:49 PM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
It's arguable that pragmatically speaking the Golden Rule transcends whatever may divide us in terms of spiritual or religious feelings. In general we prefer to be treated well to the extent we help to make that possible and should extend the same consideration to others as much as we can. For my part, either my spirituality genes don't function or I was not inculcated with religion or I'm a godless heathen/infidel/whatever and am consigned to a lake of fire or something like that but I still don't believe in creating an Unholy Mess and leaving it for others to deal with, at least to the best of my ability to avoid doing so. Can we agree on the Golden Rule as it pertains to the subject of this blog, or should we argue endlessly and pointlessly instead over whether we place our stock in heat death of the universe, heaven or something else? -
Bern at 13:26 PM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
Regarding the comments about John's apparent faith / science conflict: My answer would be "why does there need to be a conflict?" Seriously. The only conflict science has is with the 'bedtime story' version of religion, where everything was magically made by a supreme being, in the form that it exists today. In my opinion, that's a seriously limiting approach to faith. Which God is more impressive to you? The one that can create a universe a few thousand years ago just as it is today? Or the one that can give the pre-big-bang universe a nudge in just the right way so that, 15 billion years later, it will give rise to intelligent life that can hold a conversation about the nature of God? It's been a long time since I've read Genesis, but I seem to recall there's some stuff in there about going out and learning about the world (actually, a quick Google reveals Genesis 2:19 "Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them" - surely that's the beginning of taxonomy, a foundational part of the theory of evolution? ). To me, science (and learning about how the universe works) is a challenge put in front of us, that we may make use of our capacity for thought. Not a challenge to our beliefs. Religion is no house of cards to come tumbling down should one card be revealed to be have a picture of a Galapagos finch instead of a jack. So, to my mind, there's no reason for disconnect or conflict between science and religion. One is about what you know and can learn, the other about what you believe in. The problems arise when human-written expressions of those beliefs are taken to be literal truths. -
Uncle Pete at 13:07 PM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
Probably this post will be considered OT but here goes nevertheless. We need god to explain the time before the big bang, and the space outside of the universe. PS Thanks for the great effort keeping this blog going. PPS @piloot Good to see the Dutch have finally woken from their slumber :)Response: As is my understanding, there is no time before the big bang and no space outside the universe - time and space require matter to exist. -
Todd F at 12:54 PM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
Good work John. I feel similarly motivated. 10, 15, I think John's respect for science is evident throughout his posts, and I don't see that his faith compromises his respect for science, but rather that his faith motivates him to move from theory to practice. And I'll bite quickly on how can someone who respects science believe in God. Science deals exclusively with the study of nature, and I tend to think that the origins of nature itself is not a scientific question. Also, I would find it surprising if there was lots of devoted material on the subject in the peer review literature, or even if most scientists believed that the existence of God is a scientific question. There may be a [perhaps slight] majority of scientists who disbelieve in God, but I don't think this is the same as a scientific consensus, particularly if the subject is not a scientific one. I do think sound science has a role in influencing theology, and I don't think science and faith should be in opposition. I think the word 'supernatural' should be clarified. In some sense, I think distant universes with different laws of nature are in a sense supernatural. It also wouldn't be too hard to define the creator of the universe as being a natural mind. The idea that the origins of the universe are a product of intention, is one option to consider, and there are others as well. I think we all try to make the best sense of the universe we live in. I can't personally fathom how anything but nothingness exists (and yes that exclude God as well). However, nothingness doesn't seem to be an option I can sanely consider. -
MattJ at 12:37 PM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
jfrank, #12 These you mention who ignore the coming plight of the less fortunate are exactly those who will have to cry out to the mountains, "fall on us to hide us from the wrath of the Lamb". But they are so stubborn in their delusion, they just don't see it that way. Nor will they until it is too late for them and for us. -
Ian Forrester at 12:35 PM on 3 August 2010Has Global Warming Stopped?
Thanks John. -
chris1204 at 12:34 PM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
When I read this post John, my first reaction was, 'Why am I not surprised?' I don't always agree with you as you well know. However, I share your faith and appreciate your efforts to give it a living expression through your work on this blog. All of us of course fall short in all too many ways. God has given us the gift of life and the responsibility to care for one another through caring for our planet. Matthew 25 speaks very loudly to me - we chose this passage for my father's funeral last October. A nominal Catholic but for many years an atheist, he remained nevertheless a man of practical faith who had a deep love for nature. He cared for the environment though some of his solutions wouldn't have been to everyone's tastes on this blog - he firmly believed we needed to grasp the nettle and take the nuclear option. However we may view the climate change challenges ahead of us, we won't solve them without looking humbly to God for help and guidance. To do this, we all have to be prepared to put aside our pride admitting when we're wrong. -
macoles at 12:32 PM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
Tom @15 Just because science can show that things can occur independently of God, doesn't actually disprove God. Science will never be able to disprove the existence of God, simply because God is not defined by what can be empirically observed. I choose to be an Atheist, not because of my understanding of science, but because I believe God is unnecessary. Arguments can be made either way, but there will never be proof. -
macoles at 12:00 PM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
Thanks for sharing John, and for making me reconcider my opinion of Christians and climate change. As an Atheist it was easy to look around and notice what seemed a high correlation between those who believe in God and those who believe the Earth is unbreakable. The key issue is not belief, as we humans have a vast capacity to believe almost anything, but for us to strive for better scientific understanding - and to act on it! -
Ian Forrester at 11:53 AM on 3 August 2010Has Global Warming Stopped?
I am the person whose personal information poptech posted on Greenfyre's blog. I was a bit miffed when John deleted a post of mine earlier in this thread responding to poptech's nonsense after what he had inflicted on me and my family. I can assure everyone that it is very unsettling to see your address, phone number, map and a photo of your house posted for any unhinged denier to observe. I hope you will allow this post John since it shows everyone what sort of a person he is.Response: For the record, it was one of the moderators that deleted that comment and I think perhaps the deletion was a little zealous - the reason given was you gave a strawman argument. Whether you did or not is immaterial, that's not covered in the Comments Policies. I've restored your comment. -
topquark at 11:51 AM on 3 August 201010 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
Excellent post, but I have one reservation. A skeptic could accept all of the above, but argue that a doubling of CO2 would only cause 1.1-1.2C of warming, which is the basic figure if you just consider the effect of the extra CO2 without any feedbacks. It's the feedbacks that magnify a merely worrying 1.1C rise to a possibly catastrophic 3C (with a considerable degree of uncertainty, admittedly). So I'd like to see more explanation about the evidence we have for positive feedbacks, which is discussed elsewhere on this site. -
John Brookes at 11:49 AM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
Nice post. How does that quote go, "....is for good men to do nothing". Well, keep up the good work. -
Tom_the_Bomb at 11:46 AM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
How you can be so scientific, so aware of what the hard scientific research says, and still believe in God? I find that almost paradoxical. You always talk about empirical evidence; have you looked through the peer-reviewed literature and found empirical evidence for God, or Intelligent Design? There is a scientific consensus on these things aswell, you know. An as atheist I find it impossible to simultaneously hold reconcile science and religion in my mind; surely one would have to choose between one or the other.Response: Questions about the natural world, like what's causing climate change, are purely scientific questions and are answered by empirical evidence. Similarly, there are multiple lines of empirical evidence that the Earth is 4 billion years old and that humans evolved from lower lifeforms.
However my faith in God, that He created space and time, is, well, a leap of faith. For someone with a scientific background and skeptical by nature, I completely understand how difficult and unintuitive that leap is. -
adelady at 11:38 AM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
Thank you for that. My children are almost twenty years older than yours. I'm looking at the prospect of grandchildren in the next few years - and the possibility that some of them might have grandchildren. In my family it's not uncommon to live 90+ years. When we talk about all these effects being a long time coming, it isn't so very long when we think that it will affect people you'd like to leave the family heirlooms to. One of the heirlooms could be a better, calmer world if we get our act together. -
Doug Bostrom at 11:34 AM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
Miekol, the path of information leading to our recognition of the C02 problem is mostly not about anthropogenic warming at all, in fact AGW can fairly be described as a predictable outcome that's more or less incidental to a whole pile of other research. "There has to be some other cause..." for AGW is a bit like being the victim of a high fall and thinking to one's self on the way down, "It -can't- be gravity, there must be some other reason..." The various fundamental underpinnings of the conclusion were in place before we even knew we were falling. -
Rob Honeycutt at 11:26 AM on 3 August 2010Visually depicting the disconnect between climate scientists, media and the public
In fact, being professionals in the field they'll likely add about a dozen more to the list. -
Rob Honeycutt at 11:25 AM on 3 August 2010Visually depicting the disconnect between climate scientists, media and the public
Poptech... Not at all! Go to any high end art gallery and put that list in front of them and see if they agree. -
James Frank at 11:24 AM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
Thank you for sharing. As a fellow Christian, I wholeheartedly agree with you. And I find it sad that so many of our faith don't feel the same call to care for the poor and downtrodden. I can assure you that each of us who reads and participates on this blog appreciates what you do. Each of us has our own, and often very different, reasons or logic, but that's part of the beauty of it, isn't it? -
ProfMandia at 11:10 AM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
Thank you for all that you do here at SkSc. -
piloot at 10:27 AM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
I very much enjoy this blog and all its contents, delighted by the scientific line of thinking which cares not about politics, status or ancient scriptures, but about the truth (or pursuit thereof) through proven and peer reviewed research. I wish more people and communities would share that same philosophy, which is also why I am a complete a-theist. I mean, if you really think in a scientific way, how could anyone believe in a supernatural being? So it surprised me that the man behind the pushing of a scientific philosophy is doing it, besides common, social sense, because of religion. But I'm happy you're doing it anyway :-) and applaud you for this one-time personal openness. I'll also scrap my request to you to set up something similar to show the scientific evidence (or lack thereof) for any supernatural being and the true, scientific history of all religous books. I'm guessing you're a skeptic / denialist at that subject ;-). Meanwhile the government in my country (Holland) is shaping a right wing, conservative, xenophobic and islamophobic government that thinks immigration is one of the biggest problems (even though the science indicates that from the discussed islam-countries there are more people leaving than coming) and that funding to windmills and solar panels should be stopped but nuclear power stations should prevail (even though the science there also indicates investing in wind and solar is a much more effective, safere and more durable solution). Why is science so ignored? Thanks for caring, here's to hoping the site gets more and more momentum. The iPhone app has helped me a lot already to switch people's thoughts about the subject. Thanks again! -
Bern at 10:27 AM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
For me, it's a combination of scientific curiosity, and John's reason of wanting to leave the world a better place (and not be blamed for the mess!). But the XKCD reason has an element of truth, too - I hate seeing things that are just plain *wrong*, it irks me no end... :-P Oh, and miekol: yes, it's a (relatively) tiny amount, but don't think of it as a small force pushing a whole planet. Think of it as a small weight added to a finely balanced set of scales, with the two sides being energy in (mostly from the sun) and energy out (mostly via radiation to space). That will change your perspective as to how much forcing is required to effect significant change. -
Chemware at 10:24 AM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
@6 miekol, Skeptic argument #29. Refuted here. -
Doug Bostrom at 10:10 AM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
Me, I don't like vandalism. Not of personal reputations or the planet. Tagging people and the world with graffiti gibberish and ineradicable messes really gets my goat. -
miekol at 10:08 AM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
A great site John. I'm still having great difficulty coming to terms that its supposedly man's production of CO2 that is causing the increase in global temperature. The CO2 we produce is only 0.28 of one percent of greenhouse gases. Such a tiny amount. There has to be some other cause, but I'm at a loss to see it.Response: The CO2 we're emitting has actually raised atmospheric CO2 to its highest levels in over 15 million years. How do we know whether this has any effect? We directly measure the increased greenhouse effect, using both satellites that measure heat escaping to space and surface measurements that measure the heat returning back to Earth. These both obtain consistent results - more heat is being trapped at CO2 wavelengths.
It's not based on models or political ideology or environmentalism. It's based on direct empirical evidence - multiple lines of evidence. All this heat is being trapped by CO2. To try to blame it on some other cause, you also need to account for what's happening to the CO2 heat. -
Rob Honeycutt at 09:47 AM on 3 August 2010Visually depicting the disconnect between climate scientists, media and the public
A few objective measures of quality in modern art? A unique approach. Something not done before. A sense of place within historical context. How does the work fit within the context of other artists past and present? An understanding and creative use of color, color balance. An understanding and creative use of composition. A genuine exploration of the media. Pushing boundaries. Personality. The work has life to it. That's a few. For someone in the field of art these are very distinct and clear measures. -
Rob Honeycutt at 09:44 AM on 3 August 2010Visually depicting the disconnect between climate scientists, media and the public
Chris... Quality is really not so hard to determine in modern art. Quality is not a subjective measure of art. If you put a painting in front of a dozen professional artists and art critics you will get very consistent answers about whether it is a quality work or not. In fact, in many cases it can be shocking how consistently this works. But the thing is, you have to be trained. You have to know the field very very well. In science it would work the same way. The people best suited to evaluate the quality of a paper are going to be peers in the same or similar fields. -
DarkSkywise at 09:40 AM on 3 August 2010Has Global Warming Stopped?
fydijkstra #19: "Every natural scientist knows, that linear trends never continue ad infinitum!" Since we're not even close to a theoretical maximum (like, how hot would the Earth get with a 100% GHG atmosphere?), more-or-less linear trends can continue for quite a while. So why consider polynomial trends that show any kind of saturation or decline? -
Doug Bostrom at 09:32 AM on 3 August 2010Visually depicting the disconnect between climate scientists, media and the public
If 137 is the numerator and the total number of universities and libraries is the denominator, in what fraction of universities and libraries may E&E be found? And how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? -
chris at 09:32 AM on 3 August 2010Visually depicting the disconnect between climate scientists, media and the public
robhon at 09:24 AM on 3 August, 2010 ...ooops, didn't catch your post robhon (you brought up modern art!). Never mind. However difficult it might be to assess the quality of modern art, we can certainly assess objectively the quality of science and scientific publications ... -
chris at 09:29 AM on 3 August 2010Visually depicting the disconnect between climate scientists, media and the public
It might be worth adding that whenever any of us goes for a job interview, our interviewers are very likely to have drawn up an explicit list of the attributes they seek in an individual, in terms of relevant experience and evidence of past success and productivity, appropriate personal skills and attributes and so on. Interviewees are asessed on quality in relation to the specific criteria relating to the objectively-defined requirements of the interviewers (that's not to suggest that some seemingly subjective elements won't come into play since personal relationships are involved!). We can pretend that quality can't be objectively defrined (according to specified criteria). But in the real world we know better... ...of course if we are talking about "quality" in modern art, things are a little more difficult, and the criteria for assessing quality will be necessarily less objective ('specially if you're a bit of a philistine like me and not too impressed with Tracy's unmade beds and elephant poo). But why bring up modern art when we're talking about science? It's silly to suggest that the quality of science and scientific publications can't be objectively defined... -
Rob Honeycutt at 09:24 AM on 3 August 2010Visually depicting the disconnect between climate scientists, media and the public
Chris... I actually brought up the issue of modern (i.e., 20th century) art. My point was that quality, even in a highly aesthetic field, is not subjective. Maybe Poptech's gramma likes different art than I do, but if you take a sampling of artist and art critics you can create a clear definition of quality. I took a lot of art history classes in college (they were some of my favorite courses) and I can tell you, almost the same way Toyota can and does lay out parameters for what constituted quality in a vehicle, the art world does the same for art. Just because gramma likes your 7 year old niece's paintings (subjectivity) does not mean it is a masterpiece (quality). And because that same niece has painted 6000 of these works (quantity) also does not mean they are great works. Subjectivity is a way of personally quantifying how much you like something. Quality if a broader measure of how well work is executed and stands up to time. -
kdkd at 09:24 AM on 3 August 2010Visually depicting the disconnect between climate scientists, media and the public
Sorry, dud link: Solipsism. -
kdkd at 09:23 AM on 3 August 2010Visually depicting the disconnect between climate scientists, media and the public
Poptech #62 In some sense everything is subjective. A call for solipsism will not get you very far. The rest of your latest comment is more of the LALALA I CAN"T HEAR YOU stuff we're used to. canbanjo's #61 post is very informative about the quality of your list. Consider my discussion with you finished as you clearly only have one point to make, you do not make it well, and you make it repetitiously. -
Chemware at 09:22 AM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
Pretty much the same here, except I'm not a Christian, and I am a scientist working in the area. Have to admit though, I really love driving thebrand new top-of-the-line BMW5 year old Yaris that I bought on all thatgrant moneyhire-purchase. -
Mystyk at 09:14 AM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
Eloquent, thoughtful post. Kudos. I share the same sentiment as your first reason. I depart from you on your second. As a humanist, I simply look at the world as a place where we all have to live, and therefore all are its stewards. This requires a certain level of responsibility on the part of all of us, regardless of the status of any higher authority. As you also said, we will all draw our own reasons. I have found, much to my dismay, that I can far too easily get drawn into an XKCD-approved SIWOTI defense, for example. I would therefore only add one more critical reason as I interpret: the defense of truth for the sake of its value as truth. Striving to not be wrong is its own reward, if done with integrity and humility. -
Tony O at 09:13 AM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
Here, here, agreed. If you have faith does not that faith require stewardship? So much of the climate change argument is about averages, put weather back into those averages and it gets scary. What will the extremes be like? -
NewYorkJ at 09:12 AM on 3 August 2010Has Global Warming Stopped?
The statistical significance argument is also of limited value when you're dealing with a variety of indicators. The Jones example just refers to one - the HadCrut analysis. There is also the GISS and NOAA analysis, which (correct me if I'm wrong) reaches the 95% confidence level over the same time period. Now these aren't entirely independent. Then there is satellite data, which is mostly independent. I believe these reach similar levels of confidence as HadCrut over this time period. Not to mention that HadCrut neglects the Arctic. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1995/to/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1995/to/offset:-0.09/trend/plot/rss/from:1995/to/offset:0.15/trend/plot/uah/from:1995/to/offset:0.15/trend Then we have the rapid melting of global glaciers and ice sheets observed over this period, along with a notable increase in ocean heat content. The existence of independent indicators is important. If I wanted to analyze the assertion that a slot machine has a net negative expected value for the player, I could observe a single player, accumulating a significant number of rounds, observing a downward trend in his bankroll, and reaching a 90% confidence level. Pretty good, but what if we include 3 other players, let them play the same number of rounds, and they reach 90-95% confidence also with a similar downward trend. Wouldn't true confidence be higher when such independent observations are combined? Not a precise analogy, I know. -
Deech56 at 09:08 AM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
And in doing so you are also standing up for science. You go about this in the best way - using the scientific literature to support your arguments. People can look up the information themselves. -
chris at 09:07 AM on 3 August 2010Visually depicting the disconnect between climate scientists, media and the public
Poptech at 03:51 AM on 3 August, 2010 Poptech at 08:48 AM on 3 August, 2010 As robhon has pointed out "quality" certainly isn't subjective. The assessment of “quality” is made in relation to specific criteria, but these criteria can be objectively defined (they may have fuzzy edges!), especially so for science (and why bring "modern art" into it!?). Here’s a relevant real world example: At the moment the entire UK academic research community is gearing up to the latest of its periodic “research assessment exercises (“RAE”; though this is now called “REF”!). This is an assessment of a department's research quality and is not a notional exercise; the results of REF determine how major elements of government funding are allocated to Universities; REF matters and it matters a lot. How is research quality assessed? A major element is the quality of publications. Each and every research-active researcher in every scientific department in every University in the UK will be submitting their “best” four publications for the period (start 2008 to end 2011). How is the “quality” of a paper assessed? This can be done reasonably objectively in two ways. Scientific journals are ranked within subjects according to their impact factor (average # of times papers in that journal are cited within 2 or 3 years of publication; other defined criteria can be used); papers that have been in print sufficiently long can be assessed in terms of the number of times the specific paper has been cited by others. Each of these is recognised to be an objective measure of research quality (clearly in order to publish a highly cited paper in a good journal I will likely have obtained funding, have done a significant body of research on an important problem and produced a piece of work of high quality). Note that commentaries and reviews don’t count (one can say whatever one likes in a commentary, these are usually not peer reviewed and reviews themselves are not a necessary indicator of research quality). It’s obvious that major elements of UK government funding (and academic and industrial scientific appointments throughout the world) are based on research and publication quality, and that these have definable and objective assessment criteria (even if we may consider that the metrification of quality has gone rather too far). I can understand why you feel the need to downplay what are very obvious real world criteria of research and publication quality. Your odd list of disparate bits and pieces including numerous commentaries in various magazines, duplicated entries and articles that simply don’t correspond to your criterion (“supporting scepticism of man made global warming alarm”) is astonishingly low on quality. That's an objective interpretation based on real world and definable criteria. -
David Horton at 09:01 AM on 3 August 2010Why I care about climate change
I didn't know there was anyone WRONG on the internet John? Who? Where? What? -
David Horton at 08:58 AM on 3 August 2010Has Global Warming Stopped?
As to fydijkstra's graph. In addition to what the others have said, it's worth thinking about what the poster is implying. That we have all been getting hot and bothered over nothing - that we thought we were climbing inexorably up a graph that led to 1 degree, 2 degrees, 6 degrees of warming, when, silly old us, it was just that we were cursed by living in interesting times. That we just happened to be lying on the temporarily upward slope of a polynomial wave graph (and of course that this temporary upward slope just happened to coincide with the rapid increase in CO2 levels being spewed out by the rapid industrialisation of the planet. Pure chance it was, and lucky that the deniers stopped us greenies taking western civilisation back to mud huts. Only the deniers managed to keep their nerve while all around were losing theirs). Trouble is, as with all of this kind of amateur graph reading from the deniers, there is no mechanism presented for explaining how the change in global temperatures could be polynomial rather than linear. Where is the negative feedback that takes CO2 back out of the air once it reaches a a certain concentration? Or, conversely, what is the mechanism that allows CO2 and the greenhouse effect to keep on up and up and up while temperatures go back down down down? Proper science doesn't work post hoc. That is, you need to work out an hypothesis for the climate systems of the planet, then test that against the actual data. You can't simply try to see patterns that apparently emerge from the data after the event. I'm sure we've discussed this before. -
nhthinker at 08:55 AM on 3 August 2010On Consensus
"How about this one" Wallace Broecker concluded: "Our efforts to understand and EVENTUALLY to predict these changes need to be redoubled" Science is about prediction based on mathematical models. Broecker was not claiming he had high confidence in a quantitative model. His paper was much more qualitative in nature. A good model would define a function that twenty years into the future that would contain all the variables needed to make the prediction. Solar variability, CO2 and other GHG, volcanic activity, etc. Then, the twenty years of data is plugged in to see if the model from 20 years in the past can produce a prediction that is 90% accurate. If that can be done for many years without a need to constantly add more factors to the model in order to improve its accuracy, then Climate science will have arrived at the magical 4.5 level of confidence. I predict that will not actually happen for at least another 50 years. In the mean time, over the next twenty years, the IPCC predicts developing nations emissions of CO2 will dwarf current levels and thus allow climate scientists to have increasing amounts of CO2 to better test their climate models. -
Mal Adapted at 08:55 AM on 3 August 2010Has Global Warming Stopped?
Careful with Poptech! He's been suspended from both Deltoid and WUWT for posting personal details about another commenter. -
muoncounter at 08:50 AM on 3 August 2010What's in a trend?
Then #21 should say "every indication that the cool periodis nowshould be upon us. As was pointed out here two years ago, the PDO lacks any long term information about global temperature rise.
#22: "I do hope the last few summers here are not representative of a "cooling period"."
Same here. If this is cool, hot will be really ugly.
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Doug Bostrom at 08:43 AM on 3 August 2010September 2010 Arctic Ice Extent Handicapping Via ARCUS
Tamino teases the tea leaves, looking at variances between years w/regard to extent versus area versus phasing of changes. Lovely arcana. Also a prediction is ventured, with methods. -
canbanjo at 08:30 AM on 3 August 2010Visually depicting the disconnect between climate scientists, media and the public
Had a sim through the poptech list, noted the publications include: The Electricity Journal New Zealand Geographer Irrigation and Drainage Iron & Steel Technology Nordic Hydrology Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology New Concepts In Global Tectonics Weather ICE - Civil Engineering Hungarian Meteorological Service Monthly Weather Review Energy Policy Economic Affairs Economic Analysis and Policy Energy Fuels Area Social Studies of Science Regulation Journal of Forestry Public Administration Review Journal of Chemical Education Journal of Cosmology The Review of Economics and Statistics Malaria Journal Weather and Forecasting Journal of the American Water Resources Association Leadership and Management in Engineering Environmental Politics Society The Independent Review World Economics New Literary History Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics Waste Management The Cato Journal Economics Bulletin World Economics Economic Affairs Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law and of course E&E -
Dikran Marsupial at 08:30 AM on 3 August 2010Has Global Warming Stopped?
Poptech said: 'Sorry boys 95% is what statistically significant means. Anything less would not be "statistically significant".' My previous post was based on a misunderstanding of what Poptech wrote. In actual fact, the 95% level is merely a convention, a rule of thumb, with no deeper significance. You can claim statistical significance at any level you like (as long as you are clear about it), however nobody will be greatly impressed by a result that is significant at the 50% level of certainty. The 95% level is a sensible default, but it isn't set in stone. Bayesian significance tests also have a similar set of conventional threshold values for the Bayes factor, but likewise they are merely a useful rule of thumb.
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