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robert test at 12:06 PM on 23 July 2010The nature of authority
I think you’re leaving out a key concept: judgment—or rather good judgment. An experienced and well-trained musician has it. An experienced and well-trained pilot, comedian, scientist, philosopher, or home-builder has it – for those areas where she is experienced and trained. There are no rules or formulae for making most decisions. You don’t literally “weigh” the evidence for and against a proposition or theory. You have to use judgment. Those with training and experience generally have better judgment than those without it. It would be nice if the evidence were overwhelming on one side or the other. In the real world we are frequently required to make decisions when we don't have overwhelming evidence one way or the other. And when we don't have a simple logical formula for determining what to believe. In these situations, it would be wise to rely on those with good judgment -- i.e., experience and knowledge. -
HumanityRules at 11:50 AM on 23 July 2010The nature of authority
Who counts as an expert? And who decides who is an expert? Should paleoclimatologists be lstened to on any other subject? One could argue Steve McIntyre or even Monckton has been researching and banging on about their respective climate science interests that they have developed some level of expertise. Because they haven't gone down a formal academic process does not necessarily invalidate that experience. Is an earth science graduate with 5 years postgraduate experience more of an an expert? It's worth also considering a recent example when deferring to scientific experts went horribly wrong. The UK in the late 1980's probably saw the beginning of the recent hysteria around paedophilia. In those days a band of medical experts believed that had the tests that could definitively show that children had been sexually abused. These individuals published their work, disseminated their ideas and became the 'experts' to advise the police, social services, politicians and the courts. They pronounced on court cases and persided over the break up of families and jailing of parents. This period culminated in instances such as the Cleveland Child Sex Scandal and the final exposure of the 'expert' as wrong. It also worth considering the moral dimension of this example as well. Early critics of the experts were often portrayed as defenders of paedophiles when trying to question the experts. In this case a heady mix of expert authority and moral authority lead to some controversial scientific finding becoming unquestioned dogma with disastrous consequences. Another bad example of deferring to experts in the 'when science meets politics' arena might be MMR vaccine and autism controversy In general I have no problem deferring to expertise in science, I do it on a daily basis. Unfortunately climate science is no longer just science. When science collides with politics and social policy I think it's very much necessary to do plenty of questioning. -
scaddenp at 11:19 AM on 23 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
johnD - you water vapour graphs do puzzle me. It took me an age to find the data at ISCCP but I am at a loss I admit. It goes against the precipatable water vapour trends. Tempting to ask someone from Goddard to comment. -
Philippe Chantreau at 10:57 AM on 23 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Watts is not qualifed to review the Menne paper or anything with somewhat advanced maths. He finds averaging percentages a good enough procedure to keep a post in it on his site. WUWT is the place where carbonic snow on Earth had to be debated as a serious possibility. The "threat and coercion" BS is total bunk too. If it was really happening (which it isn't), how could you find in the litterature such stinkers as G&T or Carter et al, whose lack of quality alone is ground for rejection? As for the Soon/Baliunas thing, it led to the resignation in protest of most of the editorial board, including Von Storch, who is a rather independent thinking guy. The way that this is spun around by the deception artists in the denialosphere would be amusing if it didn't sway so many people. I listed a few of the real threats and attempts at coercion out there. WUWT's outing of scientists' places of work and incitation to harass them is a prime example. McIntyre's abuse of FOI requests is equally shameful. -
dhogaza at 10:53 AM on 23 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
"Watt's full list of issues with how Menne used his data, sounds like cherry picking to me." Wrong fruit - I think you meant sour grapes ... -
dhogaza at 10:52 AM on 23 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
"The problem, however, is that the guy who collected the data (Watts) wasn't invited to "peer review" the paper. Which is the normal Peer Review process. " Splurf ... TruthSeeker, if I were drinking coffee when reading your post, you'd owe me a keyboard. There's no polite way to say this: you don't know what you're talking about. And chastising journal editors for publishing crap is perfectly acceptable, as is boycotting journals that publish crap. Because scientists publishing in a journal have their careers judged in large part by their publication record, and if a journal they publish in starts getting a reputation for publishing crap, their reputation will to some degree sink along with the journals. So if "Nature" or "Science" started publishing "scholarly" papers supporting astrology or homeopathy, legit science would react violently against the editorial staff for allowing such crap into the journals' pages. And rightly so. -
Paul W at 10:47 AM on 23 July 2010The nature of authority
Graham, I liked your article. As a further metaphor the aviation industry has a use for the word authority. The control surfaces such as rudders and elevators have authority in normal flight. Loss of authority due to turbulence or fault has the plane begin to loose control. The authority of science comes from it's accuracy of measurement and external validation of theories. Just as the aviation meaning has the connection with the real world so does the world of science. I have two areas of training first as a commercial scientist (R & D chemist) and as a hobby the art of counselling. This second area has the acceptance of equality. The use of unconditional respect as a tool. This is for the purpose of allowing the counselling client the safety and connection to feel and work through all sorts of painful emotions that once they are worked through allow the client to resume flexible intelligent interaction with the real world. (That is the aim!) Both are humbling endeavours. Logic applies to both. The place of the real world is also common but with counselling great departures from the real world are allowed as a temporary refuge only. The aim is to regain real functioning. Currently we have a political issue given solid climate science of AGW where policies based on science need to be adopted. A western world where fossil fuels have the centre piece in real power production. A developing world following and in some ways leading. Politics is about power and what appears to be real. Appearance is everything as a tool to get political power. At times of great change very large numbers of people go through periods of great pain. The past and all sorts of emotions and un-realities take sway in many minds. The coming period of mess from climate change will be over decades at the least! There is a kind of personal authority of a calm logical mind, warm connection with others, and a commitment to do what is right no matter what level of wild emotions and illusory claims are made that is needed for this coming period. Our scientists and activists will need to draw on this last point the personal authority of "being seen to be sorted" as the tussle for political power which is the main issue of "the day" plays out. The political leaders just follow what appears to be the most sensible way forward. -
Sean A at 10:43 AM on 23 July 2010The nature of authority
Adrianvance, you'll have a hard time explaining transitions between glacial and interglacial climates without CO2 being a major factor. Small percentage: red herring, chicanery, contrivance, knavery. Excellent post by the way. And there's another authority that can't be argued with: nature. Unless humanity decides to grow up and learn this lesson, nature is going to kick our collective arse. -
Joe Blog at 10:42 AM on 23 July 2010The nature of authority
Human nature is a fascinating subject all of its own.... But im not so sure i would blindly trust a politician, just because he has experience/authority. Or for that matter any other demographic, we are a very social animal, and are prone to conforming to group behaviors in all things...as can be clearly seen with an extremely rudimentary study of history... any era, and just about any group. There is nothing wrong with critical thinking, i encourage it in my children. Question everything. Understand the how and why. Then decide for yourself your own view... There are dangers in blindly following the herd. Our history is full of examples of it. And we are still the same little funny monkeys we have always been. Believe the evidence, not the man. -
actually thoughtful at 10:41 AM on 23 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
61 - Truth Seeker. Thank you for your kind words (#56). To make an effective case using the 97% of the carbon cycle that is in balance, and not man-caused, you would also have to explain away the carbon isotope ratios that (so far) are only explained by fossil carbon, the depletion of O2 that is (so far) only explained by burning fossil carbon. If you can do that -you will have changed the science, and folks that know a lot more than me will have some questions. The problem the skeptics of AGW have is the theory doesn't just explain the rising temperatures, it also explains nighttime warming more than day, the arctic warming faster than mid-latitudes, the oceans rising and quite a few other phenomena. Your new theory should also explain why the man-made CO2 ISN'T warming the earth. I honestly think it is an insurmountable challenge, thus my postings in support of AGW (all the while understanding a few things are not perfectly explained). -
Jeff Freymueller at 10:26 AM on 23 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
TruthSeeker said: "The problem, however, is that the guy who collected the data (Watts) wasn't invited to "peer review" the paper. Which is the normal Peer Review process." No, it is not the normal peer review process. Reviewers need to be knowledgeable in the field, but there is not and has never been a requirement that whoever collected some data or made some classification of data/stations/whatever must be a reviewer of any paper that uses it. In fact, that is rarely the case, and repeating this claim will not make it true. Watts is welcome to submit a comment on Menne et al., and if he is able to point out substantive errors in Menne et al., then I'm sure it would be published. But I agree with KR (#83 and #86), he simply hasn't done it or even come close. -
Rob Honeycutt at 09:56 AM on 23 July 2010The nature of authority
adelady... Actually, I think the scientific method has a pretty good rule book and has ways of keeping score. This is how we have accomplished as much as we have as a species in the past few hundred years. The problem now is there are elements who don't like how the score is turning out and they want to either rig the game or change how the game is played or try to reinterpret the score of the game through the media. If you look at peer reviewed, published science on climate the score is about 3000 to 7 (roughly). But the losing team is managing to convince the general public that the score is wrong and the game is wrong. And I believe they've been fairly successful at this because science is a game where the general public doesn't fully understand the nature of the rules. -
KR at 09:50 AM on 23 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
TruthSeeker - I read it. There's no analysis on Watt's part, just copies of other peoples graphs, complaints about 'station adjustments', and his personal issues with how Menne obtained the data. I still await a Watt's paper with actual analysis of temperature records. If he can show a problem based on station siting, or the UHI effect, more power to him. In the meantime, since the GISS data agrees with two different satellite data sets that have completely independent calibrations, and some independent surface records (can't find the link right now, but it involved a lot more data stations than GISS...), I believe the burden of proof is on Watts. -
MattJ at 09:48 AM on 23 July 2010The nature of authority
Graham's thinking on authority is more insightful than that of the teenage rebel (he admits he once was). But not by much. Not by enough. Indeed: most conspicuous in the failure of his thinking is the false dichotomy between the authority with which he now speaks about music and musicianship, and the parental authority kids hate when their parents tell them to go to bed. How did he miss his own error here? His own example of his father making dogmatic statements to him shows there is no such division. After all, when a parent tells their kid to go to bed by such and such time or take a bath, that decision too is based on experience: kids need to go to bed earlier than they want, or they don't get enough sleep, and end up cranky the next day; they need hygiene, which need they generally never appreciate, not even after its neglect leads them to serious skin diseases. There is some difference between scientific authority and other forms, but Graham's article does not head us in the right direction to figure out what it is. However, it does remind me of a conclusion I have been groping towards for some years now: that the 'skeptics' whether those who deny evolution or those who deny global warming, or even those who fantasize of disproving Einstein's Relativity have all confused "scientific authority" for the second kind Graham mischaracterizes. That is, rather than recognize that scientific authority is based on people doing their homework, so that their opinion really IS worthy of authority and respect, the skeptics turn up their noses and stamp their feet shouting 'no' just like the little kid who doesn't want to take a bath when his parent tells him he must. Unlike the little kid, they have an amazing variety of ways to hide the fact that this is what they are doing, stealing the honorable label of 'skeptic' and pretending that they are the only true scientists, avoiding debate, shouting down the real science... The real cause of the near end of civilization mediated by global warming is not the proximate cause, the recklessly excess carbon, but the fact that we have surrendered the major decisions in running the world to such ill-bred brats. -
johnd at 09:47 AM on 23 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
TruthSeeker at 09:22 AM, this article from NASA Earth Observatory may be of interest to you. Uncertainties in Solar Measurements Despite all that scientists have learned about solar irradiance over the past few decades, they are still a long way from forecasting changes in the solar cycles or incorporating these changes into climate models. -
miekol at 09:46 AM on 23 July 2010The nature of authority
Blooming marvelous, for a moment I thought I was reading the word's Ayn Rand's John Galt might have written in "Atlas Shrugged." I read all of John's comment "The nature of authority," I thought it excellent. However I wondered whether or not John has read Professor Ian Plimer's book. Michael on the Gold Coast -
omnologos at 09:37 AM on 23 July 2010The nature of authority
Despite being part of what "we are to be clear about", there is no explanation about what "deference" entails? Without that, it is going to be hard to discuss about the practical meaning and consequences of "scientific authority". -
scaddenp at 09:37 AM on 23 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
'My issue isn't the math that about how much man emitts, rather I have a problem with it being the only thing we do measure." actually I agree that accounting only shows you that you have order of magnitude right. With the isotope data, it also tells you how much is being absorbed. However, you cant duck the isotope evidence. Fossil fuels CO2 is different isotope signature from other sources. This is evidence that CO2 is from emissions and not other sources. Things like the corals that John mention provide multiple checks on these calculations. There is no reasonable way to presume CO2 in atmosphere is not from our emissions. -
KR at 09:36 AM on 23 July 2010Models are unreliable
Pete Ridley - reading Hansen et al 2006 is quite clear; Hansen's most likely scenario (scenario B), with a particular CO2 increase plugged in, actually predicted temperatures over the last 22 years quite well. If you take Hansen's model and put in the actual CO2 numbers (5-10% less than his scenario) his model is even more accurate. This is discussed in the paper in the section labeled Early Climate Change Predictions, pages 1-3 of the PDF. It's a major part of the paper! The quality of a model lies in whether it makes correct predictions based on various inputs (Given 'A', you will get 'B'). His scenarios covered a range of different inputs (CO2 production), and the the prediction given closely matches the real-world result of that range of CO2 numbers. You can't ask for much more - it's a decent model, and predicts the correct result given a particular set of our actions, even at it's 1988 level of simplicity. That's what a good model does! -
adelady at 09:32 AM on 23 July 2010The nature of authority
It's a shame it has to be intellectual, where people have to acknowledge others' superior expertise. It would be so much easier if it were more like tennis or basketball. The scores tell the world who won each match. The rankings show who's won the most matches. -
scaddenp at 09:30 AM on 23 July 2010Models are unreliable
Pete, I do however have more than a passing acquaintance with this type of physical modelling. You ask for evidence of models predictive skill. You are pointed at comparisons between models prediction and actual data. I dont know what other kind of evidence you could mean. Hansen (and everybody else) cant predict what future CO2 emissions will be so of course he works with scenarios. "If you emit this, you will get this climate". You verify by comparing actual forcings (not just emissions but volcanoes, solar etc), versus the models prediction for the scenario that closest matches these forcings. Please also note that you need to distinguish between people giving you "opinions" versus people giving you verifiable facts. The source of facts is important, not the person giving it to you. -
TruthSeeker at 09:29 AM on 23 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
KR #84 "Watt seriously unless he does some numeric analysis to demonstrate his point." He does in the link I provided, you should read it. -
TruthSeeker at 09:27 AM on 23 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
KR #84 Thanks for the link, and I see that some of Watt's statements raise criticism and appear to be proven false. That, however, doesn't mean he is wrong about the data he collected. I don't see how his comments about his analysis of his own data are anecdotal (really, you can disagree with it but its not anecdotal). He should have been part of the Menne peer review team, and to exclude him is a corruption of the Peer Review process. I find it Hypocritical that Soon-Baliunas is considered "nonsense" based on how they used a data set contrary to the advice of the data generator, while Menne is given a pass for the same offense. Its self serving and stinks of corruption. -
TruthSeeker at 09:22 AM on 23 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
KR #57 My issue isn't the math that about how much man emitts, rather I have a problem with it being the only thing we do measure. We don't measure any of the other variables, and a less than 10% swing in any of them could cause the same increase. Until you measure and record all the moving parts, you cannot exclude them from making contributions. It is fallacious to do so. -
KR at 09:05 AM on 23 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
TruthSeeker - there's a thread here on just that topic, Watt and Menne 2010. You might find that interesting. I personally can't take Watt seriously unless he does some numeric analysis to demonstrate his point. I eagerly await a paper from him - if it appears. Until then it's anecdotes versus statistics, and I put more weight on actual statistics. -
TruthSeeker at 08:56 AM on 23 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Watt's full list of issues with how Menne used his data, sounds like cherry picking to me. And excluding Watts from the Peer Reveiw process stinks of corruption. Watts -
KR at 08:52 AM on 23 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
John, should there be a new skeptic argument for "It's waste industrial heat, not CO2"? I don't see anything like that on the list... -
TruthSeeker at 08:52 AM on 23 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Its Menne 2010 and the issue is covered on this site, which reports it as the end of the story. Menne 2010 The problem, however, is that the guy who collected the data (Watts) wasn't invited to "peer review" the paper. Which is the normal Peer Review process. Which is too bad, because the data was incomplete and uncontroled. Here is some of what Watts has said about the miss-use of his data. As for the Menne et all 2010 paper itself, I’m rather disturbed by their use of preliminary data at 43%, especially since I warned them that the dataset they had lifted from my website (placed for volunteers to track what had been surveyed, never intended for analysis) had not been quality controlled at the time. Plus there are really not enough good stations with enough spatial distribution at that sample size. They used it anyway, and amazingly, conducted their own secondary survey of those stations, comparing it to my non-quality controlled data, implying that my 43% data wasn’t up to par. Well of course it wasn’t! I told them about it and why it wasn’t. We had to resurvey and re-rate a number of stations from early in the project. .... Menne et al 2010 mentioned a “counterintuitive” cooling trend in some portions of the data. Interestingly enough, former California State Climatologist James Goodridge did an independent analysis ( I wasn’t involved in data crunchng, it was a sole effort on his part) of COOP stations in California that had gone through modernization, switching from Stevenson Screens with mercury LIG thermometers to MMTS electronic thermometers. He sifted through about 500 COOPs in California and chose stations that had at least 60 years of uninterrupted data, because as we know, a station move can cause all sorts of issues. He used the “raw” data from these stations as opposed to adjusted data. He writes: Hi Anthony, I found 58 temperature station in California with data for 1949 to 2008 and where the thermometers had been changed to MMTS and the earlier parts were liquid in glass. The average for the earlier part was 59.17°F and the MMTS fraction averaged 60.07°F. Jim A 0.9F (0.5C) warmer offset due to modernization is significant, yet NCDC insists that the MMTS units are tested at about 0.05C cooler. I believe they add this adjustment into the final data. Our experience shows the exact opposite should be done and with a greater magnitude. I hope to have this California study published here on WUWT with Jim soon. I realize all of this isn’t a complete rebuttal to Menne et al 2010, but I want to save that option for more detail for the possibility of placing a comment in The Journal of Geophysical Research. When our paper with the most current data is completed (and hopefully accepted in a journal), we’ll let peer reviewed science do the comparison on data and methods, and we’ll see how it works out. Could I be wrong? I’m prepared for that possibility. But everything I’ve seen so far tells me I’m on the right track. -
KR at 08:49 AM on 23 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
RSVP - Direct heat from industrial/coal/nuclear/oil/auto sources could over the last 100 years account for ~0.01 oC, out of the total warming of ~0.8 oC, <2%. It's a pretty trivial factor compared to the CO2 forcing. You should know this, it's been repeatedly discussed with you on multiple threads. As to N2 and O2 being heat "stores", take a look at Graph 4 on that same page, Total Heat Anomaly. The total heat sink for land and air combined (mostly land) is only a few percent of the total heat sink - most of the energy is going into heating the oceans. Please - if you want to promote (as you apparently do) the idea of waste industrial heat causing global warming, then look at the numbers. It just doesn't add up. -
John Russell at 08:34 AM on 23 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
There's a popular denialist meme that those 3% of scientists who cannot accept that humans are heating the planet are today's Galileos, bravely standing up to persecution. The argument seems to be that because Galileo was subsequently proved right about the planets orbiting the sun, it somehow proves that all noble mavericks who argue against the consensus view must be right, by definition. This is an illogical argument, of course, because it fails to account for the huge number of scientists who challenged one consensus or another then were subsequently proved wrong -- and thus their names have been forgotten. So it's a complete red herring. It's yet more evidence that the deniers' favourite modus operandi is cherry-picking. -
Mangeclous at 08:14 AM on 23 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Thanks again for reassuring us Science-illiterate people in our trust for Science. :) -
TruthSeeker at 08:14 AM on 23 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
#77 dhogaza, Do you really want the use of threats, coerrsion, and censorship to be part of the "Peer Review" process? That isn't concensus, and it isn't science. -
TruthSeeker at 08:12 AM on 23 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
#77 - dhogaza, no that isn't what I am saying. I don't even know how you can suggest that. I am confused how my desire to have the scientist refrain from using threats and coerrsion aginst thoes that disagree with them could be interpreted that way. -
RSVP at 08:04 AM on 23 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
KR #57 "If you think there is an alternative explanation, that explanation has to both account for the increased CO2 and energy entrapment via other means AND indicate why the known amount of CO2 we're putting out isn't making that contribution." Man made waste heat raises the temperature of gaseous components of the atmosphere (namely N2 and O2) that (according to AGW theory) are not good emitters or absorbers of IR. Therefore these gases would tend to "store" energy that would otherwise not affect them. -
dhogaza at 07:32 AM on 23 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
TruthSeeker seems to be saying that journals should publish every paper that's submitted, regardless of quality. Sorry, that's a non-starter. -
scaddenp at 07:05 AM on 23 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
HR - since you seem more familiar with "natural variation" hypotheses than me, can you explain how these theories account for the OHC record? Is there a creditable theory or just playing to the crowd? -
shawnhet at 06:30 AM on 23 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
skywatcher:"Don't think there's a strong correlation between PDO and global temperature. If you remove the trend in temperature there is a beter relationship... but hey, that's what McLean et al did. Trouble is, you're finding a relationship with the variability about the trend, rather than the trend itself (see Foster et al 2010)." Well, that's the point isn't it? - whether changes in the *distribution* of heat on their own can affect temps without a change in forcing. I am not arguing that temp change isn't also forced. The fact that there may not be a trend in the PDO doesn't establish that the PDO does not affect temps. Cheers, :) -
TruthSeeker at 06:01 AM on 23 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
PC #72 I respectfully disagree, and so did the report following the official investigation of Climategate, as it expressed dissapointment in the siege mentality. "If you don't want scientist to have a siege mentality, you shouldn't besiege them" They weren't under siege, they had all the power and misused it. Debate is required, and it is entirely inappropreate to react in a retalitory way, by black listing scientist and threatining publications that produce papers that don't support your conclusions. If the Soon-Baliunas paper is so scientificly flawed than address it in the debate, but they didn't stop there. Furthermore, the fact that they didn't even do Peer Review on several of the claims made in the IPCC report, clearly shows that these scientist suffer from group think and have a big blind spot. This is truley not justifiable behaviour, I am supprised you would defind it. As a result they by there actions completely corrupted the integrety of the -
KR at 04:42 AM on 23 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
TruthSeeker - We know how much carbon we're burning (basic economic statistics). We know from isotopic analysis that the change in CO2 levels is driven by those burnt fuels. The changes in oxygen level alone corroborate that. We can measure the amount going into the oceans via pH and dissolved carbon dioxide levels. These numbers add up to the increase in atmospheric CO2. Entirely. And very importantly, the increased CO2 effects, via fairly basic physics, match the observed temperature changes. If you think there is an alternative explanation, that explanation has to both account for the increased CO2 and energy entrapment via other means AND indicate why the known amount of CO2 we're putting out isn't making that contribution. If you have such an explanation, something physically based, I would love to hear it. But the human origin of rising CO2, and the temperature forcing thereof, really are established facts. -
Ned at 03:49 AM on 23 July 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Lon Hocker writes: With a 5-year tome constant, the anthropogenic contributions to the CO2 increase would be about 25% of the observed increase, leaving the rest for the temperature change. This is still just plain nonsense. The anthropogenic contribution is larger than the observed CO2 increase, meaning it accounts for more than 100% of the increase, not "25%". The excess is taken up by the oceans and biosphere. I realize that this is an emotional subject for all, and I likely would have been more politic to not have written such a aggressive headline! In any event the science is far from settled, and I wanted to present a contrasting argument to that usually accepted. It's not a problem of "emotions", "politics", or your headline. You did not understand the meaning of the statistical methods used in your post, and drew completely erroneous conclusions. Some aspects of science are not "settled" but one thing that definitely is settled is the anthropogenic origin of the observed atmospheric increase in CO2, and the fact that the ocean is currently acting as a sink for (part of) that increase. This is not a speculative or uncertain point; the evidence is overwhelming. -
werecow at 03:34 AM on 23 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Hmmm.... You get a cold reception, followed by increasingly heated arguments? I'm sorry, I'll try to do better next time. -
Philippe Chantreau at 03:31 AM on 23 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Chriscanaris early in this thread said "having heard a few things about the safety culture of a well known Australian airline from an engineer ostracised by its management." I hope this is not about Qantas. It would be a fine example of how facts and one disgruntled individual's view can not hold the same significance. Facts: The company has neither lost a jet airliner nor had any jet fatality, ever. To my knowledge, no other long established international jet operator can make such a claim. Total fatalities between the creation of the company and 1945 number 63, mostly owed to WWII and operational considerations in which safety did not have the same place. Total fatalities since WWII is 17, the last fatal accident was in 1951: a DHA-3, center propeller failure. This can be categorized as a design flaw; the prototype airplane had a similar accident in 1952. Despite such acccidents as the 1999 Thai landing, the facts clearly indicate that Qantas must be doing something right. Whatever the version of one disgruntled individual is, it can't be the full truth. The facts are still there. Kinda like with GW. -
skywatcher at 03:04 AM on 23 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Don't think there's a strong correlation between PDO and global temperature. If you remove the trend in temperature there is a beter relationship... but hey, that's what McLean et al did. Trouble is, you're finding a relationship with the variability about the trend, rather than the trend itself (see Foster et al 2010). A better explanation on this very site! And of course, correlation is not causation... -
Philippe Chantreau at 03:03 AM on 23 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Truthseeker, you have your facts backwards. The corruption of the peer-review process resides in the publication of such nonsense as Soon-Baliunas (the subject of the e-mails you allude to), or Carter et al or G&T. The anger in the e-mails refer to that kind of paper. It is entirely justified. The siege has been on for quite a while and is still happening. That includes: Hansen being gagged by the governement. The oil producing countries holding undue influence on the formulating of the IPCC reports. The media frenzy around the non-existing climategate, and that same media lack of reporting on the 3 separate enquiries that concluded there is nos such thing as climategate. The attempts at shutting up Mann by a zealot attorney general. The lynch mob culture at WUWT, where Anthony Watts gives to his public the places of work of scientists he dislikes so that his crowd can harass them. The abuse of FOI requests in organized fashion for the sole purpose of harassment. Rush Limbaugh calling on scientists to be drawn and quartered. It goes on and on. If you don't want scientist to have a siege mentality, you shouldn't besiege them. -
TruthSeeker at 02:20 AM on 23 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
At #35, thanks for your considerate response. I like the way you also provided additional lines of thought for consideration. Let me clarify my issue a little better. First off, there is no dispute that we are contributing CO2 and other GHGs to the atmosphere, and clearly this activity is manmade. My real question deals with gaining having certainty that we are the only point of contribution in flux? How do we know (models don't provide information, they just reflect our assumptions back to us). Honestly, the fact that it isn't increasing by the direct amount of what we are emitting, clearly shows that this is a system which is dynamic so why do we assume that all other contributions are stable? I think this in this whole line of thought could be a candidate for the classic statistical trap of equating correlation to causation. Remember, during the 1800's in London the correlation of storks on the roof of houses with new babies had an R^2 > 80. That's how we got the wives tale that the stork brings the baby.Response: I didn't know that about stork's on London rooftops - you learn something new every day :-)
If there were some unique stork isotope that was being transmitted to babies as they delivered them and there was a close match between the observed stork isotope and observations of storks on rooftops, then we would have more evidence of causality.
But enough torturing of the metaphor. We have more than just correlation of CO2 emissions to CO2 levels. There's also measurements of carbon isotopes which confirm fossil fuel burning is responsible for rising CO2 levels. There's also measurements of carbon isotopes in corals over the last few centuries that corroborate this finding. It's not just wives tales or statistical traps - it's multiple lines of empirical evidence. -
Jeff Freymueller at 02:07 AM on 23 July 20103 levels of cherry picking in a single argument
#29 Marcel, polar amplification (at least in the Arctic) is certainly happening -- it's observed, and not just in the present but also in paleoclimate. The explanation of why is much more speculative -- like you, I doubt that albedo is all of the story. -
shawnhet at 02:07 AM on 23 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
"I agree that Milankovitch cycles redistribute heat - but they do this globally - such as shifting insolation preferences from the NH to the SH, namely to a place where it cannot easily redistribute back. Regional redistributions have much less of an effect. Why should the PDO -ve of the present have a global cooling effect when the North Pacific as a whole is warmer than all previous PDO +ve phases?" Personally, I don't see the problem you're having here. If you think that a large change in the distribution of heat(where forcing is held more or less constant) can have a large effect on global temperature, what is difficult about claiming that a smaller(but still substantial) change in the distribution of heat will have a smaller(but still substantial) effect on the global temperature. IAC, empirically, it is pretty easy to demonstrate a strong correlation btw PDO index and global temperature. Cheers, :) -
TruthSeeker at 01:59 AM on 23 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Frankly, I think the question stacks the deck so the 97-3 is meaningless. If Climate Gate showed one thing, its that there was a "siege mentality" held by the scientist at the heart of the controversy. They proved a pattern of not only black listing publications that disagreed with the conclusions of AGW, they willingly to publishing in the IPCC report many fallacious claims that went unscrutinized but supported the AGW agenda. Of course they later needed to be pulled. Corruption of the "Peer Reviewed" publication process was the real crime of climategate. The impact of the "Siege Mentality," they were willing to censor data they didn't agree with, while not questioning conclusions that they did agree with. -
Svatli at 01:51 AM on 23 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Well, I'm going to try to go for the joke ;) What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room? ... 3 nuts in a shell. Remember,this is a joke :) -
Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 23:49 PM on 22 July 20103 levels of cherry picking in a single argument
And according to me we have more to do with global warming. However - the third point is a typical incomplete information: “The Climate Prediction Center recently released its equatorial upper ocean heat content for April 2010. One of the primary areas that they focus on is the equatorial heat content averaged over the area from 180-100W. The decrease in upper ocean heat content from March to April was 1C, which is the largest decrease in equatorial upper ocean heat content in this area since the CPC began keeping records of this in 1979. [...]” Of course, El Nino, but if only? Scary-looking figure 4 shows primarily the effect of AMO. In the initial phase of positive, followed by accumulation of energy (although some parts of the ocean - sometimes most - losing it slightly). Then (a measure of positive phase of the AMO), we have a very slow passing of energy (1.), until the sudden acceleration (possibly sudden reversal of meridional transport of energy - balance of energy -2.). 1. Widely discussed papers: Heat capacity, time constant, and sensitivity of Earth's climate system, Schwartz, 2007: “Also, recent studies with coupled ocean atmosphere GCMs have shown that the thermal signal from even a short-duration volcanic event is transported into the deep ocean and can persist for decades [Delworth et al ., 2005; Gleckler et al ., 2006 a , b ]; such penetration of the thermal signal from a short- duration forcing would suggest that the autocorrelation of GMST over a decade or more would be representative of the longer time constant associated with the coupling to the deep ocean and not reflective simply of a short time constant associated with the ocean mixed layer.” 2. Changes in net flow of ocean heat correlate with past climate anomalies, I chose a more accessible information: ScienceDaily (Aug. 17, 2009): "These shifts happened relatively abruptly," says David Douglass, professor of physics at the University of Rochester, and co-author of the paper.” “Douglass says the last oceanic shift occurred about 10 years ago, and that the oceans are currently emitting slightly more radiation than they are receiving.” “The team believes that the oceans may change how much they absorb and radiate depending on factors such as shifts in ocean currents that might change how the deep water and surface waters exchange heat. In addition to the correlation with strange global effects that some scientists suspect were caused by climate shifts, the team says their data shows the oceans are not continuously warming—a conclusion not consistent with the idea that the oceans may be harboring "warming in the pipeline."
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