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sebastian.tyrrell at 23:48 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
100 climate scientists in a room? Surely you mean "under Al Gore's hollowed out volcano"? -
adelady at 23:27 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Marcel Bökstedt at 20:26 PM on 22 July, 2010 "The scientific question remains unclear to me ..... its just my impression that this is an area of uncertainty." Well I'm not a scientist either, but I really don't expect to master all areas of 20+ scientific disciplines. Let alone understand them well enough to make serious judgements about the remaining areas of uncertainty. Like most non-scientists here, I'm able to follow good explanations well enough. Too much maths or physics and we have to make a decision. Do we put in 6 or 12 hours of brain pain just to read the details of something that's already well-known to experts? I don't, some do. As for uncertainties or unsettled details. If I'm making a sweater for someone and they complain that it's not yet finished, I reckon I'm right to get a bit testy when I point out that it just needs the last seams sewn, edgings on and a few threads neatened off. If the lucky recipient could learn to sew, knit and crochet for themselves it would all be done sooner if not better. My view is that the patterns shown by agricultural and ecological researchers, oceanographers, physicists, chemists, biologists and the thousands of other scientists and technicians are complete enough. Maybe not finished enough to wear if it was a garment- ...... -But we are absolutely certain that it *is* a garment and not a billiard cue or a jar of jam. 2 things we must live with. Uncertainty is one of the few certain things in life. Expertise in anything is hard to come by and should be respected in others. Moaning about doubts or uncertainties is a very unscientific thing to do. In science, uncertainty is an opportunity for interest or even excitement. In life, if we face uncertainty we take out insurance or we over-engineer the foundations for our house extension or we leave an hour earlier to catch our plane. -
canbanjo at 23:01 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
i asked my mother what she thought of rounding up one hundred scientists and putting them in a room and she said well at least they won't be doing any harm. glass is always half full with her. -
kampmannpeine at 22:57 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
corrected the link in 61 - sorry: Article in Die Zeit of 1967 -
kampmannpeine at 22:49 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
wanted to add the link to the "Die Zeit": http://www.zeit.de/1967/23/Wieviel-Schicksal-bestimmen-die-Planeten -
Alden Griffith at 22:30 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
John - I think you should quickly convert this into an op-ed (with the graphic!) and send it out to a major paper like the NY Times. (also your responses to questions 1 and 5 are worth weaving into the text). Just a thought! -
Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 22:29 PM on 22 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
The vast majority of scientists actually argues that the theory AGHG-AGW: makes sense. But I guess the same the majority is no longer argues that the current warming of up to 90% corresponds to man. Sentence above-quoted Matthews & Weaver, 2010: "We Argue That The Notion of unavoidable warming owing to inertia in the climate system is based on an incorrect Interpretation of climate science." Climatologist should consider how much of that 90%, the often still is UNKNOWN: "... inertia in the climate system ... "(my favorite system of resonance overlapping cyclical impact of our solar system to Earth - you really are at the beginning of the road of understanding and measuring the phenomenon) and how much positive feedback AGHG ... Of course, for honest skepticism about the skeptics' thank you JC, but for the fact that most cares about the "culture of debate" (sometimes excessively). Antarctica - the scientists - but skeptics, say: there is nothing to what it was in the past, or what we should worry too much - the rest (plus and minus) is a policy - the manipulation of data. -
Alexandre at 22:28 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
I think it's worth keeping in mind that this 97% is the result of a poll asking for these scientists opinion. If you look for what they've published, you get something closer to Oreskes' 100%. The rare contrarian paper that survives the peer review scrutiny falls into at least one of these categories: - does not conflict with what's known about GHG influence on temperature and climate - just count on e.g. a huge cloud negative feedback, which is also climate change. - it's a lonely conclusion that does not survive replication. -
skywatcher at 22:27 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Marcel - why do you feel the need to find an unknown natural forcing when there's decent evidence for positive feedbacks (e.g. water vapour, albedo)? Presumably you don't doubt that a dark object reflects radiation more poorly than a white one? You also have coincidence of timing. 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? -
johnd at 22:02 PM on 22 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
scaddenp at 08:46 AM, given that water vapour is a direct function of temperature, this chart (and accompanying explanation) showing the total column of water vapour, would then indicate a past decade of stable temperatures, below previous highs.
"Variations in the total column water vapour in the atmosphere since July 1983. The upper graph (blue) shows the total amount of water in the atmosphere. The green graph shows the amount of water in the lower troposphere between 1000 and 680 mb, corresponding to altitudes up to about 3 km. The lower red graph shows the amount of water between 680 and 310 mb, corresponding to altitudes from about 3 to 6 km above sea level. The marked annual variation presumably reflects the asymmetrical distribution of land and ocean on planet Earth, with most land areas located in the northern hemisphere. The annual peak in atmospheric water vapour content occur usually around August-September, when northern hemisphere vegetation is at maximum transpiration. The annual moisture peak occurs simultaneously at different levels in the atmosphere, which suggests an efficient transport of water vapour from the planet surface up into the troposphere. The time labels indicate day/month/year. Data source: The International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP). There is a possibility that the step-like change shown 1998-1999 to some degree may be related to changes in the analysis procedure used for producing the data set, according to information from ISCCP. Last data: June 2008. Last figure update: 14 June 2009."
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Marcel Bökstedt at 22:00 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
skywatcher> There is no doubt in my mind that the greenhouse gasses are producing warming, and that we can calculate the resulting forcing pretty accurately. But I do have some doubts about the amount of positive feedback. There is still the possibility that the feedback is smaller than we think, and that some unknown natural variation is added to that to produce the observed warming. Maybe not likely, but possible. Chris> Why can natural internal variation only redistribute heat? By playing with redistribution of temperature between sea and land or between high and low latitudes, I can offhand think of several conjectural scenarios where total cloud cover, snow cover, humidity etc. could change, and then influence the global temperature. And I've got a slow imagination. Besides, one could equally argue that the Milankovitch cycles only redistributes heat, they do not change the total amount of received solar radiation, only its distribution. -
CBDunkerson at 21:32 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
HR #24; "Theories around 20th century hurricane numbers and intensity were recently debunked." Debunked? No. They were disputed... only 'skeptics' (who by such behavior prove that they AREN'T skeptics) assume that the alternate viewpoint MUST perforce be correct. In reality there isn't much foundation for that. Basically, Landsea argued that the data showing increasing hurricane activity over time was incorrect because he ASSUMED that earlier data, before satellite tracking, 'missed' some hurricanes which did not make landfall. He offered no real scientific evidence of that and also did not consider the equally 'valid' possibility that some pre-satellite hurricanes were counted TWICE when they were spotted in different regions. Once you exclude the pre-satellite records the remaining trend, while still increasing, is not statistically significant and thus also dismissed. Also note that pre-satellite counts have been validated not just by observations, but also by analysis of the frequency of sediment deposits being carried inland by storms... a physical science confirmation of increasing storms which Landsea just ignored. Essentially it is the classic 'deny the data' tactic. Hardly a 'debunking'. As to the oddity of three climate scientists actually saying that humans are NOT causing warming... note that this is based on one of those petitions sent around. Several skeptic scientists have stated that they signed on to such petitions, even though the wording wasn't entirely correct, to help demonstrate that 'there is no consensus'. In short, they wanted to make a political statement badly enough that they were willing to put their name to something they knew to be inaccurate. Which I think is an important point... I cannot think of a single skeptic scientist who is not extremely 'partisan'. Sure, there are also plenty of AGW scientists who are equally partisan... but there are also alot who are NOT emotionally invested and still find strong AGW solely on the basis of the evidence. -
Cornelius Breadbasket at 21:20 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
100 climate deniers go into a bar. Spencer goes up to the landlord and asks "do you sell pure alcohol?" "No mate, just the usual wines, beers and spirits" he replies. "Right lads, next pub" says Spencer. The landlord is stunned. "What's wrong?" he asks. "Nothing mate" replies Spencer, it's just we require 100% proof". -
chris at 21:20 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Marcel Bökstedt at 20:26 PM on 22 July, 2010 Yes, fair enough. I would say that the bottom line is that enhanced persistent surface warming can only come from changes in external forcings (solar or greenhouse gas and Milankovitch variation), or from massive tectonic events that release large amounts of greenhouse gases (or extraterrestrial impacts that slam into carbonate rich deposits). Volcanic activity and solar variation can result in cooling on medium to long (solar) timescales. But we can assess all of these things in detail in the context of 20th century and contemporary warming and establish their contributions, and determine that they have made little net contribution to global warming. Natural internal variations (e.g. ocean currents like the PDO/AMO) can pretty much only redistributed heat. It's difficult to conclude anything other than that these effects average temporally to near zero. That's not to say that the particular phase of an ocean oscillation might not have a significant regional effect depending on the "phase" that the oscillation happens to be in. For example some of the current Arctic warming likely has some contribution from the AMO which involves residtribution of heat into the N. Atlantic. But one would have to conjure up some rather extraordinary thermodynamic arguments to satisfy a notion of persistent accumulation of heat into the climate system by internal variations! Since we know that that is exactly the effect of enhancement of the greenhouse effect it would be silly to attempt to pretend that this isn't dominating contemporary warming, all uncertainties about the true climate sensitivity notwithstanding. I'm away until Sunday so won't be able to respond any more til then... -
skywatcher at 21:19 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Marcel: John Cook's response to post #5 neatly deals with your point I think. It's not just a case of explaining away everything else and being left with inferred CO2, but it's a case of actually directly observing the CO2 causing the warming at it's specified wavelengths. So your mystery natural variation has to both cancel out a CO2-induced warming that we see (ie be a cooling), and then create an entirely different warming all on its own, therefore it's net effect is zero??? The PDO, so far as I understand it, is a spaial variation in temperature distribution, not an absolute measure of heat gained or lost by the North Pacific. This seems a common misconception. Its consequence is to change the pattern of warmer/cooler weather in related regions, but not to make the overall system substantially warmer or cooler. For the last 15 years, more or less, the North Pacific has been warmer than at any time in the past, including all previous PDO 'positive' phases, yet for most of this time the PDO has been neutral or slightly negative. I would think of it like having a radiator and a cooling air conditioner in the same room, set to the same setting. One way round, your sofa's warm and your dining table is cold, swap them over and the dining table is warm and your sofa cold. The overall effect on the room may be close to zero (but dependent on the heat capacity of neighbouring objects), but an index like the PDO records the fact that the warmer and cooler regions have switched around. -
kampmannpeine at 20:52 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Yes, the other three. The problem with the 2007-IPCC-process was that there was some "unopenness" towards the other three. They definitely now learned from that and when you look at the www.ipcc.ch page you will find some hints that I observed this correctly ... What also seems very interesting is what Nicola Scafetta and Bruce West found: Celestial magnetic influence by the local panetary system ... for instance there seems to be a 60-year periodic fluctuation in the temperature observations. and interestingly also the same fluctuation in the longterm measurements of the LOD (Length of Day) - which is about some millisecond difference of fluctuations... Could it be that there is some "slow down/speed up" generated by the interaction of planetary and terrestrial magnetic fields? Interestingly enough, there was already a newspaper article in the German "Die Zeit" from *1967* which is online available ... And there is already the talk about the influence of the Jovian magnetic field on our ionosphere which - then quoted - influences the terrestrian troposphere ... This influence generates en electromagnetic resonance chamber of about 8-12 Hz ... strangely enough the same frequency as the human brain waves ... (not kidding!) -
Marcel Bökstedt at 20:26 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Chris> I don't know Spencer's history, so I can't comment on that. The scientific question remains unclear to me. No, I don't know of any concrete evidence of long term natural variation of the climate. But this is not the same as that such things do not exist. There seems to be natural variations which cannot be explained by external forcing on the time scale of years or even decades (eg. pacific decadal oscillation), so how can we be sure that there are no such natural variations on bigger time scales, like centuries? I'm not claiming any deep insight here, its just my impression that this is an area of uncertainty. -
Esop at 20:22 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
There will always be a small percentage of scientists that reject overwhelming evidence due to their religion or ideology. There are geologists that reject the theory that earth is more than 6000 years old because it clashes with their interpretation of the bible. Should we give them attention because they are geologists and are supposed to know better? Some groups reject the AGW theory based on interpretation of the bible, probably some climate scientists as well. -
chris at 20:08 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Incidentally, if some may think I'm a little hard on Spencer, Kirkby, Lindzen and Chylek (it's possible his climate sensitivity paper was an abberation, but it is jaw-droppingly dodgy), it is a good idea occasionally to highlight work that at the very least shows a disregard for normal scientific standards. After all there are some astonishing political and agenda-led efforts to insinuate "wrong-doing" on the part of a few climate scientists who have published important work. This is accompanied by a deplorable incitement to bullying from a few web blogs by people that either don't know the difference between right and wrong or who simply don't care. If we're objectively interested in hunting out flawed science, then it's pretty clear where much of this resides. Oddly the perpetrators get a free ride while the baying mobs attack the scientists whose work stands the test of time and independent reproduction. That should be pointed out occasionally! Scientifically speaking, it's not a big deal that Chylek, Spencer, Lindzen, Kirkby et al make horribly flawed presentations. We can recognise poor analyses and let these pass. This sort of stuff has little effect on the scientific processes even if it does waste a little time. The problems come in its influence on public perception as we've seen time and time again. -
chris at 19:37 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Marcel Bökstedt at 18:43 PM on 22 July, 2010 I don't see why we should give Roy Spencer any priviliged consideration Marcel! As with science in general it's all about the evidence and Spencer simply doesn't provide any evidence that might lend us to take his idea very seriously. That's not to say that there might not be some natural contribution to 20th century and contemporary warming; however the evidence doesn't support anything more than a weak contribution (there might be a small net solar contribution but this has been less than zero for the past 20 years or so; some of the early 20th century warming was likely due to recovery from volcanic cooling which suppressed greenhouse-induced forcing during the late 19th/early 20th century). Do you (or anyone out there!) think there is good evidence for a stronger natural contribution? In any case natural contributions largely average temporally towards zero, and it is only external forcings that can result in progressive and cumulative increase in the thermal energy in the climate system. I find Spencer as a sort of "celebrity crowdpleaser" quite interesting. He makes lots of mileage by presenting rather humdrum analyses in the scientific papers which he "sexes up" on his blog. However amusing or interesting that might be I think there's a darker side to this: it's difficult to forget that he spent the better part of 15 years getting the analysis of satellite-based tropospheric temperatures hopelessly wrong until this was highlighted and correct by others, especially in a series of papers in Science in 2005. Spencer continues to pursue analyses that might give the impression that climate sensitivity might be lower than the rest of the science indicates. From a science point of view it doesn't matter since we can take an objective view and consider the evidence on its merits (that's likely why 97% of publishing climate scientisits consider that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions dominate 20th century and contemporary warming). Unfortunately a tiny proportion of scientists who seem to have an interest in pursuing dodgy analyses get a disproportionate amount of attention! -
kdkd at 18:50 PM on 22 July 20103 levels of cherry picking in a single argument
Here's a fun one. Over at WUWTF they're crowing that the satellite record only broke the 1998 record briefly. A rather subtle cherry pick. Here's my response there; let's see if it makes it through the moderator gateway.This is a bit silly. 1998 Was the strongest El Niño ever recorded. It's quite clear that the satellite measurements overestimate temperature compared to the instrumental record during El Niño events. However, as we are now approaching a LaNiña event, and the satellite record is approaching record levels, while the surface record is breaking records, your analysis appears to fail to take account of the complexity needed to interpret this data.
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chris at 18:43 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
scaddenp at 15:18 PM on 22 July, 2010 HumanityRules at 15:25 PM on 22 July, 2010 "I think the climate angle was rather pushed to get funding" I agree with scaddenp. In particular the presentations of Jasper Kirkby are disgraceful, and his descriptions of the roles of CRF, solar irradiance and increased greenhouse gas concentrations on earth temperature variation of the last 1000 years show are a dreary misrepresentation of the science. However he got his funding. Fine. And it's encouraging that the CERN CLOUD project has got a number of pukka solar and aerosolic scientists on board. But what is CLOUD going to discover HR? We know categorically that changes in CRF can have made no contribution to the very marked warming at least since 1958 when the CRF has been monitored in great detail. There simply hasn't been a trend in the CRF that is compatible with the theory of how CRF might modulate the Earth surface temperature. CLOUD isn't going to change that. It will result in some very nice data on aerosolic particle seeding of water condensates under controlled conditions in a chamber linked to a particle accelerator. There's a big interest in the mechanism of aerosol formation and CLOUD is very likely to give some nice insight to that. But it simply isn't going to affect our understanding of the role of greenhouse gases in Earth temperature, nor is it somehow going to "magic" a role for CRF in the large and widespread contemporary warming. Scientists have made an objective analysis of the role of CRF in contemporary warming and the evidence simply doesn't support a role, however nice the science from CLOUD might be. Like your examples of flawed attempts to support a low climate sensitivity (Chylek; Lindzen; Schwartz) we can look at these things objectively and assess their value to our overall understanding. That's why 97% of "publishing climate scientists" likely consider that enhanced anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing dominates 20th century and contemporary warming. -
Marcel Bökstedt at 18:43 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
HR, Chris, villalobo> On HR's point (1): If I understand Roy Spencer corectly, his point of view is that part of the present warming could be caused by natural variation. This means internal variation of the climate, without any forcing from the sun or other external influences. The big weak spot of this theory is that while he does mumble about the influence of cloud cover, he does not point to any concrete mechanism, or has any data that suggests the existence of such long cycles. On the other hand, I don't see that the possibility has been excluded. It seems to me that we just don't understand the dynamics of climate well enough to say with certainty that there are no such internal variations. If I had to bet real money, I would bet against it, but this seems to be one of those loose ends, which sooner or later have be tied up. -
Dibble at 18:35 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Looking at your room full of climate scientists, it illustrates with clarity the skewed reporting of the issue in the various media outlets. If I'm being charitable it's their desire to report in a balanced manner that makes them wheel out those same three 'red' guys from your room time and time again to have their say. Their views become disproportionately amplified in the publics perception of the state of scientific understanding. Of course there are uncertainties which , I would argue, are already more than adequately expressed in the IPCC assessments, but the notion of some sort of dichotomy in the 'debate' about the anthropogenic influnence on climate is utterly false. Truely fair and balanced reporting would move the discourse towards the worrying degree of warming we're actually observing, the likely regional and global implications and the potential human and ecological damage associated with doing nothing to curb CO2, and how to effectively curb fossil fuel burning. That is where the debate should be a whopping 97% of the time. Unfortunately with much of the mainstream media siding with an increasingly influencial blogsphere that propogates snake oil science we're being fed a information diet that approaches 50% rubbish. That is why your efforts here are so important and so appreciated. -
chris at 18:09 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
HumanityRules at 14:54 PM on 22 July, 2010 You’re missing the point HR. None of your examples provide any cause for considering the science on the greenhouse effect deficient, or the role of CO2 as a greenhouse gas, or the consequences (with uncertainties) of massively enhancing its concentrations, or that alternative potential contributions are sidelined. Schwartz/Chylek. Each of these scientists (not to mention Lindzen and Choi) has presented flawed analyses (dismally so in the case of Chylek and Lindzen/Choi) in an attempt to support low climate sensitivities. Each of their analyses is objectively incorrect, in the cases of Chylek and Lindzen, by a rather astonishing cherry-picking of data points apparently to support a preselected “answer”. I don’t actually see how objectively flawed analyses can be used to support your notion that alternative theories and contributions are ignored. Your statement: . ”In fact the need to "take apart" science that stands outside the IPCC consensus is worrying in itself.” is specious. In every scientific field scientists read published work and may discover real or apparent flaws and may write a comment to the relevant journal. Objectively flawed work will very likely be noticed and highlighted. Chylek (and Lindzen and Choi’s) rather astonishingly flawed analyses were “taken apart” not because they “stand outside the IPCC consensus”, but because they are rubbish. Bottom line: If we want to understand the Earth surface temperature response to enhanced greenhouse gas concentrations, we reject analyses that are massively and objectively flawed. Wouldn't you say so HR? Or do you think it's appropriate to pretend that flawed analyses are not flawed in order to support a pretence of an "opposition" to the science? One might additionally ask the question about the motivation of those that go to the effort to prepare analyses that border on the fraudulent. -
Marcel Bökstedt at 18:01 PM on 22 July 20103 levels of cherry picking in a single argument
muoncounter> It seems to me that the differences in CO2 levels between latitudes is rather small. There is an annual variation which presumably is caused by the biosphere. this variation gets larger closer to the poles, which fits well with that the differences between seasons is bigger there. Jeff> Polar (Arctic) amplification is often attributed to the albedo changed caused by less ice and snow. As I understand it, it is an additional warming. It could also be part of the explanation, but now we are really guessing wildly, and we are not even on WUWT. -
Pete Ridley at 17:54 PM on 22 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
Scaddenp, as John requested, I'll take my response over to his “How reliable are climate models?” thread (http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php?p=4&t=188&&a=15). Meanwhile, as with all others expressing their opinions about those horrendously complex global climate processes and drivers, it is helpful to know your pedigree. Like me, you may not be an “expert” in this area, making my opinion as valid as yours, however, if you are an “expert” your opinion will be based upon a better understanding so more credible. You don’t need to write a bio – just give a name and career and I can do the rest. If you want mine I’m a retired Chartered Electrical Engineer –MIEE with a keen past interest in electromagnetic compatibility (EMC). Best regards, Pete Ridley -
chris1204 at 17:37 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Well, since doctors keep coming up in the discussion (ScruffyDan @ 31 & HR @ 36) and John Cook, let me give you some real life examples. In my field (apart from medication and ECT), we have psychotherapies of which the current favourite is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). CBT is actually quite a useful adjunct in helping manage milder forms of depression and anxiety. However, being a therapy which can be done from a manual, there is no end of research purporting to show the benefits of CBT. The evidence base seems most impressive. CBT outcomes are usually compared to outcomes on patients on a 'waiting list' or receiving 'supportive psychotherapy' (talking about your problems to a sympathetic listener). When you look at the actual studies, all too many rely on a several week trial demonstrating some improvement (eg, in the form of lowered scores on a psychometric test). However, in the real world of office and hospital based psychiatry dealing with patients with severe chronic conditions, CBT may have limited application. One research unit on anxiety disorders in a city which shall remain unnamed run by a professor who shall remain equally nameless and genderless has published very impressive outcomes for CBT therapies. Interestingly, s/he claims that s/he can achieve these results without medication. When I first entered private practice, I had a number of challenging patients with severe anxiety disorder whom I referred to the unit hoping they7 would receive more expert treatment. Inevitably, the patients were sent back to me with a polite note stating that they needed medication and hence were not suitable for the treatments on offer. No wonder they were (and remain) so successful - they took only the easiest of patients. Much the same happens in drug trials which often run over a six (maybe twelve) week period in which Drug A is compared with Drug B (where Drug B is a well-established treatment). Often dosage are fixed so as to achieve a standardised treatment. Patients selected are often 'pure' populations bearing little resemblance to the patients in the real world who often have multiple comorbid conditions. Outcomes again are often based on changes in scores on psychometric testing. The study will be published if the person pushing drug A manages to obtain a statistically significant improvement in psychometric scores over Drug B. Of course, in real life psychiatry, you end up treating many patients for months often varying drug dosages and combining drugs and spending a great deal of time trying to help them make sense of their predicament (which is what you often have to do in general medicine which is largely about the management of chronic disease). Moreover, in real life, a 50% reduction in a patient's score on a psychometric test may sound impressive - however, it often does not represent functional recovery (which is the most relevant metric). Clinicians (as opposed to researchers) are all too aware of the frail evidence base of much medical practice but do the best they can to apply the research data. Our learned colleges spend a great deal of time putting out practice guidelines which are sometimes helpful and sometimes seem quite removed from the realities we encounter in our offices and in hospitals. To my shame, I have to undermine your confidence in the medical profession any further by dwelling on unspeakably corrupt behaviour by inter alia academics with very impressive research profiles who act us guns for hire for insurance companies. These are the same people who publish studies and act as peer reviewers towards whom mere clinicians such as myself ostensibly look to for guidance. What horrifies me about the behaviour of the latter is that they cause needless suffering to injured parties caught up in an adversarial system (and add substantially to the ultimate cost of insurance claims by blocking common sense resolutions). Moreover, the same doctors tend to dominate the medicolegal sections of their various colleges - ie, the poachers are the gamekeepers. In an earlier post on 21/07/10, someone remarked that you didn't need to have peer reviewers who were moral giants to pick out junk science. However, having seen so many moral pygmies in positions of influence in my profession, I struggle to overcome cynicism about the world of science and academia. Do I still trust my own doctors? Well, actually, yes I do - they've helped me enormously through some challenging health issues. I would add that i have very high expectations of the colleagues to whom I* entrust my health. Do I still read my professional journals? Of course though sometimes with a jaundiced eye when I see an obvious disconnect between research findings and the realities I encounter in day-to-day clinical practice. To come back on topic, do i accept AWG as likely to be a major challenge for us as a society? Yes - though I believe there's some uncertainty around the scale of the positive feedbacks. I was far more sceptical a couple of years ago. John's obvious sincerity and commitment to very courteous moderation giving a voice to disparate views has played a major role in this process. However, I wince when the medical profession is cited as a model for trusting climate science. I've seen too much of the dark side.Response: I've had my own dark experiences with the medical profession. Maybe I'll stick with engineers as my 'expert metaphor'. Haven't had any bad encounters with engineers yet.
Thanks for the kind words, they're quite appreciated. I'll make it my goal to convince you of the evidence for net positive feedback over the new few months :-) -
Marcel Bökstedt at 17:36 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Normally dissent is a good thing in science. I'd say that the 3% are essential for keeping the 97% in line. It's important for a scientist to know that there are people who will question your results. Evil people that would be delighted to find out that you made a mistake. It keeps you on your toes. The unusual situation in climate science is the way the science is mixed with politics. The reasonable or unreasonable doubts of the 3% and the various theories of the 97% are taken out of context. When it's told in the medias, both can be turned into something different. -
villabolo at 16:45 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
#7: HumanityRules at 11:39 AM on 22 July, 2010 I would have thought 100 of them would be green if you asked that question. Most of the so-called deniers I've read seem to accept CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that increasing CO2 is anthropogenic. From what I've read the so-called denier scientists seem to hold a range of ideas including. 1) We have focussed solely on the effect of CO2 while denying or ignoring natural variability. 2) We have over-estimated CO2's impact on the climate. 3) We have ignored other ways of how we changed the environment, such as land use. 4) We are still in the early stages of climate science either in our data collection or theories. We still have too much to learn before we can pass conclusions. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * I don't know what you mean by those "scientists" you mentioned. Were you referring to 'skeptics' who are actual Climatologists or are you referring to just any scientist in any field? As far as their "range of ideas" you've listed, are they really representative of most leaders of the "skeptical" that we are familiar with? ______________________________________________________________ 1) "We have focussed solely on the effect of CO2 while denying or ignoring natural variability." Not really. Solar variation has been taken into account and there is no way it can be responsible for our situation in the past century. Furthermore, the limits of its fluctuations are such that it will never be a major driving force. Perhaps a minor nuisance if it gets its spots back but less and less of a contribution as our emissions and feedbacks (Siberian Permafrost) crank the temperatures up. I'm sure you've heard this AGW response. The question is, what is your counter rebuttal? 2) "We have over-estimated CO2's impact on the climate." Is this a reference to Lord Monckton's re-computation of CO2's Global Warming abilities? According to his self reviewed Calculatus Eliminatus computations ;-) CO2 has 1/6 the ability to warm things up that all physicists have been telling us. Please keep in mind his logic and consistency. In one presentation he stated that 300,000 ppm of CO2 during "Snowball Earth" had no effects at all. In other revelations of his, he tells us that if we keep up our normal emissions (reaching about 800 ppm), we will have 1/2, maybe 1 degree Fahrenheit rise. Please figure out the inconsistency of that. Are we supposed to believe that a man who claims to have invented a cure for MS, Herpes Simplex VI, the common cold and finally a treatment for AIDS; is to be taken seriously in his estimates of what CO2 can do? 3) "We have ignored other ways of how we changed the environment, such as land use." Am I imagining how the destruction of the Amazon Forest and others have been taken into account by AGW's? 4) "We are still in the early stages of climate science either in our data collection or theories. We still have too much to learn before we can pass conclusions." When will we advance into a more mature stage of climate science? Perhaps in the year 2100 when 98% of the population of 100's of millions are illiterate? My apologies if my sarcasm makes one wince but that last statement is the most pathetic of them all. Yes, we do have sufficient knowledge to make a decision on a situation which, in it's 'best case scenario', is going to wreak sufficient damage to collapse nations worldwide. -
adelady at 16:19 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
HumanityRules at 15:21 PM on 22 July, 2010 97 say your pain is probably wind, 3 say it might be cancer. They put their heads together and say "We'll do a scan / other tests and see what they tell us." And when the tests are done - who do you listen to? The person who looks at the image and says I can't see anything, or the qualified radiologist who says, "Look at this area here. We'd better investigate further." And who's qualified to investigate further? Yup, surgeons, pathologists, radiologists. Not your mum or next door neighbour or the shop assistant. Experts. Who should we listen to on climate issues. Experts!! -
Jeff Freymueller at 15:54 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
#38 HumanityRules, so are you suggesting that they would not have done a rebuttal if not for the IPCC deadline? Or can you point to a single example of this where the rebuttal was rebutted? I think the answer to both of those questions is no. But perhaps you have an example of a paper where a rebuttal was rushed to beat an IPCC deadline, and afterward the original paper became a highly cited and influential paper while the rebuttal was cosigned to the circular file? As for the broader politics, I think you are acting as if science and the political punditry operate on similar principles. They don't. -
monckhausen at 15:36 PM on 22 July 2010Monckton tries to censor John Abraham
We started a counterattack in support of John Abraham, an argumentum ad moncktonem: http://friendsofginandtonic.org/ -
HumanityRules at 15:31 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
34 Jeff Freymueller I don't think we are allowed to comment on the climategate e-mails on this wesite, but here goes. I read in them a concerted effort among some to get rebuttals of papers in specifically to beat the IPCC deadlines. That is not the normal course of scientific debate, that is politics. I also don't think they are particularly bowing down. I think the broader politics around the IPCC fits fairly naturally with the views of many people, climate scientists included. -
HumanityRules at 15:25 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
35 scaddenp "I think the climate angle was rather pushed to get funding" That made me laugh out loud. -
HumanityRules at 15:21 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
#31 ScruffyDan Assume unpleasantly it bowel cancer. If I got a pain in my gut, blood in my stools, been to the doctor, had the endoscope, had a biopsy and the test says it's cancer. There is only one possibly drug on the market. 97 recommend that drug the 3 go down a different route. The answer seems obvious. What if I walk into the room just with a pain in my gut. 97 say I've probably got wind, 3 say I should consider bowel cancer. What if there are a choice of options for treatment. And the numbers are split. What if............ -
scaddenp at 15:18 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
HR - any paper on either side with errors needs to be taken apart but yes, I was referring to the earlier one on sensitivity. I have not read the 2010 but GRACE ice loss would indicate that it is not getting colder (though note that models do not predict much warming in Antarctica). The cloud experiment - well till they do it, who knows? I think the climate angle was rather pushed to get funding but even if it has some effect, the observational data is against it having much significance for climate change. -
Jeff Freymueller at 15:18 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
"In fact the need to "take apart" science that stands outside the IPCC consensus is worrying in itself. " Papers are "taken apart" when they are wrong, not because they disagree with the IPCC consensus. Of course, wrong papers are sometimes just ignored. Correct papers withstand attempts to take them apart. Really, this whole idea that scientists in a whole host of fields reflexively bow down before the IPCC is beyond ridiculous. -
jyyh at 15:01 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
What do you get...? -97 of them will say:"let's open the window" but as 100% majority is demanded by the people who put them in the room, you get nothing. Sorry hangove'd. -
HumanityRules at 14:54 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
scaddenp Not his 2010 paper. And "taken apart" seems highly inappropriate, assimilated into the body of climate change literature seems better. In fact the need to "take apart" science that stands outside the IPCC consensus is worrying in itself. The oscillations may be well known but when I read about Arctic warming they are never mentioned. I'm skeptical there is any recent antarctic warming trend. I'm aware that Steig report a warming trend since 1957, what they didn't point out in that paper is most of that warming came in the first decade. Since about the mid 1960's antarctic temperature looks fairly flat. Have a read of Twentieth century bipolar seesaw of the Arctic and Antarctic surface air temperatures (2010) Petr Chylek,1 Chris K. Folland,2 Glen Lesins,3 and Manvendra K. Dubey4 CERN CLOUD - and there is enough data out there to support the grant proposal for this experiment. I'm afraid as much as you would like it to be, this idea hasn't yet been "taken apart". -
Dan Moutal at 14:35 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Lets change the subject. Imagine that the room is filled not with climatologists but with doctors. Now imagine that the split in opinion on what treatment you desperately need was the same, 97 to 3. Who's advice would you take? -
scaddenp at 14:05 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
HR - well Chylek has been taken apart elsewhere but antarctic/arctic oscillations are well known. What we have now though is warming in both. Schwartz - he has now revised upward. CERN cloud - well this is looking for mechanism but various studies (show see "its cosmic rays") show you dont get a noticeable effect even if true. joe blog - ocean circulation has mysteries but OHC is now pretty well tied down. Local effects of AGW still remain very challenging but heat redistribution doesnt have much affect on the overall heat budget. -
kdkd at 13:59 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Joe Blog #27 OK, then "off the top of my head" again: 1. Close coupling of temperature increases to CO2 emissions. 2. Fossil fuel signature of atmospheric C isotopes. 3. [ a fairly complicated statistical argument showing that CO2 overtook solar as the main driver of climate some time in the early/mid 20th century which I have personal familiarity with, but won't explain in great detail off the top of my head]. HR #25 A quick google scholar suffices (again off the top of my head): First paper I found from Nature, and completely independent of the climate science: here. There are other references too. HR #27 Well volunteered, it sounds like it will be an interesting task for you :). We'll see how it affects the overall scientific consensus, or if it's small isolated bits of information surrounding the consensus :). -
scaddenp at 13:44 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
thingadonta - put 100 scientists in room and 82 think AGW is real. Same cant be said about phrenology. -
HumanityRules at 13:41 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
14 kdkd .....and "You refer us to one single item based on an inappropriately short time period, with a complex measurement model lacking the required precision to be sufficiently sensitive over a such short time period." I agree with all that. That's part of the "climate science is in it's infancy" idea. Lets list all the other too short data sets in climate science. -
Joe Blog at 13:41 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
kdkd at 13:23 Your three points, are not in themselves proof of anything, other than climate change... for anthropogenic contributions it all comes down to the measured back radiation... and its calculated effect(i thought it was more on the order of 2W/m2? was the 3.7 W/m2 including water vapor feedback? @ scaddenp) And there are still plenty of unknowns in the climate system... ocean circulation is not actually that well understood at this stage. Cloud formation/ and its response to raised humidity/greenhouse forcing and feedback. Then you have stratospheric cooling/ and does this effect pressure systems in the troposphere? etc... The radiative properties of the GHGs etc are well understood, but not every factor. -
HumanityRules at 13:38 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
14 kdkd "beetles devestating boreal forest" I'd be interested in the reference for this one. -
HumanityRules at 13:35 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
15scaddenp at 12:34 PM on 22 July, 2010 "1/ There is an undiscovered natural variability" In some aspects of climate science some believe the natural variability is discovered, it's just not accepted as part of the IPCC's view of the world. I'll give you Chylek and others who have identified the Arctic/Antarctica seesaw effect which seems to be completely ignored when considering the consensus view of the affect of AGW on the poles. Pielke is always banging on about land use and often cites papers from other groups on his blog to illustrate his points. he seems convinced the IPCC is ignoring this issue. If it's true that land use changes are under-estimated or ignored then that does suggest we Schwartz puts GHG forcing around 1 I think. And some believe the whole process of trying to calculate the GHG forcing in the way we do is flawed. How about the 18 science groups participating in the CERN CLOUD experiments who seem to think there is at least sufficient evidence in the present data to pursue these very expensive experiments. There are also plenty of instance were we've identified the fingerprint of AGW only to discover that things aren't quite so simple, how can this be if our knowledge is so complete. Theories around 20th century hurricane numbers and intensity were recently debunked. I can't remember the reference but I'm pretty sure I recently read a paper on the problem of identifying 20thC AGW associated precipitation trends. I watched a doco narrated by Brad Pitt last night that was still pushing the Himalaya meme. That will do for now. -
scaddenp at 13:34 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Roger Pielke Snr in my opinion is not a denier and I would read his published science with respect. However, things like reduction in aerosols opens us to full force of GHG forcing. What I have seen of his blog arguments confuse proximate and ultimate causes. GC - you ask about attribution. Your opinions on this review perhaps? -
thingadonta at 13:29 PM on 22 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
97% of researchers who believe humans do not significantly change climate do not bother going into climate science in the first place. Over 97% of phrenologists believed bumps on the head influence mental faculties. Etc etc.
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