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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." -
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.
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