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Berényi Péter at 23:59 PM on 24 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
#102 chriscanaris at 01:15 AM on 24 June, 2010 Galileo was no diplomat (he also fudged his famous leaning tower of Pisa experiments). He published a dialogue in which he made the proponent of the Ptolemaic system appear a buffoon. Worse than that. Dialogo (published in March 1632, Florence) featured Simplicio (a convinced Aristotelian character, proponent of the Ptolemaic system) after Maffeo Barberini, his former friend and admirerer, who was the ruling pope, Urban VIII by then. As Simplicio looks rather silly most of the time, the pope was not happy at all. It was popular science, a bestseller, written in Italian, not Latin, the proper language for scientific papers. On top of that his treatment of tides (fourth day) as proof of terrestrial motion was fundamentally flawed.
First undeniable proof of Earth's motion came in 1727, almost a hundred years later, by the discovery of an unpredicted effect, stellar aberration. James Bradley was looking for stellar parallax, which was predicted since Aristarchus' time, but as usual, he has found something else. The first successful stellar parallax measurement was performed in 1838 by Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel on 61 Cygni.
Science takes time.
In 1783 Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel published his paper on Solar Motion and introduced the term Solar Apex. Therefore not even the Heliocentric world view was correct, the Sun also moved (toward Lambda Herculis).
The Catholic Church was more or less up to date with science. In 1758 they dropped the general prohibition of books advocating heliocentrism and in 1822 the Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition allowed printing of heliocentric books in Rome.
In 1916 Albert Einstein explained God does not care. A center of your choice is as good as any other.
Then came the ultimate triumph of Geocentric World View with the adoption of WGS 84 and advent of GPS.
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Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Lon I understand your post just fine, in summary: a) Rate of CO2 accumulation correlates to temperature anomaly. (I don't dispute this) b) Temperature anomaly correlates with el ninos. (no dispute here either) c) Transitively, rate of CO2 accumulation correlates with el ninos. (still no dispute here) d) El Ninos are not caused by CO2. (again no dispute here) e) You conclude from the above that the effects of temperature change are the direct source of CO2 in the atmosphere. It is the final step where you have made an illogical leap. The proposition in e) simply does not follow logically from the statements above it. You cannot conclude from a correlation to rate that there exists a direct causation. Only a correlation to level can suggest that. Statements b-c are direct transitive extensions of statement a, they do not magically turn your correlation of rate to a correlation of level. The model you provided is just a quantitative restatement of your correlation to rate, it too does not magically transform your data into a correlation of level (and it also makes some ridiculous predictions). Honestly I don't have much hope left that you will understand any of this, but I can't help feeling like there exists some combination of words that will make this clear to you. -
CBDunkerson at 22:44 PM on 24 June 2010September 2010 Arctic Ice Extent Handicapping Via ARCUS
Also note that these predictions will be updated monthly through the Summer. Thus, they're likely working on new results for the June 30 deadline now. I expect that means most of them will be adjusted downwards... given that we're now roughly twice as far below the long term average as we were at the end of May. -
CBDunkerson at 22:20 PM on 24 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Lon #106: "I hope that helps, because I'm afraid I really can't figure out your logic." Let me simplify. Let's say the average global temperature in the UAH satellite record for January is 12 C and for July it is 14.3 C. I haven't checked to see what the actual figures they came up with are, but those are likely in the ballpark and the specifics don't matter for this explanation. A January temp of 11.42 C and a July temp of 13.72 C would then both have anomaly values of -0.58. Thus, even though the TEMPERATURE had increased 2.30 C from January to July the ANOMALY would be unchanged... and per your formula there would therefor be no change in CO2 levels. The temperature increasing 2.30 C has absolutely no impact. Only change in the ANOMALY impacts CO2 levels. Which is, of course, ridiculous... because the anomaly values are completely arbitrary. If they took a different set of years to compute the baseline average temperatures for each month you'd get different anomalies... but somehow this particular arbitrary set of anomalies is perfectly correlated to atmospheric CO2 fluxes? The formula is inherently illogical. -
CBDunkerson at 21:59 PM on 24 June 2010Ocean acidification
HumanityRules #18, I don't see the parallel you suggest between crop growth and ocean pH studies. The objection in the crop growth study was that they simulated the positive impacts of increased CO2, but not the (more significant) negative ones. Are you suggesting that there will be beneficial effects to the oceans from acidification which could outweigh the negative ones? If so, what are these benefits? -
Doug Bostrom at 18:14 PM on 24 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Pride is expensive. -
Doug Bostrom at 17:44 PM on 24 June 2010September 2010 Arctic Ice Extent Handicapping Via ARCUS
Wilson does go a bit off the tracks, especially the bit where we learn of Destruction of nearly ALL aboveground structures North of 10 Degrees Latitude = 99% Deaths in USA, Europe, etc. within 2 years. Fortunately he only assigns a 1 in 8 chance of that happening so we'll probably make it through this year, at least. Honestly, it's a remarkable thing for SEARCH to include lay opinions, a noble impulse but one I think might get out of hand. At the very minimum we might need much wider browser windows if predictions end up numbering in the hundreds. The methods part of the collection is in fact quite interesting, a smorgasbord for sea ice mavens. -
Lon Hocker at 17:37 PM on 24 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
e: Sorry, but you clearly don't understand my post despite my best efforts. I give up, and am content to leave you with your misconceptions. Thank you for your interest. -
pdjakow at 17:27 PM on 24 June 2010September 2010 Arctic Ice Extent Handicapping Via ARCUS
Wilson prediction is hmm... strange :) -
Doug Bostrom at 16:38 PM on 24 June 2010Abraham reply to Monckton
More observations for the Monckton Phenomenon data collection, as collected by the Guardian newspaper: Climate change sceptics last week co-opted Margaret Thatcher into their lobbying campaigns, illustrating once more the strong ideological streak that drives their efforts. Viscount Christopher Monckton of Brenchley has posted, on the blog operated by former TV weatherman and prominent "sceptic" Anthony Watts, a personal account of his influence on Lady Thatcher's views about climate change during the 1980s. Thatcher shocked the UN in 1989 with a call to action on man-made global warming, but has since made sceptical public statements about anthropogenic climate change. As we have come to expect, Viscount Monckton's recollection of events makes for interesting reading. He begins with the claim that: "I gave her advice on science as well as other policy from 1982-1986, two years before the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] was founded", pointing out that the prime minister's policy unit at that time had just six members and that he was "the only one who knew any science". Monckton then goes on to suggest that "it was I who – on the prime minister's behalf – kept a weather eye on the official science advisers to the government, from the chief scientific adviser downward". This revelation might be news to Lady Thatcher. On page 640 of her 1993 autobiography Margaret Thatcher: The Downing Street Years, the former prime minister describes how she grappled with the issue of climate change, referring only to "George Guise, who advised me on science in the policy unit". Indeed, given Monckton's purportedly crucial role, it seems to be heartless ingratitude from the Iron Lady that she does not find room to mention him anywhere in the 914-page volume on her years as prime minister. Viscount Monckton also modestly notes that he was responsible for bringing in "the first computer they had ever seen in Downing Street", on which he "did the first elementary radiative-transfer calculations that indicated climate scientists were right to say some 'global warming' would arise as CO2 concentration continued to climb". It is perhaps surprising that this novel and important innovation by Viscount Monckton was not recognised by the current minister for science and universities, David Willetts, who was also a member of the prime minister's policy unit between 1984 and 1986. In 1986, "Two Brains" wrote a prize-winning essay on the role of the unit, but mysteriously omitted to mention Monckton's historic contribution. Thatcher becomes latest recruit in Monckton's climate sceptic campaign -
Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Lon >You seem to agree that a temperature change causes a change in the rate of change of CO2. Yes, it changes the rate of change of CO2, nobody here has disputed that, you misunderstood if you thought so. However, the question of where that rate comes from to begin with cannot be answered by the correlation you found. That can only be evidenced by a direct correlation to level, no derivatives. > If I know my starting point, and all accelerations (derivative of position) thereafter, I can determine my position in the future uniquely. Ah yes, but the key here is "if you know your starting point". This is a great illustration of the problem with your conclusions re: causation. If temperature was directly causative of CO2 accumulation, you would not need to know your starting point, and you would not need to feed the results of a previous step of the model into the next (the CO2 Month(n-1) term). If such a causation existed, then you would have a direct correlation between CO2 level and temperature, and therefore you would be able to come up with an equation that directly estimates CO2 level based on temperature alone, no "starting point" necessary. It would look something like this: CO2_level_month(n) = a*(anomaly_month(n) + b) Without a strong direct correlation between temperature and CO2 level, you cannot do this. In contrast, global CO2 level and human CO2 emissions do show this correlation. In other words, based on nothing but anthropogenic CO2 emission totals, we can directly estimate the global CO2 level - no "starting point" necessary, no need to feed the results of previous steps to the following. Your model is not capable of doing this because it is not derived from the correlation that is necessary to provide evidence of direct causation. It is derived rather from a correlation to rate, not a direct correlation to level. Are you really trying to say that those two things are the same? Again, did you read my post with the skydiver analogy? It's meant as an example of how a correlation to rate cannot be used to assume a correlation to position. A skydivers surface area is tightly correlated to his terminal velocity, but should that lead you to conclude that surface area is what causes him to fall? This silly conclusion follows directly from the same logic you are trying to apply to CO2 and temperatures (in fact, you could construct a model in this scenario that calculates the skydivers position based only on his previous position and his current surface area). >Your post 108 seems to negate 107. No, post 108 clarified my point. Your conclusion about correlation of rate is fine, in 107 I am specifically critizing your conclusion about causation. To summarize: your raw calculations seem fine, your statements about correlation of rate are fine, but your conclusions about causation do not follow logically from your math. This is what everyone here has been trying to explain to you. -
Doug Bostrom at 16:18 PM on 24 June 2010Ocean acidification
Steve I noticed that Willis' WUWT review of observed ocean pH makes a joke, "“The reports of the ocean’s death have been greatly exaggerated.” A nice bit of misdirection; nobody has said the oceans will die and meanwhile Willis' remark suggests that all organisms living in the ocean will respond identically to changing conditions. Tease out the threads of research and it turns out that some creatures are highly tolerant of varying pH and some are not. Willis is not quite up to his usual snuff with his pH writeup, though his rhetoric is just as entertaining as always. Even though one section of his dismissal of pH as a problem depends on notable stratification and poor mixing as identified by the authors of the work he plunders for juicy bits, later he declares that because the ocean volume is so vast it's impossible for the amount of added C02 to significantly change pH. These rationales are both supposed to work simultaneously on a timescale of a handful of decades. What I find really fascinating about Willis is the punctuation mark he represents, the shift in emphasis he brings with his writing. Willis is in fact dragging a number of reluctant WUWT readers backward along the path of contrarian thinking and at the same time realigning their thinking. He's corrected some perceptual problems with attribution of increased C02 in the atmosphere and in this pH piece he is in fact conceding that we're going to add a large amount of C02 to the ocean and thus measurably change its pH value. Willis is positively progressive compared to Steven Goddard or some of the old school authors practicing at WUWT. However he's also quite gifted with writing and apparently is using his skills to build acceptance of AGW's legitimacy while simultaneously focusing on downplaying impacts. In sum his work looks like a concession and subsequent shift to adaptation, consolation and Panglossian thinking but of course Willis is just one author and presumably could be drummed out if he smashes the "Overton Window." -
batsvensson at 15:44 PM on 24 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
@Hypnos at 19:03 PM on 23 June, 2010 "How ridicolous can it get? If you have concerns about a growing mole do you go to an oncologist or a philosophy professor?" That is a strawman argument. If you believe I claim any man on the street can have an informed opinion then you do not believe what I believe. If you believe it matter who claims something then you believe in argument by authority. Authorities are not always right. Non authorities are wrong most of the time, but from this it doesn’t follow that authorities always are right and that non authorities always are wrong. Therefore if someone make a general sweeping claim (like the OP does in this article) that several argument made by several non authorities are wrong then one should be really suspicious about such claims and not believe in it before evaluating the dismissed claim made. -
NewYorkJ at 15:11 PM on 24 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Good to see Prall co-author this study. I've cited his work here before. It's detailed, careful, and meticulous. Tobis has a nice post on this. The disconnect with logic "skeptics" have (blacklists?) is remarkable. The charge is based on the simple fact that names of skeptics have been published. Um...they were already published in the petition(s). By such logic, skeptics have blacklisted themselves. I have zero sympathy for the skeptical types who whine in this manner. We live in a world where a scientist expressing skeptical views of climate science (at any level) becomes an instant celebrity. -
Steve L at 14:56 PM on 24 June 2010Ocean acidification
I have a couple of friends in the bivalve aquaculture industry. They expect 10-20 years before this seriously affects their business, but they're worried now. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is concerned about acidification causing loss of pteropods because those are a major food of pink salmon. Sorry, I don't have a schedule for how long they think it will be before it affects their catches. -
Tony O at 14:23 PM on 24 June 2010September 2010 Arctic Ice Extent Handicapping Via ARCUS
Do we know when the more scientific prognostications were done. Right now an ice extent of 4 million square km looks about right, yet early May I might have guessed a higher figure. Exactly when the summer ice goes is now a matter of weather.Moderator Response: The deadline for submissions was May 31 so it's fairly safe to say the work was done in May. -
carrot eater at 14:09 PM on 24 June 2010September 2010 Arctic Ice Extent Handicapping Via ARCUS
Have Goddard sign up. -
Doug Bostrom at 13:09 PM on 24 June 2010Mauna Loa is a volcano
Great anecdote. Even Willis of WUWT concedes that Mauna Loa produces good data, the idea that somehow nobody noticed they were standing on the world's largest shield volcano is perfectly diagnostic of the state of awareness of somebody repeating the error. Sadly that won't stop this idea from continuing to rattle around like some kind of perfectly elastic pinball on friction-free table. -
villabolo at 12:26 PM on 24 June 2010September 2010 Arctic Ice Extent Handicapping Via ARCUS
Marcus at 11:45 AM on 24 June, 2010 "Either way, it certainly looks like below average ice-cover is here to stay!" Hate to quibble about semantics Marcus, but below average ice-cover is not here to stay. It will simply disappear all together. -
citizenschallenge at 12:24 PM on 24 June 2010Abraham reply to Monckton
I was quite impressed with Professor Abraham's presentation. His excellent contribution deserves to be widely disseminated both for its content and for its example. I've tried to do my little part by compiling notes on all 126 slides of his presentation along with an index (weighting at 18 pages and 8,000 words) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A Citizen’s Unauthorized Notes... Science On Trial. An exploration of the recent presentation: “A Scientist Replies to Christopher Monckton” Abraham v. Monckton ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If anyone is curious please visit citizenschallenge.blogspot.com -
Doug Bostrom at 12:23 PM on 24 June 2010Ocean acidification
What are those ideas about maintaining average ocean pH values, HR? -
Dan Lufkin at 12:21 PM on 24 June 2010Mauna Loa is a volcano
I shared an office with Dave Keeling in Stockholm in the early 1960s and can report that Dave was aware that ML is a volcano. The trade wind blows 99.9% of the time with the CO2 station well upwind. When the wind changes the CO2 goes off the chart. The nearest upwind source is about 1500 miles away. The reading stays steady for weeks at a time. -
VoxRat at 11:45 AM on 24 June 2010Ocean acidification
Also GeoGuy - that bit about only 15% of CO2 contributing to acidification - that's wrong, too. As I said, every CO2 molecule dissolved in the ocean produces 1 hydrogen ion. -
Marcus at 11:45 AM on 24 June 2010September 2010 Arctic Ice Extent Handicapping Via ARCUS
All in all, I'm not a huge fan of prognostication. I'll wait until September to see the *real* results ;). Either way, it certainly looks like below average ice-cover is here to stay! -
HumanityRules at 11:37 AM on 24 June 2010Ocean acidification
It would be ridiculous to say that any ecosystem is a perfectly stable environment. So what matters is how the proposed human induced changes fits into these variable environments. Willis Eschenbach mused about this on WUWT suggesting that any human induced change was well within the spatial, diurnal and short term changes that occur in the pH of seawater. In "Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?" there was a lot of skepticism in the discussion about how 'laboratory' experiments on CO2 induced changes in crop growth (FACE experiments) could be interpreted in the real world. These ocean pH experiments seem highly analogous. Any doubt here? I don't think it's distracting to consider the natural variation in the envoronment, in fact ignoring it would be to ignore an importantaspect of the question. That fact that the movement may be in one direction doesn't really annul the far more important fact about the magnitude of the change. Let's assume the worst case scenario's of AGW are true and we've already gone too far. Maybe this would only leave geo-engineering as a solution to this problem. We already have several ideas about how to tackle acidification. We have 50, 100, 200 or more years to get these experiments right before implementing them. This is the worst case scenario. -
Lon Hocker at 11:37 AM on 24 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
e: If I know my starting point, and all accelerations (derivative of position) thereafter, I can determine my position in the future uniquely. This is the calculus I was referring to in earlier posts. If you don't understand that, we have no common ground. Your post 108 seems to negate 107. Maybe we're part way there. You seem to agree that a temperature change causes a change in the rate of change of CO2. Temperature change relative to what? I say 1850 or thereabouts. You say??? Thanks for your interest in the WUWT post. -
VoxRat at 10:56 AM on 24 June 2010Ocean acidification
GeoGuy - your chemistry is wrong. It's the ***pKa*** of carbonic and sulfuric acid that are around 6 and 1, respectively; not ***pH***.. As long the solution we're talking about putting them into (in this case the ocean) way above the pKa, each CO2 molecule produces 1 hydrogen ion (acid) and each SO2 molecule (assuming it winds up as H2SO4) produces 2 hydrogen ions. I.e., under the circumstances we're talking about, sulfuric acid is not orders of magnitude stronger at acidification than carbonic acid; they're about the same. -
ginckgo at 10:51 AM on 24 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get past climate change
Regarding the end Ordovician Ice Age: there was recent work done by a team at Ohio State Uni led by Matthew Saltzman that found isotopic and sedimentological studies indicated that there was an initial balance in the Late Ordivician of CO2 production by volcanoes along the newly rifting Atlantic margin, and the CO2 drawdown by immense weathering of the young Appalachian Mountain ranges. Then the vulcanism apparently stopped quite abruptly, while the weathering continued, causing a massive and rapid drop in CO2 levels. The main Ice Age only lasted less than 2 million years, possibly as little as 500,000 years. But the major sea level drop and sea level rise was probably sufficient to cause the second biggest mass extinction in the Phanerozoic. -
MattJ at 09:53 AM on 24 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get past climate change
Flawed though it is, Nova's reasoning is tempting. Which is why it makes such good fodder for "sound bites" for the oil industry's side. This Skeptical Science refutation, though excellent as always, is hard to distill into something that can be easily explained to the general public or politician. I leave the reader to guess which of these two audiences is hardest to convince;) My response to Nova's fallacy has always been, "Sure, CO2 levels were higher in the past. But ocean currents were different, too. With ancient currents, rising CO2 did not always trigger warming; with modern, it certainly does." True, this answer neglects many other factors the SS article rightly points out. But it is enough to refute the dangerous fallacy, and it is easy to grasp. -
Marcus at 09:16 AM on 24 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get past climate change
The argument that action to mitigate AGW "threatens our way of life" is not too dissimilar to the arguments put forward in the 18th century about action to end the Slave Trade in Britain. Indeed, many of the same arguments & tactics were used then as would later be used in relation to tobacco, asbestos & CFC's. Sorry for my reply being somewhat off-topic, but I thought it was an important point to make! -
Jim Eager at 09:00 AM on 24 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get past climate change
NickD, I certainly hope you did a screen shot of that "This is war..." rant in case it get's sanitized in the future. It is a perfect example if the unhinged paranoia all too common in the "sceptic" camp. -
Peter Hogarth at 08:39 AM on 24 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get past climate change
The Scotese temperature chart (from before 2000 I recall?) was surely never intended to be used as more than indication of warm and cool periods, and much more detailed and data based versions exist. I can't figure out why it keeps being used in this way, and very problematic to infer anything quantitative from it. The state of the art in Phanerozoic CO2 charts based on actual data has also moved on. Strange a model is preferred here? thingadonta at 21:47 PM on 23 June, 2010 I’m not sure the science on volcanism being the primary cause of K/T extinctions is as settled as you suggest, I’ve a few very recent papers on both sides of the “impact” debate, but it is accepted as fact that they happened, and it now looks more likely than not that they coincided with the KT boundary and were pretty catastrophic, see Schulte 2010 “The temporal match between the ejecta layer and the onset of the extinctions and the agreement of ecological patterns in the fossil record with modeled environmental perturbations (for example, darkness and cooling) lead us to conclude that the Chicxulub impact triggered the mass extinction”. Also, less well reported is the “Shiva” 40km object impacting India, also probably at the KT boundary, possibly associated with or triggering episodes of Deccan volcanism, see Chatterjee 2009 and some more detail at Chatterjee 2006. A link between massive bolide impact and extreme volcanism doesn’t require much stretching of the imagination. The evidence for (relatively) rapid CO2 release is robust in the paleo records, but there is debate about how rapid and how long lasting. I don't have high resolution temperature proxy d18O records covering this period, but there are multiple examples of linkages elsewhere in the data sets, and elsewhere on this website, see Zachos 2008 for example. -
Glenn Tamblyn at 08:26 AM on 24 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get past climate change
NickD "This is a war, WITH THE FUTURE OF OUR WAY OF LIFE AT STAKE" (my emphasis) This line seems to go to the heart of it. That the science of AGW puts forward a threat to 'our way of life'. 'our way of life' is sacrosanct, it is the heart of our identity, the most precious thing there is. Therefore anything that challenges that must be an attack upon the sacrosanct. And must therefore be being put forward for THE EVIL PURPOSE OF ATTACKING IT. There can be no other reason for attacking the sacrosanct. Therefore all supposed evidence for AGW, all arguments for it etc are all fraudulent, all contrived as weapons to be used in the attack. All MUST therefore be dismissed and the attackers defeated. A fight to the end. The fact that this world view is utterly disconnected from reality doesn't enter into it. A mindset that is perhaps all too prevalent in our science illiterate world; that doesn't really get cause and effect. A sensible view is that our way of life has to fit within the limits imposed by the physical universe around us. This alternate view says that the universe around us has to fit us because we are the centre of things. A profoundly egocentric view of existence, an anthropocentric view. As some have described it, a faith based reality - and I don't mean that in just a religious sense. We learnt a long time ago that the Sun doesn't move around the Earth. Also the Universe doesn't move around H Sapiens. But many people don't get that - a question for the psychologists perhaps. But this is a view that is extremely hard to counter since it is an impervious self-contained world view. Perhaps all we can aim to do is reach those people who aren't so closed off and show them that the Muntain never will come to Mohammed. Those locked in that other bubble may not be reachable and we may need to simply quarantine them so their disconnected thinking can't hurt anyone else. It is almost a case of the irresistable force and the immoveable object. Physics vs Psychology. Some people don't get that Physics will always beat Psychology. Its called death. -
Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
To clarify my post above, Your conclusion that temperature has an influence on the rate of CO2 accumulation is valid, i.e. it follows logically from your math. Your conclusion that the root cause of CO2 accumulation is due to temperature changes is invalid, i.e. it does not logically follow from your math. Did you read my post using a skydiver as an analogy? Do you understand how something can correlate with rate but not be the root cause of change in position? -
Rob Honeycutt at 08:02 AM on 24 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get past climate change
villabolo... Or as the famous Churchill quote goes: A lie gets half way around the world before the truth has a chance to get its trousers on. -
Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Lon, >Clearly temperature has an influence on the rate of increase of CO2. You're just not getting it: this conclusion is accurate, but it is the only conclusion you can draw from the math you performed. Any conclusion that does not directly follow from this is irrelevant to your calculations. A correlation with rate CANNOT be interchanged with a correlation of level. I don't follow your logic because it is invalid. Unless you retract your illogical conclusions, no amount of blog posts can change that. Do you seriously not understand the difference between these two statements?: 1) A is correlated with the velocity of B 2) A is correlated with the position of B Your math supports statement 1, but the idea that temperature changes are the root cause of CO2 rise can only follow from statement 2. In order to demonstrate statement 2, you need to show a correlation between temperature and CO2 level directly, as soon as you switch to a derivative you are changing your conclusions to statement 1. You cannot then just move terms around in your equation, toss in some vague speculation, and suddenly claim to have established statement 2. Here is a brief summary of the IPCC position, what part of this do you think your analysis disproves?: CO2 accumulating in our atmosphere over the past century comes primarily from humans burning fossil fuels - evidence for this includes the tight correlation between the amount of anthropogenic CO2 released and the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. The rate at which this CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere is influenced by temperature - evidence for this includes the tight correlation between global temperatures and the rate of CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere (this is the piece of the puzzle your analysis supports). -
scaddenp at 07:14 AM on 24 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Geo Guy - are you serious? You prefer a lawyer's rehash of long-debunked arguments to the opinion of experts? Do you approach your personal health care in the same way? Lets try the acid test. I would expect climate scientists to readily point to data which might be measured which would cause revision of their theory. (Not a climate scientist but for me, 20 years of cooling, upper stratospheric warming, a better TOS heat balance that was inconsistent with GHG models would be examples as would a complete, physically consistent model of climate able to explain better all known measurements). My experience of denialists is that they would argue against even the oceans boiled. So what is your bottom line for changing your mind? (and if GC and JohnD are reading, I would love to hear yours). -
villabolo at 06:50 AM on 24 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get past climate change
doug_bostrom at 16:36 PM on 23 June, 2010 "The ratio of work required to confuse as opposed to correct is vastly lopsided." My favorite saying, which is more public friendly, is: "It takes 5-30 seconds to speak a damn lie but 5-30 minutes to respond to it." -
Rob Honeycutt at 06:45 AM on 24 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get past climate change
NickD... I think you are spot on here. Literally, there are two completely different battles being waged. One is a battle for the accuracy of science, the other is an ideological/political battle. This goes back to my previous piece on Why Does Anthony Watts Drive an Electric Car. The very act of ensuring that the science is real and accurate is going to push those who reject climate change further away. When it comes down to it, their posts may be couched as science, but it's not a scientific battle they are waging. Their battle is ideological. -
Riccardo at 06:34 AM on 24 June 2010Ocean acidification
SO2 is not well mixed in the atmosphere and has low lifetime. It tends to be much more of a problem regionally, near the point of emissions (i.e. on land), than in the oceans. Emissions has been dropping steadly for decades while ocean acidification is still increasing. May we should ask John to add this as a skeptic argument. -
How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Geo Guy My scenario was meant as a hypthetical. Your recognition of it as ridiculous is precisely the point. Anyways, the point of the Anderegg study is to show whether a majority of scientists actively studying climate science agree with the IPCC conclusions. It's an opinion poll meant to reflect the opinions of the total population of scientists studying climate, not an independent assesment of the IPCC results. Conflict of interest has no relevance here. Their opinion remains their opinion whether they were involved in the work or not. If it just so happens that a large number of the most active scientists were also involved in the IPCC report, that does nothing to diminish Anderegg's results, in fact, it strengthens them. What you propose is actually an answer to a related but very different question: "out of the population of climate scientists that didn't contribute to the IPCC, how many agree with its conclusions?". The answer to that question may be interesting in its own right, but it doesn't have much bearing on the conclusions made by Anderegg. He is attempting to quantify a consensus out of the total climate scientist population, not a subset independent from the IPCC reports. I will agree there are other legitimate arguments to be made as to how the poll questions were worded, but talking about "conflict of interest" with regard to an opinion poll just doesn't make any sense. -
snapple at 05:54 AM on 24 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
#103--correction I meant, of course that Cuccinelli is subjecting Dr. Mann to judicial persecution. I don't think he will succeed. -
Geo Guy at 05:48 AM on 24 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
doug # 107 - at the expense of me repeating myself, I do not disagree with your that the researchers practicing in the field of climate science are ipso facto the best source of information on climate science. However not all of them were involved in the work done by IPCC. Therefore to provide support to the results of that IPCC work, using the same scientists is wrong. As Anderegg et al point out, the limited database that they used did have a total of about 700 + names of scientists who were not involved with the IPCC work. From my perspective, it would have been much more acceptable to provide the survey results from that subset of participants as that would have eliminated any bias. -
Phila at 05:42 AM on 24 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get past climate change
RSVP: I would not call critical thinking "sport". MrJon's comment (#7) about "sport" referred to people like JoNova and Monckton. Surely you are not seriously suggesting that either of these people is engaged in "critical thinking"? Critical thinking requires getting basic facts straight, first and foremost. That's something neither Monckton nor JoNova is willing to do, as far as I can tell. -
Lon Hocker at 05:40 AM on 24 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Ned: You are right. Lots of things have linear increases, however, most of them don't fit the details of the data when satellite temperatures became available. The derivative plot has the advantage of exposing the details. Clearly temperature has an influence on the rate of increase of CO2. Why do you conclude that it is only important over a short time period? What is the limiting time scale and why is it limited? CBDunkerson: The 0.58C makes the anomaly an absolute reference to temperatures around 1850. If the temperature drops below the "magical" 0.58, CO2 would have a negative slope. I hope that helps, because I'm afraid I really can't figure out your logic. e: Obviously I didn't explain it well enough, though many others were able to follow the logic anyway. Time for me to write something up with greater detail, so that it will be easier for everyone to follow. Keep an eye on WUWT. Thanks for your input. -
Doug Bostrom at 05:40 AM on 24 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Geo Guy reminds us of the latest fad in "auditing", that of having lawyers critique hard sciences when they're not actually attempting to prosecute scientists for the crime of uncertainty. Thanks for the clarification on your perspective, Geo Guy. -
NickD at 05:38 AM on 24 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get past climate change
I don't wish to derail this thread, but the comments from doug_bostrom at 05:14 AM on 24 June, 2010, especially his last two paragraphs, brought to mind comments from a user on WUWT that I saw earlier today. They read: "This is NOT a simple disagreement, this is NOT a polite dinner table argument. This is a war, with the future of our way of life at stake. The other side knows this and is fighting us on this level. Unless we acknowledge the true nature of this contest, we will lose. They will throw *everything* they have at us, they will have no limits, they will show no standards, they will display no decency. We do not have to descend to these depths, but we DO need to be prepared to fight them, since that is what is going to be aimed at all of us who are skeptics. And also, because this is War, this is not going to end with some kind of gentlemen’s agreement, or scientific resolution – this is going to end with either one side or the other being completely crushed. We must make sure that it is the warmists who are crushed, and that all of the institutions that they have infested are not only discredited but destroyed. Sadly, most of the existing scientific establishment now needs to be torn down to the ground. It will be easier to build new institutions than to revitalize those that have decayed." It would be all too easy to simply write this off as the rantings of a fringe element, but it seems to be a creeping mentality that can be traced back to the type of invective Jo Nova injects into the "debate". -
Doug Bostrom at 05:36 AM on 24 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Geo Guy as I said it's an inconvenient fact that researchers practicing in the field of climate science are ipso facto the best source of information on climate science and those researchers are necessarily involved in the IPCC process one way or another; in point of fact the pool available is not so large as to make it possible to exclude all IPCC-connected scientists and in any case excluding the best minds available for political reasons is folly. And yes, I'll take every opportunity to point out the artificial nature of this discussion and what engendered it, namely such folks as Luntz who put their very best effort into distracting the public from science and its lessons. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to repeat myself. -
Geo Guy at 05:30 AM on 24 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
As a final post, I want to bring your attention to a paper written by Jason Johnston from the UofV School of Law which was published by U of Penn, Inst for Law & Econ Research Paper No. 10-08 entitled "Global Warming Advocacy Science: A Cross Examination" http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1612851 In a nutshell, Mr. Johnston's paper closely resembles my personal view when it comes to the theory of AGW.Moderator Response: That paper rehashes many of the claims already addressed in the list of skeptic arguments. Please restrict any future commentary on these topics to the appropriate post. -
GaryB at 05:26 AM on 24 June 2010Ocean acidification
Geo Guy, that H2SO4 has a greater impact on ocean acidification than CO2 is not equivalent to CO2 having no impact. What it does mean is we have to be concerned with both.
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