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chris1204 at 22:53 PM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
LWeisenthal @ 27 & JMurphy @ 93 Alas, the peptic ulcer and Helicobacter pylori story is nowhere that simple. We do use antibiotics to treat peptic ulcer. However, acid suppressing drugs (known by the fancy name of proton pump inhibitors) remain a mainstay in the management of the disorder (often on a long term basis long after the antibiotics have been ceased). And yes, stress does give you ulcers. So does involvement in chronic interpersonal conflict. An excellent example of an area in which 'the science' is nowhere as 'settled' as is commonly perceived (which is not to debunk the contribution of the humble Helicobacter). Perhaps we should assess the prevalence of peptic ulcer disease in an AWG versus sceptical cohort. Some other research questions. Do sceptics feel besieged and stressed? Do AWG proponents feel overwhelmed by society's failure to address our ever-growing emissions? Do they delight in schadenfreude as they skewer sceptics? Do sceptics bask in ignorance blithely ignoring looming catastrophe? Do sceptics wake in fright overtaken by gnawing doubts? -
CBDunkerson at 22:50 PM on 23 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get past climate change
RSVP #6: "It didnt take that long to convince people about AGW" I think your history is a little off. John Tyndall first determined that changes in atmospheric composition (specifically including increases in CO2) would lead to increased temperatures back in 1859. His lab experiments proved the existence of the carbon dioxide greenhouse effect, but could not determine its magnitude (though he thought it significant enough to drive the ice age cycle). By 1896 Arrhenius had worked out the mechanism of temperature forcings from greenhouse gases through the Stefan-Boltzman law and computed significant warming from CO2, but his results were widely disputed. From 1938 through the 50s Guy Callendar argued that the effects of CO2 driven warming were starting to appear, but again this was largely dismissed. It wasn't really until around the 1970s that enough evidence had accumulated that scientists began to take the CO2 greenhouse effect seriously. From there it was another decade or two for it to become the 'scientific consensus', and the general populace is still mulling the issue over - the majority accept it but there is a significant segment who do not. That's hardly a short transition period. Jo Nova and other 'skeptics' frequently recycle arguments which were reasonable when they were first introduced 40+ years ago... but which have now long since been disproven. Neither AGW nor skepticism of it is some newfangled quickly introduced fad. This is a debate that has played out for more than a century and a half now... with the skeptics continually losing ground as evidence accumulated against their position. Modern 'skeptics' have managed to slow that trend somewhat by making outright false claims, but that can't work for long in the face of a changing world. -
Ken Lambert at 22:48 PM on 23 June 2010Astronomical cycles
DougB#97 It looks like BP and I have the same eyeballs Doug, and our independent analysis is chock full of numbers if you care to read them VIZ: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Robust-warming-of-the-global-upper-ocean.html KL#24: "Figure 2 shows a huge increase in OHC from roughly a 2 year period 2001 to 2003 in which the OHC rises from the zero axis to about 7E22 Joules or about 700E20 Joules. This is about 350E20 Joules/year heat gain. Dr Trenberth's 0.9W/sq.m TOA energy flux imbalance equalled 145E20 Joules/year. Therefore a rise of 350E20 Joules/year in OHC equals about 2.1W/sq.m TOA imbalance - a seemingly impossible number. Coinciding with the start of full deployment of the Argo buoys around 2003-04 this impossibly steep rise in 2001-03 looks like an offset calibration error. Similar would apply to Fig 3." And a bit later BP shows the satellite year-year data showing flatness in the 2003-04 period ie: BP#30: "Therefore either satellite data are absolutely useless or the 6-8×1022 J heat accumulation in the oceans after 2000 followed by a more or less level plateau from 2004 on is an artifact due to transition to ARGO." So I came up with 7E22 Joules in the 2 year period and BP canme up with 6-8x1022 J - the same number. What you have to explain is how the acknowledged expert on global energy balances (Dr Trenberth) got a TOA imbalance of 0.9W/sq.m globally for the 2004-2008 period which is largely based on Fig2.4 of IPCC AR4, and how the OHC chart for the similar period works out to 2.1W/sq.m. - nearly 2.5 times Trenberth's global TOA imbalance. The most likely explanation is that the OHC chart is wrong and that the later data from Argo being much more extensive is giving a much more accurate result up around the 7E22 Joules AND that it follows that the far less extensive and accurate XBT data prior to 2004 was not measuring enough OHC due to the impossibility of the jump from around zero to 7E22 Joules in 2 years. This is further confirmed by the flatness of the 6-7 analyses when averaged since 2004 around the 7E22 Joule figure, when the OHC should have been showing up a chunk of Dr Trenberth's 145E20 (1.45E22) Joules per year. -
ProfMandia at 22:42 PM on 23 June 2010Ocean acidification
When I researched this topic for my blog post, The 800 lb. Gorilla in the Ocean, I was struck by how complicated the issue is with multiple feedback loops within the ecosystem. I was also suprised to find that the impact of ocean acidification on organisms is essentially a ten year old science. Given that, I was astonished (not really) that Willis over at WUWT could read one journal article that describes ocean acidification due to human emisisons of CO2, and with a wave of his hand, he could dismiss the last ten years of science. -
pinkie at 22:37 PM on 23 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
Hi Megan, It doesn't sound like fun. I'd be mad if I was those two people photographed. I'm just trying to figure out why they are doing this tour. The tour is sponsored by he Climate sceptics party. Were they trying to sign up members to that political party or handing out party literature or party doctrine? -
JMurphy at 22:01 PM on 23 June 2010Ocean acidification
CBDunkerson wrote : "When I see the 'we do not know every detail of what impact it will have' argument on ocean acidification I always wonder if none of these people have ever owned a fish tank." It also makes me wonder how any of these so-called skeptics can get into an aeroplane, what with the lack of complete knowledge of flight, especially with regard to something like flow physics. They seem to be content with the lack of complete knowledge there (and the odd plane falling out of the sky now and again), but are very insistent on complete knowledge with regard to AGW, otherwise, obviously, it must all be discarded. -
mothincarnate at 21:59 PM on 23 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get past climate change
Mike over at watching the deniers pointed out Nova's response to the PNAS paper "Expert credibility in climate change". There's nothing that will get through to her - even if she read this, she's obviously so sure that she's right that no rebuttal, no evidence, nothing will get through. -
thingadonta at 21:47 PM on 23 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get past climate change
The paper by Beerling et al 2002 calculates an increase in c02 at the K-T boundary, and then infers a large amount of short term warming (~7.5degrees) by this increase. As such, it doesn't provide any direct evidence of short-term warming, all of the supposed warming is modelled. In your description of the end of the K-T, you completely leave out the Deccan Traps Volcanics, in order to come to the conclusion that T rises, and other associated effects were short term. The Deccan Traps volcanic episode is probably the largest series of long term volcanic eruptions in the last 65 million + years (I'll have to check it with the age of the basalt province in the West Pacific oceanic basin), about the time Inida separated from Africa (?). Beerling et al 2002, concludes that modelling of the Deccan Traps fails to account for an inferred large c02 rise at the end of the K-T. In other words, modelling, by non volcanologists, fails to account for an inferred C02 rise, which then fails to account for an inferred T rise. It's therefore so much easier just to leave out the major causative factor in the demise of 75% of the world's species about the K-T boundary-volcanism, which even Tim Flannery points out that the major extinction rates from the bolide impact only occurred about the North America continent, not globally. The rest of the extinctions, over a longer time period, were largely caused by Deccan Traps volcanism, much the same as at the End Permian (Siberian Traps Volcanism), when there was also, no bolide impact. Volcanoes are the major culprite in both extinction events, and both caused major c02 rises, and major T rises, over very long, not short, time periods. The evidence of the very long time (millions of years +)periods involved with eg hanges in T, which you fail to mention or discuss, is provided by: eg long term deposition of red beds at both the K-T and End Permian periods (and also the end Triassic as well-Gondwana break up volcanism-eg Karoo red beds), which occurred over intervals spanning at least several million years, which therefore can't relate to short term c02 rises. The red beds indicate hot house conditions of several million years, even about the poles, as a direct result of extensive volcanic episodes, not short term bolide impacts, and associated short term c02 rises. -
CBDunkerson at 21:08 PM on 23 June 2010Ocean acidification
When I see the 'we do not know every detail of what impact it will have' argument on ocean acidification I always wonder if none of these people have ever owned a fish tank. Anyone who HAS spent much time around fish tanks knows that when you get a new fish and you are adding it to an existing tank you should leave the fish in the plastic bag for a while and slowly exchange water from the tank to the bag. The point of this exercise is to normalize the temperature and pH... because just transferring a fish from one environment to the other can kill it. Fish don't react well to changes in pH or temperature... especially fast changes. Yet here we're changing both world wide at an ever increasing pace. No, we don't know exactly what problems that is going to cause. But we know enough to be sure it isn't going to be good. -
Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 20:54 PM on 23 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the CO2 lag
@caerbannog "According to Sourcewatch ..." We must give full information: Peter Dietze - "He was an official scientific IPCC TAR (Third Assessment Report) Reviewer." @Sean Thank you, really I should take into account and this work, sorry ... ... but I doubt (smaller - it's fact) and that the relatively large quantities of CO2, are ... -
Berényi Péter at 20:27 PM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
#81 doug_bostrom at 10:22 AM on 23 June, 2010 I would not call that article by Wu and Liu "fundamental" research. It attempts to refine application of fundamentals but it upsets no applecarts. Thermodynamics of open systems (those exchanging energy with their environment) is not settled, possibly never will. A proposed 45% increase in the alleged entropy production rate of Earth (from 893 mW m-2 K-1 to 1297 mW m-2 K-1) is not an easygoing move. More than twenty years after the science of climate is publicly declared to be settled, at least in principle, with uncountable millions pouring into computational models simulating khrrrm... what? I would be way happier with a paper discussing consensus in the climate science community not on AGW, but on a much simpler question. Is the entropy production rate of the climate system supposed to increase (I) or decrease (D) as a response to increasing atmospheric CO2 abundance? I or D? Which one? Percentage of scientists supporting either one of these noble causes? Degree of consensus? A story by Paltridge, one of the scientists on the list shows neatly how problematic fairly basic issues concerning non-equilibrium thermodynamics may get if one tries to apply them to climate (which is per definitionem a fairly steady state non-equilibrium process). Entropy 2009, 11, 945-948; doi:10.3390/e11040945 A Story and a Recommendation about the Principle of Maximum Entropy Production Garth W. Paltridge It is just a story, nothing serious. It tells more about the state of affairs in climate science than about climate itself. -
RSVP at 20:20 PM on 23 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get past climate change
Moderator Response: In order to apply Occam's razor, competing hypotheses must be equal in all other respects... Thank you for the clarification. Mr John Why they would do this one can only guess - perhaps they see it as sort of sport. I would not call critical thinking "sport". For instance, is there anything on the face of the Earth that does not readily absorb or emit infra red radiation? And how does the thermal mass of these not so invisible objects compare with the extra CO2 that has been put out by burning of fossil fuels? -
Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 20:15 PM on 23 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get past climate change
"... Royer found that when solar variations are taken into account, the "total radiative forcing" correlates excellently with past temperature reconstructions." Millions years, what about thousands ? Example Sun - insolation ... Clues from MIS 11 to predict the future climate a modelling point of view, Loutre, 2003: "However, we already know that CO 2 and insolation DO NOT PLAY TOGETHER. Indeed, insolation has been decreasing [such as long trend of temperature] since 11 kyr BP and CO2 concentration remains above 260 ppmv, with a general increasing trend over the last 8000 yr."Moderator Response: You have conflated the relationship between total radiative forcing and temperature with the relationship between CO2 and insolation.
As stated, CO2 has a number of forcings independent of climate (the obvious one being the burning of fossil fuels). The fact that during these last 30 years the solar total irradiance, solar UV irradiance and cosmic ray flux has not shown any significant secular trend, while CO2 in the atmosphere is rising by 15 gigatonnes per year, demonstrates the impact of human activity on atmospheric CO2.
The study you quoted strengthens this argument. -
omnologos at 20:12 PM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
chriscanaris (#94): "Consensus should not become a Procrustean Bed. When facts don't fit the consensus as neatly as we'd like, we need to ask why." But as Planck would have it, science (only?) progresses one funeral at a time... (the original quote is obviously much better: "Eine neue wissenschaftliche Wahrheit pflegt sich nicht in der Weise durchzusetzen, daß ihre Gegner überzeugt werden und sich als belehrt erklären, sondern vielmehr dadurch, daß ihre Gegner allmählich aussterben und daß die heranwachsende Generation von vornherein mit der Wahrheit vertraut gemacht ist.") -
Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 19:46 PM on 23 June 2010Ocean acidification
I'm surprised that Andrew Bolt is not quoted the latest Doney paper: The Growing Human Footprint on Coastal and Open-Ocean Biogeochemistry, Science, 18.06.2010 "Climate change, rising atmospheric carbon dioxide, excess nutrient inputs, and pollution in its many forms are fundamentally altering the chemistry of the ocean, often on a global scale and, in some cases, at rates greatly exceeding those in the historical and recent geological record. Major observed trends include a shift in the acid-base chemistry of seawater, reduced subsurface oxygen both in near-shore coastal water and in the open ocean, rising coastal nitrogen levels, and widespread increase in mercury and persistent organic pollutants." As these influences (good) separated? In the same issue of the Science, Kerr (Ocean Acidification Unprecedented, Unsettling) said: "By spewing carbon dioxide from smokestacks and tailpipes at a gigatons-per-year pace, humans are lowering the pH of the world ocean. [I agree ...]", but ... ... "It's less clear [...] how marine life will fare. With nothing in the geologic record as severe as the ongoing plunge in ocean pH, paleontologists can't say for sure HOW organisms that build carbonate shells or skeletons will react [...]. In the laboratory, corals always do poorly [!!!]. The lab responses of other organisms are mixed [...]. In the field, researchers see signs that coral growth does slow, oyster larvae suffer, and plankton with calcareous skeletons lose mass [...maybe it's the leverage effect only: "reduced subsurface oxygen both in near-shore coastal water and in the open ocean, rising coastal nitrogen levels, and widespread increase in mercury and persistent organic pollutants"?] ." -
Glenn Tamblyn at 19:42 PM on 23 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get past climate change
David/John A great set of posts so far. I have spent some time at Jo's site, trying to argue with her followers about the range of fallacies in her 'handbooks' - have a look at some of the early posts associated with her 'debate' with Andrew Glickson. Have a look at some of this http://joannenova.com.au/2010/04/no-dr-glikson/#comment-43990 and others What I find intriguing is how different supposed arguments can be contraditory or interlinked and yet this dosen't get commented on. The 'missing hotspot' which isn't missing, and on the same graphic the stratospheric cooling. The deep paleoclimate record mentioned here seems strange until you factor in long term changes in Solar output. Then it starts to make sense. Then the fact that CO2 is an integral part of explaining the deep paleoclimate record also says that the 'Its Saturated' or 'It can't do much more' arguments are totally invalid. So they hinge on the Standard Solar Model. Actually I am quite surprised that advocates of AGW don't push the deep paleoclimate aspect more strongly. It is a very strong argument for the major future impact of CO2 since it actually addresses a range of sceptic arguments - Saturation, It can't do much more, Feedbacks, Climate Sensitivity, etc. What things were like 500 Myr ago may not have resonance with the lay public, but if its significance could be conveyed strongly, it is a powerful argument. As another thought John. You might like to consider a challenge (since we all have so much spare time & energy available to devote to this in amongst the rest of our lives). Invite Jo to supply a series of guest posts here, with you supplying a series of posts on her site. Specific subjects such as topics from her Handbooks. And focused on the science, not 'warmists said...' or 'denialists said...' Gore & Monckton are not invited. And a great time was had by all.Moderator Response: Well observed Re: mutually exclusive arguments.
Jo Nova's four arguments from The Skeptic's Handbook are:
1) CO2 isn't causing the observed warming;
2) CO2 doesn't cause warming;
3) The observed warming that CO2 isn't causing isn't happening, and;
3) The CO2 that doesn't cause warming is already causing as much of the observed warming that isn't happening as it can.
Fascinating stuff. -
chris1204 at 19:41 PM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
KR @ 7 If you are forced to retract a paper, well, that means your paper was wrong, that clear mistakes have been pointed out. Nobody makes that kind of admission of error without proof - if there isn't clear proof of error, bad data, incorrect methods, etc., the paper will remain in the marketplace of ideas, and will be cited (or not) based on it's perceived worth. Shades of Galileo? I guess his ideas did last the distance but in the face of some fierce opposition. Toby Joyce @ 30 I'm delighted to see you quoting Stephen Jay Gould (one of my favourite writers)and especially some of his keenest insights. Bringing the subject back to Galileo, the evidence for a geocentric universe in his time was as good and maybe better than the evidence for a heliocentric world (and of course, today we all know the universe is not heliocentric). For what it's worth, the 'consensus' is no more than our best effort at understanding what's going on. Consensus should not become a Procrustean Bed. When facts don't fit the consensus as neatly as we'd like, we need to ask why. For example, if you run 20 studies all set at P < 0.05 signiifcance, at least one of those studies is likely to be false. If you run 20 studies all trending in the same direction with a P < 0.05, the probability that all the studies have yielded a valid result is 0.36. On the other hand, if 20 studies powered at P < 0.05 looking at the same variable all reject the null hypothesis, the probablity of the null hypothesis being true is virtually zero. However, we need to be wary of assuming that all studies included in such a sample are in fact evidence of the process in question. For example, this site ran a post on accelerating extinctions. Accelerating extinctions are not proof of AWG. AWG might well accelerate extinctions. However, accelerating extinctions in and of themselves tell us nothing. A common process could account for both AWG and accelerating extinctions. BTW, Arkadiusz, I read through the Polska Akademia Nauk (PAN) statement as per Toby Joyce @ 25 and it does endorse the consensus position strongly though I note the date is December 2007. Were you thinking of a more recent document? Or are you suggesting that a substantial minority of Polish scientists dissent from the 'consensus' but are held in higher regard than their equivalents in Anglo-Saxon circles? -
MrJon at 19:36 PM on 23 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get past climate change
RSVP #6: 'It didnt take that long to convince people about AGW, but given enough time and energy, the truth is coming out. ' I think it would be more accurate to say that it has taken a very long time to convince people about AGW and now the truth is being 'taken' out of the argument in by people such as Jo Nova and that Monckton chappie who prefer instead to prefer misrepresentation and obfuscation. Why they would do this one can only guess - perhaps they see it as sort of sport. -
JMurphy at 19:17 PM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
LWeisenthal wrote : "A lone pathologist in Australia, with no "credentials" came up with the idea that ulcers were caused by a bacterium (helicobacter pylori). No one believed him. He couldn't get the work published. He certainly wouldn't have qualified for any funding. It took nearly 20 years for the world to come around to his way of thinking. In 2005 he (Robin Warren) won the Nobel Prize." Not quite. Robin Warren and Barry Marshall (the latter a Physician) developed their theory over 3 years until publishing in the Medical Journal of Australia in 1985, i.e. they HAD funding and they WERE published. Research into the bacteria had been going on for at least 20 years but no-one had linked all the studies or developed a coherent theory based on them. It only took a few more years for them to prove themselves against those who were sceptical. Read all about it here from the men themselves. Where are the Warren and Marshall of the so-called AGW Skeptics ? -
philipm at 19:17 PM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
It's worth repeating a point often missed in this "debate": AGW is not a theory. It's a prediction of a general theory of climate. Anyone who wants to argue against AGW therefore has to undo this general theory, which has held up well for explaining things as diverse as ice ages on Earth, and the climate of planets as different as Mars and Venus. Arguments against AGW that do not address why the underlying theory is flawed are generally pretty useless, which is why so much of the anti-AGW hype is just that: hype. -
Hypnos at 19:03 PM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
"Again the argument "you are to dumb to understand", an argument which any rational thinker should completly ingore as being even remotely valid." How ridicolous can it get? If you have concerns about a growing mole do you go to an oncologist or a philosophy professor? The sum of human knowledge has become so large that even geniuses cannot even beging to approach a satisfying level of understanding of every facet of it. Polymaths like Leonardo Da Vinci cannot exist in modern society. Our knowledge can only increase via specialization. Our modern society is based upon trust in the experts. The system cannot work if you don't trust the experts. It takes years to get a basic understanding of most complex subjects - you can't just spring up and claim your statements about climate science be given equally weight to those of a climate scientist with 20 years of experience. It would be like jumping into an operating room and pretending to perform open heart surgery after cramming an anatomy manual the night before. What is it about expert knowledge that people understand in medicine but in no other science? Is it having your life on the line - good old myopic egocentrism? -
JMurphy at 18:55 PM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Karl_from_Wylie wrote : "Survey is not surprising. Would you be surprised to find a survey of Catholic priests found only 3 to 5 percent are agnostic?" Yes, I certainly would : I would be surprised if that few were atheists ! A far higher percentage would be agnostic, actually, so not surprising at all - just like the survey under discussion here. Very bad (and, frankly, desperate) analogy. -
omnologos at 18:30 PM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
tobyjoyce (#88): the political naivety apparent in the abuse of a scientific publication "to close the discussion on the scientific consensus so relevant parties could focus on solutions" is so large, given the glaring success called COP15, that I cannot imagine how warmists like those would be able to "focus on solutions" even if the whole human race were unanimously with them on this topic. In fact...what next? Unable to properly handle a scientific debate, how are the Pralls and Romms of this world going to handle a policy debate? -
JMurphy at 18:27 PM on 23 June 2010Ocean acidification
chriscanaris, staying briefly off topic, I would suggest that the original roots were Eastern, thanks to the preservation and transmission of that corpus by the Byzantine and Islamic empires. They, too, would have easily debunked the nonsense 'logic' coming from the so-called skeptics. -
tobyjoyce at 18:11 PM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
@robhon #95 Jim Prall posted a comment on Climate Progress that the intention of the paper was to close the discussion on the scientific consensus so relevant parties could focus on solutions. I presume it was aimed at the mass media and the politicians. Undermining denier's easy access to the media and to the political parties has provoked the waspish response from that quarter. Frankly, I hope it succeeds. We have been going around the mulberry bush of the same arguments for many years now. Maybe it is time for a move on? -
RSVP at 18:08 PM on 23 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get past climate change
...and it's just probably the other way around. It didnt take that long to convince people about AGW, but given enough time and energy, the truth is coming out. -
RSVP at 18:03 PM on 23 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get past climate change
There seems to be great concern here that people can be so easily swayed by "untruths". What happened to Occam's Razor?Moderator Response: In order to apply Occam's razor, competing hypotheses must be equal in all other respects... -
chris1204 at 17:18 PM on 23 June 2010Ocean acidification
Sorry, Clavius was 16th century :-). -
chris1204 at 17:17 PM on 23 June 2010Ocean acidification
15th Century monks were pretty cluey - we owe the preservation of the classical corpus to their efforts including the great philosophers of ancient times. Copernicus was a 15th century cleric as was Christopher Clavius, the Jesuit astronomer (there's a lunar crater named in his honour). A tiny bit off topic but it's nice to reflect on the cultural roots of the western scientific tradition. -
actually thoughtful at 16:57 PM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
#14 Berényi Péter, I look to you to provide balance to the pro-AGW majority on this site. This is probably your weakest counter-argument ever. What scientist who has ever approached NSF hasn't gotten a letter like this at least once? ALL ideas are interesting. NSF must be transparent and follow their own scoring and rating rules. Many more requests for funding come in that available funds. That Pielke went back to document the NSF "agenda" says a lot more about Pielke than it does about the NSF. -
Donald Lewis at 16:44 PM on 23 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get past climate change
"The ratio of work required to confuse as opposed to correct is vastly lopsided." LOL. I will quote you. -
Marcus at 16:43 PM on 23 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get past climate change
Also note that the ice-age she refers to would have had to have occurred at temperatures significantly *higher* than any of the ice-ages within during the Quaternary Era. This suggests that the glacier forming processes may well have been very different from those operating in more modern times (not surprising given that the planet looked *very* different during the Cambrian to the Triassic Eras. -
Marcus at 16:40 PM on 23 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get past climate change
There are two key things that Jo Nova is missing in these graphs-(1) that the sun was a full 10% "cooler" than by today's standards during this time & (b) that in spite of a significantly cooler Sun, minimum temperatures during this time period were never significantly cooler than average temperatures today (&, in fact, spent much of that time at several degrees warmer than the modern average). This disparity between warmer temperatures vs a cooler sun would actually seem to highlight CO2's vital role in maintaining temperatures far above the modern-day average throughout that time. What is of particular interest to me is that, from the end of the Devonian Era through the Carboniferous Era, CO2 levels fell by over 1000ppm, whilst temperatures also fell by nearly 10 degrees C. Why this is of interest is that this is the time period in which the majority of our coal & oil was being generated-& we're now burning these ancient carbon sinks to re-release this 400-300 million year old CO2 back into the atmosphere. To think this would have absolutely *no* impact on our modern climate-especially given our warmer sun-shows breathtaking naiveté in my opinion!Moderator Response: Re: Ordovician glaciation - someone mentioned this in another thread. They suggested the distribution of continental landmasses during the period enabled 'glaciation' to occur at higher average global temperatures - http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7/Ord.jpg
The 'glaciers' could be more accurately described as the south-polar ice cap. -
Donald Lewis at 16:38 PM on 23 June 2010Ocean acidification
*debunked by monks in the 15th century* -
Donald Lewis at 16:36 PM on 23 June 2010Ocean acidification
Actually, Batsvensson, your humor is lost on me. Anyway, I think the point of the post by Ove Hoegh-Guldberg was to bring into relief 5 standard argument tropes that are logically non-sense, yet have traction, and must be pointed out when they occur. In this case the author simply cited ample evidence to refute the arguments. The arguments refuted are vacuous, as well, in any topic. Here is my catalog of these arguments: (1) because x and y respond differently to the level of z, the level of z doesn't matter. (2) because x varies over y, a claim that x depends on z can be dismissed. (3) because x has existed in the past, when y varied, x will exist forever no matter how y varies. (4) because x happened in the past under circumstance y, it will always happen under circumstance y. (5) because we don't know x, we don't have evidence that y. Part of the modern charm of deniers of science is that they sometimes argue based on logic that would have been debunked monks in the 15th century -
Doug Bostrom at 16:36 PM on 23 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get past climate change
I was finally overwhelmed by curiosity and clicked the link to Jo Nova's pamphlet. Jo Nova does not seem to offer a very persuasive argument about this particular topic for anybody already familiar with the subject of paleoclimate, can't really do so in the space of four very short paragraphs containing 144 words and almost no quantitative data. Unfortunately Jo Nova's rhetoric will stick like mud to anybody so unfortunate as not to have some background on the topic and getting clean again will not prove easy. Here's the really vexatious aspect to such an appealingly short, simple but completely wrong treatment: How long does it take to write 144 words conveying an easily absorbed untruth as opposed to the time required to undo the confusion propagated by those words? Further to that, if the confused and wrong version of the story is easily absorbed and the accurate version is not so easily understood, what's the possibility of repairing the damage caused by such a misleading work as Jo Nova'a? The ratio of work required to confuse as opposed to correct is vastly lopsided. David Grocott, just out of curiosity how long did it take you to research and write this rebuttal?Moderator Response: Doug - it took several days. A few months ago I researched and wrote another article on one of Jo Nova's claims for my personal blog. I concluded it as follows:
"What is clear is that it has now taken me 1,739 words, at least four peer-reviewed scientific studies, the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report, various blogs and websites, and several days, to tell precisely no-one (congratulations if you're still reading), why they should partially refute what Jo Nova has told 200,000 people in 7 words. Those 7 precious words being: "Paltridge found that humidity levels have fallen.""
This is of course the great problem associated with climate "skepticism", but until a law is introduced prohibiting criminal ignorance, we must persevere. -
batsvensson at 16:18 PM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
"The thing is, when you peruse these lists, you find very few scientists who actually have expertise in climate science." Again the argument "you are to dumb to understand", an argument which any rational thinker should completly ingore as being even remotely valid. Consider the title of the post, we can also ask question like "who many religious leaders are atheists?" (And one will be surprised to learn there are a great deal of them, but most will not admit it...) -
batsvensson at 15:38 PM on 23 June 2010Ocean acidification
Just like we dont need forest planted on every square centimeter on land we dont need coral reefs on every spot in the seas either. Tress are domesticated and grows in parks and there is no universal reason why coral reefs should not be domesticated and kept under control as well. The problem is corals reefs as tourist resorts may decline in popularity if it bleaches out. But I am sure we can compensate any dead bleached stuff with cheap chines made colorful animated plastic replacements. City people wont be able to tell the difference anyway. Beside we also got some pretty good robotic fishes coming up from Japan, in case the fish population dies off at the same time, which we can add to the seas to enchant the experience for paying customers. The benefit with robotic fishes are multiple; predictable and reliable displays, good resistance to off shore oil leaks and agricultural chemicals, no stinky dead fish afloat on the beaches. Less fish in the sea will also reduce the bird populations that makes irritating sounds, scares the kids and leaves excrement’s all over the places. -
Doug Bostrom at 15:16 PM on 23 June 2010On the Question of Diminishing Arctic Ice Extent
For those sweating "ice weather" for this year, here's a handy summary of predictions from 14 persons/organizations considered expert in the field: September Sea Ice Outlook: June Report (There are actually 16 predictions but one of 'em is an extreme outlier in the "melted" direction and does not seem credible, the other is the result of a discussion among laypersons moderated by the Pacific Science Center in Seattle) -
Doug Bostrom at 14:07 PM on 23 June 2010Ocean acidification
Some places eschew the use of English in all its marvelous efficiency and prefer to use the term "reduction in how alkaline the solution is" when what is meant is "acidification." Could we please avoid having a pointless debate over semantics here w/regard to the commonly accepted term "acidification" used to denote a numerically reduced pH measurement? -
climatepatrol at 12:50 PM on 23 June 2010It's the sun
Thank you for your reply. I don't understand your reasoning on this, but I realised that I took the entire solar constant into my back of the envelope calculation. I corrected it below: Solar forcing at the beginning of the industrial area was about 1365.3 W/m2, it then increased steadily to reach about 1366.2 W/m2 in 1960. The 2000 forcing is about 1365.8, which makes it an average forcing of about 1366 W/m2 during those 40 years. The average solar forcing reaching the earth at any particular time and weather and place is 240 W/m2 according to http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/ . I divide the figures used in comment "*558 by 5.8. Therefore, even though we are now in a sustained solar minimum, the memory of the climate system resulting from about +0.12W/m2 solar irradiance is now 60 years old. If, according to AOGCMs, only 60% of the equilibrum response is reached after 100 years for CO2 doubling, I deduce at least the same (if not longer periods) are required for an equilibrium response to solar forcing. Assuming, it is the same, it is safe to assume that at least ...% of the current, estimated radiative imbalance of 0.85W/m2 since 1880 is due to solar forcing. Why? 0.05W response is given after 100 years and later, this leaves a minimum of 0.06W in the memory after 60 years, in 2010. This leaves 0.79 W/m2 owing to human forcings, not 0.85W/m2, as "committed" atmospheric warming resulting from human activities for the future. Since, with its logarithmic effect, we reached roughly 1.6 W/m2 forcing since the beginning of ia. Subtracting 0.79 W/m2, this leaves 0.81 W/m2 to increase temperature of the atmosphere. So with model average beeing S=3°C for 2xCO2eq (3.7W/m2), temperature increase owing to human radiative forces should be roughly +0.65°C from surface to TOA. -
Rob Honeycutt at 12:18 PM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
In response to John's response to David at #79... I have to say (and keep repeating), as a non-scientist it is compelling to me that a large number of scientists working in the field believe one way. I can look at the multiple lines of evidence all day long but my capacity (even being a reasonably sharp guy) is limited in making an adequate assessment. I have to trust that the professionals who are looking at those multiple lines of evidence find it compelling. So, from the outside looking in, that is what is so interesting about this topic.Response: Yeah, sorry about my grumpy rant, I'm a bit of a curmudgeon when it comes to this topic :-) -
David Horton at 11:34 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Not me John, I'm not guilty, really. But (you knew there would be a but) I do find the mindset that rejects consensus as fascinating. For a scientist, as you say, a consensus of scientists reflects a consensus of science, what else could it do? And so the greater the consensus the greater the certainty in the correctness of the science. For a denier, a consensus of scientists is just another name for conspiracy, so that the greater the consensus the stronger the evidence of conspiracy. Hence my question about whether they would believe, say Michael Mann, if he was a lone voice in 100 scientists arguing against him. or what about 50-50, would that prove the science was correct? The logic is just nonsense. As in so may areas of fundamentally settled science, for the rebels to succeed in overturning the 98%consensus, they would have to demonstrate some absolutely fundamental flaw in the core of climate science. The only things I can think of would be disproving that CO2 was a greenhouse gas, or finding a feedback mechanism that will cut in after a few years of rising CO2 and temperature and reduce both automatically. Good luck with those. It isn't to say we know everything, and there is plenty of room for rebels questioning all sorts of minor details about rates of change, and ecological responses, and the precise nature of feedbacks and forcings. But all of that is only like the old joke - we have established what you are, now we are just haggling over the price. -
damien at 10:26 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Who's the "outlier" at 650 or so publications? -
omnologos at 10:25 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Even ScienceInsider found it appropriate to demolish Anderegg et al.... (Prall's quaint words about the behaviour of journal editors suggest he hasn't met many of them 8-) ) Forget funding, forget peer-review. This is what Anderegg et al. says: "We defined [unconvinced] researchers as those who have signed statements strongly dissenting from the views of the IPCC" How can the agreement about "the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change" be measured by what petitions have been signed by whom, given that petitions are necessarily policy-relevant and the IPCC is policy-neutral? And since when have scientists expressed their scientific opinions by way of petitions? How many researchers see their scientific output evaluated in terms of the petitions they get themselves involved with, and therefore spend any of their time writing and signing petitions instead of scientific articles? Also: what is the relevance for science, policy and politics of an either/or approach, dividing the world in "IPCC True Believers" and "Everybody else"? Those are the questions that should have arisen during the PNAS's peer-review process, whose abject failure is now so clear for all to see. Perhaps, just perhaps, somebody should have remembered that when two groups of people are analysed statistically and the result has a P value smaller than one hundredth of a trillionth, then it is highly likely that there is something very wrong with the test's design itself. -
Doug Bostrom at 10:22 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Yes, BP and that's why you see so many proposals having to do with chasing down seeming paradoxes by investigating such matters as tropospheric-stratospheric flux, as well as models and observations being set in direct collision with one another to see what happens. Like I said, the "easy" stuff is done. This is something that does not escape you, I suspect (though in the interest of consistency I must ask, where were you on the Lon Hocker thread, hmmm?) but I think is easily missed, trampled in the confusion of what resembles a dust-up in the stands of a soccer game while the point of the "game" is entirely missed. Leaving aside folks with massive financial considerations hinging on public policy outcomes, for researchers this is in fact not a game in the sense of operating a big business, not a political contest, not popularity poll, not primarily about score-keeping at all. To the extent that research is connected with egos, it's all about who explains the most the soonest, but egotistical aggrandizement is not the coiled spring in the heart of most scientists' gear-trains. The prime motivator of researchers is intellectual vacuum, the lack of knowledge, the inability to cogently describe. To the extent noticeable discrepancies or mysteries such as BP points out continue to exist, the more fascination this topic will exert on researchers. Unexplained and unresolved phenomena motivate researchers to rise from their beds in the morning, slog through grant applications, deal with university administrators, pay dues by sitting on review panels, sometimes are the only things that can prod an otherwise sane person into teaching yet another section of "Freshman Topic X 101" to students who see the class only as a barrier to life's progress. This sense of wonder and curiosity is so powerful that even when researchers' work inadvertently leads into the harsh public limelight, causes them to be vilified in untruthful newspaper articles, deposits mindless hate in their mailboxes, they keep on bird-dogging their fascination. I can't help but shake my head at superficial score-keeping and gamesmanship by the likes of Watts as exemplified by his silly blacklist artifice. Watts just does not get it. There's no "defeat" possible here; the more weirdly "wrong" climate research results appear in juxtaposition with predictions the more intensely devoted will researchers be to sorting out why. Coming back to BP's remarks, we don't see fundamental work on "C02 saturation" being funded because it's no longer mysterious, no longer poses any significant conundrums, is not interesting and so will certainly be invisible in the funding record. "Saturation" behaves as expected, is passe, boring, a brick many layers down in the wall, done. On the other hand, if it appears to pose a real mystery, the subject of the article BP cites will be pounced upon by hungry researchers who will first try to tear it apart and if unable to do so will then happily turn to beavering away at whatever legitimate questions it poses. Nobody will walk off the field in defeat because it's not that kind of game. By the way, BP, I would not call that article by Wu and Liu "fundamental" research. It attempts to refine application of fundamentals but it upsets no applecarts. -
The Walrus at 10:11 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
David Horton: Amen, Brother. I've never seen a denier explain why billions upon billions of tons of CO2 above the baseline *wouldn't* affect climate change. GeoGuy's arguments look like an attempt to muddy the waters. These folk act as if the theory of CO2 as a greenhouse gas is in dispute. There is little attempt to falsify the theory; much more effort to confuse the average reader. -
Berényi Péter at 10:03 AM on 23 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
#226 Albatross at 06:10 AM on 23 June, 2010 am I correct in concluding that you believe/understand AGW to be (for want of a more appropriate word) "fraud"? I do not know. I am trying to figure it out for myself. In one thing you can be sure. I'll never believe a word based solely on the fact it appeared in a peer reviewed paper until I understand it properly and I think you'd better do the same. I've already seen quite some phony arguments here, on both "sides". I really need to know exactly where you stand on AGW in order to appropriately place your posts in context. That one you'll never get. This game with two camps and a noble cause is a rather silly one. What about truth? Many people here upon hearing a buzzword they reckon belongs to the other side get blind and don't even try to understand what's being said. One particular problem may be the English language lacks a genuine root for the concept "understand". People tend to underestimate the importance of a concept if it is not given at an early age as a primitive. Hungarian "ért" is a single sharp, well defined concept. It can be translated as understand, see, savvy, get, dig, catch on, etc. depending on context. With derivatives it gets even more interesting. Érthető is understandable, plain, luminous, lucid, intelligible, emphatic, comprehensible, clear, broad, articulate while értelem is understanding, signification, significance, senses, sense, reason, purport, mind, meaning, intelligence, intellect, import, headpiece, effect, comprehension or apprehension. But in fact it does not mean all these things, hardly any of them. It's a single coherent act. That's what I am looking for. -
David Horton at 09:54 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
Reading a thread like this induces in me a profound sense of depression, I don't what it must be doing to John Cook's sense of well being. The logic, if I am understanding the arguments from the usual suspects is that having 98% (who are the other 2%, that is bizarre?) of the scientists who work in the field of climate change in agreement on the fundamental thrust of the research is a bad thing, a cause for suspicion, and it would be better if only 2% of scientists accepted AGW because then the deniers would believe in it wholeheartedly. Or have I missed something?Response: I'll give you my gripe about this discussion thread - that the subject of scientific consensus provokes so much interest and discussion compared to the subject of scientific evidence. This applies to both sides of the debate - frankly, you're all guilty! :-)
Personally, I'm persuaded by the consensus of evidence much more than the consensus of scientists. Eg - that there are multiple lines of empirical evidence all pointing at the same answer - that humans are causing global warming. And this is where I try to keep the emphasis on this website.
But the "there is no consensus" argument is so popular, occasionally it needs to be put into its proper perspective - that the vast majority of the people who matter, climate experts, are convinced by the evidence. The reason is simple - the consensus of scientists is due to the consensus of evidence.
Anyway, I'll be returning back to a discussion of scientific evidence in the next post, thank goodness! -
The Walrus at 09:49 AM on 23 June 2010How many climate scientists are climate skeptics?
I seee here many examples of how the deniers don't understand what science is, or what logic is, or what a logical fallacy is. One member suggested "publication bias" "favoring conventional wisdom." This commenter didn't suggest any method of controlling for that--he just suggested it's a reason not to trust the study. This commenter didn't explain why "publication bias" hasn't kept us in the dark ages; why science has done so well in spite of its mortal weakness of "publication bias." Another commenter didn't even try to address any of the facts of the article, but instead said Lord Monckton is right, that's that, end of discussion. And on and on and on. It disturbs me that so many people think they know what they're talking about, when it's so easy to show that they don't.
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