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Comments 117151 to 117200:

117151. Tom Dayton at 03:05 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        Many journal submissions are rejected by editors without the editors sending the submissions to reviewers. That is normal, expected, and necessary. See also this comment.
117152. Lon Hocker at 03:00 AM on 17 June 2010
        Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
        doug: "(1) The actual rate of increase in the atmospheric CO2 concentration isn't linear; it's close to exponential (but actually a bit steeper than exponential)." Actually it correlates beautifully to the integrated temperature anomaly referenced to about 1850 when temperatures are generally accepted to be reasonably constant. That is the thesis of my post. "(2) That overall increase is coming from anthropogenic sources, not the ocean. Emissions have been well quantified; about half of the annual anthropogenic emissions accumulate in the atmosphere while the other half is taken up by various sinks in the ocean and the terrestrial carbon system." I disagree. "(3) CO2 is on net moving from the atmosphere to the ocean, not the reverse (see the references to Takahashi 2009 and Sabine 2004 at the top of this thread)." I assert that the CO2 concentration is calculable from the temperature. No anthropogenic contributions and it comes from the ocean, enough anthropogenic contributions and it goes into the ocean. The concentration still correlates to the ocean temperature" "(4) What your model actually illustrates -- the existence of a carbon-cycle feedback whereby CO2 warms the climate, and that warming results in the addition of more CO2, further amplifying the warming -- has been known to scientists for at least three decades, and is discussed in the IPCC reports. This is not news." I have no idea how my model illustrates this, and accordingly I disagree. As for your first order problems, perhaps you are referring to the 0.58 term which puts a starting point to the anomaly at about 1850. Beyond that I am at a loss to understand your objections. Also doug: I asked Ned to calculate CO2 based on the anthropogenic contributions because it's a lose lose for me if I do. If I can't come up with a good fit, you will claim that I didn't do it right, if I do come up with a good fit, and you disagree with the equation, you'll say it's wrong. If Ned does it, you won't argue. Ned appears to be a bright guy, let's see what he can come up with. Willis had a shot at it a while back on WUWT, maybe Ned can do better. gp2: The rate of increase of CO2 correlates to enso. Why should that be? Also, the rate of increase of CO2 seems to correlate a lot better to the temperature anomaly than it does to enso. Does that fit your understanding?
117153. dhogaza at 02:35 AM on 17 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        Stephen Baines, I hate to do this but ... "I must apologize for all my mispellings now and in the future." You've misspelled "misspellings". Keep on hammering BP, though, misspellings and all! :)
117154. dhogaza at 02:27 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        

        Agreed. However, science has its share of powerful personalities who dominate the scene by their presence (and not always by their integrity). This applies to the sceptical side as much as (in some cases more)to the AWG side.

        In this case, the six editors who resigned included von Storch, who leans towards the skeptical side of the argument. In other words, the paper (Soon and Ballunis) really was crap.
117155. dhogaza at 02:26 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        

        Well then I don't want to sound like a little bitch, but there was some contreversy as Spencer tried to publish hi's own latest paper that got rejected from Journal of Climate and Geophysical Research Letters without no reason and is finally getting published in the Journal of Geophysical Research. I would call that a bitt odd.

        Cloneof, as Tom Dayton says, it's not odd at all. It's not at all unusual for a scientist to have to trot around a paper before it gets accepted. Think of journals like Science and Nature, where 90-95% of the submissions get rejected. Do you think the authors of those papers just round-file them, or do they shop them around looking for a journal that will accept it? What's odd is Spencer trumping this up in the denialsphere, when he knows perfectly well that there's nothing unusual in not getting accepted into the journal one picks as one's first choice.
117156. Doug Bostrom at 02:21 AM on 17 June 2010
        Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
        Lon, "cutting to the chase" necessarily requires you to reasonably address at a minimum the inconsistencies noted by Ned here. Since you're so strong on maths, you should probably do so in detail. Don't expect other people to do work for you, you're making an extremely bold claim based on what you yourself describe as "a simple correlation" and it's up to you to make it function. Can you defend your hypothesis against first-order problems, yes or no?
117157. Albatross at 02:14 AM on 17 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        Riccardo at #167, an excellent assessment Riccardo. Thanks. Another observation that has been made regarding "skeptical" arguments is the contradictory nature of their arguments. For example, a little while ago John posted this story "Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?" So there "skeptics" acknowledge that the oceans are warming and indeed use that very fact to try and claim that warmer oceans are driving the increase in atmospheric CO2 (FYI commentator Ned has just posted an excellent rebuttal to that misguided hypothesis). Yet, here we have skeptics arguing (#162 and #168) that the oceans are not warming, or more specifically that the warming trends are not robust. It seems that they chose to ignore Fig. 1 shown in Trenberth's comment on the Lyman et al. (2010) paper which clearly shows otherwise. And that introduces another tactic used by "skeptics", cherry-picking incredibly very short windows (e.g., 2001-2003) to try and make a case that OHC or global surface temperatures are no longer warming or to claim that the long term trends are not robust.
117158. Rob Honeycutt at 02:13 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        Argus quoted... "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report," Jones writes. "Kevin and I will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!" If I remember correctly, the papers in question here actually ended up being mentioned in the IPCC report. It's a perfect example of what this article is discussing. Peer review can be a very competitive sport. Sometimes it's bare knuckle and back biting but what comes out as a result is that better science generally prevails. I seem to also remember that there were equally bitter battles waged in science when it was proposed that some dinosaurs and modern birds were related. So, I don't believe this is confined to climate science.
117159. canbanjo at 02:11 AM on 17 June 2010
        Andrew Bolt distorts again
        John Mc, I understand and agree with that. But I thought the point about AGW theory is that it is a theory which is constructed from an array of disciplines - can there be a single discipline that has more authority or understanding level of the overall AGW theory than others? And if so (as Hulme seems to be saying) what is the significance of this? What point was Hulme trying to make when he wrote: "statements such as “most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid 20th century is very likely [greater than 90% likelihood based on expert judgement] due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations” is a very specific piece of knowledge crafting which I – and most other experts engaged by the IPCC - are not qualified to engage in at first hand." and what does 'knowledge crafting mean'? this is crazy.
117160. gp2 at 02:04 AM on 17 June 2010
        Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
        @Lon Hocker There is no surprise that the rate of change of CO2 correlate well with satellite temperature anomaly since both have a common cause(enso), both satellite temperature and carbon dioxide lags enso by several months however this doesn't mean that carbon dioxide short term fluctuations are due to ocean outgassing...as i have pointed out before it is well known instead that oceanic carbon anomalous fluxes and enso are anticorrelated while tropical land fluxes and enso are correlated and this is mainly due to precipitation change associated with enso driven atmospheric patterns not temperature. Also this mechanism cannot account for long term co2 increase because forests are a net carbon sink in the last two decades.
117161. john mcmanus at 01:57 AM on 17 June 2010
        Andrew Bolt distorts again
        I think Hulme said that although he is not a ranking expert in areas within climate science outside his niche he does feel well enough educated in climate science to judge the merit of papers others write and had no trouble agreeing with the vast majority of the scientists that write them. Only a specialist on pollen will get a paper concerning pollen in sediment published. Many , however, with other scientific foci will read such a paper and be qualified through mathematical and statistical training etc. to make a judgement on the value of the paper. John McManus
117162. Lon Hocker at 01:54 AM on 17 June 2010
        Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
        OK, cut to the chase: I have a simple model that relates the rate of change of CO2 to the temperature anomaly, or conversely shows that you can derive the CO2 level from the temperature anomaly (I used the ocean temps). You folks apparently believe that this is false, despite the correlation. You would also seem to believe that the anthropogenic contributions are important. Ned, you made an excellent plot using decimal date, how about making a similar plot, but starting with some function of the anthropogenic CO2 emissions. You might even want to modulate it with the temperature data.
117163. canbanjo at 01:49 AM on 17 June 2010
        Andrew Bolt distorts again
        Philippe, I normally find it very clear cut that deniers interpretation of events do not stand up to scrutiny unlike the articles on skeptical science. However in this case I cannot see how Hulme's statements could be clear to anyone - you can interpret them how you want to. Does "at first hand" mean something certain in the scientific community that laymen would not appreciate? I don't see how his response has clarified anything. So who are these people at the extreme end of the spectrum you mention?
117164. Stephen Baines at 01:45 AM on 17 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        BP, "So you are welcome, start that falsification job and let others join in. At least give it a try." That's what others have been doing previously. My point at #148 was that you responded to many of their arguments (which were based on apparent consistency among data sets) with an apparent attack on any approach that appealed to such consistency as evidence. I was also correcting your interpretation of KRs use of the term "robust." KR meant it in a different way that you took it. While I didn't actually say (in #148 at least) that science produces provisional and probabalistic statements(e and KR were making that point, and quite well I might add), I agree with the idea. Read the Popper link in e's comment for context. Scientific theories, because they project beyond the realm of experience to make predictions regarding new data, are inherently inferential. Deduction is only possible when the the logical loop can be closed. Deduction is useful in specific circumstances, obviously. Ken Lambert. I didn't comment on the OHC data in my post at 148. I think you're addressing someone else?
117165. Tom Dayton at 01:37 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        cloneof, it is extremely unlikely that Spencer was given no reason for his paper's rejection. Most likely is that he didn't like the reason that was given. That's not odd. Rarely is an author happy with the reasons for rejection. Nor is it odd that his paper eventually was accepted in a different journal. It happens most of the time.
117166. Philippe Chantreau at 01:12 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        Chriscanaris @ 4. Yes, some behave like that. Can you cite precisely climate scientists who try to pretend that uncertainties do not exist? And then there are the Beck and Limbaugh. So, really who's doing the worst howling out there?
117167. Philippe Chantreau at 01:07 AM on 17 June 2010
        Andrew Bolt distorts again
        Indeed cabanjo. This is what happens when language appropriate for describing what we know of reality and how we know it (i.e. how assured we are of that knowledge) gets thrown into the "public debate" type of situation. It does not work. Hulme statements were perfectly reasonable, in accordance with what really happens in the IPCC process and in fact a good description of reality. Then they were high-jacked.
117168. chris1204 at 01:04 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        dhogaza 2 29: So in other words, you're saying that journal editors are under pressure to not publish junk science. I would hope you don't consider this a bad thing. Agreed. However, science has its share of powerful personalities who dominate the scene by their presence (and not always by their integrity). This applies to the sceptical side as much as (in some cases more)to the AWG side. Moreover, the metric of success for any academic is mainly their publication record - publish or get no grant. Somewhat off topic, but Henry Kissinger disingenuously liked to pass himself off as a naive academic and newcomer to politics when recruited by Richard Nixon. In fact, he already had a giant footprint - how else do you get to be a professor at Harvard?
117169. e at 01:02 AM on 17 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        BP > it does not and should not make the truth-value of the proposition itself probabilistic. You are quite simply wrong, and yes we are talking about the meta-level of science not within science itself. Any scientific knowledge applied to unobserved events (inductive reasoning) is strictly probabilistic. Did you read the Karl Popper essay? Surely you don't think we can have positive knowledge with 100% certainty? If we can't say anything with certainty, and if we can't say anything probabilistically, what is there left to say? Here's another link that neatly summarizes the topic of scientific "proof". I quote: "Thus, it is important that you shift your frame of reference from one of proof and certainty of knowledge and interpretation of facts to one that is PROBABILISTIC in nature, where our confidence in whether or not we understand something properly is not and never can be absolute."
117170. cloneof at 00:51 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        Well then I don't want to sound like a little bitch, but there was some contreversy as Spencer tried to publish hi's own latest paper that got rejected from Journal of Climate and Geophysical Research Letters without no reason and is finally getting published in the Journal of Geophysical Research. I would call that a bitt odd.
117171. Berényi Péter at 00:49 AM on 17 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        #148 Stephen Baines at 10:15 AM on 16 June, 2010 If you showed any willingness to acknowledge that this situation raises questions about the validity of your method, and that maybe it needs revision or rejection as a consequence, people would be more receptive. As it stands, its appears your idea is the one that is unfalsifiable and subject to confirmation bias. Hereby I do acknowledge that this situation raises questions about the validity of my method. However, the questions raised should be formulated. Having done that answers are to be supplied. So you are welcome, start that falsification job and let others join in. At least give it a try.
117172. Stephen Baines at 00:43 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        As was pointed out in the Nature editorial on the topic of those two mysterious papers.. "A fair reading of the e-mails reveals nothing to support the denialists' conspiracy theories. In one of the more controversial exchanges, UEA scientists sharply criticized the quality of two papers that question the uniqueness of recent global warming (S. McIntyre and R. McKitrick Energy Environ. 14, 751–771; 2003 and W. Soon and S. Baliunas Clim. Res. 23, 89–110; 2003) and vowed to keep at least the first paper out of the upcoming Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Whatever the e-mail authors may have said to one another in (supposed) privacy, however, what matters is how they acted. And the fact is that, in the end, neither they nor the IPCC suppressed anything: when the assessment report was published in 2007 it referenced and discussed both papers."
117173. Alexandre at 00:40 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        Argus, Lindzen gets published, even if his evidence against the known climate sensitivity is fragile. Pat Michaels gets published, even if it´s rubbish. No grounds for suggesting group thinking prevents "mavericks" to have their space. Papers that confirm AGW, on the other hand, not only survive peer scrutiny, but also get confirmed by independent research.
117174. Berényi Péter at 00:36 AM on 17 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        #148 Stephen Baines at 10:15 AM on 16 June, 2010 modern scientific theories are probabilistic Yes, they are. But you should always keep meta-level and subject-level propositions apart. In scientific propositions probabilistic concepts are of course allowed. However, it does not and should not make the truth-value of the proposition itself probabilistic. The proposition "mean and standard deviation of measurement is such-and-such" is not a probabilistic one, but a proposition having definite truth-value about probabilistic phenomena, which is a very different thing. There are some preconditions of the very applicability of probability theory for any subject matter, the first one being the existence of a predetermined event field. Until it is given, it does not even make sense to guess the probability measure. If you try to apply probabilistic reasoning at the meta-level of science, as IPCC AR4 tries

        Where uncertainty in specific outcomes is assessed using expert judgment and statistical analysis of a body of evidence (e.g. observations or model results), then the following likelihood ranges are used to express the assessed probability of occurrence: virtually certain >99%; extremely likely >95%; very likely >90%; likely >66%; more likely than not > 50%; about as likely as not 33% to 66%; unlikely <33%; very unlikely <10%; extremely unlikely <5%; exceptionally unlikely <1%.

        you run into trouble. Based on this scheme they state for example "Overall, it is very likely that the response to anthropogenic forcing contributed to sea level rise during the latter half of the 20th century" (IPCC AR4 WG1 9.5.2) Now, by very likely they mean something with an assessed probability of occurrence between 90% and 95%. OK, we have the probability measure for a specific event. But what is the entire field of events? What kind of events are included in the set with an assessed probability of occurrence between 5% and 10% for which it is not the case that the response to anthropogenic forcing contributed to sea level rise during the latter half of the 20th century? Does this set include counterfactulas like "people went extinct during WWII" or not? What is the assessed probability of occurrence for that event? Does it include worlds where sea level is declining? Or is it rising for all elements of the complementer set in the field of events considered, just with a 5-10% assessed probability of occurrence the response to anthropogenic forcing has somehow not contributed to sea level rise at all during the latter half of the 20th century? Does this sentence make sense at all? Without any doubt some message is transmitted by the qualification "very likely" in this case, but it has nothing to do with probabilities as they occur in science. The field of events is not defined and can't be defined, therefore the numbers supplied can't possibly be estimated values of a probability measure, but something else. True, all kind of things happen all the time and we seldom have the luxury to know all possibilities in advance. That's simply human fate. While staying in NYC a crane collapsed at a construction site crashing the roof of a nearby hotel and killing a guy in his bed instantly who slept in the top apartment at high noon. Now, what's the assessed probability of occurrence for that event? Can it be taken into account in any prior risk assessment? Has the guy considered the probability of a crane coming down on his head before taking a nap? Still, people somehow manage to handle risks in situations where preconditions for applicability of probability theory are lacking. There are empirical studies on this with some weird findings. It is not even easy to construct a conceptual framework where actual human behavior in obscure risky situations can be interpreted as rational. But the fact people have managed to survive so far indicates it can't be too irrational either. BTW, these things have far reaching consequences for e.g. economics. This kind of ability of experts is relied on when assigning "probability" to various propositions being true or false. It has nothing to do with science as such and it is utterly misleading to mix everyday language used in this semi-instinctive risk taking behavior with scientific terms. I don't know what the term "post-modern science" even means No one knows for sure. But everyone seems to do it.
117175. caerbannog at 00:19 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        "Wrong", says Chemware (#12) about my reflection on peer reviews (#8), whereas the moderator of this site seems to partly agree with me: ''This is a fair comment. It can be difficult to publish something that goes against the grain ...''. I think climate science may have problems that other sciences do not have - everybody likes a new possible cure for cancer or a new dwarf planet, but the atmosphere within climate research seems infected. Here is a quote from The Washington Post: One must make the distinction between innovative papers that truly "go against the grain" and papers containing errors that a professor would flunk a freshman college student for. In the email messages cited by the Washington Post above, Mann et al. were discussing the latter. If a journal editor demonstrates a pattern of approving "freshman f*&@up" papers for publication, it should not surprise anyone that scientists would complain about said editor in private email messages. Denialists need to learn the difference between censorship and professionalism.
117176. Ned at 00:11 AM on 17 June 2010
        Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
        Lon writes: Show me that your model fits the data as well as mine. No hand waving, just do it! If you can't, your model is wrong. As explained in my previous comment it's not really necessary to do this -- one can invalidate Lon's conclusions based just on understanding the math, without any kind of actual demonstration. However, sometimes people like to see things visually. If Lon is right and the temperature anomaly is actually causing the rise in CO2, then a model that does not include temperature anomaly should be a very poor fit for the observed CO2 trend. If the rest of us are right, then a model that omits temperature anomaly should provide almost as good a fit as one that includes it. Lon's model to predict CO2 as a function of temperature anomaly is: Month(n) CO2 = Month(n-1) CO2 + 0.22*(Month(n) Anomaly + 0.58) For comparison, here's a model that predicts CO2 only as a function of time, without temperature (I've deliberately structured it to be similar to Lon's): Month(n) CO2 = Month(n-1) CO2 + 0.00178*(Month(n) date - 1915) where "date" is the decimal year (year + (month-0.5)/12, e.g., 1979.042 for January 1979) Here are the results of the two models, compared to observations: To be clear, I'm not proposing this as an alternative to Lon's model; I'm using it as an illustration of the fact that temperature anomaly has only a small effect on the overall trend of CO2. One could further improve on this, if one wished to make it more physically realistic. But the key point here is that Lon's conclusion just does not stand up to even a very simple test.
117177. dhogaza at 00:11 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        And this is just bad journalism:

        In another, Jones and Mann discuss how they can pressure an academic journal not to accept the work of climate skeptics with whom they disagree.

        It's not disagreement that's the point, it's the fact that the paper under discussion was absolute crap. It was so bad that later, one half of the editorial board *resigned*.
117178. dhogaza at 00:08 AM on 17 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        "As Argus has pointed out, journal editors may indeed be out of a job if key members of a scientific community rightly or wrongly decline to submit papers. A journal which gets no submissions goes broke. Academic publishers are not charities." So in other words, you're saying that journal editors are under pressure to not publish junk science. I would hope you don't consider this a bad thing. In biology, there's the example of an editor of a relatively obscure little journal, whose term was expiring, allowing a paper "disproving evolution" to be published. Absolute crap. Got a similar "WTF???" response from the evolutionary biology community as the one Argus thinks is so heinous:

        In another, Jones and Mann discuss how they can pressure an academic journal not to accept the work of climate skeptics with whom they disagree. "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal," Mann writes. "I will be emailing the journal to tell them I'm having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor," Jones replied.

        What I can't wrap my head around is why anyone thinks such a response to crap being published is a bad thing.
117179. Ken Lambert at 23:36 PM on 16 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        Stephen Baines #148 Regardless of the inconsistency of the team's curves, they roughly follow the same pattern; the problem is the transition from XBT to Argo. The exampled 'Upper Ocean Heat Content Chart" 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. BP identified the same issue in the "Robust Warming of the global upper ocean" thread and showed that the year to year satellite TOA flux data showed no change anywhere near 2.1W/sq.m. 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. In such case, fitting a linear curve from 1993-2009 and calling it a 'robust' 0.64W/sq.m is just nonsense. One might also note that the better the Argo coverage and analysis gets from about 2005 onward - the more the teams curves converge on a flattening trend - no OHC rise - no TOA imbalance. No TOA imbalance seems to present a problem for CO2GHG theory which requires an ever-present increasing warming imbalance at TOA.
117180. Tom Dayton at 23:16 PM on 16 June 2010
        Andrew Bolt distorts again
        Heraclitus, I think that when Mike Hulme wrote that not everyone is qualified to make judgments "at first hand," he was using stringent criteria that are common among people at the highly knowledgeable end of the spectrum. He was using a magnifying glass at the extreme end of the spectrum.
117181. Marcus at 23:10 PM on 16 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        Need I point out that Anthropogenic Global Warming, about 30-40 years ago, was the *new* paradigm on the block & took many years, & a *lot* of evidence, before it got accepted as the *new* paradigm for recent warming. So this helps to disprove the idea that only stuff which fits the existing paradigm will get accepted via peer-review. Yes some articles get through that have no business getting through, & others don't get through that should have but, with a little hard work & persistence, these *errors* in the system usually get corrected eventually.
117182. OPatrick at 23:02 PM on 16 June 2010
        Andrew Bolt distorts again
        There seems to be an assumption in Mike Hulme's argument, to some degree at least, that knowledge (or qualification to craft knowledge) is binary in nature. Either an expert has that knowledge or they do not. Either they are qualified to draw conclusions or they are not. Is it not a better reflection of reality that there are shades of grey in the depth of understanding each of those 2500 / 4000 / n scientists will have of any given point? There will be some whose expertise is concentrated almost entirely in the one narrow field of focus, others who may have a broader range, and presumably less depth, of specialisation. There may be some who have a great depth of understanding of a closely related field an so may well have good transerable knowledge and judgemnt. Many more may well not have the in-depth understanding to come to direct conclusions about a particular point but can a) say whether the conclusions fit with their own areas of expertise and with the broader picture of climate science and b) critically examine the scientific process behind the conclusions reached. This is how I would understand the concept of 'consensus' - as something like a web of mutually corroborating strands of evidence accepted and understood to varying degrees. Similarly, when a body such as the Royal Society endorses the position of the IPCC on climate change I think they become part of the consensus, not because they are claiming an exact understanding of each scientific point, but because they have confidence in the process and, hopefully, have scrutinised at least samples of that process to justify this.
117183. Riccardo at 22:58 PM on 16 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        Here we're seeing a sort of master on skeptics strategy. There are schematically three possibilities: 1) attack one single point regardless of the others, then switch to the next tolerating contradictions; 2) find trivial and sometimes plain wrong math or analisys allowing the claim that AGW or some aspect of it are hoaxes; 3) "invent" new physics throughout. Point 1 can be easily seen following the discussion in this post from comment #10 onward. It all started with population impact on temperature measurements in a very special situation, then UHI in general, GHCN quality, satellites, OHC and who knows which will be the next. Only radiosondes are found correct, ignoring, this time, their well known and documented biases ... A good example of point 2 is Lon Hocker in another post or the infamous PIPS images analisys of ice volume. For point 3 you have an ample choice elsewhere over the internet, here we're relatively safe. All in all, two out of three of the strategies pertinent with the topic of this post are confirmed here. Not bad Mr John Cook, good job :)
117184. canbanjo at 22:47 PM on 16 June 2010
        Andrew Bolt distorts again
        Am I getting this right...Hulme has said: "statements such as “most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid 20th century is very likely [greater than 90% likelihood based on expert judgement] due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations” is a very specific piece of knowledge crafting which I – and most other experts engaged by the IPCC - are not qualified to engage in at first hand." But Hulme also says: "I believe that the warming of the climate system is unequivocal and that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid 20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations " Does this mean that Hulme is not qualified to engage in this at first hand, but in his unqualified opinion it is true? Clarifying what Hulme is saying is very important. It sounds like we now need to know the identities of all of the people that are 'qualified at first hand' to confirm the statement: “most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid 20th century is very likely [greater than 90% likelihood based on expert judgement] due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations”.
117185. chris1204 at 22:46 PM on 16 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        Thank you for removing the ad hominem (feel free to delete this line from the post if you wish - and the rest of the post if you must). Couple of points. I do a little bit of peer reviewing myself (not much but just enough to have a sense of what it's about). It is interesting and challenging and a thought provoking paper can send you hunting references - it is an excellent learning exercise. A journal like Nature or Science naturally turns away 90 - 95% of submissions. Smaller journals in more specialised fields face the opposite problem - attracting submissions. I've no idea what the 'reject' rate would be in the major climatology journals. One measure of the quality of a journal is the number of articles I would actually read. Thus, staying within the bounds of my field, I'd read 75% of articles in, for example, The American Journal of Psychiatry. I guess this is a measure of traction. Other journals which shall remain nameless fare rather poorly. The more technical the journal & the 'harder' the science,the more rigorous the peer review process &the more arduous the publication process. I have no doubt that most peer reviewers try to do their job conscientiously. However, in some areas with major policy implications, processes such as those described by Argus @ 23 and rebutted by the other Chris @ 24 may gain salience. Finally, lets not forget banal human motivations such as professional rivalry, personal dislikes, and all the rest. Doug @ 16. As Argus has pointed out, journal editors may indeed be out of a job if key members of a scientific community rightly or wrongly decline to submit papers. A journal which gets no submissions goes broke. Academic publishers are not charities. Please note, I am in no way entering into the rights and wrongs of the Soon Baliunas debate or the email exchange between Jones & Mann purportedly related to the paper. Finally,I did write somewhat provocatively: 'But some (by no means all or even most) proponents of AGW do behave more like Scientologists than scientists.' I think I have made it clear in posts elsewhere that I have grave reservations about the MO of much of the sceptical commentariat.
117186. skywatcher at 22:43 PM on 16 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        Yes, a single property, measured with different equipment at different locations and with different corrections applied. Lyman et al 2010 is all about assessing the reasons for those differences, and therefore establishing what is the most likely "right" answer based on those different measurements. Maybe you should read Trenberth et al 2010 which is freely available, especially the bottom of column 2 and the top of column 3, and not the graph posted above which is before th edetailed analysis of the errors and why the discrepancies exist. I would be more concerned if some of the curves showed decreasing OHC, but they don't, all are increasing, and there are good reasons why the measurements don't exactly correspond. Quite clearly, reducing these uncertainties is a key area of research, but it hardly invalidates the previous analyses, and I think Lyman's assessment is a step forward in that regard.
117187. johnd at 22:37 PM on 16 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        skywatcher at 19:39 PM, re "did it cross your mind that it might not be very much energy?" That may or may not turn out to be the case once it has throughly been researched, but at the moment they see it as a significant flow, not previously properly allowed for. However the Southern Ocean is considered one of the most important of the worlds oceans but perhaps the least understood. Scientists believe that until they understand its circulation they cannot make really confident predictions about future climate change.
117188. johnd at 22:00 PM on 16 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        skywatcher at 21:22 PM, BP is correct. The graph in question does indeed represent a single property, attempted to be arrived at by a variety of reconstructions each apparently using different measurements and formulas. If the true value of that single property is "X" then "X" should fall within the error range of each reconstruction for each reconstruction to be considered valid. Each of the curves were derived from a combination of real world measurements, assumptions and formulas. If within each reconstruction, the combination and relationship of all the inputs are valid, then each reconstruction has an equal chance of determining the true value of "X", but they all cannot be right, unless "X" falls within the error bars of each reconstruction. If that is not the case, there are two possibilities, either one reconstruction is correct and the others are not, or they are all incorrect. The error bars should be such that they account for the reality of real world measurements.
117189. mspelto at 21:45 PM on 16 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        I review about one paper a week. I find it an invaluable learning experience as you have to scrutinize and understand the science at a different level than just simply reading the paper. It is also a joy to be able to make good suggestions for improving a worthy paper. From an authors viewpoint there are two things that stand out about peer review for me. First of all how long it can take to get a paper published, it usually takes me at least three submitted drafts spanning about a year. Second my papers emerge much better than the original draft, so we will all gain, if the authors and the reviewers put in the time and effort.
117190. skywatcher at 21:22 PM on 16 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        Pedantry will get you nowhere BP - "robust" is perfectly acceptable as a term to define a theory, based on observations wich are subject to greater or lesser error. For example, the graph you point to is not a measurement of a single property many times over, it is measures of ocean heat content where the measurements are taken in different locations with different instrumentation, each subject to different errors but, due to the variability in sampling locations, would not necessarily record an identical depth-temperature curve anyway. Each one of those curves can be correct within error, yet not overlap - ie not 'flawed' as you suggest. That's the nature of real-world measurements. And the 'if...then' point is absolutely valid as a result, based on those observations. BP, are you going to suggest that the oceans are not warming? When I was a kid at school, I would get an F for producing that kind of conclusion from the data available. I fear you are desperately unaccustomed to dealing with observations from the real world.
117191. ProfMandia at 20:55 PM on 16 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        I think that this is a very good synopsis of the process. Another very good post related to this topic is by Dr. Steve Easterbrook. He allowed me to repost his comments on my blog: How Scientists Think. FYI: Nature only published 6.8% of the submissions in 2009. See the stats for the previous 22 years. Science averages less than 8%. Scott A. Mandia, Professor of Physical Sciences Selden, NY Global Warming: Man or Myth? My Global Warming Blog Twitter: AGW_Prof "Global Warming Fact of the Day" Facebook Group
117192. chris at 20:45 PM on 16 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        Argus at 20:22 PM on 16 June, 2010 Argus, which specific papers (""I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report,") are being referred to here? I don't think it's unacceptable to choose to leave out obviously flawed work from summaries of a scientific field. That happens all the time (every time someone writes a review). So we'd really need to know which particular papers are being referred to here. Of course the language of the email is a little spicy, but's that's emails for you... As for the second point, I think this refers to the Baliunas Soon paper that was "shepherded through" the Climate science review process by a sub-editor. Is that correct? if so again I don't think Jones point is particularly problematic. One of the roles of scientists (which is inherent in the editorial and peer-review processes) is to maintain standards of scientific integrity. If an editorial process is being abused (as was clearly the case in the Climate Research instance) then it's appropriate for scientists to highlight this robustly and to take steps to address the problem. You might remember that most of the editorial board resigned over this bit of chicanery and the Publisher took the rare step of issuing a statement that the paper shouldn't have been published in the form it was. We're taking about one specific and dismal example of an abuse of the peer-review system. It was met with a suitably robust response. I don't find that problematic at all. As you say there is some elements of "infection" within climate science. A very small number of individuals attempt to sneak flawed work into the scientific literature. This happens in all fields in which science has implications that abut the political sphere (see e.g. efforts to publish "Intelligent Design" papers in the scientific literature). These instances should be highlighted for what they are (ultimately these are attempts to cheat Joe Public of his democratic right to the information required to make informed decisions), and opposed robustly by those that have the knowledge to recognise efforts to subvert acceptable scientific practice.
117193. Berényi Péter at 20:25 PM on 16 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        #147 kdkd at 09:15 AM on 16 June, 2010 Deductive reasoning is the preserve of mathematics, science is the home of induction Incorrect. Induction, along with several other techniques is a heuristic method. It may be useful for finding your path through the bush of alleged facts and to establish some order, but the true test of a scientific theory always relies on deduction. And that's the part where things start to get genuinely scientific. From a small set of basic principles a wealth of sharp propositions can be derived by rigorous deductive reasoning. At the same time results of experiments or observations are translated to the same language of binary logic. If some member of the former set is negated by any member of the latter one, then either there was a problem with the experiment/measurement/observation (the first thing to do is to go back and check it) or some of the premises forming the core of the theory should be abandoned (along with all the propositions that can not be derived without it). The very process of translating measurement results to propositions having the logical form comparable to those derived from theory involves deduction, relying on a smaller set of principles considered firmer than the ones to be tested. See the example above about translating radiance temperatures in narrow infrared bands to atmospheric temperatures using sophisticated models. The whole procedure described above is valid only if no deductive chain contains fuzzy steps. #148 Stephen Baines at 10:15 AM on 16 June, 2010 This argument is semantic red herring. "Robust" existed as a word well before software engineering and is not always used in the way you state. For instance [etc., etc.] Of course it existed. But its specific usage as a terminus technicus comes from informatics. You may notice that without it propositions like "this theory is robust" (i.e. "healthy", "full of strength") do not even make sense. These qualities belong to living organisms and no theory has a biological nature. The usage of the term in this context is clearly metaphoric and if in this case you mix up its specific meaning with the vernacular one, you end up with an untestable poetic proposition whose truth value is a matter of taste. On the other hand the robustness of a piece of software/hardware is testable indeed in the sense its overall performance should be preserved even if parts of it would fail. A very desirable property for software and an undesirable one for scientific theories. The more rigid and fragile a theory is the better, provided of course it happens not to be broken. I show you an example of this kind of robust reasoning, from this fine blog. Robust warming of the global upper ocean The figure is from a peer reviewed paper of the same title (Lyman at al. 2010, Nature). You may notice the error bars given for different curves by different teams do not overlap. That means these OHC history reconstructions are inconsistent with each other. Individual curves with error bars can be easily translated into propositions (rather long, complicated and boring ones) and if you join these individual propositions by the logical operation of conjunction, the resulting (even longer) proposition is false. As from a false proposition anything follows, of course the implicit proposition of the authors "if these OHC history reconstructions are correct, then OHC trend for the last sixteen years is +0.64 W/m² on average over the surface of the Earth" is a true one. It does not make the part after the "then" true. It does not prove its falsehood either. Its truth value is simply independent of what those teams have done, it is indeterminate. In cases like this the proper scientific method is not to look for robustness in the data and extract it on whatever cost, but to send the individual teams back to their respective curves, error bars included and tell them find the flaw. The error bars indicate that no more than one of the reconstructions is correct, possibly none. The average value of many incorrect numbers is an incorrect one. Further steps like extracting a common trend can only be taken if correct and bogus curves are told apart. When I was a kid, at high school, robust babbling like this was not tolerated. Sit down, please, F.
117194. Argus at 20:22 PM on 16 June 2010
        Peer review vs commercials and spam
        "Wrong", says Chemware (#12) about my reflection on peer reviews (#8), whereas the moderator of this site seems to partly agree with me: ''This is a fair comment. It can be difficult to publish something that goes against the grain ...''. I think climate science may have problems that other sciences do not have - everybody likes a new possible cure for cancer or a new dwarf planet, but the atmosphere within climate research seems infected. Here is a quote from The Washington Post: In one e-mail, the center's director, Phil Jones, writes Pennsylvania State University's Michael E. Mann and questions whether the work of academics that question the link between human activities and global warming deserve to make it into the prestigious IPCC report, which represents the global consensus view on climate science. "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report," Jones writes. "Kevin and I will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!" In another, Jones and Mann discuss how they can pressure an academic journal not to accept the work of climate skeptics with whom they disagree. "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal," Mann writes. "I will be emailing the journal to tell them I'm having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor," Jones replies.link to source (bolds by me)
117195. snapple at 20:11 PM on 16 June 2010
        Request for mainstream articles on climate
        When it comes to reporting on the vast underhanded "plots" of scientists, the 1953 Pravda is not so different than the modern tabloid version. Actually, Pravda is not so different from much of our own media and some politicians. That is what is so disturbing. After the CRU emails were published, the tabloid Pravda (30-11-2009) wrote an article titled "'Climategate' Exposes the Global Warming Hoax": Climategate’ is not an ordinary case of falsifying data by a few rogue scientists. The fraudulent theory of Global Warming has provided the basis for an international political movement which has the stated goal of completely restructuring the entire global economy based on that fraudulent theory. ‘Global Warming’ is a con game perpetrated by dishonest scientists and the government and corporate leaders who provide the corrupt scientists with opportunities for advancement. If we fail to stop the further politicization and institutionalization of the fraudulent theory of Global Warming, we will most certainly experience a future of ‘science’ controlled by government decree and of a world government that facilitates the operations of corporate industries while imposing severe restrictions and arbitrary taxes on the general public. That is a future which would fully justify resistance and rebellion among the international populations who will be the victims of this massive global fraud. If we fail to stop this fraudulent enterprise by legal means, we will certainly have a future of global oppression based on fraud, with its attendant institutionalized crimes, and whatever popular backlash might eventually result.
117196. John Cook at 19:57 PM on 16 June 2010
        Andrew Bolt distorts again
        UPDATE: I just received this email from Mike Hulme who granted permission to reproduce his reply to John B's comments:

        John B - The spirit of the paper was quite critical of the IPCC, this was not merely a neutral review

        Hulme – the paper is a review of 20 plus years of published literature which has examined the IPCC, its functions, governance, processes and impacts. Whether it is neutral, critical, or appreciative is a matter of reader’s judgement.

        John B - Second, while Hulme may not have said "the ‘IPCC misleads’ anyone" he did write that "Claims such as ‘2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate’ are disingenuous." So the IPCC has not misled but is disingenuous?

        Hulme - I did not say or imply the IPCC has misled or was disingenuous. It is claims such as the caricatured one I offer which are disingenuous. It fact, the quoted comment by Kevin Rudd seems a good example of the precise sort of thing I was caricaturing. The precise IPCC AR4 statements ‘the warming of the [climate] system is unequivocal’ and “[most of the observed] increase in global average temperatures since the mid 20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations” were not written and approved by 4000 scientists; they were written by small teams of experts, then reviewed by other experts and then approved by governments. Your commentators may call this pedantic, but I think it is important to point out how knowledge is assessed by experts and how headline statements are crafted. By the way, I think this is an entirely credible process, but people should not claim that it is more than it is.

        John B - Third, the point "That particular consensus judgement, as are many others in the IPCC reports, is reached by only a few dozen experts in the specific field of detection and attribution studies" is false. THAT is the main issue at hand. Hulme writes "The IPCC consensus does not mean – clearly cannot possibly mean – that every scientist involved in the IPCC process agrees with every single statement in the IPCC!" Well obviously, but nobody suggested that was the case (hello strawman).

        Hulme – but what, other than this – i.e., 4000 scientists concluded these specific statements, could Kevin Rudd’s claim imply?

        JB - But to suggest that only a few dozen out of the many thousands of scientists that worked on AR4 agreed with the key take home message, that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate, or were qualified to do so is silly. (also note Hulme's argument has shifted (we have seen this tactic before too); initially it was that only a few dozen people were qualified to make that inference, but now he is saying not every author agreed).

        Hulme – statements such as “most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid 20th century is very likely [greater than 90% likelihood based on expert judgement] due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations” is a very specific piece of knowledge crafting which I – and most other experts engaged by the IPCC - are not qualified to engage in at first hand. Or take another one – ‘it is very unlikely [less than 10% likelihood based on expert judgement] that the MOC [Meridional Overturning Circulation] will undergo a large abrupt transition during the 21^st century’. Most authors engaged by the IPCC are not qualified to participate in such specific knowledge crafting. The ambiguity in my original article emerges from the caricatured example of a ‘claim’ which I suggest is disingenuous [OED: ‘not straightforward or candid’], namely when I wrote ‘2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate’. This is too general a claim for the specific point I was seeking to make about expert judgement and consensus-making. I should therefore instead have written in the original article, ‘Claims such as ‘2,500 of the world’s leading scientists agree that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid 20th century is very likely [greater than 90% likelihood based on expert judgement] due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations’ are disingenuous”. This would have served my point much better – and in fact Kevin Rudd has made it for me And for the record .. I believe that the warming of the climate system is unequivocal and that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid 20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations
        Moderator Response: As usual, the readers / commenters at Skeptical Science are uplifting the quality of this conversation that is surprisingly subtle and multifaceted. Their responses and clarifications outdo anything I can muster, e.g., see David Horton at 07:50 AM on 17 June, 2010, NewYorkJ at 04:09 AM on 17 June, 2010, canbanjo at 02:11 AM on 17 June, 2010, and Stephen Baines at 08:30 AM on 17 June, 2010 below.
117197. Ned at 19:51 PM on 16 June 2010
        Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
        Lon, please. Everybody commenting in this thread understands first-year calculus. Can you address the substantive issue here? The conclusion from your post at WUWT was, in your own words, " the rise in CO2 is a result of the temperature anomaly". The correct interpretation of your model would have been "changes to the rate of increase in CO2 are moderately correlated with temperature" (r2 = 0.36). You write Show me that your model fits the data as well as mine I'm not proposing any model. I'm talking about the actual meaning of your own model, the one you presented at WUWT. If you still truly don't understand the errors in your conclusions, there are lots of people here or at WUWT who can help explain this. If you do get the point now, it would be much better for everybody if you'd just drop the bluster about "preaching heresy" and say so. Since you say that you're planning a followup post at WUWT, here are some points to consider: (1) The actual rate of increase in the atmospheric CO2 concentration isn't linear; it's close to exponential (but actually a bit steeper than exponential). (2) That overall increase is coming from anthropogenic sources, not the ocean. Emissions have been well quantified; about half of the annual anthropogenic emissions accumulate in the atmosphere while the other half is taken up by various sinks in the ocean and the terrestrial carbon system. (3) CO2 is on net moving from the atmosphere to the ocean, not the reverse (see the references to Takahashi 2009 and Sabine 2004 at the top of this thread). (4) What your model actually illustrates -- the existence of a carbon-cycle feedback whereby CO2 warms the climate, and that warming results in the addition of more CO2, further amplifying the warming -- has been known to scientists for at least three decades, and is discussed in the IPCC reports. This is not news.
117198. snapple at 19:44 PM on 16 June 2010
        Request for mainstream articles on climate
        Pravda is mainstream. It is now a tabloid with girlie pictures and science articles. There is another Pravda that gives the communist line. This mainstream Pravda (11-1-09) has announced that the earth is cooling and is on the verge of another ice age: http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/106922-0/ The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science.... Sometimes the Russian media say the crafty climate scientists "hid" cooling. Sometimes the Russian media says the crafty climate scientists concealed that it is warming only a little. And anyway, warming will be a good thing because CO2 is plant food. You can hear the same claim in Congress or you can read it in the tabloid Pravda. Pick your poison.
117199. skywatcher at 19:39 PM on 16 June 2010
        How climate skeptics mislead
        johnd - the phrase "we see more heat being trapped by carbon dioxide", I think refers specifically to the fact that we can see in the spectrum of outgoing longwave radiation the spectral signature of CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) changing in a manner that reflects an increase of those specific gases. Hence, we can literally "see" the heat being trapped by these gases. CO2 is more than *just* a driver, it traps a lot of that heat (in addition to driving water vapour). There are good posts on it here, including I think two of scaddenp's refs. And the point of the environmental data (glaciers, cores etc) is to show not only the direction of the clange, but frequently that it is an unusual change in the context of millennia of natural change. They don't alone show that it's humans, but other observations (stratospheric cooling, spectral signatures of OLR and downwelling LR, radiative physics, night-time warming etc show that it's our greenhouse gases and not a natural cause. And certainly not a coincidental recent ocean current change (yes that might add some energy, but did it cross your mind that it might not be very much energy?). #136 BP: So you are now rejecting Spencer (because his data are inadequate), yet now expecting us to believe your hypothesis (which is still basically Spencer's) with no supporting evidence! That's pretty remarkably bold. You cannot 'prove' theoretically an empirical effect without providing some detailed real-world data to show that this theoretical effect is real. I doubt it has even crossed your mind that you might be wrong? even given the robust independent supporting evidence very strongly indicating that you and Spencer are wrong? I'm all for the consideration of alternative evidence, but here there is no alternative evidence to the multiple observations that the world is warming (I agree with johnd on that point at least).
117200. MrJon at 19:35 PM on 16 June 2010
        Andrew Bolt distorts again
        This seems to be a rather silly argument that mostly demonstrates that the denialators don't understand the meaning of the word consensus. It always has and always will mean a 'majority opinion' - and given the nature of science and scientists reaching any kind of consensus is quite an achievement and is thus something that always needs to be considered seriously.
        Moderator Response: great point. I hadn't bothered to look up "consensus" but here is it: "Consensus is defined in English as, firstly - general agreement and, secondly - group solidarity of belief or sentiment. It has its origin in a Latin word meaning literally to feel together." Also, you are so right about academics/scientists ever coming to consensus on ANYTHING! Consensus in a faculty meeting on the most trivial issue? Forget about it! (JB)

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