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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 117251 to 117300:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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*.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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 :)
  10. 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”.
  11. 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.
  12. 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.
  13. 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.
  14. 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.
  15. 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.
  16. 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.
  17. 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
  18. 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.
  19. 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.
  20. 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)
  21. 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.
  22. 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 21st 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.
  23. 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.
  24. 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.
  25. 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).
  26. 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)
  27. Peer review vs commercials and spam
    CoalGeologist at 16:43 PM on 16 June, 2010 "While the author concedes that peer-review is not perfect, I feel it's important to acknowledge a bit more candidly that the system has the potential to fail, both by generating "false positives" (approving non-deserving papers for publication) as well as "false negatives" (rejecting valid papers for unfair or invalid reasons)." That's an interesting one CoalGeologist: My feeling is that false positives usually don't have a particularily deleterious effect, although in rare cases (outright fraud that leads to a huge amount of wasted time, and badly done, but over-publicised research like the one underlying the MMR jab-autism scare in the UK) they clearly can. The smattering of false positives that dribble into climate-related journals or genetics/evolution journals (to pursue "intelligent design" politcs) and so on that serve political agendas are annoying, but only becasue they tend to promote a huge amount of hot air in non-science outlets like the blogosphere. They don't really affect the scientific process. It's very difficult to pick up outright fraud, but I do think some efforts could be made to intercept the occasional paper that clearly shouldn't have been published and is obviously (even if editors and reviewers don't notice) only submitted to promote non-scientific agenda positions (we could name some of these papers specifically!). I'm not sure that "false negatives" really exist. Of course papers are continuously being rejected from journals, in some cases unfairly, but that's not the end of the road. One simply takes the reviewers comments on board if there's anything useful in them, and submits the paper elsewhere. A paper that is sound will always be publishable somewhere. In fact with the modern emphasis on metrics (impact factors, citation counts etc.) there is a tendency for papers to go down a route which might involve something like: (i) hopeful submission to Nature (quick rejection) (ii) let's try Science (quick rejection) (iii) perhaps we can get it into PNAS (nope) (iv) O.K. we'll send it to the normal "house journal" of our field where it probably should have been submitted in the first place. There is certainly a smattering of very good papers that are undesrvedly rejected from good journals and end up in run of the mill journals. However if these papers are truly important then they will be noticed and their impact will be recognised.
  28. Request for mainstream articles on climate
    Russian scientist Andrei Kapitsa claims that warming causes CO2, not that CO2 causes warming. http://www.hinduonnet.com/2008/07/10/stories/2008071055521000.htm Kapitsa says climate scientists put the cart before the horse. Isn’t he mistaking a feedback for the main event? He is from a prominent science family in Russia. Read about his father Pyotr and brother Sergei on Wikipedia for a start.
  29. Request for mainstream articles on climate
    Here is an article by an old Russian scientist Andrei Kapitsa. He gives the denialist line in Russia and his views are promoted by Russian writers in foreign newspapers--such as India. Senator Inhofe cites Andrei Kapitsa. His father Pytor was very famous. His brother Sergei was a TV science personality. http://www.hinduonnet.com/2008/07/10/stories/2008071055521000.htm Here is another Inhofe adviser, Andrei Illarionov. He is with the Cato Institute and the Institute for Economic Analysis in Russia. He used to have a much better job, adviser to Putin, but supposedly had a falling out because he is such a free market, democracy loving, libertarian fellow. He has been a powerful opponent of the Kyoto Protocol. He also worked for Chernomyrdin, who was a boss of the oil and gas monopolies. http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/12/11/a-few-notes-on-climate-change/ If you read Kapitsa and Illarionov, you will see all the denialist themes.
  30. Peer review vs commercials and spam
    A couple of people have pointed out that peer review doesn't stop once a paper is published. I would go further and say that peer review starts long before most papers are submitted, and that there is an additional crucial element to publishing scientific papers: (i) The work submitted in a manuscript doesn't flow linearly from bench to paper. In pretty much all cases the work has undergone major elements of peer review before it is submitted to a journal. The work will have likely gone through the hierarchy of peer-review involving presentation at lab meetings, presentation at departmental or faculty seminer series, presentation in poster or platform form at scientific meetings and perhaps also presented to a grant awarding committee. All of these constitute tests of the inherent validity of the work prior to submission, and contribute to polishing of the presentation, identifying errors, inconsistencies or alternative interpretations that might lead to additional experiments and so on, before a manuscript is submitted. So in general most serious scientific work is submitted with the expectation that it will be accepted (even if it may have to undergo revisions acording to referees and editors critiques). (ii) A fundamental element of science and scientific publishing relates to the basic integrity of the scientist and this consitutes a major element of quality control. Basically scientists want to find out stuff and have strong desire to get to the truth (the "truth" often being a rather proximal "truth" that relates to a particular sub-element of a scientific field). When I referee a paper I do this with the expectation that the authors have made a genuine attempt to do careful experiments and to interpret their data faithfully. I might not agree with their methodologies and interpretations, but I never consider that the authors are trying to sneak a paper into press under false pretences [we know from examples of major scientific frauds that this does happen and the (front-line referee-based) peer-review process isn't very good at picking this up]. The latter is interesting, since it's clear that in climate-related science and other areas of political contentiousness (e.g. intelligent design) people do try (and can suceed) to sneak bad science into the scientific literature.
  31. Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
    @Passing Wind, Its seems you take Monckton at face value - a "public educator" who slips into error occasionally. Certainly, Al Gore is such a person. I think Gore tries to make his presentations based on the best of the available and most recent science. I know he has been accused and found wanting, but his intentions are honourable, and there is solid opinion that his "mistakes" are not mistakes at all. Monckton stands accused of being a dishonourable public educator in that he twists the evidence (even contrary evidence) to suit his point. Monckton makes very slick sales presentations, and he is very good at it. He must rehearse a great deal to attain the fluency he achieves. Here is a case in point. If Abraham was able to check Monckton's presentation against the recent science, then why wasn't Monckton? Keigwin, if he was aksed, would surely have pointed him to more recent studies which modified his 1996 conclusions. At best, Monckton is sloppy and dishonest by grabbing at the first paper which supports his point, without evaluating the range of available evidence and consulting the relevant scientists. Monckton's ignorance of the science is hidden behind the exterior flash of his presenting skills.
  32. Andrew Bolt distorts again
    Rapid correction of such distortion is not good enough: we need to create a powerful disincentive against dissemination of such disinformation, powerful enough to give the media reason to hesitate to spread it. As things are now, they have the opposite: powerful incentive to prostitute themselves to the purveyors of disinformation. As to how to create this disincentive, well, that is the hard part! All my ideas are still very undeveloped, such as bombarding the web-sites of offending media outlets with emails/posts with well-informed protest every time they spread the disinformation. But certainly any such well-informed protest will find articles like this Skeptical Science article very helpful.
  33. Stephen Baines at 18:32 PM on 16 June 2010
    Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
    Lon, there's no need to repeatedly tell people to review their calculus. What you've done just isn't that complex. But it isn't that transparent either, at least the final form of the derivative isn't. You should be trying to help us understand, rather than making arrogant comments. In any case, the existence of multiple terms doesn't really negate the concerns about your approach. Given that the last 30 years the increase in CO2 has been close to linear, you have still removed the vast majority of the variation in the original data by taking the first derivative (the linear term). I don't see how you can claim to explained the increase in CO2 via temp given that that most of the variation is removed. A statistical approach can only get you so far. Noone disputes that variations in temp should have some influence on the partitioning of CO2 between atmosphere ocean and land, and long term increases in CO2 should have an affect on temp. As others have said, that is one of the bases of the presumed CO2 induced climate feedbacks. Your analysis may have picked up the high frequency variation in CO2 driven by temp, but it ignored the trend that appears to be driving our current climate. Your anlaysis does nothing to negate the real facts in support of a human source for increasing CO2: humans have produced almost double the CO2 that has accumulated in the atmosphere, the changing stable isotopic composition of atmospheric CO2 indicates a plant source, O2 has not also risen (as would be expected if CO2 was coming from a warming ocean) and net flux of CO2 is into the ocean, as indicated by its acidification.
  34. Peer review vs commercials and spam
    Probably the only 'peer' review that actually wins is the proof over time that the science works, or works in the context of it's use. The story of Harrisons clocks to solve the longitude problem is a classic example. Not exactly science, but shows that eventually the correct solution is found. Physics in particular is littered with ideas that were initially rejected then accepted. But the key point is that in Harrisons case the Naval Board accepted his solution as did the scientific community accept the various Physics ideas. What didn't happen: The Naval Board was not disbanded because they were to conservative. The Physics community didn't get their funding cut because they initially rejected an idea. What is clear is that if an idea in science works, then it will be around for hundreds of years, probably thousands. Not because of democracy or because of a political campaign in favour of one theory or another. Peer review in a journal is probably the starting point, but it isn't the final outcome.
  35. Doug Bostrom at 17:37 PM on 16 June 2010
    Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
    Please review your freshman year calculus. I'm probably not the only one to think this remark obnoxious, same as "deal with it" except repeated on this thread so often already as to be boring. Cliches about physicists duly noted, arrogance is actually not a flattering posture.
  36. Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
    All: You might be interested to know that I first observed this correlation by integrating the temperature data to model the CO2 value. It's still posted on my site 2BC3.com/warming. I offered no explanation then because I hadn't come up with one! You are right, Willis' explanation does not agree with mine. Stephen Baines: Taking the derivitive promotes the parabolic term to the slope. Please review your freshman year calculus. Think Tailor series: the derivative of X**n is n*X**(n-1). Doug: Thanks for pointing out the C12/C13 data. I'll likely try to make a clearer explanation in a later post in WUWT, but if you buy that there is an equilibrium amount of CO2 in the air related to the ocean temperature, then when the ocean heats AND folks add CO2 to the air, the ocean will release less by the amount that folks add. Not surprisingly the atmosphere will hold CO2 that was added. Thanks all for your comments. I know that I am preaching heresy, but sometimes the "established" science is wrong.
  37. Stephen Baines at 17:02 PM on 16 June 2010
    Peer review vs commercials and spam
    @CoalGeologist Good points. However, I wonder if, with the expansion of scientific ranks since the 60s, the ability of single strong voices to drive the terms of the debate throuh peer review has declined somewhat. It may be that the much larger number of scientists adds another kind of inertia to the system (more people to convince, slower dispersal of ideas), but it is a different one to that typified by the plate tectonics debate....maybe.
  38. Peer review vs commercials and spam
    Doug @ 17 Chris, you should probably stop now. What a good idea :-)
  39. CoalGeologist at 16:43 PM on 16 June 2010
    Peer review vs commercials and spam
    While the author concedes that peer-review is not perfect, I feel it's important to acknowledge a bit more candidly that the system has the potential to fail, both by generating "false positives" (approving non-deserving papers for publication) as well as "false negatives" (rejecting valid papers for unfair or invalid reasons). The number of false positives and false negatives is not nearly as high as Argus's eyes (all of which seem to be both myopic and jaundiced) might perceive (@#8). But whatever the failure rate might be, it's non-zero. It is these very flaws that are most troubling to many AGW skeptics. Most branches of science can provide their own examples of die-hards clinging to old ideas, while stubbornly resisting new ones. A famous example in geology is the debate over the theory of plate tectonics during the 1960's & 70s. The key point is that the peer review system does not need to be successful 100% of the time in order to yield valid results in the long run. Despite any flaws on a case-by-case basis, 'science' as a whole will eventually reject non-viable hypotheses and faulty data, in favor of better hypotheses and better quality data. It's simply Darwinian selection applied to scientific hypotheses.
  40. Doug Bostrom at 16:40 PM on 16 June 2010
    Peer review vs commercials and spam
    Don't journal editors lose their jobs when their journals lose money? No. They lose their jobs if they harm the reputation of the journal, or fail to enlist reviewers or the like. By "journal" we're not speaking of Newsweek. Chris, you should probably stop now.
  41. Doug Bostrom at 16:31 PM on 16 June 2010
    Peer review vs commercials and spam
    Chris, many journals in fact do attempt to keep the authors of papers under review unknown to reviewers but it's a tricky thing because of self-cites and the like. Lots of journals don't bother with the attempt. Meanwhile, your unfounded speculations about misconduct by reviewers do not remotely resemble a case that commercial considerations drive reviewer behavior.
  42. Stephen Baines at 16:26 PM on 16 June 2010
    Peer review vs commercials and spam
    Argus, you presume that people cannot look past their "own ideas" to see the data for what it says. My experience says otherwise. Generally, the reviewers I have dealt with are more than fair. There have been notable exceptions, but the fact that they stick out in my mind is telling as well-- they are relatively few and far between. The social pressure on scientists to discharge their duty appropriately in peer review (or in editing) is actually quite strong. Nobody wants to be taken for a fool. And vindictivenes also has serious costs. I think Stephan acknowledged that the system isn't perfect, but in the end the proof is in the pudding and there is little doubt it has generated some very useful knowledge. It's certainly less biased than decision making based on the maximization of sales.
  43. Peer review vs commercials and spam
    Rebuttals and commentaries that reveal flaws in earlier papers can drive up citation counts (rather than the original authors getting egg on their face, they can receive a benefit of including a flaw in their analysis). It seems that oftentimes authors intend to leave something incomplete, and assumption unchecked, anything that will give them a chance to re-analyze the same data with a little tweak to show that they're making progress. I hardly ever produce publishable work, so maybe I'm just ignorant, but it seems to me that peer review isn't all that good a spam filter. (Note: my opinion on this is probably coloured by the fact that my field isn't very competitive.)
  44. Peer review vs commercials and spam
    @Argus Wrong. Otherwise, Einstein's "Jewish Science" would never have got published, and we never would have heard of Relativity. In fact, I would not be reading your post, because it relies on technologies developed from quantum mechanics - one of the weirdest, new and most controversial areas of science ever developed. Even Einstein railed against it ("God does not play dice!"). However, if you do try to publish a paper about how the moon really is made of green cheese, then you had better have some pretty sound evidence why the previous 10,000 or so peer-reviewed papers all got it wrong. Same for climate change.
  45. Peer review vs commercials and spam
    PS: Citation analysis is the latest fad - indeed, there are league tables for journals and the frequency with which their articles are cited. So 'no commercial interest?' Don't journal editors lose their jobs when their journals lose money? Mind you, peer review is probably as good a system as any. Just don't turn it into an article of faith
  46. Peer review vs commercials and spam
    'The editor of the journal sends the paper to several other scientists. Their job is to independently, and usually anonymously, evaluate my work and to determine whether my experiment was sound and is worthy of being published.' Now you would think reading this that the peer reviewer does not know who the author of the article under review is. This is not so. Moreover: 'First of all, there is no commercial consideration involved in the publication decision—none, zero, zippo, zilch.' Really? Doesn't keeping a rival's work out of the public eye give you a competitive edge when you go hunting for grants? BTW, I didn't think the Ioannides paper was 'strange.'
  47. How climate skeptics mislead
    scaddenp at 14:31 PM, Phil, nobody is suggesting the undersea current referred to has just appeared, only it being identified, and being mapped and quantified more recently. No doubt there are many more questions that they will be seeking answers to other than those I posed. It is at about 3500m and some of the water displaced from the northern basins returns to the Antarctic waters. Being warmer than the water that displaced it, there will be a transfer of energy. Strong export of Antarctic Bottom Water east of the Kerguelen plateau
  48. Glenn Tamblyn at 16:04 PM on 16 June 2010
    Peer review vs commercials and spam
    Stephen Baines @5 Your comment about the 2 stage nature of peer review is very apt The first stage of peer review is like getting a pass to enter the exam room. Then you have to pass the exam which is the peer review of ALL your scientific colleagues. The entire readership of the journal. Therefore perhaps the best test of the merit of a piece of work is not simply its publication, but the extent to which has subsequently been cited by others, and not in rebuttal. Citations analysis might be a useful tool for examining the importance of published works for & against AGW. And the extent to which AGW Sceptical papers actually gain any traction.
  49. Peer review vs commercials and spam
    To me, the peer review system, as described here, seems to be a system that assures that every new article that gets published, agrees with the present consensus. In other words, new or controversial ideas will have a hard time to get past a band of reviewers who prefer their own ideas.
    Moderator Response: This is a fair comment. It can be difficult to publish something that goes against the grain, challenges a bit shot or a major paradigm, etc. But it isn't impossible. (JB)
  50. Andrew Bolt distorts again
    I do wonder about Hulme's "Giving the impression that the IPCC consensus means everyone agrees with everyone else – as I think some well-meaning but uninformed commentaries do (or have a tendency to do)". Are there really commentators implying this, or is it just another example of what seems to be becoming a common 'there are those who exaggerate on both sides of the debate' type argument? I am not convinced that this argument is sound - for example I remember a year or two back when a Greenpeace quote about melting arctic ice was taken out of context to suggest some extreme alarmism. This reverberated around for some time even though it was patently and demonstrably a false accusation. Why would such a weak example need to be so prominently aired if such alarmism was so common? Can anyone find examples of this 'well-meaning but uninformed' commentary? I can't remember coming across any - most of the comments I read tend to be nuanced and if anything overstate the uncertainty.

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