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Riccardo at 00:49 AM on 14 June 2010Has the greenhouse effect been falsified?
Berényi Péter, I see, it's really pointless to answer to your questions. Usually if someone asks a question is because he's intrested in an answer about something he doesn't know. If it's not the case, don't ask, don't play this nasty game. -
gallopingcamel at 00:41 AM on 14 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
caerbannog, At the risk of compromising the serious tone of this fine blog, can I assume that you are a fan of Monty Python? Cymru am bith. -
gallopingcamel at 00:35 AM on 14 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
caerbannog (#39), It seems that we have a "failure to communicate". My fault probably. I did not buy the Hocker hypothesis for a minute and if you read what is posted on WUWT you will see that Anthony Watts does not buy it either. I got the idea that carbon isotope ratios would provide an unequivocal debunk of Hocker. Thank you for doing such a good job on that using quite different arguments. -
Berényi Péter at 00:27 AM on 14 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
#50 muoncounter at 23:51 PM on 13 June, 2010 Temperature records for most US states are searchable with a snazzy map-based interface here; many are continuous back to 1895How comes your several-states curves don't even resemble to GISS temperature history for entire US?
Please, explain.
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skywatcher at 23:57 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Berenyi Peter is clearly providing a lovely example of the skeptic tactics as seen in John Cook's opening post. One would think that was his purpose! Here it is. We have multiple direct temperature measures showing warming (surface temperatures, satellite measures, ocean temperatures etc). Additionally we have all sorts of natural changes (glaciers, sea ice, flowering dates etc etc) which are most likely driven by higher temperatures [it would be remarkable if the changes all occurred without higher temperatures]. Yet Berenyi is asking us to believe the work of one person which, if correct, invalidates merely one of our multiple direct temperature records. If that one measure has errors, what causes the measured warming in all the other records Berenyi? And why does the natural world act like it's warming, at the magnitudes we are observing? Add to that the fact that Spencer has a history of bias, and has not submitted this work to any form of review, and it seems plain where the mistakes most likely lie. Not with the multiple independent lines of evidence, but with the one study claiming to show that one of the lines of evidence has a problem. Especially when many published works have shown the UHI effect to have a minimal impact on global (or US or whatever) temperatures - e.g. here, linking to Menne et al 2010. And Berenyi you don't answer the fundamental questions that frankly invalidate your arguments before it gets started - that by ProfMandia (BTW I really like your site PM) on independent evidence, or Marcus @44 - that population hasn't exactly increased in the Arctic, even by a small amount! And you don't explain the graph you posted, nor is it explained in your links, therefore we can hardly trust it. -
muoncounter at 23:51 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Sometimes these skeptic arguments are just plain funny and fall flat of their own weight; sometimes it takes a little digging to see the flaws. #25 "false readings taken from weather stations due to air conditioners, carparks and parking lots is a strawman if there ever was one." A strawman indeed! The USEIA provides a massive amount of statistics on energy source, use, etc. One such data table yields a graph of the burgeoning use of AC by US census region:Note that the south consistently accounts for nearly 50% of the total number of US households with AC. Note, too, that the slope of the southern region graph is the steepest (although by the 1997 entry, only 7% of southern US households had no AC of any kind, so that should level off). It's obvious that the southern US is warmer than the northern US (trust me on that one, I have the electric bills to prove it!), but how do the long term trends in temperature compare? If AC is such a significant factor in distorting the record, surely the rapid rise of AC in the south results in a much steeper temperature profile (graph of temperature vs. year) than the north? Temperature records for most US states are searchable with a snazzy map-based interface here; many are continuous back to 1895. So here is a composite of temperature index (in deg C, relative to period averages) for northern states vs. southern states:
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Berényi Péter at 23:48 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
#49 Riccardo at 23:21 PM on 13 June, 2010 you just scaled the GISS meteo-station dataset Of course I did. I have subtracted the spurious trend due to UHI. What's wrong with that? Explain. -
Berényi Péter at 23:35 PM on 13 June 2010Has the greenhouse effect been falsified?
#74 Riccardo at 23:45 PM on 11 June, 2010 Read the scientific litterature on line broadening I thought you understood what you were talking about. With a lorentzian-like spectral profile gaussian line broadening has negligible effect on far wing shape. That's pretty simple math. first quote the origin of the data and how they were taken I reckoned you could figure out you could have the source by clicking on the graph. Your browser should show a tiny hand or something while moving your cursor over a clickable image. lorentzian is just an aproximation I knew that. Just were not aware of the fact it was such a poor approximation at the far wing. Still looking for a better one. Help would be appreciated. -
Riccardo at 23:21 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Berényi Péter, i did read, in fact. Still you did not say what you did to make the graph. If I have to judge from your previous comments, I'd say that you just scaled the GISS meteo-station dataset. This would be so blatantly wrong that I'm sure you did not do it. This is why I ask. -
Berényi Péter at 23:10 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
#47 Marcus at 22:28 PM on 13 June, 2010 Can't they at least be *consistent*? As far as I can see I am the only one here trying to keep up some reasonable level of consistency. Of course we could discuss other issues like SST or satellite data or the strong negative correlation between number of pirates and global average temperature, but its more expedient to stick to a single problem at a time and analyze that piece dispassionately. are your calculations akin to your "back-of-the-envelope" calculations regarding argon? Not likely. But you are here to check them. Much better pastime than submerging in rhetoric. -
Riccardo at 22:53 PM on 13 June 2010On the Question of Diminishing Arctic Ice Extent
From a NRL 2009 issue we can learn what people managing PIPS think about ice volume: "Evaluation of PIPS 2.0 forecasts from 2000 to 2008 reveal a slow overall decrease in Arctic ice with a minimum during the summers of 2007 and 2008. This decrease is occurring both in area of ice coverage and total ice volume. For example, in the central Arctic, ice exhibits a seasonal cycle with minimum volume in September. PIPS 2.0 indicates that this annual minimum in ice volume has undergone a 35% loss from 0.59 × 10^9 m3 in 2000 to a low of 0.38 × 10^9 m3 in 2008 (Table 1). A similar decreasing pattern also occurs in both the western and eastern Arctic regions during the same time period." I hope this will end all the naive analisys of nice color images a la Goddard. -
Marcus at 22:28 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Beranyi provides another great object lesson about the tactics of the so-called skeptics: if you're losing the argument, change the goal-posts. Until recently, the hue & cry of the skeptic movement was "the ground-based stations can't be trusted because too many of them are in urban locations-subject to the UHI effect". Now that this myth has been debunked, apparently the hue & cry has become "the ground-based stations can't be trusted because too many of them are in *rural* locations". Can't they at least be *consistent*? I do really love, though, how Beranyi is convinced that Spencer is some kind of uber-genius how can see the "obvious flaw" in the ground-based data that somehow hundreds of other researchers just happened to miss (oops, thats right-they didn't miss it, its all part of some global conspiracy-sarcasm btw). We're talking about a guy here who didn't have the wherewithal to account for something as obvious as diurnal drift in satellite temperature measurements-so how can we take him seriously? Also, Beranyi, are your calculations akin to your "back-of-the-envelope" calculations regarding argon? -
Berényi Péter at 22:18 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
#39 Marcus at 21:46 PM on 13 June, 2010 if warming was entirely down to population-density induced UHI, then It's getting tiresome. Go back please and check what I have claimed. I said UHI is responsible for about 0.29 K/cy of the 0.65 K/cy warming shown by GISTEMP (possibly a little bit more for other reasons, e.g. specific GHCN station dropout patterns and adjustment to rural surrounding). Where do you find your "entirely" here? -
Dikran Marsupial at 22:08 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
RSVP @ 25 said: "It is not the amount of data that makes a theory true. For centuries people believed that the Earth was flat based on a multitude of "evidence"." So what constituted the "multitude of evidence" that the Earth was flat? It was known by the ancient Greeks that the Earth was spherical, Erathosthenes even came up with an impressively (for the time) accurate estimate of the Earth's diameter. I don't think anyone has ever thought of the Earth as flat based on evidence. However, you are right that no amount of evidence can show a theory is true, as explained in Popper's ideas about falsifiability. Evidence can only falsify theories, not prove them. The evidence falsifies many skeptic theories, for instance the fact that the increase in atmospheric CO2 being smaller than anthropogenic emissions is inconsistent with the oceans being the cause of increasing atmospheric CO2. The point is that multiple lines of evidence provide good corroboration for AGW, while not proving it. That is the best science can do, provide the best explanation for the observed facts and weed out the theories that don't fit the facts. -
Marcus at 22:05 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
What, even parts of the world where population densities haven't increased *at all*? Like the Antarctic & Arctic BP? It seems like *you're* the one who isn't listening around here. We're not simply talking rural as in "Backwoods USA", we're talking about "rural" as in the middle of nowhere-temperature records in parts of the world which have experienced virtually *no* increase in population density at all. It also doesn't explain why temperatures briefly peaked in the 1940's, then fell away again, before rising again from the 1950's onwards. You see, as much as you try and obfuscate, BP, the reality remains that you don't have explanation for all the errors in Spencer's UHI hypothesis. Even if he was correct, though, & we were forced to discard *all* the warming measured by ground-based measuring stations, we're still left with a +0.16 degree per decade warming from 1979-2009-as measured by satellite-that no amount of hand waving can cause to vanish! -
Marcus at 21:59 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Also Iff, its not like the theory of AGW just appeared & gained acceptance overnight. No, it required an enormous amount of work-over multiple generations-to discover & bring together the various lines of evidence which explained how & why the planet was warming at the rate it currently is-& how & why humans are responsible. When the so-called skeptics are prepared to invest the same time & energy into developing an alternative theory to explain recent warming trends-instead of clinging to skepticism on strictly ideological grounds-then they might regain some measure of credibility. -
Berényi Péter at 21:59 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
#36 Marcus at 21:30 PM on 13 June, 2010 if it was a strictly linear effect induced by increasing population density-then why is warming occurring fastest in parts of the world which show the *slowest* rates of increase in population density (i.e. in the rural parts of the world)? You are not listening. UHI is not a linear function of population density, it is a linear function of the logarithm of it. Big difference. You can have a slow increase in absolute numbers at sparsely populated areas while a huge UHI effect at the same time. -
Marcus at 21:55 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Iff, genuine scientific skepticism is to *not* accept any claim until you've seen evidence to back it up, & a willingness to accept contrary evidence should it come to light. Yet to this date, the majority of so-called "skeptics" have failed to produce any contrary evidence to debunk anthropogenic global warming-instead choosing to come up with half-baked hypotheses that don't stand up to scrutiny by any half-way impartial reviewer. They spend the rest of their time launching crude ad-hominem attacks on climate scientists & trying to influence the mainstream media with anti-AGW PR campaigns. All of which I'd call entirely *antithetical* to science! -
lff at 21:50 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Couldn't "The case for human caused global warming is based on many independent lines of evidence." just be seen as an example of a robust confirmation bias? Are there no sources that throw doubt on any of the individual conclusions of the "independent lines of evidence"? Are there no lines of evidence showing global cooling or a less drastic global warming or a non-human caused Global warming? Can there be no legitimate skepticism of AGW? To my mind only ideological epistomologies would be immune from skepticism but that would make AGW antithetical to science. lff -
Marcus at 21:46 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Another point, BP. Between 1900 & 1964, the global population more than *doubled* (1.6 billion people to 3.3 billion people), yet the rate of warming measured over that time period by ground-based stations was about 0.06 degrees per decade. Between 1965 & 2006, the global population *almost* doubled (3.3 billion to 6.5 billion people), yet the rate of warming measured by ground-based stations was +0.154 degrees per decade). So if warming was entirely down to population-density induced UHI, then we would have expected a greater rate in measured warming in the first 65 years of the 20th century (especially when you *also* consider rising sunspot activity & lack of volcanic activity). Seems that neither Dr Spencer-nor yourself-have actually thought this through very well! -
Marcus at 21:34 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
HumanityRules. The problem is that, for most of the things John mentions, natural variation suggests we should be moving in the *opposite* direction. After all, after CO2, the primary driver of our climate is solar activity. Over the last 30 years, solar activity has been trending *downwards*, yet global temperatures are rising faster than at any other point in the past 150 years of temperature records-even when solar activity was rising quite rapidly. So, in the absence of rising solar activity, how else can *you* explain all of these events that John describes? -
Marcus at 21:30 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
I'm not "talking about something else" BP-my question relates directly to the clearly false claim that UHI effect can explain the warming of the past century. After all, if it was a strictly linear effect induced by increasing population density-then why is warming occurring fastest in parts of the world which show the *slowest* rates of increase in population density (i.e. in the rural parts of the world)? Why does temperature first peak in the 1940's, then fall away around the 1950's (if it was simply down to population density induced UHI, then the warming should continue unabated)? How come Dr Spencer is apparently the *only* man who can see, & correct for, the UHI-even though dozens of other researchers apparently can't-when he is apparently unable to see, & correct for, the diurnal drift in his own satellite temperature measurements? If UHI is such a big effect, as you & Spencer claim, then it should show up in a comparison between ground-based & satellite-based temperature measurements, yet they're almost identical (even when you allow for Spencer's failure to account for diurnal drift). So your attack on my post is really just a desperate attempt to distract people from the fact that you can't answer a number of *very* obvious questions (including the one by ProfMandia about warming over the oceans-which is also relevant in terms of debunking the whole UHI argument). Still, at least your post serves as a fantastic object lesson about how the skeptics seek to deceive & distract people. -
daniel at 21:23 PM on 13 June 2010There is no consensus
Nor is a popular hypothesis truth. The article refers to a consensus amongst scientists apparently evidenced by a survey, literature searches and a list of endorsing scientific organisations and although this may be a start in proving an overwhelming consensus amongst scientists outside of the earth sciences I feel it does not adequately gauge the level of dissent. Further to this I point out the potential for group think within the climate sciences as outlined above. Which in my own opinion (to which I am entitled and I utterly reject any idealised notion that science is devoid of opinion or opinions, look up the definition of consensus and you will find it is a pluralised synonym of the word opinion) highlights the fact that just because something is published that does not automatically guarantee a quality of work. On top of that I would argue that many qualified professionals outside of the earth sciences may not even be engaging in a thorough critique of the data due to a lack of time or interest or perhaps an unjustified trust that work being done in fields distant to their own is of the same standard they would expect in thier own circles. -
Berényi Péter at 21:21 PM on 13 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
#24 Ned at 08:19 AM on 12 June, 2010 I've been looking for that [i.e. argon]. I can't find anything anywhere. Was it your own idea, or has someone else suggested this? It was my idea. It happens sometimes. However, it might not be as bright as I thought, for a two order of magnitude error has slipped into my back-of-the-envelope calculation somehow. With a closer look it turns out mass of argon dissolved in water is only about 2.4% of all the argon in atmosphere+hydrosphere. Therefore the global argon thermometer is not terribly sensitive to changes of ocean temperature. However, if measured with high enough precision, can still lend information on OHC. -
Andrew Hobbs at 21:06 PM on 13 June 2010Sea level rise is exaggerated
I know this is a bit late in the day but considering the nature of this site I thought it would be worthwhile to make a comment. Scientists from Flinders University, Adelaide, certainly DID NOT abandon the project. The following statement comes from their financial statement for 2003. "In 2003 the University decided to cease the operations of the National Tidal Facility Australia (NTFA). The NTFA fulfils an important national role as it specialises in tidal predictions, sea level monitoring and contemporary marine science issues. However as it is not involved in the University’s core teaching and research activities, it was decided that it is more appropriate for the services to be provided by the Commonwealth Government. The operation was transferred to the Commonwealth Government effective from 1 January 2004." It is possible to access their latest results on the Australian Bureau of Meteorology website at the web page for the South Pacific Sea Level and Climate Monitoring Project. These results support the general rate of global sea level rise noted elsewhere. -
Berényi Péter at 21:01 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
#28 Marcus at 19:25 PM on 13 June, 2010 If UHI is as strong as you claim, BP, then why are ground station measurements (+0.17 degrees per decade since 1979) so close to those calculated by satellite measurements (+0.14 to +0.16 degrees per decade since 1979). You are doing the same thing most everyone seems to do here. Talking about something else. several studies have shown that the difference between so-called "good" & "bad" stations is absolutely negligible You are echoing the claim promoted by RealClimate. "the UHI effect makes at most a contribution of 0.05°C to the warming observed over the past century" It is equivalent to saying if local population density in an area is doubled, temperature readings would increase by 0.027 K (while the actual value is close to 0.16 K). To refute this, no detailed scientific study is needed, just a bit of common sense. If it were true, the phenomenon called UHI (Urban Heat Island) would never even be noticed. BTW, the difference between "good" & "bad" stations in itself does not have much to do with UHI effect on temperature trend. The difference between logarithmic local population density trends have, and studies referenced by RealClimate only show this trend must have been a bit higher for stations flagged "rural" in GHCN than for stations flagged "urban". If anything, this implies GISTEMP practice of adjusting urban trends to surrounding rural readings introduces some more warming bias, not less. #30 Riccardo at 19:41 PM on 13 June, 2010 could you please explain how did you build the graph you show? I could. However, please read #10 & #27 first carefully, follow the links provided, try to understand what is said. Having done that you'll most probably understand the graph. If not, you can still ask specific questions. The answer would be detailed enough to be scrutinized thoroughly. That's the only way to proceed. -
David Horton at 20:32 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
The skeptics on this blog constantly suffer from the can't see the forest for the trees syndrome. HR #31 sums it up "AGW isn't the only explanation for each of these observations", well, possibly, but I suggest you would have a hard time coming up with alternatives for them. Whanna try? But that isn't the point, even if you could come up with a series of disparate (and my guess would be, often contradictory) explanations. These things are happening at an incredibly fast rate. They are happening at this incredibly fast rate at a time when CO2 levels are rapidly increasing. We know the causal relationship between those two things. Every observation of the natural and geographic worlds fits consistently with this single theory. A Darwin said, about evolution, find just one piece of evidence against it and the whole theory collapses. Same here. Want to give that a try Mr Rules? -
Riccardo at 20:30 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
HumanityRules, unfortunately no one still came out with comprehensive alternative explanations. As John says in this post, the "strategy" is to pick them up one by one. And please notice, skeptics love to endlessly repeate the mantra that the "AGW camp" does not consider natural variations. It's simply untrue, it's just the hope that repeating something enough times will make it true. -
Riccardo at 20:21 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
actually thoughtfull, you're actually right that WUWT is not even to be considered when talking about the science of global warming. Unfortunately it's the most quoted source of skeptc arguments and way too often even skeptic scientists use it for their claims that would not pass peer review. Like it or not, we have to live with it. -
HumanityRules at 20:11 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
The problem I have is that even when you present extensive lists of data such as •Ice sheets are melting •Sea levels are rising •Biological changes in tens of thousands of species •Glaciers are retreating •Seasons are shifting •Species are becoming extinct is that AGW isn't the only explanation for each of these observations. You describe sceptics as being myopic but I'd say your own explanation suffers from tunnel vision by ignoring natural variations in the climatic and biological systems.Response: "The problem I have is that even when you present extensive lists of data ... is that AGW isn't the only explanation for each of these observations"
Agreed, evidence of global warming doesn't necessarily prove human caused global warming. Which was why I preceded it with the various lines of evidence for a human fingerprint in climate change:- From space and the Earth’s surface, we see more heat being trapped by carbon dioxide
- Nights are warming faster than days
- The upper atmosphere is cooling while the lower atmosphere is warming
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Marcus at 19:51 PM on 13 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
The Ville. In answer to your above question. Its true that a decline in the C13/C12 ratio could be attributed to either vegetation or fossil fuel use-but that's not what is being claimed here. The claim is that warming has caused the oceans to liberate the CO2 stored as HCO3 (even though the CO2 *precedes* the warming by a good couple of decades!) CO2 liberated from a purely inorganic source like this should not impact the long-term ratio of C13/C12, yet Mauno Loa data shows that the C13/C12 ratio is definitely declining-so ocean sinks *cannot* be the source! Its also unlikely to see how modern vegetation can be the source, as plants are a net CO2 sink-even in warmer climates. Its only in periods of extended droughts when trees become a net releaser of CO2. Even then all available evidence suggests that, even under these conditions, the trees don't release enough CO2 to account for such a significant rise in CO2 (to levels unseen since before the Quaternary Era!) -
Riccardo at 19:41 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Berényi Péter, could you please explain how did you build the graph you show? -
Marcus at 19:41 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
@ actually thoughtful. Is that the best that these guys can come up with? Well I can easily debunk 3 out of 4 of these arguments without even breaking a sweat: 1) Antarctic Ice Sheet: though it's true that total ice sheet *thickness* has increased slightly since the 1970's, ice sheet *mass* (as measured by the GRACE satellites) has actually been *shrinking*. All of the increased thickness has been *inland* & restricted to the Eastern half of the continent. This increase in inland thickness-at high altitude-is consistent with warming-induced changes to precipitation in the Southern Ocean, the same precipitation which has caused a significant increase in calving of the sea-ice. 2) Warming from 1900-1939 vs 1970-2009: From 1900-1939, the planet warmed at a rate of +0.08 degrees per decade, which isn't surprising given that sunspot numbers increased at an average rate of 9.9 per decade over that same period. From 1970-2009, the warming rate was +0.16 degrees per decade, at a time when sunspot numbers *fell* at an average rate of 9 per decade-so its an "apples & oranges" comparison! 3) Negative effect from clouds: as has been pointed out numerous times before, clouds act as both a negative & positive forcing. Yes they increase the Earth's albedo, but they also act to trap more IR radiation as it heads out to space. Lindzen suggested that an increase in the Iris Effect would provide a negative feedback for CO2 induced warming-by reducing the clouds that help trap IR radiation in the lower atmosphere. However, the CERES satellites showed that the Iris effect lets more radiation *IN* than it lets *OUT*, thus providing a modest *positive* forcing. I'd debunk argument number 4 too, except I don't understand what you mean by the question! -
Marcus at 19:25 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
If UHI is as strong as you claim, BP, then why are ground station measurements (+0.17 degrees per decade since 1979) so close to those calculated by satellite measurements (+0.14 to +0.16 degrees per decade since 1979). The reality is that the entire premise of Spencer's argument is totally false-which is that adjustments aren't frequently made to account for UHI effect. Indeed, Spencer himself has a habit of failing to adjust his own satellite data to account for diurnal drift, so maybe he wrongly assumes that those on the ground are making the same basic error (which is why his readings are +0.02 degrees per decade cooler than those provided by RSS). Of course, even *if* the adjustments were not being made, several studies have shown that the difference between so-called "good" & "bad" stations is absolutely negligible. -
Berényi Péter at 18:20 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
#15 ProfMandia at 13:17 PM on 13 June, 2010 How much has the population grown over the oceans? Dear prof, I was talking about UHI, which obviously occurs only in land records. Oceans is another issue which should be discussed separately. I am sure you would not be happy either if at an exam a student in reply to a specific question would start talking about something else. The only legitimate way for you to refute Dr. Spencer's finding (which I have moved a step further by quantifying the effect) is to point out specific errors in the specific study.
Simple handwaving or changing of topic would not do.
Of course it is only a first approximation, so the actual numbers may be slightly different. Proper correction may be variable over time and space as well, since population growth was uneven. Also, the huge decrease in number of GHCN stations after 1990, especially urban ones is not taken into account here.
There is certainly room for improvement but it would be nice to see the guys who are responsible for it doing their job instead of someone with no time and resources.
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actually thoughtful at 17:50 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Some recent posts, this one included, seem to be aiming for the low end of the food chain (WUWT). So you are fighting deniers - simple, easily refuted arguments. But there are skeptic sites - like The Air Vent and The Blackboard for example - that present arguments that are both more sophisticated and more honest. Recent topics there that have left me wondering are: 1) Given little change to the entire antarctic ice sheet - how much of the arctic ice sheet is due to wind and currents - ie seasonal variation. 2) They point to the warming trend from the 1900-1930s (not sure of the dates here) - but it is a trend that lasted as long as the current, and has a similar slope. 3) Negative response from cloud cover 4) They invoke trends longer than we have had decent instrumentation that account for some of the warming. These folks acknowledge that first order CO2 forcing. They question the extent of negative feedbacks. While the balance of evidence and logic seem to support AGW - I sometimes think people are "cherry picking" the easy/dumbest things the true deniers say, and lumping all questions about the logic and science in with the low quality points - leaving some valid counter-arguments unexamined. -
RSVP at 17:46 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
It is not the amount of data that makes a theory true. For centuries people believed that the Earth was flat based on a multitude of "evidence". Data on its own does not lead to the truth and can be very misleading indeed if applied to a false hypothesis. And as long as alternative theories are not openly discussed, we are all that much poorer. Furthermore, the comment about false readings taken from weather stations due to air conditioners, carparks and parking lots is a strawman if there ever was one. -
Paul D at 17:32 PM on 13 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
I'm thinking that it might be useful to grade 'fingerprints' into primary and secondary (or more) classes? So that a secondary fingerprint is dependent on a primary fingerprint for its validity? eg. on it's own a secondary fingerprint may not indicate a specific scenario, but in a broader sense does in this case indicate increasing CO2 emissions from a source. -
chris at 17:11 PM on 13 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
Passing Wind at 15:15 PM on 12 June, 2010”Abraham is using this devise to deflect the fact that Monckton accurately cited paper about regarding the MWP and to paint Monckton as dishonest for not having contacted them.”
But we’ve already seen that Monckton hasn’t “accurately cited paper about regarding the MWP” (sic). That’s the point isn’t it Passing Wind? If you’re going to cite something is support of an assertion the cited article should properly support that interpretation.”Anyone writing an academic paper is entitled to take a written work as it stands. Even if they are claiminbg the earth is flat. If this were not the case, people could publish anything they wanted, then claim you misrepresented them for quoting it because they have changed their mind, or the opinion they expressed is no longer the "company line".
That’s an astonishing misrepresentation of ethical and honest scientific communication. If one makes a specific statement [“….. the Medieval Warm Period was real, was global, and was warmer than the present. That is the scientific consensus…”], then the papers one cites in support of this statement must be an honest depiction of the state of the relevant science. It’s simply unacceptable to choose old papers that seem to support a position without considering subsequent work, or to pretend that a tiny set of papers that doesn’t represent the “scientific consensus”, does. Ignorance (and contrived ignorance) is no excuse whatsoever. Assessing the evidence properly is always done by those that try to communicate the science. If you're uncertain of the relevance of a paper in the context of the field you look at the set of papers that later cite it. There are scientific databases for this; alternatively you use Google Scholar. That way you establish whether the paper has remained valid and properly represents the issue being addressed. Everyone who attempts an honest communication of the science does this. For scientists and honest communicators it’s second nature, and it's simply not possible to do or communicate science otherwise. Not doing so is cheating and an insult to one’s audience. Your understanding of basic issues of scientific ethics seems to be askew on this..... -
caerbannog at 16:54 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
(From 12 above) #11 David Horton at 11:26 AM on 13 June, 2010 how do I explain that to the glaciers? No need to explain them, they are not sentient. Just filter out soot from smoke. And the satellites. What about the satellite MSU data? Soot problems there, too? -
caerbannog at 16:49 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Regarding the "global warming is caused by air conditioning" meme mentioned above... ...It should be noted that many air conditioners function as heat pumps during the winter. So it would seem to me that thermometers located near air-conditioning/heat-pump exhaust outlets should demonstrate, on average, a "cold bias" during the winter months. Has anyone involved with the surfacestations project considered this? -
Philippe Chantreau at 16:33 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
BP, that blog post from Spencer seems to be only a blog post. Is it published? If not, why not? Considering it is not open for comments, it is conveniently shielding itself from even "blog review." If that's all there is to it, I am unimpressed. What does real science say about UHI and how it's dealt with in the data? Doesn't SkS have a post on that, linking real science papers? Why would it deserve less credence than Spencer's? How much scrutiny have you applied (as a genuine skeptic would) to this blog post? As much as you do to so-called "pro-AGW" peer-reviewed science articles? You cite it but do not provide any kind of critical analysis, where is your skepticism? What exactly is the "warm bias" on the graph and how is it calculated? How does this explain the SST increase? Thingadonta has a very wordy post that equally fails to impress me. Skeptics are concerned with exaggeration eh? What does one find on skeptic blogs? Stuff like this: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/25/the-western-snowpack-is-137-of-normal/ Averaging percentages, without giving it much thought. Talk about exaggeration. How convenient. What would happen if so-called "pro-AGW" serious sites like RC did the same kind of abysmally stupid maths? Oh, the uproar. But, of course, that's never going to happen because the standards are different on RC. And this is just one in a long history icluding carbonic snow, and what not. What a joke. But there is more. What do we find in that thread? uncritical rants. How many "skeptics" apply their skepticism to the o.p.? I counted 2 before deciding that, since I have only one life to live, filling even a tiny amount of my time with the kind of stupidity found there could be a mortal sin. It's not like I don't have better things to do. They just go on ranting about how much snow they had this winter. Where is the subtantive discussion on data? Why is none of the regulars there addressing the stupid maths? Why is nobody saying tha the 137% figure is misleading? On the 2008 science blog of the year? That's what GW skepticism is, mostly (I should say overwhelmingly). I'm as unimpressed as ever. The worst part of it, and the one that applies even to the better quality skeptic contributors here, is the double standard. One-sided skepticism is no skepticism at all. Especially when it has mouthfuls of "bias" to spray on everybody. I'll just keep looking at what real scientists, doing real work, publish. I can't understand a lot of it, and it certainly isn't perfect. Yet it is still a better use of my time than "skeptic" internet stuff like the Spencer's post you linked. -
caerbannog at 16:17 PM on 13 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Gallopingcamel, give it up, for the following reasons: 1) We know how much carbon has been burned by human activity over the past few decades, and if all the carbon-dioxide produced had remained in the atmosphere, atmospheric CO2 levels would be much higher than they are now. So we *know* that the external environment (oceans, soils, etc) have acted as a net carbon *sink*, not a source. This is straightforward middle-school arithmetic. 2) The falling pH of the oceans indicates that the oceans have been *absorbing*, not releasing, CO2. This is straightforward freshman chemistry. Consult almost any freshman college chemistry textbook for more details about this. 3) Atmospheric O2 concentrations have been falling (not enough to cause any problems, but enough to measure), and they have fallen in a manner completely consistent with the amount of fossil-fuels burned by humans. 4) C14/C12 ratios up to 1950 (beginning of atmospheric testing) track human fossil-fuel use up to that date very nicely. Even with C14 contamination due to nuclear testing, the C14/C12 ratio over time gives us plenty of evidence that humans have put lots of fossil-fuel carbon into the atmosphere. After atmospheric nuclear testing ceased, the C14/C12 ratio began declining from the "nuclear testing spike" in a manner consistent with fossil-fuel combustion. We have plenty of C14/C12 data preceding and following atmospheric nuclear testing to show that humans were dumping lots of fossil-fuel carbon into the atmosphere. So like I said, gallopingcamel, just give it up. Or better yet, sign up for an introductory Earth-science course at your local community college instead of wasting your time (and your brain cells) on Anthony Watts idiocy. -
citizenschallenge at 15:13 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
penguindreams I really like how you explained that so I'm going to repeat it (the rest of your post also made sense.) ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ at 09:50 AM on 13 June, 2010 I like E. O. Wilson's term consilience. Evidence converges towards one conclusion from a wide variety of directions. Any given line (every line) has some possibilities for error. But those possibilities and routes of error are different between the different lines. There is consilience between lines of evidence as wildly different as sea level, global thermometer networks, and the times of flowers blooming in the spring. (And many, many, more.) They all have sources of error, but each source of error could as easily point to cooling as warming. Yet there is consilience that the earth is warming. -
Sean A at 15:04 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
thingadonta, it doesn't seem like you understand how science works. Bias gets filtered out. Results are independently replicated and verified&mdash if they're not, they get tossed out. Good scientists are highly skeptical and put ideas "through the wringer" before *cautiously* starting to accept them as possible, provisional descriptions of reality. Nothing is ever "settled" in science, if new data comes along, or a better explanation that fits the data, the old ideas get tossed out the window. What you've described is nothing like science. Science is not about "consensus building". That sounds like politics, or simply personal opinion. The IPCC is decidedly conservative. Their conclusions are toned down, not exaggerated. -
citizenschallenge at 15:02 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
MattJ #1 You are doing the scientists a disservice - it is not like they are the ones that located those weather stations. There were other entities doing that and many of those station were established before global climate became a central issue. Another red herring! ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ The scientist worked with the data available to them - -
monckhausen at 14:50 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Skeptics do mislead. That's a real oxymoron - a very kind labelling of somebody who cheats but expects people like us and the scientists to play by the rules. Derek, FoGT -
Sean A at 14:44 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
We've got multiple, independent sources of temperature data, both surface and satellite based, that are in pretty good agreement. Objectively, the trend is significant warming. So can we at least agree that global warming is real? -
Sean A at 13:30 PM on 13 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
gallopingcamel #40, there are 3 different articles on RC, including that one, that explain how we know that the increase in CO2 is due to fossil fuel burning. Isotope ratios are just part of it. From direct measurements, the amount of CO2 in the oceans is increasing. -
thingadonta at 13:30 PM on 13 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Your argument still misses the point. Skeptics are primarily concerned about exageration. Even the more extreme skeptics concede that c02 causes warming, the question is how much (negative /positive feedbacks), and that necessarily means exageration on various levels is a key issue. They key quesiton is overall climate sensitivity, and urban surface temperatures, for example, are being used to bolster up higher climate sensitivity estimates and formulate policy. Urban heat islands are not melting glaciers, but skeptics contend that glaciers are melting largely naturally, and superficially enhanced urban surface temperatures are being used to falsely bolster the case for higher climate sensitivity. There is another isuse skeptics are concerned about which your arguemnt doesn't mention or understand in the slightest. I would call it a 'manufactured' or 'superficial consensus'. Now before you stop reading, this doesnt mean conspiracy, it is simply human bias, or noble cause corruption. Some people's basic philosophical position is to bring 'order' and 'consensus' to a chaotic world, but skeptics contend this can be a dangerous or two-sided basic philosophical foundation, because inconsistency and disorder (chaos) is a fundamental principle of both nature and society, which means it is very easy for a 'manufactured consensus' to ignore the scientific reality (change/disoder/chaos). Skeptics contend that 'manufactured consensus' goes on all the time, and is very dfficult to eliminate, as in "The Hithchikers Guide to the Galaxy" when two war lords are at the table and one of them mutters something which turns out to be offensive to the other's mother without realising it, and all out war in unleashed. It happens (almost) without intent. Skeptics contend that claiming a 'consensus of evidence' with current climate data is a form of noble cause distortion/corruption. Whenever something crops up which doensn't fit the model, some research is carried out which inevitably comes up with an angle which 'makes' it fit, but in many cases such a 'fit' is entirely ambiguous. The bandwagon followers then proclaim, 'it turns out that is supports strong AGW etc etc', when the data makes no such conclusion. Skeptics contend this happens frequently. Therefore, there is no 'consenus of evidence', and overall climate sensitivity is still rightly debated. People in other fields such as anthrolopolgy and physics understand this process a bit better it seems. No one claims that 'dark matter' for example is a given because the data is still ambiguous. Anthrolopoloigsts consistenly find bones of hominids exactly fitting the model they were trying to prove, until somone finds another set of bones which leads to a different interpretation. They accept this sort of human bias, but they dont want to change the economy because of it. Becuase of this frequent distortion of 'consensus', skeptics are always trying to pick holes and weaknesses in the arguments, which is entirely reasonable given the process of human bias above. But your argument suggests all such is misguided. We should trust the funding and peer review process, the scientists. I think the diasgreements come from a different perspective of basic human nature, and a learned lack of faith in the current peer review process. I'll give some concrete examples, off the top of my head. There is no evidence that volcanism was stronger in the Cretaceous and that is why the c02 levels were higher and T was warmer. It is a superficial consensus focred to fit into the 'model'. Possibilities ignored include continental configuration and changes to ocean currents. There is no evidence that oceans acidified dramatically fast during mass extinction events and coral reefs collapsed in short periods of time, the process appears to be very slow, meaning we don't know how ocean chemistry responds to very short term c02 rises. Evidence ignored includes the oceans not diverging more than 0.6pH in the last 300 million years, which implies they are strongly buffered to c02 changes (eg dissolution/precipitaiton of carbonate sediments in the subsurface, which is larger in area than all the worlds coastal shelfs). To say that coral reefs will 'become eroding structures in 30 years' by ignoring this sort of doubt is simply following a constantly manufactured consensus. I am not using these examples as particually good examples of underlying doubts, just examples of where ambiguous data is made/manufactured to fit into a general model. It goes on all the time. We dont know cloud cover during the Little Ice Age or the MWP and how this affected T. We dont know overall climate sensitvity. Many other examples could be given. Skeptics will continue to focus on small pieces, big pieces, the big picture and the small picture, for as long as there is human bias, and until we have very strong confidence in overall climate sensivity, which even the politically charged, 'we exagerate for political reasons' IPCC, is unsure about.
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