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kdkd at 01:25 AM on 9 May 2010Kung-fu Climate
Poptech #188 On the contrary, I am telling you that a list of 700 references without context is an unsubstantiated claim. Without providing the reader with context, basically what you have there is wasted effort. Until you substantiate your claim in some way (e.g. by annotating your bibliography) then given your claim is the reverse of the scientific consensus, I think it is most likely that you're using a combination of poor quality "evidence" and misrepresenting good quality evidence, although you could demonstrate that I am wrong with a sufficiently good quality set of annotations, if the evidence does indeed support your case. Dikran #193 seems rather more familiar with the literature than I am, and his post further detracts from your arguments credibility. Of course there's a slim chance that you can redeem yourself by annotating your bibliography, but I doubt that you will bother to do this. -
J Bowers at 01:22 AM on 9 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
chriscanaris says: "However, including non-climate scientists in your line up is self-defeating and unfortunately risks parallels with the OISM petition. This is especially so if you specifically claim you only approached a small percentage of the membership ostensibly because of their climate links." That's something of a straw man, don't you think? Even when it's clear that the letter is inclined towards climate science, yet refers to all of science as per the very first sentence of the letter, I think we can conclude that the choice of members to approach was a highly logical one. I'll take a gentleman's bet with you: Two months from now half of the NAS membership will have signed a similar letter. -
chris1204 at 01:16 AM on 9 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Ned @ 69 'The organizers only circulated the letter within those sections of the NAS most closely related to climate science: ...Because of a desire to produce a statement quickly, the coordinators of the letter focused on those sections of the NAS most familiar with climate science and the ongoing debate.' Fair point - I should read things more carefully. Hypothesis (a) - that no one approached the 90% gets some traction. Many signatories, however, come from settings such as the Harvard Medical School and other medical institutes. Some are chemists and biochemists. Others are biologists and social scientists. Prima facie, their closeness to climate science seems questionable. So why were they asked to sign? This generates hypothesis (f): the organisers quickly worked up a list of people within the NAS they knew would be sympathetic and asked them to sign. Such a group would be very easy to compile - many would know one another through membership of political parties, lobby groups, or even family ties. I have no quarrel with them doing this - it's the way of the world. However, including non-climate scientists in your line up is self-defeating and unfortunately risks parallels with the OISM petition. This is especially so if you specifically claim you only approached a small percentage of the membership ostensibly because of their climate links. -
Dikran Marsupial at 00:37 AM on 9 May 2010Kung-fu Climate
The list of 700 papers really shows the paucity of support for the skeptic position if you actually investigate the items on the list, rather than take them at face value. (i) Quite a few are papers that have been refuted in the peer reviewed literature, and some are replies to those refutations (so there is a bit of double-counting going on). That means that the list contains papers that are at best "questionable". Hardly the best of foundations. (ii) Quite a few are papers that make observations that while true do not contradict AGW, such as the idea that CO2 has not been the dominant driver of climate over geological timescales, or that increased CO2 will lead to increased growth of land plants (which forgets the point that there will also be changes in temperature and hydrology) (iii) Some papers have only been submitted for peer review, and some on the list were rejected. The most amusing thing though is that the list contains a few papers by scientists that clearly are not in the skeptic camp, including one of the signatories of the recent letter to science mentioned in the other thread (Carl Wunsch)! ;o) Other notable mentions include Stefan Rahmstorf (RealClimate contributor), Charles Keeling (I would hope we all know who he was), Mike Lockwood (has written many papers demonstrating the lack of evidence for solar forcing as the cause of recent warming, including the galactic cosmic ray theory). I expect there are more, but I have only skimmed through the list. I hope poptech will return to posting here, I am sure all he needs to do is to keep to the posting guidelines and his posts won't be deleted. A post saying whether he was happy with my explanation of why the CRU raw data is unavailable would be nice. It is difficult to find the enthusiasm for answering questions if the questions are ignored. -
The Skeptical Chymist at 00:35 AM on 9 May 2010University of Queensland talk wrap-up
BC, I checked the handout, which says there has been around 1C of temperature rise across OZ since 1950, I double checked this on the BOM website. This does suggest Australia is warming faster than the world average, although I imagine part of this is because the world average includes ocean temperatures which are warming more slowly than land temperatures. If you are interested in climate changes in Australia then I recommend the BOM & CSIRO "State of the climate" report that was released recently. It's only 6 pages, but it's highly informative. -
Mal Adapted at 23:29 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
SkepticStudent:I think I have a pretty good grasp on temperatures and snow fall since I've lived in the Pacific Northwest for over 30 years and I have lived in Alaska.
Sorry, SS, you're doing it wrong. Your personal experience doesn't make you an expert. I'm afraid you've to a long way to go before you'll be taken seriously here. Please read about the Dunning-Kruger effect. Then start educating yourself. Anyone can become an expert, if they're willing to make the effort. First, though, you need to realize that it's not enough just to be smart, you have to actually know something about the subject. If you're going to challenge the AGW consensus, you'll get respect only if you've put the time in, and not skipped any part of the process. That means starting with introductory material and working your way up. That's the only way you'll acquire the theoretical framework needed to interpret the massive amount of empirical data, from multiple independent sources, that the AGW consensus draws on. To even know of the existence of the data requires reading all the historic and current peer-reviewed literature. Interpreting the data requires a thorough knowledge of statistics, and you'll want to conduct your own experiments, and develop and test your own models. Very few people can do all that on their own. For most of us, the only practical route is an extended apprenticeship: obtaining undergraduate and graduate degrees, and doing original research under an established advisor. Throughout, you'll have to interact regularly with the community of professional peers that have been working on this for decades: discussing it informally, in person, by phone and by email (perhaps more cautiously than Phil Jones did); and formally, by presenting your ideas at the same conferences and publishing articles in the same journals they do, which unavoidably entails exposing yourself to their unsparing criticism 8^(! Are you up to it, SS? If not, then don't be surprised if you're met with ridicule and dismissal here. -
MarkR at 23:28 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Marcus: you mentioned a skeptical organisation that didn't believe its own stuff. Where is your evidence for this? (I've always wanted to know whether the skeptics spouting the clear rubbish memes genuinely believed it or not!) -
Marcus at 23:00 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
@ tobyjoyce. Yes, this letter does highlight a recent, disturbing trend in the so-called "debate" on global warming. Having all but *failed* to prove-even remotely-that either global warming isn't occurring and/or that human beings aren't the cause, they've now turned to digging up dirt against climate scientists & trying to very publicly accuse them of a range of wrong-doings. Given that at least one skeptic organization was caught out privately admitting that they didn't believe their own skepticism, then I think such ad hominem attacks are a case of "those in glass houses...." I mean, if we were to do thorough background checks of even half the so-called skeptics out there, I wonder just how much dirty laundry we'd discover. Just as well that climate scientists choose to fight this issue on SCIENCE rather than PERSONALITIES! -
tobyjoyce at 22:49 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
It seems to me that many who take a "sceptical" view of this letter are missing the point. The letter is concerned with "Climate Change and the Integrity of Science". As has been pointed out to scepticalstudent and others, issues of climate change are well addressed elsewhere on this site. We should address the Integrity of Science here. The key sentences are: Many recent assaults on climate science and, more disturbingly, on climate scientists by climate change deniers are typically driven by special interests or dogma, not by an honest effort to provide an alternative theory that credibly satisfies the evidence. We also call for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them. I view this letter as a defence of the way scientists "do" science, rather than solely a defence of climate change. Anyone who takes issue with it should be willing to demonstrate how the integrity of science is upheld by "sceptics"/ deniers, who hold themselves to lower standards. -
chris at 22:47 PM on 8 May 2010Kung-fu Climate
Poptech at 21:47 PM on 8 May, 2010 re your:"I have no idea about what the debate here is anymore because a bulk of my comments were removed again."
Poptech, remember that a "debate" encompasses (hopefully!) a discussion in which the input of other's comments are considered and responded to with a degree of thoughtfullness. I think you need to decide what your posts are meant to convey. One of the things I've learned is that if participating in a blog discussion, it's a good idea to allow some time between formulating a response and actualy posting it, especially if there are strong feelings involved. Try writing your response, and then do something else (your normal life!) for a while. Then reread your post and decide whether it (a) really addresses the post you're responding to, and (b) whether it really is what you mean. Often, upon consideration, your impresion about your post will be a little different, and you're likely to post a much better message. -
Ned at 22:46 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Maybe it's just me, but I for one would be perfectly happy if we left the "kung fu" thing in the other thread. At least I sure hope this isn't some new SkS tradition that we're all going to have to adhere to! -
J Bowers at 22:25 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
The most prominent developing meme so far in the debates I've been involved with concerning this letter: Only 10.5% (or 12.75% excluding non-US NAS members) signed, so that means almost 90% of NAS members disagree with it. My response: This is explained by the lead signatory. Also, the Oregon Petition and the APS Petition didn't even reach whole number percentages, not even one half of one percent, but this letter got to double digits. This letter's kung fu is stronger than the denialists' kung fu. -
Ned at 22:21 PM on 8 May 2010Kung-fu Climate
Poptech writes: I have no idea about what the debate here is anymore because a bulk of my comments were removed again. Don't take it personally, it happens to all of us. In general, when one of my comments gets deleted it's because I posted in haste and failed to adhere to the standards of this site (no ad-hominem arguments, don't imply that others are dishonest, don't bring up politics, etc.). People's comments also get deleted if they include just a link or an image with no commentary, if they're just a copy-and-paste of another comment elsewhere, or if they're just a reply to someone else's deleted comment. I see plenty of your comments still on here. I think one of your comments was deleted because it was just a copy & paste of all the names on your "list" -- note that your subsequent comment linking to that list but not pasting the whole thing in was perfectly acceptable. Likewise, I saw that two posts were deleted earlier -- one in which you pasted in the entire (copyrighted) text of M&M's letter to PNAS, and one in which another commenter responded by pasting in the entire (copyrighted) text of Mann's reply. Both of those should have been offered as links or excerpts, with discussion and one's own thoughts. This website differs from most of the rest of the blogosphere in that the host tries hard to (a) keep it civil, and (b) keep it focused on serious discussion of science, not debating tactics. Comments that stray from this may be deleted (as many of my own have ... and I can admit that when that's happened it's been a good reminder to behave nicely). -
Craig Allen at 22:09 PM on 8 May 2010Kung-fu Climate
I don't understand why the denialists are still fixated with refuting the Mann et. al. 1999 paper when there is a significantly updated follow-up paper that uses a greatly expanded dataset, addresses the critiques of statistical methodology, and which demonstrates that the result is not significantly different if the tree ring proxies are removed from the dataset. From the RealClimate post on it we see that: "The number of well-dated proxies used in the latest paper is significantly greater than what was available a decade ago: 1209 back to 1800; 460 back to 1600; 59 back to 1000 AD; 36 back to 500 AD and 19 back to 1 BC (all data and code is available here). This is compared with 400 or so in MBH99, of which only 14 went back to 1000 AD." And yet Loehle thinks he can refute that with just 18 proxies in his dataset (chosen how?). It also seems odd that denialists constantly go on about the Mann reconstruction showing unvarying climate for a thousand years until the up-kick at the end, when the actual plots of the data show no such thing: Figure from Mann et. al. 2008 - plot of the new reconstructions over a) 1800 and b) 1000 years along with selected older ones for comparison.
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Ned at 22:03 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
skepticstudent writes above: As I mentioned yesterday in a post that needs to be re-written [...] 2008 had the 3rd coldest winter since thermometers were created in 1775. Your repeated posting of vague and unsourced claims makes it very hard to have any kind of useful discussion. In that earlier comment, you said "in 2008 the temperatures were the third coldest since thermometers were invented in 1775" -- nothing about "winter". I replied here, pointing out that 2008 was nowhere near "3rd coldest year since 1775" -- in fact, it was the 10th warmest year since 1880. Every year since 2001 has been in the top 10! Now you are saying that "winter 2008" was the third coldest since 1775. That's a little bit less wrong, but not much (actually, it's the 106th coldest winter since 1880). Please try to be very precise in your claims (if you're talking about temperature trends in certain months vs the whole year, or in certain places vs the whole globe, make that clear) and please try to provide a link or a source. Thanks. -
chris at 21:50 PM on 8 May 2010Kung-fu Climate
HumanityRules at 10:19 AM on 8 May, 2010 your comment:You could argue a little of the reverse appears in the AGW arguement. Using CG words from any earlier post. Because CO2 is the biggest (or only) knob controlling contemporary climate change then we have to have theories that exclude all others. There is a little of this in Trenberths ideas on the 'missing energy'. The argo bouys have to be wrong or the energy has to be in the deep ocean because AGW says it has to be somewhere.
That's not really true HR - I wonder whether you wrote it in an unguarded moment! There is no serious science on global warming that doesn't consider all known "knob"s "controlling contemporary climate change". Attribution of the relevant factors ("knob"s) include as much as we know about solar, volcanic, aerosol, black carbon, natural variability, and other feedbacks and contributions. So we are clearly not pursuing "theories that exclude all others" (i.e. you "knob"s). That's a strawman argument. Your last sentence is a strawman argument too. If there is a question about the location of "missing heat" it is not "because AGW says it has to be somewhere.". If there is a question about the "missing heat" it's because there is a radiative imbalance at the top of the atmosphere that has driven earth land, sea and atmospheric temperatures upwards and stratospheric temperatures downwards especially during the last 40 years, and the evidence indicates that this hasn't "stopped". Once again it's a poor argument that relies on selective omission of information that bears on the subject. Trenberth (and me for that matter) isn't overly concerned about the very short period of anomalous heat accounting in the earth system with respect to our understanding of contemporary global warming. He wants to have an improvement in the monitoring system that allows us to account for short term variability. Our understanding of AGW doesn't depend on a single bit of data from a tiny period of time, and we all recognise that short term variability is almost by definition anomalous in the light of long term trends. Your comment does raise an interesting point that's relevant to this thread 'though. Loehle published in a magazine a bit of "show and tell" concerning 4.5 years of ARGO ocean heat data. He took the tiny bit of ARGO data, smoothed it and fitted a regression line to it. And that's it - no science in sight![*]. Unfortunately, Loehle's note was already superfluous and irrelevant as it hit the pages. Scientists know that there have been and perhaps still are some problems with the ARGO and XBT data [***] and the idea that one can draw any meaningful conclusion about what's really happening to upper ocean heat content (not "The Global Ocean" as Loehle put it) and its significance from this short period is dumb. But of course that's not the point of these publications. Loehle's unnecesary and poorly scientific analyses are spread all over the web and used to fuel the sorts of anti-science attacks that Loehle was apparently so concerned about 20-odd years ago that he wrote a letter to Nature on the subject. ---------------------------------------------- [*] Wouldn't it be great if we all did that with various bits of data downloaded off the web or sent to us by scientists. We could publish a dozen "papers" each a year - every one of us. Of course we don't do that (lots of people do so on the web!) partly because there are scientific standards that should be met for publishing in scientific journals. Since science journals have significant elements of quality control, but there seems to be an imperative in some quarters to have a drip feed of the stuff that Dr. Loehle has taken to producing in recent years, there are some limited magazine outlets for this stuff. Energy&Environment is sadly one of these.] [***] see for example: DiNezio P. N. and Goni G. J. (2010) Identifying and Estimating Biases between XBT and Argo Observations Using Satellite Altimetry J. Atmos. Ocean. Technol. 27, 226-240 Reverdin G,. et al. (2009) XBT Temperature Errors during French Research Cruises (1999-2007) J. Atmos. Ocean. Technol. 26, 2462-2473 Willis J. K. (2009) In Situ Data Biases and Recent Ocean Heat Content Variability J. Atmos. Ocean. Technol. 26, 846-852 Ishii M and Kimoto M (2009) Reevaluation of historical ocean heat content variations with time-varying XBT and MBT depth bias corrections. J. Oceanograph. 65, 287-299. Levitus, S. et al. (2009) Global ocean heat content 1955–2008 in light of recently revealed instrumentation problems. Geophys. Res. Lett.36, L07608. Leuliette, E.W., and L. Miller. 2009. Closing the sea level rise budget with altimetry, Argo, and GRACE. Geophys. Res. Lett. 36, L04608. Domingues, C.M. et al. (2008) 2008. Improved ocean-warming estimates: Implications for climate models and sea-level rise.Nature 453, 1,090–1,093. etc. etc. Some of this has been discussed on this site here, here, and here -
Ned at 21:46 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Chris Canaris writes: Significantly, 90% of the membership of the NAS did not sign. Five hypotheses suggest themselves. a) Nobody approached them, b) They don't believe in AGW, c) They don't trust the climate scientists (not the same as not believing in AGW), d) They don't feel they have the requisite expertise, e) Any combination of the above. Chris, this is addressed in the original post at the top of this thread. The organizers only circulated the letter within those sections of the NAS most closely related to climate science: "Moreover, only a small fraction of National Academy members were asked to sign (the signatories are all members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences but were not speaking on its behalf). Because of a desire to produce a statement quickly, the coordinators of the letter focused on those sections of the NAS most familiar with climate science and the ongoing debate." -
Ned at 21:40 PM on 8 May 2010Kung-fu Climate
Poptech writes: Riccardo, I have much longer lists of skeptical scientists than the NAS letter, one I self compiled and others by third parties. Having looked at your list of "skeptical scientists" I can confirm that it is in fact useless. There are people on there who are indeed good scientists, but who are not remotely in doubt about the existence of anthropogenic global warming. (For example, Dennis Lettenmaier: "It's happening ... Where it's going to lead is uncertain. But I think it's untenable to pretend we can keep pumping this stuff into the atmosphere at current rates and it's not going to make any difference.") There are also people on there who are indeed opposed to the idea of GW, but who aren't actually scientists (e.g., Richard S. Courtney, E.-G. Beck). The list is padded with sections of "meteorologists" (some of whom, like Anthony Watts, are just TV personalities), economists, and so on. It's also got quite a few names of people who are deceased. Given that the NAS letter in Science was just published this week, I'm not sure how confident we're supposed to be that somebody who's been dead for five or ten years opposes the letter in Science. Can I assume that Einstein, Maxwell, Newton, Galileo, and Eratosthenes would all support the NAS letter? (Joking aside, over the past decade several of the largest skeptical arguments have collapsed -- see, for example, the repeated corrections of errors in the UAH record that changed it from cooling to warming -- so I don't think one should assume that someone who was dubious in the past would still doubt the existence of AGW today.) Finally, I'd just add that the list contains a very, very large number of names of people that (how can I put this politely?) are not even remotely credible on this subject. I mentioned Watts and E.-G. Beck and Courtney above, but that's just the beginning. Who on the scientific side is going to be convinced by your inclusion of Piers Corbyn, Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, Steve Milloy, Tim Ball, Zbigniew Jaworowski, Ralf D. Tscheuschner, Bob Carter, Luboš Motl, Joseph D’Aleo, Gerhard Gerlich, Louis Hissink ... You've got the entire Robinson family on there (Arthur, Noah, and Zachary -- aka the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine). I could go on and on ... the point is, every name in this paragraph adds negative credibility to your list. In summary, I don't think comparing your list to the letter published in Science this week strengthens your case. Quite the opposite, in fact. -
J Bowers at 21:39 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Here's another Wood For Trees set to play around with (CO2 at top). Wood For Trees ten year temperature trends offset every five years since 1880 And temperature with solar, sea ice and CO2 -
BC at 20:59 PM on 8 May 2010University of Queensland talk wrap-up
One point that I have trouble with and that came to mind again during the talk is that with higher temperature we have more water in the atmosphere. This brings to mind a hotter, wetter jungle type and fertile enviromnment yet your talk mentioned more droughts and dryer conditions. The handout at the talk mentioned that Australia has had 1C temperture rise in the last four? decades. I hadn't realised that we were warming faster that the world average. -
BC at 20:46 PM on 8 May 2010University of Queensland talk wrap-up
It was a very good talk so be encouraged to do some more. The people from the St Johns Wood sustainability group near me were also impressed. I had two queries about the slides and they were covered by Nichol at 13 above - slide 10 not showing any H2O yet its one of the strongest greenhouse gasses and slide 11 being blank for the US and Canada. This one I noticed during the talk.Response: Slide 11, the map of downward infrared radiation, comes from Wang 2009. It shows the trend in downward infrared radiation over 1973 to 2008 and only includes stations that have at least 25 years worth of data. There's no U.S. or Canadian data because they switched their cloud observation method from human visual measurement to instrumental in the 1990s. -
MarkR at 19:46 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
"Marcus you want to recheck your facts. Even the NASA GISS facts don't dispute that the temperatures have been declining on a global basis since the year 2000. Agree with me or not the facts are there. so we'll just let this one go and agree to disagree." I'm going to disagree with you on this one. The least squares linear regression fit to UAH satellite data from Jan '00 to April '10 is +0.013C/yr. In HadCRUT3 it is +0.006C/yr. In RSS satellite it is +0.002C. In GISTemp it is also positive. Thanks to Ian Forrester, you can play around on the site he gave you or just google the data to play for yourself. Ofc, we already know that short term measurements (1-2 decades or less, say) are probably not telling you much about climate, and Tamino has a more rigorous post. -
chris1204 at 19:37 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Marcel Bökstedt @ 63 'The present letter explicitely states that is not under the umbrella of the National Academy' Fair point - I missed the footnote. But then again, it was but a footnote. The Devil is in the detail - the footnote is easily overlooked. Realistically, my trust in Climate Science as presently conducted is of marginal relevance to the issue under discussion. Consequently, I would not have signed the letter even if I moved in equally august circles. Significantly, 90% of the membership of the NAS did not sign. Five hypotheses suggest themselves. a) Nobody approached them, b) They don't believe in AGW, c) They don't trust the climate scientists (not the same as not believing in AGW), d) They don't feel they have the requisite expertise, e) Any combination of the above. As regards trust in scientific integrity, I can only speak of my own field - psychiatry - where I have encountered some seriously shonky practice (and thankfully many fine clinicians and scientists). I suspect most honest scientists would say much the same about their respective fields. I really don't want to sound like curmudgeonly contrarian but doctorates, professorships, and memberships of prestigious bodies are no guarantees of virtue. -
MarkR at 19:32 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Skepticstudent, RE #1: How do snowy winters indicate declining temperature? Increased precipitation in Greenland (for example) goes hand in hand with greater moisture, which is probably caused by warming further away. If your average temperature is below 0C, then warming may well increase snowfall. After all, Antarctica is the coldest place on the planet and also the world's largest desert. The ACC causes part of this but climate models expect warming to lead to increased snowfall there so there is a link. Your argument also disagrees with measurements of decreasing NH snow cover averaged over the year. And it disagrees with surface thermometers, radiosondes and MSUs that all show warming. -
Marcel Bökstedt at 18:50 PM on 8 May 2010What causes Arctic amplification?
If you naively look at the charts for arctic sea ice extent, it seems that 2007 started a new seasonal pattern. Each of the years 2007-2009 (and possibly 2010) have a pattern of unusually fast summer melting, or more precicely, a fast diminishing of ice extent. One could speculate that this has something to do with the general thinning of the ice. On the other hand, the summer surface temperatures do not seem to have gone up much. Does the particular study that we are discussing in this thread have anything to say about such a shift in the seasonal pattern? -
chris at 18:39 PM on 8 May 2010Kung-fu Climate
HumanityRules at 10:19 AM on 8 May, 2010 HR, if you're going to keep quoting CoalGeologists sentence please quote the whole sentence! CoalGeologist wrote: "That said, the presumption that there has to be some other explanation than AGW, because AGW couldn't be true, is what distinguishes denialism from skepticism." Just like the discussion of Loehle's paper and Mann's work and science in general valid argument requires knowledge of the whole story. Otherwise one might question the motive of the individual who misrepresents the facts by seletive omission..... -
Philip64 at 18:39 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
@ skepticstudent "Einstein was laughed out of numerous houses of academia because he had not proven his theory of relativity. He went from one to another with the same results." This is untrue. Einstein was unable to secure academic employment following graduation. But his papers of 1905, including 'On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies' (where Special Relativity is set out) were taken very seriously by the scientific world, in spite of their radical nature. Seven months after publication Einstein wrote: "My papers are meeting with much acknowledgement and are giving rise to further investigations." The world renowned Max Planck, among others, was an immediate supporter. If you are going to reference great men in your arguments, it might help to get your facts right, instead of relying on myth and hearsay. -
Riccardo at 18:27 PM on 8 May 2010Kung-fu Climate
Poptech, as in the case of wingding's comment and you're answer, it's clear that that list is just your personal judgment on what that papers say, probably just a superficial impession without really going them. Just going rapidly through part of your list and considering just the paper i've actually read i more strongly confirm that it's meaningless and unsupported. It's usefull only for you to not discuss the science and try a brute force attack. -
Marcel Bökstedt at 18:15 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
chriscanaris> I feel that the problems with the OISM petition is different. The present letter explicitely states that is not under the umbrella of the National Academy, but that the 255 signatories are among its (approximately two thousand) members. That's a pretty good turnout. I don't see any problems in the fact that these people are not specializing in climate research, since they are not pretending that they are. On the contrary, I read the letter as support and as a declaration of trust from a large section of the general science community (as represented by the NAS) to climate science. -
chris at 18:14 PM on 8 May 2010Kung-fu Climate
HumanityRules at 01:48 AM on 8 May, 2010 Not really HR. Mann is absolutely explicit in stating that his reconstructions are N. hemispheric reconstructions when they're N. hemispheric, and the value of the very limited S. hemisphere data for a global or S. hemisphere reconstruction. The paper from his group we're discussing [*] is six pages long; 5.5 pages of these are a description of NH data (plus intro, methods and references). The description of SH reconstruction is a single caveat-loaded paragraph, and a caveat-loaded half paragraph in the discussion. There are no Figures of SH reconstructions in the paper. There is a massive information loaded supplement that has some SH reconstructions. Everything is completely clear and straightforward. I don't really see the issue you have with it. Incidentally, I think you’re allowing yourself to get drawn into a tedious, and rather contrived game where science is relegated to a back seat while some rather unpleasant attempts are made to trash the science (accordingly this thread is a rather un-SkepticalScience-like bargy!) . We’re interested in the Earth temperature and its variability in previous times, how temperature variations were distributed at the hemispherical and longitudinal level, and the factors involved. To a considerable extent due to the efforts of Mann, but now encompassing many groups, we know quite a lot. One of the things that stands out in analyzing Mann’s work is the fact that the NH MWP temperature reconstruction from 1999 has not really changed that much through 12 years of subsequent paleoanalyses by numerous groups. That's the essential point if we're inerested in the science. We don't have to join in the frenzy of attacks on scientists. [*] Mann et al. (2008) Proxy-based reconstructions of hemispheric and global surface temperature variations over the past two millennia Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 105, 13252–13257 -
monckhausen at 18:03 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
I see that there are no Canadian researchers on that list. Canadian climate denial is centred in Calgary. The latest tenor is that CO2 has essentially no effect. A CO2 denier talk has made it into next week's GeoCanada 2010: http://www.geocanada2010.ca/program/program-schedule/tuesday/pm-2/climate-change-through-time.html We are running a small but fine blog taking on these deniers with something they do not have: humour. Check it out and pass us on to their friends and colleagues - and join us: http://friendsofginandtonic.org/page1/page1.html -
actually thoughtful at 17:09 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
The (non-trivial bits of) the commentary above raise an interesting question. We (anecdotally)appear to be in a period of increased seismic activity. Could that be due, in part to the earth shifting from the loss of ice mass? It seems far-fetched, but I am very far from up to speed about the loss of ice volume. -
chris1204 at 16:34 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
John, I recall your earlier post: Thursday, 11 March, 2010 Guest post: scrutinising the 31,000 scientists in the OISM Petition Project in which you very rightly questioned the credentials of the signatories. Of course, the present signatories include scientists of great repute - no doubt, all seriously intelligent, well read, and committed to a better outcome for our planet. The letter is well-written and thoughtful. A significant number of signatories however (based on reported academic affiliations) would lack the expertise to comment as climate scientists. As such, many really ought not to have signed the letter. They are entitled to barrack for their views. However, they should do so as private individuals and not under the umbrella of the National Academy of Sciences. Otherwise, I fear we may be applying a double standard no matter how distinguished the signatories. I don't want to nitpick. However, scientific integrity requires that experts carefully observe the boundaries of their expertise. -
RSVP at 16:28 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
In truth, (since the times of James Watt), thanks to science and engineering the current levels of fossil fuel output and combustion could never have been achieved. Ironically, the public is being asked to place its trust in scientists for a "problem" labeled "anthropogenic", (as if to blame people as opposed to technology). -
johnd at 16:06 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Marcus at 12:54 PM just to put a different spin on your statement, "I find it ludicrous that you can pump *millions of years* worth of geo-sequestered CO2 into the atmosphere, in the space of less than 200 years". In those millions of years about 10,000 billion tonnes of carbon were locked up as fossil fuels, plus about 40,000 billion tonnes as sediments deep under the ocean (as limestone?) We are releasing about 6.5 billion tonnes of carbon annually through burning fossil fuels. By comparison deforestation releases perhaps 2 billion tonnes of carbon per year. If that deforestation could be halted and reversed, then not only would the release of the carbon be halted but the additional plant growth would go a long way to offsetting that released by the fossil fuels. -
Jeff Freymueller at 15:56 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
#46 johnd, there are indeed paired belts of uplift and subsidence, and the uplift and subsidence are mostly due to recoverable elastic deformation, and are cyclical. To a first approximation, the areas that subside between earthquakes uplift during the earthquake, and vice versa. In general, there is much larger horizontal motions as well. The figures on this page at the Geological Survey of Canada illustrate it pretty well. In Alaska, the area that subsides today is mostly offshore (including in Prince William Sound), and this area uplifted greatly back in the 1964 earthquake (still the 2nd biggest ever recorded). Farther inland, we observe uplift, and an area that subsided significantly. The rapid vertical motions are the main reason that none of the Alaska tide gauges have been used in estimates of sea level change, but that is likely to change within a few years because we can now measure the vertical motions precisely enough calibrate the tide gauges, at least in the places where the tide gauge records are linear with time. -
Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Skepticstudent, You made a few references to temperatures in 2008, as well as temperatures in Alaska specifically. If you agree that short term regional data is not the same as long term global trends, how are these references relevant? Why is temperature in 2008 relevant to the question of long term global warming? Please explain your reasoning and specifically how this information undermines AGW. Yes you also made the claim that global temperatures have gone down in the past 10-20 years, but you neglected to provide your sources for this information. Please provide relevant data to back your claim. -
Steven Sullivan at 13:57 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
#13 ominlogos "Lest we forget: it took 80 years for the evidence of pre-Cambrian fauna to be accepted. [/quote] That's in significant part because the evidence was ambiguous, until definitive detailed fossils in non-sedimentatious rock were identified. You're also talking about a period of 1860s to 1950s and for at least half of that, deep-time paleontology was in a state of infancy. That very solid evidence is required to overturn a well-accepted model, is not something to fault science for. [quote]Ironically, Nature magazine rejected one of the most compelling proofs, as it was presented by a "nobody", only to change their mind when finally a renowned scientist bothered to check things out.[/quote] So, in fact, the paper by the 'nobody' grad student Misra, which challenged the dominant paradigm, *was* indeed published ,in Nature, after extensive peer review. Thanks for reminding us. Now remind us that crap papers sometimes get published after peer review too. -
Marcus at 13:40 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Yes it was global average temperatures of roughly 6 degrees C above the 1961-1990 mean, not F (I'm an Australian, so Fahrenheit is not a concept I'm familiar with ;)). Also note that these temperatures occurred during a period when the sun was 10% cooler than today, & at a time when the continents were in very different positions to what they are today. That said, there is a *reason* why agriculture first flourished in a relatively narrow climate band of the planet-its because rainfall & temperatures were *just right* for agriculture to exist-South or North of this zone Agriculture largely failed to take hold. Now technology has certainly helped agriculture to survive in slightly more hostile environments, but its nonsense to believe that agriculture could cope with a further 0.6 to 1 degree C increase in average temperatures. -
Tom Dayton at 13:34 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
skepticstudent wrote "So could it be that it is not so catastrophic." The term "catastrophic" is a strawman. For concrete, detailed points about the effects of global climate change, see It’s not bad, and also CO2 is not a pollutant, and oh, yeah, Animals and plants can adapt to global warming. -
Ron Crouch at 13:30 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Sooner or later someone is going to point out that the NAS has 2100 members and 350 foreign associates and claim that it's a poor representation of numbers. However the membership is spread over 31 disciplinary Sections and therefore not all members would be able to speak to the subject of climate change. See here. For clarification that would be 6C and not 6F would it Marcus. Regardless of which it is it refers to "global" temperature. 6F humanity might be able to cope, but at 6C -- well -- kiss it goodbye. -
carrot eater at 13:23 PM on 8 May 2010Kung-fu Climate
Poptech: That's simply bizarre. No, CO2 is not the forcing that initiates a glaciation or deglaciation, at least in the last few ice age cycles. How does that, in itself, support skeptic arguments? Do skeptics think that all climate variations are initially due to orbital forcings, just because that's what kicked off those events? I hope not. And then, you simply dismiss everything else is 'speculation and unsubstantiated'? Why, just because you don't like it? This really isn't helpful. Do you think the ice-albedo feedback is also 'speculation and unsubstantiated', just because it's a feedback that is thought to be active during the ice age cycles, along with CO2? -
Tom Dayton at 13:22 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
skepticstudent, for an even more detailed exposition of the fact that global temperatures have not decreased since 2000, see Tamino's "Hottest Year". For more fundamental evidence, see the Skeptical Science post It’s cooling. -
Phila at 13:16 PM on 8 May 2010Kung-fu Climate
#87 e, "Perhaps a new skeptic argument is in order: "Scientists won't release the raw data". If nothing else, it would be great as a compendium of raw data and software sources to expand on what Ned listed." Enthusiastically seconded. -
Marcus at 13:13 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Yes the Earth was still turning back then, but mammals weren't part of that Earth-& nor were most of the plants which make up the current biosphere (& on which the bulk of our agriculture relies). Life at that time had evolved-over millions of years-to thrive in a relatively high CO2/high temperature world. Similarly, the life which exists in the Quaternary Era has evolved, over millions of years, to thrive in a low-CO2/low temperature world. So what we're doing is setting the climate clock back to a time for which current life on Earth is not adapted-& in a period of decades to centuries-not millions of years as has happened previously. Previous "rapid" changes in climate-(on the order of centuries to millenia)-caused massive extinction events. To suggest that our actions now won't have a bad-if not worse-consequences for life on this planet (& human life in particular) represents the worst combination of arrogance & ignorance imaginable. Oh & as for your ad hominem-it was claiming that everyone here has been "taught" to be alarmist & that apparently we can't think for yourself-& at the same time implying that somehow only people like you & Camel have access to the real *truth*! That constitutes ad hominem in my books, but fortunately it was since deleted from the site. -
barry1487 at 13:09 PM on 8 May 2010University of Queensland talk wrap-up
The slide show is a great progression of the evidence. Just a couple of nits to pick on the language. From page 2 of the PDF:The first step is to work out how human activity is affecting the atmosphere. This graph shows how much carbon dioxide we’ve been emitting over the last 6000 years.
Might want to rephrase that. How about - "This graph shows atmospheric CO2 concentrations over the last 6000 years. The upswing on the right is CO2 we've emitted since the industrial revolution." Or something better. Near the end:Another impact that will have a significant impact on humanity is sea level rise.
Too many impacts :-) Maybe something like - "Sea level rise will also have a profound impact on humanity." I've bookmarked the slide show for future reference. Nice job. -
skepticstudent at 12:59 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
42Thank Jeff. That was pretty much my point, although I didn't word it as succintly as you. People are always making accusations without looking at certain regions on the globe which are acting totally different. 48. Marcus...6 degrees warmer... and yet today the earth is still spinning just like it was then isn't it. So could it be that it is not so catastrophic and maybe more cyclical in natuer. You can't have your cake and eat it to. And What was my ad hominem? I couldn't find one. -
Marcus at 12:54 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
SkepticalStudent. Nice to see that you won't let the facts get in the way of a good story (I noted that, when against the wall, you resorted to ad hominem attacks again-the hallmark of someone whose position is incredibly weak) GISS shows a modest warming of 0.012 degrees for 2000-2009, in spite of that decade being dominated by a deep solar minimum (i.e. it *should* have cooled). Yet 10 years do not a trend make-because the results are statistically insignificant. 30-60 years of continuous data do provide the correct amount of statistical significance because the signal-to-noise ratio is much better, & all this data is showing a *strong* warming trend. BTW, I was never *taught* to be "alarmist". As a scientist I carefully reviewed *all* the scientific literature-both for & against-before I came to the conclusion that global warming was occurring, & that humans were the most obvious cause. Common sense also dictates my position on the issue-because I find it ludicrous that you can pump *millions of years* worth of geo-sequestered CO2 into the atmosphere, in the space of less than 200 years, & not expect it to have a measurable impact on the biosphere. When the basis for our oil & coal were being laid down, the planet's CO2 concentrations were 10x higher than today-& the planet was a good 6 degrees warmer than today too. Coincidence? I think not! -
Ron Crouch at 12:51 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
"One would have to assume that if ice grows back that quickly, that much that it is fairly cold, not rising catastrophically." I'm not sure what you mean at the end of this statement, but as far as cold temperatures and sea ice growth are concerned. There is much more that has to be taken into consideration than the temperatures on their own. You need to also take into consideration such factors as ocean currents and atmospheric pressures in order to make any definitive conclusions surrounding sea ice growth. The analysis of conditions posted at NSIDC on April 6, 2010 illustrates this very well. Quote: "This March, low atmospheric pressure systems persisted over the Gulf of Alaska and north of Scandinavia. These pressure patterns led to unusually cold conditions and persistent northerly winds in the Bering and Barents Seas, which pushed the ice edge southward in these two regions." but Quote: "This winter's strong negative mode of the Arctic Oscillation was moderated through the month of March. Average air temperatures for the month nevertheless remained above average over the Arctic Ocean region. Overall for the winter, temperatures over most of the Arctic were above average, while northern Europe and Siberia were colder than usual. and Quote: "Ice extent was above normal in the Bering Sea and Baltic Sea, but remained below normal over much of the Atlantic sector of the Arctic, including the Baffin Bay, and the Canadian Maritime Provinces seaboard. Extent in other regions was near average. and Quote: "The late date of the maximum extent, though of special interest this year, is unlikely to have an impact on summer ice extent. The ice that formed late in the season is thin, and will melt quickly when temperatures rise." And the latter statement is being borne out if you look at the graph of current Arctic sea ice extent. -
johnd at 12:48 PM on 8 May 2010Climate Change and the Integrity of Science: a letter to Science
Jeff Freymueller at 12:28 PM, can any of the rising parts of land be associated with subsidence elsewhere, or the reverse? Only some materials would be compressible but even those would require something to be drawn into their structure as the pressure reduced.
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