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lord_sidcup at 01:59 AM on 3 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
@108 Karl_from_Wylie If the IPCC has such large amounts of cash, why is it the bulk of its work undertaken by unpaid volunteers - that is by the thousands of scientists who contribute as authors or reviewers to the IPCC reports at no remuneration and whilst still doing their day jobs? Why does it have just 10 full-time staff in its secretariat at the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva, plus a few more staff in its technical support units? -
Karl_from_Wylie at 01:19 AM on 3 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
. #100 doug_bostrom Surely you jest. Please do a google search on "IPCC" and "funding", you'll see their efforts to secure "massive amounts" of funding for their cause. With regard to scientific bias, it appears that you are in agreement with my statements that it has and does effect scientific studies. We only disagree as to the level of bias is acceptable when developing analysis used to secure others money. -
Dennis at 00:41 AM on 3 March 2010Every skeptic argument ever used
I just added a new argument below "it hasn't warmed since 1998) when I meant to add a link to an existing argument (which I thendid correctly). Please delete it. (As a software developer, I blame the tech writers for not being clear enough in the instructions!)Response: Fair criticism, I will endeavour to clarify instructions in the submission forms as I see what common errors are made. I've deleted that submission so I suggest resubmitting as a link. -
lord_sidcup at 00:23 AM on 3 March 2010Every skeptic argument ever used
I have just added my first couple of links (refuting the disgraceful and unfounded accusations made about New Zealand temperatures). I will be adding more when I have time. It will be interesting to see how Skeptical Science develops from now on. I have been coming here for a few months now and rate it very highly. It does seem to have really taken off recently and I hope you are able to cope with all the extra work that the additional visitors entail (I will donate when I am able - I certainly owe you) and aren't swamped by trolls and other negative and destructive individuals. Keep up the good work. -
CBDunkerson at 00:23 AM on 3 March 2010Every skeptic argument ever used
Hmmm... should we include arguments which make no attempt at putting a 'scientific' veneer on it? For instance, 'God would not allow us to damage his creation', 'God promised he would not make another Great Flood', or 'It is sinful arrogance to think that we could upset God's plan'. Et cetera. As the apparent purpose of the list is to accumulate actual evidence for and against various positions I'd question whether arguments which are overtly 'faith based' really fit the mold. Short of some sort of theological debate (i.e. 'God said that HE would not cause another Great Flood, but that does not mean WE cannot') there isn't really much 'evidence' to gather one way or the other. -
Dennis at 00:22 AM on 3 March 2010Every skeptic argument ever used
Why no links to the IPCC report? Every section of the IPCC report has its own webpage. A quick glance at your list of items and seeing all those green zeros got me repeatedly saying to myself "that's answered somewhere in the IPCC report." Can we start adding those?Response: Yes please, and it would be great if you could link to the HTML version of the IPCC 4th Assessment Report rather than the PDFs. The HTML version breaks up each section into its own webpage with a narrow focus whereas the PDFs contain entire chapters in the one document. Adding this would be an extremely useful resource. -
jhudsy at 00:07 AM on 3 March 2010Every skeptic argument ever used
@RSVP Have you added your argument to the list yet? If not, I'll be happy to do it. While an entire post can be dedicated to the topic, the short answer to your comment is that AGW is easy to attack. You simply need to prove that anthropogenic emissions are not able to cause an increase in global temperatures. -
HumanityRules at 00:02 AM on 3 March 2010Every skeptic argument ever used
Erm big list! Question - what if you don't know if its pro or anti? The World meterological society has updated its position on climate change and hurricanes. It's concludes that it can't find any past change in hurricanes above natural variability (anti?) but firms up its predictions for the future (pro) http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/infonotes/infonote62_en.html WMO EXPERTS ISSUE UPDATE ON THE IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON TROPICAL CYCLONES -
CBDunkerson at 23:35 PM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
I should have included a reference to the underlying study, (Murphy 2009), for the graph in the prior message. -
CBDunkerson at 23:33 PM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
RSVP, concentrating ONLY on the oceans simplifies the situation somewhat... they are the MAJOR, but not sole repository for the extra energy accumulating within Earth's climate system as a result of rising GHGs and feedback effects. A graph showing both the ocean and other energy accumulation has been posted here several times before;
You seemed to be suggesting that scientists have shied away from examining this as it could definitively prove or disprove AGW. As seen above, nobody has been avoiding it. However, on its own this actually does not prove the SOURCE of the extra energy accumulating in the Earth's climate system. The strongest measured (rather than modeled or theorized) indicator of that is the observed increase at the Earth's surface of wavelengths absorbed and re-emitted by GHGs.
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RSVP at 23:07 PM on 2 March 2010Every skeptic argument ever used
AGW's biggest strength is not defining itself with precision and thereby making it impervious to attack. What exactly constitutes AGW? Which part of it? How much AGW makes AGW real? Etc. On the otherhand, anything that is alive and moves is a skeptic. -
skagedal at 22:48 PM on 2 March 2010Every skeptic argument ever used
This is so absolutely brilliant I don't even know how to express it! You're getting some money from me right now to support this important project. (I'm not rich, but happen to have a few bucks stacked away at a PayPal account donated to me for a far more silly project. I know from this experience that if a whole bunch of people donate $5 each, it can pay your rent.) Thanks for your work! /Simon -
RSVP at 20:37 PM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
doug_bostrom You are right. I should have said retained. There are different analogs that can be used. An electronic circuit could be used, oceans being a giant capacitor, etc. In some earlier posts, a leaking barrel was used where the water level was the analog for temperature, and inflow was energy in, and outflow was energy out. The comparison was OK, but not correctly proportioned. It would have been better to compare a huge damn (this being the thermal capacity of oceans) and tiny creek at one end, that being the effects of CO2 on the damns water level. My sense is that the amount of IR energy coming from the extra CO2, which in turn is warming the surrounding "passive" gases, which in turn are convectively passing this heat on to the oceans, is miniscule compared to the total thermal capacity of all the water in all the oceans of the Earth. Whereas the AGW model is concerned with comparisons of relative radiative forcings, what matter for the discussion is only the relationship between the additional energy flux due to the effects of man-made GHGs, and what percent of this energy is actually getting stored in the oceans, that is if global warming is understood or defined as "drift" (using a circuit analog). -
Doug Bostrom at 19:26 PM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
RSVP at 19:09 PM on 2 March, 2010 I'm sure you meant "retained" where you said "produced". I'm not sure what you mean when you say that focusing attention on the oceans would quickly end discussion. Can you elaborate on that? -
tobyjoyce at 19:17 PM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
thingdonta wrote: "I also dont think that Gary Thompson is 'eyeballing graphs' as claimed in the above article, ....I feel sorry for Gary, ...." I feel sorry for Gary too, but maybe for a different reason. Ignoring graphs which show a statistically signifcant difference where he did not want to see one, is not good science... in fact it is the type of "theory-laden observation" you are talking about. Scientists only "see the models"? Very little of modern science would get done without models. Every climate denier is using a model. How much astrophysics, oceanography, geophysics, materials science, civil engineering (the list goes on...) would get done without modelling? The trope "you're using models, I'm using data" falls apart upon examination. I must concede on the Eugenics, but where there was Julius Rosenberg and Houston Stewart Chamberlain, I see people like Watts and Sarah Palin. -
RSVP at 19:09 PM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
doug_bostrom "So if you've going to argue, make a powerful argument if you're able." The AGW model consists of pitting all known radiative forcings against one another, such that global temperatures will ultimate stabilize around the equilibrium that these vectors produce in their sum. I assume the model also contemplate that this equilibrium point has to do with a rise in ocean temperatures where energy is actually stored. As far as the effects of man-made GHGs, the only significant issue is how the extra energy produced by the presence these GHGs is rising the temperature of the oceans, or their theoretical ability to do so. So it would seem logical, for starters, to only be concerned with this relationship. The problem (or the "power" as you say) with this is approach is that it is too simple, and would very quickly put an end to the discussion. -
Doug Bostrom at 17:12 PM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
By the way, Karl, let me suggest that instead of starting from the bottom with trivialities in attacking anthropogenic climate change, you should instead try a change of tactics and begin at the top. If it's a scientific case you want to make, you really do need to change your approach because eventually folks are going to notice there's little significance in arguments of the sort we're entertaining just now. For instance, if you've got a problem with CRU, instead of looking at their social comportment in writing email, use the ample data available (95% apparently) and do an analysis showing where they've gone off the rails. Dr. Jones himself says there's no rocket science in their work, more drudgery. So if you've going to argue, make a powerful argument if you're able. -
Doug Bostrom at 17:04 PM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
Karl_from_Wylie at 16:52 PM on 2 March, 2010 Which man are you thinking of, who wants "massive amounts of money?" Any names come to mind? Regarding the IPCC report being a private communication I'm sorry, I did not write with sufficient clarity and you have misunderstood what I wrote. Let me spell it out: in email or other written communications between two persons such as one of the examples you cited, you are more likely to see biases revealed. Clear enough? -
Karl_from_Wylie at 16:52 PM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
. #97 doug_bostrom Private emails provide unfiltered insights into men who want massive amounts of money. It also reveals their biases. Additionally, it was my understanding that IPCC's 2007 report was NOT a "private communication". If I produced a report for my boss requesting massive funding and flaws are found in parts of my analysis, it would not be viewed as "picayune matter" Climate scientists must play by the rules they set for themselves. -
thefrogstar at 16:20 PM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
1077, If you're still reading, as an engineer-turned-financial analyst, you seem like the ideal person to ask this question of: Is there a market (such as spread-betting) where those (such as myself) with an "opinion" on the debate can take a financial position? ...and where the sum-total of the offered-odds approaches unity, and dealing costs are the same as regular stock-transactions. I have some serious doubts about anybody's ability to model non-linear systems as complex as climate on the timescales that seemed to be proposed for "global warming". So where can people go to "put their money where their mouth is" ? As a practising scientist, I cannot afford to bet much on this, and probably shouldn't. But I think a general awareness of how the odds are really evaluated, by people who are well positioned to know, and motivated by financial loss or gain if they get it wrong, would add clarity to the debate. -
Doug Bostrom at 16:20 PM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
Karl_from_Wylie at 15:32 PM on 2 March, 2010 Oh, I don't at all doubt you'll find the occasional example of bias, particularly when it comes to notionally private communications which we must remember are after not scientific publications. If fringe issues possibly affected by bias are all that one has to offer as an argument against the plethora of noncontroversial research results including robust predictions based on well understood and basic physical effects which cannot be ascribed to bias, that's not a sufficiently robust argument to justify ignoring what appears to be a very significant risk. If this were a matter of debate at a dinner table over small stakes, emphasizing picayune matters such as hurt feelings over ungraciously expressed refusals to cooperate in time wasting or inappropriate citations buried in the middle of hundreds of pages of reliable information would be more understandable. But we're seeing desperate tactical rhetoric based on examples you cite employed in public debate over a matter of immediate urgency. People hoping to improve outcomes should identify research problems of real significance, if such exist. Instead, we hear nothing but iota, distractions. Why does argument over this matter converge over and over again on trivia and even ridiculous analogies? Communists? Nazis? That's all? Are there not important gaps in our understanding of climate science? What are they? -
thingadonta at 15:58 PM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
#93 Doug Your right, I dont want to go into 20th century social history either, but people keep bringing up smoking and oil and coal antagonism to research, which is just as relevant as biased mistakes of other antagonisms of the 20th century. People like Mr Rigour Al Gore and Pachmari and co. have no understanding whatsoever of the dangers of intellectual distortion, so they just revert in a tight place back to 'voodoo' and 'smoking'. One needs to see both sides. As for dead canaries in coal mines, the statament itself carries all one needs to know-canaries dont usually live in coal mines, they arent adapted to them, they have no biological exposure or history to them(unlike eg natural warmings) so how can one use this cruel analogy with anything to do with climate change? I suppose if we say a fish dies out of water then they might get stressed if water temperature changes. -
Karl_from_Wylie at 15:32 PM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
. #93 doug_bostrum Bias allows one to include non-peer reviewed prognostications where it shouldn't. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/garnaut-caught-in-climate-panels-himalayan-glacier-mistake/story-e6frg6nf-1225826894899 Bias motivates one to write "awful emails" to skeptics when refusing their request for infomation. http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/british-scientist-in-climate-row-admits-awful-emails-20100302-pfgd.html Bias leads one to the conclusion that Global warming led the golden tree frogs into extinction. http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/03/global-warming-didnt-kill-the-go.html Bias motivates one to attempt to exclude certain folks that disagree with one's conclusions from the peer-review process. -
ike solem at 15:29 PM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
As expected, someone tried to stand Feynman on his head: Berényi Péter "Now, what about of those (more than 10%, >2950) physical and biological datasets showing changes in a direction _inconsistent_ with global warming?" Let's say I count all the species in an ecosystem, then come back and do it again ten and twenty years later. I find that 90% of the species show declines, and that new warm-weather species have shown up as well. Now, there is another 10% that is absolutely unchanged - they're unfazed by the changed conditions. The data is right there in the paper - but people publish their summary conclusions! If you were to take that 10% in isolation, and claim that since these 10% were stable, there was no ecological response to warming - well, that would be called scientific fraud - deliberate removal of data in order to prove your point. However, this is precisely what front groups like Idso's Exxon-sponsore co2science.org do - selectively chose temperature data that agrees with their PR line. Berényi Péter: "If climate science would follow Feynman's advice, the peer reviewed literature should have numerous such publications." If you look at 100 indicator species - our coal mine canaries - and 90 of them show changes in distribution consistent with climate model projections - well, what do you think that means? Please note, evaporation and precipitation changes are just as important as temperature changes when in comes to ecosystem responses. What the climate denialist tends to do is then pick the 10 species that show no change for more careful & detailed study - while not publishing their initial results - but in any case, just read the papers that report that 90% trend, look in the datasets, and you'll find that 10% you are looking for. HumanityRules is also confused on this topic. What people are saying about malaria is that as the climate changes such that the host mosquito has more favorable conditions, you will need to take more steps to combat malaria, or you will suffer more disease outbreaks. This is a regional issue - and of course, mosquito netting, anti-malarial drugs and public sanitation are needed to fight malaria - under any circumstances. Is there anything to say about the devastation of the British Columbia forests by pine beetles, their growth spurred on by dry summers and warm winters? http://mpb.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/map_e.html Again, this is just a canary in the coal mine approach - a dead bird doesn't tell you precisely what gas is down in the mine - methane? hydrogen sulfide? - but it is a strong line of evidence to add to the instrument record, the paleoclimate record, and the climate model results. At this point, rational people would be well along the way to dropping their reliance on fossil fuel combustion as an energy source and replacing it with a broad mix of CO2-neutral technologies. This is what plants do, using sunlight to make fuel from air and water and then burning that fuel at night for energy... Here's another appropriate Feynman quote, on a childhood conversation with his father on energy: He would say, "It moves because the sun is shining," if he wanted to give the same lesson. I would say "No. What has that to do with the sun shining? It moved because I wound up the springs." "And why, my friend, are you able to move to wind up this spring?" "I eat." "What, my friend, do you eat?" "I eat plants." "And how do they grow?" "They grow because the sun is shining." And it is the same with the dog. What about gasoline? Accumulated energy of the sun which is captured by plants and preserved in the ground. Other examples all end with the sun. -
gallopingcamel at 14:33 PM on 2 March 2010Senator Inhofe's attempt to distract us from the scientific realities of global warming
My apologies, my post (@96) was meant for the thread shown below: YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming -
Doug Bostrom at 14:19 PM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
Our "skeptic" friends have somehow managed to swerve discussion here into Marx and the Communists, Hitler and the Nazis. That's a poor climate for improved understanding, no doubt about it. For folks who may have wandered into this discussion and are wondering what the heck is going on, here's some background reading behind Climate Crock's video: Dr. Spencer Weart's "Discovery of Global Warming A very few happy hours spent reading Dr. Weart's fascinating history will save endless additional hours of confusion. For the more ideologically inclined, here's what Weart recounts of Nazis and Communists when speaking of the emergence of such organizations as the IPCC: Most people were scarcely aware that these international initiatives all relied on a key historical development — the world-wide advance of democracy. It is too easy to overlook the obvious fact that international organizations govern themselves in a democratic fashion, with vigorous free debate and votes in councils. Often, as in the IPCC, decisions are made by a negotiated consensus in a spirit of equality, mutual accommodation, and commitment to the community process (these are seldom celebrated but essential components of the democratic political culture). If we tried to make a diagram of the organizations that deal with climate change, we would not draw an authoritarian tree of hierarchical command, but a spaghetti tangle of cross-linked, quasi-independent committees. It is an important but little-known rule that such organizations were created mainly by governments that felt comfortable with such mechanisms at home, that is, democratic governments. Nations like Nazi Germany, Communist China, and the former Soviet Union did little to create international organizations (aside from front groups under their own thumb), and participated in them awkwardly. Happily, the number of nations under democratic governance increased dramatically during the 20th century, and by the end of the century they were predominant. Therefore democratically based international institutions proliferated, exerting an ever stronger influence in world affairs.(44) This was visible in all areas of human endeavor, but it often came first in science, internationally minded since its origins. The democratization of international politics was the scarcely noticed foundation upon which the IPCC and its fellow organizations took their stand. -
Doug Bostrom at 12:28 PM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
gallopingcamel at 00:29 AM on 2 March, 2010 Please consider, there's a difference between "denial" and "argumentation." The "denying" you refer to is traceable to effective argumentation, arguments of practical value because they are based on numerical results, not opinions. Thus calling it "denying" is a misnomer. thingadonta at 10:50 AM on 2 March, 2010 Gary Thompson himself describe his method as based partly on "eyeballing." Karl_from_Wylie at 12:01 PM on 2 March, 2010 Bias forces erroneous conclusions that are not consistent with observations and extensions. I'm sure you can name some examples. -
Karl_from_Wylie at 12:01 PM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
Saying that scientists are above bias, is equivalent to Mid-Westerners saying they don't have an accent like the other regions of the US have. -
MattJ at 11:59 AM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
This article is the best nears concerning AGW I have seen in a long time! FINALLY, the environmental science 'community' has figured out the difference between persuading the public and persuading fellow scientists! -
joseph449008 at 11:42 AM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
I'm afraid thingadonta is basically correct about eugenics. It was not only fairly mainstream (it was discussed in the scientific literature) but it's basically mainstream today, except people just don't call it eugenics. For example, what is pre-natal testing for Down Syndrome, with almost certain abortion of test-positive fetuses? -
joseph449008 at 11:35 AM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
It seems that the world has been warming for ~10,000 years.
Based on? I've looked at a Vostok reconstruction, a Greenland reconstruction, and a Borehole reconstruction for the relevant time span. All of them show that the world stopped warming (after the end of the last glacial maximum) about 11,000 years ago. -
HumanityRules at 10:53 AM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
67.ike solem at 02:37 AM on 2 March, 2010 "West Nile virus in North America, malaria in Africa - there are plenty of papers on each topic" There are some papers on these topics. Not all link to global warming. It is extremely contentious to say these are proof of global warming. A good old fashioned scientific arguement broke out over the publication of this article suggesting no link between malaria and global warming Climate change and the resurgence of malaria in the East African highlands Hay et al Nature 415, 905-909 (21 February 2002) doi:10.1038/415905a Letter Primarily malaria is a disease of poverty. Countries with sufficient resourses and the will to tackle the problem have made huge in roads into controlling the disease. It is a huge get out clause to those governments and international bodies failing in this process to blame it all on global warming. -
thingadonta at 10:50 AM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
re:70tobyjoyce. Your summary rebutall misses a lot of history. "You have to be pretty bitter and twisted to compare the charlatans of eugenics to the geophysicists and oceanographers who make up today's climate scientists" I disagree. Eugenics was mainstream. There was a very long history and gestation period from late 19th century right through the early-mid 20th century. You claim it was driven by just a few charlatans. No, this is defnintely not the case. It was endorsed by a "consensus" of a number of international sceintific organisations/agencies (an old trick-get all the heads of scientific organisations to endorse something to make it look more like a 'consensus', and join in the funding rout). Weikart eg traces its development in Germany right up to WW1 and WW2, many of the books Hitler etc read were eugencicists from the mainstream scientific establishment. You will lose this argument if you contend its wasnt a major scientific-'based' movement (Im not referring to the data, but the distortion/misinterpretation of the data), it is one of the blackspots of modern science. Communism admittedly, was not so much based on any kind of hard science research. But its origins were in 'radical intellectualism' of the late 19th century (read Pipes excellent books on the subject). Even though nazism yes was accomapnied by a masive flight of scientists, it was from 'science' and scientists who were responsible for most of its policies in the first place. As Richard Evans points out, the eg concentration camps and gas vans (which started with the intellectually disabled-ie the social darwinists origins) were simply putting into practice what the eugencisits and social darwiminists within the mainstream scientific establishment had said and believed for decades (read his excellent books on the history of the third recih recently published). If you think the 'ideas' weren't entrenched within science, you need to read more history. It wasnt a 'few crackpots'. Anyway if we continue this thread it will be deleted, as it isnt about hard data, but people keep bringing up smoking and eg Big Tobacco, where they fail to see the very bony skeletons in the cupboard of the history of scientific research perversions/distortions as well. I also dont think that Gary Thompson is 'eyeballing graphs' as claimed in the above article, you can see form his discussion above he is looking at the hard evidence. If this cricitism fails and he does looks at the fine print, the next AGW claim might be that he is just 'picking on small details whilst ignoring the big picture'. The reason skeptics pick on small details, is that these have the potential, in rare cases, to overthrow/undermine/ etc the big picture claims, much like Einstein and Mercury's orbital fine print. I feel sorry for Gary, I think most of the mainstream climate sceintists' bias is just too strong, they dont see in the graphs, when push comes to shove, what is actually there, and prefer to see only the models. Gary is looking at the hard data, the other papers look at the wonderful models. But he is using the right approach, science will overcome in the end. The 'X' that people are referring to above in what is causing the earths warming is the earths long term ocean-atmosphere-land sensitivity to the sun- on the centuriens time scale, well established before the last few decades of AGW, and which will be re-validated again. Trace gases have a trace effect. I think the sun will eventually be restored to the centre of climate science, where it belongs, and trace gases will be put back to the periphery where they belong. (Just thought I'd throw that in, with regard to which side people think the hisory of sceince and sun fits into things. AGW is definitely claiming to be on the earth at the cnetre side of things, which doesnt have a very good record.) -
Riccardo at 10:47 AM on 2 March 2010Senator Inhofe's attempt to distract us from the scientific realities of global warming
gallopingcamel, given that the Hockey stick is not broken (you have it even without tree rings) and that the earth is still accumulating heat and temperature is not dropping, you should conclude that AGW theory is at the very least plausible. -
yocta at 10:40 AM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
RE:#83 HumanityRules Your wanderings about observations... Just watched Dr. Alley's talk then. He discusses in the context of Earth's climate history that from our present understanding of the science that they are indeed closely related, and from the closing slides he states: -If higher CO2 warms, Earth's climate history makes sense, with CO2 having caused or amplified the main changes -There isn't at present any plausible alternative to this -If higher CO2 does not warm, we must explain how radiation physics is so wrong, and how a lot of really inexplicable climate events happened over the Earth's history. -Higher CO2 may be a forcing or a feedback-a CO2 molecule in the air is radiatively active regardless how it got there. -Paleoclimatic data shows climate sensitivity similar in values in modern models (~3C for doubled CO2)... Cheers for the recommendation Albatross and shellinaya! I'll spread the word p.s all this talk about Feynman, he was a great communicator of science, same with Sagan. Climate Science really needs people just like that. -
Riccardo at 10:37 AM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
HumanityRules, i hope you don't really think that scientists are so silly to say CO2 rises, temperature rises too, so it must be it. Never heard about detection and attribution? -
HumanityRules at 10:18 AM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
74.Tony Noerpel at 05:24 AM on 2 March, 2010 "This reality defeats several denier arguments in one go (H2O is the strongest greenhouse gas, atmospheric CO2 is saturated, CO2 is not a GHG, CO2 is a weak GHG, and so on). And it is not theory, not modeling, not economics (holy cow*, no) but good old fashion geology and observation." I just wonder whether good old fashioned observation can determine cause and effect. You can observe that CO2 levels rise and global temps rise but that simple observation can't tell you which is causing which or if in fact they are even related. % of women in the workforce has risen alongside global temps for the later part of the 20th century. Is it worth writing up this observation. I do think its wrong to say this doesn't rely of theory and modelling. -
gallopingcamel at 09:51 AM on 2 March 2010Senator Inhofe's attempt to distract us from the scientific realities of global warming
The video at the head of this posting turned out to be based mainly on emotion rather than science so it says much for the debaters from both sides that they concentrated on scientific questions such as the connection between Greenhouse gasses and climate. At the simplest level, such relationships can be tested by asking two questions. Do they explain the past? Can they be used to predict the future? At the heart of the AGW theory is the relationship between global temperatures and the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. The Mann, Bradley & Hughes, 1988 paper shows an almost flat temperature reconstruction from 1000 to 1860 followed by an increasingly steep upslope into the 20th century (the Hockey Stick). As the atmospheric CO2 concentration appears to have followed a similar path, linking the two variables is certainly plausible. There are reasons to believe that the MBH98 and MBH99 temperature reconstructions are incorrect. Ironically, the first director of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia was Hubert Lamb, an expert on the Medieval Warm Period. Even if you are prepared to throw Lamb under the bus, the IPCC itself published a temperature reconstruction in its 1992 report that clearly shows the MWP and the “Little Ice Age”. To bring things up to date, a reconstruction by Loehle & McCulloch, 2008 can be found at: http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/AGW/Loehle/ Why does the L&McC08 reconstruction fail to agree with MBH98? The short answer is that MBH gives great weight to tree ring proxies while L&McC omits this data set entirely. What about predicting the future? At first all went well for the Hockey Team as temperatures continued to rise after 1988. Ten years later, 1998 turned out to be one of the hottest on record in the USA so at that moment the Hockey Stick predictions were looking really good. Then Mother Nature played a cruel trick by causing temperatures to fall. The blade of the Hockey Stick now points in the wrong direction. One parting shot. I challenge the “Crock of the Week” guy to name even one respected scientist who can keep a straight face while publicly declaring: “Atmospheric carbon dioxide is a pollutant”. -
KR at 09:38 AM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
Charlie A - The posting you link to (not a peer-reviewed article, incidentally; I would be interested in any that address this issue) sets up several strawman arguments: "The consequence of a variable albedo, which is primarily topographically dependent, is that it can either amplify or attenuate the variability in the incident solar energy, as perihelion shifts through the seasons. This, and not anything related to greenhouse gas forcing, is the primary amplification effect seen in the ice core data. " Neither high seasonal variation nor solar cycles invalidate slow global warming. See the section on "It's the sun", http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm for more discussion. "Earth responds rapidly to changes in forcing... A slow response is necessary to support the common prediction of AGW that there's pent up warming that hasn't occurred yet, but will later. This claim is often used to counter the observations of skeptics who point out that predicted temperature increases are notably absent." Just about every data set known shows that temp increases are occurring, at rates on the high end of the IPCC estimates. See http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998.htm for the extremely high ocean warming levels, and the skeptical denials of warming. "...hemispheric asymmetry..." - White argues that hemispheric asymmetry causes problems in measuring (?), predicting (?) global warming temps; he's not really clear. Limited thermal exchange between hemispheres only effect would be somewhat different relative regional rates of AGW, not the total lack thereof that he argues for. One of the worst is this: "If the surface power increases by 2.88 W/m², the corresponding temperature increase is only 0.55°C and not the 3°C predicted by the AGW hypothesis." Here he confuses average power with integrated energy. If the power rate to the surface increases, the _accumulated energy_ is what will affect temperatures. This is a complete howler. Finally, in bold bright glowing red, he indicates his motives: "...trillions of dollars we are poised to spend on CO2 mitigation will have no effect, other than to drag down the worlds economy and impede the goal of energy independence." The article isn't science - it's a discussion of extremely short term variability (see weather versus climate) used to support a political view. -
Peter Hogarth at 09:30 AM on 2 March 2010Senator Inhofe's attempt to distract us from the scientific realities of global warming
doug_bostrom at 15:26 PM on 27 February, 2010 Funny you should mention that. I've been a member of the Institute of Physics and a Chartered Physicist (amongst other things) for over 20 years. I don't recall being consulted on this submission. So much for transparency, involvement and representation of wider views. I note the submission is "prepared with input from the Institute's Science Board, and its Energy Sub-group". -
Riccardo at 09:09 AM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
Berényi Péter, I forgot the supplementary material. -
Riccardo at 09:00 AM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
Berényi Péter, i can only suggest to read the paper itself. -
Berényi Péter at 08:32 AM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
I just wanted to have a look at a score of those contradictory physical and biological datasets the speaker was taking about. Out three thousand it should not be too difficult to show some. -
Riccardo at 07:24 AM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
I think that the difference between a scientific paper and a video on the web is clear enough. Feyman quote does not mean that you should expect to find in any paper the whole list of other papers which do not support your findings. With the passing of time it would be enormous and it would include papers proved wrong. Clearly the meaning is that in a scientific paper one should expect to find a crical assessment of current the status of science. -
Berényi Péter at 07:08 AM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
#75 ike solem at 06:10 AM on 2 March, 2010 quoting Feynman, Cargo Cult Science, Caltech's 1974 commencement address: "Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can - if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong - to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it." From the video Climate Denial with Peter Sinclair - Crock of the Week (7:02), see above: "Altogether this study looked at more than twenty nine thousand (>29,500) sets of physical and biological data. Of those almost 90% were changes in the direction consistent with global warming (expected as a response to warming..)" Now, what about of those (more than 10%, >2950) physical and biological datasets showing changes in a direction _inconsistent_ with global warming? If climate science would follow Feynman's advice, the peer reviewed literature should have numerous such publications. A pointer to the list? Anyone? . -
ike solem at 06:18 AM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
P.S. Feyman also said this: "As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." What does that mean? I once came across a 1940s era geology textbook, which devoted a page, no more, to the "thoroughly discredited notion of plate tectonics." A marketer would say, "Aha! Thus, you must also disbelieve the climate science experts at the IPCC! Gotcha!" Well, no. What you must do is look under the hood - under the shell - to see if there is any real substance, or if it's all just a facade. To do that, you need some familiarity with physics, chemistry, biology, some mathematics - not too much - and then you can follow the arguments and judge for yourself. If you don't do this, at least a little, then you're just listening, jaws agape, to the pronouncements of the high priests - who know how to impress their unwashed masses with mumbo jumbo. -
ike solem at 06:10 AM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
Feynman also said this, most applicable to the tobacco-funded cancer denialists as well as to the petroleum-funded climate denialists: "I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential..." Here we the various front groups financed by fossil fuel interests - they publish papers in fake journals, they hold bogus conferences, they issue press releases - but behind the shell, there's zero substance. Why not? "...there is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science. That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in studying science in school--we never explicitly say what this is, but just hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific investigation. It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now and speak of it explicitly. It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty - a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid - not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked - to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated." (A good clue to whether this rule is being followed, by the way, is the ease of reconstructing the experimental method from the published paper) "Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can - if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong - to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it." This notion doesn't work with marketing - imagine a car salesman keeping a list of his company's recalls, accidents, and lawsuits on hand for customer inspection. Since the fossil fuel PR lobby consists of clever marketers hired by the CEOs to sell a certain idea, they are of course not going to adhere to this rule, nor will they encourage their pet "experts" to do so, either. Have climate scientists always held to this standard? Nope - sometimes, they've used 'tricks' to push the very real global warming story - such as truncating some tree ring datasets when they diverged from the trend line. Compared to the blatant manipulation of data by denialists, that's fairly minor. Regardless, even if you ignored all tree ring data, you'd still come up with the same basic conclusion: doubling the atmospheric CO2 has a significant effect on climate. Reference: http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm -
Tony Noerpel at 05:24 AM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
Hello Bob Armstrong Every text book on climate physics and Earth sciences that I own derive the 33 C number directly from Boltzmann-Kirchoff as per #35 Riccardo above. I recommend Piexoto and Oort Physics of climate, a tough book, but you can handle it. :+) As per radiative forcing of carbon dioxide, we can experiment by removing much of it from the atmosphere and observing how cold the Earth gets. In fact this experiment has been tried 2.35 billion years ago and several times between 750 and 590 million years ago. Both times the Earth froze over solid. The temperature actually got much colder than merely -33 C from present and achieved about -50 degrees C or about 65 C below present. The reason for this is obvious and I'm sure you see it right away. Once the Earth freezes substantially, it becomes a white object and reflects (rather than absorbs) most of the short wave solar radiation. What is really interesting is that the way out of this dilemma, was carbon dioxide emitted by volcanoes into the atmosphere. At these cold temperatures, there was no water vapor in the atmosphere and therefore no silicate rock weathering to extract the carbon dioxide (also of course the rocks were buried under snow and ice anyway). The gas built up until there was enough to raise Earth's temperature sufficient to melt some of the ice back revealing darker water. Then things took off and the Earth became a hot house because of all the excess carbon dioxide. This is really interesting stuff and again I recommend Berner's The Phanerozoic Carbon cycle. This reality defeats several denier arguments in one go (H2O is the strongest greenhouse gas, atmospheric CO2 is saturated, CO2 is not a GHG, CO2 is a weak GHG, and so on). And it is not theory, not modeling, not economics (holy cow*, no) but good old fashion geology and observation. Also, as I am a skeptic in the John Cook sense of the word, i.e., really, I want to point out that there is no evidence that addressing global warming would harm the economy. This is a common false assumption of deniers. So the argument that we should not address AGW because it might hurt the economy is a red herring. Hope this helps. Tony Noerpel *I’m a Yankee fan. I hope you hear Phil Rizzuto’s voice here. :+) -
ike solem at 05:01 AM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
Cloud feedback effects during the course of fossil-fueled global warming are linked to the topics of water vapor feedbacks, the precipitation/evaporation ratios, and again are very height-dependent. This means that clouds are a confounding factor and a source of uncertainty, true enough. The water vapor effect itself is pretty obvious, and is most pronounced in clear-sky conditions. See for example http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/11/1110_051110_warming.html A more robust test was the effect of Pinatubo's cooling aerosols on global water vapor: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/296/5568/727 As a result of the added water vapor, the natural variability found in ocean basins - the fluctuations such as ENSO, NAO, and the AO, and the resulting effects on global wind patterns, etc. - might be amplified, leading to more extreme weather patterns - again, this is due (in mid-latitudes) to factors like the jet stream and dry cold fronts mixing with warm Pacific Ocean air - resulting in "once in 500 years" accumulations of snow. I hope everyone realizes that these "1 in 1000" claims about flooding, drought, etc. are all based on pre-fossil fuel era estimates during the last few centuries - "1 in 10" might be more realistic for future projections. Ref: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;317/5835/233 Wentz et. al 2007 Science "How Much More Rain Will Global Warming Bring?" "Climate models and satellite observations both indicate that the total amount of water in the atmosphere will increase at a rate of 7% per kelvin of surface warming. However, the climate models predict that global precipitation will increase at a much slower rate of 1 to 3% per kelvin. A recent analysis of satellite observations does not support this prediction of a muted response of precipitation to global warming. Rather, the observations suggest that precipitation and total atmospheric water have increased at about the same rate over the past two decades." -
Charlie A at 04:37 AM on 2 March 2010YouTube video on the empirical evidence for man-made global warming
KR at 03:22 AM on 2 March, 2010 "Charlie A @#55 - interesting article, but the time scale for everything in it is _one year_. Short term is weather, long term is climate; it's an interesting look at seasonal variation, but says nothing at all about long term effects of higher IR retention, water vapor feedback, and the like." You appear to misunderstand the hypothesis. Willis Eschenbach is analyzing changes in the daily pattern of cloud formation that work as a negative feedback. Looking at daily changes for a period of exactly one year is the appropriate interval for evaluating this diurnal change. See http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/14/the-thermostat-hypothesis/
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