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Comments 127651 to 127700:

127651. thingadonta at 00:15 AM on 15 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        re 22: Chris Thanks for the well reasoned post. My experiences as a scientist and as a human being at university, and also in government, has been extremely disillusioning at times. And no this isnt the after- taste of a talent-less good fo nothing. Some of my most bitter experiences within science were very similiar to those I experienced growing up within religion- I would say EXACTLY the same. My experience in industry has given me the impression of a system that is more self-regulating and slightly more akin to reality than either academia, government, and certainly religion. There IS a dark side to science, because it is practised by people, and because there is a dark side to people (just like there is a dark side to governmnet and religion). 'Science' is not a perfect process or system by any means, and I think that humans have several hundred more years before 'science' matures to the point where it at least partly addresses some of its weaknesses (all other things being equal). As for some of your post, there was a strong shift within earth sciences away from industry-based research to non-industry based research in the 1990s, I know because I saw it first hand. It is still going on. I dont have specific details here, but thanks for your post. Re 27: No I didn’t get a copy of the questionaiire, but I suppose I would have if I conformed more to the disgraceful goings on I saw at university.
127652. hans at 02:20 AM on 14 September 2009
        It's aerosols
        Here is a NASA study about aerosols affecting the Arctic: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming_aerosols.html "Clean air regulations passed in the 1970s, for example, have likely accelerated warming by diminishing the cooling effect of sulfates" So without our pollution in the sixties global warming would have started much earlier.
127653. Mizimi at 05:06 AM on 12 September 2009
        Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?
        Chris, I do understand the difference between temperature and temperature anomaly. As you rightly point out in order to obtain a reasonable assessment of the anomaly you require a reasonable coverage of the earths surface. Taking a sample over a 1200km sq cell only requires about a 100 stations (for land temps. I don't think anybody would consider that to be enough. " So it's very surprising that you don't know that the NOAA, despite limited funds, has been underway with a very significant programme to address the problem of surface station siting since 2001. They have already constructed well over 100 sites in a new network to give high US surface coverage using optimal placement criteria.\" A couple of things...(1) obviously NOAA concedes there is a problem and (2)I would not consider 100 stations since 2001 as being significant. (but maybe since we only need 100 stations on a 1200km grid to get an accurate reading of the temp anomaly it will be more than enough).
127654. Philippe Chantreau at 03:28 AM on 12 September 2009
        Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?
        Chris, not to be a downer, but methinks you're wasting your time. Confusion between temp and temp anomaly is rampant and obvious with some commenters on this site. So is the confusion between the various reference periods used to compute anomalies, which are not the same for GISS and HadCRU; that's the only reason why some prefere HadCRU (that and the lack of Arctic consideration), it looks better to them, while in fact it says exactly the same as GISS. Satellite records have a different baseline still, which gives a different absolute value to the anomaly, yet shows the exact same trend. Also source of confusion is the fact that satellite records include stratospheric components. Etc, etc. All stuff that was discussed here at some point or another but then gets forgotten so the same talking points can be recycled ad nauseam.
127655. chris at 01:08 AM on 12 September 2009
        Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?
        Re #19 I'm not going to dignify your site it by re-citing it, Mizimi, but I'd expect a skeptic would not be taken in by the essential flaw in the presentation which is based on a confusion of "temperature" and "temperature anomaly". What’s very odd is that the practitioners of your dodgy site have elsewhere made great play of the essential meaninglessness of the concept of an earth “average temperature” or “global temperature” when in fact proper scientists don’t use this anyway…however on your site that’s the concept that is presented to attempt to portray something odd with the surface station data. Let’s have a look: Your site presents a graph of some form of an averaged station temperature (ordinate) as a function of year (abscissa) and overlays this with the number of stations. However this data tells us nothing about the effect of station loss on the global temperature anomaly trend which is actually what we’re interested in (and what NASA GISS and Hadley Hadcrut and NOAA determine). Your dodgy site asserts that: “Graphs of the 'Global Temperature' from places like GISS and CRU reflect attempts to correct for, among other things, the loss of stations within grid cells, so they don't show the same jump at 1990.” However that’s not why Giss/Hadcrut etc don’t show “the same jump at 1990”. These data don’t show the same jump because they don’t plot the meaningless “average temperature”, but the temperature anomaly. If one doesn’t understand the difference between these then one is likely to be taken in by the sort of plot on your dodgy site (perhaps that’s what its author is hoping for). We can look at some model data to illustrate what’s actually going on. Let’s take 10 surface sites located randomly around the world and look at their temperatures and temperature anomalies.

               Local average temperature (oC)
        Site     1985          1995
        
        1       13.1       13.3		
        2       8.3        8.5
        3       9.5        9.7		
        4       18.6       18.9
        5       12.4       12.6
        6       10.6       10.8
        7       17.4       17.6
        8       9.2        9.5
        9       21.3       21.4
        10      11.0       11.2
        
        

        If we take the change in temperature at each site as the anomaly (that’s what an anomaly is, although in reality it is relative to a base year range) then we can calculate the (meaningless) “global temperature” and the global anomaly: “global temperature” (1985) = 13.14 oC “global temperature” (1995) = 13.35 oC global anomaly (1995) = 0.21 oC (relative to 1985). Now we remove the five coldest sites from the 1995 data set due to “collapse” of the Soviet Union (say) in 1990: “global temperature” (1985) = 13.14 oC “global temperature” (1995) = 16.76 oC global anomaly (1995) = 0.20 oC (relative to 1985) Interesting, yes? The world has apparently got hotter while the global temperature anomaly is essentially unchanged. Do you see why one doesn’t use the meaningless “global average temperature”, but rather the temperature anomaly Mizimi? The temperature anomaly has a number of other excellent qualities. One of these is that while absolute temperature between distant sites is non-correlated (some might be at higher altitudes or in different local environments) the temperature change over time between sites is highly correlated even at high distances (up to 1200 km). Therefore the temperature anomaly allows one to get a rather accurate global scale assessment of temperature change even without full surface coverage. And (as we’ve just seen) the use of the temperature anomaly means that changes in coverage (loss or gain of stations) doesn’t materially affect the measured global temperature change so long as there are sufficient overall stations. Another quality is that additional temperature measures (e.g. from satellites) can be seamlessly incorporated into the temperature anomaly analysis.
127656. chris at 00:58 AM on 12 September 2009
        Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?
        You don't seem to have researched this subject very well WA, and are somewhat misinformed: So it's very surprising that you don't know that the NOAA, despite limited funds, has been underway with a very significant programme to address the problem of surface station siting since 2001. They have already constructed well over 100 sites in a new network to give high US surface coverage using optimal placement criteria. As time proceeds data from this network (the US Climate Reference Network) will merge with the pre-existing surface station data. So contrary to your assertion, "the government" is "coming up with the bucks" to improve the network of surface sites. I hope you're happy that your tax dollars are being put to good use! You can read about this here: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/crn/ You also seem unaware that despite a photo-campaign to attempt to discredit the US surface measurements, a reconstruction of the US surface temperature record employing only the sub-set of good or best-sited stations, yields a temperature anomaly record that is hardly distinguishable fom that created from the full set. You can read about this in John Cook's top post on this thread (see Figure 2 above). It desn't matter if some sites are poor - this is taken into account in the analysis of the temperature record and corrected for. So again it's silly to say that "correcting these issues is something that has not been done". In fact correcting these issues has been the subject of a huge amount of effort and has been done doubly (firstly by careful assessment of the pre-exisiting data network, and secondly by construction of an entirely new network). it's your tax dollars WA - you should make a better effort to determine how they are utilised!
127657. Wondering Aloud at 23:33 PM on 11 September 2009
        Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?
        Chris The greater than 3 degree etc. scale is NOAA's own scale, it has to do with what the errors are in the site location and what measurement error these are known to introduce; as determined by NOAA itself. For instance with something like 9% of US sites located adjacent to sewage digestors that run at about 35 C all the time we are going to have some considerable distortion especially when the outside temperature is -35 C. The rating scale attempts to quantify this error based on distance to things that introduce bias. You can get a pretty darn good idea of these problems through a survey of the site. And indeed this type of survey is the prescribed method from NOAA for determining site compliance. It isn't something Watts made up. The problem is correcting these issues is something that has not been done. Because they don't know? No. Because with all the billions spent on AGW by the government somehow they won't come up with a few bucks to get these fixed. I hope WUWT will force NOAA to fix this network.
127658. snowman1955 at 07:03 AM on 11 September 2009
        Does Urban Heat Island effect add to the global warming trend?
        I don't know about the results in China, I would have to examine the data set involved, but in the Western US, specifically in more Arid regions...the Urban Heat Island effect has been great (on the order of 10 F increases in annual mean temperature)since 1970, and the number of stations involved is increasing due to Urban Sprawl. NASA has not corrected for this....nor have then excluded Urban areas in their computations. Also please note that they have been greatly overestimating the SST Anomalies over the Pacific by arbitrarily changing the long term mean temperature downward...by close to 1 C. Not a skeptic, just a scientist looking for the truth.
127659. snowman1955 at 06:18 AM on 11 September 2009
        Does Urban Heat Island effect add to the global warming trend?
        Since when did a Gas become bad?
127660. Mizimi at 05:40 AM on 11 September 2009
        Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?
        It is worth watching the mpeg file at the Delaware site showing the loss of stations from 1950 onwards, especially in 1990 when the Russian Federation collapsed. http://climate.geog.udel.edu/~climate/html_pages/air_clim.html you will have to logon (free) to access the data.
127661. Mizimi at 05:22 AM on 11 September 2009
        Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?
        '#14...Philippe....I am sure that datasets are analysed and configured to minimise the impact of losing stations within a grid. My point is that when you lose a massive amount of stations ( such as in Russia) then it must have a deleterous effect on overall data reliability. There is an interesting article on the subject here... http://www.uoguelph.ca/%7ermckitri/research/nvst.html'
127662. floyd at 14:29 PM on 10 September 2009
        Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
        @chris and mizimi Re: posts 14-17: I googled 'dynamic equilibrium' and was easily able to find not only many definitions but also a host of examples from biology and physics where it applies. I'm no expert on scientific communication, but I think it is critical to have a common conceptual and terminological corpus in order to exchange information with any degree of efficiency. It seems that many of the posters here rely on Chris to provide a rudimentary overview of the science (I mean the stuff that has survived peer-review and been published in reputable journals, not your uncle Jesse's theory of faerie-dust driven tropospheric warming, which he posted last Sunday after a few cold ones on some random website somewhere). There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, unless said posters are arguing passionately that the mainstream science is wrong. After all, what better way to undermine your own credibility than to take a vigorous stand against a position that 1. you do not really understand and 2. is supported by 90% of experts in the field - people who do actually do understand the science? On what basis can you disagree with the majority of professional scientists in a given discipline if you don't even have a handle on something as elementary as the terminology they use?
127663. chris at 01:44 AM on 10 September 2009
        Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?
        not really WA. The notion that one can "look at" a load of photos and "know that the bias is overwhelmingly positive" is simply non-scientific and indicates a pre-conceived view point that is also non-scientific. Science is about measuring and analyzing . As the NOAA showed (they're scientists who measure things!) calculating the temperature profile based on the "best" set of sites results in a data set that is barely distinguishable from the profile calculated from the full data set with bias corrections based on comparison with local rural sites (see John Cook's fig 2 above). It's astonishing that Mr Watts didn't do such an analysis; however it's perhaps understandable since Mr Watts isn't a scientist and apparently has non-scientific reasons for pursuing his photo campaign. Anyway, I don't understand how you can determine that a site has a "likely error of 3 degrees" by looking at a photo. What exactly are you measuring WA? And why not answer Philipe's straightforward questions? What scientific paper(s) has presented this "warm bias" that is "overwhelmingly inflating temperatures"? How can the US surface temperature data be inflating temperatures, when the surface temperature is consistent with that determined from satellite data, and with independent measures of temperature increase (e.g. temperature profiles calculated from the rates of mountain glacier retreat)? One of the problems with "stripping out" quantitative analysis and relying on qualitative descriptions (e.g. photos) is that the latter are heavily prone to subjective interpretation and ripe for misuse by propagandists. Theological arguments are subjective/qualitative whereas scientific arguments are quantitative. Less theology please WA; let's see your quantitative analysis or a link to a published relevant version.
127664. Wondering Aloud at 23:14 PM on 9 September 2009
        Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?
        Never mind. If you don't understand that a site with a likely error of 3 degrees cannot produce quality data than I am wasting my time. If you can look at the thousands of photos and not know the bias is overwelmingly positive... If you can look at site records where the warm bias has clearly been growing over time due to facility changes yet the corrections reduce past temperatures and increase recent temperatures. A pattern that has been shown many times with specific documented cases at the Surface stations project. Then you are apparently talking theology.
127665. Philippe Chantreau at 01:29 AM on 9 September 2009
        Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?
        "A look at the corrections..." You need to substantiate and specify that accusation, it makes no sense under this formulation. "Analysis of the effects of the discovered problems is a further step." Which has been preliminary taken by John V and completed by NCDC. The purpose of WUWT was never to check data quality, because they never closely looked at data. They took pictures of sites then went on wildly speculating about the significance of it. The significance is shown by data analysis, which is the part they never did. The state of the stations is not news to NOAA and NCDC, they were working on it before Watts. This statement "The sample size at present means that at least 2/3 of US stations have likely error greater than 2 degrees C, and that the error is overwelmingly inflating temperatures." is total nonsense, as was demonstrated by the data analysis. What paper has demonstrated the "overwhelming" warm bias? If that was the case, how is such agreement obtained with the satellite data? Even 3 minutes spent on WUWT is a waste of time.
127666. XPLAlN at 01:27 AM on 9 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        Interesting data but not very surprising. Thanks for posting. I fall into the darkest blue category. What about you thingadonta? Did you get sent a questionnaire by the authors of the report?
127667. Wondering Aloud at 01:18 AM on 9 September 2009
        Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?
        I don't know why my response to dorlomin is not here but I did say that yes some stations are found to have a cool bias though the numbers are not even and most have a bias that would tend to show warming. Phillipe I think you misunderstand the purpose of the project. It was to check data quality. Analysis of the effects of the discovered problems is a further step, go ahead and start on that I'm sure it would be welcome. I think a finding, that 89% of the stations in the USHCN (which is supposed to be the best data set) don't meet even minimal quality assurance standards is important news in and of itself. The sample size at present means that at least 2/3 of US stations have likely error greater than 2 degrees C, and that the error is overwelmingly inflating temperatures. A look at the corrections introduced by NASA on a site by site basis shows that the corrections do not fix the problem and often make no sense. If the raw data is off by more than 2 degrees and the corrections don't correct isn't any analysis or comparison using that data to look at fractional degree temperature changes simply rubbish? Can we assume the rest of the world data set is good?
127668. NewYorkJ at 17:04 PM on 8 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        For Robbo... Latif is co-author of the 2008 Keenlyside study, which predicted slight decadal cooling, with no changes to the long-term outlook (see year 2030). http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/global-cooling-wanna-bet/ I'm not convinced of their short-term outlook, though. Global mean temperature had already overshot their earlier hindcast, and ocean surface temperatures are beyond record levels for June and July. http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090814_julyglobalstats.html It's interesting that while ocean cycles (PDO, AMO, NOA) are in or moving towards their negative phase, and solar sunspot activity has been at near century-low levels for about 3 years now, global mean temperature is near record levels. Kind of makes you wonder how very rapid the warming will be when these phases reverse. Sorry for the off-topic response. Back to the topic... "Does it matter if there is a consensus of like minded twits - if the consensus is incorrect?" I think it does. The folks over at Wattsupwiththat and other pseudoscience blogs could use a large dose of critical thinking encouragement, as groupthink is prevalent in such places. In addition, our society suffers when large groups of individuals are blinded by ideology and willing victims of the Dunning Kruger Effect.
127669. Robbo the Yobbo at 12:11 PM on 8 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        Does it matter if there is a consensus of like minded twits - if the consensus is incorrect? The planet is still cooling and will continue to do so for another decade or 2. See this form Fred Pearce in New Scientist. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17742-worlds-climate-could-cool-first-warm-later.html Warm later indeed. Is there something here about flogging a dead horse.
127670. Philippe Chantreau at 01:00 AM on 8 September 2009
        Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?
        Thingadonta is going at it again with the diurnal "thermal inertia" nonsense, while it has been shown to him already that there is no such thing. The very premise to Watts' web site existence was invalidated fist by John V, and now by NCDC. Nothing more needs to be said. Actually, yes, one more thing: the data analysis done by John V and NCDC should have been done by Watts if he had any real intention to demonstrate the very thing he believes in. But he did not. Despite the clamored, iron-clad confidence that it was so bad, not once was there a true, mathematical data analysis of the surface stations data on WUWT. I wonder why. Mizimi, if you think that gridding is not properly done in the analyses, you have to substantiate. Take the papers, look at how they do the gridding and tell us how it's wrong. Your statement here is very vague and does not seem to refer specifically to how any given anlysis was done.
127671. Philippe Chantreau at 00:42 AM on 8 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        Well said Chris. Indeed a functioning society needs both industry and governement funded research, fundamental and applied science. But in both cases, the education necessary to the people conducting it is acquired in universities. I'm still reeling from the astrology=socialism thing, I thought I had heard it all, but this one is out there. Silly caricature indeed.
127672. Philippe Chantreau at 00:41 AM on 8 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        Well said Chris. Indeed a functioning society needs both industry and governement funded research, fundamental and applied science. But in both cases, the education necessary to the people conducting it is acquired in universities. I'm still reeling from the astrology=socialism thing, I thought I had heard it all, but this one is out there. Silly caricature indeed.
127673. chris at 23:20 PM on 7 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        Thingadonta, your politicisation of everything scientific leads to misunderstanding that is not far off conspiracy theorising! The government doesn't "fund research that is outside "industry" by default". That's simply not true. "The government" strongly supports science that has industrial links, and especially that is part-funded by industry, and in our grant applications we have to indicate the benefits of our research to beneficaries including potential industrial applications as well as to society and so on. The government (and charities) fund "technology transfer" grants in which academic ideas with potential industrial applications are supported to facilitiate research at pre-application stage that can be exploited by interested industrial partners downstream. One can examine the NSF budgets and find, for example, that, in the US, climate science is funded around the same level as nanotechnology research. Nanotechnology has huge potential industrial applications, and the US government supports basic research in this area largely (apart from basic scientific interest) as "seed corn" for downstream applications that will be of expected industrial benefit. Much of the pharmaceutical industry feeds off the basic research (in the US) of the government-funded National Institutes of Health…they effectively get a "free ride" off the basic understanding of molecular and cellular biology developed in "academic research"….and so on. Obviously there is a large generalised arena of science that has to be funded by governments since it relates to the general interests and well-being of the population but is of little direct interest to industry, at least initially. The basic understanding of AIDS virology, for example, was gained by government funding initially to understand the disease and develop therapies, but with huge downstream benefits for the pharma industry in sales of antivirals. Pharma is not very interested in developing new antibiotics (not very profitable) and this essential task is funded by government….etc. etc. And obviously science that relates to the environment pretty much has to be funded by governments, outwith those aspects with direct industrial applications (oil, gas, mineral, forest, hydro exploitation). If we want to know the effects of sulphurous emissions on lakes and forests industry likely isn't going to do that; likewise with the effects of releasing chlorofluorocarbons in large amounts, or of massive greenhouse gas release – industry is about making money wouldn't you say? That's the bottom line…no problem with that obviously, but let's not pretend that we can learn about many fundamental things of interest to our well-being without serious efforts from government-funded scientists. We either decide we should know about these things…or not. And we don't pretend that the laws of physics should yield to our political sympathies just because we don't like the research outcomes. In fact I suspect most informed individuals recognise that government-funded and industrial research are two interlinked aspects of a mature society, and that we need both. Your silly caricature (for which you give zero evidence!) that government funding ensures " the development of a generation of researchers who are fundamentally opposed to industry" sounds like a political mantra to me. As for your notion of a poor industry "which is supposed to magically train and look after itself", I think you'll find that industry benefits from a vast resource of government-funded research (see above) and a massive resource of educated and trained individuals, the training and education of which they get largely without direcly paying for. Industry, by and large, doesn't pay for those BScs, MScs and PhDs. And of course if things go pear-shaped (financial industry…auto industry) who's there to sort things with huge bail-outs? The nasty government! Again nothing necessarily wrong with that… but let's not pretend that there is some sort of "industrial/government-funded" dichotomy about which one has to choose sides…that sort of thing is for political fanatics and propagandists! Sadly (getting back to the subject of this thread!) there are some rather well-funded organisations ('specially in the US) that consider it politically expedient and profitable to present the false picture of government-funded science that you portray so well....
127674. canbanjo at 22:51 PM on 7 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        re the conspiracy theory, I asked a doctor in oceanography friend at southampton uni what scientists thought of this and he replied as follows: "this is an oldie, and actually one some people in the field sometimes agonise over from a different direction, in particular the argument can go 'we (scientists) know that potentially dangerous global warming is just around the corner, but by continuing to do endless research into the magnitude, side effects, feedbacks etc. etc. (and so further our careers) we are actually just distracting the politicians/public from the key message which is that something needs to be done now to drastically cut emissions. Consequently we should all quit until the world gets it's act in order and starts taking things seriously, which they clearly aren't at the moment'. Anyway, the way the sceptics tell it is much more common (because they have an agenda). and yes actually I am sure there will be a lot more climate scientists now than 20 years ago and they will consquently be spending more tax payers money (their salaries). But that would be the same if it was a real problem or an exagerated one wouldn't it? If it's a real problem then resources are needed, so more jobs for the boys I'm afraid... Anyway, all comes back to integrity, peer review, scientific method etc., any scientist would get really shitty with anyone claiming they are falsifying or exagerating their results, it amounts to accusation of professional misconduct, this is why most won't even bothering to stoop low enough to engage with this one."
127675. canbanjo at 16:57 PM on 7 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        These polls are useful for non scientists, eg the general public, politicians, the press etc to realise that the AGW skeptics are small minority. It shows that a layman skeptic is saying either that they believe that the vast majorty of scientists have got it wrong (without any scientific understanding / basis), or that there is a giant global science conspiracy to make us believe something that isn't true.
127676. Steve L at 14:54 PM on 7 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        And Gallup is an agent for Communism, right? Spin all you want, but remind me never to take anything you write as honest/serious commentary. Here's what I found on Gallup's website: "Results for knowledge of global warming are based on telephone and face-to-face interviews conducted between 2007 and 2008 with about 2,000 adults in most countries (and a sample size range of 500 to 8,256). Results for perceived causes of global warming have a sample size range of 150 to 5,273. Confidence intervals thus vary widely based on the sample sizes of specific groups. However, for the scores for public awareness of global warming, confidence intervals for all countries were always less than ±6 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls."
127677. Mizimi at 05:26 AM on 7 September 2009
        The correlation between CO2 and temperature
        #27...try this... http://chartsgraphs.wordpress.com/2009/08/13/excel-chart-misrepresents-co2-temperature-relationship/
127678. Mizimi at 05:02 AM on 7 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        #16, Steve L....my comment was directed at the 3142 earth scientists, not joe public and perhaps I should have made that clear. What is interesting is that there appear to be no figures for the public...are we talking substantial numbers here or what? According to a certain shampoo manufacturer 9 out 10 women surveyed prefer their product...but when you check the small print they only questioned 300 women. Hardly a good statistical sample. On another note, the European Union didn't like the Irish 'No' response to a referendum. Their reaction? Well you'll have to vote again until you get it right....... What is illuminating is that DESPITE all the political/media/evironmentalist hype there are still (apparently) a large number of people who don't believe in any 'significant' effect.
127679. cce at 03:45 AM on 7 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        The tobacco industry used the exact same arguments to discredit "establishment" studies showing what they and everyone else already knew. It is useful to read this speech from Colin Stokes, then CEO of RJR, introducing Frederick Seitz (he of Oregon Petition fame) in his role as the director of their research program. He repeats industry talking points, each one of them with a direct analog to the arguments posed by so-called AGW skeptics. It's the same game, with higher stakes. http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/29154.html Take, for example, "the American Cancer Society has concentrated its efforts on developing a cancer cure and on claiming that lung cancer would be virtually elminated by the elmination of smoking. We firmly believe that their claims are a dis-service to society in that they discourage people from seeking out the true causes of cancer" "many both inside and outside of the scientific community feel government has proven itself a biased, restrictive sponser." "H-E-W [now HHS] direct study under the preconceived idea that smoking causes cancer, emphysema and cardiovascular disease, and therefore is spending the majority of its anual twenty million dollars in smoking-and-health research money for finding methods of smoking prevention." Now, consider the credibility of these claims: "prominent medical authorities lining up on each side of the arguments" "For every charge that has been made against cigarettes, there has emerged a strong body of scientific data or opinion in defense of the product" "It is not possible ... to distinguish between the lung of a smoker or a nonsmoker" "why do many nonsmokers fall victim to lung cancer, while the disease is never contracted by ninety-eight percent of those so-called heavy smokers who consume a pack-and-a-half a day or more" "One study, for instance, has indicated that light smokers and ex-smokers are less prone to cardiovascular illness than smokers." "There is no medical proof that nonsmokers exposed to cigarette smoke in ordinary relation with smokers suffer any damage." Also, if anyone can point me to a report from the National Academy of Sciences advocating Communism, Eugenics, and Astrology I'd like to see it. And it had better be an authoritative consensus report urging policy action and not the extra-curricular activities of cranks.
127680. Steve L at 03:11 AM on 7 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        Mizimi #9, your complaint about question two makes no sense to me. If the question is unanswerable except by "yes", then why so many "no" responses? If the question is too vague, then why so few "I don't know" responses? It seems to me, given your opinion of the question, that the results are very impressive -- people with the least understanding of the issue (and the least understanding of the caveats you note) think human activities have nothing to do with significant changes in mean global temperatures. Almost 40% of the general public responded "no" versus about 6% "not sure"! This staggering response to a question unanswerable except with "yes" should receive more attention. Thanks for blogging it, John.
127681. Mizimi at 07:45 AM on 6 September 2009
        Climate time lag
        Just a small point Chris...the hypothesis that CRF effects cloud nucleation ( principally at low level) does not require CRF to vary. If you vary WV concentration whilst CRF remains constant you would achieve the same result - a variation in cloud nucleation.
127682. Mizimi at 07:31 AM on 6 September 2009
        It's microsite influences
        An idle thought....we tend to think of 'bad' stations giving higher readings than 'good' stations as they respond to surrounding heat emitters such as buildings. In cold weather the opposite can occur...the 'bad' stations will respond more slowly to increasing T due to the thermal inertia of those same buildings. In other words, the T swing max-min could be greater in the 'bad' stations but dis-appears in the averaging process. So maybe there is an element of self-compensation here which could be determined by looking at more detailed data.
127683. Mizimi at 04:49 AM on 6 September 2009
        Models are unreliable
        #114 "Is it really true that there is a direct causal link between human activities and climate? " Certainly there is. In the same way that vulcanism or other factors have an effect on climate. But the real question is to what extent do human activities affect climate..and that we have yet to quantify. And therein lies another problem; those who wish to control us( for whatever reason) will turn tentative indications into cast iron certainties in order to achieve their purposes..and both sides are equally guilty of this.
127684. Mizimi at 04:30 AM on 6 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        #14 Define sceptical..... "are human activities contributing to global warming?" Most certainly. As do many other processes. To what degree? Now that is the question which we are really debating/trying to quantify. And for me, here begins scepticism. Ask the same scientists if they consider GCM's to realistically model climate in all its complexity and you will likely get an answer along the lines of..." in accordance with our present understanding of..."
127685. NewYorkJ at 01:21 AM on 6 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        Jim Prall has put together a good list (still a work-in progress in some cases) of climate scientists, their number of published studies and citations, and when available, their home pages. The results are pretty similar to the survey mentioned here and is good independent verification. Looking through the list, very few climate scientists and those with significant publications related to climate science are skeptical. http://www.eecg.utoronto.ca/~prall/climate/climate_authors_table_by_clim.html I think this is important work. While we have position statements from dozens of scientific academies and organizations and we see the strong consensus in the peer-reviewed literature, politicians will usually counter with impressive-looking petitions which include "real" people. The impression among some is those scientific organizations are just political and real scientists disagree. Prall's list helps shed some light on this view. One needs to look at the denominator. If the APS has 100 or so skeptical scientists creating a petition claiming their position statement isn't representative, it sounds impressive until you note that the organization has about 50,000 members, and that very few of the 0.2% (likely to grow given the above figures) are climate experts.
127686. NewYorkJ at 00:59 AM on 6 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        Re: #10 Many laypersons have strong opinions on climate change. We don't see this happening in other scientific fields. Most aren't in the habit of arguing vehemently against a technique for heart surgery, or more analogous, slamming a local weather model and the scientists who develop them. I think any issue that has political implication or challenges one's ideology will ultimately generate certain kinds of press coverage and strong negative opinions by those who don't know better. Many have very strong opinions against evolution theory as well. The science on smoking and lung cancer didn't take hold quickly, especially by smokers. Re: #9 It would have been better if more scientists from other continents were represented in the survey, although then we'd have accusations that the survey represents socialists and scientists from developing countries attempting to bring America down, just like that evil IPCC. The list does appear to be mainly limited to those with advanced degrees, which is good. The expert to non-expert ratio is expected. Most scientists aren't climate experts, but this often doesn't stop some from pretending to be, particularly those who would answer "no" to such a question presented. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
127687. thingadonta at 00:23 AM on 6 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        re 9: Mizimi Good points: it is the usual statistical rubbish, re-iterated by those who don't understand that the agenda for research within earth sciences is set by government, which has a stated agenda to support non-industry based research (eg squirrel numbers, coral reef bleaching etc etc), and/or research that doesn’t directly support various industries, (which is supposed to magically train and look after itself). In essence, if you only fund research that is 'outside' of industry by default, you will ensure the development of a generation of researchers who are fundamentally opposed to industry. As for climatologists, there is no private 'climate company' employers, and little funding either if they don't support the academic-consenus opinion/agenda, so what angle do you think they are going to gravitate to?
127688. pdt at 00:05 AM on 6 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        I just remembered, the other argument he mentioned was, "climate has changed before". It was an impressive, if sometimes contradictory list.
127689. pdt at 00:04 AM on 6 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        A couple of anecdotes from yesterday. I was at an airportand chatted with a fellow who brought up climate change after commenting about the odd weather we've been having this summer. The statement went something like, "I don't believe in global warming...", then went on to rattle of "It's cooling", "It's the Sun", "It's water", It's clouds", and maybe one more skeptic argument I can't remember. After overcoming my initial surprise with the rapidity and certainty in his voice, I said I thought we really don't know what is going to happen, but it's certain we are doing an experiment because we are changing CO2 concentrations in a way that has never happened before. We're rolling the dice, but we're doing it for people who aren't even alive to know we're gambling. The topic was politely changed after that and we went eventually went our separate ways. The power and money is heavily weighted towards the status quo and people fear what they see as drastic changes to the way they live. I think it's relatively easy to convince people of something that allows them to feel good about what they have been doing and would like to continue to do. In a separate conversation at the same airport the same day, I heard a person who works in the automotive industry say that that Americans will not buy small cars, they want big SUVs and that we should drill for oil in the U.S. so that we can get gas prices back down to $1/gallon. I wanted to say, but didn't, that we all want to be millionaires too, so let's just start printing money. He also mentioned how he felt president Obama was elected due to the stupidity of voters.
127690. Mizimi at 21:02 PM on 5 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        Have a good read of the survey, it provides some interesting info. 3146 people respomded, 3020 of them from N. America, 126 from the rest of the world. Of the respondents 157 were climatologists. 1390 were in what might be classed related fields. 1599 were in non-related fields ( by inference) Of the specialists, only 79 ( or roughly half) had published more than 50% of their recent peer-reviewed work on climate matters. ( we are not told what considered to be 'recently'.) In addition,question 2 is so vague as to be virtually unanswerable except by a 'yes'. What human activities are we considering? All or some? Just burning FF's or deforestation, changing WV distribution patterns thro agricultural changes and so on? How could you not answer the question with a yes? And what is considered significant? 1% contribution to GMT rise? And over what time span? Decades or centuries? Unimpressed.
127691. Mizimi at 19:31 PM on 5 September 2009
        Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?
        #12 Interesting paper -thanks for the pointer - but I was referring to the UHI effect rather than the overall surface T. IE, I would expect to see urban station results begin to fall as a result of declining economic activity, not rural readings. The fall may not be large (weather patterns have a much greater effect on UHI)but should be discernable. Regarding the overall question..are USA surface stations reliable..it kind of begs the question. Global stations have fallen from over 6000 to just 2600 in a fairly short time period. Notably missing is data from what was the USSR and also China, so that USA data now represents nearly half of what we have...reliable or not. I would not consider the spread of surface data sources to be adequate for GMT calcs and would expect a heavy bias towards the USA climate conditions. Satellite records are somewhat better but restricted time-wise.
127692. NewYorkJ at 11:55 AM on 5 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        "People’s psychology and career motivations today are still the same, and they still reject the sun's influence on climate change for exactly the same reasons." I don't know of a single climate scientist who rejects the Sun's influence on climate change. Contrary to popular belief among certain political circles, climate scientists study many aspects of climate and climate change. Galileo was indeed a pioneering scientist, much like Fourier, Arrhenius, Callendar - scientists discovering Earth's greenhouse effect. Revelle and Suess were also pioneers, discovering that the Earth's oceans would not be able to absorb human-emitted CO2 and much would end up in the atmosphere, adding to the greenhouse effect. Many doubted them at the time. Over the decades that followed, a preponderance of evidence vindicated them and the general consensus was gradually built. Modern-day skeptics often seem to resemble those who insisted on believing that the Sun revolved around the Earth, those with stubborn attachment to the notion that human activities, especially those involving fossil fuels, seen as so vital to economic development in the industrial age, can't possibly be warming the planet. They will not be swayed no matter how strong the evidence is. See post #3 on this thread for a link to Weart's indispensible "The Discovery of Global Warming". "Do you honestly think, that if a politician, researcher, or public service career-minded official has to decide between effects of human activity, or effects of the distant sun, they are going to easily believe an idea which makes the entire basis of their training, self-motivation, and their future career, irrelevant? " When it's a decision between relatively meager government funding with your name blended in with the rest of the crowd, and a $2,500 per day check from Exxon with your name and arguments parroted repeatedly by media outlets, sometimes the decision is not that difficult. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_S._Lindzen#Fossil_Fuel_Interests_Funding There is a huge market for global warming contrarianism. Many folks have a very difficult time believing any scientific idea that might implicate their activities, so they seek out anyone who can tell them there isn't a problem. Credentials or strength of argument don't matter in the least, so fooling this crowd is quite easily done. There are many ready and willing to step up to this task. While denial of evolution is directly religious-based, denial of global warming is more based on a religious-like fear of government. Political and ideological groups, along with entrenched industry interests desperate to protect the status quo, who's going concern is threatened by the science, prey off this fear, spreading false scenarios of economic gloom and doom - claiming that any move away from fossil fuels will cause great calamity to their household. It is a bit of a surprise that the scientific consensus is so strong, since fame and sometimes a bit of fortune await those who argue against the consensus. The incentive is tremendous.
127693. thingadonta at 10:50 AM on 5 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        re 3: “global warming is not a communist/socialist plot where nearly every member of the scientific community (aside from a few contrarian whistleblowers who know better) has compromised their scientific integrity to receive funding and promote their socialist agenda. Then again, maybe the scientific consensus reached on gravity, the Earth being spherical, evolution, crazy claims that smoking causes lung cancer, and the consensus that 9/11 was caused by terrorist hijackers is all bogus". A more pertinent example would be Galileo and the idea of the earth revolving around the sun, rather than the other way around. The reason that Galileo encountered such trouble with the idea that the earth revolved around the sun was not essentially religious, but because people who had devoted their entire lives bringing 'order' to society couldn't handle the idea that the earth, and their place within it, was not at the centre of things. In other words, if the sun was at the centre of the solar system, and we had no control over it, their entire life's motivation, training and purpose, (at least in the field of solar astronomy and importantly at the time-geography), was irrelevant. People’s psychology and career motivations today are still the same, and they still reject the sun's influence on climate change for exactly the same reasons. People within bureaucracies, scientific agencies etc, are trained for their entire careers and lives to bring stability, order and direction to society. They reject notions that the sun has anything to do with climate change because it goes against their entire purpose and training regarding bringing order to the world/society-it also makes them largely irrelevant. They don't like not being at the centre of the universe. 'Consensus' amongst such people/officials is also a very much sought after thing, because it is part of their basic training in bringing order and direction to society. When someone like Galileo comes along who is 'outside' the consensus, it is in the political and social training of such people/officials to routinely dismiss such ideas and indeed work against them, because it goes against their entire training and life purpose, and indeed upsets the social(ist) order and relegates the self-importance of various officials to irrelevance. Do you honestly think, that if a politician, researcher, or public service career-minded official has to decide between effects of human activity, or effects of the distant sun, they are going to easily believe an idea which makes the entire basis of their training, self-motivation, and their future career, irrelevant? This is the reason there was so much trouble with the sun and Galileo-do you think people have really changed that much since then?
127694. NewYorkJ at 10:42 AM on 5 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        Re: #5 Fun with analogies...Astrology is to astronomy as global warming contrarianism (in its typical form) is to climate science. Both rely often on appeals to emotion and dubious philosophy rather than objective scientific study. Take for example "people's behaviour now controls the heavens." Certain folks are skeptical of global warming for the basic emotive reason that it's inconceivable that us insignificant humans could possibly have an effect on something as large as the Earth's climate. Only God, or "the heavens", can control that. It's arrogant to think otherwise. Such misconceptions are often based on religious beliefs. There are a myriad of other fallacies that are pervasive in global warming skeptic circles, things like: - CO2 is too small a part of the atmosphere to possibly have an effect. - Climate change happened in the past naturally. Therefore, recent climate change cannot be human caused. - It's cold in my city this month. Global warming isn't happening. Now when we look at the beliefs of contrarians, they often appear open-minded. And indeed, they are quite open-minded to various natural explanations of global warming, be it the Sun, cosmic rays, ENSO, underseas volcanoes, or benthic bacteria (provided someone they trust doesn't inform them that the latter was an amusing hoax). However, when the thought of human activities, particular ones that implicate fossil fuels and possibly implies concerted government action to mitigate, enters the picture, there becomes a zealous-like devotion towards discrediting the science. I'm afraid these individuals many years from now will be looked upon as those who still to this day latch on to creationism, those who hung on to the belief that the Sun must revolve around the Earth, and smokers and their industry counterparts who vehemently denied the harmful health effects of their activities. There is a very positive role for healthy skeptism. What we often see on scientific topics that have political implications or challenge one's ideology is skeptism that is anything but healthy. I just hope that scientific skeptism in general has not been permanently damaged in the public eye.
127695. thingadonta at 10:11 AM on 5 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        re 3: "Why would anyone want to study astronomy, when humans didn't have anything to do with the creation of the universe? Climate change is a very interesting area of research, regardless of cause". It is interesting that the original reasons astronomy was studied was probably religious, and ultimately descended into controlling people (astrology). The astronomers couldn't handle just looking at the stars for knowledge sake, no, they had to impose a religious fundamentalism on the people, ie astrology. Astrology was an attempt to impose their supposed objective knowledge on people, to explain peoples behaviour (and everything else) on the movements of the stars. These 'explanations' weren't about objecive knowledge, it was about furthering their own political agenda, self-interests and self-importance, also based on innate tendancies to control other people. It was an early form of socialist determinism. AGW could be the same thing, but in reverse. Instead of the heavens controlling people's behaviour, people's behaviour now controls the heavens. AGW could be argued to be the 21st century version of Babylonian astrology. Maybe in a few thousand years AGW will be on the back of newspapers for fruitcakes, just like astrology now. As for your second point, yes climate change is mildly interesting, but I fear the researchers are not being fair to the actual data, or the history of the planet.
127696. thingadonta at 10:05 AM on 5 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        re response to 1: "The same reason any scientist gets into science. The love of knowledge. Curiosity. The challenge of furthering our understanding of how the universe works". Yes, but it is only half the story. Here are some other reasons people get into science. A career. Getting paid. Having a secure career and family life. Imposing knowledge on other people and other cultures. Controlling other people through superior access to knowlege and resources. To find God's order in the universe. To find chaos in the universe. To serve God. To avoid serving God. Getting into politics. To avoid getting into politics. Avoiding religious fundamentalism. To get into religious fundamentalism. Starting a knowledge-based cult. Satisfying inborn desires to control other people. Imperialism through knowledge and culture rather than military invasion. Getting a job which is not subject to market forces. Because one can't handle business or other people. Getting into the public service. Because one failed at religion, society, or business. To flee totalitarianism. To further ones political interests. Etc Etc. It's not all objective curiosity.
127697. NewYorkJ at 05:39 AM on 5 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        So the Heartland Institute, a political organization that has also been in the business of disputing smoking's link to lung cancer, is pretending to speak for science. One clear difference between a Heartland Institute "conference" and a real scientific conference (such as AGU, IPCC) is that the Heartland Institute has already decided on what they want the science to say, and seeks to gather like-minded individuals to support their political agenda - those who will effectively push non-peer-reviewed ideas and ignore the overwhelming evidence against their views. Matt Andrews, "To me, the issue is not that the general public are at odds with scientific opinion; in Australia, at least, support for strong climate action is very high indeed. The discrepancy lies in the arena of politics and media commentary, where rates of climate denial appear to be much higher than in the broader community (and among the scientists). " And the media and politicians tend to have a strong influence on public opinion. Thus, the discrepancy between the scientific community and the general public (at least in the U.S.). thingadonta, "But skeptics don't care a less about the latest 'opinion poll' amongst researchers," Correct. They tend to care much more about the latest opinion poll of the general public, as that is generally their target audience. As for the rest of your post, I refer you to: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/ Despite the push of this notion in certain extreme political circles, global warming is not a communist/socialist plot where nearly every member of the scientific community (aside from a few contrarian whistleblowers who know better) has compromised their scientific integrity to receive funding and promote their socialist agenda. Then again, maybe the scientific consensus reached on gravity, the Earth being spherical, evolution, crazy claims that smoking causes lung cancer, and the consensus that 9/11 was caused by terrorist hijackers is all bogus. Those with certain anti-government and political or religious agendas all know better (or knew better at one time). "Why would anyone want to study climate change for long peiods if you don't believe humans have anything to do with it in the first place? (you would also have to put up with alot of people who you don't agree with, for one thing). " Odd logic. Why would anyone want to study astronomy, when humans didn't have anything to do with the creation of the universe? Climate change is a very interesting area of research, regardless of cause.
127698. Matt Andrews at 01:10 AM on 5 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        Er... moving right along (and back to reality), it's notable that the Gallup poll used for the "general public" figure above is from the US. The US ranked lowest, and by far the lowest of major economies, in a survey of 18,578 people in 19 countries on levels of concern over climate change. To me, the issue is not that the general public are at odds with scientific opinion; in Australia, at least, support for strong climate action is very high indeed. The discrepancy lies in the arena of politics and media commentary, where rates of climate denial appear to be much higher than in the broader community (and among the scientists).
127699. thingadonta at 19:48 PM on 4 September 2009
        The growing divide between climate scientists and public opinion
        A few points on the above discussion: It doesn't matter tuppence whether an entire research field is 100% in agreement, that research field can, and often does, have vested interests to promote a particular view. People who differ from the mainstream within such fields can easily be weeded out through human politics, (if not just through them just leaving research because they don't agree/dont have vested interests), not data. Science, like any other human activity, is subject to politics, self- interest, unconscious bias, and distortion. High levels of agreement can be a sign that things are WRONG/CORRUPT within the field, not the other way around. Why would anyone want to study climate change for long peiods if you don't believe humans have anything to do with it in the first place? (you would also have to put up with alot of people who you don't agree with, for one thing). Another issue is that people who stay for long periods within certain reearch fields (eg >5 years) tend to agree with it in the first place. The level of 'consensus' within such fields is subject to selection bias and can therefore be pretty meaningless. I'm sure fields like homeopathy, to take one extreme non-mainstream example, could get '100% agreement' on the effects of diluted water, if somebody really wanted to do a survey, because nobody who researches within it, and who 'excels' at it over a number of years and commits their life to it and doesnt leave (eg for >5 years), would be against it by this time, almost by default. If you think this argument doesnt apply to peer-reviewed mainstream research, look at the banks and financial industry in the early 2000s. Financial modellers, with vested interests, in promoting a particular view/perspective, managed to gamble and steal away billions of dollars of both banks and people's money, and almost took entire societies to ruin, based on 'consensus' models and politics widespread throughout the financial community. Anyone who saw through the distortions, within the financial community, would not have been eg promoted, would not have received ridiculous bonuses, and was 'weeded' out of the banking hierarchy, even though they were essentially right. It was in the financial modellers' interest to promote a certain angle, and if you did surveys of the financial community regarding various finanical products and practices in the early 2000s, you would have got much the same results as you give above. And they were all basically wrong, because of human politics, distortion, and self interest. Academia is not some panacea free of human politics to sort out human societies, as you seem to think. People don't tend to study certain research fields unless they have a particular vested interest/political view to begin with. Here are just a few ideas/models which have largely come out of 'consensus' fields within academia (going back thousands of years in some cases), or more specifically, from 'radical intellectualism' (typically socialist) within academia: -Communism (socialist-determinist economics) (see books by Richard Pipes) -Eugenics (socialist-determinist race, biology) -Astrology (socialist-determinist astronomy) -AGW? (socialist-determinist climate and energy). The last is debatable. But skeptics don't care a less about the latest 'opinion poll' amongst researchers, any more than a political party's internal review of 'commitment to the party', or some self-appoined dictator's rigged election result.
        Response: "Why would anyone want to study climate change for long peiods if you don't believe humans have anything to do with it?" The same reason I got into astrophysics and it had nothing to do with vested interests or political views. The same reason any scientist gets into science. The love of knowledge. Curiosity. The challenge of furthering our understanding of how the universe works.
127700. Former Skeptic at 01:10 AM on 4 September 2009
        Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?
        @Mizimi: Your question has been answered recently. Economic activity and influence of the anthro heat flux on the surface T record was hugely overstated by two papers (de Laat and Maurellis, 2006; McKitrick and Michaels, 2007). Please see this paper showing that such a relation between economic activity and surface temp is spurious.

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