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Tom13 at 00:04 AM on 28 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
#24 eclectic
(A) in April 2015 : "Recent data and research supports the importance of natural climate variability and calls into question the conclusion that humans are the dominant cause of recent climate change" (unquote)
A reasonable acknowledgement that natural causes play a significant role (perhaps dominant role ) in climate change - to deny otherwise is anti science.
(B) also in 2015 at a Congressional hearing, she stated about the global warming [of the past 200 years] : "And that's not human" (unquote)
Do you have a citation and the full statement - the 4 word quote ilacks the full context of her statement.
(C) in 2014 speaking at the National Press Club : "We just don't know [what's going to happen]. I think we are fooling ourselves to think that CO2 control knob really influences climate on these decadal or even century time scales." (unquote)
A reasonable acknowledgement that Co2 may not play the dominant role which is consistent with the earth's past history. Note that not once does her statement say that CO2 is not a factor.
(D) in November 2015 [please specially note this very recent date, Randman] she supported the existence of the so-called hiatus or pause : "global average surface temperature ... has shown little or no warming during the 21st century" (unquote)
Based on the scientific data available at that time, this is a reasonably accurate statement. While the 2015/2016 el nino started in early summer of 2015, the data showing showing a more than a little warming since 1998 wasnt strong until very early 2016.
(E) in 2011, she supported Murry Salby's crazy/nonsensical "hypothesis" that oceanic-origin CO2 is the real cause of our modern rapid Global Warming.
Ths statement seems completely out of context with her other statements and writings. J curry has repeatedly stated that the oceans play a key role in climate change and has repeatedly stated that OHC will play a huge role future climate change, including the build up of ohc.
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Eclectic at 20:59 PM on 27 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Randman @22 , about your quote: "she was" (unquote)
She was . . . what? What are you talking about? Please be precise! Readers here don't wish to bother second-guessing what you intend to mean.
Regarding Judith Curry :- the sources are her own comments :
(A) in April 2015 : "Recent data and research supports the importance of natural climate variability and calls into question the conclusion that humans are the dominant cause of recent climate change" (unquote)
(B) also in 2015 at a Congressional hearing, she stated about the global warming [of the past 200 years] : "And that's not human" (unquote)
(C) in 2014 speaking at the National Press Club : "We just don't know [what's going to happen]. I think we are fooling ourselves to think that CO2 control knob really influences climate on these decadal or even century time scales." (unquote)
(D) in November 2015 [please specially note this very recent date, Randman] she supported the existence of the so-called hiatus or pause : "global average surface temperature ... has shown little or no warming during the 21st century" (unquote)
(E) in 2011, she supported Murry Salby's crazy/nonsensical "hypothesis" that oceanic-origin CO2 is the real cause of our modern rapid Global Warming.
Now, Randman, consider each of the above 5 statements. If you yourself had issued them, then it would be evidence that you were grossly ignorant about climate science. If they had been made by a scientist (a scientist not specializing in climate related matters), then that would count as intellectual dishonesty. Issued by a climatologist, that would rise to the level of gross intellectual dishonesty.
Individually, each of the above statements cannot be justified, for they are individually & severally false and/or misleading. Randman, I could add others to the list . . . but (to paraphrase an Einstein quote) :- "It only takes one" !
$$$$$$$
Randman, I do not in any way suggest that Curry receives money illegally from the Oil industry & other anti-science propagandists. Arguably, what money or other benefits she receives from such groups is immoral but not illegal.
~ In 2006, Judith Curry [climatologist] and Peter Webster [meteorologist] set up a private company "Climate Forecast Applications Network". Judith Curry is President (not an unpaid job, I gather!). Curry herself said (in an interview with Scientific American) : "I do receive some funding from the fossil fuel industry ... [per my company] since 2007." (unquote). Please note, Randman, that that sort of thing is not illegal — it is simply one of the many ways that the Oil industry slush funds operate.
Perhaps you are innocently unaware, Randman, that the fossil fuel industry slush fund money percolates all around the place. [Though I had to laugh when I saw that Peabody Energy's filing for bankruptcy in 2016 had "stiffed" the prominent science-denier Richard Lindzen, for a USD$25,000 "consultancy fee" that they owed him — though I don't know whether that $25,000 was a one-off or an annual stipend.] Stipends, expenses, etc are paid in various ways — sometimes by "sinecure" payments, sometimes by propaganda "fronts" like Heartland or GWPF, sometimes by other under-the-counter indirect methods e.g. payments to a company (not to the individual).
As to other benefits [in non-monetary form, not in cash] there are the examples of Curry appearing at least three times in front of Congressional-level hearings. I am sure that even you, Randman, are not so naive as to believe that Curry paid for travel accommodation & incidental expenses, out of her own purse — if you act as a prominent stooge for Big Corporations, then they look after you in the premium style. That's just the way the business world is, Randman. (But it's not in any way illegal for her to be on the Big Oil teat.) And then there's the purely psychological benefits she receives — definitely an ego boost for a mediocre climate scientist, to appear (and often) in the national Congressional limelight (etc).
Then there are other benefits in cash e.g. in January and February this year [her academic retirement onto a teacher's pension, being at the end of December 2016] Judith Curry authored two reports, one for Koch Brothers and one for the British propaganda machine GWPF. I don't know whether she was paid directly into her personal account or indirectly via her CFAN company, or by other means — but it would have been a generous*-sized benefit. Again, not illegal — but of doubtful morality. ( *Randman, it is extremely difficult for denialism-pushing Big Corporations to find any scientist with more than a shred of repectability/reputation who can be relied on as a stooge who will play the "Doubt & Uncertainty" game, in the face of all the overwhelming evidence that proves "D&U" is unjustified/dishonest.)
In Summary :
So, all in all, Randman, your own phrasing: "her scientific reasoning is dishonest, biased and she is funded by the oil companies" . . . is a fairly good summation of the situation.
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Glenn Tamblyn at 18:33 PM on 27 September 2017Remembering our dear friend Andy Skuce
David
Thank you for this. That strongly matches the Andy we knew, often only online. He seems to have been that rare individual. Professional and very human (and humane). We will miss him. -
Rbrooks502 at 17:56 PM on 27 September 2017Correcting Warren Meyer on Forbes
Thank you Tom
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MA Rodger at 16:52 PM on 27 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
randman @514.
Let us stick with your ill-advised assertion that in June 1988 Hansen "told Congress 59 degrees was the mean for the years between 1950-1980." Let us deal with one-tree-at-a-time in your little forest of dodgy quotes.
In that regard, @514 you claim of me and my rebutal: "So far you've provided no facts or sources to counter this except your own incredulity." Are you having a laugh? @512 you dismissed the documentation provided @501/511 by insisting the Q&As at that 1988 Senate Hearing were missing but required (when they are not required) any insisting this missing aspect of the Senate Hearing had already been highlighted by you (although I see no evidence of such prior comment up-thread). And now you attempt to ignore the link I provide to the full documentation @513 (complete with Q&As). What is your problem? Can you not see that link? Because I'm sure everybody else can!!
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nigelj at 14:30 PM on 27 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Randman @22
"Eclectic, she was. Please cite your source for your defamation of her character in claiming her scientific reasoning is dishonest, biased and she is funded by the oil companies."
I'm sure Eclectic can answer for himself, but I just cannot see where he claimed or implied Curry was dishonest or biased as such. I just wonder where you get off thinking you can really blatantly shove words in peoples mouths like that?
Judith Currie has actually recieved funding from fossil fuel companies according to these sources, including scientific american:
www.desmogblog.com/judith-curry
www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Judith_Curry#Fossil_fuel_industry_funding
Currie claims it hasn't influenced her. Yeah well ha ha I draw my own conclusions.
Curry is more climate sceptic than anything these days, constantly expressing somewhat vague doubts about the IPCC and whether we can be sure of anything. Its all utterly confusing, not really backed up with anything specific, and thus unhelpful. Refer her wikipedia entry. People can join the dots and reach their own conclusions.
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randman at 11:57 AM on 27 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
THe NYTs said he told Congress 59 degrees was the mean for the years between 1950-1980. Other media reported he claimed that as well, and in 1992, media reported Jones said the same thing.
And in 1981 in Hansen's paper, the mean he used for those years was roughly 59 degrees.
So far you've provided no facts or sources to counter this except your own incredulity. Where are your sources? I have provided mine.Moderator Response:[JH] Excessive repetiton and false claims snipped.
Either respond specifically to MA Rodger's #513 post or cease posting on this topic.
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randman at 11:54 AM on 27 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Eclectic, she was. Please cite your source for your defamation of her character in claiming her scientific reasoning is dishonest, biased and she is funded by the oil companies.
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Eclectic at 10:20 AM on 27 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Philippe Chantreau @15 , please accept my vote of admiration for your well-expressed comments in post #15.
~ I have also printed off a copy of your similarly excellent post #20 in the "Al Gore got it wrong" thread. (Not yet gotten around to framing it and hanging it on the living room wall, though!)
Who says that Science and the Literary Arts cannot be combined !
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Eclectic at 10:06 AM on 27 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Randman @16 , you are very wrong if you think that Judith Curry is a proponent* of AGW.
Judith Curry receives considerable benefits from slush funds (from Oil corporations) as a separate matter from her regular retirement income. She is, in effect, a paid opponent of mainstream science. Please read her blog more carefully (as well as her other public comments) and you will see that she bends over backwards to give people the impression that AGW does not exist or only exists to a negligible degree.
She was a climate scientist in the 1990's , but in more recent years she has slid into an anti-science role. So, it's more accurate to consider her an "ex-scientist".
[ * here you convey your meaning adequately, but your actual use of the word "proponent" is incorrect IMO. There have been no proponents of AGW for about 20 years now (since AGW became a well-accepted & well-proven part of mainstream physical science).
~ An analogous case is the Round Earth situation : for several centuries now, there have been no "proponents" of the Round Earth, because the Round Earth is accepted & proven mainstream physical science. Yes, there are "opponents" (called Flat-Earthers) but there are no "proponents", since the Round Earth is well past the stage of being a "proposed" matter.
Randman : sloppy use of words tends to produce sloppy thinking. Please aim for precision!
The concept AGW is distinct from the concept of "proposing" action to tackle the AGW problem. ]
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nigelj at 06:56 AM on 27 September 2017Potholer on the 1.5C carbon budget paper controversy
HK @1, I think you are taking the worst case basing temperatures against 1880 base line? I think the Miller study is based on taking 20th century as a baseline so temperatures are about 1 degree C above that.
However its hard work either way, but we should still try to do our best to reduce emissions. At this stage any reasonable reduction could help to at least reduce risks, and stop getting up into territory where things get really unstable.
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nigelj at 06:50 AM on 27 September 2017Potholer on the 1.5C carbon budget paper controversy
I agree the denialists have got things wrong here in several respects. No surprise there.
But on another matter and I might be wrong on this but looking at discussion of the Miller study on realclimate.org I get the impression it is simply an over optimistic study on how much we can burn. Not wrong just too optimistic. They base it on hadcrut temperature data which shows the least warming and this is criticised for leaving out arctic temperatures, so I'm not sure why they select that study, and their accounting for carbon budgets seems over optimistic and a bit impenetrable.
There is also an element of nit picking maths. Arguing about exact quantities is a waste of energy. It's obvious more cuts are needed than currently being implemented, and a slightly bigger budget doesn't change this.
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MA Rodger at 06:45 AM on 27 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
randman @512,
You are entirely incorrect to state of the link I provided @501 and again @511 "that's not a transcript from that session." It is indeed a transcript. It is however not a transcript of the complete session. Being so, you are correct that it does not include the "question and answer part" of the session but if it had, my comment would have remained the same "Nowhere does Hansen ever report to that 1988 Senate Committee, either in writing or verbally, that there was an average global temperature of '59 degrees Fahrenheit'. Nowhere!" Perhaps you would care to check this by examining the transcript of the full session (which rather inconvenietly is somewhat longer than the part-transcript previously linked containing the relevant bit of Hansen's testiment.) This particular 'tree' within your 'forest' of unreliable quotes is as worthless in establishing your bold assertions as all the other 'trees'. I recommend you re-visit my comment @501 and consider each point in turn rather than ignoring them. Do note that the last does present irrefutable evidence which does actually make a complete nonsense of the bold assertions you have been making down this thread. (I even added a trace from Hansen et al (1981), just in case you start-up insisting that your 'randman event' was enacted on global temperature records prior to 1987.)
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Tom Dayton at 06:42 AM on 27 September 2017Correcting Warren Meyer on Forbes
Rbrooks502: Novak’s first article you linked is all over the place, and is vague and ambiguous, so even dealing with only that one article first unfortunately will not let you stay linear in your research. There are too many misconceptions there for me to deal with all of them at once, but here is a starting set. SkS appreciates your attempt to deal with one topic at a time, so though I’ll list here several relevant posts, please focus on only one of them first (any one). Please make further comments on these specific topics on these listed threads, not here.
- Novak’s claims that there already is so much CO2 in the atmosphere that adding more won’t matter, and that scientists are wrong/crazy/stupid in explaining that what’s important happens high in the atmosphere:
- Read the analogy of the greenhouse effect as a stack of blankets.
- Then read "Is the CO2 Effect Saturated?." Read the Basic tabbed pane, then watch the video there, then read the Intermediate tabbed pane, then the Advanced tabbed pane.
- Then read Eli Rabbett’s explanation.
- Then read RealClimate’s “A Saturated Gassy Argument” Part 1.
- Then read Part 2.
- Then play with this U. of Colorado PhET simulation.
- Then Stoat's simple explanation of the greenhouse effect.
- Then Science of Doom’s slightly less simple explanation of the Greenhouse Effect.
- Then V. Ramanthan’s Trace-Gas Greenhouse Effect and Global Warming.
- Novak’s claim that “water vapor will swamp whatever CO2 does.”
- “Explaining How the Water Vapor Greenhouse Effect Works.” Read the Basic tabbed pane, then watch the video, then read the Intermediate tabbed pane.
- If you want technical detail, see Science of Doom’s series on Clouds and Water Vapor, but remember that clouds are liquid water, not vapor.
- Novak’s claim in the last paragraph that “ice age” (really glacial cycles within an ice age) are not affected by CO2:
- First read “Milankovitch Cycles”
- Then read the multipart series that begins "The Last Interglacial - An Analogue for the Future?"
- Then "What Influence Do Underground Temperatures Have on Climate?"
- Then watch the excellent lecture “The Biggest Control Knob: Carbon Dioxide in Earth’s Climate History”
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Rob Honeycutt at 06:30 AM on 27 September 2017Correcting Warren Meyer on Forbes
Rbrooks... If you apply this to issues that haven't been sufficiently researched, you usually end up with the wrong answer, and that's not science. The conclusion that the earth is flat is, and never was, a claim based in science. It was science which revealed the truth to us.
I'm curious why you would want to start from Novak's paper? There is nothing, on the surface, that suggests the paper is credible. I've not read it yet so I don't know for sure, but what I do know is this:
1) The source is suspicious. "lasersparkpluginc.com" somehow doesn't suggest to me this is coming from a reliable source.
2) This is not a published paper and therefore likely it's not peer reviewed.
3) The subtitle straight up rejects what has been established science for over 100 years: "There is no Valid Mechanism for CO2 Creating Global Warming"
Honestly, don't you think it would be more reasonable to start from work that is well established and thoroughly reviewed by leading experts around the world? I mean, if a student wants to learn about the planets in our solar system we don't start by trying to teach them the earth is flat. Right?
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nigelj at 06:27 AM on 27 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Randman @16
"knaugle, if the NYTs and Washington Post get high marks on their facts, something is wrong with the rating group, at least if that concerns politics. '
Can you please provide something specific to back up your vague rhetorical allegations. Nothing is wrong. Several reviews by various groups find these publications more accurate than others. This should be telling you something, namely they just are more accurate and so get their basic facts right better.
"On global warming, I think they generally just report what the various agencies put out. So maybe they are better on that."
Thats their job, to report on what the agencies say.
"But there should be more reporting on skeptic's arguments, some of whom like Judith Curry were proponents of AGW and maybe still are for AGW-lite or somehing."
Why? I dont think more reporting is required. The mainstream media already report sceptics arguments and in my view give them too much and disproportionate attention sometimes in a fake 50 / 50 balance. Numerous polls like the Cook study show over 90% of climate scientists think we are warming the climate, so the media should devote most attention to the 90% not the few dissenting voices many of which are funded by vested interests. And some of their claims are just nonsensical in the realms of flat earthers, so why report on that? Just having a view is not a reason for media being obliged to report it.
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nigelj at 06:16 AM on 27 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Tom13 @12
"This is supposed to be a science blog - are you stating the there should be a repeal of the first amendment - Are you saying there should be a "ministry of Truth"?
Yes this is a science blog, but from time to time science intersects with politics and media or economics etc, and these things are worthy of discussion. This is such a case obviously.
Regarding the first amendment on free speech,this only applies to America. Many people commenting here are not Americans.
Anyway the american constitution only says that governments may not pass laws restricting free speech. Private organisations however are allowed to have whatever rules they like.
The supreme court in america has also historically recognised many exceptions to constitutional free speech eg time and place restrictions, defamation law, restrictions on pornography etc. However its fair to say legal restrictions requiring media balance would be unlikely in America.
In my view free speech is very important but principally related to the right to have an opinion, and particularly without government censorship or the like and threats of violence or intimidation, just for expressing a view. It is not a right to shout whatever rubbish we want in any context at all and obviously there are unspoken cultural rules about whats acceptable.
In that respect I dont think the media have the right to print blatant factual inaccuracies, and to be be totally unbalanced especially in smaller countries with just one main media outlet or only a couple. There needs to be a code of practice with some teeth. In america this would have to be self regulating, and not law as such given their constitution, but in other countries there are often legal provisions. It's obviously a balancing act between freedom of expression, and commonsense limits. Websites usually have some form of sensible moderation with a few limited rules against personal abuse, off topic political ranting, threats etc. They do need to be just a few rules, and not excessive. This reduces clutter, and issues becoming clouded with emotion. Only morons and angry people have a problem with this. Its not rocket science.
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nigelj at 05:36 AM on 27 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Eclectic @8, I suspect you are right about all of that sadly to say. I spent a year as a quality assurance manager for a corporate, so you can see where I'm coming from. We can dream and idealise a bit, its healthy and nothing will change without that.
My country actually came close to a really good media code with some teeth, it just fell a couple of votes short in parliament. They probably caved in to the lobbyists. Lobbying has overtaken and wrecked politics, its out of control with a disproportionate influence now.
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randman at 05:10 AM on 27 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
MA Rodger, that's not a transcript from that session. Note how it does not include the question and answer part. Already informed you of this once, btw.
The fact we see Hansen and Jones and others quoted by media in the years 1988-1991 or 1992 all using 59 degrees as the mean lends credence to the NYTs quote you diagree with being valid and not a misquote. The mean of 59 degrees in Hansen's 1988 paper does the same.Moderator Response:[DB] Inflammatory and sloganeering snipped.
[JH] You are also skating on the thin ice of excessive repetition which is prohibited by the SkS Comments Poilicy.
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randman at 05:04 AM on 27 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
knaugle, if the NYTs and Washington Post get high marks on their facts, something is wrong with the rating group, at least if that concerns politics. On global warming, I think they generally just report what the various agencies put out. So maybe they are better on that.
But there should be more reporting on skeptic's arguments, some of whom like Judith Curry were proponents of AGW and maybe still are for AGW-lite or somehing. -
Potholer on the 1.5C carbon budget paper controversy
With the warming since preindustrial quickly approaching 1.2C, it will be almost impossible to limit the warming to 1.5 C!
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Rbrooks502 at 03:50 AM on 27 September 2017Correcting Warren Meyer on Forbes
I searched the website for an article by Gary Novak and came up empty. Self proclaimed Independent Scientist. Over the past 72 hours I read several papers and articles both for and against. Articles from NASA, the above mentioned "It's the Sun", reports from the Sierra Club, Lomborg.com, Naturalnews.com, the IPCC, EPA, David Biello of Scientific America and Yale, as well as others. I would like to see the response regarding Gary Novak's paper listed below. There are two links regariding his work.
Honeycutt @43 You are right regarding Neil DeGrasse Tyson.
"The great thing about science is, it's true whether or not you believe it." But since we are talking about a constant influence of a new set of eyes, Science will show that this statement was wrong. If he had said this back in 1100 AD, 1400 AD, 1600 AD, and virtually any other time we would see that Science has been proven wrong consistantly. After all, the earth is not flat, and the earth is not the center of the universe. Science's job is to evolve and get smarter if you will. It is not to take hard black and white stances that can not see further than the current technologies or limited modelling. So here is Novak's work.I also discovered that looking at the list of papers by Biello over the last 10 years or so, and overlaying it on the data that I have consumed both here and other locations, it would appear that we are too late, and if the EIA is correct looking towards 2040, we should expect that we are screwed anyway based on thier findings. So should I pack my bags and move to the south pole with a bag of seeds?
I dont think I will look into this further, I would like to find the measureing sites that are used to CO2 for example as well as looking at the math. So far it is only cursory in my searches but I am held to the thought that if someone like myself who is novice and enters into this line of research, wouldnt it be wiser to be less derogitory to us and more instead be more supportive and offer more solutions than the Paris Accords. Solutions that are not only logical but are cost effective and motivator skeptics like myself to get on board with your agenda. For me, you have to walk us through the science better and more convincingly.
The last charts that I could find for example regarding what countries are producing what in terms of CO2 date back to 2009. Almost a decade old. Along with that is this logic that seems to permeate the research saying that we contributed 336 million tons CO2 from 2000-2006. Making it 1/3 of the maximum amount that we can produce up to 2030 when we must show a reversal. Meaning that if 2007-2013 represents another 1/3 of the maximum amount, and again from 2014-2020, we are just 2 years away from being screwed anyway. Witht that being said, Biello's report show that we are just not going to make the cut off regardless of what we do now short of turning off virtually all polluting products like trucks, cars, farming equipment, concrete manufacturers etc.
So allow me to take you up on your offer regarding the challenge of me being willing to learn. Can we start with Novak's articles and move forward from there so that I can stay linear in my research.
Moderator Response:[DB] Your links were breaking the format of the page in width. I have shortened them for you. Please learn to do this yourself with the link tool.
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Philippe Chantreau at 03:48 AM on 27 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Way to use words Tom13. This thread is about the use, or abuse, of information, and dissemination of information that concerns an area of science, so OPOF comment is not inappropriate. Some nations have had a ministry of propaganda, using the same methods as the Mail, which have been found to be condemnable. Would that be better?
Talking about that, I like Robert Lustig's definitions: Putting forth favorable descriptions of anything using actual facts would qualify as marketing. Doing so with false information, or in blatant disregard of actual facts, is called propaganda. The ability to spew propaganda without any adverse consequence is a far cry from free speech. We're talking about lies, misinformation, misrepresentation, deception, dissimulation, all used for the purpose of advancing one's short term financial interest at the expense of pretty much everything else. That kind of propaganda does not deserve the protection of free speech. Free speech is intended to protect people from tyranny, not screw them with lies.
Of course, in the US, the very definition of facts and what is a lie has been wringed to death, and one can have an endless argument over what fact is out of context, what constitutes a lie, etc, etc. So lies could take center stage, boosted by the enormous financial means of their backers, under the full protection of free speech, and the liers laughed all the way to the bank. That's a perverted system.
There is a valid argument to be made that the liers deprived others of their right to free speech by drowning the entire scene with their message; that left no room and no attention span from the masses for anything else.
It's not free speech that we had. It was for pay speech, and it quickly got expensive, allowing only a certain class to be heard on a large scale. The right to free speech became the right to shout louder than everybody else. The whole enterprise was made easier by the dismal state of education, which does very little to teach the functioning of institutions, and even less to train citizens to recognize mind manipulation methods.
I'm talking in the past because now everything has been thrown into a whole new world by the internet and social media. Anything goes, there is no absolute value of information, and no relative value either. The disconnection from reality is almost complete; the noise and frantic turnover drown virtually anything. A good system of troll farms can make it look like a great number of people adhere to some ideas, even if that is a complete fabrication. The emotional impact of internet bursts is always far above any correction realized afterwards, just like people remember the headlines but never see the errata in the papers. This is well understood by the clever users of the system, who have fostered the collapse of journalistic standards.
The risk/benefit analysis of well protected free speech was not even given time to pan out on the long term, it has now entered a phase that none the thinkers who crafted it could have imagined. We'll see what happens next. Don't be too confident that you'll enjoy it.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:35 AM on 27 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Tom13,
This is a blog about increasing the awareness and understanding of climate science. It includes many OPs related to the challenge of doing hat because of how easy it is for misrepresentation of information to be 'popular' and how that misleading promotion of the popularity of unjustified beliefs is motivated by Private Interest in maximizing personal benefit any way that can be gotten away with. This specific item is exactly that type of item."So the popularity and profitability of unethical unjustified Free Speech in pursuit of personal benefit contrary to the Public Interest is what needs to be restricted. People cannot be allowed to 'believe whatever they want to excuse what they want to get away with doing'."
That is how I ended my comment, For Good Reason.
The unethical pursuit of personal benefit from unrestricted pursuits of unjustified popularity and profitability (and unjustified making up of laws or selective distorted enforcement of laws by unethical Winners of the power to do such things) must not be able to be successfully excused. Claiming that such restrictions are contrary to 'Free Speech' is a Poor Excuse.
All Science is about increasing awareness and better understanding what is going on. The ability to propagandize dogma based beliefs that are harmful to the public interests are undeniably a threat to the Public Interest, a threat to the future of humanity. That should be a new Amendment clarification of the First Amendment in the USA with similar changes made to clarify the Fundamental Proper Ethical Basis of Rule of Law everywhere.
If that better understanding had been globally clarified earlier there would be little need for a website like this one.
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knaugle at 02:49 AM on 27 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
#3 Randman
Well, one source I've found when talking about media reporting is the Media Bias/Fact Check site. Compare and contrast the London Daily Mail and the NY Times:
Media Bias Fact Check - Daily Mail
Media Bias Fact Check - NY Times
As can be seen, the Mail is right biased and has a mixed record on its facts, while the NY Times and Wash. Post are center-left and get high marks for their facts. Big difference.
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Tom13 at 01:37 AM on 27 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
#11 - One planet -
So the popularity and profitability of unethical unjustified Free Speech in pursuit of personal benefit contrary to the Public Interest is what needs to be restricted. People cannot be allowed to 'believe whatever they want to excuse what they want to get away with doing'.
This is supposed to be a science blog - are you stating the there should be a repeal of the first amendment - Are you saying there should be a "ministry of Truth"?
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:25 AM on 27 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Expanding on my original comment, and responding to the discussions regarding Free Speech:
More advanced societies develop Regulation or Professionalization of activity that is 'learned/discovered' to have significant potential for 'Harm because of a less/improperly informed Public'. Some people may see the potential to get away with personal benefit from behaviour that is not in the Public Interest. It becomes understood that the Public Interest is served by having constraints on those activities.
As John Stuart Mill warned in “On Liberty” ... “If society lets a considerable number of its members grow up mere children, incapable of being acted on by rational consideration of distant motives, society has itself to blame for the consequences.”
It is now undeniable that the 'easy to make popular and profitable (easy ways to Win, at least temporarily) development and delivery of misleading information' has massive potential to harm the Public Interests, especially if Public Interest is understood to include the sustainable improvement of the future of all humanity as it should be (Tabloid Rags are no longer restricted to the 'relatively inconsequential to the future of humanity' invading the privacy of, and damaging the lives of, selected/targeted Celebrities who now have some legal power in some nations to penalize such callous pursuits of advertising revenue).
My preference would be for the Independent Press Standards Organization to be the self regulating body overseeing the actions of Professional Press. The Government would be an observer with the responsibility and power to remove members of IPSO who can be proven to not have been responsibly overseeing the actions of the IPSO members, not properly protecting the public interest.
The Canadian Professional Engineers are an example of how this would work. Individual engineers can be permitted to practice as well as organizations of multiple engineers and their related support staff. The individuals and the organizations have the responsibility to self-regulate their activity to Protect the Public Interest. The overseeing body has the power to remove the 'permission' of any of its members or organizations to act as engineers or engineering organizations if they are discovered to have deliberately acted contrary to the Public Interest. If what was done by The Mail was discovered to have been done by a Permitted to Practice Engineering Organization the overseeing body would like have censured all of the Professional Engineers involved and removed the Permit to Practice from the Organization for failing to properly monitor and control what happened in their organization. A Professional IPSO would have shut down The Mail.
However, even professional self-regulation can be imperfect, especially in place where private interests gain significant power in public institutions. Like political elections, it is possible for the leadership of a self-regulating profession to be taken over by private interests. At one time the association that oversees engineering in Alberta ended up with a President who declared that the public interest was served by engineers defending and maximizing the profitability of their clients. That individual was swiftly censured by the Responsible Membership, but such actions by responsible membership may not occur. And if the government has been taken over by private interests it would fail to act responsibly. That is when the power of public legal actions exposing unacceptable behaviour could be required.
So the popularity and profitability of unethical unjustified Free Speech in pursuit of personal benefit contrary to the Public Interest is what needs to be restricted. People cannot be allowed to 'believe whatever they want to excuse what they want to get away with doing'.
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citizenschallenge at 23:30 PM on 26 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
For a more detailed look (dissection) of Bate's actual maliciously contrived complaint, might I suggest -
http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/search?q=bates
March 24, 2017
¶1 A look behind the curtain of John Bates’ facade - The John Bates Affairhttp://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2017/03/1-behind-curtain-of-bates-facade.html
¶2 A look behind the curtain of John Bates’ facade - The John Bates Affair
¶3 A look behind the curtain of John Bates’ facade - The John Bates Affair
Looking at how Lamar Smith used Bates:
BatesMotel#4 - US Rep Lamar Smith - Feb 5th Press Release, his NOAA smear campaign dissected.http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2017/02/4usrep-smith-karl15-noaa-dissection.html
BatesMotel#4B - US Rep Lamar Smith - Feb 5th Press Release, his NOAA smear campaign dissected - APPENDIX
The real question is how to expose and shame the GOP's dependence on out and out lies and libel and slander to continue their outrageous denial of geophysical reality. There the real question is how to wake up all those rational liberal minded folks, who continue sitting mum on the sides lines.
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Tom13 at 23:06 PM on 26 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Here is John Bates original statement which he posted at Judith curry's website.
judithcurry.com/2017/02/04/climate-scientists-versus-climate-data/
His post is a 3,100 word statement. Bates is later quoted with the following statement "I knew people would misuse this. But you can’t control other people."
With the quote cited above, some are arguing that Bates essentially repudiated his prior 3100 statement. I find it doubltful that Bates actually repudiated his carefully crafted statement.
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Eclectic at 21:22 PM on 26 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Nigelj @7 , I suspect things won't change regarding untruthful reportage by our "Free Press". Big business interest groups pay and control the editors of papers and the producers of radio/television programs. Politicians are reluctant (for many selfish reasons) to push real punitive measures against MSM that tells lies about climate science / vaccination science / or other important issues. (Lies by omission, lies by commission, and lies by severe "spin".)
In a very recent cause celebre, a certain well-nourished young Australian actress was awarded USD$3.6 million by the courts, as damages [and punitive damages] in compensation for lies told by an Australian print magazine. Ouch! (Though the decision may still be appealed, to reduce the quantum.) The previous capped legal award limit, I gather, was only USD$200 thousand . . . and thus not at all bothersome to a big company. So the courts can sometimes punish lies — but that sort of accountability is not going to happen with say the lies told by any MSM company about global warming. There's no clearcut individual or company that can point to an indisputable "loss" resulting from those particular lies/misrepresentations . . . and the whole thing would get bogged down in legal technicalities & wrangling about ambiguities of interpretation etc etc. Plus, Murdoch Press (et alia) are working a long game of innuendo uncertainty & doubt.
It won't happen : but (in my dreams) I see the only punitive accountability being visited upon newspapers, as an enforced requirement to print the corrigendum/correction/retraction on the entire lower-half of the front page of the [daily?] paper in large print (and for 3 consecutive days!). Yeah, As If !! The current system of corrections, if they occur at all, are typically limited to fine print covering two square inches on the bottom of Page 2 or Page 38, and published weeks later . . . completely under the radar of 99.9% of readers.
I don't even bother to dream of corrections/apologies being mandated for 30 or 60 seconds of prime time radio/television — for that would fly under the radar of 98% of the total potential audience.
Rearding the MSM, in practical terms our most likely success will come passively, with the natural attrition of the already very elderly [and very wealthy] individual Dinosaurs who are fighting such a strong rear-guard action against the interests of younger generations. And in the case of Oil and MSM corporations, will come from an increasing level of shareholder revolt by the (currently) younger generations.
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bozzza at 21:19 PM on 26 September 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #38
Thankyou, OPOF,
It's resource intensive to get these numbers, for sure, but we are getting to the pointy end of the deal and markets need to start making changes or it will be too late.
I push for the multi-year sea ice statistics to be made known to the public because I think these are of the most significance. These are the kinds of numbers the consumers and suppliers in the market place need to make informed decisions about what this world should be doing from this point forward.
When do multi-year sea ice numbers get updated? Are there different sources for these numbers?
We absolutely must make these numbers more known to the public... if they aren't bad then that is fair enough but if they are then we need to start acting and that can only happen by conusmers and suppliers knowing what the facts are.
The fabled free-markets exist on such assumptions as perfect information... not knowing relevant information makes the whole system shonky and 'inefficient'.
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stevecarsonr at 19:34 PM on 26 September 2017Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming
A new article with some background at Science of Doom:
Impacts – XIV – Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change 1
Kevin Walsh and coauthors in 2016: "At present, there is no climate theory that can predict the formation rate of tropical cyclones from the mean climate state"
In general, relative SST (local sea surface temperature minus the tropical mean sea surface temperature) being more important than absolute SST for TC development has the weight of climate scientists behind it.
Climate models struggle to reproduce the more intense TCs (tropical cyclones) in the recent climate and papers come with many caveats about the difficulties of predicting the future.
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MA Rodger at 17:43 PM on 26 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
randman @504.
You implore me not to "not miss the forest for the trees." Then you entirely dismiss my comments @501 saying "I addressed some of this in another post." It would be interesting to see if you could find that "other post" amongst this tangled comment thread you weave here. It is not evident to me.
Nobody can understand the "forest" without examining the "trees" and in your case you appear incapable of doing that.
Let us consider just one tree - the testimony of Hansen to the 1988 Senate Committee.
You have provided a newspaper articleof 5/7/88 which purports to inform their readers that Hansen told the Senate Committee about the 1951-80 anomaly base, that the average global temperature of that period was 59F. Yet have you ever heard the old adage "Don't believe everything you read in newspapers."? In this case it is good advice.
The newspaper quote looks quite definite. From The Day we read:-
"Dr. Hansen informed the lawmakers that the first five months of 1988 were the hottest five-month period on record, averaging four-tenths of a degree above a 30-year (1950-1980) norm of 59 degrees Fahrenheit."
All in black&white from a 1988 newspaper report. But for your purposes it isn't worth the paper it's written on! For a start, this is not what the NYT reported on the matter. From the NYT we read:-
"Dr. Hansen, who records temperatures from readings at monitoring stations around the world, had previously reported that four of the hottest years on record occurred in the 1980's. Compared with a 30-year base period from 1950 to 1980, when the global temperature averaged 59 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature was one-third of a degree higher last year." (My bold)
And we also have the actual testemony of Hansen (as linked @501 had you cared to read that comment). Her it is - LINK. Nowhere does Hansen ever report to that 1988 Senate Committee, either in writing or verbally, that there was an average global temperature of "59 degrees Fahrenheit". Nowhere! That part of the newspaper report was incorrectly inserted into the account by the newspaper.
So that particular tree was rotten to the core. All the other "trees" are just as unreliable. If you like, we can address them tree-by-tree, but that would require you to actually read the comments people are responding to you with, to read and take on board what they are saying. But so far down this thread I see no sign of you doing that. So my advice here will likely fall on deaf ears.
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nigelj at 16:25 PM on 26 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Randman @5
"Who decides those rules? "
First the question here is accuracy and balance ( telling both sides of the story fully and withount manipulation). To repat I have no problem with media backing some particular point of view if they wish.
My country already has a voluntary code of practice on accuracy and balance, made in consultation with various media and government. This is how many laws and codes are decided, so nothing novel there.
But because its voluntary it lacks many teeth and punishments are light. I think it should be a mandatory code for all with tougher penalties, ideally.
But I'm a strong advocate for freedom of speech and freedom of the press, so its a balancing act. Such codes need to be implemented in practical and non trivial ways where theres a genuine avoidable error or clear missrepresentation, but I think it could be done. I acknowledge Eclectics comments about a lack of accountability historically, but I think things need to change a bit without going to the other extreme either.
As to what are the facts? You would need a panel to enforce a media code and decide what the facts are. There are well recognised ways of establishing facts such as verifiable evidence, logic. etc. Courts of law do it, the world of science does it, people who write text books do it. I'm not sure why the media are that much different. Just the threat of some real accountability will help clean things up.
As to your comment about lack of quality in the mainstream media, so convenient that you left out fox news, now why did you do that? I don't want to get into a competition of who is worse, but I think we could at least improve the situation as I have outlined.
However Breitbart and comparable fringe media are just laughable and wouldn't know a thing about facts or balance. They genuinely live in a fantasy world, where they routinely print fake news and conspiracies of their own making. The internet has given every nutter a platform to make a noise.
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Eclectic at 16:15 PM on 26 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
Randman @509 , the objective evidence "tells" that you are talking rubbish.
Hard-core science-deniers such as you, will go to their graves before they will admit to the evidence in front of their eyes — though I suspect that some deniers will eventually back-pedal and try to re-write their history and will try to tell their grandchildren: "No, no, I was never one of those deniers — it's just that I had a few little doubts during the early stages of AGW".
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Eclectic at 16:02 PM on 26 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Randman @3 and @5, in this thread we are of course talking about factual matters determined objectively (for example, as determined by scientific methods) — not talking about what people opine as "facts" / "factoids" / "Alternative Facts" / or deluded fantasies e.g. Flat-Earthism.
My first response (my gut feeling) is to agree with you [in #3] about the so-called "MSM" : in that they float & promote too many part-truths. But really, here we shouldn't be talking about the usual scattered low-incidence of accidental misreporting, but rather the deliberate reporting of untruths e.g. the infamous Breitbart. There always has been and always will be no real accountability or punishment of "sins" of reportage committed by the MSM in the liberal democracies of the world. (The MSM in totalitarian or dictator-lead nations, being a quite different matter!)
However, on reflection, your statement is much too vague and "hand-wave-y".
To validate your point, please supply a number of typical examples representative of the range of "sins" committted by the MSM (and not just a few cherry-picked examples to suit a particular bias).
It almost goes without saying — but please don't bother to select any examples from the "rubbish" end of the MSM spectrum (such as FoxNews*, Daily Mail, and similar), for the list would be unending! Please choose from what is usually considered the "Quality" end of the MSM spectrum.
I am interested to hear your detailed views on the censure/accountability of media outlets. The topic is worth some analysis!
[ * the Murdoch media being a fine/egregious example of poor reportage — not that their efforts are enormously more sloppy than most, when it comes to random "accidental" bits of misinformation — but I am talking of their long-term deliberate policy of deceiving the public by telling 99% lies about global warming subjects. ]
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randman at 15:56 PM on 26 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
To the mod, read some of it. Will read more again later. Initial thoughts on this stuff is that the response to genuine questions appear to be "trust us", we know this and you do not. We can teach you, etc, etc,...and somewhat avoding the straightforward issue raised. I am not referring to you individually but rather the whole proponent industry.
The thing is every marker and everything many of us have learned about human behavior tells us, those on the fence or skeptics, that all of this has the hallmarks and "tell" of a sham. Now you can blast me, ban me or whatever. At this point I am not really trying to win an argument but just share how it comes off.
In fact, with the public, I think you guys have already lost but may not know it yet.
There are certain "tells" one learns to see in life. Over time, you see those patterns and learn. Of course you want to make sure, ask the right questions, hear the response and so forth. Be open-minded but the one thing you can't do is ignore the warning signs and there are a whole bunch of them here.Moderator Response:[PS] Obviously we cannot help the wilfully ignorant.
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randman at 14:21 PM on 26 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Who decides those rules? That's an important question. I suspect what I would deem honest and what you would are very different. People believe very different sets of facts as far as what they think is reality.
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randman at 13:29 PM on 26 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
To the mod:
Of course, but there still has to be some reason for the varying differences in the mean (1950-1980). What are those reasons?
Are they using different weather stations for one run and another?
Have they adjusted the past data? If so, why?
Is the algorythmn different?
A combination of these factors and others?
For some reason, there appear to be different means from a past time-frame and so anomalies are a separate topic. Sure, you calculate anomalies from each weather station or buoy but why then, if the same data points used, do you come up with a different mean over the past 30 years?Moderator Response:[TD] Read this then this then this. Then section 6 starting on page 190 of this.
[PS] No you dont get different means. That never changes. You are continuing to conflate "mean of baseline" with absolute temperature despite everyones efforts. What is so hard to understand about this?
And yes, they do adjust the data. Read the article. Do you seriously think you should not adjust data if say a screen is added over thermometer; the station is moved; or read at 3pm instead of 9pm? Even so, you can see that adjusted versus unadjusted data makes little difference. The biggest adjustment is to sea surface temperature and the adjustment reduces the trend not increases it. If science is some conspiracy to make you poor, why would they do that? Stop believing nonsense.
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nigelj at 13:27 PM on 26 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Randman @3
I agree no media are perfect, but the Daily Mail has a well known record for publishing complete nonsense. They stand out from the crowd imho.
The point is its not an imposition on free speech to ask media to tell both sides of stories, not half the facts, and to be accurate with basic facts. The rules need to be tighter on accuracy and balance, and applied to all obviously, maybe with fines or something because unless it hurts a bit nothing will change.
The media are still always free to come down and support one side of a debate if they wish, in their "opinion editorials" . However they will make themselves look silly if they support pseudo scientific nonsense, and the Daily Mail have a record of this.
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randman at 12:16 PM on 26 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
I don't anything about the Daily Mail's reporting but freedom of speech does include the freedom to publih half-truths. If not, the entire MSM in the US, including the NYTs and Washington Post, MSNBC and the major networks would be illegal. They actually publish fabrications at times.
Probably the same with the British media. -
Sarah at 12:13 PM on 26 September 2017Remembering our dear friend Andy Skuce
David- thanks for sharing those memories of Andy.
You were lucky to have known him for so long.
Even those of us who knew Andy mainly online, and met him only fleetingly in person, felt his keen intelligence, wry humor, and deep humanity.
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nigelj at 11:14 AM on 26 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
Well done to Bob Ward and Ipso. The Daily Mails behaviour has been appalling on this climate issue, among many other things. Freedom of speech and of the press does not equal avoidable mistakes, or telling only half the important facts, leaving out things that don't fit a narrative.
Agree with comment by OPOF that lack of genuine penalties and fines doesn't help. Things wont improve unless it hurts a bit.
The Daily Mail has a history of blunders and dont seem to learn. They claimed in 1912 that the Titanic had sunk, no lives lost.
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barry1487 at 08:16 AM on 26 September 2017It takes just 4 years to detect human warming of the oceans
OPOF,
Yes, the results would likely be less tight using different/longer time periods, and the uncertainty greater. But I think that would be good science. 2014/2015 were subsequent hottest years in the record. That's going to skew results.
From the opinion piece:
These analyses show that during 2015 and 2016, the heat stored in the upper 2,000 meters of the world ocean reached a new 57-year record high (Figure 1). This heat storage amounts to an increase of 30.4 × 1022 Joules (J) since 1960 [Cheng et al., 2017], equal to a heating rate of 0.33 Watts per square meter (W m−2) averaged over Earth’s entire surface—0.61 W m−2 after 1992.
It seems they consider the data useful enough for earlier periods, but perhaps not for the calculation they performed. ARGO became fully global in 2007, for example. But they did not include 2016 - presumably because of the el Nino skewing results.
If data limitations 'forced' them to use the one 12-year period, that limitation might also have earned a comment, and perhaps some added uncertainty. I was a little surprised to see no commentary on why this particular choice of time period and not another, like 2003-2014, for example. 2003-2014 has 50% lower trend than the period they chose. The actual trend may not make a difference, but it would have been good to see that discussed, as the trend they chose had 2 consecutive record warm years at the end. But even the noise might be peculiar to the period selected.
Had it been a study rather than an 'opinion', I expect they'd have explored these things.
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:56 AM on 26 September 2017The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change
As I understand it there is no financial penalty for The Mail (or any of the CopyCats). And it does not seem that the Mail Retraction/Correction will have to be Front Page News or be reported as many days and ways the original Fake News was reported. (And the CopyCats will not be required to Copy the Retraction)
This deliberate damaging decelption by 'people who undeniably put self-interest above the interests of others' will continue as long as participants in News Media and Political/Business Marketing are not constrained by the responsibility to "Act Professionally" to properly raise awareness and promote better understanding of what is going on.
Like all other Professions the responsibility of Informaton Providers needs to be the Public Interest, which is undeniably the interests of Humanity, which are probably best presented in the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals.
In a Profession, anyone found to be lacking in the proper perfomance of their duties and obligations can be denied recognition and be denied the 'priviledge' to perform as a professional. There is no 'Freedom to beleive whatever you want and claim and do whatever you please' in Professions like Engineering or Medicine or even Accounting (though this last one is questionable). Those professions are intended to protect the from the potential harmful consequences of pursuers of profit who would abuse unjustified marketing and claim-making for personal benefit.
Maybe global legal changes are needed, maybe embedded in Free Trade Agreements, so that anyone in Business or Politics trying to Market or Promote any interests that are contrary to achieving the SDGs is able to be legally denied the 'permission to continue doing so until they prove they have changed their minds and decided to become Helpful rather than Harmful'.
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randman at 07:21 AM on 26 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
Meant to write 58 degrees. That was 2009. The reference to 1975 through 2008 refers to years on the graph, not the mean those years were compared to. That mean is 58 degrees, not the average of 1975-1982 as can easily be seen by viewing the graph.
This is relevant since we are discussing changes in the mean, the years 1950-1980.
Note just a few years later, probably 2015 as the data stops at year 2014, I believe:
""They depict how much various regions of the world have warmed or cooled when compared with a base period of 1951-1980. (The global mean surface air temperature for that period was estimated to be 14°C (57°F), with an uncertainty of several tenths of a degree.)"https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/decadaltemp.php
So Nasa states here the "base period of 1950-1980" is estimated at 57 degrees, not 58 degrees.Moderator Response:[JH] The answer to your question can be found in NASA's posted Q&A, The Elusive Absolute Surface Air Temperature (SAT).
The Preface of his Q&A provides context:
The GISTEMP analysis concerns only temperature anomalies, not absolute temperature. Temperature anomalies are computed relative to the base period 1951-1980. The reason to work with anomalies, rather than absolute temperature is that absolute temperature varies markedly in short distances, while monthly or annual temperature anomalies are representative of a much larger region. Indeed, we have shown (Hansen and Lebedeff, 1987) that temperature anomalies are strongly correlated out to distances of the order of 1000 km.
The final Q&A of the post:
Q. What do I do if I need absolute SATs, not anomalies?
A. In 99.9% of the cases you'll find that anomalies are exactly what you need, not absolute temperatures. In the remaining cases, you have to pick one of the available climatologies and add the anomalies (with respect to the proper base period) to it. For the global mean, the most trusted models produce a value of roughly 14°C, i.e. 57.2°F, but it may easily be anywhere between 56 and 58°F and regionally, let alone locally, the situation is even worse.
My bold above.
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:17 AM on 26 September 2017It takes just 4 years to detect human warming of the oceans
barry,
The slope/trend of the OHC line has clearly become steeper since the early 1990s. And the uncertainty band is also clearly larger in the OHC data prior to 2000. Given the same level of noisiness of the data the shallower the trend line the longer it takes to 'identify a trend'. And larger noisiness prior to 2000 may also be due to the uncertainty of the methods of data evaluation prior to 2000 rather than actual changes of OHC. So earlier sets of data would be expected to have a longer time required to identify the trend, but that would not be very relevant to the future evaluations using current or more certain methods of determining OHC.
A better test of what you are concerned about may be to evaluate longer time periods ending in the most recent year of data (maybe 2016) to identify how far back you have to go to see a significant change from the '4 year value' determined in the analysis that is being reported, without going back into time periods of significantly higher uncertainty.
Note that the same would apply to the 27 years for GMST. That duration would likely be longer if an earlier 12 year period was evaluated. The relative durations between the OHC and GMST may maintain the ratio of 27/4 between the GMST duration and OHC duration, and should since the OHC an Sea Level Rise do not have the levels of noisiness of values that occur in the GMST data.
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randman at 05:02 AM on 26 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
Note the reference to the mean as 59 degrees or 14.5 Celsius in 2009.
"Figure 1: The world's surface air temperature change ("anomaly"), relative to the world's mean temperature of 58° F or 14.5° C, averaged over land and oceans from 1975 to 20082."
https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/upsDownsGlobalWarming.htmlModerator Response:[JH] In your first sentence, you incorrectly state "59 degrees". It should be "58 degrees".
Also note that the baseline period for Figure 1 is 1975 to 20082, not to 20082.
What relevance does this factoid have to your prior comments?
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DavidSmythe at 04:00 AM on 26 September 2017Remembering our dear friend Andy Skuce
Dear Dana Nuccitelli, John Cook and colleagues at Skeptical Science
Can I add a few words about my dear friend and fellow geophysicist Andy, since he seems to have been too modest to leave anything behind in the form of a CV or an autobiography?
I probably knew him for longer than anyone else in his profession. He joined my little applied research group at the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh in 1977 or so, where he and his wife Annick quickly become close friends with myself and my then partner. He had a degree in geology from Sheffield University, a Masters degree in geophysics (Newcastle I think), and before coming to Edinburgh had worked for a geological service company for a year or two.
Our day-to-day work was mapping and interpreting the UK sector of the NW European passive margin (the Rockall-Faeroe region) using the mass of confidential offshore seismic and well data made available to the BGS via the Department of Energy. By thinking more widely and deeply than your average hydrocarbon exploration geologist of the era, we were able to apply the still youthful new science of plate tectonics to our daily detailed research, and thereby make some significant advances. Although our ability to publish was rather limited, due to the confidential nature of the data at our disposal, we did manage to get a few papers published. These are listed among Andy's publication list on his blog.
One of his posts reveals Andy's keen and long-standing interest in the philosophy of science. This interest developed during his time at Edinburgh. Names like Popper, Kuhn, Feyerabend, and so on may be familiar to researchers in physics or climate science, but in the 1970s or 80s - or even today - precious few solid earth scientists were aware of, or interested in, the philosophy underpinning their research. Our little philosophical trio was completed by Mike Russell, then head of the applied geology department at Strathclyde University, Glasgow. Andy embarked on a part-time doctoral research programme, registered at Strathclyde, supported by the BGS, and with Mike and myself as joint supervisors. But Andy resigned from the BGS in 1981, and emigrated to join the oil industry in Calgary, so his PhD studies fell by the wayside. Mike Russell, a polymath and world leader in the emergence of life, now at the JPL, NASA in California and still active at 78, once described Andy as "the best research student we never had".
Andy was appalled at the polarised and bi-partisan nature of the scientific debate on fracking in the UK (my own little niche in the more general battle against fossil fuel exploitation), and scathing of the low standards of the majority of the UK earth scientists active in that field, who are funded by the industry while claiming to be impartial. I referred to Andy's incomplete doctoral work in a blog I published a year ago, which includes a contemporary photo of Andy. I never quite got to the bottom of why he quit his quasi-academic post in the UK for an oil industry job in Canada, but his generally low opinion of UK academic earth science researchers certainly played a part.
I will miss our frequent email exchanges of recent years, the occasional visits to France by Andy and Annick when they stayed with us for a few days, or even a month at a time, and the occasional long phone call. I knew his time was limited when he sent me for review a draft of his final blog (Exit, Pursued By a Crab - a characteristically drole title of his) just over a month ago - a typically thorough Andy touch - but I did not realise how close to death he already was.
Andy Skuce - I was privileged to have known him for forty years. Dear Andy - a thoughtful, reflective and incisive mind, overlain with the healthy scepticism required of a true scientist.
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randman at 03:46 AM on 26 September 2017Temp record is unreliable
Ok, let's stick with NASA.
"They depict how much various regions of the world have warmed or cooled when compared with a base period of 1951-1980. (The global mean surface air temperature for that period was estimated to be 14°C (57°F), with an uncertainty of several tenths of a degree.)"
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/decadaltemp.php
This appears to be from 2015 since the last year on the graph is 2014.
In 2010, we see 59 degrees given as the global mean at that time. The nature of the comment suggests to me 59 degrees is an approximate.
"the Earth’s average surface temperature would be a very chilly -18°C (0°F) instead of the comfortable 15°C (59°F) that it is today."
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page1.php
Nasa reported 2010 as 1.13F degrees "warmer than the average global surface temperature from 1951 to 1980."
"The analysis found 2010 approximately 1.13°F warmer than the average global surface temperature from 1951 to 1980. "
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20110112/
If the global mean from 1951-1980 were 57 degrees as they said it was in 2015, then 2010 would be 58.13 degrees, right?
But we just saw where they said it was approximately 59 degrees in 2010, not 58 degrees. Kind of a big deal.
Clearly, the baseline mean of 1950-1980 has not remained consistent in these calculations. Why?Moderator Response:[JH} See NASA's History of GISTEMP.
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