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Comments 28401 to 28450:

28401. KR at 06:35 AM on 10 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       ryland - The initial retraction, based upon discussion with the authors and with the investigation of the Frontiers expert panel, stated:

       This investigation did not identify any issues with the academic and ethical aspects of the study.

       About a week later Frontiers contradicted that retraction statement with their additional posts, at a time where they were receiving quite a bit of (deserved) flack for pulling a paper based solely on fears of ending up in court. I would consider that post-hoc revisionism on their part, an attempt to cover their (ahem) nether regions in the face of criticism. It certainly had nothing to do with their expert review panels evaluation of the ethics and academic worth of the paper. 

       I will note that if you are (as you have stated) wholly uninterested in the content of these papers, your objections would appear to be more about the conclusions (which you haven't begun to discuss) than the papers (unread) content, ethics, or methods. Objections and attacks much like those made by any number of people easily identified as climate deniers - in effect an indirect and fallacious ad hominem attack on the RF conclusions. 

       I would have to consider that simply rhetorical nonsense on your part, rather than a scientific discussion. 

28402. Rob Honeycutt at 06:29 AM on 10 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       ryland @29...  You ask: "In my original post I was asking the question if the paper was new as the headline said it was or was it a revamped version of a previous paper."

       It's actually something in between. The original paper included names of commenters, unaltered, as they appeared on the publicly accessible blogs. That was austensibly the issue of concern raised by denialists. The journal pulled the paper for investigation, found no ethical or scholarly problem, but asked the authors to redact the names because of potential libel issues (which have, as I understand it, changed during the course of all this). The authors complied with the journal's requests, and I believe made additional changes before resubmitting. 

       I've been told, the final paper that was ultimately retracted by Frontiers was more similar to the Recurrent Fury paper just published than the original Recursive Fury paper which deniers complained about.

28403. John Hartz at 05:18 AM on 10 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       @ryland #33: I did in fact scan the comments prior to posting my comment #30. I chose not to infer your motivation and consequently asked you directly. 

28404. ryland at 05:12 AM on 10 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       John Hartz

       Sorry forgot to add "At least I stayed the pace"

28405. ryland at 05:09 AM on 10 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       John Hartz @30 had you had the fortitude to scroll back through this veritable deluge of verbiage and that you didn't is hardly surprising, you'd have found my original comment at 9 was:

       Is this a new paper as your headline states or is it a revamp of the paper Recursive Fury that was withdrawn for ethical reasons from The Journal of Social and Political Psychology?

       Had I left out ethical I probably would have generated, possibly from you,  a single comment stating "It is an updated and extended version of the paper Recursive Fury"  and all would have been quiet and placid on this thread.  But then, its often more fun when its not.  

       Oh and Phillippe Chantreau had you read another thread, sorry but I can't remember which one, you'd have found a reference from me and another from  John Hartz both stating that the world has come to the conclusion there is plenty of fossil fuel to play with and intends to get on playing with it without delay. Fun?

28406. John Hartz at 05:07 AM on 10 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       @ryland #31: 

       You challenge more than just climate science on this website. I am very curious about what motivates you  to spend so much time posting comments on SkS. Is it your political ideology?

28407. ryland at 04:44 AM on 10 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       Phillippe Chantreau. My ramblings as you so scathingly call them arose because I was attacked from all sides regarding my initial post. In this post I asked if the paper Recurrent Fury was in fact a new paper as the headline stated or a revamped version of one retracted in 2013 by the Frontiers Journal. Foolishly I also said the Journal had retracted it for ethical reasons. This unleashed a torrent of comment pointing out how this was not true. Perhaps even more foolishly I responded to these comments in a vain attempt to show that in the final analysis the Journal did cite privacy of respondents as a reason for retracting the paper. As jeopardising privacy is a significant ethical concern in research publications of this nature this provided the Journal a very good reason/excuse for retraction.
       I may ramble but at least the ramblings are from a scientist with a PhD from the University of Western Australia who rose to become a Professor at Curtin University in Perth. I don't believe in conspiracy theories but neither am I entirely convinced that only by reducing CO2 levels will climate change be averted. There may be a 97% consensus of climate scientists that humans are responsible for climate change and certainly I consider that humans have contributed and do contribute to climate change but there are a lot of other scientists who are less convinced. I'm less convinced because the empirical evidence doesn't always entirely support all the contentions of the climate scientists. But Phillippe Chantreau I am certainly not a subscriber to conspiracy theories.

28408. John Hartz at 04:20 AM on 10 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       ryland #29: What was your objective in posting comments on this thread? 

       I ask because you have expended a lot of verbiage discussing a paper that you have no desire to read — just seems odd. 

28409. ryland at 03:48 AM on 10 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       KR It really doesn't matter what enquiries did or didn't say or what you or I think, the journal did pull the paper and one of the reasons it gave was " But we also must uphold the rights and privacy of the subjects included in a study or paper." That is clearly introducing ethical considerations into their decision. Why else, if it were not for the ethical aspect, would the journal belatedly bring in the issue of privacy? No matter if they were right or wrong that is their reason or excuse if you prefer, to pull the paper.
       As for an opinion, I haven't read the paper. In my original post I was asking the question if the paper was new as the headline said it was or was it a revamped version of a previous paper. From some of the comments given here, it is clear it isn't new but is an extended and improved version of the original. And yes, I did say "withdrawn for ethical reasons". Despite the welter of words this phrase has generated, no one has been able to convincingly explain why the journal suddenly introduced the aspect of the subjects privacy other than to use ethical considerations as a reason to retract the paper.

       
       Will I read the paper? Probably not. I'm not terribly interested in the psychology of those who deny or for that matter support, human impact on climate change. Psychologists might find it interesting but anyone capable of rational thought would clearly dismiss conspiracy theories as utter drivel whatever their views on the human impact on climate change. What does it add to the science of climate change or to the measures that need to be taken to mitigate it?

28410. PhilippeChantreau at 03:33 AM on 10 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       I have to be the voice of discontent and declare again how tired I am of the nonsense. Deniers are in large part fruitcakes that have little clue of what's going on and substitute their ignorance and emotional attachment to irrelevant ideas for other's true expertise. The more educated ones know better but follow their emotions instead of evidence. Pretty simple, no need to write a behavioral science paper about it. It took me half a day of reading, many years ago to figure that, and not an ounce of verifiable reality has turned up since that could challenge that perception. It didn't take me a survey of the litterature.

       Writing a science paper about it is in fact a mistake because it gives them more fuel to add to the conspiratorial thinking fire, and further legitimizes them as a group under attack by the big bad villain of rational thinking (scary!).

       Ryland's ramblings are a shining example of these consequences. Not a word about the stupidity, the content, of the blog posts that became the object of the fake breach of ethics. Just hair splitting about which journal did what, when and for what reason. Impressive.

       As for Frontiers, the fact that it would publish a pile of junk suggesting doubt between HIV and AIDS says all that one needs to know about it. It's gone down to the dark side. I'm sure that all the people who were fired from it are relieved that this happened to them. Imagine a few years down the road, mentioning this in conversation, 2 possible versions:

       1: "they published an AIDS denial paper but I didn't open my mouth too much and continued working for them for a while after that."

       2: "They published an AIDS denial paper and I protested enough that they fired me."

       Which one of these fellows would you rather be?

       A blog is a public forum. If I post under my name, I own the statement and I know it's out there for all to see and comment upon, or even use, and the name is an integral part of the piece. This whole nonsennse is akin to the stupid teens putting pictures of themselves without sufficient clothing on the internet and then compaining that some use that to hurt their feelings. More and more BS.

       Scientists are a stubborn lot. They say, "no, I can prove scientifically that they really are fruitckaes, and I can even give you the proportion of fruit per pound of cake." And so they do, rather well indeed, and what comes out of it? More fake controversy, more liars holding their leg in fake pain, no increase in cogent conversation about the fruit density of the cakes, which was not all that interesting in the first place, I'm sorry to say.

       Going down in the mud to wrestle with the pigs, what could possibly come out of it?

       I am not getting any younger and  will not see the dawn of the next century. I wonder if the beginning of the 21st century will ever be called "the great bullshit storm." Perhaps there will be papers treating of how the internet age put all knowledge, opinion, information on an plane of equality, when some clearly had a valididity whose worth ranged somehwere between the rabbit's fart and the mouse turd.

       Here is an idea for the abstract: "Combined with ever decreasing numeracy and critical thinking skills, the general population found itself to be a toy in the hands of skilled rethoricians, whose methods had by then been considerably refined by the advertisement and marketing industries, elevating them to an art form. The electronic communcations provided an instantaneous global reach and easy means to flood the public place with messages, drowning the poor crowds in a fog of inextricable confusion, in which everything and anything was just a matter of equally valid opinion." 

       No court had found that there was breach of ethics, but, oh the juicy controversy!!

       I find it more and more difficult to have any optimism on the future of this species of ours. Perhaps Ryland will cheer me up with something like this: "hey, it's ok, there is still plenty of fossil fuel to play around, we'll just use all the snowmobile engines to make jet-skis." Fun.

28411. John Hartz at 03:13 AM on 10 July 2015
       Carbon cycle feedbacks and the worst-case greenhouse gas pathway
       

       @ranyl #15:

       The Chinese government's inititative smmarized in the following article undermines many of your arguments about why fossil fuel generated energy cannot be replaced by clean enery in a significant amount. (You will undoubetly want to travel to China in 2020 to see first-hand how well their new power distribution system is working. )

       China eyes safe smart-grid system by 2020 to push clean energy, Bloomberg/Japan Times, July 7, 2015

28412. jgnfld at 03:07 AM on 10 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       @19 Your final point gets at the "harm" issue. This, likely, is where the publisher's legal team felt there was some possibility of expensive litigation.

       The ethical questions here would revolve around such issues as

       1. Were psychological diagnoses being made? (No--though that was part of the complainants' complaint and yet another case of disinformation.)

       2. Were gratutious comments being made about posts by the authors? (No.)

       3. Were the "subjects" coerced in any way concerning their statements? (No.)

       4. Did the investigators manipulate the "subjects" into commenting in any particular way by inserting posts of their own? (No...though that one might make for an interesting discussion around the ethical review board table should anyone ever propose such a thing.)

       5. Did the "subjects" in any way indicate any expectation of privacy whatever for the public comments they freely provided in public spaces? (No.)

       This most basically is field research, not a controlled study. What the "subjects" resent is that their responses were labelled in ways they disagree with. You might well find the same resentments into the results of field research of the most objective possible kind into publically displayed political signage.

       Did this cause "nontrivial harm"? Harm to a political position, possibly. But harm of a psychological nature to individuals? Most unlikely.

       Now going through all these issues in court would, as I say, be expensive. The publishers chose not to do that regardless of the merits. As a result, editors associated with the journal resigned in protest.

28413. PhilippeChantreau at 02:31 AM on 10 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       jgnfld has it exactly right. The fact that this kind of intimidation and stifling exists is a much more serious concern than the alleged breach of ethics. As always, deniers use every dirty trick on the handbook of deception and mind manipulation to attempt to legitimize their delirious divorce with reality. They remind me of certain soccer players, pulling every sneaky move while they think the referee can't see and then falling all by themselves clutching their leg in what seems like excruciating pain, right before starting to run again after a favorable decision is rendered.

       At some point, reality will inevitably catch up. All of this, however, is a distraction away from the the real findings of the paper, which have in fact not been disouted in any convincing way. I second KR question to Ryland, who is again long on rethoric and short on substance, under a thick coat of politeness that adds no substance whatsoever. Do you have anything to say about the findings of the paper, Ryland and its implications, as KR already asked?

28414. ranyl at 02:15 AM on 10 July 2015
       Global Commission Finds Economic Growth Can Close the Emissions Gap
       

       Deforestation Free: 

       "be traceable to the plantation where it was produced;

       - come from plantations whose expansion does not threaten High Conservation Value (HCV) forests (*);

       - come from plantations whose expansion does not threaten High Carbon Stock (HCS) forests (*);

       - come from plantations whose expansion does not threaten any tropical peatland, of whatever depth;"

       LINK

       Does that mean it can be labelled deforestation free and chop down non HCV's forest areas?

       Also apparently plantations greater than 10 years old are now deforestation free.

       Maybe if oil (much less than Palm oil) could from regeneration tropical forests and peatlands that might actualy help?

       For sure deforestation, (unless as part of a long term sustainable rotation with periodic full regneration over several hundreds of years to provide materials, food and naturla zoos (e.g. Oak coppice woodland with clearings and paths)), needs to be halted, however don't we need to urgently regenerate tropical rain forests and peatlands and maybe put less oil in our diet and products?

       Do Indonesia's native rainforests have any useful products that can be harvested within an overall ecosystem balance?

       Wonder if using Palm oil for fuel will become classified as deforestation free?

       Or is deforestation free the BAU mentality massaging the fields of perception or is there hope? 

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] Excessive white space deleted.

       [DB] Shortened link breaking page formatting.

28415. jgnfld at 01:51 AM on 10 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       @17  As a registrar and elected member of a psychology regulatory board for over thirty years and as a prosecutor, complaints committee member, and adjudication panel member judging ethics violations under all the various codes of ethics professional psychologists have to subscribe to in a number of cases, I can give a pretty educated opinion that there was no violation of the APA Code of Ethics.

       
       For the code to apply, one would first have to establish that there was a relationship of trust involved that was violated. That simply did not occur. If you put a sign out on a public street and a psychologist takes a picture of it and analyses the content for themes, there simply is no ethical violation to be found. Even if you sign your name and provide an address. You are the one who put the sign out in public, after all. Nor was any ethical violation  found by the bodies that studied this publication.

       Now the fear of having to prove this in court against a deep pocketed opponent is a different matter that says nothing whatever about the merits of the case. It speaks to the economics of the legal system. Many, many people give in rather than undergo the expense of a trial on many, many issues.

28416. KR at 01:34 AM on 10 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       ryland - Do you have anything, anthing relevant that is, to say about the conclusions of the Recursive Fury paper? That there is (clearly) considerable conspiratorial ideation in the climate denial blogosphere, with implications for public discussions of science?

28417. KR at 01:28 AM on 10 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       ryland - I'll note that the blog post you referred to discusses Frontiers contradicting itself, and states:

       Frontier’s second statement would make perfect sense if RF had been a conventional psychology paper reporting on the results of an experiment or survey – like, say, Lewandowsky et al (2012).

       [...] But to apply this frame of reference to Recursive Fury is blinkered. RF just wasn’t that kind of study.

       [...] So the ethics of RF are sound.

       In short, that blog post doesn't appear to support your claims at all. 

28418. KR at 01:23 AM on 10 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       ryland - "...are you saying the journal ddn't change its mind and retract on grounds of rights and privacy, breaches of which are unethcal?"

       Yes, I'm saying exactly that. Quoting from the original retraction:

       "...Frontiers carried out a detailed investigation of the academic, ethical, and legal aspects of the work. This investigation did not identify any issues with the academic and ethical aspects of the study." (emphasis added)

       That was the statement made at the time of the retraction, the basis of the action. No issues with the academic or ethical aspects were identified or used as reasons for that retraction - they were simply afraid of ending up in court, regardless of the frivolous nature that such lawsuits would entail. 

       You might want to look at Retraction Watch or the documents that DeSmog FOIs unearthed. Any later revisionism by the publishers is directly contradicted by the announced and agreed to retraction, and IMO demonstrates an unreliable and poor publisher. I consider it quite a shame that it wasn't originally published under a more reputable and solid banner, but the authors wouldn't be the first academics that later regretted their choice of submission venues. 

28419. dana1981 at 00:58 AM on 10 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       Recurrent Fury is similar to Recursive Fury but goes further.  I don't believe Recursive Fury had the comparison between the genuine scientific critiques made by PhD students and the denier blog comments, for example.

28420. Kevin C at 00:52 AM on 10 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       Ryland: I'm interested that you attribute to me the view that there was no breach of ethics in the original paper. In fact, having never worked with human subjects, I had no opinion on the subject, hence my preliminary search for relevent literature.

       The first two examples I found, from experts who clearly accept the ethical pricipals you highlight, were equivocal on the question of whether blog contributions comprise public speech. Which suggests to me that the question is not as simple as you suggest.

       Nonetheless climate blogs and the psychology of science rejection are clearly an important area for future study - and I would be very interested to see future work using both discourse analysis and systematic grammar on the topic. However I think it benefits the science if the work is done in such a way that avoids ethical ambiguities, in order that those ambiguities cannot be used to distract from the results of the research.

28421. ryland at 00:30 AM on 10 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       Tom Curtis The blog post is that of the Journal itself and you do not acknowledge the second part of the statement which states "rights and privacy" . In a later post I give references from both the American here and British Associations of Psychology here to the ethical considerations researchers should consider . Both Associations stress the need for ethical consideration of privacy. I also give a reference to a blog post which is firmly against the action of the Journal but clearly states the retraction was made on ethical grounds see here.

       My apologies I've just checked back to find those links in my post at 17 are kaput.  Apologies

       KR are you saying the journal ddn't change its mind and retract on grounds of rights and privacy, breaches of which are unethcal?  Did you read the section on Inernet Mediated Research from the British Association of Psychologists which states inter alia

       "Serious consideration should be given to whether publishing such traceable quotes requires specific valid consent from the individual, and it should be avoided in any cases where possible consequential risk and harm to participants is non-trivial" 

       And  I do have a very good working knowledge of Ethics requirements as I was an academic member of the Ethics Committe for the Division of Heslth Sciences at Curtin University Perth for10 yesars

28422. KR at 00:00 AM on 10 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       ryland - Um, nope. Frontiers retracted the article stating that there were no ethical or academic issues with it, but rather some potential legal expenses they didn't want to risk (even a frivolous suit, as would have been the case, costs money), in a statement agreed to with the Frontiers expert panel and with the authors. The expert panel stated that:

       "...among psychological and linguistic researchers blog posts are regarded as public data and the individuals posting the data are not regarded as participants in the technical sense used by Research Ethics Committees or Institutional Review Boards. This further entails that no consent is required for the use of such data. [...] ...to the charges that Fury was unethical in using blog posts as data for psychological analysis, the consensus among experts in this area sides with the authors of Fury." (emphasis added)

       The editors later made some statements contradicting themselves and their own expert panel, but given what happened with the Recursive Fury paper and other issues (the HIV paper mentioned above), I would mark those down to a lack of integrity and consistency on the publishers part, rather than anything wrong with the original RF paper. 

       Public posts are public information, no ethical breachs occurred - and while these (unsupported) ethical complaints against the RF paper are, well, a convenient handle for some to wave about attacking it, they have absolutely no relevance to the conclusions of the Recursive/Recurrent Fury papers, or to the obvious stacks of conspiracy theories spawned as climate denialists frothed about the original 'NASA' paper.

       Yours is a (again, unsupported) complaint about methods, not conclusions, and IMO the conclusion is clearly that many climate denialists are conspiracy nutters. 

28423. John Hartz at 23:50 PM on 9 July 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly Digest #27
       

       Once again we are reminded that science is a never-ending process...

       New technique for analysing satellite data will allow scientists to predict more accurately how much the Earth will warm as a result of carbon dioxide emissions.

       Quantum leap taken in measuring greenhouse effect by Tim Radford, Climate News Network, July 8, 2015

28424. ryland at 23:40 PM on 9 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       Kevin C This statement from the journal that retracted the paper clearly shows their concern with the privacy of the individual "But we also must uphold the rights and privacy of the subjects included in a study or paper.

       The ethical necessity of the need to preserve confidentiality are given by the American Association of Psychologists here (Section 4) and by the British Association of Psychologists here
       In the opinion of the Journal there was a breach of ethics which is why the retraction occurred. Others, such as yourself disagree. One who has been vociferously in disagreement states that the withdrawal a) was on the grounds of breach of ethics and b) was wrong. See here

       jgnfld Looking for more information I did find out this was a republicaton but one that has been modified so that individual participants cannot be identified. It is this change that removes the breach of ethics considered to have occurred in the retracted publication.

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] Excessive white space deleted.

28425. KR at 23:39 PM on 9 July 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly Digest #27
       

       MIchael Fitzgerald - Keep in mind that satellites are not looking at a single emitting layer at a single temperature, but rather a range of wave-length dependent radiating altitudes where given the GHG spectra the majority of emissions can reach space. I've commented previously on this topic here. 

       Secondly, it's entirely clear to me whether you're accounting for the lapse rate between the effective emission altitude and the surface - the Stephan-Boltzmann dependent emissions from TOA are in essence amplified by the lapse rate to actual surface changes. 

28426. Kevin C at 23:18 PM on 9 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       By word count the original study comprises less than half (about 45%) of the new study.

28427. Tom Curtis at 22:50 PM on 9 July 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly Digest #27
       

       MA Rodger @16, thankyou.

28428. Tom Curtis at 22:42 PM on 9 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       ryland @12, the specific claim in the blog post to which you link is:

       "As a result of its investigation, which was carried out in respect of academic, ethical and legal factors, Frontiers came to the conclusion that it could not continue to carry the paper, which does not sufficiently protect the rights of the studied subjects. Specifically, the article categorizes the behaviour of identifiable individuals within the context of psychopathological characteristics."

       It is not mentioned whether or not the rights which are "not sufficiently protected" were ethical rights, or legal rights, or (quite frankly) fantasy rights.  Given this, and given the statement in the official communication, you are not entitled to interpret those rights as ethical rights.  

       Nor is it stated that the rights were violated.  Taking insufficient steps to protect a right is not the same thing as violating a right.  You can take insufficient steps to prevent pregnancy, and still have no pregnancy eventuate; and likewise you can take insufficient steps to protect a right without that right in fact being infringed.  Of the nature of rights, it is only infringement of rights that can constitute an ethical violation; whereas insufficient measures to protect rights can leave one open to legal liability (on grounds of negligence) even when no right is in fact infringed.

       Further, the supposed right to not have your behaviour categorized if you are identifiable, and if it is in the context of discussion of "psychopathological characteristics" is very vague.  There is an ethical duty on psychologists to not diagnose people without consultation; but categorizing behaviour in the context of psychopathological characteristics is not diagnozing them.  Saying somebody has "conspiracy ideation" is not diagnozing them as a conspiracy theorist, which is not a psychopathological diagnosys in any event.  Any theory that suggests doing so is an ethical breach shows absurd levels of overreach.  It is also (given the normal fare on denier blogs) a massive hypocrissy to claim it is an ethical violation.

       However, categorizing people's behaviour can lead to people mistakingly assuming a diagnosis has been made where no diagnosis has been made.  That is, it can lead to potential issues with regard to libel.

       So, there is nothing in the blog post to which you refer which contradicts the official statement, and subsidiary evidence in that blog post strongly suggests it was in fact legal issues that created the problem - said legal issues being vapourware as shown by the lack of legal response to the continuing publication of the paper on the UWA website.

       Finally, while the recent paper is related to the retracted paper, it apparently also includes new research.  Ergo it is not just a reboot of that paper.  However, I cannot comment on the exact extent of similarity, having not read the recent paper.

28429. jgnfld at 22:14 PM on 9 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       As this is a republication of the original results with additional reconfirmation and further work to extend the findings but now in a journal perhaps more directly on topic the "unethical" argument goes by the board. The remaining argument is the litigation fear of the original publisher.

       
       Those engaging in conspiratorial thinking on public forums may now sue. It is their perogative. I am unsure as to what country's legal system would apply and doubt such a suit would get much shrift anywhere but they are now welcom to try. Of course they were welcome to try suing UWA over the past year which hosted the paper and failed to do so.

28430. Kevin C at 22:13 PM on 9 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       I am slightly troubled by your use of language: the second response from 'Frontiers' didn't 'show' anything. Both the first and second responses made claims, and those claims contradicted one another. For context, the second response from Frontiers came after a significant amount of criticism had been directed at Frontiers over the incident.

       There are a number of possible interpretations. The first response from Frontiers might have been an attempt to be diplomatic. Or the second might have been an attempt to save face. The correspondance between Frontiers and the university might provide more insight on the question.

       There are multiple issues being conflated here:

       1. Was the research ethical according to the norms of the field?
       2. Was the research ethical according to the norms of the university?
       3. Was the research ethical according to the norms of the journal?
       4. Did 'Frontiers' consider the research to be ethically problematic, or were they simply making an expedient argument to justify their actions? (This contains the further simplification that an organization can hold an opinion.)

       There appears to be a significant amount of literature on the use of internet communications in research - here are the first two that I found. A survey of recent opinion on the question would be interesting.

28431. ryland at 21:22 PM on 9 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       As always Tom Curtis thank you for your comment.  Although you do not specifically say so, I gather from your  comment the paper is not new.  You are quite correct that the initial statement from the Journal made on March 27 2013 did state there were no issues with academic or ethical aspects  of the study. This however was contradicted in a later statement from the  Journal on April 4 2013 which does indeed show retraction was on ethical grounds.  I append that statement below (my emphasis}  

       "As a result of its investigation, which was carried out in respect of academic, ethical and legal factors, Frontiers came to the conclusion that it could not continue to carry the paper, which does not sufficiently protect the rights of the studied subjects. Specifically, the article categorizes the behaviour of identifiable individuals within the context of psychopathological characteristics. Frontiers informed the authors of the conclusions of our investigation and worked with the authors in good faith, providing them with the opportunity of submitting a new paper for peer review that would address the issues identified and that could be published simultaneously with the retraction notice."

       The authors agreed and subsequently proposed a new paper that was substantially similar to the original paper and, crucially, did not deal adequately with the issues raised by Frontiers.

       One of Frontiers’ founding principles is that of authors’ rights. We take this opportunity to reassure our editors, authors and supporters that Frontiers will continue to publish – and stand by – valid research. But we also must uphold the rights and privacy of the subjects included in a study or paper.  The reference is here,  

       In fairness I must note however that the retraction of the paper was controversial and Ugo Bardi the chief specialty editor  of Frontiers in Energy Research, Energy Systems and Policy resigned in protest against the retraction.  In so doing he stated:

       "The climate of intimidation which is developing nowadays risks to do great damage to climate science and to science in general. I believe that the situation risks to deteriorate further if we all don’t take a strong stance on this issue". `see here

       All that said, to repeat what I said above, I gather this is not a new paper but a revamp of the paper retracted by Frontiers. 

28432. ranyl at 21:20 PM on 9 July 2015
       Carbon cycle feedbacks and the worst-case greenhouse gas pathway
       

       tmbtx,

       Presuming there is a carbon debt, then any additional carbon emitted to atmosphere adds to that debt, (i.e. any additional carbon emissions), therefore the carbon needed to manufacture renewables or anything else for that matter is an addition to the debt.

       All renewables are carbon emissions dependent to manufacture, as they are made of materials like concrete, aluminium, steel, metallic grade silicon, rare earth metals, etc, all of which require large scale mining, large amounts of energy and create significant amounts of general and toxic waste.

       There is little doubt that over time producing energy from a wind turbine in comparison to coal, gas or liquid fossil fuels, costs a lot less carbon emissions, causes much less toxic waste, mining disturbance and has a significantly lower adverse impact on general biodiversity. However that doesn't mean wind turbines are clean for they do have associated with carbon emissions and do have adverse affects on biodiversity, they are just far far less dirty than coal.

       Clearly the renewables that have been manufactured should be used until they cease to function, although maybe they should positioned optimally, (e.g. putting the solar panels already manufactured on south facing roofs rather than in fertile fields?)

       However on the premise of stopping all fossil fuels use ASAP, (meaning there is no fossil fuel burning displacement carbon emissions payback for renewables), then they do have a definitive carbon cost and biodiversity impact. Add in the batteries needed and the impacts of manufacturing and disposing of these batteries and the general costs rise, and the end of life of renewables also has to be considered; what is the end of life of a large scale hydro dam?

       Given the gravity of the situation faced and considering the scale carbon debt (Is 350ppm safe? maybe 300ppm (300ppm =1C rise, 6-9m sea level rise), for me the question is how much more carbon emissions and biodiversity impacts can be gambled?

       Further given 1.5C isn't seemingly that safe (considering the weather already?), and 350ppm by 2100 might keep the temperature rise to between 1.5C and 2C, (although 3C-5C more in the longer term and with eventual sea levels rises of ~15-25m, if the early Pliocene is anything to go by), again is 350ppm safe?

       What would getting the atmospheric CO2 levels down to 350ppm take?

       95% power down?

       Not using the power means no carbon emissions and no biodiversity impacts. Further due to the reduced power generation biodiversity should increase and therefore carbon should be sequestered. Therefore reducing down, in terms of energy use saves the most carbon emissions, increases biodiversity and removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to some degree as biodiversity enriches.

       Cars?

       Think of rubber plantations, road impacts, road deaths (biodiversity and people), manufacturing impacts, disposal impacts, what do electric cars become at the end of their life, even if recycled a few times?

       And when considering all this also note the degree of adaption that is going to be required, planning for 1:1000 extreme weather isn't easy, and if go up 2C, then 1:1000 event will be mild merely by the shift in mean temperature by 5 standard deviations and this will affect infra structure and crops (e.g. wind, flood, hail, drought).

       Is it possible to go back to sailing rather than flying?

       Would imagine with human ingenuity to ships would be impressive, however who wants to go back to skilled craftsmen building wooden ships as wood in an appropriate amount can be truly sustainable?

       What would it require to actual stop using fossil fuels?

       And what is sustainable?

       Renewables utilise renewable energy sources (e.g. the sun) however they are machines and aren't renewable in themselves (as in they don't renew themselves), as they need to be manufactured and that costs carbon emissions and has biodiversity impacts. Further all renewables also impact biodiversity to some degree in use. Not as much as fossil fuels by any means, however still impacts when biodiversity is falling rapidly, therefore minimising these seems reasonable. And not needing as many renewables by using much less power reduces these impacts the most. That is the less renewables acutely required for functionality the easier it will be to achieve ecosystem regeneration.

       Biomass can potentially be grown sustainably in the long term and without displacing food crops, displacing soil carbon or negatively impacting biodiversity (e.g pesticides, fertilisers), the question is how much? and what is the best done with its limited supply?

       Ambulances or X-Boxes?

       Therefore tmbtx,

       Is there hope?

       I agree overall at the present getting energy sourced from renewables is much better than getting it from fossil fuels, therefore positive to a degree.

       However, again not as positive, as not using the energy.

       And if only it was just about energy production as the debate is so always shifted, when biodiversity losses are just as, if not more worrying, and over fishing in an electric boat is just as impacting as over fishing in a petrol one and cars do kill a lot of birds each year as any wind turbine manufacturer will confirm.

       Personal cars?

       And then there will climate displacement of large numbers of peoples, is current situation that well suited for mass migrations?

       Also if 350ppm is seen as safe, and that is a large carbon debt, the higher we go above that the larger the debt becomes.

       And to get 350ppm given the melting permafrost, forest fires, tree die offs (which will continue to increase in scale as there is warming in the system), basically means becoming massively carbon sequestering as soon as possible. And further the carbon that was taken up into the forest and sea sinks will be re-released as the atmospheric CO2 falls, which means to get 350ppm by 2100 would require removing ~twice amount of carbon dioxide that has been accumulated in the atmosphere plus removing the additions from the permafrost etc.

       At present 1:5 or more (worldwide) don't even feel climate change is happening although I'm not aware of the current perceptions of the biodiversity crisis.

       What scale of change would be needed to achieve that massive amount of true carbon sequestration by 2100, whilst also adapting to the changes to come and repairing the earth's ecosystem?

       Is there hope?

       What are the carbon costs of war and destruction?

       Syria?

       Is there hope?

       For me I suppose theoretically yes, although only if there is a paradigm shift in the perception of the problem, a massive reduction in power use, the cessation of fossil fuels use within 5-10years, and stopping of using non sustainable materials and the transformation of human interactions with nature and each other, in order to facilitate a sustainable society and ecosystem regeneration.

       Is there hope though?

       Not sure, however whilst the focus remains on BAU replacement with renewables then for me it is definitely no.

       Is there hope?

       I wish I could say yes, but as mentioned to most the mobile phone is essential.

28433. bozzza at 21:00 PM on 9 July 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly Digest #27
       

       Surely the question,"...what is the sensitivity as a function of temperature?", can't be answered!

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Well yes, but a very carefully worded restatement could be - ie something like how much extra temperature change would there be for a purely forced temperature change of 1 degree. It still comes down to magnitude of feedbacks - and also timeframe of interest since have both fast and slow feedbacks.

28434. MA Rodger at 20:52 PM on 9 July 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly Digest #27
       

       Tom Curtis @9,

       The 65 is an approximation of σ-¼ = 64.8.

       j*=σT⁴

       T = σ^-¼ x j*^¼= 64.8 j*^¼

       dj*/dT = ¼ x 64.8 j*^-¾

       This gives the slope of the Stephan-Boltzmann equation which at j* = 238.5 Wm^-2 yields a slope of 0.2669444ºC/Wm^-2. The approach employed @12 by Michael Fitzgerald gives a slope of 0.2669446 ºC/Wm^-2. As the concept of climate sensitivity compares ΔT resulting from a doubling of CO2 where ΔF = 3.7 Wm^-2, zero-feedback sensitivity = 0.267 x 3.7 = 0.99ºC which happily is the value quoted in climatology and Wikipedia.

       "Without any feedbacks, a doubling of CO2 (which amounts to a forcing of 3.7 W/m2) would result in 1°C global warming, which is easy to calculate and is undisputed." (My emphasis.)

28435. Tom Curtis at 20:24 PM on 9 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       ryland @10, the retraction of Recursive Fury stated:

       "In the light of a small number of complaints received following publication of the original research article cited above, Frontiers carried out a detailed investigation of the academic, ethical, and legal aspects of the work. This investigation did not identify any issues with the academic and ethical aspects of the study. It did, however, determine that the legal context is insufficiently clear and therefore Frontiers wishes to retract the published article. The authors understand this decision, while they stand by their article and regret the limitations on academic freedom which can be caused by legal factors."

       (My emphasis)

       Transparently, your claim that Recursive Fury was withdrawn "for ethical reasons" completely misrepresents the case.  Rather, a small group of people were so determined to prevent the publication of Recursive Fury that they were threatening legal action, and the publisher was overly cautious.  That they were overly cautious was shown by the fact that the paper remained available for over a year at the UWA with no legal action being taken.

28436. ryland at 19:27 PM on 9 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       Is this a new paper as your headline states or is it a revamp of the paper Recursive Fury that was withdrawn for ethical reasons from The Journal of Social and Political Psychology?  

28437. uncletimrob at 17:47 PM on 9 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       This kind of study is very interesting as it reflects what we (I) see in my profession as a teacher - if there is no explanation that I can understand or accept then there MUST be something else happening eg "they all hate him/her" , "he/she is being picked on" , "this school really has it in for (name your group) people".  I suspect it is a way of aligning or justifying  some core beliefs/ideas/biases with what is actually the truth. Alternatively it is a way out as it allows the user to justify an exit because the alternative is just to uncomfortable to consider.

28438. Rob Honeycutt at 16:44 PM on 9 July 2015
       We're heading into an ice age
       

       Echo_Alpha...  Then if it's a fact you should be able to show us the research that supports that position.

28439. MIchael Fitzgerald at 15:51 PM on 9 July 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly Digest #27
       

       There is definitely some surface of some radius where radiative fluxes are in balance.  The specific temperature of rarified upper atmosphere gases shouldn't be very important as their specific emissivity is so close to zero they contribute little to the flux of photons leaving the planet.  We should be able to define some radius where the net flux of photons is on average zero, beyond which power emissions drop off as 1/r^2.  From space, this radiation is directly measured by weather satellites whose LWIR senors see surface emissions and see cloud emissions but do not see LWIR emissions from anything above the troposphere except perhaps buried in the noise.

       You are saying that this boundary is about 5 km above the surface.  This seems to low to me since clouds can extend to the top of the troposphere and the coldest cloud tops are about 260K.  5 km above the top of the troposphere seems more plausible.  Anyway, getting late here, will pick this up again tomorrow. 

       Thanks for your time,

       Michael

28440. Tom Curtis at 15:07 PM on 9 July 2015
       We're heading into an ice age
       

       Echo_Alpha @363, evidence please.  Or are you only interested in sloganeering?

28441. Tom Curtis at 15:05 PM on 9 July 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly Digest #27
       

       Michael Fitzgerald @12 and 13, what you call TOT (Top of Troposphere) is by convention called Top of Atmosphere (TOA) by climate scientists.  The IPCC Annexe III for WG1 says:

       "Radiative forcing is the change in the net, downward minus upward, radiative flux (expressed in W m–2) at the tropopause or top of atmosphere due to a change in an external driver of climate change, such as, for example, a change in the concentration of carbon dioxide
       or the output of the Sun."

       As you can see, " top of atmosphere" is given as an alternative term for the tropopause (by definition the top of the troposhere).  The reason for this convention is probably partly historical and partly convenience.  As to convenience, the difference between radiative fluxes at the top of the troposphere and at the (very ill defined) highest altitude with gaseous content is small, as you note yourself, so that the convention make little difference in the approximate estimates in which it is used.  Historically, early climate models did not include a stratosphere, so that the Top of Model (the other term you will see) was also the tropopause), which I presume helped give rise to the convention.

       If you want to discuss the literal top of the atmosphere, we face a problem that it is undefined.  The Karman line is, by convention, the demarcation between the "atmosphere" and "outerspace", but it demarcates the lowest levels of the thermosphere as being in the atmosphere, while the bulk of the thermosphere is treated as being in outerspace.  Ergo it is an entirely arbitrary demarcation with no physical basis.  Worse, the particles in the thermosphere still act as a gas meaning that however tenuous, they are an atmosphere.  Further, the thermosphere is radiatively significant (although almost inconsequential as regards surface temperatures).

       Moving on, the temperature at the top of the gaseous envelope of the Earth is not 255 K.  Depending on whether you define it as the Stratopause, Mesopause, Karman line, or Thermopause it is approximately 275 K, 180K, 220 K, or much greater than 270 K.

       

       Where the temperature is 255 K (ignoring temporal and geographic variation) is the average altitude of radiation to space, also known as the skin layer.  This can be treated withto a reasonable approximation as the altitude within the troposphere whose temperature matches that of the skin layer, or about  5 km above the surface.

       Finally, the advantage of using the tropopause to define radiative forcing is that the temperature at the tropopause is fixed relative to the surface by the lapse rate induced by convection.  That means that temperature changes in the tropopause are more or less constant with altitude, ie, a 3 C increase in temperature at the tropopause will result in a 3 C increase at the surface, and vise versa.  This again is only true averaged across the diurnal and seasonal cycle, and ignores the effects of the increase of altitude of the tropopause with increased global warming, and the lapse rate feedback (ie, the cause of the tropospheric hotspot).  This relationship of equivalent temperature changes allows you to reason out the effects of radiative forcing without needing always to use a full GCM (which is the only way to avoid such rule of thumb reasoning).

28442. MIchael Fitzgerald at 13:59 PM on 9 July 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly Digest #27
       

       Moderator,

       The page you pointed me to was all the uncertainties.  The other page 82 is a different document.  Anyway, in the document you refered me to radiative forcing was defined as,

       Radiative forcing (RF) is a measure of the net change in the energy balance of the Earth system in response to some external
       perturbation. It is expressed in watts per square
       metre (W m–2); see Box TS.2

       Box TS.2 on page 53 defines it more precisely as a net difference at the top of the troposphere after the stratosphere has arrived at equilibrium but keeping all other state, including surface temperature, constant.

       Thanks for the reference.

28443. Echo_Alpha at 13:15 PM on 9 July 2015
       We're heading into an ice age
       

       The fact is that through out recorded history a significant increase in Volcanic activity along with a weak solar maximum has always been a precursor to an Ice Age. Anything that has skeptical in its name is bullshit. They are skeptical about the truth and the evidence that goes with it.

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Welcome to Skeptical Science. Please take your time to familiarize yourself with the Comments Policy. Conformance in not optional. Please in particular note the prohibition on sloganeering. If you wish to challenge the science, then do so with evidence, preferably from peer-reviewed sources. Thank you.

28444. MIchael Fitzgerald at 12:25 PM on 9 July 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly Digest #27
       

       It is at 238 W/m^2 which corresponds to the 255K temperature of the planet from space.  238 W/m^2 -> 254.53 and 239 W/m^2 -> 254.8K for a difference of 0.28K per W/m^2.  If I do the other calculation to 2 decimal places (instead of 1) I also get 0.28K per W/m^2.  One W/m^2 of forcing from the Sun after reflection is the same at all altitudes from TOT to TOA so why is there any distinction (You said forcing is defined at TOA, but I thinkj you meant TOT)?  The input power is still 239 W/m^2 (up from 238 W/m^2) and the sensitiivty is defined to be relative to this difference.  I don't see how the temperture at TOT is relevant.  The temperature at TOA is 255K.

       Also, isn't the current surface temperature consequential to 238 W/m^2 of input and that 150 W/m^2 of additional warming power already the LTE (i.e. after all feedback has been accounted for) result?  What additional feedback can make that much difference?

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] A quick look at the IPCC Technical Summary, especially TFE.6, pg 82 might help getting you on the same page with respect to definitions etc.

28445. Tom Curtis at 12:06 PM on 9 July 2015
       Explainer: the models that help us predict climate change
       

       Hick'ry, try here for a starter.  The page explicitly explains CO2 lasers, so does not cover some of the important factors for atmospheric absorption, but covers the basics reasonably well.  You will notice that of the three types of modes that allow CO2 to absorb or emit IR radiation, the most important in the atmosphere is the bending mode, that absorbs or emits radiation at 667 cm^-1.

28446. Tom Curtis at 11:52 AM on 9 July 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly Digest #27
       

       Michael Fitzgerald @10, the slope of the Stefan-Boltzmann function at 250 W/m^2 is 0.258 Degrees K per Watt/m^2.  At 400 it is 0.181 Degrees K per Watt/m^2.  Neither is λ.  That is because λ includes not only the planck response (ie, the slope of the Stefan-Boltzmann function) but also the further effect of any feedbacks.  These increase the temperature response by 1.5 to 4.5 times the base response, ie, increase λ to 0.39 to 1.16 K/W/m^2.  

       I used the value of the Planck responce at 250 W/m^2 for that calculation because forcings are calculated for the TOA (ie, near to the effective altitude of radiation to space where the temperature calculation does not include the greenhouse effect), and hence λ is defined for that altitude as well.  We could calculate a climate sensitivity parameter for surface forcings but the values would differ from the more conventional calculation for the TOA. 

28447. MIchael Fitzgerald at 11:07 AM on 9 July 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly Digest #27
       

       OK. But isn't ΔT/ΔF (λ) just the slope of the Stefan-Boltzmann relation at 255K?  In your calculation, you added 150 W/m^2 of extra warming power to the 238 W/m^2 of solar power (255K).  That being said, increasing 238 W/m^2 to 239 W/m^2 should only result in another 0.63 W/m^2 to the 150 W/m^2 of warming resulting in a surface temperature of 287.9 K which is 0.3C warmer, or 0.3C per W/m^2 and not 0.75C per W/m^2.  Where does the extra 0.45C come from?

28448. Tom Curtis at 11:06 AM on 9 July 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly Digest #27
       

       MA Rodger @7, you appear to have taken the derivative of formula (1) @8, which gives (if I have done this correctly):

       (3) dT/dF = 1/σ*0.25*(j*/σ)^-0.75

       However, you express the relationship between σ and j* as a product rather than a ratio, and I am not sure how you derive the value 65 in your concluding sum which eliminates σ from the calculation.  Could you clarrify.

28449. Hick'ry at 10:21 AM on 9 July 2015
       Explainer: the models that help us predict climate change
       

       Can you point at a presentation on the CO2 infrared absorption process? Many thanks.

28450. L. Hamilton at 09:10 AM on 9 July 2015
       Climate denial linked to conspiratorial thinking in new study
       

       But getting back to "Recurrent fury" ... it occurs to me that the "do you trust scientists for information about X?" questions we've been asking on surveys basically tap into the obverse. Who trusts scientists? People *not* inclined toward conspiracy thinking.

       

       Moderator Response:

       Duplicate image removed.

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