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SirCharles at 23:59 PM on 9 May 2015What if Climate Change is Real? Katharine Hayhoe TEDx at Texas Tech
Video by the US National Academies of Sciences:
Read more in "Climate Change: Evidence and Causes"
Moderator Response:[RH] Reduced size to fit page formatting.
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Jaimesald at 22:55 PM on 9 May 2015They didn't change the name from 'global warming' to 'climate change'
According to the WORLD World Metorological Organization Climate is 30 year Weather average.
Moderator Response:[JH] The use of "all caps" is akin to shouting and is prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy.
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bozzza at 13:12 PM on 9 May 2015Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
Australia has been made proud again by the actions of UWA staff: this is a globalised election issue... this action by the staff of a proud university is of historical significance in my opinion and the mere politics of it is that of all human relations.
Bring back the clever country I say. What say you?
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Tom Curtis at 09:08 AM on 9 May 2015Ask Me Anything about Climate Science Denial
OPOF @18, I certainly have no argument with your recommendations.
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Tom Curtis at 09:06 AM on 9 May 2015Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
michael sweet @55, the story has been widely reported in Australia, including by the ABC, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian, and of course The Gaurdian (Australian Edition) to which Romm links. The Sydney Morning Herald story is echoed across the Fairfax media, as the Australian's version is echoed across the Murdoch press. The only story additional to Romm's report is that Christopher Pyne says he is taking legal advise about the cancellation of the contract.
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michael sweet at 08:02 AM on 9 May 2015Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
Joe Rhom at Think Progress reports that UWA has turned down the $4 million and declined to accept the Lomburg center. Any updated from Oz here?
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Daniel J. Andrews at 07:08 AM on 9 May 2015What if Climate Change is Real? Katharine Hayhoe TEDx at Texas Tech
Brendon, I think the paper for that is Attributing physical and biological impacts to antrhopogenic climate change by Rosenzweig et al in Nature May 15, 2008 (vol 453). They examined 29,500 biological indicators and 90% of them were in the direction expected from global warming. That gives 26,550 indicators of warming.
Moderator Response:[DB] Added link to a full copy of the paper.
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SkepticalinCanada at 05:18 AM on 9 May 2015Ask Me Anything about Climate Science Denial
@17 Sorry, I do not have a list, but a search for something like "lawsuits against us politicians climate change" will bring up a few, including an insurance company class action suit against Chicago area municipal governments. I assume that, as the list grows, someone somewhere will keep track for us, especially as the list of successful lawsuits grows.
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One Planet Only Forever at 05:08 AM on 9 May 2015Ask Me Anything about Climate Science Denial
Tom Curtis@12,
I will try to clarify my recommendation.
Do not presume an interpretation of a word like consensus when its interpretation is key to the message you are trying to convey. Try to explain what you mean whenever you use it.
An additional recommendation is: Do try to tell people what they should have understood if you did not explain the intended meaning. Simply agree that there are multiple possible interpretations, but you meant what you clarify the intended meaning to be.
The pursuit of things like convenience, expediency and brevity can lead to disasterous unintended and unnecessary consequences.
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citizenschallenge at 04:44 AM on 9 May 2015Ask Me Anything about Climate Science Denial
SkepticalinCanada @ 13,
you wouldn't have a list of such US lawsuits would you?
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citizenschallenge at 04:41 AM on 9 May 2015Ask Me Anything about Climate Science Denial
PS
The lawsuit has been brought by the sustainability foundation Urgenda with 886 Dutch citizens acting as co-plaintiffs including teachers, entrepreneurs, artists and children legally represented by their elders.
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citizenschallenge at 04:38 AM on 9 May 2015Ask Me Anything about Climate Science Denial
@14 jenna. It doesn't look as though that lawsuit against the Dutch government has anything to do with "beliefs" it's focused on lack of action that 'We The Dutch People" believes needs to be taken.
(no I'm not Dutch, just a figure of speach)
"Dutch government facing legal action over failure to reduce carbon emissions. Landmark case brought by 886 Dutch citizens aims for more robust policy to cut emissions within targets set by IPCC to help avoid critical 2C rise in global temperatures.
The first public hearings will take place in the Hague on Tuesday in the first case in the world to use existing human rights and tort law to hold a government responsible for failing to reduce carbon emissions fast enough. ...
They will ask the judiciary to declare that the Dutch government must implement policies to reduce its emissions by between 25% and 40% below 1990 levels by 2020. This was the target for developed nations – established by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – as necessary to create a 50% chance of avoiding a dangerous 2C rise in global temperatures."
Unfortunately the legal system moves slower than our cryosphere is melting.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/nov/14/dutch-legal-action-climate-change
The Dutch government is facing the threat of legal action if it fails to take swift action on climate change.
The move, which is thought to be the first time that European human rights legislation has been used to take a government to court over climate change failures, is intended to put the spotlight on what campaigners say is a lack of action and force them to prioritise cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
Urgenda, the pressure group behind the move, sent a letter to ministers calling on them to announce new initiatives on cutting emissions. Without that, the group said it would proceed to the courts.
The government of the Netherlands has not yet responded.
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jenna at 02:54 AM on 9 May 2015Ask Me Anything about Climate Science Denial
IMO, lawsuits against politicians or 'anybody' based on their 'beliefs' (or lack of action based on someone else's beliefs) is a very slippery slope.
I'm for more education and interaction with people that aren't yet convinced of the seriousness of AGW. Lawsuits against polticians or whole countries/governments, will be seen more as radical publicity stunts by your average Joe and may not have the intended results on the public mind. After all, it is the people who will drive the politicians to drive change on this issue, IMO.
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SkepticalinCanada at 02:37 AM on 9 May 2015Ask Me Anything about Climate Science Denial
villabolo @4, one of the current lawsuits has been filed against the Dutch government (as documented at The Guardian), while others I am aware of have been filed against individual politicians in the United States.
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Tom Curtis at 02:26 AM on 9 May 2015Ask Me Anything about Climate Science Denial
OPOF @10, dictionaries only, or should only, report on actual usage. In this case, an example of actual usage is found in the wikipedia article to which I previously linked. In particular, that article has a section heading "near-unanimous consensus". If "consensus" means "unanimous agreement", then "near-unanimous consensus" is a contradiction in terms. It should strike you as odd or as nonsensical as, for example, a dark light, or a spherical cube. As it does not, or at least it does not strike me that way, current usage does not make unanimity a necessary feature of consensus. Ergo, treating it as such is indeed an error, whether in 1860 or 2015.
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RobH at 00:56 AM on 9 May 2015Ask Me Anything about Climate Science Denial
"what are the main reasons someone would deny climate change?" Some of the people I mix with and who dont seem to mind assuming everyone shares their view seem to have a suite of beliefs that seem to tie together - homosexuality is a lifestyle choice, the university (name any one) is a hot-bed of Moaist and Trotskyites, New Scientist is a left-wing magazine and you dont believe all that rot about global warming do you? - Oh, and I hand our how to vote cards for (guess who). This gives me the creeps as to what the hell is going on in one of our major political parties.
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One Planet Only Forever at 00:35 AM on 9 May 2015Ask Me Anything about Climate Science Denial
Tom Curtis,
Truth can be understood to be "in agreement with facts". In that sense it does not relate to spirituality or religious beliefs which have no objective confrimable facts for consideration.
It is probably better to describe the intended meaning of a term like consensus (or strong consensus - weak consensus, or objective truth) whenever such a term is used. English is an amazing evolving language. Regardless of the history of meaning of a word, an expected meaning of a term should not be relied upon.
The full definition of consensus in the 1988 edition of "The New Lexicon - Webster's Encyclopdic Dictionary of the English Language" is:
"concord (of opinion, evidence, authority, testimony, etc.) [L. = agreement].
And concord is defined as "a state of agreement or harmony ll a treatment or agreement ll (mus.) a chord harmonious to iteslf, not needing others to resolve it ll (gram.) agreement between the forms of words, e.g. (for number) 'this house, these houses' [F. concorde]"
By that definition the interpretions of the term to mean unanimous agreement are not currently 'an error of interpretation'. Believing or claiming it to be an error of interpretation is an error.
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Mighty Drunken at 22:53 PM on 8 May 2015Ask Me Anything about Climate Science Denial
The lukewarner question is a good one and so is the answer. The lack of action by Government and companies needs only to look at reasons for delaying action. For a better future climate that is not possible
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Brendon at 22:51 PM on 8 May 2015What if Climate Change is Real? Katharine Hayhoe TEDx at Texas Tech
Thanks, Katharine's a great communicator.
Out of interest, any idea where the source is for the 26,500 indicators of warming?
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uncletimrob at 18:01 PM on 8 May 2015What if Climate Change is Real? Katharine Hayhoe TEDx at Texas Tech
Thank you! Another keeper for my students. Most inforative and easy to understand.
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Tom Curtis at 16:30 PM on 8 May 2015Ask Me Anything about Climate Science Denial
OPOF @7, my Shorter Oxford defines "consensus" as:
"1. Phys. General concord of the different organs of the body in effecting a given purpose. ...
2. Agreement in opinion."
The first recorded instance of the first meaning is in 1854, of the second, it is in 1861. Most internet sources define "concensus" as "general agreement" which is not the same as unanimous agreement. It is glossed as such by Miram Webster. However, Miriam Webster provide a second defintion as "the judgment arrived at by most of those concerned" (my emphasis). Based on that, I believe the idea that "consensus" means the same as "unanimous opinion" is just an error of interpretation.
The error arises, I believe, due to many people being familiar with the term from consensus decision making, which often involves a requirement of unanimity, especially from small groups. Even there, however, near unanimous decisions are often accepted as part of consensus decision making. Indeed, for clarity it may be helpful to borrow some terminology from that field. Specifically, some consensus processes can be decided by an agreement by all but one member or all but two members, described as U-1 and U-2 respectively. With so large and amorphous a body as that of all climate scientists, using individual counts of dissenters is hardly usefull. However, we might define a "strong consensus" as U-5%, ie, agreement by all but 5% or less of climate scientists, and a "weak consensus" as U-10%, ie, agreement by all but 10% or less of climate scientists.
If we use those definitions, and by my estimate from familiarity with various surveys, there is a strong consensus that:
1) Anthropogenic emissions are the primary (>80%) cause of the recent rise in CO2 concentrations;
2) That increasing greenhouse gas concentrations cause an increase in Global Mean Surface Temperature; and
3) That anthropogenic forcings have caused more than 50% of recent global warming (ie, warming since 1950).
There is at least weak consensus that:
1) That anthropogenic forcings have caused more than 50% of industrial era global warming (ie, warming since 1750);
2) That unmitigated global warming will result in temperature increases over the coming century between the upper bound of RCP 8.5 and the lower bound of RCP 6.0; and
3) That unmitigated global warming has a statistically significant risk of being very dangerous.
Finally, there is at least a super majority (66% or more) of the opinion that unmitigated global warming will more likely than not be very dangerous.
Re Degrasse's statement, "objective truth", if it means anything more than just "truth" means merely the truth, objectively determined. By definition, therefore, the consensus opinion of scientists is not thereby objective truth, for it is determined by a subjective measure, ie, the actual opinions of scientists. It is, however, our current best guess as to the truth objectively determined, ie, as determined by the scientific method.
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One Planet Only Forever at 14:06 PM on 8 May 2015Ask Me Anything about Climate Science Denial
I understand that the intended meaning of consensus is a 'majority view' on a matter. However, not all dictionaries include that definition for the term. My Oxford Dictionary 1985 edition does, but my Webster's dictionary published in 1988 does not. And our Scholastic Children's Dictionary published in 2002 defines consensus as "An agreement among all people in a discussion or meeting". So, by definition, there is no consensus regarding the meaning of the term consensus according to the definitions provided by Websters and Schoalstic.
Neil Degrasse Tyson refers to generally accepted scientific understand as objective truth.
I like that term, objective truth, because it reinforces the need to be objective and points out that all people who truly objectively review all of the evidence on a matter will come to essentially the same conclusion, the objective truth that could be altered by new information, but that is not altered until there is new substantive information that objectively warrants a change of the understood objective truth.
However, the term Objective Truth is also used in a variety of ways including claims of objective truths about unobservable matters like spirituality, matters that are important to ponder but that cannot truly be evaluated 'objectively' at least not yet.
What a conundrum. (at least everyone can agree about that term ... or can they?).
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scaddenp at 13:00 PM on 8 May 2015Ask Me Anything about Climate Science Denial
I think the most important thing about scientific consensus, is that it should be the guide to policy. Consensus may change (eg fat in diet) in which case policy needs to change with it, but the current scientific consensus, when strongly formed, is the only rationale guide to policy.
For practising scientists, the consensus is usually the underpinning for further work, but of course a scientist should challenge the consensus when there is an observation that doesnt fit or an hypothesis that better fits observations. This is the normal progress of science. eg I would assume say Fourier's Law in my work pretty much without question. However, if some observation turned up that defied explanation within that framework and I could dream up an alternative that also worked with all previous observations, then I am in position to challenge that consensus.
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bozzza at 11:00 AM on 8 May 2015Ask Me Anything about Climate Science Denial
Consensus starts with nomenclature so to say consensus is not a part of science is incorrect by-ahem- definition.
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villabolo at 09:20 AM on 8 May 2015Ask Me Anything about Climate Science Denial
@ SkepticalinCanada #2,
Are those lawsuits directed at individual politicians or their party?
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Jim Eager at 09:08 AM on 8 May 2015Ask Me Anything about Climate Science Denial
Under Scientific Consensus, the first questioner is confusing consensus as a decision making process with consensus amng scietists on what constitutes the body of accepted and agreed upon scientific evidence. The two are quite different uses of the word.
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SkepticalinCanada at 05:08 AM on 8 May 2015Ask Me Anything about Climate Science Denial
@ villabolo And that of course is why I am encouraged to see lawsuits being initiated in several countries against politicians who fail to act responsibly based on the science. If they are successful, I believe (maybe just hope) that the lawsuits will trump the lies.
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pattimer at 03:30 AM on 8 May 2015The DENIAL101x temperature tool
@ Kevin C why do you say " to eliminate the jargon term 'Anomaly' from all my graph axes," ? I would have thought the 'anomaly' term is important.
Brilliant tool.
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villabolo at 02:28 AM on 8 May 2015Ask Me Anything about Climate Science Denial
"When enough people speak up to politicians, the politicians will realise that the one thing they care about - their job - is at stake and will act accordingly."
Actually, the one thing that politicians care for are campaign funds to keep their jobs. That determines whether or not they get elected. These funds, of course, come from the fossil fuel industry which has the deepest pockets of all. There is no way we can match the money and power of the corporate elite.
Also, if enough people complain to politicians about any one subject that they don't want to accept they will simply lie about their position in order to get elected.
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rockytom at 15:13 PM on 7 May 2015The DENIAL101x temperature tool
A very nice addition! There are a lot of talented people who contribute to this site!
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Tristan at 13:08 PM on 7 May 2015It hasn't warmed since 1998
Quick, two points you can make:
1) The entire earth system is accruing heat. To try to disprove that by looking at the lower troposphere alone is a bit silly. As most of the heat (95%) goes into the ocean+ice caps looking at a graph of sea level is going to be more useful (it tells you about the rate of thermal expansion and meltwater).
2) if you look in the 'resources' section of the website, and use the trend calculator to plot the RSS trend from 1997, you get a range of +0.17c to -0.17c / dec. Now, if your friend wants to call that cooling, well, that's an interesting interpretation. The central estimate might be a tiny cooling trend, but the error bars are huge. Furthermore, if you use UAH rather than RSS, you get substantially different estimates - given that, and the error bars, I'd be reluctant to make any statement based on those data.
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Klapper at 13:03 PM on 7 May 2015Models are unreliable
All @90x:
I have been reviewing Hansen et al 2011 (http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110415_EnergyImbalancePaper.pdf), and think it would be a useful exercise to update this paper with the very latest data on sea ice (from PIOMASS), continental ice melt (from GRACE), atmospheric heat gain (but from TLT, not surface temperature), land heat flux (let's use HadCRUT4 as the delta T flux driver). Here's my first step, atmospheric heat gain (the easy one), using Hansen's method and replicating his work with one slight difference, I used monthly rather than annual data.
You can see the 2 methods don't give a significant difference (you can cross-check my work against Hansen's Figure 12) . You can also see for the recent years, the the atmospheric input is close to zero for both GISS SAT as the delta T and RSS TLT.
Any comments? This looks like a weekend project, but a great learning opportunity all the same.
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suckfish at 06:02 AM on 7 May 2015Pause needed in global warming optimism, new research shows
Greg,
There are multiple possible causes of what you note.
One is that it is real effect, with the climate having a long term memory of the "hiatus".
Another is that it is purely by chance. It appears to be about 0.25 standard deviations on each line, so no big deal.
Finally, there may be selection bias. A model showing lower warming overall, may be more likely to "by chance" look like the "hiatus" (independently of the overall quality of the model).
I'm not a climate scientist, nor have I looked at the details of how the graphs are constructed, but my first bet would be on selection bias, unless that was specifically corrected for.
Ralph.
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jimspy at 04:42 AM on 7 May 2015The DENIAL101x temperature tool
Absolutely, positively, completely blown away. Most useful tool since the Robogrip.
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gregcharles at 04:07 AM on 7 May 2015Pause needed in global warming optimism, new research shows
That's a very interesting graph. I'm surprised, though, that the two models show small but significant differences in predicted temperatures far into the future ... past 2100 for the RCP 4.5 scenario, and until around 2090 for RCP 8.5. I think of the so-called hiatus as being caused by purely temporary phenomena ... basically all those called out in this article. I don't understand how any of those could have long-term effects on global temperatures.
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Quick at 03:48 AM on 7 May 2015It hasn't warmed since 1998
Tom Curtis@327. I'm in an ongoing "exchange" with a skeptic who believes man's influence is there, but very minimal. He recently posted this:
"The 18 plus years of no warming, and the more than a decade of cooling, are factual data from the current version global satellite lower troposphere temperature anomaly datasets from both RSS and UAH(v6). Atmospheric temperature readings by satellite are NOT "surface station" temperature readings.
Go to woodfortrees dot org and plot the past 18 years, 5 months of RSS MSU/AMSU TLT global temperature and you will see not only has there been no warming for that period of time, but the past 14 years have been progressively cooler, and all are cooler than 1998."
I realize the 1998 cherry-pick, but could you please elaborate on these comments of your's?:
"the UAH trend from 2001 to current is 0.070 ±0.217 °C/decade. That compares to an IPCC projected trend over the interval of 0.2 °C/decade. That is, it is well within error of the IPCC projection. That the error margin on measurement is larger than the projected temperature rise, however, tells you that it is too short a period to test the theory."
What is the trend looking back further...how far previous to 1998 can you go with this UAH trend and what would it be?
"The RSS data should be ignored. It uses the same basic data as UAH but the processing results in values distinctly different not only to UAH, but also to all other temperature records. Until it is found out why that is, and a correction made, it must be regarded as inaccurate for short term trends."
Can you provide more detail on what is different about the data processing which results in distinctively different values for RSS vs. UAH?
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Jim Hunt at 01:59 AM on 7 May 2015Arctic sea ice has recovered
Continuing an (off topic!) conversation from elsewhere, Cryosphere Today is finally back to normal after its long "hiatus". The "homebrew" calculation from the Arctic Sea Ice Forum was in error by 0.3k.
The official CT Arctic sea ice area is currently 11,796,725 km2 for day 124 of 2015. -
saileshrao at 22:36 PM on 6 May 2015Week 1 of Denial101x: 14,000 students from 159 countries
This is a useful course to understand all other denial phenomena as well. I've been applying the denial Framework to understand how the Animal ag industry has distorted our behaviors. For instance, human mother's milk has 5-6% protein content while the USDA recommends 30% protein in our diet - a Logical Fallacy, since mammalian infants require the MOST protein content in their diets.
Thank you, John Cook and all the faculty of Denial 101X!!! -
Kevin C at 20:23 PM on 6 May 2015The DENIAL101x temperature tool
Difference vs 61-90 average (like HadCRUT4).
I though I'd been so careful to eliminate the jargon term 'Anomaly' from all my graph axes, but there it is again! -
PhilippeChantreau at 16:35 PM on 6 May 2015Models are unreliable
Klaper at 903: BS. Tom Curtis and others make a number of substantive arguments backed by the litterature. If you don't want to address the arguments, it's likely because you can't do so without officially abandoning your pet theory. There is lots to be learned from lectures, by the way. And quantitative arguments have meaning only to the extent that we understand the quantities being argued. In this case, the quantities are physical. Physics always win, eventually.
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uprightsquire at 13:31 PM on 6 May 2015The DENIAL101x temperature tool
Can it clarify what the anomaly is on the vertical axis? (i.e., 'difference to 1900-1980 avg' or whatever is actually is?)
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DSL at 11:00 AM on 6 May 2015Heartland takes climate foolishness to a Biblical level
longjohn119, if you see it in the selection of modifications in the writing window, then it's ok.
On the off chance that your comment was void of irony, I'll point out that superiority of the spoken word has not led to its being adopted by science as the primary means of communicating ideas.
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longjohn119 at 10:25 AM on 6 May 2015Heartland takes climate foolishness to a Biblical level
Are italics Politically Coerrect for emphasis of certian words or phrasse that deserve emphasis? Writing is such a poor way to convey ideas compared to orally
Moderator Response:[JH] The use of italics and/or bold font is acceptable.
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MarkR at 08:54 AM on 6 May 2015Week 1 of Denial101x: 14,000 students from 159 countries
@5 Andy Skuce: although many would argue that it's has nothing to do with telling people about the course, but is an entirely natural phenomenon driven by a recovery from the non-internet age and anyway it doesn't exist because John Cook invented the data to hide the decline.
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Rob Honeycutt at 05:27 AM on 6 May 2015The DENIAL101x temperature tool
The only thing that I would wish for relative to this would be to see a pre-industrial baseline and a way to show the 2C limit.
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Tom Curtis at 04:54 AM on 6 May 2015The DENIAL101x temperature tool
Wow! And thankyou.
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Andy Skuce at 03:55 AM on 6 May 2015Week 1 of Denial101x: 14,000 students from 159 countries
Alexandre, mid-April was when we started actively promoting the course in the press and on social media.
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Alexandre at 03:50 AM on 6 May 2015Week 1 of Denial101x: 14,000 students from 159 countries
What caused the surge in enrolments by mid april?
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MA Rodger at 03:45 AM on 6 May 2015Models are unreliable
Moderator Response @903.
I think accusing Klapper of being "insulting" is a bit strong. I would accept that refusing even to read a replying comment is outrageously discourteous. But my characterising Klapper's comments as "pretty-much wrong on every point" without explanation - now that could be construed as being insulting, although if asked I am happy to provide such explanation.
Klapper @901.
I do not see that I did put words in your mouth. You are on record as objecting to the statement "We have OHC data of reasonable quality back to the 1960s" by saying "I've looked at the quarterly/annual sampling maps for pre-Argo at various depths and I wouldn't agree that's true for 0-700 m depth and certainly not true for 0-2000 m. There's a reason Lyman & Johnson 2014 (and other stuides) don't calculate heat changes prior to 2004 for depths greater than 700 m; they are not very meaningful." If you are stating that pre-Argo 0-2000m data is certainly not of reasonable quality, that trying to use it would be not very meaningful, this can only suggest that you are saying it is not useful data and thus it is junk. And others elsewhere have inferred the same from less well defined statements of your position on pre-Argo OHC data, inferences that did not meet objection from you.
I have in the past seen the early OHC data point maps. Sparce data is not the same as no data, is it?
And if you don't read something, how can you know what it is saying? Indeed, was I "hectoring" @900?
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bwilson4web at 03:22 AM on 6 May 2015Week 1 of Denial101x: 14,000 students from 159 countries
Any possibility of showing paid vs free registrations?
Like the pig and the chicken who met for a breakfasf of ham and eggs to discuss the farmer. The chicken was interested but the pig was committed.
Bob Wilson
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