Recent Comments

Prev  592  593  594  595  596  597  598  599  600  601  602  603  604  605  606  607  Next

Comments 29951 to 30000:

29951. mercpl at 10:51 AM on 30 April 2015
       A revealing interview with top contrarian climate scientists
       

       As a keen gardener I feel qualified to comment on the "CO2 makes thing grow" argument.  Well of course it does, but then so does water, sunshine and fertilizer.  The problem is, of course, getting all of those things in the right balance.  If I put either too much or too little water on my vegetables, they will die.  Too much fertilizer will burn the leaves of many plants.  And too much sunshine will kill many shade loving plants. 

       The same goes for CO2,  having more available isn't automatically better.  The question is "Can they use it?".  It's such a stupid and simplistic argument. 

29952. John Hartz at 10:32 AM on 30 April 2015
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       Recommended supplemental reading:

       Is 2015 The Year Soil Becomes Climate Change’s Hottest Topic? by Natasha Geiling, Climate Progress, Apr 29, 2015

29953. Tom Curtis at 09:22 AM on 30 April 2015
       Climate sensitivity is low
       

       Rob Honeycutt @321, there has been a recent paper by Smith et al (Feb, 2015) on "Earth's energy imbalance since 1960 in observations and CMIP5 models".  For your discussion with Klapper, the key graphs are figs 3 a and b.

       

       "Earth's energy imbalance. (a) Time series of 5 year running mean N and Ht (as Figure 2, second panel) for 21 CMIP5 coupled model simulations (N in green, Ht in orange, ensemble mean in thick lines) compared with Ht from MOSORA (red) and No (blue, see text). Black squares (diamonds) show where differences between MOSORA and No (CMIP5) are significant with 90% confidence. (b) N averaged over different periods in No (blue, with 1 sigma uncertainties) compared to the CMIP5 models (green, box showing the mean ±1 sigma and whiskers showing the range) and estimates from the IPCC fifth assessment (red) [Rhein et al., 2013, Box 3.1]. Numerical values are given in Table S3."

       To interpret that, N_o is the net downward energy flux at the Top of the Atmosphere (ie, TOA energy imbalance) determined from observations, being the net difference between satellite observed outgoing long wave radiation and incomeing short wave radiation benchmarked against ocean heat content data from July 2005 to June 2010.  H_t MOSORA is the ocean heat content from a Met Office reanalysis.  That makes it semi-emperical, being emperical over those zones of the ocean of which we have observations, but using a computer model constrained to the emperical values over those zones where we have observations to fill in those zones in which we do not have observations.  H_o and H_t CMIP5 are the multimodel mean equivalents.

       Several things are worth noting in Fig 3a.  First, N_o (ie the TOA energy imbalance) from observations and models match closely except for the period of 1972-82.  They certainly match well over the last decade, although the observed N_o is slightly less than the modelled N_o in that period (of which more later).  Second, TOA energy imbalance and OHC should match closely, and do for the models.  There are, however, wide disparities between them in observations.  That indicates there are more problems with the observations than there are with the model/observation comparison.  (For what it is worth, the problems with observations probably relate to the limited region of the ocean in which OHC is directly observed, coupled with problems in the reanalysis.)

       Fig 3b is much simpler, and simply shows a direct mean TOA energy imbalance comparison between models and observations over various periods.  As you can see, the observations are statistically indistinguishable from the models for all periods.  More importantly, "the missing 0.5W/m2 between models and reality" is seen to be a fiction.  The actual difference over the most recent decade is 0.11 W/m^2.  The 0.5 figure is based on old figures from CMIP 4 and far less accurate observations, and even then is exagerated by rounding.  That Klapper is still using it shows he is clinging to old data simply because it is convenient for his message.

       The paper also has some interesting information about the cause of the discrepancy between models and observations, encapsulated in Fig 4:

       

       As you can see, the discrepancy between model and observed short wave radiation (ASR) is greater and more persistent than the discrepancy in longwave radiation (OLR) after 2000.  Ergo the primary cause of the 0.11 W/m^2 discrepancy between models and observations is the reduced observed shortwave radiation compared to the models.  At least part of the explanation of  that is that the models cease to use historical data from about 2000 onwards, and hence do not include the short wave forcing from a series of recent volcanoes.  If that forcing were included, the discrepancy between models and observations would be smaller, possibly non-existent.

       (Note to Rob - I've spelt out in detail a number of points I know you know quite well for the benefit of Klapper and other potential readers.)

29954. mancan18 at 08:22 AM on 30 April 2015
       Inoculating against science denial
       

       Very informative.

       William and the trust of this article make a very good point. Knowledge does not come from being buried in massive amounts of information. However, if this knowledge accumulates over many years of serious disciplined study, it will ultimately lead to expertise and the ability to make coherent arguments within said discipline. However, knowledge also comes from being asked the right questions, engaging the mind and then exploring the logical consequences of the answers. At the end of the WW2, psycologists working for the Allies were engaged to de-program the Nazi ideology of the extremists in the Hitler Youth, who had been brought up in an environment where anti-Semitism, eugenics and militarism were the norm. That de-programming involved asking the right questions, allowing those whose views had been distorted, to engage their minds and explore the logical consequences of their firmly entrenched beliefs. Their de-programming did not come from being told that they were wrong and burying them in massive amounts of information. In fact, the non-threatening questioning techniques used, allowed the psycologists to de-program most of the young Nazi extremists in about a week.

        On an alternative point, made elsewhere in the article and discussion, is that correlation does not necessarily imply causation, as has been already pointed out. But it can imply a reliability and consistency. However, it does not imply the validity of the relationship being correlated. Also, if there is no correlation then there can never be validity. In other words, validity implies correlation but correlation does not necessarily imply validity. That has to be done through logical argument using relevant knowledge and understanding.

       As for CC deniers versus CC acceptors. It is unlikely that there will ever be 100% consensus on either side. It is an argument that has to be won in the probabilities. Deniers seem to want 100% certainty, but considering the chaotic phenomonen being studied that is very unlikely. On the other side, acceptors seem to want 100% acceptence and 0% denial. This again is unlikely considering human nature. The best you can hope for is, as John points out in this article, an inocculation point, a critical mass of acceptors, which leads to wide spread acceptence in the public consiousness which should then lead to support for positive political action. Only then, will denial be seen by the public as merely a fringe idea, to be banished into the realms of other questionable and unsubstantiated scientific theories. How you do that effectively in the time frame needed is, of course, the million dollar question.

       I do believe that the acceptor side of the CC debate will eventually become widely accepted in the public mind. The basic science is well understood by scientists and will eventually penetrate through to the public. However, will it be in time to take the positive action needed to alleviate the worst aspects of AGW? One can only hope.

29955. Rob Honeycutt at 08:01 AM on 30 April 2015
       Climate sensitivity is low
       

       Klapper: "....or where is the missing 0.5W/m2 between models and reality?"

       
       Rob: "Really? Who've you asked about this one?"

       Klapper: "You for a start. However, while you've dismissed this as irrelevant, you're not very knowledgeable about greenhouse physics (your repetitive references to the irrelevent heat seeking missile examples says a lot), and I think this is time to take this argument over to Skeptical Science where there are more knowledgeable posters to discuss/argue the point."

       Just to pick up the conversation with Klapper.

       I don't know why you're asking me questions like this that are best answered by people who are experts in the field. All I can do is try to read the relevant research and give my non-professional opinion. 

       What I'm asking you is, on all these questions you're asking, which you seem to think are evidence of a failed theory of AGW, who are the experts you're asking? You say they're not answering these questions, but are you actually asking anyone who actually would best know the answer?

29956. Rob Honeycutt at 07:52 AM on 30 April 2015
       Climate sensitivity is low
       

       Stub for Klapper to move conversation from Guardian to SkS where he believes there are more informed commenters than me. 

29957. scaddenp at 07:50 AM on 30 April 2015
       The climate 'hiatus' doesn’t take the heat off global warming
       

       "This suggests that factors other than human activity have an effect on global temperatures".

       Well duh! Someone suggesting that there arent other factors? However, England is talking about the yearly to decadal variations in surface temperature which are strongly dominated by internal variability due to an unevenly heated, water-covered planet. Climate is by definitition about the 30-year averages. The currently observed change in climate (ie the long term trend) since 19th C however is mostly if not all due to human activity.

       Surface temperature is important because that is what we experience but it is also prone to high levels of variability. As the article points out, you can look at other metrics instead - OHC, sealevel, global glacial mass which have a much lower degree of internal variability.

29958. KR at 06:25 AM on 30 April 2015
       The climate 'hiatus' doesn’t take the heat off global warming
       

       ryland - In response to your second, and quite unrelated question, ""...can ocean temperatures be accurately measured to fractions of a degree or to 100 or so zeta joules?, the answer is simply Yes, we can. 

       This opinion that we cannot measure to the stated level of accuracy is a common misconception - from the Law of Large Numbers we find that  as the number of observations increases the accuracy of the observations as a whole converges towards the real answer, regardless of the resolution of the individual measurements. Roll a sufficiently large number of dice, and the average fo the die values will converge towards 3.5, with precision increasing along with the number of dice rolled. 

29959. KR at 06:16 AM on 30 April 2015
       The climate 'hiatus' doesn’t take the heat off global warming
       

       ryland - Attribution studies, looking at how much of recent climate change is due to us and how much is due to natural variations, is a very significant aspect of climate study. And multiple studies using different methods have come to the conclusions (see figure 2) that we are responsible for more than 100% of recent warming (with a small cooling influence from natural forcings). 

       See also an excellent overview of the current understanding of attribution at Realclimate, summarizing the information from IPCC AR5 - the best guess is that anthropogenic forcings are responsible for 110% of warming in the last half century, with only a 5% chance of the attribution being less than 50%. In other words, a 95% chance, given the evidence, that we are the dominant cause of recent warming. 

       To the extent we wish to minimize climate change, we have to address our responsibility for it. 

29960. SkepticalinCanada at 05:13 AM on 30 April 2015
       The climate 'hiatus' doesn’t take the heat off global warming
       

       Sea "temperature" is not given in joules, ocean heat content is.

29961. ryland at 04:24 AM on 30 April 2015
       The climate 'hiatus' doesn’t take the heat off global warming
       

       Professor England says

       "As a result, surface temperature is strongly affected by natural variability. Beyond year-to-year variability such as El Niño there are decade-to-decade changes, such as the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation, which has been shown to have a marked impact on global temperature rise.

       In particular the negative phase of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation can lead to dramatically increased trade winds and fewer El Niños – as has been occurring since 2001. The modulation of these processes can significantly impact global average temperatures".

       This suggests that factors other than human activity have an effect on global temperatures.  But what percentage of global atmospheric temperature/ocean temperature  change is due to natural factors and what to human activity?  Without knowing this how can the extent of the appropriate action be taken to limit huan impact be determined with any degree of accuracy?  And why is the sea temperature given in joules rather than in degrees C or conversely why is surface temperature given in degrees C rather than joules?  And can ocean temperatures be accurately measured to fractions of a degree or to 100 or so zeta joules?  

29962. KR at 02:53 AM on 30 April 2015
       Heartland takes climate foolishness to a Biblical level
       

       "Policy group", i.e. lobbyists. 

29963. KR at 02:51 AM on 30 April 2015
       Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
       

       Tom Curtis - Thank you, I had not been aware of that code release. 

       Although from Connelley's report it seems to be rather horrifying (gah!) from a software perspective, with code changes and recompilation needed every month due to fixed arrays that have to be resized for each additional data point, huge chunks of code commented out or unreachable due to gotos and program logic, etc. 

       I suspect the most useful part of that information will be the algorithm description, which should permit cross-checking by other investigators, for example Po-Chedley and Fu (relevant 2012 article  on UAH reconstructions here). I hope they'll put out an update that includes the V6 changes - the linked documentation refers to multi-view angle data, which has been abandoned in favor of multi-channel data for the computation of lower troposphere temperatures.

       I'm not entirely certain how comparable the 5.6 and 6.0 UAH versions are as a result of those method changes. 

       I'm also curious to see if the new version of UAH temperatures has a significant effect on the Cowtan and Way temperature reconstruction - the changes in the UAH V6 Arctic temperature trend (by a factor of almost 2) is quite significant. 

29964. Dennis at 01:56 AM on 30 April 2015
       Heartland takes climate foolishness to a Biblical level
       

       As stated on their website, Heartland is a libertarian/free market economic policy group.  Their ventures into religion as are far off-topic from their stated purpose as their ventures into scientific research.

29965. One Planet Only Forever at 23:34 PM on 29 April 2015
       Heartland takes climate foolishness to a Biblical level
       

       It is important to not refer to the Heartland Institute as a 'religion based group'. They are simply one of the many groups created by the collective of people who want to be able to get away with their desired but unacceptable attitudes and activity. Some of the groups created by this collective of callous greedy and intolerant people try to disguise themselves as 'religious'. Others claim to be objective investigators of economic matters. Heartland does boh the religious and economic masked nonsense.

       All such disguised groups make selective use and misrepresentation of information, including selective parts of religious texts, as the basis for their claims. They will try to claim things even though it is possible to better understand the objective truth that has recently developed about those things. And religious objective truth seekers will indeed justifiably tear apart and dismiss claims made by such people.

29966. Tom Curtis at 14:28 PM on 29 April 2015
       Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
       

       KR @41, it has emerged lately that Spencer and Christy have revealed their code here (under Mean Layer Temperatures - UAH).  William Connelley recently bloged about it.  Apparently Eli mentioned it in 2013, but Spencer and Christy have certainly not advertised it.

29967. dcpetterson at 14:08 PM on 29 April 2015
       Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
       

       Tom Curtis and KR ---

       Thank you for the informative replies. Very revealing!

       I was not aware that Christy and Spencer have never revealed their code or algorithms. That rather makes a mockery of scientific rigor, doesn't it? Or am I mistaken?

29968. KR at 13:27 PM on 29 April 2015
       Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
       

       Tom Curtis - "...truly informed comment on UAH v6 will have to await release of the code and examination by experts..."

       Of course, Christy and Spencer have never released their code or algorithms (unlike the other temperature records). Making such examination difficult in the extreme. External corrections have come from various groups reconstructing the UAH record without assistance from UAH, discuvering where they may have gone wrong, and then after some (often considerable) period of time the UAH group has updated their results. 

       It's been 26 years so far, and the UAH group has yet to release their methods. I don't expect that to change any time soon. 

29969. Tom Curtis at 12:55 PM on 29 April 2015
       Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
       

       dcpetterson @37, truly informed comment on UAH v6 will have to await release of the code and examination by experts (of which I am not one).  Several of Spencer's graphs stood out to me, however, as allowing some form of preliminary assessment of the difference between v5.6 and v6.

       Of these, the most important is that showing weights by altitude:

       

       Because satellite data does not come from just one layer, satellite temperature products show the weighted average of temperature data from different altitudes.  Because of their new method, UAH v6 gives a much lower weight to near surface temperatures and a higher weight to (cooling) lower stratosphere temperatures.  This is partially balanced by an increased weight to warmer upper tropospheric temperatures (can any body say "upper tropospheric hotspot").  Spencer says this cools the record by " less than 0.01 C/decade".  As the difference between v 5.6 and v 6 trends is 0.026 C/decade, that represents about a third of the difference just by changing the weighting profile.

       Also of interest is the chart of trends by zone:

       

       Ignoring the inappropriate use of a line chart rather than a bar chart, what stands out is the huge reduction in Arctic temperature trends.  The other note worthy cool changes in the record are, in order of magnitude, the NH north of the Tropic of Cancer (NExtraT), the USA 49, the USA 48, and the NH.  Clearly almost the entire change comes from high latitude NH temperatures.  That is clearly inconsistent with surface temperature records by GISS, or DMI:

       

       It also does not pass the smell test in relationship to changes in Arctic ice (sea ice, glaciers and ice sheets).

       Finally comes the data excluded from the analysis:

       

       Caption:

       "Fig. 1. Local ascending node times for all satellites in our archive carrying MSU or AMSU temperature monitoring instruments. We do not use NOAA-17, Metop (failed AMSU7), NOAA-16 (excessive calibration drifts), NOAA-14 after July, 2001 (excessive calibration drift), or NOAA-9 after Feb. 1987 (failed MSU2)."

       If you look at the excluded satellites, that means that from late 1998 to mid 2003, NOAA 14 was the only satellite from which Spencer and Christy would accept data.  Curiously, a general warming trend of UAH v6 relative to UAH v5.6 reverses in 1998, and flattens out in 2005 (ie, the onset of NOAA 18).  That is a noteworthy coincidence at least, and suggest their diurnal temperature correction has problems.  Whether it does or not, of course, can only be answered by detailed analysis which I am unable to provide.

29970. Rolf Jander at 12:52 PM on 29 April 2015
       Heartland takes climate foolishness to a Biblical level
       

       The pontifical Acadamy will tear heartlands "expert" a new one!

29971. william5331 at 10:09 AM on 29 April 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #15B
       

       It is disquieting that while the NSISC reports figures like 14.54 square miles of ice - 4 significant figures - , Cryosat2 reports figures like 21000 cubic km of ice.  What is happening with their satellite or their soft ware or with whoever is processing the data. By now we should have had three or so years of a graph for ice volume similar to the one that the NSIDC gives for ice extent and it should be to more significant figures.  Even if the measurement is off, if it is off by a certain amount in a certain direction, we would have a trend which is arguably more important than the absolute value.  Cryosat is said to be able to see through clouds so it should be able to give very good results during freeze and melting periods, clear and stomy weather and in summer and in winter.  What is going on at the ESA.

29972. Tom Curtis at 10:08 AM on 29 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       ryland @52, out of interest I did a google scholar search for the author of the opinion piece in The Australian, Jennifer Oriel.  It turns out that after a publication in 2005 based on her PhD thesis, she has published two further academic journals plus one for the organ of the Australian Union of Students.  From those publications she has a google scholar h-index of 3 (strictly 2 counting purely academic journals alone).  She has also published two book reviews and an article for the Institute of Public Affairs, the later suggesting (though not proving) a right wing ideological bias.  Her academic affiliation was (and may still be) with Deakin University, who list her research output as zero.

       I looked this up because her argument is based on the charge that academic pubication is a poor measure of research output because of a supposed left wing institutional bias in academic publication.  Given that is the nature of her argument, the question arises what claim does she have to expertise in this area, and it turns out the answer is none.  (That it also shows she has a personal interest in rejecting h-indexes, or publication records as a measure of research merit is a bonus.)

       As to her argument I will make three points.

       First, it is irrelevant.  What the h-index measures is the ability and willingness to make your case to those who have the relevant expert knowledge to actually pick up your mistakes in argumentation, mistatements of data, etc.  Anybody unwilling or unable to do that has no place heading an academic think tank at government expense.  Indeed, the selection of such a person for that role shows the government is using public money to promote its private ideology - something event the IPA should be able to recognize as bad.

       Second, her argument is evassive.  There is substantial evidence that that Lomborg in addition to evading scrutiny by his peers, has indulged in a host of academic sins including cherry picking, framing of straw man opponents, misrepresenting data and employing different discount rates when making cost comparisons.  That is, on the public record is is reasonable to suppose that his "research" is not only not presented to his peers, but that it would not survive such a presentation because it lacks academic merit.  The low h-index is merely a symptom of this larger problem.

       Third, her own google scholar record proves her wrong.  Specifically, it shows that google scholar cheerfully includes not only peer reviewed publications, but publications from ideological think tanks such as the IPA.  It includes 18,200 articles from Australia's most influential, but not peer reviewed journal Quadrant.  Ergo, even if her self serving claims about academic publication are accepted as true, there are more than sufficient alternative means of publication with a designed right wing bias to establish a significant publication record, and more than sufficient authors of articles in those journal to establish a respectable h-index.

       So, all in all, her argument has no merit.

       I will not bother, however, submitting an opinion piece (or even a letter) to The Australian because long experience has shown they have an overwhelming bias against policy relevant opinions they do not like.  So much so that on climate change their opinion pieces appear to represent an exact reversal of the AGW consensus, with around 3% of opinion pieces from those supporting the consensus, and 97% from those opposing it.

29973. william5331 at 09:59 AM on 29 April 2015
       Inoculating against science denial
       

       I think one of the best ways to argue with the "faithful": that is to say someone that basis his opinion on faith rather than belief is simply to ask them penetrating questions.  Don't ever, if you can help it, give them your opinion.  Wethere there faith is Christianity or climate denial, they can tie themselves in knots and the questions remain like trogen horses in their minds.  The problem is to start them thinking rather than just parroting the faith based line.

29974. bozzza at 07:50 AM on 29 April 2015
       There is no consensus
       

       What happened circa 2007- 2008 I wonder?

29975. dcpetterson at 05:41 AM on 29 April 2015
       Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
       

       Thank you, Michael. I know that the people at UAH have had a lot of trouble, and have a history of unreliable calculations, as this article shows. I suspect the contrarian crowd are about to seize on the latest UAH numbers, and I’m hoping to have some responses I can give.

29976. michael sweet at 05:15 AM on 29 April 2015
       Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
       

       Spencer's post does not link to any peer reviewed paper.  Will they submit it for review?  The blog post is written in the style of a scientific paper.  I wonder if they have allowed anyone to look over their new mothods to find errors or if they will wait for others to find them later.  In the past other scientists have found major errors in UAH data processing.  Most of those errors have caused the trend to be falsely low.

       The surface record does not have a history of making major adjustments to the data like the atmosphere data do.  It is more reliable.

29977. Ian Forrester at 05:06 AM on 29 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       Pluvial says:

       who get upset at my lack of scientific acumen and jump to the conclusion that it makes me wrong.

       You cannot make statements like that, which is completely against any published science, without at least citing a source for the comment. If you found this erroneous statement (and I'm certain it wasn't in any science paper) then at least let us know where you are getting your information from.

29978. CBDunkerson at 04:11 AM on 29 April 2015
       There is no consensus
       

       

29979. dcpetterson at 03:51 AM on 29 April 2015
       Satellites show no warming in the troposphere
       

       UAH has apparently completed a reivew of their methods and data, and re-written their software. Their new calculations seem to indicate a lower warming trend than they had been reporting. I don't know enough math or physics to make sense of their recent claims. Can someone comment?

29980. John Hartz at 03:47 AM on 29 April 2015
       Heartland takes climate foolishness to a Biblical level
       

       Over the past few days, I have been posting links to articles about the Pope's initiatives on the SkS Facebook page. This week's News Roundup will also include a number of articles on this topic.

29981. jenna at 03:07 AM on 29 April 2015
       Inoculating against science denial
       

       Dr. Judith Curry has posted some thoughts on this subject at her blog if anyone is looking for a few laughs.

       I won't post a link, those who follow the propaganda from 'that' side of the argument will know where to look.

       Jen.

29982. jgnfld at 01:58 AM on 29 April 2015
       Heartland takes climate foolishness to a Biblical level
       

       I suggest firmly supporting your neck and head before reading on...

       I will not dignify this with a link, but it is from the Heartland website and googling all or part of the quote will show that is true.

       ...The Vatican workshop is already being presented by the liberal media as an endorsement by the Catholic Church of policies that are profoundly anti-poor and anti-life. ...

       Good Stewardship

       Most people agree that safeguarding creation – and being a good steward of the environment – is a high moral obligation. If human activity posed a genuine threat to the world’s climate, then some action would be appropriate. But global warming alarmists wave off any evidence that the threat is small or even nonexistent, and they call for policies that would shut down virtually all economic activity around the world. These unnecessary policies would cause the suffering and even death of billions of people. All people of faith should rise up in opposition to such policies.

       Certain persons currently scheduled to speak at the workshop, including UN General Secretary Ban Ki Moon and Jeffrey Sachs, director of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, are outspoken advocates of the man-made global warming hypothesis. They and other climate alarmists have misrepresented the facts, concocted false data, and tried to shut down a reasonable, scientific debate on the issue of climate change. This conduct violates the Eighth Commandment: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”...

       Lecturing the Pope on the eighth commandment while breaking it to bits!!! Gotta say they have some lot of hutzpah! Actually something tells me they googled "what is the Catholic Church against" and just worked in every catch phrase they could into a word salad. It certainly doesn't display the depth of scholarship I'd expect from, say, a Jesuit-trained writer.

29983. ryland at 01:25 AM on 29 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       There is an opinion piece in today's (April 29th) Australian on Lomborg's appointment, that spends some time on h-factors.  The writer seems less enamoured of them than some who have so lucidly  commented here.  Perhaps posters here will write a comment to the Australian on this opinion piece as it will reach a very wide audience.   As commenters here have a very different perspective from that of the journalist, this will add significantly to the understanding of the general public about this somewhat arcane issue.

29984. bozzza at 00:51 AM on 29 April 2015
       There is no consensus
       

       I was looking here for arctic sea ice data...

       But that Neven site said some new near-real-time ice thickness maps had just recently been made available from here.

       So I guess we'll be talking about 3 metre ice thickness a fair bit from now on... I mean, the trajectory of the 2015 Arctic sea ice as of April 27 looks somewhat interesting. [/understatement mode]

       Multi-year ice: I saw something today somewhere on multiyear-ice from 2000- 2009 that looked frightening but is there information on multi-year ice after this? (In the Arctic that is of course!!)

29985. One Planet Only Forever at 00:32 AM on 29 April 2015
       Inoculating against science denial
       

       My view on this matter have more holistic basis, a basis that applies to more than just the matter of excess CO2. It is in line with, but slightly different from, many of the comments made.

       - Many religious people understand the problem of excess CO2 production by human activity. They consider it to be another unacceptable result of the socioeconomic system that encourages people to pursue their desires regardless of the ability to understand the unacceptability of pursuing those desires. And many non-religious people share that 'worldview' and pursue advancement of civil society and humanity being a part of the robust diversity of life on this amazing planet.

       - The desire for freedom to get away with unacceptable pursuits is a 'collective view' encouraged by mass-marketing mass-consumerism. And that collective of like-minded people often politically pairs itself with the collective of people who want to get away with restricting the freedoms of others, unjustly persecuting them if they behave in ways that do no harm other than disturbing the unjustified but firmly believed values of those who selectively interpret religious texts to suit their interests. Both collectives share the desire to get away with actions that can be understood to have no real future, are meant for the enjoyment of the members of the collective to the detriment of others.

       - People's desires, not just their feelings, can strongly motivate their investigation into, and way of thinking about, an issue. A scientist that allows their personal desires to influence their work will not be as successful as they could be. A person in the global community can, at least temporarily, enjoy more success in satisfying their desires if they deliberately dismiss or discredit any better understanding that is contrary to their interests as long as hey can get away with the unacceptable things they want to get away with. And those people will fight to protect their 'freedom to do what they please' (even fighting against methods of catching them breaking driving rules). The success of such people is what needs to be stopped. And that can be accomplished by pointing out the unacceptability of their desired pursuits, but like an addict, a person locked into a damaging cycle of behaviour, you have to get them to admit that what they desire is indeed unacceptable. Until they take that first step there can be little success made by attempts to change their minds.

       - And like any other harmful addiction, the real problem is the motivations for a person to fall into the addiction. The real trouble-makers are the ones who deliberately tempt people into the damaging addiction. This can be seen to be what is going on regarding the matter of the production of excess CO2. It is a very desireable thing that many people have developed a massive damaging addiction to. And it is not a national issue. The addiction is a significant part of the global economy with varying degrees of addiction in all nations.

       Which leads back to the root problem. The power of misleading marketing, which itself is a field of science. I learned about it in my MBA training. And we were advised by our Professor that the temporary success of misleading marketing can be very tempting, but can not be expected to last. That makes it an appealing action to promote a 'dud' movie to maximize the revenue before improved public awareness from people who actually see the movie spreads. That is also what makes it appealing in politics where the effect only has to last through the time of an actual election. Of course after a series of successes through deliberately misleading marketing the success will fade, but a decade or two of such unacceptable success is all that some poeple want to get away with. Some are even pleased to get away with one political win that gives them 4 to 5 years of ability to get away with damaging unjustifiable actions.

29986. RobH at 00:31 AM on 29 April 2015
       Inoculating against science denial
       

       At times I begin to think that the business of pondering the basis of denialism is a waste of time - in the end I find myself coming to the inescapable conclusion that it is just a matter of stupidity - in the end when lives or livelyhoods are threatened then neuronal processes begin to reflect on reality.  Note contrite parents of disabled (or worse) kids who werent immunized.  Also note that there is a surprising lack of gw denialism amongst local authories on the coast or within insurance companies or small oceanic states.

29987. Jim Hunt at 00:21 AM on 29 April 2015
       There is no consensus
       

       Michael,
       
       It seems the CT hiatus is "caused by computer problems, and they hope to have them resolved this week."  For alternative sea ice area data until the CT computers are fixed see:
       
       http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1112.msg50809.html#msg50809

29988. michael sweet at 20:46 PM on 28 April 2015
       There is no consensus
       

       Bozzza,

       Arctic sea ice is hard to predict.  Current sea ice area is near record low.  Most observers feel that April sea ice area is not predictive of September sea ice area.  Last year there was one group that seemed to have a good model that predicted September sea ice area at the end of May, based on the number of melt ponds.  Check back at the start of June and there might be better information.  You should look at Neven's Arctic Sea Ice Blog for updates and discussion

       Does anyone know why Cryosphere Today stopped updating April 12?

29989. bozzza at 18:20 PM on 28 April 2015
       There is no consensus
       

       Is there a consensus forming over the behaviour of Arctic sea in 2015?

       If there is, what is it?

29990. mancan18 at 16:35 PM on 28 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       bozzza @48

       Trolling is personally attacking someone with abuse and threats on twitter and in emails where the comments made have absolutely no relationship with the debate being discussed. Also, trolling occurs because the people doing it do not like an opposing argument related to the issue being discussed. It is often done by politically motivated types or just for mischievous purposes. It is designed to drive people involved in legitimate discussion making legitimate points from the debate. The simplest way of dealing with a troll is to block them but quite often people have had to close their online accounts and stop making comments. Trolling is just another strategy to confuse and obstruct a legitimate debate.

29991. PluviAL at 14:53 PM on 28 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       Ian Forrester @31, et al 32 to 25, Thumbs up. Thanks for the comments. Sorry if I drift, and not to attack the man here, but, Ian illustrates the point well; there was no consideration of the alternative argument offered. (Shrinking continents/globe was the precursor explanation for mountain building)

       If Lomborg's Present Value, and other arguments are faulty, they need to be addressed; the future of humanity may rest not just on the most precise technical understanding of the science, but the practical politically actionable business of successful action. That means money and political will.

       To attain good results we need good science, good communication, and good strategies. And yes, Lomborg may not be aware of his motivations anymore than those who get upset at my lack of scientific acumen and jump to the conclusion that it makes me wrong. The point of the article is to consider Lomborg's value, and the discussion is stuck on indices and technicalities, unable to broaden the perspective. This may be scientifically defencible, but may be missing the point.

       Finally, JH: I thought you all would know that earth flux is 44 TW and insolation is 174,000 TW, my shorthand sumo-illustration was too cryptic, sorry.

29992. ryland at 14:03 PM on 28 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       Thanks to all for the time and effort taken in answering the points I raised.  Apologies Tom Curtis @47 I couldn't check the Danish newspaper report to which you refer as the link was not operating.  

29993. Rolf Jander at 12:20 PM on 28 April 2015
       Inoculating against science denial
       

       Hi.

       My first post here. I have been fighting the good fight on YouTube comments. This article fits very well with what I have expeirenced there. I always figured I would not convince the person I was arguing with but hoping to sway lurkers who might be open to the facts.

       Besides religion, I think the hardest nut to crack is the conspiracy aspect. Those who are scared to death that Climate change is an excuse for the UN to step in and take their property and force them into some kind of ghetto. If they talk of Agenda 21, it seems like game over.

29994. bozzza at 10:49 AM on 28 April 2015
       Inoculating against science denial
       

       Religion is about choosing to believe in a heavenly government so the idea that religious belief makes carbon dioxide irrelevant is absurd even to the religious..

29995. ubrew12 at 10:23 AM on 28 April 2015
       Inoculating against science denial
       

       DSL@5 Agreed.  I was going to say that many deniers have been taught that climate denial is 'of a piece' with their entire Spiritual viewpoint.  Appearing to attack elements of that viewpoint, rather than restricting oneself to the matter of AGW, reinforces the paranoic vision they've been spoonfed.  If someone imagines that accepting your arguments will land them in h_ll, you will not prevail.  On the contrary, if your evidence matches what they see outside the door each day, and also what certain Spiritual leaders, like the Pope, are saying, the chances for success are higher.

29996. bozzza at 10:08 AM on 28 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       mancan18 @ 46, what is the definition for 'trolling' ?

29997. Tom Curtis at 10:01 AM on 28 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       ryland @41, the problem with Lomborg is not that he studies how best to tackle global warming, nor even that his proposed solution isn't a solution.  It is that his "research" in support of his conclusions is distinctly second rate, and probably constitutes academic misconduct.  I have quoted other peoples opinion on this here and here, but I have not read his books and must rely on their opinions in that regard.  However, one issue I have looked at is the use of different discount rates in the "Copenhagen Consensus".

       Kare Fog gives the story:

       "4) Inconsistent use of discount rates
       The experts were instructed in advance to use two discount rates, viz. 3% p.a. and 6 % p.a. That is, the benefit/cost ratios are calculated twice, once with the low rate, and once with the high rate. In practice, however, only the results obtained with the low rate (3 %) have been used in the conclusions. So, the high benefit/cost ratios for the many programmes in the fields of health, nutrition and diseases were calculated using a discount rate of 3 %.
       The only exception is in the field of global warming. Here, Yohe et al. use a discount rate of 5 %, gradually declining over 100 years to 4 %, whereas Green uses 4 %.
       Why did the climate specialists not use the prescribed discount rates? As to Yohe et al., the explanation given by the economist Richard Tol here is as follows:
       "On the discount rate: I do not know what the other papers used. We used a consistent discount rate — all calculations, and all reporting was done with the same discount rate. The models that we use would require extensive recalibration for a different discount rate. . . As we used dynamic optimization models fitted to observations, we had to stick to the discount rate we had. As the rest of the Copenhagen Consensus used simpler methods, they should have used our discount rate."

       So Richard Tol thinks that all other specialists should have used the discount rate that gradually declines from 5 % to 4 %, because his group could not easily adapt to the prescribed 3 %, whereas it would have been relatively easy (?) for all others to adapt to his group´s discount rate. In any case, the result is that the disocunt rates are not comparable.

       As to Green, he performed his calculations with a 4 % discount rate, but also included results for a 3 % discount rate.

       Now, when all data for all items were summarized and compared, all other projects were represented by the benefit/cost ratios obtained wit a discount rate of 3 % (the results with a 6 % discount rate were not used in the final evaluation). Only the climate projects were represented with different discount rates. And these rates were higher than those used for other issues. Which is against the usual thinking that the longer the time perspective, the lower must the discount rate be. As the climate issue has the longest time perspective, it should have the lowest discount rate.
       This is especially remarkable in the case of Green´s project. Here there existed a version where a 3 % discount rate was used, but in spite of this, the version included in the final ranking was the one using a 4 % discount rate. And that matters quite a lot. As stated in the previous paragraph, for Green´s project, 4 % yields a benefit/cost ratio of only 16:1, whereas 3 % yields a benefit/cost ratio of 28.5:1. Which would have brought Green´s climate project near the top of the ranking list, above the efforts against tuberculosis, malaria, child diseases and heart diseases. The climate project would have got a priority near the absolute top. But the slight change in discount rate, from 3 % to 4 %, sent the climate project far down along the ranking list, out of the range of projects that are granted money.
       Incidentally, this is the same situation as in the Copenhagen Consensus 2004. There, the discount rate used for the climate issue was 5 %, whereas that used for HIV/AIDS was 3 %.
       So there is an obvious reason why the climate issue always is ranked last. It is systematically treated with a higher discount rate than the other issues.

       It would of course be interesting to hear Lomborg´s comments to this criticism. And indeed, he has been forced to comment upon this in a debate in a local Danish newspaper in February 2009. See here."

       On this, I have verified independently that Tol in fact used a higher discount rate than was used examining other projects considered by the Copenhagen Consensus, and that that materially alters the priority rating of takling global warming as compared to those other projects.

       In the case of Tol's paper, that may just be Tol's fault, although Lomborg ought to acknowledge the problem, something he seems determined not to do.  But in the Green case mentioned above (which I have not independently verified), the choice to use the valuation based on the 4% rather than the 3% discount rate was Lomborg's, and amounts to academic fraud.

29998. Paul W at 09:46 AM on 28 April 2015
       Inoculating against science denial
       

       @CBDunkerson, What an excellent question!

       "Obviously, 'inoculation' is a useful tool to halt the spread of misinformation, but how do you get through to someone who has already been successfully inoculated against reality?"

       I've been teaching a form of counselling for 30 years. I'll give you my take on it.

       I think we need to start with the common personal decision making aparatus - feelings. Most people from my experience decide most everything based on their feelings. Feelings can be manipulated to be made up of a large part of the past so the person walks around with a pseudo-reality made up of old attitudes and painful emotions as if it's all real. These become self perpetuating. Self fulfilling justifications.

       As an example - an argry man can become convinced that everyone is defensive. If they are not defensive in the first second of a conversation with him I expect they will be by the second or third second.

       I see ideologies as being the pseudo realities that hold all the painfull past in place. When a person is very relaxed and open I don't have much trouble with a sensible discussion of climate change. Very few are that relaxed and open!

       The world views I've come across occupying climate denial are those of the right wing, the religeous evangelical, the haters of communism, those working for fossil fuels. Of course a clear headed right wing, evangelical anti communist fossil fuel employee could be an ally to climate science. It's about cultural blind spots.

       A workable path out of this blocked up pseudo real life is through relationships that have trust and humour. Once those features are in a life - a relationship with someone who does know about climate change science and who is also trusted personally, humour is able to be used to begin to break up the rigid mass of the pseudo real. The ideological blocks of pain filled attitudes after a big laugh are loosened up for a little while.

       With skillfull humour and a good relationship the approaches that John Cook discusses become with in reach. Then his recommendation about weak denial inoculation looks work able to me. Having done that with denialist friends I know that it's possible for me to acheive that.

29999. mancan18 at 09:38 AM on 28 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       WheelsOC

       Perhaps, I have missed the purpose of this thread and should not have posted as what I'm saying is not exactly in line with the discussion. This is about Lomborg's h index, which is an index that is totally independent of his credentials related to CC and what he says. It is also about whether he deserves to be given 4 million dollars by the Australian Government to establish his research centre in Australia and further obfuscate the CC debate.

       Now, if this an esoteric discussion purely about academic credentials amongst academics, then I am happy to take your point. This, unfortunately, is not going to enlighten the wider public about the quality of a CC argument, who these academics are and what they are saying. In fact, in Australia, most CC related comments that make it to the wider public are mostly by non climate scientists writing denier based articles in the Murdoch press or comments made by right wing shock jocks. While Sks does conduct a proper balanced debate based purely on the science, the economics and social impact; this debate does not filter into the public forum because, in Australia, the mostly denier/skeptic comments get a free unchallenged run because those putting up a more balanced position have been hounded out of the public forum with torrents of abuse and trolling. In other words the public do not get a balanced view based on the science. I am not suggesting that some CC credential for CC scientists be used to select scientists for research centres, the h index should be enough.  Also, I would be fairly sure that Lomborg probably doesn't use it or would use any other artificially CC related credential. I would be pretty sure that he would select his academics using his own criteria. What I am saying is that the wider public do need some way to assess the quality of a CC article in the public forum. Unless climate scientists properly engage in the public debate then they will well and truly lose the debate despite what they might be arguing in purely academic circles. In public forums in Australia, it's too easy to be a denier. It should not be.

30000. Rob Honeycutt at 09:32 AM on 28 April 2015
       Lomborg: a detailed citation analysis
       

       ryland @ 41...

       The challenge comes with the "at least in part" aspect of his position. Over the years it's become undeniable that climate change is, in fact, happening. So now the default denial position is that it's happening and humans are responsible "at least in part." This is not much of a shift in position. Lomborg still says that we should continue to burn FF's because not burning it would hurt the poor, which is a position that's not supported by research. 

       Catch that? The shift in position is there to make higher profile climate deniers sound credible, while their position on any kind of action to limit carbon emissions remains completely unchanged.

Prev  592  593  594  595  596  597  598  599  600  601  602  603  604  605  606  607  Next