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Tom Dayton at 08:34 AM on 9 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
Ashton, further to one of Rob's points: Global warming from anthropogenic CO2 was projected long before computers were available, and long before it was even technologically possible to measure global temperature. SkS has a summary, and for details see physicist and science historian Spencer Weart's The Discovery of Global Warming.
The fanciness in the models merely fine tunes the simple and robust projections. Sufficiently scary projections can be made by hand calculating--as they were done before computers existed--and even many of the refinements can be done quickly with merely a spreadsheet to prevent hand cramps from penciling it all out. Just two examples are Tamino's "Not Computer Models" and its followup "Once is Not Enough". For more examples, borrow or buy the short textbook by David Archer, "Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast".
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DSL at 08:25 AM on 9 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
Ashton, over the last forty years, what is the net effect of El Nino/La Nina on global mean surface temperature?
Who are you arguing with? No one has claimed that natural variation doesn't have an effect on GMST. IPCC AR5 has pages upon pages summarizing the research into natural variation. You should Foster & Rahmstorf 2011. Foster = tamino. The link is to his discussion of his paper. He's got a message for you in the first sentence.
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Rob Honeycutt at 08:19 AM on 9 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
Ashton... "But I don't think the AGW proponents have proved their case beyond reasonable doubt."
Then how do you think that so many National Academies and scientific organization have come to that conclusion? (Wikipedia)
"My major hangup on anthropogenic warming is that this concept is based primarily on computer programming..."
I do not know how people ever come to the conclusion that this is only about computer programming, because that is certainly a wild fallacy.
"But this is what SkS said about the strong El Nino in 1997-1998 'In 1998, an abnormally strong El Nino caused heat transfer from the Pacific Ocean to the atmosphere.'"
Surely you can understand that the ENSO cycle is a function of short term variability and is not a forcing. The 1998 El Nino is merely the ocean and the atmosphere "balancing the books" so to say.
The point being made is that, in the absence of man-made greenhouse gas emissions over the past century, the planet would likely have seen a mild cooling trend. Thus, the warming from the past 50 years is likely all due to human contribution.
As for you list of websites, I can see why you're getting so much wrong. You're frequenting a list of sites (WUWT, CA, JC and BH) that specialize in misinforming people about the science.
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sylas at 07:52 AM on 9 November 2014New study questions the accuracy of satellite atmospheric temperature estimates
The most curious thing about the lower troposphere temperature data from satellites is that there is a large systematic difference between the results given by UAH and by RSS; even though both are using the same raw data. The UAH group (the one Roy Spencer works on) shows much MORE warming. It is the RSS group which shows basically flat.
Has anyone looked into this difference?
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Ashton at 07:51 AM on 9 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
scaddenp @36 You asdk "how many articles at WUWT would we have to demonstrate as complete and utter nonsense and/or malicious distortions of the truth before you decided that that reading it was a bad idea?"
I really don't know. The post which is being debated, includes pieces from the Guardian stating that crop yield has increased in 2014. That doesn't seem to be complete and utter nonsense or malicious distortions of the truth but a matter of fact. In that piece Watts states that the summer of 2014 is the 15th warmest on record and again, that doesn't seem complete and utter nonsense or a malicious distortion of the truth. Agreed this is not the same as the warmest ever year but it is relevant. He also states "With three of the last four years being the coldest since 1996 in the UK, this year’s warm weather has been just that – weather. No month this year has been the warmest on record. It is simply that nine out of ten months this year have been above average" and "But with the Met Office projecting milder, wetter winters and sunny, dry summers, it seems clear that climate change will bring significant benefits to the UK." Once again that doesn't seem to be complete and utter nonsense or malicious distortions of the truth but a matter of fact. It would be unrealistic to trawl through WUWT looking for pieces that are complete and utter nonsense etc but like any good scientist and I am a scientist, a biochemist, I read around a topic. I have no hopes that there will be "news there (sic) was both reliable and in conformity with what you hope to be true?"
I don't "hope" that anything will be true, that would be very unscientific indeed. But I don't think the AGW proponents have proved their case beyond reasonable doubt. My major hangup on anthropogenic warming is that this concept is based primarily on computer programming with all the inherent errors and biases that that can be subject to. And please don't give me chapter and verse on Arrhenius and pCO2 etc I am well aware of those. Let's look at the "29 bullets" piece in Sci Am which states
"Since 1950 human activities have led to virtually all temperature rise. Natural forces have caused virtually none of the temperature rise"
But this is what SkS said about the strong El Nino in 1997-1998 "In 1998, an abnormally strong El Nino caused heat transfer from the Pacific Ocean to the atmosphere. Consequently, we experienced above average surface temperatures. Conversely, the last few years have seen moderate La Nina conditions which had a cooling effect on global temperatures"
This suggests natural forces do have an impact on global temperature. Who is right? Sci Am or SkS? This is what Tamino had to say on Open Mind "We can also see some some sizeable ups and downs, like the cooling for a few years around 1992 caused by the Mt. Pinatubo explosion, and the strong warming in 1998 caused by el Nino"
So dp natural forces affect global temperatures or don't they?
As for "better" blogs than WUWT, as well as WUWT I read SkS, Real Climate , JoNova, Climate Audit and till it disappeared Open Mind. Occasionally I look at Judith Curry and Bishop Hill.
Apologies for length I hope this post isn't deleted.
Moderator Response:[JH] This is the most recent in a long string of Gish Gallops that you have posted on SkS. Any future Gish Gallops posted by you will be summarily deleted.
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bjchip at 07:40 AM on 9 November 2014New study questions the accuracy of satellite atmospheric temperature estimates
"Simply put, when you eliminate the effect of clouds, the atmosphere is warming faster"
....mmm wouldn't you want to be more specific? Say instead
Simply put, when you eliminate the effect of clouds on the satellite readings, the atmosphere is warming faster...
For there is also the effect of clouds on the actual temperature we are attempting to measure. This is a nasty bit of parsing because the effects of clouds appear in so many places and the quote miners are SO ....
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nigelj at 07:35 AM on 9 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45C
The large drought in Brazil is concerning. Maybe the planet will experience ever more droughts, and then suddenly everyone will wake up and ask why didn't someone do something? Fingers will point at people like Senator Inhofe, but of couse it will all be too late. We are slaves to our own complacency, climate denialism, and human failings.
Regarding el nino. When I look at the climate record for the last 100 years you have many smaller or mid sized el ninos, then the 1998 el nino really stands out as a large one. This el nino is also at the peak of a warming trend since about 1970. This makes me think that warming oceans are altering the el nino cycle, and we might get fewer but larger el ninos. The cycle has therefore possibly changed, so may be hard to predict until a new pattern emerges. -
DSL at 07:29 AM on 9 November 2014Sea level rise is exaggerated
Holdean wrote "There have been four periods where atmospheric temperatures and CO2 levels have been as high or higher than presently in the last 400,000 years (Source: http://www.grida.no/publications/vg/climate/page/3057.aspx) Mankind was obviously not the cause of any of these occurrences."
This is incorrect. Present is 2014 with an atmospheric concentration of ~400ppm. In the ice core record, "present" is 1950. We are currently 100ppm higher than any point in that record. -
Antarctica is gaining ice
Expert or not, Dr. Steele's credentials _do not automatically make him correct _. That is the basis of the fallacy of arguing from authority.
As has been pointed out on this thread, Steele has made some rather elementary and invalidating errors. Science stands or falls based on content, on whether or not it fits the evidence. Steele's hypothesis fails that test.
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Tom Dayton at 07:00 AM on 9 November 2014Sea level rise is exaggerated
Holdean wrote "There have been four periods where atmospheric temperatures and CO2 levels have been as high or higher than presently in the last 400,000 years (Source: http://www.grida.no/publications/vg/climate/page/3057.aspx) Mankind was obviously not the cause of any of these occurrences."
Yes, obviously, but that would be relevant to the current temperature increase only if we had no idea what controls temperature. In fact, we do know. See:
- Climate Has Changed Before
- CO2 Is Not The Only Driver of Climate
- The Biggest Control Knob: Carbon Dioxide In Earth's Climate History
Holdean wrote "The 'mini ice age' lasted from the 1300s to about 1850 and that is when the glaciers and sea ice reached their peaks. As that water becomes available again, sea levels rise."
But the "mini ice age" (a.k.a. the Little Ice Age) was not in any way an "ice age" (we currently are in an ice age and have been for a long time), nor a glacial period within an ice age (currently we are in an interglacial period). Nor was the "mini ice age" global, and "it" was not even a single event. Instead, there were some isolated periods of strictly regional cooling separated by as much as hundreds of years. So the very existence of a global Little Ice Age is a myth. Those cooler periods loomed large in the minds of people who were living in those regions, and the cultural prominence of the opinions and writings of those people made those cooler periods seem singular, severe, and global.
See also "We're Coming Out of the Little Ice Age."
In all Skeptical Science posts, be sure to read not just the Basic tabbed pane, but the Intermediate and Advanced ones if they exist.
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wili at 06:21 AM on 9 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45C
On the on-again-off-again El Nino story: The latest graphs now show an increasing likelihood of a super El Nino (again) for the middle of next year. Any chance that this will fizzle again, just at this year's predictions did, and as they did a couple years ago? Has something fundamentally shifted that has made these much harder to predict? Or has prediction always been dicy when it comes to El Ninos/La Ninas?
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scaddenp at 05:40 AM on 9 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
Ashton, as a matter of curiousity, how many articles at WUWT would we have to demonstrate as complete and utter nonsense and/or malicious distortions of the truth before you decided that that reading it was a bad idea? 10?, 100?, 1000?
Or would you continue to read it no matter what in the hope that one day there might be news there was both reliable and in conformity with what you hope to be true?
Frankly there are better places to go if you want climate skeptic discussion which have more integrity.
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Dikran Marsupial at 04:48 AM on 9 November 2014Sea level rise is exaggerated
Holdean, Pevensey is an area that used to be a marsh, and the reason that the castle is now a mile inland is because the marsh silted up (c.f. the medieval shipyard at smallhythe that is also used to make similar arguments). There are numerous medieval (or older) villages and towns along the Sussex coast, which would have been underwater had sea levels been significantly higher prior to the little ice age. It doesn't take much basic fact checking to find that out. The plural of anecdote is not data.
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Ashton at 04:48 AM on 9 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
I will attempt to make the deleted comments more anodyne in the hope I can communicate with MA Rodger.
Fair enough. I don't read the comments at WUWT as I find them uncritical and often banal. Having read some to try and find the commenter to whom you refer I can't see any reason to change my opinion. I had no idea the quote I used had been previously published, although is that really significant? As you can see from some of my comments here I almost always use quotation marks at the start and finish of quotes from others. With regard to TinyURL I often use these for conciseness,
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Rob Honeycutt at 04:43 AM on 9 November 2014Sea level rise is exaggerated
Holdean... SLR is merely one piece of the larger picture related to man-made climate change and is fully consistent with all the other science on the issue. So, no, it's not "doubtful" in the least.
I don't know where you get the idea that "the current period of climate change [...] started approx 18k years ago." That's just not the case. The planet came out of a glacial into a new interglacial starting about 18k years ago. Since ~6000 years ago the planet had started into a neoglaciation that was abruptly ended with the start of the industrial revolution (See Miller 2010, Section 12.2).
No one rejects that there have been periods of higher temp and higher CO2 levels. That's not the problem. The issue is with the rate of change that natural systems, as well as human civilization, will be unlikely be able to adapt quickly enough to. Past rapid rapid climate change events are marked by mass extinctions such as the End Permian.
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Holdean at 04:28 AM on 9 November 2014Sea level rise is exaggerated
I think that a lot of you are missing the point, including the contributing author. Are sea levels rising? It would seem so. Is mankind in some way causing this phenomenon? Doubtful. The current period of climate change with accompanying measuements of atmospheric temperature and CO2 levels started approximately 18,000 years ago. There have been four periods where atmospheric temperatures and CO2 levels have been as high or higher than presently in the last 400,000 years (Source: http://www.grida.no/publications/vg/climate/page/3057.aspx) Mankind was obviously not the cause of any of these occurrences. The graph showing the rise in sea levels in the article posted here shows steadily rising sea levels since the 1870s. That should be expected when you consider that the "mini ice age" lasted from the 1300s to about 1850 and that is when the glaciers and sea ice reached their peaks. As that water becomes available again, sea levels rise. A way to look at it would be to look at Pevensey Castle, which was on England's South coast in 1066. Pevensey Castle is now a mile inland! (Source:http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/02/history-falsifies-climate-alarmist-sea-level-claims/)
Moderator Response:[Rob P] - Please note that WUWT is a spoof climate science site. For an understanding of the historical context of sea level rise since the last glacial maximum see these SkS posts:
2. Sea Level Isn't Level: This Elastic Earth.
3. Sea Level Isn't Level: Ocean Siphoning, Levered Continents and the Holocene Sea Level Highstand.
Note that these SkS posts are based upon actual research by experts in the relevant scientific disciplines. I think that the main point is that non-expert expectations of sea level response are incredibly naive - you need to understand all the factors that affect relative sea level at any particular site. Why else do you think that specific site was chosen, and the 'big picture' blithely ignored?
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Rob Honeycutt at 03:45 AM on 9 November 2014Antarctica is gaining ice
"Dr Steel is a world expert on astrophysics."
But that doesn't make him an expert on climate. Changes in insolation and their radiative effects on climate are understood by climate scientists. It's well understood as a very slow and minor forcing, whereas we are witnessing a large and rapid change in climate today that is consistent with the large radiative forcing of man-made greenhouse gases.
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John Hartz at 03:28 AM on 9 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
[JH] Moderator's Comment
Ashton's two recent posts were argumentative and therefore were deleted.
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PhilippeChantreau at 03:08 AM on 9 November 2014Antarctica is gaining ice
"If they are reluctant, then I think it is reasonable to discard their opinions as complete rubbish."
That is the most stupid thing I have read in a while. (-snip-) It amounts to a blanket argument from authority. Not to mention we're not talking about opinions but specific criticisms that can be adressed in methodical fashion. It is hard to understand how someone with as much alphabet soup as Karly claims can have such a lapse in rational thinking. The argument can obviously be turned on its head to say that, if Dr Steel has no training in atmospheric sciences whatsoever, his opinion on climate should be dismissed as complete rubbish.
Now, how about discussing that albedo problem?
Moderator Response:[RH] Let's check the tone here.
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Firgoose at 02:41 AM on 9 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
Lol. Thanks, guys. Now I'm wondering why I hadn't noticed before. Call myself observant? ;o)
@MA Rodger: From the last time I Joe90'd the time sections of the Wiki, I seem to remember there being a difference betwen GMT and Universal (should be Queen's Universal Empire) Time that maybe I'd notice at the molecular level or something. More importantly, thanks for the further insight into the use of "rail". That's a meaning that I've not seen much but it's quite apt here. :-)
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Dikran Marsupial at 02:06 AM on 9 November 2014Antarctica is gaining ice
karly wrote "Good on you. I have an Honours BSc, a PhD, an MSc, and a DSc. I have also published over 150 peer reviewed journal articles. Did you think you were going to intimidate me?"
No, it was you that questioned the qualifications of those posting criticisms of Dr Steel's work here, I was merey indulging your curiosity. I also made it clear that qualifications mean nothing in scientific discussions, what matters is whether the argument is correct. That would be an odd thing to write if I was trying to intimidate somebody. My reason for mentioning this was to point out that questioning qualifications is an ad-hominem attack.
". It seems only fair that tthose criticising him should acknowledge their own expertise."
why should anybody do that, given that your response to me indulging your curiosity on this point was a personal attack?
I note that karly is trying very hard to avoid discussing the actual content of Dr Steel's argument, which seems pretty odd for an academic such high apparent calibre.
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Tristan at 01:50 AM on 9 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
Specifically, SkS is Queensland time (EST), we've got our own timezone because we don't understand the merit of Daylight Savings (the list of things Queenslanders don't understand is long). :)
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MA Rodger at 01:35 AM on 9 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
Ashton @28. Au contraire. The exact quote is there on Wattsupia, complete with your leading quotation mark which is absent from the Yahoo original. It was posted on the Wattsupian page in question by some denizen commenter about 5 hours before you pasted it here. The URL @23 is, of course, a tinyURL.com link so not the Wattsupia link but an indirect one, created by you perhaps?
Ashton @29. As Firgoose @30 sort-of explains, with The Daily Rail I was referring to Lord Rothermere's little rag, and, as I do, making play on its name and the fact that it gets so many of its readers regularly railing against this modern world we all live it.
Firgoose @30. SkepticalScience time = Oz time. Apparently proper British time, railway time (hey, didn't we invent proper time, Greenwich meridian and all that? Or was it just the railways we invented?), it works so badly when you cross the channel or the Atlantic that it tends not to be used out there. But just to prevent bruising British jingoism too much with this shocking home-truth, be aware that good old GMT has also been fitted up with the fancy name of Universal Time. And now the railways actually do cross the channel...
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Firgoose at 00:21 AM on 9 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
@Ashton: Where truthful reporting about the climate (and quite a number of other topics) is concerned, Phil could have called it the Daily deRail or perhaps the Daily Maul. I imagine that it's because Phil, like me, prefers to avoid posting direct, searchable reference to sources like that newspaper and to sites like WattsUpIsCrap. For me, at least, it's a minor form of protest. Does that give you a sufficient clue? ;-)
@SkS: This was posted at 14:21pm British time in response to a post timestamped at 23:56pm. Has the server's clock eaten something bad?
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Ashton at 23:56 PM on 8 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
My apologies, I should have remebered to ask again what the Daily Rail is as I've never seen it and a, very, quick Google search gave no information that semed appropriate.
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Ashton at 23:53 PM on 8 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
I don't usually read what is on WUWT, just quickly scan through. As you commented " Wattsupia page that also had your exact quote" I did go back and read more carefully. I think you'll find that quote was only partially given on WUWT which gave only the last two sentences of the quote I used @23. I got the quote from the URL I gave @ 23 which I got from WUWT and which contained quite a lot more material than that which I quoted.
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MA Rodger at 23:27 PM on 8 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
Ashton @26.
Would that be the "couple of articles from the Guardian" (the Farming story & the Environment story) that, along with your link @23 to Yahoo news, are all linked on that Wattsupia page that also had your exact quote @23?
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MA Rodger at 23:03 PM on 8 November 2014Antarctica is gaining ice
"I have read [karly's contribution down] this thread with sheer astonishment." For someone to proclaim "I have an Honours BSc, a PhD, an MSc, and a DSc." Full stop. That is strange enough to raise questions as to why it would be said truthfully.
And for that same person to also state that which is now erased by the moderators, that raises little doubt as to the answer to that question.
Karly, even though I don't hold a DSc., trust me when I tell you that holders of multiple degrees almost always act with a certain humility (although that doesn't stop them behaving with extreme 'robustness' when the occasion calls for it, and may times when it isn't). It is not at all necessary for clever people to tell the world that they are clever. Their abilities speaks for themselves.
And why is it necessary to know the qualifications of a commenter? Why would you say "If they are reluctant, then I think it is reasonable to discard their opinions as complete rubbish"? Somebody capable of post-graduate qualification should be able to judge the veracity of a commenter here by what they say alone. Or if not, the comment can be checked by a little research on this wonderful interweb the world is now blessed with. I thus would suggest to you that this thought @358, as you relate it to us, it is actually very "unreasonable."
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Ashton at 23:03 PM on 8 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
I've never heard of the Daily Rail but that maybe becuse I haven't been in the UK for very long. By Wattsupia do you mean WUWT? I didn't see the material I quoted there but I did read a couple of articles from the Guardian noting that due to the warmer wetter weather the crop yields were significantly more than average.
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Phil at 22:58 PM on 8 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
Ashton @19
In the comments struck through by the moderator, you state of yourself
What I don't do is twist the words of others as I am able,usually. to comprehend what they mean.
You have, twice in this thread, misunderstood my comments and twisted them; once in @10 and once further down @19 also in the struck out comments. Whether this was intentional or accidental I cannot say, but I would humbly suggest a little more humility on your part.
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Tom Curtis at 22:52 PM on 8 November 2014Antarctica is gaining ice
karly @358:
"If they are reluctant, then I think it is reasonable to discard their opinions as complete rubbish."
I take this to be an admission by karly that neither they, nor Dr Steel, are able to defend his numerous blunders on climate science, nor his completely falsified model of albedo changes; and that therefore they need to shift the grounds of debate to argument from illegitimate authority. (Illegitimate because Dr Steel has no qualifications on climate science; and illegitimate because karly is "... not a physicist, astronomer or climate scientist".)
Of course, having previously declared their incompetence to assess the empirical evidence and the cogency of arguments offered, it is a bit difficult now for karly to claim to be able to assess the arguments on their merits.
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Tristan at 22:36 PM on 8 November 2014Models are unreliable
Michel
As the intermediate article above states: "Each individual climate model run has a random representation of these natural ocean cycles,"That is, they are trying to simulate a large source of the 'noise' in the climate signal. The ensemble mean of the models will, in some sense, reflect a scenario in which the short term noise has not pulled the temperature in either direction.
In reality, the noise of the last 15 years has pulled the signal downwards. On the flip side, if the noise had been a positive, rather than negative signal, we would most likely have witnessed temperatures that tracked above projections.
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Michel at 22:22 PM on 8 November 2014Models are unreliable
Why is it that, from all the models presented by IPCC in its last report (AR5 WG1 fig 9.8), all but one overshoot their estimation of current temperature anomaly, by up to 0.6 °C?
with zoom of the upper right corner
It may well be that the quality of the models doesn't enable a more exact reproduction of actual data.
That's life when historic series are scarce and imprecise, and when interactions are not well understood. More computers can't help.
However, what does it say about their ability to play future scenarii and provide useful projections?
Or to render a plausible equilibrium climate sensitivity?Moderator Response:[Rob P] - IIRC the CMIP5 simulations use historical data (hindcasts) up to 2005, and estimated forcings thereafter. The multi-model mean is the average of all the simulations and thus represents Earth without any natural variation. Natural variation (the IPO) has, however, had a hand in recent surface warming trends, as have light-scattering volcanic sulfate aerosols, a cooler-than-expected solar cycle, and perhaps industrial sulfate pollution too.
Allowing for all these things there is actually a remarkable match of the climate models with the recent slower rate of surface warming. And note too that many of these models have climate sensitivities of around 3°C. Time will tell if there's a problem, but there's no genuine reason to think so yet.
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Tristan at 22:17 PM on 8 November 2014Antarctica is gaining ice
Karly, everyone possesses a set of naive algorithms for establishing the veracity of arguments that are beyond their comprehension.
If you acknowledge that the contention between Steel and Curtis/Rodger is in fact, beyond your comprehension you will need to resort to your truthiness algorithm.
The thing is, people don't necessarily want to engage in the requisite PhDenis measuring competition that you propose. Opinions have been provided, which the informed reader can use, along with the behaviour of the parties involved, to come to a conclusion. -
Leto at 22:12 PM on 8 November 2014Antarctica is gaining ice
Karly,
Dr Steel has the option of returning to defend his ideas in this forum, submitting his ideas to peer review, or leaving us with the impression that he is not to be taken seriously. So far, your efforts on his behalf have not really changed those options or improved that impression, but it is not to late to offer something useful. If you have specific comments to make on the content of his theories, rather than impressionistic views of the various personalities involved in this discussion, please share them.
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karly at 21:33 PM on 8 November 2014Antarctica is gaining ice
Can we actually have the qualifications of the commentators?
Dr Steel is a world expert on astrophysics. It seems only fair that tthose criticising him should acknowledge their own expertise.
If they are reluctant, then I think it is reasonable to discard their opinions as complete rubbish.
Moderator Response:[Rob P] - Presumably you'd be happy with a proctologist performing open heart surgery on you?
Actual experts on any given subject are those that have their ideas published in the scientific literature and their research subjected to scrutiny by their peers. Convincing ones peers of the validity of your research in a given scientific discipline is a good measure of expertise. Does Dr Steel have any publications relevant to the subject under discussion? Is there any indication of support for his ideas in the relevant scientific community?
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Tristan at 21:21 PM on 8 November 2014Antarctica is gaining ice
Given Dikran opened his remarks on qualifications with 'FWIW' and then described his own qualifications as irrelevant to the science, I don't see an attempt at intimidation. I consider it a response to your statement:
"Since none of the posters admit to any scientific training whatsoever (Mr Curtis is apparently a ‘philosopher’), or have stated their qualifications..."
To me it looks like you have invited posters to lay out their expertise, only to accuse them of intimidation when they do.
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karly at 21:10 PM on 8 November 2014Antarctica is gaining ice
@351
Good on you. I have an Honours BSc, a PhD, an MSc, and a DSc. I have also published over 150 peer reviewed journal articles. Did you think you were going to intimidate me?
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MA Rodger at 20:04 PM on 8 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
Ashton @23.
The article you quote first appeared in the Daily Rail and your quote appeared verbatum as a denialist quote on the planet Wattsupia. The reason for the quote on that far-and-distant place was the original article's inappropriate conversion of a discussion about recent UK weather
"the period from January to October this year has been the warmest since records began in 1910 while it has also been the second wettest"
into discussion of death and destruction from AGW
"Experts say the increase is the result of climate change and warn that it could place a burden on the NHS as Britons struggling to cope with predicted heatwaves end up in hospital."
a rather big jump in subject that was achieved remarkably swiftly within the Rail article. There was no intervening discussion, no scene stetting. There was no text between these two quoted section, just the start of a new paragraph.
I think such bizarre journalistic writing can only be explained by it being intended as a dog-whistle for denialist Daily Rail reader and their ilk.
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Ashton at 18:23 PM on 8 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
This is what the British meteorological office is reported as saying about 2014
"However, the Met Office cautioned against drawing too much from the figures - and stressed that the year is not finished yet. A spokeswoman said: "If we have an incredibly cold November and December, then it could end up being a mediocre year. "The reason we have records for set periods, for example monthly and annually, is so they can be quantified against each other year on year, otherwise anyone could make up a theory and anyone could come to a conclusion. "Things like climate change you look at over a long period of time because we look at trends. "So we can't say it is warmer than other years because of climate change. It could just be natural variation."
This comment can be accessed via http://tinyurl.com/jwzsdnl
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PhilippeChantreau at 16:05 PM on 8 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
Ashton, nobody is making an ad-hominem argument against you. There seems to be abundant confusion on this logical fallacy.
An ad-hominem argument consists of saying taht someone is a bad person because of such and such (which may or may not be true and is irrelevant) and that, therefore, what they say is wrong. It is a logical fallacy because the validity of their argument has nothing to do with the personal trait used to try to invalidate it. This is not what is happening to you at all. Your arguments are being attacked for their intrinsic lack of validity, which can be objectively established. Your rethoric is also at issue. The fact that you then try to defend these arguments through transparent rethorical tricks and never acknowledge any lack of validity is the logical premise of your qualification as a troll. That is the opposite logical process of an ad-hominem argument: it is because of what you say that you are so qualified, and that is entirely defensible from a logical point of view. The lack of validity of your arguments still separately stands on their own lack of merit.
You can prove Tom Curtis and others wrong by making a cogent argument; one that is clearly defined and well articulated through correct syntax, then supported by verifiable sources, data, etc...
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:32 PM on 8 November 2014New study questions the accuracy of satellite atmospheric temperature estimates
My mistake in failing to fully revise my presentation to the duration of the trend in the satellite data set being 6 years rather than 7.
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:29 PM on 8 November 2014New study questions the accuracy of satellite atmospheric temperature estimates
Better understanding the differences between the trends of very different evaluations is important. But inconsistencies of trends of short-term averages in the different methods would not prove either is wrong. It may only indicate that different short term factors have a different effect on each measurement.
It could be found that in spite of the eventually understood reasons for the differences both methods produce comparable trends of the averages of longer durations of measurement like a 360 month rolling average. However, the satellite record developed by Spencer is only 36 years long. The Spencer satellite data would only be able to present 6 years of such an average (1979-2008, through 1985-2014). But it is fairly obvious that the trend through those 7 years would be clearly increasing since the 13 month averages on Spencer's graph since 2008 have been warmer than the values before 1985. A simplistic evaluation of this 7 year trend would be:
- the average of values from 2009-2014 is ~ +0.2 C
- the average of values from 1979-1984 is ~ -0.1 C
- therefore the sum of the last 30 year period would be 6x0.3=1.8 degrees C higher than the first 30 years.
- the average of the last 30 years would be about 0.06 C warmer than the first, for a trend of 0.10 C per decade. This is similar to the value in the surface temperature sets over the same period.
Therefore, until there is a significantly longer record of satellite data there is little justification for claims that the satellite record is more accurate and that the surface temperature data is incorrect. Also, there is little justification for a claim that we need to wait until that longer satellite record is established.
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John Hartz at 12:03 PM on 8 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
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Tom Curtis at 09:13 AM on 8 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
Ashton @19, I try to interpret you accurately, but when you write things such as, " If you say so but that reply from will would allow the real nit pickers into the action pointing out that a lot less than 97% of meteorologists and engineers and geologists do not agree with AGW", it is hard.
For example, did you really mean the nit pickers are arguing from the fact that there is not a 97% consensus against AGW among meteorologists, engineers and geologists? That, certainly, is what you literally indicated.
In addition to having to compensate for you inability to follow the simple logic of negation, I also need to compensate when interpreting you for your known rhetorical strategies. In particular, your basic rhetorical strategy is to point out that x% if the population is not convinced that AGW is real (or not convinced enough to take appropriate action), and give that as a reason to not in fact take action on AGW. There beliefs are presented not as reasons to persuade them to the contrary, but as reasons to accept their conclusions because it is futile to do otherwise.
Applying that rhetorical strategy to your comments about the nitpickers, we can only conclude that you not only think the nitpickers are correct on the irrelevant technical point, but that that by itself is sufficient to make their point stand.
In other words, if you have a problem with how I interpret your words, I will stop interpreting your words as those of a troll when you stop trolling.
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Tom Curtis at 08:58 AM on 8 November 2014New study questions the accuracy of satellite atmospheric temperature estimates
Ricardo K @2, as one of the two original developers of the satellite temperature series, and co-author of the oldest and most cited satellite temperature series, Spencer is well qualified to talk on this issue. This is one of the few occasions where including his views does not constitute false balance (despite his known biases).
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Ashton at 08:57 AM on 8 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B
No Tom Curtis I don't cling to anything as I am able to rationaliise and dissect arguments from a variety of different sources. What I don't do is twist the words of others as I am able,usually. to comprehend what they mean. You, not for the first time have twisted my words to suit your ownends. The point I was making was that will was incorrect in saying 97 % of scientists etc rather than 97% of climate scientists. That is fact as you with your 18% comment above have confirmed. So please Tom Curtis if you must vilify those that think a little more deeply than you appear to be able to do, make sure you understand what they are saying. Your comment re medical issues from geologists shows your complete inability to follow the point I was making to will. And why fellow sceptics? Are you irritated that anyone who doesn't slavishly follow your viewpoint must ipso facto be a sceptic. Exaclty what Tom Curtis in my reply to Will indicated personal scepticism? Moderator the ad hominem rules are very flexible for some and a lot less so for others.
Phil no idea what a Daily Mail reader thinks like although you obviously do as the people I mix with read the Guardian not the Daily Mail. Perhaps you should cultivate a few such acquaintances.
Composer read this http://environment.yale.edu/climate-communication/article/Climate-Beliefs-April-2013. This is the opening paragraph
"Nearly two in three Americans (63%) believe global warming is happening. Relatively few – only 16 percent – believe it is not. However, since Fall 2012, the percentage of Americans who believe global warming is happening has dropped 7 points to 63%, likely influenced by the relatively cold winter of 2012-13 in the United States and an unusually cold March just before the survey was conducted. - See more at: http://environment.yale.edu/climate-communication/article/Climate-Beliefs-April-2013#sthash.E0vqVmrx.dpuf
Moderator Response:[JH] You are very close to relinquishing your privilege to post comments on this webiste.
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Ricardo K at 08:47 AM on 8 November 2014New study questions the accuracy of satellite atmospheric temperature estimates
Why is it that the Grauniad's only 'expert' commentator is Roy Spencer of the Heartland Institute? He thinks the globe is cooling and CO2 is good for the economy. His 2011 paper on climate sensitivity was so bad that the editor who published it called it "fundamentally flawed" and resigned. It's like asking Bernie Madoff to comment on legislation to prevent tax fraud.
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Tom Curtis at 08:21 AM on 8 November 2014Looking after the right forests benefits the climate
wili @4, for off topic but related comments, it is generally easy to find an article on Sks where they are on topic, make the post there and link back on the thread which initially started the thoughts. If all else fails, almost everything is on topic in the weekly digest posts (not the news digests).
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Tom Curtis at 08:18 AM on 8 November 2014Ocean acidification isn't serious
dvaytw @61, that is a simple question requires a moderately complicated answer.
The most fundamental point is that ocean acidity is controlled not only be pCO2 concentrations, but also by Calcium ion concentrations. A high dissolved CO2 concentration can be largely offset by a high Calcium ion concentration. Calcium is introduced to the ocean by the weathering of rocks, both by rain and plant activity. Both of those increase in a warm (high CO2) world so that a natural tendency to equilibrium exists. The result is that even in the eras of highest CO2 concentration over the past 500 million years, ocean pH has not fallen below 7.4 (Zeebe 2012, see figure 5). Past increases in CO2 concentration have been very slow in comparison to the modern anthropogenic increase, allowing ocean chemistry to adjust and restrict the resulting rise in ocean acidity. Because the modern increase is so fast, however, the calcium buffer is being exhausted, allowing a far higher ocean acidity relative to atmospheric CO2 concentration than has been the case in the past.
Second, it is not expected that increased ocean acidity will kill all corals. In particular, soft corals are not directly effected by ocean acidification, and can be expected to flourish (as will other related animals such as sea anenomes as jelly fish). Given high ocean acidity, hard bodied (ie, reef building) corals may revert to soft bodied forms and potentially survive in that way. The consequence of this, however, is that the reefs themselves will decay and be destroyed. The reefs form the basis of major ecosystems, and if they are destroyed most of the reef fishes will find themselves without habitat (including many of the newly soft bodied corals). The consequence will be that many of the reef species will go extinct, and those that survive will do so by adopting a non-reef mode of life - becoming much rarer than is currently the case. The human impact will be a reduction of the shelter provided to tropical shores by reefs, and a great reduction in tropical fisheries.
Third, as CBDunkerson points out, modern corals (scleractinia) have only existed for the last 220 million years, and missed the periods of very high CO2 levels in the past. Indeed, the leading explanation for the supplanting of previous reef building corals is that soft bodied ancestors of modern corals survived, where their hard bodied rivals did not, during the very high CO2 episode of the Permian extenction, and then evolved in to the thus vacated ecological niche. Since then, hard bodied forms of scleractia (and the reefs they produce) have disappeared several times in periods of high CO2 concentrations, ony to reappear several million years later. That several million year delay suggests to me that the scleractia have had to reevolve the reef building habit, ie, that the survivors were not the reef builders of the period but their soft bodied cousins. In any event, the last reappearance was 40 million years ago, when ocean acidity dropped to levels lower than can be expected from BAU over the next two the three hundred years (or one hundred if we are determined).
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