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nigelj at 09:26 AM on 6 November 2014Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman prefers conspiracies to climate science
Michael Sweet #2.
"Can you suggest a skeptical argument that is not a poor argument?"
To be honest, no. However I was just not wanting to put down all sceptics, and come across as one sided. Obviously science needs good scepticism.
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Grizwald57 at 09:13 AM on 6 November 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
KR...
This report states the threats and impacts but fails to acknowledge human adaptations in the face of these impacts. Rather it's solution is to use the hand of government to enforce unnatural market adaptations. Historically, there has always been a human response to environmental change. Either humans change or they die off. As AGW impacts the environment, individual human responses to it will vary, but no matter what, each response will be in the best interest of each human.
Furthermore, regarding the impact upon poverty, it is false to state that one economic class will be more impacted than a higher economic class. If you lower the standard of living for one economic class it will impact the standard of living for another economic class. You must look at the average standard of living for all economic classes together. If the standard of living for the poor is worsened by AGW, then consquentially the standard of living for the rich will also be worsened because of AGW.
Finally, I want to address the assumption, it seems, that AGW will create a decline in the standard of living for all of humanity worldwide. The only real impact it would have is to limit the growth of our standard of living. What I mean by this is as AGW continues to impact the world, the market response to it will reach a limit, inhibiting further growth. But the standard of living will not fall, rather it will reach a limit.
Alot of this argument made by climate scientists and advocates of public policy changes seems to be in parallel with the same argument about population growth. The main argument people use in support of limiting population growth is that we will not be able to feed everyone and people will die off. As if in the future we will have hundreds of babies and 90% will die off. Yet this argument fails because it assumes people will continue having babies with a 90% mortality rate.
Industrial use of carbon on a global scale has increased the standard of living tremendously. In fact, by my guess, its probably saved billions of lives. To turn back on this progrss, and regress, would be to condemn millions to starvation and death. Advocates of cutting back carbon emissions because of AGW bring up alot of fears about the future, yet they offer the wrong solutions.
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Newbie43 at 06:19 AM on 6 November 2014CO2 lags temperature
Link to "Lorius 1990" seems broken:
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1990/1990_Lorius_etal.pdfIs this the one that is intended?
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1990/1990_Lorius_etal_1.pdf -
CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Grizwald57 - From the IPCC AR5 Summary for Policymakers, section 2.3, Future risks and impacts caused by a changing climate:
Climate change will amplify existing risks and create new risks for natural and human systems. Risks are unevenly distributed and are generally greater for disadvantaged people and communities in countries at all levels of development.
References are given, the data is mostly in the AR5 WG2 report, Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. I would have to say the evidence does not support your point of view. The poor will be more affected by AGW than the rest of the population.
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dagold at 05:27 AM on 6 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45A
Wii: my Huffington Post/ Common Dreams article speaks to your post. Here it is: www.commondreams.org/views/2014/11/04/playing-lose-electing-gop-age-climate-chaos
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Grizwald57 at 05:23 AM on 6 November 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Perhaps I was wrong. I was using the equator as my judgment. But my real statement was that areas that are less economically suitable have never been and most likely will never be largely populated because of the natural limitations. These places are as I said usually deserts, mountains, and jungles. And you can see on average these places are not very populous.
Your map does indicate population DENSITY is higher in those regions that are more vulnerable. But density only compares population to the size of the country. If you look at these carribean islands, and countries such as Columbia, Venezuela, Nigeria, Ghana, Rwanda, ect, you'lle find that these countries don't have as many people living in poverty as do countries such as China, India, U.S., ect. In summary, the more populous countries (countries which have more people living in poverty) tend to be better economically suited and better prepared to handle severe climate change. Countries which are not well prepared to handle climate change do not have high populations of poor people, so it is incorrect to say that climate change will hurt the poor more.
I will not state my position. This is my critique of the Skeptical Science argument that the poor will be worse off because of climate change. More people would be lifted out of poverty than would be hurt from AGW.
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Ashton at 04:48 AM on 6 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45A
Unfortunately, it seems many American voters did not read the 29 bullet points and have issued a message to American politicians that for them, climate change, which rates 8th out of 11as a matter of voter concern, is not a particularly significant problem. It seems that short termism, particularly when it comes to the hip pocket nerve, is still alive and well.
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Dennis at 04:17 AM on 6 November 2014Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman prefers conspiracies to climate science
If there were open and fair discussion of the proposal and theory of climate change I would be a lot more comfortable listening
Putting aside what "proposal and theory" might mean in this context, there has been plenty of open and fair discussion out there for many years for you listen to. Read the IPCC technical reports for a start. If there's something in there you disagree with, then read the underlying scientific papers that the reports reference (there are thousands of them). And if you still have difficulties after that, contact the authors of those papers. This is how the fair and open discussion in science works.
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Roger D at 03:20 AM on 6 November 2014Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman prefers conspiracies to climate science
...But I you have admit Electoken's "heat island affect", instead of "effect" does nicely distinguish the 'skeptic' canard from the actual phenomenon.
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Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman prefers conspiracies to climate science
Electroken has commented here before [thank you Google, I thought the name sounded familiar], for example on water vapor, cosmic rays, and other threads. His theme of water vapor and aquifers has appeared before too. No learning curve has been evident, no response to information he has been presented with.
He tends to pop up, spout nonsense/Gish gallops, and vanish again. DNFTT.
Moderator Response:[JH] Excellent advice.
Electoken is on a path to relinguish his/her privilege to post comments on this site.
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PhilippeChantreau at 01:24 AM on 6 November 2014Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman prefers conspiracies to climate science
Electroken, your post amounts to a gish gallop. You should familiarize yourself with the comments policy. Each of the arguments you present has been thoroughly examined.
The entire premise for the existence of the website known as WUWT was the temperature measurement argument, which was found to be in error early on by layman's work, then later by peer-reviewed studies.
The water vapor argument is examined on this site, you can find the thread easily by a few clicks. Land use has been the subject of extensive study and is examined in detail by the IPCC when looking at attribution.
There are enormous amounts of money to be made by already existing interests if the status quo is maintained, a few individuals stand to disproportionately benefit from it.
Not a single one of your arguments has been shown to have merit. It seems you got some very poot quality information on the subject and that you have not bothered getting acquainted with the real science. It would advisable to do so if you want to have a truly informed opinion.
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Tom Curtis at 01:07 AM on 6 November 2014Over 31,000 scientists signed the OISM Petition Project
franklefkin @32, jesse_a_b may have been merely confused, missing not one, but two links to the petition and that would have been understandable had they merely asked where the link was. Instead of asking, they described the article as "risible", and decried the absence of a link (of which there were two) as "proving to everyone how unscientific this website is". An apology is well in order, as also the retraction of the unwarranted opinion about the quality of this website.
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electroken at 01:03 AM on 6 November 2014Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman prefers conspiracies to climate science
I can think of a lot of reasons to take a stance against the consensus that CO2 is causing all the problems with what is now called "climate change" and no longer called "global warming".
The temperature taking has been influenced in many places by the "heat island affect" caused by large population centers. Some measurements are suspect because of the location of the sensor.
I am sure that the sea water temperature is not being taken to assure that is it a good indicator since most is done by satelite now which only shows surface temps. I am not convinced we have sufficient temperature taking at enough places on the globe to assume any kind of rise or fall.
I have seen graphs which show the rise of temps and fall of temps via core samples from trees and from arctic ice etc. I have also seen that the CO2 seems to rise following the temperature rise and not ahead of it. How do we conclude that the CO2 is causing the rise and not just rising because of it?
I am looking at the use of water in the USA and I assume it is going on elsewhere too. There has been a marked increase in the amount of water used for irrigation in the USA since the 1950's. To ignore this is really questionable. I contend and a lot of others do too, that this use of water for irrigation and also use for creating green spaces is causing a major shift in weather patterns.
No one can become rich if the cause of any warming trend is being attributed to water vapor. A great deal of money hangs on the selling of carbon credits doesnt it? I say follow the money.
Also there has been some research about cosmic rays being responsible for climate change but that does not seem to get any attention. It is plausable in my opinion but noone wants to look into it but a very few scientists.
If there were open and fair discussion of the proposal and theory of climate change I would be a lot more comfortable listening. That all who believe other than the "accepted truth" are treated as fools and disparaged is making me see this as a political issue and not a scientific one.
Ken
Moderator Response:[JH] Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can be rescinded if the posting individual treats adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.
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franklefkin at 00:23 AM on 6 November 2014Over 31,000 scientists signed the OISM Petition Project
Rob,
the blue link titled "OSIM Petition" leads directly back to here. The red "OSIM" caption does in fact lead to the petition. Since you normally provide links that are blue, his confusion is understandable.
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Tom Curtis at 23:07 PM on 5 November 2014CO2 is plant food
james baggett @25, fundamental to the ecology of plants is that they are preyed on by a great variety of insects and animals. To remain healthy in the face of this predation, they must produce far more organic matter (sugars and cellolose) than they themselves directly use. Further, if they are to grow in mass, they must draw down the carbon in that mass from the atmosphere by photsynthesizing carbon. Because of that, in any healthy plant over the course of a year, it draws down far more CO2 through photosynthesis then it produces by oxidizing sugars. If plants did not do this, the presence of plants would not have substantially increased the O2 content of the atmosphere today relative to values prior to the carboniferous. Ergo, it is simply wrong to assume that any excess draw down of CO2 due to the CO2 fertilization effect will not only be matched, but exceeded by an increased production of CO2 by cellular respiration.
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CBDunkerson at 23:06 PM on 5 November 2014Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman prefers conspiracies to climate science
nigelj, note that Coleman is a "weather person" only in the sense that he made a career out of reading the weather on radio and then television. Before that he was a radio DJ for a bandstand show. He's a professional communicator / entertainer. He has no background in meteorology or any other science.
Thus, while he may have biases which make him not want to understand the science, it is also possible that he just doesn't have the academic background to "comprehend graphs and trends".
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james baggett at 22:34 PM on 5 November 2014CO2 is plant food
Hey guys, CO2 is not plant food. It is a reactant along with water for photosynthesis. The food of plants, as well as everything other living organism, is glucose which it makes itself through photosynthesis. More CO2 in the atmosphere would increase photosynthesis, however a plant only gives off oxygen during the light dependent reactions. It uses oxygen during cellular respiration 24 hours per day. Therefore, the increase in oxygen in the atmosphere from an increase in CO2 would be more than offset by the increase in the consumption of oxygen when a plant undergoes cellular respiration which happens 24 hours a day.
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wili at 22:06 PM on 5 November 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45A
Thanks for these.
Unfortunately, this (or something similar) should be in your next Roundup:
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Rob Honeycutt at 12:33 PM on 5 November 2014Over 31,000 scientists signed the OISM Petition Project
jesse... Top of the page, it's right there in red letters that say "OISM."
We'll now be expecting an apology and an enthusiastic endorsement from you regarding this very scientific website.
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Tom Curtis at 11:56 AM on 5 November 2014Over 31,000 scientists signed the OISM Petition Project
jesse_a_b @29, do you mean to say that the second link in the intermediate article does not work for you? Or are you merely proving how scientific you are by criticizing based on false, and easilly falsified information?
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jesse_a_b at 11:22 AM on 5 November 2014Over 31,000 scientists signed the OISM Petition Project
Not even linking the petition in question makes your article risible. Thank you for proving to everyone how unscientific this website is.
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michael sweet at 08:37 AM on 5 November 2014Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman prefers conspiracies to climate science
Nigelj:
Can you suggest a skeptical argument that is not a poor argument?
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nigelj at 07:39 AM on 5 November 2014Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman prefers conspiracies to climate science
The article makes valid points. Of course it is worth noting not all sceptical arguments are poor arguments. However Colemans argument on arctic ice is just plain wrong and is unintelligent. Now he is obviously an intelligent fellow, so why makes such a stupid argument?
Well possibly even though he is intelligent, he literally can’t comprehend graphs and trends. Some people are like this, although you wonder how a weather person could be like this and still function.
Or Coleman hates the climate change consensus, so he is prepared to say outrageous things. I wouldn't know what his hatred is, maybe it is professional jealousy, or he has a libertarian ideology. I must admit I’m mystified by people like Coleman. Maybe someone has an explanation.
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Dikran Marsupial at 22:50 PM on 4 November 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Grizwald57 wrote "This is why the least populous countries have historically been those closer to the equator."
This isn't actually true
Europe is densely populated, but it seems the exception rather than the rule and on average tropical countries appear to be more populous than those in temperate regions (with the exception of Europe). Desert regions are a result of Hadley cells IIRC, and it is hardly surprising that deserts have a low population density, but these regions are not actually on the equator.
It isn't clear to me what you are trying to say in your post. Perhaps it would help if you were to clearly state what your position actually is on the question of how the poor are likely to be impacted by climate change.
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Grizwald57 at 15:39 PM on 4 November 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Historically, population booms have occurred based on climate and coinciding with that have been technological increases. This is why the least populous countries have historically been those closer to the equator. Countries in sub-saharan Africa, countries in huge swaths of desert such as Saudi Arabia, and countries in dense jungles have never had very high populations and consequently saw very little development. This leads to my argument. You cannot take very sparsely populated countries such as those in sub-saharan and central africa, or mountain and jungle covered countries such as those found in central America as examples of a general decrease in standards of living. You cannot use these sparsely populated countries as the basis for your argument that the poor will be less well off. It is only specific to these areas. You are using the most underrepresented countries as your data. China for example has far more poverty stricken people compared to these African countries when you take into account total population and percentage of the poor. 249.984 million people in china lived on less than $2 a day in 2011. Rwanada had 52.6 million people living on less than $2 a day in 2011. China had almost 5 times as many people in poverty as Rwanda a country more affected by Global Warming.
Another thing this does not take into account is the movement of peoples. It assumes populations will stay in an environment becoming desertified when this is just not true. Therefore the entire argument is actually fallacious because it is based on a false assumption.
And finally your assumption at the end that these poor countries will not develop is actually contradictory since the data your using is at the same time assuming the populations of these countries will increase, which they have presently been doing, and because of this population increase also consume more carbon. It also fails to take into account market (technological) adapatations. States in the southern U.S. and other developing cities have seen booms in populations since the development of technologies such as centralized air conditioning.
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skyman at 08:55 AM on 4 November 2014Corrections to Curry's Erroneous Comments on Ocean Heating
Regarding Judith Curry's comments, NASA researchers recently published a study which appears to support Dr. Curry's contentions:
A separate study in August (2014) in the journal Science said the apparent slowdown in the Earth's surface warming in the last 15 years could be due to that heat being trapped in the deep Atlantic and Southern Ocean.
But the NASA researchers said their approach, described in the journal Nature Climate Change, is the first to test the idea using satellite observations, as well as direct temperature measurements of the upper ocean.
"The deep parts of the ocean are harder to measure," said researcher William Llovel of NASA JPL.
"The combination of satellite and direct temperature data gives us a glimpse of how much sea level rise is due to deep warming. The answer is — not much."NASA Study Finds Earth’s Ocean Abyss Has Not Warmed
http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/october/nasa-study-finds-earth-s-ocean-abyss-has-not-warmed/
Moderator Response:[TD] There is a post here on SkS about that paper.
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Kevinb3 at 04:28 AM on 4 November 2014What 1970s science said about global cooling
I get it KR. Thanks
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Dikran Marsupial at 03:49 AM on 4 November 2014What 1970s science said about global cooling
Kevinb3 If a climate website wanted to publish an article on the TCP paper, that shows the 97% concensus on climate change, would they be required to give links to all 12,000 papers that were considered, or would it be O.K. just to give a link to the paper itself?
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Dikran Marsupial at 02:56 AM on 4 November 2014What 1970s science said about global cooling
Kevinb3, you are being unreasonable. The whole point of people conducting surveys is to give a summary of what has been published on some topic. If you don't accept the survey then the onus is on you to conduct a survey of your own and draw your own conclusions. The authors of the survey have identified the papers for you, requesting they give links rather than the normal form of citations used in journal papers is basically asking to be spoon-fed.
I am beginning to suspect that you don't actually have any objection to the concusion of the survey and are just using the "method of unreasonable expectations" to avoid accepting it.
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What 1970s science said about global cooling
Kevinb3 - The references (papers on cooling, warming, or neutral) are clearly listed in Peterson et al, Table 1. A quick search on Google Scholar (which is extremely useful for this) shows that many are articles in Science or Nature, which require subscription or purchase.
Several notes here:
- The SkS page is reporting on the Peterson et al paper, the results; demanding that SkS obtain and publicise all source materials for every paper discussed is unreasonable.
- Copyright and ownership would prevent free general access to those papers not made available by the publishers or authors.
- Looking up references is really part of doing science.
- The Peterson et al paper is itself primary literature, your description of this as "what the papers say from third parties" is in error.
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John Hartz at 01:40 AM on 4 November 2014What 1970s science said about global cooling
The remainder of John Cook's notes to the OP (visible only to SkS authors):
http://www.ametsoc.org/Chapters/asheville/mythAshevilleJanuary2008.ppt
http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/131047.pdf
William Connelly blogs on his paper: (good comments)
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John Hartz at 01:31 AM on 4 November 2014What 1970s science said about global cooling
From John Cook's notes to the OP (visible only to SkS authors):
7 Cooling Papers:
Climate Modification by Atmospheric Aerosols (McCormick and John H. Ludwig 1967) - Theoretical considerations and empirical evidence indicate that atmospheric turbidity, a function of aerosol loading, is an important factor in the heat balance of the earth-atmosphere system. Turbidity increase over the past few decades may be primarily responsible for the decrease in worldwide air temperatures since the 1940's.
Barrett 1971 (???)
Rasool & Schneider 1971
Atmospheric Turbidity and Surface Temperature on the Polar Ice Sheets (Hamilton & Seliga 1972) - DATA relevant to the causation of climatic change, particularly changes in mean annual temperature at the surface over intervals of from 10 to 105 yr, have been accumulating gradually in various laboratories engaged in studying the two long ice cores from Camp Century, Greenland, and "New" Byrd Station, Antarctica. This note consolidates these and other data and interprets them in the framework of existing theory. It appears that millenial and longer variations in cloud-level temperature on the polar ice sheets have been caused by changing atmospheric turbidity over the past 10 5 yr.
Aerosols and climate (Chýlek, J Coakley - Science, 1974)
A nonequilibrium model of hemispheric mean surface temperature. (Bryson & Dittberner 1976)
The influence of pollution on the shortwave albedo of clouds. (Twomey 1977)
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Kevinb3 at 01:27 AM on 4 November 2014What 1970s science said about global cooling
@ Tom
BTW, thanks, looking below the long list of papers I did find the table, but I still reference my above point.
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Kevinb3 at 01:23 AM on 4 November 2014What 1970s science said about global cooling
Dikran, What more do you want?
Either links, which aren't always readily available, or pdfs of said papers. Not explanations or interpretations as to what the papers say from third parties. Yes, I could go on a research binge and gather up said articles, but it goes back to my original point really. The site is expounding on what it states is truth, but IMO the source material should be offered up if it's going button up. Since the homework is supposedly done, then it should be easy.
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One Planet Only Forever at 00:55 AM on 4 November 2014Republican politicians aren't climate scientists or responsible leaders
I wonder what the likes of Senator Mitch McConnell would say if asked:
"Who is responsible for caring about being fair with future humans who have no current day vote, marketing power, investment influence, or ability to obtain legal recourse against those who caused problems for them."
Many evaluations of acceptability of the damaging consequences of the ultimately unsustainable burning up of the opportunity to benefit from nonrenewable buried hydrocarbons, including the UG Government's, make the absurd assessment that as long as their calculation of the benefit obtained by a current generation exceeds the costs incurred by a future generation 'all is well in their world'. They even discount future costs as if they were evaluating alternative 'business investment choices'.
The lack of concern for the future that is being developed is the real problem.
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Tom Curtis at 00:50 AM on 4 November 2014What 1970s science said about global cooling
Kevinb3, look at table 1 in Peterson, Connolley and Fleck (linked in the OP). The paper discusses the majority of the cooling papers more extensively in the text.
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Dikran Marsupial at 00:48 AM on 4 November 2014What 1970s science said about global cooling
Kevinb3 if you look at the appendix of the paper it gives a list of the papers predicting cooling and the papers predicting warming. What more do you want, that is the form in which references are usually made in scientific papers, and if you disagree with the findings then the onus is on you to look up the papers and analyse them for yourself. There is no other way of establishing the "veracity" of the survey than reading the papers for yourself, and the authors make that as easy for you to do as you caould reasonably expect.
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Kevinb3 at 00:36 AM on 4 November 2014What 1970s science said about global cooling
@ Stephen
I looked at that biblio, it had over 100 papers, I don't see specific links to the 7 cooling papers or the 42 warming papers broken out. Like I said, the author has combed through that biblio and pulled out certain specific references. They need to be more specific and not rely on the readers patience to prove their veracity or not. I'd like to read the specific papers this author is using as their primary evidence.
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Kevinb3 at 00:26 AM on 4 November 2014What 1970s science said about global cooling
@ ajki
I think it's more of a question of overestimating the site.
It "might" be possible for the layperson to find the links by data mining the site that align to the "7 total" papers on cooling, or "42 total" that deal with warming. However if the research is already done by the author of this article then there should be no need for someone looking for sunstantiating this article to go on a wild goose chase. The articles the author is referencing almost surely don't have global cooling or warming in the headline which would mean the reader would have to dig deep in each paper to find the reference if it's not clearly outlined in the abstract. Most peer reviewed papers are not written for the consumption of the layperson, they're highly technical.
It's the authors responsibility to back up their claims by posting source. I have many times looked at source materials that were used a basis for extrapolating opinion on other topics and found that I don't agree with the conclusions the author has arrived at based on the data, but, I often do as well. It's relative. However, with the topic of AGW there's impetus for direcet proof over assertion because it's a highly charged topic politically.
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MA Rodger at 22:29 PM on 3 November 2014Antarctica is gaining ice
kiwiradical @352.
You say "Either his calculations, using accepted orbital mechanics and physics are correct or not." You ignore the possibility that the subject of the calculations of duncansteel are already being accounted for. And also that the effect may or may not be significant.
duncansteel is actually presenting two effects although he doesn't make this at all clear.
In his published paper he calls one CIT. This is undisputedly already taken onboard by climatology (although to read his paper you wouldn't think so). And note that the effect of this orbital change is small in comparison with solar variation which is itself small in comparison with AGW. So in the grand scheme of things it is insignificant.
A second orbital effect duncansteel calls CSI in his 'essay'. This is smaller again than CIT and duncansteel has identified its absence from a set of NOAA insolation tables. (These tables provide insolation data for the last 10 million years in 1,000 year steps.) It is probably no great loss from such tables as the impact of CSI is much smaller than even CIT. There is remaining doubt as to whether or not this CSI is accounted for already or whether it is something so far overlooked. Sadly it is duncansteel who should be the arbitor of his rather poorly described theorising, a role he appears poorly matched to, while the poor description makes it inconvenient for other to take on that role for him. Add in his crazy climatological inferences (as per @354) and all sympathy for duncansteel quickly discipates.
The tenor of duncansteel in this matter can perhaps be judged by where he has come from on this matter. He talls us he was inspired to the research that led to his 'CSI/CIT trumps AGW' hypothesis by Thomson (1995) 'The Seasons, Global Temperature and prescession'. Thomson may be beating the drum for orbital effects to be accounted for better in AGW calculations but Thomson's two concluding paragraphs show clearly that duncansteel is way off on his own concerning the implications of such effects w.r.t AGW.
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Tom Curtis at 21:57 PM on 3 November 2014Antarctica is gaining ice
kiwiradical @352, granting that Steel is entirely correct about all that he claims with regard to changes in insolation only, his theory that it is a significant effect does not follow. The reason it does not follow is that absent data on albedo, the the changes in insolation average out to near zero over the globe and over the year. They are inconsequential. Steel knows that, so he makes some attempt to indicate potential albedo changes that might make the effect significant. I have criticized those attempts @342 above, something you have ignored. Specifically, my criticisms were that:
1) The change in albedo he assumes is not justified by the magnitude of the effect, in that he conjectures that a 4.33 day drift in perihelion relative to the vernal equinox results in a 30 day drift in ice and snow melt;
2) The change in albedo he proposes is contradicted by emperical evidence of recent changes in snow and ice; and
3) He incorrectly includes feedbacks from AGW, from other natural warming, and from the drift of the perihelion in calculating the forcing of the the effect.
Since then I have done some analysis that may help give some idea of the impact of the third point. Specifically, I have used Steel's image of latitudinal absorptivity by day of year to determine the absorptivity by day of year. I have then plotted that against both the introduced drift in seasonal ice and snow cover that he appeals to, and the current insolation by day at that latitude:
The units are standard deviation units. To determine the change in the energy balance, you would actually need to take the integral of the produces of the absorptivity and the insolation, in original units. It is far simpler, however, to compare them in StDev units so that you can compare the position of the peaks.
Many people don't realize that the peak in insolation substantially precedes the peak in ice and snow melt, a fact that can be seen by comparing the blue and orange curves above. The failure of the peaks to coincide significantly reduces the total energy input from the sun in high latitudes.
That being the case, the effect of delaying the ice melt by another thirty days (Steel's model for the albedo 250 years ago) will by itself, without any change in insolation, greatly reduce the energy absorbed at high latitudes. It does so by pushing the albedo and energy peaks further out of phase (blue and yellow curves).
It is evident from this diagram, and without need of calculation that Steel's albedo model will introduce a large "forcing" all by itself, and without any change in insolation. What is worse, however, is that the insolation change is a mere 4.33 day drift in insolation, just 14.4% of the albedo drift. There is slightly more to it than that, but that is the most important effect. That effect can be approximated by blue line four days the right, to represent the insolation change. (Let me emphasize that that is not exact, but it is close enough for estimating the effect.)
The forcing from the insolation change can then be determined as the change in the integrated products of the orange line and the blue line relative to the orange line and the blue line shifted four days to the right. The effects of the feedbacks from all forcings combined (assuming Steel's albedo model is correct) is then the difference between the integrated product of the blue and the orange lines, and the blue and the yellow lines. Transparently, that will be of the order of 15% of the feedbacks. In other words, only about 13% of Steel's calculated "forcing" is an actual forcing effect of the change in insolation.
That is a large error on Steel's behalf (far larger in effect than any he is attributing to the climate scientists). It is somewhat mute because of the clear errors in his albedo model; but the flaw in method revealed would have exagerated the absolute value of the apparent impact of the effect no matter what albedo model was used.
Put simply, he is counting feedbacks as part of the forcing - and not just feedbacks from the forcing under consideration, but feedbacks from any forcing, including some which are far stronger and hence far more dominant than those he has found.
While on the topic of his albedo model, I noticed today a nuance that I had previously ignored. Specifically, he describes the model, saying:
"What I will do is to pick up the absorptivities in a region of interest (latitudes northwards of 30 degrees north, March through June), and replace them with the absorptivities from 30 days earlier (February through May), so as to simulate the effect of the putative delayed melting of the snow and ice back in 1750 compared to the present. "
(My emphasis)
Note that northern latitudes from March to June is when the change in insolation is strongly positive. He has deliberately excluded changes in albedo for periods when the change in insolation has been negative, thereby exagerating the effect still further. (Note that the time restriction on the adjustment means he assumes snow and ice will freeze at the same time 250 years ago as they do currently, not later as I have stated elsewhere. That assumption is still falfified by the fact that they are freezing later. It also means the graph above is not representative of his model in that it applies the adjustement to the entire year. The adjustment applied as he states, however, would introduce discontinuities into the graph, which would consequently be underspecified. Therefore, until he sees fit to fully specifiy the model, it stands as a reasonable approximation.)
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longjohn119 at 21:36 PM on 3 November 2014Republican politicians aren't climate scientists or responsible leaders
I want to add that the reasons for picking lead and asbestos is they are two examples of using a product because simply because it is cheaper and more profitable long after it's dangers are verified.
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longjohn119 at 20:45 PM on 3 November 2014Republican politicians aren't climate scientists or responsible leaders
Yes Donny I know what heat is and you know what the Law of Thermodynamics says about it ....
Wait you likely do not ....
Heat = energy and energy cannot be magically destroyed and made to disappear
There are over 3 dozen satellites from half a dozen nations orbiting the Earth and they are ALL saying the same .... More heat energy is going in than is coming back out and since energy cannot be magically destroyed it can only means one thing, the Earth is gaining heat energy.
Just for the record, anything that throws a system out of it's natural balance is a pollutant. Water is a polluant in a refrigerant system. Water and carbon are also pollutants in IC manufacturing clean room.
The natural balance of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere is apparantly 270 ppm give or take and was that way for roughly a million years. Any CO2 in excess of that natural balance of 270 ppm is a pollutant to the system and we are currently running 395-400 and steadily rising. That is an over 40% imbalance to the system. I don't know your line of work but in mine that quite a bit more than a significant imbalance.
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Dikran Marsupial at 18:57 PM on 3 November 2014Antarctica is gaining ice
kiwiradical Validity is indeed not measured by peer review and many peer-reviewed papers have indeed been shown to be wrong. However, the proportion of peer-reviewed papers that are wrong is rather less than the proportion of ideas on non-peer reviewed websites where people publish their ideas without submitting them to external scrutiny first. That is why scientists use peer-review.
The key thing here is that Duncan Steel has responded to criticisms of his work with gratuitous insults. That is not the way science ought to procede.
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kiwiradical at 18:44 PM on 3 November 2014Antarctica is gaining ice
Oh, for heaven's sake. Validity is not measured by peer review...many, many peer reviewed papers have been shown to be erroneous as knowledge has progressed. Duncan Steel has calculated a change in spring insolation over time. Either his calculations, using accepted orbital mechanics and physics are correct or not. No-one has yet shown they are incorrect. What the effect of that change in insolation is may well be arguable, but it's the change that's significant, and unless you can show the calculations (of the change in insolation) are incorrect you have little to add to the discussion of his 'essay'
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Ashton at 18:13 PM on 3 November 2014Why the IPCC synthesis report is necessary but not sufficient to secure a response to climate change
If the current furore in Australia over government measures to rein in public spending is any guide, the voters in the richer countries are unlikely to support measures that will hurt them economically. A recent poll in Australia has shown that although the number of Australians seriously concerned about Climate Change has increased to 45% this is still less than half of the population (http://tinyurl.com/lgnq89b). Polls in the US (http://tinyurl.com/m7jjj24 ; http://tinyurl.com/ohl35e8) and the UK (http://tinyurl.com/ohl35e8 :http://tinyurl.com/bo67q67) give similar results. Until self interest can be placed second, the IPCC will fight a losing battle.
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Dikran Marsupial at 18:11 PM on 3 November 2014Antarctica is gaining ice
Karly wrote "An interesting example of how science is not done."
well quite, science is done by publishing papers in peer reviewed scientific journals and it is not done by gratuitously insulting those who disagree with you ("If I had but the time and you had but the brain—").
FWIW I have a first class degree and a PhD, and I have published a fair few journal papers, including a couple on climate. However that is irrelevant as in science it is the validity of the argument that matters, not its source. Perhaps you should pay a bit more attention to the scientific argument rather than engaging in inaccurate ad-hominems.
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denisaf at 15:37 PM on 3 November 2014Why the IPCC synthesis report is necessary but not sufficient to secure a response to climate change
Despite all the discussion and the political impact on the IPCC findings, irreversible, rapid climate change and ocean acidification is under way. The future impact of these deleterious processes can be slightly ameliorated by reducing fossil fuel usage as fast as it is practical (for example, by closing coal-fired power stations) if the political decisions are made by the countries concerned. Governments should also stress the need to adopt adaption measures as IPCC points out. New York, London and the Netherlands are leading the way down that rational path.
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Midwest_Man at 14:21 PM on 3 November 2014Over 31,000 scientists signed the OISM Petition Project
Rob, In my neck of the woods - upper USA midwest - the issue is more about higher low temps and the consequent higher humidity levels (I gather). I was speaking with a climate scientist just last week at a an informal meeting and he has been evaluating extreme (2.0+") spring rainfall events. Six of the last seven years (May-June period) have been outside the 95% probabillity ellipse of a dataset that is approx 104 years old. We all know the likelihood of that randomly occurring. These more frequent, and larger spates play out in many negative ways, not the least of which is translocation of soil down the MS River. There are some serious implications here for ag management (e.g. nutrient application, riparian management) if this trend continues. I believe he said the temps coming from Canada have been 6 F warmer, as opposed to the 0.5 F warmer from tropical influences. I can't remember the time frame he was mentioning. This isn't my area of research, but it clearly is unsettling to this old ecologist.
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One Planet Only Forever at 09:57 AM on 3 November 2014Why the IPCC synthesis report is necessary but not sufficient to secure a response to climate change
It is important to clarify what is required by clarifying the following quote:
"The IPCC can put the facts on the table, Watson says, but the critical issues governments really have to work out are how to fairly distribute emissions rights and how to fairly share the costs. "So it's highly political," he says. "Very simply, are governments willing to act?""
The history of political action clearly indicates that "fairly ditributing" has seldom been an objective of the wealthiest and most powerful. So the real question is:
"Will all of the wealthiest and most powerful change their attitude and fairly distribute the benefits from scarce ultimately unsustainable opportunities, or are they going to continue to fight to prolong their ability to get the most possible benefit any damaging way they can get away with?"
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