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Comments 41301 to 41350:

41301. Tom Dayton at 05:00 AM on 13 October 2013
       Why Curry, McIntyre, and Co. are Still Wrong about IPCC Climate Model Accuracy
       

       Stealth, your comment "First, aircraft model are not extrapolating models at all in the way that GCM operate" is irrelevant in the face of clear evidence that GCMs are successful.

       Your statement "Second, the progression from aircraft design to deployment is very complex, and extensive usage of models is employed to get 'rough idea' of performance and features" is exactly true of every model, computerized or not, in every field of endeavor, throughout human history.  The critical piece is the definition of "rough" in each particular use of a particular model:  Is the model sufficiently accurate to serve the particular use to which you are putting it?  As noted in the original post, climate models have indeed proven accurate enough to provide the information we need to choose actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, because the costs of not reducing are and will be far higher than the costs of reducing.

       You continue to claim that climate models cannot project well enough for that use, despite the clear and robust evidence that they have, do, and will.  You might as well be a newspaper editor in the early 1900s refusing to publish any reports of the Wright brothers' successful flights despite photos and your reporters' first-hand accounts, because you "know" that flight is impossible.

       As for my background:  PhD in cognitive science with focus on decision theory (normative and behavioral), scientific research methodology, human-computer interaction, and the combination of all those in how to use computers as decision making tools.  Employment for 24 years after that, in designing software and managing software development projects.  For the first 7 years of that, for the major telecommunications systems in the world.  The second 7 years for critical, large scale computer server and network management.  For the past 10 years, for spacecraft (both flight software that runs on the spacecraft, and ground software for mission operations).

41302. Dave123 at 03:47 AM on 13 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       Elephant- What you wrote only makes sense if you are given a free pass for leaving things out and having no responsibility for the details.  It is an example of magical thinking, not scientific thinking.  Every word you write is aimed at exactly one outcome: stop thinking, stop investigating, stop testing, stop learning.  

       You've said (in paraphrase) "the earth has warmed and cooled before, CO₂ levels have gone up and down", and we can stop right there with that.  That's all there is too it, and the entire scientific enterprise aimed at this (despite it being that same scientific enterprise that produced the paleoclimate data you make mistakes about), is a waste of time.  

       The question is, is this your philosophy of life or something you wish to deceive other people into adopting?  

41303. Elephant In The Room at 03:19 AM on 13 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       I am curious about the thread title - Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation. 

       When you say 'us' - to whom are you referring? Skeptical Science, the IPCC scientists, the politicians, the world as a whole?

       As for scientific explanation - you seem to be laying down the gauntlet for people to refute with scientific evidence something that is currently theory. The threat of man-made climate change is a theory that currently the IPCC have a 95 percent certainty in (previously 90 percent). It's all semantics. 100 percent, 90, 50. It is immaterial. We could all quote our 'out of 10' view on any given subject. It does not add weight to the argument.

       If you wish to talk about facts of course then I could refer you to this planets temperature and carbon dioxide relationship. With absolute certainty I can tell you that currently we are rather cool; in fact pretty chilly. Furthermore I should also add that we are currently carbon dioxide starved. I say we; I meant to say 'the planet.' Carbon dioxide is a warming gas; for me to say otherwise would make me a denialist. I am not. However, it is my belief, and it is a belief, that the effect of the Co2 that we as humans churn out is minimal compared to the amount produced through natural variation. This is supported by the fact that in our absence on this planet (the last hundred's of millions of years) not only the temperature, but also the levels of Co2 were both equally capable of being random. One common trend however is that the mean global temperature 'is' 22 degrees C and the ppm of Co2 has been in the thousands; all without our influence.

       Alternative discussion about climate change is healthy. To ask a person or persons to refute 'evidence' with 'science' is ludicrous in the same way that it would have been to ask people to challenge that the world was once deemed to be flat.

       Humans are a brief visitor to this planet. They will come and go. And I can assure you that our brief incursion here will have no effect on the long term future. The reason we have coal to burn is because at one time it was in the atmosphere feeding the plethora of plant life and vegetation. Are we complaining that we are returning it to the air after it had once been sequested?  Are we complaining about sea levels when we know full well that this is a natural event that occurs post Ice Epoch? Is it the planets fault that we as humans choose to build houses in coastal areas that will as history tells us become inundated again with water?

       Take a good look; there is enough history there to tell you what has been and what will be again. Do you really wish to throw all your eggs in one basket for the sake of a global threat that isn't really a threat at all?

       Moderator Response:

       [PW] Elephant, in addition to your not-so sly tone-trolling, you've made numerous unsupported-by-credible-science assertions: either back them up and support them or risk any further comments of yours being moderated, *severely.* This is your first and last warning.

       Addition: All caps is a violation of comment policy and have been changed to bold.

41304. Rob Honeycutt at 03:00 AM on 13 October 2013
       Why Curry, McIntyre, and Co. are Still Wrong about IPCC Climate Model Accuracy
       

       SAM...  You seem to have a particular interest in this issue, and it's somewhat related to your own professional expertise.  And yet you seem to be failing to grasp some basic elements of GCM work.  

       My suggestion would be that you try to contact a researcher who is actually doing work on GCM's.  I've always found researchers to be very communicative with people interested in their work.  I'm sure they could help you understand their work.

       This is what I believe Admiral Tilly of the US Navy did when he was skeptical of AGW.  Once he had the issue of climate modeling explained to him he began to take the threats of climate change seriously.

41305. Rob Honeycutt at 02:53 AM on 13 October 2013
       Why Curry, McIntyre, and Co. are Still Wrong about IPCC Climate Model Accuracy
       

       SAM again... "I read that as there was only a 2.5% chance that the global temperature would reach this level."

       Again, you're reading these as an initial conditions problem and not a boundary conditions problem.  

       If you look at any of the individual model runs, those are more likely what we would expect to see GMST do.  And yes, they all wander from the 97.5%ile to the 2.5%ile.  So, your statement would be inaccurate. 

41306. Rob Honeycutt at 02:50 AM on 13 October 2013
       Why Curry, McIntyre, and Co. are Still Wrong about IPCC Climate Model Accuracy
       

       SAM said... "Nevertheless, in both my chart and yours, it is clear that global temperatures are at the very low end of the model projections."

       Once again, you don't seem to be grasping the boundary conditions aspect of this problem.  Scientists do not expect the GMST to follow the model mean over shorter periods.  The expect the GMST to remain roughly within the model bounds.  Over longer timeframes (>30 years) we would expect to see a similar trend between GMST and model outputs.

41307. PhilBMorris at 02:26 AM on 13 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       I recently made the mistake of responding to an article on a denialist website by trying to rebut some really poor arguments claiming that the debate wasn't over. I gave what I thought was a quite well reasoned response, but subsequently got back several replies that were equally trite in their arguments as the original article. I have decided that 'public discussions' on any of the multitude of denialist websites is entirely a waste of time. I'm better off finishing my rather lengthy presentation designed for the lay public and taking it to meetings etc. where I can actually lay out what we know, and why we know it, and see if I can help mobilise the small segment of the population where I live (Vancouver Island, Canada) that they cannot simply sit back and let business as usual happen.  Of course, I'll continue to refer to this and a number of other 'quality' sites for information; in particular, I found the article on this thread to be very helpful.

41308. Tom Curtis at 01:56 AM on 13 October 2013
       Why Curry, McIntyre, and Co. are Still Wrong about IPCC Climate Model Accuracy
       

       SAM @133, in fact HadCRUT4 only drops to the 8.38 percentile (%ile) in 2012, and to 7.87 %ile in 2011.  In fact, over the entire period for which I have data for both CMIP 3 models and observations (1960-2012), it only once drops below the 2.5 %ile (to the 2.43 %ile) in 1976.  It also drops to the 3.27 %ile in 1985 and to the 3.43 %ile in 1974.

        

       That does not look like falsification to me.  In fact, given that we have 53 years of record, we would expect the record to fall below the 2 %ile at least once in the period, but it does not.  Partly that is because the two records are centered on their mean between 1961 and 1990, forcing HadCRUT4 to average close to the 50th percentile over that interval, but if the models were significantly in error, we would have expected a large number of instances where the observations were below the 2.5 %ile by now.

       This is not to suggest that the models are not overpredicting the warming.  They are, and the fact that they are is shown in the trend in percentile ranks seen above.  However, that trend will not drop the observations consistenly below the 2.5% until 2035.  Further, that trend is exagerated by the use of HadCRUT4 (which does not include regions of rapid warming which are included in the models).  It is further exagerated by the final points observations being during a period of strong La Ninas.

       Frankly, I am surprised that you and Klapper persist in trying to prove your point based on interpretations of the faulty 2nd order fig 1.4, and misinterpretation of significance intervals (which by definition, we expect to be crossed 5% of the time if the models are accurate).  It would be far better to argue directly from the results of Foster and Rahmstorf, who show observed trends around 17 C/decade after adjustment for ENSO, solar variation and volcanism.  That represents a 15% undershoot on the models; and a reasonable estimate of the discrepancy between models and observations. 

41309. Jim Pettit at 01:31 AM on 13 October 2013
       SkS social experiment: using comment ratings to help moderation
       

       I don't know that it will be an issue here, but on other climate change forums of which I am a member, the comment rating moderation system has been gamed, almost exclusively by denialists. The primary method so far as I can tell has been for certain users to create mutliple handles, then log in under those handles to repeatedly vote down every comment supportive of climate change theory, and to repeatedly vote up every comment dismissive of it. (At one popular board, certain valuable forum members nonetheless found themselves accumulating literally tens of thousands of thumbs down votes over the span of just a few months by people using this method.). IOW, such comment rating systems have become a sort of corrupt and reverse popularity contest, and have seemed to do more harm than good.

       I like what a few others have suggested: a simply "flag as abusive" button. The problem with that, however, is that a dedicated group of troublemakers can just as easily game the system by piling on those flags, as well...

       I wish Popular Science wouldn't have chosen to kill comments for now, but I can certainly understand their reasons for doing so.

41310. StealthAircraftSoftwareModeler at 01:28 AM on 13 October 2013
       Why Curry, McIntyre, and Co. are Still Wrong about IPCC Climate Model Accuracy
       

       Tom Dayton @134: I’m just curious, what is your background?

       First, aircraft model are not extrapolating models at all in the way that GCM operate. Second, the progression from aircraft design to deployment is very complex, and extensive usage of models is employed to get “rough idea” of performance and features. Computer models are used in coarse design, then things progress to scale model testing in wind tunnels, but even because of the non linearity of aerodynamics and fluid properties, not even scale models are final. In the end, any thousands of hours of actual flight test of full size aircraft are used to *measure* control parameters. Rarely are model derived parameters used because of the very systematic errors of which I speak. Rest assured that the errors between the various stages of aircraft design and development easily exceed 1%. This is, in fact, the primary reason that aircraft development is so freaking expensive: test, and adjust, test and adjust, and on and on. Testing and adjusting never ever stops -- at least not until the aircraft is retired.

41311. Lei at 01:22 AM on 13 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       You are preaching to the choir, aren't you?

       First of all, in the US the scientists are on the same side of the fence, politically, as very uneducated people who are using tax money for subsistance programs.  These followers may not even have a high school education, may be hardened criminals and likely to be using up tax dollars for multiple abortions.  I know it is true, because I worked for a large social welfare program.

       You can preach all day about the uneducated who are following climate skeptics, but the truth is, it is the same for your side.  You have massive amounts of uneducated people who really may say they care about climate but it is far from important to them.  It isn't even on their radar. 

       And the truth is, you would feel far more comfortable sitting at the same dining table with the skeptics who are millionaires, than these poor folks who might steal your wallets.

41312. perseus at 01:15 AM on 13 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       Interestingly Nassim Taleb believes there is an even greater burden of evidence on skeptics
       

       Implication 1 (Burden of Evidence). The burden of evidence is not on nature but on humans disrupting anything top-down to prove their errors don’t spread and don’t carry consequences. Absence of evidence is vastly more nonlinear than evidence of absence. So if someone asks “do you have evidence that I am harming the planet?”, ignore him: he should be the one producing evidence, not you. It is shocking how people can put the burden of evidence the wrong way.

       Implication 2 (Via Negativa). If we can’t predict the effects of a positive action (adding something new), we can predict the effect of removing a substance that has not been historically part of the system (removal of smoking, carbon pollution, carbs from diets).

       
       

41313. Jonas at 01:14 AM on 13 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       >Hamlet 4 insisted “I don’t need to prove climate change is caused by natural variability. It just is.”

       I don’t need to prove climate change is caused by natural variability humans. It just is.

41314. Tom Dayton at 00:41 AM on 13 October 2013
       Why Curry, McIntyre, and Co. are Still Wrong about IPCC Climate Model Accuracy
       

       StealthAircraftSoftwareModeler, your claimed credentials seem more fictional the more you write.  Would you really claim that "In order for aircraft models to be reliable for forecasting, there essentially cannot be any systematic errors within the model, and that is just not possible"?

41315. StealthAircraftSoftwareModeler at 00:04 AM on 13 October 2013
       Why Curry, McIntyre, and Co. are Still Wrong about IPCC Climate Model Accuracy
       

       Tom Curtis @126: I like your chart, and I usually like what you have to say or present. I understand the different between trend lines and comparing it to actual temperature data. At the origin (1990, +0.22 degC) of my chart @117 all lines are touching. As time advances forward, they are still very close and it is easy for the highly variable temperature data to go outside these lines (see the wide temperature swing in my chart @117 between 1998 and 2002). I think we all understand that this type of comparison isn’t meaningful in the initial stages of the forecast. But, as time advances forward the min/max trend lines become wider, and once they are as wide as the noisy temperature data, then the location of the origin really shouldn’t matter. For example, in your chart @126, you can see that the min/max trend lines are outside the 2.5%/97.5% model bands by 2013 or 2014.

       Nevertheless, in both my chart and yours, it is clear that global temperatures are at the very low end of the model projections. You show the +/-2.5% bands and the current HADCRUT4 data is touching the lower 2.5% band. I read that as there was only a 2.5% chance that the global temperature would reach this level. This seems to indicate to me that the models are not very accurate. If you disagree, then how would any of you determine that the models are inaccurate? What is your method of testing and validation?

       As a software modeler myself, testing is everything. In fact, in my world we have more test code than we have model code, and by a lot. Trying to gain confidence in a model is extremely difficult. Many of my models are very accurate, under specific and well defined circumstances, but outside of those conditions then my models are wildly wrong. Dana asserts in this post that “models have done much better than you think”, but for the life of me I cannot understand how he can make that claim. It doesn’t appear that Dana understands software modeling, and certainly not testing. And while I am not a GCM modeler, I have spent a bit of time reviewing the GISS Model E source code. I am not criticizing the developers of the code, but it is clear that engineers or physicists, not software engineers, have developed the code. Model E is not very large – about 100,000 lines of Fortran (a very old language) -- and some of the physics models I have examined (clouds, lapse rate, convection with respect to GCM cell size and iteration rates) are, IMO, simple and designed for limited computational resources. Yes, even with a zillion processors, what they are attempting to simulate is so complex and so large, that design and modeling simplifications have to be made. Otherwise the model will run too slow and not provide any output in our life time.

       Those design and modeling simplifications are systematic errors, and essentially break the model. While I agree that true Gaussian errors will average out over time, systematic errors will not. Even very small systematic modeling errors – say 1%, which is impossible to achieve –will propagate over time and cascade into a large error. For example, let’s assume that GCMs are systematically accurate to within 1% on an annual basis. This means they *must* be able to model all aspects of the energy budget with accuracies greater than 1%. There is no way in hell they are doing that!!! Just look at the updated energy budget (http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n10/box/ngeo1580_BX1.html) and you can see that they have wide margins on every aspect of the budget. Climate scientists cannot measure the various components of the energy budget to within 1%, so there is no way they are modeling it to within 1%. A 1% systematic positively biased error will lead to an over estimation of +28% in 25 years (1.01 ^ 25 = 1.282), and in 100 years that same positive error will lead to an over estimation 170%.

       In order for GCMs to be reliable for forecasting, there essentially cannot be any systematic errors within the model, and that is just not possible. To have no systematic error would require complete and total understanding of the climate (we don’t have that) and all physics models to include all first, second, third, and perhaps fourth order effects (and they don’t do that either). To make major economic and policy decisions based on the output of GCMs is pure and unadulterated foolishness. I form this opinion based on 30+ years of advance software modeling of physics based systems, and we are no where near 1% accuracy and what we’re working is way easier than modeling the climate. Just accept that the GCMs are wrong and not very accurate for forecasting, and that is okay; developing climate models should be useful in helping climate scientists understand the climate better. GCMs are just a tool, and like all tools they need to be used properly, otherwise someone is going to get hurt.

41316. Philippe Chantreau at 23:27 PM on 12 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       "Recovery from the LIA" would then be a cause, which itself does not have a cause? Makes sense...

41317. MA Rodger at 18:46 PM on 12 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       jmorpuss @29.

       You present an interesting example of denial. Does the ionosphere actually dictate the climate? Are the elusive results of the ATLANT experiments elusive because they are being covered up? This, jmorpuss, is the stuff of the "reality" you speak of.

       So to you, AGW is not a problem. All the climate scientists in the world are so dumb or corrupt that not one of them can see what you, a humble citizen of this planet, can see as plain as day in front of you.

       Congratulations, jmorpuss. You are in denial. Any evidence of human science is irrelevant and rendered false if it supports AGW, because you know AGW is false. You are not alone. Prof. Richard Lindzen takes the same position as you do, and he is a proper climatologist, abet a rather elderly one. Lindzen ignores all the unhelpful evidence because he believes some vital ingredient is missing from the theories, some mechanism of climate that will make the problems of AGW disappear. (I'm not sure how it would make the unhelpful evidence disappear for him, but hey-ho, what do I know.)

       Of course, because neither you nor Richard Lindzen are being scientific about AGW to a greater or lesser extent (you jmorpuss the greater, he Lindzen the lesser), you would neither agree with each other. Indeed Lindzen would consider you views ridiculous and insane. And he would not be alone in this opinion.

       Such is the stuff of denial. Thank you for sharing it with us.

41318. John Mason at 17:35 PM on 12 October 2013
       A rough guide to the components of Earth's Climate System
       

       Link to NOAA's ONI page added and a screengrab of part of it dropped in above to overlay graphic :)

41319. TonyW at 17:12 PM on 12 October 2013
       Ocean In Critical State from Cumulative Impacts
       The state of the oceans is scary. But why, oh why, do apparently scientific reports keep emphasising the political limit of 2C/450ppm? Where is the current science that says anything up to 1.99C is not too bad, but 2C is terrible? Ditton 450ppm. I read something on realclimate recently which pointed at 1.9C being seen, in the past, as the lower limit of a small range of temperature rises that would consign Arctic sea ice to history. That temperature has surely been superseded by a much lower one. And the oceans are already acidifying faster than for millions of years; I can't see it being OK to limit CO2 to less than 450ppm. The urgency is even greater than this report tries to instill.
41320. jmorpuss at 16:55 PM on 12 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       I think if climate sience looked at reality and not debated theories and computer generated models we could all live in a better world. Do all climate change researchers get provided with the time frames when this is taking place ?LINK

       LINK

       And here in Australia I'd like to know if Atlant was running when Queensland got flooded? John Cook should be able to let us know  http://www.australianrain.com.au/technology/howitworks.html

       LINK 

       So as I said these links are not promoting a theory they are real and going on as we speak.  

        

       Moderator Response:

       [RH] Shortened links that were breaking page formatting

41321. Tom Curtis at 15:58 PM on 12 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       JRT256 @20:

       "Recovery from the Little Ice Age is probably one of the causes of Global Warming. To say that this is magical is possibly nonsense. Clearly if there was a cause of the LIA, then the cesation of this cause will result in recovery."

       This sort of spurious reasoning is what gives "magical thinking" plausibility.  Essential to JRT256's reasoning is an assumption that the "cause of the LIA" has in fact ceased to operate.  But if he has not identified that cause, he cannot know that it has ceased, continued as before, or even redoubled in strength.  For all he knows, climate sensitivity is far stronger than he imagines, but a redoubled strength of the "cause of the LIA" has slowed the anthropogenic global warming.

       The only way around this quandary is to actually identify the cause of the LIA; and to then identify what it is currently doing,ie, to go beyond vague formulations in terms of "recovery from the LIA".  Failure to do this, ie, simply assuming that the "cause of the LIA" is behaving in the way that best suites your intellectual prejudices amounts to magical thinking.

        Curiously, when the actual causes of the LIA are looked into, it is found that the primary cause of the LIA was a period of greater than usual volcanism creating an aerosol veil sheltering us from the sun; which indeed did cease in the early twentieth century and the cessation of which did contribute to the early twentieth century rise in temperatures.  Of course, volcanism has been renewed since then, and the rise in temperatures in the late twentieth century is opposite in trend to that which would be expected from natural (solar and volcanic) causes.

41322. Bert from Eltham at 15:54 PM on 12 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       DSL it all reminds me of epicycles and the problems of turbulent fluid flow. Throw in enough epicycles or non sense variables and one can model anything we do not understand.

       I find it absolutely amazing that people will rubbish computer models that are based on known physics and yet grasp at any 'magic' models that are based on short term curve fitting.

       These same ignorant people will then accuse scientists of the very same fallacy they are committing all far outside the error bars that they cannot even begin to evaluate or contemplate. Bert

41323. DSL at 14:47 PM on 12 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       JRT256, there's nothing in the article or in the comment stream that provides an overwhelmingly obvious antecedent for the target of your use of "explanation."  I certainly would not have expected you to assume the reader would identify 'global warming over the last fifty years' as the target.  Rob and Bert explain why.  I also have a hard time accepting this quasi-periodic wave is independent of rapid and deep changes in the climate system.  The physical mechanisms through which the wave is propagated are changing.  To imagine that this wave persists through that change in such a way as to be used to reliably project a future hiatus in surface temp requires too great a suspension of disbelief.  Ironically, Curry works on a project that seems ideal fodder for her uncertainty monster. 

41324. Rob Honeycutt at 14:29 PM on 12 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       JRT256...  What would also be required here is an explanation as to why CO2 doesn't operate as we expect, and observe, to explain current warming.  

       In other words, you can't just dismiss the well understood radiative physics of greenhouse gases.  You also have to take into account a whole host of things that are predicted results.  Cooling stratosphere with a warming troposphere.  Arctic amplification.  Etc.

       And again, for natural variation to be a rational explanation, you'd also have to show that global temperature has varied at least as much and as rapidly over the past 1000-2000 years.  That, so far, has been shown not to be the case.

41325. Bert from Eltham at 14:14 PM on 12 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       JRT256 the article you referred to in 18 is an attempt to describe 'natural variation'. It is for the Northern Hemisphere only and it does not propose any real physical mechanism for its affects. Just some vague hand waving of so called multi temporal and spatial interactions. It does not account for the linear increase in temperature due to anthropogenic CO2. It does not disprove AGW due to the increase in atmospheric CO2. For the analysis to work at all the linear AGW signal has to be subtracted from the data.

       What is does do is show that AGW is not due to 'natural variation'! The opposite of what deniers are claiming. Bert

41326. william5331 at 13:58 PM on 12 October 2013
       Ocean In Critical State from Cumulative Impacts
       

       http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2010/12/fisheries-policy-lets-change-tacks.html

41327. JRT256 at 13:50 PM on 12 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       DSL: Re #21 Did you bother to read the article that you are commenting on?
       
       

41328. JRT256 at 13:42 PM on 12 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       DSL: Re #19 I thought that was obvious.
       
       Well, the natural variation discussed in the paper is occuring but we had no idea of the causation.  If this explaination is correct, we now understand the causation.  Before we understood the causation, it was unexplained natural variation.  But, it was still natural variation that existed, not magic.
       
       With new science happening all of the time, doesn't this also apply to other unexplained natural variation as well?
       
       
       

41329. DSL at 13:40 PM on 12 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       Aye yai yai, JRT256.  Take it to the appropriate thread:

       We're coming out of the LIA.

       It's the Sun.

       On a new Maunder minimum.

41330. JRT256 at 13:29 PM on 12 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       Recovery from the Little Ice Age is probably one of the causes of Global Warming.  To say that this is magical is possibly nonsense.  Clearly if there was a cause of the LIA, then the cesation of this cause will result in recovery.
       
       One of the hypotheses of the cause of the LIA is the Maunder Minimum in the Sunspot cycle.  This would also mean that the cooling did not effect only Europe (an idea that appears to be the Lamp Post theory).  I note that Wikipedia lists some global evidence with citations.
       
       

       The same could also be said of other causes.  The point is not what the cause was but rather that if there was a globe wide cause of the LIA, only the cesation of this cause is all that is necessary for the recovery and a return to nominal temperatures.

41331. DSL at 12:57 PM on 12 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       JRT256, a "reasonable explanation" for what?

41332. JRT256 at 12:46 PM on 12 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       OTOH, with new science happening all of the time:
       
       http://bit.ly/15ZXaRC

       perhaps natural variation is a reasonable explaination.

41333. jmorpuss at 11:44 AM on 12 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       "In a time of Universal Deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. - George Orwell"  The truth will set us free http://www.thrivemovement.com/the_code-new_energy_technology The way to control the massed is to control knowledge so all we get is propaganda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda Here's a bit of history that may through some light on why we are in this hole of confussion http://educate-yourself.org/ga/RFcontents.shtml

41334. Rob Honeycutt at 11:36 AM on 12 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       joeygoze...  What you fail to recognize is that, for each one of the papers you list, there are close to 100 others that do make such connections.  

       On natural variation, the very point to multiproxy reconstructions of the past 1000+ years is to look at natural variation relative to the trend of the past 100 years.  There are a dozen or so of these studies and everyone of them shows that the warming of the past century is unprecedented.  

       Now, I frequently ask people such as yourself:  Where is a multiproxy reconstruction that contradicts these conclusions?  The fact is, there are none.

41335. KR at 10:29 AM on 12 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       joeygoze - I see you've been reading the denial site notrickszone, as those appear to be the first 10 links from one of Gosselin's posts. 

       However, the actual content in those papers really doesn't match Gosselin's rhetoric, does not contradict the general view of AGW. As but one exemplar: the second link, Stephen Po-Chedley and Qiang Fu 2012, is a discussion of errors detected in the satellite temperature record. If those errors are real, and are properly accounted for, the satellite data is in far better agreement with surface temperatures - and provides additional support for anthropogenic warming. In fact, if they are correct about the errors in the satellite record, arguments from the 'skeptic' producers of some of that data (Spencer and Christy) is considerably weakened. Clearly that paper wasn't actually read or understood when compiling the list...

       Many (most?) of Gosselin's links are from PopTech's list - a cherry-picked list of papers (and op-eds) that he (mis)interprets as possibly (in PopTech's opinion) contradicting AGW, despite in several cases objections from the authors of said works. They do include some works that directly disagree with AGW - including several from Scafetta (curve-fitting), from W. Soon (over the top misrepresentation), etc. And many of those have been refuted/debunked. 

       Link-bombing (as in Gossilen's post) only works if you don't actually read the links, or don't consider that even with a few cherry-picked articles, the vast majority of the work in the field finds those views to be unsupported outliers. If you feel that there are significant objections, I suggest you discuss them directly, rather than posting bare links.

41336. tmac57 at 10:24 AM on 12 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       Beautifully written gpwayne.I pulled 5 quotes from the article that should go down in climate science history. Thank you

41337. Trevor_S at 09:18 AM on 12 October 2013
       Global warming – a world of extremes and biological hotspots
       

       #5 Jason B

       A good analogy would be an overweight person eating a chocolate eclair and then cursing themself, saying "Oh, no, I couldn't resist the temptation, now I've eaten it and it's too late to go on a diet". Sure, having eaten that eclair they will now have to work harder to achieve their weight goals, or else they will forever be further from that goal than they would have been had they not eaten that eclair with all else being equal, but that doesn't mean there's no benefit in working on their weight problem from that point forward.

       A better analogy might perhaps be you chopped your arm off in a moment of hallucianitory insanity.  You ignored that you knew it would make things worse for you but none the less, Murdoch etal told you it was "the shizzle".  Sure, superb surgeons can rattach it and you will get some function back (Geoengineering) and if you are rich (Annex 1 nations) you might get back better use then someone who can't afford the best sugeons (developing world), none the less it isn't going to return to "how it was", there is too much forcing for that to occur.

       I still see people expecting Government to do the heavy lifting for them, blaming Government for their own emmissions.  It's long past time to blame others and we have to start blaming the people who look out at us from the mirror.  We are the emitters, we are the obese, the smokers (insert whatever analogy works for you).  It's nonsenseical on the one hand to keep emitting, while imploring Government to stop us, that's like asking your mother to tie your shoes for you because you're to lazy.  

       We do need Government to act to stop the free rider problem BUT we can start.  We can act, we can cut back, we can apply peer pressure.  We can not turn the A/C on, we can not drive, we can stop flying etc etc.   Demand side reduction is the only thing that might mitigate the damage we've done, while still proceeding with supply side change.

       If Government acted tomorrow with supply side changes, it would take decades to roll out the necessary infrastructure to ensure substantive emissions reduction and this article brings home the urgency of acting now.  

       So, what are the options ? Keep emitting while we wait for someone esle to do something on our behalf ?

       Professor Kevin Anderson (Tyndal Climate Centre) explains it nicely here in this lecture

       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RInrvSjW90U

       I am not holding myself up as a role model, just pointing out it can be done. Four years ago I gave up my job, we moved to a milder climate, in a "cheap" (housing) rural area.  We are off the grid for power and water, stoped consuming gee gaws from China (cutting their emissions for them), stoped flying etc.  I live off a small stipend from invesments, not welfare.

41338. Ken in Oz at 08:52 AM on 12 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       "Deus ex Machina" is the crucial plot element in the climate science denier's version of the climate story; just when it looks like they might have to eat their words some new element will emerge that fixes it all and they can say "told you so". It may be God loving us so much we will be let off from having to live with the real world consequences of our actions, even though we've known about the big one since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Or it may be bioengineered trees that suck CO2 out of the air and sequester it so well we can burn as much coal and gas and oil as we like. Or all the smart and worthy people will colonise Mars, where global warming really is "good" and there are no natural ecosystems for greenies to obsess over; those that have to stay behind can serve a useful role in paying for their migration to a better world.

41339. joeygoze9259 at 08:45 AM on 12 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       Dare I jump into the shark tank here, one premise I find alarming is that there appears to be agreement that there is no body of primary research that discusses natural variability, solar influences, temperature reconstructions that do not jibe with man induced global warming hypothesis and other topics.  I am not making any ad hominem attacks, not insulting anyone, just listing primary research from per reviewed journals.  I list 10 papers here but there are hundreds of primary research works that present interesting evidence to consider. 

       (-snip-)

       Moderator Response:

       [DB] Links lacking context snipped per the Comments Policy.

41340. Paul D at 06:48 AM on 12 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       Contrarians aren't intrested in getting a scientific or factual result.

       They are interested in the argument, winning or neutralising it.

41341. seeohtoo at 23:50 PM on 11 October 2013
       A rough guide to the components of Earth's Climate System
       

       at #27, clarification on #26: there needs to be a biosphere arrow pointing at the ocean.

41342. One Planet Only Forever at 23:39 PM on 11 October 2013
       A rough guide to the components of Earth's Climate System
       

       John, I agree that overlaid charts are a very good presentation of Global Surface Temperature and ENSO, but I still strongly recommend a reference be provided to the NOAA History of the Ocean Nino Index and that the explanation of the derivation of the chart presnetation from taht data be provided.

       The current link on the article points to a site that mainly provides "speculative" information regarding the ENSO (forecasts). I did not find a link to a clear explanation for the chart values of Ocean Surface Temperatures. The NOAA link in my earlier comment (#2), explains the way the numbers in the table are determined. Also, there are links from the NOAA page to other relevant infromation for the benefit of people "... who wish to learn more." (the end of the opening statement of your article). Tom Curtis has provided a different chart in (Comment #9) but a link to the explanation of how it was derived would be required if it was used.

       Anyone who does wish to learn more will probably come across the NOAA data and a critical thinker would question why the values on the chart currently linked to do not reflect the more thoroughly presented and explained data in the NOAA table. I was curious about the difference and went on a quick search for the answer from the IRI page and did not find what I was looking for. The links led to presenations about the "speculation related to future ENSO. There is no explanation of how the values on the ENSO chart are determined. This can easily lead to the an unjustified claim that the presentation is somehow "fudged". It is important to make things difficult for the deniers and skeptics among us who will try to focus on what they see as inconsistencies between data (any apparant inconsistency is all they need to substantiate a claim). The worst of that group will deliberately try to claim that inconsequential inconsistencies are proof that the data has errors in it and is just being deliberately manipulated. And the gullible of that group will need no more justification of the claim than the "appearance" of the claimed inconsistency.

       So I strongly recommend pointing to the NOAA ENSO data rather than the IRI page about "speculation regarding ENSO" that shows an unexplained chart, even if charts are a preferred presnetation.

41343. Tony O at 22:59 PM on 11 October 2013
       2013 SkS Weekly Digest #39
       

       I guess that makes me a denier, Type 5. Our civilization is in it's end game, doomed. Perhaps something better will rise from the ashes, but the transition is going to be horrendous.

       But I might be wrong, perhaps it is not too late. And even if I am not, then I would still prefer not to race to our doom. We spend milllions on a single old person keeping them alive for a few more years or maybe only a few more months. What price then, on all of humanity for a few more decades?

       Yes this does become self fulfilling at some stage. Carry on as we are and we will not only see the fall of civilization, but the extinction of man as well.

       What we need to do to mitigate what is ahead is in many ways the same as what we need to do to cope with what is ahead. The more we mitigate and prepare the more that can be saved.

       We can act. Or we can go extinct.

        

41344. Alexandre at 22:27 PM on 11 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       Brendon at 19:35 PM on 11 October, 2013

       Anything But Carbon (ABC) became a cliché among contrarians.

       As an attorney, I would never want to b in their position: "I have no idea who it was, but in spite of all the evidence, I just want to say that my client didn't do it!".

41345. Johnny Vector at 22:25 PM on 11 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       It's not always necessary to have a physical explanation for a correlation to find meaningful explanatory power.  The correlation between the tides and lunar position was known long before the physical mechanism, for example.  Likewise, there is a (counterfactual) situation in which "natural variation" with no additional explanation could be a meaningful argument.  If one could show that there have been century-long variations in the distant past that are equal in magnitude and frequency content to what we have seen over the last century, but that these variations were washed out in the reconstructions done so far, then one could argue, even in the absence of a physical theory, that what we're seeing now could be due to the same effect (whatever it is).  

       Of course there is no evidence of any such variations, so that is a purely hypothetical situation.  And even then, what it would mean is the answer is "we don't know", not "aha, see, it's just natural!".

41346. Alexandre at 22:23 PM on 11 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       Akin to the magical natural cycle is the magical negative feedback argument, which I heard recently: "if the last decade didn't warm as much as before, there must be a negative feedback lurking somewhere".

       Unfortunately for everyone, there's no evidence of neither, and plenty of evidence of the ever-worsened greenhouse effect.

       BTW, the magical negative feedback seems to be the holy grail of the last contrarian real scientists, like Spencer or Lindzen. Good luck for them. I just wish they wouldn't be so loud before they found it.

41347. Brendon at 19:35 PM on 11 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       Joanne Nova attributes the warming to "Something other than CO2", but she's just not sure what.

       Then when I explained that she had not presented any science to rebut the attribution studies, nor had she provided any evidence to show something else was to blame, I was placed into permanent moderation.

       http://itsnotnova.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/novamod.png

       This seems to be a pattern on Nova's forum.

41348. chriskoz at 19:29 PM on 11 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       This post portrays deniers as some kind of "irrational people" and tries to compare their rationale to religious superstition. Comparison may sound accurate but it is not fully adequate IMO. The reason is: the religious institutions around the world do accept AGW. Take an example of Vatican. Pope John Paul II said as early as in 1990, that global climate change is real, caused by humans, and that we should take action to slow and stop it. Pope Benedict XVI confirmed it. Lately, the populist Pope Francis has strengthen and clarified it, by saying: "All nations must focus on a rapid transition to renewable energy sources and other strategies to reduce CO2 emissions". I cannot comment about other religious leaders because I don't follow them, but I certainly see no correlation between anyone's religious beliefs and their climate denial. So, comparing denialism to some kind of religion does not do justice to geniunely religious poeple who understand the science and their supernatural world of God starts were science ends, which is perfectly reasonable to me. In such context, I would rather call the deniers "irrational heretics", esp. when Pope Francis' techings are in stark contrast with thier claims.

       There is another term/explanation, which you did not mention & to which Ben Ka@1 hinted, which better characterises/explain climate denialism - special interest group bias, namely fossil fuel industry lobbists, or so called "conservative" think tanks. The bias is so large that it skews the rationale as much as we've seen. Some heavily vested lobbists and so called "public relation specialists" are the top figures behind those "natural variability" theories. They don't believe in those theories - they are just "selling the flies of doubt" as Germans would say. Such people can only be described as professional liars. The crowd that follows and repeats the lies as "alternative theories" on WUWT or such blogs, are poeple who for some reasons are unable or too lazy to verify the "skeptic claims". As I said, they are "heretics" following the heresy inseminated by special interest groups. God does not need to be involved here.

41349. rugbyguy59 at 17:10 PM on 11 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       One aspect of natural variation deniers tend to ignore/deny is natural variations of CO2 are vitally important to past climate change. In many respects AGW is nothing more than a variation on an explanation by natural variation. Naturally, more CO2 warms the planet. The fact the CO2 is rising due to us is really the only anthropogenic aspect of the CO2 explanation.

41350. Matt Fitzpatrick at 16:44 PM on 11 October 2013
       Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation
       

       This post isn't criticizing attribution of global warming to specific natural phenomena. It's criticizing attribution to "natural variability" or "natural cycles" or whatever, because these claims are so vague as to be untestable therefore unscientific. The number of natural variables we would have to test to disprove this "hypothesis" are virtually limitless: clouds, volcanoes, planets, stars, pirates, and on and on.

       Your claim, for instance, that part of 1975-2000's warming can be attributed to ENSO is specific and testable. This post takes no issue with a well-stated hypothesis like that.

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