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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 42051 to 42100:

  1. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    nhthinker:

    So you are critical of how the media explains climate science, but not the science itself?

  2. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    John,

    Annual Global Mean Surface temperature is the only metric that the general media actually reports that scientists use to measure the impacts of the the enhanced greenhouse effect on the Earth's climate system.

    I know you guys are much more sophisticated than that- but it's up to you correct the media.  The dumbing down to non-scientist forums and the quotes by climate scientists that fed the frenzy specifically to Annual Global Mean Surface temperature are actually doing a disservice to the cause of science, especially if the transfer to the oceans turns out to be very significant.

  3. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    #23

    But the IPCC predicted atmospheric temperature rises over the next century intentially assume most of the heat imbalance staying in the atmosphere instead of being absorbed by the deep oceans and other masses of the Earth

    intentially? I think you are quite confused about the science, which can indeed be confusing. I will try to explain, though I am not an expert, and may be subject to correction.

    The heat imbalance is at the top of the atmosphere where the outgoing heat from the earth is less than that incoming from the sun. Since the earth's system will strive towards equilibrium, it must warm to radiate at a higher level. That is the cause of planetary warming, including deep ocean warming. For simple purposes you can think of the earth as just a sea and an atmosphere. Both will warm at different rates and exchange heat with each other in cycles.

    These cycles are known, and more is being learned. So heat going into the ocean will not necessarily stay there but return to warm the surface at a later stage. We just happen to be in a cooling part of the cycle. I think Thomas Stocker did a good job of explaining this today ... despite his two days without sleep.

  4. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    >>The update really cheered me up this morning. Almost as hilarious as http://denialdepot.blogspot.co.uk/ . I really sympathise with the purveyors of parody - it's not easy for them to beat this kind of stuff...I think it's always worth taking a moment to stare in awe at the wonderfully twisted nature of it all.<<


    Is that for real? I read the first page and almost choked laughing, but couldn't decide whether the guy is serious or taking the mickey out of deniers. Which is it?

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] DenialDepot is a parody/satire site that lampoons the "skeptic" worldview.

  5. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    nhthinker:

     

    >>Intentionally drawing equivelances between items scientitsts view as hard science and those that scientists view as somewhat less hard is seemingly commonly used as a grammatical trick to boost confidence in the less hard science.<<

     

    I don't know whether you are intentionally misrepresenting the paragraph, but it is pretty obvious to me that it was merely stating that gravity and tectonics are well understood, not that the interaction should be any relevance to CO2 and climate.

  6. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    nhthinker:

    Do you believe that Annual Global Mean Surface temperature is the sole metric that scientists use to measure the impacts of the the enhanced greenhouse effect on the   Earth's climate system?

  7. Why is the IPCC AR5 so much more confident in human-caused global warming?

    Don9000 @14 - well said, +1.

    Zen @10 - honestly I think Stoker was probably tired when he said that (having been up all night working on the final SPM).  It's hard to know what he means by 'deep' oceans.  We certainly have faily good estimates for the 700-2000 meter layer, which I consider the most important part of the 'deep' ocean (as layers deeper than that don't accumulate much heat).  There's no question that deep ocean storage is one mechanism causing slowed surface warming, the question is how much it's contributing vs. how much reduced radiative forcings may be increasing.  There's also been some really good recent research published on that, which unfortunately missed the IPCC cutoff, so Stoker may not have been aware of it.

     

  8. Why is the IPCC AR5 so much more confident in human-caused global warming?

    Ali G @11

    Further to Zen and assuming your figure is correct.

    If we have accurate historical global temperature records of 1/3, and they have recorded a warming trend and are scattered throughout the 2/3, what do you think is happening in the 2/3?

  9. Why is the IPCC AR5 so much more confident in human-caused global warming?

    CBunkerson

    Thanks for the clarification

  10. Why is the IPCC AR5 so much more confident in human-caused global warming?

    Ali G 

    You're welcome to suggest....

    But i should imagine having reliable historic temperature measurements of 1/3 of the planets surface, given a good spread of coverage, is more than adequate to make broadly accurate conclusions.

     

  11. Why is the IPCC AR5 so much more confident in human-caused global warming?

    ptbrown31@6

    I think Dana's simile is quite apt: podiatrists and cardiologists are medical doctors, with different areas of expertise. He didn't say Curry had no right to share her opinions, and he identified her as a climate scientist. The problem with an outlier like Curry is that someone unfamiliar with the way scientific disciplines are broken into many different sub-specialities or areas of expertise might well draw the conclusion that her qualifications as a climate scientist make her an equally well-qualified expert in all areas of climate science.

    Using another medical analogy, I go to my general practicioner for routine checkups and for intitial consultations, but my general practicioner refers me to experts when I have a problem outside his area of expertise.

    Curry should be acting like a general practicioner, but instead she often operates quite differently. More often than not, she acts as if she is a better expert on any given sub-discipline of climate science than the scientists in that sub-discipline. If Curry were a medical doctor, she would be the general practicioner who rarely if ever referred anyone to a cardiologist, because she believed almost all cardiologists were misguided or dangerous.


    As for Dana, he, like other non-climate scientist authors of reports or summaries on Skeptical Science, generally does two things: 1) render scientific publications into language more suitable for lay people to understand, while remaining true to the thrust of the original source documents; and 2) use published climate science to rebut denier positions. This means that Dana and Skeptical Science writers represent the orthodox point of view where climate science in 2013 is concerned.

    We can easily see the difference between what Skeptical Science authors do and what those on the other side do when we think about a site like WUWT. On that site, authors take an emphatic heterodox stance against most of the published science. In effect, the opinions found on WUWT are almost always written by non-climate scientists who act as if they are experts on various subfields of climate science who possess the ability to see that effectively everything published by climate scientists working in any given sub-discipline is wrong.

    Expressed as an analogy, going to WUWT for climate science opinions is like going to an auto mechanic for a second and consistently contrarian opinion on the bypass operation the cardiologist recommended.


    So, to sum things up, Skeptical Science writer seek to pass along the simplified but otherwise unchanged diagnoses of climate science specialists, Judith Curry often poses as the arch climate scientist, and WUWT writers are delusional.

  12. Why is the IPCC AR5 so much more confident in human-caused global warming?

    Zen, the Argo network is now providing much better data for ocean warming down to about 2000 meters. The average depth of the worlds' is about 4267 meters... so we are currently measuring heat accumulation for less than half of the water in the oceans. This is the 'deep ocean' that Stoker was referring to.

  13. Why is the IPCC AR5 so much more confident in human-caused global warming?

    Curry has made numerous claims that are demonstrably false. Her walk back of her own involvement in the BEST study and denial of its results being the most obvious example. If anything, the description of her in the article above is overly generous. Making incorrect statements in areas outside your experience is foolish. Making incorrect statements of basic fact and logic is inexcusable.

  14. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    John Hartz.

    For the case of my dentist, I know there are millions of data points and the time scales of measurements of outcomes make it clear about cavities.  Medicince about cavities is a "harder science" than "global long range temperature prediction".

    For global climate change- there is one massive patient and generally extremely long time response time intervals.

    Are you a betting man?  If your bookie brackets a prediction on a match to high/low to have a 95% confidence on covering a spread and then suddenly changes the lower end by half- would you have confidence in that bookie?

    As to gravity- child scientists perform experiments every day to reprove Newton's laws.  Results are quick and can be rechecked.  Climate science as a means to accurately predict future atmospheric temperatures is not in that ballpack of certainty.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] "Climate science as a means to accurately predict future atmospheric temperatures is not in that ballpack of certainty"

    Your error is that focusing on the daily noise ignores the underlying signal.  Much like focusing on individual waves hides the change in tide at the beach.  Climate science is interested in the tide.  The waves are the weather and the concern of meteorologists.

    Apologies to The Bard, but "the trend is the thing" and all that matters over time.

  15. Why is the IPCC AR5 so much more confident in human-caused global warming?

    Far be it for me to suggest...

    But there have been no reliable historic temperature measuerments of 2/3 of the planets surface.

    As for what goes on below 2/3 of the surface of the planet's surface.

    Over and out!

    .

    Moderator Response:

    "But there have been no reliable historic temperature measuerments of 2/3 of the planets [sic] surface."

     

    [PW] Ali G, please provide a credible source of data for this statement.

  16. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    nhthinker:

    While there is general scientific acceptance of the fact that gravity exists, scientists are still struggling to determine exactly what causes it to exist. That is not the case with the science of climate change. 

  17. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    nhthinker:

    If your dentist told you that he was 95% certain that one of your teeth had a cavity, would you authorize him to take appropriate action to remove it?  

  18. Why is the IPCC AR5 so much more confident in human-caused global warming?

    I have just come across this comment by John Stoker, who is apparently co-chair  of the IPCC working group.

    "There are not sufficient observations of the uptake of heat, particularly into the deep ocean, that will be one of the possible mechanisms that would explain this warming hiatus,"

    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/27/ipcc-world-dangerous-climate-change

    My interpretation of this commentis that there is currently no reliable measurement of heat in the deeper levels of ocean; however it was my understanding that, for some time now, we did have reliable and accurate measurements through the argo network, and that these measurements clearly showed increased warming. I would be really grateful if someone could explain the discrepancy; have I misundersstod the John Stoker comment in some way. Thanks.

     

  19. Why is the IPCC AR5 so much more confident in human-caused global warming?

    trevor @7 - I believe you're confusing surface warming (1.5 to 4.5°C for doubled CO2) with ocean warming.  The warming of the sub-surface oceans doesn't tell us much about the warming of the surface air.  Very different warming rates.

  20. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    Thanks for the rewrite: "The basic tenets of science are pretty solid: gravity, plate tectonics, germs that cause disease and so on. The foundations of climate science, such as the role of carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, have likewise been well understood for decades."


    But use of the "likewise been well understood for decades" implicates that it is as scientifically deterministic as gravity and germs. For gravity and germs, we do predictive experiments all the time. There is clear scientific certainity that greenhouse gases generate extra heat.. However, as to the foundations of climate science, we actually don't accurately know how much heat will be absorbed by the deep oceans and other masses of the Earth for conditions where extra greehouse gases are being dumped into the atmosphere (at the rate we are doing now) and how much of it will remain as higher temperatures in the atmosphere over the course of a century or two.
    This potential extra heat in the oceans could likely end up causing catastrophes of their own- but the previous emphasis on atmospheric temperature may make a significant portion of the population of the Earth see it as science getting it wrong- and part of the fault will be that climate scientists had not properly informed the public on their true scientific centainty- and how truly that we know over the next 100 years we will get so much more informed and have much more certainty on our predictive ability with respect to climate change.

  21. Why is the IPCC AR5 so much more confident in human-caused global warming?

    ptbrown31@5 - I always support what I write with references to peer-reviewed literature.  Curry has no supporting evidence, she's merely giving her 'gut feeling'.  If you're going to ask people to trust your gut, you'd better at least be an expert in the field you're talking about.  Curry isn't.  I don't expect people to trust my gut, instead I reference the expert scientific literature.

    Ali G @6 - same problem as ptbrown.  You're placing your "faith" in someone's "gut" and ignoring the peer-reviewed scientific literature in the process. 

  22. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    "Fundimentally however, the properties of GHG mean that there is a TOA energy imbalance. If the planet is accumulating heat it will warm. How fast and where is harder to predict, especially on time scales of decades or less, but heat it will."

    But the IPCC predicted atmospheric temperature rises over the next century intentially assume most of the heat imbalance staying in the atmosphere instead of being absorbed by the deep oceans and other masses of the Earth.  The IPCC emphasis on predicted atmospheric temperatures and their consequences will reflect poorly on the IPCC if it turns out a significant portion of the heat is absorbed into the oceans and less results in atmospheric temperature rises.

  23. Why is the IPCC AR5 so much more confident in human-caused global warming?

    Dana,

    I understand that the latest IPCC report forecasts a temperature increase at equilibrium of between 1.5C to 4.5C for a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere.

    Judith Curry (26 Sep-13) has reported a calculation that the heating in the 0-2000 meters ocean layer for the past 45 years is only some 0.065C. The implication is that there is an incompatability between this calculation and any forecast of potentially damaging climate change.

    I would be grateful for any comments that you may have (not immediately expected, as the calculations do not seem to be trivial!), in particular:-

    1. Is the calculation correct?

    2. If the calculation is correct, does this mean that the IPCC forecasts for future global warming need to be modified to allow for the possibility of a lower level of warming? Or, alternatively, that the calculation simply proves that it will take a very long time for temperatures to reach equilibrium?

    3. Is there any method for cross checking the calculation against an independent indicator? The average annual sea level rise seems an obvious candidate. 

     

     

     

  24. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    nhthinker - "Climate science grew from the idea that calculating future climate temperatures over the course of decades and centuries did not have to put much account into the potential heat transfer from the atmosphere to deep ocean masses or other masses of the Earth."

    Um, that would seem to be rather direct contradiction to even the very early papers on climate science. Heat transfer into the earth is governed by basic thermodynamics and easily measured (being done all the time). Heat transfer into the ocean is complicated by convection and the THC, but the limitation of this has always been acknowledged. 

    Fundimentally however, the properties of GHG mean that there is a TOA energy imbalance. If the planet is accumulating heat it will warm. How fast and where is harder to predict, especially on time scales of decades or less, but heat it will.

  25. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    Aahh, DSL - thanks for the interaction...

    Intentionally drawing equivelances between items scientitsts view as hard science and those that scientists view as somewhat less hard is seemingly commonly used as a grammatical trick to boost confidence in the less hard science.

    There is plenty of hard science on gravity and plate tectonics on this planet and on others.  They lead to predictions and measurements that rise to level of scientific "law".

    Climate science grew from the idea that calculating future climate temperatures over the course of decades and centuries did not have to put much account into the potential heat transfer from the atmosphere to deep ocean masses or other masses of the Earth.  Like a good use of Occam's razor, it attempts to use the fewest variables and systems to explain the data.  However, the climate models currently are much more uncertain than the models for plate tectonics and the latest data for the past 15 years seems to indicate the models may need more adjustment.

    I honestly would listen more carefully to climate writers that start with clarification of scientific uncertainty instead or using language that tries to draw equivalence of gravity and green house gases.

     

    Cheers

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] I would honestly recommend that you at least pay lip service to reading AND adhering to this site's Comments Policy, instead of continuing on in your idiom of empty assertions.

    Future comments constructed as this one will receive further, and more stringent, moderation.

  26. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    If you want to learn more, there are threads.  Note that there are three tabs for that article (basic, intermediate, and advanced).

  27. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    Ahhh, nhthinker . . . I thought John was trying to point out that the basic science isn't something new fangled but has been around for a very long time, even if the high-resolution predictive ability of our understanding has only recently been trending upward.

    i didn't think that John was trying to give a comparison of the relative strengths of those components within their respective systems (which are also shared).  Gravity wins in all cases.  Gravitational fluctuation, though, would be another matter, just as solar variation as a forcing and the general forcing of solar irradiation (1365 wm2) are considered differently.  

  28. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    The statement:

    "Like gravity and plate tectonics, the basic tenets of the relationship between greenhouse gases and climate change have been well-understood for decades, a product of the scientific investigations that began some two centuries ago."

    ...imples that the importance of gravity to plate tectonics is equivalent to the importance of greenhouse gases to climate change.

    Would you please identify the peer-reviewed citation that supports this claim?  I would surmise that most actual scientists believe gravity is more fundamental to plate tectonics than green house gases to climate change, but I could be wrong and want to learn.

  29. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    SkS needs a pop-out mechanism that tattoos the comments policy on the forehead of the about-to-poster and then pops out a mirror. 

     

    Yes, I know: snip.

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] Agreed. SkS moderators have neither the time nor inclination to babysit newcomers -- especially those that are accustomed to posting trash talk on   WUWT and similar venues of denialism.  

  30. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    nthinker: Your most recent comment was deleted in its entirity because it violated the SkS Comments Policy re Moderation Complaints.

    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.

  31. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    Christpher, #14 - today's Guardian thread is a case in point. >1000 comments and it's like being in a small boat far out at sea in the middle of a typhoon! By pure chance I read the thing just as it was posted and got the first comment in - someone later accused the Guardian of letting me know in advance so I could get a 'warmist' comment in first! Really. It's chaos out there in opinionsville!

  32. A hotter world is a hungrier world warns Oxfam ahead of IPCC report

    Lei:

    On both sides of my family, people migrated huge distances - from Europe to the Western US (lack of farm land in Ireland)...Of course, people can adapt

    Or die: Total deaths 1 million

    In parts of the Western US (Willamette Valley of Oregon) they have the most productive farmland in the US. It is due to planting methods, apparently.

    The climate and soils are what makes the Willamette valley so productive.

    You're going to have to try harder if you want to be taken seriously here, Lei.

  33. Why is the IPCC AR5 so much more confident in human-caused global warming?

    "Put simply, she is speaking outside her area of expertise, like a podiatrist giving advice on open heart surgery."

    Dana, 2 things:

    1) Would you dismiss Curry's opinion this way if she was emphasizing the certainties of the science rather than the uncertainties?

    2) You yourself are not a climate scientist yet you write articles as if you are an expert on every subfeild of climate science. It seems odd to me that you think Curry shouldnt blog outside of her subfeild but you think you are allowed to blog about every subfeild. 

  34. Christopher Gyles at 03:24 AM on 28 September 2013
    Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    I used to comment on Yahoo science articles but that forum is currently so inundated with denialist negativity that whatever I might post is very soon "hidden due to low ratings."

    I also read a recent Daily Kos article regarding Popular Science's shutting down of their comment section in which a paper, Anderson et al 2013, was cited as illustrative of the reason for that decision. The study's conclusion was quite an eye-opener:

    "Online communication and discussion of new topics such as emerging technologies has the potential to enrich public deliberation. Nevertheless, this study's findings show that online incivility may impede this democratic goal. Much in the same way that watching uncivil politicians argue on television causes polarization among individuals, impolite and incensed blog comments can polarize online users based on value predispositions utilized as heuristics when processing the blog's information. The effects of online, user-to-user incivility on perceptions towards emerging technologies may prove especially troublesome for science experts and communicators that rely on public acceptance of their information. The effects of online incivility may be even stronger for more well-known and contentious science issues such as the evolution vs. intelligent design debate or climate change. Future research may explore these issues to gain a better understanding of the formation of risk perceptions for controversial political or science topics in the context of user-generated online comments."

    Thus it appears that any kind incivility in a comments can, to some extent at least negate in the readers' minds the validity of the science being reported. Food for thought.

  35. Why is the IPCC AR5 so much more confident in human-caused global warming?

    As noted, Curry is a climate scientist, but has no attribution expertise.  Hence the analogy is accurate.

  36. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    Rob Nicholls:

    I too have been depressed by the false balance in BBC broadcasts, interestingly predicted by Will Hutton in the Observer last weekend:

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/21/climate-change-scientific-truth-collective

    But what i've found most unsettling is UK scientists being interviewed and seemingly keen to highlight uncertainties in whether the oceans are even absorbing heat at deeper levels, followed by Andrew Monford confidently expressing the assertion that the planet clearly isn't warming and the scientists have got all the models wrong.

    I was, however, cheered up earlier today by when  Sir Brain Hoskins was interviewed on Radio 5 live, and gave a superb summary of the situation.

  37. Why is the IPCC AR5 so much more confident in human-caused global warming?

    I felt that your negative portrayal of Judith, even if justified, was unnecessary.  I would think it would be sufficient to point out that her opinions were just that, opinions, and not science.

  38. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    I'm not a scientist by any means, so (gently) correct me if I'm wrong, but it's always seemed to me that the deniers are shooting themselves in the foot when they bring up that we should be headed for an Ice Age, because as far as I can tell, if you look at all the natural forcing the climate experts who predicted that weren't far off. If something wonky isn't messing up the system (i.e. vast amounts of carbon spewed out of tailpipes and smokestacks) we would be cooling off quite a bit.

  39. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    Thanks for the proof-read :)

    Have now looked it up - quite right too! Little 'n' is acceptable, though.

  40. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    Just in the interests of enhancing the already impressive credibility of this post, keep in mind that if you're going to use Latin expressions, use them correctly.  Nauseam, not nauseum.  

  41. Why is the IPCC AR5 so much more confident in human-caused global warming?

    Thanks Dana for the very useful distinction between "GHG-induced warming" in AR4 and "total human influence on climate" in AR5.

    I would disagree about portraying Judith Curry as incompetent, ala " podiatrist on heart surgery". Given her areas of reaserch: hurricanes, remote sensing, atmospheric modeling, polar climates, air-sea interactions, etc., she looks perfectly competent to me as climate change spokeperson. But the fact that she does not understand the basic statistics (i.e. the calculation of uncertainty that I've learned as undergrad) while performing all of that research at Georgia Tech, is beyond my comprehension. She is a "heart surgeon" you're talking about (at least holds the required qualifications) but a bad one who should not have received the qualifications or has forgotten all skills since then. She's not a "naysayer" but an outlier among climate experts.

    Note that other disciplines also have such outliers, perhaps more than 3% of experts; the outliers are just not as loud because no one listen to them, as there is no need to rationalise public mind against those other disciplines if a discipline are not as "inconvenient" as climate science. 97% consensus is very high number and it's very hard to beat.

    In statistics, 95% confidence interval (so lower than climate science consensus and coincidentaly the same as AR5 confidence on AGW) is assumed as typical confidence interval for a good reason: otherwise the inherent uncertainty of your observations would preclude the confirmation of your hypothesis (i.e. the null hypothesis would always be true). Too much talking about null hypothesis starts hindering the advancement of your theory. So you'd be stuck in denial of many laws of physics just like climate science denialists are stuck today.

  42. Why is the IPCC AR5 so much more confident in human-caused global warming?

    One category of claims I've seen that I can't wrap my head around is that the IPCC statement is weakening the former statements, e.g. from "most" to "more than half" here, or from "warmest in 500 years" to "warmest in 800 years" in another case.  Posts predicated on such misreadings predictably generate 50+ credulous comments at WUWT.  It's rather remarkable.

  43. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    "Like gravity and plate tectonics, the basic tenets of the relationship between greenhouse gases and climate change have been well-understood for decades, a product of the scientific investigations that began some two centuries ago."

    (-snip-).

    The heat content of the Earth and its movements are very complex - (-snip-).   (-snip-).

    (-snip-).   (-snip-).

    (-snip-).

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] Unless you provide links to peer-reviewed, published scientific papers to support your assertions, they are merely your opinion. 

    [DB] Ideology, inflammatory and multiple instances of sloganeering snipped.

  44. A hotter world is a hungrier world warns Oxfam ahead of IPCC report

    Another dimension to issues under discussion is the undernourishment of a significant segment of the human population. This dimension is addressed head-on in:

    OP-ED: Sustainable Development Goals After 2015 by Olivier De Schutter, Jochen Flasbarth, and Dr. Hans R. Herren, International Press Service (IPS), Sep 25, 2013

     

     

     

  45. How to use short timeframes to distort reality: a guide to cherrypicking

    Michael:

    Just what I need - thanks.

  46. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    The update really cheered me up this morning. Almost as hilarious as http://denialdepot.blogspot.co.uk/ . I really sympathise with the purveyors of parody - it's not easy for them to beat this kind of stuff...I think it's always worth taking a moment to stare in awe at the wonderfully twisted nature of it all.

    I really like Lou Grinzo's comment (#3).

    Gish gallops are very difficult to deal with, given their ever-changing focus, but if ever there was a tool for dealing with them then it is the pages of skeptical science.

    More depressingly, I've seen quite a lot of nonsense, full of fake balance, from the BBC this week, both online and on the TV (e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24233643  , http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24213816  ), talking about a "pause or hiatus" in global temperatures while either completely ignoring, or downplaying the evidence for, the rapid ocean warming that's continued or even accelerated in recent years (clearly the ocean is no longer part of the globe according to the first link); ignoring the fact that there's no evidence for a pause even in surface temperature records (the trend is undeniably upward even if not statistically significant in the last 15 years - therefore the repetitive use of the word "pause" is just sloppy); ignoring studies which suggest that the recent slowdown in increase in surface temperature increase is consistent with short-term variability caused by fluctuations in solar irradiance, ENSO and volcanic activity; happily quoting "climate skeptics" who mention recent papers suggesting low climate sensitivity of 1.5 to 2 degrees C, while failing to mention the large amount of published evidence (some of which has itself been published very recently) which estimates climate sensitivity to be much higher than 2 degrees C. I think it is ignorance rather than deliberate cherry-picking (and perhaps science journalists are unduly influenced by the hundreds of irate and baseless complaints from very discerning "climate skeptics" that I'm sure they receive) but it's poor journalism either way.

  47. Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    hank_@2, your "this picture" link is blocked in Russia: "Access to the site is restricted in accordance with the Federal Law № 114-FZ of 25.07.2002 (On Countering Extremist Activity), № 436-FZ of 29.12.2010 (The protection of children from information harmful to their health and development), № 149 - FZ of 27.07.2006 (on Information, Information technologies and Protection of information) and the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of 26.10.2012 № 1101. If you have any questions relating to the work of the resource, contact your authorized representative of Roskomnadzora."

    Can you briefly describe the picture? Thanks!

  48. A hotter world is a hungrier world warns Oxfam ahead of IPCC report

    The science behind graphs such the one posted by Glenn Tamblyn is well established and easy to understand. Indeed simple experiments were (and hopefully still are) carried out by schoolchildren measuring the effect of temperature on the digestive efficency of saliva.

    Biochemically - chemical reactions such as photosynthesis and digestion are achieved by the use of enzymes which are large protein molecules. These enzymes have a specific shape which bring the reactants into close proximity to each other, thus facilitating the reaction. 

    The specific shape of these enzymes is controlled by weak forces - much weaker than ordinary chemical bonds - predominantly these are "hydrogen bonds". As the temperature rises, the enzymes have more energy and can more easily twist out of shape, thus rendering them useless. This explains the distorted bell shaped curve.

    Enzymes are synthesised from DNA, indeed the GCAT sequence in DNA code for specific enzymes, and DNA is the subject to natural selection. It is therefore not surprising that the enzymes that plants and animals have evolved are optimised for the current conditions. If current coditions change sufficiently, especially if that change is rapid (on a geological timescale) then extinction ensues.

  49. A hotter world is a hungrier world warns Oxfam ahead of IPCC report

    Freshie


    You might want to read this paper Rice yields in tropical/subtropical Asia exhibit large but opposing sensitivities to minimum and maximum temperature and also look at the papers it references.

     

    Try Googling RICE  YIELD TEMPERATURE. Also look up Wikipedia for a discussion of Photosynthesis including the temperature dependent aspect of it.

    Graphs like this highlight the temperature dependence of photosynthesis:

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Imageshack sometimes has issues with its images showing up on SkS.  This is one of those times.

  50. Bert from Eltham at 11:35 AM on 27 September 2013
    Understanding the pre-IPCC Anti-Climate Science Misinformation Blitz

    What never ceases to amaze me is the ability of the deniers to continually get it all totally wrong! They seem to have a sixth sense on where to look for cherry picked evidence to 'prove' whatever they think is correct. Methinks if you can continually get the wrong answer 100% of the time you DO know the correct answer! QED!

    What is even worse any time in Australia with 'Our ABC' when the key words global warming are in any article and comments are open, the comments are flooded with the same old debunked drivel. These people are so stupid they use the word dribble instead of drivel to describe the utterances of 'warmists' that have 'the faith'. The projection is so palpable it is not even worth commenting on.

    The closest analogy I can think of is the NBN debate in Australia. Where whenever the NBN comes up the flood of misinformed people who claim that wireless will beat optical fibre in bandwidth with development in the future proves they have no understanding of any Physics.

    Bert

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