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Comments 42101 to 42150:

  1. 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #38B

    <redacted> yeah! That's what I'm talking about!

    https://www.facebook.com/climatecouncil

  2. Invitation to join second offering of free Climate Literacy course

    A "climate literacy" program is a great idea. I am currently reading "Reality Check: How Science Deniers Threaten Our Future (2013) by Donald R. Prothero" where a chart on page 109 includes a list of the top 34 countries by GDP but ordered by the average level of scientific comprehension by their citizens. The countries from 28 to 34 are: Greece, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, Cypress, The United States of America, Turkey. Yep, Americans sit between Cypress and Turkey which partially explains why there is so much climate denial coming from the USA.

  3. Nuccitelli et al. (2013) Debunks Akasofu’s Magical Thinking

    StBarnabas.

    And because of it one of the members of the editorial board resigned in protest. We can but hope that the remaining members have got the message.

  4. What scientists SHOULD talk about: their personal stories

    Moderator - got it -thanks for taking the time to explain. I will familiarize myself with the policy. 

  5. What scientists SHOULD talk about: their personal stories

    Moderator -I had a comment here in response to Lei's first two comments from 9/23 that has been removed.  Was that because one of the two comments from Lei was removed and the other largely snipped so my comment was out of context - or because i broached the SkS Comments Policy? I think others have responded to Lei's commnets better than I did but I was just wondering.

     

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] On behalf of the moderation staff, it is unfortunate that sometimes, in the process of moderating out egregious violations of the comments policy, direct responses to such deleted comments are perforce also moderated out.  This policy is designed to engender on-topic dialogue and open discourse based on the science, free from intemperate atmospheres as are found in many other venues.  Unfortunately, sometimes innocent responses such as yours get caught up in the action.

    One suggestion is to familiarize yourself with the comments policy sufficiently to recognize the violations of others...and to not respond to them, knowing that the moderation staff will deal with them.  Typically a wide latitude is given, but repeat offenders get shorter leashes.

  6. What scientists SHOULD talk about: their personal stories

    Lei said... "No insulting words should ever be uttered by gentlemen and scholars."

    The problem is that "denial" is a clinical term that has been used for about 150 years.  Suddenly, when it's being applied to a group of folks who are clearly in denial (thus, "deniers") the term is redefined as offensive.

    The outrage over being labeled what is an accurate term is, in itself, a form of deflection.  Denial of denial.

  7. What scientists SHOULD talk about: their personal stories

    "Denier" is a reasonable term for someone who effectively puts fingers in ear and cries "la la la" when confronted with published science. A fake "skeptic" is someone who challenges every piece of published science (good) but swallows without question any half-cocked blog commentary that happens to coincide with their views.

    Scientists are paid fairly modest salaries that arent linked to funding. More funding means you could employ more scientists and could fund more experiments (read satellites) to find the answers.

    However, what most scientists want is for people to stop burning fossil fuel, simple as that. Doing that will mean frankly that you will probably pay more for your energy (but you might pay less tax if you killed off all subsidies to fossil fuel industry).

    You will improve engagement if you provide supporting statements to your assertions.

  8. Latest myth from the Mail on Sunday on Arctic ice

    I would have thought that if a journalist can be shown to have deliberately made erroneous statements on a topic that is very likely to do great harm to their country, it is not the PCC that should be called in to investigate, it is the Crown Prosecution Service, unless treason has ceased to be a criminal offence, of course. 

  9. Nuccitelli et al. (2013) Debunks Akasofu’s Magical Thinking

    @MA Rodger

    in which case this looks like academic misconduct. Journal papers are supposed to make an original contribution to the field and one normally has to sign a statement saying that the work is original and not just a rehash of previous work. The paper should have been rejected for this reason alone.

  10. Nuccitelli et al. (2013) Debunks Akasofu’s Magical Thinking

    The previous incarnation of this Akasofu paper was actually published in 2010 (not 2009) with a prior 2009 version unpublished but appearing on line. The big difference between these two eariler attempts was length (2009 - 55 pages, 2010 - 14 pages). This latest 2013 version is shorter still. And it has nothing new to say. Not a jot.

    I feel it is telling that after 4 years all that has been achieved is a bit of editing. With nothing new to prop up his bankrupt theorising, Akasofu simply demonstrates the vacuous nature of his work.

  11. What scientists SHOULD talk about: their personal stories

    Lei, I read your deleted comments.  They were not geared toward engaging in conversation.  Setting that aside, though, I appreciate your re-engagement.

    Also, you provide evidence for some of the stereotypes when you say, "You move them further to the right."  Are these people so easily moved by irrelevant information?  Is that not one of the points that is being made by people who argue that "conservatives" are not equipped or are unwilling to accept relevant evidence?

    Terms like "denier," "liberal," "conservative," and "catastrophic" should be rarely used, because they immediately require explanation.  Witness Michael Fumento needing a long essay to define "conservative."  Richard Alley identifies as conservative, as do many other prominent scientists working in climate-related areas.  Identity and practice, as you know, are often quite different.

    And while I agree with you on the name-calling bit, there is a target audience for the term "denier."  The term, for me, is meant to be provocative.  My use is intended to make the claim that the person with whom I'm interacting is well-aware of the evidence but is intentionally disregarding it and is not willing to discuss that choice.

    Here's some of what scientists have to put up with (pjones is Phil Jones of the UK Met Office).  I wouldn't call these people "deniers," though.  They are, however, the people who are led by the nose by deniers.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Fixed text.

  12. What scientists SHOULD talk about: their personal stories

    Whoops.  I took DSL's hint and checked Lei's original comment, which contained the gem:

    "My biggest question is what do you want people (voters) to do about climate change besides hand YOU and YOUR co-workers VAST amounts of tax money?"

    So, it is OK in Lei's book to insult us (and climate scientists) by suggesting we are involved in a conspiracy to defraud tax payers, but woe betide us if we should suggest some people are in denial about climate science.

    I believe Lei has provided a perfect demonstration of my point @18 - and will prove it further by being unable to concede the point.

  13. What scientists SHOULD talk about: their personal stories

    Lei @17, if you read the works of "climate change skeptics", you will find the full of the most virulent insults.  It is habitual for some to accuse the IPCC and the UN to be part of a plot to generate world governance.  Others cannot help but compare defenders of climate science with Nazis on a regular basis.  I personally have been compared to the KKK (although perhaps inadvertently).  If people are influenced as you suggest, there should be a tidal wave of support for climate science and the IPCC.

    People are not, I think, influenced by such mild terms as "denier", (ie, somebody who denies some well established body of knowledge) unless they are using the term as a pretext.  And if they are that desperate for a pretext, they would have found another one no matter what we do.

  14. What scientists SHOULD talk about: their personal stories

    When you use terms like "denier" you are insulting someone right off, who may be questioning climate change in the back of their minds.  You move them further to the right as you are not using your vast knowledge of social science or human psychology that I know you all have minored in.  Your wives should be able to advise you in this area. 

    No insulting words should ever be uttered by gentlemen and scholars.

    It's not a war. 

    Taxpayers are utterly helpless.  I feel sorry for ALL of them. 

    (-snip-). 

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Moderation complaints snipped.

  15. The sun is getting hotter

    cstanyon69 @13, the chapter in question has just one out of 45 sections dealing with solar forcing.  That section reads as follows:

    "2.7.1 Solar Variability
    The estimates of long-term solar irradiance changes used in the TAR (e.g., Hoyt and Schatten, 1993; Lean et al., 1995) have been revised downwards, based on new studies indicating that bright solar faculae likely contributed a smaller irradiance increase since the Maunder Minimum than was originally suggested by the range of brightness in Sun-like stars (Hall and Lockwood, 2004; M. Wang et al., 2005). However, empirical results since the TAR have strengthened the evidence for solar forcing of climate change by identifying detectable tropospheric changes associated with solar variability, including during the solar cycle (Section 9.2; van Loon and Shea, 2000; Douglass and Clader, 2002; Gleisner and Thejll, 2003; Haigh, 2003; Stott et al., 2003; White et al., 2003; Coughlin and Tung, 2004; Labitzke, 2004; Crooks and Gray, 2005). The most likely mechanism is considered to be some combination of direct forcing by changes in total solar irradiance, and indirect effects of ultraviolet (UV) radiation on the stratosphere. Least certain, and under ongoing debate as discussed in the TAR, are indirect effects induced by galactic cosmic rays (e.g., Marsh and Svensmark, 2000a,b; Kristjánsson et al., 2002; Sun and Bradley, 2002)."

    Your linked blog post claims that Judith Lean was the only solar physicist among the lead authors of the chapter.  That may well be true.  There were in fact 15 Coordinating Lead authors or lead authors to the chapter.  If membership in that group was coordinated based on relevant expertise by section, we would expect just 1 in 45 (or 1/3 rd of a lead author) to be solar physicists.  Given the nature of the topics discussed, that means solar physicists are over represented among lead authors.

    Of course, the blog is carefull to not point out that lead authors are not the only authors.  In fact, in addition to the 15 Coordinating Lead Authors and lead authors, there are 37 Contributing Authors.  Given an assumption of proportionality, we would therefore expect approximately 2/3rds of a Contributing Author to be a Solar Physicist.  In fact, there is at least one in the form of S. K. Solanki (and may be others that I do not recognize).  Apparently the existence of at least one other solar physicist was not considered worthy of mention by the author of the blog.

    The author of the blog also claims the section was based primarilly on just one paper, of which Lean was a co-author.  In fact 16 papers are cited, of which only two have Lean as co-authors (Lean et al, 1995; Wang et al, 2005).  For both of these, they are cited in conjunction with another paper of which Lean was not an author to make the point being made - and the first of these is cited because it was previously cited in Assessement Report 3.  None of Solanki's papers are cited in that section.

    It should be noted that 7 other papers with Lean as a coauthor, and two with Solanki as a coauthor are also included in refferences, but if cited, are cited in other sections of the chapter.

    Not content with misrepresenting or concealing the basic facts of the case, the paper also attempts to claim the sun is responsible for recent warming by trotting out the original graph from Friis-Christensen (1991), which has been resoundlingly rebutted by later work, as explained here.  It also includes some slanderous personal communications that attempt to rebut the PMOD composite by ad hominen, but I'll not adress those.

  16. Recursive Fury: Facts and misrepresentations

    Phronesis - The majority of the Climate Audit posts on LOG12 that I have read (or rather, endured reading, as they are rather nasty) consist of speculative slander about Lewandowskys motives (for example, posts entitled "Anatomy of the Lewandowsky Scam", "Lewandowsky’s Fake Results", or lines like "... Lewandowsky’s tainted methodology – a methodology that relied on fake data to yield fake results"), claims that the data was trashed by scammed responses (no evidence thereof, mind you), and various conspiracy theories regarding how the surveys were distributed. 

    In his Trying (Unsuccessfully) to Replicate Lewandowsky post, McIntyre makes several errors that are apparently due to his unfamiliarity with exploratory factor analysis (EFA). These include inappropriate eigenvalue selection (using two factors instead of the one significant eigenvector) and use of the default 'R' language rotation that redistributes variance - useful in PCA, but inappropriate in EFA when you want to attribute those components back to the survey questions. This is discussed at some length by Oberauer and Lewandosky, laying out McIntyre's errors.

    McIntyre has a history of poor or missing evaluation of principal component significance, as discussed on RealClimate with respect to the Mann et al papers. That's the original topic where you brought up McIntyre's LOG12 discussion, I'll point out. 

    I would consider this diversion an Argument from Authority on your part to support McIntyre's claims about the "Hockey Stick", and therefore a red herring WRT that discussion. Expertise in one field doesn't support an argument in another, it's a logical fallacy, and it seems quite clear to me that McIntyre has not demonstrated any expertise in EFA either. 

    Regardless of this side-track, McIntyre's claims about Mann et al have been solidly refuted, most clearly by Wahl and Ammann 2007.

  17. 2013 SkS Weekly Digest #38

    @chriskoz #1:

    "Monking up the numbers" is listed in the "In the Works" section of the digest. Rob Honeycutt will need to tell us what his timetable is for completing the article. 

  18. Nuccitelli et al. (2013) Debunks Akasofu’s Magical Thinking

    It would be interesting and even fun to interview Akasofu.   He is quite a distinguished scientist and has no obvious ties to the extractive industries. 

  19. Nuccitelli et al. (2013) Debunks Akasofu’s Magical Thinking

    We've seen Akasofu's unsubstantiated graph pasted onto to several climate-related commentary posts in Canadian media. As a layperson I suppose I resort to speculation at many times myself, but I can't help wondering whether his area of specialization (aurora) makes him of particular interest to other "cosmic" climate contrarians who promote the woozy ideas of Landscheidt, Mörner and Svensmark, due to some kind of neo-mysticism.

    The one persistent commentator I am aware of using this swoopy-dippy climate "prophecy" seems to style himself rhetorically as some kind of high priest among contrarians. It's quite annoying really.

  20. The sun is getting hotter

    Got a question: have you heard of this one:

    LINK

    I'm sure it's rubbish; the premise is that Judith Lean, the lone solar physicist on the IPCC, had complete control over solar radiation readings. From what you've written above, this seems like tripe, but I'm not so familiar with the field to be sure.

    Your comment?

    Moderator Response:

    [RH] Hot linked URL that was breaking page formatting

  21. Arctic sea ice "recovers" to its 6th-lowest extent in millennia

    @Daniel, of course, I agree with every word. That you draw your conclusions from quality papers is what I always like to point out. Realclimate is also great in this regard. Thanks!

  22. 2013 SkS Weekly Digest #38

    @chriskoz Several bloggers have commented on the paper:

    I did (Real Sceptic): http://www.realsceptic.com/2013/09/16/97-climate-consensus-denial-the-debunkers-again-not-debunked/#.UjdTIPwb7z4.twitter

    WottsUpWithThat: https://wottsupwiththatblog.wordpress.com/2013/09/10/watt-about-monckton-and-the-97/

    And Dana talked about it here on SkS:http://www.skepticalscience.com/debunking-climate-consensus-denial.html (see the section Taking Consensus Denial to the Extreme)

  23. 2013 SkS Weekly Digest #38

    What happened to "Moncking up the Numbers"? I guess it's likely about the latest (and only) Monckton's peer reviewed paper & I'm particularly interested in those numbers.

    It's been in the coming up list for some time, not today though. I hope the topic did not sink into oblivion...

  24. What scientists SHOULD talk about: their personal stories

    Can Lei perhaps give the proposition after the rhetoric has been scraped off?  I've seen the rant (it's only commented out).  I could paraphrase it, but I'd rather see if Lei is serious about engagement.

  25. The Climate Show #35: elections, extremes and a big wind

    hank_, that's Jim Powell of the Cato Institute.  It's possible that the claims have some seed of merit.  It's also possible that Powell is representing the brand of libertarianism he's paid to represent. 

  26. Recursive Fury: Facts and misrepresentations

    KR, are you saying there are math errors in his rebuttal of LOG12? Or in some other, climate-related work? If the latter, then your conclusion doesn't follow from your premise. Well, it might be rational to not read his arguments if you thought he was too error-prone, but it wouldn't follow to be unimpressed by his arguments based on math errors from some other work. Bias is a pervasive human challenge, so any anti-skeptic or anti-McIntyre scholar would want to go into this issue with some bias-correction algorithms running, otherwise you won't be able to get a clean take on whether he's right or not.

    You seem to know where his posts are already (there are 16?), so I'm not sure what good it would do to link you to them. Maybe I can highlight his key arguments sometime this week. LOG12 should never have been published, and I'm surprised it hasn't been retracted at this point -- either by the authors or by Psych Science.

  27. Latest myth from the Mail on Sunday on Arctic ice

    David Rose's twitter feed Bob Ward of the LSE is also intending to take the Mail on Sunday to the PCC.


  28. The Climate Show #35: elections, extremes and a big wind

    Hank,

    The story lists less than a dozen companies that are building US facilities, at least two are chemical manufacturers.  The story points out that natural gas and oil, the feedstocks for chemical manufacturers, are cheaper in the US than in Europe, which has nothing to do with renewables.  Some of the facilities were worth less than 5 million dollars.  The article contains a lot of fluff and little data.  How many US companies are opening facilities in Europe?  The article claims that wind is more expensive than fossil fuels whch is false.  Why would they be installing so much wind in Texas if it wasn't cheaper?

    It is hard to believe that at any time no more than a dozen European manufacturers are opening plants in the US.  I would expect more investment if the US economy was more competative.  It sounds to me more like complete hype.  A commentor at Real Climate said all the companies involved said that they did not consider electricity costs as part of their moves.

  29. The Climate Show #35: elections, extremes and a big wind

    @Philip #62 

    See this Forbes stroy regarding companies migrating to the US. They actually name the companies athough it's mor of an EU article than strictly German. There are issues with the rising costs of energy in Germany especially.

    How Europe's economy is being devastated by global warming orthodoxy

    Hard to believe this story is just hype.

  30. Latest myth from the Mail on Sunday on Arctic ice

    David Rose is not only a climate change denier, he is also a (-snip-)

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Respectfully, this conversation needs to stay focused on the specifics related to climate science and the denial of it...and not to matters of personal failings.

  31. The Climate Show #35: elections, extremes and a big wind

    I'm a regular listener and always glad to see a new edition coming out.

    The link theclimateshow.com does not work anymore for a while now (discontinued?). I guess the article should point to the corresponding hot-topic link instead.

  32. Hockey stick is broken

    Phronesis - I have replied on the appropriate thread. 

  33. Recursive Fury: Facts and misrepresentations

    Phronesis - Given McIntyres propensity for basic math errors, I have been entirely unimpressed by any of his various criticisms of LOG12. 

    Until, however, you link to something in particular by McIntyre (there are at least 16 different McIntyre blog posts on the subject, but quite notably nothing peer-reviewed), you haven't presented any actual arguments in that regard. 

  34. The Climate Show #35: elections, extremes and a big wind

    Philip - The Telegraph are next in my "little black book"! I have spoken on the telephone to someone purporting to be Hayley Dixon, and she certainly didn't sound like a "he"!

    The editorial side of the DT haven't responded to my telephone calls or emails as yet. I guess I shall have to pester them again next week.

    BTW the Express also printed similar nonsense, and even the Indy managed to repeat a bit of the disinformation, no doubt inadvertently!

  35. The Climate Show #35: elections, extremes and a big wind

    @ Jim Hunt

    What an excellent idea. It's about time someone tried out the PCC for size on a story like this. They've been criticised as toothless in the past; but in the wake of recent press scandals in the UK, they might just feel emboldened to protest.

    As you may know, 'Hayley Dixon' who peddles climate change disinformation at the Daily Telepgraph is very likely David Rose. In this instance the article 'she' ran in the DT was virtually identical to David Rose's in The Mail. Admittedly professional deniers tend to repeat (endlessly) the same arguments and claims, originating from the same web-based pseudo-science blogs; but in this case the similarity was unusually striking.

    The DT seems to have stepped up its campaign recently. It's been running piece after piece taken straight from the denialist playbook: pieces hinting at attempted cover-ups (without offering a shred of evidence); and an especially thin and inaccurate piece last week about Germany's energy policy, and how it's allegedly turning into a 'nightmare'. Among other nonsense in that piece, was a (long debunked) claim that Germany industrial companies have begun relocating to the US because of cheaper energy prices. No company was named - because no companies have actually done this. The one company that was once named in this connection explicitly denied that energy prices had anything to do with its thinking.

    I suppose I'm saying that the DT should be in the dock too, given its record.

  36. What scientists SHOULD talk about: their personal stories

    All: The last two comments posted by Lei have been deleted because they were off-topic sloganeering. 

  37. The Climate Show #35: elections, extremes and a big wind

    As we couldn't neglect to mention over on YouTube, we've set our hearts on hauling David Rose and the Mail on Sunday in front of the UK's Press Complaints Commission, since they have still failed to retract any of their monstrous "Myth making about Arctic sea ice" from two weeks ago.

    For more information please see our own videos, and/or take a good long look around:

    http://GreatWhiteCon.info/broken

  38. What scientists SHOULD talk about: their personal stories

    If you want personal stories, then you must listen to why people voted for Romney.

    I worked for our state helping to dispense benefits to the poor.  I am a college graduate and also worked on campuses.  In my first year of school, I scored "gifted" and my school exam scores went even higher in the next years.  I am part Asian.

    (-snip-)?

    (-snip-)

     

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] You are skating on the thin ice of sloganeering and going off-topic. Please read the SkS Comment Policy and adhere to it. Posting on SkS is a privilege, not a right.

    [DB] Ideology snipped.

  39. Arctic sea ice "recovers" to its 6th-lowest extent in millennia

    As an addition to my earlier comment about scientific bodies referencing SkS, here's an example of NASA referencing SkS at it's Earth Observatory website:

    Have a Question about Climate Science? #askclimate

    My favorite was their response to this question:

    Q:  What is the main argument people have when they refute climate change?

    A:  Two (contradictory) favorites are 1) we don’t know anything and 2) it’s just natural. Neither are true. More at http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

  40. 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #38B

    Sorry get a broken link on

    "Case for climate change is overwhelming"

    Can you check please?

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] The link works for me.  OS issue?

    [JH] I had fixed the link but due to a glitch with my other computer, I wasn't able to post a note until now. All's well that ends well.

  41. Hockey stick is broken

    Michael and KR, thanks for the correction. I'll read the material you linked. I'm a social scientist so I know PCA – hopefully I'll be able to understand what I'm reading. I didn't find a published refutation of M&M, and the more bloggy stuff I'd seen were ad hominem attacks on McIntyre for not being a climate scientist. I did not take that as a good sign. I will say that if Mann's methods were invalid (I'm not sure if Michael is conceding or disputing this), but the conclusions turned out to be correct, I'd still cross out Mann's paper and only care about the subsequent, valid work (perhaps including Mann's.)

    I will say that McIntyre was spot on in his debunking of the recent Psych Science paper on belief in conspiracy theories and AGW skepticism -- there I'm in the comfy surrounds of my own field and expertise. His regression diagnostics were solid. There were hardly any participants in the dataset that fit the advertised effects. The paper should not have been published, and it's the first time I've ever seen a social psychologist (the lead author) say that we shouldn't care about outliers (in response to McIntyre) –- we're all trained contrary to that notion (McIntyre showed that a handful of outliers (5?) drove a huge part of the reported correlations.) Maybe McIntyre's skill with the social psychology paper biased my judgment of what he had done with the Mann paper -- well, it's kind of easy to debunk social psychology papers, which says something about the state of social science.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] All discussions of conspiracies and AGW skepticism shoud take place on a more appropriate thread, like this one:

    Recursive Fury: Facts and misrepresentations

  42. Patrick Michaels: Cato's Climate Expert Has History Of Getting It Wrong

    Under the heading "Patrick Michaels' Losing Bets", there is only one losing bet. The second bet listed is his new bet about a 25-year pause. This is not a losing bet, as it is currently active, and will not be resolved until 2021/2022. Shouldn't this be removed as a "losing bet"?

  43. Latest myth from the Mail on Sunday on Arctic ice

    John @ 21, why is there a disconnect between Astralian public opinion about climate change and Tony Abbott's election as Prime Minister? I assume it is due to few people making this a single-issue election. IMHO, Labor was so on the nose that voters abandoned them. Tony Abbot did not win on his own merits: Labor lost on its disunity. I do not hold the opinion that Abbott has a mandate to trash every public global warming agency, as he has already done. Vote Compass clearly showed that most of us want more action, not Abbott's anemic Direct inAction Policy. Come back, Malcolm Turnbull, you are needed!

  44. What scientists SHOULD talk about: their personal stories

    The basic attack is on the credibility of the scientists and therefore the science. Telling one's own story is a step in the right direction. But I think it misses the point. It should not merely be an attempt to identify oneself with the public to build trust. More is required.

    Scientists must defend their credibility. It is no good letting the science "speak for itself" because it is dumb. "Denialgate" worked because credibility was not fought for from the start. Scientists see such attacks as absurd, as you say, but the ordinary public believe that science works by forging links in a chain - break one link and the argument fails.So, finding a weakness is very damaging in the publics eyes. But, statistically based argument is like threads in a rope - the argument still holds up in practice.

    The problem with the links in the chain idea is that when one link is tested and replaced or strengthened by scientific methods, there is always another link for the deniers to move on to. But the previous fuss is not forgotten in the public mind. The "new" problem just adds more fuel. And it is endless and relentless.

    It is not clear to me how to defend credibility. It is an unfair fight, because the sequence of attacks become threads in that other rope denying credibility. Perhaps the scientists should stop explaining themselves and correcting their critics and demand that the critics justify their own arguments. Put them on the back foot.

  45. Arctic sea ice "recovers" to its 6th-lowest extent in millennia

    Gringup Baker,

    I agree that  the long term prospects for the Arctic is down.  This year was higher than last year.  If you use the denier standard that any non-record year is a recovery it has recovered.  If you feel that sixth lowest in the past 2,000 years is a slight improvement but not a sign of recovery that is has not recovered.  I personally expect the arctic sea ice to be lower next year, but it might be cold again for another year or two.

  46. Arctic sea ice "recovers" to its 6th-lowest extent in millennia

    @michael sweet #18 based on graph with this post, Arctic sea ice late summer extent did not recover this year as you state. It was/is in remission. Consider analogy of person with cancer, Dr. gets latest list of measurements & symptoms, finds this slight improvement, calls patient being treated to office and says "you've recovered". Useless Dr.

  47. What scientists SHOULD talk about: their personal stories

    Thanks for the post; I agree. I have to recommend a recently published book that does just that - by Bill Hay: Hay, W. W., 2013, Experimenting on a Small Planet – A Scholarly Entertainment. Springer, Heidelberg, New York, Dordrecht, London. xvii + 983 pp. ISBN 978-3-642-28559-2 (doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-8560-8).

    It’s well worth getting a copy; much of it IS essentially auto-biographical in that he includes an “Intermezzo” at the end of each chapter. It’s a history of science - especially, but not exclusively, as it pertains to climate science (see http://www.colorado.edu/geolsci/faculty/hay.html ). I've known Bill since my paleoceaongraphy grad school days – a peer to my advisors W. A Berggren and John Imbrie and peer to Wally Broecker and Bill Ruddiman. I recently heard him talk at a local climate symposium August 15th. His talk can be seen in 2 parts at the following link: http://www.owenperkins.org/Golden_Symposium_8.15.html

    Most of the time I see posts that anyone supporting global warming are labeled “alarmists” and any poor choice of words or factual error brought up in ridicule. So be very careful of what you say and how you say it or write about it. It comes down to a statement I recently saw in the NPS Bryce Canyon’s “The Hoodoo”: “Nobody likes bad news and because so much of climate change is (perceived as) bad news, many prefer to ignore, be skeptical, or just plain deny valid data” – parenthetical addition mine.

    Likewise – I wish we could recognize the issues and instead of ridiculing and dismissing climate scientists, accept the science and discuss what should be done – it’s complex: it involves economics, future energy directions, population, socio-economics. Climate change is part of nature, except we are causing it at a rate unparalleled in Earth History; its sustainability for our way of life!

  48. Arctic sea ice "recovers" to its 6th-lowest extent in millennia

    William,

    The NSIDC data are not a model they are measurements.  People argue about whether to use area or extent, but 2013 was pretty close on both of those.  The NSIDC data go back to 1979 and are solid.  Discussions can take place on how thick the ice is, but the bottom line is the ice recovered this year.  Scientists do not expect a straight line down, there is still internal variability.

  49. citizenschallenge at 00:18 AM on 22 September 2013
    Arctic sea ice "recovers" to its 6th-lowest extent in millennia

    Good article, but I'm surprised no mention was made of the 'winter' ice conditions.

    Seems that those numbers are also dropping

    New satellite data measures Arctic sea ice volume at record low

    9/16/2013

    ~ ~ ~

    Esa's Cryosat mission observes continuing Arctic winter ice decline

    9/11/2013

    ~ ~ ~ 

    CryoSat at a glance

    http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/CryoSat

  50. What scientists SHOULD talk about: their personal stories

    This is a great post.  It is why, I, a playwright with a deep interest in climate change, wrote "Extreme Whether" in order to tell the story of climate scientists up against climate deniers.  Stories are absolutely essential to changing people's minds.  We art working, now, to gather the funds to produce this play in NYC and around the country.  Three readings have been great successes, with the Festival of Conscience post-show participation Drs. James Hansen and Jennifer Francis.  www.theaterthreecollaborative.org We will present the play with a Festival of Conscience every night; scientists will be able to dialogue with ordinary audiences who have just seen a moving play about the lives of climate scientists.

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