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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 42151 to 42200:

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

    I can't help wondering if 6th lowest is accurate.  The NSIDC is a model, somewhat constrained by measurements and the measurements of any patch of water with more than 15% ice show up as complete ice cover.  This year there has been a preponderance of low pressure counterclockwise rotating weather systems in the Arctic which tend to disperse ice (coriolis).  What is needed is the Cryosat measurements from the past three years.  It could be that the ice volume this year is only a little above the ice volume for 2012. (or not).  When is Cryosat going to finish groundtruthing their data and publish a periodically updated graph of ice volume similar to the ice extent graphs from NSIDC.  By comparing the signal strength from ice reflection and water reflection, Cryosat should also give a better estimate of ice extent.

  2. What scientists SHOULD talk about: their personal stories

    Aren't plenty of our leading climate scientists grown up versions of the kids at school that never needed to cheat to top the class? Aren't they predominately from the maths, physics, chemistry side of academia rather than law, humanities and political science side?

    Yep, nerds the lot of them... arrogant bastards. Let's beat them up ;-/

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

    I can see that Artctic ice loss is important for (1) its effects on flora & fauna (2) feedback effect of albedo change (3) that it's highly anomalous at least 1,500 yrs so shows something highly anomalous "going on" (lines of evidence) but it's minor at most insofar as an indicator whether "global warming" is currently more, less or same as before. Balmaseda, Trenberth & Källén ORAS4 Ocean Heat Content Reanalysis claims 220 ZettaJoules added to oceans 1975-2010 and I compute 50k km**3 Artctic ice reduction by eyeballing the graph using (from Sinclair's video) 6m to 1m thinning (somewhat less with Dana's 75%) and that's 15 ZettaJoules used, so it's 7% of "global warming" so miniscule, irrelevant, whether it's up or down a tad in terms of an indicator for "global warming" change (if that's what this David Rose was hinting or inferring).

  4. What scientists SHOULD talk about: their personal stories

    Thank you very much, and we need other scientists to do the same.  We've got to somehow weaken the climate change denial movement, and hearing scientists speak out on the personal behalf could certainly be helpful.

  5. What scientists SHOULD talk about: their personal stories

    Good article and an excellent point. Aren't plenty of our leading climate scientists grown up versions of the kids at school that never needed to cheat to top the class? Aren't they predominately from the maths, physics, chemistry side of academia rather than law, humanities and political science side? That could be worth pointing out too.

    One ongoing wish of mine is to see is a new and highly publicised "Audit" of climate science, conducted by the US National Academy of Sciences or Royal Society or equivalent, video documentary style, suited to prime time TV. I am imagining it would look at the institution(s), it's achievements in general and it's achievements in times of greatest national need. What it means to become a Fellow or whatever. The selection process for Panel or Commission or whatever it gets called, finding the right balance of first hand knowhow and independent distance. 

    And some biography on the people invovled - their personal stories as people and as citizens as well as their achievements as scientists.

  6. What scientists SHOULD talk about: their personal stories

    louploup - Actually, I see this essay as a worthwhile discussion of avoiding depersonalization, simplistic depictions of scientists as "the other"; very common in politics, conspiracy theories, and intense discourse. 

    If you cast your opponent in the role of the inhuman "other" it's easy to blithely dismiss their arguments. If you regard your opponent as a person, with their own motivations, you may be more likely to take their arguments seriously.

    This is something I attempt to keep in mind in any discussion - while I may find someone's honest opinions silly, I try to respect their reasons for holding those opinions, as they likely have strong personal evidence or support for those reasons (evidence I may, mind you, have interpreted differently). And you are unlikely to change someones mind on a topic without addressing that reasoning. 

    It's all too easy to mentally reduce ones opponents to caricatures, and not consider the evidence. Understanding peoples reasoning makes that less likely. 

    [ Caveat: I don't expect lobbyists of any persuasion to present 'honest opinions', but rather. the opinions they are paid to project. ]

  7. What scientists SHOULD talk about: their personal stories

    I disagree, louploup.  The goals of individualists and collectivists are often the same.  They just see different ways of achieving those goals.  And it's really no good to divide people into camps when they so clearly share so much in their actual behavior.  I've met few people who wear their individualism on their sleeves who don't engage in a number of behaviors that require them to engage in collective behavior.  I've also met quite a few self-proclaimed collectivists who are the worst sort of hermits.  

    It always annoys tea party types when I point out that letting the climate situation get out of control will almost assuredly lead to a strengthened federal and world government.  This works with an idea they readily accept: large crises result in a strengthened bureaucracy.  War is the obvious example.  The move from there is typically toward specific solutions, and that's a win for science.  We can talk about solutions.  There are many, and many are palatable to both collectivist- and individualist-oriented folk. 

  8. What scientists SHOULD talk about: their personal stories

    I see a major contradiction in Dr. Dessler's short essay:

    On the one hand you write "if you want people to believe you, it helps if they know you share their values — in other words, people listen to those who are like them."

    But you also say, "it goes against the culture of science, which emphasizes the collective and de-emphasizes the individual."

    That's the problem: Deniers (and reactionaries) tend to individualist oriented, and scientists (and liberals) tend to cummunitarian oriented. Their value systems are very different, and communication between them is very difficult.

    The rules above say "Political ... comments will be deleted" but Dr. Dessler's essay speaks to the essentially political underpinnings of the difficulty scientists have communicating their "truth" to the (largely) scientifically illiterate public. How can you remove politics from discussions about the intersection of science and public policy?

  9. What scientists SHOULD talk about: their personal stories

    I often start off my conversations by pointing out that I haven't seen or read An Inconvenient Truth, and that I don't plan to.  That's often a foot in the door.  I avoid name-calling like the plague (toward everyone--not just the interlocutors), and if I'm allowed to persist in explaining things using an even-keeled, rhetoric-free style, I often get an explicit statement of respect and am considered distinct from those socialist "libtards."  

  10. What scientists SHOULD talk about: their personal stories

    Andrew, you're just another crypto-fascist commie!  /sarc

     

    Just a grammar note: "job explaining who they were" > "job explaining who they are".

  11. What scientists SHOULD talk about: their personal stories

    Andrew
    Very wise advice, but I find this culturally very difficult. It is possibly even more difficult in the UK- many my colleagues consider the American's too brash and self promoting. I do not come across many "skeptics" apart from my brother in law who dropped out of high school and is 'invincibly ignorant'. To him facts do not matter - the fact that I have a PhD and professorship in Physics makes no difference and he has no interest in understanding Climate Science - just feels it's wrong. I get very annoyed debating him - he feels that I am contemptuous of his tabloid driven factoids (and he is right).
    Sean
    P.S. I know the US reasonably well having done my PhD experimental observation work (in High Energy Gamma Ray Astronomy) at the Harvard Smithsonian observatory (now Fred Whipple) Arizona and Sandia Labs New Mexico.

     

     

     

  12. What scientists SHOULD talk about: their personal stories

    I could not have said it better.  Arguments made by "people who are not like me" tend to fall on deaf ears.

     

    It isn't just ad hominen attacks though; there are also misunderstandings of the science leading up to the main conclusion that we are putting our own future at risk.  The main conclusion is both scary in and of itself, and avoiding it requires changing our behavior. Change itself is also scary.  The science that leads up to the conclusion, that we are better off stepping into the unknown of at least attempting mitigation rather than continuing down the path of unknown climate dangers, is complicated.  So, it is extremely easy to take a misstep off of that path in any number of ways.  At a certain level it is easy to say, "Well, I'm OK where I am for now; I'll keep going a little longer."

     

    I think we are best off communicating that the unknown of mitigation is not as scary as some make it out to be, in addition to letting the listener know that we are not so different from them.

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

    Bojan, 

    The citations, plaudits and accolades from the science community towards Skeptical Science are legion.

    This is tracked internally at SkS.  At some point this may be made accessible to the public.

    Its resources are used in classes all over the world.

    I get notifications of activity that detail this (I am an admin here at SkS).

    Science institutions link to it from their websites.

    Various scienctific organizations have linked to SkS in articles on their websites and some list SkS in their listings of online resources.

    Scientists volunteer to write guest posts and rebuttals appearing on the site.

    Many guest posts and rebuttals here at SkS have been written by publishing scientists.  A number of regular members of SkS are publishing scientists.

    "Anyway, I'm pretty sure it will be dismissed as an appeal to authority."

    They may.  However, it is no more valid than their dismissal of SkS as an authority in the first place.  The facts remain, every post at SkS is built from and draws upon the primary literature published in reputable journals, and includes hyperlinks to the source articles.

    That some would dismiss the primary literature as a source is very telling as to their agenda of disinformation they prosecute.

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

    Last year contrarians were emphasizing the summer storm that helped reduce the arctic sea ice extent.

    This year, of course, they have had to forget about it, thus deliberately ignoring one element of the natural variability that makes up this "recovery": one that they were only too happy to acknowledge last year when it suited their purposes.

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

    Jubble @20 - Keep in touch, and we'll do what we can. Please bear in mind however, that Richard Lawson who has recent experience in these matters told me recently that:

    The PCC has less teeth than an edentulous blobfish that has been to a obsessional dentist for a total dental clearance, then spent 10 minutes in a food mixer on its highest setting, followed by three days in a bath of concentrated sulphuric acid.

    Whilst we wait and see what the PCC can come up with, if anything, we're continuing to take matters into our own hands on video (if this works!):

    The Great White Con - Update 1 from Jim L. Hunt on Vimeo.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Reduced Video Player width to 450.

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

    leedsjon1 @23.

    You actually refer to a second article from the Rail on Sunday that appeared the week following the Sea Ice "story". (It is thus probably off-topic but what the heck.) This second article was also substantially revised (with a new headline) the following Tuesday.

    In this second article, the genuine scientists quoted (except I wouldn't place Judy Curry in this category) are as manipulated-beyond-credence as is the scientific analysis. CarbonBrief has contacted a few of those who's words were so corrupted by don't-let-the-truth-spoil-a-good-story journalist* David Ruse.

    The Tuesday ammendment shows the measure of the Rail as a news outlet. The original headline on that second story was:-

    World's top climate scientists confess: Global warming is just HALF what we said.

    This assertion was based on Ruse comparing the future model projections of 0.2ºC/decade rise with the rise 1950-2012 of 0.12ºC/decade, none of which has changed let alone halved. The story promised apples but delivered poisoned potatoes.

    Perhaps this was a step too far even for the Rail, or perhaps they felt they had missed a trick, because following Tuesday's revision the headline reads:-

    World's top climate scientists confess: Global warming is just QUARTER what we thought - and computers got the effects of greenhouse gases wrong

    The comparison used now is with the temperatures of the last 15 years which apparently rose by 0.05ºC/decade.

    Whilst this ungrammatical "...just QUARTER what..."quote should be considered as a jaw-dropping statement, I would point out that it is in reality jaw-droppingly welcome from a serial miscreant like Ruse. Last October he was telling the Rail's readers*:-

    Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released... and here is the chart to prove it

    So within the last eleven months, according to the incisive analysis of invetigitive reporter David Ruse, the world's temperature must have risen at a rate in excess of 0.5ºC/decade.

    * These words are used in a sense beyond their normal meaning. A journalist is normally expected to write fact-based copy and the word 'readers' would usually imply more than looking at the headlines and grind their teeth.

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

    @Daniel Bailey, where is this citation from?

    Anyway, I'm pretty sure it will be dismissed as an appeal to authority. Yes, they can have it both ways. ;)

  18. Philippe Chantreau at 13:48 PM on 20 September 2013
    Latest myth from the Mail on Sunday on Arctic ice

    Leedsjon1, the hurricane was Sandy and it was not a Cat3. Indeed it couldn't be, it had grown in size way too much to remain a high category (which is dependent on the highest wind speed generated), considering it was something like 800 miles in diameter. The barometric pressure and storm surge were still worthy of notice, as New York residents can attest. Cat 3 or not, it flooded the New-York  Subway just the same.

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

    @ Bojan,

    You can share this with them:

    The citations, plaudits and accolades from the science community towards Skeptical Science are legion. Its resources are used in classes all over the world.  Science institutions link to it from their websites. Scientists volunteer to write guest posts and rebuttals appearing on the site.

  20. Bert from Eltham at 10:31 AM on 20 September 2013
    Latest myth from the Mail on Sunday on Arctic ice

    Only someone who is totally au fait with all the complexities of the science of Anthropomorphic Climate Change could fabricate such fallacies as these so called journalists. They know quite well what they state is absolute rubbish that has no basis in evidence or logic. The uninformed mass of disinterested people that is their intended target are too naive to see through the emotive lies and misrepresentation of the facts perpetrated by these criminals.

    Fortunately these crimes against humanity are forever written in digital data. When the great reckoning comes, as our species have shown throughout history, the same uninformed masses will come for them with sat nav pitchforks. This being the peak of mechanical technology in our near future! Bert

  21. Bert from Eltham at 09:38 AM on 20 September 2013
    Arctic sea ice "recovers" to its 6th-lowest extent in millennia

    The animated graphic of Arctic sea ice decline reminds me of the inevitable total loss of starting monies an addicted poker machine/slot machine player would experience. They only register the 'wins' and fail to see the full picture of their cumulative losses until it is too late. Bert

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

    Do you notice that every year we have a record minimum for Arctic sea ice extent the following year it always 'rebounds'? Just because it has of course doesn't mean it always will. But it does go to show that this year's regression to the mean is totally un-newsworthy.

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

    Not sure if this is same article but i've just seen an astonishing Mail on Sunday article which seems to be making same sorts of wild statements - eg 2007 IPCC report 'exaggerated' extent of warming, no warming for past 16 years etc. Its only when you look in more detail at few 'scientists' it quotes and their affiliations (eg Global Warming Policy Foundation - the UK's biggest climate denial thinktank) that you get an idea of just how abhorrent a piece of blatant political propaganda this feature is. On the lighter side, however, it does contain a few clangers which would make any stand up comic proud. My favourite is this: -

    '..This year has been one of the quietest hurricane seasons in history and the US is currently enjoying its longest-ever period – almost eight years – without a single hurricane of Category 3 or above making landfall'

    So about 2 years ago, when a rather large hurricane ripped through the heart of New York (Katrina was it?), this was some kind of illusion was it? Staff on this particular UK paper are clearly recruited on basis of their short, though highly selective, memories.

  24. Models are unreliable

    kishoreragi - I think what you are overlooking is that there is an approriate level of detail for studying anything. Details below the scale of GCM's are parameterized, treated as blocks that have known (as in, tied to observations) responses to inputs, and that physically based parameterization works just fine for global and regional level modeling. 

    More detail would be needed if you wanted to look at microclimates and the chances of a particular bush getting wet during a closely timed rain shower. But that's not the level of study for GCM's, and if subscale responses are reproduced well a GCM will give a fine answer at the scale it is actually studying. 

    These models aren't looking at the level of individual trees and gusts - hence they just don't need to simulate at that level to get a good answer for the regional/global scales studied. 

  25. Models are unreliable

    Thank you all for reading my views and their valuable comments/suggestions.

    CBDunkerson, thank you for your valuable comment on my analogy, and insights into climate modeling. I understand that climate models work. I have been trying to study precipitions but, I felt, with supervisor's advise, like I was cheating science because model resolution is coarse and cloud physics is not yet well understood. Hence, I have changed my thought to study other variables. May be climate models worked for few variables even before 30 years but, climate is not of those few and rest of them won't work even 21st century. May be you are looking at those few variables(I agree with you here) but, I always see other side with completely different view to progress further.

    I will try to correct myself (that is why I have been focusing on literature from all corners) before get started my research as well begun is half done !!! I am off on this thread. Thank you all !!!

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

    @Albatross #7: Here's another "must read" article about Rose and his recent articles. 

    UPDATE: Despite Doubling Down, Climate Change Article Still Very Misleading by Phil Plait, Slate, Sep 18, 2013

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

    Hi Scott @50,

    Thanks for letting us know.  Michaels lost against Hansen, so I'm hoping that the climate system plays along-- it is going to be close.  I would suggest including a caveat for major volcanic eruptions, but I suppose it is too late for that.

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

    So, Pat and I have a bet. Details here.

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

    Bob Ward's article is a must read!  His conclusion:

    "However, these latest howlers are likely to cause most embarassment, not just for Rose, but also for Geordie Greig and Gerard Greaves.

    And it should also provide a sobering lesson for other editors and reporters who have been treating the ‘The Mail on Sunday’ is a credible source of ‘sceptical’ stories about climate change."

    Amazing that people like Rose can repeatedily misrepresent, distort and worse, and get off Scott free. IMHO, Greig and Greaves should step down, or they can stay but Rose is made to leave. Eithe rway, someone at The DAily MAil and The Telegraph out to pay dearly for this.

    PS:  I too calculated the August-August change in sea ice, but I went to the actual data provided by NSIDC and cross-referenced it with data from JAXA. That is what Rose should have done, or at least what a credible journo would have done.

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

    @Rob

    Jo's no dummy, but ideological blinkers can turn anyone into a crank.

    @John

    I don't have a precise answer for that but as far as I understand, Australian opinion on climate change is much like that found in the USA.

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

    @ Doug Hutcheson #18:

    There seems to be a dsconnect between Astralian public opinion about climate change and Tony Abbott's election as Prime Minister. Why is that?  

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

    Jim @ 19 - impressive site.  A useful starting point.

    I was wondering whether a site could be set up (or part of this site) that could be used for any biased, misleading or inaccurate newpaper article, which would contain:

    - Guidance as to how to raise a complaint.  (you've given this a shot on your excellent website).

    - For each article nominated by users, an expert-written example of complaint text that would have a chance of success.  There would be one of these written for each article - not a great extention from what is already posted on this site.

    - Step-by-step instructions as to how to take the example, personalise it and submit it to the relevant body (including to the editor of the newspaper if that would make sense in the first instance).

    - Ability for people to sign-up to hear about each article as it appears.

    This could be part of or link to the Reality Drop, possibly.

  33. Models are unreliable

    kishoreragi, you only need to model every conceivable input if you need to know every conceivable output... which isn't the case. To take your forest example, if the goal of the model is to determine how the forest will grow then the actions of deer and bears are largely irrelevant... they might impact a tree here and there, but they are not going to change the overall growth pattern of the forest. Instead, you are going to look at weather, human logging, beavers, and other factors which can actually have a significant impact.

    Ditto climate models. No, they cannot possibly model every individual cloud and gust of wind... but there is absolutely no reason they would need to, because those things are not going to impact the overall climate trends.

    Again, you do understand that climate models already work, right? They can successfully model the past and even the relatively primitive climate models in use 30 years ago produced results consistent with the past 30 years. You are arguing that something which has been done, cannot be done. You're wrong before you even get started.

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

    I've had an argument the other day with some die-hard contrarians. They were claiming SkS is not credible. After asking for an example of 'deception', Arctic escalator was chosen. So called deception was a missing data point for a 2013 minimum. I kid you not!

    So I pointed out that Arctic sea ice extent minimum was yet to be reached and promised them not to link any of your articles until you update the escalator by the middle of October. Looks like you beat my deadline by almost one month. :)

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

    When Lord Monckton was preaching here in AU, his Arctic Ice "recovery" of 2008-2009, he was cherry-picking the two-year "trend" as the basis for his teachings. Note, that he was teaching his rubbish confidently in the middle of 2011, when data of 2010 melt season was available, contradicting him. Apparently he could afford that, likely vause his prefered audience did not know the facts.

    Today, David Rose, incidentally Monckton's compatriot, is not waiting for 2 year of "recoveries", but jumping at a single 2013 straight on. He's beaten his lord on that. Likely reason: "report it until hot, don't wait the news to be spoiled by the uncertain future!". Amazing, what an extraordinary race of ignorance. Honestly, I thought Monckton would not be beaten on that subject. But he's just been!

    Meanwhile, I think Wieslaw Maslowski's prediction of ice free Arctic (2016 +/- 3y)* is still on track, given the PIOMAS volume models This year Sept volume was marginaly higher than last year, with pretty much the same thinkness. So, the ice in as vulnerable as it's been, no real recovery. That's what you conclude when you look at the data rather than "Rosy" race of ignorance.

    * "Rosy" media reported it as if Maslowski's said "ice free Arctic in 2013" reporting only the lower uncertainty range, in an effort to portray him as "alarmist".

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

    If I was a famous climate scientist, people who like to hack into email servers and selectively quote from their contents would, of course, quote me as admitted that, "ongoing change is not due to the exponential growth of CO2 emissions".

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

    Thanks for this, Dana.  I had overlooked it before, but now I notice the outlier in about 1940 - one of the lowest summer minimums in the entire record.  I presume this is why we hear so much about a US submarine that surfaced at the North Pole in the 1930s.

    Personally, I am really sick and tired of willfully blind and/or ideologically-prejudiced people cherry-picking the only single data point that can support the belief that ongoing change is not due to the exponential growth of CO2 emissions in the last 250 years.

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

    Jubble @ 7 - OK. Here's a very quick first draft:

    http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/press-complaints-commission/

    Anything essential I should add in the first instance?

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

    I pressed submit a bit prematurely, but the above graphic suggest that Arctic Ice is perhaps taking a "break" or pause (sarc/ irony).

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

    I become discouraged by questions such as how many lay people believe whatever. When a population has been saturation-bombed by biased media, asking who still believes in AGW does not determine what is true. Truth is a casualty of propaganda.

    Having got that off my chest, Most Australians think the Government should do more to tackle climate change

  41. The 5 stages of climate denial are on display ahead of the IPCC report

    One more great statement:

    "Of all the adaptation schemes, the least effective is denial."
            - Psychotherapist Dr. Betty Merton

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

    The 'recovery' reminds me of an addict. Every time they go straight for a day, they're 'recovered'

  43. Models are unreliable

    Roger D

    I don't want to go predict big things right away with incomplete models, but I want to eloborate what I wanted to inform here.

    I have given this analogy because there is a need to understand each and every animal (here it is physical process) is related (friendly/hostile, here for climate, how processes are intricately mixed- diminishing/strengthening) on forest variables (We can choose any variable here) on specific part of forest(Any region of the world). So that little by little, we can understand about the comple forest and their inter-relation.

    My main point is that the science has progressed much further, but in wrong path. The simple fix for this is to make the system simple and see the intricacies among the processes, leaving the comparision with observations, on regional climate variables so that in the FAR future, we may be in a position to see the BIG picture like AGW without hesitation from anybody (skeptics/supporters) and with clear understanding. As far as I understand(ofcourse I am still reseach student), there is no other way as climate system super complex !!!

  44. The 5 stages of climate denial are on display ahead of the IPCC report

    I am reminded of the word 'confabulation'. Tremendously rich and useful - important in abnormal psychology..

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confabulation

    The phrase "climate confabulation" Explains much nicely.

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

    @hank #15:

    Do you happen to know what percent of Australians currently believe that AGW is happening now?

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

    Now that one is disturbing.  But it's going to bite them in the butt long term, I think.

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

    @ Rob #14

    Joe Nova's perceived "sea change" has alot to do with the major changes in the Aussie governments. Labor was defeated in a historice rout. The new leadership is promising to dismantle the hugely unpopular Carbon Tax and are already closing down Climate related departments everywhere.

    It's not just a push ahead of AR5. 

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

    John...  My point was more that, these are people who have continually received lots of exposure in the media.  Nova seems to think this is some sort of sea change.  The sea change is her wishful thinking.  It's merely a coordinated effort ahead of AR5.

    What Nova sees as a sea change is likely to get clipped pretty severely with the release of AR5.

  49. Hockey stick is broken

    Phronesis - "McIntyre and McKitrick purported to refute/debunk a specific paper -- the Mann 1998 paper... as far as I can tell, McIntyre and McKitrick were right in their criticism of that particular Mann paper" Unfortunately for your argument, they utterly failed to make their case. 

    M&M's several papers on the subject have been at the center of numerous peer-reviewed refutations (five of them listed here), with numerous errors and erroneous claims pointed out at RealClimate, including critical failures to apply PCA selection rules to identify significant components; an error that alone invalidates their work. Similar errors in PCA selection (which would have distinguished invalid noise-generated hockey sticks as insignificant) and a rather amazing amount of cherry-picking in their 'red-noise' model are discussed on Deep Climate, notably with an unconventional 'red-noise' model that actually was derived from the proxies (rather than a theoretic red-noise spectra), and therefore included the 'hockey-stick' - no surprise that they found it in their 'noise'. 

    The M&M critcisms of Mann's work are completely invalid, on various methodological grounds. 

    Is MBH1998 without flaw? Hardly - it's the initial paper in the field applying PCA and machine learning techniques to multi-proxy climate data, and as such is rather rough around the edges. Their centering method is arguably not the best available, additional proxies and further clarification of then-existing proxies have improved the data, and there are reasonable arguments for different combinatorial and statistical techniques. 

    But methodological issues with MBH1998 don't invalidate the general conclusions, that recent temperatures are the warmest in the last 1000 years. And many papers, many reconstructions, looking at the issue come to the same conclusions. 

    Multiple reconstructions

    [Source, data here]

    At this point I see (IMO) unsupported objections raised against MBH1998 to be a clear identifying marker of someone in climate science denial. 

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

    @Rob Honeycutt #12:

    The "major push" by climate deniers is not a figment of our imagination. The international propaganda campaign is documented in detail in:

    Ahead of IPCC Climate Report, Skeptic Groups Launch Global Anti-Science Campaign by Katherine Bagley, InsideClimate News, Sep 18, 2013

     

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