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Fact brief - Is there an expert consensus on human-caused global warming?

Bob Loblaw at 06:37 AM on 11 November, 2024

Jess Scarlett @ 6:

You're going to have to put together a much stronger argument than that if you want to convince anyone that there isn't a strong expert consensus on human-caused global warming.

For starters, is your lead question ("Have you looked into all the climate scientists gagged...") a rhetorical gambit, or are you actually asking a serious question? Are you trying to imply that the studies that have looked at the scientific literature missed a few "gagged scientists", or many, or all? Are you trying to imply that this "gagging" has been so thorough that none of their opinions have every made it into print? Or that the few that have made it into print would be a much greater number "but gagging"?

The OP here links to the full SkS rebuttal on the topic. Here is the link to the basic tab of that rebuttal, but note that there are also advanced and intermediate tabs to read. The basic rebuttal links to the various papers that have been done on the subject, and those papers give details on just what sort of searches they did to obtain the list of papers that were evaluated. Feel free to look them over and come back with an argument as to why those searches will have missed the opinions of the "gagged scientists" you seem to think exist in large numbers.

...but before you start trying to make an argument that the review system won't let opposing opinions get published, I suggest that you read this SkS article on "pal review" that shows just where bad reviewing practices exist in the climate science literature. (Hint: it's the "gagged scientists" that have historically abused the peer review system.)

But let's entertain your argument that there are a whole bunch of 'gagged scientists" that can't get published, or have chosen to remain silent out of fear. You said "...all the climate scientists gagged..." That seems to imply a large number. I'll begin with a recollection of discussing climate science with someone at a conference about 30 years ago. He made the claim that lots of scientists had reversed their opinion from global cooling in the 1970s to warming in the 1990s. (This is debunked on this post at SkS.)

I challenged him by saying "name one".

He prattled on about there being lots.

Again, I said "name one".

He kept prattling on.

I repeated "name one".

I held my hand up about head high and started dropped it down to chest height, waist height, and below, saying "this is your credibility dropping".

He still didn't give a name. He never did.

So that is my challenge to you: you claim that there are scientists at CSIRO and NASA that have been gagged because they disagree with the scientific consensus. Name One. And provide some sort of link to a reliable source of information supporting that position.

Second: in the advanced tab of the full rebuttal, under "The Self-Ratings", the Original Cook et al study obtained ratings of over 2100 papers from 1200 scientists, and 97.2% of those ratings agreed with the consensus. In the following paragraph, it states that the authors' review of over 4000 abstracts indicated a 97.1% agreement with the consensus.

My second challenge is for you to do some elementary arithmetic (I won't call it math), and tell me how many papers do you think those "gagged scientists" failed to publish, and how would the 97% number have changed if they had succeeded in publishing those papers.

I'll give you a hint. You'd have to find nearly 2100 papers or 4000 abstracts to get it to drop to a 50% consensus.

Good luck finding that many papers.

...and before you try to link to PopTech's list of papers, please read "Meet the Denominator".

Please provide us with backup of your claim.

Meet The Denominator

Tadaaa at 06:41 AM on 15 October, 2015

Apologies I know this his is an old thread, but I have recently become interested in the whole debate around climate science, and I find this an invaluable and informative resource

I only today saw poptech's blog - fairly standard contrarian fair

but I can't help thinking it is a mistake to delete poptech's post

Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

Andy Skuce at 04:15 AM on 19 September, 2014

Critics of the Consensus Project seem to have two rather contradictory arguments:

Everyone agrees with the consensus as defined by Cook et al— even prominent contrarians accept it.
Cook et al's survey exaggerated the extent of the consensus.

Of course, the author self-ratings proved that the first objection is invalid. Some 28 scientists said that their papers rejected the consensus. That's 2.4% of all the authors who responded and 3.6% of the responders whose papers expressed an opinion on the AGW consensus.

As for the second one, it would be easy to show that the 97% estimate is too high, simply by finding consensus rejection abstracts that we missed. You don't have to slog through 12,000 abstracts (twice) like we did, just make a list (hint, ask Poptech) of the most prolific contrarians and search for their papers. Richard Tol performed some statistical alchemy that predicted that 300 such papers should exist, so there is surely some basis for expecting success here, unless of course you think that Tol's analysis is bunk.

Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

Tom Curtis at 07:58 AM on 18 September, 2014

Russ R is now running the misinterpretation of the classifications scam vs Cook et al 2013 (ie, claiming that the criteria for endorsement in Cook et al is only that some warming since 1950 be anthropogenic). I say it is a (rhetorical) scam because it was not the first or intuitive response of AGW "skeptics" to that paper. The first response was that authored by Poptech, in which Nicolas Scaffeta wrote:

"Cook et al. (2013) is based on a strawman argument because it does not correctly define the IPCC AGW theory, which is NOT that human emissions have contributed 50%+ of the global warming since 1900 but that almost 90-100% of the observed global warming was induced by human emission."

You will notice that correctly identifies the Cook et al criteria for endorsement, ie, that it indicates that 50% plus of recent warming was anthropogenic, and tries to call it a strawman because it does not match his blatant misrepresentation of the IPCC position.

Indeed, if a paper that endorses only that some recent warming is anthropogenic belongs to the Cook et al 97%, then both Sceffeta's and Shaviv's papers (discussed by Poptech) should have been classified as endorsing the consensus. Likewise, if a paper that endorses only that some recent warming is anthropogenic belongs to the Cook et al 97%, then all four of Richard Tol's papers which he claims to not have endorsed the consensus, should have been classified as endorsing the concensus.

A number of major AGW "skeptics" and Richard Tol have endorsed these claims of misclassification, including Watts (who reposted the claims), Tol who reposts it and a number who have commented either at WUWT or on Tol's tweet without demuring that Shaviv's description of the Cook et al classification was wrong. In fact, I have been unable to find one objection to Scaffeta's claims, or the claims that these papers were misrated based on the supposed fact that the Cook et al 97% endorsed only some anthropogenic warming rather than 50% +.

That, of course, merely demonstrates that the AGW "skeptics" are inconsistent in their criticism of Cook et al. It does not demonstrate that Scaffeta (and Tol's) 50%+ interpretation is correct. So, let us examine the possibility that "level of endorsement of AGW" in Cook et al means just endorsement of the claim that at least some of recent warming has been anthropogenic (ie, that anthropogenic factors have not had either no effect, or tended to cool recent temperatures).

So, consider the classification scheme used in Cook et al:

"Table 2. Definitions of each level of endorsement of AGW.
Level of endorsement Description Example
(1) Explicit endorsement with quantification Explicitly states that humans are the primary cause of recent global warming 'The global warming during the 20th century is caused mainly by increasing greenhouse gas concentration especially since the late 1980s'
(2) Explicit endorsement without quantification Explicitly states humans are causing global warming or refers to anthropogenic global warming/climate change as a known fact 'Emissions of a broad range of greenhouse gases of varying lifetimes contribute to global climate change'
(3) Implicit endorsement Implies humans are causing global warming. E.g., research assumes greenhouse gas emissions cause warming without explicitly stating humans are the cause '...carbon sequestration in soil is important for mitigating global climate change'
(4a) No position Does not address or mention the cause of global warming
(4b) Uncertain Expresses position that human's role on recent global warming is uncertain/undefined 'While the extent of human-induced global warming is inconclusive...'
(5) Implicit rejection Implies humans have had a minimal impact on global warming without saying so explicitly E.g., proposing a natural mechanism is the main cause of global warming '...anywhere from a major portion to all of the warming of the 20th century could plausibly result from natural causes according to these results'
(6) Explicit rejection without quantification Explicitly minimizes or rejects that humans are causing global warming '...the global temperature record provides little support for the catastrophic view of the greenhouse effect'
(7) Explicit rejection with quantification Explicitly states that humans are causing less than half of global warming 'The human contribution to the CO2 content in the atmosphere and the increase in temperature is negligible in comparison with other sources of carbon dioxide emission'"

For this categorization to be consistent it must satisfy two criteria:

1) No paper must fall under more than one classification;

and

2) If different levels of concensus represent different minimum percentages of anthropogenic contribution, they must change monotonically with classification level.

Now clearly if "endorse AGW" means "endorse that "at least some of recent warming has been anthropogenic", then the categorization fails criteria (1). That is because any paper endorsing >0% but <50% anthropogenic warming must be categorized either 2 or 3, but also 7. Further, it also fails condition (2) for category 1 clearly applies only to papers which endorse 50% or more anthropogenic contribution to recent warming, while category 7 applies only to papers that endorse less than 50% anthropogenic contribution. The only monotonic ordering of endorsement levels possible, therefore, is on in which for all categories endorsement of AGW means endorsing 50% or more of recent warming as anthropogenic, and disendorsing means endorsing less than 50%.

If there are two ways to interpret a paper, one of which is consistent, and one of which is inconsistent, then clearly we must give preference to the consistent interpretation. Doing otherwise merely raises a strawman. Therefore, there is no rational way to interpret endorsement in Cook et al as anything other than "endorsement that 50% or more of recent warming was anthropogenic".

Ironically, despite this several AGW "skeptics" have criticized Cook et al both for using a definition of endorsement that allowed even hardcore deniers to belong to the 97% and also for being inconsistent. They prove thereby that there intent is only to criticize, not to actually rationally critique the paper.

Resources and links documenting Tol's 24 errors

KR at 01:48 AM on 10 June, 2014

Tom Curtis - Tol started complaining about Cook et al the day it was published, for example tweeting here and especially here on May 18 2013 - stating "@ezraklein for starters, because that opening 97% is a load of nonsense @maliniw90th". That was well before poptech made his blog post with cherrypicked objections from authors who hadn't responded to the Cook et al queries regarding self-evaluation, and who didn't seem to understand the difference between papers and abstracts.

Tol has spent the intervening time searching for a reason, _any_ reason, to support his initial reaction. And whenever one set of objections were shown to be nonsense, moving onto another and another and...

He's done a terrible job of it.

My personal opinion (just that) regarding his vendetta is an ideological objection on his part to governmental approaches to dealing with AGW, one not based on the science, coupled with an (ahem) abrasive approach to those he disagrees with.

Resources and links documenting Tol's 24 errors

Tom Curtis at 09:56 AM on 8 June, 2014

Dana, I read Tol differently. His vendetta against Cook et al (2013) began by his making intemperate comments based on a blog post by poptech, and then digging his heals in rather than admit error. However, his initial acceptance of poptech's blog post is not explained by that, nor by a desire for publicity. Nor is his long term cooperation with Lomborg, nor his association with the GWPF, nor his absurd recent comments about the IPCC, nor the consistent bias from his various "gremlins" towards findings that require less action on AGW. I do not disagree that he is a glory hound, but that alone is inadequate to explain his actions.

Richard Tol accidentally confirms the 97% global warming consensus

michael sweet at 21:25 PM on 5 June, 2014

Tom,

Additional very strong constraints can be placed on possible bias in the SkS raters. Since the authors of the paper set up a web site (referenced in the OP) that allows individuals to rate abstracts, lots of people have presumably rated papers. Skeptics could easily search for papers from people like Spencer, Lindzen or Poptech's list to find misrated papers. In addition, authors like Spencer who are skeptical could bring attention to their misrated papers. Dana could correct me, but I have only seen reports of less than 5 such misrated papers that have been found . About 30 are needed to lower the consensus to 92%. Tol found zero papers. It seems to me unlikely that enough papers have been misrated to lower the consensus even to 92% with so few misrated papers found by those skeptics who have searched. I will note that in his congressional testimony Spencer said that he was part of the consensus. Presumably that means his papers had been misrated as skeptical and should be subtracted from the skeptical total.

I think you are making a maximum estimate of error and underestimating the efforts by the author team to check their ratings.

Richard Tol accidentally confirms the 97% global warming consensus

Tom Curtis at 15:13 PM on 5 June, 2014

Dana @6, thankyou for the clarrification.

One thing detailed analysis of the data shows is a very slight, but statistically significant trend towards more conservative ratings in both first and second ratings. The trend is larger in first ratings. That can be construed as an improvement in rating skill over time, or a degradation of performance. The former is more likely given that third and later ratings (ie, review and tie break ratings) also tended to be more conservative than initial ratings. It may also be an artifact of relative number and time of ratings by individual raters, given that they rated at different rates. So, first, have you tested individual raters results to see if they show a similar trend? And second, does your error term include allowance for this trend either as a whole, or for individual raters?

More generally, I think a similar rating excercise to that in the Consensus Project carried out by raters exclusively recruited from WUWT would generate a substantially different consensus rate to that found in Cook et al (2013). We only need look at poptech's contortions to see who willing pseudoskeptics are to distort their estimates. They do not do such rating excercises (or at least have not till now) because even with that massive bias they will find well over 50% endorsement of the consensus, and likely well over 80% which would demolish their line about no consensus and potentially undermine the confidence of raters too much. Or at least that is what I believe. The crucial point, however, is such a general bias among raters will not show up in internal consistency tests such as used by Tol, and as I understand, by you, to determine the error rate.

Being objective, we must allow at least the possibility of equivalent pervasive bias by the SkS recruited rates used for Cook et al. I think there is over whelming evidence that we are not as biased as a similar cadre from WUWT, but that does not mean we are not biased at all. Such general bias within the raters cannot be tested for by internal estimates of error or bias. They can be partly tested for by external tests such as comparison with the self ratings, but there are sufficient confounding factors in that test that while we can say any such bias is not large, we cannot say it does not exist. It is because of the possibility of this bias (more than anything else) that leads me to reject a tightly constrained error estimate (+/- 1%).

Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

Tom Curtis at 11:01 AM on 4 April, 2014

paulhtremblay @305, the information you are after is given in summary form on table 5 of the paper:

Position Abstract rating Self-rating
Endorse AGW 791 (36.9%) 1342 (62.7%)
No AGW position or undecided 1339 (62.5%) 761 (35.5%)
Reject AGW 12 (0.6%) 39 (1.8%)

As you can see, the abstract ratings sigificantly underestimated endorsements relative to the author self ratings. They also underestimated rejections, but massively over estimated "no position" papers. That is unsurprising in that the abstract ratings were done on the basis of the abstract and title alone, with no information about authors, time or journal of publication, nor the detailed contents of the papers. The authors, on the other hand had all of that information, plus information about their own intentions.

It is interesting to note that at least one of the authors who had papers "misrated" by abstract rating also responded to the author rating. Despite that, he emphasizes is unusual case ahead of the overall author rating statistics. Indeed, poptech also neglects the overall statistics, prefering cherry picked anecdotes to statistics from a large sample of respondents. Further, some of those cherry picked examples can easilly be shown to be incorrectly rating their papers.

How we discovered the 97% scientific consensus on man-made global warming

barry1487 at 16:25 PM on 23 November, 2013

Question:

Of the scientists that were surveyed to rate their own papers, did you include Alan Carlin, Craig D. Idso, Nicola Scafetta, Nils-Axel Morner, Nir J. Shaviv, Richard S.J. Tol, and Wei-Hock "Willie" Soon?

I ask because Anthony Watts, referring to a PopTech article regarding those scientists' comments on the paper, says that they were not contacted. But the scientists themselves say nothing about that.

Do you have a list of the scientists you attempted to contact, perhaps in supplementary material?

Any leads appreciated.

Barry.

Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation

Dikran Marsupial at 19:14 PM on 25 October, 2013

Elephant in the room wrote "And this hits the nail on the head and is the very reason why I challenge the invite to ask 'contrarians' to give scientific evidence. There isn't any on paper because it hasn't been asked for."

This is utter nonsense, publishing papers is a scientists' job. It is the way that their research is promulgated to their field of research. If the science actually did support the arguments made by "skeptics", there would be no shortage of papers they could use. We don't need to ask skeptic scientists for papers, they ought to be earning their living by writing them whether we want to read them or not.

Discussions of climate on blogs frequently asks skeptics for papers supporting their side of the argument, which is why Poptech made his list of 800 or so papers that he thought supported his skepticism. The fact that most of the papers (if you actually read them) support no such conclusion, or have been refuted, or weren't actually peer reviewed, gives an indication of the paucity of papers supporting a skeptic point of view.

There is little I would like more than some solid evidence that increasing atmospheric CO2 was unlikely to have serious economic, social or environmental impacts. Like Keynes, when the evidence changes, I change my opinion, but we do need evidence.

Why climate change contrarians owe us a (scientific) explanation

KR at 10:29 AM on 12 October, 2013

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

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

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

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

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Closing the Consensus Gap

NewYorkJ at 03:06 AM on 22 August, 2013

joeygoze,

Mr. poptech's argument has been addressed.

www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/may/28/global-warming-consensus-climate-denialism-characteristics

Remember there were 12,000 papers surveyed. What percentage are then under dispute by those carefully-selected skeptical authors?

The Consensus Project self-rating data now available

Tom Curtis at 08:04 AM on 11 July, 2013

dana @9, the claim that "skeptics" are "more likely to pretend to endorse it in the abstract while claiming they rejected it in the full paper" is not supported by Poptech' sample. One of Poptech's sample (Scaffeta) outrageously misrepresents the nature of the scientific consensus so that he can falsely claim an error in the abstract rating. Shaviv's abstract, however, concludes:

" Subject to the above caveats and those described in the text, the CRF/climate link therefore implies that the increased solar luminosity and reduced CRF over the previous century should have contributed a warming of 0.47 ± 0.19°K, while the rest should be mainly attributed to anthropogenic causes. Without any effect of cosmic rays, the increase in solar luminosity would correspond to an increased temperature of 0.16 ± 0.04°K."

The increase over the 20th century was 0.7 K, so the paper attributes greater than 50% of warming to natural causes under an assumption the authors are willing to entertain. That indicates the paper should be rated (IMO) as at most a 5 (implicitly rejects), and certainly not, as it was actually rated, at 2 (Explicitly endorses).

In like manner, Idsos' abstract describes the impact of enhanced growth on the seasonal cycle in CO2 and should probably (and at most) have been rated neutral, but was actually rated 3 (implicitly endorses).

These two examples represent genuine mistakes. Of course, Poptech has only found two genuine errors from among a very large number of abstracts rated as endorsing the consensus. As always, he avoids mentioning the denominator.

The Consensus Project self-rating data now available

dana1981 at 01:57 AM on 11 July, 2013

Not only is Poptech's sample of 7 much smaller than our author self-rating sample of 1,200 (and over 2,100 papers), but his sample is biased toward "skeptics" who are more likely to reject the consensus, and also apparently more likely to pretend to endorse it in the abstract while claiming they rejected it in the full paper. Not exactly a compelling argument against our paper and conclusions.

An estimate of the consensus project paper search coverage

Ari Jokimäki at 19:24 PM on 13 June, 2013

I took a peek to that poptech list once, but I very quickly saw (as would anyone who has gotten familiar with the body of scientific literature on the subject) that it wasn't very good effort. It seems to me that just about any paper could be included to that list when looked at some specific angle. If he would have taken real effort to do it, the list might have been useful at least in some sense. Well, I guess it's also useful now, but only in propaganda sense.

An estimate of the consensus project paper search coverage

Lanfear at 03:10 AM on 13 June, 2013

Ari@3

"that last comment was made tongue at least halfway in the cheek."

Yes, and from a strictly scientific perspective we could do the actual study also.

However I do have a strong sense that this study would only confirm what the current science says, ie. that the AGW is real, so what it would cause among the pseudoskeptics is another wave of Lewandowsky-grade complains and conspiracy-theories.

That's why I would like to see that someone from the pseudoskeptic side would pick this up, since, as I noted, there are a couple of shortcuts that will help you narrow down the search. Not to mention that there is (or at least they like to claim so) a lot of 'skeptics' who can help sifting through the papers.

Funny thing that you came up with a number close to 900, wasn't this the number of 'peer reviewed' papers that poptech listed :)

A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection

mikeh1 at 10:04 AM on 9 September, 2012

timothyh @ 51 says "it is important to rebut the denialists" That is true up to a point. The problem is that in the blog format that is favoured by climate science sites, the deniers get to frame the debate.

Look at this thread. Eric (skeptic) has diverted it into a off-topic discussion of his right-wing views - his "climate science" which he believes is so "sophisticated" compared to poptech is really the same old tripe that you can read over at the models thread but stated more politely.

The debate is asymmetric - WUWT simply dump posts or ban posters they find challenging - yet climate science sites provide a platform for the denier trolls.

My point is that there needs to be more focus on outreach. The Conversation has an objective of doing that but it is effectively nullified by complete lack of moderation.

It is like explaining evolution by debating creationism - seriously - is that the best way to do it? That seems to me to fly in the face of John Cook's warnings in The Debunking Handbook.

A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection

Eric (skeptic) at 08:14 AM on 9 September, 2012

Sphaerica, regarding my "knee-jerk science rejection", I pointed out in comment two that the 3% properly applies to rejections of GHE. After essentially being asked what I reject, I said high sensitivity was one example. I accept some and reject some of this attribution. I accept Arctic amplification, chuck101, but it is over-represented in the sensitivity analysis which assumes similar albedo changes from glacial to present as from present to double CO2.

I accept the fact that the atmosphere is a commons, but I have issues with some cost estimates (some time I will look for a suitable thread). I accept this challenge for the right with the important caveat that I support much of CATO's stand on personal freedom and will not disassociate with them except to confirm that CATO employee Pat Michaels is an editorialist, not a scientist

In short I am as "knee jerk" as one would expect coming from a libertarian mindset, but not as knee jerk as some (e.g. poptech), so that is a good thing.

Tom Harris' Carleton University Climate Misinformation Class

JMurphy at 22:18 PM on 10 May, 2012

I was involved with a 'discussion' about this over at The Martlet (the student newspaper at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada), which mainly involved Paul MacRae, another self-proclaimed climate 'expert'.
Unfortunately, Poptech became involved and it spiralled quickly into a dark abyss of his own creation...as usual !

2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

Daniel Bailey at 02:12 AM on 27 February, 2012

There's always the Poptech thread...the Valhalla of mythic D-K.

A mishmash of Monckton misrepresentation

scaddenp at 10:44 AM on 22 February, 2012

Promoter so Poptech's list are looking for reassurances for their biases when they lack the skill or motivation to investigate the science themselves.

A mishmash of Monckton misrepresentation

Tom Curtis at 10:30 AM on 22 February, 2012

With regard to Poptech's list, I am aware of a recent project that has found over 24,000 climate change related papers in peer reviewed journals. Not all of those papers are peer reviewed, but just the requirement to appear in a peer reviewed journal is already a far more restrictive criterion than that used by Poptech. That means that Poptech's list of papers shows at best that 3.7% of relevant peer reviewed literature is opposed to the consensus. That is, like climate scientists who disagree with the consensus, peer reviewed papers that disagree with the consensus, are a very small, unrepresentative rump.

Unfortunately I cannot link to that list as yet. So as an alternative approach, I did a search for "global warming" on google scholar. I got 731,000 hits. Allowing for duplicate entries and non-peer reviewed papers on that list, that means poptech's list is still much less than 0.5% of all scholarly articles on global warming.

Promoters of the Poptech list will now no doubt say that science is not decided by consensus. Exactly right! So why are you quoting x number of papers opposed to the consensus, and hence appealing to raw numbers. If don't believe science is decided by numbers, why do you quote a raw number from Poptech instead of discussing the specific details of the specific papers (in appropriate threads)?

The answer, of course, is the papers do not stand up to detailed scrutiny. They seek the anonymity of the list because they know they won't survive in the spotlight.

A mishmash of Monckton misrepresentation

DSL at 09:12 AM on 22 February, 2012

Defending Monckton with Poptech, with a healthy side of "E&E is legit!." Surely there's a mirthy analogy. This is like the anti-critical thinking trifecta.

Imagine a world in which the science published in E&E was the best humanity had to offer. Talk about catastrophes.

Adam, you're a curiosity. You have enough skill to understand a wide range of concepts, and you've done some reading. Yet you spend your time and energy defending goofy rhetorical games from Monckton, a wholly transparent and pathetic attempt to bandwagon the unwary (Poptech), and a journal that is a laughingstock for very obvious and well-documented reasons. I don't get it. I mean, I can come to several more probable conclusions from this small set of evidence, but moderation policy prevents me from listing them.

A mishmash of Monckton misrepresentation

KR at 07:53 AM on 22 February, 2012

Adam - “Can you point out a single statement of his contradictory to the consensus that is supportable?”

KR might I once again remind you that I gave you a list of over 900 peer reviewed papers supporting skeptics arguments and you have completely ignored it.

PopTech's list of papers is not relevant to this discussion. I asked you to point out a single climate claim of Monckton's, contrary to the consensus on climate science, that is supportable.

You have not. I'm of the opinion that you cannot. Instead - you repeat Gish Gallops, introduce red herrings such as the PopTech list, and (IMO) basically troll. The only science you have discussed (so far as I recall) is the MWP - where the evidence shows warm periods were not synchronous across the globe, and hence the temperature of the overall climate was not as warm as present.

And in the process you somehow ignore the multiple documented instances of Monckton misrepresenting scientists works, misquoting, and overall presenting a misleading view of the the science.

A mishmash of Monckton misrepresentation

Adam at 07:41 AM on 22 February, 2012

dhogaza, 60

“It's obvious you've not taken a look, because the list includes many things that aren't peer reviewed papers in any scholarly sense (poptech has his own definition).”

Every single paper on the list is peer reviewed and published in a peer reviewed scientific journal.

Dhogaza, 61

“Once again, Adam makes a strawman claim that was not made by AIT ("next 100 years" "near future").

How often does he get to repeat this falsehood? “

You are again completely missing the point. I accept that AIT never gave an exact timeframe (and I have acknowledged this in this discussion) But the very fact that Al Gore showed these expensive computerised images of all these major cities being published Strongly implied that it was going to happen in the near future. People watching it would not think that the ice sheets were going to collapse in hundreds or thousands of years, they would think that it was going to happen in the near future. Yes, Al Gore didn't give an exact date for it, but it was very misleading the way it was presented in AIT

KR, 61
“Monckton is the one making extraordinary claims (that all of climate science is incorrect)”

Please point out where Monckton has ever claimed the whole of climatre science is incorrect?

“Can you point out a single statement of his contradictory to the consensus that is supportable?”

KR might I once again remind you that I gave you a list of over 900 peer reviewed papers supporting skeptics arguments and you have completely ignored it.

Paulhtremblay, 63

“None of the articles presented by Poptech refute global warming. .... Instead of actually addressing that issue, you link to yet another rebuttal by poptech,”

Did I claim that the articles presented by Poptech refute GW?
I'm not sure how you can claim that “I'm not addressing the issue” since I never made that claim anyway. I was simply pointing out that this website had not responded to Poptech on his rebuttal.

“Let me give you another challenge to bring up one article from poptech that actually bolsters your claim that the peer reviewed science supports Mockton. Specifically, show a peer reviewed article that undermines a specific claim made by the IPCC in a significant way.”

Well, obviously you have not read any of the papers on the list, but as an example there is Douglass et al, 2007, which supports Moncktons claiims about troposheric temperature trends.

Scaddenp, 64

“However, to substance, he refuses to remove papers that the authors themselves are wrongly on the list, includes letter, reviews etc. that are not peer-reviewed and journals (esp E&E) that are not peer-reviewed in the sense normally understood by that. “

The list clearly states:

Disclaimer: The inclusion of a paper in this list does not imply a specific personal position to any of the authors. While a minority of authors on the list cannot be labeled skeptics (e.g. Harold Brooks, Roger Pielke Jr., Roger Pielke Sr.) their paper(s) or results from their paper(s) can still support skeptic's arguments against ACC/AGW alarm. Various papers are mutually exclusive and should be considered independently. This list will be updated and corrected as necessary.

The author's personal opinion on the matter is irrelevant. It is the actual scientific data that is presented in their papers that are relevant.

And E&E is a peer reviewed journal

Correcting Misinformation about the Journal Energy and Environment

Paulhtremblay, 65

“First, the MWP was not global”

in your opinion

“so it would not give any information on climate sensitivity. Accounting for its local variations and the overall Global temperature does not contradict any of the models of climate sensitivity.”

I'm sorry but that's not a valid argument. It was claimed on this thread that if the MWP was warmer it would mean that climate sensitivity to co2 would he high. But now you're saying that it doesn't matter that (in your opinion) MWP wasn't warmer. That climate sensitivity would still be high. Look, either the MWP does tell us about climate sensitivity or it doesn't you can't have it both ways. I personally think that it is entirely plausible that the MWP temps were higher/the same as today and climate sensitivity is still low. I do not believe the claim that strong MWP means high climate sensitivity, is supported by convincing evidence.

Skywatcher, 67

“perhaps a clarification required, as using the climate of the past 750 years (admittedly not right through the MWP), Hegerl et al 2006 show climate sensitivity comparable to IPCC projections.”

I was unable to find a PDF of that paper, so I only had the abstract. As you point out they only analyse climate of the past 750 years. I personally think that this is too short a time span. They may have got significantly different results if they had analysed say, the past 1500 years. Also, in their abstract they don't even mention what the implication would be for climate-sensitivity if the MWP was warmer. So it doesn't really do that much to support your argument. There have also been some references in the literature that the modelling data they used may have been unreliable. eg. Scafetta, 2009
http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/Scafetta-JASP_1_2009.pdf

“Some authors(North etal.,2004;Hegerletal.,2006,2007) use
typical EBMs.The adoption of EBMs is particularly useful if the
interest focuses on local temperature records,but becomesless
useful if the interest is in the global average temperature.”

funglestrumpet, 68

I'm not sure how anybody can claim that somebody should be locked up, simply because their views on an issue differ from your own. Do you not believe that people have the right to freedom of speech?

Tom Curtis, 71

“1) The other graphs shown by Monckton all appear to be local, not global temperatures, and therefore cannot show a global event;”

Monckton never claimed that his graphs represented global temperatures. The warmist argument is that MWP was a regional phenomenon located mainly in the UK and Greenaland. All Monckton was simply trying to show is that there is indeed evidence of a MWP outside of those areas.

“Those graphs differ from each other about the timing of peak warming, with some graphs showing significant cooling where others show peak warming.”

Well, you would expect there to be some difference in the timings of the warming and cooling periods in the graph, since they are all from entirely different independent studies.

“One of the proxies (Esper and Schweingruber) shows not temperatures but altitudes of the tree line. “

Monckton has never denied this he clearly mentions it in his reply

“the conclusion in their graph that in the medieval warm period treelines in the polar Urals were considerably higher than they are today, suggesting that the weather was considerably warmer and wetter than today?”

“I note that you persist in misrepresenting Al Gore as claiming that sea levels would rise by six meters in a century. Would you kindly point out where in An Inconvenient Truth Al Gore says that? (Hint: He doesn't)”

Once again read my previous comments, as well as the paragraph above on AIT. I don't deny that AIT never gave a timeframe. I never stated that Al Gore gave an exact timeframe. What I was saying is that because of the very expensive images he showed of modern cities getting flooded, it was heavily implied that it would happen in the next century. That's what anybody watching his film would come to the conclusion to.

Tom Curtis, 73

Now, you have obviously done a lot of research on that claim. And you make a good point. A lot of people don’t check things for themselves, when they should do so.
Now, I’d just like you to know that I never agreed with Monckton’s argument about Al Gore’s mansion. I thought that it was a poor argument and should not have been included in his presentation. But that really was just a very minor point in his presentation. It has absolutely nothing to do with the science. Tom Curtis, you can’t just write long rebuttals to just a single very minor point, and act like you have shown everything Monckton has said to be completely wrong. Now, you obviously believe that Monckton was deliberately lying about Al Gore’s mansion. I know that what you pointed out about one argument, does look pretty bad, but think about it. Monckton included the reference to Gore’s mansion in his personal letter to Abraham. If Monckton really was deliberately lying, why would he have written it in a personal private letter to a professor whose views strongly opposed his own. I personally think it was simply a display of ignorance on Monckton’s part. I know you’re probably going to accuse me of being a “denier” and “defending my idol”, but I really do think you’re making too much of a big deal out of such a minor point. The Gore’s mansion argument was not a scientific argument, nor was it made out to be one. It has nothing to do with the science. It’s funny how people can spend a lot of time checking the actual science behind different issues, yet don’t bother to check very minor and unscientific points, simply because it’s not that important. I do believe this is what happened with Monckton. He was careless on an issue, and it has made him appear in a bad light. Tom Curtis I’m not saying that skeptics are right about everything. There are some arguments by skeptics I don’t agree with. Skeptics don’t have a single unified view. There is always going to be misinformation on both sides of a debate. But people need to learn the difference between a genuine error and deliberate disinformation. I think that people here’s personal feelings (hatred) for Monckton are clouding their judgement into thinking that everything he does is “evil”. But Monckton is human. Humans make mistakes. It happens. Simply stressing minor points, like you did above is irrelevant to the actual scientific debate. I really would be better if could just stick to the science.

Tonydunc, 79

Sorry Tony, but your very cursory dismissals of each point are not every convincing.

Tonydunc Abraham listed those brief phrases, which he claimed summed up Monckton's arguments. I don't think you understand. Abraham is trying to make Monckton look like an average stereotypical “denier” whose arguments are weak and simplistic. What Monckton was trying to show is that his arguments were actually more complex than Abraham made them out to be, so therefore he was misrepresenting his position.

I'm sorry, but I don't really have the time or energy to respond to every single one of the points you listed.

Chris, 81

I do not believe that Monckton was cherry picking. Dr Keigwin's own paper clearly showed that MWP was indeed warmer in that area than the present. There are always papers showing different interpretations of climate change data. Proxy data is a very complex issue. But there was nothing which directly refuted the conclusions made by their 1996 paper.

Look, we're getting nowhere on this thread. I seem to have upset a lot of people who clearly have very strong personal beliefs regarding Monckton. How about we just agree to disagree. You have all made up your own minds on this issue. We are never going to come to a satisfactory conclusion. So, if any of you can provide me any reason otherwise, this will be my last comment on this thread.

A mishmash of Monckton misrepresentation

JMurphy at 22:37 PM on 20 February, 2012

It's obvious that Monckton's claim about the St Regis Tower in San Fancisco being "just feet from the ocean at Fisherman's wharf" is blatently false as far as any normal person (i.e. the majority of rational human beings) would understand it.
However, judging by the rest of Monckton's attempted justifications highlighted here by others, he will undoubtedly believe he is correct (and his followers will accept his justifications implicitly) because he said "feet", which, in his mind, encapsulates every number from two to the largest number you can think of.
He plays with words and uses them so that he can create his own reality and never have to admit being wrong.

No wonder Adam likes Poptech too - he has the same modus operandi.

A mishmash of Monckton misrepresentation

Tristan at 10:12 AM on 20 February, 2012

The deletion of all poptech's posts was unintentional.

He had been allowed 250+ posts till that point and given a lot of opportunity to make a coherent argument.

When an attempt to delete one post deleted all of them he probably should have been notified of the mistake. That said, all they showed was that after a pointless exercise in rhetoric he admitted that his definition of peer-reviewed meant 'something that someone could review'.

A mishmash of Monckton misrepresentation

paulhtremblay at 09:15 AM on 20 February, 2012

>>Might I point out that nobody here has responded to Poptech's rebuttal to one of your articles.

Good grief! None of the articles presented by Poptech refute global warming. Look at the actual thread presented here at SS. Instead of actually addressing that issue, you link to yet another rebuttal by poptech, which does nothing to address the outright fabrication of poptech's claims.

Adam, you are continually engaging in a moving target argument. You were asked to bring up one paper from CO2 science to bolster your claim that the MWP was global. You have not done so.

Let me give you another challenge to bring up one article from poptech that actually bolsters your claim that the peer reviewed science supports Mockton. Specifically, show a peer reviewed article that undermines a specific claim made by the IPCC in a significant way.

Stop dodging and filling up these boards with BS.

A mishmash of Monckton misrepresentation

dhogaza at 08:57 AM on 20 February, 2012

Adam:

"Might I remind you that I gave a list of 900+ peer reviewed papers supporting the arguments made by skeptics."

It's obvious you've not taken a look, because the list includes many things that aren't peer reviewed papers in any scholarly sense (poptech has his own definition).

But I see I've fallen prey to Adam's attempt to hijack the thread rather than deal with the original post ...

So I shall shut up now :)

A mishmash of Monckton misrepresentation

dhogaza at 08:53 AM on 20 February, 2012

Adam:

"Not only that, but as Andrew (Poptech) has pointed out, every single comment he has ever written on skeptical science has been deleted. Care to explain that away?"

He was allowed to post here for quite a long time. He would attempt to hijack every thread with his personal agenda. I'm not a moderator and do not know exactly what happened, but the moderators here are quite clear that refusal to follow the posting guidelines clearly stated here will lead to one's being kicked out. He refused to follow posting guidelines.

What's to explain away? You visit John Cook's house, you follow John Cook's house rules. If he asks you to quit traipsing about the carpets with your muddy boots and you refuse, he's perfectly justified in showing you the door.

A mishmash of Monckton misrepresentation

Adam at 08:37 AM on 20 February, 2012

Chris, 29

I've had a look at Huang's 2008 paper, and I agree with you that their 1997 paper was not the best choice of study to include as evidence of a MWP. Although I do not believe that there was anything nefarious about Monckton including it in his talk. It was probably just an honest mistake. And might I once again point out that it is only one paper. Monckton showed graphs from eight other studies showing MWP temps were the same/higher than today. You can't just pick out one single study from his talk, and then just act like everything he said was wrong. And might I also point out in their 2008 paper, they clearly state Holocene temps were warmer than today (which Abraham left out of his presentation) Also, in Hunag's 2008 paper, they are vague about what data they are using for 20th century temps. It's likely surface data was spliced onto the graph, although I don't know for sure. But nowhere in their paper do they mention satellite data over the past three decades,, which show less warming than the other datasets. They state that “the maximum of the MWP is at or slightly below the reference level”. However, their conclusion might have changed if they had chosen to use satellite temps in their study.

Tom Curtis, 42

“Because an adequate rebuttal already existed in the form of his pre-existing presentation (duh). “

Might I once again ask if you have actually read Monckton's reply to Abraham?

Chris, 43

“he asserted (with zero evidence) that 700 scientists supported the interpretation that the MWP was warmer than current temperatures. “

He was referring to the Co2science MWP project.

“The pictures he showed to accompany this assertion turn out not to support it at all. In fact in the case of Huang's borehole data that include much of the 20th century, the latter indicate that that current temperatures are warmer than during the MWP.”

Read my paragraph above.

Jmurphy, 44

“That is a disgraceful, cheap accusation with no basis whatsoever in reality. You have shown your true colours and I'm sure Monckton would be proud of your dissembling. “

Jmurphy have you read Monckton's reply? He gives numerous examples of Abraham misrepresenting his arguments, when contacting the scientists.

Read questions 66 -77 (page 12)
Abraham makes out Monckton had misrepresented the work of a paper showing 4 polar bears died in a storm. Yet Monckton clearly stated what that paper said accurately and, didn't even mention any possible predictions regarding polar bears.

“77: Though you say, “Chris Monckton doesn’t agree with that author, even though he used the citation in his presentation” (15), is it not in fact correct that I correctly reported what the authors said about the cause of death of the four polar bears, and that I did not even mention, still less attempt in any way to challenge, the prediction by them that you say I disagree with? Again, are you bearing in mind the difference between the evidence that I relied upon in Dr. Monnett’s paper and the predictions that he made. It is on the evidence that I spoke, not on the predictions. Would you not agree with me that there are too many predictions in climate science today, and not enough in the way of evidence to give those predictions some real-world credibility.”

On Pages 13 – 15
Abraham claims that Monckton misrepresented the work of Barber et al, 2009. Yet, as Monckton pointed out in his reply (Q.84), he didn't even mention Barbers paper in his talk.

On page 15
Abraham claims Monckton misrepresented the work of Norris and Rosenstrato. Even though as Monckton pointed out, their graph did indeed show polar bear populations increasing

He claims Monckton misrepresented the work of Dr Keigwin. He provides no evidence for this. In Abraham's email he didn't even mention the MWP.

He claims Monckton misrepresented Caillon 2002. Yet as Monckton pointed out he didn't even mention that paper.

There are numerous examples of Abraham misleading authors throughout the whole rebuttal. (And might I once again point out Abraham has not responded to the letter) So your claim that “That is a disgraceful, cheap accusation with no basis whatsoever in reality.” is false. And you would know this if you had actually read Monckton's reply.

Dhogaza, 45

“Oh, we know all about poptech, alright:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/search.php?Search=poptech&x=0&y=0”

Might I point out that nobody here has responded to Poptech's rebuttal to one of your articles.

Google Scholar Illiteracy at Skeptical Science

Not only that, but as Andrew (Poptech) has pointed out, every single comment he has ever written on skeptical science has been deleted. Care to explain that away?

“Right, he didn't give a timeframe, therefore Monckton's lying when he suggest he did.”

Did Al Gore state that the ice sheets weren't going to disappear for a millenia? Like I said before, the fact that he showed those images clearly implied that the 6 metre sea level rise was going to be happening in the near future.

“A strong Medieval Warm Period = HIGH climate sensitivity. “

Please provide one peer reviewed paper supporting that assertion?

But your statement is also a bit contradictory don't you think. Your argument works both ways. This website has repeatedly claimed that the hockey stick graph is correct, and that temperatures are warmer than it was in the MWP. So surely, by your own logic, if the hockey stick was correct, then climate sensitivity would also be low.

Chriskoz, 49

“You are clearly dilluting any depth of arguments here and running into Monckton gish-gallop, as emphasized text indicates.”

Read the numerous examples I gave above of Abraham's misleading claims.

Owl905, 51

“Adam droned at 40:

"Yes, the IPCC didn't give an exact time frame, but the science is clear that the ice sheets are not going to disappear any time in the near future."

You still get the target wrong; and you try the same Monctonite spin where a nearby revision is true (even when untrue)... so the original wrong is right. It's a pathetic attempt to defend your original error. AR4 gave no timeframe and no forecast of complete meltdown. Your claim of clear science is false, and your vague context is useless.”

If you believe that I was wrong on the subject of the ice sheets, please provide me one peer reviewed paper providing credible evidence that the the Greenland ice sheet will completely disappear within the next 100 years. I have seen zero evidence for the idea that the Greenland ice sheet will melt in the near future. Therefore I stand by my statement that the science is clear on it. Once again, if you think I am wrong please provide a peer reviewed study supporting the claims that were made in AIT about sea level rise due to the collapse of the ice sheets.

Phillipe Chantreau, 53

“That Monckton is largely wrong the majority of the time is not a matter of belief, it is a verifiable fact. “

KR, 55

“The man is amazingly consistent - I have yet to see a single argument from him that is supportable. “

Might I remind you that I gave a list of 900+ peer reviewed papers supporting the arguments made by skeptics.

A mishmash of Monckton misrepresentation

dhogaza at 12:22 PM on 19 February, 2012

Adam:

"But might I point you to this list of 900+ peer reviewed papers supporting skeptics arguments The arguments made by skeptics (including Monckton) are indeed supported by hundreds of studies in the peer reviewed literature."

Oh, we know all about poptech, alright:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/search.php?Search=poptech&x=0&y=0

Monckton. Poptech. Barrel meet bottom.

"Have you seen 'An Inconvenient Truth'? He shows these expensive computer generated images of all these major cities getting flooded by his supposed 6 metre sea level rise. No, he didn't give an exact timeframe..."

Right, he didn't give a timeframe, therefore Monckton's lying when he suggest he did.

2012 SkS Weekly Digest #1

Rob Painting at 14:34 PM on 10 January, 2012

Tristan - the Poptech deletion was my mistake. I don't know if you saw the performance by a poster called Bulla the other day, but Poptech was doing the same thing - taunting the moderator and asking for deletion by repeatedly contravening the comments policy. I wasn't going to stick around all night deleting his worthless comments and so hit the spam button. Didn't realize it deleted all his posts. Oops.

Clearly we need some kind of 'timeout' function, so that moderators can deal with these kinds of people on-the-spot. The strength of SkS is that you can actually have a rational science-based discussion. That's not possible on most other climate blogs.

Models are unreliable

Philippe Chantreau at 03:18 AM on 5 January, 2012

If I were James Wilson, I would rant on about this paper being a religious paper and the authors not being able to refrain from political argument. I would then say how it got published because of a sympathetic reviewer and that it will certainly be torn apart in subsequent analyses etc etc...

Yet I'm sure that, somehow, it will make Poptech's list. Isn't it nice to have flexible standards?

Is there a case against human caused global warming in the peer-reviewed literature? Part 2

JMurphy at 21:24 PM on 15 November, 2011

The following is an even better evaluation of Poptech's little list :

Meet The Denominator

More here and here.

Basically, that list is worthless and only the most desperate would ever bring it up.

Is there a case against human caused global warming in the peer-reviewed literature? Part 1

muoncounter at 14:41 PM on 10 November, 2011

cjshaker #63: You've read Meet the Denominator and you are still citing PopTech? That alone will seriously damage any credibility here you'd like to establish around here.

But how has
a. quoting (and misquoting) politicians,
b. claiming there is widespread fraud,
c. casting doubt on the peer review process in general,
d. playing 'here a paper, there a paper,'

done anything to address the question posed by this post? A case against AGW will be made by a credible series of papers, not by a random scattershot. If you want to support the contention that there is such a case, do the following: research it, document it, evaluate the science presented and see if it stands scrutiny.

Meet The Denominator

Publicola at 06:12 AM on 1 August, 2011

Poptech: "That is a false and distorted context of what I stated."

Again no, it is not.

Let me break this down for you again, Poptech:

1. I asked you how you knew that some articles that are on your list of purportedly "peer reviewed" papers were in fact peer reviewed. [1]

2. You responded by saying "because" said articles "can be" peer reviewed. [2]

HTH.

--------------------------------------

[1] Me: "Your joke of a list counts multiple "viewpoint " - aka OpEd - articles authored by non-natura l scientist Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen. How do you know that said articles have been peer reviewed? "

[2] Poptech: "Because these can be and you have not demonstrated otherwise. "

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Poptech/climate-scientists-conference-2011_n_857588_87410332.html

There is no consensus

Tom Curtis at 11:25 AM on 27 June, 2011

mik_rosser @355:

Peer Review: The process of peer review if properly adhered to means that every paper published in a scientific journal has been read carefully by at least two people reasonably expert in the field, who have been able to convince a third person who is capable of understanding the argument (the editor) that:

a) It contains no obvious errors; and that

b) It is written well enough that somebody who wants to could reproduce the procedures and analysis used; and that

c) It takes proper account of relevant scientific literature.

The process is onerous, but it sets a very low bar. It requires you to convince just three people who know what they are talking about that the paper is not an obvious blunder. That does not show that the paper is not false, or that it is worthwhile or anything like that. Only that it probably does not contain an obvious blunder.

The peer review process does not always work, either because reviewers miss obvious blunders (they are human and do make mistakes), or more frequently, because people with bizzare theories game the system by approaching an editor known to by sympathetic to their cause, who will shepherd the paper through to publication without proper peer review. Even creationist papers have been shepherded through in that way, and several "climate skeptic papers" which were obviously flawed have been shepherded through that way.

In addition, a large number of papers, some by "skeptics", but many not, have been published which simply do not have the implications "skeptics" attach to them. In many cases, the supposed implications as stated by "skeptics" are directly contradicted by the paper itself, and a large number of scientists have complained about misrepresentation of their papers by "skeptics". Consequently I would take Poptech's list with a very large grain of salt.

Because of this tendency of so-called "skeptics" to outright misrepresent the nature of research, many defenders of climate science including myself think a more appropriate label for them is "AGW deniers", in that they are not behaving skeptically, and because they are denying the descriptor of "skeptical" to the many climate scientists who do behave skeptically.

However, the crucial point about peer reviewed publication is that it is just a first hurdle for science, and a very low one. It is, however, one that "skeptic's" arguments repeatedly come a cropper on. The simple test of convincing just three reasonably informed people that your argument does not contain obvious blunders is too difficult a challenge for most "skeptics" to meet. As a result they take their arguments to the internet, and to conventions organised by conservative think tanks, and to talk back radio shows. In other words, being unable to persuade even a few well informed people trained in scientific analysis, they take their arguments to people who are neither well informed, nor trained in scientific analysis.

That shows clearly their agenda.

If their agenda was the advance of knowledge, there would be no substitute for convincing the scientific community. I know of a number of controversial theories which do no have a scientific consensus, but whose adherents repeatedly try to break through the peer reviewed barrier and to convince scientists. That is because they believe their theory is true, and that truth matters. Consequently they think their theory can, and should face the most rigorous test possible.

In contrast, AGW deniers have no such confidence or belief. What is important to them is not the truth of their theories, but the political effect of wide spread acceptance of their theories. They are playing a political game - not doing science. It is for that reason that (with rare exceptions) they give an uncritical pass to the egregious lies of some of their number, while straining at fleas in actual climate science.

Finally, peer reviewed publication is just the first hurdle of peer review. After publication, papers are read by a very large number of scientists who can analyse the arguments and decide whether they are good, and well supported by evidence; largely irrelevant; or outright bad. The outright bad, ie, almost certainly false papers attract a small number of citations as scientist publish refutations. The irrelevant papers attract almost no citations as people ignore the paper. The good papers attract a large number of citations as people repeatedly reference the result in their own papers. Initial peer review is only a test to see if the paper contains an obvious blunder; citations are the true mark of a worthwhile paper. In that are, "skeptic papers" fare very poorly.

Climate Change Denial book now available!

Albatross at 01:43 AM on 31 May, 2011

Everyone,

@57"since there is an expressed wish that I "be quiet" here. "

Conspiracy, conspiracy!! (/sarc).

I warned you guys. Person in question will twist, distort and misrepresent your position and the thread could go on for days (think Poptech). And as noted by Les, any moderation will be framed as censorship or something along those lines. So you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. Beware, they may also be here to incite people so that they can quote mine...."those mean and intolerant SkS people, and they call themselves a 'science' site". Yes silly, but believe it or not folks do this sort of thing, so we can't ignore it.

Are we debating denial still or Haydn and Cook's book, or are we entertaining the musings of a D-K?

I would urge strict moderation to keep this thread on topic. People who disagree with what Haydn and Cook have written need to write clear and concise arguments, and state their position clearly.

Feel free to snip potentially offensive and/or off-topic bits.

Lindzen Illusion #5: Internal Variability

JMurphy at 21:57 PM on 17 May, 2011

Ken Lambert wrote : "RE: Dyson: He definitely does not subscribe to AGW - 'alarmist global warming'"

I wish you so-called skeptics would try and agree on your terminology or at least (à la Poptech) stop using different versions of terms whenever you feel like it - and without even bothering to tell anyone !

And do you have your own version of "alarmist" too ? If so, please explain what it means.

Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo

Chris G at 05:02 AM on 13 May, 2011

Les,
Not that it matters, but I think the odds are against it.

As for your reference to Poptech's list, I'll admit to some curiosity about it, but he lost me when he claimed to have a better understanding of what some papers mean than the persons who wrote them.

Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming

JMurphy at 04:31 AM on 13 May, 2011

Bud wrote : "Nevertheless, the fact that large numbers of scientists and people from other disciplines refute the AGW hypothesis from their own area of expertise, that fact alone is sufficient to refute the political argument that there is consensus among scientists."

Can you define "large numbers" and compare it to the total number of scientists ?

Do you also agree with the "scientists and people from other disciplines" who reckon they can refute Evolution, HIV/AIDS, Smoking/Cancer, the Greenhouse Effect, etc., etc. ?

Can I ask again : do you agree with the 100 scientists I pointed you towards here ? If not, could you explain why ?

What have "political argument[s]" got to do with a consensus among scientists ? Do you think the consensus over Evolution is also a "political argument" ? Do you even believe in Evolution ?

Are you Poptech or do you just love to repeat his assertions about so-called refutations ?

Lindzen Illusion #7: The Anti-Galileo

les at 02:39 AM on 13 May, 2011

Great summary.

I'd like to add a couple of other fators which, I think, come into these kinds of discussion.

1/ selection bias.
As you say, Galileo was right - we know that to the n^th degree with hindsight. But there have been many - often brilliant - scientists who've made wrong 'strong' assertions. How does one know, for someone makeing strong and public claims, that theyre like Galileo and not, for example, like Eric Laithwaite? I superb chap, who, for years, held onto the belief that gyroscopes violate Newtons laws. Or like the late Freddy Hoyle a giant amongst cosmologists, who never really gave up on the expansionary universe?
I'm not going to get into lists ;), but I'd not be surprised if there where more cleaver chaps who held out for wrong ideas than ones who struck gold!

2/ The second point is that it is not unusual for people to hold onto wrong beliefs when the benefit of doing so - e.g. lime-light, a following etc - is greater than the detriments - e.g. looking daft to other people. This point was called "being strategically wrong" as analysed by Robert Kurzban in "Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind By" in which he noted that Stephen Jay Gould - who we all know and love - sustained a completely ill founded assault on evolutionary psychology for many years, despite criticisms, not only from them, but from his own! This is a good read.
I remind people of Poptech... the value of his list - his fame, 'voice', internet-presence etc. not only depended on the list but the list being wrong and, therefor, the arguments it generated. It was in his best interest for the list to be wrong! A good list summarizing the number of papers published supporting AGW to a greater or less degree, or even a better use of statistics or clearer analysis (as we all suggested)... would not have brought him any fame and attention, upon which he thrived!

Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming

DSL at 23:18 PM on 12 May, 2011

I'm inspired. I'll apologize as well, for my ad Harrinem attack.

Nevertheless, this whole bandwagon thing is irritating. Yes, if one is unwilling or unable to do the math, one must trust the experts. The experts are the climatologists, the atmospheric scientists, and the wide variety of ocean scientists. Their word should trump that of materials scientists and unpublished high school science teachers. How am I supposed to take someone's analysis of the science seriously when he/she brings forth a list like Bern's or Poptech's to present as evidence that experts disagree with AGW? And how am I to take so-called 'skeptics' seriously when they remain silent on the dubiousness of these lists?

Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming

DSL at 05:53 AM on 12 May, 2011

You're digging very hard, Harry, but I think you'll find more of the type of gold you're looking for in Poptech's hill. Just once I want to see a self-identified "skeptic" go after another self-identified "skeptic". Just once.

Meet The Denominator

Publicola at 12:49 PM on 11 May, 2011

Hi all,

Poptech is on record claiming that articles on his list are "peer reviewed" because they "can be" peer reviewed:

--------------------------------------

Poptech: "[My list] is overwhelming evidence of a peer-reviewed papers supporting skeptic arguments against AGW or AGW Alarm"

Me: "Your joke of a list counts multiple 'viewpoint' - aka OpEd - articles authored by non-natural scientist Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen. How do you know that said articles have been peer reviewed?"

Poptech: "Because these can be and you have not demonstrated otherwise."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Poptech/climate-scientists-conference-2011_n_857588_87410332.html

How climate change deniers led me to set up Skeptical Science website

JMurphy at 21:18 PM on 29 April, 2011

I think we still have a long way to go against denial, as evidenced even on this thread. It seems that some people are so stuck in that denial (for whatever reason but normally nothing scientifically rational) that they will never be able to admit that they are wrong or, indeed, that anyone that they feel is on the same side as them can be wrong either - witness the lack of criticism of Lindzen, Carter, Monckton, etc. from any of the so-called skeptics on here over the last several months. Witness also the lack of awareness of their own mistakes or lack of awareness that they could possibly make ANY mistakes - to admit such things are obviously too painful for them to bear.

Witness also the language used :

Ken Lambert "You have to remember that Dr Trenberth is a proponent of AGW..."

No - Trenberth does not argue in favour of or support AGW : he is a scientist whose "primary research has focused on the global energy and water cycles and how they are changing, and his work mainly involves empirical studies and quantitative diagnostic calculations. Trenberth is a primary advocate for the need to develop a climate information system that is an imperative for adaptation to climate change."

Ken Lambert "When your AGW enthusiasts are making uncorrected extreme claims of warming which bear no relation to scientists like Dr Trenberth's numbers - then it is time to say that this site has lost its scientific mojo."

How ridiculous to call anyone an "AGW enthusiast". Some people seem more concerned to label others in a manner which conforms to their own belief-system and, to me, that is very childish.

chriscanaris : "I have no problem with this site having a “warmist” perspective – after all, its raison d’être."

Does "warmist" mean anything outside the circles of denial or so-called skepticism ? Again, it is a term made-up and used by those who have their own belief-system, involving their own words, their own meanings and their own little self-confirming congregation of like-minded devotees.
The reason for this site is plain for all to see, if they want to, and is given in the article above or in the linked GUARDIAN article. Simple as that - nothing "warmist", 'coolist', whateverist about it.

Two other examples.

Ken Lambert : "John Cook is also seeming slow about getting Dr Trenberth on to this site.

Do you fear a couple of skeptical science interactions with Dr Trenberth John?"

I cannot understand how anyone commenting on a website (even one as interesting and important as this one) can assume that what they have to say can be important enough to need the attention of someone like Dr Trenberth; or that the owner of said website should be spending all his hours trying to make such an interaction happen. I find that astounding. Perhaps if someone on here feels they have shaken the foundations of some of the science, they should publish in the appropriate peer-reviewed manner ? Just a thought...

Finally :

chriscanaris : I did notice poor old Gilles..."

I'm sorry, but this is like writing : "I did notice poor old Poptech..." and shows that some people will always excuse anything from anyone...as long as they feel they are on the same side.

Lindzen Illusion #1: We Should Have Seen More Warming

Alec Cowan at 08:19 AM on 23 April, 2011

@Stephen Baines #66

Please, don't follow that path. It SEEMS to be the right thing to do. I know it's an off-topic here and I don't want to paste here a long post in other forum (with Poptech) So I provide the link here. The key subject is that being true that they operate that way, one has to avoid following the same behavioural path no matter it is difficult. Don't feed the image, only try to show how they operate and what supine human defects are exploited.

Muller Misinformation #4: Time to Act

Marcus at 09:03 AM on 21 April, 2011

BillyJoe, if this site was *really* trying to create some kind of rigid conformity in viewpoint, then do you *honestly* think that the posts by people like BP, HumanityRules, RSVP, John D or Poptech would be allowed to stand? Heck, the moderators even allowed Poptech to rant about his beloved "list" for more than 10 pages-hardly the actions of people trying to silence dissent (though there was something quite hilarious in watching Poptech defend the indefensible-in an increasingly desperate manner). The fact, though, is that Gilles seems to be deliberately trying to sabotage threads by dragging every single discussion back to his beloved "the world can't survive without Fossil Fuels" meme.

Christy Crock #4: Do the observations match the models?

Alec Cowan at 22:25 PM on 19 April, 2011

Another post and another instance of Gilles jumping in to be the first commenter and so setting the mood and making it all as Gilles-oriented as possible by overflowing with his/her "You said... I didn't say ... Eeny, meeny, miny, moe; catch a warmer by the toe ..." and showing very little beyond a shallow understanding of what the general topic is. This character do this the same way no matter it is a post or a new version of an argument: the goal is just taking control.

There are many ways to face these behaviours:
1) Many forums and/or blogs have an "Abandon all hope" section where comments or messages are sent so the debate can/cannot continue there in a public/non-public fashion. This is very important for arguments in this site, as arguments need feedback including critiques, based objections and scientific works references. The lame argument of "I don't feel comfortable with that" and taking isolated phrases to manifest it (the sorts of "You said it'd raised, then the sky is the limit, uhu!!?? yeah! you would!") or simply promoting the idea that anything is debatable in any kind of conditions and as far as a subject is debated it is controversial, all these techniques coming from dialectics and not from science must be cornered to the proper sections.

2) Even without much more workload, by using div tags and colour in a way similar to the actual fashion, and by changing the date of a comment, moderators would be able to move a comment and its replies to the last positions in the comment queue. Even by doing that once it'll promote the wrongdoers to do their best from the very beginning and those who engage in sterile debates with them to be conscious of their involuntary aid in doing it.

3) The total visits to sites in English dealing with climate change is slightly decreasing, but visits to this site keep steady and growing, so as it probably is the 3rd or 4th site in visitors on this topic, a steeper increase of any kind of attack should be expected, as we witnessed some increasing evidence of pack attack here, like this one, now closed with poptech/Adam[mhaze]/(and others) as the pack -because like bacteria, they thrive in colonies-

So, keep the bleach in hand, because a website wouldn't promote the anticipating prevention of something and only take late actions on other equally preventable somethings.

The fact that I and almost every author or commenter here would never go to specific sites about religion to say "That Xenu is BS and ..." doesn't mean people who would isn't operating here unleashed.

So, feel free to delete this message after commenting it to the right people, if you wish.

It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940

Adam at 23:21 PM on 16 April, 2011

First of all, I just like to make it clear that I am not poptech. We are two different people.

"No, you were repeating my claim (about Greenland) and then extending it in a single leap to apply to the whole of GHG climate science."

Sphaerica, so to be clear, are you saying that there isn't empirical evidence that humans are causing Greenland warming, but you believe that there is empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming?

Is that what you're saying, because we seem to be going around in circles here.

Muoncounter, might I remind you that it works both ways for you as well. If you believe that using less stations won't significantly affect the readings, then according to your own logic, the data would have been pretty reliable 60 years ago as well.

Dikran and muoncounter, once again have you even read the paper I provided? The difference between surface and satellite data, started around 20 years ago, corresponding with the adjustments made to the global surface temp network.

Here is a very detailed document, which discusses the problems with the surface temperature record:

Surface Temperature Records: Policy Driven Deception?

And read the following paper:

'Unresolved issues with the assessment of multidecadal global land surface temperature trends' by Roger Pielke Sr et al published in the 'Journal of Geophysical Research' (2007)

""co2 was much higher 60 years ago" That's just plain wrong. Enough said. "

That was a typing mistake. I meant to say that CO2 is much higher than it was 60 years ago.

Anyway, this is going nowhere. I keep having to endure cheap insults, and in this discussion, everyone just keeps going around in circles. I think that anything worth discussing on this thread has now long gone. Unless there is something worth discussing, then I don't really see any point in carrying on.
This will be my last comment, unless I need to come back for any particular reason.

Goodbye.

It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940

Rob Honeycutt at 09:06 AM on 16 April, 2011

I'm pretty convinced this is Poptech based on a Mises rant that I dragged out of him one day.

It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940

pbjamm at 08:29 AM on 16 April, 2011

KR@99
While it is technically possible to change your IP, and Poptech has admitted to being a computer system administrator (or something similar)I do not think that Adam is the same person. They employ alot of the same arguments and technique but the tone is different. I have encountered these same arguments and methods from people I know are not Poptech.
Adam != Poptech in my opinion, but they are are equally wrong.

It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940

Alec Cowan at 06:39 AM on 16 April, 2011

@KR #99

I see what you mean, but he only had to answer directly "I'm not that Poptech person you insist I am, and I've never used that name nor I know a person who uses that name nor I am related to such person in any way, so cut the manure and reply my arguments". I acted on the assumption these kind of persons think they are crystal honest so they can avoid giving an answer but they don't lie in a way they know they are lying -they lie and manipulate all the time, but they believe that they're honest and have a fair cause-. Then I asked the question and no answer was given; we got just another turn of the screw following the previous behavioural pattern.

Even more, if I remember well, the last post included something about temperature records being unreliable from 1985 on, because thousands of US weather stations were removed from the datasets. Add some background music like "God bless America" and you'll have an argument that is trademarked by Poptech across the web.

It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940

KR at 06:05 AM on 16 April, 2011

DM, Alec, others - I quite frankly doubt that Adam==Poptech; the word choices appear different, and there's a level of snarkiness Poptech displays that I haven't seen with Adam.

Keep in mind - there is (sadly) no limit on the number of people who's opinions, discussion tactics, logical fallacies, and approach we might find distasteful.

It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940

muoncounter at 05:19 AM on 16 April, 2011

DM,
Adam rests his argument on the fiction that modern surface temperatures are not reliable because there are too few stations. I don't care whether he thinks that's true or not; it is, however, a sword that cuts both ways. He cannot have too few stations now = bad and too few stations in the early part of the century = good.

If he insists on that, then he is clearly a lost cause. If he continues to insist on that, then he's clearly another Poptech.

It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940

Daniel Bailey at 04:17 AM on 16 April, 2011

Adam is using 2 different IP addresses (account created March 14, 2011); from England.

Poptech had two accounts here, one under Poptech (created April 25, 2008; 3 different New Jersey IP addresses) and one under poptech (created March 7, 2010; Western Australia IP Address - no comments ever posted here).

It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940

Rob Honeycutt at 03:31 AM on 16 April, 2011

Adam... Just curious. Are you actually Andrew/Poptech?

It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940

Alec Cowan at 02:32 AM on 16 April, 2011

@Albatross #74

You know Poptech, and you know how he applies the technique: first, some "absolute" assertion, then trying to balance around all the evidence showed to him, and when some time passes, he says "nobody has provided any evidence that (absolute) is false", "nobody has provided any real evidence about (something against "absolute")". Sometimes, if he see it fits, adding "convincing" or the like just to look a little less harsh. And it's pretty much the same old story (which could be automatized by a 2k script in JavaScript). What is not so easy to script -and I must admit there's some wicked talent behind- is to select the time to do it. I mean, it's easy to start a thread in a web forum or post comment #1 saying (absolute), but what is not so easy is reading all the messages and select the moment when the renewal of (absolute) will make it look like a settled question. There are a few that make a living of it in the 'denialist' arena. It seems a few practise here abusing of the good faith of many that make this a great website.

It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940

muoncounter at 02:31 AM on 16 April, 2011

Adam/Poptech: We get it. You disagree.

However: A significant amount of your 1920s warming was the one year 1.2 degree jump in 1919.

As a skeptic or denier, its understandable that once you've taken a position, you must do whatever is necessary to support it. You claim surface temperatures are unreliable, but you have based your entire story on this temperature measurement. That's a clear indication of bias or perhaps hypocrisy.

The correlation you repeatedly deny was established here. Don't bother saying 'no its not' until you establish the validity of 1919 surface temperature record -- which, of course, will also establish the validity of subsequent surface temperatures.

It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940

Alec Cowan at 21:23 PM on 15 April, 2011

@Adam

Why did you change from "Poptech" to "Adam"?

It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940

Albatross at 04:43 AM on 15 April, 2011

Muoncounter, Maybe Adam is Poptech ;)

It warmed just as fast in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940

muoncounter at 04:42 AM on 15 April, 2011

Adam#51: This discussion belongs on the cosmic ray thread.

"See here" Thanks, you've confirmed my suspicions with your link to our old friend PopTech.

Monckton Myth #16: Bizarro World Sea Level

poptart at 23:44 PM on 14 April, 2011

I believe Lord Monckton is a "peer". Therefore, anything he peruses is "peer reviewed".With that in mind, I bet we can get poptech's list up to 1000!

Weather vs Climate

scaddenp at 12:09 PM on 27 March, 2011

Just to remind people attempting to argue with Poptech, that he has stated in other threads that no data is capable of changing his mind. He isn't interested in learning anything. Refute the errors but engaging with him directly is a waste of your time.

Weather vs Climate

actually thoughtful at 06:49 AM on 27 March, 2011

Two comments: one, where I live, weather predictions are still terrible. I think the "Can't predict weather...can't predict climate" argument is based in enough reality ("Can't predict weather") that it really, truly needs to be addressed. I do think it was well addressed here.

As to Poptech and Ken Lambart and a few other posters. I hope smart, knowledgeable people will continue to refute the ideas they present when they are wrong. I personally don't have any problem seeing that models work (Hansen 1988 is still mind boggling to me - 23 years ago he knew what would happen to us right now!).

But the claims that Trenberth's travesty is still with us will give me pause until we can irrefutably (within reason) put it to bed.

Perhaps others are the opposite - they understand the limitation of ARGO, have read the studies regarding deep ocean temperatures (and a few lakes which give us fascinating insights into ocean heat content and heat transfer behavior) and see no problem with the supposedly missing heat.

It is for those readers (presumably many X larger than those of us who post - else this is a lot of work for very few eyeballs...) that honest refutations of misinformation (regardless of the sincerity of the poster - wrong is wrong) are so valuable.

Perhaps the moderators have to be even more hard nosed to move the debate to the right thread? That would ensure that those of us taken in by the false claim would read the background/supporting post and hopefully get a better understanding, so as not to be taken in by the same claim next time.

Models are unreliable

Stu at 06:04 AM on 27 March, 2011

In reply to Poptech:

"...my point [is that] if your initial conditions are uncertain that makes the results uncertain.

Uncertain is a damn sight removed from worthless, don't you think?

I said:

"In climate models, if you are expecting them to perfectly model the exact evolution of the atmosphere, then you are essentially expecting them to be a perpetual weather model."

You said:

"That is exactly my point. If they cannot do this, their results are meaningless. Calling computer code a "climate model" does not change how computers work."

So we've gone from uncertain to meaningless? Well, weather models also can't perfectly model the evolution of the atmosphere. Are their results meaningless? If you have ever taken an unbrella with you because the weatherman said it would rain, there's a good chance you did it on guidance that you yourself consider 'meaningless'.

I said:

"Additionally, to be 'perfect', a climate model would need both perfect initial knowledge of the entire ocean, cryosphere and biosphere, and perfect knowledge of the future evolution of all things that affect climate: solar output, GHGs, aerosols, volcanoes, etc etc etc. And what's more, the 'perfect' model is a pipe dream because models treat continuous time and space as finite blocks."

You said:

"Exactly, which is why computer climate models for predictions are worthless."

Climate models are supposed to estimate the avolution of the climate for a given scenario. One thing they aren't is a deterministic forecast. They provide a projection, not a prediction. That's not just a matter of semantics, there is a distinct difference in meaning.

Oh, and as you agreed with me in all of the above except interpretation, you have some hubris to claim that:

"Stu you display ignorance of computer systems and computer science." - care to point out where?

Weather vs Climate

Albatross at 04:26 AM on 27 March, 2011

Moderators, why is Poptech being permitted to troll and derail this thread?

I agree with Rob @60, SkepticalScience is above this kind of nonsense and typically has a very high signal-to-noise ratio, that is why it is pretty much the only place that I choose to post on climate issues.

Weather vs Climate

Rob Honeycutt at 04:01 AM on 27 March, 2011

flambeaub.... I know it seems futile at times but I think it is a valuable exercise debating Poptech. I always try to put myself in the shoes of the broader readership here. What are they seeing in the conversation? I believe they easily see through PT's distortions and they see the other commenters here being mostly reasonable in their responses to him. People easily see the extremes PT goes to to defend his position. In that I believe the debate with him helps people to understand the larger debate on climate is almost exactly the same.

On top of that, it's a bit of a car crash every time PT stops by. And like a car crash it's hard for people NOT to watch. It appeals to our more base level instincts.

I don't think anyone wants to see Skeptical Science become just about this kind of car crash. Many may disagree with this but overall, from time to time, a PT car crash serves it's purposes.

Weather vs Climate

MichaelM at 03:55 AM on 27 March, 2011

Poptech et al provide great examples of the other side. They show off the arguments they have so badly that it is almost reassuring and at times comical.

Weather vs Climate

flambeaub at 03:30 AM on 27 March, 2011

I just started reading this blog a few days ago and find the information useful and more up to date than I can find anywhere else. However, I must say that I find it strange that Poptech seems to have hijacked this discussion and intelligent people are spending lots of time rebutting the same stupid arguments and he is not listening. Is this really the best use of our time and energy?

Models are unreliable

Dikran Marsupial at 02:46 AM on 27 March, 2011

Playing devils' advocate for a moment, if the models are as sensitive to the parameters that they can explain essentially any historical phenomena (as implied by Poptech), then why has no skeptic produced a model with a set of parameters that can explain the climate of the 20th century without CO2 radiative forcing? Has this been done?

I suspect the reason is simple, the models are not that sensitive to the tuning of parameters, especially as the parameters are often constrained by knowledge of the physics, so they can't be set to completely arbitrary values.

Weather vs Climate

MichaelM at 00:41 AM on 27 March, 2011

It's easy to see, in Poptech's arguments, parallels with the old creationist canard that anything less than 100% of the human eye is useless therefor it cannot have evolved.

His argument is equally as easy to brush aside.

The Libertarian Climate Conundrum

grypo at 14:19 PM on 26 March, 2011

Poptech says that there is no debate, and the premise for his argument is that the people making it are not libertarians. Another premise of that premise is that there are only one group of people who can call themselves libertarians and regard maximizing individual liberty as high value. Another premise must be that only libertarians that Poptech believes are libertarians can make arguments about libertarians, or else "no debate". This premise needs a lot of citation, not personal beliefs

I'm afraid this argument PT is making fails on several levels.

The Libertarian Climate Conundrum

Rob Honeycutt at 13:14 PM on 26 March, 2011

Poptech @ 82... There's not an economist in the world that would agree with you on any of the points you're making.

Do you somehow think that Obama came into office and just started willy-nilly stimulating the economy for no apparent reason? Do you not remember the economy was in an all out free fall about the time of the election?

What is it about Libertarianism that makes your memory so limited?

Oh yeah... I almost forgot. We're in the Poptech alternate universe.

The Libertarian Climate Conundrum

Rob Honeycutt at 12:57 PM on 26 March, 2011

Poptech @ 79... That's right. It looks to me like Milton Friedman's ideas have not panned out so well over the past 30 years.

@80... And the job losses are not a function of Obama's policies they were a direct result of the policies of the previous administration.

The Libertarian Climate Conundrum

Rob Honeycutt at 11:59 AM on 26 March, 2011

Poptech... The market doesn't seem to share your interpretation of "interventionist Keynesian policies."

The Dow Jones average since Obama took office

And isn't interesting how applying the same laissez faire policies in the US have translated into falling real incomes for Americans over the past couple of decades while enriching an ever thinning class of ultra wealthy.

The Libertarian Climate Conundrum

Rob Honeycutt at 07:48 AM on 26 March, 2011

Poptech @ 69... Hong Kong, since the turnover to China, has been called an SAR. Special Administrative Region. The areas inside China close to HK, coastal Guangdong province, is called the SEZ, a Special Economic (development) Zone. Those are the accepted terms.

The Libertarian Climate Conundrum

Rob Honeycutt at 07:44 AM on 26 March, 2011

Poptech @ 71... Again, Milton Freedman is ascribing to economics what is more likely a function of location. Go take a look at the economic performance of Singapore. Vastly different economic system and yet almost identical economic performance.

You may not realize it yet but lots of people are rethinking much of what Friedman put forth and looking back again at Keynes.

The Libertarian Climate Conundrum

johnd at 05:52 AM on 26 March, 2011

Poptech at 05:46 AM , whatever other advantages HK enjoyed, the low, flat rate of tax was the most inspired.
Whilst taxpayers in high taxing countries expended time and energy to reduce their tax liability, it was more advantageous in HK to expend that time and energy to increase their tax liability.

The Libertarian Climate Conundrum

Rob Honeycutt at 05:30 AM on 26 March, 2011

Poptech... HK is not part of the SEZ. It just happens to be the "gateway" to the SEZ.

You may note that Shenzhen (on the HK border) has grown from a small fishing village into a metropolis of nearly 10 million since the SEZ was established. And that's not even counting the growth of the other cities included in the SEZ.

THAT has driven the prosperity of HK. HK would have prospered regardless of what form of government was established there. The feather in your cap has nothing to do with Libertarianism.

The Libertarian Climate Conundrum

Rob Honeycutt at 04:54 AM on 26 March, 2011

Poptech... You have a complete and total concept of what will lead to economic disaster.

And Hong Kong? How much time do you spend in HK, Andrew? I spend a lot of time there. I speak Cantonese. My wife is Chinese. How you come to the conclusion that HK is some bastion of Libertarianism it totally beyond me.

Do you think that, you know, just maybe HK has prospered because it has been the gateway city to the economic development in Shenzhen and the entire Pearl River Valley? (Dong guan, Guangzhou, etc.) You remember? The "economic development zone" set up by the (ahem) Communist Chinese Government.

Meet The Denominator

Rob Honeycutt at 04:32 AM on 26 March, 2011

WSteven said... "So, yes you did unless you've reinvented english and logic."

Ding! Ding! Ding! Yes, Johnny, we have a winner!

This is exactly Poptech's calling card. The alternate reality of Poptech logic.

The Libertarian Climate Conundrum

Rob Honeycutt at 04:21 AM on 26 March, 2011

Poptech... I realize there is more than one macroeconomic theory. Do not underestimate my knowledge in this area. I know about the Austrian School and Mises. And the Chicago School and Keynesianism. You are mincing words with a broad axe.

The point being, Libertarianism today is a guise for setting up a Plutocratic state. Most who profess to believe in Libertarian values do not even have a concept of what they are asking for. This is quite well evidenced through the article here.

So, in a way you are correct. No one is talking about true Libertarian ideals, any more than Communism ever had that much to do with Marxism. My problem with Libertarians is, like Communism, it will never be applied as defined and will never work. It's a recipe for economic collapse.

The Libertarian Climate Conundrum

Rob Honeycutt at 02:31 AM on 26 March, 2011

Poptech said... "any "solution" involving government fiat has nothing to do with markets and thus is impossible for it to be a "market-solution"."

You're a little slim on your macroeconomics there, Poptech. You might go back are read a little Keynes. Government is very much involved in economics. The governments uses a wide variety of tools to modify desirable market behaviors. Interest rates, tax incentives, money supply, etc.

If you take the government completely out of economics then the market literally becomes the government. And I think that is exactly what Libertarians want. Especially very large and powerful corporations. The term is: Plutocracy.

The problem is that Libertarians rely on the mistaken idea from the Chicago School that markets are inherently rational. The last decade should tell anyone that they are decidedly not so. Even in their best Milton Freedman-esk attempt to prove it (the Greenspan years) the Fed still had to modify the market through interest rate adjustments.

Don't forget Greenspan's word after the collapse. "We underestimated banks ability to police themselves."

The Libertarian Climate Conundrum

DSL at 00:47 AM on 26 March, 2011

Not true, Poptech. You're referring to the market system as described by economic modes that rely on private property relations. Markets (and market solutions) can easily work within other modes, including those where the government has a hand in regulating the markets such that they perform optimally. A completely free market under private property relations would perform so inefficiently that people (having had the experience of government regulation in theory if not in practice) would demand some form of social regulation.

The libertarian support of capitalism is one of the more bizarre philosophical moves of the last few centuries. Why encourage the concentration of real (economic) power in the hands of a small group of people who don't have your interests in mind? In other words, what's the difference between a government and a business run under the capitalist model? At least a democratic government has the ostensible job of serving the people (i.e. worrying about all that externalizing). The driving value of the business under capitalism is the generation of capital (i.e. finding ways to externalize and drive up profits). I remember a free market theorist, speaking in the documentary The Corporation, making the claim that if he could, he would turn air into a commodity (subject to the private property system).

Meet The Denominator

WSteven at 23:51 PM on 25 March, 2011

Poptech

You said, "All papers are listed because they support a skeptic's argument against AGW or AGW Alarm." So, yes you did unless you've reinvented english and logic.

The paper, "An alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere" does not fall into the Sqeptic category (despite some apparent flaws) as these issues are known the climate scientists and are a matter of public record. Ergo, the paper falls into the realm of the usual skepticism which naturally prevails all of science and this paper is another attempt to resolve said issues.

Meet The Denominator

WSteven at 15:49 PM on 25 March, 2011

So Poptech came on SkS's FB page in defence of his 850 Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of "Man-Made" Global Warming (AGW) Alarm. Since he kept insisting that the papers by Roger A. Pielke Jr. and his father supported AGW skepticism I decided to read the Rogers' papers on Poptech's list.

I've just finished reading "An alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere". That paper is skeptical, but not in the fashion of the contrarians. It's more skeptical in the way science in naturally skeptical and analyzes a problem between ground and satellite sensors that climate scientists appear to have been working on for some time now.

So, that's one paper that Poptech should remove IMHO.

Of Satellites and Air – A Primer on Tropospheric temperature measurement by Satellite

WSteven at 15:30 PM on 25 March, 2011

Oddly enough, I just finished reading "An alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere" [Pielke Jr. et al, 2009]. This particular article in combination with this one couldn't have come at a better time.

[OT] As for the Pielke Jr. article, I don't think it means what Mr. Poptech thinks it means.

2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

JMurphy at 00:02 AM on 23 March, 2011

Tom Curtis, you and the others here are doing sterling work but I wonder to what end. This has become like a thread that involves Poptech : circular and pointless. As you say, it is creating an illusion of some sort of debate, which is incomprehensible to the vast majority of people who understand that the greenhouse effect does not break any physical laws. Perhaps it is time to ask and demand answers to certain basic, and on-topic questions, from the so-called skeptics, with anything else being deleted as off-topic and time-wasting ?
They would scream censorship, no doubt, but I believe the rest of us would welcome the decline in time-wasting nonsense - as I'm sure you would welcome the ability to concentrate on other matters !

Climate sensitivity is low

hank at 02:13 AM on 9 March, 2011

The prior suggestions are
1) poptech redefining the laws of physics, a notorious outlier shows his stuff everywhere

2) Isaac Held has a blog, finally. If you don't know his name, read some of his papers and look for his rare posts at other climate blogs about his work. Very good news to see him start writing more for the public in this blog form.

3) Stoat on Spencer on climate sensitivity: Spencer thinks he can't possibly be wrong, and given that assumption, what else can explain why he's so alone?

Climate sensitivity is low

hank at 04:29 AM on 8 March, 2011

> what's next, redefining the laws of physics ....?

Chuckle. Yep.

http://www.google.com/search?q=%2Bspencer+%2Bpoptech+%2Brefute

Blaming the Pacific Decadal Oscillation

Philippe Chantreau at 14:11 PM on 7 March, 2011

"Does the angle of insolation and subsequent distribution not change significantly?"

What do you mean by significantly? You use a lot of adverbs. If you were talking with Poptech, he would altogether dismiss you for being "subjective." Of course, that would be another sterile rethorical trick.

"The Paleo data also shows previous interglacials, with lower CO2 levels, being warmer than the one were are in now. This is a strong indication that CO2 is not a significant driver of these cycles. If it were, temperatures would be even warmer than previous interglacials - not cooler." That argument would hold only if the current temp was equilibrium. It's not.

In any case, that is a different argument than your original one in #61, which was that CO2 was not acting as a positive feedback. Once again, ill defined words such as "strong indication" or "significant driver" push your argument more toward the rethorical. I'm not sure what you mean by driver. If that would be initial cause, it is well accepted that the orbital changes are the driver and that CO2 is a feedback.

Your argument in post 61 that the lag shows that CO2 is not a feedback is no more valid now than it was before. Perhaps it was just poorly formulated. Your assertion that CO2 levels and interglacials do not coincide is false, as shown in the graph in your post #67.

A Real-World Example of Carbon Pricing Benefits Outweighing Costs

Marcus at 19:37 PM on 5 March, 2011

"It seems that anyone who disagrees with you or anyone else in the pro-global warming crowd is from the "pro-fossil fuel brigade."

Actually, that's patently untrue. I save that label only for people who (a) use extremely lame arguments to "disprove" the anthropogenic link to global warming, (b) try & use equally lame arguments to "prove" we shouldn't take any action to reduce CO2 emissions or (c) refuse to engage in a proper debate on the issues. So you, Gary & Poptech will most certainly get labeled with that epithet-as I rightly think you deserve. Although I disagree with many other people at this site, I most certainly don't necessarily accuse them all of being pro-fossil fuel industry.

Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame

Eric (skeptic) at 23:19 PM on 4 March, 2011

les, my advice to poptech is Choose One (objective or subjective). I have always had an objectivist philosophy (although not perfectly matched to Randianism), so when I see a probability distribution I immediately look around for the data it was based on. Often there is literally none.

As for your policy argument, we are not facing unknowns like one or more typhoid Marys or a human-based decision to go to war. It is simply a complex natural process with some true unknowables like intergalactic cosmic ray flux, future volcanic activity, future solar activity (known to some extent), etc. A lot of these are ambiguous or more likely to cool, so not really worth debating.

Everything else is knowable. There is no reason to apply subjectivity to the issue of sensitivity, just better models, validated against real world measurements. The bottom line is that 5C warming (or choose your favorite number) has a zero or a 100% probability of happening within time X (choose 100 years but not 1000), under specific conditions such as BAU. That statement contains no room for any subjectivity other than BAU being made as a human choice which is really only a marginal issue.

Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame

Daniel Bailey at 04:15 AM on 3 March, 2011

Just as an FYI, someone also posting by the name "Gilles" has been clogging up threads over at Real Climate for over a year now. Not saying that this "correlation" means anything.

In the wake of the Poptech, damorbel and RW1 threads, just wanted to point it out.

The Yooper

Meet The Denominator

pbjamm at 02:25 AM on 1 March, 2011

Poptech@773
What evidence do you have to support your assertion that it is C and not A? For this to be a non-conspiracy then you need to provide more to back up your claim than vague accusations of impropriety by faceless government officials.

Meet The Denominator

pbjamm at 08:18 AM on 28 February, 2011

poptech@758
"This means that over the years the amount of government funding climate change research has received has increased."

I dont think that anyone would dispute that Climate Change research has been receiving an increasing amount of money over the last 30 years. This is logical if it is considered an important topic worth researching. Why do you bring it up? What relevance does it have to the conversation we are having? You may also want to look into the vast increase in Space and Astronautics funding since the 1920s.

How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural

pbjamm at 03:46 AM on 28 February, 2011

Poptech,
Since the Moderators here are clearly afraid that your insightful comments will expose the fraud of AGW perhaps you should take this fight to your own blog where you have no fear of censorship. There you can keep fighting the good fight against the repressive forces of science and logic. There you are in charge of the comments policy and can filter out all the scientific mumbo-jumbo.

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