jryan

Given GISS and Hansen's recent record on "warmest ever" proclamations I would give this a few months to stew before checking it into evidence.

Hansen and GISS glide through the climate debate with these proclamations when the dirty little secret is that GISStemp records, and certainly the proclamations, are not subject to the same peer review processes that they are quick to use in disqualifying their detractors.

GISSTEMP has numerous outstanding issues that hopefully now can be addressed in the open. Some of the past errors that were corrected after undue hardship (due to stonewalling on Hansen's part):

There was the Y2K flub where they started measuring temps later in the day after the Y2K software update and failed to adjust.. this was the source of the "8 of the 10 warmest years were in the last decade" claim... which had to be downgraded to 2 out of 10. Oops.

And the California problem where they have eliminated inland weather station data from their calculation of global mean leaving 6 coastal stations which artificially inflated the warming across all of California and a 0.6 bias across the U.S.

And then their was the failure to adjust ocean temp records for the switch from bucket water collection to engine intake.

The kicker is that these errors have since been acknowledged after some resistance, but instead of casting a skeptical eye on GISSTemp and Hansen, those who get it right are the ones who take the heat from the climate community.

So, like I said, let this stew for a while. Hansen's track record is abysmal. Hell, there are more demonstrable problems with GISS than with CRUTemp and HADCrut, and those were taken offline for concerns of data tampering.

jryan, I don't have access to the full article as I'm not a Nature subscriber, however that article is about the sensitivity of the climate system to positive feedbacks occurring as part of the carbon cycle. It states that the magnitude of the climate sensitivity of the global carbon cycle is most likely in the lower portion of the range of previous estimates. Therefore papers which show forecasts in the upper portion of the expected range are probably wrong, and that the effects of anthropogenic CO₂ will not be as amplified by positive feedbacks as the upper estimates might suggest. This this paper may provide the basis for more refined projections, but the original estimates were still giving a range.

 

 

 

I don't see what this paper has to do with any of these statements.

 

But hey, since you're back, perhaps you'd care to opine on this thread.

It is about positive feedback. But it is that very same positive feedback that drives the current high end predictions on climate change. Without the high sensitivity of 40ppm/1C feedback -- in this case a much more modest 8ppm/1C -- there is a logical upper bounds of human contribution to climate because their is a logical upper bound of the CO2 we will produce in the next 100 years. We'd be hard pressed to double our CO2 output every 20-30 years... especially when the natural progression (absent the climate driven hysteria) has been toward cleaner and cheaper energies since the beginning of the industrial age.

This 40ppm sensitivity was supposed to be the upward pressure (for lack of a better term) that counterbalanced the known downward pressure of the logarithmic relationship between CO2 and warming. That is to say, while diminishing returns on CO2 warming bend the curve to the horizontal the increasing CO2 feedback was pushing the curve back closer to a linear relationship.

Edit: Also, on the "one study" and "not critiqued yet" qualifications: So peer review isn't enough anymore to discuss the implications of a study?

Hey, the Himalayan Glacier thing is a HUGE relief! That was the worst case scenario as far as I was concerned, and I'm glad it's now been pushed back 300 years apparently... still waiting to see more solid 'peer review' work on it.

 

But your paragraph above is a huge generalisation. "Squashed opposition"? Surely you mean 'attempted to', and then the paper they attempted to squash (because it was crap that might confuse the public) was published anyway, and lo and behold! was found to be crapeth anyway.

 

I'd love to see you point to a specific email that you find to be the most condemning, and we'll see if it even remotely compares to the anti-science conspiracy that involves hundreds of millions of dollars that was actually run by Exxon (not 'attempted' by Exxon, but actually happened and is well documented), and ended up warping the Bush regime's attitude to climate. If you've got anything on climate gate that comes near to 1/10th of the anti-science FUD and propaganda put out by the Bush regime, I'll be astonished.

I would suggest you read the entirety of the link, POM. I'm not going to play your game of slicing up the emails into "most condemning" so you can argue simpler sound bites when the emails need to be taken as a whole.

So go read it and then we can discuss the entirety of the emails and the authors interpretations of them. Even individually, if you would like. But I would rather you use the knife to cut your own arguments.

Here is an interesting development in Climate change studies:

Journal Nature - CO2 Sensitivity Overstated

If CO2 sensitivity is indeed closer to the 7.7ppm average than to the 40ppm that has been assumed for many years, that could give all sides of the climate change ruckus a rather dignified exit from the current cage match that is AGW debate.

If correct this would lead to a few immediate conclusions:

1) Most of the CO2 rise in the atmosphere in the last 150 years is demonstrably anthropogenic.

2) A considerable portion of the warming is also anthropogenic... but...

3) forecasts of runaway global climate are incorrect

4) The majority of the warming that humanity can cause do to CO2 production has already occurred.

5) Humanity's contribution to warming over the last 150 years has been equally over estimated.

What this means to the heavily entrenched, or how well this will wash out in revised climate models remains to be seen. But there is no doubt that if a low sensitivity is indeed the reality, we can all breathe a sigh of relief and start arguing about different stuff moving forward.

As has been the contention of most skeptics for over a decade, it isn't the "science" of global warming that is in question, but the statistics that underlay the proofs.

So many skeptics have been shouted down by the consensus for not being expert climatologists while all many were doing was pointing out that there are severe statistical flaws in the models, and even right down to the smoothing of raw station data.

If an astrophysicist tells me that 2+2=7, I don't need to be an astrophysicist to call him on his error.

As such, there are many scientists and mathematicians with statistical prowess equal to and exceeding that of the climatologists at CRU, GISS, Hadley, and so on. They should have been heeded rather than demonized or targeted for black balling.

It's the MATH not the SCIENCE.

Given that, there is a very thorough dissection of CRU emails that cast a shadow on many of the defenses thrown abouot for the folks at CRU, as well as Mann, and it's looking more and more like James Hansen and the IPCC will fall before this is all over as well.

Such defenses include:

This was isolated... it wasn't.

This was only a few scientists... it was quite a few.

They weren't influential... They were the gatekeepers for the IPCC

And so on.

After reading the following link in it's entirety it should come as no surprise that the IPCC-AR4 is quickly being discovered to be chock full of unsubstantiated claims to rival the Himalayan Glacier fiasco. These Climategate emails show with great detail a group of IPCC gatekeepers that squashed opposition at every opportunity while failing in their due diligence on anything that remotely supported their preconceived notions of global climate...

Climategate E-Mails - Commentary by John Costella

The effect of all of this is hard to understate. The common understanding of climate change in the general culture is drawn from the IPCC-ARs over the years. Whether as journalistic interpretations on the AR itself, or the even more watered down journalistic interpretations of the Summary for Policy Makers (itself a summary of the IPCC-AR.. and a politically driven one at that).

Not the least of the outcomes of the Climategate scandal is it proves very clearly that the primary complaints by skeptics such as Richard Lindzen, and agnostics such as Steven McIntyre and Anthony Watts were completely founded in stark reality and not the product of some mysterious deal with Big Oil or misstatements of fact. Lindzen was absolutely correct that the IPCC was a political loony bin -- though he was vindicated more with the recent revelations of WWF non-scientific non-peer-reviewed studies cited as fact throughout the IPCC-AR4 -- and Steven McIntyre's campaign to crack open the very insular and opaque surface temperature clatch.

So, you're telling me that you declared the data and graph to be wrong BEFORE you even looked at the data feeding it? That's rather telling, and frankly I have no further desire to continue with you.

 

 

You: THAT'S WRONG!!

Me: Where?

You: I don't know. I haven't looked at the source data.

Me:

 

 

 

The sources were many.

http://www.grida.no/publications/vg/climate2/page/2694.aspx'>http://www.grida.no/publications/vg/climate2/page/2694.aspx

 

 

 

http://www.grida.no/publications/vg/climate2/

SOURCES: IPCC

URL:

http://www.vitalgraphics.net/climate2.cfm?pageID=5

Cartographer/Designer: Philippe Rekacewicz, UNEP/GRID-Arendal

 

NOTES: The diagram was made for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), for purposes of explanation, it has been modified to reflect the most recent projections (using IPCC data, 2007), also the historical temperature level and the proposed temperature threshold were also added in.

I was discussing the graph which you felt was sufficient to be "scientific", I commented on it in the spirit in which it was presented and you requested hard numbers derived from the graph.

You: You're wrong, here's a graph

Me: That graph looks wrong.

You: Don't comment on the graph comment on the numbers!

Me: Ok, where are the underlying numbers

You *Provides links to more graphs*

Me:

Saying they are "wrong" is not enough. You need to now clarify a) what precisely was mistaken, and b) what is the magnitude of that mistake. Are we talking about a 0.00001% difference in a projection, or are we talking about 7 orders of magnitude off?

Ok.. do you have the source of that graph? I will need the data that went into making it.

Obviously it isn't 7 orders of magnitude off as the margins of error are very generous.

Also, where is the MWP and LIA in that graph?

This is an interesting graph you have provided, iNow.

It appears to have been produced in or around 2000, which is the end of it's listed instrumental record and the beginning of it's projection period.

It is interesting in that ever single one of those projected warming trends is wrong when compared to the actual instrumental record of 2000-2009.

Edit: Retracted one statement on time scale

Good, we're making progress. We are no longer looking at the 30 year graph.

We have now moved into graphs depicting a glacial and interglacial cycle, which is, again, focusing on the interglacial warming rather than the full cycle. But the time slice has been increased by a factor of 10, so that is a step in the right direction.

jryan, I have to side with bascule on this point. The best that can be said for the most recent period is that the temp change is not statistically significant. It's pretty much "blah".

 

Having said that, then the question must be asked "Where is all the extra energy trapped by the increasing CO2 going?" It's not warming the atmosphere, it's not warming the oceans and ACE index is heading for record lows. So, where is it?

 

bascule, I think what jryan is getting at is that for most of the 30 year period, the PDO was in positive phase. This would mean that even without CO2 the temp trend would be positive. In that respect, the period from 1970-2000 could be viewed as "cherry picking". Just as only looking at the 1940-1970 cooling while the PDO was negative could be. The chosen period already had a warming trend from natural causes.

 

Seriously, the warming/cooling/warming trends track rather nicely to a PDO superimposed on an underlying warming trend since the LIA. So three questions;

 

1. What was the forcing that exited the planet from the LIA?

2. How do you kow it isn't still there?

3. If it isn't still there, is the planet still adjusting to it anyway? (Lag)

 

To explain 3.

 

If the TSI rose by say 2.6 w/m² in 1870, how long would it take the planet to reach the new equilibrium point? 50 years? 100 years? Any ideas?

 

Note that these aren't "debating questions", they're questions I don't know the answers to. I hope someone else might have some ideas.

Thanks, sometimes when you are in the middle of a debate it's easy to lose sight of different ways of stating the point to move the discussion along.

I hope you have better luck getting the idea across.

As for the point of stasis and or statistical insignificance in the last 10 years, sure, why not. That portion of my discussion is really not worth debating as it was merely a demonstration of the problems of short time slices. My point was not to make a definitive established trend over 10 years, but simply to show that the final 10 years do not follow the trend of the first 20. Also the divergence of the last 10 years appear to be the end of the 30 year warming PDO that dominate that time slice, and an end of the full 60 year PDO cycle.

Another way to put it is it makes no sense to show a 30 year time slice of global climate when we know that global climate has a very real 60 year oscillation influenced by the PDO. If anything, a 60 year time silce at minimum is necessary to weed out any PDO signal.

But the water vapor isn't doing the things you claim it was doing. Your example of a spatial variation in concentration was a strawman, since we are discussing temporal variations.

Again, you are completely missing my point. The spatial variation in water vapor and temperature changes more traveling from Washington DC to Albuquerque (or from sea level to the top of Mt. McKinley for that matter) than is claimed to be coming temporally in the next 100 years.

Unless you are claiming that DC and and Albuquerque are very similar in average temperature and humidity.

A threat of hypercapnia from atmospheric CO2 was never made. It was brought up as a rebuttal to your claim that CO2 could never be a pollutant, and your pursuit of this has ignored clarifying comments made by Phi and also by Sisyphus. (and a Tu Quoque fallacy as well)

Yes it was. It was made as an excuse for labeling CO2 a pollutant.

Again, if you want to claim hypercapnia is a threat in the environment then explain how that would happen and how CO2 is a pollutant at that point.

Furthermore, explain how exposing a person to the high CO2 environment is more deadly then filling that same space with water and submerging them.

By the hypercapnia argument, and the micronutrient argument, water is also a pollutant.

What I was doing was pointing out that your rebuttal was misplaced, as I explained above.

It wasn't misplaced. The argument for making CO2 a pollutant applies to everything. Too much rain an kill crops... that doesn't make it a pollutant.

Yes I am. What would be the point of reducing the bandwidth of your measurement. You suggested a 4000 year average, when the effect we are looking for is of a much shorter duration than that. You have a nanohertz signal, and you want an average that can't detect anything above a picohertz.

Ok, so if you don't want to compare current trends to historical trends, then how do you know if the trend is abnormal?

Merged post follows:

"Go fish" again, huh? The summary (which is Comic Sans? ow my eyes) makes the assertion "Global temperatures have been on a cooling trend since 2002" (which contradicts the previous assertion of cooling since 1998?) and again does not provide a citation. Or any citations, for that matter. This is supposed to be a scientific paper?

No, it's a summary, as I said.

You're making a claim. You have the burden of proof. Giving me a URL and expecting me to dig through it to find the information which confirms your position is in very bad form.

It's called reviewing the data and discussing points. If you aren't willing to do that, then our discussion is at an end.

Nice red herrings. Perhaps we could get back to your assertion that: "If you take an average from the peak of the 98 El Nino to present the temperature is definitely declining."

Again, you refuse to acknowledge the point I was making in ADMITTEDLY cherry picking that data. There is nothing to discuss with you.

Taking a 10 year trend is no different than taking a 30 year trend when talking about the dangers of abnormal, man made, climate change. You litteraly have nothing to compare it to.

This assertion is wrong. You are still yet to find data to defend it. Either find the data to support your position (don't just give me a link and expect me to find the points to support your position) or admit you're wrong.

I'm not trying to defend it other than my selection has all the same logical pitfalls as your 30 year selection.

It's a far more reputable source than any you have cited so far, which make inconsistent claims and don't support them with data or citations. Furthermore, making mistakes doesn't invalidate their research. The data were corrected. That's science for you: when errors are made they are corrected with the best available information.

Which brings us back to opinion. It's hard to claim "reputable" when they have resisted correction and ignored glaring issues with their data while the curator is spending so much time in advocacy endeavors.

I continue to maintain that your assertion: "If you take an average from the peak of the 98 El Nino to present the temperature is definitely declining" is wrong.

No it's not. The PDO follows 30 year cycles of warming and cooling, that 30 year time slice is dominated by a warm PDO.

The fact GISS made mistakes does not invalidate the totality of their research or any research output of NASA GISS as an organization. It only goes to show they are scientists who are willing to admit when they are wrong and are willing to make the appropriate corrections. You should be applauding them for that, not saying they are untrustworthy.

It's hard to show you one way or another because you will claim GISS as more reputable even though they have made some egregious errors, yet label those that found the errors as less reputable because they aren't 100% convinced of the AGW theory.

How can one penetrate such circular logic?

It seems you are of the resolute opinion that climate scientists are incorrect in their assertions and are willing to spout whatever inaccuracies you wish in order to undermine them. This makes you anti-science, not a skeptic.

Of course it seems that way to you. Those who care enough to check the work of climate scientists are part of the anti-science in your belief... which is a very counter-scientific stand.

I see, the "go fish" approach to defending your assertions.

 

Would you care to cite the appropriate passage from this paper which substantiates your assertion:

 

 

 

The paper does contain the phrase "global cooling has occurred since 1998" in the abstract but I am not seeing what data is used to support that statement.

Here is the summary, the Journal in which it is published requires a fee for more than the summary (as do many)

Specifically I'm looking for a calculation of the trend line between your cherry-picked El Nino endpoint and the present.

It's no more cherry lpicked than the 30 year slice you provided. Which is the point you have yet to address.

I'm not seeing it in this paper. Sorry.

No apology necessary.

As a counterpoint:

 

http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_805_en.html

It's the largest on record? Given that the record only goes back so far it's like saying that you are the set the world pogo stick golf score when you're the first to do it.

NASA GISS cites 2005 as the warmest year on record, edging out 1998

Records do not equal climate, nor does GISS. Also, there is some interesting studies by statisticians into how GISS does it's running averages and end points... and has been shown at least twice in the last 10 years to have skewed their data... once due to a failure to catch erroneous data in Siberia, and once in screwing up the measuring times with their Y2K conversion.

The former killed the "Warmest October on record" claim in 2007, and the latter killed the "warmest decade on record" when it was finally accepted into the GISS record.

So you may want to be a little cautious when claiming any GISS records.

I created this to explain to a friend the difference between liberals, Liberals and Libertarians:

Oh really? I think you're wrong. Can you find a source that backs this up? Despite cherry picking endpoints, I still say you're wrong. I want evidence. I want calculations.

http://climateresearchnews.com/2008/12/don-easterbrook-global-warming-since-1977-is-over/

See, this is what a real skeptic does. They don't take blind shots in the dark as you're doing. They look at an assertion and demand evidence.

Irony

I demand evidence. Please present me evidence.

So you said.

And to reiterate: you are not a skeptic. You are a propagator of disinformation, which is about as far from a skeptic as you can get.

An I reiterate that your attempts at character assassination lend nothing to the debate.

I am a skeptic. I am looking at assertions others are making and asking for supporting evidence. This is what skepticism is about.

You focus your energy on denying that which discredits the theory. I suppose if there was such a thing as an "affirmative skeptic" you would be one.

But please, defend your assertion and show I am wrong in questioning it! Present evidence to defend it. I am waiting.

I posted something for you to dig into, and I will await your meticulous examination.

Try to make it more meaty than the traditional link to "Who Worked for Big Oil Wiki" or other such nonsense.

So, are you going to answer the question? Is water vapor increasing with time, at a given location? Or is this a red herring?

Well, it was never intended to be a red herring, Swansont. Just an example of another compound in the atmosphere that in high enough concentrations can be deadly but that seems awfully silly to claim as a pollutant.

I would say it is a fairly simple assumption that warming climate leads to more water vapor, though.

And in what way is this response not ignoring the point, too?

Here is the problem Swansnot, you are jumping into completely unrelated discussions, ignoring the reason the points were made in the first place, and then attacking them as if they were some central thesis.

Go back and look at the reasons I was making the points I was making.... maybe take someone to task for claiming a threat of hypercapnia.

No, I didn't jump in with a suggestion that we not only smooth out the noise but also the signal you're trying to measure by using a really long averaging time. What would be the point?

Are you asking what would be the point of a longer average time?

I don't think the spatial variation is the issue. It's the temporal variation at a particular location. The CO2 concentration at Mauna Loa, for example. Is water vapor showing the same kind of increase?

Talk about out of wack. I brought up water vapor as a counter to the claim that increasing CO2 is a pollutant. I couldn't care less whether water vapor is increasing in step with CO2 OR climate, though I would guess there is some correlation to the later.

It may have been an overly dry joke comparing drowning to hypercapnia as water and CO2 relate to the atmosphere. But the point remains. If you want to claim hypercapnia as a threat from rising CO2 you mights as will claim that rising water vapor will lead to drownings.

This misses or ignores the concerns. The issue isn't whether humans can tolerate a change in temperature, it's the effects of that increase. Rising ocean levels, for example, would displace a lot of people, at a large cost. Desertification will yield areas unable to grow crops.

It wasn't lost or ignored. Sea levels rise and fall and have historically. It would be quite a feat to keep them in stasis.

As for desertification, try an ice age. A global drop in humidity and the atmospheres ability to hold moisture does a real number on precipitation.

Cherry-picking will tend to do that.

It sure will.

Exactly what using a rolling average does. So why don't you do that?

Which is my point entirely... I was demonstrating that the 30 year time slice was not very helpful given it's bias toward upward pacific oscillations. I just didn't see you jump in with instruction to others that a 30 year time slice is not particularly helpful in discussing climate, but rather long term rolling averages are better.

If you want to talk 30 year average you might as well talk 10.

I'm glad you cleared that up for everyone.

Fair enough. My point was basically that it's not good to throw off the mixture in the air we breathe. If more water vapor is present in the air due to global warming (since the total amount of water itself doesn't change), then it makes sense to do what we can about global warming.

The over all variation in water vapor, CO2 and even oxygen is far more prevalent in simple changes in latitude or altitude.. yet we do it all the time. If you don't want an increase in water vapor in the air you breathe then never travel to the tropics.

Again, I'd like to remind you that the argument is not for plants themselves, but for the air we humans breathe and the crops we grow for food. Plants may thrive in a more CO2 rich environment (albeit with less of the nutrients for use as food), but I'm more concerned about me. As swansont noted, the earth will survive just fine, it's the humans we're concerned with here.

Well, again, worries about atmospheric concentrations of water seems inconsequential when compared to traveling from, say, Washington DC to Albuquerque... that is a major change in atmosphere, but I do it all the time for work.

So if your primary worry is the effects on you personally, fear not. The Human species is very robust and can survive from the south pole to the north pole and everywhere in between.

The crop worries are very real, but is much more effected by a decline in temperature than in a rise in temperature. I don't think Brazil has any inherent handicap in growing corn versus Oklahoma even though Oklahoma is much cooler on average than Brazil.

Does it need to get serious to be a concern? Considering that some of the early onset symptoms are reduced neural activity and increased blood pressure, isn't even a bit more unacceptable? Can you trust even your own judgment in this if your brain might not be running at full capacity due to prolonged exposure to higher than normal CO2 levels? And if it's unacceptable now, isn't now the time to do what we can to keep it from getting worse?

Well, the current concentration of CO2 is .038%, the earliest onset of hypercapnia (drowsiness) is at 1%. That translates in a CO2 concentration of 10,000ppm over the current 380ppm.... or a 2,600% increase over current levels. The worst prediction by the IPCC, since you accept their findings, is a quadrupling of CO2... still far far below even early onset hypercapnia.

In other words, we will never have that much CO2 in the atmosphere even if we try.

From the article, "The first compilation, to my knowledge, of published data supports the claim and shows an overall decline of the (essential elements):C ratio. Therefore, high [CO2] could intensify the already acute problem of micronutrient malnutrition." So using science, this tells me that the best data we have at the present suggests the theory is sound, subject to further tests and review, of course. Right now the theory is a nail on a board rather than a fancy polished hook, but it'll hold my hat for now.

Nutrient deprivation in the soil has been a concern of humanity since the advent of farming. It is the reason for crop rotation and fertilizers. In this case the effect on humanity would be slim... if we are worrying about OUR food crops, a minor change in fertilizer corrects any imbalance if the study shows to be true.

If it is the third world farmer that you are worried about, I would suggest that there are several concerns to handle first that are orders of magnitude higher than a drop in micronutrients. Like dependable irrigation, steady access to fertilizers, and proper pest controls. In other words, I would worry first about the output of the farm before the level of micronutients.

I can't locate it at the moment, but I remember studying a disorder back in my neuropsychology courses in college that struck large swaths of people in Europe for many generations.. it resulted in a high rate of what was thought to be retardation. This lead early Europeans to think the ground was haunted, and later scientists to believe in weak genetics.... turned out is was a nutrient deficiency in the soil.

Changes in farming eliminated the disorder within a generation.

So, again, humans are adaptable.

Given all that, I would still wait for actual numbers to start rolling in before I take this seriously. That isn't to say I take it as a joke, just that I don't yet see enough to be concerned.

Should we study it? Sure! So long as the studies are done appropriately and all data and calculations and samples are provided to the world to evaluate. If they come back and say "The study has proven that micronutrients have dropped dramatically... but we won't release our data to just anyone... we have IP concerns, you know!" I will start to become skeptical of their study just as I have with work by Jones, Mann, Hansen, et al. who require FOI filings just to release their data and calculations.

One other nagging question I am still trying to answer about this study is it sounds like the concentration in micronutrients in the plant is a factor of increased mass of the plant itself. That is to say, there is enough CO2 to promote increased growth but not enough soil trace nutrients to provide the same concetrations in the plants that grow.

It is interesting and you have given me a new thing to research, so thanks for that. If it turns out that plants are getting too big or growing too fast as it sounds right now, I would have to start wondering what the worry is.

You were arguing that the only factor in alternative energy sources "being foisted on the country" were those used in AGW mitigation, and then you started using examples of bad small cars. My argument against that is that these alternatives provide more than just AGW mitigation, and that they are in the early stages of development considering how they've been suppressed for the last 30 years through lobbying by the oil industry. Can you please point out the Strawman? I don't think there is one, my friend.

Nowhere else will you find products in the "Early Stages of Development" being pushed as the new standard in any industry.

Also, even accepting the notion that the oil companies suppressed alternative energies (we can debate that elsewhere), that is not a viable reason for pushing for installation of admittedly stunted technology "in the wild".

If your claim were true, then let the Government help fund and protect alternative energy STUDIES until they can compete in price and availability with natural gas, oil, nuclear and coal. I don't want the federal government funding alternative energy INSTALLATION if the tech isn't ready to compete.

Merged post follows:

Fair enough. My point was basically that it's not good to throw off the mixture in the air we breathe. If more water vapor is present in the air due to global warming (since the total amount of water itself doesn't change), then it makes sense to do what we can about global warming.

The over all variation in water vapor, CO2 and even oxygen varies far more through travel yet it happens all the time. If you don't want an increase water vapor in the air then definitely never travel to the tropics.

Again, I'd like to remind you that the argument is not for plants themselves, but for the air we humans breathe and the crops we grow for food. Plants may thrive in a more CO2 rich environment (albeit with less of the nutrients for use as food), but I'm more concerned about me. As swansont noted, the earth will survive just fine, it's the humans we're concerned with here.

Well, again, worries about atmospheric concentrations of water seems inconsequential when compared to traveling from, say, Washington DC to Albuquerque... that is a major change in atmosphere, but I do it all the time for work.

So if your primary worry is the effects on you personally, fear not. The Human species is very robust and can survive from the south pole to the north pole and everywhere in between.

The crop worries are very real, but is much more effected by a decline in temperature than in a rise in temperature. I don't think Brazil has any inherent handicap in growing corn versus Oklahoma even though Oklahoma is much cooler on average than Oklahoma.

Does it need to get serious to be a concern? Considering that some of the early onset symptoms are reduced neural activity and increased blood pressure, isn't even a bit more unacceptable? Can you trust even your own judgment in this if your brain might not be running at full capacity due to prolonged exposure to higher than normal CO2 levels? And if it's unacceptable now, isn't now the time to do what we can to keep it from getting worse?

Well, the current concentration of CO2 is .038%, the earliest onset of hypercapnia (drowsiness) is at 1%. That translates in a CO2 concentration of 10,000ppm over the current 380ppm.... or a 2,600% increase over current levels. The worst prediction by the IPCC, since you accept their findings, is a quadrupling of CO2... still far far below even early onset hypercapnia.

In other words, we will never have that much CO2 in the atmosphere even if we try.

From the article, "The first compilation, to my knowledge, of published data supports the claim and shows an overall decline of the (essential elements):C ratio. Therefore, high [CO2] could intensify the already acute problem of micronutrient malnutrition." So using science, this tells me that the best data we have at the present suggests the theory is sound, subject to further tests and review, of course. Right now the theory is a nail on a board rather than a fancy polished hook, but it'll hold my hat for now.

Nutrient deprivation in the soil has been a concern of humanity since the advent of farming. It is the reason for crop rotation and fertilizers. In this case the effect on humanity would be slim... if we are worrying about OUR food crops, a minor change in fertilizer corrects any imbalance if the study shows to be true.

If it is the third world farmer that you are worried about, I would suggest that there are several concerns to handle first that are orders of magnitude higher than a drop in micronutrients. Like dependable irrigation, steady access to fertilizers, and proper pest controls. In other words, I would worry first about the output of the farm before the level of micronutients.

I can't locate it at the moment, but I remember studying a disorder back in my neuropsychology courses in college that struck large swaths of people in Europe for many generations.. it resulted in a high rate of what was thought to be retardation. This lead early Europeans to think the ground was haunted, and later scientists to believe in weak genetics.... turned out is was a nutrient deficiency in the soil.

Changes in farming eliminated the disorder within a generation.

So, again, humans are adaptable.

Given all that, I would still wait for actual numbers to start rolling in before I take this seriously. That isn't to say I take it as a joke, just that I don't yet see enough to be concerned.

Should we study it? Sure! So long as the studies are done appropriately and all data and calculations and samples are provided to the world to evaluate. If they come back and say "The study has proven that micronutrients have dropped dramatically... but we won't release our data to just anyone... we have IP concerns, you know!" I will start to become skeptical of their study just as I have with work by Jones, Mann, Hansen, et al. who require FOI filings just to release their data and calculations.

You were arguing that the only factor in alternative energy sources "being foisted on the country" were those used in AGW mitigation, and then you started using examples of bad small cars. My argument against that is that these alternatives provide more than just AGW mitigation, and that they are in the early stages of development considering how they've been suppressed for the last 30 years through lobbying by the oil industry. Can you please point out the Strawman? I don't think there is one, my friend.

Nowhere else will you find products in the "Early Stages of Development" being pushed as the new standard in any industry.

Also, even accepting the notion that the oil companies suppressed alternative energies (we can debate that elsewhere), that is not a viable reason for pushing for installation of admittedly stunted technology "in the wild".

If your claim were true, then let the Government help fund and protect alternative energy STUDIES until they can compete in price and availability with natural gas, oil, nuclear and coal. I don't want the federal government funding alternative energy INSTALLATION if the tech isn't ready to compete.

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This is still wrong, and to reiterate, it's a claim so audacious even the rather misinformed WSJ author in the OP didn't even make it. That author merely said it "flatlined", which is still wrong.

No it's not. If you take an average from the peak of the 98 El Nino to present the temperature is definitely declining.

You can argue that a time slice that takes advantage of an El Nino start and La Nina finish is an unfair comparison... but that would also be my point in a 30 year time slice dominated by the 98 El Nino.

So, I guess what I am trying to say is let the current La Nina finish and then let's look at the trend, and make time slice comparisons that aren't by choice biased by either El Ninos or La Ninas.

CO2 *is* being increased in the air we breathe and methods of curbing the human causes are available to us. Water *is not* being increased in the air we breathe, unless you have evidence to the contrary, so bringing it up here is a Red Herring logical fallacy known as Strawman, and is a poor argument.

Huh... global warming without an increase in water vapor? That's not what I read.

Denying them CO2 would kill them, and was not part of my argument. *Increased* CO2 levels are what reduces the micronutrients, and since we can't stop anything other than our own additions to the pollutant levels, this is what we should concentrate on, what the AGW solutions will help fix along with any actual AGW trends. I mention it because it shows that the solutions are not just throwing our money away on something that may or may not be true. We *know* that excess CO2 is harmful to us.

Ok, well, please do better than the Wiki article about CO2, then, because as I read it also covers the "co2 is used in plant respiration and is essential to photosynthesis" argument as well.

Note also that it says that a 5% concentration of CO2 is when get into the serious side effects of hypercapnia... which is equivalent to 50,000ppm compared to the current 380ppm.

As for the micronutrient effects from a CO2 imballance... if you read the actual thesis here rather than the blurb in Wikipedia, you see that the study is a mathematical support for a theory with no actual proofing in the actual world ecosystems being done yet.

So don't hang you hat on that theory just yet.

How are my comments about the oil lobby Strawmanning with regards to your comments about automobile failures? I fail to see your reasoning here.

Because I made no claim about oil companies or the imaginary advances that could have happened in their absence. You are claiming that my argument is a strawman while making an argument I didn't make and shooting it down with "Who Killed the Electric Car" arguments.

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And you're wrong. This is disinformation. It's disinformation that even the incredibly misinformed author of the WSJ didn't even have the audacity to state. At least she claimed warming has "flat lined", and only for the most recent decade. That's wrong, but even she didn't claim there was cooling, let alone a 30 year period of cooling.

"Spreading falsehoods"... hmmm...

You are completely misrepresenting or misunderstanding my argument and then calling it disiformation.

It's almost not worth discussing with you anymore, but I will soldier on as the point is worth making.

First, I never claimed that there is 30 years of cooling. Go back and reread the posts. I stated that the final third of that graph is cooling... which is to be expected as it cuts off in the middle of a La Nina. After all, you tried to adminish me for not taking La Ninas into account in my argument while showing a graph whose trend line is HEAVILY influenced by a single El Nino.

I am not the one disregarding La Ninas, amigo.

You're actively disseminating disinformation. That doesn't make you a skeptic. It makes you a liar.

No at the moment I am disseminating contrary information that you seem to be misreading.

I do hold out hope that agree on terms at some point and we can properly address the graph you have provided.

Every model I've seen incorporates non-human factors, and isolates human influence. Have you looked at any actual papers?

Actually, they don't. Or not that I have seen. They claim to isolate out human influence... but in every paper I have read the "human influence" is nothing more than a catchall for whatever they believe to be unexplainable by the natural influences they have determined.

It's just another issue I have with the science.

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Just because there are traces of CO2 in the air we breathe and that much of it is produced naturally, it doesn't mean an increased level of CO2 isn't a pollutant. Increased CO2 can lead to Hypercapnia in humans, and has been shown to reduce micronutrients in our crop foods. Just because CO2 is emitted from natural sources like volcanoes adn other organisms, it doesn't mean an excess of it isn't a pollutant in the human environment.

Well, using the Hypercapnia argument why don't we label water a pollutant? I hear too much of than in the lungs is bad for you too.

As for the reduction in mitronutrients in plants... well then, lets deny those plants CO2.

Kidding aside, the concentration of CO2 in the air we breathe needed to bring on hypercapnia is absurdly high if you are projecting that to the whole atmosphere. It's nowhere near the 383ppm we have now.

Strawmen, all. Again, lobbying by the fossil fuel industries have suppressed normal market development of alternatives. We're 30 years behind where we should be due to complacency, political maneuvering and spin/scare tactics. It's easy to point to the failures and claim they represent the alternatives; there were a lot of failures and problems when oil's infrastructure was being developed. It's part of the process and sustainable energy has had to fight an entrenched oil and gas lobby that has suppressed technology and advancement at every turn.

Talk about strawmen...

jryan,

 

I too am skeptical (which I will discuss in more detail below) about the global warming theory. But it is undeniable that today's climate is warmer than it was in the past. To argue otherwise is being ignorant. And no, that is NOT intended as an insult to you, unless you want to deny this point. Either stop denying the climate has changed relative to 10, 50, 100 years ago; or provide actual evidence it hasn't changed.

I'm not arguing that the current climate isn't warmer than the past, I am arguing that the warming is not anthropogenic in nature, or the portion that is anthropogenic is likely very small. As it is, the actual warming of the planet in the last 150 years (a time of recovery from the LIA) is agreed to be 0.7 C +/- .16 C (last I checked... I'm having trouble tracking down a quote that lists the error range).

I am saying that the portion, even assuming it exists, of the climate increase that is anthropogenic falls within the error range of the observed warming.

Another question I have regarding AGW is this: absent industrialization, what do climatologist assume would be the current global climate? Are we assuming a continuation of the LIA? Are we assuming 150 years of stasis? Or are we assuming a lesser warming trend? If the latter, how much less?

It would seem to me if you want to argue an affirmative affect of human action you should have a good idea of what it would look like i the absence of human action.

My skepticism is in regards to some (not all) of the claims by those insisting and demanding on huge, expensive, complex changes immediately. There needs to be more debate and research on what to do in response to this climate change. Sure, there is a problem but how big of a problem is it? How can we fix (or mitigate) it? Lets count the cost and benefits for proposed actions and determine what actions are sensible (and before we can really do this, we need to understand our climate better than we currently do).

This is an excellent point, and it also plays a role in my skepticism. But I take it further than that. If it is found that the extremely costly actions we take now were worthless in regard to AGW, I fear the public support for alternative energy dies with AGW.

If there are very good reasons for alternative fuel not connected to AGW (and I believe there are) then argue THOSE points for alternative energy rather than AGW fear mongering.

It is ignorant, IMO, of people to presuppose massive changes to our economy are absolutely necessary without having even a shred of research regarding if this will even result in anything positive let alone pass a cost/benefit analysis. Panic does not solve problems.

Exactly right.

I know someone who installs solar hot water systems for a living and he just can't understand why they aren't taking off without government subsidy. The problem is, though, that for a family of 5 in Pennsylvania you are looking at a $10,000 investment minimum, and 80 sqr feet of solar array on your roof that you will need to sweep off every time it snows or run on normal electricity until it melts.

They are better off installing a natural gas tankless system for $700 and saving energy that way in the short term while the government cash goes to an R&D award systems much like in military contracting. Give goals, and reward the best design to meet those goals... or those that come closest.

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Everyone, including myself (in case I did not make myself clear) seems to be in agreement that clean energy is a good thing regardless of GW concerns. And I agree we should immediately implement them. As one example, I think we could have and should have had hybrid electric cars (and the corresponding 50+ mpg) 30 or 40 years ago which is just that much more pollution and wasted gasoline. I think the technology to do so existed then. Had we taken this one step during the oil crisis of the 1970's who knows how much more efficient these cars would be today after an additional 30 years of development?

I'm not a fan of hybrid electric cars because they are not as efficient as the newer diesel engines being created in Europe. The efficiency of any car is not simply in the cost of ownership, or the energy expended in ownership. It is in the cost of production as well.

The cost, in energy, of a hybrid vehicle is very high given the amount of production that goes into the battery system alone.

If I can get 50+ MPG from an all combustion diesel I would rather limit the need for damaging nickle mines as much as possible.. as well at the added energy expenditures in creating the car in the first place.

Heck, if we moved to more diesel in the country we could reduce the need to expensive refinery conversions every year as they switch from gasoline to diesel and back again.

Better mileage, cheaper gas... what a curious idea!

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I could agree if the changes being suggested gave no benefits other than mitigating AGW effects, but I think moving immediately to more sustainable energy sources and pollution reduction makes sense even if our AGW fears are out of proportion, even though the evidence suggests they are not. I'm not heavily swayed by the arguments about "throwing trillions of dollars away" when many of the changes proposed will mean more responsible use of resources no matter what happens to the global climate.

 

I support the immediate implementation because many of the changes should have taken place 30 years ago but were suppressed by lobbyists and never had their fair chance at shifting market stances.

Again, I fully agree with all of this with only one caveat: CO2 is not a pollutant no matter if we just labeled it as such.

Other than that, what I see right now is that the alternative energy sources that are being foisted on the country are far from being ready for prime time with the ONLY justification for the pain of use is the AGW mitigation and cost mitigation through Government subsidies (which is itself a function of AGW).

I saw a funny statistic the other day in Consumer Reports that showed the Smart Car had the lowest dependability ratings of all cars tested... yet they had some of the highest owner satisfaction ratings (I read it as "self satifaction" ratings).

In such a situation where a car is only pleasing so long as it has a "higher purpose", it ceases to be pleasing as soon as the intended purpose vanishes.

Similarly I read a report that Geo Metros are making a comback... not NEW Geo Metros, but old 1980s Geo Metros. This is because they get 40-50 mpg, and can be had for $3000.

I don't know if you have ever owned or ridden in a Metro... but I assure you that the ONLY reason to endure such a thing is as a sacrificial gesture to Gaia.

By this logic one can only be a skeptic if they reject something. That's a very odd interpretation of the definition. Skepticism is simply requiring evidence, not the rejection of all claims. One might be skeptical that we landed on the moon, but examination of the evidence shows we did, and examination of the counter-claims shows they are without basis. The moon-landing deniers are not skeptics.

But you aren't examining the counter claims, you are using moon landing deniers to rationalize why you don't examine counter claims. More to the point, when people like Mann are taken to task for poor statistics by actual statisticians, rather than examine the counter claim those like you go running to biographies to see is the person ever worked for an energy company.

You don't actually know that it's not being treated skeptically (using the actual definition of the word, not yours). What you seem to be claiming is that a skeptic would reject AGW. What I and some other posters who disagree with that statement are countering with is that a skeptic who had not accepted AGW would have better, i.e. scientifically and logically sound, arguments against it.

You know why I know you haven't treated it skeptically? Because when such claims are made you provide no actual rationale, except for a graph that shows more misunderstanding of the subject than it displays understanding. But that is more between me and bascule than you and me.

We're talking about CO2 here, right? That's the "basic fuel" of life? And since concentrations are 25% higher than they were 50 years ago, how is this limiting it?

So, other than the blip on the radar that we call "The Age of Man", the CO2 has been MUCH higher than today and life continued and was very diverse... the Earth was also absent any runaway global warming too... Given that, 25% isn't that big of a deal as far as "saving the Earth" goes. It seems it is more an argument for "saving our coastal cities"... but that doesn't have the same ring to it.

No, but he was proven wrong by other physicists, right? Not by a geologist.

And mathematicians, actually. Again, are you arguing that correction must come from within and not from overlapping disciplines? Climatology, after all, is really a subset of geology, and they all fall under Earth Sciences.

So do we simply accept whatever gerrymander allows you to cut out the opposing voices?

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Okay please look at this graph, starting at 2001, and if you think it's level, you are an idiot:

 

Oh good, the insults have started.

My evidence against the claim is present in the graph. Yes, the trend line for the past 10 years, much less the past 30 years is positive. You pretend this graph is a lie? A graph based on two independently measured date sets which correlate. If you are honestly arguing that this graph does not reflect an increasing surface temperature, I am sorry, you are hopeless, you are a nincompoop who is distorting emperically measured reality, and in such case you are not even worth listening to, you are a climate change denialist who discards emperical evidence for politically convenient assumptions.

I'm not pretending the graph is a lie. I am stating that to state anthropogenic global warming is happening based on a 30 year graph is silly when the most recent third is displaying cooling.

It's like showing the arc of a thrown stone and stopping a quarter of the way into the descent, drawing a average line that has a distinct up slope and claiming it proves that the rock will actually fly into space.

In the case of that 30 year trend we have the upward thrust being El Nino, and the downward pull being El Nina.

Actually: Read harder, Homer. You seem to suck at maths, so I will reiterate:

 

*sigh*

Eesh...

To reiterate:

 

Yes please, embellish El Nino but pretend La Nina doesn't exist. It only bolsters the argument of the ignorant, such as yourself. I mean seriously, I'm trying to explain things to you, but you sit here and ignore me and regurgitate the arguments of the uninformed. I can only reprimand you for being a ignoramus, much akin to Rush Limbaugh. Shame on you. Try to actually study the facts, not partisan talking points.

I'm not disregarding El Nino OR pretending La Nina doesn't exist. Quite the contrary. There is currently a La Nina in progress which your graph cuts off while being heavily influenced by the El Nino in the mid 90s.

I would assume, being that you understand the La Nina and El Nino cycle, that you know the 30 year running trend is pointless when you know that there is a La Nina in progress.

Oh poor, poor redheaded stepchild. You have much to learn. Fortunately there is a very, very patient bascule to teach you.

More eeesh.

Anyway... where were we? Oh yes, you ignoring reality and substituting fantasy. Could you please actually respond to my arguments which constitute reality? I realize you would rather substitute your own fantasy world and ignore reality, but unfortunately this is a science forum and that sort of thing is discouraged. You are instead encouraged to consider things like facts and evidence and base your decisions on those, not what Faux Noise tells you to believe.

I am responding bascule. I am choosing to ignore your attempts to derail the discussion into personal attacks.

I learned last time I came through here to ignore iNow posts all together as that seems to be his method as well.

So how about you forgo the insults and wow me with your grasp of the subject matter?

To reiterate, you are not a skeptic. I am a skeptic. You are a partisan mouthpiece. If you were a skeptic you would consider the evidence. But you don't. And it is a shame. Stop denying science and consider the evidence. Until then you are a climate change denier.

To reiterate, no you aren't, as much as you may want to believe so. Your first response to a challenge to AGW is defensive, not inquisitive. And your prolonged response to doubters is offensive.

You spend no time questioning the supporting studies while directing energy towards belittling those with questions.

Bottom line: you aren't a skeptic. You are a believer of fantasy. You want the world to operate as you hope it would operate, as opposed to what is. Sorry, science dictates otherwise. What is is what is. You cannot change that, even if it is politically inconvenient. The world is what it is.

Bottom line, yes I am. I believe that questions about the theory of global warming can and do originate from both inside and outside the field of climatology, and I read both the pro and con of the theories with an open mind. The trouble is, when I see one side turn to ad hominem as the go-to defense of their position, as well and attempt to limit who has access to their data and code I can't help but realize they are not operating within the scientific paradigm, but have rather turned towards advocacy.

The much discussed 30 year temperature graph is a good example.

There are very real questions about the usefulness of that 30 year trend (we haven't even started on the climate anomalies it inherited in the decades prior to the time slice), yet rather than discuss the current La Nina and it's counterbalance to the El Nino that dominates that time slice, you jump to the insults.

Why? Because you have no answers, I assume, as you have provided none.

Stop trying to inject your political invective as if it were truth. You are full of crap. Look at the reality of the situation and accept it.

See, here is something for you to consider... in the long term, with regard to funding of environmental study, and the trust by the public in general, if this theory turns out to be a tempest in a tea pot, the environmental movement will have bypassed shooting itself in the foot for the alternative of jamming the barrel in it's mouth.

When so much is being planned politically to remedy this scientific theory it is VERY important to make sure you are getting it right as the whole of the public trust rests in this theory.

The trouble is there is too much politics in the science to begin with. When leading scientists become political advocates the science suffers.

Let's see, you linked:

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124597505076157449.html

 

...ostensibly purporting it to be factual.

 

It contains such blatant untruths as:

 

 

 

Which is not only a baldfaced lie:

 

 

But one you subsequently embellished as:

 

 

 

(of course, ignoring La Nina, which explains the only substantial downslope in 2007, which lasted 1 year)

 

You are actively spreading disinformation.

 

Sorry, I think you've lost the right to call yourself a skeptic. The only skeptics here are the ones questioning the lies you purport to be truthful, lies that fly in the face of established science.

So let me get this straight... the article states that temperatures since 2001 have been level, and your evidence against hat claim is the averaged slope of the last 30 years?

I hate to break it you you, but that isn't how to get the trend of the last 8 years.

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So you are claiming that I (and others here) never questioned the validity of AGW claims. False, I say. And I disagree with your conclusion — a skeptic is one who questions. If your definition was right, as a skeptic, you cannot accept gravity, or that the sun will rise tomorrow, or that your clock is correct. Have you ever decided the evidence was sufficient for you to rely on those events?

No, swansont. You may very well be skeptical about things other than AGW, hell, you may even be skeptical about some aspects of AGW... but right now you are only questioning the challenges to global warming. This doesn't make you a AGW skeptic, it makes you an AGW protectionist.

You can very well cast doubt on the opposing views of AGW and call yourself a skeptic. But not a skeptic of AGW.

Certainly both sides of the debate need to be viewed with skepticism, and certainly I find more compelling in the skeptics side (especially since they hide nothing yet Schmidt and Hansen and Jones and Mann and others have a history of withholding information). What I object to in your, and other supposedly scientifically minded posters, is that the theory that you believe shoudl no longer be viewed skeptically.. or the mass delusion that what we see on this forum and many other AGW forums passes as skeptical evaluation.

That's not really true in the US. We haven't passed any significant legislation to limit AGW, and the previous administration certainly was not in lock-step with the scientific consensus.

No, it wasn't. And actually the previous president was not very big on ACTUAL pollution either... a topic that we would probably agree on. But we are ready to pass cap-and-trade and spends trillions of dollars on alternative energy like the world will burst into flames tomorrow.

Since all of that money will be coming out of every American's pockets, and the cash we spend will be paid by our children, we have a duty as much to spend wisely as protect the Earth. In this case I don't think we are actually protecting the Earth by limiting the basic fuel for all life on Earth.

Sure. Show me the plethora of papers by statistics experts debunking the AGW work.

Questioning Extreme Weather predictions - http://www.stat.unc.edu/faculty/rs/talks/APHA-Richard.L.Smith.pdf

Testimony of Dr. Edward J. Wegman, director at the Center for Computational Statistics at George Mason University, chair of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics and board member of the American Statistical Association testifying on the statistics behind high profile AGW studies:

http://archives.energycommerce.house.gov/reparchives/108/Hearings/07192006hearing1987/Wegman.pdf

William M. Briggs, Statistician and Professor at Cornell Medical... here is a blog post about poor statistics in AGW:

http://www.blogcatalog.com/blog/william-m-briggs-statistician/3060f440a08c463ca4cb771107aa44c5

And on... what would you consider a plethora, anyway?

As I said, you chose a poor example. Phrenologists weren't pursuing science.

Yes they were. Their theory was simply very flawed.

Are you only pursuing science if the outcome ends up being right?

But look at examples that are better. Who exposed Piltdown man as a fraud? I was the paleontologists studying evolution. Who took down the cold fusion claims of Pons & Fleischman? Other physicists. Not outsiders. The paradigm of an outsider needing to do the debunking only works if the whole group of climatologists are perpetrating a fraud or are grossly incompetent.

You say they are better only because they agree with you. I am saying that science is not all Piltdown Man and Relativity. There was also the recent hooplah about the physicist who thought he might have found the foundation of the much sought unified theory. He was proven wrong as well, very wrong actually... that doesn't mean he isn't a scientist.

For your example to work you have to first accept a truth of fraud without evidence of fraud in the work of the statisticians I posted above, and many other scientists as well.

You would do so as an article of your own faith.

The simple truth is that your statistician may find minor (or even major) faults with one study (or even a small handful of studies), but they are NOT going to find fault with anything even approaching a majority of studies.

 

If their claims were valid, I would accept them. However, again, their claims will be focused on one or two datasets, not the vast mountains of datasets leading to our acceptance of AGW.

There-in lies that "belief" that you say you don't have.

Climatology is a very incestuous discipline, and the numbers of global temperature data sets, for example, is rather small. An error in one dataset effects all studies that used it in their model.

That is just a simple example.

But I am glad that you support a full blind statistical audit of climate modeling and climatology. It's certainly worth a few billion dollars for a comprehensive and structurally impartial verification of the science for the peace of mind before spending trillions on the cure.

Your use of the terms belie this claim. You say that this is a non-skeptical crowd. Yet a skeptic is someone who will not accept claims without evidence, which implies that this crowd has accepted global warming without evidence. I think it's clear that those who wish to discuss it here have actually looked at the issue in some depth. Hence my confusion about your use of the term. The acceptance of global warming conclusions does not appear to be a blind one, ergo labeling posters here as non-skeptical is merely an attempt to poison the well. (and we frown upon the use of logical fallacies)

I didn't want this to become a semantic argument, but I guess we are there:

skep⋅tic

  /ˈskɛptɪk/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [skep-tik] Show IPA

Use skeptic in a Sentence

–noun

1. a person who questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual.

2. a person who maintains a doubting attitude, as toward values, plans, statements, or the character of others.

3. a person who doubts the truth of a religion, esp. Christianity, or of important elements of it.

4. (initial capital letter) Philosophy.

a. a member of a philosophical school of ancient Greece, the earliest group of which consisted of Pyrrho and his followers, who maintained that real knowledge of things is impossible.

b. any later thinker who doubts or questions the possibility of real knowledge of any kind.

Either #1 or #2 will do. A skeptic is one who actively doubts something... once you have decided the the evidence is sufficient you cease to be skeptical.

And yet you continue to avoid clarifying which consensus you refer to when you use the word. That's equivocation. (another logical fallacy)

Scientific consensus. Which again doesn't matter because the claimed scientific consensus is in accord with the political consensus, so it is pointless to even question.

If the scientific consensus becomes skeptical of AGW, I suppose you would become skeptical? Or, what subdivision of the scientific community do you give the most weight to? If the consensus of PhDs in Statistics is that the climate models are bad statistics, yet the climatologists say their statistics are sound, who do you give weight to?

Yes they are. They are trying to turn a scientific consensus into a political one, because — as we agree — they are different things.

Now, will they work to undo the political consensus if the scientific consensus breaks down? Or will they cling to "you can't listen to them because they are just.." arguments? We have already seen the preeminent AGW climatologists play keepers with their data and code if they think the person asking is a skeptic or deniar.

I can't be anything but a skeptic until they allow the full light of day to be shined on the full proofs and data sets without legal action.

It's quite clear that politics can use poor or fabricated science as a justification for action or inaction. But as phrenology was discredited scientifically, rather than popularly, then it's a poor example for you to have brought up. There are many such medical examples that are popular and yet have no support from science. I don't see how this advances your position, though, since it merely supports the notion that popular support can exist for concepts that have no scientific support.

Then you are missing the point. I fully expect that any demise of the AGW theory will come from the scientific world. If you go back and see the post the lead me to that example you will see that it was in response to the statement that the author of "Heaven and Earth" was a geologist and that their opinion would change when the climatologists opinions change.

I simply brought up a scientific discipline that wasn't changed because phrenologists decided they were full of crap. Relying on the people who now have a life's work invested in AGW isn't always the wisest and most open minded approach as their whole careers rest now on this being true.

Plimer's book is Heaven and Earth. You've made this error several times.

Yep you're right. Fixed.

Phrenology was debunked by people versed in the skills needed to debunk it. Which would include people studying neuroscience of the time — hardly an example of disproving from without. It's not like it was dismantled by a bunch of podiatrists.

You're missing the point entirely, as many people in this very thread have made claims that only climatologists can sway them. Neurophysiology and nueropsychology are not phrenology, their influence was not from inside phrenology. It was a whole separate discipline, as was psychology. I m saying that phrenologists didn't disprove themselves.

I am asking, primarily, if (for example) a STATISTICIAN would carry sufficient weight to sway you as the whole framework of climatology is built on statistical analysis.

Would you consider a statistician to be "inside" climatology?

Ironic you'd point out selective sampling when it's what you propose to do. Is there any legitimate scientific reason to break the graph up into two sections? Is there a mechanism that would explain the behavior if one were to do this, i.e. warming for the first part, and then flatter for the second?

I am arguing that if you are going to carve out 30 years from 150, or 2000 and use that 30 year span as a stand alone demonstration of global warming then there is no compelling reason NOT to carve out 10 from the 30 and use that as a compelling arguement.

Dude, I agree with you that we need to know a lot more about our climate than we presently do. However, you are blowing smoke here.

 

Take the brown graph; years 2000- present. Other than 1998; all previous peaks (going back to 1980) are smaller than these maximum. The minimums in 2000 to present are all higher than the minimums previous. Clearly 2001 to Present is warmer than 1980 to 1997, with some room for arguement 1998 to 2000. Granted these are "anomalies" and not actual temperatures which might tend to exagerate the extent of the problem...but still the overall trend is clear.

 

By selective sampling are you saying the data is wrong? If so, you need to present either alternate data indicating otherwise; or show why this data is wrong.

 

Or are you saying 2007 to 2009 is the start of a new downward trend? Since this is only two years, please provide an explaination of what changed in our climate to start this downward trend now.

I'm not saying that there isn't a warming trend from 1970 to 2000. I am saying that in a 30 year trend the final 11 years are VERY significant.

If you want to actually go back further than the last 30 years (to limit the significance of the last 11 years)... say 150 or 1000, or 2000 years, then the majority of that time is modeled data that is believed to be accurate, but is not directly known.

And the current models that we are using to establish future trends -- those based on CO2 as a leading forcer of climate -- fail to account for current cooling trends within their confidence interval, or well to the low side of the confidence interval.