Promoted from the comments, the download of the BBC Radio 4 ‘Now Show’ (Mar 16) is available here (at least for now). Key bit starts at about 18min in, (the rest of the show is pretty funny too).
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307 Responses to "A much more eloquent rebuttal of TGGWS"
P. Lewissays
The global annual mean surface air temperature changes can be obtained in graphical and tabular formats at the NASA GISS site. NASA GISS I’m sure would have readily agreed to their use in Durkin’s programme. One wonders why he didn’t use them.
You could do the comparison yourself, rather than rely on someone else’s possibly jaundiced view. Durkin’s effort is referenced in the “Swindled” OP (though I think this is one they modified slightly when retransmitting it on a C4 sister channel), and there is ample discussion over at Stoat on this issue (see RH margin for link).
I wouldn’t want to influence your judgment overly, but the graphics splitting out the latidunal variations are also instructive (I think).
Nick Gottssays
Re #196 [[re#195
1. this shows co2 absorbs infrared
2. this shows co2 is rising
3. this shows that some of it is from humans
4. this shows there is more of it
while 2+3+4 when linked with 1 may lead to an assumption it is certainly not proof that human emission of co2 is acutally causing global warming.
I’m not saying it isn’t but I think there should be real proof by now.]]
What would you accept as real proof?
Dansays
re: 196 and 202. “Proof” is a mathematical concept. Science research does not aim for “proof”. This is a fundamental concept. It draws conclusions based upon the hypotheses, data, research, theories that explain data, repeatable experiments to test theories, and peer review. It is called the scientific method. Which AGW research has followed.
[[So until someone qualified can tell me why we can ignore cosmic rays I will consider it a possible explanation � just as I do for Co2 levels ]]
How about the fact that there’s been no overall change in the cosmic ray flux since 1952?
PhilCsays
ref 202
I would be happier if the evidence was enough to convince the same experts putting forward the consensus.
the ipcc report scientists were only willing to stand by a 90% probability that man-made co2 is causing global warming. I understand that a good scientist should avoid absolutes so if they had said 99% I would at least think they were sure.
After all this time,money and effort the experts still say there is a 10% chance that man-made co2 is NOT causing global warming
Can you imagine an engineer saying their new plane was 90% certain to stay up?
pete bestsays
Re 205: Thats different and you know it. Planes do crash and hence the engineer might say it but he could not mean it and they would know that to. Everyone takes a risk flying even though that risk is small.
Aircraft are human made, engineered but climate is natural and hence natural variability plays its part, 90% certainty is stated because nothing is known with absoulte certainty, there is always an error factor. Complex systems has sensitivity to initial conditions issues and you cannot measure to infinite precision and to infinite space, ie not 100% accuracy but the statistics (balance of probability) make the assertion clear enough.
P. Lewissays
I’m sightly confused as to where this 90% figure comes from (is it the 4th SPM?) and to what it refers. Can you clarify please?
The SPM mentions:
90% uncertainty intervals unless stated otherwise, i.e., there is an estimated 5% likelihood that the value could be above the range given in square brackets and 5% likelihood that the value could be below that range.
So they are just giving the limits/likely error on a measurement or a forecast.
And then they use the following terms at various points:
Virtually certain > 99% probability of occurrence, Extremely likely > 95%, Very likely > 90%, Likely > 66%, More likely than not > 50%, Unlikely < 33%, Very unlikely < 10%, Extremely unlikely < 5%.
Nick Gottssays
Re #203 [[“Proof” is a mathematical concept. Science research does not aim for “proof”.]]
Depends what scientific research you’re talking about. Much of science, contrary to what you read in simplistic treatments of philosophy of science, is not about general laws, or experiments. For example, it was long hypothesized that marsupials had once lived in Antarctica (because they live in Australia and South America, thought once to have been joined via Antarctica). Lo and behold, Antarctic fossils of marsupials were eventually found – proof that they once lived there. Of course you could say – well, maybe the fossils aren’t really of marsupials, or got there in some other way. But by the same token, many mathematical proofs (e.g. of the 4-colour theorem or Fermat’s last theorem) are so complicated there may well be errors in them. However, the main point of my question was that I suspected PhilC wouldn’t specify what would satisfy his doubts – as indeed, he hasn’t. The invitation for him to do so remains open.
Hank Robertssays
Philc — which pointers to the incorrect graphs have you already read? There are two threads here, and somewhat over ten thousand hits on Google about the answer to that question.
It’s a bit hard to know where to begin, answering your questions.
Tell us where to start by telling us the source for what you currently know, please?
If you read it here and are having trouble understanding it, that’s one thing; if you followed a pointer from here to another site and aren’t understanding it, that’s another; if you found your info elsewhere and came here to ask about it — where did you get it?
Else we’re guessing in the dark about what sort of anwer will be helpful to you. Waste of time.
Re #198: [So, on the one hand we are being asked to choose between one mechanism that is little understood beyond a vague handwaving level (cosmic rays) and a mechanism with a venerable history and lots of solid research behind it.]
Remember, though, that it’s not a matter of “choosing between”, since AGW theory is not an attempt to explain observed warming, but a prediction (originally made long before any warming was observed) that adding CO2 will cause an increase in temperature.
Even if the GCR proponents could find strong supporting evidence for their theory, it would not invalidate anything related to CO2. Like aerosols, changes in solar output, and the occasional volcano, it’d be just one more factor to be added to climate models.
Darrelsays
PhilC, can you imagine an engineer saying that a plane is 90% certain to crash and people still be willing to board? Not me.
Now I’m not sure where the 90% is coming from, but I think it stems mainly from the probablity distribution of model results (correct me if I’m wrong). I am not sure that it means that the scientific consensus is that there is a 10% chance of GHG not having any effect on climate at all. Actually, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. I would think that most climate scientists would estimate such a chance as being much smaller. Also, take into account that in the language of scientists, 90% certainty is equivalent to “absolutely sure” for most non-scientists.
If the warming continues, only 5% and eventually only 1% of the model output would be consistent with GHG not havning an effect on climate. I don’t want to live in a world where that 99% certainty is reached, and neither will you or anyone else. But that is what we’re heading for if you want to wait for “proof”.
[[After all this time,money and effort the experts still say there is a 10% chance that man-made co2 is NOT causing global warming ]]
Given the radiation physics involved, what is stopping it from causing global warming? How can you pump more CO2 into the air and not warm the ground? What is the countervailing influence?
PhilCsays
207
Ok you make a fair point.
however, in the UK media – words like proof and certainty are used about the GWT with such frequency and force but when you start digging in you find large uncertainties about possible outcomes. Many supporters of the theory seem happy to accept these huge uncertainties just as long as the theory remains the concensus view, to many skeptics it seems far too wide open.
J.C.Hsays
“Bro, the SPM says there’s a 90% shot this piece of crap will fly.” – Wilbur
[Response: Given the history of the attempts up until then, I think that the bayseian probability of their Flyer flying was significantly less than 90%. – gavin]
Lynn Vincentnathansays
#197, yes, the same Mark Lynas. His father was a geologist studying glaciers in Peru, where Mark lived as a child. Mark went back there decades later and saw that the glacier had melted substantially. He also documented harms from global warming occuring around the world right now in his HIGH TIDE.
You have to understand that Lomborg was saying we shouldn’t mitigate global warming, Mark (a young man with more to lose from GW than us old fogeys) got mad enough to throw that pie. Maybe in a few years there will be lots of college & high school students throwing pies or worse at us old folks who keep on saying we shouldn’t mitigate. It’s their future we are harming. And that’s not nice. In fact, that’s worse than pie-throwing!
Lynn Vincentnathansays
Still trying to fix the blockquote problem
Hope that does it.
Pierre Gosselinsays
You ought to see how the media here in Germany treat the science. They consistently call the activity of reducing man-made CO2 emmissions “Klimaschutz”, which literally means: climate protection. Can anyone explain to me how one goes about protecting the climate? Does this have anything to do with protecting the temperature, humditiy or windspeed?
Clearly this incorrect use of terminology demonstrates the utter incompetence of the media in handling or communicating the science at even the most basic levels. Is it any wonder that the position of the man-made global warming side isn’t taken as seriously as it probably should be? Incorrect use of terminology immediately raises suspicions. Can someone who keeps screwing up the basic terminology be believed? I don’t think so. If the man-made global warming side wishes to have any hope of convincing the world, then they’d better do 2 things: 1) improve the quality of their scientific arguments and 2) improve how to comunicate them.
Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go and protect my blood alcohol content with a few Krombachers.
Blutalkoholspiegelschutz!
tomsays
…and 90 % sure that man is causing what portion of it??
Lynn Vincentnathansays
Re “…and 90 % sure that man is causing what portion of it??”
The way I see it is that if man is causing only a fraction of the warming, that’s even worse news (assuming something else is causing the rest).
Since we cannot control the sun or whatever else that’s causing the warming, it just means we have to reduce our GHGs all the more to offset not only our own part, but also the part caused by other forces. So either way, we have to reduce our GHG, only we have to reduce even further, if nature is also contributing.
….All values are shown as a change from pre-industrial conditions.
* Total radiative forcing from the sum of all human activities is a warming force of about +1.6 watts/m2
* Radiative forcing from an increase of solar intensity since 1750 is about +0.12 watts/m2
* Radiative forcing from carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide combined is very likely (>90%) increasing more quickly during the current era (1750-present) than at any other time in the last 10,000 years.
Tavitasays
Pierre, on any important issue one should be suspicious of what the media says, and do some homework for one’s self. I am certain that if you read the IPCC SPM you will not find the phrase “climate protection” anywhere.
As far as the media goes, if you are to believe them there is a raging debate over global warming going on in the scientific community when in fact this is not the case.
I think both sides would agree that the media could do a much better job of reporting (though for different reasons I’m sure) so the lesson is that if you really want to know about something you will have to read some scientific books and articles outside of the popular press.
[[If the man-made global warming side wishes to have any hope of convincing the world, then they’d better do 2 things: 1) improve the quality of their scientific arguments and 2) improve how to comunicate them.]]
Point 2 has some validity to it, but point 1 is utterly bogus and just shows your lack of familiarity with the relevant science.
PhilCsays
re 217
“You have to understand that Lomborg was saying we shouldn’t mitigate global warming,”
as I understand it Lomborg’s is saying that we can’t mitigate it enough to justify the huge expense using money that would be far better used to tackle humanitarian issues over which there is no doubt at all.
Activists such as Mark Lynas write books using the worst possible predications, give them emotive titles and are exactly the kind of supporters you dont need on your side.
PhilCsays
ref 207
this is what I mean by the ipcc saying “90%”
Global climate change is “very likely” to have a human cause, an influential group of scientists has concluded.
the panel concluded that it was at least 90% certain that human emissions of greenhouse gases rather than natural variations are warming the planet’s surface.
so I still ask – why is the ipcc consensus of scientists, no less, unable to come out with a categorical statement on this fundamental issue?
David donovansays
Re 207
I recall reading somewhere that it was the Chinese and Saudis that would not agree to a stronger statement. Anyone else hear something like this ?
PhilCsays
re 209
Having looked at the so-called ‘fake’ graph in TGGWS I accept that it may not be completely accurate but any differences with the official graph do nothing to take away from the conculsions drawn in the program. (I know realclimate has an explanation for the cooling period after the war)
Describing this as a ‘fake’ is like calling someone a lier becuase they included a spelling mistake in a paper
Tavitasays
PhilC says,
“so I still ask – why is the ipcc consensus of scientists, no less, unable to come out with a categorical statement on this fundamental issue?”
Because they are scientists and when you are dealing with theories scientists rarely if ever make categorical statements because all theories are incomplete. It is always a mater of approximations to reality. (Even our eyes only give us an approximation to reality, we can’t see infrared). And if they made a categorical statement about the cause of global the skeptics would be all over them in a nanosecond, because a categorical statement about the cause of global warming would be incorrect.
So instead they are honest and say what the evidence and their highly sophisticated models that are run on supercomputers tell them and give it a 90% probability, which in most peoples books is a high probability.
Yes, there’s a chance they could be wrong, but it is a low chance. The skeptics remind me of that dumb or dumber movie where the dumb guy asks the beautiful girl if there is chance that she will go out with him, she rolls her eyes and says, “yeah, 1 in a million…” and the dumb guy shouts, “YES!!! THEN THERE’S A CHANCE!”
I’m sorry if you find this offensive, nothing personal, but get a grip, Phil.
PhilCsays
ref 217
“Mark went back there decades later and saw that the glacier had melted substantially…” and immediately knew it was all the fault of western civilisation.
PhilCsays
re 229
they give it a 90% probability – on this site it becomes an absolute certainty. Anyone taking the 10% option is called a denier.
if, like the beautiful girl, the ipcc had said there’s a 1 in a million chance we’re wrong – then case closed. But 1 in 10 is something else altogether.
[edit]
Hank Robertssays
Well, thanks for sharing, Phil. Always interesting to hear the same opinions from new userids.
PhilCsays
re 229
my previous post was edited and looking at it again can see it could be read to have a smutty connotation. So I’ll clarify
In response to being asked to get a grip – I have a grip already but on a different set of ideas than the consensus.
Nothing smutty intended.
Ray Ladburysays
PhilC, The 90% confidence that humans are causing climate change is what they call a Bayesian confidence–basically you poll a large group of experts and take the level that emerges as a consensus. Scientists are by nature conservative. I think most physicists would only give General Relativity about a 90% probability–maybe less.
The fact of the matter is that there is simply no other credible alternative to anthropogenic causation. No other cause has even roughly the right time dependence or produces the right distribution of effects.
I do risk mitigation for a living. If I faced a 90% risk of dire consequences, I know that the right thing to do is direct up to 90% of the potential cost incurred if the risk is realized. I’m curious how you would have us respond. I mean scientists are continually looking into alternative factors already to see if any are significant. They are checking their research and that of others already. They are working on possible solutions to the problem. What, in your opinion should we do differently.
The other question is what would it take to convince you that we are in fact changing the climate? What evidence is there that you are looking for that you haven’t seen?
If your objection to remediation of climate change stems from economic considerations, then your argument should be framed in those terms. Attacking what is really well understood science because you do not like its consequences is not a rational approach.
CobblyWorldssays
Hello Phil C #160
Sorry, you won’t get “concrete evidence” in a system as complex as climate, especially as we only have the one largescale experimental example. Your comment about looking at things objectively was interesting. In my recent foray onto the Channel4 MessageBoards I was once again amused by how my evidenced assertions did not meet with evidenced challenges. I sometimes throw in deliberate ‘errors’ when meeting that sort of response to test my opponent. None were picked up, those trumpeting support of the programme hadn’t even got their brains in gear.
I’m an ex-GWsceptic who started reading the science in Jan 2005, I’d had enough then to suspect I was badly wrong. I gave up using virtually all sites on the net, except realclimate and official sites because I was sick of being told by the usual bunch that such-and-such a paper said something, but when I read the paper it didn’t.
I’ve long since given up on the media.
Most of the contrarist blather centres on uncertainty, but it’s esentially a Straw Man. Carl Wunsch put it so much better than I could:
“The science of climate change remains incomplete. Some elements are based so firmly on well-understood principles, or on such clear observational records, that most scientists would agree that they are almost surely true (adding CO2 to the atmosphere is dangerous; sea level will continue to rise,…).
Other elements remain more uncertain, but we as scientists in our roles as informed citizens believe society should be deeply concerned about their possibility: a mid-western US megadrought in 100 years; melting of a large part of the Greenland ice sheet, among many other examples. ” http://ocean.mit.edu/~cwunsch/papersonline/responseto_channel4.htm
The real uncertainty has moved out of the realm of “Are we warming the planet?” into “What will this mean in terms of it’s future effects on our daily lives (in a practical sense)?”
Anyway, if you need more certainty, you can always just wait. This is an ongoing physical process and no matter how much obfuscation we non-experts are subjected to by the contrarist industry, it will continue.
Physical processes don’t give a hoot about public opinion.
SecularAnimistsays
Phil, if the overwhelming majority of doctors you consulted agreed that there was a 90 percent or greater chance that you had a disease which would cause increasingly debilitating and painful symptoms leading to a hideous and agonizing death unless you immediately began treatment which would both prevent the worst symptoms of the disease and save your life, what would you do?
Pierre Gosselinsays
@Barton
Thanks for the interesting links. Again the question remains: To what extent does MAN-MADE CO2 play a role in the greenhouse effect? This is what the whole discussion is about I think, or at least should be.
Indeed we know that water vapour plays the dominant greenhouse role, and that CO2 plays a significantly lesser role, of which the man-made part is only a small fraction. Once you begin to multiply fractions you quickly approach negligible magnitudes. Surely man-made CO2 contributes to the greenhouse effect, but I would say over a neglible range. And next, you have to factor in the contributions from extraterrestial activities such as solar and cosmic particles. So when you multiply a quarter times a twentieth times a tenth and so on…you quickly see where one ends up.
I think this is what the debate has to focus on…determining the magnitudes of these fractions, and to do so without constantly fudging the numbers. Are we really impacting the climate? Or are we only talking about whether or not we should invest huge sums of money, and change how we live our lives, so that we can go from having a negligible impact to having a slightly less than neglible impact?
PhilCsays
Well, I’ve written quite a few posts here and I have to admit that my mind was already made up before I started, so I think I’ll move on.
But to sum up my general view on all this…
I am very suspicious of any theory that has to introduce more and more factors to keep being able to explain experimental results. e.g. The global cooling after WWII – CO2 cant explain it so you introduce other pollutants to explain it – in which case you could advocate increasing pollution to offset the CO2 (obviously I wouldn’t)
The introduction of a ‘feedback loop’ to explain the t-leading co2 problem is nuts. If rising co2 levels warm the oceans, the oceans emit more co2 which warms the oceans which emit more co2. The only feedback I can see is that – once warming starts nothing could ever stop it. The fact that we are alive today is evidence that the theory is pretty weak.
I don’t believe that the research is objective – huge amounts of money are available to research it.
I don’t believe that consensus science is science at all.
A computer model may model past climate events – but this is absolutely no indication of any future accuracy. These models are presented to the public as some kind of divine oracle that can tell us what will happen and are now partly influencing global political decisions. As someone who has spent 25 years writing computer modelling software I find this a very scary idea.
I am very suspicious of the political driving forces behind the public face Global Warming theory – not the scientists themselves I hasten to add.
Taking into account all the discussions, graphs and references to peer reviewed work – I simply don’t believe that anyone knows anything like enough about how the climate really works to make any realistic prediction.
If it turns out that this theory is wrong, science will have a very hard time recovering any form of credibility and that may be the saddest result from this episode.
Just as an aside, I am totally in favour of a move away from carbon based fuels probably to hydrogen. I also have a completely irrational faith in nature and its ability to look after itself.
After a few days posting here I’ll give it and you all a break.
I would like to thank everyone who replied to my posts. Even though I am completely unconvinced by many of your arguments I do appreciate the time you took to present them to me.
All the best
Phil Cunningham
ps. Having a background in physics, I am assuming the comparison of uncertainties in Global Warming to General Relativity was a joke
Ray Ladburysays
Pierre Gosselin, When you have a system with sources and sinks, you wind up with what is essentially the same differential equation we’ve all solved–filling a bucket with a hole in it. As long as the sources put in a volume less than a critical amount, the bucket will not overflow. However, go above that amount, even by the tiniest flow, and the bucket will overflow. Based on the fact that CO2 has increased by over 40%, we can conclude that we are above the amount the sinks can absorb. Based on the changes in carbon isotopic abundances, we can conclude that the carbon source is fossil and so it is anthropogenic carbon emissions that have pushed us above the critical level. We know that CO2 contributes somewhere from 8-12% of the greenhouse effect on Earth–and rising. These are all things we KNOW.
What we do not know are the effects of these changes–something that is inherently difficult to predict because climate is a chaotic system, and you cannot predict with certainty how a chaotic system will react to a perturbation. The potential effects of climate change are critical to understand if we are to come up with effective mitigations for them. In this effort, modeling is important, as are studies of paleoclimate in past warming epochs. Anything we learn is likely to decrease the cost of both climate change and its mitigation.
At this point, I am afraid we cannot avoid climate change. We can make it better or worse, though. Developing mitigation strategies will take time, and anything we can do to slow the worst effects and buy us more time will be a good investment.
So the argument about the causes of climate change is pretty much settled. The role of scientists now is to provide the best advice we can to policy makers on the likely consequences and how we can mitigate them. Of course climate researchers will continue to investigate mechanism–all of them, including cosmic rays (talk about a trivial contribution). The better we understand these, the better will be our models. But we are at a point where a revolution in our scientific understanding is very unlikely.
[[they give it a 90% probability – on this site it becomes an absolute certainty. Anyone taking the 10% option is called a denier.
if, like the beautiful girl, the ipcc had said there’s a 1 in a million chance we’re wrong – then case closed. But 1 in 10 is something else altogether.]]
Okay, Phil, load a ten-shot revolver with nine bullets, give the chamber a spin, hold it to your head, and pull the trigger once. You’ve got a 10% chance of surviving, and after all, 1 in 10 is something else altogether.
[[ We know that CO2 contributes somewhere from 8-12% of the greenhouse effect on Earth–and rising. These are all things we KNOW.]]
Kiehl and Trenberth (1997) estimate 26% (clear sky), but it varies. But none of these percentages are as meaningful as they sound. It’s not really something you can divide into percentages, because the wavelengths one greenhouse gas absorbs at are often absorbed at by another as well — “band overlap.”
Pierre Gosselinsays
@Phil Cunningham
Hydrogen? Are you kidding?
Burning hydrogen emits water. All that extra man-made water vapour will wind up in the atmosphere, and then the CO2 villifiers will finally admit that water vapour is an important greenhouse gas after all!
Pierre Gosselinsays
@Ladbury
“At this point, I am afraid we cannot avoid climate change.”
Well, don’t feel bad about that. So far no one has been able to do it in the last 4.5 billion years.
Yeah, my SUV don’t make no stinkin’ water vapor you CO2 villifyin’, do goodin’, “flyin’ in the face of economics” science guys/gals.
David B. Bensonsays
Re #237: Pierre Gosselin — Using the simple orbital forcing theory, without anthropogenic effects, the climate should be very gently cooling. But it is warming. So the answer is slightly more than 100% of the warming is due to humans.
Nick Gottssays
Re #238 “I am very suspicious of any theory that has to introduce more and more factors to keep being able to explain experimental results. e.g. The global cooling after WWII – CO2 cant explain it so you introduce other pollutants to explain it – in which case you could advocate increasing pollution to offset the CO2”
Why would you expect a system as complex as the Earth – including its biota and most especially its human population – necessarily to be explicable in terms of a small number of factors? I’d guess you’re importing the attitudes that have served fundamental physics very well into a context where they just don’t make much sense. And the climate scientists didn’t introduce other pollutants – industry did, and then had to cut back on them due to political pressure arising from their bad effects.
“If rising co2 levels warm the oceans, the oceans emit more co2 which warms the oceans which emit more co2.”
The warming effect is logarithmic in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 – can’t you see that makes a difference?
“I also have a completely irrational faith in nature and its ability to look after itself.”
You said it, Phil – completely irrational.
Chuck Boothsays
It’s too bad PhilC didn’t (apparently) bother reading the peer-reviewed literature on AGW, including the IPCC Reports, and the reports from the Royal Society, NAS, etc. I sense that a lot of RC visitors mistakenly interpret the comments made on RC threads by (mostly)non-climatologists as representing discussion and debate by climatologists.
In reference to the C02 feedback mechanism and others that have been mentioned, such as albedo and water vapor, it seems that these taken by themselves would create an unstable equilibrium. I come from a math background and don’t know much about the climate models–I’m thinking of an ODE like y’=y, where there is a bounded solution if y(0)=0, but for the tiniest deviation in the intial condition, the solution grows unbounded. I’m interested to learn what damping factors exist that would allow a more or less stable solution (oscillating perhaps) to the homogeneous problem (that is, without an external forcing function to muck things up). I did see the comment about C02 growing as a function of the log, but even if y’ = lny you still have an unbounded solution (related to the number of primes less than y as it turns out!). Is it the case that y’ = f(y) and f rapidly approaches zero, perhaps?
Dave Radosays
Re. 199, have you looked hereand here, for instance? They’re only the two worst examples.
The global annual mean surface air temperature changes can be obtained in graphical and tabular formats at the NASA GISS site. NASA GISS I’m sure would have readily agreed to their use in Durkin’s programme. One wonders why he didn’t use them.
You could do the comparison yourself, rather than rely on someone else’s possibly jaundiced view. Durkin’s effort is referenced in the “Swindled” OP (though I think this is one they modified slightly when retransmitting it on a C4 sister channel), and there is ample discussion over at Stoat on this issue (see RH margin for link).
I wouldn’t want to influence your judgment overly, but the graphics splitting out the latidunal variations are also instructive (I think).
Re #196 [[re#195
1. this shows co2 absorbs infrared
2. this shows co2 is rising
3. this shows that some of it is from humans
4. this shows there is more of it
while 2+3+4 when linked with 1 may lead to an assumption it is certainly not proof that human emission of co2 is acutally causing global warming.
I’m not saying it isn’t but I think there should be real proof by now.]]
What would you accept as real proof?
re: 196 and 202. “Proof” is a mathematical concept. Science research does not aim for “proof”. This is a fundamental concept. It draws conclusions based upon the hypotheses, data, research, theories that explain data, repeatable experiments to test theories, and peer review. It is called the scientific method. Which AGW research has followed.
[[So until someone qualified can tell me why we can ignore cosmic rays I will consider it a possible explanation � just as I do for Co2 levels ]]
How about the fact that there’s been no overall change in the cosmic ray flux since 1952?
ref 202
I would be happier if the evidence was enough to convince the same experts putting forward the consensus.
the ipcc report scientists were only willing to stand by a 90% probability that man-made co2 is causing global warming. I understand that a good scientist should avoid absolutes so if they had said 99% I would at least think they were sure.
After all this time,money and effort the experts still say there is a 10% chance that man-made co2 is NOT causing global warming
Can you imagine an engineer saying their new plane was 90% certain to stay up?
Re 205: Thats different and you know it. Planes do crash and hence the engineer might say it but he could not mean it and they would know that to. Everyone takes a risk flying even though that risk is small.
Aircraft are human made, engineered but climate is natural and hence natural variability plays its part, 90% certainty is stated because nothing is known with absoulte certainty, there is always an error factor. Complex systems has sensitivity to initial conditions issues and you cannot measure to infinite precision and to infinite space, ie not 100% accuracy but the statistics (balance of probability) make the assertion clear enough.
I’m sightly confused as to where this 90% figure comes from (is it the 4th SPM?) and to what it refers. Can you clarify please?
The SPM mentions:
So they are just giving the limits/likely error on a measurement or a forecast.
And then they use the following terms at various points:
Re #203 [[“Proof” is a mathematical concept. Science research does not aim for “proof”.]]
Depends what scientific research you’re talking about. Much of science, contrary to what you read in simplistic treatments of philosophy of science, is not about general laws, or experiments. For example, it was long hypothesized that marsupials had once lived in Antarctica (because they live in Australia and South America, thought once to have been joined via Antarctica). Lo and behold, Antarctic fossils of marsupials were eventually found – proof that they once lived there. Of course you could say – well, maybe the fossils aren’t really of marsupials, or got there in some other way. But by the same token, many mathematical proofs (e.g. of the 4-colour theorem or Fermat’s last theorem) are so complicated there may well be errors in them. However, the main point of my question was that I suspected PhilC wouldn’t specify what would satisfy his doubts – as indeed, he hasn’t. The invitation for him to do so remains open.
Philc — which pointers to the incorrect graphs have you already read? There are two threads here, and somewhat over ten thousand hits on Google about the answer to that question.
It’s a bit hard to know where to begin, answering your questions.
Tell us where to start by telling us the source for what you currently know, please?
If you read it here and are having trouble understanding it, that’s one thing; if you followed a pointer from here to another site and aren’t understanding it, that’s another; if you found your info elsewhere and came here to ask about it — where did you get it?
Else we’re guessing in the dark about what sort of anwer will be helpful to you. Waste of time.
You could read these:
http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t63/izzy_bizzy_photo/capture-oism.jpg?t=1173790489
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2007/03/spot_the_difference.php
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2007/03/more_tggws_fakery.php
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2007/03/the_use_of_damon_and_laut.php
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2007/03/the_great_global_warming_swind_1.php
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2007/03/the_great_global_warming_swind.php
Re #198: [So, on the one hand we are being asked to choose between one mechanism that is little understood beyond a vague handwaving level (cosmic rays) and a mechanism with a venerable history and lots of solid research behind it.]
Remember, though, that it’s not a matter of “choosing between”, since AGW theory is not an attempt to explain observed warming, but a prediction (originally made long before any warming was observed) that adding CO2 will cause an increase in temperature.
Even if the GCR proponents could find strong supporting evidence for their theory, it would not invalidate anything related to CO2. Like aerosols, changes in solar output, and the occasional volcano, it’d be just one more factor to be added to climate models.
PhilC, can you imagine an engineer saying that a plane is 90% certain to crash and people still be willing to board? Not me.
Now I’m not sure where the 90% is coming from, but I think it stems mainly from the probablity distribution of model results (correct me if I’m wrong). I am not sure that it means that the scientific consensus is that there is a 10% chance of GHG not having any effect on climate at all. Actually, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. I would think that most climate scientists would estimate such a chance as being much smaller. Also, take into account that in the language of scientists, 90% certainty is equivalent to “absolutely sure” for most non-scientists.
If the warming continues, only 5% and eventually only 1% of the model output would be consistent with GHG not havning an effect on climate. I don’t want to live in a world where that 99% certainty is reached, and neither will you or anyone else. But that is what we’re heading for if you want to wait for “proof”.
More on bogosity, as an example. PhilC, you can look this stuff up. Please show us you’re trying, eh?
http://elleeseymour.com/2007/03/14/who-swindled-who/
[[1. this shows co2 absorbs infrared
2. this shows co2 is rising
3. this shows that some of it is from humans
4. this shows there is more of it
while 2+3+4 when linked with 1 may lead to an assumption it is certainly not proof that human emission of co2 is acutally causing global warming.]]
If you want a primer on how the greenhouse effect works, try:
http://members.aol.com/bpl1960/Greenhouse101.html
Given what we know about radiation physics, points 1-4 do lead to “human emission of CO2 is warming the climate.”
[[After all this time,money and effort the experts still say there is a 10% chance that man-made co2 is NOT causing global warming ]]
Given the radiation physics involved, what is stopping it from causing global warming? How can you pump more CO2 into the air and not warm the ground? What is the countervailing influence?
207
Ok you make a fair point.
however, in the UK media – words like proof and certainty are used about the GWT with such frequency and force but when you start digging in you find large uncertainties about possible outcomes. Many supporters of the theory seem happy to accept these huge uncertainties just as long as the theory remains the concensus view, to many skeptics it seems far too wide open.
“Bro, the SPM says there’s a 90% shot this piece of crap will fly.” – Wilbur
[Response: Given the history of the attempts up until then, I think that the bayseian probability of their Flyer flying was significantly less than 90%. – gavin]
#197, yes, the same Mark Lynas. His father was a geologist studying glaciers in Peru, where Mark lived as a child. Mark went back there decades later and saw that the glacier had melted substantially. He also documented harms from global warming occuring around the world right now in his HIGH TIDE.
You have to understand that Lomborg was saying we shouldn’t mitigate global warming, Mark (a young man with more to lose from GW than us old fogeys) got mad enough to throw that pie. Maybe in a few years there will be lots of college & high school students throwing pies or worse at us old folks who keep on saying we shouldn’t mitigate. It’s their future we are harming. And that’s not nice. In fact, that’s worse than pie-throwing!
Hope that does it.
You ought to see how the media here in Germany treat the science. They consistently call the activity of reducing man-made CO2 emmissions “Klimaschutz”, which literally means: climate protection. Can anyone explain to me how one goes about protecting the climate? Does this have anything to do with protecting the temperature, humditiy or windspeed?
Clearly this incorrect use of terminology demonstrates the utter incompetence of the media in handling or communicating the science at even the most basic levels. Is it any wonder that the position of the man-made global warming side isn’t taken as seriously as it probably should be? Incorrect use of terminology immediately raises suspicions. Can someone who keeps screwing up the basic terminology be believed? I don’t think so. If the man-made global warming side wishes to have any hope of convincing the world, then they’d better do 2 things: 1) improve the quality of their scientific arguments and 2) improve how to comunicate them.
Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go and protect my blood alcohol content with a few Krombachers.
Blutalkoholspiegelschutz!
…and 90 % sure that man is causing what portion of it??
Re “…and 90 % sure that man is causing what portion of it??”
The way I see it is that if man is causing only a fraction of the warming, that’s even worse news (assuming something else is causing the rest).
Since we cannot control the sun or whatever else that’s causing the warming, it just means we have to reduce our GHGs all the more to offset not only our own part, but also the part caused by other forces. So either way, we have to reduce our GHG, only we have to reduce even further, if nature is also contributing.
You can look it up; put “+IPCC +90” into your search tool and read through the first dozen or so hits, for example this from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_Fourth_Assessment_Report
….All values are shown as a change from pre-industrial conditions.
* Total radiative forcing from the sum of all human activities is a warming force of about +1.6 watts/m2
* Radiative forcing from an increase of solar intensity since 1750 is about +0.12 watts/m2
* Radiative forcing from carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide combined is very likely (>90%) increasing more quickly during the current era (1750-present) than at any other time in the last 10,000 years.
Pierre, on any important issue one should be suspicious of what the media says, and do some homework for one’s self. I am certain that if you read the IPCC SPM you will not find the phrase “climate protection” anywhere.
As far as the media goes, if you are to believe them there is a raging debate over global warming going on in the scientific community when in fact this is not the case.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1978
I think both sides would agree that the media could do a much better job of reporting (though for different reasons I’m sure) so the lesson is that if you really want to know about something you will have to read some scientific books and articles outside of the popular press.
[[If the man-made global warming side wishes to have any hope of convincing the world, then they’d better do 2 things: 1) improve the quality of their scientific arguments and 2) improve how to comunicate them.]]
Point 2 has some validity to it, but point 1 is utterly bogus and just shows your lack of familiarity with the relevant science.
re 217
“You have to understand that Lomborg was saying we shouldn’t mitigate global warming,”
as I understand it Lomborg’s is saying that we can’t mitigate it enough to justify the huge expense using money that would be far better used to tackle humanitarian issues over which there is no doubt at all.
Activists such as Mark Lynas write books using the worst possible predications, give them emotive titles and are exactly the kind of supporters you dont need on your side.
ref 207
this is what I mean by the ipcc saying “90%”
Global climate change is “very likely” to have a human cause, an influential group of scientists has concluded.
the panel concluded that it was at least 90% certain that human emissions of greenhouse gases rather than natural variations are warming the planet’s surface.
taken from this page bbc website
so I still ask – why is the ipcc consensus of scientists, no less, unable to come out with a categorical statement on this fundamental issue?
Re 207
I recall reading somewhere that it was the Chinese and Saudis that would not agree to a stronger statement. Anyone else hear something like this ?
re 209
Having looked at the so-called ‘fake’ graph in TGGWS I accept that it may not be completely accurate but any differences with the official graph do nothing to take away from the conculsions drawn in the program. (I know realclimate has an explanation for the cooling period after the war)
Describing this as a ‘fake’ is like calling someone a lier becuase they included a spelling mistake in a paper
PhilC says,
“so I still ask – why is the ipcc consensus of scientists, no less, unable to come out with a categorical statement on this fundamental issue?”
Because they are scientists and when you are dealing with theories scientists rarely if ever make categorical statements because all theories are incomplete. It is always a mater of approximations to reality. (Even our eyes only give us an approximation to reality, we can’t see infrared). And if they made a categorical statement about the cause of global the skeptics would be all over them in a nanosecond, because a categorical statement about the cause of global warming would be incorrect.
So instead they are honest and say what the evidence and their highly sophisticated models that are run on supercomputers tell them and give it a 90% probability, which in most peoples books is a high probability.
Yes, there’s a chance they could be wrong, but it is a low chance. The skeptics remind me of that dumb or dumber movie where the dumb guy asks the beautiful girl if there is chance that she will go out with him, she rolls her eyes and says, “yeah, 1 in a million…” and the dumb guy shouts, “YES!!! THEN THERE’S A CHANCE!”
I’m sorry if you find this offensive, nothing personal, but get a grip, Phil.
ref 217
“Mark went back there decades later and saw that the glacier had melted substantially…” and immediately knew it was all the fault of western civilisation.
re 229
they give it a 90% probability – on this site it becomes an absolute certainty. Anyone taking the 10% option is called a denier.
if, like the beautiful girl, the ipcc had said there’s a 1 in a million chance we’re wrong – then case closed. But 1 in 10 is something else altogether.
[edit]
Well, thanks for sharing, Phil. Always interesting to hear the same opinions from new userids.
re 229
my previous post was edited and looking at it again can see it could be read to have a smutty connotation. So I’ll clarify
In response to being asked to get a grip – I have a grip already but on a different set of ideas than the consensus.
Nothing smutty intended.
PhilC, The 90% confidence that humans are causing climate change is what they call a Bayesian confidence–basically you poll a large group of experts and take the level that emerges as a consensus. Scientists are by nature conservative. I think most physicists would only give General Relativity about a 90% probability–maybe less.
The fact of the matter is that there is simply no other credible alternative to anthropogenic causation. No other cause has even roughly the right time dependence or produces the right distribution of effects.
I do risk mitigation for a living. If I faced a 90% risk of dire consequences, I know that the right thing to do is direct up to 90% of the potential cost incurred if the risk is realized. I’m curious how you would have us respond. I mean scientists are continually looking into alternative factors already to see if any are significant. They are checking their research and that of others already. They are working on possible solutions to the problem. What, in your opinion should we do differently.
The other question is what would it take to convince you that we are in fact changing the climate? What evidence is there that you are looking for that you haven’t seen?
If your objection to remediation of climate change stems from economic considerations, then your argument should be framed in those terms. Attacking what is really well understood science because you do not like its consequences is not a rational approach.
Hello Phil C #160
Sorry, you won’t get “concrete evidence” in a system as complex as climate, especially as we only have the one largescale experimental example. Your comment about looking at things objectively was interesting. In my recent foray onto the Channel4 MessageBoards I was once again amused by how my evidenced assertions did not meet with evidenced challenges. I sometimes throw in deliberate ‘errors’ when meeting that sort of response to test my opponent. None were picked up, those trumpeting support of the programme hadn’t even got their brains in gear.
I’m an ex-GWsceptic who started reading the science in Jan 2005, I’d had enough then to suspect I was badly wrong. I gave up using virtually all sites on the net, except realclimate and official sites because I was sick of being told by the usual bunch that such-and-such a paper said something, but when I read the paper it didn’t.
I’ve long since given up on the media.
Most of the contrarist blather centres on uncertainty, but it’s esentially a Straw Man. Carl Wunsch put it so much better than I could:
“The science of climate change remains incomplete. Some elements are based so firmly on well-understood principles, or on such clear observational records, that most scientists would agree that they are almost surely true (adding CO2 to the atmosphere is dangerous; sea level will continue to rise,…).
Other elements remain more uncertain, but we as scientists in our roles as informed citizens believe society should be deeply concerned about their possibility: a mid-western US megadrought in 100 years; melting of a large part of the Greenland ice sheet, among many other examples. ”
http://ocean.mit.edu/~cwunsch/papersonline/responseto_channel4.htm
The real uncertainty has moved out of the realm of “Are we warming the planet?” into “What will this mean in terms of it’s future effects on our daily lives (in a practical sense)?”
Anyway, if you need more certainty, you can always just wait. This is an ongoing physical process and no matter how much obfuscation we non-experts are subjected to by the contrarist industry, it will continue.
Physical processes don’t give a hoot about public opinion.
Phil, if the overwhelming majority of doctors you consulted agreed that there was a 90 percent or greater chance that you had a disease which would cause increasingly debilitating and painful symptoms leading to a hideous and agonizing death unless you immediately began treatment which would both prevent the worst symptoms of the disease and save your life, what would you do?
@Barton
Thanks for the interesting links. Again the question remains: To what extent does MAN-MADE CO2 play a role in the greenhouse effect? This is what the whole discussion is about I think, or at least should be.
Indeed we know that water vapour plays the dominant greenhouse role, and that CO2 plays a significantly lesser role, of which the man-made part is only a small fraction. Once you begin to multiply fractions you quickly approach negligible magnitudes. Surely man-made CO2 contributes to the greenhouse effect, but I would say over a neglible range. And next, you have to factor in the contributions from extraterrestial activities such as solar and cosmic particles. So when you multiply a quarter times a twentieth times a tenth and so on…you quickly see where one ends up.
I think this is what the debate has to focus on…determining the magnitudes of these fractions, and to do so without constantly fudging the numbers. Are we really impacting the climate? Or are we only talking about whether or not we should invest huge sums of money, and change how we live our lives, so that we can go from having a negligible impact to having a slightly less than neglible impact?
Well, I’ve written quite a few posts here and I have to admit that my mind was already made up before I started, so I think I’ll move on.
But to sum up my general view on all this…
I am very suspicious of any theory that has to introduce more and more factors to keep being able to explain experimental results. e.g. The global cooling after WWII – CO2 cant explain it so you introduce other pollutants to explain it – in which case you could advocate increasing pollution to offset the CO2 (obviously I wouldn’t)
The introduction of a ‘feedback loop’ to explain the t-leading co2 problem is nuts. If rising co2 levels warm the oceans, the oceans emit more co2 which warms the oceans which emit more co2. The only feedback I can see is that – once warming starts nothing could ever stop it. The fact that we are alive today is evidence that the theory is pretty weak.
I don’t believe that the research is objective – huge amounts of money are available to research it.
I don’t believe that consensus science is science at all.
A computer model may model past climate events – but this is absolutely no indication of any future accuracy. These models are presented to the public as some kind of divine oracle that can tell us what will happen and are now partly influencing global political decisions. As someone who has spent 25 years writing computer modelling software I find this a very scary idea.
I am very suspicious of the political driving forces behind the public face Global Warming theory – not the scientists themselves I hasten to add.
Taking into account all the discussions, graphs and references to peer reviewed work – I simply don’t believe that anyone knows anything like enough about how the climate really works to make any realistic prediction.
If it turns out that this theory is wrong, science will have a very hard time recovering any form of credibility and that may be the saddest result from this episode.
Just as an aside, I am totally in favour of a move away from carbon based fuels probably to hydrogen. I also have a completely irrational faith in nature and its ability to look after itself.
After a few days posting here I’ll give it and you all a break.
I would like to thank everyone who replied to my posts. Even though I am completely unconvinced by many of your arguments I do appreciate the time you took to present them to me.
All the best
Phil Cunningham
ps. Having a background in physics, I am assuming the comparison of uncertainties in Global Warming to General Relativity was a joke
Pierre Gosselin, When you have a system with sources and sinks, you wind up with what is essentially the same differential equation we’ve all solved–filling a bucket with a hole in it. As long as the sources put in a volume less than a critical amount, the bucket will not overflow. However, go above that amount, even by the tiniest flow, and the bucket will overflow. Based on the fact that CO2 has increased by over 40%, we can conclude that we are above the amount the sinks can absorb. Based on the changes in carbon isotopic abundances, we can conclude that the carbon source is fossil and so it is anthropogenic carbon emissions that have pushed us above the critical level. We know that CO2 contributes somewhere from 8-12% of the greenhouse effect on Earth–and rising. These are all things we KNOW.
What we do not know are the effects of these changes–something that is inherently difficult to predict because climate is a chaotic system, and you cannot predict with certainty how a chaotic system will react to a perturbation. The potential effects of climate change are critical to understand if we are to come up with effective mitigations for them. In this effort, modeling is important, as are studies of paleoclimate in past warming epochs. Anything we learn is likely to decrease the cost of both climate change and its mitigation.
At this point, I am afraid we cannot avoid climate change. We can make it better or worse, though. Developing mitigation strategies will take time, and anything we can do to slow the worst effects and buy us more time will be a good investment.
So the argument about the causes of climate change is pretty much settled. The role of scientists now is to provide the best advice we can to policy makers on the likely consequences and how we can mitigate them. Of course climate researchers will continue to investigate mechanism–all of them, including cosmic rays (talk about a trivial contribution). The better we understand these, the better will be our models. But we are at a point where a revolution in our scientific understanding is very unlikely.
[[they give it a 90% probability – on this site it becomes an absolute certainty. Anyone taking the 10% option is called a denier.
if, like the beautiful girl, the ipcc had said there’s a 1 in a million chance we’re wrong – then case closed. But 1 in 10 is something else altogether.]]
Okay, Phil, load a ten-shot revolver with nine bullets, give the chamber a spin, hold it to your head, and pull the trigger once. You’ve got a 10% chance of surviving, and after all, 1 in 10 is something else altogether.
[[ We know that CO2 contributes somewhere from 8-12% of the greenhouse effect on Earth–and rising. These are all things we KNOW.]]
Kiehl and Trenberth (1997) estimate 26% (clear sky), but it varies. But none of these percentages are as meaningful as they sound. It’s not really something you can divide into percentages, because the wavelengths one greenhouse gas absorbs at are often absorbed at by another as well — “band overlap.”
@Phil Cunningham
Hydrogen? Are you kidding?
Burning hydrogen emits water. All that extra man-made water vapour will wind up in the atmosphere, and then the CO2 villifiers will finally admit that water vapour is an important greenhouse gas after all!
@Ladbury
“At this point, I am afraid we cannot avoid climate change.”
Well, don’t feel bad about that. So far no one has been able to do it in the last 4.5 billion years.
Re 242
Please read
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=142
before you spout more silly stuff.
Yeah, my SUV don’t make no stinkin’ water vapor you CO2 villifyin’, do goodin’, “flyin’ in the face of economics” science guys/gals.
Re #237: Pierre Gosselin — Using the simple orbital forcing theory, without anthropogenic effects, the climate should be very gently cooling. But it is warming. So the answer is slightly more than 100% of the warming is due to humans.
Re #238 “I am very suspicious of any theory that has to introduce more and more factors to keep being able to explain experimental results. e.g. The global cooling after WWII – CO2 cant explain it so you introduce other pollutants to explain it – in which case you could advocate increasing pollution to offset the CO2”
Why would you expect a system as complex as the Earth – including its biota and most especially its human population – necessarily to be explicable in terms of a small number of factors? I’d guess you’re importing the attitudes that have served fundamental physics very well into a context where they just don’t make much sense. And the climate scientists didn’t introduce other pollutants – industry did, and then had to cut back on them due to political pressure arising from their bad effects.
“If rising co2 levels warm the oceans, the oceans emit more co2 which warms the oceans which emit more co2.”
The warming effect is logarithmic in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 – can’t you see that makes a difference?
“I also have a completely irrational faith in nature and its ability to look after itself.”
You said it, Phil – completely irrational.
It’s too bad PhilC didn’t (apparently) bother reading the peer-reviewed literature on AGW, including the IPCC Reports, and the reports from the Royal Society, NAS, etc. I sense that a lot of RC visitors mistakenly interpret the comments made on RC threads by (mostly)non-climatologists as representing discussion and debate by climatologists.
In reference to the C02 feedback mechanism and others that have been mentioned, such as albedo and water vapor, it seems that these taken by themselves would create an unstable equilibrium. I come from a math background and don’t know much about the climate models–I’m thinking of an ODE like y’=y, where there is a bounded solution if y(0)=0, but for the tiniest deviation in the intial condition, the solution grows unbounded. I’m interested to learn what damping factors exist that would allow a more or less stable solution (oscillating perhaps) to the homogeneous problem (that is, without an external forcing function to muck things up). I did see the comment about C02 growing as a function of the log, but even if y’ = lny you still have an unbounded solution (related to the number of primes less than y as it turns out!). Is it the case that y’ = f(y) and f rapidly approaches zero, perhaps?
Re. 199, have you looked hereand here, for instance? They’re only the two worst examples.