The advocate will pick up any piece of apparently useful data and without doing any analysis, decide that their pet theory perfectly explains any anomaly without consideration of any alternative explanations. Their conclusion is always that their original theory is correct.
The scientist will look at all possibilities and revise their thinking based on a thorough assessment of all issues – data quality, model quality and appropriateness of the the comparison. Their conclusion follows from the analysis whatever it points to.
Rick Brown Says (6 April 2009 at 8:04 PM):
“I do not think it would be desirable to establish forests on what are naturally non-forest vegetation – grasslands, prairies, shrub-steppe. These vegetation types are often in short supply, provide important habitat and often store substantial amounts of carbon.”
I agree in principle, that’s why I prefer “re-vegetation” rather than “reforestation”. Indeed (though I’m by no means an expert in the subject), I think transitioning human-created deserts back to grasslands is the key step in the process. The sod, besides storing a lot of carbon in its mass of roots and tubers, also stores water & moderates the effect of drought. Break that system, by plowing or overgrazing, and you go through a “tipping point”. The soil dries out and can’t easily go back to being a grassland. Restore that grassland, though, and parts of it – river bottoms & sheltered slopes – would probably evolve to forest.
Further on the question of carbon storage in soils, it might be useful to consider the upper midwest forests, which according to accounts I’ve read had a layer of organic material many feet deep overlaying the mineral soil. That pretty much all burned off due to logging around the end of the 19th century. Search on “Peshtigo fire” for accounts of the sort of forest fires that did this.
Alan Millar wrote in 342:
I hope you don’t mind if I omit any analysis of your argument based upon short-term trends. As I see it others have dealt with that issue quite sufficiently.
In any case, I believe that the basics of climatology are basically settled — but obviously there are alot of questions which are still the subject of study. Yes, clouds are one of these areas — although they are a bit more “settled” than the last IPCC summary would suggest — as science has moved forward since then. Clouds are likely to be a slightly negative feedback — with the warming cloud-based greenhouse effect (the reason why cloudy nights tend to remain warmer than clear nights) nearly canceling out the cooling albedo effect of clouds during that is limited to the daytime. Aerosols are a larger source of uncertainty — given their varied nature, distributions, and the difficulty of separating them from their backgrounds in satellite imaging.
*
However, don’t make the mistake of assuming that climate sensitivity is as uncertain as the most uncertain forcing. First of all, uncertainties tend to cancel out. You can see this in the sum of your coin tosses where the more coins you toss the closer the ratio of tosses that ended up heads will likely settle towards a given value.
Likewise, don’t make the mistake of assuming that the only way we have of knowing climate sensitivity is the result of our knowledge of the individual feedbacks to a given forcing. There are analyses based on the albedo effects of stratospheric aerosols for example which have been used to constrain climate sensitivity. There are analyses based upon the modern temperature record. And there are analyses based upon the paleoclimate record. And then there are meta-analyses which employ statistical methods to combine the results of several largely independent studies to further constrain the value of climate sensitivity.
*
A good place to begin to look into this sort of thing is the following:
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Climate sensitivity is 3°C
by James Annan
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2006/03/climate-sensitivity-is-3c.html
It introduces you to a paper from 2006 that used just this sort of approach with volcanoes, the modern temperature record and paleoclimate studies to try and constrain the range of uncertainty for climate sensitivity.
Please see:
Here the authors go into the types of studies that were combined:
*
More recently (2007) there was a meta-study based upon the last 420 million years of paleoclimate data.
Please see:
It combined the results of 47 different studies with five independent methods:
The best-fit value was 2.8°C
*
Interestingly, recent climate models (which are based upon attempts to model the climate system based upon the principles of physics) tend to settle on a value of approximately 3°C — similar to the 2007 study. However, it has also been argued from a more theoretical perspective that it is much more difficult to put a constraint upon the upper limit for climate sensitivity. I could look that up for you as well. But the soundness of that study is a matter for some debate.
*
But all of these studies are largely focusing on what is called the Charney climate sensitivity, an equilibrium climate sensitivity based upon short-term feedbacks. There is also a long-term feedback climate sensitivity which seeks to incorporate feedbacks due to ice sheets and the carbon cycle, e.g., the saturation of carbon sinks, some of which are already becoming carbon emitters (sources), resulting in positive feedback. For example, the warming of permafrost resulting in the emission of methane in the Arctic tundra, the saturation of some parts of the ocean, the response of plants to especially warm years and drought. And then there is the question of just how long-term the long-term feedbacks are — as some of them appear to be kicking in more quickly than we anticipated.
Jim Hansen estimates that the long-term feedback climate sensitivity is double the Charney. However this too is a matter for some debate, particularly in terms of his analysis of ice sheets — which some believe are less vulnerable to higher temperatures than what he bases his analysis upon.
Yes, there are many questions in climatology that aren’t settled, but I have indicated, the uncertainties which exist really aren’t the sort of things from which one should draw comfort. In any case, I hope this helps.
Re: Reforestation & Carbon.
The Geescroft & Broadbalk Wilderness experiments have been ongoing at Rothamsted Research for ~120 years. There is a pertinent paper on the subject here: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118895858/abstract
P. R. POULTON , E. PYE , P. R. HARGREAVES and D. S. JENKINSON
Accumulation of carbon and nitrogen by old arable land reverting to woodland
Global Change Biology 9 (6)
Abstract:
The accumulation of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) was measured on two sites on Rothamsted Farm that had been fenced off some 120 years ago and allowed to revert naturally to woodland. The sites had previously been arable for centuries. One had been chalked and was still calcareous; the other had never been chalked and the pH fell from 7.1 in 1883 to 4.4 in 1999. The acidic site (Geescroft wilderness) is now a deciduous wood, dominated by oak (Quercus robor); the calcareous site (Broadbalk wilderness) is now dominated by ash (Fraxinus excelsior), with sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) and hawthorn (Craetagus monogyna) as major contributors. The acidic site gained 2.00 t C ha−1 yr−1 over the 118-year period (0.38 t in litter and soil to a depth of 69 cm, plus an estimated 1.62 t in trees and their roots); the corresponding gains of N were 22.2 kg N ha−1 year−1 (15.2 kg in the soil, plus 6.9 kg in trees and their roots). The calcareous site gained 3.39 t C ha−1 year−1 over the 120-year period (0.54 t in the soil, plus an estimated 2.85 t in trees and roots); for N the gains were 49.6 kg ha−1 yr−1 (36.8 kg in the soil, plus 12.8 kg in trees and roots). Trees have not been allowed to grow on an adjacent part of the calcareous site. There is now a little more C and N in the soil from this part than in the corresponding soil under woodland. We argue from our results that N was the primary factor limiting plant growth and hence accumulation of C during the early stages of regeneration in these woodlands. As soil organic N accumulates and the sites move towards N saturation, other factors become limiting. Per unit area of woodland, narrow strips; that is, wide hedges with trees, are the most efficient way of sequestering C – provided that they are not short of N.
Back to the original topic, Advocacy versus Science, another way to phrase it is to ask how much confirmation bias permeates climate science these days. The lay view is pretty clear – it doesn’t take long in conversation to determine that most folks on either side of the debate, to the extent they are even interested, believe what they believe based on loyalty to some cause or political belief or other. That or a splashy headline about polar bears dying or the IPCC being a bunch of politicos.
Among folks who do care to do some reading, I note an inclination to rush off to the nearest study that backs up the desired point of view and a knee-jerk urge to disparage the studies that don’t confirm one’s bias. AGW proponents will chide skeptics for the scarcity of evidence and peer review, regardless of the content, and skeptics will claim that the AGWers are more or less in cahoots, confirming rather than challenging each other’s work. In the climate blogs, the sneering, sarcastic and patronizing tones directed at opposing views is the self-evident rule of engagement.
Somewhere out there are the scientists who so genuinely fear the consequences of rapid climate change that they sell their damn cars, or who are so genuinely skeptical and fearful of the economic consequences of overreaction that they – well, what would they do? In any event, what would be interesting to hear, if they exist, are stories about climate scientists who set out to find A and found B instead, scientists who “revised their thinking”, as the topic heading put it.
Gavin Schmidt of NASA GISS says galactic cosmic rays haven’t gone up, and FurryCatHerder says, “Uh, you might want to discuss that with NASA.”
No comment necessary.
[Response: Appreciated…. But it is always good to remember that NASA is a huge organisation made up of very disparate elements. It does not speak with one voice and generally doesn’t give a ‘NASA view’ on any scientific subject (as opposed to on policy issues). Scientific statements by NASA employees are representative of their own ideas only, so it’s not out of bounds to suggest that other NASA scientists might disagree with statements I make (or vice versa). However, in this case, FCH is just wrong as any glance at the data would demonstrate. – gavin]
“another way to phrase it is to ask how much confirmation bias permeates climate science these days”
How about against AGW? Plenty of bias there.
How many mathematicians know the proof of 1+1=2? Very very few (probably equal to the number of fingers on each foot…). So mathematicians “take it on faith”.
Does that mean maths is completely wrong?
Warning: On-topic post
Walter Manny, While I agree that among laymen, there is a tendency to decide on an emotional basis and then look for rational support, that is precisely why we don’t take lay opinion into account in determining the scientific consensus. What matters really are the folks who are actively publishing in the field, since they are the most likely to know which approaches yield fruit and which are barren. What is more, you certainly have to admit that when a layman favoring the consensus view goes off in search of a study in support of his view, he’s got a whole helluva lot more to choose from and a lot better quality than does a dissenter.
The problem is that the best science has to the the starting point for policy discussions. If some folks don’t like the state of the science, but offer no constructive suggestions for how to improve it, it’s a little hard to take their objections into account. And those who oppose the best science based on ideology merely ensure that their ideology is not represented when policy is not formulated.
This is not a choice between a neutral policy and radical change. It is rather a choice of whether we will base policy on science or ignore science in its formulation.
FCH,
There a lot of different components to the space radiation environment. Galactic cosmic rays (GCR) are merely the most energetic. They are also among the lowest flux. GCR flux during solar minimum (maximum GCR flux) is aroung 6 particles per square cm per second. That is a tiny flux, and it is difficult to come up with a mechanism whereby it would translate into a global effect. What is more, the usual mechanism posited has to do with clouds–but GCR fluxes are pretty much isotropic and have no systematic time dependence, so the question is how do you preferentially get clouds in the day time when they would cool Earth and not in the night, when they would have a warming effect?
And even if you could come up with a mechanism, there is no evidence for any systematic change in GCR fluxes. Not only do the neutron data show zip, I can also look at bit flips in memory arrays on satellites and see that mean rates haven’t changed in about 30 years. This dead horse has been flogged to mince.
Craig Allen – I must say though that I am very impressed with the rate at which Watts flings up articles. He does it at the rate of a regular news media Goliath.
Craig – All part of the noise machine, and speaks to the shallowness of the argument. I have not bothered posting since Mr Watts smeared me then made a false accusation of dishonesty. The modus operandi resembles the Gish Gallop; aided and abbetted by guest posts from the likes of icecap, David Archibald et al, a lead article is posted with a eyecatching and most likely dishonest headline, eg ‘Most of the Atlantic warming is due to dust’ was the headline to an article on a paper that looked at the Tropical North Atlantic only. Then there’s the good old Straw Man e.g. Most climate researchers today deal exclusively with man-made ‘greenhouse’ gases, and often dismiss suggestions of naturally caused warming as unscientific. . Or Steve Goddard might drop by to assert that there is no cause for concern about corals as they evolved during the Ordovician era, when CO2 levels were 20 times higher (all corals extant in the Ordovician are now extinct). Rarely is an update or correction to misinformation posted and when it happens it is generally buried in the comments. By then the damage has been done, the ‘amen’ crowd has been pleased and the agenda been moved on by a shiny new lead article.
Its slick, and recently I thought I noticed a trend towards some real science, but it didn’t persist and the old themes of cold weather reports, ‘Al Gore lives in a big house’ and ‘NASA should fire James Hansen now’ re-emerged. That is, there’s a whole lot of advocacy and precious little good science on the science blog of the year. You may want to consider if posting there is a productive use of your time. Has Prof Lindzen contributed an explanation of why he used the uncorrected ERBE/ERBS data yet, btw?
PS An informal ‘climate audit’.
hot
cold
Someone should investigate this surprising ratio immediately!
359. “Has Prof Lindzen contributed an explanation of why he used the uncorrected ERBE/ERBS data yet, btw?”
As far as I can tell, Watts’ attempt to get clarification failed, and he cited a recent lecture at Colgate:
“Recently, Wong et al (Wong, Wielicki et al, 2006, Reexamination of the Observed Decadal Variability of the Earth Radiation Budget Using Altitude-Corrected ERBE/ERBS Nonscanner WFOV Data, J. Clim., 19, 4028-4040) have reassessed their data to reduce the magnitude of the anomaly, but the remaining anomaly still represents a substantial negative feedback, and there is reason to question the new adjustments. For example, a more recent examination of the same datasets explicitly confirms the iris relations at least for intraseasonal time scales (Spencer, R.W., W.D. Braswell, J.R. Christy and J. Hnilo, 2007, Cloud and radiation budget changes associated with the tropical intraseasonal oscillations, Geophys. Res. Ltrs.)”
The thread appears to be ended.
Ray, thanks for straying on topic.
to: “that is precisely why we don’t take lay opinion into account in determining the scientific consensus”
And a good thing, too! We do, however, take lay opinion into big-time account when determining policy. I do not mean by that to imply Holdren should not advise Obama, just that lay opinion certainly informs public opinion, and thereby politicians, in a big way.
“but the remaining anomaly still represents a substantial negative feedback, and there is reason to question the new adjustments.”
There’s always a reason. But is it valid? Apparently not, if he can still see “substiantial negative feedback”. And he’s not put his equations on the table about what he still sees.
“For example, a more recent examination of the same datasets explicitly confirms the iris relations at least for intraseasonal time scales”
intraseasonal time scales aren’t climatology timescales. And he still has nothing that shows such lensing is enough to explain a significant part of the warming.
Re: 360. Hmm. Citing Spencer’s analysis doesn’t really carry much weight. Certainly, it is not an argument for continuing to use the uncorrected data. And moreover, using uncorrected data without any reference to the corrected set for a lay audience verges on misconduct.
The whole episode is bizarre and has me wondering whether Lindzen might not have some philosophical predilection that biases him in favor of negative feedback. More and more, his arguments sound almost as if they are based on some sort of strong anthropic principle.
In your previous post, you alluded to confirmation bias. Have you really thought out what this would imply? Normally, a confirmation bias would be found where a small and narrowly focused group have a direct stake in confirming (or rejecting) a particular hypothesis. Climate science is, however, one of the broadest interdisciplinary subjects in all of science. It involves contributions from fields ranging from biology to astronomy! What is more, the basic framework of the theory of Earth’s climate is a century old. No one alive today is going to get anywhere near as much fame or glory for confirming this theory as they would for overturning it. You might claim that overturning the theory would cause embarrassment to researchers who have expressing concern about climate change, but if that were to happen, would you want to be on the side that discovered the error or the ones taken by surprise by it?
What is more, climate science has been assessed independently by everyone ranging from the National Academies to the American Association of Petroleum Geologists without one organization voicing significant dissent from the consensus. Would you contend that all of these organizations have some significant stake in the consensus?
Frankly, I simply do not see how anybody who has looked into the issue can make accusations of confirmation bias with a straight face.
“In any event, what would be interesting to hear, if they exist, are stories about climate scientists who set out to find A and found B instead, scientists who “revised their thinking”, as the topic heading put it.”
Not sure what you mean there because scientists don’t set out to “find” any particular result. They set out to establish or test concepts based on data and/or theory; let the chips fall where they may. We are constantly having our thinking revised in many small, and sometimes large, ways. It’s the nature of the beast.
Here’s the AGU session on disturbance and carbon sinks:
http://www.agu.org/cgi-bin/SFgate/SFgate?&listenv=table&multiple=1&range=1&directget=1&application=fm08&database=%2Fdata%2Fepubs%2Fwais%2Findexes%2Ffm08%2Ffm08&maxhits=200&=%22B33E%22
–Monitoring and Assessing the Impacts of Disturbance on the Terrestrial Carbon Budget II
–An overview of the role of disturbance in the terrestrial carbon budget
–Woody Detritus Controls Forest Carbon Budgets: The Disturbance Connection
— Quantifying the Impacts of Disturbance on the Canadian Managed Forest Carbon Budget
And five more papers in that set.
Just to illustrate that answers are out there; simple answers from people on blogs are only pointers toward the research. That’s where to go for the science.
Jim,
‘Not sure what you mean there because scientists don’t set out to “find” any particular result.’
That is an ideal, don’t you think, and not a reality? We’re probably splitting semantic hairs here, but what I am speaking of are climate scientists who find themselves advocating in one direction or the other only to have unexpected data or analysis push them in the opposite direction — as you put it, “large ways”. I don’t come across those stories, and I assume I am not looking in the right place(s) for them. The absence of those stories would suggest (not prove!) the confirmation bias I am talking about. Yes, it could also suggest that scientists on one side are dead right and the other side dead wrong, but that would seem unlikely.
Ray,
I overlooked your post at first, just caught it.
I agree that Lindzen’s failure to follow up in detail is disappointing to say the least. Perhaps he has tried to make his case elsewhere, but who knows. To your comment, then, that:
“Frankly, I simply do not see how anybody who has looked into the issue can make accusations of confirmation bias with a straight face.”
Well, I read what I wrote in front of the mirror, and damn if I didn’t keep a straight face! Kidding aside, I assume you mean that there is confirmation bias in the minority view, but not in the majority? It raises an impossible philosophical question, of course, which is that if one suffers from confirmation bias, is it possible for one to notice it?
That is not an “impossible philosophical question” at all, wmanny. (i.e. “if one suffers from confirmation bias, is it possible for one to notice it?”) It is common practice in psychotherapy for the therapist to draw the client’s attention to examples of various kinds of bias (confirmation bias included) when episodes are described or the bias manifests itself within a session. A sufficiently motivated client learns to do this for him/herself, and thereby cleans up his/her thinking. I have seen many, many people become aware of their own biases, and then reduce them, compensate for them, or (apparently) eliminate them. The process does not require a psychotherapist or anyone else at all, though it is easier with help from someone who can be somewhat of an objective outsider. But all that’s really needed is mindfulness. You have to examine your reactions, examine the underlying beliefs that are implied by them. In the case of a confirmation bias, you start by being open to the possibility that you might have a confirmation bias, then you actively look for counterexamples to what you believe.
It should be noted that these sorts of mechanisms are built into the scientific method. They may at times be imperfectly applied, but their presence there is why science is such a good epistemological tool.
> scientists who “revised their thinking”
Those who don’t, aren’t. Plenty of examples. One:
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~davidc/ATMS211/Lecture8-slides-PDF.pdf
wmanny
My apologies for generalizing your confirmation bias arguments but maybe this will help you? I can be out of context on this because I did not read every post but wanted to try to make something more clear.
Try not to get caught up in the confirmation bias argument, it is tired and old. The data, the clear trends of signal above noise, the measurements (although never perfect) show the trend. We have left the natural path.
http://www.ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/natural-variability
We are clearly off the natural path, so any imperfections in the measurements and even any confirmation bias are inconsequential in this context.
In other words, the majority of errors are not even significant enough to alter the aggregate understanding of warming on a new path.
Confirmation bias means nothing in this context, it is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if you believe in the models or not, the measurements of the signal above the noise are strong enough to show that we are on an entirely new, human caused path of warming.
Sometimes you just have to look at the whole picture of the science and be reasonable.
Another example of how actual field work changes scientists’ thinking:
“… selective logging results in 25 percent more greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere than previously thought.
“This was totally surprising to us and alarming to our colleagues, especially those interested in conservation, climate change and the ability of governments like Brazil to enforce environmental laws,” says assistant professor Gregory Asner, lead author on the study, which was published today in the journal Science. …. for every tree removed, 30 more will become severely damaged.That’s because selective logging is inherently destructive, the team says. When a tree is cut down, vines growing between it and other trees will pull down neighbors. The space that opens up becomes dry and susceptible to burning. Additionally, tractors and skidders used to remove the hardwoods destroy the forest floor and promote additional logging.
What’s more, felled trees, the decomposing debris left behind on the forest floor and the large amounts of sawdust produced at sawmills release carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere. Traditional deforestation unleashes 400 million tons of carbon every year, and Asner and his colleagues estimate selective logging produces an additional 100 million tons. …”
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=selective-logging-fails-t
That’s one of a series of ten experiments:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=10-climate-experiments
“if one suffers from confirmation bias, is it possible for one to notice it?”
Yes. Put it up for peer review.
Others will not have the same bias.
This is why the denialist papers need more skepticism and those writing denialist papers need to listen to criticism rather than blame it on an international conspiracy.
And even more, they need to publish in a genuinely peer reviewed journal. Not a think-tank organised book.
Walter, I don’t contend that there is confirmation bias in the dissenting view because there’s nothing to confirm. Most in the camp do not publish, and those few that do are rarely cited because they don’t advance the state of understanding. The dissenters are not biased; they are moribund.
When you say, “Yes, it could also suggest that scientists on one side are dead right and the other side dead wrong, but that would seem unlikely,” you are missing the point. The “other side” in this case has no theory. They have no evidence. They have only the same, recycled talking points they’ve been bringing up for a decade. They aren’t doing science.
wmanny: Suppose for the sake of argument that climate scientists are in fact subject to the sort of confirmation bias you propose, and that they’ve in fact invented the whole AGW scenario in order to increase their chances of getting grants. Where does that leave the rest of us?
There are, after all, a good many scientifically literate people who are not climate scientists. Some are scientists working in other fields, some are engineers or just people with an interest. We’ve no prospect of profit from AGW being true, and the usual inconvenience-to-our-lifestyle and how-come-climate-scientists-get-all-the-grants reasons for wishing it wasn’t. If the climate scientists are in fact faking it, why can’t some of us discover how, or come up with a counter-theory that withstands even cursory examination?
372. Ray, thanks, and you have summed things up nicely. I find your position re. dissent overly simplistic and dismissive, but I respect the possibility that you are correct in your views. -Walter
In news about newspaper coverage, this:
“MAKING GEORGE WILL LOOK WORSE…. The Washington Post had a good item today ….”
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_04/017645.php
pointing to and quoting
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/06/AR2009040601634.html
and pointing to and quoting
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-04-07-post-reporter-calls-out-will/
and commenting “… It’s safe to assume Will is furious to be exposed this way, but more to the point, it seems the Post is well aware that one of its highest-profile voices has published several columns with demonstrably false claims. …”
_______________________
ReCaptcha surely picked these words at random:
“fund-raising Shady”
Clearly we’re all subject to confirmation bias no matter how good our scientific training and experience. You are more likely to question a finding that contradicts your understanding, than you are to question a finding that supports it.
But in science, the ultimate antidote to this is reality. As the data rolls in, sooner or later you have to face facts no matter how much they conflict with the way you thought things were. And every good scientist tries their very best to not succumb to bias, because they know that to do so makes you a bad scientist, causes you to waste time and leads you away from important findings. And besides it’s exciting to find out that you are wrong. Every time that happens, you have learned something new!
While we are talking about bias, I must say that I am utterly amazed by the degree of delusion on Watts blog. I see him and many of his posters regularly posting data to support their arguments that directly contradicts and undermines what they are saying. I wonder if some people are actually doing it to undermine Watts. Then again he doesn’t need any help. Have a look at the plots and maps he has just posted (7th April 09) in order to scoff at the idea that Arctic sea ice is trending down. Wierd!
The Arctic ice post is actually a guest post from Steve Goddard, who used to contibute to ‘The Register’ – a UK science/tech/IT News website, which has adopted a similar anti-science stance.
But at least The Register printed a correction from the expert when Mr Goddard got Arctic ice spectacularly wrong.
Recaptcha: Revision Love
“While we are talking about bias, I must say that I am utterly amazed by the degree of delusion on Watts blog. I see him and many of his posters regularly posting data to support their arguments that directly contradicts and undermines what they are saying.”
They aren’t talking to people who will look at the data skeptically. They’re preaching to the believers (remember: a common psychological problem is “projection”, where you project your problems on someone else and accuse them of it). They will look at the text that says “AGW is false, here is proof”, see that there are numbers, graphs and equations following and, even if nominally honest, think “well, they wouldn’t put that up if it WASN’T proof, would they?” and accept it as proof without checking to see if it is.
They are telling the credulous they have proof, so why bother checking to see if it is saying what they want? Nobody on the site is going to look at it. And any other site that does so and criticises it are in the Pay of Big Government and the Eco Nazi Conglomerate. And their bias is so strong, that anything they say is wrong (unless it reads like it could mean AGW is wrong, in which case, they’ll yank that and crow about it till the end of time).
Walter Manny, if you think I am being too dismissive of the dissenters, perhaps you could link to an peer-reviewed article that you find particularly cogent.
Certainly, if you go by citations to work, the dissenting scientists have nothing to brag about:
http://www.eecg.utoronto.ca/~prall/climate/climate_authors_table.html
Ray, I will continue to do my reading as broadly and deeply as time allows — this study is an avocation for me and what I believe is not important. What would be far more illuminating, on this topic at any rate, is for YOU to seek out the contrarian nuggets that you think have any value. If you have no interest in doing so, or if you have determined that the skeptics truly have nothing to offer — they are not doing science, as you say — then fair enough. Why seek evidence that you are sure does not exist? And why have me of all people do it for you — I’m not the NASA phyicist here. I am perfectly content to think your dismissal of the skeptics too dismissive, content in the knowledge that I could easily be wrong about that, and to continue reading. I don’t share your view yet because you are not the only person who has a view.
I have more or less asked the question: Which climate scientists have changed their minds? I find the non-response to it as interesting as the stories I was seeking to hear might have been.
ray! that’s quite a looong list of climate authors. i counted A LOT of “jameses” on there… i bet they would “sign something” if somebody important asked them to…
This seems to have some relevance to advocacy & science:
EU: Earth Warming Faster
April 8, 2009
Reuters
Excerpt:
I’m not sure that climate scientists are, in fact, any more “expert” in their assessments of “level of political will” than anyone else. But at least those surveyed here seem to have a pretty discouraging view of the likelihood that humanity will take the necessary actions. And perhaps with good reason, as the article quotes David Karoly: “The concentration of long-lived greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is already enough to cause warming of more than 2C above pre-industrial levels, and we are continuing to emit more and more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.”
Yet another example of results surprising the researcher — this is not at all hard to find if you bother to look:
____________excerpt________
The results of the study startled even its authors. “I knew that the gravitational effect on meltwater would be important, but I was very surprised the contributions from the other two effects were just as large,” says Mitrovica.
———–end————–
http://scienceline.org/2009/04/06/environment-bond-sea-level-rise-north-america/
Oh, wait, that’s the point about confirmation bias — you have to be willing to look beyond what you assume to find evidence like this.
“I have more or less asked the question: Which climate scientists have changed their minds? I find the non-response to it as interesting as the stories I was seeking to hear might have been.” – wmanny
Actually, you have been given a number of examples. I guess what you really mean is “Which climate scientists, having once thought AGW was real and important, have since decided it isn’t – or vice versa.” Here, since there has been an overwhelming preponderance of evidence for the first position for at least the last decade, you won’t find many recent examples – any more than you will with regard to the causative role of tobacco smoking in lung cancer or of HIV in AIDS. In all three cases, those interested in and capable of rationally assessing the evidence did so some time ago.
http://www.desmogblog.com/msnbc-taps-think-tanker-pat-michaels-expert-advice
wmanny: “I have more or less asked the question: Which climate scientists have changed their minds? I find the non-response to it as interesting as the stories I was seeking to hear might have been.”
Uh, “more-or-less asked the question” isn’t “asked the question” until you’ve ***asked the question*** why would someone answer the question you didn’t (only almost) asked?
Maybe the there are hundreds who more-or-less answered your question.
And you can see how the change in minds have happened: what used to be “you can’t tell if there’s been any warming” and “there has been no warming” has changed to “there has been warming but it’s not our fault” and “we’re now cooling again”.
If they hadn’t changed their minds, why did they stop saying there was no warming shown and move to how there was warming, but it’s not a problem? You cant hold BOTH in your head without some serious psychological problems. So they must have changed their minds.
re #381 wmanny
Your approach is silly isn’t it? First of all you raise “confirmation bias” which is the pursuit of a non-argument. The science stands or falls according to the evidence. If the interpretations are consistent with the evidence then the interpretations are scientifically valid. If these are supported by further real world observations (evidence) then our confidence in the interpretations is enhanced. That’s how science works.
If you’ve got examples of instances where “confirmation bias” has scuppered straightforward understanding of significant elements of the science then show us. Otherwise raising “confirmation bias” with the implicit challenge to disprove this is just bluster.
Likewise with your challenge to find climate scientists who have “changed their minds”. Perhaps there aren’t any climate scientists that have changed their mind. Why should they if the evidence supports their interpretations and continues to do so? And “change their minds” about what, exactly? It’s rather common to change our minds about issues on the periphery of scientific knowledge, but no knowledgeable scientist is going to change his/her mind about the role of CO2 as a greenhouse gas, or the role of Milankovitch cycles in glacial-interglacial transitions, and so on. There simply isn’t evidence that would support such a major reinterpretation.
I can think of many examples of climate scientists changing their mind about peripheral elements of the subject. Two from Jim Hansen come to mind, for example: (i) Hansen has indicated in his papers over the years that the climate sensitivity to CO2 is of the order of 3-4 oC of warming per doubling of atmospheric CO2; more recently he’s presented evidence that the long term climate sensitivity involving major ice sheet contributions is closer to 6 oC. He’s clearly changed his mind somewhat on the subject of climate sensitivity…perhaps he’ll change it again in the light of new evidence.(ii) In his most recent papers on attribution of contributions to warming Hansen and colleagues have reduce their estimate for the contribution of black carbon to 20th century warming (by 1/2 to 1/3’d if I remember correctly). He (and his colleagues) have “changed their mind” about this aspect of warming attribution. Perhaps they’ll reassess this in the light of new evidence
…and so on…that’s how science works. Interpretations based on evidence.
Your two “arguments” are essentially lazy armchair contrariness:
“I can’t be bothered to explore this myself so convince me that “confirmation bias” isn’t clouding our understanding”.
“I can’t be bothered to look for examples myself, but if you don’t show me examples of climate scientists “changing their minds”, I’m going to insinuate this to indicate “confirmation bias””….
It’s science wmanny, and therefore it’s about the evidence…
385. Nick, your: “Which climate scientists, having once thought AGW was real and important, have since decided it isn’t – or vice versa.” seems to me an incomplete but fair re-phrasing, and you have answered, in effect, “none”, and, by extension, that the science is settled. The majority is correct and comprises the real climate scientists. The minority is incorrect and they are not real climate scientists.
I get it that that’s what readers here think. I also get it that there is no interest here in questioning that correct thinking, and that the problem is that the skeptics refuse to question their incorrect thinking.
I conclude that the first paragraph of this topic heading, which refers to advocacy in a pejorative tone, is referring to skeptical advocacy only. Please correct me if you think I have that wrong. -Walter
Oh, wmanny is only looking for, and so only able to see, change in one direction? Is that why the answers and examples I and others gave seem to have been invisible?
I guess that proves something. But not about scientists.
PS, a reminder from your friends at the WSJ:
http://blogs.wsj.com/styleandsubstance/
—excerpt follows—-
March 31, 2009, Vol. 22, No. 3
The tilt of the talking heads
… we should limit our quoting of analysts and other “expert” talking heads and that, when we do quote them, we should try as hard as we can to suggest the ideological tilt of their organizations, as in left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, libertarian Cato Institute, etc….
—-end excerpt—-
Walter Manny, That’s just it. I haven’t found ANY contrarian studies that have:
1)cast significant doubt on CO2 sensitivity being around 3 degrees per doubling
2)given convincing evidence for negative feedback sufficiently strong to circumvent significant warming
3)significantly illuminated any phenomena about Earth’s climate that are not better understood in terms of the consensus modle.
Now, since I don’t assume that the climate contrarians are dumb, I can only conclude from this that their rejection of CO2 as a significant forcer places them at a significant disadvantage when it comes to explaining Earth’s climate. To a scientist, that is a pretty damned good indicatio that they are wrong.
Now if I don’t find anything the contrarians publish to be cogent and you can’t find any examples for me that are cogent, I don’t see how I can conclude that the dissenters have much to offer. Or am I missing something?
Hank – Let me try again. I went off half-cocked last time — #60 under “Wilkins ice shelf collapse” — and here’s what I should have said (hope these thoughts are closer to on-topic in this thread):
This Gioacchino Giuliani claiming to predict earthquakes by measuring radon gas releases is an interesting case, and not only because we’ve seen that his prediction (correctly? absurdly?) seems to have struck close enough to reality to have given him a large measure of credibility in the eyes of the Italian public. When I looked up “Gioacchino Giuliani” in Google Scholar I found nothing that I could possibly use to make a determination about the legitimacy of his most recent claims; the results of the search string you suggested (in #69 in “Wilkins…”) would lead me to believe that Giuliani is not selling fool’s gold. But today I read (in a Reuters article) that “While many Italians are now more than ready to listen to whatever Giuliani has to say, geophysicists in Europe and the United States remain skeptical of his claims to have discovered an effective early-warning system.”
This brings me to the other reason I think Giuliani is interesting: the way he is presented gives the impression that he is being rejected by both his peers and his government even though his best guess was (more or less) on target. This impression supports the presupposition that scientists who hold mainstream views make a habit of rejecting “outliers” even when the “outliers” forecasts seem to approximate reality (though only once, and then only within a week and 100 miles…).
I’m sure you can see how anything that reinforces the claim that “outliers” can be more trusted than the mainstream of seismology might also support (in the public mind) those with dissenting views of climatology. I think the case of this Gioacchino Giuliani ought to be examined carefully, because there is little doubt that those interested in discrediting any (or every) science like nothing better than to use rogue scientists as their tool.
——
Anyway, RC is the only blog I know of that is written by real live scientists who take the time to publicly dismantle the shoddy logic and sideways attacks that sometimes obfuscate the legitimacy of their work. Besides, as far as I know, there is no such thing as a RealSeismology blog. Is there?
OK, time to count the ways everything I just wrote is completely wrong. :)
“This Gioacchino Giuliani claiming to predict earthquakes by measuring radon gas releases is an interesting case, and not only because we’ve seen that his prediction (correctly? absurdly?) seems to have struck close enough to reality to have given him a large measure of credibility”
Correlation does not imply causation.
It’s something to indicate there may be a link, but you need to see what that link could be. THEN you can make a test that would show that specific idea was wrong.
wmanny …
The most famous case of a climate scientist being forced to change their mind is, in my opinion, John Christy, the senior scientist responsible for the UAH satellite temperature product.
When they first produced this, the work was trumpeted as being “the wooden stake through the heart of AGW” (WSJ editorial) because Christy and his sidekick Roy Spencer claimed that the satellite data showed a cooling rather than warming trend, therefore proving that the ground temperature record which shows warming is inaccurate.
However, as time went on, a string of errors by Christy and Spencer were uncovered.
Christy was appointed to an NAS review committee (total of five scientists) during the first W administration. Their conclusion, signed by all five, was that:
1. the ground temperature record is roughly as accurate as the satellite temperature record.
2. both show warming.
A major turnabout by Christy forced by the data, in this case the corrected satellite temperature data which Christy himself had earlier screwed up.
This is the kind of thing you’re looking for, right?
Or are you really only looking for climate scientists who changed their mind in the other direction, as others above have claimed?
If so, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed, because – IMO! – the biggest boner in climate science history was the string of errors by the UAH team that had the denialsphere screaming “Triumph! Triumph! AGW is dead!” a decade ago.
392. Ray, I don’t think you are missing anything. As you have said, “They have no evidence. They have only the same, recycled talking points they’ve been bringing up for a decade. They aren’t doing science.” There is nothing I could say or do to counter such an extreme statement. You have defeated each and every skeptical scientist in your own mind, and I can only imagine how exasperated you must be with me and others who do not share in your certainty, who will not “learn”, as the term is used here, and I think we have reached the agree-to-disagree point. I will continue to pay attention to what you have to say, as well as those who – shudder – hold opposing views. -Walter
And, Ray, as long as I have you on the line, I note with interest that Holdren has apparently floated the aerosol geoengineering trial balloon. Hmm, now there’s a thread in the making…
I conclude that the first paragraph of this topic heading, which refers to advocacy in a pejorative tone, is referring to skeptical advocacy only. Please correct me if you think I have that wrong. -Walter
Yes, you have that wrong. See for example the thread:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/01/environmental-reporters-ought-to-be-more-responsible-too/
The point is, as with the other examples I cited and which you ignore, when the evidence is on your side, advocacy in the sense used here is unnecessary – although some may still fall into it; when they are clearly against you, it’s all you have.
I suggest that those scientists who disagree with the consensus IPCC view publish their results. Then their ideas will be examined; extended if valid and discarded if flawed. That’s how science works.
Oratory in the ‘old’ and ‘new’ media, including this blog, will not advance the science.
What has Dyson published on climate science in the last three decades ?
As a once and sometime physicist, I am tempted to say: Shut up and calculate.
wmanny, are you not neglecting the essential element of science…i.e. evidence? That doesn’t seem to be part of your consideration at all.
Otherwise you need to define more clearly what you mean by the term “correct thinking”. Is “correct thinking”, the thinking that makes interpretations based on well-informed and honest consideration of the evidence? If so, then the large majority of the posters here are quite keen on promoting “correct thinking”. Or do you mean something else by the term “correct thinking”?
I think you have that wrong. I don’t know exactly what Gavin had in mind, but I would certainly consider any persistent pushing for interpretations that are not supported by real world evidence to be “advocacy” in the perjorative sense, and especially so if these are obviously based on agendas that are non-scientific…