Barton Paul Levenson has presented a simplified, yet mathematically self-consistent (using maths no more complex than algebra), conceptual model for how greenhouse gases keep the Earth’s surface warm, and why they act as radiative forcing agents as their concentrations change. However, do not mistake this very simple toy model of Earth’s overall energy balance for anything like the physics that goes into the atmospheric radiative transfer/Global Circulation Models.
If you have just learned that global warming was all a massive fraud being perpetuated by Commie scientists in East Angular, your blood is all angried up and you can’t wait to just jump right in and start SHOUTING about it – but don’t quite know where to start – then this post is for you!
Just copy and paste the following texts, remembering to delete the words you don’t want…. ”
_____________
Bill Teufel: Is it possible to do any scientific experiements that are repeatable around the globe that proves man is responsible for the warming of the planet? WITHOUT using man-made computer models?
BPL: Yeah. Check out the IR spectrum from the sky 30 years ago and now. It’s been done. When I get home, I’ll post the references.
Imbacksays
636 (and 641):
How about a post citing the common denialist memes, each one numbered…
Posted on: April 16, 2005 12:10 AM, by Tim Lambert
“Reading and listening to global warming sceptics can get a little tedious because they keep trotting out the same discredited arguments. So I’ve come up with a little game you can play to make it more interesting. I call it Global Warming Sceptic Bingo! Just tick the box when they use the argument next to it. Get four in a row and you win!”
——–
Any Javascript programmer out there want to come up with a machine that will disgorge a new randomly arranged ‘Bingo’ type card with the currently stock copypaste notions on it, freshly arranged for each new player/game?
I guess the frequency of use of each item could be derived from the Skepticalscience tally, so the frequency of each on the cards could approximately match the frequency in the real survey he keeps up.
Heck, each card could be tied to the Skepticalscience nomination link: http://www.skepticalscience.com/add_article.php
The actual article being read would feed the info back to Skepticalscience for further accounting; just a modification of the checklist he provides?
Programming is wonderful!
Nonprogrammers like me
do nothing more than wave our hands
and wish, and wait, and see.
Spaceman Spiffsays
First on my wishlist for this website: a post preview option, so that when I invariably screw up some html I can go back and fix it myself.
Did: Why don’t you stop hacking away at nuclear and leave it to its own devices? If it’s uneconomical as you claim, then it will die on its own.
BPL: I’m willing to do that. Just repeal the Price-Andersen Act and, as far as I’m concerned, you can build as many nukes as you want–if you can get anyone to invest in them.
Shirleysays
I’d like to see more discussion of paleoclimate reconstruction techniques (that’s the area of study I’m pursuing) beyond ice cores and tree rings, because the general public seem to think we know very little about past climate. Before I took this educational path, I had no idea about the many methods used and how they’re combined: foraminifera, chironomids, OSL, varves, stalactites, conodonts, clam shells, O isotope variations, cosmogenic isotopes etc., etc. and how these combine to tell us things about past climates.
Too often, I hear people say ‘we don’t know enough” but it’s they who don’t know how much we know. People also like to say that climate science is in its infancy. I’d like to see discussions about climate studies done in the 50s. I recently read an article from 1959 (Ericson, D.B.; 1959. Coiling Direction of Globigerina pachyderma as a Climatic Index, Science Vol. 130. no. 3369, pp. 219-220.) and others that have been very enlightening. A lot of people seem to think climate science is all just about modelling, but don’t understand that the notions behind the modelling have real world scenarios driving them, much of it extrapolated from the fossil (and sub fossil) record. Even the numerous End Devonian extinction events are being pieced together with increasingly better resolution (I’ve been involved with this kind of research but will be moving onto Pleistocene stuff next year). I think the more people better understand how much we know about the past, the more they’ll understand that modelling isn’t such a crap shoot, and that overall, it doesn’t matter if models tell us that sea level will rise by one or two feet when we can show them with certainty that it has risen further than that in the past!
dhogazasays
So there was plenty of time to get these CRU software programs up to a higher standards level then recent postings have shown.
“So there was plenty of time to get these CRU software programs up to a higher standards level then recent postings have shown.”
Hmm. I agree with you on the value of building maintainable software, but I suspect that we’re looking at a situation where budgets and other impinging facts of life preclude the kind of staffing needed for top-down engineering, authoring, trawling and refactoring of code in pursuit of standards adherence.
More, the objectives of the code in question seem inherently unfriendly to the approach one might take when a full set of and requirements and specifications is available prior to design and delivery. The code we’re speaking of here appears to be an integral part of a discovery process. It’s not a case of “here is a description of a double-entry bookkeeping system, fully characterized, now let’s design and build code”, more a matter of incorporating new findings into a live system.
Leaving aside implementation history, while elegance, efficiency and maintainability are excellent contributions to any software project, those more qualitative measures are all in support of success in attaining objectives. In this case, after all the hindsight critique, I don’t see any credible attack on the output of the code in question. Can anybody point to actual failures of the software?
What I do see is another case of going over a tree with a magnifying glass while failing to take note of the forest of which the tree is a part.
Detail-oriented deconstruction of current and historical climate science methods is potentially helpful in weeding out edge effects but at the end of the day seems unlikely to produce a robust and useful synthesis sufficiently broad in scope to explain the congruence of phenomena we see around us.
SkepticalScience is doing a wonderful job. Same as with my previous considerations, I like to see things done here on RC because it is a good chunk of concrete to set things on.
Example: I don’t believe the OSS site has as much weight in credibility as RC. Simply because I don’t have a group of scientists. I do my absolute best to represent what is said reasonably and link back to here and other institution pages, but I don’t claim to have the same brand of concrete RC has.
As I learn and become more solid, I then represent things on OSS but look at my Stratosphere analogue up-thread and you see the main problem… some things are just damn hard to put into a good public communication analogue. So I don’t put it on OSS until it works and survives some review.
So I would love it if RC would validate the list skeptical science has or any of the perspective arguments I have done on OSS, or any of the other sites for that matter that represent the science well as there are now many. Once it’s in a list here, and linked up, then I suggest everyone (climate bloggers) copy, repeat and link back to source.
Personally, I like to think of RC as the mother-ship of climate science blogs and we should all be heavily connected to it.
Rod Bsays
tamino (631), but what good is a circle-jerk pep rally if the team never plays any opponent – other than offering a bunch of secret self-gratification?
David B. Bensonsays
I happened to notice the existence of
Florin Diacu
Megadisasters: the science of predicting the next catastrophe
Princeton University Press
which appears worthy of a RealClimate review.
Rod Bsays
Ray (636), sounds good. Like the old joke, everybody can just post, “NUMBER 62!”
A key issue for those promoting nuclear energy is to provide a convincing case that sea levels will not rise and cause a risk to plant sitting on the beaches, noting that operational lifetimes of existing and planned plant may extend well beyond 2100.
Ray Ladburysays
Maybe we could have a series of Intertube bingo games–
Climate change denier, featuring such goodies as “the 10-year cooling meme”, “the optimal temperature fallacy,” etc
We could have Internet debate fallacies: Godwin’s Law, Poe’s Law…
Damn! This could be a business!
dhogazasays
tamino (631), but what good is a circle-jerk pep rally if the team never plays any opponent – other than offering a bunch of secret self-gratification?
No one is suggesting that scientists shouldn’t have to deal with opponents who *do science*. What’s happening today is more like a soccer team running into hordes from a Mexican drug cartel. One side is used to playing by rules. The other side is just interested in slaughtering people.
David B. Bensonsays
Ray Ladbury (668) — Check the Januaray 2010 issue of Scientific American to discover how you might make it pay!
and you say we are +1.6W/m2 now, the question I pose is-
Are we peaking CO2 emissions too early to avert an otherwise inevitable ice age? Should we save fossil fuels for later?
We do a lot of talk about our legacy to our grandchildren, but has anyone done any work on thousands of generations hence, and their possible protection? History suggests Ice ages are not that pleasant for humankind.
Jim Dukelowsays
ZT wrote (in the Hansen thread):
“Kim, regarding water heating all of a sudden. I think that temperature rise is linear with the amount of energy supplied. (Please correct me if I have this wrong).”
He or she is wrong, but it doesn’t appear that anybody got around to correcting him or her before the thread was closed to comments.
If you heat water, it warms roughly linearly until the temperature gets close to either the freezing point of water or the boiling point. As it approaches those temperatures, more and more of the heat will go into heat of fusion (melting any adjacent ice) or into heat of vaporization (boiling off the water). The water will effectively “sit” at those temperatures until all of the ice is melted or all of the water has boiled away.
The relevance of this simple thermodynamics to “water heating all of a sudden” is that when the Arctic sea ice is gone, all of the solar heating of the water will go into raising the temperature of the water, rather than into melting ice. The heat of fusion is around 333 kJ/kg of ice. Once that kg of ice is melted, the same 333 kJ of solar heating will raise the temperature of the resulting kg of water by approximately 80 deg Celsius. That is “sudden heating”.
Best regards.
Jim Dukelow
Daniel J. Andrewssays
Mapleleaf…if you’re reading. Just saw your comment to me at DC on the Wegman report. You’re barking up the wrong tree. :-))) I’ll endeavor to express myself better to avoid these types of misunderstandings. btw, any comments I post on WUWT are pretty quickly deleted. ;-)
Radge Haverssays
@620
“Bizzare egalitarianism…Gravity still works, even though *I* will never fully understand it.”
I agree. Bizarre indeed. And egalitarian in rhetoric only. People who are looking for short cuts to answers in order to feel magically special are very vulnerable to manipulation and reinforcement by disgruntled voices of a similar bent.
Daniel J. Andrewssays
Rod B @664 said
amino (631), but what good is a circle-jerk pep rally if the team never plays any opponent – other than offering a bunch of secret self-gratification?
Look at Tamino’s examples. Anyone using those examples isn’t an opponent…they’re the village idiots who have managed to blunder their way onto the playing field without any knowledge of what game is being played, much less the rules. Those examples are points that have been soundly refuted hundreds of times.
How many times do people like Tamino have to kill the “the globe is cooling” meme? Even my first year bio students straight from high school know how to draw trend lines properly albeit without CI. How are people who are incapable of doing basic high school math “opponents” of any sort?
Re: Gavin’s link. Thanks Gavin. I’ve accessed that site now.
On the subject of books…this title may have been mentioned already, but I found it quite stimulating and pertinent: Science in Democracy, by Mark B. Brown.
As your basic scientifically illiterate lay person, my most logical reason for agreeing with the argument for AGW is to take one look at the sort of people who disagree with it(think Cardinal Bellarmine or Soapy Sam Wilberforce but without the brains). But I do you think you smart-alecky science people could regain street cred by producing a comprehensible account of how your data is produced. I know I know, it sounds really dopey, but it’s no less necessary for all that. Unlettered peasants need to feel some intellectual connection with this scientific enterprise, even if it’s something as dumbed-down as Walt Disney’s Our Friend the Atom (where I first learned something about nuclear physics, BTW). This is especially true, given that the serfs are the ones paying a lot of the bills, not mention electing or threatening to elect the likes of Sen. James Inhofe(Moron-OK).
SkepticalScience is doing a wonderful job. Same as with my previous considerations, I like to see things done here on RC because it is a good chunk of concrete to set things on.
Agreed. It would be nice to have a single standard enumeration, though.
Rod Bsays
Daniel J. Andrews (675), I won’t resurrect the dead horse of your example, but, in essence, the definition of a skeptic as proffered is a person who agrees with everything said about AGW but has some areas that he/she doesn’t quite fully understand. Nice “skeptic” to do business with if you can find one.
Ray Ladburysays
Dhogaza says, “What’s happening today is more like a soccer team running into hordes from a Mexican drug cartel. One side is used to playing by rules. The other side is just interested in slaughtering people.”
I’d say it’s more like a soccer team running up against a squad of circus clowns, hundreds of which keep geting out of the same VW.
siddsays
I entirely agree with tamino. For me, the volume of uneducated comments is becoming far too large to wade through. I am afraid I shall just have to read the articles that deal with the published and peer reviewed literature and skip the comments. This is unfortunate, since every now and then I do find very good arguments and references in the comments. In short I would prefer heavy handed moderation, since signal to noise here is dropping through the floor.
> a circle-jerk pep rally
Ya know, Rod, it seems like you come out with something like this any time you’ve been catching on to the science and getting clear answers to your persistent questions. Maybe you should consider whether each increment of progress understanding the science brings out this side of you. Verging on unthinkable thoughts?
Happy holidays.
Edward Greischsays
658 BPL: Here’s the deal: Price-Andersen Act for no protesting nuclear.
The Price-Andersen Act and the high installation and long lead times are caused by anti-nuclear protesters. So, if you can guarantee no lawsuits, no protests etc. then we can repeal Price-Andersen.
Edward Greischsays
I just saw a PBS NOVA TV show on human evolution. It said that the rapid cycling of climate caused the evolution of Homo Habilis’s brain. It said that several million years had gone by with no brain evolution before Homo Habilis.
Climate change must be a terribly blunt instrument of natural selection. So many of the relatively smart must die along with a few more of the relatively stupid, and extinction is always the alternative.
Perhaps this topic is too “hot” for RC? It would be an interesting topic.
Estimates of entering an ice age are still about 20,000 years off. Besides, we really don’t know if we have tipped the system enough yet to kick in long lasting feedback mechanism that would prevent us form normal entry to the next ice age? For all we know or don’t know, we may have prevented entering an entire cycle… All the things that are not understood well are on the side of how much warming and how long?
But when you start discussing grandchildren, it has nothing to do with preventing an ice age. We are warming, and we have enough Co2 in the atmosphere to keep warming for a good amount of time and stay warm, possibly for centuries, and possibly longer.
I don’t think ice ages were so unpleasant though, people were nomadic pre agrarian age so no big deal to move. Entering an ice age takes some time, so no big rush there anyway. It’s certainly not as fast as what we are experiencing now which is rapid climate change. At this point in human evolution, I think it would be much easier for mankind to go into an ice age without understanding and technology. Not so hard to move south in your solar powered vehicle which I imagine would be perfected by then if we did not crash the global economic structure which then prevented us form mitigation of AGW.
667 Michael: ““depleted” uranium left behind by conventional reactors” is WRONG.
Depleted uranium is pure U238 that has NEVER been in a reactor. It is the left-over from the enrichment process. What we take out of a reactor is “Spent fuel” NOT depleted uranium. Your reference is good otherwise as far as I have read.
This terminology is a hot topic because the US Army used Depleted Uranium ammunition. DU Ammo is so not radioactive that it is harmless to users in spite of the hysteria that has been generated by anti-nuclear protesters/ nuclear denialists. The US Army uses DU because it works so well at destroying enemy tanks. The after-war effects are nil regardless of the hysterical reactions by nuclear denialists. This usefulness is caused by metallurgical properties and density, NOT by the psychological connection with anything nuclear.
Edward Greischsays
619 Lamont: We have nuclear fuel for “5000” years if we recycle, breed thorium into uranium and use 4th generation reactors. And that is on this planet alone. I put 5000 in quotes because predicting the future is always hazardous.
Martin Vermeersays
#631 tamino: hear hear. Repetition is a well known propaganda weapon, and it’s crazy to allow its use on a serious site. Debunk the first instance — better, lift it to its own debunking thread, once –, and junk the rest.
Tamino himself is doing that now, after trying and failing the “100 flowers” model that is still being tried and failing here. I was one of those harshly criticizing him at the time. Now, tamino’s site is a pleasure to visit and contribute to. And actually useful for learning without having to wade through oceans of muck.
Edward Greischsays
638 David Miller: Then why are the French paying 1/3 LESS for electricity while the French government takes a PROFIT from their nuclear power plants? Your accounting is off. The problem with nuclear cost in the US is that entirely too much safety is required.
Nuclear power is the safest kind, bar none, for everybody.
Deaths per terrawatt year [twy] for energy industries, including
Chernobyl. terra=mega mega [There are zero sources of energy
that cause zero deaths, but not having the electricity causes the
far more deaths because not having electricity is a form of poverty.]
Nuclear power is proven to be the safest. Source: “The Revenge
of Gaia” by James Lovelock page 102. As you can see,
psychological problems are preventing the wider use of nuclear
power. Chernobyl is included.
I have no connection with the nuclear power industry. I have
never had any connection with the nuclear power industry. I am
not being paid by anyone to say this. My sole motive is
to avoid death in the collapse of civilization and to avoid
extinction due to global warming.
Douglas Wisesays
re #667 Michael
Thanks for the link. I’ve spent the last hour and a half reading it, an admittedly odd thing to do on Christmas morning but awaiting an influx of relatives!
The discussion is interesting. The subject matter is mainly covered in more technical detail on BraveNewClimate but it is useful to gain another perspective.
Since Tamino is getting tired of the decade of cooling and climate cycles posts, perhaps a discussion of climate shifts would be in order. Tsonis could provide some information on his dynamical method to predict climate shifts. The math he uses is a bit difficult though :)
Here are the references I promised, complete with abstracts or extracts thereof. All emphasis in boldface I added.
Chen, C., J. Harries, H. Brindley, and M. Ringer 2007. “Spectral signatures of climate change in the Earth’s infrared spectrum between 1970 and 2006.” EUMETSAT Conference and Workshop Proceedings 2007.
“Previously published work using satellite observations of the clear sky infrared emitted radiation by the Earth in 1970, 1997 and in 2003 showed the appearance of changes in the outgoing spectrum, which agreed with those expected from known changes in the concentrations of well-mixed greenhouse gases over this period. Thus, the greenhouse forcing of the Earth has been observed to change in response to these concentration changes. In the present work, this analysis is being extended to 2006 using the TES instrument on the AURA spacecraft. Additionally, simulated spectra have been calculated using LBLRTM with inputs from the HadGEM1 coupled model and compared to the observed satellite spectra.”
W.F.J. Evans, W.F.J., and E. Puckrin 2006. “Measurements of the Radiative Surface Forcing of Climate.” 18th Conference on Climate Variability and Change, P1.7
“…Climate models predict that the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere has altered the radiative energy balance at the earth’s surface by several percent by increasing the greenhouse radiation from the atmosphere. With measurements at high spectral resolution, this increase can be quantitatively attributed to each of several anthropogenic gases. Radiance spectra of the greenhouse radiation from the atmosphere have been measured at ground level from several Canadian sites using FTIR spectroscopy at high resolution. The forcing radiative fluxes from CFC11, CFC12, CCl4, HNO3, O3, N2O, CH4, CO and CO2 have been quantitatively determined over a range of seasons. The contributions from stratospheric ozone and tropospheric ozone are separated by our measurement techniques. A comparison between our measurements of surface forcing emission and measurements of radiative trapping absorption from the IMG satellite instrument shows reasonable agreement. The experimental fluxes are simulated well by the FASCOD3 radiation code. This code has been used to calculate the model predicted increase in surface radiative forcing since 1850 to be 2.55 W/m2. In comparison, an ensemble summary of our measurements indicates that an energy flux imbalance of 3.5 W/m2 has been created by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases since 1850. This experimental data should effectively end the argument by skeptics that no experimental evidence exists for the connection between greenhouse gas increases in the atmosphere and global warming.”
Griggs, J.A. and J.E. Harries 2004. “Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave data between 1970 and present.” EUMETSAT Conference and Workshop Proceedings 2004.
“Measurements of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave radiation allows signatures of many aspects of greenhouse warming to be distinguished without the need to amalgamate information from multiple measurements, allowing direct interpretation of the error characteristics. Here, data from three instruments measuring the spectrally resolved outgoing longwave radiation from satellites orbiting in 1970, 1997 and 2003 are compared. The data are calibrated to remove the effects of differing resolutions and fields of view so that a direct comparison can be made. Comparisons are made of the average spectrum of clear sky outgoing longwave radiation over the oceans in the months of April, May and June. Di®erence spectra are compared to simulations created using the known changes in greenhouse gases such as CH4, CO2 and O3 over the time period. This provides direct evidence for significant changes in the greenhouse gases over the last 34 years, consistent with concerns over the changes in radiative forcing of the climate.”
Griggs, J. A., and J. E. Harries 2007. “Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave radiation over the tropical Pacific between 1970 and 2003 using IRIS, IMG, and AIRS.” Journal of Climate 20, 3982-4001.
Hanel, R. A., and B. J. Conrath 1970. “Thermal Emission Spectra of Earth and Atmosphere from Nimbus-4 Michelson Interferometer Experiment.” Nature 228, 143-&.
Harries, J.E., H.E. Brindley, P.J. Sagoo, and R.J. Bantges 2001. “Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997.” Letter, Nature, 410, 355-357.
“…Here we analyse the difference between the spectra of the outgoing longwave radiation of the Earth as measured by orbiting spacecraft in 1970 and 1997. We find differences in the spectra that point to long-term changes in atmospheric CH4, CO2 and O3 as well as CFC-11 and CFC-12. Our results provide direct experimental evidence for a significant increase in the Earth’s greenhouse effect that is consistent with concerns over radiative forcing of climate.”
Philipona, R., B. Du”rr, C. Marty, A. Ohmura, and M. Wild 2004. “Radiative Forcing–Measured at Earth’s Surface–Corroborate the Increasing Greenhouse Effect.” Geophys. Res. Lett. 31, L03202
“…Here we show that atmospheric longwave downward radiation significantly increased (+5.2(2.2) W m-2) partly due to increased cloud amount (+1.0(2.8) W m-2) over eight years of measurements at eight radiation stations distributed over the central Alps. Model calculations show the cloud-free longwave flux increase (+4.2(1.9) W m-2) to be in due proportion with temperature (+0.82(0.41) deg C) and absolute humidity (+0.21(0.10) g m-3) increases, but three times larger than expected from anthropogenic greenhouse gases. However, after subtracting for two thirds of temperature and humidity rises, the increase of cloud-free longwave downward radiation (+1.8(0.8) W m-2) remains statistically significant and demonstrates radiative forcing due to an enhanced greenhouse effect.”
Walter Mannysays
Frank Giger, thank you for taking the trouble to raise an intelligent voice in opposition. I hope you will stick around for a little while.
Didactylossays
Hey, Edward Greisch – don’t underestimate the effects of depleted uranium. The problem isn’t handling it, the problem is leaving lots of heavy metals in the soil of a war zone. Uranium may not be toxic in the way plutonium is, but it’s at least as bad as lead. People are still studying the long-term effects, and my understanding is that the effects are generally not good.
DU has good uses – it is used in medical shielding and aeroplane counterweights. Just like with nuclear power, it’s not using it that’s a problem – it’s misusing it.
Happy Christmas, RC peoples!
Ray Ladburysays
Rod B. @664 says, “tamino (631), but what good is a circle-jerk pep rally if the team never plays any opponent – other than offering a bunch of secret self-gratification?”
I think, Rod, that this might highlight one of hte difficulties you have here. You view the purpose of the website as a place of conflict and competition, rather than a place where folks can come to learn the science. The latter model is not boring. On the contrary, learning the science is interesting and easier on the blood pressure–and it is the primary purpose of Realclimate.
The problem with the debating-society model is that only one side is using science, while the other is using character assassination and repeatedly discredited memes. That isn’t how scientific debate is supposed to go. In my 30 years as a physicist, I’ve heard some realy intense debates on some contentious scientific debates. Some have lasted for years and never been resolved. The thing was that while not always respectful, they rarely got personal, and none of them degenerated into accusations of fraud.
On the other hand, when you have debates of science that has been established for 50 years and which has no compelling evidence against it, the only positions are science and anti-science–that is, that science is working or that it isn’t. You know which side you will find the scientists on.
Critical Thinkersays
I think Ray needs to reconsider his logic. I’m not a denier and do not need some list of links at a site which has a huge (nice) array of such (though it is silly for me to feel I have to *say* this). Not being evidence for warming goes right along with not being evidence against a conspiracy and implies nothing and is poor arguing style at best and unscientific at worst. The very notion that one can disagree with someone’s “everyone agrees is off” rhetoric (on the topic of anecdotal evidence for warming) and the conclusion is that they need some refresher course in climate facts is absurd.
J. Bobsays
#660, dhogaza
The report (2008) conclusions states:
“The Met Office has developed a software process that is highly adapted to it’s need, which relies heavily on the deep domain knowledge of the scientists building the software, and is tightly integrated with their scientific research practices”.
Hmmmm, there seems to be some disconnect to good software practices and the lofty stated wording in your reference. Or could it be the poor coding is tied to the “needs” of the Met office.
[edit]
#662 Doug, if the world is going to spend trillions of $’s on a still to be proved theory, and then cannot spend the few million to adequately staff the project, would that indicate something is wrong, big time? I do not feel comfortable having my tax money and future generations lives influenced by a operation “run on a shoestring”.
Denihilistsays
Just wishing you all here and them there a Merry Christmas and praying for an enlightning New Year.
To the mods and all other helpers, thanx for your time, it is appreciated!
for Rob@537 (or anyone else interested):
Barton Paul Levenson has presented a simplified, yet mathematically self-consistent (using maths no more complex than algebra), conceptual model for how greenhouse gases keep the Earth’s surface warm, and why they act as radiative forcing agents as their concentrations change. However, do not mistake this very simple toy model of Earth’s overall energy balance for anything like the physics that goes into the atmospheric radiative transfer/Global Circulation Models.
From the blog, Carbon Fixated:
_____________
” How to comment on ClimateGate: a handy reference guide
Nov 29th, 2009 by CAM
If you have just learned that global warming was all a massive fraud being perpetuated by Commie scientists in East Angular, your blood is all angried up and you can’t wait to just jump right in and start SHOUTING about it – but don’t quite know where to start – then this post is for you!
Just copy and paste the following texts, remembering to delete the words you don’t want…. ”
_____________
These form letter rants are priceless!
Bill Teufel: Is it possible to do any scientific experiements that are repeatable around the globe that proves man is responsible for the warming of the planet? WITHOUT using man-made computer models?
BPL: Yeah. Check out the IR spectrum from the sky 30 years ago and now. It’s been done. When I get home, I’ll post the references.
636 (and 641):
Numbering has been started here:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2005/04/gwsbingo.php
“Global Warming Sceptic Bingo
Posted on: April 16, 2005 12:10 AM, by Tim Lambert
“Reading and listening to global warming sceptics can get a little tedious because they keep trotting out the same discredited arguments. So I’ve come up with a little game you can play to make it more interesting. I call it Global Warming Sceptic Bingo! Just tick the box when they use the argument next to it. Get four in a row and you win!”
——–
Any Javascript programmer out there want to come up with a machine that will disgorge a new randomly arranged ‘Bingo’ type card with the currently stock copypaste notions on it, freshly arranged for each new player/game?
I guess the frequency of use of each item could be derived from the Skepticalscience tally, so the frequency of each on the cards could approximately match the frequency in the real survey he keeps up.
Heck, each card could be tied to the Skepticalscience nomination link:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/add_article.php
The actual article being read would feed the info back to Skepticalscience for further accounting; just a modification of the checklist he provides?
Programming is wonderful!
Nonprogrammers like me
do nothing more than wave our hands
and wish, and wait, and see.
First on my wishlist for this website: a post preview option, so that when I invariably screw up some html I can go back and fix it myself.
Ron R. sent me this link from http://www.globalchange.gov, which shows current changes that are occurring now and of course expected to increase
http://www.ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths/images/changes-current/Regional-Spread.jpg/image_view_fullscreen
This is really what it is about. This will impinge on infrastructure, economy and living standards. The longer we wait, the more expensive it gets.
Did: Why don’t you stop hacking away at nuclear and leave it to its own devices? If it’s uneconomical as you claim, then it will die on its own.
BPL: I’m willing to do that. Just repeal the Price-Andersen Act and, as far as I’m concerned, you can build as many nukes as you want–if you can get anyone to invest in them.
I’d like to see more discussion of paleoclimate reconstruction techniques (that’s the area of study I’m pursuing) beyond ice cores and tree rings, because the general public seem to think we know very little about past climate. Before I took this educational path, I had no idea about the many methods used and how they’re combined: foraminifera, chironomids, OSL, varves, stalactites, conodonts, clam shells, O isotope variations, cosmogenic isotopes etc., etc. and how these combine to tell us things about past climates.
Too often, I hear people say ‘we don’t know enough” but it’s they who don’t know how much we know. People also like to say that climate science is in its infancy. I’d like to see discussions about climate studies done in the 50s. I recently read an article from 1959 (Ericson, D.B.; 1959. Coiling Direction of Globigerina pachyderma as a Climatic Index, Science Vol. 130. no. 3369, pp. 219-220.) and others that have been very enlightening. A lot of people seem to think climate science is all just about modelling, but don’t understand that the notions behind the modelling have real world scenarios driving them, much of it extrapolated from the fossil (and sub fossil) record. Even the numerous End Devonian extinction events are being pieced together with increasingly better resolution (I’ve been involved with this kind of research but will be moving onto Pleistocene stuff next year). I think the more people better understand how much we know about the past, the more they’ll understand that modelling isn’t such a crap shoot, and that overall, it doesn’t matter if models tell us that sea level will rise by one or two feet when we can show them with certainty that it has risen further than that in the past!
Don’t come back until you’ve read this
Thanks, Spiff! I’m glad somebody actually read that.
J. Bob says: 24 December 2009 at 3:43 PM
“So there was plenty of time to get these CRU software programs up to a higher standards level then recent postings have shown.”
Hmm. I agree with you on the value of building maintainable software, but I suspect that we’re looking at a situation where budgets and other impinging facts of life preclude the kind of staffing needed for top-down engineering, authoring, trawling and refactoring of code in pursuit of standards adherence.
More, the objectives of the code in question seem inherently unfriendly to the approach one might take when a full set of and requirements and specifications is available prior to design and delivery. The code we’re speaking of here appears to be an integral part of a discovery process. It’s not a case of “here is a description of a double-entry bookkeeping system, fully characterized, now let’s design and build code”, more a matter of incorporating new findings into a live system.
Leaving aside implementation history, while elegance, efficiency and maintainability are excellent contributions to any software project, those more qualitative measures are all in support of success in attaining objectives. In this case, after all the hindsight critique, I don’t see any credible attack on the output of the code in question. Can anybody point to actual failures of the software?
What I do see is another case of going over a tree with a magnifying glass while failing to take note of the forest of which the tree is a part.
Detail-oriented deconstruction of current and historical climate science methods is potentially helpful in weeding out edge effects but at the end of the day seems unlikely to produce a robust and useful synthesis sufficiently broad in scope to explain the congruence of phenomena we see around us.
#654 Imback
SkepticalScience is doing a wonderful job. Same as with my previous considerations, I like to see things done here on RC because it is a good chunk of concrete to set things on.
Example: I don’t believe the OSS site has as much weight in credibility as RC. Simply because I don’t have a group of scientists. I do my absolute best to represent what is said reasonably and link back to here and other institution pages, but I don’t claim to have the same brand of concrete RC has.
As I learn and become more solid, I then represent things on OSS but look at my Stratosphere analogue up-thread and you see the main problem… some things are just damn hard to put into a good public communication analogue. So I don’t put it on OSS until it works and survives some review.
So I would love it if RC would validate the list skeptical science has or any of the perspective arguments I have done on OSS, or any of the other sites for that matter that represent the science well as there are now many. Once it’s in a list here, and linked up, then I suggest everyone (climate bloggers) copy, repeat and link back to source.
Personally, I like to think of RC as the mother-ship of climate science blogs and we should all be heavily connected to it.
tamino (631), but what good is a circle-jerk pep rally if the team never plays any opponent – other than offering a bunch of secret self-gratification?
I happened to notice the existence of
Florin Diacu
Megadisasters: the science of predicting the next catastrophe
Princeton University Press
which appears worthy of a RealClimate review.
Ray (636), sounds good. Like the old joke, everybody can just post, “NUMBER 62!”
#635 Douglas Wise
Douglas, there is a useful series of posts on nuclear here which includes positions stretching across the spectrum http://www.marklynas.org/2008/9/19/why-greens-must-learn-to-love-nuclear-power
A key issue for those promoting nuclear energy is to provide a convincing case that sea levels will not rise and cause a risk to plant sitting on the beaches, noting that operational lifetimes of existing and planned plant may extend well beyond 2100.
Maybe we could have a series of Intertube bingo games–
Climate change denier, featuring such goodies as “the 10-year cooling meme”, “the optimal temperature fallacy,” etc
We could have Internet debate fallacies: Godwin’s Law, Poe’s Law…
Damn! This could be a business!
No one is suggesting that scientists shouldn’t have to deal with opponents who *do science*. What’s happening today is more like a soccer team running into hordes from a Mexican drug cartel. One side is used to playing by rules. The other side is just interested in slaughtering people.
Ray Ladbury (668) — Check the Januaray 2010 issue of Scientific American to discover how you might make it pay!
:-)
re 624,
“The average amount of forcing change that occurs between an ice age and a warm period is about 3.4 W/m2.” http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/milankovitch-cycles
and you say we are +1.6W/m2 now, the question I pose is-
Are we peaking CO2 emissions too early to avert an otherwise inevitable ice age? Should we save fossil fuels for later?
We do a lot of talk about our legacy to our grandchildren, but has anyone done any work on thousands of generations hence, and their possible protection? History suggests Ice ages are not that pleasant for humankind.
ZT wrote (in the Hansen thread):
“Kim, regarding water heating all of a sudden. I think that temperature rise is linear with the amount of energy supplied. (Please correct me if I have this wrong).”
He or she is wrong, but it doesn’t appear that anybody got around to correcting him or her before the thread was closed to comments.
If you heat water, it warms roughly linearly until the temperature gets close to either the freezing point of water or the boiling point. As it approaches those temperatures, more and more of the heat will go into heat of fusion (melting any adjacent ice) or into heat of vaporization (boiling off the water). The water will effectively “sit” at those temperatures until all of the ice is melted or all of the water has boiled away.
The relevance of this simple thermodynamics to “water heating all of a sudden” is that when the Arctic sea ice is gone, all of the solar heating of the water will go into raising the temperature of the water, rather than into melting ice. The heat of fusion is around 333 kJ/kg of ice. Once that kg of ice is melted, the same 333 kJ of solar heating will raise the temperature of the resulting kg of water by approximately 80 deg Celsius. That is “sudden heating”.
Best regards.
Jim Dukelow
Mapleleaf…if you’re reading. Just saw your comment to me at DC on the Wegman report. You’re barking up the wrong tree. :-))) I’ll endeavor to express myself better to avoid these types of misunderstandings. btw, any comments I post on WUWT are pretty quickly deleted. ;-)
@620
I agree. Bizarre indeed. And egalitarian in rhetoric only. People who are looking for short cuts to answers in order to feel magically special are very vulnerable to manipulation and reinforcement by disgruntled voices of a similar bent.
Rod B @664 said
Look at Tamino’s examples. Anyone using those examples isn’t an opponent…they’re the village idiots who have managed to blunder their way onto the playing field without any knowledge of what game is being played, much less the rules. Those examples are points that have been soundly refuted hundreds of times.
How many times do people like Tamino have to kill the “the globe is cooling” meme? Even my first year bio students straight from high school know how to draw trend lines properly albeit without CI. How are people who are incapable of doing basic high school math “opponents” of any sort?
Re: Gavin’s link. Thanks Gavin. I’ve accessed that site now.
“Scientists Map Speed of Climate Change for Different Ecosystems”:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091223133337.htm
On the subject of books…this title may have been mentioned already, but I found it quite stimulating and pertinent:
Science in Democracy, by Mark B. Brown.
As your basic scientifically illiterate lay person, my most logical reason for agreeing with the argument for AGW is to take one look at the sort of people who disagree with it(think Cardinal Bellarmine or Soapy Sam Wilberforce but without the brains). But I do you think you smart-alecky science people could regain street cred by producing a comprehensible account of how your data is produced. I know I know, it sounds really dopey, but it’s no less necessary for all that. Unlettered peasants need to feel some intellectual connection with this scientific enterprise, even if it’s something as dumbed-down as Walt Disney’s Our Friend the Atom (where I first learned something about nuclear physics, BTW). This is especially true, given that the serfs are the ones paying a lot of the bills, not mention electing or threatening to elect the likes of Sen. James Inhofe(Moron-OK).
Imback:
John P. Reisman:
Agreed. It would be nice to have a single standard enumeration, though.
Daniel J. Andrews (675), I won’t resurrect the dead horse of your example, but, in essence, the definition of a skeptic as proffered is a person who agrees with everything said about AGW but has some areas that he/she doesn’t quite fully understand. Nice “skeptic” to do business with if you can find one.
Dhogaza says, “What’s happening today is more like a soccer team running into hordes from a Mexican drug cartel. One side is used to playing by rules. The other side is just interested in slaughtering people.”
I’d say it’s more like a soccer team running up against a squad of circus clowns, hundreds of which keep geting out of the same VW.
I entirely agree with tamino. For me, the volume of uneducated comments is becoming far too large to wade through. I am afraid I shall just have to read the articles that deal with the published and peer reviewed literature and skip the comments. This is unfortunate, since every now and then I do find very good arguments and references in the comments. In short I would prefer heavy handed moderation, since signal to noise here is dropping through the floor.
> a circle-jerk pep rally
Ya know, Rod, it seems like you come out with something like this any time you’ve been catching on to the science and getting clear answers to your persistent questions. Maybe you should consider whether each increment of progress understanding the science brings out this side of you. Verging on unthinkable thoughts?
Happy holidays.
658 BPL: Here’s the deal: Price-Andersen Act for no protesting nuclear.
The Price-Andersen Act and the high installation and long lead times are caused by anti-nuclear protesters. So, if you can guarantee no lawsuits, no protests etc. then we can repeal Price-Andersen.
I just saw a PBS NOVA TV show on human evolution. It said that the rapid cycling of climate caused the evolution of Homo Habilis’s brain. It said that several million years had gone by with no brain evolution before Homo Habilis.
Climate change must be a terribly blunt instrument of natural selection. So many of the relatively smart must die along with a few more of the relatively stupid, and extinction is always the alternative.
Perhaps this topic is too “hot” for RC? It would be an interesting topic.
#671 Jonathan
Estimates of entering an ice age are still about 20,000 years off. Besides, we really don’t know if we have tipped the system enough yet to kick in long lasting feedback mechanism that would prevent us form normal entry to the next ice age? For all we know or don’t know, we may have prevented entering an entire cycle… All the things that are not understood well are on the side of how much warming and how long?
But when you start discussing grandchildren, it has nothing to do with preventing an ice age. We are warming, and we have enough Co2 in the atmosphere to keep warming for a good amount of time and stay warm, possibly for centuries, and possibly longer.
I don’t think ice ages were so unpleasant though, people were nomadic pre agrarian age so no big deal to move. Entering an ice age takes some time, so no big rush there anyway. It’s certainly not as fast as what we are experiencing now which is rapid climate change. At this point in human evolution, I think it would be much easier for mankind to go into an ice age without understanding and technology. Not so hard to move south in your solar powered vehicle which I imagine would be perfected by then if we did not crash the global economic structure which then prevented us form mitigation of AGW.
#678 Atom Age Democritus
Try this: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/
and this: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/start-here/
and for the dumbed down version:
http://www.ossfoundation.us/the-leading-edge/projects/environment/global-warming
667 Michael: ““depleted” uranium left behind by conventional reactors” is WRONG.
Depleted uranium is pure U238 that has NEVER been in a reactor. It is the left-over from the enrichment process. What we take out of a reactor is “Spent fuel” NOT depleted uranium. Your reference is good otherwise as far as I have read.
This terminology is a hot topic because the US Army used Depleted Uranium ammunition. DU Ammo is so not radioactive that it is harmless to users in spite of the hysteria that has been generated by anti-nuclear protesters/ nuclear denialists. The US Army uses DU because it works so well at destroying enemy tanks. The after-war effects are nil regardless of the hysterical reactions by nuclear denialists. This usefulness is caused by metallurgical properties and density, NOT by the psychological connection with anything nuclear.
619 Lamont: We have nuclear fuel for “5000” years if we recycle, breed thorium into uranium and use 4th generation reactors. And that is on this planet alone. I put 5000 in quotes because predicting the future is always hazardous.
#631 tamino: hear hear. Repetition is a well known propaganda weapon, and it’s crazy to allow its use on a serious site. Debunk the first instance — better, lift it to its own debunking thread, once –, and junk the rest.
Tamino himself is doing that now, after trying and failing the “100 flowers” model that is still being tried and failing here. I was one of those harshly criticizing him at the time. Now, tamino’s site is a pleasure to visit and contribute to. And actually useful for learning without having to wade through oceans of muck.
638 David Miller: Then why are the French paying 1/3 LESS for electricity while the French government takes a PROFIT from their nuclear power plants? Your accounting is off. The problem with nuclear cost in the US is that entirely too much safety is required.
Nuclear power is the safest kind, bar none, for everybody.
Deaths per terrawatt year [twy] for energy industries, including
Chernobyl. terra=mega mega [There are zero sources of energy
that cause zero deaths, but not having the electricity causes the
far more deaths because not having electricity is a form of poverty.]
fuel……… ……..fatalities… …..who……… …….deaths per twy
coal……… ………6400…… ……workers……….. ………342
natural gas….. ..1200…… …..workers and public… …85
hydro…….. …….4000….. …….public………… …………883
nuclear…….. ………31…… ……workers………… ………….8
Nuclear power is proven to be the safest. Source: “The Revenge
of Gaia” by James Lovelock page 102. As you can see,
psychological problems are preventing the wider use of nuclear
power. Chernobyl is included.
I have no connection with the nuclear power industry. I have
never had any connection with the nuclear power industry. I am
not being paid by anyone to say this. My sole motive is
to avoid death in the collapse of civilization and to avoid
extinction due to global warming.
re #667 Michael
Thanks for the link. I’ve spent the last hour and a half reading it, an admittedly odd thing to do on Christmas morning but awaiting an influx of relatives!
The discussion is interesting. The subject matter is mainly covered in more technical detail on BraveNewClimate but it is useful to gain another perspective.
Since Tamino is getting tired of the decade of cooling and climate cycles posts, perhaps a discussion of climate shifts would be in order. Tsonis could provide some information on his dynamical method to predict climate shifts. The math he uses is a bit difficult though :)
Here are the references I promised, complete with abstracts or extracts thereof. All emphasis in boldface I added.
Chen, C., J. Harries, H. Brindley, and M. Ringer 2007. “Spectral signatures of climate change in the Earth’s infrared spectrum between 1970 and 2006.” EUMETSAT Conference and Workshop Proceedings 2007.
“Previously published work using satellite observations of the clear sky infrared emitted radiation by the Earth in 1970, 1997 and in 2003 showed the appearance of changes in the outgoing spectrum, which agreed with those expected from known changes in the concentrations of well-mixed greenhouse gases over this period. Thus, the greenhouse forcing of the Earth has been observed to change in response to these concentration changes. In the present work, this analysis is being extended to 2006 using the TES instrument on the AURA spacecraft. Additionally, simulated spectra have been calculated using LBLRTM with inputs from the HadGEM1 coupled model and compared to the observed satellite spectra.”
W.F.J. Evans, W.F.J., and E. Puckrin 2006. “Measurements of the Radiative Surface Forcing of Climate.” 18th Conference on Climate Variability and Change, P1.7
“…Climate models predict that the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere has altered the radiative energy balance at the earth’s surface by several percent by increasing the greenhouse radiation from the atmosphere. With measurements at high spectral resolution, this increase can be quantitatively attributed to each of several anthropogenic gases. Radiance spectra of the greenhouse radiation from the atmosphere have been measured at ground level from several Canadian sites using FTIR spectroscopy at high resolution. The forcing radiative fluxes from CFC11, CFC12, CCl4, HNO3, O3, N2O, CH4, CO and CO2 have been quantitatively determined over a range of seasons. The contributions from stratospheric ozone and tropospheric ozone are separated by our measurement techniques. A comparison between our measurements of surface forcing emission and measurements of radiative trapping absorption from the IMG satellite instrument shows reasonable agreement. The experimental fluxes are simulated well by the FASCOD3 radiation code. This code has been used to calculate the model predicted increase in surface radiative forcing since 1850 to be 2.55 W/m2. In comparison, an ensemble summary of our measurements indicates that an energy flux imbalance of 3.5 W/m2 has been created by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases since 1850. This experimental data should effectively end the argument by skeptics that no experimental evidence exists for the connection between greenhouse gas increases in the atmosphere and global warming.”
Griggs, J.A. and J.E. Harries 2004. “Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave data between 1970 and present.” EUMETSAT Conference and Workshop Proceedings 2004.
“Measurements of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave radiation allows signatures of many aspects of greenhouse warming to be distinguished without the need to amalgamate information from multiple measurements, allowing direct interpretation of the error characteristics. Here, data from three instruments measuring the spectrally resolved outgoing longwave radiation from satellites orbiting in 1970, 1997 and 2003 are compared. The data are calibrated to remove the effects of differing resolutions and fields of view so that a direct comparison can be made. Comparisons are made of the average spectrum of clear sky outgoing longwave radiation over the oceans in the months of April, May and June. Di®erence spectra are compared to simulations created using the known changes in greenhouse gases such as CH4, CO2 and O3 over the time period. This provides direct evidence for significant changes in the greenhouse gases over the last 34 years, consistent with concerns over the changes in radiative forcing of the climate.”
Griggs, J. A., and J. E. Harries 2007. “Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave radiation over the tropical Pacific between 1970 and 2003 using IRIS, IMG, and AIRS.” Journal of Climate 20, 3982-4001.
Hanel, R. A., and B. J. Conrath 1970. “Thermal Emission Spectra of Earth and Atmosphere from Nimbus-4 Michelson Interferometer Experiment.” Nature 228, 143-&.
Harries, J.E., H.E. Brindley, P.J. Sagoo, and R.J. Bantges 2001. “Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997.” Letter, Nature, 410, 355-357.
“…Here we analyse the difference between the spectra of the outgoing longwave radiation of the Earth as measured by orbiting spacecraft in 1970 and 1997. We find differences in the spectra that point to long-term changes in atmospheric CH4, CO2 and O3 as well as CFC-11 and CFC-12. Our results provide direct experimental evidence for a significant increase in the Earth’s greenhouse effect that is consistent with concerns over radiative forcing of climate.”
Philipona, R., B. Du”rr, C. Marty, A. Ohmura, and M. Wild 2004. “Radiative Forcing–Measured at Earth’s Surface–Corroborate the Increasing Greenhouse Effect.” Geophys. Res. Lett. 31, L03202
“…Here we show that atmospheric longwave downward radiation significantly increased (+5.2(2.2) W m-2) partly due to increased cloud amount (+1.0(2.8) W m-2) over eight years of measurements at eight radiation stations distributed over the central Alps. Model calculations show the cloud-free longwave flux increase (+4.2(1.9) W m-2) to be in due proportion with temperature (+0.82(0.41) deg C) and absolute humidity (+0.21(0.10) g m-3) increases, but three times larger than expected from anthropogenic greenhouse gases. However, after subtracting for two thirds of temperature and humidity rises, the increase of cloud-free longwave downward radiation (+1.8(0.8) W m-2) remains statistically significant and demonstrates radiative forcing due to an enhanced greenhouse effect.”
Frank Giger, thank you for taking the trouble to raise an intelligent voice in opposition. I hope you will stick around for a little while.
Hey, Edward Greisch – don’t underestimate the effects of depleted uranium. The problem isn’t handling it, the problem is leaving lots of heavy metals in the soil of a war zone. Uranium may not be toxic in the way plutonium is, but it’s at least as bad as lead. People are still studying the long-term effects, and my understanding is that the effects are generally not good.
DU has good uses – it is used in medical shielding and aeroplane counterweights. Just like with nuclear power, it’s not using it that’s a problem – it’s misusing it.
Happy Christmas, RC peoples!
Rod B. @664 says, “tamino (631), but what good is a circle-jerk pep rally if the team never plays any opponent – other than offering a bunch of secret self-gratification?”
I think, Rod, that this might highlight one of hte difficulties you have here. You view the purpose of the website as a place of conflict and competition, rather than a place where folks can come to learn the science. The latter model is not boring. On the contrary, learning the science is interesting and easier on the blood pressure–and it is the primary purpose of Realclimate.
The problem with the debating-society model is that only one side is using science, while the other is using character assassination and repeatedly discredited memes. That isn’t how scientific debate is supposed to go. In my 30 years as a physicist, I’ve heard some realy intense debates on some contentious scientific debates. Some have lasted for years and never been resolved. The thing was that while not always respectful, they rarely got personal, and none of them degenerated into accusations of fraud.
On the other hand, when you have debates of science that has been established for 50 years and which has no compelling evidence against it, the only positions are science and anti-science–that is, that science is working or that it isn’t. You know which side you will find the scientists on.
I think Ray needs to reconsider his logic. I’m not a denier and do not need some list of links at a site which has a huge (nice) array of such (though it is silly for me to feel I have to *say* this). Not being evidence for warming goes right along with not being evidence against a conspiracy and implies nothing and is poor arguing style at best and unscientific at worst. The very notion that one can disagree with someone’s “everyone agrees is off” rhetoric (on the topic of anecdotal evidence for warming) and the conclusion is that they need some refresher course in climate facts is absurd.
#660, dhogaza
The report (2008) conclusions states:
“The Met Office has developed a software process that is highly adapted to it’s need, which relies heavily on the deep domain knowledge of the scientists building the software, and is tightly integrated with their scientific research practices”.
Hmmmm, there seems to be some disconnect to good software practices and the lofty stated wording in your reference. Or could it be the poor coding is tied to the “needs” of the Met office.
[edit]
#662 Doug, if the world is going to spend trillions of $’s on a still to be proved theory, and then cannot spend the few million to adequately staff the project, would that indicate something is wrong, big time? I do not feel comfortable having my tax money and future generations lives influenced by a operation “run on a shoestring”.
Just wishing you all here and them there a Merry Christmas and praying for an enlightning New Year.
To the mods and all other helpers, thanx for your time, it is appreciated!