Who says that the climate debate is not evolving? According to the daily newspaper the Guardian, a new application (‘app‘) has been written for iPhones that provides a list of climate dissidents’ arguments, and counter arguments based on more legitimate scientific substance. The app is developed by John Cook from ‘Skeptical Science‘. It’s apparently enough to have the climate dissidents up in arms – meaning that it’s likely to have some effect? Some dissidents are now thinking of writing their own app.
Here on RC, we have developed a wiki, to which I also would like to bring the reader’s attention. Furthermore, I want to remind the readers about other useful web sites, listed at our blog roll.
Wilt@344, See, that’s the thing about the CO2 sensitivity studies. Details of which feedback contributes how much and so on, don’t enter into the discussion–multiple lines of evidence all point to the fact that when you add all the feedbacks up, you get 3 degrees per doubling. And they preclude less than 2.1 degrees per doubling. The climate simply doesn’t look like Earth unless the feedbacks are fairly strong. In fact, it’s much easer to get an Earthlike climate with higher sensitivity than with lower.
Failing to tackle climate change is betting humanity’s future on a 20:1 longshot, regardless of what we do wrt population, poverty, the environment… The evidence is just too overwhelming to ignore.
Wilt@334, we’re cool. I was merely emphasizing that I didn’t take offense at your remarks in light of some of the criticism heading your way. I think what we’ve actually wound up showing is that the effect of CO2 is increasing rapidly.
FWIW, I agree Pachauri handled the glacier mistake in a hamhanded way. Keep in mind, though, he faces a continual onslaught of unwarranted criticism from climate denialists (and, yes, many of these guys are in denial). Overall, I contend that the IPCC has actually done a very good job reflecting the climate science. WRT WG’s 2 and 3, their charter is tougher and more misunderstood. The public understands risk management even less than they understand science.
> wilt
> strong and continuous
(citation needed, but I doubt you can support either claim as a necessity; weak and intermittent will do just fine)
> 5-fold
(citation needed, if it’s the one I think you mean it’s got problems documented here, but tell us what you think you’re relying on for this)
> most important
(important how? not persistence, not altitude, not rate of change; what’s your criterion for using the word and what time span are you talking about?)
> Solomon, no simple scenario of positive feedback
Not that anyone said there _was_ such a thing, but thanks for citing at least vaguely so we can see where the strawman is said to come from.
> Previously Paltridge
> If he is right, then there is actually a negative feedback
Let’s try to look that one up. Hmmm, the first Scholar hit is at climateaudit. Must be a recently popular item. What a surprise. Where do you get your information and why do you consider your source reliable?
“Trends in middle-and upper-level tropospheric humidity from NCEP reanalysis
climateaudit.org [PDF]
G Paltridge, A Arking, M Pook – Theoretical and Applied Climatology, 2009
“… It is accepted that radiosonde-derived humidity data must be treated with great caution, particularly at altitudes above the 500 hPa …”
Well, you do great armwave. If you would supply citations to your sources it’d make you look a lot more like a scientist, if that’s your intent. You may be one but if you act like a duck, people will wonder if you are a duck.
Getting the first claim wrong, which Gavin pointed out, was not a reassuring start, that’s why I looked at your other claims and wonder about them.
I’m just an amateur reader here, not a climate scientist; I try to look stuff up because I’m interested in accurate cites to sources people can check, and very interested in what people think are reliable sources.
What are your sources for what you believe?
On water vapour feedback, read this:
wilt, you would benefit from a more varied reading diet. (and, correction: Paltridge et al. suggested an actual decrease of specific humidity.)
I have been debating with Daily Mail skeptics since November, and have developed an FAQ page here:
http://greenerblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/climate-change-debate-faqs.html
A central, authoritative website along these lines would be helpful, also a newsgroup for those of us who are engaged in this debate to support each other would be good.
Also we really need a good hacker who can get into the skeptics’ email lists…
(only joking, of course)
RE #305 response.
Thanks for the response Gavin. I have downloaded the models before, however, its been a painstaking process trying to figure out how they actually work. Reading through the link you provided regarding CO2, without models, I know I’ll have some additional question, but just don’t have the time to actually read the papers referenced, and work through the math myself.
Re #311 – The ramifications of a carbon tax on the world economy is probably as complex as climate modeling itself. Its not as simple as start small and see what happens. Any additional tax will be pushed down to the consumer, and higher prices for everything, without any adjustment to wages, will put a huge burden on the middle and lower class worldwide. This will end up resulting in a curb on spending, and we’re currently seeing the effects of that on the world economy. You can’t assume that corporations will just absorb this cost.
#317 – Climate change being non-reversible is a bit misleading. If anything, I’d say the climate is constantly changing, its the rate of change that we’re trying to control
#328 – I need time to review what you wrote, and read the items you reference. I will get back
#331 – Hyperbole will not convince anyone. Mankind will adapt if our changing environment forces us too. And for that matter, nobody knows how the rest of the world could evolve due to changing environmental conditions. If higher concentrations of CO2, leading to unsustainable warming (ie on the road to becoming Venus #2) actually occurs, could mankind and organisms throughout the world evolve to handle this and control the warming? Could plants develop some kind of Hyper-Photosynthesis, due to the abundance of CO2? I do not think its very beneficial to make claims such as extinction for mankind without action, because it would take centuries for this to occur.
Do models take into account either any CO2 scrubbing innovation by man or evolution by nature? No and they shouldn’t, however, necessity truly is the mother of invention, and a global climate crisis whose end game is extinction, generates a pretty damn big need.
And for my credentials – College education Penn State. 3 years EE, then switched business and got an accounting degree. While I’m cannot be classified as a scientist, I understand high level mathematics, the scientific method, and complex problem solving. I’d say I’m a mid-level programmer, which is why I even attempt to decompile and analyse the models. My company has a renewable energy/sustainability division, and I review their work routinely. I have found carbon footprint analysis always has assumptions that allocates carbon usage further up the supply chain, that allows companies to claim “carbon neutral”. Its a numbers/allocation game most of the time.
#327 Henk Hak
As I pointed out, what you think is not consequential to the science.
Roy Spencer
Could you enlighten me as to what evidence or work he has done that proves the point you are making. And did it survive peer response? One of the odd problems people need to be aware of is that a scientist can do good work in the scope of his papers and still make unsubstantiated claims that reach outside the scope of the research. This is not uncommon these days in certain individuals that are attempting to maintain their academic stature and still sow the seeds of doubt on AGW.
Stomach Problems
No I’m not a physician. My understanding is founded in general systems science which deals with system interactions. I grew up around doctors though. On the point, I can only admit that I am still curious as to whether there have been enough studies to show that stress/anxiety does, or does not influence, or create an environment that contributes to the potential for the bacteria development in question?
I am by nature skeptical of course. I think in medicine as in climate science, there is still a lot to learn. But that does not take away from what is known.
Al Gore
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-lag-between-temp-and-co2/
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/05/al-gores-movie/
Arrogant/Snarky
I try not to be arrogant (unwarranted confidence) without admission, but I don’t worry about sounding belligerent or a little in the face of silliness. I don’t mind sounding a bit snarky either though. Sometimes it can help others understand a perspective in a connotative fashion, or make a point more pointy :) What is more offensive. A statement that claims that thought the science is strong on the point we should do nothing because some people say we don’t know enough, which will translate to a more difficult life due to inaction for our immediate future; or me being a little snarky? I think the one that is more offensive is the one that hurts the most people, what do you think?
For example, tI think Kate7’s posts are offensive. She is actually talking to climate scientists who do climate modeling and saying they should sit down and talk with people that use the tools of the trade???
When I weigh all this (science and denialism by disinformation or lack of context) against the cost/benefit ratios with the risk potentials, I am dumbfounded by the willingness of special interests to continue to fund and pay the ticket prices for certain supposedly reputable scientists to show up at Heartland Institute conferences.
The cost and damage will be over the top, the cost to the worlds economies will be unfathomable in contrast to current mainstream assumptions.
You are concerned about if the climate sensitivity and feedbacks are sorted out. They are not. And that should of course be of great concern, but probably not for the reasons you might think.
You see, the models are wrong. The ice loss in the Arctic is exceeding the melt rate projected in the models. The sea level rise is exceeding the models rise projected in the models. This seems to indicate that we may be wrong about the sensitivities in the system. This seems to indicate that the sensitivity may be much more than we are currently able to calculate.
Let’s face facts that are established:
– The ocean ecosystems are coming apart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZkwewR69w8
– The climate forcing is enormously outside of the natural cycle
http://www.ossfoundation.us/the-leading-edge/projects/environment/global-warming/forcing-levels
– CO2 without the C-14 isotopic signature is a pollutant
http://www.ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/human-caused/overview?searchterm=isotopic
– CO2, CH4, N2O, H2O, CFC’s are GHG’s and have increased as a result of human industrial output
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/index.html
Security
http://www.ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/security
I’m mostly examining economic potentials lately and though I don’t have quantitative analysis at this point, the indications I see are that we are in a serious situation that has the potential to unwind before even more significant climate tipping points, due to economic limits in the system related to resource issues. Together these combined effects will be difficult to address.
Continued inaction at this point based on the known science and the resource capacity / scarcity I would have to say is foolhardy at best.
—
The Climate Lobby
Understand the Issue
http://www.climatelobby.com/fee-and-dividend/
Sign the Petition!
http://www.climatelobby.com
kate: “I am not convinced that your observations in nature support this mind-picture.”
It’s called “analogy” kate.
“The question is, to me, whether while I am driving on a sixteen-lane freeway in Chicago, the road will suddenly end at a dropoff within the next mile.”
Why? If you’re driving 100 miles why is it OK if the first one is cliff-free even if the remaining 99 are full of cliffs you can’t see?
[edit]
Hank Roberts (#352)asked me for links with respect to the articles of Solomon and Paltridge.
Here is the link to Solomon’s article in Science:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/science.1182488
Abstract (complete):
‘Stratospheric water vapor concentrations decreased by about 10% after the year 2000. Here, we show that this acted to slow the rate of increase in global surface temperature over 2000 to 2009 by about 25% compared to that which would have occurred due only to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. More limited data suggest that stratospheric water vapor probably increased between 1980 and 2000, which would have enhanced the decadal rate of surface warming during the 1990s by about 30% compared to estimates neglecting this change. These findings show that stratospheric water vapor represents an important driver of decadal global surface climate change.’
And here is the link to the Paltridge article (pdf):
http://www.theclimatescam.se/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/paltridgearkingpook.pdf
Considering that this article is about TRENDS I think it is difficult to completely ignore it, even when there would be doubt about precision of data in an absolute sense. Furthermore, Martin Vermeer (#353): Paltridge illustrates that both relative and specific humidity have decreased, especially above the tropics.
Here you can do your own analysis regarding timeseries of humidity data from NOAA:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/data/timeseries/timeseries1.pl
[Response: The Paltridge paper is very misleading. The reanalysis they use (NCEP1) is known to have lots of issues with erroneous trends because of changes in instrumentation over time (mainly improvements in sensitivity of radiosondes that lead to sensors correctly registering dry air at altitudes where older instruments would still be incorrectly registering wetter air because they didn’t react as fast on the ascent). Other reanalysis projects do not show this at all, and direct and consistent observations by satellite show the opposite as well. Paltridge was well aware of these issues and yet did not discuss them in his paper at all. Not good practice. – gavin]
Bill Teufel (356):
“Climate change being non-reversible is a bit misleading. If anything, I’d say the climate is constantly changing, its the rate of change that we’re trying to control”
That does not address my point at all. If new evidence comes out showing that AGW is not such a big problem after all, we can go back to burning fossil fuels (if we want to, that is). If it turns out that the scientists are right, or that they actually underestimate the warming, then well, we can’t put the water back in those ice sheets, can we.
Ladbury – I’m confused
305. Because you don’t need models to know that there is a risk to the climate (but if you want to look at models, the code is available for you to run and/or examine). The models will never be perfect, but none of the complicating factors we’ve introduced over the last 30 years have altered the basic response of the climate to increasing greenhouse gases. – gavin]
347. The fact of the matter is that climate models have actually been very successful at explaining paleoclimate and looking at the response of climate to various perturbations: Ladbury
Which is it?
I advocate for scientists to say, “We don’t know enough yet.” And then for them to keep universal, complete, uniform and clear records. But since I’m a troll, I’ll leave. You are not comfortable with provocative questions.
I’ve always found the best discussions about topics of critical importance are best served by the asking of good questions.
The only answers I have gotten here have referred me back to James Hansen’s info.
kate: “Which is it?”
Both.
You don’t need lots of money to live comfortably, but having lots of money means you can live comfortably.
Re #344.
Super-spin.
“in the models it has always been assumed that relative humidity would remain constant” (My bold)
If I have read Realclimate correctly, that sentence is an oft repeated piece of misinformation. According to real life modelers this property (yes it was ‘assumed’ by Arrhenius, but that was in 1896) emerges from their models; are you claiming that they have concealed some secret code which keeps the RH constant?
In addition this property has been checked approximately by observations. Your point challenging this has been disputed in other recent comments. Furthermore your challenge looks less credible after reading your super-spin just mentioned. The stratosphere is another story because it has quite different physics.
Here is an even stronger version:
“CO2 alone would cause a rise of approximately 1 degree for a CO2 doubling, everything more than that is based upon the assumption of strong and continuous positive feedback mechanisms.” (my bold)
By introducing super-spin you are not just misrepresenting the climate models but also censoring out the work by theorists, for example Raymond Pierrehumbert, (some on his web site) and others.
re 339 and 341
Ray: how many times? I don’t know, it’s the first time I heard this from you but I have seen the graphs of about 22 GCMs that you are referring to I guess.
Please don’t spout non-sense about the medical science having only been practiced scientifically since the 40s. If that is your quick assessment, it only shows your complete lack of knowledge on the subject and how am I going to listen to whatever else you may have to say? Objective medical science dates back to the Renaissance with the start of extensive documentation of dissections. Ever seen those fabulous drawings from Leonardo and Michelangelo among others? Harvey’s postulates on circulation are from the 17th century, to name just one. And even if the absurd notion that medical science only has been practiced scientifically since the 40’s was true, H. Pylori was detected in 1981 and the debate didn’t start until 1984 because Marshall couldn’t get his first paper published.
Of course the H.Pylori issue is a non-sequitur, I’m not trying to prove anything. Only want to show that sometimes a large group of very smart and well informed people can all be wrong. In the case of Marshall it really was a one (actually 2) man against the whole world scenario initially. In climate science there is a small minority of reputable people that have legitimate objections to the IPCC conclusions. Spencer is one of them and if you could address the issues he raises on his blog (http://www.drroyspencer.com/) in Januari 2010 and particularly regarding the paper he presented at the last AGU meeting , that would be helpful because he doesn’t have comments on his site.
Settled science is an oxymoron, there are only settled scientists, there is no settled science. That is if you mean with settled science what Al Gore states: the debate is over. If your 90-95% confidence level is correct – you might be right on that – then you can certainly state that the science is settled ENOUGH to take action.( What kind of action is another debate.) No problem with that at all, imho I really think everyone including Gore and Pachauri should be serious about reducing his/her use of fossil fuels and support innovation. As international agreements seem bound to fail let’s all do our little part at least.
Barton, haven’t read your site yet but will do so later.
Completely fed up: i read the unsettled-science but it doesn’t tell me much I didn’t already know. No matter how hard you try, you cannot put square pegs in round holes. There is no debate -is -over settled science. Sorry if people abuse this fact as an excuse to do nothing.
Thanks guys
Henk Hak
> wilt
> Paltridge
Wilt, there’s a good reason to look for the actual publication, not rely on a copy posted at someone’s opinion blog page — to see whether anyone has cited it or published updates or corrections, which the bloggers often omit.
Look up Paltridge and you find that no science papers have referred to it so far, tho’ it’s being used as a reference in climate denial documents.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=8663275099186880665&hl=en&as_sdt=2000
Kate, the two comments aren’t contradictory. How do you think they could be?
“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good”
Modern models have added more and more complications as they are found, and aren’t perfect and aren’t expected to be. Modeling of past events, even with older and less complicated models, has already given good agreement with what we know from the ice and sediment cores and other paleo records
JPR @ 357
I wonder about that. On the one hand, you have to think that maybe they’re playing a game of chicken with the planet in the belief that they’ll wind up in a better position than their competitors. However, it may be as simple as habitual belligerence rooted in 1800s frontier mythology that’s been re-energized by political pandering — all a piece of the kind of short term thinking, faithiness, and irrational exuberance that seems to have spawned other major crises of late.
Kate, if you’re short on time you can look specifically at how GCM models have been refined and improved as well as get some reckoning of their remaining fallibility here:
Simple Models of Climate Change
General Circulation Models of Climate
Both links take you to chapters from Dr. Spencer Weart’s excellent history of climate research. Weart is pretty gifted with making this science tractable for us laypersons in the topic.
Molnar (360)
The water is still in the system, just in a different state of matter. Nobody can say if it could possibly return to a solid state at a later date.
Bill Teufel says: 23 February 2010 at 10:30 AM
Bill, regarding taxation on C02, it’s helpful to remember that money diverted to carbon taxes will not vanish; all prior experience tells us that the probability of governments seizing this opportunity to “buy back shares” from citizens owning equity in their governments is essentially nil.
C02 taxation revenue will be spent, the main controversy about this technique is of course that it will not be spent for exactly the same things as it was previously. Can we live without a few more deluxe pizzas, or a flatscreen television for our fourth bathroom, if that’s what being a grownup entails? Probably.
If as appears to be the case we have been getting a free ride by ignoring the external costs accompanying fossil fuel consumption, we need to take responsibility for that, be accountable. Governments are the grownup of last resort, the family unit we look to when we individually cannot be counted on to be responsible. It’s very unlikely that we’re going to behave like adults if we’re left to our own devices, history is rife with prior analogous examples.
This seems like a good thread for an OT question. So far no “skeptic” has brought this up but I’d like to be ready. The GCM mean predictions seem to accelerate over this century, but the C02 response is supposed to be logarithmic. I don’t think methane from clathrates or permafrost are included so what else is going on? Is it aerosols disappearing as coal plants are replaced, albedo changes, simple inertia?
If you’ve addressed this before, a link to the post would be great.
Thanks
Kate wrote: “I advocate for scientists to say, ‘We don’t know enough yet.'”
“Don’t know enough yet” — enough for what?
The truth is that scientists DO know enough to say with very high confidence that we need to rapidly phase out the use of fossil fuels if we are to have any hope of averting catastrophic anthropogenic global warming and consequent climate change.
Which is an “inconvenient truth” for the fossil fuel corporations who want to reap trillions of dollars in profit from continued business-as-usual consumption of their products over the next several decades — wealth which will go to other sectors of the economy if human societies act on what the climate scientists DO know.
Which is why ExxonMobil pays people millions of dollars to lie to you, deceive you, and confuse you about what scientists know.
Thanks to Martin Vermeer above for this:
On water vapour feedback, read this
There’s no substitute for comments from someone like Martin who actually knows the science!
That’s cautionary that Google Scholar, for Paltridge, found only the mentions at the ‘Landshape’ blog and the Australian denial writers’ blog, but not Andrew Dessler’s useful discussion of it at Pielke’s blog.
Kate says, “But since I’m a troll, I’ll leave.”
Since you aren’t interested in learning yourself or contributing anything of substance all I can say is don’t let the door hit your butt on the way out.
342, Completely Fed Up: But the “settled science” is a denialist tactic.
You’re incorrigible! AGW promoters started calling sceptics and denialists “flat-earthers”, “traitors” and such, and even used the phrase “the science is settled”.
I’d like to start with the statement that I’m not here to argue against anthropoligical gloabal warming. In fact, I’ve been successfully making the point that human caused global warming is a well verified theory for almost 20 years. During that time, I’ve seen the verification improve.
I say that becasue I am now at a point where I see significant problems with the transformation of many climate scientists into climate scientists/action advoates. In particular, I have been disturbed by the actions that have come to light at the CRU and the reaction of those in the field to those actions.
Now, it is possible that the quotes I’m getting from the head of the CRU are fabricated. UK papers have done that, but I think that the Times tends towards honest reporting more than other UK papers. But, if, as he was quoted admitting, a primary data set was knowingly discarded, that violates one of the first rules of good experimental technique that I was taught in graduate school when I started working towards my physics Phd.
The emails that discuss “spicing up” the presentations of historical data by replacing some recent data with data from a different source (IIRC, calculated temperatures from paleontological techniques for the last decade or two were replaced with actual temperature measurements) are also troubling. I was trained to never do that, I presented my data, warts and all, and then just pointed out the differences and state that the anomoly was, as yet, unexplained. I remember doing that in my dissertation work, and then having one of the people reading it give me the explaination from work he had done.
Third, while I am well aware of university and professional politics, and the effect of this on the selection of reviewers, the politicization of climate science by the political debate on what actions countries should take to mitigate global warming has resulted in a blurring of reasons for chosing different papers for publication as well as the choosing of reviewers.
Now, I am not saying that every climate scientist has abandoned good techniques and have succumed to becoming advocates. I’ve seen, on your site, what looks like good straight science, including historical data trends that show data that could be used by those who would argue for natural global warming. That has the feel of straight science to me. But, I am extremely troubled by the “circle the wagons” approach that I see among many/most? in the field. It is a natural human reaction, but I know I do my best work when I stifle my natural reactions and give dispassionate reports on data that appear to contradict my viewpoint.
I realize that this thread may not be the best place to put such a communication, but it’s the best place that I can find to communicate with the scientists who run/write for RealClimate. I think that the precipitous drop in the belief in anthropological global warming in the US in the last few months is a strong warning sign that climate scientists need to clean their own house and reset the bright line between scientific research and advocacy for action. Otherwise, the science will be lost in the politics, and everyone will lose as a result.
321 gavin’s comment: [Response: The question is whether, when you are driving a car at high speed in a fog, and someone tells you there is possibly a cliff ahead, do you slow down or simply accuse declare the map to be pseudo-science? – gavin]
I think that’s a good first draft of an analogy. Does the science really say that we face a cliff up ahead? That we are even close to a cliff? Somebody like me might point out that, as we are going to run out of fuel before we get to the cliff, we might tank up, even though we can’t tell exactly when we’ll run out of fuel. By the time we finish refueling, the fog will most likely have cleared.
There are still weaknesses in the analogy: no one is proposing that we actually “stop” to refuel, for example. Some of the expert “map readers” were dramatically wrong decades ago (John Holdren and “Limits to Growth”). The expert map readers seem suddenly to be quarreling among themselves (see Latif and “Betrug”.)
Henk,
Let’s try a few test questions:
1)Gravity is an attractive force between two masses: Settled or not?
2)CO2 is a greenhouse gas: Settled or not?
3)Speciation is driven by evolution due to natural selection: Settled or not?
Once a theory or a technique or an idea becomes so indespensible to understanding a phenomenon that there is very little published that advances the field that doesn’t implicitly assume that theory, technique or idea, we have scientific consensus. Scientists have voted with their pens, and we KNOW that fact.
It is a red herring to compare the degree of certainty in medical science to that in physical science. The conclusion that stress is responsible for ulcers was not a scientific conclusion. The discovery of the role of H. Pylori was a triumph of science over standard practice. Yes, smart people can be wrong. They’re a whole lot less likely to be wrong when they use the scientific method and base their conclusions on evidence.
As to Spencer, where to begin? First, his crap about the decreasing number of surface stations has been eviscerated here:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/02/15/dropouts/
and here:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/02/15/summer-and-smoke/
I haven’t had time to review his AGU presentation, but I wish you would apply as much skepticism to it as you do to the rest of climate science.
Hank 327 & John 357: “I am dumbfounded by the willingness of special interests to continue to fund and pay the ticket prices for certain supposedly reputable scientists to show up at Heartland Institute conferences.”
Yes. But it was not limited to the prospective presenters.
There was also an offer of “stipends for elected officials” (to use terminology on the published invitation) who agreed to participate in those events (“stipend” terms unknown). Providing airline tickets and a week’s stay at a 4 star N.Y.C. hotel for free satisfies criteria for bribery, plain and simple. That was what was offered for the previous event in 2008 at least.
Edward Greisch (332) says, “The scientists are NOT … arrogant.” followed by “Scientists ARE ONLY THE MESSENGERS!!!!!!!”
I might be wrong, but it sure looks like a dichotomy to me.
HH:
“Completely fed up: i read the unsettled-science but it doesn’t tell me much I didn’t already know.”
So therefore you’re not saying anything that the scientists know either.
So what are you complaining about?
That you have been able to think that the scientists think that the entire science everywhere is settled?
Or maybe that your “science is settled” is so unspecific that it isn’t an accusation at all?
Bill: “#331 – Hyperbole will not convince anyone. Mankind will adapt if our changing environment forces us too. ”
1) Hyberbole about how clouds are unknown therefore we don’t know what the future will bring is convincing a lot of people.
2) The second sentence is hyperbole that seems to have convinced you that we don’t have to do anything.
Geoff Wexler (#363) accused me of ‘’Super-spin’, because I had written that …“in the models it has always been assumed that relative humidity would remain constant”
OK, let me rephrase this: AGW proponents have always assumed, based on the climate models, that relative humidity would remain constant.
Are you satisfied with this formulation? In my view the difference with my previous remark is only semantics, and I think we should focus on the real issues rather than start a discussion about every single word. Now, if a constant humidity emerges from the models, and the data from NOAA suggest otherwise, I am inclined to think that there may be something wrong with the models. You build a theory on observations, not the other way around. And once again, if you read the Paltridge article and look carefully at the trends in the long-term plots (1973-2007), it is almost inconceivable that the trend would ever become flat even when some of the data would be incorrect. For a flat trend you would have to assume that not only most of the data are wrong, but that half of them would be too high and the other half too low and then not by a constant percentage but a percentage that is large at the beginning of the period, about zero halfway, and large again at the end. That is asking rather much. In case you want to do your own analysis, this can easily be done at the NOAA site that I have mentioned earlier. Select an area (for instance the tropics), pressure level, and years of the period you want to analyse.
Furthermore, I am very puzzled by your remark about Solomon’s paper in Science that “The stratosphere is another story because it has quite different physics.” Again, it’s the observation of data and their interpretation that counts, no matter how different the physics is. Solomon’s interpretation is that the observed changes in stratospheric water vapor ‘would have enhanced the decadal rate of surface warming during the 1990s by about 30% compared to estimates neglecting this change’. And of course climate science is very much alive, so this will not be the final word on this topic. But if a highly respected climatologist states in a top-journal that a significant part of warming during the 1990s can be ascribed to a mechanism that was not even discussed before as a theoretical possibility, then I would not dare to proclaim that ‘the science is settled’. Would you?
SM “I think that’s a good first draft of an analogy. Does the science really say that we face a cliff up ahead? That we are even close to a cliff?”
Yes.
Or consider the future where London, NY, Tokyo, and about 80% of the current population are either underwater or in a desert.
Is this cliff-like enough for you?
Up until the last possible moment (which is ALWAYS before the event happens), you can do something to avoid that cliff, but if you leave it late you have only bad choices (emergency stop creates a pile up and many people hurt, or you spin out of control and are killed by that rather than the cliff wall).
And some people are sitting behind the only airbag and restraint and thinking “well, *I* could still survive it if I’m lucky”.
Rod B “I might be wrong, but it sure looks like a dichotomy to me.”
How?
“Messenger” doesn’t have ANY tag of “Arrogant” on it.
It’s a new version of “false dichotomy” where the falsity isn’t “there aren’t only two solutions” but one that means “there is no dichotomy”.
Well done.
A new logical fallacy.
“#375
Septic Matthew says:
23 February 2010 at 12:43 PM
blah blah blah”
Did you not read the RC post either?
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/12/unsettled-science/
A vague accusation that can be backpedalled into whatever the “debater” requires, depending on the audience.
It’s also a strawman.
Read RC.
You may learn something.
Re: 348 Kate says: 23 February 2010 at 9:04 AM
“The question is, to me, whether while I am driving on a sixteen-lane freeway in Chicago, the road will suddenly end at a dropoff within the next mile.”
It’s already happened.
This is the result of trying to get by on denial. Except rebuilding the planet will be a might harder than rebuilding a bridge.
“371
blueshift says:
23 February 2010 at 12:25 PM
The GCM mean predictions seem to accelerate over this century, but the C02 response is supposed to be logarithmic”
CO2’s effect as concentrations increase is logarithmic.
But because CO2’s concentration is cumulative AND its use has expanded exponentially AND we still have the feedback from when oceans warm up enough in bulk to equilibrium when MORE CO2 is exhausted from the oceans, this doesn’t mean that we would never see accelerating warming.
Whether you see it depends on whether we run BAU (or MORE B than U), or whether we hold, reduce slightly or reduce rapidly our CO2 production.
Ray (339) says, “How likely are ALL OF THESE to be wrong and still give the same value?”
That’s actually not odd at all. All are looking at roughly the same input and forming reasonable conclusions (not the same as irrefutable evidence, BTW) that are similar — regarding the info from roughly the 20th century and the change in CO2 versus the change in temperature during that (extremely short) period. NONE of those researchers have observed or measured the increase in CO2 from today’s level forward versus the temperature change that might result. They all might prove to be totally wrong (or maybe not…) but they all are simply extrapolating the stuff that they did see and agree on.
An OT aside: you give the definition of “climate science” a very wide berth but constrain “medical science” to a very narrow slice. For what it’s worth, the medical science of the early 1800s was given far more credence than Arrhenius’ climate science by both science and lay groups.
I used my full title for the first post, but didn’t want the majority of internet references to me to post here. But to answer question #1 from post 378, the answer is definately not. Our best theory (General Relativity) does not depict gravity that way. Rather, mass curves space, and all objects travel in straight lines in the curved space.
One thing few non-scientists know, and few physicists have to worry about “science is not about the truth” as Dr. Patrick van Esch stated so elequently on the newsgroups sci.physics over a decade ago…when newsgroups were the main discussion forums.
> 379 Tinkerbell says: 23 February 2010 at 1:49 PM
> Hank 327
Wrong name, sorry — you’re replying to
> 327 H Hak says: 23 February 2010 at 12:22 AM
HH: I suppose my REAL request for you is to consider what you mean with “science is settled”.
Are you thinking of it as something *scary*?
If so, what?
And why?
Are you thinking that it’s something done to make the public buy in? If so, if it IS “settled” as far as the bottom-line is concerned, is this bad?
After all, if all the unknown unknowns *happen* to go all humanity’s way, we’re still looking at disaster under BAU, just in a few generations rather than one or two.
So this doesn’t mean we can afford to waste another two generations pratting about.
Nothing is out there that has the strength to counter it, and nothing has a reason to.
So if the bottom line is “We must reduce CO2 production or face disaster in the future”, in what way is the science which isn’t settled important to the man-in-the-street and what we must do?
And lastly, gravity is not settled science — TO SCIENTISTS INTERESTED IN IT.
There’s nothing the man-in-the-street encounters that cares about the bits of gravitational theory that aren’t settled. Heck “it’s a force that pulls us down” is good enough!
The science of medicine and cancer is far less settled.
Yet the science of medicine is still settled enough to have doctors tell patients that they should give up smoking.
Ron Taylor, Heisenberg himself, e.g., had major difficulties with complex non-linear systems. Though he was uncertain about lots of stuff…. (Sorry. couldn’t pass that up ;-) )
Dr Minette – “I think that the precipitous drop in the belief in anthropological global warming in the US in the last few months is a strong warning sign that climate scientists need to clean their own house and reset the bright line between scientific research and advocacy for action. Otherwise, the science will be lost in the politics, and everyone will lose as a result.”
I think that said “precipitous drop” is as much apparent as real, and correlates much more closely to legislation in the us congress and PR activity by opponents of that legislation, politics being almost entirely outside of any possibility of effects real science can have. It isn’t “scientists” I’ve seen who advocate for any action, other than possibly advocating consideration of ways to reduce CO2 emmissions [useful in any event], but there’s certainly an immense amount of advocacy for inaction. Not a lot science can do about reactionary use of it’s findings.
It is way past the time for all Americans to come together on the man-made Global Warming issue. It doesn’t matter whether you are Democrat, Republican, or Independent. It doesn’t matter whether you are Conservative or Progressive. The past 3 months have shown the IPCC and some universities involved in Global Warming or Climate Change to have major question raised about the science and findings re man-made warming. If some of these accusations are true, they represent criminal actions that should be prosecuted. How do we find out the truth? We need a MAJOR independent investigation into all of the science and actions of all major players in this debate, including the IPCC. Look what is at stake. The EPA wants to act outside of Congress to impose major constraints on the US economy and future. They SHOULD NOT be allowed to do this until a complete investigation is done. There is no crisis. We have paid scientists and organization hundreds of millions of dollars over 20 to 30 years to prove man-made global warming, and they are farther from the truth than when they started. If it were a crises, they would have demanded the research stop and action be taken. They did not. The independent investigation should not include any organization or scientist proven to falsify dats. In fact, if this is found out, they should be prosecuted. The UN IPCC should not be involved. We have many ethical, independent scientists who could serve. In the meantime, why not call back all unspent research funds until the investigation is complete. We could use that money to start projects to find and implement clean energy sources, develop safe methods to access our vast oil, coal and natural gas resources and develop cleaner ways to use them. I am sure if the vast private resources are set free, we will succeed. We cannot cripple our economy with trillions of dollars of additional burdens based on questionable scientific information.
Investigation is the most sensible route to take. Let true, peer-reviewed science take us wherever it leads.
Let us not panic, it is not necessary, and use common sense procedures to lead us.
#376 Dr. Daniel C. Minette
Here’s a summary with links back to the RC discussions
http://www.ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths/climategate
The more important question is there really that much cleaning needed. Most of the problems with the CRU hack was simply quotes out of context of the scientific relevance.
Not rally a big problem, unless of course your talking about all the disinformation and spin in the media nod denialosphere.
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Dr. Daniel C. Minette says: 23 February 2010 at 12:56 PM
“Otherwise, the science will be lost in the politics, and everyone will lose as a result.”
Yes, and lest science be lost in politics, let’s see a strong light directed on those who are working assiduously to promote confusion in the public square, such as promoters of rumors about “primary data” being “knowingly discarded.”
Dr. Minette, you yourself apparently are a victim of this political tinging; you’re repeating baseless assertions, propagating lopsided emphasis and wholesale exaggeration. You’re assisting a campaign conducted by a faction with overwhelmingly political aspirations. Paradoxically, your essay here lamenting politicization of science focuses solely on real and imaginary faults exhibited by a group whose ambitions are almost exclusively outside of the political realm. You ignore the proverbial elephant in the room while also feeding that very beast.
Not to pick on Dr. Minette, but his essay seems a shining example of blinded perspective to which we can unconsciously succumb when we’re distracted by disingenuous and hypocritically sanctimonious editorializing, by agents who are not actually concerned with proper conduct of science.
Here’s a quote from today’s NYTimes: “The science behind climate change is settled, and human activity is responsible for global warming,” Jackson told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. “That conclusion is not a partisan one.”
In that quote, she does not disaggregate CO2 accumulation from land use changes including deforestation and urban heat islands.
#378. Ray, tamino is wading into Watts articles referenced by Spencer in those articles. I note he is happy to use hadcrut/giss when it suits him. From what I can see of Spencer’s blog when you get through the smoke, is that he is not denying AGW, but disputing the sensitivity, arguing that natural variability is insufficiently accounted for and models are producing unrealistically high sensitivity. No papers referenced – has he published this particular line of thought?
Recent review of papers on climate sensitvity:
http://www.iac.ethz.ch/people/knuttir/papers/knutti08natgeo.pdf