It won’t have escaped many of our readers’ notice that there has been what can only be described as a media frenzy (mostly in the UK) with regards to climate change in recent weeks. The coverage has contained more bad reporting, misrepresentation and confusion on the subject than we have seen in such a short time anywhere. While the UK newspaper scene is uniquely competitive (especially compared to the US with over half a dozen national dailies selling in the same market), and historically there have been equally frenzied bouts of mis-reporting in the past on topics as diverse as pit bulls, vaccines and child abductions, there is something new in this mess that is worth discussing. And that has been a huge shift in the Overton window for climate change.
In any public discussion there are bounds which people who want to be thought of as having respectable ideas tend to stay between. This is most easily seen in health care debates. In the US, promotion of a National Health Service as in the UK or a single-payer system as in Canada is so far outside the bounds of normal health care politics, that these options are only ever brought up by ‘cranks’ (sigh). Meanwhile in the UK, discussions of health care delivery solutions outside of the NHS framework are never heard in the mainstream media. This limit on scope of the public debate has been called the Overton window.
The window does not have to remain static. Pressure groups and politicians can try and shift the bounds deliberately, or sometimes they are shifted by events. That seems to have been the case in the climate discussion. Prior to the email hack at CRU there had long been a pretty widespread avoidance of ‘global warming is a hoax’ proponents in serious discussions on the subject. The sceptics that were interviewed tended to be the slightly more sensible kind – people who did actually realise that CO2 was a greenhouse gas for instance. But the GW hoaxers were generally derided, or used as punchlines for jokes. This is not because they didn’t exist and weren’t continually making baseless accusations against scientists (they did and they were), but rather that their claims were self-evidently ridiculous and therefore not worth airing.
However, since the emails were released, and despite the fact that there is no evidence within them to support any of these claims of fraud and fabrication, the UK media has opened itself so wide to the spectrum of thought on climate that the GW hoaxers have now suddenly find themselves well within the mainstream. Nothing has changed the self-evidently ridiculousness of their arguments, but their presence at the media table has meant that the more reasonable critics seem far more centrist than they did a few months ago.
A few examples: Monckton being quoted as a ‘prominent climate sceptic’ on the front page of the New York Times this week (Wow!); The Guardian digging up baseless fraud accusations against a scientist at SUNY that had already been investigated and dismissed; The Sunday Times ignoring experts telling them the IPCC was right in favor of the anti-IPCC meme of the day; The Daily Mail making up quotes that fit their GW hoaxer narrative; The Daily Express breathlessly proclaiming the whole thing a ‘climate con’; The Sunday Times (again) dredging up unfounded accusations of corruption in the surface temperature data sets. All of these stories are based on the worst kind of oft-rebunked nonsense and they serve to make the more subtle kind of scepticism pushed by Lomborg et al seem almost erudite.
Perhaps this is driven by editors demanding that reporters come up with something new (to them) that fits into an anti-climate science theme that they are attempting to stoke. Or perhaps it is driven by the journalists desperate to maintain their scoop by pretending to their editors that this nonsense hasn’t been debunked a hundred times already? Who knows? All of these bad decisions are made easier when all of the actually sensible people, or people who know anything about the subject at all, are being assailed on all sides, and aren’t necessarily keen to find the time to explain, once again, that yes, the world is warming.
So far, so stupid. But even more concerning is the reaction from outside the UK media bubble. Two relatively prominent and respected US commentators – Curtis Brainard at CJR and Tom Yulsman in Colorado – have both bemoaned the fact that the US media (unusually perhaps) has not followed pell-mell into the fact-free abyss of their UK counterparts. Their point apparently seems to be that since much news print is being devoted to a story somewhere, then that story must be worth following. Indeed, since the substance to any particularly story is apparently proportional to the coverage, by not following the UK bandwagon, US journalists are missing a big story. Yulsman blames the lack of environmental beat reporters for lack of coverage in the US, but since most of the damage and bad reporting on this is from clueless and partisan news desk reporters in the UK, I actually expect that it is the environmental beat reporters’ prior experience with the forces of disinformation that prevents the contagion crossing the pond. To be sure, reporters should be able and willing (and encouraged) to write stories about anything to do with climate science and its institutions – but that kind of reporting is something very different from regurgitating disinformation, or repeating baseless accusations as fact.
So what is likely to happen now? As the various panels and reports on the CRU affair conclude, it is highly likely (almost certain in fact) that no-one will conclude that there has been any fraud, fabrication or scientific misconduct (since there hasn’t been). Eventually, people will realise (again) that the GW hoaxers are indeed cranks, and the mainstream window on their rants will close. In the meantime, huge amounts of misinformation, sprinkled liberally with plenty of disinformation, will be spread and public understanding on the issue will likely decline. As the history of the topic has shown, public attention to climate change comes and goes and this is likely to be seen as the latest bump on that ride.
CFU @ 719:
You had to work pretty hard to completely reverse what I wrote.
I think I’m going to follow the rest of the crowd here and just ignore you.
And just so I’m clear, my POINT was very simple —
1). Daniel Denialist says “Global Cooling!”
2). Daniel Denialist is immediately dismissed by Climate Scientists as a crackpot.
3). Fran Fanatic says “Record hurricanes next week!”
4). Fifteen people are motivated to action because they hate hurricanes.
5). Silence from Climate Scientists.
6). No record hurricanes next week.
7). Daniel Denialist says “See, they are wrong! Wrong I tell you!”
8). Thirty seven more people become denialists.
9). Climate Scientists shake their heads.
10). False predictions of 187 hurricanes next week are held up as “Bad Climate Science”.
11). Climate Scientists finally get around to saying “But Fran is a fanatic, not a Climate Scientist!”
12). FCH says “And why didn’t you brand Fran a fanatic as quickly as you branded Dan a denialist?”
13). CFU twists FCH’s words out of whack.
14). FCH writes one act play “Dan and Fran due Global Warming”
15). Fin.
(Names and numbers change to protect the guilty =and= the innocent.)
744 RobM, 747 RichardC & 748 Hank Roberts (could it be the three Amigos or should I say amoebae, the parallel programmers)
What if I showed you some graphs with no details or explanation(s) attached. How anyone can say that it is a REASONABLE response is beyond me.
The response states, “…we don’t get to run the 20th Century over again…”, which baffles me as I thought you guys based quite a lot of your evidence on computer modelling and therefore should be able to reconstruct the 20th century quite easily.
[Response: Deliberate obtuseness is not cute, it’s just juvenile. – gavin]
David B (743) I did follow up on Gavin’s response but really I am still none the wiser. Looking at the charts that Gavin alluded to is puzzling. On the (b) curve the temp is slowly trending up and then in 1960 we have a turn. Why?? What would happen to make the temp change like that? You would expect over the short time frame for the trend to more or less follow the previous 50 yrs or so, but it does not. It is almost too convenient that the 2 curves deviate from each other at that period in time.
[Response: Huh? Why is it ‘too convenient’? Convenient for who? As for the overall structure, it’s determined by the changes in solar and volcanic effects – the natural forcings – and they peaked in the late 50s. That’s just the way it was. – gavin]
738, Completely Fed Up: Which are..?
I take back what I said. Overall, it’s well written. I think that table 2.5 only shows the limitations of models that were tried, but that would be a slightly different claim from “bad reporting, etc.” I see that they used the word “adaptation” where I used the word “mitigation” (meaning actions to reduce the impact), and they used “mitigation” where I used phrases like “reductions in CO2 emissions. That’s a point that you, or someone, raised before.
Wasn’t this assertion just disconfirmed?
Warming reduces terrestrial and ocean uptake of atmospheric
CO2, increasing the fraction of anthropogenic emissions remaining
in the atmosphere. This positive carbon cycle feedback leads to
larger atmospheric CO2 increases and greater climate change for
given emissions scenario, but the strength of this feedback effect
varies markedly among models. {WGI 7.3, TS.5.4, SPM; WGII 4.4}
The authors don’t seem to have considered that if surface temperatures stabilize, then the long-term transfer of heat to the deep oceans will have a cooling effect at the surface. That’s a small oversight, and negligible if GHG concentrations are not stabilized.
Ray (745) says, “The remarkable thing is that ALL the different lines of evidence favor (roughly) this same value.”
I would say it is interesting, but hardly remarkable.
720, Completely Fed Up: This is not an economic recession, however.
&
So they aren’t natural.
&
Humans create them.
I thought that I might try this one more time. The analogy between selection in the market and selection in nature was made by Darwin. One of the mechanisms that they have in common is the quick reward for rapid expansion in good times, with slow negative feedback mechanisms. That humans have cognitive abilities (to exploit opportunities) and limits (so they can’t tell exactly when a previously winning strategy will fail) whereas squirrels just have more offspring than can survive (except in rare occasions, when squirrels experience rapid population growth), does not make the former unnatural. It just makes for easier criticism post hoc. Most people who can see clearly where Enron went wrong (to pick an old example), could not have seen clearly how to build it up in the first place — the most costly errors are made by the most successful people. We have market panics and recessions when a bunch of them make mistakes at the same time, which is roughly a Poisson process in the market; it’s perfectly natural.
@740 CFU
I think it’s clear what you’re trying to achieve and I fully understand and agree with your points. That’s why I, as a lurker on RC, value your posts in general and when dealing with obvious trolls and denialists.
However, I think it’s important that RC, being a highly important scientific resource and outlet, distances and differentiates itself from the average denialist websites. For these reasons I also think it’s important that all parties on the scientific side of the debate use a more nuanced range of tones so to speak. =)
All the best
> graphs with no details or explanations
Wups. Gavin, let’s assume this visitor is younger than we all thought (if not the next visitor along may be). I thought of that when I looked at the two images you pointed him to and wondered if he’d be able to find the captions himself and figure out what they showed from what was given; now I wish I’d followed up the other people’s posts to help him out finding the caption.
It’s always hard to guess how much help someone needs, and we get a _lot_ more people in here pretending to be uneducated than we get young folks who actually need a little extra help figuring out how to find stuff like this.
So — here’s how:
That picture from the AR4 WG1 is explained at the site it came from.
You’d have had to work back from the image link to find the associated text by going to the top level of the IPCC site and looking for it.
But you can do that; go to the IPCC home page and find the text associated with that figure; the figures have a numbering system that matches the chapters. Can you find that on your own? If not do ask. We don’t mean to be terrible old cranky ogres here chewing up children and picking our teeth with their bones. It just seems like that sometimes.
Well, maybe some of us are ogres. But we pretend to be nicer, just to stay in practice, you know.
As to the picture with two charts that Gavin pointed you to — basically that shows you two pictures — the black line is the same in both, it’s the actual temperatures observed. The orange fuzz in the upper picture is multiple runs of the model including human influence — those taken as a group pretty much match what was observed so far. The blue fuzz in the lower pictuer is multiple runs of the model done without the factors humans add — those taken as a group did not match the observed temperature increase.
Hm, just to nail this down lest the thread be lost —
original question from BenG, way back in #669, answered by Gavin, and commented on by Cranium and several of us; Gavin replied:
“[… The best estimates (second panel) that we have made indicate that, yes, the last half of the 20th Century would have cooled in the absence of human factors. – gavin]”
The link goes to this:
http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/ar4-wg1/jpg/fig-9-5.jpg
Backing up the directory tree gets us to
http://www.ipcc.ch
From there, go down the tree in the outline to Chapter 9, Figure 5. How? Well there’s a search box at the top.
I try “fig-9-5” and that fails, but gives a clue, so I next try “fig9-5” and that fails too, so I cheat, since I know it’s from WG1 (you’d have had to ask, probably) and I try searching for “WG1 9-5” and that gets me among many other results this, which I recognize is what I was looking for.
Hell, we did leave you a rather scavenger-hunt problem there with that pointer.
I’m sorry. I should have done better with my first answer.
ANYhow, this is where that is explained:
AR4 WGI Chapter 9: Understanding and Attributing Climate Change …
Figure 9.5. Comparison between global mean surface temperature anomalies (°C) from observations (black) and AOGCM simulations forced with (a) both …
The link there is:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-9-5.html
Okay, and if you click that you will see the full explanation.
I’m sorry. This should not be made any harder than it already is for new folks, and this was way too hard for anyone who hasn’t gone over the material even once before.
This is the page with the picture and the caption:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-9-5.html
This is the picture:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/fig/figure-9-5-l.png
This is the caption:
Figure 9.5. Comparison between global mean surface temperature anomalies (°C) from observations (black) and AOGCM simulations forced with (a) both anthropogenic and natural forcings and (b) natural forcings only. All data are shown as global mean temperature anomalies relative to the period 1901 to 1950, as observed (black, Hadley Centre/Climatic Research Unit gridded surface temperature data set (HadCRUT3); Brohan et al., 2006) and, in (a) as obtained from 58 simulations produced by 14 models with both anthropogenic and natural forcings. The multi-model ensemble mean is shown as a thick red curve and individual simulations are shown as thin yellow curves. Vertical grey lines indicate the timing of major volcanic events. Those simulations that ended before 2005 were extended to 2005 by using the first few years of the IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) A1B scenario simulations that continued from the respective 20th-century simulations, where available. The simulated global mean temperature anomalies in (b) are from 19 simulations produced by five models with natural forcings only. The multi-model ensemble mean is shown as a thick blue curve and individual simulations are shown as thin blue curves. Simulations are selected that do not exhibit excessive drift in their control simulations (no more than 0.2°C per century). Each simulation was sampled so that coverage corresponds to that of the observations. Further details of the models included and the methodology for producing this figure are given in the Supplementary Material, Appendix 9.C. After Stott et al. (2006b).
DeepClimate – Not suprising since the Edmonton Journal is part and parcel of the National Post media conglomerate, CanWest Global
Have you thought about how this might relate to your skepticism regarding atmospheric physics, etc?
BTW, you’re perhaps the most thoughtful skeptic to ever post here. To the point that this snippet is more or less a shot in the foot :)
Ref comments from various assorted above including, but not limited to, CFU, Ray Ladbury & Jim Galasyn.
Firstly, whilst RealClimate exists to discuss the science of climate change, this particular thread was entitled “Whatevergate” which is why I thought I would write.
Secondly, I have read books (written by both camps) and I do follow the blogs on both sides. But, as declared, I am not a scientist and therefore you can dismiss my views as irrelevant if you wish.
Just a thought for you though. There are incredibly wise, qualified, well read, incredibly intelligent people that have reached the top of their chosen professions – and they are completely, utterly, totally wrong on, perhaps, the very biggest issue that is relevant to us all. There is no God.
On this site there will be contributors that inevitably hold a whole range of views from devout religiousness through to being agnostic and on to atheism. At the extremes (believers and atheists) there are 2 sets of people faced with the very same education and evidence and end up with 2 very different, totally contradictory, conclusions.
To suggest to an atheist that he is unqualified to hold an opinion on the existance of God because he doesn’t have a theology degree is just plain silly. As it happens, I am happy to declare my atheism and, as I understand it, this means that many people on this site believe that I am destined to exist in hell and damnation for eternity.
How do I know that there is no God? I just do. Why don’t I believe the evidence i.e. the books written by the experts who gave first (maybe not) hand witness of who said what to whom and when, that water was turned into wine, that 5000 people were fed with a couple of loaves and a few fish? I just don’t.
If CFU and Ray Ladbury are suggesting that all of the learned literature written on GW only points to one possible, undeniable conclusion then, I am sorry, you are wrong.
Go and have a look at WUWT and Climate Audit. As far as I can make out, these sites are created by “normal” people that in many cases, raise reasonable doubts and issues with respect to the settled science. There may be commenters that contribute to their sites that have dubious agendas (big oil type agendas) but I don’t think that there is any evidence that the site authors are anything but people that have serious and genuine doubts about what is purported to be settled science.
As an example, there were comments above that I should look at the various temperature data sets to check the validity of the Hockey Stick. A quick visit to WUWT for example will point to lots of posts and comments show why, in their view, the temperature sets maybe wrong.
As I read elsewhere on this site, I do not need to be a scientist to know (beyond reasonable doubt)that the planet has been warmer (and cooler) than it is today. By this I mean that the highly qualified and learned archeologists have convinced me that there is overwhelming evidence of a significant MWP. The Hockey Stick therefore cannot be correct. If Michael Mann has missed the MWP, what else has he got wrong?
With respect to Al Gore and Pachauri, as I understand it, neither of these individuals have the academic qualifications to justify their perceived leadership of the pro AGW argument. Understandably, neither of these 2 individuals are confident enough in their subject to debate it openly with peple that might wish to question their science or their views. And yet, when I declare my lack of qualificatons, I am ridiculed by some.
In summary, I thank you for not giving me too much of a mauling (other than CFUs somewhat typical “you don’t agree with me therefore you are an idiot” approach.
Septic Matthew #754,
> Wasn’t this assertion just disconfirmed?
[i. e. AR4 Synthesis Report sec. 2.3, paragraph on warming reducing terrestrial/ocean CO2 uptake]
No, not disconfirmed. The SYR states what the models say about a positive carbon-cycle feedback increasing the airborne fraction of CO2 and enhancing global warming for a given emissions scenario.
It does not claim (despite the use of present tense) that there has already been a significant observable rise in airborne fraction. If you read it as doing so, you might have thought it disconfirmed by a recent study (Knorr 2009) which found the airborne fraction of CO2 has remained fairly constant since 1850. (There’s some helpful discussion of this paper, and others with different results, here and at <a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/Is-the-airborne-fraction-of-anthropogenic-CO2-emissions-increasing.html"Skepticalscience).
Fig. 7.13 in AR4 shows that most of the coupled climate-carbon cycle models did not expect the airborne fraction to go (much) outside historical bounds by 2000 anyway.
Just a couple of weeks ago there was another post here discussing a ‘macro’ empirical assessment of carbon-cycle feedback based on data for the past thousand years:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/02/good-news-for-the-earths-climate-system/
This help?
FCH@751, I think your characterization is unfair. The moderators of this blog have been quite consistent in pointing out irresponsible predictions on either side–it’s just that there is a whole lot more on the denialist side. The fact of the matter is that we simply cannot preclude many of the more extreme scenarios. We can preclude with very high confidence that the globe is cooling
“If it were not known for a fact that greenhouse gases had increased during the past century, it woud still have been possible to blame any climate change on long-term solar variability. After all, there really are no definitive measurements of potential solar luminosity changes earlier then several decades ago. But there is a a clear record of documented GHG increases, and the radiative consequences of these GHG changes (together with some inferred aerosol changes) fully account for the observed trends of global temperature increase.”
This was an expert reviewer comment by Andrew Lacis. It is a fair indication that we really don’t know what the long term impacts of solar changes besides those associated with just the solar cycle itself are. I assume he is indicating those sorts of changes which we may or may not be observing as indicated in the study by Richard Willson: “Total Solar Irradiance Trend During Solar Cycles 21 and 22
Richard C. Willson
Results from Active Cavity Radiometer Irradiance Monitor (ACRIM) experiments show an upward trend in total solar irradiance of 0.036 percent per decade between the minima of solar cycles 21 and 22. The trend follows the increasing solar activity of recent decades and, if sustained, could raise global temperatures. Trends of total solar irradiance near this rate have been implicated as causal factors in climate change on century to millennial time scales.”
Then one would have to take into account the long term climate sensitivity of earlier forcings and a lag time of several decades from heat in the pipeline if you wish to argue these features of global warming. It is quite unclear what warmth is coming from where. I would have to say that it is possible that natural forcings may or may not have contributed to warming after 1950 depending upon who is correct on several different issues.
SM : “I thought that I might try this one more time. The analogy between selection in the market and selection in nature was made by Darwin.”
Proof please.
And remember, we’re supposed to be humans with a nearly unique ability to project possible futures because our brains are so huge.
A fox doesn’t know if the chicken population can survive more fox predation, it’s just hungry.
But neither does the fox go out to eat all the hens so that no other fox can get a meal.
So either we’re not using our brains, or we are and some people are deliberately taking actions that kill the ecosystem they are working in.
Given the selling of Toxic Assets and then the betting on these toxic assets that they made up and sold on being, unsurprisingly enough, toxic and a bad buy, I can quite see that this is human ingenuity at work, DELIBERATELY killing the market because the consequences for the ones doing it are nonexistent.
Therefore not a natural phenomenon.
Unless humans are naturally and irredeemably destructive.
Is that your thesis?
Rod B “I would say it is interesting, but hardly remarkable.”
Well you would deny it, wouldn’t you?
Take a simple calculation of the values that COULD be found. We have all the way down to 0.1.
if that indicates some sort of quanta for CO2 sensitivity, then the chances of the sensitivity of one study being in any one value is 1/10x the sensitivity.
There are 45 quanta and 15 are occupied by the sensitivity range. 5 would be somewhat indistinguishable from each other.
So the chance of any one wrong answer getting a value the same as another is 1/9.
The chance of 12 getting the same answer is 1 in 3.6×10^12.
The chance of getting the same broad range with the peak within the range of the one model run is 1/3. The chance of 12 of them happening: 1 in 2 million.
The number that get the 0.1 that some have posited as the real value?
Nil.
Not one.
754: OK, so you agree you jumped to an erroneous conclusion.
Do please try a lot more carefully in future. You post assertions with such apparent certitude.
As to your quote, it isn’t wrong.
I’ll read the rest of it, but the CO2 absorbed by the out-of-equilibrium sea will return with interest when equilibrium is attained.
The warmer the air, the warmer the sea, the less CO2 it can hold and so it releases CO2.
This IS a positive feedback.
benG, yes, when someone is telling the truth, evidence DOES seem to suggest they are telling the truth.
This is an inevitable consequence.
This is not serendipity.
“And just so I’m clear, my POINT was very simple –”
So simple it didn’t finish in 15 steps.
Yeah.
Now, how about, say:
1) Cold winds cause snow in the UK and south US.
2) Dennis Denialist yells gleefully “See! No such thing as Global Warming”
3) Media hype this up
4) FYI, watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDTUuckNHgc
or,
1) Dennis Denialisy yells gelefully “It used to be the consensus that we were heading for an ice age in the 70’s”
2) Media hype this up
3) FYI, watch http://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610#p/u/3/XB3S0fnOr0M
or
1) Dennis Denialist Publishing make up statements by a scientist
2) FYI, watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khikoh3sJg8
or
1) We have a record 1998
2) Dennis Denialist says that this is just weather and using this as proof of warming is wrong
3) 8 years later, it’s still a record in some reconstructions
4) Dennis Denialist says that it has been cooling since 1998
5) Media hype it up
or
1) Emails are hacked, edited highlights produced and seeded
2) Media pundits state they have read all 1.5GB of email data and it’s proof of AGW falsity and malpractice
3) In a week
4) Media ignore the emails and just quote the quotes of the filtered emails along with the pundit interpretation
or much, much more.
PS look at the IPCC members when asked about whether, for example, the NO flooding was due to global warming, and you’ll hear every one of them saying “no, this is weather, though this sort of event will get more common under AGW”.
The media are guilty of ignoring that and continuing to ask until they find a scientist willing to say “yes”, because that gives them a headline.
But you hardly ever hear the other scientists asked.
CC: In summary, I “feel” that
i) that the Hockey stick is just plain wrong
BPL: On the basis of any evidence? Or you just “feel” it’s wrong? The National Academy of Sciences seems to disagree with you:
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309102251
CC: ii) that the temeprature records appear too subjective (i.e. they are created using proxies that are, at best, “indicators” rather than accurate records) and that there appears to be a whole lot of adjustments and homoginisation of other record sets.
BPL: The ones for the last 160 years are direct measurements, and adjustments are needed to compensate for things like the urban heat island effect and taking readings at different times of day.
CC: iii) The raw data doesn’t seem to show much happening other than a gradual warming where nothing exceptional seems to be happening – it “feels” like it is only adjusted data that shows scary outcomes.
BPL: What part of “complete collapse of human agriculture within 40 years” did you not understand?
CC: iv) I work in IT and have been involved in computer modelling and I of course know that models will produce outcomes based upon the informaion entered. I believe, although I don’t know this, that none of the modelling that has been around for any length of time has acually been close to predicting what has actually happened over the last 10 to 15 years in global temperatures. As discussed elsewhere, Phil Jones recently said something to the effect that there hasn’t been any statistically significant warming since 1995 (or was it 1998?).
BPL: True, because you need at least 30 years to show a climate trend–not 15. Read:
http://BartonPaulLevenson.com/30Years.html
“It is quite unclear what warmth is coming from where. I would have to say that it is possible that natural forcings may or may not have contributed to warming after 1950 depending upon who is correct on several different issues.”
May I introduce you to a helpful implement:
Occam’s Razor.
You have a lot of “IF”‘s there. Each one reduces the possibility of being correct.
And none of them make CO2 benign. In fact, since the power of CO2 is roughly proportional to the solar output under equilibrium, this would make AGW a WORSE event. Maybe going back to 280ppm is even more necessary.
“working scientists or those who REPEATEDLY raise long-since slain zombie arguments.”
But all that is then needed is a procession of 10,000 sockpuppets to raise the long-since slain zombie arguments.
No, when someone turns up and says “T Rex lived as a vegetarian in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve”, they are raising a zombie argument and they don’t have to say it twice to show their idiocy.
“No, no, no, good grief, no. Our mums never come close to real apocalyptic or doomsayer predictions. ”
“You’ll have someone’s eye out with that”
?
“746
Ray Ladbury says:
22 February 2010 at 7:23 PM
CFU, would you be opposed to maybe reserving the venomous strikes for those who deserve it”
Ray, would this be a definition of irony?
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/02/daily-mangle/comment-page-8/#comment-162240
:-P
CC (762): Go and have a look at WUWT and Climate Audit. As far as I can make out, these sites are created by “normal” people that in many cases, raise reasonable doubts and issues with respect to the settled science.
BPL: You are not competent to say that the doubts they raise are “reasonable.” You haven’t studied the relevant science. You haven’t even taken one introductory statistics course (if you had, you’d see some of the grossly obvious mistakes Watts keeps making).
@762Charlie Chutney,
You make a number of valid statements, yet you are being attacked.
My reaction to this site was similar, but I´m not a sceptic, I believe in climate change and advocate “green policy”. Í think that:
1) “Believers” here are frustrated by continous sceptical attacks, thas is why they often react so frustrerad.
2) They are physisal scientists and tend to see everything that is outside the discipline as irrelevant or self-evident. This is clearly the case in the reaction to your first comment. The minds of laypeople are simply irrelevant to physics. Fine. But the problem is, this site is also about the media and communication with lay-people. Therefore it is a problem. Moreover, the narrow framing of climate change by the physical science create a kind of gridlock for sound climate policy. The sceptical debate only function as to increase this gridlock. But this is irrelevant for physicists (we had this discussion before, they are simply not interested in effective communication with media and laypeople). They only want to get the basic physics right (but then again, they advocate policy and hold green believs, but it is outside their professional frames and identity).
Charlie Chutney@762,
OK, so as nearly as I can tell, you agree that your dismissal of anthropogenic climate change is not evidence based. “I just don’t believe it,” is not a scientific argument.
You say, “By this I mean that the highly qualified and learned archeologists have convinced me that there is overwhelming evidence of a significant MWP.”
Whoa! Would you like some onions and mustard to go with all that red herring? The existence of a Medieval Warm Period in Europe and parts of N. America is not disputed. The question is whether it was GLOBAL. If you look at the evidence, there is simply no indication of a contemporaneous global period of warming in the period in question. That is the evidence, and it has nothing to do with Mike Mann.
I also wonder why you choose to listen to nonscientists for your info–be they Pachauri, Gore, McIntyre or Watts. McIntyre and Watts have but a single peer-reviewed publication between them. And what passes for “science” on Watts’ site is risible (or do you believe that the snow in Antartica is frozen CO2?). If you are getting your science from such sources, no wonder you are confused. Just curious: What do you have against getting your information from the experts–you know the guys who actually publish peer-reviewed papers on climate?
There’s an old saying, Charlie: You’re entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts. It’s clear you’ve gotten around this by simply refusing to look at the facts.
stevenc #765, re: solar irradiance trend in recent solar cycles,
see: http://www.skepticalscience.com/acrim-pmod-sun-getting-hotter.htm
“You have a lot of “IF”’s there. Each one reduces the possibility of being correct”
Finally we agree on something.
Ray Ladbury says:
“Whoa! Would you like some onions and mustard to go with all that red herring? The existence of a Medieval Warm Period in Europe and parts of N. America is not disputed. The question is whether it was GLOBAL.”
So the MWP could be of less significance because it could be local phenomenon?. Let me then pursue the following line of questioning:
What is the geographical distribution of tree ring data – is that truly global in its coverage. And what is the equivalent of a tree ring in oceans that cover 72% of the surface?. How reasonable it is to use tree rings obtained from a fraction of the solid surface (which itself covers only 28% of the earth’s surface) as global representative of climate?
[Response: People are using a wide variety of data – cave records, corals, ocean sediments etc. precisely for those reasons. Look at Mann et al 2009 for more details. – gavin]
777: Andreas saves time by building up two strawmen in one post.
Well we WERE looking for efficiency gains.
The only faith I have is in the humans. But people like you and Watts and so on up the chain of command keep interfering with them.
Re 776 BPL “You are not competent to say that the doubts they raise are “reasonable.” You haven’t studied the relevant science.”
Well thank you for that! You display contemptable arrogance and absolutely no class.
I do need to have to have a degree to determine what I think is reasonable. What I think is what I think and I don’t need yours, or anyone else’s permission to think it (unless I end up living in world of totalitarianism with someone like you in charge).
Most people on this site clearly disagree with my logic and assumptions but manage to be civil when communicating with a complete stranger. You on the other hand are there in the CFU camp. You think that you will pursuade – by insulting people. Its the old “empty vessel make the most noise” thing.
I note that you had nothing to say with respect to the religion analogy.
[Response: ‘Religion’ analogies are OT. They provide no insight whatsoever except into the prejudices of the people making the arguments. Please stick to the science. It is legitimate for you to think whatever you like, but so is asking you what the basis of that thinking is, and why you think that your reasons for thinking something trump the scientific literature. – gavin]
CM, that pretty much confirm what I was saying “To put things into perspective, the ACRIM vs PMOD debate is essentially arguing over whether the sun is showing a slight upwards trend or a slight downwards trend or if there’s even a trend at all.” The fact that there was a break down between temperature and TSI in the 70s is important but we don’t know how important if we don’t know how much heat was already in the pipeline and not yet realised from ocean lag, and we are unclear on how much warming is due to long term climate sensitivity from earlier forcings. Don’t get me wrong. I am not arguing that CO2 does not contribute to the warming and it is all solar. I am arguing there are fairly important uncertainties to be resolved.
reference 778 Ray Ladbury
I am on very dangerous ground here given my background but hey, in for a penny in for a pound and all that.
You appear to be suggesting that the MWP is accepted for USA and Northern Europe. I did not know this.
Given that MM’s Hockey Stick is a global graph that looks pretty straight for the relevant period then, logically, the southern hemisphere must have had a mini ice age at the same time to produce the straight line? Is there evidence for that?
If you are saying that the UK and the USA have been warmer in the past, and today’s temperatures are not
unprecedented, and the last decade was not the warmest ever – then you have my attention.
777 Andreas Bjurström says: “physicists (…) are simply not interested in effective communication with media and laypeople.
Wrong. Physicists are not uninterested in this. The difficulty is that there is an enormous amount of pure nonsense making the rounds and physicists are not particularly good at dealing with it. Moreover there is a fundamental asymmetry in the “debate.” It is far easier to spout pure nonsense than it is to explain why a particular piece of nonsense is nonsensical. It takes 1 second and no knowledge at all to speak the words “The hockey stick is wrong.” It takes far longer to explain that multiple groups have done reconstructions using various proxies and they all result in similar temperature reconstructions.
Andreas, you claim that physical scientists are framing climate change in terms of physical science, but:
1)physical science is our expertise, and to take official positions on subjects outside that arena would be inappropriate
2)Surely, questions of the mechanism, the likely amount of warming and its effects and the likely efficacy and side effects of proposed mitigation schem are questions apropriately answered in terms of physics and the other hard sciences.
That is the extent of the charter of the IPCC. When it comes to how to tackle climate change, that’s everybody’s business–psychologists, economists, politicians, sociologists and even physicals scientists (in their role as private citizens). It is not that physical scientists do not understand this. All we are saying is that first people have to accept the hard science of climate change, and we can begin from that point considering all aspects of the problem.
RodB:”Ray (745) says, “The remarkable thing is that ALL the different lines of evidence favor (roughly) this same value.”
I would say it is interesting, but hardly remarkable.”
A scientist would say it is compelling. What is interesting is why you don’t find it so. An unscientific and poor choice of a Bayesian prior, I suspect.
This may be off topic, anyone care to review these comments:
“There are numerous possible mechanisms, not the least of which is displacement of cosmic rays by solar wind. There is now an extensive literature on this, recently reviewed by my distinguished colleague Jerry Marsh, formerly of the Argonne National Laboratory. I’m traveling and don’t have the data with me: but you will find it on arXiv, I think.
You may also like to look at Pinker (2005) on the impact of naturally-occurring changes in cloud cover. These, too, have nothing to do with our emissions of CO2, and may be modulated by solar changes. It is not just the minuscule peak-to-trough change of around 0.15% in total solar irradiance that one must take into account. We know from Herschel’s observation of fluctuations in grain prices, published in 1801, that the Sun does have a disproportionate influence on terrestrial climate: the great man noticed an anti-correlation between sunspot number and grain prices as published in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations.
And the bottom line remains: the IAU got its predictions right, and the IPCC got them wrong. – ”
[Response: They are wrong, misleading and very incomplete. Please provide a cite for some context. – gavin]
Ref 778 Ray Ladbury – again!
I have just re-read your paragraph:
“I also wonder why you choose to listen to nonscientists for your info–be they Pachauri, Gore, McIntyre or Watts. McIntyre and Watts have but a single peer-reviewed publication between them. And what passes for “science” on Watts’ site is risible (or do you believe that the snow in Antartica is frozen CO2?). If you are getting your science from such sources, no wonder you are confused. Just curious: What do you have against getting your information from the experts–you know the guys who actually publish peer-reviewed papers on climate?
Why do I listen to Gore and Pachauri? Simple. Because these guys are put forward or put themselves forward as the standard bearers. They got Nobel prizes for representing the movement (whether you wanted to be represented or not). As far as I understand (understood) Gore and Pachauri are supposed to be serious people presenting a serious case of the catastrophe that is AGW. If they do not represent your case then why on earth the Nobel Prize?
If you are saying that Gore and Pachauri are unqualified to talk about the subject, and I should ignore their views, then, again, you have my attention.
I don’t think either Watts or McIntyre
[Response: Pachauri accepted the Nobel for the IPCC organisation not for his personal insights. The IPCC reports are what you should be reading, not the personal opinons of people who work for them. – gavin]
“Given that MM’s Hockey Stick is a global graph that looks pretty straight for the relevant period then, logically, the southern hemisphere must have had a mini ice age at the same time to produce the straight line? Is there evidence for that? ”
Yes, there is.
However, there’s another thing you missed: There’s nothing saying that the MWP (which lasted several hundred years) occurred in Northern Europe at the same time as it did in the US.
E.g.
Four places have normal values of 1 and high values of 10 during 20 decades and there was one place with a 10 at all times.
What is the “peak” for all of them? 10.
Was there ever a time when none of the regions have a 10? No.
What is the average? Very much less than 10. If they are uncorrelated, 3.5.
If today we score a 11+/-2 in all our places at the same time, we have likely but not solid proof that today is warmer than any period during the previous peak in any one region.
But when you graph averages for all four regions, you have
9 to 13 today.
3.5 in the past.
ABSOLUTELY higher today than in the past.
“ALL the different lines of evidence favor (roughly) this same value…
A scientist would say it is compelling.”
A critical scientist would say that it may also be due to shared preconceived ideas.
[Response: Because all science is just opinion you know…. People seem to have converged on a value for the charge of an electron. Obvious groupthink, wouldn’t you agree? – gavin]
Charlie Chutney wrote: “I do need to have to have a degree to determine what I think is reasonable.”
It is entirely “reasonable” to think that the Earth is stationary, and the Sun and stars orbit the Earth. It certainly appears that way, doesn’t it? And it’s a perfectly serviceable notion as far as ordinary day-to-day experience.
It happens not to be true, though.
Unless you believe that the heliocentric model of the solar system is a hoax perpetrated by a global conspiracy of “liberal” astronomers in order to destroy liberty, raise taxes and install Al Gore as dictator of the world.
Charlie Chutney wrote: “To suggest to an atheist that he is unqualified to hold an opinion on the existance of God because he doesn’t have a theology degree is just plain silly.”
That’s an absurd analogy that does not accurately characterize the criticisms from those who have patiently responded to your ill-informed comments.
Tell me, would you agree with this statement:
“To suggest to an auto mechanic that he is unqualified to diagnose and treat cancer because he doesn’t have a medical degree is just plain silly.”
Gavin, your choice to be narrow-minded (please do not project stupid ideas on me). Ever hard about paradigm? A primer for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm
[Response: One for you. – gavin]
FurryCatHerder wrote: “3). Fran Fanatic says “Record hurricanes next week!”
With all due respect, FCH, your claims of wild exaggeration by climate scientists and/or climate change activists are themselves wildly exaggerated.
It is entirely reasonable to point to Hurricane Katrina as an example of the sort of extreme weather events that unmitigated global warming has in store.
It is entirely reasonable to point out that after crossing over Florida and significantly decreasing in intensity, Hurricane Katrina regenerated into a destructive monster as it drew energy from the anomalously warm waters of the Gulf, thereby illustrating the mechanism through which AGW contributes to more powerful hurricanes.
It is entirely reasonable to point out that the science supporting a causal link between AGW and more powerful hurricanes is strong.
Of course, anyone who cried “Record hurricanes next week!” when Katrina struck New Orleans was wrong.
It was longer than a week before Hurricane Rita struck Houston.
783: Charlie Chutney says:
“I do need to have to have a degree to determine what I think is reasonable. ”
speaking to Barton:
“Well thank you for that! You display contemptable arrogance and absolutely no class.”
I don’t agree with you that you need a degree to determine what is reasonable. You do need to actually read either books on the subject or the primary literature. I believe that you are correct that you probably need a degree to read the primary literature. I have a degree and find the primary literature tough going. I don’t think that Barton meant to be arrogant. He was stating what ought to be self-evident to you. if someone cracks your network and installs naughty screen savers on everybody’s machine and I keep insisting that the new printer is the problem you would be justified in telling me that I’m not competent to diagnose the problem. Similarly without having bothered to read anything other than blog-“science” you do not have an informed opinion and are therefore not competent to judge the merits of the science.
762 Charlie Chutney: Thank you. Well thought and well said. I too am a non-scientist but I know a little something about the history of science. Because scientists are people and not merely sophisticated laboratory equipment they are not immune to the foibles of the human race. The scientific method and peer review are meant to guard against the influence of those foibles but they also signal that the potential for wrong turns is not trivial. And that brings us to the current state of the AGW discussion. The episode captured under the label “Climategate” is fundamentally about whether a certain set of results reflects science or the foibles of scientists. That’s an important question that deserves discussion. It does no one any good to invoke Ring Lardner’s famous line: “Shut up! he explained.”
Gavin, given that you know all these things, I do not understand why you comment with such ignorance and hostility. It does not hurt to have an open mind, or does it, for you? No, I think it is the sceptics that have given you headache.
[Response: Not at all. But if you think that I need to be reminded about what a paradigm is, or how complicated the climate is or that climate has changed in the past, forgive me if I don’t see that as an opening for an informed conversation. If you want serious discussion about real issues, then stick to serious points about real issues and leave the sophmoric rhetorical florishes at home. Respect is very much a two way street. – gavin]
Charlie Chutney says: With respect to Al Gore and Pachauri, as I understand it, neither of these individuals have the academic qualifications to justify their perceived leadership of the pro AGW argument.
That’s a long way from your earlier calumny, calling them: “alarmist poster boys [who] don’t, rightly or wrongly, hold up to scrutiny very well.”
Crucially, Gore and Pachauri accept the results of climate science and are bringing those results to the public. When you compare yourself to them by saying, “When I declare my lack of qualifications, I am ridiculed by some,” you are taking the anti-science position, which deserves ridicule.
The situation is exactly analogous to that of the creationist attacking the fossil record, with you on the side of Duane Gish. When you say, “the Hockey stick is just plain wrong,” this is just as ignorant as saying “Humans rode dinosaurs,” a claim that deserves equal ridicule.