Earlier this week, a new paper appeared in GRL by Nicola Scafetta (Scafetta, 2022) which purported to conclude that the CMIP6 models with medium or high climate sensitivity (higher than 3ºC) were not consistent with recent historical temperature changes. Since there have been a number of papers already on this topic, notably Tokarska et al (2020), which did not come to such a conclusion, it is worthwhile to investigate where Scafetta’s result comes from. Unfortunately, it appears to emerge from a mis-appreciation of what is in the CMIP6 archive, an inappropriate statistical test, and a total neglect of observational uncertainty and internal variability.
I, together with John Kennedy and Gareth Jones from the UK Met Office, have put together a short explanation [updated to fix typo in equation, see comment below, 4/1/22] of what we think was done wrong. There are three main points:
- Not taking into account uncertainty in the observational data.
- Not looking at the individual simulations instead of just the model ensemble mean.
- Applying a statistical test that is guaranteed to reject any specific realization of internal variability if the forced signal is well constrained.
The first two points are clearly seen in the following figure.
The pink shading is the uncertainty in the observational temperature difference, and the individual model runs (172 of them) are the black dots (those from the same model are in a horizontal line). The green triangles are the ensemble mean for each of the 37 models (for models with only one ensemble member in the archive, the green triangle lies on top of the black dot). A couple of things are obvious. First, there are 3 models with ECS > 3ºC that have an ensemble mean consistent the ERA5 change within the uncertainty but more importantly, 49 ensemble members from 18 models are compatible with the ERA5 result. Of those 18 models, half of them have ECS above 3ºC. This is in direct contradiction with Scafetta’s claim that “all models with ECS > 3.0ºC overestimate the observed global surface warming”.
Scafetta’s analysis only used the ensemble mean from each model (the green triangles) (despite claiming to look a single simulation), and totally ignored the ERA5 uncertainty. These choices give a fundamentally misleading result. Curiously, when referencing the ERA5 data, he cites the description paper from ERSSTv5 – an ocean temperature dataset – instead of Hersbach et al (2020).
The error in the second half of his analysis is related to the error made by Douglass et al (2008) and discussed in Santer et al (2008). Scafetta tests the difference between the model ensemble mean (the forced pattern) and the exact observational pattern (which is a combination of a forced signal and a realization of the internal variability), against the uncertainty in the forced pattern. This has the bizarre property that you would be almost guaranteed to eventually reject all of the specific model realizations as the number of ensemble members increases (since the uncertainty on the mean decreases with 
). The results from Scafetta’s test are therefore not reliable.
What to do?
GRL does not accept comments on it’s published papers, a situation we have discussed here before. However, it does have a complaints procedure. This involves the issue(s) being submitted to the GRL Editorial Office, and them asking for a response from the author(s). Upon receipt of the response, the Editorial Board will decide how to proceed. This could be anything from doing nothing, to publishing a correction, or ultimately, forcing a retraction. Thus the three of us have formally submitted the note linked above to the GRL Editors. So we will see!
Note that we were able to put together this complaint very quickly because of the availability of public archives of ERA5 data, ECS numbers for the CMIP6 models, and the Climate Explorer site, and the fact that errors like this have been made many times before.
What will this mean?
As we state in the note, just because Scafetta’s analysis is flawed, that doesn’t mean that all CMIP6 models perform skillfully in the historical period. As we’ve discussed previously, the CMIP6 archive needs to be dealt with more carefully than in previous iterations (#NotAllModels, Making predictions with the CMIP6 ensemble). Additionally, the poor performance of a specific model with respect to these kinds of observations might still be a function of incorrect forcings (such as aerosols where there is still a lot of uncertainty).
We will keep people informed of what happens…
References
- N. Scafetta, "Advanced Testing of Low, Medium, and High ECS CMIP6 GCM Simulations Versus ERA5‐T2m", Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 49, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2022GL097716
- K.B. Tokarska, M.B. Stolpe, S. Sippel, E.M. Fischer, C.J. Smith, F. Lehner, and R. Knutti, "Past warming trend constrains future warming in CMIP6 models", Science Advances, vol. 6, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaz9549
- H. Hersbach, B. Bell, P. Berrisford, S. Hirahara, A. Horányi, J. Muñoz‐Sabater, J. Nicolas, C. Peubey, R. Radu, D. Schepers, A. Simmons, C. Soci, S. Abdalla, X. Abellan, G. Balsamo, P. Bechtold, G. Biavati, J. Bidlot, M. Bonavita, G. De Chiara, P. Dahlgren, D. Dee, M. Diamantakis, R. Dragani, J. Flemming, R. Forbes, M. Fuentes, A. Geer, L. Haimberger, S. Healy, R.J. Hogan, E. Hólm, M. Janisková, S. Keeley, P. Laloyaux, P. Lopez, C. Lupu, G. Radnoti, P. de Rosnay, I. Rozum, F. Vamborg, S. Villaume, and J. Thépaut, "The ERA5 global reanalysis", Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, vol. 146, pp. 1999-2049, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/qj.3803
- D.H. Douglass, J.R. Christy, B.D. Pearson, and S.F. Singer, "A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions", International Journal of Climatology, vol. 28, pp. 1693-1701, 2007. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/joc.1651
Hi,
Thanks, very useful post. More and more mainstream newspapers argue that scientists have overestimated the projected global warming, thereby adding confusion to the debate and not always distinguishing between model response uncertainty (e.g., ECS) and high-end scenario plausibility.
Regarding the first issue, the AR6 WG1 conclusions (cf. SPM) are: “Based on multiple lines of evidence, the very likely range of equilibrium climate sensitivity is between 2°C (high confidence) and 5°C (medium confidence). The AR6 assessed best estimate is 3°C with a likely range of 2.5°C to 4°C (high confidence)…”
“More and more mainstream newspapers”?
Thank YOU, Gavin
THIS is what RC is for
Regards
Richard
As a layperson with very little education in statistics, I suspect I learn more from examples of fallacious statistical working, like those described in this post, than from straightforward explanations of how a correct analysis has been carried out. Thanks!
Here you are abslutely right
The first, healthy scientific approacxh and method should allways be: “What is it really? what is it about?”
Shall we also have to discuss Nicola Scafetta?
I do have some training and experience with issues, teachers, and studies, and by just a short look and “litterature scanning” into Scafettas “style” and diciplines, I had to personally disqualify him as a teacher or professor for my needs and purposes. by the formula that it will be much too much to poke and remember for me without being favourably inaugurated also to his institutional methods of cheating and bluffing.
One will have to be a woman able to go to bed with the given teacher and professor and SENSOR or something,
if not personaly owned and protected by the Party Secretary.
How can I say that?
Well his subject is system analysis and chosmology on complex and “unlinear” systems, and there I am personally trained, experienced, educated and aquainted as a chemist and physical chemist, instrument maker and musical acouistician on pnevmatic and other complex harmonical oscillators with both rumbles and splashes and noises, like we also have it in the engines and the test- tubes and in the stomack
. We never commit statristics and “error- bars” on such things. We find out what it is and what it is about first.
Saturnus and Jupiter and the solar “barycenter” causing the ENSOs and the hurricanes and bushfires,…that is unbelieveable. One must have the upper hand on SENSOR behind the iron curtain, with both King Donald Grozny, Putin, and Mussolini to get away with such things. .
“Crooky corrupt” we call that.
It is how to get fameous and how to rule the world in virtual reality just with the right model- maker commercial desctop device with “3d printer” in our days.
. .
You are ‘amanfrommars’ from The Register comments section, and I claim my five pounds!
No, I am not. I am Santa. Could n`t you guess that?
Just went through the Scafetta paper and it looks like GRL’s review process messed up pretty badly here.
Btw, I think your comment’s first equation has a typo with the sqrt around the (N-1), but your final std error numbers look right to me.
As an aside, I wondered if autocorrelation matters much and in HadCRUT5 I get “not really”. Best estimate of std error ~15 % larger than when assuming white noise, which I assume you did.
[Response: Thanks. You are correct that the first equation is slightly wrong, it’s missing a 1/sqrt(N) term. My code just used the ‘sd’ function divided by sqrt(N), so the numbers and graph are correct. Serves us right for rushing… I’ll fix it. – gavin]
Gavin – Thanks for monitoring and correcting such misinformation (or is it intentional dis-information). While debate is to be encouraged, the misuse of scientific publication to protect vested interests at the risk of the entire world are not tolerable.
Another typo to fix in the RC post “First, there are 3 models with ECS > 3ºC that are have an ensemble mean ” Remove the “are”
Agreed. The amount of intentional dis-information is steadily growing – as part of the exploding media frenzy and hysteria stemming from the relentless salespromotion demanded by the “economic” ideology (GDP growth etc.), like from a heavy drug addict. Now we have also to witness new endless promotion of new oil exploration, as if the history hadn’t already demonstrated the totalitarian consequences of petrostatehood and oiligarchy. The ongoing russian war in one of the world’s main wheat producing countries, financed by european and other petroholics, is certainly no argument for increasing the already very high odds for even more dangerous climate desasters, it is just the opposite: we in Europe have to use this opportunity to get rid of the fossil fuel lobby’s stranglehold once and for all. Full oil embargo on Russia now!
April Fools reading. Over the years, Scafetta continues to apply the trick off throwing anything at the wall to see what sticks. On Google Scholar there is this 2022 paper on planetary numerology https://arxiv.org/pdf/2202.03939.pdf “inspired by music theory”. Scafetta has create a cottage industry of scientific citations to meet any needs
BTW, my usual suggestion is to add this to a PubPeer review but then noticed that someone already has started one and that you have also added to: https://pubpeer.com/publications/73C8991A1AAFA0B890F9895E34DEDE . Will be interesting to see if Scafetta responds
Scafetta–the reigning king of Mathturbation.
Hr Schmidt
We are dependent of knowing andv understandingn our things in everyday civil life also for the case of war, given that we have not chosen to sign under to SATAN, who will take our responsibilities and tell us allm that. And thus submit and become owned by him in the party with P along with his secretary, so we can simply give a damn and obey. ABBA, ABBA….
I have personally inspected the iron cutrain from both sidess a young student. I had to keep our papers and hygiene and relations and understandings in order, I even had to dismount a broken Volkswagen bus pendulum axis with blunt sawblades, get it hammer welded at the local blacksmith and mount it again and drive on with rissen hydaulic brake tubes down to Dresden and back home.
We are quite often due to know our things when all goes wrong and nobody else can tell, and canno0t give a damn to physics and simply re- place it with statistics and error bars. We must know what matters and what it is about.
Nicolai Scafetta ( I have judged him) is a type who cannot be asked and who cannot be relied on when it really matters.
However Italian, it is not the Gallileo Gallilei, The Umberto Eco, the Leonardo da Vinci, the Enrico Fermi, the Alessandro0 Volta, the Archangelico Corelli or the lodovico Ferrari- style and quality..
So why do we have to bother further and study Scafetta also?
A while ago I had reviewed a manuscript by the same author claiming that most of the observed warming is due to urbanisation. I wrote a very careful 4 page review documenting all the flaws of that manuscript in a concise but constructive way. When I received a copy of the decision letter (rejection) I realized that another reviewer had done the same major effort with a 90% overlap on the critical review comments.
A few months later the same paper was published elsewhere. The author simply ignores any constructive feedback and sends the manuscript unchanged to the next journal without even fixing the most obvious flaws. The review process mostly works but if the manuscript is sent to all possible journals over and over and over again, it will at some point slip through the process, which is deeply frustrating.
[Response: Yes – sheer persistence can often win out over quality control. However, while this particular author may be immune to constructive feedback, others can certainly benefit. Consider posting your review on Pubpeer or here? – gavin]
Here is the paper, more precisely it is about DTR changes:
Scafetta, N. Detection of non‐climatic biases in land surface temperature records by comparing climatic data and their model simulations. Clim Dyn 56, 2959–2982 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-021-05626-x
Here the review for another journal than the one it was ultimately published in. Note that several aspects raised in your comment, e.g. why observations, one realization of internal variability, should not be directly compared to multi-model/multi-member mean has already been explained to the author here in this review and most likely over and over again;
Review: The manuscript submitted by Scaffetta aims at quantifying the effect of urbanization on changes in the diurnal temperature range between 1945-1954 and 2005-2014. The observed difference in the diurnal temperature range is further compared against the CMIP5 multi-model mean difference between the two decades. The author concludes that the CMiP5 multi-model mean overestimates the change in diurnal temperature range and that an increasing urban heat island effect could have contributed to a reduction in diurnal temperature range. The text is clearly written and I spent a lot of time to understand the details of the manuscript and the figures.
Even though the research question per se is interesting I am afraid I have to recommend rejection of the manuscript and I am sorry to say that the manuscript is an example of very poor scientific practice in many respects. The methodology is flawed, the manuscript is full of unsubstantiated claims and speculative statements, the manuscript mixes partly unrelated aspects, the analysis is selective and the citation style includes a lot of self-citation and selective citation, omitting references with conclusions that do not fit the storyline of the manuscript. I detail some of the major issues and I encourage the author to thoroughly and quantitatively address the research question, which I find relevant and interesting.
Diurnal temperature range (DTR): The DTR is controlled by numerous factors many of which the author lists on page 5, third paragraph. However, after listing the factor once, the author completely ignores all other factors that are known to strongly affect the DTR for the rest of the manuscript. Most importantly clouds and atmospheric humidity are well known to be primary drivers of the DTR at subseasonal and interannual time scales as they cool during the day and reduce surface cooling and thereby warm at night. Other factors include tropospheric aerosols and land use changes that are very important but ignored in the analysis. Finally also changes in soil moisture, an important factor that is not listed in the manuscript need to be taken into account. The author argues that urbanization may account for the DTR difference between the two decades. However, this claim is purely based on speculation with zero quantitative analysis to support this claim. The author adds maps of selective land regions and claims that some changes coincide with urbanized areas, whereas it is easy to see that others don’t. There is no quantitatve assessment of the spatial correlation of urbanization and DTR changes nor does the author provide any evidence that the urbanization coincides with the changes in these areas. There is no scientific quantitative evidence to demonstrate that the DTR differences between the two decades are not explained by cloud, atmospheric humidity and soil moisture variations, well documented primary drivers of DTR.
Urban heat island effect: The author further speculates that urbanization may have remote effects and even suggests an interesting scientific hypothesis that in the stable nighttime boundary layer heat is efficiently advected into suburban areas. However, this hypothesis is not tested nor supported by any references yet in the remaining manuscript the hypothesis is suddenly treated as it was a conclusion. In a scientific paper such hypothesis needs to be tested with data and supported by quantitative evidence. The hypothesis that the urban heat island effect would reduce the DTR over such a large radius that it could explain the major blobs shown in the maps of DTR changes is completely at odds with the literature on urban climatology. Why would it be possible to demonstrate such a strong UHI between urban and suburban and rural station if the heat was so efficiently advected over hundreds of kilometers? Again, the hypothesis represents an interesting and relevant research question but needs to be tested quantitatively rather than being speculated about.
Explaining the global average land DTR difference primarily with UHI seems highly implausible simply because the urban land area corresponds to only a very small area fraction of global land. The author would need to provide strong quantitative evidence to demonstrate that an effect over a very small are fraction is the primary driver over global land average changes in DTR.
Comparison against CMIP5 mean: The comparison between observations and the CMIP5 multi-model mean is very poor scientific practice and a flawed approach. The author provides the reason why it is flawed himself in the following statement, which is citing a paper of his, i.e. “… individual model runs appear too random at the required decadal scale. The random “internal variability” tends to cancel out in the ensemble mean”. Likewise, do the observations have random internal variability, which is large for decadal means at the local to regional scale. Or, does the author really want to suggest that all the regional variability in the observations is forced, and even forced by human activity?
If not, the logical consequence is that part (and potentially a large part if the author thinks variability is large) of the difference between observations and any individual model realization is due to random internal variability. There is abundant literature demonstrating that for decadal averages even two realizations of the exact same model forced with the exact same forcing disagree for decadal averages at the grid point scale. Unless the author can demonstrate that the models strongly overestimate unforced random internal variability and all the variations in the observations are forced, the approach he uses is flawed. Instead, an apple-to-apple comparison would either use several single model initial condition large ensembles to test whether the observed differences fall into the range of the different realizations of a model. Likewise, the author could test whether the differences fall within the CMIP5 multi-model ensemble and check whether the observed differences fall into the range of the multi-model ensemble. Only if the observations fall outside the range of models, you can conclude that there is a high chance that the model response is biased.
By construction the multi-model mean averages out most of the unforced internal variability. Thus, it is an artefact of the flawed comparison that the multi-model mean pattern is much smoother than the difference in the observations, which correspond to one individual realization of unforced internal variability. A careful quantitative evaluation would also need to test what fraction of the noisy difference pattern in DTR is due to internal variability e.g. of decadal mean cloud cover.
Given the high level of internal variability it is also unclear why the author analyzes a difference of only two selected decades instead of using as much data as possible to reduce the effect of comparing and trying to interpret patterns of random variability.
The paper also includes incoherent aspects: It is odd that in Fig.10 the author suddenly analyzes mean temperature trend over Greenland when the rest of the paper speculates about urban effects on the DTR. This part is completely unrelated to the rest of the manuscript suddenly uses other selected periods and raises the concern that the author is arbitrarily selecting regions and subperiods.
Finally, the author uses a very selective referencing style including a large fraction of self citation and at the same time ignoring very relevant literature, which previously have shown the DTR changes but have been showing evidence for other drivers.
For instance Sun, X., Ren, G., You, Q., Ren, Y., Xu, W., Xue, X., Zhan, Y., Zhang, S. and Zhang, P., 2019. Global diurnal temperature range (DTR) changes since 1901. Climate dynamics, 52(5-6), pp.3343-3356, https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00382-018-4329-6.pdf show the same DTR reduction but also demonstrate that part of it is actually likely a reversal of the trend with an increase in DTR in the early 20th century and a reversal in the second half of the 20th century. The first part is another aspect that seriously challenges the speculations on the role of urbanization in this paper.
Likewise, the following two papers provide a thorough documentation of DTR variations in the 20th century. Much of the observed changes are here assessed in a much more thorough and comprehensive way. It is irritating that such directly relevant literature is not referenced in this manuscript.
Thorne, P. W., Donat, M. G., Dunn, R. J. H., Williams, C. N., Alexander, L. V, Caesar, J., et al. (2016a). Reassessing changes in diurnal temperature range: Intercomparison and evaluation of existing global data set estimates. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 121, 5138–5158. doi:10.1002/2015JD024584.
Thorne, P. W., Menne, M. J., Williams, C. N., Rennie, J. J., Lawrimore, J. H., Vose, R. S., et al. (2016b). Reassessing changes in diurnal temperature range: A new data set and characterization of data biases. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos.121, 5115–5137. doi:10.1002/2015JD024583
Minor comments:
Page 3: “e.g., through increased shading caused by buildings” How do you know this effect dominates? Buildings may shade during the day but they also reduced longwave outgoing radiation at night by reducing the skyview factor (i.e. longwave trapping).
Page 4: “because the heat produced by the urban areas can actually be transported from one region to the surrounding one by wind and radiation.” Can you provide quantitative evidence that radiation plays a relevant role in the horizontal transport of heat in this case?
Page 4: PBL and UHI: An interesting hypothesis, please provide quantitative analysis of the lateral transport of nighttime urban heat to support the hypothesis.
Page 5: Why would you limit the analysis to a difference of means over only a decade and thereby discard all the data in between? The regional pattern analysis is likely affected by high random internal variability.
Page 5: “poorly model the ocean and atmospheric circulation”: This is a simplistic general statement that is not supported by a substantial fraction of the scientific literature and a biased and opinionated representation of the scientific literature.
Page 5: “non-climatic biases which could also be involved. For example, changes in local microclimate (Fall et al., 2011)” Why do you refer to change in local microclimate as a “bias”?
Page 6: “The records were interpolated to fit a 0.5°x0.5° grid.” Why do you increase the grid resolution to a higher resolution rather than coarse-grid everything to the lowest common resolution, which is common practice?
Fig.3 and Fig.4: Do you mask the models to the observational grid to allow for a thorough comparison?
Page 8: “Figure 6 shows that the CMIP5 GCM temperature simulations produce, as expected, nearly spatially homogeneous results. These are characterized by a much less regional variability spanning between -0.3 °C and 0.5 °C.” This result is an artefact of the flawed apple-to-orange comparison. In the models you smooth out random internal variability, in the observations may explain a substantial fraction of the pattern.
Page 8 and 9: Can you provide any quantitative evidence that the differences discussed here at the local scale are really forced and not just random internal variability?
Page 10: “The figure confirms that the most populated regions characterized also with a high concentration of urban centers are often also the ones with the largest divergence between the warming observed in Tmin and Tmax.” Provide quantitative evidence rather than speculations. How about all the changes over Siberia and many other non-urbanized areas in Fig.5?
Page 11: As stated above the mean trend analysis over Greenland is completely unrelated to the rest of the paper. It is very odd to read that “Greenland should be one of the few regions of the world that is mostly free of any bias.”. How many stations are available over Greenland? It is likely one of the regions with the poorest spatial coverage globally.
Fig.3 top right: I think the red label should read Tmax.
Fig.8 Why is there suddenly hardly any variability in the CRU data set here? Have you applied any temporal smoothing here?
It’s a vexed question whether presenting a rebuttal to biased information helps spread it by giving it space (Scafetta need only mention RC without including the content, to give himself props). I’m glad I waited to see a few responses by experts (unlike myself) on this sad new addition to the corpus of misdirection.
OT: I’m looking forward to the new Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg opus (full name for a shared chortle about Tintin): https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/mar/31/greta-thunberg-the-climate-book-crisis
I am afraid that there is no choice but to rebut, as bullshit lives forever. If those who actually care about truth have a handy dope slap of a review, it makes it easier to limit each reincarnation of the zombie argument. Scafetta has garnered more than a few such rebuttals in his career. He remains the king of mathturbation.
I think there’s disagreement over what “scientific debate” means. Ripping from Arthur Conan Doyle, the mainstream scientific community insists that one should “twist theories to suit facts”. Scafetta et al.’s papers often prefer to “twist facts to suit theories”.
A lot of the climate “debate” is not an argument over whether the evidence supports X or Y, but whether maths is real, and whether the scientific method should be followed. From this perspective, the differences in opinion between Gavin Schmidt and Nicola Scafetta suddenly make sense.
But thousands of well-meaning people rely on the peer-reviewed literature and might think that this Scafetta paper provides evidence supporting the conclusions Scafetta wrote, when it doesn’t. This misinterpretation could spread to the friends and colleagues of these well-meaning people and cause genuinely harmful decisions.
In my opinion, it is *crucial* that the scientific quality of the peer-reviewed literature is defended. This particular paper is an example of an embarrassing failure of review by AGU*, and I hope they address it.
*and that is being generous. The reviewers messed up very badly here.
Yes, your first two paragraphs are spot on.
As I’ve pointed out here many times, the problem is not attempting to debate with these people, but rather how it is done.
For them, the point is to establish a false equivalence… just exchanging factoids creates the illusion that there is an actual scientific debate going on.
The value of a forum like this for the interested general public is to model and characterize what that is like, which means requiring the commenter to first agree to follow the rules of science.
Getting a denialist to “follow the rules of science” is about as likely as me winning a million dollars in Lotto. Herding cats and knitting glue would be easier. So we are stuck with factoids and having fun humiliating the denialists with sarcasm.. The sensible fence sitting lurkers will understand.
Nigelj
Herding cats is not impossible.
They are attracked by the smell of Valeriana officinalis L root, , and further the smell of dried Sambucus racemosa L.
So, getting denialist to follow and to obey should not be so impossible. They are very
regular, consequent, submissive, and obedient.
Susan. I get your concerns, but I think we have to rebut climate denialist nonsense, and bad research papers, etc, etc, while doing it in a way that minimises feeding the trolls and avoiding too much back and forwards engagement. Easier said than done of course but we have to try.
I would say the argument that repeating a lie spreads the lie is correct. However not rebutting the lie looks like a very bad idea. Imagine if the lies that covid vaccines don’t work were left unanswered.
This commentary is interesting: “So, how do we discredit lies without repeating them and spreading them further? The answer is simple. When reporting false statements, always lead with the truth. UC Berkeley Cognitive Linguist George Lakoff is one of the most prominent figures to promote this idea. He suggests that when reporting one of Trump’s lies, we should always talk about the truth first. Then, we should briefly note the lie before going back to the truth. He sometimes refers to this idea as a #TruthSandwich.”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/words-matter/201807/when-correcting-lie-dont-repeat-it-do-instead-2
Consider this as well. Most climate websites, media, and other climate authorities have largely ignored rebutting the climate denialists for decades and given them the silent treatment. This is my local anecdotal impression so I stand to be corrected if I’m wrong. The exceptions are RC, SKS and a couple of others.
This strategy of ignoring the denialists looks like a mistake to me because the denialists have obviously been quite influential.
Nigelj
You use the example Covid vaccines.
My doctor said I am in the risk cathegory and should take it as soon as possible and told further that she is specialist on streptro and pnevmococces, thus vaccinated me against what was available.
I had to think for myself in terms of Pasteur and Robert Koch Tuberculosis and potatoe viruses and chicken flue and microbial ecology.
Then I got Pfizer vaccine 1 and 2 and a booster- shot also. But then at Christmas I got proper Corona with positive tests at last. Then all cleared up for me in terms of Pasteur and Löffler and classic Virology. That came to its rights again at last so that even I could understand it.
In the meantime, I have found the autentic source of all anti- vaxers. It is Rudolf Steiner who spoke that “The experts will find a vaccine for all children that vaccinates them against all kinds of higher spiritual vision and insights!” Rudolf Steiner thus foresaw and immagined visionary that the mainstreams would soon develop also a way to inocculate or vaccinate all children against any kind of his “higher” spiritual and visionary Antroposophy.
I repeat…….!
And I am not kidding.
Whatever I hear from the anti- vaxers, is ecchoed versions of that special spoken and stenographed Lecture for the audience by Rudolf Steiner, His very description and argument from the CATETER for his worshipful audience in those days.
It was and it furtherv remains the anti- thesis and denial and contradiction to uniformism and industrialism, rationalism, Leninism, commercialism, stalinism and adolphism that was so fameous after WW1.
. People are scared and sceptic and deny the official deodorant and barber soap. And buy their aftershave & intime- spray security from the alternatives.
They even buy thinktank, putin, and King Donald Grozny. Buy yourself a personality..
But I never bought that. I was vaccinated against all that allready and had Pasteur, Koch Darwin Haeckel and even Löffler and the Veterinary institute on public school pensum against it, and could see myself as a common higher vertebrate of the fur animalm gender, and behave and treat myself and others like the same,
I got due Corona the omega sort after plus booster vaccination, but our good communal nurse once said me the truth: Tuberculosis BCG vaccination only protects 60%, so classic hygiene and the Kneipp cure is more important than ever.
War and misery and powrity and supertsicion, craziness and silliness, is especially infectious, dangerous and unhygienic. And an apple a day keeps the doctor away. .
Proper chosmology refreshes you best.Denial only as long as it keeps.
It is not indifferent from which Chateau and from which tank that y,ou order your wine. Not from Chateaun Haeartland in Michigan, and not from their Thinktanks.
I fear Susan has unleashed the Kraken by outing Miss Thunberg’s middle name.
Fox TV audiences should brace themselves for an avalanche of dog named Snowy jokes and Josh cartoons featuring Captain Halibut when Morano tells Tucker Carlson the news,
Are you quite sure The Guardian didn’t run its March 31 review of her anthology a day early ?
I’d venture to guess that Tucker Carlson hasn’t the first idea of who Tintin is… and still less his viewership.
After all, Herge´ wrote in French!
Not vexed in my opinion. It’s clear that in the early stages of an issue that has been politically polarized by an unscrupulous organized attack on one side and truthiness on the other, there is a reason to parry. However, once an issue has clearly crossed the social tipping point of a large majority being on board, continuing to do so then becomes solely an exercise in repeating the Big Lie.
The science is clear on this: 1. Repeating the Big Lie reinforces the Big Lie. 2. The remaining adherents of the Big Lie are that 30% that are mostly Authoritarian thinkers. They are unreachable with logic – or anything else. It simply will not matter how you approach them. There is no point in wasting the space on these boards other than to entertain the long-timers.
Killian. Yes right now the majority of people accept the AGW theory, but a few new cunning denialist talking points or nonsense research papers left UNANSWERED could easily erode that hard fought for majority. Its a war and it isn’t over.
“The AGW theory” = “Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas (/ CO2 is a GHG)”.
“The AGW theory” =/= “ALL life on Earth WILL DEFINITELY go COMPLETELY extinct WITHIN 78 YEARS (/ by 2100 / by the end of the century)”.
The trick is determining where each individual poster’s beliefs about what is (and is not) included in the (nebulous and undefined) phrase “The AGW theory” are on the line between those two extremes.
In which scientific journal, text, or serious report (e.g., IPCC reports) did you read the conclusion “ALL life on Earth WILL DEFINITELY go COMPLETELY extinct WITHIN 78 YEARS (/ by 2100 / by the end of the century)”??? Can’t say I’ve read that article on “AGW theory”. Please provide a cite.
No, “carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas” is not AGW theory, it is an established scientific fact, full stop. Belief has nothing what so ever to do with it.
“All life on Earth will definitely go completely extinct extinct within 78 years” is not AGW theory either, it is completely made-up horse shite.
I strongly suggest that you don’t bother commenting if you have nothing at all intelligent to say.
If you do not already know the difference between “a poster‘s beliefs” and “a scientific journal, text, or serious report” then there is nothing that I can write, or provide references to, that will enlighten you.
Here I must say that things being a theory does not disturb me at all, as if the word “theory” itself had a consequent, negative conotation. It has, here and there.
Because:
Mephisto: “Grau, treuer Freund, ist jede Theorie. Und grün des Lebens goldner Baum!”
Is as much as the devils, SATANs teaching from the Pulpit, Im Studierzimmer, Faust 1.
To all and everyone
I found even more interesting things.
I could teach on Mephisto d/ o and googled.
It comes from italian Mephyitis, that is female.. It is Ugly foul smelling vapours fronm the earth now and then…
Then it is as much as Methane, marsh gases and cow- fart. Mixed with H2S and mercaptanes. indols and scatols..
Thus we can call it Mephisto and devlish when we discuss that.
We have a very fameous example at Steinsfjorden Ringerike Norway. Gyri- putten. Gyri is female troll and putt is pool..
It is silur marine sediments covered with volcanic lava, Rain on the high volcanic and porous rocks beneith brings up very fameous ugly vapours of Methane and H2S marsh- gases in Gyriputten.
foul, even fætid smelling Methane from the wide marshes are quite common everywhere. And that seems to be the basic “Mephisto”.
Interesting point of information
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-04-03/what-if-fox-news-viewers-watched-cnn-instead
Now, just think what cold be accomplished if we got them to listen to NPR?
They may have moved the cheese for the ERA5 data
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2783550
???
Looks like the wrong article link got posted there… that one is on a rapid Covid antigen test, not ERA5.
If NS conclusions indeed :
“Emerge from,,,,, an inappropriate statistical test, and a total neglect of observational uncertainty and internal variability.”
Carbomontanus should nominate him to the Trandnistrian Academy of Alternative Climate Science and Medicine whose honorary President, Vladimir Putin is always looking for coauthors skilled in the use of the truth at homeopathic concentrations , to explain how his invasion of Ukraine will contribute to achieving Net Zero competition in energy exports by 2030.
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2022/04/putincuts-carbon-footprint-of-invasion.html