Slashdot Mirror

Especially this one

Here and here and here and here.

Especially this one -- states that they finally got a model that doesn't use a fudge factor, but it doesn't predict as much global warming, either.

Google is your friend. The above links all came off the first page of searching for ""climate models" "fudge factor".

Just like it didn't give a shit about: 1. The Kyoto protocol, to which the Clinton administration had previously committed the US;

2. The International Criminal Court, (together with the Clinton administration) by demanding a complete US exemption from prosecution;

3. Free trade, by placing tarriffs on steel, lumber and other imports, in direct violation of NAFTA and other free trade agreements;

4. Invading Iraq, which was done without a proper UN mandate, hence the UN-bashing when the US didn't get close to getting what it wanted (no, the previous decade old resolutions were not sufficient, if they were the US wouldn't have been looking for a new resolution green-lighting the war in late 2002 and it wouldn't have got so shitty with France and the other countries in the Security Council that promised to veto any such resolution);

5. The other long-range missile treaties with Russia (originally signed in the 1970s, when it was part of the USSR), which it unilaterally scrapped almost as soon as it entered office.

And that's just the stuff I can remember off the top of my head. Face facts, when it comes to international relations, there's a lot that the Bush administration doesn't give a shit about. Pretend all you want, but the current US government has set back US-World relationships more than any other in history. It took all the goodwill and support the World had to offer after September 11 and either pissed it away or threw it back into people's faces. Anti-US sentiment is rife, even in those countries whose governments had backed the US invasion of Iraq: In Britain 85 percent were opposed to war, In Australia it was over 80 percent and in Spain it was over 90 percent, and most of those in opposition were highly critical of Bush's motives. It turns out that they (and the rest of the World) were right to be. It's not hard to find "Bush bashing crap". The man's done a lot of crap that's worthy of bashing.

Posting this as newsworthy less than a week after it was published in a journal is silly. Research takes time, debunking research takes more time.

The authors of the original paper have posted their rebutal already (as linked to by Millionth Monkey. At the moment its still a virtual mud-fight, each side calling the others' data and method wrong.

The abstract from this paper reads like a shotgun attack on the original paper, if your going to critique another author's work it helps not call their data obselete and their method poor, at least not in the abstract. You have a better chance of cooperation and admission of error then.

Both authors of this paper also seem to be first time authors in the field (not that the data should be discounted on that fact alone), McIntyre has no apparent affiliation with a university and McKitrick is an Economist (who has published before, albeit in book form).

For further backup of their theory, more sources are needed (they don't appear to include any supportive references). For example, we have John Daly's account of the hockey stick. There's also Massan's critique, showing essentially the same thing (medieval warm period being ignored by Mann et al.) This data seems to have been sourced from The Greening Earth Society, which, conveniently, is a Oil lobbying organisation.

We can find even more Oil funded rebutals to the original Mann paper, 1,2 (a tenuous link to the Greening Earth Society and General Motors...)

Citing a paper, published in the last week, submitted by an Anonymous Reader (to Slashdot), using the National Post and USA Today as supporting material isn't the proper way to do serious science. The USA Today article opens with " An important new paper in the journal Energy & Environment". The paper is a week old!

Anyway, at least I have some fun reading tonight, ooh, and some data to play with.

I have to wonder, what about all the studies showing that the ice cap is getting thicker?

Check out an article on Greenland and on the ice pack itself. There are others about the antarctic ice thickening too. Can't we, the /. community, perform a basic reality check before spreading chicken little stories? ( I also found it funny/sad that google is prejudiced against the idea that the pole ice is thickening. )

Uninformed ass. Interesting choice of words.

Your first two links were from a right wing front group dedicated to, among other things, printing anything to deny that global warming exists.

Your third link was from the "Reagan Information Exchange". Same deal.

Your fourth link was the funniest of all. It was from an outfit called the "Greening Earth Society".

Here's a bit from their About Us page:

Our climate focus expresses scientific skepticism concerning the potential for catastrophic changes in climate due to humanity's emissions of CO2.

Greening Earth Society is a not-for-profit membership organization comprised of rural electric cooperatives and municipal electric utilities, their fuel suppliers, and thousands of individuals.

Some advice, friend: next time you want to brag about how informed you are on the topic of global warming, try posting some links that aren't from GOP sites and energy utilities. You might want to consider some links from actual scientists. Unless you're of the Limbaugh persuasion and believe that scientists are all liberals with agendas who can't be trusted.

There is no doubt the climate is getting warmer, but if CO2 is the reason, why was the earth far warmer than today when we had no CO2 emissions at all?

Personally I doubt the CO2 theory. It doesnt explain earlier climate changes. And if the CO2 theory is invalid, it takes resources away from dealing with the actual problems a climate change we can do nothing about will cause.

(Of course, there are many reasons why we should decrease CO2 emissions anyway, but I dont think global warming is one of them.)

In my opinion the greenhouse effect doesnt even begin to explain temperature over a longer period, and as long as nobody in the CO2 camp appears to be able to explain why the temperature was a lot higher when we didnt release any CO2, and has fluctuated far more widely than the current observations through history, I will be inclined to be extremely sceptical of the current claims.

http://www.co2science.org/subject/other/clim_hist_ tenthousand.htm

And here (http://www.co2andclimate.org/Articles/2001/vca44. htm you can see some compelling data linking temperature history to solar activity levels.