Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Domains

Domain: multi-science.co.uk

Stories and comments across the archive that link to multi-science.co.uk.

Comments · 11

  1. Re:Scientific Debate has Ended? by pudge · · Score: 1 · on An Inconvenient Truth

    we arrived almost immediately at the part about science that you don't understandFalse. What IS true, however, is that we arrived immediately at the part where you are a prick (the initial "review" where you falsely claimed the debate was over, even though you later explicitly admitted you were lying when you said that). And now you continue being a prick. Kudos.

    I am not pointing out merely that "some people disagree."I know. You are merely pointing out that some people disagree, and that you agree with those people. Whoopee. Please don't pretend that your experts are right just because they agree with you, because it's really embarassing for you.

    You may be used to philosophical and religious discussions, where disagreements are not resolvable definitively and argumentation is a matter of superior persuasion. But this is science; your sarcasm has no power here.Neither does your prickness.

    But that doesn't change the fact that nothing you presented actually proved McIntyre and McKitrick to be wrong, any more than McIntyre and McKitrick actually proved Mann to be wrong (even though I think the evidence shows Mann was wrong). Or do you mean because it is in peer-reviewed journals, that makes it right? Since when? And how does that square since McIntyre's and McKitrick's original work was in a peer-reviewed science journal, and continues to appear in peer-reviewed scientific journals, later than the citations you made (e.g. this paper, published in Energy and Environment in 2005)?

    In fact, out of M&M's 10 claims, only one was sortof discredited, and it was because Mann et al never made their full data available, and when they did (after M&M's first article), it showed even greater problems than originally realized, and further show the previously undisclosed methodology that led to the M&M error was also flawed in other ways (including whether the methodology itself was valid, whether it was properly applied, and whether the selected proxies themselves have any validity).

    You just showed by linking to those other URLs that the debate continues. But you already conceded that anyway ...
  2. Re:Yes he did debunk the whole Monckton article by greginnj · · Score: 1 · on Global Warming Debunker Debunked
    If you're still there... I checked back in the big M&M article
    ( http://www.multi-science.co.uk/mcintyre-mckitrick. pdf)
    and found this:

    There has been an undoubted increase in bristlecone pine ring widths in the 20th century. Graybill and Idso [1993] explicitly stated it is greater than could be explained by temperature.
    Graybill and Idso are the source of the original pine measurements:
    Graybill, D.A., and S.B. Idso. 1993. Detecting the aerial fertilization effect of atmospheric CO2 enrichment in tree-ring chronologies. Global Biogeochemical Cycles Vol. 7, pp. 81-95.
    Even one of Mann's co-authors in MBH98 raises the question: (again, from M&M)
    Despite the reliance of MBH98 on the North American PC1, the validity of this series as a temperature proxy was not independently established in peer-reviewed literature. Co-author Hughes stated later [Hughes and Funkhouser, 2003] that the anomalous growth rate of bristlecone pines was a "mystery", which should have raised questions about the PC1.

    Hughes, M.K. and G. Funkhouser. 2003. Frequency-dependent climate signal in upper and lower forest border trees in the mountains of the Great Basin. Climatic Change: Vol. 59, pp. 233-244
    That's a few to get you started ... check out the M&M PDF I linked to above; lots of references to others that place doubt on bristlecone pine reliance are there, starting on page 14. Issues have to do with the fact that the species is anomalous, and MBH98 seem to claim that CO2 had more of an effect in the 19th century than in the 20th. (Sure, M&M are lsiting these references, but at least it's a start -- we can assume at least Hughes isn't biased in their favor.)

    If you keep asking me questions and sending me out to do more research, you may end up turning me into a GW denier in spite of myself ! :)
  3. Re:Yes he did debunk the whole Monckton article by greginnj · · Score: 1 · on Global Warming Debunker Debunked
    By destroying the credibility of the Monckton article in several of its major assertions, it makes any claim by Monckton suspect. This is basic skepticism 101.
    Note where in my original comment I said we should use higher standards of rhetoric. I agree with you that several claims Monckton made were discredited, but that only discredits his conclusion, not all his subsidiary claims. (You are applying the standards of law, where only the main conclusion matters, not those of rhetoric, where subsidiary claims can be considered separately. ) If this were a legal case, and his PDF were his argument, he would lose -- but by the standards of scientific debate, we should consider his other claims. What if someone else wrote another article, leaving out his errors -- would that be more convincing?

    We apparently agree that Monckton's main conclusion is wrong -- we only disagree about the extent to which he must be proven wrong. To take an example or two, if someone argues that evolution happens, because it's evident that giraffes have long necks due to generations of stretching them to reach tasty leaves, you would accept his conclusion but reject his supporting argument. Similarly, you'd probably reject astrological conclusions drawn from an (otherwise correct) description of planetary motions.

    There is educational value in making the case for GW clear and bulletproof -- it's not enough to say 'the specialists agree; we just need to believe them.'. I'm still waiting to find out what's wrong with Monckton's assertion that bristlecone-pine climate data was overweighted by a factor of 390 in determining historical temperatures in order to make the medieval warming period go away in the hockey-stick graph. I believe there's a refutation of that; I just don't know what it is. The nerd in me would like to know the details. For example, here's a list of publications in refereed journals, some of which Monckton does refer to:
    http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/trc.html
    Note also Monckton's claim that the UN recommended against relying on bristlecone-pine data, but it is the principal support for the hockey stick. (Here's a detailed reference on this issue: http://www.multi-science.co.uk/mcintyre-mckitrick. pdf These sorts of claims are worth refuting in themselves, even if we disagree with his conclusion, and even if some other claims in the same article have been discredited already.
  4. Re:Duh! by Savantissimo · · Score: 1 · on Congressman Seeks Scientists' Personal Data

    From http://www.climateaudit.org/?m=200501

    Our article "Hockey Sticks, Principal Components and Spurious Significance" has been accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, copyright 2005 American Geophysical Union (doi: 2004GL012750). A pre-publication version is at http://www.climate2003.com/pdfs/2004GL012750.pdf. Further reproduction or electronic distribution is not permitted.

    Our article "The M&M Critique of the MBH98 Northern Hemisphere Climate index: Update and Implications" has been accepted for publication by Energy & Environment and is available at http://www.multi-science.co.uk/mcintyre-mckitrick. pdf.

    Our research shows fundamental flaws in the "hockey stick graph" used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to argue that the 1990s were the warmest decade of the millennium. The original hockey stick study was published by Michael Mann of the University of Virginia and his coauthors Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes. The main error affects a step called principal component analysis (PCA). We showed that the PCA method as used by Mann et al. effectively mines a data set for hockey stick patterns. Even from meaningless random data (red noise), it nearly always produces a hockey stick.

    This "backgrounder" provides a road map and summary of the 3 articles. While these papers have been under review, Mann et al. have opened up their own weblog realclimate.org and criticized some of our earlier work. We include some comments here on this commentary and some FAQ.

  5. Your link is to a COMPUTER MODEL!!!! by stankulp · · Score: 1 · on A Countdown To Global Catastrophe?

    You can make a computer model predict ANYTHING YOU WANT by selecting the variables you choose to base your calculations upon.

    Computer models can't even accurately predict next week's weather, but you insist that a computer model can predict climate in a hundred years?

    I bet you believe in astrology, too.

    You don't need a computer model to correlate "global warming" with periods of solar activity.

    Furthermore, the temperature data upon which global warming theory is founded was selectively culled to yield the desired result:

    CORRECTIONS TO THE MANN et. al. (1998) PROXY DATA BASE AND NORTHERN HEMISPHERIC AVERAGE TEMPERATURE SERIES

  6. Sunspots... by stankulp · · Score: 1 · on U.S. Continues Opposition to Kyoto Environmental Treaty

    ...have a lot more to do with any perceived "global warming" that might be occurring than greenhouse gases.
    The recent 60 years of increased sun activity are the greatest period of such activity in the last 8,000 years.

    Furthermore, the data upon which Kyoto is based has been proven to be statistically fraudulent.

    The fact that Kyoto is based upon fraudulent data should be troubling to anyone without some unspoken agenda.

  7. Re:No, global warming is real by RealAlaskan · · Score: 2, Informative · on Zero-emission Power Plants Proposed
    If you believe in global warming, or if you don't, you need to read this page. There are problems with the data analysis that is used to justify the Chicken Little scenarios. This paper documents them.

    Some of the biology is outside my field, but the parts which I can follow (the statistical arguments) seem well done.

    Some of this work has been published in Energy and Environment. Interestingly, after a ``revise and resubmit'' at Nature, Nature turned them down, saying the subject was ``too technical''. The referee reports suggest that it may yet make it into that journal.

  8. Re:Cue standard issue global warming denier by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Unexplained Leap In CO2 Levels

    Here's a link to info about the study: http://www.globalwarming.org/article.php?uid=709 . The actual artice can be found here: http://www.multi-science.co.uk/ee_openaccess.htm

  9. Re:Don't Mend It, End It by stankulp · · Score: 0 · on Columbia Disaster Anniversary
    Privatising space travel will get rid of lives being lost due to cost-cutting measures?

    The more that the federal government has gotten involved in and spent on education, the worse our kids have done.

    That is a totally inarguable fact.

    But evidently you think that only the government knows how to do things right.

    It's obvious that you are a product of the government education/propaganda system.

    You probably even believe in global warming, even though there is no evidence of it, and what little evidence there has been was falsified.

  10. What about the 'Little Ice Age'? by Vancouverite · · Score: 1 · on Climate Data Re-examined (updated)

    On page 18 of the PDF file of the report found here, there is a graph of temperatures that struck me as odd. So, I went and dug up some other information.

    Starting sometime between 1350 and 1450, the Northern Hemisphere at least (and indications are that the entire world did, see this reference article for more information) experienced an extended period of cooling known as the 'Little Ice Age'. This extended until somewhere around 1850. However, the graph in the paper shows the period from 1400-1500 to be the warmest period experienced, even warmer than the 20th century (with peaks about 1425 and 1485).

    So how did these folk come up with this, when climatologist using different methods (tree-rings, ice cores, isotope deposition in stalactites, etc) and cross-checking each other come up with an entirely different answer.

    The paper appears to have som valid points, but without an explanation of this serious anomaly, I must suspect that their data is 'spun' to match pre-conceived needs.

    Of course, when one considers the existance of the Little Ice Age, one must also wonder if the 'Global Warming' phenomenon is simply a return to a more normal average temperature. Is the 28% increase in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere attributable to the intervention of mankind? Do the other Greenhouse gases that are released by mankind (particularly Methane) the real cause? Is it a combination of causes?

    All I can say for sure is that, if there is any significant chance that mankinds actions have caused the change in temperature, and that this increase will continue as projected, then expenditures now to limit or reverse these changes will be more economical than will letting the projected changes occur. If, for example, reductions in CO2 emissions for the next century would cost a projected 100 billion dollars, but would potentially prevent one trillion dollars in damages (how much would have to be expended to replace all seaside cities liable to oceanic flooding if the ocean's average level is raised by 5 feet?), then a 10% chance of the CO2 explanation being the true one is a break-even cost. If the change is 25%, then the CO2 reduction is, on the whole, a winner. Expend now to minimize your costs later.

  11. Re:Biased environmentalists? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Climate Data Re-examined (updated)

    Speaking of bias, the multi-science publishing company that puts out this journal publishes most of it's books about oil. The other "sciences" they publish on are all related to finding oil