Domain: skepticalscience.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to skepticalscience.com.
Comments · 1,449
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Re:AGW is religion, not science
Every single one of your points has at least one fallacy, false assumption or outright lie in it. Additionally, the vast majority of your links point to well-established sources of disinformation. Posting a large amount of such drivel makes it prohibitively time-consuming to write a nice point-by-point rebuttal. However, that doesn't make them any more true.
Just a random pick of the long-discredited climate myths you regurgitated:
* #9
* #51
* #10
* #119 (it's that far down the list because the smart deniers are busy pretending they never used it). Also on that subject: this and this. Also, your wattsupwiththat.com source makes a huge leap of logic by assuming the 2 scientists were filtered out based on their answer to the first question as opposed to the more mundane explanation that they were filtered because they didn't fill in the second question, which is common practice in this kind of studies and leads to the fluctuating "total sample" numbers that are ubiquitous in the literature. Also, even if their questionable assumption were true, 94.9% still counts as a consensus. Also, it is quite ridiculous of you to compare absolute numbers from polls that were conducted on a different scale (10,257 earth scientists vs. the 10 million science graduates that live in the US). Not to mention that the studies are of a fundamentally different design, with one being reasonably well-designed, and the other one, not really...
* Bald eagles and wind farms, really? How does that even say anything about climate change? Other than that people who are smarter than you are sufficiently concerned about it that they're willing to sacrifice an insignificant percentage of a species that, although iconic, is classified as "Least Concern" by IUCN?
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Re:AGW is religion, not science
Every single one of your points has at least one fallacy, false assumption or outright lie in it. Additionally, the vast majority of your links point to well-established sources of disinformation. Posting a large amount of such drivel makes it prohibitively time-consuming to write a nice point-by-point rebuttal. However, that doesn't make them any more true.
Just a random pick of the long-discredited climate myths you regurgitated:
* #9
* #51
* #10
* #119 (it's that far down the list because the smart deniers are busy pretending they never used it). Also on that subject: this and this. Also, your wattsupwiththat.com source makes a huge leap of logic by assuming the 2 scientists were filtered out based on their answer to the first question as opposed to the more mundane explanation that they were filtered because they didn't fill in the second question, which is common practice in this kind of studies and leads to the fluctuating "total sample" numbers that are ubiquitous in the literature. Also, even if their questionable assumption were true, 94.9% still counts as a consensus. Also, it is quite ridiculous of you to compare absolute numbers from polls that were conducted on a different scale (10,257 earth scientists vs. the 10 million science graduates that live in the US). Not to mention that the studies are of a fundamentally different design, with one being reasonably well-designed, and the other one, not really...
* Bald eagles and wind farms, really? How does that even say anything about climate change? Other than that people who are smarter than you are sufficiently concerned about it that they're willing to sacrifice an insignificant percentage of a species that, although iconic, is classified as "Least Concern" by IUCN?
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Re:AGW is religion, not science
Every single one of your points has at least one fallacy, false assumption or outright lie in it. Additionally, the vast majority of your links point to well-established sources of disinformation. Posting a large amount of such drivel makes it prohibitively time-consuming to write a nice point-by-point rebuttal. However, that doesn't make them any more true.
Just a random pick of the long-discredited climate myths you regurgitated:
* #9
* #51
* #10
* #119 (it's that far down the list because the smart deniers are busy pretending they never used it). Also on that subject: this and this. Also, your wattsupwiththat.com source makes a huge leap of logic by assuming the 2 scientists were filtered out based on their answer to the first question as opposed to the more mundane explanation that they were filtered because they didn't fill in the second question, which is common practice in this kind of studies and leads to the fluctuating "total sample" numbers that are ubiquitous in the literature. Also, even if their questionable assumption were true, 94.9% still counts as a consensus. Also, it is quite ridiculous of you to compare absolute numbers from polls that were conducted on a different scale (10,257 earth scientists vs. the 10 million science graduates that live in the US). Not to mention that the studies are of a fundamentally different design, with one being reasonably well-designed, and the other one, not really...
* Bald eagles and wind farms, really? How does that even say anything about climate change? Other than that people who are smarter than you are sufficiently concerned about it that they're willing to sacrifice an insignificant percentage of a species that, although iconic, is classified as "Least Concern" by IUCN?
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Re:AGW is religion, not science
Every single one of your points has at least one fallacy, false assumption or outright lie in it. Additionally, the vast majority of your links point to well-established sources of disinformation. Posting a large amount of such drivel makes it prohibitively time-consuming to write a nice point-by-point rebuttal. However, that doesn't make them any more true.
Just a random pick of the long-discredited climate myths you regurgitated:
* #9
* #51
* #10
* #119 (it's that far down the list because the smart deniers are busy pretending they never used it). Also on that subject: this and this. Also, your wattsupwiththat.com source makes a huge leap of logic by assuming the 2 scientists were filtered out based on their answer to the first question as opposed to the more mundane explanation that they were filtered because they didn't fill in the second question, which is common practice in this kind of studies and leads to the fluctuating "total sample" numbers that are ubiquitous in the literature. Also, even if their questionable assumption were true, 94.9% still counts as a consensus. Also, it is quite ridiculous of you to compare absolute numbers from polls that were conducted on a different scale (10,257 earth scientists vs. the 10 million science graduates that live in the US). Not to mention that the studies are of a fundamentally different design, with one being reasonably well-designed, and the other one, not really...
* Bald eagles and wind farms, really? How does that even say anything about climate change? Other than that people who are smarter than you are sufficiently concerned about it that they're willing to sacrifice an insignificant percentage of a species that, although iconic, is classified as "Least Concern" by IUCN?
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Re:AGW is religion, not science
Every single one of your points has at least one fallacy, false assumption or outright lie in it. Additionally, the vast majority of your links point to well-established sources of disinformation. Posting a large amount of such drivel makes it prohibitively time-consuming to write a nice point-by-point rebuttal. However, that doesn't make them any more true.
Just a random pick of the long-discredited climate myths you regurgitated:
* #9
* #51
* #10
* #119 (it's that far down the list because the smart deniers are busy pretending they never used it). Also on that subject: this and this. Also, your wattsupwiththat.com source makes a huge leap of logic by assuming the 2 scientists were filtered out based on their answer to the first question as opposed to the more mundane explanation that they were filtered because they didn't fill in the second question, which is common practice in this kind of studies and leads to the fluctuating "total sample" numbers that are ubiquitous in the literature. Also, even if their questionable assumption were true, 94.9% still counts as a consensus. Also, it is quite ridiculous of you to compare absolute numbers from polls that were conducted on a different scale (10,257 earth scientists vs. the 10 million science graduates that live in the US). Not to mention that the studies are of a fundamentally different design, with one being reasonably well-designed, and the other one, not really...
* Bald eagles and wind farms, really? How does that even say anything about climate change? Other than that people who are smarter than you are sufficiently concerned about it that they're willing to sacrifice an insignificant percentage of a species that, although iconic, is classified as "Least Concern" by IUCN?
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Cowtan & Way 2013 trend is inside HadCRUT4 err
Cowtan and Way 2013 compensated for missing HadCRUT4 surface temperature measurements in places like the Arctic and Africa by using the spatial pattern of satellite data to produce a hybrid satellite/surface dataset. Jane and Lonny ponder the differences between Cowtan and Way's hybrid dataset and HadCRUT4:
I keep asking: what's wrong with my basic premise: that if your measurements are shown to be off by 100%, there's something wrong with your science? That was my point. [Jane Q. Public]
... They are saying that it is not the 0.05 degrees C per decade that the AR5 report gives for the last 15 years, but that it is, instead, 0.12 degrees C. Which is actually a difference of not 100% but 140%, for the most recent 15 years. [Jane Q. Public]
@ScienceChannel @jimmygle PLEASE tell the Anthropogenic Global Warmists! Yet another report surfaced saying their "science" was off by 140% [Lonny Eachus]
Jane and Lonny's basic premise wrongly ignores the large error bars on these noisy, short-term trends. The SkS trend calculator can calculate the trends and error bars from 1997 through (including) 2012 for both HadCrut4 and Cowtan and Way's hybrid dataset:
1997-2013 HadCRUT4 Trend: 0.049 0.126 C/decade
1997-2013 HadCRUT4 hybrid Trend: 0.119 0.150 C/decadeThe hybrid dataset's central estimate is inside the error bars of the original HadCRUT4 estimate.
... they haven't been right yet... They admit that they have no explanation why their models, which projected continued if not increased warming, do not explain why it has dropped by more than half (0.12 to 0.05 deg. C / decade) over the last 15 years. Or, for that matter, why their margin of error (-0.05 to +0.15 deg. C) for the last decade and a half is 4 times the size of their actual estimated warming. Nope... it's pretty damned clear. Something is wrong with their science. [Jane Q. Public]
I calculated error bars on UAH trends. The black line on the second page shows the UAH trend ending in 2012, for different starting years. The error bars are shown in red; they're 95% confidence uncertainty bounds. Note that error bars on longer trends are smaller than the large error bars on shorter trends.
Anyone can reproduce my results by downloading the free "R" programming language used by professional statisticians. Then save this code as "significance.r":
# run using R CMD BATCH significance.r
# outputs to Rplots.pdf and significance.r.Rout
# load custom functions
# for generalised least squares
library(nlme)
# options
xunits="year"
textsize=1.4
titlesize=1.8
colfit="red"
pch1=20#points
# read basin data
indata = read.table("greenland2013/GIS_climate.nasa.txt",header=T)
title="Greenland mass"
yunits="gigatons"
tlims=c(-350,-190)
alims=c(-60,0)
#indata = indata[which(indata$x>2002.0),]
# remove mean
indata$y = indata$y - mean(indata$y)
n = length(indata$x)
n
midpoint=(indata$x[n]-indata$x[1])/2.0+indata$x[1]
# fit model
fit=gls(y~x,data=indata,corr=corARMA(p=1,q=1))
#fit=gls(y~x+sin(2*pi*x)+cos(2*pi*x),data=indata,corr=corARMA(p=1,q=1))
#fit=gls -
Re:The irony is that. . .Jane, the first error is in the first paragraph, but frankly you don't pay me enough to work as your research assistant to detail the rest of the errors:
"Alker finds the models are dependent only on carbon dioxide (CO2) to change temperature. Incredibly, the models seem to be pre-programmed so that no other atmospheric variable is allowed to alter climate."
There many different models and different types of models, this claim is broad and easily falsified. From Real Climate:
Initially (ca. 1975), GCMs were based purely on atmospheric processes – the winds, radiation, and with simplified clouds. By the mid-1980s, there were simple treatments of the upper ocean and sea ice, and clouds parameterisations started to get slightly more sophisticated. In the 1990s, fully coupled ocean-atmosphere models started to become available. This is when the first Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) was started. This has subsequently seen two further iterations, the latest (CMIP3) being the database used in support of much of the model work in the IPCC AR4. Over that time, model simulations have become demonstrably more realistic (Reichler and Kim, 2008) as resolution has increased and parameterisations have become more sophisticated. Nowadays, models also include dynamic sea ice, aerosols and atmospheric chemistry modules. Issues like excessive ‘climate drift’ (the tendency for a coupled model to move away from the a state resembling the actual climate) which were problematic in the early days are now much minimised.
Here are some links to the myths most commonly spread by Murry Salby and Christopher Moncton. Moncton, in particular, is fond of a tactic called the Gish Gallop where you throw out reasonable sounding claims that are false in such rapid succession that the goal is make it nigh impossible for your opponent to rebut all the errors in your statements without sounding tedious and pedantic and losing the interest of the crowd.
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Re:The irony is that. . .Jane, the first error is in the first paragraph, but frankly you don't pay me enough to work as your research assistant to detail the rest of the errors:
"Alker finds the models are dependent only on carbon dioxide (CO2) to change temperature. Incredibly, the models seem to be pre-programmed so that no other atmospheric variable is allowed to alter climate."
There many different models and different types of models, this claim is broad and easily falsified. From Real Climate:
Initially (ca. 1975), GCMs were based purely on atmospheric processes – the winds, radiation, and with simplified clouds. By the mid-1980s, there were simple treatments of the upper ocean and sea ice, and clouds parameterisations started to get slightly more sophisticated. In the 1990s, fully coupled ocean-atmosphere models started to become available. This is when the first Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) was started. This has subsequently seen two further iterations, the latest (CMIP3) being the database used in support of much of the model work in the IPCC AR4. Over that time, model simulations have become demonstrably more realistic (Reichler and Kim, 2008) as resolution has increased and parameterisations have become more sophisticated. Nowadays, models also include dynamic sea ice, aerosols and atmospheric chemistry modules. Issues like excessive ‘climate drift’ (the tendency for a coupled model to move away from the a state resembling the actual climate) which were problematic in the early days are now much minimised.
Here are some links to the myths most commonly spread by Murry Salby and Christopher Moncton. Moncton, in particular, is fond of a tactic called the Gish Gallop where you throw out reasonable sounding claims that are false in such rapid succession that the goal is make it nigh impossible for your opponent to rebut all the errors in your statements without sounding tedious and pedantic and losing the interest of the crowd.
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Re:The irony is that. . .
Here is a link to a scientific debunking of the work you posted: http://www.skepticalscience.com/salby_correlation_conundrum.html
The great thing about science is that neither you, nor I, have to believe it for it to be true. Results of actual science can simply be reproduced. -
Re:It will be ok.
CO2 absorbs only a very narrow and specific wavelength. THAT is understood.
Look at the peak at 700 reciproke centimeter in figure 2 on this webpage:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect-advanced.htm
It is the broadest peak in the spectrum!
Don't believe me, google images CO2 IR absorption spectrum (N.B. often the scale is right to left)
google it yourself ffs
One article I found that shows the very broad peak at around 675 cm-1 is a PDF from a US military document from 1976. Are you saying they're into the tree-hugger conspiracy now? -
Re:Double down
b) the physics of increased greenhouse effect predicts larger effects in polar regions. (This also distinguishes global warming from enhanced greenhouse from global warming from increased solar output).
Warming from greenhouse gases and a brighter sun are both amplified in the Arctic, because the sea-ice albedo feedback happens either way. As early as the 1980s, climate models have been predicting delayed warming around Antarctica.
Aside from Arctic amplification, it's also important to note that ENSO affects equatorial regions more than the Arctic. The largest El Nino ever recorded happened in 1998, followed by a string of cooling La Nina events. Since these events don't affect the Arctic as much, including Arctic temperatures increases the observed warming since 1998.
Anyone can calculate trends and uncertainties with the new HadCRUT4 hybrid dataset using the SkS trend calculator. Note that the hybrid trend since 1998 lies within the uncertainties of the previous HadCRUT4 trend, so this doesn't support accusations of a "very serious problem" with mainstream science.
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Re:Double down
b) the physics of increased greenhouse effect predicts larger effects in polar regions. (This also distinguishes global warming from enhanced greenhouse from global warming from increased solar output).
Warming from greenhouse gases and a brighter sun are both amplified in the Arctic, because the sea-ice albedo feedback happens either way. As early as the 1980s, climate models have been predicting delayed warming around Antarctica.
Aside from Arctic amplification, it's also important to note that ENSO affects equatorial regions more than the Arctic. The largest El Nino ever recorded happened in 1998, followed by a string of cooling La Nina events. Since these events don't affect the Arctic as much, including Arctic temperatures increases the observed warming since 1998.
Anyone can calculate trends and uncertainties with the new HadCRUT4 hybrid dataset using the SkS trend calculator. Note that the hybrid trend since 1998 lies within the uncertainties of the previous HadCRUT4 trend, so this doesn't support accusations of a "very serious problem" with mainstream science.
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Re:youtube?
I see. So warming is why it snowed in the state of Arkansas in MAY of 1814??? NO, 2013!!!!! Records have never shown a snowfall in May and they've got records going all the way back to when the French owned this land.
How come one cold snap disproves global warming, but one heat wave doesn't prove it?
And the Antarctic has had the all-time record ice coverage in history. Yep, getting really hot.
Deniers, like creationists, keep offering their arguments long after they've been refuted. Wonder why that is?
Oh, yeah. Deniers aren't actually doing any climate science, so they have to rely on something they read on the innertube.
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Re:Double down
Oblig: how to get no warming
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Re:There are worse mistakes in the Common Core tex
Man-made global warming is "promoted" by scientists with hard evidence
Three words: Hide The Decline. However you spin that, the credibility of "hard evidence" is in pieces even if you didn't know, that the most famous promoter of the idea has recently purchased a major piece of real estate on the coast — rather than in, say, Colorado mountains. When he sells that and moves higher in-land, wake me up to reconsider.
Meanwhile, scratching the surface of any remaining promoter of the idea, that "something must be done" — like giving the government ever more control over our lives — is bound to reveal a Che Guevara T-shirt underneath...
Green on the outside, red on the inside — watermelons...
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Re: You think that government is apolitical?
You need to state your criteria a priori. Scientists don't do experiments so that kibitzers can look at the results a posteriori and state solemnly "nope, I'm still not convinced" as though that meant something. In this case your qualifier of "statistically significant" warming lacks anyiindication of what level of significance you are using.
It is quite easy to calculate the variance of the measurement and predict a priori that warming of the estimated amount would not reach the commonly accepted value of p (.05) over a period of 17 years. Thirty years is a commonly cited time frame for warming to be statistically significant at this level; so your failed prediction is a straw creation of your own mind. Meanwhile, you can see quite the positive trend over the 17 years of your interest, just as with the previous years, despite the yearly noise.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/Realists.gif
In fact, statistics works against you in this matter. Your hypothesis would be that the temperature had been rising but had stopped recently (unless you are dropping back to the "the warming isn't real" that was once so popular). I.e. that the current flat spot is significant, in that it literally signifies a change in the process which is generating these temperature measurements, while the CO2 process has not changed. To disprove this hypothesis it is sufficient to demonstrate that the current flat spot is not statistically significantly different from the measurements seen in the past, and that is trivially easy.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/Skeptics10.gif -
Re: You think that government is apolitical?
You need to state your criteria a priori. Scientists don't do experiments so that kibitzers can look at the results a posteriori and state solemnly "nope, I'm still not convinced" as though that meant something. In this case your qualifier of "statistically significant" warming lacks anyiindication of what level of significance you are using.
It is quite easy to calculate the variance of the measurement and predict a priori that warming of the estimated amount would not reach the commonly accepted value of p (.05) over a period of 17 years. Thirty years is a commonly cited time frame for warming to be statistically significant at this level; so your failed prediction is a straw creation of your own mind. Meanwhile, you can see quite the positive trend over the 17 years of your interest, just as with the previous years, despite the yearly noise.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/Realists.gif
In fact, statistics works against you in this matter. Your hypothesis would be that the temperature had been rising but had stopped recently (unless you are dropping back to the "the warming isn't real" that was once so popular). I.e. that the current flat spot is significant, in that it literally signifies a change in the process which is generating these temperature measurements, while the CO2 process has not changed. To disprove this hypothesis it is sufficient to demonstrate that the current flat spot is not statistically significantly different from the measurements seen in the past, and that is trivially easy.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/Skeptics10.gif -
Re: Anti-science? See, now you have proof!
It's not a fucking guess. You just proved the GP's point.
Part of the problem is you're treating as a defensible status-quo position: "unprecedented human activity cannot cause unprecedented environmental responses", especially when we have evidence that other unprecedented human activities have caused more local environmental catastrophes.
Where are your tests for the counter-theory that there is no global climate change, in the face of data such as http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/SkepticsvRealistsv3.gif?
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Re:Ummmm
It's common knowledge that, unlike the arctic, Antarctic ice has been increasing.
As is often the case this common knowledge is actually a common misconception. While the sea ice is increasing, the land ice is shedding mass at an accelerating rate. Since the sea ice is already in the sea, it does not affect sea levels at all. Thawing land ice does increase sea levels, since it introduces water to the sea that used to sit on land.
Sea ice clearly affects sea level. Take a glass of water, put in two cubes, Mark the line. Add two more ice cubes. The water will rise.
If all the ice slid off Antarctica, the sea level would rise. Calving a greater total volume of ice bergs over a given time period will cause a rise in sea levels. But the easiest way to determine the overall effect of global warming on sea levels is to measure the mass of ice that isn't floating in the ocean. It's also worth noting that the total volume of water on earth doesn't vary greatly over time (yes, we lose some water vapor to space, and gain some from comets).
Of course, total ice volumes are a determining factor in the salinity of the ocean, which is also significant.
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Re:All the observed data is perfectly normal
Total mass of ice in the Antarctic continues to decline: http://www.skepticalscience.com/antarctica-gaining-ice.htm Temperature trends since the 90s indicate more gradual warming, not cooling. http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20121705-23396.html In the past, ice at the poles has never coexisted with atmospheric CO2 above 400ppm, a threshold that we just crossed. Time will prove you drastically wrong, but some of us are running low on patience for the trolling.
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Re:Is the end nigh again?
Sea ice that is miles wide and inches thick doesn't comprise the main part of ice in the Antarctic. Total mass of ice, sea and land, is declining. http://www.skepticalscience.com/antarctica-gaining-ice.htm
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Re:Ummmm
It's common knowledge that, unlike the arctic, Antarctic ice has been increasing.
As is often the case this common knowledge is actually a common misconception. While the sea ice is increasing, the land ice is shedding mass at an accelerating rate. Since the sea ice is already in the sea, it does not affect sea levels at all. Thawing land ice does increase sea levels, since it introduces water to the sea that used to sit on land.
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Re:Climate Change? meh...
No significant warming from 1970 to 1977
No significant warming from 1977 to 1987
No significant warming from 1987 to 1997
No significant warming from 1997 to 2003
No significant warming from 2003 to 2013
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/Skeptics_v_Realists.jpg -
Re:You would trust insurance companies on this?
Stop cherry-picking your dates and look at the longer-term trend.
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Re:You would trust insurance companies on this?
Stop cherry-picking your dates and look at the longer-term trend.
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Re:You would trust insurance companies on this?
Stop cherry-picking your dates and look at the longer-term trend.
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Re:Climate Change? meh...
Not only is the anecdotal evidence pretty strong, but now we have scientific evidence: we've burned so much gas in so many combustion engines over the past century we can now measure the effect or "leftover" from that at every corner of the globe. The science tying climate change to [anthropogenic] means however, is far from bulletproof and the report itself cannot say it is anything more than "likely".
What? What other species runs combustion engines? The last sentence seems to contradict the rest of the paragraph.
Anyway, if you're going to welcome the warming you'd better be well-protected from the pests, famines, wars and refugees. You might want to check this out:
https://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-positives-negatives-intermediate.htm
And this:
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Re:volume?
I never knew a libertarian who stated that all Government is bad, and that capitalism is always good.
I have. I have seen many state this over and over. Maybe you have selective memory or maybe you've had different experiences.
Libertarians are not anarchists period.
Some are, although to be fair most anarchists don't like libertarians, I remember reading "A libertarian is an anarchist who wants use the government to control his slaves".
As for Government intervention, if a problem is large enough, I don't as a libertarian see an issue with a massive Government project.
Congratulations, you claim to not be insane.
If a meteor is coming towards the Earth and the proof is easy to see, I would be the first to support massive Government spending to attempt to save the planet.
Although, you have to realise that there definitely would be libertarians who claimed the asteroid didn't exist, that the scientists were faking it to get grant money or that the whole thing was secretly an attempt to put a Marxist world government in place. Also I'm a bit sceptical of claims like that given the history of Anthony Watts refusing to honour his promise to accept the results of the Best study.
You expect us to believe and trust you and others like you when all along every prediction and projection even has ended up being wrong.
Typically, climate scientists don't make predictions, they tend to make projections based on specific criteria. The difficult is they can't predict random natural variation, and the random noise dominated the yearly trend over short periods, however, the projections have been reasonably accurate given the difficulties.
Where is the proof?
Because in my experience the person throwing out the insults is the one who tends to have nothing else to say.
Is not claiming that the scientists are engaged in "dirty behaviour" not insulting?
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Re:volume?
I never knew a libertarian who stated that all Government is bad, and that capitalism is always good.
I have. I have seen many state this over and over. Maybe you have selective memory or maybe you've had different experiences.
Libertarians are not anarchists period.
Some are, although to be fair most anarchists don't like libertarians, I remember reading "A libertarian is an anarchist who wants use the government to control his slaves".
As for Government intervention, if a problem is large enough, I don't as a libertarian see an issue with a massive Government project.
Congratulations, you claim to not be insane.
If a meteor is coming towards the Earth and the proof is easy to see, I would be the first to support massive Government spending to attempt to save the planet.
Although, you have to realise that there definitely would be libertarians who claimed the asteroid didn't exist, that the scientists were faking it to get grant money or that the whole thing was secretly an attempt to put a Marxist world government in place. Also I'm a bit sceptical of claims like that given the history of Anthony Watts refusing to honour his promise to accept the results of the Best study.
You expect us to believe and trust you and others like you when all along every prediction and projection even has ended up being wrong.
Typically, climate scientists don't make predictions, they tend to make projections based on specific criteria. The difficult is they can't predict random natural variation, and the random noise dominated the yearly trend over short periods, however, the projections have been reasonably accurate given the difficulties.
Where is the proof?
Because in my experience the person throwing out the insults is the one who tends to have nothing else to say.
Is not claiming that the scientists are engaged in "dirty behaviour" not insulting?
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Re:LMAO
It's below the long term average (by a million square km), and there are exactly two data points, so only a fool would consider that an upward trend. Also the years with lower ice extents are 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2012.
You're just seeing what you want to see and ignoring everything else.
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Some data
There is some discussion on this here.
In particular, these two images from the same article are interesting: Temperature anomaly for the medieval warm period and temperature anomaly for the period 1999-2008. Both are anomalies relative to the same 1961-1990 average, so they should be directly comparable, though of course the medieval warm period is a reconstruction with significant uncertainties.
So to answer your question. yes, you could say that "Canada was still frozen while Greenland was basking in warmth". Though temperatures slightly elevated in some parts of Canada, most of it was cold. And none of them were anywhere near as hot as they are now.
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Some data
There is some discussion on this here.
In particular, these two images from the same article are interesting: Temperature anomaly for the medieval warm period and temperature anomaly for the period 1999-2008. Both are anomalies relative to the same 1961-1990 average, so they should be directly comparable, though of course the medieval warm period is a reconstruction with significant uncertainties.
So to answer your question. yes, you could say that "Canada was still frozen while Greenland was basking in warmth". Though temperatures slightly elevated in some parts of Canada, most of it was cold. And none of them were anywhere near as hot as they are now.
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Some data
There is some discussion on this here.
In particular, these two images from the same article are interesting: Temperature anomaly for the medieval warm period and temperature anomaly for the period 1999-2008. Both are anomalies relative to the same 1961-1990 average, so they should be directly comparable, though of course the medieval warm period is a reconstruction with significant uncertainties.
So to answer your question. yes, you could say that "Canada was still frozen while Greenland was basking in warmth". Though temperatures slightly elevated in some parts of Canada, most of it was cold. And none of them were anywhere near as hot as they are now.
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Re:Look over here, look over here!
Can you name *any* set of observations of average global CO2 and average global temperature that would cause you to give up your belief?
Sure. If carbon levels go up precipitously for, say, 50 years, and the climate does NOT warm, after having corrected for things like solar radiation output, distance from the sun, etc, I would be convinced that CO2 emissions have nothing to do with warming. Since human activity is, in fact, increasing CO2 levels, and has been for the last 100 years, and global warming has, in fact been occurring, and temperature spikes in the historical record have in fact been correlated with CO2 rises, then I would say that the null hypothesis that there is no correlation between CO2 rises and global warming has been pretty much disproved. Since observations have supported the claim that human activity increases CO2 in the atmosphere (these are facts, as much as anything can be a fact), the further claim that human activity is causing global warming can be judged to be fairly certain.
In addition to our current long running and dangerous experiment, there is other experimental evidence that human activity is causing global warming. Computer models have been built that, in effect, create a 'new world', that can be used to test these sorts of hypotheses. These sorts of studies are confirming and predicting global warming due to CO2 rises. They predict the sorts of temperature rises, on average, that will occur. They have been going on for 30 years, and predicting the sorts of temperature rises we are seeing. So, they are pretty good evidence that CO2 is causative of global warming. Again, that CO2 rise is caused by human activity is not disputed.
Now, you can call me a believer in the 'religion of science' again, but you need to start someplace. You can't be like Descarte, and deny everything, or you get nowhere, or worse, think you've proved the existence of God. My religion, if it is a religion, is that science gets it right much more often than it gets it wrong. It often will get stuck on issues, mainly due to incorrect theoretical explanations, but those incorrect explanations are mostly due to missing facts. As new facts come in, they figure things out, and create a better theory, and the scientific community comes to accept it (perhaps a funeral at a time, as Max Planck quipped). As more observations come in, the theories get better and better. So, yes, I believe what scientists tell me. I have no way to disprove them, and less inclination to try. Their work has made me very comfortable.
The only real puzzle here is how the Koch brothers have managed to convince so much of the population to disbelieve the science, which is in fact as certain as these sorts of things get. They have connected denial of human caused global warming to political belief in a way that makes people who vote republican disbelieve it on an unprecedented scale. This is similar to the belief, after even Bush had disavowed it, that Saddam was responsible for 9/11. It becomes part of the lore of the tribe, and must be protected as a sort of badge of membership. Very clever, but ultimately the millions of deaths projected in this century (estimates are 150,000 people a year being killed by climate change right NOW) will expose them as the villains that they really are.
I would like to thank you. I was dismissive of your views earlier in the thread, and your responses have caused me to read up on the science a bit, something t
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Re:Wat?
Ummmm... the Arctic is less Icy (one side of the Antarctic is more icy and one side less icy).
This year saw record droughts across the US.
While no single event or year can be directly connected it's pretty easy to see why scientists might think the arctic will be ice free in the not too distant future.
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Re:The Earth is not getting warmer!
Congratulations, you've won climate myths #5, #9, and #16 (for starters).
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Re:Freeman Dyson
NONE of the models in the IPCC come close to predicting the current pause in temperature (nearly 17 years long at this point) - meaning those theories put together by all the smart people are wrong. That's science. When facts and theory collide, theory should lose.
What they AC said: there is no "pause".
Some information for you
Some basic reality checking for you: the only thing you're doing is the time-honored denialist tactic of pointing to events and saying "see! see! this proves climate change is a myth!" without bothering to know what you're talking about. You know, stuff like record blizzards hitting New England or an increase in snowfall at the poles, without mentioning that warmer air carries more moisture.
You clowns have gotten so bad there's an entire database of debunked denialist arguments because when one of your talking points falls apart you just move on to the next one.
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Re:Don't like the solution so the problem can't ex
I don't believe I have seen anyone argue that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas.
I have, many times, right here on Slashdot.
CO2 is much higher than 15 years ago but temperatures remain pretty flat.
That's internal variability for you, it always messes up the short term trends. It's important to understand that you can subdivide any noisy graph into sections where the trend lines are increasing, flat or descending regardless of the overall direction, it's the very reason that cherry-picked time periods can be highly misleading. We are currently in a La Nina dominated period which pushes more warming into the ocean, when we switch back to an El Nino dominated period (like the 90s), atmospheric temperatures will appear to rise more rapidly than the average rate (because just the switch from La Nina to El Nino will increase atmospheric surface temperatures by around 1 degree).
Also, according to this, the warming contribution of CO2 tails off asypmtotically.
First of all, that was posted to Watts Up, which makes it highly suspect, Watts is very uncritical about anything that supports his point of view. Second, the IPCC reports estimate that a doubling of CO2 from pre-industrial levels would contributes between 2 and 4 degrees of warming (which, I think, includes known feedbacks like water vapour increase), it would then take another doubling of that value to get another 2C to 4C of warming. I think the article you linked to uses the largely discredited estimate of 1C per doubling, and I suspect it doesn't include any of the known immediate feedbacks (like the water vapour feedback).
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to back them up, and the claims that global warming due to CO2 will be catastrophic don't seem to be proven.
The primary problem is less likely to be "catastrophic" warming and more likely to be significantly inconveniencing warming. The kind that will cost many trillions of dollars to adapt to which, of course, will lead to higher taxes and possibly lower standards of living. It's estimated to be less expensive (by several trillion dollars) to reduce emissions and shift to alternative power sources than to actually adapt to the changes.
For example, the "hot spot" seems to be missing.
According to the explanation on Skeptical Science, the hot spot is likely to be "missing" simply because it's actually very difficult to measure the termperature of an indistinct patch of air in the upper atmosphere. You can read the linked page for the detailed explanation.
Of course I hope global warming is overrated, because the world is still dumping CO2 into the atmosphere. If the consequences really will be dire, we will find out.
I hope so too, because it does seem like we're going to find out.
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Re:Don't like the solution so the problem can't ex
I don't believe I have seen anyone argue that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas.
I have, many times, right here on Slashdot.
CO2 is much higher than 15 years ago but temperatures remain pretty flat.
That's internal variability for you, it always messes up the short term trends. It's important to understand that you can subdivide any noisy graph into sections where the trend lines are increasing, flat or descending regardless of the overall direction, it's the very reason that cherry-picked time periods can be highly misleading. We are currently in a La Nina dominated period which pushes more warming into the ocean, when we switch back to an El Nino dominated period (like the 90s), atmospheric temperatures will appear to rise more rapidly than the average rate (because just the switch from La Nina to El Nino will increase atmospheric surface temperatures by around 1 degree).
Also, according to this, the warming contribution of CO2 tails off asypmtotically.
First of all, that was posted to Watts Up, which makes it highly suspect, Watts is very uncritical about anything that supports his point of view. Second, the IPCC reports estimate that a doubling of CO2 from pre-industrial levels would contributes between 2 and 4 degrees of warming (which, I think, includes known feedbacks like water vapour increase), it would then take another doubling of that value to get another 2C to 4C of warming. I think the article you linked to uses the largely discredited estimate of 1C per doubling, and I suspect it doesn't include any of the known immediate feedbacks (like the water vapour feedback).
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to back them up, and the claims that global warming due to CO2 will be catastrophic don't seem to be proven.
The primary problem is less likely to be "catastrophic" warming and more likely to be significantly inconveniencing warming. The kind that will cost many trillions of dollars to adapt to which, of course, will lead to higher taxes and possibly lower standards of living. It's estimated to be less expensive (by several trillion dollars) to reduce emissions and shift to alternative power sources than to actually adapt to the changes.
For example, the "hot spot" seems to be missing.
According to the explanation on Skeptical Science, the hot spot is likely to be "missing" simply because it's actually very difficult to measure the termperature of an indistinct patch of air in the upper atmosphere. You can read the linked page for the detailed explanation.
Of course I hope global warming is overrated, because the world is still dumping CO2 into the atmosphere. If the consequences really will be dire, we will find out.
I hope so too, because it does seem like we're going to find out.
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Re:Don't like the solution so the problem can't ex
Start here. Wean yourself off the incorrect idea that the only supporting evidence is a bunch of computer models.
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Re:Cheers to my old teacher
Oh, is that based on the Time news cover back then? That's cute. I also get all my knowledge of those devious "hackers" from the mainstream media as well.
Now for real science:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.htm
Survey of 68 Scientific Studies from 1965 to 1979, 10% predicted cooling, 62% predicted warming, 28% had no stance. Today, more than 97% scientist agree on warming.
Oh yes, that 97% consensus study from Cooks that is really just 0.3% consensus. Great appeal to an imaginary authority!
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Re:Cheers to my old teacher
Now for real science:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.htm
I don't read crap from blogs from delusional skeptics. Probably paid by Charles Koch to make that crap up. Do you have any links from actual scientists, not corporate shill skeptics?
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Re:In before
"Also, the inconvenient truth was largely accurate: http://www.skepticalscience.com/al-gore-inconvenient-truth-errors.htm"
Skeptical Science is hardly an unbiased source. Lots of other sources have some rather scathing things to say about "Inconvenient Truth".
Skeptical Science is a propaganda machine. They adopted the "skeptical" monitor in order to try to infiltrate the actual skeptics.
Just sayin'... I'm not claiming they're wrong but like any other obviously biased source, any true skeptic is obligated to take their word with a large grain of salt. -
Re:In before
Goddamn I like Tray and Matt but I hated the man bear pig legacy they stuck on Gore (although there is enough wrong with that guy).
Look, the human body is a massively complex thing, but we can still say that calorines in > calories spent it = weight gain. So yes, something like the climate is complex, but the green house effect isn't... and climate change scientists are concerned about "forcings", that is, if everything else is equal, what is forcing the climate to change.
Also, the inconvenient truth was largely accurate:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/al-gore-inconvenient-truth-errors.htm -
Re:Cheers to my old teacher
Oh, is that based on the Time news cover back then? That's cute. I also get all my knowledge of those devious "hackers" from the mainstream media as well.
Now for real science:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.htm
Survey of 68 Scientific Studies from 1965 to 1979, 10% predicted cooling, 62% predicted warming, 28% had no stance. Today, more than 97% scientist agree on warming.
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Re:When did reality ever matter to climate change?
I read through most of that page. I'm not sure if you did. It mostly focuses on Scafetta's planetary orbit ideas and his "widget." My quote of Scafetta was about the sun, not planetary orbits.
I also think that article has a major flaw--or they're just being misleading--in that it projects Scafetta's predictions backwards to year 1 AD, and compares it to "hindcasting" models which attempt to reconstruct temperatures that far back. I don't think Scafetta intended his projections to work in reverse, so it's plain silly--or simply disingenuous--to do so. This diagram looks ridiculous, and I'm sure Scafetta would agree. But it seems to me that he's limiting himself to the data he actually has, and isn't attempting to go beyond it. These reconstructions they compare it to are not only intended to go far back in time, but they are also guesses. We have no temperature data going back that far; and you can talk about ice cores all you want, but while interesting, that data is still not reproducible without a time machine, so it isn't conclusive.
Two other observations: 1) They ridicule him for publishing in a journal about atmospheric and solar-terrestrial physics rather than a journal about climate--as if the physics of the atmosphere and sun and earth aren't closely-enough related to the climate! That seems disingenuous to me. 2) I wouldn't call the Skeptical Science site an impartial source--they're clearly trying to sell stuff, as you can see from the multiple books they offer for sale on every page. Now no one is truly impartial--even research scientists have to earn a living, so they have to sell their grant proposals--but Scafetta isn't selling to the general public like Skeptical Science is. So I think SS deserves to be taken with an extra grain of salt.
In short, I don't think that article you cited debunks his claim about the sun's influence. At best it rebuts some of his other ideas; at worst it's a gross misrepresentation of his ideas and a great example of how any data can be presented in a misleading way to make whatever point you want.
If you have a rational rebuttal--rather than more of "you're an idiot"--I'll be glad to discuss it further.
By the way, your continued reliance on calling others "idiots" says more about you than it does about the "idiots."
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Re:When did reality ever matter to climate change?
Yes, you are an idiot.
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Re:What unforseen event?
Oh yes, climate myth #7. And sorry, but I'm not going to debate autocorrelation of time series with you.
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Re:When did reality ever matter to climate change?
It was not an ad hominem, just a statement of fact.
Everything I have stated can be backed up by scientific, verifiable sources. That the denialist nutjobs like you refuse to do the science and just want to go "LA-LA-LAA I DON'T HEAR YOU" is empathically not my problem.
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Re:what about other planets?
Arrgh, return of the climate zombies.