Gov't Proposes "National Climate Service" For the US

Premature by Jane+Q.+Public · 2010-02-13 12:04 · Score: 2, Insightful

Climate science is in its infancy, as anyone who has been really following the "Global Warming" debate knows. Certainly we know the globe is warming, but the greenhouse gas aspect of it is still very much up in the air.

Setting up a Climate Service today would be akin to setting up an Astrology Service. They would probably both give equally good advice.

Re:Premature by Anonymous Coward · 2010-02-13 12:11 · Score: 5, Insightful

Do you know where you're going?
No.
Well go faster.
Re:Premature by Dr.+Spork · 2010-02-13 12:16 · Score: 3, Insightful

Whoa, you think that climate science is like astrology? That's nothing but fucked-up denialism. Luckily, climate scientists disagree with you and (unlike astrologers) actually want to put their predictions on record because they have confidence in them. I say we let them.
Re:Premature by Beezlebub33 · 2010-02-13 12:20 · Score: 4, Insightful

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences disagrees with you. The American Association for the Advancement of Science disagrees with you. The American Geophysical Union disagrees with you. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration disagrees with you. There are many more, but the point is that the scientists actually studying it are generally convinced. Do you have any scientific organizations that agree with you that the greenhouse gas aspect of it is still up in the air?

At this point, I think that climate deniers are very close to creationists. In both cases, there are people and organizations that disagree with the science. They can talk a good talk, but fail in the actual doing of the science. They can ask more questions than can be answered currently, can take quotes (and emails) out of context, they can use the human failures of people involved in the science against them, and any screw ups (and they certainly exist in both cases) are taken as evidence that the entire science is incorrect. But, they are ignoring the basic science as a whole, discarding what we do understand, and blowing the uncertainties way out of proportion, in order to promote an unscientific point of view.

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The more people I meet, the better I like my dog.
Re:Premature by QuoteMstr · 2010-02-13 12:38 · Score: 5, Funny

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences disagrees with you. The American Association for the Advancement of Science disagrees with you. The American Geophysical Union disagrees with you. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration disagrees with you
Typical liberal scum. You think your out-of-touch ivory tower "experts" can beat the common sense my mother and Glenn Beck taught me? You're just scary numbers, charts, and other things Real Americans like me don't understand to trick us. What you really want is to the destroy the America that our founding fathers knew and loved. Benjamin Franklin wouldn't have believed this climate change nonsense. He would have said it's our God-given right to release as much dioxin and carbon dioxide as we want. We've been doing it for 100 years and the world is the same as when our Lord created it.
Anyone who wants to destroy jobs by moving to new technology is a sinner and a tyrant, and wants to turn this great God-loving country of ours into a socialist fascist slavery hell. Thank God for Fox News to tell me the truth.
Re:Premature by tftp · 2010-02-13 12:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

Luckily, climate scientists disagree with you and (unlike astrologers) actually want to put their predictions on record because they have confidence in them. I say we let them.
Sure, why not - let them put their predictions on record. After all, Nostradamus did the same.
But acting on those predictions by ruining the civilization - well, that's something I'd like to think for a moment or two. Perhaps I will even go as far as to ask for a second opinion.
Re:Premature by Anonymous Coward · 2010-02-13 12:50 · Score: 2, Funny

I wholly agree with you! It's a liberal fraud designed to rid us of our guns, too. Just because bullets give off carbon dioxide, the Marxist Socialist commie pinkos think they can steal our god-granted right to bear arms! Well I say, they can have my guns when they tear them from my cold, dead hands! Global climate change is a myth! I was going to protest this in a letter to my local newspaper, but there's 6 feet of snow outside my door and I can't get outside. Makes me so mad I'm firing my gun at the ceiling in frustration. Toyota! Dinosaurs! Mayan Calendar! PROOF!!!!! Where's your god now, Al Gore?
Re:Premature by avtchillsboro · 2010-02-13 12:54 · Score: 2, Insightful

We are already paying for a National Weather Service / NOAA.

On long range predictions, the AGW alarmists are doing just fine now voluntarily--OTOH, it might be worth it to pay them to STFU...

..."I say we let them."

Agreed--let them do it on their own nickel.
Re:Premature by larry+bagina · 2010-02-13 13:15 · Score: 3, Insightful

If I predict the saints will win the superbowl but I also predict the colts will win the superbowl, where's the confidence? Last year the climatologists were touting their predictions that washington DC would never see snow again. This year they dug up their predictions that winters will be more severe.

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Re:Premature by hey! · 2010-02-13 13:32 · Score: 2, Insightful

. Certainly we know the globe is warming, but the greenhouse gas aspect of it is still very much up in the air.
Unless we go for carbon sequestration.
Anyhow, I've been following the "Global Warming" debate since the early 80s, before it was a political debate. It's simply ignorant to compare climate science to astrology. The debate has been scholarly and fiercely contested every inch of the way. Also at times ugly but if you've ever seen peer review comments you'll know that's par for the course. Science doesn't work because scientists are nice or wise or noble. But the process is a lot more honest than political debate.
The problem is that a lot of things we'd *like* to know cannot be known with very much certainty. For example, most would say humans contribute to climate change, but nobody really say whether we can do anything to stop it. Politics doesn't deal very well with that kind of thing. Politicians want a scapegoat that can be thrown in jail or invaded, not the message that (a) we are contributing to a problem but (b) we don't know whether stopping that will make any difference.
What we really need is some serious, deep *policy* thinking, one that takes into account uncertainty but doesn't think that the best course of action is to *assume* that everything will work out. It might be best to *act* that way, but only after a thorough examination of all the costs and benefits of acting and the best ways to hedge our bets if we are not going to take action.
In any case, be careful of rhetorical excess. If you compare climate science to astrology, you can't cite *anything* climate scientist say, even when it is favorable to your position.

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Re:Premature by SteveFoerster · 2010-02-13 13:45 · Score: 3, Insightful

You're right that no major scientific organization is openly skeptical of climate change now. But the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, American Association of State Climatologists, American Geological Institute, American Institute of Professional Geologists, and Canadian Federation of Earth Sciences have all issued statements that are non-committal. If they're still uncertain, why is is it so irrational for anyone else to be?
I'm not saying that climate change isn't real, isn't caused by us, or isn't a net bad thing for humanity. I don't know those things. But I do have experience dealing with academics. And when they fudge data, distort peer review to suppress dissent, and don't release the code they use in their all-important computer models, it's hardly unreasonable for someone to conclude that they're less than perfectly confident.

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Re:Premature by Paua+Fritter · 2010-02-13 13:56 · Score: 3, Insightful

If they're still uncertain, why is is it so irrational for anyone else to be?
Gosh I really can't imagine why Petroleum Geologists might feel reluctant to accept that CO2 emissions are the cause of dangerous climate change.

If they're still uncertain, why is is it so irrational for anyone else to be?
Is it so rational to ignore the views of the vast majority of climatologists on climate change?
Re:Premature by jo_ham · 2010-02-13 13:58 · Score: 4, Insightful

How exactly will moving to renewable energy, building homes/businesses that are more energy efficient and better insulated, reducing the carbon output of of major industries and moving toward more sustainable resource use "ruin" the civilisation?
One of the good things about "doing something about climate change" is that even if we turn out to be wrong (and it doesn't look like we are, but just for the sake of argument) then all of those things haven;t done any harm whatsoever, unless you count breaking the grip of the fossil fuel industry and energy companies who are relying on super cheap coal. Their profits will likely go down, but there's nothing to stop them investing in new tech - do you have any idea just how much money is spent on oil field exploration every year? It totally dwarfs the money spent on green power research.
Hell, if we swapped out every single coal plant for a nuclear one right now we would cut the amount of radioactivity released into the atmosphere by a gigantic amount, and the amount of CO2. Two birds with one stone.
You can ask for a second opinion, and you are right to. I think you'll find the vast, vast, vast majority of scientists who have been studying the climate for the past 50 years or more will be happy to tell you all about it.
Re:Premature by SteveFoerster · 2010-02-13 14:19 · Score: 4, Insightful

Gosh I really can't imagine why Petroleum Geologists might feel reluctant to accept that CO2 emissions are the cause of dangerous climate change.
Fair enough, and it's probably no coincidence that they were the last ones to switch from a position of skepticism to one of uncertainty. But that explanation doesn't apply to the other groups. Besides, if the implication is that their source of funding makes them unreliable, doesn't that mean that similar analysis of the funding for climatologists on the other side of the issue is also fair?
Either way, I didn't say it makes sense to ignore the majority of climatologists who express concern. It doesn't. But it does make sense to ask critical questions about the methods they're using to make such dramatic predictions, especially when those predictions have policy consequences that extend far outside their own field.

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Re:Premature by tftp · 2010-02-13 14:24 · Score: 3, Interesting

How exactly will moving to renewable energy, building homes/businesses that are more energy efficient and better insulated, reducing the carbon output of of major industries and moving toward more sustainable resource use "ruin" the civilisation?
The civilization is already living on a narrow margin. Most of the people on the planet are poor; some are very poor (like in most of Africa.) Imagine that they will be forbidden to burn wood, and instead need to install solar heaters - that would kill whole countries (where they need heating or cooling.) In developed world higher taxes on businesses will result in fewer businesses still operating, rampant unemployment, crime and proliferation of ghettos. Also many of modern "green" initiatives are poorly thought of, and are inefficient (like biofuels.)
Their profits will likely go down, but there's nothing to stop them investing in new tech
You say it as if those companies are just lazy to invent "new tech." Fact is, we aren't aware of better energy source than oil. Fusion is, of course, much better - but the technology is not self-sustaining yet, not from lack of trying. Solar panels are also pretty much limited by our technology and knowledge; they also require some rare earth metals to manufacture, and the production releases plenty of poisonous waste. So what other "tech" is out there to invest into?
Hell, if we swapped out every single coal plant for a nuclear one right now we would cut the amount of radioactivity released into the atmosphere by a gigantic amount, and the amount of CO2. Two birds with one stone.
I'm all for it. What I'm against is panic decisions made under pressure from alarmist groups. Those rarely work well.
Re:Premature by Rei · 2010-02-13 14:47 · Score: 2, Insightful

Last year the climatologists were touting their predictions that washington DC would never see snow again.
Yes, I remember those climatologists -- if I remember right, they were Patrick McDoesntexist and Jonathan Strawman.
Since the beginning, there has been a wide recognition that winters will get shorter but wetter (for example, National Assessment Synthesis Team, 2001). Atmospheric moisture has increased over 5% since 1970, corresponding with warmer seas, as forecast by the models. Ever heard the phrase "too cold to snow"? Most snow, especially most large snowstorms occurs in warmer weather (Changnon et al, 2006). This is combined with the fact that storm tracks are generally shifting northward (also as forecast by the models).
Seriously -- in your world, is it not global warming unless Winter Ceases To Exist? I mean, really?
Oh, and a dingo took my baby. Therefore, dingos will take everyone's baby.

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Re:Premature by larry+bagina · 2010-02-13 14:52 · Score: 2, Insightful

how is this a troll? climatologists are making mutually exclusive predictions. No snow? Global warming. Lots of snow? Global warming. Cowboy Neal shits his pants after eating at taco bell? Global warming.

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Do you even lift?
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Re:Premature by Wrath0fb0b · 2010-02-13 15:21 · Score: 4, Insightful

How exactly will moving to renewable energy, building homes/businesses that are more energy efficient and better insulated, reducing the carbon output of of major industries and moving toward more sustainable resource use "ruin" the civilisation? One of the good things about "doing something about climate change" is that even if we turn out to be wrong (and it doesn't look like we are, but just for the sake of argument) then all of those things haven;t done any harm whatsoever, unless you count breaking the grip of the fossil fuel industry and energy companies who are relying on super cheap coal.
Broken window fallacy. If AGW is not correct but we focus on "green tech" then we will have spent society's resources inefficiently. We will have build carbon-capture facilities that are entirely useless. We will have researched efficiency technologies of less utility than we thought. We will have built homes/businesses/cars that are more expensive than they needed to be because we improperly calculated the cost of future energy input. We will have made our major industries less competitive by pointlessly reducing their carbon output.
These technologies that don't come for free -- any effort expended in making something less carbon-intensive necessarily either raises the price (thus denying us the money to spend elsewhere) or reduces some other desirable trait (houses with less open space, cars with less HP). To the extent that efficiency is favorable, there's no reason that consumers wouldn't already go for it (indeed, with rising energy prices that problem has solved itself to a large extent).
Secondly, it's not "energy companies" that rely on super cheap coal but rather it's the consumers that do. Energy companies are only an intermediary who respond to market pressure to provide what the consumer demands. I happen to be quite grateful for the fossil fuel industry -- they have made possible the largest increase in human utility in the history of mankind. Each washer/dryer, for instance, saves thousands of man-hours of effort per year -- allowing us to spend more time on other things. I was talking to my mother the other day (yeah yeah, stupid anecdote follows) and she was remembering how her mother used to sew together torn socks when she was a child (1940s). Think about that for a second -- our time is so much more valuable now that we wouldn't dream of repairing a sock. It's a testament to how much "wealthier", in relative terms, we've become that repairing socks is now beneath us -- made possible of course by the use of a fossil-fuel powered economy.
Finally, looking practically at the experience in Spain gives me shudders. They lost 2 manufacturing jobs for every green job they created and they artificially priced electrical power way over market price which drove business elsewhere. http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090327-employment-public-aid-renewable.pdf [PDF WARNING]

Hell, if we swapped out every single coal plant for a nuclear one right now we would cut the amount of radioactivity released into the atmosphere by a gigantic amount, and the amount of CO2. Two birds with one stone.
On that, I can agree with you, but for geopolitical, not environmental reasons. That said, no reason not to form a coalition, eh?
Re:Premature by quanticle · 2010-02-13 15:33 · Score: 2, Informative

The main hypothesis of the global warming theory is one that has been borne out by evidence. Sea levels are rising,
glaciers are melting and rainfall patterns are shifting.
So yes, some places will get less snow. Other places will get more snow because the wind patterns in the upper atmosphere will have shifted to bring moisture to those parts. In addition, there will be more variation in climate everywhere. You'll have many more very wet years and very dry years - what will be missing are the moderate years.

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We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
Re:Premature by jo_ham · 2010-02-13 15:34 · Score: 3, Interesting

We are more than aware of new technologies that can assist us in our move to greener living - some are less useful than others, and some are dead ends (you mention biofuels - I agree; these are a dead end).
You jump right into talking about banning people in Africa from burning wood. No one is suggesting that at the moment (at least, not seriously). The developed nations of the world are *vastly* the dominant polluters and energy consumers, so these are the houses that need to be put in order before we start looking at the contribution of wood burning in the third world.
There are a lot of scare stories, and a lot of naysayers, but a great deal of the green tech is just common sense - energy efficient homes and vehicles. If Ford took the cars they sell in Europe right now and put them on US lots (DoT crash tests and certification aside, which they would pass easily) then the MPG would shoot up across the board. It's only the ingrained culture of the US that demands a 3 litre V6 strapped to a lazy slushmatic gearbox in a family car when you can get equal power with considerably better fuel economy from a better-designed 4 cylinder, or even a (shock horror) diesel. That's without even moving away from oil.
Nuclear plants need to be built by the hundred. It's an extremely mature, well understood, green technology that is hobbled by an undeserved public image and crippling legislative issues and regulations. If we can produce a large proportion of our electricity from nuclear and other green sources we take out a major chunk of pollution.
Things like solar hot water (not PV-based) in new homes (in the developed world) would cut energy consumption drastically. Even in the UK, where our climate isn't exactly known for its blazing heat and sunshine, solar hot water systems have proven to be extremely effective. They are expensive to install, but as part of a new build they are a no-brainer. They should be mandated by law to be installed in every new house that is constructed.
A lot of large companies are lazy. BP spends a gigantic amount of money on its cash cow: oil. It spends a truly absurd amount of money annually seeking out new oil sites, while its spending on greener projects is much less. It is spending something, as are companies like Exxon/Shell etc but they could really do more if they wanted to, but there is an emphasis on shareholders and quarterly results. The oil giants made record profits, despite the global recession. They control vast amounts of wealth and are likely the key to our future energy crisis (the cause and the solution) when they choose to put their minds to it.
There's no real need for higher taxes on small businesses - they are generally just scare stories used to make people fear change. We are going to face a huge blow to everyone, including businesses when the cost of oil starts to be truly felt when it becomes scarce. It really is used for almost everything in the modern world that we consume.
Re:Premature by tftp · 2010-02-13 15:56 · Score: 2, Insightful

lets avoid making panic decisions, such as banning oil and coal, but we should be working towards that goal sooner than later regardless of how bad global warming is.
This is reasonable; but rare a green proponent goes that far. At the last AGW conference, for example, African countries just requested $67B "to mitigate the impact of global warming on the world's poorest continent", as they put it. That money will be paid by working people because only working people produce wealth. And this is just one example.
When there is smell of money in the air you'll be amazed how many con artists crawl out of the woodwork. Sure there are a few honest people who talk about valid issues, but their voices are not heard, drowned in the drumbeat. On every even week IPCC releases another dire prediction, and on every odd week this prediction is shown to be a fraud. At some point, perhaps, IPCC needs to either institute some quality control or to classify themselves as comedy performers.
No one is stopping those countries from burning wood to keep warm or cook their food.
Lucky you, not living in California. Here the government stops people from burning wood. New fireplaces and stoves are banned outright, and existing installations are prohibited from burning several days per winter. They justify this by wood smoke; I'd believe that if the restrictions only existed in cities; but no, they cover many counties, where you need a telescope to see a neighbor!
If we put more money into research we'll get answers sooner.
I agree about wars, they are a waste. However money does not guarantee a scientific breakthrough. Even if we somehow get to 100% efficiency of panels, it's only 1.3 kW/m2. It's not that much, considering night, winter, clouds. There are other problems too; on a large scale the panels will absorb more sunlight than before and will result in Earth getting warmer (this time for real.) In general, though, I believe solar energy will be successful - there are many lands that will benefit from the shadow (like deserts, for one.)
Nuclear plants in the USA were a bad word for decades. Fusion research gets plenty of money, but even if you shower the scientists with cash they won't think faster. Everything takes time; and if we look back, our science is expanding at amazing rate now.
Re:Premature by Toonol · 2010-02-13 16:11 · Score: 2, Interesting

A few years ago I heard an ad on the radio. It was created by and paid for by the American Association of Podiatrists. It very earnestly stressed how important feet are, and recommended that we each go to the podiatrist yearly, for a check up.

I have no doubt that podiatrists know more about feet than I do. I also have no doubt that their recommendation was so biased and unrealistic it was laughable... despite their entirely sincere intentions.

I have no doubt that climatologists know more about the climate than I do...
Re:Premature by tftp · 2010-02-13 16:44 · Score: 2, Interesting

Fossile fuels are getting scarce! ... nuclear power is not an option in the long run
Then I'm confused, what do you propose? Green technologies depend on power far more than old ones. You can build a 1970s car just for the cost of computers in a Prius. Windmills kill birds. River dams kill fish. Geothermal is not available everywhere. Solar is an option only for well-lit areas (goodbye, Norway and Finland.) Fusion is 20 years away, as usual. Should we, perhaps, commit a collective suicide, or live like Amish do?
Re:Premature by garg0yle · 2010-02-13 16:59 · Score: 3, Informative

Yes, I remember those climatologists -- if I remember right, they were Patrick McDoesntexist and Jonathan Strawman.
Actually, it was Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who isn't a climatologist, but is an "environmental lawyer" (and thus one would have hoped he'd fact-check before publishing...)

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Re:Premature by blindseer · 2010-02-13 17:26 · Score: 2, Insightful

There is more than one way to reduce the carbon output from our modern society. I agree that nuclear power would reduce both the CO2 and radiation output from electricity generation but it does not appear that it is high on the list of things the government wants to do to reduce our impact on the climate.
The problem I have with so many of the proposed solutions to the problem of carbon output is the impact it has on my standard of living. Just about every proposal requires an increase in taxation and/or an increase in the government dictating what I can or cannot do. California wants to ban the use of incandescent bulbs. My experience with them have not been pleasant. They do not meet the advertised life span (not lasting even as long as the incandescent bulbs I bought recently), take longer to get to full brightness, and interferes with my TV remote. So, instead of mandating the use of nuclear power (which has a proven track record of performance and does not inconvenience me) they want to mandate the use of CFL bulbs (mandating that I choose between darkness or hanging mercury filled glass bulbs over my bed and kitchen table).
The lengths that the government will go to in order to "save me from myself" is reaching the absurd. Offering tax incentives to insulate my house is one thing, taking control of my thermostat is another. There are people in the government debating if we should be allowed to have a black car because the black paint would absorb more sun which requires more air conditioning.
I have come to the conclusion that the "green movement" in government is not about freeing the nation from foreign oil, or saving the whales (or is it polar bears we're supposed to save this week?), or improving my chances of survival, or keeping the sea levels from rising. All they want to do is grow government. By using the scare of "climate change" they can make the growth of government seem not only pleasing but absolutely necessary. If they truly wanted to reduce the CO2 output they'd doing everything they can to see nuclear power plants getting built.
By opening domestic drilling for oil we'd see jobs get created, a reduction in our nation's wealth getting shipped out of the borders, a reduction in the influence foreign nations have on us, and the reduction of the potential for oil spills in our, and other nation's, waters. (Domestic oil is largely brought to shore with underwater pipes. These pipes rarely have leaks on the scale of even the smallest oil tanker spill.)
I'm OK with trying to save the planet. The problem I see is the government is only getting in the way of many trying to do so. This is like so many "war on ???" plans the government has. If the war is won then the government agency created to fight that war has no more reason to exist. I feel too many in the government don't actually want to win any of these "wars" they've declared cause if they did that could mean a congresscritter would have less federal money flowing into their constituent's pockets.

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I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Re:Premature by Rei · 2010-02-13 18:11 · Score: 2, Informative

Yeah, I've heard it. It is said by idiots who don't know anything about weather.
Read Changnon et al, 2006. 61-80% of major (over 6") snow events in the US occurred in warmer-than-average years, among other things. Warmer weather in temperate, subarctic, and arctic climates leads to more snow. It only leads to less snow in tropical climates and borderline-subtropical climates.
There is no temperature in which it's "impossible" to snow. But it does become decreasingly likely as temperatures fall. Ever looked at a precipitation map of Antarctica? Most of the continent is a desert. Only the coastal areas and peninsula get relevant snowfall; the air just can't hold enough moisture for it to snow much inland.

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Re:Premature by Rei · 2010-02-13 18:29 · Score: 3, Informative

I think he's trying to claim that they don't rely on first principles, which is complete nonsense. Actually, what's most notable about the models is how *few* parameters there are. Very little is dealt with statistically -- primarily cloud formation, as we still don't have a good handle on it. Cloud formation easily has the biggest error bars of all feedbacks -- although even the 95th percentile case is still well under the GHG forcing levels.

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Future predictions by Anonymous Coward · 2010-02-13 12:08 · Score: 4, Funny

so, let's see the predictions from the national climate service.

(in a democratic administration)
Plan for warmer temperatures. higher sea levels, some deserts getting a lot of rain, some areas getting a lot less rain.
and we can change the climate to make things better

(in a republican adminstartion)
climate will be about the same, it will be hot during the summer, cold during the winter, floods will occur, droughts will occur.
and no-one can do much about it.

Re:Future predictions by ProfM · 2010-02-13 13:09 · Score: 2, Insightful

... we can change the climate to make things better
No, this should read: we need your money to dump into a hole, so climate guessers can pull Punxsutawney AlGore out every August and tell us it's getting warmer out.
Re:Future predictions by Anonymous Coward · 2010-02-13 15:01 · Score: 2, Funny

The really crazy thing about climate change that no one seems to be mentioning about is that it's completely Al Gore's idea. Nobody before or after Al Gore, and certainly not any publishing climate scientists, have said anything about average global temperature increases. In that sense, it is perfectly accurate to talk about it as "Al Gore's Theory," make (hilarious) jokes about how we need to ask Al Gore what the weather is like, etc, etc.

Manbearpig? by kimvette · 2010-02-13 12:11 · Score: 3, Funny

So the hunt for manbearpig continues?

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Recursion by pifactorial · 2010-02-13 12:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

Based on the mercurial history of climate science over the past few decades, we might also need a National Climate Service Service to help us track changes in the climate of climate science research...?

I actually think this is a good idea by Dr.+Spork · 2010-02-13 12:12 · Score: 2, Interesting

Since climate science really is a science, it's going to have to make predictions. It's good to put consensus predictions on record and then see how good they are. I have enough faith in climate science to think that they will be quite good. Of course they will have big error bars, but that's unavoidable. Also, it's not uninformative. I think it will be important in 5 years to say: We've got a climate model that's made correct predictions for the last five years, so you should trust that model as a good guide to the future. It's not a perfect argument, but I think it will be more persuasive than what we can say now.

Re:I actually think this is a good idea by MacDork · 2010-02-13 18:48 · Score: 5, Informative

I think it will be important in 5 years to say: We've got a climate model that's made correct predictions for the last five years, so you should trust that model as a good guide to the future.
They've made plenty of predictions. They're just always wrong. The IPCC was established in 1989 and published its first assessment report in 1990. In that report, they predicted an increase of 1.3 to 2.3 degrees C. That didn't materialize and in 1997, the IPCC had their asses handed to them in front of congress:

However, it was apparent that when the first so-called consensus was imposed upon the issue of global warming by the First Scientific Assessment of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, such an equilibrium had not been reached.
That report in 1990 stated, `When the latest atmospheric models are run with the present concentrations of greenhouse gases, their simulation of climate is generally realistic on large scales.'
The suite of climate models extant at that time predicted that the globe's mean temperature should have risen by then between 1.3 and 2.3 degrees Celsius. Slightly revised versions of these models provided the technical background for the Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed in 1992.
The observed warming since the late 19th Century has only been 0.5 degrees Celsius, or less than one-third of the predicted value. Critics argued, as I did before this committee, that there would have to be a dramatic reduction in the forecast of future warming in order to reconcile the facts and the hypotheses.
By 1995, in its second full assessment of climate change, the IPCC admitted the validity of the critics' position: `When increases in greenhouse gases only are taken into account, most climate models produce a greater mean warming than has been observed to date, unless a lower climate sensitivity to the greenhouse effect is used. There is growing evidences that increases in sulfate aerosols are partially counteracting the warming due to increases in greenhouse gases.'
Let me translate this statement. It means either it is not going to warm up as much as we said it would or something is hiding the warming. I predict that every attempt will be made to demonstrate the latter before admitting that the former is true.
So, the IPCC went back to the drawing board and returned with Mann's infamous Hockey stick graph. They declared DOOM. End of the world. Humanity was fucked. They extrapolated from 1998 temperatures (an unusually hot year) that climate change was 'for real' this time and was about to run out of control. When the skeptics got their hands on his computer model, they found that entering random data produced hockey stick graphs too. Oops.
So, uh, yeah, they've got egg on their face with that one. Nevermind that their prediction was wrong, again. Temperatures peaked in 1998 and haven't been that high since. In fact, it doesn't take a lot of searching to find examples of where their model predictions do not match reality.
In spite of all this, there are still people out there who believe in the IPCC. They cannot explain how this planet managed to have an ice age with atmospheric CO2 levels around 4200ppm during the Carboniferous period. They cannot account for three gigatons of CO2 that simply vanishes right out from under their noses each year. But hey, there's a consensus. The IPCC says so. So "the debate is over."
Nevermind Hansen's faked data. Nevermind the

Re:When... by kimvette · 2010-02-13 12:13 · Score: 4, Insightful

It's all about cap-and-trade. First alarmists were preaching global cooling, then global warming, and now that global warming is proving to be a farce and the numbers are skewed, it's "global climate change." Last time I checked, global climate has been changing since before hominids walked upright.

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The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50

Re:When... by aurispector · 2010-02-13 12:30 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'd say it's all about creating another bureaucracy for democratic party patronage and to act as a mouthpiece for liberal/democrat ideas about climate change. Think of it as kind of like giving Al Gore his own personal branch of government so he can spew his nonsense on the taxpayer's dime.

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I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.

Re:When... by SanityInAnarchy · 2010-02-13 12:34 · Score: 2, Informative

now that global warming is proving to be a farce and the numbers are skewed,

Citation needed.

If you're talking about Climategate, sorry, I know it sounds like a cop-out, but that was an isolated incident. Thousands of other studies have confirmed that the climate is changing, and that humans are responsible.

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Don't thank God, thank a doctor!

Re:Great by Zironic · 2010-02-13 12:35 · Score: 2, Funny

As far as I know all you have to do is ask for the model to get it.

Re:Great by Trepidity · 2010-02-13 12:36 · Score: 4, Informative

The source code for quite a few models is publicly available. Here are three: one, two, three. The last one even does development in a public repository (click "browse source" in the menu bar) and features quite detailed documentation.

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10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10

we should *require* them by ChipMonk · 2010-02-13 12:45 · Score: 3, Insightful

climate scientists disagree with you and (unlike astrologers) actually want to put their predictions on record because they have confidence in them. I say we let them.

I take it you haven't read the emails from East Anglia? Obfuscation, "hide the decline," discussion of how to destroy the careers of those who disagree with them, and subvert legal FOIA requests. Hardly the behavior of people who want to go on public record.

When scientific research is used as the basis of public policy decisions, that research should automatically be made available for public scrutiny, along with any associated monetary interests of the researchers. Then taxpayers can find out how badly they got screwed.

Re:we should *require* them by Kythe · 2010-02-13 12:51 · Score: 5, Insightful

I've read them. Your characterization is literally full of crap. The propaganda win coming out of that computer crime sure has revved you guys up, though.

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Kythe

Re:When... by Third+Position · 2010-02-13 12:46 · Score: 3, Funny

I'd say it's all about creating another bureaucracy for democratic party patronage and to act as a mouthpiece for liberal/democrat ideas about climate change. Think of it as kind of like giving Al Gore his own personal branch of government so he can spew his nonsense on the taxpayer's dime.

Good point. Say, where has Al Gore been hiding lately, anyway? He's been mighty quiet since Climategate broke. If you have any free money laying around, you might want to buy stock in tar and feathers. Something tells me those are two commodities that are going to be in big demand real soon now.

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American Third Position
Finally, a real choice!

Re:When... by Afforess · 2010-02-13 12:48 · Score: 4, Informative

Citation: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100020126/climategate-goes-serial-now-the-russians-confirm-that-uk-climate-scientists-manipulated-data-to-exaggerate-global-warming/

It wasn't an isolated incident. The Russians are now complaining that their data was misused as well.

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If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?

I think we've moved past the emails. by symbolset · 2010-02-13 12:49 · Score: 2, Interesting

The dendro-proxies are kaput too. We're onto making fun of himalayan glaciers and the Day After Tomorrow warnings now. Next up: satellite thermal measurement calibration to .01 degree C at a range of 2,000 kilometers, and the incredible disappearing Midieval Warm Period.

If the 1800's continue to cool at the current rate, it will not be long before we're thankful of the role of AGW in staving off the impending ice age of 1940.

--
Help stamp out iliturcy.

Re:When... by feepness · 2010-02-13 12:51 · Score: 2

Thousands of other studies have confirmed that the climate is changing, and that humans are responsible.

Using which datasets? Climategate is regarding the creation of datasets which many thousands of studies are based on. Of course we can't verify whether this is the case because the raw data is now "lost".

Re:When... by Kythe · 2010-02-13 13:00 · Score: 2, Insightful

Interesting revisionism. I'm pretty sure "climate change" was a term invented by denialists, not scientists.

As for global cooling, well, either you have a really good memory or you've been listening to people really intent on spreading the crap. "Global cooling" was an early conjecture by a minority of scientists back in the 70's. Scientists haven't found that theory supportable for a long time. In fact, scientists at the time didn't really back it then, either.

Even if they had, though, why scientists first getting things wrong should be grounds for doubting everything now is beyond me. As I recall, we didn't nail the germ theory of disease right off the bat, too--yet I'll bet you take your antibiotics.

History will not be kind to the memory of folks like you. Of course, you won't be around to care. Your kids will, though.

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Kythe

Sounds like a bad idea by DoofusOfDeath · 2010-02-13 13:05 · Score: 3, Insightful

So the lab facilities, and possibly the employees, would be competed for by two separate bureaucracies? I can't see how that would work smoothly.

Why can't they just throw some more money at the NOAA or NWS, telling them they need to take on some additional responsibilities?

Re:Sounds like a bad idea by sehryan · 2010-02-14 02:36 · Score: 2, Informative

You obviously missed the part where the Climate Service is going to be part of NOAA. What they are doing is taking the already existing, climate related offices in NOAA that are scattered about in different line offices, and putting them in to their own line office. The offices don't change what they are doing, or even where they are located. What happens is they can now more easily work with each other on a shared mission.

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The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.

Letter to Dr. Jane by Bodhammer · 2010-02-13 13:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

Dear Dr. Jane,

Would you please produce a record of the millions of requests you have gotten. As you may know, there is a LOT OF INFLATED CLAIMS in this area and I would like to independently verify your statements without having to hack your servers.

Thank you for your prompt reply,

The Public Taxpayers

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"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

Re:When... by beakerMeep · 2010-02-13 13:24 · Score: 4, Informative

This is your citation?

James Delingpole is a writer, journalist and broadcaster who is right about everything. He is the author of numerous fantastically entertaining books including Welcome To Obamaland: I've Seen Your Future And It Doesn't Work, How To Be Right, and the Coward series of WWII adventure novels. His website is www.jamesdelingpole.com.

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meep

Re:Fix it quick! by upuv · 2010-02-13 13:28 · Score: 3, Insightful

"You're also pretty damn arrogant - and ignorant - if you think your Prius - or my Suburban - makes a whit of difference to this "climate." "

If we are talking of only 1 car vs 1 car in the context of a planet. Yep your right.
However we are talking billions of people. With a good portion of those driving cars now. Most of which are P.O.S. spewing god knows what. So Mr. I'm not arrogant or ignorant the facts are you as an individual are a piece of the puzzle. It's only the truly selfish that refuse contribute to others. You however have decided Take from others. Hybrids are in the millions of sales now and climbing fast. The save huge amounts of petrol. The two together account for a noticeable change in the emissions.

Lets take you feeble brain back a few decades. To the days before emission standards. I suspect you are fresh out of diapers so you might not remember this. Do you recall standing anywhere in a big city. Choking on the fumes from the cars. Do you remember the soot that was over everything. Do you remember that god awful haze over the city 24/7. Well for the most part cities are escaping this. Why emission standards forcing cars to clean up. Guess what the job still isn't done. We managed to attack the stuff we can see. Now we have to go after rest of the crap coming out of cars.

So yes it does make a "whit" of difference if you drive one vehicle over another.

And now to cut off a line of retort
This style of argument that people so often use these days of well "why should I they don't." Is how kids in school argue. It's not how mature people argue. Ones that can understand the full consequences of their actions.

Re:When... by dwillden · 2010-02-13 13:34 · Score: 3, Informative

Okay, then how about complaints from the folks up in Canada? http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Scientists+using+selective+temperature+data+skeptics/2468634/story.html

This is not an isolated incident, Climategate just opened the door and started the revelations.

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I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.

Re:When... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-02-13 13:38 · Score: 3, Insightful

Not to mention that so much of the climate studies are based off each other. Climategate wasn't just one unique thing, it's 'data' was nested and twisted in with so much of the other studies that it makes a house of cards look sturdy.

Already done in Argentina by rodox · 2010-02-13 14:00 · Score: 2, Insightful

I live in Argentina and we've had the "Servicio Meteorológico Nacional" (SMN) or National Meteorological Service since 1872, and if you check the forecast on TV or the radio, it most certainly comes from the SMN. Despite the blatant corruption in our country, the SMN is one of the most (if not the only) unbiased and trusted government source of information.

Re:Phil Jones threw CO2 climate warming under the by jo_ham · 2010-02-13 14:05 · Score: 2

...by saying the opposite of what you just said.

Did you actually read the article?

Re:When... by baxissimo · 2010-02-13 14:15 · Score: 4, Interesting

Troll? Ok, parent is wrong about denialists inventing the term "climate change", but is mostly right on. I'm really surprised that in a site full of supposedly technically savvy people that there are so many here who haven't really looked at the evidence, or looked at it and somehow came to the bizarre conclusion that there's nothing to worry about. I've read about 6 books on climate change in the past few months, both by deniers and by warmists, and spend a lot of time reading blogs like realclimate and climateaudit, and if there's anything that's clear it's that anyone who claims to have all the answers is full of crap. Claiming that the science indicating global warming could be a problem is all fabricated nonsense is really right up there with claiming the moon landings never happened. Yes there is uncertainty in the data we have, but that cuts both ways. There's at least as much uncertainty in the claims made by deniers as warmists. So to latch onto denier arguments and say "see! it's all a hoax!" is just ridiculous. Seriously, you people need to read Hanson's Storms of My Grandchildren. Then Schneiders Science as a Contact Sport. Also read Michael's "Climate of Extremes". Even he (a "denier") says right near the beginning "Global warming is happening. Get over it." His is the only denier book I've read that isn't full of obviously incorrect hooey, so I recommend it. (His position is that it's happening, but we can't do anything about it, and we didn't cause it, and it may even be beneficial). But seriously people. Educate yourselves a little bit before you go spouting off moronic statements like kimvette above. Watching Fox news and reading conservative blogs does not count as educating yourself!

I'm not a scientist by meheler · 2010-02-13 14:20 · Score: 2, Interesting

But these people are: http://www.realclimate.net/

All this rhetoric and allegory is laughable.

Re:Fix it quick! by upuv · 2010-02-13 14:24 · Score: 2, Insightful

"You're a moron spouting nonsense and everything you have is almost automatically mine unless you can elect others to appoint people that will take up guns and imprison those who don't agree with you."

What the?

You didn't even try a rebuttal. You attacked my grammar ( which is bad ) Then you just used the word "nonsense" as an opposing argument. Then you went on this weirdo trip elections, guns, prison and then daisies in the field love in moment.

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Do you find it disturbing that you mentioned war guns and prison when talking about climate? I do.

I'm going to walk away slowly from this conversation making no sudden movements or noises.

Re:that sucking sound by General+Wesc · 2010-02-13 14:34 · Score: 2, Insightful

They're not trying to predict how many inches of rain Titusville, Florida will receive on February 13, 2110. Typically, the broader the prediction, the easier. When you get to the climate scale, you can't really extrapolate that predictability from the predictability of daily variations in the local weather.

Even if that weren't the case, giving up on doing science because it's hard is a losing proposition.

Re:Long predictions by Undead+Waffle · 2010-02-13 14:40 · Score: 2, Funny

I read that as "designated hitler rule" and realized we need a designated hitler rule.

Re:When... by schlesinm · 2010-02-13 14:49 · Score: 3, Insightful

If you read the article, you'd see that the writer is quoting a Russian press release (pdf). If you speak Russian, you can translate it (or try an online translation). Don't disregard the message because you don't like the messenger.

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My company home page

Re:The Scientific Quandary by dachshund · 2010-02-13 14:51 · Score: 3, Insightful

and the snow piled up so high in Washington D.C. that

Interesting point. But... should we take the snow in D.C. as an indication that climate change is bunk? Or should we take the desperate lack of snow in Vancouver as an indication that climate change is happening? Or should we just agree that the weather in one particular location has nothing to do with global climate change?

Re:When... by Rei · 2010-02-13 14:53 · Score: 2, Informative

I swear, I'll never understand your obsession with Gore. It's the views of ~97% of climate scientists that we care about. Gore's opinions have no more bearing on the science than Christopher Monckton's or Michael Crichton's do.

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Kneel Before Christ!

Re:The Scientific Quandary by timeOday · 2010-02-13 15:02 · Score: 4, Insightful

Currently the two barriers that will prevent us from finding the truth are those who believe that consensus is equivalent to scientific truth and the snow piled up so high in Washington D.C. that they are being forced to wait to open the office until after the blizzard of 2010 is cleared.

I'm sorry, but anybody who thinks the current amount of snow in DC disproves global warming has absolutely nothing useful to add to the discussion. At this point it's not even worth explaining why. Some people just believe whatever they want to believe.

Re:When... by LuxMaker · 2010-02-13 15:03 · Score: 2

More citations:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7177230/New-errors-in-IPCC-climate-change-report.html

http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/international/the-hottest-hoax-in-the-world

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7009081.ece

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245636/Glacier-scientists-says-knew-data-verified.html

http://digg.com/environment/Scientist_Admits_IPCC_Used_Faked_Data

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I regret that I only have one mod point to give per post.

Re:When... by Rei · 2010-02-13 15:10 · Score: 5, Informative

So then your sources are a Russian think tank (who, by the way, tried to publish papers on their claims, but failed to pass peer-review on them), and now a meteorologist (*very* different from a climatologist) and a computer programmer? Really?

Here's why the idiots who push these "omitting stations" claims can't pass peer-review on them: they're *supposed* to omit stations. It's not done manually; it's done algorithmically. The primary reason for this is yet another thing that the deniers fault them for, without realizing that their two attacks are in direct contradiciton with one another: that a lot of the stations are bad. So what they do is first look for regional trends. A heat wave hitting NYC will also tend to hit Philadelphia, but not Los Angeles. So you find the correlation in temperature anomalies between stations. You then have it look for individual stations that buck the trend. You also have it look for individual stations that suddenly experience a persistent discontinuity. Stations with problems are automatically either corrected for or eliminated, so long as each region that shows consistent correlated temperatures has representative stations. The results of this are then validated by a number of subsequent papers. For example, urban heat island effect elimination is demonstrated by comparing trends on windy days with those on calm days (heat island effect is diminished on windy days).

Additionally, there are a few "inconvenient" facts for the people who push these arguments. One, the same trends show up when you just dumb-average all stations, or just rural stations, or just urban stations. Even more inconvenient is that the stations that Watts' team of deniers flags as "bad" show *more* warming than those that he flags as "good". Why? Because the "bad" stations tend to be located near human settlement, and are generally a cheaper type of sensor than the fully-standalone ones that tend to be in "good" locations. The cheaper sensors have a small tendency to report cooler temperatures than the better, standalone ones.

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Kneel Before Christ!

Re:When... by dangitman · 2010-02-13 15:17 · Score: 5, Insightful

I'm really surprised that in a site full of supposedly technically savvy people that there are so many here who haven't really looked at the evidence,

It's not really surprising. Slashdot is full of people who think that knowing how to use a computer makes them humanity's elite. For several years now, slashdot has been overrun by arrogant assholes whose only education outside of computing is reading Ayn Rand.

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... and then they built the supercollider.

Re:When... by reboot246 · 2010-02-13 15:42 · Score: 4, Insightful

Oh, yes, they were. You probably weren't even alive back in the 70s, but I was and I remember it very well. I was in college working on degrees in biology and chemistry.

Most scientists didn't take part in the madness back then the way they're doing this time, but some did. The key word used back then was "imminent". Bah! The public never knew who to believe anyway, just like now. Junk science then; junk science now. Not much real science going on in the climate business.

If you haven't already, watch this video. by NewbieV · 2010-02-13 17:24 · Score: 3, Informative

Professor Richard Alley recently gave a presentation called "The Biggest Control Knob: Carbon Dioxide in Earth’s Climate History," in which he makes the case that climate models simply don't work right unless you incorporate CO2.

The key point he makes is that there is a record dating back over 400 million years that provides proof that climate is sensitive to CO2. Doubling CO2 adds 3 degrees C to global temperature.

There are multiple lines of evidence to support climate sensitivity, and additional research is filling in what gaps might have been missing, and further strengthening the argument.

--

"For every right, an equal responsibility..."

dangerous conclusions by WebCowboy · 2010-02-13 17:54 · Score: 2, Interesting

and we can change the climate to make things better

That is what makes me suspicious of what some might call "gorebots"--those that assume not only the problem exists the way they see it, but that the solution is to try and "undo" it.

I think there is enough scientific evidence to suggest the climare is changing, that the world is slowly warming up, and even that human actvity involving the release of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases has affected climate.

What I am VERY concerned about is that there is so much certainty that the problem is acutually reversible simply by doing less of what they think caused the problem, and so little attention is being given to actually adapting to what might actually be too late to change.

Perhaps we could spend less time and money setting up elabourate carbon counting and trading schemes and start looking at REAL efficiency and conservation efforts (not just those that directly involve carbon emissions), investing in infrastructure to protect costal communities that we are fairly certain are vulnerable to rising sea levels, and so on.

It sounds like this national climate service specifically includes this as part of its proposed mandate, so that somewhat promising.

Re:When... by JackieBrown · 2010-02-13 17:59 · Score: 3, Insightful

I swear, I'll never understand your obsession with Gore. It's the views of ~97% of climate scientists that we care about. Gore's opinions have no more bearing on the science than Christopher Monckton's or Michael Crichton's do.

It is hard to say that his views do not have bearing when he won the Nobel prize for that sham of a movie he made.

Re:When... by Rei · 2010-02-13 18:04 · Score: 5, Informative

1) How did the IPCC come into this? We were discussing how the different peer-reviewed temperature datasets are built up. Oh, that's right, you wanted to change the subject to whatever talking points you had handy.

2) "wasn't even derived from a single fact" -- Yes, it was. The New Scientist got the digits reversed. It was a typo that got spread. Saying that it "wasn't even derived from a single fact" is false; it was derived from the date of 2350.

3) It wasn't an "off-the-cuff number". It was a number from an upcoming paper.

4) "IPCC trusts WWF" -- first off, the IPCC explicitly *is* allowed to use industry, NGO, and governmental sources, not just peer-reviewed sources. This is typically only done in WG2 and WG3, which, contrary to how this is being played, are *not* about the science of global warming. WG1 is about the science of global warming, and is much more heavily reviewed. WG2 is basically a news report, and WG3 is how to avert AGW. Over, even in WG2 and WG3, the overwhelming percent of cites are peer-reviewed papers. If you want to attack the science of AGW, you need to attack WG1. And furthermore...

5) the complaints are about a handful of places in a *three thousand page report*. And we're not talking about a handful of *pages* in a 3,000 page report; just a handful of *claims* (there are generally a couple dozen claims per page). So, it's your turn: write a 3,000 page report with dozens of claims per page without a single error, *then* complain to me about a lack of perfection. If you want to show that the IPCC report (let alone WG1, if you want to attack the science rather than the news) is unreliable, you're going to need a *much* greater error rate than ~0.003%.

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Kneel Before Christ!

I'm sure you would call me a denier by symbolset · 2010-02-13 18:17 · Score: 3, Interesting

I believe the climate is changing, as it always has and thank goodness we're on the upstroke of an interglacial age - the crop growing region is moving toward the arable land, which is good for feeding our teeming billions. Another 5C and most of Russia and Canada become farmland instead of permafrost. I would say that this would make much of southern California uninhabitable, but that would be redundant. The first three settlements there were never heard from again - it's a desert made habitable with water resources that are desertifying millions of square miles of external lands.

On whether humans are impacting this process I might admit that we have had some barely measureable impact, though I wouldn't claim to know it for sure. Most especially I would not claim that were a bad thing

But on whether anything ill will come of that, I have much doubt. Most especially whether the ill will outweigh the good is a serious question. Whether we need to do anything about seas that rise mere millimeters a year I would seriously debate. We have much more important issues to discuss from colonization of Mars and the Asteroid belt, beginning the work on interstellar travel, to observing and preparing to defend against the inevitable world-crushing asteroid - to preserve Man against real known threats. To worry about how much it will cost the remote descendants of some residents of the Phillipines to move their huts further from an encroaching sea is absurd. If they don't want to get wet they should move inland at a stately 4 meters per year and they will without intervention as the water comes up. To crush the world economy on the speculation that Global Climate Change might escape to infinity based on the available evidence? That's madness.

And about the "Science" of "Scientists" who won't show their work, I have outright disbelief. We might as well subscribe to the opinions of Kevin Trudeau. What have they got that he hasn't got, and more importantly, what do they not want you to know?

But call me a denier if you want. Labelling and ad-hominem seems to be the message of your political party.

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Help stamp out iliturcy.

Re:When... by Rei · 2010-02-13 18:34 · Score: 2, Informative

He won the Peace Prize, not a Nobel Prize in a science. Once again, it's the science and the views of scientists in the field that we care about. What is hard for you to understand about this?

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Kneel Before Christ!

Re:When... by Rei · 2010-02-13 19:05 · Score: 2, Insightful

Climatology has about as much overlap with biology and geology as it does with meteorology. Meteorologists start at current and look into the future until the locations, intensities, etc of various systems ceases to reliably match up. Climatologists start at any point in time (past or present) and extend the trends past the chaos to compile averages of events, not when said specific events will occur. Meteorologists don't care about the "why". They don't care why the level of insolation is what it is, why the current average level of water vapor is 5% higher than it was in the 1970s, etc; a meteorologist would never even dream of looking at sunspot levels in their forecast, or how the current level of galactic cosmic radiation is affecting our climate. These sorts of things are critical to climatology. The fact that decreased rainfall in China would mean increased dust levels over the Pacific which would seed greater algal growth which would lower CO2 levels which would alter temperatures in the US doesn't even begin to factor into the equation to a meteorologist. But that sort of thing is very important to climatologists. Meteorological models are greatly simplified because of this; climatologists don't use anything like the GFS. Meteorologists wouldn't dream of looking at tree rings, or ice cores, or boreholes. I could keep on going.

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Kneel Before Christ!

Widespread Lack of Intellectual Rigour by catchblue22 · 2010-02-13 19:32 · Score: 3, Interesting

I am noticing in many of the posts here a distinct lack of intellectual rigour. A friend of mine is an engineering professor, and he notices this amongst his students too. Specifically, many of his students have an attitude where they feel they can question any scientific theory. Fine you might say. After all, isn't it good to be skeptical? Well yes, perhaps. But when he asks these students specifically why they doubt a particular theory, they can't make a logical argument to support their position. They just say it doesn't intuitively seem right. It is almost as if they don't really comprehend the reasons for their opinions. And this is amongst elite engineering students.

If I could venture my own opinion on this, I think that relativistic values (and I don't mean Einstein) have seeped into much of our educational system, and by extension to society at large. This relativistic world is a place where there is no real truth, where all opinions are relative to the self and are essentially given equal value. In such a world, taken to its extreme, there are no facts, only opinions. Everything is relative.

On the left, we see university professors pontificating from institutions founded on Greek principles of Truth and Freedom of Inquiry that these Greek principles are merely just another cultural view in their relativistic universe. And from the right, we see religious leaders cavalierly rejecting the search for Truth through rational inquiry and observation, preferring to create their own "Truth" as revealed in the bible. What both of these extremes are forgetting is that this country was founded on Greek principles of Truth and Freedom of Inquiry, that in the founders' minds, the Greeks were a primary inspiration. Separation of Church and State; Science; Universities where Truth is the primary virtue; the ideals of Justice; a three class society, in which the Middle Class (the Polis) forms the backbone of society; Democracy. These were ALL Greek values and ideals. And has been these Greek ideals that have made our country great.

If you don't believe this, I suggest you read some Greek literature. Plato. Aristotle. Aristophanes. Sophocles. In Greek literature you will find commentary on many of the most important issues our society faces. The Greeks even wrote about cultural relativism. I believe we are sorely in need of a rediscovery of Greek wisdom.

And here is my main point. I believe that many in our society are abandoning the Greek values that have made our civilization great. Values such as searching for Truth for Truth's sake through rational inquiry and logic. Skills such as rigorous logic applied in rational debate. In our modern technological society it often seems that Truth should only be pursued for material gain, for profit and not simply because it is noble to pursue the truth. Thus it is easy for business executives to ignore inconvenient facts if those facts might interfere with profit margins. And it is easy for religious followers to adopt truths that make them feel more comfortable with their chosen worldview. After all, if all Truth is relative, then why not pick an easy and comfortable Truth.

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This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)

Separation of powers by Torodung · 2010-02-13 20:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

We in the U.S. have decided that separation of church and state is a good idea.

I wonder how long until we decide that separation of science and state is also a good idea.

This sounds like it will be an office of propaganda, not a scientific establishment.

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Toro

Re:When... by Troed · 2010-02-13 22:16 · Score: 2, Informative

Clearly the more scientists who agree on something, the less true it is!

You mean like the consensus that plate tectonics and continental drift was "Utter, damned rot!" etc?

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/12/are-scientists-always-smart/

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it's in my head

Another bureaucracy by bradley13 · 2010-02-14 00:54 · Score: 2, Insightful

Great, yet another federal bureaucracy. Guess what, there are plenty of professional consultants who will help with city planning, etc. Using private industry will be a lot cheaper than building another monstrous federal bureaucracy. The services will be paid for by those who use them, rather than by everyone, whether or not they are needed.

AGW had made no, none, zero long-term predictions that have been correct. Increased hurricanes? Wrong, at historical lows. Continued decrease in arctic ice? Wrong, increasing for 2-1/2 years now. Continued increase in global temperature? Wrong, decreasing trend since 1998. Rapid sea level rise? Wrong - increasing at the same rate it has done for hundreds of years. And on and on...

At the moment, AGW fanboys are saying that anything and everything is proof that they are right - hot weather, cold weather, heavy snow, you name it. The problem is, they have predicted none of these - it's all after the fact, and hence worthless. Given false assumptions, you can prove anything at all.

But, sure, have them make public predictions - put them on record. Also generate control sets (randomly generated predictions). If the AGW predictions exceed the random predictions by a substantial margin, over the course of several years, then and only then should anyone pay any attention to them.

None of this, however, is any justification for the government to establish yet another public agency.

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Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.

Re:bad enough we have wasted billions on futility by chrb · 2010-02-14 02:17 · Score: 2, Informative

"climate change will cause drought", then "climate change will cause stronger storms, then "climate change will cause flooding"...depending on what the global weather at the time seemed to be doing.

Actually it's often the media that say these things when they want to make some simplified link between the weather and "climate change". Scientists are well aware that weather is not climate. For example, with Hurricane Katrina you had some commentators saying that "Hurricane Katrina was caused by global warming". It's a nice, simplistic soundbite that the average American television viewer can understand. However, scientists understand that the world is more complex than that, which is why they actually say things like:

The correct answer–the one we have indeed provided in previous posts (Storms & Global Warming II, Some recent updates and Storms and Climate Change) –is that there is no way to prove that Katrina either was, or was not, affected by global warming. For a single event, regardless of how extreme, such attribution is fundamentally impossible. We only have one Earth, and it will follow only one of an infinite number of possible weather sequences. It is impossible to know whether or not this event would have taken place if we had not increased the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere as much as we have. Weather events will always result from a combination of deterministic factors (including greenhouse gas forcing or slow natural climate cycles) and stochastic factors (pure chance).

Due to this semi-random nature of weather, it is wrong to blame any one event such as Katrina specifically on global warming – and of course it is just as indefensible to blame Katrina on a long-term natural cycle in the climate.

Scientists are also smart enough to understand that there will be regional differences in climate change effects ("Prediction of the detailed regional distribution of climatic anomalies, where and when it will be wetter and drier, how many more floods might occur in the spring in California or forest fires in Siberia in August, is simply highly speculative."), which is why regional cooling does not disprove global warming.

Thus exposing their basic methodology of cooking the books to conform to what answers they wanted, including taking a 25 year period and extrapolating into the future to get the "hockey stick". They when planet earth went off the hockey stick, "where is the heat going?" the "climatologists" were wailing, and now the public is awakened to their scam.

The "Hockey Stick" was endorsed by the U.S. National Academy of Science, after it was asked to investigate the issue by the U.S. Congress. So unless you think the U.S. National Academy of Science is part of a conspiracy of fraud, or is fundamentally incompetent, then you'd have to agree with their statement that: "The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on ice caps and the retreat of glaciers around the world".

Re:When... by sycodon · 2010-02-14 02:39 · Score: 2, Informative

Per Dr. Phil Jones:
* Data for vital 'hockey stick graph' has gone missing
* There has been no global warming since 1995
* Warming periods have happened before - but NOT due to man-made changes

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250872/Climategate-U-turn-Astonishment-scientist-centre-global-warming-email-row-admits-data-organised.html##ixzz0fWNe9VeK

Spin it!

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When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.

Oops! by sycodon · 2010-02-14 02:49 · Score: 2, Informative

Per Dr. Phil Jones:

* Data for vital 'hockey stick graph' has gone missing
* There has been no global warming since 1995
* Warming periods have happened before - but NOT due to man-made changes

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250872/Climategate-U-turn-Astonishment-scientist-centre-global-warming-email-row-admits-data-organised.html##ixzz0fWNe9VeK

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When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.

Re:Oops! by sycodon · 2010-02-14 05:33 · Score: 2, Informative

OF course, you can read it from the Horse's keeper's month:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511701.stm

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When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.

Re:When... by kdemetter · 2010-02-14 03:08 · Score: 2, Insightful

Yes , because if you are not with it , you are against it , right ?

The only thing getting feathered here is the truth : with all this nonsense, it's almost impossible to know the facts, as everyone seems to have an agenda.

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Slipping shoelaces ?

Yeah, it'll be fabulous. by fyngyrz · 2010-02-14 03:10 · Score: 2, Insightful

First we have the NWS, a service that predicts ten days ahead, but often (usually, where I live) can't get the prediction correct within a reasonable margin eight hours into the future, because what they do is astonishingly difficult; many things are not yet understood, and some things that are understood are so complex, so under-sampled, so skeletally simulated, that it's often not much more than hand-waving.

To this, we (apparently) want to add a service that deals with climate predictions... a domain where the global warming alarmists have amply demonstrated that forming even one hypothesis that gives rise to working laws (meaning, predictions that don't turn out to be falsifiable) is so difficult as to be beyond our present abilities.

Well, on the plus side, because the problem (predicting climate) appears to be impenetrably difficult, the agency should be able to continually increase its budget for computers and programmers. Maybe it'll grow so large we can no longer afford to mire our military in a war in the Middle East and bankrupt ourselves for the next half-century to secure access to the last big reservoir of the polluting, nonrenewable energy source of the 20th century. (that last bit was quoted almost verbatim from Tim Kreider, a very funny and cynical fellow.) Consequently we will have to actually focus on other sources of energy.

Oh, wait. We couldn't afford to engage in those wars anyway -- we borrowed that money from China. Your kids will be paying it back. Or perhaps learning to speak Chinese.

Yeah, hey. A climate agency. After all, what could it hurt? It's not like decisions taken on wrong, incomplete, or outright fabricated information might cause problems, is it?

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I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.

Re:When... by aurispector · 2010-02-14 04:07 · Score: 2, Insightful

It's simple, Gore took an issue and propagandized it into the biggest "save the earth" crusade he could. The point of this was political: to draw as many people into the democratic party as possible. Gore is a politician, not a scientist. Why is this so hard to understand? The science was never the point, he successfully personalized AGW for anyone fool enough to believe him. Everyone with a ration of sense knows there isn't a damn thing you can do about CO2 emissions. The US could cut emissions to zero only for china and india to pick up the slack and china in particular has absolutely no intention of doing anything about it. China is putting up coal fired power plants as fast as they can and people over there are buying cars as fast as they can make them. Besides, it's not the CO2, it's the CFC's and we already banned them. Go play outside.

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Re:When... by Virak · 2010-02-14 11:46 · Score: 3, Informative

You're complaining about 'spin' while linking to the Daily Mail? Really? How about you get it from the original source, then you might have some idea of what he actually said.
Daily Fail says:

Data for vital 'hockey stick graph' has gone missing

BBC says:

He insisted that he had not lost any original data, but that the sources of some of the data may have been insufficiently clear.

Daily Fail says:

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now - suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

Phil Jones says:

There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia. For it to be global in extent the MWP would need to be seen clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern Hemisphere. There are very few palaeoclimatic records for these latter two regions.
Of course, if the MWP was shown to be global in extent and as warm or warmer than today (based on an equivalent coverage over the NH and SH) then obviously the late-20th century warmth would not be unprecedented. On the other hand, if the MWP was global, but was less warm that today, then current warmth would be unprecedented.
We know from the instrumental temperature record that the two hemispheres do not always follow one another. We cannot, therefore, make the assumption that temperatures in the global average will be similar to those in the northern hemisphere.

And also (text in bold here and further on is the questions by the BBC):

I - Would it be reasonable looking at the same scientific evidence to take the view that recent warming is not predominantly manmade?
No - see again my answer to D.

Daily Fail says:

And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no 'statistically significant' warming.

Phil Jones says:

B - Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.

Daily Fail says:

He also agreed that there had been two periods which experienced similar warming, from 1910 to 1940 and from 1975 to 1998, but said these could be explained by natural phenomena whereas more recent warming could not.

Phil Jones says:

D - Do you agree that natural influences could have contributed significantly to the global warming observed from 1975-1998, and, if so, please could you specify each natural influence and express its radiative forcing over the period in Watts per square metre.
This area is slightly outside my area of expertise. When considering changes over this period we need to consider all possible factors (so human and natural influences as well as natural internal variability of the climate system). Natural influences (from volcanoes and the Sun) over this period could have contributed to the change over this period. Volcanic influences from the two large eruptions (El Chichon in 1982 and Pinatubo in 1991) would exert a negative influence. Solar influence was about flat over this period. Combining only these two natural influence

Re:When... by Rei · 2010-02-14 16:14 · Score: 2, Informative

Well, if you want to disregard what the Wegman Report says, that's up to you.

Oh, god, don't get me started on the Wegman Report. Let's start by pointing out that the NRC and the NAS analyzed the Mann paper and confirmed it, and that there have been numerous reconstructions since Mann et al, all of which show the same general shape -- but using different data (including, now, boreholes, which are a much less opaque science than dendrochronology). No fewer than four papers rebutted McIntyre and McKitrick, and when they tried to publish a counter to some of their criticism, they failed to pass peer-review.

Republican representatives Joe Barton and Ed Whitfield, two prominent global warming deniers, arranged the Wegman report. They picked Peter Spencer, another political denier, to arrange the process. The National Academies of Sciences itself offered to conduct an independent investigation, but they rejected this because they wouldn't have enough control over the process. Actual climate scientists were banned from the process. McIntyre remained in contact with Wegman throughout the entire process of drafting conclusions, while Mann was not, automatically biasing the outcome -- something that McIntyre tried to keep secret for years, but was only recently exposed. The committee *picked its own peer reviewers*. I could go on and on. When the National Academies of Science saw how it was being conducted, they sent a letter expressing their concerns. It was promptly ignored. They ultimately launched their own investigation.

But it's all a moot point, since McIntyre has widely been rebutted in the peer-reviewed literature since, and hasn't been able to pass peer-review in response, as well as different lines for historical climate reconstruction coming up with the same curve.

This is only true if there are no adjustments made to the temperature reading AND the "cooler" temperature is greater than the heating effect. If these aren't true, then obviously it would depend on the amount of the adjustment and amount of error in the reading.

Wait, so what's your argument then? Adjusted, the warming is shown. Unadjusted, the warming is shown. Are you arguing that there should be adjustment, but just not the ones currently used?

You know very well that the # wasn't significant in the argument. It's fine to eliminate grossly incorrect readings this way. It's another thing entirely to adjust a good reading because the surrounding stations have more error.

Since when is that happening?

You have a remarkable confidence that this algorithm is very accurate. You can read the conclusion of here

Pass peer review on that or it's worthless. Everyone *else* has to pass peer-review. No exception for critics.

Even comparing calm/windy days will be influenced by the location of the unit (walls close by) and topological influences.

The heat island effect extends to the upper troposphere. Those are some giant walls. And, FYI, there has been more lower tropospheric warming than there has been surface warming, which doesn't fit the heat island explanation at all.

Proof by Innuendo. There's science for you. Are you actually trying to argue that algorithms are better than calibration?

Red herring. Of course perfect, flawless calibration is ideal. But we live in the real world where budgets and practicality mean that's not an option. So you do the best that you can with the data that you have.

If you assume all this is due to CO2 (ie there is no solar forcing)

Both of those are untrue. First off, there's *always* solar forcing. Did you mean *changes* in solar forcing? They're intensely studied, too. Secondly, CO2 is just one of a number of GHGs, and there are a lot of non-GHG factors considered as well, everything from carbon-black to contrails. Third, assume nothing; CO2 forcing is calculated mathematically, experimentally, and historic planetary CO2 responses are studied as well.

, one

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