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Climategate's Final Days
The Bad Astronomer writes "Climategate may be on its way out. An investigatory committee at Pennsylvania State University has formally cleared climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann of any scientific misconduct. Mann was central in the so-called Climategate scandal, where illegally leaked emails were purported to indicate examples of scientists trying to cover up any lack of global warming in their data. This finding by the committee (PDF) is another in a series of independent investigations that have all concluded that no misconduct has occurred."
See? This is what eldavojohn was talking about. You make a baseless assertion that the 'global warming nuts' have no evidence. Well, you are wrong. In fact, the amount of comprehensive, cohesive evidence supporting global warming is astounding. Why do you say it isn't? You obviously have no idea how much evidence is out there and you haven't read any of it. In fact, the evidence is so great, the burden of proof is now on those who deny global warming. So, where's your proof that this literal mountain of evidence is either wrong, or does not exist?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Universities regularly find faculty guilty of various forms of misconduct. Check out the Ward Churchill case, for example. Or any number of the recent data falsification scandals in Physics.
It's in the university's best interests to appear to support honest investigators. Not doing so reduces applications, donations, and ability to land grants.
Have you actually read, for a start, the IPCC Fourth Assessment Working Group I Report on Physical Science Basis of Climate Science?
Yes. Have YOU looked into the problems with said report? Because science doesn't stop with one report . Science means other people get to question your results, your assumptions, and your methods.
Science means other people get to ask exactly how you arrived at a conclusion and you tell them so they can reproduce your results or raise issues with your methods. Yet what the emails revealed, was that even in the face of FOI requests the "scientists" would not release data or methods - and after looking at the actual computer modeling code also leaked, you can understand why. Because the "scientists" over time, became less interested in the actual science than in proving a conclusion they had reached, at any cost.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you can't apply your aw-shucks logic to these problems, then why do you think climate science is any different?
Because you can see the climate. Well, actually not, only the weather, but that's not a visible difference.
People like to argue about things that they have an intuition about. That they can see, touch and grasp with their senses. We are biologically evolved that way, to have an opinion on our environment.
The Higgs boson and mathematical theories don't fall into that category, and as such they are left alone. A discussion about climate change on Venus would not yield 1% of the opposition.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The temperature peaked around 8000 years ago and it's been getting cooler since then up until industrialization started the current warming. The global trend was a cooling one and it did start warming. Have a look at this graph.
Having seen both of the papers in question, I can tell you that they wouldn't pass muster as undergraduate term papers at Podunk U.
The fact that those papers somehow made it into reputable journals is the real scandal.
Just for the record, $500 K over 5 years is pretty small change for research, overall. That won't even hire a post-doc once you take out the overhead.
Yea, but at least the scientific evidence is on their side. I mean, with the heat capacity and warming of oceans, the fact that the earth is heating insanely fast is not even a question, its a blatantly obvious fact. The earth has never heated by this much, this fast, in any history we can read. It typically takes thousands or tens of thousands of years, and happening within the past 100 years, more than half of the increase in the past 50? That is not natural.
We put out a lot more CO2 than the earth itself does, and our cow farms (don't get me wrong, I love eating meat) produce a shit-ton of methane, but you are right. The earth produces a ton of greenhouse gas, water vapor. And as the oceans rise due to the other greenhouse gasses, more of the water moves into the air, the climate becomes less stable, and traps more heat.
Also, those of us that actually know our science, know all of your arguments have to do with air and surface temperature, or solar patterns. Well, right now we are at a very abnormally low solar minimum, and as for air/surface temperature, you could not possibly be more wrong. Let me show you what I mean:
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash1/hs456.ash1/25081_334304084498_536119498_3617109_7576783_n.jpg
The heat capacity of the atmosphere and earth's surface is so low, that it varies drastically within a few hours every day. Bodies of water, on the other hand, hold about 100x as much heat per unit volume. I have been debating global warming for a damn long time, and NOBODY has ever had a damn thing to say about the real global heat content (including oceans), just debating bullshit air temperatures, which account for almost nothing compared to ocean temps.
Every argument has idiots that don't understand the concepts and subscribe to it, but global warming deniers don't have anyone that understands the concepts , otherwise they wouldn't deny it. And seriously, don't reply angrily until you look at the link, it is an incredibly simple graph of heat content. Not rocket science, I am sure that even you can do it.
Also, some people believe science without question, because science has a solid foundation upon which it is built, the rest is idiot media sources perverting what science has to say to reach some end goals. The uninformed church going conservative on the other hand, doesn't have any logical foundations on which it is built, besides the bible (which is very not solid).
And please, criticize the ocean data, or apologize for being an idiot. Otherwise I am sure you will be modded flamebait even worse for running off like a coward. Anybody who knows about global warming knows that air temp doesn't matter in the big picture of the climate, and knows that the evidence is so overwhelming that somebody would have to disprove the info on ocean heating to make a valid argument. But again and again I just see the same shit come out of you people "air temps, air temps, air temps" is all you know how to fucking look at, and the actually CO2 and methane levels, you don't have a clue how much society produces compared to natural causes, right now people make about 50x as much as nature puts out.
One last thing, like republicans, especially the overly christian kind, don't try to use guilt to try to shame people into accepting government oppression, excessive violations of privacy and freedom, and moral regulation that parallels that of what churches want.
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
Wait, who have you ever heard say that humans are the only thing affecting climate?
Anyone who has ever said that expensive changes in industry will result in significant change in global warming. So, basically any policy maker, and pretty much every single person at those AGW global summits.
Really? Please cite one that has actually said that. They may say that humans are making a very significant impact on the climate, but they don't say that we're the only thing affecting it.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Have you read the IPCC working group reports? They cover that chain of proofs pretty well.
If you have and you still don't think that global climate change has been proven, what level of evidence would it take to prove it to you? After all, you use the quotation that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence; what level of evidence would you consider to be extraordinary for the theory of global climate change?
Honestly though, I'm not certain I'll get a reasonable answer from you. The two links you provided are pretty tangential to your point. Don't like the US surface station data? Well, the European and Japanese surface station data shows the same trends. Don't like any surface station data? Well, the satellite data shows the same trends. Hell, even the decrease in average bird sizes over the last 46 years is indicative of an upward trend in average temperature. Even data from studies that are entirely unrelated to climate science show indications of increasing average temperatures! How is that not extraordinary?
If you want the data, go here.
Though, lacking the ability to do a google search is hardly a recommendation of someone's ability to deal with the data and draw any meaningful conclusions anyway...
We put out a lot more CO2 than the earth itself does,
Actually, it's not even close.
We put about 5% of the carbon into the atmosphere, but that 5% is enough to tip the balance and cause CO2 levels to rise, because the biosphere cannot absorb it.
That is to say, you can't bring up monetary incentives as proof of accuracy without noting that there's a lot of money going both ways - which is true in the meta-sense of the global warming debate. There are literally trillions of dollars, not to mention the very notion of who controls industry, at stake in this discussion.
You have a very novel definition of "a lot" then. There are trillions of dollars on one side (the carbon industry), and low tens of millions on the other.
No one gets rich doing science.
Main Point: We don't argue that climate change isn't happening, and if that's what you think the debate is about then you are completely wrong.
It's interesting that you brought that up, given the history of the climate change "debate." Because until about 10 years ago, saying global warming doesn't exist was the position of the deniers. The position was that global temperatures were not increasing. Then the position was changed to admitting that that temperatures were increasing, but no faster than historical rates, even though it's clearly exponential growth. (i.e. the hockey stick, and yes, even the "new" "refined" hockey stick) Even earlier this year you had conservatives mocking global warming because of a blizzard.
You're the one that doesn't understand the history of your own position.
As a historical parallel, I suggest you read up on cancer and the tobacco lobby. "Doctors smoke Camels," but the tobacco industry knew they caused cancer in nineteen-fifty-fucking-three , yet they denied it for 45 years. Even recently before Congress, the CEOs of the tobacco industry declared under oath, I believe that nicotine is not addictive, even though the American Heart Association (you know, doctors), have said "nicotine addiction has historically been one of the hardest addictions to break."
No you're being played, but you don't realize that, because you're too "intelligent" and "independent" to realize it.