Followup: Anti-Global Warming Story Itself Flawed

The Bad Astronomer writes "As posted earlier on Slashdot, a Forbes Op/Ed claims there is a 'gaping hole in global warming' theories, based on a recent paper. However, both the Forbes article and the paper on which it's based are themselves seriously flawed. The paper has been excoriated by climate scientists, saying the model used is 'unrealistic' and 'incorrect,' and the author has a track record of using bad models to make incorrect conclusions."

Comments

Let's get half the posts out of the way right now

[Aquitaine]

You know, whether or not the original article is BS, why is the very first point that the rebuttal piece linked above makes the fact that the original article uses the word 'alarmist' umpteen times? This is like counting the number of times the word 'denier' appears in the rebuttal. Both sides call each other names.

If you really believe that humans are not responsible for climate change in a significant capacity, and you see people running around talking about mass extinction and migration, then you'd probably call them alarmists.

If you really believe that humans are responsible for climate change in a significant capacity, and you see people running around dismissing climate change as nothing more than politics or researchers looking for more grants to keep their jobs in spite of the massive threat to, well, everything we know, love, and take for granted, then 'denier' is probably not even the meanest term you could come up with for them.

But talking about either one hasn't got anything to do with science, just like most schoolyard name-calling hasn't got anything to do with the science. There are industrial interests on both sides and not that many people who both care about solving the problem rather than calling a halt to civilization while also demonstrating the capacity and civility to talk about the issue without resorting to this kind of thing. Consequently, I can't help but wonder how many interested, semi-educated, but very-far-from-climate-experts like me there are out there who look at all this stuff and just scratch their heads.

The paper disclaims its own results

[Geoffrey.landis]

If you actually read the paper and not the incredibly hyped press releases, the paper basically disclaims the validity of its own results. Note the following paragraph, immediately before the conclusions:

Our preliminary work on this issue suggests no simple answer to the question. We conclude that the fundamental obstacle to feedback diagnosis remains the same, no matter what time lag is addressed: without knowledge of time-varying radiative forcing components in the satellite radiative flux measurements, feedback cannot be accurately diagnosed from the co-variations between radiative flux and temperature.

The entire paper is about to trying to analyze the feedback from the co-variation between radiative flux and temperature-- this sentence basically says that, in their analysis, the analysis cannot be done accurately.

Basically, the paper does not "blow holes in global warming"-- what it does is say that this particular technique is not able to accurately discriminate the feedback function.

Re:The paper disclaims its own results

[Geoffrey.landis]

and by saying that it is not possible to track this function, this blows a hole in the previous theories.

No, it doesn't blow any holes in previous theories because none of the previous theories use correlation coefficient of the random variations as a means to calculate the feedback parameters. It's a new technique.

It's actually a kind of clever way to try to back out the feedback parameters out of the random noise in the data set. It's rather a pity that they say it doesn't work, but that's the way it goes-- not everything you try works. Basically, they're saying that the radiative feedback should be instantaneous, while the non-radiative feedback will lag the forcing function, so if you look for the lag part, this will tell you about the non-radiative feedback. But, unfortunately, they don't have a good physics-based model of how much the non-radiative feedback will lag by-- in essence, they have to have the problem solved already in order to solve it.

In any case, though, the paper conceded the basic premises of anthropogenic global warming right from the start: what it's trying to analyze is how strong the effect is, not whether it is there. Even if their technique worked, it would tweak the model, not "blow holes" in it.

Not surprised...

[Entropius]

This guy is a professor at the (not very rigorous*) institution I did my undergraduate work at. (This is the "University of Alabama in Huntsville", not the larger and better-known University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.) I don't remember him specifically, but I know there was a cadre of anti-global-warming "climate scientists" there with a politico-religious axe to grind and who were pretty clearly not doing science for knowledge's sake.

It's notable that if you google this guy's (Spencer's) name, the first couple hits are to "www.drroyspencer.com/".

Nobody that I know who is actually a prominent scientist tries to pimp their public persona to this degree, or (tellingly) makes a big deal about the title "Dr."

*They really do have shitty academic standards. I graduated summa cum laude with a BS in physics, yet had never written $\vec x$ (we never did formal vector algebra), and wound up having to take four "remedial" undergrad classes at the Univ of Arizona where I am finishing up grad school.

Re:Evidence?

[uncadonna]

We should demand some actual evidence of "wrongness".

.

Fair enough. Here you go.

taking the words of people whose careers depend on it

Phil is an astronomer. And methinks you are a troll.