NOAA: Global Warming 'Pause' Never Happened

Taco Cowboy writes: The whole global warming debate is as confusing as ever. Researchers from the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have published a new study in Science saying there was no "pause" in global warming. Dr. Thomas Karl points out that the warming rate over the past 15 years is "virtually identical" to warming over the last century, and updated observations show temperatures did not plateau.

"The idea of a global warming 'hiatus' arose from questions over why the trend of warming temperatures appeared to be stalling recently compared to the later part of the 20th century. ... The new analysis corrects for ocean observations made using different methods as well as including new data on surface temperatures."

"According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global average temperatures have increased by around 0.05C per decade in the period between 1998 and 2012. This compares with an average of 0.12 per decade between 1951 and 2012. The new analysis suggests a figure of 0.116 per decade for 2000-2014, compared with 0.113 for 1950-1999."

Comments

We'll talk when

[ihtoit]

Orkney exports a good wine.

Re:We'll talk when

[beelsebob]

You mean when the average temperature at orkney has risen by 15C?

That seems like a pretty steep requirement given that we'd expect the major global issues to have happened already with a rise of only 2 or 3C.

Re:We'll talk when

[plopez]

BY which time it may be submerged. Plankton wine anyone?

Re:We'll talk when

[Applehu Akbar]

Meanwhile, how are those sunspot numbers coming along?

Re:We'll talk when

[necro81]

Why wish for a good wine from Orkney when you can drown your sorrows in some of the best scotch in the world? Each location has its agronomic strengths.

Much as I would like to, I don't live in a climate that can support avocado trees. On the other hand, I don't think there are many sugar maples in Mexico and California, but we have them on every hillside 'round here.

Re:We'll talk when

[rsclient]

There are multiple wineries in Alaska (and they all seem to be new).

Re:We'll talk when

[clong83]

I don't know about California, but natural sugar maples exist sporadically in Arizona and New Mexico... I have heard of people tapping them for syrup in the spring, but I don't know how good it is.

Wikipedia Link

Re:We'll talk when

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

There are multiple wineries in Alaska (and they all seem to be new).

You can make bad wine anywhere.

Re:We'll talk when

[Phusion]

Just wanted to say great signature and have you seen Mozart In The Jungle?

Re:We'll talk when

[ihtoit]

thanks :) - and no, I haven't seen it yet. Looks interesting...

Re:We'll talk when

[ihtoit]

they were exporting wine only 1200 years ago. Some very good grog, apparently. These days they import fruit for wine under the van Schayk label (Kirkwall) and even grow some locally (blueberry, gooseberry, cranberry and elderflower), but back then they grew grapes for entirely locally grown and produced wine which rivalled the best wines of France over the past 100 years to the point where they were exporting it all over medieval Europe.

Re:We'll talk when

[bhiestand]

Don't despair! There are new spurious correlations every day. We just need to feed him the sunspot data.

Re:We'll talk when

[davester666]

Clearly, you need to do what Harper has been doing in Canada. Making sure that less and less data is being recorded. And old data is deleted.

Global Warming can't possibly happen if you have no idea what the climate was in the past.

Of course, it makes it slightly more challenging to do weather forecasting, but you don't make an omelette without breaking some eggs.

Re:We'll talk when

[Plumpaquatsch]

they were exporting wine only 1200 years ago.

Citation needed. IOW nope. Not to mention that unlike the claim of "vineyards in Medieval times prove it was warmer than now" narrative suggests, there were actually vineyards in England further north during the Little Ice Age than during the Medieval Warming Period.

Finally, the northern-most commercial vineyard in the world is in Gvarv, Telemark, Norway, about the same latitude as Orkney - but not warmed directly by the Gulf Stream.

Re:We'll talk when

[Plumpaquatsch]

There are multiple wineries in Alaska (and they all seem to be new).

You can make bad wine anywhere.

And during the Mediaeval Warming Period, you could make bad wine in southern England - which is supposed to prove something.

But dude, there was a snowball

[Anonymous Coward]

A member of Congress throwing a snowball is so much better an argument than any science.

Re:But dude, there was a snowball

[Shortguy881]

Did you read the article? They arbitrarily increased all buoy temperature data. If you alter a huge part of your data set to a warmer temperature, of course it shows a larger global increase in baseline temperature.

I say arbitrarily, because there is no provided scientific reason for altering the data.

Furthermore, the error for their data increases over time. This is suggesting data collected in 50's is more accurate than that collected in 2000's. The only reason this would show up statistically is poorly collected data.

Lastly, they adjusted the buoy temperatures by 0.12 degrees which is within the margin of error of temperature change.

They are biasing the data. This isn't science, it's statistical manipulation.

I'm not saying I don't believe people impact global weather, but its hard to determine how when we bias our science with a political agenda.

Re:But dude, there was a snowball

[buchner.johannes]

TFA says they calibrated the buoys data with the ship-based data. The offset is not chosen by hand as you claim, but fitted to make the two types of measurements, which should be measuring the same thing, consistent with each other. That is justifiable to remove systematic errors. Another study by IPCC found the same offset value.

The paper says:

Changes of particular importance include: (i) an increasing amount of ocean data from buoys, which are slightly different than data from ships; (ii) an increasing amount of ship data from engine intake thermometers, which are slightly different than data from bucket sea-water temperatures; and (iii) a large increase in land-station data that enables better analysis of key regions that may be warming faster or slower than the global average. We address all three of these, none of which were included in our previous analysis used in the IPCC report

The details on the calibration are:

First, several studies have examined the differences between buoy- and ship-based data, noting that the ship data are systematically warmer than the buoy data (15–17). This is particularly important, as much of the sea surface is now sampled by both observing systems, and surface-drifting and moored buoys have increased the overall global coverage by up to 15% (see supplemental material for details). These changes have resulted in a time-dependent bias in the global SST record, and various corrections have been developed to account for the bias (18). Recently, a new correction (13) was developed and applied in the Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature dataset version 4, which we use in our analysis. In essence, the bias correction involved calculating the average difference between collocated buoy and ship SSTs. The average difference globally was 0.12C, a correction which is applied to the buoy SSTs at every grid cell in ERSST version 4.

Second, there was a large change in ship observations (i.e., from buckets to engine intake thermometers) that peaked immediately prior to World War II. The previous version of ERSST assumed that no ship corrections were necessary after this time, but recently improved metadata (18) reveal that some ships continued to take bucket observations even up to the present day. Therefore, one of the improvements to ERSST version 4 is extending the ship-bias correction to the present, based on information derived from comparisons with night marine air temperatures. Of the 11 improvements in ERSST version 4 (13), the continuation of the ship correction had the largest impact on trends for the 2000-2014 time period, accounting for 0.030C of the 0.064C trend difference with version 3b. (The buoy offset correction contributed 0.014C dec1 to the difference, and the additional weight given to the buoys because of their greater accuracy contributed 0.012C dec1. See supplementary materials for details.)

Third, there have also been advancements in the calculation of land surface air temperatures (LSTs). The most important is the release of the International Surface Temperature Initiative (ISTI) databank (14, 19), which forms the basis of the LST component of our new analysis. The ISTI databank integrates the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN)–Daily dataset (20) with over 40 other historical data sources, more than doubling the number of stations available. The resulting integration improves spatial coverage over many areas, including the Arctic, where temperatures have increased rapidly in recent decades (1). We applied the same methods used in our old analysis for quality control, time-dependent bias corrections, and other data processing steps (21) to the ISTI databank to address artificial shifts in the data caused by changes in station location, temperature instrumentation, observing practice, urbanization, siting conditions, etc. These corrections are essentially the same as those used in the GHCN–Monthly version 3 dataset (22, 23), which is updated oper

Re:But dude, there was a snowball

[krygny]

Too late. They used the word "science" before you did.

Whomever uses the word "science" first wins.

Re:But dude, there was a snowball

[dywolf]

A little understanding goes a long way to dispelling and preventing the spread of myths and misinformation: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad...

Even more, playing devil’s advocate, the scientists tried to force their data to show them a hiatus; they redid the calculations starting in 1998, as so many deniers have done. The result? The warming from 1998 – 2014 is 0.106 C per decade. It’s still there.

The corrections they applied have to do with the way sea surface temperatures were taken; the method has changed over time, and that introduces biases into the data. The good thing though is that new methods, new understanding of the nature of data measurement, allow scientists to go back and re-examine older data and apply corrections to it.

Different measurement methods have their own inherent biases. They went back through the data AND ITS SOURCES and found that some of the data believed to be from buoys was from engine intakes, and some from intakes was from buoys, and some was from the really old fashioned method of "haul up a bucket of water and measure it".

All corrections are about canceling out those inherent biases so that everything starts from the same baseline.

Re:But dude, there was a snowball

[mixed_signal]

You can make the adjustment either way. It's not the absolute numbers that matter, but keeping the trendlines aligned where they overlap. The old data set is huge, so you could either adjust all the non-buoy data or all the buoy data. Doesn't matter which, in the end, since we're interested in the trend.

"First, several studies have examined the differences between buoy- and ship-based data, noting that the ship data are systematically warmer than the buoy data (15–17). This is particularly important, as much of the sea surface is now sampled by both observing systems, and surface-drifting and moored buoys have increased the overall global coverage by up to 15% (see supplemental material for details). These changes have resulted in a time-dependent bias in the global SST record, and various corrections have been developed to account for the bias (18). "

Re:But dude, there was a snowball

[riverat1]

Did you read the article? They arbitrarily increased all buoy temperature data. If you alter a huge part of your data set to a warmer temperature, of course it shows a larger global increase in baseline temperature.

I say arbitrarily, because there is no provided scientific reason for altering the data.

When they compared temperatures measured at ships engine cooling water intakes to temperatures measured by buoys when they were near each other they found that the temperatures measured in ships engine intake were 0.12 C higher than that measured by buoys. In order to combine measurements from two different sources that show a systematic difference you have to adjust one or the other. Since in this case they care more about the trend in temperatures than they do about the absolute temperature it's arbitrary whether you adjust one up or the other down. The trend is the same in either case.

When you look at the effects of all of the adjustments made, not just in this study but all of them in all of the temperature records going back to the 1800s, the net effect is to lower the warming trend from what the raw data shows.

Re:But dude, there was a snowball

[onemorechip]

"Did you read the article? They arbitrarily increased all buoy temperature data."

I'm trying to figure out if you have a reading comprehension problem (since you apparently did read at least a portion of the article), or simply don't know what "arbitrary" means.

Re:But dude, there was a snowball

[krygny]

Then why are we taking direct measurements at all, if they're suspect, inaccurate or unreliable?

Why not just use proxy data universally?

Re:But dude, there was a snowball

[Shortguy881]

Ok, I took a lot of crap for this, so I will state the obvious. By arbitrary I mean they altered the temperature of the buoys to better match the data collected by the boats even though they say in the article "More generally, buoy data have been proven to be more accurate and reliable than ship data, with better known instrument characteristics and automated sampling (16)." Why alter the more accurate data?

Following the link to the data correction for ERSST v4 we find also find "the effect is to make SST 0.1–0.2C cooler north of 30S but 0.1–0.2C warmer south of 30S in ERSST.v4 than in ERSST.v3b before 1940."

To me this reads we cooled off most of the worlds historical data and warmed a little bit of it for anything prior to 1940. This is transforming huge amounts of data from what was collected to what they think should've been collected and altering the many estimated historical data points to better suit their needs. Again, this is a statistical shell game and not science.

Re:But dude, there was a snowball

[pastafazou]

I don't understand why the more accurate buoy data needs to be adjusted. Shouldn't the discrepancy reveal a problem with the ship data, resulting in that entire set getting adjusted downward instead? If I have a map and a roadsign and an atlas that all say the distance between two landmarks is 14km, but using a GPS system reveals the distance is actually 13.5km, do I adjust the GPS data upwards to get it closer to the older data, or do I assume the older data wasn't as precise or had some errors?

Re:But dude, there was a snowball

[pastafazou]

If it doesn't matter if you adjust one up or the other down, why did they choose to adjust the more accurate data up instead of the suspect data down? What happens to the trend if we in fact adjust the ship data down to match the buoy data? I'm guessing the trend DOES change, since this particular adjustment changed the trend from a 15+ year pause that very few disputed and spent countless hours trying to explain and solve into a "hey, look, the pause is gone" moment.

Re:But dude, there was a snowball

[Chalnoth]

So, you're asking whether or not the scientists did their jobs? Yes. They did. They used the best available information to make the temperature records as accurate as possible.

But ultimately issues like this don't make a significant difference to the overall conclusion that the Earth is warming. They just change a few trailing decimal places on how much it's warming. So if your real question is, "Can climate scientists making an error here call into question that the Earth is warming?" then the answer is a flat no.

Re:But dude, there was a snowball

[Chalnoth]

You're joking, right? All measurements have errors and biases. Direct measurements have much smaller errors and biases than proxies.

Re:But dude, there was a snowball

[riverat1]

If you're going to use both temperature measurements from ship cooling water intakes and from buoys and there are systematic differences between them then you have to make adjustments to one or the other so you can compare them. The choice of which to adjust is somewhat arbitrary. It's not the actual temperature they care about so much as how it's changing over time and either way yields the same trend.

Re:But dude, there was a snowball

[riverat1]

pastafazou: If it doesn't matter if you adjust one up or the other down, why did they choose to adjust the more accurate data up instead of the suspect data down?

Here's an answer from one of the authors:

The reason for adjusting buoy (+0.12C) rather than adjusting ship (-0.12C) is that there is no buoy observation at all before the 1970s. Therefore, it would be questionable how ship can be adjusted relative to buoy before the 1970s, if we did so. However, assuming that the adjustment to ship is -0.12C before the 1970s, our tests show that the long term temperature trends remain the same. This has been discussed in Huang et al. 2015 (J. Climate 28, 911-930, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00006.1.)

I dispute a 15 year pause. Statistically the warming trend since 1998 is the same as the trend from before that. Here's a blog post by a statistician that examines the question of a slow down in warming from a number of angles and is unable to find any statistically significant slow down in the warming trend.

Re:But dude, there was a snowball

[St.Creed]

What I read was that they gave the buoy temperature measurements a higher weight when determining the averages, to account for the greater accuracy of the buoys. I didn't read anything about changing the measurements themselves for the buoys.

Re:But dude, there was a snowball

[cbeaudry]

However, it is only warming (during some periods) by a few trailing decimal points, so its very important.

Re:But dude, there was a snowball

[Chalnoth]

Sure, if you pick some really short periods (say, 5 years), there may not appear to be any warming. Or there may appear to be a huge amount of warming.

But that's just because the Earth's temperature varies quite a bit from year to year, largely due to the El Nino Southern Oscillation (which exchanges heat between the atmosphere and the ocean). So it's foolish to take such short periods of time and claim they mean something for the overall trend.

There are also ways to lie with graphs that make it look as if certain longer periods show no warming, such as using monthly data to increase the variation in the graphs, and picking out a specific year that was warmer than the years before and after as a starting point. But if you look at the full data set, especially if you smooth it with a 3-year or 5-year window, the warming trend is clear as day, and hasn't changed all that much for the last three decades.

Re:But dude, there was a snowball

[evil9000]

lol, wouldnt that be upsetting.

It goes to show that the land and sea based measurement is as reliable as each other. Once heat islands are identified, language is written to say what an should algorithm do to correct this (drop temps after 1960 for land, for example). The output of the algorithms always seem to demonstrate that we cant measure temperature in the past, but we're 99% confident we can measure them now.

Its a shame we could send a man to the moon but cant measure temperature "properly".

The RSS and UAH satalite data agree with the weather balloon data. So as long as the warmists don't find a reason why satalite and balloon data is unreliable, its hard to prove AGW is happening at all while we don't adapt to both warm and cold, dry and wet conditions. Isnt that what a modern society would do?

Re:But dude, there was a snowball

[SoftwareArtist]

If that's how you read it, then you read it incorrectly.

The goal here is to take data from a variety of measurement types and make them comparable to each other, so trends can accurately be determined. Different measurement types produce different results. Water in engine intake pipes is slightly warmer than water surrounding buoys. To compare the two types of measurements, you need to account for that. You can do that by increasing the temperature of the buoy data, or decreasing the temperature of the engine room data. But for their purpose—accurately determining trends—it makes absolutely no difference which one you do. They chose to adjust the buoy data, but if they had adjusted the ship data instead, absolutely nothing in their conclusions would have changed. The temperature trend is identical either way. You're quibbling about something that has absolutely no effect on their conclusions, then claiming that makes the conclusions "a statistical shell game and not science".

Re:But dude, there was a snowball

[mannd]

Sorry to be obnoxious, but that should be "whoever."

Re:But dude, there was a snowball

[dl_sledding]

Well said. "Since our data doesn't disprove the opposition, let's just 'fix' the data so that it does."

Because of things like this, GW and GCC are dead to me. If "scientists" can't proof their theories without manipulating real-world data, and refuse to accept that peers will double check and, yes, even disagree and try to disprove their theories, then they aren't real scientists. They are puppets for their grant money and will find whatever conclusion that keeps that money rolling in.

Re:But dude, there was a snowball

[dave420]

Translation: "I don't know what these guys are talking about, but I want them to be wrong, so I will tell everyone just how little I know about this subject and complain like my opinion matters"

so what you're saying is

[Anonymous Coward]

we will take out what we don't like and put it what fits our agenda.

Re:so what you're saying is

[thsths]

Sure. And we could go on emitting CO2 like it is nobodies business, and maybe wreck this earth. That would be evidence, but not proof, that climate change is man made. For proof you would want to wreck at least 3 earth, and have another 3 control earth that are just fine without humans.

Re:so what you're saying is

[plopez]

No, Scientists are not Politicians. As new data and peer review move forward things are revised. Otherwise out model of the solar system would still have Earth in the center of it.

Re:so what you're saying is

[Dr. Tom]

You've seen German porn, haven't you?

Re:so what you're saying is

[johanw]

And don't forget

3) These changes are shown to cause more harm than good.

Re:so what you're saying is

[Crashmarik]

No, Scientists are not Politicians. As new data and peer review move forward things are revised. Otherwise out model of the solar system would still have Earth in the center of it.

Oh really how do you feel about that report from the EPA on fracking ? Seems a whole lot of environmentalists only like science when it agrees with their prejudices.

Re:so what you're saying is

[bondsbw]

Ooh I can post links too!

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.c...

Re: so what you're saying is

[Anonymous Coward]

And it seems a whole lot of anti-environmentalists (or whatever term you care to use) start to like science when it agrees with their prejudices.

That sword cuts both ways.

Re: so what you're saying is

[silentcoder]

Humans emitting CO2 is not a greenhouse problem. Human breathing is carbon neutral - you can't breath out more CO2 than the carbon you've eaten (less actually since you grow cells out of some of it - that ballances out when you die and decompose).
So every bit of CO2 you breath out, is ballanced by having had that same amount taken OUT by the plants you ate first.

The CO2 problem is carbon that was fossilized millions of years ago being burned today - with nothing having taken the equivalent amount out first.

Re:so what you're saying is

[holmstar]

Instruments on ocean buoys for some reason are reading a lower temperature than research ships. Many buoys were deployed during the time period of the "pause", which pushed down the average temperature reading as compared to past measurements. They've now taken this disparity into account and the "pause" disappears. They were looking for an explanation for the "pause" and found it to be an error in the way the data was collected, so they corrected for the error.

Re: so what you're saying is

[moehoward]

Those stupid dinosaurs forgot to exhale THEIR CO2. Here, let me help them with that *** starts SUV ***.

Re: so what you're saying is

[tmosley]

Science is a method, not a result, nor a being. "Science" doesn't say anything. With highly politicised topics like this, it is not the data that tells the tale, but rather those flawed humans who may or may not appropriately report the data that tells the tale. There has been enough fraud discovered in academia alone, without systemic bias toward a given result, that to fail to question these results is a major failing on the part of anyone who takes them at face value.

Re: so what you're saying is

[silentcoder]

Dinosaurs make up about 0.01% of fossil fuels.
Fossil Fuels are primarily the fossils of trees that grew in the carboniferous period - the first trees actually. Normally trees are carbon neutral - but those were not because nothing had yet evolved that could eat or decompose wood. They died and they all fossilized.
And while they were alive, because they were not decomposed... the atmosphere had almost twice as much oxygen as today (that's why you could get dragonfly's a meter long).

Re:so what you're saying is

[Maritz]

Hilarious. I wonder if you ridicule all scientists, or just the ones that are stating something you don't like.

Re:so what you're saying is

[john.r.strohm]

The word you are looking for is "calibration".

The phenomenon you are describing is called "system-wide consistent calibration error".

The problem with claiming that you have corrected a system-wide consistent calibration error is that you really need to explain how you managed to screw up the sensor calibration in the first place, on all of the ocean buoys, in such a way that they all had the SAME wrong readings.

Re:so what you're saying is

[serviscope_minor]

Ooh I can post links too!

Interesting. I'd not heard of the "502 bad gateway" logical fallacy before. I didn't even know there were 502 logical fallacies!

Re: so what you're saying is

[silentcoder]

The only thing your post proves is that you are utterly ignorant of basic biology and paleontology. Proving yourself stupid on two things at once ... you should run for Congress. The republican party loves candidates like you.

Re: so what you're saying is

[Coren22]

The republican party loves candidates like you.

And the Democrat party contains anti vaxxers. Trying to act like somehow the Democrats are better than the Republicans in science matters is pretty silly. Politicians are politicians, not scientists.

Re: so what you're saying is

[tmosley]

"Seems not to be much of a method then."

No, it isn't, but its all we have. It's the only path toward transcending our biases, but we have to actively work at that, and stay in practice, at least until we get cerebral augments that take care of those biases for us.

"I think you're quibbling too much over rhetoric though."

Absolutely not. People say "Science says this," or "Science says that," as if Science is some sort of God. That is EXTREMELY dangerous thinking, and it has sadly taken firm hold in the West. Like warmongering priests of old, they can simply cite "Science" as the ancients (and not so ancients) cited "God" as the cause for doing all sorts of terrible things, like causing Africa to starve because of decreased agricultural production in the US (which is the main source for food aid in the third world).

"here has been enough fraud discovered in those who purport to be skeptical towards academia for allegedly valid reasons"

They used to call them "heretics" and burn them at the stake. Doesn't make them right, of course. Doesn't matter which stupid god you believe in, they are all a fantasy, as is the "god" called Science.

Respect and use the method, don't worship those who claim to adhere to it.

Re: so what you're saying is

[Anonymous Coward]

And the Democrat party contains anti vaxxers. Trying to act like somehow the Democrats are better than the Republicans in science matters is pretty silly.

While all political parties have their wingnuts, only the GOP routinely nominates theirs as presidential candidates.

There's a difference between having idiots as members of your party and having idiots as leaders of your party.

Re: so what you're saying is

[silentcoder]

Anti vaxxers like Rand Paul ? I'm. Not saying the democrats are always pro science but the republicans are always anti science and never pro science.

Re:so what you're saying is

[funwithBSD]

Normally we just call it "non sequitur" because it does not follow.

Re: so what you're saying is

[Bengie]

Organic matter was just showing up on the scene and the easiest way to get energy was to use light to pump out oxygen. Gaseous CO2 was the main food.

Re:so what you're saying is

[funwithBSD]

No, just the ones that have bad data...

Like Pons and Fleischmann.

But there the community decided to react with the appropriate skepticism, unlike AGW

Re:so what you're saying is

[BCGlorfindel]

we will take out what we don't like and put it what fits our agenda.

Alternately, if the data suddenly changes about the same time as you changed your data-gathering methodology, there's no real need for a big conspiracy theory to explain what happened. But what do I know, I actually read the fine article.

Exactly, like in Michael Mann's "hockey stick" reconstructions and the data-gathering methodology changes at the year 1900 the sudden change in trend obviously is a result of the methodology change as well, and not something else....

Re:so what you're saying is

[mixed_signal]

Why do you think there would be a "system-wide calibration'' in the first place? It's a freaking huge set of instruments and what they're doing is reviewing the gathered data and checking the alignment where there are overlapping observations between types of instruments. The new buoys are probably the most accurate (in an absolute sense) of the SST instruments out there, and even the article notes that the variation (tolerance) of the buoy measurements is the tightest yet.

What would you propose they do differently, exactly?

Re:so what you're saying is

[argStyopa]

But they are HUMANS, with goals, friends, and a very human desire to do the right thing.

Simultaneously, I find a rather high proportion of "scientists" - particularly the preachy ones - seem to assume that gobs and gobs of knowledge in a niche field somehow logically equates to other fields frankly outside their expertise.

For example, the Union of Concerned Scientists cheerfully opines on issues of geopolitics and military matters. Why? I submit they would think it risible if Henry Kissinger wrote article after article about theoretical physics, yet they don't see their own hypocrisy here.

Finally, there's the relevancy question. (I first saw it mentioned by Lomborg)
- if you are going to have a medical exam, you go to a doctor.
- if you are going to have your house inspected, you have a home-inspector do it.
If you are going to decide whether to spend $10,000 this year on removing that benign tumor, or removing the asbestos in your old home, NEITHER one of the specialists is the 'right person' to decide your priorities. Currently, climate scientists screaming that we must urgently "do something" about climate change are the equivalent of only listening to the house-inspector. Of COURSE he sees that as your biggest issue, but the question is where to spend finite resources.

Re: so what you're saying is

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the Democratic party. You can tell when someone is a right wing nut job when you see this mistake. Another mistake is trying to create a false equivalency with anti-vaxxers.

The anti-vaxxers aren't that way because of political ideology, like the global warming deniers who are told by right wing propaganda( paid for by oil companies) that global warming isn't real. The anti-vaxxers are typically people who are easily led into woo of the "natural" sort. These are the kinds of people who often commit the "natural fallacy" the idea that natural is inherently better than man made. These people tend to also be pacifist and empathetic, qualities that rarely show up in conservatives. I will qualify that a bit. Conservatives have a great deal of empathy and forgiveness when it comes to other conservatives, but they have no empathy for minorities, poor people or "librals" .

Yes, anti vaxxers tend to be liberals, but liberals do not tend to be anti vaxxers. This is the reverse with American conservatives. American conservatives are not only anti Global warming, they are anti evolution, anti science, anti education and anti progress.

Conservatives are always on the wrong side of history. Think I'm wrong? Name one major conservative policy in the last 60 years that helped the common man and was not a military action or business giveaway.

Here are some things conservatives have fought tooth and nail against.

Equal rights for blacks
Voting rights for women
child labor laws
pollution laws(you're probably too young to remember lakes and rivers catching on fire because of pollution)
Extending voting hours
Mandatory seat belts in cars(they claimed that making manufacturers put in seat belts would destroy the car industry)

The list goes on and on. Conservatives fight progress. Don't be a douche, fight for progress rather than against it and become a progressive.

Re:so what you're saying is

[dywolf]

you mean the one that's being misreported on by Fox and other "news" sources in bed with the industry?
let me guess what you think the report says....your tone is a large enough indicator on that score.

in fact, i'll bet you only read the initial headlines, since retracted, that stated "EPA says fracking is safe" and variations on that theme. you definitely never bothered to read the whole article, or to find the report itself and peruse it.

so let me help you out.
the report that states, and I quote:

From our assessment, we conclude there are above and below ground mechanisms by which hydraulic fracturing activities have the potential to impact drinking water resources. These mechanisms include water withdrawals in times of, or in areas with, low water availability; spills of hydraulic fracturing fluids and produced water; fracturing directly into underground drinking water resources; below ground migration of liquids and gases; and inadequate treatment and discharge of wastewater.

We did not find evidence that these mechanisms have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States. Of the potential mechanisms identified in this report, we found specific instances where one or more mechanisms led to impacts on drinking water resources, including contamination of drinking water wells. The number of identified cases, however, was small compared to the number of hydraulically fractured wells.

They cut a fine line between saying it has "no effect" and it "always has an effect".
they say it can have an effect, and be harmful, but it mostly localized right now, rather systemic (ie, inherent) to the activity.

you are now about twice as informed and intelligent as you were previously.

Re:so what you're saying is

[phantomfive]

And we could go on emitting CO2 like it is nobodies business, and maybe wreck this earth.

Emitting CO2 won't wreck the earth, that's a strawman you made up (or got from someone trying to scare you with propaganda). Read the IPCC report, humanity isn't going to be destroyed.

Re:so what you're saying is

[dywolf]

its not calibration like you are thinking (I am a calibration technician), ie, metrology (NOT meteorology!).

the buoys weren't "wrong".

its not that the buoys were miscalibrated as to the accuracy of the instruments (metrology).

its that the dataset as a whole was "miscalibrated" as relates to the inherent differences in results from different methodologies of measurement. it's a statistical error, not a metrological one.

you can measure the same location in one of 3 typical ways:
-buoys
-engine intake
-bucket (ie, drop a bucket, haul it up, and measure the water inside)

Each has its own inherent (built in) factors that cause the same readings from the same place at the same time, but taken with different methods, to measure slightly differently. The corrections to the dataset seek to remove and cancel out these differences.

and when the measurement is taken they don't JUST write down the reading taken, but the local conditions at the time (sunny? cloudy? windy?), the type of measurement taken and method used, the instrument used, the location of the instrument (on a hill? in the shade?), etc. and all of that additional information is recorded PRECISELY BECAUSE of the desire to eliminate inherent differences so that every measurement conforms to the same baseline.

Re: so what you're saying is

[gtall]

Anti vaxxers like Rand Paul ? I'm. Not saying the democrats are always pro science but the republicans are always anti science and never pro science.

What is it about Republicans them makes so anti-science? I don't think they are uniformly anti-science, but rather they think of science in different ways depending upon the end result they are aiming for. In general:

1. Science conflicts (in their eyes) with Christianity (many Muslims believe it conflicts with Islam in the same sense). Science tells them we evolved which contradicts their literal interpretation of the Bible.

2. Science costs money. This conflicts with their general idea that the Federal government spending money is somehow bad. They do not think of Science as an investment. Rather, they believe Science just happens spontaneously by universities and companies, with a preference for the latter because then they can see something tangible. This is very close to them thinking that all theory is wasted, just produce something from the research, no one needs no stinkin' theory.

3. Scientists are mostly left of center. Well, those at unis are, so Republicans will be damned if they are going to support them via Federal research grants.

4. Science conflicts with their thirst for profits so they can retire in luxury, preferably before they are 40. Science says there are external costs that should be considered (global warming, etc.) which, if they were paid for, would reduce them to retiring at 65. This is dangerously close to their belief that G-d said in the Bible that man shall have dominion over all the Earth and all its creatures...which they interpret as being able to screw it up to their hearts content. And if they screw too hard, Jesus will come back to save them or tell them to stop screwing because they are producing too many mouths to feed...Jesus will provide, they can generate as many sprogs as they like.

5. They are essentially that crowd of hacks you saw in high school that were part of the cool crowd who miserably failed to learn anything, last of all science (the Left has a lot of these as well). So they do not know what to make of it. Science is confusing, it takes a lot of time to understand much less so, to do, so better relegate it to the uncool crowd they remember from high school that they never liked in the first place.

Re: so what you're saying is

[silentcoder]

Erm you misunderstood me. I'm on the science side. I was dismissing the idiotic response that climate change is an attack on breathing. Burning that ancient carbon is a very bad idea and we should stop doing that.

Re: so what you're saying is

[tmosley]

"You're getting worked up over what you THINK people mean."

No, I get worked up over what people SUBCONSCIOUSLY mean, because it has a serious impact on behavior. People can use "science" as a mind killer. This is unacceptable to me. Politics needs to stay OUT of science, to the greatest extent possible.

Re:so what you're saying is

[serviscope_minor]

Normally we just call it "non sequitur" because it does not follow.

huh?

Re:so what you're saying is

[riverat1]

It's not really a calibration error but a systematic difference in temperatures measured in ship's engine cooling water intakes vs. buoys. In order to use both sets of information together you have to adjust one or the other sets of measurements so they match up with each other. Since in this case we're more interested in the change in temperature than what the temperature is in an absolute sense it doesn't matter which you adjust, the trend will be the same.

Re:so what you're saying is

[riverat1]

There were no adjustments to fit a model. Two different methods of measuring sea surface temperatures produced results that were consistently and systematically different from each other so in order to use all if the data you adjust one of them by the difference between the two methods. Since you care about the trend in temperatures it doesn't matter which side you adjust, the trend remains the same.

Re:so what you're saying is

[Sarius64]

If WE cared about CO2 emissions there's easily other energy sources that instill emissions only at the point of source generation/creation vice the continued production of those emissions. Nuclear (preferably molten salt-based), wave generation, and induction strategies are just the tipping points. But the real trouble is government-owned monopolies that claim they are public utilities. They'll never give up their power and money. Now, even those are importing H1B labor to make more profits for their retired government officials. http://www.latimes.com/opinion...

Re: so what you're saying is

[silentcoder]

Are you a candidate ?
Because if not - then you're just a complete moron for voting for a party where not a single candidate believes the things you just professed to believe in.

Re: so what you're saying is

[silentcoder]

I think your first point is the biggest. The Republicans believe that politics and religion should be one thing. They give massive creedence to religion and religion has always been anti-science.
Evidence-based thinking is simply flat-out incompatible with faith-based thinking.

Re: so what you're saying is

[zeugma-amp]

And the Democrat party contains anti vaxxers.

What do they have against my PDP-11?

Re:so what you're saying is

[dywolf]

quoting the actual report and what it actually says is not trolling.

Re: so what you're saying is

[ravenshrike]

Calling Paul an anti-vaxxer is more than a little bit disingenuous, but then you're obviously a democrat so I suppose that's stating the obvious. Paul's position is that forcing all parents(not just parents sending their kids to public school) to get their kids vaccinated is a morally wrong use of government force. He's certainly never supported the supposition that vaccines cause autism.

Re:so what you're saying is

[CmdrTamale]

...Scientists are not Politicians....

It is very hard to tell the Climate Scientists from the Climate Politicians...

on both sides.

When did science start having sides?

Re:so what you're saying is

[bondsbw]

Perhaps the gateway was melted by global warming.

Re:so what you're saying is

[Chalnoth]

No. But we'll kill a lot of species, and humans around the world will have a lot of difficulties. Sea level rise is one of the most significant impacts of global warming, for example. Miami and the surrounding area have already had to shut down a number of wells closer to the Ocean as sea level rise has caused saltwater to enter the aquifers. They've also been having problems with their sewer system. And that's after a rise of just a couple of inches. The total rise by 2100 could be as much as 6 feet (current best fit is around 3 feet, but we've been consistently underestimating the rate of sea level rise), which would bury a number of low-lying islands and some of the flatter coastal areas such as much of the US coast along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.

Re:so what you're saying is

[cbeaudry]

I think you kinda ignore the word "potential" when reading that.

Re: so what you're saying is

[silentcoder]

So wait... you're saying Paul took a position against a position absolutely nobody has ever suggested as a law at all ?
Why would he bother exactly ? Unless, of course, he was constructing a strawman to try and appeal to the anti-vaxxers without entirely alienating the sane people.

The only measures anybody has proposed in law was that vaccination should be a requirement for public school.
Scientifically speaking, that's bullshit - it should be mandatory for anybody who doesn't valid MEDICAL reason not to because public school or not kids will still go out in public, especially when they stop being kids.
Nobody's actually tried to suggest that as a LAW though because then people claim it's an intrusion on liberty. Well yes it is, but it's a perfectly justifiable one. Your liberty is SUPPOSED to end BEFORE you harm others or recklessly endanger them.
The whole point of a government is to intrude on liberty at precisely THAT point.

But nobody has actually had the political guts to argue that as a law, the most they've tried to do anywhere in the US was demand it for public school kids.
So his argument is scientifically wrong, philosophically wrong and legally redundant... while he also denies climate change - he is definitely not an example of a pro-science candidate.

Oh and no, I'm actually NOT a democrat. I'm not even an American. I do follow American news quite well though because of the sad state of the world where who Americans elect will have a direct impact on my quality of life (and everybody else in the world's as well).
It's quite undemocratic that everybody on earth's safety, security and economic prosperity is dependent on whether there is a good or bad president in the USA (and the president here matters far more than congress since he is the one in charge of foreign policy) - but we get no say in that.
Basically we are being governed by a president we don't get to vote for. The guys we elect back home simply don't have the clout to influence the global politics and economy we all depend on the way the US president can.

Re:so what you're saying is

[jwhitener]

The EPA may employee scientists, but the organization itself operates in a highly politicized environment, subject to the whims of a changing Congressional/Presidential membership every 2 to 4 years.

I haven't read the report you are talking about, but, and this is a guess, I bet the scientific data behind the report is accurate, but the report was probably laden with a nice fat layer of politicized wording meant to fit in with various agendas of the current politicians in power.

My point is you need to separate the scientists doing good work from the MBA's/politicians/bosses that might spin the results.

Re: so what you're saying is

[jwhitener]

And the Democrat party contains anti vaxxers. Trying to act like somehow the Democrats are better than the Republicans in science matters is pretty silly.

While all political parties have their wingnuts, only the GOP routinely nominates theirs as presidential candidates.

There's a difference between having idiots as members of your party and having idiots as leaders of your party.

Not just presidential candidates (most of whom just run for fame, leading to book deals/money/etc...), but vastly more damaging is putting fringe elements of the GOP in charge of congressional committees that control budgets for much needed programs. Like the Chair of the House Science Committee, Lamar Smith. Or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Inhofe , the chair of the senate environment and public works committee, who contents that global warming is a hoax, and basically believes that 'God' will take care of us and the planet.

Re: so what you're saying is

[tmosley]

No, fuck you. Science is SACRED, even if it isn't a God. I'm not going to allow you, or anyone else to besmirch it. It's our only hope, and every time someone misuses it, it grows a little dimmer.

Re: so what you're saying is

[silentcoder]

Nope you're wrong. Being the FIRST trees - they were the very first plants whose cell walls contained the molecule lignin. That's the molecule that makes woody plants hard enough to form tree trunks - the difference between trees and other plants.
Lignin never existed before that point, and bacteria and fungus capable of digesting it did not and could not evolve until after there was lignin.
That is what caused the carboniferous period to be so different, the differences we named it after - a kind of plant matter that nothing could decompose which fossilized in massive amounts was unusual.
I never said it was ALL fossil fuels, the peat-bog mechanism certainly accounts for some, after all plants and animals fossilized before the carboniferous and since - but those are small numbers. Several million years where EVERY tree fossilized is a once-off event, and it had a massive impact - including producing the vast majority of fossil fuels.

Re: so what you're saying is

[gzuckier]

Here's the thing.. we all know sugary carbonated beverages are bad for us. Even artificially sweetened ones, it seems. Obviously, carbonated beverages contain carbon dioxide, extracted from the atmosphere. So.... we continue to make carbonated beverages, but rather than sell them to people, we just pump them into the ground, solving two problems! In fact, we can pump them into old oil wells after the oil is all gone!! Thinking outside the box, people!

Re: so what you're saying is

[gzuckier]

And the Democrat party contains anti vaxxers. Trying to act like somehow the Democrats are better than the Republicans in science matters is pretty silly.

While all political parties have their wingnuts, only the GOP routinely nominates theirs as presidential candidates.

There's a difference between having idiots as members of your party and having idiots as leaders of your party.

When you get a debateful of Democratic presidential candidates to raise their hands when asked who doesn't believe in vaccination the way you can get a debateful of Republican candidates to attest to their disbelief in evolution, then you'll have a case. Meanwhile, fun quiz; what was the affiliation of the candidate who told us "I've heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines,"?

Re: so what you're saying is

[Plumpaquatsch]

The republican party loves candidates like you.

And the Democrat party contains anti vaxxers.

As does the Republican Party. I don't see any party having a seizable amount of them, nor any having more.

Re: so what you're saying is

[3.5 stripes]

Not organic matter, cellulose which needs specific fungi, not bacteria..

Re:so what you're saying is

[dave420]

So the answer is "yes", you will ignore scientists who say things you don't like, and equating an entire field of science to Pons & Fleischmann is only illustrating how eager you are to do so.

Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[CajunArson]

The big difference between the Church of Global Warming and whatever kook cult is predicting the Rapture for next Tuesday is this: When the Rapture doesn't actually happen, at least the kooks admit that it didn't happen. The warmists just say that it did happen by changing the past data to fit their conclusions.

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[cyber-vandal]

Impress us all by publishing a full rebuttal of global warming in the journal of your choice.

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[serviscope_minor]

Impress us all by publishing a full rebuttal of global warming in the journal of your choice.

Does it count if the journal is a blog with a black background, animated GIFs and at least 20 different fonts in a variety of sizes? Also do I get extra credibility points for any of the phrases "global conspiracy", "ivory tower" or "just look at how rich climate scientists are from all the bribe money they take"?

Re:Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[unimacs]

Don't you think they would have just manipulated the data to show what they wanted in the first place?

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[Carewolf]

Impress us all by publishing a full rebuttal of global warming in the journal of your choice.

Does it count if the journal is a blog with a black background, animated GIFs and at least 20 different fonts in a variety of sizes? Also do I get extra credibility points for any of the phrases "global conspiracy", "ivory tower" or "just look at how rich climate scientists are from all the bribe money they take"?

No, but please post them. I collect crackpots. Gotta catch'm all!

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[Dr. Tom]

No.

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[darronb]

Hell, I'd be happy if these jokers could even manage a partial rebuttal.

Science reporting is garbage these days. Dave Jones just did a rebuttal to the "Batteriser" that a whole lot of otherwise respected media outlets are running... as he says any competent EE can tell you loads of ways the Batteriser is 99.999% marketing spin. It's still everywhere and loads of people buy that bullshit.

Explaining global warming is much more complicated than debunking the Batteriser, so if Batteriser demonstrates our current level of competence in reporting something, we've got no F-ing chance at all of getting the real story with global warming to the general public.

The fact that 95% of competent scientists in that field agree should be good enough. Marketing BS by people whose interests are affected by the results of the science apparently don't even have to try that hard to convince a lot of people the science is somehow contested.

Put it this way... I'd bet there are plenty of people that would be skeptical if 95% of competent EEs stood up to say Batteriser is trash, claiming conflicts of interest with some "establishment" or "group think".

A person is smart. People are stupid.

Re:Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you think they would have just manipulated the data to show what they wanted in the first place?

So you think Michael Mann needs to release all his emails from the "hockey stick" days too?

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[serviscope_minor]

No.

Ah, but what if I also make some IMPORTANT words BOLD and RED? Will that convince you?

Re:Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[Noah Haders]

When the Rapture doesn't actually happen, at least the kooks admit that it didn't happen. The warmists just say that it did happen by changing the past data to fit their conclusions.

Oh please. That is EZACTLY what the kooks do. They go back to their religious texts and learn that they were interpreting it wrong before, and the rapture is in fact the following Tuesday.

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[Bongo]

Naturally, a lot depends on who you judge to be competent and in the field. Years ago another field, specialists in forecasting, said that if you look at the things which end up making for good forecasts and models, and you take those things and compare them to what climatology is doing, none of the climatology stuff works. They don't use methods which empirically, from experience, are known to lead to good models. But whose field is it anyway? Of course it is tempting to say, HA! forecasters, what the f*** do they know... but there is a field which studies the methods of forecasting... and so do you listen to that field, or not?

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[serviscope_minor]

No, but please post them. I collect crackpots. Gotta catch'm all!

Try these on for size:

http://dailymail.co.uk/
http://foxnews.com/

Re:Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[Maritz]

Nope.

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[tbannist]

Those claims would be more interesting if some references were provided. For example, I seem to remember some people who are often referred to as statisticians (actually a minerals prospector and an economist) doing something similar, but it turns out instead of "proving" that the hockey stick wasn't real, they proved that they couldn't follow the documented procedures.

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[Penguinisto]

Depends:

If those "95% of competent EEs" provided experimental and straightforward proof (very easy to do and has likely been done numerous times already), no problem at all. The EEs have solid and widely-provable theory on their side; the results are *very* reproducible by anyone at a 8-grade education level using nothing more than a decent multimeter and a cheap calculator. It also helps that EE as a science has been around for well over a century now, with the basic frameworks and mathematics pretty well hashed out.

It also helps that electronics doesn't have a shitload of politically powerful interests hanging and haranguing on both sides of the 'Batteriser' debate, not are there liberties, trillions of dollars, or millions of livelihoods at stake in the debate.

Now AGW on the other hand still depends mostly on flawed/incomplete computer models, and very imperfect (oftentimes wildly inaccurate) actual measurements taken over a very short timespan of maybe 150 years or so (that is, very short relative to the speed of climate change in general). Sure there's ice cores, tree rings, etc, but those are not hard data, but merely assumptions based on general principles. Finally, climate scientists rely far too heavily on statistics to extrapolate what little hard data they do have, because what they're trying to measure is too large, too complex, and too dynamic to accurately measure or predict (at least at this time). Mind you, this particular field of science is still way too embryonic in structure and nature, yet the cultists still point at it and hotly claim that it's "settled".

I don't have to tell you what all is hanging on the whole 'Global Warming/Climate Change/Climate Disruption/Catchphrase-of-the-month' debate, I trust.

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[tmosley]

That is a sad and pathetic point of view. I, for one, want to believe that reality is what it is. I don't care how people feel about it (although if pushed, I would want them to feel good and not ostracized, because I'm not a sociopath, or someone taking on a role that requires one to act like one).

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[darronb]

Well, here's the thing. You've got to take the best you've got. I'm not an expert, so I'm going to defer to those that are.

(This is not specifically to you, just a general response)

I'm reasonably scientifically literate, and I'm a fairly good problem solver. So are lots of people. The problem is, people can run through any random train of thought they want to reach some conclusion that sounds logical as hell, and still with no real background in what they're talking about, they can be wildly wrong because... big surprise... they don't actually know what they're talking about. While a lot of stuff sounds simple most things actually aren't.

So, if you don't know the background, you generally should not offer an opinion. Sure, in the west everyone thinks they're fully entitled to their opinion (maybe), and that their opinion is as valid as anyone else's (dead wrong). Seriously, you're just screwing everybody around you by taking respect in your analytical skill and offering an opinion. If a problem SEEMS simple to you, and you're wondering why the experts are so damn wrong... that's a warning sign not that there's some global conspiracy, but that you're missing some big part of the puzzle.

Really.. if there were huge holes in the science, you can bet a lot of scientists (not pundits or armchair theorists) would be screaming about it. Scientists aren't 100% going to get behind "protecting their interests" by towing a line.... if you're a scientist and you can offer credible reasons why most everyone else is full of crap, you're going to be set for life on funding from companies and organizations who REALLY want climate change to go away as a topic. The fact that the huge amount of money spent looking for problems in the science is only able to show results that are easily disputed as mistaken or cherry picking is telling. The science is looking reasonably solid to me on just that basis. At least, solid enough to be considering what can be done if it's right and doing something.

Of course the models are going to be inaccurate. A big part of the problem is the intuitive reaction for lots of otherwise quite rational people is to think "How can they know what the weather will be in 100 years when they can't even get next weekend's forecast right?"... and that becomes the core to their skepticism.

You have to actually look at the science, the feeds to the models, and the processes involved to understand there's probably something there. It's not the same type of forecasting.

To me, this is very much like saying "How can electronics possibly work if you idiots can't even predict exactly where an electron is going to be?" Guess what, you don't need to. Perfectly reasonable science can be built even if the discrete elements of that science are buried in uncertainty.

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[turkeyfish]

"Now AGW on the other hand still depends mostly on flawed/incomplete computer models,"

That being so, will you kindly explain why virtually all the world's glaciers, ice fields, and ice sheets are melting at rates that are dramatically higher than have ever previously been measured?

We know it can't be the sun, since solar output changes far too little to account for the magnitude of the energy required to melt all that ice.

We know it isn't related to Milankovitch or other orbital cycles, since these hypotheses predict the Earth should be presently cooling.

Even if you could in somewhat show that that climate models are flawed and incomplete, which would make you a superstar in the world of climate science, if you could prove it, you would still need to explain why all that ice is melting so quickly. Keep in mind that the current rate of global mean temperature increase is about 36 times the rate observed during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, when the redwood forests in Wyoming became predominantly palm forests over the course of about 10,000 to 30,000 years and the entire North American mammal fauna changed abruptly.

"Inaccurate" and "flawed" climate models are the least of the AWG deniers problem as they have NO EXPLANATION why all the ice is melting so quickly.

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[phantomfive]

This article practically is a rebuttal.......if you've ever heard someone in the last ten or twenty years tell you that our temperature record is accurate, this paper is arguing that they were wrong. Note that the article essentially says, "temperature data before 1970s was wrong."

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[BCGlorfindel]

Those claims would be more interesting if some references were provided. For example, I seem to remember some people who are often referred to as statisticians (actually a minerals prospector and an economist) doing something similar, but it turns out instead of "proving" that the hockey stick wasn't real, they proved that they couldn't follow the documented procedures.

McIntyre & McKitrick aren't statisticians at all, so no argument there. Science shouldn't be about credentials, but if it is...

McShane and Wyner ARE statisticians and they published this paper in The Annals of Applied Statistics regarding Mann's statistic uasge for proxy reconstruction methods. The abstract follows, mostly because it pretty much speaks for itself:
Predicting historic temperatures based on tree rings, ice cores, and other natural proxies is a difficult endeavor. The relationship between proxies and temperature is weak and the number of proxies is far larger than the number of target data points. Furthermore, the data contain complex spatial and temporal dependence structures which are not easily captured with simple models.

In this paper, we assess the reliability of such reconstructions and their statistical significance against various null models. We find that the proxies do not predict temperature significantly better than random series generated independently of temperature. Furthermore, various model specifications that perform similarly at predicting temperature produce extremely different historical backcasts. Finally, the proxies seem unable to forecast the high levels of and sharp run-up in temperature in the 1990s either in-sample or from contiguous holdout blocks, thus casting doubt on their ability to predict such phenomena if in fact they occurred several hundred years ago.

We propose our own reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere average annual land temperature over the last millennium, assess its reliability, and compare it to those from the climate science literature. Our model provides a similar reconstruction but has much wider standard errors, reflecting the weak signal and large uncertainty encountered in this setting.

Mann et al. of course filed a rebuttal, which more or less amounts to declaring that statisticians know nothing about handling climate data, and furthermore that McShane and Wyner used completely inappropriate statistical methods.

I've read the rebuttals and McShane and crew seem to be the most on the ball in the exchange from my reading, with Mann et al's arguments seeming to be tangential to the central meat of the article and concerns identified, but go read it yourself.

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[riverat1]

Now AGW on the other hand still depends mostly on flawed/incomplete computer models, and very imperfect (oftentimes wildly inaccurate) actual measurements taken over a very short timespan of maybe 150 years or so (that is, very short relative to the speed of climate change in general).

No, what AGW depends on is physics and the relationship between CO2 levels in the atmosphere and temperature discovered by Svante Arrhenius in the 1890s. Everything since then is filling in the details.

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[Bongo]

They are called the Institute of Forecasters. They study all kinds of models, look at which ones worked and which ones didn't, and whether the ones that did have anything in common, and the ones that didn't have anything in common, to get the principles of what approaches are known to lead to successful models. Feel free to google them.

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[gzuckier]

Impress us all by publishing a full rebuttal of global warming in the journal of your choice.

Alternately, explain how atmospheric knows to raise the earth's temperature above its black body equilibrium temperature to exactly the correct temperature ano no more, even if more CO2 is pumped out. That oughta be worth a Nobel.

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[gzuckier]

Well, here's the thing. You've got to take the best you've got. I'm not an expert, so I'm going to defer to those that are.

(This is not specifically to you, just a general response)

I'm reasonably scientifically literate, and I'm a fairly good problem solver. So are lots of people. The problem is, people can run through any random train of thought they want to reach some conclusion that sounds logical as hell, and still with no real background in what they're talking about, they can be wildly wrong because... big surprise... they don't actually know what they're talking about. While a lot of stuff sounds simple most things actually aren't.

So, if you don't know the background, you generally should not offer an opinion. Sure, in the west everyone thinks they're fully entitled to their opinion (maybe), and that their opinion is as valid as anyone else's (dead wrong). Seriously, you're just screwing everybody around you by taking respect in your analytical skill and offering an opinion. If a problem SEEMS simple to you, and you're wondering why the experts are so damn wrong... that's a warning sign not that there's some global conspiracy, but that you're missing some big part of the puzzle.

Really.. if there were huge holes in the science, you can bet a lot of scientists (not pundits or armchair theorists) would be screaming about it. Scientists aren't 100% going to get behind "protecting their interests" by towing a line.... if you're a scientist and you can offer credible reasons why most everyone else is full of crap, you're going to be set for life on funding from companies and organizations who REALLY want climate change to go away as a topic. The fact that the huge amount of money spent looking for problems in the science is only able to show results that are easily disputed as mistaken or cherry picking is telling. The science is looking reasonably solid to me on just that basis. At least, solid enough to be considering what can be done if it's right and doing something.

Of course the models are going to be inaccurate. A big part of the problem is the intuitive reaction for lots of otherwise quite rational people is to think "How can they know what the weather will be in 100 years when they can't even get next weekend's forecast right?"... and that becomes the core to their skepticism.

You have to actually look at the science, the feeds to the models, and the processes involved to understand there's probably something there. It's not the same type of forecasting.

To me, this is very much like saying "How can electronics possibly work if you idiots can't even predict exactly where an electron is going to be?" Guess what, you don't need to. Perfectly reasonable science can be built even if the discrete elements of that science are buried in uncertainty.

As soon as anybody starts saying that scientists in some field, who are all competing with each other for grant money, have all agreed to fake something so they all get more grant money; that's time to turn the page.

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[gzuckier]

Depends:

If those "95% of competent EEs" provided experimental and straightforward proof (very easy to do and has likely been done numerous times already), no problem at all. The EEs have solid and widely-provable theory on their side; the results are *very* reproducible by anyone at a 8-grade education level using nothing more than a decent multimeter and a cheap calculator. It also helps that EE as a science has been around for well over a century now, with the basic frameworks and mathematics pretty well hashed out.

It also helps that electronics doesn't have a shitload of politically powerful interests hanging and haranguing on both sides of the 'Batteriser' debate, not are there liberties, trillions of dollars, or millions of livelihoods at stake in the debate.

Now AGW on the other hand still depends mostly on flawed/incomplete computer models, and very imperfect (oftentimes wildly inaccurate) actual measurements taken over a very short timespan of maybe 150 years or so (that is, very short relative to the speed of climate change in general). Sure there's ice cores, tree rings, etc, but those are not hard data, but merely assumptions based on general principles. Finally, climate scientists rely far too heavily on statistics to extrapolate what little hard data they do have, because what they're trying to measure is too large, too complex, and too dynamic to accurately measure or predict (at least at this time). Mind you, this particular field of science is still way too embryonic in structure and nature, yet the cultists still point at it and hotly claim that it's "settled".

I don't have to tell you what all is hanging on the whole 'Global Warming/Climate Change/Climate Disruption/Catchphrase-of-the-month' debate, I trust.

All models are flawed and incomplete; some are useful. As quoted by a zillion people.
F=MA is famously incomplete and flawed, yet that has proved to be a very useful model for hundreds of years, and even now a good approximation.
The question is not the absolute accuracy of a model, which we can never know outside a small set of data; but rather the relative accuracy of a model with respect to other models. For instance, although F=MA is inaccurate as far as relativistic corrections are concerned, it is a better model than F=MA^2.
And that brings us to AGW; for all the complaints about inaccuracy, models with NO AGW term are completely incompetent of modeling recent global temperatures; and, tellingly, they do quite well at modeling global temperature until the 1900s, which is when we started raising atmospheric CO2, then predict a temperature too low by a much much larger factor than the famous "overprediction" of AGW models. What this means is not that models with AGW terms are wrong; it's that AGW is correct, but there are additional terms we haven't put into the model.
Add to that the fact that every step in the AGW mechanism that leads from burning fossil carbon to the temperature of the troposphere being raised is completely scientifically without question, so in fact the onus is on denialists to explain where the extra energy absorbed by the extra CO2 is going.
So in the face of this, to suggest that AGW is questionable because the models aren't accurate, or too complex, or too new is a violation of anything resembling scientific methodology.

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[Carewolf]

No, but please post them. I collect crackpots. Gotta catch'm all!

Try these on for size:

http://dailymail.co.uk/
http://foxnews.com/

Not enough animated GIFs.

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[dave420]

But it doesn't say that unless you grossly oversimplify to the point of flat-out lying...

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[tbannist]

I did read the discussion, it seems McShane and Wyner have contributed some useful analysis and some not very useful analysis. Unfortunately, some of their conclusions are tainted by failure to follow the same procedures as Mann et al 2008 when claiming that they (effectively) did. For example, they chose to use tree ring proxies that were excluded by M08 and claimed that their exclusion was ad hoc and thus unsupportable. However, the major exclusive criteria seems to be fairly simple: proxies that contain fewer than 8 individual trees are too unreliable for inclusion (individual trees exert too much influence over the proxy average and can produce significant anomalous results). Re-running their analysis with that one change seems to flip their results on their head. Instead of reducing the confidence in anomalous warming in the late 20th century to 80% certainty, it increases the confidence to 99% certainty.

I think that shows a basic problem with the methodology of the McShane and Wyner analysis. They changed the input data at the same time as they changed the analysis method, thus conflating the two different changes together. We all know that in an experiment you want to change only one variable at time, right? Similarly, I think that they should have used the exact same data when they challenged the analysis method and challenged the data selection methods in a separate paper if they felt that issue was important enough to warrant a challenge.

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[BCGlorfindel]

I did read the discussion, it seems McShane and Wyner have contributed some useful analysis and some not very useful analysis. Unfortunately, some of their conclusions are tainted by failure to follow the same procedures as Mann et al 2008 when claiming that they (effectively) did. For example, they chose to use tree ring proxies that were excluded by M08 and claimed that their exclusion was ad hoc and thus unsupportable. However, the major exclusive criteria seems to be fairly simple: proxies that contain fewer than 8 individual trees are too unreliable for inclusion (individual trees exert too much influence over the proxy average and can produce significant anomalous results). Re-running their analysis with that one change seems to flip their results on their head. Instead of reducing the confidence in anomalous warming in the late 20th century to 80% certainty, it increases the confidence to 99% certainty.

I think that shows a basic problem with the methodology of the McShane and Wyner analysis. They changed the input data at the same time as they changed the analysis method, thus conflating the two different changes together. We all know that in an experiment you want to change only one variable at time, right? Similarly, I think that they should have used the exact same data when they challenged the analysis method and challenged the data selection methods in a separate paper if they felt that issue was important enough to warrant a challenge.

You shouldn't have stopped reading with Mann et al's reply, go ahead and read McShane and Wyner's rebuttal. They are rather more emphatic about Mann's failure to use statistics properly. Where Mann's reply consisted of larger hand waving and very general criticism like what data to include, McShane's rebuttal is heavy on detail and specifics. For example, the critique of McShane not filtering or excluding the data they used correctly is directly and exhaustive addressed:
SMR allege that we have applied the various methods in Sections 4 and 5 of our paper to an inappropriately large group of 95 proxies which date back to 1000 AD (93 when the Tiljander lightsum and thicknessmm series are removed due to high correlation as in our paper; see footnote 11). In contrast, the reconstruction of Mann et al. (2008) is applied to a smaller set of 59 proxies (57 if the two Tiljander series mentioned previously are removed; 55 if all four Tiljander series are excluded because they are ”potentially contaminated”). The process by which the complete set of 95/93 proxies is reduced to 59/57/55 is only suggestively described in an online supplement to Mann et al. (2008). As statisticians we can only be skeptical of such improvisation, especially since the instrumental calibration period contains very few independent degrees of freedom. Consequently, the application of ad hoc methods to screen and exclude data increases model uncertainty in ways that are unmeasurable and uncorrectable.

Moreover, our interpretation of SMR Figure 1 is quite different. ...
Smoothing exaggerates the difference and requires careful adjustment of fit statistics such as standard errors, adjustments which are lacking in SMR and which are in general known only under certain restrictive conditions. In contrast, consider the right panel of Figure 1 which is a reproduction of SMR Figure 1a without smoothing. The difference between a given model fit to the full dataset or the reduced data set is clearly dwarfed by the annual variation of the fit; ...
In short, while SMR allege that we use the ”wrong” data, the result remains the same (also see SI).

It is really worth reading the detailed reasons I glossed over as well, as it contributes to the veracity and accuracy of their critique of Mann's usage of statistics.
 

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[tbannist]

You shouldn't have stopped reading with Mann et al's reply, go ahead and read McShane and Wyner's rebuttal [e-publications.org].

The rebuttal is reasonably long (27 pages, not including the details), and I admit I only read some of it. However, I did read that part, and also some commentary on the rebuttal. The commentary seems to affirm that Mann's criticism on that issue was valid and the rebuttal's characterisation was inaccurate.

Regardless of whether it was reasonable for Mann et al 2008 (M08) to exclude those data sets, they did. Any attempt to criticize the statistical method used in M08 would benefit from separating the concerns of what data to include and how the data should be analysed, so the analysis should use the original input data and focus on the difference in the results produced by the methods. Unfortunately for McShane and Wyner, it seems that if you only change the methods or only change the input data, the results are less significant.

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[BCGlorfindel]

You shouldn't have stopped reading with Mann et al's reply, go ahead and read McShane and Wyner's rebuttal [e-publications.org].

The rebuttal is reasonably long (27 pages, not including the details), and I admit I only read some of it. However, I did read that part, and also some commentary on the rebuttal. The commentary seems to affirm that Mann's criticism on that issue was valid and the rebuttal's characterisation was inaccurate.

Regardless of whether it was reasonable for Mann et al 2008 (M08) to exclude those data sets, they did. Any attempt to criticize the statistical method used in M08 would benefit from separating the concerns of what data to include and how the data should be analysed, so the analysis should use the original input data and focus on the difference in the results produced by the methods. Unfortunately for McShane and Wyner, it seems that if you only change the methods or only change the input data, the results are less significant.

The commentary you link is to a blog post by Mann himself in which, unsurprisingly, he declares himself the winner. I'd encourage you to read the full rebuttal despite it's length. Having read both it's full details and Mann's blog post after it seems rather clear Mann is glossing over some very clear and specific details that are devastating to his claims.

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[phantomfive]

Did you even read the paper?

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[dave420]

Did you? This is referring to one of the methods of measuring temperature, not all of them. If you are right, then all of them would have to be wrong, which is not at all what's happened.

Re: Difference between Warmists and Rapturists

[phantomfive]

Not all of the methods of measuring temperature even go back before 1970.

Money back

[scsirob]

For the past decade or two I have been paying ever higher environmental taxes and levies. If the pause doesn't exist and the temperatures continue to rise at exactly the same levels as before, then I want my money back!

Remember the hole in the ozone layer?

[Overzeetop]

I worked with the group who built and operated the optical sensor which discovered the hole in the ozone. Except that they didn't know they had. Every time the sensor took optical data over the poles there was an "anomaly" in the data and they got uncharacteristically low numbers. For three years, this was written off as an unexplained anomaly when viewing down towards the polar ice. Until they looked up from below and found out that there really was no ozone there. Going back to the old data resulted in a fairly large change to the interpretation of the existing data which had been thrown out as unexplained.

Science learns as it goes.

Re:Remember the hole in the ozone layer?

[Dr. Tom]

Wow.

Re:Remember the hole in the ozone layer?

[Dr. Tom]

...

Science learns as it goes.

So science is NEVER "settled"?!?!?!?

Who knew!

It turns out to be part of the foundation of Science. In Mathematics, you *can* prove things. Done. That's the difference between math and science. You can never prove anything in Science, you can only *disprove* things. "Our earlier hypothesis turned out to be wrong. It turns out that the Earth is not flat. Also domestic sheep have evolved into a new species, they can no longer mate with wild-type sheep. Who knew? Well, some people did. Just not you."

Re:Remember the hole in the ozone layer?

[FlyHelicopters]

It turns out to be part of the foundation of Science. In Mathematics, you *can* prove things. Done. That's the difference between math and science. You can never prove anything in Science, you can only *disprove* things. "Our earlier hypothesis turned out to be wrong. It turns out that the Earth is not flat. Also domestic sheep have evolved into a new species, they can no longer mate with wild-type sheep. Who knew? Well, some people did. Just not you."

Nonsense, of course you can prove stuff in science...

The Earth isn't flat, it is:

"The shape of Earth approximates an oblate spheroid, a sphere flattened along the axis from pole to pole such that there is a bulge around the equator. This bulge results from the rotation of Earth, and causes the diameter at the equator to be 43 kilometres (27 mi) larger than the pole-to-pole diameter. Thus the point on the surface farthest from Earth's center of mass is the Chimborazo volcano in Ecuador or HuascarÃn in Peru. The average diameter of the reference spheroid is about 12,742 kilometres (7,918 mi), which is approximately 40,000 km/Ï, because the meter was originally defined as 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the equator to the North Pole through Paris, France."

This is not "The Earth is Flat" or "The Earth is a round ball", it is neither, but we know exactly what shape it is, this fact is not in dispute. (at least not by 99.99999% of the people standing on Earth)

Re:Remember the hole in the ozone layer?

[Luxemburg]

You have a misconception of what science is. None of the facts you mention result from measurements that you did yourself. Rather you heard it from others, and you trust them. If you did measure them yourself, you would have to rely on the correctness of someone else's measurement device. If you made your own measurement devices, you'd rely on someone else's established theory of the phenomena you're measuring. And so on...

In the end, nothing in science is beyond doubt. Science does not deal in truth. What does science deal in? Well, there's a whole scientific discipline to answer this question: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...

Re:Remember the hole in the ozone layer?

[hey!]

"Not settled" is not the same as "any statement is as likely to be correct as any other."

Re:Remember the hole in the ozone layer?

[Luxemburg]

Actually
1. Mathematics is finite sequences of symbols and rules to translate 1 into the other
2. The rules were inspired by what we see around us and how we experience our world, but they are the result of human observations and human thought
3. Mathematics is famously incomplete: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
4. Mathematics has not (yet) been proven to be consistent, and may never: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...
5. If we ever find an inconsistency, it will render the whole of mathematics null and void: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...

Re:Remember the hole in the ozone layer?

[FlyHelicopters]

How do you know I had nothing to do with figuring out Earth's size?

It isn't that hard, a pretty darn accurate size of Earth was known 500 years ago, long before we had spaceships to go up and see it from orbit.

A simpler example would be gravity, that is an easy one to test yourself, what is the acceleration of Earth's gravity field. In this case, it is 9.8m/s2

Re:Remember the hole in the ozone layer?

[catchblue22]

Nonsense, of course you can prove stuff in science...

It depends on what you mean by "proving". I would categorize "proving" hypotheses true in science as probabilistic. At some threshold, say when something is 99.9999999999999% probably of being true, then we consider it "proven". That probability is damned close to being certain. But in a philosophical sense, it is not certain...merely highly probable.

The problem comes when people who do not grasp statistics latch onto the idea of uncertainty. They might latch onto that hypothesis that is 0.000000000001% of being true and "root for it as an underdog". They do not grasp that something with such a low probability of being true is false. It is virtually impossible for it to be true. Thus the growth of fringe theories that have been scientifically proven false, and yet continue to be believed. (My opinion on the cause of this is that certain religious sects promote unquestioning belief in authority, which promotes habits of mind to believe whatever their own authorities tell them).

Re:Remember the hole in the ozone layer?

[sjames]

And of course, everyone re-derives mathematics from first principles. They never just accept a well accepted theorem out of a book...

They also spontaneously re-invent spoken language in their early years and then written language. Miraculously, it ends up inter-operating with everyone else's re-invention (at least regionally).

Re:Remember the hole in the ozone layer?

[catchblue22]

The moderation on these subjects is absolutely incredible. Am I to assume that the people who mod this down support conclusively disproven hypotheses like the ones I mentioned? If so, it says a lot about the denial movement.

Re:Remember the hole in the ozone layer?

[swillden]

This is not "The Earth is Flat" or "The Earth is a round ball", it is neither, but we know exactly what shape it is

No, we don't. We know what approximate shape it is. Our approximation of its shape is limited to the accuracy of our measurement instruments. That accuracy gets better as we learn more, and thus we continue getting a clearer and clearer understanding of its shape.

This is exactly how the whole of science works. It's an asymptotic approximation to the truth. We never achieve perfect knowledge, but bit by bit we weed out errors in our old understanding and obtain a more accurate -- but still erroneous! -- view. At some point in every area of scientific research we achieve a sufficiently precise understanding that we can use it to engineer all sorts of things, and perhaps even get to the point where further improvements in our understanding are of only academic interest, because they make no practical difference in how we live or what we build. But that doesn't mean we've achieved "truth", merely that we've approximated it closely enough for our needs.

And sometimes the level of knowledge that used to be good enough is no longer good enough, and so what was academic actually becomes important and relevant research again. Our knowledge of the shape of Earth in the 19th century was good enough for effective global navigation, but when we later started putting satellites up we needed more precision. The satellites themselves have provided even more precision, and it's not inconceivable that that precision may soon become important to climate modelling, if it hasn't already.

Science is always moving forward (with occasional diversions into dead ends and sometimes a little backtracking), but never arrives.

Re:Remember the hole in the ozone layer?

[gzuckier]

It turns out to be part of the foundation of Science. In Mathematics, you *can* prove things. Done. That's the difference between math and science. You can never prove anything in Science, you can only *disprove* things. "Our earlier hypothesis turned out to be wrong. It turns out that the Earth is not flat. Also domestic sheep have evolved into a new species, they can no longer mate with wild-type sheep. Who knew? Well, some people did. Just not you."

Nonsense, of course you can prove stuff in science...

The Earth isn't flat, it is:

"The shape of Earth approximates an oblate spheroid, a sphere flattened along the axis from pole to pole such that there is a bulge around the equator. This bulge results from the rotation of Earth, and causes the diameter at the equator to be 43 kilometres (27 mi) larger than the pole-to-pole diameter. Thus the point on the surface farthest from Earth's center of mass is the Chimborazo volcano in Ecuador or HuascarÃn in Peru. The average diameter of the reference spheroid is about 12,742 kilometres (7,918 mi), which is approximately 40,000 km/Ï, because the meter was originally defined as 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the equator to the North Pole through Paris, France."

This is not "The Earth is Flat" or "The Earth is a round ball", it is neither, but we know exactly what shape it is, this fact is not in dispute. (at least not by 99.99999% of the people standing on Earth)

You or anybody else does not know exactly what shape the earth is; and I can assure you it is not exactly an oblate spheroid. It is, according to your own statement, APPROXIMATELY an oblate spheroid. It is also APPROXIMATELY a sphere. And on a local level, it is approximately flat. Oblate spheroid approximates it better than a sphere, and sphere approximates it better than flat; but it's obviously not exactly an oblate spheroid; it has lumps and bumps and hollows and notches, and I doubt you know the exact shape, precisely, with 0 error.
And AGW theory does not exactly tell you what the global temperature is doing; but it approximates it better than any theory that does not have an AGW term in it.

Re:Remember the hole in the ozone layer?

[dave420]

Your discourse on other topics makes a lot more sense now - you assume you know more than you actually do, and don't entertain the thought of being wrong.

"Pretty darn" != "exactly precise". The Earth's shape is not entirely accurately mapped. There are margins of error, the ground moves, and so on. Not to mention the massive lack of mapping for the ocean floor. As for Earth's gravity, well, that changes everywhere. If you measure it where you are, it won't be 9.8m/s2. It will be close, but it won't be that.

Those two reasons show why "proof" is for mathematics and liquor. Science can never be 100% accurate, but it can get more and more accurate as more data is collected. Please realise you can be wrong :)

Re:Remember the hole in the ozone layer?

[FlyHelicopters]

Allow me to make this simple, since you wish to belabor the fine print and miss the big picture.

The Earth's exact shape may not be mapped down to the last detail, but it is more or less known, to a degree that it DOESN'T have thousands of people arguing about it.

The climate? Not so much.

The degree to which the Earth's shape is "settled" is many orders of magnitude more than the degree to which climate change is "settled".

Enjoy The Ride

[Dr. Tom]

Yawn. It's too late to do anything about it anyway. You might as well sit back and enjoy it. Unless we start a geoengineering project to remove CO2 from the atmosphere (and who's going to pay for that?) it'll be a thousand years before levels return to normal, *assuming* we cut emissions to zero right now, which will never happen. We could put giant mirrors in space to cool the Earth, but who wants to do that? I like the heat, and since we were due for another ice age, I personally would rather not have New York State under a kilometer of ice.

Re:Enjoy The Ride

[Viol8]

"I like the heat,"

Do you? In that case you might want to consider moving to india where they've had a fairly unprecedented hot spell recently with temperatures hitting 48C. Unfortunately unlike priviledged fat yanks like yourself, the majority don't have comfy air condition homes - if they have homes rather than a shack - to cool themselves with.

Re:Enjoy The Ride

[MagickalMyst]

"Unless we start a geoengineering project to remove CO2 from the atmosphere..."

Or we stop harmful deforestation products and continue to plant many, many trees.

Re:Enjoy The Ride

[MagickalMyst]

*projects

Re:Enjoy The Ride

[taiwanjohn]

Actually, there is a fairly simple solution that can be done in a couple of decades, and has the bonus side effect of producing megatons of food in some of the more impoverished regions of the world. The trick is to convert semi-arid and arid grasslands into productive grazing lands for herbivores by using Managed Intensive Rotational Grazing which is described in detail (with stunning before/after photos) by Allan Savory in this TED Talk.

In a nutshell: MIRG simulates the "mobbing, mowing, and moving" behavior of large herds of herbivores in nature, where herds "mob together" for protection from predators, and move constantly to find fresh pasture. Following in their wake is a swath of "disturbed" pasture, which has just been aerated by hoof prints and fed with a rich load of fertilizer. This spurs a blaze of regrowth in the grasses, which replaces root mass which had earlier been shed (many plants shed root mass when cropped, to preserve the root-shoot ratio). Thus, every time herbivores graze a piece of land, they sequester a large amount of carbon into the soil, and actually increase the health and the depth of the topsoil.

Obviously, there's quite a bit more to this story, including earthworks to harvest and retain water, permaculture design to optimize ecosystem health and productivity, etc. But hopefully this will be enough to get the gears turning...

Re:Enjoy The Ride

[khallow]

But under a kilometer of water is better? :)

You won't get a tenth of that if all the ice in the world melts. Sure, a 70 meter rise in sea level would be highly disruptive, but not as disruptive as a major glacial period.

Re:Enjoy The Ride

[Maritz]

The most important tenet of the Church of Warminetics

Considering your entire position involves shite-talking and sticking your fingers in your ears and going LA-LA-LA, I'd say people like yourself are more akin to creationists disputing evolution at this point.

Re:Enjoy The Ride

[clong83]

Not to be a nitpick, but the hole is closing, not closed... Faster than expected, even. But still very slow and will not be fully healed in my lifetime. Meanwhile, skin cancer rates over the last 40 years have soared, while rates of most other cancers have actually decreased. If we hadn't stopped with the CFCs when we did, we might very well have cooked ourselves with UV radiation.

ANd I don't remember any greenies saying we all had to suddenly go without refrigeration and air conditioning. The problem was that R-12 was bad, and we needed to switch to something else. But all the existing infrastructure was set up for R-12, so it seemed like it was going to be expensive. We had refrigerators and A/C before R-12, it just wasn't very common yet.

Before R-12, we used ammonia and absorbtion cycle (rather than compressor cycles). It works quite well and is actually more efficient than modern refrigerants. In an absorbtion cycle, I think even water can be used, albeit not as effectively. These technologies could have been brought back in a pinch for at least some purposes, there was absolutely no reason to abandon air conditioning as a principle. Instead we were able to largely switch to R-134a, which is pretty similar and can even be run in the same systems designed for R-12. In the beginning, I remember people complained that it wasn't as good of a refrigerant, but that is mainly because people were using it in compressor loops that were designed for R-12. It worked fairly well, but it wasn't optimal. My grandfather stockpiled cans of R-12, he was so concerned about not being able to cool his house and car with the new stuff.

So... was it environmentalists who claimed we were all going to have to go without A/C, or was it people like my grandfather, who were simply scared of that possibility because of an incomplete understanding?

Aside: I had a very, very old ammonia cycle refrigerator once. I was always nervous about it springing a leak in the night.

Re:Enjoy The Ride

[david_thornley]

This appears to be part of the inevitable progression of those unwilling to do anything.

Deny that the climate is changing rapidly. If this requires mass libel and attacking science in general, fine.

Deny that humans have anything to do with it. See above.

Deny that humans can do anything about it.

Agree that the climate is changing rapidly, and that it's our fault, and we could have done something about it, but it's too late now so there's no point in doing anything.

Re:Enjoy The Ride

[Coren22]

Actually, a scientific study was done that found the reflective aspects of contrails are more than offset by the IR reflective qualities of the water vapor. This means your solution of more jets will cause more warming, not less.

Re:Enjoy The Ride

[turkeyfish]

Except for the Palisades, there will be little of New York or any other coast city left in a few hundred years.

Re:Enjoy The Ride

[phantomfive]

Deny that the climate is changing rapidly. If this requires mass libel and attacking science in general, fine.

If this is step one, then the study here just pushed everyone back to step one.

Re:Enjoy The Ride

[turkeyfish]

Simply not true. Vegetation makes a tremendous difference in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, so much so that the records at Mauna Kea show distinct seasonal variation associated with it. Keep in mind that carbon dioxide is locked in wood for very long periods of time unless it is burned, just as carbon dioxide sequestered by algae can settle to the floor of the ocean where it is buried for long periods of time. The problem is that humans are both burning and removing forests at an increasing rate so all that previously sequestered carbon is going directly into the atmosphere and oceans increasing the concentration of this greenhouse gas thus global heating, not to mention the more serious problem of lower the pH of the oceans.

Re:Enjoy The Ride

[turkeyfish]

Actually, the ozone hole is still there and relatively large. It will be many years before it "closes".

Re:Enjoy The Ride

[david_thornley]

Without the adjustment proposed, we've got rapid increases until 2000, and much slower but significant increases from then, and hence rapid climate change (compared to natural processes). With the adjustment, we've got increased warming since 2000. I fail to see the problem you're claiming.

Re:Enjoy The Ride

[khallow]

And? Moving cities over a few centuries isn't a big deal given that most tenants move every few decades and most buildings don't last more than a few decades either.

Re:Enjoy The Ride

[riverat1]

Yawn. It's too late to do anything about it anyway. You might as well sit back and enjoy it. Unless we start a geoengineering project to remove CO2 from the atmosphere (and who's going to pay for that?) it'll be a thousand years before levels return to normal, *assuming* we cut emissions to zero right now, which will never happen. We could put giant mirrors in space to cool the Earth, but who wants to do that? I like the heat, and since we were due for another ice age, I personally would rather not have New York State under a kilometer of ice.

Yes, there is a certain amount of change already built in to the changes we've wrought but that doesn't mean we can't make it even worse in the future. It's not a binary problem. As long as CO2 keeps increasing the ultimate point we arrive at will be that much worse. Whatever we think about doing the first thing should be to stop making it worse.

Re:Enjoy The Ride

[riverat1]

Planting trees is a good thing and helps a little but don't think it's going to cure the problem. By burning coal we're burning the sequestered carbon accumulated by trees over millions of years so it would take a similar amount of time for trees to take it back down.

Re:Enjoy The Ride

[riverat1]

You may remember when this tactic was tried with the ozone hole. As the hole expended the Greens intoned that even if we repented and stopped using air conditioning immediately, we would fry for generations to come. What actually happened was that we made a minor change in the formulation of our refrigerants, the hole closed up, and was never heard from again. We will never know whether that was correlation or causation.

Jesus! The causal link between CFC's and ozone depletion is well established in science. The ozone hole is still there, it's just quit getting worse. It won't be until the 2nd half of this century before the CFC's in the atmosphere are reduced enough for the ozone layer to get back to where it was in the first half of the 20th century. If you're that misinformed about ozone why would we believe anything you have to say about global warming?

Re:Enjoy The Ride

[jwhitener]

Yawn. It's too late to do anything about it anyway. You might as well sit back and enjoy it. Unless we start a geoengineering project to remove CO2 from the atmosphere (and who's going to pay for that?) it'll be a thousand years before levels return to normal,

Is this the latest 'denier' phase? They have finally accepted it is happening, but "we can't do anything about it in time, so why bother?".

Re:Enjoy The Ride

[jwhitener]

I really want to believe that Ted Talk. I've watched it a couple times. But when I did a little background research, I found out that Savory's work was received very well in the mainstream academic circles. There was a lot of criticism that he was cherry picking his success stories from a set of many failures, and that he is basically claiming success based on a lot of correlations, not proving causations.

Maybe I just google'd poorly at the time. Not sure. Do you think he's more mainstream (has good evidence) than my first impressions?

Re:Enjoy The Ride

[TaleSpinner]

> I personally would rather not have New York State under a kilometer of ice.

Personally I find that idea very appealing. Between that and the San Andreas fault we might be able to make some REAL progress.

Re:Enjoy The Ride

[dave420]

Not to mention those trees would have to be kept free of any microbes which would try to break it down into its constituent parts, releasing the CO2 back in the atmosphere...

In other words....

[Anonymous Coward]

The new analysis corrects for ocean observations made using different methods as well as including new data on surface temperatures.

"We're still massaging the data to make it look the way that fits our pre-conceived notions. STATISTICS!!"

Re:In other words....

[Dr. Tom]

"We're still massaging the data to make it look the way that fits our pre-conceived notions. STATISTICS!!"

"We're still yammering on about the way we believe the world is and has always been. IGNORANCE!!"

TGIF

[Guy From V]

Climate change story is a sign the weekend is finally here.

Re:TGIF

[Dr. Tom]

It's been cold and rainy here all week. Looks like we might finally be in for some warmer weather this weekend. Still gonna rain, though. The East Coast Monsoon. Seems like we'll be seeing more of it this year.

Re:TGIF

[dave420]

Your argument seems somewhat ill thought out. The climate has rarely changed this fast, and that's the problem - the speed of change. No-one expects the climate to stay the same for an indefinite period of time, yet plenty of people would rather still have a favourable one in the near future. You should slow down and think about these things. Your grasp of logic is, well, primitive at best. Unless you're simply lying to make yourself feel better for living a douchey lifestyle, that is...

Data tampering

[Anonymous Coward]

The new "analysis" deliberately tampered with data for this very purpose:

New climate data by NOAA scientists doubles the warming trend since the late 1990s by adjusting pre-hiatus temperatures downward and inflating temperatures in more recent years.

Re:Data tampering

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever notice how the deniers always post as Anonymous?

Ever notice how anyone with even the slightest hint of skepticism gets voted down in to oblivion because of the group-think?

Re:Data tampering

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever notice how the deniers always post as Anonymous?

He ain't the one "correcting" data.

Real question: if mankind isn't causing the climate to warm - as the last 15 years seem to indicate - WHY THE HELL DO YOU THINK THAT'S BAD AND NEEDS TO BE "CORRECTED"?!?!?!

The only reason I can think of that makes any sense is you're an unthinking knee-jerk misanthrope who WANTS to be able to toss rocks at humanity in general; white, western European culture in general, and the United States in particular.

Re:Data tampering

[sideslash]

Counterexample: I've frequently been called a denier and modded down with what I refer to as "-1 (disagree)" over AGW. I don't post as AC. I enjoy the discussions, and wish for a bit more civility and less ad hominem.

Re:Data tampering

[mixed_signal]

Maybe, just maybe you should read the original article and references and think for yourself, rather than relying on any of "the media" to present the science?

Re:Data tampering

[Coren22]

Ever notice that the NOAA satellites also showed no warming? Maybe they need to be recalibrated too.

Re:Data tampering

[davek]

Thank you.

And props to /. for actually modding this informative, since it is.

Re:Data tampering

[dywolf]

the daily caller is unaware that different measurement methods result in different readings.
but then, this is old news.

every time they talk about this, they (as well as most other unscientifically educated deniers) are reminded that a sensor in the sun an inch away from a sensor in the shade will read a higher temperature, yet neither reading is "wrong".

and therefore corrections are made to align each reading to the same baseline based on the local conditions, sensor type, methodology, and every other factor that may impact a reading, all of which is also recorded along with the measurement precisely for that purpose.

Re:Data tampering

[turkeyfish]

Perhaps its precisely because AGW is actually a fact? Perhaps this possibility hasn't entered into your thinking. Remember "corrections" wouldn't be necessary at all, if there wasn't something that need correcting.

Re:Data tampering

[riverat1]

Climate Change is happening. It has always happened. It's nature. There's nothing we can do about it except adjust to meet the new demands.

The argument that climate change is always happening is a truism but akin to magical thinking. Climate change is a physical phenomenon and therefore always has physical causes. The whole point of science (not just climate science but all physical sciences) is to understand the physical world we live in. Essentially you're saying there's no point in studying climate and using that knowledge to our advantage. That's a pretty defeatist attitude if you ask me.

Re: Data tampering

[tmosley]

It largely isn't melting. For example, Antarctic sea ice is at historical highs, at least according to several sources (though they could all be in on or fooled by some conspiracy). But yes, glaciers advance and retreat. This is natural. I would posit it is more of an effect of humidity than cold, as I live in a semi-arid climate, and the ice in my ice cube trays keeps sublimating.

See, your problem is that you are working off of faulty (at least, according to me--check your own work) assumptions, namely that people who are directly supervised by and receive funding from politicians can be trusted not to have bias.

It may sound crazy, but loads of communists moved into the environmental movement after they realized that Communism was a non-starter among Americans, and have been working to undermine capitalism using an environmental justification ever since. This is why they chose CO2, which is an unavoidable product of the combustion of fossil fuels, and not easy to remedy (like the other one, water, would be). You can tell a true environmentalist from a communist plant by whether or not they support nuclear technology/power production. Note also that McCarthy was recently proven to be largely correct in his assertion that communists were infiltrating America.

Re:Data tampering

[riverat1]

So why do all temperature "corrections" change data in ways that support AGW?

Do you care to back that up with some actual evidence. Or is it just that the only corrections you hear about are the ones that get bandied about in the denialosphere?

One think you should know is that the long term warming trend calculated from raw data is greater than the warming trend calculated from adjusted data so the net result of the adjustments is less global warming.

Re:Data tampering

[riverat1]

Ever notice how easily people like you accept results that fit your narrative without skepticism? I doubt you have a clue about how complex it is to derive temperatures from satellite measurements of microwave emissions of oxygen in the atmosphere.

Re: Data tampering

[dave420]

Sea ice is where land ice goes after it melts. The fact there is so much sea ice can be a good indication that the land ice is melting, and that's the important factor, as melting land ice increases the sea level. Glaciers do advance and retreat, but never before have so many glaciers retreated so fast without any signs of being able to advance later.

Your prattling on about communists and scientific communities is not a "post high level, thoughtful rebuttal", but the ramblings of a lunatic. You are painting the denialists in a wonderfully ignorant, reactionary, scared light. He asks a scientific question, and you shit your pants about communists. I hope for your sake you are taking the piss :)

Re:Data tampering

[dave420]

With every post you show the world how little you know, and how proud of that fact you are. You have been failed by your educators.

Re: Data tampering

[tmosley]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

You know, your use of words of dismissal are mind killers. You would do well to break that habit, and actually read a little into what other people say instead of deriding them.

This is why you can't hold a civil conversation with anyone who believes differently than you do. An educated man can entertain an idea without embracing it. At least that's what Aristotle thought. Perhaps you should endeavor to become educated yourself?

Data doesn't fit political needs! New Model STAT

[Anonymous Coward]

When the data ceases to match the model, why is it that global warming agenda pushers always say that it is the model that is wrong and change the model? Instead of questioning at their underlying assumptions, as the scientific method dictates? Oh, because then they don't get to push their agenda to get more money. CAPTCHA: Idealism

How to fix the pause!

[cirby]

1) Notice that a lot of the ocean temperatures are now collected by buoys
2) Notice that older temperatures were mostly collected by ships, and trended slightly warmer than the buoy measurements
3) Assume that the actual temperature is somewhere in between (instead of using the more-accurate buoy numbers)
4) Adjust the ship temperature numbers down (cooling the past record by a fraction of a degree)
5) Adjust the buoy temperature numbers up (warming the current temps by a fraction of a degree)
6) Voila! The pause disappeared!

(In ocean temps. If you ignore all of the other things like satellite measurements that don't agree.)

Re:How to fix the pause!

[Eunuchswear]

Not too hot on that "reading" concept are you?

No, that is not what they did,

Re:How to fix the pause!

[cirby]

...except they didn't, overall. It would be wrong, at that: most ship-based SST measurements are at various depths (ship intake, bucket measurements, each of which are at random depths). A ship engine intake depth can be anywhere from a meter below the surface to ten times that depth, and the old bucket measurements were all over the place.

Adjustments for differing measurements have already been made in the historical record - they went in and adjusted it MORE because it wasn't agreeing with the global warming that they just assume has to be happening (because of their continually-blown model predictions).

Your "reinterpretation" of #3 is fanciful at best. Why make bad science even worse by adjusting the actual data?

Re:How to fix the pause!

[berbmit]

Always interesting to see people get is backwards. What they actually did was this: Trend adjustments

Re:How to fix the pause!

[cirby]

...except that the article you cite did some cherry-picking to find ONE chart that (if you don't look too closely) sorta disagrees with what you claim they actually did, and ignores pretty much all of the rest of the paper.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2015/06/05/science.aaa5632/F2.large.jpg

The author screws up by looking at the lower half of Figure 2, and assuming that was their analysis. Instead, he should have paid more attention to the top half of Figure 2, which is their end result. They did one bad thing: used a heavy black line versus a thin red line, which obscured the actual adjustment (lowering in the past, raising in the present). If you go to the actual paper and view the largest version of Figure 2, you can easily see the changes in the top half.

Notice also that the lower half of Figure 2 just shows how they threw out the old, well-used set of corrections for engine intake and bucket methods and substituted their own, which include the "adjustment" to the previous temperature records.

Re:How to fix the pause!

[david_thornley]

The critical problem is in your (3). It doesn't matter whether the ships or buoys are more accurate, because we've changed the basis of estimate. We used to judge these temperatures primarily with ships and we now use a lot of buoys, which for some reason read cooler.

We're not so much concerned here with the actual temperature of the Earth here as the change over time. This means that, if we go from a less accurate to a more accurate measurement, and don't account for it, we can mess up the trend. If we could drop buoys back in time and get buoy readings in earlier times, we might have a more accurate measure, but more importantly we'd have a consistent basis for measurement. Since we can't do that, we could either throw out all the buoy readings to keep the measurements consistent, or use the buoy readings and compensate for the systemic bias in temperature.

Re:How to fix the pause!

[cirby]

And that's where it falls apart.

This study gets the "warm" result by combining two different datasets - old, ship-based measurements plus new, buoy-based ones. Which has been done many times before, and resulted in the old curve that flattened out. This is NOT a new problem, and has been well understood for as long as AGW has been predicted. The adjustments were already there (see the lower part of Figure 2 in the study).

This study MODIFIES that "change over time" by lowering the ship-based measurements (which dominated the SST series for most of the last century) and fudging up the buoy-based ones. Since there are an increasing number of buoys (though not as many as you'd think) and fewer reporting ships, this adds about +0.12 C to the trend over the last twenty years or so - which just happens to be the right size to make the "pause" disappear. Sort of.

Unfortunately, even if you believe this modification, it causes another issue - it still highlights that (even if you cheat the numbers up), we're still missing a lot of predicted warming - almost 0.5C so far. Which means that catastrophic AGW (in the 3C - 5C range by 2100) just isn't happening.

Re:How to fix the pause!

[phantomfive]

Since we can't do that, we could either throw out all the buoy readings to keep the measurements consistent, or use the buoy readings and compensate for the systemic bias in temperature.

That's cool, but why didn't they do that before? Why are you defending changes in the temperature records now, only when it supports what you agree with?

More importantly, where are the error bars and how were they calculated?

Re:How to fix the pause!

[pipingguy]

Why make bad science even worse by adjusting the actual data?

Because this is a political issue, and there are hundreds of billions of dollars, careers, emotional investments, self-flattering moral superiority positioning and reputations at stake.

Re:How to fix the pause!

[david_thornley]

I don't know why they didn't do that before. Are you claiming that, once you made a mistake, you're not allowed to correct it?

As far as defending changes, any time some new evidence comes out about global warming a bunch of idiots attacks it. For any other situation, nobody makes a big deal about it. I only defend that which people attack. It saves energy that way.

Re:How to fix the pause!

[riverat1]

You got #4 wrong because they didn't adjust the ship temperature numbers down at all, just the buoy numbers up.

Don't like the data find data you do

[Crashmarik]

Oh and btw when you say corrects for ocean data from different sources, you mean adjusts sea buoy data upward to agree ship based sensor data.

Re:Sinking

[Dr. Tom]

El Niño, derp.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

You ever hear about convection?

once the data is "processed"...

[argStyopa]

There have been some accusations that the data is being 'massaged' to get to a specific result:
https://stevengoddard.wordpres...

Re:once the data is "processed"...

[Crashmarik]

There's 6 data sets that support the pause

http://asoidu8q123u9081.imgur....

Now there is this data set made by combining two incompatible sources and adjusting one up.

That's one well picked there, genetically modified as well no less.

Re:once the data is "processed"...

[locofungus]

There's 6 data sets that support the pause

http://asoidu8q123u9081.imgur....

Admittedly, I'm just eyeballing them but it's far from obvious that any of them exhibit a pause at all.

To exhibit a pause you'd have to show that the trend after a certain point was (aproximately) zero and, equally important, that that zero trend was statisitically different from the trend in the prior data.

There's only 36 or so years of data there so I'd be astonished if you could find any point on any one of them that had a statistically significant different trend before and after the point EVEN IF you don't require the two trend lines to join at the point where it changes.

It looks likely to me that there is likely to be a significant warming trend in all six graphs. I'd not be instantly dismissive of a claim that they were compatible with no warming since 1979 but I'd want to see the calculations.

Not very confidence-inspiring

[Hrrrg]

While I personally believe in man-made global warming, this sort of thing makes it hard to argue with someone who claims the researchers are just massaging the data until it shows what they think it should show.
 

Re:Not very confidence-inspiring

[Blaskowicz]

Yet the trolls used to say that scientists fail to correct data for urban island effect.
Don't forget who is incompetent or who is funded to instill anti-science propaganda. You shouldn't have to be ashamed to support real science.

Re:Not very confidence-inspiring

[FlyHelicopters]

While I personally believe in man-made global warming, this sort of thing makes it hard to argue with someone who claims the researchers are just massaging the data until it shows what they think it should show.

Your words speak the truth...

You "personally believe" in man-made global warming... just like Christians "personally believe" in God.

I know a few Christians who think the matter is "settled" as well.

---

To the point, I have no idea if we even have global warming, that point can be debated. Then the question is, if we have it, how much, if any, is man-made?

Re:Not very confidence-inspiring

[pastafazou]

• 1. claiming scientists are failing to correct the data for urban island effect means you're a troll?
• 2. incompetence is exclusive to one side?
• 3. do you have a list of those being funded to instill anti-science propaganda? Proof of the funding? Or is this an unfounded accusation based on an assumption?
• 4. why is it okay to accuse one side of being bought with money, but not the other? US Climate Science research spending is in the Billions of dollars.

Re:Not very confidence-inspiring

[david_thornley]

Ah yes. When raw sensor data shows the planet is warming, the sensors must be wrong. When careful study of sensor data shows that it's slightly biased towards being cooler, the sensors have to be right.

Re:Not very confidence-inspiring

[mixed_signal]

Alignment of temperature measurements has been part of the analyses for a long, long time. Do you have a better suggestion as to how to deal with large data sets collected by different types of instruments?

Re:Not very confidence-inspiring

[dywolf]

I have a thermometer in Central Park (New York City), under a tree surrounded by other trees, with 40 years of data.

I have another in Pheonix, Arizona, on top of a 50 foot pole in direct sunlight, also with 40 years of data.

I have a 3rd in Redding, CA. It used to be exposed to the predominant wind flow on top of a 10,000ft mountain, under a sunshade, but was moved to inside a shed at the local airport, more than 6000ft lower. Also, it was changed from a Simpson PRC-6000 to a Fluke PRT-20 when it was moved.

So you tell me, how am I supposed to align them to the same baseline so that their measurements are scientifically and statistically useful?

The person making the claims that researchers are "massaging data" is a person who either doesn't understand that local conditions of the sensor installation can affect the data recorded, or that its desirable to have a common baseline to make the measurements scientifically/statistically compatible, or both. Usually both.

Re:Not very confidence-inspiring

[hey!]

Well one person's "massaging" is another person's "interpreting in a less highly selective context". I'll tell a personal story that illustrates this.

I once was tasked at converting a public health agency's legacy records into a new database. One of their datasets was mosquito trapping records -- the supervisor boasted they had almost thirty years of historical data. Now by this point I'd had a lot of experience with similar datasets, so I knew that any given trapping station would follow some kind of pattern. Depending on the local habitat and species one trap might produce most when the weather got hot while another would be more sensitive to rain. One thing I liked to do was plot El Nino years to see how the weekly production varied with the anomalously cool and wet weather. But when I did my usual set of plots I found no discernible patterns across years for the trapping stations, which was highly unusual. I'd handled dozens of datasets like this and had never seen that happen.

Now one of the things I like to do when I look at events in a dataset like that is ask how comparable event records really are. Catching mosquitoes is like catching fish; moving your trap a few feet can totally skew your readings between years. So I talked to the field workers, and what I discovered that while everyone talked about "trap locations", the numbers in the legacy data were actually trap *numbers*. Trap #1 might have been placed on one end of the county one year and then on the opposite end the following year.

When I looked at the *raw* data, and the absence of the expected patterns is what alerted me to the fact the dataset was screwy. However the *aggregate* numbers across all stations could in theory be comparable between years because they sampled the same locations, they just couldn't tell which was which. But of course it's not that simple. I'd also have needed to account for the difference in *methods*. They must have at several points in thirty years upgraded their mosquito light traps; perhaps adding octanol as a chemical attractant some years or CO2 in other years. Even the difference in reliability between trap designs biases the aggregate results. To accurately compare years I need to take into account the relative effectiveness of the changing methods used. This process is of course subject to bias, but just taking the *raw* data would yield nothing but literally confounded nonsense.

This is what environmental data tends to be like. In a laboratory you control conditions so every measurement set is complete and self-comparable right off the instrument reading if possible. But in a regional, multi-decade environmental dataset you don't have that luxury, and aggregating that data is not as simple as taking an average. For example you may have 10x as many monitoring stations in 2005 than you had in 1935, so the raw aggregates don't tell you anything because any underlying difference is confounded with the fact the bulk of stations you're measuring in 2005 didn't exist in '35. To make an *aggregate* data comparable between decades you have to massage it using some kind of model of the effect of confounding factors is. This is always a debatable process, but that doesn't mean one guess is as good as any another. That's why claims like this are published in journals, to be ripped to shreds if possible, and if that's not accomplished to become the basis of a new scientific consensus.

Re:Not very confidence-inspiring

[FlyHelicopters]

You said that, I didn't.

I don't know if we really are having global warming, or cooling, or anything... I am not convinced that we have enough data for a long enough period of time to be really sure.

Even if we were, we then don't know if mankind caused some of it, any of it, or all of it.

Re:Not very confidence-inspiring

[FlyHelicopters]

Very nice denialism.

You keep using the word denialism, it just makes you look more and more the fool.

Insulting anyone who doesn't agree with you doesn't bring people to your side.

The proper word is skeptic. I'm open to hearing more evidence and continuing to look into it, but the matter isn't settled just yet.

The very great preponderance of scientific evidence is that yes, in fact, we do have global warming.

You keep repeating that... doesn't make it right...

We might, the subject is still up for debate, yet for some reason you don't wish to debate it...

The question of how much, if any, is man made is also mostly (though not completely)

You say that with a degree of certainty that I do not believe is justified. You might think so, but your thinking so doesn't mean much.

Re:Not very confidence-inspiring

[Blaskowicz]

I reject even the notion of "sides", because bloggers don't do science. Not all investigations are like "pro side vs anti side" journalistic reporting or a US criminal trial determined by a battle between two lawyers. In many countries there's civil law/roman law for that matter and trials work a fair bit differently. (but may be decided by a jury at the end just as in the US).
Rarely, there's investigative journalism i.e. journalists trying to actually find out about things and not just talking head from side A vs talking head from side B. They may show e.g. $corrupt_official saying bullshit but then say such things as "in reality, these were not adult barmaids as they pretended but underage babes from fuckistanavia abducted and brought here by a child prostitution network" and then document the prostitution network. So it's one-sided reporting.

Re 1., Climategate was about scientists correcting bad data from tree samples and they were "caught" after an occult team of hackers stole private email (which is called "computer crime"). Bloggers (or editorialists) say as they please though : 10/15 years ago they were saying "it's volcanoes", which was childish bullshit, then they accused scientists of using uncorrected data (urban heat islands), then they accused them of using corrected data. They can say anything and parrot and quote each other and don't face consequences, whereas scientists do have their jobs on the line, for sure.. but their first problem is that if they're caught doing fraud or a really half-assed job then they lose their whole carreer.
Re 3. funding is anonymized and distributed by financial engineering. kind of like rich corporations and individuals funnel billions in the same places drug lords do.

Re:Not very confidence-inspiring

[david_thornley]

By studying the history of science, I've failed to find any case in which the scientific consensus was all that wrong about actual observables. If we aren't warming up, it's an unprecedented failure in science. (The scientific consensus has sometimes been wrong on interpretations, although that isn't common either.)

I don't really care what you don't know about climate science, but saying "we then don't know" is being a little presumptuous.

Re:Not very confidence-inspiring

[Livius]

A skeptic is dubious in good faith. A denialist is incredulous in bad faith.

Denialism was the correct term.

Re:Not very confidence-inspiring

[jwhitener]

While I personally believe in man-made global warming, this sort of thing makes it hard to argue with someone who claims the researchers are just massaging the data until it shows what they think it should show.

Except that is not what they did. Re-read this discussion if you want the details.

Massaging the numbers to stifle debate

[Anonymous Coward]

They went back and deliberately reweighed the numbers and yet people still think this is "science"? it is politics.

Electric Joule Heating

[paradigmsareconstruc]

There has been a debate over how to model cosmic plasmas (such as the solar wind) for more than half a century between the Astrophysical Journal and IEEE's Transactions on Plasma Science.

Conventional theory models this flow of charged particles fundamentally as a fluid, but these models have been in dispute since their inception.

Electric joule heating stems from the idea that these moving charges are an electric current, and advocates point to the fact that the solar wind is oftentimes guided by planetary magnetic fields into the poles.

The presence of hot spots at the poles of Enceladus, Neptune and Venus, in particular, are suggestive of the simple idea that these moving charged particles can heat up the planets.

It was noted in 2005 by NASA that Mars' ice caps had also been diminishing for three summers in a row.

Pluto has continued to warm up even as it moves away from the Sun.

Many atmospheric circulation models are unable to reproduce the observed polar stratospheric winds (aka the polar vortex).

The observed splitting of the polar vortex on both Earth and Venus is an expected feature of laboratory plasmas when they are conducting electrical currents, yet climate and planetary scientists claim to not understand either observation.

The solar wind intensity correlates with lightning strikes, raising questions about lightning's underlying cause, and suggesting that the Earth is part of a larger electrical circuit.

Sunspot numbers appear to correlate with lower stratosphere temperature anomalies, minus the temporal effects of volcanic eruptions -- suggesting that the sunspots are related to these electrical flows. Laboratory plasma terrella experiments appear to confirm this suspicion.

Electric field variability can significantly increase the amount of Joule heating, yet existing general circulation models assume a smooth field in both space and time. In other words, the current climate models do not take electric joule heating into account.

The primitive equations which are used to model atmospheric flows basically ignore charge change phenomena.

This will likely turn out to be a mistake.

For a more graphical presentation w/ the sources for these claims, see https://plus.google.com/108466...

Re:Electric Joule Heating

[Anonymous Coward]

The primitive equations which are used to model atmospheric flows basically ignore charge change phenomena.

Lol, this is crank science ... do me a favor 1) write navier stokes equations in energy form 2) add joule heating term 3) do order of mangitude analysis under liberal and conservative assumptions. 4) discard joule heating after realizing its negligible by about by 5 orders of magnitude. Or look up all the papers in the 1950s and 1960s that published on this. Yeah thanks for playing, you idiot clown.

Re:Electric Joule Heating

[vigour]

The primitive equations which are used to model atmospheric flows basically ignore charge change phenomena.

Lol, this is crank science ... do me a favor 1) write navier stokes equations in energy form 2) add joule heating term 3) do order of mangitude analysis under liberal and conservative assumptions. 4) discard joule heating after realizing its negligible by about by 5 orders of magnitude. Or look up all the papers in the 1950s and 1960s that published on this. Yeah thanks for playing, you idiot clown.

Oh for mod points... I never have the bloody things when I want to rate something informative. However, there's no need to call him/her an idiot clown.

Re:Electric Joule Heating

[paradigmsareconstruc]

You're pointing to research done right around the time of the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belts. Prior to that discovery, it was generally assumed that space was largely a vacuum. Our understanding of both laboratory and cosmic plasmas has significantly advanced since that time.

IEEE never stopped publishing on this topic, and there should be nothing at all controversial about taking the data necessary to meaningfully evaluate electric joule heating (which to be clear is not happening right now).

We should never base such a significant public policy purely on equations born of a half-century-old worldview. The inventor of magnetohydrodynamics, Hannes Alfven, was very clear on this point that the MHD equations have never accurately modeled the cosmic plasma. The call-to-action by climate change scientists dictates a rigorous approach where we actually seek to check the validity of these equations.

Re:Electric Joule Heating

[phantomfive]

do order of mangitude analysis under liberal and conservative assumptions.

I knew science was all political based!!!!!

Re: Electric Joule Heating

[paradigmsareconstruc]

You might consider listening to the graduate programs' biggest critic, Jeff Schmidt. He explains exactly what is going on here, but on a much more fundamental level. The consensus is created within the graduate programs. He shows exactly how that is. The key quotes from his book, Disciplined Minds are collected here:

https://plus.google.com/108466...

Re:Electric Joule Heating

[paradigmsareconstruc]

It takes a lot of effort to look at a galaxy connected by wires, and nevertheless refuse to consider that the wires might actually be conducting ...

"Observations with ESA's Herschel space observatory have revealed that our Galaxy is threaded with filamentary structures on every length scale. From nearby clouds hosting tangles of filaments a few light-years long to gigantic structures stretching hundreds of light-years across the Milky Way's spiral arms, they appear to be truly ubiquitous. The Herschel data have rekindled the interest of astronomers in studying filaments, emphasising the crucial role of these structures in the process of star formation."

See recent article at http://sci.esa.int/herschel/55...

Notice also people who try so hard to ignore electrical cosmology then subsequently just have no idea that they are re-discovering things that laboratory astrophysicists discovered in the 19th century ...

https://plus.google.com/+Chris...

The unfortunate thing of science reporting

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the unfortunate thing of science reporting; the scientific process is misunderstood by laypeople. And as a result, folks start assuming that the scientific community doesn't have a clue or are making shit up to get grants. Now, I am perfectly aware of the problems of publication bias and other criticisms of the process but the study of global warming is so widespread and a concern of so many parties - some of which will lose big and possibly gain big - that any shenanigans would be eliminated from the scientific process or at the very least pushed aside to the fringes.

As far as shenanigans are concerned, it's all in the general media and by people who are completely unqualified to make any sort of educated contribution.

Re:Data doesn't fit political needs! New Model STA

[plopez]

BOth can happen. BUt the model has been pretty good to date and in reviewing it they found some things in those data which were not consistent and so was normalized and they also had new data which supported the model. Hence there is no evidence to which shows the fundamental facts and assumptions are wrong. There is no evidence to discard underlying assumptions such as Thermodynamics works as expected when investigating the climate.

Not popular, but plausible?

[Lucas123]

If the planet was emerging from an ice age, meaning there would be variations in temperature, CO2, and dust from the Vostok ice core over the last 400,000 years, couldn't global warming be a natural occurrence, having nothing to do with mankind's addition to CO2 gases from carbon fuels?

Re:Not popular, but plausible?

[riverat1]

We finished emerging from the most recent glacial period about 8,000 years ago. Since around 6,000 years ago the Earth has been on a slight cooling trend and Milankovitch Cycles are trending for continued cooling. Other known factors in natural climate forcing have shown no strong trends. The recent spike in temperatures is unexpected given all we know about natural climate forcing. There's been a 40% increase in atmospheric CO2 due to human emissions. Everything we know about physics points to that being the primary cause of the warming.

The did and are manipulating the data

[Anonymous Coward]

This latest attempt to shore up the crumbling global warming agenda is another obvious attempt to manipulate the data and create momentum for the Paris meeting later this year.

This new study (or mangling the data to get the conclusion you want) is full of holes.
They have extrapolated land temps to sea areas where no data exists.
They have adjusted (the favorite warmists method, warm new temperature while adjusting old temperature data down to create a trend) sea surface temperatures to agree with a less reliable data set instead of the other way around.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/04/a-first-look-at-possible-artifacts-of-data-biases-in-the-recent-global-surface-warming-hiatus-by-karl-et-al-science-4-june-2015/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/04/noaas-new-paper-is-there-no-global-warming-hiatus-after-all/

are two critiques of this tendentiously timed data mangling.

Indeed, our best temperature data in the USA (I know, not the whole world) the USCRN (US climate reference network) uses triple redundant aspirated platinum temp sensors in pristine rural locations. It has been operating for >10 years, and shows NO warming at all. This data is not adjusted like so much of the surface record.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/07/noaa-shows-the-pause-in-the-u-s-surface-temperature-record-over-nearly-a-decade/

The satellite temp record (also with no hokey adjustments to create warming like GISS) also shows NO warming for the past 15-20 years.

So, this new data mangling is just another last ditch attempt to ram through the UNIPCC agenda, of controlling the energy infrastructure of the world for a green socialist fantasy.

Re:The did and are manipulating the data

[turkeyfish]

"The satellite temp record (also with no hokey adjustments to create warming like GISS) also shows NO warming for the past 15-20 years."

This is a false statement, except for one satellite, whose data was reported without correcting for the descent of its orbit.

Even if it were true, it leads to a bigger problem for the deniers of AWG. If its not getting warmer, why is all the ice in glaciers, ice fields, and ice sheets melting at at rates higher than ever previously observed?

Why is it that not a single AWG global warming denier is able to answer this question? We know its not the sun, as the variation in insolation is too small in magnitude to account for all the melting. We know its not Milankovitch cycles and other orbital cycles since the present position of the Earth, Sun and planets all predict that the Earth should be cooling now rather than warming.

Why are AWG global warming deniers unable to answer why it is that all the ice is melting if its not getting warmer?

Re:The did and are manipulating the data

[riverat1]

The satellite temp record (also with no hokey adjustments to create warming like GISS) also shows NO warming for the past 15-20 years.

Do you have any idea of the amount of processing required to convert the measurements of microwave emissions of O2 in the atmosphere by satellites to temperatures? They have to account for new satellites replacing old ones, orbital variations, sensor degradation, high altitude land and atmospheric water vapor that all affect the measurements. There is far more processing to produce satellite temperature measurements than there is for surface temperatures.

Re:The did and are manipulating the data

[jwhitener]

Anyone that links to http://wattsupwiththat.com should just be auto-modded down.

Re:The did and are manipulating the data

[gzuckier]

This latest attempt to shore up the crumbling global warming agenda is another obvious attempt to manipulate the data and create momentum for the Paris meeting later this year.

This new study (or mangling the data to get the conclusion you want) is full of holes. They have extrapolated land temps to sea areas where no data exists. They have adjusted (the favorite warmists method, warm new temperature while adjusting old temperature data down to create a trend) sea surface temperatures to agree with a less reliable data set instead of the other way around.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/04/a-first-look-at-possible-artifacts-of-data-biases-in-the-recent-global-surface-warming-hiatus-by-karl-et-al-science-4-june-2015/ http://wattsupwiththat.com/201...

are two critiques of this tendentiously timed data mangling.

Indeed, our best temperature data in the USA (I know, not the whole world) the USCRN (US climate reference network) uses triple redundant aspirated platinum temp sensors in pristine rural locations. It has been operating for >10 years, and shows NO warming at all. This data is not adjusted like so much of the surface record. http://wattsupwiththat.com/201...

The satellite temp record (also with no hokey adjustments to create warming like GISS) also shows NO warming for the past 15-20 years.

So, this new data mangling is just another last ditch attempt to ram through the UNIPCC agenda, of controlling the energy infrastructure of the world for a green socialist fantasy.

"(I know, not the whole world)" Knowing it isn't enough. You have to understand why the behavior of less than 7% of the planet's surface is completely useless as evidence for your bias, much as you'd love it to be really really really convincing; never mind that only one piece of that 7% lies in the polar regions which AGW predicts are the most affected.

Re:The did and are manipulating the data

[dave420]

Because the evidence shows the polar ice sheets are melting... Maybe that's why. Hint: Sea ice != ice sheet.

Re:The did and are manipulating the data

[jwhitener]

Watt has never been correct about this stuff. Not a single time has any of his criticisms of climate science been proven correct. Even most climate scientists have stopped bothering to reply to his accusations.

It may be a logical fallacy to assume someone is incorrect because of their sources, but 99/100 being wrong tends to make it a good bet that the 100th time will also be wrong.

Using NOAA's fudged data

[Anonymous Coward]

There lots of reasons to be skeptical of this report. NOAA was recently caught tampering with the temperature data in Maine. They drastically adjusted their data to cool the past and warm the present. In one particular area they cooled the past as much as 4degrees F – an adjustment that can’t be justified under any scientific method and they didn’t explain why they did it.

This scientific conclusion here is that the 2 decade pause does not exist and we just need to adjust the data to make it appear. They proved it by using only surface data which is the same data NOAA has been tempering with from day 1.

I'm skeptical NOT because I don’t think it’s possible humans are causing warming, I’m skeptical because I have doubts about the data. I have doubts about the sincerity, the honesty, the legitimacy of some of the science behind the data. There’s too much politics involved and too much money involved going to global warming advocates and scientists, and they will do anything it seems to justify there theory that global warming exists.

Why would anyone trust a system where the raw data is not made public AND the justifications for changing it are not made public.That's politics, not science.

"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything."

Re:Using NOAA's fudged data

[paradigmsareconstruc]

It brings me a lot of pleasure actually to see the Slashdot community transition on this issue. I feel like the people here are becoming more informed than the Slashdot moderators themselves who pick these articles -- a situation that is not entirely different from what is also happening at WUWT.

I might have to actually rejoin the comments here. I just didn't want to be a part of what was happening before.

Re:Using NOAA's fudged data

[turkeyfish]

Better yet, lets figure out how to get the anti-AWG crowd to explain, why if its not getting any hotter, all the world's glaicer, ice fields, and ice sheets are melting at rates faster than ever previously reported?

Why is it those who are skeptical about AWG can NEVER answer this question?

Fun fact

[srussia]

Algor means "cooling" in Latin.

It's cold where I'm at...

[kk5wa]

Therefore...checkmate.

What can we do vs What should we do?

[Atrox Canis]

Q: Should we be actively engaged in protecting our environment
A: Yes

Q: Has mankind contributed to the degradation of our environment
A: Yes

Q: Are we the largest cause of Global Warming
A: Not really certain, possibly

Q: Can we do anything to halt or slow down the damage we are doing
A: Yes

Q: Should we
A: Yes

Well, what should we do vs what can we do becomes the biggest question. There are a number of things that reasonable people can agree upon that will have an impact. Everything from the individual effort to not deliberately contribute to polluting our environment to providing incentive's to corporations and governments to reduce and regulate appropriately. It does no long term good to punish business out of existence simply to appease one group or another. It does no good to exclaim that there is no such thing as global warming or to claim that humans have nothing to do with it or to say that there is nothing we can do about it.

But calling childish names of those that don't agree with you is even less helpful. Is it your goal to convince the opposition to change their mind and start seeing things from your point of view? If so, your efforts are woefully inadequate, assuming you would rather go with your heart and call people names. If you can't be bothered to make an effort to convince people to reconsider, then you should stop polluting the environment with your invective. I was once a very committed "denier" but I didn't stop researching and I deliberately avoid participating in the echo chambers that exist on both sides of the argument. Some very reasonable debate from considerate and passionate and knowledgeable people have contributed my change of position.

Yes, I believe there is enough evidence to conclude that the planet is warmer on average now than it has been in the last several hundred years. Yes, I believe that humans have contributed in exacerbating an natural process of warming that would have occurred without our involvement. We have made it worse by a measurable percentage. Yes I think there are things we should do to reduce the damage we are doing. No, I don't believe success will come from cap and trade, making carbon based fuel illegal or forcing our industry to move all their operations out of the country by draconian levels of regulation. I also am convinced that if we were to, today, stop all production of CO2 worldwide we wouldn't get back to "normal" levels for several decades. We need reasonable solutions that don't crush the life out of the lives we are trying to save.

We should be expending our efforts in trying to convince the opposition rather than shutting them down. We should be expending our efforts in researching and implementing reasonable solutions rather than lining the pockets of our "evangelists" and "prophets". I'm an example of the success that can be had by being reasonable, fair and adult in our efforts. It does work. Don't believe it, go back and read some of my previous posts.

Re:What can we do vs What should we do?

[blue9steel]

Well, what should we do vs what can we do becomes the biggest question.

Before you can answer that question you have to answer this one first: "How much is it rational to spend on this project?"

Re:What can we do vs What should we do?

[zzsmirkzz]

Yes, I believe that humans have contributed in exacerbating an natural process of warming that would have occurred without our involvement. We have made it worse by a measurable percentage. Yes I think there are things we should do to reduce the damage we are doing.

If the warming process is natural then how can it be called damage ? A warmer planet may be detrimental to us and our survival as a species (but probably not, we are adaptable) but it does no damage to the planet itself since the planet was doing it anyway on its own. Unless, of course, you think the planet is harming itself. The planet is bigger than any one species, including our own, to say the planet is being damaged, destroyed, etc. when it is only certain species on the planet that are being affected is incorrect. Humans do not equal the Planet. They are separate and distinct things, what is good for one is not necessarily good for the other and vice-verse. You lose people when you make obviously contradictory statements like the one I pointed to above. You lose them to semantics. Once they see you glossed over and combined two separate and distinct things into one, they lose trust. They begin to wonder where else you glossed over and simplified in order to make your point or arrive at your conclusion. This is why every article on a scientific study/topic should include all of the assumptions that were made as a simple error there can invalidate an entire study.

Re:What can we do vs What should we do?

[turkeyfish]

"We should be expending our efforts in trying to convince the opposition rather than shutting them down."

False, since shutting them down by replacing them with wind, solar, and tidal power will actually stop global warming regardless of whether some ever become educated or not. If humanity has to wait until the last wrong-headed fool to come to his or her senses, we won't make it as a species.

Re:What can we do vs What should we do?

[cbeaudry]

You have proof of this?

Re:What can we do vs What should we do?

[jwhitener]

Well, what should we do vs what can we do becomes the biggest question.

Before you can answer that question you have to answer this one first: "How much is it rational to spend on this project?"

People have run those studies. If X degrees of warming, Y will happen in Z years, displacing % of people from coast A, etc.. The general conclusion that it is much cheaper to mitigate the damage than dealing with it later. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=cost+benefit+analysis+of+dealing+with+climate+change&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ei=wT1yVY7IHM7roATMtYzIDA&ved=0CBwQgQMwAA

So we have a lot of studies to look over and start debating, right? Well, wrong. Apparently 50% of our elected congress is still denying it's even an issue. Despite companies that deal in the real world, like insurance agencies, fully embracing the scientific reports and data. When your bottom line depends on truly knowing if Florida is going to be underwater in 50-100 years, you tend to listen to the experts.

The Earth has been nearly sterilized several times

[mpercy]

And it's gone on just fine. Sure a massive global overheating may kill off a lot of flora and fauna, humankind included. But I'm pretty sure the Earth will keep right on trucking and in a few dozen million years will have a whole new set of flora and fauna and perhaps new intelligent species.

Re:Sinking

[ArcadeMan]

Convection, bleh. Ever heard of a microwave oven?

And 4)

[mpercy]

What is the temperature of the Earth *supposed* to be?

IOW, what is the *ideal* temperature for the planet, and while you're at it, show your work explaining how that particular number was derived.

It seems to me that the AGW folks chose temps circa 1850 or so as the gold standard, at least partly (but to me probably mostly) because that's about when decent measurements and record keeping began. Of course this ignores all temperature variations that preceded that.

They're kind like the Amish, who seem to have decided that technology circa 1850 or so is exactly the level of tech that is allowed. Why not technology circa 0AD--if Jesus didn't need the tech, why should the Amish?

If the AGW folks picked temps from about 15000 years ago, we'd *really* be in the dumper right? I mean, we'd have destroyed all that ice-pack covering swaths of North America, sea level would have risen 100ft, and the temp went up what? Like 8 degrees C? Talk about warming!

None of my comments should be construed to mean I think that humans are not contributing to climate change or that I'm fine with pollution. But this is nothing new, either.

Wikipedia: "The Great Oxygenation Event (GOE), also called the Oxygen Catastrophe, Oxygen Crisis, Oxygen Holocaust, Oxygen Revolution, or Great Oxidation, was the biologically induced appearance of dioxygen (O2) in Earth's atmosphere.[1] Geological, isotopic, and chemical evidence suggest that this major environmental change happened around 2.3 billion years ago (2.3 Ga). Cyanobacteria, which appeared about 200 million years before the GOE,[4] began producing oxygen by photosynthesis. Before the GOE, any free oxygen they produced was chemically captured by dissolved iron or organic matter. The GOE was the point when these oxygen sinks became saturated and could not capture all of the oxygen that was produced by cyanobacterial photosynthesis. After the GOE, the excess free oxygen started to accumulate in the atmosphere.

Free oxygen is toxic to obligate anaerobic organisms, and the rising concentrations may have wiped out most of the Earth's anaerobic inhabitants at the time. Cyanobacteria were therefore responsible for one of the most significant extinction events in Earth's history."

Re: And 4)

[Anonymous Coward]

The Amish are only against technology that forces dependence on the outside world. Their factories use pneumatics in a very sophisticated way.

Re:And 4)

[serviscope_minor]

IOW, what is the *ideal* temperature for the planet, and while you're at it, show your work explaining how that particular number was derived.

There isn't one in an abstract sense. OF course the Earth doesn't care if we live or die or merely suffer a lot. One can be fairly sure that current society is built around the current conditions. I have no doubt the human race will survive pretty extreme events. However given the amount of infrastructure near sea level and the amount of farming land positioned predicated on the current claimate with its rainfall and temperature patterns one can be fairly sure that any big change is going to be pretty disruptive.

For example, take a large, sea-level city of your choice. Assume no dramatic changes in population size. If the sea level rises to make the city uninhabitable, what would be required to build a new city elsewhere with the same infrastructure? Now multiply that by the number of large low-level cities. You're into hundreds of trillions of dollars very quickly, and that's barely getting started.

It seems to me that the AGW folks chose temps circa 1850 or so as the gold standard

Huh? The AGW "folks" (and by that presumably you mean the scientists trying to demonstrate that anthropogenic global warming is happening) piked a starting point around about when we started with large scale coal burning, i.e. large scale carbon emissions. Nothing prior to that would be anthropogenic since we didn't burn all that much fossil fuels before that.

It's not a "ooh life is wonderful" gold standard of any sort. It's the industrial revolution.

They're kind like the Amish, who seem to have decided that technology circa 1850 or so is exactly the level of tech that is allowed.

So, you're claiming that those trying to prove humans are causing global warming have decided that vast, inefficient machines burning vast quantities of coal is optimal? [citation needed]

If the AGW folks picked temps from about 15000 years ago, we'd *really* be in the dumper right?

You can get temperature graphs going that far back if you wish. You see a sudden kick up at around 1850 or so when humans started relasing sequestered carbon in large quantities.

None of my comments should be construed to mean I think that humans are not contributing to climate change or that I'm fine with pollution. But this is nothing new, either.

Then honestly what to fuck do you mean? You seem to be confusing a lot of different things. For a start the phrase "AGW folks" is utterly meaningless. Are you talking about scientists, politicians, lobbyists, journalists, bloggers, environmentalists? What?

Free oxygen is toxic to obligate anaerobic organisms, and the rising concentrations may have wiped out most of the Earth's anaerobic inhabitants at the time. Cyanobacteria were therefore responsible for one of the most significant extinction events in Earth's history."

What's the relevance of that?

Re:And 4)

[Shadwhawk]

The 'ideal' temperature of Earth is one where nearly-sea-level communities, where a vast portion of humanity live, aren't flooded, forcing enormous migrations. The breadbaskets of the world should still stay productive, and the deserts should stay roughly where they are. A warming planet might open up a lot of Siberia and Canada to farming, but how long would it take to get large farms going, and how much of the wilderness would be ruined? The ideal temperature isn't about Earth--it can survive anything we can throw at it. The ideal temperature is about supporting 7+ billion humans without huge die-offs, and if we can avoid it, triggering mass extinctions.

Re:And 4)

[popo]

Exactly this.

Earth's climate will absolutely change because it has never not been changing. That's why the whole "climate change is real" argument is so asinine. Of course it's real. The only question at all is anthropogenesis. But even without anthropogenesis, the climate is guaranteed to change adversely for humans -- because that's what Earth's climate does.

In one hundred thousand years, the climate will absolutely 100% be different -- with or without humans, industry or fossil fuels.

And the chances of Earth remaining in a human-friendly, temperate zone indefinitely are zero.

What humanity needs to come to grips with is that our planet was not designed for us. The opposite is true: We were designed for a brief, fleeting set of climatic conditions that with 100% certitude will not persist indefinitely.

Re:And 4)

[coofercat]

As David Attenborough said on a similar subject "that's sort of not the point". The point is that if temperatures are rising, human encouraged or not, we're still in trouble. Whilst cutting pollution to zero might not stop the rise, it presumably would reduce it and thus doing something about it would make sense as it would prolong the time we have with the world sort of as it is now.

I know enough about history to know the Romans (in part) came to England because they could grow wine here. We're getting back to having vineyards here, but they're relatively new and not at their peak yet. However, the question is... do we want to live in a world that has long since past? Maybe we can and do, but maybe our way of life depends on the current environment more than we'd care to admit.

Re:And 4)

[zieroh]

What is the temperature of the Earth *supposed* to be?

IOW, what is the *ideal* temperature for the planet, and while you're at it, show your work explaining how that particular number was derived.

It seems to me that the AGW folks chose temps circa 1850 or so as the gold standard, at least partly (but to me probably mostly) because that's about when decent measurements and record keeping began. Of course this ignores all temperature variations that preceded that.

I see where you're going with this, but really, it's just so much bullshit. The "proper" temperature of the Earth (if you can call it that) is the one that preserves the massive civilization that has sprung up around the world since 1850 or so. You may see that as a ludicrously arbitrary data point, and it is -- in the abstract. We don't live in an abstract world, however. We live on Earth in a period where civilization has taken root, and we'd rather not see that destroyed. You might not care about such things, preferring the smug safety of your abstract world. But most of the rest of us DO actually care whether the world we live in -- the civilization we have built -- will continue to be viable.

TL;DR: Take your smug abstraction and shove it up your sociopathic ass.

Re:And 4)

[rahvin112]

While humans have lived on this earth the planet through all of our history including an ice age or two the human species has seen a planet with between 240-260ppm of CO2. The industrial revolution and the subsequent mass burning of fossil fuels has seen that level rise to 400ppm. Humanity up until this point has never experienced a planet with this much CO2 in the atmosphere. That's reason enough to be scared.

IMO, the concern about climate change is what it will lead to, rising sea levels will displace millions. Entire nations are going to disappear. What do we do with all the people? Let them live with you? It's also going to result in dramatic changes in rainfall, potentially moving fertile crop zones hundreds of miles. The food crops we have created have also never seen a planet with this much C02. Some may go extinct due to insects or others threats that will thrive in the warmer planet. But that's ok right, you are ready to forgo food right?

Re:And 4)

[Mab_Mass]

What is the temperature of the Earth *supposed* to be?

This whole question misses the point. As you correctly observe, there is not temperature that the Earth is *supposed* to be, and in fact there have been wild fluctuations in the Earth's temperature over the past million+ years.

The trouble with man-made climate change isn't that the Earth is going through changes. The trouble is that the Earth is going through a very rapid temperature change that will have significant impacts on humanity (as well as the rest of the world).

These rapid changes will do things like cause glacial melt, increase the severity and variability of weather, change habitable zones for various species, etc.

Those changes in turn lead to water shortages, sea level rise, death and destruction due to storms, pests and pathogens moving to places where they haven't been before, etc. Those factors will have a huge impact on human habitation and the global economy.

Will the Earth survive? Of course. It has been through much worse. That's not the point.

The point is that there is a huge cost to humans with the pace of the shifting climate, and we can either eat the costs trying to minimize the shift or we can eat the cost in terms of displaced people, drought, famine, etc.

The responses being advocated mainly involve shifting away from fossil fuels (which are a fixed, non-renewable resource) towards an economy of energy production that comes from renewables. Isn't this a good idea anyway?

Re:And 4)

[khallow]

You do realize that it's unlikely that anyone alive now will have to move due to rising sea levels?

The ideal temperature is about supporting 7+ billion humans without huge die-offs, and if we can avoid it, triggering mass extinctions.

Nobody has any evidence that we're close to where this is a significant problem (particularly with the more important problems we have likely to trigger die-offs first).

Re:And 4)

[Coren22]

Move them to Canada and Siberia.

Re:And 4)

[funwithBSD]

Maybe you should take a different view that actually fits the data:

That the fluctuations are normal for earth, and stop trying to fix a problem that has not been proven.

People use to ice skate on the Themes as well, during the little ice age. Neither time period had enough humans to create those conditions, so humans are not a significant part of the equation.

Unless you think medieval industry caused the mini ice age.

Re:And 4)

[Oligonicella]

In other words, instead of a scientific argument, yours is based on current convenience. And a convenience you are simply imagining.

Could you explain that "vast"? It's measure and how you came about it? Seems to be the basis of your convenience.

Re:And 4)

[zieroh]

Soooo....

What is that temperature? And, to repeat the GP post, show your work.

Who's bullshitting?

You realize that there's no single temperature, right? Because we're unlikely to have a meaningful conversation if you try to reduce the entire planet to a single temperature.

Re:And 4)

[turkeyfish]

"potentially moving fertile crop zones hundreds of miles"

It is always bemusing to see people think that because global warming will create higher temperatures in previously colder places that food crops can simply be grown in these newly warmed environments. The fact is that much of the reason food crops grow where they do in addition to evolutionary adaptation to specific habitats, is the fact that sufficient moisture and adequate quality soils are also available. Good quality soils can take hundreds or even thousands of years to develop. Many high latitude environments have very poor soils, often having been scoured by glaciers for thousands of years. Likewise, flowering and consequently pollination is affected by day/night length as well as by temperature, so simply because high latitude environments may become warm enough for crops to grow doesn't mean that flowering or pollination will be possible in these newly warmed environments.

The threat from human induced global warming is not simply that humans are warming the planet by burning fossil fuels, but rather very much about how fast we are warming the planet. We are currently warming the planet between 100 and 1000 times faster than would occur naturally and as a consequence we are disrupting the very ecological relationships upon which humans depend for their survival. Although its probably true that a few humans will survive and linger in the kind of Mad Max world we are creating for current and subsequent generations, but the vast majority of humanity is already on the road to extinction within a few hundred years at the current rate of change.

Re:And 4)

[mpercy]

Free oxygen is toxic to obligate anaerobic organisms, and the rising concentrations may have wiped out most of the Earth's anaerobic inhabitants at the time. Cyanobacteria were therefore responsible for one of the most significant extinction events in Earth's history."

What's the relevance of that?

That humans will not be the first species on Earth to devastate the climate to the detriment of other species by overproducing atmospheric gases. Probably won't be the last either.

Re:And 4)

[mpercy]

Given that civilization now is doing quite a bit better than civilization was 150 years ago in many aspects, perhaps we could chose the temperature from 10 years ago instead of 150 years ago. Or why not the temperature when civilization started to take off, say about 4000 years ago. Or when "A major technological and cultural transition to modernity began approximately 1500 CE in western Europe, and from this beginning new approaches to science and law spread rapidly around the world." Wouldn't that be just as valid?

At least the person who made the point that 1850 is about the start of the industrial revolution and thus forms the starting point for humans dumping CO2 into the atmosphere made an effort.

Re: single temperature...I'm simply talking about the same temperature used in these discussions--if temperatures have increased 0.02 degrees C every year, whatever the temps used as the basis for that calculation. Stop being intentionally obtuse.

Re:And 4)

[zzsmirkzz]

I see where you're going with this, but really, it's just so much bullshit. The "proper" temperature of the Earth (if you can call it that) is the one that preserves the massive civilization that has sprung up around the world since 1850 or so.

Only form the perspective of one trying to save Humanity not one trying to save the Planet. Obviously, they are not the same. To one who really thinks it is humans who are destroying the Earth and wants to protect the Planet, then the Earth becoming uninhabitable by humans is an ideal outcome.

We live on Earth in a period where civilization has taken root, and we'd rather not see that destroyed.

Well then we picked a horrible spot to let our civilization take root, haven't we? The fact is the planet's climate will change to the extreme(s) (both warm and cold) over a long-enough time line, with or without humans. It has before and it will again. Trying to make enormous efforts, at enormous costs to attempt to slow down something that is inevitably going to happen is asinine. The time, effort and money would be better spent preparing for the inevitable so that our survival when it comes is better assured. We will have to do it anyway or die. Might as well start now and stop trying to kick the can down the road.

Re:And 4)

[riverat1]

What is the temperature of the Earth *supposed* to be?

IOW, what is the *ideal* temperature for the planet, and while you're at it, show your work explaining how that particular number was derived.

The issue is not the temperature (not much at least) but how fast it's changing. If the change we are currently seeing was spread out over 2,000 or 3,000 years instead of 2 or 3 centuries it wouldn't be so much of a problem. Everything would have time to adjust at a more normal pace. The closest analog to the current increase in atmospheric carbon we've found is the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) and the current increase in atmospheric carbon is 10-100 times faster than it was back then.

Re:And 4)

[riverat1]

You do realize that it's unlikely that anyone alive now will have to move due to rising sea levels?

What a ridiculous statement. Some have already been forced to move because of rising sea levels. It may be so few so far that you can ignore them but with 2-3 feet of sea level rise expected by 2100 there are plenty of people alive today who will be alive then.

Re:And 4)

[serviscope_minor]

That humans will not be the first species on Earth to devastate the climate to the detriment of other species by overproducing atmospheric gases. Probably won't be the last either.

I don't see how that's relevant though. Life will survive. Doesn't mean it will be cheap or comfortable for us personally.

Re:And 4)

[rahvin112]

I never said where the ideal zone moved would be a good place to grow things. In fact I've said exactly the opposite in the past. Ideal crop zones are determined by soil quality and moisture levels but moisture levels is determined by location and climate, in the past these zones have been directly above/below the tropic equatorial lines. Global climate change will change that relationship and likely move them further north while the desert zones currently on the tropics migrate north as well. As you note the soils in the north are poor and likely will not lead to good crop production.

But I strongly disagree humanity will go extinct or turn to a mad max type world. The climate will change and humanity will adapt, after some debilitating wars have appropriately thinned the population to the new levels the planet can support. The chances these wars will be nuclear is very small, more likely the poorer nations with large populations surpluses will be destroyed by famine and civil war along with a few nation-state wars mostly between the poorer nations fighting over limited food and supplies. Most of the nuclear armed states are far enough north that the change in crop zones more than likely won't move them out of the country.

This of course assumes we can contain the warming to a few degree's C. If we allow the warming to reach double digits than there will be catastrophic changes. The fact is that wind and solar power are now the cheapest power with small subsidies. In no time at all they will be significantly cheaper than even the cheapest dirtiest coal without any subsidy whatsover. This is remaking the power industry right now. US carbon emissions are falling even with increased power consumption because of this. Within 50 years I expect that the bulk of all power generated in the developed world will be by renewables. And with the power generated so cheap the developed world will be able to completely skip the dirty industrialization phase.

Re:And 4)

[shutdown -p now]

There's a big difference between the climate changing within, say, 10,000 years, and within 100 years. A more gradual change is much easier to deal with and adapt to (indeed, if it's gradual enough, you won't even notice it unless you look back at the historical record and notice the discrepancies). A rapid change is something that requires a similarly rapid response, and that is very, very costly.

Re:And 4)

[mpercy]

It's relevant vis-a-vis people who complain we're "killing the earth". While it may be true that our actions may be very very bad for innocent flora & fauna around us, and a tragedy for humans, Nature has done the same thing before with other species. As a result, the Earth improved markedly for oxygen-breathing creatures like humans. Yeah, we came along a *lot* later, but if it hadn't happened before we would not be here at all.

AGW maybe (probably) bad for us and our fellow travelers, but indistinguishable long-term from what Nature does on her own. Perhaps 20M years from now some CO2-breathing lizard-plant-person might be writing a paper about the Great CO2 Extinction Event caused by the waste products of a (now extinct) bipedal mammal species right up there with the Great Oxygenation Extinction Event caused by the waste products of cyanobacteria.

Most of the "solutions" advocated for the "inevitable" problems predicted are simply extremely thinly veiled SJW wet dreams that don't do anything to actually help solve the problem or deal with a result.

Re:And 4)

[ihtoit]

source citations needed.

Re:And 4)

[dywolf]

again: still not trolling.
but go ahead and try to bury facts with your sock puppets.

Re:And 4)

[sjames]

Yeah, to hell with the great grandchildren. What the hell have they ever done for me!

Let the fuckers starve, I say!

Re:And 4)

[pastafazou]

Even if it rises 5 feet by 2100, that's still less than an inch a year. I don't see anyone getting caught by surprise by this and having their home washed out from under them.

Re:And 4)

[RabidReindeer]

People used to starve in England as well during the Little Ice Age, because there wasn't enough summer to grow crops in.

The Little Ice age was just a volcanic eruption's short-term impact. What we're talking now isn't a flash event, it's the accumulated result of slow buildup, and it's going to be equally slow to mitigate.

And unlike volcanoes, we do have a choice as to whether to keep making it worse.

Re:And 4)

[riverat1]

Here you go:

IPCC AR5 WG1 - Chapter 13: Sea Level Change [PDF]

The section on projections of sea level rise starts on page 1179 with references for the citations at the end of the chapter. The IPCC projections are largely thought by the scientists in the field to be very conservative estimates.

Re:And 4)

[riverat1]

No one's going to be caught by surprise except when a storm surge gets them because higher sea level puts them in the zone where they weren't before. Nevertheless 5 feet of rise would displace a lot of people around the world. What does South Florida look like with 5 feet of SLR?

Re:And 4)

[Chalnoth]

No, it's very likely. Parts of Miami and the surrounding area will probably be underwater by mid-century, for example.

Re:And 4)

[Chalnoth]

2-3 feet is a low estimate by 2100. Recent sea level rise has exceeded the model used to calculate that estimate by about 50%.

Re:And 4)

[swillden]

And the chances of Earth remaining in a human-friendly, temperate zone indefinitely are zero.

Unless we learn to engineer the climate to keep it the way we want it. I think we've probably already learned something about how to raise global temperatures. We also need to learn how to cool the planet, and we need to refine both until we can engineer the stability we want.

Also, I have to point out that the planet's current climate isn't actually especially "human-friendly". It varies dramatically from place to place, and we live basically everywhere on it that isn't covered in water (including some places that would be covered in water without our intervention). The zones where humans could live comfortably without significant knowledge of how to alter the local environment (e.g. with clothing, methods of extracting non-obvious foodstuffs, etc.) are narrow to nonexistent. Our species probably emerged from the Nile river valley, but if you took a random group of people and dropped them next to the prehistoric Nile, there's a very good chance they'd die, because nowhere on this planet is particularly amenable to human life without the application of important local knowledge and skills.

Given that we have proven able to live in just about every climactic condition of this planet, excepting -- maybe! -- Snowball Earth, why do we need to learn to engineer the climate for stability? Because adapting to changing climactic conditions will be an expensive distraction, and we're within shouting distance of the knowledge we need to be able to avoid having to bother with it. Or, more simply, because it's going to be cheaper to engineer stability than to live with change.

Re:And 4)

[swillden]

Keep in mind that "natural" climate change can also happen with great rapidity, including at least an order of magnitude faster than what we're seeing. Greenland ice core records show that in the past 100K years we've seen a shift of as much as 7C in as little as 30-50 years, possibly less. That's ~0.15 C per year, rather than per decade. And the ice of the period shows no great increases in particulates or CO2, or any other obvious cause. As far as anyone can tell, it just happened.

Note that I'm not arguing against anthropogenesis with respect to the current warming trends. I'm sure at least some if not all is human-caused. But at the end of the day it really doesn't matter why it's happening as much as what we're going to do about it. And anyone who thinks we're going to halt it just by reducing CO2 emissions is living a dream. There's no way we're going to be able to cut emissions enough, fast enough, even if it is the only cause. We need to start thinking hard about how to actually cool the planet.

Re:And 4)

[swillden]

We are currently warming the planet between 100 and 1000 times faster than would occur naturally

Greenland ice core records show that within the last 100,000 years the planet saw a temperature change of up to 10C in as little as 40 years. That's 2.5C per decade, not 0.15C per decade. And while that's the most extreme event in the history we can see, it's not at all isolated. There are many such extreme, rapid changes, and they don't correlate with CO2 level changes, or any other obvious cause we can find.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC34297/

So... don't assume that if we can only stop from altering the climate ourselves that we'll be safe from rapid climate change. We won't. We need to learn how to deal with it, either by adapting to changing climate or (far, far better, IMO) by learning to engineer the climate, to stabilize it and prevent rapid changes, whether anthropogenic or not.

Re:And 4)

[khallow]

Except perhaps for those few thousand souls who last week died of heat exhaustion as temperatures climbed well above 112 degrees Fahrenheit in India.

Observation bias is not evidence.

Such heat waves are becoming far more common now and death from heat strokes will continue to rise.

Where's the evidence for that assertion?

This is a problem as even in places like Kansas City, as in less than 100 years at the current rate of increased carbon dioxide induced heating, will have more than 100 days out of the year with temperatures in excess of 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Unless, of course, it doesn't actually happen like that. You do realize that your predictions are based on models that are already wrong?

Re:And 4)

[jwhitener]

Another strawman. For f's sake, how does this point continue to get modded up?

You are, of course, 100% accurate in that the climate is always changing. 10,000 years from now it might be a lot hotter or a lot colder. All of North America might be under ice. Who knows? (Well, a climate scientist might have pretty good guesses considering they study all the long term climate cycles).

But that is completely irrelevant to the discussion about whether we should be concerned about the climate change we are observing right now. If you want a google hint, take a look into the rates of change of past climate shifts versus the rate of change we are seeing right now.

But by all means, continue to just throw your hands in the air and pretend that we shouldn't bother worrying about climate because "it is always changing".

Re:And 4)

[khallow]

decided to bring the khallow sock puppet out of retirement, eh shill?

I've been posting since 2001 or so. And I post about a lot more than whatever gets you butthurt.

Except those who live near the sea. It's not just about when seas reach levels 10ft higher than today, though that seems to be your underlying assumption. It's about storm surges. The modest amount of existing amount of sea level rise caused, during Hurricane Sandy, 50% more water volume to surge and flood into major population centers such as New York City than otherwise would have. That's pretty significant.

And if one actually looks at the claims you just mentioned, one sees that the sea level rise in NYC was about a factor of three greater than global sea level rise. The difference might be due to global warming or it might be due to non-human climate or ocean current changes. But just attributing it in the absence of evidence to global warming is irresponsible and unscientific.

The same goes for the alleged increase in storm strength of Hurricane Sandy. Maybe it would be stronger under global warming, but you need evidence to support that assertion.

Nobody has any evidence that we're close to where this is a significant problem (particularly with the more important problems we have likely to trigger die-offs first).

Except for the whole "half of earth's wildlife has died off in the past 40 years" thing.

Habitat destruction and excessive hunting/fishing/consumption easily explain that. This is one of the great sins of climate change propaganda - the misattribution of greater problems to global warming. A huge observation that people consistently miss is that we have to do something about overpopulation, poverty, desertification, war, economic stagnation, and habitat destruction. We don't have to do anything about climate change or global warming. Fixing the former keeps us from die-offs. Fixing the latter only, possibly while making the former problems worse, does not.

As I see it, you're a false flag shill, intentional or not, undermining support for the AGW hypothesis with ridiculous, unscientific rhetoric and arguments. Seriously, what would your rebuttal be? Asserting would be facts with even more zeal and earnestness? Using yet more fallacies from the usual bag of about half a dozen tricks? Up your game or GTFO.

Re:And 4)

[khallow]

Projections are not evidence.

Re:And 4)

[khallow]

Unless, of course, the actual sea level rise happens to be less than that. Then the low estimate wasn't low enough. It's worth noting that current sea level rise is under a foot a century and that it is speculation at this point whether the low estimate will be met.

Re:And 4)

[Chalnoth]

Given that sea level rise estimates have so far significantly underestimated the rate of sea level rise, and the fact that nobody (to my knowledge) has successfully built a model of the melting rate of glaciers that is anywhere near as fast as observations, the smart money is on the upper part of that range (possibly even higher, if we're very unlucky).

Re:And 4)

[khallow]

I happen to care about my children's future. In fact, I seem to care more about _your_ children's future than you do.

I don't see any evidence of that. That lack of evidence seems to be a common thing missing from this discussion. What's the point of caring, if you don't know whether your actions help or harm what you care about?

My fundamental viewpoint here that current proposed fixes for AGW cause more trouble than they fix with proponents merely hoping that renewable energy and similar things don't mess up society more than they're worth. What I see is that even the current relatively modest restrictions hurt a lot of people - for example, doubling the cost of electricity in Germany and Denmark or forcing poor people to pay more of their income at the gas pump - and are unrealistic - such as the pointless targets of the Kyoto Protocol.

It doesn't matter if you care more, if you're causing more harm than good.

Re:And 4)

[khallow]

Extrapolation is not evidence. Just because they fit the near future curve (poorly as you admit) doesn't mean that they will project accurately into the future as well.

the smart money is on the upper part of that range (possibly even higher, if we're very unlucky).

The smart money is on the researchers towing the party line of catastrophic climate change by 2100.

Re:And 4)

[khallow]

Or they can move one or two meters uphill. And irrigate crops. I don't see the point of hand holding people who will be quite capable of managing for themselves, especially when hand holding actually makes things worse for them.

Re:And 4)

[khallow]

Observation bias is not evidence. There would be places with high tide flooding problems even in the absence of global warming and global sea level rise. Regional sea levels change even in the absence of global climate change. For something to be evidence, it needs to distinguish between competing hypotheses.

Re:And 4)

[Chalnoth]

Then please explain to me why the 2007 IPCC report manipulated the data (and used old, bad data) in a rather dishonest way that halved the estimated future sea level rise?

They used a low estimate of future temperature increases (lower than the best-fit temperature estimates they reported elsewhere).

They extrapolated out to only 2095 instead of 2100.

They used a model of sea level rise that predicts a past sea level rise that is only 2/3rds the measurements.

See here for a detailed discussion of the IPCC's screwup with sea level rise.

Re:And 4)

[khallow]

Then please explain to me why the 2007 IPCC report manipulated the data (and used old, bad data) in a rather dishonest way that halved the estimated future sea level rise?

Real predictions have to be in range else they lose credibility and as a result their political utility. That's why I think they dropped the bottom range of their most recent estimate of long term temperature forcing from a double of CO2.

Re:And 4)

[riverat1]

2-3 feet is a low estimate by 2100. Recent sea level rise has exceeded the model used to calculate that estimate by about 50%.

I understand that. That's why I said "The IPCC projections are largely thought by the scientists in the field to be very conservative estimates."

And beyond that the last time CO2 levels were at 400 ppm sea level was some 60 or 70 feet higher than they are now. It may well be that much sea level rise is already baked in and it's just a matter of how much time it takes to get there. Less than 500 years I'd imagine.

Re:And 4)

[funwithBSD]

Volcano is only one of the 5 possible reasons... none of which have to do with humans.

And probably the least likely. After all, Volcanos emit greenhouse gasses, not anti-greenhouse gasses.

Big explosions like Krakatoa did effect climate for a year or two, but not hundreds.

Re:And 4)

[Duhavid]

"That humans will not be the first species on Earth to devastate the climate to the detriment of other species by overproducing atmospheric gases. Probably won't be the last either."

But we are knowingly doing it to ourselves. We are supposed to be intelligent.

Re:And 4)

[Chalnoth]

Nah, they did that for the same reason that they screwed up on the sea level rise: they're far too conservative. If you look at the estimates of climate sensitivity, they cluster pretty closely around 3C per doubling of CO2 as a best-fit. A few of them permit a 1.5C sensitivity as possible, but there's no reason to believe that's remotely likely as those are in the minority. Other studies permit 5C of warming per doubling of CO2, but again, that's not very likely.

The biggest errors with the IPCC come from their habit of understating just how bad the warming is. To be fair, this may make political sense: the organization is, after all, intended to provide advice to policy makers, and overestimating global warming could give fuel to the denialists who want to claim that it isn't happening. But they have a tendency to go too far sometimes (the sea level issue was particularly egregious).

Re:And 4)

[Chalnoth]

And beyond that the last time CO2 levels were at 400 ppm sea level was some 60 or 70 feet higher than they are now. It may well be that much sea level rise is already baked in and it's just a matter of how much time it takes to get there. Less than 500 years I'd imagine.

It's really hard to know, unfortunately. The rate of melt of Greenland appears to have nearly doubled in just the last ten years. At the current rate, it would take something like 7500 years for Greenland to melt entirely. But the rate is likely to increase. By how much? It's hard to say.

Re:And 4)

[sjames]

Nobody said anything about hand holding, just not shitting all over everything and leaving others to clean up the mess. You know, that responsibility thing.

You might be surprised how far inland someone in Florida might have to move to gain 2 meters in elevation. But hey, how hard can it be to move a few cities, am I right? They can just put wheels on the buildings and roll them to Georgia!

Re:And 4)

[serviscope_minor]

That's a massively colossal straw man. Yo've literally picked the most extreme niche wingnut view point and rebutted it thoroughly. Very very few people claim we're going to destroy all life on earth.

Secondly, anyone using the phrase "SJW" has in my view little credibility, because it seems to substitute for anything people don't like up to and including, apparently dystopia in Sci Fi.

Re:And 4)

[khallow]

Again, it's babysitting adults who probably will be a lot smarter and a bit wiser than you. I'll have no part of it.

Re:And 4)

[khallow]

By all means, make more aggressive predictions. The IPCC is in an untenable position and it would be folly for them to follow your advice, but I wouldn't mind. They can't make the aggressive predictions you would like them to make because they will lose too much credibility when those predictions are seen to be blatantly wrong.

If global warming were really as bad as claimed, then we would have seen evidence of this by now. What we really see are global mean temperatures rising around 0.15 C per decade and sea levels rising at less than 3 mm a year. The reality falls short.

Re:And 4)

[sjames]

So next time I go camping, I should just start a fire any old place and leave it going? Wouldn't want to babysit the state of California, now would I? They can put the fire out for themselves.

Re:And 4)

[khallow]

So next time I go camping, I should just start a fire any old place and leave it going?

You have yet to establish that this analogy holds. I see it differently. We don't burn fossil fuels because we want to do evil, but because the use is of immense value to us. It's not like a campfire where the utility of the fire is near frivolous to us or to the other party, here, the state of California. Current fossil fuel use is not just important to us, it is important to those future generations which depend on us to make their future possible. Curbing that harms them just as surely as any other future harm we inflict. That is one way the analogy breaks.

Second, the harm from global warming is greatly exaggerated. I see the cost of as slightly less land, a somewhat different but ample distribution of food production, and slightly more acidic sea chemistry. I see the benefit as a significant better and wealthier future, better able to withstand real tribulations that face us as well as provide a better life for those future generations.

Re:And 4)

[Chalnoth]

There's lots of evidence of global warming right now, and many peoples' lives have been directly impacted. But I can't help you if you don't bother to learn about the world around you.

Re:And 4)

[khallow]

There's lots of evidence of global warming right now, and many peoples' lives have been directly impacted.

I agree that there's some evidence (which obviously follows from statements I made in my previous post such as claiming there actually is global warming of around 0.15 C per decade presently). So what if many peoples' lives are "directly impacted". Peoples' lives are also directly impacted in a hugely positive way by the fossil fuel infrastructure we have too. Why does only one category of impact count, but not another?

We have to get past the touchie feelie territory of "impacts" to tangible costs and benefits which we can then compare. Currently, you just can't do that and there just isn't the interest right now among the parties who pay for climate research to do that.

Some of the research into these costs demonstrates considerable mendacity - such as an IMF report which claims five trillion dollars in fossil fuel subsidies this year. Analysis reveals that they exaggerated the costs of global warming and local pollution, and decided to label not paying a large punitive fee for using fossil fuels as a subsidy. There's more wrong with the scheme, but the above breaks their research right there.

A few years ago, I decided that there was enough wrong with how climate research is currently conducted that I would only base my decisions on actual climate change over the next few decades. I see no reason to change that opinion. The warnings by some parties grow ever more dire, but I see no evidence to support them.

Re:And 4)

[sjames]

If I am camping and don't want to eat raw food, the campfire is quite valuable. Since people spend money to go camping, it must have value.

You still are trivializing cities like SF, Miami, etc being under water as if a million bucks or so would fix the problem. It won't.

You seem to have this idea that there is no energy but fossil fuels.

Basically you wants your cheap dirty energy now and to hell with countless generations to follow. How nice! I hope there is an afterlife so you can see your descendants pissing on your grave.

Re:And 4)

[khallow]

If I am camping and don't want to eat raw food, the campfire is quite valuable. Since people spend money to go camping, it must have value.

It's not more valuable than a forest fire.

You still are trivializing cities like SF, Miami, etc being under water as if a million bucks or so would fix the problem. It won't.

Over what time frame? I bet throwing a million bucks in a NASDAQ stock index fund now would pay for moving San Francisco in some far future global warming scenario.

Re:And 4)

[khallow]

You seem to have this idea that there is no energy but fossil fuels.

Basically you wants your cheap dirty energy now and to hell with countless generations to follow. How nice! I hope there is an afterlife so you can see your descendants pissing on your grave.

Fossil fuels don't have to be dirty. And as far as either of us can tell, my approach is just as good as your approach at helping countless generations to follow.

And you know, this whole argument would be completely irrelevant if fossil fuels weren't indeed cheap compared to the alternatives. It means among other things, considerably more wealth going to those countless generations which you claim to care about so much.

Re:And 4)

[Chalnoth]

And there are things we can do to replace fossil fuels that will make most peoples' lives better due to the lower environmental damage of nearly every other energy source (whether or not you include CO2 emissions as "environmental damage").

And in deciding that there "was enough wrong with how climate research is currently conducted," did you actually ever speak to an actual climate scientist? Did you ever learn how they do their work? I doubt it. I bet you've just read a bunch of bullshit misinformation repeated from conservative think tanks.

Here's a hint: if you want to learn about science, listen to scientists. Not political hacks.

Re:And 4)

[sjames]

They don't get the wealth, you're spending their inheritance.

The fossil fuels aren't even cheap for US in the long run. It's like byinng a crappy TV for $150 every 2 years rather than buying a good one for $250 that lasts 10 years.

I'm not saying we should have fossil fuel turn-off day next Wednesday and that's that, just that we really need to move forward on migrating off of them. Some progress has been made, mostly by the people you don't like very much.

Re:And 4)

[sjames]

Over what time frame? I bet throwing a million bucks in a NASDAQ stock index fund now would pay for moving San Francisco in some far future global warming scenario.

And yet, no group of climate deniers has come up with that fund, not even as a publicity stunt.

Re:And 4)

[khallow]

And there are things we can do to replace fossil fuels that will make most peoples' lives better due to the lower environmental damage of nearly every other energy source (whether or not you include CO2 emissions as "environmental damage").

That's only one benefit. There are other costs and benefits to consider than just that one. Why is it that whenever I get into this sort of discussion, it's always about the environmental damage and absolutely nothing else?

And in deciding that there "was enough wrong with how climate research is currently conducted," did you actually ever speak to an actual climate scientist? Did you ever learn how they do their work? I doubt it. I bet you've just read a bunch of bullshit misinformation repeated from conservative think tanks.

I can evaluate such people on their research and actions without having to speak with them directly. And no matter how much I speak with them, it won't negate that they simply have no means for accurate observation of climate before the modern era or that most funding is politically tied to research that backs an aggressive interpretation of AGW. There are deep problems in the field that won't communicate away.

Re:And 4)

[khallow]

And yet, no group of climate deniers has come up with that fund, not even as a publicity stunt.

Guess we better work on that then.

Re:And 4)

[khallow]

They don't get the wealth, you're spending their inheritance.

No. Really what is so hard to figure out about a society that gets wealthier over time?

The fossil fuels aren't even cheap for US in the long run. It's like byinng a crappy TV for $150 every 2 years rather than buying a good one for $250 that lasts 10 years.

No, it's not. You keep coming up with these crappy analogies. If at some point coal becomes more expensive than solar/wind plus storage, then switch to solar/wind plus storage. Drama is averted.

And that's my plan. Keep using fossil fuels until something better comes along. Then switch to that.

I'm not saying we should have fossil fuel turn-off day next Wednesday and that's that, just that we really need to move forward on migrating off of them.

Burning fossil fuels too is moving forward on migrating off of them and you end up with a better, wealthier world than if we go with the migration plan. For example, Germany is migrating off of coal and nuclear. End result is that they burn more coal than before and they are more dependent on their neighbors to level off the increased variability of their power. That's a pretty pathetic accomplishment.

Re:And 4)

[sjames]

You're skipping a LOT of externalities with fossil fuels including health effects and the costs of volatility every time some crazy dictator grumbles somewhere.

You aren't even refuting anything, you're just disagreeing like some Monty Python sketch.

Re:And 4)

[ihtoit]

these are projections, not proof of your claim. Plus the fact it's widely acknowledged that every computer-based climate model has a common fatal flaw:

they make too many static assumptions.

Re:And 4)

[gzuckier]

Exactly this.

Earth's climate will absolutely change because it has never not been changing. That's why the whole "climate change is real" argument is so asinine. Of course it's real. The only question at all is anthropogenesis. But even without anthropogenesis, the climate is guaranteed to change adversely for humans -- because that's what Earth's climate does.

In one hundred thousand years, the climate will absolutely 100% be different -- with or without humans, industry or fossil fuels.

And the chances of Earth remaining in a human-friendly, temperate zone indefinitely are zero.

What humanity needs to come to grips with is that our planet was not designed for us. The opposite is true: We were designed for a brief, fleeting set of climatic conditions that with 100% certitude will not persist indefinitely.

Even more highlevel observation than that; whenever there is some sort of exploitable resource, that is a possible evolutionary niche, and eventually some organism will find a way to exploit it. Dead trees, for example, represent a source of organic carbon which is exploited by various fungi and bacteria. Well, buried fossil hydrocarbons represents such an exploitable resource, and some organism did evolve to exploit it. Of course, when a niche is no longer available, due to the loss of the resource or due to its being unexploitable because it has become associated with some harmful agent, then the organism has to find another niche, which usually requires some evolutionary alterations. In the case of humans, evolution can be cultural as well as genetic, but the basic principle is still self-evident.
Or to put it another way, humanity is just entropy's way of disposing of all the potential energy in fossil fuel. After that, we're superfluous.

Re:And 4)

[gzuckier]

Maybe you should take a different view that actually fits the data:

That the fluctuations are normal for earth, and stop trying to fix a problem that has not been proven.

People use to ice skate on the Themes as well, during the little ice age. Neither time period had enough humans to create those conditions, so humans are not a significant part of the equation.

Unless you think medieval industry caused the mini ice age.

Yeah; and forest fires occurred before human beings ever appeared, so Smokey the Bear is just a liar trying to take away your freedoms and get more grant money,

Re:And 4)

[khallow]

You're skipping a LOT of externalities with fossil fuels including health effects and the costs of volatility every time some crazy dictator grumbles somewhere.

You have yet to show those externalities are significant compared to the benefits of fossil fuel use. Or that there's a better alternative out there.

You aren't even refuting anything

What is there to refute? I don't disagree that the choice of fossil fuels has a cost. I disagree that merely finding a cost means that one rules out a choice.

A similar argument, one which incidentally has been made on Slashdot before, is that solar and wind consume more land than nuclear or coal burning do (even taking into account mining and the occasional nuclear accident). Should we avoid solar and wind then?

My view is that cheap energy has enormous short and long term benefits for us all. And these far outweigh the costs you've mentioned so far like health effects (many which can be greatly reduced merely by reforming the relevant health care systems or implementing normal developed world standards for coal burning plants) or "crazies" (a situation which BTW is made better by engaging in trade with the crazies rather than not).

Re:And 4)

[gzuckier]

"potentially moving fertile crop zones hundreds of miles"

It is always bemusing to see people think that because global warming will create higher temperatures in previously colder places that food crops can simply be grown in these newly warmed environments. The fact is that much of the reason food crops grow where they do in addition to evolutionary adaptation to specific habitats, is the fact that sufficient moisture and adequate quality soils are also available. Good quality soils can take hundreds or even thousands of years to develop. Many high latitude environments have very poor soils, often having been scoured by glaciers for thousands of years. Likewise, flowering and consequently pollination is affected by day/night length as well as by temperature, so simply because high latitude environments may become warm enough for crops to grow doesn't mean that flowering or pollination will be possible in these newly warmed environments.

The threat from human induced global warming is not simply that humans are warming the planet by burning fossil fuels, but rather very much about how fast we are warming the planet. We are currently warming the planet between 100 and 1000 times faster than would occur naturally and as a consequence we are disrupting the very ecological relationships upon which humans depend for their survival. Although its probably true that a few humans will survive and linger in the kind of Mad Max world we are creating for current and subsequent generations, but the vast majority of humanity is already on the road to extinction within a few hundred years at the current rate of change.

And crops are evolutionarily tuned to specific combinations of circumstances; you can't just move them to another zone. For instance, many plants are tied to the correct seasons not by temperature, which is way too variable, but by length of daylight, which is pretty reliable as a standard. Onions are a good example. Moving such a plant north to cope with higher temps will just result in a plant which doesn't recognize the end of summer correctly and never matures.

Re:And 4)

[riverat1]

All I can say is based on previous performance that IPCC projection is likely understating what the actual sea level rise will be as have all previous IPCC reports when compared to observations. What sort of evidence would it take to convince you (and khallow)?

Re:And 4)

[ihtoit]

newspaper reports maybe?

You said, and I paraquote here, that settlements have been evacuated due to sea level rise.

I said I want proof of claim.
You are attempting to confuse the issue by saying I'm a CC denier.
I'm not a denier. I'm an AGW skeptic, which I shall remain until hard evidence backed by the scientific process is presented.

I'm still waiting for proof of claim.

Re:And 4)

[dave420]

That's your argument? Incredible. Your science teachers should feel ashamed.

Re:And 4)

[dave420]

Entire cities will just move one or two meters up hill and continue functioning at the same time? What are you smoking?? Ignoring the problem most certainly will make things worse for them, but why let logic get in the way of a perfectly good rant?

Re:And 4)

[dave420]

So you are a denier. The evidence exists. You not accepting it or ignoring it does not change that fact. If you are a skeptic, you are one of the laziest skeptics on the planet.

Re:And 4)

[dave420]

And people die of natural causes all the time, so murder isn't a big deal. Your logic is worse than childish.

Plus it's spelled "Thames".

Re:And 4)

[dave420]

If we completely ignore timescales, you have a point. As it is, the changes that are happening now are far faster than any other changes in the climate humanity has faced, and that is what makes them dangerous. If we slow down this change enough, we have a better chance of being able to do something about it, and other subsequent changes which might happen. As it is, the first change is pretty serious on its own, and ignoring it means crippling humanity.

Re:And 4)

[dave420]

To you, I'm sure they do.

Re:And 4)

[zzsmirkzz]

As it is, the changes that are happening now are far faster than any other changes in the climate humanity has faced, and that is what makes them dangerous.

While this may be true (and is probably true from recorded history data), it doesn't say anything about how fast they are happening compared with the last time the Planet turned extremely hot or extremely cold. It also doesn't consider the vast amount of unrecorded human history (from a climate/temperature point of view). For all we know, this is the Planet's normal climate trajectory, we just have such a small segment of data to look at, we can't see the forest from the trees.

Said another way, we are using an ridiculously small fraction of a percent of the Earth's climate data and using that to extrapolate (in both directions) when, in all reality, all of our data could represent a short anomaly period that over a more significant time period (based on Earth's time-scale) will normalize itself right out.

Re:And 4)

[ihtoit]

point me to precisely where. You made the claim or are supporting the claim with nothing but hot air. Show me the money. I am not a GW denier, I'm an AGW skeptic. AS I HAVE ALREADY SPECIFICALLY POINTED OUT, WHY ARE YOU STILL MAKING COMPLETELY WRONG CLAIMS?? Or shall I just call bullshit on you because that's all you are putting out.

Re:And 4)

[pastafazou]

Holland?

Re:And 4)

[riverat1]

Sorry but what they've done in Holland won't work in Florida. The underlying layers in Florida are porous limestone and the sea will just come up from underneath. When the Floridians brought in some engineers from Holland they just shook their heads.

Re:And 4)

[dave420]

The Greenland ice cores show what happened in Greenland. You'd need a bit more evidence to show that change was reflected across the entire planet...

Re:And 4)

[swillden]

The Greenland ice cores show what happened in Greenland. You'd need a bit more evidence to show that change was reflected across the entire planet...

How about additional ice core evidence from Antarctica, the Canada arctic and South American mountains?

From here:

Geographic Coverage. The ice-core record of abrupt climate changes is clearest in Greenland. No other record is available that spans the same time interval with equally high time resolution, complicating interpretations. It appears, however, that ice cores from the Canadian arctic islands, high mountains in South America, and Antarctica contain indications of the abrupt changes. Dating is secure for some of the Antarctic cores.

That paper is from 2000. More recent research has further confirmed the evidence of rapid, global change within the recent geologic past.

Re:And 4)

[swillden]

the Canada arctic

Er, the Canadian arctic, I meant to say.

Re:efund NOAA

[geeper]

You just need to defund one of them (IRS), the rest will take care of itself.

Re:Data doesn't fit political needs! New Model STA

[silentcoder]

Could it because those underlying assumptions are the most basic laws of physics and chemistry ?
If global warming by human activity is WRONG - then the question is moot since our understanding of thermodynamics is ENTIRELY FALSE and cars and power plants don't exist to emit CO2 in the first place.

Re:Lets set a few things straight.

[Intrepid imaginaut]

No. it isn't. As a scientist I can firmly conclude Global warming is happening, its caused by human activities, and we need to stop it as it contributes to an array of very devastating consequences.

Hold up there a minute mister scientist, where I'm sitting at the moment was buried under a few kilometers of glacier a hundred thousand years ago, and humans didn't contribute a thing to the sequence of events that caused it to melt. We are in a perfectly natural interglacial, something that's happened before. That's not to say human civilisation isn't contributing to climate change but what's up for debate is just how much of a contribution we're making.

Secondly I find the notion that we can just stop the earth's climate from changing quite suspect - it's not stable or in equilibrium and never has been, with a few possible exceptions. A nudge in the wrong direction and we might find ourselvs back in an ice age, and if you think global warming is bad believe me it doesn't hold a candle to global cooling. Maybe we want to warm things up.

Either way the situation is going to change, so it seems as though the best policy would be to preserve as much biodiversity as possible and ready ourselves for flooding and so on. Not anytime soon mind you, even the worst realistic predictions of sea level rise give us centuries before we start to see significant changes. As things stand I can see all fossil fuel energy sources being phased out by the end of this century, and I fully expect to see widespread adoption of electric vehicles within my lifetime, so it's not so bad. Devastation is going to happen and has happened many, many times in the earth's history, long before humanity made an appearance, but we can minimise it this time round.

And even if we stopped all emissions right now, as far as I'm aware the earth will continue to warm anyway, so perhaps the minor effects of a century of declining emissions versus causing economic chaos right now are a pretty good tradeoff.

Re:Lets set a few things straight.

[Atrox Canis]

The whole global warming debate is as confusing as ever.

No. it isn't. As a scientist I can firmly conclude Global warming is happening, its caused (in part) by human activities, and we need to stop it as it contributes to an array of very devastating consequences.

FTFY - yes, global warming is happening. Yes humans contribute to the problem. I do not believe there is enough evidence to conclude we are the sole or even the major cause. To discount the evidence that we were already in a warming cycle is just as bad as to ignore the evidence that it is in part caused by increased levels of CO2.

Re:Lets set a few things straight.

[pastafazou]

hmmm...appeal to the authority of science and scientists? Check!

Re: Data doesn't fit political needs! New Model ST

[tmosley]

The understanding is right, its just that there is a meme going around that CO2 is a greenhouse gas in a vacuum means it is a GHG in our atmospere. Its heat capacity is actually lower than the weighted average of other atmospheric components. This is like trying to make a warmer blanket by adding metal shavings in with the fluff. If the warming measurements are accurate, anthropic modification of the water cycle (ie irrigation, paving, combustion pushes ever more water into the atmospere) is a more likely source. Of course, you need a little knowledge of physical chemistry and spectroscopy, and a huge fucking ego to stand up and say that this is the case, and climate scientists are all biased and are merely protecting their funding sources. After all, it is almost impossible to get a human who is paid to believe something to realize it is a lie, and even impossiber to get him to stand up and proclaim the truth. Sad fact of human nature.

Re:Lets set a few things straight.

[Anonymous Coward]

(posting anonymously since I'm moderating)

If you really don't believe there's not enough evidence for humans as the main cause and we're really just in a warming cycle, I encourage you to drop what you're doing, become an expert on climate science and report your findings. If your gut feeling is true, you'll do very well for yourself on the talk show circuit and publishing popular science books. You'll also earn the respect of all scientists everywhere, get elected to the National Academy of Sciences (or your local version), and probably win a Nobel prize in chemistry or physics.

I'm serious. The scientific community would welcome a well researched alternate explanation for what's going on with the climate. What they don't welcome is poorly researched explanations that retread topics that have long been discredited. Most of the arguments the deniers use to spread FUD were once pursued by the research community but they turned out to be dead ends or superseded by new research.

The climate research community has looked at this from all different angles and right now all the evidence points to human causes for the current warming trend. If you can prove them wrong, you will have a very good career. Hell, you can probably even get more funding than most climate scientists by going to the oil companies for sponsorship (fun fact (that's just that - a fact - not a political commentary): the quarterly profits of a single oil company are higher than the total annual global spending on climate research).

That's my challenge to all the deniers: if you really don't believe it, do the science* and find a better explanation.

*I almost wrote "research" instead of "science" there. Unfortunately, for most people "research" means googling a topic to find articles that support your viewpoint. Scientific research means collecting data and testing hypotheses.

Re:Climate model accuracy

[BCGlorfindel]

Climate models have been a great means of testing and expanding our understanding of how our climate functions and interacts. That said, the limits on our climate models are GROSSLY underestimated by a great many people.

Why would I say that? Here's a quote from the IPCC's fifth assessment report:
For instance, maintaining the global mean top of the atmosphere (TOA) energy balance in a simulation of pre-industrial climate is essential to prevent
the climate system from drifting to an unrealistic state. The models used in this report almost universally contain adjustments to parameters in their treatment of clouds to fulfil this important constraint of the climate system (Watanabe et al., 2010; Donner et al., 2011; Gent et al., 2011; Golaz et al., 2011; Martin et al., 2011; Hazeleger et al., 2012; Mauritsen et al., 2012; Hourdin et al., 2013).

Before I'm get accused of cherry picking quotes, notice that the statement is backed by reference to 8 separate peer-reviewed journal articles on the subject of climate model tuning. You can use google scholar to look up the articles if you want to point out any misrepresentation by the IPCC, but to save time I've read them myself and the characterization is accurate.

That is to say that TOA energy is hand tuned as a general practice to prevent the models running into unrealistic states. The parameter most commonly used to tune it is the function of clouds. To be fair, the tuning is also restricted to values that are 'reasonable', meaning in keeping with existing observational limits if there are any for the parameters being tuned. The Golaz et al article though notes that even within those limits the choice of equally valid and realistic parameters can make a big difference in predictions, in their case a near complete failure to reproduce recent warming in simulation by changing cloud parameters between equally realistic values.

As I said, climate models are great for advancing and test our understanding of interactions of components of the climate. That comes with the huge caveat though that TOA Energy is the absolute driving factor of long term warming/cooling, and climate models absolutely do NOT predict it correctly as in my understanding from multiple journal articles on the subject, hand tuning is required to prevent unrealistic TOA values over even observed time frames.

Re: Data doesn't fit political needs! New Model ST

[serviscope_minor]

Ah yes the old "it's a global conspiracy of all scientists" argument.

The moment scientists dream of is where they get to prove everyone else that they're wrong. Because that means they're smarter than everyone else. If you've ever been to a science conference you would have seen first hand how heated arguments can get.

Scientists aren't paid to believe anything, they're paid to find out new stuff. And trust me, scientists loooooooooove when that new stuff makes them look smarter than everyone else.

Please clarify...

[jpellino]

"you could get dragonfly's a meter long" So a dragonfly's *what* exactly would be a meter long?

Re:Please clarify...

[neoritter]

Oxygen alone does not make an insect (let alone anything) bigger. That dragonfly got that big probably because there were no natural predators for it. There's a cricket in the mountains of South America that can get pretty big for those exact reasons.

Re: Please clarify...

[silentcoder]

Wingspan

Re: Please clarify...

[silentcoder]

Nobody said it makes them bigger. It is however a prerequisite. Insects have exoskeletons. That puts an upper limit on their size relative to the oxygen content of the air. More oxygen allows bigger insects to be capable of existing. A dragonfly that big today would suffocate.

Re: Please clarify...

[Dixie_Flatline]

The guy asking about the "dragonfly's what" was being a dick and pointing out that you used an apostrophe to pluralise "dragonflies". He didn't really have a point at all.

Re: Please clarify...

[silentcoder]

Typical... grammar nazi failing to spot the difference between a typo and a grammar error, I actually thought he was sincerely asking what part of the dragonfly the measurement was based on.

Re:Please clarify...

[gzuckier]

"you could get dragonfly's a meter long" So a dragonfly's *what* exactly would be a meter long?

A dragonfly's fly a meter long. That would be scary.

Two problems with this article

[bradley13]

There are three problems with this article:

First and foremost, this result is achieved with "corrected commercial ship temperature data", " corrected ship-to-buoy calibrations", and other adjustments. However, I don't see any information on where we can go to examine their adjustment techniques.

Second, the statements at the end of the article make it plain that the goal of the authors is to show even more warming. This is not a neutral investigation, but an investigation with a desired outcome.

Finally, with their new adjustments, they claim to have established a warming rate of around 0.1 degree/decade, and they also say that this is what the warming was from 1950 to 1999. Oddly, they then claim that this is "more than twice the IPCC's estimate". Now that's just weird. The IPCC never predicted so little warming. The IPCC originally predicted ten times that amount, or around 4 to 5 degrees per century (See page xxii, figure 8 in the IPCC report); later reports did revise that down, but never by an order of magnitude.

So: we have people massaging data again, but they are also apparently trying to massage history. Credibility? Somewhere around zero.

Re:Two problems with this article

[mixed_signal]

First: There is additional supplemental material linked from the article, e.g. http://www.sciencemag.org/cont...

Second: Can you point these out specifically and what indicates this is the authors' "goal" ? Their stated goal is to review the temperature data set. They're reporting what they found. And the data is there to see.

Finally: You're confusing the estimate of the warming in the 20th century with the IPCC's forward estimate of warming in the 21st century. The authors of the paper are stating that the revisions to the data set based on aligning buoy with other temperature measurements mainly affects the period from 1998 forward, where significantly more buoy data was added to the set, that the data for the prior period isn't affected much by these adjustments, and that the resulting trends are similar throughout the period, thus the "hiatus" was an artifact of misaligned data in the data set.

Perhaps you should read up on how the data sets are merged and aligned before assuming it's "massaging." It should all be open and published for review. For example, ERSST version 4 is available here: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/d...

 

Re:Two problems with this article

[phantomfive]

Finally, with their new adjustments, they claim to have established a warming rate of around 0.1 degree/decade, and they also say that this is what the warming was from 1950 to 1999. Oddly, they then claim that this is "more than twice the IPCC's estimate". Now that's just weird. The IPCC never predicted so little warming.

I believe the .1 degree/decade estimate can be found in the 2007 report.

Re:Two problems with this article

[riverat1]

First and foremost, this result is achieved with "corrected commercial ship temperature data", " corrected ship-to-buoy calibrations", and other adjustments. However, I don't see any information on where we can go to examine their adjustment techniques.

As mixed_signal point out that sort of stuff is detailed in the supplemental material that accompanies most published scientific papers.

Can We Ship the Warming to China?

[BCtoo]

If anyone actually believed in the AGW fantasy, the most effective step that could be taken would be to shut down China's industry with tariffs and sanctions and stop shipping coal to China where it causes 200% more CO2 to be emitted than it would being burnt in the regulated US power plants. That would crush the largest and fastest-growing CO2 emitter on the planet. But there is no money in that for corrupt statist politicians and bureaucrats. That's why the push crap that would have little impact like carbon taxes. Doesn't address the stated problem but gives them more power and money. A little thought will tell us EXACTLY what this is all about.

Every measurement climate science has ever taken

[Kernel Kurtz]

......has already been "corrected" multiple times by multiple people. Many of them continue to be "corrected" regularly.

The only logical assumption is that most, if not all measurements continue to be wrong.

We've already done it

[AkkarAnadyr]

The global economy runs on energy and material resources.

We call the mechanism we use to track the presence and value of these inputs "money".

We have collectively (publicly and privately, legally and illegally) lent out far more money than what accurately represents the real wealth (i.e., usable stuff) in the global system.

When the global economy recognizes this (it happens periodically, called a 'recession'), the revaluation of money to correspond with current real assets will cause a shrinkage in economic activity corresponding to the removal of excess money from the system. We cannot avoid this, since we have already made the claim on future output and spent it. If we cannot pay down debt in real wealth, we'll default on it.

How much less energy/resources will we consume then? (The US debt stands at over 100% of GDP, for example. We call a 10%+ reduction in economic activity a 'depression'. )

Thus will we reduce the generation of CO2 into the atmosphere, and then we'll get to see the effect on climate.

That is, those of us still generating CO2 for ourselves will see.

Re:Why the hell do we need to "correct" data?

[BCGlorfindel]

you don't really understand anything about measurements, physics, or science if you have to ask this question. Perhaps you should learn what data correction commonly means before you just rely on your ignorance to confirm your political position. hint: its basically impossible to measure what we want to measure, but we can develop very good ideas from first principles about the differences between what we want to measure and what we actually measure. Thus, we can make corrections. First principles that have been effectively validated by 100s of years of scientific endeavor. (Heat transfer, thermodynamics, EM theory, take it down to quantum mechanics, if you want. etc). From basic tested physics theories, we can apply thousands of corrections, but there are several trade-offs, diminishing returns at play. Sometimes those may change over time. Sometimes we missed an important one. Shit happens. Deal with it. Or you can just remain willfully ignorant, which seems to suit you better.

That must be why every damn time temperature data is "corrected" it's in ways that support Chicken Little, alarmist AGW hypotheses.

Where the hell are the corrections in the other direction?

Hell, where are the scientific outliers? Why isn't there one published climate model out there that significantly differs from the "settled" consensus? Where's the model that actually produced predictions that matched the 15-year hiatus in measured warming? Why are all the predictions we see published closer together than the margin of error in the measurements?

Even Einstein himself famously thought quantum mechanics was BS. But nope - we have NONE of that with AGW.

For climate models they are so tightly grouped partly because of model tuning. One of the steps in preparing climate models is tuning parameters to get the correct/observed Top Of Atmosphere(TOA) energy balance. Most commonly parameters for clouds are adjusted until the climate model's TOA energy results match the known values. Without doing that, the energy imbalance rapidly drives the climate into unrealistic states. That is straightforward as incoming/outgoing TOA energy is of course the singular long term driver of climate change. Of course, with it being almost universal practice to hand tune TOA energy to the same trends and values it shouldn't be too surprising that on the macro level, the climate models follow the same trends...

Now just watch some idiot alarmist come call me out for lying or something. The IPCC fifth assessment report states the following in Chapter 9:
Model tuning aims to match observed climate system behaviour and so is connected to judgements as to what constitutes a skilful representation of the Earth’s climate. For instance, maintaining the global mean top of the atmosphere (TOA) energy balance in a simulation of pre-industrial climate is essential to prevent the climate system from drifting to an unrealistic state. The models used in this report almost universally contain adjustments to parameters in their treatment of clouds to fulfil this important constraint of the climate system (Watanabe et al., 2010; Donner et al., 2011; Gent
et al., 2011; Golaz et al., 2011; Martin et al., 2011; Hazeleger et al., 2012; Mauritsen et al., 2012; Hourdin et al., 2013).

That's the IPCC saying exactly what I just did, and a list of fully 8 different peer-reviewed journal articles backing their specific statement up. You want to call me out as wrong or cherry picking then provide something significantly more substantial than the above references if you want to have any leg to stand on.

Re: Don't buy it

[Anonymous Coward]

did you read the article in Science? Figure 1 shows the error band.

It's like when we switch test measures

[WillAffleckUW]

When we went from UDS2 to UDS3 we implemented many open source (cheaper) tests to replace the proprietary (expensive) tests.

While the new tests are designed to be close to the old tests, they are actually less culturally biased and better at prediction.

But the shift in tests causes either a plateau effect (an increase looks like it is stable and not increasing) or a discontinuity up or down.

Someone not familiar with the tests would say "Ah ha! Dementia was stopped!" or "Ah ha! there was a sudden increase/decrease in dementia due to the stress of the tests!"

Neither is correct. They are different (but similar and more predictive) tests.

Same thing here. NOAA upgrades hardware and software and gets better at analysis. People who want to deny what's really happening (global warming, or increased energy in climate systems resulting in much larger storms, changes in weather patterns (both colder snowstorms and hotter summers)) see the difference and latch onto it to deny reality.

Happens all the time.

Kooks galore

[American Patent Guy]

FTA:

A US government laboratory says the much talked about "pause" is an illusion caused by inaccurate data. Updated observations show temperatures did not plateau, say National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) scientists. The warming rate over the past 15 years is "virtually identical" to the last century, they report in Science.

May I ask a question or two?

1. They admit that they're using inaccurate data. Why should we trust the conclusions they reach?
2. The population has grown a great deal over the "last century" (and correspondingly the amount of carbon dioxide released). Why would the warming rate now be "virtually identical" to that from 100 years ago?

I can get more reliable information from people living in the psych ward. Can we please stop having every word from these kooks published as "scientific research", please?

Re:Kooks galore

[mixed_signal]

Of course there are inaccuracies in the data. We'd be foolish to assume they're perfectly accurate to sub 0.1degC, no? And no one said the warming rate was constant over the last 100 years. Read again.

As to your last statement... Geez. You really should read up on the techniques and methods used in climate science rather than assuming you know what's going on and assuming the worst. There is a lot to read out there if you want to get into it. The Science article, it's supplemental materials and references are a starting point.

Re:Kooks galore

[American Patent Guy]

I think you're missing the point (perhaps intentionally). If these "scientists" can't reliably predict collected data, why should we trust their computer models? The inaccuracies in the data they speak of can't be explained by errors due to limited resolution. Statistics says that such errors would be in both directions (for and against their conclusions). Their problem is that they have no explanation for the data adverse to their position, other than to call it "inaccurate".

And you're playing the old trick of shifting the burden of proof. It is not up to me to disprove what they have to say: it is their burden to show that they are correct. When what they have to say doesn't stand up to the light of criticism (by their peer scientists), they haven't met their burden.

I decline your invitation to play with Chicken Little.

Re:Kooks galore

[mixed_signal]

It's not clear you read or understood the Science article. I'm not trying to shift the burden of proof. I'm encouraging you to read up on the subject for yourself before posting that something you don't understand is written by kooks.

The inaccuracies fall into two categories: offset errors and variations. The offset errors are what need to be taken out between different sets of measurements from different types of instruments. Where the data sets overlap in location and time then the offsets can be estimated and used to align the data sets. The article explains this, and it's a very common thing to do. It's not about resolution or solely variation. (How did you come to that conclusion?)

Re:Kooks galore

[American Patent Guy]

If the data isn't accurate enough to explain the disparities in the data, then it isn't accurate enough to explain a theory of man-made global warming either.

So you think that all of the temperature readings (as a whole) taken from the ships all have the same offset error, over only a particular about 15 year period (but not before and after)? Really? I hope that such a correction is not a common one to make: it would make the conclusions of these "scientists" even more suspect.

I don't need to spend my reading time in the annals of junk science.

Re: Data doesn't fit political needs! New Model ST

[tmosley]

"Scientists aren't paid to believe anything"

That is where you are completely wrong. Granting institutions blacklist ANYONE who comes out against AGW, no matter the field. Whether or not AGW is real, or comes from the proposed mechanism is irrelevant. If you speak out against it, right or wrong, you lose everything. This is ten-fold the case with climate scientists. Other branches might be able to seek funding elsewhere, whether from unaligned industry sources or the extremely biased Koch Brothers, but climate scientists don't have even that meager fallback.

I am a scientist. I have applied for and received million dollar grants. There are key words that are often used increase the probability of funding. "Global Warming" is one of them.

As much as scientists like to poke holes in theories, they absolutely will not do it when their funding is at stake. Even the most brutal attack dog doesn't bite the hand that feeds. And if he does, well, you know what happens.

Climate models still hand tune energy balances

[BCGlorfindel]

For everyone worrying about our pending demise in 100 years based on climate models I would urge you to step back from the ledge.

Climate models are a great tool for expanding our understanding of climate processes and their interactions. They have been invaluable in gaining new knowledge and testing theories to better know how our climate behaves. At the same time, they also have a long ways to go.

The most basic primer on climate is that the greenhouse effect is basically the trapping of energy by gases in our atmosphere. The most basic and fundamental measure of this is the difference between energy coming in and energy leaving at the Top Of Atmosphere. This is more commonly referred to as TOA energy balance. This energy imbalance though is very small compared to the overall energy in and out, so measuring it is hard, let alone simulating it. Thus, parameters in climate models are hand tuned until TOA energy matches known and observed trends. This is a necessary step so that all the other modelled processes in the simulation operate under conditions that are reasonable and accurate and we can then compare their behaviour to the real world.

The alarmists, and maybe even some that don't count themselves such, will take huge issue with my next statement. With the climate models hand tuning TOA energy in order to avoid unrealistic conditions, and with TOA energy dominating long term climate trends, the climate models utility to long term predictions right now is poor at best and near nil at worst. You can't take a variable you've hand tuned and claim anything about it's predictive powers.

If you think I'm off my rocker, here's the IPCC saying the same thing:
For instance, maintaining the global mean top of the atmosphere (TOA) energy balance in a simulation of pre-industrial climate is essential to prevent
the climate system from drifting to an unrealistic state. The models used in this report almost universally contain adjustments to parameters in their treatment of clouds to fulfil this important constraint of the climate system (Watanabe et al., 2010; Donner et al., 2011; Gent et al., 2011; Golaz et al., 2011; Martin et al., 2011; Hazeleger et al., 2012; Mauritsen et al., 2012; Hourdin et al., 2013).
and later....
Model tuning directly influences the evaluation of climate models, as the quantities that are tuned cannot be used in model evaluation. Quantities closely related to those tuned will provide only weak tests of model performance.
I needn't point out that TOA energy is closely related to pretty near everything in our climate.

Re:Climate models still hand tune energy balances

[mixed_signal]

Not sure what your point is. The models are useful, but don't pay attention to them because they have (what would seem to be typical) modeing issues,... so they're not useful? Seems muddled.

As you say yourself, the models are useful for understanding trends and influences, and continue to improve.

Note that the reason you're able to point out a citation on this is because the IPCC (and others) are pointing it out for all to be aware of. It's not like they're not aware of this or trying to hide it.

By your statement, "You can't take a variable you've hand tuned and claim anything about it's predictive powers," you may be missing the point. If the TOA adjustment is to align the model state at some point in time or points in time to real data by "adjustments to parameters in their treatment of clouds," then how does that invalidate trend and sensitivity predictions of the overall model?

What do you think could be done better? Is there a better method to set these parameters other than TOA balance?

And, more importantly, do you have evidence that the model predictions are heavily sensitive to the sort (or magnitude) of adjustments being made? (I don't know myself, but you seem awfully concerned about the TOA adjustment in particular, so is there an analysis of this you can point to?)

Re:Climate models still hand tune energy balances

[BCGlorfindel]

Not sure what your point is. The models are useful, but don't pay attention to them because they have (what would seem to be typical) modeing issues,... so they're not useful? Seems muddled.

As you say yourself, the models are useful for understanding trends and influences, and continue to improve.

Note that the reason you're able to point out a citation on this is because the IPCC (and others) are pointing it out for all to be aware of. It's not like they're not aware of this or trying to hide it.

By your statement, "You can't take a variable you've hand tuned and claim anything about it's predictive powers," you may be missing the point. If the TOA adjustment is to align the model state at some point in time or points in time to real data by "adjustments to parameters in their treatment of clouds," then how does that invalidate trend and sensitivity predictions of the overall model?

What do you think could be done better? Is there a better method to set these parameters other than TOA balance?

And, more importantly, do you have evidence that the model predictions are heavily sensitive to the sort (or magnitude) of adjustments being made? (I don't know myself, but you seem awfully concerned about the TOA adjustment in particular, so is there an analysis of this you can point to?)

TOA energy IS climate change. Increased CO2(and any other greenhouse gases) act by trapping more radiation coming in at the top of atmosphere boundary. Current climate models, as per the IPCC and 8 cited articles, drift to unrealistic states UNLESS they are tuned by hand for more realistic TOA.

Yes, my concerns are backed up by the papers if you go read them. I can give you a quick link to the one by Golaz in which they test 3 different equally valid seeming cloud tunings to compare the results and they conclude:
CM3w predicts the most realistic 20th century warming. However, this is achieved with a small and less desirable threshold radius of 6.0 m for the onset of precipitation. Conversely, CM3c uses a more desirable value of 10.6 m but produces a very unrealistic 20th century temperature evolution. This might indicate the presence of compensating model errors.

Choosing the most realistic tuning setting for clouds led the model to fail to reproduce the the last century of warming accurately. Choosing a less realistic one gave a better result. For further reference and those that won't read the whole article, ALL 3 tuning settings chosen additionally were chosen on condition of balancing TOA energy correctly.

What is more, this assessment is assuming that all the other forcings not being tuned are correct, because in practice the tuning for TOA could be correcting for other erroneous values across the models regarding energy transfer patterns. If that were the case, simply balancing the overall global TOA would lead to accurate macros, but possibly because of compensating errors... Like the ones that Golaz noted. Also like the observation made throughout the IPCC report on cloud behaviour in models...

Why does it matter? Because it's the driving force of the climate. The climate models ARE still good at helping us understand the climatic responses to the driving. Regrettably though as long as we are hand-correcting the driving variable, we can't say too much from the models about future driving from TOA.

This hardly seems a controversial observation at this point.

Re:Climate models still hand tune energy balances

[American Patent Guy]

Please don't inject intelligent thinking into the discussion. It will confuse the pundits.

Re:Every measurement climate science has ever take

[david_thornley]

Of course they're wrong. That's why people constantly study them to try to improve them. Then they're normally less wrong.

Re: Data doesn't fit political needs! New Model ST

[Smidge204]

The understanding is right, its just that there is a meme going around that CO2 is a greenhouse gas in a vacuum means it is a GHG in our atmospere. Its heat capacity is actually lower than the weighted average of other atmospheric components. This is like trying to make a warmer blanket by adding metal shavings in with the fluff.

A better analogy would be trying to make a transparent blanket warmer by adding tiny black specs to it. The CO2 causes warming because it absorbs infrared radiation that would otherwise escape into space.

You can easily demonstrate CO2's heat-absorbing effects using a fish tank (or similar chamber with transparent walls), bottle of compressed CO2 and a heat lamp. It's the kind of experiment middle school students do.

If the warming measurements are accurate, anthropic modification of the water cycle (ie irrigation, paving, combustion pushes ever more water into the atmospere) is a more likely source

The problem with this idea is there is a fundamental limit to how much water vapor the atmosphere can "hold," but there is no such limit on the portion of CO2.

Water vapor - which traps heat in the same way CO2 does - does not trap the same wavelengths of infrared radiation, meaning they are two largely independent effects that can be estimated separately.

=Smidge=

Hiatus or not, man-made global warming is real.

[danbob999]

The hiatus wasn't a stop of global warming. It was a decrease of the speed of the warming. Therefore even if the hiatus is real, it doesn't mean global warming has stopped, unlike what deniers have been saying.

Re:Hiatus or not, man-made global warming is real.

[American Patent Guy]

Unlike what the promoters of GW have been saying, this revision of their theories doesn't confirm their theories either.

Re:Hiatus or not, man-made global warming is real.

[danbob999]

True, but AGW is already confirmed (with a >95% confidence), hiatus or not.

The "Jesus Paper" again?

[GlenRaphael]

it turns out instead of "proving" that the hockey stick wasn't real, they proved that they couldn't follow the documented procedures.

Wahl & Amman's results were consistent with McIntyre & McKitrick's work and essentially confirmed a few of the M&M criticisms of the hockey stick. The story of how this played out is amusingly recounted by Bishop Hill in Caspar and the Jesus Paper.

Re:Lets set a few things straight.

[david_thornley]

Hold up there. Climate has been changing since we first had some. The big question is "how fast?", and the current changes are very rapid. A few kilometers of ice go away over tens of thousands of years, that's natural. A variation of 2C over a few million years, that's natural. A variation of 2C in a century or two is remarkable, on a geological basis.

Moreover, if we could reverse AGW, and prevent human impacts on climate, we wouldn't be keeping the climate static. We'd be keeping it pretty stable over millennia.

The current rise in sea level is a little under 3mm per year, which puts us up close to a foot by the rest of the century. That's going to be significant in some respects. Storm surges will be almost a foot higher, and stuff that's on the beach close to the highest high tide mark is going to start getting wet. However, the increase seems to be accelerating, and there's no reason to think it won't be two feet or more by the end of the century. I wouldn't count on centuries before significant rise.

Re:Don't buy it

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read the original report, the error bands are included.

"It is also noteworthy that the new global trends are statistically significant and positive at the 0.10 significance level for 1998–2012 (Fig. 1 and table S1) using the approach described in (25) for determining trend uncertainty. In contrast, IPCC (1), which also utilized the approach in (25), reported no statistically significant trends for 1998-2012 in any of the three primary global surface temperature datasets. Moreover, for 1998–2014, our new global trend is 0.106± 0.058C dec1, and for 2000–2014 it is 0.116± 0.067C dec1 (see table S1 for details). This is similar to the warming of the last half of the 20th century (Fig. 1). A more comprehensive approach for determining the 0.10 significance level (see supplement) that also accounts for the impact of annual errors of estimate on the trend, also shows that the 1998–2014 and 2000–2014 trends (but not 1998–2012) were positive at the 0.10 significance level."

Incorrect Article Title

[EmagGeek]

TFT should read: "NOAA Alters Climate Date to Hide Pause in Global Warming."

Re:Incorrect Article Title

[turkeyfish]

If there has been a "pause" why is it the all the world's glaciers, ice fields, and ice sheets keep melting at faster and faster rates?

Re:Incorrect Article Title

[owski]

You keep saying that, but I've yet to see a reference. Care to share?

Re:Incorrect Article Title

[ebvwfbw]

Because they aren't melting faster and faster. See http://www.forbes.com/sites/ja... It's 2015, Algore was wrong again, as usual. He's just a newspaper reporter that rode into congress on his father's coattails. Otherwise, he's a dud.

Check out the Nasa data. In know, inconvenient data again. They'll have to "adjust" that to follow their gilt trip scheme to make us pay billions.

Global warmings

[jimmydigital]

This paper is a real breakthrough. It's the clearest evidence yet of global warming that's directly attributable to the actions of man. This is a time of great celebrations!

Re:Data doesn't fit political needs! New Model STA

[Coren22]

cars and power plants don't exist to emit CO2 in the first place.

Cars exist to move us around.

Power plants exist to produce power.

Neither exists to emit CO2, that is a result of the reaction.

Re:As long as...

[turkeyfish]

"The pro-AGW stuff has ALL been tainted by special interest cash, massaged data, and manipulated peer review and publishing."

So it is your claim that the pro-AGW crowd is spending big money on melting all that ice and thats why its disappearing?

If that were true, why would the price of oil be falling? Have the pro-AGW crowd been secretly using all those new solar panels, windmills, and secretly built reactors to melt all the ice?

If its not getting hotter, why is all that ice melting?

Parent should not be marked "insightful"

[catchblue22]

The article shows error bands. The parent post is NOT insightful. It is incorrect.

I don't think there's confusion...

[jjn1056]

"The whole global warming debate is as confusing as ever."

I don' think this is correct. My understanding is there's no confusion, just debate over the rate of change. I guess taking the temperature of the planet is not as straightforward as taking the temperature of a person. The planet is big and data comes in from all over, and not everyone has exactly the same tools so there is some ambiguity in that. And the change delta is small to begin with, so any amount of noise or uncertainty is going to have an outweighed effect on our ability to read the numbers and use then as the basis for making predictions. But the only confusion is invented confusion by people that stand to benefit economically from maintaining the status quo.

Re:Don't buy it

[catchblue22]

In contrast to the post from the parent of the parent ("...they didn't include error bands...") the parent to this post is most definitely informative and insightful.

If we're serious, one first step will be

[mpercy]

Right after we get a global agreement to drop CO2 injection to 0, if we mean business, we can start that migration today. I mean, even if we somehow got society to stop burning stuff it'll still take a long time to recover, right? So the seas will continue to rise (despite what HRH Obama once claimed) and temps will still keep going up, so we've got to begin to plan for the inevitable negative consequences for the damage already done.

Governments should start denying building permits for any new structures or infrastructure that is within 70m of current sea level (which is how much sea level would rise if all the ice covering Antarctica, Greenland, and in mountain glaciers around the world were to melt). Government can also stop encouraging people from living in those zones through subsidized flood insurance.

Global warming pause deniers

[fleabay]

The pause deniers are taking the rhetorical form of legitimate scientific debate, while not adhering to the actual principles of that debate.

Re:Global warming pause deniers

[ebvwfbw]

Really? First principle is the data is the data. I mean, this is basic, first day stuff that the proponents keep overlooking, intentionally.

Inconvenient data - http://www.forbes.com/sites/ja... .

I know, those stubborn facts again.

Just keep believing and paying trillions for stuff that isn't even our fault. It's a scheme to defraud us. You just have to realize it and get mad.

Re: Data doesn't fit political needs! New Model ST

[turkeyfish]

Forget the scientists. Just ask yourself, how can all that ice be melting if its not getting warmer?

Re: Data doesn't fit political needs! New Model ST

[tmosley]

Except the blanket ISN'T transparent. You are adding GREY specs that are very slightly LIGHTER than the average of the rest of the material.

Yes, you can do that experiment, but you would need to compare it to regular atmosphere (with the average humidity taken across the entire planet). Do that, and you find that the difference is within the margin of error. Done with a more precise procedure, you find that the CO2 is slightly less than the regular atmosphere (including monatomic and diatomic gasses).

Let me ask you: do you think the Earth has 100% humidity in the atmosphere at all times? Yes, I have seen this question DOZENS of times before, and it is no more valid now than any other time anyone who hadn't thought about the problem for five minutes asked me.

Water vapor absolutely does NOT trap IR the same way as CO2. The water "peak" is broad and low, meaning the more water you have, the more absorption you get, ie it scales linearly. CO2 has a thin, sharp, very tall peak, meaning it becomes saturated at low concentrations, meaning the absorption levels off quickly, at concentrations below current.

Just pull up the two spectra and integrate the number under each peak. It should be clear to you, that even if CO2 weren't already saturated, that a fraction of a percent of a change in H2O would swamp the effect from even a ten-fold increase in CO2. This is also obvious just from basic human experience. Go to any large city in a desert area (which should have CO2 levels three times the average for Earth). It gets cold at night. Go to a similar city, but in an area with 95% humidity (assuming no clouds), and guess what? HOT NIGHTS.

Re: Data doesn't fit political needs! New Model ST

[tmosley]

Oops, sorry, left the "nature" groups out. Go to the high desert where there are no people (and thus less CO2), and you will find cold nights as well. Similarly, 95% humidity areas far from civilization have hot nights. It should become clear from this that humidity is the dominant cause for heat retention, not CO2. And we do, in fact, pump a LOT of water into the air. It's on the same order of magnitude as would be expected for the observed warming.

Re:REALLY? You have two big problems.

[turkeyfish]

"The claim that ANY weather measurement is the "hottest on record" or the "coldest on record" is only useful as an act of deception aimed at the uninformed"

Exactly. The last thing we should do is to use "hottest on record" to inform our behavior so as to avoid making it seem that standing anywhere on the planet is do different than standing in Death Valley without a water bottle in July and August.

Re:efund NOAA

[turkeyfish]

The plutocratic republican's dream: If only only we can destroy government, then all societal problems will just take care of themselves, particularly if one lets former government functions get privatized so that the average citizen can have no say in addressing any problems that might arise.

Re:Using NOAA's "fudged" data

[turkeyfish]

" I’m skeptical because I have doubts about the data."

Forget "the [temperature] data" and just ask yourself, if its not getting any warmer, perhaps because the all climatologists are just pathological liars and simply incapable of reporting their data accurately, why are all the world's glaciers, ice fields, and ice sheets melting faster than at any previous time in Earth history?

Re:Don't buy it

[NotDrWho]

The data didn't agree with their hypothesis, so they found a way to fix the data so it did. That's how the scientific method is supposed to work. IT'S SCIENCE, PEOPLE!

Re:Warming

[wherrera]

That comment's off by over a factor of 10:

(1 / 0.114) = 8.77 decades per degree or 87.7 years per degree.

Re:Climate model accuracy

[BCGlorfindel]

Forget the climate models, just explain why if its not getting any hotter all the world's glaciers, ice fields, as ice caps are melting.

Who ever said it wasn't getting warmer? Sure wasn't me. Instrumental records since 1900 have shown a global upward trend. Sea level has been steadily rising over that same time.

You've maybe mistaken me for someone that wants to reject the science on this or something?

What I pointed to in the scientific literature was that climate models still aren't predicting TOA energy accurately and so they are still in the general practice of hand tuning parameters like clouds to correct it. Climate models are still terrifically useful for learning more about our climate, they are in fact fundamental to that end. I'm merely also noting that since TOA energy dominates long term climate trends, until models can predict it with being tuned by hand we can't rely on climate models for long term trends, or at the very least not without a lot of caveats and conditions.

Re:tribal denial and lazy doomed romanticism

[L. J. Beauregard]

Al Gore

DRINK!

Re:Lets set a few things straight.

[turkeyfish]

Exactly. Those who attempt to equate AWG based warming with post-glaciation forcing ALWAYS fail to recognize the rate difference between the two processes. AWG based warming is now between 100 and 1000 times faster than natural warming cycles at nearly any time in Earth history. Presently, Earth is heating at about 36 times the rate it did during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, the largest single temperature spike in the past 45 million years.

Re:Lets set a few things straight.

[turkeyfish]

Forget authority and just ask yourself a simple question. If its not getting warmer then why are all the world's glaciers, ice fields, and ice sheets melting a rates that far exceed those reported for any previous geological period?

Re:Lets set a few things straight.

[turkeyfish]

Not a fact. The total ice volume in Antarctica is diminishing, even though the amount of sea ice around Antarctica is increasing. Not too surprising since with all the melting at the tongues of Antarctic glaciers virtually all the continent's glaciers are accelerating and dumping more ice into adjoining seas. As the glaciers melt more and more sea ice can be expected.

Re:Lets set a few things straight.

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Hold up there. Climate has been changing since we first had some. The big question is "how fast?", and the current changes are very rapid. A few kilometers of ice go away over tens of thousands of years, that's natural. A variation of 2C over a few million years, that's natural. A variation of 2C in a century or two is remarkable, on a geological basis.

Not really, no. http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports...

The central Greenland ice core record (GRIP and GISP2) has a near annual resolution across the entire glacial to Holocene transition, and reveals episodes of very rapid change. The return to the cold conditions of the Younger Dryas from the incipient inter-glacial warming 13,000 years ago took place within a few decades or less (Alley et al., 1993). The warming phase, that took place about 11,500 years ago, at the end of the Younger Dryas was also very abrupt and central Greenland temperatures increased by 7C or more in a few decades (Johnsen et al., 1992; Grootes et al., 1993; Severinghaus et al., 1998). Most of the changes in wind-blown materials and some other climate indicators were accomplished in a few years (Alley et al., 1993; Taylor et al., 1993; Hammer et al., 1997). Broad regions of the Earth experienced almost synchronous changes over periods of 0 to 30 years (Severinghaus et al., 1998), and changes were very abrupt in at least some regions (Bard et al., 1987), e.g. requiring as little as 10 years off Venezuela (Hughen et al., 1996). Fluctuations in ice conductivity indicate that atmospheric circulation was reorganised extremely rapidly (Taylor et al., 1993). A similar, correlated sequence of abrupt deglacial events also occurred in the tropical and temperate North Atlantic (Bard et al., 1987; Hughen et al., 1996) and in Western Europe (von Grafenstein et al., 1999).

Moreover, if we could reverse AGW, and prevent human impacts on climate, we wouldn't be keeping the climate static. We'd be keeping it pretty stable over millennia.

You realise you just said, "we wouldn't be keeping the climate static, we'd be keeping it pretty static over millennia".

The current rise in sea level is a little under 3mm per year, which puts us up close to a foot by the rest of the century. That's going to be significant in some respects. Storm surges will be almost a foot higher, and stuff that's on the beach close to the highest high tide mark is going to start getting wet. However, the increase seems to be accelerating, and there's no reason to think it won't be two feet or more by the end of the century. I wouldn't count on centuries before significant rise.

Wiki says 21cm to 34cm by 2100. It's really not an incipient threat, which is why we'd best start making longer term plans for adjusting to it, for ourselves and the other inhabitants of this blue marble. And once again we don't really know how everything fits together so the acceleration might not be constant. It might get worse of course but it's all speculation at this point.

Re:Don't buy it

[Sarius64]

Fixing the data to agree with your hypothesis is science? okay

Re: Data doesn't fit political needs! New Model ST

[Smidge204]

Except the blanket ISN'T transparent. You are adding GREY specs that are very slightly LIGHTER than the average of the rest of the material.

1) Nitrogen and oxygen are transparent to IR, so for all intents and purposes, the "blanket" in this analogy is transparent too.

2) You are conflating heat capacity with spectral absorption. These are not even remotely related.

Yes, you can do that experiment, but you would need to compare it to regular atmosphere (with the average humidity taken across the entire planet). Do that, and you find that the difference is within the margin of error.

No, it most certainly is not. You take a transparent vessel, put a heat lamp in front of it, and stand on the other side. Normal air? You can feel the heat through the vessel. Fill the vessel with CO2 gas, and you immediately notice a significant reduction in the heat felt. You can quantify the decrease using IR sensors/FLIR cameras and plate thermometers. Very straightforward.

Water vapor absolutely does NOT trap IR the same way as CO2.

Thank you for basically repeating what I just said, glad we're in agreement.

CO2 has a thin, sharp, very tall peak, meaning it becomes saturated at low concentrations

Wrong on two levels.

For one, there's no concept of "saturation" at work here - CO2 will absorb ALL of the IR energy in the appropriate wavelengths. It's not like the molecules get "full" and let the rest of the IR pass through. The only factor that determines how much of the total radiation is absorbed is the density of the gas: More gas, more absorption.

For two, CO2 has three major peaks and one minor peak, not just one, and they aren't terribly sharp.

Oops, sorry, left the "nature" groups out. Go to the high desert where there are no people (and thus less CO2),

CO2 doesn't quite work that way. The atmosphere is constantly being mixed, especially at high altitudes, so the CO2 does not stay where it is generated for very long. That's what makes this a GLOBAL problem.

Deserts are cold at night because there's no mass to hold the heat. The sand does not hold much thermal energy and there is no entrapment of the radiation from other surfaces because it's basically flat. All emitted thermal radiation quickly escapes into the atmosphere instead of being trapped by buildings and trees.

This is another experiment you can try: Park your car overnight such that it is half under a tree. If it dips below the dew point overnight, you'll likely find that the parts of your car that have a clear view of the sky have more dew on them than the parts that can only "see" the tree, which may not have any dew on them at all. The car emits thermal radiation, and the tree absorbs/reflects some of that radiation back where the sky does not. The result is the exposed portions of the car can more easily shed the thermal energy and thus collect more dew.

95% Humidity areas away from civilization also have dense forests which trap the heat overnight.

And we do, in fact, pump a LOT of water into the air. It's on the same order of magnitude as would be expected for the observed warming.

[citation needed] - Gonna have to see where you're getting these numbers.
=Smidge=

Re:Lets set a few things straight.

[turkeyfish]

"if a point data is wrong, you don't adjust it, you discard it."

No, it a data point is wrong you need to be able to explain why and how it is that it is wrong and also be able to explain what the effect would be without the presence of a particular data point.

All measures have the potential for error, so simply claiming that error is present is insufficient since that is taken as a given. One must be able to "correct" or "explain" anomalous data points.

Re:Lets set a few things straight.

[Intrepid imaginaut]

the largest single temperature spike in the past 45 million years.

You mean larger than this: http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports...

The central Greenland ice core record (GRIP and GISP2) has a near annual resolution across the entire glacial to Holocene transition, and reveals episodes of very rapid change. The return to the cold conditions of the Younger Dryas from the incipient inter-glacial warming 13,000 years ago took place within a few decades or less (Alley et al., 1993). The warming phase, that took place about 11,500 years ago, at the end of the Younger Dryas was also very abrupt and central Greenland temperatures increased by 7C or more in a few decades (Johnsen et al., 1992; Grootes et al., 1993; Severinghaus et al., 1998). Most of the changes in wind-blown materials and some other climate indicators were accomplished in a few years (Alley et al., 1993; Taylor et al., 1993; Hammer et al., 1997). Broad regions of the Earth experienced almost synchronous changes over periods of 0 to 30 years (Severinghaus et al., 1998), and changes were very abrupt in at least some regions (Bard et al., 1987), e.g. requiring as little as 10 years off Venezuela (Hughen et al., 1996). Fluctuations in ice conductivity indicate that atmospheric circulation was reorganised extremely rapidly (Taylor et al., 1993). A similar, correlated sequence of abrupt deglacial events also occurred in the tropical and temperate North Atlantic (Bard et al., 1987; Hughen et al., 1996) and in Western Europe (von Grafenstein et al., 1999).

Re:No evidence CO2 causes global warming

[turkeyfish]

The solar output can not explain the current temperature shifts because the total variation in solar output has been far too small to account for the observed temperature differences.

We know that orbital cycles, such as the Milkanovitch cycle can not explain the present global warming since currently it predicts that the Earth should be cooling rather than warming.

If as the AWG deniers claim all the physics surrounding the greenhouse effect is wrong, then we are left with a more profound question that the AWG deniers have created for themselves, but which they can provide NO CREDIBLE EXPLANATION whatsoever, namely why, if its not getting warmer, are all the world's glaciers, ice fields, and ice sheets melting at rates higher than ever previously recorded in Earth history?

Re:Lets set a few things straight.

[American Patent Guy]

The reason there is little research against global warming theories is because that effort is unpopular, in terms of funding. Universities, the government, etc. all want to claim they are fixing a problem. No one wants to fund a study that doesn't make a showing of "progress".

When the proponents of GW come up with confirmable theories (ones that don't require the "adjustment" of collected data and last more than a year or two), then they shall have my ear.

Re:Climate model accuracy

[paradigmsareconstruc]

That's exactly why we should be paying attention to electric joule heating -- because it is heat that would be particularly focused upon the poles, due to the effect of magnetic fields directing charged particles. The observational situation today is a bit much like trying to measure the inherent power of an AC signal with a DC probe: The E-field fluctuations at the poles are a bit faster than the tools being used to measure this power. There is energy within these fluctuations that is not being captured by efforts to date.

Re:When you don't like the data...

[turkeyfish]

"It's this kind of bullshit that prevents people from believing the global warming hype."

If its all hype and bullshit and the Earth isn't warming, how do you explain why nearly every glacier, ice field, and ice sheet on the planet is melting faster than it has in even just 50 years ago?

Re:Data doesn't fit political needs! New Model STA

[silentcoder]

Nobody suggested that was their purpose. Your comment has litterally zero relevance to the discussion.

The point was that the SAME laws of physics that allow those things to work at all, also makes global warming a reality. You CAN'T disprove global warming without altering those fundamental laws of physics and chemistry - without those laws, engines don't work.

Re:Lets set a few things straight.

[pastafazou]

"rates that far exceed those reported for any previous geological period"
^ This is made up.

Re:Don't buy it

[Spazmania]

Not in science that should be taken seriously, no. There was even an article linked on slashdot about this a few months ago which looked a bunch of historical articles where the error was around 50% of the observed value. I don't recall the exact results (get googling if you want to find them) but the short version was that they were pretty unreliable.

I guess the problem is that human beings tending to be human beings, we're a hair overly-optimistic about the accuracy of our measurements.

You really want to see error bands that are an order of magnitude or more smaller than the value which was to be measured and computed. +/- 10% at the most.

Re:The Earth has been nearly sterilized several ti

[RabidReindeer]

... in a few dozen million years will have a whole new set of flora and fauna and perhaps newXXXX intelligent species.

There. Fixed.

Here we go.

[Falconhell]

You just know this thread will be full of denialist crap, repeating the same debunked talking points.

Re:The Earth has been nearly sterilized several ti

[St.Creed]

Yeah, just like Venus.

So, then,

[TaleSpinner]

...why did the IPCC muck with it's own data? If there IS no hiatus, then their data would have SHOWED warming, wouldn't it? Why would they doctor data that backed up their assertion?

And where, exactly, does YOUR new data come from? You, yourselves, point out the ship-based intake temperatures are now sampled far more than bouy-based ones and you admit they skew higher - understandably so as such measurements will always fall prey to differences in designs for the water inlets, and you make no mention of how you correct for this over the various classes of ships the data is coming from. You then use this same observation to contradict every other study but the IPCC, which was PROVEN to be cooking its numbers with the microwave set to 11? How does this prove SQUAT? The American database is corroded with closings of more remote monitoring stations and skew hot because of the heat island effect. How, exactly, are you compensating for that? Answer: you still aren't - yet your study must be either using no land-based data at all (and so you're comparing apples and peanuts) or you are using bad data (comparing apples with bad apples) - and even THAT is giving you the benefit of the doubt. Face it, the climate changers have been outed as serial liars, you have some serious backfilling to do - and more every time Obama opens his lying mouth!

And, ABOUT that, in the interest of full disclosure, how many of the people in THIS study are Democrats, have given money to Democrats, or are working for companies like Solyndra that depend on Democrat handouts? Because I think you're just another climate-change alarmist sock puppet.

In short, you have made an extraordinary claim in defiance of twenty years of established science, but you have NOT shown extraordinarily convincing data, just more of the usual.

Re:So, then,

[onemorechip]

Who are you addressing?

Re:Lets set a few things straight.

[david_thornley]

I say that global temperatures generally stay pretty stable, and you say that they fluctuated wildly in central Greenland. I'm not impressed. Read farther down that quote and they're talking about increases of less than 2C per millennium, even in Greenland.

A one-foot increase in sea level is significant. It isn't catastrophic, although it will make some disasters significantly worse.

Re:Lets set a few things straight.

[Intrepid imaginaut]

I don't care what you say. Read even further down would be my advice, or just read the bit I quoted again: "Broad regions of the Earth experienced almost synchronous changes over periods of 0 to 30 years (Severinghaus et al., 1998), and changes were very abrupt in at least some regions (Bard et al., 1987), e.g. requiring as little as 10 years off Venezuela (Hughen et al., 1996)." It's well known that sudden temperature increases and decreases have happened with some regularity in recent history, geologically speaking. Well known by those who care to actually learn the science, of course.

That moment when you realise you're as ideologically hidebound as any denier.

Invalidates the models

[huckamania]

We've been told that the models matched the non-adjusted records that existed before this new paper was published. These new adjustments mean that all of the models no longer match the past global temps. It might move some model predictions for the present a little closer, but not enough for an exact fit. I think they are hoping for a really strong El Nino to make up the rest of the deficit and then push for a big splash in Paris.

As much science as aryan physics

[alex4747]

As long as skeptics have no access to raw data and publications "climate science" is on the same level as aryan physics was.

Re: Citation needed for granting institutions

[tmosley]

Whether or not they are valid, blacklists suppress dissent. The Nazis did that too, as did every authoritarian regime in human history. Why don't you let people hear both sides of the flat Earth story, rather than forcing the eccentric genius biologist who believes in it into retirement? The people, especially the educated ones, whose opinions actually matter, will look at the evidence and make a decision for themselves. This is the best way to avoid a situation like that which Copernicus found himself in (isn't it OBVIOUS that the Sun goes around the Earth!? What are you, nuts?).

In the fianl analysis, flat Earth theory is dependent on a torturous mathematical model that makes Earth special for no apparent reason, which is highly unlikely, making their suppositions highly unlikely. AGW, on the other hand, has a number of major problems, some of which I have pointed out (ie they have picked the wrong horse in terms of GHGs, and they appear to have manipulated raw data to agree with their conclusion).

Re: Data doesn't fit political needs! New Model ST

[riverat1]

The understanding is right, its just that there is a meme going around that CO2 is a greenhouse gas in a vacuum means it is a GHG in our atmospere (sic).

Huh!?!?!? Talk about blowing my mind. How can any gas exist in a vacuum? I presume you meant "in a laboratory".

The heat capacity of CO2 has nothing to do with its radiative absorption characteristics which is what traps the heat. Since over 70% of the planet is covered by water humans can do essentially nothing to directly affect the amount of it in the atmosphere. Since water vapor is a condensing gas at normal Earth conditions the level of water vapor is controlled by temperature and any excess water in the atmosphere simply precipitates out in short order.

Re: Data doesn't fit political needs! New Model ST

[riverat1]

Wow, the conspiracy must really be strong to co-opt every granting institution in the world and keep it together for over 3 decades without anyone discovering the deception. If they're really that good you might as well give up and go along with the program because you'll never defeat them. /snark

Re: Data doesn't fit political needs! New Model ST

[tmosley]

So, you're saying that nitrogen, oxygen, and CO2 are the only components of the atmosphere? Sorry, I did the math. You are leaving out quite a bit, especially WATER.

Heat capacity IS spectral absorption. RAMAN+IR spectral absorption. If you disagree, then one of us doesn't know what he is talking about, and I have the degree in the subject.

No, it most certainly is not. You take a transparent vessel, put a heat lamp in front of it, and stand on the other side. Normal air? You can feel the heat through the vessel. Fill the vessel with CO2 gas, and you immediately notice a significant reduction in the heat felt. You can quantify the decrease using IR sensors/FLIR cameras and plate thermometers. Very straightforward.

[citation needed]

More gas, more absorption.

Yes, until 100% of the radiation is absorbed, which happens at a pretty low concentration, one that we already passed. IE there is no difference between an atmosphere where 100% of photons are absorbed within 20 meters, and one where it happens within 10. This is because it is SATURATED. More doesn't matter. That is what the word "saturation" means.

"so the CO2 does not stay where it is generated for very long"

Yale begs to disagree. http://e360.yale.edu/digest/co... CO2 domes are a well known phenomenon, and any organization that DENIES their existence should immediately lose credibility in this discussion. Luckily for NASA, that isn't at all what that web page is about.

Also, please stop making shit up because it sounds like it supports your argument. All you are doing is destroying your own credibility. Ideas are not soldiers. You are not obligated to support ideas that are on your side even if they are wrong or weak.

"[citation needed]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://news.nationalgeographic...
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/v...

Really, just a duckduckgo search for "percentage of land that is irrigated" and "percentage of land that is paved". Its a lot. If you don't believe me, take the window seat next time you fly across country and MARVEL at the number of huge circles of irrigated farmland. Or just look out the window of your apartment and note how much of the area that you can see is or isn't paved.

Re: Citation needed for granting institutions

[tmosley]

Sorry, I'm not Snowden. He probably has something on the subject in the 99% of documents he has yet to release, though. All I have is anecdote.

But be fair. If you were in charge, wouldn't you block funding to these crazies? Why are you wasting taxpayer money on people who are so unscientific and, well, just downright evil?

Do you think the people who work at granting agencies are angels?

Re: Data doesn't fit political needs! New Model ST

[Orgasmatron]

You've done the experiment? This experiment? The one that can't work?

Re: Data doesn't fit political needs! New Model ST

[tmosley]

Sorry--should have said heat capacity is proportional to the area under the curve (ie the integral) of the IR absorption spectrum.

Re:Really?

[riverat1]

What this reads as is that climatologists weren't able to even use a thermometer properly in the last decade, and yet they were in the decades and centuries previous. It's like they're trying to make people not believe them.

No, what it reads as is there are systematic differences between two different methods* of measuring ocean surface water temperatures. If there are systematic difference then you can make adjustments to one or the other methods observations to bring the two series in line with each other.

*Measuring the temperature in ship cooling water intakes and on buoys.

Re: Data doesn't fit political needs! New Model ST

[Smidge204]

No, heat capacity is a physical property of a substance - the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of that substance. The IR absorption spectrum has absolutely nothing to do with heat capacity.
=Smidge=

Re: Data doesn't fit political needs! New Model ST

[Smidge204]

and I have the degree in the subject.

Of course you do.

You need a citation for a basic experiment? Really? Um, okay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

This is literally an experiment that middle school children do in science class. I didn't think a citation would be necessary for basic physics.

Yale begs to disagree.

Less wind due to buildings means the CO2 is slower to disperse - but that does not mean it never disperses. Otherwise, after nearly a hundred years of urban activity, there would be no breathable air left in the cities.

The idea that CO2 is more concentrated at the sources is not what I'm contesting - my claim is it does not stay there. By way of analogy, the concentration of pollution near a sewer pipe discharging into the ocean will be higher near the pipe, but that doesn't mean the pollution never spreads out.

You are not obligated to support ideas that are on your side even if they are wrong or weak.

I really don't know where you're coming from here. You are wrong about heat capacity, you are wrong about how CO2 traps heat in the atmosphere, and you are wrong about the role water vapor plays in the whole thing. I'm not defending any ideas here other than basic physics.

Sounds like you're projecting, really.

The references you provided were all about irrigation area. I'm not contesting that we've done a lot to transform the landscape, and I'm not contesting that human activity increases water evaporation.

I asked you to provide support for your claims about the effects of atmospheric water, specifically the claim anthropomorphic sources of additional humidity are "on the same order of magnitude as would be expected for the observed warming."
=Smidge=

NOAA falsification

[RobertJon]

You give me the answer, and I'll give you the data. Or else you give me the data, and I'll give you the answer. So says warmism.

Re:Don't buy it

[doccus]

It wasn't an "error".. They fudged the numbers by artificially raising the pre-"pause" temps..

OK how does science update

[niftymitch]

OK how does science update observations without a time machine?

Observations are observed facts and by their nature do not
change unless a calibration was found to be incorrect and
then it is not the observation that changes it is the computed
result after application of calibration data.

I am a believer in global warming and global climate change.
I am not a believer in much of the "science".
I balk at consensus science.

My personal bias has many origins but the one the gets me
was a "customer" complaining that his new supercomputer
was giving him an incorrect 19th digit in the resulting output.
I cracked open the deck (old FORTRAN) and noted on the
first screen "PI = 3.14". This tells me that NOTHING in
the output that involved PI had any validity beyond three digits.
Yet this guy was concerned with the 19th.

I asked why he did not substitute a value of PI from math.h
and he explained that the code was unstable if given more
digits to PI. OMG I said to myself.

Then I looked at his published research and yes he was worried
about CO2 in the ocean but in specific he wanted to eliminate
natural regions of the sea floor low enough in O2 to sequester
organic matter. i.e. he was worried about a natural process that
reduced CO2 in the air and wanted to eliminate it.

I happen to live down wind of "El Niño" and am astounded by the inability
of the global weather services to model and measure this. I see
headlines like: ""El Niño might “push the needle on global temperature” toward unprecedented warmth""
This is a conjecture for the 2015-2016 rainy season in Calif less than a year away
and others are telling me that the sky is falling in 100 years.

Like I said I am a believer that man is altering the planet weather.
I do believe that the ostriches in government need to fund quality
research and fund better data gathering efforts.

The United nations needs to mandate that all commercial aircraft, trains and all ships at
sea carry an instrument package to assist in data collecting efforts.
And that that data be delivered to the UN for use by all UN members.
This does leave big data voids but it would be a start.

 

Re:Don't buy it

[Spazmania]

Maybe they did, maybe they didn't but that sort of error has nothing to do with what I'm talking about.

No real-world measurement is perfect. It's never -exactly- 90 degrees out. As a scientist you're expected to understand that it is -approximately- 90 degrees out. And you're expected to faithfully report how approximately your tools permit you to measure... within a degree? within a 100th of a degree?

The "error band" is a determination of how approximate the measurement is. As you combine measurements and perform computations on them, you have to carry that error through the computations so that you can understand the impact that initial fuzziness in the data has on the final result.

When scientific numbers are reported without the error band, or with an error band too close to the claimed effect, it's a red flag suggesting something fishy with the claim.

climate change

[paul mafinga]

There probably is something to global warming and GHGs. We should move to reduce emissions and reliance on fossil fuels, if for no other reason that public health.

However, the democratic party's politics seems to be distorting what needs to be done, and in what time frame. They seem to confuse popular spending with effective spending. Many of the cabinet hierarchies have names like "Housing and Urban Development" but urban blight seems as bad as ever, and housing unaffordable, with little innovation in either area for many decades, even though this one federal hierarchy has 8,000 employees and spends 32 B. a year.

Too often the Democrats and the social left clamor for spending authority on a popular crisis, but there is no mission statement, milestones, time frame, or definition of success. The IPCC and the National Academy have, at times, said that climate change is not a major priority, as the gases have been pumped into the atmosphere for many decades, and will not "half life" out for many decades to come.

The USA is no longer the largest contributor to GHGs, and that makes it a UN / International issue. As we've seen in Kyoto and other conferences, it is very expensive for a nation to shut down or modify their fossil fuel plants early. They're led to US technologies and services to do so. It has the taint of self-serving corruption -- the USA and Europe claim "Doom is coming! And by the way, here's the technology you need to buy from us, and the new loans to do it". No wonder they want western nations to share the costs.

Now for the democratic party hypocrisy : The famous green senator from California, Barbara Boxer, was all smiles and fist-pumping two years ago when she and her zealots finally shut down the San Onofre nuclear power plant. In the aftermath, fossil fuel plants had to be brought on line to compensate, increasing California's CO2 output by some 12%.

Note also that Californians spend an additional $1 per gallon for gasoline than the rest of the nation. Not sure how that affects climate change, but it is an indicator that democrats will harm Americans in the pocketbook when their tax and spend zealotry is allowed to run unchecked. No oversight means unlimited power -- when the Democrats controlled all three federal branches after the "everyone must own a home / easy credit" real estate collapse, they immediately accepted record donations from health insurance companies, wrote a 120 thousand word bill, and expanded it into 400,000 or so new federal regulations. In reality, a person could count the basic complaints about health insurance on three fingers -- high costs, refusal to cover, denial of service. What we've ended up with is rapidly becoming as expensive as what we had before, with the added bonus of forcing religious organizations to provide contraceptives.

The expansion of electric cars everywhere is going to happen. It's a crucial step towards reducing GHGs. Also many businesses and homes are shifting to solar and installed energy efficient devices. Yes, the Democrats are largely responsible for pushing these technologies along. Two gold stars.

But the day to day hysteria over GHGs doesn't match the reality about what can be done about GHGs and in what timeframe. The IPCC and the National Academy both agree that there are time frames involved -- goals for the next 20 years, 75 years, 150 years. They've also said that little can be done beyond what we are doing now -- monitoring, trying to foster international agreements, reduction in fossil fuel use, exploring advanced energy technologies. Generally speaking, we are doing what can be done. Having the two traditional, pseudo-liberal, national propaganda streams -- New York and Los Angeles -- pump out hysterical stories about the issue is tiresome, annoying, and more about influencing elections and scaring people than improving the atmosphere.

Because scared people might quickly vote Democrat and ignore the larger problems : A 4:1 ratio of taxpayers to government funded employees. 4,000,000 word

Re:Using NOAA's "fudged" data

[TaleSpinner]

Why is the polar ice coverage greater now than at any previous time in the satellite-observation era?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Re:Don't buy it

[iMactheKnife]

10% significance level is not enough to support a carbon tax. 90% might be.

Re: Data doesn't fit political needs! New Model ST

[tmosley]

And by exactly which magical mechanism does the energy get into the molecule, if not by IR absorption? Phlogiston?

Molecules absorb and hold energy in their bonds. You can tell which bonds hold how much energy from the spectrum (its the area under the curve, as I said). This is spectroscopy 101.

Re: Citation needed for granting institutions

[dave420]

Godwin! Nicely done. I see you didn't manage to blame the communists in that post, and proudly showed your lack of understanding of the subject. You are clearly a very rational person.

Re:"alarmists" vs "deniers": a false dichotomy.

[onemorechip]

Yes, the deniers are raising their voices loudly as if they are genuinely alarmed (and they are, since action on climate change would threaten their oil profits). The realists just go on with the science.

Re:Lets set a few things straight.

[david_thornley]

I read the frippin' quote, and found the part that is against your ideas.

Changes were fast around some fairly large regions. We're looking at the entire surface of the planet here. There's a difference, and you appear to be completely missing it. Your quote does not say that there were rapid worldwide changes, but rather that they were about 2C/millennium.

I'm not ideologically hidebound, but if you're going to try to change my mind provide evidence that actually supports your position, and expect me to examine it critically.

Re:Lets set a few things straight.

[Intrepid imaginaut]

It's like watching someone trying to argue they're still going in the right direction five seconds after they've sailed over the edge of a cliff.

Listen buddy here's a mental exercise for you: try to imagine what would happen if the temperatures in central Greenland today were to spike by more than 7C between now and 2030. You think maybe someone might notice? Maybe it might have an effect of some sort on the rest of the world? Or maybe the rest of the world had already increased in temperature, contributing to this massive spike?

What we've got here is somebody complaining about how ice cores taken in Greenland only measured temperatures in Greenland(!) (ignoring the rest of the research) and further making out that we're in the midst of a man-made apocalyptic climate event when far more savage events have been observed by science in very recent geological terms. No doubt capitalism makes an appearance somewhere in this scientific theology too.