That hasn't been my experience. Surprisingly, I've had more civil discussions with creationists and theists than I have had with many cult of global warming folk, despite the fact that cult of global warming folk identify as "scientific" in the same way I do.
I've never found that so, actually. I suppose if I finally believed that I knew everything there was to know about how theists and creationists think, I might get tired, but I've never been so proud as to believe I know everything about anything.
For example a lot of people are focusing on the fact that climate change is not occurring as fast as it once was thought, or that we have a cooling cycle going on right now, as an indictment for the general idea that climate change is a problem.
State a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement for catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, and then we can start having a scientific discussion.
You cannot simply assert "climate change is a problem", and expect people to take that as science. "Climate change" always happens, and always will. "Problems" have to be quantified, especially if there are both negatives and positives to a given change.
Of course, you could just censor this comment as going against "bedrock scientific doctrine", and do as PopSci did:)
I know for a fact that theists and creationists are completely bonkers and wrong - but I'm *always* willing to debate the issue. The exercise both helps me hone my own rationale, but also gives me empathy and insight to their beliefs and convictions.
Do they even realize the inherent contradiction between "scientific" and "doctrine"?
Science is the ruthless pursuit of truth through falsifiable hypotheses, and *requires* challenges to any "doctrine", and *requires* the admission of error.
So, your assertion is that changes in CO2 levels is NOT caused by human activity, or that the contribution by humans is negligible. Sadly, most authorities disagree with you.
Science does not happen by appeal to authority, but good job trying:)
The ice core mystery has been explained in such a way that the time differences are in the noise.
That's an ad hoc special pleading, not an explanation. The data is the data, and the ice core data shows temperature moves first, *then* CO2. Saying that a negative result is simply "noise" is a violation of scientific principle and ethics.
However, it could easily be a situation where small changes in temperature cause CO2 spikes, which then contribute to a feedback loop.
Why hasn't the earth ever experienced a runaway feedback loop?
Think carefully about your answer.
Since there were no excess sources of CO2 in the Pleistocene, the temperature rise precedes the CO2 rise.
Pray tell, how does a CO2 molecule know it is "excess"? Surely, if a CO2 molecule comes from *anywhere*, it should behave the same - what is magical about CO2 generated by humans, in comparison to say, CO2 generated by volcanic activity, or even just mammals?
Since we are artificially increasing CO2, we trigger the warming effect without a requirement for excess solar radiation.
"Artificial" here is a cop out - *any* CO2 increase in the past (and you've identified some similar greenhouse gas increases, say in permafrost melting), and it should behave the same way...except that it doesn't happen in the order you want it to - CO2 moves *after* temperature.
I have read 'Good Calories, Bad Calories' by Taubes. The book is very convincing.
I am *so* happy to hear we have some common ground! Excellent! I have no doubt that "Good Calories, Bad Calories" saved my life.
Now, you may not believe my point of view now on CAGW, but I'll assert that the government guidance on nutrition driven by the zealot Ancel Keys and his "precautionary principle" against fat is directly analogous to the government guidance on catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. Every single negative result in attempts to link cholesterol levels to heart disease has been thoroughly dismissed by government authorities for almost 4 decades, and excuses made for every failure of experiment.
But why? Why doesn't the government admit error? The essential problem is that government derives power from authority, and loses authority if they admit error. Thus, institutional inertia keeps bad science alive in government long after the evidence has shown it to be false.
Government has made a statement about catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, in fact, they've made incredibly strong statements about it. It simply is not in their interest to admit error, and it will take years, if not decades, to undo the damage they've done to the science. You can always assert that you trust them, and that moreover, that they're right, but I think you can admit this - if they were wrong, it would be *incredibly* hard for them to admit.
Can you really be so sure of your facts
I'm very careful about my facts - and I'm not proposing any grand unified theory of climate change in response to CAGW. My point of view is that without falsifiability, we don't have science, and until *that* hurdle is jumped I have no reason to believe in any particular explanation.
I'll leave with an echo of the "atheists only disbelieve in one more god than monotheists" - I don't believe that methane determines global average temperature. I don't believe that helium determines global average temperature. I don't believe in any number of single variable drivers of global average temperatures...hundreds, if not thousands of them. You don't believe in them either, I'm sure.
It is clear that humans contribute to the rise of CO2.
No, let's be specific - it's clear that humans emit CO2. Butterflies emit CO2 as well. These are *facts*.
The rise of CO2 on a global level, however, is quite possibly *independent* of individual contributing factors due to the complexity of the carbon cycle. I had mentioned buffer solutions earlier, and I'm not sure if you picked up on that, but go back to some basic chemistry - you can have some systems (say, a buffer solution), which in fact, react to both the addition of acid and the addition of base in the same way with neutralization.
So imagine for a moment that in our global system, the buffer for CO2 is the ocean, and the temperature of the ocean (primarily determined by how much sunlight gets to the surface layer, mediated by the albedo of clouds, which unfortunately our GCMs aren't good at), is what truly controls CO2 levels. If humans, say, *stole* CO2 from the atmosphere on a massive scale, this buffer would simply replace that CO2 to get back to the partial pressure determined by temperature. If humans *emit* CO2 into the atmosphere on a massive scale, this buffer would simply absorb that CO2 to get back to the partial pressure determined by temperature.
Of course, this is a simplified example (although not nearly as simple as the dumb bathtub of water analogy CAGW zealots believe in), but a constructive one - many natural systems work this way, with emergent phenomena maintaining a surprisingly narrow band.
Given a correlation between temperature and CO2, and the fact that human activity is causing a rise in CO2 , there is no doubt that if we continue, there will rising oceans, which will in turn cause massive displacement of humans.
Okay, now you've taken one reasonable assertion, on doubtful one, and jumped onto a crazy conclusion. Yes, there is a correlation between temperature and CO2 - although you apparently haven't figured out the causality there. It's *possible* human activity can cause a rise in CO2, but given the nature of the oceans and how they buffer atmospheric CO2, the rise would be almost indistinguishable from other factors.
"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated in 2007, “Global average sea level rose at an average rate of 1.8 mm per year over 1961 to 2003. The rate was faster over 1993 to 2003: about 3.1 mm per year.” This translates to a 100-year rise of only 7 inches and 12 inches, far below the dire predictions of the climate alarmists.
But three millimeters is about the thickness of two dimes. Can scientists really measure a change in sea level over the course of a year, averaged across the world, which is two dimes thick?"
So, hypothesis: CO2 is correlated with Temperature. null hypothesis: CO2 != temperature.
That makes no mention of humanity's CO2 emissions, nor does it determine causality. Please, try again.
Experiment: look at ice cores: conclusion: yes, there is a correlation.
Again, correlation isn't causality:)
If you'll note, the ice cores show temperature changing *first*, followed by CO2 changes. This is literally indisputable.
Here's another correlation/causality for you - people who consume more calories than they utilize or excrete correlate to the accumulation of fat.
Would you believe that in fact, the causality actually *starts* with fat accumulation, which *causes* the consumption of more calories than they utilize or excrete?
If you're interested in learning about other scientific blunders of "consensus", check out http://garytaubes.com/lectures/ - he's got a great history lesson on nutrition, obesity and chronic diseases.
Sure. If carbon levels go up precipitously for, say, 50 years, and the climate does NOT warm, after having corrected for things like solar radiation output, distance from the sun, etc, I would be convinced that CO2 emissions have nothing to do with warming.
Odd, not a single mention of human CO2 emissions, nor any sign of catastrophe in your observation that you would accept as falsification. It seems you're looking at a lesser statement of "CO2 drives warming", although you leave an "etc" in there that you obviously cannot enumerate, and would use as an ad hoc special pleading for any violation of your belief.
It's obvious from the paleo record that indeed, we do have historical points in time where CO2 rises, and temperature *falls* - heck, the past 17 years, CO2 has risen and temperatures have remained *flat*, even though solar radiation output hasn't varied much, and the distance from the sun hasn't changed...I suppose you could buy into the cosmic ray hypothesis and the solar magnetic field variation, but then you've added a variable that we have no control over that wildly overrides even our most active CO2 emissions.
Since human activity is, in fact, increasing CO2 levels
You seem to believe that CO2 levels are simply based on unconnected inputs and outputs...I think you fail to realize that the CO2 cycle is in fact *dynamic*, and it *reacts* to changes in inputs and outputs in non-linear ways.
Computer models have been built that, in effect, create a 'new world', that can be used to test these sorts of hypotheses.
Computer models aren't tests - they're fiction.
Think about it - they've got *dozens* of computer models that all *disagree* - by what criteria are you going to decide which one is correct?
Hell, do you have *any* models which have any sort of falsification criteria at all?
My religion, if it is a religion, is that science gets it right much more often than it gets it wrong.
Well, I have no religion, and the exercise of science is not about getting things "right" more often than "wrong" - that's a complete misunderstanding of the scientific method. Science is the process of learning *when* you're wrong - and instead you've convinced yourself that it's just "right" from the get go without any sort of scrutiny...truly a religious epiphany, I'm sure:)
In order to understand *when* you're wrong, you need to have a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement. Thus far, the CAGW religion has none, just like creationism has none.
but those incorrect explanations are mostly due to missing facts
We discover explanations are incorrect when the explanations are falsifiable, and we observe the falsification. To think that explanations are only incorrect because we haven't found the right "facts" is like defending the historicity of noah's ark by saying we're just missing the proper evidence:)
So, yes, I believe what scientists tell me.
You shouldn't outsource your rational thought processes. That's the hallmark of religion.
You should double check the data.
You should look for falsifiability.
You should look for alternative explanations.
You should challenge your own beliefs with fervor and great effort, because in the end, the easiest person to fool is yourself.
No, I deny that it is anywhere near as probable as the hypothesis that it is caused by humans, as do most climate scientists.
Why do you deny that natural climate change is probable?
Ah, ad hominim attack!
It wasn't an attack, it was a statement of fact - you don't understand the concept of falsifiability. You don't understand what a null hypothesis is, and you don't understand the scientific method.
An ad hominem attack would be calling you a right-wing-religious-nut:)
Please indicate your credentials.
Appeal to authority again?:) Very religious of you:)
Sigh. My proposed hypothesis is that I'm not arguing with a wall.
Difficult to prove a negative, don't you think? Maybe if you formed your hypotheses in the affirmative, and indicated what their falsification criteria are, you'd do better:)
Your claim is that in order for something to 'be science', that there must be a hypothesis, a null hypothesis, and some experiments that can contradict the hypothesis (with some level of probablility, but you actually didn't say that anywhere).
I'll be more succinct. You must have a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement.
After testing your hundreds of thousands of samples of copper for conductivity, you can assert with some confidence that ALL copper is conductive. However, your null hypothesis (that copper is NOT conductive) cannot be ruled out, because you haven't actually tested EVERY bit of copper everywhere.
You're misunderstanding the null hypothesis. If your hypothesis is "all copper conducts electricity", it is falsified by a single observation of copper *not* conducting electricity. Find one sample of copper that doesn't conduct electricity, and you're back to the drawing board.
The null hypothesis, in this case, isn't the *opposite* of your hypothesis, it is simply a statement that there is no relationship between the two things you're trying to show a relationship between - in this case, the null would be "conductivity is not dependent on the material type", that is, there is no relationship.
Put another way, the hypothesis that "all copper does not conduct electricity" is falsified by a single observation of copper conducting electricity. In this case, again, you don't just define the null as the opposite of your assertion, it is simply that there is no relationship.
In the case of human CO2 emissions and global warming, the null hypothesis isn't "human CO2 emissions cause global cooling", it's "human CO2 emissions have no relationship to global cooling/warming/change".
He explicitly does NOT exclude possibly unfalsifiable statements, such as "Climate Change is caused by People".
"possibly unfalsifiable statements"? What in the world does that mean?
If you can't tell whether or not something is falsifiable or not, then you can't discern whether or not it is science or not. The safe assumption is that it is *not* science - at least not until you can actually specify a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement.
You appear to be attempting to prove that climate change, as a theory, is unscientific by claiming that there is no way to determine if it is false by experiment.
First of all "climate change" is a truism - it always happens, and always will. Let's speak clearly, and call it "catastrophic anthropogenic global warming".
This is unscientific because there are no observations of any sort, that would convince a believer in this hypothesis that their central conceit is incorrect. Warmer weather? CAGW. Colder weather? CAGW. 17 year pause in warming? CAGW. Hotspot in the lower troposphere? CAGW. Missing hotspot in the lower troposphere? CAGW.
Can you name *any* set of observations of average global CO2 and average global temperature that would cause you to give up your belief?
I pointed out that there is no good alternative, at least that I know of.
So do you deny that it's possible for observed climate variations in the 20th century to be predominantly natural?
I'm not a climate scientist.
And apparently not any type of scientist at all, being unable to understand the concept of falsifiability:)
I watch the news, and tend to believe what these guys, who have been studying this for their entire careers tell me.
So, like many other religious followers, you've outsourced your thinking to others. I'm sure priests and popes have been studying God for their entire careers, and many of the followers tend to believe what they say because they trust in their authority.
That's not science.
My null hypothesis is that most scientists actually care about the truth
That's not a null hypothesis at all. Your *proposed* hypothesis is that most scientists actually care about the truth. The null hypothesis is that there is no particular relationship between being a scientist and caring about the truth.
Now, just try for a moment to think of observations that would falsify your proposed hypothesis. Can you name some?
How about "more heat in the atmosphere, stronger storms". There, that is a prediction that has been borne out by evidence.
That's certainly a *requirement* for AGW to be true, but your prediction does not rule out *natural* increase in heat in the atmosphere and *naturally* stronger storms.
How about 'More carbon dioxide means higher temperatures"? That has been borne out by ice core studies.
Except the lag shows causality going *from* temperature changes *to* CO2 levels. It's in the wrong direction for your hypothesis.
How about "It often snows in the winter in new hampshire"? There is a climate prediction that is pretty reliable, despite the fact that the climate is a 'chaotic, stochastic' system.
That's a perfect example, actually - it's not the *prediction* that makes a hypothesis scientific or not, since of course, *anyone* can make a prediction. Astrologists make predictions all the time, and you know what, they even make *correct* predictions. This doesn't make astrology science, though.
What you fail to understand is the concept of *falsifiability*. Your hypothesis must have some set of observations that would reject it, and a logical foundation for assuming that *without* those observations, your hypothesis is the only thing that could possibly be true.
Funny, it's intelligent designers that don't have a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis. Evolution, on the other hand, has specific observations that would falsify it (say, a modern rabbit fossil in the precambrian).
You don't need perfect, 100%, flawless understanding to begin doing useful things with scientific theories.
The problem is, you've picked a topic (climate) that is both chaotic and stochastic. That means that precise starting conditions can cause *wild* variations in end state (as say, the 50,000th significant digit somewhere eventually becomes significant), on top of being inherently unpredictable. Your first order approximation means nothing to a chaotic function.
So pretending that you *do* have 100%, flawless understanding, and therefore have no more useful information to learn about the system or the world, and that we should believe your predictions of doom, is silly on its face.
Why do you think one doesn't?
Because even a true believer, like you, couldn't quote one.
Let me invite you to the idea of the null hypothesis.
Past climate changes have had natural origins, without any reference to human CO2 emissions.
Our null hypothesis we start off with is that recent changes have also had natural origins, without any reference to human CO2 emissions.
Now, how will you exclude the null hypothesis? Have you already eliminated *all* other natural factors, truly? Are you so filled with hubris that you believe that you can even *enumerate* all other natural factors?
Sherlock would point out to you that you haven't eliminated all other factors - you've merely asserted that your favorite factor is true.
Why do you think you haven't been able to find and quote a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement? Do you believe one exists?
I invite you to find someone here who doesn't do all those things.
Me. I ask for a necessary and falsifiable hypothesis statement of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, and despite hundreds of thousands of comments from true believers, not a single one has managed to quote or cite any such thing.
Please, if you're able to, explain what observations of CO2 and temperature, past, present or future, that would cause you to reconsider your current beliefs, and why the lack of those observations must lead us *only* to believe in your particular conceit.
It’s a poor response, characterized by inaccurate representation of what I said, even down to actual misquoting. In the whole article, he puts just four words in quotation marks as written by me, yet in doing so he misses out a whole word: 20% of the quotation. Remarkable. If I did that, I would be very embarrassed.
He directly contradicts the IPCC’s report on extreme weather, which found no link between current storms and man-made climate change; he is apparently unaware that the rising costs of extreme weather are entirely caused by rising investment and insurance values, not rising quantities of extreme weather, as even a small amount of research would have told him ( http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/follow-up-q-from-senate-epw.html ); he falsely claims that I say rising sea levels will be beneficial, when I wrote no such thing; and he wholly ignores the benefits of mild climate change, even though I was careful to say that the key thing is to compare costs and benefits. It is possible that he does not know the meaning of the word “net”: he certainly shows no understanding of the concept.
“General statements about extremes are almost nowhere to be found in the literature but seem to abound in the popular media,” said climate scientist Gavin Schmidt of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies recently. “It’s this popular perception that global warming means all extremes have to increase all the time, even though if anyone thinks about that for 10seconds they realize that’s nonsense.”
Mr Abraham’s main point is that up to 2 degrees C of warming is likely to do net harm. For this surprising claim, he produces noevidence. None. The evidence suggest the opposite – that less than two degrees of warming will cut excess winter deaths, increase average rainfall, extendgrowing seasons and increase rates of photosynthesis in wild and agricultural ecosystems. “A global warming of less than 2.5C could have no significant effect on overall food production,” says the UNFCC website.
And yet it is he who accuses me of “non-science nonsense”. It’s truly disgraceful that a tenured academic, as I assume Mr Abraham to be, should make so many mistakes and yet feel free to hurl unsubstantiated abuse at another human being, however desperate he may be. In writing about climate change I am careful not to make unprovoked ad-hominem attacks – until attacked in this way.
You've got a massive misunderstanding as to the orders of magnitude here. There simply is *zero* possibility that atmospheric CO2, at any projected level, is going to turn the oceans acidic, even if *every* CO2 molecule in the atmosphere was used up.
The fact that you have local fish kills due to runoff is perfectly understandable. The thought that such local fish kills could become global in scale completely ignores the massive size of the oceans.
Yes, and "braking" is officially "acceleration" in "scientific" terms. However, the difference between hitting the brake to lower your speed, and pushing the gas while the gears are in reverse is important in real terms:)
Of course I am, they're important. While both "braking" and "accelerating in reverse" are changing a car in the same direction, there's a *huge* real difference between going from forward speed to zero, and going from zero to some reverse speed.
Whatever tiny pH change one asserts is going on in the ocean, it doesn't become "acidification" until you're at pH 7.
This isn't apocalyptic cult, it's science. Many prediction have happened, and consensus is 95%.
Consensus is not science. Science starts with the necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement...which I'm betting dollars to donuts you don't have:)
We're not interested in predictions that happen - astrologists have many predictions that happen. We're interested in what predictions would exclude your central conceit, if *they* failed. Give me the *important* predictions that your hypothesis cannot survive without, and then show me how the lack of failure of those predictions must logically lead us to believe that your hypothesis, and none other, is true./crickets
some non scientists jump on it, propagated by bad media reports.
Exactly - science by press release. Which is why when the media tries to gloss over natural variability and the record rebound of arctic ice, they've got no credibility.
As a reminder, Climate changes means more extremes.
Feldergarb. Climate change *always* happens. Extremes *always* happen. There is no data to suggest that extremes happen more now than in any past era...in fact, the data shows close to the opposite, with fewer high strength tornadoes for example, and even the *theory* implies the opposite, with poles warming more than the tropics *decreasing* the temperature gradient which drives "extreme" weather.
And if 2014 and 2015 are higher still, will that finally change your mind? Or perhaps if 2014 is lower, but 2015 and 2016 are higher?
My problem is that people blithely accepted this 2007 prediction (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7139797.stm) that the arctic would be ice-free in the summer of 2013 as not just plausible, but probable. While you may indeed be willing to change your mind based on 2014 and 2015 data, I think you'll also admit that there are people out there who won't.
Slashdot Mirror
That hasn't been my experience. Surprisingly, I've had more civil discussions with creationists and theists than I have had with many cult of global warming folk, despite the fact that cult of global warming folk identify as "scientific" in the same way I do.
I've never found that so, actually. I suppose if I finally believed that I knew everything there was to know about how theists and creationists think, I might get tired, but I've never been so proud as to believe I know everything about anything.
State a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement for catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, and then we can start having a scientific discussion.
You cannot simply assert "climate change is a problem", and expect people to take that as science. "Climate change" always happens, and always will. "Problems" have to be quantified, especially if there are both negatives and positives to a given change.
Of course, you could just censor this comment as going against "bedrock scientific doctrine", and do as PopSci did :)
Mod parent up.
I know for a fact that theists and creationists are completely bonkers and wrong - but I'm *always* willing to debate the issue. The exercise both helps me hone my own rationale, but also gives me empathy and insight to their beliefs and convictions.
..."bedrock scientific doctrine"
Do they even realize the inherent contradiction between "scientific" and "doctrine"?
Science is the ruthless pursuit of truth through falsifiable hypotheses, and *requires* challenges to any "doctrine", and *requires* the admission of error.
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Science does not happen by appeal to authority, but good job trying :)
That's an ad hoc special pleading, not an explanation. The data is the data, and the ice core data shows temperature moves first, *then* CO2. Saying that a negative result is simply "noise" is a violation of scientific principle and ethics.
Why hasn't the earth ever experienced a runaway feedback loop?
Think carefully about your answer.
Pray tell, how does a CO2 molecule know it is "excess"? Surely, if a CO2 molecule comes from *anywhere*, it should behave the same - what is magical about CO2 generated by humans, in comparison to say, CO2 generated by volcanic activity, or even just mammals?
"Artificial" here is a cop out - *any* CO2 increase in the past (and you've identified some similar greenhouse gas increases, say in permafrost melting), and it should behave the same way...except that it doesn't happen in the order you want it to - CO2 moves *after* temperature.
I am *so* happy to hear we have some common ground! Excellent! I have no doubt that "Good Calories, Bad Calories" saved my life.
Now, you may not believe my point of view now on CAGW, but I'll assert that the government guidance on nutrition driven by the zealot Ancel Keys and his "precautionary principle" against fat is directly analogous to the government guidance on catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. Every single negative result in attempts to link cholesterol levels to heart disease has been thoroughly dismissed by government authorities for almost 4 decades, and excuses made for every failure of experiment.
But why? Why doesn't the government admit error? The essential problem is that government derives power from authority, and loses authority if they admit error. Thus, institutional inertia keeps bad science alive in government long after the evidence has shown it to be false.
Government has made a statement about catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, in fact, they've made incredibly strong statements about it. It simply is not in their interest to admit error, and it will take years, if not decades, to undo the damage they've done to the science. You can always assert that you trust them, and that moreover, that they're right, but I think you can admit this - if they were wrong, it would be *incredibly* hard for them to admit.
I'm very careful about my facts - and I'm not proposing any grand unified theory of climate change in response to CAGW. My point of view is that without falsifiability, we don't have science, and until *that* hurdle is jumped I have no reason to believe in any particular explanation.
I'll leave with an echo of the "atheists only disbelieve in one more god than monotheists" - I don't believe that methane determines global average temperature. I don't believe that helium determines global average temperature. I don't believe in any number of single variable drivers of global average temperatures...hundreds, if not thousands of them. You don't believe in them either, I'm sure.
I just don't believe in *one* more than you.
No, let's be specific - it's clear that humans emit CO2. Butterflies emit CO2 as well. These are *facts*.
The rise of CO2 on a global level, however, is quite possibly *independent* of individual contributing factors due to the complexity of the carbon cycle. I had mentioned buffer solutions earlier, and I'm not sure if you picked up on that, but go back to some basic chemistry - you can have some systems (say, a buffer solution), which in fact, react to both the addition of acid and the addition of base in the same way with neutralization.
So imagine for a moment that in our global system, the buffer for CO2 is the ocean, and the temperature of the ocean (primarily determined by how much sunlight gets to the surface layer, mediated by the albedo of clouds, which unfortunately our GCMs aren't good at), is what truly controls CO2 levels. If humans, say, *stole* CO2 from the atmosphere on a massive scale, this buffer would simply replace that CO2 to get back to the partial pressure determined by temperature. If humans *emit* CO2 into the atmosphere on a massive scale, this buffer would simply absorb that CO2 to get back to the partial pressure determined by temperature.
Of course, this is a simplified example (although not nearly as simple as the dumb bathtub of water analogy CAGW zealots believe in), but a constructive one - many natural systems work this way, with emergent phenomena maintaining a surprisingly narrow band.
Okay, now you've taken one reasonable assertion, on doubtful one, and jumped onto a crazy conclusion. Yes, there is a correlation between temperature and CO2 - although you apparently haven't figured out the causality there. It's *possible* human activity can cause a rise in CO2, but given the nature of the oceans and how they buffer atmospheric CO2, the rise would be almost indistinguishable from other factors.
And oceans. My my, the oceans :)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/20/sea-level-rise-climate-change-and-an-ocean-of-natural-variability/
"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated in 2007, “Global average sea level rose at an average rate of 1.8 mm per year over 1961 to 2003. The rate was faster over 1993 to 2003: about 3.1 mm per year.” This translates to a 100-year rise of only 7 inches and 12 inches, far below the dire predictions of the climate alarmists.
But three millimeters is about the thickness of two dimes. Can scientists really measure a change in sea level over the course of a year, averaged across the world, which is two dimes thick?"
That makes no mention of humanity's CO2 emissions, nor does it determine causality. Please, try again.
Again, correlation isn't causality :)
If you'll note, the ice cores show temperature changing *first*, followed by CO2 changes. This is literally indisputable.
Here's another correlation/causality for you - people who consume more calories than they utilize or excrete correlate to the accumulation of fat.
Would you believe that in fact, the causality actually *starts* with fat accumulation, which *causes* the consumption of more calories than they utilize or excrete?
If you're interested in learning about other scientific blunders of "consensus", check out http://garytaubes.com/lectures/ - he's got a great history lesson on nutrition, obesity and chronic diseases.
Odd, not a single mention of human CO2 emissions, nor any sign of catastrophe in your observation that you would accept as falsification. It seems you're looking at a lesser statement of "CO2 drives warming", although you leave an "etc" in there that you obviously cannot enumerate, and would use as an ad hoc special pleading for any violation of your belief.
It's obvious from the paleo record that indeed, we do have historical points in time where CO2 rises, and temperature *falls* - heck, the past 17 years, CO2 has risen and temperatures have remained *flat*, even though solar radiation output hasn't varied much, and the distance from the sun hasn't changed...I suppose you could buy into the cosmic ray hypothesis and the solar magnetic field variation, but then you've added a variable that we have no control over that wildly overrides even our most active CO2 emissions.
You seem to believe that CO2 levels are simply based on unconnected inputs and outputs...I think you fail to realize that the CO2 cycle is in fact *dynamic*, and it *reacts* to changes in inputs and outputs in non-linear ways.
Your "fact" isn't quite as factual as I think. See: http://www.science20.com/news_releases/where_does_co2_go_mystery_missing_sinks
Computer models aren't tests - they're fiction.
Think about it - they've got *dozens* of computer models that all *disagree* - by what criteria are you going to decide which one is correct?
Hell, do you have *any* models which have any sort of falsification criteria at all?
Well, I have no religion, and the exercise of science is not about getting things "right" more often than "wrong" - that's a complete misunderstanding of the scientific method. Science is the process of learning *when* you're wrong - and instead you've convinced yourself that it's just "right" from the get go without any sort of scrutiny...truly a religious epiphany, I'm sure :)
In order to understand *when* you're wrong, you need to have a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement. Thus far, the CAGW religion has none, just like creationism has none.
We discover explanations are incorrect when the explanations are falsifiable, and we observe the falsification. To think that explanations are only incorrect because we haven't found the right "facts" is like defending the historicity of noah's ark by saying we're just missing the proper evidence :)
You shouldn't outsource your rational thought processes. That's the hallmark of religion.
You should double check the data.
You should look for falsifiability.
You should look for alternative explanations.
You should challenge your own beliefs with fervor and great effort, because in the end, the easiest person to fool is yourself.
Why do you deny that natural climate change is probable?
It wasn't an attack, it was a statement of fact - you don't understand the concept of falsifiability. You don't understand what a null hypothesis is, and you don't understand the scientific method.
An ad hominem attack would be calling you a right-wing-religious-nut :)
Appeal to authority again? :) Very religious of you :)
Difficult to prove a negative, don't you think? Maybe if you formed your hypotheses in the affirmative, and indicated what their falsification criteria are, you'd do better :)
I'll be more succinct. You must have a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement.
You're misunderstanding the null hypothesis. If your hypothesis is "all copper conducts electricity", it is falsified by a single observation of copper *not* conducting electricity. Find one sample of copper that doesn't conduct electricity, and you're back to the drawing board.
The null hypothesis, in this case, isn't the *opposite* of your hypothesis, it is simply a statement that there is no relationship between the two things you're trying to show a relationship between - in this case, the null would be "conductivity is not dependent on the material type", that is, there is no relationship.
Put another way, the hypothesis that "all copper does not conduct electricity" is falsified by a single observation of copper conducting electricity. In this case, again, you don't just define the null as the opposite of your assertion, it is simply that there is no relationship.
In the case of human CO2 emissions and global warming, the null hypothesis isn't "human CO2 emissions cause global cooling", it's "human CO2 emissions have no relationship to global cooling/warming/change".
"possibly unfalsifiable statements"? What in the world does that mean?
If you can't tell whether or not something is falsifiable or not, then you can't discern whether or not it is science or not. The safe assumption is that it is *not* science - at least not until you can actually specify a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement.
First of all "climate change" is a truism - it always happens, and always will. Let's speak clearly, and call it "catastrophic anthropogenic global warming".
This is unscientific because there are no observations of any sort, that would convince a believer in this hypothesis that their central conceit is incorrect. Warmer weather? CAGW. Colder weather? CAGW. 17 year pause in warming? CAGW. Hotspot in the lower troposphere? CAGW. Missing hotspot in the lower troposphere? CAGW.
Can you name *any* set of observations of average global CO2 and average global temperature that would cause you to give up your belief?
So do you deny that it's possible for observed climate variations in the 20th century to be predominantly natural?
And apparently not any type of scientist at all, being unable to understand the concept of falsifiability :)
So, like many other religious followers, you've outsourced your thinking to others. I'm sure priests and popes have been studying God for their entire careers, and many of the followers tend to believe what they say because they trust in their authority.
That's not science.
That's not a null hypothesis at all. Your *proposed* hypothesis is that most scientists actually care about the truth. The null hypothesis is that there is no particular relationship between being a scientist and caring about the truth.
Now, just try for a moment to think of observations that would falsify your proposed hypothesis. Can you name some?
That's certainly a *requirement* for AGW to be true, but your prediction does not rule out *natural* increase in heat in the atmosphere and *naturally* stronger storms.
Except the lag shows causality going *from* temperature changes *to* CO2 levels. It's in the wrong direction for your hypothesis.
That's a perfect example, actually - it's not the *prediction* that makes a hypothesis scientific or not, since of course, *anyone* can make a prediction. Astrologists make predictions all the time, and you know what, they even make *correct* predictions. This doesn't make astrology science, though.
What you fail to understand is the concept of *falsifiability*. Your hypothesis must have some set of observations that would reject it, and a logical foundation for assuming that *without* those observations, your hypothesis is the only thing that could possibly be true.
Funny, it's intelligent designers that don't have a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis. Evolution, on the other hand, has specific observations that would falsify it (say, a modern rabbit fossil in the precambrian).
The problem is, you've picked a topic (climate) that is both chaotic and stochastic. That means that precise starting conditions can cause *wild* variations in end state (as say, the 50,000th significant digit somewhere eventually becomes significant), on top of being inherently unpredictable. Your first order approximation means nothing to a chaotic function.
So pretending that you *do* have 100%, flawless understanding, and therefore have no more useful information to learn about the system or the world, and that we should believe your predictions of doom, is silly on its face.
Because even a true believer, like you, couldn't quote one.
Let me invite you to the idea of the null hypothesis.
Past climate changes have had natural origins, without any reference to human CO2 emissions.
Our null hypothesis we start off with is that recent changes have also had natural origins, without any reference to human CO2 emissions.
Now, how will you exclude the null hypothesis? Have you already eliminated *all* other natural factors, truly? Are you so filled with hubris that you believe that you can even *enumerate* all other natural factors?
Sherlock would point out to you that you haven't eliminated all other factors - you've merely asserted that your favorite factor is true.
Why do you think you haven't been able to find and quote a necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement? Do you believe one exists?
Me. I ask for a necessary and falsifiable hypothesis statement of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, and despite hundreds of thousands of comments from true believers, not a single one has managed to quote or cite any such thing.
Please, if you're able to, explain what observations of CO2 and temperature, past, present or future, that would cause you to reconsider your current beliefs, and why the lack of those observations must lead us *only* to believe in your particular conceit.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/17/ridleys-riposte-to-john-abraham/
Guest essay by Dr. Matt Ridley
On a blog called Desmog Blog, John Abraham has criticized my recent article in the Wall Street Journal on climate sensitivity. Here’s my piece http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324549004579067532485712464.html
And here’s his piece: http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/09/16/john-abraham-slams-matt-ridley-climate-denial-op-ed-wall-street-journal.
It’s a poor response, characterized by inaccurate representation of what I said, even down to actual misquoting. In the whole article, he puts just four words in quotation marks as written by me, yet in doing so he misses out a whole word: 20% of the quotation. Remarkable. If I did that, I would be very embarrassed.
He directly contradicts the IPCC’s report on extreme weather, which found no link between current storms and man-made climate change; he is apparently unaware that the rising costs of extreme weather are entirely caused by rising investment and insurance values, not rising quantities of extreme weather, as even a small amount of research would have told him ( http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/follow-up-q-from-senate-epw.html ); he falsely claims that I say rising sea levels will be beneficial, when I wrote no such thing; and he wholly ignores the benefits of mild climate change, even though I was careful to say that the key thing is to compare costs and benefits. It is possible that he does not know the meaning of the word “net”: he certainly shows no understanding of the concept.
“General statements about extremes are almost nowhere to be found in the literature but seem to abound in the popular media,” said climate scientist Gavin Schmidt of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies recently. “It’s this popular perception that global warming means all extremes have to increase all the time, even though if anyone thinks about that for 10seconds they realize that’s nonsense.”
Mr Abraham’s main point is that up to 2 degrees C of warming is likely to do net harm. For this surprising claim, he produces noevidence. None. The evidence suggest the opposite – that less than two degrees of warming will cut excess winter deaths, increase average rainfall, extendgrowing seasons and increase rates of photosynthesis in wild and agricultural ecosystems. “A global warming of less than 2.5C could have no significant effect on overall food production,” says the UNFCC website.
http://unfccc.int/essential_background/background_publications_htmlpdf/climate_change_information_kit/items/288.php
See links here http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165188913000092%00 and here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/06/winter-kills-excess-deaths-in-the-winter-months/.
And yet it is he who accuses me of “non-science nonsense”. It’s truly disgraceful that a tenured academic, as I assume Mr Abraham to be, should make so many mistakes and yet feel free to hurl unsubstantiated abuse at another human being, however desperate he may be. In writing about climate change I am careful not to make unprovoked ad-hominem attacks – until attacked in this way.
I always play the ball, not the man. Mr Abra
You've got a massive misunderstanding as to the orders of magnitude here. There simply is *zero* possibility that atmospheric CO2, at any projected level, is going to turn the oceans acidic, even if *every* CO2 molecule in the atmosphere was used up.
The fact that you have local fish kills due to runoff is perfectly understandable. The thought that such local fish kills could become global in scale completely ignores the massive size of the oceans.
Look up the pH variation within the ocean.
Now compare it to the proposed pH effect of atmospheric CO2 levels.
Enjoy :)
Yes, and "braking" is officially "acceleration" in "scientific" terms. However, the difference between hitting the brake to lower your speed, and pushing the gas while the gears are in reverse is important in real terms :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutralization_(chemistry)
Of course I am, they're important. While both "braking" and "accelerating in reverse" are changing a car in the same direction, there's a *huge* real difference between going from forward speed to zero, and going from zero to some reverse speed.
Whatever tiny pH change one asserts is going on in the ocean, it doesn't become "acidification" until you're at pH 7.
...any sensors will be measuring ocean *neutralization* as pH moves down towards 7.
What I get out of this is "natural variability is huge", but we can wait until 2020 and have a drink about this :)
Consensus is not science. Science starts with the necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement...which I'm betting dollars to donuts you don't have :)
We're not interested in predictions that happen - astrologists have many predictions that happen. We're interested in what predictions would exclude your central conceit, if *they* failed. Give me the *important* predictions that your hypothesis cannot survive without, and then show me how the lack of failure of those predictions must logically lead us to believe that your hypothesis, and none other, is true. /crickets
Exactly - science by press release. Which is why when the media tries to gloss over natural variability and the record rebound of arctic ice, they've got no credibility.
Feldergarb. Climate change *always* happens. Extremes *always* happen. There is no data to suggest that extremes happen more now than in any past era...in fact, the data shows close to the opposite, with fewer high strength tornadoes for example, and even the *theory* implies the opposite, with poles warming more than the tropics *decreasing* the temperature gradient which drives "extreme" weather.
And if 2014 and 2015 are higher still, will that finally change your mind? Or perhaps if 2014 is lower, but 2015 and 2016 are higher?
My problem is that people blithely accepted this 2007 prediction (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7139797.stm) that the arctic would be ice-free in the summer of 2013 as not just plausible, but probable. While you may indeed be willing to change your mind based on 2014 and 2015 data, I think you'll also admit that there are people out there who won't.