I just watched An Inconvenient Truth

[bascule]

I see the climate system as an enormously complex one. That is a big reason I distrust GCMs.

 

If you think GCMs are overly simplistic then you should not make any statements about causes or effects within the climate system. If the system is so complex that its understanding evades dozens of independently developed multidisciplinary computer models of the problem created by the brightest minds in the field, then its a problem so complex that a layman has absolutely no hope of making any statements with any degree of correctness. If you think GCMs are overly simplistic, then you have absolutely no hope of possibly understanding the problem.

 

I have simply argued that the interpretation of the cause/effect relationships regarding warmings and coolings over the past million years (excluding the last 100 years) is more likely to be other than GHG = warming.

 

Their interpretation is justified by a computer model which tries to take all of the known factors into account.

 

As far as I can tell, your interpretation is based on "truthiness", or to quote Stephen Colbert's defintion "things that a person claims to know intuitively, instinctively, or 'from the gut' without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or actual facts"

 

Seriously, where's the data? Where's your model? Where's anything? You have absolutely nothing to justify your position.

 

While you claim to be a skeptic, you're making an unscientific counterclaim, without evidence and completely contrary to existing scientific knowledge. As far as I'm concerned this puts you in the same camp as people who believe Noah's Flood carved the Grand Canyon.

 

That is the oversimplification. It is abundantly clear that those warmings were NOT instigated by GHGs.

 

No, it's not. The evidence says you're wrong. Where's your evidence? Why can't anyone make a GCM that corroborates this viewpoint?

 

How much GHGs contribute to their continuance is a matter of what hypothesis you happen to support.

 

There's substantial evidence that corroborates the theory that anthropogenic greenhouse gasses are the foremost radiative forcing.

 

I see changes in CO2 solubility with temperature change as the most likely explanation for the fact that CO2 goes up some 800 years after temperature starts going up.

 

Why?

 

Evidence?

 

Papers?

 

Counterclaims to IPCC AR4?

 

Where's a GCM reconstruction which supports this hypothesis?

 

I'd keep going, but I think I've made my point abundantly clear.

 

You have nothing. You have absolutely no way of even knowing if what you say is anywhere near realistic.

 

You can either:

 

1) Acknowledge science has a handle on how to attack the problem

 

- or -

 

2) Admit that you have no possible way of knowing anything about the problem, since you believe decade upon decade of research by tens of thousands of people worldwide applying the best scientific knowledge that we have towards multiple computer models which are giving the same results are oversimplifications of the problem

 

Which is it then?

[SkepticLance]

Bascule.

This is getting ridiculous. You are mixing up two separate events.

 

1. Recent global warming - that is the last 30 years - has a clear correlation with GHGs.

 

2. The ancient warmings - that is, before the last 1000 years and back to 1 million years ago - clearly began BEFORE CO2 began to increase. That is shown on the data.

 

Why do you persist in trying to say that both are the same thing? They are not. The ancient warming was kicked off by something other than GHGs. Of course, after it began to warm, CO2 may have had an influence. However, if the CO2 did not come from warming oceans, where did it come from? I think I have shown that organic matter will INCREASE in a warmer world, due to greater plant growth. This sequesters carbon. Do you deny this?

 

If you doubt this, look at the studies made of the world following the last glaciation. As I said before, as the ice retreated, forests covered the once frozen land. This is simple ecology. It is also a matter of scientific record. Are you going to deny the results of dozens of paleo-ecological studies?

 

You said :

 

Seriously, where's the data? Where's your model? Where's anything? You have absolutely nothing to justify your position.

 

The data is in the ice core analyses that showed warming began 800 years BEFORE CO2 began to increase.

 

You claim that I do not present data. Neither do you, except to quote calculations. That is NOT empirical evidence. Evidence not derived from real world experiment or observation is not good science.

[foodchain]

To foodchain

Your comments on icemelts posting were more than a little unfair.

 

Some of the scientists quoted are prolific researchers and publishers. And I am talking about peer reviewed reputable scientific journals. People like Richard Lindzen (Climatologist at M.I.T.) and John Christy (who consults for NASA).

 

In any case, it is irrelevent. Icemelt quoted those sceptical scientists simply to make a point about the lack of consensus on global warming. Their record of published papers is irrelevent to that point. And I think Icemelt made the point very well.

 

So is saying science is divided on global warming, and saying just that, and only that.

[SkepticLance]

Something for the more bloody minded global warming activists.

 

http://web.dmi.dk/fsweb/solarterrestrial/sunclimate/welcome.shtml

 

This contains graphs of the relationship between solar activity and warming/cooling. I have seen this graph in a number of other publications, also. It is data, not interpretation, and thus not a subject for scepticism.

 

It shows two things I have been saying.

 

1. Warming and cooling correlates much more closely with solar activity up until about 1975 than it does to greenhouse gases.

 

2. Warming after 1975 correlates more to GHGs than to solar activity.

[Icemelt]

SkepticLance your reciprocation is much appreciated

 

I find it so hard to understand why other participants seem to have a mental block when assessing an opposing argument, and why they are so reluctant to accept the evidence provided by such an eminent group of real scientists ?

 

Surely the one way to establish whether recent warming is due to GHGs is to look at the troposphere, since all current climate models agree that the rate of warming should be at its maximum in the troposphere if it’s GHGs that are causing it

 

The principle of the greenhouse effect is that the sun radiates energy into space and some of it is directed towards the Earth. If it weren’t for greenhouse gases, most of the solar radiation would be reflected back into space leaving Earth so cold that it would be uninhabitable. GHGs trap the escaping heat in the Earth’s troposphere and it is here, according to ALL the climate models, that the rate of warming should be at its maximum

 

Professor Richard Lindzen Dept of Meteorology MIT

“If it’s greenhouse warming, you get more warming in the middle of the troposphere, the first 10–12 Km of the atmosphere, than you do at the surface. There are good theoretical reasons for that, having to do with how the greenhouse works” - “That data gives you a handle on the fact that what you’re seeing is warming that is probably not due to greenhouse gases”

 

Professor Frederick Singer Former Director US National Weather Service

“All the models, every one of them, calculate that the warming should be faster as you go up from the surface into the atmosphere. In fact the maximum warming over the equator should take place at an altitude of about 10 Km” – “Observations do not show an increase with altitude, in fact most observations show a slight decrease in the rate of warming with altitude. So in a sense you can say that the hypothesis of manmade global warming is falsified by the evidence”

 

Professor John Christie Dept of Atmospheric Science University of Alabama & Lead Author IPCC

“What we found consistently is that in a great part of the planet that the bulk of the atmosphere is not warming as much as we see at the surface in this region. And that’s a real head scratcher for us, because the theory is pretty straight forward, and the theory says that if the surface warms the upper atmosphere should warm rapidly. The rise in temperature of that part of the atmosphere is not very dramatic at all and really does not match the theory that climate models are expressing at this point”

 

Professor Patrick Michaels Dept of Environmental Sciences University of Virginia

“One of the problems that is plaguing the models is that they predict that as you go up through the atmosphere, except in the polar regions, that the rate of warming increases. And it’s quite clear from two data sets, not just satellite data which everyone talks about, but from weather balloon data, that you don’t see that effect. In fact it looks like the surface temperatures are warming slightly more the upper air temperatures”

 

During the 1990s Professor Eigil Friis-Chrisyensen Director Danish National Space Centre and colleagues found an incredibly close correlation between solar activity and temperature changes on Earth. When they analysed records of sunspots in the 20th century, they found that solar activity rose sharply to 1940, fell back for 35 years, then rose again, providing a much closer correlation to temperature change than CO2. Professor Eigil Friis-Chrisyensen said “When we saw this correlation between the temperature and solar activity or sunspot cyclings then people said to us that, OK it can be just a coincidence, so how can we prove that it’s not just a coincidence. Well one obvious thing is to have a longer timescale or different timescale, then we went back in time 400 years” The results re-enforced the earlier analysis providing a very strong indication that it was the sun that has driven climate change over the past four hundred years and not CO2

[foodchain]

The understanding of anthropogenic warming and cooling influences on climate has improved since

the Third Assessment Report (TAR), leading to very high confidence7 that the globally averaged net

effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming, with a radiative forcing of +1.6 [+0.6 to

+2.4] W m-2. (see Figure SPM-2). {2.3. 6.5, 2.9}

• The combined radiative forcing due to increases in carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide is +2.30

[+2.07 to +2.53] W m-2, and its rate of increase during the industrial era is very likely to have been

unprecedented in more than 10,000 years (see Figures SPM-1 and SPM-2). The carbon dioxide radiative

forcing increased by 20% from 1995 to 2005, the largest change for any decade in at least the last 200 years.

{2.3, 6.4}

• Anthropogenic contributions to aerosols (primarily sulphate, organic carbon, black carbon, nitrate and dust)

together produce a cooling effect, with a total direct radiative forcing of -0.5 [-0.9 to -0.1] W m-2 and an

indirect cloud albedo forcing of -0.7 [-1.8 to -0.3] W m-2. These forcings are now better understood than at the

time of the TAR due to improved in situ, satellite and ground-based measurements and more comprehensive

modelling, but remain the dominant uncertainty in radiative forcing. Aerosols also influence cloud lifetime

and precipitation. {2.4, 2.9, 7.5}

• Significant anthropogenic contributions to radiative forcing come from several other sources. Tropospheric

ozone changes due to emissions of ozone-forming chemicals (nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and

hydrocarbons) contribute +0.35 [+0.25 to +0.65] W m-2. The direct radiative forcing due to changes in

halocarbons8 is +0.34 [+0.31 to +0.37] W m-2. Changes in surface albedo, due to land-cover changes and

deposition of black carbon aerosols on snow, exert respective forcings of -0.2 [-0.4 to 0.0] and +0.1 [0.0 to

+0.2] W m-2. Additional terms smaller than ±0.1 W m-2 are shown in Figure SPM-2. {2.3, 2.5, 7.2}

• Changes in solar irradiance since 1750 are estimated to cause a radiative forcing of +0.12 [+0.06 to +0.30]

W m-2, which is less than half the estimate given in the TAR. {2.7}

• It is likely that increases in greenhouse gas concentrations alone would have caused more warming than

observed because volcanic and anthropogenic aerosols have offset some warming that would otherwise have

taken place. {2.9, 7.5, 9.4}

• The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice mass loss, support the

conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that global climate change of the past fifty years can be explained

without external forcing, and very likely that it is not due to known natural causes alone. {4.8, 5.2, 9.4, 9.5,

9.7}

Anthropogenic warming and sea level rise would continue for centuries due to the timescales

associated with climate processes and feedbacks, even if greenhouse gas concentrations were to be

stabilized. {10.4, 10.5, 10.7}

• Climate carbon cycle coupling is expected to add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as the climate system

warms, but the magnitude of this feedback is uncertain. This increases the uncertainty in the trajectory of

carbon dioxide emissions required to achieve a particular stabilisation level of atmospheric carbon dioxide

concentration. Based on current understanding of climate carbon cycle feedback, model studies suggest that to

stabilise at 450 ppm carbon dioxide, could require that cumulative emissions over the 21st century be reduced

from an average of approximately 670 [630 to 710] GtC (2460 [2310 to 2600] GtCO2) to approximately 490

[375 to 600] GtC (1800 [1370 to 2200] GtCO2). Similarly, to stabilise at 1000 ppm this feedback could

require that cumulative emissions be reduced from a model average of approximately 1415 [1340 to 1490]

GtC (5190 [4910 to 5460] GtCO2) to approximately 1100 [980 to 1250] GtC (4030 [3590 to 4580] GtCO2).

{7.3, 10.4}

• If radiative forcing were to be stabilized in 2100 at B1 or A1B levels11 a further increase in global average

temperature of about 0.5°C would still be expected, mostly by 2200. {10.7}

• If radiative forcing were to be stabilized in 2100 at A1B levels11, thermal expansion alone would lead to 0.3 to

0.8 m of sea level rise by 2300 (relative to 1980–1999). Thermal expansion would continue for many

centuries, due to the time required to transport heat into the deep ocean. {10.7}

• Contraction of the Greenland ice sheet is projected to continue to contribute to sea level rise after 2100.

Current models suggest ice mass losses increase with temperature more rapidly than gains due to precipitation

and that the surface mass balance becomes negative at a global average warming (relative to pre-industrial

values) in excess of 1.9 to 4.6°C. If a negative surface mass balance were sustained for millennia, that would

lead to virtually complete elimination of the Greenland ice sheet and a resulting contribution to sea level rise

of about 7 m. The corresponding future temperatures in Greenland are comparable to those inferred for the

last interglacial period 125,000 years ago, when paleoclimatic information suggests reductions of polar land

ice extent and 4 to 6 m of sea level rise. {6.4, 10.7}

• Dynamical processes related to ice flow not included in current models but suggested by recent observations

could increase the vulnerability of the ice sheets to warming, increasing future sea level rise. Understanding

of these processes is limited and there is no consensus on their magnitude. {4.6, 10.7}

• Current global model studies project that the Antarctic ice sheet will remain too cold for widespread surface

melting and is expected to gain in mass due to increased snowfall. However, net loss of ice mass could occur

if dynamical ice discharge dominates the ice sheet mass balance. {10.7}

• Both past and future anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions will continue to contribute to warming and sea

level rise for more than a millennium, due to the timescales required for removal of this gas from the

atmosphere. {7.3, 10.3}

 

Data taken from the latest IPCC reports. You can find the who and why on such as to why such is being reported. This is only a snippet of it of course.

[SkepticLance]

Foodchain.

Your quotes from the IPCC report have simply put into words what others have presented as graphs. That is : the results of GCMs.

 

If you have total faith in these calculations, then that becomes convincing. However, as Dr. Richard Lindzen points out, we do not even have enough understanding of cloud formation, and the effects of increasing water vapour, to accurately model these and their effects on climate.

 

We all know the world is warming, and that anthropogenic GGs are a likely major cause. That is not what the debate is about. As the saying goes, the devil is in the details.

 

A TV documentary I watched this morning stated that the effect of GGs and the fact of warming is well established, and that the ongoing debate is about how much, when, and what we should do about it. I agree with that.

 

I get a bit annoyed, though, about the way global warming enthusiasts re-interpret everything in terms of this theory. Bascule's refusal to accept that ancient warming could be instigated, and possibly continued primarily due to non greenhouse causes is a good example. Once these guys swallow the whole greenhouse gas dogma, the blinkers go on.

 

I was watching another documentary the other day, which gave another excellent example of that form of scientific blindness. That was about mass extinctions of megafauna. This is something we knew about when I completed my degree 35 years ago (in chemistry, and microbiology). Way back then, it was accepted that the mass extinctions were due to human activity.

 

Not now! The latest dogma has swallowed up this subject with a total lack of rational thinking. We now have a bunch of scientists who say these megafauna extinctions were due to climate change. That is so weird.

 

Every continent except Africa has seen these mass extinctions some time in the last 60,000 years. In Australia, it happened 50 to 60,000 years ago. This 'coincides' with the first signs of human habitation, and was way before the end of the glaciation period. Yet it was due to climate change.

 

In North America, the extinctions coincided with the arrival of Clovis Man, who had advanced hunting technology. Yet they were due to climate change. In Europe, with the advance of humans north at the end of the glaciation period. Perhaps there might be a slightly better case there, but the extinctions did coincide with the arrival of people. In Africa, no mass extinctions, even though the climate changed there also. Why? Could it be because animals had evolved along with humans and had adapted?

After all, humans and pre-humans have been continuously in Africa for the past million years.

 

Here in New Zealand, there was no mass extinction event till 800 years ago. Guess what? That's when people arrived (polynesians). Yet the climate change was thousands of years earlier.

 

This is the kind of silliness I associate with an over devotion to global warming dogma. The world has a lot of things going on that have nothing to do with greenhouse gases. We need to get a better perspective on this.

[foodchain]

Foodchain.

Your quotes from the IPCC report have simply put into words what others have presented as graphs. That is : the results of GCMs.

 

If you have total faith in these calculations, then that becomes convincing. However, as Dr. Richard Lindzen points out, we do not even have enough understanding of cloud formation, and the effects of increasing water vapour, to accurately model these and their effects on climate.

 

We all know the world is warming, and that anthropogenic GGs are a likely major cause. That is not what the debate is about. As the saying goes, the devil is in the details.

 

A TV documentary I watched this morning stated that the effect of GGs and the fact of warming is well established, and that the ongoing debate is about how much, when, and what we should do about it. I agree with that.

 

I get a bit annoyed, though, about the way global warming enthusiasts re-interpret everything in terms of this theory. Bascule's refusal to accept that ancient warming could be instigated, and possibly continued primarily due to non greenhouse causes is a good example. Once these guys swallow the whole greenhouse gas dogma, the blinkers go on.

 

I was watching another documentary the other day, which gave another excellent example of that form of scientific blindness. That was about mass extinctions of megafauna. This is something we knew about when I completed my degree 35 years ago (in chemistry, and microbiology). Way back then, it was accepted that the mass extinctions were due to human activity.

 

Not now! The latest dogma has swallowed up this subject with a total lack of rational thinking. We now have a bunch of scientists who say these megafauna extinctions were due to climate change. That is so weird.

 

Every continent except Africa has seen these mass extinctions some time in the last 60,000 years. In Australia, it happened 50 to 60,000 years ago. This 'coincides' with the first signs of human habitation, and was way before the end of the glaciation period. Yet it was due to climate change.

 

In North America, the extinctions coincided with the arrival of Clovis Man, who had advanced hunting technology. Yet they were due to climate change. In Europe, with the advance of humans north at the end of the glaciation period. Perhaps there might be a slightly better case there, but the extinctions did coincide with the arrival of people. In Africa, no mass extinctions, even though the climate changed there also. Why? Could it be because animals had evolved along with humans and had adapted?

After all, humans and pre-humans have been continuously in Africa for the past million years.

 

Here in New Zealand, there was no mass extinction event till 800 years ago. Guess what? That's when people arrived (polynesians). Yet the climate change was thousands of years earlier.

 

This is the kind of silliness I associate with an over devotion to global warming dogma. The world has a lot of things going on that have nothing to do with greenhouse gases. We need to get a better perspective on this.

 

All I did was post data.

[SkepticLance]

Foodchain said

 

All I did was post data.

 

I guess it depends on your definition of the word 'data'. I tend to restrict its meaning to actual information gained from real world observation and experiment, rather than the results of computer models.

 

I hop you do not take this as criticism. Your information is fine. Just that the results of calculations and models will always be subject to debate.

[foodchain]

Foodchain said

 

All I did was post data.

 

I guess it depends on your definition of the word 'data'. I tend to restrict its meaning to actual information gained from real world observation and experiment, rather than the results of computer models.

 

I hop you do not take this as criticism. Your information is fine. Just that the results of calculations and models will always be subject to debate.

 

 

The main brunt of attack on scientific data on global warming was a product of a think-tank based around protecting the American republican party from popular rejection due to lack of concern on the issue. The main person behind that as of the year 2007 has since apologized in deep guilt for desiring to attack global warming, he states at the time it was more credible to do such in regards to the science surrounding global warming, but such science has grown to a position that you can no longer doubt simply by suggesting doubt into the science.

 

The political action of global warming is rooted in this, and of course large scale multinational companies based on fossil fuel happen to be funneling millions of dollars into skeptical organizations which in themselves of course simply for some reason cannot come up with a counteractive IPCC report:D

 

The IPCC working group 1 is a composition of scientists that deal with global warming, the IPCC itself does not conduct any research period but is a proxy via which professionals that do work in such a field can have data collected for use by political bodies and other social bodies.

 

You can say what you want about the data, that’s fine, its just data, and as you say its open to interpretation right, but again its just data as collected, and no its not based on simply computer models, in reality there are numerous computer models for global warming, which to agree with you don’t agree, save that the planet will continue to warm.

 

Personally most of my knowledge of global warming is rather small to be honest, I got interested in it basically from the angle of wanting to make sure organisms on the extinction list, which is numerous and typically man made, are protected, thus the format of my education goals anymore. Global warming science is just that, its a work in progress, but where are you going with the data, as you just suggested the IPCC report I guess is just a computer simulation like Microsoft flight, or chess possibly.

 

Here is an article with link.

 

"Policy-makers and the media, particularly in the United States, frequently assert that climate science is highly uncertain. Some have used this as an argument against adopting strong measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, while discussing a major U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report on the risks of climate change, then-EPA administrator Christine Whitman argued, "As [the report] went through review, there was less consensus on the science and conclusions on climate change" (1). Some corporations whose revenues might be adversely affected by controls on carbon dioxide emissions have also alleged major uncertainties in the science (2). Such statements suggest that there might be substantive disagreement in the scientific community about the reality of anthropogenic climate change. This is not the case.

 

The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme, IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature (3). In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: "Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ... [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations" [p. 21 in (4)].

 

IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise" [p. 1 in (5)]. The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" [p. 3 in (5)].

 

Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8).

 

The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9).

 

The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.

 

Admittedly, authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate change is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point.

 

This analysis shows that scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature agree with IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and the public statements of their professional societies. Politicians, economists, journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement, or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect.

 

The scientific consensus might, of course, be wrong. If the history of science teaches anything, it is humility, and no one can be faulted for failing to act on what is not known. But our grandchildren will surely blame us if they find that we understood the reality of anthropogenic climate change and failed to do anything about it.

 

Many details about climate interactions are not well understood, and there are ample grounds for continued research to provide a better basis for understanding climate dynamics. The question of what to do about climate change is also still open. But there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Climate scientists have repeatedly tried to make this clear. It is time for the rest of us to listen."

 

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

[bascule]

Bascule.

This is getting ridiculous. You are mixing up two separate events.

 

No, you're trying to strawman me. All I'm saying is that the climate system doesn't have the simple cause and effect relationships you seem to think it does. Then you turn around and doubt the validity of GCMs.

 

If the operation of the climate system is as simple as you purport it to be, how could GCMs possibly be inaccurate?

[bascule]

I find it so hard to understand why other participants seem to have a mental block when assessing an opposing argument, and why they are so reluctant to accept the evidence provided by such an eminent group of real scientists ?

 

Because it's since been discredited and attributed to instrumental error.

 

http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap1-1/finalreport/sap1-1-final-execsum.pdf

 

Previously reported discrepancies between the amount of warming near the surface and higher in the atmosphere have been used to challenge the reliability of climate models and the reality of human induced global warming. Specifically, surface data showed substantial global-average warming, while early versions of satellite and radiosonde data showed little or no warming above the surface. This significant discrepancy no longer exists because errors in the satellite and radiosonde data have been identified and corrected. New data sets have also been developed that do not show such discrepancies.

[SkepticLance]

Bascule.

I think there is a serious lack of communication here. Either I fail to understand your points, or you do not understand mine. Possibly both.

 

I have never claimed the climate system is simple. To the contrary, I believe it is more complex than anyone imagines. I have said this before. Why do you continue to accuse me of the opposite?

 

If you want an example of oversimplification, then try the idea that all warming is due to greenhouse gases. That is patently wrong. Some, or a lot, is due to greenhouse gases, especially since 1975. But all?

 

And that is especially true of ancient warmings, where the data clearly shows a protracted delay between the onset of warming, and the onset of CO2 increase. Why can you not see that?

 

I have suggested that, in those more ancient warmings, the increase in CO2 is due mainly to warming oceans and reduced solubilities. If I am wrong, what is the right answer?

 

Foodchain said :

 

its just data, and as you say its open to interpretation right, but again its just data as collected, and no its not based on simply computer models, in reality there are numerous computer models for global warming, which to agree with you don’t agree, save that the planet will continue to warm.

 

That's fine. I agree that the planet will continue to warm. As I said before, it is the future details on which I am sceptical. How long? How sever? What should we do?

 

These questions need answering, but we need to be aware that the answers will be very imprecise. And we need to beware of those who are so carried away with the dogma that they interpret everything as global warming disaster.

[Icemelt]

To Bascule

 

Because it's since been discredited and attributed to instrumental error.

 

http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap1-1/finalreport/sap1-1-final-execsum.pdf

 

I’m not at all happy about your glib dismissal of my message, especially since you seem to have deliberately distorted the facts by quoting only the part of the abstract that suits your argument. This is not constructive and having read the abstract, I am unlikely to take anymore of your quotes very seriously. I do not consider the troposphere warming argument to have been discredited, if anything it has been enhanced by the more refined measurement techniques, and this is why.

 

As I’m sure you are aware, you have omitted the rather important additional information at the link to which you refer. The relevant parts are shown below:

 

“For recent decades, all current atmospheric data sets now show global-average warming that is similar to the surface warming. While these data are consistent with the results from climate models at the global scale, discrepancies in the tropics remain to be resolved”

 

“New Results & Findings”

 

“For observations since the late 1950s, the start of the study period for this Report, the most recent versions of all available data sets show that both the surface and troposphere have warmed, while the stratosphere has cooled”

 

“Since the late 1950s, all radiosonde data sets show that the low and mid troposphere have warmed at a rate slightly faster than the rate of warming at the surface”

 

“For observations during the satellite era (1979 onwards), the most recent versions of all available data sets show that both the low and mid troposphere have warmed. The majority of these data sets show warming at the surface that is greater than in the troposphere. Some of these data sets, however, show the opposite - tropospheric warming that is greater than that at the surface. Thus, due to the considerable disagreements between tropospheric data sets, it is not clear whether the troposphere has warmed more than or less than the surface”

 

I think most of us would agree this doesn’t change things very much, since all the experts still agree that warming in the troposphere has to be significantly greater than the warming at the surface for GHGs to be the cause, yet the revised measurements show warming to be similar. These new measurements are inconsistent with GHGs causing global warming from 1979 onwards. These revised measurements have also still not resolved the significant discrepancies observed in the tropics.

 

Unsurprisingly you have also chosen to ignore all the research into solar activity and its closer correlation with global warming, plus the apparent warming of other bodies in the solar system. Are we to ignore solar activity evidence just because of errors in measurements of troposphere temperature, which do not appear to have altered to any significant extent the conclusion that GHGs are not the cause of global warming ?

[bascule]

Bascule.

I think there is a serious lack of communication here. Either I fail to understand your points, or you do not understand mine. Possibly both.

 

I have never claimed the climate system is simple. To the contrary, I believe it is more complex than anyone imagines. I have said this before. Why do you continue to accuse me of the opposite?

 

Because you give a one sentence expectation in response to a stated one sentence condition. In certain cases (specific period of paleoclimactic change) you are correct, but you really need to place any statements like this in scope.

[bascule]

I’m not at all happy about your glib dismissal of my message, especially since you seem to have deliberately distorted the facts by quoting only the part of the abstract that suits your argument. This is not constructive and having read the abstract, I am unlikely to take anymore of your quotes very seriously.

 

Ignore what you don't want to hear? Fine by me. Continue spreading discredited information.

 

RealClimate went into this two years ago before satellite and radiosonde calibration attributed an unexpectedly cool troposphere to instrumental error. The author supposed (and his suppositions were later bourne out) that radiosondes were giving inaccurate results, and notes that radiosonde data was being used to calibrate satellite measurements.

 

However, his conclusion is perhaps the most important part:

 

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=179

 

The most likely resolution of the "lapse-rate conundrum," in my view anyway, is that both upper-air records gave the wrong result. The instrument problems uncovered by these papers indicate that there is no longer any compelling reason to conclude that anything strange has happened to lapse rates. From the point of view of the scientific method, the data do not contradict or demand rejection of the hypotheses embodied by models that predict moist-adiabatic lapse rates, so these hypotheses still stand on the basis of their documented successes elsewhere. Further work with the data may lead us to more confident trends, and who knows, they might again disagree to some extent with what models predict and send us back to the "drawing board." But not at the present time.

 

When a theory fails to be predictive for a given set of data, then the data are invalid, the hypothesis was wrong, or both.

 

What do you really think happened here?

[Icemelt]

Bascule

 

Ignore what you don't want to hear? Fine by me. Continue spreading discredited information.

 

I'm quite content to accept that there were errors in the original measurements, but they don't seem to have altered anything significantly. I'm not spreading any data, discredited or otherwise, my comments are based on the new data, which you have kindly provided to the forum.

 

BTW I'm almost guilty of being selective myself, since I notice that in error I omitted one other relevant part of the abstract myself as follows:

 

"Tropical Temperature Results (20°S to 20°N)

Although the majority of observational data sets show more warming at the surface than in the troposphere, some observational data sets show the opposite behavior. Almost all model simulations show more warming in the troposphere than at the surface"

 

"Whether or not these results are in accord with expectations based on climate models is a complex issue, one that we have been able to address more comprehensively now using new model results. Over the period since 1979, for global-average temperatures, the range of recent model simulations is almost evenly divided among those that show a greater global-average warming trend at the surface and others that show a greater warming trend aloft"

There is certainly nothing here to suggest that anything has been discredited, other than the original measurements. The new results still appear to indicate that the troposphere is not warming significantly faster than the surface, particularly since 1979, which is absolutely crucial to the GHG argument.

[SkepticLance]

Bascule said :

 

In certain cases (specific period of paleoclimactic change) you are correct

 

That is getting close to a gracious response. Thank you.

 

Would you also care to admit, based on the data I have posted, that I am also correct in saying that warming/cooling before 1976 correlates more closely to solar activity variations, than change in greenhouse gas conentration?

[1veedo]

However, I am not a predictor of catastrophe.

Just FYI, no scientist is really saying that global warming is going to cause the world to end anytime soon. I think Al Gore has said this before, but he's not a scientist. Global warming is extremely exaggerated outside of science.

SkepticLance is quite entitled' date=' as are the rest of us, to reach our own conclusions based on the available data, and this is best achieved in open discussion where we can learn from others rather than being indoctrinated by them.[/quote']I believe I'm quoting someone on this forum when I say science isn't a democracy, it's a meritocracy. Your "right to disagree" in science is tied to the quality and quantity of your evidence. You can't just disagree and say, "it's my opinion, so leave me alone about it!" Then you're no better then holocaust deniers or evolution deniers.

 

SkepticLance is entitled to his own opinion, if and only if he has the data to support his conclusion. However, the data is clearly on the side of the climate scientists.

And just what is this "denier" stuff all about anyway ?

If ever anything sounds like religious mania that certainly does !

I'm sure if you look at the tactics of evolution deniers, holocaust deniers, smoking-health risk deniers, and global warming deniers, you'll find that their tactics are all very similar. It pretty much amounts to an attack on the science itself, without actually talking about what their model is. They make uncertainties seem much larger then they actually are. Your quotes from these couple scientists are an excellent example of how to properly argue in this manner. Yes, there are uncertainties, but that doesn't mean we don't know anything. It is a similar style of arguing that every "denial" group uses. Michael Shermer (founder of Skeptic and author of the "Skeptic" column in Scientific American) writes a lot about this in his books, for instance Why People Believe Weird Things.

 

I am a skeptic through and through at heart. As Michael Shermer would put it, I'm not skeptical about global warming, but I am skeptical about the global warming deniers. "Skepticism is a method leading to provisional conclusions...embodied in the scientific method." The scientific method has lead to the development of modern climate science.

 

Being a skeptic means that when shown a claim, you always ask for the evidence. Global warming is a claim that is backed by the evidence. So if you were a true skeptic, you would have already accepted modern climate science based on the data that supports it. To be honest, at one time I didn't even believe in global warming. I think one of my early posts is still documented on these forums somewhere. I used to have the "show me the evidence" mentality for global warming until one day I researched the topic for myself and found out that, sure enough, global warming does have the evidence to back it up.

 

Skepticism itself is really a fine line to walk on. "The key to skepticism is to navigate the treacherous straits between 'know nothing' skepticism and 'anything goes' credulity by continuously and vigorously applying the methods of science.

The flaw in pure skepticism is that when taken to an extreme, the position itself cannot stand. If you are skeptical about everything, you must be skeptical of your own skepticism."

A denier refuses to accept data.

This is exactly why I consider you a denier. I clearly provide references to back up what I say. I don't think I've said much of anything concrete without a peer-reviewed reference that you could go to and verify for yourself. On some posts, I even provide these neatly at the end in a nice orderly, numbered manner.

 

What you guys just don't seem to understand is how well established climate science really is. Scientists have taken a very strong position on global warming. The only other science I can think of (beyond the physical sciences, of course), where scientists have such a strong bold position on, is evolution. It's ironic that the two most controversial areas of science, outside of the scientific community, are actually two of the most well established and supported areas of science. The editor-in-chief of Science Donald Kennedy even said, "Consensus as strong as the one that has developed around this topic is rare in science."

 

Climate change isn't any less of a science then evolution, relativity, or quantum mechanics. You can take courses on climate change at your university, even, just like anything else.

Something for the more bloody minded global warming activists.

 

http://web.dmi.dk/fsweb/solarterrest.../welcome.shtml

 

This contains graphs of the relationship between solar activity and warming/cooling. I have seen this graph in a number of other publications, also. It is data, not interpretation, and thus not a subject for scepticism.

 

It shows two things I have been saying.

 

1. Warming and cooling correlates much more closely with solar activity up until about 1975 than it does to greenhouse gases.

 

2. Warming after 1975 correlates more to GHGs than to solar activity.

We just had a link to this study not to long ago. Fortunately, it was submitted to peer-review, because scientists have found serious flaws in this study. This is the beauty of peer-review: the ability to find flaws/mistakes in data that the authors missed. It's the whole point of it, really.

 

I brought this up in post #87. The fact of the matter is that solar activity and the temperature of the Earth do not correlate (between 1900 and today, and no, not even before 1976). What does correlate, however, are radiative forcing factors in the climate, and temperature. It is this relationship that climate models use to predict future trends and it is this same relationship that has lead to the extreme accuracy of these models. The climate is a lot more complex then just the sun-temperature relationship that you're trying to make it out to be (which is also contradicted by the data, so it doesn't really work in the first place). If we didn't have an atmosphere, just as an example of the importance of other factors, the planet would be very cold.

 

Some more data that you might be interested in, which I've posted many times and you have ignored, is the Stott et all study, "Do Models Underestimate the Solar Contribution to Recent Climate Change?" from Journal of Climate, vol. 16, p. 4079-4093.

 

According to this paper, even the period between 1900 and 1950 where the temperature most appears to correlate with solar activity visually, only 16% to 36% of the total warming was actually caused by the increase in solar activity. The rest was caused by greenhouse gases emitted by humans.

 

You seem to be insinuating that the "warming/cooling before 1976 correlates more closely to solar activity variations" but the data clearly shows that greenhouse gases have been the primary driver of global warming sense at least 1900, and probably much longer (in 1750 it might not have been the primary driver).

 

So here we have another case where the data directly contradicts one of your statements. Warming/cooling before 1976 correlates much better with greenhouse gas emissions then it does with solar forcing.

 

(img) http://www.whrc.org/resources/online_publications/warming_earth/images/Fig2-CO2-Temp.jpg

( http://www.whrc.org/resources/online_publications/warming_earth/scientific_evidence.htm )

 

 

Of course to best find the relationship between greenhouse gases, solar variations, and temperature, you have to look at all three. According to the data, sense 1750, radiative forcing has increased by .12 W/m^2 compared to anthropogenic forcings which have increased by 1.6 W/m^2, an entire order of magnitude higher then solar.

 

 

"A denier refuses to accept data."

 

If you do not accept this data then you are a denier.

If you have total faith in these calculations, then that becomes convincing. However, as Dr. Richard Lindzen points out, we do not even have enough understanding of cloud formation, and the effects of increasing water vapour, to accurately model these and their effects on climate.

The ironic thing about your statement is that this issue is addressed in the IPCC. The IPCC is completely honest about what scientists know and do not know -- they don't make things up. This is one area that we aren't completely sure about,"Cloud feedbacks remain the largest source of uncertainty." (Feb 2007)

 

The scientific community is perfectly open about what we know, so it's not like pointing this out really changes anything. Scientists already knew this.

I have never claimed the climate system is simple. To the contrary, I believe it is more complex than anyone imagines. I have said this before. Why do you continue to accuse me of the opposite?

I'm not getting in the middle of you two lovebirds here, but from my interpretation of this discussion, it seems like Bascule believes you have demonstrated a simplistic interpretation of the climate to support your views.

 

Remember, judge a man by his actions, not by his words.

 

Although you make the claim (words) that the climate system is complex, in practice you treat (actions) the climate system as if it were simplistic. You may actually believe and understand that the climate system is complex, but you pick and chose, possibly unconsciously, when to represent the climate simplistically and when to represent it complexly, based on whatever supports your opinion most.

All I did was post data.

And this is exactly why SkepticLance is a denier. He refuses to accept data that supports the scientific consensus of climate change. This data is functionally invisible to him.

 

I'm giving him another chance though. I've posted the appropriate data that addresses some of his complaints with climate science so he can easily see where he is wrong. As a good skeptic who follows the scientific method and has been shown the evidence, he should then change his mind. Assuming he's not one of those "know nothings," that is. But I argue that "know nothing skeptics" really aren't in line with what skepticism stands for, and it is these people who make us legitimate skeptics look bad.

[SkepticLance]

To 1veedo.

 

To date, including your just posted item, you have given nothing factual to change my mind. I am quite prepared to do so, if good empirical evidence requires it.

 

Of the evidence you just posted, there is a 'key' graph, which comes up in your reference http://www.whrc.org etc.

 

This graph shows greenhouse gas rise versus temperature. It is, in fact, a very nice graph, and shows the relationship very clearly.

 

So what do we see to match your assertion that greenhouse gases have been the most dominant influence on temperature change throughout this time period?

 

1. 1880 to 1910. Small greenhouse gas rise. Small temperature drop. Correlation negative.

 

2. 1910 to 1940. Small greenhouse gas rise. Large warming. Correlation positive, but only to a minor degree with so little GHG rise.

 

3. 1940 to 1976. Larger greenhouse gas rise. Slight cooling. Correlation negative.

 

4. 1976 onwards. This is the ONLY part of the graph that shows a clear and undeniable strong correlation between greenhouse gas rise and warming.

 

So over a 140 year period, greenhouse gas increase correlates strongly with warming for only 30 years.

 

In other words, what I have been saying all along is verified by your own data.

 

Your words about solar studies are just words. No valid data. I have seen so many references to solar influences, that a few words from you is just not very convincing.

 

There are dozens of studies showing the importance of solar influences.

 

For example :

 

http://www.Ideo.columbia.edu/res/pi/arch/docs/Bond_2001.pdf

 

Which is a peer reviewed study published in SCIENCE showing the importance of solar influences in the North Atlantic throughout the holocene.

 

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/1998/Lean_Rind.html

 

This one shows the importance of solar forcings in the last 100 years or so.

 

I do not suggest that solar forcings are the be all and end all. The whole damn thing is too complex. However, before 1976, they correlate better to warmings and coolings than do GHGs.

 

The problem with GW activists is that they have swallowed the whole paradigm so firmly that they are blind to the many times when it just does not apply. GHGs are very important over the past 30 years. However, before that, they are just a part of the whole picture. Not the predominant part.

[bascule]

I'm quite content to accept that there were errors in the original measurements, but they don't seem to have altered anything significantly. I'm not spreading any data, discredited or otherwise, my comments are based on the new data, which you have kindly provided to the forum.

 

Okay, point taken. I don't have an answer for you, beyond RealClimate's answer that successes in other areas still corroborate the validity GCMs. Failing to predict the behavior of such a large part of the climate system is disturbing in terms of my confidence in GCMs, and will need to be addressed if the problem can't be corrected.

[bascule]

Would you also care to admit, based on the data I have posted, that I am also correct in saying that warming/cooling before 1976 correlates more closely to solar activity variations, than change in greenhouse gas conentration?

 

It was more around the late 50's/early '60s when there was a decrease in solar luminosity coupled with an increase in volcanic activity (which meant a reduction in reflective aerosols). These were the primary radiative forcings driving the climate system at that time: a period of higher solar intensity coupled with fewer reflective aerosols emitted from volcanoes drove the climate towards warmer temperatures over the first half of the century. During that time anthropogenic CO₂ was increasingly exponentially but was not the primary radiative forcing:

 

 

During the latter half of the 20th century, CO₂'s impact as a radiative forcing skyrocketed.

[swansont]

Hi bascule,

nice graph and I agree with you. (For once. )

 

Just one question, do you (or anyone else) know why sulfur as a radiative forcing still increases in that graph? I thought we had new sulfur emissions laws to cut back on acid rain, which decreased "global dimming", which is accelerating warming.

 

If sulfur continues to go DOWN on that graph, surely that means that it's negative forcings are increasing. Unless I am reading the graph wrong.

 

Who are the "we" that have these laws?

[swansont]

I believe I'm quoting someone on this forum when I say science isn't a democracy, it's a meritocracy. Your "right to disagree" in science is tied to the quality and quantity of your evidence. You can't just disagree and say, "it's my opinion, so leave me alone about it!" Then you're no better then holocaust deniers or evolution deniers.

 

SkepticLance is entitled to his own opinion, if and only if he has the data to support his conclusion.

 

That may have been me, since I've said things like that before.

 

But I'd argue this a little differently: one is not entitled to an opinion on matters of data and fact. (A "professional opinion" is a misnomer, it's really not an opinion at all). "I like red cars" is an opinion. "This car is faster than that one" is not an opinion.

 

If you disagree with a scientific conclusion, it had better be based on a valid scientific basis, which means not on logical fallacies, or on faulty/biased data or analysis. It's actually an interesting exercise (to me, anyway) to be able to go through these arguments and spot the faulty ones, even without knowing a lot of the detail of the science involved.

 

You can claim not to be convinced by the science, but skepticism has a broad spectrum. At the extreme ends (always convinced or never convinced) you often have people driven by ideology, and the boundaries are fuzzy. But the objection still needs to be scientific: if you are not convinced, what evidence will convince you? At least that way, it can be evaluated if your demands are within the realm of science, as they must still conform to the same standards as one who disagrees.

 

A big part of the problem occurs when the scientific issues affect policy, which makes it driven by ideology and/or politics. The arguments change, because the standard of evidence is different, and decisions are based (at least in part) on swaying emotion and convincing with rhetorical arguments rather than factual ones. (Can you imagine what would happen if e.g. relativity became an issue of policy, because some ideology was based on it not being true?)

[1veedo]

So what do we see to match your assertion that greenhouse gases have been the most dominant influence on temperature change throughout this time period?

The study published in Journal of Climate by Stott et al, "Do Models Underestimate the Solar Contribution to Recent Climate Change?" This data shows that only 16% to 36% of the temperature increase between 1900 and 1950 was caused by non-human factors.

1. 1880 to 1910. Small greenhouse gas rise. Small temperature drop. Correlation negative.

 

2. 1910 to 1940. Small greenhouse gas rise. Large warming. Correlation positive, but only to a minor degree with so little GHG rise.

 

3. 1940 to 1976. Larger greenhouse gas rise. Slight cooling. Correlation negative.

 

4. 1976 onwards. This is the ONLY part of the graph that shows a clear and undeniable strong correlation between greenhouse gas rise and warming.

 

So over a 140 year period, greenhouse gas increase correlates strongly with warming for only 30 years.

 

In other words, what I have been saying all along is verified by your own data.

And thus we see how you always like to simplify the climate to support your position. Of particular interest, 1940 to 1976

 

Btw the 1976 number is slightly ambiguous. This is the year that we first started getting satellite temperature data and ever sense these instruments were turned on, we've had a rapid climb in temperature. The trend may have started a couple years earlier, as indicated by other sources, but the exact date really doesn't matter. Mid-to-late-1970s is good enough. The cooling only lasted a few years, also, like Bascue said.

 

These years are ironically tied into "global cooling" that we were talking about earlier. The 1940s saw a huge increase in particulate pollution that sort of lulled temperature gain for a while. When Mount Pinatubo erupted, likewise, we saw a drop in temperature because of the same sort of pollution. Things like this happen, and it's really not evidence against climate science sense the science has done a very good job explaining all of this.

 

CO2 isn't the only force in the atmosphere. I think it's funny that most arguments against climate science rely on simplifications of what climate science actually is. When you explain to someone what is actually going on, these sorts of arguments tend to break down.

 

The key feature here is that the temperature drops were temporary. I'm sure we're all aware of the difference between climate and weather, so I wont go over this. The overall 100 or so year trend is one of warming, so we can't just pick out specific years and say, "hey, the Earth didn't get warmer. Therefore, global warming isn't real!."

 

I don't see why you're posting all these specifics dealing with short-term changes when the graph I posted clearly shows a strong correlation between CO2 and temperature, regardless of what you're saying. Nobody is saying that CO2 directly and completely correlates with temperature. More specifically, if you combine CO2 w/ other greenhouse gases and the sun, you get a very very strong correlation, as indicated by this graph:

 

You cannot deny that this isn't a strong correlation. It is a stronger correlation then the sun alone,

and likewise, it is a stronger correlation then just CO2 alone.

(btw these come directly from TAR, they just happen to be on this website.)

 

There are more recent models that show even more accurate results. So if this isn't proof of modern climate science, along with the nifty "Climate Change Attricution" graph, then I don't know what is, really.

 

http://www.Ideo.columbia.edu/res/pi/.../Bond_2001.pdf

 

Which is a peer reviewed study published in SCIENCE showing the importance of solar influences in the North Atlantic throughout the holocene.

Let me say this again. Nobody is denying that historically, the sun has been the primary factor for climate change. The sun, all by itself, of course, wouldn't cause the climate vary anywhere near as much as it has, but it is what tends to start all the feedback chains and such.

 

I think I've quoted myself about this already, from post 84, "Well I think from my other responses you already know the motif. Historically it is true that the sun has drove warming/cooling. Volcanoes and other factors have had effects as well, like the little ice age for instance[5]. However, modern warming is very different. I could quote literally thousands of peer-reviews science articles that claim global warming is caused by humans. However, there are no peer-reviewed references that claim otherwise. The entire body of information against global warming is found outside of science. This video is a good example of one."

 

Your GISS study is funny because it talks about these historical trends. It also talks about the solar cycles which nobody is disputing. It's funny though that this particular factor is very small according to your article. This study is actually outdated (most climate research is "bleeding edge") and is contradicted by latter GISS research, http://data.giss.nasa.gov/ (NASA GISS is in fact on the climate scientists side).

 

And even from the abstract of your study, it only claims 50% and 33% after 1970, which latter research has found to be wrong. Your study is actually referenced by Stott. A broader look at the climate with updated data shows that the difference between 1900 and 1950 is 16% to 36%. These figures have not been disputed sense this publication. What has been disputed sense it's publication, however, is your 1998 Lean and Rind study where some of the conclusions have been shown to be wrong within the scientific academe.

 

Even if it were completely accurate, this still doesn't support your position that the sun was the primary driver "before 1976." (and nobody is saying that they're wrong; the data from Lean and Rind are actually used by Stott to support the 16% to 36% figure, among some of the other conclusions)