Who here is a global warming skeptic?

[Harold Squared]

I'd like to see the context surrounding those quoted words, which you indicate come from the RSS in 2010. I'm not very familiar with the details, though I know some popular media made a big deal about it. And I know it was claimed to be bunk by the usual denialist types, but I figured I'd wait for the scientific process (or legal process) to sort out any errors or wrongdoing.

 

There was some problem with a small part of a few of the many proxies used to construct the graph--something about recent tree-ring proxies, iirc, which he eventually removed from the graph altogether, iirc.

I'd appreciate it if you could fill me in on any misconceptions I might have about the status of the famous graph, but I thought it had been reviewed and reworked until it was again completely valid, including statistically. Does the Royal Statistical Society have some new questions? Whatever happened....

===

 

Did removing a small percentage of (barely) questionable data change the overall shape of the hockey stick? No.

Did adding in more proxies, and newer proxies, confirm the overall hockey stick shape?

Yes, from what I could tell by briefly trying to search the topic in the scientific literature.

 

~

How much approximation is permissible? Quite a lot evidently, provided it comes from a fellow cultist. But this is far from the most severe criticism of the infamous graph, and not necessarily the only valid one.

[Strange]

Still no evidence?

[Harold Squared]

Still no evidence?

Patience, colleague, patience! For one who has waited so long for the IPCC "DOOM!" to materialize you are certainly in a hurry.

 

http://nsstc.uah.edu/users/john.christy/docs/ChristyJR_SenateEPW_120801.pdf

 

Voila, you are welcome.

[Essay]

How much approximation is permissible?

 

Enough for the Royal Statistical Society to validate the work.

[Harold Squared]

In much the same way you "validate" my own modest efforts, colleague. Though a better word might be "criticize". The graph is unreliable and therefore junk, much like every forecast made by the IPCC to date.

 

Like most apocalyptic cults, when Doomday fails to meet its obligation to be punctual, the faithful hold true to doctrine and reschedule.

In much the same way you "validate" my own modest efforts, colleague. Though a better word might be "criticize", Dr. Spin. The graph is unreliable and therefore junk, much like every forecast made by the IPCC to date.

 

Like most apocalyptic cults, when Doomday fails to meet its obligation to be punctual, the faithful hold true to doctrine and reschedule.

Edited January 31, 2015 by Harold Squared

[Essay]

In much the same way you "validate" my own modest efforts, colleague. Though a better word might be "criticize", Dr. Spin. The graph is unreliable and therefore junk, much like every forecast made by the IPCC to date.

 

Perhaps it's a valid critique, but either way, I'm honored to be labeled as Dr. Spin ...I think.

===

 

But what is unreliable about the graph now, especially after all the publicity over fixing the bit that some bloggers (McIntyre, iirc?) spotted as needing review.

Didn't Mann fix (remove) that part, which the bloggers found fault with?

Has some new point been raised by the guy who started this all? Doesn't he now agree that the corrected graph is valid?

~

[overtone]

 

Still no evidence?

Patience, colleague, patience! For one who has waited so long for the IPCC "DOOM!" to materialize you are certainly in a hurry.

http://nsstc.uah.edu...eEPW_120801.pdf

Voila, you are welcome.

 

You were asked about your dismissal of the Mann graph - that link does not deal with it.

Scrolling through, I notice it does deal with a couple of things I have taken an interest in over the years, and screwed them up.

For example, he ascribes (around page 20 iirc?) the well known pattern of warming being more intense at night and in the winter to human landscape disturbance leading to the mixing of thin layers of air near the surface at night, a dubious oddity of a proposal, rather than the ordinary and obvious ascription to the more significant effects of infrared trapping on dark sky cooling than light sky warming. And he trots out the argument that climate has changed in the past, here and there with some rapidity, so this warming is either not happening or is part of natural climate change. That, if we recall, was why Frank Lutz recommended that Republican politicians use "climate change" instead of "global warming" - that is a campaign talking point, not a scientific one.

He also - in the summary, no less - states that since CO2 "is food for plants", more CO2 means "more food for all", which is idiotic crapola apparently copied from one of the fossil fuel financed propaganda operations.

So I don't trust his reasoning on anything, basically.

 

 

I'd like to see the context surrounding those quoted words, which you indicate come from the RSS in 2010

They come from the news release of the Royal Society report on "climate gate", which was found to be no big deal - some very minor corrections in a couple of details.

 

They contrasted it with Mann's paper, which the head of the Royal Society described as "exaggerated" and some of the data displayed using "inappropriate methods" - the hockey stick blade should have looked more like a field hockey stick blade, according to the head of the Royal Society, one Professor Hand.

 

It's been noted that the statistician on Mann's panel of reviewers, one Peter Bloomfield, was also a member of the Royal Society, and found nothing wrong with the hockey stick graph.

 

So we have a debate within the Royal Society over which kind of hockey stick best represents Mann's findings. But all agree that a hockey stick of some kind is the right shape - a sharp and dramatic global temperature rise beginning with the Industrial Revolution.

Edited February 4, 2015 by overtone

[Essay]

...that is a campaign talking point, not a scientific one.

He also - in the summary, no less - states that since CO2 "is food for plants", more CO2 means "more food for all", which is idiotic....

[snip]

 

But all agree that a hockey stick of some kind is the right shape - a sharp and dramatic global temperature rise beginning with the Industrial Revolution.

Thanks for the update. I know other proxies, from cave formations to "crustal" heating, discovered since Mann's compilation, show the same pattern too.

===

 

I searched for some recent news of the history, but this Dec. 2012 review seemed to be the last update ...or conclusion:

http://cen.acs.org/articles/90/i50/Michael-Manns-Hockey-Stick.html

“Symbols matter—especially symbols that cut through clutter and obfuscation, ones that convey a complex concept with irrefutable simplicity.”

 

“The hockey stick cut through that clutter. With devastating clarity....”

 

also:

“The Hockey Stick” is one of the most useful books yet in explaining climate science, especially the use of paleoclimate proxy data to assess the history of Earth’s climate….”

This is from Chemical & Engineering News [published since 1923!] ...by the American Chemical Society

===

 

 

Plus, there are these other examples, from the 2005 IPCC:

 

 

...but perhaps too extreme to qualify as hockey sticks.

~

[Gankfest]

I don't see how people can be skeptical over basic physics...

[Harold Squared]

I don't see how people can be skeptical over basic physics...

"Basic physics" are not the issue, nor is it a single issue. The AGW hypothesis espoused so passionately and frequently by the so-called "consensus" (a political term, itself) is basically threefold.

1.) The global temperature is warming overall,

2.) The direct cause of a trivial increase in the trace gas carbon dioxide is solely responsible for said trend, and

3.) The consequences of such a trend will be catastrophic.

Sceptics may take issue with any of these issues or indeed all of them, but defenders of the position must prove all three.

 

They have yet to do so.

[swansont]

 

They have yet to do so.

 

Oh, baloney. Ignorance of evidence is not absence of evidence. That's all on you.

[Harold Squared]

Enlighten us then. Recently a certain type of severe storm, tornadoes, have been declining in incidence. If CO2 indeed trumps all, and in every case is catastrophic, this trend would not exist. If the trend were otherwise, adherents of AGW would trumpet CO2 as the villian regardless of the actual cause, as the cade of Hurricane Sandy demonstrated.

[Strange]

Enlighten us then. Recently a certain type of severe storm, tornadoes, have been declining in incidence. If CO2 indeed trumps all, and in every case is catastrophic, this trend would not exist. If the trend were otherwise, adherents of AGW would trumpet CO2 as the villian regardless of the actual cause, as the cade of Hurricane Sandy demonstrated.

 

Nice selection of straw men there. Did you make them yourself?

 

If CO2 indeed trumps all and in every case is catastrophic

 

Citation needed. Oh no, that's right: you made it up.

 

this trend would not exist

 

My understanding is that climate models predict there will be fewer such storms (although there will be more extreme ones)

[Harold Squared]

The most convincing support of any theory is its predictive accuracy. Every forecast of the IPCC to date has been inaccurate. Hurricane Sandy, only attributed to AGW after the fact, as have been so many other adverse, and ONLY adverse weather events of an unusual nature. "Acts of God" in another age- now caused by the Almighty AGW...

What models predict and what can be observed are two very different things.

 

Returning to elementary physics, foes of that ole debbil CO2 routinely claim that the oceans will soon be too acid due to excess dissolved gas, but fail to notice that a warmer world will force more dissolved gases out of solution. This can be verified first hand thus. Pour two glasses of soda and put one in the fridge and one on a tabletop. Observe which goes flat first.

 

In this case kitchen physics demonstrates that the AGW camp cannot have its cake and eat it too.

[John Cuthber]

"Basic physics" are not the issue, nor is it a single issue. The AGW hypothesis espoused so passionately and frequently by the so-called "consensus" (a political term, itself) is basically threefold.

1.) The global temperature is warming overall,

2.) The direct cause of a trivial increase in the trace gas carbon dioxide is solely responsible for said trend, and

3.) The consequences of such a trend will be catastrophic.

Sceptics may take issue with any of these issues or indeed all of them, but defenders of the position must prove all three.

 

They have yet to do so.

OK, so here's the evidence for #1

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Global_Temperature_Anomaly.svg

#2 is a misunderstanding, an increase by roughly a third isn't trivial.

#3 is self evident if the trend continues. You can choose as large a "safe"temperature rise as you wish, but the rising trend would eventually meet it.

Returning to elementary physics, foes of that ole debbil CO2 routinely claim that the oceans will soon be too acid due to excess dissolved gas, but fail to notice that a warmer world will force more dissolved gases out of solution. This can be verified first hand thus. Pour two glasses of soda and put one in the fridge and one on a tabletop. Observe which goes flat first.

 

In this case kitchen physics demonstrates that the AGW camp cannot have its cake and eat it too.

That just shows that you don't understand the nature of equilibrium.

The question you need to ask is, "if you have two glasses of water and bring each of them to equilibrium with air containing different levels of CO2, which one becomes more acid?

And the answer is that the one with more CO2 becomes more acidic.

[overtone]

 

 

The most convincing support of any theory is its predictive accuracy. Every forecast of the IPCC to date has been inaccurate.

Not as inaccurate as your representation of the Royal Society's verdict on Mann's hockey stick graph.

 

But while it's true that the IPCC has missed with several forecasts of some things, to some extent, it's not true that any particular theory is thereby contradicted - as with somebody predicting the consequences of an airplane crash, the IPCC uses several theories and estimates and rules of thumb in making its forecasts.

 

And while it may seem comforting to be told that the IPCC has been missing with its predictions, the comfort vanishes when one notices what these misses have been: the IPCC badly underestimated the current rate of ice melt in the Arctic, for example, and in the Antarctic somewhat as well. The IPCC also seems to have underestimated the rate at which the deeper ocean water would absorb heat from the air - nice for those hoping for cooler air for a while, but not so nice for those who were counting on methane hydrates staying put for a long time yet, or the rise in local sea levels to be slow. In addition, the IPCC predictions failed to adequately include the effects of some dramatic natural cycles, so that the seventy five years or so the IPCC predictions allowed before California would be seriously hurt by the effects of severe drought is looking more like ten or fifteen these days.

[iNow]

Harold is right. The IPCC does have a problem with inaccuracy. Unfortunately,the nature of problem is that their forecasts have been far too conservative and reality has been far worse than they projected it would be.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/30/climate-scientists-arent-too-alarmist-theyre-too-conservative/

[ZVBXRPL]

Throughout the history of the Earth, the planet's climate has been fluctuating between two dominant climate states: Greenhouse Earth and Icehouse Earth.

Currently, the Earth is in an Icehouse climate state.

Icehouse Earth + Global Warming = Greenhouse Earth.

Humans are irrelevant. If all humans dropped dead this natural cycle would continue for billions of years until the Earth ceased to exist.

If humans ever became a threat to Earth, the Earth would destroy them and the natural cycle would continue.

The motive of the politicians who talk about global warming has nothing to do with "saving the planet", they are only interested in themselves. Money, power, career, that is ALL they care about.

If you believe that Al Gore and others CARE about the planet you are living in a fantasy world.

[Harold Squared]

Inow's concession that my position has merit would mean more if it acknowledged the fact that satellite RSS feeds record no significant warming trend for the last 18 years. As to his claims that predictions have in fact been less dramatic than subsequent events, independent verification is easy enough. As has been pointed out, the facts do matter in science. Unfortunately we cannot always say the same for politics, and the IPCC is a political body, one seeking to justify its miserable existence and extend its influence by any means available. This includes subverting otherwise reputable institutions such as the United States National Aeronautical and Space Administration.

 

The case of Glacier Bay in Alaska, while anecdotal, may be of interest. This enormous fjord has been sculpted by several glaciers. When first encountered by European adventurers it was full of ice, and dramatic retreat of said ice was duly documented for centuries. In recent decades this recession has slowed and in some cases reversed. Such observations are inconsistent with AGW dogma, it would seem.

 

The Great Disappointment is symptomatic of the behavior of scripturally based Doomsday cults. Typically when the long foretold Apocalypse fails to show up on time, cultists announce that a minor error in calculations has occurred and that an adjustment must be made.

 

Who else does this sort of thing? What example could possibly spring to mind?

Edited June 7, 2015 by Harold Squared

[iNow]

Inow's concession that my position has merit would mean more if it acknowledged the fact that satellite RSS feeds record no significant warming trend for the last 18 years.

Except, as reported just this week, they do.

 

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2015/06/03/science.aaa5632.full?explicitversion=true

Much study has been devoted to the possible causes of an apparent decrease in the upward trend of global surface temperatures since 1998, a phenomenon that has been dubbed the global warming “hiatus.” Here we present an updated global surface temperature analysis that reveals that global trends are higher than reported by the IPCC, especially in recent decades, and that the central estimate for the rate of warming during the first 15 years of the 21st century is at least as great as the last half of the 20th century. These results do not support the notion of a “slowdown” in the increase of global surface temperature.

http://news.sciencemag.org/climate/2015/06/much-touted-global-warming-pause-never-happened

What if the missing heat has been there all along? In 2013, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) flagged an odd phenomenon: Atmospheric temperature data collected over the past few decades suggested that global warming had slowed down beginning around 1998. Global warming skeptics crowed, and scientists delved into the global climate system to find out where the missing heat had gone. But a new analysis suggests that the real culprits are the data themselves. When better corrections for various sources of bias are applied to the data, the authors say, the so-called global warming hiatus vanishes—and in fact, they argue, global warming may have sped up.

 

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SCI_WARMING_HIATUS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Global warming has not stopped or even slowed in the past 18 years, according to a new federal study that rebuts doubters who've claimed that that heating trends have paused.

 

Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration readjusted thousands of weather data points to account for different measuring techniques through the decades. Their calculations show that since 1998, the rate of warming is about the same as it has been since 1950: about two-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit a decade.

 

The so-called hiatus has been touted by non-scientists who reject mainstream climate science. Those claims have resonated; two years ago, the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change felt the need to explain why the Earth was not heating up as expected, listing such reasons as volcanic eruptions, reduced solar radiation and the oceans absorbing more heat.

 

"The reality is that there is no hiatus," said Tom Karl, director of the National Centers for Environmental Information in Asheville, North Carolina. He is the lead author of a study published Thursday in the peer-reviewed journal Science.

It's unfortunate that we also don't see a hiatus on the type of ignorance and denialism you and others so consistently come here to demonstrate on this topic.

[Harold Squared]

An error in calculations, you say? And an adjustment is necessary? Oh, and denouncing the heretics too, what a nice bonus.

 

Thank you so much, but as evidenced by this entire thread and others like it, the "science" is far from settled, in contradiction of AGW cult dogma.

 

Incidentally, many so called "ignorant" denialists happen to have impressive scientific credentials, perhaps only tenured professionals have the luxury of speaking the truth. Heretics have difficulty with the peer review process and getting grants, it would appear.

[Endy0816]

Stick your head in the sand, trends like this are nothing to be concerned about...

 

http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

 

Honestly as far as those seeking wealth and power go, a harsher future world offers more opportunity for this, not less.

 

Think Mad Max. Before running into Max the 'Villain' provided:

 

Hydroponics

Clean Water

Medical Care

Armed Forces

 

In addition to all this, he established neighboring communities and opened trade routes between them.

 

 

[Harold Squared]

Rather than popular entertainment dear colleague, you might consider history.

 

Has there ever been a drastic problem requiring immediate attention imposed by the powers that be which turned out not to exist at all? Were lives and reputations destroyed by the ruling "consensus" for reasons we now find without basis in fact?

 

Indeed there have, ask any witch. Or Jew. Or Japanese American.

 

Pardon the seeming digression, but a consistent claim of the AGW camp is that a "consensus" of some sort exists and implies that the majority view MUST necessarily be the correct one.

 

This has never been the case.

Stick your head in the sand, trends like this are nothing to be concerned about...

 

http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

 

Honestly as far as those seeking wealth and power go, a harsher future world offers more opportunity for this, not less.

 

Think Mad Max. Before running into Max the 'Villain' provided:

 

Hydroponics

Clean Water

Medical Care

Armed Forces

 

In addition to all this, he established neighboring communities and opened trade routes between them.

 

 

And considering your remarks in greater depth, colleague, it has occurred to me that those entrenched powers would be equally well served by the mere PERCEPTION of such events by lay people and policymakers.

 

Resolved, the Apocalypse has been rescheduled- again.

 

If there is any validity to claims that significant warming has occurred, the case that the dreaded CO2 is responsible in any major way has yet to be established.

 

Then of course we must determine if longer growing seasons in a warmer and wetter world would in fact be disastrous.

 

Oh, and sea level rise? Sort of depends on where you measure it. Up in Alaska the weight of whacking great loads of ice melting has caused the earth beneath to actually rise in response, that is a longer trip to the beach, not a shorter one.

Edited June 7, 2015 by Harold Squared

[overtone]

 

Inow's concession that my position has merit would mean more if it acknowledged the fact that satellite RSS feeds record no significant warming trend for the last 18 years.

That is not a fact, but a falsehood.

 

If there is any validity to claims that significant warming has occurred, the case that the dreaded CO2 is responsible in any major way has yet to be established.

That is also false, if by "established" one means the ordinary scientific take - a probability greater than 99%.

The physics and data are fairly straightforward, and so the burden of proof is now on the contrary assertion - if you think the measured CO2 rise has not caused the measured significant and rapid warming, you must show what prevented it from doing so.

 

 

Then of course we must determine if longer growing seasons in a warmer and wetter world would in fact be disastrous.

That's been determined. The most likely changes at the most likely rates are all major disasters for the human population as a whole, unless mitigated at extraordinary expense and via unprecedented political efforts.

 

 

Oh, and sea level rise?

The one measured by those satellites you like so much.

 

Sort of depends on where you measure it.

It is being measured as rapid in places where even small rapid rises would be disasters - the river deltas of SE Asia, for instance.

Edited June 7, 2015 by overtone

[John Cuthber]

Incidentally, many so called "ignorant" denialists happen to have impressive scientific credentials,

The last analysis I saw of of that assertion showed it to not be true.

Have vast numbers of climatologists recently changed sides?

...but a consistent claim of the AGW camp is that a "consensus" of some sort exists ...

 

 

That's not a "claim" it's an observation.

 

http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

Edited June 7, 2015 by John Cuthber