Via Skeptical Science, Peter Sinclair’s video on the evidence for man-made global warming.
> Your reply brilliantly captures the whole problem skeptics have with current climate science…
No, ppk, **your comments** brilliantly capture the whole problem most self-identified “skeptics” have with the current climate science. **They don’t understand the scientific case and/or they attack a horribly incorrect misrepresentation of it**. You need to learn what the science actually says before you can be properly skeptical of it. Otherwise your “skepticism” is accurately labeled **denialism** because it’s predicated on (explicitly or implicitly) pretending that the scientific case does not exist.
Your questions (some of which embody deeply – and even laughably – false assumptions) and false assertions – to which Lee [threw up his hands in exasperation](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2497582) – have been answered over and over again by both the scientists and those explaining the science to the public.
If you want to **actually** be a skeptic, you have some learning to do first. Try starting with the IPCC AR4 summary report, or [The Discovery Of Global Warming](http://www.aip.org/history/climate/).
> …apparently Nature issued an erratum in ‘Nature 410, 355; 2001’ that undermined that study’s results.
Would that be [this erratum](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6832/full/4101124a0.html), for which the full text appears to be short enough to appear outside of Nature’s paywall – and I quote:
> In Fig. 1a of this paper, the labels for the two curves were inadvertently switched.
…which at first glance (and without access to the full paper) does not appear likely to undermine the conclusions of the paper?
If so, were you hoping that by not providing your references that “most viewers wouldn’t bother looking up something like that”?
> We’ve mulled over sensitivity and feedback here, haven’t we, boys, using little more than an intuitive feel for thermodynamics and a little common sense.
Well, you’ve demonstrated serious lack of understanding of thermodynamics and systems comprising multiple feedback loops – I guess you can call that “mulling” if you want.
> Roy Spencer over on WUWT is explaining how climate sensitivity to CO2 has been overestimated by the IPCC, and that we’re at last getting a handle on negative feedback.
Spencer lately has been fairly reliably wrong – especially when he opines on his blog prior to journal publication. Last time around it was a “demonstration” that the warming trend “might be” due to not fully-compensated-for UHI. Trouble is he screwed up his first attempt at the statistical analysis, and on the second one he compared apples and oranges (temperature measurements taken every 6 hours vs daily min & max) without any consideration of the validity of the comparison for the purpose at hand.
And Spencer is apparently pointing to the sensitivity and feedback characteristics of the models – presumably in the hope that his not-terribly-skeptical readership will focus on those and ignore a number of independent lines of evidence that ALSO lead the IPCC to its current estimate of the most likely sensitivity range.
As I [said earlier](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2491596) “it would be instructive to compare the weight of evidence for a proposition that Brent finds to “have promise” with a proposition that he finds to be obviously wrong”. This is yet another example.
Given his track record, wake me up when Spencer comes up with something that withstands a few months of post-publication scrutiny and *then* we’ll talk about it.
Still [no answers to questions](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2495583) from you, Brent – surprise, surprise.
And still no concessions from you, Brent, even on [flat-out lies](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2495236).
It’s almost like you’re surreptitiously telling us you’re not a [reasonable person by your own standards](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2478594).
Again, 1.5″ of sea level rise per year is a crisis? And how much of that oh-so-scary condition is actually human induced?
How much has CO2 really trapped heat per Harries et al plot?
Where in the vid is the evidence for AGW?
Evasion and diversionary personal attacks seem to sum up climate science today. Sad. It’s giving real scientists a bad rap.
Well, I’ve asked these questions three times now and have gotten no response to them. So you’ve managed to reinforce my opinion that climate science today has no credibility with anyone who has an even modestly high IQ… Integrity Quotient that is.
I’m moving on, so happy fear-mongering!
ppk, you wrote:
I guess no one here is going to respond to my questions regarding the vid that’s the topic of this thread. It claims evidence of AGW and I didn’t see any.
The evidence was plain to see. It’s not that you don’t see it — you deny it.
Regarding rising sea level (one of the poster children of doom), the graph presented shows 1.5″ per year rise. And presumably only a percentage of that is human induced. How much? Seems like a pretty reasonable question.
That percentage is likely to be close to 100%. There are no other hypotheses that explain the sea level rise anywhere near as well as increases in temperature. And remember, a 1.5″ rise per year adds up to 150 inches — 12 feet — over a hundred years. That would put some of our coastal cities, such as Miami, completely underwater, and inundate large portions of every other coastal city all over the world.
What about the Harries et al plot in the vid? Why is CO2 shown in two different places and what is the context of the result? I see only a 0.8% difference in the one CO2 result and no change in the other and methane appears to be the bigger problem anyway (which apparently has been going down in concentration). Please explain.
This paragraph is difficult to understand. The questions you ask are too vague to answer. I suggest that you reword them to more precisely state the nature of your question.
I’d like to offer a hypothesis for your consideration, ppk. That hypothesis is as follows: you have no training in any of the hard sciences. You might have taken a few courses in basic physics and chemistry long ago, but they were introductory level at best. You really don’t know anything about the science of climate change. The starting point of your thinking is loyalty to conservative political groups. Since those groups reject climate change, you join in and reject climate change, even though you really have no idea what this is all about. In other words, you are politically motivated to deny climate change and have no interest in or concern for the scientific issues. You have not read the IPCC reports or the NAS statements on climate change. You have read some denialist sites and have picked up bullet points that you repeat here. But you don’t respond to any of the challenges offered here because a response is beyond your knowledge of the material.
This hypothesis does a good job of explaining your behavior here. Could you perhaps offer us an alternative hypothesis that explains your behavior more convincingly?
Erasmussimo, many thanks for a textbook example of how to blow gaping holes in Spencer’s latest effort.
If Brent is interested in living up to his self-professed “scepticism”, perhaps in future he’d extend that “scepticism” to Dr. Spencer. Several of Spencer’s peers have driven a bus through his efforts before including:
Ray Pierrehumbert at RC;
Tamino once, twice and thrice; and
lastly an entire category devoted to Spencer at Deltoid.
Brent, you have homework…
Brent’s right, it has been cold in England and Texas recently.
>*The title at the top is ‘The empirical evidence for man-made global warming’ but no evidence for AGW was presented in the video – only that temperatures appear to be going up which could and probably is Nature just doing its thing.*
ppk, first question, if your opening statement was truthful, why would you need to then say this:
>*The Harries et al plot looks far from conclusive to me that there is any real increase in trapped heat.*
Then can you explain why I should spend my time debating with you? And can you assure me that your untruthful claims would cease if I did debate you?
My reply to Brent was held up in moderation. But it [contains evidence of warming](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2493219) that Brent will ignore regardless. I have no delusions that anything at all will sway Brent from his faith.
> Evasion and diversionary personal attacks seem to sum up climate science today. … I’m moving on, so happy fear-mongering!
Shorter ppk: I can’t defend my assertions so I’m taking diversionary potshots and evasive action.
I imagine ppk would not want to look at this post on [the empirical evidence for global warming](http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-global-warming.htm).
If he did, he might have to go beyond trivial concerns about a graph label mixup in Harries 2001 and consider that there are at least a couple of other more recent papers with similar results. And that there are direct measurements of downwards-directed longwave radiation which – absent any dramatic new discoveries in atmospheric science – can only be happening if greenhouse gases are emitting longwave radiation from the atmosphere.
SteveC (1506): I’m grateful for your links to criticisms of Roy Spencer. I have begun the ‘homework’ you set me!
An article on RealClimate by Ray Pierrehumbert seems to demolish an all-singing-all-dancing 1902/2008 model by Spencer which matches the GISST anomaly record, and the line “So why does Roy’s graph look so much better than mine? As Julia Child said, ‘It’s so beautifully arranged on the plate – you know someone’s fingers have been all over it.’ ” is the wittiest thing I have read from warmists!
Laymen like me are plagued by the neccessity of what I might call ‘pick-a-hero’. That is, lacking the education to, say, check out the computer code and equations ourselves, we latch onto some authority figure we declare knowledgeable and truthful. We all do it, not just laymen. Because even an expert is a layman out of his field. You doubtless play pick-a-hero when you needs to have your airbag or your arthritis checked out. But a wise layman picks his hero judiciously; not at random.
The 2008 graph chimes nicely with a warning given by Erasmussimo yesterday on PIPPO, and so Spencer drops a point on my Herometer. (Prejudice in, pretty picture out.)
You linked to a piece on OpenMind critical of Spencer’s alleged misunderstanding of the word “feedback” and a discussion on exponential smoothing and the “time coefficient” different depths of ocean provide – 1.6 yr to 32 yr. Now this begins to look familiar: This is Control Engineering, as used in vehicle suspension. Resonant frequencies: yes. Step change: yes. Damping: yes. Hooke’s law (or in this case, Boyle’s). Yes.
This is food for thought, Steve, and I retain my pet theory that the key battlegrounds are Feedback and Sensitivity.
>*I retain my pet theory that the key battlegrounds are Feedback and Sensitivity.*
Careful Brent, your drifting into alignment with current scientific opinion and genuine skepticism.
Keep it up and I might begin to believe the threat is not a waste of time.
(ironic mode switched to normal)
Thank you for the link to a colourful graph showing England and Texas cool oases in this roasting world of ours. I hope that you personally don’t live in one of the blood-red or (gulp) congealed-blood-red areas.
Eight-point-flippin’-five degrees hotter than it should be! Holy mackerel!
The graphic confirms what they trumpet in the media: “Not too bad in the inhabited latitudes, major warming at the poles.” Now, may I recommend some reading for you? In a posting called “Dial ‘M’ for Mangled”, Anthony Watts has unearthed some dodgy temperature records in the Arctic.
Here’s the essence: Chappies at Ice Station Zebra put on their furs and pop out to read the thermometer hourly. A hot day goes: 8.0, 8.0, 8.1, 8.2; a cold day goes 20.2M, 20.2M, 20.3M, 20.3M. Brass monkey weather is 40M.
Watts has found records which go 20.2M, 20.2M, 20.3, 20.3M, or something like.
And on the evening of July 13th 2009, temperature at a certain Canadian outpost went 5.9, 19.6, 4.1. Would you agree that the 15-degree spike at beer-time -22:00- might skew the big picture? Would you agree that errors in barely-populated areas have a greater skewing effect than where data is abundant? Would you agree that remoteness between data gathering and interpretation might reduce the detection of honest blunders?
Jeff Harvey was recently telling us about a 10C heat wave in his native Canada. (I bet he was writing from his air-conditioned office in Belgium.)
In indusrty there’s an acronym: MBWA – Management by Walking Around. Maybe there’s an argument for CBSGO, or Climatology by Sometimes Going Outdoors.
(ironic mode suspended)
The IPCC’s WG1 AR4 document talks convincingly about Quality Assurance. I question whether this noble and professional intent is acted upon, and whether the Quality Auditing specified in the Automotive Industry’s TS16949 has any equivalent in the Climate Industry.
First off, I think that all the nasty things that have been written about Brent have been falsified by his two most recent posts. That doesn’t excuse any past behavior (of which I am unaware), but I believe that these two posts were written in good faith and offer arguments that deserve serious responses. Here’s my attempt at providing such responses:
First, in regard to the “pick-a-hero” problem, I agree that the world is far too complex for any individual to figure out everything by himself. So yes, “pick-a-hero” is a prudent strategy. Indeed, for low-risk situations, it’s an ideal strategy. If I take my Toyota to the Toyota dealership and the mechanic tells me that I need to replace the fragilatizationator, I take his word for it. But the weightier an issue is, the more heros we consult. If my doctor tells me that I’ll die unless I let him cut off my genitals, I’ll get a second opinion. Before I cast my vote in an election, I sound out my friends to see what they think. I don’t let any single hero decide the issue for me.
So it should be with scientific issues such as climate change. This is such a complicated subject that I would never, ever rely on the word of any individual before making a judgement. I would much prefer to hear the results of a thorough deliberation by a large group of top experts.
Fortunately, in this I have been anticipated by the US Congress — by nearly 150 years. Just after the Civil War, the Congress realized that it needed reliable advice on scientific issues, so it created the National Academy of Sciences, whose primary function has always been to provide Congress with the most reliable scientific advice possible. The NAS consists of the elite of American science. Membership is by invitation only, and an invitation to join is the crowning achievement in many a scientist’s career. The NAS does not withhold invitations from controversial or dissident scientists — Mr. Lindzen, a major critic of climate change theory, is a member and sits on all the committees relevant to climate change.
The NAS’s deliberative process relies heavily on supermajority approval of any formal report. It does not require consensus, just a big supermajority. The effectiveness of its deliberative process is demonstrated by the astounding fact that, in nearly 150 years of work, the NAS has never made a mistake in its formal reports to Congress. Not once has any claim made in any formal report been later found to be incorrect. Can you name ANY institution that has a perfect track record? Certainly not the Supreme Court, and, despite claims to the contrary, not the Pope, either.
The trick, of course, is that the NAS is extremely conservative in its reports; it doesn’t put anything into a report unless the scientists are very confident of it. Much of the time, it simply says that “more research is needed”. That’s what they reported back in the 1970s when there was some brouhaha over global warming and global cooling. (Interestingly enough, more scientists were worried about global warming than global cooling. MANY more scientists.) The NAS looked into it and issued a report saying “We don’t know. More research is needed.”
Thus, when the NAS says something more than “more research is needed”, you can be damn sure that their claim is solid. And if you read the NAS statement on climate change:
Here’s a quote from it:
The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to begin taking steps to prepare for climate change and to slow it. Human actions over the next few decades will have a major influence on the magnitude and rate of future warming. Large, disruptive changes are much more likely if greenhouse gases are allowed to continue building up in the atmosphere at their present rate. However, reducing greenhouse gas emissions will require strong national and international commitments, technological innovation, and human willpower.
It’s a well-written, carefully balanced document that acknowledges all the uncertainties but nevertheless comes down strongly in favor of the basic AGW hypothesis.
I strongly urge you to read it. It’s a pamphlet for general public consumption and it’s only 24 pages long, with lots of pictures and a few graphs.
A skeptical person might look at the graph and think “Hmm. 8.5 degrees above average doesn’t sound right. Maybe NASA is wrong. Maybe I am wrong. Let me check.”
A quick check would reveal the shocking truth that nowhere on the chart (or indeed, the NASA website) does it say that the numbers correspond to direct temperatures. This is your assumption and you are wrong and not worthy of the term skeptic, only the term “stupid”.
That is all.
C’mon, John, back off with the personal insults here. All you’re doing is confirming the beliefs of deniers that we’re a bunch of dogmatists. If somebody is verbally brutish, you’re welcome to be brutish back (I prefer to just ignore brutish behavior), but when they make an attempt to discuss the matter seriously, it’s best for everybody to respond to the issues, not the personalities.
Erasmussimo, Brent is a liar and a troll who within his last dozen posts has accused every scientist in the IPCC of being frauds. Nothing he says can be taken at face value because he’s taken every position on the subject it’s possible to have. He has no interest in learning anything that doesn’t fit his political beliefs.
Brent is only here to play wordgames in some kind of weird obsession to trick us all into conceeding we’re lying. The more this fails the more obsessive he becomes.
If you have any doubt in his motives consider this quote from another site:
To destroy one’s enemy, one must first understand him.
If Brent wants to be taken seriously he can start by responding to this.
[Cue Brent post to ignore everything and remind us global warming is a hoax because it’s cold on the north tip of Greenland and parts Novia Scotia.]
John, I don’t care if Brent is an orphan-raping litterbug. I don’t care at all about Brent, or about you. I care about climate change. This topic is about climate change, not Brent, not you, and not me. It’s usually counterproductive to talk personalities, although we all make that mistake at times. It’s always better to talk issues, not personalities.
> It’s always better to talk issues, not personalities.
And dishonest debaters *love* to take advantage of that laudable instinct. For example, by “talking about personalities” themselves, including (e.g.) [accusations of outright lies](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2498525):
> Jeff Harvey was recently telling us about a 10C heat wave in his native Canada. (I bet he was writing from his air-conditioned office in Belgium.)
…or accusing the IPCC scientists of falsifying research in order to get rich off some sort of imagined gusher of public money…
…at the very same time as [they themselves engage in outright lies](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2495236).
And they call on others’ instincts to [be “reasonable people” and “make concessions”](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2478594) where the other party appears to have a point – yet time and time again their arguments fall to pieces and [still no concessions are forthcoming](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2498073).
That said, your comment on “pick-a-hero” was well worth making, especially as Brent gave the appearance of realising for perhaps the first time that – like nearly all of us – he hasn’t the personal skills to determine the scientific truth in this complex field, and that some of his previously picked heroes don’t have an impressive record for their positions either. Hopefully his tendency to revert to his previous state of knowledge and opinion will be broken this time around.
> Would you agree that the 15-degree spike at beer-time -22:00- might skew the big picture?
Brent, I assume Watts, being the rigourous scientist that he so clearly must be for so many to have picked-him-as-hero, has:
0) Determined that the records he is looking at are the versions that are actually used by the various global mean temperature calculation codebases?
1) Determined that those codebases include these values in their calculations without triggering any outlier detection and removal? (Feel free to consider Watts’ efforts in a similar area in the past – he made a meal of raw data sets where some value like 9999 in a field was used to represent “no data” – and IIRC *he treated it literally and crowed about a huge error – when the codebases treated those instances correctly as “no data”.)
2) Calculated the effect of a single representative error of the type quoted on (say) the global (annual or even monthly) mean temperature and reported the magnitude?
3) Performed a well-chosen random sample to estimate how prevalent these types of (presumed) errors are and their numerical distribution, and therefore produced a reasonable estimate and uncertainty range for the impact of these types of errors on global mean temperature (over a month or a year)?
4) Compared his results with published uncertainty ranges in global mean temperature records?
5) Drawn a measured and sober conclusion from this analysis?
Brent, I forgot the following in my previous comment, prior to point (5):
4a) Compared the land and satellite records in the affected regions to determine that there was significant variance – given that the type of (presumably) human error he alludes to doesn’t occur in the satellites?
4b) Determined how the incidence and magnitude of the errors affect the **trend** calculations?
Lotharsson, every one of your comments on the scale of the QA problem makes sense. And quite aside from obvious blunders (ah, but do please read on….) like this, there is as you know a controversy over the siting of instrumentation in some places.
Now, here’s a surprise:
Trawling through the WUWT thread looking for a deeper insight, I have found a mail from Mr. LeCotey the manager at the Eureka station in Canada.
He wrote (23 April 2010): “I am the station manager of Eureka and was on site when we broke a new all time high on July 14, 2009 of 20.9°C and have the picture to prove it! The reason there was such a big fluctuation in temerature from the METARS before and after the record breaking temperature was all due the direction of the wind. […] There was no malfunction of equipment nor data entry errors.”
And then: “REPLY: Thanks, what about the day before, with 19.6? I’ll drop you a note for the pix.”
Mr. LeCotey then replied, “Unfortunately, our ‘official’ temperature recording site has not moved for over 50 years and thus is greatly influenced by the cold Arctic water from Slidre Fjord when the winds are from the East, South or West during the summer months.
This has probably given a big misrepresentation of how warm the Arctic is actually getting.
I would not be surprised to see temperatures up to the mid twenties or even near 30°C far inland where there are no winds. The Arctic is heating up! Wildlife come to the shoreline to cool off, Muskoxen are taking dips in the Fjord, permafrost is melting down in some areas to 10-12 ft, there is more and more open water over the Arctic ocean every year and the Ayles Ice Shelf has broken away.
How much more does one need to see before you believe the Arctic is dramatically warming up.
We’ve had a warmer than usual winter this year with a number of daily maxiums broke and I would expect another record breaking summer.
Hot in Eureka Rai”
I am hoist with my own petard! My earlier comment about the remoteness of edge-of-the-world stations from our comfy homes works both ways. I would never have believed that a 5.9C, 19.6C, 4.1C data series was possible! I’d have given odds of 100:1 against it being an accurate tepmerature measurement.
I shall now retire to a darkened room and curse the real world for failing to conform to my prejudices…
Erasmussimo, as recommended I had a look at the US’s National Academy of Sciences’ 2008 document on climate change. Similarly, a month or two ago I looked at what Britain’s Royal Society’s take was on AGW.
In both cases, they back the AGW hypothesis with gravitas and conviction. In both cases, I am tempted to say, “well, if THEY say so it must be so”, rather like a young man will sometimes defer to his ‘elders and betters’.
I’m afraid that I can’t cease thinking for myself, and I still don’t see the physics nor the observational evidence to back up the AGW claims. The pick-a-hero notion was never intended to result in a suspension of one’s own critical faculties. And I only confer hero status on my heros after the strictest vetting. Had ‘F’ not equalled ‘ma’, had ‘E’ not equalled ‘mc2’ I would have squeaked like an impertinent mouse at Newton and Einstein regardless of their stature.
It was in reading a biography of Newton that it occurred to me that the Royal Society’s website was worth a visit. I was shocked to see how they toe the doctrinaire AGW line, and indulge in the same futurological, numerological dumb extrapolation of trends as the IPCC.
Armed with Newton’s laws, the British Admiralty organized a 1769 voyage to Polynesia to observe Venus’s transit. Had Newton been wrong, Cook and co would have looked rather foolish. Ditto for FDR and Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project. THAT’S putting yer money where yer mouth is.
Today in Britain we heard a senior academic protesting that species loss was “at least as high a priority as climate change”. To many AGW sceptics the diversion of vast public resource to combat a the nonexistent threat of global warming is a travesty and a tragedy. The greening of public opinion in the West has been a great opportunity. I find it distressing that precious resource is to be frittered away on oughttabe projects instead of targeted at useful ones such as habitat preservation. (“Oughttabe” as in “Windmills ought to be environmentally friendly” and “green jobs ought to be a viable substitute for the wealth-creation now ceded to Asia”).
Despite the new evidence from Eureka (above), I will still spend much of my spare time pondering sunspots, feedback and sensitivity in the hope of exposing the key flaws in the AGW hypothesis.
First off, I think that all the nasty things that have been written about Brent have been falsified by his two most recent posts.
What a dense ass you are.
It’s usually counterproductive to talk personalities
And a raging hypocrite.
All you’re doing is confirming the beliefs of deniers that we’re a bunch of dogmatists.
This is the stupidest sentence in this whole thread, even dumber than anything sunspot wrote.
“indulge in the same futurological, numerological dumb extrapolation of trends as the IPCC.”
Brent, one more (of dozens?!) fracking time. THIS IS NOT BASED ON EXTRAPOLATING ANY FUCKING TRENDS!!!!!!!!
Christ, man get a clue!!!
In 1919, after receiving letters from Gorky pleading for imprisoned intellectuals, Lenin intervened on behalf of some and got them released. This totally falsified reports of the Red Terror.
> And I only confer hero status on my heros after the strictest vetting.
Given your earlier reverence for Spencer, and posting of myriad claims by Watts et al, your claim is self-evidently false. Once you internalise this you may make some progress…
> I was shocked to see how they toe the doctrinaire AGW line, and indulge in the same futurological, numerological dumb extrapolation of trends as the IPCC.
This statement is also self-evidently false – just not to you. You also need to internalise that your assessment of the science is inaccurate – and that you may not be competent to do your own analysis – before you can make progress…
Erasmussimo, I don’t think you understand that every post Brent makes is an insult. You have to be aware that what motivates him is not reason, or the quest for knowledge, but rather the tribalist impulse to defeat the enemy.
Earth to Brent – using flowery pretentious language doesn’t make you clever. It makes you look like an ass who’s trying to pretend he knows more than he does.
Just a couple of examples from the NAS Climate Change brochure:
“How do we know that human activities are
changing the Earth’s climate? The concurrent
increase in surface temperature with carbon
dioxide and other greenhouse gases during
the past century is one of the main indications.”
Repeat after me: “Correlation is not causation.” I have a graph comparing US oil production and the quality of rock music from 1949 to 2007. There’s a very good match. Now THERE’s a lead/lag dilemma for you: which caused which?
The NAS brochure features the IPCC forcing graph, showing big bad greenhouse gases in red bands to the right with a high LOSU, and a tiny red band for solar irradiance with a low LOSU (level of scientific understanding). Solar astronomy is in its infancy, unable to explain (yet) the Maunder Minimum, and resorting to dumb numerology to forecast sunspot counts in the coming months. Stand by for great leaps forward by the astrophysicists.
Just like Bill Clinton had a sign on his desk saying “It’s the economy, stupid”, if there are any climatologists left after the bubble bursts they should have a similar one about the sun.
You wonder: How do I peer into the future? And is it not as vacuous to predict the outcome of our scientific controversy as it is to predict the submerging of the Everglades as you disciples of Gore do? Well, gentlemen, one key difference between us is that you assume that current knowledge is sufficient for forecasting a chaotic system, and I observe that the science is not settled. The following link illustrates this:
Despite the new evidence from Eureka (above), I will still spend much of my spare time pondering sunspots, feedback and sensitivity in the hope of exposing the key flaws in the AGW hypothesis.failing to understand basic science because I don’t agree with the outcome.
>The concurrent increase in surface temperature with carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases during the past century is **one of the main indications.**”
Which Brent misrepresent with his denialist shoe horn to portray as:
>The concurrent increase in surface temperature with carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases during the past century is **the only indicator**.
Neat trick Brent, goes well with the claim that the radiative physics (causal mechanism) is acceptable but you still want to see warming of the globe as confirmation.
Apologies. The link should end:
Hey Brent, care to conceed that you were wrong about labels on NASA’s temperature chart, and that nowhere does NASA claim the temps are 8.5 degrees above average?
After all, you are such a reasonable person…
Hi, John, I assume you’re talking about the link you provided in your #1507:
(Hah! I just spotted the file name. Your work? Nice one!)
It shows coloured banding up to +8.5C, especially in polar regions. In the light of the witness statement by the manager at Ice Station Eureka (#1523), yes, I am much chastened, and less ready to pooh-pooh data showing drastic warming in remote areas. If your point is that the dark-red bands show +4C to +8.5C, then yes, you have a point: the dark-red band is not +8.5C or >8.5C. The notion of ‘anomalies’ is a bit ‘sus’. It entails a choice of datum, a declaration of ‘normal’. Actual temps would be clearer.
If the tundra is indeed experiencing significant warming, whilst elsewhere it’s business as usual, well, yes this strengthens the AGW case.
By all accounts the Catlin Ice Expedition is freezing its nuts off. Let’s hope they’ll fall through some molten slush and never be heard of again, the faux-heroic prats. Shackleton they ain’t.
>Repeat after me: “Correlation is not causation.”
Straw man. The correlation was predicted a century before it was observed, based on the physics of the greenhouse effect.
[Back around the goldfish bowl](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2320644).
>Solar astronomy is in its infancy
>unable to explain (yet) the Maunder Minimum
Red Herring. The cause may be uncertain, but the effect is [known well enough](http://bravenewclimate.com/2008/09/14/what-if-the-sun-got-stuck/).
>if there are any climatologists left after the bubble bursts they should have a similar one about the sun.
[Back around the goldfish bowl](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2337973).
>you disciples of Gore
>forecasting a chaotic system
[Back around the goldfish bowl](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2320831).
>the science is not settled.
>The following link illustrates this:
It shows coloured banding up to +8.5C…
> Repeat after me: “Correlation is not causation.”
Repeat after me: *the map is not the territory*.
Or to be more verbose: the most simplified explanation for those who currently have no knowledge of the science is not the whole scientific case, no matter how hard you close your eyes, stamp your feet and wish it to be so.
Or to be more metaphoric: the vastly simplified explanations for many things that we give to children who know nothing about a subject are often false, in the sense that they leave out large and crucial pieces of the case that is necessary when talking to someone with more knowledge and cognitive ability. Anyone who pretends that the fuller explanation does not exist or is false *because* there are shortcomings of the simplification is either woefully uninformed, not that smart or not that honest – or a combination thereof.
The application to climate science should be obvious.
> …and a tiny red band for solar irradiance with a low LOSU (level of scientific understanding).
Repeat after me: a low LOSU does NOT necessarily imply we have no grasp of uncertainty bounds for the effect in question. For example the AR4 [says](http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-9-1.html)
> The concept of LOSU has been slightly modified based on the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) uncertainty guidelines. Error bars now represent the 5 to 95% (90%) confidence range (see Box TS.1). Only ‘well-established’ RFs are quantified. ‘Well established’ implies that there is qualitatively both sufficient evidence and sufficient consensus from published results to estimate a central RF estimate and a range.
And as I noted before, you’ll take as plausible – or stronger – a claim with a LOSU that doesn’t even rate as “low” provided it supports your beliefs about the world, even against a whole bunch of evidence with higher LOSU that goes against your beliefs.
Richard Tol’s Draft Submission
‘The IPCC is a victim of its own success. Policy makers trust the IPCC reports as neutral and authoritative assessments of climate research. Therefore, people with a political agenda have tried to influence the IPCC. Such attempts were largely in vain in AR2 and AR3, but this is not true for AR4. Working Group 2 systematically portrays climate change as a bigger problem than is scientifically acceptable. Working Group 3 systematically portrays climate policy as easier and cheaper than can be responsibly concluded based on academic research. These biases can be found in the chapters, the technical summaries, the summaries for policy makers, and the synthesis report.
The most important problem of the IPCC is the nomination and selection of authors and Bureau Members. Experts are included or excluded because of their political allegiance rather than their academic quality. The “right” authors are put in key positions with generous grants to support their IPCC work, while the “wrong” authors are sidelined to draft irrelevant chapters and sections without any support.’
and for twooffy http://www.tinyurl.com.au/7gv
_It’s a conspiracy, but you’ll have to take my word for it since I don’t have a shred of evidence._
John (1540): We seem to be at cross-purposes here.
I see (on the graph you posted) a legend “Tsurf (C) anomaly 1951-1980, and at the bottom a colour-code key showing a hottest anomaly of 4C to 7.5C anomaly in dark red.
Is this not saying that N. Canada is, in Mar 2010, warmer than the reference period? Sorry if I’m being thick here; it seems straightforward.
it seems straightforward.
Does it? I wish I had your skills of glancing at something at instantly getting it wrong.
So, Sunspot, apart from Tol and Spencer and Soon and Baliunas and Abdussamatov and Solanki and Gray and d’Aleo and Plimer and Zagoni and Briggs and Zurayk and Dyson and Svensmark and Pielke….. the SCIENCE IS SETTLED!
>apart from Tol and Spencer and Soon and Baliunas and Abdussamatov and Solanki and Gray and d’Aleo and Plimer and Zagoni and Briggs and Zurayk and Dyson and Svensmark and Pielke
[Back around the goldfish bowl](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2379943)
Dave, if you have some more scientists who challenge the Thermageddon Hoax, feel free to put their names forward.
I’m sure you’re a man of principle, and do your bit to save the planet. What’s your carbon footprint?
>What’s your carbon footprint?
[Back around the goldfish bowl](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2487046).
> Back around the goldfish bowl
Brent’s clearly accelerating. I’m wondering whether he’ll reach escape velocity or pass out from the G forces first 😉
But Lotharsson, if [Brent says](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2506684) that your carbon footprint determines whether you speak the truth on global warming, you know what the answer is, thanks to Andrew Bolt: your opinion is only impartial and meritorious [if you are a hypocrite and you don’t ride a bicycle](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/04/oxburgh_refuted.php).
if Brent says that your carbon footprint determines whether you speak the truth on global warming
Well no, the only thing that indicates to Brent that you speak the truth on global warming is to deny it – thereby passing his strict vetting process and being eligible to be a hero (perhaps Brent’s blithe dismissal in #1524 and #1532 of the NAS report will get through Erasmussimo’s remarkably thick skull). If you do not deny it, then your carbon footprint marks you as either a hypocrite* or a chicken little.
[* This is a common misunderstanding of what hypocrisy is. A smoker who says that cigarettes are bad for you is not a hypocrite; one who claims they are harmless while chewing Nicorette is.]
” They eliminated virtually all the Canadian stations as DW note. “Just one thermometer remains for everything north of the 65th parallel.” Figure 3 shows the changes and as DW observe, “In Canada, the number of stations dropped from 600 to less than 50. The percentage of stations in the lower elevations (below 300 feet) tripled and those at higher elevations above 3000 feet were reduced by half. Canada’s semi-permanent depicted warmth comes from interpolating from more southerly locations to fill northerly vacant grid boxes, even as a simple average of the available stations shows an apparent cooling.” The warming was artificial and created by reducing the number and then selecting specific stations.
This was especially true for the single Arctic station. DW wrote, “That station is Eureka, which has been described as “The Garden Spot of the Arctic” thanks to the flora and fauna abundant around the Eureka area, more so than anywhere else in the High Arctic. Winters are frigid but summers are slightly warmer than at other places in the Canadian Arctic.” These refugia have distinctly different climate conditions and are well-documented areas in the Arctic.”
MFS (1551): In asking the brethren here about their actions (as opposed to their cheap words) I am not weighing the value of their opinions. I am weighing the strength of their conviction.
If you, or Lotharsson, or Dave R, or John believe that people’s carbon footprints are endangering the ecosystem, and yet carry on regardless then it calls into question whether you truly believe the dangers you trumpet.
It was zero Celsius in Manchester this morning,, and -5C in Scotland. My wife said, “I keep on asking you to order some more heating oil. Come on, man, we’ll soon run out.” Mid May!!!
> The percentage of stations in the lower elevations (below 300 feet) tripled and those at higher elevations above 3000 feet were reduced by half.
Goldfish orbits, repeating egregiously incorrect claims without any apparent embarrassment…
Watts [assumes without bothering to check](http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/shame/) that these changes will *exaggerate* the warming trend, but if anything they **reduce** the calculated warming trend. (For one thing, stations at higher elevations generally warm faster, so dropping *them* can’t make it look like it’s warming faster.) Watts makes [a whole load of other errors](http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/02/15/dropouts/) too. Practically everything of significance he says about the “dropouts” is wrong – but highly convincing if you’re very (statistically and scientifically) un-savvy.
To state the obvious, Watts has helpfully identified evidence that [leads to the conclusion](http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/false-claims-proven-false/) that the reported rate of warming is (if anything) **underestimated** due to these (largely funding-cut related) changes, even as his gullible followers crow that he has found the opposite.
> If you, or Lotharsson, or Dave R, or John believe that people’s carbon footprints are endangering the ecosystem, and yet carry on regardless then it calls into question whether you truly believe the dangers you trumpet.
You’ve asked before and appear to have forgotten that despite your “skepticism” about the science several of us have answered. And given your attitude to the science, to the posters here and to evidence in general, it’s not surprising that many would feel your question was not asked in good faith.
You also forget that your question fails to take into account that personal voluntary action can not provide anywhere near enough emissions reduction to avoid likely and significant consequences.
slothy you can use your hairdryer and curling wand as much as you like.
‘There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.’
‘This petition has been signed by over 31,000 American scientists.’
Oh, it must be…Groundhog day!
sunspot, are you seriously trying on the infamous “Oregon Petition”? ROFLMAO! Especially when there’s an active Deltoid [thread](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/oregon_petition_and_the_right.php) about it at the very same time, complete with a link to a much older Deltoid [post](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2004/05/oregonpetition.php) about the initial problems found with it – which is by no means the full story on how bogus it is. (Google for more…)
Did you really think I or anyone else would fall for that?
hahaha, slothy it is just as credible as the IPCC and their clowns !!!!!!!
I guess it’s interesting to note that to both Brent and sunspot, the **science** is considered not settled because they point out that some **scientists** disagree…even though they can’t point to any robust **science** from those dissenters – especially not any that comes anywhere near the strength of the scientific case for AGW.
In other words, they’re arguing that the science can only be settled when there’s a **complete** consensus. This is firstly a fallacy based on binary thinking which ignores an overwhelming consensus because it’s not *complete*. In other words, it fails to assess the weight of the consensus and pretends that a very strong one has essentially no weight at all.
And it’s secondly a separate and much more serious fallacy because it fails to assess **what matters in science** – the strength of the **evidence** itself.
But at the same time, their fellow travellers are fond of arguing that “consensus doesn’t mean anything” or even “consensus is often groupthink which is likely to be wrong”. Consistency in “skepticism” really isn’t a strong point.
Brent said: “It was zero Celsius in Manchester this morning,, and -5C in Scotland. My wife said, “I keep on asking you to order some more heating oil. Come on, man, we’ll soon run out.” Mid May!!!”
There’s an olde Englishe saying – ‘Ne’er cast a clout till May be out’ – which is a warning not to put away or discard warm clothing until the end of May.
Like a slowly boiling frog getting accustomed to many previous years’ local early spring manifestations of our globally warming world, a slight if statistically likely spot of weather variation leaves you indignant about heating oil.
It might lead some to begin to get a clue, but not I suspect any of WATTS (Witless Army of Tub-Thumpers) tribe.
The notion of ‘anomalies’ is a bit ‘sus’. It entails a choice of datum, a declaration of ‘normal’. Actual temps would be clearer.
Mythic deity perserve me! Another one who doesn’t understand the utility of ‘anomalies’, and why they are completely appropriate for monitoring changes in temperature.
Brent, this has been covered numerous times on Deltoid and elsewhere. Your inability to understand the simple significance of a concept such as an ‘anomaly’ only indicates your lack of qualification to comment on the science, and not the validity of the science itself.
Do you really require instruction in this high school-level material?!
Wow. This thread still has entertainment mileage after nearly 1600 posts!
Brent must be sitting in front of his computer with his fingers in his ears, going “La la la la I can’t hear you!”, in order to be able to ignore all the corrections to his false assertions. It’s the only way he could trot them out again and again in each round of posting.
And Sunspot is simply illucid.
Lotharsson @ 1555, good work linking to Tamino’s takedowns of Watts. I love those posts, they show Watts to be unbelievably unscientific.
Over at WUWT they really like joking about Tamino, putting him down, boasting that they know his real name (was it supposed to be a secret!?). I can only assume this is because they feel threatened, since Tamino is demonstrably, provably right on this issue (his results have been independently replicated).
So Watts is not only demonstrably, provably wrong, but with D’Aleo, has the gall to outright accuse scientists of being frauds based on, well, nothing at all. A lie.
Solar astronomy is in its infancy, unable to explain (yet) the Maunder Minimum, and resorting to dumb numerology to forecast sunspot counts in the coming months. Stand by for great leaps forward by the astrophysicists.
This is not true. The basic laws of stellar structure were worked out in the 1930s, and there has been steady progress in the modeling of the sun since then. The toughest part has been the magnetohydrodynamics, especially at the surface. But even that problem has been handled fairly well with monster computer simulations. The biggest advances have come from satellites giving us better measures of fluxes of different classes of emissions from the sun, giving us better insight into the state of the interior of the sun. Furthermore, estimates of sunspot counts are not based on numerology; they are determined by calculations of the pinching of the solar magnetic field. As I mentioned earlier, the magnetohydrodynamic issues are still problematic, which is why sunspot predictions are still not reliable. You must realize, however, the sunspots themselves sit at the very end of a long causal chain, and themselves are not of great importance to climate. The sun is actually brighter when there are more sunspots — but only by about 0.06%, not enough to explain the temperature increases we’re seeing. It’s more useful to understand what causes the sunspots (because that’s likely to be what causes the brightening of the sun) than to be able to predict sunspot counts themselves. Besides, how does one actually measure sunspot activity? By counting sunspots? Some are much bigger than others; do we count big ones the same way as little ones? Do we measure the net area of solar surface covered by sunspots? Some are hotter and some are cooler; how do we take that into account? For these reasons, astronomers aren’t putting a lot of effort into predicting numbers of sunspots; they’re more interested in getting at the underlying causes. Here’s an analogy: why don’t meteorologists predict the number of clouds you’ll see today? Because that’s not as important as the underlying factors of temperature, humidity, air motion, and so forth.
Anyway, we have excellent measures of solar output for the last 30 years and those measures definitively show that the increases in temperature since then have not been caused by any changes in solar output.
sunspot @ 1553
DW wrote, “That station is Eureka, which has been described as “The Garden Spot of the Arctic” thanks to the flora and fauna abundant around the Eureka area, more so than anywhere else in the High Arctic. Winters are frigid but summers are slightly warmer than at other places in the Canadian Arctic.”
No. Eureka was called ‘The Garden Spot of the Arctic’ as a joke after my brother-in-law made a small lean-to greenhouse there out of plastic sheeting, in which he grew a few tomato plants (some time around 1970).
> …it is just as **credible** as the IPCC…
We already know you are highly credulous. No need to keep proving it.
Oh, I see – too late:
> Eureka was called ‘The Garden Spot of the Arctic’ as a joke after my brother-in-law made a small lean-to greenhouse there out of plastic sheeting, in which he grew a few tomato plants (some time around 1970).
Sunspot, the Oregon Petition is so reputable I am on it. I tried to get on the IPCC …. but failed.
‘Over the next 30 months, global temperatures are expected to make another dramatic drop even greater than that seen during the 2007-2008 period. As the Earth’s current El Nino dissipates, the planet will return to the long term temperature decline brought on by the Sun’s historic reduction in output, the on-going solar hibernation.’
‘In this case as we cool down from El Nino, we are dealing with the combined effects of this planetary thermodynamic normalization and the influence of the more powerful underlying global temperature downturn brought on by the solar hibernation. Both forces will present the first opportunity since the period of Sun-caused global warming period ended to witness obvious harmful agricultural impacts of the new cold climate. Analysis shows that food and crop derived fuel will for the first time, become threatened in the next two and a half years.’
‘The SSRC has been the only US independent research organization to correctly predict in advance three of the most important events in all of climate science history. We accurately announced beforehand, the end of global warming, a long term drop in the Earth’s temperatures and most importantly the advent of a historic drop in the Sun’s output, a solar hibernation. The US government’s leading science organizations, NASA and NOAA have completely missed all three, as of course have United Nations climate change experts. It is only because of the amount of expected criticism we received because of our strong opposition to the Obama administration’s climate change policies and our declaration of the end of global warming, that the SSRC is not more fully accepted for its leadership role in climate change forecasting.’
> We accurately announced beforehand, the end of global warming, a long term drop in the Earth’s temperatures…
Given that warming has not ended and there’s no long term drop in the Earth’s temperatures, he (it’s a one man “research center”) is blatantly bullsh!tting and sunspot is quite happy to be bullsh!tted.
And he throws in a little conspiracy theory hoping that their readers won’t notice that bullsh!tting might explain why they aren’t “more fully accepted for its leadership role in climate change forecasting”.
> A formal announcement of the end of global warming and the start of the next climate change was made at a news conference by the SSRC on July 1, 2008.
Hmmmm, that announcement really hasn’t stood the test of time very well, given that even Roy Spencer is acknowledging that it continues to stubbornly get hotter and hotter…
There’s a report on the [theory page](http://www.spaceandscience.net/id64.html). The theory says there’s an approximately 100 year cycle in the sunspot numbers which apparently means that the sun is about to cool down again for a while. Inconveniently the “analysis” fails to note that the claimed cycle doesn’t appear as well supported by the data (e.g. Figure 2 and also Table 2) as the summary and press release imply – especially in the beryllium proxy curve which seems to miss out on some cyclic dips, and some of the other supporting data sets (which are local and not global). The bi-centennial cycle doesn’t appear much better supported either. It looks like another case of someone seeing pseudo-cycles because they want to see them, without bothering to test whether their perception is justified by the data (let alone any sort of physical basis).
And unlike the actual scientists there’s no attempt to assess what impact the sun’s variation has on climate, and what climate impact is due to other factors.
Interestingly, the whole thrust of the report is something that Brent keeps (rightly) pooh-poohing (even though he is mistaken when he thinks the IPCC forecasts are based on it) – merely extrapolating the past into the future. So cue Brent dismissing this report in 3…2…1…right?
But hey, at least it will keep el Gordo entertained (assuming el Gordo and sunspot are actually different commenters).
Sunspot, just wondering – have you *ever* posted anything that stood up to scrutiny, or would that undermine your goals here? Are you just seeking attention? Do you have zero fact-checking ability and you’re simply outsourcing it? Do you believe *anything* you post?
>Over the next 30 months, global temperatures are expected to make another dramatic drop even greater than that seen during the 2007-2008 period.
Is your prediction for a temporary blip like [‘that seen during the 2007-2008 period’](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:2006)?
Or is it for a long term change? If so, state how much you are willing to bet.
‘The five scientists report that “between 1962 and 2006, Alaskan glaciers lost 41.9 ± 8.6 km3 per year of water, and contributed 0.12 ± 0.02 mm per year to sea-level rise,” which they note was 34% less than estimated by Arendt et al. (20002) and Meier and Dyurgerov (2002). And in discussing this large difference, they say the reasons for their lower values include “the higher spatial resolution of [their] glacier inventory as well as the reduction of ice thinning underneath debris and at the glacier margins, which were not resolved in earlier work.”
What it means
In addition to significantly revising what was previously believed about the magnitude of ice wastage in Alaska and northwest Canada in recent decades, Berthier et al. say their results suggest that “estimates of mass loss from glaciers and ice caps in other mountain regions could be subject to similar revisions,” all of which would tend to mitigate against the rapidity with which the world’s climate alarmists have long contended earth’s mountain glaciers and ice caps were wasting away and thereby contributing to global sea level rise.’
_No, I’m not willing to bet anything on my prediction, because I know full well that it was a lie._
‘Luckily for the world’s inhabitants, the CO2-crazed “scientists,” alarmists and gore-profiteers have been spectacularly wrong. The historical Antarctica temperatures and atmospheric CO2 levels provide proof that temperatures change significantly without a direct relationship to CO2 levels.
Per the Vostok ice cores, southern polar temperatures have made swings of 3 degrees Celsius during historical times while related CO2 levels have barely budged. And when 20th century human CO2 emissions increased dramatically? Vostok polar ice sheet temperatures have stayed flat.’
Thread re-name: not so empirical_evidence_for_man
Commic releaf from spotty:
>*As the Earth’s current El Nino dissipates, the planet will return to the long term temperature decline*
That would be this “*[long term temperature decline](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/plot/gistemp/mean:240/plot/gistemp/last:240/trend)*”.
‘If the MWP were to be proven to be global, then the basis of present science stating that industrial-era carbon emissions are the dominant cause of today’s warming would be significantly undermined.’
‘Way back in 1997, researchers published a paper that was based on data from 6,000 plus borehole sites from all the continents. The reconstructed temperatures clearly showed a Medieval Period warming that was, and is, unprecedented. The data also makes clear that subsequent warming began well before the growth of human CO2 emissions and this natural rebound would obviously lead to temperatures similar to the Medieval Period.’
Why is the deniosphere still so obsessed with solar-driven climate change when the [correlation is so poor](http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1950/normalise/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1950/normalise)? You would expect that cyclomaniacs would at least be able to show cycles, even if they can’t demonstrate causation.
TS, tis a PDF
sunspot desperately Gish-Galloping again? Whodathunkit?
hmmm….. 10 yrs ago,
‘However, the warming is so far manifesting itself more in winters which are less cold than in much hotter summers. According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event. The effects of snow-free winter in Britain are already becoming apparent’ http://www.tinyurl.com.au/7on
er, don’t forget snowmaggedon
hahaha, I it’s just WETHER
> The historical Antarctica temperatures and atmospheric CO2 levels provide proof that temperatures change significantly without a direct relationship to CO2 levels.
[Back around the goldfish bowl](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2314876).
Oh, and the “disproof of AGW” claimed on the basis that Antarctica hasn’t warmed much lately? The globe is not expected to warm uniformly under current climate science.
> If the MWP were to be proven to be global, then the basis of present science stating that industrial-era carbon emissions are the dominant cause of today’s warming would be significantly undermined.
[Back around the goldfish bowl](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2363232).
And be careful what you wish for. A warmer MWP might strengthen the case that **climate sensitivity is higher than we thought**, because the climate varied more widely than we thought – but we have no corresponding evidence that forcings were stronger than we thought. And that would make AGW even more serious than is currently thought.
But it’s hard to see how a warmer MWP would undermine anything significant about AGW, not even if someone writes that on a web page.
Was that supposed to be a reply to 1578? How?
Don’t bother replying to sunspot until he replies to you. He doesn’t actually understands the details of anything he posts, only that it fits his pre-conceived ideology. Why bother? He has no intention of engaging you.
If sunspot could post some nutter shouting on a street corner that global warming is a scam, he would. That he does so for any mongrel webpage proclaiming the same that crosses his transom is proof enough of that.
The one thing he isn’t is the least bit sceptical.
Not in the least.
>He has no intention of engaging you.
Unless you’re Brent. He likes Brent; they’re of one mind.
Well, maybe half a mind. Between them.
So Mr. Sunspot is now inundating us with links to tidbits of information. He starts with a long quote from the “Space and Science Research Center”, which bills itself as “the leading independent research organization in the United States on the subject of the next climate change”. A few years ago I researched this organization. It consists of a PO Box and nothing more. The address they provided was nonexistent. Mr. Sunspot expects us to accept a claim made by a charlatan who misrepresents himself. Right.
After claiming that global temperatures will “continue to cool”, he speaks out of the other side of his mouth, declaring that glacial ice loss is less than earlier thought. If the world is cooling, why are glaciers losing mass? Mr. Sunspot doesn’t say.
Lastly, Mr. Sunspot regales us with a scatter of random falsehoods.
I’m all for civil response to civil and reasoned (however incorrect) claims, but in Mr. Sunspot’s case, there is neither civility nor reason.
Lotharsson (1571): You wondered if I would pooh-pooh the SSRC forecast that solar activity in the next few years will be a repeat of 1793-1830. I do indeed. We all do Pattern Recognition, as do birds and bees. Science is supposed to go a bit further: to explain why, and make falsifiable predictions.
The SSRC guy, and Al Gore, should say “If my predictions are wrong I will eat my hat at CNN’s studios on 1 April 2015, and state publicly that I was wrong.” On second thoughts, confessing should come first and eating second.
Fat jokes about Gore. Original.
John, have you seen Watt’s Up With That? It’s been a very snowy winter in the NH. Do you believe that this tallies with the warmmongers’ dire predictions? Given that CO2’s steady rise is supposed to be raising temperatures dangerously, does this information give you pause for thought?
>Given that CO2’s steady rise is supposed to be raising temperatures dangerously, does this information give you pause for thought?
As has been explained to you numerous times on this thread, [the temperature is increasing as expected](http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/riddle-me-this/).
Do you continually try to insinuate otherwise because you are an idiot, or because you are a liar?
> It’s been a very snowy winter in the NH. Do you believe that this tallies with the warmmongers’ dire predictions? Given that CO2’s steady rise is supposed to be raising temperatures dangerously, does this information give you pause for thought?
[Back around the goldfish bowl](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2318342) in [two different ways](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2354022).
Are you actually this clueless about weather basics – and yet projecting high confidence that you can see through the misleading pronouncements of the climate scientists – or are you just playing clueless on TV?
Rising temperatures generally lead to more *evaporation* at the locations where evaporation occurs. This translates to more precipitation overall, which often translates to more precipitation at specific locations. And as they teach in school, precipitation is a class of phenomena of which *snow is a member*.
If temperatures remain *low enough* despite any rises at the location and season where precipitation normally occurs as snow, the precipitation will continue to be experienced in “snow” form, otherwise it may change form.
PS. Would you mind sharing your weight with the rest of us? It would be hypocritical of one fat person to make fun of another fat person.
Seems I hit some raw nerves…
Lotharsson (1556): You say that “several of us here” have mentioned their actions. In fact, it’s a short list. Bernard J. had a major lifestyle shift, and Stu (1040)wrote about his current difficulties and future intentions. The rest of you are conspicuously reticent. You consume energy like the rest of us, don’t you? Come on, fess up, or at least have the decency to lie to us (tell us that you haven’t flown for ten years – we’d never know you are a bunch of do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do hypocritical Jeremiahs).
Dave R (1592): Your contribution to the discussion on the the current Big Freeze (yeah, all right, that’s too strong… Little Freeze, then)) is to link to a graph showing us that the 1998 peak is sinking into history. What’s it like where you live? Does you wife say, “Dave, you’ll catch pneumonia! Please don’t sit out there with only a graph to keep you warm!”
Lotharsson (1593): The final paragraph of your posting is intriguing. No, correction: I’ve read it twelve times and still don’t understand it. Such language skills are useful: expect a job offer from the army’s press office.
John (1594): I weigh 88kg. What car do you drive? The size of Al Gore’s homes is more relevant than his waistline. And the size of his Carbon Trading interests are perhaps the most relevant. Gullible suckers like you are smoothing his path. Inconvenient Truth my arse. Brilliant con, I do concede. Much smarter than Madoff’s.
> (tell us that you haven’t flown for ten years – we’d never know you are a bunch of do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do hypocritical Jeremiahs).
You seem to think flying is problematic *per se* – witness the claims about the carbon footprint of Copenhagen and your repeated digs at anyone who you suspect of flying, but one can buy carbon offsets – usually at the same point as buying one’s ticket.
And you hope to redirect discussion away from the science where you haven’t got a leg to stand on by conducting a little inquisition into people’s lifestyles complete with unfounded allegations of hypocrisy. Keep doing it – it shows your “argument” up very nicely.
> What’s it like where you live?
Round and round the goldfish bowl – weather vs climate, local vs global. That’s what you do when you haven’t got a substantive point.
> The size of Al Gore’s homes is more relevant than his waistline.
Because in Brent’s world size and size alone defines emissions. (Hmmm, that could explain *a lot*.)
And mentioning Al Gore means not having to acknowledge the link that explained why his previous implication was ungrounded.
> I’ve read it twelve times and still don’t understand it.
Ah, we’re making progress. Brent says he doesn’t understand something! In another year or so he may have *learnt* something and retained it for more than five minutes.
Lotharsson, you mention carbon offsets. Please give us your view of their effectiveness.
GLOBAL TEMPERATURES vs GEOMAGNETIC FIELD
The end of EL NENO, The end of warming ?
Although you have deployed more diversionary tactics and changed the subject more times than I care to count, you still have not shown us a single [error in the IPCC](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2470182), as you promised.
When you were shown that [concepts you disagree with](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2472978) are [not by extension errors of logic](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2488507) on behalf of the IPCC ([also here](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2488511) and [here](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2488754)), you simply exposed more reasons why you [disagreed](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2489769) with said statements (also [here](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2489877), though you appeared to stall by #5), rather than provide evidence of error. After that of course, you deployed your usual [deflector shield](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2492909) and moved the discussion to other equally vacuous [denier talking points](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2495117), not even being able to show that you know what a trend is [when challenged on it](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2495324).
At this juncture I think it’s pertinent to remind you of [your commitment](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/the_empirical_evidence_for_man.php#comment-2473228) to declare defeat and shut up if we could show that what you list in #1326 are not, in fact, errors of logic in IPCC AR4.
You have already been challenged on this and ignored it. Once more will prove your dishonesty.
Brent, as you are a known liar I want a signed letter from your doctor.
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Past time for more thread.