Climategate: Knowledge, Belief, and Global Warming
Unfortunately, regulators tend to be among those likely to benefit from it. Some are involved in generating regulations to prevent global warming, and should such regulation not happen they might have to find something else to do. Should such regulation happen they will be part of and perhaps lead an important and growing bureaucratic empire; they are more fecund than many people realize. If such regulations go into effect and there is no global warming, some will assume a causal relationship and hail the regulators as heroes. If the climate stubbornly continues to change, it will be argued that more along the same lines must be done.
An article in the Christian Science Monitor asks the intriguing question of whether it’s time to overhaul the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The article argues that the UN-sponsored IPCC — “given the charge of providing world leaders with periodic updates on global warming and the policy options to tackle it — is overdue for an overhaul.”
The structure of that sentence says a lot. It would be odd to provide periodic updates on something which does not exist, so the article apparently assumes that global warming exists. Updates on policy options to tackle it also assume its existence as well as those policy options being both possible and necessary. Perhaps the fallacy would be more obvious if the sentence referred instead to periodic updates on cataclysmic Martian invasions and policy options to deal with them, predicated on observations by “UFO experts.” But not much.
The IPCC has been around for a long time and seems to have crashed rather badly. And the crash continues, in slow motion. It strikes me that to overhaul the IPCC would be comparable to slapping a new coat of paint on a badly wrecked and no longer functional automobile. Sometimes, it is best to give up and get another car. That’s where we seem to be heading (and if not, we should be) on President Obama’s health care initiative.
Both the IPCC and President Obama’s health care initiative seem to be broken irreparably. To ignore the serious damage and to make cosmetic improvements based on assumptions of their continued viability would be wasteful and counterproductive. The IPCC has practically no credibility with climate “skeptics,” and with good reason. Even Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit seems indirectly to acknowledge error, and it now seems that significant bits of data have been cooked, intentionally or through error. Still, he continues to attempt to justify and explain away his actions and those of other global warming gurus:
He admitted withholding data about global temperatures but said the information was publicly available from American websites.
And he claimed it was not “standard practice” to release data and computer models so other scientists could check and challenge research.
“I don’t think there is anything in those emails that really supports any view that I, or the CRU, have been trying to pervert the peer review process in any way,” he said.
Professor Jones, who was forced to stand down as head of the CRU last year, also insisted the scientific findings on climate change were robust.
Global warming has reached a new low in public regard, particularly in view of the abysmal record of the scientists and others responsible for advising on future problems and how to cure them.
Fundamental reevaluation of the “science” involved in global warming is needed. According to Trevor Davies, the pro-vice chancellor of the University of East Anglia,
The process and findings of our researchers have been the subject of significant debate in recent months. Colleagues in Climate Research Unit have strenuously defended their conduct and the published work, and we believe it is in the interests of all concerned that there should be an additional assessment considering the science itself. (emphasis added)
If he means what he seems to have said, that there must be additional assessment of “the science itself,” I agree; it should be done by neither those whose sloppy work and suspect motivations seem to have created the controversy — as well as the global warming predictions — nor by those who strongly support or attack them or the results of their efforts on ideological grounds.
Cap and trade and other proposed solutions to the allegedly draconian consequences of global warming could cause much of the world’s economy to falter even worse than at present. Emergent technologies could benefit. A grand reshuffling of that sort is not necessarily a good thing. The story is told of a young Navy ensign who, upon assuming his onerous responsibilities as officer of the deck when the small ship to which he was assigned was in port, got on the PA system and ordered: “All on deck go below; all below report on deck; all to port go to starboard and all to starboard go to port. I’ll show you bastards whose running this ship!”
Like it or not, cap and trade legislation is still on the operating table and remains alive. It is time to inhale deeply (don’t worry, the CO2 won’t hurt) and take another look at global warming in conjunction with the law of unintended consequences. To do otherwise is a dangerous form of mental masturbation, capable of causing things worse than blindness.
Dan Miller —
You need definitions here. The skeptical side alone has a wide range. At the extreme we have outright deniers, deniers who claim to be skeptics, and so on. There are those who –
a) think it’s a leftist plot
b) think there’s no evidence of warming at all
c) question the underlying physics/math
d) get the physics but think it’s being misapplied
e) get the physics and the application but distrust individuals
f) agree in principle but not the conclusion(s)
g) agree in principle and the conclusions but not the solution(s)
h) agree in principle but distrust the political results
I tend to think of a-c as flat out deniers, d-up as the actual skeptics, and f-h as the lukewarmers. It’s the skeptics on up who can follow the scientific argument. Most of the posters on this site seem to be somewhere in the a-c range where ideology rules all. Most of the skeptic sites giving hell to the alarmists are in the d-g range. Lucia, Watts, and McIntyre are all “lukewarmers” as per the definitions above. Certainly the serious skeptical community isn’t in the denier/hoaxer range.
About the only thing any of these groups have in common is the belief that politicians will do much harm. It’s what we can all agree upon. It’s the only thing.
As a skeptic (e-g) I’ve been called an oil company shill, ignorant denier, and so on at the believer sites. Meanwhile at PJM I’ve been labeled as one of “them” who want to hike the price of gas and take away their freedumbs.
It is too much to ask that you narrow down what you mean by skeptic?
Way back in the Dark Ages of history I was awarded a degree in Physical Geography by the University of Colorado. Just a bachelor’s degree, to be sure, but that still provided enough education back then in how the earth’s climate impacts man to be able to draw a few conclusions on the history of the earth’s climate changes.
First, there is no doubt the earth’s climate is changing. It is not a static system. Therefore, it will, over time, change and those changes may have a positive or negative impact on the planet’s inhabitants.
Second, there is no reproducible evidence that carbon dioxide is a significant contributor to climate change. If one read the WG1 report to the recent IPCC, and read more than merely the executive summary, that would have been clear. In fact, Section 8.6.4 specifically said so. It also says that all current computer models of our climate system on Planet Earth are junk.
Third, the goal of the psuedo-scientists pushing AGW is to achieve both a global government and to secure their positions there in. Money, power, influence. The three holy grails of any “scientist.”
Finally, for those of you who don’t want to dig too deeply nor too long, below is the entire Section 8.6.4 of the WG1 as reported to but not quoted in the Executive Summary of the IPCC report to the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change. Read the last paragraph and especially the last sentence carefully.
Climate Change 2007: Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis
8.6.4 How to Assess Our Relative Confidence in Feedbacks Simulated by Different Models?
Assessments of our relative confidence in climate projections from different models should ideally be based on a comprehensive set of observational tests that would allow us to quantify model errors in simulating a wide variety of climate statistics, including simulations of the mean climate and variability and of particular climate processes. The collection of measures that quantify how well a model performs in an ensemble of tests of this kind are referred to as ‘climate metrics’. To have the ability to constrain future climate projections, they would ideally have strong connections with one or several aspects of climate change: climate sensitivity, large-scale patterns of climate change (inter-hemispheric symmetry, polar amplification, vertical patterns of temperature change, land-sea contrasts), regional patterns or transient aspects of climate change. For example, to assess confidence in model projections of the Australian climate, the metrics would need to include some measures of the quality of ENSO simulation because the Australian climate depends much on this variability (see Section 11. 7).
To better assess confidence in the different model estimates of climate sensitivity, two kinds of observational tests are available: tests related to the global climate response associated with specified external forcings (discussed in Chapters 6, 9 and 10; Box 10.2) and tests focused on the simulation of key feedback processes.
Based on the understanding of both the physical processes that control key climate feedbacks (see Section 8.6.3), and also the origin of inter-model differences in the simulation of feedbacks (see Section 8.6.2), the following climate characteristics appear to be particularly important: (i) for the water vapour and lapse rate feedbacks, the response of upper-tropospheric RH and lapse rate to interannual or decadal changes in climate; (ii) for cloud feedbacks, the response of boundary-layer clouds and anvil clouds to a change in surface or atmospheric conditions and the change in cloud radiative properties associated with a change in extratropical synoptic weather systems; (iii) for snow albedo feedbacks, the relationship between surface air temperature and snow melt over northern land areas during spring and (iv) for sea ice feedbacks, the simulation of sea ice thickness.
A number of diagnostic tests have been proposed since the TAR (see Section 8.6.3), but few of them have been applied to a majority of the models currently in use. Moreover, it is not yet clear which tests are critical for constraining future projections. Consequently, a set of model metrics that might be used to narrow the range of plausible climate change feedbacks and climate sensitivity has yet to be developed.
“These have little if anything to do with global warming” – are you sure?
There is a vast difference between being skeptical and being a denier. I do not think you made that distinction very well. I am a skeptic, because the evidence of flaws in the research makes me skeptical. If the scientists came up with solid peer-reviewed data and opened it up for everyone to see, then we would at least know whether or not they have been scamming everyone. There is a lot of money involved in propagating a myth. One does not have to be a scientist to be skeptical or spot a scam. My suspicion is that after using faulty science showing that the earth was (is?, will be?) warming, they could not find the reason, so someone exhaled on his hand, and aid, “Eureka!! I exhaled CO2 on my hand and it got warm, therefore CO2 is causing the earth to warm. We must stop CO2!!” And then they created the myth, denying access to their complete methodology to the public and scientists who were not in the “clique”, and got Al Gore as a front man, and Al Gore and others realized how much money could be scammed from this as long as every effort was made to shut up dissenters. Anyone who is not skeptical should be. And skeptics should not accept being called deniers.
I have to question the premise that what we face with the AGW “believers” are “unintended” consequences of the Draconian measures they demand to combat their conjectural “(Dooms)Day After Tomorrow”.
An impartial review of the “prior history” of the movement’s leaders, specifically their prior publications and associations (notably with radical “deep ecology” groups) leads to the inevitable conclusion that the AGW gurus are for the most part afflicted with an unhealthy infatuation with a romanticized vision of a “pre-industrial Paradise”. Which never actually existed outside of a soliloquy by the dubiously-anointed hero of Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” (“sermons in stones”, etc.), the even more dubious meanderings of a generation of Romanticist poets in the early 19th Century, and Henry David Thoreau’s almost-farcical “On Walden Pond”- in which he wrote rapturously of the glories of primitivism while the grocer regularly delivered victuals and his sister did his laundry every week for free. In short, they wish to see our society vanish from the Earth in the belief that Paradise can then ensue springing spontaneously from Nature. (While somehow still having their cellphones and lattes’.)
Seen in this light, the demands for essentially the abolishment of everything to no actual benefit to the CO2 (or whatever) levels make perfect sense. Once the measures and the governmental mechanisms to enforce same are in place, and show no net change, they can simply keep “ratcheting up the pressure”- demanding, and enforcing, more and more extreme measures, also to no net gain, until our economy, and with it our civilization, collapses under the sheer weight of their legal prohibition of basic functions. (The Audi “Green Police” ad may have been intended as a joke, but the mindset behind it is very real.)
At which point (so they believe) Holy Mother Gaia will bless us all. Well, the survivors, at least, which category they think will include themselves and just enough of the rest of us to do the scut-work. (like making the aforementioned lattes’.)
Yes, this is an illogical belief on several levels. But mystics (which is exactly what we are dealing with here) are by definition immune to logic, which is anathema to their belief in their own innate superiority.
As for the rank and file of their “movement”, as Eric Hoffer points out in “The True Believer”, the mass of most such movements consists of people who seek some “higher calling than the self” out of a misguided sense of entitlement to be perceived as “great” by others. They join because the movement promises them the rewards of community and fraternity in exchange for obedience. And, as an additional inducement, an excuse and justification for mistreating others while telling themselves that they are destroying them “for their own good”.
This combination invariably ends in trouble for “non-believers”. Generally, somewhere down the road the consequences catch up with the perpetrators, but that is cold comfort to the victims.
In this case, that latter category would include most of humanity.
clear ether
eon
Dan Miller,
Thanks for posting a thoughtful sanity-check on the maelstrom of nonsense whirling around PJM.
A few comments…
… so if you have a disease you don’t seek a cure?
… climate change is an unintended consequence of a “cure” for energy demands
This seems like hyperbole…
A few mistakes were found in WGII. By any reasonable standard they form a small fraction of the output of the IPCC. My standard response is, someone made a mistake, get over it. Less facile is, the majority of the reports is excellent, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Finally, check your sources…
Christy is one of the handful of published climate scientists in the denialist camp. He is misrepresenting his own research, part of which is incompetent. The “east Africa” paper does not demonstrate “temperature rise was actually caused by local factors”… that’s tacked on as a tentative untested hypothesis at the end of the paper. The “California” paper attempts to test a hypothesis of land-use changes effecting temperature trends by comparing the sign of the difference between two trends against a prediction from the hypothesis… given a null hypothesis of no effect due to land-use changes, the result has a 50% probability of occurring by chance and is not statistically significant. A published peer-reviewed comment pointed out several obvious tests based on a priori physical reasoning that could have been applied, the results of which cast doubt on the land-use hypothesis. Christy and coauthors did not reply. I can’t find the Alabama paper, perhaps it is grey-literature.
Published peer-reviewed work has used the photos to calculate the effects on temperature trends, and found that siting issues impart a small cooling bias that is corrected for by the various adjustments. (Menne et al.)
#4 eon wrote: “..and Henry David Thoreau’s almost-farcical “On Walden Pond”- in which he wrote rapturously of the glories of primitivism while the grocer regularly delivered victuals and his sister did his laundry every week for free.”
———–
Ok, you are undoubtedly using hyperbole to be humorous. I am sure that you know that the book’s name was “Walden,” but you may not know that it was undoubtedly the maid back at the mother’s boardinghouse, who was paid a small amount by Henry to do the laundry and no grocer ever delivered anything to HDT at Walden that I know of.
Undoubtedly, there are all sorts of utopian back-to-nature schemes out there, which few will ever actually do, but on the other side, we have seen that our borrow-all-that-you-can to keep up with your neighbor’s borrowings “modern” way of being is skating onto thin ice. A more Thoreauvian frugality and simplicity (not that we have to go live in a cabin on a pond) would give us a shot at surviving better in a world where the Chinese, despite all their own barely-kept-under-control problems are relegating us to the latter days of the Roman Empire. OK, that’s my hyperbole, but we have borrowed our way, both personally and governmentally into a fix.
If global warming is a crisis why do those who believe it be fully supportive of the impending demolition of hydro-electric plants on Klamath River on the California/Oregon border?
Why aren’t they screaming in the streets for a crash program to replace our coal and natural gas energy plants with nuclear ones?
Why are they behind plans to add toll-booths (and traffic snarls) to our interstates?
Why do they live in huge wasteful mansions that have huge environmental footprints rather than ultra-energy efficient homes such as GW-skeptic George W. Bush famously has?
There is no global warming crisis.
If science in this field shows anything at all, it is that Earth’s climate has warmed and cooled over time, sometimes significantly. If someone wants to show that this time it is different, that significant warming is now a one-way trip, all they have to do is prove it using the scientific method.
This has not yet happened. Temperature measurements and estimates to a high degree of accuracy representing a true mean to hundreds or tenths of a degree are not available. The thermometer instrument locations, exact sites, records, and everything else about the measurement process are in dispute among scientists.
The record high temp in Vermont is about 100f, record low about -50f. This swing of 150 degrees or less annually has been accepted by the ecology of that state without serious damage during the presence of literate mankind there. Nature, including humans, has adapted to this wide swing. An average/mean change of a few degrees in temperature up or down has been pretty much a blip. That may not be science, but it sure seems like common sense to me.
eon @ #4: spot-on. Whether one is skeptic or thinks the science is good, there is multi-part test that has to be answered before going to policy conclusions:
Is there global warming?
If there is, is it beyond the range of normal variability.
Is the warming harmful or beneficial?
If it is beyond the range of normal variability and it is harmful, what is that causing it?
Suppose substance X is causing the warming (although pinning down what substance X may be very difficult).
If it is substance X, what is the source of substance X (mostly anthropogenic or mostly natural?)
Suppose it is mostly anthropogenic – what is the effect of reducing or eliminating anthropogenic production of substance X? If the effect is small (because the effect is a logaritim in substanc rather than being linear) should we consider doing anything – put differently if the cost of reducing or eliminating substance X outweighs the benefits (or reduction in harm) from substance X, we should probably do nothing about substance X.
Having said all this, I need to point out that we have not gotten to step 1 at this time. There is ample evidence of an upward warming bias in reported temperatures. The bias is due to a reduction in the number or reporting stations with many high altitude, high latitude and rural stations disappearing, poorly sited weather stations and an inexplicable misuse of the urban heat island adjustment. For more, see the Joseph D’Aleo-Anthony Watts paper at this sit: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/surface_temp.pdf
If the data is bad one doesn’t fudge it. It is thrown out and accurate data is acquired. Fudging isn’t science.
At this point no scientist whose career is dependent on finding AGW should be trusted to find the truth. How can one be objective if his/her livelihood is dependant upon the result?
I think ‘C3′ sums it up best:
“Warming has happened in the recent past. Cooling has happened even more recently. Any warming that has happened in the recent past is not unprecedented; it’s not accelerating; and it’s not unequivocal. Human CO2 emissions will cause warming based on a physical, logarithmic response, which is a fraction of what alarmist scientists project. Many other factors, besides CO2, cause warming. Any climate scientist that claims catastrophic results due to the AGW hypothesis is simply a liar (or, should we say, an “Al Gore”)”
And, “…climate scientists need to recognize that the tattered remains of the AGW hypothesis is rabbit roadkill. Trying to resurrect it via mouth-to-mouth looks, and sounds, ludicrous.”
The C3 posting also includes some interesting temperature charts:
http://www.c3headlines.com/2010/03/australias-crack-climate-.html
Lazr:
I can’t believe that you are not only so shameless as to cite Menne et al, but even to quote the most transparently self-serving of their claims:
“a small cooling bias that is corrected for by the various adjustments”
Which is, of course, a flimsy justification for NOAA’s systematic ‘adjustment’ of temperatures upward so as to create spurious and artificial warming.
Bohemond,
Your rant is devoid of content.
LOL Lazar, stations placed against the protocols for the sensor placement, positioned next to air conditioners and on blacktopped parking lots and this engendered a cooling bias in the data?
GIGO
Would you please send this to my son? I can’t send him another email about the hoax of man-made global warming without an arguement!
Michael,
Yes. You don’t measure effects Michael, by gawping at photos.
Bohemond,
That is a typically politicized interpretation; ‘whose cause the results serve matters more than what the results tell us about the world’. The results are what they are, Bohemond, it doesn’t matter who they ‘serve’.
#16 Lazar — Yes. You don’t measure effects Michael, by gawping at photos.
Well, snap. All of that recent hard work by NASA using imaging to detect water at the lunar pole just went out the window. Why didn’t you tell them this *before* they did the experiment?
Yeah, it snowed during winter! That completely disproves Al Gore! Even though a direct cause of global warming is more severe and more frequent storms.
Oh my gosh, the sun’s out! That completely proves that the moon doesn’t exist!
lazar is correct.
You don’t look at photos.
You read the information which comes along with the photo, which demonstrates that the readings being taken by the badly-placed gauge in the photo, are way out of whack from reality. Due to, of course, the barbeque in the photo. Or the air conditioner sitting right next to the guage in the photo. Or the sun-baked tarmac which surrounds the badly-placed guage…..
More “believe us, not your lying eyes” stuff. Denial of common sense is the watchward.
I can still tell when someone is blowing smoke.
Thank you, Mr. Miller.
As a reader in science and a pollution abatement professional for decades, with my English BA firmly in hand, I agree with your presentation. As a person of faith, who hopes to be a good steward of Creation, I cringe at constant reminders of unintended consequences.
# 4 Eon, & # 6 Dwight
H D Thoreau survived while at his cabin by eating at his mother´s table, almost daily; another Mommy´s boy, bragging about self-reliance, while others clean up after him.
Hmmm. lazar, you wouldn’t happen to be ‘jm’ over at JoNova’s page?
I had an additional thought for your comment about the pictures of badly places temperature gauges- like the one that sits right off the end of a runway, straight in the back-blast of accelerating airplaines.
It would look good on Fail Blog.
btw, could you explain to us why GISS, CRU and others have dropped over 75% of the temperature guages that are available around the globe, for their temperature measurements?
“I don’t know whether the Earth is warming, cooling, doing both, or doing neither.”
Sounds like the typical PJM climate expert.
My position as a skeptic comes from having a father who was a scientist, and thereby being able to see how the data was being cooked, knowing the flaws of simple mathematical models of complex phenomena, and seeing the political ‘fix’ that makes global warming a tool of marxism.
In any case, when arguing with liberals who have pantheism as a religion and have no scientific or analytical tools with which to assess the claims of the warmers, I was reminded of those seemingly silly philosophical debates over what it means to ‘know’ something. Liberals can only choose which experts to belive–which anecdotal accounts or claims–that is all they can mentally do. They only trust the marxist thought leaders, and there is nobody else who provides them with ‘knowledge’.
Warming is of a religous nature because liberals get angry when you challenge it. One gets angry when their religion is challenged. One does not get angry when new information allows them to update their scientific knowledge. Then there is the anthromorphization of the earth into a sentient being with a disposition suspiciously like the jealous god of Abraham and Moses–an earth angry at those who ‘warm’ it with c02, and punishes with earthquakes and so on.
When I was a kid in grade school, we were taught how the native americans–with their limited scientific knowledge–would do rain dances to cause rain. We were then taught about evaporation and the formation of clouds and rain. Little did I then know how 40 years later, mainstream american thought would involve rain dances of our own–and in the name of science, no less.
A warmer planet has been shown to actually be better for mankind as well as other species through the ages.
Pollution and toxic waste dumping is not good for mankind or other species.
Co2 is not a freakin’ pollutant.
NEXT!
The ‘Lazars’ of this world and his kind are so scared because the ‘safety blanket’ of their false ‘quasi religion’ has been pulled out from underneath them. No matter how many times the disgusting illegal SCAMS are exposed and the STUPIDITY revealed they still desperately WANT to believe what the Messiah Gore told them. Hence his somewhat hysterical postings on here.
I am also amazed that so many people get sucked in by the Green NAZI ploy of changing the name of their SCAM from ‘Global Warming’ to ‘Climate Change’ once the stupidity and insupportable claims of continuous runaway Warming were exposed as the stupidity that they were. So they changed it to ‘Climate Change’ which as it is a NATURAL phenomenon is impossible to deny. But then they hung all their DISCREDITED MAN made warming scams on ‘Climate Change’ too hoping no one would notice the difference. Unfortunately MOONBATS we do know the difference between a NATURAL phenomenon which has been ongoing since time immemorial and an INVENTED crisis built of FALSIFIED and MANIPULATED data and we do know CO2 is a vital part of the cycle of life and NOT a POLLUTANT. Which is exactly where we are today the Green NAZIS have been totally discredited although some continue to spew their nonsense still and some moonbats continue to believe because the Green NAZIS tell them they must.
Dan Miller;
Pretty good article, though minor error exists – Hawaii did have snow on Feb 13, 2010: http://www.patricktmarsh.com/2010/02/day-44-and-hawaii-by-an-inch/
USAToday and other journals were imbibing that day, most likely, and overlooked this one.
On AGW Climate Change, I’m pure skeptic on the AGW part. My normal response is ‘prove it to me’ – this has not been done. Now on the Climate Change part, climate is not static, by dynamic. We will see change if we monitor for it properly.
IPCC, Hadley/CRU have fallen down big time, from my non-scientific point of view. They had a position to express, and tweaked their ‘science’ to meet those goals.
The names of those involved are DIRTIED beyond all repair.
With IPCC, very dirtied, very sloppy, very agenda pushing, it’s much easier/much cheaper to start a new (if needed) than to spend the time and repair the damaged and broken pieces.
As skeptic (or denier as I’m often called these days by those with a strong sentiment for hate), we have gone way further than we ever should have, with questionable ‘science’ as justification for our moves. Our nation has shelled out billion$, and will shell out more if Obama-mania goes through.
We’re on verge of losing our AAA credit rating as a nation over too much debt and too much spending. And we’re still babbling about pushing through Cap & Trade legislation??? Go figure! Is AlGore another lost Obama brother hidden all these years in Nigeria???
Speaking of the ‘honorable’ AlGore, our nation needs less fanatics discussing these issues. And he definitely needs to return his Nobel award – he’s dirtied the Nobel committee!
Environmental Extremism comes in many different forms. Years back I’ve received death threats, and beat a failed attempt. Some of this element from 30+ years back has blended over into the ‘educational’ and ‘scientific’ communities.
First of all, a proper background check for anyone making ‘claims’. And this definitely goes for the edu and science community. If they have a past connection to an extremist organization, their word is immediately dirt and can go no further. Though I’m sure some of these connections will be well disguised.
But it’s still quite safe for me to state our ‘science’ and ‘edu’ communities have been infested with much extremism.
When were down to 1 of 4 temperature data sources we MIGHT be able to rely on, this is the result of collusion and corruption.
G.L. Alston,
Wrong (the conclusion and the analogy)…
Pragmatist,
ROTFL. Rewind and replay ‘Pragmatist’…
And the more often and more frantically you guys insist the science is ‘disproven’ and ‘fraudulent’, the more obvious it is how you don’t have a case.
Lazar will now give us LINKS to SCIENTIFIC PAPERS that PROVE that MAN MADE CO2 is the CAUSE of Global Warming. Oh you can’t hey Lazar now there’s a surprise……………..NOT.
LOL you moonbats are hilarious
Come on Lazar the onus of PROOF is on you moonbats not on us as you would not be so stupid as to ask someone to prove a NEGATIVE Ohh!!!!!! you would hey LOL. Well after all its YOU who claims CO2 is such a DANGEROUS gas that even the miniscule extra amount emitted by MAN and by MAN alone of course is the CAUSE of the (non existant) Global Warming as the AGW SCAM STANDS and FALLS and depends on it being ONLY MANS CO2 that causes the problem . Lets see your PROOF first that the Globe is WARMING then that its MANS and ONLY MANS CO2 that is causing it. You cant prove EITHER option and whats more you KNOW it dont you moonbat.
Today we learn that Lord Christopher Monckton has once again come forward to warn the United States of America – and the entire world we expect, that the United Nations will try again to get their ‘treaty’ passed in Bonn, Germany. The video of Lord Monckton speaking is found at the Cfact link.
(click here) http://just-me-in-t.blogspot.com/2010/03/you-voted-them-in.html
I disagree that knowledge and belief are fundamentally different. They exist on a continuous spectrum. What we call knowledge is a belief that crosses some threshold. Einstein “knew” that God doesn’t play dice, and Copernicus “knew” that the orbits of the planets were circular. The shape of the belief curve is most likely an exponential that approaches 1 as evidence increases, but never quite gets all the way there.
“Real” knowledge is most likely unobtainable by humans, given that we are separated from the universe by fallible senses. Of course, 0.99999 is hardly distinguishable from 1.00000 – but the problem is coming up with an accurate assessment of how close we are, given that there are things we know that we don’t know as well as things we don’t know that we don’t know. [Shades of Don Rumsfeld...]
Otter,
No.
That’s really very interesting.
Have you stopped beating your wife?
Otter,
What information would that be?
Michael,
No, Michael, believe what the data tell you. You guys can point at barbecues and runways ‘near’ thermometers. You can stamp your feet ‘there must be an effect’. But you don’t know, in fact you don’t have the foggiest idea until you try to measure ‘it’… what the effect size is, if any, and that’s how science works Michael, not by “common sense” but hard work. You cannot know just by staring at a photo that there is an effect on an individual station record, and you have no idea how the alleged effect changes over time, let alone what the influence is on the regional and global averages. Scientists comparing data from your ‘best’ and ‘worst’ stations found an effect on the regional average which is minor and not in the direction you supposed. Arguing the merits of the assumptions and methodology behind that work and/or doing your own study are more convincing approaches than stamping your feet because it wasn’t the result you wanted, and saying… ‘but… but… there’s a barbecue near a thermometer’. The more you do that the more people will ignore you.
Pragmatist,
… because if he doesn’t we’ll stamp our feet
The overwhelming evidence is out there, a century of published research is at your fingertips, and presumably there’s a library nearby. It’s not my job to convince you and it’s certainly not the jobs of scientists, to bring their published papers and textbooks into this little forum. It’s your responsibility to educate yourself.
Exactly Lazar! I am pleased you have come over to the light. It was a long haul but you made it.
Throw out the questionable data and acquire data uncontaminated by sensors placed in contradiction to the protocols that the sensors were supposed to be deployed under.
Don’t adjust the data to something you think it aught to be and go get actual data.
See what common sense can do for us? It allows us to hear the soft rustle of the wool being pulled over our eyes.
Michael,
All data is questionable, almost all data is contaminated. That’s the real world science that works with, and with great success, Michael.
When were the sensors deployed, Michael… and when were the guidelines put in place… and what does it matter… you have yet to demonstrate… anything…
Scientists have not.
It is ‘data’, Michael.
I have demonstrated that their underlying data (that hasn’t been destroyed) is suspect. If you gather poor data you get poor, if not totally useless, results.
Set up data collection points that meet objective criteria and are verafiable and come talk to me. Until then you are just making things up.
#30 Lazar — Wrong (the conclusion and the analogy)…
Nope. You made a blanket statement that imaging is useless. I showed how it is not. I win. I rock.
Whether Watts et al are able to show anything useful remains to be seen. The Menne paper you refer to used pre-release incomplete data in an effort to make a tautological argument. Meanwhile it’s likely that Watts et al will show that land use changes have more effect than what’s assumed needs to be corrected for.
Will Watts disprove global warming? Unlikely. If he’s right, will this improve data collection and adjustments? Probably. So what’s the problem?
I don’t really quite understand your hardon for Watts etc but it seems to me you have more in common with trained seals rather than serious investigators.
Well wrtiiten and well thought out article.
I noticed a blog by a not entirely serious writer today that picked up on a “scientific” report claiming that studies show people who adopt green lifestyles are more likely to behave selfishly because they think they have earned some brownie points by recyling or driving hybrd cars.
So in lecturing the rest of us they are only trying toi justify keeping their license to be self indulgent.
Evil Green Vegans
I think normal people, that is to say hard working, lawn mowing, tax paying, TV watching citizens are not so much apethetic but worn out. This is supposed to be a debate about the environment but we are bombarded with messages that change daily. In Canada, the UK high commission is reported to be trying something new because the media is not picking up on their media office’s gossipy and breezy banter mixed in with what climate change will supposedly do to the planet. It has now turned to a specialist in climate security. Who knew there was such a job? I am past caring because I am dulled by it all. Wake me when you can show me in simple terms.
G.L. Alston
No I didn’t. “Gawping at photos” is not “imaging”. Nor did I say “gawping at photos” is “useless”.
No you didn’t. Measuring infrared spectra and computing theoretical spectra then comparing the two visually is not “gawping at photos”.
That’s the standard whinge. Data is “incomplete” relative to needs. How many stations are needed? What is the minimum sampling density required? Until then, you’re throwing adjectives.
And you make that assessment how?
Ewww. And no. Watts arose as a subject of an article linked by the author, to which I responded with a one liner suggesting the author check Menne et al. Ensuing nonsense erupted addressed to me, I responded, so take it up with ‘them’.
Sigh. Yes dear.
G.L. Alston,
That statement is insufficiently precise, and seems like arm-waving. Expand if you care.
Michael,
You need to get out and gain some experience. The vast majority of published science involves extracting signal from noise, i.e. from data which has been “contaminated” by effects other than that which you wish to observe… that is an integral part of science. The world is not a perfect laboratory. Estimating and adjusting for contamination effects is a part and parcel of working science. Claims that it is ‘unscientific’ and demands for ‘uncontaminated’ data sound like the whinges of those who have never read, let alone done, real science, and who have no interest in the science itself, than to knock it down.
You personally have not demonstrated the data “is suspect” — that is a truism! You have yet to demonstrate that the suspicion is justified, i.e. that the data actually is contaminated by microsite issues, what the effects are and their sizes, and that the effects are not adequately compensated for by the algorithms. Meanwhile, published research says otherwise, and science moves on.
Desperate Lazar make post after post but offers NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER to support his BELIEFS we are supposed to JUST TRUST AND WORSHIP and the Green NAZI shrine as he does. How sad you are LAZAR.
One last time YOU made the claims its up to YOU to provide PROOF not for us to go and search for the proof. Now as you so patently obviously cannot do that I declare this debate finished and YOU LOST Lazar.
Here is a sop for you MAN made CO2 levels have been INCREASING for the past TEN YEARS so show us the CORRESPONDING Global WARMING for the past ten years. After all its YOU who told us the SCIENCE WAS SETTLED and MAN MADE CO2 is the CAUSE of Global WARMING.
Shorter Pragmatist: “I’d rather stamp my feet.”
Probably the scariest part about this affair is the general public’s inability to change their position on the subject. Recent polls are reporting a mere 5% drop in the public’s support for ‘AGW’ despite the mountains of red handed evidence of fraud, manipulation, intimidation, and assorted other criminal acts by the global warming gang. To me this is the most interesting aspect of the global warming mess – the kind of stuff that would make for a great pHD thesis. Why do people retain a death-like grip on old notions when those notions have been conclusively proven false? What brain function – or more appropriately – dysfunction is occuring in the minds of the ‘general public’ that prevents them from inputting data and outputting conclusions? As in, the evidence shows a massive conspiracy to defraud us over climate change = conclusion: We’ve been had. Why, after all this time and the near daily revalelations of fraud, has there been a mere 5% drop in the general public’s belief in global warming? I’d sure like to know what, if anything, is going on in the minds of those unable to see this scam for what it is.
Lazar: writes
“Shorter Pragmatist: “I’d rather stamp my feet.””
But STILL offers absolutely NO PROOF at all to back his pathetic AGW claims how sad you are Lazar.
Russ you only have to look at Lazar’s posts to see the mindset of the moonbat who is unable to change.
Lazar — And you make that assessment how?
Following web discussions re Roy Spencer’s upcoming paper on UHI calculations.
How many stations are needed? What is the minimum sampling density required?
Ahh, trick the dumb denier, what a fun game.
Answer 1: it depends entirely on what’s being shown or claimed, doesn’t it? And even then it’s subjective, e.g. Steig’s paper claiming Antarctic warming depended entirely on the peninsula whereas everything NOT in the peninsula wasn’t warming at all. I’ve read the critiques and found these more compelling than Steig’s claim.
Answer 2: I reckon that you can demonstrate unequivocal global warming with a half dozen stations; sampling density isn’t as important as location for this test. Steve Mosher has already looked at the stations I’d examine for proof and found as I expected — what they show is suggestive of CO2 based warming, albeit not as much as originally predicted by Arrhenius.
You know, it’s possible to have an opinion on Menne’s work that isn’t mere ideological kneejerk. However, you’re just as devoted to your ideology as the idealogues here are to theirs (it’s a Newton thing — equal and opposite stupidity and devotion.) Read the paper. Determine for yourself whether or not it’s good thinking. And no peeking at Tamino’s notes.
There is a diffence between “noise” and corrupt data.
There is a very grave situation at my university. And I’ve been praying that someone out there can help.
I’m a graduate student in Meteorology, specializing in Climate Science. In undergrad I saw nothing unusual going on in my department. But now that I’m on track to become a climate scientist, things have gotten downright scary!
When studying the raw aggregate global climate data for the past 60 years, I found no evidence at all of warming. Temperature, averaged over groups of 4, 5, 6, up to 30 years, shows no statistically significant change.
I thought I’d missed something and brought it up with my advisor. That’s when I started to receive threats about what would happen if I didn’t ‘tow the line’. They were small at first, about grades and reputation. Then I getting threatened with the rejection of my dissertation (which I haven’t even declared yet). Now I’m getting anonymous threats to my personal safety, and I think they’re coming from more sources than just my advisor. I haven’t even told anybody else!
Two grad students working on climate change have disappeared at this school in the past 5 years. I think it’s not a coincidence.
I thought that the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change was a result of overwhelming and clear evidence. How else could it be so unanimous? Now I understand that there’s something much deeper and more frightening going on.
I’m not one to back down, or I’d have left already. But I’m not sure how to win this one. And I’m desperate for some help. Does anyone here have any ideas?
[ Please understand that I'm omitting my last name and affiliation for safety reasons ]
The NASA GISS website has done exactly that. All the data are there and available to download for free.
‘The IPCC has practically no credibility with climate “skeptics,”’
What is sad is that science itself has no real credibility within the conservative world view. I’m not saying that to be inflammatory. It’s what I see over an over again: extremely well-funded campaigns to discredit scientific research that creates any opposition to Christian or corporate agendas.
I’m bleakly waiting for the Flat Earthers to find some moneyed backers, so angry Fox News-watching parents can start threatening school science teachers to “teach the controversy” and hear conservatives break into two camps: the “scientist say the Earth is actually flat” camp, and the “all scientists are part of a big conspiracy” camp.
Why do we humans defend our world-views so vehemently and even violently in the face of overwhelming empirical evidence?
[ By the way, the Bible is very clear about the Earth being flat. So the Liberal Round Earth Conspiracy is just a tool to teach children to hate God ]
G.L. Alston,
There’s no trick. Your claim was poor logic. You’ve improved it…
that’s better, see?
Yes dear.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King’s horses and all the King’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again!
(Even with the help of the UN!)
http://just-me-in-t.blogspot.com/2010/03/when-walls-come-tumbling-down.html
#56 Jeb your an idoit! Any so-called ‘evidence’ of ‘global warming’ is a obvious hoax becuase global warming is a obvious hoax! Why are you librels so goddamed stupid?! Scientists are all in cahhts against GOD, FREEDOM, and AMERICA. Their just a bunch of liberal elites sit around and make things up to control people and make feel stupid. I’m glad to see more and more people starting to see that.
#55 Jennifer I will help you. What do you look like?
Nice text. When will I get the additional information?
Kate Benedict
escorts in warsaw