What Is — and What Isn’t — Evidence of Global Warming
“Climategate” has everybody rethinking global warming. Many are wondering — if leading scientists were tempted to finagle their data, is the evidence for catastrophic climate change weaker than previously thought?
Actually, the evidence was never even evidence.
There is a fundamental misunderstanding — shared by nearly everybody about the nature of anthropogenic global warming theory (AGW) — over exactly what constitutes evidence for that theory and what does not.
Remember when we heard that the icebergs were melting, that polar bears were decreasing in number, that some places were drier than usual and that others were wetter, that the ocean was growing saltier here and fresher there, and that hurricanes were becoming more terrifying? Remember the hundreds of reports on what happens when it gets hot outside?
All of those observations might have been true, but absolutely none of them were evidence of AGW.
Diminishing glaciers did not prove AGW; they were instead a verification that ice melts when it gets hot. Fewer polar bears did not count in favor of AGW; it instead perhaps meant that maybe adult bears prefer a chill to get in the mood. People sidling up to microphones and trumpeting “It’s bad out there, worse than we thought!” was not evidence of AGW; it was evidence of how easily certain people could work themselves into a lather.
No observation of what happened to any particular thing when the air was warm was direct evidence of AGW. None of it.
Every breathless report you heard did nothing more than state the obvious: Some creatures and some geophysical processes act or behave differently when it is hot than when it is cold. Only this, and nothing more.
Can you recall where you were when you heard that global warming was going to cause an increase in kidney stones, more suicides in Italy, larger grape harvests in France, and smaller grape harvests in France? How about when you heard that people in one country would grow apathetic, that those in another would grow belligerent, and — my favorite — that prostitutes would be on the rise in the Philippines? That the world would come to a heated end, and that women and minorities would be hardest hit?
Not a single one of these predictions was ever evidence of AGW.
In sober truth, it’s even worse than that. The temperature figures themselves, each and every one regardless of source, are utterly without merit.
There is no way to take the world’s temperature. Temperature, like simultaneity, is a local phenomenon. Technically, it’s a measure of the kinetic energy of the molecules in a substance, which fluctuates continuously under the laws of mechanics, and possesses a self-modifying character that makes coordinated measurements of the temperature of a large body — any large body — subject to a large error bar.
AGW flacksters never discuss the error bars around the measurements they rely on. How interesting.
I can’t believe the Author is able to survive in San Francisco with thought like this.
AGW is a scam on an epic scale!
The latest riposte’ from the AGW believers is the terrified cry that “icebergs are falling off the Antarctic ice shelf and reaching New Zealand! Hundreds of them! AAAAUUUGGH!!” (As Charlie Brown would say.)
Ahem. A few facts about that.
1. Those who claim that this is evidence of “excessively high temperatures in the Antarctic in the winter” neglect to consider one small detail; the seasons in the Southern Hemisphere are the opposite of those up here in the Northern Hemisphere. When it’s the coldest part of winter here in the U.S. and in Europe (generally from December to February), it’s the hottest part of the summer in Australia, New Zealand, Tierra del Fuego, etc. If bergs are going to calve off any part of the Antarctic sheet, the summertime is when you’d expect it to happen. Those who don’t understand the difference between when which seasons occur where (due to Earth’s axial tilt as it orbits the Sun) are obviously not sufficiently conversant with the subject to venture an informed opinion.
2. As was explained to me by in college by my geology professor (who was a glaciologist by trade), berg “calving” off an ice sheet is as much a function of the thickness of the ice as temperature; the thicker the ice, the greater the mass per square meter of surface area. Sooner or later, the mass being supported exceeds the ability of the ice’s tensile strength to support that mass. Crack. Bang. Calving.
Also, ice sheets that form on land tend to calve heavily when their movement extends out over the water, because the ice no longer has the support of the ground under it to help hold the mass up. In terms of basic mechanics, a land-formed ice sheet that now extends over water is a “second class” lever, with the load (the weight of the ice) at one end (the outer end), and the fulcrum at the other end (the inner end that’s still on land). This equals a very long “load arm” between the two, with the effort (the ice trying to hold together) applied in the middle. Under such circumstances, the load arm breaking somewhere near the load itself is only to be expected.
A thicker ice sheet= more mass per square meter surface area + extended out over water where there is less support for the mass= Big Bergs.
The primary source of bergs in the South Atlantic area south of New Zealand is the Ross Ice Shelf, which is an ice sheet which forms in the foothills of Queen Maud Land and Victoria Land, and then is “squeezed downhill” and northward by the fact that those foothills are either side of the gigantic bay known as the Ross Sea. Which means that the ice sheet is (a) forming on land, and (b) being forced out onto water, where the sheet inevitably calves. If the resulting bergs are bigger than average, this is an indication of colder temperatures where the ice formed, not warmer temps.
People who don’t understand these factors are likewise insufficiently schooled in mechanics to be making claims about the causes.
3. Finally, the fact that “large bergs” are getting close to New Zealand is interesting, but not in the way the AGW crowd thinks. Normally, the currents that carry bergs north toward New Zealand are fairly warm water, because they are part of the southern “limb” of the South Pacific Current flow, the huge rotational current system that encompasses the southern half of the Pacific the same way the Japan Current does the northern half, or the Gulf Stream does the North Atlantic. The South Pacific current flows in a clockwise direction, opposite the flow of the two Northern Hemisphere currents, due to Coriolis force derived from Earth’s rotation on its axis every day.
This means that since the South Pacific current flows from the tropics, down the west coast of South America, and then west and north past New Zealand, it is a fairly warm water current even in the south latitudes “below” 50 degrees. (New Zealand lies between 47 and 34 degrees south latitude, BTW.)
Normally, icebergs rarely reach New Zealand in any great numbers, even in mid-winter (which is what is fast approaching down there right now- see [1] above). The fact that large bergs are doing so now tells me two things;
A. those bergs are the result of a thicker ice sheet with more mass (see [2]); and
B. The water in the currents carrying them north are colder than they usually are- otherwise, even the larger bergs would be melting before they got north of 50 degrees.
While I studied geology in college (You have your idea of fun, I have mine) I’m not a specialist; my scientific specialty is determining which bullet came out of which gun with a comparison microscope, determining whether the bloodstains came from a human being or a rabbit, and suchlike things. But if even someone with no more than an intelligent layman’s knowledge of the way the Antarctic ice machine works can figure this out, what does this say about the relative knowledge base of the AGW crowd, who are (supposedly) experts on this sort of thing?
It indicates to me that either they don’t know as much as they claim, or else they’ll say anything to get their agenda through, relying on the relative ignorance of the average man in the street to enable them to put the con over.
But then, I’m used to chasing crooks for a living, so maybe it’s just my naturally nasty, suspicious mind that makes me draw such a conclusion about such fine, altruistic, and wonderful people.
Who, after all, just want to oppress us for the good of… Holy Mother Gaia.
clear ether
eon
Mr. Briggs – two points: The first is my understanding is that the polar bear population is most emphatically not declining. Indeed, it has quintupled since the 1950s. The second is a point you mentioned in passing: the cooling of the 1970s. Indeed, Newsweek (which today is news weak) in its edition of April 25, 1978, published a column about the cooling world (an the potential for an ice age). Here is the link: http://www.denisdutton.com/cooling_world.htm
With regard to this second point, I would like to know how we went from global cooling to global warming in the space of twenty or so years? Were the climatologists wrong then? Are they wrong now? Or – were they never right?
Here is how evidence of AGW is evidently cooked up (from a Keith “Hockey Stick” Briffa computer code released from CRU):
http://i49.tinypic.com/m9vcxv.jpg
Here is a temperature chart of East Anglia where CRU is located:
http://i45.tinypic.com/iwq8a1.jpg
Here is a simpler procedure to “hide the decline”:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/mk8113.jpg
The jokes are already beginning,
when will they hit the MSM comics?
Join us next time on Iowahawk Geographic, when we go in search of the outer limits of the economic galaxy with “Stimulus-X: The Black Hole of the Beltway.”
You forgot about the claims of everyone becoming cannibals in 2030 due to the food shortages from global warming…
I am going to garner a big laugh with my point which is far from the intelliglent posts here thus far………………..you see, for me, it was easy to see that the people purporting this scam were, indeed, scammers.
One of my beliefs is that we are born with a type of “radar” which works with all of the experiences and training and knowledge we gain over time. I have been able to spot phonies all of my life and it comes from this “sixth sense”.
And Al Gore? He has been a joke in so many ways during his life that the cherry on the whole farce was his jumping on board………………I wonder where he goes from here. I bet he will go to his deathbed believing in this junk…….he is to be pitied.
I meet so many people who accept global warming purely on faith – even though most of them have no actual faith in God.
My favorite is when they worry that melting icebergs will raise ocean levels. When I point out that the icebergs, like a ship, already displace their weight in water – so when they melt the water level will be exactly the same – I get blank stares. Did anyone pay attention in school?
Jack in Silver Spring,
Meteorology was only about 50-60 years old by the ’70s, and climatology was really just starting. There were, of course, people working in both areas for longer, but the subjects weren’t highly organized, university-department organisms they are now.
Further, dynamic meteorology was in the midst of its computerized forecasting success. There was hope—and there obviously still is—that the same techniques could be used on a global scale.
So, a few—not all—climatologists looked out their weather windows, noticed it was growing colder, and then wondered if they could model this. They did. Their eventual prognostications were wrong.
Fast forward to the late ’80s and the story repeats, except the weather windows showed increasing temperatures. Could that be modeled? Something cause those temperatures to rise, but what?
You know the rest.
Once climate models can create skillful forecasts, we can rely on them to make decisions. Before that, we should be skeptical and view their predictions with caution.
I was actually quite looking forward to a spot of cannibalism… and you guys had to go and spoil my excuse!
Petition the Law Makers to Stop this Scam
They say we’ll loose a little Freedom, what’s the fuss
Freedom is Cheep there’s plenty of it
It was only bought with the others blood
The Stick is broken Open your eyes
The MWP was grafted Upside Down
Stop believing, The IPCC lies
Set may CO2 FREE and STOP insanity
I Will Not go down that California Road to Prosperity
The Question remains, the Question is bound
What side will You be on, LAW MAKER
As the Team goes Down
Will You fight for my Liberties
Or sell your Soul for a piece of gold?
So, make your case CO2, that “Evil Gas”, Rules the Climate if you can
Or declare CO2 a non pollutant
Take it out of EPA’s Hand
By FIRE ANT
Eon: Thanks. I learned a lot just now. I have read much of Chris Horner’s work and between what you wrote and him, I have a much better idea of AGW.
Are you as multi-skilled as Abbie on NCIS or the women on CSI-Maimi??? Just askin.
The same kind of arguments were heard back in the ’80s about the ozone layer. President Reagan studied all the facts, minus the types of emotionalism contained on this thread. He signed the anti-CFC treaty based on his analysis of those facts. Reagan also was an early proponent of cap & trade as a means for dealing with the acid rain problem. Reagan’s leadership helped to turn that situation around.
Would Reagan be able to make a difference these days on global warming? Probably not; he’d be laughed out of town by all the non-believers & their shrill rhetoric. Al Gore doesn’t have a monopoly on shrill rhetoric.
As for me, I’ve seen enough evidence in world travels to realize something is going on; evidence = glaciers receding in North America, the Alps, the Caucasus, the Andes, East Africa, etc. If there is a human causation, it’s plain pragmatic conservatism that we do something about it. Even Bill O’Reilly on Fox News has admitted global warming exists; he just isn’t sure how it’s being caused.
I’ve always been convinced that the end game was population control…a global crisis is a terrible thing to waste.
Knowing what I know about supercomputers, software to support them, architectures conducive to certain types of problem solving, I’ve never had much confidence that the models were accurate , or that we’ve had enough cpu runtime for (realistic – include all variables) problem completion…especially given when the results were in and the science ‘is now fact’.
I have a fool proof method of predicting the weather, at least for the very near future. I look out the window. Those who are panicking over the weather should try it. I haven’t seen any warming, to speak of although we’re having what we used to call mild weather for November. Although presumably I should be terrified, I kind of like it. By the way, if you see a hurricane coming, you have two choices. Get the heck out of the way or sit tight and … BLAME BUSH. Carry on.
If we go back a few years and gather models that predict weather, they do not come close to the climate we had this year. We must reject them even if their feeling are hurt.
In the e-mails we see “weights” given to data in years they wanted to increase average temps. That is deliberate fraud. But that is how it is. If you have cheated on numbers, the last thing you want is to let the enemy see them.
Any climatologist that tries to predict future climate by using only surface temperatures is bound to fail, because climate is not a single-dimensioned thing.
To think otherwise is as absurd as not looking out the window when you want to know what the weather is, and instead only looking at the readout of your outdoor thermometer.
And to avoid arguments, as an ancient weatherman I maintain that a weather observation is just a instantaneous slice of climate.
baal (11):
I was actually quite looking forward to a spot of cannibalism… and you guys had to go and spoil my excuse!
Oh, you may still have your chance, once the glaciers roll over the MidWest corn and wheat fields.
baal (11):
Uh – didnt you get the memo with the menu attached, wherin the details of the cannibal festival to come were dissiminated??
You’re the main course, dude!
(Moho is an appetizer)
I used to work at a newspaper (not in news so don’t blame me) and used to argue with people about the nature of the evidence. My position was very close to what is explained in this article. We would run an AP story saying, for example, that certain types of trees were being found farther south than they used to be because of global warming. I would point out that the “because of global warming” part is a CONCLUSION. It can’t be cited as evidence for global warming since it assumes global warming exists in the first place.
In general, I was treated like some kind of dangerous crazy person for saying such outrageous things. I don’t buy newspapers any more.
Old Soldier (#9): “Did anyone pay attention in school?”
Uh, no.
(You have to ask?)
19. Paul of Alexandria:
baal (11):
I was actually quite looking forward to a spot of cannibalism… and you guys had to go and spoil my excuse!
Looks like Al Gore has alrady been grained up for you—Kobe Gore.
All you have to know to understand the scam is that the IPCC, Mann, the CRU, et al, ignored that big yellow thing in the sky.
According to the AGW/Climate Change crowd, 99% of the (hot, burning) mass in the solar system has no effect upon earth’s climate and weather…
Come on! Pull the other one.
14. SteveB/Colorado:
I’ve seen enough evidence in world travels to realize something is going on; evidence = glaciers receding in North America, the Alps, the Caucasus, the Andes, East Africa, etc.
You personally saw the glaciers receding as the result of global warming? Did you get videos?
To Old Soldier#9:
When I ask people to pour a glass of water and fill with ice to the rim, set it and let the ice melt, they still do not understand the point. Yelling about rising waters because “Almost all the ice has melted”. We are witnessing an effect of the nation degenerating beyond explanations. Some “scientists” just have no idea what it means.
Some of Dr. Jones’ e-mails openly and specifically admit to flat-out lying about raw climate data, as well as about climate data that had been collated and processed. He also encouraged a number of other prominent climate scientists to do the same, even detailing the best ways to mathematically cheat. Based on the way these things almost always pan out in the real world, Dr. Jones is probably just the tip of a very large iceberg.
Dr. Jones was well aware that his climate center was the leading center, of only four in the world, that was entrusted with generating, maintaining, collating and disseminating raw climate data. Dr. Jones openly admits to destroying data, hiding data, cherry picking data, and dishonestly processing data, knowing that the U.N. and thousands of other scientists, organizations, and governments would be using his falsified raw data to make trends and to draw conclusions. He did this knowing that government policies in dozens of countries (at least) and the use of hundreds of billions of dollars of tax payer’s money was at stake.
Going forward, we can not know which stories about the climate and about global warming are true, which stories are wild exaggerations, and which stories are complete fabrications. Until all climate scientists, and their data and models, have been investigated and cleaned up, my default position will be to assume that every climate story or global warming story that I see in the MSM is a flat out lie.
There are many variables behind a general belief in global warming, but one important one is the sad state of the government school system. Come to think of it, that also is an important factor why newspaper “journalists” are so ignorant and write so much malarky.
26 skydiver
I got banned from DU for suggesting that glass of water experiment many years ago. The biggest single problem Socialists of all stripes have is they squash dissent. Any debate ends in a shouting match where the loudest voice wins. No Facts allowed.
The AGW hoax is just another example.
Socialists ARE getting more clever. They run their scams with a common goal today.
What does AGW have in common with Health care, Tarp, high unemployment and Big bailouts?
They all increase the amount government affects our lives.
Co-ink-see-dink? I think not. So when the next ‘scientific’ scam comes along, examine it and see what the affect it will have on the size of government is. Increase and it’s bogus, decrease and it will be shuffled to the back of the que by media gatekeepers.
Since any observation of a problem creates a duty to present a possible soultion, here goes.
The 1st amendment must be restored to it’s pre USSC meaning. Press, Church, Assembly. No protection for ‘expression’. No protection extended outside our sovereign borders. That will allow the Media to be sued for broadcasting junk science.
This would allow junk science to be put on trial. There is NO WAY, AGW fanatics could defend AGW in a court of law. Ditto for the big lie that there is something wrong with the US Health care system.
Actually from the Socialist POV, there is something wrong with the American health care system. It makes Socialized Medicine look bad. That makes Socialism look like what it is. A tired old theory of government that hasn’t worked, isn’t working and never will work.
Have you ever listened to Al Gore at a press conference? If he does take any questions that aren’t pre-screened, he just ignores them or lies. He’s a weasel. A few weeks back a reporter asked Al about the UK courts requiring the correction of 7 facts of his movie before showing the movie to students. Out right fabrications from Al’s movie. Al had the gall to say that the courts ruled in his favor. Is he smoking his son’s wacky tobackie? Obama wants to re-distribute wealth, why doesn’t he start with Al’s earnings?
#13 blotto
Thanks. Actually, even if you subtract the bits of the various “CSI” shows that are pure science fiction (like the neat holographic displays), the modern-day CSI has way more skills than yours truly. For instance, I was trained to match blood samples by blood type to one of the known blood groups (A, B, Ab, and O- the latter being the most common). Today, they use DNA crossmatching to tie a blood sample (or hair, skin, etc.) to a specific individual. That was science fiction itself, thirty-odd years ago.
As for everything else, I read a lot, mainly non-fiction. It’s amazing what information is out there, free for the taking. The primary tool- a library card.
And of course, Abbie, Callie, etc., are significantly better-looking than I am. Heck, Mac Taylor is better-looking than I am.
clear ether
eon
SteveB/Colorado:,
Thank you. I’ll take your observations as correct. But they are not direct evidence of AGW. Let me explain in more detail.
My article makes several points of logic (the editors changed my second paragraph slightly, which makes it no longer logically true: it originally read “the evidence was never overwhelming”). And it is crucial to understand the epistemology.
There are many competing theories for why the climate (or weather) takes the temperature values it does. AGW is one of these. So is one we can call, the “Dude, whatever” theory (DWT), which predicts the climate will be just what it was last year with a little added plus/minus. AGW predicts that next year will be warmer than this year, and that the year after that will be warmer than next year, and so on, all with a little plus/minus.
When you saw the melting ice, it merely meant that it got hot for a while and that ice melts when it get hot. Your observations was therefore consistent with both our theories (and many others). It does not prove AGW is correct, nor does it prove DWT is correct, nor any other theory.
Actually, any observation is consistent with both our theories (and many others). DWT has the advantage of being very simple, does it not? Any sophisticated theory (like AGW) should be able to beat it silly in any kind of forecasting contest, right?
Well, AGW predictions do not beat DWT predictions; and in fact DWT beats AGW. So what’s the better theory?
DWT also beats the Nothing Ever Changes (NEC) theory, which says (among other things) that the mean global temp will always be a constant (with no plus/minus). NEC theory is the simplest we can think of, DWT is next in complexity, and AGW is the most complex. There are other theories in between the complexity of DWT and AGW that, I think, would beat DWT in making predictions.
How about we try some of them? Wouldn’t that be good scientific practice?
And shouldn’t we try them out before changing economic policy world-wide?
Skydiver (#26):
Is the volume of ice 8% or 12% greater than the equivalent mass of liquid water? It’s been so long since I was in middle-school (yeah, that’s where I learned that little physical-science gem) that I’ve forgotten the exact number.
But I vividly remember the experiment.
Professor Briggs has once again clarified the obscure. Plus the added material from eon has provided additional grist for our mental mills. It is up to us, now, to keep applying pressure to our betters in Washington who truly, truly “care”, to get off the AGW bus and back to reality.
SteveB/Colorado offers a twisted view of the world because as he travels around “he sees changes”. Duh. I was stationed in Denver in 1951. When I returned there this year I saw many, many changes. Was it AGW that caused those changes? Or my absence from the mile high city? I initially thought it was the latter. Maybe not, though. Maybe SteveB is right. Or maybe we both are wrong and taking too close a view.
#32,
You give SteveB/Colorado way too much credit. He has no more evidence to support global warming than anyone else. He is a paid activist who spends much of his time pushing this agenda on this blog. He is religiously committed to the cause and facts will never matter to him. He calls global warming skeptics “deniers” because focus groups politicians have taught him that “denier” places a negative connotation on anyone who opposes his religion. Like all of his friends he has no clue what year the climate was completely correct and was therefore a basis upon which we can assert that the world is warming. He calls himself an environmentalist and he wants ecological harmony, but he ha no idea what that is and he never will. Except for his desire to control the climate, he is a naturalist. Calling this whole charade a science is wrong and he knows it, but his agenda has always been political and “science” is a buzzword with good connotations.
Eon has the ticket. Look at it like a cop. Follow the money……
I saw an article that described how a few graduate students developed a polynomial expression that drew a crude outline of an elephant, with ears and a tail as the value of x increased from zero. I wish that I had saved the link but did not.
My question is – How does the AGW modeling effort differ from what the graduate students did?
actually old soldier, a floating object does not displace equal weight, it displaces equal volume. But you are right about the icebergs.
However, I assume that not all of the polar ice is suspended in water, so the melting of the ice caps would result in water previously suspended on land entering the oceans. This would in turn cause a rise in sea level (increase in volume).
This may or may not be happening, regardless, I believe there is very little evidence to suggest that it is caused by humans. And since the atmosphere is so vast and expansive, the margins of error in calculating past and future temperatures make it counterproductive to rely on such assumptions.
The point of this article, however, is not that global warming exists or does not, it is simply pointing out the logical fallacy of confusing correlation with causation.
Since 1933, the Redskins have successfully predicted the outcome of each and every presidential election. The result of the team’s final home game before the election has always correctly picked the winner.
If the Redskins win, the incumbent wins. If the Redskins lose, the challenger wins.
Does this mean that the Redskins are responsible for picking the president of the United States? Perhaps an AGW proponent would have you think so.
Jim Baker, #35,
I give him full credit. He is trying to understand and we should take this opportunity to educate.
“Climategate” is an excellent opportunity to explain some fundamental facts, particularly to those in the Great Middle.
There seems to be too much “score settling” in this whole thing.
Matt, great stuff as usual. The comments too.
This comment got a wee bit verbose.
There was a question of how we went from ice age to global warming. Here is a relevant article to answer why.
Anthropologist Margaret Mead gave global warming its start,as part of a movement to curb population growth. She asks the natural scientists to create, er invent the science.
“What Scientists Need to ’Invent’
Here’s what Mead wanted the atmospheric
scientists to do:
What we need to invent—as responsible scientists—are ways in which farsightedness can become a habit of the citizenry of the diverse examples of this planet. This, of course, poses a set of technical problems for social scientists, but they are helpless without a highly articulate and responsible expression of position on the part of natural scientists.
Only if natural scientists can develop ways of making their statements on the present state of
danger credible to each other can we hope to make them credible (and understandable) to social scientists, politicians, and the citizenry.
…I have asked a group of atmospheric
specialists to meet here to consider how the very real threats to humankind and life on this planet can be stated with credibility and
persuasiveness before the present society of nations begins to enact laws of the air, or plan for “international environmental impact statements.”
To read the entire article: http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202007/GWHoaxBorn.pdf
The usual suspects are in attendance. John Holdren, Stephen Schneider, George Woodwell and Dr. James Lovelock. Reads like a who’s who of the environmental powerhouse.
What a perfect strategy. Regulate CO2.
All this over less than a 1/10,000 ppv of our atmosphere!
I think that this strategy has been in the works for decades, and now is when all that work is supposed to come to fruition, this election, this year, in Copenhagen. Consider the 300 million dollar campaign.
Lastly, when your models try to predict partial differential equations with assumed constants and boundary conditions, are currently falsified by observations and codes and methods are a mystery to the scientific community, you might as well be throwing chicken bones.
No more allowing work where data and methods are not archived for replication allowed to be called climate science! These works are on the public billions. No more hiding.
Wow, that soap box wasn’t as slippery as I thought.
EJ
#39,
Sorry Mr. Briggs, that guy isn’t trying to be educated by you or by anyone at PJM. I believe you give these AGW people way too much berth when you accept that they are interested in a knowledge of the earth and its systems. Their agenda has little to do with AGW, they just use AGW as a vehicle to acquire grant money from your pocket and mine. Check some of his previous posts to see that AGW is a part of his belief system and that he has total faith in it, and you might not continue to think you are enlightening him.
I would like to compliment ‘Eon’ for the brilliantly lucid explanation about the calving of icebergs.
Yet again on TV news we are shown pictures of ice falling into the sea (together with cooling towers emitting water vapour, etc.) to underscore how we evil humans are destroying the planet. And, of course, this nonsense is the background for yet another alarmist story about ’26 climate scientists’ (all IPCC!) are predicting that the workd temperature will increase +7°C by the end of the century. Based on what? I suspect they’re all computer modellers using massive equipment that can’t predict what happened in the past, never mind about the future!
As Niels Bohr said: “Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future!”
eon – most excellent, Dude! Best bit I’ve read on this subject ever. Thoroughly destructive of ignorance.
Bubblehead@20: Momo as appertizer? Don’t be silly! Not even cannibals like ***holes.
Many thanks to Professor Briggs for his comments on the epistemology of proof and also to “Eon” for the clarifying remarks on calving of glaciers.
“Did anyone pay attention in school?”
I did.
But, in those days all the girls were wearing micro-mini-skirts.
11. baal: By 2030, will you still have teeth to lunch, or be lunch?
#1 Francis – your comment re: error bars is important, they never get quoted. Of course, although it isn’t possible to measure “the world’s temperature”, the idea is that a sufficient number of measurements gives you a reasonable approximation to the average temperature, this is a fairly valid starting point. Unfortunately, the surface temp record is hopelessly corrupted, I wouldn’t trust it within anything less than +/- 5 degs C. The variation seen during the 20th Century is non-existent when you take into account the quality of the data (“crap” is the best word I can think of).
#3 Eon – thank you, an excellent illustration of the dangers of seizing on superficial evidence without considering the underlying causes.
#1 Francis, #48 Ltw: a poster on climateaudit, using “hacked” CRU data/programs, estimated that the deviation from the norm was less than the error range – that is, there was no discernible change. Such evidence needs to be clearly demonstrated to decision-makers, scientists and the public.
Temperature records are not fed into climate models.
William,
I agree with what you have written here… as far as it goes. But really, you have only just scratched the surface. In fact, I am wondering whether you have been blinded by your own cleverness.
You have not been talking about the logical fallacies of AGW. You didn’t get beyond GW – you left out the ‘A’. And that’s the important bit. I look forward to your sequel, where you explain that whether or not there is evidence of global warming, and whether or not the models’ predictions are borne out, this has absolutely no relevance to the question of the role that may or may not be played by atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. And that the evidence that CO2 is relevant to climate change is also “missing”.
Steve Schapel,
There’s only so much you can do in 800 words.
After reading this article and the intelligent follow up I concluded that I have nothing to ad, but that won’t stop me. I now know the truth about global warming and I am totally bummed out. I am never going to listen to Ted Turner again. I now realize there will no big event in DC in 2012. The First Ever Global Cannibalism Party Due to Climate Change has been canceled.
This is so depressing because I had worked long and hard on the menu and I developed so many great new receipts for this gala event. The meat dishes were so yummy I am listing them with the food channel. I had some great celebrity dishes. Here is a sample of the items you are now going to miss out on: The “Ted Turner Liver Parterre” It does not really taste like liver, more like vodka. You get a high without touching your wine. “The Stewart Smalley I Stole the Election Ham”. This dish is a laugher and comes stuffed with Phony Acorn Ballots. The “Al Gore Brain Giblets” was the most expensive item on the menu since they were so small and hard to find. “The Oprah Mullet” which comes in its own gravy with a side of Obama slick. Then there was the “Palin Encrusted Letterman”, something sweet covering a cranky old man. Oh yes the and “The Bidden Tongue Sandwich”. One bite and you start lying though your teeth. The hardest receipt I had to work on was my “Nobel Prize Smelts” since they swim in cold waters and are hard to differentiate from spineless worms. I needed a lot of condiments to make them palatable.
Oh well no global climate cataclysmic event to celebrate. But maybe I’ll keep the receipts handy anyway – in case they change their minds. Hope springs eternal in Obamanomics, you know where you spend money you don’t have and send the bill to your unborn grand kids. Now there is real cannibalism for you.
Mr. Briggs: Thanks for this commentary. I have been bringing up this point for several years and no one seemed to get it. I was beginning to think I had a hole in my brain where logic was supposed to be. The simple fact is that hot or cold, extreme weather or benign, greater numbers of prostitues in the Philipines or not; there is absolutely no/zero/nada/zilch proof that mankind is having any effect whatsoever on the climate on a global scale.
#54: there is absolutely no/zero/nada/zilch proof that mankind is having any effect whatsoever on the climate on a global scale.
You can’t say that. The problem is that the proof is less good than they say it is, and doesn’t take into account that OTHER things undoubtably affect average global temperatures.
Why can’t you say there is zero proof? Because their “proof” is a very simple syllogism.
1. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmospher has been rising since about the year 1800 (definitely demonstrated since 1957, proven some other ways too)
2. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas (True, but the size of the effect is actually unknown. There is even some evidence to indicate the effect might be the reverse – warming causes carbon dioxide to appear in the atmosphere. But nobody knows what the effect of a given amoun really is – and nobody knows what proportion of warming might have been caused by CO2 and other “guilty” greenhouse gases – dihydrogen monoxide, a very potent greenhouse gas produced by burning oil and natural gas although not coal, is just simply written off for no particular reason * – that’s how unrigorous this whole “science” is – and what proportion might have been cause by other effects, like variations in what the sun puts out or various other manmade effects like nuclear bomb explosions in the atmosphere or the emission of soot.
Therefore , since 1 and 2 are true, adding Carbon Dioxide to the atmosphere must increase global temperatures. QED.
Then add that global temperatures have in fact gone up as the nail in the coffin.
A problem is that there have been other times temperatures have gone up and down and it is quite clear that THINGS OTHER THAN BURNING COAL etc have to effect the temperature. And when they use the argument about the Twentieth Century. But all that that would mean is that there might be a loose correlation and you have to average things out over 40 years to really see the picture.
* Well, if that took that into account, it would frst of all make calculations imposisble, and second, spoil their whole remedy.
Where they really go wrong is that the “remedy” is among the stupidest things you could do. You have to make about half a dozen errors in logic and arbitary assumptions to get there.
The models are needed for their “remedy” , and for arguing the problem is urgent, more for arguing that carbon dioxide causes global warming. If you pay a little attention you may realize they are actually reduced to arguing there is a tipping point that we might be near. That’s because *changes* in CO2 emissions could only affect the level of CO2 by a small amount.
Actually the whole concept of a tipping point ignores chaos theory. Weather is very much a chaotic system, subject to butterfly effects, and and if we *are* somewhere near a tipping point, logic tells us that the system would almost certainly be one with “strange attractors” so that even if higher CO2 in principle raised the probability of a runaway greenhouse effect, an intervention to lower CO2 slightly might actually cause a runaway greenhouse effect in a situation where it would not have happened without it. That’s probably error number 7 in global warming theory. I think William M. Briggs could probably explain this a little better.
Anyway the point is you have to pile error upon error to get where they are – but the basic idea of human caused global warming is not necessarily an error.
Let me say something about the hockey stick. the hockey stick, if true, would DISPROVE their thesis. Because temperatures went up too fast not in proportion to CO2 in the atmosphere.
I think the melting of icebergs that are ALREADY ION TEH WATER should raise the sea level – as now water that was 10 feet high ir 100 feet high is now level.
Gerhard Gerlich, Ralf D. Tscheuschner
Falsification of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics
http://arxiv.org/abs/0707.1161v4
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v4.pdf
(Submitted on 8 Jul 2007 (v1), last revised 4 Mar 2009 (this version, v4))
Abstract: The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea that many authors trace back to the traditional works of Fourier (1824), Tyndall (1861), and Arrhenius (1896), and which is still supported in global climatology, essentially describes a fictitious mechanism, in which a planetary atmosphere acts as a heat pump driven by an environment that is radiatively interacting with but radiatively equilibrated to the atmospheric system.
According to the second law of thermodynamics such a planetary machine can never exist. Nevertheless, in almost all texts of global climatology and in a widespread secondary literature it is taken for granted that such mechanism is real and stands on a firm scientific foundation. In this paper the popular conjecture is analyzed and the underlying physical principles are clarified. By showing that (a) there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects, (b) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet, (c) the frequently mentioned difference of 33 degrees Celsius is a meaningless number calculated wrongly, (d) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately, (e) the assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical, (f) thermal conductivity and friction must not be set to zero, the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified.
Comments: 115 pages, 32 figures, 13 tables
published as International Journal of Modern Physics B, Vol. 23, No. 3 (2009)p.275-364
Of course Briggs is right. The sly shift from cries that it is getting warmer to crying about the delayed effects of past warming was — and is — part of the scam. The climate community and the compliant media put out all kinds of stuff along these lines to plant the unfounded idea that WE were guilty of all of it.
Allright you leftwingers!!!! Keep those Icebergs from my country of Texas.It wont be far in the near future that the equator will be frozen and the artic will be tropics. I will have to move there to escape my heating bills. What a topsy turvy world. DRILL BABY DRILL, BTW does Sarah have a good looking sister?
#35 Jim Baker: “You give SteveB/Colorado too much credit…..he is a paid activist who spends much of his time…..” And just who exactly is paying me? If you know that, then maybe I can finally collect! Last time I checked, no grant money coming in from your or anyone else’s pocket.
#25 arhooley: “you personally saw the glaciers receding….did you get videos….?” No videos. I have pictures of Kilimanjaro taken in early 1999 and early 2009; pictures of Caucasus glaciers taken between 1994 and 2007; Mt. Kenya taken in a much shorter time frame; etc. There is very obvious glacier shrinkage.
Before I saw any of the data, I knew global warming was hogwash for the following simple reason: It suddenly became a world issue, even though the ability to measure temperatures is not a recent capability. Had the measurement of temperatures been a recent innovation, I might have been interested in looking at the data. Furthermore, I wasn’t interested in looking at the data because I know very well from high school science labs how easy it is to present data to argue for the conclusion that will get an A. The climate scientists are not much different from high school students cheating to get an A. The only real difference is that the stakes are higher … While a high school student can get an A for demonstrating the desired result, the climate scientist can get more grant money.
Eric von Schonberg
You heard it here first: If global warming goes out of style, maybe the next fashion statement will be global cooling. The new hip way to get grant money will perhaps be concocting a theory of global cooling and a good story for how it will require lots of funding to research the theory further.
The fashion world is likely to get jealous if climate theories can go in and out of style faster than say the mini skirt.
Eric von Schonberg
Saying that CO2 causes warming rather than warming causing CO2 rise (as the Russians have perfectly proven by the Vostok ice cores that show CO2 lags warming events) is like saying that elephants have evolved ivory tusks through millions of years of eating piano keys.