Marohasy makes it up

In my previous post I noted in his story promoting AGW denial Adam Shand disputed even the most uncontroversial statements (eg "Summer is warmer than winter") from supporters of mainstream science he uncritically accepted everything from the AGW deniers. For example, he agrees with Jennifer Marohasy, who claims:

Global temperatures over the past ten years have stalled.

This is, of course, not true.

And he repeats this whopper:

The IPA has no policy on global warming

There are hundreds of items at the IPA website on global warming and they all argue directly or indirectly against taking action: either warming isn't happening, or it's natural, or it will be beneficial, or it will be harmless, or mitigation will be ruinously expensive.

And Shand doesn't challenge this fabrication:

In [Al Gore's] movie, "An Inconvenient Truth", he actually talks about how hurricane records show an increase in number and intensity and he talks about hurricanes since 1975 but there's actually good data that goes back 100 years and if he'd gone back to the 1940s he would have seen that there were more intense hurricanes then. Then there was a bit of a lull and then from the 1970s there had been an increase in hurricane intensity. So he was cherry picking the data. This was Al Gore.

This one is particularly easy to check -- you just have to watch the movie to see what Gore says about hurricanes. The closest he gets is (at 29 minutes in):

When the ocean gets warmer that causes stronger storms.

And graphs I've seen don't support Marohasy's claims about the numbers of hurricanes.

Over at her blog, Ender challenged Marohasy to support her claim. She said that her recollection was that

Al Gore pointed to a graph of the hurricane record since 1975 and claimed this represented an increase in the number and intensity of hurricanes.

This is untrue and it's easy to see that it is untrue -- you just have to look at the movie. But when Ender asked her to support her claims about the movie and global temperatures, she replied:

Ender, You are now displaying a high level of apparently deliberate ignorance on both issues.

From past experience, I doubt that Marohasy will correct her false statements.

More like this

No wonder where are so many denialists and skeptics. With this magnitude of BS put out there so uncritically (because good reporters must be "fair-and-balanced") I'm not surprised.

From time to time I have felt compelled to comment on Marohasy's blog, if only to (gently) point out the frequent glaring errors or inconsistencies.

Responses are rare and I don't know why I bother, except perhaps in the hope that other commenters may take an interest and think critically about what has been posted.

Your points are soundly based Tim - I don't see much intellectual rigor over at Marohasy's place just lots of mutual back slapping whenever the thermometer falls below 20 degrees - proof that AGW is a myth no doubt.

Even more curious to me is that when you trouble to read through some of the IPA-Marohasy rants on global warming they seem very concerned that all this global warming talk is distracting the world from really important stuff, like world hunger for instance.
So it's surprising that a search like Hunger @ IPA returns so little regarding this (also) very serious problem.

re: world hunger
This is a classic misdirection argument, but IPA isn't as good as Lomborg at it.

By John Mashey (not verified) on 30 Jun 2008 #permalink

Thanks for picking that up Tim. I also contacted Media Watch about it so perhaps she might be more forthcoming then.

Denier? Believer? Are you really a scientist?

By Adam Shand (not verified) on 30 Jun 2008 #permalink

Shorter Shand: GALILEO!!!!!!

I could've asked, "Adam Shand, are you a reporter?" Then I figured that I just answered my own question: Yes, he is a reporter. In the sense that he 'reports' one side of the 'debate' uncritically.

The other side of the 'debate', however, can't just be 'reported'; it must be 'debated'. After all, being able to select what to 'report' and what to 'debate' is the hallmark of a good 'journalist'.

bi--IJI, I would back Galileo over a pile of you and Al Gores stacked ten high.
You are a polemicist who would prefer to play the man than the facts. It's this fragile, defensive anti-science stance that is making many environmentalists think twice about AGW. And yes science is a debate, much to your inconvenience. I am not a denier or a believer, just someone who believes in knowledge. And I think many of the "believers" are not prepared to concede they do not know what they do not know, such is the power of the AGW push. no matter how many velioer Cue another string of your paranoid, childish invective.

By Adam Shand (not verified) on 30 Jun 2008 #permalink

Adam, if you believe in knowledge so much, could you please supply us with the names of scientists who have committed career suicide by questioning global warming?

By Ken Miles (not verified) on 30 Jun 2008 #permalink

sorry that should read..."no matter how many scientists agree with a conclusion based on partial info"

By adam shand (not verified) on 30 Jun 2008 #permalink

Hey Ken, Have read here and tell us if these guys are all dangerous kooks too!

Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
(Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Volume 12, Number 3, 2007)
- Arthur B. Robinson, Noah E. Robinson, Willie Soon

Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
(Climate Research, Vol. 13, Pg. 149?164, October 26 1999)
- Arthur B. Robinson, Zachary W. Robinson, Willie Soon, Sallie L. Baliunas

Can increasing carbon dioxide cause climate change?
(Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol. 94, pp. 8335-8342, August 1997)
- Richard S. Lindzen

Can we believe in high climate sensitivity?
(arXiv:physics/0612094v1, Dec 11 2006)
- J. D. Annan, J. C. Hargreaves

Climate change: Conflict of observational science, theory, and politics
(AAPG Bulletin, Vol. 88, no9, pp. 1211-1220, 2004)
- Lee C. Gerhard

- Climate change: Conflict of observational science, theory, and politics: Reply
(AAPG Bulletin, v. 90, no. 3, p. 409-412, March 2006)
- Lee C. Gerhard

Climate change in the Arctic and its empirical diagnostics
(Energy & Environment, Volume 10, Number 5, pp. 469-482, September 1999)
- V.V. Adamenko, K.Y. Kondratyev, C.A. Varotsos

Climate Change Re-examined
(Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 723?749, 2007)
- Joel M. Kauffman

CO2-induced global warming: a skeptic?s view of potential climate change
(Climate Research, Vol. 10: 69?82, 199?
- Sherwood B. Idso

Crystal balls, virtual realities and ?storylines?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 12, Number 4, pp. 343-349, July 2001)
- R.S. Courtney

Dangerous global warming remains unproven
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Number 1, pp. 167-169, January 2007)
- R.M. Carter

Does CO2 really drive global warming?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 12, Number 4, pp. 351-355, July 2001)
- R.H. Essenhigh

Does human activity widen the tropics?
(arXiv:0803.1959v1, Mar 13 200?
- Katya Georgieva, Boian Kirov

Earth?s rising atmospheric CO2 concentration: Impacts on the biosphere
(Energy & Environment, Volume 12, Number 4, pp. 287-310, July 2001)
- C.D. Idso

Evidence for ?publication Bias? Concerning Global Warming in Science and Nature
(Energy & Environment, Volume 19, Number 2, pp. 287-301, March 200?
- Patrick J. Michaels

Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics
(Physics, arXiv:0707.1161)
- Gerhard Gerlich, Ralf D. Tscheuschner

Global Warming
(Progress in Physical Geography, 27, 448-455, 2003)
- W. Soon, S. L. Baliunas

Global Warming: The Social Construction of A Quasi-Reality?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Number 6, pp. 805-813, November 2007)
- Dennis Ambler

Global warming and the mining of oceanic methane hydrate
(Topics in Catalysis, Volume 32, Numbers 3-4, pp. 95-99, March 2005)
- Chung-Chieng Lai, David Dietrich, Malcolm Bowman

Global Warming: Forecasts by Scientists Versus Scientific Forecasts
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 997-1021, December 2007)
- Keston C. Green, J. Scott Armstrong

Global Warming: Myth or Reality? The Actual Evolution of the Weather Dynamics
(Energy & Environment, Volume 14, Numbers 2-3, pp. 297-322, May 2003)
- M. Leroux

Global Warming: the Sacrificial Temptation
(arXiv:0803.1239v1, Mar 10 200?
- Serge Galam

Global warming: What does the data tell us?
(arXiv:physics/0210095v1, Oct 23 2002)
- E. X. Alban, B. Hoeneisen

Human Contribution to Climate Change Remains Questionable
(Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union, Volume 80, Issue 16, p. 183-183, April 20, 1999)
- S. Fred Singer

Industrial CO2 emissions as a proxy for anthropogenic influence on lower tropospheric temperature trends
(Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 31, L05204, 2004)
- A. T. J. de Laat, A. N. Maurellis

Implications of the Secondary Role of Carbon Dioxide and Methane Forcing in Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
(Physical Geography, Volume 28, Number 2, pp. 97-125(29), March 2007)
- Soon, Willie

Is a Richer-but-warmer World Better than Poorer-but-cooler Worlds?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 1023-1048, December 2007)
- Indur M. Goklany

Methodology and Results of Calculating Central California Surface Temperature Trends: Evidence of Human-Induced Climate Change?
(Journal of Climate, Volume: 19 Issue: 4, February 2006)
- Christy, J.R., W.B. Norris, K. Redmond, K. Gallo

Modeling climatic effects of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions: unknowns and uncertainties
(Climate Research, Vol. 18: 259?275, 2001)
- Willie Soon, Sallie Baliunas, Sherwood B. Idso, Kirill Ya. Kondratyev, Eric S. Posmentier

- Modeling climatic effects of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions: unknowns and uncertainties. Reply to Risbey (2002)
(Climate Research, Vol. 22: 187?188, 2002)
- Willie Soon, Sallie Baliunas, Sherwood B. Idso, Kirill Ya. Kondratyev, Eric S. Posmentier

- Modeling climatic effects of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions: unknowns and uncertainties. Reply to Karoly et al.
(Climate Research, Vol. 24: 93?94, 2003)
- Willie Soon, Sallie Baliunas, Sherwood B. Idso, Kirill Ya. Kondratyev, Eric S. Posmentier

On global forces of nature driving the Earth?s climate. Are humans involved?
(Environmental Geology, Volume 50, Number 6, August 2006)
- L. F. Khilyuk and G. V. Chilingar

On a possibility of estimating the feedback sign of the Earth climate system
(Proceedings of the Estonian Academy of Sciences: Engineering. Vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 260-268. Sept. 2007)
- Olavi Kamer

Phanerozoic Climatic Zones and Paleogeography with a Consideration of Atmospheric CO2 Levels
(Paleontological Journal, 2: 3-11, 2003)
- A. J. Boucot, Chen Xu, C. R. Scotese

Quantifying the influence of anthropogenic surface processes and inhomogeneities on gridded global climate data
(Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 112, D24S09, 2007)
- Ross R. McKitrick, Patrick J. Michaels

Quantitative implications of the secondary role of carbon dioxide climate forcing in the past glacial-interglacial cycles for the likely future climatic impacts of anthropogenic greenhouse-gas forcings
(arXiv:0707.1276, July 2007)
- Soon, Willie

Scientific Consensus on Climate Change?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 19, Number 2, pp. 281-286, March 200?
- Klaus-Martin Schulte

Some Coolness Concerning Global Warming
(Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 71, Issue 3, pp. 288?299, March 1990)
- Richard S. Lindzen

Some examples of negative feedback in the Earth climate system
(Central European Journal of Physics, Volume 3, Number 2, June 2005)
- Olavi Kä²®er

Statistical analysis does not support a human influence on climate
(Energy & Environment, Volume 13, Number 3, pp. 329-331, July 2002)
- S. Fred Singer

Taking GreenHouse Warming Seriously
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 937-950, December 2007)
- Richard S. Lindzen

Temperature trends in the lower atmosphere
(Energy & Environment, Volume 17, Number 5, pp. 707-714, September 2006)
- Vincent Gray

Temporal Variability in Local Air Temperature Series Shows Negative Feedback
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 1059-1072, December 2007)
- Olavi Kä²®er

The Carbon dioxide thermometer and the cause of global warming
(Energy & Environment, Volume 10, Number 1, pp. 1-18, January 1999)
- N. Calder

The Cause of Global Warming
(Energy & Environment, Volume 11, Number 6, pp. 613-629, November 1, 2000)
- Vincent Gray

The Fraud Allegation Against Some Climatic Research of Wei-Chyung Wang
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 985-995, December 2007)
- Douglas J. Keenan

The continuing search for an anthropogenic climate change signal: Limitations of correlation-based approaches
(Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 24, No. 18, Pages 2319?2322, 1997)
- David R. Legates, Robert E. Davis

The ?Greenhouse Effect? as a Function of Atmospheric Mass
(Energy & Environment, Volume 14, Numbers 2-3, pp. 351-356, 1 May 2003)
- H. Jelbring

The Interaction of Climate Change and the Carbon Dioxide Cycle
(Energy & Environment, Volume 16, Number 2, pp. 217-238, March 2005)
- A. R?h, R. Courtney, D. Thoenes

The IPCC future projections: are they plausible?
(Climate Research, Vol. 10: 155?162, August 199?
- Vincent Gray

The IPCC: Structure, Processes and Politics Climate Change - the Failure of Science
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 1073-1078, December 2007)
- William J.R. Alexander

The UN IPCC?s Artful Bias: Summary of Findings: Glaring Omissions, False Confidence and Misleading Statistics in the Summary for Policymakers
(Energy & Environment, Volume 13, Number 3, pp. 311-328, July 2002)
- Wojick D. E.

?The Wernerian syndrome?; aspects of global climate change; an analysis of assumptions, data, and conclusions
(Environmental Geosciences, v. 3, no. 4, p. 204-210, December 1996)

By adam shand (not verified) on 30 Jun 2008 #permalink

And yes science is a debate, much to your inconvenience.

Yes science is a debate - I'm waiting for the skeptics to publish their research in peer reviewed scientific journals. A good honest paper which provides hypothesises for observed data while explaining why the existing explanations are wrong would be great. Unfortunately for the skeptics (along with the creationists and flat earthers) this barrier seems to be far to high.

By Ken Miles (not verified) on 30 Jun 2008 #permalink

Can we believe in high climate sensitivity? (arXiv:physics/0612094v1, Dec 11 2006) - J. D. Annan, J. C. Hargreaves

Holy crap, did you just cite James Annan (who regular bashes global warming skeptics for their stupidity and dishonesty) as evidence supporting your claims? Here's an exercise for the reader - try reading the papers which you cite.

Also, nice dodge on the list of scientists who have committed career suicide.

By Ken Miles (not verified) on 30 Jun 2008 #permalink

However, since Adam, you've got a long list of citations (admittedly most of them are in the BS journal Energy and Environment), perhaps you can tell us which of these authors have committed career suicide.

By Ken Miles (not verified) on 30 Jun 2008 #permalink

Being skeptic does not mean you have to agree with all other skeptics. Unfortunately, the same does not appear to be true of the "believers" for whom belief is dictated by a small very narrow set of parameters.

By adam shand (not verified) on 30 Jun 2008 #permalink

by the way, Ken when did i say anything about career suicide? don't put words in my mouth

By adam shand (not verified) on 30 Jun 2008 #permalink

Adam, I don't think that you quite understand. James work deals with calculating the climate sensitivity (ie. how hot does it get if the CO2 concentration is doubled). He does this be combining a number of estimates with a high uncertainty to yield an estimate with a much lower uncertainty. His results indicate that very high and very low estimates of climate sensitivity are unlikely. The most likely estimates of climate sensitivity is approx. 3 degrees. This is just about smack bang in the middle of the IPCC's estimations.

James is also famous for challenging climate skeptics to bet on their claims. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority fold.

By Ken Miles (not verified) on 30 Jun 2008 #permalink

by the way, Ken when did i say anything about career suicide? don't put words in my mouth

From the Sunday website on your program:

It's regarded as career suicide for scientists to advocate any counter view of the causes of global warming, let alone deny the orthodox consensus view as adopted by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

By Ken Miles (not verified) on 30 Jun 2008 #permalink

So by "believers" here you mean all the scientists who don't publish in Energy & Environment?
The "narrow set of parameters" you refer to may be what we in science call "observations". Though I should point out that you're not really supposed to pick an alternate reality if the reality you have is one you don't like. Doing so is not called "skepticism".

"Global temperatures over the past ten years have stalled."

Tim - I'm not sure that this is not true. If you look at the most recent data from NASA (GISS), Hadley, RSSMSU and UAHMSU they all show a decline in temperatures over the last few years!!
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/ALL_SINCE_2002.jpg

Your link does not clearly show any trend because it does not include recent data and is presented at an unfortunate scale.

by the way, Ken when did i say anything about career suicide? don't put words in my mouth

Incidentally, if don't believe in the career suicide line, perhaps you should get Sunday to remove that paragraph that has your name above it.

By Ken Miles (not verified) on 30 Jun 2008 #permalink

Lank - a good analysis on the temperature trends (including an investigation of the post-1998 trends) can be found here.

By Ken Miles (not verified) on 30 Jun 2008 #permalink

If this really is Adam Shand, I'd love to hear his explanation of how summer being warmer than winter is "just an assumption".

Adam seems to have cut and paste his list from [here](http://z4.invisionfree.com/Popular_Technology/index.php?showtopic=2050&…).

I doubt that he has read any of the papers he cited. For instance, [here's a link to Annan and Hargreaves "Can we believe in high climate sensitivity?](http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0612094), which say the opposite of what Adam seems to think.

Adam, have you watched An Inconvenient Truth? Why didn't you challenge Marohasy's false claim about what Gore said? Does Sunday employ any fact checkers? [Why do you have to rely on Bob Brown to do your fact checking for you](http://sunday.ninemsn.com.au/sunday/political_transcripts/article_2491…):

>BB: Well, some of the zealotry of the sceptics, for example, on there it was talking about the winter in summer of 1816 and we didn't know the cause of that. We do - it was the biggest volcanic explosion in 1600 years which took place in Indonesia and it sent ash into the atmosphere and produced extraordinary weather. There is good scientific basis for much of the weather phenomenon of the last couple of centuries and there is huge consensus that we're warming rapidly, and that's the feeling of the populous. People know that things have changed. The droughts, the loss of snow, the melting glaciers, and the rise in sea levels of 20cm over the last century. That's all tied in to the predictable outcome of more greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere.

Ken - Thanks for that. So we can put the last ten years dropping temperatures down to "noise". I was interested to see the future graph of rising temperatures to 2035 which is also shown on the "Wiggles" 16 December 2007 site.

Already it looks like Wiggles may have made some poor assumptions on this one as he shows the temperatures rising steeply in 2008 but infact they seem to have been steadily dropping over the last six months.

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/HANSEN_AND_CONGRESS.jpg

Maybe we can just put that down to more noise too.

Lank, your link doesn't work. It just goes to 404 Not Found.

More importantly, your getting confused between the simulated data that Tamino (not wiggles - that's the name of the post not the author) uses to illustrate a point and the real data (it's easy to do, as the real data is very similar to a steady trend + random noise).

But the long and the short of Tamino's post, is that there is nothing surprising about the recent temperature data.

By Ken Miles (not verified) on 30 Jun 2008 #permalink

This is an interesting study by the US Department of Energy which claims
claim that the IPCC has grossly overestimated the amount of man-made CO2 in our atmosphere and has also grossly underestimated the amount of carbon dioxide that nature absorbs.
http://www.tech-know.eu/uploads/IPCC_deception.pdf
Immediate demands should be made of the UN IPCC to stop its advice to Policymakers for drastic carbon dioxide emission reductions and all carbon trading schemes should be abandoned.

Lank, by interesting I'll charitably assume that you mean interesting because of the incredibly quantities of pseudoscience. Do you seriously think that scientists don't know that natures puts in a large flow of CO2. What the author doesn't mention that it also takes out a large flow of CO2. Prior to the industrial revolution (and after the last glacial period) the amount in was approx. equal to the amount out. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to calculate what should (and did) happen when the amount of carbon dioxide being released is increased (even by a relatively small amount).

By Ken Miles (not verified) on 30 Jun 2008 #permalink

Ken - The absorption by nature of 98.5% of all CO2 means that of the annual man-made carbon dioxide emissions, only 1.5% remains in the atmosphere (346 million tonnes in 2004), which is the equivalent of just 0.04% of the total annual carbon dioxide emissions by nature and mankind combined. I'll leave you the exercise to work out how that cannot significantly affect temperature.

Lank:

1) Do you know the difference between:

-- the DOE claiming that IPCC grossly overestimated CO2, AND

-- some denialist one-pager that cherry-picks DOE documents and then makes that claim?

If you think the DOE actually says "IPCC grossly overestimates..." show us where. Really, the DOE used IPCC numbers as sources. does it make sense they would do that and then say "We've used these numbers, but they are grossly wrong."

2) In any case, this one is so routine, and so often debunked, that John Cross has given it a number in Skeptical Science:

29 Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions [manco2]

3) By the way, at this stage of a normal ice-age cycle, CO2 *should* be slowly being absorbed, and the temperature *should* be slowly falling, if it weren't for humans.

By John Mashey (not verified) on 30 Jun 2008 #permalink

Adam Shand:

> You are a polemicist who would prefer to play the man than the facts.

Is this a fact? "It's regarded as career suicide for scientists to advocate any counter view of the causes of global warming"?

> I am not a denier or a believer, just someone who believes in knowledge.

No, Shand, you're a regurgitator. When conservative think-tanks say something, you mindlessly regurgitate it as fact.

You didn't say "Marohasy says it's regarded as career suicide for scientists to advocate any counter view of the causes of global warming".

You didn't say "Lindzen says it's regarded as career suicide for scientists to advocate any counter view of the causes of global warming".

You said "Lindzen says it's regarded as career suicide for scientists to advocate any counter view of the causes of global warming".

Presenting the claims of one side -- Marohasy's side -- as solid fact. Is this what you call "balance", sir?

> And I think many of the "believers" are not prepared to concede

It's amazing isn't it, that proponents of the AGW theory have "beliefs", while proponents of AGW inactivism have "opinions". And of course, it's more just, more moral, more righteous to have "opinions" than to have "beliefs", even if there's no difference at all between the two types of thoughts.

It's the framing, guys.

> Cue another string of your paranoid, childish invective.

Paranoid? Oh the irony...

> It's regarded as career suicide for scientists to advocate any counter view of the causes of global warming

> You said "Lindzen says it's regarded as career suicide for scientists to advocate any counter view of the causes of global warming".

I meant

> You said "It's regarded as career suicide for scientists to advocate any counter view of the causes of global warming".

Adam Shand.

Denier? Believer? Are you really a scientist?

I am a scientist (as are many others here) and a sceptical one at that, but I have - to date - been much more convinced by the weight of evidence on the 'warmist' side of the matter than by the dubiously constructed tissue of inappropriately selected and/or analysed data, the distortions, the misrepresentations, and the downright falsehoods that seems to be the mainstay of the denialists' stance.

I repeatedly state that I am happy to have my mind changed by solid evidence (because I have many other concerns to focus on as a scientist), but somehow those who deny, or attempt to deny, the case for AGW don't come up with the goods.

Yours was a sad effort indeed in presenting the contemporary state of the science. Sadder though is that there are many who don't know better, and quite a few who should, who will continue to drag their feet because they cannot critically deconstruct the denialist case.

I'd love to say more but I am only in town for an hour to restock for my fieldwork, and I have more pressing matters than to linger on a borrowed computer.

I'm sure though that others will continue to engage you in this. And perhaps if you haven't evaporated from thread thread yet they, or even you, could deconstruct the several examples of hypocrisy in your post at #9.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 30 Jun 2008 #permalink

Adam Shand:

Thanks for stopping by. Could you please explain to me, a professional scientist, how summer being warmer than winter is "just an assumption"? Please feel free to cite whatever journal articles, websites or any sources at all. Hell, I'm even willing to read anything written in Energy and the Environment if it will help you back up this point. Please, enlighten me.

Lank:

You are statistically illiterate. Please get a clue before posting. You may want to read up on some basic (first year uni...or even high school) stats. Here's a start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal-to-noise_ratio

I think the clue train may have failed to stop at your station.

Lank, the large natural sources of carbon dioxide are matched by large natural SINKS for carbon dioxide. The small human increment has been building up since the industrial revolution began, with the result that 27% of the carbon dioxide around you and me is man-made. That's a substantial fraction.

It's like a tub with a hole in it, being filled from a faucet. The amount coming in from the faucet just matches the amount being lost through the hole, and the level of water in the tub is stable.

Now add a small additional flow from a second faucet. The amounts are no longer in basis and the tub will gradually fill up and then overflow.

Same thing with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Assuming that the Adam Shand posting here is the actual journalist of that name, he is displaying a quite remarkable degree of bias - which it seems clear (admittedly I have not seen the program in question) he failed to make explicit.

I think Mediawatch might find these posts interesting.

But considering how Sunday rates these days (I thought Jamie Packer had cancelled it to be honest), Shand and the producers would probably be delighted to get the attention. A mention on Mediawatch would probably be the most publicity they've had in a decade.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 01 Jul 2008 #permalink

I look forward to a future episode of Sunday in which Adam Shand welcomes the brave open-minded iconoclasts of NAMBLA on to take on the rigid-minded bigoted "believers" of the psychiatric monolith on the possible psychological benefits for children of pederasty.

By Ian Gould (not verified) on 01 Jul 2008 #permalink

Adam Shand's first comment

>Denier? Believer? Are you really a scientist?

During his interview with Marohasy, she called those who accept the evidence that CO2 is causing global warming "warmaholics" likening them to alcoholics. Did Adam respond with

>Are you really a scientist?

Hell no. He called them warmaholics as well.

I am still waiting for someone from the denial industry to come up with what they consider to be a dangerous level of C02 in the atmosphere. Currently at about 385 ppm, most scientists believe that to go beyond 450 ppm would be to enter dangerous territory. We are currently on target to reach or exceed those levels by 2050. Returning to the Sunday programme, on November 16th 1997 the Sunday programme takes a look at the Greenhouse issue, here is a sample of the exchanges in letters between myself, and then Sunday producer Steven Rice. "What should have been an informative investigation into the greenhouse issue, instead became a forum for the sceptics and doubters among scientific circles. This was despite the acknowledgement that these people's opinions are a minority viewpint." Here is part of Steven Rice's response. " You assert that, 'as glaciers continue to retreat... as polar ice north and south continues to break up...as El Nino weather patterns seem to be with us constantly...as PNG faces a drought.' What you do not acknowledge is that there is not one skerrick of peer reviewed evidence to support the contention that any of those climatic changes have been caused by human enhanced global warming." Things change but how they remain the same. At least today forums such as this provide some redress.

By Richard McGuire (not verified) on 01 Jul 2008 #permalink

Adam Shands himself:

I would back Galileo over a pile of you and Al Gores stacked ten high. You are a polemicist

ppppfffffff....ah....ah...no...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!

uh...whew.

Polemicist...snork...uh-oh...uh...ah....ah...ah...hahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

heep...heep...

ohhhhhh...boy.

Whew!

Boy, these parody characters are funny as h*ll, aren't they?!? Surely there will be something on YouTube soon under 'Shand Job'.

Best,

D

"I am still waiting for someone from the denial industry to come up with what they consider to be a dangerous level of C02 in the atmosphere."

I presume it's like the dangerous level of climate hysteria. Nobody knows but everybody has an opinion, and of course those who know the least make the boldest claims.

Global warming is a hysterical scare tactic. Warming trends over the last ten years are negative.
SEE DEMESURE'S LINK AT POST 42.
Predictions of future warming are based on speculative computer models for which accuracy cannot be evaluated or even tested. Sea ice in the Southern Hemisphere is at the highest level since satellite monitoring began in 1979. Last summer there was record low snowmelt in Antarctica. During April this year 1,185 new all-time record low temperatures were recorded at U.S. weather stations. Given these facts, how we can be in the middle of a "climate crisis."

I look forward to a future episode of Sunday in which Adam Shand welcomes the brave open-minded iconoclasts of NAMBLA on to take on the rigid-minded bigoted "believers" of the psychiatric monolith on the possible psychological benefits for children of pederasty.

Posted by: Ian Gould | July 1, 2008 8:38 AM

Wow you have disappeared up your own sink hole! Is skepticism really the equivalent of child molesting?

It isn't the equivalent of child molesting; it's the equivalent of claiming that child molesting is healthy. or smoking cures lung cancer (proof: almost everyone who recovered from lung cancer is a smoker!)

By James Haughton (not verified) on 01 Jul 2008 #permalink

I enjoy weather noise as much as Lank @ #47...April 2008 saw 389 all-time record highest minimum temperatures set. January 2008, 1713 for same metric, June 2008, 1522.

"no matter how many scientists agree with a conclusion based on partial info"

is there anything scientists believe because they have all the information?

"This is an interesting study by the US Department of Energy which claims claim that the IPCC has grossly overestimated the amount of man-made CO2 in our atmosphere and has also grossly underestimated the amount of carbon dioxide that nature absorbs:

'Reports by the US Dept of Energy (DOE) indicate that 97% of the annual carbon dioxide emissions come from Nature itself. The report also indicates that more than 98% of all the carbon dioxide emissions are absorbed again by Nature.
What does this mean?

It means that since the start of the Industrial Revolution the increase in carbon dioxide levels of about 103ppmv are 97% due to Nature itself, that is to say that only about 3ppmv of that increase is due to man-made emissions.'"

so, does this count as Innumeracy, or Logical Impairment?

z says:

>is there anything scientists believe because they have all the information?

No. There is no "all the information."

By Rattus Norvegicus (not verified) on 01 Jul 2008 #permalink

There appears to be a frequent misconception amongst sceptics that they are brave dissidents opposing an erroneous status quo.

This is only true if your position (like Galileo's) is based on sound evidence and unique insight. The act of opposing the consensus does not in itself make the arguments correct.

Given these ["]facts["], how we can be in the middle of a "climate crisis."

Given this recycled and long-ago, oft-refuted argumentation, the denialist fringe seems to be in the middle of a wisdom crisis. Or content crisis. Or a lather-rinse-repeat cycle crisis.

Or a Cheeto crisis. Wank, your mommy is calling you for your snacky - do you want your milk or juuuuuice?

Best,

D

Oops, forgot:

[killfile]

Best,

D

Demesure:

> > I am still waiting for someone from the denial industry to come up with what they consider to be a dangerous level of C02 in the atmosphere."

> I presume it's like the dangerous level of climate hysteria. Nobody knows

Nobody knows, but Demesure knows that everything's fine. Pure logic!

Lank:

> Warming trends over the last ten years are negative.

It's negative... it's negative... use the Force... it's negative... try not... do or do not... there is no try... the Force... the Force... it's negative...

Dano:

> Boy, these parody characters are funny as h*ll, aren't they?!? Surely there will be something on YouTube soon under 'Shand Job'.

It's hard to tell whether the Shand here is real or a parody. That worries me.

View this image to see the four major temperature analyses in the context of the full instrumental record.
http://cce.890m.com/temp-records/images/giss-vs-all.jpg
It is pretty obvious that any claim of global warming having "stopped" is bogus.

My question is, have skeptics ever admitted that the world is warming? When the UAH satellite analysis was shown to be wrong they immediately switched to "no warming since 1998." All warming apparently occurred in the past, and is never happening now, even when the past was "now."

When 2008 is over, and it is the lowest in several years (say, between 2000 and 2001), I predict the "skeptical media" will play it as the coldest year in a century (the 21st Century, in fact).

Question for the deniers, sorry, the 'sceptics':

If in, say 25 years, it is quite clear that the vast majority of scientists were right and AGW is occurring, and it is causing very serious problems for humans (and the global ecosystem in general), and that the delay of appropriate action in the interim caused by you irrational, ideologically driven sceptics has cost us sane, reality based folk of the opportunity to take substantial preventative and remedial action...

If this all comes about, (and you cannot deny it is a serious possibility it might), then what price should YOU PERSONALLY pay for your role in creating this situation?

Should your carbon budget be less than those who supported earlier actions? Should you be at the bottom of the list of people who get various forms of help from the government and broader society to adapt to the harder conditions?

Or do you think that you should be able to just walk away from any responsibility for and consequences of your actions (or inactions)?

Think hard about your answer, this is not a trivial practical or ethical problem.

Gotta ask...
Is Adam Shand a blonde??

"Denier? Believer? Are you really a scientist?"

Asks the sham "journalist," the equivalent of America's Karen Ryan.

Even that astonishing question is not "news." We already knew you had no shame.

By Marion Delgado (not verified) on 01 Jul 2008 #permalink

Market fundamentalists from von Mises to Ayn Rand to the modern gramaphone/gangster combos that bedevil the Internets DO have "all the information" simply because reality is essentialist. Read Rand in particular on how much she hated realism and pragmatism.

Like Scientology, market fundamentalism reduces everything to a few axioms and postulates, cognated through genius, and then reality is derived from that. Any discrepancies or failures of the model are bad data, henceforward and forever.

It's exactly why they project that onto real science. It's what they would do.

By Marion Delgado (not verified) on 01 Jul 2008 #permalink

I can at least understand what drives the Creationists, but what the hell is driving the anti-science nonsense of the Denialists?

climatepatrol:

> It depends how you look at it.

That's so very scientific. I mean, science is done using "opinions", right? Or rather, "opinions" on one side, and "beliefs" on the other.

The Force... use the Force... it's only warming slightly... it's not warming... it's cooling... use the Force... the Force...

bi -- IJI:

[OFFICER] Oh, that Rodney King beating tape, it's all in how you look at it.

[COURT] That's incredible. All in how you look at it, Officer Coon?

[OFFICER] That's right. It's how you look at the tape.

[COURT] Well would you care to tell the court how you're looking at that?

[OFFICER] Yeah, okay, sure. It's how you look at it.

[COURT] For instance?

[OFFICER] Well, if you play it backwards, you see us help King up and send him on his way.

-- BILL HICKS

By Marion Delgado (not verified) on 01 Jul 2008 #permalink

#65

Michael,

Climate sceptics are driven by the need to counter pseudoscience.

1. Pseudoscience poses non-falsifiable propositions.
2. Pseudoscience is not based on an initially empirically verified fact.

No one has observed a phenomenon of AGW to require a theory for it - rather the idea was put, and its supporters started looking for evidence.

This whole activity is not science. Science is about explaining observations, not about explaining a speculation, based on limited properties of a gas, which is thought to happen.

Coming up with some novel idea and then deducing its outcomes is not the business of science but technicians and engineers. The danger lies in assuming that the original assumption is correct.

(I don't normally respond to commentators using noms des plumes but in Michael's case, his question is taken at face value. However if you want interlocution, post under your real name).

By Louis Hissink (not verified) on 01 Jul 2008 #permalink

Marion Delgado:

Yeah... and maybe it's all staged? All part of a Great Worldwide Conspiracy to discriminate against White People? Of course if you start out looking for police officers beating Rodney King, that's what you'll find!

You keep clinging to your belief that Rodney King was beaten up. I will stand by my opinion that Rodney King was attacking the police.

Persecution! Persecution! GALILEO!!!!! Look, we're still alive, rich, and talking, but this further proves that we're being persecuted! It's precisely because we're alive, rich, and talking that the enemies of truth are persecuting us! Persecution! Persecution!

@bi
Well, this is how I look at it:

I use UPDATED data of 5 independent empirical metrics rather than an outdated graph of a single network of someone who BELIEVES in 99% certainty that global warming has surpassed a dangerous level already and who publicly puts all who disagree into a box of criminals against humanity. That's not science, that's hystery from the AGW church. Sorry to say that.

climatepatrol:

> this is how I look at it: I use UPDATED data of 5 independent empirical metrics

That's just your "opinion", right?

climatepatrol, the graph I linked is not out of date and it is of the land-ocean. The difference between mine and yours is that you don't include a five-year mean because that would make the long term trend easy to spot.

Lank writes:

Warming trends over the last ten years are negative.

No matter how many times you repeat this, it still won't be true:

http://members.aol.com/bpl1960/Ball.html

http://members.aol.com/bpl1960/Reber.html

You have had this pointed out to you several times now. Which way a trend is going is not a matter of opinion that can be honestly disagreed with. "Trend" has a specific statistical meaning. You don't have a brave minority point of view, Lank, you're just plain wrong.

Louis.

1) AGW poses falsifiable propositions
2) AGW is based on an initially empirically verified fact

There's also the fact that Popper has moved over these days, and that hypothesis (speculation?) testing is a part of scientific method, whether or not the hypothesis is based on prior evidence.

So what was your point?

Wyvern

"(I don't normally respond to commentators using noms des plumes but in Michael's case, his question is taken at face value. However if you want interlocution, post under your real name)".

By Louis Hissink (not verified) on 02 Jul 2008 #permalink

I have to respond to this - "There's also the fact that Popper has moved over these days, and that hypothesis (speculation?) testing is a part of scientific method, whether or not the hypothesis is based on prior evidence.

So what was your point?"

Popper has been dead for quite some time, and hypothesis testing? Hypothesis testing of a hyposthesis test of a hypothesis test....... ad infinitum......

Really.

By Louis Hissink (not verified) on 02 Jul 2008 #permalink

Louis,

This is not wyvern, but it is my real name.

Can you respond to those questions that I'm now asking as well.

By Patrick Caldon (not verified) on 02 Jul 2008 #permalink

@"Louis Hissink" (passim):

When you can prove - in this forum - that your real name is Louis Hissink and not, say, Patrick Michaels, you will be in a position to pick and chhose to whom to respond.

I am using my real name (I can show that an English solicitor by the name Robin Levett exists, although I cannot prove here that I am he).

I want to know your response to Wyvern's comments; please post them.

By Robin Levett (not verified) on 02 Jul 2008 #permalink

cce, I've got to say, your "The Global Warming Debate" site is simply superb! If only the denialist trolls would bother to read it, even they might actually start to re-evaluate their "convictions" - if only... Anyway, great resource - congrats.

By Joe Spencer (not verified) on 02 Jul 2008 #permalink

Lessee,

Radiative properties of greenhouse gases - A real phenomenon whose values have been determined by laboratory experiment.

Increasing concentrations of anthropogenic greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere - A real phenomenon determined by multiple field measurements.

Increasing global temperatures - A real phenomenon determined by multiple field measurements and satellite observations.

Changes in the radiative profile of the atmosphere in the signature frequencies of anthropogenic greenhouse gases - A real phenomenon measured by multiple field and satellite observations.

Interlocution with a crackpot like Louie is an exercise in trans-rational futility.

By luminous beauty (not verified) on 02 Jul 2008 #permalink

Of course it's Louis, can't you tell from the accent?

More seriously concern trolling about identity on the INTERNET is a negative indicator of intelligence. Didn't you know that Tim Lambert is really a young lady in Kansas?

Louis Hissink,

i notice that you frequently and readily "interlocute" with people using noms des plume on other blogs, especially if they are deniers of human-induced warming. The blog of your friend Jen (Marohasy) is one example.

My keyboard name does not change the merit of my question. And it seems that people who are in a capacity to use their 'real' names here think so too. Or are you going to ignore them because I asked the question first?

You can run from the truth Louis, but you can't hide from the spectacle you are making of yourself.

"Really."

I don't remember who made the prediction in 2007 that the deniers would use the claim 'In the last 10 years the world has cooled' because 2008 would be a nice 10 years from 1998 but it just happened.

@Demesure and Lank:
Learn basic statistics before you try to bring a claim like that. 1998 cannot be used as a start (or end point) of a period. If you do not use a moving average to lower the impact of outliers like 1998 the next best thing it to remove it from the list of points available.

By Who Cares (not verified) on 02 Jul 2008 #permalink

Coming up with some novel idea and then deducing its outcomes is not the business of science but technicians and engineers. The danger lies in assuming that the original assumption is correct.

It's particularly amusing when people who have obviously never been within spitting distance of a laboratory presume to pontificate to an audience of scientists regarding what "real science" is all about.

Among scientists, beginning with a theory, then seeking data to test it, is regarded as the highest level of science, and far superior (and more persuasive) than observing a phenomenon and then coming up after the fact with a "just so story" to explain it.

Louis, thanks for not answering my question, but giving a demonstration of what makes me ask it.

I'd be open to your explanations of the motivation of the 'sceptics' if they didn't repeatedly display such complete disregard for objective reality and scientific method (eg your confused statements about theory and observation), not to mention their continual assertion of falsehoods (eg no warming in the last 10 yrs). But employing these tactics makes them Denialists, not sceptics.

So without a driving religious dogma, what is it that compels them? Ideological opposition to 'enviromentalism'?

Lank - "Michael "....not to mention their continual assertion of falsehoods (eg no warming in the last 10 yrs)". Please tell us all what part of this graph is a falsehood.

Starting it at 1997!

Which is what I asked Jennifer in the first place. I asked her to provide the graph, not starting at 1997, that shows what she asserted on the program.

You are only cherry picking the bit you want.

" but what the hell is driving the anti-science nonsense of the Denialists? "

apparently, it's a way in which they can express some sort of personality defects. mind you, I'm not saying that being a denialist is being an asshole; i assume there are perfectly nice but misguided denialists out there. but it's fairly clear that being an asshole is part of the extroverted denialist cult. which is one thing that ties it so closely to the New Conservatism, which is Flypaper for Assholes, to coin a phrase.

"I beg to disagree. It depends how you look at it. 80 to 90% of global warming is warming of the oceans. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88520025"

From that linked article:
"That becomes clear when you consider what's happening to global sea level. Sea level rises when the oceans get warm because warmer water expands. This accounts for about half of global sea level rise. So with the oceans not warming, you would expect to see less sea level rise. Instead, sea level has risen about half an inch in the past four years. That's a lot.
Willis says some of this water is apparently coming from a recent increase in the melting rate of glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica.
"But in fact there's a little bit of a mystery. We can't account for all of the sea level increase we've seen over the last three or four years," he says"

let's see; 3,000 buoys that can dive to 3,000 feet monitoring the temperatures of 360 million square kilometers of ocean, whose **average** depth is 12,000 feet. yeah, i guess we can take it as certain that there is no heat stored in there where we can't find it; that rising sea level is just nature lying to us because of its Marxist agenda.

Lank,

That kind of stupidity is exactly what I'm talking about.

Are you determined not to get just for a reaction?

Thanks for your clearly thought out respose Michael.

Perhaps it is not only me but how can so many Nobel prize winners also be wrong on the AGW stuff? During a recent meeting of past winners in Lindau, Bavaria, Germany the moderator and organizer, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber who is a local director and a member of the IPCC when asked about the views of the attendees at the meeting said that "there is a 60% probability that man is seriously behind climate change" and it is a problem that should be wrestled with.

Ivar Giaever (Norway), the 1973 Nobel prize winner for superconductivity is quoted as saying "... We don't really know what the actual effect on the global temperature is. There are better ways to spend the money". Giaever warned that ice ages do happen and we might be just waiting for one. He said that the chance the warming is anthropogenic is not very large.

Hartmut Michel (Germany), a biochemist and the 1988 chemistry Nobel prize winner for crystallization of membrane proteins, urged the world to stop using biofuels immediately.

Carlo Rubbia (Italy), the 1984 winner of the physics Nobel prize for the experimental discovery of the W and Z bosons at CERN, promoted nuclear energy (and also solar energy).

Klaus von Klitzing (Germany), the only 1985 physics Nobel prize winner for his discovery of the quantized Hall effect, argued that more research was needed. "People have already changed the world in many ways and we simply do not know whether tripling of CO2 leads to any kind of instability."
See one account of the meeting here..http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/07/lindau-half-of-nobel-prize-winners-ar…

I will certainly respect what these guys think ... more than Al Gore...who studied what?

I'm surprised Our Jen hasn't visited yet (unless some of your correspondants are sock puppets) - normally she'd have spotted the references to her and she'd be all over you like a cheap suit by now.

More of the same Lank - meaningless bits and pieces thrown together.

So someone doesn't want biofuels used, what has that got to do with AGW????? That's an argument about the correct response.

And I'm all for sceptics. Scepticism is a scientific response.

Arguing that there's been no upward trend in temp. since 1998 by using an El Nino year as the starting point is deliberately dishonest or completely delusional - that's Denialism.

Lank at #94...

...you forgot Kary Mullis, another Nobel winner (for PCR), who is also a climate sceptic. However, Mullis also said:

"No one has ever proved that HIV causes AIDS. We have not been able to discover any good reasons why most of the people on earth believe that AIDS is a disease caused by a virus called HIV."

Yes, Mullis was also an AIDS=HIV denier. Having a Nobel is not an automatic ticket to blanket credibility, just as having an 'intuition' is not evidence, contrary to what some people seem to believe is reasonable.

Nor is having the desire that AGW not exist a tenable position, if this stance is held without evidence. I repeat, ad nauseum, that I myself wish that AGW was not an issue, but in the end it is the evidence that matters.

And the best evidence to date supports the AGW proposition, fibs and data-fiddles by the denialist crowd notwithstanding.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 02 Jul 2008 #permalink

OK then Michael - you may be interested in this piece of 'cherry picking' showing the temperature variations over the 20 year period NASA's Dr James Hansen predicted 'a long term warming period'.

http://www.climateaudit.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/june2037.gif

Red dots mark the start and finish of the 'warming period' predicted by Dr Hansen. Since Hansen raised the alarm (and during the preceding 9 years) there doesn't appear to be much warming. All this time CO2 levels were steadily rising but apparently without a corresponding increase in temperatures.

At Lank, #94:
Argument from authority - and a bad one too too. All these scientists that you quote, eminent as they might be in their own field, are not climatologists.

And Carlo Rubbia promoting nuclear and solar energy shows he's an AGW "skeptic"? Both are (currently) expensive but CO2-neutral energy sources, why would he promote them if he would think CO2 is harmless?

And stop getting so hung up on Al Gore. No, he is not a climatologist, he's just a guy who read up on what climatologists had to say and managed to pour it into an accessible multi-media presentation. You'll have to look at the science behind the presentation, not at the person giving the presentation.

This post of yours shows more than anything that you are not a skeptic, but an authoritarian instead.

Bernard (#97), Kary Mullis is a biochemist and a very good one at that! Is this also your field? I presume she knows more than yourself about biochemistry - she certainly has a more open mind than you on AGW.

Beowulff (#99) - Don't you think that like AL Gore these non-climatologists may also have 'read up on what climatologists had to say'? I suspect that they have a better background of understanding than Mr Gore.

Lank,

The image that McIntyre posted shows a 0.13 per decade warming trend from 1979 to the present. The game that he is playing is to get all the people who don't know anything (and there are a lot) to assume that because June 2008 is colder than June 1988, there has been no warming. He, of course, knows better but you won't find him pointing out the relevent facts when there is an opportunity to attack Hansen.

The reason that June 2008 is "cold" is the same reason that 1988 turned increasingly cold: This the most significant La Nina since . . . 1988. In fact, that La Nina bottomed out in January 1989 with a (UAH) temperature anomaly of -0.33. You can see this drop in the graph. The only months that were colder since were in the wake of the Pinatubo eruption. But you won't see McIntyre pointing out these facts.

The temperature series that he posted is the same as the red line in this graph:

http://cce.890m.com/temp-records/images/giss-vs-all.jpg

At Lank, #98:

This post of yours is an other example of what appears to be your overall debating tactic: the Gish Gallop, better known from creationism debates. It entails throwing up as many false or irrelevant claims as possible, demanding the opponents to refute each and every one of them. This prevents the opponents from stating their own case, and makes them look bad if they can't or won't refute even one of the claims, now matter how ridiculous the claim.

You do this by constantly bringing up little tidbits of information that on the surface may seem to contradict global warming science, and demanding an explanation for it. Every time it is patiently explained to you how these findings are perfectly consistent with the scientific consensus, or why they are invalid. Yet you never accept any of these explanations, nor refute them. Instead you come up with some new factoid or graph that you want to have explained, or some new quote or link that supposedly invalidates the scientific consensus.

At some point, people will grow tired of this and give up, and you will say "Hah, I knew you couldn't refute this last one, I win the argument! I have proved AGW doesn't exist!" Needless to say, you won't have won anything, and you'll only have proved that you're a pseudo-skeptic who refuses to debate in good faith.

Thanks cce (#102). The graph you link to (red line) shows June 1988 as considerably colder than June 2008. The McIntyre graph shows the other way around. Which is correct?

Don't you think that like AL Gore these non-climatologists may also have 'read up on what climatologists had to say'? I suspect that they have a better background of understanding than Mr Gore.

Not necessarily. Al Gore has made it his main occupation to study these issues. Scientists in other fields, on the other hand, may simply not have spent the same amount of time studying the matter. Also, even expert scientists are still people, and are exposed to the same misinformation as the rest of us. Even worse, being experts in their own fields, they may have a somewhat of a blind spot that prevents them from realizing that they could be spectacularly wrong on matters outside their field of expertise.

And again the dishonest debating: the expertise of Al Gore or these Nobel laureates in matters concerning climate are not relevant and add little to the discussion. It should all be about the science and the data, not the people. I said this before, and you completely ignored it.

Lank,

Those are annual averages. When it is over, 2008 will probably be between 2000 and 2001, but that's just a guess.

@z
I just found this formula about thermal expansion of sea water:
www.ocean.washington. The coefficient of thermal expansion for sea water is about 0.00021 (fractional volume change per degree C); often this parameter is written as b = 2.1 ´ 10-4 ° C-1. The surface of the oceans is 257'000'000 km2. Volume X 4 = 1'028'000'000 km3.
Because the length and width of an ocean basin does not change as the ocean is heated slightly, b also describes the change in height as the water warms or cools. The relation between change of height D h, ocean depth D and temperature change DT is: D h = b D DT

- Question 1: How much CO2 equivalent of long term greenhouse gasses are needed to heat up the entire volume of the ocean so as to result in a rise by 1 meter from thermal expansion? I hazard a back of the envelope reckoning: The ocean will have to heat up by 0.84°C in average from the surface down to all depths.

- Question 2: If indeed a doubling of CO2 results in a rise in air temperature of 3°C, will this be enough infra red radiation and water run-off into the ocean to heat up the entire volume of the oceans as much as to result in a sea level rise of 0,1 meter (1/10 of a meter) from thermal expansion?

As far as I know, only the surface of the oceans has heated up by about 0.5°C so far, much of it owing to stronger short-wave radiation from strong solar cycles and less cloud cover, with an effect particularly over the arctic.

Maybe, I am misguided at this but I can't imagine how the greenhouse induced heating up of the land-ocean surface during the past 4 years(??) could have resulted in thermal expansion unless there was more sunshine over the oceans. How about more volcanism on the sea floor? Nothing to do with CO2 at this point, see?

Michael,

I work full time and do not have the luxury of reading comments on any blog as they come - so if I don't instantly reply to some question here, realise that I only allocate a short period of time for this, after work.

The deluge of posts after I made mine requires a lot of scanning to find the relevant posts, and as I don't have a local copy of my post with its number, one tends to avoid reading all the posts.

But don't pillory me for not answering your questions.

By Louis Hissink (not verified) on 02 Jul 2008 #permalink

Re: # 80

Patrick Caldon,

Thanks for your question. I will reproduce wyverns post here:

"1) AGW poses falsifiable propositions 2) AGW is based on an initially empirically verified fact

There's also the fact that Popper has moved over these days, and that hypothesis (speculation?) testing is a part of scientific method, whether or not the hypothesis is based on prior evidence.

So what was your point".

Wyvern only asked what my point was. My point is that AGW is pseudoscience for the reasons previously put.

As for Popper's moving on implies that the man, in terms of the grammar, is still alive.

Is that your question as well?

By Louis Hissink (not verified) on 02 Jul 2008 #permalink

Michael:

Your write:

"I can at least understand what drives the Creationists, but what the hell is driving the anti-science nonsense of the Denialists?

Posted by: Michael | July 2, 2008 2:58 AM '

I posted a reply to that.

Michael,

Climate sceptics are driven by the need to counter pseudoscience.

Pseudoscience poses non-falsifiable propositions.

Pseudoscience is not based on an initially empirically verified fact.

No one has observed a phenomenon of AGW to require a theory for it - rather the idea was put, and its supporters started looking for evidence.

This whole activity is not science. Science is about explaining observations, not about explaining a speculation, based on limited properties of a gas, which is thought to happen.

Coming up with some novel idea and then deducing its outcomes is not the business of science but technicians and engineers. The danger lies in assuming that the original assumption is correct.

(I don't normally respond to commentators using noms des plumes but in Michael's case, his question is taken at face value. However if you want interlocution, post under your real name).

Posted by: Louis Hissink | July 2, 2008 5:25 AM

Ball is in your court.

By Louis Hissink (not verified) on 02 Jul 2008 #permalink

At #100 Lank spouted:

Bernard (#97), Kary Mullis is a biochemist and a very good one at that! Is this also your field? I presume she knows more than yourself about biochemistry - she certainly has a more open mind than you on AGW.

If you care to search Deltoid's archives you would find that I have already documented my work in immunology/oncology/biochemistry in a previous incarnation, prior to my change to ecology and population biology. Whether or not Mullis knows more about me about biochemistry is a completely irrelevant strawman - all that matters is that I know HIV causes AIDS. If you care to argue with me on this one you should know that I have spent years diagnosing HIV infection, and that many of my best friends are HIV patients.

More telling though in your petulant response is that you think that Mullis is female. Kary is most certainly male, and the fact that this completely sailed past you reflects extremely badly on your complete lack of capacity to get even the most basic of facts correct.

Give up now, retire to a hole, and live out your life in abject ignominy before you make an even more complete fool of yourself.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 02 Jul 2008 #permalink

AIDS debate in a climate science thread? Tim, your site has gone to the dogs.

By Louis Hissink (not verified) on 02 Jul 2008 #permalink

Ah, Louis Hissink...

I am sharing a bottle of red with my friend, the psuedonymous and usually reclusive Wyvern, after a wet and muddy period of fieldwork, and both he and I are finding it hard to take you seriously. Your fixation on noms de plume (get your plurals right Louis, or are you penning with the whole chicken?) is irrelevant to the crux of the debating, and you seem to be doing your deftest best to avoid all of the cruces presented to you.

Wyvern's first point was that you were incorrect, or dishonest, in your first point at #70:

1) AGW poses falsifiable propositions

Wyvern's second point was that you were incorrect, or dishonest, in your second point at #70:

2) AGW is based on an initially empirically verified fact

Wyvern's third point was that Popper's idea of falsifiability is not the steadfst central tenet of scientific method that is has previously been held to be, as I have recently commented myself in Deltoid's pages. Your reference to Popper's lack of vitality is a diversion, and reflects poorly upon your current understanding of the scientific method.

Which leads me to Wyvern's fourth point, which is that you don't seem to have even a basic understanding of the scientific process.

You have been called on all of these points by folk of various noms de plume or otherwise since Wyvern first pulled you up, and so far you have abjectly failed to interlocute in any sensible response.

You're looking decidedly wobbly Louis.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 03 Jul 2008 #permalink

Bernard J

Wyvern's points were statements, not questions. I have no idea how to answer statements. Questions yes.

By Louis Hissink (not verified) on 03 Jul 2008 #permalink

In addition:

bernard J, and others.

You quote Wyvern:

"1) AGW poses falsifiable propositions
Wyvern's second point was that you were incorrect, or dishonest, in your second point at #70:
2) AGW is based on an initially empirically verified fact".

Totally wrong.

I wrote:

Michael,

Climate sceptics are driven by the need to counter pseudoscience.

1: Pseudoscience poses non-falsifiable propositions.
2: Pseudoscience is not based on an initially empirically verified fact.

I never wrote AGW did, so all of you misprepresented my position.

Whether you do that from ignorance (excusable) or stupidity, (tragic), is moot.

By Louis Hissink (not verified) on 03 Jul 2008 #permalink

At Louis #110: Repeating yourself is not an argument. People have pointed out that they were not satisfied with it the first time you posted it. You basically say you can't be bothered to read those posts, which is your right, but it doesn't make you look like someone who wants to debate in good faith.

"No one has observed a phenomenon of AGW to require a theory for it"

AGW isn't the observation, global warming itself is. Then you start to hypothesize what the cause of this could be. AGW is merely a theory that says that human activities were a major contribution to the observed global warming. Then you start to look for data supporting this - CO2 levels, models, etc. The data says AGW is too likely to be true to ignore. The theory of AGW can also be falsified - for instance, if we'd somehow managed to get CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) levels down, global warming should slow down.

Since AGW is not an observed phenomenon, as you claim, but a theory for global warming, which is an observation, your argument for calling AGW a pseudo-science quoted above is invalid.

So, the ball is squarely back in your court - in fact, I doubt it ever even really left your court at all. Oh, and as has been pointed out, not responding to "noms des plumes" is intellectually dishonest. It is a clear case of criticizing the source, rather than the content.

Louis,

I would suggest that the AGW hypothesis does pose falsifiable predictions.

For instance we can examine the 1990 IPCC report, which predicted that the next several decades will see a 0.2-0.5 degree warming trend, with milder warming in the event of some GHG emissions controls.

As it happens we have had warming in that range, despite the collapse of the Soviet economies and a largish volcano going off in the meantime.

As a counterfactual, were we to have had cooling over the last two decades that prediction would have been falsified.

By Patrick Caldon (not verified) on 03 Jul 2008 #permalink

#116

beowulff

"Since AGW is not an observed phenomenon, as you claim, but a theory for global warming, which is an observation, your argument for calling AGW a pseudo-science quoted above is invalid."

I extract: "a theory for global warming, WHICH IS AN OBSERVATION"

Oh? So the Pope has deemed creation an observation? You have checked this with his Holiness?

By Louis Hissink (not verified) on 03 Jul 2008 #permalink

Patrick Caldon

You quote the 1990 IPPC report which predicted a rise of 0.2 -0.5 degrees Celsius trend over several decades.

Several decades is probably a period of 30 years? So assuming a base point of 1990, 30 years hence would be 2020.

So in terms of the initial condtions associated with that prediction, one could not make any conclusion until the conditions were met - ie climate statistics for the year ending 2020.

The rest of your post is appreciated but it lacks specificity.

As for scientific falsification, science demands that any hypothesis put, is backed by empirical proof.

Sceptics are not responsible for disproof, and when any hypothesis is put to the scientific community, with the expectation that the burden of proof is moved to the sceptics, then that hypothesis is deemed pseudoscience.

By Louis Hissink (not verified) on 03 Jul 2008 #permalink

"Climate sceptics are driven by the need to counter pseudoscience"

Really? How does one then explain why most of the sceptics are themselves 'pseudoscientists'? Don't believe it? Check out the scientific pedigree of a sample of the 'sceptics'. The vast majority publish little, if any of their work in rigid journals, instead relying on non-peer reviewed sources or else weak journals that do not appear on the web of science.

The truth is that many sceptics are driven by the need to promote their own personal idealogical and political agenda, and to hell with the science.

By Jeff Harvey (not verified) on 03 Jul 2008 #permalink

Lank,

None of the Nobel Prize winners you cite got their Nobel Prizes for work in climatology. Their opinion on the matter is no better and no more authoritative than anyone else's. William Shockley was a great physicist, but when he babbled about blacks having lower IQs than whites because of heredity, he was talking outside his field and made a fool of himself.

Al Gore, on the other hand, was one of Roger Revelle's students in the '60s. So I'd say that where climate change was concerned, yes, Al Gore does know more than your Nobel Prize winners.

climatepatrol writes:

I can't imagine how the greenhouse induced heating up of the land-ocean surface during the past 4 years(??) could have resulted in thermal expansion unless there was more sunshine over the oceans.

More infrared from the atmosphere.

Louis Hissink writes:

No one has observed a phenomenon of AGW to require a theory for it - rather the idea was put, and its supporters started looking for evidence.

No, the evidence came first. That global warming due to increased carbon dioxide was possible was first proposed by Svante Arrhenius in 1896. But people noticed the world was warming starting in the 1930s, and after the stagnation from about 1940-1970, the warming curve turned sharply upwards. The best explanation for it is greenhouse gases. If you put together a model with every other possible cause (solar changes, volcanism, etc.) you don't get a good match to what we're seeing, but if you add in greenhouse gases, the match is suddenly very good.

Anthropogenic global warming is not unfalsifiable, either. All you'd have to do to disprove it is

A) show that carbon dioxide wasn't a greenhouse gas,

B) show that carbon dioxide wasn't increasing, or

C) show that the increased carbon dioxide wasn't from human fossil-fuel burning.

Do any of those three and you've falsified AGW. Which of the three do you dispute?

Louis Hissink.

Let me put it to you this way:

1. is the science of AGW in fact a pseudoscience, in that it (as you claim) poses non-falsifiable propositions?

2. is the science of AGW in fact a pseudoscience, in that it is not based (as you claim) on an initially empirically verified fact?

3) is it a fact that "no one has observed a phenomenon of AGW to [sic] require a theory for it - rather the idea was put, and its supporters started looking for evidence"?

4) Is it that "science is about explaining observations, not about explaining a speculation, based on limited properties of a gas [or whatever else], which is thought to happen"?

5) is it that science is not "about coming up with some novel idea and then deducing its outcomes", and that this "is not the business of science but [that of] technicians and engineers"?

Answer the questions Louis.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 03 Jul 2008 #permalink

Louis Hissink.

To clarify my clumsy paraphrasing, at #113, of your post at #70, you said:

Climate sceptics are driven by the need to counter pseudoscience.

1. Pseudoscience poses non-falsifiable propositions.
2. Pseudoscience is not based on an initially empirically verified fact.

Inductive semantics aside, your first statement implies that AGW is a psuedoscience. Your subsequently numbered propositions are, by proximity and syntax, directly connected to your first statement. Therefore any reasonable person would conclude that you were saying that

1. AGW poses non-falsifiable propositions.
2. AGW is not based on an initially empirically verified fact.

Do you agree with the direct implication of propositions of your statement at #70, or do you in fact believe the complementary position?

And for bonus points, can you explain why "[s]ceptics are not responsible for disproof" if they seek to engage in a counter to a scientifically supported premise?

How many times must you be asked these questions before you answer?

By Bernard J, (not verified) on 03 Jul 2008 #permalink

Louis your 'pseudoscience' argument is gibberish. You must think Einstein was a pseudoscientist.

You have scientists here telling you that you don't understand the scientific process. Perhaps you know better then they do?

I extract: "a theory for global warming, WHICH IS AN OBSERVATION"

Oh? So the Pope has deemed creation an observation? You have checked this with his Holiness?

Way to distort the meaning of my sentence, changing the emphasis like that. It should have been obvious what I meant: the global warming is the observation, whereas AGW is a theory explaining global warming.

And what does the Pope and creation have to do with anything? Stick to the discussion at hand. I can't help but notice that you didn't honestly respond to any of my arguments.

@Barton Paul Levenson
#122
That seems to be the theory but it is inconsistent with the recent findings of "Josh Willis" who projected a 4-year warming rate of the upper ocean of
'-0.075941 +/- 0.2139 W/m^2'. So that's why Roger Pielke concluded: "The only other explanation for continuing sea level rise is a rise in the ocean bottom on these time scales (which is a topic outside of my expertise)." Infra red still?

Roger Pielke, Sr. has shown himself to be utterly confused about many basic things in climate science.

I recommend contributors and visitors to this blog the recent writing of James Peden
http://www.magna-magnaverse.blogspot.com/
who certainly makes more sense than many of the Deltoid contributors who seem to idolise Al Gore as a climate change expert (didn't he perform dismally in science during school?). But Gore is " just a guy who read up on what climatologists had to say and managed to pour it into an accessible multi-media presentation." (Beowulff#99). See also Beowulff at #105 and Barton Paul Leversen at #121.
Bernard J (#111) of course knows it all because he (or she?) is immensely qualified in immunology/oncology/biochemistry prior to his/her change to ecology and population biology. I can't see much earth science or climate science in that lot Bernard.

We're neither tossing Al Gore "under the bus" as the current cliche goes, nor are we pegging any part of AGW on him whatsoever.

Carl Sagan was a good promoter and explainer of science, but love of Carl was not why Velikovsky was wrong. Even retired chemist and sociologist of science Hank Bauer, who became an HIV and AGW denier, said Velikovsky's weakness was being ignorant of physics and arrogant about being corrected.

Ad hominem - making individuals the issue. They do it with Gore and Hansen and Carson. What, in fact, is the counter? I feel like we're the boring adults here. I guess someone must be.

By Marion Delgado (not verified) on 03 Jul 2008 #permalink

Great link Lank.

I see he repeats your favourite, it's been cooling since 1998, lie.

Anyone who indulges in that particular piece of mendacity is not arguing in good faith.

"As for scientific falsification, science demands that any hypothesis put, is backed by empirical proof.

Sceptics are not responsible for disproof, and when any hypothesis is put to the scientific community, with the expectation that the burden of proof is moved to the sceptics, then that hypothesis is deemed pseudoscience."

This definition of unfalsifiable is both new and original Louis. Congratulations.

Since you seem to be unhappy with the proposition that a couple of decades of warming are at least tentative empirical evidence for multi-decadal warming, I'll give you another example; it was predicted in the 1995 IPCC report that mountain plant species would have their ranges move up the mountain. There was a paper published last week which described exactly this phenomenon in France.

By Patrick Caldon (not verified) on 03 Jul 2008 #permalink

"http://www.climateaudit.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/june2037.gif

Red dots mark the start and finish of the 'warming period' predicted by Dr Hansen. Since Hansen raised the alarm (and during the preceding 9 years) there doesn't appear to be much warming."

except for the part where the mean of the first half of that period is obviously below the overall mean, and the mean of the second half is obviously above the overall mean.

if you insist on making Al Gore a proxy for scientists who believe in AGW, then we get to use Inhofe as a proxy for scientists who do not. This will not work to your advantage.

"Maybe, I am misguided at this but I can't imagine how the greenhouse induced heating up of the land-ocean surface during the past 4 years(??) could have resulted in thermal expansion unless there was more sunshine over the oceans. "

well, i don't know, i haven't worked it out for myself, i was only quoting the article which you yourself cited, and what was therein stated as pretty much irrefutable. perhaps you could take it up with the author, then let us know whether you still wish to cite that article or not.

"Kary is most certainly male, "

you have no proof of that. scientists have no direct evidence. it's clear that there is still substantial disagreement with that theory. the model can be jiggered to produce whtever results you want.

"many of the Deltoid contributors who seem to idolise Al Gore as a climate change expert "

???? ah, the old inverse reverse upside down rebound vice versa projection trick.

Ah, Lank, I didn't realise that you are in fact a climate scientist, and thus the only person on this thread 'able' to comment upon AGW.

That changes everything of course.

Or not.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 03 Jul 2008 #permalink

...you forgot Kary Mullis, another Nobel winner (for PCR), who is also a climate sceptic. However, Mullis also said:

"...at the far end of the path, under a fir tree, there was something glowing. I pointed my flashlight at it anyhow. It only made it whiter where the beam landed. It seemed to be a raccoon. I wasn't frightened. Later, I wondered if it could have been a hologram, projected from God knows where."

"The raccoon spoke. 'Good evening, doctor,' it said. I said something back, I don't remember what, probably, 'Hello.' The next thing I remember, it was early in the morning. I was walking along a road uphill from my house."

Kary Mullis and glow in the dark raccoons

Mullis believes in astrology but not in the role of CFCs in the depletion of the ozone layer. I would suggest that the personal opinions of Kary Mullis are a poor guide to reality.

By Chris Noble (not verified) on 03 Jul 2008 #permalink

Yairs, irrespective of a Nobel prize and gender, Kary Mullis is a very mixed bag indeed.

At lank, #131: and the Gish Gallop continues. And about Gore: nobody here, nor in the scientific community, idolizes Gore. You picked up a completely wrong message from my posts that you quote: I wasn't bashing Gore, I was just pointing out that Gore's credentials were irrelevant to the whole debate. As Marion Delgado pointed out, nothing in climate science is pegged on Gore. The data doesn't change depending on Al Gore's high school test scores.

Attacking AGW by attacking the credentials of Al Gore is both an ad hominem and a straw man fallacy (and if you think I'm calling Al Gore a straw man, you really need to read up on logical fallacies).

And as you seem to put so much importance in credentials, why don't you present us your credentials? Are you entitled to debate climatology by your own standards?

With Garnaut's draft report now out, I suspect that he will be painted by the denialists as:

1) fat

2) unqualified as a climate scientist

3) a 'warmist'

4) a communist/socialist/leftist

5) religious/hysterical/'ignorant'/'stupid'/'tragic'

6) (add to the list as you see fit)

None of this, however, detracts from the fact that an economist selected by the Denier PM John Howard has thrown down the gauntlet harder than probably even the most dyed-in-the-wool 'warmist' could have thought. He is quite firm on what is required, and has a response to the denialists as well.

An interview with Garnaut should appear here in the next day or so: look for the 4 July transmission.

Let the fun begin.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 03 Jul 2008 #permalink

Re #134

"This definition of unfalsifiable is both new and original Louis. Congratulations."

Deinition of unfalsifiable??????

Patrick, you seem to speak in strange tongues.

By Louis Hissink (not verified) on 03 Jul 2008 #permalink

Whoopsies - spalling arror, "definition"

Sorry :-(

By Louis Hissink (not verified) on 04 Jul 2008 #permalink

#127

So ignoring the theory of AGW, what observations of global mean/average/median temperatures would suggest that that the earth is "warming".

Are you proposing that the thin atmospheric layer is warming? If so, say so.

Is the assumed warming of a thing gaseous layer capable of warming the rest of the earth as implied by the proselytisers of AGW? Well yes, if you suspend the laws of thermodynamics.

When sunshine stops, the half earth starts to lose heat to space, and water, as a suspended different phase to gas, physically delays the transmission of IR radation from the earth to space.

In the absence of water vapour, like Mars, heat is quickly transmitted to space. Gases do not trap heat as a capacitor which stores electrical energy.

But then AGW was initially an intelletuctual speculation, not an observed scientific fact.

By Louis Hissink (not verified) on 04 Jul 2008 #permalink

At Louis Hissink, #147:
Yes, records are pretty clear that the average global atmospheric temperature has been going up.

Please explain to me what thermodynamic principle prevents the conduction of heat? Or the convection of heat?

Are you seriously denying that gases have a heat capacity? If so, on what basis? If not, do you deny that different gases can have different heat capacities under different temperatures? Do you even know what you are talking about?

Does it feel good to beat a straw man? Cause you can't seem to stop doing it. Let me repeat again: Nobody said that AGW is an observed fact. Only the Global Warming itself is an observed fact (the GW in AGW), the only speculation part was the "Anthropogenic" bit (the A in AGW). By now, there's sufficient evidence to make that more than a speculation, but rather a highly plausible theory. Do you understand the difference?

"Does it feel good to beat a straw man? Cause you can't seem to stop doing it. Let me repeat again: Nobody said that AGW is an observed fact. Only the Global Warming itself is an observed fact (the GW in AGW), the only speculation part was the "Anthropogenic" bit (the A in AGW). By now, there's sufficient evidence to make that more than a speculation, but rather a highly plausible theory. Do you understand the difference?"

Let me extract: "Nobody said that AGW is an observed fact".

Good.

"Only the Global Warming itself is an observed fact (the GW in AGW), the only speculation part was the "Anthropogenic" bit (the A in AGW)."

We seem to have a concatenation of non sequiturs in the last sentence.

So, Beowulf, try again please.

By Louis Hissink (not verified) on 04 Jul 2008 #permalink

Louis Hissink writes:

So ignoring the theory of AGW, what observations of global mean/average/median temperatures would suggest that that the earth is "warming".

The readings of land surface temperature stations.
The readings of sea surface temperatures.
The readings of borehole temperatures.
The readings of satellite temperatures.
The readings of balloon radiosonde temperatures.
The rising sea level.
The melting glaciers and polar ice.
The movement of tree lines toward the poles.
The movement of tropical pests into formerly temperate zones.
The increased droughts in continental interiors.
The increased violent weather along coastlines.

Are you proposing that the thin atmospheric layer is warming? If so, say so.

What thin atmospheric layer are you referring to?

Is the assumed warming of a thing gaseous layer capable of warming the rest of the earth as implied by the proselytisers of AGW? Well yes, if you suspend the laws of thermodynamics.

What are you talking about? What "thin[] gaseous layer?"

When sunshine stops, the half earth starts to lose heat to space, and water, as a suspended different phase to gas, physically delays the transmission of IR radation from the earth to space.

True. So does carbon dioxide, clouds, and other greenhouse agents.

In the absence of water vapour, like Mars, heat is quickly transmitted to space. Gases do not trap heat as a capacitor which stores electrical energy.

Nobody said they did.

But then AGW was initially an intelletuctual speculation, not an observed scientific fact.

It is an observed scientific fact that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas.

It is an observed scientific fact that carbon dioxide has increased rapidly in recent times.

It is an observed scientific fact that the new carbon dioxide is from artificial sources.

Again, which of the three above observed scientific facts do you dispute?

Barton Paul Leveson,

Evidence please, not your certified certainties of belief.

By Louis Hissink (not verified) on 04 Jul 2008 #permalink

Barton Paul Leveson,

I looked at your comments again, and note your comment "It is an observed scientific fact that the new carbon dioxide is from artificial sources".

You have some peer reviewed facts supporting this, of course.

By Louis Hissink (not verified) on 04 Jul 2008 #permalink

At #149:
I take that as a "no, I do not understand the difference, but I'm not man enough to directly admit this". So, nice guy that I am, let me try again and this time spell out the scientific process for you:

Observation: Global average temperatures have shown an upward trend over the last century. Let's call this Global Warming, or GW for short.
Question: What causes GW?
Hypothesis: GW might be due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (man-made) greenhouse gas concentrations.
Result: evidence from many independent sources show this is indeed likely.
Result: The hypothesis is now a Theory explaining GW, commonly known as Anthropogenic Global Warming.

Does this clarify the distinction between Theory and Observation, and where AGW fits in this? Does it also clarify why your claim that AGW is not science because it's not an observable fact is nonsense, because that claim is based on a faulty understanding of the elements of the scientific process?

I'm sure you might again deny that a warming trend was observed, or that the evidence shows that human activities are a good explanation for that observation. Even if you were correct (and I have no reason to think you are), it still wouldn't change the point I was trying to make: you misunderstood the process of science and the place of AGW in it, and because of that made an invalid claim.

Since you chose to ignore the rest of my previous post, I also take it you have no clue whatsoever about thermodynamics.

Louis Hissink.

Let me see if I have your imputation at #152 nailed...

It seems from

I ... note your comment "It is an observed scientific fact that the new carbon dioxide is from artificial sources"

and the subsequent

You have some peer reviewed facts supporting this, of course

that you are proposing that 'new' CO2 is not from 'artificial' sources.

Two questions:

1) which magical Denial-pixies are sequestering all of humanity's emitted CO2, in accordance with your apparent premise?

2) which magical Denial-pixies are increasing atmospheric CO2 independent of human activity, to the extent that we have observed, in accordance with your apparent premise?

But why stop at two - for good luck

3) which magical Denial-pixies fooled thousands of conspiracy-loving scientists to document the relationship between human emissions and increasing atmospheric CO2?

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 04 Jul 2008 #permalink

There is plenty of 'new' CO2 which is not produced by man. You may have noticed that the gas is colourless and odourless. The shallows near Dobu Island off Papua and New Guinea have active underwater fumaroles pumping out virtually pure CO2.

http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003220.html

....and there are many more examples of this. Most of the world's volcanic activity occurs under the oceans and there are many tens of thousands of these.

Almost all active volcanoes and fumaroles produce CO2 and there are no reliable estimates of the amount that they produce.

The increase in CO2 coincides with the industrial revolution. In a few centuries, the CO2 concentration has increased to a point the atmosphere has not seen in at least 850,000 years, and probably millions of years.

Atmospheric oxygen is decreasing at the same time CO2 is increasing. Ergo, the CO2 is being created by combustion. The isotope ratios of the atmosphere are changing according to the amount of fossil carbon that is entering it, which is consistent with human emissions.

"Skeptics" would like us to believe an 850,000 year coincidence, they'd like us to ignore basic chemistry, they'd like us to ignore the fact that we are emitting gigatons of CO2 per year that has to be going somewhere, and then they make absurd assumptions about volcanic activity that dwarf all estimates and defy common sense. Not very skeptical, IMO.

Lank, my dear boy...

For the last 10,000 years the natural fluxes of CO2 in and out of the atmosphere have been roughly in balance. This means that during the Holocene levels of CO2 have varied between 260ppm and 280ppm. Volcanic emissions are part of this natural flux into the atmosphere.

Marohasy's point is a red herring. I hope you might learn to recognize one of these, since they smell pretty bad.

Look!!! It's a giant baby!!!

By Rattus Norvegicus (not verified) on 04 Jul 2008 #permalink

Lank at #156.

Your effort is obfuscation, pure and simple. Read what I said:

2) which magical Denial-pixies are increasing atmospheric CO2 independent of human activity, to the extent that we have observed, in accordance with your apparent premise?

I use the word 'new' only in quoting Louis Hissink's bizarre imputation. I did not use it in any of my three questions. As you can read for yourself, in my questions I was referring to the recent increase in the concentration of atmospheric CO2, and it is in this context that I am referring to 'new' CO2. That's why I used the inverted commas.

In none of my questions did I imply that CO2 is not added to the atmosphere by natural (geological) processes. No-one ever says this, and it is in fact accounted for in the understanding of CO2 equilibrium over the last tens of thousands of years. I am interested in eliciting an answer about the increase in CO2 over and above natural processes.

There are natural sources and natural sinks of CO2, but the change in atmospheric CO2 concentration is relatively stable over a span of hundreds of years, barring exceptional geological acivity. However, as cce notes in #157, the CO2 concentration has been increasing above 'natural' levels in the last several centuries, and it is from human activity that this is occuring.

Do you seriously dispute this?

You and Louis Hissink need to step to the plate and tell us whether you are disputing that increased atmospheric CO2 is a consequence of human activity.

And cce has given you some tips as to why trying to fly this particular flag would simply be a semaphor advertising your crack-pot status.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 04 Jul 2008 #permalink

Aynsley Kellow, in pillorying Nicholas Stern on Marohasy's blog (July 4, 2008 06:55 PM), said "Garnaut is equally new to the area (though a very good economist)".

Seeing as Garnout's draft report, released yesterday, was pretty much on message with Stern's, I wonder what Kellow's response to it would be?

To me at least it appears that even though a few business and industry interests bleated at the pain that would necessarily follow, there is almost no-one hopping up and down and saying that the message itself is not sound.

I get the impression that even Big Business is learning to move on, and it is only their PR lackeys (and the crack-pot fringe) that are still refusing to uncurl their fingers from the brittle stick of Denialism.

Demographics Lank:
The fact that there are new Aborigines every year leads me to conclude that European settlement is a myth.

Louis Hissink writes:

I looked at your comments again, and note your comment "It is an observed scientific fact that the new carbon dioxide is from artificial sources".

You have some peer reviewed facts supporting this, of course.

Sure. The radioisotope signature of fossil fuel CO2 was first detected in ambient air by Hans Suess in 1955:

Suess, Hans Eduard 1955. "Radiocarbon Concentration in Modern Wood." Science 122, 415-417.

During a natural deglaciation, extra carbon dioxide comes largely from the ocean, but the ocean is now a net sink for carbon dioxide, not a source. It gives off about 90 gigatons of carbon a year but takes in 92.

Where do you think the new carbon dioxide is coming from, if not from fossil fuel burning, deforestation, and cement manufacture?

Lank posts:

There is plenty of 'new' CO2 which is not produced by man. You may have noticed that the gas is colourless and odourless. The shallows near Dobu Island off Papua and New Guinea have active underwater fumaroles pumping out virtually pure CO2.

http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003220.html

....and there are many more examples of this. Most of the world's volcanic activity occurs under the oceans and there are many tens of thousands of these.

Almost all active volcanoes and fumaroles produce CO2 and there are no reliable estimates of the amount that they produce.

Lank, according to the US Geological Survey, all the volcanoes and fumaroles in the world produce about 200 million tons of carbon dioxide a year. Human technology, by way of contrast, produced about 30 billion tons last year. So human sources dwarf natural ones by a factor of 150.

Batten down the hatches good gentles, all.

Tim Curtin has popped up, like a mushroom after rain, on Marohasy's blog (link at #160) to shoot Garnaut down as he did Stern.

TC might have more standing as an economist in my eyes if he actually had his basic science secured first. However, as anyone who has frittered time on his website knows, TC has some, well, 'novel' approaches to modelling. His take on atmospheric CO2 levels over time is especially, erm, 'intriguing'...

I apologise in advance if, by posting this, I have invoked the shade of said Tim Curtin, although in my defence I suspect that after Garnaut's draft release, it will only be a matter of hours or days before he apparates on Deltoid again anyway to poke out his tongue. I would guess also that he will querie the bona fides of any who challenge him, and that Dyson Freeman will, in turn, be invoked in order to squash the 'warmers' by the mere mention of Dyson's name.

Seems that the 'fun' has begun.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 05 Jul 2008 #permalink

'Let me extract: "Nobody said that AGW is an observed fact".
Good.
"Only the Global Warming itself is an observed fact (the GW in AGW), the only speculation part was the "Anthropogenic" bit (the A in AGW)."'

how would you observe the anthropogenic part of agw? a picture of a man saying "i am hereby warming the globe"?

Just had a look at the thread on Marohasy's blog (link at #160 above). Only got as far as the following comment before being overcome by fatigue and boredom at the gutter-level vacuity of most commentators.

The comment in question is very revealing of its author's real motives in this debate, purely political of course:

Climate Change Policy isn't connected to any science, hence the stupidity of its goals, and the total stupidity of its adherents - Stupid Socialists.

Louis Hissink at June 28, 2008 09:21 PM

So close to the truth, Mr Hissink, just a couple of words difference and you would have been spot on:

Climate Change Denialism isn't connected to any science, hence the stupidity of its goals, and the total stupidity of its adherents - Stupid Ideologues.

Hmmm.

If I didn't know trolls better, I'd wonder whether Louis Hissink and Lank are licking their wounds. Adam Shand has also dropped off the radar, even after Tim named a thread after him. Could it be that we have finally convinced them that their arguments have in fact been effectively falsified?

Surely not.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 06 Jul 2008 #permalink

" I'd wonder whether Louis Hissink and Lank are licking their wounds. "

naah. requires a certain degree of understanding to know that your arguments have been shot down. that may happen be relevant to a newbie, but i don't think we've said anything here that hasn't been explained before in reply to these same old oft-repeated chestnuts.

If you're quick, you'll hear Marohasy on Radio National's Counterpoint tell us all about the Murray river, and apparently how it is not as ailing as science believes.

If you miss the live streaming, it'll be available for download soon after.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 06 Jul 2008 #permalink

Would someone kindly whack me on the bacK, please? I still haven't recovered my breath from today's broadcast of Counterpoint.

If Jennifer's biology on it was presented as a first-year report, it would get a big, fat, red O% from all of my old profs.

She might scrape a pass for 'cutesy' though...

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 07 Jul 2008 #permalink

Bernard. It really is better for your health not to listen to Counterpoint. I tried listening to it a few times when it first got going, but it quickly became obvious it was not for those who prefer actual reality. Life is too short.

Wow. Personally, I couldn't be less interested in the play-it-again-sam whack-a-denialist-troll stuff that goes after, but wasn't that smackdown of senor Shand a thing of beauty? I'm talking like a Jody Foster 'they should've sent a poet' event. I mean, it's the bitchenest bitch slapping I've ever seen, and I used to know a red headed step child.

Here Shand was probably thinking to himself- 'Gee, that Lambert's really taking me to task over my truthy corporatist useful idiotry, I'm going to head over there and show him what for'. On an individual level, that ranks right up there with that Pharaoh who figured the walls of the Red Sea would hold up long enough. I doubt it took long for ol Shandy to realize they wouldn't. I mean, all I could think of reading comment after comment of stripping this man bare of any shred of dignity he might have hoped to retain was combined arms tactics of the US Marines Corps. Just when he thought the heavy artillery was too much to bear, pants around ankles, they hit him with the aerial bombardment and infantry support. List of solid science anti-AGW references... BOOM! Words in his mouth... BING! You a scientist? ZING! That was a most excellent public flogging. More please!

By Majorajam (not verified) on 08 Jul 2008 #permalink

I heard the repeat of Jennifer's piece on this week's Counterpoint today, and after I'd recovered from a bit of shuddering it set me to thinking...

When someone contradicts other experts in their own field, it is worth listening to them at least for a while, in case they really do have a point (a la Robin Warren and Barry Marshall). When someone contradicts experts in another field and in which they have no pre-eminent expertise of their own, one might give them some small chance to be heard, but credulity rapidly stretches.

When someone contradicts experts in many other fields, and in which they have no pre-eminent expertise of their own, the bells start to toll...

Marohasy says that the body of climate experts has it wrong about climate warming. But, dear audience, she is right.

She said on Counterpoint this week that the scientists (and presumably the farmers) are once again in error, this time about the cause(s) of the parlous state of the Murray-Darling, and once again dear listeners she knows better.

She has a thread on her blog that hosts the premise that there is no biodiversity crisis.

In fact she hosts many threads that say that the experts in the various fields are all wrong. And once again she has the good oil.

So, what is it?

As far as I can see it is either that:

1) Breathy Jen is the New Oracle in the face of a Dark Age of Science, where the practioners of said science have all lost their way and have deluded themselves, but Jen is all-knowing,

2) there is a hide-the-truth conspiracy of all experts, not just in climate science but also in ecology, hydrology and any other discipline that she turns her mischief-detecting school-marm nose to,

or

3) dear Jen is the one who is 'mistaken'.

Given the statistical likelihood of either:

1) tens of thousands of experts in diverse disciplines being deluded,

2) tens of thousands of experts in diverse disciplines being colluded

3) Jen, who is funded by vested interest groups, being wrong,

I know where I'd put my money.

By Bernard J. (not verified) on 11 Jul 2008 #permalink

"Everything You Know is Wrong"