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.

Comments

#1 Lank
July 3, 2008

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.
#2 cce
July 3, 2008

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
#3 Beowulff
July 3, 2008

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.
#4 Lank
July 3, 2008

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?
#5 Beowulff
July 3, 2008

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.
#6 cce
July 3, 2008

Lank,

Those are annual averages. When it is over, 2008 will probably be between 2000 and 2001, but that’s just a guess.
#7 climatepatrol
July 3, 2008

@z
I just found this formula about thermal expansion of sea water:
http://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?
#8 Louis Hissink
July 3, 2008

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.
#9 Louis Hissink
July 3, 2008

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?
#10 Louis Hissink
July 3, 2008

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.
#11 Bernard J.
July 3, 2008

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.
#12 Louis Hissink
July 3, 2008

AIDS debate in a climate science thread? Tim, your site has gone to the dogs.
#13 Bernard J.
July 3, 2008

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.
#14 Louis Hissink
July 3, 2008

Bernard J

Wyvern’s points were statements, not questions. I have no idea how to answer statements. Questions yes.
#15 Louis Hissink
July 3, 2008

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.
#16 Beowulff
July 3, 2008

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.
#17 Patrick Caldon
July 3, 2008

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.
#18 Louis Hissink
July 3, 2008

#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?
#19 Louis Hissink
July 3, 2008

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.
#20 Jeff Harvey
July 3, 2008

“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.
#21 Barton Paul Levenson
July 3, 2008

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.
#22 Barton Paul Levenson
July 3, 2008

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.
#23 Barton Paul Levenson
July 3, 2008

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?
#24 Bernard J.
July 3, 2008

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.
#25 Bernard J,
July 3, 2008

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?
#26 Michael
July 3, 2008

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?
#27 Beowulff
July 3, 2008

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.
#28 climatepatrol
July 3, 2008

@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?
#29 climatepatrol
July 3, 2008

Link at #128: http://climatesci.org/2008/05/29/new-information-from-josh-willis-on-upper-ocean-heat-content/ . Apologies.
#30 dhogaza
July 3, 2008

Roger Pielke, Sr. has shown himself to be utterly confused about many basic things in climate science.
#31 Lank
July 3, 2008

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.
#32 Marion Delgado
July 3, 2008

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.
#33 Michael
July 3, 2008

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.
#34 Patrick Caldon
July 3, 2008

“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.
#35 z
July 3, 2008

“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.
#36 z
July 3, 2008

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.
#37 z
July 3, 2008

“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.
#38 z
July 3, 2008

“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.
#39 z
July 3, 2008

“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.
#40 Bernard J.
July 4, 2008

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.
#41 Chris Noble
July 4, 2008

…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.
#42 WotWot
July 4, 2008

Yairs, irrespective of a Nobel prize and gender, Kary Mullis is a very mixed bag indeed.
#43 Beowulff
July 4, 2008

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?
#44 Bernard J.
July 4, 2008

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.
#45 Louis Hissink
July 4, 2008

Re #134

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

Deinition of unfalsifiable??????

Patrick, you seem to speak in strange tongues.
#46 Louis Hissink
July 4, 2008

Whoopsies – spalling arror, “definition”

Sorry
#47 Louis Hissink
July 4, 2008

#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.
#48 Beowulff
July 4, 2008

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?
#49 Louis Hissink
July 4, 2008

“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.
#50 Barton Paul Levenson
July 4, 2008

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?
#51 Louis Hissink
July 4, 2008

Barton Paul Leveson,

Evidence please, not your certified certainties of belief.
#52 Louis Hissink
July 4, 2008

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.
#53 sod
July 4, 2008

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

here:

http://www.pnas.org/content/104/47/18866.abstract

but please, educate me: if i am adding something to a pot. and the volume of that thing in that pot is increasing. how can i not be responsible for the increase?
#54 Beowulff
July 4, 2008

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.
#55 Bernard J.
July 4, 2008

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?
#56 Lank
July 4, 2008

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.
#57 cce
July 4, 2008

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.
#58 Rattus Norvegicus
July 4, 2008

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!!!
#59 Bernard J.
July 4, 2008

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.
#60 Bernard J.
July 4, 2008

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.
#61 anthony
July 4, 2008

Demographics Lank:
The fact that there are new Aborigines every year leads me to conclude that European settlement is a myth.
#62 Barton Paul Levenson
July 5, 2008

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?
#63 Barton Paul Levenson
July 5, 2008

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.
#64 Bernard J.
July 5, 2008

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.
#65 z
July 5, 2008

‘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”?
#66 WotWot
July 5, 2008

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.
#67 Bernard J.
July 7, 2008

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.
#68 z
July 7, 2008

” 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.
#69 Bernard J.
July 7, 2008

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.
#70 Bernard J.
July 7, 2008

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…
#71 WotWot
July 7, 2008

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.
#72 Majorajam
July 8, 2008

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!
#73 Bernard J.
July 11, 2008

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.
#74 z
July 11, 2008

“Everything You Know is Wrong”
< http://www.firesigntheatre.com/albums/album.php?album=eykiw>