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Tim Lambert (deltoidblog AT gmail.com) is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales.

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ScienceBlogs upgrade

Category: meta
Posted on: January 9, 2009 12:24 PM, by Tim Lambert

ScienceBlogs is upgrading to Movable Type 4. During the upgrade process there will be no new posts or comments. Everything is supposed to be back to normal in 36 hours. What could possibly go rong?

Update: And we're back...

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Let's see if comments work...

Posted by: Tim Lambert | January 11, 2009 4:21 AM

Nuh doesn't look like it there's only the one from you ...

Posted by: dopey | January 11, 2009 5:58 AM

Are comments on previous postings disabled?

I was going to make a comment on Jon Jenkins curve fitting in the "The Australian's War on Science 31" post, but commenting on posts made before the upgrade seem to be disabled.

Anyway the point i was going to make is that the curve fitting should take into account past performance and the nature of the system being observed.

What strikes me about the graphs on the page is that the sixth degree polynomial curves give a 'leading' of false indication of future trend when compared to obvious past trends over an extended period (many years).

One problem with being keen on accurately representing the data in a 'pure' scientific sense is that in this case if the data comes to an abrupt halt, you are going to show a false trend using the curve fitting technique used in the graph. The same technique would also show a ridiculously steep upward trend if we had some hot years.

Basically to give an accurate indication you need to go beyond the actual numbers and take into account what you are actually measuring, its past history and when the data starts or ends.

Posted by: paul | January 11, 2009 7:43 AM

Dear Tim, I await with great anticipation your response to your invited comment from me on my contribution to the January 2009 issue of Quadrant.

Best

Tim

Posted by: Tim Curtin | January 11, 2009 7:45 AM

Tim Curtin, is this list relevant from your site?

Without CO2 we would not be here. If it is a pollutant, then so is water (H2O), which is the other main effluent from fossil fuel combustion We do not any of us breathe out black smoke, pace SBS and ABC. The increase in atmospheric concentration from 280 ppm in 1750 to 384 ppm at end 2007 is trivial (growth rate is c0.2% p.a.) CO2 is a fertilizer, without which we would starve.

I'm sorry, I don't have the patience to go through them coolly and rationally, they are such bad strawmen. How can a grown up man do something like that unashamed?

Maybe someone else can respond to it (for the watching audience). It would be an interesting assignment for school children.

I don't think anyone is proposing to get rid of all the CO2 in the atmosphere. Certainly not the IPCC Though I guess you could find a crank for any claim.

Basically, your list boils to this: none of your claims deal with the increase of CO2 causing global warming.

Posted by: mz | January 11, 2009 11:50 AM

Re: definition of effluent, pollution etc.

A pollutant etc. is some agent that is harmful to a species environment and was produced as a result of human activity.

Basically CO2 can be a pollutant or not. The context is important. In fact just about any agent can be a 'pollutant' in specific contexts and quantities. You could say that to much oxygen in a confined space is a pollutant to humans, since it would present a hazard (witness the first Apollo capsule inferno).

Most medical drugs are 'pollutants', they are basically poisons.

So the idea that something can never be a pollutant or can never be a problem is basically wrong and scientifically naive.

Posted by: Paul | January 11, 2009 1:07 PM

re: #5 mz Apparently Tim Curtin hasn't changed his mind since similar discussion in RealClimate in October. I killfiled him here long ago, but from your comments, it appears that he still doesn't understand Liebig's Law of the Minimum, an idea that farmkids learn by the time they're 10, if not earlier.

Deltoid's readers may be amused by TC's commentary [killfile doesn't work there] at ThingsBreak, in reply to my piece on Lomborg & misdirection tactics.

Posted by: John Mashey | January 11, 2009 1:12 PM

And, lest we forget, Tim Curtin still owes us a glimpse of his letter to Nature listing all the errors he has found in Domingues et al. How about it, Tim? It's been five months, so that letter must be in pretty good shape by now!

Posted by: jre | January 11, 2009 2:15 PM

In chemistry and pharmacy the line is that the dose makes the poison You can swallow micrograms of surprisingly dangerous things and live. Tim C otoh prescribes kilos of bull.

Posted by: Eli Rabett | January 11, 2009 3:21 PM

Hmm, comments seem to give an error message after a long wait, but they do show up eventually...

Posted by: Tim Lambert | January 11, 2009 11:28 PM

mz,

Tim Curtin is refractory to any rational scientific analysis of the relative merits and negative impacts of CO₂. Many here have tried to educate the man, but he is beyond reason in any matter remotely related to this gas.

I tried this comparison in an effort to explain to Curtin how relatively small changes in very low concentration substances can have profound impacts, but to no avail.

I am not sure that it matters though - it seems that the best Curtin can come up with in his crusade is an unreviewed opinion piece in Quadrant. If he really was able to dismantle the consensus on CO₂ effects in various scientific contexts, he'd be prominently published in a journal of vastly greater repute.

Except of course that there is a Global Conspiracy to prevent exactly this sort of enlightenment...

Posted by: Bernard J. | January 12, 2009 5:19 AM

I realise this response to Bernard J is doomed because of my banning by TL. But as a matter of fact my Quadrant article was peer reviewed, for another, academic, journal, that could not find space for it before mid-2009. Quadrant offered earlier publication, which with its larger circulation, especially in Australia, I accepted.

Posted by: Tim Curtin | January 12, 2009 7:48 AM