Matt Ridley’s first response to my post about his failed prediction was denial:
I did not write for the Globe and Mail in 1993 let alone about climate!
Then he moved onto stage 3, bargaining:
global av temp (ignoring pinatubo drop) is about 0.2C above 1991 level after 22 yrs - so I was spot on so far!
As you can see, the graph he cites shows 0.5 degrees of warming since he made his prediction, so it seems that he is applying a 0.3 degree correction for Pinatubo. Which brings us to Ridley’s next column, published in The Sunday Telegraph on 30 Jan 1994 (one month after his column with the failed prediction):
The satellites, however, tell a very different story about the 1980s (their data do not go further back). Orbiting the planet from north to south as the Earth turns beneath them, they take the temperature of the lower atmosphere using microwave sensors. By the end of 1993 the temperature was trending downwards by 0.04 of a degree per decade.
The satellite’s masters explain away this awkward fact by subtracting two volcanic eruptions (Mount Pinatubo in 1991 and El Chichon in 1982) and four El Ninos (sudden changes in the circulation of the water in the Pacific). Since they assume that all these would have cooled the atmosphere, they conclude that the 1980s did see a gradual warming of the air by 0.09 degrees: still less than a third of that recorded by the old method.
Even with this sleight of hand (and when I was a scientist I was trained not to correct my data according my preconceptions of the result), the startling truth remains that the best measure yet taken of the atmosphere has found virtually no evidence of global warming.
So according to Matt Ridley in 1994, Matt Ridley in 2013 used a “sleight of hand”, something that he was trained not to do. If we hold Matt Ridley to the standard he declared at the time of his prediction there has been 0.5 degrees of warming since he predicted that there would be just one degree by 2100.
But if we do want to know what the long term warming trend is, it is not a “sleight of hand” to remove the short term effects of volcanoes and El Nino/La Nina. It is, however, a sleight of hand for Ridley to just correct for Pinatubo and not El Nino/La Nina. Here is the graph from Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) that shows what temperature records look like if the short term effects are removed:
Using Ridley’s preferred UAH data set we see that there has been 0.4 degrees of warming since he made his prediction.
Any way you slice it, there has been much more warming that Ridley predicted. I hope this information will help him reach stage 5, acceptance.
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Ho ho - now we'll see if sauce / goose = sauce / gander!
Before coming onto this blog post, I read teh last one and thought of checking the satellite record. I found that indeed Ridley's 0.2 degrees came from Spencer and his fabled UAH.
I then noticed something even more amusing - the side of the graph is labelled as average from 1981 to 2010 - basically wiping out any connection to the more usual long term graphs used that are based on something like 1950 to 1980 or thereabouts, i forget exactly which. This serves to minimise the overal increase in temperature, especially since he mid 1970's.
I didn't realise Ridley was so anti-science as to dismiss the proven facts that la nina and volcanic eruptions have a cooling effect. Obviously the magnitude of the cooling will vary depending on the specifics of the eruption or the change in ocean circulation, but I'm pretty sure that was all quite well established by the 1990's.
guthrie
Just further on the UAH graphs from Spencer. I have a screen shot from Bolt's website from 2010, and it uses a graph from Spencer's blog.
The graph clearly states that the average used is 79-98... and now the graphs have the average 81-10.
And the average line seems to have moved. Whereas the El Nino warming top looks to be approaching 0.8 in the screenshot graph, it now looks to be approaching 0.7.
Funny that.
I wonder when Spencer changed his base line?
Sleight of hand is yours. What I said was that I never wrote for the Globe and Mail but "maybe GandM quoted something else I wrote".
Forgot to mention that did you?
Or was it a sleight of hand?
Missed the "1991" in my other tweet did you?
Or was it a sleight of hand?
Really, you must be desperate to resort to these tactics.
You wrote something. G & M published it in 1993. What you wrote was wrong.
I wonder, which of those three things is salient?
And yet, for which of those things do you offer no argument?
Joni - Haha, I just noticed that myself. Something was nagging me about the graph - why 1981 when the satellite started in 1979. I went back and looked and yes, I agree with you.
Anyone got access to the Economist state of the world thingy in 1993? It would be interesting to find out if the Globe and Mail article is any different to what was in that.
Ridley's WSJ article is indeed interesting, although I see it doesn't do what some journalists, e.g. George Monbiot do, which is to link to their evidence for specific statements in their online article, although that is probably more the WSJ's fault.
I note too that it is in the opinion section, does that mean we can understand it to just be one man's opinion with little connection to reality?
The wikipedia "Citation needed" should be sprinkled throughout the WSJ article, especially for the likes of
"A cumulative change of less than 2°C by the end of this century will do no net harm. It will actually do net good—that much the IPCC scientists have already agreed upon in the last IPCC report. Rainfall will increase slightly, growing seasons will lengthen, Greenland's ice cap will melt only very slowly, and so on."
Again, that ignores oceanic acidification and its effects on the ecology of the oceans; it assumes everything will be smooth such as rain fall increases (whereas it is clear it won't be smooth) and ignores the parts of the world where there will be decreases in rainfall.
The quotes from unnamed but impressive sources do seem to be the standard journalistic "Look at how important my sources are" trope, rathar than a serious attempt at being useful.
More will be said by others; I am not up to speed on the claims by the likes of Lewis, but the track record of Ridley does not incline me to believe them. I shall look into them when I have a chance.
Matt, your initial response was denial, just as my post says. Your tweet did say 1991. Which is a sleight of hand, since your prediction was made in 1993.
"I note too that it is in the opinion section, does that mean we can understand it to just be one man’s opinion with little connection to reality?"
You can have an opinion ABOUT facts, but you can't have an opinion OF fact. Facts get statements, not opinion.
Speaking of cherry-picking historical dates for comparison, this begs treatment from an Australian perspective Tim:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/14/global-warming-it-was-warmer-in-s…
Unsurprisingly, that piece of denialism was written by a member of the alternative government party that is half made up of denialists. The people of the Hughes electorate must be so pleased that this is how their member spends his time.
Another misinformation piece regarding the sea level rise assessment sea level rise, Gregory nov 2012.
Australian nonsense does not seem to be behind pywall
a discussion on the paper though is available at RC by stephan
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/01/sea-level-rise-wh…
The Australian's misrepresentation (Sea rise 'not linked to warming', says report) of the paper by Gregory et. al 2012 is by Murdoch's science misrepresenter Graham Lloyd.
John Church a coauthor responded here
I think Dr Church is calling Graeme Lloyd a liar.
Presumably Lloyd will scurry off to his next sliming without worrying about yet another taint being heaped upon his honour.
Honour in The Australian's editorial suites?
I think not. They've all had to drink the Kool-Aid at Uncle Rupert's behest.
It's hard to recall an example of a supposedly respectable media organization going so far out on a limb in support of sheer, unadulterated crankery. When you start dissing CSIRO and the BoM your days as a national institution are numbered.
Well, there are still plenty of Real Estate Agents and Used Car Salesmen in business. Not to mention lawyers.
We have the media we deserve, I think.
Ridley should just stop digging and shut up.
Matt Ridley:
Since nitpicking appears important to you, I don't believe TIm Lambert actually said you wrote for GandM, just that something you wrote appeared in GandM.
I wonder how desperate you need to be to ignore your most important mistake, i.e. that your prediction of 0.1 deg C of warming per decade was WAY too low, even starting from before Pinatubo.
Pretty desperate, especially compared with how desperate you claim Tim Lambert to be.
I really think you owe Matt some space to reply in kind, considering how much wiggle room you've assigned yourself ,
I'd prefer a correction before shutting up but one suspects that would limit his future opportunities with the outlets that prefer his incorrect messages.
Matt, you're a grossly dishonest sack of shit, and your irrelevant crap about exactly how your (climate) bullshit got into GandM is just a further demonstration of that.
I don’t know how anyone in this day and age can be stupid enough not to see that the world is warming, and dangerously so, all it takes is the briefest perusal of the data to see the obvious
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1997/to:2012/mean:3/offset:-…
Good to see old Rog cherry picking with 1998 as the start date. This has become the deniers new version of Little Big Horn.
Ooh, look! Roger is right!
Global warming has accelerated by a factor of 30!!!!
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1997/to:2008/trend/offset:-.2…
Thanks for pointing that out, Roger, it's amazing how the real scientists are hiding the real facts from us by mis-applying statistics.
Jeff, wipe your windows, the plot and trend line begin well before the '98 el nino, at the start of 1997. The clue is in the URL:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1997/to:2012/mean:3/offset:-…
Which part of 'from:1997' don't you understand?
I know you warmies tend to see what you pre-suppose rather than what is actually there, but really.
Vince: I was checking out the statement from the 'real scientists' that the trend over 15 years shouldn't be flat according to the climate models.
Your green trend line goes from the trough of a la nina at the start of 2008 to just past the peak of the 2010 el nino - not the present.
Cherry picking and misleading description from you. For shame.
Rog, You guys are masters of the art of cherry picking. This 'warming stopped in 1998' meme is straight from the comic books. 1998 was exceptional by any standards - an enormous El Nino, the biggest ever recorded, which probably was responsible for 0.2 C of warming on its own.
Do you people have no shame? Is this how your 'science' masquerades as intellectual discourse? Before 1998 Hansen's arguments were seen as a doomsday myth; in other words, there was no warming. The it was natual, then it stopped in 98... et al. ad nauseum. What's in your next bag of tricks?
Jeff: This ‘warming stopped in 1998′ meme is straight from the comic books.
No, it's straight from the data, if you give blunt instruments like linear regression any credence.
A slightly more sophisticated analysis would be that the warm half of the ~60 yr oceanic cycle topped out around 2004, and air temperatures lag behind SST on the global average by a number of months.
In any case, the '98 el nino was a natural event. ENSO has been a feature of the climate system since long before man set fire to coal. There were some big ones around solar minimum in the late C19th soon after the Sun went quieter then too.
So what Rog is saying is that, if you factor out certain natural variations, it has warmed since 1998 or maybe 1997, even if you cherrypick RSS lower troposphere and ignore surface temperatures!.
They really don't want to look at HADCRUT4 then. It's warming even faster than RSS lower troposphere is!
Good to know. There are a whole lot of people who need to hear that from you, Rog. You'll get right on that, I'm sure?
Or you can try the denialists' previous favourite satellite record: UAH (lower troposphere).
Shit, that's warming too! Lucky Rog didn't pick that one for his graph, eh?!
Or you could try this GISTEMP data.
Warming too! Rog luckily avoided that one too!
And...once you subtract out Rog's "natural variation caused extra warming prior to 2004, but isn't any more", the underlying trend is EVEN MORE WARMING THAN THE TRENDLINE ON THOSE GRAPHS SHOWS!
Thanks Rog! I'm, like, totally convinced now!
Speaking of Dunning-Kruger...
Lotharsson: let the chips fall where they may, I follow the evidence, not a credo. My understanding of the climate system is that we would expect the oceans to carry on kicking out enough energy to keep the lower troposphere warm for some time to come. After all they were absorbing more solar energy than the long term average for seven decades before the Sun went sleepy-byes in 2005.
There's a goodly amount of thermal inertia in the climate system so far as the easily warmed air is concerned. Resting your theory of climate on air temperatures is for air-heads, and 'real scientists' overly obsessed with atmospheric physics.
The ocean is the big dog on the block when it comes to heat capacity. Before the latest round of 'adjustments' in late 2011, ARGO was showing a fall in ocean heat content from 2004. I suspect that is the reality still. If so, then while the continuing warm ocean-heated lower trop and near surface temps lull people into thinking warming of the whole-Earth systm is continuing, the end of the run of el ninos in another decade or so will reveal the harsh reality of a cooler world.
Nature is now performing the crucial experiment our insufficiently accurate instruments can't decide. During the late C20th, temperature was rising, co2 was rising, and the Sun was at a well above average level of activity.
Now, co2 continues to rise, the Sun has gone sleepy-byes and the temperature trend has flattened out.
There is a correlation between low solar activity and increased volcanic activity.
Place your bets. I have $1000 on the trend from 2005 to 2020 being downwards.
Rog, your argument is inane. Whatever about short term "pauses" in rate, the earth's climate system is not in thermal equilibrium and energy in > energy out. Simple physics says the earth will warm over the long term until that becomes equality or reverses iself. Heat sequestered in the oceans will come back.
Er, no, that doesn't seem to be the case. That's why you chose RSS and didn't point out any of the others, and why you DIDN'T point out that your 60-year oceanic cycle theory means the underlying surface warming trend is even larger than the trendline on the graphs.
Well, unless I've missed something they're still accumulating rather a lot of energy right now, far more than the atmosphere is. Not sure why you think the sun stopped warming them in 2005. (Ever pondered just how much energy it takes to melt a large volume of Arctic sea ice?)
Did you notice that you had just alleged the opposite - that the lower trop hasn't warmed since about 1997? And that your previous comment about 60 year ocean cycles undermines your own "it hasn't warmed since 1997" thing? But now you're back to arguing that the lower trop is part of the evidence that will falsely convince people it's really still warming?
Which one of you wins when you argue with yourself?
(And hey Bernard, here's someone willing to bet on climate skepticism. Make him your standard offer!)
Here's a trenchant article for Tall Rog.
Won't make any difference, of course.
And CO2.
'sfunny how you forgot that.
With more CO2 and sun, hotter.
With more CO2 and less sun, not colder.
Since more sun == hotter (you DO agree with that, right?), then "less sun == colder", right?
Therefore not colder is warmer than colder. More CO2 is warming.
I note that when it comes to YOUR ideas, Roggie, there's no such thing as "correlation != causation".
You aren't using a different standard than one you demand of others, are you?
And he totally follows the evidence - except when he doesn't like it, and then he "suspects" something other than what it shows.
[off topic - deleted TL]
Stepping outside your field of incompetence there, Drongo?
As you can see, the graph he cites shows 0.5 degrees of warming since he made his prediction, so it seems that he is applying a 0.3 degree correction for Pinatubo.
Hang on a second, the UAH shows 0.3 degrees of warming since 1993:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1993/to:2013/mean:3/offset:-…
That equates to about 0.15 degrees per decade. Since the prediction was for warming over a century, isn't it a little disingenuous to pick out 2 decades of very noisy data to say the claim was wrong? If you go further back to 1983:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1983/to:2013/mean:3/offset:-…
...you get about 0.45 degrees of warming, still only around 0.15 degrees per decade.
If you go back 60 years you have to use a broader range of temperature series such as HADCRUT4 and you get:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1953/to:2013/mean:3/of…
or about 0.65 degrees of warming or about 0.108 degrees per decade. Which is pretty much what he said. Ah but temperature rise is accelerating? Well if we are using decades to as way markers then it doesn't look like it either:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2003/to:2013/mean:3/of…
So at least from the data it doesn't look like he is far off the mark at all.
What are you folks going to do when we have another large El Nino and/or the sun comes bouncing back? Even Pat Michaels has warned you lot about carrying on like this...
Aw, you know what the drill is by now bill.
When it's warming so clearly even they can't deny it "Look, there's natural variation at work. Don't even think about anthropogenic forcing!"
And when it's not warming that clearly it's "Look, it's not warming [much]. There's nothing to worry about, especially not anthropogenic forcing!"
Perfect epistemic closure, or in simple terms "heads it's the sun, tails it's not us".
Is it perhaps the case they believe that if every denier says the same thing at the same time it will come true? The crankosphere is giving this meme maximum effort at present (until the next one).
Chek, that could also be the case if they all share the same small set of brain cells ;-)
Toby: the earth’s climate system is not in thermal equilibrium and energy in > energy out.
Can you tell me which OLR dataset you're looking at please. The one I'm looking at shows an increase in OLR over the last 30 years.
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/olr3.png
Thanks
Matt R is so hard up for a climate science audience he has resorted to a denier website to post a rather silly 'rebuttal'. The site is called wattsupwiththat (wuwt) - I doubt too many people here would frequent it (it's full of anti-science articles dumbed down even further for the illiterati).
Readers at wuwt say 'CO2 is plant food' and the world is heading for an ice age any day now, (ie when they aren't saying 'it's the sun' or 'cosmic rays' or 'ENSO'), so his 'lukewarmerism' probably won't get a good reception there either.
"So what Rog is saying is that, if you factor out certain natural variations, it has warmed since 1998 or maybe 1997, even if you cherrypick RSS lower troposphere and ignore surface temperatures!."
Rog Tallbloke just goes with the evidence, after carefully selecting the evidence he wants to see. Every decade for the past forty years has been warmer than the previous one.
Hmmm, so what exactly is the connection between Outgoing Long Wave radiation and global temperatures? Enquiring minds want to know!
Meanwhile, on planet earth, the oceanic heat content keeps increasing, which wouldn't happen if everything was cooling down. http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2012/04/22/comment-on-ocean-heat-…
Really? You should take your evidence and the physics that supports it and visit the thread here:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/resolving-met-office-confusion.html
where exactly your sort of graphing is debunked.
And on the matter of your projected cooling to 2020... do you think that this will also be reflected in the trend in Arctic sea ice?
"My understanding of the climate system is that we would expect the oceans to carry on kicking out enough energy to keep the lower troposphere warm for some time to come."
Your understanding is deeply flawed.
guthrie
January 16, 2013
Hmmm, so what exactly is the connection between Outgoing Long Wave radiation and global temperatures? Enquiring minds want to know!
I'm asking Toby to clarify his claim that:
" the earth’s climate system is not in thermal equilibrium and energy in > energy out."
By showing me the OLR dataset he used to make his claim. Once we've dealt with that, I'll move on to the next issue raised.
No point discussing climate science with tallbloke. AFAIK he's been on about climate for years but still hasn't even got to first base - not understanding that there is now less energy going out to space than is coming in from the sun.
It's called denial.
Rog, I've got popcorn now.
Please explain how one uses an OLR trend to determine the current magnitude of any energy imbalance in the earth's climate system.
Bonus points for explaining why your picture has what appears to be a quadratic curve fit.
Double bonus points if you mention "Tim Curtin".
Well, so many comments dripping with sarc, but no links to fundamental data. I thought you warmies were in touch with the 'real scientists'.
The OLR data I found shows an approx 2.5W/m^2 increase in OLR from the top of the atmosphere out into space since around 1985. So for Toby to be correct in his claim that:
"the earth’s climate system is not in thermal equilibrium and energy in > energy out.”
It would mean 'energy in' would have increased by more than 2.5W/m^2 over the period 1985-2003. We know the Sun was highly active compared to the rest of the historical record since 1749 during this period, but the peak amplitudes of the cycles were falling, even if the minima were brief and the up/down ramps steep.
So that leaves the reduction in tropical low cloud cover measured by the ISCCP as a possible culprit.
Can anyone offer other possible sources of increased incoming energy?
"but no links to fundamental data."
There were plenty.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2012/04/22/comment-on-ocean-heat-…
http://www.skepticalscience.com/resolving-met-office-confusion.html
"Or you could try this GISTEMP data."
"They really don’t want to look at HADCRUT4 then"
But your response?
Which rather explains why there's so little linking to data in responses to you: you ignore anything inconvenient. So why link to it?
Wow, I'm asking Toby for his OLR data, wait your turn.
We need to start with the basics before we move on to ocean heat content. While we're waiting, you can read this though, which will help explain my interest in OLR.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/working-out-where-the-energy-…
The original article is from SKS, so you should be in your comfort zone.
Isn't it a bit premature to call a 20 year old prediction "wrong" when it relates to a century of warming?
That's like calling the ballgame over with one out in the bottom of the 2nd inning.
"Wow, I’m asking Toby for his OLR data, wait your turn."
No, you whinged:
“but no links to fundamental data.”
There have been plenty.
When you are given any more, what's to say you won't just ignore those too?
But I guess thought is an anathema to you.
Wow, you're sounding like a petulant child, slow down and suck your thumb for a bit, while you read at the link I provided above.
ROFLMAO! You apparently don't even understand basic arithmetic inferences and you're opining about climate science?
Glad I got the popcorn. This is looking to be even more hilariously fallacious than Jo Nova ever was.
So in your world if (say) your spouse said "Rog, we're spending more than we make this year", you would show her your payslips for the last couple of years and say "but I got a thousand quid raise last year, so we can't be unless you can show that our spending went up at least a thousand quid since then"? Would she believe you? Or would she point to the financial statements and show that outgoings > incomings?
And if they did show outgoings were greater than incomings even though they had NOT increased more than a thousand quid since last year, would you back her claim or still assert yours?
You're right that we've got to start with the basics - like basic arithmetic from primary school. Or at the very least, elaborating on the hidden assumptions that you might be using to make your requirement valid.
"slow down and suck your thumb for a bit,"
So, unable to think and annoyed at your ignorance being displayed, you turn to pretence?
Apparently English is not your native language. Here it is again:
You have been given many links to data and you have ignored every single one.
Hence nobody can be arsed putting effort into saying something you demand but will never acknowledge.
Now put your nappies on and stop yelling "wanna wee wee!".
"Or would she point to the financial statements and show that outgoings > incomings? "
Please do show me the empirical data which demonstrates that:
“the earth’s climate system is not in thermal equilibrium and energy in > energy out.”
Ah, that's much better, Rog.
Now, are you unaware of the data scientists use when making this claim? If you're going to argue the scientists are wrong, you need to address their actual case.
Lotharsson: Please stop playing hide and seek and just show me the data.
thanks.
I'm not playing hide and seek. I'm just not doing your homework for you.
I'm trying to ascertain if you know what the mainstream research concludes on this, or if you're entirely ignoring it. The proportion of "skeptics" who who come here and do the latter is astonishing.
Lotharsson: I've already done homework, and provided a link to a plot of TOA outgoing OLR which shows that OLR has increased, not decreased over the last 28 years.
If increasing co2 is decreasing OLR as the AGW theoreticians claim, then the effect is being more than offset by other factors
QED.
I have offered thoughts on what those factors may be: Reduced low tropical cloud cover as EMPIRICALLY measured by ISPCC would allow more sunlight into the oceans, leading to greater emission of energy as OLR
I have asked if you have any other factors which could have increased 'energy in'.
Since when, you have been fidgeting around the bit. Feel free to summarise what mainstream research concludes on this.
I have a question for Mr. Bigshot Tim Lambert.
What about the hard fact that current GAT is below the historical average, and atmospheric co2 is below the historic average?
That's a diamond hard fact Timmy. And the typical response of "humans weren't alive then" or "well it hasn't been this warm for thousands of years" are nothing but amateur cherry picks. Earth doesn't care about humanities lifespan, it's inanimate and has existed for far longer than humans. In fact arguing solely from the perspective of humanities existence smacks of creationism, Timmy.
This doesn't prove energy in > energy out.
A solution of energy out increasing LESS THAN THE DIFFERENCE between energy in and out 28 years ago will still produce what you claim without changing the claim of energy imbalance TOA.
Apparently maths isn't your thing.
Wow, apparently, reading what people wrote and comprehending it isn't your thing.
Earlier I said:
"The OLR data I found shows an approx 2.5W/m^2 increase in OLR from the top of the atmosphere out into space since around 1985. So for Toby to be correct in his claim that:
“the earth’s climate system is not in thermal equilibrium and energy in > energy out.”
It would mean ‘energy in’ would have increased by more than 2.5W/m^2 over the period 1985-2003. We know the Sun was highly active compared to the rest of the historical record since 1749 during this period, but the peak amplitudes of the cycles were falling, even if the minima were brief and the up/down ramps steep.
So that leaves the reduction in tropical low cloud cover measured by the ISCCP as a possible culprit.
Can anyone offer other possible sources of increased incoming energy?"
Which, as I've pointed out by analogy, would only show that outgoing >= incoming if you can COMPARE it to incoming. You have not done so here so your inference about energy imbalance is not valid.
So you have clearly NOT done your homework on that question.
Nope, I read that just fine. it is how I concluded that you can't do maths.
If Ein-Eout was greater than 2.5W/m2 28 years ago, Eout can increase by 2.5W/m2 and still remain in imbalance.
There would be NO NEED AT ALL for Ein to change upward.
From which it is entirely accurate to claim you can't or don't do maths.
Nor is there a need for OLR to decrease.
Rog, apparently comprehension isn't your strong suit. When you respond to Wow by reiterating:
you are (a) STILL asserting a fallacious inference, and (b) explicitly denying his pointing out the fallacy.
You can't infer a current difference between two quantities by looking at a historical change in only one of them.
It's basic arithmetic.
But bonus points for condescending about Wow's comprehension in a reply where you clearly failed to comprehend his point.
So are you happy with the idea that the increase in co2 hasn't increased the climate forcing it allegedly exerts over the last 28 years?
BTW Rog, since we're discussing your innumeracy, how about that claim that "OLR has increased by 2.5W/m^2 over 30 years".
Your graph shows no such thing.
If you take the "Linear (13 mo Mvg-Avg)" line which is presumably a linear trend fitted to what is presumably the 13 month moving average of approximately 0.85 W/m^2 between 1980 and 2010.
Or are you merely comparing endpoints 30 years apart and ignoring the trend?
(See now why I asked if you knew what the scientists case was and what data it used?)
And since we were speaking of your innumeracy, why the heck do you fit a trend to a moving average? That doesn't seem like good statistical practice - it weights samples towards the ends differently from those away from the ends. If that's what you're doing, it isn't even a trend line.
And why the heck did you fit what looks like might be a quadratic?
No.
We can measure the direct forcing fairly directly. You're trying to infer it from measurements that are confounded by other factors. That's not very smart.
(And for all I know you're using a data set that isn't suitable for trend calculations. Why do you think I asked you what the scientists' case is built upon?)
Why should we be happy with an incorrect statement?
Are you happy with this?
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n10/full/ngeo1580.html?WT.mc_id=T…
drlumpusspookytoothphd says:
"atmospheric co2 is below the historic average"
What an asinine remark. Get this through your herad, thicko: its NOT what the concentrarion of C02 in the atmosphere is BUT HOW LONG IT TOOK TO GET THERE. Repeat 50 times before bed.
What this means is that the planet's biota evolved under relatively stable short-medium term C02 regimes. Certainly concentrations of atmospheric C02 have been higher in the past, but it took many thousands or even millions of years to get it there and it took an equally long time for it to decrease. We are talking about changes that normally take times measured in geological time scales occurring in one or two human generations. And, most importantly, the highest biological diversity the planet has yet housed evolved under low atmospheric C02 concentrations. By driving up these concentrations at scales far exceeding what nature itself can manifest, humans are conducting a single non-repeatable experiment. The outcome of this experiment could be dire for much of the planet's diversity and, consequently, for us.
How many idiotic remarks are the anti-scientific denial brigade capable of spewing forth? From what I have seen, it seems that their barrel of ignorance is bottomless.
Wow, thanks for the link to the paper.
The only thing I Don't understand so far is how they think the error on the empirical measurements of TOA energy balance is constrained to 0.6 +/- 0.4W/m^2 when the observations of OLR are +/-3.3W/m^2.
That error is in line with the other papers I've read.
“atmospheric co2 is below the historic average”
Really?
History covers the period over which written records were kept. That makes it up to (generously) 5,000 years.
What has the CO2 been over that period?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Co2-temperature-plot.svg
As we all know, those 'adjustments' were made by the Great Conspiracy.
By the way, climate models don't predict noise. And when it comes to noise, global average temperature knows how to put it on.
And what we don't understand how you think that means there is no imbalance.
Here's a little idea for you.
Read the paper.
@Lotharsson
no, we can't measure the forcingd directly at all, you have no idea what you're talking about. You cannot measure radiative forcing because in order to do it, you would have to hold certain parts of the climate system in a "fixed" state. The surface temperatures and tropospheric temperatures respond to radiation changes within seconds. If you think it can measured accurately, you're a fool. Not to mention, the IPCC's definition of the tropopause is shoddy.
What? When did I say there's no imbalance?
There's always an imbalance. At the moment, it's not in the direction you warmies think it is, that's all.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/working-out-where-the-energy-…
drlumpusspookytoothphd"
What your scientific pedigree? Oh, let me guess... from the back of a cereal box. You're just another graduate of the Dunning-Kruger school of bloated self- over estimation.
Tallbloke, get off of your non-peer-reviewed hobby horse and let us see some primary literature. Your weblog doesn't make the grade.
Its amazing how deniers seem to think that science is the online variety. Question Rog: have you ever, in your life, attended or given a lecture at an international conference or workshop where climate change is discussed and debated? Heartland bashes or other think-tank sponsored gatherings don't count.
Jeff Harvey, the height of your horse is matched only by the shallowness of your discourse.
Well, this has to be the silliest argument and waste of a lot of energy I've seen in a while. Isn't there, I don't know, a margin of error to be considered here? We are measuring temps to the best of our abilities, but we certainly know each system we use to do that is not perfect by any means.
And this is a statistical exercise that has a lot of natural variability built in. I mean, really. If the average temps dip in the next three months, then at that point Mr Ridley will be able to expand on Mr. Lambert's graph and say "See! I WAS right!". And statistically, he would be. Same for Mr Lambert if the monthly temps go up. Being able to show a .02 percent difference either way in a chaotic non-linear system is not exactly a breakthrough moment either way.
PS. I've been following this debate since 1992. Both sides in this debate cherry-pick, and have for a very long time. No one is pure as the driven snow in that regard.
"You cannot measure radiative forcing"
You can measure radiation.
Thanks for that Rog. What you are saying is, no, I've never attended a conference or workshop, let alone spoken at one. I don't publish my Earth-shattering science in the scientific literature. My science is blog science. Period.
I also found that you spend a lot of your time writing pure drivel. Lots of it is here:
http://beforeitsnews.com/contributor/pages/48/432/stories.html
This piffle was particularly egregious:
http://beforeitsnews.com/science-and-technology/2012/10/first-uk-snowfa…
You write this kindeergarten level stuff and expect to be taken seriously? By who? Smurfs?
Wodger, there's no horse.
"There’s always an imbalance."
And it's Ein > Eout.
As an addendum, Rog, you makle the ridiculous remark, 'Where is the global warming'after a 1 cm snowfall in November. And you expect to be taken seriously. Again, I am sure that most reputable climate scientists have never heard of you, and if they have, you are rightfully ignored.
Addend away Jeff, you are making more of a wanker of yourself than usual.
And that's a call from an expert!
True, I was hasty and expressed it sloppily. Wow's succinct summary was pretty good.
What I meant was we have directly observed things like TOA spectra and downward directed longwave radiation spectra changing over time in ways that are pretty consistent with the basic understanding of changing atmospheric CO2's effect on longwave IR.
Rog is ignoring these obvious signs of increasing CO2 having a forcing effect and trying to infer from far more indirect methods (apparently trying to infer that it either does not have the effect scientists say it does - based on those measurements, amongst other things - or maybe just that something else has an even bigger effect on OLR).
And he still hasn't explained why he claimed 2.5 W/m^2 when the graph clearly shows a lot less - and when the "linear trend" appears to be wrongly calculated.
(That, and his graph has no data source and no confidence intervals.)
Jeff, if I'm not mistaken lumpus is one of Eli Rabbett's trolls. Funny how the reinforcements turned up here after Ridley chickened out ;-)
@lotharsson
that was a decent response
@WOW and Jeff Harvey
so WOW is going to take the creationist perspective and pretend the world began 5,000 years ago.
Jeff Harvey claims the only that is important is how long it takes co2 to accumulate in the atmosphere. I am not going to respond to WOW, he clearly bested me in this debate.
@Jeff Harvey
I suggest you take a look at geologic history, you will find that co2 levels have almost always been higher, so that is proof that we can let additional co2 accumulate. Understand that does not mean I am saying we can add co2 forever. I am simply of the opinion that the earth can manage exponentially higher values of co2.
And I saw the comment on the next page, yes I do comment at Eli Rabetts, I would not say I am the cavalry for Matt Ridley, as I'm not defending him.
" I am simply of the opinion that the earth can manage exponentially higher values of co2".
Well I'm sure you and your idealised version of Earth will remain very happy together.
In the meantime human civilisation will be coping with a rapidly changing climate disrupting weather patterns and wreaking havoc with agriculture, ocean acidification punching holes in ocean food chains and sea level rise affecting that proportion of humanity that lives in coastal regions and all in the geological blink of an eye.
The Earth will manage just fine. The rest of us ... not so well.
Lumpus, you are the one who made an incorrect statement about the historical record.
(Apparently without knowing what "historical" means. Oh, the joys of post-modernist thinking!).
Not only is the current concentration of CO2 higher than at any time in the historical record, it is at its highest for not far off 1 million years.
Drlumpy,
Re-read my post. It is NOT the concentration of C02 that matters for the biosphere but the RATE at which concentrations change. Of course concentrations of this gas have been higher in the geological record but to get where they were took many millions of years; humans are rapidly altering this composition in the blink of an evolutionary and geological eye.
Humans are altering other natural processes that normally play themselves out over immense periods of time in a century or even less. We are stressing systems to the breaking point and are expecting them to respond adaptively.
Vince also sums it up above.
"I am simply of the opinion that the earth can manage exponentially higher values of co2."
On what empirical evidence do you base this flippant remark? Do you even remotely understand how complex adaptive systems evolve, assemble and function? Clearly not, and you will be hard pressed to find any qualified scientist make such an absurd 'guess'. I am certainly not one of them.
Jeff could also add that spectacularly fast increases in atmospoheric CO2 levels, similar to the one that is currently in progress, can be detected in the geological record.
Want to guess what kind of ecological events accompany these fast increases of CO2?
What do you mean by 'exponentially'? You really should not use words that you don't understand - it makes you look foolish. People have assumed you just meant 'very much higher'. If so, you should have written that instead of trying to appear 'scientific'.
Tallbloke:
Don't you just hate it when people do that?
Have you figured out why real scientists disagree with virtually everything you say yet?
Lumpus:
You demonstrate with that simple sentence that you are far too ignorant to have an opinion worth listening to.
That's what you get for hanging out at crank-blogs instead of getting your information from honest and trustworthy sources.
"so WOW is going to take the creationist perspective and pretend the world began 5,000 years ago. "
History started 5000 years ago.
That you don't know what words means is merely because you're an idiot.
Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there we go.
It's true, Lumpus just doesn't know what words mean.
Lucky he's a scientific genius, though, or you might be excused for thinking he's a semi-educated halfwit devoted to an uninformed contrarian position on a subject he knows nothing about.
***
Wow, wouldn't it be more accurate to say that *Ancient* History began about 5,000 years ago (I'd have said closer to 6,000, but whatever).
And *History* started around 2,500 years ago?
I'd always thought Homer sat roughly on the cusp of the two?
Either way, those Greeks kept immaculate CO2 data.
Aye, though in potentia, you COULD have history going back 5000 years.
IIRC the only history we have going that far is "How much tax was collected".
spunkytooth also thinks history == existence.
Dinosaurs didn't teach or read about history. They still existed.
FTW!
Ignoring the stupidities in this statement pointed out by others above...
...the earth has also "managed" sea levels something like 120m higher than the present day's, courtesy of warming in large part due to higher CO2 levels.
Then there's the research suggesting that in the 4-6 C warming range the earth may no longer be able to sustain a global civilisation - or a population of more than about a billion humans.
The woolly concept of "the earth can manage it", if we interpret it quite charitably, does not seem to be closely aligned in the real world with "most of humanity can manage it".
It looks like Roger is quite comfortable with his theory of the conspiracy to manipulate ocean heat content data.
Roger seems quite comfortable with the oddities on his OLR graph too.
So, rather than engage in rigorous scientific debate here with Tim, Ridley has taken the coward's way out and written a nonsensical post on a fake skeptic site known for promoting BS and for censoring commentators who have the temerity to challenge the nonsensical opinions put forward by Ridley et al..
A desperate play by Ridley. It also shows that he is more interested in "messaging" than getting his facts right on a subject that he is not qualified to speak to.
Ridley's choice of venue reflects his own assessment of his content.
That was a very limp defense. Rog doesn't seem very convinced by his own argument.
Not again.
How many times do we have to go through this - the planet can tolerate lots of CO2, being covered in ice, big hits from space debris, anything anyone like to think of? Nobody cares!!
We know the rock we live on will last as long as its solar system allows it to. We know the planet's survived being covered in ice and having no ice, being covered in forests and having little to no living organisms. It doesn't matter.
What does matter is that this thin film of liquid water, accumulated ice and widespread plants and animals on the surface of the planet has only ever supported a large population of humans in one particular, quite narrow, range of all the climate options available. (Anybody who protests the description of "thin" to describe the surface living material and water should check the numbers. What proportion of the planet's surface is covered by water? What proportion of the planet's mass consists of water? Play with those numbers however you like.)
We're perfectly capable of gradually acclimatising to geological time-scale changes. We should be very cautious about getting the rates of geological carbon release/sequestration so far out of whack that we're messing with the onset and duration of ice ages.
Rose and Hansen seem to be on the same page:
"The five-year mean global temperature has been flat for the last decade, which we interpret as a combination of natural variability and a slow down in the growth rate of net climate forcing. - James Hansen et al."
;-)
Olaus left this bit out.
;)
So, John, Olaus was lying when he said Rose was on the same page as Hansen?
Say it ain't so?!
Graham Lloyd, the climate science misrepresenter who wrote the story on sea level in The Australian now admits he got it wrong. The online version of the article has been pulled and the usual small apology buried in an inside page has been printed.
http://www.readfearn.com/2013/01/the-australian-admits-it-misinterprete…
James Hansen "Global Temperature Update Through 2012"
O'laugh also left out
Leaving the moron to one side, the paper is worth a read as he discusses how aerosols (think Beijing smog) continue to be a source of uncertainty in determining climate forcing.
In the voice of the yoof: Epic Fail!
Any minute now we'll see a similar retraction from our local Deniers...
...
(Ha Ha!)
One media regulation I really would like to see is that retractions should receive identical billing to the initial erroneous article. Particularly in circumstances like these.
The uncertainties are the most important part for anybody truly interested in risk management....
Bill,
+1
Canada has a law about truth in publishing.
We should get the same, and that is something Gillard should have been driving at as a consequence of the exposure of News' flagrantly lawless behaviour during the year that was.
Mike provides a link to Graham Redfearn's article on this event.
Below Graham's article appears a comment which is one of the most apt observations I have read for a long time.
While we carry on here playing whack-a-mole, the Australian is engaged on a very serious and well-considered campaign of disinformation and lies.
They don't even care about their credibility any more - their only worth is their worth as an organ of political disinformation.
Utterly disgraceful, and the government should fuck them up as soon as possible.
Lotharsson
January 16, 2013
Rog is ignoring these obvious signs of increasing CO2 having a forcing effect and trying to infer from far more indirect methods (apparently trying to infer that it either does not have the effect scientists say it does – based on those measurements, amongst other things – or maybe just that something else has an even bigger effect on OLR).
Clearly, If OLR has been increasing when additional co2 is supposed to have the opposite effect on it, then something else is involved in forcing the climate system. That's just elementary logic.
(That, and his graph has no data source and no confidence intervals.)
Which is why I came and asked, respectfully at first, if anyone had a link to another OLR dataset.
OK
Perhaps it will be easier all round if you could all make a selection of writers whose qualifications are not to your satisfaction and who do not write about 'mainstream science'
Then I will know to shun them in the future.
The old Roman Catholic idea of the 'Index Librorum Prohibitorum' (qv) cans serve as your model. Here, to get you started, are some of the names already there:
Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Voltaire, Denis Diderot, Victor Hugo, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, André Gide, Immanuel Kant, David Hume, René Descartes, Francis Bacon, John Milton, John Locke, Galileo Galilei, Blaise Pascal.
To which we can now add
Matt Ridley, Anthony Watts, Steve McIntyre, Andrew Montford, Donna LaFramboise, Roger Peilke, Roger Longstaff, David Holland, Richard Betts, Bjorn Lomborg, Richard Lindzen, Chris Monckton, Chris Booker, Mark Lynas.............
Feel free to keep adding, mes braves!
My brief experience of working with military types taught me that the surefire way to get something read is to slap 'Banned' and/or 'Top Secret' on it.
Still failing to understand that which you do not wish to understand latte.
I realise that if thinking doesn't give you the answer you want to hear you don't want to think, but try to overcome that prejudice.
"If OLR has been increasing when additional co2 is supposed to have the opposite effect on it"
Do you have ANY idea what "Warming" means?
Wodger, here's some clue for you. Feel free to take as much as you can handle.
When CO2 is introduced, it traps heat, cooling the TOA and reducing the Eout.
If Ein remains the same, or at least higher than Eout, then the planet will warm.
Which warms the TOA eventually. Even though CO2 cools it, the response is to balance out by warming up.
This warming will increase Eout until it is the same as Ein, at which point the global balance is now reattained AT A HIGHER TEMPERATURE.
This is why humans don't spontaneously combust when putting a TOG13 duvet on the bed.
Do you have ANY idea what “Warming” means?
Sure. Do you understand that I was responding to Toby's assertion that:
the earth’s climate system is not in thermal equilibrium and energy in > energy out. ?
"When CO2 is introduced, it traps heat, cooling the TOA and reducing the Eout.
If Ein remains the same, or at least higher than Eout, then the planet will warm.
Which warms the TOA eventually. Even though CO2 cools it, the response is to balance out by warming up."
Oh my, this is going to take a while to unravel.
You are aware the MET Office dataset for the stratosphere has recently been falsified - Yes?
First we need to find out if OLR is actually increasing. So far you've provided an unsourced graph with dubious curve fits and you've verbally overstated the rise over 30 years in whatever quantity the graph actually shows by a factor of 3.
Not a good start for your argument.
(I also have a vague memory that some data sources for OLR may not be suitable for trend analysis, so you've first got to ensure that yours is.)
Latimer, There's a difference between 'banning' something and taking what is written as 'gospel'.
Perhaps you don't know it, but pretty well everyone you listed in the science section above has little or no pedigree in environmental science. Lindzen certainly does in climate science, but he was once on the corporate payroll and his views fall well outside those of most of his peers. The rest are a hodge-poidge mixture of pseudos, and on that basis the question must be asked - what do these untrained greenhorns know that has miraculously escaped the scientific community writ large? What is their connection?
I certainly think there is one, although some of them are more strongly associated with an idealogical (= political, economic) bias (e.g. Lindzen, McIntyre, LaFramboise, Montford, Ridley), whereas others just like to be in the limelight and find that going against the current enables them to bypass the normally long slog to academic proiminence and gives them their 15 minutes of fame (e.g. Lomborg, Lynas).
I do find you rather flippant remark of qualifications to undermine the obvious thrust of your post. I know what you are trying to say - that these writers are only criticized because of what they say and not on their lack of qualifications - but as a well published scientist I can assure you that you are wrong. If the vast majority of statured scientists are on one side of a debate and a much smaller number of less qualified others are on the other side of the debate, you need to ask yourself why? The most common yet feeble explanation coming from the denial camp is that scientists depend on grants for their research, and that to land these grants they need to conjure up scary scenarios to get funded. A few others have come to the equally absurd conclusion that we're mostly a bunch of far left ex-communists who want to push for global government. What else cab they say? But one thing is for sure - climate change deniers and other anti-environmental groups wear their idealogical hearts on their sleeves a lot more than their supposed opponents do. Thanks to the internet and the corporate media they've been able to camouflage it better. You'll rarely read an article in the media which the funding or affiliations of a deniers are mentioned, although many of them are linked with strongly free-market corporate funded think tanks. Moreover, in these articles you'll often see a lone but qualified scientist interviewed on one side and a much less qualified person interviewed on the other, misleadingly called an 'expert'. The media gives the impression of the issue being divided down the middle, which in the case of the mainstream opinion on AGW it most certainly is not.
"You are aware the MET Office dataset for the stratosphere has recently been falsified – Yes?"
I am unsurprised you claim this.
And I am unsurprised that you decided to drop this non sequitur in here. Nothing I said has ANYTHING to do with a dataset by ANYONE.
"Do you understand that I was responding to Toby’s assertion that:
the earth’s climate system is not in thermal equilibrium and energy in > energy out. ?"
Yes. And another non sequitur.
That you don't understand the physics is entirely obvious.
Tim: Ein > Eout.
Monkey Boy: Eout is increasing! CO2 is suppsoed to reduce Eout.
Me: CO2 reduces Eout and that causes warming which then increases Eout until it equals Ein.
Monkey Boy: Burble hurble vurple.
The extent of your lack of grasp of not only English but science is staggering.
Lotharsson
January 17, 2013
First we need to find out if OLR is actually increasing. So far you’ve provided an unsourced graph with dubious curve fits
Agreed. Which is your preferred dataset?
Latimer, you're indulging in yet another strawman.
No-one is saying ban those authors.
No-one is even saying to shun them - except perhaps if you're in the business of hiring science journalists, and you actually expect them to fairly represent the science, or if you're looking for someone not likely to misrepresent the science to you and you don't have the scientific skills to figure out their misrepresentations yourself.
The latter was the point.
Are you recommending those without scientific skills read journalists with a history of misrepresentation? If so, why?
I'm confused.
I thought you were making a case here?
Please proceed.
" "First we need to find out if OLR is actually increasing. So far you’ve provided an unsourced graph with dubious curve fits"
Agreed"
So when you complained that nobody here was giving data, you were including yourself, right?
"No-one is even saying to shun them"
Although if your time is not available, a bollocks detector to delegate the "likely bollocks" stuff to a "some other time" queue is helpful.
And that is something that is built up from experience with previous claims that have been examined and found far too often for mere mistake, to be a load of crap.
WUWT links would be a good indicator. Own-blog sourcing of all stuff stated another.
Linking to reputable-seeming locations that, upon further investigation turn out to countermand the claim made by the person saying it supports them is a common one too.
Yep, and this applies even if you have the skills to wade through it and do the background checking to figure out if it's bollocks or not.
Pre-publication peer review serves much the same function - a communally distributed bollocks detector so researchers can spend less time on bollocks, and hopefully more time on the good stuff.
Toby not Tim.
Lotharsson
January 17, 2013
I’m confused.
I know.
I'll try to help.
You complain about the data I have, pointing out some deficiencies. Fair enough.
But you seem to be bare arsed, no data of your own at all.
Wow linked to a paper with a figure for OLR but no time series.
So it seems the data I offered, warts and all, is the only show in town. So if you don't like my data, but won't provide your own, we have nothing to discuss, and you can stop wasting my time.
You seem to have nothing at all, Wodger.
Why did you come here claiming stuff when you had nothing at all to back it up, Wodge?
RT:
Energy imbalance, which is the bottom line regarding OLR, can be derived using ocean heat content. A citation for this has already been supplied.
@jeff harvey
Forgive me if I've misunderstood, but the whole thrust of your argument seems to be about the attributes of the people proposing the arguments, not about the arguments themselves..
..'no pedigree in environmental science...'
'...on the corporate payroll...'
'....a hodge-podge mixture of pseudos'
'...untrained greenhorns.'
'...linked with strongly free-market corporate funded think tanks..;
which you contrast unfavourably with
'...the long slog to academic prominence....' and
'...the vast majority of statured scientists...'
'...a lone but qualified scientist...'
Now its quite a long time since I worked as a proper scientist, but in our well-respected university chemistry research lab at least we learnt pretty quickly that Mother Mature or Gaia or The Universe - or whatever you want to call it - was absolutely no respecter of persons. He /she/it showed him/her/it self via experiment and observation, not by the seniority or reputation of the person reporting it. That was the old Aristotlean notion...and it started to go out of the window in the time of Bacon ..if not before.
So sorry, Jeff, I just don't buy the 'these are important qualified people so they must always be right' argument one little bit. The founders of the oldest scientific society in the world..The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, gave it the motto
'Nullius in Verba' - Take Nobody's Word for It.
It was good advice then, it's still good advice now.
(And if you are the Jeff Harvey from the Fermi Institute I think you need to go back to your Feynman for a refresher. If you're not you need to go there for an introduction)
Latte, the entirety of YOUR arguments are identical with the added "Please explain my reasoning" begging.
"Now its quite a long time since I worked as a proper scientist"
Of course.
"I just don’t buy the ‘these are important qualified people so they must always be right’ argument one little bit."
That isn't being said.
But then again, you are substituting your imagination for reality.
Lets have a look at what Jeff says:
Yup asking for evidence, getting none and then from the evidence that IS there, drawing a conclusion.
Latte doesn't seem to understand what you're supposed to do with evidence.
Latimer,
I see you are a refugee from Judith Curry's site. Methinks you belong here with your pontificating piffle.
As Lotharsson and I said, nobody has said that those authors should be banned. What we are saying is that their views are shoddy and are not supported empirically. I recently attended the annual meeting of the British Ecological Society in Birmingham, and the effects of climate change on species, communities and ecosystems was a prominent theme. Certainly I saw no evidence of the speakers coming out and claiming that AGW is based on bad science or is fraudulent, something a good number of the people you linked above do. If these people have never studied the area in their lives, what special wisdom imbues them with the ability to understand the proper science that has eluded people with many years of pedigree in the field? Certainly there are those, like Bjorn Lomborg, who have argued that estimates of extinction rates are exaggerations. Where is his proof? On cherry-picking a single model from 12 (the one with the lowest estimates) based on UK insect extinction rates and then extrapolating this across the entire animal and plant kingdoms across the biosphere? To come up with an estimate that goes to about 7 decimal points when there is so much uncertainty based on our poor knowledge of the number of extant species and populations? Is this good science? No. Its garbage. But when this message is promoted heavily by those pushing certain interests, then of course the public, who often cannot separate good from bad science are easily misled.
Again you are creating a strawman when you say that you don't believe that scientists are always correct. But I think one must think seriously when siding in a scientific debate with a small group of people, most of whom either lack the necessary professional training or who openly affiliate themselves with think tanks and other groups who have a vested interested in denial.
You also write, "Now its quite a long time since I worked as a proper scientist".
That's pretty obvious for your posting. If your views concur with those of the people you listed in your earlier post, then it strongly suggests you've either been away from the lab for a long time or else that your scientific views have been clouded by ideology.
@wow
I'm still unable to distinguish the substance of your replies to me from 'You're wrong,,nananana...because I said so'
But maybe that is because I'm not familiar with the discussion technique of 'wowspeak'. Which seems to be to make random assertions about nothing very much, presenting no evidence for them, then skipping off onto something else entirely. All wrapped up in supposedly mysterious non sequiturs. Perhaps you hope that they will convey an idea of deep thought and hidden depths?
Not forgetting the unconvincing restatements that anybody who disagrees with you is an idiot.
Suggestion: don't bring the word 'idiot' unprompted to the forefront of your readers' minds. It may backfire.
Still its good that us venturers from the mainstream of the climate blogosphere at WUWT have had the opportunity to view the level of discussion that goes on here. It has been very instructive.
"I’m still unable to distinguish the substance of your replies to me from ‘You’re wrong,,nananana…because I said so’"
Yup, that's your problem all right.
At least you recognise it, even if you think that that is outside your own head.
You're wrong because you're saying things that are wrong.
'these are important qualified people so they must always be right’ argument one little bit.'
NEVER SAID.
NEVER.
WOULD NEVER.
Especially the "must always be right". That is the mindset of the DK PhDs. "I have a PhD in vetinary studies, therefore I must be right about climatology".
"Which seems to be to make random assertions about nothing very much"
Yea, another problem of yours.
What you do you claim everyone else is doing.
"Not forgetting the unconvincing restatements that anybody who disagrees with you is an idiot. "
These statements of self evident fact are often unconvincing to an idiot.
With yet another problem that you're projecting AND lying again.
Really, where have I said you're an idiot because you don't agree with me?
for Tallbloke
@jeff harvey
Thanks for you further reply which I have read carefully.
Leaving aside the 'argumenta ad hominem' and the 'argumenta ad verecundiam', the only bit of substance seems to be about an argument you have had with Lomborg about extinction rates. This may have been very important to you at the time, but is of only very limited consequence to the discussion of th effect of AGW - which was the starting topic presented by Ridley.
I'll own that I'm surprised that an experienced scientist such as yourself seems to have great difficulty in distinguishing between the individuals concerned and the science they present. Rereading your posts I get a definite flavour that it is your disapproval of the scientists personal lives and putative beliefs, rather than any deep study of their science that colours your views.
And it is the 'throwaway' remarks like
'with think tanks and other groups who have a vested interested in denial' that are the 'tell' here. They are completely unnecessary to the scientific argument, and are a complete turnoff to the neutral observer.
'I must be right because my opponent is a VERY BAD PERSON' is neither scientific nor persuasive.
Isaac Newton was by all accounts an extremely unlikable man. If he was judged on his personality or beliefs he'd have been rightly forgotten centuries ago. But it wasn't his personality that counted - it was the science he discovered that mattered.
Latimer,
Either those receiving financial support from think tanks or PR groups are patently dumb or they just can't help but wear their ideological hearts on their sleeves. Take your pick. If I am a lawyer and you pay me big dollars am working for you. It should be obvious why the George Marshall Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation etc. invest huge sums in denial. So if my name is linked with one of them then it should indicate that I share their views. These views are rarely based on science but on reducing the role of public constraints in the pursuit of private profit. If you think otherwise then that's your problem.
As for the science presented, then its a slam dunk. Go to the primary peer-reviewed literature and see what that says. Hint: it doesn't support the Lomborgs, Ridleys, Montfords, McIntyres et al.
I think that your academic seclusion has given you a very strange view of the world outside - which is not so riven with ideology as you seem to think.
I can't speak directly for lawyers, but I worked for some time as an IT consultant. I made my living from fixing the IT and was interested in getting the IT side of the house right. In that role I worked with charities, defence contractors, the National Health service,, retailers, Big Pharma, ... a whole gamut of different things over 15 years. Some big multi-year contracts and many short sharp wham bam ones.
But the fact that I once did a contract for the NHS tells you no more about my political views than does the defence contractor episode. They were just clients. Their political orientation played no part in my accepting work with them- ability, availability and geography were the determinants. So if you were to examine my work history you;d find I was 'linked to' the NHS and to a defence contractor (*)
The argument
'if my name is linked with one of them then it should indicate that I share their views' is pretty weak, especially if the only linkage is that somebody once did business with them. And weak though it is it seems to equally apply to people who work on the other side of the debate.
(*) Forgot to say that one of my more interesting contracts was with a casino chain.
And if it is easy to show from the literature that Ridley is wrong - then this whole discussion has been a waste of time. It could have been settled in minutes. But instead all his opponents here have concentrated on ad hom attacks rather than on the simple scientific rebuttal that would have been so much more convincing.
That they didn't is rather interesting.
But maybe that's what people with only First Class Honours in Zoology should expect when they meddle in the dark matters of climatology ;-)
'
The NHS's purpose is to heal people, not to misinform them about science.
Take money from an organisation whose purpose is to peddle lies about science and it can safely be assumed that your credibililty on matters of science is now nil.
You've share reams of irrelevance with us now, Latimer, all because you were caught making a false statement about George Monbiot.
It is a characteristic of anti-science kooks that they cannot help but make misstatements.
As for the projection you indulge in, accusing Wow...
Absolutely classic. Just can't help yourselves, can you?
Lati will now be more engaged with what part is being played here in The Grand Conspiracy, his preferred pseudo-science venues being Watts, Montford and Curry. Proabaly the auditor too, with the Bish being such an idiot slavish fan.
But with the comprehension skills he's displayed here, I'd suggest he's no loss at all to the rational world.
No Chek,
Latimer's comprehension skills are exemplary.
Obviously you need it simplified for you.
Latimer is a 'scientist' but he also works in the 'real world' where he is 'accountable' for his work.
However because he is a 'scientist' he respects the work of ALL scientists and he respects SCIENCE regardless of where they're employed.
Jeff H is behaving like an insufferable, egostistical, cloistered, academic, snob.
He is employed by an 'academic' institution which still means that he is an employee.
He somehow believes that because he lives in the 'publish or perish' fraternity, his opinions should therefore hold more weight than other well qualified scientists who happen to have chosen different career paths.
Latimer doesn't believe that's a sane argument and he offers reasons for that belief from personal and practical experience outside of academia land.
Does that help clear it up for you chek?
This kind of bullshit just irritates me. The globe has already warmed substantially more then could ever have been anticipated had Ridley's speculation - and that's what it is - been correct.
However, you are a component of a reactionary enterprise that will never accept such a simple fact. For ideological reasons. It really is that simple.
You arrived with an absurdity, made ludicrous insinuations that a moments' checking could have corrected, and then deliberately chose to misunderstand the corrections that were presented to you. You'll doubtlessly take a self-serving, gibberish version of what has happened here, where you showed those bolshy anarchists a thing or two, my word you did, to your grave.
Even though it's written down.
Because this is how Denial works. Just as The Australian has been forced to publish a correction to the latest in a series of front-page misinformations, but their loyal readers will - I guarantee you - remember the paper's absurdities as the 'facts' of the matter, and believe fervently that the attempts of the scientists involved to rebut this tendentious misinterpretation are the problematic and suspicious behaviours in the whole affair! Chebbie and The Drongo do already...
Ridiculous people.
And now here you are, pontificating and giving us snatches of your life story, for no apparent reason, claiming that all you want from us are the very 'facts' that you will never allow to penetrate your consciousness.
You're hardly alone, sadly. What are we going to do with you all?
Not at all Camo. Ol' Lati blew his worthless wad here with this classic piece of denier rhetoric elevating his pseudo-science preference to fuck knows what futile end:
"Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Voltaire, Denis Diderot, Victor Hugo, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, André Gide, Immanuel Kant, David Hume, René Descartes, Francis Bacon, John Milton, John Locke, Galileo Galilei, Blaise Pascal.
To which we can now add
Matt Ridley, Anthony Watts, Steve McIntyre, Andrew Montford, Donna LaFramboise, Roger Peilke, Roger Longstaff, David Holland, Richard Betts, Bjorn Lomborg, Richard Lindzen, Chris Monckton, Chris Booker, Mark Lynas"
What a secondary list of nonentities! And what a dick for even suggesting them! I expect he's just showing off for all the Wattbots he announced his visit over here to, but nevertheless .... what a fucking brainless dick.
Bill,
You really need to take a chill pill.
The media (including those insufferable snobs at the ABC and the sensationalist hyperbole from the OZ) are all guilty of misrepresentation.
You need to stop sooking about them. None of them are doing any of us any favours but they absolutely love the 'fact' that people like you are forever referring to them.
The 'facts' are many and varied Bill.
Neither the climate or the ocean is a human invented machine which we can tinker with or top up with oil or turbo charge or undeniably trend or artificially balance or tune up.
Humanity has made some grave errors but in general we are all becoming more responsible.
There is also no question that at the moment we are amongst the most successful species on the planet, despite all our ugly bits.
We can't 'fix' the past or change the past but we CAN learn from it.
You are confusing politics and political PR with science Bill.
Chek,
Please define 'secondary list'.
To have a 'secondary list' there must be a 'firstly list' I assume?
What are the 'qualifications' to be on your 'firstly list'?
You do not have even the most basic grasp of this debate, Chebbie, and therefore lack even the slightest capacity to assess the reliability of reported accounts of it.
The dismal 'luke-warmist' strategy of claiming to stand in some imagined Solomonic middle apart form the 'extremists' on both sides, while acting, in fact, as a blatant partisan of convenient falsehood, could scarcely be more transparent than in your own case.
Hmm, denialist meltdowns - so far we've had Tallbloke unable to provide any evidence for anything except his own stupidity; Latimer Alder prove that he's a know nothing blowhard and chameleon, well, prove exactly the same.
Chameleon demonstrates every time it posts that it is completely incapable of even the most basic reading comprehension.
No seriously Folks!
Chek needs to define what he meant by 'secondary list'.
Otherwise we are just left with his hyperbolic expletives.
Did you notice that JeffH and Latimer don't seem to need to resort to expletives to make their point?
And Bill
You really need to take a chill pill.
You are still arguing about sides and politics by invoking a 'middle ground'.
I am spectacularly uninterested in what most of the media or the political PR has to say.
It is quite obviously NOT achieving anything worthwhile!
That would be almost amusing if you weren't so clearly incompetent - and apparently unaware of it.
Epic
Point-Missing
Fail.
Let's recap.
You rock in with "hey, look, OLR has increased by 2.5W/m^2 over 30 years, therefore the earth can't be accumulating heat".
Us: err, haven't you noticed that your logic is fallacious?
Us: and by the way, your data doesn't say that.
Us: and by the way, there's no indication your data is even valid. But let's start with the fact that your logic is so bad that brighter primary school students could dismantle it.
You: but my logic is correct!
Us: [sigh] No it's not. Here's why. Again.
You: Look, show me your data.
Us: Not the point. You're making a particular case that appears to go against mainstream science. It's your job to support it with data - and to demonstrate why their argument and evidence don't hold. (And don't forget logic - remember yours is fallacious?)
You: No, really, show me a better data set.
Us: see previous comment.
You: OK, that's the only data we have then.
Us: [sigh] do we REALLY have to point out the fallacy in THAT lame argument? You haven't even met the requirements for presenting an argument worthy of consideration yet.
You: Well then, you have no data and no argument. Stop wasting my time.
Us: ROFL! FINALLY! You have realised what you've been doing here! Wasting your time and hours with an "argument" that doesn't even meet the lowest bar of either evidence or logic required in order to even begin to receive consideration. Maybe there is a god after all.
Latimer, you didn't answer my question which I will ask again so we can be clear on your views:
Are you recommending scientifically unskilled people read journalists who have a history of misrepresenting science?
"Chek needs to define..."!
No Camo. you need to comprehend plain English. Although I suspect it's a little late in life for you to change now.
Someone needs to watch John Cleese explain the Dunning-Kruger Effect again.
And again.
And again.
Ah, so the hidden layers of denial are slowly coming to light. I see we've reached the "humans can't possibly cause the planet to warm" level.
And what bill said.
Humans can't possibly cause the planet to warm level?
And what Bill said?
:-) chuckle
I just love the way you do that Lotharsson.
I think you folks like calling that a 'strawman'.
And those hidden layers of denial are slowly coming to light!
Simply priceless.
What specifically do you think I am in 'denial' about Lotharsson?
And how has it been hidden in layers?
I'm absolutely fascinated with your continuing psycho analysis of my persona.
I'm also fascinated with the amount of 'nuancing' that you go through to reach those conclusions.
BTW, I have no idea why it seems so important to you or Bill.
I don't need a psycho analysis from you and I am spectacularly uninterested in your opinions of me. You are not proving or achieving anything by your personal attacks.
If I decide I need psychological assisstance (or one of my family or close friends think I have a problem), I will go to a well recommended professional.
At the moment Lotharsson, it's all hunky dory and ridgee didge!
Struth, Chameleon, surely what we've already said should be enough of a hint that you should stop posting here, go back and read it, concentrate on its meaning and/or get an adult to explain it to you?
BTW Lotharsson,
Your question to Latimer is a RHETORICAL QUESTION!
I seem to remember you lecturing me that it isn't necessary for people to answer them.
It's not a strawman if it is your argumenht.
This is what you said:
Although I'm willing to believe you don't understand the argument you just made but have simply acquired those words from reading a nutter crank blog somewhere.
How is that rhetorical?
Please explain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8Afv3U_ysc
Yes, Chebbie, plise expline, oh do!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_question
here you go deltoids!
Totally googleable!
If you claim it is a strawman then you're quite welcome to clarify exactly which bits of what you appeared to mean are not what you mean, and clarify exactly what you do mean.
On the other hand that has proven very difficult for you on other matters throughout your time here so I'm not holding my breath.
No, you fool.
Your incomprehension is almost boundless.
It is most certainly not a rhetorical question. It is question probing Latimer as to whether I have understood him correctly, and offering him a chance to clarify if I haven't in his answer. It's not rhetorical because I want him to answer it.
Good grief! You even misunderstood Vince's simple question.
He did not ask "what is the definition of 'rhetorical question'", he asked "how is that specific example a rhetorical question".
Ah, the triumphalism of fools!
Er, I think we already know what a rhetorical question is.
But what do we expect from an illiterate who doesn't even know how to write paragraphs.
WUWT is indeed (or at least, was) a very popular site. However, from what I have seen of it, it has very little to do with science. I once spent an unprofitable few weeks there with someone who had written a piece about how global warming is nonsense because it violates the second law of thermodynamics. He finished by just repeating bluster with increasing volume, but interestingly none of the supposed 'science experts' who inhabit the pit were able to either support him or correct his misunderstandings. They seem to prefer to shout abuse at 'warmists'.
Then why does he apparently feel comfortable at WUWT? Any competent scientist (without the quote marks) who spent just a few minutes looking at a typical post there and the following comments would recognize that it is junk through and through.
I see you are still maintaining your track record for missing the point. He knows what it means. He (and many others) do not see how it applies to what he wrote.
Really Richard?
You can't see why this question:
Are you recommending scientifically unskilled people read journalists who have a history of misrepresenting science?"
is a rhetorical question?
Maybe you need to go back here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_question
and read the definition.
Just because you say you WANT him to answer doesn't mean you haven't asked a rhetorical question Lotharsson.
That is uncharacteristically literal of you!
But anyway;
here is the particular type of rhetorical question you have asked:
"They suggest dialogue, especially when the speaker both asks and answers them himself, as if he were playing two parts on the stage. They are not always impassioned; they may be mildly ironical or merely argumentative: but they are always to some extent dramatic, and, if used to excess, they tend to give one’s style a theatrical air." [11]
And BTW, this has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the ACTUAL POINT of Latimer's comment.
Your question was moot as well as rhetorical.
Oh, good grief.
Are you truly stupid enough not to see that my sincere wish for Latimer to answer it most certainly violates your bold claim that:
Or are you merely shifting the goalposts once more?
And do you not to see the contradiction between "Just because you say you WANT him to answer doesn’t mean you haven’t asked a rhetorical question..." and "...especially when the speaker both asks and answers them himself..." - and my point that the question invited clarification?
I did not answer it and I am not going to answer it on his behalf. My question does not suggest dialogue on Latimer's behalf. It offers him an open opportunity to clarify his position.
Which one of you wins when you argue with yourself?
...asserts the Queen of Miscomprehension without any justification - about a guy who has missed the point of almost every rebuttal of his claims.
You couldn't make this stuff up.
But chameleon certainly can.
"Jeff H is behaving like an insufferable, egostistical, cloistered, academic, snob.
He is employed by an ‘academic’ institution which still means that he is an employee.
He somehow believes that because he lives in the ‘publish or perish’ fraternity, his opinions should therefore hold more weight than other well qualified scientists who happen to have chosen different career paths"
Now, Chammy you're getting personal. And desperate.
I never said that my opinions should hold more weight than other scientists. What I said, if you could bother to read, is that it should seem odd that most of the climate change deniers have little or no pedigree in the field of climate science, and that most of them actually have little pedigree in ANY field of science.
As I have maintained on other threads, I am an ecologist and not a climate scientist. My knowledge of the field of climate science is limited, therefore I defer to the vastly greater knowledge of the people who have spent their lives in this field of endeavor. And the vast majority of them agree that the main forcing agent that accounts for the recent warming is the human combustion of fossil fuels and the concomitant increase in atmospheric concentrations of C02.
If anyone is behaving arrogantly and petulantly, its those on the other side who are not qualified as climate scientists and yet who write all kinds of bullshit about it as if they are experts. In my field I can vouch with plenty of evidence that there are many biotic proxies showing that the planet is warming and warming rapidly. I leave it up to those in climate science to determine the underlying causes. And, as I said, the vast majority of them agree that its down to us.
Now you can act like a spoiled little a****** all you want, and come in here beating your chest about whois fair and who isn't, but nothing can change the fact that my views are based on the science and by the scientists doing that science. Not on a motley bunch of pseudo-scholars on the outside (bearing in mind that few of them actually do research) who snipe away at those doing the research. The deniers are like creationists, who think that by finding a few holes in evolutionary theory that the who edifice will collapse. They don't do any of their own research, but instead constantly try and poke holes in our existing knowledge base. Similarly, climate change deniers like to take published studies and to distort their conclusions and to smear the authors while they are at it. You are a bloody hypocrite; the qualifications and reputations of quite outstanding scientists as Kevin Trenberth, Ben Santer, Michael Mann, James Hansen and others has been dragged through the mud by many of the deniers and their paymasters and yet I don't see you pounding your chest in anger over this quite abhorrent behavior.
Jeff, you're aware of this?
@lotharsson
'Are you recommending scientifically unskilled people read journalists who have a history of misrepresenting science?'
I make no recommendations in this matter at all. And I don't intend to. In IT terms my response is 'null'.
I'm really disappointed if this level of 4th form debate is the best you can manage. I'm guessing that you've been stuck here talking only to your homies and agreeing with each other for so long that you've lost any match fitness you might once have had.
Get out more...go over to Judith's to get some game time(*) in. Stick one over on the 'evil denialist Big Oil funded life-exterminating clever little right wing nutjobs and slime balls' at Anthony's. Wow the crowd at Steve McIntyre's with your forensic skills.
But FFS don't just sit around stultifying here. If you never engage 'your enemy' you'll never beat them. And they show absolutely no signs of giving up. Get out there and fight.
But please, no more of the 'have you stopped beating your wife?' questions. Worthy of a 15 year-old, but not a grown up
Shame you got the Monbiot referencing thing wrong from the outset.
Rather coloured your entire non-factual and illogical foray here.
No. I don't see it.
Having read Latimer's latest contribution, I would like to ask him, do you think that scientifically unskilled people should go to non-science crank blogs funded by political lobbies to further (or even, to begin) their understanding of climate science?
@vince whirlwind
'do you think that scientifically unskilled people should go to non-science crank blogs funded by political lobbies to further (or even, to begin) their understanding of climate science?'
I make no recommendations in this matter. 'Null'.
But at both school and university my tutors were keen that we should read widely around the subject we were studying. And in the 30 odd years since I've learnt nothing that tells me they were wrong to do so..
@chameleon
Thank you for your kind words.
@bill
' you are a component of a reactionary enterprise that will never accept such a simple fact. For ideological reasons. It really is that simple'
Got any evidence to present to us for me being 'a component of a reactionary enterprise' and my 'ideological reasons'.?
I'd be interested to see it.
@chek
'what a fucking brainless dick'
Thanks for raising the tone of the conversation. I will treat your criticism with the due weight it deserves.
You should take a good hard look at your own - for reasons already pointed out to you on this site.
So, you now have a "null" position. Welcome to our "I'm trying for this sophisticated 'honest broker in the middle' kind of thing, but I'm crap at it" club. We've almost always got a couple of those hanging around. They tend to assert a false balance, but have great difficulty backing it up with evidence, enthusiastically misrepresent other people's positions, fixate on what they portray as a key piece of an argument whilst everyone else is trying to point out it's not necessary to the argument at all. But they are very good at skewering strawmen.
Epic Analogy Fail.
It wasn't a question of that form, not even if you assert it to be - and your response was pure projection.
I leave it for you to ponder what the key distinction in the form of the two questions is. Based on your performance so far it may take some time. Or maybe you could ask chameleon for help? She seems to be sympathetic to your work.
If that's where you've been practicing, that quite suggestive of the idea that it's not particularly effective.
@lotharsson
I don't see it as my place to recommend what anybody else should or shouldn't read. Nor what they should or shouldn't publish.
'Let a thousand flowers blossom' - Mao Zedong
I hope that clarifies things for you.
Um, why are you here? Have you not, somehow, noticed this is one of the highest-traffic AGW sites on the web?
And you also somehow haven't noticed that we scarcely need to go out to look for opponents - the trolls flock here!
(And just about all of them at some stage try to tell us all that this place is unimportant and inconsequential! Some of them have been literally telling us this for years.)
And, you know, it's not often one is condemned for not being a troll! The folks at Judith's are not any more open to persuasion than the folks at Watts' or the Sticky Bishop's. I know there's this self-deluding, nonsensical line that you and the other putative Solomonically-detached 'null' types like to put about that you're somehow representative of 'Joe Public', but you're actually rather risible and moth-eaten wolves clad in direly unconvincing and bedraggled sheep-skins.
I'm not buying it - as I pointed out to the other buffoon - 'the public' don't rabbit on about 'CAGW', for a start, and they don't turn up with fixed - and palpably wrong - ideas about, say, George Monbiot.
I've got a lot of patience with the public, and may even put some effort into providing information and correcting false notions. But as for you lot - really, who cares what you think? Nowt I can do to change it.
OTOH, the demonstration effect of beating up trolls when they barge in here can be a useful one; some with a mind to do so can actually learn a considerable amount in the process - and the resulting sport is part of the reason this place is high-traffic.
@lotharsson
And fwiw I am always deeply suspicious of those who try to dictate, censor or otherwise manipulate what others can read or publish. Too frequently they are members of an 'establishment' with things that they'd rather not get generally known.
The dictation and censorship angles are - yet again - a strawman. I'm pretty sure no-one here has argued for that.
"Manipulate" is a loaded word - but presumably it applies to those who control editorial policy in major media outlets as much or more than it does to those who point out that some people's work is almost entirely and consistently not well-founded.
That, and there's also a suspicion that some of the trolls aren't here for the hunting, if you know what I mean ;-)
So Latimer, does pointing out that someone's work is almost invariably not well founded - or even that it is frequently demonstrably counter-factual - count as "manipulating" what others can read? I'm not really sure what the scope of the term means when you apply it.
What's the kind of thing you have in mind when you talk about "manipulating what someone can publish"? How can that be effected these days when anyone and everyone can (and does) get their own blog(s)?
Persecution fantasies getting a bit overwhelming there, Latimer?
Pointing out that Ridley spouts nonsense is none of the above, except in the most febrile and narcissistic of imaginations, no? This is a Watts level of cheap histrionics...
It's called 'disagreeing', bucko - get used to it!
Latimer Alder:
Good to know that you're deeply suspicious of Anthony Watts.
Latimer,
You are creating by now an army of strawmen. Nobody has said that we shouldn't be allowed to read what we like. But your argument suggests that science should do away with peer-review and that everything submitred should be published 'as is'. Am I correct? I do not disagree that there are flaws in the peer-review system, but it's all we have to keep science somewhat safe. Otherwise we'd be swamped with all kinds of nonsense from creation 'science' to alchemy to flat Earth theories being promulgated.
As I said above, my field of research is population ecology. I studied zooology and specialized in population and evolutionary ecology, went on to do a PhD and have spent the past 20 years doing research. I am still learning a lot in my own field and realted ones. I am cautious enough to defer to experts in other fields. Therefore, I think that its wrong that a relatively small number of people, most of whom have little or no relevant scientific pedigree, feel that they have something useful to say in the complex field of climate science, especially since their views conflict with the vast majority of statured scientists in the field. Yet we have the media giving many of these people a platform to spew their nonsense. Unlike cautious scientists, amny of them don't hesitate to say that they know exactly what they are talking about. We had old Professor David Bellamy last week itnerviewed in the Independent saying that he knows he isn't wrong with respect to climate change. What does Bellamy know about climate? Virtually nothing, if one looks at his professonal background, but that did not stop him claiming without reservation that he was correct. The only reason he gets this attention is because of his old celebrity status. Why not ask Johnny Depp or Harrison Ford of Julia Roberts what they think about climate change? Heck, they may have read a few books on the subject as well, and they are celebrities.
Bill says
'Um, why are you here? Have you not, somehow, noticed this is one of the highest-traffic AGW sites on the web?'
Well, no I hadn't noticed that. Until recently I had only ever vaguely heard of it. Bu t I could always be wrong and so went and did a little research. Here are my conclusions:(*)
In the 36 days since December 12th, this blog has generated 2890 comments.
In the same time, Climate Etc (Judith Curry) produced 7366 - two and a half times as many. Bishop Hill managed 3846 - a third more than here.
And WUWT takes about four days to generate the same number - eight or nine times the rate.
So I really doubt your contention that this is one of the highest-traffic AGW sites on the web.
But as a consolation, it's a lot more active than Real Climate. A socking great 614 in the same time.
My contention that you guys should get out more since you are missing where the action is is substantiated by the facts.
For every posting here there are about 12 on WUWT, Climate Etc and BH combined.
*The experimental method used was 'counting'. it should be reproducible by any competent ten -year old.
I see what Latimer's problem is - somebody told him to "read widely", so he opened his mind....and his brain fell out.
Nobody in their right mind would go anywhere near paranoid crank sites for information. Whether it's WUWT or that bitter and nonsensical Curry woman - it's garbage.
@jeff harvey
I have said nothing whatsoever about 'peer review'. If a journal wishes to accept or reject articles based upon it, that's fine with me. But it's a great mistake to think that it is a perfect mechanism and that it somehow confers authenticity onto either the journal or the paper. Scienc functioned perfectly well for hundreds of years before peer-review became the norm a few decades ago, and will function just as well as the internet takes over from the published journal as the place of record for new science.
But the transition may take some getting used to for the traditional author such as yourself.
And one could make a very strong case that a thorough going over in real time from interested parties all over the world is a much better from of review than a having a mate casually glancing at something on the train and approving it 'if it feels right' (Phil Jones UEA).
The recent furore over the withdrawn paper 'Gergis et al' provides a fine illustration. We can expect more in the future.
And I'm quite happy for anyoen to take issue with Ridley or Watts or Curry or me or anybody else if they can show that the science is wrong. No problem. My own theoretical Masters project was shown - by comparison with experiment - to be spectacularly wrong. That's science. Good argument and experiment is the way its suppose to work.
But what I entirely disagree with is the viewpoint of 90% of the posters here that Ridley must be wrong because of all sorts of spurious things about him as a person or about the company he keeps or about whether doctor of zoology counts as a proper scientist... and not about the argument he makes. Or whether his article had references on the same page or not.
That's not science, that's advocacy and politics. True science should be person-independent.
And every time I see it, I - and everybody else who is yet to be convinced that Ridley is indeed the Denier Devil Incarnate - begins to wonder why those who get so passionate about hos personal failings don't just demolish his scientific argument and have done with it. There are lots and lots of posts purporting to show that Ridley is a Very Bad Man, but few that I have found that say 'and his science is wrong because...' together with detailed rebuttal.
I paraphrase only slightly when I opine that
'He is wrong because he is a Denier'
seems to be this blog's default position.
Please get out more. You have been stuck here too long.
@vince whirlwind
'Whether it’s WUWT or that bitter and nonsensical Curry woman – it’s garbage.'
Thanks for the informative post. I'm sure the authors and posters at both those blogs will give due weight to your views. And its good to see exactly the level of calm and rational discussion that you wish to promote.
FWIW, Latimer, I had a look at Curry's site when she started.
It was obvious in fairly short order that (a) she had an agenda that wasn't particularly constrained to well-foundedness, (b) she was far too fond of her own logical fallacies, (c) she was talking beyond her competence about probabilities and uncertainties, and (d) she was quite happy to allow all sorts of cranks free rein in the comments, even explicitly encouraging some of their nonsense IIRC. She appeared to be buying an audience by going for a kind of Solomonic above-the-fray honest-broker thing that was apparently intended to allow "skeptics" with poor arguments and/or an anti-climate scientist bent to have a venue where they would get some apparent respect.
The signal to noise ratio at her site was simply too low to be worthwhile.
@lotharsson
No doubt Professor Curry will take your remarks very seriously if she ever finds them.
But they'd have more influence on her if you posted them there, rather than only here.
As I have tried to point out above, this is a relatively idle backwater of the climatosphere. Like it or not - it is not where the action is. And talking just to each other isn't going to win you any battles. You need to raise your game and engage with your opponents.
Latimer Alder:
That was done long ago (just scroll up to the top of the page). But there are people with agendas.
@Chris O'Neill
'That was done long ago'
Which specific post? By whom exactly?
Perhaps I missed it among all the other stuff going on.
'But there are people with agendas'
Very orotund and oracular. But - apart from attempting to sound darkly mysterious like the baddie in The Avengers or an early James Bond movie - are you actually trying to convey anything?
Seems to be a meaningless throwaway line to me
Latimer Alder, I said scroll up to the top of the page. Where it says:
People with agendas include those such as yourself with piles of strawmen.
No-one here seems to be doing that. Well, except people like chameleon who protest when we point out flaws in peer-reviewed papers she cites.
Asserting it doesn't make it so.
I'm not seeing people making that argument - certainly not "90% of the posters here". I already explained why over here. Those things you mention may be supplementary indicators, but they aren't the primary reason people are saying he's wrong.
Ah, you've FINALLY stumbled on to the primary reason people say his stuff is crap - they've ALREADY demolished his scientific arguments, over and over again, and he's still making the same claims!
Glad you could join us.
FWIW, it lost a lot of traffic over the last year or so because Tim wasn't able to post very often.
"But it’s a great mistake to think that it is a perfect mechanism"
So who do you claim is doing that?
"…don’t just demolish his scientific argument and have done with it. "
So even if his argument is crap, it shouldn't be shown as such???
@Chris O'Neill
It seems that you failed to tune in for the next instalment. Ridley responded to Lambert here three days ago.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/15/matt-ridley-responds-to-tim-lambe…
The fat lady hasn't sung on this one yet.
Bless his li'll cotton socks, Lati pretends to not know that there is a disinformation industry working furiously to prevent any regulation of CO2 emissions, or its connection to his list of tortured shills souls striving for scientific integrity..
@lotharsson
'FWIW, it lost a lot of traffic over the last year or so because Tim wasn’t able to post very often'
Maybe so. Maybe it is just because many passer-by might be repelled by the unpleasant tone of the 'debate'. Maybe
its because the level of general interest in climate alarmism is falling. Or (from the UK at least) today's heavy snowfall means that worrying about CAGW is pretty low down the list of priorities. Maybe that the sight of 'True Believers snarling at Deniers like the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal is a turn off. *
Could be all of those things or none.
But whatever the reason it doesn't affect the observation that this is not a high traffic area of the blogosphere as claimed by 'Bill'.
*(You guys understimate just how many neutral observers find such behaviour a big no-no. It is one of the best recruiting sergeants the sceptical forces have got. When sceptics explain how they arrived at their views, the sheer unpleasantness of the believers is a highly quoted reason for them to look more closely at the mainstream views. And with a more critical eye)
@wow
You say
'
“…don’t just demolish his scientific argument and have done with it. ”
So even if his argument is crap, it shouldn’t be shown as such???'
Absolutely not. If it is right or wrong it should - like all others - be debated right up front and in the open.
You have fallen into the trap of selective reading and only looked at the very end of my sentence. You will see - if you read the whole thing - that I agree with your point 100%.
Here it is
'And every time I see it, I – and everybody else who is yet to be convinced that Ridley is indeed the Denier Devil Incarnate – begins to wonder why those who get so passionate about his personal failings don’t just demolish his scientific argument and have done with it'
The only thing I'd change on rereading is that I'd add 'supposed' in front of 'personal'.
I hope that this full quotation of my views clarifies the point for you.
.
"Absolutely not. If it is right or wrong it should – like all others – be debated right up front and in the open."
To what point?
If no conclusion can ever be made from the discussion, what the hell is the point of it?
‘And every time I see it, I – and everybody else who is yet to be convinced that Ridley is indeed the Denier Devil Incarnate "
So you think he could be, right?
"begins to wonder why those who get so passionate about his personal failings"
Getting it wrong is something that needs to be pointed out.
Being wrong is being wrong and being told about that is not insisting any demon incarnation. You're a hysteric.
Is his personal failing ALWAYS getting shit wrong about climate?
In what way should that NOT be pointed out?
@chek
'Lati pretends to not know that there is a disinformation industry working furiously to prevent any regulation of CO2 emissions, or its connection to his list of tortured shills souls striving for scientific integrity.'
AFAICR I have never made any remarks at all about this subject. So how you know what I do or don't know is beyond me.
But since you claim to have the ability to read my mind better than I do perhaps you can tell me what to cook for dinner tonight? The heavy snowfall today means that we aren't going out to a restaurant as planned.
Instead we'll huddle around the fire and take turns to laugh at David Viner from UEA 'Snowfall will be a thing of the past. Our children won't know what snow is' quoth he in 2000
"AFAICR I have never made any remarks at all about this subject. So how you know what I do or don’t know is beyond me."
So you do know that such a complicity of money exists.
My recollection - which may not be accurate - is that if the tone of the debate has changed in any way since the onset of the quieter period, it is - if anything - less of what the tone trolls tend to complain about than before.
I suspect your hypothesis won't hold up.
Firstly, "skeptics" say all sorts of things. Many of them turn out to be inaccurate. For example we've recently seen how impressively malleable some people's memories of events - even those that occurred earlier no more than a day ago - can be, courtesy of chameleon.
And a funny thing: we have people turn up here professing to be quite neutral, wanting to find out about the science. But they give off ... certain vibes fairly quickly, often letting slip some of the usual denialist language or tropes, but mostly tending to put forth claims (they don't generally support with evidence) and then strongly defend them when this is pointed out - and once that doesn't cut it they resort to tone trolling, or something approaching it. And when they do that, they claim pretty much exactly what you have just claimed - that the tone has convince them the science is wrong. Sometimes they first go through a negotiation stage where they try a kind of emotional blackmail: if you continue to be mean to me (by rebutting my unfounded claims) I'll go to the "other side" (which conveniently happens to have no interest in rebutting my unfounded claims).
Worse still, we've also seen from quite extensive experience that engaging in a discussion of the evidence whilst avoiding the kind of tone that "newly skeptical because of tone" skeptics cite doesn't change their mind either.
There may actually be some subset of people who are persuaded purely by tone - but if that's what they find persuasive it's not at all clear that they are willing to think in the first place, so there's little point asking them to.
People come here almost exclusively for one of two reasons. Either they're looking for some information about climate science (and a few other things) and the media coverage thereof, or they're coming to disabuse commenters here of their insufficiently "skeptical" points of view.
In short, your argument has almost zero merit, except perhaps in the hypothetical case where large numbers of undecided voters happen to turn up wondering what this climate science thing is all about so that they can vote primarily on the issue - and that is not in evidence here.
"But since you claim to have the ability to read my mind better than I do perhaps you can tell me what to cook for dinner tonight?"
That requires predicting your mental state in the future, idiot-boy.
So when Glen Beck says there aren't enough knives for the ritual suicide of all these climate scientists, the tone proves the scientists right, yes?
Because increased precipitation, including in winter, and not infrequent colder temperatures in certain places including Britain due to disruption of the Polar jet stream - because these things were not predicted as consequences of anthropogenic forcing, and anthropogenic forcing clearly has nothing to do with it, right?
"When sceptics explain how they arrived at their views"
You've never managed that.
Nor has Wodger.
Nor Matt.
Nor chammy.
Nor Donkey.
Nor Joan.
Please prove how you arrive at this.
@wow
'and everybody else who is yet to be convinced that Ridley is indeed the Denier Devil Incarnate ”
'So you think he could be, right?
Nope. Its a figure of speech. Call it typical British understatement. Or a touch of irony.
'“begins to wonder why those who get so passionate about his personal failings”
Getting it wrong is something that needs to be pointed out.
Being wrong is being wrong and being told about that is not insisting any demon incarnation. You’re a hysteric.'
Nothing hysterical about expecting a level of debate and discussion rather more intellectual than
'You're wrong because I said so! Na ananananaa!
Maybe you;re not old enough to have left the playground yet. But I have.
LOL!
@wow
'
Or (from the UK at least) today’s heavy snowfall means that worrying about CAGW is pretty low down the list of priorities.
Please prove how you arrive at this'
If you look back at the remarks you will see that I was constrcuting a list of plausible hypotheses that might explain why this blog is not the high-traffic powerhouse as claimed, but a relative backwater. This is one of them....the news in UK today is pretty much dominated by the snowfall, and CAGW isn't getting much airtime
And you'll also note that I finished my list with the remark
'could be all of those things or none'
@lotharsson
'My recollection – which may not be accurate – is that if the tone of the debate has changed in any way since the onset of the quieter period, it is – if anything – less of what the tone trolls tend to complain about than before'
Gosh, So you were all an even nastier bunch before you drove the passers-by away! Can't say I;m really surprised that the readership has gone down.
FWIW you can read about the history of many sceptics- me included - here
http://judithcurry.com/2010/11/12/the-denizens-of-climate-etc/
And the rest of your post shows that - like my little dog seeing off intruders - you're quite happy to see off anybody who arrives here without the required level of true belief. Growl at the Deniers, Rover!
Yep - that's the way to persuade them! Frighten them away...a policy you appear to have had great success with. Soon you'll be just like the guys at RC .. making great pontifical statements to nobody at all.
Maybe the phrase 'counter-productive' is new to you?
"You’re wrong because I said so! Na ananananaa!"
I thought that was your point.
So, you don't have anything other than insistence you're right to claim everyone else is wrong, huh?
@wow
'So when Glen Beck says there aren’t enough knives for the ritual suicide of all these climate scientists, the tone proves the scientists right, yes?'
??
Who is Glen Beck? Not a name I know
Latimer,
Still more strawmen... you'd make a great produce for 50s type horror films. Your latest opining is this:
"‘He is wrong because he is a Denier’ seems to be this blog’s default position.
No, not at all. What I am questioning is why people like Ridley, Lomborg, Monckton, Bellamy, Montford etc. are interviewed for newspapers or television over issues dealing with global change (including climate change). Why not interview a bus driver? Or a garage mechanic? The man on the street? Many of them probably know as much as these pundits. No, the reason why they are sought out is because they are well known for other things and because their views run against the mainstrems view (that pesky little thing that is absed on the views of the vast majority of real experts).
Its like the media asking me for my views on quantum physics, or a quantum physicist for their views on population ecology. Why give people with opinions that run counter to the mainstream and who are not experts in these other fields? As I said, the only reason Ridley or Bellamy are interviewed about climate change is because they are contrarians. If they weren't the media wouldn't touch them with a barge pole. It seems like being a contrarian is a great strategy to dust off a flagging career in science or to go from being an absolute nobody to a celebrity overnight. Lomborg had published a single paper in his academic career on iterated prisoner's dilemma, for heaven''s sake, and in 15 months he writes a book covering immensely complex and diverse fields that take experts decade to master. Lo and behold, each chapter starts off with a skewed directed hypothesis,which he then burns down and within no time at all the corporate media, think tanks (and deniers like Ridley) are championing Lomborg. It didn't matter what we scientists thought. Heck, we are only the ones who do the research that Lomborg and Ridley cherry pick or ignore in deriving their rosy world views. When we respond, we are attacked viciously for daring challenge the innocent blonde Dane.
Even now, when Lomborg (or Ridley) are interviewed about climate change, they are treated as knowledgeable experts. I often see interviewers coming down on deniers like a pile of feathers. Its as if what they are saying has merit. Itg would'n't matter if the media didn't treat them like experts, but it usually does. Their views carry a lot of weight in the public sphere, because many people not only want to believe that we can continue along the current trajectory, but because these people have a 'Dr.' title in front of their name it means to the layperson that they MUST know what they are talking about. I believe that Lomborg's book did immense damage in distorting the public's (and policymaker's) views of various environmental problems. Its not like what these people writer is harmless. At least when they are turned from nobody's into celebrities overnight it should be made clear that the do not have pedigree in the fields they are interviewed about and that their views conflict with the prevailing view amongst the real experts as well as with the empirical evidence.
I just think that the mainstream corporate media is irresponsible. Its hardly surprising since it is just another arm of corporate power. There is a myth that the media is by-and-large left leaning. This has to be one of the most enduring myths of our time.
"Nope. Its a figure of speech."
Speech is different from noise by having MEANING attached to it.
What, then, is your MEANING? Or don't you know why you say what you say, you're inanimately repeating what you've been programmed to say?
"This is one of them….the news in UK today is pretty much dominated by the snowfall, and CAGW isn’t getting much airtime"
Where is the causal link between snowfall and AGW?
@wow
'When sceptics explain how they arrived at their views'
Try this for starters. A whole blog full - including me,
http://judithcurry.com/2010/11/12/the-denizens-of-climate-etc/
I guess there are about 200 there.
"Nothing hysterical about expecting a level of debate and discussion rather more intellectual than"
Except all you seem to want IS "debate". Nothing to come from it.
Indeed you've refused many times now to say WHY the debate is being done.
Are you merely doing it to see yourself on a popular and heavy-traffic blog like this?
"And you’ll also note that I finished my list with the remark
‘could be all of those things or none’"
The "none".
‘When sceptics explain how they arrived at their views’
Nope, you need to explain how you arrived at your views.
"Who is Glen Beck? Not a name I know"
So you're deliberately pretending to be clueless now.
Got it.
"FWIW you can read about the history of many sceptics- me included – here"
And how much IS it worth?
"I guess there are about 200 there."
200 explanations?
Interesting. You've STILL got it backwards despite having it explained to you twice. You are almost as determined as chameleon to misinterpret people's positions! You two should spend some time together. I reckon you'd get on like a house on fire.
But returning to the point. Let me make it crystal clear.
The readership went up whilst it was "nasty".
Up.
Not down.
Up as in higher readership.
Not lower.
Up as in larger numbers.
Not smaller numbers.
You don't seem to have a clue what drives readership at this site - but you're quite willing to pontificate about it.
(Now where have I seen that behaviour before...?)
@wow
You ask
'Where is the causal link between snowfall and AGW?'
Well that's a good question.
'Lotharsson' a few minutes ago said it was this
'Because increased precipitation, including in winter, and not infrequent colder temperatures in certain places including Britain due to disruption of the Polar jet stream – because these things were not predicted as consequences of anthropogenic forcing, and anthropogenic forcing clearly has nothing to do with it, right?'
But the respected UK based climate scientist David Viner from UEA/CRU said the exact opposite
'Snowfall will be a thing of the past. Our children won't know what snow is'
You pays your money and you takes your choice. Probably its just the weather doing its thing.
So, what you're apparently arguing Latimer, is that your own personal skepticism is not informed by the scientific evidence, but by the tone of people rebutting pseudo-scientific bulldust?
Got it.
You've abandoned your critical faculties on this topic. Well, that means we can ignore any arguments you make on the topic, right? After all, they're not based on the evidence...
@wow
“I guess there are about 200 there.”
200 explanations?'
Go look. But yes.
So it seems like the purpose of debate is ONLY so that ideas YOU say should be heard are allowed to be presented.
Got it.
"Go look. But yes."
But they're all complete bollocks as explanations.
They're no better explanations than "I don't like it".
"‘Lotharsson’ a few minutes ago said it was this"
For someone who pretends to be British, you don't get irony, do you.
Nor dry sarcasm.
You also don't get the bit where I asked YOU.
Is that because you have no thought of your own?
@lotharsson
'So, what you’re apparently arguing Latimer, is that your own personal skepticism is not informed by the scientific evidence, but by the tone of people rebutting pseudo-scientific bulldust?'
Please go back and read what I actually wrote, not what you would like me to have written. It isn't hard to do so.
"But the respected UK based climate scientist David Viner from UEA/CRU said the exact opposite
‘Snowfall will be a thing of the past. Our children won’t know what snow is’"
And apparently you don't know what that means either.
"Please go back and read what I actually wrote"
He did.
Nailed it.
"I reckon you’d get on like a house on fire."
Screaming, chaos, death, descruction. Panic.
Yeah, I'd say that would be about right.
David Viner is almost universally acknowledged to have been wrong on the timescale, and the geographical subject. That statement was made in 2000 and there's been a bit of research since that time.
Only an idiot would insist that a statement acknowledged to be mistaken should continue to be taken seriously.
Already done that.
Please feel free to correct any mistakes in my interpretation. After all, since I can't read your mind, you are the only one in a position to do so.
Latte doesn't even know what Viner said.
Despite himself whinging
Yet here he is taking only part of what was said to spin a story in his head.
Plus should you not be discussing it rather than just summarily dismissing it?
Or is it, like I've averred before, something for OTHERS to abide by, not yourself?
According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become "a very rare and exciting event".
"Children just aren't going to know what snow is," he said.
The effects of snow-free winter in Britain are already becoming apparent. This year, for the first time ever, Hamleys, Britain's biggest toyshop, had no sledges on display in its Regent Street store. "It was a bit of a first," a spokesperson said.
"Our children" in quotes:
Mohandes Ghandi, political and spiritual leader in India
"If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children."
Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa
"Safety and security don't just happen, they are the result of collective consensus and public investment. We owe our children, the most vulnerable citizens in our society, a life free of violence and fear."
John W. Whitehead, founder, Rutherford Institute
"Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see."
Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in
“The visions we offer our children shape the future. It _matters_ what those visions are. Often they become self-fulfilling prophecies. Dreams are maps.”
“Our greatest national resource is the minds of our children.” ― Walt Disney
Do you think they were talking only about the children who were alive at the time?
@wow
@lotharsson
Since neither of you can apparently find my earlier remark, here it is again
'When sceptics explain how they arrived at their views, the sheer unpleasantness of the believers is a highly quoted reason for them to look more closely at the mainstream views. And with a more critical eye'
@wow
You want me to explain how I arrived at my views. Follow the link I provided and mine is the third or fourth contribution.
It will be easy for you to see since it is helpfully headed 'Latimer Alder'.
@wow
Still none the wiser about Glenn Beck. Glenn Turner I know - fine left handed opening batsman for Worcestershire and New Zealand. James Beck I know - actor who played Pte. Walker in Dad's Army. But not Glenn Beck. Though James Turner was the name of the 'pirate' on the houseboat in Swallows and Amazons.
Enlighten me please.
@wow
Your post about Gandhi etc is incomprehensible.
Did you have a point? What is it?
Already read it, explained my response in quite some detail, and you have apparently ignored it.
Which makes it all the more ironic that you accuse other people of not reading what you wrote, or something...
@lotharsson
'
'David Viner is almost universally acknowledged to have been wrong on the timescale, and the geographical subject. That statement was made in 2000 and there’s been a bit of research since that time.
Only an idiot would insist that a statement acknowledged to be mistaken should continue to be taken seriously'
Just a pity then that there were about 10 years when it was taken very seriously and our local authorities stopped spending money on winter weather precautions. Like the guys in Queensland prepared for droughts by building useless desalination plants, neglecting their flood precautions and ending up with the Wivenhoe Dam debacle.
It simply isn't good enough to make predictions, expect them to be taken seriously and then - when they turn out to be spectacularly wrong just say 'sorry - we did some more research and our last prediction was all wrong. But this one'll be great! Until we decide that's wrong as well.
I do not recall seeing a statement from Viner or UEA that Viner's remarks are inoperative. Can you point me to where it is if I have overlooked it? And if not, we must assume that it is still the UEA/CRU official position
@wow
'But they are all complete bollocks as explanations'
Thanks for sharing your deeply considered views. It's always good to hear some serious analysis to give us new insights.
"Thanks for sharing your deeply considered views."
You're welcome.
Just a pity you've nothing to show that was why they cut back, rather than, as is actually the case, that it was the forecasts for the weather that meant they cut back and saved a shitload of cash on gritting that wasn't needed.
Indeed, the Met Office were congratulated by all the councils who expresed an opinion on the accuracy of the forecast and how it had helped them cut costs without cutting safety.
"Did you have a point? What is it?"
For the hard of thinking like yourself, when you say "Our children" you aren't NECESSARILY talking about YOUR CHILDREN.
It is used similarly, and more accessibly to the common man, to mean the children that will live in the future.
However, your entire self worth is predicated on a world view that would be devastated by understanding, so you refrain.
@lotharsson
'The readership went up whilst it was “nasty”.
Up.
Not down.
Up as in higher readership.
Not lower.
Up as in larger numbers.
Not smaller numbers.'
Fine.
Perhaps by trying the 'even nastier' tactic once again you might manage to drag your readership up beyond that of a Scottish Chartered Accountant. Or perhaps yu will see it continue to decline. Like those sad old religious types who are the last members of some minor sect fading away into the mists of time.
But me - I think I'll find some more congenial company for the moment.
Thanks for your time...it been extremely revealing and instructive .And I've learnt a huge amount about the practitioners of Deep Alarmism.
"When sceptics explain how they arrived at their views, "
Because you seem not to have noticed, here it is again:
There has been no explanation.
Just the assertion of views.
"the practitioners of Deep Alarmism."
Since you keep blithering on about catastrophe, that would be you, right?
"Perhaps by trying the ‘even nastier’ tactic once again "
So at long last you agree your assertion previous was incorrect.
It's odd how you can't bring yourself to say that without being nasty.
I guess that proves your views wrong, right?
Yes, indeed.
If that's what they actually based their opinions on - a newspaper article that Wow has been trying to point out to you does not actually assert that Viner specified a near-term timescale (a fact which I did not recall until Wow started dropping broad hints).
Desalination plants and dams are both mighty useful with the kind of patchy rainfall history we've had in the last few decades. "Totally useless" is the same sort of illogical black and white thinking as "my house insurance is totally useless because my house never burnt to the ground".
Latimer Alder:
Please provide evidence that your local authorities took a newspaper article in the Independent as gospel and stopped winter weather precautions.
Yes.
This has been another edition of short answers to content-free prognostications.
Latimer would make a good troll, except that the sine qua non of trolling is to ensure that the other people post much much more than you do.
Latimer's arguments are getting more and more desperate. They were thin to begin with but now... cellophane is thick by comparison. From one strwman after another to scraping up quotes from scientists made 13 years ago.
Since when is snow an indicator that there is no warming? The most important statistic is that warm weather records and being set at 5 times the number ofn cold weather records, and this ratio has been increasing rapidly since the 1970s. Today Sydney just had it warmest EVER day. Not just a date record but an all time record. the current cold weather in Europe is below normal but is nowhere close to setting any records. The US saw 362 all time warm weather records set this year and precisely 0 all time cold records.
But if we don't take instrumental records as evidence for warming, what about the huge numebrs of biotic evidence? Its all there in the scientific journals. Poelwards or elevational advances by many species of plants and animals, changes in seasonal phenology, voltinism, flowering times, and other life-history related phenomena. Oak processionary caterpillars (a species I study) have exapnded to the north at a rapid rate sicne the 1980s; this year we found that the main parasitic wasps emerging from caterpillars of the diamondback moth were (for the first time) dominated by thermophilic species normally common in southern Europe. They are replacing the less thermophilic species. The diamondback moth, by the way, is a major pest of cabbage crops and is a southern native that has only recently begun to survive winters in central and northern Europe. This means that they emerge earlier in the year and can build up their numbers much faster.
Latimer: Are you suggesting that devotees of WUWT and Judith Curry feel that physics depends on the bluntness or otherwise of people who are expressing certain views?
Soon after JC started her blog I visited a few times. I particularly remember her blog where she drew an analogy to the Italian flag, in which she lost track of what her analogy was and switched arguments part way through. Then there was the time when she said there had been a decrease on global temperatures, or maybe there hadn't, and she showed a startling ignorance of basic statistics. Those two incidents convinced me that there was no point in visiting for the science.
Jeff said:
More than that, both groups seem to work on finding brief snippets that could be interpreted to mean something different, in the belief that this will uncover the silver bullet that destroys the entirety of the evidence.
Richard,
"More than that, both groups seem to work on finding brief snippets that could be interpreted to mean something different, in the belief that this will uncover the silver bullet that destroys the entirety of the evidence".
Exactly. I couldn't have said it better.
As for JC, she doesn't seem to know where she stands or what she means. I have read a few of her threads and some of them are cringe-inducing. I also notice that she once linked her site to a range of other blogs, but since then she's deleted most of the rational ones in favor of denial blogs. It seems to me that she doesn't know which side is up most of the time.
This Latimer Alder is a particular type of troll who comes along with pre-conceived notions and is only capable of making observations that confirm what they already believe and incapable of observations that contradict their pre-conceived notions.
I guess you could call him a seeker-of-biassed-confirmation troll.
Yep, that was one of the ones that convinced me she didn't know what she was talking about. IIRC some people were trying to point out obvious flaws in her claims based on that analogy, but she was having none of it.
Latimer Alder:
One more year without a La Nina or desalination plants and Brisbane would have virtually run out of water.
This Latimer Alder appears to be good only for parroting stupid denialist memes.
"I guess you could call him a seeker-of-biassed-confirmation troll."
Otherwise known as "An Idiot".
Latimer Alder :
How do you know I didn't check Ridley? Ridley's response didn't alter Tim Lambert's demolition. You asked for someone to "just" demolish Ridley's argument and as you imply with "just", it wasn't difficult to see if you're not blind.
Wondered where Lattie had gone. He got twitted at Climate etc by willard and disappeared.
He *really* likes me, too ;-)
See you soon Lattie!
xx
I suspect that he had better things to do than hang around arguing semantics with you lot!
You deltoids are hilarious!
BTW, this is far from a high traffic blog.
Even a relatively new blogger like me can easily spot that.
Lotharsson's excuse for that is only ONE of several more likely reasons.
My guess is there are too many blinkered 'conspiracy theorists' here.
People have probably got tired of your silly repetetive lectures that are about 'one side' of politics and 'one hypothesis' about climate.
The world and the politics and the research has moved on deltoids.
Latimer is giving you good advice when he suggests you need to get out more.
You are not achieving anything by hanging out here and waving your semantics around.
But you are good for a laugh!
Chameleon
You put it very well. Life's too short for hanging around with the very odd and unpleasant crowd of introvert agoraphobics here.
I'll leave you all to congratulate each other on your strange, closed view of the world. My brief sojourn among you really has been very very instructive. And incredibly claustrophobic.
And so - with lungfuls of the outside air and many sighs of relief - back to reality for me.
1. IT'S ALL PROJECTION.
2. Tone trolling? Really?
0/0 for originality, 0/0 for content. Need better trolls, Judith. Let's see if this one sticks the flounce.
(Random aside: Jonas is upping the loopiness level again)
By the way,
But my semantics is beautiful and everyone needs to see it!
Seriously though; it possessing a dictionary a crime in denier-land? The inability to express even the most basic of ideas seems common and increasing in intensity. Well, in a way, that would make sense. The increasing amounts of cognitive dissonance required would favor an inverted Darwinian process, would it not?
Argumentum ad O'Reillyum. How original (cough), pointless and indicative of massive insecurity of you.
Whoa. One more thing:
Note the poor spelling and novel, pathological overuse of scare quotes. Cf the Jonas thread.
(Tim, if you do an IP check and see this is merely de rigeur in denial-land rather than puppetry, please delete so I don't look exceedingly paranoid)
Oh dear - the poor little man didn't do very well, did he? And his narcissistic self-regard is all tarnished? Wrong-footed himself from the get-go and never recovered? Perhaps not quite so dazzlingly bright as he thought?
Feel free never to return.
No Bill,
he did just fine.
You would all do well to follow his lead and take some fresh air.
I would also suggest you look up the definition of narcissistic self regard and apply it to your comment above..
But there is a little part of me that hopes you won't because I confess I would miss my daily dose of amusement ;-)
I would also suggest that Tim probably wrings his hands every time you tell people to leave and crow a hollow defeat when they tire of you.
Maybe Bill is the reason why Tim has lost so much traffic Lotharsson?
Stu,
if you have to resort to analysing spelling and grammar at a blog I fear for your sanity.
It has absolutely nothing to do with anything important that real people would like to discuss about 'science and the environment'.
When I'm ready for a proof reader, I'll go to a recommended professional.
Trust me, you're ready for a proof reader.
Chameleon, you don't need a "recommended professional", you need a Primary-level tutor to assist you in bringing your literacy level up to scratch.
Amusing that you swallow Latimer's false claim to be heading off "for some fresh air" when he will clearly be returning to the foetid swamp of denialism from whence he sprang 2 days ago.
When asked the non-rhetorical questions as whether he recommends that we go to dishonest journalists or nutty crank blogs to obtain science information, he made the false claim,
Despite clearly recommending that people do so by,
a/ recommending Ridley
and
b/ recommending WUWT or Curry or whatever crank blog it was he was singing the praises of.
It isn't uncommon for know-nothing IT professionals to develop an ego-driven contrarian urge as Latimer has been displaying. Reading between the lines, I'd guess he may have been involved with Accenture or one of those kinds of IT firms that place greater emphasis on engineering costly (to the client) project failures rather than delivering what the client expects. He just has that aura of slimy dishonesty about him.
Good grief!
Apart from being incredibly funny, you deltoids are entirely predictable.
You really would do well if you followed Latimer's suggestion and get out for some fresh air.
You are arguing about nothing instead of paying attention to the message.
Watching you all get tied up in knots over syntax and auras etcetera is a real hoot.
Most of us learnt a long time ago that it is a waste of time.
We learn this important lesson when we leave academia land to go out into the 'real' world. (Maybe those quotation marks do look pathalogically terrifying to you folks?)
And JeffH, what utter tosh! (to reuse your own phrase).
Your comments remind me of those pigs in George Orwell's "Animal Farm":
'Everybody is equal but some are more equal than others.'
Come to think of it, your politics remind me of those pigs too.
Deltoids!!!!!!
It isn't as scary and horrible out here in the real 'rough and tumble' world as your data and your increasingly wobbly predictions tell you.
There's nothing like a breath of fresh air ;-)
Chameleon, I don't detect any statement of substance in your last contribution.
Going to nutter crank blogs isn't "getting out".
Ridley was wrong in his prediction.
Ridley made a statement about the scientific consensus that was wrong when he made it. This is either incompetence (which you'd expect from somebody who managed to make a bank fail) or perhaps something worse.
The Australian had to apologise and retract one of its nonsensical articles published this week as part of a flurry of political anti-science activism.
Those are all examples of statements of substance.
If you've ever seen the expression, "hand-waving", that's what you do when you type your illiterate, fact-free and delusional nonsense.
"Going to nutter crank blogs isn’t “getting out”."
Though I'd settle for the idiots to fuck off to those blogs they prefer.
Yeah, you can only spend so much of the day reading what idiots have crammed their head with.
Good god this is a boring little concern troll.
Ummm Vince?
"Ridley was wrong in his prediction." ?
Please forgive me for stating the bleeding obvious
So was Viner and Flannery and Gore and countless others Vince!
Being wrong in a prediction about the climate/weather is not counted as some sort of capital offense in case you haven't noticed.
Just as well too, because all those proper climate scientists at places like BoM would be in all sorts of legal trouble by now.
Lucky heh?
That's why you folks are soooooo funny!
You are frantically protecting certain wobbly and incorrect predictions by personally attacking others who have ALSO made INCORRECT predictions.
There is nothing scientific about that you know.
It is nothing to to do with misrepresenting scientific consensus.
It is purely and transparently political.
And it's hilarious watching all of you tie yourselves up in self important knots over it and practicing 'nuancing' and 'ritual intellectual humiliation'.
No one (except you deltoids) cares about your nuancing and rituals.
I'm not kidding you know.
Latimer gave you some really good advice.
He didn't say go to another specific blog, he most definitely suggested you get out of this particular space to get some 'fresh air'.
Maybe you could all go out and plant some trees?
To develop the metaphor and perhaps turn it into a simile:
It's like you're starting to suffocate from lack of oxygen.
Well, presumably you can talk about Viner being wrong in the "Viner was wrong" thread.
Coming onto the "Ridley was wrong" thread and talking about Viner is irrelevant.
Having said that, Ridley was wrong at the time he made his statement, because it was not well-founded - it was directly contradicted by the facts.
Viner, on the other hand, made a statement that was well-founded on the facts.
http://dusk2.geo.orst.edu/prosem/PDFs/preeti_seasonal_snow.pdf
P.313, Figure5., “Northern Hemisphere Winter” [Snow cover]
Additionally, your opinion on whether he was wrong appears based on some selective quoting you've no doubt been exposed to at a nutter crank blog, because this is what Viner said,
Did he say "heavy snow will return"? Yes!
Then there's Flannery. You invented a "quote" you ascribe to him and use that false quote to claim he was wrong about something. Surely you're not even kidding yourself which that low-quality bit of nonsense?
And then there's "Gore". Personally I know nothing about this guy except for political cartoons in the 1980s that made fun of him for saying nothing of substance. I have no idea why the cranks are so obsessed with this one US politician, but that's the thing about cranks - they get these idiotic obsessions that cannot be explained by any rational process. So anyway, I have no idea what Gore's predictions are nor whether they are wrong, but I do know that your 3 previous examples of somebody being "wrong" were wrong, therefore I will assume that Gore was right and you are simply lying again.
Vince!
As I said at the other thread,
Maybe you're picking on the wrong people?
Ridley's quote was taken out of context as well was it not?
It can be properly explained just as easily as you have 'properly explained' Viner's quotes which were ALSO taken out of context.
ALL of the media are guilty of doing this INCLUDING those insufferable snobs at the ABC.
Tim has committed the same error.
He has actually been rather 'unscrupulous' according to his own definition with his graph at the first Ridley post.
He took Ridley's quote out of context and then graphed it for visual effect.
But let's be clear here deltoids, Tim is NOT the only person to have done this and neither is it peculiar to what you people see as 'one side'.
You are indeed correct that it is a feature of the media and politics that surround this issue.
But it's BOTH SIDES deltoids, BOTH!
But of course Vince, you are free to assume whatever you like about me. It is not relevant to this discussion no matter how many times and how many different ways you would like to express your assumptions.
Neither is a comment like:
'He just has that aura of slimy dishonesty about him.'
The fact that you feel the need to write such a comment says way more about you than anyone else.
And you based it on your opinion of Latimer's profession?
Uh Oh Vince!
I think you just confirmed what he was very patiently trying to point out.
Let's see if Latimer is better at sticking the flounce than he is at trying to argue a case. If he succeeds it will be close to the first supported factual claim he has made here.
If so, maybe chameleon can watch and learn.
Oh, my that really is precious!
I need to head out and purchase a stronger irony meter.
People here got tired of your particular brand of woolly thinking and lecturing about five minutes after you arrived, but that hasn't stopped you, has it? And these "your silly repetetive lectures" don't seem to have turned you off, so it's not obvious that your hypothesis fits the evidence.
Self awareness ain't your strong suit, is it? Come to think of it, I don't recall seeing any evidence of any strong suits from you yet.
Yep, another facet of standard model AGW denialism reveals itself. Whodathunkit?
Wait, wait...the troll who has been demonstrably wrong on practically every factual claim she has made - up to and including the extremely basic English comprehension question "Delingpole was quoting Flannery saying 'fleeting fancy'" - is lecturing other people about what is and isn't an incorrect prediction, and what is and isn't "wobbly"?
This is comedy gold. We should sell tickets!
Funny how Ridley didn't bother to do that here then, him being a journalist who's paid for his alleged skill at expressing concepts and providing explanations.
Why do you think that is?
Don't be silly.
The evidence strongly indicates that he "has that aura". Consider if you will - and you won't - his mendaciously constructed "rebuttals" that insist - even after it has been pointed out - on attacking strawmen, or implying that rebutting a side point rebuts the main argument that does not depend on it, or asserting facts not in evidence. And doing so supplemented with assertions that seek to characterise the "other side" as using the very same unsophisticated sophistical tricks that he is engaging in.
Most thinking adults can perceive the dishonesty behind those tactics fairly quickly. You, however, praise him for "saying it well".
That says more about you than Vince. Way more.
What was the correct context?
Yes Lotharsson,
I have to confess I have become addicted to winding you lot up.
You're one of my favourites.
It doesn't take much to set you off into your 'nuancing' and 'ritual intellectual humiliation' routine.
But Latimer is right, it is getting a bit stale.
Rest easy, I do have way more important things to do than this.
I'll be 'flouncing off' sooner rather than later.
I see Latimer Alder ran away when I asked him for evidence for a claim he knew was complete nonsense, and I see chameleon defends Latimer Alder. Am I surprised? Not at all.
The unintended irony, it hurts.
Both of them seem to be from the "My assertion should be sufficient evidence for you" school, but Latimer has a better grasp of written English. Perhaps that was sufficient to earn chameleon's praise?
If we were to give him the benefit of the doubt by ruling out deliberate mendacity, one would have to conclude that his comprehension skills are not much better than chameleon's are though. 'twas remarkable how often he asserted an argument that had not actually been made (never mind the facts not in evidence).
For anyone playing along at home, I make it 4 and a half unsuccessful flounces thus far.
Anyone wanna take bets on how many she eventually makes? Just a hint: my pick is into double figures.
Chebbie is as voluble as she is dull. Next.
Marco, Latimer Alder also went awfully quiet on the other thread after comments like this and the preceding couple which showed that he was still busily rebutting a strawman.
It's almost as if he learned some debating techniques - one might speculate somewhere around 4th form - for characterising your opponents' arguments as flawed, but never got around to learning how to demonstrate it.
Chameleon has the same problem in spades.
Openly admitting to trolling. And we're the ones that need to step outside, right?
Pathetic.
Lotharsson, asking the pseudoskeptics to back up their claims is always a lesson in futility, but when they venture into a forum like this, where facts are facts and opinion opinion, they usually have no choice but to run away. Back to Curry's, where they can say all they want, and whenever they get asked for evidence, they will have a whole group of people willing to make sure this is drowned in noise.
Yep, it's an exercise in futility if your aim is to get them to admit their claims cannot be defended. I think I can count on one hand the number of claims pseudoskeptics have withdrawn over the years I've been hanging out here, and still have enough fingers left over to hold a pen.
It is, however, a useful exercise to the extent that it demonstrates to other readers that they are making claims they can't substantiate.
Chameleon, for some strange reason thinks she's smart, rational and witty. She's actually none of the above.
I'd say shallow, witless and naive are more apt metaphors.
She writes this, apparently with a straight face: "My guess is there are too many blinkered ‘conspiracy theorists’ here"
Every time she says something, its foot straight into mouth. If anyone has been making a big deal about conspiracy theories, its the climate change deniers. Some of their illuminati have used everything from 'its a global conspiracy to create a world government under the auspices of the UN' to smearing scientists by bleating that 'they depend on fear campaigns to secure government grants'. These smears and more characterize the denial community writ large. And some of the names listed by Latimer have been at the forefront in spreading these lies.
HHmm, the latest comment widget at the side seems out of sync with the comments themselves.
So it allowed me to see this interesting comment by Alder:
"Now its quite a long time since I worked as a proper scientist, but in our well-respected university chemistry research lab at least we learnt pretty quickly that Mother Mature or Gaia or The Universe – or whatever you want to call it – was absolutely no respecter of persons. He /she/it showed him/her/it self via experiment and observation, not by the seniority or reputation of the person reporting it. That was the old Aristotlean notion…and it started to go out of the window in the time of Bacon ..if not before."
Note that he missed out the whole theory side of things - this is a common problem with denialists - they think that some observations are enough to overturn theory and other obeservtions. They usually ignore the interplay between observation, theory, testing, prediction of further effects, observation of these effects, and so on. Examples can be adduced of this not working quite right and also of it working very well.
Following on from that, what Alder needs to do is provide an argument which shows how the whole global warming 'con' is not based upon observations, known physical properties of the earth and universe in general. I know he can't, as do others here, but it appears he doesn't.
As for the comment re. Aristotelian observation going out the window by the time of Bacon, it isn't clear if he means Francie or Roger. Roger Bacon wrote a great deal that, in the medieval style, argued from both observation, logic and authority, as they did at the time. Since then, science has developed along increasingly observation/ theory / experiment based lines, with the important point that a good theory points to further work and makes predictions, such as a cooling stratosphere, warmer nights, increasing oceanic pH etc. of global warming.
@guthrie
Just a quickie as I'm passing by.
I don't think I'd disagree much with anything that you said about the interplay between observation and theory. Of course they fed of each other. Ad if you'd read some of my other posts you'd see that I was briefly a theoretician too.
But the point of my post was to object most strongly to the argument put forward by some other posters that a piece of work should be judged by the status of the guy presenting it, not by the work itself. Or by irrelevancies about their personal lives or background.
Along the lines of 'xyz' is a climate scientist' and therefore 'must be right' and 'abc' isn't and therefore must be wrong. Or even 'abc' did something I disapprove of and therefore must be wrong. Those are the ffallacies of 'argumentum ad vericundiam' and 'argumentum ad hominem'
I'm as happy as the next man to shout at the referee if he gives a foul against a player from my team. even when it is blatantly well-deserved. But that's in the heat of the moment at a football match.
I'm sure you'd agree that to do proper science, we need a better set of judgements than 'my man right or wrong' or 'don't listen to him - he is a Bad Person'
@guthrie
And just to point out that the theory is said to lead to *decreased* oceanic pH, (less alkaline) not to *increased* oceanic pH (more alkaline). And it's said to be a consequence of increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere - not of global warming.
The argument in this case is that A produces B and C, not A produces B produces C.
Reminder of the pH scale
0 Strongly acid
7.0 Neutral
14 Strongly alkaline
Seawater ...about 8.0 +/- 0.3 (slightly alkaline)
And this is where Dunning-Kruger kicks in: people of low intellect who are in denial of science, kid themselves that they have the ability to pass such judgment.
If you do not have the expertise to judge somebody else's science, then you have to rely on that person's peers to judge it.
You find out what that person's peers think of their work by seeing whether that work is published in reputable places and how often it is cited
But you knew that.
Latimer
This is what most 'sceptics' do to climate scientists. Vociferously and continuously.
Oh, and for a demonstration of Dunning-Kruger in action...
Contrast with what people who don't get their "information" from crank-blogs like WUWT and Curry's...
http://www.tos.org/oceanography/issues/issue_archive/issue_pdfs/14_4/14…
Wasn't Latimer claiming to be an atmospheric chemist or something?
What a duufus.
The golden rule of trolling is you have to choose a solid cover story.
Vince Whirlwind
Lattie has said elsewhere that he ran an IT services company (or something of that nature).
Ran it into the ground, probably, just like Ridley did his bank.
Latimer:
"...Along the lines of ‘xyz’ is a climate scientist’ and therefore ‘must be right’ and ‘abc’ isn’t and therefore must be wrong. ... Those are the ffallacies of ‘argumentum ad vericundiam’ "
Damon Runyan:
"It may be that the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong - but that's the way to bet."
Latimer's money is on the longshot.
Hmm, I'm getting a sense of deja vu here, I recall trying to teach basic chemistry to Neil Craig on oceanic acidification a few years ago. Although Latimer does write better than he does.
Now, you state:
"And just to point out that the theory is said to lead to *decreased* oceanic pH, (less alkaline) not to *increased* oceanic pH (more alkaline). And it’s said to be a consequence of increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere – not of global warming. "
Said to be a consequence of increased CO2? No, it's a scientific certainty that it is a consequence of increased CO2. No if's but's or maybe's, it's been scientifically proven that the acidification, that is, becoming more acid, of the ocean, is due to CO2. It it were the other way around, it would be oceanic alkilination, but that isn't what is happening.
Ummmmm?
JeffH?
Reread your comment.
You are operating under the misconception that people like me are part of an organised group called 'deniers' and/or 'climate change deniers'.
To quote you:
What utter tosh!
There is no such organisation.
However there is an organisation known as the UN and there also is the theory of 'deliberative global governance'.
They're not conspiracies however as they're well known and well documented and well funded by public money.
You are arguing about political ideologies not science and the environment.
Bog-standard Jo Nova-ite nutter! Boring.
And that flounce from the Larch didn't last long:
And?
I mean, seriously; this is one of those 'it's not really ocean acidification, you know' things, isn't it? That's not even pathetic! And weren't you even trying to unconvince us that you had some 'expertise' in such matters?
Well, lookee here -
Ho ho. OK - and your relation to this 'well respected lab' is, um, doing IT, or were you perhaps a Lab assistant once?
What's the latin for 'argument by claiming authority you don't actually possess while simultaneously claiming others are arguing from authority'?
You'd have done better to have stayed away, you know!
Well, considering he was trying to say that temperature increase doesn't lead to CO2 uptake in water, I'd say he was scrubbing the floors - even an IT monkey would have had the commonsense to get that right.
I bet Camo neither knows nor understands the concept of "global governance" beyond what her fellow cranks have drip fed her. She probably imagines that the International Maritime Organisantion or the International Atomic Energy Agency for example are communist front groups looking to steal her pension.
In short, yet another whacko.
No, and [citation needed]. Anyway, are you calling Koch Industries and the Heartland Institute disorganized now?
There are also black helicopters. Doesn't mean they're out to get you.
Sigh. The projection is strong in this one.
Well no actually chek,
Apart from the fact that I'm not worried about my pension at this stage of my life and am planning not to need a pension or support from a govt pension scheme:
'Global Governance' or 'Deliberative Global Governance' is a well known and well documented policy and very easy to find at official websites like here:
http://greens.org.au/policies/human-rights-democracy/global-governance
and here:
http://deliberativedemocracy.anu.edu.au/democratising-climate-governance
or here:
http://cc2011.earthsystemgovernance.org/pdf/2011Colora_0196.pdf
Plus many many more.
There is no 'whacko' involved in knowing the theory exists and is supported by 'big government' via public monies.
It's interesting that you are calling it whacko and/or that institutions like IMO are communist fronts?
Where on earth did you get that idea?
And Stu?
Talk about projection!
Out to get you?
Seriously?
I will also point out that I am not a member or a subscriber to Koch Industries or The Heartland Institute but my country is definitely a member of the UN.
I don't know for sure, but I would seriously suspect that the 2 entites you have mentioned are not funded by public monies but I can tell you most definitely that many other organisations including the UN are indeed funded by public monies.
Other than those simple observations, I have no idea why you folks are screeching away about this mythical group called 'Climate Change Denialists'.
I can't find this highly organised group that is apparently out to ruin the planet.
Er...
1/ it's *not* supported by "big government", that's why it's on the Greens' wishlist.
Duh.
2/ I don't see anything relevant to government policy here
3/ Even less relevant
Tell us something Chameleon, do you like Democracy, or do you like the IMF and the World Bank just the way they are, run by "big governments"?
So wait, only "public monies" are bad? Is that what you are saying?
Vince,
I don't think you understand the point of disagreement here.
I have been accused of believing in a conspiracy theory and belonging to some highly organised group called the 'Climate Change Denialists' which JeffH summarised above.
It appears that the only place that group exists is in JeffH's very fertile imagination?
When I google it I only find references to others using the name, not an actual organisation or official policy.
If such an organisation does exists, I can assure you I am not a member and I would also suspect that any funding does not come via public monies. otherwise it would be easy to find.
However, there is such an organisation known as the UN which I am a member of because my country is and keeps that membership via public monies.
There is also such a theory as 'deliberative global governance'
In Australia as well as other countries around the world it is studied at Universities and funded by Govts.
If you would like to Google the course at ANU it has a fairly good description there.
Your final question bears no relevance to the issue under discussion.
Actually JeffH has already decided he knows my 'politics' and what I believe in:
At some stage he said I wear a Libertarian, Right Wing heart on my sleeve.
At least you thought to ask what my political leanings are; albiet in a rhetorical manner.
I'm gonna guess that they probably aren't the same as yours Vince but, I would also guess that we both do believe in the basic principles of democracy.
At least I hope so :-)
Stu,
Only public monies are bad?
What on earth do you think that means?
I have no idea how you could have drawn that conclusion or would see the need to ask such a question.
I haven't said that anything is BAAAD or otherwise.
I was QUESTIONING the existence of this very scary organisation called 'Climate Change Denialists'.
If it existed it should be easy to find like the UN and 'deliberative global governance' is: which JeffH and you seem to think is believing in a conspiracy theory?????????
I was merely pointing out that the UN and the theory can't be a conspiracy because they are easily located and they are funded by public monies.
I also would therefore say there is nothing sinister about believing that they exist. Wouldn't you?
a. Jeff mentioned no such group
b. Jeff summarised nothing of the sort
c. It's your imagination that has once again produced yet another invention
Are you saying you don't understand your own statement about public monies, or are you going to deny you made such a statement?
In spring, the Pee-wees round my way start nest-building and get all territorial.
Last Spring, some pee-wees at a government building I work at built their nest on the intersection of a crossed pair of beams under a 4th-floor balcony.
Their nest was level with a 3rd-floor window.
The Pee-wee on the nest kept catching sight if its reflection in the window about 3 metres away and would jump off its nest and aggressively fly at its reflection. Then it would figure out there was no other bird there and go back to its nest. Then it would catch sight of its own reflection again,.... etc...
It would do this over and over again, all day every day.
Chameleon reminds of those Pee-wees.
I beg to differ Vince:
Direct cut and paste from JeffH comment above:
"If anyone has been making a big deal about conspiracy theories, its the climate change deniers. Some of their illuminati have used everything from ‘its a global conspiracy to create a world government under the auspices of the UN’ to smearing scientists by bleating that ‘they depend on fear campaigns to secure government grants’. "
He definitely refers to 'climate change deniers' and they even have an illuminati according to JeffH's comment above.
He also seems to think that the UN and Global Governance and Government Grants are part of this group's conspiracy theory.
I was merely pointing out that:
a) there is no such organisation called 'climate change deniers' and
b) That the UN and 'global governance' are not 'conspiracies', they are both well known and well supported by public monies.
I fail to understand what your problem is Vince.
Do you think there is an organisation with illuminati called 'climate change deniers'?
Do you think the UN and the theory of 'Deliberative Global Governance' are conspiracies?
Do you think that the UN is NOT supported by public monies and/or that Australia is NOT a member?
Also, the statement I made about public monies is this one:
I don’t know for sure, but I would seriously suspect that the 2 entites you have mentioned are not funded by public monies but I can tell you most definitely that many other organisations including the UN are indeed funded by public monies.
I can't see where that means that I think that:
only “public monies” are bad?
But I'm sure you will enlighten me!
BTW, my original comment re 'blinkered conspiracy theorists' actually referred to the sorts of comments that JeffH has made above.
He of course is not the only one who does it.
Bog-standard Jo Nova-ite nutter! Boring.
+1
Whodathunkit! Chameleon - a la arch conspiracy theorist Monckton - conflates global governance on some issue with global government .
Someone else can explain it to her - I'm typing on my phone.
So you admit Jeff said nothing about
Which was your own nutty invention?
Let's put it another way: would the UN be acceptable to you if it were funded by the same bodies that fund WUWT and Jo Nova's blog?
I'm actually disappointed that LA21 hasn't been mentioned yet. My card is very nearly full otherwise...
Latimer:
I can't find where anyone said this. Please could you direct me to it.
Note the modus operandi here.
This strawman has been rebutted several times on the other thread, so Latimer simply switches threads and repeats it as if the other rebuttals did not occur.
Better trolls please.
Bonus points for "The UN is coming to steal all our golfs".
Meanwhile, since Latimer is fond of imagining a grade for other people's performances on a school year scale, perhaps he could tell us what year kids learn about proper nouns and how readers and writers distinguish them from non-proper nouns. Latimer, over to you!
I am reminded by Latimer busily inventing and dispatching a strawman, of a trenchant scientific principle (can't remember who first expressed it).
It says:
In other words, to go against the consensus you at least need to demonstrate basic competence in the field. Any anyone who has basic competence in the field can get a paper published that stands up to scrutiny. (That's practically axiomatic.)
And of course this is necessary but not sufficient to demonstrate that your counter-consensus claims are credible. (Cue more strawman creation by the usual suspects.)
Unless I'm mistaken Ridley doesn't qualify under that principle.
Simple solution. Buy them by the carton. Doesn't matter how high you ramp the quality - there's always someone somewhere who'll wreck the thing. Better to be reassured by a supply of replacements ready for whenever it happens.
That's a great idea, adelady.
Maybe we should start one of those group buy things and really buy them in bulk.
Chameleon:
Ho ho ho.
There's another one to add to your list, Chameleon.
Here's some free advice:
Try this new process for communicating with people:
- think first
- pause
- talk or type later
Usually, the think phase should result in you realising you were about to type a sentence including a word whose meaning you do not comprehend.
This is your cue to either look it up, or, avoid using it.
In your case, having witnessed you looking up "rhetorical" and still managing an epic comprehension fail, I think the best strategy would be to avoid all long words entirely. That is, anything longer than one syllable is completely out, although many one-syllable words should still be treated with strict caution.
Further to Loth above, let's not forget this classic from upthread -
In this case the help-me-I'm-the-victim-of-persecution strawman is so utterly ludicrous - yep, we're so calculating and brutal in our commitment to totalitarianism that The Larch can turn up here and spout all the nonsense he wants* - he didn't even make an attempt to defend it.
He simply dropped the subject with no acknowledgement of how ludicrous - indeed, oxymoronic - the claim is, but, in his mind (and his fellow-travellers, no doubt), performs that interesting juggling act; while knowing it to be false in the quotidian, merely factual, sense, polishes its sacred truth at the deepest, most important level.
(Also, on confirming he did just drop it I came across the classic claim that RealClimate isn't influential - 'making great pontifical statements to nobody at all' - precisely because it doesn't host several metres of the mutual back-slapping jabberings of a troglodyte army below each post. This is the kind of 'logic' that results in McDonalds being 'the best restaurant in the world' and has Beyonce a better musician than Beethoven... Entirely consistent with a group that the laws of physics can be safely determined by a straw poll, of course.)
Speaking of which: if only there was a way to stack all the strawmen created by the Larches of the world together we might even be well on the way to assembling a reasonable defence against the rising seas!
'Ninny' I think is the word.
(*You have to work hard for ages to even get confined your own thread! This immediately makes you Galileo, of course...)
D'oh!
Entirely consistent with a group that believes the laws of physics can be safely determined by a straw poll...
:-) :-) :-)
You are such fun deltoids!
Latimer pegged you perfectly :-)
So Vince?
Are you claiming that Illumanati means something else other than this?
Illuminati: n;pl.
1. Persons claiming to posses special knowledge or enlightenment.
2. Any of various intellectual movements or societies.
From the 'context' of jeffH's comment I'm guessing he was leaning towards number 2 but they both fit OK.
Only problem is there is no organisation known as 'climate change deniers' so being an 'illuminati' of such an organisation would be a bit difficult don't you think?
Great to see Latimer show-up here to bestow on Deltoid's land-of-the-booger-eaters, weenie-pit regulars his inimitable style, pearls-of-wisdom, and Brit-wit panache. Waste of his valuable time, of course.
That is, I can see that Latimer, brought to this improbable blog the good-faith assumption, like moi before him--before I quickly wised-up, that you Deltoid life-forms, for all your creep-out, geek-freak weirdness, were vaguely humanoid in character. BIG MISTAKE THAT!
No, I can see that Latimer has had to learn the hard way--again, like moi--that attempting an intelligent, urbane, and intellectually stimulating conversation with the conditioned-reflex, party-line-hack, group-cogitating-cog, loser-reject lefties that cluster-frack on this blog is a noble, but futile gesture given that Deltoid-land's core demographic is entirely given over to cyborg hive-bots and vat-bred eco-chimeras assembled from can't-get-a-date, whiny-dork, spoiled-brat, momma's-boy kid with zits and undescended testicles and a boundless sense of entitlement deriving from a life-time of unearned prize and a trophy-case full of all-the-kids-get-a-trophy trophies; flesh-eating bacteria; tapeworm; leech; herpes-virus, and an ill-defined yeast-infection genetic components, all in equal measure.
And to think you Deltoid barf-bags aspire to be our Philosopher-Kings and Cull-masters. What a joke!
Actually, mike, you were about the creepiest scatalogical obsessive we've ever had show up.
No-one misses you - but that's just the same as at home, isn't it?
Have to say I'm glad I don't inhabit the same landmass as you if, as I suspect, you're a big fan of your second amendment rights...
Stu rebutts Latimer Adler:
"Note the poor spelling..."
You mean like "de rigeur," Stu?
Sorry, Mike, did you have something to say about Matt Ridley being wrong?
Chameleon:
Chameleon - concentrate.
a. Can you spot your mistake? I've given you a hint.
b. *Where* in that definition you just provided, does it say that an illuminatus belongs to an "organisation"?
@mike
Thanks you for your kind words
Like a responsible adult I popped in to check on the petulant children, and saw a sensible post from 'guthrie' which seemed worthy of discussion.
Sadly they've not shown (yet?) up to continue.
Meanwhile the purveyors of the Orwellian 'Posts of Hate' cluster around with their silly games - reducing yet further their credibility as serious players in the climatosphere.
I'll look in again sometime to see if 'guthrie' has reappeared.
You're the one playing silly games, Latimer.
Ridley was wrong.
Monbiot references what he writes.
You make it up as you go along...and demonstrate your wrongness at every turn.
Care to explain your claim that increased sea temperature doesn't cause increased CO2 uptake?
How did you get that so wrong?
And why do you change the subject every time you seem in danger of learning something?
Doesn't understand basic Chemistry, gets his "info" from crank blogs.
No wonder he feels the need to wallow in intellectually dishonest smoke-screens laid down by self-combusting strawmen.
Condescension towards those who have demonstrated all but one of your substantive claims - and that most likely was a slip-up on guthrie's part - to be clearly unfounded is generally an indicator that one has given up trying to argue one's case on the merits and is now treating one's audience with contempt. (That is, on the charitable assumption that one started out attempting to argue on the merits.)
They should have taught you that by the time you reached 4th form debating classes.
Doing the Gish Gallop is another dead giveaway.
Meanwhile, would you mind giving chameleon a quick lesson about proper nouns? If that works you might consider working on some remedial comprehension. I'm hoping she can help you distinguish between a loaded and a straight (if pointed) question in return, but maybe we should get someone else in for that.
@guthire
Sorry - missed your post above in all the other crap.
' No, it’s a scientific certainty that it is a consequence of increased CO2. No if’s but’s or maybe’s, it’s been scientifically proven that the acidification, that is, becoming more acid, of the ocean, is due to CO2.'
Please show the observational data that proves that this theoretical effect is actually occurring. in practice in the oceans.
No argument that if you increase the partial pressure of CO2 over a jar of pure water, you will end up with a solution of carbonic acid that will be slightly acidic. Basic physical chemistry.
But pure water is not at all the same thing as seawater - a not very well mixed solution of all sorts of inorganic ions surrounded by huge quantities of rocks of CaCO3 and others. It is not at all obvious that the weak carbonic acid like carbonic will overwhelm the buffering effect of the solution and surrounding rocks
For such a complex and varied system. the only way to show that the pH is actually decreasing is to go out and make the measurements over a long period of time.
By analogy, to show that the GAT was actually increasing took the analysis of somewhere between 10 and 100 million temperature records taken from thermometers all over the world (and later by satellite ) over a period of several decades..
Can you show me a similar set of observations of ocean pH that will hep to turn a lab based theory into the same 'scientific proof' that you claim?
And to Bill - yes I have worked in several chemistry labs as a lab technician. Chemistry is an intensely practical and observational science so working down and dirty in the lab is part of learning the trade.
But for the relevant part that I discussed I was studying for a Masters in Atmospheric Chemistry - which the examiners were good enough to award, even though observations by my experimental colleagues showed that the theory I was working on was way off base. You can read my bio here.
http://judithcurry.com/2010/11/12/the-denizens-of-climate-etc/#comment-…
And since you take delight in deriding others qualifications and expertise, perhaps you'd do us the courtesy of publishing yours too?
Bugger. There goes another irony meter.
You mean
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators/oceans/acidity.html
like this, Latimer?
30 lines of text to say precisely nothing. When will it learn.
Sorry, you're claiming that you have a masters degree in atmospheric chemistry, and yet you deny the oceans are acidifying!
Well then; publish or be damned!
(And the fact that you were 'way off base' isn't a hint to you, or anything?)
This also explains why the real scientists at RealClimate are such an object of resentment.
No wonder you're spending your twilight years hanging out at Judith Curry's.
Do you also notice that you get progressively more pompous as your arguments get successively torn down? You might want to remember this.
And, you really don't get the logic of this, do you - I'm not making claims beyond my competence, or against the scientific mainstream.
Just looked at the motley assortment of deniers on the Curry page that Latimer linked.
Essentially what I read were a bunch of people with expertise nothing close to climate science who tried to blow up their credentials by giving the impression that they read a lot around the subject. A few of the responses were especially hilarious, such as one clown suggesting that climate change was linked with conflicts in Darfur and elsewhere. Pretty kindergarten level stuff.
All I can do is shake my head in disbelief when I read that kind of drivel. More and more each day I think our species is screwed. Big time. Heading for the abyss whilst refusing to change course.
He's popped back in a couple of times, but he's still covering his eyes and pretending you never asked. That sort of thing tends to get noticed, even at 4th form debating level.
Jeff, did you notice Latimer at Curry's cites "(...mysterious and unmeasurable ‘forcings’ that multiply the effect by 4 or more?? )"?
Given his history of ignoring other corrections here, do you reckon it's worth pointing out he clearly doesn't even understand the basics of the scientific case he claims to be "skeptical" about? Or would that just be arguing "semantics" which seem never to be appropriate according to chameleon?
And that's before anyone notes his claim that "ClimateGate" cast suspicion on various scientists and sundry data, and his assertion of "...a completely unjustifiable reliance on models with very limited (or no) verification of them by observation of the real world...". The latter closely matches chameleon's views on the subject. One wonders if they are also a double act at other blogs...
Lotharsson,
Yeh, i saw it. Yes, I reckon it is worth pointing that out. And the climategate reference was there as you say. That's long been consigned to the bin, except in the minds of many deniers who cling to it desperately to legitimize their conspiracy claims.
What's utterly ironic is that if anyone distorts, manipulates, massages or cherry-picks the data, its the deniers.
Worth repeating:
I don't think we've found many (any?) visiting "skeptics" who are operating outside of their own competence who've understood this. It's not symmetrical. They are making claims outside of their competence and against the scientific mainstream, and love to cast people who point to the scientific mainstream and are actually skeptical of their claims (because they haven't demonstrated that they are well-founded) as doing what they're doing - operating outside of their own competence.
Deferring to the consensus of the competent is explicitly choosing NOT to operate outside one's own sphere of competence.
Vince has kindlyprovided the simplest chain of evidence for ocean acidification. The oceans are connected and will naturally equilibrate in condition over time; they are also complex with different layering systems based on temperature etc, but what was already known was that the layers move around the ocean over time, often years.
Add knowledge of statistics and that there is mixing, and you certainly don't need thousands of ships testing every square kilometre of the ocean for pH.
Thus your points are decisively answered.
If you want to go further back, there's this:
http://geology.usgs.gov/postdoc/profiles/moyer/index.html
Why yes we can tell what pH and temp were like many years ago in an area.
Oh wait, here's something that shows that scientists have already anticipated and looked into your objections:
http://droyer.web.wesleyan.edu/Honisch_et_al_2012_Science_ocean_acidifi…
Now, the point about qualifications was to mock you for not seeming to live up to your alleged level of education. In Ridley's case, you might thnk someone with a PhD would show some appreciation for the professional literature, but no, he does not.
I also have spent time as a lab monkey; I even have 2 MSc's (I need an MA and a PhD to complete the set, but it's trickier nowadays) on top of a BSc hons in chemistry. Therefore I have gone and read the IPCC reports, and whatever papers I can see. Have you?
“(…mysterious and unmeasurable ‘forcings’ that multiply the effect by 4 or more?? )”
Wouldn't that be H2O?
You know, the thing they kept insisting was a much bigger GHG than CO2?
Which would mean that its effects if it rises are more than CO2's effects.
Well, we see CO2's effects, then H2O's effects, and somehow when before they would have insisted
CO2= 1.2 C warming
H20 >> 1.2C warming
Therefore
H20 +CO2 >>2.4C warming
They don't like that and insist that there's "nothing" to multiply the effects of CO2 "fourfold". Despite the existence of H2O.
No, no, no, Wow -
H20=clouds
clouds=increased albedo
:.H20=a negative feedback
:.warming=1.2C-the effect of H20
:.CO2 might even cause cooling.
It's all perfectly logical as long as you don't rely on anybody who practices science for a living to thrown any spanners in their works.
But that makes the lie to their assertion "H2O is a much greater GHG than CO2, so CO2 can't be the cause!".
It is always a problem when you talk out of both sides of your arse-crack. Deniers, however, ignore that in themselves and their compatriots.
Check out Latimer's slimy dishonesty on this thread:
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2012/12/the-big-green-rent-see…
Somebody said words to the effect of 'nuclear's great, until it goes BBOOOMMMM!'
(Surprise, surprise, Latimer's inability to correctly assess information has led him to be a cheerleader for the nuke industry)
Latimer:
Sane people pointed out that there most definitely were explosions at Fukushima
This is what Latimer came back with:
What a slimy little liar - exactly his MO here over the past few days.
Very similar M.O. to chameleon - falsely assert what the other party is saying and then castigate them for it.
@guthrie
H'mm
I checked the references you provided.
The first is not to a research report, but to a project description.
And the second says it provides a geologic scale record (300my) of previous ocean pH. But to be able to demonstrate that recent reeleases of CO2 have had such an effect it needs to be demonstrated over 30 -100 years, not 300,000,000.
As to the miscibility of the oceans I fear I must take issue with the statement
'The oceans are connected and will naturally equilibrate in condition over time; they are also complex with different layering systems based on temperature etc, but what was already known was that the layers move around the ocean over time, often years'
Because even with what lttle we actually know about today's distribution of ocean pH we see differences between different oceanic areas far greater than could be attributed to any recent CO2 induced effect.
See, for example
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45556000/gif/_45556228_ph_levels_…
As far as pH is concerned the oceans are not well-mixed. Hence, to demonstrate a global effect, data must be collected from all over the globe ...just like for temperature.
And yes, I have read the IPCC reports. And lots of other stuff as well. I've been pretty assiduous over the years in trying to track down the observational data that shows that what is called 'ocean acidifcation' is actually a widespread occurrence in nature. And I ain't found it yet.
If you know of some please give a link.
@everybody else
I hope you enjoy trolling through the archives and reading my wit and wisdom, And I hope you learn something useful from it.
And if you ever want to debate the substance of my remarks, rather than just hurl abuse, let me know. 'Guthrie' at least seems to be happy to discuss the science occasionally.
@bill
'Sorry, you’re claiming that you have a masters degree in atmospheric chemistry, and yet you deny the oceans are acidifying! '
I'm 'denying' nothing.
I'm just asking to see the observational evidence that the effect you all claim is occurring is actually doing what you say it is. I wrote earlier about the primacy of observations over theory, and here is a fine example.
Guthire has claimed that it's an 'established scientific fact'. Surely, then, evidence is widespread, widely disseminated and easily to hand...
For 'global warming' , somebody (*) described the temperature dataset (HADCRUTx) as 'the most important data in the history of humanity'. No doubt the similarly valuable pH data is close behind?
So please just point out where it is accessible for analysis.
(*) From memory it was Tony Blair in his time as PM of the United Kingdom, but it might have been his successor, Gordon Brown)
Alder claims:
That is a lie. You are denying some thing because you are either too lazy to look it up for yourself or you have in fact looked it up and discovered just how wrong you are. You have your head buried in the sand because you don't want to find any evidence that disproves your dishonest anti-AGW rhetoric. Real scientists check the literature before spouting nonsense.
I see from curry's that you supposedly got your degree from a "Russell Group uni". Why not mention the University by name since the "Russell Group" only formed in 1994, long after your claimed time at uni? Frightened that some one might actually contact the University and discover that you are not well acquainted with the truth? Seems to me that is a major problem with AGW deniers, they never appear to report honestly about their supposed academic backgrounds.
Deltoid-land! The creep-pit where greenshirt, buddy-buddy, suppository-head hive-bozos cuddle-up and talk through their ass!
Unlike Latimer you Deltoid cretins have no class and, worse yet, your pathetic, mouthy-dude-wannabe stabs at trash-talk have "geek retard" written all over them. What a bunch of losers!--Jeez.
mike, is there nothing to you?
"I’m ‘denying’ nothing."
You're saying nothing.
@ian forrester
' You are denying some thing because you are either too lazy to look it up for yourself or you have in fact looked it up and discovered just how wrong you are. You have your head buried in the sand because you don’t want to find any evidence that disproves your dishonest anti-AGW rhetoric. Real scientists check the literature before spouting nonsense'
You make some strong accusations there. And it would be so easy for you prove that there is some truth in them.
Just show me a link to the dataset or datasets that show that 'oceans are acidifying'
And if you want then to show that I have deliberately ignored them. it might help if you could demonstrate that they are reasonably accessible to the non-academic and reasonably well publicised (eg IPCC report, or widely read journal)
I'm quite content that lots of analysis of temperature records from around the globe has shown that there have been periods of 'global warming' in recent history. All I ask for is something similar to show that the pH of the oceans is decreasing.
And I'd give extra credit for showing me the places in the literature that establish that it is the increase in atmospheric CO2 that causes this effect (if it can be demonstrated).
Since 'ocean acidification' is one of the central tenets of the more alarmist messages, I imagine that you all have this data at your fingertips.
Go for it!
Alder demands:
What gives you the right to demand that anyone do your work for you? You are typical of the AGW deniers, too lazy, too stupid, too dishonest to figure out things for yourself.
You call your self a scientist and you can't do even a simple literature search for yourself. No wonder you failed your MSc thesis. You obviously did not do a thorough literature search.
You are pathetic.;
Ocean acidification(OA), while noted as an issue since the publication of the Ravelle and Suess paper in 1957, has not attracted the same level of funding and research as the wider climate change response to rising atmospheric CO2. That being said, The best publicly available data is the Hawaii Ocean Time Series project, which has data up to 2009. They provide an online set of graphs http://hahana.soest.hawaii.edu/hot/trends/trends.html which anyone can select and display. Work is underway to better present worldwide data, but I personally don't expect anything soon. Anyone interested in leaning about OA should read "Ocean Acidification" 2011 edited by Gattuso and Hansen. It has excellent review chapters written by leading researchers in the OA field. Anyone with a background in chemistry should be able to follow it.
@ian forrester
'What gives you the right to demand that anyone do your work for you? You are typical of the AGW deniers, too lazy, too stupid, too dishonest to figure out things for yourself'
I'm not 'demanding' anything. But if you accuse me of not having done a proper literature search or 'burying my head in the sand' or 'have looked it up and discovered how wrong [I am]', then the easy way to prove it is simply to show how I should have done it and what I should have found..
Example
'Dear Latimer.
The data you asked for is easily available at paper/website/citation xyz, and/or was published in journal abc some years ago [date].'
Shouldn't be hard ... and you'd win the argument hands down. Public triumph and vindication for IF! Humiliation for LA! Laurel wreaths for having seen off the 'denier'! Free drinks at Deltoid's for weeks. General rejoicing all round.
As to being an 'AGW denier', I suggest that you carefully re-read my last post. Especially this sentence
'I’m quite content that lots of analysis of temperature records from around the globe has shown that there have been periods of ‘global warming’ in recent history'
and then remind us all what you think I am 'denying'
'You call your self a scientist and you can’t do even a simple literature search for yourself. No wonder you failed your MSc thesis. You obviously did not do a thorough literature search.
You are pathetic.'
Fine, Prove your case. Show the world how incapable of doing a literature search I am by showing the link to the data needed.
FWIW I have been having similar discussions with different bloggers over the last two years. Few of them are quite so vehement in their personal remarks, but they all make the same points as you do and then go strangely silent when they can't find the published data either.
Maybe some data has been published in the last couple of months and I have missed it. If so, yet more kudos to you if you are the first to draw it to our attention.
Go for it!
Ahh, there we go. This is where you genuinely lose the plot.
You've not denied that CO2 is absorbed by water.
Now, one link I gave demonstrated how the past history of CO2 is known about. If you genuinely understood chemistry you might be wondering why the pH of oceans is changing and what is causing that change.
The graphic you give is typical of the dishonest arguing methods of denialists. It is a snapshot that tells you nothing about trends or local changes. It doesn't tell you about the dangers to reefs or to high latitude food webs, because to you in that snapshot these areas look fine and hey look other areas have lower pH so surely these areas at higher pH can survive fine?
The answer of course is that no, they can't.
Here's a pdf of 2006 summary of research on the effects of oceanic acidification:
http://www.ucar.edu/communications/Final_acidification.pdf
There'll be more newer stuff out there, that's all I have to hand.
Ah, but wait I hear you cry, what oceanic acidification?
Well the BBC article from which you took that graphic:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7933589.stm
sets it out simply enough.
Here's a review paper of the state of the science from 1009:
It contains references which you can follow up, such as:
Sabine CL, Feely RA, Gruber N, Key RM, Lee K, et al. 2004. The oceanic sink for anthropogenic CO2.
Science 305:367–71
http://www.unc.edu/~lbuckley/GCE/uploads/Main/Doney%20et%20al%202009.pdf
Do let us know how you get on.
Alder, you are too lazy, too dishonest and too stupid to carry out a very simple literature search.
Here is one which took me all of about 20 seconds (you can use Google and know about "Google Scholar" don't you?):
http://scholar.google.ca/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&q=%22ocean+acidificat…
Has about 17,000 hits, let me know when you have read and disproved them all.
You are pathetic.
@guthrie
Thank you for your reply.
I do understand the theory behind the idea of decreasing oceanic pH in response to increased partial pressure of CO2. As I said some time ago, this is pretty basic physical chemistry.
But all I ask is that you present some data that demonstrates it to be actually occurring in the oceans.
Surely this cannot be too hard a request. If I asked for data that showed that there have been periods of global warming there are many many datasets that have been analysed every which way you can think of - and took between 10 and 100 million measurements to prove. Where is the same level of data for' pH decrease'?
The BBC review article carefully skates around this point, describing 'projections', which are not the same thing at all.
The 'effects of acidification' article does not appear to present any pH data at all beyond the standard two short datasets (Hawaii and Bermuda) that appear time and again. In total these are. say 300 observations only, and are presented without error bars. Compare and contrast with the 10 million + temperature readings from thousands of locations needed to demonstrate global warming.
The Doney et al paper simply rehashes the same brief datasets from the same places.
If you have any more data to present, please do so.
And please drop the throwaway remarks like:
'The graphic you give is typical of the dishonest arguing methods of denialists' They are getting tedious and add nothing to the discussion.
There is nothing dishonest about it at all. It just shows that the 'background pH' varies by about 0.25 points across the globe. To show a global variation which is claimed to be just about 0.1 over the last 30 years you need a lot of observations. Where are they please?
PS - and given your earlier remarks about the oceans being well-mixed, how can you be sure that even the small effects seen at Hawaii and Bermuda aren't a natural consequence of mixing the high alkalinity equatorial water with lower alkalinity polar water.? The effect would be to come to an equlibrium somewhere between the two starting values.
I already provided this link to help him adjust his naive beliefs about Ocean acidification:
http://www.tos.org/oceanography/issues/issue_archive/issue_pdfs/14_4/14…
Figure 2 on p20.
pp 28 & 29 are also interesting.
And NOAA have extensive datasets available with the results of modelling based on this data collection.
And this link I already provided shows the result of continuous data collection at 3 locations for Ocean acidification:
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators/oceans/acidity.html
Because it shows a trend, not variability, moron.
Latimer
Getting people to run round doing the 'show me' thing is tedious. Arguing quixotically agin OA is counter-productive.
@ian forrester
Thank you for your remarks.
Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. Let me try again.
I am not asking for references to articles that somewhere contain the words 'ocean acdification' There are plenty of those. And indeed you've found 17,000. It is a popular topic for people to write about, speculate about, and generally pontificate about..
But I was asking for a very specific set of observational data - that which shows that 'ocean acidification; is actually occurring. The analogy is with the various temperature datasets that - after a lot of data collection and analysis of millions of observations - showed that there have been periods of 'global warming'.
It may be that somewhere in those 17,000 hits is the data I;'
I'd like to see - though as it has never been cited anywhere else, I begin to doubt it.
But if it is there, my search skills haven't been able to track it down after a couple of years of looking. Perhaps if you try again you will have better fortune.
Do let me know how you get on.
Aha - Lati pulls the Jonarse strategy.
"I see nothing there".
And likely for very similar reasons.
Ian F. is quite right. Pathetic.
My previous comment *still* answers your questions, you lying toad.
Here's an idea though - now that Koch Industries put their money where their mouth was by funding the BEST research which proved that Michael Mann's "Hockey Stick" was correct, maybe Heartland could stop funding deliberate non-research-based disinformation and fund a Multi-Year Ocean Acidification Survey?
Wouldn't that be useful?
Then we could have some data instead of WUWT.
Alder said:
Just goes to prove what I have been saying all along, his research skills are worse than useless.
Pathetic.
Hey Larchy: do you really possess the qualifications you claim? Because your claims and behaviour here make that rather difficult to credit. Could we have a name for the institution and a year, please?
And DYObloodyR!
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2596240/
Latimer Alder,
The above is a link to an article on a dataset measuring recent changes in ocean PH.
I found it by going to Wikipedia and then following their source links.
If you need any further tips on how to use the vast resources of the internet, let me know. :)
Funny how almost every "skeptic" that turns up here can't actually manage the first task of scientific skepticism - understanding and being able to fairly represent the existing scientific case and the evidence it is based upon. Only then could they demonstrate that their own case is a superior inference from all the evidence.
Of course, if you're going to play the "well, we don't really know enough to bother acting" card or the "my opinion is that we're insufficiently sure" it really does "help" to be unaware of the scientific case - and of standard risk management principles that say you have to decide risk responses based on whatever knowledge you have, not wait until the danger is beyond all doubt.
:-) :-)
Chuckle:-)
Lotharsson, you are my favourite deltoid.
" falsely assert what the other party is saying and then castigate them for it."
I draw your attention once again to that little epigram re pots and kettles.
You have repeatedly gone out of your way to assert something that people have said and then castigate them for it.
You however like to call it 'nuancing' or 'ritual intellectual humiliation'.
I prefer to call it a waste of time!
Obviously by the sheer number and length of your posts you must have a lot of time to waste.
I once again suggest that Latimer offered you some good advice.
If you have that much time on your hands, why don't you get out more and 'do something' other than wasting your time trying to 'nuance' nealy everything that is said at this blog?
And because Vince hates me using 'big' words and assumes somehow that I use them without knowing what they mean:
Epigram:
pointed remark, saying or maxim, esp a proverbial one.
Also Vince:
I fail to see where you think I missed the 'pl 'in the definition of 'illuminati'.
JeffH did write 'their illuminati'
The 'their' in his comment definitely refers to 'climate change deniers'.
And hint Vince:
Reread number 2 definition :-)
Last time I checked 'their' indicated more than one which means 'pl' in a dictionary definition (plural)
And Vince, why does it matter where the funding comes from?
Why would one need to 'prefer' where funding comes from?
And you still seem to be missing the point of disagreement in this instance.
It was indeed JeffH who claimed that there was a group called 'climate change deniers' who believed in a 'conspiracy theory' about the UN, Global Governement and Govt Grants.
Strangely, the only missing factual piece of evidence is this group called 'climate change deniers' with their illuminati.
As I pointed out: the UN, The theory of Global Governance and Govt Grants can't be a 'conspiracy theory' as they are easily accessible and well known. Even our own Australian Govt provides funding accross all those platforms.
Do you believe they are a 'conspiracy theory'?
And finally Vince, Lotharsson et al.
What does any of that have to do with anything regarding a discussion about 'science and the environment'?
"What does any of that have to do with anything regarding a discussion about ‘science and the environment’"
Quite a lot, seeing as that's where you get your preferred disinformatiom from. I can't recall you citing an IPCC report to support any of your moronic notions, for example.
Uh-uh, Chameleon has done it again:
It's not an epigram. It's an idiom.
This is the second time I've told you this.
So you don't understand the difference between
- somebody holding another to account for an assertion they have made, and
- somebody who falsely asserts that another has made a particular assertion.
In your own words:
You really are a bit of a hamper short of a picnic, aren't you?
"Frightened that some one might actually contact the University and discover that you are not well acquainted with the truth?"
That you ppl even threaten to do that is childish beyond belief. It's not how adults argue, it's not how scientists argue, it's not how deniers argue, but it clearly passes for a legitimate argumentative tactic among believers. Telling.
Larchy has come here of his own accord making extraordinary claims and claiming authority, which, given the nature of the extraordinary claims he's making, seems a little incongrous to many of us.
He continuously demands others do his research for him: the least he can do is back his own claims up.
Since he also apparently claims to be in ongoing contact with 'our' reseach institution, perhaps he'd care to tell us how many other members of this academic community share his views. Particularly any atmospheric or ocean chemists. Ta.
Vince Whirlwind says:
"Koch Industries put their money where their mouth was by funding the BEST research which proved that Michael Mann’s “Hockey Stick” was correct..."
How did BEST prove that?
My understanding (from the BEST paper that finally passed peer review) is that they only went back to 1750. They couldn't possibly lend support to Mann's abolition of the Medieval Warm Period, which, if you've been following the debate, is the part of the HS everyone cares about.
Another denier puts words in other peoples' mouths.
Keyes said:
No one has threatened to do that. A question was raised that Alder, who does not appear to be very honest, might prefer to keep the University where he claimed to have failed his MSc thesis a secret because of the embarrassment it would cause for both himself and the University.
Good grief, no wonder the deniers have such a hard time with science when they cannot comprehend and interpret simple English.
Pathetic.
Still on about the mediaeval warm period eh?
When Londoners could grow mangoes in their back yards and viking submarines could surface through the thin ice at the North pole?
Got any data to go with your curmudgeonly fairytales?
You people are a pathetic joke.
Vince,
here's my data, which should be simple enough for you to follow.
The BEST analysis (unless I've misread it, which is possible—but you haven't said so) goes back to 1750 AD. Michael Mann's "Hockey Stick" goes back to 1000 AD.
Now I'm not sure how much maths you've done, but the upshot of all this (given that 1750 > 1000, etc.) is that when you said the former "proved" that the latter "was correct", you appear to have been speaking whereof you know not.
Please either correct me or explain why your making things up should entail anyone's being "a pathetic joke" but you.
Hate to disappoint you Brad, but that's not data.
Ian Forrester,
"No one has threatened to do that."
Threatened to do... what exactly? Can't even repeat it? I don't blame you. It was a childish enough threat the first time.
So you agree with me that BEST has just proven Mann's hockeystick was correct then, Brad?
Of course, they are only the latest of about a dozen individual research projects that have all shown the same thing.
Mysteriously, nobody's managed to put their hands on your data in order to prove Mann wrong.
Perhaps they know, and don't like, where your data's been, eh Brad?
Don't be such an idiot, Brad - Latimer's been boasting of his science qualifications, and yet it turns out he is strangely and suspiciously coy about revealing where they were issued.
Zoot,
You're mistaken. 1750 and 1000 are (or if you like, "is") data. One is the start date of the BEST analysis period. One is the start date of the HS graph.
(Am I wrong about the data so far? I'll assume not, unless you have anything to add here.)
Viewed holistically—holding both numbers in the mind's eye simultaneously, if you can manage such a feat—these data strongly suggest that Vince Whirlwind was merely dissipating cyclonic energy from out his inferior gastrointestinal meatus when he claimed that BEST "proved Michael Mann's HS was correct."
This would be the case even without the fact (well-known among those who've been paying attention to the climate debate) that by far the dominant point of contention in Michael Mann's work is what it asserts w.r.t. Medieval times, about which the BEST study can unfortunately tell us bugger all, given the first datum I mentioned (reminder: 1750).
So tell us about the blad of the hockey-stick then, Brad.
The party line is that BEST had to publish in a newly-minted journal, but, you see, the problem is that if publication in dubious or non-high-ranking journals are an issue then much of the [ahem] best of Denier (*cough*) science must also be inadmissable. Think E&E.
Pretty corner you've all painted yourselves into. Wouldn't expect Watts to be bright enough to figure it out; how about you, though?
Begin your convoluted extrication now, please...
Instead of "this would be the case even without the fact that," please read "Vince's claim would be baseless even without the fact that..."
Sorry for the ambiguity.
By the way Vince, I'd be happy to raise the level of discourse above the proctological if you would.
In any case, I'm curious about the assumptions that went into this statement by you:
"Mysteriously, nobody’s managed to put their hands on your data in order to prove Mann wrong."
Did I say Mann was wrong, let alone that I had data to prove it?
No, I just said you were full of, uh, imagination when you claimed to see some kind of vindication of Mann's findings in Richard Muller's.
Since you're still confused, let's try it in the form of a rhetorical question:
How in God's name could the BEST study possibly "prove" the Hockey Stick when it only covered 1/4 the time span?
Keyes - another wind bag from the denialati.
There is now so many hockey stick graphs that it does not even make it into SKS's top 10 climate denier myths.
As to the claim that the MWP was the principal objection to Mann's work, the first hockey stick MBH98 did not even include the MWP as it started in 1400.
bill:
"Pretty corner you’ve all painted yourselves into."
Except that I didn't voice what you call "the party line" so I can't really help you here, I'm afraid.
Perhaps if you could locate one of these climate confusionists, unicorns, climate change denialists or pro-pollution shills you're always railing against, they might know the answer. (To be honest, I'm still trying to figure out what you're asking.)
MikeH—
"There is [sic] now so many hockey stick graphs that it does not even make it into SKS’s top 10 climate denier myths."
Funny, I don't see anything about BEST on that page.
Listen, why is it so hard to get a simple point across to you people?
Vince W pulled out of thin air the idea that the BEST study proved the HS correct. It did no such thing. If you don't understand why it couldn't possibly have done any such thing, God help anyone who thinks reasoned discussion is the solution to the climate wars.
Keyes is still being dishonest:
Why does he continue to lie, is that all that AGW deniers are capable of?
There was no threat made but he will continue to lie about it because that is all that anti-science people like him can do.
Obviously, you haven't considered that I may write a lot faster than your imagination allows. Or that this is my hobby. Or that I don't consider it a waste. Or any number of reasons that you failed to consider in your haste to jump to what you are quite sure is your own clever conclusion.
Need trolls with better mind-reading skills.
...generally accurately, as it turns out, which is the key distinction that you apparently couldn't bring yourself to directly deny. Instead you relied on an attemped cutesy folksy indirect invocation of the expression about pots and kettles to assert that I did not make that distinction in my argument nor was it evident in my practice.
And doing that is exactly what I was talking about: misrepresenting what someone said and then castigating me based on the misrepresentation.
Do you truly have a blind spot in your perception so large that you don't realise when your own comments undermine themselves, and simultaneously illustrate my point by engaging in the very behaviour I was pointing out?
(The smart money is on yes. But there's a significant plunge on "mendaciousness".)
I see Mr Keyes has discovered that the nightcart of denialism that he is driving has a reverse gear.
It ain't necessarily so.
I contacted the dictionary company and their service representative assured me that wasn't necessarily so.
Ah, at least you've finally got the capitalisation right! Last time you checked what did the lack of capitalisation mean? Can you enlighten the rest of us?
And did Jeff actually use the word "group" or is that your invention as well?
And have you asked Latimer yet to enlighten you as to the difference between two terms that appear to use interchangeably - "governance" and "government"? Or are you already sure that the only difference is a teensy tiny little bit of unimportant nuance?
Brad's right that Mann's hockey stick goes back further in time than BEST, of course. So the vindication of Mann via BEST needs to be caveated with the relevant time period which makes it a partial vindication at (ahem) best.
Brad's wrong on a far more important issue - that Mann "disappeared the MWP". The MWP was not established prior to Mann's work no matter how many times denialists assert it via the term "disappeared". It was hypothesised on the basis of a handful of very local records but no hemispherical reconstruction existed. Heck, extending reconstructions back that far for the first time was pretty much the point of MBH98 and 99.
But I'm sure he's been told all of this before, and he's still making the same claim...
Ah, Brad, I forgot; context is hard, isn't it?
Firstly; it seems I can find unicorns.
Sorry, that's still a bit hard isn't it? What I literally mean is 'here's the party line, as laid down by Denier-in-Chief Watts'.
I assume you're at least smart enough to know that ain't going to fly with anyone other then the Winged-Monkey Army.
So, do you believe that BEST confirmed the dramatic modern warming is anthropogenic?
And please answer the question.
Also: tone-trolling is just boring.
bill, are you still asking me about the "blad of the Hockey Stick"? Why? What does it matter to you whether I think the "blad" is "dramatic" (whatever that means) or merely blah?
Lotharsson is infinitely better company than you because he at least concedes that the point I've been making all along is right before moving on to the (legitimate, if misguided) rhetorical trick of trying to play down that point in comparison with another issue he asserts to be "more important." It wasn't more important, of course, since it was entirely beside my point; nevertheless, the son of Lothar's manoeuvre is within the bounds of polite trickiness that are (or should be) preconditions of entry in such fora as this.
You on the other hand are desperately and tediously angling to get me to espouse some idea that my imagined leader, Anthony Watts, espouses. Why don't you ball up and go argue with him? I'm not interested.
And Lotharsson, strictly speaking, you'll find that what I said when describing the most controversial aspect of the HS was that Mann had "abolished" the MWP, not "disappeared" it. However, since that involves a chronological premise you object to, let's split the difference—let's just say he *denies* the MWP.
It was so beside your point that you felt you had to mention it, and then argue that pointing out that it was a false claim is "polite trickiness"? Does that actually work on anyone who's made it to high school?
Give it a rest, Ian. Someone dared Latimer to say where he went to university, "or are you scared we'll contact your alma mater and make inquiries" or words to that exact effect. That is precisely what I called it: a childish threat. You know it, I know it, everyone reading this knows it. You'd be better off not drawing further attention to it.
My mistake.
Nope, your claim presumes facts not in evidence. As I pointed out no MWP had been established prior to Mann's work which means that his work could not deny it. It could refute the hypothesis, or it could fail to find support for it - but that's not what you're claiming. Even if we limit ourselves to the hypotheses about an MWP in existence at the time, IIRC the most common hypothesised MWP temperature sketches pretty much fit within MBH99's error bounds.
This is even worse than your previous error. However I suspect you'll find a way to be even more wrong.
"let’s split the difference—let’s just say he *denies* the MWP".
No, let's call you a trickster using loaded words instead. To be correct, the data doesn't support a global MWP.
Chek, the weasel words extend to the choice of "Mann abolished...", rather than "MBH99 abolished...". The former reads like Mann issued a decree - or created work specifically to achieve that outcome.
The latter makes it clear that "abolition" (to the extent that "abolition" is accurate) is an implication of the work itself.
Lotharsson,
Nah!
You may be a speed typist and have a brain that works at the speed of light but you're simply wasting all those incredible talents by spending far too much time here boxing with shadows and arguing about irrelevant semantics.
2 questions:
1)Why are you making a fuss about capitals?
2) How can we have governance (especially global governance) without some form of government?
Trying to nit pick over capitals and splitting hairs over the form of a word and even arguing about the usage of 'their' is way off the point.
It was actually Vince's problem anyway.
And JeffH wrote 'climate change deniers' which definitely implies more than one as does his usage of illuminati (which is a plural).
So your silly little pick over 'group' and 'their' doesn't prove anything other than the fact that you obviously like to argue.
Vince,
Idiom or epigram?
Who cares?
You are a master at missing the actual point.
The little saying about pots and kettles is actually both idiomatic and an epigram.
What does it mean though Vince?
Think about what it means.
BTW,
If I had to choose between sitting in a govt office on the 4th floor and being compared to the pee wee, I'm very happy to be compared to the pee wee.
I know you were attempting a witty insult, but you have made me laugh out loud.
Pee Wees are demonstrably more adaptable than people who work in Govt offices, despite their tendency to attack themselves in windows and mirrors.
Where I live there has been an absolute explosion of bird life, including the pee wees.
You should take the time to study all their habits.
They're fascinating creatures and incredibly smart.
No, Lotharsson—as you understand perfectly well, your "trickiness" was in using the MWP in a bid to draw attention from the fact that I'd caught Vince out in a fragrant fabrication. Whether or not Mann's MWP denialism is scientifically righteous, this is a controversy which the BEST project didn't go back nearly far enough to answer, and Vince was trying to pull a swifty by implying it did.
Since I gather you're Australian, you ought to have no problem understanding this fragment: End of.
Chek, sorry and thank you so much for reprimanding me. Naughty me. I think both sides—cool pro-science pollutionists *and* anti-science young-earth warmists alike—need to remember that loaded terminology has absolutely no place in the climate debate. It's a matter of basic respect. On behalf of all climate realists, I apologise to any believalists who were offended by my tricksy lexicon.
Answer the question.
"Answer the question."
Huh?
Ohh, when you say "the question," do you mean *your* question? The one I didn't come here to talk about and in which nobody else appears to be interested either? Lol. Would I be within my rights to call you a climate distractionist at this point?
No, you'd be an evasive coward who won't answer the question because he knows that will give the game away.
Which, of course, you've already done, precisely by behaving as described.
Arrives: trips over own feet. Yet another one. Next.
@david gould
Thanks for your efforts and for posting the link to a fourth site with eight years worth of pH data.
@everybody
Thank you all for your efforts to track down the elusive observational datasets that show 'as a scientifically proven'' (Guthrie) that ocean pH is decreasing.
We've managed to find just four sites around the globe that have recorded anything of value:
Bermuda (N Atlantic) - 20 years
Canaries - (N Atlantic) - 14 years
Hawaii (Pacific) - 5+6 years = 11 years
Tatoosh Island (Pacific) - 8 years
Total observations = 53 location years.
Number of observation sites = 4
Number of oceans = 2
and it seems that we are unlikely to uncover any more significant data - however good (or not) our Google scholar search skills may be.
It is instructive to compare and contrast this quantity of observational data that was needed to demonstrate 'global warming'.
Assuming (not unreasonably - and using 'ballpark' figures) that we have 3000 observational sites on average and that each recorded 50 years worth of data (i.e from 1960 to today), then that gives us a total of 150,000 location years to analyse. Which is quite considerably more than 53 location years.
I think we can conclude that - by comparison with the observational evidence for 'global warming' - the observational data for 'decreasing ocean pH' is scanty. And it hardly qualifies as a 'scientifically proven'.
Maybe eventually it will be..maybe it won't. But it's a heck of a long way from being 'proved' right now.
Sideline:
Ian Forrester's Google Scholar search for 'ocean acidification' came up with 17,000 hits. If all four of the pH measuring locations made just one observation per day, that would total 19,350 observations. Is it sensible to conclude that we have just about as many scholarly articles as actual observations?
If so, it seems that the cart is definitely before the horse on this topic.
Brad:
Nice of you to admit where you got your "data" from.
Chameleon:
People interested in accuracy can note that you are incapable of it.
Brad:
What a steaming load you've just dumped on us again Brad - By far the most interesting thing about MBH was the "blade" of the "hockeystick".
The whole "mediaeval warm period" red herring is a distraction invented by non-scientists (e.g. Anthony Watts) who are paid by a lobby-group (e.g. Heartland) to disseminate lies designed to confuse the ignorant.
You're coming across very confused there, Brad.
"No, you’d be an evasive coward who won’t answer the question because he knows that will give the game away."
"The game"?
Ohh, you must mean *your* game. (I can now decipher one or two words of your idiolect, I think.)
Latimer, anyone... Help an outsider out: What the hell is bill's "game"?
...and "see nothing" Latimer, it's here, just in case you missed it the first time:
http://www.tos.org/oceanography/issues/issue_archive/issue_pdfs/14_4/14…
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators/oceans/acidity.html
And, ooh, looky-here!
Yet another site where acidification has been observed and professionally documented.
http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/envs501/downloads/Wei%20et%20al.%202009…
@brad keyes
' Help an outsider out: What the hell is bill’s “game”?
No idea.
After a few days here, I recognised that many pos(t)ers aren't interested in discussing science at all...but just on venting their hatred of some imagined horde of 'deniers'
Best to ignore them. Concentrate instead on the few meaty chunks, not the froth, bile and spittle.
I say, facts.
Latimer says,
Everyone says, "Latimer is a slimy liar".
Just two days ago, Latimer was saying he had spent years trying to find empirical evidence of ocean acidification, without success!
You would think he would say, "thank you".
OK thanks Latimer, gotcha. I think I'll also ignore those stuck in scat mode, like Johnny Drama.
Now we have two hobbled geldings tottering about and refusing to answer the questions they've been asked.
And congratulating each other on their mutual brilliance. Of course.
You're doing a great job, guys, no; you really are.
I mean Vince whatever.
Actually, Larch, since everyone here has probably already drawn their own conclusions as to why an 'atmospheric chemist' wouldn't be familiar with the literature on ocean acidification, you can tell us about the blade of the hockey stick, too.
BEST results. Stunning confirmation of AGW. Superfluous, perhaps, but this was Denial's best shot - and all it got was its own foot! So - science triumphs, right?
Aw, c'mon, Abbott, Costello: don't be shy!
The old double act not playing out like it used to? I mean, let's face it, you're dying here...
"some imagined horde of ‘deniers’"
Actually Latimer, we can see in bill the next stage in the elaboration of the delusion—the horde has become undifferentiated and capitalised as Denial, presumably one of the lesser-known brothers of Belial. Tell us bill, what did the angel Moroni tell you "Denial" means in Hebrew?
@vince whirlwind
Thanks for your links, good buddy.
The second one you post just reproduces the same data (Canaries, Bermuda, Hawaii) as I documented above.
The same short datasets and graphs from the same locations pop up in every article about 'decreasing ocean pH', and it was their remarkable ubiquity that first set me off wondering just how much other observational data there actually is.
The first merely takes snapshots of some oceanographic data around the world. But since they did not visit the same location twice, it is not possible to discern any trends - and neither did they claim to do so.
And pH does not seem to be one of the variables they have reported on. (please guide me to the reference in the paper if I have missed it).
The third one is more interesting. The conclusions state
'Coupled with this long-term variation, a significant
acidification trend occurs from 1940s to present, with
pH decrease of about 0.2-0.4, estimating using different
a(B3–B4) values.'
But this is an extremely vague statement and relies upon a proxy rather than any direct measurements.
But - if you like - we'll chuck in 60 location years for that one.
So our new total of 'pH location years' is now 113, with the caveat that over half of them are now proxy-driven, not actual observations.
And a reminder that the estimated amount of data needed to show 'global warming' was 150,000 'temperature location years'.
Still a long way to go.......
So now these deniers are insisting that the climate sensitivity is HIGHER than the IPCC average assessment?
@vince whirlwind
'
Just two days ago, Latimer was saying he had spent years trying to find empirical evidence of ocean acidification, without success!
You would think he would say, “thank you”.
1. I believe that i have given thanks to all who have helped me in my quest - yourself included. If I have inadvertently omitted anyone that is my oversight and was accidental.
2 . The phrase 'ocean acidification' - like 'global warming' is in two parts. To show that it is correct, you have to show that not only is there 'acidification(*)' going on, but that it is happening at an oceanic level. Just like you cannot prove 'global warming' just from temperature observations in my back garden. To show that these things are ubiquitous you need a lot of points of observation. Seems like for 'OA' we have about 5 places not 5,000.
(*) As a good chemist I prefer the term 'neutralisation'. As and when the seawater pH drops below that of pure water, then it will be 'acidic'. But until then the alkalinity (pH>7.0) is being neutralised.
And not even the most alarmist theoretical calculation I've seen has suggested that a pH below 7.0 can be achieved no matter how much CO2 is put into the atmosphere. There ain't enough free carbon, the seawater is too alkaline to start with and there is far too much of a buffer in the rocks.
ROFL! You're really piss poor at this mind-reading thing. Why don't you go off and practice for a while and come back when you get better at it.
I explicitly acknowledged that Vince's claim was incorrect because it was too broad. If I merely wanted to "draw attention away" I wouldn't have acknowledged that in the first place.
I also pointed out that your second claim was incorrect, but even more so. It (a) is falsified by a bunch of other work, and (b) it relies on claims about the past scientific understanding that are false. You, as predicted, are apparently still standing by it.
Some of us have the mental capacity to deal with two errors at the same time, even if they are of different magnitude and by people on different sides of some issue.
So, Larchy, with your qualifications and all, and your tremendous depth of knowledge, when are you going to publish?
I mean, this place is a 'backwater' right; and, then, sad to say, so is Judy's. And, what with your unparalleled grasp, and your ongoing contact with your peers at 'our' university lab - who, in the absence of word from you to the contrary, we can only assume agree with you - you owe it to the world to get cracking and publish a refutation to all this insidious alarmism, don't you? Smash the strangle hold of the greenhouse mafia and allow the silent majority to break free!...
I reckon we may even be able to run the draft by a few practising ocean chemists for a bit of the old pre-peer review and all, if you like.
Come on, man. Otherwise folks - not me, to be sure - might conclude all this was just pontifical bluffing and contrarian nay-saying.
And 'global warming' in quotes; is that a backhanded way of answering the BEST question? Please do answer it, because people - not me, of course, but, you know what they're like - they'll draw their own conclusions again, Latimer, they really will...
@wow
'So now these deniers are insisting that the climate sensitivity is HIGHER than the IPCC average assessment?'
Just a friendly suggestion that you are more likely to get a sensible discussion going if you address your remark more specifically and give some evidence for your statement.
As it is, it is just an orphan - seemingly randomly put into the blog.
The '@' sign on your keyboard can help you here. As can the sequence CTRL+C, CTRL+V (cut and paste) to show who your remark is addressed to, and to what it refers.
That's a useful question. Where are capitals used apart from the start of a sentence?
And where would their presence or absence make a difference when someone claims that "...its the climate change deniers." refers to a specific organised group which presumably has a name?
That's not a bad question either, but to make it more useful let me fix it.
"How can we have global governance on some issue without having global government?"
Now given that we don't seem to have had the global government thing yet, I wonder if there are any historical examples of global governance on some issue...
...which would, by definition, be examples of global governance of an issue without global government.
Crap. That irony meter wasn't even plugged in yet.
Hand me the next one.
@bill
Just to note that if I ever come across anybody called 'Larchy', I'll draw their attention to your post.
Cheers
Latimer
(There is a very famous and very fearsome NZ Rugby player called Colin 'Pinetree' Meads, but I doubt it was him you mean)
Oh, see, now you're doing the 'it ain't acidification' thing again, Larchy, you really are. Just like that well-known scientist Lord Monckton! And yet all these people who are sort of currently, well, qualified and practising and publishing and all that don't seem to agree with you.
Why is that, do you reckon?
Brad's gone quiet, hasn't he? You'd almost think there was nothing to him...
It seems to have escaped your attention that you've asserted that the amount is sufficient to demonstrate global warming, but you have not shown that it is necessary.
But hey, that kind of sloppy "logic" runs through most of your comments here, so why stop now?
Since Latimer apparently isn't interested (or is perhaps merely incompetent) to address the scientific case for concern about ocean acidification - and gosh, why not, I mean 17000 papers sounds like at least half a weekend's speed reading, and who has that kind of time these days - perhaps he can regale us in the meantime with his reasonably well-evidenced theory for where all the CO2 we pump into the atmosphere goes. After all, we're emitting more every year than the annual atmospheric increase so it has to go somewhere non-atmospheric, and it would be good if we could establish some idea about that with reasonable confidence and get to the nub of Latimer's well-reasoned divergence from the consensus.
So here's the simple question: do you agree that it is pretty well established that the oceans are currently and have been (for at least several decades) a major CO2 sink, although not the only one?
Latte isn't interested in discussion except to continue to argue.
You will notice that he's not managed to explain WHY he wants these things discussed.
Because he has no purpose other than to demand everyone else do as he demands.
"2) How can we have governance (especially global governance) without some form of government?"
International treaties.
@lotharson
That's about the number of records the IPCC analysed before they felt able to make a definite statement about global warming.
And you'll no doubt note that its about a thousand times greater than the 113 discussed above.
Also note that the number of locations (abt 3,000) is 600 times greater than the 5 we have identified for 'OA'.
@lotharsson
You ask
'do you agree that it is pretty well established that the oceans are currently and have been (for at least several decades) a major CO2 sink, although not the only one?'
Sure. No problem with that. CO2 dissolves in H2O (hence sparkling water).
See my reply of yesterday to Guthrie that started off this little discussion - and note the caveat.
'No argument that if you increase the partial pressure of CO2 over a jar of pure water, you will end up with a solution of carbonic acid that will be slightly acidic. Basic physical chemistry.
But pure water is not at all the same thing as seawater – a not very well mixed solution of all sorts of inorganic ions surrounded by huge quantities of rocks of CaCO3 and others. It is not at all obvious that the weak carbonic acid like carbonic will overwhelm the buffering effect of the solution and surrounding rocks
For such a complex and varied system. the only way to show that the pH is actually decreasing is to go out and make the measurements over a long period of time.
By analogy, to show that the GAT was actually increasing took the analysis of somewhere between 10 and 100 million temperature records taken from thermometers all over the world (and later by satellite ) over a period of several decades'
"That’s about the number of records the IPCC analysed before they felt able to make a definite statement about global warming."
Before being able to attribute most of the warming to human causes.
You don't do thinking so well, do you.
"Sure. No problem with that. CO2 dissolves in H2O (hence sparkling water). "
Oh deary me.
This guy is evian backwards.
"But pure water is not at all the same thing as seawater"
And carbonic acid isn't the same thing as seawater.
And deep ocean water isn't the same thing as shallow seawater.
"It is not at all obvious that the weak carbonic acid like carbonic will overwhelm the buffering effect of the solution and surrounding rocks"
That only describes YOUR problem.
@wow
If your remark was addressed to me, I'm having trouble understanding the point (if there is one) of it.
So far we seem to be in violent agreement(?) that seawater is not the same stuff as carbonic acid.
Sure. It ain't the same stuff as pure water either..nor orange juice nor molten lead nor liquid bromine nor vodka - apart from all being liquid.
But where does your point lead after that?
I'm not after a definite statement.
I'm after the best inference distilled from what we already know (including those 17000 papers), along with an appropriate confidence interval. You know, the kind of thing the IPCC comes up with. They look at chemistry theory, which suggests certain things, and evidence (including estimates of past pH levels, both recent history and much longer) which is apparently thus far pretty consistent with what is suggested by the theory, and experiments, and how well or otherwise the understanding of the ocean's role in the carbon cycles fit in with all the other evidence and understanding about how carbon behaves on the planet..and they give their best inferences and their levels of confidence. (And apparently they've incorporated the notion that carbonate rocks have a buffering influence and have some idea of how fast these processes proceed compared to the rate of the oceanic CO2 increases. Go visit one of the lead researchers and try out your “It is not at all obvious that the weak carbonic acid like carbonic will overwhelm the buffering effect of the solution and surrounding rocks” line.)
So far you're not addressing those inferences except to indulge in the "high proofer" gambit, apparently from a position of personal ignorance - or faux ignorance - of most of the research evidence. This is mendacious because it ignores the case put forth, and arguably foolish because it's usually coupled with an implicit or explicit demand to undercut best practices in risk management.
(And you still haven't shown that it's the number of records and/or the locations that makes it sufficient...)
"So far we seem to be in violent agreement(?) that seawater is not the same stuff as carbonic acid."
Nope.
We do seem to be in violent agreement that your statement "they are not the same" is vacuous and unenlightening.
But then vacuous and unenlightening is your forte, isn't it.
"But where does your point lead after that?"
Well that is exactly what I was saying.
What was your point?
@wow
Sorry, but unless somebody sends me a Babel fish that translates 'Wowspeak' into understandable English, I'm not going to reply to your style of just writing disjointed sentences punctuated by a few random insults.
Maybe the 'stream of consciousness' is crystal clear to you, but it is completely incomprehensible to me.
Maybe you can find a buddy to proofread them first?
@lotharsson
'Go visit one of the lead researchers and try out your “It is not at all obvious that the weak carbonic acid like carbonic will overwhelm the buffering effect of the solution and surrounding rocks” line.'
And it would be so easy to demonstrate that the effect is real and oceanic. Just go and measure the pH over a long time at a lot of different locations widely dispersed across the globe.. Real observations always trump theory and opinion.
That's what they did for temperature. And until they do the same for pH the best that can be said is 'we think...' or 'theory says.....' or 'our judgement is......'
which is one heck of a long way from the 'established scientific fact' that Guthrie claimed yesterday.
For example, we have no measurements from the Southern Ocean, Arctic Ocean or Indian Ocean. None in the South Atlantic, nor the Southern Pacific. None around Europe, Asia or Australasia. None on the Eastern Seaboard of the US and none for Africa south of 25N.
Instead we have a few short term (20 years or less) records from just five places. Which really isn't much at all.
Would you consider just five temperature series over 20 years sufficient to 'prove' (or indeed 'disprove') global warming? If so, I have a nice bridge to sell you. See how the coating of snake oil glistens in the sun!
@ n frrstr
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mn, lk, y Dltds r sch gk-bll wrds. N wndr y gys cn't gt dt!