Exposing a Climate Science Fraud

“After all, facts are facts, and although we may quote one to another with a chuckle the words of the Wise Statesman, ‘Lies – damned lies – and statistics,’ still there are some easy figures the simplest must understand, and the astutest cannot wriggle out of.” -Leonard Courtney, 1895

“The first and worst of all frauds is to cheat oneself.” -Philip James Bailey

In the study of any scientific field, there are two great perils that you have to be careful to avoid: fraud and incompetence. Incompetence could be as innocuous as making a simple mistake in your analysis, a contamination of your data set or samples, or other generally honest mistakes.

Image credit: flickr user ctsnow.

In science, we have all sorts of ways of correcting for incompetence. We demand that experiments and observations have their methods detailed and that the experiments be reproducible. We have multiple teams check their work and search for the claimed effect. It is not on authority that results are accepted, but only after the verified soundness of hundreds or even thousands of tests, trials, and analyses that solid conclusions are reached. That’s why science requires that results and methods be transparent, so that they can be checked.

But even after all that, you might ask yourself, “well, okay, those might be your conclusions, but how sure are we that they’re correct?” Fortunately, we have a system in place for testing it.

Image credit: COBE / FIRAS, NASA.

In particular, that system is math, and the way we quantify our confidence in a result is through statistics. While it’s often said that statistics can be used to prove anything, the truth is that we have — as scientists — standardized methods that we use to calculate our confidence in models. We have standard tests that we use that tell us when to accept or reject data, and since we record everything we do, if you give any number of competent scientists the same data sets, they will not only give you the same answers for what the data say, they will give you the same confidence levels attesting to the significance of the results.

Unless, of course, they’re acting unethically.

Image credit: Responsible Science, 1992, by National Academies Press.

And when that happens, this goes beyond an innocent mistake, or even gross incompetence, and into the realm of fraud. Scientific fraud is generally thought of as deliberate falsification or misuse of data to arrive at a misleading, dishonest, or simply untrue conclusion.

And perhaps one of the most dangerous places for fraud to appear is in a scientific context that impacts the health, safety, and security of our world. And that’s why, when it comes to the most contentious scientific issue of our times, climate science and global warming, it’s all the more important to expose any fraudulent claims that are made.

Image credit: ABC News of the Brisbane floods.

Because we only get one Earth, and it’s important to get the science concerning it right. So if the Earth is experiencing global warming, we want to know. And if the warming has stopped, we want to know that, too. So last month, when I wrote about the largest global temperature study ever done, I was unsurprised at the firestorm that took place in the comments section. (500+ and counting!) After all, there were previous studies done that claimed to have measured global average temperature.

Image credit: NASA / GISS, retrieved from skepticalscience.com.

Although the vast majority of climate scientists accepted these results, there were a sizable number of vocal objections to possible errors that may have unfairly biased these results. And so the largest study ever done was undertaken: the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, or BEST.

A number of scientists, many of them avowed skeptics that the Earth was, in fact, warming, led this project. And, as I reported last month, they not only released their findings and results, they also opened up the entirety of their data to the public, so that anyone could analyze it!

Image credit: screenshot from BEST.

And so we can compare the previous results, from sources like NASA, above, but also from the two other major teams that have studied global average temperature: NOAA and HadCRU.

What did they find?

Image credit: BEST.

A stunning agreement with the prior results, and confirmation that all the teams involved did a great job accounting for the potential pitfalls that the BEST team was worried about.

And yet, if you were to listen to the words of Judith Curry, one of the BEST team members and authors, you might come away believing that somehow, this data indicates that the warming has stopped. As she herself said, in an interview with the UK’s Guardian:

This is “hide the decline” stuff. Our data show the pause [in temperature rise], just as the other sets of data do. Muller is hiding the decline. To say this is the end of scepticism is misleading, as is the statement that warming hasn’t paused.

Those are some very strong statements! (And although Curry claims she was taken out of context at times, she also stands by these particular statements, quoted above.) The “hide the decline” graph she refers to is this one, also published by BEST.

Her contention, it would appear, is that taking a ten-year average is masking the fact that, over recent times, the temperature hasn’t risen, or at least that the warming has paused!

But we have the data, and so we can check this for ourselves.

The above graph shows that the temperature, since 1970, has risen at an average rate of about 0.25° Celsius per decade. If the temperature hasn’t risen — or hasn’t risen as quickly — over the most recent times, then perhaps this is something to legitimately look at. But if the data indicates no recent “decline” or “slowing” at all, then this is a fraudulent contention. Let’s get right into it.

As this above graph, using the BEST data, from the Global Warming Policy Foundation shows, perhaps the rise shown in the top graph — from the full set of BEST data — levels off when we look at the temperature since 2001. Just eyeballing the bottom graph, it seems awfully conceivable that the temperature isn’t rising over the past decade.

But we don’t just eyeball it; this is science. So rather than use the full data set, let’s cut off all of the pre-2001 data, and then let’s analyze it.

Image credit: dana1981 at Skeptical Science.

So, only looking at this tiny fraction — around 9 years’ worth — of data, we know that there are going to be significant statistical uncertainties. Nevertheless, we still want to do our best fit to this data set, and see what it says. Anyone can do it themselves, but I’m going to borrow the graphs of tamino, who has done the same standard statistical analysis that I would. In fact, this is no different than the statistical analysis that any undergraduate trained in even a 100-level science or statistics course would use.

Image credit: tamino.

And what do we find? The slope — which indicates rise — is only 0.03° C per decade, with an uncertainty of ± 0.13° C.

It is small enough, as Curry stated, that it is fair to state that, based on this, the warming has stopped.

Except, if this is the data you used, you’re committing scientific fraud. Because those temperature readings are all very reliable, except for two data points. You need to look not only at the data points from this data set, but the reliability of those points. Which they published, by the way.

So, let’s take a look.

Those last two data points have temperature uncertainties of 2.8° and 2.9° C, respectively, while the next largest uncertainty is a mere 0.21° C! Why’s that? The April and May 2010 data points are based on data from only 47 stations, all located in Antarctica, as opposed to the prior month (March 2010), which had data from 14,488 stations!

So what do you do, if you’re a responsible scientist? You don’t use those data points. You throw those two unreliable points out. And if you do that, know what happens?

Image credit: data from Best, fits by tamino, animation by dana1981.

Two things: the slope of the line increases to 0.14° C per decade, and the uncertainty drops to ± 0.11° C. Well, that’s a big difference! You might contend, based on this, that over the last nine years, perhaps the warming has slowed a little, but it certainly hasn’t stopped.

But it gets even worse for claims that the warming has slowed. Because as the Berkeley team themselves showed — in agreement with other teams — nine years is not enough time to make accurate measurements. Have a look at what year-to-year variations show:

Image credit: BEST team.

As you can verify for yourself, there are plenty of intervals as long as 13 or even 15 years where the temperature doesn’t appear to rise. As the BEST team themselves notes:

Some people draw a line segment covering the period 1998 to 2010 and argue that we confirm no temperature change in that period. However, if you did that same exercise back in 1995, and drew a horizontal line through the data for 1980 to 1995, you might have falsely concluded that global warming had stopped back then. This exercise simply shows that the decadal fluctuations are too large to allow us to make decisive conclusions about long term trends based on close examination of periods as short as 13 to 15 years.

And this agrees with that other paper I linked to, above, which says:

Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature.

So let’s do just that, and take the most recent 17 years on record.

Image credit: dana1981 from Skeptical Science; data from BEST.

Now the slope is + 0.36° C per decade, which appears to even be higher than the longer-term, 40-year trend. In fact, tamino has gone a step further, and calculated what the warming (or cooling) trend is, up to the present day, if you go back to any given year, starting as early as 1975 or as late as 2005! What do we find?

It’s actually remarkably consistent, and you need to take a time period as short as five years, which is certainly not statistically significant (look at those error bars!), in order to see the warming appear to stop. Curry claimed she was taken out of context, but came back with a joint statement (with Muller, lead author of BEST) that stated the following:

We have both said that the global temperature record of the last 13 years shows evidence suggesting that the warming has slowed. Our new analysis of the land-based data neither confirms nor denies this contention. If you look at our new land temperature estimates, you can see a flattening of the rise, or a continuation of the rise, depending on the statistical approach you take.

But why would you say such a thing? Remember that other thing you said about 13-year periods? Remember? I quoted it above, but I’ll quote it again:

…the decadal fluctuations are too large to allow us to make decisive conclusions about long term trends based on close examination of periods as short as 13 to 15 years.

Yes, you can see a flattening, if you do the scientifically unethical thing, take an insignificant portion of the data, and present it as significant. You also need to make the huge statistical errors of keeping the bad data points that you know are bad, and to cherry-pick your starting year and month to be April 1998 (or just a couple of months before), which happened to be the hottest month recorded (at the time), worldwide, since the invention of the thermometer. (And even if you do that, you still see warming, just by a slightly smaller amount.)

But, if you’re the scientist who knows better than to claim there’s a flattening (or worse, a decline that’s being hidden), and you do it anyway, that’s not an honest mistake.

Image retrieved from conspiracyuk.co.uk, you irony-savorers.

That’s fraud.

And I’m not the only one who’s noticed. Curry has her own thoughts on disinformation, but the science doesn’t lie. And if you don’t believe me, go and do it for yourself:

Go and get the raw data from the source — BEST — itself,
do your own analysis of how the temperature has changed over time,
and see what you get.

Because you’ll find that there is a game being played, but it’s quite the opposite of “hide the decline.” There isn’t a decline to hide; when you look at the scientifically reliable data, the incline is all there is. The only game being played is the fraudulent cherry-picking of data to play “hide the incline,” and I refuse to sit by silently while this dishonest game is played.

Comments

#1 Deen
November 11, 2011

They’re basically saying “but science can’t disprove yet that warming has stopped within the last 5/10/13 years, so it’s reasonable to believe it has”. This is a classic case of inversion of the burden of proof. It’s what creationists do. It’s what homeopaths do. It’s what pseudoscientists and pseudoskeptics of all stripes do.

Thanks for the thorough shredding of these claims. Is that the real reason you got those Wolverine claws?
#2 MartinM
November 11, 2011

One of the biggest problems with the ‘pause’ meme is that uncertainty cuts both ways. Any period short enough to give a trend consistent with zero will also give a trend consistent with greatly increased warming. It’s the same problem ‘sceptics’ have with emphasising uncertainties in climate sensitivity. They tend to ignore the possibility that we’re underestimating just how bad things could get.
#3 Duncan Ivry
November 11, 2011

Ethan, good work! In my professional life I have seen too many wannabe scientists. Your articles relieve at least a certain amount of the pain.
#4 Richard Simons
November 11, 2011

I’ll reiterate what I said elsewhere: either Judith Curry has considerably less expertise in statistics that expected of any scientist or she is being dishonest. I see no other alternative.
#5 bob koepp
November 11, 2011

I have no problem with the data analysis here, but I think the charge of fraud is over the top. If you’re serious about such a charge, then you probably ought to be lodging it formally, not in a blog post. The fact that people aren’t held responsible for their “rhetorical flourishes” is a big problem in the “debate” about climate change.
#6 Poodle Stomper
November 11, 2011

Wow, I’m not a climate scientist at all and you explained it in a way even I can understand =D Outstanding! This is my first time at your blog but it won’t be my last. Thanks for the explanations!
#7 Deen
November 11, 2011

@bob koepp: considering that Curry and others like her have clearly been told why they can’t use periods of 13 years or less to derive trends (it’s in the BEST report after all), but are doing so anyway, what would you call it?
#8 Jack Dawe
November 11, 2011

This confirms my own take on Global Warming so far as the science end goes. It’s happening, and it’s affecting the quality of life in environmentally sensitive areas (Northern China, sub-Saharan Africa, the American Southwest).

At some point, the underlying question of what to do about it (addressing whether anything can be done about it without lowering the standard of living in the developed and developing world) needs to be faced.

This, I think, is the power source of Deniers, and I’m afraid it’s not going to go away: they claim that if we “do something” about Global Warming, the “cure” will be worse than “the disease.”

No matter how many times it’s shown that, long term — economically and perhaps even more so, politically — it’s easier to do something to fix Global Warming now than twenty years from now — they succeed in blocking the discussion not only with fraudulent claims about the science of Global Warming, but draconian warnings about the economic implications of fixing it.

Draconian implications that, ironically, may come true if it ISN’T fixed.
#9 Tihomir
November 11, 2011

So, now we know it (again): the warming is real.
Several independent calculations estimate the sea level rising for approx 60m (that’s approx 200 feet!) if all the ice would melt.
The next big questions for me would be:
– how fast is that supposed to happen?
– how real is the possibility for that melt to stop the “ocean conveyor belt” (part of which is the Gulf Stream warming Europe)?
– how real are the (scientific?) predictions that stopping the conveyor belt would lead to an abrupt cooling?
#10 Ethan Siegel
November 11, 2011

So over on judithcurry.com, there is a comment thread devoted to accusing me of running a disinformation campaign for accurately representing her statements and sentiments, and showing why they’re scientifically invalid.

It appears there are a few reasonable people over there, too, and an argument is brewing. Can we help tip the scales towards good science?
#11 MartinM
November 11, 2011

Over there? Not sure there’s much point.
#12 ERV
November 11, 2011

The concept of this post is not exclusive to climate science.

Being open and as accurate as possible with data analysis is universal in science.

Technically if Curry wants to analyze a data set a certain way, thats fine… if she clearly states the pros and cons of her analysis, and compares it to other ways of analyzing the data, and makes an argument for why her analysis is best.

Pretty much what Ethan did in this post.

But when you are not being open about the caveats, to a casual observer, it looks like you are lying. To a scientist, it looks like you are manipulating data sets to make them say what you want them to say (aka ‘fraud’).
#13 AGWSkeptic
November 11, 2011

What is the “ideal” planetary temperature?
#14 Texrat
November 11, 2011

Simply brilliant, Ethan. Too bad the climate trolls and naysayers will ignore or not get it… until they are up to their ears in hard, wet fact.
#15 0verlord
November 11, 2011

Linked here from ERV. Great article! It was easy to understand even for someone as incompetent with statistics as I, and of course it is the right thing to do. Sets a great example, and goes to show that the scientific process is worthy of our confidence and trust even when frauds and charlatans try to abuse it. Cheers.
#16 bibliovore
November 11, 2011

Good post as usual.

I’m curious about something. Has anyone applied delay embedding (Takens’ Theorem) to climate data, or incorporated it in climate models?
#17 Luis
November 11, 2011

Thanks for the post.
I always suspected that global warming wasn’t really a crisis and this confirms it.
There’s a big business around constructing fear and driving money towards organizations that will “save the planet”. All lies.
#18 Vicki
November 11, 2011

I suspect “AGWSkeptic” can’t answer his/her own question, and in fact would go “gotcha!” in response to any answer. It’s the wrong question and “Skeptic” probably knows it.

But I’d offer her/him a few questions to chew on instead: What is the “ideal” rate of change in the ecosystem you live in, and in the ones your food grows in? What is the “ideal” loss of habitable coastline in a given year? What is the “ideal” increase in the acidity of the Atlantic Ocean?
#19 Andrew Foland
November 11, 2011

There is an alternative to not using the data points, namely, using them and assigning the correct uncertainty to them, so that they do not pull the fit any more than their statistical due.

Since there is a significant shift when the points are removed, it suggests that they were not correctly weighted in the first place.
#20 AGWSkeptic
November 11, 2011

What is the “ideal” rate of change in the ecosystem you live in, and in the ones your food grows in?

3.2

What is the “ideal” loss of habitable coastline in a given year?

Depends on how many nature tricks you use to hide the decline.

What is the “ideal” increase in the acidity of the Atlantic Ocean?

The same as happened during the MWP.
#21 0verlord
November 11, 2011

There’s a big business around constructing fear and driving money towards organizations that will “save the planet”. All lies.

What’s the deal with this whole “money is bad” attitude? Why are people so keen on buying into the lie that the right thing cannot or should not also be lucrative?
#22 Composer99
November 11, 2011

… and in his/her replies to Vicki, AGWSkeptic lays bare the fact that AGWSkeptic is not a skeptic at all, but rather a denialist.

Try again, AGWSkeptic, this time with some peer-reviewed science, please, not long-falsified conspiracy theories.
#23 Composer99
November 11, 2011

Luis:

Asserting a thing does not make it true.

If you have any references to back up your claim that the science behind AGW, from which we infer the necessity of action, is “all lies”, please present it.

Otherwise your claim can be safely dismissed as mendacious projection.
#24 AGWSkeptic
November 11, 2011

Shorter Composer:

Name calling makes me right! Al Gore said so!
#25 ShavenYak
November 11, 2011

I’m still waiting for a denier to complete the Underpants Gnome construct:

1) Manufacture the global warming crisis
2) ?
3) Profit

What is phase 2? How exactly are climatologists going to get rich off this scheme?

Meanwhile, we know for a fact that right now there are companies making billions off the fossil fuel status quo. It’s a good thing they’re all perfectly ethical and would never dream of trying to interfere in the scientific debate to try to maintain that status quo, and all we have to worry about are those devious climatologists, right?
#26 AGWSkeptic
November 11, 2011

Why are people so keen on buying into the lie that the right thing cannot or should not also be lucrative?

Tell your fellow alarmists that the next time they start caterwauling about “Big Oil”.
#27 AGWSkeptic
November 11, 2011

What is phase 2?

“Convince politicians to give us huge “research” grants.

How exactly are climatologists going to get rich off this scheme?

By ensuring perpetual high-income employment for themselves while dreaming up schemes that will ensure unemployment for the rest of us.
#28 Cody Lawson
November 11, 2011

@Ethan: Bravo sir, bravo. There’s a reason I have you as my homepage!

@AGWSkeptic: WTF man? I’m going to continue the South Park reference and assume you are from Imaginationland. That (or from the most recent South Park) you too have fallen prey to The History Channel.
#29 Keith Eric Grant
November 11, 2011

I think it’s also worth noting that “hide the decline” is in itself a misleading reference to a statement in one of the pirated CRU emails. As outlined in Clearing up misconceptions regarding ‘hide the decline’, the original email was referring to replacing tree-ring data with actual temperature measurements after a divergence of N. hemisphere tree data from measurements in the 1960’s. It was not referring to hiding an actual decline in measured temperatures.
#30 Brian
November 11, 2011

What is phase 2?

“Convince politicians to give us huge “research” grants.

… This is a Poe, right? Or maybe a bot? Mark V. Shaney, is that you??
#31 Jack Dawe
November 11, 2011

I’m starting to see how this flak of blind opposition hurled up by Denialists can drive someone bonkers — as in the case of “Wow,” in the I AM A SCIENTIST comments page.

All the charts and graphs and statistics failed to convince me about Global Warming in any but an abstract way. Living in the Southwest the past couple of years has done the rest of the job.

In Texas this past year, there was something like a hundred days when the temperature reached a hundred degrees or above, with an associated drought that has brought on unprecedented fires and smog hazard. In New Mexico, we’ve had less than half the usual total of rain this year.

Anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But then you scan the globe and see that virtually the same thing is happening, and worse, in environmentally sensitive regions of North China and sub-Sarahan Africa.

Something’s going on. How bad it is, how bad it will get, may be a matter for debate. But the fact that something bad is happening to the climate worldwide SHOULD be undeniable.

There were people in the ‘Thirties, too, who thought the Dust Bowl was no big deal. Until, that is, a duststorm blew onto the East Coast and left deposits all the way from Boston to NYC to Washington, ultimately lining the decks of ships halfway across the Atlantic. Then they decided something had to be done — a day late and a dollar short.

This time, there won’t be any day late and dollar short. Not when the coasts go underwater and most of the interior becomes unlivable — a very possible outcome if Global Warming continues at all as predicted.
#32 Jack Dawe
November 11, 2011

As for Judith Curry, I glanced at that website and it was like running into a wall of self-referential social and blog-patronizing blather, very little of it relevant to hard science.

Just to go about taking in the page after page of loaded, arch posts by Dr. Curry, let alone parsing the different comments, most of which seemed obsequious if not ass-kissing to the blogger, would take more time and patience than I’ve got.

Like I said back on the I AM A SCIENTIST comments page, the facts and implications about Global Warming are straightforward and difficult to misinterpret — though Dr. Curry gives it a spiteful go. Once established, as those facts have been established, the question should be, how bad is Global Warming going to turn out and what should we do to ameleriorate what looks to be a highly negative outcome? Talking past the facts, as she does, invites world disaster on the one hand, and ultimate political retribution on the other.
#33 Composer99
November 11, 2011

AGWSkeptic:

Since you have nothing better on offer on this thread other than:
– unsubstantiated or even already-falsified allegations of conspiracy
– logical fallacies
– no evidentiary support to back up your position
– the AGW equivalent of Godwin’s law

you are scoring on any reasonable metric for science denialism. Hence the description is not name-calling per se, rather it is inferred from your observed posting on this and other threads.

If you can present references to peer-reviewed evidence which have withstood post-publication scrutiny (so not, say Spencer&Braswell2011) which show that global warming is not real or is not anthropogenic, both of which currently fly in the face of an enormous amount of evidence (none of which Al Gore has anything to do with save perhaps for attempting to disseminate it in the public sphere), then you have a case.

If you can not or will not, then the charge of denialist sticks.
#34 rob
November 11, 2011

nice post Ethan! it is amazing how poorly some people understand statistics.

let’s see if i can do a good temperature analysis:

last summer it was 90°. Today it is 40°. that is a 50° decrease in four months. extrapolate this rate over the course of a year to get a 150° decrease in temperature. next summer it’s going to be -60°.

hmmmm…my data seems to indicate catastrophic global cooling…
#35 Ethan Siegel
November 11, 2011

Our awesome friend Abbie, who gave us some great linkage over at ERV, has this very frustrating comment in response to the article above:

The article Ethan is responding to is a tabloid article, and as I’m sure you can imagine, tabloid journalists don’t always fully capture the nuanced viewpoint of scientists. For Judith’s full nuanced view on this topic, I would encourage you to read this article on her blog:

http://judithcurry.com/2011/11/04/pause/

A quick example quote:
In any event, identifying an AGW signal on this short timescale isn’t useful. What is of interest on this timescale is whether natural variability (forced and unforced) can dominate the AGW signal on decadal timescales and produce a ‘pause’ or a ‘stop’. This is the issue addressed by Santer et al., searching for the AGW signal amidst the natural variability noise.

This post represents her full, considered view and if after reading this you still consider her to be a fraud or fantastic idiot, so be it. I would just discourage reading too much between the lines of her views as parsed by a journalist at the Daily Fail.

If this were you, and you were on the BEST team, and the Daily Mail misrepresented your findings, what would you do?

Presumably, you would be outraged, and immediately write an article that clearly states that — when one does their statistics properly — there’s no reason at all to believe that global warming has abated, lessened, or paused. Because that is what the data show, when you do your analysis properly. You would be clearing up the misrepresented part and should replace it with what the data best represents!

But that’s not what Curry’s done, not in her article linked above nor in anything else she’s written in the time since. I am waiting for Curry to do that; we should all be demanding that she do so. And that’s what her scientific employer should be demanding, too, IMO.
#36 Chris Winter
November 11, 2011

Another good post.

BTW, I see you’re now wielding Occam’s Talons — razor sharp, no doubt.
#37 Chris Winter
November 11, 2011

AGWSkeptic wrote (#13): “What is the ‘ideal’ planetary temperature?”

It’s better to ask what is the ideal planetary temperature range. This allows for daily and seasonal variations around a mean. But, for either form of the question, the definitive answer is: the one we”re used to.

Certainly there is a threshold below which changes in mean temperature are no big deal. This would probably be 1°C per century, if it then reversed. We’ve seen almost that much rise already. But of course there’s no indication that it will reverse, or even slow down, unless we make it do so.
#38 Jack Dawe
November 11, 2011

If there was a “pause” between 2005-2010, I’d be interested in seeing the data for 2011, because it’s been a helluva year for heat so far.

I scanned the “Pause” article, though not the 793 comments that came after. Curry seems capable of level-headed analysis. Why does she not see that if Global Warming turns out to be a major factor in the world’s future that it’s going to be bad for Deniers or even late Skeptics?

If Warmists turn out to be wrong, they can join Paul Ehrlich in his POPULATION BOMB obsolescence. If Deniers are significantly wrong, there’s going to be alot hotter hell to pay than Global Warming alone will provide. (As I said before, beware when angry people get total political control…).
#39 Chris Winter
November 11, 2011

Overlord wrote (#21): “Why are people so keen on buying into the lie that the right thing cannot or should not also be lucrative?”

Because it cuts into the profitability of doing the wrong thing, in which certain people are heavily invested.
#40 Chris Winter
November 11, 2011

AGWSkeptic wrote (#27): “By ensuring perpetual high-income employment for themselves while dreaming up schemes that will ensure unemployment for the rest of us.”

Exactly, A! By destroying the rest of the economy, they assure perpetual wealth for themselves. Brilliant!

Oh, wait…

( /sarc )
#41 William George
November 11, 2011

“13. What is the “ideal” planetary temperature?
Posted by: AGWSkeptic | November 11, 2011 1:11 PM”

They say there are no stupid questions. I put this forth as evidence to the contrary.
#42 fletch
November 11, 2011

Heh it’s funny the deniers are quick to point out how the 100 years worth of good data is too small a set to make a judgement, and then the same crowd turns around and uses a ten year set to make a declaration.

I agree: fraud.
#43 AJ
November 11, 2011

ETHAN!! Climate Science is a swamp… please, please, please keep your feet dry and stay out of it. Physics demands 5 sigmas… Climate Science 1 sigma.

In my opinion, this “pause” business is all a tempest in a teapot. Inclined sinusoidal shows a pause. Big Deal! Both tamino and Judy are correct.

When I come to your blog, I to want learn things such as the make-up of the Fine Structure Constant. Any thoughts?
#44 Chris O'Neill
November 12, 2011

AJ:

Both tamino and Judy are correct.

No.

Any thoughts?

You’re wrong.
#45 Joe
November 12, 2011

Ethan,

You have just accused another scientist of “fraud”. This is an extremely serious accusation — perhaps the most serious professional accusation you can make… based on… what? A newspaper interview?

Perhaps you should have talked to some people who have worked in the field for some time to see what they think. Now, I don’t think much of Dr. Curry’s latest science, or her ability to communicate on these topics, but by all indications, her efforts to bridge the gap with the skeptics is sincere. I think it is misguided, and naive, and her understanding of statistics is seriously wanting, but I don’t think for a moment that is is fraudulent.
#46 Marcel Kincaid
November 12, 2011

The fact that people aren’t held responsible for their “rhetorical flourishes” is a big problem in the “debate” about climate change.

The person you’re not holding responsible here is Judith Curry, who is incompetent, a fraud, and a serial liar … and that failure to hold incompetents, frauds, and liars responsible is indeed a “big problem” in the “debate” … so big a problem that the population at large has been misled about the stark reality of AGW and important policy changes have not occurred because of it.
#47 Marcel Kincaid
November 12, 2011

but by all indications, her efforts to bridge the gap with the skeptics is sincere

That’s utter rot. Her blog is a gathering point for denialists whom she never ever corrects.

I don’t think for a moment that is is fraudulent.

Bully for you. It is in fact fraudulent.
#48 Marcel Kincaid
November 12, 2011

In my opinion

Your opinion, being based entirely on ignorance, is worthless.
#49 Marcel Kincaid
November 12, 2011

This post represents her full, considered view

If so, Abbie, then it proves her a fraud, since it contains fraudulent statements such as

Is global warming over? Addressing this question requires a prediction of future temperatures, and we can’t really answer that with the data.
#50 Marcel Kincaid
November 12, 2011

the facts and implications about Global Warming are straightforward and difficult to misinterpret — though Dr. Curry gives it a spiteful go. Once established, as those facts have been established, the question should be, how bad is Global Warming going to turn out and what should we do to ameleriorate what looks to be a highly negative outcome? Talking past the facts, as she does, invites world disaster on the one hand, and ultimate political retribution on the other.

Quite so.
#51 Marcel Kincaid
November 12, 2011

Name calling makes me right!

What does make you right, about anything? All of your claims and implications are contrary to fact, including your labeling yourself a skeptic.
#52 Ethan Siegel
November 12, 2011

Marcel,

Abbie is the host of the ERV scienceblog, which is excellent, and which had a link to this post.

The comment that you (very justly) responded to was originally from her blog, but was written by a commenter named Spence, whom I believe is this chap.

But thank you for standing up for the (what I believe are) very well-justified statements I made here.

Cheers,
Ethan
#53 Philip
November 12, 2011

Great Post Ethan – simple, powerful, honest. Keep up the good work.
#54 GaelanClark
November 12, 2011

So, in the “Climategate” emails which shed so much light on the back-scene wheelings and dealings of those who would demand that we return to the stone ages because of their “proxies” that “”accurately”” reflect temperature from thousands of years ago to a TENTH of a degree—when current and reliable satellite and ground based sensors cannot accurately measure temperature to the TENTH of a degree and have to have “step-wise” changes–UPWARD ONLY–when these “scientists” use the term “HIDE THE DECLINE”, we are simply to dimiss their own words because you say so?
Keep your head in the sand and keep crying wolf.
Btw, the EPA estimates the cost of reducing temperature by 2100 by 1* C at $1.9QUADRILLION dollars. How many zeros are in that? And, Capitalism will not pay for that, only Socialism will.
#55 NJ
November 12, 2011

GaelanClark @ 54:

Let’s see….

Still misled into thinking that Climategate was a scandal…

Still misunderstanding temperature proxies…

Still misinterpreting a colloquial statement about tree ring proxy temperatures…

Still misrepresenting that the actual evidence is our “say so”…

Still miscalculating the cost of the steps needed to alter the course of things…

Still misinformed about what socialism is…

BINGO! I filled my denier card out with one post!
#56 john wondra
November 12, 2011

Your reliance upon the “17-year” standard is presented as if it were scientific or statistical gospel, when it clearly is not! Isn’t that just as much of a “fraud” or as equally “unethical” as you imply Curry to have been?

The entire quote (in relevant part) is:
“A single decade of observational TLT data is therefore inadequate for identifying a [i][b]slowly evolving anthropogenic warming[/i][/b] signal. Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required [i][b]for identifying human effects[/i][/b] on global-mean tropospheric temperature.”

You obviously (and incorrectly/dishonestly?)proceed from the proposition that [b][i]all[/i][/b] land-based warming measurements reflect the result only of man’s influence on the climate. By ignoring the other accepted influences (solar radiation, albedo/cloud-cover, et c.)on climate, you rely upon a standard clearly limited to anthropogenic warming models, and apply it to general observations to support an otherwise unsupportable conclusion.

Fraud? Unethical? Dishonest?

Pot, meet kettle.

jw
#57 1000 Needles
November 12, 2011

About the only thing I ever have to say when I comment here is “thank you.” I hope you won’t mind me saying it again.

Thanks for all the time and work you put into your blog, Ethan. You have an amazing talent for taking complex data and making it accessible to people like me who would be otherwise unable to understand it.
#58 Richard Simons
November 12, 2011

John: the length of time required to detect a significant change in temperature has nothing to do with whether it is human-caused or the result of solar radiation, etc. The common procedure with regression is to take at least as many measurements as is required to detect a significant slope given the expected change and the natural variability of the population (or until you decide that the effect is so small as to be of no interest). If you are looking at the change in temperature of a pot on a hot stove, three measurements is probably adequate. If you are examining the changing height of 10-year-olds, you might need 1000 observations. In the case of global climate, given the current change and the amount of variability, something like 17 years is required regardless of the source of variability.
#59 GaelanClark
November 12, 2011

#55–NJ
Let me give just one repudiation of your remarks. The easiest to do so because it involves a hard science-mathematics.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=3ede3e93-813f-4449-97e6-0d6eb54fbc9e
Using their numbers, mind you…
For $78bb per year we will reduce CO2 by 2.9ppm and global mean temp reduced by 0.006-0.0015C by 2100.
Avg global mean temp reduced=0.00375C by 2100….total for $7trillion in cost!!!!!

Okay, now try to make it meaningful and let us get ONE full degree celsius of cooling….

7,000,000,000,000/0.00375=1,866,666,666,666,667….$1.86QUADRILLION DOLLARS TO GET 1DEGREE CELSIUS OF COOLING.

I am glad you are not running the business there buddy.
#60 GaelanClark
November 12, 2011

That is:
$1.86 QUADRILLION DOLLARS
#61 NJ
November 12, 2011

GaelanClark @ 59&60:

Wading through the bizzaro URL leads to a report with the following title:

EPA’S ANTI-INDUSTRIAL POLICY: “THREATENING JOBS AND AMERICA’S MANUFACTURING BASE”
United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Minority Staff
Released: September 28, 2010

Oooops. A denier report, written by bought and paid for Republican senators?

Here’s a clue, since you can’t seem to buy one: Bogus numbers multiplied by bogus numbers gives you…(wait for it) bogus numbers!

You want to discuss costs? Fine. Find independent, peer-reviewed cost/benefit comparisons of doing nothing vs. doing something, with everything laid out.

Then we can have a discussion. Right now, all you are doing is proving that you can be distracted by Fox News dragging red herrings across your path.

Kinda like my neighbor’s idiot dog.
#62 Mauro Z.
November 12, 2011

I’m no scientist, but I think many people by now agree that some warming is happening, you don’t need to pay thousands of scientists and fund endless studies for it, just look at the glaciers disappearing year after year, that’s not an alarmist’s invention, it’s hard not to see it. What hasn’t been proven yet is that this warming – climate change, I believe is the politically correct euphemism nowadays – is exclusively anthropogenic, or even to what partial extent it may be, or even that an increase of 1ºC over a century is going to mean catastrophe. It would mean harsher conditions in some parts of the globe for sure, lack of water, higher tides, and so on, as much as a cooling would mean harsher conditions in some other parts of the globe, longer winters, decreases in crop – and human – productivity, increase in fuel consumption, and so on. But there is also plenty data showing that increases in temperature (and CO levels) benefits tropical forest and increase crop productivity in some other parts of the world. While BOTH sides of the debate often engage in dubious (17 years span is about as scientifically proven that any other time frame) and yes, downright fraudulent behaviour – there also seems to be a extremely bad case of confirmation bias going on. Jump on the global warming, sorry, climate change train (change, which by the way, is a natural state of things) or we all die. It may feel righteously good to attack the skeptics, but didn’t scientists also tell us we were all going to freeze to death a couple of decades ago, or that oil was running out by the mid-eighties? Cheap oil economy needs some serious revision, as do excessive consumerism and unconscionable energy waste, because they don’t make sense on their own. Using climate change as a mean to do that is about as reproachable – on a much larger scale – as using the WMD excuse to invade Iraq.
#63 Robert Grumbine
November 12, 2011

I give a less rigorous (than Santer et al., 2011) but more intuitive illustration of why you need 20-30 years of data to define a climate mean or trend. Simply: It isn’t climate if your value changes substantially when you add or subtract a year’s data. That’s weather.

See, for instance, http://moregrumbinescience.blogspot.com/2009/01/results-on-deciding-trends.html

Follow links from there for the mean.
#64 SLC
November 12, 2011

One has to get a considerable laugh out of claims by denialists like AGWskeptic that climate scientists are in it for the money. The fact is that they could make a lot more money pimping for the Koch brothers.
#65 Lassi Hippeläinen
November 12, 2011

Richard Simons #58: “In the case of global climate, given the current change and the amount of variability, something like 17 years is required regardless of the source of variability.”

IMHo that is too little. For a non-periodic signal it might work, but the average temperature has periods and pseudoperiods. Usually you need at least three cycles to smooth over the end effects. For annual cycles that is easy, but the climate has also some longer features, whose period is slightly variable, like El Niño and sunspots. Three sunspot cycles needs more than 30 years.

Touching the topic…
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/11/fox-news-successfully-creates-climate-confusion-but-only-among-conservatives.ars
#66 repentnowsinner
November 12, 2011

THE FRAUD IS THAT YOU DO NOT BELIEVE THE TRUE FACT OF THE GOSPLES THAT JESUS CHRIST IS THE SAVIOR AND THE LORD GOD AND KIND OF THE UNIVERSE IT IS A FACT THAT THERE IS NO GLOBAL “WARMING” BUT THAT SATAN IS USING THIS TO TRY TO DECIEVE THE FAITHFUL WITH HATE AND LIES THE TEMPERATURE IS CONTROLLED BY GOD! GOD RULES! ALL OF THIS IS LIES BY SATAN AND THAT IS A TRUE FACT YOUR GRAPHS AND CHARTS SHOULD BE BURNED AND YOU BETTER REPENT OR GO TO HELL!!!!!!!!!!
#67 daedalus2u
November 12, 2011

The reason fossil fuel interests are so much into global warming denial is about money. As soon as governments start making policy based on the reality of AGW and the urgent reality to do something about AGW, the entire fossil fuel industry will take a gigantic multi-trillion dollar hit.

The value of fossil fuel companies is based on the reserves they have of fossil fuels. That valuation is based on the value of those resources as fuels which requires burning them and releasing the CO2 into the atmosphere.

There are more fossil fuel reserves than can be burned without making the CO2 level of the atmosphere unacceptably high (age of dinosaurs high). That means that some of those fossil fuel reserves can’t be burned, which means they can’t have the value that they are currently valued at. The value of fossil fuel reserves is an economic bubble. The bubble is hidden because of AGW denial.

That economic bubble due to the over valuing of fossil fuel reserves will burst some day and everyone holding fossil fuel assets will take a gigantic financial hit. The current value of those fossil fuel assets is illusory because the value does not reflect the future value of fossil fuels.

Burst the fossil fuel economic bubble by putting rational limits on CO2 levels in the atmosphere, and the power of the fossil fuel industry to perpetuate AGW denial is greatly reduced, and their incentives for doing so are greatly reduced.

What the fossil fuel industry is doing is:

1. have more fossil fuel assets than can be burned
2. trick people into thinking that those assets can be burned by denying AGW
3. Profit by using those fictitious assets as collateral for debt or selling stock.
#68 Sili
November 12, 2011

Dear AGWSkeptic,

Could you please furnish me with some stats on the incomes of climate scientists (and academics in general). A list of those “huge” grants would be nice as well. Why should I be left out of this lucrative fraud business, that you have uncovered all on your own.

–o–

Dear Luis,

I don’t know if English is your first language, but it sounds like you need to work on your reading comprehension. Your conclusion does not follow from the article in any manner I can discern.
#69 Chris O'Neill
November 12, 2011

Watch this for an explanation for fair-weather skepticism.
#70 NJ
November 12, 2011

rns @ 66:

Nope, climate change deniers are not at all like evolution deniers, not at all, no way…
#71 Narad
November 12, 2011

THE FRAUD IS THAT YOU DO NOT BELIEVE THE TRUE FACT OF THE GOSPLES

A nuanced touch. Well done.
#72 Sili
November 12, 2011

When I come to your blog, I to want learn things such as the make-up of the Fine Structure Constant. Any thoughts?

Yeah. You should start your own blog, if you’re dissatisfied with the contents of this one. Last I checked, dr Siegel wasn’t employed by you.

Your fixation on 5σ seems to indicate that you’d feel far more at home reading Luboš Motl.
#73 Richard Simons
November 12, 2011

Mauro @62

climate change, I believe is the politically correct euphemism nowadays

I think if you go into the history of the terms, you will find that ‘climate change’ was used in this context before ‘global warming’.

What hasn’t been proven yet is that this warming [. . .] is exclusively anthropogenic

Proof does not belong in science – the expression you are looking for is probably ‘convincingly demonstrated’. What exactly would it take to convince you that most, if not all, of the current warming is anthropogenic? Most people who make this kind of claim actually have no idea of what would convince them.

But there is also plenty data showing that increases in temperature (and CO [sic] levels) benefits tropical forest and increase crop productivity in some other parts of the world.

Could you link to a single paper showing that increasing temperatures benefit tropical forests, or will lead to higher productivity of tropical crops? This idea that higher temperatures or CO₂ benefit crops is promulgated almost entirely by non-biologists.

but didn’t scientists also tell us we were all going to freeze to death a couple of decades ago,

No. A cooling trend was noted in the 70s because of atmospheric pollution and there was speculation on how long it might continue. At about the same time, a study of Milankovitch cycles determined that, if other conditions stayed the same, we would enter another Ice Age in 12,000 (or failing that, 120,000) years (I cannot remember the exact values). Journalists mixed the two concepts together and forgot the if . . . to give a journalistic prediction of an imminent Ice Age.
#74 Orwellian Dilemma
November 12, 2011

OK. So we destroy all industrial societies to reduce greenhouse gas production to pre-industrial levels. Now what? Now we have mass starvation (remember, no fertilizer), complete deforestation (no fuel for cooking or heating, so we must cut down the trees), mass immigration to reach more temperate climates causing world wars. Of course, at this future point point in time we would have a substance called petroleum in abundance, containing 138,000 btu’s per gallon, which has been banned. But we know that no one would cheat. . . . And we’re doing this to avoid temperatures near that of Roman times? Oh, let’s. Post haste!
#75 Orwellian Dilemma
November 12, 2011

For those of you thinking, “we should at least do something” one should bear in mind that changing light bulbs and passing cap and trade and adhering to Kyoto will be as useful as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. If AGW is true, we first must get emissions back to at least “carbon neutral” to even think of having any effect(which, by most estimates would be aggregate levels of the 1820’s, but with today’s population means a per capita level approaching Bronze Age Man). This doesn’t mean we should be profligate, but be realistic about this. Destroying the world economy will have unintended consequences.
#76 Jack Dawe
November 12, 2011

@ 74, 75 No one, not even the whackiest AGW-obsessive loon on the I AM A SCIENTIST comments page, suggested destroying the world economy in order to save the climate. Most of the heat on that page was directed toward people who were denying the facts of AGW, with some associated flak being directed toward conservative or moderate AGW-ers like myself.

The world economy, in any event, will in the end be destroyed if even the less drastic AGW scenarios that I foresee turn out to be correct. What is needed is time — time to make green technologies and conservation measures more profitable and hence more viable. But time, if this hot, dry year of 2011 is any indication, may be what we don’t have.

Before long, we may have to decide on whether to gamble on measures to buy us time — such as increasing albedo in the atmosphere and on the world’s surface, or placing material in space to interfere with solar radiation. The big danger behind that is that we will begin to rely on such temporary measures, and forego the real changes that have to be made, to fend off longterm disaster.

But I think something will have to be done, the next few years, if the world is to avoid a real calamity.

Remember, “Orwellian Dilemma,” Orwell never claimed that the problems the animals set out to remedy in ANIMAL FARM, or even the horrors of 1984, happened they were invented or “made up” by maniacs seeking power. The problems of capitalism, one of which is AGW, are manmade, and can be solved by free people. But they can’t be solved by denying they exist. And if they’re not solved — that’s when the Orwellian outcome really begins to resonate.
#77 Orwellian Dilemma
November 12, 2011

Mr. Dawe (76), I respectfully believe you miss my point. On the one hand, if AGW is true, etc., the timid little steps we are taking (and which will have a devastating effect on the world economy) won’t even make a detectable improvement. On the other hand, the wars that these steps will cause will make our current carbon output appear benign by comparison. (Look at the carbon spike during WWII, e.g.) Orwell’s dilemma was set out in his essays, not his fiction. As a socialist, he realized the “unfairness” in capitalism, but saw that the unintended unfairness unleashed by socialism dwarfed it. Today, we are choosing imminent, avoidable economic destruction on a scale never seen–all to take ineffective measures against a danger we little understand. Meanwhile, those who ask questions are treated as Laocoon, who, though right, was killed for wanting to investigate the wooden horse before it was brought into Troy. While current AGW projections present some economic displacement, it is nothing like even the “moderate” steps like Kyoto will cause. Whether those gathering the power to make you use a toilet that does not flush while you stumble in semi-darkness because the expensive and short-lived CFL’s* don’t work do so out of care or out of greed–be your own judge. I, for one, am always distrustful of newly-minted billionaires (Al Gore, e.g.) demanding my fealty.

*I have yet to get a CFL to last more than a few months, and I’ve been using them for years.
#78 Jack Dawe
November 12, 2011

That’s the tune you sing now. When you’re melting down in the dark because of AGW, or — even more likely — being herded into the docket by the AGW Thought Police who gain power because you wouldn’t give up on your talking points, I foresee a melodic change on your part.

For myself, I think all the changes we need to make for — captitalist! — civilization to be long-lasting and environmentally friendly are right in our grasp now. But I fear that if we wait much longer, they won’t be. Then the Orwellian outcome becomes all the more likely.
#79 MartinM
November 12, 2011

I have yet to get a CFL to last more than a few months, and I’ve been using them for years.

Then you should probably get your wiring checked.
#80 Orwellian Dilemma
November 12, 2011

If you take AGW at face value, it is undisputed that to make any temperature difference whatsoever, every man, woman, and child, will have to reduce their carbon footprint to that of the Bronze Age(a 97% reduction)–right now. Let that sink in. Technically speaking, we are at least 60-70 years from being able to make even a 50% reduction. Worst case 40-year projections show temperatures approaching that of about 300 A.D. with no changes in behavior at all. (We simply were not “melting” in 300 A.D.) Thus our choices: Constantine’s weather or Mad Max’s society (which is not as fun as it looks in the movie).

This chat is immaterial, however, because your side has won. There is no hope to avoid the creeping totalitarianism intended by the AGW crowd. In fact, all this discussion is somewhat silly, because the AGW’s will do what they want–by connivance if possible, but by force if necessary. Freedom is the most unstable of the elements, brief and bright, but always, always, destined to fail.
#81 Chris O'Neill
November 12, 2011

Orwellian Dilemma:

Mr. Dawe (76), I respectfully believe you miss my point.

No, not accepting your assertions is not the same as missing the point.

On the one hand, if AGW is true, etc., the timid little steps we are taking (and which will have a devastating effect on the world economy)

You’re making an assertion without evidence.

On the other hand, the wars that these steps will cause will make our current carbon
output appear benign by comparison. (Look at the carbon spike during WWII, e.g.)

You’re making another false assertion. The truth is the exact opposite of what you say. In fact the
CO2 level actually went down during WW2.

One of the biggest problems in this whole “debate” is people such as yourself who are completely careless with the facts.
#82 Orwell's Dilemma
November 12, 2011

@MartinM, Thanks. I’ve had the wiring checked twice. Both electricians say the wiring’s fine. I never have problems with the few incandescents I have left. (My electronics are fine as well and I’m too poor to buy decent surge protectors.) I just hope the CFL’s get cheaper because I’m going broke buying replacements.
#83 Orwellian Dilemma
November 12, 2011

O’Neill: CO2 went down 1930-36 due to the Great Depression. It started up in 1936 due to increased industrialization as the Wehrmacht and Japanese Empire ramped up production of war materiale, followed by the French and British playing catch up. 1941 saw a further increase as the Americans and Soviets joined the industrial race against Hitler and Hirohito. During the post war recession 1946-48 a levelling off, followed by an almost unchanged increase until 1975’s embargo-induced recession. But maybe the IPCC lied about that too, though I cannot imagine why.

But again, don’t worry. There is much too much money to be made and power to be wielded by controlling carbon for your side to lose.
#84 Richard Simons
November 12, 2011

Orwellian Dilemma@80

Worst case 40-year projections show temperatures approaching that of about 300 A.D. with no changes in behavior at all.

What have you been reading? Please could you give a citation to a scientific paper that gives any credence to the idea that global temperatures are not already higher than those in Roman times?
#85 alan
November 12, 2011

For 100yrs the coal industry insisted that pea-soup fog was not a problem, and the law agreed with them. By the end of the 50’s so many people were dying from pea-souper’s that governments were forced to act.

They did the same thing with sulphur emissions, denying that acid rain was a problem until the 1990’s when Reagan negotiated a cap and trade system on sulphur.

They have been denying AGW with fraudulent claims for over 50yrs now! How long will it take before people, (the US public in particular), catch on and get angry about being used as what Kruschev called “useful idiots”? How long before the enemies of reason such as Senator Inhofe are ignored rather than assigned powerful positions in environmental policy decisions?

The time for research and corporate propaganda is well and truly over! Science has answered the basic questions very clearly over the last 2-3 decades and has done a great job advertising those answers to the public whilst under constant media and political attracts. It’s time to declare an international moratorium on all new coal fired plants and the engineers to work.

A moratorium would bring out an army of economic alarmist, but if the past chiefs of Easter Island had put a moratorium on statue building until they worked out how to cultivate trees, maybe their civilisation would still be here.
#86 Jack Dawe
November 12, 2011

@ 85 – “if the past chiefs of Easter Island had put a moratorium on statue building until they worked out how to cultivate trees, maybe their civilisation would still be here.”

It’s impossible to overstress this point when it comes to the dangers of AGW. Very well put.
#87 Matt
November 12, 2011

I’ve only gotten half way through the comments, and find them very disappointing after the post.

@Ethan – You’ve inadvertantly proven an additional point. Your statement that in science “We demand that experiments and observations have their methods detailed and that the experiments be reproducible.” is perfectly on the mark. The “scandal” at the CRU was not in “hide the decline” emails, it was in the abuse of scientific method. The scientists at CRU did not publish their methods or observations. At this point do not have the complete original observations or the detailed methods used to generate the current data set from them. That is a scientific scandal and the scientific community would be well served by an effort to purge the unsupported portion of the data from the literature. For example, if the Berkeley work makes use of the CRU data (and my guess is that it does) that is a weakness of the results. The other scandal is the journals that published their results in faith that – as is not uncommon – the complete observations and methods would be provided, did not enforce their own rules regarding observations and methods due to the seniority of the authors. That lapse of the publisher is a second scandal.

On the other hand, the Curry vs. Mueller issue is not a scientific scandal, it is a personal one. Mueller was leading a group which included Curry. The group had a concensus about how they would release their results via a published journal paper. Mueller decided he wanted to make a splash and arranged a press conference release without informing his colleagues. That makes him an egotistical twit, not a scientific fraud. And if you think about that, it should tell you your statements about Curry are off the mark. Mueller made statements to the press which he was attributing to his team without their consent. Curry was reacting to statements made in her name without her consent. My assumption is that the person who was ambushing (Mueller) would be more prepared than the person being ambushed (Curry). To present Curry’s reaction as considered scientific statements in the same way as Mueller’s doesn’t make sense. And with that sort of beginning my tendency would be to write this whole episode off until it people cool down. Personally, I think Mueller should receive some sort of reproof for his actions, or it will reflect negatively on the science community. His publicity stunt has already limited the effectiveness of the research to convince the skeptical portion of the population.
#88 Chris O'Neill
November 13, 2011

Myself:

CO2 level actually went down during WW2.

Orwellian Dilemma:

1941 saw a further increase as the Americans and Soviets joined the industrial race against Hitler and Hirohito.

WRONG. The atmospheric CO2 levels during WW2 were:

1939 310.3
1940 310.4
1941 310.4
1942 310.3
1943 310.2
1944 310.1
1945 310.1

As I said before, what you say is the exact opposite of the truth. People like you who think they’re entitled to their own facts are part of the problem.
#89 DDT
November 13, 2011

Oil companies are legally required to maximize shareholder profits. This means the have to push the skeptical argument as far as it will go. This is not evil and its not remotely surprising. It’s just business as usual, get over it.
The real issue is always the truth, which sometimes is a little hard to nail down. The evidence definitely shows some warming. But we wouldn’t need the word ‘Climate’ if it weren’t changing all the time. We know that there have been warmer periods and colder periods in the recent geologic past 10,000 years or so. The mountain glaciers in Switzerland grew enormously in the 1600’s bull dozing many small villages down their valleys. They have been retreating ever since. This corresponded with an absence of sun spots for nearly 80 years, called the maunder minimum. There are many records of very cold weather around the world during that period. Since then the sun has ben very active. So are mountain glaciers retreating because of CO2 or the solar cycle or something else? I don’t think we know yet.
#90 Rockyspoon
November 13, 2011

The biggest problem is that this author is misguided in his analysis of the situation, taking a holier-than-thou attitude and calling somebody he doesn’t agree with a “Climate Fraud”. If any of this is based on data from CRU, you can toss your allegations! As Matt says just above, CRU has “lost” their data and their methodology, so anything based on that is a moot point. You get all up in a twit with Judith Curry but really you should direct your ire to Phil Jones–he’s responsible for gross negligence when it comes to his contribution to the data (remember what you said in the beginning? TRANSPARENCY! Yet with the CRU there was no transparency and still is no transparency and never will be any transparency.) So I call BS on this whole exercise–besides, Curry was caught being blindsided by this Muller dude, who really shouldn’t be on anybody’s “scientific team” anymore–he’s a grandstander. Best take on the situation with Muller can be found here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/31/monday-mirthiness-the-best-team/#comments By the way, you may not agree, but there’s one thing far worse than “climate fraud”, and that is taking certain people’s comments out of context in order to sway public opinion against them in favor of your pet view. That isn’t fraud–that’s lying!
#91 Chris O'Neill
November 13, 2011

DDT:

So are mountain glaciers retreating because of CO2 or the solar cycle or something else?

Certainly not solar cycles. The Sun is no stronger than it was more than 50 years ago. This fact is available. Why do you indulge in ignorant speculation?

I don’t think we know yet.

So you speak for everyone, do you?
#92 john werneken
November 13, 2011

Who cares. No body is going to stop attempts at sharing prosperity around the world, except by war. More properous folks naturally want somebody to pay to preserve the basis of their prosperity, including a benign enviroment, which would be one we believe we can deal with Ok, i.e. one we are familiar with. So, let those who want to pay to use resources to reduce heat polution do so; let those who’d rather eat buy resources to do that; whoever still has money when the other runs out, wins, just like always; if the rich ones also have the best weapons, game over. If not, new game. ROTFFLMFAO

Aside from that, great collumn Ethan.
#93 Bart Johnson
November 13, 2011

A good examination of the data shows that for a ten-year set of measurements, the trend is rising temperatures.
Considering that climate cycles run in the tens of thousands of years, I don’t put much weight to tens of years.
If we agree that the trend is up, we still don’t agree on the cause. There are 20,000 year cycles going back millions
of years, long before man and suvs existed. If we cannot predict the past, why believe we can predict the future?
#94 VAengineer
November 13, 2011

While watching all this back and forth about temperatures is interesting, it proves nothing on either side. Someone has to directly link temperature changes to human activity and no one has done that.

The IPCC lists 16 factors of climate and states that scientists do not understand 13 of those factors at more than a “low”. The part that makes me raise an eyebrow is that the IPCC lists CO2 as “high” understanding. How can anyone understand one factor so high when the other factors are not understood well at all?

Of course the answer is that you can’t, but then Dr. Svensmark is trying to help on one factor and is being labeled a liar and heretic because it doesn’t match up with the climate science storyline. Not unusual though, those that challenge the scientific dogma in history are often attacked and ostracized. Not often are they right, hopefully Svensmark will be given the chance to prove he is right before history writes a pretty scathing review of those that are refusing to listen.
#95 MartinM
November 13, 2011

The scientists at CRU did not publish their methods or observations. At this point do not have the complete original observations or the detailed methods used to generate the current data set from them.

This is complete, unmitigated nonsense. The CRU’s methods were published in a number of papers going back well over a decade. 98% of the data were freely available to all long ago; the remaining 2% were covered by confidentiality agreements with other organisations, and were released a few months ago. Everything needed to replicate the CRU’s work was available years ago.
#96 Seth Thatcher
November 13, 2011

Ethan, Jesus, can you please stop with the defense of climate change science doomsday crap? Nobody has shown conclusive evidence of anthropogenic global warming despite showing meager evidence of warming. Why is it doomsday in our modern era that the Earth may indeed be warming in miniscule imcrements when we know from Earth history that at multiple times in the past the Earth was hotter and life persisted into the present? So the Earth gets a little hotter? Big freakin’ deal! Just read in Discover magazine that we know that the Sun will continue to burn hotter and brighter over the next billion years making Earth increasingly inhospitable to life. So, yes, in fact, the scientific trend will be for the Earth to be hotter and hotter for an eon to come until we are either consumed or left as a burnt cinder. How does humanity propose to combat that scenario? What this science is doing is making it easier for the political establishment to carbon tax us all to death. It is fundamentally anti-capitalist in nature and it’s intent is to drag us into the socialist equal sharing of miseries that Churchill has warned us of. It’s not so much that the science is wrong but the agenda behind the science that is so repugnant and transparent.

And who can blame scientists for propagating the government agenda on all of this? Most scientists are on the government payroll or receive grants largely funded due to the benevolence of government. Scientists, though we can’t live without them, are fundamentally uncoupled from the very capitalist system that pays the taxes to provide government resources for science.

And then there is this phenomenon with most humans that makes them think that if they are an expert in one area that they can be an expert in all others. Theoretical physicists are the best example of this. They have all but done away with God and view the rest of us as pitiful at best for our quaint beliefs in a Creator. None of us has cornered on the market on knowledge and wisdom. So I find myself in a conundrum; Theoretical physicists totally exasperate me with their know-it-all mentality while providing the precious nectar of knowledge I most crave.

I will continue to learn much about theoretical physics and the cosmos from you, Ethan, but I can’t hold my tongue on this global warming/climate change agenda garbage.

P.S. No hard feelings, totally love your blog!
#97 dean
November 13, 2011

“Most scientists are on the government payroll or receive grants largely funded due to the benevolence of government.”

Aaah, the ignorant comments of neil craig parroted by another fool. How distressing.
#98 matt
November 13, 2011

@MartinM – The CRU did publish a number of papers but did not publish methods and observations. The science they are doing takes a set of observations, generates a “data set” and then analyzes that data set. The methods to go from the observations to the data set have not been published and a portion of the direct observations is lost. The connection to actual observations is missing in part – that is a serious flaw. As I mentioned above, a lag between publication and providing the material to allow duplication is not uncommon, but for several of the CRU publications the methods and data for duplication were not provided to the publisher until several years and freedom of information requests had passed. As for the confidentiality agreements – there is no problem with confidentiality, but it shouldn’t require a freedom of information request for CRU to state that some data was covered by confidentiality.

There are other data sets – data sets without traceability should not be used for future work.
#99 Seth Thatcher
November 13, 2011

Okay, I did a quick internet search of scientists on government payroll versus private industry and it appears I am mistaken. I am however, not a fool. And I am not mistaken about the rest of it.
#100 elspi
November 13, 2011

“I am however, not a fool. And I am not mistaken about the rest of it.”

Let me get this straight. You quote a bunch of denialist horseshit.

We point out that one of statements is horseshit.

You respond not in the appropriate way: “These denialists are a lying sacks of shit, I should never believe anything they say.” But rather: “Well they were wrong about that, but that was just bad luck, so by the laws of probability, they are even more likely to be right about everything else.”

So yes, you are most assuredly a fool.
#101 OKThen
November 13, 2011

The science of global warming is pretty clear and strong; and well boring.

Nobody would pay much attention to global warming predictions; if it was found to be caused by volcanoes or sperm whales.

But the cause of global warming is human activity; and those very human activities are threatened with economic censure. Thus the economic interests (e.g. the oil industry) defend themselves. From this point on 2011, the global warming discussion is (as Jack Dawe has pointed out) political.

And once science becomes economic and political; it becomes ripe for fraud. But even at its ripest; fraud in science does not pay (e.g. versus Maddock). Thus with rare exceptions, the word fraud is not appropriate.

Being right about global warming (i.e. that it is caused by human activity), is like Galileo being right that the Eearth circles the sun; or like Adler or Lickint being right that the primary cause of lung cancer is cigarette smoking.

(“In 1912, American Dr. Isaac Adler was the first to strongly suggest that lung cancer is related to smoking. In 1929, Fritz Lickint of Dresden, Germany, published a formal statistical evidence of a lung cancer-tobacco link, based on a study showing that lung cancer sufferers were likely to be smokers.”

But note that, after Galileo or Linkert, the issue is no longer science; the issue as Jack Dawe tried unsuccessfully to point out is politics (i.e. power) and economics (i.e. money).

It’s not that the science doesn’t matter; rather it is that the science is settled in terms of the data. More data about global warming may change the interpretation of what is the exact human activities and exact natural activities (e.g. whether minor or major) that contribute to global warming; but the fact (as in the data) of global warming will not change without a catastrophic change in human activity or natural activity. (e.g. a total economic worldwide meltdown; a giant asteroid colliding into Earth)

At this point 2011, the issue of global warming is not a scientific issue (except to refine and continually improve the data in little details and better models). The scientist kiss-ass to power and money (whether regarding the solar system 1634, cigarettes in 1929, or global warming in 2011) is no longer a scientist. The skeptic of the interpretation may still be a scientist; but the skeptic of the facts (in each of these cases) is no longer a scientist.

So to agree with Ethan: Global warming is definitely caused by human activity. No science will change that fact; the data points simply are beyond dispute.

But to also agree with Jack Dawe: The necessary human discussions, decisions and activities to be done are engineering, political, economic (both personal and professional).

The science is over except for more and better detail. A particular scientist who deceives himself or herself) or who coops to poltics of money is really not scientifically important.
#102 dean
November 13, 2011

” I am however, not a fool. And I am not mistaken about the rest of it.”

Yes, you are a monumental fool. Your implication is that science can be ignored because all of the people working on it are funded by governments around the world (which, in a short attempt to cover your butt, you admitted isn’t true), and so their work can be completely ignored. Not that you read or try to understand any of the issues, but because in your little philosophical sphere that assertion alone is enough to cast dishonor and lack of substance on anyone.

It’s not clear why anyone takes the things you, or people who think like you, say concerning issues surrounding science at all seriously.
#103 Jack Dawe
November 13, 2011

I agree with OKThen, the science has come in, we’re already feeling the advance elements of the decline in environmentally sensitive areas. Like today, with dry hot winds out of the West over the Llano Estacado (in mid-November!), turning the sky brown. Similiar conditions obtain in North China and Sub-Saharan Africa, and are spreading from there.

The question is, why Deniers continue to deny. But maybe I can understand it. You could be living in a part of the country more afflicted by floods than drought. Maybe you take “the long view” that everybody’s going to die anyway, while the band plays on. It’s definitely discomfitting to be a supporter and believer in the ultimate value of free enterprise, as I am, when the work of free enterprise blows up in your face every few years either economically and ecologically, and you have to rebuild from that.

But when are we going to start rebuilding, when are we going to start doing something about this problem, and how?

We’re definitely not going to do it with half the literate population continuing to protest that something that’s going to kill our civilization isn’t happening at all. Speaking of Churchill, as many of us conservatives are wont to do, it’s as if Churchill in the 1930s decided that Nazism really wasn’t happening, it was just some sort of jolly Germanic beer-drinking society, nasty when drunk but otherwise not a problem. We can all imagine how World War Two might have gone if Churchill had been that kind of Denier, in his time.

Not to begin rationally discussing this problem not only leaves the gate open for the fascist stand-ins that are perpetuating climate degradation to do their worst — by which I mean elements like the mining free-booters in the tropics, or the CO2 emissions defenders in American politics. It also makes inevitable some sort of radical politics, beyond the encroaching disaster, a kind of world environmentalist Stalinism that may be as murderous in its own right as the rotten climate is ever going to be.
#104 MartinM
November 13, 2011

The CRU did publish a number of papers but did not publish methods and observations.

Rubbish. The methods are in the papers. Have you read them?

As for the data, 98% was already freely available, as I stated, and the rest is now.
#105 BHirsh
November 13, 2011

All very interesting.

However, the real issue isn’t warming, cooling or leveling. The real issue is advancing the dubious contention that it’s anthropomorphically induced, which none of this does.

Such a contention is politically motivated dogma, not science.
#106 MartinM
November 13, 2011

The CRU did publish a number of papers but did not publish methods and observations.

I look to reading your indepth refutation of the science in the peer-reviewed journal of your choice.
#107 MartinM
November 13, 2011

No idea how I managed that. I meant to quote this from BHirsh:

Such a contention is politically motivated dogma, not science.
#108 geezer117
November 13, 2011

The author takes the BEST data at face value and goes from there. But there are many proven cases where raw data has been “adjusted” for various reasons, miraculously always in a direction to increase the apparent rate of warming. I believe it was CRU (I could be mistaken) which had destroyed the original raw data and we now only have the “adjusted” data. So, is this incompetence or fraud, by the author’s standards? How reliable are conclusions based on BEST data when the underlying manipulations of the raw data is suspect?

But proving a high rate of warming is only one hurdle for warming alarmists. ALL of the thousands of pat changes in global temperature have had natural causes, but this one, so their argument goes, does not have natural causes but is human-caused. The burden of proof lies with the proposers of the novel theory, and so far there is no proof that natural causes are not sufficient. It is simply not science to say the warming of today is coincident with burning of fossil fuels, so the cause is the burning of fossil fuels.

Then the next hurdle for the alarmists is to prove that if we cease burning fossil fuels, if we wreck the global economy, that not only will warming cease, but the economic catastrophe will be less devastating than the warming would have been. So far, we have only self-serving computer models, completely opaque and yet to be subjected to the scrutiny demanded by science, that predict catastrophes to come. These models so far have completely failed in all their most significant predictions.
#109 Jack Dawe
November 13, 2011

“Such a contention is politically motivated dogma, not science.”

If you go back over either this post or the I AM A SCIENTIST post, let alone the avalanche of comments following both of them, I think the science of AGW speaks for itself. (If you have ears to listen with). As for the politics —

If the political motivation behind majority AGW is to save free enterprise, to save democratic institutions, to save a vulnerable population, and to save politics from either nihilist, exploitative Denialists or Far-Left Population Reduction Eliminationists, wouldn’t you say the politics is sound?
#110 Richard Simons
November 13, 2011

The real issue is advancing the dubious contention that it’s anthropomorphically induced, which none of this does.

People who make comments like that typically do not have a clue about the science. To show that you are not arguing from a position of ignorance, please summarise the argument, as you understand it, for current climate change being largely anthropogenic in origin.
#111 ScentOfViolets
November 13, 2011

Ethan, I’ve tried to post a few comments over there, but Curry seems to be actively deleting them soon after they appear.

So I’d give up trying to actually set there record straight on her blog.

And at this point, I think it quite clear that yes, she is definitely and knowingly engaging in fraudulent practices.
#112 R. L. Hails Sr. P. E.
November 13, 2011

I may be the only reader who is not a scientist, but I have learned much from the article and comments. I am an engineer, have worked on a score of nukes, two score fossil fuel power plants, and assessed advanced technology for decades (what is coming, what are the barriers, and when).

It is obvious to me that climate change has irreversibly injured America. Our scientific debate focuses now on whether this Full Professor or that one is a fraud, lying about the effects of the combustion of carbon. We now charge liar, via nonlinear regression analysis. Many of commenters here hold that fossil fuel producers, large corporations, are liars, frauds and possibly criminals.

My position, from decades of study, is that there is no real alternative prime fuel. other than carbon (and uranium to a limited degree), for base loaded supply for advanced societies. This is true now, or barring a break through in an intensely studied field, will be true for as far as technical estimates can foresee. All “green” energies will always cost more than society can bear, due to inherent limitations. High cost is the reason that they have never been killer apps. Carbon combustion is, and will remain the bed rock of the industrial revolution. Carbon is abundant, and cheap. The proof is the market. Trillions in investments await a better mouse trap. Cheap energy is the holy grail of engineering.

There are two billion people on earth who earn less than $1 per day. Without the benefits of carbon combustion, they will die faster, faster than flies. Thus their governments will never cease in their urgent quest to burn carbon. China has surpassed America in its coal consumption; India is trying. America can no more stop, or reverse this demand, that forbid ocean waves to move. The US could vanish today; it would only change the positive slope of the global carbon consumption curve. If carbon combustion is a real, near term threat to human life, mankind faces certain mass die off.

It is quite possible that the United States of America will cease to exist, as we know it, within the next generation. This will largely be the result of our energy policies. Our margin of error is thin. External war, or internal dictatorship, are real possibilities. Climate change rivals WMD as an existential threat to the survival of the coming generation.

Ergo, I request both corporate CEOs and full Professors to begin a candid, humble dialog on how we contend with the effects of carbon combustion.
#113 R. L. Hails Sr. P. E.
November 13, 2011

I may be the only reader who is not a scientist, but I have learned much from the article and comments. I am an engineer, have worked on a score of nukes, two score fossil fuel power plants, and assessed advanced technology for decades (what is coming, what are the barriers, and when).

It is obvious to me that climate change has irreversibly injured America. Our scientific debate focuses now on whether this Full Professor or that one is a fraud, lying about the effects of the combustion of carbon. We now charge liar, via nonlinear regression analysis. Many of commenters here hold that fossil fuel producers, large corporations, are liars, frauds and possibly criminals.

My position, from decades of study, is that there is no real alternative prime fuel. other than carbon (and uranium to a limited degree), for base loaded supply for advanced societies. This is true now, or barring a break through in an intensely studied field, will be true for as far as technical estimates can foresee. All “green” energies will always cost more than society can bear, due to inherent limitations. High cost is the reason that they have never been killer apps. Carbon combustion is, and will remain the bed rock of the industrial revolution. Carbon is abundant, and cheap. The proof is the market. Trillions in investments await a better mouse trap. Cheap energy is the holy grail of engineering.

There are two billion people on earth who earn less than $1 per day. Without the benefits of carbon combustion, they will die faster, faster than flies. Thus their governments will never cease in their urgent quest to burn carbon. China has surpassed America in its coal consumption; India is trying. America can no more stop, or reverse this demand, that forbid ocean waves to move. The US could vanish today; it would only change the positive slope of the global carbon consumption curve. If carbon combustion is a real, near term threat to human life, mankind faces certain mass die off.

It is quite possible that the United States of America will cease to exist, as we know it, within the next generation. This will largely be the result of our energy policies. Our margin of error is thin. External war, or internal dictatorship, are real possibilities. Climate change rivals WMD as an existential threat to the survival of the coming generation.

Ergo, I request both corporate CEOs and full Professors to begin a candid, humble dialog on how we contend with the effects of carbon combustion.
#114 Ethan Siegel
November 13, 2011

ScentOfViolets,

I saw one of your comments there late last night (my time), and I thank you for trying.

I’ve pretty much given up trying to set the record straight with a number of scientists; my most recent attempt was with Lubos over on his blog:

http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/10/best-judith-curry-unbelievably-flat.html#more

But if you can’t convince someone with sound math and their own data, they’re obviously being dishonest.

I have no second thoughts about calling this behavior fraudulent.
#115 Clive Perring
November 13, 2011

the best part of this article is where the author got the pic for “climate fraud.” LMAO!!!
#116 Chris O'Neill
November 13, 2011

geezer117:

But there are many proven cases where raw data has been “adjusted” for various reasons, miraculously always in a direction to increase the apparent rate of warming.

Yes, Roy Spencer does that as he details here (search for dumb). He is a raving alarmist, isn’t he?
#117 Ed Forbes
November 13, 2011

Even the IPCC and the BBC are backing off a bit on CAGW

.
Richard Black-BBC on new draft IPCC report
.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15698183
.
“..And for the future, the draft gives even less succour to those seeking here a new mandate for urgent action on greenhouse gas emissions, declaring: “Uncertainty in the sign of projected changes in climate extremes over the coming two to three decades is relatively large because climate change signals are expected to be relatively small compared to natural climate variability”…”
.
“..There is “low confidence” that tropical cyclones have become more frequent, “limited-to-medium evidence available” to assess whether climatic factors have changed the frequency of floods, and “low confidence” on a global scale even on whether the frequency has risen or fallen…”
.
and it continues
#118 Wow
November 14, 2011

> What is the “ideal” planetary temperature?

For us, here, now, the temperature during the onset of the Industrial Age.
#119 Wow
November 14, 2011

“Like I said back on the I AM A SCIENTIST comments page, the facts and implications about Global Warming are straightforward and difficult to misinterpret”

You also said a lot of other things.

Like how it couldn’t be lil ol us changing the climate and how it was me posting that made global warming in your town, and other seriously bonkers pronouncements.
#120 Wow
November 14, 2011

“You have just accused another scientist of “fraud”. This is an extremely serious accusation — perhaps the most serious professional accusation you can make… based on… what? A newspaper interview”

No, based on their statements and their data.

You know, evidence.
#121 Wow
November 14, 2011

“What hasn’t been proven yet is that this warming … is exclusively anthropogenic”

That’s because you haven’t read the IPCC reports that state the several forcings changing climate at this time.

Human factors are much larger than the others, but they’re not the only ones.

Now, given your lack of knowledge on what the climate science says, how about popping over to http://www.ipcc.ch and reading what the science says?
#122 Wow
November 14, 2011

“The “scandal” at the CRU was not in “hide the decline” emails, it was in the abuse of scientific method.”

ANY evidence of that?

No?

“The scientists at CRU did not publish their methods or observations.”

1) They published all their data.
2) The published their methods.

“The methods to go from the observations to the data set have not been published”

Yes they have.

The fact is you’re not a scientist, therefore you won’t be told about them and would have to research to find them. This being work that can only prove you wrong, you do not do this.

“The connection to actual observations is missing in part – that is a serious flaw”

Then go to the BEST site and get their entire dataset and their entire method. This denailist meme is why BEST was started.

Guess what: they don’t significantly disagree with either CRU’s dataset, NOAA’s dataset or indeed any of the other datasets of global temperature that aren’t CRU’s.

Did you EVER consider that there were other global datasets out there?

Also note that despite three investigations, no misconduct affecting the data was found.
#123 Wow
November 14, 2011

“How can anyone understand one factor so high when the other factors are not understood well at all?”

Because CO2’s effect is a result of well understood QM processes.

How can someone not understand that you can understand something really well and other things not so well?
#124 AGWSkeptic
November 14, 2011

Just remember, folks, using the word “denialist” over and over again makes you right! It’s magic!!!
#125 Wow
November 14, 2011

Nope, being right makes you right.

It’s FACT!

Have you got any facts?
#126 Jim
November 14, 2011

Sorry, computing standard errors for whichever interval chosen to find a trend doesn’t cut it. As I see the problem, selection of an interval should be treated as a random draw from the sample. Hence, standard error should be calculated from all possible draws. So if you’re looking at 13 year intervals, select all possible 13 year intervals. Use those to get the standard error.

That approach will also highlight that there are way too few 13-year intervals to warrant much confidence.
#127 Jack Dawe
November 14, 2011

@118 Not to beat a thoroughly dead horse, but — for the last time — when I said “li’l ole us” couldn’t cause Global Warming, I was being IRONIC for the purposes of illustrating how a rational shuck-and-jive could be used to get out from under the worry about Global Warming.

I was using it entirely in the sense of DR STRANGELOVE – Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and LOVE the Bomb. Which was hardly a film promoting nuclear warfare, any more than I have promoted Denialism in any of my comments.

I also said I couldn’t possibly worry about such conundrums as nuclear war, the Great Silence, Hugo de Garis’ Artilect War, etc. As I said on the I AM A SCIENTIST comments page, I’m not a scientist, I’m a writer. A screenwriter, at the present moment. The subjects described above are also 100% of the subject matter of my current screenplays, which should show that I am neither dismissive of them (including Global Warming), nor “not worried.”

More broadly, your consistent attempt to misconstrue what I’ve said — if sincere — shows just how hobbled an otherwise rational mind can become, when confronted with subtle, non-black-and-white arguments. This is what I think bothers you. That I’m just as furious at the Stalinist wing of AGW as I am at the Denialists, and maybe more so because they’re exploiting the fact that they’re right, in this case, for moral and political gain, rather than to bother address fixing the problem.

For the last time: like a driver on the road, you can be right about the law, right about AGW, and still end up dead, either by the effects of climate change, or by the world dictatorship that may arise out of climate change, if nothing’s done about it.
#128 AGWSkeptic
November 14, 2011

being right makes you right.

I’ll take “pointless tautologies” for one thousand, Alex!

Have you got any facts?

“There has been no significant warming since 1995.”–Phil “Hide the Decline” Jones.

Is that “facty” enough for you, Wow?
#129 Wow
November 14, 2011

“I’ll take “pointless tautologies” for one thousand, Alex!”

Nope, it was a fact. You asserted that calling someone “denier” makes you right, but this isn’t what’s happening.

If you’re right, then you’re right.

Whether you call someone a denier or not doesn’t change it.

“This exercise simply shows that the decadal fluctuations are too large to allow us to make decisive conclusions about long term trends based on close examination of periods as short as 13 to 15 years.”

Now, since there HAS been a significant warming trend since 1995, you’re wrong. Is that fact enough for you?
#130 Wow
November 14, 2011

Just pointing out that you were nuts on I Am A Scientist thread, Jack.

And this is the first time you called it “being ironic”. With or without caps lock on.
#131 Wow
November 14, 2011

“That approach will also highlight that there are way too few 13-year intervals to warrant much confidence.”

Given that the data is out there, have you actually tried this, Jim?

No.

Because if you actually do the “pick each 13 year possibility” you get a bloody good warming trend out of far far more 13-year samples than a cooling one.

Tamino did one such test and so has a regular poster over at SkS.

But you can go get the BEST data yourself and apply your test. Let us know the count of “warming” to “cooling” trends you get.
#132 Jack Dawe
November 14, 2011

@129 It’s my job to be nuts on occasion. I’m a writer. When it comes to pure science, I make every attempt to separate the crazy from the rational stuff. But, due to the potential economic, political, philosophical, and religious fallout, AGW is an absolutely gonzo subject. I submit that it’s impossible to write meaningful about it without on occasion coming across more than a little whacky yourself, no matter how sane you are.

To testify to that fact, I can offer nothing better than about half your own comments, along with your absolutely blindered inability to see where I was coming from, on this and the previous page.

That’s my final volley. I’ll let you sink the already low-in-the-water boat of argument as you see fit. I have a screenplay about The Great Silence to finish up.
#133 Wow
November 14, 2011

@132, then why did you proclaim others going nuts?

To fluff up your standing.

And I posted what I did to puncture that hubris.
#134 Jack Dawe
November 14, 2011

@ 133 This comments section is like molasses. Last word, then you have the last word —

If I implied that you were nuts, it goes with the terrain, but I apologize. Beyond that, the other thing you said, about fluffing up my standing and hubris and the rest —

To fluff up WHAT STANDING? “Jack Dawe” is an anagram of, not my real name. I’m not a professor, not an habitual commenter on this blog or any blog except maybe SCRIPTSHADOWS. And nobody over there reads STARTS WITH A BANG or gives a shit about theoretical physics.

I’m just another solitary thinker with a rudimentary science (but advanced science-fiction) background, who likes to toss ideas up and see them batted around. If you think I’ve got some other axe to grind, that’s your problem, not mine –
#135 Wow
November 14, 2011

Pop along to your post #31

“I’m starting to see how this flak of blind opposition hurled up by Denialists can drive someone bonkers — as in the case of “Wow,” ”

It’s fairly obvious that there’s no “hint” there at all. Pretty black-and-white.

You could have said “like I did over on the I am a scientist thread”. Especially if you’re going to then claim that your job is sometimes to go nuts.

And as to “what standing”, the answer I give is “yes, what standing”. Which is why you try to paint yourself as “the moderate, adult voice”. You know, not one to go nuts.
#136 Wow
November 14, 2011

Or, indeed, just not name anyone. There’s no need to give examples, is there.

If you want to talk about being low in the water, your post 31 was pretty submersible…
#137 Peter Burgess
November 14, 2011

I am glad I have had the chance to read this article and the associated comments. Though I have academic training in science, I have experience in post-university real world problem solving … and as a global society we do this very badly. Technology has improved immensely in the past 50 years. Relatively, society has improved rather little. This is a system problem, part of which is that brains and material and financial resources are not being used to solve critical problems. There are many ecosystem disasters in progress and almost nothing being done in a practical way … engineering … to address them. What is causing these disastrous changes is an academic question … what to do to mitigate and repair the damage is not. Take the recent flooding around the world, for example, and the disruption this causes … why is one question, what to do about it, another and, in my view, more important.
#138 Wow
November 14, 2011

Peter, it’s because there is lots of money and power (in capitalism they’re the same thing) in the status quo and those at the top know that in any change, there’s far more option downwards in the heirachy than upwards. Therefore they won’t change.

Of course, there’s also no way those at the top will drop right to the bottom, either, but in a capitalist system where money == power, you accumulate wealth not for it’s comfort or spending properties, but that with more power you get to impose your will on things. And since someone with more money has more power than you, the actual value amount is irrelevant beyond a moderate accumulation.

Therefore a loss of money is a loss of power and therefore ceding that power to someone else.

This Cannot Happen.

So what to do about it is kept off the table by the expedient of saying “It can’t be proven that AGW is real, we need another 20 years data!” (repeat every 15 years, see copyright extension rhetoric on how this works).

What causes it is being denied, which is why it remains on the table.
#139 MartinM
November 14, 2011

Sorry, computing standard errors for whichever interval chosen to find a trend doesn’t cut it. As I see the problem, selection of an interval should be treated as a random draw from the sample. Hence, standard error should be calculated from all possible draws. So if you’re looking at 13 year intervals, select all possible 13 year intervals. Use those to get the standard error.

That sounds like an excellent way to reject what we know about current trends on the basis that they’re different from past trends, despite the fact that this is exactly what interests us.

Alternatively, we could not do that.
#140 AGWSkeptic
November 14, 2011

If you’re right, then you’re right.

And when you’re hot, you’re hot! And when you’re not, you’re not!

Hmmmmm……looks like “Wow” may have a future writing country & western lyrics. Either that or press releases for IPCC. One is about as close to reality as the other.

Whether you call someone a denier or not ~~doesn’t change it~~ demonstrates your level of maturity.

FTFY

Now, since there HAS been a significant warming trend since 1995, you’re wrong. Is that fact enough for you?

You mean Phil Jones was lying? Say it ain’t so, Joe!
#141 blueshift
November 14, 2011

“You mean Phil Jones was lying? Say it ain’t so, Joe”

I’m not Joe, but it’s pretty easy to understand why it ain’t so.

At the time he was asked the question, the trend was just shy of the 95% confidence level required to state that it was statistically significant. Time has passed, so their is more data and we can now say the warming is statistically significant.

Now I wonder why he was asked about 1995 as a starting date…..
#142 AGWSkeptic
November 14, 2011

Time has passed, so their is more data and we can now say the warming is statistically significant.

But how many nature tricks were required to hide the decline?
#143 Luboš Motl
November 14, 2011

Dear Mr Siegel, I insist that you erase this distasteful libelous blog, Starts With a Bang, otherwise I will use legal tools to de facto terminate your life.

I have calculated all the relevant linear regression trends and everything I wrote about them is valid. The lies you are spreading about me are criminal on the territory of the European Union and politely speaking, you should be hanged.
#144 Jack Dawe
November 14, 2011

I for one will defend Ethan Siegel’s right to say whatever he likes in his blog to the death. The reason Europe ain’t worth the powder to blow it to hell is because of a history of cracked minds like yours, Motl, being in control.

I assume that what you said was for the purposes of humor. I know I laughed. But, if not —

EUROPA DELENDA EST!
#145 blueshift
November 14, 2011

“But how many nature tricks were required to hide the decline?”

How many children clapping does it take to save Tinkerbell?
#146 ERV
November 14, 2011

Dear Mr Siegel, I insist that you erase this distasteful libelous blog, Starts With a Bang, otherwise I will use legal tools to de facto terminate your life.

I have calculated all the relevant linear regression trends and everything I wrote about them is valid. The lies you are spreading about me are criminal on the territory of the European Union and politely speaking, you should be hanged.

Its generally considered to be a ‘bad move’ to put death threats in your posts bitching about ‘libel’. I mean are you an idiot? Lets pretend you 100% have a case (hint: YOU DONT), you could go to jail for what you just posted, while Ethan, at worst, would have to take down this post and post a letter from you or something stupid like that.

Jesus Christ you are dumb.

I think I might just make a whole post dedicated to how dumb Luboš Motl is.
#147 Lee
November 14, 2011

@Ed Forbes, 116:

“Even the IPCC and the BBC are backing off a bit on CAGW”

No, they aren’t ‘backing off’ on GW – and no one but you denialists use ‘CAGW.’.

That article is about a report on our ability to predict the frequency and distribution of individual extreme weather evens. It has nothing at all to do with the existence or rate of a warming trend.

This is about the 5th time in the last day I’ve seen this claim that ‘IPCC and BBC are backing off of global warning claims,’ all based on this same misrepresentation of this draft IPCC interim report. Makes one wonder who is driving this meme.
#148 Lee
November 14, 2011

@ERV:

“I think I might just make a whole post dedicated to how dumb Luboš Motl is”

Luboš isn’t dumb. He’s batshit crazy. Those of us who have watched him struggle against the constraints of reality (for about 5 years now in my case) long ago gave up on any attempt to engage him in any way.
#149 Ed Forbes
November 14, 2011

Lee #146 “no one but you denialists use ‘CAGW.”… and… “That article is about a report on our ability to predict the frequency and distribution of individual extreme weather evens.”

Without the “C” in CAGW, the “A” does not matter. The CAGW theory predicts a major increase in extreme weather. The IPCC has not found that such trends exist. Does not help the theory then does it.

Try reading it again. Per the IPCC, extreme weather events may even be going neg, let alone pos.

“..And for the future, the draft gives even less succour to those seeking here a new mandate for urgent action on greenhouse gas emissions, declaring: “Uncertainty in the sign of projected changes in climate extremes over the coming two to three decades is relatively large because climate change signals are expected to be relatively small compared to natural climate variability”…”
.
“..There is “low confidence” that tropical cyclones have become more frequent, “limited-to-medium evidence available” to assess whether climatic factors have changed the frequency of floods, and “low confidence” on a global scale even on whether the frequency has risen or fallen…”
#150 Jack Dawe
November 14, 2011

@ 147 Read it and weep:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lubo%C5%A1_Motl

He seems to be the Bobby Fischer of string theorists, only without Fischer’s diplomatic skills.

Europe, you’re off the hook, for now. But just remember who has all the Big Bang weapons. If the US don’t git you, the Rooshkies will.
#151 Rick Baartman
November 14, 2011

Jack, there is intelligence, and there is objectivity. These qualities are not the same but independent of (orthogonal to) each other. Lubos has lost the ability to be objective about climate science. Strong language on his part (and none on Ethan’s) is a good indicator that he has lost it.
#152 Rick Baartman
November 14, 2011

Jack, there is intelligence, and there is objectivity. These qualities are not the same but independent of (orthogonal to) each other. Lubos has lost the ability to be objective about climate science. Strong language on his part (and none on Ethan’s) is a good indicator that he has lost it.
#153 Lee
November 14, 2011

Ed Forbes:

AGW stands or falls independently of whether there are catastrophic outcomes. Global temp will rise ~ 3C / 2xCO2, or more, or less, or it wont. ‘Catastrophe” has nothing to do with this.

‘Catastrophic’ describes potential results of global warming, and is in the realm of policy and issues driving policy.

Calling it CAGW, as many denialists now do, is simply an attempt to conflate the science with the policy, so that they (you) can inject confusion by arguing against the policy implications as if that had something to do with the truth of the science.
#154 Ed Forbes
November 14, 2011

Lee #151:”Calling it CAGW, as many denialists now do, is simply an attempt to conflate the science with the policy”

Without the “C” being true, there is no need for the policy.

Without the “C”, it become aGW and no big deal.
#155 J. Robertson
November 14, 2011

Is anyone bothered by the idea that in March 2010 there were data from 14,488 weather stations, and then suddenly in April and May there were data from only 47 stations, all located in Antarctica?

How is it possible that 99.67% of the world’s weather stations disappeared for two months in 2010?

Yes, I believe it is possible that there is some fraud going on here, but maybe not where the author suggests . . .
#156 Jason
November 14, 2011

Ed #152, “Without the “C” being true, there is no need for the policy.”

Since when did “inaction will lead to a catastrophe” become the hurdle required for action?

I prefer to aim for the optimal strategy using the best information available at each point in time, and the best information currently available suggets that AGW is not a good thing, no matter where you personally draw the line between “catastrophe” and “not a catastrophe”.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-positives-negatives-intermediate.htm

Even if it’s simply more expensive in the long run to adapt rather than mitigate, that’s enough of an argument for me to choose mitigation — and taking into account the uncertainties, and in particular the significant risk that things may be worse than forecast[*], and the economists’ forecasts on the relative costs[**], mitigation does seem like the prudent path.

And let’s not forget the co-benefits of mitigation — weaning ourselves off oil before we would otherwise be forced to due to declining reserves, reduction in pollution, and energy independence just to name a few.

[*] I think it’s important to realise that the climate sensitivity is much more weakly constrained on the high side of 3C/2xCO2 than on the low. Uncertainty in the precise value is certainly not the same as certainty that it will be low and therefore nothing to worry about. The IPCC also has a pretty poor track record when it comes to underestimating the consequences — see in particular sea level rise and Arctic ice extent: http://www.skepticalscience.com/ipcc-scientific-consensus-intermediate.htm

[**] Like many, I have a well-founded scepticism of economists’ abilities to accurately produce forecasts — certainly lower confidence than in the abilities of climate scientists, for example. Which is why I’m always surprised at how the very same people who argue that the science is not certain enough to warrant action on AGW at the same time are absolutely convinced that any action that is taken will definitely lead to catastrophic economic change and send us back to the stone ages. Who are the alarmists, again? Anyway, the key point of strategies like a carbon tax or cap’n’trade system is that they can start off gentle and either be cranked up or wound down gradually over time as certainty is increased. Once the mechanism is in place, it’s easy to use it to implement policy changes.
#157 Jason
November 14, 2011

#153, I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call it “fraud”, but it is certainly “odd” that those last two data points were released when clearly they wouldn’t pass any reasonable QA checks. Is the only reason that later months weren’t released at all simply because not even the Antarctic stations were reporting? I would have expected certain minimum standards to apply before data was considered good enough to release. (Perhaps the “laxness” required to allow the early 19th-century data through despite low geographic coverage allowed those two months to slip through as well.)

Regardless, it is a really useful litmus test of “skeptic” integrity. How many “skeptics” noticed the problem with those two months and announced that they would ignore them/properly weight them when calculating their trends for the last decade, and how many eagerly jumped on them to show a “pause”? Of the latter group, how many acknowledged their error once it was pointed out to them vs how many defended their use of it and continued to use them anyway?
#158 Lee
November 14, 2011

Ed.

Whether it causes a catastrophe had sNOTHIGN to do with whetherit is happening.

Y’all keep saying there is no catastrophe, or may not be a catastrophe, or we can deal with it so it wont be catastrophic – as a way of dismissing the science.

it is a fundamentally dishonest approach – using policy implications to try to discredit the science, because you fear you may not like what the science tells us.

The SCIENCE of AGW has is NOT AT ALL dependent on whether it is going to be catastrophic.
#159 Wow
November 15, 2011

“Yes, I believe it is possible that there is some fraud going on here, but maybe not where the author suggests . . . ”

Well, given that the BEST project collected their own data, the fraud, if any, would be in BEST. Where the author puts the claim of fraud on only a few members of that team.

And, given Judith Curry didn’t stop using it, despite being on the team indicates that if there WERE a problem with that dropout rate, that she is in on any fraud. Again where the author puts the claim.

I guess you’re not very skeptical, are you.
#160 Wow
November 15, 2011

“Without the “C” being true, there is no need for the policy.”

So is there any temperature at which the warming WOULD be a catastrophe?

Is what your mandating is that we wait until we get there and THEN change?
#161 Wow
November 15, 2011

“I have calculated all the relevant linear regression trends and everything I wrote about them is valid”

Barnpot, have you ever heard of “lying by omission”?

Have you ever wondered why the oath in court is to tell the truth, the WHOLE truth and nothing but the truth?

Moreover, we only have the word of you that you have done this, and your post indicates your unstable psyche. Someone that deranged can easily fool themselves.
#162 Wow
November 15, 2011

“But how many nature tricks were required to hide the decline?”

None.

How are scientists supposed to stop GIGO when, whenever they use quality control on the data input, you come along and claim they’re hiding data?

Or is the denialist version “If it’s not Garbage in, then it MUST be Garbage out!”?
#163 MartinM
November 15, 2011

How is it possible that 99.67% of the world’s weather stations disappeared for two months in 2010?

…seriously?

Nothing ‘disappeared’. Most weather stations don’t report immediately; it takes time to get the data. Antarctica has a network of automatic weather stations, due to the extreme difficulty of actually getting someone out there.

If this thread proves one thing (yet again), it’s that the so-called ‘sceptics’ have nothing whatsoever to offer. They don’t understand even the basics of the science, but they’ve decided that it’s wrong anyway. They’re ideologues, not sceptics.
#164 J. Robertson
November 15, 2011

MartinM:
“Nothing ‘disappeared’. Most weather stations don’t report immediately; it takes time to get the data.”

So, let’s see, 14,488 stations had the “time” to report in March 2010, but then 14,441 of them just got busy doing other things and didn’t have the “time” to report anything during the next two months?

Really, that’s the best you can come up with, weather stations that don’t have the time to report the weather?

Before getting into any discussion of how to analyze the data, I simply wanted to know what happened to the data. Rather than provide any semblance of a rational answer, you attacked me. Truly pathetic.
#165 Wow
November 15, 2011

How about you explain what this means to Judith Currys use of such broken data.

Really, is personal incredulity the best you can come up with?
#166 Richard Simons
November 15, 2011

The inclusion of data based on less than 1% of the reporting stations without comment (as I understand it – I have not read the paper) raises a big red flag in my mind. Were these two points included because the authors did not notice anything odd, because it helped progress their argument or because they did not care? If I worked in that area, any of those options would make me want to scrutinize the authors’ other work with extra care.
#167 J. Robertson
November 15, 2011

To Wow:
Once again, I’ve asked a simple factual question about what happened to all the weather stations on the face of the earth outside the antarctic during the period of April and May 2010. Asking what happened to these weather stations and why there are no temperature reports from them is not a matter of personal incredulity, it is a matter of establishing the facts.

Instead of establishing the facts, MartinM thinks that they didn’t have the time to report the weather, and you want me to mind read the explanations of Judith Currys’ actions.

Why don’t you focus on establishing the facts?
#168 Wow
November 15, 2011

> Once again, I’ve asked a simple factual question about what happened to all the weather stations

You don’t ask a factual question.

You ask a question.

Unless you want to proclaim as fact the fact that you asked a question, which is redundant.

You didn’t just ask the question, though, you also proclaimed fraud. Merely because you don’t know what’s going on.

Well, BEST have all their data and all their methodology. Feel free to read through their stuff and find out why.
#169 MartinM
November 15, 2011

So, let’s see, 14,488 stations had the “time” to report in March 2010, but then 14,441 of them just got busy doing other things and didn’t have the “time” to report anything during the next two months?

The BEST dataset ends in May 2010, because the project started part way through 2010. The automatic weather stations in Antarctica had reported their April/May 2010 data by then, but the rest hadn’t. Presumably they have now.

And no, you don’t get to blunder into the middle of a converstaion and throw around accusations of fraud based on your own ignorance of extremely simple facts then complain about being ‘attacked’.
#170 Ed Forbes
November 15, 2011

Lee #156 “The SCIENCE of AGW has is NOT AT ALL dependent on whether it is going to be catastrophic.”
.
Ed: The policy is driven by the effect. If little effect, little need for policy.
.
Wow#158: “..”Without the “C” being true, there is no need for the policy.” So is there any temperature at which the warming WOULD be a catastrophe?
.
Ed: Well, that is the question. As we are now at about the temp of the MWP, and well below the Roman and Minoan periods temp wise, a temp rise based strictly on the theoretical co2 response of 1-2d per double looks like it is not going to be a problem. The co2 affect is per the logarithmic scale per double of co2. No big deal as we are a long ways from the first double and a VERY long way from the second double.
.
If you note, the IPCC models use unproven assumptions to amplify the co2 affect.
.
As one the basis for the amplifications was the modeled expectations of an increase in extreme weather, this argument has gone out the window with the IPCC’s own report that extreme weather trend may have actually reduced by going neg, not pos.
#171 Wow
November 15, 2011

“Ed: Well, that is the question.”

It was *a* question.

“As we are now at about the temp of the MWP”

And THAT was a false assertion.

“and well below the Roman and Minoan periods temp wise”

And two more.

How many people were living in New York in those times (after all, this is a question!).

“a temp rise based strictly on the theoretical co2 response of 1-2d per double looks like it is not going to be a problem”

Problem is that there are feedbacks that already preclude below a 2C per doubling of CO2, even though we’re still out of equilibrium. Worse, there’s still nothing to preclude 6C per doubling.

Which is definitely a problem.

“The co2 affect is per the logarithmic scale per double of co2″

Yes, which is why it’s a logarithmic doubling of CO2 and a linear increase of temperature.

“If you note, the IPCC models use unproven assumptions to amplify the co2 affect”

If you had read the IPCC reports and the science of climate you’d know that was a load of BS.

“As one the basis for the amplifications was the modeled expectations of an increase in extreme weather”

You’d also know that was a load of BS if you’d read the IPCC reports and the science used.

“has gone out the window with the IPCC’s own report that extreme weather trend may have actually reduced by going neg”

Nope, that’s never been said except by you.
#172 Ed Forbes
November 15, 2011

I see I was a bit unclear for:

“a temp rise based strictly on the theoretical co2 response of 1-2d per double looks like it is not going to be a problem. The co2 affect is per the logarithmic scale per double of co2. No big deal as we are a long ways from the first double and a VERY long way from the second double”
.
The FIRST double of co2 is 1-2dC. The second double would be less of a temp rise as the co2 effect on temp is logarithmic.
#173 Wow
November 15, 2011

“The second double would be less of a temp rise as the co2 effect on temp is logarithmic.”

No, the second double would be the same temp rise because you’ve added more CO2 to achieve that doubling.

I would suggest you look up some schoolboy maths book and find out what “logarithmic” means.
#174 Wow
November 15, 2011

We already have 1C increase at a 40% increase of CO2.

As you say, a long way away from our first doubling.

The chances of it being less than 2C per doubling are out the window.
#175 Ed Forbes
November 15, 2011

WOW !! (sorry, could not help myself )Wow,the major temps ranges since the last ice event are pretty clear. A high spike in temp that ends the ice event and a series of wave functions with a lower and lower peak since.
.
If you choose to ignore the large amount of historical data on this and IPCC reports, not much to say otherwise.
.
As a side note, I will say I am feeling better about this issue policy wise all the time. I pay much more attention to policy as that is what realy matters. Cap and Trade in the US is dead and green polices that look to stifle energy use in the US has NO hope in the US House. even the WH is backing away from the doom and gloom crowd.
#176 Lee
November 15, 2011

@Ed Forbes:

“The FIRST double of co2 is 1-2dC”

No.

The value for CO2 alone is 1.2C, before any feedbacks. EThe feedbacks, especially water vapor (remember, you denialists keep reminding us that water vapor is a greenhouse gas, and a warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor) – the feedbacks add more temperature rise, and the current best value, derived from several different independent lines of investigation, is 3C per doubling.

Tthe first doubling is ~ 3C, with way more uncertainty toward higher values than toward lower values.

The second doubling is another ~ 3C, with way more uncertainty toward higher values than toward lower values.
#177 Wow
November 15, 2011

“the major temps ranges since the last ice event are pretty clear.”

Indeed they are.

“A high spike in temp that ends the ice event and a series of wave functions with a lower and lower peak since.”

A spike due to feedbacks from CO2 increases moving us out of the ice age increasing the milankovich forcing, as described by Arhennius in 1897, IIRC.

If you choose to ignore the large amount of historical data on this and IPCC reports, not much to say otherwise.

Pop along to Spencer who will give you a crash course in the history of climate science wrt CO2’s effects:

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

It is pitched with no maths in it at all, therefore should be acceptable to your level of understanding.

I’m afraid I can’t help you understand what a logarithm is any more than I have done so so far.
#178 Ed Forbes
November 15, 2011

Wow: “We already have 1C increase at a 40% increase of CO2.
As you say, a long way away from our first doubling.The chances of it being less than 2C per doubling are out the window.”

Wow, even the IPCC does not say that all of the warming seen is due to co2. Even the IPCC notes that a large % of the temp rise seen is natural. So, no, less than 2c per double of co2 is not out the window. Let alone the 4-12d per 100 yrs as some conclude to add the “C” in CAGW.
#179 Wow
November 15, 2011

“even the IPCC does not say that all of the warming seen is due to co2″

And even I never said that. But feedbacks feed back on a change and increase it.

This is why they’re called “feedbacks”.

We also have a cooler sun, which is hiding quite a lot of increase.

“Let alone the 4-12d per 100 yrs as some conclude to add the “C” in CAGW.”

Ah, so you’re just a denialist trumpeting the old “CO2 is a saturated gas” argument that was provem wrong by Callender in the 1950’s.

Given we’re increasing CO2 concentrations by 2% and accelerating per year, and that methane clathrates are beginning to bubble up now, in 100 years, that would easily be two doublings.

2 times 2-6 is what, Ed?

4-12?

You betcha!
#180 Ed Forbes
November 15, 2011

Wow, I notice that some on the boards, such as you, have a hard time engaging in a debate without the use of ad homs.
.
I find this very strange coming from a professional engineering environment where one tries to present a case that has serious monetary and professional consequences.
.
I find that debating on the boards is good practice for writing clear and pervasive arguments that have no relation to any actual policy review. Remember, most arguments are not to persuade your opponent, it is to persuade the “jury”. Ad hom’s look very bad to the jury. Take this as a helpful suggestion. I find blog debate fun, but it has no real world effect at our level.
#181 AGWSkeptic
November 15, 2011

weather stations that don’t have the time to report the weather?

Of course not! There were important declines to be hidden! Al Gore’s documentary had to be promoted! They had to make sure the word “denialist” remained in the public consciousness! Priorities!

Gathering basic temperature facts pales in comparison.
#182 Randall "Texrat" Arnold
November 15, 2011

re #173:

“..green polices that look to stifle energy use in the US has NO hope in the US House…”

s/stifle/drive responsible and sustainable

There. Corrected for intellectual dishonesty.
#183 Jay Goldfarb
November 15, 2011

Apparently both Curry and Muller are guilty of fraud here. If only these charlatans were treated the same way as the seismologists in Italy who are accused of manslaughter for giving inappropriate reassurances to residents of Aquila.
#184 Randall "Texrat" Arnold
November 15, 2011

re #179:

AGWSkeptic, out of curiosity, when did it occur to you that sarcasm, hyperbole and logical fallacy were the proper ways for you to approach the dialog?
#185 AGWSkeptic
November 15, 2011

What logical fallacy?
#186 Randall "Texrat" Arnold
November 15, 2011

Ah. Never mind then.
#187 Composer99
November 15, 2011

From Lubos Motl’s comment:

The lies you are spreading about me are criminal on the territory of the European Union and politely speaking, you should be hanged

… and so-called ‘skeptics’ are suggesting defenders of the science are ‘fascists/communists/tyrants’?
#188 Composer99
November 15, 2011

I notice so far AGWSkeptic has no answer to my explanation as to why he has well and truly earned the moniker of denialist.

Still waiting for references to credible scientific evidence showing AGW isn’t real or isn’t human-caused, AGWSkeptic. I won’t hold my breath.
#189 AGWSkeptic
November 15, 2011

I notice so far AGWSkeptic has no answer to my explanation as to why he has well and truly earned the moniker of denialist.

Well, 99, since your mansplanation was

- unsubstantiated or even already-falsified allegations of conspiracy
– logical fallacies

– no evidentiary support to back up your position

– the AGW equivalent of Godwin’s law

and you didn’t provide any examples of any of the above, I didn’t feel it necessary to respond.

Still waiting for references to credible scientific evidence showing AGW isn’t real or isn’t human-caused, AGWSkeptic.

I’m still waiting for legitimate evidence that AGW is happening, human-caused and will spell the end of us all! Hint: Al Gore doesn’t count!

I won’t hold my breath.

Please reconsider. It might greatly improve your commenting style.
#190 dean
November 15, 2011

“Hint: Al Gore doesn’t count!”

you are correct – he doesn’t. nobody arguing with you has used him as a defense. they shouldn’t – he is not a scientist.

you (agwdenier – oh, “skeptic”, as your false self-name says) are clearly not a scientist, nor attempting a modicum of honesty. studies have repeatedly been pointed out in many places, and you continue to ignore them (“… evidence that AGW is happening …”). One can only conclude you ignore them because if you actually tried to read them your lips would get tired from attempting to pronounce all the big words.
#191 The Judge
November 15, 2011

Name-calling
Unsubstantiated hypotheses
Fallacious arguments
Conspiracy theories

Why would legitimate “scientists” need to use these methods? Time has proven the alarmists wrong, and the truth is already being universally recognized, or it soon will be, at all levels of government and media. I’ve never seen so many “climate scientists” backpedaling so fast. Comical.

I feel sorry for the blind ideologues who continue to permanently damaged their reputations, here and on other blogs, defending this AGW subterfuge. Wake up, yesterdays lies are tomorrows books. It’s happening now and it’s happening fast. The BEST report is being misused, in a last desperate attempt by the warming zealots to drive public opinion(very scientific).

All that scientists have to sell is their reputation, and many already look foolish(Mann/Bear/Pig), return to the scientific method before it’s to late. Hint: Name-calling and fallacious arguments do not qualify as ‘science’.
#192 Randall "Texrat" Arnold
November 15, 2011

re 189:

My nominee for Best Unintended Irony of the day
#193 toto
November 15, 2011

Ed Forbes: The FIRST double of co2 is 1-2dC. The second double would be less of a temp rise as the co2 effect on temp is logarithmic.

You know, before you publish your magnum opus on how climate science is completely wrong, you should read up on what “logarithm” means.

(Hint: try to calculate log(2x) – log(x), and log(4x) – log(2x)).

Don’t mention it
#194 dean
November 15, 2011

“Wake up, yesterdays lies are tomorrows books. It’s happening now and it’s happening fast. The BEST report is being misused, in a last desperate attempt by the warming zealots to drive public opinion(very scientific).”

Lay out your discussions of the statistical shortcomings (as you see them).
#195 The Judge
November 15, 2011

Useful idiot at @189

The Chinese government/scientists issued a report today on global warming. They are industrious collectivist, smart too. Read it and weep.

Hear That?…………

It’s your consensus (and your credibility) being flushed down the collectivist toilet.
#196 Randall "Texrat" Arnold
November 15, 2011

re 193:

Nice… a double dose of unintended irony. It just gets better.
#197 Jack Dawe
November 15, 2011

Watching the ball go back and forth on the AGW tennis court.

Speaking non-scientifically, (I’m a science amateur but a science fiction pro), it occurs to me that if AGW proponents are dead wrong (like if there’s COOLING and good rainfall in the Southwest US from here on out), they get to be this generation’s version of Paul Ehrlich (who predicted disasters of sustainability and population crash, back in the ’70s). Not a happy fate, but not necessarily the trash can of history, either.

But if Deniers, Rejectionists, Blinkered Ostriches, whatever you want to call them, are wrong, they’re liable to be populating the Gulags in the totalitarian world state that comes out of near-future environmental catastrophe.

I’ll be in there with you, as a conservative, moderate AGW-er, but seeing how violent this debate has gotten (with death threats from at last one poster on the anti-AGW side!), I’m uneasy about where it’s going to lead in the future.

If you’re not careful, it’s going to be enviro-Nazis vs. Commies all over again, with us wishy-washy “moderates” probably providing the riot fodder.

I don’t know if I’ve said this before, while following these two (I AM A SCIENTIST & EXPOSING A CLIMATE FRAUD)threads, but, speaking of cooling, I think everyone ought to cool the vehemence of their arguments, because you’re really scaring us civilians out here in the front rows.
#198 Chris O'Neill
November 15, 2011

Ed Forbes:

The FIRST double of co2 is 1-2dC. The second double would be less of a temp rise as the co2 effect on temp is logarithmic.

Thus confirming that profound ignorance is the basis of science denial.
#199 Ed Forbes
November 15, 2011

It seems there is some confusion out there about what is meant when one says the effect of CO2 on temperature is logarithmic. Logarithmic simply means to say that you are using an exponent when computing the effect.
.
For example, X=y and 2x=y give a straight line when graphed. In other words, the value is constant. If one uses a value to find a distance along the line, then doubling that value will double the distance along the line.
.
If one use an exponent, such as x(2)[squared]=y, it graphs as a curve. The distance along the x or y axis does not stay constant as the values change.
.
For the example of CO2 and temperature, the first time one doubles the value of CO2, it will have more effect than the second time one doubles the value as the effect is logarithmic.
.

This can be trivially shown to be true very easily. Calculate the number of times one has to double 250 ppm of CO2 to reach 1 atmosphere pressure and 100% co2. Then use an increase of 2dC per double of CO2 to calculate an increase in temperature. This will give you a number that is more than “a bit” higher than true.
#200 Chris O'Neill
November 15, 2011

Ed Forbes:

“We already have 1C increase at a 40% increase of CO2.
As you say, a long way away from our first doubling.The chances of it being less than 2C per doubling are out the window.”

Wow, even the IPCC does not say that all of the warming seen is due to co2.

That doesn’t mean that they say anything else is contributing to the warming. They just say “most” of the warming over the last 50 years is very likely anthropogenic. “most” does not exclude virtually all.

Even the IPCC notes that a large % of the temp rise seen is natural.

And where do they say this?
#201 dhogaza
November 15, 2011

For the example of CO2 and temperature, the first time one doubles the value of CO2, it will have more effect than the second time one doubles the value as the effect is logarithmic.

Ed Forbes is persistent, that’s for sure.

Oh, Ed, that’s one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time.

Yes, it’s logarithmic, which means that doubling CO2 leads to a linear increase in forcing.

Quit trying to give elementary math lessons, you’re just embarrassing yourself every time you make clear the fact that you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Linearization property: The LOG function has the defining property that LOG (X*Y) = LOG(X) + LOG(Y)–i.e., the logarithm of a product equals the sum of the logarithms. Therefore, logging tends to convert multiplicative relationships to additive relationships, and it tends to convert exponential (compound growth) trends to linear trends.

Go read the rest (note that the “tends to” is due to the fact that the trend being discusses is overlaid with noisy variation, just as is true with the warming trend we see in climate data, though my reference has absolutely nothing to do with climate science, or actually any science, it has to do with analyzes long-term trends in auto sales).

Good luck with your elementary education.
#202 Ed Forbes
November 15, 2011

I should show what the straight line CO2 effect numbers would be at 1 atmosphere and 100% CO2.
.
At a start of 250 ppm for co2, you would have to add 250ppm 4,000 times to get to 100% co2.
.

At 2dC for the start of the first 250ppm, does anyone here really think that the earth at 1 atmosphere pressure and 100% co2 would be 8,000d C hotter? Really?
#203 Ed Forbes
November 15, 2011

Ed:Even the IPCC notes that a large % of the temp rise seen is natural.
.
Chris: “And where do they say this?”
.

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_glossary.shtml
.
“..Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations.[8] This is an advance since the TAR’s conclusion that “most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in GHG concentrations”..”
.

See http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch1s1-6.html
for Likelihood Terminology
#204 Composer99
November 15, 2011

Ed Forbes:

With regards to:
“Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations.”

The IPCC defines “very likely” as over 90% probability, and the link to the glossary and the probability definitions does not define most. However, their summary for policy makers in the WG1 report shows how model hindcasts are unable to replicate the historical empirical surface temperatures using natural forcings only. Based on the diagram shown, in fact, natural forcings only would lead to a slight cooling effect.

I also recommend reviewing the summary of radiative forcing elements in section 2.9.2.

In short, I do not think the IPCC report supports your claim, at all.
#205 Composer99
November 15, 2011

AGWSkeptic:

There’s none so blind, apparently.

Try reading Skeptical Science, Real Climate, Spencer Weart’s A History of Global Warming, past posts by Ethan on the subject. You can even click on the link in my name.

Then start reading some of the sources (you know, to the scientific literature on the topic – which you will find that all the above link to or cite) so you can verify that the above resources are presenting them fairly.

If you are unwilling to do so because you can’t get past tin-foil-hat-worthy conspiracy-mongering (such as, say, trying to pass off matters openly discussed in the scientific literature as evidence of malfeasance), then I will continue to stand by my characterization of your behaviour as denialism.
#206 Chris O'Neill
November 15, 2011

The FIRST double of co2 is 1-2dC. The second double would be less of a temp rise as the co2 effect on temp is logarithmic.

There is a profound ignorance out there as to what a logarithmic dependence on CO2 concentration means. It means, for example, that the temperature rise going from 560 ppm to 1120 ppm is THE SAME as the temperature rise going from 280 ppm to 560 ppm. This is due to the fact that log(1120/560)=log(560/280). A fact whose consequences some people do not comprehend.
#207 Ed Forbes
November 16, 2011

composser, my claim is that the IPCC says that only most, not all, of the warming is anthropogenic GHG with the rest natural.

Do you have a problem with this. Or are you also saying
“ALL” as posted by others?
.
lets add
.

“…..the amplitude and even the sign of cloud feedbacks was noted in the TAR as highly uncertain…”
.

…..as an albedo decrease of only 1%, bringing the Earth’s albedo from 30% to 29%, would cause an increase in the black-body radiative equilibrium temperature of about 1°C, which is the same amount a doubling of CO2 will give without the unproven feedbacks.
.
both statements as noted at:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch1s1-5-2.html
#208 Chris O'Neill
November 16, 2011

Ed Forbes:

Ed:Even the IPCC notes that a large % of the temp rise seen is natural.
.
Chris: “And where do they say this?”
.

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_glossary.shtml
.
“..Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations.[8] This is an advance since the TAR’s conclusion that “most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in GHG concentrations”..”

And where, pray tell, in that statement does it say:

a large % of the temp rise seen is natural
#209 Chris O'Neill
November 16, 2011

Ed Forbes:

composser, my claim is that the IPCC says that only most, not all, of the warming is anthropogenic GHG with the rest natural.

The IPCC makes no claim at all in that statement about how much is natural. It puts no lower bound on how much is natural in that statement.
#210 Richard Simons
November 16, 2011

Ed @197:

For the example of CO2 and temperature, the first time one doubles the value of CO2, it will have more effect than the second time one doubles the value as the effect is logarithmic.

No. If the first doubling increases temperature by 4C, the second doubling increases it by another 4C, the third doubling increases it by another 4C and so on. That is what is meant by a logarithmic relationship (temperature is linearly related to the logarithm of CO2 concentration).

Ed @200:

At a start of 250 ppm for co2, you would have to add 250ppm 4,000 times to get to 100% co2.

You are just as confused by percentages as you are by logarithms. Increase the amount of CO2 by 4000 times and you don’t have 100% CO2 because you still have all the nitrogen and oxygen. When there is only 250ppm in the atmosphere, doubling the quantity does not quite bring it to 500ppm, but because CO2 is such a small fraction of the total the difference can be ignored.

Ed @210, quoting IPCC:

Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations.

How do you get from this to “Even the IPCC notes that a large % of the temp rise seen is natural”?
#211 Chris O'Neill
November 16, 2011

The IPCC makes no claim at all in that statement about how much is natural.

In the AR4 WG1 SPM, figure SPM2, the IPCC states that the only significant natural forcing, solar irradiance, has a most likely value of 0.12 W/m2 while the total net anthropogenic forcing has a most likely value of 1.6 W/m2. So the natural forcing, and hence naturally-caused temperature rise, is most likely 7.5% of the total rise in forcing or temperature respectively.
#212 Lee
November 16, 2011

@Ed Forbes:
“At a start of 250 ppm for co2, you would have to add 250ppm 4,000 times to get to 100% co2.
.At 2dC for the start of the first 250ppm, does anyone here really think that the earth at 1 atmosphere pressure and 100% co2 would be 8,000d C hotter? Really? ”

Our friend Ed here not only doesn’t know what a logarithm is, he doesn’t even now what a doubling is.

Ed, the sequence 250, 500, 750, 100, 1250… is not a sequence of doublings.

doubong from 250:

500
1000
2000
4000
8000
16,000
32,000
64,000
128,000
256,000
512,000
1,000,000

Starting from 250 ppm, it takes 12 doublings to get to “1,000,000 ppm” (which would really be 1 million parts per 2 million, because the original million parts are still around…)

12 doublings, not 4000 doublings.

12 doublings, times 3C per doubling, is 36C, not 8,000C.

This is 3rd grade arithmetic, Ed.
#213 Wow
November 16, 2011

As noted earlier, Ed lacks even the mathematical skills of a 13-year-old.

As we’ve seen, Ed lacks absolutely no compunction about telling huge whopping lies that are trivially proven wrong.

Ed, as we can tell, is a psychopath.
#214 Wow
November 16, 2011

“Wow, I notice that some on the boards, such as you, have a hard time engaging in a debate without the use of ad homs.”

Note also Ed doesn’t know what an ad hom is.

Truly an indian giver for the denialist side.
#215 Neil Bates
November 16, 2011

Not having time to wade through comments, let me just point out once again that when fluctuations (in this case, around one decade average period) on an upward trend, the combination thereof produces various “flat” spots or even temporary downturns – heck, you can see them right there even before the present time. So, so what? It’s clear there is an upward trend line, and smaller ups and downs, which do not count against the overall trend.
#216 Neil Bates
November 16, 2011

BTW, moving averages are of course the best way to show trends, and in this case a ten-year block (maybe five IMHO better in principle) is good to show the trend and even out the fluctuations. Judith Curry is a hack.
#217 Ed Forbes
November 16, 2011

Chris #204..I read your post on logs..yes..yes..I agree. Thinking now ..what did I write?. Uh O…was writing double..not add linear as I was thinking. If you double it is x(2) by definition. Thanks for the heads up. The point I tried to make (badly) is that a linear increase in co2 does not give a linear increase in temp per the basic physics.
.
Now the fun starts..proving the forcing to co2..and finding the sign of the forcing. This is pretty much the entire argument over if we are in GW, aGW, or CAWG. Without a large positive forcing we have no problem and no need for policy.
.
Lee..please note I said “add”, not double for 4000x.
#218 Wow
November 16, 2011

> The point I tried to make (badly) is that a linear increase in co2 does not give a linear increase in temp per the basic physics.

And that is completely pointless.

Who is saying that it isn’t? NOBODY. Except you to “prove” the IPCC wrong (by attributing to THEM *YOUR* incorrect point).

> Now the fun starts..proving the forcing to co2..and finding the sign of the forcing.

Yes, you even gave that proof:

140% CO2 levels (over pre-industrial), 1C warming.

Since 140% is a little less than half a doubling, that means that we’re getting >2C warming per doubling even though we KNOW that we’re out of equilibrium (both from radiation in vs radiation out AND by the fact that the oceans are still absorbing CO2 when their capacity reduces with temperature, showing a lack of equilibrium in the deep ocean, the container of the greater mass of ocean).

Like I said, 2C per doubling is already out of the picture.

And it’s positive.

Both questions answered there.

> Without a large positive forcing we have no problem and no need for policy.

FALSE.

Last time we were at 350ppm the oceans were over 7m higher. The only thing that stops all major ports being flooded along with the financial powerhouses of the London, NY and Tokyo Stock Exchanges, is that it takes time for that much ice to melt.

We need to let equilibrium halt before that ice melts.
#219 Richard Simons
November 16, 2011

Now the fun starts..proving the forcing to co2..and finding the sign of the forcing.

Do you have any reason (apart from wishful thinking) to suspect that the accepted range of 2 to 4.5 C per doubling is wrong?
#220 Chris O'Neill
November 16, 2011

Ed Forbes:

Now the fun starts..proving the forcing to co2..and finding the sign of the forcing. ..Without a large positive forcing we have no problem and no need for policy.

The fun was over in the 1950s when Gilbert Plass first calculated the forcing generated by CO2 which means that there is most certainly a large positive forcing. Refer again to the AR4 WG1 SPM, figure SPM2 which I mentioned above for a list of the forcings.
#221 Lee
November 16, 2011

@ Ed Forbes:

“Lee..please note I said “add”, not double for 4000x.”

yes – adn yo di dso in yor example of the effects of doubllng CO2. In EVERY previosu post, you talked about doubling.

“The FIRST double of co2 is 1-2dC. The second double would be less of a temp rise as the co2 effect on temp is logarithmic. ”

“So, no, less than 2c per double of co2 is not out the window.”

“the first time one doubles the value of CO2, it will have more effect than the second time one doubles the value as the effect is logarithmic.
This can be trivially shown to be true very easily. Calculate the number of times one has to double 250 ppm of CO2 to reach 1 atmosphere pressure and 100% co2. Then use an increase of 2dC per double of CO2 to calculate an increase in temperature. This will give you a number that is more than “a bit” higher than true.”

“the first time one doubles the value of CO2, it will have more effect than the second time one doubles the value as the effect is logarithmic.
.

This can be trivially shown to be true very easily. Calculate the number of times one has to double 250 ppm of CO2 to reach 1 atmosphere pressure and 100% co2. Then use an increase of 2dC per double of CO2 to calculate an increase in temperature. This will give you a number that is more than “a bit” higher than true.”

“Add” is not “doubling,” Ed. Its good that you finally realized this after we spelled it out for you by going to the point of actually showing the doubling process, but damn, man. If you didn’t know that, what on earth makes you think you know more than the climate scientists?
#222 GJ
November 16, 2011

Perhaps the author needs a little education:

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/10/30/surprise-no-warming-in-last-11-years/
#223 Wow
November 16, 2011

Perhaps you need to learn some maths.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/going-down-the-up-escalator-part-2.html

And where are the error bars on that trend of zero? Where is the statement about the uncertainty of that statement of “no warming in the past 11 years”? After all, it isn’t science if you’re stating certainties all the time, it’s religion..!
#224 Lee
November 16, 2011

Perhaps GJ needs to read the post he’s responding to. You know – the post that explicitly refutes the point he is trying to make?
#225 MartinM
November 16, 2011

As bad as GJ’s article is, the comments are far worse. The level of ignorance, arrogance, and blatant, boneheaded stupidity are rather depressing.
#226 AGWSkeptic
November 16, 2011

After all, it isn’t science if you’re stating certainties all the time, it’s religion..!

You mean when Al Gore parrots endlessly that “the science is settled”, he’s speaking religiously? Who knew!!??

The level of ignorance, arrogance, and blatant, boneheaded stupidity are rather depressing.

Especially those coming from the alarmists…
#227 AGWSkeptic
November 16, 2011

if you actually tried to read them your lips would get tired from attempting to pronounce all the big words.

Big words like “hide”, “the”, “decline”, “nature” and “trick”, Dean?
#228 ligne
November 16, 2011

Big words like “hide”, “the”, “decline”, “nature” and “trick”, Dean?

the secret plot so devious and cunning they wrote it up and had it published in the most widely-read scientific journal in the world!

mwahahahahaha!
#229 MartinM
November 16, 2011

Well, it is pretty devious. The scientific literature is the one place you can guarantee the denialists won’t look.
#230 dean
November 16, 2011

“Big words like “hide”, “the”, “decline”, “nature” and “trick”, Dean?”

Keep making thing up and taking them out of context – you are a very skillful liar, but clearly lack the capacity to understand the science, the statistics, or speak honestly about them.
#231 AGWSkeptic
November 16, 2011

Shorter Dean:

Everyone who disagrees with me is a liar. Hansen and Gore said so.
#232 dean
November 16, 2011

agwidiot: show me where i’ve referenced gore as being a person to follow on this. oh, wait – I haven’t, so your comment at 229 is another one of your lies.

The problem with you, and others, is that you don’t disagree with these things: you haven’t read, or tried to understand, the work that’s been done, in order to be able to develop a cogent counter-argument. in your case it is probably a combination of inability to understand it, and pure laziness. since you’re clearly not hindered by any sense of integrity, spouting things that are irrelevant, or incorrect, or gleaned from some denialist group, or purely making shit up, doesn’t seem to bother you – it actually seems to define you, judging by your posts.

but give it a try: explain, in complete sentences (that’ll be a twist for you) where the problems are in the best study (for example). try to make honest, informed, statements of opinion based on a reading of the article.

betting money is that you, like neil craig, will not be able to come close.
#233 Chris O'Neill
November 16, 2011

Self-described “AGWSkeptic”:

You mean when Al Gore parrots endlessly that “the science is settled”, he’s speaking religiously?

Yet another ignoramus who thinks that “settled” means certainty.
#234 Chris O'Neill
November 16, 2011

Self-described “AGWSkeptic”:

“hide”, “the”, “decline”, “nature” and “trick”

Of course, since what was being hidden was so important, you know all about it since it is publicly available. Otherwise you would be an ignoramus.
#235 Composer99
November 16, 2011

AGWSkeptic:

Shiny side in or out?

In the meantime, it looks like we’re having another thread that never ends – it just goes on and on, my friends.
#236 Wow
November 17, 2011

“You mean when Al Gore parrots endlessly that “the science is settled”, he’s speaking religiously?”

So

a) You agree that that sea level decline claim by curry is religion not science. Good.

b) When did Al Gore say the science is settled and in what context? Or you do maintain that gravity being an attractive force is not settled science?
#237 Wow
November 17, 2011

Sorry, sea level decline was someone else’s post in denial. Curry was the 11 year cooling. With no statement of what errors there are.

Unlike the IPCC statements, where they’re explicit and overcautious in their claims and limitations.
#238 AGWSkeptic
November 17, 2011

a) You agree that that sea level decline claim by curry is religion not science.

Nope.

Or you do maintain that gravity being an attractive force is not settled science?

No one is attempting to use the notion that gravity is an attractive force as an excuse to plow ahead with a socialist big-government agenda, nor does anyone have any incentive to use it to maintain research funding. That’s why we need to be skeptical of the alarmists and their apocalyptic fantasies.
#239 AGWSkeptic
November 17, 2011

Shiny side in or out?

Neither! I prefer my eggs scrambled, with a side order of hash browns!
#240 Composer99
November 17, 2011

No one is attempting to use the notion that gravity is an attractive force as an excuse to plow ahead with a socialist big-government agenda, nor does anyone have any incentive to use it to maintain research funding.

Re: socialist big-government agenda – evidence please, or it can be safely assumed you are making it up. In reality air pollution, including GHG emissions are negative externalities and it is entirely reasonable for government and non-government agencies to require the internalization of their costs.

Re: nor does anyone have any incentive to use it to maintain research funding – this is false. Indeed, Ethan quite recently described ongoing research efforts to detect gravity waves, involving sending rather expensive satellites into space, and of course funding large amounts of research.

It’s amazing what happens when one exercises some actual, you know, skepticism.
#241 Wow
November 17, 2011

“No one is attempting to use the notion that gravity is an attractive force as an excuse to plow ahead with a socialist big-government agenda”

What does that have to do with settled science?

Do you agree that gravitational attraction pulling apples down is settled science or not?
#242 NJ
November 17, 2011

AGWS @ 236:

No one is attempting to use the notion that gravity is an attractive force as an excuse to plow ahead with a socialist big-government agenda, nor does anyone have any incentive to use it to maintain research funding. That’s why we need to be skeptical of the alarmists and their apocalyptic fantasies.

…and there we have it. Cat out of bag. Beans spilled.

Whether the the research is accurate or not is 100% immaterial. Denialist opposition is based solely on what they perceive the societally required response will be.

Let’s apply that attitude to something else:

“I don’t care if the tests all show a dangerous prostate cancer! It is possible that treatment may make me impotent, therefore ultrasound, MRI and X-rays do not penetrate human tissue and cannot image features within a body! These leaked e-mails from the Society of Urological Oncology show that these doctors have faked the PSA and EN2 studies! Professor Jill Phones admitted that there has been no significant growth in prostate tumors over the last month!

Oh, and Al Gore is fat!”
#243 Wow
November 17, 2011

” a) You agree that that sea level decline claim by curry is religion not science.

Nope.”

But then how can you claim “Settled science” a religion by virtue of a caricature where they are not giving any uncertainties in their statements?

Oh, I get it. When the scientists do it, it’s bad. When YOU do it (or people you want to agree with), the very same thing is fine.

We all thought you were a bit of a Janus.
#244 Wow
November 17, 2011

“nor does anyone have any incentive to use it to maintain research funding.”

But that’s only because gravity is “settled science”.

If AGW were “settled science” then there’d be no need for much in the way of further research funding.

Therefore aren’t your whining complaints about how it’s not proven, about how it’s NOT “settled science” keeping these scientists in their big fat research grant heaven?

Isn’t it YOUR fault that they’re getting research grants? After all, you’re the one saying that they have yet to prove it. That requires research. And a grant.

All because of you and your denier friends.
#245 AGWSkeptic
November 17, 2011

Do you agree that gravitational attraction pulling apples down is settled science or not?

Irrelevant to the present discussion!

“I don’t care if the tests all show a dangerous prostate cancer! It is possible that treatment may make me impotent, therefore ultrasound, MRI and X-rays do not penetrate human tissue and cannot image features within a body! These leaked e-mails from the Society of Urological Oncology show that these doctors have faked the PSA and EN2 studies! Professor Jill Phones admitted that there has been no significant growth in prostate tumors over the last month!

Oh, and Al Gore is fat!”

Non-sequitur!

But then how can you claim “Settled science” a religion by virtue of a caricature where they are not giving any uncertainties in their statements?

I made no such claim!

If AGW were “settled science” then there’d be no need for much in the way of further research funding.

So you admit that the science is not settled! Either that, or these “scientists” are obtaining research grants fraudulently. Which is it, Wow?

Prediction: Wow responds with another question about apples or oranges falling to the ground.
#246 Marco
November 17, 2011

Gravity is a major reason the airline industry is heavily regulated and controlled: don’t want no planes falling down because of, you know, gravity.

Oh noes! Big Socialist Government Conspiracy, let’s be skeptic about Newton! Maybe them apples were thrown down!
#247 Wow
November 17, 2011

Well put Marco.

‘course AGWidiot here aint no skeptic. He’s a full-blown Randian gullible. Since the support for Newton by the faked science supports the airline INDUSTRY this is absolutely fine. All money should be in the hands of industry.

However, since AGW measures would mean less money for industry and is, moreover, all about “green” issues and liberty rather than libertarian issues, this is bad.
#248 Wow
November 17, 2011

“So you admit that the science is not settled!”

No, I’m admitting that you’re insisting it isn’t settled.

And in that statement, you ensure that there will be much more funding to prove your denial of the evidence incorrect.

Prediction: Idiot boy here won’t understand a damn thing. Hasn’t so far.
#249 blueshift
November 17, 2011

“However, since AGW measures would mean less money for industry”

Correction: less money for *established* industry. The status quo is clearly the best possible system, otherwise why would we have it.
#250 Wow
November 17, 2011

” But then how can you claim “Settled science” a religion by virtue of a caricature where they are not giving any uncertainties in their statements?

I made no such claim!”

I refer the right horrible gentleman to his post November 16, 2011 1:14 PM.

But then again, the shameless lie is the stock-in-trade of the psychopath that libertarians invariable spiral down to.
#251 NJ
November 17, 2011

AGW @ 243:

Non-sequitur!

Add ‘failure to understand commonly used Latin phrases’ to the list of this moron’s intellectual failings…
#252 Wow
November 17, 2011

Maybe this is actually Chris Monckton!

You know, the bloke who’s courting treason by abusing the name of the crown.
#253 ligne
November 17, 2011

nah, Monckton actually knows a bit of latin (isn’t his degree in classics or something?).

it’s just everything else — physics, chemistry, maths, sanity, not being chronically wrong about everything — he has difficulties with.
#254 ligne
November 17, 2011

At a start of 250 ppm for co2, you would have to add 250ppm 4,000 times to get to 100% co2.

At 2dC for the start of the first 250ppm, does anyone here really think that the earth at 1 atmosphere pressure and 100% co2 would be 8,000d C hotter? Really?

so you start off working that 250ppm x 4000 = 1M ppm.

you then combine this with the 2K-per-doubling figure, to conclude that a 100% CO_2 atmosphere will be 8000K warmer than at present.

how did you do this without assuming that each of those 4000 increases of 250ppm causes a 2K temperature rise?

when you actually count the doublings, a very crude approximation puts the temperature rise at a little over 20K. doesn’t sound so unreasonable once you get the primary-level maths right, does it?
#255 Ondine
November 17, 2011

for all who care about science.
please take a second.
easy to sign.
so important.

http://www.standwithscience.org/
#256 Chris O'Neill
November 17, 2011

I call myself an AGWSkeptic:

Or you do maintain that gravity being an attractive force is not settled science?

No one is attempting to use the notion that gravity is an attractive force as an excuse to plow ahead with a socialist big-government agenda

So if they were then it would not be settled science. In AGW”Skeptic” world, science depends on what is done with it.
#257 The Planet Has Been Cooling Since 1998
November 17, 2011

The planet has been cooling since 1998.
#258 Wow
November 18, 2011

Prove that the IPCC warming trend of 0.17C per decade is false, kid.
#259 Wow
November 18, 2011

“nah, Monckton actually knows a bit of latin (isn’t his degree in classics or something?)”

Actually, Monckfish has been caught out using cod-latin (the sort that Terry Pratchett uses in his Diskworld books) and incorrectly used latin several times.

Remember, not only is this a cretin, he’s not in the least worried about accuracy.
#260 Wow
November 18, 2011

See:

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/07/monckton_flunks_latin.php

(or search on scienceblogs “monkton flunks latin”)
#261 The Planet Has Been Cooling Since 1998
November 18, 2011

Prove that the IPCC warming trend of 0.17C per decade is false, kid.

How ’bout you prove that it’s true, old man?
#262 Wow
November 18, 2011

You made the claim, kid.

Prove that the IPCC prediction of their warming trend is wrong.

You will need to do some actual maths, which is probably beyond you, but maybe you can ask someone smart to help.
#263 Wow
November 18, 2011

You will need to calculate your trend value and the 95% confidence limit of that trend value.

A free hint to someone who won’t use it because they can’t.

You’ve said it’s cooling. What is your confidence in that? Less than 95%? Then you have insufficient confidence to make the claim.
#264 AGWSkeptic
November 18, 2011

it’s just everything else — physics, chemistry, maths, sanity, not being chronically wrong about everything — he has difficulties with.

Sounds like a spot-on description of Al Gore.
#265 Wow
November 18, 2011

Says the idiot who confuses 4.5C with 0.45C…

(And still gets that wrong)

PS AGWIdiot believes he knows better than the judge on the case:

i) It is substantially founded upon scientific research and fact, albeit that the science is used, in the hands of a talented politician and communicator, to make a political statement and to support a political programme.

(http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2007/2288.html&query=title+%28+dimmock+%29&method=boolean)
#266 AGWSkeptic
November 18, 2011

Wow’s credo:

I’m right (because I’m right) and everyone else is a liar and an idiot. AGW FTW!!!!
#267 Wow
November 18, 2011

No, that does again appear to be a denialist projecting their credo onto others.

You were wrong about Hansen’s prediction in 1988 for 2010.

Yet you insist you are right, despite the PDF of the paper being handed to you.

But I guess it’s easier for you to believe in everyone being as much an a-hole as you are than to try to be a better person, isn’t it, AGWIdiot.
#268 Wow
November 18, 2011

How about “I’m right because in a case where we’re claiming what someone’s paper said, the paper says what I say it did”?

Or are you claiming that Hansen’s paper doesn’t say what it says, it says what you want it to?
#269 AGWSkeptic
November 18, 2011

No, that does again appear to be a denialist projecting their credo onto others.

Paging Wow. Paging Wow. Drs. Dunning and Kruger are holding on line 1. They would like to know if you would be available for an appointment next Tuesday.

You were wrong about Hansen’s prediction in 1988 for 2010.

Nope!

Yet you insist you are right, despite the PDF of the paper being handed to you.

And how much editing did you do to hide the decline?

But I guess it’s easier for you to believe in everyone being as much an a-hole as you are than to try to be a better person, isn’t it, AGWIdiot.

What was that about projection again?

Or are you claiming that Hansen’s paper doesn’t say what it says, it says what you want it to?

And you accuse me of projection!
#270 Wow
November 18, 2011

You were wrong about Hansen’s prediction in 1988 for 2010.

Since you can get it from NASA itself, go check.

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1988/1988_Hansen_etal.pdf

But you won’t do that, will you.

Go on. give it a try.

Lets see if you can admit to an error.
#271 Wow
November 18, 2011

“And you accuse me of projection!”

Yes.

“Or are you claiming that Hansen’s paper doesn’t say what it says, it says what you want it to?”

Is asking you a question.

It seems like you can’t read.
#272 Richard Simons
November 18, 2011

The Planet Has Been Cooling Since 1998 @259

“How ’bout you prove that it’s true, old man?” (of the IPCC claim that the warming trend is 0.17C per decade).

You need to take an elementary statistics course. Nothing is ever shown to be true. Instead, what happens is that some results can be shown to have a low probability of occurring just by chance, given certain assumptions. If the probability is low enough, then your assumptions are probably wrong. I know, the basis of hypothesis testing seems odd to many people when they are first introduced to it and haven’t given it any thought.
The current temperatures are quite likely, assuming the IPCC claim is correct (I can’t be bothered to calculate the probability – I’ve seen it before and it’ll probably be ignored by you). The current temperatures are also quite likely if global warming has stopped. The length of time is too short to differentiate. However, the cessation of global warming makes absolutely no sense in terms of the physics of the situation.
#273 AGWSkeptic
November 18, 2011

but maybe you can ask someone smart to help.

I hear Michael Mann might be available to help with any declines that need to be hidden.
#274 Wow
November 18, 2011

The only decline is in the education of idiots like yourself.

If you want any more education in lies, just ask Anthony Watts, he’s a master at lies.
#275 OKThen
November 18, 2011

Wow
Once again, I thank you sincerely for doing science battle against the anti-science anti-global warming denialists who are dogmatists not skeptics..

Folks like “AGWSkeptic” not only do not understand science they do not understand skepticism.

A skeptic is not a dogmatic. Skepticism requires that a new theory be well supported by evidence. A dogmatist, on the other hand, will accept no evidence which contradicts their a priori biased point of view. Being dogmatic is a persons choice; but don’t pretend that your dogmatic view is well reasoned. Just admit you accept it on faith or you’re prejudiced or you hate science. Some dogmatists are quite honest. And I respect those of such personal integrity.

So if AGWSkeptic, you are truelly a skeptic; tell me what one piece of evidence would convince you that global warming is correct? Maybe it is already out there in some research paper or maybe it is being studied right now. But since you have not mentioned yet that one piece of evidence that will convince you that global warming is occuring (by human activity or by nature); I must assume that your more correct pseudonym should be “AGWDogmatist”.

So “AGWDogmatist”, What is that one piece of evidence that will change your mind about global warming? Hmm as I thought, there is none.

WOW
Once again, thank you for your thankless battle against anti-science dogmatist like “AGWDogmatist”!
#276 dean
November 18, 2011

@okthen, post 273.
Don’t expect agwidiot to respond to your request. This

but give it a try: explain, in complete sentences (that’ll be a twist for you) where the problems are in the best study (for example). try to make honest, informed, statements of opinion based on a reading of the article.

was already asked of it at post 230: the only responses so far have been the some old tired references to Al Gore. It’s becoming clear that agw has nothing more than a 6th grade intellect, and is simply trying to press for responses.
#277 Jack Dawe
November 18, 2011

For those Skeptics who still have unplugged ears to hear with, you just have to check Yahoo’s newspage to hear the clucking of chickens coming home to roost:

http://news.yahoo.com/science-panel-ready-extreme-weather-104156773.html

A quote:

“Think of the Texas drought, floods in Thailand and Russia’s devastating heat waves as coming attractions in a warming world. That’s the warning from top international climate scientists and disaster experts after meeting in Africa.

“The panel said the world needs to get ready for more dangerous and “unprecedented extreme weather” caused by global warming. These experts fear that without preparedness, crazy weather extremes may overwhelm some locations, making some places unlivable.”

Last week’s NATION MAGAZINE — to which I am gift-subscribed by my Left-of-center brother — also had a well-done if unfreedom -promoting article about CAPITALISM VS. THE CLIMATE, by Naomi Klein, in which she says up front that the Left, having stolen a march on the Right or other political viewpoints, (much as the Left did earlier with civil rights and anti-war), should now use AGW to batter the socialist agenda home, making anti-AGW as suspect as racism or misogyny is now.

This is what the radical side of the AGW movement is up to, folks. Get familiar with it and figure out your own response both to it and the fact of Global Warming, or prepare to see these people eventually run the world.

And now back to your regularly scheduled argument….
#278 blueshift
November 18, 2011

“or prepare to see these people eventually run the world.”

The people that were right about racism and misogyny, that have been right about AGW for decades? Perhaps the ones that thought deregulation of banks and other financial institutions was a bad guiding philosophy?
#279 Jack Dawe
November 18, 2011

Nah. My sad experience of the Left has been that they don’t really care about human rights. They just know how to jump an ideological ship better than people of other political orientations, for the purposes of gaining and employing power.

For instance, up until World War Two, the Left was as full of hidebound racists as “the rest of society.” Woodrow Wilson, whose Progressive Administration set the stage for the New Deal, was a notorious White supremacist who threw all Blacks out of the federal government and promoted segregation on every level.

By the time of the New Deal, Blacks had become a substantial part of the population not just in the South, but all over the country, so the Left jumped from the racist to anti-racist ship without a second thought. The same pattern can be observed with all the other civil rights issues right up to the present.

So what’s wrong with it? Nothing except that the Left seems to make these switches based upon power politics and little else. Their hearts and minds don’t change — racism or anti-racism, along with their other issues, are merely a stick to beat up other denominations, and in turn keep them from achieving power.

Likewise AGW. It’s happening, but don’t expect to see any realistic solutions to it from the Left, because it’s in the Left’s interest that the economy and environment continue to deteriorate until their final agenda can be achieved — absolute and total power.

That ole patriarchal cigar-smoking spitoon-filling POWER. Leftists want it so bad they leave semen tracks behind whenever the possibility of them getting it filters into the air….
#280 Chris O'Neill
November 18, 2011

“The planet has been cooling since 1998″ is a liar.
#281 blueshift
November 18, 2011

Ok, this is utterly the wrong thread for this but your arguments are not persuasive.

The civil rights movement was a massive dislocation of society and the our sense of morality, justice etc. The “left” was much more open to the need for change and helped fight very hard, often times at considerable personal risk for a better society.

Regarding AGW, as I pointed out “the left” has been correct on this for a couple decades now. Just like we are correct about evolution. Where’s our POWER?

Moreover, the left was ready to accept the conservative solution of cap and trade. I’m sure we would accept a tax and dividend of some flavor or another (e.g. swapping payroll taxes for CO2 taxes with no change in overall taxation levels). If the reductions come through EPA regulations, miscellaneous renewable energy standards, feed in tariffs, subsidies for deployment or anything else that works we will be happy.

No matter how it happens though, if its a Democratic initiative, we’ll be hearing about how its all just another socialist ploy.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/madoff-explains-everything/
#282 Jack Dawe
November 18, 2011

I wouldn’t try to persuade anyone. I was a de facto Leftist up until 9/11, which had the effect of opening my eyes to some things I hadn’t been wanting to see. But that’s just me.

Everybody has to experience politics for themselves. Everyone’s different. But I defy anyone on this blog to show me where, after nine hundred comments, most of them offered in violent dismissal of the disagreeing side, any practical solution to Global Warming beyond tamping the economy down below its current recessionary level, and slaving it to a green technology that’s still in its infancy, (and may or may not work), has been offered.

I tried to bring this up, back on the I AM A SCIENTIST pg, comment # 5, and was ignored.

It’s an engineering, as well as political question. You’d think, with all the scientists and technical people dropping by, now and then, a f–king screenwriter wd. not be the one to have to answer such a question — but I’m the only one who HAS asked it, and the only one to try to provide an answer (temporarily raise albedo/block sunlight, and pray that green technologies can harnessed in time to prevent the looming disaster).

From what I see, the Left is future oriented — far more so than other political denominations. The idea of the perfect society, the just utopia, at the end of history, is a powerful and seductive one. Even if I don’t buy it and nor believe in it anymore, it is that aphrodesia of future vindication and future attainment of an ideal state for humanity, that drives the Left. And to achieve that, what wouldn’t you do?

The road to hell is paved with such high ideals….
#283 blueshift
November 18, 2011

“any practical solution to Global Warming beyond tamping the economy down below its current recessionary level”

What is impractical or damaging about swapping a CO2 tax for a payroll tax. This is perfectly in line with the goals of the left and a free market conservative ideology (raise taxes on the thing you don’t want, lower it on the thing you want). The fact is that there are loads of practical ways to achieve this goal, and nobody that has looked into it thinks that it requires “tamping the economy down”. Your “ignored” because you ignore the answers when they are given to you.

As far as the dream of a utopia, your blind if you think this is a distinguishing feature of Leftism. The Randians are Utopians. The Right’s drive to dismantle the welfare state is built on a vision of a Utopia.
#284 Jack Dawe
November 18, 2011

Yeah. Randians are Utopian. So are Libertarians. That’s why I can’t stand them. But, on the other hand, they haven’t yet tried to enforce their Utopia at the point of a gun.

It’s the Left’s HISTORY — if you count the communist experience in Russia, China, and Southeast Asia as being part of that history — that convinces me against Leftish ideology as much as anything — though there are other factors, to be sure.

As for cap-and-trade, taxes, etc., as long as it doesn’t go into some bureaucrat’s pockets, but is paid back by, say, lowering the national debt, I’m all for it.
#285 ligne
November 18, 2011

search on scienceblogs “monkton flunks latin”

oh dear, that might be why we lost the empire.

apology duly proffered
#286 lignw
November 18, 2011

it’s just everything else — physics, chemistry, maths, sanity, not being chronically wrong about everything — he has difficulties with.

Sounds like a spot-on description of Al Gore.

HAHAHAHA I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE YOU ASCRIBED THE FAILINGS OF SOMEONE YOU LIKE TO SOMEONE YOU DISLIKE THATS REALLY CLEVER HAHAHAHA.
#287 Neil Bates
November 18, 2011

Jack Dawe, the others who point to million killed by Communists as showing “the left’s” ideology and practice – no more relevant than dumping the horrors and killing by the Inquisition on “Christianity”, in fact less so since those are both “Christians” and yet liberalism is about the relation of a democratic government and limited capitalism, it is not “communism” anyway.

BTW, ligne, how long was a “ligne” which I see used for some measurements in Victorian era etc, but I have hard time finding consistent defintion.
#288 Jack Dawe
November 18, 2011

@ 285 “Christianity” has had to live down its historical baggage forever.

“The Right” continues to bear the onus of fascism, even though it’s developed into the paradigmatic opposite of what fascism was. And the irony is —

By its incorporation of government and capital,”liberalism” is the best example of fascism extant on the planet today.

In any case, why should the Left not have to live with its historical blunders? Does that bright dawn always beckoning over the next horizon absolve the Left of all memory of its guilt?

Politics is filth. Give me the purity of science every time. But when you venture into these AGW waters, you descend into the political sewers. A word to the would-be wise.
#289 ligne
November 19, 2011

Neil, no idea, i’m afraid it’s a pre-metric unit, so it probably varied quite considerably based on place, time of the year, and how honest the dealer was.
#290 The Planet Has Been Cooling Since 1998
November 19, 2011

~~“The planet has been cooling since 1998″~~ Herr Führer Hansen is a liar.

Fixed it.
#291 Chris O'Neill
November 19, 2011

Fixed it.

Sure, linking to nothing and ignoring the facts always fixes it.
#292 ligne
November 19, 2011

you fixed it by fucking up basic HTML?
#293 Exacerangutan
November 19, 2011

I tip my hat to you for this work. After an aggravating internet-fight with another science blog writer who sees no shame in claiming final results that the scientists themselves responsibly avoid, and even putting those claims in the scientists’ mouths, it’s refreshing to see someone actually representing the scientific method correctly AND explaining everything in such a clear fashion. Bravo!
#294 The Planet Has Been Cooling Since 1998
November 19, 2011

you fixed it by fucking up basic HTML?

Read it and weep, warm-mongers!
#295 Jason
November 20, 2011

#280: “But I defy anyone on this blog to show me where, after nine hundred comments, most of them offered in violent dismissal of the disagreeing side, any practical solution to Global Warming beyond tamping the economy down below its current recessionary level, and slaving it to a green technology that’s still in its infancy, (and may or may not work), has been offered.”

Because we’re still trying to convince “skeptics” that there even is a problem.

How we should address AGW is a discussion that everyone has a right to be heard on, regardless of their political persuasion. But as long as certain segments of society rule themselves out of the conversation by denying the evidence that exists, they limit their own ability to influence the outcome of those discussions and will have no-one to blame but themselves if that outcome ultimately ends up unpalatable to them.

Personally I would love to hear everyone’s input, both from the left and the right. Being a market-oriented person myself, I find myself persuaded by both of the market-oriented ideas – tax & dividend, and cap & trade. Both seem eminently sensible, with the former having the advantage of predictable costs and simplicity, and the latter having the advantage of predictable emissions. But I’m also open to other suggestions – in particular, I think there is room for support and subsidies of newer technologies that have the potential to be price-competitive once economies of scale kick in that are currently not competitive because they are competing with established technologies that, themselves, have long been benefiting from substantial subsidies and support.

I also think it is completely unfair to expect newer technologies that have little or no external costs to compete against established technologies with massive external costs that are currently being ignored.

In any case, as I mentioned before, it amazes me how “alarmist” certain “skeptics” are when it comes to solutions. How can they dismiss claims of future environmental problems by doubting the science behind those claims while at the same time being absolutely convinced about claims of future economic problems that have no support whatsoever? Indeed, the “economic consensus” is that addressing AGW isn’t even that hard. Indeed, some actions actually provide a net economic benefit.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-too-hard-advanced.htm
#296 Jason
November 21, 2011

“Because we’re still trying to convince “skeptics” that there even is a problem.”

As evidence of this, note that in a post where the host is pointing out that someone who takes an insignificant portion of the data and presents it as significant and, even worse, cherry-picks the starting date to maximise the support for their claim, is committing scientific fraud, we have a commenter who even goes so far as to proudly use such a fraud as their nickname.

I think it would be helpful to the debate if everyone were to clamp down on such nonsense regardless of how serious they personally thought AGW was. Constantly having to deal with (or, at the very least, skip past) this nonsense robs the more important debate of oxygen – which is precisely what they’re hoping for, of course. Complaining that “the other side” is spending hundreds of comments violently dismissing this rubbish instead of discussing issues of substance without making any effort to help get rid of the rubbish is disingenuous.
#297 Jack Dawe
November 21, 2011

@ 293 I think the anti-AGW side has had time to work through the evidence and come to the only logical conclusion, that the climate’s in trouble because of AGW. If the Deniers want to continue to deny, I think the wave front of discussion — on this blog, and in society at large — should go by them. They had their chance to contribute, and they obviously don’t want to make any contribution beyond throwing argumentative sand in the eyes of their supposed opponents.

This is one of those issues where some people are not going to be convinced under any circumstances, no matter how radically the environment degrades. They’re the types that, in the Dirty Thirties, hung on in desolate areas until their kids died, and then moved on with last bitter gobbet of spit hawked against the wind. The only difference was that, back then, they had the West Coast to move on to. This time, there isn’t going to be anywhere to go except maybe underground.

But it’s their lookout, no one else’s. Rather than try to convince these blindered types by discussing bad outcomes for them — political and otherwise — if they don’t deal with the facts as they stand — which I have done — I think the discussion — if there’s going to be a discussion — should move on to approaches to dealing with the problem. I’ve mentioned a couple — increasing planetary albedo, reducing solar input by distributing some sort of aerosol in space between the Earth and the sun, using these techniques to buy time for Green tech to get up and running and take hold.

Surely, there are other and better ideas out there and I’d like to hear them.
#298 Jason
November 21, 2011

#295: The SkS link I provided talks about the Pacala and Socolow “wedges”, which showed how implementing seven options out of the 15 they provided would stabilise CO2 levels at 500 ppm by 2050, ranging from improved fuel economy to increasing nuclear power.

Unfortunately, because we haven’t made any progress since they enumerated those options in 2004, we would now need nine wedges to achieve the same result:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/10/the-cost-of-inaction/

The SkS post on the World Energy Outlook 2011 report is also worth reading:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/WEO2011.html

As for “buying time” by increasing planetary albedo or distributing aerosols, these are potentially risky:

1. They don’t solve ocean acidification, which can only be solved by reducing atmospheric CO2 concentrations and is potentially a much bigger problem than increased temperature itself.

2. They generally only provide a short-term fix to a long-term problem, and by temporarily masking the problem they can allow it to get much worse. Also, because they are short-term, they need to be paid for again and again and therefore we’re making assumptions about the capacity of future generations to pay for problems caused by earlier generations.

3. Best estimates for cost are that they are enormously more expensive than simply reducing consumption and switching to alternative fuels.

4. Modelling their efficacy and any possible unintended consequences will be difficult. It would be very inconsistent for anyone to argue that the models are unreliable and then claim that the problem can be solved with untested geoengineering solutions!

That’s not to say that they can’t or shouldn’t form part of our response to the problem — just that I wouldn’t want to see them used as an excuse to avoid addressing it using more obvious and already-proven techniques ASAP.
#299 Wow
November 21, 2011

> But, on the other hand, they haven’t yet tried to enforce their Utopia at the point of a gun.

Uh, WHAT THE FUUUK?

Sorry, the US strongarming over their laws worldwide (ACTA) isn’t a good enough example?

The shooting of a Democratic senator by a libertarian teabagger isn’t enough?

You’ll notice that when they lost the election, these libertarians were ALL baying for the ammo box.

It’s easy not to have to use a gun to enforce your wishes when you have the government guns to use and blame.
#300 OKThen
November 21, 2011

Wow @296 I hear your points.

Yes the political agendas:
– against abortion
– against gun control
– against Anthropogenic (man-made) global warming (AGW)
– against taxing the rich (the entrepreneurs)
seem to have converged into a litmus tests for the republican party.

And yes the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) effort is heavy handed. Copyright and patent are meant to protect the creators of art and the technical innovators for a reasonable time, not give them a monopoly in perpetuity. Because monopolies stiffle innovation; and it is innovation which creates new jobs and grows an economy.

But if you’d must give your political slings and arrows, could you clarify your views a bit and better tie them to the point under discussion on this blog. I personally like your reasoned arguments much better than your toxic blasts. Though I must admit fighting toxins with toxins, an eye for and eye, seems to be the only way with some folks.

Be well.
#301 Wow
November 21, 2011

Well that bit from Jack was hugely OT as well as being absolutely bloody blind.

As to the meat of the thread, the problem is that it’s so clearly set out here that there’s nothing for the deniers to pick on, hence the “I am a scientist” is still far more active.
#302 Jack Dawe
November 21, 2011

The Arizona shooter’s psychotic politics were smeared so completely across the spectrum that I don’t think you can hang the label “libertarian” on him.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s say you can. Not only that, but let’s say that all the dead in all the contra-insurgency/anti- terrorist wars of the second half of the 20th Century were as a result of “libertarianism at the point of a gun.”

That would mean that, because of libertarianism, in the worst case scenario, about a million people have died. Compare that with the Left’s acknowledged record, from Stalin’s Russia to Pol Pot’s Cambodia, of somewhere in the vicinity of two hundred million.

If you consider that, then maybe, (not WOW, but), objective readers will see why I’m far more worried about what may come out of the Left, than the Right — as far as pro-active government oppression goes — in this AGW crisis.

As someone I’ve studied well once said, “The loss of one life is a tragedy. The loss of a million, a statistic.”

In any event, comment #296 was nothing more than a provocation and a dodge by someone who gets their kicks beating up people who are on the wrong side of the debate. The question remains open — and I’d be glad to hear his answer — what can we practically do to approach a solution to AGW? Let’s hear some creative ideas….
#303 Jack Dawe
November 21, 2011

I should have said “#297″ was a provocation and dodge. Apparently, these comments are shifting around in placement and number as I write.

I apologize to JASON, at #296, for tarring him with the provocateur brush. It is all the worse mistake on my part since he ACTUALLY DOES provide answers beyond engineering shortcuts to the AGW question.

Answers with which I give a hearty second, especially his statement: “Unfortunately, because we haven’t made any progress since they enumerated those options in 2004, we would now need nine wedges to achieve the same result:”

As Deniers literally buy time for AGW to have its worst outcome maximized, those who will listen to reason on their side had better realize that, when tens of millions are dying because of the effects of AGW, not only will they be discreditted, but they will have paved the way for the kind of eliminationist politics they claim to have been fearing all along. Let those who still have unplugged ears listen.

As for the snarky shot on comment #299, that I’m “absolutely bloody blind” — well, maybe. But there is none so blind as he who will not see. Whether it’s a head-in-the-sand Denier or a fanatical anti-human Left totalitarian.
#304 Wow
November 21, 2011

> As for the snarky shot on comment #299, that I’m “absolutely bloody blind”

See, this is one way you MAKE YOURSELF BLIND.

It isn’t sarcasm. It’s accuracy.

But if you can taint it as sarcasm, there’s no need to face the content.

This is how deniers manage to maintain their blindness in AGW.

You’re maintaining your blindness on the virtues and vices of the libertarians. All you see are virtues, and any pointing out of the vices is “sarcasm” and therefore ignored.

YOU WILL NOT SEE them using guns because they use the guns of government and, to all libertarians, the government is not them, even when they’re running it.
#305 Wow
November 21, 2011

“The Arizona shooter’s psychotic politics were smeared so completely across the spectrum”

Ah, the old “No True Scotsman”.

Tell me, Teabaggers are against government interference in medical treatment and insurance.

Yet they also demand “Government hands of our Medicare”.

Smeared politics right across the spectrum, if you’re a libertarian like him, evidence of their shallowness of principle if you’re not a libertarian.
#306 Jack Dawe
November 21, 2011

Actually, you kind of stumbled across something there, something that — if I were a libertarian, would give me a spot of bother — and that is when you said, “to all libertarians, the government is not them, even when they’re running it.”

That’s a fact, and that has alot to do with why I’M NOT a libertarian, nor a Randian — as I said way back on comment #282, if you’d bothered to acknowledge it, I CAN’T STAND THEM.

Beyond which, implicit in my dismissal of libertarian-style politics is the fact that Libertarian-style Deniers not only create their own golem on the Left, which could ultimately destroy them and freedom as well, but they suppress issues like AGW, which could cause as many people or more to end up dying as died in all the wars of the 20th Century. Libertarians set themselves up as victims, and they allow others to be victims, in the name of another ideal that can’t stand on its own feet any more than FROM EACH, TO EACH, can.

Granted, as opposed to the Hard Left, the sin of the Libertarians is a sin of omission, rather than commission. But it’s there nonetheless.

On that note of (relative) agreement, I’ll bow out of further discussion. The only positive way to address these issues is by offering creative solutions. Hopefully, I’ll get back later to some of the answers provided by #296. Until then, I give the microphone to whomever wants to take it….
#307 Wow
November 21, 2011

Just going “Well, I guess there are some that will use guns” would be enough.

But your blindness has little reason for existing if you’re not a libertarian or Randian.

When there is one clear case for why you do this, why do you never supply your real reason?
#308 Jack Dawe
November 21, 2011

Oh, there are very definitely Libertarians who would enforce their ideology at the point of a gun. There are “pacifists” who would do the same. Just goes to show….

I won’t explain or justify my politics to you, except to say that there’s an element of faith, and of leaving people alone to do their best, which is contrary to most Leftist approaches. That said, I don’t deny the validity of Leftist ideals, just their realizability in this world.

In an enormously tangled and contradictory political environment, rather than steer by the star of an ideal that can never come to pass, I prefer to go by WHAT WORKS FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE MOST PEOPLE. According to which, my compass may point right, or left, or “moderate,” as the case may be. Whatever works.
#309 Wow
November 21, 2011

“Oh, there are very definitely Libertarians who would enforce their ideology at the point of a gun.”

Not what you’ve said before.
#310 Jack Dawe
November 21, 2011

Mass murder is not implied in Libertarian or Randian philosophies. However much I disagree with the rest of their schtick, they do not provide a an open-ended license for killing your political opponents, except inasmuch as some paranoiac nutcake might take ANY political POV to be such a license.

Forced, fully applied socialism almost always is exterminationist. Study your history. The Italians with their “socialism with a human face,” and the Euro-style welfare states only put off until tomorrow the bitter settling of accounts that the Russians and Chinese, et al, already went through yesterday.

When entitlements, gonzo master-of-the-universe moneymaking, welfare, environmental trashing, and all other drains on the modern liberal state are taken to the end of the line, there will be heaps of bodies on one side or the other (this is why, if only for the temporary sake of my own skin, I wouldn’t want to be on the “Deniers'” side.)

Libertarianism is bad thinking, ditto Randism. There’s really no need to paint horns on either of them, for us to know how empty they really are, and proceed accordingly.
#311 TTT
November 21, 2011

Mass murder is not implied in Libertarian or Randian philosophies. However much I disagree with the rest of their schtick, they do not provide a an open-ended license for killing your political opponents

Randianism is explicitly focused on killing not just your active political opponents but also anybody who simply doesn’t live up to your political ideals. Rand herself was renowned for advocating for the killing of Native Americans as late as the 1970s, and also supported child murderer William Hickman because she believed he was stronger of character than the jury that convicted him. “Atlas Shrugged” is a genocidal wish-list – the most evil book ever written in English – as virulently pro-death as “The Turner Diaries” but with a higher social risk level due to its vile cult following among ultra-rich whitecollar sociopaths.
#312 dean
November 21, 2011

Simpler reasons dawe is an idiot:
1) making any implication that liberalism equates to the slaughters under stalin, mao, etc.
2) implying there is a direct trail from stalin, mao, and others, to those who today identify as liberal.

“When entitlements, gonzo master-of-the-universe moneymaking, welfare, environmental trashing, and all other drains on the modern liberal state are taken to the end of the line, there will be heaps of bodies on one side or the other”

is such a stupid statement it is hard to believe it came from someone who walks upright
#313 AGWSkeptic
November 21, 2011

“When entitlements, gonzo master-of-the-universe moneymaking, welfare, environmental trashing, and all other drains on the modern liberal state are taken to the end of the line, there will be heaps of bodies on one side or the other”

is such a stupid statement it is hard to believe it came from someone who walks upright

Almost as stupid as the more egregious lies emanating from James Hansen, right Dean?
#314 Jack Dawe
November 21, 2011

ha ha ha

I guess we’ll see now won’t we?

I had always hoped for the kind of paradigm shift on the Left that I’d seen on the Right — the Right having become more tolerant if not actively involved in areas of civil rights, sensible conservation, tolerance of sexual and religious minorities, etc. I was suspicious that it could happen because killing is so much written into Leftist ideologies that when you merely question the usefulness of it — as a committed Leftist questioned Bill Ayres’ projection of a minimum of 25 million “un-reeducatables” having to be exterminated, to “purge America of socially regressive elements — you get laughed out of the room.

Thanks, “dean” and “TTT” for proving that my suspicions were abundantly well founded. How powerfully you project your own bloodlust onto the failed and impotent philosophy of Ayn Rand.

Beyond which, it really is tragic that you are on the AGW side of the fence. I expected such shitty rhetoric from crypto-Nazis like Lubos, but your unmitigated gall in flinging it at me when I f–king agree with your take on AGW — as is proven by my comments going all the way back to #5 on the I AM A SCIENTIST thread — truely represents a new low for “our side of the fence.”

A new low which I, on my worst knuckle-dragging days, can hardly hope to approach.
#315 dean
November 21, 2011

Jack, you truly are an ass. I’m not sure how you can determine someone supports “bloodlust” of the sort you discuss based on comments here. Go ahead – reference where I’ve called for harm to be done to you. (You can’t, but I’m sure you’ll tell some lie.) I haven’t seen anyone defending those horrors, have you? Why do you project support for them onto me (or anyone else)? Apparently only because we call you on your assertions about our political stance. And really, the right has become more tolerant of sexual and religious minorities? One would think you make these statements up just for the fun of it.

The simple point is this: you have no basis (nor have you tried to present one) for arguing that there are dots to be connected between horrors past and typical folk on the modern left. Equating the current “left” with communism carried to extremes is foolish.

You can’t hide behind your “shitty rhetoric” slam either: the comment I made had nothing to do with your stance on climate change: it was based purely on the fact that your social/political commentary is full of shit.

agwclod: are you working on your list of references and counter-points to the climate change literature? didn’t think so – still flinging content-free crap.
#316 Jack Dawe
November 21, 2011

If I am an idiot and ass, I am an idiot and ass, at least, that hopes to be proven wrong.

Unlike many of my detractors, who’d rather bring down heaven and earth than be shown to be one jot removed from absolute truth, I’d prefer that: 1) Man-made Global Warming ISN’T really happening 2) the Liberal Left, when stressed to the max and endangered by Tea-party-like uprisings, WON’T declare martial law and start shooting people.

Never mind what might happen when the coasts go underwater, and the interior is one big duststorm.

As for a “personal threat” from anyone, that was the last thing I intended to imply. I simply found TTT’s hysterical transference of homicidal tendencies onto the very dead and even more irrelevant Ayn Rand — who was about as dangerous, in her prime, as a flustered house sparrow — to be indicative of a certain predisposition on his part. By their hysterias you shall know them, and all that….

But unlike Lubos, I don’t feel threatened by either of you, not even TTT. Lubos, though, that’s a scarier breed of cat altogether. If I saw him approaching, I’d run, not walk, the opposite direction….
#317 Stu
November 21, 2011

the Right having become more tolerant if not actively involved in areas of civil rights, sensible conservation, tolerance of sexual and religious minorities, etc.

What. The. Hell. Are. You. Talking. About.
#318 Jack Dawe
November 21, 2011

This is totally OT, has nothing to do with science, but is meant to elucidate a statement I made about the Right Wing becoming more tolerant, which has been challenged twice now. I apologize in advance for not keeping to the AGW issue, but you asked for it….

@ 315 I don’t know where you grew up, but the American Southwest in the 1970s was a shitheel John Birch-society-loving, skunk-tempered, money-is-all, SMALL MINDED eagle shit republic.

Racism? How about the Black kid in my Boy Scout troop who got gunned down inside the Safeway (14 years old, he waited until they locked the doors, stole some food, then made a commotion trying to get out that drew the cops — none of whom was ever charged).

Ethnic hatred: how about the snowball fights between 15-year-old Anglos and Chicanos that the Anglos won by PUTTING ROCKS in the snowballs?

Social hide-boundedness: how about the big pot bust in the University town ten miles over that resulted in half the people being hauled in, not for pot, but “cohabitation.” (And one young woman ended up committing suicide because of it)?

On and on. “Hippies” (in 1974!) getting beaten half to death by “stomps” at a local restaurant. “Base apes” (from the airbase outside of town) getting mauled by “townies.” Black servicemen being ambushed and killed by Chicanos for trying to date their sisters. Etc., etc.

The atmosphere was one of jolly, mean-to-the-core mayhem. Kind of like Bavaria, in 1934. The local religion was hate. The social structure money and fuck you if you haven’t got it. The overall attitude one of high-minded suspicion of everything that wasn’t Anglo, middle-class, and ordinary.

So I left and lived in New England for thirty years. Eventually, I got divorced from my Rhode Island wife and moved back.

And it was like night and day. All that hidebound, ugly stuff had softened, broken away, and vamoosed. The very people who seemed the worst before — the Right Wing element — now spoke in convincingly concerned terms about racism being the biggest problem in our society, and how everyone deserved an even break, and the best thing for the future was to be educated, not be rich.

To wrap it up, maybe they’re acting. But if so, they’ve been acting for going on ten years. There are Black people and Chicanos in my (Baptist) church — and Anglos in the Catholic church. The highschool stadium and a street in town are named after a Jewish family. There’s a mosque near downtown. I see more tolerance here than I did in the last ten years I spent in New England, less money-grubbing, less petty resentment, less political oppression.

And that, along with the ethnic/racial broadening of the Republican party (I’m still a Democrat, but I have eyes to see), is why I say that the “Right Wing” (because this town is still a Right Wing place) has become more tolerant.
#319 MadScientist
November 21, 2011

I think the quote that statistics can be used to prove anything is simply a simple-minded and wrong thing. The problem is that incompetent or outright fraudulent people like to make claims and add that (incorrectly applied or outright wrong) statistics supports their claim. Monckton would be an excellent example of that; he performs inept and meaningless calculations and claims that his results support his claims – what Monckton does is not statistics, it is numerology.
#320 Wow
November 22, 2011

“but is meant to elucidate a statement I made about the Right Wing becoming more tolerant, which has been challenged twice now.”

They’re becoming far less tolerant.

When Clinton was in power, the right wing persecuted him for having extra-marital sex with an intern. See the sex scandals on the Rep side for contrast. But they didn’t stymie every single discussion, did they. They actually allowed things to get through. They didn’t draw little marksman bullsyeyes on the democratic senators, did they.

But now you have had a second one in, what’s happening now?

Less violence or more?
#321 Wow
November 22, 2011

MadScientist, I think it’s that BAD statistics can “prove” anything.

However, bad statistics can still elucidate truth.

Take, for example, the “last two years sea levels have dropped”. Just put your error bars on that and you see that this is BAD statistics, but DOES prove that you cannot rule out an increase in sea levels with it.
#322 Wow
November 22, 2011

“Almost as stupid as the more egregious lies emanating from James Hansen”

Which would be *what* exactly?

Oh, oh, I know, I know.

It’ll be something you completely made up again, won’t it!
#323 Stu
November 22, 2011

Jack, the plural of “anecdote” is not “data”.
#324 Stu
November 22, 2011

Also, “less openly racist where I come from” does not mean “more tolerant”. Just tune in to Savage every now and then.
#325 Wow
November 22, 2011

Or Fox News. Hannity. Beck (while he still has sponsors who will put up with him). Limbaugh. O Reilley.

Look at the WBC.

We’re OK with individuals who wouldn’t act like these poison dwarfs, but we’re not willing to swallow that you don’t know about them, Jack.
#326 Jack Dawe
November 22, 2011

# 321 “the plural of anecdote is not data.” That’s why I’ve made clear that I’m a writer, not a scientist. My reluctant endorsement of AGW comes more from my experience in a Dustbowl-bound Southwest, than it does from statistics. (Experience being simply anecdotal evidence of another sort).

Though statistics do matter with regard to AGW. The fact that rise-of-CO2 stats are pounded home to us every day in (my libertarian) newspaper and on Yahoo news, does reinforce my belief that we are approaching a crisis.

# 323 -Sure, I know about the poison dwarves. And I know people who follow them. But — let’s take the worst — Savage and Beck.

Back in the era I came up in, no one would have even commented on their extremism, because, up until about the time of Watergate, “everybody” in the Southwest felt the same way (or kept quiet if they felt otherwise). Rage and hate addicts didn’t need a fix from the radio to keep their internal steam going. They provided it themselves, 24/7.

I had a 7th grade Block teacher, (named Burke, aka “The Burkosaurus”) who brought in “lists of communists” in government, the arts, and media, whom we were expected to write letters to our congresspeople, to have drummed out of their professions. We didn’t go along with it, but — next year — her class rebelled and had the school administration discipline HER — the higher moral road, I will grant.

Somebody like that wouldn’t make a peep today, not and expect to keep their job.

Likewise, church was as much about social indoctrination as it was about belief. The only political statement I’ve heard lately from our pastor is that we should expect persecution from a society that’s barreling down the road to destruction.

To which I will add: when the shit hits the fan, we can ALL expect persecution, religious people and atheists alike.

Even those on the PC side of the angels will be taken down a notch by the very people they’ve put into office.

At that point, I expect Beck and Savage will be on a Pacific island sipping tequila and laughing at the world. Hannity will be hiding in a bottle in the Bowery. And Limbaugh will have a channel devoted to him: showing his permanently preserved head on a stick, 24/7.
#327 Wow
November 22, 2011

“That’s why I’ve made clear that I’m a writer, not a scientist.”

Then stop giving us anecdodes and pretending it has the weight of data.

If you haven’t learned by now what the difference is, then stop posting.

“And I know people who follow them. But — let’s take the worst — Savage and Beck.”

Then how do you hold on to your religious faith that rightwingers are less violent and more tolerant now than before?

You can’t.

As before, you say any damn thing you like and then pretend it’s everyone else’s fault that you got it wrong.
#328 Jack Dawe
November 22, 2011

Wow. The moment of the burn arrives. The savage turn, the rhetorical acid in the face.

It’s almost a mystery to me how someone could be so consumed with — hate is too good a word — DESPISE-MENT is closer to it. Contempt. Absolute scorn.

But I think I know what it is. You smell the possibility of “your side” getting power like a shark smells blood in the water.

And, in that two-dimensional, zero-sum, statistical universe you like a shark inhabit, anything that threatens to resonate, anything that has depth, is a threat.

It doesn’t matter whether I agree with you or not, whether I support your basic argument or not. I’m distracting from the acceleration of the power-lust particle toward the moment of its absolute attainment. And that can’t be allowed.

I was right in my initial estimate of you AGW fanatics, and Wow in particular. Do you think YOU HAVE science on your side, when all you do is trash every possible sidelight to the graph you draw in bitter acid, on these pages every day? Do you think you KNOW BETTER, when you gouge your own eyes out, and puncture your own eardrums, with self-inflicted totalitarian fury?

If I don’t post again, it’s not because you’ve chased me off these pages, but because I have work to do. And I’m tired of trying to teach something new to those, likely teachers themselves, who have nothing but hatred for learning another side of things.

But the Burkosaurus would be proud of you. Nazis, hateful McCarthyites, Stalinist killers, and AGW nuts. All brothers under the skin.
#329 TTT
November 22, 2011

I simply found TTT’s hysterical transference of homicidal tendencies onto the very dead and even more irrelevant Ayn Rand — who was about as dangerous, in her prime, as a flustered house sparrow — to be indicative of a certain predisposition on his part. By their hysterias you shall know them, and all that…

You’re so ignorant you can’t even lie properly.

Every single thing I attributed to Rand–her support for child murderer William Hickman, her support for the genocide of the Native Americans, and her celebratory writings of both child murder and genocide into “Shrugged”–comes directly and verbatim from her own writings, her own speeches, and her own books. It is a matter of public record, just a Googlesearch away for those who don’t lack the intellect required to use that tool.

Basically, I said the equivalent of “J.D. Salinger was a very secretive person,” and you said “a HA that just means TTT must be secretive, look how he slanders poor outgoing loudmouthed JD!” Again, it’s simple fact, which ought to fit well into your simple mind. If you don’t know the basic history of the works you cite that’s a pity but it’s your fault, not mine.
#330 dean
November 22, 2011

“You smell the possibility of “your side” getting power like a shark smells blood in the water.”

No, you (I can only assume willfully) don’t get it: you made a bunch of unsupportable assertions, equating anyone you view as “on the left” with the worst examples of mass murder in history, and implied the people you accused were waiting to unleash bloodshed on folks like you (the enlightened?)

That’s why you’ve been identified as an idiot: you demonstrated that that is the best description of you.
#331 Stu
November 22, 2011

And I’m tired of trying to teach something new to those

My word, but you’re an arrogant little whiner.

Good luck playing the victim somewhere else, cupcake.
#332 Wow
November 23, 2011

> But the Burkosaurus would be proud of you. Nazis, hateful McCarthyites, Stalinist killers, and AGW nuts.

Hmm. When you have to fake it, you’re a supporter of AGW.

When you’re a petty whining b*tch, you hate AGW supporters.
#333 Wow
November 23, 2011

PS two questions:

1) Is it bad to kill Stalin now?

2) I think he died before I was born, so I have a damn good alibi.
#334 OKThen
November 24, 2011

For those interested:

“New Trove of Stolen E-Mails From Climate Scientists Is Released
By JUSTIN GILLIS and LESLIE KAUFMAN, November 22, 2011, New York Times” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/science/earth/new-trove-of-stolen-e-mails-from-climate-scientists-is-released.html?ref=science WHY? Who benefits from disinformation and innuendo?

Anthropogenic (man-made) Global Warming (AGW) is unanimously accepted by scientists; which models best explain the observed climate change are debated in the detail by scientists.

The Earth is getting warmer due to human activity; and humans are living longer due to human activity. Anthropogenic (man-made) Global Warming or anthropogenic global increase in human lifespan are agreed by all rational observers. The observational facts are solid; but the mathematical models to describe either of these rather complex/chaotic natural processes are incomplete and imperfect.
#335 Wow
November 24, 2011

“but the mathematical models to describe either of these rather complex/chaotic natural processes are incomplete and imperfect.”

To what extent?

Our models of the atom are incomplete and imperfect. But we still understand enough to create silicon wafers.

Our model of electrical energy transport is incomplete and imperfect. But we still have a national power grid that works.

Our model of gasses and liquids is incomplete and imperfect. But we still have working aeroplanes and boats.

So, to what extent are models incomplete and imperfect?

And if they were, what would that change for the current observation that climate sensitivity is well over 2C per doubling?
#336 ligne
November 24, 2011

“all models are wrong, but some are useful”.
#337 OKThen
November 24, 2011

Wow @333

Yes to models of the atom,
— yes to models of electrical energy
—-yes to models of gases and liquids
——yes, yes, yes… and
——– yes to models of AGW; but we still understand enough to know that Anthropogenic (man-made) Global Warming is the most serious threat to human civilization!!

Thus reasonable politicians and citizens from Ulan Bator, Mongolia
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/15/mongolia-ice-shield-geoengineering?intcmp=122
…to New York City, US are very concerned and taking serious action!!!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13582351

Yes, yes, we agree!!
Hopefully this is clearer!
#338 Wow
November 25, 2011

> yes to models of AGW; but we still understand enough to know that Anthropogenic (man-made) Global Warming is the most serious threat to human civilization!!

However, those who wish to delay would see your original statement of:

“but the mathematical models to describe either of these rather complex/chaotic natural processes are incomplete and imperfect.”

To be proof there’s nothing proven to be worried about.

Hence I closed that door before some mouthbreather opened it.
#339 Sili
November 26, 2011

*I have yet to get a CFL to last more than a few months, and I’ve been using them for years.

I know what you mean, I’ve just had to change one of mine. How bothersome.

Of course, I put the old one up when I moved in in 2005.

So there. My anecdote balances out your anecdote.

–o–

Let me give just one repudiation of your remarks. The easiest to do so because it involves a hard science-mathematics.

Mathematics isn’t a science. And in as much as economics is one, it’s traditionally the dismal one.
#340 Jacob Mack
nowehere
August 23, 2012

The Berkeley data does not show any significant warming. It also does not link C02 to warming at all. The Berkeley. No scientific study shows C02 causes any warming of the Earth at all. No empirical evidence exists whatsoever. The global mean temperatures from 1850 to 2012 are nothing unusual at all whether using 14 degrees or 15 degrees as a standard temperature and then recording the annual, decadal and century long anomalies as in accordance with data shown from the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics or from the AMS publications. Even NASA’s own charts do not indicate any unusual temperature anomalies from the 1800’s until now.

I looked at the raw data and their methods and there is nothing to show any concern about current global mean temperatures.
#341 Wow
August 24, 2012

“The Berkeley data does not show any significant warming.”

The BEST project shows the same significant warming that the IPCC figures showed.

“It also does not link C02 to warming at all.”

It also didn’t link cancer rates to smoking. This is because it wasn’t to investigate that. Neither was it to investigate CO2’s effects. It was to investigate the amount of warming.

“No scientific study shows C02 causes any warming of the Earth at all.No empirical evidence exists whatsoever.”

Wrong.

Look for answers to your questions here:

http://skepticalscience.com/

“The global mean temperatures from 1850 to 2012 are nothing unusual at all”

They’re evidence of AGW.

“I looked at the raw data and their methods and there is nothing to show any concern about current global mean temperatures.”

BEST and every scientist disagrees with you.

Which is most likely: you’re the only one who’s right or you are wrong?
#342 John
Texas
September 2, 2012

Hmm funny how all the graphs stop before the little climate optimum and just show the increase since the little ice age except for one that shows a little of what is considered the end of the little ice age. The author knows this and this is just another fraud hollering fraud at his opponents
#343 Geologist
United States
October 15, 2012

This no doubt a great article with a lot of data that can be explored further. It is important to note that when people say that the science regarding global warming is pretty well understood, they are terribly mistaken. This is a complex problem and the study of geochemistry has provided a plethora of information to climate sciences, but we have a long way to go. The problem with this article, other than the fact that it’s not published in a legitimate scientific journal, is the argument proposing that warming has stopped- climate is not static. We have been warming for at least the past 12,000 yrs and will continue to do so until we start to cool again- an oversimplification, I know, but saying warming has stopped and suggesting that we may be cooling, is beyond the author’s reach, or that of any scientist.
#344 Wow
October 16, 2012

“when people say that the science regarding global warming is pretty well understood, they are terribly mistaken”

No, they aren’t.

Climate is a boundary problem.

Describing a chaotic system and predicting where it will be at a future date is not easily done (if it can be done at all), but we can still calculate the attractor for the system

“We have been warming for at least the past 12,000 yrs”

No we haven’t. We have been cooling for about that length of time, since this is the pattern the climate repeats over centuries every time we come out of an ice age which we did 12,000 years ago.

We were on a cooling trend.

You are no geologist. You are a fossil.
#345 Geologist
October 16, 2012

The Earth climate during the last 2 million years has been dominated by shifts between colder periods, known as Ice Ages or glacials, and warmer periods, known as interglacials. Whilst Ice Ages have tended to last for up to 100,000 years, the intervening interglacial periods have usually been much shorter in duration, at around 10,000 years in length.The last interglacial occurred about 120,000 years ago. Today, the Earth’s climate is again within an interglacial period, although the orbital theory of climate change, which explains the glacial-interglacial transitions, predicts that we may be coming towards its end. Indeed, during the 1960s, many scientists suggested that the observed fall in Northern Hemisphere temperatures at that time reflected the gradual onset of a new Ice Age. Since then however, fears of global warming as a result of man-made greenhouse gas pollution have dominated the environmental agenda. Scientists revisiting the instrumental records of global surface temperature, including both Northern and Southern Hemisphere records, realised that over the whole of the 20th century, the Earth had actually warmed. Whether global warming will only postpone the end of the current interglacial or lead to a completely new climatic regime is very hard to predict.
#346 Wow
October 16, 2012

“during the 1960s, many scientists suggested that the observed fall in Northern Hemisphere temperatures at that time ”

Many?

No.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB3S0fnOr0M

Majority opinion that the 70’s were seeing the effects of smog and smoke in cooling the planet and that this was in opposition to the warming trend of CO2’s increase.

“the observed fall in Northern Hemisphere temperatures at that time reflected the gradual onset of a new Ice Age”

Nope, again. The natural climate cycle has us “due” (on geological timescales of “the next couple of thousand years maybe”) to go into a new glacial, but the temerpature drops were not considered by the scientists to be proof of that starting at that time.

“Whether global warming will only postpone the end of the current interglacial or lead to a completely new climatic regime is very hard to predict.”

No, it’s pretty easy to predict. Look at the temperature spike.
#347 Geologist
October 16, 2012

Thanks for the overwhelmingly scholarly video. I hope you cited it your dissertation that you wrote for your PhD in geochemistry and paleoclimatology . Touche. I will say I am glad to know these predictions are so easy (although coming from a geochemist, I’m sure it’s much more simple for you) because that fact ought to completely obliterate current debate inside and outside of the scientific community at large when it comes to climate change modeling. Well done. I hope you are nominated for the appropriate prize, if not all of them in consideration of your unprecedented achievement.
#348 OKThen
You've been warned-
October 16, 2012

Geologist
Your sarcasm is not convincing.
Nor are you a geologist or any other scientist.
Your psuedoiscience arguments are not welcome here.

You are warned.
Now go to the following Comments Policy page of this blog http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2012/09/30/weekend-diversion-a-story-to-tell/
Read it.
And confine your anti-science comments to that page.
#349 Wow
October 17, 2012

“although coming from a geochemist”

?
#350 Geologist
October 17, 2012

I’m sorry, I just assumed you have a PhD in geochemistry based on your extensive knowledge on climate change modeling accuracy. Excuse me for my mistake- maybe you are just still working on that PhD. Close enough I suppose.
#351 Wow
October 18, 2012

Climate change science isn’t done as geochemistry, you idiot.
#352 Geologist
October 18, 2012

Sadly, I have to at least give you the benefit of the doubt on this one, although you have still lost a substantial amount of credibility. You are correct in that climate science is not actively done as geochemistry per se, however much of what we know about climate change, particularly in connection with paleoclimatology, comes from our understanding of isotopic ratio studies done in the realm of geochemistry. Any geologist who truly wants to be an expert in climate sciences, would do well with a degree or two in geochemistry. I’m being rather generous on this one and I recommend you at least do research before you make such definitive statement followed by a terribly childish, defense-induced insult.
#353 Wow
October 18, 2012

I’m not a geologist either.

Mind you, neither are you, are you.

PS here’s a start to some research for you:

http://www.ipcc.ch
#354 Geologist
October 18, 2012

I think that your dogmatic approach to climate change is blinding you from my overarching point. I’m merely saying that as far as climate change science is concerned, we still have a lot to learn, particularly with respect to geochemical cycles. In geology, it is taught that the present is key to the past, but with respect to climatology, much of what we know about modeling comes from paleoclimatology (i.e. geochemical cycles in the rock/ice record). My point is that when approaching climate change, it isn’t always just about whether or not we are heating up, but it has more to do with the big picture concerning every facet of the problem outside of just CO2 emissions, such as Milankovich cycles, various feedback scenarios, oceanic gas exchanges, etc. Once again, we don’t really know what is going to happen, nor do we fully understand what is currently going on, thus I have a problem with such definitive statements similar to things like “climate change science is pretty well understood”. If you remember or look back, this is my original point that you took issue with. As with respect to research, IPCC is certainly respected, but I still prefer going to scientific journal databases to acquire primary research on vital topics such as isotopic variation in the geologic record.
#355 Wow
October 18, 2012

So you’d prefer a less dogmatic approach to the summation of one and one together, huh?

How about a less dogmatic approach to how much we know about climate and therefore less of the “when people say that the science regarding global warming is pretty well understood, they are terribly mistaken”?

How about that?

“but I still prefer going to scientific journal databases to acquire primary research”

You haven’t read the IPCC reports, have you.

Right at the end of each chapter, they give a long list of the primary research.

If you’d bothered to look, you would have found it.

But you’re afraid and ignorant.
#356 Geologist
October 18, 2012

You continue to, as you have done throughout so many comments, completely dance around what I have said. With respect to the IPCC reports, I am capapable of understanding that they cite primary research. Yet again, you missed the point entirely- I prefer to directly to the primary research because this is how scholarly research is done, something you seem unfamiliar with.Likewise, you attack my use of the word dogmatic. However, the point is that dogmatic approaches to science are slippery slopes and deserving of criticism, particularly when someone such as yourself becomes so overwhelmed by this attitude. There’s nothing wrong with saying that climate science is in need of improvement, particularly in the public eye, yet you seem perplexed by this attitude.
#357 Wow
October 18, 2012

How can I dance round what you say when you say nothing other than to display your pride in your personal ignorance?

You’re another denialist nutjob I guess. Bugger off.
#358 Geologist
October 18, 2012

There you go again. What exactly am I denying?
#359 Geologist
October 18, 2012

Please note that I tried to keep it simple, so maybe you actually respond accordingly. Oh wait, I haven’t lost you again have I? I don’t want to overwhelm you again
#360 OKThen
Geologist- 2nd WARNING, Please go to the COMMENT POLICY page NOW
October 18, 2012

Geologist
This is your second WARNING, Please go to the COMMENT POLICY page NOW

Your comments are psuedoscience and hence off-
topic.

The comment policy page is here:
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2012/09/23/weekend-diversion-you-are-responsible-for-what-you-say/

Please read the Comment Policy page, and then
Please continue you comments on the Comment Policy page only!!
This is the policy of this blog.
#361 Ethan
October 18, 2012

Geologist,

I am Ethan and this is my blog. You have been asked to move your climate science discussion to the appropriate page in accordance with the blog’s comment policy; please do not continue to post on this thread or I will have no choice but to revoke your comment privileges here.
#362 Geologist
October 18, 2012

I understand your concern Ethan and do not wish to completely disregard your comment policy. However if your concerns are specific to my comments with Wow, then I would appreciate if you are at least able to recognize that he was the only one to resort to name calling (amongst other indiscretions)- the highest violation laid out in your policy. Although it is just about all I have left in this world, feel free to revoke my sacred comment privileges on this site, in all its scientific credibility glory. If I were to have one last request before my impending comment cripliztion
#363 Geologist
October 18, 2012

I understand your concern Ethan and do not wish to completely disregard your comment policy. However if your concerns are specific to my comments with Wow, then I would appreciate if you are at least able to recognize that he was the only one to resort to name calling (amongst other indiscretions)- the highest violation laid out in your policy. Although it is just about all I have left in this world, feel free to revoke my sacred comment privileges on this site, in all its scientific credibility glory. If I were to have one last request before my impending comment castration, it would be for yourself, Wow, and Okthen to at least lay out a well compiled refute of my comments, which as far as I can tell, tend to lay within the scope of the article, particularly relative to Wow’s irate comments plagued throughout the comment section.

Also, sorry about the preceding unintentional comment- my computer skills and overall intelligence are not as remarkable as your own. Good luck in your quest to uncover the truth behind climate change science, for you, are our only hope.
#364 Vince Whirlwind
October 18, 2012

Geologist, sarcasm is a poor smokescreen for your non-factual statements.

There has not been a recent long-term warming trend on the scale of thousands of years.
Quite the opposite:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png

Your various contentions here seem irrelevant to the topic of this article, (which is about deliberately deceptive behaviour by climate-change misinformers), however, the fact you feel the need to mislead within your arguments is a good demonstration of the fraud this article discusses.

You needn’t be worried about “comment castration” if you just put some work into leaving the lies out of your comments. Should be easy – Wow’s given you links to the IPCC reports for you to refer to.
#365 Wow
October 19, 2012

Well, some news about the media getting at least a little cheesed off with radio jocks making up any old crap on the airwaves:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/oct/19/climate-change-facts-journalism

Whether it does any good remains to be seen.
#366 Geologist
October 20, 2012

Vince Whirlwind, I’m sure I’m the only one who has slightly strayed from the main topic (sorry about the sarcasm, I know it upsets you) and apologize (deeply, might I add) for such terrible misbehavior. I would like to point out that when I said we have been warming for the past 12,000 yrs, I merely meant to point out the significance of the interglacial period and the relative warming period when compared to climate 12000+ yrs ago. I know this is difficult for you to understand, but as far as geology is concerned, we consider these changes over much longer periods of time, far more than 12000 yrs- I’m sorry I was not so prudent with my previous statement. Also, for the last time, I don’t really give a damn about the IPCC reports. There are far better primary sources available through university networks. I care about the science behind climate change and the research that has led us to believe what we do now- IPCC reports are for the scientifically illiterate who want the answer and not the question.
#367 Wow
October 21, 2012

“I would like to point out that when I said we have been warming for the past 12,000 yrs, ”

YOU WERE LYING.

I know that reality is a problem for you deniers, but the truth is you lied.

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