Tom Fuller

In the previous thread (sorry for interrupting the discussion) we managed to exchange lots of points without ever mentioning Climate Audit. You keep asking me to talk about proxies, principal component analysis, etc., and yet this has been written about to a great extent over at CA.

I have the suspicion that most of you have visited there. I see no point in either linking or pasting from there. If you don't accept McIntyre because of his provenance or current standing, just say so. We'll disagree and we can start talking about something else.

However, he explains to my satisfaction the following issues with Mann, Steig, Briffa, Rahmstorff and Kauffman

Sample selection
Proper and improper use of principal component analysis
Reading the 'warning labels' on proxies--if the originator of a proxy series says they should not be used as temperature proxies, believe her/him.
Inverting one datum in a linked series ala Tiljander
Why making data available freely and openly is conducive to better science
Why no peer review might be better than incestuous groupings of friends and associates
Why truncating a temperature series based on varve thicknesses when human intervention destroys data integrity is preferable to producing a series that destroys the validity of an entire study

Or, of course, you can pretend that this is all new to you...

Funny how Tom Fuller digs himself deeper into the hole he dug himself. You're acting as if McIntyre's criticism is 100% right. Perhaps you can start reading the following (it's a blog, but with many direct links to the original science), in which a certain Steve McIntyre is caught on his errors and false criticism:
http://deepclimate.org/2009/10/30/briffa-teaches-but-will-mcintyre-ever…

Perhaps Tom Fuller can also tell us where his evidence his that peer review of climate papers is done by "incestuous groupings of friends". I sure hope you do not refer to the Wegman report, because that was an embarrassment to science.

are you trying to tell us, that "climate audit" is the "middle ground" on climate science?

why did you not respond to Tim's quote of your own words? it is obvious that you belief that climate scientists are "frauds" ("distorted the truth").

8. I believe that both temperatures and CO2 concentrations have been higher in the past, and that the Medieval Warming Period (and the Roman Warming Period and the Holocene Optimum) were warmer than today.

shouldn t your beliefs be based on facts? even the [Loehle graph](http://www.klimadebat.dk/forum/vedhaeftninger/loehle_fig3.jpg) contradicts your believe. (that graph ends in 1935. adding the warming since then, averaged over 29 years, gives similar temperatures to the MWP in 1992. and it is warmer than that "today".)

apart from that, the examiner poll is obvious fraud. this is the only non-sceptic answer:

I believe global warming is the crisis of this generation, and should be the highest priority for policy makers right now.

all other answers accuse scientists of being pretty completely wrong or frauds.

but i am sure that Tom fuller will correct this problem with the poll, or at least defend the choice of replies.

Inhofe's a big fan of Climate Audit as well. Are you *trying* to make my case for me?

If we want to talk middle ground, let start with some premier scientist. Who is the middle ground between James Hansen and James Lovelock?

Tom, you seem to continue to direct your responses away from [Dave's questions](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/10/dubner_falsely_claims_that_oce…). Why is that?

Fuller first came to my attention with his role in publicizing the so-called suppression of EPA economist Alan Carlin. Of course, Carlin's report turned out to be contrarian talking points, much of it cut-and-paste job from World Climate Report.

http://deepclimate.org/2009/06/30/suppressed-carlin-report-based-on-pat…

Question for Fuller (and everyone else): Ever wonder how a guy who copied every graph in his report from the blogosphere could produce those two snazzy graphs for his interview with Glenn Beck on Fox? Answer: He didn't. Who did? Stay tuned.

#2: Read it. Doesn't change my views.
#3. Not trying to say anything about where Climate Audit is on a spectrum of opinions.
#4. Guilt by association doesn't bother me. Didn't bother Nancy Pelosi when she joined Inhofe to lower energy consumption in congressional buildings. If you want to class me with Inhofe, feel free. Feel blind.
#5. Middle ground. Hmm. Try Bart Verheggen--he doesn't agree with me, but he's an honest scientist. Unlike you people with your incantations from thousands of past dusty posts.
#6. Heaven forbid a reporter should umm, report. Why didn't I come to your attention when I interviewed Stephen Schneider? Were you too cocooned in your echo chamber to look outside?

You... people... are every day making it less possible to do something real about climate change. I shudder to think what a skeptic would do or say to you. You all are so one dimensional that any criticism of your magic guide is automatically skepticism, denialism, whatever the flavor of the month is for you. But hey--you can always play your DVD of The Day After Tomorrow again... and again...

Tom Fuller - "However, he explains to my satisfaction the following issues with Mann, Steig, Briffa, Rahmstorff and Kauffman"

I am sure that he does however how can you be sure the explanations he gives are accurate? Why is McIntyre more accurate or more trustworthy than than Mann et-al?

The rest of your answer seems to degenerate into the "victim" defence.

Finally McIntyre is a one trick pony. Even if MBH98 was found to be completely false, which it is not, it would not make one difference to the science of global warming and climate change. McIntyre's sole original aim was to inject doubt into the climate debate for his fossil fuel masters. This he has done really really well so now many lay people, like yourself, equate hockey stick is broken = global warming is wrong. As his former masters are now backing away from this position and seeing billions in green investment the only reason Steve keeps banging away seem to be some sort of weird obsession.

Peer review brought you quantum theory, relativity, germ theory of disease ..... need I go on? Why suddenly is peer review no good?

Does Tom Fuller have some kind of communication disorder?

The words are English but the way they are put together doesn't make much sense.

Tom Fuller.

You really do have a thing for pretty words, do you not?

Let me ask you two simple questions:

1) Do you accept the IPCC's summation of the state of climatological understanding?

2) What sensitivity to you ascribe to a doubling of atmospheric CO2?

And as a supplementary to the previous two questions...

...why?

As punishment for some unknown sins, I have debated CC issues on an obscure UK political site, (which I have now decided to leave), where the AGW contrarians again and again claim the hockey stick has been debunked. As implied in these discussions here, they also never mention the numerous new versions.

There may have been some questionable statistical practices in MBH98, but I take the view of NCR / NAS that any questionable analyses didnât significantly affect the result â i.e. late 20th C. warming was highly anomalous.

To any sensible outsider, Wegmanâs panel were simply US Republican / Libertarian shills and therefore their analyses politically biased.

i.e. Predetermined conclusion + cherry picked data = Bad science or

Predetermined conclusion + cherry picked data = perfect politics

Again, Iâve often wondered what detailed âproxiesâ the AGW deniers use to support their claims of MWP or Roman period warming (is it a situation that theyâll believe them when they apparently support their case?). It seems to me their claims are subjective such as âfarms on Greenland, grape-growing in Britain, and so on â but never an actual analysis of real proxies that has been substantiated by true peer-review.

I have found that, as they become more and more bound by their denialist bigotry, they become even more determined NOT to read reviews of the massive consensus of science in favour of AGW from all respected bodies â yet faithfully resort to quotes from WUWT or ClimateAudit.

So, come on Mr Fuller, answers Daveâs earlier questions in post #84 (not up to linking yet but will learn)

Aw heck, I can't resist: I seem to have the questioning bug.

Tom Fuller.

If your climate-science reality resides with folk:

[u]nlike you people with your incantations from thousands of past dusty posts

then there must be a massive, profoundly deep and far-reaching global conspiracy of professional scientists ignoring some apparently-suppressed body of 'real' fact, because the AGW proponents at Deltoid, RealClimate, Deep Climate, Open Mind, Greenfire, BraveNewClimate, Rabbet Run, and many other similar sites are reflecting the opinions, or indeed represent the opinions, of tens of thousands of such scientists.

As a hard-hitting professional journalist, who has previously been a professor of journalism, you must be in the process of penning the ground-breaking piece that will simultaneously reap for you the Bastiat, Eric Breindel, Worth Bingham, and Pulitzer prizes/awards.

It might even lead to a Peace Nobel when you quell the Great Global climatological Conspiracy wrought by this pernicious web of iniquitous power/money grabbing scientists...

> You... people... are every day making it less possible to do something real about climate change.

Why do you say that? Reading into this statement and your other comments you are basically making the argument of the false middle way, asserting that because there are different viewpoints, the solution must lie in a compromise partway between the extremes. This is logically unsound, makes false equivalence between the evidence for each viewpoint, and represents compromise as a political necessity rather than with any scientific foundation. Are you able to countenance the position that the IPCC assessment reports represent a reasonable compromise/middle ground between emerging research and well-supported science?

> I shudder to think what a skeptic would do or say to you. You all are so one dimensional that any criticism of your magic guide is automatically skepticism, denialism, whatever the flavor of the month is for you.

So far we've kept pretty well on the subject of MBH98 and your overreaching statement as to "hockey sticks" being "discredited". You have not managed to back up this sweeping statement with anything besides the non peer-reviewed Wegman report - which I might add is very far from "discrediting" MBH98 (let alone all the other subsequent reconstructions) no matter what the political grandstanding surrounding it might say. You seem to have fallen foul of hearing it so much you believe it must be true.

Pointing out that you make strong assertions without actually providing sufficient material to back up those assertions is, I would say, a valid exercise. Dismissing that as a one-dimensional reaction to criticism of some "magic guide" is merely a substanceless smear.

> But hey--you can always play your DVD of The Day After Tomorrow again... and again...

And you go on to disparage defence of the science by falsely associating rational reference to peer-reviewed papers with one of the most cretinous, hamfisted, science-mangling, doomsday shlock films hollywood has yet produced.

Tom, it has become quite transparent that you are dodging [this question](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/10/dubner_falsely_claims_that_oce…)
Youâve been asked it directly [four times](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/10/dubner_falsely_claims_that_oce…). Your [continual refusal ](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/11/tom_fuller_and_senator_inhofe.p…) to answer a question directly relevant to the credibility of your claims colours you as a source.

Once again Tom, are you dismissing all temperature hockey sticks, as the plural use of âhockey sticksâ leaves room for doubt. And if you are not dismissing all hockey sticks then the last ten years of multiple temperature reconstructions puts any errors of MBH 98 into perspective (i.e. more confirmation of results rather than discrediting).

If you choose to ignore this point, and continue (without addressing this critique)to so freely claim MBH98 were âdiscreditedâ rather than had minor errors, they that adds weights to Timâs critique of you as a source.

My two cents:
- I disagree with Tom Fuller on a lot of climate related issues. This includes his distrust of a sizeable segment of climate scientists. I think he mistakenly puts a lot more trust in blogs than in science and its practitioners.
- I agree with Tim Lambert on many climate related issues. But I disagree with the characterization of equaling Inhofe and Fuller. Inhofe is a die-hard denier of the most elementary facts. Fuller is not. He accepts a significantly water downed version of the scientific consensus. It is possible to have a constructive dialogue with him, on the science and on mitigation options. Both of these are more than Iâd ever expect from Inhofe (though in all fairness, I havenât tried to communicate with Inhofe either, so I actually donât know for sure). I donât think it is constructive to place someone in a category that is much more extreme than he actually is. At the very least it risks becoming a self fulfilling prophecy: He will probably walk away from this discussion with an even stronger view that the supporters of climate science are all rude extremists. To my mind, that is not helpful. We should strive for the opposite: Drawing people that are on the line closer to the scientific way of looking at the world.

I don't mind Fuller backpedaling - indeed, that's one of our goals - but he doesn't get to attack us in the process. That's what Levitt and Dubner either don't get or are pretending not to get, as well.

So far, the faux journalistic "Examiner" pay by views model has been a big zero for journalism, and Fuller has said a really long string of things about climate change all of which were false, most of which are defamatory of scientists, etc.

In sum, he's been worse than a typical blog troll, and if he wanted journalistic respect, he'd dig into all the people he sourced.

And Tim's been perfectly fair. Fuller's trying to follow Robert Ringer's "Winning by Intimidation" method, and to his surprise, he's losing.

Fuller - ask yourself why sane, scientifically educated people would want anything to do with you. When you can figure that out, you will probably be on the road to non-parasite status.

Bart,

I have some trouble seeing a significant amount of difference between someone who rejects all science findings on climate in favour of blogs and someone who rejects a signficant amount of the science in favour of blogs.

IMHO they do the same thing - failing to distinguish between claims regarding an issue and the facts regarding that issue.

> Reading into this statement and your other comments you are basically making the argument of the false middle way, asserting that because there are different viewpoints, the solution must lie in a compromise partway between the extremes

I've often used the following homily:

I want to kill you.

You don't want to be killed.

So do we compromise and I just break your legs?

Or, less violently, if someone thinks the earth is flat and someone thinks the earth is round, is the earth a saddle-shape?

Michael,
As you say yourself, itâs the difference between rejecting âallâ versus âa significant part ofâ the science. It is perhaps a gradual difference rather than a principal one, but an important one nevertheless. Especially when looking at it pragmatically, as in: How do we draw people that are on the line closer to the scientific way of looking at the world? Tom Fuller is amenable to a reasoned discussion. Pushing him further to the âdark sideâ by equating him with it does more damage than good.

> He will probably walk away from this discussion with an even stronger view that the supporters of climate science are all rude extremists.

He already HAD that view.

There's no "even stronger" about it, just like there's no "even more dead".

And how come, Bart, his slurs against Mann and all the IPCC scientists are not rude and extreme?

Is it because you yourself are Tom's sort of extremist coming along with "Oh, but I'm so even-handed, me" take of complete bull to avoid the implication?

Your one-sided view of extremism and rudeness does seem to engender this conclusion.

> Tom Fuller is amenable to a reasoned discussion.

> Posted by: Bart Verheggen

There is no evidence to support this assertion.

Mark, you sure are entertaining. I'm sure Fuller's name is hyphenated though.......Fuller - Shit.

I'm hoping that if discourse won't work, sarcasm has failed, then all we have left is scorn.

Maybe if they're embarrassed enough they'll think through BEFORE saying stuff.

And if that starts happening, the noise ratio should drop.

Bart,

> I donât think it is constructive to place someone in a category that is much more extreme than he actually is. At the very least it risks becoming a self fulfilling prophecy: He will probably walk away from this discussion with an even stronger view that the supporters of climate science are all rude extremists. To my mind, that is not helpful. We should strive for the opposite: Drawing people that are on the line closer to the scientific way of looking at the world.

I have a lot of sympathy with this viewpoint, and I'd hate to actually be guilty of shouting down someone who is genuinely asking questions and seeking knowledge.

I will admit that I am somewhat disillusioned - I have never once encountered a "skeptic" who had not already made up their mind with total conviction that they were in the main skeptical solely of AGW and that they would actively seek any material to support this prejudice. Likewise, I have never encountered someone who genuinely sits on the fence, and were then swayed by the preponderence of scientific evidence. I actually don't have the first clue what to do about this but the answer is not in accepting a *politically motivated* watering down of the scientific message that Fuller seems to be proposing. Yes it would be nice if we could all just get along, but when one cannot hide or disparage science in order to build a political consensus. Such things must be done in full possession of all available information, and stating that the case is weaker than it is, or that work has been discredited when it plainly has not is just wrong - and using such illogic as the basis for compromise can never be acceptable.

To my mind, there are four key questions surrounding AGW:

1. Is it happening?
2. What are the likely consequences?
3. What are the most effective courses of action to avert negative consequences?
4. To what extent will we take the action that is suggested?

Question 1 is scientific, is as settled as Evolutionary theory, and yet there is a massive amount of disinformation out there muddying even this basic knowledge.
Question 2 is scientific, is laid out in the IPCC summary reports in lowest-common-denominator form, and things are already looking worse than we thought.
Question 3 is scientific, is laid out in the IPCC summary reports in lowest-common-denominator form, and it is clear that drastic but acheivable measures are needed, and that this needn't be an economic or investment nightmare.
Question 4 is *political*, and can only be reached by accepting the evidence and findings laid out in the previous 3 steps. Tom Fuller seems to be skipping over some of the evidence, and is complaining that those who have not also leapt to the same conclusions he has are unwilling to reach a compromise on the political solution.

Mark,

I think your view of this is too black-and-white. An âeven strongerâ version of his views is definitely possible. His slurs against Mann, IPCC and RC are indeed rude and extreme, and Iâve called him out on these (perhaps too gently to your taste though): âYou seem to build some of your recent arguments very strongly on blog postings, coming from a certain direction. It sais very little about the science or the scientists you're criticizing. See eg this very insightful comment from Robert Grumbine about the scientific culture and the blog culture (which he describes as 'having a beer'): http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2009/07/02/cycles-projections-and-othe…
I guess it makes your last accusation moot. I donât know exactly though what you mean by me being âTom's sort of extremistâ. If anything, call me an extreme pacifist ;-)

As to your claim in 21, I guess it all comes down to your definition of a reasoned discussion. I started engaging with him on the RC thread bubkes
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/06/bubkes/

then at his website and over email, after which he appended his post with my full length reply
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-9111-SF-Environmental-Policy-Examine…

and invited me to write a guest post
http://www.examiner.com/x-9111-SF-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2009m8…

See my review of these events at my blog
http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2009/07/12/next-generation-ques… and subsequent two posts).

I have the impression that Fullerâs position on climate scientists hardened a lot after his experience at RC (from commenters; not the editors), though admittedly I havenât read much of his older posts. But it is something I strive to avoid.

I may disagree very strongly with his views, but it is possible to constructively engage with him in my experience. I donât see that happening with the Inhofeâs or Moranoâs of this world.

> I think your view of this is too black-and-white.

At least I have evidence to support it, Bart.

> I donât know exactly though what you mean by me being âTom's sort of extremistâ

It means you're liable to forgive his level of vitriol because you like his results if not his assumptions.

> I have the impression that Fullerâs position on climate scientists hardened a lot after his experience at RC

Then read back. It didn't take too long for people who replied "well, what about $THIS?" in support of AGW and the IPCC to be called "drinking the Al Gore Kool-aid" or hoodwinked. And just put out as if self-evident truth the same old codswallop that any cut-n-paste troll would have managed.

After THAT, he got short shrift from the commenters.

Hardly unwarranted.

Mark,

I'll grant that you have a point in how the RC discussion went.

But you're way off the mark suggesting that I like Tom Fuller's results or his assumptions. I made very clear that I strongly disagree with him on climate related matters and on his views of scientists. Read my blog or my comments elsewhere (including over at Tom's) if you don't believe me. Not everybody who disagrees with you on something is an outright denier, you know.

> But you're way off the mark suggesting that I like Tom Fuller's results or his assumptions.

I quote:

> But I disagree with the characterization of equaling Inhofe and Fuller. Inhofe is a die-hard denier of the most elementary facts. *Fuller is not*. _He accepts a significantly water downed version of the scientific consensus_.

You make a blanket assertion that fuller is not a doppel of Inholfe.

You think he's right in accepting a watered down version of the consensus. From this very thread he says:

> If you don't accept McIntyre because of his provenance or current standing, just say so.

But McIntrye is attempting to kill (not water down) the scientific consensus.

He's also a geologist. And his pal who co-wrote the paper is an economist.

Recently someone said that Stern shouldn't be considered knowledgeable because he's an economist not a scientist.

(note how they said "scientist" which covers a LOT of ground which has nothing to do with climate so they could get their geologist accepted)

So why should a geologist and economist be expected to be able to overturn the works of thousands of specialists in the field of climate science?

Yet fuller thinks they should.

Bart,

I suggest that you read Fuller's diatribe on Briffa carefully. It's a vicious attack on the integrity of Briffa and other climate scientists. I'll believe constructive dialogue with Fuller is possible, only after he issues a full and abject apology to Briffa and all the other scientists he has defamed. Fat chance of that though.

We have already spent too much money and interfered with the lives of too many people based on what now looks like a botched lab experiment that a student is trying to hide in his locker...

Keith Briffa and his fellow scientists have published a series of articles in scientific publications since 2000, all of them saying that warming is occurring faster than predicted, and all of them misusing statistical analysis and referring to data that they have resisted making available to others who would like to check their work.

http://www.examiner.com/x-9111-SF-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2009m9…

How can you take this guy seriously?

> Not everybody who disagrees with you on something is an outright denier, you know.

> Posted by: Bart Verheggen

You deny Tom is a nasty little toerag, Bart.

Dear commenters, please be polite.

Mark,
I wrote: "He accepts a significantly water downed version of the scientific consensus." That is not the same as he's right in doing so. But it does mean that he's in a different league than Inhofe is. Are you now trying to group me with Inhofe and Morano as well? If not, what are you trying to prove? That Fuller's position on the science is wrong? I'm fully aware of that already. All I'm saying is that there're different shades of grey/wrong here.

Let's review the bidding here:
Tim Lambert posts a comment on my website asking why I hate climate scientists.
He emails me asking me why I hate climate scientists and lambasting him for defending Roger Pielke Sr. I had written that Romm shouldn't hide behind Lambert's words when criticizing SuperFreakonomics.
I write an email to Lambert saying that I meant no personal offense. Here is the text:

Thank you for writing, if only to express your displeasure with my
column. While I tend to agree with Roger Pielke Jr.'s policy
positions, and have said so repeatedly at Examiner.com, I don't
believe I have endorsed any attacks on you. Perhaps you can point me
to the column where you find the language I used that you consider
objectionable.

I'm not trying to put you off--because I regularly criticize Joe
Romm's Climate Progress and Real Climate, I try to pay attention to
what I write about other sites. I suspect--and certainly hope--that
you are conflating my 'endorsement' of his policy positions with some
comments he made about your site--was this in regard to his recent
posts about SuperFreakonomics?

However, if your objection is to my agreeing with Pielke's policy
positions over yours, I most probably do--although I'm not quite as
familiar with your writings as I am with CP and RC.

I am happy to continue this discussion with you, and if I have in any
way endorsed personal attacks on you, I will apologise in the same
forum where they appeared, as well as personally in an email.

Lambert responds. I answer him again. Here is the text:

Thanks for continuing this discussion. I'll try to address your points
here, but let me preface this by saying I apologise if I caused you
offence. My comment in the article you linked to was addressing Romm's
behaviour in using your words to attack Pielke rather than his own,
not to the substance or style of what you wrote. Obviously, we have
differences in opinion on some aspects of climate change as an issue,
but I meant no personal criticism of you in what I wrote.

I agree with Pielke's description of the blogging food chain, and said
so. I would say it again. I've been blogging since 1999, and involved
in media since 1975, and Pielke's description seems extremely accurate
to me. What he didn't note is that this food chain effect, where
larger media players can influence smaller media players, is true
irrespective of ideology.

I knew when I wrote the last article you reference that it would look
like cherry picking, and you're absolutely right that with a little
digging I could have painted a reverse picture. But honestly, those
posts were at the top of the blogs when I looked at them. My overall
point, that I think the media covering climate change has undergone a
sea-change, where the skeptics are producing work challenging the
consensus view and those supporting the consensus are struggling a bit
on how to reply, is one that again I honestly believe. I have written
in other articles that this is predictable and the way both science
and science coverage tend to work, warning skeptics that they will
have bad weeks in both science and media coverage. Again, we seem
fated to disagree on this as well.

I would be pleased to continue this discussion as long as necessary
for both of us to be clear on what has happened.

I then come over here and post this comment:

Mr. Lambert,
Yesterday you commented on my article at http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-9111-SF-Environmental-Policy-Examine…
comparing me to Senator Inhofe. Might I ask why you feel that way? In several dozen of my pieces I have said that:
Global warming is real and a serious problem
I completely support President Obama's energy program
Perhaps you could point me to similar statements from Senator Inhofe.

I don't apologise for anything I have written. However, you do tend to ignore a lot of what I have said to concentrate on my criticism of your cultural heroes. Some of the things you have ignored:

I believe global warming is real and a serious problem. I believe we should take action now to try and forestall it. I fully support Barack Obama's energy plan.

It is my honest belief that starting with Mann 98 and extending up to the present day, flawed studies with inappropriate temperature proxies and even more flawed analysis techniques have distorted pictures of past temperatures and present trends. I believe this has contributed greatly to partisan opposition to effective action on climate change, as it gives Republicans something concrete to point to to justify their opposition to any change. I am deeply disgusted by the efforts of some AGW activists to continue shielding their eyes from the errors made in these studies and their real-world consequences.

For this, I get called Fuller shit and compared to James Inhofe.

Bart Verheggen, I deeply apologise for dragging you into this mess. I do hope you will not suffer from the same 'guilt by association' that readers (and apparently Tim Lambert) tend to use as a first order filter here.

For the rest of you, if you have any decency you won't tar Verheggen with the same brush you use on me. I mentioned him only as someone with whom it was possible to have an honest disagreement.

Frankly, I find this experience a bit nauseating. You may continue to use this to throw names at me if you wish. My participation in this farce ends here.

DeepClimate,
Admittedly I haven't read those. I stopped reading and commenting regularly over there, as the atmosphere created by the commenters became quite nasty (esp. the likes of Kim as I remember). The quote you give, and from what I occasionally still read there, indeed suggests that he's not on the fence anymore, but has slipped away to the anti-scientific side.
My take on McIâs role in this is here:
http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/mcintyres-role-in-th…

> While I tend to agree with Roger Pielke Jr.'s policy positions, and have said so repeatedly at Examiner.com,

> I don't believe I have endorsed any attacks on you

Why are these two in the same sentence, Tom?

The latter doesn't follow on from the former.

> It is my honest belief that starting with Mann 98 and extending up to the present day, flawed studies with inappropriate temperature proxies and even more flawed analysis techniques have distorted pictures of past temperatures and present trends.

But this isn't Religious Education, Tom. Belief doesn't cut it.

Got proof?

> I believe this has contributed greatly to partisan opposition to effective action on climate change, as it gives Republicans something concrete to point to to justify their opposition to any change.

Belief again, but at least it's not on science.

Why do you believe that the unproven accusation you have made would make the republicans think they have something concrete?

> For the rest of you, if you have any decency you won't tar Verheggen with the same brush you use on me

We don't.

I tar him with a different brush: unwarranted sympathizer.

> Frankly, I find this experience a bit nauseating.

We do too. Please stop with the sickening "I believe.." crud and get with the program: prove.

We're all just skeptical of your position and your espoused reasons for them.

You *like* skepticism, don't you?

So prove to us your hypothesis.

> as the atmosphere created by the commenters became quite nasty (esp. the likes of Kim as I remember)

cf grima, billy bob, ducky dave and el chumpo..?

While they are killing my nephews with their self-serving denial, why should I care if I "hurt their feelings"?

How about: all those who DO NOT believe there's a problem sign up to say that if anyone loses their home through flooding or drought they will give up their home for these people?

You know, put their money where their mouths are.

Tell you what, we could start with those who say there is now cooling and that all the trouble is over.

As things get worse, those who said "it's not CO2" get ousted.

Then work our way along those who think there is no problem.

Dave (24),

I very much agree with your points, and I too am often frustrated in dealing with the same old junk. The fact that I had a constructive dialogue with Tom, and that he posted my opinions as a guestpost on his site makes me think that indeed he is amenable to engage with different viewpoints, and hopefully, amenable to change his mind (in principle). Iâm not being naïve; Iâm just trying to minimize the damage.

Your key questions are very similar to those that I proposed:
- To what extent is climate change occurring, and to what extent is it man-made?
- To what extent is that (going to be) a problem?
- What can or should we do about it?
http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2009/08/19/my-next-generation-q…

Tom (33),
No apologies needed, I came here all by myself.

Mark,
At RC, John Burgy made a similar point as Iâm trying to make, and unsurprisingly, it was directed at you (assuming it's the same Mark): We should be careful that not â⦠more enemies are made than friends. Itâs like the war in Iraq â the claim was made by some that by engaging in that war we were making enemies faster than killing them.
The good stuff you sometimes post gets lost in the nasty packaging. Thatâs how I see it. Your mileage may differ.â
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/an-open-letter-to…

Mark (36),

My primary concern is not to do more damage than good by what I say or write. Perhaps you should be, too.

Secondary, I don't see any harm in being nice to people, no matter how wrong they are. There's more chance that they listen to me when I'm nice than when I'm nasty. Read or look at some Greg Craven for a great example on how to communicate constructively.
http://www.gregcraven.org/

Fuller claims in his comment above

>He emails me asking me why I hate climate scientists and lambasting him for defending Roger Pielke Sr. I had written that Romm shouldn't hide behind Lambert's words when criticizing SuperFreakonomics.

What he [actually did](http://www.examiner.com/x-9111-SF-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2009m1…) was endorse [Pielke's viscous and dishonest attack on me](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/10/pielke_pity_party.php)

>Pielke accurately described the food chain that climate and political bloggers work in. Romm's 3,500 word smear attempt, buttressed by Tim Lambert's efforts on Deltoid, is a clear admission that Romm cannot address Pielke's scientific stance (Has Romm ever published anything other than his weblog?), and so must resort to attacking Pielke.

My email said:

>I just came across your endorsement of Roger Pielke Jr's viscous and dishonest personal attack on me.

>Everything he wrote about me was false but you endorsed it because he's on your side. I think that climate science can help us learn the consequences of our current actions and your campaign against climate science and scientists is harmful. But I guess you don't care as long
as you get hits on your blog.

Fuller has posted his reply above, where he feigned ignorance of the post he made a few days earlier. My reply:

>Pielke Jr wrote a viscous and dishonest attack on me. I wasn't even going to bother responding but he was getting links from a a bunch of right wing blogs. So I wrote [this post](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/10/pielke_pity_party.php)

>Basically everything he wrote about me was false, for example:

>1) After complaining that DeLong and Romm don't link to his words when criticising him, he doesn't link to my words. Probably because he can't on account of his charges against me being fabrications.

>3a) Far from "carpet-bombing" the internet with references to my post about Pielke's botched Google search, I have never once referred to it.

>Then we come to [your cherry-picking post](http://www.examiner.com/x-9111-SF-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2009m1…)

>You pick posts from one side that are about the science and from the other side that aren't in order to make it look like the denialists are the only ones discussing the science. Of course, you could just as easily have made the comparison come out the other way with a different selection of posts. It's particularly egregious in the case of the reference to me, since I am responding to Pielke's nasty personal attack on me, which somehow doesn't appear on the other side of your list. And like Pielke, you don't like to my post so readers can see that you misrepresented it. (In what way is it an echo of Romm when I wrote mine first?)

>And then you endorse Pielke's dishonest attack on me: "Pielke accurately described the food chain that climate and political bloggers work in"

>And follow by parroting Pielke's line: "Tim Lambert's efforts on Deltoid, is a clear admission that Romm cannot address Pielke's scientific stance ".

>That's a severe logic fail. I didn't write anything about Pielke's published work in that post because I was responding to his personal attack on me which had nothing to do with his published work or mine. By the same logic Pielke's attack on me is a clear admission he cannot address my criticism of Superfreakonomics.

Tom Fuller.

You really do have a thing for lots and lots of pretty words, do you not?

I am still interested in reading your answers to [the questions](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/11/tom_fuller_and_senator_inhofe.p…) I asked, and to the [following-up](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/11/tom_fuller_and_senator_inhofe.p…) question about whether you feel that there is an organised conspiracy of scientists to obfuscate the truth (as you see it) about climate sensitivity to CO2.

Given that the simple answers to these question would provide the context for most of the perceived differences between yourself and others here, your unwillingness to respond to such pertinent points is the greater farce on this thread...

And however put-out you might feel by people not playing nicely, the science remains unchanged. If your opinions of the science are informed by the bullying of those pushed beyond exasperation by your weasle words, this says more about your ideology and politics than it does about the same science.

That's the thing about science - if it's done correctly, it stands independent of those who produce it and/or who digest it.

Your petulance reflects only upon you, and not on the science at hand.

#34 Bart

I'm well aware of your fine work, of course. That's why I was surprised at your defence of Fuller. I figured you hadn't kept up to date with him. (I don't either, but I do use Google Alerts).

I gotta say, the juxtaposition of the end of Fuller's #33, followed by the scales falling from your eyses in #34 is a pretty delicious irony:

Fuller:

Bart Verheggen, I deeply apologise for dragging you into this mess. I do hope you will not suffer from the same 'guilt by association' that readers (and apparently Tim Lambert) tend to use as a first order filter here.

...
Bart:

The quote you give, and from what I occasionally still read there, indeed suggests that he's not on the fence anymore, but has slipped away to the anti-scientific side.

Tom,

>Frankly, I find this experience a bit nauseating. You may continue to use this to throw names at me if you wish. My participation in this farce ends here.

Frankly, I think you need to grow a pair.

>Georgy Porgy pudding and pie

>Kissed the girls and made them cry.

>When the boys came out to play,

>Georgy porgy ran away.

By focusing on perceived insults and avoiding substantive questions you demonstrate your lack of commitment to honest dialogue, and instead an over-weening egotism and willful exercise of passive aggressive manipulation.

I would suggest your non-discerning presumption of the 'middle ground' doesn't make you exactly the same as Morano/Inhofe, et al., but rather, like McIntyre and Pielke Jr., a co-dependent enabler of their psychopathic obsession.

Dear readers, please don't let Fuller wind you up. He really wants to portray us as an angry mob, so don't help him.

And while Fuller isn't open to persuasion, others who read your comment might be.

Tom says:

Let's review the bidding ...

Guess who has virtually trademarked that phrase - none other than Fuller's hero.

http://www.google.ca/#hl=en&source=hp&q=site%3Aclimateaudit.org+"review+the+bidding"

223 hits and counting!

If Tom's not careful, he'll get accused of plagiarism. Oh, sorry, that's an accusation reserved only for climate scientists.

http://deepclimate.org/2009/08/14/dropping-the-p-bomb/

Deep Climate,

I objected to the claim that Fuller was somehow similar to Inhofe in his views. I didnât think he is, and I still donât. Note that thatâs not the same as defending his views; I absolutely donât.

My points were twofold:
- There are different shades of wrong, and in that respect, Fuller is made of different wood than Morano/Inhofe.
- In our communication, we should strive to remain respectful. It is more constructive, and more effective in reaching our goal: increasing (climate) science mindedness in people.

Re the first, Fullerâs statements about hockeystick stuff definitely get on my nerves; theyâre way over the top. But he makes a lot of other statements that make clear heâs not as far removed from reality as Inhofe and his ilk are. You can focus on his worst or on his best statements, but overall, there are many out there who are far worse than he is in terms of science-bashing. Iâll repeat, that does not mean that I agree with his views on global warming. I clearly donât.

> My points were twofold: - There are different shades of wrong,

Like 2+2=5 is wrong but 2+2=54,439 is more wrong?

> But he makes a lot of other statements that make clear heâs not as far removed from reality as Inhofe and his ilk are

Let him show it then. Maybe he's as far removed as Inhofe is *but in different places*.

We remain skeptical of Tom's point of view being near the truth. And a miss is as good as a mile when it comes to planetary security...

> My primary concern is not to do more damage than good by what I say or write. Perhaps you should be, too.

All that is required for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Do you think the bacteria growing in your toilet *like* the bleach that kills them? Should we spare the bleach because they cry if we listen?

> Dear readers, please don't let Fuller wind you up.

This is where I have an advantage: as far as many are concerned, I'm already pre-wound-up.

:-)

> He really wants to portray us as an angry mob, so don't help him.

I'm fairly sure that Latif figured the same when he said that cooling of maybe a decade is not unusual. He probably figured that people would say what he said in the way he said it.

Tom was liable to call any pro-IPCC respondents as ill-mannered louts, as evidenced by his lack of censure at the loutishness of many posters at WUWT and CA.

Watch.

My bet is he's going to say we're all a vicious mob apart from one or two who listen to reason (note: he's defining reason as "the reason I'm giving" not any independently verifiable reason). Both overstating the case and attempting to take the moral high ground by parsimonious acceptance that maybe not all 100% pro-IPCC are bad.

It was, pretty much, a foregone conclusion.

Bart:

I agree with you that there are definitely different shades of wrong, and that there ideally should be politeness in discourse about science and policy issues. I have to say, however, that Fuller's behavior in dealing with scientists at RC (as mentioned by Mark in #26), and past articles in his blog puts him firmly in the same room as the Inhofe & Morano types, especially in terms of misleading and confusing the American public.

If anything, the only substantial difference between Fuller and Inhofe is that the latter actually DOES have a vote in national policy; Fuller is a mere gadfly, but an annoying one at that.

Shorter Tom Fuller:

> I'd believe your science if you weren't so *horrible* to me!

Did I miss anything?

P.S. It appears the rats are abandoning ship: http://climateprogress.org/2009/11/02/competitive-enterprise-institute-…

> Did I miss anything?

Apparently not, David...

A couple of cents after the horse has escaped, to mix a cliche or two.

The useful response route Tim took vs. Fuller was to lay out exactly what Fuller had been doing. Anybody, regardless of what they think of either person, can go read full details on the facts.

In the comments, instead, I see a lot of attacking Fuller personally. That's garbage. If his science were awful, which you are saying it is, the best refutation is to cite his abuse, and then the real science. Simply attacking him personally is drivel. If anything, it makes it look like either you don't care about the science yourself, or that he got the science right and you can't respond on merit. One of my shortcuts for dealing with arguments is to look at the nature of the evidence being presented. If you attack the person instead, it tells me you don't have the science behind you.

It's a variant on a law joke: "If the law is against you, pound the evidence. If the evidence is against you, pound the law. If both are against you, pound the table." You're pounding the table a lot.

And, speaking as someone who does know a fair amount of the science, the main line of comments annoys me in a different way. There is a ton of good science out there to be referring to. Why are you passing up the chance to show how wrong Fuller is by pointing to that good science? If he's so generally wrong (not just about 'hockey stick', but all the rest of climate science), then the absolute best thing is to show it, not just assert it.

A different line common in comments is a sort of evangelical absolutism, that if someone is not absolutely correct in all things, they are indistinguishable from someone absolutely wrong in all things climate (e.g. Inhofe). That can do well for your church meetings, but for more general settings, it doesn't work well at all. The person saying 2+2 = 5 is quite different from the one saying 2+2 = 54,439. The latter is hopelessly far from the truth. The former is, as we said in my undergraduate days, correct for large values of 2 and small values of 5. 2+2 = 5 is someone who at least has recognized that when you add two small numbers you get another small number. 2+2 = 54,439 is in to la-la land of the answer being whatever they feel like. The former is reality based, perhaps just misinformed or under-informed.

To the extent that someone is mis- or under-informed, you can do something about that yourself quite readily -- start providing the information. If, instead, you provide personal attack, the neutral reader is liable to conclude that you don't have information on your side.

My opinion. A thought perhaps to consider. Personal attacks will be blithely ignored.

For more information on climate, I'll suggest my blog. Low volume, and occasionally (like today) straying afield. But Tuesday we get back to climate. In particular, why trace gases really do matter.

Bart and Robert, I've appreciated your contributions here. Very thoughtful and readable.

Thanks.

Fuller is interesting because of the niche he is trying to fill and his links not because of any science. To an extent it depends whether you view climate issues as political, educational or scientific.

Mr. Fuller once took issue with a post of mine, on somewhat similar grounds.

I thought it was kind of nice that he bothered to respond to a z-list blogger like myself. Whether he actually engaged with my argument, I'll let posterity decide.

Bart, Robert, and Mark Byrne, thank you all for your contributions here. Readable and sane.

This windup to December's climate meeting reminds me a lot of something that happened fairly often in the last few years of the 1960s, when the Quakers and Catholics were holding peaceful antiwar demonstrations, facing off usually city or state police. And those of us who worried about provocation were usually standing behind the pacificist protesters -- facing away from them, watching for and running off the nitwits whose idea of appropriate protest was to run up behind the pacifists and throw a brick or bottle over their heads into the police lines, hoping to provoke a police charge.

It happened all the time. They thought they were revolutionaries. Maybe they were. I thought they were disruptors eager to get other people into needless fights.

Yes, people can be utterly antithetical in what they believe and still talk to each other. Yes, it's damnably easy to provoke people out of the limited space in which civility is achievable.

Civility is what we have to maintain while we disagree, even on matters of life and death and peace and war -- if we want a civilization after this disagreement passes into history.

------
Tim made a beautiful word choice above, he referred to:

> Roger Pielke Jr's viscous and dishonest personal attack

Viscous. Sticky. Like giving offense in a way that provokes you to attack, and get stuck in the sticky stuff.

Think about it, folks, it's a proverb from many cultures; the American Indian and African-American versions are commonly called the 'tar baby' story.

"If you don't show me more respect, I'm going to whap you."
But tar baby didn't say nothin', and br'er fox he just grin.

-----

People want to blow off, abuse, call names. Well, and do it with their typewriter fingers. Most communication is nonverbal. The feelings you get when you read ASCII are almost certainly your own.

Others come along and read this later. Remember the readers, later.

Fuller:

It is my honest belief that starting with Mann 98 and extending UP TO THE PRESENT DAY, flawed studies with ... even more flawed analysis techniques

This is the part that is so plainly dishonest. Even if a purportedly flawed analysis technique (decentred PCA) was used more than 10 years ago, that says absolutely nothing about methods used since then which strangely attract no criticism of any substance.

Anyone who says that analysis techniques up to the present day are flawed simply on the basis that one technique used more than 10 years ago was, is jumping to a completely unjustified conclusion and thus destroys their credibility.

I took the survey. Fuller was despairing that too many responders were from the skeptical side of the discussion, and not enough from the scientific side. As he said:

"I'd also like to express my regrets that some of the websites I invited to link to the survey chose not to. I think the opinions of their readers would have been a valuable addition to the results, and I do hope some of them managed to find their way here without a link."

Well, if properly weighted, then my opinions could balance a large number of the by-the-numbers skeptical responders. Becuz I knows I didn't agree with very many of 'em.

Mr. Fuller; if you're reading this, feel free to find my email address and write me back for some more insight. You've already heard from Verheggen; I'll give you an email-ful of scientifically-based actuality. I've been roundly criticized for years for being too darned honest with politically conservative climate change skeptics. Sometimes I was told I hurt their poor little feelings because I told them they failed the dunce test in climate change class. But I was always nice about it; can't say the same for them. If you think what happened to you here was rough; friend, you haven't seen NOTHING like what happens when the roles are reversed. Fortunately all my local debating society comrades are my drinking buddies, and we drink AFTER the arguments are done for the day. Which is a good thing because otherwise we'd probably come to blows. (My county went 55% Bush, 45% Gore in 2000, so we're fair and balanced. Hah-hah!)

Bart,
Well, I agree that Fuller is not as bad as Inhofe, but that's setting the bar pretty low.

My main contribution here (#6) was to point out that Fuller's "reporting" on the "suppression" of Alan Carlin was nonsense. The facts are clear in that case and no amount of spin masquerading as journalism can change them.

It would be nice to sit around and "discuss the science" calmly and rationally. But there are well-paid PR professionals who are foisting bogus science on the public in a concerted effort to derail meaningful action on climate change. Should they not be exposed and stopped, if possible? And when they manage to get a blogger like Tom Fuller to spout their contrarian nonsense, should we not speak out?

Here's a sample of Fuller's "reporting":

The source also saw Carlin's report and said that it was 'based on 8 points of peer-reviewed, recent and relevant scientific publications' that cast doubt on the wisdom of regulating CO2 as a pollutant.

That was a crock. You know it. I know it. Apparently Tom Fuller doesn't. Do you really think you can engage him and make him see the error of his ways?

Of course things could be worse.

Folks here are consistnetly comporting themselves in accordance with complete awareness of all Internet traditions.

If we were acting like journalists, things could get dicier:
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2009/11/02/allen-v-ro…

Deep, there may well be no hope Tom Fuller will tone down his excursions, but remember he's in a business that pays per reader click on the website. He needs to draw controversy.

There may well be hope people reading conversations outside that ambit will be interested in learning about the science.

And there will _certainly_ be people more interested in learning about the science, and learning about people like Bob Grumbine's work teaching science, than in opinions. Anyone's.
As he points out, _teaching_opportunities_ abound.

If we can only use them instead of venting spleen.

Nobody said it was going to be easy to teach science with crap artists in the classroom. Aren't you glad you're not teaching 9th grade these days? They could be within reach. Here, they're just people trying to disrupt the conversation.

Test question: what do you think about chlorofluorocarbons and the ozone layer:

-- proven science,

-- government intrusion,

-- socialist conspiracy, or

-- deadly menace to freedom?

Please pick the one that best represents YOUR opinion.

Let me make a bold statement - the whole "Examiner.com" model is completely unsound. It didn't develop out of anything, it's a contract for publicity and pay by the impression system that has nothing to do with newspapers or journalism and up front has people writing who buy into an Amway model. Mr. Fuller is fairly typical, if a bit more right-wing than the average.

It strikes me that this is the ultimate no accountability no such thing as bad publicity system. Any attention paid to an examiner.com is basically a win for it.

"In the comments, instead, I see a lot of attacking Fuller personally. That's garbage." Actually, that's garbage, Robert. I completely disagree. Fuller's only goal is to insult one set of people and lie to another set. That's a personal choice of his, made freely, for one thing.

Secondly, that personal quality - being a paid liar and attack dog of the two-faced concern troll, only partly plausibly deniable variety - happens to be the only salient point of his writing. There's never been, and won't be, even a single solitary point of scientific interest.

How many of these bogus hydra-headed outlets for the centralized talking point spam are we supposed to give how much respect, again?

I'd like to submit this category of blog entries to peer review, whether by Tim Lambert, or others.

http://circleh.wordpress.com/category/scientific/global-warming/

Happy reading!

Hank,
#61
I'm afraid I find that a little oblique. What is the teaching opportunity that is being missed right here, right now? Show us the way.

Sure. Look just up the thread, and read what Robert Grumbine wrote there.

I'm not claiming it will save the world.

Something has to. My bet's on science education.

Robert, Hank, both very insightful contributions, thanks.

Deep C, you ask: âShould they not be exposed and stopped, if possible?â (with their effort to derail meaningful action on climate change.)
Yes, they definitely should. My arguments here concern what tactics are best to use for that purpose. Shouting and name-calling is counterproductive. They make the opposition stronger, since they can use it to paint us black. If we want to make a difference, we should think much more strategically. And just like those denying basic science should get out of the way to let us try to tackle the problems, those that are throwing bottles over our heads (to use Hankâs analogy) should get out of our way as well, since their actions, even though sincere, are sabotaging our efforts.
Regarding engaging Tom Fuller. I think I managed to engage him on occasion. He took my arguments seriously (though wasnât entirely swayed by them either, of course. You can only expect so much). He has recommended his readers to go read my blog, even though I am defending the scientific consensus that he doesnât think very highly of. If big steps are out of our reach, then take small steps instead. But keep walking.

Bart,

> Shouting and name-calling is counterproductive.

I'd second that. However, it is also counterproductive of Tom Fuller to completely disregard the pertinent and direct questions that actually have been put to him in a polite manner. It is hard not to see him as using the abuse as an excuse to avoid difficult questions. Personally - never having consciously registered his name before now - I am disappointed that there was no genuine engagement, and disappointed that he was provided with an easy excuse to wriggle out of providing answers while claiming the moral high ground.

I actually understand the comparison to Inhofe now, and do actually agree with it. Fuller is taking a position that accepts *some* of the science, and claims it represents the balanced "middle way". This is not so very different to Inhofe, in spite of the more extreme views he holds.

Also, while one can be incorrect to different degrees (witness Girma Orssengo and his fractal wrongness), I actually find the insidious nature of Fuller's position more concerning than the rabid anti-science of Inhofe. While he accepts the basic thrust that there is anthropogenic global warming, he frames it in such a way that it comes across as a tactic to force concessions *away* from the scientific position - ie "*I've* said that the earth is warming, now its *your* turn to accept that the hockey stick is discredited, and your failure to do so is because you are an inflexible extremist and your actions *damage* any possible political consensus.". It concerns me because despite being logically unsound it is appealing to those who believe themselves to be moderates - the "fair and balanced" fallacy, if you will.

I just have to stress once again - the idea of the even handed moderate middle is a political or philosophical notion that has no real place in scientific discourse. Do we split the difference between evolution and creationism?

Dave (68),
You make some very good points. Tomâs disregarding of question was not constructive. You then say: âIt is hard not to see him as using the abuse as an excuse to avoid difficult questions.â My point exactly. Thatâs why we should strive not to give him such an easy excuse.
Tom indeed seems to be appealing to a âfair and balancedâ fallacy, whether consciously or not. Thatâs something to be aware of. Even then, him repeating often to a very backwards thinking audience that he accepts that the globe has warmed and that humans play a role in that warming is a good thing.

Tim L,

Apologies if you've made a definitive statement previously but can you confirm that you believe the Hockey Stick is a correct representation of the temperature record and that the science underpinning it is sound?

Jack Lacton, why would Tim require to assert this?

He'd only have to assert that the NAS among (last count) 32 other national science bodies agree that the hockey stick is sound.

If Tim didn't believe it, he'd be countering the knowledge of thousands of science's biggest names.

> However, it is also counterproductive of Tom Fuller to completely disregard the pertinent and direct questions that actually have been put to him in a polite manner.

It is also counterproductive to ignore or disregard the pertinent and direct questions that have been put towards you in an *impolite* manner.

"Get out of the FUCKING WAY!!!" should not be ignored because of the swearing. Acknowledging that someone may be unable to stop in a vehicle and you may be killed would be appropriate and THEN you can whinge about how rude they were AFTER your life is no longer in danger.

Or you can go all ultra-prude and find out that someone seeing you walking in front of an out of control speeding electric car doesn't ask politely and get killed.

Which is the *reasonable* option here?

> he frames it in such a way that it comes across as a tactic to force concessions away from the scientific position - ie "I've said that the earth is warming, now its your turn to accept that the hockey stick is discredited, and your failure to do so is because you are an inflexible extremist and your actions damage any possible political consensus."

Aye.

Me: I'm Gonna KILL YOU!!
You: No don't, you maniac!
Me: OK, I'll not kill you but because I've backed down, you have to let me slap you silly all day
You: Noooo!
Me: Well obviously you're not willing to compromise and therefore YOU are the maniac. STAB.

> Civility is what we have to maintain while we disagree, even on matters of life and death and peace and war -- if we want a civilization after this disagreement passes into history.

Note the "we".

Civility is wasted on those who use it as a shield but not as their guide.

We loathe those who use women and children as a meat shield for a reason.

Using civility in the same way is not as morally bad but just as unjustified.

> In the comments, instead, I see a lot of attacking Fuller personally

Examples, please.

NOTE: "Personal attacks" with proper attribution are not personal attacks if they are also relevant to the current discussion.

I.e. if someone is talking about "hollywood accounting" and someone brings up the past history of corporate fraud on someone who says that the accounting methods are completely moral and right, this is not a personal attack. It shows how their word is biased.

Etc.

PS a lot of people here attack me as being mean and abusive.

Is this not also a personal attack, Rob?

Difference is I take responsibility for my actions and don't go crying to mommy about the big bad bully.

I DO ask "why is it wrong for me to do this when it's not wrong for them?"

Do you know, I've never gotten an answer. Always avoided the question no matter how many times asked. It seems that their answer is the same as the one that doesn't let them rail on me:

> It's OK to be rude and nasty to those who are rude and nasty

because they'd like to add the corollary

> Unless it's mark, who isn't allowed to be rude and nasty to anyone

Just for the rest of us, Jack, exactly which [hockey stick](http://www.pnas.org/content/105/36/13252/F3.large.jpg) are you talking about here?

Mark, you say "I take responsibility for my actions".
Please do. Get out of the way of those trying to get things changed for the better, and go yelling at the walls of your basement if it makes you feel good. Have fun.

You're not the boss of me, Bart.

So with all due respect, piss off.

Mark, dude, wanna have a beer?

A real one, Bart? One where you don't drink it ice cold because you want to taste it?

I'd love to.

Probably in the wrong country, mind, but thanks for the offer.

NOTE: I don't hate the person except with a few exceptions, I hate the argument because they're terrible arguments that don't stand up to a second thought.

PS I don't think you have the right "moderate" either.

The "middle ground" isn't between Inholfe and the IPCC as Tom wants to paint it, it's between the nutters who think that AGW is a complete fabrication and the nutters who think humans are an infestation of this planet and must be destroyed.

And there lies the IPCC: in the moderate.

PS a lot of people here attack me as being mean and abusive.
Is this not also a personal attack, Rob?

It's also a statement of fact.

I enjoyed your post where you stated, "I don't get invited to many parties".

True, I'm sure. Nor much else.

> It's also a statement of fact.

It's also a statement of fact that you're even worse than me, dog.

It's also a statement of fact that you adhere to many of the tactics of denialists to avoid being seen as wrong. You *loathe* being seen as wrong.

Mark (81), Glad to see common ground after all. I totally agree with you here (except perhaps that I like my beer really cold).

Regarding the IPCC as being the middle ground, over at the Examiner (right after Tim L) I wrote:

âNaturally, everyone is trying to place themselves in the 'middle ground' by pointing out others who are on either side of them.

However, if you're talking about the middle ground of climate science, I think the IPCC reports are by their nature the closest to what climate science has to say about the topic of climate change. Those reports review the very broad body of literature, and as such you prevent the viewpoint of one person tainting the image too much. I'd say the technical summary (or else the SPM or the FAQ's) of the IPCC reports are the best place to start.
Most relevant institutions have good info on their websites (NOAA, NCAR, KNMI, Hadley, etc).â

> âNaturally, everyone is trying to place themselves in the 'middle ground' by pointing out others who are on either side of them.

See, I think this is wrong.

It cannot be right.

RMS gets a lot of stick about being waaay out there on the extreme. I personally don't agree that's right, but I'll get to how and why later. And some hate him for it and discard anything he does. Then again, these same people discard anything that isn't "whatever the copyright cartels want is right" too, though they may well say "that's interesting I'll have to think about that" and then not actually change (which has happened many times with those being "nice" to deniers). Some realise that RMS being extreme is *needed* because if you always must compromise you need an extremist like RMS to counter the extremist view of, say Disney Corp. Without RMS your "middle ground" for copyright is skewed from the true middle ground by exclusion of solutions.

Now I don't think RMS is anywhere near as extreme as people think. They just see he is further away from the likes of Disney Corp. and assume he's an extremist.

But given how many times he's been right in his predictions (derided at the time as being whacko extremist rhetoric), that reality concurs with him more often than it does with the likes of Sony et al I see as evidence he's not as extreme as the other sides.

It's just that the more extreme copyright cartels have had their way they've managed to shift the goalposts. Rather like the US political spectrum. To most of the world, "centre-left" politics in the US is right wing.

I'm nowhere as smart or cohesive in my opinion as RMS, but I don't assume I'm moderate and his accuracy stops me falling into the trap of "the truth is somewhere in the middle".

YOU can be nice and fluffy-bunny with the idiots. I don't think based on evidence that your route has created any change at all. If anything (though this may be strident screaming to falsify public will ahead of Copenhagen) we have MORE idiots posting the same old discredited crock as we had 20 years ago.

It's not to say don't do it, but don't expect any better result.

PS cold beer works if you're looking for *texture* rather than taste. Like a white wine, the stringency is reduced by being cold and would overwhelm the food or become wearying if warm. Likewise strong flavoured brown ales can become tiring and even cloying on a long evening. I often chug some cider to clear the palette or just change to a different beer. Even stout.

I think one interesting issue is whose readers should be given a chance. (I think that's part of what Hank is getting at).

When I started Deep Climate, I sometimes would go to CA or WUWT and post a relevant link back. I stopped doing that for obvious reasons, and now I cringe when somebody else does it for me. On the other hand, perhaps I should give Tom Fuller a break, because his readers might be more likely to include more open minded, undecided folks.

I still have a problem with TF pointing to his Schneider interview as proof of being in the middle ground. I'd be more convinced if he had pointed to positive coverage of climate scientists in the period since he started championing McIntyre and Carlin at the beginning of the summer.

So Bart, give me a reason to give him a second chance if you can. Or should we just do it for his readers? And does he have enough to make it worthwhile anyway?

Say, Tim, could you (or by invitation to some programmer) implement a beer gift fund?

Something that would let us buy someone else a beer here, via tip jar/PayPal? You as blog owner will have the needed email addresses.

There ought to be a way to forward a beer-sized gift payment through an anonymizer, without revealing anyone's personal email information to anyone who doesn't already have it.

I'd like to buy one for Mark and one for Bart. This has been a pretty good argument, no blood on the floor.

Heck, looking back through the topic, I'd like to buy a beer for everyone who's posted here to date (setting the mark here, before the presumed crowd of lurkers rushes to post).

> I think one interesting issue is whose readers should be given a chance.

Everyone should be given a chance, as long as if it looks like they would avail themselves of it.

But it IS a good question.

As for Tom and sundy others posting "I was just wondering, isn't it really just the sun that heats the earth?" style leading questions I would, if I were Bart, ask:

> If you're only listening to the responses that are giving you reasons to disbelieve the science, were you ever interested in the science at all

And in some cases the questions are so old that maybe their only reason for asking them is this:

I may be doing them a disservice, but are they not doing a disservice to Tim Lambert, Bart Verheggen or Gavin Schmidt et al?

I think Tim Lambert's response has been good from the initial one to starting this thread.

The abuse from Fuller continues via email:

>If anything, my opinion today is that Pielke may have been
unnecessarily gentle with you. Pielke wrote about minnows who see it
as their sole job to trash someone's reputation via innuendo,
fabrication and outright misrepresentation. Seeing as that's what you
and your fan club did to me yesterday, don't expect me to get angry at
him--smells like truth to me.

Seeing as that's what you and your fan club did to me yesterday, don't expect me to get angry at him--smells like truth to me.

Which is the whole problem, really. It's not about science; it's about him and his feelings. And if something "smells like truth," it's as true as it needs to be.

I actually don't believe men of honour publish correspondence without permission. Nor do I believe men of honour would select portions of the email that don't correspond to the entire message.

I must say that you and your fan club deserve each other.

Sheesh. Whats with all the mud-flinging on blogs these days? You have raypierre vs. Levitt, Romm vs. Kloor, Pielke Jr. vs. Stoat, and Lambert vs. Fuller. Is there some pre-COP15 tension in the climate change blogosphere or what?

In any case, I'm spoilt for choice for entertainment. I need more popcorn & beer!

> Is there some pre-COP15 tension in the climate change blogosphere or what?

Yup, there is.

> I need more popcorn & beer!

> Posted by: Former Skeptic

Oh FFS! NO POPCORN!!!

Cheese and biscuits? Yeah. Bit poncy, but unless you're trying to impress who cares?

Meaty munchies (pork scratchings, etc)? Very working class and you may or may not want per personal preference.

Chips. (espeically with spicy pepper or tomato sauce)? Now you're talking!

Crisps? LCD, but OK.

Popcorn? No Way! Even with butter instead of salt or with toffee coating. NO. Tasteless.

If you want beer and circuses, at least learn how to accessorise!

Claims about honour are the last refuge of someone who's losing.

> I actually don't believe men of honour publish correspondence without permission.

Given you aren't one, why should Tim restrict himself (iow: why should he let you use civility as a "humane shield" [note the pun!]?)

> I believe men of honour would select portions of the email that don't correspond to the entire message.

I've seen this done before.

You refuse to release your unexpurgated version to clear the record because it won't show any difference. So you act as if it would and hope nobody cottons on.

A man of honour trying to refute such infamy would give the full message rather than hint that the full message would change the meaning of the quote completely.

PS Tim doesn't have a fan club.

He's told me off and I've told him off for it.

You know, disagreements.

Which a fan club doesn't do to their hero.

> men of honour ...

See above:

> Fuller claims in his comment above
>> He emails me asking me why I hate
>> climate scientists and lambasting him
>> for defending Roger Pielke Sr....

Don't paraphrase.

Quote and cite.

Provide sufficient information that readers can look up the source, and read whatever anyone quotes in its original context.

"Don't put on email what you wouldn't be willing to see printed on the front page of The New York Times with your name and picture attached." -- Internet Tradition

Also (does Tom live in the US?) the US courts have ruled that there's no expectation of privacy in emails.

So what is he complaining about?

Heck, looking back through the topic, I'd like to buy a beer for everyone who's posted here to date (setting the mark here, before the presumed crowd of lurkers rushes to post).

Knew I shoulda looked you up last week while in the neighborhood.

;o)

---------------

Nonetheless, I think Mr Fuller should be checked with a fork. He's done, methinks, and I'm bored with his weak-*ss sh-- replies and the energy spent on obvious wankery and tomfoolery. Ignorage is warranted at this point, folks.

Best,

D

> Claims about honour are the last refuge of someone who's losing.

> Posted by: guthrie

I believe it's something like

> A retreat to a claim of honour is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Or something close.

At this point, I strongly urge people to killfile Fuller and not give him or his site any publicity.

FormerSkeptic:

It's a coordinated baiting campaign before Copenhagen and in the wake of several reversals for corporate climate denial. Looking at the big picture like that shows exactly why Levitt, Pielke, Kloor and Fuller shouldn't be allowed to characterize it. The more you dig, the more obvious it is that the same message is being broadcast. Among other things, they all say "If I'll admit gravity exists, you have to acknowledge that the Pink Yetis in the Hollow Earth really caused the Black Death because of dirty vaccine needles."

Thanks for finding this comment by Tom Fuller claiming that climate scientists are all a bunch of frauds. The real difference between Inhofe and Fuller is that Inhofe doesn't pretend to be an objective reporter. He is what he is and proud of it. Fuller pretends to be very concerned about global warming but spends his time smearing climate scientists and promoting fringe contrarian views, much like Pielke Jr. I find this to be more cowardly. The Concern Troll description applies here as well.

[Concern Troll](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)#Concern_troll)

On "middle ground".

If you thought there was a worm that could only grow in the eyes of children, eating the fluid therein and turning them blind, would that be a moderate thing?

Real life doesn't care about moderate. Or middle ground.

It IS.

And the hunt for the moderate in science, any hard science, is not a goal. Hunt for the eternal truths is what hard science is about.

When you drop something it falls DOWN

When you scramble eggs, you can't unscramble

Diamond is harder than any natural composite

The last one is important: it may be we will find on some asteroid some composite that is harder still. The search for eternal truths doesn't mean you've found them, but until you find a more enduring truth, you don't assume you have nothing.

Unless you're a nihilist.

I was just about to weigh in and say that I think it's not appropriate to post emails without permission.

The more I think about it, however, I'm not sure where I stand. Suppose we're discussing racism, and I send Tim an email that says, "I'm not a racist, but I sure do hate those damn brown people!" I think he'd have every right to expose me.

Nonetheless, there are plenty of things I'd say in a personal email that I wouldn't say in a public forum.

Anyone care to suggest guidelines for what is and isn't appropriate to post? Whatever standards we use ought to be consistently applied: there shouldn't be one set of rules for people we agree with, and a different set of rules for people we disagree with.

Tom Fuller writes:

"Pielke wrote about minnows who see it as their sole job to trash someone's reputation via innuendo, fabrication and outright misrepresentation."

Kind of like folks (Fuller, Pielke included) do with distinguished climate scientists like Hansen, Mann, Briffa, and the entire climate science community in general? Need further examples?

re: #93 Former Skeptic

We, of course, I'm sure I missed some, but the following timeline may be worth studying ... basically, any time governments, especially the USgovernment shows any sign of doing anything, activity intensifies.
See Fig. 1.1 - A Sample of anti-science petitions & conferences & related items.

MarkB - Fuller is a Trollumnist

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2009/11/03/trollumnists/

On a side note, Pure poison have an interesting bet running atm:

"The challenge that we have for you is to predict who will be the first climate change skeptic to come out and declare that any temperature increases in 2010 arenât proof of global warning because of the El Nino cycle, despite using the â98 cycle as a reference point to claim that the earth is cooling. Who will it be and when will they say it? Leave your predictions in the comments."
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2009/11/03/hot-weather-proves-not…

> Nonetheless, there are plenty of things I'd say in a personal email that I wouldn't say in a public forum.

And what has been posted is more like your "I'm not no racist..." than your "My mum is ill with cervical cancer..." (though why anyone'd share that with Tim I cannot tell. Nor why Tim wouldn't go "AAARGH!!!! My eyes!!!" and delete it and look for something to remove short term memory...) personal and sensitive message.

So until we hear Tim pass out intimate messages, how about we just ignore Tom's plea for victimhood, shall we?

Bob Tisdale over at WUWT.

"So there hasnât been the anticipated rise in global temperature because, after you remove the effects of ENSO, the trend is zero. Therefore, if this year is a record year, it should be attributable to ENSO, not AGW."

Tom chose to make our correspondence public (see comment #33). And no, he didn't ask me for my permission. And he just posted parts of it. So, for him to write:

>I actually don't believe men of honour publish correspondence without permission. Nor do I believe men of honour would select portions of the email that don't correspond to the entire message.

Well, there's a word for that.

Nice work Bob Tisdale!

Does this also appply to 1998, and we can now expect the cooling-in-the-10yrs-from-1998 crowd to issue statments that 1998 was an ENSO artifact and hence there was no 'global cooling' in those subsequent 10 years, but in fact a warming?

Snowflakes...hell....pigs....flying etc

Chris, didn't some Bob or other say when 1998 came up as the hottest year in 1999 that this Bob said "don't read much into this: it's only because it's an extreme event. This isn't proof of global warming".

PS I note over in the guardian blogs the denialists are now asking that what they want and need isn't proof of Global Warming, but proof of *catastrophic* Global Warming.

I guess they won't be saying how they keep changing their minds.

Again.

Well, you can't start arguing with e-mail correspondence additional to the public record and then suddenly declare emails on the same subject off limits.

Johnson said something about patriotism being the last refuge of scoundrels, Ambrose Bierce added: also the first.

Men of honour, well that is really pounding the table.

Re Tim in #111: OK, you're right. I should have picked up on that from Hank's comment in #97.

More broadly, however, I don't agree with Hank's "Internet Tradition." Is there anybody here who hasn't put something in an email that they wouldn't want on the front page of the NYT?

Call me naive, but I still think it's worthwhile to try to adhere to the higher standard that Bart Verheggen and Robert Grumbine outlined earlier. If we all start mud wrestling, nobody is gonna appreciate our cool-looking white hats.

Tim,

I expect that Tom Fuller is going to disagree with you on the basis that he only re-produced his own emails, not yours.

Though I think that your grounds are pretty reasonable, given that Fuller himself has amply demonstrated how easy it is to give a less than accurate representation of someone's words through creative paraphrasing.

And I agree with Bruce about Robert Grumbine's advice, the denialists need to be attacked at their weak point - facts. It will also help out the genuinely confused.

Is this the logic you normally use? I post my emails and carefully refrain from publishing yours, and that gives you the right to publish my emails on a different day? And it gives you the right to say I'm continuing my abuse when in fact you emailed me first with an aggressive tone?

You're a real piece of work, Lambert.

Actually, the fact that you even try to justify your behaviour is just unbelievable. From the moment you initiated contact with me last week--posting on my column and emailing me out of the blue, asking 'why I hate climate scientists,' your behaviour has been just slimy. You whine like a baby in your emails and act like a bully here on your weblog, with your sycophantic buddies here to back you up.

Pielke was not only right about you, he understated the case. You're pathetic.

Bob Tisdale in #110 fails to mention that 1998 was a much stronger el Nino than 2010 is at all likely to be, but it's nice to know that contrarians are pre-empting their excuses. Tisdale still fails to understand that ENSO is a short-term fluctuation (kind of like the seasons in relation to hemispheric temperatures), and the trend in the last 30 years has been slightly downward.

Dsquared has Fuller perfectly

Okay, point one. The whole idea of contrarianism is that youâre âattacking the conventional wisdomâ, youâre âtelling people that their most cherished beliefs are wrongâ, youâre âturning the world upside downâ. In other words, youâre setting out to annoy people. Now opinions may differ on whether this is a laudable thing to do â I think itâs fantastic â but if annoying people is what youâre trying to do, then you can hardly complain when annoying people is what you actually do. If you start a fight, you can hardly be surprised that youâre in a fight. Itâs the definition of passive-aggression and really quite unseemly, to set out to provoke people, and then when they react passionately and defensively, to criticise them for not holding to your standards of a calm and rational debate. . . .

n general, contrarians ought to have thick skins, because their entire raison dâetre is the giving of intellectual offence to others. So donât whine, for heavenâs sake. Own your bullshit.

Tom has made an excellent case against trashing others -"piece of work", "slimy", "whine" "bully", "sycophantic", "pathetic".

You warmista fraudsters are so horrible you make reasonable people unreasonable!

I must say that you and your fan club deserve each other.

Posted by: Tom Fuller | November 3, 2009 1:41 PM[kill]â[hide comment]

Translation: You must accept my misrepresentations of the state of climate science with polite good humor. If you get at all snippy with me, I get to ignore any substantive points you might make. If this rather solipsistic outlook irritates you, and you say so, I get to depict you as a mob of unthinking bullies who can't tolerate dissent.

Most people who've spent any amount of time on blogs are very familiar with this approach to "debate," and don't take it very seriously. A slightly thicker skin, and a bit more attention to the substance of opposing arguments, could help you to earn the respect you want.

bit_pattern (#108),

Sounds about right (see #118). The rest of us are apparently all "sycophants" for agreeing that climate scientists aren't fraudsters. When one starts slinging mud in this fashion, routinely making all sorts of absurd unsupported assertions, they shouldn't be surprised when they get clowned on, although some appear to be absolutely shocked. This is a trait of a "victim bully". Hat tip to Eli Rabett on this one:

"One of these is the notion of 'victim bullies.' Gunsalus distinguishes between traditional, assertive bullies, who throw their weight around with bluster and force, and 'victim bullies,' who use claims of having been wronged to gain leverage over others.(pp. 123-4) Unlike simple passive-aggression, victim bullies use accusations as weapons, and ramp up the accusations over time. Unlike a normal person, who would slink away in shame as the initial accusations are discredited, a victim bully lacks either guilt or shame, honestly believing that s/he has been so egregiously wronged in some cosmic way that anything s/he does or says is justified in the larger scheme of things. So when the initial accusations are dismissed, the victim bully's first move is a sort of double-or-nothing, raising the absurdity and the stakes even more."

http://suburbdad.blogspot.com/2006/10/victim-bullies.html

I haven't read Fuller before, and having now read a little of what he has written, about the only thing I have read so far that I can agree with is

'You... people... are every day making it less possible to do something real about climate change.'

Climate denial is in part fueled by overzealous AGW supporters who make statements such as

'Does Tom Fuller have some kind of communication disorder?

The words are English but the way they are put together doesn't make much sense.'

or

'Mark, you sure are entertaining. I'm sure Fuller's name is hyphenated though.......Fuller - XXX.'

These statements do not add to the debate, and if its good and proper for AGW supporters to make these statements then its good and proper for climate deniers to make statements such as 'Al Gore is fat'.

The argument then becomes about who can craft the cleverest insult or who can make the most noise. This is what climate deniers are trying to make the argument about, and where they have the best chance of creating doubt and confusion.

Michael Hauber:

Perhaps it will help to know that when Tom Fuller was first confronted with the facts in a civil manner by Gavin at RealClimate (here and here), he decided to ignore reality and hide behind the "snark" defense.

AFAIAC, Fuller forfeited whatever high moral ground after that (combined with his continued denial of science, coupled with his current ridiculous "survey" at his website). Like what Eli says above at #120, don't expect to be treated nicely when you start flinging poo all around.

That first one was mine - apologies if this was unhelpful, but after reading that first comment by Fuller, it was my genuine reaction.

I just can't see any good faith in Fuller's approach when he labels the scientists running RC as fraudsters, when they are out there putting foward a lot of good climate science info for general consumption.

My only slim hope is that Fuller has adopted the tactic, mistaken IMHO, that accepting the arguments against Mann et al. and the 'hockey stick' will allow the debate to by-pass this dead-end and move on to other more productive areas, such as action. However if this is the strategy, it's miscalculated. You can't placate the irrational Mann-haters. Agreeing with them does not satiate them, but emboldens them to make ever more outrageous claims.

This is a good place and time to discuss "Piltdown Mann."

The episode of the original piltdown man was one in which the highly emotional
fight over evolution ( the best scientific theory to explain the evidence at hand)
allowed a piece of bad science ( in that case fraud) to remain in the literature
long after it was questioned. In fact, the case of piltdown man even continued
beyond a conclusive demonstration in 1949 ( through dating) of its flaws. In 1950 in Nature of all places. In "New Evidence on the Antiquity of Piltdown Man" some were still reluctant to put the piltdown man into the trash bin.

As Richard Harter writes:

"Why then was the fraud so successful? Briefly, (a) the team finding the specimans (Dawson, Woodward, Teilhard) had excellent credentials, (b) incompetence on the part of the British Paleontological community, (c) the relatively primitive analytical tools available circa 1920, (d) skill of the forgery, (e) it matched what was expected from theory, and (f) as Millar remarks, the hoax led a charmed life. "

Basically we find the same conditions today. Folks like Tom Fuller and I (we've had face to face discussions about this) accept the basic tenets of climate science, but the highly politicized atmosphere has allowed the bad science of the hockey stick to live a charmed life of sorts. Let me put it bluntly: AGW is true and the Hockey stick is flawed. I see no contradiction in that. Of course there are nutters who believe that a flawed hockey stick somehow "falsifies" climate science. It doesnt. Not anymore than the piltdown hoax meant that evolution was false. But climate science has become so politicized that people who believe in AGW have a very hard time admitting to any error of any kind or any uncertainty for that matter. For example, only recently has Kaufman had the courage to admit that michael mann inverted sediment proxies in one of his multiproxy studies.

Now, I'm not claiming that the hockey stick is a fraud. Far from it. The stick is simply
unconvincing science
The stick or Piltdown Mann has survived much like the piltdown man survived because

(a) the team constructing it had excellent credentials,
(b) incompetence on the part of the peer review community, like those at Nature.
(c) the undocumented statistical tools and lack of open data
(d) it matched what was expected from theory

So, WRT to middle grounds: The middle ground is: AGW is true and the hockey stick is wrong. That's the middle ground. There are two kinds of denialists on either side of this. The nutter denialists who think a broken stick means AGW is false and the Nutter denialists who believe that AGW is true and that the stick is good science.

Mosher writes:
> the hockey stick
> a broken stick

Citation needed.

One of these? Which one?
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/recons.html
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/ipcc2007/fig614.png

Oh
Results ... about 6,210 for mosher +climateaudit
Never mind.

Steve, this only makes sense if you believe that there is only one hockey-stick and it's Mann's. That is not the case. Remove all of Mann's work and there are still hockey-sticks aplenty;
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1107046v1?maxtoshow=&HIT…

It's not a case of 'Piltdown-Mann' but obsessive 'Mann-Hating'

steven mosher:

The stick or Piltdown Mann has survived much like the piltdown man survived because

(c) the undocumented statistical tools

Uncentered principal components analysis is no longer used to produce hockeysticks (which are still being made) and hasn't been for the past 10 years.

Bang goes Mosher's theory.

A couple of days ago I started crafting another response to this thread as follows (but didnât post it because I wasnât happy about it):-

â¦â¦â¦â¦â¦â¦â¦â¦â¦

Going back to Tom Fullerâs Examiner piece, this is a classic case of âlull into a false sense of security & then attack.
For example, questions 1-5 lull one into a sense of admiration of Tom, - heâs a clever guy, agreeing with the massive world consensus on GW and supporting actions to combat it.

But, statement six is where he comes off the rails:-

I believe that a generation of climate scientists have tried to make global warming a political football, and have exaggerated or distorted the truth to push politicians into acting more robustly, and too instill a fear-driven sense of urgency in the general public.

Mistake one, - not a generation of climate scientists. Information in the public domain confirms it was self-interested business and US right wing politicians, including crackpot Inhofe, who made GW a political football.

You admit in one of your earlier pieces that the âBig Tobaccoâ fraud occurred â have you not read about the infamous Climate Coalition?

Mistake two, - it is those self-interested businesses etc, who have installed âfearâ into the general public by exaggeration scientific doubt and emphasising extreme scenarios.

Statement 7 then implies a deliberate misuse of science by scientists. Whilst there have been, (a very few), cases of âcorruptionâ in science, there is no shred of evidence to accuse climate scientists or the centres they work in of this.

As a retired scientist, it is my opinion that there is a simple maxim in Science, - if you fiddle the data you will be found out and lose your peerâs respect, maybe job and practically everything a true scientist yearns for.

Statements 8-10 encompass the usual AGW-contrarian fallacies and beliefs.

In my opinion, too many âjournalistsâ, with no practical science experience, are only on the look-out for controversy â because we all know controversy sells. (& I have no idea whether Tom Fuller has any science qualification).

My verdict on the examiner piece is that it is not an attempt to explore the truth behind GW, unfortunately yet another jump onto the controversy money-earner.

â¦â¦â¦â¦â¦.

- then I saw Markâs link to âconcern trollsâ in #88 â fantastic !!!! Says it all !!

and re John Masheys nice little denier chart, #107, if you just connect the red dots & squares with a single line, the denialist protests look suspiciously like a âHockey stickâ â hmm ?

"For example, only recently has Kaufman had the courage to admit that michael mann inverted sediment proxies in one of his multiproxy studies."

Huh? I'm afraid this was another technical mistake by McIntyre (and his parrots), something on the order of not understanding that -1 times -1 = 1. This is why credentials and peer review are important.

http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2009/10/oh_dear_oh_dear_oh_dear_oh_dea.php

MarkB's link:

DeepC (86),
I sometimes comment at WUWT, Fullerâs, Luciaâs, RP Jr. Not often, since itâs a frustrating endeavour (in decreasing order of intensity), but, as Scott Mandia has pointed out at RC, itâs also needed. If most of the crowd is at WUWT, thatâs where we need to be as well, to rebut the nonsense and influence the disourse. Leif Svalgaard often posts there; heâs a serious scientist but has earned some respect even from the die hard fanatics over there. To be commended. So perhaps we have to swallow some frustration and try to chime in from time to time at the other side. Then again, perhaps we shouldnât make that forum even bigger than it already is, itâs a bit of a catch 22.
As Iâve said, Fuller may not agree with me, but he does listen to me. Iâve found my time engaging with him well spent (even for lack of hard evidence that it accomplished anything).

TomF: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, write.

>So, WRT to middle grounds: The middle ground is: AGW is true and the hockey stick is wrong.

Steve, so quick to claim the "middle ground" â¢.

I'll repeat my question that Tom refused to answer, are you claiming all hockey sticks are wrong? And if not, doesn't the nature of multiple hockey sticks over the last 10 years put any MBH98 errors into perspective. i.e. more right than wrong?

@Tom Fuller #117:

I post my emails and carefully refrain from publishing yours, and that gives you the right to publish my emails on a different day?

So your position is that you haven't published Tim's emails, so he can't publish yours. Regardless of the fact that the emails formed part of an exchange, so that leaving out the amswers given is omnly telling part of the story, I'm wondering how you square your claim not to have published Tim's emails with this from your #33 in this thread:

He emails me asking me why I hate climate scientists and lambasting him for defending Roger Pielke Sr.

I personally see no reason why you shouldn't have said that, nor why Tim shouldn't publish any relevant part of an email exchange on a topic the subject of his blog post. I do see why it is hypocritical of you to paraphrase Tim's email, and then (i) complain about Tim publishing part of one of your replies to that same exchange, and (ii) complain about any publication of that exchange without your permission. At least Tim quoted you, he didn't paraphrase you.

Tim doesn't, as do many ScienceBloggers, have an express notice that all emails to him will be considered publishable; but why in dog's name would you think that an email on the blog topic, in answer to a post on the blog, shouldn't be published. Words fail...

PhilA has the situation in a nutshell:

"Translation: You must accept my misrepresentations of the state of climate science with polite good humor. If you get at all snippy with me, I get to ignore any substantive points you might make. If this rather solipsistic outlook irritates you, and you say so, I get to depict you as a mob of unthinking bullies who can't tolerate dissent.

Most people who've spent any amount of time on blogs are very familiar with this approach to "debate," and don't take it very seriously. A slightly thicker skin, and a bit more attention to the substance of opposing arguments, could help you to earn the respect you want."

However, the vast majority of the population (including many who, having been made interested by the debate in the media, are searching for answers) haven't "spent any amount of time on blogs" and thus aren't "familiar with this approach to "debate"". So much of the support for the science of AGW is - to the outsider - a "mob of unthinking bullies who can't tolerate dissent". I've lost count of the number of discussions, here & elsewhere effectively derailed when certain commentators weigh in with insult-laden substanceless attacks that means the denier/sceptic/tinfoilhatter "get[s] to ignore any substantive points" made and is able to take the easy way out by reacting to the crap that is thrown instead.

I do wonder whether some of the more vociferous commentators are plants, placed by certain interests to derail discussion in just this manner.

> So much of the support for the science of AGW is - to the outsider - a "mob of unthinking bullies who can't tolerate dissent"

Really, Chris S? Then as many or more will run from the denialist blogs where you get as bad or worse AND no facts you can engender yourself.

You know, if you want to know what is going on, why are you looking on blogs? The IPCC report and its summary (for the less scientifically inclined) show what the AGW stance is, yet still so many complain while "seeking the truth":

* Why do the IPCC concentrate on CO2? Don't they know it's more complicated?

* The AGW side must be wrong because they don't explain their erros, and they CAN'T be 100% certain

* Computer models aren't science!

* Where's the proof?

etc.

Which are all answered if they'd read the summary report.

But no, they've read denialist blogs (where you get stuff like this: ) or listen to the pop media soundbyte from Fox and assume there's something to it without even checking.

If they seek truth, why didn't they start here:

?

> I do wonder whether some of the more vociferous commentators are plants, placed by certain interests to derail discussion in just this manner

Some probably are.

But some who say "all this rudeness is counterproductive" are probably plants from denialists who are trying to get the sharp weapons of scorn and contempt (and their backup weapon of ridicule) out of the hands of their opponents so they alone will have these arms.

Just as likely, isn't it?

Fuller is as transparent as hell, as Mark B has pointed out. So he gets a courtesy discount because he feigns acceptance of the science?. Not bloody likely!. It's simply an insidious way of him creating more FUD.

It's been an interesting discussion. However, if you characterize a large part of the climate science community as frauds and fools, for the sin of being prominent, rather than producing work at variance with the rest of the community, that raises my suspicions. Similarly, if you give a poll that only lists one or two blogs by actual climate scientists, and the remainder are news aggregators or opinion places, that causes me to worry. Why not mention the Royal Society's pages on climate change, or other useful sources (Open Mind for time series analysis, etc?).
Why do you give prominence to sites like Climate Audit, which is a denial and delay site producing debating points, sometimes tiptoeing up to the edge of science, then veering away again. For example, what happens when these alternate techniques are used? How does it change the results? That is science. Not doing that final step is merely a debating point, or a barroom argument.
Tim, you should be proud to be one of 'Fuller's Unworthies'. The people might not be such charming liars, but they have a better track record and more respect for reality and the process of science.

Tom Fuller has played the concern troll card very well on Deltoid, and in so doing has instigated a huge ruckus about how hard-done-by he is in the face of those who support the urgency of the serious nature of anthropogenic global warming.

He is using his journalist's skills cleverly in this way â to erect strawmen and red herrings so that many people fall into the distraction of ad hominem attacks, and of whether we should be having such attackings occurring in the first place - but if one looks carefully at his arguments one will notice that he does not employ any coherent scientific narrative in conveying his 'points'.

Rather, he says that he is 'lukewarm' about climate change, and he says that he believes some scientists, but that (in his view), the pre-eminent climatologists in the world are "disingenuous[ly] ... characterise[d] ... as middle of the road", or that they are "responsible for the flawed use of proxies and principal component analysis leading to the now-discredited Hockey Sticks" [emphasis mine].

When he does provide '[evidence](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/10/dubner_falsely_claims_that_oce…)' to support his latter statement it is by the expedience of reference to the Wegman Report, which, as [Luminous Beauty notes](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/10/dubner_falsely_claims_that_oce…), is not a credible review of such science. He ignores other, scientifically credible work that supports the basis of the 'hockey sticks', including the [Wahl & Ammann 2007 paper](http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/ammann/millennium/MBH_reevaluation.html) that Craig Allen [linked to](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/10/dubner_falsely_claims_that_oce…), and the [Mann et al 2008 paper](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/09/02/0805721105.full.pdf+html) in PNAS.

Another rhetorical distraction that [he favours](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/10/dubner_falsely_claims_that_oce…) is that of impugning the peer-review process of science, simply because peers are not 'independent', or may 'share research materials'. In this Fuller is conspicuously advertising his complete ignorance of both the fact that in climatology there are many independent groups generating independent data, and that there is no evidence that there is anything other than a very high level of integrity within the research profession.

If Fuller has evidence to the contrary regarding the latter, he should be publishing his exposé, because it would garner for him much attention. However, he should also be considering that in this vein, if there were any hint at all in the climatic data that the majority of scientists had either purposefully or incompetently deluded themselves and the world, the 'enlightened' researchers discovering this would rush to publish, and journals would fall over themselves to reveal the truth. In science truth is an unstoppable juggernaut, and it is unfathomable to imagine that there is in any way a conspiracy to twist the basic import of the climatic data.

It makes for a wonderful journalistic story though, doesn't it?

However...

As many commenters have previously noted, science is not a matter of "the middle of the road". It is about evidence that supports hypotheses, or that refutes them. Where there is a disagreement between scientists, it is not a matter of 'averaging' the conflicting opinions, it is about testing and retesting the differences of interpretation until the flaws in any arguments are identified, and the resulting explanations modified, where required, to account for such flaws.

Fuller, and McIntyre et al for whom Fuller is an apologist, have not demonstrated how McIntyre's arguments have decisively refuted the hockey sticks.

I asked Fuller [several questions](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/11/tom_fuller_and_senator_inhofe.p…) in order to establish from what scientific base he operates. Firstly I am curious to know what of the IPCC summary of climate change he accepts, and what he rejects, and why.

Secondly, and to the point of this whole fiasco, I would like to know what climatic temperature sensitivity to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 he accepts, and why. This question is particularly pertinent, because it establishes: 1) whether Fuller believes in a 'greenhouse' effect, 2) whether he believes that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and 3) whether he believes that anthropogenically-emitted CO2 superimposes on any pre-existing greenhouse effect.

If he accepts that there is a climatic sensitivity to CO2, then one would assume that such a sensitivity would be reflected by an increase in global temperature in response to human CO2 emissions, no matter the background trajectory.

In my own book at least, this alteration in trajectory constitutes a hockey stick â Steve Mosher's idea to the contrary notwithstanding. So, Fuller, what is it? Is there a 'hockey stick in the temperature record, or is there not? How do you reconcile your answers with the physics of climate?

And if there really is a conspiracy of nasty scientists hiding the 'truth' from you and from the world, how do they do so, and how do you know better, and how is it that the answer lies "in the middle of the road"?

Grow a hide matey â you're blogging. And if you're going to attempt to blog with credibility, establish your scientific rationale, provide evidence for such, and lose the glass jaw.

Remember too that blogging is not science, it is merely an informal (but not necessarily uninformed) discussion of (in this instance) science. Remember also that blogging and debating do not automatically inform science in their turn: this is the job of experimentation and peer-review, and if you are attempting to alter accepted science you need to do it in the arena of science, and not in the partisan circuses of the lay world.

You seem to confuse consensus in science with a process of science, and if you are working to scientifically challenge and/or change scientifically accepted ideas, you are sadly ignorant of that in which you dabble.

Just as I expected, Fuller [quote-mined this thread](http://www.examiner.com/x-9111-SF-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2009m1…):

>Here are comments from Lambert and his crew. ...

>>Tom is a nasty little toerag

>>Does Tom Fuller have some kind of communication disorder?

>>Fuller's name is hyphenated though.......Fuller - (expletive deleted by me)

>>Frankly, I think you need to grow a pair.

>>Civility is wasted on those who use it as a shield but not as their guide.

I did not write any of those comments. That's misattribution, and as a professional journalist, Fuller knows it's wrong.

But the best bit is the way he closes his post:

>So, my takeaway from all this is, we don't have to throw away basic rules of courtesy. Doing so doesn't seem to contribute to the discussion.

Compare with Fuller's oh so courteous comment above (#118), where he writes:

>From the moment you initiated contact with me last week--posting on my column and emailing me out of the blue, asking 'why I hate climate scientists,' your behaviour has been just slimy. You whine like a baby in your emails and act like a bully here on your weblog, with your sycophantic buddies here to back you up.

>Pielke was not only right about you, he understated the case. You're pathetic.

Thank goodness Fuller doesn't believe in throwin away the basic rules of courtesy.

Another rhetorical distraction that he favours is that of impugning the peer-review process of science, simply because peers are not 'independent', or may 'share research materials'.

Which doesn't prevent him from complaining when Briffa allegedly doesn't share research materials (see #29 above).

> That's misattribution,

You know, I misread that longer word there as something else.

It still seemed appropriate.

There is only one motive here by our Mr. Fuller, and that is the profit motive.

While he drops in with inflammatory comments on sites and promoting fabulously flawed surveys, he is ever working towards more views of his site and a fatter paycheck. His ridiculous on the fence position about AGW is just a Rush Limbaugh ruse. The formula is quite simple, pick a provocative subject, play the wide eyed neophyte in search of truth, fire up the base and then get both sides to argue while watching me play Solomon and John the Baptist.

The examiner.com pays its journalists on the "Gawker-model," the more views the more money. Getting suckered into believing he is sincere about most of this crap he spouts plays right into his hand. Heâs better left ignored.

That's a fine job of nutpicking by Fuller

to get the facts on this topic, you need to do just 2 things:

1. read the blog post by Tim. he makes a point about similarities between Fuller and Inhofe.

2. read the replies by Tom Fuller. he does not address those similarities with a single word in any of his replies.

if you want more informations about Tom Fuller and the "middle ground", take a look at his poll. (google cache [here](http://209.85.135.132/search?q=cache:q_acfCrsGCgJ:https://www.surveymon…))

in basically all of those questions, the "middle" will be deeply in denialist territory. (mostly counting answers is enough to demonstrate this)

I've lost count of the number of discussions, here & elsewhere effectively derailed when certain commentators weigh in with insult-laden substanceless attacks that means the denier/sceptic/tinfoilhatter "get[s] to ignore any substantive points" made and is able to take the easy way out by reacting to the crap that is thrown instead.

This is true. But it's also true that if skeptics of this sort can't use incivility as an "easy way out," they'll find something else.

Meanwhile, as plenty of people here have pointed out, they get to be as unpleasant as they want about the morals, motives, and competence of scientists (again, see Fuller on Briffa). It's only when people react negatively to these charges that "incivility" rears its ugly head.

Ideally, I guess, everyone would treat Tom Fuller with the utmost respect, no matter what he said, so that there'd be absolutely no chance that he'd get offended and lash out. They'd keep their temper the first time they heard him sneer at Briffa or praise McIntyre, and the second, and all the others, no matter how many times he waved away any errors that were brought to his attention.

But that's not at all realistic, given human nature and what's actually at stake in the debate. And frankly, I suspect Fuller knows it's not realistic, and relies on it. It's win-win for him: if people are rude, he gets to pretend he's an innocent victim of intolerance. If they're polite, he gets to pretend that his fringe views are worthy of respect, and talk about how wonderful it is to have a healthy diversity of opinion on, say, Briffa's credibility. Heads he wins, tails we lose.

It's a standard approach (cf. the Discovery Institute, Joe Klein, David Broder, William Saletan et al). And why not? It works.

I appreciate Tim starting this thread. I would also say that in other posts, I won't "unkill" any Tom Fuller comments unless there's evidence that they have any relevance.

[More cutting edge science reporting from the Examiner.](http://www.examiner.com/x-2383-Honolulu-Exopolitics-Examiner~y2009m10d2…)

> when certain commentators weigh in with insult-laden substanceless attacks

If that includes mine, citation please.

I generally get a LOT of substance to the attacks.

Or was that just a substanceless attack?

Oh, the

> If they seek truth, why didn't they start here:

> ?

Should have been:

> If they seek truth, why didn't they start here:

>

> ?

Just noticed.

"Just as I expected, Fuller quote-mined this thread:"

Yes, you predicted it perfectly. "He really wants to portray us as an angry mob, so don't help him."

Heaven help us if climate science is going to be judged by the poor manners of a few random people commenting on blogs.

Heaven help the person who ignores the science to obsess over the manners of posters on blogs...

Mark, you just don't get it, do you? The deniers would like nothing more than to ignore the science, and instead characterise environmentalists as being a bunch of economically illiterate crazies who started a pseudo-religion and aren't able to carry on a reasonable discussion.

Not only do you play into their hands by being uncivil, but you insist on finding ways to justify incivility. How hard would it be to just be polite?

Consider expert researchers in {climate, environment, or energy, or intersections thereof}. To what extent can people:

a) hear such people talk, in person?

b) ask them questions?

c) speak with them at length?

d) challenge what they say (not by blogging bad words at them, but standing up in an audience, perhaps being videoed) and perhaps prove them wrong? Blogs are cheap, it's a bit different to tell someone 10 feet away their science is wrong.

1) In many places, this is pretty impractical, except perhaps when a guest speaker comes in some outreach program. I.e., opportunities are few and far between.

2) Decent research universities and National R&D labs often have seminars open to the public, an anyone within, say an hour's trip, can probably manage to see some now and then, an obviously, anyone who cares about this topic would naturally keep an eye out and try to attend :-)

3) And in a very few places in the world, there are so many researchers, and so many public talks by local researchers and visitors, and government or local-sponsored talks outside of universities, that one could easily hear several per week, and sometimes even have to prioritize for conflicts. (I do, all the time, just with Stanford events.)

One such place is the San Francisco Bay Area, which has:

- At least 20 AR4 local IPCC authors, just from a cursory scan; 30 is more likely (because some of the USGS folks, and ones listed just as "U of CA" are likely here, and if you included authors from any of the reports, probably 40-50.

- Stanford, with the Woods Institute for the Environment, the Precourt Institute for Energy Efficiency, the GCEP program, the Carnegie Institution for Global Ecology (i.e., Chris Field, Ken Caldeira, etc), and a bunch of other efforts spread across many departments. [About an hour from SF, by car or train]. The weekly Energy Seminars are terrific. Heidi Cullen comes by Dec 2.

- USGS - US Geological Survey is slightly closer to SF, in Menlo Park, where USGS Western Region Headquarters is. One can get there by CALTRAIN from SF, although with a 20-minute walk, but parking is good. They have monthly public lectures, of which some are climate-related, like one by an Alaskan glacier expert with terrific time-lapse photo sequences.

- UC Berkeley, with BIE (Berkeley Institute for the Environment), Energy Biosciences Institute, etc, etc and of course:

- LBNL - Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, possibly the premier lab for energy efficiency in the world, recently run by Steven Chu [who does come by to speak now and then, I heard him a week ago.] But they also do climate modeling.

[UCB can easily be visited by BART from SF, since it stops right there.]

- LLNL - Lawrence Livermore National Lab (also part-managed by UC Berkeley), with Ben Santer & co, who do a lot of analysis of climate models, and include quite a few IPCC contributors. That's 45 miles from SF.

- UC Davis is not exactly part of the SF Bay Area, but it is 75 miles away, and they often have climate seminars, especially with regard to climate impacts on agriculture.

- Then there are government-sponsored things, like Preparing for Sea-Level Rise in the Bay Area, plus all the various other associations that sponsor talks, like the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce having Stephen Schneider in next week to talk about his new book, Science as a Contact Sport (recommended)

- Then, SF hosts the Fall AGU meeting, and nonlocal speakers are often running around. Last year, even our little town hosted James Hansen. We've had Amory Lovins.
Around 2005 Burton Richter gave a (shorter version) of (Gambling with the Future, about climate&energy. Although a bit flashier, Gore's AIT slides were rather similar to Richter's. That was fun, listening to an articulate Nobel physicist from 5 feet away. It was also amusing to watch, as several people confidently piped up with a few of the usual wrong-memes, expecting (I think) to surprise him. Of course, he recognized and easily explained them ... then noted that he knew quite well where those memes came from, and in fact personally knew the few scientists who did this, and expressed his opinions of their activities. Watching the questioners' expressions was fascinating, as reality suddenly set in.

So, not to belabor the point :-), but *anyone* who lives/works in most of the SF Bay Area has a *wealth* of chances to interact with knowledgeable experts. If they disagree with the experts, but they'd rather say so in blogs, rather than show up and present their views in person, that is a relevant data point.

carrot, you really don't understand, do you.

Philla does.

#149

> This is true. But it's also true that if skeptics of this sort can't use incivility as an "easy way out," they'll find something else.

> Meanwhile, as plenty of people here have pointed out, they get to be as unpleasant as they want about the morals, motives, and competence of scientists (again, see Fuller on Briffa). It's only when people react negatively to these charges that "incivility" rears its ugly head.

And it's not as if I made it hard to find out either:

#139

> But some who say "all this rudeness is counterproductive" are probably plants from denialists who are trying to get the sharp weapons of scorn and contempt (and their backup weapon of ridicule) out of the hands of their opponents so they alone will have these arms.

Now do I demand that YOU swear cuss and ridicule?

No.

Why am I (the eeeviiil nastyman) so much more tolerant of others than you (the angelic rosycheeks)?

Mark,

while I sympathise with you, I have to agree with Robert, carrot and others.

Yes, it feels good to give the deny-diots a serve, but repeated experience shows that it has absolutely no effect on them.

OTOH, there are countless lurkers and occasional visitors, a subset of whom recoil from any kind of heated debate.

For me, one of the main attractions of Deltoid has been the consistently high quality of informative comments, and I don't want to see this watered down, so I'm going to try to be a bit less snarky and a bit more factual. There's no downside to that.

> while I sympathise with you, I have to agree with Robert, carrot and others.

Fine. Do so.

I disagree.

I also disagree with this:

> Yes, it feels good to give the deny-diots a serve, but repeated experience shows that it has absolutely no effect on them.

It may be true for you, but for me it's frustrating and depressing.

What I DID enjoy was ripping the pish out of Massiv Nail's astronomical explanation of climate change.

1) It was HILARIOUSLY wrong
2) I'd had a couple of beers as a colleague moved to Australia and a new job

That's about it.

But it's OK if you find fun in it.

It's just not what happens to me.

> For me, one of the main attractions of Deltoid has been the consistently high quality of informative comments,

> Posted by: Michael

Excuse me?

HINT: Grima. Massiv. Billy Bob. Tom Fuller. (Uncle Tom Cobly and all...)

> OTOH, there are countless lurkers and occasional visitors, a subset of whom recoil from any kind of heated debate.

Aaaawwww.

Poow widdw dumpwings.

Really.

You're worried about a THEORETICAL problem like that.

There are people out there who shy at the word "heck".

There are those who don't like pollysllabic words and shy away from them.

Others are put off and leave if there's no sex or violence.

You know, the subset of all actions that will displease nobody is the null set. ANYTHING done could upset someone who lurks on the internet and comes across this site.

I'm as responsible for those meek and mild lurkers' fears as I am for the paranoic theories of those like Ducky Dave. Not at all.

Mark wrote:

Excuse me?
HINT: Grima. Massiv. Billy Bob. Tom Fuller. (Uncle Tom Cobly and all...)

Well, I was thinking of John Mashey, Jeff Harvey, BPL (when he was here), Bernard J, Deepclimate, Eli etc.

The ones you list are the examples of those whom you can scream and shout at to no effect.

Which leaves me quite perplexed - you don't enjoy giving them a serve, and it makes no difference, so why do you keep doing it????

Mark, when multiple people who are otherwise on your 'side' tell you something, it should give you pause.

As commenters, we should seek to add signal, not noise. Insults and name-calling are noise. If deniers want to use those tactics, let them: it reflects poorly on them, and it doesn't work. Don't join them in kind.

Sorry Mark, but I agree with Michael's comments. Rude and abusive comments, whether justified or not, are best left to CA, WUWT, etc. Referring to dhogaza as "dog" is also immature.

You post prolifically here at Deltoid, but to be brutally honest, IMHO, your posts are very rarely of any value.

I am sure that you do have some interesting things to contribute
So, please follow the example of people such as John Mashey, who post less frequently, but everything they say is worth reading.

Dirk

carrot, you really don't understand, do you.

Philla does.

To be clear, I don't think there's anything wrong with being polite, informative, and patient. It's a nice way to act, not least 'cause it's Tim who ultimately gets attacked for what's said here.

But even if there were some reliable way of imposing and enforcing speech codes on climate bloggers and commenters, I doubt it'd lead to some bright new era of understanding and openmindedness. I think the narrative would simply change from "warmists are unprincipled, abusive thugs" to "warmists are a quasi-religious cult and they'll simply tune out any information they don't want to hear." And I'm not convinced that fence-sitters who can't recognize the first claim as an exaggeration are going to turn a deaf ear to the second.

Tom Fuller's "10 points" prove he is a trollumnist.

Forget him - he's part of the problem, not the solution.

> And I'm not convinced that fence-sitters who can't recognize the first claim as an exaggeration are going to turn a deaf ear to the second.

Has anyone encountered one of these lurking, fair minded fence-sitters and nudged him to the side of science? I keep hearing of them, but I never meet one.

The debate we see here long ago ceased to be about convincing people with reason and evidence, if it ever was. It's about whacking moles.

Bart (and Hank, too, I guess, and Dan L. in 168),

We each do what we can.

I put in a lot of time at CA and RP jr. Even WUWT during the Carlin kerfuffle. It wasn't much fun, but I thought I should try. Then I had enough, but there are always others to take over.

These days, they find me anyway. Right now WUWT is up in arms over the NOAA removal of the rogue contrarian page from the JetStream "online wheather school".

In the early days, I would answer every comment personally, and give everyone a chance, and never snip anything unless it was abusive (don't like that). Now I run a tighter ship, but comment less and let other people jump in and answer. Sometimes I have to cut folks off if they just keep repeating talking points, or wander off topic. But I've also let people ask more-or-less reasonable questions. Even the guy who had an eight-question essay. It took me a while, but I answered every one as best I could. And then another commenter who had pointedly asked when I would answer the questions, thanked me afterward for doing that. Those moments are very worthwhile. To be sure there is a lot of tedious mole whacking too.

I'm not a scientist though. I think have a reasonable knowledge of some aspects for a layperson. But my true vocation in the blogosphere is to combine that knowledge with some talent for internet forensics to show everyone how they are being spun. Like I said, we each do what we can.

Might have to continue this somewhere else, though. This pub sure is crowded and noisy sometimes. (Not that that's a terrible thing, but I missed some things first time around).

"I don't think there's anything wrong with being polite, informative, and patient."

So why not just be that way? If nothing else, it will keep the comments threads more readable for everybody. If an obvious troll shows up, either ignore him or answer every point with science, if you have the patience. Simple name calling contributes nothing.

On the broader question of the register in which debates are conducted ...

I concur with those who think it would be better if discussion were kept civil, substantive and on-topic. Doubtless, those who bring a desire to subvert mitigation policy to these fora include those who want to thread-hijack/nuke by flaming, concern trolling and reiterating for the umpteenth time their personal story of shovelling snow in their driveway in the northern hemisphere July.

That said, as public policy issues go, and even as environmental issues go, it doesn't get any more existential than climate change. When what someone brings to this forum is derivative agnotology and an attitude of indifference to a matter so pressing, it's often hard to remain composed. Mostly, but not always, I succeed.

I find trolls a lot like mosquito bites. Momentarily, scratching the swelling brings relief and even pleasure. Later though the swelling continues to irritate, and you realise what you should have done was apply some topical analgesic.

Really, if we really ought to ignore the trolls or respond substantively and leave it at that. Leave something worth finding or leave nothing at all. But I won't condemn those who don't.

So why not just be that way?

As Fran says above, it's not always easy, and nobody's perfect. And the larger problem is, you're probably never going to get everyone to conform to your idea -- or my idea, or Tom Fuller's -- of what constitutes "civility" or "openmindedness." Especially not on this issue.

The fact is, people are going to fly off the handle, because that's what people do when they're angry or frustrated...as they're very likely to be when they're worried about global catastrophe, or believe they're being lied to, or both. Expecting everyone to take this stuff in good humor is simply not realistic. As for the idea that if universal civility were somehow achieved, it'd deal some sort of serious blow to the "skeptics"...well, to put it politely, I find that implausible. I think we'd just find ourselves debating some other pointless, anti-scientific side issue (e.g., AGW as religion).

This isn't a plea for incivility, mind you, so much as an explanation of why I don't think it's as serious an issue as some people make it out to be.

Michael I have seen BPL around here, just a bit less often. I assumed he was busier nowadays.

I gave 'ol Tom a few thousand characters of my mind over at his joint. Still a few left for stupid commenter "marty", but that will have to wait. Neither "marty", who claims to have "worked in the area", nor Tom seem to be that bright.

BTW, I only got reprimanded once for referring to WattTheFucksUpWithThat. He took that to mean that I had no regard for North (huh? He said that Mann's analysis was reasonable). The other people named in that sentence, yep, no regard for them on this topic.

Phila: I understand what you are saying, but it's called self-restraint, and we can all do our part by practicing it. Are we adding signal, or noise? I've erred in this way as well, but I'll try to do better.

"when they're angry or frustrated...as they're very likely to be when they're worried about global catastrophe"

Take a healthier view. If it's a random troll on the internet, then that person really isn't important. What that one random troll says in blog comments has no influence on reality: climate research, energy R&D, legislatures, parliaments, or Copenhagen negotiations. So there's no need to get emotional in that way. If I engage with one, it's merely out of an instinct to educate if I can, pointing the person in the direction of data or literature.

If it's somebody who actually can influence many others (Watts) or the political process (Inhofe), then it is important. If you're directly interacting with the person, why waste time saying anything that lacks substance? Be on point. If you're just complaining about the person in blog comments here, well then, stay substantive for the sake of everybody else reading.

Rattus: This Tom Fuller seems to be accommodating in letting you speak your mind, at length. Nice job, so far. I don't understand why people are still obsessed with the original hockey stick paper. First paper of the sort; some errors are to be expected, but it's basically held up. Nor do I really understand why paleoclimate is such a lightning rod. What if the Northern Hemisphere (or better, global) average temperature of the MWP actually was high as the current temperature? So what? What would that mean to anybody?

Rattus - checked out your exercise in backward scrolling at Tom's place.

No apology for accusing Briffa of scientific fraud, but I noticed Fuller did apologize for the 1000 word limit. Very gracious of him.

I noticed you "even used to think that Steve might have had some valuable points." I went through a similar evolution.

Mosher, you neglect to mention that whoever the perp of the Piltdown man hoax was, he wanted people to know that it was a hoax. Do you know what the last artifact found at the site was? It was a cricket bat.

Rattus, your contribution on the examiner/Tom Fuller site is a paragon of reasonableness, an example to all. Well done.

@carrot eater #177,

While it may mean little to those who are knowledgable in the area, a MWP that was as warm (or warmer) than today is very easy to spin into "see, it was warmer then, and we didn't emit any CO2 then, so it was natural then, so today's temperatures are natural, too".

Mark,
I can understand your frustration when debating with deniers & trolls - I've been called all sorts of nasty things when asking to debate science rather than politics.

I also admit that I have descended into Anglo-Saxon expletives on very rare occasions when I've lost my cool.

However, I take the view now that, (althought not the best representation):-

Revenge is a dish best served cold

Mark, I also agree with Michael and the others. And it's my blog. So you will be polite or I will put you on moderation. If you don't like this, find somewhere to comment where your style is welcome.

Bye.

Tim, I thought Lore's observation above was spot on (I've noted the same myself elsewhere in the past). Lore wrote in part:

"The examiner.com pays its journalists on the "Gawker-model," the more views the more money."

A suggestion -- go back and apply the rel=nofollow tag to your links to his website.

The links will work fine -- but Google won't count them toward his pagerank, as I understand it.

That'd reduce the profitability of getting _you_ irate enough to point to his website

It'd be an interesting test, anyhow.

Over at his own blog, Fuller tries to blame me for the abusive email he sent to me:

>Do you think it was right for him to insinuate that I was abusing him, when in fact I was replying to an aggressive email from him?

Here is my "aggressive" email to him:

>Here is what Pielke wrote about the "blogging food chain" and what you have endorsed as accurate and said you agree with:

>>"But even the big fish apparently see some gutter behavior as not really becoming of professionals (though Romm doesn't seem to care), as to more effectively attack someone's reputation they also rely on the minnows of the blogosphere, people who see it as their sole job to
"trash" someone's reputation via innuendo, fabrication and outright misrepresentation. Among these minnows are controversialist bloggers like Tim Lambert, who are professionally unqualified to engage in the
substance of most debates (certainly the case with respect to my own work), yet earn their place exclusively by making mountains out of molehills (e.g., Lambert carpet bombs the internet with references to his post on the fact that I once botched a Google search, making insinuations of associated evilness in my soul) and ad hominem attacks
(Pielke viciously attacked Al Gore!! Pielke is the Devil!!), without out once engaging the substance of my work (e.g., Al Gore agreed with my critique of his slide show and subsequently removed a slide from his show, I complemented [sic] Gore for his commitment to accuracy)."

>This is a vicious and dishonest personal attack on me.

>Just so we can be clear on this, tell me:

>1 vicious: agree/disagree?
>2 dishonest: agree/disagree?
>3 personal attack: agree/disagree?

Fuller's reply (in full, because he complained when I only quoted part of it):

>Tim, after my experience at your blog yesterday, do you honestly think I'm going to take it seriously when you think someone else is not playing fair?

>If anything, my opinion today is that Pielke may have been
unnecessarily gentle with you. Pielke wrote about minnows who see it as their sole job to trash someone's reputation via innuendo, fabrication and outright misrepresentation. Seeing as that's what you and your fan club did to me yesterday, don't expect me to get angry at him--smells like truth to me.

>Goodbye

Phila: I understand what you are saying, but it's called self-restraint, and we can all do our part by practicing it. Are we adding signal, or noise? I've erred in this way as well, but I'll try to do better.

Well, having been reading (but rarely commenting) for a couple of years, I can certainly say that the calm but well-informed comments have been the most useful to me personally, so I don't disagree with you. I've been questioning civility's effectiveness as a response to dishonest or manipulative behavior. But as an end in itself, I'm all for it.

And just to make it clear, I'm not defending comments that simply call people names, which I don't think add anything to the discussion. I'm talking more about the sort of lapses that you or Fran mentioned...bursts of anger or sarcasm or outrage in otherwise substantive and reasoned posts.

JOHN
(to PAUL)
Eh, he's a nice old man, isn't he?

PAUL
Oh yeah, he's very clean, y'know.

Phila.

I'm probably one of those commenters who is regularly guilty of the lapses of which you speak, and especially in the sarcasm department.

I sometimes do feel a bit guilty that I let slip in this manner, but I honesty doesn't think that I would take much back in hindsight. In trying to establish the errors of fact and of logic that so many of the Denialati engage in (whether in the matters of climate change, DDT, or whatever), there comes a point where some of the crap that they dump is just so ridiculous that one has to draw a line in the sand, and call a spade a spade.

Perhaps it is intemperate of me, but in the end I, personally, feel that there is a place for drawing attention to the excessive degree of indefencibility of some of the rubbish that is pushed on blogs. My sincere hope is that any third party lurking might understand the basis for my exasperation, and consider why it is that I am driven to express it thus in my comments.

I doubt that any of the second parties that I lock horns with would understand: like a puppy crapping on the floor, there's no point rubbing their noses in it in an attempt at education, because they never seem to be able to connect the rubbing with their mistakes in the first place.

Hmmm... I think that I was sarcastic again!

I sometimes do feel a bit guilty that I let slip in this manner, but I honesty doesn't think that I would take much back in hindsight. In trying to establish the errors of fact and of logic that so many of the Denialati engage in (whether in the matters of climate change, DDT, or whatever), there comes a point where some of the crap that they dump is just so ridiculous that one has to draw a line in the sand, and call a spade a spade.

Yeah, and I'm often guilty of this at my own blog, for better or worse. I'm always happy to conform to different standards at someone's else's. But that's more because it's...well, polite, than because I think it's a useful or necessary tactic when dealing with fools and liars.

My sincere hope is that any third party lurking might understand the basis for my exasperation, and consider why it is that I am driven to express it thus in my comments.

I know I take these things into account when lurking. I assume that at least some other people feel the same way.

Re Tim@ 186. Interestingly, I posted a comment over at Fuller's place yesterday pointing out that it was much worse to paraphrase the content or tone of other people's emails in a pejorative fashion that it was to publish them without permission (obviously, with the caveat that no private personal info was included). Not least because it forces the hand of the person whose email you report on to post the full version anyway. As Tim has just had to.

To Fuller's credit, he conceded I had a point, although whilst making the excuse that Tim did not respond to an email request to publish previous emails.

re: #191 & others who read Fuller's site

Please review my comments about the SF Bay Area, noting that Tom Fuller is located here. I'm curious: is there any evidence (and if so, pointers?) in his blog that he takes advantage of the exceptional variety and depth of {environment, climate, energy} expertise around here, within an hour of SF?

John, in a recent comment he said

"I mentioned that I offered to interview anyone at Real Climate and never got a response. As an opinion commentator, I am not generally charged with breaking news. While I want to print facts and I never want to be in error (but sometimes am), I don't normally call sources--that's the journalism biz, I'm afraid."

I had never heard of him before, but if he considers himself an op/ed writer, I'll not spend much more time there. He seems nice enough at first pass, though.

That's very interesting - he was keen enough to be 'breaking news' on the opinion of a relatively obscure blogger.

I've posed the questions below repeatedly to Tom Fuller,

"Before you repeated accusations of fraud against Keith Briffa that were made on a blog, did you;
- do any fact checking, eg seek independent expert confirmation of these serious accusations,
- make efforts to contact Briffa and give him a chance to respond?"

And from the quote supplied by carrot eater, the answer appears to be 'no' on both counts.

re: #193, #194, #195

Let me try again.

If one wants to offer opinions on a topic, some people might think it reasonable to find the best experts they can and learn from them, and live interaction is the best, if it can be obtained. In particular, many can deliver a canned speech, but watching people respond to questions, and being able to ask questions or have longer discussions, is invaluable in assessing expertise.

Fuller is located in the middle of an area absolutely crawling with relevant experts and public talks by such. This isn't a question of calling someone up to do an interview, it's in learning enough to be even minimally competent at doing such. Some journalists do study up, and can add significant value when they do. I'm just trying to ascertain if there's any evidence that Fuller does this, given that he's in one of the easiest places in the whole world to learn from the real folks.

John, from what I've been able to gleen so far, Fuller restricts his research to blogs, and is especially attentive to Climate Audit.

Apparently going out and making contact with real live people (conveniently located experts even) is beyond the remit of the modern blog-alist.

John M. @#196:

Sadly, Tom Fuller reminds me of Dash Riprock III/Mark E. Gillar. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Also, thanks for that figure back at #107. I call shenanigans!

Tim:

I thought I had nothing more to say but I do second Hank Roberts, that's how I understand it working, too. Many, many science blogs automatically convert every link to zzz or something very like it.

I like it cuz it's behavioral vs. having to read someone's intent.

I'm embarassed for Examiner.com, even if they're fine with Fuller's dishonesty.

Why is he referred to as a professional journalist, exactly? Professionalism has not been the discourse here.

John, to echo what Michael says above, Fuller links to realclimate under "the conventional wisdom on climate change" and has a reasonable email interview with Stephen Schneider. That's about it as far as engagement with working professionals is concerned, as far as I can see.

> As an opinion commentator

So who says he's an "opinion commentator," besides him now?
Last I recall he was an Examiner Expert on Climate.
Now, I see he's changed that slightly (Pielke wannabe?)

-- "SF Environmental Policy Examiner Tom Fuller's writing for Examiner.com on global warming issues"
http://newsfan.typepad.co.uk/prime_time_a_new_look_at_/2009/09/seniors-…
"Prime Time: A New Look At Aging"

(The latter offers a useful tidbit for John Mashey -- Fuller has apparently just moved to the SF Bay Area from the UK; he's self-identified at the above blog as a senior citizen; he may need some help getting to educational events.)

And, yeah, he's doing research from his chair, here's
Blog Science Policy Research in action:

rankexploits.com/musings/2009/reflections-on-continuuing-monckton-kerfuffle/

"Tom Fuller (Comment#13686) May 16th, 2009 at 10:57 am
Hi all,
Lucia, Iâm now writing on climate change issues at Examiner.com. Itâs not much different from bloggingâand the pay is similar (sigh).

Iâm looking for existing graphs that I can present to readers that explain whatâs been going on. I donât want to get into the Monckton controversy, but I donât want to be grabbing charts at random because they make a point in a specific article. Iâve been burned that way once recently...."

Yet elsewhere he's aiming for the stars:

"Tom Fuller says: October 9, 2009 at 8:58 pm.
Mr. Romm, I'll take your bet. Examiner.com is rated by Alexa as site number 151 in the U.S. and number 476 in ..."
climateprogress.org/2009/09/22/new-york-times-andrew-revkin-suckered-by-deniers-to-push-global-cooling-myt/

Alexa is tied somehow both to Google and Amazon, but the details of what each does to rank sites aren't public:
blog.cirtex.com/2009/09/05/alexa-ratings-is-it-really-an-all-important-factor/

John Mashey, I more or less repeated your suggestion to Fuller in his comments section. If he wants to take the advice, he can.

re: #204 carrot eater
Thanks. One can only try. For many people, it is much more difficult, but here, it is really pretty easy. The resources for learning are *so* rich that it amazes me when someone doesn't take advantage of the local expertise in a turf about which they want to write. From SF, one can get to UC Berkeley by BART, and Palo Alto by CALTRAIN, after which it is about a mile walk to common seminar locations, or take the free Stanford Marguerite shuttle busses from CALTRAIN over there.

John, yes. one can only point things out.

Having poked around over there, I can Tom Fuller is no Inhofe, nor a Marohasy, though he sees fit to link to the latter. He's idiosyncratic, but perhaps Pielke-ish - "no, I'm not a sceptic, don't call me that, now here's a bunch of stuff from a sceptic's point of view." There is an influence of Steve McIntyre, as he seems fascinated and aggrieved by the alleged poor availability of data.

Some of these guys need a bit of perspective - I don't think there is any other field of science where so much raw data and model code is placed online, easily accessible. If you asked me for my raw data, I guarantee you it would take me a while to get it to you in a form you could understand.

Oh, wait, that Alexa thing is part of setting terms of a climate bet between JR and TF over at
http://climateprogress.org/2009/09/22/new-york-times-andrew-revkin-suck…

I'm clearly way out of my league and couldn't even put stakes on the table, compared to these well-compensated climate bloggers. Sitting back, reaching for the popcorn, to watch.

Mark #153,

Wow you've been getting a bashing of the sort you continually dish out!

But just thought I would ask why you think the 'truth' is contained in the IPCC reports? The IPCC is basically a political process. Do you accord truth to political processes, for example, in the country in which you live? Or do you, through experience, have a more measured view of that process?

There is a fundamental flaw in your statement Dave Andrews,
>The IPCC is basically a political process

This line is false. The IPCC report a synthesis of peer reviewed evidence, and is fundamentally a scientific report. The Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) undergoes an another filtration where its contents are checked off by scientist and policy makers (including George Bush's policy people).

IPCC reports are conservative science, and the SPM contains what could not even be denied by Bush's team.

re: #209 Janet

Yes, but let us be more precise.

The scientists in each Working Group produce

1) A huge main report, on order of 800-900 pages, which has all the gory assessment detail, although with occasional useful short tutorials mixed in, which are helpful, as the rest of the discussions can be pretty dense for newcomers.

2) A TS (Technical Summary): the scientists summarizing the previous, down to about 70 pages. This is what one reads for a reasonable summary of the scientists' views.

3) Then the political part arrives. I wouldn't call it a filtration, I'd say:

a) *Every* word has to be approved by *every* government representative, which ends up having deadline-driven late-night sessions. For example, they must be approved by (not random picks) Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the USA, not just (for 2001 and 2007) Bush's team.

I recommend Stephen Schneider's new Science as a Contact Sport for his first-hand descriptions of these sessions, which seem quite accurate, given that I've heard similar stories from half a dozen other IPCC authors, and discussed this at some length (like over lunch) with a few.

Q: Why do they (the scientists) put up with this?
A: Having global buyin is worth something, and anyone who understands all this knows how conservative the SPM is ...and can go read the TS. (Hint: one might guess why the TS got added.)

=====
I have some feeling for this, on a much tinier and far less important scale. About 20 years ago, computer benchmarks were a mess, sometimes making people waste time and energy chasing dumb benchmarks. (For computer folks: some computer architects got pressured often by marketeers wishing for special instructions to be added to make the universally-loathed-by-engineers "Dhrystone" run faster). A couple of us tweaked a magazine editor for using one of the sillier benchmarks. He challenged us (engineers from intensely-competing companies) to do something better

Four of us at different companies started this (SPEC), and it only worked because the relevant engineers cooperated, and built processes fair and open enough that other companies could see we weren't playing tricks, and the rest joined in. Engineers also cooperated to keep their *own* nervous marketeers at bay, and keep convincing their own management to keep funding this non-cheap effort ... which sometimes might show that their own computers weren't quite as competitive as they thought.

Anyway, in the IPCC case, I'm afraid the tail-end veto may be the price of long-term support.

Janet,

You misunderstand in a fundamental way. The IPCC was set up under UN auspices. The UN is essentially a political body. No matter the science that is done the UN filters it through its political process. You cannot separate that process from anything the UN produces.

An example. Despite the supposed science fingering CO2 as the culprit, Pachauri is quite content to say that India needs to improve the wealth of its population and therefore needs to build lots of new coal fired power stations, despite the fact they will release much more CO2 into the atmosphere. It is up to the developed world to take appropriate, compensatory, action.

Now, if he were being scientific in the terms you support, surely he would be saying 'all CO2 is bad'?

Dave Andrews.

Your [last post](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/11/tom_fuller_and_senator_inhofe.p…) basically refutes itself.

If the "UN scientists" can still produce a recommendation that CO2 concentration should not be allowed to remain at concentrations greater than 350ppm, irrespective of the fact that political folk each still have one of their respective eyes on their countries' economies, then there must be grounds indeed for the science presented.

Think about it Dave... Why would the scientists say what they say if their respective politicians want quite the opposite? Or are you subscribing to the Global Conspiracy of Scientists/Global Conspiracy for a One World Government conspiracies?!

Dave Andrews.

Your [last post](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/11/tom_fuller_and_senator_inhofe.p…) basically refutes itself.

If the "UN scientists" can still produce a recommendation that CO2 concentration should not be allowed to remain at concentrations greater than 350ppm, irrespective of the fact that political folk each still have one of their respective eyes on their countries' economies, then there must be grounds indeed for the science presented.

Think about it Dave... Why would the scientists say what they say if their respective politicians want quite the opposite? Or are you subscribing to the Global Conspiracy of Scientists/Global Conspiracy for a One World Government conspiracies?!

>Pachauri is quite content to say that India needs to improve the wealth of its population and therefore needs to build lots of new coal fired power stations, despite the fact they will release much more CO2 into the atmosphere. It is up to the developed world to take appropriate, compensatory, action.

Squiggy isn't quite representing [Pachauri](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7267/full/4611054a.html) accurately.

But, then, that's why we [love him](http://popup.lala.com/popup/649362801599712824).

Dave, its tiresome to see you continue to wilfully distort arguments. For example:

>*Now, if he were being scientific in the terms you support, surely he would be saying 'all CO2 is bad*

What would be scientific about that statement you just made up (above).

Don't be a jerk Dave.

And you say; *"UN filters it through its political process. You cannot separate that process from anything the UN produces.*"

But as I mentioned above the UN is disproportionately accoutable to the US. And as I've hinted to you [elseware](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/10/levitt_and_dubner_liken_climat…) the US is dispropotionately influced by concentrated wealth, and the fossil fuel corporations are the most profitable industry in history.

(Thanks to John Mashey for the detailed clarification of IPCC process).

The IPCC synthesise the best science available (see John's post) and only the most conservative, undeniable points get through the filters of the US and other fossil influenced policy checkers who review the SPM.

I'll put it in simple terms Dave, the IPCC reports contain undeniable and conservative science (that is science). Science that could not be removed by the disproportionate influence of fossil fuel concentrated wealth and power.

Now if you want to argue that all science is political, then we could go there, but that would weaken your argument further as the political process is disproportionately influenced by concentrated wealth.

Dave Andrews is right. You can't get science out of a policitical body.

Same with the CSIRO - it can't do science because it was set up by govt and is funded by govt. All it's findings will be strained through a political filter.

What we need is pure science. Universities are funded by govt too, which makes all their findings tinged by politics.

We need pure irrefutable science.

That is science untainted by govt funding, or tax payer funding.

We need science unsupported and unfunded, then we will be able to trust it - it will be pure science.

I have the answer - blog science. It is completely without any visible, or invisible, means of support, so is irrefutable.

Just like this comment - made without any funding of any sort it is pure and irrefutable.

Michael,

Nice bit of satire but totally irrelevant. CSIRO is NOT the UN.

Janet,

If you do not like the fact that the US is the major funder of the UN perhaps you could suggest it relocates to Sydney and that the Australin public pick up the tab. I am sure they would be very grateful for your suggestion.

Bernard J,

Surely it is Hansen and supporters who have promoted the 350ppm scenario and not the IPCC?

Nice run away Dave Andrews. I take it you had no response to the point at issue.

Janet,

And what point was that exactly? Mmmm, its all the fault of the US which is in thrall to big coal. Yawn....sigh!

You have a very limited world view.

Craig Allen: Excuse me for the late reply, but I'm not a regular visitor here and just discovered that my name had been mentioned.

Thanks for the quote out of context. The entire quote should have read:

As you imply, global temperature variations are dictated by ENSO. This is confirmed by Knight et al (2009) âDo global temperature trends over the last decade falsify climate predictions?â:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/global_temperatu…

They write, âEl NinoâSouthern Oscillation is a strong driver of interannual global mean temperature variations. ENSO and non-ENSO contributions can be separated by the method of Thompson et al. (2008) (Fig. 2.8a). The trend in the ENSO-related component for 1999â2008 is +0.08 +/- 0.07 deg C decadeâ1, fully accounting for the overall observed trend. The trend after removing ENSO (the âENSO-adjustedâ trend) is 0.00 +/- 0.05 deg C decadeâ1, implying much greater disagreement with anticipated global temperature rise.â

So there hasnât been the anticipated rise in global temperature because, after you remove the effects of ENSO, the trend is zero. Therefore, if this year is a record year, it should be attributable to ENSO, not AGW.

Also note that Knight et al (2009) assume the relationship between ENSO and global temperature is linear. It is not.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/09/relationship-between-enso-and-gl…

Michael: I'm not sure what you were trying to communicate here with, "Does this also appply to 1998, and we can now expect the cooling-in-the-10yrs-from-1998 crowd to issue statments that 1998 was an ENSO artifact and hence there was no 'global cooling' in those subsequent 10 years, but in fact a warming?"

If you had read what I had written in the link that Craig Allen had provided, your comment may have pertained to the subject at hand.

Dave Andrews @220,

You've a [short memory](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/11/tom_fuller_and_senator_inhofe.p…) Dave. A tactical method of retreat I can see.

Bob Tisdale:

So there hasnât been the anticipated rise in global temperature because, after you remove the effects of ENSO, the trend is zero

if you ignore the Arctic as HadCrut3 does. The Arctic has warmed much faster than the rest of the world over 1999-2008 inclusive. HadCrut3 ignores this.

Bob Tisdale.

I am curious...

...exactly where does all the heat come from that accumulates in the atmosphere over multiple ENSO/PDO cycles? If it's not from the action of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, then there must be another source somewhere.

And how is the equilibrium restored after the atmospheric heat accumulation peaks? That is, what phenomenon/phenomena control the atmospheric accumulations/dispersions at the super-ENSO/PDO scale?

How is the evidence for such phenomena/mechanisms reflected in the physical record, including the distribution of snow around the planet, and the retreat/advance of glaciers?

Most interestingly for an ecologist such as myself, how is the evidence for such phenomena/mechanisms reflected in the biological record, including the phenological responses of species, and the distributions of species and their ecosystems?

Bernard J: You asked, "I am curious...

"...exactly where does all the heat come from that accumulates in the atmosphere over multiple ENSO/PDO cycles? If it's not from the action of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, then there must be another source somewhere."

An overview of the processes are discussed in this post:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/11/global-temperatures-this-decade-…

There are links to more detailed discussions at the bottom of the page.

MarkB: You wrote, " Tisdale still fails to understand that ENSO is a short-term fluctuation (kind of like the seasons in relation to hemispheric temperatures), and the trend in the last 30 years has been slightly downward."

Actually, MarkB fails to comprehend the multiyear aftereffects of ENSO events that are evident in the instrument temperature record.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/11/global-temperatures-this-decade-…

sorry Bob, but you fail to explain the mechanism of that "multi year after effect". it is just a guess and nothing more.

if i combine an oscillation with a linear trend, and i "spike" a few oscillation, we will get a "step" impression, simply for mathematical reasons. (the step will look better. while the upward linear trend will look wrong, when focusing on a period starting with the spike)

the idea that el nino events suddenly became the driving force of climate in the 20th century doesn t hold water. sorry.

sod: Good to hear from you. Long time. You wrote, "sorry Bob, but you fail to explain the mechanism of that 'multi year after effect'. it is just a guess and nothing more"

Apparently with your 46 second peak at the webpage, assuming it was you who visited from deltoid, you failed, first, to read the post and, second, you failed to read the posts linked to it.

Regards

i followed all your links, as i expected them to be different.

i also read your "article" on WuWt.

again: any upward trend with a spike will make steps look good. your argument is weak at best.

oh and Bob, i just noticed that i still have one window of your site open.

so i guess you did indeed look at the time it took me to close your site, when i noticed that the link in your second post was the same as the one in your first...

Janet 222,

My memory is so short I can't even remember your name, nor register the fact that you never respond directly to anything anyone says, but always avoid the issue.

Bernard:

"...exactly where does all the heat come from that accumulates in the atmosphere over multiple ENSO/PDO cycles? If it's not from the action of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, then there must be another source somewhere."

Bob Tisdale:

An overview of the processes are discussed in this post:...

Those processes don't say anything about how you avoid a long-term violation of the first law of thermodynamics, i.e. where has all the extra heat come from?

Chris O'Neill: You asked, "Those processes don't say anything about how you avoid a long-term violation of the first law of thermodynamics, i.e. where has all the extra heat come from?"

The Pacific Warm Pool stores warm water to depths of 300 meters between El Nino events. The El Nino redisribute that warm water across the surface of the equatorial Pacific, releasing heat into the atmosphere, and the El Nino redistributes the warm water within the Pacific and Indian Ocean basins, raising their OHC and SST, but dropping the OHC of the tropical Pacific. The El Nino also changes Hadley and Walker Circulation, cloud cover and wind stress which raise temperatures remote to the tropical Pacific.

During the subsequent La Nina, the tropical Pacific Cloud cover drops and the tropical Pacific OHC is recharged, awaiting the next El Nino event.

For more on the diabatic and adiabatic processes, refer to Trenberth et al (2002) "Evolution of El NinoâSouthern Oscillation and global atmospheric surface temperatures."
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/papers/2000JD000298.pdf

Refer also to Wang (2005) "ENSO, Atlantic Climate Variability, And The Walker And Hadley Circulation."
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/docs/Wang_Hadley_Camera.pdf

There are numerous papers on the discharge-recharge modes of ENSO. The correlation of cloud amount and NINO3.4 SST anomalies is a very easy way to illustrate it, but if you're looking for a more detailed discussion with other variables, refer to Clarke et al (2006) "Wind Stress Curl and ENSO Discharge/Recharge in the Equatorial Pacific":
http://ocean.fsu.edu/faculty/clarke/pubs/6_clarkeVG&C2007.pdf

No laws have been broken, Chris.

Bernard J: You asked, "I am curious...exactly where does all the heat come from that accumulates in the atmosphere over multiple ENSO/PDO cycles?"

Refer to my response to Chris O'Neill above.

You're just describing the established science on how ENSO redistributes heat during cycles, not how the extra heat enters the system. There has to be a source. It has to be a recent source timed to the beginning of the industrial age in order to explain observed recent warming.

And then you must tell us why we can ignore CO2 physics ...

sod: You wrote, "again: any upward trend with a spike will make steps look good. your argument is weak at best."

It's hard to miss the plateau in the TLT anomalies of the Mid-To-High Latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere after the 1997/98 El Nino:
http://i37.tinypic.com/30rraky.png
If you were to remove the effects of the Mount Pinatubo and El Chichon eruptions, you'd find similar effects, and that the majority of the increase over the term of the data occur in two steps as illustrated.

Regards

Because, of course, the ocean is warming, too, not just the atmosphere. So you can't claim that no extra energy is required because it's being dumped into the atmosphere while the ocean's cooling over time due to ENSO ...

dhogaza: He needs a radiative forcing, and mentions one in passing: some change in cloud cover, induced by ENSO. It's never going to explain what he needs it to explain, but at least there's some change in forcing in there, somewhere.

The problem here is a refusal to write a physical model. Somehow it's considered more pure in certain circles if you just eyeball some data, and convince yourself of a correlation someplace.

Chris OâNeill: You wrote, âif you ignore the Arctic as HadCrut3 does. The Arctic has warmed much faster than the rest of the world over 1999-2008 inclusive. HadCrut3 ignores this.â

But GISS infills with 1200km smoothing, which is known to inflate the temperatures of areas where there is sparse surface temperature measurement. Where there is good coverage with surface temperature measurement, like in the central portion of North America and in Europe, GISTEMP and TLT anomalies agree quite well:
http://i40.tinypic.com/nget8k.png

http://i40.tinypic.com/k6ija.png

In areas of the globe where the surface temperature measurement coverage is poor, like South America and Africa, the 1200km smoothing inflates the rise in temperature:
http://i41.tinypic.com/16idyc7.png

http://i43.tinypic.com/if1oh5.png

http://i40.tinypic.com/1hb5sm.png

Does the 1200km smoothing inflate the Arctic GISTEMP data? It might not, but you canât assume that the 1200km smoothing over the Arctic reflects reality either.

dhogaza: He needs a radiative forcing, and mentions one in passing: some change in cloud cover, induced by ENSO.

Yes, of course, yet the mainstream denialists insist that such a change will be a negative forcing.

These guys do have a problem getting on the same page, no?

The problem here is a refusal to write a physical model. Somehow it's considered more pure in certain circles if you just eyeball some data, and convince yourself of a correlation someplace.

And, of course, he has no intention on publishing, because he'd rather be right than famous or some such.

It couldn't be because he'd be called out as a fool and his work rejected, of course.

DA writes

>My memory is so short I can't even remember your name, nor register the fact that you never respond directly to anything anyone says, but always avoid the issue.

Well finally DA has completed his descent into farce. Interesting to watch DA.

Dhogaza [pre-empted](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/11/tom_fuller_and_senator_inhofe.p…) one of my "what about..." questions that I was saving for Bob Tisdale.

No matter; I am looking forward to how Tisdale has factored this into his finger-counting.

No doubt such computing will also take into consideration what an increase in surface warmth relative to subsurface cooling (as must occur if there is an overall heat-pumping to the atmosphere) does to the continued movement of heat from the subsurface. Of course, if thermohaline mechanisms are to be called into the fray, there will no doubt also be detailed commentary on how evidence for changes in this aspect of heat transfer around the globe supports Tisdale's theory.

I'm still curious about the biotic and geophysical signatures that lend support to Bobby T's ideas, and about what overall mechanism it is that prevents the ENSO/PDO 'pump' from ratchetting the temperature to 'sauna' on the dial.

I could go on Bob, but I'm trying to establish a handle on how your model deals with various aspects of the conventional physics - and to this end I am not yet convinced that your engineering has adequately addressed the thermodynamics of AGW.

I'm also puzzled as to how you think that so many physicists and climatologists have apparently missed the bleeding obvious, but that's not really what this meander is about...

Bob Tisdale:

No laws have been broken, Chris.

You've missed the point. You've described how heat flows forwards and backwards between various places in short-term cycles but you haven't said anything about where the extra heat that now exists in the surface of the oceans compared with 30 years ago has come from. The surface of the oceans is now 0.4 deg C warmer than it was 30 years ago. That's a lot more heat than is involved in any El Niño and we don't even have much of an El Niño yet.

You also haven't said anything about where the ongoing extra heat is coming from that is necessary to maintain that surface temperature in the face of the extra heat loss to space caused by a higher surface temperature. Where is that heat flow coming from? It's been continuing for the best part of 30 years (at least) so there's no way in the world it can be coming out of an ocean below the surface somewhere. It would have frozen by now.

It's hard to miss the plateau in the TLT anomalies of the Mid-To-High Latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere after the 1997/98 El Nino:

http://i37.tinypic.com/30rraky.png

your graph makes my point. replace the 1998 super el nino with a normal spike, and you got the missing link between your "plateaus".

If you were to remove the effects of the Mount Pinatubo and El Chichon eruptions, you'd find similar effects, and that the majority of the increase over the term of the data occur in two steps as illustrated.

this claim is complete nonsense. in your graph, the 1983 el nino looks extremely similar to the one in 1998. the idea that those two volcanoes countered your "el nino long term effect" is weak at best.

In areas of the globe where the surface temperature measurement coverage is poor, like South America and Africa, the 1200km smoothing inflates the rise in temperature: http://i41.tinypic.com/16idyc7.png

another bogus claim. satellites and surface stations do not measure the same thing. your graph is based on the false assumption, that any divergence between satellite results and surface stations shows an error in the surface stations. based on beliefs, and nothing more.

Ugh. Beyond the basic issues of conservation of energy, are you kidding me? In order to test the effect of smoothing on a data set, you compare differently smoothed values of the same dataset - omit some stations, or something. NOT compare it to some other sort of measurement (reconstructed estimates of lower troposphere temps from satellite readings) which is different for entirely different reasons.

It's a bit ironic that the guys who love raw data and hate any sort of math or model also love satellite readings that require knowledge of radiation physics and a lot of math to convert to temperatures.

Bernard J, Chris OâNeill, and sod: Youâve been busy replying to my earlier comments. I could respond to your arguments individually, but that would be a waste of my time and yours. Regardless of what I write, you are not going to accept it. I know that; you know that. However, the answers to the majority of your objections are included in the discussions of the papers I linked in my November 13, 2009 8:29 PM comment. Here they are again:

For more on the climate responses to diabatic and adiabatic processes caused by El Nino events, refer to Trenberth et al (2002) "Evolution of El NinoâSouthern Oscillation and global atmospheric surface temperatures." http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/papers/2000JD000298.pdf

Refer also to Wang (2005) "ENSO, Atlantic Climate Variability, And The Walker And Hadley Circulation." It provides a detailed discussion of how El Nino-caused changes in Hadley and Walker circulation, wind stress and cloud cover cause SST anomalies to rise outside of the tropical Pacific. Corrected link:
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/docs/Wang_Hadley_Camera.pdf

The discharge-recharge modes of ENSO are discussed in Clarke et al (2006) "Wind Stress Curl and ENSO Discharge/Recharge in the Equatorial Pacific": http://ocean.fsu.edu/faculty/clarke/pubs/6_clarkeVG&C2007.pdf

Iâll add another paper that illustrates the changes in tropical Pacific Downward Shortwave Radiation that take place during ENSO events. Itâs Pavlakis et al (2008) âENSO Surface Shortwave Radiation Forcing over the Tropical Pacificâ:
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/8/6697/2008/acpd-8-6697-2008-pri…

Regards

Well, this is going in circles. "Here's some papers about ENSO." Yes, we know. They don't support what you're trying to get ENSO to do.

Bob,

[Oops!](http://deepclimate.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/soi-uah-rss-1980.gif)

look Bob, you are supposed to give the source of a claim or argument by a "citation". typically that involves one or more papers, authors, years and PAGE NUMBERS. have you ever heard of this before?

the questions you were asked, were pretty specific. unless you can be a little more detailed, i will assume you made those things up.

just to save others the work: none of the papers with a working link will give any results, when you search it for the term "step".

Tisdale's practicing classic crank science stuff. There's a reason he's ignored outside WUWT...

It's the problem of never quantifying anything. Yes, Trenberth finds diabatic responses. You can't just say that, and then stop.

Bob Tisdale:

I could respond to your arguments individually, but that would be a waste of my time and yours.

You're wasting time anyway. I'm asking a simple question and you just jump around from assertion to assertion. I just want to know WHERE the enormous new heat flow is coming from. "Where" means a place, such as within the oceans somewhere or within the atmosphere through a change in the radiation that passes through it. "Where" is a pretty simple concept. How much time compared with all the time you've spent so far does it take to name a place where this heat flow is coming from? A name is all we need.

Changes in cloud cover is the only thing he could possibly come up with, I think. Beyond the sloshing around of heat that gives the wiggles in the surface temperature record, ENSO does have a slight forced component; Trenberth (he linked one of Trenberth's papers) goes into that - worth looking at. Too bad that forced component is completely inadequate to explain the last 30 years.

>Too bad that forced component is completely inadequate to explain the last 30 years.

Of the opposite sign. Also.

Bernard J, Chris OâNeill, sod, and now luminous beauty: Let me address your complaints one at a time, using the papers I linked in earlier replies. This initial reply is for those who are skeptical that El Nino events warm the oceans remote to the Pacific through processes other than heat transfer. Later it also discusses the heat exchange from the tropical Pacific to the extratropical Pacific and Indian Oceans. For those of you who understand this, please have patience; Iâll address the other concerns in subsequent replies. The second of these replies will hopefully come tomorrow.

The first complaint was that the global oceans are warming. Dhougaza wrote, âBecause, of course, the ocean is warming, too, not just the atmosphere.â Chris OâNeill wrote, âThe surface of the oceans is now 0.4 deg C warmer than it was 30 years ago.â There were similar questions. For those complaints I provided two papers Trenberth et al (2004) and Wang (2005). Letâs concentrate first on Wang (2005), "ENSO, Atlantic Climate Variability, And The Walker And Hadley Circulation." The link I provided is modified by this website so youâll have to use the following google link. Wang (2005) is the first link there:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=ENSO%2C+Atlantic+Climate+…

Wang et al describes how sea surface temperature can and do rise in response to El Nino events in areas of the global oceans remote to the tropical Pacific. He concentrates on the Tropical North Atlantic and the Western Hemisphere Warm Pool. In the Abstract he writes, âThe chapter also discusses a tropospheric bridge by the Walker/Hadley circulation that links the Pacific El Niño with warming of the tropical North Atlantic (TNA) and the WHWP.â For those who want the details, he provides the detailed discussion in subchapter 8 on page 22. His Summary and Discussion includes, âENSO shifts the western Pacific heat source and atmospheric convective activity and then affects global atmospheric circulation. During El Niño, the equatorial Pacific Walker circulation is observed to be weakened. The anomalous meridional Hadley circulation in the eastern Pacific shows the air rising in the tropics, flowing poleward in the upper troposphere, sinking in the subtropics, and returning to the tropics in the lower troposphere. The anomalous Hadley circulation in the western Pacific is opposite to that in the eastern Pacific, indicating a weakening of the western Pacific Hadley circulation during El Niño. The NCAR/NCEP reanalysis field also shows that El Niño weakens the Atlantic Hadley circulation, consistent with an earlier result of Klein et al. (1999) that is inferred from correlation maps of satellite observations, and with the direct circulation analyses of Mestas-Nuñez and Enfield (2001) and Wang (2002a). Wang (2002b, c) and Wang and Enfield (2003) suggest that following El Niño winters in which the Atlantic Hadley circulation is strongly weakened, the decreased subsidence over the subtropical North Atlantic results in the late winter weakening of the NE trades off Africa, the associated spring TNA warming (Enfield an Mayer 1997 and others), and the large summer warm pools (Wang and Enfield 2001).â

Again, Wang (2005) explains how El Nino events can and do raise SST in an area remote to the tropical Pacific. The response of the North Atlantic to ENSO can also be seen in a comparison graph of NINO3.4 SST anomalies and North Atlantic SST anomalies that I borrowed from an old post.
http://i38.tinypic.com/detuzc.jpg

Side Note: The North Atlantic, of course, is also impacted by the AMO, which imposes an additional increase in SST anomalies over the term of the OI.v3 SST dataset. The impact of the AMO can be seen in a comparison graph of North Atlantic SST anomalies linear trends and the SST anomalies linear trends of the other ocean basins:
http://i40.tinypic.com/259xuh5.jpg

Letâs move on to Trenberth et al (2002) "Evolution of El NinoâSouthern Oscillation and global atmospheric surface temperatures."
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/papers/2000JD000298.pdf
In it, Trenberth et al provide broader discussions of how ENSO events can and do impact global LST and SST. The paper deals with the period of 1950 to 1998, which obviously will not include the multiyear aftereffects of the 1997/98 El Nino that is evident in the data, but it does reinforce Wang (2005). In the abstract Trenberth et al write, âHowever, most of the delayed warming outside of the tropical Pacific comes from persistent changes in atmospheric circulation forced from the tropical Pacific. A major part of the ocean heat loss to the atmosphere is through evaporation and thus is realized in the atmosphere as latent heating in precipitation, which drives teleconnections. Reduced precipitation and increased solar radiation in Australia, Southeast Asia, parts of Africa, and northern South America contribute to surface warming that peaks several months after the El Nino event. Teleconnections contribute to the extensive warming over Alaska and western Canada through a deeper Aleutian low and stronger southerly flow into these regions 0â12 months later.â

So there are El Nino-induced processes other than heat transfer that cause warming outside of the tropical Pacific.

Back to the oceans: They go on further on page 7 under the heading of 3.3. Evolution of Spatial Patterns, paragraph 27 to document the lag correlations between NINO3.4 SST anomalies and the SST anomalies of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. Throughout the rest of the paper they discuss the processes that cause the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans to respond to El Nino events. These descriptions and discussions make up the body of the paper, so itâs not practical to reproduce all of it here.

With respect to heat transfer, in the Discussion Section, page 13, first subsection, Role of the Tropical Pacific Ocean, paragraph 37, Trenberth et al further describe, âThe evolution of ENSO in the tropical Pacific Ocean illustrated here supports much of that previously described by Barnett et al. [1991], Zhang and Levitus [1996], Tourre and White [1995], Giese and Carton [1999], Smith [2000], and Meinen and McPhaden [2000] in the way that anomalies of subsurface ocean heat content in the western Pacific develop as they progress eastward across the equatorial Pacific, often with a dipole pattern across the Pacific, and then with anomalies progressing off the equator to higher latitudes. Zhang and Levitus [1996] found links only to the North Pacific, perhaps reflecting the available data, while our results reveal strong links to both hemispheres. The SST evolution lags somewhat behind that of the subsurface ocean and is damped by surface fluxes and transports out of the region by the atmosphere, emphasizing the dominant role of the surface wind stress and ocean dynamics and advection in producing the local ocean heat content and SST anomalies. This damping of the ocean signal, however, forces the atmospheric anomalies. Moreover, this aspect also emphasizes that in cold La Nina conditions the surface fluxes of heat are going into the ocean relative to the mean and are warming the ocean, although not locally as the heat is redistributed by currents.â

Iâm sure you can find other discussion of the diabatic and adiabatic processes throughout the paper. But El Nino events do cause SST anomalies outside of the tropical Pacific to rise. These can be seen in comparison graphs of NINO3.4 SST anomalies and the SST anomalies of the ocean basins. (North Atlantic comparison is shown above.)

Northeast Pacific vs NINO3.4
http://i33.tinypic.com/w8w1hg.jpg

Southeast Pacific and South Atlantic vs NINO3.4
http://i35.tinypic.com/mtwh9x.jpg

West Indian Ocean vs NINO3.4
http://i34.tinypic.com/33udefq.jpg

East Indian and West Pacific vs NINO3.4
http://i33.tinypic.com/2cparf4.png

In summary, through changes in atmospheric circulation and through the redistribution of heat by ocean currents, El Nino events cause SST anomalies to rise.

Next on my list is the discussion of ENSO discharge/recharge. Trenberth et al provide an overview of this on page 16, paragraph 57, for those who want to read ahead.

Bob Tisdale.

Your last post would have been as usefully presented with you second last paragraph only:

...through changes in atmospheric circulation and through the redistribution of heat by ocean currents, El Nino events cause SST anomalies to rise.

However, in your catalogue of various diabatic processes you have not explained exactly how much heat is transferred to the atmosphere from 'wherever', nor have you explained how the transfer of heat from the oceans to the atmosphere is sustained over multiple cycles of the periodic phenomena that you invoke, your pending discussion of "ENSO discharge/recharge" notwithstanding.

For the benefit of the audience here, can you quantify, over time, the various components of the heat budget involved in your model, and include the extra heat determined by physics to be 'trapped' as a consequence of increased atmospheric CO2?

Without such a budget, even a thousand references that simply discuss uncontroversial diabatic processes will still not support your contention that the observed warming is simply a result of ENSO et al.

I'm also still interested to see your list of references that document the geophysical and the biological signatures of the warming/cooling 'supercycle' that your claim necessarily implies. Given the extraordinary biotic and abiotic changes observed over the last 50 years or more, and if such are merely products of a natural super-periodicity, there must be some profoundly blind scientists in the world...

Seriously mate, if you are so convinced of your physics, and if you understand it as well as you seem to be implying, you should be able to spell it all out in a post no longer than the last one of yours. For the moment though, it seems that you are still skirting around the first and second laws of thermodynamics.

Bernard J: You wrote, âHowever, in your catalogue of various diabatic processes you have not explained exactly how much heat is transferred to the atmosphere from 'wherever', nor have you explained how the transfer of heat from the oceans to the atmosphere is sustained over multiple cycles of the periodic phenomena that you invoke, your pending discussion of "ENSO discharge/recharge" notwithstanding.â

Before I address your concerns, let me provide you with a condensed version of what I had intended to present in my discussion of ENSO discharge and recharge cycles. Itâs still a lengthy discussion, though, even in its condensed form. It addresses the other half of ENSO, the La Nina event. It does capture some of the things that concern you about my observations.

Trenberth et al (2002) "Evolution of El NinoâSouthern Oscillation and global atmospheric surface temperatures"â¦
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/papers/2000JD000298.pdf
â¦briefly describes how La Nina events recharge the heat that had been discharged from the tropical Pacific during El Nino events. On page 16, paragraph 57 they write, âThe negative feedback between SST and surface fluxes can be interpreted as showing the importance of the discharge of heat during El Nino events and of the recharge of heat during La Nina events. Relatively clear skies in the central and eastern tropical Pacific allow solar radiation to enter the ocean, apparently offsetting the below normal SSTs, but the heat is carried away by Ekman drift, ocean currents, and adjustments through ocean Rossby and Kelvin waves, and the heat is stored in the western Pacific tropics. This is not simply a rearrangement of the ocean heat, but also a restoration of heat in the ocean.â

Note that the area referenced with âwest Pacific tropicsâ is the Pacific Warm Pool.

So the La Nina restores the heat discharged by the El Nino. This can be illustrated with a comparison graph of NINO3.4 SST anomalies and Ocean Heat Content of the tropical Pacific. The discharge and recharge can be seen if you focus on the major ENSO events that arenât impacted by volcanic aerosols:
http://i36.tinypic.com/eqwdvl.png

The recharge is accomplished by changes in cloud amount. The ârelatively clear skiesâ in the above quote from Trenberth et al refers to the decrease in cloud amount during the La Nina phase of ENSO. (I do realize that carrot eater will be dismayed by this. He wrote, âChanges in cloud cover is the only thing he could possibly come up with, I think.â But itâs not something I âcame up withâ; itâs the way the coupled ocean-atmosphere ENSO process works.) The coincidence between NINO3.4 SST anomalies and Tropical Pacific Cloud Amount can be seen in a comparison graph.
http://i35.tinypic.com/4rxele.jpg
And to quote Trenberth again, âRelatively clear skies in the central and eastern tropical Pacific allow solar radiation to enter the ocean, apparently offsetting the below normal SSTsâ¦â So itâs an increase in Downward Shortwave Radiation (due to the decrease in cloud amount) that recharges the tropical Pacific OHC.

Trenberth et al did not quantify the amount of heat restored during the La Nina phase, but if youâd like an order of magnitude for the amount of heat discharged and recharged during major El Nino and La Nina events, you could look at the comparison graph of NINO3.4 SST anomalies and Tropical Pacific OHC and key off the 1972/73, 1986/87/88 and 1997/98 El Nino events. Hereâs the graph once again:
http://i36.tinypic.com/eqwdvl.png

The next logical point to address would be how much of the ocean heat recharge during the La Nina events could be attributable to the constantly increasing Downward Longwave Radiation from Anthropogenic Greenhouse Gases and how much could be attributable to the rise in Downward Shortwave Radiation from the decrease in cloud amount. This unfortunately raises the debate about the impacts of Downward Longwave Radiation (DLR) and Downward Shortwave Radiation (DSR) on OHC. DSR (visible light) penetrates and warms the ocean for 100+ meters, while DLR (infrared) only penetrates the top few centimeters. But the argument has been presented that DLR, through mixing caused by waves and wind stress turbulence, would warm the mixed layer of the ocean. This in turn would impact the temperature gradient between the mixed layer and skin, dampening the outward flow of heat from the ocean to the atmosphere. The end result according to the argument: OHC would rise due to an increase in DLR caused by increases in greenhouse gas emissions. However, looking at the Tropical Pacific Ocean Heat Content data againâ¦
http://i36.tinypic.com/eqwdvl.png
â¦it displays decadal and multidecadal periods of decreasing OHC, not gradually rising OHC as one would expect. The heat lost during these long-term decreases is replaced and additional heat is added during two multiyear periods that coincide with the multiyear La Nina events of 1973/74/75/76 and 1998/99/00. As discussed above, La Nina events have been established by Trenberth et al as the periods of OHC recharge. The decadal and multidecadal declines in tropical Pacific OHC with the short-term recharges do not appear to be consistent with what should be expected if DLR had a measureable effect on OHC.

BTW: You can duplicate any of the graphs Iâve presented with data available online. SST, TLT, OHC data, etc., are all available through the KNMI Climate Explorer:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectfield_obs.cgi?someone@somewhere

It is often assumed that the effects of El Nino events on global temperatures are countered by La Nina events. That is, while an El Nino results in a rise in global temperature, a La Nina event results in a proportional decrease in global temperature. SST anomalies for most of the ocean basins, or portions thereof, do show comparable responses to La Nina events. Here are the graphs again:
Northeast Pacific vs NINO3.4
http://i33.tinypic.com/w8w1hg.jpg
Southeast Pacific and South Atlantic vs NINO3.4
http://i35.tinypic.com/mtwh9x.jpg
West Indian Ocean vs NINO3.4
http://i34.tinypic.com/33udefq.jpg

But any claim that La Nina events are the opposite of El Nino events is purely an assumption. It is not based on the instrument temperature record. In fact, Trenberth et al and SST anomaly data for another area of the global ocean contradict this assumption.

I provided a quote from Trenberth et al above in an earlier comment. Here it is again. The caps are mine for emphasis. âThe evolution of ENSO in the tropical Pacific Ocean illustrated here supports much of that previously described by Barnett et al. [1991], Zhang and Levitus [1996], Tourre and White [1995], Giese and Carton [1999], Smith [2000], and Meinen and McPhaden [2000] in the way that anomalies of subsurface ocean heat content in the western Pacific develop as they progress eastward across the equatorial Pacific, often with a dipole pattern across the Pacific, AND THEN WITH ANOMALIES PROGRESSING OFF THE EQUATOR TO HIGHER LATITUDES. Zhang and Levitus [1996] found links only to the North Pacific, perhaps reflecting the available data, while our results reveal strong links to both hemispheres. The SST evolution lags somewhat behind that of the subsurface ocean and is damped by surface fluxes and transports out of the region by the atmosphere, emphasizing the dominant role of the surface wind stress and ocean dynamics and advection in producing the local ocean heat content and SST anomalies. This damping of the ocean signal, however, forces the atmospheric anomalies. MOREOVER, THIS ASPECT ALSO EMPHASIZES THAT IN COLD LA NINA CONDITIONS THE SURFACE FLUXES OF HEAT ARE GOING INTO THE OCEAN RELATIVE TO THE MEAN AND ARE WARMING THE OCEAN, ALTHOUGH NOT LOCALLY AS THE HEAT IS REDISTRIBUTED BY CURRENTS.â

The North and South Equatorial currents travel from east to west. The Kuroshio Current in the North Pacific and the East Australia Current in the South Pacific then carry the warm water poleward. The obvious area then for this transported surface and subsurface ocean heat to make its presence known would be the West Pacific Ocean. There also appears to be a similar response in the East Indian Ocean, so Iâve combined the two into one SST anomaly dataset. The redistribution of ocean heat within the Pacific during the El Nino and then during the subsequent La Nina is easily seen in the failure of the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans to respond fully to the 1998/99/00 La Nina event. (Iâve been calling these effects step changes, something sod disagrees with, but I have explained in posts at my website that I use the term for simplicity sake. Technically, they would be referred to as residuals.)
http://i33.tinypic.com/2cparf4.png

This redistribution of heat during the 1997/98 El Nino and 1998/99/00 La Nina can also be seen in the video I created that uses the SSH animation from JPL. The video is called The Lingering Effects Of The 1997/98 El Nino:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uv4Xc4D0Dk

Note that in the comparison graph above the East Indian and West Pacific Ocean SST anomaly data does not respond fully to the 1988/89 and 1998/99/00 La Nina events. If the global response to an El Nino was countered by the response of the La Nina, the SST anomalies of the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans would have reacted fully to the La Nina events. Again, the instrument temperature record does not support the common notion that La Nina events are the same as El Nino events. It may be true for some areas of the global ocean and for some El Nino events, but it is not true for all.

In summary: Warm water that was once briefly stored in the tropical Pacific (in the Pacific Warm Pool) was redistributed to the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans during the El Nino, carried there by ocean currents, where it raised SST anomalies. (This is an acknowledged process of ENSO.) AND during the La Nina events, the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans were provided with additional warm water, carried there by ocean currents, which helped to maintain the SST anomalies of that portion of the global ocean at the elevated levels. (This is also an acknowledged process of ENSO, as is the following.) AND as the La Nina event is helping to maintain the SST anomalies of the East Indian and West Pacific Ocean at the elevated levels, it is also recharging the OHC of the tropical Pacific to the levels they were at before the El Nino events that initiated the processes. Therefore, there are gains in the global ocean heat content that result solely from the redistribution of warm water and the recharge during those specific El Nino/La Nina events.

Consider now that most GCMs used by the IPCC do not bother to model ENSO. How then could they attempt to duplicate that increase in the global surface temperature created by those specific El Nino/La Nina events? And the GCMs that do attempt to model ENSO, they do not create these multiyear aftereffects.

Thatâs enough for today. Iâll try to address more of your concerns about my observations next time, hopefully tomorrow, maybe the next day.

Regards.

Bob Tisdale:

In areas of the globe where the surface temperature measurement coverage is poor, like South America and Africa, the 1200km smoothing inflates the rise in temperature:...

For the southern Africa UAH graph in http://i40.tinypic.com/1hb5sm.png to be correct, there would have to be a substantial cooling within the interior of southern Africa but as the RSS satellite map shows, there are very few places with any cooling anywhere within southern Africa and the vast majority of it is warming. So either the UAH figures have something wrong with them, or your derivation of those graphs is wrong.

Does the 1200km smoothing inflate the Arctic GISTEMP data? It might not, but you canât assume that the 1200km smoothing over the Arctic reflects reality either.

The GISTEMP interpolation in the Arctic assumes that temperatures within the Arctic are more closely related to surrounding station temperatures in the Arctic than to the average temperature of the whole world. I've never heard of any evidence against this assumption.

In any case, most likely the October HadCrut3 temperature will show that its global temperature estimate will give a positive trend for the period since 1998. Thus the "cooling since 1998" meme is about to be consigned to the ashheap of history.

Chris,

>*Thus the "cooling since 1998" meme is about to be consigned to the ashheap of history*

To be replaced by another meme, cooling since 2011. What is the average period between new global record highs over the past 30 years? Eight years? So we'll hear the same "cooling" meme until we cook.

Bob Tidsdale:

The end result according to the argument: OHC would rise due to an increase in DLR caused by increases in greenhouse gas emissions.

As indeed it does.

However, looking at the Tropical Pacific Ocean Heat Content data again⦠http://i36.tinypic.com/eqwdvl.png â¦it displays decadal and multidecadal periods of decreasing OHC, not gradually rising OHC as one would expect.

One would expect a much higher noise-to-signal ratio for a small fraction of the world's oceans compared with all the oceans together. Well I would. Don't know about Bob though.

My last posting should have had another quote format:

Bob Tidsdale:

The end result according to the argument: OHC would rise due to an increase in DLR caused by increases in greenhouse gas emissions.

As indeed it has.

However, looking at the Tropical Pacific Ocean Heat Content data again⦠http://i36.tinypic.com/eqwdvl.png â¦it displays decadal and multidecadal periods of decreasing OHC, not gradually rising OHC as one would expect.

One would expect a much higher noise-to-signal ratio for a small fraction of the world's oceans compared with all the oceans together. Well I would. Don't know about Bob though.

Chris O'Neill: "The GISTEMP interpolation in the Arctic assumes that temperatures within the Arctic are more closely related to surrounding station temperatures in the Arctic than to the average temperature of the whole world. I've never heard of any evidence against this assumption."

The word 'anomaly' needs to be inserted with 'temperature' throughout.

Bob Tisdale: I'm well aware cloud cover changes give a bit of forced signal with ENSO (reply 238). I've been wondering when you'd get around to quantifying it, instead of merely noting its existence. And by the way, when does your ENSO ratchet stop?

I haven't the time for a long reply, so I'll make it a succinct one: Trenberth, whom you use so heavily, estimates an amount of the recent global warming that can be attributed to ENSO. His estimate is very small compared to the total magnitude of observed warming. Explain why you come to a different conclusion.

Bob has written two extremely long replies, without addressing anything important.

the questions are simple:

where does the energy come from?

what is the source for the decade long after effect of some el nino s?

why so el nino s have such an effect only now? when will they end heating the earth?

i would prefer less words they seem to bne there to add triviality and confusion, not to enlighten your readers). a simple citation of the source of your arguments would be enough.

>However, looking at the Tropical Pacific Ocean Heat Content data again⦠http://i36.tinypic.com/eqwdvl.png â¦it displays decadal and multidecadal periods of decreasing OHC, not gradually rising OHC as one would expect.

The underlying trend of OHC is positive. The underlying trend in

>However, looking at the Tropical Pacific Ocean Heat Content data again⦠http://i36.tinypic.com/eqwdvl.png â¦it displays decadal and multidecadal periods of decreasing OHC, not gradually rising OHC as one would expect.

You are just so wrong. It shows decadal periods of increasing and decreasing OHC. The underlying trend of tropical OHC (multidecadal) is positive, i.e., gradually rising.

>(Iâve been calling these effects step changes, something sod disagrees with, but I have explained in posts at my website that I use the term for simplicity sake. Technically, they would be referred to as residuals.)

Technically, they would be referred to as teleconnections, I believe.

so this [post](http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2008/08/did-9798-el-nino-cause-step-chan…) is the source of your "step change theory"?

a post in which you admit that you have difficulties handling trend lines with EXCEL?

i am shocked.

Thus the "cooling since 1998" meme is about to be consigned to the ashheap of history

To be replaced by another meme, cooling since 2011.

At least this will be the first time they'll have said something on this issue that is no longer true and we'll be able to beat them over the head for it. This last "cooling" period was unusually long because 1998 was so unusually warm so there's not likely to be a so-called "cooling" period longer than 7 years for a long time. "Cooling for the past 7 years" doesn't quite have the same ring to it as "cooling for the past 10 years".

i do agree Chris, but i am not so optimistic.

it is good fun at the moment, to point out that there is NOT cooling over the last 10 years. (you really need to start at the top of 1998 to get a long cooling trend in anyone of the datasets, and 1998 to now just isn t 10 years any longer...)

but denialists tend to just shrug it of as a minor error.

losing Hadcrut, they have just one more reason to switch to UAH data....

Chris O'neill: They'll never stop picking out 'cooling' from the middle of a warming trend. Remember that gibberish about comparing Jan 2007 to Jan 2008? We're dealing with people who'll do comparisons like that, and think them meaningful.

Re 269: Ugh, that's where the step-change idea came from?

Bob Tisdale, try this: Repeat that trick with the RSS data. Instead of picking the 1998 El Nino as the dividing point, pick some other dividing points, randomly. Add linear trendlines on other side of the dividing point. See what you get.

In fact, please do this.

By the way, for your Excel problem: just plot two different data series, one before the breakpoint, the other after.

#240,

"And, of course, he has no intention on publishing, because he'd rather be right than famous or some such."

Seems like any individual with a climate contrarian view and a clever argument can become more popular than most of the thousands of "consensus" scientists doing real research. That's the nature of any scientific topic that has policy implications. You don't become notable for spending time understanding physics and acknowledging radiative forcing of greenhouse gases or climate feedbacks. You gain prominence for claiming the recent rapid warming trend is caused by underseas volcanoes, ENSO, or benthic bacteria and that scientists are perpetuating a hoax.

"It couldn't be because he'd be called out as a fool and his work rejected, of course."

Bob's assertions are picked apart here, but blog comments aren't really seen as such, so one can dismiss them as a difference of opinion and carry on as if their unpublished blog science is robust and no one's ever debunked it. The critical expert evaluation one receives in the realm of published science perhaps intimidates some who might be afraid of having their house of cards, built on the base of the blogosphere, toppled. If shoddy work is submitted for review, perhaps the best case for the author is that all reviewers point out the problems and reject the submission quietly, and work is revised until (if ever) it is more robust. If the shoddy work does get published (happens on occasion...see McLean et al.), the author has to be prepared for their work to be exposed publicly through formal refutations.

it is good fun at the moment, to point out that there is NOT cooling over the last 10 years. (you really need to start at the top of 1998 to get a long cooling trend in anyone of the datasets, and 1998 to now just isn t 10 years any longer...)
but denialists tend to just shrug it of as a minor error.

I think when they know that the "cooling" period is actually a bit longer than 10 years then they can easily come back and say "OK, 11 years. So what?" That argument is about to die.

losing Hadcrut, they have just one more reason to switch to UAH data....

So they'll be losing some territory and only fighting from a fraction of a fraction of the data.

They'll never stop picking out 'cooling' from the middle of a warming trend. Remember that gibberish about comparing Jan 2007 to Jan 2008?

This trend in HadCrut3 has a higher level of credibility than those comparisons. Once the HadCrut3 trend goes positive, attention can be concentrated on the more ridiculous arguments which, even though there are always credulous people around, will be seen to be ridiculous by a greater number of people.

Chris,

I recall you've ancipated this for a while, do you expect the HadCRT [Oct data](http://www.woodfortrees.org/data/hadcrut3gl) to come out soon?

do you expect the HadCRT Oct data to come out soon?

The last one (Sept) didn't come out until the 4th of November which is the latest I've ever seen it come out. The one before that (Aug) was out on the 17th of September.

Oh, don't play their stupid games with them, waiting for each month's data to come out as if it means something, and then drawing linear trendlines through short periods with a R^2 of 0.12 and thinking that means something. They'll always find something nonsensical to say, so I wouldn't wait eagerly for one of those things to require amendment.

carrot eater: You wrote, âBy the way, for your Excel problem: just plot two different data series, one before the breakpoint, the other after.â

Thatâs understood. In fact, Figures 3&4 of the early post that sod linked were prepared that way. The difficulty is in the presentation when both datasets are plotted on the same graph. When EXCEL adds the linear trends to two short-term datasets, it presents the linear trends over the combined terms of both datasets, from the start of the first dataset to the end of the latter dataset. In other words, they overlap. I didnât want the overlapping trends.
http://i48.tinypic.com/i6cv1y.png
The question, how would I snip the trend lines to only the shorter-term periods so that they donât overlap?

#####

luminous beauty: You wrote, âTechnically, they would be referred to as teleconnections, I believe.â

Trenberth et al in their summary refers to them as residuals, I believe. The following quote is from their paragraph 52:

âAlthough it is possible to use regression to eliminate the linear portion of the global mean temperature signal associated with ENSO, the processes that contribute regionally to the global mean differ considerably, and the linear approach likely leaves an ENSO residual.â

And as Iâve shown, there are ENSO residuals, just as they suggest.

You wrote, âYou are just so wrong. It shows decadal periods of increasing and decreasing OHC. The underlying trend of tropical OHC (multidecadal) is positive, i.e., gradually rising.â

Yes, there is an overall positive trend. I could have prefaced the description you object to with something to the effect of, âwhile the overall trend of the tropical Pacific OHC dataset is positiveâ¦â, but it would not have changed what the graph displays. For the decade from 1963 to 1973, OHC anomalies drop gradually from ~0.04 GJ.m^2 to ~-0.3 GJ.m^2, and for the two decades from 1977 to 1997 (1999), OHC anomalies drop gradually from ~0.16 GJ.m^2 to ~-0.12 GJ.m^2 (~-0.16 GJ.m^2). During the multiyear (4-year) period between them, from 1973 to 1977, OHC anomalies rose from ~-0.3 GJ.m^2 to ~0.16 GJ.m^2; this appears to be a recharge caused by the multiyear 1973/74/75/76 La Nina. I have not found a paper that addresses the sudden upsurge in 1995, so what transpired during the period of 1995 to 2001 is open to multiple interpretations. Now the questions at hand, starting now, will the tropical Pacific OHC anomalies respond in a similar decadal or multidecadal decline as it has in the past or will it increase gradually? I guess weâll have to talk about it in a decade.

#####

Sod: You asked, âwhere does the energy come from?â

As discussed in my âtwo extremely long replies,â the energy comes from the increase in downward shortwave radiation, caused by, as Trenberth et al described, âRelatively clear skies in the central and eastern tropical Pacific allow solar radiation to enter the ocean.â As I clarified, this was due to "the decrease in cloud amount during the La Nina phase of ENSO."

You asked, âwhat is the source for the decade long after effect of some el nino s?â
I should have clarified this. As noted in my comment above, Iâve been calling these effects step changes, something you disagree with, but I have explained in posts at my website that I use the term for simplicity sake.

Hereâs a link to one such post:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/11/global-temperatures-this-decade-…
I wrote, As you will note, the multiyear aftereffects arenât true step changes. The SST anomalies for the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans donât remain at the new higher temperatures indefinitely. They do, however, remain at higher levels (failing to respond fully to the La Nina) until the next series of lesser El Nino events drive the temperatures back up again, helping to maintain the higher levels. (The effects are easier to describe as step changes, which is why I refer to them that way.)

You asked, âwhy so el nino s have such an effect only now?â

Do you know for a fact that El Nino events are only having âsuch an effect only now?â You would have to prove that the multidecadal rise in global temperatures from ~1910 to ~1940 was not caused by the same effect.

You asked, âwhen will they end heating the earth?â

I donât make predictions or projections.

You wrote, âa simple citation of the source of your arguments would be enough.â

What parts of my arguments were not addressed in the papers I linked? Iâve simply presented the data discussed in those papers in ways that they did not.

#####

carrot eater: You wrote, âTrenberth, whom you use so heavily, estimates an amount of the recent global warming that can be attributed to ENSO. His estimate is very small compared to the total magnitude of observed warming. Explain why you come to a different conclusion.â

Trenberth et al explain the methods used to determine the linear trend in their paragraphs 19 through 22. The assumption Trenberth et al make is that there is a linear relationship between ENSO and global temperature. The East Indian-West Pacific SST anomaly dataset disagrees with this assumption.

#####

Chris O'Neill: You wrote, âOne would expect a much higher noise-to-signal ratio for a small fraction of the world's oceans compared with all the oceans together. Well I would. Don't know about Bob though.â

The data has been smoothed with a 13-month running-average filter. Hereâs the raw NODC Tropical Pacific OHC data versus NINO3.4:
http://i46.tinypic.com/2qwejqs.png

As I noted above in my last comment, you can duplicate any of the graphs Iâve presented with data available online. My posts usually include sources of the data at the bottom of the page. Many of them include SST, TLT, OHC data, etc., thatâs available through the KNMI Climate Explorer: http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectfield_obs.cgi?someone@somewhere

Bob Tisdale: I don't follow your difficulty. If you ask Excel to draw a trendline for a data series, it will only consider the data in that data series. If you have two data series, you'll get two independent trendlines. You can check what it's doing by using the slope and intercept functions on the worksheet.

Are you complaining about the appearance of the trendline, as opposed to how it's calculated? In terms of appearance, there is an option in there for projecting the line forwards and backwards by x units.

In any case, if this is really how you found your step changes, please, please, please repeat the procedure at random other times, not just 1998. It'll be enlightening.

>And as Iâve shown, there are ENSO residuals, just as they suggest.

Those are the residuals of the statistical mean of the global effects of ENSO as the sum of non-linear responses of the totality of non-local teleconnections. Non-linear responses for which, nonetheless, energy is conserved.

What you were applying them to is the specific phenomena of teleconnections in the supra-tropical Pacific Ocean and the Eastern Indian Ocean. These likely contribute to those residuals, but residuals in and of themselves, they are not.

You are technically wrong and misleading, a fatal flaw of both ignorance and presumptuousness. The same is true of your '... multidecadal periods of decreasing OHC.' Utterly false. You may think these confused fallacies of equivocation are justifiable for simplicity's sake, but as the saying goes, you are simply being parsimonious with the truth.

>Iâve simply presented the data discussed in those papers in ways that they did not.

Precisely. You are drawing maladroit and erroneous conclusions that are not justified by the data, but rather driven by your preconceptions.

You are shameless. Go away.

Oh, don't play their stupid games with them, waiting for each month's data to come out as if it means something, and then drawing linear trendlines through short periods with a R^2 of 0.12 and thinking that means something.

Of course it doesn't mean anything if you know what you're doing. But we're talking about people who behave as if they have an IQ of less than 80. Simple things mean something to simple minds, or minds that are acting simply. Sure they come up with a lot of other crap but this meme, cooling since 1998, has gained a lot of traction judging by the way it's repeated ad infinitum.

Chris, they'll just adjust the story a bit. It doesn't matter to them. Perhaps they'll say "but the models say that warming should proceed at 0.2C/decade. but if you a draw a line of 0.2C/decade from the peak at 1998, the temperature should be way up here. Therefore the models are wrong!"

âOne would expect a much higher noise-to-signal ratio for a small fraction of the world's oceans compared with all the oceans together. Well I would. Don't know about Bob though.â

Bob Tisdale:

The data has been smoothed with a 13-month running-average filter.

Big deal. In case you didn't notice, the ocean heat content in this graph is the annual values.

"Iâve simply presented the data discussed in those papers in ways that they did not."

Clever politicians do the same thing. Trenberth probably wouldn't like his work being spun and distorted in such a manner. He's one of the co-authors of the clear refutation of McLean et al., the woeful paper weakly alleging some contribution to the long-term trend from ENSO.

http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/Foster_et%20alJG…

In this case, Bob Carter publicly spun and distorted his own work.

[Here](http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/Foster_et%20alJG…) is the link to the paper referred to in MarkB's comment at #285.

Of course it doesn't mean anything if you know what you're doing. But we're talking about people who behave as if they have an IQ of less than 80. Simple things mean something to simple minds, or minds that are acting simply. Sure they come up with a lot of other crap but this meme, cooling since 1998, has gained a lot of traction judging by the way it's repeated ad infinitum.

look Chris, you nearly convinced me, and made me feel a little bit optimistic.

but today i stumbled over [this "the blackboard" post](http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/hadcrut-noaa-october-temperature-a…)

As you can see, since Jan 2001, which I use as my preferred start date for comparing models to data, the least squares trends from NOAA/NCDC and HadCrut happen to be negative.

my feeling is, that more and more people will prefer Jan 2001 now....

(i actually have a certain degree of respect for Lucia, who has posted reasonable stuff in the past. but this one is utter garbage.)

so how are all you geniuses feeling about your religion under assault?

Mark Mozer (PhD), Who [wanted to portray himself](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/09/open_thread_33.php#comment-1967…) as the disintereted person "trying to understand".

Even southern baptists are in on the global warming conspiracy!".

(anyone think mark mozer will get it?)

so how are all you geniuses feeling about your religion under assault?

Not as bad as we'd feel if the science was under attack from, say, facts or something.

genius alert to janet: "disinterested" is spelled with 2 "s"'s

Happy to stand corrected Dr Mozer. Disinterested is spelt better without typos. Though you'd be busy correcting typos and spelling mistakes on blog sites, if that is your fancy.

I'm also happy to provide a service to readers by exposing the disingenuous posters such as your self Mark Mozer.

Ack! I'm exposed! For the record, I provided a very detailed response to all the flack stimulated by my post linked in #289, but the proprietor of this blog refused to post it. Being a good sport, I emailed Tim wishing the "senior scientist" and all the other geniuses out there my best.

the proprietor of this blog refused to post it.

Oh, Tim, we can disembowel this man if you post his crap! :)

But it's a bit late ... a psych guy pretending to disprove physics ... heh.

sod quotes:

As you can see, since Jan 2001, which I use as my preferred start date for comparing models to data, the least squares trends from NOAA/NCDC and HadCrut happen to be negative.

At least she points out that they're not statistically significant. But she fails to realize that the statistically significant difference between observed trends and model trends over just 8 years and 10 months is not climatically significant.

In any case, when they're reduced to just arguing that the observed warming is not as great as the model predictions, their argument is far weaker than when they can say things like "it's been cooling for the last 11 years".

Far right ideologues will always argue regardless of the facts. The only thing that can vary is the proportion of people sucked in by their arguments which varies with the strength of the argument.

so how are all you geniuses feeling about your religion under assault?

Posted by: mark mozer, ph.d.

^

Is this supposed to mean you're a genius.

A big hello to all of the Air Vent readers who might have wandered over here to see what the [fuss between Tim Lambert and Tom Fuller is about](http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/04/18/a-comparison-of-tier-2-clim…).

With respect to one aspect of the matter, and ["nasty piece[s] of work" and "mean spirited rhetoric" aside](http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/04/18/a-comparison-of-tier-2-clim…), I hope that you take the time to follow here the chronology of whom first said what, and decide for yourselves whether it was [Tim Lambert or Tom Fuller who initiated the publicity their 'private' email exchange](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/11/tom_fuller_and_senator_inhofe.p…).

Oh, and good luck with the cognitive dissonance: remember, it can be overcome.