It's the latest idiotic attack on the science of global warming, Joe Queenan tells us it was great for the Vikings! Why the LA Times publishes this crap is beyond me.
So the argument is, the Vikings had a merry old time the last time it was warm like today, therefore, why worry? Global warming is good?
Well, take a look at temperature reconstructions for the last 2 thousand years or so (1):
The Vikings supposedly roamed the northern Atlantic around the year 1000 AD +/- 200 years.
Can you see the problem? We're at happy Viking now (and that's if you except the top, end of the distribution and not the mean at 1000AD) and ramping up. If we were to stop here, maybe you could make this argument, but the fact is we're traveling into the unknown, and if paleoclimatology is right about anything, we're likely heading towards disaster.
Yet another poorly-thought out argument to justify complacency. Anyone who reads my blog realizes I'm anti-alarmist, but that doesn't mean we should sit around looking for non-existent silver-linings like this twit.
1. Jones, P.D., M. New, D.E. Parker, S. Martin, and I.G. Rigor, Surface air temperature and its changes over the past 150 years, Reviews of Geophysics, 37, 173-199, 1999.
More like this
So, who's up for a bit of pillaging, then?
Supposedly? Don't tell me you're a Viking denialist ...
If you start adding up the mass that humans been moving from the bottom of the oceans and out of mines, up into skyscrapers and cities, etc., you can show that that human activity is contributing to the slowing of Earth's rotational speed (assuming constant angular momentum and all that other science rubbish). Couldn't this be another cause of Global Warming? I'm sure you'll find some Flat Earther nut who can blame that outcome on tidal forces with the Moon, of all things, but we know better, right?
Shouldn't we start advocating living below the surface of the Earth, to keep our mass from affecting the rotational speed of the Earth, or is that level of complacency still acceptable?
Dude, you're not really trying to use Mann's "hockey stick" to disprove the existence of the midieval warm period, are you? The other studies listed on your spaghetti graph are inbred siblings using the same proxies and techniques. If you are a scientist with even a basic understanding of statistical methods a couple hours investigation at climateaudit would be highly informative.
Unless you're cool with statistical techniques that generate hockey sticks from red noise data. Then there is the dishonest grafting of data from the instrumental record to proxy data when the proxy data for the period are available and show no upward trend (the dreaded but seldom mentioned "divergence problem"). Oh, and then there is the use of bristle cone and fox tail pines series data that is acknowledged to be useless as a proxy for temperature when enhanced CO2 fertilization and other factors are considered. I could go on, but I suggest you do a little research.
If you are an open minded scientist and not a political hack you will acknowledge the fatal flaws in these "reconstructions" and not use them again.
The medieval warming period is on that graph, I'm not saying it doesn't exist, I'm saying we've exceeded it.
I actually follow McIntyre's site quite closely. But I also follow the real climate science rather than the nit-picking of a mining industry statistician.
I see that you've learned to parrot their points nicely. However, they've been addressed repeatedly, and that graph represents replication by multiple researchers of the original result, rather than the initial 1998 Mann reconstruction.
The hockey stick has been replicated, repeatedly, by multiple researchers. The methodology has been reaffirmed by the national academies. Yes, you have the Inhofe-driven Wegman report, whatever, that was a political hack-job if there ever was one. But McIntyre's criticisms have been addressed and dismissed by real scientists. Get over it.
You're missing the point of McIntyre's site, Mark. Lance has illustrated it nicely. It doesn't matter whether or not hockey-stick-shaped palaeoclimatic reconstructions are right or wrong. All that matters is that doubt be stirred up about them. Ostensibly credible doubt, featuring statisticky things like "red noise" and grave chin-rubbing doubts about dendrochronology on the part of those who wouldn't know a LAG from an O-ring. The doubt's everything. Makes it look as though the science isn't settled. McIntyre's done valuable work.
Dude, you're not really trying to use Mann's "hockey stick" to disprove the existence of the midieval warm period, are you?
No, he's not; you can clearly see the MWP on the graph. And that isn't how you spell the word "medieval".
Mark - In order to support your claim that we've exceeded temperatures in the MWP, you need to discount traditional historical records as sources of evidence, or give extra points for reliance on physical proxies. I don't know of any reputable account of evidential relations that will do the trick. Alternatively, you might fall back on the RealClimate gambit of saying the MWP isn't relevant because it wasn't global in extent. Problem is, as we improve our understanding of the current situation, we're seeing that average global temperature isn't of much _scientific_ interest. Regional variation rules.
BTW, are you saying that McIntyre isn't a real scientist? Perhaps you're trying to highlight the contrast between McIntyre and the real scientists (by your reckoning) who made the mistakes he identified.
MarkH,
As one scientist to another I respectfully ask that you spend some actual time reviewing the actual criticism of the actual science at climaeaudit. I had no opinion one way or the other until I spent a few hours reviewing the statistical analysis of Mann's work at climate audit.
If you have been "following" McIntyre's site you know his claims as to the problems with Mann's, and others, use of invalid stastical techniques and improper use of certain data sets to give results that exaggerate, to put it politely, the extent of modern warming. The data, which Mann only grudgingly released, and statistical techniques and algorithms are all there for you to prove it to yourself one way or the other.
Really, don't just take Gavin Schmidt's word for it. Have a whack at the data yourself. I am not a statistical scientist, but it didn't take long for me to see the games Mann and his buddies were playing with the data.
I would like to elevate the discussion above insults and cartoons. I know that you are knee deep in this whole "denialism" crusade but, if you consider yourself an independent, unbiased scientist, have a go at the data and Mann's techniques and see if you don't come out feeling like you need a shower.
That's also the NAS' position. Of course, you could always fall back on Lance's gambit that the NAS is equivalent to the Church of Scientology.
Alex,
Thanks so much for the kind spell check. I guess my poor spelling is one reason I chose to study physics.
Those "reconstructions" greatly minimize the medieval (I spell checked this time) warm period as opposed to other sources. This is hardly the extent of their flaws.
By what criteria would McIntyre be considered a scientist? For his extensive contributions to climate science? For all that hard work he did getting his PhD, and extending our knowledge of the field since then? He's a fake expert if I've ever seen one.
I'm sorry, but I'm not going to accept these wide-eyed denials that he has a very specific ideological agenda, and solely exists to magnify doubt about global warming. Further, this idea that so many people are so incredibly interested in rather dull statistical analysis and esoterica is beyond belief. He has a fan club because they see him as throwing pie in the face of a theory they don't like.
I think I'll just re-post my comment from Pharyngula on this topic and be done with it.
Lance, I posted the Real Climate replies to the criticisms of these data. Are we done repeating these antiquated arguments? Or do you have something they didn't deal with 2 years ago?
Um, Pierce, do the math.
CO^2 increase in the post-industrial period: ~30% (And don't give us crap about water vapour. As people have said, its low staying time in the atmosphere means that it's effect is usually in equilibrium, so it acts as an amplifier, not a forcing in itself.) And it's increasing still, at a rate of about 3% per year.
http://www.koshland-science-museum.org/exhibitgcc/images/historical03.g…
Rotational inertia of earth:
~10^38 kgm^2
Calculating humanity's change to this is harder. Let's try something vaguely similar - suppose humanity has managed to raise the entirity of the oceans of the world by 1 km. Then the amount of rotational inertia we add is:
2/3 *(2.39*10^23)*((6.371*10^6)^2-(6.37*10^6)^2) = 2*10^33 kgm^2
As a percentage, this is:
0.00002%
I dare say there's a difference between 30% (3% per year in recent days) and 0.00002%. But hey, it's up to you.
MarkH,
Sorry, I spent a great deal of time looking at McIntyre's articles and posts to see if he had a point. It seems to me that he does. I was just dispassionately suggesting you do the same.
You seem to be less impressed for whatever reason. Have you really looked into it? From your stated scientific credentials it seems to me that you posses the scientific acumen to check it out. You could take the time you spent writing the last few days posts and see for yourself.
I think you might be in a little "denial" yourself if you actually defend Mann and his work after giving it a thorough review.
FhnuZoag, you seem comfortable using math to support your denial, but, even if we take your math at face value, for argument's sake, does that change the scientific fact that the rotation of the Earth is slowing? And that this will irreversibly change the global environment, significantly impacting all life, not just our our own narrow-minded species? And that, as that species in a global environment, we have no responsibility to offset our impact to our environment?
Mark - You say, "I'm sorry, but I'm not going to accept these wide-eyed denials that he has a very specific ideological agenda, and solely exists to magnify doubt about global warming."
To what are you referring as "these wide-eyed denials?" Certainly not anything in my earlier post to this thread. Further, what McIntyre's (or anybody else's...) ideological agenda is doesn't affect the soundness of his arguments. But you already knew that. Right?
I told you, I do watch McIntyre's site. He is a nit-picker, and in the links above, his arguments (and the ones you made) were addressed. In the peer-reviewed literature the hockey stick has been confirmed by multiple independent researchers. The National Academies certified the work. I've seen McIntyre's arguments, and the response from Mann and others who do paleoclimate reconstruction. I find McIntyre unconvincing.
Further, his behavior in more recent episodes - for instance the NASA correction - I think demonstrates his real objective which is the smear the science as best he can. I'll grant you, he's one of the more sophisticated false experts I've seen, with a low signal:noise ratio for bullshit, but it's there.
There are other issues here is that AGW does not rely only on the hockey stick, and the hockey stick does not represent work only done by Mann - this has been replicated by others in the field. You repeatedly have attacked the entire field as some political exercise, is it all a conspiracy Lance?
Bob, I was responding to a lot of the nonsense also seen on the Pharyngula thread about McIntyre. This idea that he's just a disinterested party who likes to verify findings of other scientists in his free time is absurd.
I don't automatically assume ideology shapes one's scientific arguments no. But I can see patterns of an ideological agenda in the behavior of someone who spends all of his time attacking science.
Unmasking the agenda is important, when you find that it is influencing scientific behavior as discussed in this post.
There is a very good physical model of the greenhouse effect. Predictions based on it keep holding up. All attempts to show another cause of present warming have failed. We are losing sea ice, and continuing to add heat to our air and sea. After the sea ice goes the land ice.
There is no such thing as an argument that will stop ice melting when you add heat.
Eco-denialists have no science on their side, so they rely on some of the silliest trivia you will ever see. This Viking nugget is a typical example: umpteen years ago, some dude living somewhere had something happen to him, so GLOBAL WARMING IS A HUGE CONSPIRACY. There's a similar iteration out there relying on the range of ancient English vineyard country, which also proves global warming is a huge conspiracy.
MarkH,
Where exactly have I attacked "the entire field of climate science"? Believe it or not Michael Mann and his pals at RealClimate are not anything approaching the entirety of climate science.
All I suggested was taking an honest look at the data and techniques used by Mann, and many of his clique, and using a little independent judgment to render your own analysis.
That's what I did. I got out a couple of my old stats books, checked out a couple more from the university library and after about ten or twelve hours of inquiry realized McIntyre was dead on and Mann and his buddies were off base and in full cover-up mode.
Combine this with Mann's stubborn refusal to give access to his data and methodology and it was clear who was fudging and who wasn't. Imagine if you published a study that claimed findings so profound that it was used as the center piece of a UN sponsored report claiming a world wide crisis and then refused access to the data and methodology? That wouldnt fly for a freshman level physics lab
Now, I have never claimed there was a vast conspiracy to push AGW onto the world. Are you claiming that McKintrick, McIntyre, Wegman etc. are part of a vast right-wing conspiracy?
If you read the entire NAS review of the matter you will see a bit of baby splitting going on. If you have ever been involved in university level science politics you should know that this is par for the course. There is something for everyone in the NAS decision.
Again, I'm not making an appeal to authority, as you continue to, but asking you to invest the time and look for yourself. And that doesn't mean following a little linky to RealClimate.
Honestly bro if you took a grad level stats course it won't be that hard.
If you read the entire NAS review of the matter you will see a bit of baby splitting going on. If you are involved in university level science politics you should know that this is par for the course. There is something for everyone in the NAS decision.
Again I'm not making an appeal to authority, as you continue to , but asking you to invest the time and look for yourself. And that doesn't mean following a little linky to RealClimate.
Honest bro if you took a grad level stats course it won't be that hard.
how about here?
Sorry about the repeated paragraphs. I've been cut and pasting back and forth to word ever since Alex caught me misspelling "medieval" and botched the last paste.
You weren't exaclty specific but perhaps you were referring to my retort about AGW catastrophism being a religion? In no way is that a slam against the entirity of climate science.
People such as Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, who in 2004, said "The only continent that will be habitiable in the next century is Antarctica" are clearly making faith based assumptions because nothing attributed to climate science has shown anything of the sort. These are the people that have "faith" in AGW catastrophism.
What else should we call it?
Mark - You say that you "don't automatically assume ideology shapes one's scientific arguments." I won't defend automatism, but assuming that ideology shapes scientific arguments is probably about as safe as assuming that it shapes political arguments. The issue isn't whether the influence is present, but whether it distorts perceived relations between reasons/evidence and conclusions. Sometimes ideologues make good arguments, even when their ideology sucks.
And where have we promoted catastrophism? If anything we are appreciative of debunking scaremongering, several times in just the last few months.
I don't know who you're arguing with, but it's not us.
Bob, agreed. However, McIntyre doesn't pass the smell test.
Mark H
You wrote: "In the peer-reviewed literature the hockey stick has been confirmed by multiple independent researchers."
I think that you just parroted that from RealClimate. They are hardly a disinterested party - it is their work that is under criticism.
Can you produce the "multiple independent researchers"? If not, you should stop saying it.
Lance:
Sir David King didn't say that. What he did say was, and I quote:
"Other possible impacts could be equally catastrophic. These include, for example, the cessation of the ThermoHaline Conveyer (dramatised hyperbolically in the recent film The Day after Tomorrow), the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, and alterations in the Monsoon and El Nino cycles. Climate change will also have particularly adverse impacts on Africa which may render the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals impossible.[11] Indeed, if carbon concentrations do in fact rise to 1000ppm, we would be into uncharted territory: the last time such levels were experienced was 50 million years ago when the world was a radically different place and the most habitable areas were the poles."
It took me some trouble to find this, actually. The claim that it was 'likely' for only Antarctica to be inhabitable seems to come from an Independent on Sunday article. (it's a left wing paper, but with obviously crappy editorial standards) So, anyways, King himself seems to be fairly reasonable - he attacks TDAT for being alarmist, and makes some small scale predictions about failures of various UK international development policies. Finally, he acknowledges that +1000ppm would be without precedent. Unfortunately, the Indie pasted on a silly headline, and did
"He said the Earth was entering the "first hot period" for 60 million years, when there was no ice on the planet and "the rest of the globe could not sustain human life"."
Note the confusion of past tense relating to fact, and predicting the future, or the conditional future. King's statements might be on the high end of things, but he isn't as crazy as certain people make him out to be.
I don't know why you keep pointing to the Vikings, when this study show that it is in fact PIRATES that are correlated with global warming. Arrrrr, matey. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:FSM_Pirates.png . Further discussion here: http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/
Tom C:
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:1000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png for a start. More are findable via google scholar.
Go prove that all those listed are not independent. Have fun.
Thank FhnuZoag. I thought it was pretty obvious though, considering the chart I used cites different researchers for each line!
Jeez, this is starting to seem obsessive.
tidal:
Well, that graph is wrong. Pirate levels aren't decreasing in recent years, but increasing. In particular, we have increases in the latter part of the graph due to greater availability of weapons, and the collapse of states such as Somalia. In fact, 2000, which allegedly had only 17 pirates in the world, was a *peak* for pirate attacks.
http://home.wanadoo.nl/m.bruyneel/archive/modern/figures.htm
The historical record clearly shows a rise in pirate activity. Then again, maybe we count the attacks on the boat people - in which case, 400 for 1980 would be a vast underestimate.
In a single incident (out of 300) in 1999, 20 pirates boarded a ship. So um, hurrah for pulling figures out of one's ass to make a point, eh?
Also, um, note that the bottom axis goes up and then down again.
Don't worry Fhnu, it's a joke related to the flying spaghetti monster and pirate love. It's not serious.
FhnuZoag,
If Sir David was misquoted I'm sorry to have passed it along. I have seen the quote in other places than the one you cite, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
However, what you quote him as saying is silly enough to make my point.
"Other possible impacts could be equally catastrophic. These include, for example, the cessation of the ThermoHaline Conveyer (dramatised hyperbolically in the recent film The Day after Tomorrow), the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, and alterations in the Monsoon and El Nino cycles. Climate change will also have particularly adverse impacts on Africa which may render the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals impossible.[11] Indeed, if carbon concentrations do in fact rise to 1000ppm, we would be into uncharted territory: the last time such levels were experienced was 50 million years ago when the world was a radically different place and the most habitable areas were the poles."
Do I really have to address the debunked "cessation of the ThermoHaline Conveyor" nonsense? The rest of the paragraph reads like a bad disaster movie script of wildly improbable hyperbole (Uh, like the one he purposely mentions, The Day After Tomorrow.). Christ he even prefaces the paragraph by using the word catastrophic! The fifty million years ago bit is priceless. We'll all have to move to the poles apparently. (Not that different than what he was misquoted as saying really.)
Simply put this is the kind of over the top sensationalist crap that passes for reasonable discussion by those folks who have bought into AGW hysteria. That it was said by an official British science advisor is shameful.
There isn't one thing in that paragraph that could reasonably be expected to happen. The second coming of Jesus has an equal probability of occurrence in the next century (essentially zero.)
Let's see:
--the destruction of the Amazon rainforest
Odd that he'd call this an impact. But the rainforest is being eaten away by man and drought.
--alterations in the Monsoon and El Nino cycles
This is pretty likely for monsoons. Perhaps not as likely for el Nino.
--Climate change will also have particularly adverse impacts on Africa
If Climate Sensitivity is 3`C (the best guess) then the interior of Africa could see twice that (or more). It won't be good.
And a shutdown of the thermocline is absolutely possible--though it's very unlikely to be occurring now, and, if it is, it appears to not have the cooling effect theorized.
Not exactly "essentially zero," huh?
"it was great for the Vikings!"
But crap for the Irish amongst many others.
Actually Mark, it is not obvious. The studies cited in the link Fhnu provided are all incestuous. Many of the researchers are co-authors or students of Mike Mann (he is listed as author of 3 of citations); many of them use the bristlecone pine chronologies which were explicitly warned against by the NAS; many use Mann's bizarre statistical algorithms which both Wegman and NAS discredited.
The details of what I just related are easily found on ClimateAudit. I think if you spent less energy on insults and a little more doing some careful analysis you might get at the truth here.
For what it's worth, I think it is getting warmer and that CO2 is contributing. Fortunately, I can still think for myself regarding related issues.
Tom C,
I'm fully aware of the Wegmen "relationship network" criticism and find it completely invalid. In a small field people are going to share co-authors a lot. But the assertion that this somehow contaminates the research of multiple groups is a really weak argument. To believe this, one would have to believe that not just man falsified, but he virally infected all these other groups to falsify merely by having his name on their papers. The first authors write the papers and the last author is the boss. They're going to be responsible for 99% of the effort. And in a small field like paleoclimate, you're going to find a lot of coauthors.
And NAS did not discredit his statistical algorithms at all. You have to do more than parrot McIntyre (or his parrot of Von Storch's criticism), who is spreading misinformation if that's what he's saying. You're referring to the supposedly nonsignificant CE result of the 1998 paper but it ignores that he used a different scoring technique that was valid.
MarkH
Do you find it at all plausible, based on your experience with statistical analyses, that the fourth principle component of a mixture of various temperature proxies would be a linear function of temperature and would happen to correspond to the global temperature over the last 1000 years? Franky, this is just insane. I don't know that all these folks are lying, but I do think that they don't understand the math they are doing. Wegman concurred, and postulated that the closed nature of the field was what perpetuated the faulty methods. BTW, McIntyre was a math prodigy that happened to study political science at Oxford rather than mathematical economics at MIT. I would be hesitant to trash him if I were you.
But this is what it comes down to. If these trees have accurately recorded the global temperature for the last thousand years, don't you think it reasonable that they would record the last 30? Especially since it has been a time of rapid warming. Why are these guys afraid to go sample the trees to see if they captured the last 30 years? You know the answer and so do I.
I have no doubt that McIntyre is smart, maybe even exceptionally so. I just don't trust him. Between publishing in E&E, the seemingly endless attack on a small component of the AGW story that has been vindicated by the most prestigious scientific body in the country, his attempt to publish an analysis that was roundly rejected for cherry-picking reconstructions to produce an unlikely result etc., makes me think I smell a rat. The American Statistical Association agreed Mann made a flub, but that the answer ultimately was verified by other analyses, and when correctly analyzed the answer is the same. Ultimately these results were found to be uncertain, but plausible, and that shouldn't be surprised as Mann even uses the word "uncertainty" in the title of his paper. It seems amazing he would be attacked so viciously when it's clear he was being extremely cautious about the certainty of his results. Take them for what they are.
The singular focus on the hockey stick graphs as some source of falsehood in the AGW debate is tiresome. The graphs are represented for what they are - a largely consistent data set showing a probable temperature anomaly in the last few decades. The subsequent proxies examined by other researchers and using the best statistics have confirmed the original paper - and McIntyre doesn't attack these. AGW is further backed up by the inability of purely natural forces to explain the current global mean temperature increases.
As far as not resampling, what's the point? The proxies are difficult to obtain and analyze, and for researchers who have moved on, there is no reason to obsess about this unless you have an axe to grind like McIntyre. If the anti-AGW types want it done, they should pay for it and do it. But the rest of the climate community is done with this discussion.
As am I unfortunately. I'm supposed to be writing a paper and have to stop commenting for at least the rest of the day, I'm sorry. Too distracting!
MarkH -
What a nice world it would be if something were true merely if we repeated it enough times.
You say "the answer ultimately was verified by other analyses, and when correctly analyzed the answer is the same".
Actually, when you remove the studies that rely on the problematic trees that the NAS report recommended against, there are very few proxies that show current warmth as unprecedented.
You say "The singular focus on the hockey stick graphs as some source of falsehood in the AGW debate is tiresome".
Talk about singular focus! The IPCC made sure that the hockey stick was front and center of every news conference, publication, etc. Why did they trumpet so loudly this "uncertain but plausible" study?
You say "As far as not resampling, what's the point? The proxies are difficult to obtain and analyze...
You lose all credibility and expose yourself as a partisan when you say something like this. Give me a break. A study like this could be done in a matter of weeks and for a few thousand dollars. There is no excuse not to do it, especially when so many reconstructions depend on these trees and especially when the NAS recommended against using them. If they refuse to sample the last 30 years I refuse to trust the studies.
You wrote "an axe to grind like McIntyre".
What axe? Can you name something he has written or some relationship he has that points to bias?
MarkH,
Tom C. is right on the money. You continue to appeal to authority, incorrectly in your claim about NAS not discrediting both use of bristle cone pines and Mann's "unorthodox" statistical methods. You then smear McIntyre's motives and qualifications.
I'll ask you again to look for yourself at the link I provided earlier. If you are genuinely interested in the science you would not need to be urged twice to do so. If you had a BA in English I could (perhaps) see your continued reliance on authority, but you appear to have the scientific background to see if McIntyre is right or not.
I guess it comes down to what your true purpose is here, to validate scientific ideas or champion political causes.
Mark H, I don't understand your fear of "nit-pickers". If something is correct then most nit-pickers will get bored and move on, but they are an important check in the process. If scientist's work were more transparent we wouldn't have had that NASA temp data debacle a couple weeks ago. Score another for the nit-pickers.
Science needs the nit-pickers, the skeptics, and even the contrarians a lot more than it needs self appointed imams pointing out infidels for ostracization.
Let's examine your worthy contribution to the discussion that I threatened to disemvowel.
Now I asked Chris if he wanted me to disemvowel since it was his post, and he said he didn't want me to because your comments were self-defeating. But do you honestly not understand how this was a troll comment? You attack my brother, who has never written about AGW, for my postings, call AGW theory a religion, attack the image that he just reproduced from the source, and then suggested we'd be happy to go back to the middle ages when repeatedly on this blog I have attacked scaremongering and suggested the tactic on global warming should be based on technology and amelioration. I'm pretty conservative on this actually.
That's not a troll? Recalibrate your etiquette Lance. If you had kept up that level of "dialog" I'd have you banned (which I have not yet had to do for any commenter).
I usually avoid calling my commenters denialists but I was hungover and your post really pissed me off. I dislike it when people attack my brother off-topic, because he has very interesting things to discuss, usually on consumer protection, and his post-frequency isn't improved by nasty personal attacks for what I write. Trolls have even harrassed him in meatworld because of things I have written, and it's just beneath contempt.
As far as protecting people from denialists you are making the mistake of thinking that other people are equipped with identical scientific acumen. These tactics must be challenged because, sadly, they work. People believe in conspiracy theories, lots of them. People can't recognize a cherry-pick much of the time. People think an "expert" from family research council is worthy of being interviewed about the safety of plan B. People think we haven't found enough fossils to justify evolution (every discovery is two more gaps!). People don't understand logical fallacies, and regularly fall for appeals to consequences (Darwin caused Hitler) and many many others.
What do we do? We raise awareness of the problem, and yes we label the worst actors, who time and time again don't just misrepresent science but are fundamentally dishonest people. What should we do? Ignore lies? Or call them on it? Should I accept Paul Cameron's BS research saying homosexuality kills? Or should we call him the scum that he is? Should I ignore DaveScot at UC when he encourages people to take untested chemicals to self-medicate their cancer? Or should I call him an idiot and a crank? It's what he is.
Real life isn't an Aristotelian debate with parliamentary rules and honest brokers. You have to identify the frauds, expose them, shame them, attack them, and hopefully drive the underground when they rear their ugly little heads.
Also, don't forget we have degrees. We'll often attack things people write without necessarily upgrading them to crank or denialist status. A discussion here != denialism every time, as I'll disagree with people I respect and like. For instance, Steve Novella last week when he decided to publicly debate homeopaths. I think it's an error, because debate is what they want. They want the appearance of scientific discussion of magic water! Screw that. Screw them. They don't deserve our time or any appearance of parity.
Yes, I do challenge McIntyre's motives, and agree with Mann's assessment that he's just a distraction who's sole focus is to amplify doubt. He's good at it. I still don't trust him, or anyone really that publishes in E&E, and I don't buy this idea that he has all these readers because they're interested in statistics of dendrochronology and endless discussions of measuring stations. People like him because they see him as an embarrassment to a scientific field they dislike, either that or they are fanatics for watching paint dry.
Finally Lar r, you've just proposed the crank's favorite argument for constant debate on settled issues. I don't buy it, and it's idiotic. Contrarians, skeptics, what have you, are only useful so long as they are honest in their tactics. When it's some crank running around saying condoms have holes that let HIV through for the thousandth time, you're allowed to tell him to bugger off because he's not helping advance human knowledge. Debate for debates sake is absurd. There must be standards.
Ok, back to writing. No more commenting today I swear.
MarkH: "Finally Lar r, you've just proposed the crank's favorite argument for constant debate on settled issues. "
You have just used a favorite tactic of the "fanatic" (called the "do witches float tactic" ref: Monty Python Holy Grail) by constructing an phony self serving identification method by which one can easily label an opponent pejoratively, and thus discount or evade any argument that they might have.
Now that you have been properly exposed as a "fanatic" by my masterful methodology your arguments needn't be considered. Boy, that was easy. Now I can see why you do it.
Every time I try to get out, they keep dragging me back in.
I had to come back because I didn't want Lar R to think I was calling him a crank. I was just saying that is their favorite argument, because they always want to endlessly discuss how the moon landing was a hoax, or how Kennedy was really killed in the library with the candle-holder.
Do you feel like you are persecuted Lar R? Or resemble Galileo? If not, you're probably safe. But if you want to know how to be a crank we have a HOWTO.
Maybe if you guys actually read the NAS report on past climate reconstructions you'd learn a couple things about Bristlecone pines.
1. The NAS recommended that only the "strip bark" BCPs should be avoided in climate reconstructions.
2. This is not because they are a bad temp proxy, but because it appears that the "strip bark" form of the tree in old age responds strongly to CO2 fertilization. This gives less confidence in the strip bark version (because the calibration with the instrumental record covers only the period before CO2 fertilization affects growth).
So it's not all Bristlecones, as some sites on the internet would have you believe.
That's pages 51-52 of the NAS report, by the way. It's not even a major point of the panel.
MarkH,
For a guy who calls people "scum", "liar", "troll", "crank" etc (Just in the last three days BTW), you have pretty thin skin. I don't see where my comments were that offensive nor did I call anyone a name. Admittedly I haven't visited your blog many times, so if you, and your brother, are not a AGW catastrophist, my apologies. When you label your blog "The "Denialism Blog" it brings with it the baggage of the common usages of the term and the reputations of those that use it.
Most of the people that have hurled the word "denialist" at me have been so steeped in AGW hysteria that they view it, as Al Gore has proclaimed, as a "spiritual and moral" issue. They have decided that the science is "settled" and that we need to purge the world of dangerous carbon emissions and that anyone that questions the need to totally retool the energy infrastructure of the modern world are fools, toadies, "Exxonians" or "climate criminals". Oh, and yes denialists.
Just today an anonymous poster over at "The Intersection" called me a troll and accused me of working for some nefarious right wing organization because I stated some rather obvious scientific points in criticism of the idea that the oceans are becoming so acid that corals will become extinct. Sadly this person claimed to be a climate scientist.
Stating a theory as hallowed doctrine and then attacking those that question it as heretics is anathema to scientific inquiry. Being a fellow scientist I should hardly have to point this out to you.
That's right Lance. Everyone is crazy but you.
Talk about lack of insight.
I don't state theories as hallowed doctrine but I admire the process of science and will attack people who use these rhetorical tactics against it. And before you go much further you should read the crank howto as well. You're slipping into the Galileo gambit, possibly without realizing it.
There is a big difference between dissent, and argument, and the fundamentally dishonest and irrelevant tactics we discuss. Science should be flexible and debated yes, but there must be standards as well.
I'm writing again today, so I'm out.
Hi Mark!
I'm curious as to who it is that might set the "standards"? You? Don't bother a reply. I know you're writing.
So, let's say we're all convinced of AGW and that we have to cut carbon emissions 80% to "save" the world from catastrophe. After all, the debate here seems to be over. Given all the answers, when you do get a moment, explain just how you see the world accomplishing this feat of 80% carbon emission reduction. And, since we're mostly simpletons, persuade us that this will make things cool again. I'm curious.
Ethan,
MarkH need only declare that it will get cooler, and then deride anyone that questions him as a "denialist". Haven't you got the idea yet?
Ethan, as has been pointed out many times on this thread alone we have shown what the standards are and despite all of Lance's caterwauling I have yet to see anyone disagree that they are illegitimate. If you don't use dishonest tactics you're safe from the label.
As far as the rest, you are arguing with someone who is not me. I don't believe that carbon regulation will get us there, rather in investment in technology and amelioration, as I have stated on this very thread.
Lance, I'm sick of your trolling. Throughout this thread I have been patiently explaining the reasoning behind the definition, and how it is applied. You just ignore anything put to you and repeat your nonsense over and over. Classic trolling. I'm done with it. Get lost.
I must admit that I find this entire exchange humorous. Not only because MarkH, cannot seem to refrain from doing what he is suppose to, writing some paper, but also because he is using the same book of cards that he claims denialists use. One would expect him not to play those cards. I am disinterested in the global warming debate as I have no informed opinion on the subject. I just find this whole argument funny.
Cite it Dan, where have I used the tactics?
Ooh! The "I'm rubber, you're glue" comeback from Dan the Man! That one's gonna leave a (nonexistent) mark!
C'mon, people. If you're gonna pull out the "You're doing it too!" whine, at least cite instances. You know, evidence? Or shut up, as per Mark's previous comment.
I am so sick of all of this. I work in paleoclimatology, I read the peer reviewed work and I'm familiar with all of the arguments, but honestly, I don't care anymore.
The more I see debates between "deniers" and AGW "supporters" (that sounds bad) the more I am convinced it only helps support the denialist cause.
It's the same cliched arguments over and over again, and in the end it's us that look bad because it's so damn frustrating arguing every day about the same stuff.
Good luck MarkH, I appreciate what you're trying to do. I just can't help thinking that were these conversations public they would come to more satisfying conclusions. The anonymity of the internet and the repetition of the denialist arguments always make me suspect that there are far fewer "unique" posters then there seem to be.
How many more times do I have to see: How can they predict fifty years from now when they can't even predict the weather?
MarkH wrote: "Cite it Dan, where have I used the tactics?"
You humor me. I do not have a problem with your post. I just find it all funny. Don't you? After all, you said you had a paper to write but kept coming back. As to the deck of cards answer, I would have to get back to you, as working a full time job, in addition to running a business, taking care of a wife and child, does not allow as much time as you seem to have even when papers aside from you blog need to be written. I have a paper of my own I am trying to get through. But appealing to authority comes to mind as others have stated above. Again I have no interest in the argument, I just find it all funny. Why, you write:
"Ok, back to writing. No more commenting today I swear."
Then you write:
"had to come back because I didn't want Lar R to think I was calling him a crank."
Then you write:
"I'm writing again today, so I'm out."
But you keep coming back. I find that funny, sorry.
I have a problem with procrastination, don't rub it in.
dam and double dam that kind of stuff is hard to read. It is like listening to two guys at the race track arguing about which horse is the better horse which one will win. I makes absolutely no difference which one they think will win the race their thoughts have absolutely no effect on the race, even if one should convince the other it will still have no effect on the race.
let the morons yell and holler the the "true believers" rant and rave, continue to do the work, document the changes. there is still much we do not understand the results will become clearer over time. the race will be run it is running as we sit and read or write on this blog and no amount of argument or belief will make any difference what so ever.
if the shit hits the fan I will be glad I have on my rain suit if it doesn't I will just look silly. I could care less about looking silly
We're cooling, folks. It's clouds, determined by cosmic rays, determined by the earth's magnetic field, determined by that of the sun, determined by the wiggle of the sun around the gravitational center of the solar system. Carbon dioxide is a trace gas with trace effect on temperature. Gerlich and Tscheuschner have shown that the IPCC's conception of Greenhouse Gas warming is unphysical, basically it requires the transmission of heat from a hot upper stratosphere through a cooler lower stratosphere to a warmer troposphere. This violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
I didn't make this up. The information is out there.
=============================
MarkH, look at the temp for the last century, it warmed to the thirties, cooled to the seventies, warmed to the late nineties and has been static, since. Where do you think we are going next, particularly if sunspots are linked to the price of wheat?
==========================
Dan, nothing funny about it, he's losing and in denial. It's smart to keep coming back.
===================================
Mark, it seems you got infected with the kim troll from Pharyngula.
It's a basic ID promoter which uses the "balanced view" and "only concerned about the truth" meme to mask itself. Fortunately it has an unique signature and seems to be unable to mutate and adapt, so no serious impacts are to be feared. Though some effects, but not limited to them, as boring repetitions and an inability to learn and to understand arguments may happen.
I would propose a standard dose of ignore once a day for the next week. It will probably go away after some time if it doesn't get responses.
I didn't make this up. The information is out there.
I used to think conspiracism was a superimposed outgrowth of a general denialist mentality, but I'm starting to think it's the other way around at that point. Repeatedly seeing people crackpots act as though they were living in an episode of the X-Files is one data-point behind this shift of opinion.
So, Tyler, you don't believe me? What is it, the cosmic rays? Google CERN and Svensmark.
======================================================
Oh yeah. Try this: Tinyurl.com/2szwh8
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Great, a link to a paper from Energy and Environment and mention of Svensmark. Because, y'know, when you can't find actual evidence in support of your claims, you may as well reference a crank journal and an unsupported hypothesis.
Kim the Concern Troll, I notice you gave up reading the "Hello, Stan Palmer" thread where I link to the refutation of the "cosmic rays determine our climate" hypothesis.
Why am I not surprised.
Michael Mann and the hockeystick: The never ending story of bullshit.
Hundreds of peer reviewed studies proof the existence of the medieval climate optimum and that it was warmer then todays climate (check it at "Nature" and "Science". To claim Medieval Optimum was regional for to defend the Hockeystick is just belief and not science.
The last serious comment to Mann's stick was that he is probably right for the last 400 years by showing that it got warmer. Huh, so good! I don't wonder! Since about these days we got out of little ice age. Even my little sister knows without Mann's stick that it got warmer since.
But it's all right, go on to believe computer models and selected proxies. Go on playing SimCity, friends. and --don't forget to lower taxes there for success!
Another denialist ringing in on an old thread! Hmm...
False, lie, "belief, not science" canard, "Little Ice Age" lie, computer models bad, lower taxes good...
Yep! All bullshit. Another drive-by? Stay tuned to find out!
My dear, I don't like the Japanese very much, but in this i must come to his defense. Hideyoshi didn't talk about "lies", he talked about the incorrect use of data. That's a different, don't you agree?
But it looks like you are a true believer and like to accept unproofed all the nonsense Mann and Hansen and Al Gore served to you.
You should deliver facts. It's too simple to deny all those peer reviewed studies (check the nature and science-archive) about the climate optima of the past 3000 years.
And it's a pitty that all the co2-believers still can't explain the several ice ages of the last 150.000 years. But I guess you prefer the easy way: just to believe in a simple one cause hypothesis with a lot of unproofed forcings and estimations. Not a single one of these computer models is validatet, if you know what this means, they are evaluated, this is a big difference, and they are heuristic, what means they are simple concepts and not reality or even able to "predict" something.
But it's OK, it's your decision to walk the path to the western belief of the 21st century, the agw-hoax. The belief in a world of computer animated virtual realities. Just "SimCity" as hideyoshi said before.
Some days ago Koren et al published a study in Science magazin about the role of aerosols in climate change. The opinion of agw-alarmists that aerosols cooled the environment after WW II and masked agw is obviously completely wrong. It's the opposite: the more aersols the more heating of the evinronment. How does these findings fit to the hypothesis of the agw-alarmists?
My beloved China will grow with it's main resource coal, then oil and last but not least nuclear power, even when all the western hypocrits and agw-groopies of the US and the Eu will lament about a moderate warming due to this. Scrap your SUVs, install local traffic, construct better cars not sucking petrol like elephants, so the world will become a little less warm, I guess. Oh, yes and build houses by stone bricks which don't fly away from a little storm.
You can't take the piss out of us, american and european friends, you did it in the past, now it's our turn and we will take over in a not so far future. Just ask your computer, may be in this case he predicts something true.
Another drive-by troll! W00T! Another round of Trollympics may be upon us!
Of course, none of this is new. Just another twit who is unable to read. Facts are fun things, aren't they? Explaining ice ages is pretty simple, too. None of these things are difficult... unless you have an ideological bias against the idea from the start.
Reading for comprehension FAIL!
Maybe you could try reading Koren's words for yourself, lackwit, instead of cobbling together arguments you clearly don't understand, from websites made by other crackpots like you who clearly don't understand the actual science?
Classic symptom of the denialist crackpot: be too stupid to understand the complexities of the science, and therefore assume any nuanced statement is an argument against AGW. There's nothing contradictory about "local cooling trends" versus "global warming trend", except in the mind of the ideologue too ignorant to comprehend the meanings of "global" and "local".
Oh, man, you are so boring and so terribly simplistic and a real minimalist. I will recommend you for the nobel price when it's so easy for you to explain the reasons for some of the most complicated events in history like the ice ages. So funny!
But this is typical. Climate hypocrits always are minimalists and because they are too lazy to reflect on they own and prefer to be parrots of Hansen and Gore they preach like tibetian prayer mills the role of clouds in the models would be considered correctly.
But let's read Koren et al's own words:
"Cloud aerosol interaction forms one of the major unknowns in the field of climate change. Even the general trend, warming or cooling, is not clear yet."
"In a recent study [3], a network of ground sensors (AERONET) was used to estimate simultaneously the effect of aerosol concentration and absorption on cloud cover. The opposing effects on clouds were observed: as total aerosols increase, cloud cover increases; and as radiation absorption by aerosols increases, cloud cover decreases. These effects were shown for all locations, for all seasons."
"Local heating and cooling by aerosols may change synoptic patterns, and therefore change the magnitude and location of lows and highs, changing precipitation, temperature and humidity patterns. Clouds may persist over regions where they would normally precipitate and the likelihood and magnitude of severe weather events, such as tropical cyclones and severe thunderstorms, may be intensified. The local balance will be disturbed and as often happens in complicated systems, the deviation from balance may propagate to larger scales, eventually changing the global thermodynamic balance."
Read the last sentence, go to bed and think about what it means that "disturbed local balance may propagate to larger scales and eventually changing the global thermodynamic balance."
But probably "complicated systems" are too simple for your minimalistic mind and you better sleep when you always repeat your mantra of dangerous AGW by CO2.
You remind me to some elder dudes who believed in Saint Marx' monocausal "Arbeitswertlehre" as the main point of his theorie of "Mehrwert" and "Ausbeutung".
Hey, you actually did finally read it! Good for you, there's hope for your crazy ass yet.
But see, the words you said before are right up there for anyone to read, too, and you said:
Whereas Koren's position all along has clearly been that aerosols have multiple effects that can result in localized cooling AND localized warming, and it is enormously complex to separate out the specific contributions of each effect.
Really now. Look at all those words you wasted in contradicting yourself. And ask yourself why you are using the words of a scientist who accepts AGW and whose research supports the idea that man-made atmospheric agents are playing havoc on our climate to support whatever dumb ill-informed agenda you have, which I don't care enough to figure out or ask you about.
Really, just try reading science written by scientists before you open your pie-hole and maybe you won't fall on your face so spectacularly.
Just for the benefit of our newest denialist plaything, and for anyone else who might not have clicked on my link above, here's another snippet:
Exactly as I said, and Koren even explicitly states that it may yet be true that aerosols ultimately result in a net global cooling effect. Far from a declaration that it is "obviously completely wrong," obviously.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again:
Climate Change Denialist Arguments:
1. Global Warming Is Not Happening.
2. If Global Warming *Is* Happening, It's Not Our Fault.
3. If Global Warming *Is* Happening, And It *Is* Our Fault, It Will Be Too Expensive To Fix, Anyway.
Or, as the noble philosopher, B. Simpson put it, "I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, you can't prove anything!"
Thank you LanceR that you support my statement.
What's obviously completely wrong is the input of overrated parameters of cooling effects of aerosols in the current computer models.
When you read this:
"As the local-warming can be canceled out by the local-cooling effects and since the overall t r e n d is cooling, the notion may appear to be that aerosols even help to c a n c e l out the greenhouse gasses warming effect" ... even when it's local, because at last, global climate is nothing else then a sum of of lot of local climates, there is no god who creates "global" climate, this is a quite theoretical thing.
The cooling effect of aerosols for about 30 years after world war II isn't permanent trend in the computer models but it is big necessary short scale factor for the explanation of massively missing global warming at those 2 to 3 decades. When you read Koren et al well you will notice that there is just a net cooling effect to the global environment and this effect cannot explain the climate of those decades. So it is a completely wrong component of the current computer models.
As many americans you are quite naive when you guys are talking about "true" science. Go back to the kindergarden when you believe in this. Today's science (and maybe it always was) is political! Last year Mr. Soros spent 700.000 US-Dollars for Mr. James Hansen for his efforts to "politicize" science. Go to the website of his foundation and you will find it. The German "true scientists" of PIK, Rahmstorf and Schellnhuber and others get money from the insurance companies for their trumpeting of AGW. Last year PIK rose more then 500.000 Euros from Allianz-Insurance and Insurance companies go to India to sell weather insurance certificates to the poor. Just go to their webpage/funding site and check it.
So stop talking of "true" science, it's just naive and quixotic nonsense. "Science" as everything follows wide mostly financial and ideological interests.
Funny is that people from the country who emit 20 to/year/person of CO2 in relation to Chinas and Indias 0,2 - to 2 to/person stand up and try to teach the world about global warming. Be carefully, you aren't in a greenhouse but you are sitting in a glasshouse when you pitch stones to others.
Again, that's an awful lot of words just to prove you don't understand what you're reading.
There were other factors during that period (such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation being in a "cool" phase from the 40s to the 70s), but aerosols were a major cause, yes.
"Net" with regard to the dual effects of aerosols (cooling vs warming); as I posted, Koren himself states that the net effect on global climate is most likely to be, at best, a cancellation of warming.
So a "net cooling effect to the global environment" cannot explain the flattened global temperature from that period. Gotcha.
Not only do you continue to contradict your original post, you're even confused about what you're trying to say from sentence to sentence.
I appreciate that English isn't your first language, but come on. Of course, this is actually a tactic we see in denialists again and again: it doesn't matter if the argument is consistent, all that matters is casting doubt on the work of real scientists. And if you have to twist the words of a scientist who clearly supports the idea of AGW, well, see the part about 'consistency' again.
Oh, and trying to denounce all data -- especially the recorded temperatures from ground stations in that period as well as paleoclimate data from ice cores, glacial retreat, etc., as simply "computer modeling".
Let us know when you're ready to engage the data, and the words of others, honestly. In the meantime, you can't teach a pig to sing and you can't teach a denialist how to read, apparently.
Meanwhile, for those interested in further reading, a decent post illustrating the hemispheric differences during that period.
You are still funny, dear minimalist. You send me a link to a "decent" post and what I read there (and elsewhere) and even at koren et al is the permanent lament about the big amount of uncertainties in the understanding of clouds, aerosols and temperature.
"Cloud aerosol interaction forms one of the major unknowns in the field of climate change. Even the general trend, warming or cooling, is not clear yet."
Even 2001 the IPCC wrote: The fact, that the global mean temperature has increased since the late 19th century and that others trends have been observed does not necessarily mean that an anthropogenic effect on the climate system has been identyfied. Climate has always varied on all time scales, so the observed change may be natural.
This is still true and no "likely" or "most likely" will change it. What agw-enthusiasts provide is at last not much more than the "rumor" of AGW and this verified by unverified, unvalidated, heuristic computer models.
And all those data and proxies you mention are quite nice and interesting but they provide no proof for "anthropogenic" global warming. They only verify that there was and always will be climate change. There is no stable climate, climate is always changing, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. Look back the last 200.000 years and you will see.
I mentioned Koren et al just to show that all cloud- and aerosol-parameters of the computer models always are parameters on call. From year to year new studies appear and modellers have to change their models again and again. At last I predict :) this AGW hype will last another ten years and then it will be over because mankind has to solve much more serious problems than this moderate temperature rise of 0,6 Cels. since the beginning of the 20th century.
I propose the agw-enthusiasts of the USA should much more try to save and reorganize the United States financial system then try to save the world from global warming. Up to know you all have big profit from the role of the us-dollar in the worlds financial system and energy-supply and live at the cost of the rest of the world. Change this and you will do much more for the health of people than you ever can do by fighting global warming.
Hey, did you know that if you babble a lot of stupid crap, it actually goes back and erases the stupid crap you wrote before?!?
Whoops, nope, it's still there!
Too bad.
PS, Nice job on the quote-mining. The full quote is at the bottom of this page as a set up for an actual analysis of the evidence for AGW. The Darwin eye quote all over again, in other words.
Whoops, forgot to close tags on my link.
this page.
Full quote from that paragraph:
... Followed by an introduction to Chapter 12's more detailed analysis.
What Science tells about:
"The findings, which appear in the August 15, 2008 issue of Science, reveal that adding s m a l l quantities of aerosols into a clean environment can indeed produce a net cooling effect. As m o r e and m o r e particles enter the cloud layer, h o w e v e r, the effect progressively s w i t c h e s from c o o l i n g to h e a t i n g mode. The researchers also found that the extent of the original cloud cover is important. A completely overcast sky prevents the suns rays from reaching the aerosols, so the result may be additional cooling of the atmosphere and the Earths surface. But the larger the ratio of open sky to clouds, the more aerosol particles absorb radiation, thus hastening the heating of the remaining cloud cover, reducing cloud cover, and heating the system."
Did you got it, minimalist?
Yet another quote that you don't understand and that undermines your point. You're batting a thousand today, mate. He's still talking about local phenomena, particularly considering that aerosol distribution is non-uniform and only highly concentrated in selected areas, like over industrial areas, and that dispersal over time means that the majority of the atmosphere will have a low concentration (cooling); and that he's talking about one particular form of aerosol, "black carbon" or soot, that has the absorbing properties that can have a warming effect; or that the soot has to get very high in the atmosphere to have that effect; etc. etc. etc.; various other facts you never bothered to learn; and why am I even bothering to try to teach a brick wall here
And none of which, of course, undermines Koren's clearly-articulated position, as I quoted before, which is that the net global effect is most likely to be cooling; and this certainly does nothing to undermine the validity of that hypothesis for the post-WWII period. The Science article is nothing more and nothing less than a direct correlation of local cloud properties to local soot-induced forcing.
And of course there is the absurdity of (mis)quoting a scientist whose work absolutely supports the idea that man is adversely affecting the climate, in order to feebly try to disprove the idea that man can adversely affect the climate. Add "irony" to the list of words you have trouble with.
You always need a lot of words to talk the common nonsense.
There is no global climate, there are only local climates and their summary is "global" climate. You avoid to come to the real important point that there is no validation of even one of the computer models agw-enthusiasts need to proof the existence of anthropogenic global warming higher then natural variability.
So don't waste your time to repeat always the same and commit that you are talking about a hypothesis you belief in and not a scientific "truth" like given by God.
It's no question that mankind always did an will change climates. Whether it afforests or uproots woods, whether it does agriculture or cattle breeding, all those activities form local climate due to influence the surface of the earth. When the greece and the spanish people built their fleets they destroyed their forests and changed local climate and in summary "global" climate.
But this isn't the discussion at all. The discussion is whether the human emission of CO2 is the reason for the very moderate rising of temperatures since about 100 years. And for this, there is no proof, it is just a non validated hypothesis in relation to natural variability. All the secondary effects of global warming don't interest in this relation. They happen in every case, regardless of anthropogenic or natural warming.
But I must commit: It makes no sense to discuss with true believers. They must defend their belief or they risk to loose their mental health.
Data measurements that match the models are all the confirmation we need. You can close your eyes shriek all you like about how you don't like the nasty, nasty "computer models", but at the end of the day, the hard data supports them.
In short, AGW right, Denialists wrong.
Go stick your head back in the sand. Don't worry, we'll save you anyway.
I guess you got the right name for your blog: denialism! Because you deny all facts that doesn't fit your agw-agenda. Science should be ready for discussion, for challenge of hypotheses and revision. But AGW-believers refuse to try to falsificate their hypothesis. Instead they deliver colourful pictures, graphs, computer models estimations one has to believe and who miss validation and just are evaluated and heuristic "scenarios".
On the other hand there are hundreds of peer review and studies about medieval climate optimum proofing that medieval climate optimum and roman climate optimum and even chinese medieval optimum were warmer then today. The only weak argument against these facts is the hockeystick and this weak NAS-statement about:
"It can be said with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries. This statement is justified by the consistency of the evidence from a wide variety of geographically diverse proxies.
Less confidence can be placed in large-scale surface temperature reconstructions for the period from A.D. 900 to 1600. Presently available proxy evidence indicates that temperatures at many, but not all, individual locations were higher during the past 25 years than during any period of comparable length since A.D. 900. The uncertainties associated with reconstructing hemispheric mean or global mean temperatures from these data increase substantially backward in time through this period and are not yet fully quantified."
And this weak argument together with the hockeystick graph should be your proof for this shameful viking posting? Oh, oh, that's hard to stand.
It's a shame that you depreciate the long lasting efforts of a lot of researching scientist just by this hockeystick hoax. Look at the following schedule and you will find evidence for what you deny: The medieval climate optimum was warmer then today and the problem that it happened without the fabulous CO2-Vapor-forcing-factor. And about currents and ENSO and all this: just computer crap when it's used to explain scenes 1000 years ago. SimCity at last.
___________________
Cambridge, MA - A review of more than 200 climate studies led by researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has determined that the 20th century is neither the warmest century nor the century with the most extreme weather of the past 1000 years. The review also confirmed that the Medieval Warm Period of 800 to 1300 A.D. and the Little Ice Age of 1300 to 1900 A.D. were worldwide phenomena not limited to the European and North American continents. While 20th century temperatures are much higher than in the Little Ice Age period, many parts of the world show the medieval warmth to be greater than that of the 20th century.
Smithsonian astronomers Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas, with co-authors Craig Idso and Sherwood Idso (Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change) and David Legates (Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware), compiled and examined results from more than 240 research papers published by thousands of researchers over the past four decades. Their report, covering a multitude of geophysical and biological climate indicators, provides a detailed look at climate changes that occurred in different regions around the world over the last 1000 years.
"Many true research advances in reconstructing ancient climates have occurred over the past two decades," Soon says, "so we felt it was time to pull together a large sample of recent studies from the last 5-10 years and look for patterns of variability and change. In fact, clear patterns did emerge showing that regions worldwide experienced the highs of the Medieval Warm Period and lows of the Little Ice Age, and that 20th century temperatures are generally cooler than during the medieval warmth."
Soon and his colleagues concluded that the 20th century is neither the warmest century over the last 1000 years, nor is it the most extreme. Their findings about the pattern of historical climate variations will help make computer climate models simulate both natural and man-made changes more accurately, and lead to better climate forecasts especially on local and regional levels. This is especially true in simulations on timescales ranging from several decades to a century.
Historical Cold, Warm Periods Verified
Studying climate change is challenging for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the bewildering variety of climate indicators - all sensitive to different climatic variables, and each operating on slightly overlapping yet distinct scales of space and time. For example, tree ring studies can yield yearly records of temperature and precipitation trends, while glacier ice cores record those variables over longer time scales of several decades to a century.
Soon, Baliunas and colleagues analyzed numerous climate indicators including: borehole data; cultural data; glacier advances or retreats; geomorphology; isotopic analysis from lake sediments or ice cores, tree or peat celluloses (carbohydrates), corals, stalagmite or biological fossils; net ice accumulation rate, including dust or chemical counts; lake fossils and sediments; river sediments; melt layers in ice cores; phenological (recurring natural phenomena in relation to climate) and paleontological fossils; pollen; seafloor sediments; luminescent analysis; tree ring growth, including either ring width or maximum late-wood density; and shifting tree line positions plus tree stumps in lakes, marshes and streams.
"Like forensic detectives, we assembled these series of clues in order to answer a specific question about local and regional climate change: Is there evidence for notable climatic anomalies during particular time periods over the past 1000 years?" Soon says. "The cumulative evidence showed that such anomalies did exist."
The worldwide range of climate records confirmed two significant climate periods in the last thousand years, the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period. The climatic notion of a Little Ice Age interval from 1300 to1900 A.D. and a Medieval Warm Period from 800 to 1300 A.D. appears to be rather well-confirmed and wide-spread, despite some differences from one region to another as measured by other climatic variables like precipitation, drought cycles, or glacier advances and retreats.
"For a long time, researchers have possessed anecdotal evidence supporting the existence of these climate extremes," Baliunas says. "For example, the Vikings established colonies in Greenland at the beginning of the second millennium that died out several hundred years later when the climate turned colder. And in England, vineyards had flourished during the medieval warmth. Now, we have an accumulation of objective data to back up these cultural indicators."
The different indicators provided clear evidence for a warm period in the Middle Ages. Tree ring summer temperatures showed a warm interval from 950 A.D. to 1100 A.D. in the northern high latitude zones, which corresponds to the "Medieval Warm Period." Another database of tree growth from 14 different locations over 30-70 degrees north latitude showed a similar early warm period. Many parts of the world show the medieval warmth to be greater than that of the 20th century.
The study - funded by NASA, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - will be published in the Energy and Environment journal. A shorter paper by Soon and Baliunas appeared in the January 31, 2003 issue of the Climate Research journal.
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/press/archive/pr0310image.html
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/press/archive/pr0310.html
Glacial geological evidence for the medieval warm period
Jean M. Grove1 and Roy Switsur2
Girton College, Cambridge, U.K.
Wolfson College, Cambridge, U.K.
It is hypothesised that the Medieval Warm Period was preceded and followed by periods of moraine deposition associated with glacier expansion. Improvements in the methodology of radiocarbon calibration make it possible to convert radiocarbon ages to calendar dates with greater precision than was previously possible. Dating of organic material closely associated with moraines in many montane regions has reached the point where it is possible to survey available information concerning the timing of the medieval warm period. The results suggest that it was a global event occurring between about 900 and 1250 A.D., possibly interrupted by a minor readvance of ice between about 1050 and 1150 A.D.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/g15qv13t1v12np00/
Medieval climate warming and aridity as indicated by multiproxy evidence from the Kola Peninsula, Russia
K. V. Kremenetski , a, b, , , T. Boettger , c, 1, G. M. MacDonald , a, 2, T. Vaschalovad, 3, L. Sulerzhitskye, 4 and A. Hiller , f
a Department of Geography, University of California, 1255 Bunche Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095 1524, USA b Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia c UFZ Centre for Environmental Research LeipzigHalle, Germany d Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia e Geological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia f Institute of Interdisciplinary Isotope Research, Leipzig, Germany
Data obtained from the low-elevation Khibiny Mountains (ca. 6768oN; 3334oE) on the Kola Peninsula, northwest Russia, indicate a period of exceptionally warm and dry conditions commenced at ca. AD 600 and was most pronounced between ca. AD 1000 and 1200. Warmer summer temperatures during this period (coeval with the Medieval Warm Period observed in other parts of Europe) are evident in a 100140 m upward shift in the pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) limit in the Khibiny Mountains. On average, the cellulose of pine trees that grew between ca. AD 1000 and 1300 is enriched by 13C values of around 1 compared to the modern trees from the region, further suggesting warmer summer climate than at present. The Medieval Warm Period was also accompanied by a steady decline in avalanche activity and the resulting formation of soils on the current avalanche cones in the Khibiny Mountains, suggesting lower winter precipitation and thinner snow cover. Lower precipitation is also evident by currently submerged tree stumps dating to the medieval period that indicate lower lake levels on the Kola Peninsula. In the middle of the peninsula at about AD 1000, the level of small closed-basin lakes was 1 m lower than the modern time at some sites. Drier conditions may be attributable to decreased cyclonic activity. The medieval warm and dry episode was followed at ca. AD 1300 by the development of a colder climate with increased precipitation resulting in a decline in the alpine pine limits, increased avalanche activity, and higher lake levels. That phase corresponds to the modern aeolian episode reconstructed in subarctic Finland. Our results indicate that the Medieval Warm Period on the Kola Peninsula experienced notably warm and dry conditions. Hence, this period of warming extends to northwestern Russia as well as other parts of Europe.
Author Keywords: Medieval optimum; Buried soils; Isotope studies; Radiocarbon dating; Climate
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V6R-4C76DT0-…
Extreme Nile floods and famines in Medieval Egypt (AD 9301500) and their climatic implications
Fekri A. Hassana,
aInstitute of Archaeology, University College London, 31-34 Gordon Square, WC1H 0PY, London, UK
Available online 7 June 2007.
Nile gauge records of variations in Nile floods from the 9th century to the 15th century AD reveal pronounced episodes of low Nile and high Nile flood discharge. Historical data reveal that this period was also characterized by the worst known famines on record. Exploratory comparisons of variations in Nile flood discharge with high-resolution data on sea surface temperature of the North Atlantic climate from three case studies suggest that rainfall at the source of the Nile was influenced by the North Atlantic Oscillation. However, there are apparently flip-flop reversals from periods when variations in Nile flood discharge are positively related to North Atlantic warming to periods where the opposite takes place. The key transitions occur at AD 900, 1010, 1070, 1180, 1350 and 1400. The putative flip-flop junctures, which require further confirmation, appear to be quite rapid and some seem to have had dramatic effects on Nile flood discharge, especially if they recurred at short intervals, characteristic of the period from the 9th to the 14th century, coincident with the so-called Medieval Warm Period. The transition from one state to the other was characterized by incidents of low, high or a succession of both low and high extreme floods. The cluster of extreme floods was detrimental causing famines and economic disasters that are unmatched over the last 2000 years.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VGS-4NX8MT0-…
D. Tyson, W. Karlen, K. Holmgren and G. A. Heiss (in press) The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warming in South Africa. South African Journal of Science.
The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warming in South Africa
P. D. Tyson1, W. Karlen2, K. Holmgren2 and G. A. Heiss3.
Climatology Research Group, University of the Witwatersrand
2Department of Physical Geography, Stockholm University
3Geomar, Wischhofstr. 1-3, 24148 Kiel, Germany; present address: German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), P.O. Box 120161, 27515 Bremerhaven, Germany, E-mail: g.heiss@gmx.de
The Little Ice Age, from around 1300 to 1800, and medieval warming, from before 1000 to around 1300 in South Africa, are shown to be distinctive features of the regional climate of the last millennium. The proxy climate record has been constituted from oxygen and carbon isotope and colour density data obtained from a well-dated stalagmite derived from Cold Air Cave in the Makapansgat Valley.
The climate of the interior of South Africa was around 1oC cooler in the Little Ice Age and may have been over 3oC higher than at present during the extremes of the medieval warm period. It was variable throughout the millennium, but considerably more so during the warming of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. Extreme events in the record show distinct teleconnections with similar events in other parts of the world, in both the northern and southern hemispheres. The lowest temperature events recorded during the Little Ice Age in South Africa are shown to be coeval with the Maunder and Sporer Minima in solar irradiance. The medieval warming is shown to have been coincided with the cosmogenic 10Be and 14C isotopic maxima recorded in tree rings elsewhere in the world during the Medieval Maximum in solar radiation.
http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~gheiss/Personal/Abstracts/SAJS2000_Abstr…
Evidence for the existence of the medieval warm period in China
Journal Climatic Change
Publisher Springer Netherlands ISSN 0165-Pages 289-297 Subject Collection Earth and Environmental Science-SpringerLink Date Monday, February 07, 2005
De'Er Zhang1
Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Baishiqiaolu No. 46, 100081 Beijing, China
Abstract The collected documentary records of the cultivation of citrus trees andBoehmeria nivea (a perennial herb) have been used to produce distribution maps of these plants for the eighth, twelfth and thirteenth centuries A.D. The northern boundary of citrus andBoehmeria nivea cultivation in the thirteenth century lay to the north of the modern distribution. During the last 1000 years, the thirteenth-century boundary was the northernmost. This indicates that this was the warmest time in that period. On the basis of knowledge of the climatic conditions required for planting these species, it can be estimated that the annual mean temperature in south Henan Province in the thirteenth century was 0.91.0oC higher than at present. A new set of data for the latest snowfall date in Hangzhou from A.D. 1131 to 1264 indicates that this cannot be considered a cold period, as previously believed.[/excerpt]
http://www.springerlink.com/content/gh98230822m7g01l/
Decadal Climatic Variations Indicated by Dulan Tree- Ring and the Comparison with Temperature Proxy Data from Other Regions of China during the Last 2000 Years
Based on hig-resolution tree-ring data from Dulan area of Qinghai Province, five spells have been di-vided: the warm period before 230' s A.D., the cold period between 240' s A.D. and 800' s A.D., the signifi-cantly warm period between 810's A.D. and 1070's, i.e. "Medieval Warm Period ", the cold period includingthe" Little Ice Age "1420 's- 1870's and the warming period since 1880 's. All the eleven coldest or warmestdecades and several great abrupt changes took place before the Middle Ages, indicating that climatic system op-erated in great instability during the period 150' - 1100's A.D.. Comparison of the tree-ring data with other temperature proxy data from East China, Guliya ice core as well as the south of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau showsthat such great climatic events as Eastern Han warm period between the beginning of the 1st century and theprevious fifty years of the third century, the cold period covering the span of Wei, Jin and the Southern andNorthern Dynasties, the well-known" Medieval Warm Period" as well as the "Little Ice Age" appeared in suchseries as East China and Dulan area. Only the first two climatic events were recorded conspicuously in Guliya icecore while the "Medieval Warm Period" and "Little Ice Age" is far weaker. Also, the well-defined "MedievalWarm Period" didn't occur in the south of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The warming since the 20th century is thewarmest in the last 200 years in Guliya ice core, the second in Dulan area and East China, but it scarcely seemspronounced in the eastern part of Qinghai-Tibet Platea
http://scholar.ilib.cn/A-dlkx200005002.html
Science 9 October 1998:
Vol. 282. no. 5387, pp. 268 - 271
DOI: 10.1126/science.282.5387.268
Past Temperatures Directly from the Greenland Ice Sheet
D. Dahl-Jensen, * K. Mosegaard, N. Gundestrup, G. D. Clow, S. J. Johnsen, A. W. Hansen, N. Balling
A Monte Carlo inverse method has been used on the temperature profiles measured down through the Greenland Ice Core Project (GRIP) borehole, at the summit of the Greenland Ice Sheet, and the Dye 3 borehole 865 kilometers farther south. The result is a 50,000-year-long temperature history at GRIP and a 7000-year history at Dye 3. The Last Glacial Maximum, the Climatic Optimum, the Medieval Warmth, the Little Ice Age, and a warm period at 1930 A.D. are resolved from the GRIP reconstruction with the amplitudes -23 kelvin, +2.5 kelvin, +1 kelvin, -1 kelvin, and +0.5 kelvin, respectively. The Dye 3 temperature is similar to the GRIP history but has an amplitude 1.5 times larger, indicating higher climatic variability there. The calculated terrestrial heat flow density from the GRIP inversion is 51.3 milliwatts per square meter.
D. Dahl-Jensen, K. Mosegaard, N. Gundestrup, S. J. Johnsen, A. W. Hansen, Niels Bohr Institute for Astronomy, Physics and Geophysics, Department of Geophysics, Juliane Maries Vej 30, DK-2100 Copenhagen OE, Denmark. G. D. Clow, USGS-Climate Program, Box 25046, MS 980, Denver Federal Center, Denver, CO 80225, USA. N. Balling, Department of Earth Sciences, Geophysical Laboratory, University of Aarhus, Finlandsgade 8, DK-8200 Aarhus N, Denmark.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ddj@gfy.ku.dk
[/excerpt]
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/282/5387/268
2003 Seattle Annual Meeting (November 25, 2003)
Paper No. 17-13
Presentation Time: 11:15 AM-11:30 AM
THE LAKE MALAWI CLIMATE RECORD: LINKS TO SOUTH AMERICABROWN, Erik T. and JOHNSON, Thomas C., Large Lakes Observatory, Univ of Minnesota, Duluth, MN 55812, etbrown@d.umn.edu
We have extracted high resolution records of past climate conditions from varved sediments accumulating near 10o S in the north basin of Lake Malawi, the southernmost of the East African Rift lakes. Here we compare profiles of biogenic silica and Nb:Ti spanning nearly 25,000 years in Malawi with the Cariaco Basin high-resolution record of Haug et al. (2001), which is based primarily on sedimentary profiles of Fe and Ti. During the past 1000 years Nb:Ti and biogenic silica track one another in Malawi sediments, as observed for the Late Glacial (Johnson et al., 2002). These signals have been interpreted as a reflection of the intensity or frequency of north winds over the basin. Such winds carry Nb-rich volcaniclastic sediments into the lake and promote upwelling, favorable to diatom productivity. Johnson et al. (2002) attributed the greater frequency of north winds over the Malawi basin during "cold" episodes such as the Younger Dryas to southward shifts in the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). Haug et al. (2001) have suggested that southward migration of the ITCZ over South America as such times caused decreased rainfall and delivery of terrigenous clastics rich in Fe and Ti to the Cariaco basin. During the Late Glacial, the trends in the African and South American records are remarkably similar. In addition, they both show evidence for the ITCZ being positioned more to the north during the Medieval Warm Period, more to the south during the Little Ice Age, and subsequently returning to the north. Both records also exhibit greater variability during the LIA, with distinct southerly ITCZ excursions. Twentieth Century climate records indicate that episodes of enhanced north winds over Malawi were dry over the Orinoco basin, suggesting that the mechanism of teleconnection developed from sedimentary evidence for 100 to 10,000 years timescales may also play a role in the modern climate.
2003 Seattle Annual Meeting (November 25, 2003)
Session No. 17
Lakes and Holocene Environmental Change: The Use of Multiproxy Lake Records for Paleoclimate Reconstructions I
Washington State Convention and Trade Center: 307/308
8:00 AM-12:00 PM, Sunday, November 2, 2003
Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, Vol. 35, No. 6, September 2003, p. 62 (C) Copyright 2003 The Geological Society of America (GSA), all rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted to the author(s) of this abstract to reproduce and distribute it freely, for noncommercial purposes. Permission is hereby granted to any individual scientist to download a single copy of this electronic file and reproduce up to 20 paper copies for noncommercial purposes advancing science and education, including classroom use, providing all reproductions include the complete content shown here, including the author information. All other forms of reproduction and/or transmittal are prohibited without written permission from GSA Copyright Permissions.
http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2003AM/finalprogram/abstract_65157.htm
doi:10.1016/j.yqres.2003.10.001
Copyright (C) 2004 University of Washington. Published by Elsevier Inc.
Late Holocene climatic changes in Tierra del Fuego based on multiproxy analyses of peat deposits
Dmitri Mauquoy , a, , , Maarten Blaauwb, Bas van Geelb, Ana Borromeic, Mirta Quattrocchioc, Frank M. Chambersd and Goran Possnerte
a Palaeobiology Program, Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, Villavagen 16, SE-752 36, Uppsala, Sweden b Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, University of Amsterdam, Kruislaan 318, 1098 SM, Amsterdam, The Netherlands c Departamento de Geologia, Universidad Nacional del Sur, San Juan 670 (8000), Bahia Blanca, Argentina d Centre for Environmental Change and Quaternary Research, GEMRU, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham GL50 4AZ, UK e Angstrom Laboratory, Division of Ion Physics, S-75121, Uppsala, Sweden
Received 11 February 2003.
Available online 31 January 2004.
Abstract
A ca. 1400-yr record from a raised bog in Isla Grande, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, registers climate fluctuations, including a Medieval Warm Period, although evidence for the Little Ice Age is less clear. Changes in temperature and/or precipitation were inferred from plant macrofossils, pollen, fungal spores, testate amebae, and peat humification. The chronology was established using a 14C wiggle-matching technique that provides improved age control for at least part of the record compared to other sites. These new data are presented and compared with other lines of evidence from the Southern and Northern Hemispheres. A period of low local water tables occurred in the bog between A.D. 9601020, which may correspond to the Medieval Warm Period date range of A.D. 9501045 generated from Northern Hemisphere tree-ring data. A period of cooler and/or wetter conditions was detected between ca. A.D. 1030 and 1100 and a later period of cooler/wetter conditions estimated at ca. cal A.D. 18001930, which may correspond to a cooling episode inferred from Law Dome, Antarctica.
Just another thing:
For your viking-post you used the "Old Hockeystick". But there is a new one since 2008. But the "New Hockeystick" is just the same hoax as the old one:
"64 datasets that were not used, for unspecified reasons, 55 datasets were used that dominate Mann's extrapolation procedure."
"The 'convenient'datasets were clearly chosen by hand while the "inconvenient" ones were manually thrown away.
1,083 proxies out of 1,209 were "completed": the last 50 years were invented."
That's real "science", isn't it?
http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/09/jeff-id-cherry-picking-in-new-hockey…
Okay, as I said, I'm not going to chase after a denialist's ever-shifting attempts to obfuscate, particularly when such arguments are amply, and repeatedly debunked elsewhere. And since a rapid change in subject is as good as an admission of defeat, it's time to stick a fork in.
Lets tally up all the denialist tactics we've seen from our troll friend, shall we?
* Cherry-picking
* Quote-mining
* False expert (Lubos Motl)
* The science is always changing, you can't trust it!
* Scientists have an agenda!
* It'll hurt industry!
* WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!
* Moving goalposts / change in subject
* Text dumping / cut-and-pasting
* No, YOU'RE the denialists!
* WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Did I miss anything?
Always the same with you us-american believers. Either you live in the bible belt and believe in creationism and your strange priests or you live at the eastcoast or in california and believe in computer models, the eminent priest Hansen and in something called likelynes.
Not a big difference obviously. You both share the fanatic hate for nonbelievers.
It's boring. Nothing but some graphs, nothing substantial but a lot of "confidence" of the own point of view or with other words: just believe. Poor USA, with such stuff you will decline, that's for shure.
Regarding Medieval Climate Optimum: Here you'll find another study:
http://www.marshall.org/article.php?id=132
Shall we add the climate science version of the "Gish Gallop"? Endless misquoted studies, quote-mined experts, and outright lies, until the audience gets tired of trying to keep track.
They're just graphs. They don't MEAN anything, do they? Not if Xu Lin can stick his head just a little farther into the sand. Attack the source, not the data, is all these people can manage.
Good, good, another one to add to the list:
* It takes FAITH to believe in your science!
And another supreme irony in your post is that the tactics you indulge in, as I listed above, are exactly those used by creationists (except for the "industry" one, obviously).
That's what this site is all about: we're not here to dignify cut-and-paste trolls with debate. The primary purpose is to identify and catalogue the tactics common to all anti-science movements: creationism, global warming denial, HIV denial, vaccine-autism cranks, etc. The overlap between those movements also demonstrates the common anti-science mindset: most global warming deniers in the US are creationists and vice versa, and most AGW denialists have other denialist viewpoints as well.
You have been an excellent case study in illustrating such illogical and distracting tactics. Seeing these tactics in action only makes it easier to counter them in the debates that really count. Thank you.
包子打狗
That's a chinese saying. It means: to hit a dog with a meat-bun
Your last statement confirms mine. Funny that you don't realize it.
My friends, it was nice to meet you. I will stop now and take a nice cup of green chinese tea here at the foot of the Hua Shan and will wait for the next chinese winter in front of a warm stove. Last winter it was so cold and snowy here, even y o u as an experienced believer can't believe. I have heard it was the same in the US, wasn't it, younger brother? :-)
This doesn't have to do with AGW, I know, I just give you an impression of Chinese life.
Hit a dog with a meat-bun??? Okay. He's a denialist, *AND* a nutter.
I'm done.
I think it means something similar to "casting pearls before swine".
Of course, "mass copy/pasting without comprehension" hardly qualifies as a pearl, or meat bun, or anything of value to the global dialogue, so, whatevs.
The chinese saying means that you got in his trap and you exactly answered like he wished you should do. And hmmm.. when I read it I think he's right at least a little.
Calm down, guys, i understand quite well what mr. xu will tell you in this thread. Why you don't? You are blockheads, aren't you?
Oh no, I let the concern trolls down. Whatever shall I do. :(
Time to close this thread.
I think minimalist and LanceR have adequately demonstrated that this is classic denialism, and the tactics being used here are not only unscientific but dishonest. It's a good example of the futility of arguing with people who are not honest brokers in a debate.
However, it's our policy not to argue with denialists (because it's futile) and this thread is therefore over.